Emergence (10 page)

He led the way out of the train station, through the small market nearby, to the corner where Cheslav was supposed to pick them up. The smell of street food made Vlad’s stomach rumble. He was very aware of the last time he ate in Moscow. It was too long ago.

After thirty minutes of shivering in the cold, Lucy kicked the ground. In English, she said, “That manky cad isn’t coming. You would think he would do that much at least.”

Vlad repositioned his bags and began the two hour walk home. “Don’t act surprised, Lucy. It isn’t as though this hasn’t happened before.”

They were silent the entire walk home. Neither could afford the energy to speak, and both kept their hoods pulled tightly around their faces and scarves around their noses and mouths. When they finally arrived at the shack they called home, their clothes were soaked. Vlad’s fingers and toes were numb.

There was no smoke coming from the chimney and the lights were out. Cheslav’s car was a heap of snow in the driveway.

“He must’ve walked to Pasha’s for a drink,” Lucy said.

“Good. A few more minutes of peace before the beast returns,” Vlad agreed.

He noticed a trace of warmth still in the house. The smell of bacon grease hung in the air. Wherever he’d gone, Cheslav had not been gone long.

The two dumped out their haul onto the table in the kitchen. Over the years, they learned Cheslav didn’t care if any of it was tangled. Once he looked over it, he shoved it all in a big cloth sack and drive it away. They didn’t know what he did with it. It didn’t improve either of their lives and thus was of little consequence to them.

Lucy fixed them both hot water to sip and warm their hands. There was no coffee or tea. The shopping was left to Lucy and they’d been gone long enough for Cheslav to consume nearly everything the kitchen had to offer. A pile of dirty dishes and pans was stacked high in the sink and on the counters.

They sat at the table across from one another.

“Did you clean up your memories, yet?”

“No,” Vlad sighed. “Not yet.”

“Do it soon. He’ll be back any time.”

Vlad pushed his empty mug aside. He entered his own mind and scanned back to finding Lucy’s gun and their talk of escape.

It was one thing not to hold on to fleeting memories he picked up while he was out. It was a tricky thing to completely remove any trace of them. He had to do it carefully. If he thought too hard about what he was doing, Cheslav might pick up on it when he reviewed their trip. So far, Cheslav never had and so Vlad was confident he did a good job. When Vlad looked back on his own thoughts, he rarely spotted any issues.

Tearing out memories hurt, like someone was ramming a thousand needles into his skull one by one. He embraced the pain until he wasn’t sure what he was trying to erase anymore, only that he’d gotten rid of something.

When he resurfaced, he felt sweat drip from his nose. His body shook. He knew if he looked at himself in the mirror, his eyes would be more bloodshot and haggard than usual.

Vlad stood, intent on sleeping off the throbbing headache he’d given himself. The front door rattled.

Cheslav was home.

Then. Six years ago…

Vlad knew what he was doing was wrong. Oleg’s thoughts and memories were his own private things, things no one should see. People’s thoughts were strange, but as long as they remained thoughts they were of no consequence. Some thoughts happened and were dismissed so fast, Vlad had to replay them multiple times to get a sense of them. Vlad came to understand peoples’ minds existed as a personal space where they could make sense of the world. Sometimes that meant thinking crazy, disgusting things.

That’s exactly why Vlad liked to dwell in that space.

If Oleg knew Vlad not only knew he peeked on their mother while naked in the bath, but that he thought of what it would be like to have sex with her—it was one of those fleeting, dismissed thoughts—he would be angry. Embarrassed. He’d never trust Vlad again. Those were the least of his worries because, of course, then Oleg would know Vlad was a chimeric.

Despite the risk, Vlad spent his nights entering his sibling’s memories. His own days were spent tirelessly working outside, taking orders from mother or father when he was home, bleary eyed and exhausted. It had been two years since he caught mother with Natasha, and it was as though she were punishing him for it, keeping him busy like it would make him forget.

Nothing could
ever
make him forget.

Vlad sifted through Oleg’s memories, finding the one of him fishing with Father. Father never took Vlad or Petor fishing. By the time they were old enough, he was always away working in the concrete jungle.

This was one of Vlad’s favorites. In it, Oleg was eight years old, shrouded with a happiness more pure than any other memory had to offer. Father gave Oleg tips on his cast. They laughed as they put worms on their hooks. The worms were slimy and Oleg was afraid inside, but brave on the outside. He caught a big trout and Father clapped him on the back and told him what a good job he did. Instead of bringing the trout home, they went ashore and cooked it over a small fire, splitting it between them. Father said it was their secret.

Oleg was elated with joy. To have a secret with Father meant a lot to him. In that moment, he was optimistic about his life. Love for his father burned in his heart. Vlad savored that feeling. He wished he could have it for his own, but settled for experiencing it through Oleg.

When Oleg and Father began their trip home, Vlad rewound the memory to watch it over again. He concentrated hard. Sometimes, if he worked at it, he could pick up on more than the thoughts and image of a memory. He could smell the air, feel the temperature.

Just as Vlad smelled the wood of the boat, the earthiness of the worms, something changed. The memory flickered and dulled. The sounds echoed, then were distant. Panicked, Vlad concentrated harder and tried to clarify the memory. It grew duller, like he was looking through smoke at the picture. Vlad felt the memory bend and tear at the seams. He grasped at it, focused on Oleg’s happiness, Father’s smile, and then…

Black. It was all black. He floated in a void in Oleg’s memory. A constant, high pitched ringing threatened to drive him mad.

Vlad pushed himself forward in time. Images flashed into view. Oleg arriving home, Mother asking if they caught anything.

No. No, something was wrong. Vlad rewound it and met the void again. The ringing sound of true emptiness. Further back, the beginning of the trip with Father walking with Oleg.

The memory itself was gone. Erased.

Each time he searched for it, the void grew smaller and smaller until there was only a split second between when Oleg began the trip and when he arrived home.

What would happen when Oleg tried to revisit it?

“Boy, what are you doing?”

The real world came rushing back as Vlad resurfaced. A cold sweat had broken out across his forehead and back. In the doorway a man peered at Vlad. Vlad had never seen him before.

He was tall. His head almost brushed the top of the doorframe. Light from down the hallway showed his wild black beard and pale skin. His skin was greasy and wrinkled.

Oleg stirred under Vlad’s hands. He removed his hands from his brother’s head and dropped them to his sides. “Nothing.””

The man didn’t move. “Are you sure?”

Vlad nodded.

“Come here.”

Vlad didn’t move.

“I said come here,” the man repeated. His volume stayed the same but the tone frightened Vlad, who forced his stiff legs to carry his body to the adult.

He wished one of his brothers or sisters would wake up.

“Why did you have your hands on your brother? What were you doing?”

“Nothing,” Vlad repeated, more confident this time. “I thought he might be sick. I was checking for a fever.”

“Do you have powers?”

His heart stopped. Powers was a word that went with chimerics. Chimerics were bad. Whenever Mother or any person he’d ever met mentioned them, it was with hatred and disdain. He knew he was a chimeric and was smart enough to know not to tell anyone.

“No, of course not.”

“Give me your hand.”

Vlad had used his powers on his siblings while they were awake many times. People didn’t seem to know he was watching their memories. As soon as he proved the strange man wrong, he would leave. Vlad reached his hand out, anticipating the rush into the man’s mind, but was met with a darkness as though he was blind. Still in the real world, but in a type of darkness that left him feeling empty. Like Oleg’s missing memory.

“You’ll do nicely.”

His vision returned. The man grinned, grabbed Vlad by his nightshirt and yanked him out the door. Vlad was stunned and for the first few seconds did nothing. His heels dragged against the wood floor. A splinter impaled his foot. It was then he screamed.

“Papa! Papa!”

His siblings crowded in the hallway but did not follow. Behind them, Mother opened the door to her room and stood watching the man drag Vlad away.

“Help!” he screamed. Confusion swept over him. Why wouldn’t they help?

Suddenly he was released. His body hit the kitchen floor. Vlad looked up to find Father sitting at the table. The man sat in the chair opposite him. It creaked under his massive weight.

“Papa, what is happening?”

When Vlad tried to stand, the man clapped the back of his head and sent him down once again.

“For him, I’ll give you 500 ruble.”

His father didn’t look at him once. Mother entered the kitchen. “500? Cheslav, we agreed on 1000.”

How did they know?
Vlad fought back tears. He’d been so careful. How did they know what he was? What gave him away?

“The boy is weak. I’, doing you a favor to take him off your hands. What would the government do if they found out you’ve been harboring a chimeric all these years? What would your freak cult think?”

“We’ll take it.” Mother wrapped her tattered purple bathrobe tighter around herself. Her mouth was set in a tight line. ““500 ruble. Fine. Take him away. I never want to see his face again.”

“Please, don’t do this,” Father whispered. “He’s our son.”

Mother frowned. “He is a monster, and this is a compromise. He lives. You should be happy.”

The man, Cheslav, grunted. He reached into his pocket and slapped money on the table. “Your wife is much smarter than you.”

“Papa!” Vlad fought against the man who began to draw him to the door.

Tears streamed down Vlad’s father’s face. “I’m sorry,”” he cried. “I’m so sorry!”

Cheslav dragged him through the mud to his car. He tossed Vlad in the backseat and got in with him. Vlad stared at his little house, waiting for someone, anyone, to come after him.

“Know that you can never lie to me. Do you understand?” Cheslav clenched Vlad’s shoulder. “What you did to your brother, when you took his memory away. Can you do that to yourself?”

How did the man know that? What power did he have? Vlad did not answer. The man shook him hard and his skull hit headrest with so much force his teeth chattered.

“Can you?”

“No!”

“Good. You’re my property now, boy. You should be grateful. Like your mother said, if it wasn’t for me you would be dead.””

Cheslav peeled back Vlad’s sleeve, revealing his pale forearm. He wrapped his hand around the flesh and squeezed. His grip was hot, then impossibly hot, and a flash of pain went through Vlad’s arm up into his mind. Cheslav’s eyes rolled into the back of his head.

When Cheslav removed his hand, he left a perfectly shaped handprint of a burn on Vlad’s skin. It glowed red for a split second, then faded.

“Now, wherever you go,” Cheslav told him, “I’ll find you. This, I’m sure, you will have to learn the hard way.”

Now…

“This is it? This is everything you brought back?” Cheslav dropped the Rolex onto the table along with the rest of the goods Vlad and Lucy stole. “Gone four fucking days, and this is all you bring?”

Cheslav was never impressed with what they brought back. This haul was good, Vlad thought, one of the best in the past year. But today Cheslav was drunker than usual. His breath stank of vodka, cigarettes, and pickled beets. The two could’ve brought back eight pounds of solid gold and he would have been unhappy.

Neither Vlad nor Lucy said a word. Vlad was still dizzy from removing one of his own memories. It left him feeling unsettled and sick to his stomach. To ground himself, he stared at a crack in the wood floor that gathered debris from the messy kitchen. An ant, still alive and mobile despite the frigid weather, crawled about the mess searching for food.

“Show me your trip, boy.”

The ant lifted a crumb and scurried away, leaving the crevice without life. Vlad was cold, his pants still wet from trudging through the snow to their shack of a house. He wanted to sleep.

“Vlad! I said, show me your trip!”

Vlad snapped out of his daze and obeyed. He held out his hand and Cheslav gripped it. His skin was damp and rough. Vlad let his powers flow to Cheslav. Normally he’d enter his mark’s world then see their memories like frames from a movie. Not with Cheslav. Instead, his vision went black. It was as though he were blind, his eyes open, but seeing nothing. He knew as his powers flowed to the old man, Cheslav saw Vlad’s memories.

No matter how much Cheslav denied it, he was chimeric. His ability to reflect chimeric power was a power in itself. His ability to brand people and track them was, in Vlad’s mind, particularly dangerous for a man of Cheslav’s nature.

Cheslav believed his abilities were an evolutionary skill meant to fight off chimerics. That amused Vlad to no end. When he pointed out that the branding wasn’t a defensive tactic, Cheslav slammed his head against the refrigerator until he passed out.

The blackness dispersed and Vlad was again standing in the kitchen. He felt violated, his brain unclean. Cheslav’s presence lingered there like a poisonous fog.

“You two are useless. I save you from death, give you a chance to use your ‘gifts’ and you repay me with cheap watches and petty change, then withhold from me!”” Cheslav snapped his fingers at Lucy. “Give me the fucking bracelet. Don’t think you can hide anything from me.”