A Step to Nowhere (23 page)

Next was a video of running and shooting people. I saw soldiers falling under the bullets. I winced. Nothing like this had happened. The video was fabricated. I wasn’t surprised though. Nothing on this planet would surprise me anymore. I probably would get a little nervous if dancing aliens entered my bedroom now. Just a little.

“Back to the studio.” The brunette appeared on the screen again. “Today there was another attempt on the life of lottery owner, Nicolas Bristow. The suspect was arrested and is going to be prosecuted. He didn’t become one of the irnaners. Our city in the future …”

I changed the channel. I was frustrated. I didn’t want to hear it, or see it, or think about it. This rotten planet is not my business!

On another channel, a family of four: father, mother, daughter and son, all dressed in a light green uniform, were sitting at the table. There was something green, something white, and something orange on their plates.

“I decided to buy a ticket today,” the man said.

“Oh!” The woman threw up her hands theatrically. “We’re saving every penny!”

The girl covered her mouth with her hand; the boy put his head down.

“I believe our luck,” Father said. “We’ll win big money and buy …”

I pressed a button and the screen turned black. I would not enjoy living on this planet. They didn’t even have normal entertainment. They didn’t even have some dumb reality show or a movie.

I turned on my side toward the window, gazing at the branches behind it swinging in the lanterns’ light. I couldn’t fall asleep even though my bones and muscles melted into the mattress. Closing my eyes, I started to count sheep, but troublesome thoughts and memories didn’t let me concentrate even on this simple task. That woman was my exact copy outside and a monster inside. Cold, calculating, cruel. Without a dollop of sympathy or worry for the lives of other people. What did the lives of others mean for her? Just an obstacle on the way to her goal. And Ray … Who was worse? His wife or him? I wouldn’t know. She just gave orders and waited for the results. He played with people’s souls. With people’s feelings. How often had he lied to me during this short time? How many times did he play my soul like rolling the dice? He wasn’t going to save me; he
pretended
that he wanted to help me just to make himself look better in his own eyes. That was why he had done it. Now I understood it and shouldn’t build more illusions.

“Count your stupid sheep. There’s no use for mental masochism; only more wounds.”

I was twisting and turning without any success of falling asleep and finally I turned on the TV again, found a channel with the world’s most boring film, lowered the sound, and lay down on the pillows. I closed my eyes, listening to the conversation about uniforms, and when I opened them—the night was over.

CHAPTER 26

Jason shuddered when he heard his wife’s voice. She looked at him with her eyes open wide. She’d probably asked him a question many times and it just got through to him.

“What, Emma?”

“Are you okay, babe? You’re not eating.”

He looked at his plate; his sheky was barely touched.

“Everything’s fine. I was just thinking.”

He picked up a spoonful of food and winked at his adopted twins, before moving it to his mouth. Aiden, older than his brother by eleven minutes, was looking at him with interest. Younger by eleven minutes, Luke was daydreaming, as always. He was holding a spoon in his hand and sheky was dripping from it onto the table. Emma noticed it.

“Luke, sweetie, look what you’re doing.” She grabbed a napkin and wiped the mess, while her son looked at her perplexedly. Then his eyes cleared and he started to eat, looking at the plate with great concentration.

“What were you thinking about?” Jason asked.

“About nothing,” his five-year-old son grumbled, without lifting his head.

“Girls!” Aiden laughed and Luke showed him his tongue, covered in food.

They finished dinner in silence, as frequently happened, and Jason helped his wife to clean the table even though she tried to drive him out of the kitchen, ordering him to watch TV.

He stopped watching TV a long time ago. The shows had become so boring in the past three years that even the kids weren’t interested. They watched old recorded programs or read books. The TV stations made shows as insipid as watermelon rind out of fear of making a mistake. They were afraid of being arrested like everyone else. His children were small, but even they could understand that something unhappy was cooking around them. Something that adults didn’t discuss with their kids, but they would meet it themselves when they grew up. They were going to live lives of fear, just like their mom and dad. Jason hoped that by the time they had really grown, the situation in the country would have changed. Only people had to do something about it. Would he just sit and wait while others took action? Just wait and do nothing? Would he keep following orders, arresting the innocent? For a long time, he hadn’t had any doubts that many people he had arrested following Bristow’s orders had been innocent. Like this girl from Planet Two, who was introduced to them as a spy. Was she really?

“What does she look like?” Emma said, giving him the last plate.

“Who?” Jason wiped the plate and added it to the stack, then transferred everything to the dish holder.

“That woman from Planet Two?” Emma leaned on the sink, watching Jason. It was good they didn’t have to pretend in front of each other, but sometimes he felt tension between them. They had been tense.

“Are you reading my mind?” he smiled. “I was just thinking about her. It was quite a hunt.”

“Is she … different?”

Jason laughed at his wife’s naivety, even though he’d wondered about it himself.

“No,” he said. “No horns, no tail. Normal, human female.”

“There are so many irnaners, but Bristow put the city on its ears because of her.”

Jason wanted to ask how his wife found out about it, but remembered that he told her about it himself before dinner.

“She’s not just an irnaner. She’s also Samantha Bristow’s double. Did you know about that? They are different in spite of their similarity. I mean, they are the same people, but …”

“How do you know?”

“I feel it. They look the same, but you can’t mix them up.”

“Like Aiden and Luke?”

“Almost.”

“She’s not a spy?”

Jason wasn’t sure he should share his speculations with Emma. She was the only one he trusted completely, but he believed the less she knew the easier she lived. This thought though, was unreasonable; more information about the situation couldn’t make things worse. You couldn’t make the dead deader.

“I don’t think so. It seemed as if they made it up, just like that report on the news you were talking about. I don’t know how they did it. No one was hurt in The City of Lost. This time the operation went as planned. No victims on either side.”

“Jason.” Emma pressed her lips, walked to the table, sat down, and folded her hands on her knees. “It’s not right. Bristow destroyed our country, our
planet
. He doesn’t have the right to do the same to them. Everything suggests that has been his plan all along. I don’t know … no one knows the truth, but that’s what I think. If he decided to kill a person from there, what’s next?”

“What can we do?”

Emma moved her arms apart.

“I just know it’s not right. This woman must be sent back. Why do they do everything secretly? Shouldn’t people on Planet Two have known that somebody from another universe had come to their home?”

“Maybe it’s dangerous?”

“Why? Do they want to capture us?”

Jason shrugged.

“That would be wonderful.” Emma smiled.

“Only she’s a spy.”

“Will they execute her?”

“Samantha ordered me to bring her double to her house. She said she’d finalized it with her father. What will happen to this girl next, I don’t know.” Jason started to put clean glasses on the shelf.

“They will execute her,” Emma said. “Jason, it’s not
right
! For how long will it continue? We have kids! I understand I mix up everything, but you know what I mean.”

“I think about it all the time and we’ve talked about it.”

“I know. … I’ve made a decision.”

Jason didn’t like the tone of her voice.

Emma took a deep breath.

“I want to join Hlifian.”

Jason was holding the last glass in his hand and it fell, breaking to pieces on the tiled floor. Neither Jason nor his wife moved to collect the mess.

“You can’t,” Jason muttered.

“Why?” Emma stood up and put her hands on her hips.

“Because … Because these people are outlaws. Because I hunt them!”

“Will you give me away?” She raised her chin. If she only knew how much she looked like that woman from Planet Two at this moment. Sam. For a second Jason had a strange feeling. As if he had known her before. Déjà vu?

“Emma?” He approached his wife and put his hands on her shoulders. “You can’t become one of them.”

“I will.”

“Do you know somebody from this group?”

“It’s not a group—it’s a movement.” She put his hands down and moved away. “I don’t know anyone personally, but they send letters.”

“No, no! It could be something fictitious, Emma!”

He noticed Aidan’s shaggy head and stopped.

“Are you fighting?” he asked.

“No, no, sweetie!” Emma said, relieved. “What are you guys doing?”

“We’re playing cards.”

“Can I play with you?”

“Yeah, Mom! Let’s go!”

“I’ll jump at the chance.” Emma winked at Jason. “In ten years they won’t talk to me.”

When his wife left, Jason hit the table with his fist. She was always stubborn and always did what she wanted. She pushed him, too. It was her idea for him to go and work for Bristow. She regretted it later, but he did it
for her
. He quickly became one of the best of Bristow’s dogs. Yes, that’s how people referred to them. Bristow’s dogs.

Jason found a scoop and started to pick up broken glass fragments. Then he went to the bathroom to brush his teeth and change for the night. He and his wife went to bed two hours later, after she put the boys to sleep.

“Emma,” he called when his wife turned off the nightlight on her side. “Please, don’t do it. I took an oath. I will have to leave. Do you want me to leave?”

“No.” She turned to him and sat up. He saw her eyes sparkling in the light from the streetlamps. “You can help. You’re Bristow’s best hunter. You can bring a lot to the movement.”

Suddenly Jason became angry. His wife was hiding something. He sat up, too.

“You know people from Hlifian.” This time he didn’t ask.

“I’ve told you.”

“You’re lying.”

“Sorry. I had to.”

“Why?”

“You know.”

“I know. What do I know? You’re my wife! Do we trust each other or not?”

“Don’t yell. You’ll wake up the kids.”

Jason stood up, walked around the room, grabbing his hair.

“You should have told me!” He couldn’t believe his wife had betrayed him. She did something that he wanted to do, but couldn’t decide. She had secrets! From him!

“Sorry,” she said, but there was no regret in her voice.

He stopped before the bed, looking at her, trying to understand.

“You didn’t tell me because I work for Bristow? Because I’m his loyal dog?”

“Don’t say that, Jason.” Emma sighed.

“You wanted me to work for him. You did.”

“Lower your voice.”

He shook his head.

“I just didn’t want you to make a choice.”

“What choice? Do you think I would report you?” He couldn’t believe he asked this question. He thought he had known his wife and she had known him.

“No. Of course not. I shouldn’t have started this conversation.”

“Oh. So it would be better to continue doing everything behind my back.” Jason was getting fumed.

“I was just protecting you!” his wife yelled and covered her mouth with her hand. “We’ll wake up the kids,” she whispered. “I told you now because I can’t and do not want to hide anything from you.”

“Thank you,” Jason roared. He grabbed a pillow from the bed and went to the living room, where he fell onto the narrow couch. It was a silly act, childish, plus he wasn’t really angry with his wife. He just wanted to be alone.

Jason couldn’t understand how he’d missed the changes in his wife. He didn’t notice them at all. And how would he notice anything at all? He’d been living deep in his thoughts, rarely swimming on the surface to show pretentious interest in his family life. He thought about betraying the president, his own oath, Bristow himself. He didn’t do it. He was scared. What now? Now he
couldn’t
do it. Now he should continue to serve, so he would know what was going on. Now he had to protect his crazy wife. That was his job now. It was strange, but this woman from Planet Two reminded him of his wife and he felt some responsibility for her.

One more feeling had been tearing him apart. He took an oath. He vowed to serve his country and he didn’t want to be a traitor.