Steven Harper - Dreamer

Ara nodded and followed Vidya around the office building to the rear, where a little cobblestoned area occupied space between the buildings. Little sunlight reached the place, and a tired-looking tree drooped over a wooden bench. Food containers littered the stones. Kendi and Sejal started to take the bench until Pitr caught Kendi’s arm.

“Slaves sit on the ground,” he said gruffly.

Kendi’s eyes went icy, but he nodded and sat. Sejal joined him. Vidya stiffly took the bench between Ara and Pitr.

“Are you all right, Sejal?” she said. “What have you done to yourself?”

“I’m fine, Mom. It’s a disguise.”

Ara blinked. Sejal’s manner had changed. Gone was the tough street kid she had met in the tiny restroom. His posture was less belligerent, his voice quieter. Even his word choice was different. Was the street persona a mask? A personality he had created while working the streets? Or was the street kid the real Sejal and this one the fabrication?

“Why is the Unity looking for you?” Vidya asked. “What did you do, Sejal?”

A red flush crept up Sejal’s face.

“He’s Silent,” Kendi said quickly.

“He is not Silent,” Vidya snarled.

“Yes I am, Mom,” Sejal said. “Kendi showed me. He proved it.”

“Impossible!”

“Mom-”

“Ms. Dasa,” Ara asked in a soft voice, “your son has a very powerful form of Silence. He already has abilities I’ve never even seen before. Why are you so sure he isn’t Silent?”

Vidya glared at Ara. Her jaw worked back and forth for a long moment.

“I know about the other children,” Ara said, voice still soft.

“What other-” Pitr began, but Ara raised a hand and hushed him.

“Ms. Dasa-Vidya,”Ara continued, “I know about your contract with Silent Acquisitions. I know about your other babies, and I know your husband disappeared.”

“Prasad,” Vidya whispered. Her brown face had paled.

“Who’s Prasad?” Sejal asked from the stony ground.

“He’s your father,” Ara said.

Vidya’s face abruptly twisted into a mask of rage. “How dare you? How dare you come into my life like this? After I have worked so hard to make everything safe? How dare you tell us these horrible things?”

“You’re not denying them,” Ara pointed out. “Vidya, we don’t have a lot of time. It boils down to this: the Unity guard is looking to arrest your son. We can take him-and you-off-planet to escape. We need you to decide.”

“The Unity guard doesn’t arrest the Silent,” Vidya snapped. “Slavers do. Why is the guard looking for him?”

“He is a prostitute,” Harenn said bluntly.

Vidya’s mouth fell open. Her expression said Harenn’s remark had been worse than a slap. After a moment, she whirled on Sejal.

“Is this true?” she demanded.

“Mom, I-”

Vidya reached down and grabbed him by the shoulders. “How can you do such a thing?” she cried. “When I have worked to make our neighborhood a safe place for you? How could you be so ungrateful?”

A dozen emotions washed across Sejal’s face. “Is that all you care about? It’s always about the neighborhood. ‘You have to be a good son of the neighborhood, Sejal. You have to be a model for the neighborhood children, Sejal. The neighborhood must be safe. The neighborhood must be clean.’ The neighborhood, the neighborhood. Who gives a shit?”

Vidya slapped him. Sejal fell silent. “The neighborhood let you grow up, boy,” she hissed at him. “I built the neighborhood for you, so you would always be safe.”

Something clicked in Ara’s head. “Because it wasn’t safe for Katsu and Prasad?” she said. “Because it wasn’t safe for your husband and your daughter?”

Vidya snatched her hands back and folded them in her lap. Her head bowed.

“What daughter?” Sejal asked. A red mark from Vidya’s slap was darkening on his face. Sejal’s jaw trembled, and Ara couldn’t tell whether it was from anger or tears. “Mom, what’s going on? Who are Prasad and Katsu? Why can’t I be Silent? You have to tell!”

Vidya remaind motionless for a long moment. When she finally spoke, her voice was steady. “You can’t be Silent, my son, because I arranged it to be so.”

“What do you mean?” Sejal whispered.

“Your father’s name is Prasad Vajhur,” Vidya said. “You also have two brothers, but I don’t know their names. We had to give them to the Unity.”

“What about Silent Acquisitions?” Pitr asked.

“Our original contract was with them,” Vidya answered. Her voice was flat, emotionless. “It was hard. When the Unity blighted Rust, there was no food anywhere. Prasad and I were starving, and we knew we would die soon. Both of us, however, carry the genes for Silence. We are not Silent ourselves, but any children born between us will be. This includes you, Sejal.”

“But-” Sejal began.

“Let me,” Vidya said. “Silent Acquisitions offered us food, shelter, medicine, and money in exchange for two babies. The condition was harsh, but at the time it seemed a better choice than painful death. If I had known then how difficult it would one day be, I would have let myself die with Prasad beside me.”

“But you didn’t know,” Ara said.

“I was young and we were dying.” Vidya’s hands twisted in her lap. “Less than a week after Prasad and I signed the contract, the government surrendered to the Unity, and the Unity took over our contract. It dictated new terms, and we could do nothing. The money was reduced to a fraction. The first contract promised we would have housing and medical care for a year after the second child was born, but a month afterward, we were on the street. I don’t know how, but Prasad found work as a garbage collector. We had two tiny rooms in a half-ruined apartment building, a single small income, and I was pregnant again.”

Vidya fell silent again. Sejal stared at his mother as if hypnotized.

“That must have been Katsu,” Ara nudged.

“Yes. She was a beautiful baby, and all ours. The Unity knew she was Silent, but I managed to convince myself that the ten years I would have with her before they took her away would be a far, far better thing than losing babies I never had the chance to hold.”

“But you eventually realized that wasn’t the case,” Ara said. “So you arranged a fake kidnaping, hoping to hide Katsu someplace safe.”

Vidya looked at Ara, genuinely surprised. “The kidnaping was very real. When she was nine months old, someone broke into our rooms. They took my little Katsu. I woke up in the morning and realized she hadn’t cried all night. My first thought was that she had slept through the night, but then I found her empty bed.” Vidya’s voice had gone flat again. “Prasad was…I don’t think I can describe it. He wanted to run in a thousand directions at once. I begged him to let the guard find her, but Prasad insisted that he had a better chance, that he knew the neighborhood better. He left, and he didn’t come back. I reported him missing as well. A week later, he was still missing, and I realized I was pregnant again.”

“Me?” Sejal said.

Vidya nodded. “You. I was sure whoever had kidnapped Katsu had killed Prasad, and that they would come next for this baby and for me. So I ran.”

“You changed your name to Vidya Dasa,” Ara put in. “Easy to do, since the Annexation damaged so many records.”

“Yes. I took part of Prasad’s name and made it mine and his son’s. Perhaps that was a mistake.”

“But if your genes make every child you and Prasad have Silent,” Kendi asked, “why were you so sure Sejal wasn’t?”

“I arranged it to be so,” Vidya said.

“What?” Sejal said. “How?”

“When you were less than two months in the womb,” Vidya told him, “I found a…man. A genegineer. He said he could make a retrovirus. The virus would alter your genes and render you non-Silent.”