Slip (The Slip Trilogy Book 1) (5 page)

W
hen his father arrives home an hour late, he reminds the boy of one of his old toys. He looks old and worn, his face as gray as ash, his eyes red, his dark clothes full of wrinkles that match the ones on his face.

“What happened?” Janice says the moment he walks in.

His father’s eyes snap to the boy, then back to Janice. Janice seems to realize the boy is there, as if she’d forgotten. “You can have dinner in your room tonight, child,” Janice says to the boy.

“Have I done something wrong?” he asks.

“No, no, nothing like that,” Janice says. “We just have some adult things to talk about. You can take some toys with you to play with before bed.”

The boy looks at his father, who seems to stare right through him. He hasn’t taken another step inside, just hovering in the entrance, like a visitor waiting for an invitation. He’s still too close to the door’s sensors to allow it to automatically shut behind him. What could have happened to make his father feel like a stranger in his own house?

While Janice operates the food-maker, the boy goes to his toy room and selects his favorite Zoran action figure and an appropriately large and menacing robot for the hero to test his skills against. When he glances back down the hall, Janice is hugging his father, speaking to him in a hushed tone.

For some reason, it scares him.

He turns away and goes to his room. A few minutes later, Janice enters with a steaming hot cube of spaghetti. It even has three large, square meatballs—a special treat.

But even as he eats his favorite food and plays with his favorite toys, he can’t ignore the harsh voices murmuring under his door and into his ears.

He knows something terrible has happened.

~~~

They don’t come for his plate. They don’t come to kiss him goodnight or tuck him in. They simply don’t come.

When he opens his door and peeks out, they don’t hear him, just keep on talking in those whisper-soft voices. The boy is drawn to the conversation; he feels like the white-yellow moths with the papery wings that like to flutter around the lone bulb that lights the backyard in the evening. He creeps to the end of the hall and sits down with his back against the wall, listening.

Despite their best attempts to cloak their words, the conversation arrives clear and distinct to the boy’s ears now that he’s just around the corner. His father and Janice are sitting on the couch, where he normally watches Zoran on the holo-screen.

“You have to find a way out. This job will be the death of you.” Janice, her words emphatic.

“No, Jan, that’s where you’re wrong.” The boy’s never heard his father call Janice ‘Jan.’ But he says the nickname so easily it’s like he’s spoken it a thousand times. “
Leaving
the job will be the death of me. But not just me. All of you. They’ll kill all of you.”

The boy freezes on the word
kill
. Every muscle in his body is tight, rigid, like he’s stuck in place, glued to the wall and floor.

“I’m scared, Michael,” Janice says. He remembers the last time she called him that, on his birthday more than a year ago. “When I go home I see Crows in the shadows; I can sense Hawks hovering overhead, watching me. I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

A deep sigh. “No one’s watching you,” his father says. “It’s just your imagination playing tricks.”

“My imagination feels like reality these days.”

His father manages a brief laugh. “You’ve always had a creative and overactive mind. But now you should get home. I’ve already programmed the aut-car. It’s a different route than usual, just to be safe.”

The boy hears the sigh of the couch cushions as they stand up. He knows he should start backtracking to his room, but he’s still frozen, his breaths coming in short bursts through his nose, the word
killkillkillkill
ringing in his ears.

Janice and his father pass practically right by him, but they’re focused on the door, not the hallway. And anyway, the hall is dark, cast in shadows—he can see them better than they would be able to see him.

His father opens the door and Janice lifts to her tiptoes to give him a final hug, squeezing him the way she usually only squeezes the boy. He’s never seen them this…touchy. The boy doesn’t like it, and a momentary snap of anger breaks him from the heavy chains clamping him to the floor.

“He’s a smart kid,” Janice says. “I can’t hold off his questions forever. Every day I feel more and more unhinged by them.”

They step back from their embrace, and his father says, “I know. I’ll explain as much as I can to him soon.”

Janice nods and steps through the doorway, her undone shoelaces dragging around her feet. The door zips shut behind her. The boy begins to shuffle backwards, but stops when he realizes his father hasn’t moved. His forehead is resting against the closed door, his eyes shut. Has he fallen asleep standing up? No. At his sides, his father’s fingers are curling and uncurling, tightening into white-knuckled fists and then releasing.

With swiftness so sudden and unexpected it makes the boy jump back, his father’s fist crashes against the door like a hammer blow. The boy stares, half-frightened, half-captivated, as his father continues pounding the door, each blow lessening in strength and sound, until his fingers remain against the door and he slides down to the floor, to his knees.

And there, he weeps, the tears falling unabashedly onto the floorboards.

The boy runs silently back to his room and dives under the covers, gasping for breath and wishing he’d never have to see his father cry again.

~~~

Somehow the boy falls asleep. From sheer mental exhaustion, perhaps.

But it doesn’t last long.

He wakes with a start. It’s dark, but not quiet. Voices storm out from the expensive speaker system that the boy appreciates when he’s watching Bot Heroes on the holo-screen. The boy realizes that, in his haste to escape the broken view of his weeping father, he’d forgotten to close his door.

Before he leaves his room this time, he slips on socks to pad his footfalls.

The hallway is no longer swamped with shadows; the glow of the holo-screen illuminates the narrow corridor with a glowing path, almost like the moonlight on the River. He can see part of the holo-screen jutting out, projecting one of his father’s boring news programs. But why is he still watching the holo so late? Doesn’t he have to get up for work tomorrow?

The newswoman with the long, gold hair and red, painted-on smile is speaking. He can only see one of her dark-rimmed eyes and half of her smile, but even still, it’s as if she’s speaking directly to the boy.

“Official reports are coming out from Pop Con, ladies and gentlemen; the latest Slip has been found and terminated. Since the Pop Con Decree was voted into law, this is the oldest Slip to evade security forces, lasting five years, three months, and seventeen days. The city can now breathe a sigh of relief, as our delicate population balance has been restored.”

The boy finds himself drawn to the screen as he puzzles over the newswoman’s report. Many of the words are familiar—he saw ‘Slip’ and ‘Pop Con’ on his father’s portable holo-screen—but he still doesn’t fully understand them. Pop Con is where his father works and Slip is a criminal. So they caught the criminal—that’s a good thing, right?

Abruptly, he realizes he’s wandered past the cover of the hallway. He nearly jumps out of his skin when he sees that his father is facing him. When he realizes his father’s eyes are closed, he almost laughs out loud, only just catching himself.

Sleeping. He fell asleep watching the holo. An empty bottle is overturned on the table, a few final drops of clear liquid rolling from its mouth. It’s the drink his father usually only has on special occasions. The boy’s heart rate returns to normal, and he shifts his attention back to the wall screen, where the story about the Slip continues.

His heart stops. His blood rushes between his ears. His mouth falls open.

For there, on the screen, is his father’s face. It’s a head shot, just the tops of his shoulders and up, but it’s clear he’s wearing his typical dark outfit. He also wears a stern expression, unsmiling, a face he rarely makes at home, only when the boy has been particularly difficult. Below the photo is a name: Michael Kelly.
Michael!
Just like what he heard Janice call him. But why does he have two names? Janice only has one. Zoran, too. Is his father an important man, to get two names and his photo on the holo-screen?
He must be
, the boy thinks, closing his mouth. His heart is still racing and he almost feels like he’s watching the screen from above, hovering slightly, the way he sometimes feels when he’s sick and everything gets really hot one minute and freezing the next.

His father is an important man.

He knows it, has always known it, and for a moment—just a few seconds—his smile stretches from ear to ear.

And then the newswoman begins speaking:

“The successful operation was overseen by Pop Con boss, Michael Kelly, the recent subject of much criticism due to decreased Slip termination rates. However, after today’s performance, it’s likely his job is safe for the foreseeable future.”

Pop Con boss. Slip termination. Criticism. Safe.
Each word marches across the boy’s brain, which, thankfully, remains in his skull. He raises a hand to his chest and breathes deeply as his heart thuds against his palm.

“Michael Kelly.” The boy doesn’t realize he’s said the words out loud until his father stirs on the couch.

“Son?” his father says, blinking the sleep away with reluctant eyelids. “What are you doing up?” He starts to stretch but stops with his arms raised above his head when he sees his face on the screen. “Dammit,” he mutters.

His father marches him straight to bed, but the boy doesn’t sleep a wink. There are too many thoughts pushing for space in his mind. He has so many questions for his father that he’s afraid he might forget one. Although he tried to ask a few already, his father said, “Not now,” and closed the door.

He waits and waits and waits for his father to get him up for swimming, but he never comes, even when the rising sun spills light through the window.

Even when he hears Janice arrive, his father doesn’t come. Is he being punished for sneaking out of his room?

Finally, what seems like hours later, Janice taps twice on his door and pushes inside. The boy’s eyes are burning from lack of sleep and his throat is dry, his water glass empty many hours earlier.

“Hi, child,” she says. She scratches her arm absently, her nails painting white lines on her skin.

“Hi,” he says.

Neither of them smile, as if it’s too much work.

“Your father...he had to rush to work. Some emergency. He said he’s sorry for not saying goodbye.” Her voice sounds strange, distant, like she’s talking to him through a long tube.

The boy says nothing. He can’t feel the parts of his body below the blanket, so he wiggles his toes just to make sure they’re still there.

“You want breakfast?” Janice asks. The white scratch-lines on her skin have turned pink.

The boy nods, pretending not to notice.

“Your father told me what you saw,” she says.

The boy says nothing, although hundreds of questions push against the inside of his closed lips, fighting to get out. He knows she won’t answer them anyway. No one cares if he knows anything.

“I’ll bring you breakfast in bed,” Janice says, smiling. “A special treat. And double holo-screen time for you today. And no lessons. I need to sleep anyway.”

The boy swallows the questions he really wants to ask. “Can I play with the other kids today?” he asks instead. He can’t hide the edge in his voice.

Janice’s smile fades. “It’s not saf—”

“Stop!” the boy cries. “I see the kids playing outside. Why are they safe but I’m not? Why am I stuck in here and they get to run around? Why does Father only take me out at night when everyone’s sleeping?” He sees her flinch at the last question. Evidently she didn’t know about that, but he doesn’t care, and it doesn’t stop the questions from pouring from his mouth—an endless stream. “Why do they terminate the Slips? What is Pop Con and why does Father work there? Why was Father’s face on the holo-screen last night and why was he drinking his special drink and why does he have two names when I have none and why did he cry
twice
?”

He can’t speak can’t speak can’t speak, his throat as dry as sand and closing up, his vision blurry, his body trembling beneath the covers.

Janice steps forward and wraps him up in her arms and holds him as he cries and cries and cries until he falls asleep.

~~~

When he awakes it’s getting dark, the afternoon lava shadows creeping along his bed.

When he rolls over his pillow crinkles, crusty with dry tears. He wiggles his toes and he feels them move.

A door slams as he kicks off the blanket. He plants his feet firmly on the floor. He’s done crying, done asking questions. It only makes him feel stupid and sad.