Dr. Hester nods, like it’s what he expected. “Was it physical?”
“Why?” Mike snarls. “Couldn’t you see it? When you were spying on us? Goddamn Commies, we’ve—”
“It doesn’t work like that, Mike,” Dr. King says. “We can’t see everything. Not with any clarity. It’s more… insight than actual sight.”
“Yes,” Greg says, because it needs to be out there. “It was physical.”
Dr. Hester sighs. “And here we thought we were so careful.”
“How?” Greg asks.
“Because. We took away the things we didn’t think were needed. Words. Phrases. Modern speech. Your trash disappeared because it was never there to begin with. There are no children because we couldn’t procure any. No cars because it would have gotten too complicated. No newspapers. No television. I gave you the books that were popular at the time. The radio shows I remembered from my youth. The music I love, because Dizzy can blow that horn, can’t he? The movies I paid forty-five cents to see. I love Amorea, Mike. I love it because it’s a world with order and boundaries. It exists because I made it the way it is. I gave it life. And I took away the things that would have complicated matters. Like desire. Like attraction. Like sex. For all intents and purposes, everyone in Amorea should have been effectively asexual and aromantic, in that they would not have formed physical and emotional bonds other than friendship.”
Greg laughs bitterly. “You think you can control it? Like you controlled everything else? You said yourself that the mind goes deeper than even you can possibly imagine. What makes you think you can control something you don’t understand?”
Dr. Hester flinches at that. Finally. Finally. “I won’t apologize for that. I did what I did because I hoped for something better.”
Mike says, “I am real, you bastard. I don’t care what you say. I am real. Maybe I am schizophrenic, and this is just a breakdown. This is just an event.”
Dr. King says, “No. Mike. Listen to me. You aren’t schizophrenic. That was an extraordinarily ill-advised attempt at keeping you from finding out the truth. We didn’t know if you’d wake. We didn’t know if you’d come back here or stay in Amorea. It was decided”—and she spits that word with such venom—“to attempt to qualify what you’d been seeing. What you’d been hearing. Because you could see and hear us, couldn’t you?”
“I’m just sick,” Mike insists. “Or You Came from Outer Space. That’s all this is. You’re experimenting on me, and you’ve taken me from my home.”
“It’s not like that,” Dr. King says, and she looks like she’s going to reach out and touch him soothingly but decides against it. “Mostly. It was merely a suggestion given to the town doctor, a gentle push.”
What do you know about schizophrenia?
“What did you see, Mr. Frazier?” Dr. Hester says, eyes bright. “What was it that you saw? How did it begin? There was a spike in your alpha wave. It fluttered. Like a bird. Like the wings of a bird. What did you see?”
The machines around him begin to beep alarmingly.
“Malcolm, maybe we should wrap it up for today,” Dr. King says. “We could resume—”
“Mr. Frazier,” Dr. Hester snaps. “What did you see!”
Greg and Mike speak at the same time, in one voice, saying one word. It’s filled with such terror and such relief that they can barely breathe around it. Their
(his)
(our)
(my)
heart is beating thunderously, their
(his)
(our)
(my)
lungs and throat constricting, and it’s painful. It hurts, but they get the word out, get it out, and even in that horror, there is the relief.
“Murmuration.”
The machines fall silent.
Greg says, “On the TV. When I was kid. With my dad. He loved nature shows. I don’t know why. There were these birds. Starlings, they’re called. When they fly, they move as a group. And there can be thousands of them all flying together as one. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”