So beyond excited to have my story take first place in my group for round one of NYCMidnight's 2018 Short Story Challenge. Please keep in mind that I wrote this in less than a day and was limited to 2000 words, so it doesn't exhibit the kind of thought and development you'd expect from a short story written over a few weeks. For me this round was really flash fiction because I had so many time constraints. I was assigned these surprise prompts:
suspense (genre), sleepwalking (main subject) and a seamstress ("must be an important character")
Here's what I did with them, warts and all:
suspense (genre), sleepwalking (main subject) and a seamstress ("must be an important character")
Here's what I did with them, warts and all:
To Free the Tide
“Make the call, Marée.” It’s Ixchel’s voice I hear. Her head
is a dark silhouette on the multi-screen. Ixchel, Saraswati, Vesta, Uzume, Nephthys…all
are in attendance. Shadows, commanding me at will.
I look up at the screens. I will never see their faces.
These council members with goddess complexes. My code name is a joke. Marée—a tide.
Powerful, yes. But controlled by greater forces.
“Understood.” I respond.
“Report to me when it’s done.” Saraswati. She’s the principal
I fear the most. Her code name indicates knowledge, experience, and a large
base. She is ruthless.
You don’t become the council’s lead voice by playing nice.
The multi-screen clicks off, and I’m alone. At least,
there’s no one else in the room. As a Sleepwalker, I’m never truly alone. The
others live in my head, and I in theirs.
There aren’t as many of us as there once were. Someone…a
group, a person…we don’t know, but someone has been targeting us. Killing us
off, one by one.
Still, my fellow “somnambulists” know I have to make the
call, and it wouldn’t be…prudent…to
show any hesitation. I don’t tremble as I pick up the handset and dial. If I
could truly feel nervous, I’d be quaking in my boots. It rings, and someone
picks up. A silhouette appears on the multi-screen.
She doesn’t speak. I can hear her breathing, though.
“He’ll be in the red light district tonight. A place called
Crystal Palace. He’s found a buyer for The Box.” I pause for an instant. She
won’t be pleased with what I have to say next. “Buyer’s identity: unknown.”
She only breathes in response. I hear a click, and the line
is dead, the silhouette gone. I can’t believe I’ve spoken with her. Or to her, I guess. The council calls her
Rhapso, but among Sleepwalkers, she’s known as The Seamstress. She is the
decider of fates…when to weave, and when to snip the thread of life. The
council relies on her to make the right call. Needless to say, she never fails.
The fax machine whirs to life, breaking through my reverie. Talking
to The Seamstress was surreal, but my surroundings are very mundane. The
multi-screen, the metal desk with the fax machine and Bakelight phone. The
uncomfortable swivel chair. Blinds hiding a view of the sludgy Besos River.
I finger the smooth fax paper. Instructions from The
Seamstress herself. Go time.
I go outside. I’ll walk to the rendezvous point. It’s cold
enough that I need to put on my leather jacket. I love having my hair so short.
When it was really long, it just got in the way. Stuck under jackets or blown
into my face on cold, blustery days like today. Unpractical.
My face isn’t overtly female. When my hair was long, I heard
the word “pretty” a lot. I have small features. Conventional beauty. But my
look now is more androgynous. Useful in my line of work…if you can call it work.
I prefer to. It makes me feel less like a slave.
There’s a café a couple blocks from the Crystal Palace. I
sit down and order an espresso. There’s a youngish group in the back, looks
like a meeting of some sort. A man at the table across from me sizes me up.
Seems harmless, but I remain aware of him and the others. If anyone makes a
move to approach me, I’ll notify the Sleepwalkers and bolt.
I was recruited as a Sleepwalker late in life. Most start
“the life” as kids. Identified during the first two years of elementary school,
they’re taken to sterile group homes. I lost my parents at 16, and was living
on the streets a few years later. A routine police round-up in downtown Portland
put an end to my freedom.
Usually, they’d fingerprint you and let you go—as long as
you didn’t have a record. But the chief saw something in me. I still don’t know
what. She had me tested, and I was compatible.
I can only guess at how much money changed hands. It was around
3 a.m. when the chief pulled me out of my cell and handed me over. The two
women that took custody of me were bored…nondescript. They took me to the
training center. I guess the rest is history. I prefer not to think about it. If
only I’d killed myself before that police raid.
I have the fax in my pocket, the thin paper is getting
crinkly. There’s something about it that’s bothering me. I’ve known for a long
time that we would have to kill the creator of the Sleepwalker program. He’s
been trying to sell the technology to the highest bidder. “The Box,” we call
it. The kit and caboodle.
I shouldn’t have any qualms about killing him. But…I guess there’s
a part of me that would like to ask him a few questions. With my fists. And
then kill him.
Funny, isn’t it, that the creator was a man? Given that the
procedure only works on women. We undergo a complex set of surgeries, and
require injections for the rest of our lives. We have a thought transference
link to each other, and it increases our brainpower, somehow. That’s what they tell
us. They gloss over the part that makes us slaves.
It’s nearly impossible to disobey when you have no private
thoughts. Zero hours to sleep and dream. Oh, they say a part of my brain does
sleep. But I never feel rested. Nor particularly tired. God, I miss that cycle.
We’re conscious 24/7, able to fight, fuck…whatever…at any time, as required.
Anything to further the council’s agenda. Whatever that is.
I see Anitun and Oya approaching and signal the waiter for
two more espressos. I didn’t sense their approach, but these two are fairly
placid. I think it makes for weaker thought transference.
“Hylde’s dead,” says Oya. “Someone strangled her this
morning.”
I saw Hylde last night. She’s sexy, and we’ve fooled around
a fair bit. Was sexy. Now she’s just dead. Oya glances at Anitun. No secrets
between us, especially when we’re sitting this close.
“Sorry…I know you liked her,” says Oya.
I shrug. All I can think about is myself. I might be next. But
then at least I’d be free. Hylde was different. She actually seemed to like the life.
I pass around the fax. The code would be impossible for
anyone outside our group to break, but for a Sleepwalker, a glance is enough. Now
we all know the plan. It takes shape in our collective mind, like a 3D
hologram. It takes us a few minutes to identify potential flaws and escape
routes. Without speaking, we create two back-up scenarios.
Our rate of failure is less than 1%. The creator is about to
die.
We head to the Crystal Palace. It’s fairly large but always
crowded. Very expensive to get into, but we have money and expensive clothes.
We have conventional beauty. Getting in is a breeze. Our intel leads us to a
table right outside a “VIP” area. It’s separated from the rest of the lounge by
a simple green velvet rope. Oh the things people do to feel special.
Anitun gets up to do recon. Oya and I will stay and keep an
eye on the VIP area. We get drinks, and when I smell the rye, I feel nauseated.
It’s strange, but my options are to spew vomit here or run to the bathroom. I
put my hand over my mouth and make a run for it. Shit, this shouldn’t be
happening.
It feels like an eternity to get to the bathroom. By the
time I get to a stall, the feeling has subsided. Odd. I come out and splash
water on my face. I look in the mirror. I look flushed. Very odd. “Everything’s
fine,” I say. I don’t know who I’m talking to.
When I get back to the table, there’s no one there. I feel a
void where I should have a vague sense of other Sleepwalkers. Should I look for
the others or stay here? This wasn’t part of the plan, damn it! Out of the
corner of my eye, I see someone approaching. The face matches the grainy photo
on the fax. The creator. Dr Stape. I pick up my drink and take a sip. Move
toward the bar, keeping him in my peripheral vision.
I turn and lean against the bar, holding my drink as if to
take another sip. Now I have a clear view of his table. He sits down. Without
Anitun and Oya, the plan goes to pieces. I can kill him, sure. But I may not
make it out here. I’ve gone over the club’s security, and it’s tight. I see two
bouncers in the VIP section. And though they’re undercover, I see the Israeli
guards, as well. They move like Mossad, no question.
A woman approaches the velvet rope and a bouncer lets her
in. She sits down with Stape. There’s something about her profile. She’s not
one of the council members. No…but I’ve seen that aquiline nose. She looks
straight at me, and suddenly I feel that overpowering nausea. Jesus, not again. I can’t leave. I’ll
risk vomiting here. I clamp my jaws and feel a cold sweat come over me.
“Excuse me.” A man approaches me. Another former Mossad
agent, from the looks of him. “You’ll need to come with me,” he says. He’s
holding a gun. I could try to knock it out of his hand, but I look around.
There are three others looking at me, hands near their guns, as well. Shit. I
nod to him, and he leads me to the security room. Two others handcuff me to a
chair and train their guns on me.
“Why am I being held?” I ask.
He gives me a look that’s contemptuous. No…it’s incredulous.
He picks up a remote, and suddenly I’m looking at footage of myself. But the
footage doesn’t make sense. I am outside the bathroom, looking around the
corner. Hiding. Oya comes into sight. She’s clearly looking for me. I lash out
and hit her in the throat, hard.
The nausea hits me again, and this time I vomit. There are
curses and someone shoves a trash can into my hands. “I don’t— I didn’t— ” I
try to speak, but my thoughts aren’t clear. That’s crazy. Since I started on
the injections my thoughts have come quickly. I’ve been razor sharp. Painfully
so.
The door crashes open, and the woman is standing there. The
woman with the aquiline nose. My thoughts are murky…or more human. I feel
something like intuition take over. It’s her. The Seamstress. She shoots the
men. Then she shoots me.
***
I wake up. And that itself tells me I must be dreaming. I
don’t wake up…I don’t sleep.
But then…I don’t dream either. So what is this?
“I’d started altering the injections,” she says. The
Seamstress. She’s sitting across from where I lay. She’s got a gun trained on
me. No—I can see now that it’s a dart gun. “You killed Oya and the others. All
the others. I had to make you do that.”
I feel emotions, and this is not a good thing. It’s too much
after years of suppression via thanks to those slave-making injections. I want
to scream, but I’m so groggy, it comes out a groan.
“I made the creator think I wanted to buy The Box. I needed
you there, Marée. I’ve been testing my modifications on you. Replacing your
injections when the RN wasn’t looking.” She gave me a smug look.
“I can make you do things, then black out. I can make you
violently ill. I could make you throw yourself off a cliff, right now.”
Her use of my code name makes me angry. If I weren’t so
groggy—I must be drugged. I would kill her in a heartbeat. If I could lift my
torso or even a limb. If I thought I was a slave before, what am I now?
Before, I had to watch my thoughts. Others could read them
and head me off. It’s what kept me from trying a nice clean suicide. But at
least I had control over my actions. I can’t believe what she’s saying is true.
I remember the footage of me killing Oya.
The deaths of all the others. I’m not sure where I was when
they were killed. “Why have me take out the other Sleepwalkers? You want to
take over the council. You could have used them all, like you’re using me.”
“Oh, yes and no Marée. The others aren’t compatible with my
new injection. When I found you in that cell…yes, I was the police chief, and I
made you forget my face…when I found you in that cell, I had a hunch you were
different. I had you tested, and you had a special…thread, if you will. In your DNA. You could say that I used it to
stitch you a new code.” She is smiling now. She is in her 60s, I’d guess. Her
accent sounds Greek. She looks like a harmless seamstress.
“You killed the creator last night—you don’t remember that,
do you? You are good at killing. I’m
sorry the new injections don’t stabilize your emotions very well. I’m working
on that. Till then, I’ll keep you nice and sleepy. You wanted that, right? The
ability to sleep? You’re no longer a Sleepwalker,” she laughs. “You’re free to
dream! To have whatever thoughts you like, and to share them with anyone or no
one. Isn’t that wonderful?”
I say a tired “No.” And I sink into oblivion.