Differing States

Okay...

Come on.

My success was riding on this moment.

...

Finger wiggle, go!

...

To nobody's surprise, least of all mine, nothing happened. It was just a grown woman wiggling her fingers as if it would accomplish anything.

I look ridiculous.

Unable to wallow in my shame for very long, the door opened again. I was startled, stowing my hand back under the bedsheets, somehow believing I had a reputation to uphold. Anya appeared confused at first, her eyebrows furrowing, but then realisation hit her.

"Well, that's one way of trying it. You should have told me if you wanted to know how to activate your Pulse."

I had been trying for the past... however long it had been to get my Pulse to appear. I scoured my memory for possibilities, recalling every book I'd ever read and every science-fiction television show or fantasy film I'd ever seen. Every trick I could think of came to mind. Yes, even the dancing. If you could call what I did 'dancing' at all. I'd never been so relieved that nobody could see me through the window at this height. One of the few occasions when my face and hair were the same shade.

I didn't leave the bed when I danced though, maybe it only counts if I'm standing up?

"I think it'd save us both a lot of time if I told you how to do it."

"No, I-"

No? Did I really just say that?

An unexplainable feeling was developing inside me. As if I were determined to achieve it on my own. Not because I wanted to, necessarily. But because I felt like I owed it to the person that saved me to make use of their memento.

"You're going to be here for a while at this rate. I'd gladly be patient with you, but the komandirsha isn't so forgiving. Let me give you some hints.

Focus. Visualise. Accept."

No harm in trying it, I suppose.

Fluttering my eyelids closed once again, I attempted to imagine the form my Pulse might take. I cleared my thoughts and searched the crevices of my mind for anything that I could use. Shattered fragments of memories and dreams drifted in and out.

The girl in black. Her void expression. The universe she held in her hands and its rainbow-like outer edge. I tried again to touch it, but even when I forced my imagination to cooperate, what I touched was nothing more than a flat image, a fake.

The person that saved me. Their fight against the darkness, in the final moments, before I faded away and woke up here. There was something there. Something I remember seeing. A blue illumination that repelled everything around it. And... a sensation trickling from my fingertips.

I could feel it now. A tingle. I searched deeper, harder, but something was stopping me. I was stopping me.

I opened my eyes to see if anything I had envisioned was happening outside of my mind.

The lights had cut.

Anya was standing to the side of me, clutching the bed rails.

"Are you alright, Beryl? Don't push yourself. You've only had your RepliCor for a short while. I'll tell the Captain that you need more time."

It had vanished.

My head sank. Anya patted my hair to console me. Hearing the door, we were both stunned to attention, expecting it to be Captain Minamoto.

"Captain got another newbie working on their Pulse, huh?"

A man was leaning against the doorframe. I couldn't make out much of him, the room now dim due to it only being illuminated by the rising sun, but his wily grin, and sharp features were clear as day, and the cat-like sheen in his eyes was unsubdued. Anya stands between me and the door, becoming a sort of shield.

"No visitors, Berrak. Everyone knows that."

"Right, right. Just came to deliver a message from the Captain. Said they're doing work on the power. Not herself, of course."

He gestures to the ceiling lamps.

"Looks like you've seen it firsthand though. Guess I'll be on my way then."

"I'm surprised she didn't come to deliver that message herself. She seemed pretty eager to move things forward."

"Yeah, think I just got shafted with the errand since I wasn't doing anything else. Just my luck. Anyway, see you 'round. And..."

His pupils swivel across to me, without even moving his head. It was the sensation of being targeted, but there was no ill-intent to be picked up from it. I'd been recognised as harmless.

"We'll be properly introduced soon. Don't worry if you can't get your Pulse. I've got a spare one of these on hand just in case."

He tapped his waist and I acknowledged the holster fastened to his belt, the first thing beyond his features that had drawn my attention.

Was that a... gun?

By the time I'd processed that information, he was gone.

The group that Minamoto had called Anahata. People with abnormal abilities granted to them by their artificial hearts. Led by a captain. And openly carry weapons...

I didn't want to linger on the consequences of what I'd decided. Every job or responsibility I'd attempted and failed to take on in the past was no different from this. A step out into the world, leaving behind the status quo and the comfort I knew before. The only difference was that this time, I had nowhere to turn back to if it all became too much for me. I had no choice but to face every new revelation, no matter how terrifying or how much it changed me.

But it still scared me.

Releasing some tension, Anya returned to my bedside.

"It's not necessary, but a lot of Anahata members find it easier to name their Pulse. Mine was actually named by someone else at first but... 'Probe' wasn't the most flattering choice. Even if I can't deny its accuracy...

So I've changed it to 'Oracle' since then. It's still early to mull over a name when you haven't seen your Pulse yet, but I think knowing that you can give it a name might help. Like when you're getting a new pet."

What kind of pets did Anya have as a kid?

"If you're fit enough to wiggle your fingers around and jive your arms, then it might be good for you to stand up. You've been bedridden for hours, your body will need to adjust to moving around again."

"Mhm, I think I can manage-"

Jive my arms...? Did she...

I surveyed the room. And there it was. A security camera in the top corner. My hair leant its colour to my cheeks again.

"Hm, is something the matter?"

I envisioned Anya sitting in a security room, slurping from a cup of instant noodles and laughing her head off at my antics.

"Uh... nothing..."

If I'm ever here alone again, I'm checking every inch of this place before I even consider doing anything like that.

"If you're ready, try standing up. Take it as slowly as you need, we don't want you to injure yourself."

I shuffled to the edge of the bed, clawing the mattress as if I were hanging over the edge of a mountain. The fall was far shorter: a momentary, unceremonial tap of naked feet on the hospital floor. I reached out to Anya to balance myself.

Even though my approach was slow, Anya flinched, and she darted backwards. A sharp exhale grazed me as her pupils pierced through my hand, her eye sockets bulging and twitching. Beads of sweat formed on her forehead. It was the first time I saw her drop the dependable attitude she'd shown me.

Knowing her for less than a day, she had done everything in her power to hide her weaknesses from me so that I would feel safe, and I had fallen under her spell. Until that point, I could perceive nothing, aside from perhaps the command of Captain Minamoto herself, that could break her welcoming spirit, her affable and calming presence. My hand, lingering metres away, was a danger more threatening I could have imagined. When she had placed it so close to her chest earlier, my own tension had masked how powerless she was making herself, and how much she was grappling to maintain control.

The Anya I saw before me during that moment was not the same as the rudimentary, simplistic image I had cobbled together. An image drawn from the short period I had shared with her in this room, the room where I'd wanted everything I saw within it to be fresh and empathetic, because outside this room existed an expanse of terrifying nothingness that I suppressed whenever someone entered through that door. I wanted to stay in this limbo forever.

But I was only fooling myself.

The vulnerability she had shown me was temporary, she instantly realised and awoke herself from her stupor. She didn't want my image of her to be broken, either.

"Sorry, Beryl, I..."

She remained withdrawn from my touch, and I gave her the space to readapt.

"I... don't like to be touched. It's quite silly really, don't you think?"

She retreated to a chuckle to clear the air, but I noticed her grip her arm tight against her body, closing herself off from some unknown, distant threat.

"Do you suppose you'd be able to move around on your own?"

Coming to terms with her words, Anya brushed her brow.

"Ha... It really is a joke that I'm a doctor. I can't even manage something this simple."

But I nodded.

"I can."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure. If I can't manage this much, then I'm not going to be of much use to the Captain, am I?"

I wasn't sure what to think about me already considering my use to Minamoto. It was a pleasantry more than anything, but every moment I couldn't help but self-analyse. Her proposition, however fatalistic, and my agreement, however conscience-stricken, had already laid the groundwork for what I was starting to consider a contract. I had no choice but to give up what I'd labelled as my safe haven. There was nowhere else to turn.

As she gave me pointers on how to reacclimate to my weakened legs, Anya started speaking to the floor, her glasses slipping from her nose. But I knew she wanted to share her lamentations with me, instead. Her tone was weak and paltry.

"When it comes down to it, I'm being hypocritical. Being so comfortable with touching others despite not liking it myself. But I saw it as a way of taking control. Having the freedom to trespass on the personal space of others, exploring them against their will, felt like a sort of... vengeance against those that did the same to me. As if it would mean anything. All of the random patients who I've worked on won't have any knowledge of this farcical conflict I have inside myself."

I could see her Pulse manifesting again. There was nothing to suggest it was done intentionally. This time, its previously lively and exquisite green was dull, and the tendrils were flaccid and lifeless. Yet they continued to coerce themselves to move, motivated by an invisible obligation. Any awe I had for it before was being overwritten by what I was seeing.

"Maybe all I wanted was to know how it felt, why they were so willing to do it to me... Some kind of sick role reversal of the nightmare from my past. Yet here I am, still scared stiff by the touch of another person."

To Anya, she had already passed the point of no return. I had peeked through the cracks, so she saw it fit to pull back the curtain. Repeating her own perceived wrongdoings to herself seemed to act as a type of therapy. Explaining them put her at ease, which made it easier to avoid them. But I couldn't criticise her. I was running away, too. It's why I understood.

Again, I replied to her with silence. I had nothing to say.

After all, I'd only met this woman today. I hardly knew her.

---

We weren't prepared for Minamoto's actual return. When she did, Anya had crossed her legs and taken vigil from a swivel chair, watching me as I was pacing up and down the floor, and from my projected third-person view I probably looked like a toddler learning to walk, with Anya playing the part of the embarrassed but concerned mother.

Averting her gaze from the display taking place before her, Minamoto took to the trademark motion of pulling her cap brim down.

"Things seem to be... progressing."

You could call it that.

She approached Anya with a steely gaze.

"How is her Pulse?"

"We haven't been able to see it yet. She needs a bit more time."

"A commodity we don't have a surplus of, Anya."

"It's a delicate process, Captain. Not everyone adapted to it as quickly as yourself."

A scowl forms into a blink as Minamoto pivots on the spot, her back to Anya. Even her eyelashes emanated a chill into my soul.

"I'll accept her into the team for now then. But she'll have to look after herself. Keep herself alive. If she doesn't, she's a liability to us and to herself. Make sure she remembers that."

Hiding not far behind in Minamoto's shadow was another figure. A man with well-combed yet still stubbornly wavy hair had set his hand on his chest, edging into a bow. His insistent politeness took me by surprise.

"Captain Minamoto, Miss Yahontov, if I may..."

Minamoto acknowledged him once he had spoken, but only facing him halfway. Her stance overpowered him to the point where it made me wonder if he was bowing out of trepidation more than respect.

"Go ahead, Uriel"

"Madam Sharpe has an urgent request for you."

"Urgent, you say?"

"Yes, she has stressed this fact to me repeatedly."

"I suppose there's no way around it. Come on Anya. You too, Beryl. Might as well introduce you to the Madam if you're still not in a fit state for action. Think of it as an impromptu tour. We won't be making many stops, though."

I pondered for a moment. Was there somebody on the island with a higher jurisdiction than Captain Minamoto? I could hardly fathom someone more intimidating than her. Someone that could summon her on a whim.

And I was on my way to see her.