vance
The rhythmic beeping of a machine at my bedside is what rouses me from a drug-induced sleep. A soft groan slips past my lips as I open my eyes, revealing a room unlike my own. The walls are white, the only exceptions the large windows that face the city. I see the Love Bureau from where I am, the science labs, where life is pumped steadily out of machines. I turn away from the sight and soak in my surroundings from where I lie, my body tingling as feeling slowly returns.
I know exactly where I am. The hospital, of course; the drip by my bedside and the needle sunk into a vein on the back of my hand are dead giveaways. Vaguely, I remember waking up from the- the dream, shirt wet with sweat, beads of perspiration drying up on my forehead. I remember looking down and seeing Robin there, reading the book we all own, oblivious to what was going on above her, not a care in the world, because she has no secrets. I remember staring right at her and feeling a sudden wave of hate overcome me. Why do you get to be perfect? Why do you get to be ordinary, why do you get to be the way they want us all to be?
And then I simply got up and walked myself through the hospital doors. They must have recognised me; that's why I'm not in a ward with other people.
I remember staring at the broken Japanese vase scattered all over my bedroom floor. There's a weight in my pocket; I'd pocketed a fragment. The broken clay is harmless; the nurses haven't taken it off me. I remove it from its little hiding spot, and turn it around in both hands, staring at the half of a beautifully painted wave, identical to all its brothers and sisters that had made up the remainder of the vase, but, if one knew where to look, one would see that each wave was slightly different.
"I'm surprised they let you keep that." He's like a ghost. The sound of his voice makes the little dark hairs at the back of my neck prickle; it hands in the air around me, no breeze present to wash it away.
I drop the piece of painted clay into my lap and sit up in bed, the papery gown I wear rubbing uncomfortably at the side of my neck. "Well. It's not like I could've stabbed someone with it," I answer stiffly, my eyes meeting his. "Father."
He laughs, and there's a horrid squealing sound that ensues from him dragging his stool closer so he can sit right by my bedside. "I don't think you would've been able to bring yourself to do it," he says. "I ought to say 'I'm disappointed in you, Vance,' but I'm not." I can feel his breath on my cheek. It smells like coffee and fresh peppermint.
"Why not? It's a perfectly logical thing to think," I answer. "I've done plenty enough to disappoint you."
He reaches over and I flinch, but his smile doesn't waver. He brushes my bangs from my warm foreheads. "You're ill, Vance, and I'm going to take care of you, I promise. I made sure they didn't put you in a public ward- we don't want questions being raised."
I jerk my head to the side and his hand falls onto my pillow with a soft thudding sound. "Well, I've got a question for you. What were you looking for, when you sent a squad of your minions to my apartment? The chip? I know you didn't find what you were looking for- but I want answers. I want them now," I seethe.
"Hush, Vance. Everything will reveal itself in due course," he murmurs. "Just let me take care of you. Yes, we were looking for the chip- but that doesn't matter now. You're safe, and that's what's important." For the first time in my life, I see a flicker of warmth cross his face- is it- it can't be. Is it what I think it is? Tenderness? Even... love, maybe? Impossible. He never loved me, not even when I was a child. "But I've got something to tell you, and I promise- I'll tell you everything, because truthfully, I should be the one apologising. I'm the cause of your problems-"
I scoff, but he continues before I can slip a dry comment in.
"The dreams."
My eyes widen, right as he closes his own and lets out a deep sigh. "I don't know what you're talking about."
He takes my hand and gives it a squeeze- my fingers twitch, aching to pull away from his grip, but he refuses to let go. "I think you do. And believe me, I know- I know how difficult it is, Vance. Your mother- she wasn't your real mother- but you know that, of course. But I was- I am your real father."
I don't want to believe it. He can't be. He can't be my real father, he's a tyrant. But it's true, and I see the truth in the lines of his face. He looks older than I remember him. I have a fixated image of him as my father when I was ten years old, before all of this- this madness, this demented plan of his to change the entire world began. And something in his face takes me back twenty years, to an obscure memory I didn't even know I had.
▿
I'm sitting at the top of the stairs, socks pulled halfway up my calves. I haven't taken my mask off yet- my mother takes it off for me before tucking me into bed several hours later. I've got a new shirt on; it's striped blue and white, and the collar itches at my neck, like the hospital gown. For the past half hour, our doorbell has been going off every five minutes, with people coming in, big, tall strangers, adults; the sort that hears the words of children but doesn't listen to what they have to say; the sort that pats a boy my age on the head and sends him off to bed before he can get his point out. From the staircase, I can see my parents standing there in front of the door, greeting their guests with plastered smiles, little laughs, and three kisses on the cheek and a handshake. My father, looking smart and boring, wearing the same clothes he wears to work, although he's done his hair up and put a deep red tie on. My mother looks beautiful, in a sequinned gold dress, diamonds dripping from her ears and neck. Her shoes make little clicking sounds across the tiled floor of the entrance hall.
She turns around, my father's arm around her waist, and spots me sitting there. She extends a gloved hand and beckons me towards her right as the doorbell rings. "Come, now, Vance. Don't be shy, love." The silk of the cream glove is cold and coarse compared to her normal hand as she pats me on the back. I stay plastered to her side as another pair of my father's colleagues come through the door, their long shadows falling over my face. There's a round of introductions, but two moments after being introduced to the newcomers, I forget their names and stare at my feet.
A man's voice; the stranger's voice. "How extraordinarily similar your son is, Jonathan."
"In what way?" I see my father give the grey-haired man a polite smile, as though pretending nobody's made this remark before.
"Oh, I don't know. Your eyes are just, and the hair-"
"Mo, don't be rude." His companion's voice. I look up at her, but her face is blurred in my memory. "Let's go say hello to the Jeakins'."
My mother and father exchange a worried glance, and my eyes open, a sickening feeling bubbling in my stomach. She knew. My mother knew, but I didn't. Just the thought that we- that I share genes with this monster-- bile rises in my throat, leaving an unpleasant, strong bitter taste in the back of my mouth.
▿
I reach over and pluck the goblet of water from the stand siting next to my bed, and suck in a mouthful of water, churning it around in my mouth in thought as I try to eliminate the acrid taste from my mouth. When I swallow, I feel suddenly parched. "No. It isn't possible. All- all children, even back then where we lived, were chosen from a specific set of genes- it's not possible."
"It was an accident, but I couldn't bear to get rid of you," he says, as though that's supposed to make me feel better.
"And yet, never once in all my life did I ever think I was worth anything," I say, and give him a humourless smile. "Because of you."
"What I did was out of love for you. I taught you strength the hard way because I didn't want you to make the same mistakes I did, to have the same- faults as I do," he says, and the kindness in his voice, a kindness I'd searched for my whole childhood, repulses me. "I pushed you to be better than me. And you are, in many ways, which is why I'm not disappointed in you, Vance." His tone has turned soft. "But the dreams- it's as I fear. In the ancient world, Vance, dreams were a gift. A gift that I possessed- which has helped create a better world for all of us--"
"And yet here, in this 'better world,' as you so eloquently put it, they are a curse."
"They do more harm than good, Vance." I look back at him, all my rage contained in my eyes as I stare at him. I just want him to die. I want him to be gone. "So let me help you keep this a secret. Let me help you help yourself."
"I don't want your help," I snap, but he's right, and I know it, but I continue denying him. "No. I'm not going to help me just so you can clear your own conscience because you passed them on to me. You're the reason I've been destroying myself these last weeks, you're the reason everything in my life has gone to hell, you're the reason for everything, and someday, I'm going to make you pay for it. I'm going to make you pay for all of it!" Clear tears streak my face, and as once slips into my mouth, the salt exploding onto my tongue, do I realise it. I've never cried in front of him- but I'm not shaking because I'm breaking. This is anger, and hatred, and yet I don't shrug his hand off my shoulder, I don't push him away as he forces me to lay back down against my pillow. I don't speak as, with a tender touch, he brushes away my tears and leans down to place a kiss to my forehead.
"Let me take care of you." I hear him sigh. "Please, Vance. If anyone else in the council found out, it could mean your death- and even I wouldn't be able to stop it. I can help you suppress the dreams."
Perhaps I don't want to, a little voice in my head answers. I don't want to let go of the past. But I want it. I want the attention, I want him to finally be the father I never had as a child. I want to give him a chance to redeem himself- I want to. "I forgive you," I say quietly, and the little voice in my head speaks again, tone nagging. He must be awfully pleased with himself. You're too desperate, Vance.
So is he.
"If you mean it, say it."
"Say what?" I answer, and open m eyes again to look at him. He doesn't look desperate, I realise. He appears perfectly at ease, and part of me asks whether the kind expression on his face is a little too forced.
"You know what, Vance. I can only give you what you want if you let me trust you; both as my son and employee."
Do you want the dreams to stop? The voice asks.
No.
But you want the other things he can give you. You want your father.
Yes.
Don't do it. The voice grows in my head, until it's the only thing I hear. Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it. I feel little silvery hands picking at my thoughts, dissecting them, little ghostly whispers from my past begging me not to do it. Their long fingers stroke my mind, trying to make me cave in, trying to dissuade me. But I can't. I can't throw this away, not for the past.
"Long live the state."
Ever since he took my life away from me, I've been searching for ways to forgive him, but never did I think it would feel so awful. A sudden cold washes over me.
And as the smile on his face grows, the little fingers tugging at the strings of my mind recede, and their soft little whispers fade to nothing, leaving me alone, in a bright hospital room, in utter silence, but for the machine at my bedside which continues its beeping, mirroring the steady rhythm of my beating heart.