In The Afterlight

Zu scribbled the words down, looking relieved to finally not have to stare at the camera. I thought that was the only reason she bothered writing, even though Liam clearly knew the answer to both of the questions.

“My name is Suzume,” he said, “and I’m thirteen years old.”

“Suzume? That’s a lovely name.”

“Thank you,” Liam read. “My friends call me Zu.”

“Can you tell us a little bit about why your friend is speaking for you?”

Zu looked away from the camera, over to where we were standing. I saw the small movement in the corner of my eye, the way Vida gave her a low, quick thumbs-up.

I’ve been practicing.

“Because...because for a long time I was too scared to say anything,” Zu said. “And I didn’t t-think anyone would l-listen.”

Liam jumped as if she’d shot him in the chest, his face pale with shock. The world ceased to spin under my feet for that first second when her sweet, high voice emerged. It was slightly halting, edged with the nerves she wasn’t letting anyone see on her face. So different, too, from the way it sounded when she had talked in her sleep—not scratchy with disuse.

“I did it,” she said, almost in wonder.

“Yeah you did! Get it, girl!” Vida said, and her loud clapping was the only sound that emerged in the silence that followed. The kids who’d been watching the interview happen from where they sat fanned out on the floor to the side looked, in a word, stunned.

Chubs moved quickly, shoving past me, Vida, and Alice, who’d started to rise to her feet to reset the camera, and all but slammed into Zu. His face as he hugged her was a portrait of pure joy, and he didn’t bother trying to hide the evidence of the tears that were beginning to track down his face.

“I’m t-trying to do an interview,” Zu complained, her voice muffled by his shirt. After a moment, she relented, patting his back.

“Okay, Charlie,” Vida said. “Let the girl finish before you try to drown her in tears. Come on.” She carefully extracted him from the interview space, guiding him back around to where I stood, where the rest of his embrace was transferred to me. And I was more than a little glad for the excuse to look away from Zu to deal with the tears that were starting to well up behind my own lashes.

“Why is everyone acting like c-crazy people?” she said, and already her voice was getting steadier, stronger. “Can we start again?”

Liam stood up, about to drag his chair away when she grabbed his hand and said something quietly to him. I couldn’t see his expression at first, not with his back to us, but I caught a glimpse of it as he pulled his chair over to the other side of the camera, and my throat ached with the pride there, the happiness. He sat back down and Zu immediately reoriented herself so she was angled toward him instead of the reporter. Her whole posture changed, relaxing enough for her to start swinging her legs back and forth.

“This okay?” Liam asked, both to her and Alice.

The reporter nodded, merely crossing the next two questions off her list.

Her next questions were about Zu’s color classification and what she could do. It led naturally into a bigger question. “Were you sent to a camp by your parents, or were you picked up?”

“I made my father’s car—I killed its engine by mistake. It was an accident. Up until then I had only ruined a few lamps. My alarm clock. They were talking about...terrorists, I think, they were saying that they thought IAAN was because of terrorists and that they should leave as soon as possible to go back to Japan. I got upset and—I didn’t have a good control. I fried the engine, and cars hit us. My mom’s pelvis was broken. After she got out of the hospital, she insisted I go back to school that next Monday. It was the first Collection.”

The Collections were a series of pick-ups kept secret from children. If parents felt threatened by their children, or thought they were a danger to themselves or to others, they sent them to school on specific days and the PSFs picked them up.

“You mentioned you can control your abilities now. How did you learn to?”

Zu shrugged. “Practice. Not being afraid of them.”

“What would you say to people who feel that letting Psi kids learn to control their abilities endangers others?”

She made her patented Are you kidding me? face. “Most kids only want to control them so they can feel normal. Why would I want to fry every light switch or phone I touch? Every computer? There are kids who abuse it, maybe, but most of us...we’re more dangerous if we can’t control it, and everyone can learn if you give them time.”

“How did you feel when you realized you were being picked up by the Psi Special Forces at school that day?” Alice asked.

“I thought it was a mistake,” she said, looking down at her hands. “Then I felt stupid and small—like trash.”

The reporter’s questions had clearly been designed to bleed Zu’s old wounds for every last terrible detail. A question about her daily routine at Caledonia turned into how the PSFs treated them on an average day, and then on days they misbehaved. It was excruciating to try to imagine it happening to her—beyond that to hear Alice ask, “You mentioned before that you only got out of Caledonia because you escaped. Can you talk about what happened?”

Zu turned, leaning slightly so she was looking at Liam. He’d been watching with his arms crossed over his chest, struggling to keep the emotion off his face. Now he gave her a small nod, this heartbreaking little smile. Go ahead.