Chapter Fourteen: Fathers

I've been in the cafeteria for an hour waiting for her. Ever since the seeding, she has been reluctant to be alone. After Nanda heard about the incident, he reattached himself to her, and they are once again inseparable. That thought gives me more comfort than I thought it would, but he can't be around her all day, every day, so I seem to have been delegated to fill in the gaps. So here I am, waiting, but Asha is nowhere in sight. I've had seven people come up to me and thank me for "giving Keven what he deserves" since I got here. Less than half of them were even empaths. I rub my knuckles absently. It took Elene a good ten minutes to clean his blood off my hands and shoes. At the time, I was certain I was going to be deported. Instead, I seem to have become a local celebrity. I am not yet certain which is the less desirable result.

I sigh and check Asha's location on my wristband. It shows her in the kitchen of Hanakawa, which means she is actually in the Arboretum and has given her wristband to Elene. Something must have happened today in class that is bothering her. I pocket a couple of oranges, shrug on my jacket, and head off to find her. By now I know her well enough to have a good idea of what cluster of trees she will have chosen to hide in. This is a good thing, considering how much of the campus grounds are occupied by the Arboretum.

I walk by Nanda's class on the way, but by a stroke of luck he does not notice me. He would not be happy to see me without Asha, especially after the conversation I had with him the day after the seeding. He had walked into Asha and Elene's room and found me, awake, with Asha asleep in my arms. She had been unconscious for sixteen hours, but every time I attempted to get up she would begin to toss and turn. Elene said I was triggering nightmares. And so I stayed. When the door opened and Nanda walked in I was certain he'd react as I had when I'd found Keven with her, but he had not. Instead, he sat down on the edge of the bed and had a conversation with me in low tones, stroking Asha's hair, as if this were the most normal experience he'd ever had.

“I should have been there,” he said after a moment. I did not know how to reply, but he continued on his own. “I was...I was making her more independent than she should have been out of spite, and...well. I am glad you were there to protect her when I was too proud to.”

“I don't feel much better than you do, Nanda. I was there, and it still happened. Keven wouldn't have gotten near her if you'd been along.”

He sighed and ran his free hand through his own hair, pushing his bangs out of his eyes. “This never would have happened on my planet. We...we do not do these things to one another.”

“Based on what Asha has said about her father and the way he treated her mother, I am not inclined to agree.”

Nanda blinked. “You are right. I keep doing that. I keep making Old Earth out to be something better, but it is not.”

“I can see why you would, though.”

“No. It is unhealthy. People are the same. The setting is different, that is all. I realized this morning when Elene told me what had happened to Asha...the way we treat half-breeds is just as wrong as the way empaths are treated in the Consortium.”

I was not sure where he was going with that, but when he spoke again he changed the subject.

“Will you help me take care of her?”

“Yes.” I said the word without thinking. “Provided they don't expel me.”

Nanda shook his head. “They will not. The empaths here would riot.”

And with that, he left. Since then we had made sure she was with one of us at all times. It had been awkward at first because I was wondering if she would try to initiate something physical again, but she has not. Part of me still cannot believe that I had turned her down that night, seeded or no. I have told myself it is because Elene was coming back, or because it was less fun if someone had done all the work for me. But neither of those reasons are correct. Two weeks ago, I wouldn't have needed to be asked twice. Two weeks ago, I didn't care enough about her. And now Elene knows, so it is only a matter of time before Asha finds out. This is why every time I see her, my stomach roils.

She appears in my line of sight as if on cue, lying spread out on the ground underneath a conifer. Pine needles have worked their way into her hair, and her shirt has a sap-stain and several dirt spots. I know she has heard me arrive, but she does not react to my presence.

“Asha. you were supposed to meet me an hour ago.”

She shakes her head and refuses to look at my face. “I cannot go in there.”

“Why? The cafeteria is easy for you. How many times have you been in there now? Come on, let's get lunch.”

“And get seeded by accident if I can't keep focused?” She opens her eyes and stares at me. She's been crying. I sit down beside her and begin to pick stray pine needles out of her hair.

“What happened in class today?”

My guess is correct. “I was kicked out.” Her hand runs absently over her scar as she forces the words out.

“Why?”

“There was an argument. Everyone was angry. I got angry.”

“How angry?”

“I threw a desk.”

“Did you hit anyone?”

“No.”

“Was Nanda not there?”

“We were talking about Old Earth.”

“Ah.”

“I told him I was going to meet you and then came here instead.”

“Thanks for that.”

She sighs and turns her head, staring at the canopy overhead. “Can we just stay here, Reid? I'm so tired.”

“Sure.” I offer her an orange, but she shakes her head. I shrug and tear into mine, bathing us both in a mist of citrus.

“People keep not telling me things.” Her voice is shaking. She is angry, and I am almost certain this anger is her own. That must have made the situation so much worse in class.

“What do you mean?”

“About the planet. About my planet! Not you, not Desmond, not anyone. You're all responsible this time.” Her hands scrape a dark trail through the needles littering the ground.

I sigh. “I see. You've heard about the history, then.”

She turns her face away from me.

“Asha, in defense of everyone but me and Desmond, they probably didn't know. It's...not common knowledge.”

“Why didn't you tell me, then?” Her voice is muffled.

“I would have, if it had come up. And Asha...I wouldn't be too hard on Desmond this time around, either.”

She turns to look at me, clearly surprised. “Why?”

“Because I think the truth is nearly as painful for him as it is for you.”

Asha rises and moves to sit between my arms, leaning back against my chest. I offer her a wedge of orange, and this time she accepts it.

“If they don't know, then how do you?”

“My father told me the story to illustrate the nature of humanity.”

“What?”

I sigh. “He wanted to prove that people are bad.”

Asha shakes her head. “I do not believe that.”

I run my hand over her hair absently. “I know.”

We both munch on the orange for a few minutes. I begin to believe that she is going to move on as she always does. Then, she speaks again.

“Tell me.”

I shake my head. “Asha, you were already told today.”

“No, I was not. The fight started before the instructor began the lesson.”

I blink. “Asha, how—“ I begin, but she cuts me off.

“No. Tell me.” She puts her hands on my knees and looks up at me imploringly. Part of me wants to refuse, to spare her. But if I do this now, I am no better than Desmond when he neglected to tell her about all the political prejudice against empaths. I may be many terrible things, but I try not to be a hypocrite. I try not to be my father.

“This will take a while.”

“Then show me.”

I was afraid she would say that. “I...Asha, my father...”

“If you show me this, I will tell you about my own father, and then we will be even.” Her voice is unyielding.

My instinct is to tell her just how little I care about her father, but I realize with shock that this would be a lie. Fine. I focus in on the memory and let my guard down with a sense of forboding. Each time I do this, it's harder to keep her out later. Someday she'll be able to read me whenever she wants, a thought which makes me resent her. But it's not like with the Type Twos, who must do this sort of thing consciously. She simply flows in and out of minds, seeping through cracks and chinks effortlessly, yet relentlessly. She can't help it that it is her nature to be interconnected.

“Desmond is not going to ruin me,” she says softly, and I know she has already linked with me. My father rises to the forefront of my mind. We are cooking dinner at the farm. My mother and sister have been dead for two weeks now, and he is chopping onions with too much force. I'm programming the stove, entering temperature and cook time and warming oil in the pan.

“Father?”

He grunts, and the knife glints in the light.

“Those people...at the square. Why would they do that to each other?”

The knife slams down. “Are you asking why people commit murder?”

I nod and stare at the floor. Something feels wrong with my chest.

“Reid, people do terrible things to one another. It's what we were made for.” He speaks with finality, warning me against trying to continue the conversation.

“Your father looks nothing like you,” Asha interjects, and I start. She giggles. “Sorry.”

I tug at her braid. “I took after my mother.”

“She must have been very pretty.”

“That sounds rather like a compliment.”

“It is,” she says simply, digging in my jacket pocket for the other orange.

“Made things worse for me, in the end.”

She nods. “I can relate to that.” The orange skin splits deftly under her fingers. “Please show me the rest. I will be quiet.”

I don't find the courage to pursue the topic futher until we're both sitting in silence at the dinner table. I am pushing my stir-fry around in the bowl while he bites into a wheat roll.

“I don't think people are inherently bad,” I say quietly, and take a sip of water to hide my nervousness.

He tosses the roll into his bowl and pins me with his eyes. “Have you ever wondered why Old Earth Natives use obsidian knives?”

I am completely taken aback by his response. “Well...yes.”

“I mean, there are so many other materials they could use, right? Even for a race as technologically backward as they are.”

Asha flinches against me, but I stay focused on the memory. “Alright. So why do they use glass?”

My father smiles humorlessly. “Because there are no ores left on the planet. Our ancestors dug it all out. Gutted the land. Took all the fuel. And then they decided to relocate the entire planet here in one mass exodus.”

I nod. “So the ones that stayed behind had to improvise, I guess.”

He snorts. “You honestly think they stayed behind willingly?”

I don't respond. Up until this moment, I had assumed exactly that. He takes my silence for what it is and keeps talking, pulling up pictures on the panel inset in our table. Crumbling buildings, lines upon lines of people crowding into bulky-looking buships. Vast stretches of wasteland strewn with garbage. Oddly familiar scenes.

“The nations got together and decided this didn't work for them anymore. People were dying of starvation, disease. Most of the animals living outside the zoos were extinct, and the ones we'd managed to save were getting too expensive to feed. So the council that ran things back then, called the United Nations, invented a lot system. Countries drew their exodus order, and the entire thing would be fair. Systematic. Planet would be completely relocated in five years if they kept to the schedule.”

I take a bite of beef to keep my eyes off the pictures. “So what happened?”

“Things started to get a little out of hand. Countries decided to take everything with them. Better to have the materials to build on hand than to take the time to create them again from new materials, right? Buildings got torn down for the metals, even if the people living there hadn't been evacuated yet. Started dying of exposure. And then, four years in, the United Nations realized that they didn't have enough resources to get the last few countries over. So what do they do?”

I shake my head. Asha digs her fingers into my shirtfront.

“They don't postpone their relocation. They don't reorganize their priorities. They come back in for one last sweep, tear down everything they can get their hands on, and leave with materials, not men.”

“What?”

“You heard me, boy. They left seven countries behind. That's several billion people designated as expendable by virtue of bad luck. India, the East Asian island countries, and Brazil were left behind. That won't mean anything to you. Here.” He pulls up a map and places glowing dots on two continents. “India and East Asia made it, because they managed to work together. Brasil, as near as we can tell, was completely obliterated within a generation. There was just too much pollution for them to sustain themselves.”

“That can't be right,” I say. “How could they do that?”

“People are inherently fucked up, Reid. I thought your mother and sister's death would be enough proof for you.”

“No!”

“Do you want me to go on? You think this was the worst of it?”

I lower my head, but he keeps talking.

“So we leave them to fend for themselves while we go right on ruining this planet just like the old one. Ever wonder why we can't go out when it's raining? Or why our showers are timed to save water? We did that, Reid. Because we don't learn.”

The Reid in my memory begins to cry just as Asha does. I wrap my arms around her and lower my face to her hair. She smells like trees.

“Keep going,” she whispers.

My father shuts off the monitor panel and returns to his dinner. “So we get in a war with Kiran. We're running out of food, and some genius decides to go see if anything on Old Earth made it. Turns out, things reasserted themselves alright. Zoo animals took back over, plants and trees came back. And what do you know, people are still alive! Living no better than the animals, wearing leather and hunting to stay alive, but they're not gone. And suddenly the Consortium has a dilemma.”

I push my dinner away, but Father is not done.

“So what do they do? Do they make up for old mistakes, help the planet out, modernize them? No. Do they at least tell them the truth, let them know why they're in the sorry state they're in? No. Do we help ourselves to their strongest empaths and go on about our business? Of course we do.”

“Stop.”

“Reid, this is life. The sooner you learn to accept it, the less it will hurt.”

I cut the memory off with a gasp and open my eyes to find Asha looking up at me, face streaked with tears.

“And all that is true?” she asks quietly.

I nod. “I checked his facts later. He's right. We really did abandon a chunk of the planet. And you're one of their descendants. The Consortium's not proud of it, which is why no one really gets taught the information in schools, but the truth is there for anyone who wants to look for it. The only people we actively keep it from are the Natives.”

“So what was Amita going to teach us today?”

“Oh. Native culture, I expect. None of this.”

Asha shakes her head. “That would not be worth getting so angry over. I am not sure why the fight broke out.”

“Did someone insult you and Nanda? I hate to say it, but students here tend to find the Native culture units rather...boring.”

Asha nods. “That was mentioned.” But she refuses to elaborate. She wipes her face dry and turns to look up at me again. “Thank you. I know...I know it is hard for you to let me in. And that you do not like it. But I needed this.”

“I know.”

“Elene told me what you two talked about the night Keven...”

My spine stiffens. “Yeah?”

“I was not going to say anything about it, because I know you will not want to talk about it, but. Your father. He lied to you.”

“Asha, what?”

“About being a bad person.”

“How did—“

“I recognize the signs.” She begins to toss pieces of orange peel at a nearby rock. “You are not a bad person, Reid. You are just...sad.”

“Sad?”

“Sad.” The last piece of orange hits its mark and falls into the dirt.

“Asha, I have done terrible things. To people.”

“I know. So?”

“That doesn't make me a bad person?”

She shakes her head.

“Then what does it make me?”

“Human.”

“How is what you are saying any different from what my father used to tell me?”

“He does not believe that people can learn from their mistakes. I do.”

“What, so I'm magically going to become a better person because you had this conversation with me?”

“Reid, stop that.” Her voice sounds tired.

I take a deep breath. “I'm sorry. I'm still not used to—“

“I know.”

“Okay, you stop that.”

There is a silence, and then we both start laughing. She shoves into me with enough force to knock me over, and we hit the dirt together in an undignified tangle.

“You do not laugh enough,” she murmurs, resting her head on my chest.

“I could say the same to you.” I wonder if she can hear how fast my heart is beating.

“I am not used to laughing. It is hard to laugh when you made everyone sad growing up.”

There's not really much I can say to that.

“My brothers never laughed around me,” she continues after a moment, tracing circles on my shirt with her finger. “They remembered my father and mother being happy, and they blamed me for him drinking so much and beating my mother.”

“Your father sounds like a great guy,” I mutter.

“Doesn't he?” She lifts her head and smiles at me, and I realize with a shock this is the first time she has accurately interpreted my sarcasm.

“Did he beat you, too?” I wince as soon as I hear the question aloud.

“Once. Mani was dead, and none of my other brothers would support my mother. They were too afraid. He beat her senseless one night, and I stepped in. So he did the same to me. When I could stand on my own again, I left.”

“Is that when you got the scar?” I tilt my head up and trace it with my index finger. She shivers slightly, and nods.

“Which reminds me. Where is your catskin?”

Asha sighs. “I stopped carrying it around when Nanda and I...I am out of the habit now.”

“We could use it right now. My back is getting dirty.”

Asha looks down at her own shirt and grimaces. “Oh, no. I did not think about that.” But she makes no effort to move. We lie in silence for a few minutes, then she speaks again.

“But Reid, really. You are not a bad influence. You have taught me many good things.”

I make a skeptical noise. “Like what?”

“You got me interested in the flute. You have taught me how to read body language because it is the only way I can understand your thoughts. Being around you has taught me more about myself than being around anyone else here, because when I am with you, I am me.” She smiles at me.

“So what happens to me when you learn everything there is to learn about yourself?”

“What?” Her eyebrows crease in confusion. But she doesn't press further because she hears something in the woods. She tenses against me instinctivey, and I feel adrenaline surge into my veins. Pack instinct.

Nanda appears and says something I do not understand. She relaxes against me again, and I resume breathing.

“Nanda. Do not sneak up on us like that!”

“Asha, I have been looking everywhere for you! Why did you leave your wristband with Elene?”

She sighs and sits up. “I needed time to think. Why didn't you just find me yourself?”

Nanda blinks. “I completely forgot to...classes have me so used to being closed off that I didn't even...” This revelation does nothing to improve his mood.

“I had my band, Nanda,” I offer.

He glowers down at me. “I know. I messaged you twice.”

I glance down. So he had.

“Let's go, Asha.” Nanda half-turns, but stops when she does not rise.

“I want to stay here. Reid can walk me home.” Her voice has a stubborn edge.

“Asha, please. I just wasted an hour looking for you.”

“Wasted?” Asha continues speaking to him in Native, and I can only assume by her tone that she is being somewhat less than polite.

“No, Asha,” I cut in. “Go on with Nanda. I have some errands I need to run. Desmond asked me to come by and talk to him today.”

At this, her face grows sober, but she stands without further protest and moves to Nanda's side.

“Good luck,” she tells me, and gives me a little wave goodbye.

Once they are gone, I start throwing rocks at the orange peels.