Halfskin

by Tony Bertauski

  “How do you respond to critics that this is government-sanctioned murder?” he was asked.

  And he answered with a stern expression. “We’re simply shutting down biomites that have reached a threshold of willful domination in Albert Gladstone’s body. The human body is an organic being, not a computer. If it cannot survive without assistance of bionanotechnology, then it has reached its end.”

  His empathy waned.

  If the reporters all dropped dead simultaneously, he wouldn’t show sorrow. He doubted he could even suppress a smile. That would be sinful, but nonetheless. Some of those rats with a pen were direct descendants of Satan. And that, he felt certain, was a fact.

  He watched the rest of the conference, suppressing the urge to vomit.

  God didn’t make machines. Man did.

  ______

  His office doors opened. Janine slung her briefcase over her shoulder. “Office called; I have to go.”

  “It’s almost ten o’clock.”

  “Deadline is tomorrow and the world is ending.”

  Marcus climbed off the bike and mopped his forehead with a towel. He wished for another freshly squeezed juice. Ariel was most likely gone.

  Janine pursed hairpins in her lips while she fixed her hair back. Her face was blotchy and oily. She rarely wore makeup, especially when she went in late.

  “Did you see the press conference?” he asked.

  She nodded. “I did.”

  Janine squeezed his shoulder. He hated when she touched him like that. It was a pat on the shoulder and proud expression, and she never really looked at him when she did it. It was so… scripted.

  A melodious tone muffled somewhere. Janine finished clipping her hair and dug through her briefcase as she headed for the doors. “This is Anderson.”

  Marcus followed her down the hall, hearing the lawyer-speak that he loved so much—a language of order and righteousness—before turning into the kitchen as she exited the front door. He watched the car back out of the driveway, the headlights swinging across the lawn before fading down the street.

  He returned to the office with another juice and prepared for his nightcap. The kids were asleep. The wife, gone. Still, he drew the curtains closed and locked the doors.

  This moment was forever secret.

  7

  CALI PULLED OFF TO THE side of the road. The Center was across the field.

  The Detention and Observation Center.

  She sat twenty minutes north of Carbondale, Illinois, just off Highway 51. Once a fertile field that farmers tilled for corn and soybeans, the ground that separated the road from the Detention and Observation Center lay fallow now, giving rise to yellow-flowering weeds and cocklebur. There used to be a community center over there for farmers, a place they could play bingo or drink coffee and talk about the weather. They wrecked it to build a secure building, one for detaining and observing. The farmers’ sons put down their plows and took up badges for a steady sip from the government, to protect this land from the 40% biomite-infested redlines.

  This Center was just one of many across the nation. And unless the laws changed or biomite replication was solved, they would become modern-day death cubicles. When that day came, overpopulation would not be a problem as M0ther shut off halfskins by the thousands… daily.

  The new-age holocaust.

  That was how Cali saw it. Of course, critics were confident that something would change, surely the human race would evolve, they would solve the replication problem. They wouldn’t allow the mass extermination.

  But those same critics didn’t have a loved one detained and observed. So Cali was a little… jaded.

  She’d been to visit her brother once a week, every week, since they took him. That was six months ago. If she wasn’t visiting, she was in the basement.

  Working.

  She’d taken an unpaid leave of absence from the lab. They understood. They didn’t terminate her. She could always come back when she was ready, they told her. When Cali told people she wasn’t well, that she needed some time to sort things out, they didn’t ask why. Those that knew her gave her all the space she needed.

  Poor thing.

  The Center would see her car parked across the field. Someone would eventually come out. Cali just needed a moment. She came to visit every week, but it wasn’t getting easier. The closer she got to this sick and twisted place, the more her hands shook. No one seemed to care that her brother would be dead without biomites.

  Now he’s imprisoned for it.

  There was no justice in this universe. And if there was a God, she’d smack him for meting out such imbalance. The Christians were right; God had to be a man. Who else could make a woman’s life hell?

  She fumbled with her purse and tapped out a cigarette. It took a couple clicks of the lighter to get it puffing. She blew a cloud out the window. The mentholated smoke settled her nerves.

  She was used to southern Illinois humidity. Nix was born in Illinois, but Cali grew up in South Carolina and this was mild compared to that. However, she still wasn’t accustomed to the flatness. When she drove the country roads, she could see for miles in every direction, like God had scraped the edge of his hand over this part of the world. She craved the trees and hills where she grew up, the wetlands and smell of pluff mud and the rank odor of the paper mill on wet days. She missed home, a place where she belonged.

  If she went back there, she still wouldn’t find it. Home was gone. Gone, gone, gone.

  “Better get go-ing…” Avery sang from the backseat.

  Cali looked in the rearview. Her eyes—ringed as if with soot, capillaries showing where the whites were supposed to be—looked back. She pushed the hair out of her face and took a drag before adjusting the mirror. Avery was strapped into the backseat, watching her iPod. Her backpack was next to her, holding all the essentials: water bottle, change of clothes and Pogo, the stuffed rhinoceros.

  “You’ll get in trouble if they come out here, Mama. They won’t let you see Nix.”

  “I know, honey. I just need a moment.”

  The little girl hummed like she’d heard that excuse before. She dragged her finger across the screen and sang, “Better get go-ing…”

  Cali smiled. What would she have in this world if that little girl wasn’t with her? God had taken everything else but Nix.

  There was nothing left to take.

  She sucked on the filtered end and hung her hand out the door. Cali put the car in gear. A white dust cloud followed her to the stop sign, where she turned right and passed a tan truck. The truck turned around at the intersection and followed her to the gate.

  Avery was still humming.

  M0THER

  Public Introduction of Biomite Cell Regeneration

  ______

  JENNIFER ADAMS WORE A PAIR of khaki slacks and a white blouse. A small metal American flag was pinned above her left breast. She wasn’t sure what to wear to a press conference, one where she’d meet her half-dead husband. This seemed appropriate.

  Her daughter rode on her hip, resting her head. The pacifier squeaked compulsively. Jonathan held her left hand. He wanted to wear his Cub Scout uniform. He tugged at the yellow kerchief snug against his neck. It seemed appropriate.

  Along the wall to their left were reporters and photographers from major outlets across the nation. Cameras clicked and phones buzzed. A man in uniform patted her shoulder and whispered something comforting in her ear (she didn’t understand it; she couldn’t understand anything at that moment) before rustling the boy’s hair and tapping the little girl on the nose.

  Jennifer was going to stain her blouse with vomit.

  In front of her was a brown podium with several mics. The American flag was behind it. The curtain on the wall was pulled aside. Her breath caught in her throat. It was hard to let out. A man stepped out. He was dressed in hospital scrubs for the announcement. Walter Reed Hospital wanted the world to see what they had done with Jennifer’s husband.

  T
hat had to be good. Right?

  Still hard to breathe.

  “General McGee and other members of the army,” the doctor said, “ladies and gentlemen of the press, thank you for coming.”

  He took a moment to look at the podium and adjusted his cap.

  “Jennifer.” He smiled. “Thank you for your patience. I know this has been very difficult for you and your family. Your husband, Lieutenant Adams, was gravely injured during an assignment on foreign soil. He returned to the United States on life support. He lost his arm above the elbow.”

  The doctor signaled with the edge of his hand somewhere in the middle of his left bicep. Jennifer looked down for a moment, unable to push away the memory of her husband. When she saw him in that bed with the ventilator and the bruises and the swelling… he looked so small. So fragile.

  It wasn’t him.

  Cameras clicked to capture her raw moment.

  “I know this is quite a spectacle we’ve created, but it is an event the world needs to see. Lieutenant Adams’ injuries were fatal. The best we could hope for was to prolong his life with prosthetics and life support. But with the advent of bionanotechnology, his injuries were treated with artificial cell regeneration. We hope to show that this new approach to medicine will change the way not just our service men and women heal, but all Americans. Lieutenant Adams has a new spleen and lung, his vision has been restored, his arm…”

  The doctor adjusted his cap again. He looked around slowly.

  “Let’s not let words get in the way.”

  Jennifer couldn’t feel her knees. She lowered her daughter to the floor before she dropped her.

  She knelt next to her son.

  Her hand quivered over her mouth. She couldn’t breathe. She stopped trying.

  Because when the curtain pulled aside—

  When a man stepped out—

  She recognized him. At last, her husband had returned from the war. All of him.

  And the cameras snapped and snapped and snapped.

  8

  “Your turn.”

  George sat on the other side of a transparent door. The collar on his uniform was open, his neck unshaven. He tipped back on the chair and dropped his boot on the corner of a small table. The chess pieces rattled slightly. A smile was hidden beneath a mustache bush.

  Nix stood in the center of his cell. His room. It wasn’t a cell, he was reminded often, it was a room. He wasn’t a prisoner, he was a ward of the United States under the Halfskin Laws. Nix was under watch, twenty-four hours a day and had been for the past six months and would be as long as he registered above 40%. In the history of biomites, no one’s population had ever decreased. It was likely he’d have a room for a while.

  At least until he hit halfskin.

  The walls were white and barren. There was a bed and a toilet and a sink and a desk and a chair. All white. The desk wasn’t for writing since pens and pencils weren’t allowed. Recent studies proved certain biomites could spread through liquids, even ink. Seeding usually required specialized equipment, but some of the new breeds of biomites could simply be inhaled as vapor or liquid. No one wanted to be seeded against their will, so Observation and Detainment Centers banned them, and desks became more for stacking things than writing. They’d bring him a laptop, if he asked, but it was quarantined and couldn’t remain in the room. It was too dangerous. They hadn’t explained why.

  Currently, there was just the stack of papers that was in the middle of the desk—the only thing on the surface—crisp and colorful drawings from a ten-year-old girl. Cali brought him one every week from Avery. If he were allowed tape or anything sticky, he’d put them on the wall. Sometimes he spaced them out on the floor and walked through a labyrinth of blue skies and green grass and yellow, smiling suns and brown ponies; he always picked them up and stacked them neatly when he was done.

  Time went so slow in the room.

  At least it was comfortable. At least it was safe.

  Nix stared at the monitor over the sink. It was not his reflection that looked back—mirrors weren’t allowed—but a monitor. He was dressed in (what else) white. He had no hair. None. Not on his head or brows, under his arms or anywhere south of that. All of that fell out after wearing the suppression ring for six months.

  Everyone reacted differently to the ring. It was only supposed to suppress the biomites to slow their replication and activity. There’s some dangerous redlines out there, George the Guard used to say. Got the strength of a chimpanzee. Got to slow the mites down, Nixy, George would say.

  Nix’s biomites slowed down. And they dumped his hair like a chemo patient. But that wasn’t the worst of it. The no-hair thing wasn’t a big deal. It was convenient, if you asked him. His skin, perfectly smooth. No, the worst of it was the vibration.

  He heard it and felt it in the middle of his head like an itch he could never reach, like someone struck a tuning fork deep inside his brain. It was always there, day and night. It took away his dreams. Scrambled his thoughts.

  Took away Raine.

  He sometimes remembered the last time he saw her. The color of her skin. The way she paddled through the water. Other days, she was just a hazy figure in his memory. Someone he used to know.

  He tried to sketch her when he had the laptop and his memories were good, spent hours with a doodle program to recreate the lagoon and the blue cliffs and the waterfall. Each time, there were fewer details. Fewer memories.

  Without the lagoon and Raine, he felt empty. Alone.

  And he couldn’t remember the last time he felt that way.

  Nix craned his neck. From where he stood, he could already see his next move. He anticipated what George was going to do, even though George was cheating. He was using his phone to log the moves into a chess program, telling him what to do.

  “Got you now, halfskin.” George chuckled, hands laced behind his head. His eyes were nearly hidden in folds of fat and untamed eyebrows. Nix had a feeling it’d take a hundred suppression rings to make George hairless.

  Nix pulled his chair to the door. He studied the board through the embedded crisscrossed wires. He pretended to be thinking. He liked George. Anything was better than nothing. Most of the guards were good at their job, but not George. He talked with the redlines, got to know them.

  Where’d you get the name Nixon? George asked the day he arrived.

  My dad was a fan of dead presidents.

  George thought about that. It was the next day he came back, tapped on Nix’s door and then tapped his head. I got that, he said. Richard Nixon, I got that.

  He saw Nix playing chess one day on his monitor and, the very next day, set up a little table. Said he was going to teach this eighteen-year-old halfskin what a real man could do. Didn’t matter Nix wasn’t halfskin, he was redline. But that was a technicality. Really, he was a halfskin, just hadn’t fulfilled his destiny, George would say. George would show him what a whole man could do. How a pure man could think.

  Not a halfskin man.

  George was still convinced the biomites were giving Nix superpowers, making him smarter. Maybe he was right. Nix wanted the game to last. If it ended too soon, George would take his game and go home. Might not come back. And then Nix would be alone.

  Keep the game close; give him hope.

  “Six months,” George said, “but I’m finally going to beat you.”

  Nix planted his chin on his knuckles. Pulling off the con had become more fun than beating him. Watching him walk into the trap was a hell of a good time, too.

  “Good run, kid. I’ve beat every mite-infested halfskin in this place but you. It just goes to show you, God-given talent always beats the machine.” He tapped his temple. “Creativity, son. It’s the power to adapt and create; that’s what God gave us, not you with the power to program your little computer-cells.”

  He leaned back some more.

  “You had a great brain, but you had to ruin it, had to eat the mites to get better than the rest of us and now look at
you.”

  His eyes twinkled between thick lids. “You’re paying for it now.”

  George thought Nix chose biomites. Most people did. You don’t have a choice when a drunk driver caves in the side of the car. But why spoil the fun, just lump all the redlines together: a bunch of greedy turds.

  “You’re going to owe me, William!” George shouted down the hall. “Got the kid stuck.”

  Nix cringed. He may have strung this one out too long. He didn’t want to draw George too far into the trap of disappointment. Once, when he trounced George with a seven-move checkmate, the ring got turned up and Nix’s head rattled all night. The biomites damn near shut down. No one knew how the ring got turned up, but George winked at him the next morning. Nix couldn’t get out of bed for a week.

  “There’s a cure out there,” George said. “A way to get rid of all the mites in your body.”

  Nix remained pensive. “Why would I want that?”

  “You like what you are?”

  Nix shrugged slightly. Sure, why not.

  The front legs of George’s chair hit the ground. “As long as you got mites, we know where you are, son. You got mites, M0ther’s going to always know what you’re thinking, where you’re going, whether you’re picking your nose or sniffing someone’s underwear. You get purged, you can be just like me—a whole man, free to do whatever you want. Why wouldn’t you want that?”

  Nix studied the pieces. George had been reading too many gossip mags. There was no such thing as a biomite purge.

  “If you go to a plastic surgeon,” Nix said slowly, “and cure your ugly, will you still be you?”

  Someone laughed down the hall. They were listening.

  “I may be ugly, but I’m real.”

  “So are chimpanzees.”

  “I’d rather be a monkey than a machine.”

  Nix sat back and crossed his arms, stroking his baby-smooth chin. He looked up from the board for the first time. George stared back, eyes glittering and mustache quivering.