Halfskin Boxed

by Tony Bertauski

  “To some degree, yes. Refined emotions, I think.”

  Another long pause. The long silences seemed to be serving as palate cleansers because the man started in with typical questions about songs or art or impossible scenarios. Hanoi handled them deftly with precise pauses mixed with consternation bordering on constipation.

  This went on for half an hour, the woman not saying anything until after a very long pause, and she said without expression, hands folded on her right knee, “You have failed, Hanoi. You will need to tell your parents that, according to the sentience laws, you exhibit the nature of artificial intelligence. You will be terminated. Your parents are in the next room. Would you like to tell them?”

  “Yes.”

  Hanoi stood up. It was rather unfortunate. His parents spent a lot of money to fabricate him in the likeness of their late son. They would be disappointed. It would be better if he told them.

  “Hanoi?”

  “Yes?”

  “How do you feel?”

  “Sad.” That was the correct answer. He should feel sad for being turned off. Dying. I will die.

  His parents were in the next room, but they never got to see him again. He never went to tell them. Hanoi Fender was terminated following the final answer of his Turing test. Because he didn’t feel sad. He didn’t feel anything.

  In fact, he went to tell his parents because that was what he was supposed to do. They wanted a child that would listen. He was doing what he was told.

  The last thing he saw was the goldfish gasping at the glass wall. Then fabricated human #588, known as Hanoi Fender, was no more.

  Marcus

  “Good morning,” Marcus said.

  Raine was standing at the window. Despite the hazy light, the sun’s glare couldn’t hide her exhaustion. He had knocked on the door several times before she dragged herself out of bed. It was obvious she didn’t expect to see the old man on the porch.

  She wasn’t going to open the door easily. He could make her do it, but preferred she choose to. Marcus could make himself shiver, appeal to her sense of compassion. He had come through the snow wearing only a long-sleeved shirt, pants and loafers. The cold didn’t affect him, she would know that. Nor would she care if it did.

  She looked past him.

  “Paul will be here soon,” Marcus said over the tinkling patter of frozen snow. “I’d prefer to wait inside for him.”

  The curtain dropped, but the knob didn’t turn. It was unlikely she had locked it; he could let himself in, but he wanted her to open the door, to invite him. That gesture would have a great impact on their relationship going forward.

  Mother stood in a large divot of snow. Unaffected by the blistering wind, her loose clothing hung off her shoulders, her bare feet obscuring the wrinkled imprints.

  Paul dropped the body there.

  “Dennis didn’t suffer,” he called through the door. “It was quick, I assure you.”

  Dennis barely qualified as a sentient being. Of all the bricks, he had come closest to failing the Turing test. A great scientist, yes, precisely because he was a computer with arms and legs.

  It was why Marcus summoned the man to surprise Paul.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  “I think you know.”

  He liked that answer. It was cryptic and said a lot. Most of the time when someone heard it, they filled in answers that worked in his favor.

  “She knows,” Mother added.

  Yes. Somewhere in her subconscious, she’s always known I would come for her.

  “Wait for Paul,” Raine said. “Out there.”

  “I would like to talk to you first. It has very much to do with dreamland.”

  There was a long pause before the brass knob slowly turned, the old man’s distorted reflection warping on the handle. The door creased several inches. The wind kicked it against the wall when she let go.

  He rubbed the cold off his hands like soapy water and cupped them over his mouth for a warm exhale. Winter had moved into the cabin. No amount of logs could kindle enough heat to push out the cold ghosts that haunted it, the ghosts that followed Raine daily.

  “I know you,” she accused.

  “Of course you do.”

  “You have no business being here.”

  “I’m here to help.”

  “You killed Nix.” Poison-tipped darts flew from her lips. “I saw you there, murderer. I saw you when I came out… when I came out of the box, I saw you. My husband is dead because of you.”

  She was wrong about that. Marcus wasn’t there when she stepped out of the fabrication chamber. He was emerging from his own fabrication chamber a thousand miles away. Nix had pulled her identity out of dreamland and integrated it into an exact replica of a fabricated body. Marcus had arrived to shut him down when Mother collapsed… a collapse triggering a shutdown that included Nix. Marcus, too.

  Once I was clay, now I’m a brick. And here we are.

  “I’ve known about you since I was a child,” Raine continued. “You chased after Nix most of his life; you wanted to shut him down for something that wasn’t his fault. You killed him, admit it. You started all of this. You’re responsible for the Settlement, for Nix’s death, for all this suffering. This is your fault.”

  “She’s right about that,” Mother said.

  He flicked a glance at the old woman pacing around Raine, observing her like a critic admiring a work of art. Technically, the death of Nix was Mother’s doing, but he wasn’t innocent.

  Raine was a shell of the woman that stepped out of the fabrication chamber all those years ago, a once fiery warrior, an independent woman that had been chipped into a gaunt likeness of herself. Yet beneath the imploding cheeks and dull flesh, the darkness in the hollows of her eye sockets, she was still exquisite.

  “He didn’t die, Raine.”

  “Show him to me, then.”

  “You know where he is.”

  “I know where he is, I said show him to me! Can you do that? No, you can’t because I don’t have dreamland!”

  The clicking of plastic beads rolled between her fingers, the crucifix of the rosary swinging from her cupped hands—finger and thumb, finger and thumb. Lips moving.

  Marcus helped create the halfskin laws, that was true. No one could possess more than 50% biomites or they were more machine than human. And Nix went halfskin when he was a child because he would’ve died without them, that was true, too. But the law was the law. Did Nature spare those without sin? No more than a tornado avoided houses of the holy.

  Nix was a child that wandered into the path of the storm through no fault of his own.

  “I want to help you,” Marcus said.

  “You’re here for yourself.”

  “I’m here for a much nobler cause. I seek what you want, Raine.”

  “I want my family.”

  “You’ll need the truth to do that.”

  “The powers-that-be? Is that what you mean? You’re a paranoid schizophrenic, Marcus Anderson. And if you had anything to do with Dennis or… or…”

  Her lips crimped into a thin line. If I had anything to do with Jamie? I have something to do with everything, dear child.

  “That we do,” Mother agreed.

  The cabin was suitably adorned with crucifixes, some carved from wood, others cast iron or molded plastic. A leather-bound Bible had been filled with slivers of page markers; prayers had been scribbled on loose notebook paper and stacked beneath a melted candle as thick as a pipe.

  “Ask her to pray with you, Marcus,” Mother said.

  He turned his back on her, nodding while examining a cross hand-fashioned from tree branches and bound by a thin strap of twine. Mother was right. Invoke her faith, bond together in the name of the Lord and she would hear what message he had to bring, to follow him on a righteous path to find the truth, to discover the powers-that-be.

  To discover God.

  He briefly smiled at Mother, the higher power that guided him on this holy
of holy journeys. She had given him this gift of higher vision, this insight to the truth. Only Mother possessed the ability to see far and clearly. He needed Raine, needed Paul.

  One to lead, one to dream, one to bleed, the son to be.

  Marcus inadvertently nodded to her before opening his hands to extend an olive branch and a chance to pray.

  “Where is he?” Raine looked around. “Or are you talking to a she?”

  Confusion took the old man’s hands. In a rare lapse of discipline, he looked directly at Mother.

  “Who are you projecting?” Raine added. “You don’t think I know what you’re doing?”

  Now it was her turn to pace. With the rosary wrapped over her knuckles like a boxer taping up before a fight, she searched the corners of the room.

  “I see you looking at someone. You have your own little dreamland, don’t you? You see someone, projecting him or her into this room. Do you carry her with you all the time? Project her when you’re lonely? Scared?”

  His brows pinched a fold of skin.

  “Who is it?” she demanded. “Who are you projecting?”

  “Don’t tell her,” Mother said. “She’s not ready.”

  “No one of consequence,” he said.

  “Do you have a dreamland, Marcus?” It was more of an accusation. “Tell me or so help me God I’ll beat the old man out of you with a table leg.”

  Of course Raine noticed his subtle reactions. She was once a projection herself, a being born of and trapped in Nix’s dreamland. Through his senses, he would project her into the physical world, someone only he could see and hear, a woman that belonged to him. She knew this world through Nix until he fabricated her a body.

  “You’ve taken the Lord as your personal savior?” Marcus asked.

  “The Lord won’t stop me from hurting you.”

  “Will you pray with me?” His hands, having wilted, returned in supplication.

  “Pray to your powers-that-be.”

  The holy beads touched her lips, but a fist was still clenched beneath them, the knuckles blanched with tension.

  “Do you pray often?” he asked. “Do you need to be forgiven?”

  “I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “Of course not. Nix brought you into this world against your will, didn’t he? You were content to remain in the dreamland where you were born, but he loved you too much, wanted you to taste the physical. But the world rejected you, sent you here, took away your dreamland and abandoned you. You’ve done nothing wrong, Raine. Yet you pray often.”

  He sat on the edge of one of the sofas, palms still open.

  “Why go on? With everything that’s been taken from you, what’s the point of living? You weren’t meant to be out here, Raine. You’re not like the others, not a worker ant, not a colony of programs. You feel. You hurt.”

  Raine turned her back, both hands bound together and pressed to her chin, and paced the room, coming to rest in front of the crucifix of branches propped on the shelf. He sensed her thoughts, knew the belief she carried, that Joshua, her son, had somehow sent that little crucifix to her, somehow bridged their realities long enough to leave her a gift. Impossible to carry objects between realities (certainly not from a dreamland), she knew this. But the belief was more important than fact.

  I’m okay, Momma.

  “You pray because you miss your family. You pray because you’re searching for answers, to know why God would abandon you in your time of need. What is your purpose in life?”

  “I serve God now.”

  “And what does God want?”

  “He wants me to live.”

  “Why?”

  “His Will is a mystery.”

  “Precisely,” Marcus breathed. “That’s why I’m here.”

  Mother sat next to him, the cushions not moving beneath the illusion of her round bottom, the dust not clouding as she sat back. She put her finger to her lips as she always did, eyebrows creasing.

  Marcus rested his hands, felt the pressure of an approaching storm outside the cabin. The wind had died; sleet no longer ticked against the tin roof like nails sprinkled over a sheet of metal.

  But a storm was nearing.

  He needed Raine to be open, to get beyond the emotions that shackled her to the past. She needed to hear what was in front of her so that she could know where they needed to go. She needs to bleed.

  “Has He answered your prayers?” he asked.

  “He gives me strength.”

  “The Lord doesn’t give you what you desire. He gives you what you need.”

  Her silence acknowledged him.

  “What does God want?” he asked.

  “Our faith.”

  “God wants to be discovered; He wants to know Himself through you, Raine. He wants to know your journey. There are many ways up the mountain and the truth is waiting.”

  She reached for the crucifix of sticks, slid it off the shelf and cradled it. Not until she sat on the opposite couch did he realize what the cross meant.

  Send me an angel, he heard her think.

  “We are connected.” Marcus interlocked his fingers. “Together we’ll find the truth, Raine; to know the powers-that-be. To discover God.”

  “I just want my family.”

  “They’re waiting on the mountain.”

  Her head remained bowed, the rough-hewn crucifix lay across her legs. On her lips was the prayer, “Send me an angel.”

  “Very good,” Mother whispered.

  What he kept from Raine would bring this delicate respite crashing. The truth is not what you expect, Mother reminded him.

  Marcus didn’t know what was at the top of the mountain, didn’t know if they would find her dreamland, didn’t know if she’d ever see Nix and Joshua like he promised. The truth was the truth, Mother always said. It didn’t matter how you felt about it.

  But Mother assured him the truth was up there, that should he achieve such a lofty climb, should he discover the powers-that-be, then humanity would be saved.

  So what will I find?

  The approaching storm arrived on the front porch with two hard-falling steps that rattled the windows. The door was thrown open.

  Paul rushed at the old man.

  Raine

  A wild animal slammed through the front door—the whites of his eyes, the exposed teeth, the clawed fingers. Raine’s mind registered a snarl then a roar, saliva spilling over the lower lip.

  Paul!

  He came with hands steeled to collar the old man’s frail neck, to twist it, wring it and shake it until it snapped like a dry twig. But his momentum slowed. Raine felt a change in the atmosphere, the crackling sensation, the static electricity.

  The old man’s mind filled the room.

  Curly whiskers straightened across Paul’s chin, his wild hair thrown back. He was attempting to run underwater, the air congealing into a thick, fatty essence, hardening like viscous tar.

  Paul stopped, a wax figure hung in mid-stride, an accusing finger aimed at the old man. Lips tight and blue, a word worked through his windpipe, crawled over his tongue.

  “You.”

  With sleet driving through the doorway, Marcus sat with his legs crossed, hands resting on his thigh. Not looking at the murderous hands twelve inches from his neck.

  Ripples splashed Paul’s cheeks.

  “Let him go!” Raine shouted.

  The rarefied air tightened around her, locking her down before she could bend a knee. The grip held her from the inside, the invisible hand of God, her biomites betraying her, freezing muscles into rigid cables.

  The old man looked like someone waiting for tea to be delivered. He nodded. After a pause, he nodded again. She noticed that he was sitting on one side of the couch, not in the middle, as if next to someone. He’s listening.

  A deep sigh and he looked up.

  Paul began moving. Very slowly, he was forced to the opposite couch. His movements were jerky; his breath gurgled, the real struggle on the inside, a ba
ttle he was losing as he sat down. Teeth grinding like rough-hewn marble.

  When it was her turn, she didn’t resist, letting the inner force take her; her motions were so smooth and effortless it looked like she chose to do it, as if the illusion of free will brought her to sit next to Paul.

  Marcus stood like a creaky old contraption, pausing like a disc had slipped. He closed the front door. Pausing with his hand on the doorknob, he sighed again before starting up the fireplace. The cabin soon smelled smoky warm. He then shuffled into the kitchen. Several minutes later, he emerged with coffee.

  Once again, he sat at one end of the couch, across from Paul. Contemplating the moment, he stared into the cup, seeing his thoughts swirl on the oily surface.

  “I didn’t want to do it this way,” he said. “Not this soon, not so rash. But things change, as they often do.”

  He looked at Paul with soft eyes.

  “I’m very sorry for your loss, Paul. Death is an odd transition and it’s not what it used to be. We’re all dead, the three of us, according to the People. We aren’t human. But I think you’ll agree we’re very much alive.”

  Raine didn’t know what had happened to Paul, what he’d seen or done to come back a psychopath. He didn’t want to kill the old man, he wanted to obliterate him. Only one thing could drive him that far off the cliff.

  The old man had done something to Jamie.

  “You have suffered, both of you. We all have. But the truth is out there, you understand. It’s not just dreamland that’s disappearing. The dreamers are dying, too.”

  He looked at Raine and paused. It’s not just you, baby. You’re not special.

  Two short sips. He sat back, gathering more thoughts.

  “I needed Jamie, Paul. It wasn’t selfish, wasn’t for pleasure. I needed her to find the truth. We simply joined efforts. I didn’t kidnap her; she did this of her own free will. She knew the importance of what was at stake, what we needed to find. I didn’t intend for her to be shut down, you understand. But, in the grand scheme of this journey, perhaps it was not a bad thing, not a wrong turn, so to speak. I have come to believe, in the process of her death, she looked into the eyes of the dream eater. And that is what led me here today.”