Halfskin Boxed

by Tony Bertauski

She dragged the large bag to the corner and unloaded the toiletries around the sink. The Chicago Marriott welcome kit was neatly arranged against the mirror. Cali took the time to unload the toothpaste and deodorant and brushes and soap and everything else to keep the bathroom area in order. They’d be staying in the suite for the next couple weeks and Cali hated a messy bathroom.

  Avery jumped from bed to bed, giggling with each leap, crumpling the floral bedspreads in heaping wrinkles.

  Cali wanted a smoke. It was too far to walk down to the street. She brushed her teeth, instead. They’d been in the car long enough to pound out a pack of cigarettes. Her chest wheezed. She hated the city—too big, too cold—but she hated not knowing even more. And she came to Chicago, not knowing if things would work.

  They have to. They have to.

  Cali dug a clot of clothes from the drawers and went to the bathroom.

  “Going to take a shower, Mama?”

  Cali mumbled something and closed the door. She missed the light switch and, in the dark, kicked the toilet. Pain seared her big toe, shooting over the top of her foot. She found the light and half a toenail on the floor, still covered with chipped orange polish from the last time Avery painted them.

  Blood bubbled on the exposed nail bed.

  She quickly ran the shower, undressed and stepped in to wash off the dirt, to wash away the emotions, to clean her mind. The steamy water covered the sobs hiccupping in her throat. Blood washed in diluted rivulets to the drain. Cali wondered how many of those red platelets were biomites just imitating blood. How much of that is me?

  She reached out and hit the light switch.

  Showered in the dark.

  ______

  “Stop jumping.”

  “Yes, Mama.” Avery climbed off the bed nearest the window. “Do you feel better?”

  Cali brushed her teeth again and decided to wear the robe instead of getting dressed. She found a Band-Aid at the bottom of her bag and wrapped her toe. Avery was standing on the window frame, arms out, palms pressed against the glass. Cali cleaned the blood off the bathroom floor and retrieved the brittle toenail—that was the second time she’d cracked a nail in a week—before Avery saw it. Blood creeped her out and made her lose her breath.

  “Everything’s so biiig,” Avery announced, smudging the glass with her lips. “The people look like ants.”

  Cali smiled. That’s what she said when she was a little girl and her dad brought them along on a business trip and took her to the top of what was called the Sears Tower. She remembered her stomach lurching and the cars looked like toys.

  “I want to spit.” Avery had a very big smile. “What do you think would happen if we spit, Mama?”

  “You’d get in trouble.”

  “No one would know it was us. There’s like a million windows on this building, Mama. No one would know.”

  “How are you going to get the window open?”

  Avery examined the glass. She ran her fingers along the edges. “How come it won’t open?”

  “They don’t want anyone falling out.”

  “Oh, my.” Avery covered her mouth, her eyes wide but smiling. “What would it feel like to fall?”

  Cali wondered the same thing. What would it feel like?

  Would she feel anything in her empty stomach? Would she feel alive, for once? Or would it bring relief?

  ______

  “I’m hungry.” Avery stumbled into the office area of the suite. “When are we going to eat?”

  Cali was still in her robe. There were two tablets and a laptop open and running on the desk. CNN was on the TV. She slouched in the chair, head resting on the back.

  “You want to call up room service?”

  “Yes!” Avery leaped and clapped. She scuttled into the bedroom and picked up the phone.

  Cali kept an eye on her screens. The lights were off. The room shimmered data blue. CNN might pick up the story she was waiting for, but she knew she’d see it on her company’s—BioMed—news feed first. She logged on with an encrypted connection and watched story after story of anything biomite related scroll down the laptop screen.

  She reached out and tapped Nix’s name with one hand. The news feed spit out past stories regarding his initial seedings and development, including confidential data. She punched in a date to limit the stories to current ones.

  The information stopped.

  So she waited.

  She kept her eyes on the empty screen, waiting for a story. Waiting to hear anything on her brother while her stomach turned and her eyes grew heavy and reporters droned on the TV.

  She waited.

  She waited.

  ______

  The room was dark, lit only by the television’s flare.

  The computers were asleep.

  Cali wiped the spittle from her mouth. The other room was silent and dark, as well. She sat up and tapped the space bar.

  The screen was full of words.

  Full of stories.

  All containing Nix’s name.

  …Nixon Richards is en route to Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s biomite wing…

  She scrolled the mouse wheel, her eyes racing over the words, looking and looking. She clicked the next story describing more details.

  …his condition critical…

  Cali flopped in her chair, eyes stuck on those two words. Condition critical. Critical.

  But he’s alive.

  He’s out.

  It worked. He’s out of the Center.

  And he was at Northwestern Memorial, in the nation’s most advanced biomite technology wing only two blocks from where she was sitting. She let out a breath. A long stale one. Perhaps one she’d been holding for several months.

  Avery was lying on the bed, the iPod inches from her face. Electric shadows stretched over her cheeks. Cali looked around.

  “I thought you ordered room service?”

  “I didn’t know what you wanted,” she said dully. She did not look up. “And you were sleeping.”

  Cali lay next to her, stroking her daughter’s hair. They watched a few minutes of a movie.

  “Did you get good news?” Avery asked.

  Cali kissed her cheek. “Yes.”

  15

  George needed a victory. Something. Anything.

  All he had was this place, this job.

  He had no life outside of it.

  It wasn’t always like that. He used to be somebody. He was starting left guard for an AA state champion football team. He had an associate’s degree in criminal justice. And he was eight years from retiring to Florida, where he’d find a trailer and fish until the sun went down.

  Some people had it worse than old George, but, still, he needed a victory. He needed something to remind him he was worth something.

  This little… chess game… it was nothing to Nix. That kid had nothing else but time to think about it. George had responsibilities, he had alimony and child support, he had a sick mother and an asshole father. He had all sorts of things occupying his mind, but he was damned if he’d use that as an excuse. He was better than that.

  He was better than a machine.

  And that’s just what Nix was. He was damn near 50% biomite, something like 49.9%. One-tenth of a percent didn’t make you human. You were half human, half machine. No way around it.

  George, on the other hand, was only 10% biomite. That wasn’t much. And he didn’t choose to get seeded. He was diabetic and alcoholic, and those were treatable diseases with biomite technology. The doctors assured him he was seeded with suppressed varieties that doubled in population once every fifteen years. That meant he would be dead before he redlined. If a little seeding made his life a little less miserable, then praise the Lord.

  He rested his elbows on his knees. He decided last time there was too much chitchat. Nix threw him off balance with all the talk. He needed to concentrate. Besides, his act of confession about the last time was just a decoy. He’d downloaded some chess code and had the do
ctor seed his brain. It was only a 1% biomite boost, but guaranteed to make him remember more and analyze faster.

  And it was working, he could tell.

  It used to be he only had one or two moves planned, but now he was planning five or six. He felt good, felt right. Felt like today was his day. He could even see a way to checkmate this snotnose in seven moves.

  George felt his scalp tingle. He wiped the sweat with his sleeve. The hallway was getting warm, the A/C was down. No matter, he was on a roll.

  George lifted the knight with two fingers, placed it on C-6 and studied the board. If he had things figured right, Nix would take the bait and swipe his bishop, which would leave him open to get his queen in position.

  He lifted his hand. Move made. He looked up.

  On the other side of the glass…

  Sitting in a chair on the other side of the glass… door…

  He wiped his eyes. They were blurry with sweat. He needed a drink; he was parched. His throat was scratchy and hot. He wiped his forehead again.

  “You all right?” Nix asked.

  George waved the kid off. “Shut up and move.”

  The kid watched him. George looked away, irritated. But then he moved exactly where he wanted him. The little dummy took his bishop, just like he planned.

  Good God!

  George could hardly keep calm. He forced himself to sit still, forced himself to refrain from moving too quickly. He pretended to think for a full minute while sweat ran down his temples and his brain quivered with excitement.

  He made his move.

  Queen to F-3.

  He refused to look up; he couldn’t be distracted. Not again. Not like last time. Whatever the hell brought that weird thing up a minute ago was… it was nothing. He focused.

  Focus. And never look up from the board.

  He executed every move just like he planned. Nix castled his king into safety. Or so he thought. George pushed his pawn up a square. All he needed was one more move and it was a done deal. The rook would slide up to C-2 and he could accept the kid’s submission—

  “Bishop to G-8.”

  George shuddered.

  His head was vibrating on the inside, like someone jammed a vibrator between his ears. His eyes stung from the heat. Will somebody turn up the goddamn air-conditioning?

  He reached for the black bishop. His hand moved like a sandbag, dropping on the pointed end and sliding it across the board.

  He didn’t see that coming.

  He didn’t…

  See…

  George looked up. He looked through the glass door. He didn’t see the kid… it wasn’t the kid… sitting there. He wiped his face, rubbed his eyes, moved his mouth like it was filled with paste and looked again.

  It wasn’t the kid.

  It wasn’t Nix.

  James?

  “Hey, Georgie. How’s it going, bud?”

  My best friend?

  The guy he grew up with was sitting on the other side of the door. His buddy, his friend for life, his best man at his wedding…

  James was sitting in there. His blood brother.

  The man that slept with my wife.

  “Georgie, remember this one?” James kicked the chair across the room and got on his knees next to the bed. “Remember the time you came home from work early and saw this? You remember?”

  James’s hips gyrated, grinding into the mattress. He closed his eyes, head back. James’s fingers caressed the sheets. The frame squeaked with every thrust. It began to sound like a woman moaning. A woman loving it.

  Loving every second of it.

  “Remember that, Georgie?”

  Yeah. He remembered.

  He remembered the best man that took his life away… he remembered the best man he’d take a bullet for, the man he’d die for, the man who was doing that with his wife… HIS WIFE… AND THAT MAN WAS RIGHT… IN… THERE!

  Click.

  George touched the monitor on his belt. The door unbuckled. James backed up. George came in, fists clenched. He’d waited a long time for this day. He waited a long time to tell his best man what he thought, what he felt… all these years.

  Chess pieces fell on the floor as he stepped into the cell. The door latched behind him.

  His head was vibrating. It was so hot.

  Like fire.

  16

  Nix watched the madness unfold.

  He hardly looked at the chessboard. Instead, he watched George’s memories like streaming videos. He wasn’t sure how he was doing it, just looked up and there they were. At first, Nix misunderstood, thought he was remembering something in his own past. But he was remembering someone else’s life, someone middle-aged.

  Sitting right in front of him.

  The new-breed biomites had something to do with it. Cali’s message was clear: Nix would know what to do. He had to get out of the Center. He couldn’t just walk out, even if he had George tied with his hands behind his back and a gun to his head. They’d simply shut off Nix’s biomites and it was over. Like that. Cali had another plan, a way that would force them to take Nix far away from the Center, to a place with less security. A place easier to dupe.

  But it was going to hurt.

  So Nix sat there watching George’s memories, sorting through the painful ones. There were so many to choose from, but there was one that continued to rise to the surface. And that would be it. That would trigger the escape.

  Nix made that memory a reality.

  George saw what Nix wanted him to see. None of it was real, but George wouldn’t know the difference. Maybe it wouldn’t work on someone else, someone smarter, someone who didn’t drink or had more refined biomites with security patches. As it was, George wanted to believe his thoughts, he loved to be entertained. His reality was what his brain biomites told him was reality. And they told him that his best friend, his greatest betrayer, was ten feet away, mocking him.

  Nix knew all too well that the mind can make people see what they want to see.

  When the door popped open, when George entered his room, Nix thought-commanded his new-breed biomites to dull his nervous system. He stood up numbly and backed away. George came through the doorway, the door shutting behind him. This needed to be beyond anything they could handle in the Detainment and Observation Center. They would need to get him out after this.

  George looked like a grizzly. His chest expanded, his eyes red and wild. Teeth bared. He backed Nix into a corner, hot air streaming out his nostrils. Before the first blow landed, the new-breed biomites connected with the surveillance cameras and began downloading the video stream, capturing every last second of the mauling that took place in room 204.

  It was a beating that lasted three minutes, with guards begging him to stop. A beating of pure hatred, bent vengeance, total destruction.

  When it ended, no one would recognize the face that belonged to Nix Richards.

  The cameras would never forget.

  17

  Marcus loosened his tie.

  Down on Van Ness Avenue, three stories down, was a line of people. A line of gays and lesbians and hippies. The lesbian with the crew cut was bellowing into a bullhorn.

  Only in California. Only in San Francisco.

  He’d been to almost every state to witness a halfskin shutdown and he’d never seen picketers. There were scathing editorials and dirty looks, but Americans understood this was a problem and the government was looking out for them.

  But not in California.

  They were saving the world one tree at a time, hiking up their sleeves and making humorous signs that belittled the grave danger biomites presented to humanity. And the liberal media was more than happy to slurp it up, regurgitate it to the general population so that teenagers around the world believed the government was a big bad wolf coming to blow their house down.

  They were all going to hell.

  God did not look kindly on the free-sinning lifestyles of California. He did not approve of their dream worlds. If
these people got a job, if they lived in reality, they wouldn’t have time to kick off their shoes and parade in front of the Detention and Observation Center. They’d be home, taking care of their family. Taking care of kids.

  California.

  It was federal law to establish secure centers for detainment and observation. Somehow, converting a five-story building on a downtown street did not conform to what Marcus considered secure.

  These jerkoffs were right there at the entrance.

  He watched his car coast down Van Ness Avenue. It slowed near the entrance but continued without much notice. He’d phoned down for the driver to meet him on Polk Street. He’d take the back exit and walk the block over.

  He dug a camera from his soft leather handbag and snapped a picture of the bullhorn lesbian. He’d get her identity. He’d make sure he attended her halfskin shutdown. That, he’d enjoy.

  He folded his jacket and tie and stuffed them into his bag, snapping it shut. He hoped if any of the hippie protesters saw him, they wouldn’t think much.

  The door opened. “Sir, the Secretary of State is on the phone.”

  Tim held the cell phone to his chest. Marcus walked around the shiny conference table, hand out and fingers wiggling.

  “Yeah.” He spoke into the phone, closing the door on Tim. “Just leaving.”

  Marcus wandered back to the window.

  “It went fine, just a little backlash at the front door.”

  He listened to the voice on the other end.

  “Chicago?” Marcus spouted. “Why’d they move the kid out of the Center?”

  The Secretary of State explained the public relations waiting for him at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. The kid had been nearly beaten to death by one of the Center’s guards.

  “That’s not our problem. That’s on the Center.”

  “They suspect a bad biomite seed caused excessive aggression,” the Secretary said, “in the guard.”

  “Look, I don’t know why you’re calling me. People snap all the time; that’s not on us. I suggest you get him back to the Center, let him heal and then we’ll shut him down when he’s halfskin.”

  There was discussion.

  Marcus pulled the phone from his ear and looked at the photo uploading to his screen. He took a deep breath, putting the phone against his head.