“The grogginess will last for the next few hours. It’s just the side effect of the device,” Officer Scylla says.
Aris asks, “What is it?”
The officer holds up the silver bangle. “A calming device.”
“So I wouldn’t resist arrest,” says Benja. “It kept me docile.”
The officer chuckles. “You didn’t really need it. You were completely unconscious. It’s just a precaution.”
Officer Scylla helps Benja up from his bed. “Off you go.”
“Your bed is hard,” Benja says as he massages his lower back. “It needs more cushion.”
“Well, we don’t want to attract those looking to replace their beds, do we?” He turns to Aris. “Hasn’t been a problem. We’re all pretty well taken care of in the Four Cities.”
Once they are outside Station 18, Benja turns to Aris.
“Thanks for picking me up. You didn’t really need to. The officer was being too cautious. Probably thinks I’m still drunk.”
“He told me not to say this, but that was a really stupid thing you did, breaking into that house. What possessed you?”
He sighs. “You wouldn’t understand. You’ve never been in love.”
“Yeah, and I don’t want to. It’s like a disease that ate your brain. At least your sentence was only confinement.”
He looks at her with wide eyes and doubles over in laughter.
“What’s funny?” she asks.
He wipes tears from his eyes. “When are you going to see that we’re all in permanent confinement? The entire Four Cities is our prison.”
“We’re free to leave whenever we want.”
“And go where?” he asks. “We’re not capable of going anywhere, Aris. I don’t even know how to grow a head of lettuce. Do you? Everything we have—all our food, our shelter, the clothes we wear—is provided to us, packaged and perfect. We are kept locked in chains, with a permanent shackle around our wrists.”
He crosses his wrists together and raises them above his head in a theatric pose. Without another word, he turns and walks off.
“Where are you going?” she yells at his back.
He looks over his shoulder. “With you, silly. We’re stuck together in this perpetual semireality. Can’t you see?”
Benja is in a rare contemplative mood. Aris takes his silence for remorse, an atonement for breaking into his old lover’s house. She wonders what the couple thought when they saw an Adonis of a man draped across their bed like a water nymph, as naked as the day he was born.
She can no longer stand the silence. “What are you thinking?”
“I didn’t even get to see his face up close. I passed out and came to at the station.”
“You’re kidding. Didn’t you learn anything from being arrested?”
Benja ignores her question. “It felt so unreal, walking through his house, seeing evidence of his other life with someone else. Last thing I remember seeing was his clothes. They smell just like him in my dreams. I wanted to put them on, to feel him against my skin again.”
She feels a rush of sympathy for him. Her friend is more desperate than she had thought. Incurable.
Benja runs his hand through his hair and blows out air in frustration.
“I feel so hopeless. Have you ever felt this way? Like a big part of you is missing?”
Aris shakes her head.
“It’s a horrible affliction. I haven’t been able to sleep. I’m anxious all the time. And look”—he lifts his shirt—“I have this rash that won’t go away. Am I going crazy?”
“Yeah. You’re in love,” she says. Seeing Benja this way makes her even more convinced that nothing good comes out of romantic attachment.
He sighs and walks to her window. Outside the sky is gray with a thick covering of clouds. Snow is coming in the late afternoon.
“I need more Absinthe,” he says.
“More drugs? Hasn’t it done enough damage?”
“I don’t want to forget my life with him.”
“Can you even hear yourself talk? The drug is dangerous, Benja. It’s turning you into this wraith of a man. When was the last time you ate?”
He laughs. “A wraith. You’re poetic when you’re mad. It’s cute.”
“I’m serious. Don’t you know that the Interpreter Center has this procedure that can erase dreams?”
“I know. The Crone told us about it at the meeting.”
“Aren’t you even a bit afraid they would do that to you?”
“I wouldn’t let them. I’d never go in and have my dreams erased. You know that, right?”
“What if it’s not up to you?”
“I won’t get caught. I’ll be more careful.”
“Careful at what? At stalking? At breaking and entering? What are you going to do next? Steal his clothes? Burn him in them?”
“I’ll be careful,” he says, “Besides, I have you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re paranoid enough for the both of us. There’s no way you’d let anyone take my dreams.”
“I don’t know about that. Your dreams are becoming a pain in my ass.”
He looks at her earnestly. “Promise me you won’t let them take my dreams.”
“How am I going to do that?”
“Just promise me.”
“Benja was arrested by the police,” says Thane. “He broke into someone’s house when he was drunk. The police let him go.”
“Another dangerous addict,” Apollina says. “We should bring him in.”
“Are you any closer to the supplier?” Professor Jacob asks.
Thane shakes his head. “I haven’t seen Benja with anyone.”
He lied. He sees Benja often with Aris. But there is no need for the Interpreter Center to know about her. She has nothing to do with this; Thane is sure of it. Aris does not like what Benja is doing. She would never be a part of it.
“You need to get closer,” Professor Jacob says.
“Follow him and report back,” Apollina says.
Thane nods.
“Meanwhile, I’ll start a case on him. We may need to act on this one before he makes any more trouble,” she says.
Thane will be happy once the Interpreter Center erases Benja’s dreams and
