Halfskin Boxed

by Tony Bertauski

  Right now he has gray hair, not blond. Brown eyes, not blue. He’s a few inches shorter and huskier, his cheekbones a bit more pronounced. He’s ordinary looking, something facial recognition and his imprinted identity would match with an alias named William Nelson.

  The police start toward the scene. They visually scan the crowd, running not just facial recognition but pinging biomite imprints to identify other members of law enforcement. Nix concentrates, feeling the chatter of the cops’ own imprinted biomites. It takes several moments to decrypt their identities and download secure data, and then he imprints his own biomites with a similar identity.

  If anyone scans him, William Nelson is a husky cop from Olympia.

  “Call your sister,” Raine says. “She can help.”

  Nix chuckles. He hasn’t been in contact with Cali in years. Even if he spoke with her yesterday, she wouldn’t help him. Not with this.

  “Don’t do this!” Raine grabs his arm. Nix feels her cold fingers as if she’s standing in front of him, in the flesh, his mind interpreting what she would be like. But she’s not in front of him. She doesn’t have a body. She’s in his mind.

  Dreamland.

  If something ever happened to him, she would cease to exist. That’s why he has to go inside.

  He touches her cheek, her skin warm in the frigid air. She closes her eyes, leaning into his touch. If anyone is looking, they’ll see a man standing alone, hand perched in the empty air. If he can fabricate Raine’s body, she won’t be trapped in Dreamland anymore. She’ll walk next to him for everyone to see.

  Another car comes down the road. The Pierce County cops wait for the new arrivals. Nix begins his approach. Raine walks silently beside him, her bare feet on the old boards. Her presence requires biomite resources to channel and, given the situation, he shouldn’t expend the energy. But she brings him comfort. Besides, if something happens, he doesn’t want to be shut down alone.

  Nix grabs a half-full cup of coffee from the ground and pushes into the crowd. The women in front of him are tall. The cops approach the scene from the right, dampening their identities to avoid attention until they near the blockade. Nix shuffles around the back of the crowd and casually follows. The police officer at the barricade lets them through. Nix approaches a minute later.

  The officer picks up Nix’s imprinted signal. “Olympia, huh?”

  “Long drive.”

  “What’s Thurston County doing here?”

  Nix ducks under the barrier without hesitation. “You think this is Seattle’s problem?”

  The cops are still waiting for the door to open. Nix cradles the coffee like it’s keeping him awake. He’s being scanned from all directions, like walking on stage. They don’t see Raine by his side.

  The door opens. Nix dampens his olfactory senses but doesn’t turn them off. This scene is fouled with death and decay, the smell of exhaustion and rusted steel. A hint of plastic lies beneath it all, the sign of dead biomites.

  Nix steps around the white panel that blocks the view, his imprinted identity pinging from several directions. He doesn’t have to introduce himself. He puts the coffee on the floor like someone else has done. The scattered tables and chairs are only outnumbered by the bodies. Nix swallows a rising lump, feels Raine’s hand around his arm, keeping him from running. Now is not the time to panic.

  His eyes glaze like he’s chatting or recording, disguising his initial surge of fear. His senses struggle to absorb the details, to make sense of the insanity.

  This is exactly why Cali wouldn’t help him. She warned him biomites would come to this, that humanity wasn’t ready for such control of their bodies and minds. She didn’t think humanity would ever be ready, that we were too imperfect, that our selfish gene, our hardwired sense of self-preservation and self-centeredness, was too ingrained to resist the temptation. We would become a muddling mass of self-destructive beings that would devolve into…this.

  And his sister can’t help but feel responsible. She was the one that discovered the algorithms that could make biomites undetectable. She’s the one that, as she once said, “put the gun in the baby’s hand.” And she carries the burden, the guilt.

  “Just get here?” Officer Timothy Remming asks.

  “Yeah,” Nix spits out.

  “Damn shame, right?” Remming unwraps a stick of gum. “Can’t prepare yourself for this.”

  “What the hell happened?”

  “Pretty simple, really. Some high-powered halfskin has been running this operation for years. We found him in a back office with a PICC line in his vein.”

  Remming gestures to a door in the back left corner.

  “He was manufacturing nixes for these fools. As far as we can tell, they were dancing in his projection field. Looks like a zombie rave. No telling what they thought they were doing. Too bad for them, the brick walked in and untangled their frequency. They went night-night.”

  An ordinary man is directing officers to move the bodies. They’ve started in the corner directly to Nix’s left, placing the bodies on their backs, hands folded over their stomachs. They appear to be lining them up, organizing them into rows.

  The ordinary man feels like a dense ball of energy. Nix has always been able to sense a brick’s biomites. Everyone else, for whatever reason, experiences a brick as invisible. Nix and Cali have always felt them. Maybe that’s why they’ve never been caught.

  “This is dangerous,” Raine whispers from behind.

  Nix nods, both to Remming and Raine. But he can’t walk out now. And the back office is where he wants to go. As long as the brick is busy, there’s a chance to do a quick surveillance. He can’t haul something out, but there has to be information linked to other nixed distributors with fabricators. They don’t work alone.

  “Who’s that?” Nix points at the girl in the lounger.

  “The lucky one?” Remming says. “She was about to go halfskin when the brick shut them down. They had to tear her off one of these bodies, her boyfriend or something. Pitching a real fit.”

  Nix takes a long, slow breath. The brick is a hundred feet from the back room. The girl is only twenty feet away from it. He can get over there, interrogate her kindly and then casually investigate the office. He only needs to be inside a minute, long enough to scan it. He can download any available data and analyze it off-site, but it has to be fast. The evidence is already disintegrating, trails disconnecting. He just needs a contact, a place he can throw a line.

  “You might want to stay out of spitting distance.” Remming chuckles, chomping his gum.

  Nix walks to the right, following a path between the bodies that will loop around the perimeter and keep him far from the brick.

  He seizes. Alarms ring in his head, high voltage surging through his body. He can’t take another step.

  “Go, Nix.” Raine steps in front of him. “Get out now.”

  He turns slowly, carefully heading for the exit behind the white screen, focusing on each step that threatens to miss the floor and toss him forward. He can hardly hear his own voice when he passes Remming. “Need some fresh air.”

  “Should’ve turned off your olfactory.”

  Nix acknowledges him with a wave.

  All eyes turn on him as he exits. The intense warning is coming from his left. A cavalcade of white vehicles is approaching. They ease into the crowd, forcing people to step aside.

  Nix turns to his right, walking as casually as he can in the opposite direction. Few people are paying attention. He focuses on the back of Raine’s heels as she leads him under the barricade, away from the men and women exiting the white cars. They’re not men and women.

  They’re bricks.

  He finds space to walk briskly behind the crowd, continuing his pace until he reaches the corner. Once he’s out of sight, he stops. Raine has disappeared. It takes a few minutes for his breathing to return to normal.

  Nix magnifies his vision. The lead vehicle has pulled right up to the door while the police push b
ack the crowd. One after another, bricks get out of the cars. Fabricated men and women—black skin, white skin, Asian, Hispanic—ignore the onlookers and gather at the front door.

  It’s possible Nix could have fooled them. They wouldn’t be focused on him. But that’s not what tipped an icy cascade of fear. It’s the last person to get out of the white cars: a man with a limp and a slight hunch. A man that hasn’t been seen in public for years.

  Marcus Anderson exits the lead car.

  4

  Rain streaks across a tinted window. Marcus never much cared for the Northwest. The January skies are a steely embrace. His knee hates it.

  A crowd blocks his view. News vans are parked on the curb. Marcus takes an earpiece from the inside of his jacket and fits it into his right ear, listening to his bricks’ chatter. While biomites allow one to chat, as if the brain had become the communication device, Marcus has to rely on external devices.

  “Continue driving,” he says as they approach the crowd. “They’ll move.”

  The driver slows down but does not honk. Nor stop. The people feel the vehicle approach and slowly move. A kid slams his hand on the hood. Others shout.

  It’s like parting the Red Sea.

  The police move the barricades. The car rolls up to the warehouse door. Marcus reaches to the woman sitting next to him.

  “Wait,” he says. “Let Gerald get it.”

  Anna takes her hand off the handle and pats Marcus’s arm. Her blonde hair hangs to her shoulders. Her plump lips are red and shocking against her powder-white skin.

  “You’re making quite a scene,” Anna says.

  The crowd is focused on the backseat, most of them with retinal recorders that will stream this scene on the newsfeeds and blogosphere. Gerald pauses before opening the door.

  “That’s the idea,” Marcus says.

  He turns his body so that he can rest his feet on the asphalt, to allow the blood to circulate before standing. His left knee bends like a rusty hinge. Gerald offers a hand, but Marcus waves him off. He may be aging, but he’s not crippled. There are aches and pains to deal with when you’re clay.

  The way God intended it.

  Let the world see who is in charge. Not some biomite-infested cop.

  Anna slides out behind him. She’s taller than him, especially with the heels. Even without expression, her beauty is stunning. That was why he exited first. His bricks arrive from the cars lined up behind them. They gather around the door, ignoring the questions and curses hurled from behind the barricades. More police arrive to maintain order.

  A local police officer stands next to the corroded door. “You might want to kill your olfactory.”

  Marcus makes a mental note of the officer’s name. If he’s going to work in law enforcement, he should know Marcus Anderson.

  Marcus is greeted with fetid death. He steps around the white screen and into a thick atmosphere. Through welling tears, he sees the bodies. His breath shortens, adjusting to the foul stench of body odor and rot. Beneath it, he senses the tang of expired biomites.

  He warned the world that it would come to this. And if it did, he would be there to stop it. And now he stands on the threshold of his prophecy. Today the world will see that hope lies in our clay.

  He wipes his eyes. About half the bodies are organized into lines, the rest still tangled like they were tossed into the air. His bricks immediately go to work, their thoughts chatting through his earpiece. First, establish order. Then begin the process of scanning the faces and analyzing the biomites.

  Marcus retrieves prescription glasses from inside his jacket and begins wiping the round spectacles with a handkerchief. The right lens is quite a bit thicker. He fixes them on his nose and the world comes into focus. Anna hands him a bottle of water. The odor clings to his taste buds. She anticipates his needs so well.

  The local police watch the bricks go to work. They congregate around a man in uniform. His stillness and concentration suggest his vain attempts to scan Marcus, finding nothing to identify.

  “Sergeant Paul Jennings,” Anna says.

  “He’s in charge?” Marcus asks.

  “So far, yes. Agent Manning updated him on how we will proceed. He’s been forced into compliance.”

  Whatever assistance the police had been supplying had stopped since Marcus arrived. The public was aware of bricks, but they were presented as lonely bounty hunters, never as a pack of surgical investigators that seemed to move with one mind, sharing thoughts to coordinate an efficient dissection of a crime scene. There was no delusion or distracting thoughts that typically slowed a human. No corruption or self-centered thoughts.

  The bricks continue organizing the corpses into a checkerboard layout. A small contingent goes to the far side and begins undressing them, folding the clothes into piles at the head of each body.

  “Bring him over,” Marcus says.

  Anna chats a terse command. Three bricks go to the sergeant and repeat Marcus’s demand. The men steal glances of Anna.

  “I am Marcus Anderson.” He extends his hand. “I have my doubts about your police department if a sergeant is in charge, but, nonetheless, you have done a splendid job. The public has been made aware of the situation and is contained outside the scene. And your cooperation is greatly appreciated.”

  “Make them stop.” Paul’s jaws flex.

  “Our investigation will last three days.” His tone is darker and direct. “You will continue providing support outside the building. During that time, you will not speak to the public.”

  Paul quakes with restraint.

  “When we are done, you may conduct yourselves in whatever manner you please. In the meantime, you will not interfere. Is that understood?”

  “Make…them…stop.” He pushes the words out. His face is flush as a bull’s nose.

  Marcus waves at Anna. She releases her grip on Paul’s biomites, allowing him to think and act freely. He pulls in a deep breath but contains himself, aware that anything rash will put him back under her influence.

  “This is unacceptable.” He points at the bricks undressing the bodies. Ten of them are completely nude. “These are sons and daughters. There is no reason to expose them.”

  He dares half a step forward.

  “I expect that from someone with as much control as you.”

  Marcus glances at Anna. She nods and the bricks simultaneously stop. They face Marcus, waiting for instructions. He takes a moment to bend his stiffening knee. The concrete is unforgiving on surgically repaired bones. He takes a drink, surveying the destruction. The warehouse is so barren and destitute, an unfitting tomb.

  And he’s supposed to treat them with decency?

  “This is not a crime scene, let’s get that straight,” Marcus says. “This is a molestation. The crime that you refer to is much greater than it appears, grander than you imagine. These sons and daughters came here of their own volition and forfeited their rights as humans. They have no dignity, they do not exist.”

  Marcus steps closer, Anna at his side.

  “So says the law, Sergeant.”

  “I don’t agree with the law.”

  “You serve it.”

  “A part of them is still human.”

  “How many more of these scenes do you want to see?” Marcus raises his voice, looking at all the men and women in uniform. “These could be your sons and daughters next time. Are you willing to accept that? Because I am not!”

  His voice rings off the walls.

  “You object to exposing these imitations of God’s children? They are no more sacred than objects carved of wood. They succumbed to temptation, gave themselves to earthly desires, and reveled in lies. Open your eyes, all of you. Smell what is all around! That is not the stench of decayed flesh but the degradation of the soul.”

  Marcus inhales deeply.

  “Breathe it in, remember it! Because if we do nothing about this today, it will become the smell of tomorrow. Earth will become a mausoleum of the human soul.
I, for one, cannot accept that.”

  His footsteps click, back and forth.

  “I am your only hope. Take your men outside, Sergeant, and do not question me again.”

  Anna opens the door and moves the screen for the crowd to see inside. Shouts and curses find their way inside.

  Marcus folds his hands behind his back, standing as straight as his hunched back will allow. “Give the world your gravest apologies but no more. I will call if I need you.”

  The men and women begin their exodus, stiffly. Paul remains staring down at Marcus. He is the last to finally move. He stops at the white screen.

  “There’s a girl,” he says. “She’s the only survivor. I’d like to take her to her mother.”

  “Certainly,” Marcus says. “I have a few questions for her, that’s all.”

  Paul disappears behind the screen without being forced to do so. The door hammers shut in the metal frame, the closure echoing with a sense of finality. The crowd’s anger is muffled. Marcus closes his eyes, allowing the stillness of the moment to settle before muttering a command.

  The bricks begin undressing the corpses once again. The only sounds are the shuffle of their soles. Once a body is completely nude, the agent stands over it to visually capture it—head to toe. It is turned over and repeated.

  “Your estimate?” Marcus asks.

  “We can fabricate all these bodies in two days,” Anna says.

  “Good. Three days, then, will be all we need.”

  “Correct. Do you want to interrogate the survivor?”

  “Perhaps later. I’d like to explore what’s in the back.” Marcus starts down the first aisle of bodies. “Oh, Anna.”

  Marcus half turns, his neck feeling stiff.

  “Leak my speech to the bloggers out there. I’d like the world to hear it, too.”

  He continues his uneven pace toward the back of the warehouse. Sometimes he surprises himself with such spontaneous wisdom. The world needs to know he is not the bad guy.

  He is quite the opposite.

  5