Halfskin Boxed

by Tony Bertauski

  The bodies are nude. They’ve probably visually analyzed them, recording all the physical attributes and ingested samples for preliminary analysis.

  There’s a rumor in the paranoid, antigovernment underground. Many believe that Marcus and his bricks have covertly taken halfskins back to M0ther for a full-immersion analysis, basically dissolving their biomites for clues. But the world is watching the warehouse. They can’t take the bodies this time, not without total chaos. The public would demand M0ther be shut down.

  But the girl will go with him. He’s taking her; that’s what he meant by setting her free. That pill contains critical data.

  The nixes are caught in suspended animation, the gap between self-destruction and integration. They’re meant to degrade before and after in the event of a shutdown, but now they’re fully exposed. All the secrets can be read—links to suppliers, networks of producers, and locations of fabricators. It’s everything Marcus has been looking for.

  Nix, too.

  Nix dusts the crumbs off his coat. He packs carefully and slings the bag over his shoulder, walking against the flow of traffic.

  If he’s going to get the girl, he’ll need help.

  10

  Marcus leans against the wall, poking at two pills in his palm. His fucking knee is screaming. It never hurts like this when he’s inside M0ther. Nothing hurts. When he leaves, his body feels old again.

  The nearest body is a young woman with plump breasts and a narrow midriff. Her pelvic bones jut from her hips. A precise divot has been cut from her left breast where nixes were carved out and, subsequently, digested by one of the bricks for analysis.

  Noise comes from somewhere beyond the back walls. The door to the back room swings open, the hinges squealing as Anna pulls it shut. Her heels echo in the dead space.

  Marcus clenches the pills, watching her blonde hair swing in time to the sway of her hips. She holds out a bottle of water. Marcus washes the painkillers down and waits for relief.

  “She’s sleeping,” Anna says. “I’ll keep her unconscious until we’re finished.”

  Marcus screws the lid back on, wiping his mouth. He shifts his weight, staring at the big-breasted corpse, wishing she’d suffered more. Death is too easy.

  “Why don’t you get some rest,” Anna says. “Get off your feet.”

  “Your analysis of the conversation?”

  Anna sighs. “Confirmed. An identity was latched to her perception field. We believe it was Nixon Richards.”

  “You believe?”

  “The identity was scrambled. It’s possible one of the bloggers or news agencies have hired a hacker of his caliber, but statistically, we believe it’s him.”

  “He heard everything?”

  “Yes. And saw everything, too. Including the fabricator in the back.”

  The glass case. The epitome of evil.

  “He had to be in the area. If we move quickly, we could arrest everyone. It’ll take some time to—”

  “Not yet.” Marcus takes his earpiece out.

  It’s doubtful he’s still out there. Anything rash will scare him away. He needs to be lured deeper into the trap. Now that they know he’s here, let him feel safe. Let him reach for the fabricator.

  Twenty years I’ve waited.

  Excitement rumbles beneath the ache in his knee, the same knee he wrecked trying to apprehend Nixon Richards and his sister. They released the nixes to the underground; they wrecked his marriage and spawned an entire race of undetectable halfskins that have required Marcus to dedicate his life to capturing. The surgically repaired knee reminds him of his mistakes. It’s fitting that here, in the rain where the pain is the greatest, that he finds Nix.

  He can’t be rash.

  “The rest of this?” Marcus waves at the bodies.

  “The delivery will arrive tomorrow at three o’clock,” Anna says.

  “It was supposed to be three days.”

  “Some complications with M0ther’s fabricators. The shipment will be here tomorrow.”

  Marcus tests the knee. The Dilaudid needed another twenty minutes to kick in, but he was tired of waiting. He’d waited long enough.

  Anna guides him through the back room, past the sleeping young lady. They exit through the newly fashioned doorway cut out of the back-room wall. He looks back at the glass case before finding his way to the loading docks, where a white sedan picks him up.

  11

  Baxter whines.

  Cali takes a hotdog slice from the counter and rewards Kooper first for sitting quietly. She returns to washing dishes while the music crackles. Sometimes silence reveals her troubles too clearly.

  The sun is setting and the long shadow of the house stretches all the way to the barn. Misting rain keeps everything damp and cold.

  To the right, outside the pasture, the old swing set reflects the waning sunlight. The posts and chains are rusted and one of the legs has crumpled into the weeds like a broken knee. The swing is askew. Cali imagines that it was shiny and new when the father built it and the mother watched her two children while she cooked dinner and cleaned up. The laughter probably carried into the house.

  They had lost one of the girls to meningitis. She was only seven.

  “God called her,” the mother had told the neighbors. “She’s with Him now.”

  Maybe that’s when the swing set became a static effigy of sorrow. They still had one child, but there would always be the memory of them both. And the laughter of two. Ten years later, the family died in an automobile accident.

  No biomites to save them.

  Cali dries the last dish, staring at the swing set. This was where she was meant to be, in a house with ghosts that look much like the ones that haunt her.

  God called.

  She checks the time, a habit she’d developed. Clay folks don’t have internal clocks.

  “Want to get the paper?” Cali asks.

  The dogs have curled up on a small rug. They jump up. Their toenails click on the floor, paws slipping as they race out. The railing leading down the steps is loose and the posts are rotting.

  The dogs wait next to the truck. Cali lets them climb over the driver’s seat. She rolls the window down and enjoys a cold drive out to the gate. The electric motor whirs, craning the metal entrance open. The dogs jump out to sniff around while Cali walks out to the road but not in it.

  The road is the edge of her safe zone.

  The abandoned cell phone tower is one of the reasons she initially considered buying this land. Centered on the property, it was easily converted to generate a static field. In the countryside, a blind spot blends into the scenery, keeping M0ther from seeing her. She hasn’t left the property in five years.

  The road is the limit.

  She starts back for the truck, with the newspaper under her arm, when the pressure begins. It starts at the back of her head and pushes forward.

  Bing. She shuffles to a standstill.

  Cali restrains herself from immediately answering the call from Nix. It has been years since she heard his voice. She hasn’t seen him in five years. Five years and four months.

  She can’t answer.

  If she does, she’ll make him promise to come to the farm, to let her protect him. To stay away from Dreamland.

  To turn Raine off.

  A third wave begins. Bing. Cali clutches the newspaper as the dogs climb out of the ditch. She closes her eyes and projects a thought. Off.

  She stands on the lonely road, the frigid breeze blowing over the treetops. She yearns for music, for something to distract her from the thoughts and the feelings that usher in guilt and shame and sadness. She wants to answer his call.

  It’ll only hurt worse.

  The newspaper hits the dirt. The pages flap open.

  Cali walks past the truck. She begins running, pumping her arms in stride with her long pace. The dogs keep up, tongues hanging out. They have no idea where their owner is going or why.

  But neither does Cali.

>   She just runs.

  12

  The hood of the police car is warm.

  Paul leans against the driver’s door, trying to remember something. It’s a word or an idea or…something. He’s obsessed with recalling it, remembering that he’s done so a dozen times already. It’s something urgent.

  Critical.

  The thought hovers in a haze that filled his head days ago. He’s not sure just how long it’s been, but night has followed day more than once.

  His memories are cloaked in a dreamy fog, surreal. They’re like eagles soaring high above, wings stretched out and sometimes turning so they disappear into the blue. Paul searches the sky for them to return, to bring back whatever he’s supposed to remember.

  “Sarge,” Jeffers says, “you want in?”

  It takes a moment to focus on the officer’s face, to recognize the bristled mustache. Jeffers is in front of another cruiser. A third one effectively blocks the alley leading to the loading docks behind the warehouse.

  “You want in?” Jeffers repeats.

  “What?”

  “Materese says the brick doesn’t have a cock.”

  Paul licks his lips. They’ve been dry for days, can’t seem to hold moisture. He shakes his head, focusing on the uniformed officer sipping coffee behind Jeffers. Her hair is pulled into a tight bun, the eyeliner thick and sharp.

  Just past the back bumper of the third car, the brick stands at the corner of the building. His arms hang straight at his sides. His expression is tireless, waxy and sentinel blank. Only the subtle rise and fall of his chest hints at life.

  “I say he’s hung like a donkey.” Jeffers holds his hands apart. “Like that.”

  “What’s he going to use it for?” Materese says.

  “Whatever he wants. I mean, Christ, if I could build a dick, I’d make it worth the while.”

  “Use your head, idiot. Bricks don’t procreate; they’re squeezed out of a fabricator like glue. They just got to look human.”

  “Procreate.”

  “It means fuck.”

  “He’s got a cock, Materese. It doesn’t make sense not to.”

  “He ain’t got nothing, I can tell. It’s like one of those Ken dolls, just a bump between his legs.”

  Jeffers chews his lip, looking the brick up and down. The brick doesn’t move, but he’s listening. Paul can feel him absorbing everything around him, feeling and seeing and hearing. He’s making sure they do their job.

  “I’ve got a hundred says he’s sporting wood.”

  The foam coffee cup is poised inches from her lips, the rim stained red. She shakes her head like she’s had one too many of these conversations. Jeffers digs a bill out of his pocket and slams it on the hood.

  “Get proof and it’s yours,” he says.

  “You need help.”

  “No, I mean get proof and the money’s yours.”

  “If you want to see a cock, look down,” she says, sipping. “It won’t cost you.”

  Paul sways on his feet, clicking his front teeth. Jeffers licks his lips but not because they’re dry. He’s just watched too much porn. He probably has a brick fetish, petitioning the government to fabricate sex models to satiate the urges of half the population that argue rape, divorce, and depression would be reduced if people could own sexbots.

  Jeffers would have one of every color. Paul would take that bet.

  “Why you so uptight?” Jeffers says. “He ain’t human. It’s more like a rubber dick, like the one you got stuffed in your glove box.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Hey, don’t be embarrassed. It’s natural.”

  “Jeffers,” Paul says.

  “No disrespect, Sarge. I’m just trying to learn something. And give Materese money. That’s all I’m saying. I seen her dildo.”

  “Fine.” Materese reaches for the bill.

  Jeffers dangles it out of reach. “Got to see it first.”

  “How?” she asks.

  “Unzip his pants. He ain’t moved all day.”

  “Pull his pants down?”

  “Talk dirty to him or something. Tell him you want a robot baby. It ain’t like you never got in a man’s pants before; do whatever you do.”

  “You’re a sick fuck, Jeffers.”

  “I’m curious. There’s a difference.”

  Materese looks at Paul. There’s hope that he’ll stop her, tell her it’s a bad idea, that Jeffers should go sit in the car. But he’s still swimming in the haze, trying to remember the thing he’s supposed to remember. For a moment, he wonders why Jeffers is waving a hundred-dollar bill.

  Materese puts her coffee on the hood. She approaches warily, waving her hand in front of the brick’s face when she’s within spitting distance. He doesn’t blink.

  His hair is brown and cropped near the scalp. His posture is slouched, his shoulders round. He looks like someone you’d see alone in a dark bar.

  Materese takes the last couple steps one at a time, pausing each time. Paul watches with mild interest, falling in and out of focus. One second he’s watching a young Hispanic woman reaching for a middle-aged man’s frumpy trousers, and the next it’s his subordinate about to sexually harass a brick.

  Paul forms a word to stop this when his thoughts are obliterated. Materese’s hand stops an inch from the belt buckle. She’s as still as the automobile. Jeffers’s tongue is out. Both of them are frozen.

  The brick begins blinking.

  He looks at Paul. His eyelids appear heavy, his light blue eyes tired.

  Jeffers and Materese suddenly go to their cars. A heavy engine rattles behind Paul. He moves his head like he’s underwater. A white car is followed by a large truck—the type used to move furniture. Jeffers and Materese drive past him, opening the blockade. The moving truck is followed by two more, all with the U-Haul logo. They turn down the alley, gears grinding, hot exhaust in his nostrils.

  Jeffers and Materese close the gap once the convoy is inside. They lean against their cars. Jeffers strokes his bristled mustache, a daydreamy haze in his eyes. Materese picks her fingernails. Paul thinks he should remind Jeffers his money is fluttering across the street.

  Paul gets in his car. It’s hot and stuffy. He loosens his collar, trying to remember where he is and what he’s supposed to be doing.

  Someone knocks on the driver’s side window, a man with a bristled mustache. Paul should know him, but he can’t recall his name.

  “What are you doing, Sarge?” the man asks.

  “What?”

  “What are you doing in your cruiser?”

  Paul strokes the steering wheel and notices all the switches and monitors. He’s in a police car.

  “Got to go.”

  “Where?”

  Paul shakes his head.

  “You coming back?” the man asks.

  The brick is staring. Another strange wave passes through Paul, tingles beneath his scalp like scrubbing bubbles wiping his brain clean. Telling him what to do.

  “Yeah,” Paul says. “I’ll be back.”

  He follows the white car and U-Hauls to the loading dock.

  13

  The sun is out.

  It’s burned away the steel mat of clouds that’s entombed the sky for four days. Sunlight reflects off the wet streets. Marcus slouches in the backseat, watching the oblivious citizens of Seattle blunder down sidewalks and wait for streetlights. The fabric of humanity is like parched linen dangling over a flame of biomite technology; a flame that could incinerate any shred of human semblance, leaving human forms like empty cicada shells, like pillars of salt.

  Sodom and Gomorrah.

  If not for Marcus, they would all perish without a thought. If not for his dedication, there would be no one to extinguish the flame. And now, after so many struggles, the tide will finally turn.

  He could hardly sleep.

  The hotel was comfortable and quiet, but Marcus stared at the ceiling. Even a sleeping pill took longer than usual, its effects still swimming in
his head.

  He’s waited twenty years for this day. Twenty years to have the boy—he’s a man, but will always be a boy—in his grasp. He’ll take Nix back to M0ther and watch her digest him slowly.

  Marcus pats Anna’s bare knee just below the hemline. Her lipstick is magenta and perfectly lined. She appears unfocused, staring past the front seat, through the windshield.

  “M0ther is updating,” she says.

  Marcus cringes. He prefers not to call the massive artificial intelligence that monitors biomites by her acronym. She might overlook humanity, but he had a different relationship with her, something on an equal level. No, he couldn’t match her processing ability, nothing could. Marcus brought her passion; he brought her wisdom that only one of God’s creatures could bring.

  Marcus caresses the inside of her knee then folds his hands on his lap. “Why didn’t she call me?”

  “She prefers to speak with you when you return home.”

  The car stops at the stoplight. A man on the corner stares at the white car. Above him, a billboard advertises a long-lasting Dreamland experience.

  “Continue,” Marcus says.

  “Free the girl.”

  Marcus chuckles, waiting for more. Anna is looking at him now, her eyes focused on his lips. “We’ll do nothing of the sort,” he says. “The girl contains everything and the boy knows it. He’ll do something rash and we’ll have him.”

  “Her projected analysis suggests that if the girl is released, Nixon Richards will find her and lead us to his sister. The probability of success is 83%.”

  “The probability of capturing Nixon Richards right now is 100%.”

  “That is not the objective.”

  “And when we have him, his sister will come out of hiding. We’ve already discussed this.” Marcus checks his jacket for his earpiece. “I want to talk with her now.”

  “She has already implemented the change, Marcus. Her projections are complete.”

  “She didn’t discuss this with me!”

  That is the issue. It isn’t that she just snatched Nix out of his hand, not that she shit on this glorious morning; it is that she didn’t consult him. That’s not how this works. She continuously conducts endless scenarios, analyzing human behavior and motivation, predicting the probability of outcomes with greater accuracy than anything on the planet…but she cannot see the future!