The Phylum

Chapter Four: Genesis

Rough hands dragged me out of the sluggish dream caused by my recent dosage of morphine. My eyelids were weights, refusing to be opened. "Wake up, princess" the familiar sarcastic voice immediately jerked me awake. A sour-faced Calico stood haughtily above me. I almost didn't recognize her without the sweat and dirt. Her cuts had healed nicely, including the ragged one on her cheek. I could make out the light scar if I squinted my eyes enough. She had combed her bangs neatly on her forehead, the uneven sweaty curls no longer visible. I imagined what I must've looked like to her: a pale, drugged-up basketcase. The slight curl of her lip that formed when she looked at me confirmed my prediction.

I brushed her hands off of me, returning the annoyance. "Why are you here? Do you plan on saying something else vague and leaving? Get out." I narrowed my eyes the way I had seen her do before. "Are you mad at me? Rats!" Calico chewed on her lip in false misery. "You'll have to get over it and come with me" Calico straightened her dark skirt, crossed her arms, and leaned forward on her toes. "Where the hell am I?" I didn't realize how angry I was at my situation until I began yelling at her. "If you'd come with me, I'd tell you, Ezra" Calico's playful sarcasm was replaced with an assuaging tone. I couldn't help but listen to it. I stumbled out of my bed onto the floor, the cold tile violating my skin with its temperature. "I need shoes, don't I?" I asked her, looking down at her sleek boots. Calico waved her hand in the air dismissively, "later."

Calico opened the door and began closing it behind her, as if by instinct. I stopped the door just in time to keep myself from getting hit in the face with it. She shrugged a small apology and continued down the dark hall. I followed her, the tapping of her shoes making it easy to follow her.

We walked down the hall, the dark marble-like hallway lined with other rooms like mine. We didn't stop long enough for me to look into them, but I heard a pained moan from inside one. "At least you weren't a whiner" Calico muttered under her breath, glancing at me. "Why'd you come after me? You didn't have to. They say I'm-" "A TK, that's precisely why I came after you, it's what I do." I was startled by the sureness of her answer. "And what is it that you do? Throw yourself in front of bullets?" The question sounded stupid, but it was genuine. I hadn't the slightest idea why she was interested in me- whether I was a TK or not. It seemed as if I was nothing but a burden to her. "I'm not, though, not a TK, that is" I was sure of this. I'd never moved objects without touching them, I'd never wanted to. "That remains to be seen. Genes rarely lie, the police wouldn't have come after you if they weren't sure. You gave them trouble, you know. They were calling Egos." I turned this over in my mind, thankful that Calico was finally willing to yield up information. "That's what you are-- you're an Ego. That water you put in front of us, that saved us" I had decided this not long after she had mysteriously disappeared from my hospital room. I wasn't able to forget the rippling shield that had kept me bullet-free, or almost.

When my dreams hadn't been scrambled by drugs, they were filled with garbage cans and Calico's curious shield. "I'm not an Ego" Calico spat the word 'Ego' in a disgust I wasn't familiar with, "Egos are police dogs fighting on the wrong side, they're easily manipulated." I was startled, Egos were revered. They were held on pedestals of courage and honor. Simply knowing one was considered a privilege. The only Egos who were ever frowned upon were the ones who decided to do nothing with their power, who simply ignored it. It was an "injustice" some people said, to be given such a gift and never to use it to help others. "What are you? You're not a TK, are you?" I winced at how ignorant I sounded. "No, I'm not like you," I opened my mouth to deny the claim, but she continued before I could, "I'm unique, is all." That was a word for it.

We turned down another hall lined with identical rooms. A boy exited a room, closing it tightly behind him, he nodded to Calico in vague recognition and turned his gaze to me. His bright eyes sized me up as we passed him.

"You said saving.. TKs.. is what you do, why?" Despite the silences, my wall of questions hadn't crumbled."You ask too many questions" Calico's voice was final, her patience already run thin. I was desperate to not be held in the dark, and pressed the question further. A scowl deepened on her tan face, but eventually exasperation brought an answer to her lips "they try to take TKs, mostly for experiments and tests. Sometimes they are taken just to be made examples out of. Things that would be illegal if it was brought to light. We get to TKs before they can." I ran a hand through my hair, taking another moment. I remembered the broken glass of my rundown apartment, the hard faces of the unfeeling police officers and their sleek guns. "They're nabbing TKs on the streets now? Can they do that?" Calico stared ahead in silence. The operation had to be large to keep so many people in the dark like that. If laws were being broken by the ones who made them, what was left? "So, you save TKs with water?" I wasn't satisfied with her half-answer, and the image of her projected shield still lingered in my mind. "Why are you so set on this water theory? It's not water" Calico's voice was mocking, as if it were obvious. "What is it?" Her slightly offensive responses didn't put me off, perhaps as she'd wanted them to. Before answering, the girl looked up at the ceiling, as if the simple answer were painted across it. After a moment, she looked back at me, "you control objects, inanimate ones, I control what's between it." I furrowed my brow, but as soon as Calico realized how confused she had left me she pieced it together, "gravity. I'm a gravity manipulator." I opened my mouth but before I could say anything the long, dark corridor had opened up to a wider room full of chatty people. I noticed that most of the people were clad in black or dark clothing, which didn't do much to make the room any cheerier. The ones who weren't dressed in dark clothes wore mirrored expressions of confusion, and in some cases fear. I realized that my face was no exception. "They're-" "barely even TKs, like you" Calico finished my sentence with a grin. I wished she wouldn't continue to insist on what I was. And I wish I'd stop doubting myself whenever she corrected me.

"Welcome to the Phylum."