Chapter IV: Nina

I completed the Standards, yay. I think I was successful, can’t be long until I find out. The test was a blur, I barely remember what happened, I didn’t even notice that no one was home when I got back, I haven’t gotten a call or text from anyone in the family, I tried to reach out and got nothing. Its still early but they should be back by now. I’m scared to turn on the news. I don’t know what happened in Albany, I’m not sure I want to.

Nina emerged from her bedroom, she was pale and felt ill, a creeping sense of dread was filling her mind. She was breathing heavily; she checked every room again to make sure the apartment was truly empty. Her stomach grew tighter as she approached the television, the news would come on as soon as she touched the power button on the remote, the story would be breaking news. She touched the button; the television illuminated the dark room. The headline read, “Riots in Albany” with video footage of a pre-war building in flames. The footage was pushed to the corner as the news anchor took over the screen.

“For those of you just joining this Sunday morning, the so-called peaceful protests in Albany have taken a dark turn, riots began to occur last night after people’s representative Markus Keratin took to the steps of this building,” she gestured towards the image next to her on the screen of the burning building “urging protesters to go home around 9:00 P.M. telling them that he would consider their radical ideas. At this time representative Keratin was attacked by these vicious rioters whose intentions are now made clear. These people refer to themselves as the Color Guard, they only wish to sow death and destruction, just as their forefathers, a relic of a bygone era whose goals were just these things. Despite their spiteful past representative Keratin wished to come to terms peacefully, we now will show our faithful representative in the final moments of decency before an attempt on his life, viewer discretion is advised.

The screen switched to footage from the night before, with the sun setting behind him, people’s representative Markus Keratin took the stage. Keratin was an old put powerfully built man, his white hair was parted across his forehead and a short beard covered his sharp jawline. His face feinted kindness but his eyes shown with a gaze of hatred. On either side stood police covered in heavy tactical gear each holding a semi-automatic assault rifle. He stood over the steps between the columns of the building that would soon be burned. Below the steps thousands crowded the streets all wearing shades of vibrant colors, some with faces obscured by balaclava. Holding a microphone his commanding voice echoed in the recording throughout the streets.

“Fine people I urge you to go home,” Keratin said calmly, “your voices will be heard, I have talked your leaders and we may be able to come to a solution, but only if you stop. You have disturbed the peace, please go home, your ideas will be heard.” Abruptly someone from the protest shouted from the silence, “You haven’t talked to anyone, you won’t consider…” the audio and video of the recording cut out, when it returned their was screams of fear, the concrete column beside Keratin exploded as a bullet tore through it. Keratin was ushered inside as the police beside him lined up taking aim at the crowd. Nina knew what would happen next, it didn’t matter who took that shot they would all be punished. The footage however, stopped before that, and the news anchor returned to the screen.

“Following the attempt on his life Representative Keratin was escorted through this building which was then burned by these insane rioters in an attempt to capture him. Representative Keratin was escorted outside of Albany district before the violence escalated, he is safe back in the Capital district, he will make a statement about the events later today.”

Nina powered of the television throwing the remote across the room. She wanted to scream, in her mind a word echoed, dead. She tried calling them again, dad, nothing, mom nothing, Nick’s did not even ring, the line was disconnected. She wanted to throw the phone too but breaking it would eliminate any connection to them. She curled her legs to her body and rested her head on her knees.

She closed her eyes and began whispering to herself in an increasingly desperate voice, “Their alive, their alive, their alive…” which quickly deranged into, “This isn’t real, this isn’t real…” her nails dug through her stockings into her legs. She wouldn’t let herself cry, that would make it real.

She had no idea how long she sat like that; she wasn’t fully sure if she was conscious this whole time. Time itself felt meaningless and she began to convince herself that maybe none of this was real at all, just one long over the top nightmare born out of an excess outpouring of anxiety. A knock at the door pulled her out of her head, but only instilled more dread, her family would barge right in, they wouldn’t knock. The knock occurred again, this time a bit harder and louder. Nina got up, turning towards the door, the whole moment moved in molasses, every step took a minute, the journey to the door lasted an hour. Turning the knob, Nina opened the door, a man in police gear stood in the hallway, her heart stopped.

“Nina Palmer, I presume,” he stated flatly with no emotion.

She nodded trying to say yes, but her voice didn’t seem to exist.

The officer read from a script on a piece of paper, “Nina Palmer, student resident of the electrical district, your father Chester Palmer, mother Julia Palmer, and brother Nicolas Palmer have been found dead at the scene of the violent riots in Albany last night, given that you were not with them, we assume you condone their actions and will not punish you for their dissent. You will be removed from this familial unit and placed in a single once you receive your Standards results. We regret this unnecessary loss and offer our condolences however due to their criminal actions your family will not receive a funeral.”

Nina said nothing, the officer handed her the paper and walked away she read it over, it was exactly what had been said. She closed the door collapsed on the couch and cried.

* * *

Days past meaninglessly, the pain of loss consumed everything, Nina felt she had nothing left, the world was a cruel place that had killed her only attachment to it. Sleep seemed to be the only escape but every time she woke up the pain only became sharper. She had lost track of time but at some point, she received her Standards results, she would be moving to the Agricultural District to be trained as an agricultural engineer, an exciting prospect in another lifetime.

She would be leaving this place in a few days, she needed to collect the few belongings that she could not leave behind, she would have to go into her parents’ room. Entering the room turned out be a strange comfort despite the fact she had been dreading it, the bed was still disheveled as if her parents had just gotten out of it. The room transported her back to when she was small and sick and would sleep with her parents, comforted by their love.

She entered the closet where her parents kept the things that they weren’t supposed to have. It was harmless if any of it was found by the government at this point, they were already dead, but Nina grabbed what she knew was special.

First was her dad’s laptop, the one that he used to somehow connect to those forums that organized theses protests, she had never known how it worked, but didn’t want it to end up in the wrong hands. He also had a number of CDs which were technically useless without whatever they were supposed to go in, but she took those too.

Her mother had a collection of books that were banned Nina took the ones she liked, and a few that she had never read, disheartened she couldn’t take them all. She found a purple shirt that her father must’ve forgotten when he brought them to the protest, she felt though that maybe he had left it there on purpose. She filled her backpack with these belongings prepared now to leave the apartment behind.

* * *

Nina dropped her few possessions on the floor of her new apartment. The room was quaint, and everything existed in the same space except the bathroom which was behind a door next to the exit. The kitchen was small and featured the bare necessities along with a small table with two chairs. A television was mounted to the wall with a bed facing it between them a window that lit up the tiny space. Now more than ever Nina was hit with the overwhelming sense of loss and penetrating feelings of loneliness. The apartment of her family still had a small sense of comfort, signs of their presence filled the house, even if they were gone a sense of them existing was still there. Now she felt nothing, the apartment felt as empty and cold as she did.

A familiar feeling began to gnaw at her brain, a feeling that had always been subdued by feelings of guilt. She had never listened to this feeling; she didn’t want to make anyone feel the way she felt now. But standing in this apartment she realized there was no one to hurt, she could let that feeling take over let it take action, eliminate her pain without causing any, it would be perfect. It couldn’t be a coincidence that she was placed on the top floor. She moved towards the window and raised it open, looking down to the street below watching people on the sidewalk, off to work, off to school, off to wherever they were meant to go. She wondered how they would react if this mundane day were to be interrupted by something so gruesome, would they care? It would be a story to tell to their friends, subject of theory, questions to why, fearing the prospect so dearly it would be an unimaginable feat to perform. In the end it would be meaningless, just as the world felt. Life is as meaningless as death, so does it matter which space we choose to inhabit?

Nina knocked out the screen watching it fall to the street below it fell near someone who looked up and saw nothing but a screenless window on the top floor, and began muttering about faulty construction and continued his path to work. Nina watched as the man looked down and continued to walk down the street. She stuck her legs out and sat on the windowsill looking at her feet dangle towards the ground, one swift motion now was all it would take. She had made her peace apologizing to her parents in her mind for her weakness, telling them she would see them soon, or maybe she wouldn’t, at this point it really didn’t matter, the pain would be gone no matter what comes next.

Behind her at the door was a knock, she heard something slide under the door frame, for some reason, she couldn’t really explain why, she felt compelled to look behind her, curiosity saved her. Turing around she lost her balance, falling backwards to the hard floor onto her back. She turned her neck and saw a small yellow envelope that had slid through the dust on the hardwood floor. She turned over on her chest and reached for the envelope pulling it closer. In a messy scrawl with black ink was her name written in the center of the envelope. She tore the envelope open on a sheet of paper the following message was typed:

Nina Palmer,

The Color Guard would like to offer our condolences for your loss. Your father and mother’s devotion never wavered, we sincerely regret the loss of your brother, the death of young souls weighs heavy on our conscience. We now go back into the shadow, but we will not forget your family’s sacrifice, we will honor them somehow. If you want to reach out, you can find us in the shadow, we installed an input before you moved in, make sure to keep it out of sight when you aren’t home. In the shadow you can find the location of the mass grave where your family lies, we can offer transportation if you need it. Please know that your loss isn’t meaningless and many more mourn the loss of your family than just you, you are not alone, you only have to reach out. Light exists in the shadow; you only have to look.

In place of a signature was a light shining through a prism, breaking into the rainbow.

P.S. Burn this letter, there is a lighter in the envelope.

Nina looked into the envelope inside was a small silver box, the lighter, and a strange wire with a normal computer input on one end and strange box with a square hole with prongs on the inside on the other end. Nina had never seen anything like it, but assumed it had something to do with the input mentioned in the letter. The Shadow, she had never heard of something referred to in that way but had a theory as to what it was. She stood up, looking toward the open window, the feelings, and visions she had moments ago rushed back. She stood in limbo momentarily, but now she had a sense of purpose, a sense of… curiosity, there was meaning in that, she took a deep breath and slammed the window closed.

Now began a quest, a rather simple one, but supremely significant in the present context. She had to find the input spoke of in the letter, she assumed whatever it was would fit into this strange adapter. She scanned the room wondering where they would deem the best spot to put it, then noticed, there was a closet, the door was perpendicular to the bathroom and must have inhabited the space behind the shower. She opened the door, the closet was dark and narrow, a cylindrical bar was attached to the ceiling on the left side, shelves on the right.

In the beam of sunlight that fell into the closet she caught a plastic glint in the back. She fell to her knees and felt for it the dark, grabbed it and pulled. The wire appeared to be correct matching spaces for the prongs on the head lined the top, she pulled out the part from the letter and pushed them together, a satisfying click, success.

Scrambling to grab her father’s laptop out of the bag dropped at the entrance she powered it on and sat on the back wall of the closet. The computer booted up without fail and she plugged the familiar end into the laptop. An input box popped up asking for a pin, she swore. She could only think of one guess, if it were wrong, she figured her odds of ever accessing it were low. Birth years. 38-39-64-65. Wrong. She was missing two digits, but what were they? She racked her brain, it had to be significant, then she remembered, the person who inspired her father, the grandfather she never knew, but when was he born? The tens she thought, 2012, that seems right, she started typing again: 12-38-39-64-65. A wave of joyful relief overcame her. Success.

The page opened to a minimalist website that offered branching directions to various forums. Her father had bookmarked a few to the top but there were likely hundreds. What she saw at the top were four options, Color Guard, Electrical Engineering Guild, Protest Organization, and Maintenance. She noticed in the right hand corner it said “admin_32” she assumed it must represent a username. Her government accounts always had one, but it was always just your name followed by a number. She was “NinaPalmer642” the second Nina Palmer born in 2064 apparently. This username of her father’s was much more intriguing, it suggested that he had much more of a role in this online world then she previously thought. She moved the cursor to select the username, of course, it required a password. This time birthdays did not work, neither did the obvious names or combination of both. It was a waste of time, she suspected she shouldn’t have admin privileges anyway.

Navigating back to the main page she learned she could still browse the forums without a password to her father’s account. She selected the Color Guard forum. The page featured a post from “admin_13” that offered condolences to all that had lost loved ones in the recent attacks. The verbiage was similar to the letter Nina had received, she predicted they had likely written it. The post concluded expressing regret and calling to “…return to the shadow, for the light has burned us, it may be a great while before we recover from this wound. We have failed.”

She read through the comments left on the post some expressed sorrow, others anger calling for greater more violent action to be taken, an eye for an eye, some accused the admins of irresponsibility saying they knew it would be too dangerous. To her it was a strange dichotomy of condolences and accusations, however the pain behind each was clear. She felt connected in a strange way to these avatars of emotion, she could see more clearly that she wasn’t the only one suffering. At the same time, she felt even more distant from everything, these words on a screen simulated real emotion but lacked the face, the sound, their words were empty in a way because they were hidden behind a veil of ambiguity and anonymity.

She left the thread and scrolled to the next featured message: “Discovery of mass grave, location in post.” She clicked anxious of what she would find. In the post was the image showing a crude map that was cropped to the south western border of the SSNY. Below the border were the “unclaimed territories” as they were so unceremoniously dubbed. A red dot was made in the unclaimed territories just outside the border, based on the scale of the map Nina guessed it was about 10-15 miles from the official border. The dot was labeled “Graveyard,” in the post were detailed instructions about requesting safe transportation to and from the area to pay respects to love ones. Nina scanned the words but didn’t really process them she was wondering if she should try to get there.

She though maybe if she went there it would bring some finality to it all and she would truly be able to accept the horrible truth, and keep living. The letter had specifically mentioned getting to this place and she felt an indescribable urge to get to that red dot on the map. Making the journey seemed to her would be of great significance, she had a strange feeling that this was extremely important, essential. She now committed to reading the post made by admin_17:

In a recent journey across the border, member scout_23 noticed significant smoke in the upper east border region. In their most recent post, they detailed the events, but the important part was that a Color Guard member qwerty_15 was confirmed to be among the dead being burned. Had we not been forced back to this shadow we might have attempted to inform the public, scout_23 says that it is clear this isn’t the first time this site has been used and scout_44 corroborates this account. However, both agree this is likely the last, making the location less dangerous to travel to those less versed in illegal maneuvers.

Given many of you need the opportunity to give your loved ones a proper farewell into the great beyond, we are offering transportation to and from the site and will be making runs through the nights on weekends. Users scout_23 and scout_26 will be leading travel teams contact them to reserve your time. An update post will be made if anything changes, please make your decision in a timely fashion, we will not be making runs forever.

-admin_17

Nina knew she needed to get to that place, but she had no idea how to go about contacting some anonymous user, and also, she had no account in the first place. One problem at a time, she thought to herself. First, she needed her own veil to hind behind, she needed her own account. She couldn’t get into her father’s, besides she felt it’d be wrong to take over that account, she felt it should remain inactive. She was sure that their had to be a way to make her own.

Returning to the sign in page she searched for a way to make her own account, she hadn’t noticed before, beneath the sign in was the prompt to “Sign-in with another account,” she clicked that, on that page was the option to make her own. This lead her to a page with the header “Create Account,” beneath it were white text boxes with the subheadings, “Username,” “Password,” and “Confirm Password.” Nina had no idea what she should call herself, so far the usernames she had come across all seemed to have some reference to their responsibilities in the community. Nina figured since she had no idea she could express that as a user name, unknown, it was taken, she added a number, one to reference her father, unknown_32. The prompt for the password urged for something unique but memorable, Nina typed (CP38-JP39-NP64-NP65) hoping that she would remember, initials, birthday, dash, in parenthesis. She retyped the password and hit the button on the bottom of the page “Create Account.”

Returning to the home page it had appeared nothing changed, the only difference was the top right corner now said “unknown_32.” She navigated to a link that said “Search for Users,” she clicked that but realized she had forgotten the name to contact.

She returned to the post with the map and checked the user to contact, repeating it in her head as she returned to the page. Searching for user scout_23 gave one result and an option to view profile or message. She viewed the profile of scout_23 on the page was their post history, with many maps and locations spotting to points of interest outside the state borders. Some seemed to mark landmarks that preserved the history of the pre-war world, others offered views of the surrounding landscape, some were drop points and meet-up locations for the Color Guard and other guilds, many were facilities built by the state that seemed to house various activities being hidden from the public. Just from these posts Nina could see that the so-called “unclaimed regions” were very much the opposite as people laid claim to much of this what was said to be wild space between New York and Philadelphia.

She returned to the search selecting to message scout_23 she stared blankly at the message box unsure what write, toiling with wording in her head she figured it would be best to just write it:

scout_23

Hello, I heard that you were providing passage to the bodies of the recent massacre. I was hoping to make the journey to honor my family who were killed in Albany, I’m ready to go as soon as I can. I’m new to the shadow but from what I gathered my father was admin_32 if that means anything to you.

Thank you for your help in advance, I really hope we can make this happen.

unknown_32

Nina clicked send, she had no idea how long it would take to get a reply. Setting the laptop on the ground she stared at the screen, a part of her hoped she would get a message back instantly, but realistically she knew that was improbable.

She stood up and stretched her back that was sore from the fall earlier. That whole ordeal felt strangely unreal, however tinge in her spine reminded her sharply of what had happened. Facing the laptop screen towards the open closet door she left the closet picking up the letter on the floor reading the words again Burn this letter, she felt apprehensive to take that action, this letter had a great significance to the recent course of her life and had fundamentally altered her. She felt that burning it would undo all the actions that it had brought, and she would return to the windowsill.

Picking the lighter up she toyed with it in her hands flipping it open she ignited the flame. Watching the blue-orange flame dance she questioned if she should bring it to the paper, ignite it, and watch it disappear. She knew this was what was supposed to happen, no one was supposed to see this letter, except her. She closed the lighter she couldn’t bear to burn it. She pulled out her journal from the discarded bag still on the floor near the entrance to her small room. Opening to the next page she put the paper inside the book, using the stapler she found on small desk that sat at the foot of the bed she joined the letter with the page of her journal. Beneath it in small tidy handing writing she wrote:

This stupid letter pulled me of the edge. Thank you, mysterious deliverer, for the timely package. Now begins my important journey.