“What is?”
“The unremarkable are punished for their unremarkability,” she said.
Atlas set down his cup of tea, steeping the moment in silence.
“No,” he said at last, adjusting his tie. “It is the remarkable who suffer. The unremarkable are passed over, yes, but greatness is not without its pains.” He fixed her with a solemn glance, adding, “I know very few medeians who would not ultimately choose to be unremarkable and happy, were they able to do so.”
“But you do know some who wouldn’t choose that,” Reina pointed out.
Atlas’ mouth twisted upwards.
“Yes,” he said. “I do know some.”
He seemed ready to let her go, his episode of candor coming to a close, but Reina lingered a moment longer, contemplating her lack of satisfaction. She supposed she had thought the confirmation of Nico’s friend would solve her puzzle, but it hadn’t. The initial satisfaction of having questions answered was a cheap high, and now she was unfulfilled again.
“The traveler,” she said. “The one you rejected to choose me instead. Who was it?”
She knew without a doubt this would be the last question she was permitted to ask.
“He was not rejected,” said Atlas, before inclining his head in dismissal, rising to his feet and leading her conclusively to the door.
EZRA
EZRA MIKHAIL FOWLER WAS BORN as the earth was dying. There had been an entire fuss of it on the news that year, about the carbon crisis and how little time the ozone had left, leaving an entire generation to turn to their therapists and proclaim a collective, widespread existential disengagement. The United States had been awash in fires and floods for months, with only half the country believing they had any hand in its demolishment. Even the ones who still believed in a vengeful God had failed to see the signs.
Still, things would have to get much worse before they got better. Only when time and breathable air and potable water were running out did someone, somewhere, decide to change their stance. Magical technology that had once been bought and sold by governments in secret transitioned to private hands, allowing it to be bought and sold via trade secret instead. It healed some of the earth’s viruses, provided some renewable energy, repairing enough of the damage caused by industrialization and globalization and all the other -ations that the world could successfully go on a bit longer without any drastic change in attitude or behaviors. Politicians politicked as usual, which meant that for every incremental step forward there was still a looming end in sight. But it was delayed, and that was what was important. Any senator could tell you that.
Ezra, meanwhile, grew up in an unfortunate corner of Los Angeles. The sort that was too far east to have ever laid eyes on the ocean, and that also believed unquestionably that a river was nothing more than a slow trickle above cement. His was a generally fatherless nation, a community of misfortune for which mothers were primary caregivers and breadwinners as well, albeit for very little bread. Ezra had been a tribesman of his local multigenerational matriarchy until the age of twelve, when his mother died as the result of a shooting while at worship inside her temple. Ezra had been there, but also not there. He remembered the details of the event clearly for multiple reasons, her death notwithstanding: One, he and his mother had had an argument that morning about him running off somewhere the day before, which he assured her he hadn’t done. Two, it had been his first experience with a door.
Perhaps if he’d been braver or more aware of what he was doing he might have held his mother’s hand more tightly. As it was, the sound of the automatic rifle had sent him careening backwards in space, to the point where he wondered if he had actually been shot. He was familiar with the idea of a live shooter, having been made to run drills for it in school, but death itself remained a foreign concept. In Ezra’s mind, the idea of a bullet piercing any part of him was just like this had been: a collapse, his ears ringing, the entirety of the world tilting sideways for a moment. When the sensation cleared, though, Ezra realized he was either dead or very, very much alive.
When he opened his eyes the temple was quiet, eerily so. He walked around to the spot where his mother had been, feeling at the edges of the wood for evidence of bullets. There were none, and he thought perhaps he had made it happen by magic. Perhaps he had fixed everything, done it over, and now everything would be fine? He went home to find his mother asleep on the sofa, still in her nurse’s uniform. He went to bed. He woke up. The sun shone.
Then things began to happen oddly. The same burnt toast for breakfast as yesterday, the same terrible jokes on the daily morning news. His mother yelled at him for running off the day before, disappearing and coming home after she’d been asleep. She dragged him to the bathroom, shouting for him to wash his hair and get dressed for temple. No, no, he said instantly, no we can’t go there, Mom listen to me it’s important, but she was insistent. Put your good shoes on Ezra Mikhail, wash your hair and let’s go.