Bloodtide

by Melvin Burgess

  He looked like they all look when they come out – puffy skin, all white, bloated up from months in liquid. But he was good looking under it – good muscles, tall – fine young man. Yeah. We helped him up and led him outside into the sunshine. Cherry, she didn’t say a thing, just whisked off with her tail up high out ahead of us. Me, I was curious too. I wanted to watch him as he saw the world for the first time, the grass and the air and the sun. Oh, yeah, you can’t help but like it, the old world, even with all the shit. I wondered if it was gonna be as amazing to him as it was to me, but I guess he had enough to do without being amazed.

  He came out of it slowly, his breaths became clean. He got up all shaky, kneeling for a while on the ground to recover. He was growing more beautiful all the time. Cherry, she sat up on her tail and sniffed the air. I was watchin’ her too, and I tell you, all the hairs on her back came up in a long stripe. Me, I just wanted to bark and bark but I kept my mouth shut. I came forward to help him to his feet, but as soon as I got close I was growling right in my throat. I couldn’t help it. I put my snout to him and gave him a good nosing. And you know what? His smell? He don’t have one!

  Shit! They all smell of something. Engine Oil, ever hear of him? Transgenic horse, thick as a sheep, strong as a wagon. Bit of an experiment, us with so few motors. Someone had the bright idea – make an animal one, a machine of flesh and blood. They called him Engine Oil because that’s what he smelt of, horse sweat and engine oil. Weird! Trouble was, he was soooo thick. No gearbox, no dashboard, no steering wheel, just legs and a brain that couldn’t drive a weevil, let alone five tonnes of muscle and alloy. He got killed at Slough and, yeah, his blood was twenty-five per cent engine oil. They drained it outta him; used it to keep the lorries going. Boy, it sure worked good! Ah! Yeah yeah! Living oil, see – kept the engine in good nick, attacked the rust, rebuilt the wear and tear. Living oil! Engine Oil was more use dead than alive.

  ‘Where’s my father?’ the clone said. His first words. Soon as he spoke, the little cat thing was gone – ran off into the bushes. She’d seen what she came for and she wasn’t hanging around. But I put on a show anyhow, just in case.

  ‘Oh, you’ll see him soon enough, you betcha,’ I said. I put my arm around him and led him off, give him some food and drink, y’know? But I wasn’t fooling no one. I had to hold back, stop myself from snapping at him, ah, yow-yow-yow! Trying to keep my tail up but it kept creeping back down. He just didn’t smell of nothing! Every hair on me was standing on end.

  Transgenics – you can keep ’em! Nah nah nah! Give people a hand in creation, they make an even worse mess than the gods did. See, it’s not just, we give you a tail, go wag it. They gotta tell you why you go wag it, when you go wag it. They give you feelings. They give you thoughts. Nah nah nah. Scrub that out. They give you instincts. Well, what’s the point of giving ’em thoughts? Instincts work better. You gotta think of the poor manufacturer. He goes to all that trouble and expense – he don’t want his creature turning round and saying nah, don’t feel like it today.

  So what little gifts had Signy for her son?

  Listen, don’t get me wrong, I gotta lotta time for instincts. They’re some of my favourite things. You eat, you have sex, you shit, you sniff. I love ’em all! What else? You suckle. Maybe you talk, maybe you know how to fall in love, maybe you gotta make friends. OK, fine. Good! Lotsa nice gifts!

  But what kinda little gifts does Signy give her boy?

  Hatred, that’s what. That’s what he was here for, right? Hatred for Conor, everything he stood for, had done, could do. Nah! And then the other things, the take-aways. You don’t just add what you want, you take away what you don’t want. Styr, he was ruthless. You never saw a lad so bad! You don’t add that! No fear, see? That was all taken out.

  Dangerous mix, yeah! I thought, maybe, this one we could do without.

  First thing, before he goes to Siggy – Mummy’s orders – he gotta get some training. He’s a soldier, this boy. Not a general, she don’t make him for that. He just wanna fight.

  So I sent him out on a few jobs – dirty jobs, as a common soldier. You should have read the reports! He had some trouble fitting in. Him, behaving like royalty. He was a Vol-son, son of kings! Yeah, well, my dogs and bitches ain’t too keen on that sort of attitude. You gotta fight for your respect. So he got in a few fights, a few hard fights. It’s the way with us. You gotta hold your own or you get pissed on.

  Oh yeah! Gotta say it, he was excellent. Signy sure knew how to put together a soldier. He got in the fights, he won the fights. Let’s face it, he tore those boys to bits. Followed his orders, mind, even when he thought he knew better, but he fought like a bitch for her pups. Oh, yeah, he was the best, the very best. And every single one of my dogs who spent time with him came away wishing they hadn’t.

  ‘So what’s up with him?’ I asked.

  ‘He don’t smell right,’ they’d say. Yeah, yeah, well, he had a smell by now. You don’t live in this world and get no smell. But like they said, his smell weren’t right. See, he smelt of what he’d just been doing and never of himself. Know what I mean? No, you dumb-nosed human, how could you? You don’t know nothin’ with your nose. Nah! See? Yeah! You stoopid monkey!

  21

  There’s a secret bunker. Call it a strongroom, perhaps. It’s a place for treasures to be kept safe. In this strongroom were two women, one younger than the other, an elderly man and an upright glass tank which opened at the front. The younger women, still almost a girl, really, was crippled. She leaned forward in her wheelchair with a lipstick in her hand, and scrawled in deliberately childish writing on the glass, ‘I love Mother.’

  She smiled up at her friend. The elderly man kept his feelings away from his face.

  Signy’s real mother died in childbirth, bearing her and Siggy-

  Cherry chewed her lip anxiously. She bent down with a question. ‘I know what you’re adding, but are you taking anything away as well?’ she wanted to know.

  Signy raised her eyebrows. She can’t resist the temptation to tease. ‘Pity? Mercy? Grief? What about that old handicap love?’ But Cherry looked so put out that she laughed. ‘Don’t believe me – how could I stop loving my puss?’ Cherry laughed and embraced her, believing it all. ‘And I wouldn’t take grief away, either. What would I be without that?’

  The old man kept his thoughts to himself.

  ‘Undress me,’ said Signy.

  Cherry glanced at the man. ‘What about him?’

  ‘He’ll have to see me, who cares?’

  Cherry helped her mistress with the buttons. ‘Conor’ll care.’

  ‘Conor’s at the front. The war’s more important than I am.’

  ‘That’s not true!’

  ‘Well, but he’s away. Anyway, I want to be born naked.’

  Seeing the powerful is always a curious business; seeing them naked is even more so. The old man was as curious as anyone, but he tried to keep his eyes away from the Queen. She was the second most powerful person in the country, after Conor, and as far as he was concerned, every little bit as scary.

  Signy felt herself blushing at this exposing of herself, but she was certain she wanted to go naked into the tank. Her body was ridiculous – flabby and soft above, and those diddy little, weak little, useless legs. But now she was about to take back everything, and more.

  When her clothes were off, Cherry and the man helped her up and into the open door of the tank. She kissed Cherry goodb ye. She was going on a journey that would last two months.

  ‘Take care of everything for me,’ she whispered. This was the most dangerous time for her. She was out of action, like a crab that had shed its shell. She would be helpless in the tank; it cost her dearly to make herself like this, but the rewards would be very great.

  ‘Bring the boy to Siggy when he’s finished his training with Dag.’ Signy smiled. ‘He knows how to bring Siggy into the fight.’

  Cherry hesitated, then asked, ‘What about the other one?’


  ‘What other one?’

  ‘The baby. Your son. The real one.’ There was hardly a trace of reproach in Cherry’s voice.

  ‘That! My real son is with Dag. Conor can have the other one.’ Signy laughed. ‘Or you. You can have him if you like.’

  Cherry shrugged. She would have loved to be the boy’s mother but she had too much to do. With all her shapes she could only be in one place at the same time.

  ‘Sorry. I know. Keep an eye on the little one for me, then,’ said Signy, but just to please her puss.

  Cherry smiled and withdrew, and the old man, a technician captured along with the glass womb, was ordered to close the door. But he paused for a second and looked at her.

  ‘What is it?’ asked the Queen.

  ‘Are you sure? I mean, ma’am, there are other changes I could make, if you wanted.’

  ‘What changes?’

  ‘Peace of mind.’

  ‘What would I want with that?’ demanded the girl.

  The old man paused, before he could get out the word he wanted to.

  ‘Sanity,’ he whispered.

  ‘What do I want that for, in this madness? Close the door.’

  Cherry, angry at the way he had dared speak to Signy, hissed at him, and he closed the door hurriedly and turned the pressure keys to seal her in. She waited, sitting at the bottom of the tall tank. Cherry chivvied the man, and he turned the tap that fed a sleeping gas into the little chamber.

  It worked in a second. Signy slumped. Now came the part Cherry was not looking forward to – the drowning that accompanied the return to the womb. They did not dare use paralysing drugs too heavily, in case they affected the breathing response. Although Signy was asleep, her body would fight against the initial intake of liquid into her lungs. Cherry hid behind her back and peeped as the liquid crept up, over her mistress’s thighs, up her waist, over her breasts. Signy twitched as it rose to her face, jerked in her deep sleep as it tickled her mouth and nose. Then, as it rose above her, she began twitching and jerking in a slow motion panic, fighting for the air that was no longer there. The tank filled rapidly. In a few seconds it was full and in ten more seconds, Signy was pumping bubbles up through the liquid. Then her neck began the characteristic puffing as she pumped the liquid in and out down into her lungs. More struggles, as the last of the air was expelled, then a slow peace descended on her as her shocked body sank into stillness. Gradually she would grow used to the liquid in her lungs. She would be allowed to regain consciousness in three or four days.

  Down here, locked up once again to keep her safe, Signy would be rebuilt. Legs, of course. But she had also specified, without Conor knowing, certain other features. She wanted to be better, bigger, faster, stronger than she had been. Her bones were to be strengthened, her muscles helped with new technology. She wanted to be sterile. She’d had all the babies she wanted.

  And a treat or two for Conor too. Bigger breasts, for instance.

  Cherry looked at the still girl, collapsed, ungainly, helpless and naked at the bottom of the tank. You could see parts of her that shouldn’t be on show, and Cherry wanted to get in with her and make her decent. She glanced sharply at the technician, to make sure he wasn’t looking where he shouldn’t.

  ‘Her orders had better be carried out exactly,’ she said quietly.

  ‘They will be, ma’am,’ the old man answered. He’d done what he could. The girl could have made herself a force for good, a benevolent ruler, but it was always so with the powerful – they only did whatever they did for themselves.

  He looked at the dials on the side of the tank. ‘Exactly as she said,’ he repeated.

  Cherry nodded, happy that the man would not dare lie. She was still staring fascinated at Signy in the tank, at the thin clouds of bubbles rising from her hair and out of one tipped nostril. Tiny silvery bubbles glistened on her arms and legs and in her pubic hair. The lipstick scrawl, ‘I love Mother’, hung above her on the glass.

  Cherry began to cry. She didn’t know how she could survive two whole months without Signy to cuddle up to, without her lap to doze on. She would have the wheelchair taken somewhere safe and sleep on that, as a cat, until her mistress was ready to emerge.

  22

  siggy

  Muswell Hill’s still a scumbag of a place to live, and it still suits me fine. The market, the criminal fraternity. They know me a bit better these days. I get out and about a bit more than I used to. I don’t need to, of course. Cherry brings more than enough money for me and Mels, but I like to keep my hand in. You know the story… big fat pig, full of dripping. Conor will win the war, I suppose it’s pointless really, but it does give me some pleasure pricking the feet of some of the fat bastards who benefit from his regime.

  And it keeps Melanie happy.

  We still have the old flat up above the market, but there’s a few more hideaways these days. You need boltholes in these days of pogroms against the halfmen. Me, I only ever go out at night – my face makes a halfman of me – but bloody stupid old Melanie, I can’t get it through to her the danger she’s in. She’s always out and about, hunting down bargains, giving handouts to anyone who asks for them. She costs a fortune. One of these days they’re going to get her. And what will poor old Siggy have left in the world then? I love that fat old pig. She saved my life. She didn’t have to, she was starving herself half to death for a poor old lump of meat belonging to a race that never did hers any favours. And she’s taught me a lot. For one thing, that humanity doesn’t have to come in human form. Melanie is more human than most people I know. More human than Conor, or Signy, or me – or Val, for that matter. There are times when the world seems to me to be built of wall to wall shit, but then I think about her. Oh, yeah, Melanie’s the real thing – my fat, ugly, porky ray of sunshine.

  *

  It was February, bloody cold, foul day, the slush brown with horse shit all over the roads. Melanie was out. We’d had another row. She’s always on at me to join the resistance. She’s almost as bad as Signy.

  ‘Nothing’ll change without you tries,’ she growled.

  ‘Nothing’s gonna change with I tries,’ I replied. Like a lot of saints, Melanie knows how to use her mouth. And she’s so unrealistic. I mean, what’s the use? This is how the world is.

  ‘I’m… no… hero,’ I told her, nice and clear so she’d understand.

  ‘None of us is. So what?’ she grunted, and stomped out of the house to do more good to some poor sap.

  I put a vid on, lay on the sofa to watch it. After about an hour or so I heard the rapping at the window, but I was feeling sulky so I just lay for half an hour listening to the little bitch rat-a-tat-tat for ages before I got up to open the window and let her in.

  A little brown bird came skimming low across the floor and landed on the arm of a chair.

  I said, ‘Hi.’

  Cherry shook herself back into herself – that’s the only way to describe it. She sat sideways on the chair a moment scowling at me.

  ‘I’ve been pecking away for half an hour,’ she said.

  ‘Ah…’

  She was furious. She didn’t say anything else, just peered sideways at me out of her tawny eyes and stalked off into the kitchen.

  ‘I was watching a video,’ I said.

  She came back in with a drink and stood in front of the screen.

  ‘Crap,’ she said, turning away. She was right; it was crap – an old American video, all faded and cheap to begin with. The only people making good quality ones these days were in the Far East.

  I didn’t complain about her standing there in front of the screen. She was – I dunno, maybe late thirties, but she was a good deal better to look at than anything on it. She ages so fast, but somehow it doesn’t make so much difference as if she was human. I mean, she’s only been alive eight or nine years.

  She turned round and plonked herself next to me on the sofa. I decided it was an invitation. I stroked her face with my finger and she looked sideways
at me. I turned my face to hers and kissed her.

  Kissing Cherry is like honey. OK, her breath tends to smell a bit these days, but it still made my head spin. I put my hand on her waist and pulled her shirt out of her skirt so I could stroke the skin and that neat little stripe of soft fur that grows down her spine. I followed the fur up her back right up between her shoulders, and then down, down, until I had to hook my finger under her tights and pull them down an inch or two to carry on my way…

  ‘Mmmmm,’ she purred. And then she wriggled away and pulled the tights back up.

  ‘Cherry, you’re killing me!’

  She scowled. ‘You’re too young.’

  ‘I’m older than you are…’

  ‘I’m here on business, Siggy. Here…’ she said, and she chucked me a little plastic bag with some paper folded up tight in it. It was still wet in the creases, and I made a show of wiping it on my arm.

  ‘You never know where it’s been,’ I said. Cherry ignored me and sat down to drink her cola and watch the video, even if it was crap.

  Actually, of course I knew where the letter had been; she carried things in her crop when she was a bird. But I couldn’t resist the tease. I glanced across at her. She’d been keeping away from me more as she got older, but I still had the hots for her. Who knows, maybe it was because I had no chance with anyone else, but still…

  She was all downy, all over – I can vouch for it. I keep thinking about that lovely furry stripe. Not hairy – a neat, sandy, soft stripe of short hair that tapered as it went down her back. Very pretty, right down to where it disappeared. I kept wanting to run my finger all the way down. Yeah, yeah, her and me. Maybe she was trying to soften me up to take Styr on, maybe Signy ordered her to do it. But I like to think it was because she wanted to, despite the face. Halfrnen women aren’t so fixed on what the front of your head looks like.

  I tried to shake Cherry out of my mind, sat down to read the letter from Signy, and I might have known. In fact, I’d been waiting for it.