As Tom led the way into the room, Petra turned her gaze upon him and said, as if he had been gone only a week, “Tommy. S’down and have a drink.” She turned toward her rack of blossoms, her hand hovering briefly before selecting one, and then she held it toward him in a rudimentary salute. She blinked at the others. “Friends, too.”
They made no move toward her honeysuckle rack or the nearby window, which needed only opening to serve them all. The afternoon light, grey as it was, was more than enough to show the rich reserve that awaited on the other side of the glass.
When their refusal had registered, Petra shrugged almost invisibly and returned her attention to the veedo screen. She fumbled in her lap for a control unit, and The Lily White Boys’ song became audible:
You’ve got the question.
Your perfume says it all.
I’ve got the anther!
Shakin’ my anther for you!
They sang in six-part harmony, with a strong bass line, and their gyrations made Tom smile despite the pain of his losses, of Muffy and of the mother he had once known. But he ignored the singers while he crossed the room, took the control unit from his mother’s lap, and turned the veedo off.
She squirmed in the couch, reaching toward her son’s hand to retrieve the remote. Her robe slipped to expose the grey-tinged slope of a breast, and he hesitated, almost allowing her to touch him, before recoiling from her, her dirt, her smell, her… But his reaction did not register on her awareness. Her hand patted the air as if it had indeed reached its goal.
“Where’s Ralph?”
“He’s at work,” she said, her voice beginning to slip into a whine. “Always at work. Works more’n ever now, and he’s promoted, got more assistants, s’posed to have more time, time for me, y’know? But no. He’s always gotta work.” She fingered the remote control unit once more, and the Lily White Boys sang:
You’re spreading your leaves.
I smell it on the air.
Showers of pollen!
Shakin’ my anther for you!
Tom sighed, stepped to the veedo set itself, and punched the off button. The screen flickered, the picture died, and the music stopped. His mother pouted and reached for another honeysuckle blossom, while Jim and Julia shared glances. Tom noticed, and he had to agree: Obviously, his family was in a bad way. Petra was what she was. His father was fleeing into his work, or perhaps to a mistress in the city, one who was not a honey bum. Tom understood how his friends might feel sorry for him, though he hated that understanding. No one wants to be an object of pity.
Tom himself simply stared at his mother. She drained another blossom and muttered, “Me, I just stay home and watch the veedo. And get potted.” She tossed the empty blossom on the floor and reached for another, but the rack was empty. She held it up toward her son. “Get me some more? Please? That’s a good boy, Tommy.”
He grimaced, but he did as she wished. He opened the window, admitting a gust of cold, damp air, plucked blossoms, and inserted one in each of the rack’s holes. When he was done, he closed the window and passed the rack back to his mother. She immediately grabbed a blossom and drained it with a sigh. “So much nicer fresh,” she said. “Oh, yes.” Then she blinked at Tom as if she were seeing him for the first time. “Tommy! What are you doing here? You’ve been away for…”
He nodded, tears springing to his eyes. “I know,” he said. “A long time.” He hesitated, while his friends backed up toward the door into the room as if to give him what privacy they could. Jim set Freddy down and shook his arms in mute expression of their fatigue. Freddy remained uncharacteristically silent, leaving the stage, like the humans behind him, to the mother and son.
“Did you get married?” asked Petra, peering toward Freddy. “Is that a kid? My grandson?”
“No, Mom.” He didn’t try to explain what Freddy really was. “I got a girlfriend, though. She was kidnapped yesterday.”
Petra’s expression shifted rapidly from sympathetic interest through consternation to a bitter skepticism. “You sure she didn’t just run away?”
“Yeah.” He shook his head and described the way the apartment had been when he came home. “I wanted to tell you and Ralph. Share it, you know?”
“Just like he really was your Daddy?”
“I guess.”
“He’d like to know, y’know. Like to help, even.”
“But he’s not here.”
“Not much at all.” Her mouth turned down sadly, self-pityingly, but her face brightened immediately as she reached for another honeysuckle blossom. “He comes around, though. Sometimes. Even brings me presents.” She looked at Tom from under the ragged edge of her hair, slyly coquettish. When she realized that he was empty-handed, she added, “Brought me a Slugabed once, he did.”
“And he’s not my Dad.”
She shook her head. “That was next door.” She spoke slowly, as if it took effort to retrieve the memory. “Jimmy’s place. ’Fore they moved in.”
Tom glanced at his friend. He remembered when he had first told Jim, not long after he had found out himself, that Ralph was not his real father. He had said, quite simply, “So what else is new? Mine isn’t either.”
Tom had glared at this lack of sympathy, but Jim had said, “Test-tube stuff, you know?”
“That’s different,” Tom had said. And he had thought it was. BRA allowed human gengineering only in order to cure genetic diseases. Anything else was “man-mucking,” and both its practitioners and its examples were hounded ruthlessly. Yet there were varieties of human biological engineering that were not genetic engineering. For many decades, plenty of parents had been using not just sperm banks, but even egg and embryo banks, to obtain the children they wanted. Sometimes the reason was infertility. More often, it was the wish for talented or intelligent or beautiful offspring. Supposedly, the donors had genes of higher quality.
His mother continued her struggle to bring back the past: “He moved out right after… right after we…” She hesitated. She turned to stare at Tom, her eyes wide, imploring. “I wanted so much then. And he had it all. Parties. Loud music. I could see the dancing. And… So one day I climbed up the beanstalk.”
The others were silent, though Freddy wriggled on the floor. Her eyes drawn to the motion, Petra went on. “Wanted a good time, I did. Wanted everything, ’n Ralph wasn’t giving it to me.” Quietly then, as if speaking only to herself, she added, “Still isn’t. Never did, really. The bastard.”
She paused while her gaze roamed around the room. “Place’s a dump. Meant to clean’t up this morning.” She looked back at Tom and his friends, but her eyes seemed unfocused, her mind on other days and other people. “So I chased Jack. That was his name, y’know. Jack. A gengineer, he was.”
She took another of the honeysuckle blossoms her son had fetched for her. “I peeped in the window. ’N there he was. Dancing. Shakin’ it. His ladies standin’ round the room, in rows, just swayin’. Giant Alices. Though there weren’t many Alices then.”
Jim shifted his weight and spoke, loudly enough for Tom to hear. “Before I went to the Farm, we replaced the carpet. And under the old one were a bunch of round marks on the floor. Like big flower pots.”
Petra nodded, and Tom thought that he and his true father must share a liking for the plants with the human-like faces. They were child-like, cute, pretty. But dancing in front of them, just like they were people, women?
“That’s when he got me,” his mother said. “Just shook it. ’N when I woke up, there I was, on the ground, m’nightie all dirty. And you in my belly. He’s your Daddy. Your real Daddy.”
Freddy snickered. “If I’d been there, you’d have waked up in a bed!” When Tom spun around, his mouth open to utter some reproof, he added, “Sorry, Boss. She may be your mother, but she’s a sillier windbag than my wife.
”
Petra was sitting stiffly upright, her eyes wide. “That’s no little kid!” she said. “That’s…”
“Right, lady,” said Freddy. “I’m your garbage disposal. Tom liberated me when he ran away.”
“We ran away together,” said Tom. He aimed toward his mother a gesture that said the situation all those years ago had left him no choice. “He could think and talk…”
“Don’t forget ‘sing,’” put in Freddy.
“And sing. He didn’t belong under the sink. So…”
Petra blinked at the thought that a garbage disposal might not belong under the sink. After a moment, she nodded. “I guess. But…” She reached for another honeysuckle blossom, but the rack was empty. She gave her son a mute and pleading look.
He obliged, taking the rack once more to the window and refilling it. When he handed it to her, their fingers touched and he almost failed to suppress a shudder at the gritty, sticky feel of her hand. As she took it, her sleeve rode up her arm and he noticed faint threadlike marks beneath the surface of her skin. Did she, he wondered, have some kind of worms as well as filth? Should he call the public health department? Should he find Ralph and suggest that she be taken away, hospitalized, for treatment? But she had made it clear that he saw her at least occasionally. He knew what she was like, and he would, Tom had to trust, do what was necessary. His legal father was a conscientious man, a good man, even a good father, except…
Freddy was apparently less willing to leave Petra’s salvation entirely to others. “You shouldn’t,” he said, “be giving her that. She’s had more than enough. I wouldn’t dare even to eat her empties.”
“I know,” said Tom. He looked at Jim and Julia as if to ask them what else he could do. “But…”
“F’get it,” said his mother. “I’ll drink all I want. Can’t stop me. Ralph can’t stop me either. I’ll drink m’self to death. Least, it doesn’t hurt. Not like having y’son run away from home, and steal the garbage disposal while he’s at it. Not like…”
She paused, groping at the air with the one hand that did not hold a blossom. She seemed to be searching for words, or a thought, and no one interrupted. Finally, she went on. “Jack couldn’t either. Even if he came back. Which he won’t. He’s busy. He’s got your girl, Tommy. What’s her name?”
“Muffy.”
“Got your Muffy. What goes around, comes around. He got me. Got her, now. Gonna turn her into a flower lady, he is. You wait and see. She’ll be potted, too. Just like me. He’s got her.”
Chapter Five
The broken glass had been cleaned up but not repaired. The central expanse of the building’s doorway, through which visitors had been able to watch their hosts descending the stairs and residents had been able to watch for mail deliveries and friends, had been filled in with a sheet of plywood.
This time, Tom Cross had to use his key. He held the door while Jim and Julia entered the building. Julia was holding two sacks, one of take-out Korean food and one—from a pet store—with a rat for Randy. Jim was once more carrying Freddy. Randy, perched on Tom’s shoulder, began to shift her weight back and forth when he stepped through the door himself.
“Third floor,” he said. Then he reached up to give the giant spider a reassuring pat. “Nervous?” he asked her softly. “I don’t think anyone’ll be there. Not this time.” Not even, he thought, Muffy. She was gone, perhaps forever. The kidnappers hadn’t called before he left the apartment that morning. They hadn’t tried to reach him at all. Unless…
By the time he caught up to the others in front of the apartment door, he had dug from his pocket the key to the landlord’s padlock. He used it, wishing the door had been repaired, that it had a normal, working lock, that life could have returned already that much closer to normal. When they entered the apartment, the first thing he did was to check the phone.
His heart leaped when he saw the blinking light that meant someone had called. But when he made the phone play back the message it had recorded, it was only Cal, the owner of The Spider’s Web, where Tom and Freddy once had sung, where Muffy danced, where she had been supposed to dance last night, and again tonight. “Where is she?” Cal wanted to know. “Is something wrong?”
As he told his friends that the message was not from the kidnappers, Jim Brane set Freddy on the couch, propping his barrel form against the cushions. The pig twisted as best he could to bring his gaze to bear on everything. In a moment, he said in his distinctive nasal rumble, “What a dump! A plywood door downstairs. A chain upstairs. No elevator! No…!”
“Shut up,” said Tom. “I have to call Cal.” He did so, explained that Muffy was missing, apologized for not calling the night before, and finally said, “Yes, the cops are on it. We have our fingers crossed.” His eyes watered.
There was a moment of awkward silence after he hung up. Then Freddy said, “Is that Muffy’s picture? By the Alice?”
“Yeah.” Tom picked it up and showed Jim and Julia what she looked like.
“I’d like to see her again,” said Freddy. He sounded wistful.
“So would I,” said Tom. His eyes filled now with actual tears, and when he had wiped them dry, Julia said gently, but practically, “The food’s getting cold.”
Tom barely noticed what he was putting into his mouth. Nor did Jim seem to be paying much attention to the food, while Julia was watching Jim far more intently than her plate. It was left to Freddy to say, in between the forksful that the others dropped into his mouth, “Good stuff. Not like the swill at the museum. They try, you know? But they’re not geared for intelligent genimals. And it’s not much better when they feed us from the cafeteria. I’d still get heartburn, but I wish they’d send out more often. Either that or hire a…”
Julia Templeton interrupted him. “Why doesn’t your Dad do something?”
“He’s not my Dad.” Tom turned away to watch the spider. She had jumped on the rat as soon as they had released it, paralyzed it with her venom, and withdrawn with it under the couch. Now she was pulling it into the open again, all neatly trussed with silk. He pointed, and they all watched as Randy tugged the rat across the floor until it was under Julia’s chair.
She moved, he thought, as if nothing—not Muffy, not a limb—were missing at all. The wound where she had gnawed free her broken leg was already tightly sealed with new tissue, and her nervous system had compensated more than adequately for the imbalance in her gait. He wished he could adjust as easily.
“That’s where Muffy usually sits,” said Tom. Finally, when she was where she wanted to be, Randy crouched over her rat to suck its fluids.
“Ralph’s her husband, isn’t he?” asked Julia. “Then…”
Tom shrugged. Jim offered, “Sounds like he’s not there much anymore. I’ll bet he has another place.”
“He should be there,” said Julia. “She’s not well, physically or…”
“She’s off her nut,” growled Freddy. “A drunk. A junky. A honey bum.”
“We could call the cops?” said Jim. “Though they don’t care much about honey suckers. And they can’t do a thing. The vines are everywhere, after all.”
“Then put her in a loony bin,” said the pig. “Dry her out.”
“It’s up to Ralph, really,” said Tom. “If he cares anymore.”
“Don’t you?” asked Freddy.
“Yeah, but…”
“He has his own troubles,” said Jim.
“So do you,” said Julia.
Tom sighed. “Muffy,” he said. “She likes honey too. Though not that much.”
“How’d your mother know that?”
When he looked puzzled, Julia added, “She said it had to be your real Daddy, that Jack, who kidnapped her, and he was going to turn her into a potted plant, just like her.”
“If she likes th
e wine, that shouldn’t be too hard,” said Jim.
“But he can’t turn her into a plant. Can he?” asked Tom.
“You’re the one who works in a bioppliance store.”
“Maybe,” said Freddy. “Maybe she’s as psychic as Porculata.”
“That’s…”
“Hogwash?” said Freddy. “You bet, and it’s a lot of fun. We’ve got a tub there at the museum, and…”
Randy’s rat now lay shriveled on the floor. Jim picked it up by a loose strand of silk and said, “Want the leftovers, Freddy?”
The response was outraged. “Goddammit! I’m a musician! I may have started off as a garbage disposal, but even then I didn’t have to eat dead rats. You can stuff that rat up your…”
Tom Cross scooped a handful of rice from one of the cardboard boxes before them and dropped it into Freddy’s mouth. Then, while the pig made choking noises, he said, “What’s Randy doing now?”
The giant spider was scuttling back and forth across the apartment floor, her palps raised and twitching. If she had been a dog, they would have thought she was casting for a scent, and then, as she froze, waved her palps, and began to move straight toward the apartment door, that she had found one.
When she reached the door, Randy stopped and meeped. “I think,” said Julia, “that we should follow her.”
Jim Brane dropped the dead rat into an empty take-out carton. Then he and Tom cleared away the debris of their meal. While they worked, Jim said, “It’s night, and she’s black. How can we?”
“There’s a leash,” said Tom.
* * * *
Thomas A. Easton’s GMO Future MEGAPACK® Page 45
