Slip (The Slip Trilogy Book 1) (7 page)

“Father, I don’t understand,” the boy says. It’s dangerously close to a question, but the boy doesn’t care. Something’s not right. His father never acts like this before a swim.

“I’ve tried my best to protect you,” his father says, his eyes glistening.
No. Don’t cry. Please don’t cry
, the boy thinks. “But this was always inevitable, Son. You were never going to be able to stay here forever. You’re not even supposed to be alive. Janice and I…we’ve hidden you away for so long—too long. But now you’re in more danger with us than away from us. Please know that none of this is your fault. It’s mine and mine alone. What you are.”

“Father,” the boy says, an unsettling realization creeping through him, like the bright tears of dawn over the horizon. “What am I?”

“It’s better if you don’t know everything. Better if you just become the orphan they’ve forced you to be. Listen to me.” His father grabs his chin and holds his gaze; his father’s stare is more intense than he’s ever seen it, like robot laser beams boring into his skull. “The devices in your eyes hold the key to your identity, the one I’ve created for you. None of it is
real
, Son. You have to become a new person with a made-up past. You have to pretend it’s real. You have to become the boy I’ve created for you.”

“But why?” the boy asks, struggling to wrap his mind around what is happening.

His father sighs heavily. “I know what is best for you,” he says, but he doesn’t look at the boy, as if he is trying to convince himself. “I’ve watched many like you die, running and hiding and running and hiding—and
always
getting caught. We have to try something different. Cut all ties to the past and move forward toward a better future. Start over. One day you might know the truth, but you should never speak of it. Not out loud. Not in your head. And you should never try to find me or Janice. Never. Do you understand, Son?”

“Father?” the boy says, seeing something that scares him in his father’s eyes. Not tears—something else. Something building, growing, forming, like a puddle of spilled paint. Something dark. Eyes like the man on the holo-screen, still dark blue but as fierce as a lion’s.

His father wrenches the boy’s arms from off his waist, gripping them tightly, squeezing him, hurting him. The boy cries out, but his father doesn’t seem to notice. “Be safe, Son,” he says.

And then he shoves him into the River.

E
verything feels so different, like it’s the first time the boy attempted to swim all over again. The suit seems to shrink further, sucking against his skin. It’s strange, he can feel the water, and yet he can’t. The cold doesn’t bite as much, and seems to lessen with each passing second.

The plastic-wrapped pack is strung around him awkwardly, the rope choking him slightly. But it’s not sinking, not dragging him down.

Instead, it’s floating. How something that felt so heavy on land could float is beyond him.

And his feet, which are moving instinctively beneath him, feel powerful, keeping him afloat with almost no effort. The fake fins
are
helping him.

Treading water, he unwinds the rope from around his neck, and pushes the floating pack a safe distance away. It tugs at the knot around his waist but doesn’t hurt him. Feeling more settled he looks back at the shore, where his father watches him with lion’s eyes.

“To the middle and then back?” the boy says. “Or should I go further?” These are innocent questions. Not the hard kind. Allowed. Not dangerous.

His father winces and seems to grit his teeth. His jaws clamped tight, his voice comes out strained and distorted. “Further,” he says. “All the way to the other side. Go all the way to the lights.”

A mixture of excitement and fear bubbles through him. The other side? He’s dreamed of swimming to the lights, of seeing them up close. But now that the time has finally come, he feels the tight squeeze of resistance. Fish wriggle in his stomach. “I’ll make it,” the boy says.

“I know you will,” his father says. “You’re ready.”

“And then I’ll come back to you,” the boy says.

His father shakes his head. “You have to stay over there,” his father growls, sounding almost animal-like, his words barely discernible.

“Father, I—”

His father cuts him off. “When you reach the city, get rid of your wet suit and fins; you’ll find a change of clothes in the waterproof bag. Food, too. Eat something and then walk the streets until you get picked up. It won’t take long—the Crows are very good at finding runaways. Do what they tell you. Go where they tell you. There are…homes. Places where you’ll be safe, just another orphan in the crowd. No one ever has to know where you come from.”

The boy’s eyes are as wide as the moon. This can’t be happening. What is his father saying? “Father, I—”

“Go!” his father yells. “Never come back! Don’t tell anyone where you came from or who you really are. NEVER!” His father
is
a lion, his shouts a roar.

The boy’s cheeks burn like he’s been slapped. He can’t mean that—he can’t. The house is his home. His father is his family. Janice is his friend and teacher. He can’t just leave and not come back. It’s not safe out there, right? That’s what he’s been told his whole life. The boy swallows the thick knot in his throat. He doesn’t move, his legs treading water automatically.

“But I—I don’t even know who I am,” the boy says, hating the tears that blur his vision, as if he’s already underwater. His father can never cry again, and neither can he.

“Who you are is in your eyes,” his father says. “Let them scan your eyes and they’ll tell you your name.”

“I don’t underst—”

“Go, NOW!” the man from the holo-screen screams. He picks up a rock.

“Father?” the boy says.

He throws the rock and the boy covers his head. It falls short of him, but bounces off the surface of the water and skips up, hitting him in the chest. Even with the second skin to protect him, he feels a sting of pain.

His mouth falls open as he stares at the man who raised him, who has always protected him. Now trying to hurt him, to chase him into the dark abyss of the river.

His father raises another stone, this one much bigger. “Go,” his father says, dropping his voice and yet infusing even more menace into his tone, like the low growl of a guard dog.

The boy, rubbing his chest where the stone impacted him, doesn’t move, blinking faster than his heart is beating, trying to keep his vision clear.

His father cocks the stone back, readying himself to throw it. When he hesitates, the boy grabs onto a shred of hope that this is all a big mistake, that his father will realize the wrongness of what he’s doing, that he’ll call the boy back to shore. They’ll walk back to the house and have an early breakfast together, sneaking in an episode of Bot Heroes before Janice arrives.

His father chucks the stone.

The boy dives to the side, feeling the stone rush past him, splashing beyond. That’s when he realizes: this is no mistake and his father isn’t going to change his mind.

Eyes burning with horror and bugs, the boy turns and begins to swim. His legs kick in perfect tandem with each stroke of his arms. Water rushes around him, matching the blood rushing through his veins, through his head.

A breathless brew of panic and adrenaline propel him forward faster than he’s ever swum. He feels his body almost lifting out of the water with each powerful stroke. He doesn’t take his first breath for ten strokes, only then realizing the ache in his lungs, the pounding in his chest.

He gulps at the air, sucking in as much oxygen as he can in a swift second, before plunging under again. Stroke, stroke, stroke, stroke, stroke, gulp in the air, five more strokes, another gulp, on the opposite side.

Only when he’s counted a hundred strokes does he stop, his chest heaving, his lungs relishing the chance to take more than a single breath at a time. He looks back.

He’s already much further from shore than he expected to be. The current has swept him a fair bit downstream, too, but he can still see his father in the moonlight, just a thin smudge on the riverbank, standing still as a statue, watching him.

The boy raises a hand to wave, hoping for any kind of sign that he can return now. Hoping his father is no longer the lion—that he’s done with the rocks.

His father turns and walks back up the path.

~~~

The boy treads water for a long time, letting the Mississippi carry him downstream. He considers going back. He could show up at the back fence, refusing to leave until his father answers the hundreds of questions he’s withheld for so long.

But he already knows the door will be locked.

He could go around to the front, pound on the door, force his father to talk to him, to explain what’s going on.

But somehow, inexplicably, the boy knows his father won’t be there. That he’s left their little house for good.

Still fighting off tears and fear, the boy does the only thing he’s ever felt good at: he swims. First upstream, fighting the current, until he’s past the moonlit path that leads to what used to be his home. Giving it one final fleeting glance, he turns away and swims for the lights, which seem even further away than usual—unreachable. The pack bobs behind him, tugging at his waist with each stroke.

He reaches the approximate middle of the river, and has the urge to stop and turn back. But he doesn’t. He can’t. The uncertainty of what lies ahead seems less scary than the certainty of what’s behind him. He’s further from home than he’s ever been. The thought steals his breath for a stroke or two, but his lungs quickly adjust, like a well-built machine.

The lights grow closer with each passing moment, until he can see them clinging to monstrous fingers that reach for the stars, spotted with eye-like windows that reflect the moonlight. He sees other lights, too, floating in the air like fireflies.

And then he hears it: the slosh of water against rock. A familiar sound, one no different than he’s heard a million times on the opposite shore. He’s reached land. It almost seems too easy, and yet it shouldn’t. This is what he’s been training for. Abruptly, the boy realizes that from the moment his father pushed him into the cold water so many years ago, this became his destiny.

Grabbing a slippery rock with two hands, his webbed feet find purchase on a flat stone that extends from the shore. He reaches higher, climbing the bank with clumsy steps, regretting not removing the swimming shoes before he left the water. The pack tied to his waist feels like a bag full of bricks again. His feet slip and he loses his balance, his heart leaping in his chest, a gasp of air rushing from his mouth—he’s going down and he knows it, already anticipating the pounding the hard stones will give his body.

Something grabs him under the arm, stops his fall, holds him up. His eyes lock on a boy with shadow-black hair, cut short, who’s wearing a devilish smile. “Need a hand?” the boy says. There’s something wrong with his eyes, like they’re too narrow to fit his eyeballs. He’s seen characters like that coming out of the holo-screen, but he never thought anyone real could look like that.

He stares at him, forgetting that he’s still hanging precariously.

“What are you waiting for—an invitation?” the black-haired boy says, pulling him up. Shadows cast by the giant light-speckled buildings fall over them.

He doesn’t know how to answer the boy’s question, so he says nothing.
A real, live boy
, he thinks. Never in a million years did he think he’d be face to face with one.

“Nice digs,” the boy says.

It’s like he’s speaking another language, but then he notices the boy’s looking him up and down, checking out his rubber suit and floppy feet.

“My fath—” He catches himself. He was about to say his father gave them to him, but his father’s words echo in his ears, stopping him.
Don’t tell anyone where you came from. Who you really are.

Saying the first thing that pops into his head, he blurts out, “I stole them.”

“Really?” the boy says, strutting a circle around him, as if inspecting him. “Impressive. I didn’t peg you for a Picker. If I’m being honest, I was thinking you were more of a Grunk.” More strange words from this strange-looking boy. If he asks the boy what he means, he’ll know he’s nothing more than a fraud. “I couldn’t sleep so I came down to the river to watch the stars and make up stories about a life I’ll never live. I do that a lot. Watch the stars. Make up stories. Dream with my eyes open. Do you ever do that, kid?”

It’s the first thing he’s said that the boy understands. “Yes,” he says.

The narrow-eyed boy has a few centimeters of height on him, and is likely at least a year older, if not two. The boy’s skin is pale, like his, but without the freckles.

“Name’s Checker,” the boy says, extending a hand, palm down. “But most of my friends call me Check.”

He stares at Check’s hand, wondering if he’s supposed to do something with it. Clearly now would be the time to tell his own name…if he had one. He reaches out a tentative hand.

“I won’t bite,” Check says, withdrawing his hand before the boy can touch it. “Well, unless you steal a Grunk I got my eye on.” He laughs to himself, and the boy wishes Janice had covered Grunks in her lessons.

“I—I’m feeling a bit cold,” the boy says, which is half-true. The suit continues to keep him relatively warm—warmer than he’s used to being when he’s just come out of the water, anyway—but the wind has an edge to it, sending icicles through his exposed skin.

“I should say so,” Check says. “I’ve got a place you can flop for the night. You got a name, kid?” It’s weird hearing Check call him ‘kid’ when he’s a kid, too. Everything about this boy is weird. He remembers the question, straightening up, fumbling for the right words in his mouth, how to explain that no, he doesn’t have a name. Unless you count ‘Son’ or ‘Child’.

“Okay,” Check says. “I get it. Names are dangerous things these days, and it’s best not to give them away to just anybody. But it’s not like I’m some head-crackin’ Crow, am I? I’m not your enemy, kid, okay?”

The boy nods, but he doesn’t really get anything. Why would the boy be a bird? And what kind of bird cracks heads? But wait…his father said something about a Crow. That a Crow would pick him up if he walked the city streets. That a Crow would take him somewhere safe. Could he have lied? Emotion bubbles up inside him and he slams his eyes shut, trying to stem the sudden rush of memories that race through his mind: three years old and riding on his father’s back, like Zoran on his trusty steed, Fangor; four years old and feeling Janice’s fingers tickling him from head to toe; five and reading his first ever book without pictures to his father before bed; turning six and eating the devil’s cake with his fingers; seven and drawing a picture of Janice while she drew a picture of him; eight and hearing his father tell him what an excellent swimmer he is.

“Aw, don’t cry, kid,” Check says. “I only need your name to check”—he grins toothily at his own joke—“that you’re okay. Would that be alright?”

The boy nods because he doesn’t know what else to do. He wipes angrily at the tears he feels on his face. They shouldn’t be there. And he shouldn’t be here. All he wants is to go back to his house, even if it means he can never leave the yard again, only able to watch the other kids through the hole in the fence.

Check pulls something from his back pocket. It’s small, no bigger than the size of his thumb, rectangular and black. When he turns it over, the other side is clear with red dots on it. “I’ll just scan you and make sure you’re not working with the Crows, and we’ll be done with it. We can’t be too careful these days; Pop Con is recruiting younger and younger.”