Halfskin

by Tony Bertauski

  She knew who he was. Every nanobiometrics engineer knew what Marcus Anderson looked like. He put that guard there.

  He was just the person she needed.

  She went back to the hotel room, but it was stuffy.

  She came to the pool to change the scenery, to give Avery something to do besides jump on the beds. There was only one couple, the ones with the kids splashing around. The man’s name was Paul. His eight-pack abs rolled like hardened sand dunes. His sunglasses were askew, mouth agog. He was 35% biomite, used them to burn fat and build muscle without exercising. He also allocated a significant percentage to increase strength and eye-hand coordination to dominate his golf league. The remaining biomites boosted memory and analytical ability, aiding his successful legal skills. Paul had about five years before he redlined, but he figured something would come out before then.

  Shelly—his gorgeous wife—was shopping on her tablet. She was only 10% biomite, something that controlled her metabolism and suppressed her appetite and boosted her memory. She planned on going back to college. She wanted to be a teacher.

  Cali’s new-breed biomites knew these things, downloaded them from Paul and Shelly like data. They were none the wiser. Cali’s new breeds were networking with Paul and Shelly’s biomites like cloud memory. She knew everything about them: bank accounts, passwords, social security numbers, memories.

  Paul was two years into an affair.

  “Mama! Watch!” Avery splashed into the deep end. “I’m going to touch the bottom; count how long I’m under water.”

  Cali smiled at her daughter. “Okay.”

  “You ready?”

  “Yep.”

  Avery pinched her nose and somersaulted beneath the surface, her feet splashing her deeper. Cali loved watching her swim. She remembered when she couldn’t touch the bottom and clung to her arm like a barnacle.

  Avery emerged in a hurry, breathing heavily.

  “How many?” she asked.

  “One hundred seconds.” Cali smiled.

  “Moooom. You didn’t count.”

  “Let me finish up and then I’ll come swim with you, how about that?”

  “Yay!” Avery pinched her nose for another dive.

  Shelly put on sunglasses, acting like she wasn’t staring.

  Cali set up her laptop and found some basic information on Marcus Anderson. He was involved with the boot of M0ther and a leader of the Halfskin Laws. He was witness to all shutdowns to date.

  If he only knew what I invented.

  It wasn’t hard to find his office phone number and email. That information was available to the public. Cali wasn’t interested in those. Anyone who sent a message or called would get an assistant, guaranteed to never reach him.

  She needed a more direct line.

  Cali analyzed thousands of Marcus Anderson accounts. In seconds, she cracked into his home computers—accessing documents, bank accounts, vacation photos and personal email and cell phone.

  She didn’t bother calling. He wouldn’t answer.

  She texted, instead. Uploaded a video.

  [Send.]

  She sat back. Her coffee was cold.

  Paul was still asleep and Shelly was filing her nails, still pretending not to sneak peeks at Cali. Avery climbed onto the ledge in front of her, pushing her wet hair back and spitting water.

  “You said you were going to swim.”

  “I am, sweetie. Almost done.”

  Avery whacked the side of her head, knocking water out of her ears. She complained when she couldn’t get them clear. Cali pulled a bottle of alcohol from her bag and waved her daughter over. Avery lay on the lounger while her mother squirted alcohol into her ears, making a funny face because she hated the way it felt.

  Shelly was watching again.

  Avery dried her hair, looking at the laptop.

  “When are we going to visit Uncle Nix?” She touched the picture of her uncle that was frozen on the screen.

  “Soon.”

  “I can’t wait to see him.”

  A cell phone chimed. “Me too. Why don’t you jump in and I’ll be right there after I take this call.”

  Avery cannonballed into the deep end. Cali flashed five fingers twice and Avery was pleased with scoring a perfect ten. The caller ID reported a restricted number. Cali touched the screen and held it to her ear.

  “How’d you get this number?” a man said.

  “There are more important matters to discuss.”

  Silence hung on the other end of the phone. His voice muffled through his fingers as he said something. The receiver scuffed and he pulled his hand away.

  “I’ll have you arrested.”

  “The video is genuine. You may take your time authenticating it, if you like, but I only have so much patience. You don’t want that released to the public.”

  Another long pause.

  “What do you want?”

  “I just want to see my brother. I will arrive at the hospital at noon today.”

  Cali turned off the phone.

  He’d have his people analyze the video, have them figure out how she got it. The new breeds seeded in Nix’s brain pirated the video and uploaded it to an anonymous FTP site that Cali immediately shut down. She forced herself to watch it. Dry-heaved when it was over.

  She really didn’t expect to use the video; it was only going to be a last resort bargaining chip if things got bad. But getting locked out of the room sank every other plan she had. They would keep him isolated until he healed enough to return to the Center.

  Or turned halfskin.

  That’s what really freaked her out, seeing that man in the hall, knowing he was there to see this to a tidy end. She knew she couldn’t play nice. She was all in. If the gamble didn’t work, she would start blowing up careers and take as many people down with her as she could.

  Starting with Marcus Anderson.

  “You coming?” Avery called.

  Cali stretched her arms and back. She was ready for a swim. She needed to cool off. Just before diving into the pool, she made a suggestion that the new breeds passed along to Shelly. When she emerged halfway across—throwing her wet, blond hair off her face—she heard Shelly. And Paul trying to explain all the emails he’d received from someone calling him lover.

  19

  Antiseptic.

  Beeps.

  Pinpricks on his arm.

  Something pumped, in and out. Inflating him like a balloon then allowing him to leak before filling him up again.

  Nix knew the sounds and smells of a hospital. His earliest memories started at five years old, when he woke in one of the tilting beds with the side rails and a nurse tending a needle in his arm. He watched her through the slits of his eyelids, fascinated there was a needle in his arm and he couldn’t feel it. In fact, he couldn’t feel much.

  That was the day he realized he was cursed.

  His father, a brilliant nanobiometric engineer. Dead.

  His mother, an outstanding computer programmer. Dead.

  His sister, a nanobiometric engineer like her father, the only family he had left. She was beside his bed.

  She was cursed, too. Just didn’t realize it yet.

  He couldn’t open his eyes. It might have been hours or days. Weeks. He floated in the lonely darkness with his memories. Occasionally, he heard muffled voices or felt the dull prick of a needle sliding into his arm. He was still wearing the suppression ring, his biomites offering very little help healing his broken body. If not for the new breeds, he would be in agony.

  They helped control the pain, dulling his nervous system, but did very little to heal. He was mending the old-fashioned way.

  Time.

  Until then, he lay comatose with his memories.

  He didn’t control George, didn’t make him open the cell door. Didn’t make him attack.

  He merely baited him.

  The first punch was all that Nix actually remembered. He covered up, but George’s fist landed on the side of hi
s head like a club. The memories went dark after that, but Nix watched the incident from above, like an out-of-body experience from all corners of the room, like his eyes were surveillance cameras. He lay in the darkness of closed eyes and watched George drop bombs.

  His face broke on the third shot.

  His ribs caved on the fifth.

  George picked him up by the neck. Nix hung like a slab of meat.

  The guards stormed through the door. Nix’s face was red. It took five of them to peel George’s hands off. The video ended just after George fell on his knees, looking at his bloody hands, weeping.

  The new breeds knew where to send the video.

  Cali saw it. She owned it. She would have it to bargain, if she needed it.

  Until then, Nix faded in and out of consciousness, yearning for all his biomites to be fully online. That’s when he’d heal. That’s when he’d wake up.

  And, maybe, he’d get to see Raine.

  M0THER

  Historic Pitch

  ______

  JONNY MISER TOOK THE BALL from the catcher halfway between the mound and home plate. He chicken-winged his glove under his right arm and rubbed the new off the ball with both hands. He made one loop around the pitcher’s mound, careful not to touch the dirt until he was back around the front.

  Bad luck if he did.

  Wrigley Field fans were on their feet. Even the fans on the rooftops were up and waving and whistling and shouting. He wiped the sweat off his forehead.

  It was hot for October.

  He blinked, focused on the scoreboard. A one-run lead. Three balls, two strikes. He looked around the diamond; St. Louis Cardinal base runners looked back from all three bags.

  Last game of the season. Win, you’re in.

  The sort of pressure Jonny loved.

  He couldn’t hear the crowd. The voices blended together in a blur of white noise. The whole world was watching. People were on the edges of their seats at home, on their feet in the bars across the nation, all of them ready to watch Jonny Miser close out the St. Louis Cardinals to win the division.

  It was all up to Jonny.

  He did hear one of the voices. The one in his head.

  Don’t blow this.

  He toed the rubber, digging his cleats into the divot. He wedged the side of his foot against it and looked at the catcher. His arm dangled at his side, the surgically repaired elbow tingling.

  He shook off the first pitch. Took the next one.

  The heat.

  Jonny would propel his team into the playoffs by blowing a fastball past the batter. Put it all into this pitch, the last one of the season.

  It would also be the last one of his career.

  Jonny Miser went into his stretch, the crowd frenzied, the batter waving his bat, the umpire crouched behind the catcher.

  He kicked his leg.

  He threw the historic pitch.

  The umpire never called it. He stumbled, eventually falling on his back. He never saw it.

  The sound of the ball was described as a wet gunshot that shattered the catcher’s hand. If it had missed the glove, it would’ve ended his life.

  It was later explained that the Tommy John surgery performed earlier that year utilized a small amount of biomites to repair tendons in Jonny Miser’s arm. The low levels were monitored by the league and remained at less than 1%. However, it was later explained the biomites responded to elevated levels of cortisol and norepinephrine—stress hormones—and induced an immediate proliferation. In minutes, the biomite population had consumed his arm.

  Impossible, said nanobiometric engineers.

  The pitch was clocked at 204 mph.

  20

  CALI SAT IN THE BACK of Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s chapel. The room was small. The wooden pews were padded with long cushions. She propped her feet on a burgundy kneeling block.

  Chicago was a foreign land. She’d been there with her husband. He bought two tickets to Miss Saigon. Neither one of them had ever been to the city (at least not when they were older), but he insisted they just needed a map. Of course, city streets were a lot different than small towns and they ended up in Cabrini Green below the train. She thought she was going to cry.

  Avery fell asleep on the pew.

  An elderly woman fumbled prayer beads in her fingers. Pretty soon, she fell asleep, too. Cali sat with her head against the brown paneled wall and listened to soft snoring. It was music to her ears, hearing her daughter sleep. Sometimes she leaned over to feel her warm breath on her ear. When Avery was young, she would crawl into bed and cuddle against her, breath tickling her neck.

  Cali preferred the chapel to the waiting room. She’d spent enough time in hospitals to know that—between services—it was quieter. There were fewer people, too. She didn’t think she’d be able to sit long in the waiting room, surrounded by people with all their heavy emotions and thoughts of dying.

  Especially now.

  The chapel was better. It contained hope, a sanctuary for the religious faithful that brought their belief in God with them. Sometimes, in the face of the hopeless, the illusion of a spiritual being carrying her through life’s difficulties was helpful.

  But she wasn’t interested in that now. Cali just needed somewhere to focus, to steel her will and sharpen her wits. Battles were fought with the mind long before muscle joined the fight.

  “Honey.” Cali gently shook Avery. “Do you want something to drink?”

  Avery’s head rolled across Cali’s lap. She blinked a few times and looked around the strange room. She sat up and yawned.

  “You thirsty?” Cali asked.

  Avery nodded.

  “Here, take this to the cafeteria and get yourself something to drink and eat.”

  Avery took the money and yawned. “Do you want something?”

  The elderly woman woke up and looked around.

  “No, thank you, sweetheart. You help yourself. Do you have your phone?”

  Nod.

  “Okay, good. I’ll be right here.”

  Avery started away.

  “If you get lost, just come back here, all right?”

  Nod.

  Cali returned to a quiet place in her mind and closed her eyes, where thoughts fell away. Where she could just be present. Where she didn’t think. The time for thinking was reaching an end.

  ______

  She felt them before they arrived. The new breeds sensed the arrival of security outside the chapel.

  Cali opened her eyes.

  There were a few more people in the room. A preacher was at the podium, leafing through pages. He pushed his glasses up his nose. Two men entered the room. Their hair was cut proper and their dark jackets concealed weapons. They didn’t bother walking down the narrow space along the pews. One of them signaled Cali with his finger.

  She quickly texted Avery. Wait for me in chapel. Going to see Uncle Nix. I’ll come back for you.

  She would be upset, but Cali didn’t want her to see her uncle like that.

  The gentlemen patiently waited. Cali handed her bag to them. They didn’t bother asking her for identity. The one on the right—brown hair and a tiny soul patch—looked through the bag while the other one, the one with slick black hair, pressed a scanning device on her. Cali tingled as her biomites responded to the device.

  The new breeds remained quiet.

  “39.9%.” He put the scanner away. “You’re almost a redline.”

  “So I’m told.”

  “We’ll be holding onto your bag,” Soul Patch said. “Do you have any liquids on you?”

  “Didn’t the scanner tell you?”

  “We have to ask.”

  “To give me a chance to lie.”

  He blinked slowly. Waited.

  “No,” she said. “Just me. Can we go?”

  Soul Patch led the way out. Slick followed.

  21

  The elevator opened.

  A hefty nurse intercepted Cali and her escort. She was doughy with
a hook-shaped scar at the corner of her mouth. This was her floor. Soul Patch engaged her while Slick guided Cali past them despite the nurse’s protests. A man sat at the end of the hall next to a door, his ankles crossed and a newspaper spread open. He folded it beneath his arm and stood up.

  “Turn around.” He made a twirling motion with his finger.

  Cali faced the other direction and felt a scanner pressed against her back, evidently too shy to press it near her throat. “Didn’t we already do this?”

  She heard the instrument slide back into the sheath on his hip. He tugged her shoulder so that she turned back around, and stepped aside. Slick nodded at the door. They waited as she hesitantly placed her hand on it. It swung open, heavy on the cushioned hinges, and she heard Slick ask the other guy if he saw the baseball game.

  The room smelled like the hallway—clean, germ-free, and artificial. It was darker, more points of light—greens and reds and lighted numbers—dotted medical machinery on the wall and rolling carts. Plastic bags hung from hooks with clear tubes that dangled down to a bed—

  Her back hit the door, pushing it closed.

  Seeing the video… but this…

  There wasn’t much to see, actually. His body was covered beneath sheets and wrapped in gauze and casts. His head was fully encased and the nose was covered. Only the eyes were exposed, the skin dark purple, tinges of yellow. A tube exited his mouth, taped in place and attached to a ventilator that whooshed in and out with air.

  She knew the extent of the damage; she knew what she was going to see. She saw his body at the end of the video, but seeing it in the flesh was…

  I made a mistake.

  A man stood at the foot of the bed, hands folded in front. His head was shaved, his face expressionless. The neck larger than the head.

  “Four guards,” she said. “You act like he’s a criminal.”

  “He is.” Marcus sat beside the bed, legs crossed; he eyed her with the larger of his two eyes.

  “How many has he murdered?” she asked. “How many has he robbed? Raped?”

  “Worse. He’s spreading the disease of biomites.”