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The Hiss were still the worst part.
Dylan was immune to re-infection, and they’d slapped one of those mini-HRAs on him just to be sure. Neither thing fixed the chanting.
“Leave your insides by the door. Push your fingers through the surface into the wet.”
No matter how many of them he smashed, the chant didn’t get any quieter.
“You’ve always been the new you.”
The weight of the FBC issued gear felt stifling.
“You want this to be true.”
Shut up, shut up, shut up.
He wanted to scream at out loud, but emotional outbursts just got him reprimanded. He didn’t want another lecture. Didn’t want to give the more reasons to hate him more than they already did. So, he kept the scream trapped inside him as he kept hacking and cleaving and carving his way through them.
“The word that describes this is redacted. Repeat the word. Repeat the word. Repeat the – “
Sometimes, one would get stuck like that. Out of sync. The words felt like a drill in his skull, so he took out that one net. Drove the Aberrant through its skull, driving out the Hiss and freeing whoever was still left in there.
“We build you until nothing remains. The egg cracks…”
Skulls cracked just as easily.
“…and the truth will emerge out of you.”
Sometimes he could’ve sworn their hands reached out to embrace him.
“You are home.”
That their voices were familiar.
“You remind us of home.”
He tackled the next one to the ground.
“You’ve taken your boss with your boss with your boss with your boss with your – “
Every stab was a demand: shut up. Just shut up, stop talking, shut up.
“ – with your boss with you.” The body’s red eyes suddenly focused on his. The face split into a toothy grin. “How’s your sister, Dylan?”
The words hit harder than a blow would have. Dylan froze, but only long enough for the Aberrant’s blades to twist together into a hammer head.
The first downward blow splattered the thing’s head like an overripe orange. (Orange peel.) Every blow after was him trying to exorcise the rage crushing his bones from the inside. (When you hear this you will know you’re the new you.)
It didn’t work.
(You want to listen.)
“P6? P6, what’s happening?”
(You want to dream.)
“What’s your status?”
(You want to smile.)
“Is the area clear?”
(You want to hurt.)
“Are you injured?”
(You don’t want to be.)
“P6, respond – “
“SHUT UP!”
Dylan was suddenly on his feet, furiously scanning his surroundings for the next thing to hit…for the thing he actually wanted to hit. “Call me P6 one more motherfucking time and I swear I will march back to your stupid shack and rip your useless voice box out!” The Aberrant trembled so fiercely in his grip that he thought it might shake them both out of existence. “Am I perfectly fucking clear?!”
And then it was silent. No more Hiss. No more voice on the other end of the radio. It felt like more of a threat than the Hiss’s noise ever did.
“Acknowledged,” his handler/leash-holder said finally. Her vice was all clipped military formality; the tone made his stomach sink. “There’s a safe zone two blocks east. Move there and wait for further instructions.”
“…yeah.” He couldn’t even muster up the energy to sound spiteful. “Heard.”
Wait for further instructions. That probably meant wait for us to come get you. To drag him back to the last dregs of the FBC for another evaluation of his mental state, another dressing down about his behavior. They’d ask about what had happened, why he’d gotten so agitated, say no, they hadn’t heard the Hiss talk to him. The chant had stayed within standard deviations. Are you sure you heard that correctly? Then more Gunnar, more notes in his file, more distrustful stares.
Seventeen years, and all he’d done was swap a cage for a choke collar.
He’d reached the safe zone. Didn’t remember walking there, but whatever. He did that a lot these days. Dylan sat down heavily on the first clean bench he saw, head bowed, body tense, Aberrant twitching anxiously in his lap as he twisted his hair around his fingers. Dylan tugged until he felt sharp pain, but held back from pulling it out entirely. The urge was there, though.
If you don’t stop doing that, we’ll have to shave your head.
They’d followed through on the threat back then, just like they’d followed through on confiscating his blanket. For your own safety. Too late; he’d already given himself a permanent bald spot behind his right ear, and patches on the base of his neck that grew back noticeably lighter. Permanent damage to your follicles.
All he was doing now was making the damage worse.
“Hey,” said the voice on the other end of the radio. She was a woman he’d never actually seen in person, whose name he’d never bothered to learn because there was no reason to. She was just an extension of the rest of them: Casper and Trench and the Board (and Jesse). To her, he was just a convenient tool to get them out of this mess. Fair’s fair. “You still there?”
Dylan tugged at his hair until his eyes watered. (They’d already been, but at least now he could blame the pain.) “Yeah.”
“You hurt?”
“No.”
“Okay. Good.” He heard the agent sigh, a sound so human it caught him off-guard. “I kicked everyone else out. It’s just us.”
Yeah, right. “Okay.”
“I’m sorry for calling you P6.” Dylan froze. His first instinct was to distrust those words (no one apologized, no one felt like they had a reason to), but…she really did sound genuine. “I didn’t know. P6 was the only designation they gave me. I thought it was like a…parautilitarian special forces thing.”
Liar. He wanted to spit the word in her face, along with whatever threats it took to make her leave him alone, but something stopped him.
They had to bring in field agents. People they haven’t had contact with in years. You were classified before. Top secret. The survivors from the House could tell her whatever they wanted. She wouldn’t know any different.
She might be telling him the truth.
“What’s your name?” she continued. “Or…what do you want me to call you?”
It’s a trap. This has to be a trap. There’s no way she’s different. It would be stupid and naïve of him to think otherwise.
But at the same time, he was…alone out here. The grief and fury and pure loneliness kept pushing against his edges, threatening to rupture out of him. He couldn’t handle being P6 on top of that. He needed someone to see him as a human. Even if it was just a ploy to keep him in line, a cloth mother with no food…he didn’t care.
“Uhm…” Dylan finally let go of his hair and clasped his hands tightly in his lap. “Dylan.” No last name. He wasn’t ready for that conversation. “My name’s Dylan.”
“Okay.” The agent sighed again, this time in…relief, maybe? “Well, Dylan, my name is Agent Zoe De Vera. You can call me whatever combination of that you want.” Her tone was still polite, but much more conversational now. “I was stationed in Crystal Springs, Nevada until…two days ago? So, there’s a lot I’m catching up on still. Feel free to tell me if I’m ever wrong about something.”
Despite himself, Dylan laughed. “Yeah. Yeah, okay. Will do.”
“You need another minute, Dylan?”
“No.” Dylan stood up, stretching his neck from side to side as he did. He probably could have taken another minute, but he didn’t want to sit still with his thoughts for too long. Better to get back to work. “No, I’m good. What’s next?”
“We just need you to keep the area clear until we can get the HRA barrier extended. Want me to send anything over with them? Coffee, tea…”
“Strawberry margarita,” Dylan said immediately. He’d never had one, but he remembered seeing them on menus as a kid and thinking they looked good. “With a curly straw.”
Zoe laughed. “If I had tequila over here, I wouldn’t be sharing it with anyone. Pretty sure you can’t operate heavy weapons when you’ve been drinking, anyway.”
“Ugh, fine.” Is this small talk? Am I doing this right? He didn’t know, but it felt normal. Dylan hadn’t realized how badly he’d been craving that. His mind scrambled for another topic as he jogged back the direction he’d come. “Crystal Springs, that’s…UFO highway, right? You seen any aliens, Zoe De Vera?”
“I wish,” Zoe replied, sounding completely sincere. “We were mostly on hoax watch. Lot of people high and dehydrated, out in the desert, thinking every weird cloud was a space craft.”
“Sounds better than all this bullshit.”
“That’s not hard. I’m pretty sure bathroom duty in the Oldest House is better than this.”
Ain’t that the truth.
There was a chance all of this was fake, that they’d assigned him a very skilled manipulator and told her to keep him complacent, no matter what it took. But he would take that risk, he decided, if it meant hearing someone call him by his real name.
Dylan didn’t think he could survive being P6 again.