Szilard had hungered for knowledge, the ravenous soul that he was. "Knowledge is power," he had repeatedly said, quoting Francis Bacon with his own addendum to the common maxim: "Knowledge is what life is made of." If what he had said was really true, then she had been lifeless and powerless the whole time, starving for the information and delectable bits of knowledge that he carefully allotted her in crumb-sized portions, while feasting on his own personal store of knowledge himself.
Now without Szilard to restrict her access, the world had expanded considerably in size. Ennis could go anywhere she wanted, travel to the other side of the world, even, if she wished. Ever since she could remember, she had behaved under the fear of death, and that fear had shaped her very being. Every step she took had been taken solely under the will of her creator. Now her days stretched out from the present all the way into eternity, and each day belonged to her and her alone.
She hadn't expect freedom to be this terrifying.
Don't get distracted, had always been his unchanging instruction lingering over her head, whether he was ordering her to assassinate another one of his enemies, or doing as mundane as running down to the grocery store to pick up a set of specific ingredients, it didn't matter to him. Sometimes her mind would wander, and she would feel his mind overpower her own, nudging her attention back onto his desires. Her thoughts, her questions did not belong to her. He gave her the information, the skills that she needed for the task at hand, but nothing more.
Now that he was gone, she could hardly walk down the street without being bombarded by information she had seen many times but never had the luxury to pay attention to. Radios blared the score from baseball games and played static-studded crooner songs, brightly painted signs advertised motion pictures and Broadway musicals, street performers in patched-up clothing played and danced to rhythms of their own making. As she stood on a corner a woman walked briskly by in the middle of the sidewalk, dragging her two children behind her in such a hurry that she nearly collided with Ennis.
"Scusa!" the mother called out, but before Ennis could remember to respond appropriately, and in what language (Variations of "Va bene!" "It's alright!" or "I'm okay!" and its variations would have been acceptable) but by the time she remembered they were already far down the street and around the corner. She shrugged it off and continued walking, trying to drink everything in–the sound of the doors opening and closing, and the little bells on the doors jingling lightly as the customers walked in and out, the soft clack-thudding of leather soles on cold concrete–Not just her ears, but her eyes and even nose seemed to have opened up again, as the colors of the neighborhood, as dulled and dusty as they always were, with peeling, faded paint and grime covered brick walls with faded advertisements on them seemed to have become brighter than ever before, every nick, scratch and stain on the wall jumped out in excruciating detail. To her side a door opened abruptly and a whole miniature crowd bustled out onto the sidewalk, like water pouring out of a hole that had previously been stopped, jostling each otherpushing her to the edge of the curb. They were all diminutive older men, with long, shabby coats and grey hats, all clutching satchels and work books, smelling strongly of dust and mothballs, and murmuring to each other in a variety of languages. None of them seemed to notice her presence, and by the time she had regained her composure they had all shuffled down the street. She steadied herself against a lamppost. A car with a faulty muffler whizzed dangerously close to the sidewalk, and she jumped back in surprise, just in time to crash into another man carrying a load of precariously loaded packages.
"Do you mind?" he said in an irritated tone as he bent down to pick up his things.
"I–I'm sorry–" she said softly, getting down and trying to help retrieve the packages. "I was just–"
The man waved her away. "I was minding my own business, you mind yours," he said sharply. "Now move along!"
She stood there, half crouched, unsure of how to proceed from now.
"I said you could go!" said the man, sounding more annoyed by the second. "You're blocking the street!"
"I'm sorry" she said in a small voice, getting up and backing away. "I'm sorry. sorry." The man finished gathering up his packages and continues walking down the street away from her, grumbling the whole time.
Ennis speed-walked in the other direction, not sure where she was going or what she was walking away from. The noises, colors, even smells (how could it be that one street could have such diverse scents within a single block?) stared to flood her brain, and she desperately tried to ignore it, to filter out the all the information on her own, but she couldn't.
So she ran, trying to escape the tyranny of her newfound senses, letting them all blend together in a shapeless blur as she sprinted down the street, waiting until she could adjust and focus again. She heard irritated voices shouting at her to slow down, for god's sake doesn't anyone have any kind of patience in this city and she ignored them, sprinting away.
By the time Ennis decided to stop running she was many streets away. She stood still to catch her breath, trying to reorient herself according to her mental map, but due to either the nervousness and overstimulation earlier, she realized that she couldn't regain her bearings. She squinted up at the street signs and houses, but somehow their physical presence in front of her didn't seem to align with her mental map of the city she had relied upon before.
Maybe …something went wrong after the events at the Alveare? Her head started to pound and ache slightly, and the bright lights reflecting off the cars and windows ahead were not helping. Ennis ducked into the shade of a nearby building and leaned against the wall, shutting her eyes tightly.
It was completely probable that he needed something more–maintenance, maybe, as a homunculus? She didn't know much details about the construction of her own body except for the bare fact that while she could heal and not age like an immortal, she was intrinsically linked, mentally and biologically, with Szilard.
At least, she had been before. So much had happened at that time–the Martillos accidentallybecoming immortal, her last-minute decision to betray Szilard, Firo devouring him and then using his knowledge to save her life–it had all taken mere minutes for her world to completely turn around. She kept her eyes closed and took slow, deep breaths, and tried to focus only on the rough texture of the brick wall at her back.
"Ennis? Is that you?"
A familiar voice jolted her from her brief meditation and she jumped up, tense once again.
"Whoa, whoa, slow down there! It's just me!"
Firo took a few steps back, waving his hands in front of him in a surrender-like gesture.
"I didn't mean to startle you! It's just that we've been looking for you since this morning, and, well, a bunch of folks said they saw a redhead dashing down the street like there's no tomorrow and I kind of thought I'd try this direction."
Ennis blinked and tried let her vision adjust.
"You and… the others were looking for me?"
"Well," Firo shrugged and stuck his hands in his pants pockets. "Sure Isaac and Miria would be glad to see you again too. But mostly me, I guess." He looked back up at her sheepishly. "We seem to spend most of our time running, don't we? Maybe we should just walk. So where were you even going off to in such a hurry?"
"I don't know," she said truthfully. "For once I didn't have a destination. I just ran." She didn't mention the uncomfortableness she had felt in the middle of all the sights, sounds and scents that had seemed to close in around her. Mostly because she wasn't sure how to explain it even to herself but also because she reasoned that Firo could easily find out from her if he wanted to. He had devoured and absorbed Szilard after all, and with that could probably now access her thoughts in the same way.
Firo shuffled his feet a bit and glanced down before straightening up again to look back at her. "So… um… now that you're here and we're not chasing each other all over the city, I was wondering if you wanted to grab some lunch or something? There's a place I know that's not too far from here, it's not exactly the Ritz but it's pretty nice and cheap and the staff knows me pretty well, I thought you'd like it."
"Thank you," she said. "Although… to be honest I'm not very hungry, and I usually make my own food at home. I've learned to cook fairly well, you know."
"Oh!" said Firo. "I'm sure you do! I'm not meaning to say that you're not good at it or anything like that. I just thought it would be nice if we could, like–just sit together, and hang out for once."
"I see you and we talk at the Alveare sometimes."
"That's different." said Firo. "I mean away from the other members and stuff. Just us, you know? And it's always nice to talk over food." he laughed nervously. "You could say it's an Italian thing."
Why would I want to go out to eat if I'm not hungry, Ennis thought silently, but she filed the thought away in her mind to pore over later in her room, where she would be able to concentrate better anyway. She wondered for a brief whether Firo would simply tell her that of course she wanted to go, influencing her the way He had many times before, but she felt nothing of the sort. Firo was simply standing in front of her, waiting for her answer, whether or not she said yes or no.
"Not right now," she said. "I have… other things I want to do."
Firo shrugged. "Okay then, I understand. I'm gonna be pretty busy too." said Firo. "Got some troublemakers to deal with at the casino anyway." He turned on his heel and started to head back home. Ennis watched him take a few leisurely steps away.
"Wait!" She called out. Firo stopped and turned back.
"I can meet you next week from today," She said. "I won't be busy then."
Firo looked surprised, then broke out into a goofy smile. "Neither will I."
It was something mundane and spontaneous, nothing at all monumental, not like when she had turned back on her previous master. And maybe that's what living, truly living, was meant to be like like–a series of small choices, one after the other filling days and weeks and months and years. This new world of rich and overstimulating sensations was still daunting, but she could edge her way into it, bit by bit, decision by small decision.
After all, the days belonged to her now.