WnW 4.7

Soft blue lights rippled along the walls of the subway tunnel with curved lines of light and dark passing by. It gave the illusion that we were travelling under water, the light shining down through waves above us. In reality, it was an advertisement for the Sillwood aquarium, using projectors mounted in the tunnels. The blue hues reflected off of Nell’s eyes as she fiddled with the sunglasses in her lap.

“Are things going okay at Kay’s place?” I asked. “She should be at university today.”

Nell nodded. “Kay is sweet. We’ve been playing board games together. But I think she’s been catching on to the changes I make to the plants in her backyard. Should I stop? She already knows we have powers.”

The projected shadow of a fish followed along the subway window. “I think as long as it isn’t super noticeable to strangers, it’s fine,” I said. 

Kay was being especially kind, not pressing for more details. I tried to imagine myself in that situation. It wasn’t hard, because I was still searching for answers, even though I had more of a grasp on Shaping than she did. Was it better to be entirely transparent? It was hard to say, especially when knowing more could mean she takes the same steps I did into this dangerous underbelly of society. I could admit that I’d gotten lucky and the same might not be true for her. It was easier if we just stayed at this distance.

Besides, there were more pressing matters. Graham would have a job for us soon and I was still ruminating on what I had seen in Nell’s head.

“Nell, can I ask about the Tree?”

My emotions must have given up the game because Nell didn’t seem that surprised by the change in topic. “I guess so.”

“How much do you know about it?”

Nell’s thumb traced a figure eight around the lenses of the sunglasses. “She helped me make it. That Witch from Organ. The Tree at Cathrow Farm was just one of many. The largest to be sure, but I had made many before that.”

“So she taught you how to make it?”

Nell closed her eyes and slowly let the glasses slip from her fingers. “Nick, you’ve killed people. How did you feel about it?”

She didn’t make it sound accusatory, but I doubted it was possible to avoid making that sentence not strike at the core of my being.

I watched the patterns of waves dance along our feet. “I’m not sure. I think it’s wrong to kill people. But when I think about Beth…” her glassy eyes, limbs pinned to the deck like some sort of specimen, “I can’t feel anything. And that makes me feel guilty. In that moment, my actions spoke louder than my morals. My life over hers. I could deliberate about it for forever, trust me, I have. But in the moment, I can’t see myself acting differently.”

“Do you blame me?” Nell whispered.

I turned to her in surprise. “What? No.”

“But I made the Tree. I’m the reason everyone was tearing each other apart at the farm,” she kept talking, the words tumbling out of her mouth. “When I was with Organ, it was like I was living in a haze. I didn’t think I had any choice, I just did what they told me to do. I never thought of the future beyond the experiments. Now I realize that I’m swimming in other people’s blood. And yet…” Nell’s fingers twisted together tightly, “I can’t muster the emotion to feel badly about it. When my anger leaks out and everything hurts, in those moments, I just think, why am I the only one to suffer? Am I a bad person? Am I just like her?”

Now I truly felt underwater. Nell’s emotions pressed in from all sides, a river that was so easy to be swept up in, just like when the Tree was influencing my emotions.

“Nell. That woman, the Witch of Organ. What do you want me to do if we meet her again?”

The moment that question left my lips, Nell’s feeling surged forward and down my throat.

The woman was dressed in pajamas, so unconcerned with her own appearance. Why should she? She was in charge and there was no one to challenge her authority. She wiped blood streaks carelessly off her glasses, not seeing the spent life as anything but an obstruction to her viewing of the experiment. “Again,” she uttered. Nell was nothing to her. Just a tool who was showing better results than the others. Hands shoved Nell across the room but she barely felt them. This was the world, moving her along a path that had been determined for her when she was born. A man wrapped in a straight jacket was thrust towards her, stumbling over the mangled body on the floor. A sapling with no leaves protruded from the corpse’s head. Nell dully regarded the man. His face was covered. “Again.” She reached through the man, as far as she could, pushing all of her hatred and her pain outwards, lashing it to whatever places it could take hold. Making herself known. This was what the woman in pajamas wanted. She hadn’t said so directly, but she was pleased with the results. But it didn’t matter, because Nell wanted this. She wanted the world who saw her as nothing to know her. A tree burst from the skin, blaring her emotion for all to perceive, like a siren.

I pressed my head against the glass of the subway car, trying to cool the heat in my head. The lights of the projectors darkened and went out as we neared our destination. Alright, that was it. Nell didn’t want to say it, but I understood. I was going to kill that Witch.

—-

Professor Sheehan clapped his hands together as he did whenever he was starting or changing topics. He smiled at the class. “Well, that’s all I have prepared for today, but we have a few more minutes of class time, so I’m going to pose a question. What do lunar cycles have to do with the ocean vertebrates we’ve been studying today?”

A student from the front answered quickly, “Tides.”

The professor pointed at the speaker. “Correct. The moon’s gravity affects the Earth’s water levels and many creatures, like birds, fish, and invertebrates depend on the tides to access food. A high tide gives fish a chance to access new sources further ashore, while low tides trap fish and other life to be eaten by birds, crabs, and other scavengers.”

He raised his eyebrows and spread his hands. “Recently, there have been studies observing strange anomalies in the level of tides, as well as strange interruptions in the tide cycles, which has been impacting marine life. Strange, yes? Now, I’m told that scientists around the world are working hard to discover the reason behind these anomalies. Perhaps we could come up with an answer before them, to prove what sharp minds we have here at Sillwood U,” the professor said so with a twinkle of good humour in his eye. “We could save them a lot of time. Any thoughts?”

A student raised their hand and the professor pointed to them. They spoke tentatively, “The other planets and stars have gravity. Are they the cause?”

Professor Sheehan nodded. “A good point, but alas, the scientists have already accounted for gravitational influences from the Sun and other planets like Jupiter. These effects we are seeing are more sporadic and less gradual than the changes to our tides we experience due to other planets.”

Another student piped up. “What about dark matter?”

The Professor smiled. “And for those who aren’t up to date on their astrophysics, could you explain what dark matter is?”

The voice stuttered. “I- uh. I don’t know. It’s just stuff that doesn’t interact with light, so we can’t see what it is.”

“Spoken like a true scientist. It’s always wise to confess when we don’t know something. So how do we know about dark matter if we can’t see it, even with the strongest telescopes?”

The response came quickly, “We can observe the matter’s gravity.”

The Professor clapped his hands loudly. “Correct! Now, it’s all very well to wave our hands and point to dark matter as the reason the tides have been misbehaving, but we have never observed gravity fluctuations like this before. Very exciting, no? It feels like we might be on the brink of something. Something to wonder about. Anyway, good day to you all! See you next week.” 

The professor scooped up his books and sprinted quickly out of the lecture hall. The class had grown accustomed to the quirks of Professor Sheehan and everyone waited for him to get out the door before filing out.

I shook myself out of my daydreams, scooped up my backpack and motioned for Nell to follow me. We exited the lecture hall and moved down the hallway.

“So, was that interesting?” I asked Nell.

Nell made a noncommittal noise.

“I’m kind of in the dark about how much education you have.”

“I read lots. That was basically all I did in my spare time.”

“Sounds kind of boring.”

Hands settled on my shoulders and a voice whispered in my ear, “Bold words for someone within recruiting distance.”

I tensed and spun around, knocking the hands off me.

It was Tom, the red-haired jock who wouldn’t stop pestering me about joining Sillwood U’s basketball team. He made a face. “I mean really, who just shows up to Sillwood U, turns down the chance for a lifetime of excitement and then says they’re bored? Honestly, it’s disrespectful that you aren’t paying your dues.”

“Dues?” Nell asked.

Tom nodded smugly, continuing his monologue, “We sit in this pantheon of intellectual progress and doing cool shit with robots, yet you haven’t even gone to where it all started.”

“We’re standing,” I stated dryly.

“The gymnasium.” Tom spoke reverently, ignoring me. “The birthplace of the thought, ‘How do I prove I’m superior without running a sword through my fellow bros?’”

“I don’t think that’s how it started.”

Tom rubbed his temples. “Look, rookie. I think we got off on the wrong stop. I’m really doing this as an act of altruism. The world is a dark, frightening place.” He grabbed my hand and looked down with shining eyes. “But we can make it a bit brighter with those well-defined calves.”

A short figure swung an arm around Tom and dragged him off of me in a headlock. I recognized their black hoodie with a skull on the back. Bailey nodded at me as they pulled Tom away, still jabbering.

“I like him,” Nell said with amusement.

“Only because you aren’t the one being accosted,” I grumbled.

After another class, this one on biochemistry, we decided to grab some lunch in the cafeteria. It wasn’t very crowded, we’d missed the lunch rush. I fished some money out of my pocket and handed it to Nell.

“Order from a person,” I told Nell. “The cafeteria brainbox freaks out sometimes if you don’t have a student ID.”

Nell eyed the matte black box that sat next to the cafeteria ordering counter. “Freaks out? Is it dangerous?”

I grinned. “I can tell you’re joking.”

Nell pulled a small smile.

I elbowed her gently. “That’s a good poker face. We might need that at some point.”

Nell went to get some food. I wasn’t feeling very hungry. I hadn’t been doing any discrete shaping in my classes because I had wanted to look attentive in front of Nell. It had a pretty big impact on how hungry I felt. I grabbed an apple and swiped my student card, then looked for a place to sit. 

I spotted the only three people I knew on campus sitting around a table by the window. Before I could look away, I made eye contact with Kay. She just smiled slightly and waved. Bailey and Tom were having an animated discussion. I looked down at my feet. It would be better if I didn’t bother them.

“Are we going to sit with them?” I flinched as Nell spoke up behind me.

“That was fast,” I said weakly.

“They’re your friends, right?”

“I… um.” I swallowed. “I’m not sure.”

Nell cocked her head quizzically. “Really? We know Kay and that guy was really friendly with you earlier.”

“I think that might just be his personality.”

“Maybe we should ask them,” Nell said primly and walked over to them.

I shook my head, wondering how Nell was somehow better at talking to people when she had been stuck in isolation her whole life.

Bailey nodded to us as we sat down. Tom didn’t even look up to acknowledge us, he was too busy talking with a full mouth.

“-and the most suspicious thing is that he’s wearing a cardigan.”

“He doesn’t seem like the type,” Bailey commented dryly, looking at me and rolling their eyes.

“I know right? And I’m not saying he can’t pull it off, he looks good. It’s just that he isn’t the type.”

Kay looked at Nell and I. “You hear about the scandal with the mayor? There’s a video circulating online of him dumping garbage into the river.”

I looked away, feeling self-conscious. “I think I heard about that. Didn’t they prove it was doctored footage?”

Bailey shook their head, making their various chains and piercings dangle. Accompanying her look was goth makeup and a shirt that was from some local band I didn’t recognize, but it looked like the kind of heavy metal I might want to try. 

“No,” they said, “they couldn’t prove that it wasn’t doctored. Big difference. We’re getting to the point where videos don’t count as evidence anymore. It’s too easy to paste a face onto anyone and have A.I. animate it. But the first thing anyone ever does is pull out their phone to record.”

“What’s the alternative?” Tom mused. “Eyewitness accounts? People lie all the time. What people don’t do all the time is completely change their fashion choices and randomly start wearing cardigans.”

“He did look good in it,” Kay said.

“Damn right he did, and that just makes it more fishy,” Tom said as he shoved the rest of his sandwich into his mouth and sat back, chewing angrily.

Kay touched her glasses and nodded to us. “Nell and Nick, this is Bailey and Tom. Goth and clown, respectively.”

Tom didn’t even bat an eye at the label. He spoke with a mouth packed with food, “Wih you join uf at this iwuftrious uniferfity?”

Nell glanced at me and then nodded.

“Cool!” Kay said, smiling. “I’m on the student council. You can ask me any questions you have. Do you like the campus?”

“I like that I can see trees out of these windows. It’s a beautiful building,” Nell answered genuinely.

“And possibly haunted,” said Bailey. “People have been hearing noises coming from the janitor closet in the basement.

Tom managed to finally swallow his sandwich. “Not worth checking out. Janitors have occult magic on their side. You’re getting a voodoo doll made of you if you open that closet. They have easy access to your hair… Can I sign your cast?”

Nell held it out and Tom fished around in his pockets for a pen.

My phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out and checked the screen. It was a text from Graham. “Job for you. Meet at Deli St and Main. Shadow Terry and Zola.”

In that instant, I felt the divide between me and the rest of the table, like someone had slammed a glass screen down, muffling the conversation. I couldn’t just live normally anymore. This was just a reprieve before I would dive back in. 

I let Nell carry on her conversation with Tom and Kay. There wouldn’t be any harm in letting her enjoy this for a little while longer. As I watched her smile at Tom’s jokes, I wondered if in that moment she still felt the blistering anger she had branded onto my mind.