Halfheroes

by Ian W. Sainsbury

  "And I'll get you some clothes," said Abos.

  Half an hour later, Shuck was sitting at the kitchen table, his face a mask of concentration as he tried to master several new skills. One of these was the act of sitting. Abos could see he found it unnatural. Almost as unnatural as the clothes—Daniel's jogging bottoms and a T-shirt—which he kept pulling at in a desultory way.

  The next challenge was eating soup with a spoon. The moment Abos put it down in front of him, Shuck lowered his face and took a long lick of hot liquid, burning his tongue and yelping. Abos fetched a glass of water and held it while he drank. Then she showed him how to use a spoon and watched, fascinated, as he copied her movements. It was like watching a baby; the fingers trying to grasp the spoon first missing it entirely, then pushing it away, finally grabbing it and holding it in his fist. Within a few seconds, though, he moved from infant clumsiness to a more adult grace, his fingers moving along the spoon until he held it the same way as Abos. He mimicked her movements until all the soup was gone.

  "Good?" Abos buttered a piece of French bread and held it out.

  "Good." Shuck bit into the bread. He tore it with his teeth with a slight canine shake of his head, but he was acting more human all the time.

  Abos put the kettle on.

  "Do you remember anything before being here?"

  Abos herself remembered her lives in previous bodies, but her own experience had been consecutive, the end of one existence followed by the next in a matter of days, or weeks. Shuck's last body had been killed over a century ago. And it hadn't been human.

  "Yes. A little. I was not—," he indicated himself and Abos,"—this. I was different."

  "A dog. You were a dog."

  "A dog," he repeated. "Yes. But not a dog. And I am not this."

  "You're right," said Abos, pouring the hot water onto the teabags.

  "And you, you are not this either."

  Abos was impressed at how fast Shuck's mind was adapting. She knew she had taken far longer as The Deterrent.

  "Right again. You and I, we are the same."

  There was a pause this time as Shuck considered what he wanted to ask.

  "Me. You. What are we?"

  Abos waited until he looked up at her, two members of the same species meeting another of their kind for the first time.

  "I don't know. I hope you and I, and Susan, and any others we find, can find the answer together."

  "Susan?"

  "Drink your tea and I'll show you."

  Susan's body already filled three-quarters of the bath. She had a head of black hair. She was moving slowly, stretching, just as Shuck had done. He looked down at her, then over at the bath he had crawled out of.

  "She will wake up as I did. She is with us."

  "Yes. I found her in Russia."

  "Putin, election, fake news."

  Maybe Radio Four hadn't been the best choice.

  "I found you in this country. In Norfolk. I don't know if that was the only body you've had. The dog, I mean. You haven't had one since."

  She stopped talking. Shuck seemed to accept that he had once been a dog, was now a human, but actually was neither. He had calmed after his initial awakening and appeared relatively unperturbed. Abos thought back to her first few hours, and days, of life as a human. She, also, had accepted her condition without drama. Infant humans need support from adults for years before they become self-sufficient, and their remarkable brains still require well over a decade to be capable of sophisticated modes of thought. She, and now Shuck, had accomplished the same in hours. They were unlike the humans they resembled. For an instant, she felt a powerful sense of connection to the new being she had found.

  They walked back to the kitchen. Abos picked up her mobile phone. Still no message from Daniel.

  She stretched out a hand and a heavy pot lifted itself from the top of the stove and floated towards her before landing in front of Shuck.

  "Can you do that?"

  Shuck looked at the pot. It lifted into the air and made the return journey to the cooker, settling back onto the hob.

  Abos knew now that Shuck was developing faster than she had. Whether this was because he had already experienced another life, she didn't know. But it made her feel a little better about what she had to do next.

  "Shuck, I have to go."

  He looked up, his expression neutral.

  "I have a friend, a—" She hesitated for a moment. She had planned having this discussion tomorrow. It was hardly the first thing Shuck needed to know. But any obfuscation now would only look like a lie later, and she wanted nothing but transparency between them. She had an odd feeling she couldn't lie to him anyway.

  "Not a friend."

  "Your son."

  She looked at him, the same neutral expression on her features. Abos did not display her emotions through her face and body the way humans did. She had been surprised to learn that people could not read each other's unspoken language. To Abos, it was as if they were holding up a sign with their feelings and intentions written in big black letters. Her own blank features made her unreadable, and Shuck was the same.

  "Yes. My son. I had many children. Most died between the ages of eleven and eighteen years."

  There was a weight in her stomach at that, a surprising heaviness. She sometimes experienced spikes of emotions she struggled to name. As much as anything ever troubled her, these spikes did. They came unbidden and departed the same way. She could not control them.

  "Why did they die?"

  She needed a moment before replying, although she did not know why.

  "The combination of our species and humans leads to a dangerous instability in adolescence. Human hormones change at that time, brain growth experiences a new spurt and the body develops. Puberty, the time when humans mature physically in preparation for reproduction, triggered unexpected changes in the children I fathered. Changes that caused tumours, or brain chemistry anomalies that killed them."

  If Shuck was surprised by her use of the word 'fathered' in relation to her offspring, he didn't show it. Then again, he'd been a dog. A change of gender was unremarkable in comparison. She continued to speak, increasingly mindful that she needed to go to Daniel.

  "Those who survived developed powers like our own," she said. "Some halfheroes—the name given to my offspring—can do what we did with the pot, but not with anything heavier. They are weaker, more vulnerable than us. And they cannot fly."

  "I can fly?"

  "I don't know. Did you, in your last body?"

  Shuck considered the question for a second.

  "Perhaps. I remember running so fast it seemed I was no longer touching the ground."

  He floated off of his chair, stopping when his hair touched the beamed ceiling.

  "Well," said Abos, "you can now."

  18

  Abos left Shuck watching a news channel on TV. She had given him a quick lesson in how to use her tablet and asked him to work through a Learning To Read app. Once he'd got a grasp of the language, he could look at her notes on possible locations and previous identities of others of their kind. There was a cheap mobile phone on the table with two numbers programmed in, hers and Daniel's.

  In the yard, Abos tightened the helmet and checked her leathers were zipped up and secure. Looking through the window, she could see Shuck studying, flicking through the pages of the reading app with increasing speed.

  The sky was cloudless. No chance of any cover. The safest option was to make the trip at just under her top speed. If she pushed beyond that, she would break the sound barrier and make the midday news.

  With one last glance at Shuck, Abos set her face to the left of the still-rising sun and flew.

  She often listened to Daniel's music in the air, so she soared over the green, brown, and yellow patchwork of England to the soundtrack of Cars, by Gary Numan. Daniel had insisted it was an important piece, and 'a catchy little bastard.' Abos frowned as she listened. Perhaps she lacked the cultural
background to appreciate it.

  In less than half an hour, she could see Newcastle and Gateshead below, the River Tyne curling as it reached the sea beyond. She overshot the city so she could approach from the coast, increasing her chances of not being seen.

  She touched down on a small stretch of deserted sand at South Shields and climbed up to an open, grassy area with benches facing the sea. As Abos was removing her helmet, a small boy was tugging the sleeve of his mother.

  "Mum! Mum! Can I fly too? Like the lady? Can I? Can I?"

  "Maybe later, if you're good," said the woman, without looking.

  "Yeah! Great!" The child grinned at Abos. She winked at him as she passed.

  Coming in from the east meant that she was ten miles out of the city. In the interests of preserving her anonymity, she called a taxi.

  The driver kept looking at her in the rearview mirror. Abos was used to being the centre of attention. She was six feet tall, wore her hair cropped close to her skull, and her skin was the colour of dark, cocoa-rich chocolate. Even so, people were usually a little more subtle than this driver, who was struggling to keep his eyes on the road.

  When he looked for the seventeenth time, she remembered that she hadn't put her contact lenses in. Her face was striking enough as it was, but add eyes the colour of honey, and she was unforgettable.

  "I'll get out here, please. Stop the car."

  "Here, pet? You sure? Not the safest area, like. Scumbags round here will pinch yer hubcaps while your engine's still running. And they'll rob you as soon as look at you. I wuddna let my daughter walk round here on her own. Don't take it the wrong way, pet, but a pretty thing like you... that's all ah'm saying."

  "I can look after myself, thank you."

  He still didn't seem keen on leaving her there, even after she'd given him a decent tip. She tried to reassure him.

  "I have friends on this street. They're expecting me."

  "On this street?" He looked incredulous. He was still looking at her eyes. She pointed at them and smiled.

  "Contact lenses. They're fashionable."

  "Right. If you say so, pet."

  As soon as the car was out of sight, she ducked behind a wall and put in the brown lenses. When she stepped back onto the pavement, a group of young men had appeared from a house opposite. They were all shirtless, smoking roll-ups, most clutching cans of strong beer. The leader had a large dog on a chain. Abos was not sure of the breed. Its head was like a lump of bone, its body muscular and scarred.

  The gang crossed the road towards her with a kind of shuffling, swaying gait. They looked like a boy band that had fallen on hard times. Abos walked away, towards the city. When they altered their course and upped their pace to cut her off, she considered running, then realised they might be helpful. Daniel hadn't talked much about the IGLU mission, but he had said it was another halfhero. If so, and if that halfhero was a criminal, who better to ask about recent events than the local lowlife?

  She stopped, then turned to face them. The leader smiled and came to a halt four feet away, taking a long pull at the joint he was smoking, before blowing the smoke towards her. his followers stood on either side, a pace behind, deferring to his authority. The dog looked up at her and gave a misanthropic rumble of warning.

  "Dre don't like you."

  As an opening gambit, it was as unoriginal as it was unfriendly.

  "I don't like him, either. Now, you probably want my money. Or were you planning on attacking me? Is your motive in approaching me a sexual one? I don't understand the impulses behind rape, but psychologists claim it's usually about power, rather than sex, and you have no power."

  "You what?"

  "Disenfranchised young people like you have no power. I'm in a hurry. I have sixty-five pounds in cash and two credit cards, but I won't give you the PIN numbers, so please don't ask. As for my body, you're not my type. I'm happy for you to have the money, but I'd like information in return."

  The leader's cigarette hung from his mouth and his eyes were flicking in all directions.

  "She police, d'ya think?" This from—by the look of him—the youngest. He wasn't smoking but was carrying a can of beer. He had no marks on his arm. Yet.

  "Shup, Tosh." Tosh shut up, but they all peered at Abos afresh, trying to work out if she was connected with the local constabulary. Tall, black, wearing leathers. Carrying a helmet, just got out of a taxi and with a southern accent. The leader gave his verdict.

  "Nah. Let's do her."

  They rushed her, pushing and shoving, bunching around her to stop her breaking away. Abos allowed herself to be jostled, the malnourished animal snarling around her ankles until they were all inside the house opposite.

  They pushed her into the front room and followed her in. Heavy curtains kept out the daylight. The fifty-inch flat screen showed a paused military POV game. There were three big sofas and, over in the corner, a single mattress, stained and surrounded by needles, pieces of foil, and other paraphernalia. It was towards this corner that they pushed Abos.

  "Right," she said. "That's far enough." She said it with such authority that they stopped dead for a moment until the leader laughed and made a grab for the zip on top of her jacket.

  Abos reached up and snapped his finger. He went very white and very quiet very quickly. Then he took two steps back. The others followed his lead, not knowing what had happened. Once a gap had opened between her and the young men, she glanced at the sofas. They moved.

  Tosh was the first to notice, and he leapt to one side as the sofas peeled away from the wall. He watched, wide-eyed as the furniture reared up and pinned his friends against the curtains.

  The dog had squeezed through the gap between the sofas and was straining forward. The leader, now gasping with the pain from his finger, dropped the chain.

  "Dre! Have her!"

  The dog, conditioned to obey his master's commands, ran. It was a tightly wound aggression machine, teeth bared, drooling jaws opening in preparation. But dogs are pack animals evolutionarily predisposed to submit to the alpha, so when Abos commanded him to sit, he did exactly that. He looked up and whimpered, before lying down, his head on his front paws.

  "Dre..." whispered the injured leader. "You little twat."

  "Right," said Abos. "Tosh here seems able to speak in complete sentences, so I will ask him some questions."

  "You keep your mouth shut, Tosh," said the leader, then, "Oh, no. Come on. Please. Aaaagh!" as Abos approached, took hold of another finger and snapped it.

  "I don't have time to be nice," she said as he sobbed. "If Tosh doesn't answer my questions, I will continue breaking your fingers. Then I'll start on your friends."

  Every head swivelled towards the leader. Feeling the pain in his fingers more keenly than the loss of face, he hissed his response.

  "Tell her what she wants to know."

  Tosh's information led her to TripleDee's door. According to the boys in the house, TripleDee ran the city. There were rumours that he was a halfhero, impossible to kill. Whatever else he was, he was the boss.

  TripleDee had gone quiet for the past few months. The business was ticking over, but he had become more hands-off than he had ever been before. The talk was that he was planning something big. There was plenty of speculation: a new source of heroin, an expansion of the prostitution business by buying a few hundred refugees and putting them on the streets. No one knew for sure.

  Strangers started arriving a few weeks back, staying at TripleDee's place. All of them, according to Tosh, 'big fuckers.' It was obvious they were waiting for something.

  Then, yesterday morning, whatever it was they had been waiting for, happened. According to what Tosh had overheard from Tammy, TripleDee's girlfriend, 'a bald fella, some tart, and a massive bloke even bigger than wor Triple' had turned up and she hadn't seen him since. It was over twenty-four hours now since he and the strangers had disappeared. Two of his cars were in a far corner of the long stay car park at the airport, but Tammy sai
d his passport was still in the kitchen table drawer.

  It was a mystery, and it left a gap at the top of the Newcastle criminal hierarchy. If he didn't show up in the next few days, things would get messy.

  One thing was obvious. The disappearance wasn't part of his plan. Tosh said TripleDee had booked a private session with two of the new girls for the evening of the day he disappeared.

  "No way in hell he was ganna miss that while he could walk and his nob was still working, see?"

  She saw.

  She followed the leads.

  The airport car park contained the two Teslas Tosh had mentioned, plus a van. Abos looked through the windows. The second car was unlocked and still had the miniature car that served as a key sitting on the dashboard.

  She forced the door at the back of the van. Inside were three wheeled beds and three drips, the unmarked bags hanging from them leading to needles designed to be inserted into a cannula on the back of a patient's hand.

  Three beds. Three drips.

  Abos stood back from the vehicles. The way they were parked was odd. They weren't right at the edge of the car park. They had drawn up in a row, facing the fence, but leaving a gap of fifty yards.

  Almost as if something had been there yesterday, and they'd parked in front of it.

  Abos looked at the tarmac. There had been no rain for over a week, so nothing as obvious as muddy tyre marks were visible. She crouched down at a spot twenty feet in front of the cars. There were five cigarette butts on the floor, within a few inches of each other. There were no others within sight. Someone had been here for a while, on this spot. Waiting for someone?

  She walked the whole perimeter of the small airport, not knowing what she was looking for. The fence got close to the end of the runway to the west, and she was surprised to find a boy of about thirteen with a pair of binoculars standing in a gateway which afforded a good view of the planes.

  "Hello," she said.

  "All right?" He looked a little wary, bending down to pick up a plastic bag which contained sandwiches and a drink.