Part I: The Selected
1
At six on the dot, the gloved
cellular let out a piercing ring. A timer turned on, ticking down with each
buzz. E wouldn’t have long to remain idle. The entire pod apartment vibrated,
and his capsule bed slid open. The white ceiling drew his attention, the walls
devoid of color, a minimalist’s fantasy—nothing like a home.
Shades of the dream from last
night still lingered. His knuckles painted with blood as he beat a shadow. The
voice of the shadow belonging to a ten-year-old boy. The boy’s cries stabbing
E’s ears. He shook that dream away.
He removed the intravenous
tube that connected him to his bed and switched off the cooling mist which
allowed him to slumber for days. He stretched his old bones, his hair standing
up in a state of white shock like it had since he was a young man. Swinging his
thick legs over the side of the bed, he yawned at the morning before finally
answering his cell.
“I’ll be right there,” he
coughed into the digital eye on his gloved palm.
He removed the glove and
pushed a button on the side of the bed. Doors opening along the wall revealed a
sliver of a kitchen with a piping pot of subpar and gritty coffee brewing on
the counter— the best offered to the Scouts— and two sizzling poached eggs from
a suspect source. He scarfed down the eggs and pushed another button to raise
the shades along the lone wall facing east. The heart of The City hovered in
the near distance, its new buildings staggering on one end like giant colorful
stalagmites. Sipping his black coffee, he watched it in motion as he did every
morning.
Between the Scouts and the
rest of The City lay a half a mile of ice water. The City was made up of many
Regions, his situated on the outskirts. Sometimes he wondered what it would be
like to fall into those frosty waters and drift off to wherever it might choose
to take him, no longer having to shuttle between The City and the faraway
Outside World anymore. But instead of a dramatic suicide, he suited up and
headed through the tunnel with a suitcase in hand like he had for twenty years.
He’d convinced himself long ago that living here was better than rotting in
prison like he would’ve been if they hadn’t selected him. At least he was still
able to get lost in a bottle of whiskey or feel the sun against his cheek
during
the few instances it was
allowed to peek through the chronic clouds. Even though The City was far from
ideal, the Outside World remained definitely worse. It reminded him too often
of the man he used to be and of the terrible sins he’d committed. These
thoughts returned at the beginning of every week while he geared up for another
one, as he wondered if one day the Man in the Eye might give him a promotion
and he wouldn’t have to be a Scout anymore.
That way, he’d never have to
return to the Outside World.
Then, he could possibly be at
peace, like all The City’s inhabitants wished.
2
As E’s taxi pulled up to the
Walled Region of The City, the silhouette of the Man in the Eye Tower stood
precisely in the same spot as always—immovable. The Man’s long arachnid-like
arms stretched across the windows, his red eyes scanning every movement below
from a hundred stories high. The rest of the buildings were less imposing than
the Eye Tower, created with The City’s own twinkling glass. The maze of
sidewalks below were clean enough to eat off, a stark contrast to the pod
apartments in E’s Region, stacked beside one another like eggs in a crate, no
sidewalks offering a chance for him to walk by a neighbor and mingle.
Passing a row of silent Guards, E fixed his mouth into a smile as he swiped his
ID through the machine at the gate. Besides The Finances, The Scouts were the
only other citizens allowed inside the Walled Region. The gate opened as two
cameras zoomed in until they practically touched his face. The rest of the
area, a square about a half-mile long, resembled a ghost town: not even a
tumbleweed rolling past. But through the windows he caught a glimpse of The
Finances, all required to be chained to their desks, each of them typing in
sync with sweat pooling from their foreheads onto the keys.
E spied a rogue Finance, his
eyes ringed with purple circles, scurrying into a blue glass building.
Brain-fried and pallid, the Finance was downing a fistful of black market
Levels while glancing at his watch in fright before stuffing the pill bottle
back in his pocket. Clearly late, he’d receive a swift punishment for his
tardiness.
In the center beamed the Eye
Tower, showing its muscle. For the first ninety-nine stories, an elevator rose
through black translucent glass to a windowed office at the top in the shape of
an eye. Separate access was required, so E swiped his Scout ID again as two
other cameras zoomed in and poked him in the face before massive doors clanged
open at the bottom and he stepped inside.
The elevator whooshed up
toward the sky, overlooking the entire City. Pockets of Empty Zones, barren
wastelands for disobeying citizens, became visible along with the colorful
high-rises of the new Downtown area. The Business Region was a blip at the
other end, containing everything from the advertising firms, to a publishing
house, to The City’s own movie studio that financed its one film plus all of
the commercials and the porn. The Factory Region spewed smoke rings to the
right. By the Wharf, a line of Guards monitored the waters with guns in hand;
making sure that no one left or entered without an okay from the Man. The
elevator continued to climb up higher into the gray clouds until it all seemed
enveloped in a morose haze. E still held his smile, his cheek muscles starting
to twitch.
A bell dinged as the elevator
reached the top and opened to a metallic entranceway. The door to the Man’s
office was also shaped like an eye, but closed, resembling a shuteye. An
imposing Guard held post in front. Like all the Guards, he had a skintight
white mask pulled over his face with holes cut out around the nostril area,
replicating the Man’s mysterious visage. Past the entranceway was a long silver
desk with the Man’s relatively new receptionist, Shelby. She had no left eye,
the lid sewn shut. E knew the Man required all his secretaries to be missing
one eye. Shelby was the fifth during his tenure.
“Morning, Shelby,” E said.
“How are you doing today?”
“Morning,” she responded with
a smile, her voice flat and lifeless. She typed something on the keyboard
without looking away from the screen. Pushing an intercom button, she spoke
into a speaker. “Scout E to see you, sir.”
A murmur hissed from the
other end.
Shelby pushed a different
button under her desk and the eye-shaped door parted. E gave a polite wave, but
she was too absorbed in her work and only blinked her one eye in response.
E left his suitcase next to
the Guard and walked through the eye. Once inside, the metal doors snapped
shut. The spacious office was made up of thousands of small television screens
and computers along the walls that monitored all aspects of The City. A life-sized
wax statue of Stalin greeted all who entered with a salute. He knew of the
dictator from history books when the Outside World was a very different place.
E was always surprised about Stalin’s small stature; the top of the statue’s
head barely came up to his own chin. A long table in the center held a
mainframe computer and a dozen gloved cellular phones charging on robotic
hands. Some of the phones were ringing, completely ignored.
The Man posed by the
eye-shaped window. Most of the inhabitants only witnessed this mysterious
figure on screens, but the fear he radiated was palpable: gaunt to the point of
being grotesque, so emaciated that it seemed as if he could snap in two. He did
not eat, only fed intravenously from a bubbling orange liquid attached to his
side by a tube. E wasn’t sure if it filtered his waste, or was a breakfast that
looked like some type of soda. The Man wore the same outfit as always: black
suit, white collared shirt and a thin black tie. It was questionable whether
the Man had ever changed his clothes, or if he’d lived in this shell of a suit
for the past two decades. He often smelled like burning sugar mixed with sour
chemicals, and E had to balance holding his breath while speaking so the Man’s
fumes wouldn’t trigger any nausea.
Over the years, the Man had
gotten taller and taller through elective surgeries that lengthened his legs
until they became distorted. The Man’s extended arms were also his obsession
and delight—thin-like branches. A few were long enough to reach from one end of
the office to the other. His scientists had spent years perfecting these
appendages, made from a mixture of aluminum alloy and real muscle and bone
along with computer circuitry. Through chips inserted into his tendons, the
Man’s brain signals were read by electrodes and used to guide these artificial
devices. Some of his earlier limbs looked more robotic, but his latest were so
lifelike, it was chilling to watch them in motion. E wondered how it looked
under the Man’s suit: probably all bloody and deformed, a patchwork of
humanity; but on the outside, the Man was truly a magnificent creature to
behold, both threatening and eerily beautiful, like nothing E had ever
witnessed or imagined before.
The Man’s few extra hands
tapped a staccato beat against the windowpane. He rotated his face a few inches
to the left. The mask he wore: a skintight white blur molded to his face. E
assumed that he liked remaining an enigma.
“You’re late,” the Man said,
his voice gummy as if he’d been chewing on honey.
A thousand excuses ran
through E’s brain. None would suffice.
“I apologize, sir.”
The Man let out one solitary
laugh through the holes in his mask for nostrils. An extended limb slithered
past E and punched a few keys on a computer.
“Do you recognize this face?”
the Man asked as E turned to a television screen. A young man’s headshot: thin
face with barely any jaw, eyeglasses, and a forlorn gaze.
“Is that...Graham
Weatherend?” E asked in shock.
E had not encountered that
face in a long time and his legs went wobbly, the dreams that invaded last
night coming back swiftly. He thought back to the year he spent with Graham
over a decade ago; the year he was forced to be a monster. Now the boy was all
grown up, but the sadness in his eyes remained. He was likely in his late teens
now and would want nothing more than to pound E’s face to a bloody pulp should
the two ever encounter each other again. E remembered how he would go to bed
with the boy’s blood staining his fists, even after he’d washed them a thousand
times. But he was forced to do that. He had no other choice.
“I do recognize him,” E said,
softly. He tried hard not to show emotion, but it was difficult.
“We couldn’t touch him as a
juvie, but our boy is nineteen now and has tried to rob a liquor store with a
wooden gun. I’ll let you guess how that worked out for him. I assumed something
like this would happen eventually.”
The Man’s long arm moved from
the computer, brushing against E.
“I assumed one day it would
be time for him to come to The City,” E replied, as the hairs on the back of
his neck stood on end. Graham’s computer image stared back, causing him to
cringe.
“He’s young and malleable
now,” the Man said. “He’ll be indebted to us if we bring him here, easier to
fall in line. Who knows if that will be the case in a few years?”
“Won’t he recognize my
voice?”
One of the Man’s hands groped
his own chin, pondering.
“Doubtful. It’s been so long.
We’ll insert a Blocker just in case. Anyway, he is looking at a couple of years
up in a penitentiary with all his priors. He won’t be thinking about anything
else but survival.”
“Are you sure I’m the right Scout to
bring him over–”
The Man’s white face spun around. E
tried to see something human in the midst of the Man’s facade but there was
nothing: a hollow face like a puff of smoke.
“You are the only choice!” the Man
hissed. He then cleared his throat, calming down. “I trust you, Scout E. You
were one of the first we had here. Scouts M, X, K, R and A have either been
promoted and live in the Estates now, or passed on. Maybe it’s finally time for
a promotion for you, too?”
“A position inside The City?” E asked,
salivating at the thought. He imagined himself living in the Estates Region
with The City’s elite. An existence with all the amenities one could ask for,
and more importantly, a better shot at never being banished to the Empty Zones.
“If you bring me Weatherend, and he
comes without being forced, I will give you what you deserve. Recently, I’ve
had to retire the Creative Director at Warton, Mind & Donovan Advertising
and Concepts to the Zones. Terrible business.”
“No more Scouting?” E asked, careful
with his tone, not wanting to seem too eager or ungrateful for the job he’d
been given. The Man sometimes liked to play games to ferret out
insubordination.
“I know it wouldn’t please you to be a
Scout forever,” the Man said, sadly.
“It’s been an honor,” E replied, in his
most convincing tone.
“Yes, as it should. I thought of giving
you the Creative Director position, since you were once a chemical engineer in
the Outside World.”
“I don’t see how that’s connected with
advertising.”
The Man tapped his intravenous tank
with one of his appendages, causing the liquid to bubble.
“Pow!” the Man chuckled, his mouth
widening to resemble a black hole.
“I’m still not understanding–”
“Let’s say The City is on the forefront
of a brand-new vision, one that we want the masses to believe in, but not
simply because I tell them.”
“Okay...”
“We’re years away from getting the
tweaks just right. Think about Moods, how long those took to develop, or the
Levels being sold on the black market now.”
“I’ve never taken–”
The Man held up one of his many hands.
“I am not accusing. I am saying that advertisement firms are the face of The
City, the true power. It will only be beneficial for you to work at one. And I
will be putting Mr. Weatherend under you there.”
“But I would’ve been his Scout? We
can’t know each other, that’s against the rules.” E knew the Scouts were kept
separate from the rest of the citizens in a Region because of a sticky
situation that had occurred during The City’s first few years when a Selected
became unhappy with his new home and sought out the Scout that brought him
there. The Scout ultimately got his throat slit, so now all interactions were
forbidden between the two after the initial drop-off. Since the Scouts spent a
good portion of their time in the Outside World, the pod apartments were mostly
for them to sleep.
“I made the rules!” the Man said. “And
this is what I wish. He’ll be blindfolded as always and won’t know that you
were his Scout. And then once he gets here, I want you to make sure he stays
insecure, subordinate, even scared. You will morph into a being he
fears...again. This is imperative for what I have planned.”
“Yes...absolutely, sir.”
The Man’s white face spun back around
and he chuckled.
“Your head is so far up my ass that you
can see out of my mouth. I like that about you, Scout E, I always have.”
E had no idea how to respond. He
murmured a halfhearted, “Thank you.”
“Stalin said that ‘Gratitude is a
sickness suffered by dogs.’ Bring me Weatherend and you’ll be out of the pods
by next week. You’ll be my eyes and ears at Warton, Mind & Donovan. As of
late, I’ve been concerned about the Heads of all the major corporations. Even
though I began here as a Head as well, I am so much more now. Sometimes that
breeds jealousy, so I want you to be my consigliore. It will be our little
secret. You’ll report to me if one of them is being insubordinate. How does
that sound, my little please-and-thank-you lapdog?”
He reached out to pet Scout E’s white
hair.
“There, there, little pet. Moy malen’kiy pitomets.” 1 The
Man’s long pale fingers ran through E’s scalp.
“I trust you,” the Man said, his fingers gliding down to
E’s left eye. He closed the lid with a
pleased shudder. “You have such a nice eye. If you ever want to give it over to
my collection...?”
E exhaled. He never knew whether the
Man might pluck out his eye on a whim.
“Yes... I will let you know if I ever
decide.”
“Some were glad to give their eyes
over. It is a sign of true devotion. Shelby’s was my latest. Gray. Rather
rare.”
“Yes...rare,” E stammered. Sweat formed
on his upper
lip. “Do you...uhh...have Mr.
Weatherend’s file, sir?”
The Man woke from his dreamy stupor. He stopped caressing E’s eye and pulled up
Graham’s file on the computer.
E moved back, taking a breath as the printer spit out a glossy copy.
“He’s in Dyanama,” the Man said, picking up the printed pages. “You will meet
with a Scout H for this assignment. She is new and will need to be trained.”
“Are there any boundaries?” E asked.
The Man gurgled his laughs.
“You do like them fresh from the Outside World, don’t you?”
E looked down at his shoes to avoid eye contact.
“Yes, you certainly do. Like the one who got away...all because you lost your
grip.”
The Man rested all of his hands on his stomach, satisfied with his dig.
E went to respond, but was at a loss for words. His face turning pale.
“Scout H knows to comply,” the Man said. “Just like you did with the former
Scout A, and her odd predilections. And if Scout H doesn’t, I’ll know she’s not
in it for the long haul, and her contract will be severed.”
His fingers caressed E’s eye again, one
long fingernail circling around the left socket, drawn to it like an addict. E
tried not to flinch.
“What does Scout H look like?”
“You’ll know when you see her. She’ll be wearing a piece of jewelry with an
angel and devil on it as a marker. The penitentiary is in the outskirts of
Dyanama. You’ll meet her at midnight tonight in a hole of a bar called Bombed
Sally’s. There’s a boat waiting at the Wharf for you now.”
“Thank you again, sir. I will succeed.”
E’s mouth dropped, his face flushed
with terror.
“I’m glad we’re clear,” the Man hissed
until E finally nodded.
The Man then folded his many hands in
front of him and turned back to his eye-shaped window as a sign that the
conversation was over.
The eye-shaped door opened, and E
slowly backed out until he could only see the Man’s faint, arachnid shadow
before the door coldly snapped shut.
“Good-bye, Shelby,” he said, picking up
his suitcase by the imposing Guard, but she only answered by pressing a button
to call the elevator. He prepped his wide smile as the doors dinged open.
“Moy malen’kaya sobachka,” the
Man laughed. Selected is crucial as I’m sure I made you aware. If you don’t
succeed, I won’t hesitate to toss you into the Zones.”
What books are on your nightstand?
My list of books to read next are The Power by Naomi Alderman, Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami,
The Largesse of the Sea Maiden by
Denis Johnson, The Great Believers by
Rebecca Makkai, and Shantaram by
Gregory David Roberts.
What was the last truly great book you read?
Probably A
Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles about a count in 1920s Russia who’s
sentenced to house arrest at a grand hotel across from the Kremlin. While some
of the most tumultuous decades of Russia accelerate outside of his doors, he
remains removed from the action. It completely transports you to another place
and time.
What’s your favorite thing to read? And what do
you avoid reading?
I love a good thriller with a plot. Because I
write thrillers mostly, I can see twists and turns coming a mile away so if an
author is able to really surprise me, I’m hooked. I don’t avoid any genres. I
dislike overrated books. Some novels get anointed and they just don’t deserve
the attention. Like this book The Wife
Between Us, which was cheesy, unbelievable, and the twists were so obvious.
Skip that one.
What book would we be surprised to find on your
shelf?
I love great sci-fi as well. I don’t read it too
often but when it’s done right and the author really takes the time to build a
new world, it’s very satisfying. I’ve never read Dune, but it’s been waiting on my shelf for a long time.
Are you a rereader? What kinds of books do you
find yourself returning to time and time again?
I reread only my favorite books and usually it’s
the classics. Catcher in the Rye I
read when I was twelve and go back every few years. As you get older, Holden
becomes whinier, but it’s still great. Confederacy
of Dunces, The Great Gatsby, Wuthering
Heights, A Moveable Feast, East of Eden, Brave New World, The Sheltering Sky,
The Good Soldier and 1984 I’ve reread
many times.
What’s the last book that made you laugh?
My Year of
Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh. It’s about a
twenty-something woman who just want to sleep for a year. Some readers might
only take away the depressing parts of it, but the nameless narrator is
hilarious in her awfulness. It reminded be a lot of Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. People assume it’s sad
because of the author’s background, but actually it’s satirical.
What’s the last book that made you cry?
The Road by Cormac McCarthy, a post-apocalyptic novel about a father and
son walking through a burned America. Besides it being sparse but beautifully
written, it captures the need to preserve humanity while watching it be
stripped away.
What’s the last book that made you furious?
The Girl on
the Train got so much hype but was pretty average with an
annoying narrator and all of its twists were easy to spot. Great cover though.
Also, I’m over reading books about unreliable narrators because of their
drinking. It gets boring.
What kind of reader were you as a child?
I loved the Choose
Your Own Adventure books because I was a writer as a child and I liked the
power of having control of the story. I also read a lot of Encyclopedia Brown and Henry
and Ribsy and the Ramona Quimby books
by Beverly Cleary. I also loved the Bunnicula
books by James Howe and Deborah Howe
Who is your favorite fictional hero or heroine?
Your favorite antihero or villain?
Wuthering
Heights is one of my favorite books and I like that
Heathcliff is both the hero and the villain. I love a good villain. In my novel
The Mentor, the main character is a
villain. You hate him for what he does but hopefully understand him a little by
the end. The villain is always more interesting than the hero anyway.
You’re hosting a literary dinner party. Which
three writers are invited?
I mentioned Cormac McCarthy before so he’d
definitely be invited. Maybe I’d add Jay McInerney and Donna Tartt, since they
came of age around the same time in the 1980s and were some of the first adult
books I read as a teenager like Bright
Lights, Big City and The Secret
History. Also, Jay McInerney knows a lot about wine so he’d help with some
good pairings.
If you could meet any writer, dead or alive, who
would it be? What would you want to know?
F. Scott Fitzgerald is my favorite novelist. I
read The Great Gatsby in high school
and knew I wanted to become a writer. But since he never really achieved fame
and critical success in his lifetime, I’d want to know if he ever thought he’d
be as popular as he became. And also, how to construct such amazing sentences.
Whom would you choose to write your life story?
Hmmm, that’s a good one. Maybe I’d do it myself
when I’m eighty. No one knows it better than me.
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