“This doesn't make any sense,” Decon said.
Seth ignored him. She was watching the countryside slowly conquer the city. She was enjoying it immensely. And this was a four-hour train ride. If she paid attention to Decon, she was going to burn him down.
Decon leaned over the little table, putting his face in his hands. For a long moment, he was silent. A tall pile of rocks blocked the sky, and the city and its industry finally lost.
“Do you like the country?”
She glanced back; Decon was looking up, eyes just poking over the horizon of his interwoven fingers. She went back to looking out the window. “Decon, this isn't the country. The country doesn't have so many cell phone towers and telephone poles or so much corn.”
“If it's not paved, it's country to me. This is farthest I've ever been from the city.”
She glanced back again. He was still watching. He was so... friendly? Harmless. No – nice. He was a nice person. Not even fake-nice, a trait she mostly associated with older people, but nice-nice. Never mind technokinesis, it was his special talent that he could stare at you like that when you weren't looking and it didn't feel creepy at all. He was just genuinely interested in you, like, as a human.
“Why not watch it get further, then?” she asked.
“Because I'm slightly concerned about the murderer we're going to see?”
She blinked, took a quiet breath and reluctantly redirected her attention. “It’s not certainly murder.”
“It’s certainly a bunch of dead people. Specifically, his old team. Of kids. Like us.”
“Nobody knows what exactly happened.”
“Because everyone who was there – but him – is dead. Of Murder.”
“Allegedly – they’re dead, I mean, but you know, extenuating circumstances could apply to the intent.”
Decon, she had already learned, got this way of looking at her, a combination of pitiable and remonstrating, when he was about to accuse her of using words too fancy for him, which was really just a way of telling her that he knew when she was being weasel-y but was too kind or polite to accuse her of it, and if she had to look at it for one more second – or if he actually said anything – she really was going to burn him down.
“He's a potato, Decon,” she said, pulled the file out from under his elbows. She opened it for the thousandth time, looking at a few dozen dated lines, all filled with the same information. “Alleged or not. A potato.”
“He's awfully mysteriously violent for a potato.”
“He hasn't put anyone through a wall since 1985.”
“He hasn't visibly aged since the 1970s.”
She glanced up at him, then back down at the paper. “I think they got a stamp – these entries after 1990 are suspiciously similar and a little misaligned.”
“He's the reason for half the laws on Islanders.”
She looked at him. His concern was both very palpable, and very reasonable. She wanted to reassure him that even if he didn't particularly believe in the strength of his own abilities, she thought her ability to set things on fire with a thought would be ample protection, but now she knew he would just be horrified at the notion she'd use it directly against people. Maybe she was horrified a little, too. Maybe she would need to get used to that, though. There were elements of what they were doing that were still up for debate. And, again, his concern was still very reasonable.
On principle, she was against any rating system for Islander abilities; they commodified people, delegitimized those whose un-asked-for abilities only caused them to suffer, and dehumanized the vast majority whose abilities came at the expense of extensive birth defects. Yet, in terms of their goals (still being determined), she couldn't help a little rating. Her ability, it wasn't unreasonable to say, combined with her good health, made her a formidable force.
Firmament's ability – in his prime, or, pre-vegetable status – was mass destruction. He wasn't allowed on planes. Or in several states.
But that was the '70s, and this was now.
More importantly, to do what she – they – wanted to do now, Mr. Tenor had made Firmament a prerequisite.
“He's a potato.”
Decon sighed heavily and looked out the window. Seth wasn't dumb enough to think he was giving up, though.
“There's just so much we don't know.”
“Which is why we're visiting.”
“Yeah, so what happens when he visits us? He hasn't left that facility in decades. God only knows what change could do to him – much less, change and the company of several other young Islanders who, by the way, are replicating,” she glared at him, “–in situation if not in intent,” he corrected, easing her glare, “the situation that made him a potato in the first place. And isn't it kind of rude to call him a potato?”
There were elements of what they were doing that were still up for debate, but in core principles and ideas she and Decon absolutely agreed and absolutely agreed that what they were doing, in intent, was very illegal.
“Probably better than 'alleged murderer.”
Decon, looking chagrined, nodded.
“He's been in a coma for nearly as long as he might have spent in prison.”
“On the low end, yeah,” Decon conceded.
“The facility was specifically built to house Islanders with psychiatric, behavioral, and physical disorders. He's been around young Islanders for years now without reaction. His condition has remained stable for almost as long. Dr. Hardwell's letter indicates that his slow return to motility has been consistent enough that it is reasonable to expect him to be able to function at the Tower with minimal intervention.”
“What are we going to be able to do with this guy that a specially built facility can't? How are we expected to handle this?”
“Mr. Tenor has responded to and gone beyond the recommendations outlined by Dr. Hardwell for housing him safely. He practically built a hospital on the floor below us. There’s a safe room. But there won't be anything to handle, because he's a potato.”
“Provided, you know, a telepath doesn't visit.”
“There are no telepaths in our files.”
“There's that empath. His parents are friends with Mr. Tenor.”
“I think they’re just ‘also rich,’ not friends. Anyway, empaths should be fine. What's an empath going to be able to do to him?”
“I don't know, I'm kind of more worried about the other way around.”
“He'll be fine.”
“He gets put through a wall at 44 floors up...”
“Decon, he's non-negotiable.”
That paused him. They both stared out the window. Seth also enjoyed the motion of the train, and the noise, the clacking – she bet if she asked Decon, he could explain exactly what was making it and how. It wouldn't distract him, but it might distract her.
“Why is that?” Decon leaned over the table. “Why is it that Mr. Tenor is so insistent on this one guy. Isn't that kind of weird? Is it, like, a personal thing?”
“Not that I know of. Decon,” Seth said, “you just said that Firmament is the reason for half the laws about Islanders. He's been a persistent mystery and a constant reminder of why you can't trust Islanders, and why we should be registered, and why we don't to get have full lives and full rights like anybody else, no matter how little our abilities might help us – how much they might hurt us. If we don't deal with Firmament, we're just sweeping it under the rug, like it didn't happen – and it did happen, and nobody's going to forget it. We deal with Firmament, we deal with the fear and the mystery, when can dispel it. If we can help Firmament – or even take him off the government's hands – we prove that we can handle our own, that we deserve real rights.”
“There is no reason to think we're going to be able to handle this, Seth. Nobody's been able to handle this.”
Seth pinched the bridge of her nose. “You're overthinking what 'handle' means, here.”
She turned to face Decon, her tone low.
“In general, yes, our mission is to 'help' young Islanders – and we will – but as you've pointed out, this guy isn't 'young' no matter how old he looks, and we probably can't 'help' him in any meaningful way. We can't do what decades worth of doctors haven't been able to do. Nobody could rationally expect that.”
“Yeah,” Decon said, gesturing as if appealing to an invisible, agreeable audience.
She stood her hands up on the table beside her like walls.
“We take the potato.”
She moved her hands towards Decon.
“We plant the potato. Food. Water. Sunshine. It's basically what he gets now, and,” she picked up the file and flipped the two flimsy sheets, “has been getting for years.”
“Yeah–” Decon raised his own hand to interrupt himself, “and where are the other decades of paperwork?”
“Some are classified,” Seth said, and only just managed to close her eyes instead of roll them when Decon reiterated his 'yeah' gesture, “like any normal medical record would be, but the important thing is – they got a stamp, because he's a potato.”
Decon sat back. Seth got to set the folder down and watch the countryside for about five minutes. It was nice.
“Seth, we plant him, he's going to grow.”
“By then, we ought to be good weedkillers.”