Vacation (18 page)

“Sergeant Weis,” the soldiers says.

A wooden leg—Amina’s leg—pokes out from the darkness. Then two hands sweep the hair aside, like the curtains of a stage.

But Weis isn’t acting. His tears are real.

“Leave us,” Weis tells the soldier, and stands.

The soldier obeys.

“Mr. Johnson,” Weis says, approaching, wiping his face.

“Call me Bernard,” I say.

“Very well. Bernard.” He stops close enough that he could punch me. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“I need your help.”

“So does my country. Unless your proposal stipulates some sort of aid to my people, I’d suggest you leave now.”

“I have BC.” I take a step back. “The Black Tide Leader BC.”

“Forgive my skepticism, but you’re full of shit.”

I pull the video camera out of my left pocket. “Watch it,” I say. “It’s footage of him and me, together.”

He takes the camera, and tucks Amina’s wooden leg under his arm, so he can play the footage. He watches with wide eyes. “Where is he?”

“Nearby,” I say. “Hidden.” Buried.

“I could torture you and acquire his location.”

“You promised you wouldn’t torture anyone in the Garden until we changed locations.”

“Nice try, but I only promised to stay away from the Garden stronghold itself. I said nothing about Garden operatives.”

I sigh. So it has to come to this. I say, “If I fire the gun that I’m holding in my pocket, and BC doesn’t die at roughly the same time, an Agent’s head is going to explode, and with the signal I’m transmitting they’ll know exactly where to find me. And they’ll find you too. I have a feeling they’ll punish all of us.”

“Congratulations,” Weis says. “You won’t be tortured today. Not by me, anyway. What are your terms?”

“There are many. But first, I want to make an exchange.”

“Who is it that you want?”

It’s worse than he’ll expect. “Your daughter.”

Through the lens of the video camera, I watch Weis as he smashes BC with Amina’s leg.

And I’m not a Tourist.

I’m not a justified voyeur.

I’m part of this world.

The truth is, I’ve changed, the way few Tics ever change. When you’re a Tic, you don’t change your mind. You don’t learn. You suffer through your infallibility, because to do otherwise would be an admission that you don’t know what you don’t know.

And when someone changes, you’re forced to realize how little you knew them in the first place.

And sometimes, that person you didn’t know is yourself.

“Tell us the truth,” Weis says, and smacks him again, with the bottom of his daughter’s foot. “She wants the truth.”

So BC admits to everything.

Everything he knows that the citizens of his country don’t.

The drugs, the Meek, the Vacation program.

The people he killed, the people he didn’t.

The affair with his secretary.

The kite he stole as a kid.

I turn off the camera.

“That’s enough,” I say.

Weis nods and takes Jack’s gun and shoots BC in the face. He then sits on the crate, and cradles the leg in his arms. All of the puncture wounds in the wood are now bleeding with BC’s blood. He smiles a little, but it’s a variety I don’t know.

I wonder if revenge really makes him feel any better.

I don’t ask.

Konstantin kills her, in his special way.

I peel the bandaid off my third eye and I watch her die, over and over again.

I don’t have to.

I don’t want to.

I need to.

And I’ve always needed to.

Everyone else, they’ll look at this, at the pain and the death, and they’ll only see pain and death.

They won’t see what I see.

They won’t see her for who she really is.

They won’t even see that I’m standing beside her, invisible, telling her that I love her.

They won’t see any of this.

Because, sometimes, what people think is a poison, is actually magic.

Part 25

Noh lies on
her tomb, shivering, and you’d be surprised how different you can look after a week of starvation. Or a week of contemplating death. Which is the lesser of two evils, I think you know.

I stand beside her and I say, “How are you feeling?”

“Ready,” she says. “And you?”

“The same.” I sit on her coffin and touch her face with my hand. “Come with me.”

“Why?”

“I wrote something for you.”

She stares at me then says, “Okay.”

So I lead her into the garden. We sit with the others, gathered in front of the small theater. Pari smiles at me. Odin pats my back. I may not be using the dream device, but for the next many moments, Noh will carry out the action and speak the dialogue I wrote for her.

Two marionettes fall onto the stage. Noh and me. She’s burned and dead, and I’m cross-eyed and stupid.

We sit together at the edge of the stage, and without the strings, we’d both fall.

“You’re not going to be executed,” the tiny me says, in a tiny voice.

“Yes, I am,” the tiny Noh says.

“No.” I shake my head. “You’re not who you think you are.”

“I’m not?”

“You’re not the leader of the Garden. You’re a puppet.” And this may be a clichéd metaphor, but at this point, fuck the literati gods.

“And who is it I’m supposedly working for?”

“She goes by Amina, but that’s not her real name. President Dominik has already been informed about this. He’s received the footage of her execution.” The footage which Konstantin created. Which he faked.

“Dominik will never use her,” she says. “There’s no validity to the claim.”

“Yes there is. Weis obtained and interrogated the Black Tide’s leader for his daughter. Weis will admit the truth now. He’s Garden. Why else would he spend his time and limited resources on getting a confession from the Black Tide’s leader? The tape of that interrogation has also been sent to Dominik. Word is spreading fast among the Meek. There’s no going back.”

“That’s impossible.” She stands. “I don’t believe it.”

“I know. You’ll believe it when you hear it.”

The marionettes disappear, but the story’s not over yet.

In the electronics room, we watch President Dominik on the many monitors, and he announces that the leader of a terrorist organization known as the Garden has been captured, and will be executed.

And maybe she is a terrorist, because a terrorist by definition terrorizes others, and what’s more terrifying than the truth?

He shows her picture, and it’s Amina. But Amina isn’t her real name.

And, what you don’t know, what I never told you, is an imaginary martyr isn’t always an imaginary martyr.

President Dominik says her real name is Aubrey.

Because the mind shapes reality when it doesn’t like the shape reality’s in.

I did this to sharpen my sister’s fuzzy ghost into a living, breathing human being.

I did this to put her to rest.

To fill a vacancy inside.

This is my gift to her, and her gift to the world.

And to Noh.

And to me.

Now she’s someone I’ll never resent.

Because Noh looks at me and say, “You really do love me, don’t you?”

“Why else would I do all this?”

“Because…I can’t think of another reason.”

“Then don’t try.”

She doesn’t.

Statues can fall.

Resources can run out.

A lush forest can become a barren wasteland.

A man can remove his penis and be called a freak.

A warm place in your heart can be replaced with sorrow.

Tic or Meek, this is the world we live in.

You have a choice here, mom and dad. We all have a choice.

You can believe I was captured by terrorists, and these words aren’t mine. You can believe I’ve been in a hospital, and these words are dreams or delusions. You can even believe that this is a made up story, and these words are inspired by the 10 books I read on my Vacation. You can believe what you want, because among the Tic, the so-called truth you choose to live with isn’t only power. It’s survival.

You can live your whole life on Vacation. Away from the realities and the truths of others. Away from the sorrow and the pain.

You can deny my words.

You can try to forget me.

But I don’t want to be Konstantin. Haunted by what he never said to his family. So, like I said at the beginning, this letter is primarily for my benefit.

But who knows, maybe this letter will reach you. Maybe once the whistles start blowing, and the Meek world and Tic world start mixing—
if
they do—then this letter will help you.

You need to prepare for the worst.

But also, the best.

Because what I believe, what I choose to believe is, there will always be people out there staring the truth in the face, and doing whatever the fuck they can about it. No matter how bad things gets. No matter what terrible things have to be done to do the right thing. We’re healing and teaching, confessing and forgiving, living and loving.

And maybe this is planned obsolescence. But maybe, just maybe, it’s planned for our benefit. Because in a perfect world, where things never change or fade or disappear or die. Where we don’t lose people or resources or entire populations. Where we’re all on Vacation all the time. Well, in that sort of world, you’d never wonder why you’re empty. And you’d never fight like hell to fill yourself. And you’d never feel like I’m feeling right now, appreciating every moment like I don’t deserve to die, but I don’t exactly deserve to live either.

My life is a gift.

And it feels like home.

And I wonder how Noh could have been so ready to leave this world behind.

And I realize that Matek could have been a Garden operative all along.

And Blackbeard may not have been the one to tell me about Noh’s execution.

And maybe I will be able to use the seed that Jack planted for me, the kind that dreams are made of, so I can finally be the teacher that Krow deserves.

I roll over and face Noh, and we’re both covered with newspapers and notebooks.

Mummified in alternate realities and dreams.

I say, “If I search this room right now, am I going to find the dream device?”

“You’ll have to search it and find out,” she says, because to be truly responsible, you must not only make good decisions based on what you know, but actively research what you don’t.

And I do search the room.

And I decide, I’m not surprised.

About the Author

Jeremy C. Shipp is an author whose written creations inhabit various magazines, anthologies, and drawers. While preparing for the forthcoming collapse of civilization, Jeremy enjoys living in Southern California in a moderately haunted Victorian farmhouse. He’s currently working on many stories and novels and is losing his hair, though not because of the ghosts.
Vacation
is his first published novel. His collection
Sheep and Wolves
is also available on Kindle and in hardcover and paperback editions. You can visit his online home at www.jeremycshipp.com.