Page 43 of Imaginary Numbers

—Frances Brown

A logging road deep in the Oregon woods, isolated from everyone but the enemy, about to make a terrible mistake

THE RV LOOKED PERFECTLY normal, if a little swankier than most people in this neck of the woods could afford. All the lights were on, even the headlights, turning the slice of road and grassy shoulder around it buttery-yellow against the darkness of the rest of the woods. Mark huffed a sigh, radiating relief, and started walking faster. I reached for him.

“Please don’t,” he said. “I don’t want you in my head again.”

“You’re the one who kidnapped me,” I said. “I’m not sure you get to make requests.”

“I didn’t kidnap you,” he said. “I liberated you from your kidnappers.” He looked over his shoulder at me, eyes glinting momentarily white. “I know there’s a lot you don’t understand yet, but you will. You’re so close to understanding, and once you do . . . everything’s going to change, for all of us. Come on.”

He sped up again, pulling ahead of me, so that there was no possible way I could grab his hand. It was too late for me to change my mind. I followed.

The RV’s side door opened as we approached, and two more cuckoos stepped out, their minds reaching for mine in a telepath’s . . . not handshake, exactly, since that implied contact, something we were all dedicated to avoiding. It was more like a meeting between two wolves with no humans around to observe them. Our thoughts brushed by each other, taking stock, taking measure, and then moving quietly on. I caught nothing from them aside from caution and a sense of wary excitement, like they were waiting for me to do some uniquely exciting trick.

“David,” said Mark. “Heloise.”

“Out loud?” asked the one he’d called Heloise. “Like humans? Ugh. I knew the girl was provincial, but that’s disgusting.” She gave me a slow look up and down, pausing when she reached my hair. She sniffed. “Bangs. It has bangs. Mark, how dare you not tell me it had bangs. I might have chosen a different role.”

“I hadn’t seen her before she landed in Portland, any more than the rest of you had,” said Mark, sounding unruffled. “You’ll be thrilled to hear that she was hurt in the crash. There’s a cut concealed under those bangs. A nice long one.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“Your relatives should really wear telepathy blockers if they don’t want people to wander in and take whatever it is they want to know,” said Mark. “Honestly, if they’re the best humanity has to offer, it’s a wonder we didn’t conquer this planet centuries ago.”

“Too much work,” said David. He looked at me, eyes glinting white as a wave of malice rolled off of him like approaching thunder. “You killed Amelia.”

“I didn’t kill anyone,” I protested. I had never been around this many cuckoos in my life. The staticky hum of their presence was like white noise, making my head bubble and fizz. “I don’t know any of you people, and I still don’t know why I’m here.”

Heloise approached us, walking a circle around me as she continued her inspection. “You’re so innocent—and so domesticated. It makes me sick. We should never have allowed this to happen.”

“I don’t know you,” I repeated. “I don’t understand why you’re so worried about me.”

“You don’t seem to know much,” she said. “I’m not worried about you. I’m worried about the message it sends when we allow ourselves to be domesticated. We should have stolen you away years ago, before all this damage had been done. We could have hollowed you out ourselves. Kept you where no one would ever see. Where you wouldn’t be able to do us any damage. David? I need your phone.”

The other cuckoo pulled a phone out of his pocket and lobbed it toward Heloise. She caught it without looking and aimed it at my face, clicking several quick pictures. I blinked.

“What was that for?”

“Bangs,” she said, and tossed the phone over her shoulder. David caught it and put it back in his pocket. “I can’t cut my own hair, and I’ll need to give the stylist something to work from. Mark? Get her inside.”

“Why me?” he asked.

She looked at him, eyes glinting white as irritation sparked along the surface of her thoughts, bright and fierce and judgmental. “She’s already touched you,” she said. “The damage is done.” Turning, she stalked back to the RV. David followed.

Mark looked at me. I could feel the regret rolling off him, although I couldn’t tell whether he was sorry this had to happen, or sorry he was the one doing it to me. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to let me go, and he wasn’t on my side.

“I’d really rather not get close enough to grab you,” he said. “I don’t suppose you could do me a favor and come quietly? You won’t get anything else useful from me unless you rip my mind apart, and you’re not ready for that yet. I don’t want to be on your bad side once you are.”

It was tempting to lie to him, or to refuse to go along with anything he wanted from me. I was too tired to push it that way. I needed this to be over. I needed to understand what they were trying to accomplish so I could break free and go home, back to my family, back to the people who would take care of me, who I could take care of in turn.

“Fine,” I said, and flounced toward the RV.

The static white noise of the other cuckoos got stronger as I got closer. I faltered. Six cuckoos, not including myself; that was what I’d sensed from Mark back at the compound. Six cuckoos, and I was the only one who didn’t belong to their hive.

Hive. The word came easily, naturally, like it had always been the right noun for this sort of situation. It was tied to “instar,” somehow connected to the concept of insect metamorphosis, and so right that I couldn’t even try to question it. A group of cuckoos was a swarm. A group of cuckoos who had put aside their natural distaste for sharing space and territory, who had decided they could work together for some reason, was a hive. I was walking into a hive.

The RV door was unlocked. I pushed it open and stepped through, into a space like nothing I had ever seen before.