Two Lines Running Parallel

The memorial service is held in a neat function room inside Hugo’s apartment building. Hugo doesn’t engage with the visitors before the event begins. Even as Lily stands up the front, delivering a eulogy, he barely comprehends what she says.

A great brother. A driven young man with his whole life in front of him. Other words of the same generic capacity.

Wedged in the front row and holding his arms tightly in front of him, Hugo zones out. He doesn’t pay enough attention to know whether or not he knows the people on either side.

There’s an empty void in his chest. For the past few days, he’s experienced flashbacks of the induction ceremony – the cyborg, the black hovercraft exploding above them, his brother’s lifeless eyes.

The service ends without Hugo delivering a eulogy. Upon being asked by Lily days ago, he’d mumbled vague plans to think about it, and immediately left for his room. He never got back to her about it.

Through the service, Lily plays the part of the strong, grieving mother well. She smiles bittersweetly while greeting guests, accepting their condolences and thanking them for coming. It displeases Hugo; he knows she’s putting on a front.

As the visitors leave, Hugo drifts to the wall and stands alone. Some walk by him, offering promises to listen if he needs someone to talk to. Many are Council members and government officials. Hugo only responds in small, polite nods. Sending them on their way.

The last two guests hang back behind the others. They walk up to him, trapping him against the wall and preventing his escape. It seems like they don’t realize.

The man addresses him first. “Your brother was a great person, Hugo. You should be proud.”

Hugo nods. What would he know?

“I knew him from work. We were in the same squadron.”

Hugo nods again, wishing they’d leave so he could too.

“He had a vision for the future and I wish he could be here to see it. When that day comes.”

The man’s words prompt Hugo to look at him more closely. He was the official Eugene talked to at the induction ceremony – about Eugene’s age, but slimmer and with a softer face. His flat, brown hair is just longer than Noah’s. It isn’t parted in the middle, but rather swept into a left fringe and tucked behind his ear.

“Vision?” Hugo replies in curiosity. The brother he knew was quite content with his life. Without a vision for himself or New Kansai. Unlike their mother.

“Yes,” Eugene’s colleague says, choosing his words carefully. “He joined to protect you and your mother, after all.”

So that was why Eugene joined the military. Hugo always thought it was because he had nothing else he wanted to do. Eugene had always dismissed the question, replying he simply wanted the perks that come with being in the defense force. Being in a society without any internal or external conflict, those perks usually came without ever seeing any form of combat, so it was a great offer.

“I’m Casey.” The man thrusts out his hand. “Eugene spoke a lot about you.”

Hugo can’t remember ever hearing about a Casey. Or anyone from Eugene’s squadron, for that matter. The thought lowers Hugo’s perceived importance of Casey in his brother’s life. He zones out again, shaking Casey’s hand and giving a monotonous reply. “Thanks for coming.”

“Hugo.” A familiar voice registers in Hugo’s ears. It’s one he hasn’t heard in a long time. “Remember me?”

The petite girl standing next to Casey leans towards Hugo, folding her arms. Her hair is the same brown color as Casey’s. It falls over her shoulders, with bangs framing her face and a large black bow on the back of her head.

“Emily.” Hugo does remember her.

“It’s been a while,” she says.

He’d lived in an ecovillage far outside the Capital, moving away a bit more than ten years ago. Over the course of a year, their friendship drifted.

“Why are you here in the Capital?” Hugo asks. He’s sure she’d still live in the ecovillage – she loved nature a lot more than he ever did, all those years ago.

“Well, I’m here as part of the cleanup efforts.” She hesitates, before admitting, “After Casey managed to convince me it was safe.”

“Emily…” Casey sighs in shame, and Hugo can’t tell whether or not it’s sarcasm. “Can you believe she’s also in the military?”

Emily smirks at Hugo and elbows Casey in the side. “Isn’t it embarrassing that I’m the same rank as someone four years older than me?”

Casey falls for her taunt, laughing lightheartedly. He grabs her head – sitting just beneath his shoulders – and gives it a firm shake. “Untrue. I’m a commander now.”

Hugo knows the reason for his recent promotion. The attack on the Capital caused a lot of lives to be lost, particularly in the military. “Well-deserved, I presume,” he says, completely deadpan.

It makes Casey and Emily catch themselves, realizing they’ve gone too far.

Casey looks for the door. “Right, well, it’s nice to meet you. Emily, let’s go.”

“Bye, Hugo.” Emily bows, with a noticeable touch of pity. She follows Casey, greeting Lily briefly as they exist.

Hugo relaxes his shoulders. The guests are finally gone, and he’s free to lock himself in his room at last.

* * *

Hugo must have been holding his breath; he wakes, sweating and gasping for air. His throat is parched. Without checking his watch, he knows it must be the early hours of the morning.

Until he woke up, he was at the induction ceremony. Eugene’s blood wouldn’t stop pooling. It swallowed Hugo entirely, suffocating him. The whole time, Eugene was still alive, gazing up at him and choking as they drowned together.

Pushing the thought out of his mind, he tries to shut his eyes again. It becomes clear he won’t be sleeping for a while. Not after he’s become so worked up.

He mutters a soft, “Lamp, on,” and rolls out of bed. As his feet touch the cold, wooden floor, a glow emanates from the lamp on his bedside table. He walks to the door and opens it softly, so as to not wake Lily a room over. But as he takes steps into the hallway, he hears a sniffle from the living room.

A singular pendant light dimly illuminates the kitchen table. Underneath it is Lily, cupping her hands around a mug of what Hugo assumes is tea. It reminds him of Simon, threatening Hugo while sipping tea of his own. But the instant Lily looks up and notices Hugo, he brushes the thought aside.

With a pajama sleeve, Lily wipes her swollen eyes in a single swipe. “Hugo.”

Hugo walks to the kitchen sink. As he gets close, blue lights from the kettle turn on. “What are you doing up?”

“Can’t sleep. I heard you…” Lily trails off, choking up.

Hugo freezes, midway through filling a cup with cold water from the sink. So Hugo did make noises in his sleep, after all.

“You should schedule in to see a psychologist,” Lily suggests. “You know they’re free–”

“I’m fine.” Hugo cuts her off. He approaches the table and sits down across from her. “Does the Council know any more?”

“Not really. Only what the public knows.” Lily sighs. “Pretty much.”

New Kansai’s defense systems had been taken down somehow. The military’s comms, sensors, and anti-aircraft missile and laser systems were held offline. By the time the military managed to regain control, the Capital already had been bombed and Noah was taken.

Hugo suspects it was New Kansai’s defense anti-aircraft laser that shot the attacking aircraft out of the sky – the aircraft that exploded and showered him and Eugene in metal.

“‘Pretty much’?” Hugo questions.

“Well… We’ve found some of the people involved, but they’re not saying much.”

So insiders were involved in the incident, after all. Hugo recalls Simon dragging Noah towards the cyborg from the black hovercraft.

“Tech employees?”

Lily sits upright in surprise. “How did you know?”

Hugo hesitates. If he tells the Council about Simon’s involvement, Simon could get back at him. But he tells Lily anyway – in detail – about the cyborg, the robots, and the black hovercraft.

Lily takes it all in, sipping from her mug while listening. As he finishes, she places her mug down. “Thank you for telling me, Hugo. A cyborg…” She trails off.

They sit in silence for a minute, staring at their drinks in front of them. Hugo knows Lily has never seen a cyborg before. At least, not one that hasn’t passed as human. She must be trying to wrap her mind around the thought.

Lily breaks the silence. “I think I should let you know – Eugene was cremated a couple of days ago.”

Hugo looks at her in disbelief. It takes him a second to know what to feel. Then, the outrage hits hard. “Why didn’t you tell me this?”

“I wanted it done as quickly as possible,” she replies, avoiding his glare. “I’m sorry.”

The feeling of loss in Hugo’s chest intensifies. It’s a dull ache, making it hard for him to sit upright. He never got the chance to say goodbye to Eugene. Even if it was just his lifeless body.

The New Kansai military arrived soon after Eugene passed away. Hugo made it difficult for them to take Eugene’s body. But as they were separated, Hugo silently promised Eugene he would say goodbye properly soon.

In the end, the chance never came.

Hugo abruptly pushes his chair out and storms off for his room.

“You didn’t give a eulogy for Eugene today.” Lily’s words cause Hugo to stop in his tracks. It’s a subtle, but pointed, attack.

“What did you say?” Hugo’s words are thick with venom.

Lily realizes she shouldn’t have said anything and clamps her mouth shut.

“Did I make you look bad by refusing to talk about him in front of your random colleagues?”

“No, that’s not what I–”

“Most of those people didn’t even know him. They don’t care!” As he says it, Hugo’s reminded of his encounter with Casey. He seemed to know a bit about Eugene.

But Lily doesn’t know this. “Hugo, I–”

“And you only care about your position. Your son just died and you’re willing to use it as an opportunity to gain corporate sympathy!”

Lily recoils at Hugo’s words. “That’s not true,” she argues. “The future of our society is important, too.”

Hugo pointedly rolls his eyes at her, then takes large steps to the door. Not the door to his room, but to their apartment. He turns to face Lily. “Maybe if you didn’t run and hide, he’d still be alive.”

Hugo doesn’t hear her reply. Despite the fact it’s still dark outside, he’s already halfway to the elevators. Halfway away from her.

* * *

That morning, Hugo catches the earliest possible train to the old world. It was almost 6 o’clock when he left the apartment – later than he thought – so he didn’t wait long in the station.

The sun rises during the journey. It glistens off metal roofs and solar panels, damp from the morning dew.

Hugo’s one of the few people who board the train. He gets a carriage to himself; not many people come out to the farms and ecovillages this early in the day. The trains usually pick up a lot more people traveling for work back into the Capital.

The train passes the ecovillage with the outside tables. Only the robots work away among the gardens and nature surrounding them.

The sight makes Hugo feel strangely lonely. Even lonelier than when he’s surrounded by the depressing, concrete buildings at his destination.

After he arrives, he walks for an hour, without a map for guidance. He hopes the weathered street signs will guide him back later, but he’ll deal with that when the time comes. He keeps his eyes peeled for any movement in the abandoned streets. Any signs of life.

At last, he catches a glimpse of something, quickly disappearing behind a building. He runs to chase it, but finds himself standing several meters from a deer.

He never finds the cyborg with a silver arm. Even when he walks along the bottom of the elevated highway, there are no signs of any such person.

So Hugo climbs to the rooftop of the highest building he can find and sits at the edge, his legs dangling over. As he gazes over the concrete labyrinth, Noah enters his mind.

Not all the attacking forces managed to escape that day. After the military regained control of their systems and began to fight back, some of the enemy aircraft got shot out of the sky. Others disappeared off the radar, scattering to uninhabited locations around New Kansai.

For all Hugo knows, Noah’s aircraft is hiding in the suburbia around him. Hugo just hopes it wasn’t one of the aircraft shot out of the sky. But, thankfully, the military’s transparent to the public about this sort of thing. Neither Noah nor Simon have been marked as captured yet. Or found dead in any crash sites.

Hugo’s eyes begin to well up and he relaxes his face, letting the tears sit there for a moment. He knows there mightn’t have been anything he could have done, but he wishes he could have saved Noah.

He wants someone he can talk to. Someone he trusts.

Through his obscured vision, Hugo thinks he sees a movement on top of one of the structures in front of him. It looks blonde – the color of Noah’s bleached hair. But as soon as Hugo blinks the tears away, it’s gone.

He just made it up.

Hugo clenches his hands, fingernails digging into his palms, and he gets choked up. Of course his own eyes would play tricks on him. He breathes in and out, calming himself down.

He should have spent more time with Noah the days before the event. He should have reached out more to check if he was okay.

And he should have done the same with Eugene. Found out about him. The more Hugo thinks about it, the more he realizes it and the guiltier he feels – he doesn’t know anything about Eugene. His hopes and his dreams, they’re all blank spaces in Hugo’s mind.

But Casey knows.

The sun peaks above one of the buildings, its orange rays catching Hugo in the eyes. He shields them out of reflex, but the shock gets a thought ticking over in his head somehow.

He’ll find out more about his brother. He’ll find Noah. And he’s prepared to do whatever it takes.

* * *

Days ago, their hovercraft landed in the old world. The cyborg – who later introduced himself as Aiden – threw one of the humanoid robots against the wall of the carrier when he discovered the military had regained control over their defense systems.

They flew low enough to be undetected by the military’s sensors, managing to land in an abandoned distribution warehouse in the middle of the concrete city.

The borders of New Kansai are heavily protected, as Aiden told Simon. They won’t be able to make it past them, even if they flew close to the ground.

But Noah knows it’s only a matter of time before they’re found; the military are likely searching for stray enemy aircraft. Aiden has perimeter sensors set up several blocks around the warehouse, though it won’t give them anything but time.

The interference caused by New Kansai radio waves makes connection with the outside world almost impossible. So they’re waiting to gain contact, one way or another.

For the past few days, Noah has kept to himself, observing the robots work on the hovercraft. All while digesting the events of the induction ceremony.

Now, sitting on the ground in the corner, Noah watches Simon, pacing along one of the aisles of the warehouse. It’s very like Simon; he always has to be doing something. Always has to have a purpose. But Noah can tell the whole situation is weighing on him.

Simon pauses abruptly, before walking around the end of the aisle. He strides towards the black hovercraft, resting proudly in the middle of the warehouse.

Through the gaps in the warehouse shelves, Noah sees Aiden, leaning with his back on the hovercraft and fiddles with his mechanical arm, probably making fine adjustments to it. Aiden looks up as Simon approaches. He steps forward from the hovercraft, ready for trouble.

“This wasn’t part of the deal,” Simon challenges.

It’s the first time Noah’s hearing about any kind of ‘deal’. But it doesn’t surprise him – his father’s responses to this whole situation don’t make this seem like a typical abduction.

Aiden holds his ground, crossing his arms. “You want control. We’re in the process of getting it.” His voice is deep, but smooth. The kind you’d love to listen to for hours on end.

“Bombing isn’t what we discussed,” Simon replies. “It was meant to be completely political.”

Aiden shrugs, uninterested. “I don’t make the plans. Take your complaints elsewhere.”

“If you could contact your higher ups, I would. Do you have any idea what kind of position this situation puts me in here? To still be in New Kansai right now?”

Aiden turns away and stretches his neck to the side, layers of black metal sliding over one another for him to do so. “Don’t care.”

Simon huffs and begins marching to the door of the warehouse. “Well then, if you’re not going to be of any help, we’ll leave.” He looks at Noah, who shies away at his glance. “Come, Noah.”

In a split second, Aiden jumps to Simon’s side, his bulky gun pointed directly at the side of Simon’s head. Simon instantly freezes.

“No.” Aiden’s voice sends chills down Noah’s spine. “I’m tasked with transporting you and your son. I’ve no intention to let you go.”

Simon composes himself, throws a dirty look at Aiden, and storms off in the opposite direction, grumbling. Noah’s never seen his father this impulsive before.

A quiet alarm blares from the cockpit of the hovercraft, catching their attention.

Simon whirls around to face Aiden. “What does that mean?” he demands.

Aiden walks briskly to the side of the cockpit. Its front-facing door opens. He swings his legs over and sits inside. His legs are made of that black metal too. Or encased within it.

After a moment, Aiden replies: “False alarm from the perimeter. Black hair, young male, civilian.”

Noah tenses. Despite the vague description, he knows exactly who it may be. A rush of hope fills him with adrenaline. He stands quietly and makes his way for a staircase, obscured from Aiden and Simon’s view. As he walks up, he glances through the shelves to make sure he’s not seen.

Simon grabs his head with a hand in uncertainty. Aiden smirks at the hovercraft’s control panel. They exchange a few words, but Noah can only make out the calm tones of their voices.

It seems like Noah has a chance.

He exits to the rooftop, ensuring the door doesn’t slam behind him. He looks around and spots a boy with black hair, sitting on the edge of a rooftop a block in front of him.

Then, Noah’s kicking the ground behind him, building up enough speed to jump over to the next rooftop. The gap closes and he prepares to make the jump.

Just before the jump, he feels a force in the middle of the shoulder blades. He’s kicked to the ground, curling up with his arms and legs out so he doesn’t roll off the rooftop. Before he can make sense of what just happened, cold metal hands clamp around Noah’s throat. He’s pinned to the ground.

Inches from his face, Casey stares into his eyes. Up close, Noah can see he has microchips in his irises. A strand of his hair falls towards Noah’s face nonchalantly as he speaks:

“And where are you going, champ?”