“I see.” Casey sighed, raised his voice, and said with a touch of humor, “Please allow me to finish dressing, and I will welcome you properly.” He squeezed her reassuringly and slipped back into the bedroom.
Well, he wasn’t mad anyway. Justine couldn’t exactly read his reaction. “Come in.” She returned to the MFP’s side and took him by the uninjured arm. “Come sit down. I’ll bring you some water. Are you hungry?”
He nodded woodenly.
“Can I get you anything? I’ll make tea.” She looked at the scientist.
“That would be great.” He pressed his palms together and blew on his red fingers. “Damn, it’s cold out there.”
Justine pushed A67 down into a chair at the kitchen table. The scientist sat down opposite and rested his chin on his clenched hands. His face was strained around the mouth and eyes, his gaze distant.
Casey emerged from the bedroom wearing a faded blue flannel shirt, which was tucked into his jeans. He held out his hand to the scientist. “Casey Freedman.”
“Dominic Vermeer.” The scientist came out of his reverie and shook Casey’s hand.
“I’m Justine,” she said from the corner of the kitchen where she was spooning loose tea into a tea ball.
“What shall I call you?” Casey asked the MFP.
The MFP looked up with a shell-shocked expression. His eyes flicked to Justine, then down at his hands.
“The only name he’s ever had is MFP25A67,” Justine said.
“I don’t have a name,” the MFP rasped.
“We could remedy that,” Casey said. “Do you have any ideas?”
“No.” A67’s voice was remarkably like Dominic’s—the same timbre, same pitch, but with a monotonous tone as opposed to the scientist’s forceful delivery.
Justine set the teapot on the table and set cups out for everyone. She set the last cup in front of A67. “Wait a moment,” she cautioned. “You’ll burn your mouth if you drink it now. It is much hotter than the water you get.”
“Now,” Casey said. “What is your plan?”
Justine exchanged a glance with Dominic. “I-I thought that we would help him, or the church would be able to help him.”
“He will need to be raised,” Dominic said quietly. “He is physically about twenty years old, and has the reasoning capacity that accompanies it, but he knows nothing about the world. They are sold ‘empty’ so they can be programmed at will.”
Casey’s lips pressed into a thin line, distinct in his clean-shaven face. “Dear God. Yes, of course.”
“I can get him ID,” Dominic continued. “I have connections, as far as that goes. I could probably get him assigned at a job. Where do you work, Casey?”
“At Shriver’s Farm, but I’m laid off right now.”
“Oh,” The scientist’s eyes went distant again. His hand on the handle of his mug tightened.
Casey scrutinized Dominic’s face. “What's in this for you?”
He looked up. “What’s in it for me?”
“Yeah. What’s in it for you?”
"Nothing, as I see it. Nothing good." Dominic took a long gulp of tea. His eyes flicked back and forth, up and down. “Given the circumstances, I suppose I might as well tell you. I am an MFP.”
Justine’s empty tea mug fell out of her hand and onto the table with a clunk and rolled toward the edge. Casey reached out and snapped it up.
A67 jerked his gaze up from his hands and stared at Dominic. “Y-you are!" He looked the scientist full in the face for a second before dropping his eyes to the floor. His voice trembled. "D-did someone steal you, too?” He peeked at Dominic again.
Dominic looked into A67’s eyes for a fleeting moment. “I was brought to the lab for further testing, and I overpowered the lab-tech.” He paused. “I was out of spec—worse than you.”
“I was in spec.” A67 held out his hand toward Dominic, as if in entreaty. “But I'm to be sold soon.”
“So you sabotaged yourself,” Dominic's eyes went far away again, like he was remembering something.
“I stole a pair of scissors from her—” He pointed to Justine. “I cut my wrist. I don’t want to go where the others go. I don’t want to fight.”
Justine’s eyes overflowed. She swiped at the tears.
Casey took her hand. “Well, you will not be fighting now.”
“No, brother, you will not be fighting,” Dominic echoed in a distant voice. “You will not be sold.”
__
Dominic stood fumbling with his keys for several moments before he finally unlocked the door and walked through into the dark apartment. He flicked on the light, threw his keys down on the half wall, and was halfway to the hall before he stopped.
The Christmas tree, the gold ribbon reflecting the muted hall light, was standing beside the fireplace.
“Shit.” It was 23:30, and he hadn’t phoned Khalia.
CHAPTER 6
“Tomorrow morning, when you wake up, just stay in bed for a while. Casey and I may sleep a little later than you are accustomed to.”
Casey watched Justine stroke A67’s short, dark hair and tug the blanket up over his shoulders. A67’s feet hung off the end of the couch, and his shoulder jutted off the cushions, but as he gazed up at Justine he was just a scared little boy.
Casey smiled and stroked his chin, in spite of the pit in his stomach. Jesus, what just happened? This wasn't what I expected when I asked you to give me a sign.
Did I expect anything at all?
"Are you in any pain?" Justine said. She touched the bulge under the MFP's shirt, where the tracking chip had been cut out.
"No," he whispered.
Justine lingered by the MFP for a few minutes. Casey had already slid under the covers when she came into the room. She stood staring through the crack between the curtains, out onto the dark street, before she began unbuttoning her shirt. Casey watched her slip into her nightgown—backwards.
“Justine.”
She glanced over her shoulder. Casey motioned to her shirt, and she laughed softly and wriggled it around. She lay down beside him and snuggled up against him. She sighed, and only then did her body go slack.
“Oh Casey, what have I done? And what will we do with him?”
“I don’t know.”
She giggled. Casey propped himself up on his elbow so he could catch a glimpse of her face by the streetlight. “What?”
“You were supposed to have a wise plan ready for me, Case.”
He laughed breathlessly. “Wise plan? Do I ever have such things?”
“Case!”
"I also forgot to check."
"Check what?" her forehead screwed up.
"If he has a belly-button."
She giggled again and elbowed him gently. "He does. Something about the first-stage biocribs and... well, I don't know. He has a belly button."
"Well good, that will help." Casey stroked her cheek with one finger. “Meanwhile we’ll need papers for him. Your scientist said he could get them. And, we need to get him new clothes. That coat will stand out on any street in the neighborhood. I could bring it to Ernest’s place and see what we can get for it.”
“Who do we say he is?”
“He needs a name,” Casey lay back again and rested his chin on top of Justine’s head. “I think he should choose it, though. Don’t you think?”
“I don’t think he’s ever chosen something for himself, Casey, except to kill himself. He’s just as Dominic said he is: a blank slate.”
“And we get to write on it.” The revelation sucked the breath from Casey’s lungs.
During the night, Casey raised his head, unsure what had woken him. He lay still, and realized someone was sobbing. He looked at Justine, but she was asleep with her arm slung across him.
Casey extracted himself from her grasp and slipped out of the bedroom. By the pale, green light through the window, he saw A67, his knees pulled up to his chest, shaking and crying on the couch.
“Hey,” Casey
said gently.
A67 jerked back against the armrest.
“It’s all right. It’s okay.” Casey held out his hand to him and took a step forward. “A67, what’s wrong?”
A67 slowly uncurled from his ball. His face contorted in his attempts to rein in his emotions. “I don’t know.” He stared past Casey, out the window.
Casey hunkered down beside the couch and met A67’s eyes—the rim of tears and the streaks down his cheeks were the brightest things in his face. He tried to imagine the great, howling wilderness the city was to A67, who had known nothing but the corridors of Caspian.
“I wasn’t supposed to make it to another sleep,” A67 said in a hollow voice. “Why did they steal me? What will you do with me if you don’t sell me?”
“A67,” Casey said slowly, “We hope to help you find out what you want to do with yourself. We don’t own you.” But as he said these words, the pit settled in his gut again. Who decided these things for themselves? Wasn’t his place in society just as predestined as the MFP who would be sold tomorrow? He swallowed hard. “What we will be is your family. We’ll love you and take care of you.”
A67 just stared at him.
__
Sunday morning, the roll-down doors of Ernest Brewster’s government store were locked, and snow from the night’s fall lay undisturbed in the cracks. Casey walked around the front to the side door in the alley. As he pushed open the red wooden door, the bell tinkled and three or four faces looked up from two tables.
Ernest’s beard-rimmed grin greeted Casey from behind the counter, where he stood drying mismatched coffee cups. “Morning, Casey. Have you finished Plato yet?”
A smile broke across Casey’s face, and he swung the bag with the scientist’s wool coat onto the counter. “Not hardly, but I did come in hopes of trading something.”
"I have your Augustine. I finished it last night." Ernest opened the bag and fingered the thick, black collar. “Where’d you get this?”
“Long story.”
Ernest gazed over Casey’s shoulder at the people in the room. “Grab a cup of coffee. Let’s go into the storefront.”
Ernest flicked on the light in the dark store, shut the door to the coffee shop, and jumped up to sit on the counter. “Okay, start talking, Case.”
“I have an Empty in my apartment, Ernest.”
Ernest’s jaw went slack and he started to speak, but Casey forged on. “He’s a brand new one, straight from the plant. He tried to commit suicide, and,” he dropped his voice to a whisper, “Justine and her coworker smuggled him out of the plant to keep him from being killed for being out of specifications.”
“Dear God, Casey. What will you do with him?”
“Well, I was hoping you might be able to trade this coat for something a little more shabby. It screams ‘out of place’.”
“This came from where, the coworker?” Ernest plucked at the fine wool. “This looks like it cost about a month’s wages.”
Casey nodded. “A scientist. I’ll say no more.”
“I’ve got one or two jackets about this size, but seriously Case, what will you do with him?”
“I don’t know.” Casey turned and paced across the store. “I'm going to have to hit the woods for the next week, because there is no way we can pass him off as a human... a regular human in this neighborhood. He talks in halting sentences. He can't even look us in the face."
"For being touted as empty, there is a heck of a lot of programming to undo," Ernest gripped the countertop and gazed keenly at him.
"I’ve got to keep him safe, I have to keep him fed, and I have to teach him everything good in this world!”
“So you have a child, is what you’re saying?”
“A man-sized one, yes! God, I hate Caspian. I hate it.”
“Ah God,” Ernest said, his tone more awestruck than Casey thought necessary. “I always knew you were going to do something great Case, but I didn’t think of this.”
Casey drew in a breath. "Shut up, Ernest."
"I mean it, old man." Ernest jumped off the counter and opened the door to the cafe. “But for the moment, let’s see about a coat, and maybe some shirts.”
CHAPTER 7
When the ringing phone jarred Khalia awake, she swore at it and threw it across the room. It had been a reflex, but an incredibly accurate one. She sat up, the bright room spun, and she fell back onto the pillow.
Someone was calling? What time was it?
The phone jingled again, and again, and went to voicemail.
All the better. Khalia lay back and pressed her hand to her pounding heart. She didn’t know what time it was, but it had taken way too long to fall asleep last night, and she sure didn’t feel like getting up now.
Her heart slowed, but her mind kicked into gear, right where it had left off the night before.
It’s not him. He’s not going to call, the bastard. And it’s okay. I’ll be fine. It was nothing, just a one-night stand. I'm his boss. It was stupid.
Oh, but…
“Shut up!” Khalia swung her legs over the side of the bed and grabbed for her purse. She tossed back two pills dry. Her gaze swung to the phone, which was hiding just under the long, white curtains over her window.
She sighed, picked it up, and pressed the voicemail button.
You have one new message. Message one…
“Hello, Khalia.” Dominic’s deep voice came through the speaker at her. “I’m sorry, really sorry I didn’t call. There was…” he broke off without finishing the excuse. There was something odd about his voice. He sounded tired and distraught. “I wanted to say thanks for everything on Friday,” he said, “And thanks for leaving the tree. I’m-I’m enjoying it.”
The phone clicked in Khalia’s ear. That was it.
The nerve of him. Did he know what it had taken for her to leave her phone and go to bed the night before? Did he know the tears, and curses she had expended on him?
She shouldn’t have, of course. He had never promised anything, not even implied.
But now what?
Khalia pushed her way through the lab door and dropped her bag on the desk. Her vision was flashing around the edges, and her temples were just beginning to throb, a sure sign of a headache to come. The white light inside the lab didn’t help much. She was halfway tempted to don one of the sets of tinted safety glasses in the MFP2 lab area.
“Good morning, Khalia.” Barjinder looked up from his desk in the corner. His fingers never paused at the keyboard. “Adam left a memo on our desks. You should read it immediately.”
“O-okay.” Khalia scanned the lab for signs that Dominic was there. His coat was hanging from the back of his chair, but he was nowhere to be seen. She picked up the white page, printed on official Caspian letterhead. She scanned through the preamble and down to the meat. “Request a press conference with American media and correspondents from the EU? That was supposed to be a month from now.”
Barjinder looked up again. “They are ‘chomping at the bit,’ as Adam would say. They’d like it for before we go for the Holidays.”
“Indeed…” Khalia scanned over the letter. For a moment her headache disappeared and a thrill went through her belly. It wasn’t as if she couldn’t be ready by the end of the week. MFP2 was coming along so well. The prototypes were exceeding MFP1 in every way, and growing faster than expected. “Well, good then.”
The door from the MFP2 lab area opened and Dominic stepped out, stripping off his gloves as he went. He looked up at her and paused mid-step. “Good morning.”
Khalia froze, memo in both hands. “Good… morning.”
Dominic glanced at Barjinder and walked toward his desk. He paused over her and bent close. “I’m sorry I didn’t call,” he said near her ear, "And I'm sorry I had to leave like that."
“It-it’s okay,” she whispered. “Was everything okay?”
“There was... a little situation here. It’s taken care of.”
A situation that had him as
tired and sad has he had sounded? Was it that ‘little situation’ or their tryst that Dominic didn’t want Barjinder to hear about? "Adam does this every year," she said, "But he usually calls me. He did call me, but my phone was... elsewhere."
"I'm the rookie," Dom shrugged and straightened. "Under ordinary circumstances I wouldn't have minded." He sat down.
I guess that's all, then. Khalia turned back to the memo and sighed. The confusion would have to wait in the recesses of her mind. "And what about this memo?" She looked back at him and realized he had grown a fuller beard, or the start of one. A bit of scruff softened his square jaw in a most attractive fashion.
“What’s this?” she reached over and touched his face with one finger.
He raised an eyebrow and rubbed his chin. “Not good?”
Khalia found herself giggling. “No, good.”
“No good?” A glint of humor came into his eyes.
She slapped his arm. “No, it is good. I like it.”
He leaned closer. “Good.” If he had been distraught, he wasn’t now.
“Did you read the memo?” she repeated.
“Yes. The meeting with EU reps.” He spun his chair to face her. “We have material we can present.”
“Yes, we do.” Khalia faced her computer and pulled up a few files, happy to leave the previous topic behind. “Basically, we need to run a thorough exam, which was scheduled anyway, and summarize our findings next to records of MFP1 at the same stage.”
Barjinder rolled his chair across to them. “You are aware that they want us to present on the twenty-third. Christmas Eve’s eve. Half of the staff will be off on that day already. You can say no.”
“I’ve nowhere to be,” Dominic said.
Khalia shook her head. “Me neither. You?”
Barjinder pressed his lips together.
“It’s okay,” she said. “Dominic and I can handle it.”
__
"Well, you'll have to come out with me today," Casey said to A67's back.
The MFP stood in sock feet by the window with his arms wrapped around himself. Casey glanced around him and saw three MFP guards walking single file down the street. A battered pickup passed, obscuring them.
Sons of Earth Page 9
