The Siren House

by Andrew Post

  I was standing, arms out as if I were on a tightrope. I wobbled in place. When my equilibrium got confused and my upper body began to pitch forward, I reached ahead. I’d get a nasty rug burn on my hands—maybe even on my new palm sockets—but it was better than breaking my fall with my face.

  I didn’t fall. My left leg shot out, took a big stomping step and . . . I didn’t stumble. My body shifted forward, my right leg chased to meet the other, and my balance shakily recovered.

  Thadius and Clifford applauded. They were already standing, so I don’t think I could consider it a standing O, but it was good enough for me. I couldn’t help but smile. A sputter of laughter tumbled out. I cupped a hand over it. “Oh my God.” My face got hot, and tears flooded my eyes.

  I could walk.

  * * *

  Thadius left that night. I was hoping we’d send him off in typical Siren House fashion, but alcohol was outlawed in this versh.

  “Prohibition’s just another example of the Smocks’ influence in this world. They hope to spread it to others once they get things under control with the scratchers,” Clifford said as he brought out some bathtub gin a friend made. “It puts a damper on anyone who used to be a bartender for a living.” He expertly poured the clear liquid into three shot glasses, not spilling a drop.

  Thadius and I stood opposite him, since he hadn’t bought bar stools yet. He scooted the shot glass across to Thadius. “If I had the choice, I don’t think I’d stay in a versh where alcohol’s banned.”

  Thadius downed the gin joylessly, then shoved the glass across the bright wood bar. “It’s fine. This is what’s best for the fight,” he said as if he were reading a cue card over Clifford’s shoulder.

  Clifford poured him another and clunked it in front of him. “Can’t convince you to stay?”

  “Sorry. Gotta do it. It’s what’s best for the team.”

  Someone moved by the front windows. I flinched.

  The doors were covered with plastic from the inside, and it was only a silhouette, but the distorted shadows made every passerby look like a Smock.

  It was hard getting used to Duluth no longer being a post-A world. I hadn’t been outside yet, but I’d spent a few hours sitting near the upstairs window. There were so many cars, people everywhere. No shantytowns, no shifty-eyed residents walking around with guns in their hands. Even the sky was a nicer color. I couldn’t see the rig because of some buildings in the way, which weren’t in my versh, and I was thankful for that.

  I turned away from the plastic-covered windows, took my shot glass, sipped, and recoiled.

  “Good stuff, huh?” Clifford asked, offering a wolfish grin.

  Thadius took his second shot, didn’t flinch or cough or anything. “Any advice on getting a ride somewhere?”

  “Depends. Where you headed?”

  “East. Got a friend out there, maybe.”

  “East, as in . . . ?”

  “Pennsylvania, New York.”

  “I’d suggest taking the TeleHop if you’re going that far.” I’d soon learn he meant the various phone-booth-like stations around town that could be broken down, shot through the airwaves, and recompiled somewhere else. “Of course, without any sort of ID, I don’t think it’d work. Can’t use ’em myself anymore, being the Betrayer and all.” He smiled, eyes downcast. “You might have to do like me and hoof it or take the train.”

  “Just as well,” Thadius said. “Wouldn’t trust something like that anyway.”

  When my burning throat allowed me to speak, I said, “New York?”

  Thadius grimaced at me.

  “There’s a good chance they won’t know you, you know,” Clifford said, picking up on what I meant. “Not everyone shares a unique relationship like the three of us do. Most people here don’t even know the Smocks are doing anything but handing out pamphlets cautioning against the dangers of jazzing. Not that anyone cares much. They’ve been hearing all their lives that it’s illegal. Besides, most think this is the only versh there is.” Clifford downed his shot, tried to act as cool as Thadius but couldn’t.

  “Smocks keep that pretty hush-hush, don’t they?” Thadius said. “Among themselves.”

  Blinking rapidly, Clifford cocked his head. “What are you trying to say?”

  “You were one of them. You tell me.”

  “I quit all that.” Clifford indicated Thadius’s missing thumb. “We all make mistakes. But wait a second. What were you saying about leaving sometime soon?”

  “Sure am. As soon as possible.”

  “Well, there’s the door. Anytime you want, just go on ahead. I’m sure not going to—”

  “Why don’t you stay?” I asked, putting my best puppy dog eyes into it. I didn’t mean to resort to that, but I really didn’t want him to go. Thadius and Clifford would work out whatever crap they had going on between themselves. “Come on. Getting around with me won’t be such a pain anymore. We can take care of this Smock thing, go on all kinds of walks. You can teach me how to ride a bike, jump rope, all that stuff I missed out on. What do you say?” I patted his hand, but he pulled it away.

  “Give me some money,” Thadius ordered Clifford.

  Clifford furrowed. “I didn’t hear a pretty please in there anywhere.”

  “Don’t be a jerk. I want to get going. You want me to go, no mistaking that. Besides, they could walk in here any minute and find us.” He paused. “What are we even doing here? You don’t have a better hideout than this?”

  “This is a movie theater, man. A closed movie theater. There isn’t much better when it comes to hideouts around here. You know the last time a movie actually showed in a theater?”

  “Why’d you have to pick a place right here in the middle of town?”

  “Why’d you pick the one you did right in the middle of town?”

  Thadius bent over the bar. “Just give me some cash so I can take a bus or something. If you two want to hunker down here in plain sight, that’s fine. But if we’re going to be an actual resistance, we should probably learn to spread out a little and not hide in such stupid, obvious places.”

  It was obvious Clifford wanted to cuss, but instead he pulled out his wallet and gave him all the cash he had. Ten thirty-dollar bills, all with the green-tinted image of Buzz Aldrin. “Here,” he said, stuffing the wad into Thadius’s hand. “There you go, pal. All yours.”

  Thadius didn’t have anything to pack. He hadn’t jumped vershes with anything but the clothes on his back. When it dawned on me he was leaving right then, I felt a cold fist ball up inside my chest.

  I watched helplessly as he crammed the money into his pocket, stepped over, and wrapped his arms around me. He kissed the top of my head, brought his mouth down to my ear, and said, “Take care of yourself, kiddo.” He stepped out of the embrace even though I dragged my hands across his sides, trying to pull him back into the hug. He didn’t look me or Clifford in the eyes as he turned and walked across the lobby, his footfalls muffled by the lush carpet. He pushed out through the front door and disappeared into the flare of white from outside. The door eased shut on its own, and he was gone.

  I looked at Clifford. He took a deep breath and sighed. There was nothing to be said. He dunked his fingers into the two shot glasses, mine and Thadius’s, and dragged them over so he could refill them. Last of the gin splashed in; he pushed them both across to me.

  “Go ahead,” he said. “Your face says it all. You need it.”

  Track 30

  STAR 69

  The waylaid time flow had set Clifford’s versh in such a way that summer would last for the better part of what I knew as a year. Days would be long, and I’d find myself dozing off about noon, often finding a nice place upstairs or stretching out across three theater seats.

  During the day, Clifford would work on the building. He’d decided to name his theater something else. I asked if it was because he knew what Thadius had decided to call his, but Clifford claimed that had nothing to do it with it. Still, upstairs I fo
und a box marked Trash and filled with outdated postcards announcing the grand opening of the Siren House. A box next to it had more postcards announcing the grand opening of the Spider Den.

  I didn’t press him about it. I knew all too well what it was like to live in the shadow of someone else with your name.

  In the daytime hours when Clifford would continue his ruse of being a one-man theater remodeler, I spent my time either practicing walking up and down the balcony stairs or reading Cassetera’s e-book. Clifford’s computer had done a decent job of cleaning up pieces and filling in gaps as it could. It read like something that’d been poorly translated, and more often than not, I had to remind myself that her story was not my own.

  * * *

  One weekend, I unhooked my tablet from the computer and began writing this—my story, my The Siren House. It took a while to get used to not writing in the stage script format, but I got the hang of it. I had Clifford read it some nights and give me critiques. He said I had talent. Even more than the other Cassetera. I asked if he knew how stapling worked. He confessed he didn’t.

  I poured some tea in the kitchen. “I wonder how I’m supposed to do that, then. Finish my e-book and just upload it somewhere online?”

  Clifford took his cup of tea, shrugged, and left the kitchen.

  * * *

  Some nights, when we didn’t feel like discussing the plan to overthrow the Smocks, Clifford and I would take walks. Things were going slow. Clifford suffered bouts of aggravation. I’d catch him sometimes staring into his own hands as if the sockets were terrible tattoos he’d never get rid of, even after the Smocks were done for.

  Still, as much as I loved Thadius and missed him, I preferred how Clifford kept me on the same page. He seemed to consider me an equal. He didn’t skirt questions or, as far as I could tell, lie to me. I suppose he didn’t feel he had to. It was obvious he wasn’t the Thadius who was going to get burned, and he seemed content. Everything he did—working on the theater, spending his nights playing hologames—implied he’d found his happily ever after and was just trying to enjoy it for what it was. I had to remind him sometimes we were still fighting the Smocks, that things weren’t done, but he didn’t seem concerned.

  If I caught him on the right day, though, I could tell he still wanted to complete the fight with the Smocks. He hated living in secret, an outcast huddled among the people he’d once policed. Inside the theater we were left alone, except when deliveries of remodeling equipment would arrive. Most of the time, I signed for them if Clifford didn’t have time to get a disguise on. If we ever went out, he’d put on a hat or a hood to hide his eyes and wear makeup to give his skin a different, lighter hue. Unable to ignore what he was then, he’d get sour.

  One night we left the theater to take a walk. It was the middle of the night, but it was so bright out. I’m not sure if he gently steered us down the boardwalk on purpose, but it made me think of how, in my versh, he’d been the first person I met on my trip into Duluth. He didn’t say anything about it but just went on down the stairs and to the beach.

  There was the oil rig, out there in Lake Superior. I could see it so clearly. Bigger, more developed with more levels and catwalks. I guessed it was about twice the size of the one I had lived on.

  We took a seat. Waves came in, went out. A plane rumbled overhead. Someone far up the beach had a fire going. The smell was the same, kind of fishy and stale, but at the same time nicer. Cleaner. I missed Thadius.

  “What was it like, being one of them?”

  He didn’t answer. Had I said something wrong? I suppose it did come off as prying. I assumed joining the Regolatore was about the same as taking the oath to be a part of a staunch religion. The reasons were probably highly personal.

  “The first few years were terrible. Like living in a nightmare. You have to go through what they call the kismet trials, which is where you get used as fixins for any Regolatore priest or lord to be rebuilt with, if he or she happens to be killed.”

  “I remember you saying something about that.”

  “But did I tell you that while your fixins are wearing the shape of another person and their consciousness, you can still feel what they feel. It’s like that locked-in syndrome. You can see through their eyes. You’re there—just a passenger in someone else’s head. For a number of years, I was in Suzanne’s. It was awful. She had no mercy whatsoever. Just . . . total disregard for people. And I guess that’s probably why I failed as a Smock once I was out in the field.”

  My hands. The sockets. How I had Suzanne’s nose. “Do you think she . . .?”

  Clifford cleared his throat. “Now, when I tell you this, remember she was not your mother. She may’ve been your mom’s versh twin, but that doesn’t mean anything, okay?”

  I nodded.

  “When I was going to use her to cut and paste into you, I knew some of her would still be in there. The only way to rebuild someone so they’re alive is to harvest them while they’re alive. And while I harvested Suzanne on the rig while she was alive, I had to bring her back, kill her, and harvest her again if I was to use her fixins to help you. Otherwise, I was afraid of which one of you would come out the other end after we jazzed you. It could’ve been either one, really.”

  “She’s still out there?”

  Clifford turned and looked over his shoulder, to the south, and jutted his chin that way. “Their main temple is in Minneapolis. That’s where she’s stationed. She’s high priority for them in this state, and they got her whole layout—recipe—on file. I’m sure she’s out there right now, or in your versh, trying to figure out a way to find us.”

  “But she wouldn’t remember anything, right? Nothing about the rig.” I remembered about them sifting through what had been harvested, reverse engineering it to figure out where it came from, and beginning their search based on that. A cold chill hit me. “Right,” I said. “They’re some real detectives, aren’t they?”

  “They have to be. You don’t meet quota, you get dropped a rank. Drop enough ranks, you go back to being rebuild fodder for the higher-ups.”

  “What’s our plan for stopping them?”

  “I don’t have one.”

  “So . . . What are we doing here, then?”

  “Enjoying the beach. The night. Each other.”

  I smiled. “That’s great and all, but I thought we were . . . you know, still in the fight. Thadius will help us once he gets settled. We should probably try to get a plan together now, make the most of our time.”

  He shrugged. “We’ll get there.” He stood, dusted off the seat of his pants, and offered me a hand. He wasn’t just being polite. I asked for his help a lot. My leg muscles were still a bit unreliable and cramped if I sat longer than a few minutes.

  I took his hand, and he pulled me to my feet. The tip of a toe caught on the heel of my other foot, and I went spilling forward. He elegantly moved to catch me, one knee braced to accept my momentum. He caught me and brought me back to my feet.

  He smiled. “Still getting your land legs?”

  I grinned back. “Yeah.”

  We walked to the theater holding hands. I don’t know who initiated it, him or me, but I didn’t fight it. Clifford squeezed my hand every few yards as if checking to see if I was still there beside him. I was, but still squeezed his hand to let him know.

  Track 31

  IN THE MEANTIME

  After two weeks of no word, Thadius e-mailed me from Cleveland. According to plan, he’d taken the longest Greyhound bus ride he could, to Milwaukee, and started hitchhiking. The e-mail was lengthy, but he didn’t say much outside of describing the boring details of the trip.

  The woman next to me kept offering butterscotches, even though I said I didn’t like them. I think she had Alzheimer’s or something. You’d think in a versh so advanced they would’ve fixed that by now, but oh well.

  It was a relief to hear from him. I shared it with Clifford, presenting my tablet to him with the e-mail still on screen, and wat
ched him read it. His expression didn’t change. He just nodded, handed the tablet back to me, and went back to work patching some paneling in the auditorium.

  I took Thadius’s cue. He hadn’t said much, probably in case the Smocks intercepted the e-mail, so I responded that Clifford and I were doing well and that I wanted to hear from him the second he got to where he was going. I didn’t mention Mosaic Face, even though I knew Thadius was probably meaning to go find him after looking up Hamish.

  * * *

  Through the long days, I often kept to myself while Clifford did his work around the theater. Nothing much changed, except I rapidly learned how to harvest and reconstruct with my sockets. I had little to practice on outside of bar glasses and the odd paintbrush. Sometimes a glass would reappear on the table from where I’d harvested it, start to shake, and then shatter, but more often now things came out right. Clifford said getting the balance right was the hardest thing, to rebuild something that’d hold its molecular structure. It couldn’t be taught, apparently. Just came with practice.

  I thought about Squishy one night, kind of involuntarily, when I walked in and saw Clifford had a TV on. A spot aired, showing a Dr. Werewolf & Squishy set now available for download. It was hard to think of the cartoon squidmouse as anything but a friend who’d made a bad choice. I walked out of the room until the commercial was over.

  Some nights, when I’d napped too much through the day, I’d toss and turn until I gave up, which gave me an overabundance of hours to read The Siren House. Clifford’s decoder still worked steadily day and night to parse out what the other Cassetera wrote. Before long, I started refusing to go out at night, gave up on practicing my harvesting skills.

  I needed no intervention from Clifford to realize I was focusing way too much on an alternate path. I felt convinced we’d avoided it, yet I found myself plunged into the accounts of this other Cassetera and Thadius. She loved him as much as I did, but their story in that versh dealt mostly with trying to avoid the Smocks. Clifford was never mentioned. Neither was versh hopping.