Broken Mirror
CODY SISCO
Resonant Earth Publishing
Broken Mirror
© 2016 by Cody Sisco
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval without permission in writing from the publisher.
Resonant Earth Publishing
P.O. BOX 50785
Los Angeles, CA 90050
ISBN 978-0-9970348-0-6 (Kindle)
Book cover design by The Scarlett Rugers Design Agency
Editing by Lindsey Alexander and Beth Wright
Twitter:
@codysisco
First Edition
Mirror Resonance Syndrome Defined
About the Author and Contact Information
Mirror Resonance Syndrome
a degenerative brain disorder associated with electro-chemical imbalances within mirror-neuron networks. These are the structures that enable individuals to understand and interpret others’ intentions and emotions. Symptoms of mirror resonance syndrome (MRS) can be severe, vary widely, and usually include habitual aggression and violence.
Many people with MRS experience extreme emotional transference, which, paradoxically, can lead to blackouts.
The syndrome is linked to a genetic variation present in less than 1 percent of the population.
Symptoms
Emotional hyper-reactivity over an extended period, including these progressively worsening symptoms:
1. Abnormally strong physiological and emotional reactions to physical or mental stimuli, including synesthesia and hallucinations
2. Subjective experience of being controlled, lacking autonomy, following a predetermined course, or reliving events (e.g., episodes of déjà vu lasting hours or days)
3. Persistent, immersive fantasies to the exclusion of reality
4. Depersonalization, loss of emotional vividness, motor-body disorientation, dissociative states, or extreme variability in self-image
5. Episodes of “brain blankness,” i.e., dreamlike fugue states and sleepwalking
6. Addiction to resonant-class narcotics [
new criterion
]
—Semiautonomous California Health Board,
Diagnostic Criteria for Mental Disorders
,
3rd (revised) edition
Chapter 1
Yours is not the only universe. There is another, where I was born. Your universe called to me, and I answered, ignorant of the harm crossing the bridge would cause.
—Victor Eastmore’s
Apology
Semiautonomous California
14 September 1990
Victor Eastmore waited in the Freshly Juice Shop’s customer queue, whispering a mantra to fight off brain blankness. Only three people waited in the queue ahead of him, a young woman with copper-colored hair and an elderly couple at the counter. Soon he would have his enhanced juice.
He dry-swallowed a dose of Personil. The timing of the juice and the pill had to be just right for him to arrive at his appointment in a calm but lucid state of mind.
Behind a counter that ran the length of the juice shop, stone fruits, berries, and citrus bathed in a chiller cabinet’s cool mists. Vegetables, still actively photosynthesizing, stewed in irrigation racks on the back wall.
Victor felt radiative pressure from the overhead lightstrips as a pleasurable tingling on his face. He tilted his head back. The side benefits of having a synesthetic brain that perceives one stimulus and translates it into another were few and far between, and he took what he could get.
The queue didn’t move. The friendliest Freshly worker, Ric, liked to chat with each customer. Victor usually took the extra time to study the more “normal” behavior of others
—
his condition enabled him to visualize people’s emotions as patterns of colors. When he observed Ric’s face, he saw electric blue filaments dancing on a rosy background, an indication of good humor overlaid by excitement. But today Victor’s attention wandered. Dr. Tammet had promised to run him through an extra challenging perception-focusing test today to prepare for his reclassification appointment in a couple months.
Victor appreciated the doctor’s help, but she’d been so ambitious lately and he felt that he wasn’t meeting her expectations. Today was likely to be frustrating. His stomach roiled. He silently formulated a mixture of juice and additives that could quiet a volcano. Adding to his unease, he’d had little sleep last night on account of his nightmares, though that was nothing new.
Victor searched through dozens of Freshly bioenhancer additives listed in the wall-mounted menu. If he factored in the benefits of freshness and the nutrient base of the ingredients, the optimum recipe combined leeks, cabbage, and celery, along with smaller portions of mandarin, apple, and persimmon and two doses of languor and equilibrium.
Victor rehearsed the ingredients’ names to himself while tapping each finger with his thumb two times
—two is the best
. He also tried to relax by humming, keeping the vibrations low, intermittent, and inaudible to anyone else.
The young woman waiting in front of Victor turned and looked him up and down. Her reddish-brown hair was gathered in a black synthleather band at her neckline. She crossed her arms and said, “Did you say something?”
Victor’s stomach tightened. He looked up at the menu. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see anxiety glistening around her eyes. Her hands moved to her sides and clenched, whiter than her pale skin. She might be readying an attack. All he wanted was his juice bulb and to be on time to see Dr. Tammet.
“You seem . . .” Her voice trailed off. Then she asked in a quiet hiss, “Are you a Broken Mirror?”
Victor kept his gaze on the menu and pretended not to hear her. Broken Mirror was a commonplace slur for people with mirror resonance syndrome. He’d been called it a thousand times since his diagnosis. Next to his nightmares, which left his sheets sweat-soaked every night, name-calling was nothing.
“Hello? I’m talking to you,” the young woman said.
Victor looked down at the woman’s red polo shirt. Faint stains marred the shirt’s coarse-grained fibers, and the collar splayed wide, revealing her freckled, sunburned neck.
“Are you snubbing me?” she asked.
He glanced into her narrowed hazel eyes.
A mistake.
Her anger arced into his brain, locking the breath in his lungs. Sounds from the shop faded, replaced by waves of hostile pressure. Her emotions had infected him. Victor wrenched his gaze back to the menu board. In a quiet, strained voice, he said, “I’m sorry. I’d rather not converse with you.”
Her face drew closer, reddening. “I won’t be shamed by you.”
People turned and stared. Everything in his field of vision undulated. The Personil wasn’t working.
He tried to say, “Of course not,” but his mouth wouldn’t move. His heart thundered in his ears.
“Why won’t you talk to me?” she demanded.
Ice formed in Victor’s throat. Why did she have to be so aggressive?
The woman pointed at him and looked around. “Where is the manager? I won’t be insulted!”
He wanted to gouge out her blue marble eyes. His fingers curled into claws. Victor mouthed Dr. Tammet’s calming refrain
. The wise owl listens before he asks, “Who?” The dark forest hides the loudest cuckoo.
He tried picturing the doctor’s bird sketches, but in his mind’s eye, the owl clutched the cuckoo and flapped away.
The young woman loomed closer, eyes wide. “What are you saying?”
One of the workers ducked underneath the counter, stood, and asked her what was wrong.
She proclaimed, “I deserve fair treatment—”
Blood pulsed in Victor’s ears, blotting out her voice. His consciousness slipped toward blankspace.
Shocks
—
not now, not here, not like this
.
Someone hissed Victor’s name. He looked around and saw Ric at the paybox, jerking his head toward the exit and mouthing, “Go!”
Victor turned toward the door reluctantly and ran.
“You need help!” the woman yelled at his back.
Outside, the sound of sirens filled Victor’s ears. People strolled along the sidewalks, some smiling, some preoccupied, none of them glanced around looking for fire engines or police vans. The sirens were only in his head.
Ric burst out of the juice shop, carrying a bulb of pink liquid.
“Sorry about that,” Ric said as he handed the drink to Victor.
Victor sucked the straw and drained half the juice bulb in panicked gulps. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Why
—
why was she so upset?”
“Who knows? Maybe she’s on stims. Or off her meds.”
Victor gritted his teeth. He squeezed the bulb, and pink juice spurted from the straw onto the ground.
“Or maybe she’s just wants free stuff,” Victor said.
“Maybe,” Ric agreed. He held up his hands. “Look, I’ve seen her come in before,” he said. “Most times she’s no problem. Other times she complains to get a free drink. Sucks you had to be her scapegoat today. Try to shake it off.”
Maybe she
was
off her medication. Victor had lost control of himself many times: at dinner with his parents, at work, and even by himself. Maybe the copper-haired woman had mirror resonance syndrome, too. Victor sucked the bulb until the last pulse of sweet, tangy liquid was gone. He needed every drop of calm it could provide.
“Thank you,” he said to Ric. “What did you put in it?”
“I doubled up the languor. I wasn’t sure what else you needed.” Ric wiped his hands down his silver synthsilk apron. “Vic, you’ve been a Class Three for a while, right?”
Victor nodded.
Longer than most. Hopefully for a long time to come.
“I thought so,” Ric said. “My brother’s a Class Two. He’s not doing great. I’m afraid they’re going to put him in a Class One facility soon.”
Victor wanted to hear more, but he kept his mouth shut. He didn’t want to be late.
Ric said, “Do you think someone you know could check on him? Your granfa, maybe.”
“Maybe he could,” Victor said.
The Eastmore family’s legacy had always overshadowed his own life. As descendants of both former slaves and slave-owning families, the Eastmores demonstrated the success of Reconstruction. Widespread intermarriage without regard for skin color led the masses to embrace nondiscrimination and equality at the end of the nineteenth century. Over several decades, the Eastmores amassed business interests as varied as energy and healthcare and brokered political favors to speed the Repartition of the United States into the nine nations of the American Union. Then Victor’s granfa, Jefferson Eastmore, cured cancer. After that, people routinely assumed the Eastmores could make miracles happen. Ric must believe that Victor enjoyed all the privileges that came with wealth and power, rather than being an embarrassment and a disappointment to his family.
Ric eyed Victor, looking him up and down. His lips were parted, moist.
Victor could tell when people thought he was attractive, as Ric obviously did. His toes gripped the insides of his shoes. The attention made him uncomfortable. He wondered what it was exactly that others saw when they looked at him, how some could fear him, some could crave him, and some could do both at the same time.
“I’ve got to go,” Victor said. “Thanks again.” He turned to leave, but Ric grabbed his arm.
“You think he’s okay out there on the ranchos? They’re real farms, right? Like summer camp?”
Victor pictured the new Class Two facility in Carmichael, a pleasant few acres of farmland on the outskirts of town. Surrounded by electrified fences and overshadowed by a concrete fortress on a nearby hill that held the catatonic Class Ones, the Class Two facility was most definitely
not
like summer camp.
Victor said, “It’s not so bad for Twos. He might not be reclassified for years.”