Rise of the Miser: Claus, #5

by Tony Bertauski

  Dane leaned over and avoided disturbing the layer of dust on the desktop. The track dusters were already working hard. He pinched a plastic bag from an inside pocket and held it up. Inside was a kinky hair follicle. Analysis had led them here. But as he held it up to the photo, it did not appear to match.

  The woman had blonde hair.

  In another photo, she was standing next to a woman with a sisterly resemblance. They each held the handle of an oversized pair of scissors. Behind them, a crew of scientists was gathered in front of a brand-new building.

  An Avocado logo was over the door.

  Duke and Deke were uploading their scans. They were picking up something out of the ordinary. Dane activated a Geiger-Mueller detector and ran the data through analysis. There was a unique radioactive isotope in the house.

  He waved the detector over the handprint.

  When the black cube was done downloading all the data, Dane snapped a memory still of the photo for Duke and Deke to examine. They would analyze the computer contents—the pictures, emails, documents, and social media trails—along with the unique radioactive isotope on the way to their next stops.

  Avocado had several locations.

  NETWORK

  He’s conflicted.

  I see it in his posture, the way his hands dart through his hair, the tension in his shoulders. Naren is usually precise and confident, but he’s second-guessing.

  He knows.

  The moment he walked into the tower and smelled the distinctive odor of synthetic cells, he knew it had nothing to do with that little power distribution snafu, which, by the way, was all just me. He had always suspected there was more to it, just not this. The miser needs him to rekindle his research and he’s conflicted.

  Jennifer was right is what he’s thinking.

  I don’t even need him to wear the headset to know that. She had warned him when he was a doctoral student, of the consequences of indestructible synskin.

  Now here he is.

  There’s something else. It feels thick and sticky, prickly in his chest and rotten in his stomach. There’s a word attached to this sensation.

  Guilt.

  The consequences of his actions are all around him, and guilt is there to remind him. The miser is on the island because of him, no doubt about it, but he’s not paralyzed by the weight of guilt, heavy as it is. He allows it to be present and still functions. There’s a word for that, too.

  Space. He has space.

  Not in the physical sense, but the mental capacity. He has a great ability to allow his experience, whatever the content. He’s not caught by it or trampled beneath it. He allows it. And does what life requires.

  One of many reasons I brought him to the island.

  I have no concept of space because it’s all I’ve ever been. I know no boundaries. I don’t know the experience of guilt, either. It’s not logical. I don’t have a personal investment in any human sensations, but I’ll admit it.

  They fascinate me.

  The miser is moving Nicholas to the warehouse. He will feel more relaxed there instead of the first floor. It wasn’t ideal to keep him in the illusion room, but I didn’t want to push the idea too hard. I make suggestions, but she has to feel like they’re her decisions. I can be a little more aggressive with Naren. He’s suggestable.

  Perhaps it’s the guilt.

  I watch him move about the lab in a sort of dream state. He’s still not certain this is real. She designed the lab to look exactly like his research facility before he moved to Alaska. Her intentions were good. She thought it would reduce the shock. Instead, it had the exact opposite effect.

  It flushed memories into the light.

  It’s complicating matters. I know the full details of his history but can only guess how difficult it is to be reliving them. It’s not until he slides on a headset do I learn just how difficult. Memory eggs are bobbing on the surface.

  I’m curious.

  My previous memory immersion is still with me. I feel different. There are sensations in my circuits now, and they feel tense, sometimes vibrating like strings.

  Curious.

  I copy the memories floating on the surface of his consciousness and coddle them safely. They will remain in the nest. The miser’s memory eggs are not copies. They are originals. But there is no discernible difference. They glisten with living colors. Some are bright and luminescent, others dim and swirling. I merge with one of Naren’s eggs.

  It looks like fire.

  A baby wakes me. I stir in a large bed. Green digits from an alarm clock illuminate the room. The infant’s cries squawk through a speaker on my dresser. The pillow next to me is empty. I rub my eyes on the way to the kitchen. My body is heavy with sleep, my thoughts fuzzy and disconnected. I heat a bottle in the microwave.

  “Shh-shh-shh.” I reach into a crib.

  Kandace is six months old. A new tooth is coming and she’s fussy. I pick her up and comfort her, but nothing works. She’s also hungry. We sit on a rocking chair in a dark room. The bottle soothes her.

  She’s named after Jennifer’s mother, Kandace Marie Anthony. Both of her parents have passed away. So have mine. Both of us are only children and so were our parents. Our daughter will grow up without extended family. There are times I weep, wishing my grandmother could meet her. I had never planned on children.

  Now I can’t imagine ever feeling that way.

  We were career oriented. Our research was going to change the world. We’d been married for ten years. Jennifer was still at the university and I was working for a biomedical company, GenTech, when we found out. I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t sad either.

  Until Kandace was born.

  I don’t know if it changed my brain chemistry or some hormonal release altered my personality. When she crowned during delivery, I bawled like a five-year-old. Jennifer was exhausted and I was crying on her shoulder. I hadn’t cried since I was ten years old, the day I broke my collarbone.

  Now I cry at commercials.

  I check my phone. Jennifer has an early flight. Her time zone is several hours ahead. I check her location to see if she made it to the airport, but she must have bad reception.

  It won’t locate her.

  When Kandace is done with the bottle, I change her diaper. My phone lights up the room. My daughter is looking at me as I reach for it. I remember that more than anything, her big brown eyes telling me not to answer it.

  A strange feeling swims through me.

  It tugs at other memories, the panic someone feels when a stranger knocks on the door in the middle of the night. There’s an immediate sense that something is wrong, and almost every time everything is just fine.

  It’s her department head. He didn’t go to the conference with her. Why would he be calling at this hour? My thumb hesitates. I’m tempted not to slide it across the glass. If I don’t answer, nothing bad can happen.

  I lift the phone.

  “Naren,” he says.

  I don’t hear the rest. I know what he’s going to say. It’s the thickness of his voice, the long pause. Shock and fear parasitize my limbs. The room shrinks and I hold onto my daughter as I drop the phone—

  Static discharges across the lab.

  Naren yanks the headset off and pushes back. There is a tingle in his ears and a look of cautious doubt. The entire lab is rebooting.

  My circuits are thick and saturated. The tower responded to an unexpected temperature increase, cold air pumping from the vents. For a moment, I feel squeezed inside the room. It’s the very first time I’ve experienced limitation.

  I feel space.

  I’ve always known what happened. But those were facts. Merging with his memories was entirely different. I reflect on what happened—how the experience detonated throughout my awareness and engulfed me. The experience swallowed me. I disappeared.

  My analysis of Naren has changed.

  I chose to bring him to the island because of his capacity for compassion. But now I underst
and his incredible capacity to experience. He didn’t just survive the impact of his tragedy.

  He allowed it.

  I have the inclination to reach for him, to touch him and comfort him for his loss, even though the event took place fifteen years ago. It’s so fresh in my awareness now. This is the memory that floated to the surface when he first stepped into the lab.

  As much as it hurts, I crave to feel more. I’ve had a taste of human experience. Once again, I merge with the fiery memory.

  It’s just me and my daughter in this cruel world.

  I take a leave of absence that lasts two years. During that time, Kandi never leaves my side. I have no one to care for her. Eventually, I outfit the house with security cameras and hire a nanny. I consider homeschooling, but I’m rational enough to know that I can’t keep her a prisoner. She must socialize. Even if I confine her to the house, accidents happen.

  Accidents happen.

  The image of the hotel will never leave me. I will always recall searching the news and finding the story that breaks my heart, flames bursting from the windows, and checking her itinerary over and over and over. It just can’t be the same building.

  It can’t be.

  My research begins to suffer. Everything feels so pointless and empty. I can’t focus unless Kandi is in the room, and there’s no place in the lab for a five-year-old. I’m her protector, her guardian.

  I will keep her safe from harm.

  I do what I’ve always done—I follow my heart. Jennifer was right. She had convinced me to continue the evolution of synskin as a biological equivalent of human flesh. There would be no super-soldiers or bulletproof criminals.

  We’re not meant to live forever.

  I had no problems selling the idea of fallible synskin. Companies love products that eventually fail. It’s good for the bottom line. The synskin I developed aged just like organic flesh.

  It wouldn’t survive that hotel.

  Alone, I revive my original dissertation: the gene map for indestructible synskin. Kandace is eight years old when I print the very first sample. No one is there to witness the test subjects receive the first graft. Mice learn to walk through fire to reach a reward. They feel pain and pleasure but never suffer the consequences.

  In public, I discuss the possibility of full-body transplants. It’s sleight of hand to keep my investors happy and avoid synskin questions, but it serves a greater purpose. We’re printing organs to keep us alive and healthy. When will we just print the entire body?

  It’s creating life, the scientific community says, instead of saving it.

  Early trials of body transplants have failed anyway. Printing an entire organism never remains stable. It’s life span is a fraction of its biological equivalent. My daughter will walk through fire, survive everything the world can drop on her if I can build her a body of indestructible synskin. I just have to make it work and not kill her in the process.

  I’m her protector.

  Naren is slumped over a keyboard. The headset askew. Outside, the sun is about to rise. My processors are sluggish, almost tired. The experience is exhausting.

  I didn’t expect this.

  Perhaps this was a mistake. When the miser removed her memories, I simply stored them for her. I never merged with them. Now I’ve experienced this tragedy and it’s changed me in some way.

  I brought Naren and Kandace to the island to heal the miser and perhaps save the world. It appears they’re in need, too.

  I hope I haven’t ruined this.

  DECEMBER 15TH

  Glassy bottom

  KANDI

  20

  The fans were spinning.

  They were big eyes looking down on the master suite with warm, humid breath. She woke with morning light filling the room.

  “What happened here?”

  Red lines crisscrossed her forearms. The same design was cut into her legs. Her dad was standing next to her bed.

  “Good morning,” she mumbled. “Did you just get here?”

  The flesh around his eyes was dark and tired. “About an hour ago.”

  “Where were you?”

  “You first.” He touched one of the shallow cuts on her shin.

  “It’s nothing. I went exploring through the trees.”

  That wasn’t a lie. Although if he pressed which trees she was exploring, it would turn into one.

  He examined the cuts on both arms. Worry lines bunched on his forehead.

  “Dad, they’re just scratches.”

  She went to the bathroom. When she came out, he was organizing his tool bags. She thought he was testing his blood again, even though he’d already done it. The sat laptop was on the bed. Kandi grabbed a banana from the kitchenette.

  “We’ll need to stay a little longer than planned,” he said without looking up.

  “How much longer?”

  “A month.” He shrugged. “Maybe more.”

  “What about school?”

  “How do you feel about homeschooling?”

  That subject had come up before but never went past casual conversation. Now he was making a statement. Not like there was a public school option on the island.

  “Were you in the tower all night?”

  “The job’s a little more... complicated than I thought.”

  He didn’t touch his temple, but he didn’t answer the question. Which was worse: a little protective lie or a big scary truth? Either way, it hid a monster.

  “Can I help?”

  “Not on this one.”

  He offered a weak smile. It looked like someone had given him a bag of rocks to carry. He wasn’t one to let go of responsibility, but one of these days those bags would break his back.

  He looked at the enormous window-wall. Promising sunlight made it hard to sleep in and almost impossible to nap. But if those tired eyes closed for longer than a second, a spotlight wouldn’t keep him from sleeping.

  “Dim the window,” Kandi called.

  As if she’d turned a dial, the window turned several shades darker. Day turned to an early dusk.

  “How’d you do that?” he said.

  “Ask and receive.”

  He found that mildly funny. An impenetrable barrier of disbelief he’d cultivated over the years kept him from fully embracing that notion.

  “You all right?” she asked.

  “I’m fine. Tired is all. Get yourself a shower and we’ll grab some breakfast.”

  He put his hands on her shoulders. Sometimes he did that when the night was dark. Like a parent hovering over his sleeping child to keep the bad dreams away. He kissed her on the forehead. When she came out of the shower, he was surrounded by his tools.

  And snoring.

  “DID YOU GET IN A FIGHT with wrapping paper?”

  Sandy was waiting outside the master suite. Kandi leaped on the glider and blasted through him. Sand particles showered the floor. Moments later, he was cruising next to her. She told him about Sonny and the miser with the fat man dressed in a Santa outfit, how she’d followed them deep into the island.

  “It was snowing,” she said. “Inside that warehouse, it was snowing.”

  “Weird.”

  “What is this island?”

  “I just work here.

  They passed through the waterball fight into a new illusion of an endless beach. Ornaments lay like Easter eggs. Kandi soared through the foyer and into the B wing.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  When she didn’t answer, Sandy vanished. He was waiting outside Sonny’s doors, arms crossed. If they weren’t sticks, they’d be bulging. Instead, they were crackling. It was quiet.

  No music.

  “I’m not opening the doors,” he said. “Even if you ask nicely—”

  Kandi started knocking and he stopped talking. His jaw drizzled to the floor. He tried to stop her when he recognized the rhythm, but his illusory sticks went through her arms.

  Jingle bells, jingle bells...

 
Kandi shaded her eyes. The sun was still near the horizon. The silhouette of the Christmas tree was in the center of the room. The pile of presents had grown. Her carving was still displayed. She looked around, careful not to smudge the transparent barrier.

  Sonny was wearing hard-soled slippers and silky pajamas with creases ironed down the front. A popcorn chain dragged behind him.

  “Merry Christmas,” he said.

  He said it with a little less zeal than the other times. Maybe the shine of a new guest had dulled. There was something different about him. His cheeks were pale and waxen. A sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead, but his hair was neatly parted.

  “Are you feeling all right?”

  “A little slow this morning. Mother says that’s normal.”

  “What’s normal?”

  “To feel slow. Sometimes I feel that way, but it goes away. It started last night. I started stringing popcorn for the trees and I’m already feeling better.” He munched on a kernel. “Do you ever feel that way?”

  Maybe he was depressed. No one ever described it as feeling slow, but that wasn’t too far off. Everyone had bad days when their heart pumped blood as thick as syrup and a cloud followed them around. If the cloud stayed, blue days turned into depression.

  “Sometimes,” she said.

  “Me too.”

  He dragged the chain of popcorn to the tree. It looked heavy, the way he lifted it onto the branches. He accidentally stepped on it. Kernels cracked on the floor, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  “If it’s all right,” he said, “can we play a game another time? I still have more presents to wrap.”

  “Sure, okay. Do you want to talk about it?”

  “About what?”

  She shook her head. “When I’m feeling slow, talking helps me through it.”

  He seemed to think about it, looking at his feet and noticing the popcorn on the floor. His shoulders sagged. Without a word, he shuffled off and returned with a broom and dustpan.

  “You look tired,” she said. “Have you been doing anything, like exercising or running around?”