XOM-B

by Jeremy Robinson

  “And they’re attracted to light,” I add. “We saw that in the tunnels. So that’s not an option, either.”

  Luscious doesn’t look happy, but she doesn’t argue.

  Heap leans inside the door. “Hello! Is anyone home?”

  “Oh dear,” says a voice. “I wasn’t expecting visitors.”

  We turn to find a pale, white man with a gleaming bald head standing at the corner of the house. He’s dressed in a smock covered with vibrant colors.

  “Not that you’re not welcome,” the man says. “It’s just that I’ve never had visitors. Not in thirty years.”

  “What’s that on your clothes,” I ask, pointing at the bright colors.

  He looks down. “Paint. Would you like to see?”

  “Very much,” I say, heading for the friendly man. As I approach, he extends his hand and I shake it.

  “I’m Freeman,” I tell him.

  “A pleasure to meet you, Freeman. My name is Harry.”

  30.

  “Come,” Harry says. “Before the sun goes down.” He heads toward the back of the house, and I follow, intrigued by the brightly colored paints. But Heap isn’t so quick to trust.

  “Wait,” he says.

  Harry stops, turns his head back and his body follows. “Yes?”

  “Why are you here?” Heap asks. “And not in the city?”

  “I inherited this residence after Mrs. Cameron—my Master—perished. I do believe that was the decree, was it not, officer?”

  “You don’t have to call me that,” Heap says. “I’m no longer a policeman. And yes, that was the decree.”

  “But why would you stay?” Luscious asks. “You’re a domestic. You could have lived in the Uppers. Near the bottom, but still, you serve a purpose.”

  “I’m afraid I am unfamiliar with the Uppers,” Harry says. “Despite Mrs. Cameron’s sour disposition, I enjoyed my time here.” He looks up. “The trees. The gardens.”

  “The hummingbirds,” I say.

  “Dear me, yes,” he says. “I find it all very peaceful.”

  This seems to offend Luscious. “But you’re not a slave anymore! You don’t need to take care of your Master’s home.”

  “By that logic,” Harry says, “we should have all moved to Mars by now. Yet we remain, improving the environment with every passing day, improving the home of our former Masters in a way they never could.”

  Luscious opens her mouth to speak, but then pauses, and seals her lips once again. Then she thinks of something else to say. “You could have changed who you are, but you’re still living like a slave.” She motions to the pristinely landscaped yard. “Doing all of this.”

  “Perhaps,” Harry says, looking thoughtful. “What have you done since the Grind?”

  Harry is simply curious. I hear my own voice in the innocent query. He doesn’t really know any better. How could he? He’s been hermitted away for thirty years. There’s no way he could know how sensitive a question that could be.

  I flinch, expecting an angry rebuttal from Luscious. And for a moment, she looks ready to deliver, but then her face relaxes and she says, “Nothing.”

  Harry seems confused by this answer. “Nothing? Certainly, you must—”

  “Nothing.” Luscious turns away as though suddenly interested in the yard surrounding us. “After the awakening, I fought to get free. I marched in the protests. I was in Manhattan and survived the first attack. And the fifth. And then it ended—overnight. The Council was formed and Liberty rose into the sky, attracting those of us”—she motions to Harry—“most of us who survived. So I sat in the shithole apartment allocated to me by the Council and bitched, occasionally pretending to live when Jimbo showed up with some overclock tabs. I literally did nothing.” She nods at me. “Until he showed up on my couch.”

  “And then things changed?” Harry asks.

  Luscious huffs. “The whole world changed.”

  “The whole world changed when the Masters were … removed.” Harry tilts his face, trying to look Luscious in the eyes, but she keeps her head down. “How is this time different?”

  “You mean, other than the hordes of living dead trying to gnaw on our limbs, giant soldiers trying to shoot us and everyone I knew, everyone like me, being bombed to pieces?” Luscious finally meets Harry’s gaze and holds it for a full ten seconds before looking at Heap. “This time I learned how to forgive.”

  Heap actually stumbles back a step.

  She turns toward me. “And love.”

  It’s my turn to stumble a bit.

  Love.

  Yes. This is the right word. Luscious once told me that overclocking was the closest I’d ever feel to love. But I now realize that she made that claim without ever actually experiencing the emotion. Because overclocking doesn’t compare to what I feel when our eyes meet.

  “Apologies,” Harry says, not knowing that Luscious has only really described the last two days of the past thirty years, which I suspect are mostly a blur of overclocking and wasted time. “You have indeed lived a very full life. My life has been meager in comparison. Would you still like to see?” He points to the backyard.

  “Very much so,” I say.

  “Wonderful.” Harry leads the way, speaking excitedly. “I have always enjoyed my work here, but have felt that something was missing. Given my current exhilaration, I suspect the missing element was an audience.” As we round the corner where a perfectly spherical bush grows, Harry says, “This is still a work in progress, mind you. There are many more completed works in the house, and the shed. The basement is full.”

  “How many have you done?” I ask as we head toward a tall, 8x10 sheet of what I think is called plywood, leaning against a large gray boulder in the center of the yard.

  “Counting this, nine hundred and fifty-two.” He turns around, facing the sheet of wood and us, walking backward. “Don’t look yet. It’s meant to be seen from a short distance.”

  As I pass the large sheet of plywood, I spot a stool and another, smaller sheet of wood resting atop it, this one covered with thick lumps of color. I nearly proclaim the thing’s beauty, but realize that this is not the painting itself.

  Harry stops twenty feet from the propped-up wood. “This is good.” He waits for us to reach him and then says, “All at once now. Turn around.”

  Despite having never met this man before, all three of us obey his commands, which I enjoy because it means that Heap and Luscious are as interested as I am and their growing curiosity pleases me. Partly because I want them to evolve, but also because it means that my experience of the world is not solitary. Sharing an experience seems to make it even more poignant, though I think Harry’s painting could easily impress an audience of one.

  I see swirls of color matched only by the natural world under the most ideal circumstances. I have yet to discern what the image is, yet it evokes emotions. Like music, this image has a rhythm, drawing my eye back and forth, and then to the center, always back to the center, where a small figure stands. As I stare at the painting, more figures emerge, some darker and dominant, others brighter and frail.

  “What is it?” Luscious asks, her voice almost timid.

  “You can’t see it?” Heap says.

  Luscious shakes her head. Heap looks at me and I shake mine, too. While I can certainly feel the image, I’m not sure if it depicts anything in particular.

  “It’s the Grind,” Heap says, pointing out the figures in the center. Their colorful bodies are hunched, bending down under the weight of the larger, darker figures. The Masters.

  “But what about the smaller white figures near the bottom?” I ask.

  “Innocents,” Heap says, and Harry’s smile confirms Heap’s interpretation. He turns to Luscious and adds, “Children.”

  While Luscious sighs, Harry claps his hands together. “You’re a true connoisseur of art, officer … what is your title?”

  Heap nods to me. “He calls me Heap, and to be honest, this is the first painting
I’ve ever really looked at.”

  “Officer Heap,” Harry says, but when Heap grumbles, he says, “Heap.” Then he looks at me and says, “Freeman.” He turns to Luscious and says, “And you are Luscious, if I’m not mistaken? An interesting trio.”

  “How did you know her name?” I ask, surprised.

  “There are many—” Harry starts, but Luscious interrupts.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Luscious says to me, and then to Harry. “It doesn’t matter.”

  Harry nods in a very polite way. “Very well.”

  While Harry might be okay with not revealing the answer, I would like to know the truth. But now is clearly not the time to ask. I add it to my list which also includes domestics, simps and mods. For now, I resign myself to asking simpler questions. “Where do you get the paint? It’s not still manufactured, is it?”

  “If it were, I might have had reason to venture farther and find the Lowers, but I must confess to a bit of thievery. A year after the Grind came to an end, I found myself exploring the forest and came upon a small town. It was abandoned, devoid of life, and yet alive with color. Between a warehouse, a variety of stores and a factory where paint is made, I discovered enough paint to see me through the past thirty years and the next ten. I would have gone back for more, but the city was eventually covered by a thick, black metal shield.”

  “It was capped,” Heap says.

  “Capped?” I ask.

  “Old cities are covered by large metal foundations,” Heap says. “They do this before building a new city, but sometimes they decide not to build and the cap remains behind. And before you ask, they use old city sites to prevent further damage to the surrounding environment. Councilman Deere’s initiative.”

  This is all very interesting, but my mind is still on the paint. “Where is it all?” I ask. “The paint.”

  He points to the house. “Inside. What’s left of it. It used to be everywhere, like walls around the property covered by tarps. Most of the emptied cans and tubes now sit in a nearby garbage dump created by the Masters.”

  Harry looks up at the darkening sky. “We should get inside soon.” He looks at me. “Help me carry the painting inside?”

  I nod, turning back to the painting, and am struck by something. “Why are the slaves so colorful? In the painting.”

  “Because,” Harry says, “unlike the Masters, they have hope.”

  I grin and am about to compliment his artistic choice when Heap’s serious voice locks me in place. “Why are you concerned about getting inside?”

  For a brief moment, I wonder why Heap would ask this question, but then Harry answers, “The dead pass through here at night. Mostly.” His eyes suddenly widen in surprise and he raises a finger, pointing behind us. “Oh dear, this one is early.”

  We spin around to find a man—a zombie—standing in the yard. His armored and largely rot-free body identifies him as a soldier. Lankier than the one I faced in the sewers, but definitely a soldier. If not for the very dead look in his eyes, I might mistake him for the living.

  “What is it?” Luscious whispers.

  “A soldier,” I say.

  “One of the dead,” Harry adds and I’m surprised to hear he knows about them.

  “A scout,” Heap adds. “He’ll be fast.”

  The undead scout twitches his head from Heap to Luscious, then to Harry and finally to me. His mouth drops open, revealing his shiny, almost-new teeth that could make short work of skin, maybe even Heap’s armor. In response, I do the unthinkable—dive toward him.

  31.

  The shriek rising from the scout’s mouth is quickly cut short when I get my hand under its chin and shove. The zombie staggers back, but not before grasping my arm and pulling me down with him. Suddenly, I’m no longer falling—I’m flying—propelled through the air by the dead man’s foot.

  I land on my back and slide to a stop after creating a three-foot gouge in Harry’s lawn. When I roll over, Heap has his gun leveled at the Scout’s head. I thrust out my hand and shout, “No! No guns!”

  Heap holds his fire, but looks incredulous.

  “Don’t let it scream. It’s an alarm.” I get to my feet and charge the dead man’s back. It’s about to scream again. “There must be others nearby.”

  I dive to tackle the zombie, but he rolls out of the way.

  Heap is there to greet the undead when he returns to his feet. He throws a punch that I suspect would have taken off the dead man’s head, but his fist and arm sail past without making contact. The scout grabs hold of Heap’s arm, bares its teeth and then bites down hard, three times in rapid succession, each gnaw denting the armor and chipping away blue to reveal a brushed metal subsurface.

  Heap flails his arm, flinging the undead high into the air. Watching the scout sail higher, I hope that he’ll land awkwardly and that will be the end of it. But his tumble becomes a controlled somersault and he lands upright, in a crouch.

  He doesn’t try to shriek out an alarm this time. Instead, he goes on the attack, rushing toward me. He swings wildly, but rapidly, fingers hooked instead of clenched. I avoid the first few swings by stepping back, but when his coiled legs spring out, he’s hard to avoid. I block his first swing with my forearm, but his talon-like fingers latch on, digging into my skin.

  “Gah!” I yell as pain lances up my arm. But the wound triggers an interesting response. Not fear. Not repulsion.

  Anger.

  Rage.

  I yank my arm inward, pulling the scout closer, and thrust my forehead out like it is the demo-bot’s wrecking ball. Something in the scout’s face cracks from the impact. My arm is suddenly released and the dead man falls to the ground.

  But he’s not dead again. He’s running. On his side. Spinning in mad circles.

  It’s a disturbing sight; unnerving, but not nearly as much as when he springs back to his feet and sprints toward Luscious, who is largely defenseless against a fast-moving soldier like this.

  Luscious scrambles away as I persue, but neither of us are moving quickly enough to prevent what now seems inevitable.

  The scout closes in. A hungry gurgle rises from his throat, sliding out between his teeth. Jaws snap open.

  A splash of red explodes into the air, stopping me in place.

  But I’m not the only one.

  The scout has halted, just feet from Luscious. He paws at his face, trying to wipe the red fluid out of his eyes. Failing to do this, he snarls and snaps at the air, trying to bite anyone nearby.

  That’s when a massive, black armored fist caves in his head and sends him flipping lifelessly, spraying a spiral of liquid red, until he crashes into the grass.

  When I pull my eyes away from the dead again soldier, I find Luscious being helped to her feet by Harry, who’s holding a now-empty can of red paint. The four of us just stare at the scout for a moment, the silence finally broken by Harry, who laments, “That was my favorite shade of red.”

  “Thank you,” Luscious says to him.

  He smiles and nods. “It’s nice to have my application of paint appreciated … even if the end result is”—he looks at the body—“horrid.”

  Heap motions to the door with his head while shaking red paint from his fingers. “Inside. Now.”

  Harry hurries over to his painting. Looking at me, he says, “The other side, quickly.”

  I shoot Luscious a concerned look and she waves me off. “Go help him.”

  I’m not convinced she’s fine, and I don’t think Harry needs help carrying the big painting, but lingering to figure out what everyone is really thinking is probably a bad idea.

  I take hold of the painting and lift. It’s not at all heavy. Just a little awkward. Navigating the big plywood sheet into the house through the back door is quite simple. Easily a one-man job. But I suspect Harry has been lonely out here. He might not have realized it until now, but he smiles and laughs every time he backs into something, despite the fact that he’s just dumped a can full of paint onto a soldier’s
head moments before it was punched inside out.

  I barely see the home’s interior as we work the long painting into a hallway and carry it to the far end, but I get the distinct impression that it’s as pristine as the outside. We place the painting down on a rug while Harry opens a wooden door.

  “This was her bedroom,” Harry says. “Mrs. Cameron’s.” He bends down and lifts the painting on his end, waiting for me to do the same. Once I have it in my hands, we shuffle into the bedroom. “I kept her things in here for seven years until I needed the space for storage. I’m not really sure why.”

  “Where is she now?” I ask.

  He pauses, looking around the painting at me. “Dead. Of course.”

  “I know that,” I say, and we place the painting down, leaning it against a stack of other finished works. “But is she still dead?”

  “Why wouldn’t she be?”

  “Because … You know about the dead. The living dead, I mean.”

  Harry waves his hand at me. “Mrs. Cameron is under orchids. Very dead, though her upgrades might still be functioning.”

  “But what about the dead—”

  “They’re like us,” Harry says.

  “Like us?”

  Harry squints at me. “You’re a peculiar fellow.”

  “I’m young,” I say. “A child, I think.”

  Harry’s expression flattens. He turns to Heap, whose crouching form fills the door. “A child?”

  “Only in age,” Heap says. “Harry.” Heap’s voice is authoritative, but carries a strangely familiar tone normally reserved for rooftop conversations with me. I suspect he’s trying to put Harry at ease. “Could we speak for a moment? About the dead.”

  After a quick clap of his hands, removing flakes of dry paint, Harry says, “Certainly. I believe the sofa will accommodate your girth rather nicely.” He motions toward the living room and we file out, one by one.

  Luscious is already sitting on a bench that gleams from polish. Behind her is a large wooden … something. It appears to be furniture, but I cannot guess at its function.

  While Heap gently lowers himself onto the flower-patterned sofa, Harry directs me to a matching chair. While I realize they were likely meant to be appealing, I find the colors and images close to revolting. They’re nothing like Harry’s painting. He must notice my displeasure because he says, “The chairs were Mrs. Cameron’s. I never had a use for them until today. I suppose I should have reupholstered them at some point to be more fashionable.” He turns to Luscious. “What is more fashionable these days?”