by Terry Brooks
He has one pill left, one ProLx. After tomorrow, he will be rolling the dice. It would be better to know than to sit around wondering.
“Look, I have an idea,” she says. “How about if we take DNA and blood samples and send them to a lab? See if that reveals anything about your immune deficiency diagnosis. I have a kit. You won’t have to leave the house.”
He thinks it over and then nods. “All right.”
“That’s more like it. Come with me.”
She moves into the little kitchen, and Ash follows. Even watching her walk gives him such pleasure, the sway of her body, the soft curve of her back and hips. He hates himself for thinking of her like this when he knows that’s exactly how every other man thinks of her. Besides, his attention should be focused on trying to figure out what he will do once his ProLx runs out. He can’t quite bring himself to believe the pills do nothing and that his immune system has never been endangered. If it’s true, it means his father has lied to him for years. It means perhaps he has lied about other things as well.
He catches up to her and puts a hand on her arm. She turns immediately. “Please don’t touch me.”
He takes his hand away. “I didn’t mean anything.”
She grimaces. “Understand something. I have a problem with being touched when I am not expecting it.”
“But you can touch me without asking?”
“Does it bother you? Because it bothers me.”
He shakes his head. “Forget it. I just wanted to ask you if I could stay here beyond tonight. A few days, even. You know, until things settle down.”
She gives him a long, searching look. “This isn’t something else, is it? I know how I attract men. I wouldn’t want it to be about that.”
“No,” he says at once. “I mean, no, that isn’t the reason. I’m not . . .” He trails off, trying to find the right words. “I just want to be somewhere I feel safe.”
She hesitates and then nods. “You can stay.” She touches his cheek, a quick brush. “Just don’t cross any lines.”
He knows what she means. “I won’t.”
She sits him down at the kitchen table and brings out a small metal and plastic container about the size of a shoebox. She opens it to reveal a faceplate with digital readouts and controls, and engages several buttons that bring a tiny screen on the top of the box to life. Then she hands him a cotton swab.
“This is gross, but do it anyway. Stick the tip in your nose and move it around against the membrane. Then hand it back to me.”
He does as he is told, hands it back, and watches as she inserts the tip into an aperture in the box and swirls it around for perhaps ten seconds. When a green light appears on the screen, she takes the swab out and throws it in the trash. Then she extracts a small amount of blood from his arm using a syringe and deposits several drops on a slide. Again, she inserts the slide into a slot in the reader and waits for the green light to appear. When it does, she engages her vidview, calls up a setting, focuses on the screen, dispatches an image of the readings, and shuts everything down.
“All done,” she says.
“You’ve done this before,” Ash observes.
She shrugs. “Maybe.”
It has been an entire day without a word from anyone. There has been no mention on public vidview of the Achilles Pod assault on Street Freaks. Cay searches the news streams for some small word or picture and finds nothing—as if it was all beneath notice.
They make dinner together, Cay telling Ash what to do as he slices bread and she chops vegetables and browns meat for a stew. When it is all put together, they sit on the couch while it cooks, talking about music and vidview entertainment. She is knowledgeable about both, and as they converse, he begins to see her more and more as a regular girl. She becomes open and approachable in a way she didn’t seem before, laughing and smiling like any other teen, trading information with him as if they were old friends. It is the first time he has felt anything but awe for her, and he is warmed by the experience.
They share dinner after dark, sitting across from each other at the tiny kitchen table. She eats with small, dainty bites, and her posture is perfect. She pours him wine to drink with his meal, and while he has sampled wine before, it has never tasted this good. He tells her so.
“I don’t usually drink. Or at least, I don’t drink much. But when I do, I prefer wine.” She pauses. “Have you ever had a girlfriend?”
He shakes his head. “I was homeschooled in the Metro. Before that, I traveled with my parents. Didn’t leave much time for girlfriends.”
“You’ve never even been on a date, have you?”
His face turns hot. “Nope.”
“Not the worst thing in the world, you know.”
He blushes. “Guess not.”
“Tell me about your mother.”
He shrugs. “I don’t remember much. I was pretty young when she died. Eight years old. She caught a fever while we were traveling in the African Combine. She was gone almost before I had time to realize how bad it was. She was kind and funny.” He looks up at her. “She liked to sing.”
“But she was gone before your father diagnosed your immune deficiency?”
“I was twelve. It was in a doctor’s report after a routine exam. You think he lied to me, don’t you?”
“I think you have to accept the possibility. But if he did, maybe he had a good reason. Let’s wait for the test results.”
“I hate thinking about it.”
She pours a little more wine into both their glasses. “Don’t worry about tomorrow when it’s still today; let tomorrow wait its turn.” She smiles. “I always liked that saying.”
“How did you end up at Street Freaks?” he asks suddenly. “You never really said.”
She hesitates. “Didn’t I?” She shrugs. “I was on the streets, trying to make something of my life, not having much luck at it. The Shoe found me and brought me home to live with him. The one time in my life I got lucky.”
“How did he find you? Or any of them? How did it happen?”
She looks as if she might answer, and then she shakes her head. “Someday, I’ll tell you. But not tonight. The answer is complicated. Personal too. Why don’t we finish dinner, and I’ll teach you to play Nines.”
They finish their food and drink and clear the table. Nines turns out to be a card game that involves calling out challenges and offering gambits. Ash catches on quickly and does well in playing, but he cannot beat Cay. She plays cards the way she moves—smooth and steady and composed.
When they have finished three rounds, she tells him she needs to get some rest. She leads him to the couch and uses sheets and blankets to make him a bed. Then she goes into her bedroom and shuts the door.
He sits on the couch afterward, thinking about how much he doesn’t know. Not just about his immune system and ProLx but about almost everything. For the first time, he wishes he had spent more time in the larger world and matured in all the ways the other Street Freaks kids had. He wishes he could be as self-assured and capable as they are. He feels inexperienced and naive next to them. He feels woefully uninformed. He thinks that escaping his penthouse home and the fate that overtook the bots was nothing but sheer luck, and he wishes it were something more.
Mostly, he thinks about Cay Dumont. He is surprised by how attracted he is to her. No one has ever captivated him the way she does. Not so much because she is irresistibly beautiful as because she is smart and resourceful. After their rocky introduction, he would never have believed he would crave her company. Just thinking about her makes him smile. She makes him feel good about himself.
He rises impulsively and knocks softly on her door. He doesn’t have a good reason for doing so; he just needs to see her once more before sleeping.
“Yes, Ash?”
“I just . . . I want to tell you . . .” He falters.
“Open the door. I can’t hear you.”
He turns the handle and cracks the door. Her bedroom is dark, b
ut there is a light on in the bathroom. He sees her shadow move in the light.
“I just want you to know how much I appreciate your help. To have you as a friend. I feel close to you . . .”
“Go to bed, Ash,” she says, not unkindly.
He starts to close the door and sees her pass before the bathroom mirror, and in its bright reflection her naked body is clearly revealed. Her skin shimmers with pale luminescence, each curve and softness an astonishment that leaves him breathless with longing. He stares at her, mesmerized, and in that instant she catches sight of him in the mirror. He flinches and turns away quickly, embarrassed and excited at the same time, the heat rising through his neck to his face.
When he glances up again, pulling the bedroom door softly into its frame, the bathroom door is closed.
- 12 -
At breakfast the following morning, they sit across from each other in silence. Neither chooses to comment on the closing moments of the previous night. Ash thinks he should say something—offer an apology, make a clever remark—but he does neither. He eats sparingly, stirring the cereal she gives him in slow circles with his spoon, seeing in its vague patterns the depth of his longing and the hopelessness it suggests. He feels trapped in a narrative that draws him to its words and images but leaves him forever unable to control its direction. His life is a mystery, and he worries he is not the one who will determine how it ends.
Cay has decided to confront him in her own particular fashion—not with words but with a visual demonstration. She is dressed in a skintight sheath of floral Lycron over which she has draped a scarlet shawl that alternately hides and reveals various parts of her body. She wears this ensemble artlessly, as if no thought were given to its choosing, a casual response to the demands of the day ahead. It is a deliberate reminder of last night’s unfortunate encounter.
He has no idea why she is doing this.
“Is there any word from the others?” he asks finally, unable to stand the silence any longer.
“How do you like my sheath?” she asks, ignoring him.
“It’s . . . it’s fine,” he stammers.
“Pretty much what you saw last night, isn’t it?” Her voice is flat and hard. “Did you like seeing me naked?”
He swallows hard. “That was an accident. I didn’t mean to stare . . .”
“But you did anyway, didn’t you?” She pushes back her cereal bowl and leans forward, fixing him with her strange eyes. “We’ve covered this ground before, but maybe we need to cover it again. I know you are attracted to me. Every man is. That’s what I was created for—to draw men to me, to be irresistible to them, to be their wildest, sweetest, most incredible dream. But I didn’t choose this life for myself; it was chosen for me. I was made to be this way by others, by rich and powerful men who desired playthings that would do their every bidding and never complain of what they were asked.”
She pauses, searching his face. “It might seem as if I am a normal girl, a teen just like you. That’s what I look like, after all. A young, pretty girl. That’s how you think of me. That’s how you want me to be. But that’s not what I am, and I never will be. We are not the same, you and I. You have to stop thinking of us that way. You’ve created this half-baked fantasy about how we might be together, maybe fall in love. You think we could share a life. We can’t. Not ever. I am a synth. I’m not even a ’tweener. I’m not good enough for that crude designation because there are no parts of me that are flesh and blood. No human parts of any kind. Even the others have that much going for them.”
“I know what you—” he starts to say.
“No, Ash, you don’t know.” She cuts him off before he can finish. “You don’t know anything. All of us who are Street Freaks are cobbled together. We are pretenders. We pretend to be human. We think of ourselves that way, even knowing it is a lie. We try to be human, but we have serious limitations. Woodrow is a human head on a rolling computer. Jenny is a walking chemical factory. Holly is metal and motors welded to flesh and bone and possessed of so much raw power she can break down walls. Tommy is a test-tube baby grown up to become a test-tube soldier. And you know what I am.”
She leans closer, her look intense. “Pretenders, Ash. None of us will ever have children. We can’t reproduce. We lack the necessary equipment. Even Tommy. We don’t feel pain in the same way others do because our bodies and minds and emotions are different than those acquired biologically. If something breaks, it can be replaced. A bit of plastic or metal. A bit of tissue. A computer chip. A program feed. We are tweaked and tweaked and then tweaked some more.”
She takes a deep breath and exhales softly. “I can never be like you. So you have to stop looking at me like maybe one day there could be something between us. There can’t. For so many reasons I don’t have time to list them all. You can be my friend, sure. I would like that. But if you need something more, a stronger commitment, a promise of love, then no. Of course, if you absolutely, positively have to sleep with me in order to satisfy your curiosity, then let’s just do it right now and get it over with.”
Ash feels himself shrink inside. He feels physically ill; a shiver rattles through him. “No, I don’t want that,” he manages. “Not like that. I want us to be friends. I’m sorry about last night. I didn’t mean to stare. I just saw you and . . .”
She holds up her hand to stop him from continuing. “Apology accepted. Look, I like you. But I won’t like you for long if I think you’re only interested in what’s below my neck. I don’t want you to think of me that way. All right? Can you accept that? Do we have an understanding?”
He nods, barely aware of what he is doing.
She pushes back and rises. “Come on. We have things to do. While you were dressing, Jenny sent me a vidmail. Street Freaks is open for business again. The Shoe wants us back. Right away.”
They depart the cottage and drive toward Street Freaks in silence, Cay concentrating on the road, Ash lost in thoughts of what they will find once they arrive. The day is sunny and bright, typical for Calzonia at this time of year, an encouragement if you believe in good omens, which Ash does not. Maybe once, before his flight from his home, his father’s death, and the discovery that parts of his whole life are a lie, but not now.
“Did she say what happened?” he asks finally, unable to restrain himself.
She shakes her head without looking at him, eyes directed straight ahead.
“Are they all right?”
A shrug this time. “You know everything I do,” she says.
As they turn onto the Straightaway, Ash automatically begins looking for the familiar black assault vehicles. He knows they are there. If he searches the shadows and the hidden spots along building walls and overhangs, he will find them. He knows members of Achilles Pod are waiting. It is all he can do to keep from scooting down in his seat in an effort to hide himself. But Cay rides tall and unafraid, so he can do no less.
He glances over, trying to read her expression. She is right about him. He cannot look at her without thinking of what she would feel like pressed against him. He cannot seem to help himself. This isn’t all that draws him to her. In the beginning, maybe that was true. When he saw her for the first time, she was so stunning to look at there was no space for anything else. But now he has a different perspective. He has spent time talking with her. He has listened to her thoughts on what it means to be tweaked and, more importantly, what it means to be a pleasure synth. He has benefited from her knowledge and her help. He has come to know her better as a person.
So while he still looks at her in jaw-dropping wonder and longs to hold her and feel her press against him until they are one person, his attraction now runs deeper. He finds himself smiling at the way she cocks an eyebrow at him. He waits for her to look his way, to reveal herself unexpectedly through words or gestures. He thinks that everything he does he should be doing with her, and he cannot bear to think that this might never happen.
He would like to believe she might change her mind
about being friends but never anything more. That she is not like him and never will be. That there are barriers to prevent any of what he yearns for. That he should stop thinking of possibilities that can never be more than daydreams.
He knows he should do all this, but he doesn’t think he can. He doesn’t begin to know how.
As they approach Street Freaks, he sees the lot is empty of assault vehicles and black-clad police. Everything looks exactly as it did when they left to find ProLx at the pharmacy. The fences surrounding the compound are intact. The iron gates are in place. There is no apparent damage to the building. The grounds are empty and the bay doors to the workplace are closed, but nothing looks amiss. He exchanges a look with Cay that reflects their shared surprise.
The gates slide open as they drive up. Someone inside has been watching for them. Cay pulls the Flick around to the back and parks it in its usual slot. Together, they climb out and walk to the rear door. It opens as they reach it, and Holly is waiting. She beckons them inside.
“They planted listening devices, but we found them right away,” she says, giving Cay a hug.
She smiles at Ash but does not attempt to hug him. I’m still an outsider, he thinks. I’m still not one of them, even though I would like to be.
“Not that they would have worked anyway,” she adds as she closes and locks the door behind them. Now she does give Ash a hug, nearly breaking his back. “We installed disruptors in the walls and ceiling a while back that fragment anything their spy gear might try to record.”
When he turns, trying to straighten out the kinks from Holly’s hug, Jenny is there. He sees at once what has been done to her. She has been beaten, her face swollen and bruised.
She touches her face briefly. “The result of a childish dispensing of retribution from that black-clad I sent packing last week. Seems he’s been carrying a grudge for being shown up by a ’tweener. Not to worry. I’ll heal.”
She seems unconcerned about her appearance, her voice steady and calm. Ash, on the other hand, is furious.
