The Family Connection

Mama always says that nothing is more important than family, not just for protection but for connection. We all need each other and learn from each other. We share in each other’s pain and happiness. And, when we’re threatened, we curl together like the fingers in a fist to smash our enemies and drive them from our home. Without family, what are we? We might as well be a pack of singletons, living alone inside our heads.

The idea of that kind of loneliness used to scare me sometimes. I couldn’t even hardly imagine it. Sometimes I would think about that at night, when I was lying in bed in the dormitories, surrounded by the sleepy hum of the rest of the family. I could feel them all breathing and drifting off to sleep one by one, and I could hear the murmurs of their dreams. The babies’ dreams were best, of course—all feeling and color and deep, slow sound. I couldn’t sense them as clearly since moving into the adult dorms, but I could still make them out if I relaxed enough to expand my mind. Anyway, when I was lying in bed that way, I’d start to think about what it would be like not to have the family connection, not to have a mama to hold us all together. I would imagine my own thoughts and feelings echoing in the empty space in my head with nobody there to hear or feel them.

A lot of people are scared of the singletons because you never know exactly what they’re thinking, but I mostly just felt sorry for them. I’ll admit, I’ve only met a few face-to-face, lonely wanderers who came into Quinn family territory seeking our hospitality. They looked desperate and hungry, and most of all afraid. I saw it in their eyes when we all came out to meet them. They feared us even more than we did them. Our minds, connected by the family network, were just as alien to them as theirs were to us. It’s funny to think about that now.

Not all singletons are like that though, alone and harmless. Some of them travel in groups, hurting people and taking what they want. For them, we had our cache of guns, and our strong, young fighters, and, of course, we had Brandon.

Unlike the rest of the family, who preferred the safety and comfort of our gated compound, Brandon spent most of his time outside, camping alone in the foothills and the plains. People said that he wasn’t always like that. He used to sleep in the dormitories and work in the orchards and greenhouses like everybody else. Nobody ever said what happened to change him though, and the unspoken question made him an object of mystery and fascination for the younger family members, like me, who didn’t know him before.

One day in early autumn, Brandon came home to the compound after several days away. I had finished my work for the afternoon and was sneaking an apple by the front gate, so I saw him coming from a long way off. I knew who it was right away. Even from a distance, I could sense him as a blip on the network. His sensory profile was strangely flat and featureless compared to other family members, but I could still feel him, unlike the eerie non-presence of a singleton or a visitor from another family.

Brandon was a tall man, and I could tell that he was walking slightly hunched forward. At first, I wondered if he had injured himself out in the wilderness, but as he drew closer, I saw that he was pulling something behind him on a makeshift toboggan. When he reached the gate, I came around to meet him, and I held onto the chain link fence while he fished in his pocket for the key. Whatever Brandon was pulling behind him was covered in a blood-stained tarp. The whole front of his jacket was bloody too, and my eye was drawn automatically to the bundle of javelins that he wore slung across his back. He reeked of stale sweat and wood smoke, but I actually kind of liked it.

“Hey,” I said, feigning cool nonchalance.

“Hey, yourself,” he answered without looking up at me.

“What do you got there?” I asked.

“Well, this here’s a big fat pile of none of your damn business,” he said, squinting at his key ring to select the right one. He found it, unlocked the gate, and pulled it wide, then dragged his burden through.

“I’ve got it!” I said, hurrying to close and lock the gate behind him.

“Thanks,” he said, already pulling toward the compound’s central square.

I had to run a little to catch up with him. “You been gone a while,” I said. “Where all’d you get off to this time?”

“Just around,” he said. “Up by the ridgeline trail head mostly.”

“And that’s where you found whatever you got under that sheet?”

“Yep,” he said. “I ran into a nosy little shit up there who asked me too many questions, so I gutted him.”

“You never,” I said, though I felt a little thrill of fear at the idea that there could be a human being under there.

Brandon made his way to the middle of the compound, where his strange cargo began to draw a crowd. As the family became aware of his presence, the mood on the network was infused with a vinegary mix of excitement, curiosity, suspicion, and cautious respect. It was always like that when Brandon came around. Most of the family couldn’t understand why he acted the way he did, but no one could deny that he carried his own weight and then some. He often supplemented our food stores by hunting and trapping, and when it came to a fight with unfriendly singletons, there was no one you wanted on your side more than Brandon. Some of the older family members spoke in awed tones of his past exploits, of bands of marauders that he had sent fleeing from our territory. They also said that he was the all-time, undefeated champion at iron arms, though it was hard to imagine him participating in that kind of friendly family game.

Now that he had an audience, Brandon whipped aside the bloody tarp, revealing the body of a massive wild pig, bristling with wiry hair, its throat slashed open. Everyone oohed and aahed appreciatively, and Clarkson even put a companionable arm around Brandon’s shoulder.

“Good man!” he said. “That’s a hell of a prize!”

“Thanks,” Brandon answered, but something chilly and unreceptive in his profile made Clarkson withdraw his arm.

“You kill it with one of those?” he asked, nodding at the javelins on Brandon’s back.

“It took two of them, actually. Lucky, I surprised him instead of the other way around.”

“Lucky,” Clarkson agreed. “Well, he’s a hell of a prize. If it’s alright with you, we’ll get him over to the sheds to be butchered and salted.” Brandon didn’t answer but nodded his consent. “Will you be staying long?” Clarkson added. “You know, Mama would sure be glad if you stopped in to say ‘hello’.”

Brandon shook his head firmly. “I’m just here to wash up and change my clothes, then I’ll be off again.”

Clarkson nodded as if there were nothing unusual about this. “Alright, brother,” he said. “Well, you’re always welcome here. You know that.”

“Sure,” Brandon said. “Thanks.”

I waited around a while, soaking in the energized atmosphere, before seeking out Brandon again. I found him stripped to the waist, dunking his head and upper body in a wash barrel. Now, his outdoors smell had been replaced by sharp, lye soap.

As soon as he emerged from the water and shook the wet hair from his face, I asked, “So, when are you headed back out again? When you were talking to Clarkson, it sounded like it might be real soon.”

Brandon gave an audible groan and turned to me with a pained expression. “Do you not have anything better to do, or have you just made it your special project to follow me around this place and piss me off?”

“I don’t know,” I muttered. “I guess, I just wanted to ask you about something.”

“Ask me about what?” he demanded.

Despite his inscrutable profile, I knew that Brandon’s patience had come to an end. If I didn’t ask now, I might lose my chance forever. “Well,” I started slowly, then before I could lose my nerve, I blurted out, “I was hoping, when you go back out there, that I could come along with you.”

As soon as the words were out, I felt my cheeks flush hot. I had rehearsed this in my head over and over, but I suddenly understood how stupid I had been. Of course, he didn’t want to take me with him. As far as I could tell, Brandon could hardly stand me now. Why would he want to spend more time together without even the distraction of the rest of the family?

Brandon’s face remained impassive, but his profile revealed a sudden spike of surprise. “Why the hell would you want to do that?” he asked, sounding genuinely curious.

That wasn’t an outright refusal, so I took a little heart. “I’ve hardly ever been outside the compound,” I said. “Everybody acts like it’s real scary out there, but you go all the time. I figured if we went together, I might get to see something new.”

Brandon gave me an appraising look. “You probably would see something new,” he said. “I’m just surprised you want to go so far from the family. What’s the matter? You don’t like it here?”

“I like it alright!” I protested. “Besides, it’s not like we’d go outside of Mama’s reach. We’d still be inside the network.” Brandon didn’t answer right away, so I worriedly added, “We’ll still be inside the network, right?”

“Of course, we will,” he snapped. “I’ve never even been over the line myself.”

“So, you will take me!” I exclaimed.

Brandon winced. “I didn’t say that.” He considered for a moment, then added, “But, if I did, how long would it take you to be ready?”

“I’m ready now!” I said.

“Oh, yeah?” he said, giving me a skeptical once-over. “You got a jacket? How about a bedroll? You know the nights get cold outside the dorms, right?”

“Right,” I agreed. “I can grab those real quick. It won’t take a minute.” That was perfectly true, but something else had just occurred to me. “I need to stop in to tell Mama what I’m doing, though.”

Brandon raised one eyebrow. “She’ll know without you telling her,” he pointed out.

“Yeah,” I said, “but I still think I ought to tell her, just to be polite.”

He shrugged. “Do what you want, but when I’m ready to head out, I’m going, with or without you.”

“Alright!” I called, already running toward Mama’s chamber in the middle of the compound. “I’ll be ready!”

Running with my head down, I made it all the way to Mama’s quarters before being impeded. Just as I reached for her front door, it opened inward, and I nearly ran right into Opal on her way out.

“Sorry,” I muttered, and I tried to sidestep her, but Opal remained planted in the doorway.

“Where are you off to in such a hurry?” she asked, sounding as stuffy and stuck-up as usual.

“I just need to see Mama is all,” I said.

Opal rolled her eyes, “Apparently, so,” she said. “I meant, what do you need to see her about?”

Remembering Brandon’s words from earlier, I said, “Well, I guess that’s just a big fat pile of none of your damn business!”

Opal blinked at that, and her profile blanched with surprise. For a second, I felt sorry, but at least she moved out of my way. As I passed her, she finally managed to muster a come-back. “We’re a family!” she said indignantly. “Anything to do with Mama is everyone’s business.”

“Yeah, well you don’t need to know everything,” I retorted and shut the door in her face.

In the anteroom, I unlaced and slipped off my shoes before padding across soft carpeting to the room where Mama was waiting. Her inner chamber was paneled with a pearly, opaque material. It looked like a strange type of glass but felt like stone to the touch. The panels gave off a pale iridescence, which was the only source of light in the room.

I slid open the door panel on its soundless track and stepped inside. Mama was sitting upright in her chair. She sat so perfectly still that for a second I wondered if she was sleeping, but then my eyes adjusted to the alien light, and I saw that she was looking at me.

“Hey, Mama,” I said.

“Hello,” she answered in her placid voice.

Just looking at her, I experienced an uncontrollable surge of love that left me momentarily speechless. She looked so beautiful with the light on her hair, and I felt a hard lump pressing on the back of my throat.

“What is it, darling?” she asked kindly. “I can see that you have something to tell me.”

Of course, she could have simply dipped into the stream of my thoughts and extracted the information that she wanted, but Mama always preferred a gentle touch. It was one of the things I loved about her.

“I… I’d like to go out,” I stammered. “Out of the compound, I mean. I just wanted to ask you first. But, of course, if you don’t want me to…”

I trailed off at that, and Mama waited a moment before saying, “You know it can be dangerous out there all alone. If something happened to you, I would never forgive myself.”

“I wouldn’t be alone,” I assured her. “Brandon will be there. He’ll make sure nothing happens.”

At the mention of Brandon’s name, Mama shifted in her seat, but her voice still sounded serene and dreamlike. “That’s good,” she said. “Very good. Brandon is a capable man. He’ll take good care of you.”

“So, I can go? You think it’s okay?”

Mama inclined her head with a slight smile. “Of course, you can. You’re not a prisoner here. Tell Brandon I said ‘hello’.”

Before leaving her inner chamber, I crossed the room to give Mama a kiss. Her cheek was cool and fresh like the petal of a flower. Then I went out with my heart leaping, and just barely remembered to grab a jacket and bedroll from the supply lockers.

When I reached the front gate, I saw that Brandon had waited for me, despite his warning. He no longer carried his javelins, but he still had his long hunting knife buckled to his thigh.

“Ready?” he asked, and I nodded.

Outside the compound, Brandon’s mood improved noticeably. As we headed up into the low foothills, and the buzz of sensation in the compound faded into background noise, he actually began to whistle to himself. The relative quiet scared me a little at first, but I had to admit there was something nice about it. Maybe it was just Brandon’s cheerfulness rubbing off on me, but I thought I could understand why he liked it out here.

At first, I thought we were wandering at random, but it soon became clear that Brandon knew exactly where we were headed. After a while, he stopped me and pointed out a loop of wire suspended between two vertical sticks just to the side of the trail.

“That’s a rabbit snare,” he said. “I put them up all along this run. This one hasn’t caught anything yet, but hopefully one of the others has. Otherwise, it could be a hungry night.”

I didn’t know if he was kidding about the last part, but I tried to look unconcerned, as though skipping meals was an old trick of mine. Luckily, on the fourth snare, we found a big, gray jackrabbit with the wire biting into its throat. It stared up at the canopy of leaves with one glassy eye until Brandon deftly loosened the wire. I had assumed it was dead, but as soon as the pressure was removed from its throat, the jackrabbit began to thrash wildly with its back legs. Brandon wrenched its head around backwards with a sickening crunch, and it spasmed once more and then lay still. He stuffed the animal into a leather satchel that had a foul, metallic smell, then carefully reset the snare before moving on.

We followed the trail for another hour, stopping only to fill Brandon’s water bottles from a running stream. Finally, we reached a small camp site, which Brandon had clearly used many times before. It already held a makeshift shelter as well as a store of dry wood and other supplies. As the sun dipped beneath the canopy, it began to grow cold, so I built a fire while Brandon skinned and gutted the jackrabbit for our dinner.

This whole time, we had spoken little. Despite his antisocial habits, Brandon and I had naturally fallen into the rhythm of two family members at work. We communicated automatically with little need for words. Now that we were in his element, Brandon had abandoned the guardedness and self-defense that he was known for in the compound. He seemed perfectly at ease, and even, I dared to think, happy to have me. I wondered briefly if this was the version of Brandon that the older family members had once known.

“Can I ask you something?” I said.

Brandon looked up from the glistening handful of innards that he had torn from the rabbit’s body cavity. “I haven’t been able to stop you yet.”

I took that as a ‘yes’. “What made you start coming out here? I mean, I like it. I think it’s nice. I just wondered how you got started. People must have thought it was kind of funny at first.”

“I guess, they still think it’s kind of funny,” he said.

I shrugged noncommittally, not wishing to offend him. “Mama doesn’t seem to mind,” I pointed out. “If she did, she probably wouldn’t let you go at all.”

Brandon grimaced at that and returned to his work. He hadn’t answered my question, of course, and I waited to see if he would.

After a moment, he paused and looked up again. “I knew her before, you know,” he said.

It was an ambiguous statement, but the cues from Brandon’s profile told me exactly who he meant. “You mean, Mama?” I said. I wanted to ask ‘before what?’ but I felt a strange dread to do so.

He nodded. “That’s right. I knew her before she was anybody’s mama, back when she was just a little girl and then a young woman. Her name was Ingrid.” He shook his head at that as if dispelling a troubling notion. “I mean, her name is Ingrid.” Turning on me, he added, “Did you know that? Did you even know that your Mama had a name?” in a tone that was almost accusing.

Of course, on some level, I had known that Mama had a name, that she had had a life and identity before assuming her current role, but the idea was somehow unsettling. She wasn’t this girl named Ingrid. She was Mama. That was the only thing that mattered.

As if reading my thoughts, Brandon said, “I wish you could have met her back then. She was beautiful and so clever. The whole family loved her.”

I suddenly felt a surge of anger at him. “She’s still beautiful!” I exclaimed. “And clever? All of our thoughts run through her mind! There would be no network without her. What’s cleverer than that? As for loving her, we all still do. Except for you, maybe,” I added bitterly.

Brandon shook his head. “You don’t know a damn thing,” he said. “I’m talking about the love between people. Real, individual people, not whatever it is you all feel for Ingrid now. You don’t even know the difference, do you?”

My face felt hot, and I realized that I had balled my hands into fists. I wasn’t sure I understood what he was getting at, but I knew that he was slighting Mama somehow. Before I could retort, however, Brandon went on.

“Listen,” he said a bit more kindly. “Let me tell you a story. Maybe it’ll help us to understand each other better.”

I waited tensely for Brandon to begin, but he seemed to be in no particular hurry. He produced a box of salt from his supplies, which he used to season the rabbit, then he spit it on a green branch and set it over the fire that I had made.

That done, he sat back in his place and said, “There used to be more of us, you know. Back when Ingrid and I were young, the Quinn family numbered more than sixty. Back then, we had a different mother, of course, an old woman named Sylvia.”

“Yeah?” I asked, perking up a bit. “What was she like?”

Brandon thought about that for a second before responding. “You mean, what did we think of her, or what was she really like?”

The difference wasn’t clear to me, so I only shrugged.

“We thought the world of her,” Brandon went on. “She wasn’t young or beautiful, but we thought she was the wisest, kindest mother there ever was, just the way you feel about Ingrid now. But the truth is, she wasn’t wise at all. She was just a power-hungry old woman. Sylvia was never one to tolerate dissent in action, word, or thought. If anyone disagreed with her way of doing things, she would override them and march them into her chamber for reconditioning.”

“For what?” I asked. I had never heard the term before, though it had an ominous sound to it.

“Reconditioning,” he repeated. “That’s what Sylvia called it when she corrected whatever she didn’t like inside our minds, an opinion or an idea that bothered her. Ingrid and I were in for reconditioning at least once a month, I think. But that’s not the story I want to tell. I want to tell you why there aren’t so many of us now.

“One day, many years ago, we got word from the Orn family that a dangerous group of singletons was in the area. They had come down from the north and launched an attack on the Orn family compound before being driven off. Luckily, the Orns were neighborly enough to send a runner to warn us that the singletons might be on their way. Sure enough, they had already crossed over into our territory and were camped a few miles from the compound.

“Back then, the Quinn family had a fair number of good fighters. We could have armed ourselves and defended the compound if the singletons made a run at us, but Sylvia didn’t want that. I guess she didn’t like the idea of allowing a threat that close to her person. Even so, if she’d left us free, we probably could have come up with a plan of attack. We could have waited for dark and then ambushed them. Instead, Sylvia overrode us and sent us at them in a wave. Eventually, we overwhelmed the singletons, and they fled back across the line where the Orn family was waiting to slaughter them. A lot of us were killed in the fighting, though. When we asked her why she sent us to die that way, Sylvia said that sacrifices were sometimes necessary for the good of the family. And that was it. End of discussion.”

We were both quiet for a minute, while Brandon slowly turned the rabbit on its spit. Finally, I said, “I don’t think I would have liked Sylvia very much.”

“Yes, you would,” he said. “You would have loved her. I loved her. We all did. It was only when she was dead that we understood what a tyrant she had been. That’s exactly my point.”

“But Mama isn’t like that,” I argued. “She loves us. She would never do anything like that.”

“Maybe not,” Brandon conceded. “Ingrid isn’t the same as Sylvia. That’s not what I’m trying to say. My point is that she could be, and no one would do anything to stop her. Most of us wouldn’t even know the difference. I followed Sylvia right up to the end. Nearly getting me killed wasn’t even the worst thing that she did to me, but I still followed her.”

I opened my mouth to ask him what was the worst thing that Sylvia had done. It was hard to imagine anything worse than using her own family as cannon fodder. Before I could ask the question though, I caught a momentary glimpse of Brandon’s thoughts. I saw him and Mama, both young, sneaking off together whenever they could escape Sylvia’s notice. I saw them hip to hip and mouth to mouth, and I felt his love for her like a flowering pain inside my chest. He was right. It was like nothing I had felt before, for Mama or for anyone else.

Then Brandon’s mind snapped shut again, and the sensation cut out instantly. “That was private,” he said.

I swallowed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”

Brandon waved me off. “Forget it,” he said. “It’s not your fault. I should have been more careful.” He busied himself taking the rabbit from the fire and arranging it on a clean, flat stone to cool.

I took a breath to gather my courage, then said, “It wasn’t your fault either, that Mama was chosen. It wasn’t even hers. It doesn’t seem like Sylvia would have let her say ‘no’. Neither of you really had a choice.”

He looked up sharply at that, and I expected him to make an angry retort, but he said nothing for several seconds. When he answered, his voice was thoughtful. “While Sylvia was still alive, you’re right. We had no choice. But afterward, when she was gone and we saw how badly she had used us all, we could have decided then. Ingrid could have stepped down or changed places with someone else. If it came down to it, we could have left together.”

“But by then the family needed her,” I pointed out. “How could she leave once she saw that? It was no choice at all.”

Brandon didn’t bother to argue the point. He just repeated my last words. “No choice at all,” he said. “I guess that about sums it up. That’s what family is all about. You don’t get to choose. You just bow and obey.”

The evening sun had vanished below the horizon, and Brandon and I had just finished our meal when the broadcast came through. One second, we were sitting quietly before the fire in the deepening twilight gloom and the next Mama’s voice spoke up inside my head. From the sudden stiffening of Brandon’s spine, I could tell he heard her too. She sounded fainter and more distant than I was used to, but her words still came through clearly.

Hello, everyone, she said. Please report to the central square of the compound for a Quinn family meeting. The meeting will begin when, and only when, all adult family members are present. She paused for a second, then added, This is a matter of great importance. Please come quickly.

I guessed that the last part had been intended for us. All the others would be in the compound already, so there would be no need for them to hurry. When Mama’s voice had faded from our minds, Brandon and I looked at each other for a second. For the first time, I thought he looked unnerved.

“You remember the last time she called for an emergency family meeting?” he asked. I shook my head. “Yeah, me neither,” he said. “I think we better go.”

It only took a few minutes to pack our things and start back toward the compound. I could sense its location on the network, but I doubt I could have navigated my way home in the dark. Luckily, Brandon knew exactly where we were going. It took us just over an hour before the lights of the compound came into view. Even before we were through the front gate, I could sense the whole family—all but the babies and little kids—standing in a rough circle in the middle of the compound. At their center, I felt Mama, sitting alone and exposed, outside of her chamber for the first time in recent memory.

When we reached the rest of the family, almost everything was as I had expected, except for one detail. Mama wasn’t alone at the center of the crowd. She sat in a folding chair at a small circular table, and across from her was a man that I had never laid eyes on before. I could see him with my eyes and hear him talking to Mama in a low, urgent voice, but, as far as my other senses were concerned, he wasn’t there at all. All the feedback from the network told me that the chair the man was sitting in was empty. That meant he was either a singleton or a visitor from another family.

Mama looked up as Brandon and I joined the waiting circle. The man seated across from her spotted Brandon as well and gave him a respectful nod. I wondered if they knew each other.

“Thank you all for coming,” Mama said. “Now that everyone is here, I have a matter of great importance to share with you. As you can see, we have a guest from the Orn family who arrived just this evening with some tragic news. His name is Solis, and I trust that you will give him your full attention.”

She nodded to Solis, and he stood up from his chair. He made an awkward half-turn, as if unsure whom he should face, before turning in Brandon’s general direction. The man was stocky and barrel-chested, but, when he spoke, his voice was surprisingly soft. “I’ll get right to the point,” he began, clearly straining to make himself heard. “Earlier today, a small pack of singletons crossed into Orn family territory from the west. Their original intentions are unknown to us, but by chance they stumbled across a young woman who had wandered away from the Orn family compound on her own.”

Solis paused and swallowed hard at this point. Even in the yellow lamplight, I could see that his face was flushed with repressed anger, and a vein stood out on his forehead. He cleared his throat and went on, “The singletons abducted the young woman, abused her shamefully, and seemed prepared to take her with them beyond the borders of our territory.”

A collective murmur of anger and dread ran through the listening family. It was not unheard of for a family member to be taken hostage and carried by force outside their network, but it was the kind of thing that no one liked to think about.

“Fortunately,” Solis went on, his voice strengthening a bit, “the singletons abandoned this goal when they saw that they were being pursued by the Orn family’s fighters. The young woman has now been recovered, though she is injured and badly frightened. The gang of kidnappers and rapists, however, fled beyond our borders before we could apprehend them.”

He paused significantly and looked around at the circle of expectant faces. “To be specific, they fled into Quinn family territory. Some of our fighters wanted to go after them, but, unlike myself, most of them have never been outside the family network. The resulting disorientation would have put them at a major disadvantage. Besides,” he added with a sidelong glance at Mama, “we had no wish to violate the Quinn family’s territorial sovereignty. Instead, I came right away to ask for your help. I believe that the perpetrators are still camped just a few miles north of here. The Orn family asks that you go after them and bring them to account before they can escape into uncontrolled territory.” That said, Solis looked around once more to gauge the effect of his words, and then took his seat.

“Thank you, Solis,” Mama said. “I can only imagine the pain that the Orn family has suffered. Rest assured that we do not take this lightly.” Mama’s voice was level, but her usually serene face appeared troubled now.

Addressing the family, she went on, “I asked Solis to speak to you all directly because this decision will affect the entire family. If we accept the Orn family’s request, you, not I, will be the ones to put yourselves in danger.”

Perhaps not liking the direction Mama’s speech was going, Solis cut in. “The danger to your people would be very small. The singletons number no more than five or six, and they may not even be armed. If you caught them by surprise…”

“Nonetheless, there is an element of risk,” Mama pushed on. “I have considered this matter carefully since you first told me your story, and I believe I have reached a decision. Though these singletons undoubtedly wronged the Orn family, they do not appear to pose an ongoing threat. You yourself said that they will likely flee into uncontrolled territory, if given the opportunity. Should they remain on Quinn family land, that will be another matter, but for now I believe that the wisest course is not to act.”

Solis stared at her as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “In that case,” he said slowly, “I think that you could have given me your decision over an hour ago instead of waiting for an audience.”

The family stirred angrily at that, but Mama remained impassive. “As I said, the decision is not mine alone. I have given my opinion, but if any member of the Quinn family disagrees, please speak up now.”

No one said a word. I half expected Brandon to object, but, when I turned to see his reaction, I found that he was no longer beside me. I couldn’t be sure exactly when he had slipped away, but his absence gave me a sudden wave of misgiving.

As if on cue, Solis’ scanned my section of the crowd, then stared pointedly at the spot where Brandon had stood. He looked around once more to be sure of himself, then said to Mama, “Excuse me, but I believe that one of your family members is no longer in attendance.”

Mama blinked in surprise and ran a rapid inventory. Ordinarily, she would have noticed Brandon’s departure right away, but her face-to-face exchange with Solis had disrupted the clarity of the network. Mama’s expression darkened, as she understood what had happened, and we instantly knew as well. While Mama and Solis had been arguing, Brandon had slipped away from the meeting, armed himself with his bundle of javelins, and left the compound by the front gate. Already, he was heading north onto the plain.

“Everything’s alright, I hope,” Solis said. He managed to produce a convincing expression of concern, but the eager look in his eyes told me that he had some idea of what was happening.

“Excuse me,” Mama murmured. She got up from her seat so hastily that she knocked it over backwards and hurried toward her private chamber. Out here with us and our distractions, her control over the network was limited, but inside she would be able to access it fully. I wondered if she was planning to override Brandon and force him back to the compound.

By now, Mama’s near-panic had infected the rest of the family. No one knew what to do or say, but neither were they willing to retire to the dorms. Instead, they milled about in an anxious daze, talking amongst themselves in worried tones. Solis remained seated, though he had started to eye the rest of the family with genuine unease, perhaps fearing that he would be scapegoated for the current situation.

We knew the moment that Mama reached her paneled inner chamber because our senses were suddenly flooded with exactly what Brandon was seeing, and feeling, and doing. I had never experienced anything like it before. It could only mean that Mama’s entire, unfiltered focus was upon him. I could feel Brandon’s feet pounding on the cold, packed earth as he crossed the plain with loping strides. In the distance but drawing ever nearer, I could see the pinprick glow of a campfire up ahead. Aside from the flood of detail pouring in from Brandon’s senses, I could feel Mama’s visceral fear for his safety. I kept waiting for her to seize his mind and force him to turn around for home, but incredibly she never did.

As the shapes of the singletons came into view, silhouetted against their fire, Brandon unslung his javelins without breaking stride, selected one, and flung it from the darkness. It pierced a man through the back, pitching him headlong into the fire. The others leapt to their feet with cries of fear, and Brandon hurled his remaining missiles one after the other. When he had loosed the last one, he sprang at the remaining singletons, not with his knife but with his bare hands.

Only when Brandon had killed the last of the singletons, wrenching the man’s head back by the hair and punching him in the throat until bright blood spewed from between his lips, did the vision end. The last thing we saw was Brandon bracing his boot against a corpse’s neck and wrenching one of his javelins free. And then, we were back in our individual bodies again.

Several minutes later, Mama emerged from her chamber, looking pale and shaken. “It’s finished,” she said to Solis in an unmistakably bitter tone.

Solis looked as though he had questions but wisely decided against asking them. Instead, he rose and bowed his head respectfully to Mama. “The Orn family owes you a great debt,” he said. “Please know that you can always rely on our friendship.” He glanced around once more before adding, “If someone will kindly escort me out, I will take my leave. I should be able to find my way home in the dark.”

Clarkson wordlessly volunteered to take him to the gate. Rather than returning to her chamber, Mama sank wearily into the chair that Solis had just vacated. She didn’t have to tell us that she was waiting for Brandon to return. We knew by instinct, and the whole family waited with her, feeding on her anger and relief.

When he finally arrived at the compound, Brandon’s face and clothes were smeared with blood. He hadn’t bothered to clean his javelins, and their points were still snagged with pale ribbons of flesh. As he stepped into the lamp lit square, Mama stood unsteadily and took a step toward him. When she spoke, her voice trembled with barely contained fury that I had never heard from her before.

“You had no right to go after those singletons alone,” she said through clenched teeth. “If you disagreed with my decision, you could have said something. You know I would have heard you out. Instead, you defied me and put your own life in danger.”

“It’s my life, isn’t it?” Brandon said. He sounded like a petulant child, and I think he knew it, because he quickly added, “Besides, I was only doing my duty for the family.”

He placed unusual stress on the final words, and Mama recoiled as if he had physically lashed out at her. “Don’t you dare throw that in my face!” she screamed.

A sudden wave of hatred washed over me, and I felt an overpowering urge to leap at Brandon, to lock my teeth into his throat and scrabble out his eyes with my fingernails. The feeling passed in a moment, however, leaving me sick and confused. I looked around at the rest of the family and knew that they had experienced the same urge to violence. Clarkson had actually lunged toward Brandon before checking himself mid-stride.

Mama looked stricken and struggled to collect herself. “If you had been killed,” she said with forced calm, “you would have deprived this family of your strength. We need you here, Brandon.”

“We,” he repeated mockingly. “Why don’t you speak for yourself for once? What do you need? Not ‘you’, Mama. ‘You’, Ingrid. Do you still need me? Can you tell me that?”

She looked at him for a long moment, then shook her head sadly. “I’m sorry, but I can’t give you what you’re looking for. I’m not that person anymore. I haven’t been for a very long time.”

Just for a second, a spike of anguish broke through Brandon’s stoic profile. “That. Can’t. Be true,” he said, each word coming out like a pained gasp. “If you’re not Ingrid anymore, then what have I been waiting for? Who did I stay for?”

If Mama was hurt by this, she didn’t show it. “You stayed for your family,” she said with a tone of finality.

Brandon appeared to have run out of words. He stared back at her for a second, then turned and stalked away.

“That’s enough excitement for one night,” Mama announced to the rest of the family. “All of you, go and get some sleep.”

The family gradually broke off in ones, twos, and threes, and returned to the adult dormitories. I lingered until almost everyone had gone, though I couldn’t say exactly what I was waiting for. Finally, only Mama and I remained.

She gave me a weary smile. “Why don’t you go to bed?” Mama asked. “It’s been a long day for everyone. You must be tired. I know I am.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” I said, kicking at a clump of weeds that had grown up between the cobblestones.

Mama scrutinized me more closely. “You know, I can always tell when you have something to say,” she pointed out. “I don’t even need to look into your mind. It’s written all over your face. So, what is it? You know that you can always speak freely with me.”

“I know,” I said. “I just wondered why you didn’t stop Brandon. You could have if you wanted to. Why didn’t you just bring him home? Was it because of the man from the Orn family?”

Mama shook her head. “No,” she said. “It wasn’t because of Solis. The Orn family are our friends and allies, but that doesn’t give them a say here. I only answer to the Quinn family for my choices.” Mama hesitated, as if weighing how much to tell me, then she went on. “I didn’t override Brandon for the same reason I let him spend all his time out there on his own. The same reason, I let anyone do anything. If I started forcing people to do what I wanted, then we wouldn’t be a family anymore. Not really. Instead, you would be slaves, and I would be your master. Do you think you would like to live that way?”

I suddenly remembered the feeling of violent rage that had possessed me earlier, my desire to throw myself at Brandon and tear him apart if I could. I shook my head.

“No,” Mama agreed, “I don’t think I would either. Now, why don’t you get some sleep? I think that everything will seem better in the morning, don’t you?”

I made it most of the way back to the adult dormitories before I realized that something was wrong. While the family had retired to bed and I had been speaking to Mama, I had been vaguely aware of Brandon moving around the compound in quick, jerky movements. Now, he was walking fast in the direction of the front gate. That in itself was nothing strange. Brandon almost never slept here, after all. But, without quite knowing why, I felt sure that this time was different.

I doubled back and hurried over to the family storage lockers. Even in the rarified light of the half moon, I could see that Brandon’s locker stood open and empty like a pillaged tomb. His clothes, his weapons, his personal effects, all of them were gone.

I ran to the front gate as fast as I could, though I knew that he was already gone. When I reached it, I saw an object glinting on the ground just inside the gate. I picked it up with a strange sense of dread and saw that it was Brandon’s ring of keys. He must have locked up behind him and then thrown the keys over or kicked them under. If I needed physical proof that Brandon was never coming back, this was it.

For a second, I hesitated, looking at the keys in my hand and trying to gauge how much ground Brandon had covered already. Then, I unlocked the gate, and went out, and locked it again behind me. I deliberated what to do with the ring of keys for another second, before dropping it on the ground and kicking it under the gate.

Brandon had a significant lead on me, plus every one of his steps carried him further than one of mine. I ran after him guided only by the limited moonlight and my general sense of his position ahead of me. I ran until my lungs burned and the muscles in my legs felt ready to give out. Still, I forced myself to keep going, driven by the fear that Brandon would cross out of Quinn family territory before I could reach him.

I needn’t have worried. When I reached the edge of our network, gasping and sick, Brandon was waiting for me. He sat on a stone with a tall canvas bag on the ground beside him.

“What do you want from me?” he asked. “Why can’t you just leave me alone?” He didn’t sound angry though, only tired.

When I had caught my breath enough to speak, I said, “You were going to leave without even saying goodbye! What was I supposed to do?”

“You were supposed to let me!” he retorted. “That seems to be good enough for the rest of the family. You don’t see anybody else running out here like a damn fool, now do you?”

“But where will you go?” I asked him. I could hear the whining, childish note in my voice, but I couldn’t seem to prevent it.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. He looked out at the uncontrolled territory beyond the Quinn family border, and I followed his gaze as if some clue was hidden in the moonlit landscape.

I swallowed and said, “Maybe you could go for a little while, just to clear your head, and then come back again. Like Solis, from the Orn family. He leaves his network all the time, but he always goes back. Maybe you could do that too.”

Brandon looked back at me, but just then a cloud floated across the moon, so I couldn’t make out his expression. “I don’t think so, kid,” he said. “I’ve thought about this for a long time. This isn’t the first time I’ve come out this far, you know. I just couldn’t ever bring myself to step over the line.”

“Why couldn’t you?” I asked.

“I guess I still felt connected to Ingrid,” he said. “Not in the way I wanted to be, but I figured it was better than nothing. I’m not so sure anymore. Now, I wonder if I’ve wasted all this time wishing for something impossible—that we could go back to being the people we were before. At least out there I can finally be free.”

Free from what, I wondered. From the past? From the family? From Mama? All of them at once, I supposed. It seemed pointless to ask.

We were both quiet for a minute, and then I asked, “What do you think it’ll feel like to cross over? Do you think it’ll hurt?”

“I don’t know,” he said again. “I don’t think so. I think it will just be... quiet. At least, I hope so.”

“I guess that doesn’t sound so bad,” I said.

Something about the way I said it, made Brandon suddenly get to his feet. “You are not coming with me!” he said angrily. “Don’t you even think about it!”

“I didn’t say I was!” I protested.

“No, but you were thinking it! I know you were! I’m telling you right now, if you follow me across that border, I’ll whip your ass and drag you back here. See if I won’t!”

I knew this was an empty threat, but when Brandon took a menacing step toward me, I backpedaled and fell heavily onto my butt. It didn’t hurt much, but I suddenly felt tears burning at the back of my eyes. I knew it was too dark for Brandon to see, but I had never been very good at masking my emotional profile. Not like him.

“Shit,” Brandon muttered, then to me he said, “Listen, you have to go back home. That’s where you belong. I can’t take care of you out there, okay? I’ll be lucky if I can take care of myself.”

I got to my feet and wiped furiously at my eyes with the back of my hand. “Fine,” I said. “Go, then. What are you waiting for?”

Brandon didn’t answer, but he stooped and picked up his canvas bag, and slung it over one shoulder by its strap. He stood there for a moment with his back to me, saying nothing and breathing deeply like a swimmer preparing to dive.

When he spoke, he didn’t turn to face me. “Take care of yourself, okay? And tell Ingrid… I don’t know. I guess there’s nothing you can tell her that she doesn’t already know. You’re gonna be fine with her. The family’s going to be fine.”

I didn’t know if he was trying to convince me or himself. I just watched as Brandon strode up to the edge of the network, hesitated for a second, and stepped across. And then he was gone. I could still see him walking in the moonlight straight ahead, but the part of him that belonged to the family had vanished like a ghost.

I stood sentinel until Brandon disappeared from sight, then I looked over my shoulder back the way I came. Far away on the network, I could just feel the family settling in for the night, some of them asleep already, others still thinking about everything that had happened. When I closed my eyes, I thought I could catch the faintest afterglow of the babies’ dreams, but maybe that was just my imagination.

Finally, I began to move, slowly at first, putting one foot in front of the other, then faster and faster until the wind was roaring past my ears and everything else was silence.

The End