Legend

Then he looked at me. I remember studying his face. Dad’s official job in the Republic was to clean up after the warfront’s soldiers, of course, but there were always hints that this wasn’t the only job he had. Hints like the stories he sometimes told about the Colonies and their glittering cities, their advanced technology and festive holidays. At that moment, I wanted to ask him why he was always gone even after his warfront rotation should’ve returned him home, why he never came to see us.

But something else distracted me. “There’s something in your vest pocket, Dad,” I said. Sure enough, a circular bump was pressed against the cloth.

He chuckled, then took out the object. “So there is, Daniel.” He glanced up at our mother. “He’s very perceptive, isn’t he?”

Mom smiled at me.

My father hesitated, then ushered us all into the bedroom. “Grace,” he said to Mom, “look what I found.”

She studied it closely. “What is it?”

“It’s more proof.” At first my father tried to show it only to Mom, but I managed to get a good look as he turned it over in his hands. A bird on one side, a man’s profile on the other. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, IN GOD WE TRUST, QUARTER DOLLAR embossed on one side, and LIBERTY and 1990 on the other. “See? Evidence.” He pressed it into her palm.

“Where did you find this?” Mom asked.

“In the southern swamplands between the two warfronts. It’s a genuine coin from nineteen-ninety. See the name? United States. It was real.”

My mother’s eyes gleamed with excitement, but she still gave Dad a grave look. “This is a dangerous thing to own,” she whispered. “We’re not keeping this in our house.”

My father nodded. “But we can’t destroy it. We have to safeguard it—for all we know, this might be the last coin of its kind in the world.” He folded my mother’s fingers over the coin. “I’ll make a metal casing for it, something that covers both sides. I’ll weld it shut so the coin’s secure inside.”

“What will we do with it?”

“Hide it somewhere.” My father paused for a second, then looked at John and me. “Best place might be somewhere obvious to everyone. Give it to one of the boys, maybe as a locket. People will think it’s just a child’s ornament. But if soldiers find it in the house in a raid, hidden under some floorboard, they’ll know for sure that it’s important.”

I stayed silent. Even at that age, I understood my father’s concern. Our house had been searched on routine inspections by troops before, just like every other house on our street. If Dad hid it somewhere, they’d find it.

Our father left early the next morning, before the sun even rose. We would see him only one more time after that. Then he never came home again.

This memory flashes through my mind in an instant. I look up at June. “Thank you for finding this.” I wonder if she can hear the sadness in my voice. “Thank you for giving it back to me.”

I CAN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT DAY.

When I lie down in my apartment for a brief rest later in the afternoon, I dream of him. I dream that Day has his arms wrapped around me and is kissing me again and again, his hands running up my arms and through my hair and around my waist, his chest pressed against mine, his breath against my cheeks and neck and ears. His long hair brushes against me, and his eyes drown me in their depths. When I wake up and find myself alone again, I can hardly breathe.

His words run through my mind until I can’t even understand them anymore. That someone else has killed Metias. That the Republic is intentionally spreading the plague in the poor sectors. I think back to how we were on the streets of Lake, when he would risk his safety because I needed to rest. Then today, wiping the tears from my cheek.

I can’t find the anger I used to have toward him. And if I discover proof that someone else killed Metias, for whatever reason, then I have no reason to hate him at all. I’d once been fascinated by his legend—all the stories I’d heard before I met him. Now I can feel that same sense of fascination returning. I picture his face, so beautiful even after pain and torture and grief, his blue eyes bright and sincere. I’m ashamed to admit that I enjoyed my brief time with him in his prison cell. His voice can make me forget about all the details running through my mind, bringing with it emotions of desire or fear instead, sometimes even anger, but always triggering something. Something that wasn’t there before.

1912 HOURS. TANAGASHI SECTOR.

78°F.

 

“I heard you had a private conversation with Day this afternoon,” Thomas says to me as we sit together, eating bowls of edame in a café. The café is the same one that we visited when Metias was alive. Thomas’s choice of location doesn’t ease my thoughts. I can’t forget the rifle grease smeared on the hilt of the knife that killed my brother.

Maybe he’s testing me. Maybe he knows what I suspect.