Valence 3-3

Noun: Used to describe the amount of attraction or repulsion by people, either toward each other or an event.

Valence TOC

Read 3-2

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A deafening silence slams into me, nearly knocking the air from my lungs. I wait, listening to the sound of my blood pumping through my veins. I'm terrified of what I might find when I open my eyes.

Black shoes on a floor the color of a day-old bruise. My shoes. I straighten, too quickly, and look around.

The foyer of the great building has melted away. The projection is gone. The man standing before me could never be accurately portrayed by anyone but himself.

Every line of his face and angle of his body appear to me as through a camera lense coated in deja vu. Every moment I'm with him feels like it's been lived a thousand times. No one could ever fool me into accepting anything less than the real thing. The real parts of him are also the real parts of myself, aching for their match and calling out to each other across stars, across darkness, across visible and invisible boundaries of the universe's making. This is Paul. And me.

We are standing in a dimly lit room that I recognize as the laboratory of the ship we'd been assigned to. Bathed in a violet hue, all of our equipment has been depicted exactly as we saw it last: on my right, two transfer pods, one giant monitor suspended from the ceiling, two barebones desks with lamps and chairs, and a small seating area for recovery. To my left are tall windows looking out into the abyss beyond, with hexagonal panes that catch the light at odd angles.

I know the lab isn't real, but that knowledge doesn't assuage the looming feeling of being surveilled.

Paul stands next to the windows, watching me. His face looks sad, tired, but with a soft, hopeful edge around his eyes. I note that he's portrayed his dark curls at a longer length than the Agency's required hair cut allows. I've never seen it grown out.

His shoulders are slumped and his hands are jammed into the pockets of the oddly casual pants he's chosen. Out of the corner of my eye, I can sense that I'm dressed in all black again, and by the particular chafing of the fabric in my underarms, I know I'm wearing the standard Agency garb.

Now that I'm here, finally seeing the real him, I want to crumple. He was always the only person I felt I could show my vulnerability to, even though he had to coax it from me. Though, after the events of the past couple days, that coaxing feels like a new type of treachery.

I hold his gaze and work hard to make my voice level.

"Sometimes," a breath, "I wish I'd never met you."

He doesn't change his expression or move a muscle.

"Why," I sweep my arm out to the room around us, "Why all this? Why put me through all that?"

He tilts his head back and regards me through half-closed lids. He takes a deep breath, nods once, and turns toward the window, placing both hands on the metal railing running the length of the wall.

"Yeah, well, that's sort of what you get for messing around in my Figment. Moving things around."

"And the dress? What did I do to deserve that?"

He chuckles softly, catches himself, and clears his throat.

"Oh, that," he says too casually, "That was just some weird sequence the Grid was parsing."

I'm not buying it.

"And you were just hiding away, watching the projection of yourself get his heart broken in some fantasy where I leave you for some jerk?"

"He was actually a nice guy. You two looked good together."

"Good God. You watched that long?"

He shrugs and gives me a quick side-eye glance.

"It was a clean breakup. Pretty cathartic for me. My guy did nothing to keep you, though. I was a little underwhelmed by that."

An uncomfortable silence settles between us. He's actively not looking at me, so I turn to look out the window with him. A wall of endless space dotted with a few distant lights offers no consolation.

"You know, it's kind of strange that you played out this scenario where I leave you for another guy."

"The Grid made that one up. And why? Because you're gay?"

Frowning, I peek at him across the room, then turn back to the window.

"Well, yeah."

"I mean, I know that. The Grid showed me that figment for whatever reason."

"Sure, but you fed it to the Grid subconsciously. It had to go off of something."

"Nah."

"I know how it works."

He doesn't reply. The ship has rotated enough now that I can see the bright blue haze of Earth in the distance. I reflect on how much care Paul has taken to render everything so realistically. Perhaps he missed his calling as an artist.

Paul's voice breaks the silence so awkwardly that I jump a little. He's talking too quickly, and I get the impression that he's repeated this part to himself a few times before saying it out loud.

"I've been here a long time. Long enough to sort things out for myself. I would be happy for you if you found another woman to love," a painful pause, "again."

I shut my eyes and force the image of Alyssa's face hovering over me from my mind.

"But if you found another man, uh, to occupy the space I have in your life," he shifts from one foot to the other, "I would be in a pretty bad spot. I guess the Figment was my way of saying goodbye to you."

I've had enough. I roll my eyes and turn toward him. He frowns and looks down at his feet. The knuckles of his fingers are white as he grips the metal railing harder.

My tone is patronizing, something I know he hates.

"You had your chance to say goodbye. Instead you disappeared and left me to deal with the Agency. On top of that, the night terrors, the brain fog, the memories. All of it," I step closer to him, "Forget that we don't know what happens if you leave for good - or die."

"Cellular rot, most likely," he cuts me off.

"Fantastic," I extend my hands out to him, palms up, "If you knew that, how could you just leave me?"

With a frustrated yell, he slams his palms on the railing.

"Dammit, Valerie!"

I roll my eyes again at this outburst and turn back to the window, but he's not done. He turns to me, gesticulating as he shouts.

"We can't be together and we can't be apart. I don't know which is worse, honestly. But I TOLD YOU not to come looking for me."

A question forms at the edge of my thoughts, but before I can ask, he continues.

"I told you to get away from here, from me. Why are you even here?!"

Rage bubbles up and sizzles my insides. Fixing him with a hard stare, I cross my arms and dig my nails into my skin. He shakes his head, and closes the distance between us in one stride, waving his finger in my face. I fight the urge to bite through it like a baby carrot.

"Don't start," he growls at me, "I know you were sent by those clowns at the Agency! What did they promise you? Are you stupid enough to believe them?! If I - if we - go back, they will test us, torture us, and then they'll kill us for good."

A small red flag waves in my mind at the words "for good", but he won't stop, not even to take a breath. He lowers his finger and places both hands on my shoulders. His eyes are so familiar and yet so unknown to me. I know their almond shape and the peculiar glint they get when he thinks he's being secretive. Yet, I don't recognize this new depth they've taken on.

"Val, whatever they told you, whatever they promised you, it was a lie."

A lump in my throat keeps me from speaking. My eyes travel across to the other side of the room, landing on the perfect silver grooves of our identical transfer pods. This room wasn't always so clinical; we got to know each other here. There are lots of good memories to hold on to. He shakes me lightly and I snap out of my reverie.

"They brought in Alyssa."

A forceful exhale tickles my cheek. His fingers grip my shoulders tighter.

"I'm sorry. I saw - I wasn't supposed to - a memo granting her a fast-tracked promotion. I knew they'd gotten to her."

He drops his hands from my shoulders and we stand stiffly like that in front of each other. I can tell he's looking at my face, but I continue to avoid eye contact. Eventually, he gives in.

"So, you're here, which I more than half expected, despite my anger over it. But you didn't know about Alyssa, which means you didn't get my message."

"No," I whisper.

"So you don't know...," his words trail off with a slight questioning tone at the end. My brows knit together in confusion, but I don't look at him. Behind the confusion, an icy feeling of danger is telling me to run.

"Run where?" I ask myself. From this building? Back out into the maze he's created for me? Paul could keep me lost in his Figment indefinitely, if he wanted. Would he?

He grabs both of my hands and I turn to him. All of his features are arranged into a sorrowful masterpiece. Except for his eyes. His eyes hold that new element that I can't name - and a steady, boiling fury.

I'm too afraid to ask what he means, so I don't. A primal part of me curls in on itself, attempting to burrow down into a safe, hidden place far away from him, like a worm shying away from daylight.

"I TRIED to warn you."

The inside of my head feels full of water, creating a pressure between my ears. He drops my hands and the feeling of sloshing, thunderous waves subsides. Turning his back to me, he resumes gazing out the window, jamming his hands in his pockets once again.

"You know those arrogant bastards at the Agency call that," he nods to the looming expanse on the other side of the glass, "the 'exo-territories'? As if to lay claim to it before even venturing out there. No regard to pre-existing life or law or danger. It's all theirs for the taking, right? Shouldn't surprise anyone, seeing how they dealt with Katharos. As far as they're concerned, we are the center of the universe."

Paul whirls about to face me. The hard line of his jaw is twitching slightly and the veins on his forehead and neck are bulging in a grotesque display.

"Let me tell you. We aren't the center of the universe. Not even close."

Rasping, dry sounds are coming from his mouth. I can tell they are words, but I have never heard him speak this way. A shiver inches up my spine. Somewhere in my heart, I know Paul is gone.

He reaches for me, and I flinch. He drops his hand, his face softening to show once more the man I thought I knew. He stops to think, nods, and begins again slowly.

"I've been out here for weeks."

Around us, the violet glow recedes, replaced by a dull gray. We're in the same room, but now I can see one of the pods is illuminated, the light within pulsing slightly. It occurs to me that I am seeing something I was never supposed to see, something sinister.

Paul moves to stand beside me as I stare, transfixed by the unnatural light in the pod. With each ebb of light, there is a hushed buzzing sound. His breath on my cheek causes a loose strand of my hair to brush against my neck. A vision of spindly, fibrous fingers tip-toeing across my body fills me with terror. My head starts to swim.

"When I first got here, I thought it was just me in the darkness, traveling between Figments. Then I merged with the Grid more and more, for longer periods of time, until I couldn't be without it anymore. We spent lifetimes together. All of us."

He takes a ragged breath. My eyelids are getting heavy, sweat coating my palms.

"Then, I simply stopped reassembling."

The light buzzing of the transfer pod elevates to a cacophonous drone of insects at work in an underground hive.

"That's when I heard the voice call to me. It started as a gentle breeze rustling the leaves in the trees. But then I started to listen, and I knew it was talking to me. It told me stories you wouldn't believe, from all over the unknown, except - nothing is unknown, nothing is untouched by it."

His cheek rests on mine.

"It has watched us, the demons of its own making. It abhors our greed, our violence, our ungratefulness, our pride. The universe, the stars, and everything that stretches between them, between the atoms we're made of," his hands wrap around my upper arms, "the Grid - it has a name. It has an ancient name."

He pushes me slowly toward the pod and my feet obey. Fear pummels my nervous system, sending signals all throughout my body, causing me to rock back and forth slightly. Air slips into my lungs in shallow, quick breaths.

"I've been in the so-called 'Grid' for so long that I am a part of it. I cannot reassemble now, nor would I want to. It's beautiful here, free from pain and struggle and the mess that is human life. And it has asked me to stay, to carry out its wishes."

My toes hit the transfer pod and I put my hands onto the glass lid to keep myself from falling. Where my lungs used to be, there is an empty vacuum that I cannot fill with air.

"I'm not asking you to stay with me. You know my demands and you know the ship is rigged to explode, finally freeing me from my body. I'm not going back," he pushes my head down closer to the lid, "I have enough of you present in the Grid to keep you here. And it wants you, too."

A numbing chill emanates from the lid of the transfer pod, stinging my eyes. A terrific swirl of radiant sinews and fibers blinks in and out of existence in the chamber - folding and unfolding, swelling, fracturing, replicating, merging. Jagged shards of shock fill my heart, turning my bones to mush. I feel Paul's body press hard into my back, pinning me against the pod.

"Why would you want to go back to an Earth where Alyssa has betrayed you? Stay. I love you."

I'm lost, tumbling down and down into myself. I let go.

How do I love Paul? I love him the way I love a book after I've read it. The cover, the meaning behind its colors and illustrations, once a complete mystery, now bears the face of an old companion that saw me through days, nights, weeks, and months. The familiar lines tell a story hidden between the ink on the pages within. I can look at the book and recall the sunny day I spent reading in the grass, or the time I spilled coffee all over it and how I laughed it off. That is how I love him. In other words, not enough.

I hear myself speak in a dead tone, from a great distance.

"You don't love me the way you want to. You know that. We're victims of this cellular process, of these experiments. That is all," I fade to a whisper, "Let me go."

He pushes me harder and whispers back, "I can't."

I let out a yelp as he flips me around to face him, my back now pressed against the transfer pod. He takes my face in his hands and begins a sort of slow, ritualistic sermon.

"Valerie Farina, chosen by the entity and all it holds claim over, speak its name with me, aloud and begin your ascendency. The all-encompassing totality weeps for you. It wishes for you to bear the diadem in each and every realm."

From Paul's lips, a silky tendril extends to me. My mouth opens of its own volition to accept the gift. I begin to recite the name sitting on my tongue, a name that fills my soul, born of the beginning and the end, a name that is so clear to me now as I see it reflected in Paul's eyes, now two black voids in his face.

As the name passes between my lips, I'm surrounded and held by one last Figment: a glorious golden moment of my cool skin on Alyssa's warm skin, my hand in hers. It is the most incredible, realistic Figment I have ever experienced.

I have Paul to thank for giving me this last sensation. I wonder vaguely what Figment he has chosen for himself.

Alyssa's smile expands and from the center of it, a bright, hot, white light grows, obscuring her face, and searing my retinas, as Paul and I, and the billions of molecules we once were, shatter forever.

---

On the not-so-distant satellite labeled "Katharos", the sudden explosion spreading across the sky is visible for a few seconds before it is heard by the warring inhabitants of the land. Before the resulting roar of sound rips through the vegetation and settlements, displacing air and water alike, Vera turns toward the blinding display of sheer power, with eyes wide open, and experiences a moment of great clarity.

---

Thank you to those who have read Valence in parts or totality. It is a story that I've been working on silently, in my dreams and random thoughts, for years. It is a story of trauma, and how trauma changes our mind and body chemistry for the rest of our lives. Not only that, experiencing a traumatic event with someone else can tie you to them for an indefinite amount of time, as long as you believe that they are the only person who understands you. They become your torture, your home, your outlet, your bond, because trauma has this way of making us believe we are separate from everyone else — making us feel very "other". Valence is about two people who go through a horrible event together, are changed forever, and continue to revolve in each other's spaces despite desperately needing to let go of everything and recreate themselves. Their relationship is complicated, sacred, and toxic, but no one is at fault, save for those who initially betrayed them.

This story isn't over yet! So please do continue to check in for more bits and pieces about these two people I love so much.