Halfskin Boxed

by Tony Bertauski

  “Thank you.” Bob cleared his throat. “Just want to make clear that we are the Settlement’s law enforcement, Anderson.”

  Agitation rumbled across the administration’s expressions. They preferred monitors over law enforcement. This wasn’t a prison.

  At least Bob recognized the truth.

  He explained the yellow posts. “The perimeter of the Settlement. Cross them once and you’re knocked out. Cross them twice and you’re turned off. Understand?”

  He explained the cabins and the limits of their rights to gather and communicate through thought-command. He explained the phones that each one of the monitors carried, displaying it like a science-fiction ray gun.

  “We are clay,” Bob said. “You cannot see inside us, cannot manipulate us. But we can manipulate you with this, understand. We will know where you are at all times. We can stop you. We can move you. And we can swipe you.”

  He was the playground bully that let it be known that the administration might be the teachers, but he was the head shit.

  “Understand?” he boomed.

  Marcus nodded.

  “Then we’ll get along just fine.”

  Some final business was discussed. Marcus was beginning to slump. His knee was aching, an injury he sustained many years ago. He thought it curious that he felt so… human again. Aches and pains were something he controlled at will, no more difficult than commanding his thoughts and emotions. No less difficult than raising his hand. But there he was crooked and aging like a prisoner of war.

  “I don’t want a circus.” The woman aimed a pencil at him. “You’re still somewhat of a mystery, Mr. Anderson. Despite all the public outcry for your fair and just treatment and your lawyers’ antics to have you released onto the Settlement, you are not well-liked. You shut a lot of people off in your tenure, Mr. Anderson. Even relatives of the fabricated humans that you will be living with.”

  She held his gaze. He sensed that she was one of them, that as a little girl she’d seen family members taken during the era of halfskin laws and shut down for having too many biomites. Halfskin laws that Marcus enforced.

  “Are we clear?” She closed a folder.

  Marcus nodded.

  He was escorted out of the back of the building. The circus inside had ended; a new one was about to begin. He waited on the back steps as one of the monitors went to fetch a cart. They would take him to his cabin, introduce him to the rest of his life.

  Bob walked to a white truck, adjusting a straining belt, cramming a cowboy hat over his extra-large head. He wasn’t worried about Marcus or concerned about the disruption.

  He was thinking about lunch.

  And then Marcus realized what was happening.

  Someone stepped next to him, her loose clothing fluttering in the prairie wind, white hair pulled back. Mother watched Bob climb into his truck. Bob was thinking about lunch. She was nodding as she did so, acknowledging what Marcus realized.

  I can read clay.

  Raine

  A candle flame danced in the draft, wax pooling around the blackened pigtail. Teacups half-full of Darjeeling tea were set around it. A Holy Bible, the cover bent at the corners and black as the burning wick, lay closed.

  Maggie started to gather the teacups.

  “No, no,” Raine exclaimed. “I’ll clean up. It’s getting late and you all need to get going.”

  Maggie, a frumpy Midwesterner, hovered over the couch, knees bent, conflicted between helping and leaving. It was bad manners to abandon a mess after prayer group. She was a dreamlander of a lonely garage biometric engineer, an eccentric man that fabbed a body to download his dreamland lover into reality. Like Raine, she had adjusted to physical reality. Probably better than Raine.

  Phillip, the short, unassuming clone of a Fortune 500 accounting firm, sat across from Raine, looking down his long nose at a notepad he diligently scribbled on with a short pencil. The next prayer group would be at his cabin and would be more accommodating with better food, better tea and coffee.

  Because clones considered themselves closer to real humans than the plants and a hell of lot more legitimate than dreamlanders.

  As far as Raine was concerned, they were all fucked.

  “Closing prayer, everyone?” Phillip stated more than asked, extending his unusually long-fingered hands that reminded Raine of something more simian than human.

  “Robbie?” Raine patted the young man’s knee sitting next to her. “You want to lead prayer?”

  Phillip cleared his throat. This was Raine’s house, her meeting. She could choose.

  “All right.” Robbie nodded. He was of African descent, his dark skin smooth, his features slender and boyish despite his age. He was a plant that was fabricated by an elderly rich widow that wanted companionship in her final years, memories of servitude transplanted into his history.

  The four members of the Settlement’s weekly prayer group sat on the edge of the couch and formed a ring of clasped hands around the coffee table, their palms clammy and cold.

  “Dear Lord.” Robbie bowed his head. “Please bless this house and the beings within it as we seek to follow Your will. We give thanks to the life You give us and every breath You allow.”

  His grip tightened. Raine wanted to squeeze back, to say, Yeah, me too, I believe that too. But she was still praying for strength and wisdom to wake up in the morning. And an angel.

  That was why she prayed.

  “Please Lord, keep Raine’s family safe and sound during this time of exile. We pray that one day she may return to see them and be with them and celebrate Your glory. We pray in Your name. Amen.”

  “Amen.”

  Raine walked them to the door, where hugs were exchanged. Maggie was like a big doughy mother; sinking into her embrace was like falling into a warm, breathing pillow with a big heart beneath the thin fabric.

  “Bless you, darling,” Maggie said.

  Phillip wrapped his spidery arms around her, his frame rather hard, and gave one quick squeeze and a pat on the shoulder.

  “Bless you,” he announced.

  Robbie held her the longest, swaying back and forth, stroking the back of her smooth head, whispering in her ear. “It’ll be all right, one of these days.”

  The old woman that fabbed him did a very good job.

  She watched them climb off the porch and stayed at the door until their truck entered the trees, deep tracks laid in the snow behind it. The limbs were heavy and wet. The sky was blue, but more snow was on the way, a dark smudge creeping over the mountains, the winter wind biting her cheeks.

  A helicopter chopped the distant air.

  Raine closed the door and turned up the music until she couldn’t hear the approaching blades. She warmed her hands at the fireplace, humming along to the gospel tracks Robbie had put together just for her. The fire warmed her skin.

  Audible pings echoed in her head, reminders that she should be at the gate in ten minutes. She turned off communications while cleaning up, then went to shower. She soaked in the hot water until the tank turned tepid. It was the only relief of her daily routine, the only time she felt clean—hot water stripping the film of her life away, that outer layer that clung like an odor, a slick layer of memories.

  She wrapped up in a robe and stood in front of the fire, opening the terrycloth to expose herself to the flames. Her ribs pushed from the skin. She imagined Phillip could grasp them one at a time with his slender, chopsticky fingers.

  It was twenty minutes past the hour.

  Raine looked out the window. She was no longer in the cabin across from the brick house, having been relocated for the construction workers. Her new cabin wasn’t far from Paul’s, but she still didn’t feel comfortable there.

  Still, she wished she could be at the field to watch the brick house, to warn him if someone was coming.

  She was supposed to be at the gate to officially welcome Marcus Anderson to the Settlement, despite the fact he had already been there for months. Things had
to settle down. Pete didn’t like all the controversy. Despite everything Marcus Anderson had done in his past life, Pete wanted to welcome him to the family.

  Raine wouldn’t do that.

  Pete was a good man, a man of well wishes and good intention. Marcus Anderson was an old man now that lived on the Settlement. We take care of our own. Let’s put the past in the past, he said. He’s one of us now.

  In a way, Marcus had helped her and Paul. The old man had been the perfect distraction. His welcome party was a rare opportunity for Paul to fabricate the lungs. They have to be done as a pair, he said. The largest of the organs, he didn’t know how they were going to do it.

  Months had gone by. Winter was almost over, when most everyone tended to stay inside. Soon the weather would break. But then the old man (a recluse since he arrived) requested that Pete arrange that welcome party. It was like her prayers had been answered.

  Send me an angel.

  She had prayed every morning, every night before bed, that there would be an opportunity to bring Jamie one step closer. She needed that victory. Paul insisted that fabricating Jamie would bring her back, that her last moments were stored in the DNA scraping he had crudely scratched from her arm, that she’d remember who she was.

  It was ludicrous.

  Paul was a victim of his own delusions that Raine would never crush. He just wanted his daughter back. She wanted Jamie back, too. But more than that, if she was honest, she needed to get something back from God.

  He had taken so much from her.

  She stood at the door until her toes were cold. She started for the bedroom to get socks when something moved in the trees. The square grill emerged like silver teeth, the headlights glowing in the daylight.

  No.

  Bob’s truck eased into the sunlight, grimy snow glittering on the hood. His big white cowboy hat filled the cab. The reflection, however, obscured the passenger seat, where she expected to see Paul. Cold crept up her legs, a spirit of doom licking her thighs as it seeped into her belly. The truck turned and stopped.

  Paul was not there.

  He wasn’t there, wasn’t nabbed in the red brick house pulling a set of lungs from the fabricator. Bob wouldn’t be escorting him back to the cabin. Unless he was here to search it.

  The dark spirit sank its fangs deep in her heart.

  The truck shook as the fat man unseated himself from behind the wheel, adjusting the belt hidden beneath his stomach. He coughed up to the steps and spat a hole in the snow.

  There was no knocking.

  They stood face to face, a small square of glass separating them like a zoo exhibit. Which one was on the inside?

  Little pig, little pig…

  “What do you want?” Raine said.

  “Come to get you.”

  “I’m not going.”

  “Not a choice.”

  He was wrong about that. It was advisable that the bricks all went to welcome a new arrival, even if it was months after the arrival. She didn’t have to go.

  “Let me in a sec.”

  “I’m not going,” she repeated.

  “I can search your cabin.” He held up his phone, the riot app activated. “Resistance is probable cause. I’d have to make sure you’re not using this as a distraction to hide something.”

  Her eyes must’ve widened when he said that, or her lip quivered or all the blood drained from her cheeks because he smiled at that. He saw the fear.

  Or I’ll huff and I’ll puff…

  “Just a quick look around,” he said, “and I’ll be gone. I need to be at the visitors’ center anyhow; then I’ll be on my way.”

  She offered one quick look over his shoulder. No Paul. The longer Bob was with her, the longer he wasn’t at the red brick house. She opened the door and stepped back.

  Bob pushed inside, patterns of snow falling from his boot treads like broken white waffles. His presence filled the room with an odd mixture of wet fur and coffee breath. He toked on the metal pipe on his way to her bedroom.

  “Don’t smoke in here,” she said.

  He was only in there a few moments before crossing the room to the kitchen. A walnut bobbed in her throat. Chairs scratched the floor, a cabinet opened and closed. He came back out with smoke hovering in his winter beard like a fire had been sparked.

  “Satisfied?” she asked.

  He held her gaze, a smile stretching his whiskers—one of those truth-seeking looks that could drill straight into a person’s mind. If he wasn’t clay, if he had an ounce of biomites, he might be able to pull the truth out of her and see an image of the trapdoor beneath the oven and the organs stored in the dark.

  He put the phone to his ear. “Yeah, I’m on my way to Raine’s cabin. I’ll give her a ride when she’s ready. Paul’s not there? What do you mean… okay. Okay. He’s probably at the cabin with Raine.”

  He winked.

  “Go ahead, get started. Don’t worry about me. Okay.”

  On my way to Raine’s cabin?

  He touched a sequence of buttons and held the phone at his side.

  “Paul’s location disappeared for a while,” he said. “Last time he was located was near the lab. We think he’s tweaking his trackers to avoid being seen. You think he’s making a run for it without you?”

  “That happens with him, something with his biomites.”

  Paul had those moments when he couldn’t be found. Even the monitors lost track of him and then he’d just be there, around a corner or sitting on the couch.

  “Mmm,” Bob grunted. “We might have to put that boy on a leash.”

  Raine pulled the robe tighter, wanting to slam the bedroom door and get dressed, crawl into bed until he was gone. Something kept her out there, nude beneath the fuzzy robe. She hadn’t identified why yet.

  “Bible?” Bob touched the black book. “You’ll try anything to feel human.”

  “You looked around, now leave.”

  He started to reach for the Bible, but instead put his hand under the table to retrieve a spiral-bound sketchbook.

  “Put it down.”

  “This how you spend your time?” He flipped the pages. “Dreaming?”

  Pencil drawings of rolling hills and the long and straight horizon of the sea cutting the sky, an old cabin long forgotten, her feet longing for the creaky steps and crooked bannisters of home.

  And the faces that lived there.

  The unkempt, shaggy mess on Nix’s head, his cheeks days unshaven, eyes sharp and thoughtful. Always thoughtful. Their son, Joshua, at his side, a young man that spent his days exploring the endless land, going to the market for the fresh catch and home for dinners most nights.

  Is Shep still there, chasing the stick? Do they sit by the fireplace wondering where I went, when I’ll come back?

  She drew every day because if she didn’t, she’d forget what home looked like. Already the details were fuzzy. She could only guess what Joshua looked like. He’s twelve now. No, not twelve… what is he, fifteen?

  Time in dreamland moved at a different speed than the physical world. And this thought, the thought that she didn’t know her son’s age, that she’d missed all the birthday parties (did they still celebrate without her?) fell in her stomach with a wet smack. And if she ever forgot what they looked like, she’d never forgive herself.

  “Put it down.”

  “Waste of time, Raine. This is all there is, right here and now.”

  One of the bricks was a Buddhist, a man named Neal. He sat meditation every morning. She heard him say that once, This is all there is, right here and now. But Bob was just repeating it, slinging it like an arrow instead of a life raft.

  “You understand that?” he said. “Somewhere in your fabbed brain, you get what that means? All there is, is this right in front of you, for the rest of your life. Day after day after day it’s just this, forever and ever. Cold winters and dry summers. So draw all you want. Wish, pray, whatever. None of this is going to change. Just settle in and accept that
dreamland is dead. It’s just you and me.”

  “You can leave now.”

  Bob took slow heavy steps toward her, the snow already melting on the floor. She moved around the couch to avoid him and snatched the sketchbook, pressing it to her chest. He didn’t open the door.

  Instead, he pulled the curtain closed.

  “Almost done.”

  He turned slowly. Does he know what we’re hiding? Is that why he’s not worried about Paul?

  She opened her communication lines, attempting a thought-transmission. Paul! But only dead sound replied, a cottony silence with padded walls. Bob had killed her communication when he tapped the phone after taking that call. On my way to Raine’s cabin, he’d said. Like he wasn’t there yet.

  Like he needed more time.

  She should run and hide in the bedroom, barricade the door, jump through the window until someone came to the cabin. But she didn’t want to run. Didn’t want to call for help. It was why she didn’t change out of her robe when Bob arrived, why she stood barefoot and vulnerable while his fat fingers smudged the pages of her sketchbook.

  Try something, fucker.

  She wanted something to push her to the edge, to light a furnace of fury, to pour fuel on the tiny flame of rage that flickered in her dark nights. Because life had punished her enough. She needed something to hurt back—a face to crush, bones to break. She wanted to get her hands on God and shake him, tell him this shit wasn’t fair. That she’d had enough.

  Bob would serve as a fine substitute.

  So she backed up half a step, bumping into the stone hearth. Embers sparked from the dying logs. His boots landed quietly now—heel giving soft way to toe. Thumb on the phone, stroking the glass by his thighs, the fabric scratching between his legs.

  Raine clutched her robe, a distressed rabbit with nowhere to run. Waiting for him to come near. He nudged the couch with his knee, opened the space between them where he’d throw her on the floor and devour her whole.

  One more step was all she needed.