Halfskin Boxed

by Tony Bertauski

  The doctor yanked the covers back, exposing pillows. “Where is he?”

  James filled the doorway, hand on the heavy door. He didn’t have enough sense to even shake his head.

  “This was in the bathroom.” The nurse handed the catheter to the doctor.

  He put his hands on his hips, looking around the room like Nix might be hiding in a corner. He even bent slightly, peering under the bed.

  James hadn’t moved.

  “Call your boss,” the doctor said, pushing past him.

  James was going to puke, for sure.

  M0THER

  Comic Book Hero

  ______

  Rodney Chandler was a superhero geek.

  His dad boasted the world’s greatest collection of comic books, all cataloged and sealed in mold-proof sleeves and stored in the basement. He would let Rodney look at the covers, but not take them out. God, no.

  But when the old man was away, Rodney slipped into the musty downstairs and flipped through the paperbacks organized alphabetically and by edition. Superman, Green Lantern, Thor, Hulk, X-Men… he never knew where to start, the colors so vivid.

  He’d read them by flashlight, afraid to turn on the light in case someone passed the house. The old smell of the pages tingled his sinuses. And the thrill of getting one over on his old man twisted his guts. Made him smile.

  He watched all the movies, collected the posters. Bought his own vintage comic books and hid them from his old man’s grubby mitts. When he was old enough to get seeded with brain biomites, he experienced submersion films: virtual trips into the world of superheroes. He became the Man of Steel, flew around the world, stopped speeding bullets and saved the distressed. After a while, he played the villain. Sometimes he even won.

  But even that got stale.

  Eventually, the submersion film ended and he woke up, plain old Rodney. Nothing special, nothing good.

  Just another street rat.

  But there were people that could help, people that had money and access to biomites that others didn’t. And didn’t cost Rodney a dime. All they asked in return were favors. That was it.

  It’ll be painful, they said. It’ll hurt like a bitch until the biomites acclimate, change your body. You understand?

  Rodney half-listened. He was in, no matter what. He was tired of being Rodney. He’d give anything to matter.

  But they weren’t joking. Rodney sweated out a recovery that lasted months in some dirty basement room. He hardly remembered it, just the pain and the screaming.

  After that, the power.

  They gave him a phone, told him they’d call, and that he better answer when they did. Months went by before his first call. In fact, he’d forgotten about it. He was way into the new powers. I mean, he was a superhero, for Christ’s sake. He considered moonlighting his powers for the good of the city, but the people told him absolutely not, under no circumstances was he allowed to exercise them.

  Just wait.

  He listened, sort of. He went back to his apartment and practiced. They couldn’t expect him to be any good if he didn’t. He set up scenarios and pretended to be the good guy. Always the good guy. By the time he’d gotten his first call, he’d saved a thousand imaginary victims.

  But now he was standing on West Twenty-Third Street outside a tall building. New York was especially cold that winter, but Rodney didn’t feel it. He pulled the hood over his eyes not because he was cold. He leaned against the building and watched the traffic with head bowed. Maybe someone would tell him to move on, but he wasn’t begging.

  He was waiting.

  He flexed his fingers inside the front pocket of his jacket, keeping them limber. There was a metal ball beneath his tongue, filling his mouth with a metallic tang. He switched it from cheek to cheek, watching traffic.

  Watching traffic.

  When the black limo rolled around the corner, he almost swallowed it. His throat seized, hidden fingers clenched. Fear froze him against the wall. He shifted his weight and dipped his head as the limo stopped at the curb. Car doors opened.

  Rodney slid the phone out and swiped his thumb over the glass. A picture illuminated the screen, a photo of a man with gray hair. The photo the people sent him. They needed a favor. And he was their man.

  He kept the phone out, watching the fatneck security guard stand next to the back door while another fatneck opened it. He felt them watching him. He was far enough away to be harmless, unless he had a gun. And if that happened, they’d move. So they watched him while the silver-haired man stepped out of the limo. He was speaking on a phone, eyebrows knitted in anger, lips pulled back over white veneers.

  Rodney rolled the weighty ball onto his tongue and curled the edges around it like a fleshy barrel. His chest expanded slowly. Expanded fully. No one would notice.

  No one would expect it.

  He’d practiced it so many times, so many ways. Always getting the bad guy, always the ones that deserved it. Somehow, Rodney knew this guy was bad.

  He unleashed a powerful burst of wind, firing the metal ball through his biomite-reinforced tongue. There was a sound of a cork as it passed his lips.

  The wet sound of it popping the silver-hair’s right eye, sinking into gray matter.

  His head snapped.

  The fatnecks looked around.

  People stepped off the sidewalk; some began to gather. Others called 911. Rodney pushed off the wall and hustled away from the scene. He felt like he was falling, a thrill spun in his groin like he’d pulled a vintage comic from its plastic and inhaled the musty flavor.

  And when a beefy hand landed on his shoulder and spun him around… when the security guard clenched his neck, cut off his air, began to drag him back… blades slid out between his knuckles and plunged into the fatneck’s belly. He tasted salty blood, licked the man’s intestines with the blades like razor-sharp tongues.

  Felt the cold chill as he pulled them out.

  Felt the wind on his cheeks as he ran away. Ran faster than a man should run, the biomites fueling his muscles with adrenaline, the biomite-blades retracting into his arms, stinging in their slots.

  He was a superhero.

  37

  Marcus drummed his fingers on the counter. The hotel clerk tapped on the keys, checking in a woman with frizzy hair and a kid attached to her leg, a thumb in his mouth. The rugrat stared at Marcus, a snot bubble swelling with each breath.

  Marcus turned his back.

  His driver rolled his luggage to the car and put it in the trunk. He’d wait for Marcus to call, swing by and pick him up when all this was done.

  Marcus looked at his watch. 1:00. He didn’t want to be in Chicago a minute longer. When it hit 3:00, those two halfskins were getting shut down and he wasn’t going to linger. He’d wasted enough time on this charade. This was done, 3:00, on the dot.

  M0ther was an honest system. She was a machine only interested in data. She recorded every event, watched where people went, alerted the authorities when they went redline, and shut them down when they went halfskin. She had no feelings, had no investment about who lived and died. It was a simple system, an honest one.

  But Marcus reserved the right to keep it that way. Sometimes, honesty can make the wrong choice. Dr. Cali was clearly damaged from her biomite seeding. His people had interviewed her co-workers and neighbors; they’d done a full analysis. Her basement was a fully operational biomite lab that had been cleansed of data. She was up to something and smart enough to cover her tracks.

  And while her biomite content mysteriously stayed below the redline, he was sure that she had rigged it. Somehow, she was fooling the meters, changing what they were reading. Marcus had been around enough halfskins to know when they were over the line. He could smell it. They had a way about them. They were slightly hollow, distant and mechanical.

  Machine-like.

  That was her. Cali was halfskin, he knew it. If she thought she could walk around fooling him, she was wrong. She met the one person that co
uld remedy her deceit. So, yeah, Marcus set the record straight. It wasn’t his meter that cheated the reading, he simply changed what was being reported through M0ther.

  She would shut her down.

  “I want smoking,” demanded the woman with the snotty kid growing off her leg. “I said that already.”

  Marcus sighed, drumming the counter with his fingernails. The woman glared at him, giving him a chance to say something. His phone buzzed. He put it to his ear, not taking his eyes off her.

  “Yeah.”

  The kid made sucking sounds around his thumb. Marcus wanted to wipe his nose with the mother’s dress.

  He barely heard what was said.

  Not because he was distracted. Because it was impossible.

  “What do you mean disappeared?”

  38

  Eight nurses.

  Three med techs.

  One janitor cleaning up vomit down the hall.

  Cali sat in the corner of room 512. Eyes closed. Mind plugged into the fifth floor’s network, reading who was clocked in. She didn’t know what they were doing, except for the janitor that was just called up after Mr. Craven regurgitated his chicken salad on his way to the bathroom.

  She sorted through the database and read the patient list. She knew this room had recently been vacated when Ms. Sheila Hartley had been discharged after hernia surgery. Cali immediately filled the room with an alias Mr. Calvin Brown, a man that suffered from diverticulitis. His mother would be in the room with him, sitting in the chair with her eyes closed.

  Mr. Brown was currently sleeping.

  Cali had triggered a shutdown of their old-generation biomites, the very technology that allowed M0ther to follow them, to monitor them, to pass along their location, health and activity to anyone with authority to receive it. Namely, Mr. Marcus Anderson. And now that all the old-generation biomites were deactivated, they were invisible.

  M0ther couldn’t see them.

  Nix wasn’t ready for the shutdown. There were still too few new breeds to support his body without the assistance of the old-generation ones. But there wasn’t a choice. If they stayed on the second floor, if Marcus shut them down with all the bodyguards around them and Cali and Nix survived, suspicion would drop like a hammer.

  The new breeds would be discovered.

  She had to get them away, to hide. To survive. Invisible, they could make their escape. But she couldn’t just wheel Nix out. She could barely stand and she was in much better shape than her brother, and even that sudden loss about did her in. They needed to rest, give the new breeds time to flush their systems and take the place of the old-generation biomites, to keep their organs functioning, their muscles contracting, nervous systems firing.

  Cali went to the sink, filled the pitcher with water and drank. She’d been to the bathroom multiple times, excreting the dead biomites that were filtered through the liver and kidneys. She filled a cup, bent the scrunchy elbow of a straw, and lifted Nix’s head. He wasn’t asleep, but conscious just enough to feel the plastic tip on his lips, to pull the water. She was constantly reminding him to drink, to drink more. She couldn’t move him to the bathroom; he had to do his business right there. In the bed.

  She’d worry about that later.

  Cali sat back down. Felt like she’d run a marathon. She wanted to sleep, needed it badly. Right now, she needed to watch, needed to wait for their opportunity. When Nix was ready to move, they’d have to move. Hiding inside the hospital wouldn’t last, even if she could manipulate the computer database. Eventually someone would come looking: they’d see past her illusions.

  She closed her eyes.

  She listened to the chatter of intercom calls and secure phones. She caught fragments of medical talk and concerned families in waiting rooms. She stayed open, listening. Watching.

  Waiting.

  39

  Marcus marched out of the elevator.

  His shoes hammered the floor. Coat unbuttoned. White shirt puffed over his belt and tie slightly undone. He went down the middle of the hall, eyes ahead. Others moved to the side. He turned the corner, hand out, punching open the door.

  Several people were inside.

  Most were dressed darkly, unassuming clothing that cloaked security guards from standing out in a crowd. Their chatter was cut still.

  The balding man stopped. He looked around, hands on hips. He met all their eyes.

  “Someone,” he said, drawing out the word, “tell me what the hell happened.”

  The last word hissed with steam.

  James was the only one in the room sitting. He worked his tongue to moisten his lips. He stood up. He explained that he might have been poisoned, or maybe it was just bad food, but whatever it was… he couldn’t quite remember. Cali left the room to get something to eat, and then they were gone.

  “What do you mean, gone?”

  He shrugged.

  “Use your training, son. Did the woman have her brother stuffed down her pants? Did she fold him up and tuck him into her bag? HOW THE HELL COULD HE BE GONE?”

  Again, shrug. No one had answers.

  One of the security agents, a tall skinny man with thinning hair, recounted what they knew. Marcus paced the room, listening while he peeked in the bathroom, looked at the bed, picked up a water pitcher. They’d interviewed everyone on the floor; no one had seen either of them leaving. The security camera was running a loop of them still in the room.

  “How could they do that?” he asked.

  “We’re looking into that,” the skinny man said.

  She had no access to her laptop. Her phone, perhaps, had hacking capability, but that would require a significant amount of time to set up and execute. Certainly, they’d know what she was doing if that was it.

  Impossible. Just… impossible. There was no way she could shut herself down, shut her brother’s biomites down, and disappear. Their bodies had to be somewhere. It was not possible to survive without biomites. She wasn’t halfskin, not like his reader reported. No, she was probably redline and that would be enough to cripple her. But the kid… he’d be dead.

  The bodies have to be SOMEWHERE.

  And she couldn’t make them invisible. M0ther was synchronized with the unique strands of artificial DNA strands that composed every single biomite in production, artificial DNA that allowed them to function. Even if that was somehow sidestepped, even if she was able to recombine the biomite DNA, there was the mitochondria power supply. M0ther could follow that.

  The woman was a brilliant scientist, but she couldn’t accomplish something like that. None of the biomite corporations were allowed to experiment with off-grid synthesis of biomite production without the consent of the government without risking loss of license. The Army Corp of Engineers had been working on developing invisi-biomites and hadn’t even come close.

  Have I underestimated her?

  No. Impossible.

  Had to be another explanation.

  “Sir?”

  Marcus jerked around.

  “They were last located in the elevator,” Skinny said. “The elevator went up and stopped on every floor. No one recognized them, but there’s no evidence they went down. They might still be in the building. The exits are all covered and we’re going floor to floor.”

  “Good,” Marcus said. “Check all the rooms, all the closets. I want everything turned over. I want IDs checked, I want every syringe, every cottonball, every last Band-Aid examined for these two people, do you understand?”

  They nodded.

  “Do not notify the Chicago police, not yet. If they’re still in the building, I want to handle this.”

  They didn’t ask questions. They knew a media shitstorm was on the horizon. Once the media got wind of a problem, it got harder to solve. And if they heard that two people went off the grid and hadn’t been found—whether they were alive or not—it was going to create a landslide of legal issues.

  This was a potential Hydra.

  Marcus’s thighs we
re cold. Uncertainty swirled.

  James’s eyes were still a bit hazy.

  “Get him checked out,” Marcus said. “I want to know what happened to him so it doesn’t happen again. And get the doctor, now. Where is he?”

  “On the way.”

  “I want all the records of this Nixon Richards now. I want to see all the blood analysis, all the tests they ran since he arrived. Make those available ASAP. If his sister somehow tampered…” He stopped, not wanting to utter it out loud, even though they were all thinking it. “I’ll be in the doctor’s office.”

  They moved out.

  James was the last to go.

  40

  Chug-chug.

  Chug-chug.

  Machines. Chugging and pumping. Working in synchronicity, a majestic symphony of artificial sounds.

  The sound of work.

  A furnace glowed red hot, somewhere. A furnace burning with friction, with energy. He felt it, out there, warming the universe.

  Vibrations jittered on the skin of an invisible membrane, a body that contained the identity known as Nix. It quivered and jiggled and sang. Somewhere, ants crawled along that barrier, their legs touching and marching and going chug-chug.

  Chug-chug.

  Colors mixed with sound and energy. Primary colors shot like stars, crossing paths, running parallel, overlapping to make secondary colors. Sometimes they swirled and curved. He’d recognize a face, eyes and a nose, that would quickly melt away in the growing heat as the furnace pumped exhaust into the world. Sweat tracked the skin somewhere out there, tickling small hairs and tiny nerves.

  He began to sink. Down he was going, down somewhere on a smooth ride, like an elevator taking him to the basement, dipping him in an essence that was warm and cleansing.

  And slowly he went. Slowly he went.

  Nix sank closer to where the furnace was burning.

  He sensed there weren’t floors where the ride was going, it was just sinking and sinking and more sinking. To the center of the furnace where the chug-chug banged away.