The Speed of Dark

“I am fine,” I say again. “I am here and not—” It is hard to say. “Not in detention,” I say, avoiding not dead. “It is hard — they say they will put a chip in his brain.”

“I should hope so,” Lucia says. Her face is twisted into a scowl. Susan nods and mutters something I can’t quite hear.

“Lou, you look like you don’t want that to happen to him,” Marjory says.

“I think it is very scary,” I say. “He did something wrong, but it is scary that they will turn him into someone else.”

“It’s not like that,” Lucia says. She is staring at me now. She should understand if anyone can; she knows about the experimental treatment; she knows why it would bother me that Don will be compelled to be someone else. “He did something wrong — something very bad. He could have killed you, Lou. Would have, if he hadn’t been stopped. If they turned him into a bowl of pudding it would be fair, but all the chip does is make him unable to do anyone harm.”

It is not that simple. Just as a word can mean one thing in one sentence and something else in another or change meaning with a tone, so an act can be helpful or harmful depending on the circumstance. The PPD chip doesn’t give people better judgment about what is harmful and what is not; it removes the volition, the initiative, to perform acts that are more often harmful than not. That means it also prevents Don from doing good things sometimes. Even I know that and I am sure Lucia knows it, too, but she is ignoring it for some reason.

“To think I trusted him in the group so long!” she says. “I never thought he would do anything like this. That scum-sucking viper: I could rip his face off myself.”

In one of those inside flashes, I know that Lucia is thinking more about her feelings than mine right now. She is hurt because Don fooled her; she feels he made her seem stupid and she does not want to be stupid. She is proud of being intelligent. She wants him punished because he damaged her — at least her feelings about herself.

It is not a very nice way to be, and I did not know Lucia could be like this. Should I have known about her, the way she thinks she should have known about Don? If normal people expect to know all about one another, all the hidden things, how can they stand it? Doesn’t it make them dizzy?

“You can’t read minds, Lucia,” Marjory says.

“I know that!” Lucia moves in little jerky movements, tossing her hair, flicking her fingers. “It’s just — damn, I hate to be made a fool of, and that’s what I feel he did.” She looks up at me. “Sorry, Lou, I’m being selfish here. What really matters is you and how you’re doing.”

It is like watching a crystal forming in a supersaturated solution to see her normal personality — her usual personality — return from the angry person she was a moment ago. I feel better that she has understood what she was doing and is not going to do it again. It is slower than the way she analyzes other people. I wonder if it takes normal people longer to look inside themselves and see what is really happening than it does autistic people or if our brains work at the same speed there. I wonder if she needed what Marjory said to make her capable of that self-analysis.

I wonder what Marjory really thinks of me. She is looking at Lucia now, with quick glances back at me. Her hair is so beautiful… I find myself analyzing the color, the ratio of the different colors of hairs, and then the way the light shifts along them as she moves.

I sit on the floor and begin my stretches. After a moment, the women also start stretching out. I am a little stiff; it takes me several tries before I can touch my forehead to my knees. Marjory still can’t do it; her hair falls forward, brushing her knees, but her forehead doesn’t come within four inches.

When I have stretched, I get up and go to the equipment room for my gear. Tom is outside with Max and Simon, the referee from the tournament. The ring of lights makes a bright area in the middle of the dark yard, with strong shadows everywhere else.

“Hey, buddy,” Max says. He calls all the men buddy when they first arrive. It is a silly thing to do, but it is how he is. “How are you?”

“I am fine,” I say.

“I hear you used a fencing move on him,” Max says. “Wish I’d seen it.”

I think Max would not have wanted to be there in real life, whatever he thinks now.

“Lou, Simon was wondering if he could fence with you,” Tom says. I am glad that he does not ask how I am.

“Yes,” I say. “I will put my mask on.”

Simon is not quite as tall as Tom and thinner. He is wearing an old padded fencing jacket, just like the white jackets that are used in formal competition fencing, but it is a streaky green instead. “Thanks,” he says. And then, as if he knew that I was looking at the color of his jacket, he says, “My sister wanted a green one for a costume once — and she knew more about fencing than dyeing clothes. It looked worse when it had just been done; it’s faded out now.”

“I never saw a green one,” I say.