by P. S. Power
“Keys, on a key ring. The little black square is the fob. I can use it to open or lock my doors. See?” She tapped a single purple button, one that had a strange icon on it, which had the large yellow thing making a clicking sound. More to the point, it made several at once. There were four doors, and the back opened up as well, which she showed by doing that. “Things ride in the back. The computer and clothing. We need to get you something new to wear. After I sleep, though. You’re good with Walmart clothes, right? Finding shoes for you is going to be fun. You’ll probably need those made for you specifically.”
She pointed as his feet, as if wearing things over them was the natural course of a being’s life. Then, everyone else he’d seen since leaving the house really had done that. Even Mary had always been in shoes. Liam looked at his very large feet and nodded.
“I should learn to make those?” It seemed sensible, since he didn't know who else could do that for him. Instead of telling him to do otherwise, Brenner simply nodded at him.
“You can look that up online when we get to my place. I have a pretty good internet deal. It’s fiber optic, so a bit faster than what most people have. It makes it easier to steal things. Shows and all that. Not that you heard an FBI Agent say that, mind.”
This time it was clear that, lacking another Agent, he was supposed to ride in the front seat, on the passenger’s side. It was a lot easier to pay attention to what she was doing this time, than it had been earlier. Helpfully she called out everything she was doing, so he could recall it later.
“The key goes in here, on the steering column and is turned forward, which is a clockwise turn. Like this? It makes the running lights come on in the first position, then the whole thing on the second. Once it starts, you let off on the pressure.” The large car roared to life.
Then she went over how to back out of a parking spot, how to use all the pedals, which he already had down and the proper use of signals and even how to officially use traffic signals, as well as street signs for navigation.
“Not that I don’t know my way home without them. If you go to a new place or aren’t familiar with an area it can really help. My place is about three miles from work. It’s out of town and a bit isolated. That…” She shrugged. “Really, when I was teasing Sanchez about his wife? He wasn’t wrong about me. Don’t tell but it’s part of my job to basically get close to as many groups as possible. A lot of them are fine with coming over to dinner a few times a year, or having me show up at their kid’s birthday party with a lame present. Some of them take more, which means using whatever I can work up to get them interested in me. Normally that’s sex. Which…” She stopped speaking then and simply drove for a while.
She did go back to calling out what she was doing, teaching him the road rules in a more official way than had been done before, it seemed.
Finally, she glanced at him instead of the road.
“You noticed the things with Carlisle and Merick in the office, right? Where some people don’t respond well to you?” She held her breath then, for some reason.
Liam looked at her, a lot more openly than she’d done with him. Then, he wasn’t the one in control of the large moving object.
“I did. Pheromones that make them dislike me? Agent Douglas reminded Agent Carlisle that it had been in the memo. I don’t know what that is. Like a letter or…” That was a guess, nothing more.
Brenner nodded.
“Exactly like a letter. That or an email, which is just a letter on the computer. So, you know that. About a quarter of all people are going to feel uneasy around you. A smaller number will probably come at you, if not physically. Like the woman in the donut shop? That… I have to admit, she was weird on that one. It probably fits in to the only way she knows how to fight though. Making false claims of harassment. Her friend seemed okay with you, even as she tried to back her unreasonable buddy up. Anyway, that’s a thing you, really all of your kind, has to deal with. We don’t really know why, either. It could be chemical, or something else. Psychic resonance or what have you.”
Before he could ask what that was, the woman went on.
“Anyway, even given that you might find that women and sometimes men are attracted to you. I mean, sure, you’re yellow and have freaky cool eyes. The thing there is that a lot of people will understand that as exotic or even you wearing makeup. Under that you’re lean and have sharp features. Good cheekbones and all that. That leads us to a potential problem. You’re only five months old. Even if you look like you might be closer to twenty years. At your age human babies don’t walk around or speak really. If they do, it isn’t done nearly as well as you are. So, you know, people might get confused.”
She took a deep breath then and let it out slowly.
“Which means no dating or sex for you, until you’re legal. This is Nebraska, which means being at least sixteen. I know that I’m not your mom and I don’t have a right to actually tell you what to do but that’s going to be needed. I have a lot of people around that… Well, some of them don’t play by the same rules as the rest of us. A big part of my life is dedicated to managing things like that. Really, that’s the whole thing with Mary. She did something potentially dangerous. Sure, you seem like a cool guy. What if you weren’t though? It’s run hot and cold with other beings like you, as far as our records say. Some of them are like you. Good, basically. Maybe even better than normal people. The others… Less so. Plus, she really did buy some corpses for purposes that aren’t allowed, so there’s that. We aren’t framing her, she actually broke the law in several places.” There was a chuckle then and a head shake. “Small ones. We have remarkably weak laws regarding that kind of thing. She’ll probably be out of jail in a few days.”
There was another glance in his direction.
“Which doesn’t mean you get to go back there. Not directly. Child Protective Services can’t handle this one. Really, maybe no one could. So, we need to find a better place for you. For now, that’s with me. I can’t promise a wholesome environment, so don’t be shocked if Ripley insists that we do better by you. Who knows, if Frankenstein bothers to jump through the hoops, legally speaking, you might even go back there. Figure that it will take about two years to work everything out though and try to stay flexible in the meantime.”
Liam sat for a bit, not having context for most of what had been spoken of. A thread of anger rose inside of him, which he let go of, since he didn't want to be one of the bad people. After a while he took a deep breath and spoke.
“May I see her? My mother? Just to make certain she’s not being mistreated by the bad men. They didn’t take her last night. Not the same ones.” What that meant, well, he didn't know but had to figure that being away from the screaming angry people had to be a good thing.
Brenner shook her head a bit.
“You might not be able to see her at first. Possibly visit with someone there to watch you both. It might be possible to arrange a call on the telephone. We… Given the effect you have on some people, we probably don’t want to take you to a jail. Not even a women’s one. At least some of them would probably have to try and attack you and even if you’re kind of hard to hurt, that doesn’t mean they won’t be punished for it.”
A portion of the night’s events clicked into place for him then. Vern had attacked him. The man hadn’t seemed angry with him, however. Just Noah and to a lesser extent, Brenner. He’d been fine though, even if the bite of the knife was a little cold and sharp at the time. It probably meant that people attacking him weren’t to be held to the same standards as if they did so with a more delicate person. Also, that he wasn’t really allowed to be upset when people did that kind of thing to him.
Whispering, he made a point of facing Brenner again.
“I understand. I can stay in the house you have?”
She grinned then.
“Yeah. You won’t even have to sleep in the yard or anything. I have an extra room. A few of them. You don’t sleep though. That’s a lot of
time to stay locked up in one place. It’s in the country, so at least you can go out during the day. Just stay away from the neighbors and it will be fine. They’re all nice enough but we can’t know how they will react to you. Even without the pheromones, a yellow eyed and skinned man in the country might be taken differently than one walking around in the open in a donut shop angling for a cruller. There you just seemed different. Like you were dressing up, for a party or to be in a show. In the woods people will probably think you’re something else.”
He understood that, from his reading.
“A monster?”
Brenner hesitated for a while then simply agreed with him.
“Most likely. Even if you won’t be that troubled if you get shot, you don’t need to have that kind of thing going on. Really, the neighbors don’t need that either. It might affect them, mentally, if they shot first and then learned you’re actually a good person. So best to approach people in controlled circumstances, where you have backup around. So far that’s worked pretty well. You got along with Agent Douglas? He’s a good guy. New to the division. He originally came out of white-collar crimes, of all things. We don’t deal with that a lot, as a department. The trick there is that it actually happens the other way around fairly commonly. A lot of the other groups are kind of cagey with their money. They hide things from the IRS or in secret bank accounts. When that shows up, it can go really bad for anyone investigating it. I mean, they tend to show up dead.”
Liam knew what death was, of course. It had been part of his lessons. Several times. It was when people and animals stopped moving and thinking. A machine could be said to be dead if it did that as well, only that didn't really count to most people.
“I’ll stay close to home. Where you tell me.” After all, he hadn’t left his own house for his entire life, since it was dangerous outside. Mary and he had lived closer to the city, which meant that even being by the windows could be a problem at times.
Then, it was clear that Mary had thought that his being attacked was a bigger problem than Brenner did. The woman next to him didn’t seem mean about it. Perhaps a bit like she didn’t want the burden he represented, if he had to take a guess as to how she was likely feeling.
This was a woman, who could have been a mother, being old enough for that sort of thing. Younger than Mary, though not by much. She hadn’t had a human child though or even made someone like him to be with her. It might not have been a choice on her part, simply being happenstance or that she had other plans at the moment. Then again, it could also indicate that the woman didn’t like that kind of thing. Children. If so, his being there might annoy her a lot. That or make her angry.
She’d refrained from attacking him, even with looks or words, which meant that she might be immune to whatever it was about him that drove some people to distraction around him. That didn't mean that the normal rules of life wouldn’t still apply to him. The problem he had with that was also simple. While he needed to get along with this woman, he truly had no idea how to do that. Not even a hint of it had been presented to him.
It was another thing to look up, if he had a chance.
They drove in near silence, only the yellow vehicle growling and roaring making sounds of note. As they traveled, over the course of several minutes, the roads held fewer cars, until Brenner turned off on a road that reminded him of the driveway from the night before. It was gravel, he thought, if all small stones were called that when laid out on dirt.
She drove for a while, back into some trees. Those hid the house from the road very well. The place was white, with a darker trim that was green, and some nice trees out front. There was a large field with grass in it which was about knee high, or would be if he could walk in it.
“Home sweet home. Come on in. I’ll find you a key and take you to your room.” She shrugged then, as she climbed out, going to the back to get his stuff for him. That was handed over, then they mounted the stairs that led up the porch. “If you leave, always lock up. I get visitors from time to time and most of them will actually take the idea of a lock being used as a signal that going in and rifling through my stuff isn’t welcome. Not all of them, so try not to scream if you see something strange. People appearing out of nowhere, or walking through a wall. That’s rare but I’ve had both happen in the past here.”
She looked at him as Liam went inside. The space was different than he was used to, holding furniture for sitting, a large table in the front room with chairs and a very large screen off to the side. There were stairs going upward that were visible and from the sound of his steps on the floor, a basement level underneath. It was much larger than home, for him at least.
She waved in various directions.
“The living room is to the right, stairs in the middle. The kitchen is around to the left. We have a bathroom on this level. The bedrooms are all above. Well, technically there are two on this floor. I just turned one of them into my emergency food pantry and prepper space and the other one into a makeshift hospital room. I mentioned the part where a lot of the others won’t go to the hospital? So they come here if they can’t handle it on their own. That’s another thing you can learn to do, other than making shoes. How to patch people up.” She grinned, then waved again. “The last door going back is the storage space. I keep all the books in there. Feel free to read them. All of them, even if some of them are probably a little adult for you yet.”
That didn’t get explained, the tired seeming woman charging up the wooden stairs to the upper level.
“I have the second door on the left. You can take the last on the right, if you want? It isn’t a big room…” She seemed to be considering then, though headed in that direction as Liam followed behind her. Feeling a bit over whelmed by how different it all was.
When she opened the door, the space really wasn’t that large. It had a small bed in it, with a colorful blanket on the top. A set of drawers as well and a small table, with a chair to sit in while working. There was a lamp on the floor, near the bed and a light fixture hanging from the ceiling, which illuminated when the switch by the door was activated.
She swallowed and shook her head at him.
“So, it’s tiny. You can take one of the other rooms if you want. People stay occasionally, I…” She seemed upset, for a moment. “This is one of those things that sucks about my life. If I put you in the small room, about eighty percent of the people coming here will see it as them being given more and feel like that means they’re important. The rest will probably complain that you, a guest, are being stinted. Which is true, really. I have to balance those two things and am probably missing another two factors that I haven’t even considered yet. What do you think we should do?”
He didn’t speak for a while, thinking about what she’d said, finally he waved at the smaller space.
“I don’t sleep, so don’t need a larger place for it. In my house I didn’t have a room at all, just a box of clothing in the linen closet. This will work.” It didn’t fix all the potential issues but if eighty percent of people were fine with it, then that was better than the other way around.
Nodding, the woman yawned.
“Great. Now, I need to fall down for a while. If you need anything, help yourself?” She waved around, then vanished into the room across the hall. The door was closed, instantly.
Liam nodded. Human beings slept and most did it every day, if Mary was any indication, which it seemed she was. That gave him time to get his computer up and running and to research everything he’d come across in the last twelve hours or so. There was a lot of it, so he needed to get moving.
Chapter six
“Oh… So that’s what rape is.” The topic was nuanced, and had required him to find out the second definition of sex before he could work out why Vern had been so angry the night before. The main problem, as far as Liam could determine was a social one.
Sex was used for reproduction and his daughter was considered too youthful to be a good mother. At the sa
me time Noah likely wasn’t planning to stay with her to raise any children that might have arose from their coupling. Not if he was the kind to make drugs, as had been claimed. Normally rape was defined as the use of force to gain sexual contact of specific sorts. When children were involved the rules were different.
It had actually suggested by many online that killing Noah would have been a, if not good, then expected outcome of the situation. The law however, said something very different about the matter. It was, really, about what had taken place that way the night before.
Liam found that it actually took a lot more effort to find out what Mary was facing as far as the law went, than it did the topic of what a young girl having sex was called. That was down to the fact that the laws the FBI were trying to use against her didn’t actually have harsh penalties and were almost never used in the first place. Interfering with a corpse was, interestingly, normally a way of defining having sex with a dead body. In this case it would have to be taken to mean something different, such as buying a body for purposes not stated. Mary hadn’t done anything illegal however, once she’d had the body. She’d used that flesh to create him.
That was all.
As for that, his being alive… The law libraries he went to online didn't seem to have any indication that it was illegal or even addressed at all.
Interestingly, he discovered almost immediately that lawyers defended people from the law in many cases. They didn’t make it up at all. Legislators did that part. Many of them were lawyers as well but those were two separate jobs. Reading quickly meant that, while he had no better idea about how to save his mother, he was reassured that she wasn’t going to be locked away forever for some crime he didn't know about. Truly, the court would need to prove that she even had the body at some point, before they could touch her at all, in a legal fashion. Bodies, as the case turned out, since Liam was made from the parts of at least three different individuals.
