Chapter Two: Emovere
My first view of San Francisco was from my parents' car window as we crossed the Bay Bridge. I was almost eight years old, and we had just moved from Los Angeles. My mother, a forensic psychiatrist, had accepted a research position at Zenigenic, an up-and-coming pharmaceutical company. My father had eagerly pointed at the city, grinning as I gasped. I rolled down the window and let the cold air rush in. Ever since that first drive across the bridge, San Francisco always looked the same to me: surreal, as if each building had been carefully crafted from clay and arranged alongside the ocean by an unseen hand.
As I walked hurriedly into the heart of downtown, my mind was reeling. Nothing my mother told me could have prepared me for the city now. It was desolate in every way.
On either side of me were storefronts—most were looted and graffitied. Stepping over shards of glass, I slipped inside one of the darkened buildings. The air was cold and rancid, rank with decay and desperation. Near the doorway, shelves of groceries were overturned. Bottles were smashed, their empty shells scattered across the floor. An army of ants marched in a zigzag formation, carrying molded crumbs up the wall. I dodged puddles of congealed liquid and a frenzy of mice as I filled my backpack with a few extra cans of food and a box of cereal. Along with the supplies my mother had given me, I had enough to survive for several weeks.
I continued down Market Street, once believed to be the home of the Resistance, then I turned left. I knew exactly where I was headed. My mother and I had selected the perfect hiding place.
I tried to stay focused, but my eyes were drawn to the destruction. In the middle of the sidewalk was an overturned car, its burnt shell crumbling. Nearby, the entrance to the underground BART railway system was boarded shut and marked with large red letters. DANGER: KEEP OUT BY ORDER OF THE GUARDIAN FORCE. Posted on almost every building were notices of mandatory evacuation.
Up ahead of me, a stately white building beckoned—the San Francisco Public Library, one of the few remaining libraries in the country. The only consistent noise was my footsteps crunching over glass and debris. I stopped moving and surveyed the area intently, watching, listening. From somewhere unseen, I heard the distant howl of a dog. No other sounds. Even though I had expected this, it still unnerved me.
The last news broadcast from San Francisco was over a year ago. News media were no longer allowed inside the city. The one remaining government-sponsored television station, SFTV, had released propaganda—that's what my mother called it—which reported that San Francisco had been significantly damaged by the rebellion of the Resistance. But, in the days leading up to my walk across the Golden Gate, my mother had received a report from the Resistance that it was the Guardian Force that had bombed portions of the Bay Bridge, making the city that much less accessible.
That night my mother and I sat huddled at the kitchen table, both of us dreading the inevitable.
"It's time, Mom," I said. "If we wait any longer, there will be no way into the city."
I studied my mother's face. To me, she had once been radiant, her eyes always smiling. In the years since my father had left, she looked increasingly tired.
My mother nodded. "I know. But it's just . . ."
She searched for the right words, but there were none. "It's dangerous. I should go with you."
We both knew that was impossible. As one of the faces of the Resistance, my mother would be recognized easily.
She touched my hand. "You know, I can't lose you."
My mother's words still cautioning me, I approached the library with trepidation. Just outside the door was a familiar reminder of my mother's career at Zenigenic: a small vending machine, marked with a large, metallic Z. The machines dotted most street corners in the city and doled out emotion-stimulating and inhibiting drugs, like the kind my mother had been tasked to develop.
One of those was Emovere, which in its earliest form targeted the brain's amygdala. While on the drug, patients felt little to no fear. I remember as a girl watching a recorded demonstration of an Emovere clinical trial. An expressionless man walked to the edge of what he perceived to be a tall building. When instructed by researchers, he stepped from the edge and plummeted into a net 50 feet below. He never screamed.
Operated by biometric identification, the machines could recognize a user and distribute medication with the simple press of a fingerprint. Mental illness was not a requirement, only the desire to alter one's emotional state. It seemed that almost everyone was eager to feel or not to feel something—a sentiment captured in Zenigenic's slogan, "How do you want to feel today?"
This machine was unique. It drew me in. Taped to the front, side by side, were rows of flyers branded by the Resistance. Looking back at me from each faded paper was an image of my mother. The outer glass was cracked. All the medication stolen long ago, even before Emovere was banned by the government. I contemplated my mother's face—surely, it was a sign—hoping to be reassured, but I only felt more alone. The picture had been chosen strategically from her discarded Zenigenic badge. The caption below read Emovere Kills: Knightley Calls It Biggest Regret.
Now it haunted her, a relentless ghost, but Emovere was once my mother's crowning achievement. Its development catapulted her into the spotlight as one of the nation's eminent psychiatric researchers. Looking back, I could see now that it was also the tipping point, the turn in the road, the single step that sent all of our lives into a free fall.
The library door was already cracked open, a thin beam of sunlight cast onto a nearby bookcase. Giving the door a gentle push, I tiptoed inside.
Chapter Three: Quin
The first time I saw Quin, I was on the edge of sleep, thinking of my mother. She would read to me every night, then run her fingers through my hair until I fell asleep. That world, the world containing my mother, had died so long ago—was it really only twenty days?—that sometimes I believed it had happened to someone else, not me. When I thought of my old life, I imagined it far above me, like a child's lost balloon. At first there was the hope of grabbing it, recovering it, bringing it safely back to the clutches of my hand. Then it was out of reach, and I could only watch it and wonder where it would go. Finally, the tiny dot of it disappeared, and I realized it was never mine to begin with.
I sat upright, nearly hitting my head on the desk—a graffitied table hidden in the library's stacks—where I slept. At first, I thought it was a dream. How long had I been sleeping? A pinprick of light darted across the library floor. I held my breath.
In the twenty days, now twenty-one, that I had been in the library, a small brown bird fluttering near the doorway had been the only sign of life. I heard muffled footsteps and a click-click-click sound, like nails tapping on glass.
Cursing myself for getting too comfortable, I fumbled for the backpack my mother had given to me, rifling hurriedly through its contents—a few remaining cans of food and granola bars, a flashlight, a map of the city, a wad of money that had so far been useless, a change of clothing, and toothpaste—until I found it . . .the gun. When I slept, I usually kept it close to me, but tonight, of all nights, I had forgotten.
I positioned myself behind the metal stacks, concealing the gun close to my side. It was heavy and cold. My mother had taught me to use it, but firing a weapon seemed like something that someone else would do, some other version of me. Still, I told myself that I was prepared to. I had to be.
Through the darkness, I saw a boot. A brownish black tail—a dog? Panic started to make its way into my throat, my heart thumping as fast as a hummingbird's. For a moment, I wondered if it was possible to die of fear.
In my mind, I heard my mother's voice, "Fear serves a purpose."
She first spoke those words when I was ten. An earthquake had startled me from sleep. A picture above my dresser crashed to the floor. Yet my mother was calm.
"Are you afraid?"
I couldn't speak, but I nodded.
"Good," she said, holding me close to her. "It's okay to be afraid. Fear is your body's way of telling you something important." Even then, I bristled at the irony in my mother's words.
"Artos, come," said a man's stern voice, followed by a click-click-click of what I could only assume were Artos' nails on the library floor. It had been so long since I'd heard a voice other than my own. It was both horrifying and exhilarating. For the rest of the night, I stayed close to the stacks, coaching myself to control my breathing—a trick my mother had taught me. Twice I forced myself to peer into the darkness, expecting something monstrous to meet my gaze. There was nothing.
I didn't see him again until two days later. I had almost begun to believe I had imagined him. I replayed that terrifying night visit again and again in my mind, searching for some clue. My mother had told me to be cautious—to wait, to watch, to be certain. I had to be certain.
When I saw him again, it was by chance. It was near dawn, and the rising orange sun cast an eerie light through the library. I was washing my face in the library's bathroom, allowing myself a quick glance in the mirror. I had the kind of face that people were always saying they recognized. My mother told me it was a compliment, that I made others feel comfortable, familiar. But I suspected my face was simply ordinary, so ordinary that it was practically interchangeable.
My long, dark hair was pulled back into a matted ponytail. I moved closer to the mirror and looked into my own eyes. My father always told me that they were like my mother's, kind and bright. As I leaned in, the locket my mother gave me for my eighteenth birthday clinked against the mirror. In it were two faces, both of them smiling—my parents. The gift was unexpected because, by then, my mother's savings had diminished and most of the jewelry stores in the Bay Area had closed after the collapse of the economy.
A faint noise from outside startled me. I froze. Crouching below the window, I peered over the sill and saw him. He was standing near the library's entrance with Artos, a German Shepherd, at his side. I tried to memorize him. He was tall with dark hair that was cut short, but had grown longish at the ends. His clothing was plain, and he wore military-style boots. His shoulders were broad and strong. I couldn't see his face. He was looking out, away from me, at something just beyond my vision. On the inside of his forearm, I saw the outline of a familiar tattoo. I drew in a breath.
Back at the safety of my desk, I tried to make sense of it. The tattoo could only mean he was a member of the Guardian Force and couldn't be trusted. My mother warned me that all Guardian officers and military personnel were under the influence of Emovere since the federal government had awarded Zenigenic a confidential contract. With Emovere, the government had virtually eliminated occurrences of posttraumatic stress. If you can't feel fear, then you won't be haunted by it.
Still, there was something about the way he moved—cautiously, carefully—that made me wonder.