Halfskin Boxed

by Tony Bertauski

  “Avery?” Cali’s head shook. She scuffled around the big woman, grabbing her grubby dress to move her, like she was hiding something.

  Marcus cocked his head. He knew the name. He knew her file, her history. Her family.

  Her tragedy.

  “AVERY!” she cried, on her hands and knees. She was calling out her daughter’s name.

  Her appearance reflected her mind. Undone.

  She was calling for her daughter. The woman’s eyes were wide, crying out the name over and over.

  Marcus raised his hand again. Forcefully, he called the woman’s name. He got her attention and delivered the message, one that would slap her back to reality.

  “Your daughter!” he shouted, cutting through the thickness.

  She stopped.

  “Your daughter is dead.”

  Frozen, again.

  55

  He’s a demon.

  Her daughter was there, holding her hand—the warmth still lingering—and now she was gone. She was nowhere. And she couldn’t feel her. Avery was an independent girl, but Cali could always feel her. That’s what struck her in the gut, scraped her brain and stretched her nerves. Turned her into a blank slate.

  She’s gone.

  Cali felt it. Her daughter was gone.

  She sat there, slumped on her knees, throwing her mind out to find her. Her awareness crawled through the lobby, out into the halls. It seeped into the rooms. She sensed waking minds and sluggish bodies. She felt their thoughts and knew their intentions. And none of them—NONE OF THEM WERE HER.

  She shouted.

  She wanted her back. A hole had opened inside her, where she used to be. The love she gave, the warmth and tenderness borne from her womb. She wanted her back.

  I’m a bad mother.

  “Avery!”

  Bad mother!

  Cali shoved the fat woman aside, crawling around her.

  “AVERY!”

  Marcus Anderson was saying something.

  She felt him stiffen. Smelled his doubt. His fear tanged the back of her tongue like acid. She couldn’t feel him, couldn’t read him and his biomite-free body. He was invisible to her new breeds, but she sensed his body. And it was weak.

  And she hated him.

  Perhaps if he didn’t hold up his hand, if he didn’t say the next thing on his mind, things would’ve been different. Something dreadful would’ve happened. Cali wouldn’t just be a bad mother… she would’ve hurt him, permanently.

  “Your daughter…” he said… the words slurring in slow motion, his lips delivering the truth like a surgeon’s blade… he said… “is dead.”

  Dead.

  Dead.

  DEAD.

  Everything is dead.

  The world is cold and empty and dead.

  The world is useless.

  Bad mother.

  Cali didn’t see anything. Felt nothing. She saw shapes but didn’t recognize them.

  Heard sounds but didn’t know them.

  Her world was dead.

  It was all dead.

  She felt something shift, something move. Something wrapped around her, lifted her. Her feet were wooden paddles, rocks scraping the earth. Legs were logs, arms were twigs. Cali didn’t recognize her body or the one embracing her. She felt nothing.

  She knew nothingness but the blizzard of static that frayed reality.

  Until.

  A soothing presence moved through her, eased the dullness, lightened her heart. Filled her mind.

  Until she could see.

  See the boy next to her.

  “What’s happening?” she asked her brother.

  56

  They could run.

  Marcus didn’t have a weapon. There would be nothing he could do.

  But it wouldn’t matter; it would just be a matter of time now. The federal agents had downloaded the latest effects of the last episode, knew what to look for if they were influenced by Cali, knew when to call for help, hopefully blocking any attempts. At worst, they could hunt them down, wear them out, if they ran.

  But they weren’t running.

  The woman was a sobbing mess. Reality came down hard. The table on which she rested her life just had the legs kicked out and parts and pieces that made sense to her had been scattered. She reaped what she sowed. She used the biomites to delude herself, to make believe her daughter existed, had never died.

  Now look at her.

  Look at her, coming undone. Her mind frayed, the seams dissolving. Perhaps she would shut herself off, now that she saw the lies. The self-inflicted lies.

  Marcus stood vindicated in the hotel lobby. There, in front of him, was the proof on which he based his argument. Give humans too much power over life and they abuse it. We are children of God. We can’t make those decisions for him. We can’t decide when to die, how we should look, how we should think… we can’t BRING BACK THE DEAD!

  It doesn’t work that way.

  We’re human. We have limitations.

  We’re imperfect.

  Repent.

  For some, perhaps, it was too late. Perhaps not.

  Marcus said, “Son—”

  “Shut up!” the kid snapped. “SHUT UP!”

  The room fell silent. Except for Cali’s sobs coming in quiet waves. Nix whispered things to her, things a mother would say to a child, things to comfort her. She probably didn’t hear them, but she felt them. She was no longer hysterical.

  “What do you know about us? About her? What she’s been through. You can pull the file and read about her, interview others, listen to what they say… but you got no clue what she’s been through. No idea what it’s like.”

  Cali blubbered something. Her face, buried on his shoulder, her words underwater. The kid didn’t understand, he just patted her head, went shhhhhh, like that would make her sane.

  He knew the score. She was a goner. Marcus had seen people go over the edge. That was it, right there.

  They weren’t going anywhere.

  “Police are coming,” Marcus said. “We’ll get you help, kid. We’ll get your sister help.”

  Long pause. Cali quieted down.

  Nix drew a sidelong glance in his direction. “Help? Is that what you call it?”

  “It’s what’s right.”

  “What gives you the right to decide?”

  Something twisted. “Look at her. She’s an abomination. Her systems are failing. She’s crashing.”

  “You don’t know what hell is, Mr. Anderson. You don’t think you’d reach for a cure if hell came to your life, but you would. When you’re ground down to the bone, you’d reach.”

  “She thinks her daughter is alive, kid. That’s not helping.”

  “She did the best she could. She could only take so much, she broke down.”

  “Life is like that.”

  “Then don’t deny her the chance to fix it.”

  “She didn’t fix it. We all die. That’s how it works. None of us have the right to live forever.”

  “Some die before others.”

  “Always been that way. God only knows.”

  Marcus shifted his weight. Pain throbbed through the medicated dullness. Sweat was breaking on his forehead. The room, closing in. He needed to get off his feet but wasn’t about to move, not until someone else was there.

  A siren called in the distance. Not long. It would be over soon.

  It was so quiet inside the lobby. The witnesses hadn’t moved. They appeared catatonic. The family on the couch sat and stared. The fat lady stood behind Nix and Cali like a faded floral mountain of flesh, breathing through her mouth. Eyelids drooping.

  Something beeped. It came from behind the counter. The clerk held the phone near her shoulder, staring like the others, the sound of repeated beeping telling her to hang up. Marcus looked around like he might see what happened to them, like the marionette strings lay on the floor.

  “What did you do to them?” he said.

  “Afraid?” Nix answered.
“You’re outnumbered.”

  “You sold your soul, kid. Don’t take them with you. They haven’t done anything.”

  “What’s it matter? You’ll be flipping the switch on them tomorrow or the next day, maybe next year. It’s just a matter of time before you visit them.”

  “Is that what you think, kid? You’re some kind of victim?”

  “I did nothing wrong. Maybe it’s the rules that are wrong. We’re not hurting anyone by existing.”

  “You’re hurting everyone.” Marcus wobbled forward, pain radiating up his thigh, dampened by anger. “You people are the first step to the end. Change is slow, kid. Biomites are going to eat up humanity if we don’t do something. We’re going to give our flesh—our God-given bodies—to satisfy our desires. No, you’re not hurting anyone, not now. You’re not hurting anyone’s feelings or breaking any bones, you’re just the first step in the extinction of the human race.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “It’s common sense, kid. It’s logic. You’ve given in to your weakness, letting sin live your life.”

  “You don’t know what we’re supposed to become, Mr. Anderson. Maybe we’re supposed to become this; we were given a brain to develop technology, to hone our bodies, to improve our lives, to develop our minds. Maybe we’re something more than this… this skin… and maybe biomites are the bridge to another world. Maybe it’s supposed to be that way.”

  “You’re talking about heaven.”

  “No. You don’t know why we’re here or what happens when we die, no one knows that. NO ONE DOES!”

  “To become that?” Marcus nodded at Cali. “Is that it?”

  “She’s not perfect. Neither are you.”

  “You were made in the image of God. Only the devil tinkers with that.”

  “I’m human.”

  “Half.”

  “That’s right.” The siren was louder. “I’m half a human. But I don’t deserve to die.”

  “Not everything deserves to live.”

  “Who decides?”

  “God does, kid.”

  Cali looked around. Vacant eyes, she seemed to be seeing something else. Maybe looking for her nonexistent daughter, maybe hearing her voice. Her mouth moved silently.

  “It’ll be painless, kid.”

  She gently pushed out of Nix’s embrace, still looking around like she was blind. Marcus stumbled backwards on the crutches, grimacing against the pain. His chest was tight and cold. He took several quick breaths. The siren rounded the corner. It was outside the building. He just needed to maintain until someone came inside and corralled these two. Then he could relax. Then it would be over.

  Nix watched his sister. She didn’t go far. She faltered. A tiny sound leaked from inside, but she held steady. She didn’t run. She didn’t know where she was. This world or some other that she invented, somewhere in her mind where a little girl lived.

  “It’s over,” Marcus whispered.

  Blue lights flashed through the glass doors, strobing around the walls. No one blinked.

  “I know.” Nix took his sister’s arm. “I know.”

  The door opened. Someone—heavy-footed—came in behind Marcus, daring not to take his eyes off them, afraid they were just an apparition, not wanting to see them vanish.

  Everyone flinched simultaneously.

  Like a dance move, everyone listening to music in their heads.

  Marcus turned his head. The Chicago police officer had stopped behind him. He was listening to something, maybe to the inaudible voice coming through the mic attached to his shoulder. But he looked unnatural.

  Frozen.

  Nix guided Cali away from them. No one noticed.

  “Stop them,” Marcus said, but no one heard. The officer was mired in the same biomite trap as the rest of the idiots. He needed one of the federal agents, not a goddamn cop! These two had to be stopped. They had to be shot.

  Marcus grabbed his phone; he had to get the agents here, NOW! They would need to track them, follow by car and air until they could subdue them. Tranquilizers or electric shock could be used to overload their systems—

  That’s when the fat lady woke up.

  Seconds later, Marcus’s arm was pinned behind his back. No one heard him shouting.

  57

  Kate Farmer had trouble breathing. More so than usual.

  This sort of thing always happened when she was working a deal. Doctor said her blood vessels contracted when she was under stress and seeded her with a dose of muscle-relaxing biomites that were supposed to manufacture low levels of dopamine when she was working a deal, so she wouldn’t be uncomfortable.

  She wanted those fat-eater biomites, but they were too goddamn expensive. Besides, they weren’t going to make her feel good, just skinnier. She’d been fat all her life. A hormone imbalance, doctors told her. She could get that corrected, probably didn’t cost all that much, really. She always swore that was her next seed, but then there were the iris biomites that made her eyes emerald green. Those were pretty cool. And then the hair removal biomites, the ones that made all the hair on her arms, legs, and pits fall out. That was sweet.

  Next, she’d correct the imbalance. Swear.

  She’d do that to keep skinny bitches like the one behind the counter from thinking the thoughts she was thinking. Kate couldn’t read thoughts—if there were biomites for that, she’d put that at the top of her list—but, honestly, she didn’t really need to read them. She knew what people were thinking just by the look on their faces. They judged her. All skinny people judged fat ones. They didn’t know what it was like to have a hormone imbalance. I mean, Kate could gain two pounds from a vanilla wafer. What does this skinny bitch know about that?

  Nothing.

  Right now, Kate was all worked up. She’d watched those dirty movies, just didn’t feel like paying for them; they were like fifteen dollars. Each. She wasn’t going to pay that. Besides, she didn’t like the look on that girl’s face.

  Didn’t seem like it was worth the aggravation. Kate wiped the sweat from her upper lip and gripped the counter. She just wanted to feel good, that wasn’t too much to ask. Then that skinny bitch held out the phone, calling Kate’s bluff; well, that really pissed her off. And then some mental case began talking on the phone and that really wedged a bolt up her ass. She was about to turn around, tell the bony meth-head to keep it down when she noticed the lady wasn’t on no phone. Unless she had some communication biomite seed. She’d heard about those, biomites that took the place of a phone.

  She sort of forgot about the woman behind her. She was more sick than skinny, one of those people that looked diseased, like AIDS or tapeworm. She looked worse than Kate felt, and that was low. She just wanted to feel good. Not too much to ask. She was an American citizen. She had rights.

  So when the warm buzzy feeling melted through her—starting at the top of her skull and pouring inside—she relaxed. Kate’s eyelids drooped in ecstasy. Whatever she was tasting, she liked. The doctor said that once her biomites synchronized with her organs and reached a certain threshold (30%, maybe) she’d feel good about everything. And this was exactly what Kate wanted.

  Good about everything.

  She watched skinny girl behind the counter, tapping on the keyboard, hoping she’d straighten things out. If not, no big deal. That’s what she was thinking. Kate rubbed her gums with her finger, her mouth suddenly dry.

  Someone was talking.

  She heard it, but distantly. It was hard to hear over the sound of static, like the ocean was rolling through the lobby. Kate imagined she was standing on a boat, listening to a waterfall. She’d been to Niagara Falls, that’s what it reminded her of. They were on the boat wearing slickers, touring the bottom. Wet. The sound, deafening as they neared.

  Louder.

  And whiter.

  Voices blurred in the static.

  The skinny woman behind the counter disappeared in droplets of haze. Kate didn’t notice it so much. She had melted int
o a puddle of buttery joy. Dry mouth. Tingly teeth.

  Lost in it.

  Loving it.

  And then, like the boat emerging from Niagara’s mist, she came out.

  The warm buzziness faded, leaving behind a burning pit, a dry socket of emptiness. The skinny woman and the counter were gone. Kate was facing the doors and looking at some shriveled bald man on crutches. She didn’t see the boy and the woman, only the gimpy bald man. And, somehow, she knew he was responsible for her problems. He’d deprived her of the yummies.

  Didn’t know why she thought that, just did. Just believed it.

  Just knew that he was bad.

  And that he was up to bad stuff. Like harassing that couple over there. She knew that bad baldy was pissed off at the world and harassed those good people, probably slapped the man and fondled the woman. Kate was sure of it, she remembered seeing it. And she, for one, wasn’t going to stand for it.

  Kate didn’t back down.

  Not when she felt like this.

  When that cop walked in, she told him flat out what happened. That baldy was up to no good. He needed arrested.

  And he got arrested.

  58

  Jim Freisen was only a couple blocks from the Red Roof Inn.

  He was halfway through a shift, bored out of his skull. The call was to assist federal agents in the apprehension of a couple of halfskins. He wasn’t so sure why they didn’t just shut them down, but whatever, he answered the call. He hit the lights and moved traffic out of the way. He loved that feeling. Hit the lights and people move.

  A black Mercedes was out front, driver leaning against the hood. He jumped when Jim pulled up, front bumpers nearly touching. He killed the siren, but left the lights twirling. Jim called in his position. He was the first to arrive. This could be good. This could be nothing.

  Surprise, surprise.

  He looked through the front doors—appeared to be a standoff in the lobby. No weapons, no screaming or shouting or any sign of violence. Just people staring. He didn’t bother resting his hand on his weapon, pushing open the door.

  Sand pellets.

  Like he was showered with a sandstorm, only they were invisible, like things driving beneath his skin, seeding his thoughts. Scenes flashed once, twice, clicking like channels changing. No one moved, nothing changed. It all looked the same, he just felt a little different about the people inside. He didn’t know any of them.