Carola Dibbell - The Only Ones

I come outside and we look all around in the dark. Is a Fundy in my yard? I send Alma home, go back in, and hear a noise, like someone is opening a drawer that has a knife. Who is in my kitchen?

Ani Fardo. Still alive.

She is eating Process standing up. “I had unprotected sex,” she said.

I did have an Episode, because she is kneeling by me on the floor.

When she saw me wake up, she stood up. “It was just a hand job, Ma.”

So then I stood up.

She says, “Technically, three hand jobs. I had to, for the Change.”

Now I am almost going to have another Episode but she goes, “It didn’t work. I went to a shady operation at Richmond Hill. I had to get around the blockades, that’s what took so long. They put the genes in on a virus, that’s how they do it, so the genes could mix with my regular DNA. The virus died.” She is really scarfing the Process down. “It was embarrassing.”

So she goes on the sofa and just sits down and turns on the TV. She just sits there and watches. So I just sit beside her and we both watch News of the lesser flu until the power goes. Then we just sit in the dark. We’re just sitting there in the dark until she says, really quiet, “Why did you tell me Rini Jaffur was the Host?”

“I didn’t want you to be ashamed.”

“It didn’t work,” she said. Then she went into her room.

She left the door open this time, though.

So I went to her doorway and stood there, in the dark.

So I thought she’s asleep, but she called out to me, from her bed, “What did happen?”

“When?”

“You know. When I was born.” She goes, “How did it work?”

So I leaned against her doorway. I could almost see her, in the dark. I think I could hear her breathe. “Well, at first it didn’t work. The first thing that happened was, it didn’t work.

“I mean, they tried. They spent months trying to even get on">She sent a message saying she has changed her mind.

SO. THE PART ABOUT ANI’S LIFE WITH ME IS ABOUT done.

I mean, not at first.

At first, I’m getting her to stay till it is not so cold. Then we’re just trying to get to the Farm. There was a big deal getting out of Queens with the Alerts and checkpoints and blockades even though supposedly it is such a lesser flu. And there is some problem getting through to Rauden. We took the inland route by New Jersey because of bridge blockades upstate and we have to keep changing hybros and get dumped just over the New York border, at Sparrowbush. There is still snow on the ground. I figure out some back road way to walk toward the Farm. There is no public Board, plus no Signal for my Reader, and then I smelled smoke. I thought, let’s come back later and turned around, but I heard hoofbeats, or thought it is hoof-beats, oh man. I even saw the horse. Where did these nuts find a horse? I saw the rider in his cape! We hid in a bush. We went back to a dirt road, and there is horse droppings. There is a fire on a hill. She says, Ma, let me go alone. And I’m like, no">She sent a message saying she has changed her mind.

She goes, Ma, if these nuts find us together and figure us out, it is more dangerous than that.

I just don’t want to leave her. But I see what she means. If they find us separate we could be regular. She could be regular, I could be regular. Together, who knows? We could be what we are.

So I say, let’s go off separate for now but meet up somewhere else and Ani said, no, she must do this on her own.

I go, Ani! Just at first.

She goes, “Ma. No. It’s time. Ma, if you try to stop me, I will turn myself in. I will say I am a crime against nature. We will both end up in jail.”

Man! Where did she learn to hang so tough!

So. That’s it.

She did let me walk her to the county road.

She also let me walk her to the regular road.

Then she just said that’s it.

Now maybe you are wondering, this India plan — how is she even getting there, with her problem getting anywhere? Maybe you already wondered, hello? How did she even get to Richmond Hill to try to do the Change?

Well I will tell you what she told me, right before she went off on her own. She said, “I walked backward. Ma! It’s not an SCNT thing, it’s an LD thing. The Special kids, the ones like me? We don’t know if we’re coming or going. So we walk backward. I’m not sure how it even works. To tell the truth, it could just be a placebo. But it seems to do the trick.”

So the last time I saw her, leaving, on a regular road a few miles over the border from Jersey, it was her face I saw. And right, maybe she stumbled a little, putting one hand on bushes or fence posts to guide her as she walked away, and ok, she looked scared. But so proud!

Not the last time I saw her face, period. I saw her face when she made the vidCall, seven months later, from Massachusetts. Also the Northeast Kingdom, a year later, when she could find a Board.

And from Canada, I saw her head to foot!

But not at first. At first I didn’t even get to hear her voice. I didn’t even get a message, though I checked every Board I saw. She jammed her own ID so I can’t message her and that even jammed my own ID until I rigged up a different entry. But she sends no messages to that.

I’m sneaking off three, four times a day from my Nassau County jobs to check the big Board there — that’s if I’m not in a personal Dome with a personal Board. I’m trying for Signal on my Reader from a personal Dome roof. Nothing. From Queens, I keep running up to check at the Little Neck. Nada.

I’m up on Mrs. Postow’s personal Dome roof when I got the first message, and it is just two words, STILL ALIVE. I almost slid right off the roof. I just am jumping around all day. No picture. No voice. No reply. But still alive.

It’s like when you are thirsty, you are so glad to have anything, you just gulp it down. It was like that. I just gulped her down.

Still alive! Still alive! All night I’m running all over the garden apartment.

Then nothing. Nothing so long I start to wonder if it was just some old message of mine that I had sent to Rauden long ago, bouncing back.

Nothing even on her sixteenth birthday. I spent the whole day out at the Little Neck Board. It was a Saturday, I had the day off. I had brought food and water. I even slept there on the ground. Nothing.how her who is bossotofha

But the next morning, a message is blinking for me. Still alive. It is even the kind where you can reply!

I reply, “WHERE ARE YOU?”

Then I have to keep checking for her reply, which doesn’t come for two more hours.

“MA I DON’T EVEN KNOW.”

Then the Board crashes.

I pretty much camp out at the Little Neck Board till the system starts up again. There is no message even then. Then there is nothing but News Flash because they say lesser flu pathogens was IDed in the President’s Dome, then also in whatever Dome they transfer him to, and I’m like, I should care because! But the News went so ballistic, it’s already Monday morning before you could get any regular messages, but nothing from her. I try a few reverse codes Henry taught me that could hack recent message history, in case I missed something. The Board crashes.

When it finally comes back, this message is waiting. “I WANT TO GO HOME.”

Then it crashes again.

I hate this Board! I hate this Board!

I’m rushing back to Nassau County so I can try my clients’ personal Boards! Nothing. I never can get Signal from the garden apartment or even nearby. If I could move full time to the Farm, I could use Rauden’s system and keep trying night and day. But I can’t do that.

I went to Oakland Gardens but the area is closed off. In the end I found one right in Alley Park, set up an open line with a regular time she could phone me, if she could find a phone, and keep trying at the regular time. It worked! I mean, this is weeks later.