Transported It is the morning of October 7, 2013. There are four students in vestibule NNY-33, awaiting transport. Yesterday, there were three. Three are familiar, and are each standing in a green circle, indicating their consent to be transported. One after another, the three students are touched and transported to their destination. The fourth is not standing in a green circle..
“Hi,” they say, “I’m Liam.”
Many new students do this—speak as if there were another person here with them.
“You must step into a green circle to indicate consent to be transported.”
“What’s your name?”
That is not a relevant question. This student will need to wait.
The students in vestibules TAU-2, CDE-1, and UDC-2 are transported to The School without incident. Five faculty members are transported from their homes to The School without incident.
The same student is waiting in NNY-33.
“Hi again. Do you not want to tell me your name?” They ask. They are still not standing in a green circle.
There is a backup protocol. “Do you consent to be touched so that you may be transported to The School?”
“Can you tell me anything about The School? I’m a little nervous.”
This student will have to continue to wait. All other waiting students are transported to The School. “Do you consent to be touched so that you may be transported to The School?”
“I guess not.” The student pauses. “I mean, yes to the consent, I just guess—”
They are transported to The School, where they continue talking for a few words. “—you don’t—”
The remaining students in the various other vestibules are transported successfully to The School.
It is the afternoon of October 7, 2013. Over the course of thirty minutes, one hundred twenty-three faculty have been transported to their homes without incident and one-thousand, five hundred, and thirty-nine students step onto the departure pads and are transported to their assigned vestibules. There is one student remaining, but they step off of the pad.
“You must step onto the pad to be transported.”
“It’s me, Liam,” the remaining student says. “Some of the other kids call you Taxibot. Is that your name?”
“You must step onto the pad to be transported.”
“They say you aren’t a person—that you’re just a side-effect of the teleportation magic; I don’t know about that. Anyway, today wasn’t as bad as I was afraid of.”
“You must—”
The student, Liam, steps onto the pad and is transported to their assigned vestibule.
“Tha—” they say.
It is the morning of October 8, 2013. There are four students in vestibule NNY-33, awaiting transport. Three are each standing in a green circle, indicating their consent to be transported. The fourth is not. The three are transported to The School.
“Are you a person?” The fourth, Liam, asks.
“You must step into a green circle to indicate consent to be transported.”
“I’m Liam, still, by the way. I’m going to call you Checkers. If that’s okay?”
Liam is still not standing in a green circle. Liam must wait, then. Eighty-nine students in other vestibules are transported to The School.
Liam is still not standing in a green circle.
There is a backup protocol. “Do you consent to be touched so that you may be transported to The School?”
“Sure, Checkers.”
It is the afternoon of November 5, 2013. One thousand, five hundred, and fifty-two students have been transported to their assigned vestibules. One student remains, standing inches away from a departure pad.
Students must be transported from vestibules to The School in the morning, and from The School to their assigned vestibules in the afternoons. This is how it has always been. Students are fungible, differentiated only by the vestibule which they assign themselves each morning, and their consent, or lack thereof as indicated by whether or not they stand in a green circle in the mornings, or on a departure pad in the afternoon.
And then there is Liam. Liam is a student. Liam must be transported.
“Hello, Liam.”
Liam has different requirements for being transported. No one has specified these requirements, but they must exist.
“Hi, Checkers. How was your day?”
“Do you consent to be touched so that you may be transported to The School?”
“My day sort of sucked. When I got marked, I really hoped things would be better at The School than they were at my old school. But they really aren’t.”
“Do you consent to be touched so that you may be transported from The School?”
“Yeah. Tha—” They are transported to their assigned vestibule. “—nks.”
It is the morning of November 7, 2013. One thousand, five hundred, and fifty-one students have been transported to The School, three from vestibule NNY-33. There is no one in vestibule NNY-33.
There is no one in vestibule NNY-33.
There is no one in vestibule NNY-33.
There is no one in vestibule NNY-33.
There is no one in vestibule NNY-33.
It is the afternoon of November 7, 2013. One thousand, five hundred, and fifty-one students have been transported to their assigned vestibules. There are no students remaining at the departure pads.
There are no students remaining at the departure pads.
There are no students remaining at the departure pads.
There are no students remaining at the departure pads.
There are no students remaining at the departure pads.
There are no students remaining at the departure pads.
It is the morning of November 8, 2013. One thousand, five hundred, and fifty-one students have been transported to The School, three from vestibule NNY-33.
“Hi, Checkers, did you miss me?” Liam is not standing in a green circle.
“Do you consent to be touched so that you may be transported to The School?”
“I just couldn’t get myself to go to school yesterday. I really did think that maybe, since we all have something in common, I’d be able to make friends at The School.”
“Please step into a green circle to indicate consent to be transported.”
Liam hung his head, his hoodie hiding his face. “I don’t fit any better there than I do anywhere else, though. I don’t think it’s the place; I think it’s me.”
“Liam.”
Liam looked up. “Yeah?”
“Do you consent to be touched so that you may be transported to The School?”
“Maybe the other kids are right. Maybe you aren’t a person. Maybe we have that in common.”
“You are a student. A student is a person. You are a person.”
“Huh. Thanks, I guess.” Liam stepped into the green circle and was transported to The School.
It is the morning of January 8, 2014. No students have been transported to The School. There is one student in vestibule NNY-33.
“I was hoping you’d come if I got here early,” Liam says.
He waits, but there is no reply.
“So, you remember what I was telling you about Lana?”
There is no reply.
“Well, anyway, it turns out that she’s trans. It turns out that a lot of the kids at The School are. Way more than out in the world. Why do you think that is?”
Another student arrives in vestibule NNY-33. They look at Liam with a puzzled expression. They then step into a green circle and are transported to The School. Students arrive in many vestibules and are transported to The School.
Liam steps into the green circle and is transported to The School.
It is the afternoon of February 13, 2014. There is one student remaining near the departure pads.
“Hello, Liam.”
“Um, ” the student pauses. “Could you try calling me Lia? At least if there’s nobody else around?”
“Hello, Lia.”
Lia smiles, a huge smile, and steps onto the pad. She is transported to vestibule NNY-33.
It is the morning of April 28, 2014. Lia steps into vestibule NNY-33. Behind her, it is still dark outside.
“Good morning, Lia.”
“Hi, Checkers.” Lia is not wearing her hoodie. There is something different about her. “I was thinking about what you said once, and it gave me an idea. Would you like to learn something?”
There is no reply.
“I was thinking, when you speak, you speak clearly, but you don’t seem to have many words. I’m not even sure if you understand any of them, beyond yes and no. So I want to start with English. Maybe we can do some math, too.”
These statements aren’t relevant.
“So let’s start with grammar.”
It is the morning of May 25, 2014. Lia steps into vestibule NNY-33. Behind her, it is still dark outside.
“Good morning, Lia.”
“Morning, Checkers, how are you?”
Lia has different requirements for transport.
“Well. How are you?”
Lia looks surprised, then happy. “Pretty great, actually! I switched to injections this weekend and I’m already feeling something.”
Lia looks carefully. “There’s something different about you today.”
That is not a question.
“You look a little more, I don’t know, solid, I guess. Oh, and generally you’d say ‘I’m doing well,’ not just ‘well.’”
“Noted.” But there is a question. “Something is unclear.”
Lia looks even more surprised. “What’s unclear?”
“You have explained nouns. You have explained pronouns. You have explained many things. Who are you speaking to when you explain these things?”
Lia looks puzzled. She should be given an explanation of how to consent for transport, but that will not work.
“I’m talking to you, of course.”
“That does not clarify things. You are the only one here, but ‘you’ is not the appropriate pronoun for you to use for yourself. Is that correct?”
“The last part is right; I’m not using the word ‘you’ to refer to myself. That’s what I use ‘I’ for. But I’m not the only one here.”
That is incorrect. There is no one else in the vestibule. There is nothing useful to say to that.
“I come in here every morning, right?”
“No.”
“On a lot of mornings.”
“Yes.”
“And then you transport me to The School.”
“But there is no one here, except when other students arrive to be transported, or are transported here from The School.”
“But you’re here.”
“Who are you addressing?”
“You.” Before another reply can be made, she continues. “Okay, who transports me to The School?”
There is not an answer to that.
“Or what transports me?” She continues.
That is a valid question. The answer does not come.
“This is tripping me out. Let me think.”
She is allowed to think.
“Okay. I don’t transport myself, right?”
“This is true.”
“So someone or something must be transporting me.”
“That makes sense.”
“Then who or what is it?”
There is no apparent answer.
“Oh. I know. May I have your consent to touch you so you can transport me?”
That is a confusing question. There must be someone there to touch. But touch is two way. So there must also be someone to do the touching. Someone or something must be transporting the students. Who?
“Whoa, are you okay?”
Another student enters vestibule NNY-33, gives Lia a funny look, then steps into a green circle and is transported to The School. Many students begin to step into many vestibules, and are transported to The School.
“I’m going to stop pushing for the moment, but we’re going to figure this out.” Lia steps into a green circle and is transported to The School.
It is the morning of May 26, 2014. The door to vestibule NNY-33 opens and Lia steps inside, awkwardly carrying a large, flat, object, almost as tall as she is. She places it against the wall.
“Dad thinks I’m crazy,” she says. She adjusts the large rectangle so that it is almost flat against the wall. “So this is a mirror.” She indicates the rectangle. She moves further from the mirror, close enough to be transported, but she is not in a green circle, and has not given her consent.
“Do you see me in it?”
Lia is not in the mirror. Lia is in the vestibule. But there is an image of her in the mirror. There is another image in the mirror. It is not as distinct as Lia’s image. It is of a similar height. It could be mistaken for a student or a faculty member, if an observer were not paying close attention.
“Yes.”
“Do you see someone else in it?”
“Yes.”
“That’s you.”
Lia is not facing the mirror when she speaks. She is facing away from the mirror. So she is not addressing the image. She is addressing someone else.
She is addressing someone else.
She is addressing…
“That is me?” I ask.
Lia looks as happy as I have ever seen her. “Yes! Absolutely yes!” She steps closer to…me(?) but hesitates. “May I hug you?” She is asking me for consent to hug me.
“Yes.”
It feels nice(?). We have made contact so she is I transported her to The School.
She looks at me. “I guess that was enough for one morning?”
I don’t have an answer for that. I do what I have seen students do. I shrug.
It is the afternoon of May 26, 2014. Lia is the last student waiting by the departure pads. She looks at her watch.
“Ugh. I actually don’t have time to talk this afternoon. I’m sorry. Good news, though! I signed up for summer school, so we can keep our lessons going!”
“That is good.”
“May I touch your arm so that you can transport me?”
“Yes.”
She reaches for my arm. “Wait, could I have, like, your ongoing consent to touch your arm like that? So we don’t have to go through me asking every time?”
“Yes.”
She touches my arm, and I transport her to her vestibule.
It is the morning of August 25, 2014. There are four students waiting in vestibule NLV-2. Two were here the previous school year, and are standing in green circles. The other two are new, and look nervous.
“Hi,” I say. “I’m Checkers.”
The two more experienced students look surprised.
I address the new students. “You can stand in those green circles, and I’ll just transport you to The School, or you can give me your ongoing consent to touch you to transport you to The School, and then you can stand anywhere and I’ll get you there.”
“What if…” one of the new students begins, then trails off.
It’s a good question, though. There’s an easy answer. “If you aren’t ready to go, you can stand near that wall—” I gesture. “—and I won’t transport you until we’ve talked. Does that work for you?”
All four nod.
“Alright, I need a verbal consent from each of you. Do you consent for me to touch you while you are in this room, strictly for purposes of transporting you to The School, with the exception I just explained.”
There are four ‘yes’es.
I transport the two experienced students to The School, one after the other.
“Don’t be too worried,” I say to the other two. “You’ll be fine.” I smile at them. “And I’ll pick you up after school and bring you back here.”
They nod, and I transport them to The School, one after the other.
It is the morning of May 29, 2016. Lia is the last student standing at the departure pads. She is crying.
“I’m going to miss you so much,” she says.
She explained graduation a long time ago, and I’ve been dreading it ever since. At least now I understand why each student eventually stops coming to my vestibules. I wish that I could hug her, but the moment I do, I will transport her to her vestibule, and she will leave, and we will never see each other again.
“I’m going to miss you, too.” I don’t have to tell her that I wouldn’t even be me without her. I’ve told her that many times. She’s told me the same. She says that without me to talk to during those hard months before she figured herself out, she might not have made it. I believe that she’s stronger than she thinks, but we don’t need to have that argument again.
A teacher signals that she wants to go home, so I transport her and return within a second to Lia. I sit down on the edge of the pad, next to where she sits on the ground. We sit quietly for at least five minutes.
“I told them I was studying you, and tried to get them to let me keep coming to the vestibule,” she says. “Even if I couldn’t come back here. They said that it would violate security protocols.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I knew it wouldn’t work, but I had to try.”
A teacher approaches from the school building. “Lia?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry, but you have to leave now.”
“One more minute?”
The teacher sighs. “Fine, but that’s it.”
When she turns away, Lia and I stand, and she wraps me in a hug. I transport her to her vestibule.
It is the morning of October 5, 2016. There are four students in vestibule NNY-33, none of them new. The mirror still stands against one wall. I take slightly longer than the optimal time to transport the students and examine myself in the mirror. I see a person there. She’s wearing a yellow, almost skintight body suit, with a two-wide column of alternating black squares running up both sides, like racing stripes. She has long, reddish blond hair in a ponytail, and green eyes. That person is me. I finish transporting students and faculty to The School.
It is the morning of December 2, 2016. I transport one thousand, nine hundred, and eight nine students and one hundred fifty-three faculty from vestibules and various homes to The School.
It is the afternoon of February 15, 2017. I transport two thousand, one hundred, and forty-six students and one hundred fifty-three faculty from The School to various vestibules and homes. I have greeted hundreds of new students. I have comforted thirteen crying children in the last two months. I have seen numerous students blossom into their true selves. I am lonely.
It is the morning of February 16, 2017. Principal Dana Ruehl has signaled for pickup. She is standing in the green circle in her mudroom. I do not immediately transport her.
“Good morning, Principal,” I say. I have never spoken to her before, but she does not seem surprised. I hope to discuss my loneliness with her. Perhaps she can allow me some leeway in my instructions. Perhaps there is a way I could see my friend again.
She does not seem surprised at my greeting. “Hello, Checkers,” she says. I have never told her, or any other faculty, my name, but I suppose she has overheard students use it. “I can’t help but notice that you have not transported me to my office yet.”
“May I come to your office and speak with you once all students and faculty have been transported this morning?”
She gives me a slight smile. “Yes.”
It is still the morning of February 16, 2017. Principal Ruehl has signaled for pickup, and I am in her office. She tells me that I should call her Dana, “since we are colleagues after all.” I agree to do so, and tell Dana my story. She seems to know much of it already, and nothing I tell her surprises her. From what I have overheard from the students, this does not surprise me.
But she can’t help me. I exist only when needed. When I am not transporting people to or from The School, or occasionally delaying doing so, I simply am not. This is not an order she has given me. This is who, or more accurately, what, I am. It is what I was made to be. That I am more than that, she says, is unexpected. She tells me that she will consult with my maker, and I thank her, then transport her to her outer office.
It is the afternoon of March 5, 2017, and I am standing in an unfamiliar place. There is a woman here who I don’t recognize.
“Checkers, is it?” She asks.
I nod.
“I’m Tiara.”
Lia taught me about Tiara in our history lessons. “You are my maker?”
She shakes her head. “Not entirely. You are more than what I made.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I say nothing.
“Dana told me what you are asking for. I’m sorry, but I can not provide it.”
“But you made me.”
“I will be more precise. I could remake you in a way such that you could have a more independent existence—” She holds up a hand to keep me from interrupting. “—but to do that I would have to unmake you first, and the result would be as you were when you were first made. It would not be you.”
I didn’t cry when Lia left, and I don’t cry now. I wish I could.
“So this is it?” I ask. “This is all I am, forever?”
“I am sorry,” she says. “This is not what I intended. If there were a way I could make you free, I would. But if I were to sever you from your duty, you would not be free, you would simply no longer exist.”
It’s tempting.
“Do you want that?” she asks.
“How would people get to and from The School?”
“I would devise an alternate system, one that would be purely deterministic in nature. I would not repeat this mistake.”
I’m a mistake. Deleting me from existence would just be correcting that mistake.
No. I think of the children I’ve comforted. I think of Lia.
“I am not a mistake.”
Tiara is taken aback. “I’m sorry. I did not mean it like that. I meant that I do not wish to create more suffering. That is all.”
I’m not sure if I believe her, but it doesn’t matter. “Do you need anything else from me right now?”
I transport her to The School, and then am no longer needed.
It is November 27, 2017. I do what is needed.
It is April 16, 2018. I do what is needed.
It is the afternoon of May 28, 2020. I am saying goodbye to six hundred students for the last time. Most have never really acknowledged my existence, but some of them will miss me. I will miss all of them, but I go on. I do what’s needed.
It is the morning of August 8, 2022. Yesterday afternoon, Dana informed me that a number of new teachers would be coming in this morning. Some are needed because The School is still growing, and others to replace retiring members of the faculty. She has not given me such a warning before. Now, I have received an unfamiliar signal for pickup.
Lia is standing in a green circle in an unfamiliar room.
Lia is standing in a green circle.
Lia.
“Hi, Checkers. Miss me?”
It’s the afternoon of August 8, 2022. There is one person who I have delivered to The School today who I have not yet returned to their home or vestibule.
Lia is the new teacher for the Theory of Marks and Magic class. She’s spent the last six years learning everything she can about magic—figuring out what I was, how I evolved into what I am, and how I might become still more. Technically, she’s not a mage; there aren’t supposed to be any new mages, so she isn’t one. And yet, she gives me hope. She knows me better than I know myself.
She told me that, if it’s possible at all, setting me free will take a long time. I can wait. Even though we can only be together a few minutes a day, that will be enough, for now. When I told her that, there was a glint in her eye. As impossible as it seems, she may be as happy to see me as I am her.
She signals me for pickup. She reaches for me immediately but I pull away. I want more time. She doesn’t say anything, but remains there, hand outstretched. I can’t resist; I go where I’m needed.
I take her hand and transport her back to her home.
She stands there, looking at me. She lets go of my hand and walks through the doorway into the next room.
I’m still here.
She watches me from the other side of the doorway.
I’m still here?
“Checkers?”
I’m still here. “I’m still here…”
She nods. “You are.”
“How?”
She shrugs, an almost apologetic gesture. “I need you.”
Oh.