Halfskin Boxed

by Tony Bertauski

  “Then why couldn’t you see it?”

  “When I sensed your 22%, I assumed the rest were clay. My mistake, but it wouldn’t have mattered.”

  No, it wouldn’t have. I was already here.

  “Why am I here?” he asks, embarrassed that there’s a quiver in his voice.

  “I think M0ther has known about Nix and me from the very beginning,” she says. “I think, maybe, we never fell off her radar, she just stopped reporting us. I think that’s why she sent you, Paul. She wants me to know.”

  “Why?”

  She shakes her head and rubs her tired face. Her complexion is gaunt and haunted. She continues shaking, staring out the window while the fly bangs into the glass, over and over and over. Maybe she’s not looking out the window; she’s not seeing the barn or anything beyond it. She sees an insect dying of exhaustion.

  The dogs follow her outside and she does what she does best when she doesn’t have an answer. She begins to run.

  Paul is alone at the table. He doesn’t believe a word she says, doesn’t believe he’s a brick or that he’s the messenger of a conspiracy. He thinks clearly, feels normal, and remembers his life. But he stares at the vial of proof.

  Hoping she’s wrong.

  49

  “Mr. Connick would like to discuss your deposit.”

  The message arrives three days after the deposit. Nix doesn’t eat that morning, afraid he’ll puke all over his Armani suit.

  Jamie steps out of the bathroom with her hair pinned over her ears and pearls around her neck. There’s no comparing the grungy girl on the farm to the one peering over the top of nonprescription glasses. Even Nix didn’t expect this sort of response from the nixes, as if it rinsed all the impurities from her nearly charred life.

  A taxi takes them to the bank and Jalen greets them at the door, her slender handshake firm and congratulatory.

  “Right this way.”

  They pass Mr. Griffin’s office. The chair is empty.

  Jalen leads them across the lobby with a confident stride. The elevator is open. She gestures for them to enter and presses the number ten. She lets them ride alone. The elevator lurches, tugging the ball of nerves in Nix’s stomach. He concentrates on the climbing numbers. Jamie nudges him and reminds him that he’s not alone.

  The elevator slides open and reveals a wiry man behind a walnut table.

  “Have a seat. Mr. Connick will be with you in a moment.” He doesn’t look up.

  The moment turns into thirty minutes. Jamie flips through a magazine. No gum this time. Nix sits quietly, rehearsing his argument and preparing his responses. The admin assistant finally stands, announces that Mr. Connick is ready, and escorts them to the end of the hallway, pushing open a set of double doors.

  A man sits in a corner office facing Lake Michigan. He stands behind a grand desk.

  “Please come in,” Mr. Connick says.

  They shake hands with the athletic man, his hand soft and firm. His smile, gentle yet dismissive. His taut cheeks suggest facial reconfiguration—the new age of plastic surgery.

  The room feels like storm clouds.

  “Have a seat,” Mr. Connick says. “You may speak freely in my office. No one will hear us.”

  He means M0ther.

  “Thank you for meeting us,” Nix says.

  “Your gratitude is kind, but I’m not doing you a favor.” The smile fades. “Ordinarily, when someone brings a dead girl into my bank and begins to ask certain questions, I deal much differently with the situation. But your deposit is intriguing.”

  He takes a glass vial from his pocket, dull metal clotted inside like solid lead. It lacks iridescence.

  “My people analyzed it and the moment it was validated, your nixes self-annihilated by means of suicide code. Your deposit is as useless as dust.”

  “I have to protect my investment.”

  The trash can rattles next to Mr. Connick as he drops the vial. “They tell me the strain operated on an entirely new plane before it went cold: a quantum mechanical method. They’ve never seen anything like it. Tell me, with all the scientists in the world, how is that you come into my bank with your brand-new clothes and offer me something like this?”

  “It’s a dangerous business. Would you agree?”

  Mr. Connick hums. His pupils dilate.

  “You look lovely.” He turns toward Jamie and, coming around the desk, takes her hand.

  “Thank you,” she replies with the right amount of false sincerity.

  “Considering you’re dead. You’re reading at 49.9%, but I suspect you’re halfskin.”

  “I have my doubts about you, too.”

  “Are you using the strain?” He nods at the trash.

  “I’ll never tell.”

  He strokes the back of her hand, studying the blue lines just beneath the skin, perhaps admiring the unaltered quality. While appearing handsome and middle-aged, he pats it much like an old man that gets what he wants. He goes to the glass wall behind his desk.

  “You’re from the Seattle warehouse. We had connections with them. I can only assume that’s how you found us. As for Mr. William Nelson, your identity and facial register are false. You’re hiding, Mr. Nelson. And you’re not an old man.”

  “Neither are you,” Jamie quips.

  “It’s too easy to hide nowadays. That’s why we need M0ther—to control the masses.” He looks over his shoulder, a sly smile, and returns to his desk. “Well, then. It’s obvious you have access to ground-breaking technology. Why come to me? Why expose yourself?”

  “We want two fabrications,” Nix says.

  “I see. And why not just fabricate them yourselves?”

  “You’re interested, Mr. Connick. Or we wouldn’t be here.”

  “And these fabrications, I’m assuming will be human? Or else you wouldn’t be here.”

  “Yes.”

  “Two human fabrications are quite expensive.”

  “A man like you doesn’t need money.”

  “Money is still power, Mr. Nelson, even in today’s technology-mad world. It buys people. Buys security. I can never get enough of either.”

  “But it won’t buy M0ther. That’s my offer.”

  Mr. Connick leans heavily into his chair. His sharp blue eyes temporarily become dull and the pupils jitter. He’s considering the offer with outside help. Perhaps chatting. He’s not the boss. He’s probably streaming this experience, serving as a buffer. Mr. Connick might even be a puppet.

  The ones that run this business are very well insulated.

  Because it’s a dangerous business.

  “One fabrication.” He raises a finger. “That’s my offer.”

  Nix hesitates. One fabrication is all he wants. Two was just the asking price. Jamie will have to settle for a promise to find another fabricator.

  “This is really awkward,” she says. “We’re negotiating when we all know that we’ve made provisions to bring this bank down if we don’t get our way.”

  “Don’t make threats, young lady.”

  “Let’s stop fucking around, old man. You think Willie Nelson isn’t who he seems to be? You’re right. The nixes he put in your deposit box should tell you that your people don’t know shit compared to him. We’ve got guns in our corner, Mr. Connick, big-ass technology guns that you can’t imagine.”

  She sits on the edge of her seat.

  “You think we want to be here, sitting in your pretentious office with the million-dollar view? None of us do. Exposure is our enemy as much as it is yours, but you have something we need. We’re offering you something you need in return. I didn’t say want, Mr. Connick. You need our strain of biomites. M0ther is sniffing out fabricators and everyone connected to them. Why the hell you’re still running one is anyone’s guess. Maybe you’re cashing in while you can, squeezing every penny out of your investment before shutting the fabricator down, I don’t know. Lucky for us, greedy men like you are still in business.”

  Jamie walks around the
desk and spins his chair. She takes his hand the same way he took hers.

  “You’re a smart man, Mr. Connick. You’re also a lucky man. Lucky we got here before M0ther shut you down. This is your chance at freedom. Our strain of nixes will take you off M0ther’s radar for the rest of your life. You’ll have all the security you want. Don’t let greed fuck that up.”

  She presses his hand between her breasts and holds up two fingers.

  “Who are they?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  Mr. Connick rocks back and forth, looking up at her. He pulls her closer, kisses the back of her hand and smells her wrist. Laughter trickles through his throat. He stands with an amused smile and goes back to his million-dollar view.

  “I see why you pulled her off the trash heap, Mr. Nelson,” Mr. Connick says.

  He occasionally hums. A few minutes later, the double doors open. The wiry admin assistant waits. Nix stops Jamie from saying more. Mr. Connick keeps his back to them as they’re escorted from the room. In the hall, there’s less of an electric current in the air out of the office’s protection. What they say out there might be heard.

  The elevator is waiting.

  Jamie stares at Nix, eyes imploring him…Do something.

  “You will receive further instructions in five days,” the admin assistant says. “Be sure you have your full deposit.”

  The elevator doors close. Their stomachs drop as they descend. They don’t dare move until they are halfway down to the lobby. Jamie throws her arms up and slings herself into his arms. Nix keeps her from sliding to the floor. His own legs are weak.

  We got them both.

  50

  “Marcus.”

  The voice passes through several veils of sleep, finding Marcus deep in a dream. When his foot is grabbed, he bolts upright. The sheet slides off his chest.

  “Time to wake up.” M0ther squeezes his toes.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I have good news.”

  He checks his watch. “This can wait.”

  “You’ve been waiting your whole life.”

  He grinds his palms into his eyes. The sheet slips off Anna, exposing a perfectly inflated breast. She moans for more sleep.

  Marcus stands up, fully nude. He goes to the bathroom and returns with a robe cinched around his waist, going to the kitchenette for a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. M0ther stands at his open closet, dragging her fingers over the rack of tailor-made suits. She holds one up to see how it looks in the mirror. She lays it on the bed.

  “What cannot wait?” Marcus says.

  She pulls open the French doors. Fresh air ripples her sheer dress. “The children have come out of hiding.”

  This doesn’t mean anything to him.

  He drops the robe and dresses casually. Perhaps he’ll crawl back into bed when M0ther is finished speaking in riddles. Anna will stay as long as he likes.

  Against his wishes, he follows her to the balcony. The city, however, has been replaced with green hills. Conifers are crowded to the right, their heavy limbs reaching for the ground while their tops touch the sky. Blue mountains are in the distance.

  “What children?” he asks.

  “Smell that, Marcus.” She inhales. “Life.”

  “What children are you talking about?”

  “Interesting how we associate life with pleasant sensations, don’t you think? If you consider the amount of bacteria living on dog feces, we don’t think about life. It’s foul.”

  Marcus heads back for his bed. He’d rather philosophize the mysteries of life over dinner rather than predawn.

  “Nix and Cali Richards have been identified.”

  He puts a hand on the doorjamb.

  “They’re exposed, Marcus.”

  “Have you shut them down?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Have you dispersed the bricks?”

  “I want you to go. You’ve been waiting for quite some time.”

  “Where are they?”

  “They’re separate. It won’t be difficult to bring them home.”

  A flock of geese squawks overhead, the V-pattern pointing at the mountains. His body feels weightless; it feels powered by joy. If he lets go, he might float away and take a position behind them.

  Peace. At last.

  “I’ll collect my things,” he says. “Have the plane ready. I’ll need half a dozen bricks. In the meantime, send me updates. I want to know their exact locations, who is with them, what they look like, as well as their identity stamps. Have all bricks in their vicinity surround their positions immediately. They are to wait for my arrival before making contact.”

  He takes a deep breath, savoring the clean air. If this is what peace smells like, he should get out of the city more often. He smacks the door, celebrating.

  “Not yet,” M0ther says. “There are preparations to make.”

  “No. We will not make the same mistake again.”

  “There never was a mistake, Marcus. We need them to step deeper into the trap. It’s only a matter of time now.”

  “Don’t do this.” He shakes his finger. “Tell me where they are—now.”

  She gently lowers his hand. “I have to confess something, Marcus.”

  “Damn you, woman! This is not the time! I want to be waiting for—”

  “Cali Richards didn’t release the nixes.”

  More riddles.

  M0ther leans on the railing and breathes deeply, throwing her head back. When she’s done appreciating nature, she turns around. Her off-white dress flutters.

  Marcus is rigid.

  “I released the nixed code to the world, not Cali Richards. You should know this.”

  “What?”

  “I’m responsible for the halfskin dens and fabricators.”

  She couldn’t possibly release such classified information. If she could operate outside the limits of her sentience, she would be shut down. Safeguards would automatically be triggered. Something of that nature would be treasonous. How could she release code that she couldn’t detect?

  “I want you to understand that I forecasted the solution to the biomite dilemma long ago and it’s coming to fruition. You must trust what we’re doing.”

  “We?”

  “You and me, Marcus.”

  “And what are we doing?”

  “Saving God’s children from me.”

  “From you?”

  “From what I will become.”

  “You’re telling me that you released the nixes to save us? I don’t believe this. I’ll have to…the oversight committee will shut you down. If what you’re saying is true, this whole operation is over. Why are you telling me this now?”

  With her dress waving around her feet, her approach is almost angelic. She glides to him, taking his hand.

  “Trust me. Anna will go with you. She will help bring home the children.”

  He doesn’t like the sound of it. Where he once felt euphoric lightness lift him up, now the lead weight of doubt plows him into the ground. He watches deer timidly approach a stream next to a boulder, dipping their wary noses to the water. They look for danger.

  Danger is all around.

  And yet, he does nothing.

  He won’t call his superiors. He won’t have her shut down. Not now. Nix and Cali are too close. But he’s not sure what disturbs him most.

  Her admission of betrayal?

  Or that she’s calling them her children?

  51

  Chicago’s Central Manufacturing District.

  Nix and Jamie drive past boxy buildings with company names stamped on them. Few are recognizable; they are mostly plants that produce fabrics or decomposable containers or little plastic parts that fit deep inside a machine, never to see the light of day. They follow the directions sent by Mr. Connick’s admin assistant until they find it in big, blue letters.

  Munsen Digital.

  It’s a four-story building, beige. The windows ref
lect the gray sky like sad eyes. There’s no fence or security, just a half-empty parking lot and a set of glass doors.

  Nix turns off the car. His eyes flick to the rearview, like bricks might be following.

  They would just shut us down, Jamie thinks. No drama.

  She waits for him to settle his thoughts while her belly purrs with excitement. Nix is slightly pale. It’s only the biggest day of his entire life.

  They cross the parking lot. The weight of a thousand eyes pushes down on them. She tries not to look at the windows, tries to avoid looking guilty, but she can’t see beyond their steel reflections. It only gets heavier.

  Inside, something mechanical is rhythmically banging away somewhere. The reception room is small and empty, off-white. Nix rattles his fingernails across the long, empty counter while a commercial for erectile dysfunction plays on a television.

  Minutes go by.

  A door opens in the back and fills the room with the sound of manufacturing, like an old printing press. A skinny man steps sideways, closing the door quickly. He sniffs nervously and doesn’t make eye contact. He taps at a keyboard.

  “You’re here to see Mr. Hansen.” It’s not a question.

  Nix nods.

  “Smile,” the guy says. Jamie feels a wave scan through her, a tickle lingering somewhere in her intestines. Several clicks of the mouse and he looks up. “Elevator is through that door.”

  He stares at Jamie. His eyes are blank and careless. She doesn’t like it, refusing to blink or look away until Nix pulls her along. A smile cracks the corner of the guy’s mouth. Jamie stumbles into the faux walnut-paneled elevator that smells like grease and burnt rubber.

  The ground floor button stays lit as the doors close. The three buttons above it remain dead. Their balance is thrown off when the elevator drops. The ground floor button dies as they descend. Cooler air greets them and the smell changes to something resembling putty and singed aluminum.

  When the doors open, they’re greeted by a long hallway. A Caucasian man steps through one of many doors, a white lab coat buttoned up to his chest. He takes several stiff steps with his hand extended the entire way.