To Free The Tide (Short Story, Suspense)

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:

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.