“Gerry …”
“I thought I got away from all of this.” He finally let go,
taking a step back and running one hand down the side of his face. He needed a
shave. Glaring at me now, he asked, “Is this really your fault? Did you wake up
my story by waking up yours?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I didn’t have a choice. It was
activate or die.”
“The solo Snow White narrative doesn’t line up precisely
with the Snow White and Rose Red narrative,” said Jeff, stepping up on my other
side and looking coolly at my brother. “Four-two-six versus seven-oh-nine. If
anything, Henry activating in solo mode should have made it impossible for you
to go active, unless you were somehow suited to a different story. Once she ate
the apple, the Rose Red door should have been closed to you.”
Gerry eyed him, the same mistrustful look he’d worn since we
were children, identical in all but coloration. Me, black and white and red all
over, like a kindergarten joke; him, rosy cheeked and red haired and somehow
just as subtly
wrong
in his pinkness as I was in my pallor. “Well, it’s
pretty obvious that didn’t happen. So can you tell me why it didn’t?”
“No,” said Jeff. “But I can start pulling files, and
together, we can probably figure it out. If you’re willing to trust us.”
“Like I have a choice?” Gerry raked a hand through his hair,
leaving the short red strands sticking up in all directions. “Shit, Henry. I
never wanted to be a fairy tale.”
“You know what, asshole?” Sloane was suddenly in front of
me, sliding her legs over my desk as she eeled her way into the conversation.
She planted her hands on her hips, the back of her head virtually blocking my
view of Gerry. “
None
of us signed up for this. You got that, right?
Everyone in this room has had their life fucked up by a fairy tale at one point
or another. Some of us are being fucked right now, while you watch. At least you
got out for a little while.”
“That was unnecessarily graphic,” murmured Jeff.
“Shush,” I said.
Sloane didn’t appear to have noticed our interjections. She
took a step forward, revealing Gerry’s startled expression as she poked her
finger at the center of his chest. She was taller than he was, her five eleven
virtually towering over his five seven even without the platform boots she was
so fond of. Even if she’d been shorter, her tone would have been enough to make
a brave man shrink where he stood. “We didn’t ask for this. We didn’t do
anything to deserve it. We didn’t volunteer, and we’re not being punished for
things we did in a previous life. We got
screwed
, and now you’re getting
screwed too. Boo-fucking-hoo. It’s not Henry’s fault, so back the fuck off,
lover boy, or I’ll give you something to be upset about.”
Gerry blinked at her. The collapse began at his chin, which
dropped down until it almost met his chest. His shoulders sagged, and then his
knees began to buckle. I started to step forward, but Sloane was already there,
slinging her arms around his waist and holding him up against her. Gerry didn’t
fight her. Instead, he twisted, burying his face against her shirt and
beginning to cry silently. He’d always cried like that—silently—ever since we
were kids.
“We’ll be in the break room if you need us,” said Sloane,
with uncharacteristic gentleness. Still holding my brother up, she turned and
led him away, first out of the bullpen and finally out of view. I stayed frozen
where I was, feeling colder than any time since I had eaten the apple, and
wondered what the hell we were going to do next.
Demi, of all people, broke the silence, saying hesitantly,
“I thought Snow White and Rose Red was about two sisters.” We all turned to
look at her. She reddened, and said, “I read a bunch of fairy tales right after
I joined the Bureau. I thought it would help me understand what we do here.”
“Did it?” asked Jeff.
“It just confused me more,” admitted Demi. “Fairy tales are
weird
.”
“Did you read the one about the bird, the mouse, and the
sausage?” asked Andy. “Because I have to say, that’s when I decided I was
leaving the research to the archivists and sticking to my fieldwork. I can only
convince people that fairy tales aren’t real if I’m not gibbering in a corner
somewhere.”
“Fairy tales rarely cause actual madness,” said Jeff.
“Demi’s right, however: the Snow White and Rose Red narrative normally fixates
on twin sisters. If you were connected to the story, Henry, you shouldn’t have
been able to wind up connected to seven-oh-nine. The only thing they have in
common is the name and coloration of one of the two sisters. I don’t …”
I was suddenly glad Gerry was out of the room. It didn’t
make the explanation easier, but it did mean he wouldn’t be glaring at me if I
said the wrong thing. “Gerry’s my brother,” I said. “We don’t know which of us
is older, because our mother died when we were born, but we were found together
in her hospital room. We were identical, except for the coloring. That’s part
of why the ATI Management Bureau took custody of us immediately. You find two
babies, one a redhead, one with black hair, both with the same blonde mother
and brunet father—”
“What?” asked Demi.
“It doesn’t take a genius to know that they’re fairy
tale–bound,” I said.
“But you can’t have been identical,” said Demi. “Identical
twins are always … you know.”
Jeff, who had already figured out the situation, winced and
looked at me, waiting to see how I would react.
Luckily for both of us, this was a conversation I’d had
before. It didn’t make me angry anymore. It just made me tired. Gerry was my
brother. Anyone who met him could see that. So why did the world keep requiring
me to explain the situation? “Identical twins will always have the same
assigned birth gender, and that’s what the story keyed off of,” I said. “I
guess even the narrative isn’t smart enough to look into the mind of a newborn
infant and know whether it’s dealing with a boy or a girl.”
Those first years had been rough on both of us. Geraldine
and Henrietta Marchen, the darlings of the fairy tale foster care system. We’d
been placed with a pair of agents who had the space and relative career
stability to take care of us—Andrew and Maya Briggs, who had been with the
Bureau for twenty years, and who had chosen not to have kids of their own
because they still had lives to save. It seemed like providence to everyone
involved. A couple who had always wanted children would finally get to have
them, and two little girls who needed a home would grow up safe and loved. It was
perfect.
Perfect, except for the part where Andrew Briggs was a
dyed-in-the-wool conservative who hated ATI incursions not because they were
dangerous or because they got people killed, but because they were unnatural.
Maya didn’t fight him. Maya never fought him, not even when he slapped Geraldine
for telling him that she wanted to wear jeans to school instead of dresses, not
even when he told us that we’d go to bed without supper for a week if either
one of us said word one about wanting to cut our hair. He had his perfect home,
his perfect wife, and his two perfect little girls. He wasn’t going to let
either one of them be flawed.
I’ll never forget the look on his face when he came into the
bathroom and found Gerry and me with our hair cropped off in uneven hanks, none
of them more than two inches long. I was better with the scissors than Gerry
was, and had actually managed to craft something that looked almost like a
decent haircut. My hair looked like it belonged on a doll from the thrift sale
dollar bin. But it was worth it to see the way my brother smiled—and he had
always been my brother, even if most people refused to understand that. Both of
us had always known exactly who we were.
We’d entered the Bureau’s odd excuse for foster care not
long after that incident, being shuttled from family to family until we turned
fourteen and could be enrolled in boarding school. Gerry had bound his breasts,
cut his hair, and lived as a male from the day we walked onto campus. Neither
of us had been sure it would work … but halfway through the first semester
I woke up and it was snowing in my room. Actual snow, falling out of the air
and landing on my bed. Gerry’s share of the narrative had snapped and was
rebounding on me, now its only target, because Rose Red is a girl, and Geraldine
Marchen wasn’t.
It took almost fifteen minutes to explain the situation. By
the time I finished, my throat was dry and Demi’s eyes were so wide that it
seemed like they might fall out of her head. I glanced at Jeff, afraid of finding
judgment or disapproval in his eyes. Not because it would change the way I felt
about my brother, but because I liked Jeff, and it would be a shame to have to
find a place to hide his body.
My earlier fondness only grew deeper as Jeff said, “As a way
to avert a narrative, that smacks of genius, although it would only work if the
subject was genuinely gender dysphoric—otherwise you’d be inviting a ‘hidden
princess’ scenario, and that could force you into a Sleeping Beauty or worse.”
“What’s worse than a Sleeping Beauty?” asked Andy, sounding
half horrified and half curious.
“Have you ever read the Oz books by L. Frank Baum?”
“Okay, we’re going to stop right there,” I said hurriedly,
so we didn’t get even further off track. “So here’s the situation: I became a
potential seven-oh-nine when Gerry averted our mutual four-two-six. Only now
I’m a full seven-oh-nine, and somehow this has caused Gerry to activate as part
of a story he shouldn’t even be eligible for. How can that happen? More
importantly, how can we make it
stop
?”
“Are you sure you’re a seven-oh-nine?” asked Andy. “Maybe
you activated as part of the other story, and that’s what’s dragging him back
in.”
I hesitated. I hadn’t told anyone about the forest full of
whiteout women. It seemed private somehow, like it wasn’t meant to be shared
with people outside of our story. “I’m sure,” I said finally. “Four-two-six
doesn’t say anything about snow or apples, although it’s pretty heavy on the
woodland creatures. I’m definitely an apple girl.”
“Many people have forgotten that the two stories are meant
to be separate,” said Jeff, with the particular slowness that always
accompanied his thinking hard. “It’s obvious in the original German—it’s like
assuming that girls named ‘Mary’ and ‘Marti’ are the same—but once you
translate the stories into English, they become easier and easier to conflate.
The narrative has been evolving. Maybe it’s found a way to combine the two
tales into a coherent whole.”
“I don’t want to marry a bear,” I said. It was the first
thing that popped into my mind. There was a moment of silence while we all
considered it and then, by mutual unspoken agreement, ignored it.
“So Gerry’s a Rose Red now, even though Henry’s part of a
different story,” said Andy. “Is it going to try to force him to be a girl?”
“That’s a risk, and the narrative has done stranger things,”
said Jeff.
“Great, we’re going to get to see my brother punch out the
narrative,” I said. “That’ll make our jobs a lot easier.”
Demi blinked. “Is that possible?”
“Probably not,” I said, and looked toward the door that
Sloane and my brother had vanished through. “I should go and check on them.”
“Do you want me to come with you?” asked Andy.
“No,” I said. “I bet he’s waiting for me to come. I’ll be
right back.” I started across the bullpen, trying not to focus on worst-case
scenarios. This was my brother. I was going to help him.
Whatever it took, I was going to help him.
Memetic incursion in progress: tale type 426 (“The Two
Girls and the Bear”)
Status: IN PROGRESS
It had been a long damn day, and while it wasn’t getting any
shorter, Gerry March was no longer quite so pissed off about it. He sat on the
edge of the break room table, Sloane leaning in between his knees and kissing
him like she thought that the act of physical affection was on the verge of
being outlawed. One of his hands braced her hip, holding her against him, while
the other explored the lines of her back, which were so familiar and so
forbidden. He found the clasp of her bra and slipped two fingers underneath it,
making it clear that he could strip it away at any moment.
Her anger had melted into kisses with no warning. He was
fully aware that it could turn back, and he was going to take advantage of
every second that he got.
Finally, after what seemed like forever and nowhere near
long enough at the same time, Sloane pulled back just far enough to offer him a
languid smile and say, “See, this is why you should never have left. You miss
me too much when you go away.”
“You’re too old for me,” Gerry countered. “Isn’t that what
you said the last time you dumped me? That you were too old for me and I should
find a nice girl my own age who could grow old by my side?”
“That sounds like the sort of bullshit I spout when I get
maudlin, sure,” said Sloane, leaning in to kiss him again. This time she was
quick, in and out in a matter of seconds, leaving his lips still smarting from
the rasp of her teeth. “Besides, cougars are in now, right? I could be your
Mrs. Robinson.”
“I’m not sure that the way to celebrate turning into a fairy
tale is by fucking one,” said Gerry. He immediately winced. “Sloane, I’m sorry,
I didn’t mean—”
But she was already pulling away, the familiar walls sliding
back into place across her expression, until the cold, heartless mask she
showed to the world was gazing at him with impassive eyes. “No, no, it’s good.
It’s useful to hear what you really think of me. It helps keep me from doing
things I’ll regret later. Who knows? I might get called to play the bad guy in
your story, and then where would we be?” She turned, stomping toward the door.
“I’ll tell your sister you’re in here.”