Young Offender, Part 15:
Francoise knocked on his door for the third time. "Please, Ivan, let me in. We need to talk."
The door cracked open. She walked in to see him leaning against the window across the long, attic room, his one eye glowed bright blue. The attic room was frosty and dim. She could see the dusk sky was growing gray as a droplets of rain gently started pattering.
The heavy musty smell tickled her nose as she walked towards Ivan. She sat on the edge of the corroded brass bed with shabby quilts. She watched him wrap his arms across his stomach tighter; his eyes were fixed on something outside the window.
"Please talk to me. I know you're hiding something, and I know you're in a lot of pain. Talk to me, so I can help you."
"You can't help me. No one can."
"I thought we were friends. Friends confide in one another."
He swallowed hard and shut his eyes. "Yes, we are... friendly." Him using that bitter, nasty sounding tone chilled her. There something that wasn't right in his thinking.
"Then what are you planning? I overheard Kozumi and Albert talk. They're afraid for you. Why?"
He didn't open his eyes, just laid his head on the foggy window. After a long time of deliberating, Ivan answered, "I want Doctor Kozumi to remove the part of my brain that allows me to experience emotions."
"What! Why on earth would you have him do such a thing? He said he could fix the problem with your empathy. You wouldn't need to go to such a drastic measure."
"Even so, I will still feel. I feel all these nasty emotions coming from people. Sick things that disturb me. I no longer wish to see that side of humanity. It makes me lose my willingness to protect people from the Black Ghost."
She was stunned; this was a dreadful admission from Ivan. She shook her head and said, "I can't believe that. You still helped rescue us. None of us were pure with positive emotions or thoughts all the time. You still felt compelled to help us and to find a way to eliminate the Black Ghost."
"You don't understand. I'm starting to feel things about my parents that I never have before. I used to have no emotions towards them, but now I... feel... so much... so utterly ugly..." Ivan's words drifted from French into Russian as his body began to shake. The house seemed to tremble in response. Objects started drifting in midair. They would dash themselves against the wall randomly, making Francoise flinch.
She clutched the edge of the bed. "Ivan! Stop!"
He turned around, shock on his face. Everything went still as his right eye dulled to a normal blue. He sank to the floor beneath the window and sat, elbows on his knees. His face was totally anguished; the reality that Ivan had suffered the most out of all of them hit her hard.
"Don't you see, Francoise? I'm also starting to feel things towards all of you. It's so close to anger and greed. I don't know what it is. Every time the three of you are asleep, and I'm awake, your dreams come to me. Dreams of what it was like to live a normal life.
"I've been learning through you three what it was like to have friends, go to school, have regular parents... both good and bad. To go outside and enjoy a summer day with a first love. To experience the wicked thrill of stealing. To know what it is to dance on stage and get accolades. I know them all from all of you, and I crave them."
Francoise walked over to Ivan and sat beside him. "You're experiencing envy. It isn't pleasant. It can make people do horrible things."
Ivan's head jerked up, he looked surprised. "Yes! I know that sensation. That night we left Paris. The first time I felt a real trickle of emotion was from Natalie. It was so strong that I couldn't help but notice it.
"Why not get rid of my emotions, if they can lead me to do awful things like betray my friend?" Ivan got a determined look on his face. "No! Emotions are a weakness; I will not let them be exploited."
"It can also be a strength! Ivan, how do you think I made it out of the Black Ghost? If it wasn't for my love for Jean-Paul, I would have been lost. My love for my brother gave me strength to leave and survive. Don't you see? Love is very powerful, more so than envy or any other nasty emotion you can name. If you get rid of your ability to feel emotions, you can't attach yourself to people any longer. Love is a great emotion and you'll deprive yourself of the greatest joy you can have."
His expression grew grave, his head drooped down. "Maybe I want to give up the ability to feel love as well."
"What? Why would you want to do that?"
"I can truly feel Albert's sense of loss now. As the days go by, it gets further from his conscious thoughts, but it's still there, like an ugly scar on his spirit. It will never heal."
Francoise shook her head. "No, it will never heal all the way. He will always have that pain with him, but he will live, and he could possibly find happiness again. He risked a lot for his wife. Without love, he wouldn't have tried to make her life better by trying to take her from East Berlin. One day, Ivan, you'll understand. You'll meet a girl..."
"You are the one who doesn't understand," Ivan whispered, interrupting Francoise. He looked up at her, very solemn. "I feel that way now about someone, but I can't experience it. I'm trapped in this body. Forever! The person I care about a great deal will always look on me as her little brother. Someone to protect, even though I want to be the one to protect her. I want to rid myself of feeling this love because it will never be returned."
Francoise felt herself stop breathing as Ivan's implication hit her. "I didn't know you felt that way towards me." Her astonishment faded gradually. She laid her hand on Ivan's shoulder as she tried to sort out her thoughts.
"You don't need to say anything, Francoise. I'll have the surgery done, and you won't have to worry about it any more."
"I care a great deal about you, Ivan. Yes, I do see you as a little brother. That won't change, not ever. I do respect and understand your feelings, however I can't return them. But this is no reason to destroy yourself. Promise me you'll not have this surgery."
"I won't promise that, but I will wait and see what Kozumi can do."
"Good, just give him a chance."
"I'm so angry at Fyodr for trapping me in a younger teenager's body. When I was in an infant's body, I didn't have all these emotions and feelings. I won't ever have a normal relationship with anyone. It's denied to me, but I still crave one." Ivan's bitter voice made Francoise flinch. "My parents denied it to me."
"It's so cruel," Francoise said, squeezing his shoulder.
"I don't understand why you're crying." Ivan's words made Francoise's hand fly to her face. Indeed, she had tears.
"I'm crying because my friend is suffering," Francoise answered simply. Before she rose to leave, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and gave him a brief kiss to his temple. She reached his door and turned to say, "Try to rest. Dinner will be in a few hours."
He gave her a ghost of a smile and nodded. She went back to the kitchen, finished cleaning, and started dinner. She fought hard to quell her irritation at Albert. He should have told her about Ivan's plans to remove his ability to experience emotions; not doing so made him a hypocrite, in Francoise's opinion.
Yana drained her scotch glass and gazed out over the ocean. The moonlight shown bright, in spite of the slight overcast. The cruise ship was only halfway across the Indian ocean.
"Countess, we need to talk," Ember said, leaning against the railing beside her. She scowled at him as he lit a cigarette. "We're not so different. We both want the same thing. Our families."
"True," she admitted.
"Good. Then we can agree that we're in not in a good position, so long as our spouses are on Ghost Island."
"Agreed," she said, her heart missed a beat thinking of her husband, a brilliant electronics and sound engineer. "I can tell you have some idea. Is it an idea that smacks of treason?"
"Oh yeah," Ember said, grinning.
"We are to observe the Double Zero Cyborgs. What are you proposing?" Yana asked with a sly smile, already having an inking about what her right-hand man had in mind.
"That we kill them and then hide the bodies." He said softly and drained his own scotch.
"Our spouses would be killed instantly. Then we would be killed ourselves, after torture."
"Yes, but if we offer the bodies in exchange for our families and our freedom..."
Her brow furrowed. "You're right. They want those cyborgs back, badly. We kill 003 and 004. They'll be obsolete soon enough. We take 001 and 002 alive. They are the most valuable to the Black Ghost."
"Agreed," Ember said. She gave him a slow, sly smile.
"Agreed. They will pay for embarrassing us... with their lives."
To be continued.