05 - Changeling

by Chris Kubasik - (ebook by Undead)

  A fury bubbled up through Peter. “Dad, it happened to me! How could I not understand?”

  “You’re young, that’s why. And because… I don’t even know what you do understand. You’re a troll, Peter. You used to be exceptionally bright. You had that. No matter what else, you could depend on that. You had something that made you wanted. Now what do you have?”

  Peter wanted to say, Me, dad, what about me? but he didn’t know if that was enough. So he said, “That’s why I was looking at the opticals. I want to learn it again.”

  “Peter, you’re not what you were. You can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  His father shook his head. “Do what you want.” He turned to leave once more.

  “I’m going to find a cure!” Peter shouted. “I’m looking at the opticals because I’m going to find out how to be human again!”

  Peter’s father rested his hand against the door jamb. “Now, that, Peter, is impossible. That is completely beyond our reach right now. No one knows if it’s possible at all.”

  “But it’s not impossible.”

  “That!” his father said and whirled, a finger pointed at Peter. “That right there is the youth I’m talking about. ‘Not impossible.’ What kind of statement is that? And yes, it might happen someday. But it won’t be you. Do you understand me? It won’t be you.” He walked quickly out of the bedroom.

  Peter chased his father into the hall. He could feel the pressure of tears in his eyes, and the words tumbled out so fast he thought they might be unintelligible. “What do you expect me to do? What am I going to do for the rest of my life?”

  His father turned on the stairs and looked at him with some surprise. “I expect you to live here. To stay here and be safe.”

  “Just stay here?” Peter sputtered out. “Just stay here? And do what?”

  “Peter, what can you do? Corporations all over the continent are cutting back their metahuman employees. They’re afraid of people like you. They don’t like you. The world doesn’t want you. I know I haven’t been the best father, but I will do what I can. I will take care of you.”

  He continued down the stairs.

  Peter watched him go, then rushed back into his room and slammed the door shut. The handle snapped off from the impact and clattered to the floor. He stared at his gray-green hands and arms, his fury growing. He wanted to show his father…. He had to show his father. He wouldn’t sit around his whole life.

  The thought of that, waiting to die…? He imagined the years passing by, one year after another ticking away, while he sat in the house, waiting, waiting, waiting for death. But each year wouldn’t be the same, one after another. No, they would gather an oppressive momentum.

  Would he wait for it to happen?

  No.

  He would prove his father wrong.

  From the closet he pulled out an old gym bag, a gift from Landsgate to encourage him to exercise more, and began to pack. He threw in a few of his new troll-size clothes and, at the last minute, decided to take a few chips and his portable computer.

  Later that night Peter stood before the kitchen telecom screen.

  Carefully he typed out a message to his father: “When you see me again, I will be human.”

  He looked at it, and thought the words sounded cold. It was exactly the kind of phrase his father might write. He wanted to give something more. He added, “I love you. I will make you proud.”

  Then he left his father’s house and stepped into the night.

  5

  Peter rode the Rail, the elevated train line, north to Uptown and got off at the Wilson Avenue stop. He’d heard that the area was run-down, which he figured was the only kind of place where anyone would give him any lodging.

  He stepped onto the platform and descended the stairs to street level. Although it was two in the morning and the street looked empty, he sensed the vitality of it, as if the dark, cool asphalt, the graffitied girders of the Metrorail tracks, the closed krill dog shops, the entire environment, had a life of its own. He felt as if he’d stepped into the belly of a creature—a still, sleeping, monster that might wake up at any moment.

  He spotted a sign that blinked on and off irregularly with the word Hotel. It looked decrepit enough to be just the sort of place he sought.

  Walking toward it, Peter realized he was not the only creature alive in the belly of the street. First he spotted the warmth of an unwashed pure human dressed in rags and huddled carefully in a doorway. Then he saw a man and a woman talking quietly to one another in the shadows under the tracks of the Rail. The woman was dressed in a halter top and torn shorts, the man in a blotch-stained leather duster. They noticed him, but paid him little attention. Or so it seemed. They made him nervous because it was the first time in his short life that he’d encountered what looked like a prostitute and a pimp, but then it occurred to him that he probably made them more nervous. He was, after all, a 2.7 meter-tall troll.

  As he walked along he noticed more people. An old woman sitting on a door stoop smoking a cigarette. Two teenage boys laughing quietly together. It wasn’t that the people he passed were hidden, but somehow he never really perceived their presence until up close. They had camouflaged themselves to move through the street, and it was almost as if the street offered them protection.

  Peter thought there was a word…. What was it?

  Symbiotic.

  They were all smaller organisms living on the street, which gave them shadows, shelter, a place to belong. In return, the people kept the street alive, giving it a reason for being.

  Reaching the hotel, he pushed open the doors covered in plastisheet boards in place of glass. Seated among the worn tables and chairs of the lobby were two old men. Their eyes glassy, they sat without speaking, staring at the yellow cracks in the wall.

  Peter walked up to the desk and rang the bell, which prompted a bit of clatter from a door behind the desk. A moment later the door opened and a teenage boy, who could not have been any older than Peter, opened the door. He was dark-haired and swarthy-skinned.

  The boy took one look at Peter, then his mouth dropped open in fear. With all possible speed, he was back in his room and slamming the door shut. “What you want?” the boy shouted from behind the door.

  Peter looked around the lobby, unsure of what was happening. The two men had not budged from their overstuffed chairs, oblivious as ever.

  “A room,” he answered.

  “No. No rooms. Sorry,” came the shouted reply.

  “The sign outside says you have rooms.”

  “Not for you.”

  Despair welled up in Peter. “Because I’m a troll?”

  “You got it. Look at the sign.”

  Peter glanced around. A sign above the desk said, “NO METAHUMANS.”

  Peter lowered his voice. “I have money. I can pay. I just need a place to stay tonight. I’ll leave in the morning.”

  “Go away,” the boy said, his tone a mixture of menace and pleading.

  “Look,” said Peter, loudly again, “I can pay. I’ve got the money. I just want a place to stay.”

  The door opened, and the boy reemerged, this time with a shotgun in his hands. Terror had control of his face, and his hands shook.

  Peter had never seen a gun before, not in real life, not up close. And the twin barrels of the weapon were very close. The light of the lobby glinted off their circular ends. He focused on them and imagined a spray of metal pellets rushing out….

  “It’s a rule. Even if you were the greatest chummer in the world and I liked you, I couldn’t let you stay here, yes? The boss says your kind makes too much trouble.”

  Afraid the boy would panic and fire, Peter raised his hands very carefully, still clutching his bag in one hand, and slowly began to back away. “All right. Yes. Thanks for your time.”

  The boy kept the gun trained on Peter. A bead of sweat rolled down his right temple and along his cheek.

  Peter backed up part way through the lobby, t
hen turned, walked quickly toward the door, and rushed outside.

  He stepped out and breathed heavily, leaning against the stone facade of the building.

  Had he really come that close to death? Death from fear? A ridiculously stupid death?

  Yup.

  He walked slowly down the street, afraid of jostling anyone or anything too hard, lest the inhabitants of Wilson Avenue pull out more instruments of destruction and train them on him.

  Reaching Clark Street he saw the lights in a chicken shack called the C&E Grill. According to the sign, the C&E was open twenty-four hours a day.

  White tiles covered the walls, floor, and ceilings. Someone kept them spotlessly clean. The customers packed themselves loudly into the booths, tables, and counter stools. Everyone seemed to know everyone else, but their conversations had the overblown friendliness of some corporate cocktail party. It took Peter a moment to realize that most of the people were talking to no one in particular. They shmoozed with invisible friends only they could see.

  He felt completely out of place, out of his league. He sensed that he’d wandered into a world with its own rules, a world where a single misstep could easily get him killed. But with nowhere else to go, he decided his best bet was to stay here and lay low as much as possible.

  Rushing around taking orders was an Oriental man in a white apron. He, too, seemed to know everyone, but Peter believed he really did. With the briefest of nods he acknowledged a customer’s order. He had a smile for everyone, always asked, “How are you,” waited for a reply, but then didn’t wait long enough for anyone to feel obliged to return the gesture.

  Pure humans were the majority, but Peter spotted a few elves in one corner, huddled together like anarchists. Sitting alone at another table, his back purposely to the wall, was an ork. He wore heavy boots and something akin to combat fatigues, but patched together, so they didn’t really look like a uniform. Peter realized that he, too, could probably benefit from a paramilitary look. But he didn’t think he’d successfully carry off the mean-edged glare the ork had mastered. The man, Peter guessed, was a shadowrunner, though he’d only read about such people or seen stories about them on the trideo. Shadow-runners were the invisible agents of the corps, government, and private citizens. Each had erased his or her System Identification Number, which meant they were non-existent in the eyes of the databanks.

  Peter caught several people looking at him, like a sales staff scanning to see if a customer needs help. Seeing their eyes run down the length of his arm and settling on his gym bag, he tightened his fists around the handles. One wiry little fellow smiled at the action, as if he thought it were cute.

  Peter glanced around for a table and chose one with a large chair, which he identified as suitable for trolls.

  The Oriental man came around. “Want a menu?” he asked briskly.

  “Yes. Please.”

  Peter looked around. An old woman stood by the window, looking out, talking to no one. Peter could not hear what she said. Then she moved away from the window and went to look through the garbage can by the door. She picked through a few of the napkins and paper plates and pushed them into a pile to one side.

  Another old woman watched the first very carefully, like a security guard eyeing a tour group through a bioplant.

  Sitting ahead of Peter was a woman he considered a kind of “in-between.” She wore silver earrings, which he thought would be sold soon, and a white lace blouse. Her hair was unwashed. She seemed on the cusp of once having something close to what Peter had just left—clothes, a home, possessions, maybe a family—and having nothing but her own life. Every once in a while she said something softly to herself and then turned to see if anyone was listening.

  Was that how he’d end up?

  A man walked briskly up to her table and sat down without asking permission. Drawing a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, he offered her one. She took it so casually that Peter thought they must know one another. But when they started to speak, leaning in and trying to be nonchalant, it was with an air of bargaining. Was she a prostitute?

  Someone called out, “Rich!” and the cigarette-man turned toward the door. Peter followed his gaze, and saw the four young men who had just entered. Draped over their arms were stacks of brightly colored shirts. Saying a quick good-bye to the in-between, the cigarette-man got up and sauntered over to the young men.

  The in-between also got up and left the diner.

  Three tables down a man wearing a turban was working carefully at taking apart cigarette butts and dumping the remaining tobacco onto a sheet of rolling paper on his table.

  Meanwhile, a man as gorgeous as any trid star came in, looking perfect in white shirt, red bow tie, and black trousers. What was he doing here? Gorgeous walked up to the counter and sat on a stool.

  “Sorry,” said the Oriental man, suddenly standing before Peter. He set a menu on the table. “How are you?”

  Still startled, Peter said, “Fine.”

  “Good. I’ll be right back.” He ran off to another table.

  A terrible reek forced itself into Peter’s senses, and he glanced toward the man in the turban. He had finished making his cigarette, and was now smoking it gleefully.

  Peter noticed that a woman in a green vest craned her neck continually to peer at the door. When a tall, thin gentleman entered and walked toward her, she began to smile. The man had grandfather-white hair swept back and cut flat on the top and both sides, which Peter recognized as a formerly fashionable style. Time had passed the man by, but he seemed unaware that things had changed or that he had gotten older. The Oriental man suddenly appeared at the couple’s table and deposited two cups of soykaf. The man placed a brown bag on the table and the woman contributed a box of crackers. From out of the bag the man produced individually wrapped slices of cheese. Peter found the moment so simple and yet incongruous that it disturbed him.

  At that moment, another man rushed in. “The kids don’t believe anymore!” he shouted as the crowd actually quieted down and took notice of him. “But on Halloween! The ghosts will come out on Halloween. They don’t believe anymore, but they’ll see! You know what’ll be funny? When they have to suck their great-great-great-grandfather. They’ll think he’s just some guy standing on a street corner, but then he’ll tell ’em they gotta suck it. They’ll have to suck up some ancient history!” The patrons looked askance at one another, obviously distressed by this outburst. Peter saw that everyone wanted the man to stop, but no one wanted to get involved. “You know, you know, that’s funny. In England the ghosts don’t come out till nine, in Wales at midnight, in Scotland not until two in the morning. But in Chicago”—and here the man’s voice dropped almost to a whisper—“we can have ghosts all night.”

  In unison the guys carrying the shirts shouted, “Shut up!”

  A woman with too-white skin, fire-red hair, and dressed in boots and a flattering short skirt took a seat across the aisle from a dark-skinned man with perfect, chiseled features.

  The Oriental man reappeared before Peter, order pad in hand. “What can I do for you?”

  “Uh,” began Peter, once again caught off-guard. “Cheeseburger. Fizzle Coke.”

  The man tapped two keys onto his order pad and sailed off.

  Peter looked back to the woman and the black man, who had by now moved to sit at her table. From snippets of their conversation, Peter could make out the woman was named Alice, the man was from Quebec. They discussed the pronunciation of the word “France,” then moved on to how prostitution operated the world over.

  Watching and listening to Alice, Peter realized that she was “off-duty,” and wondered what it would be like to have someone so attractive want to talk to him, as she obviously did want to talk to the man from Quebec.

  When Alice suddenly noticed Peter staring, she got up and changed seats, taking a chair that put her back to him.

  Peter was ashamed for making her feel that he was intruding on her break. If he wanted her attenti
on, money would have to change hands first.

  The Oriental slapped a plate of food down before Peter and was gone almost before he knew what had happened. Just was Peter was about to take his first bite, the small man who earlier had smiled when Peter had clutched his bag tighter came up, pulled out the other chair at Peter’s table, and sat down.

  “Hoi!” he said brightly. Then an elaborate shudder ran down his body; his head twitched twice and he said “Hoi” two more times.

  “Hello,” said Peter, unsure of how to proceed and not certain that he wanted to.

  “Eddy, Fast Eddy,” the other man said, thrusting his hand toward Peter. Eddy sounded like a disk that skipped. Peter put out his hand and took Eddy’s lightly, afraid of hurting him. Long bulges showed under Eddy’s skin—like thick veins. The bulges ran along his arms and wrists, his neck, and even up to his temples.

  “Name?” he asked.

  “Peter.”

  “Ah, you’re straight. Straight.”

  “Straight?”

  “Straight. You know…. Clean. Legal.”

  “Well….”

  “You have a job, a place to live. You’re not on the outside, scraping by.”

  The woman with the silver earrings returned and took a seat next to Peter’s table. She began talking loudly and said, “Bill, remember when you were in the coffin?”

  Eddy turned to glance at the woman, twitched, then shrugged his shoulders when he turned back to Peter. “Mirium.”

  “I love you, Bill,” the woman was saying, the conviction in her voice astounding. She was definitely talking to somebody. “You know what happiness is. Bill? When you die, you go to the Evergreen. It’s so beautiful.”

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know. I just know what I hear.”

  Her voice suddenly changed, and she shouted with great fear. “Shut the door! Make him go!” Then she quieted down. “We’re all dying,” she said. “Our whole family is dying. And we’re going to have a funeral. We’re all dying. I’m dying next.” Her tone changed again, and she seemed to be talking to someone else—a child. “You’re my toilet baby? You dropped out of me into the toilet? And I wrapped you in wax paper and kept you in the refrigerator for a long time?”