I shake my head and rummage through the small closet by the bed on the right, finding toiletries and some softer, woven clothes that look like sleep pants. Only when I’m cleaned up, the last vestiges of the mist coughed and spit out of my lungs, and settled into my ridiculously comfortable ascender-tech bed, do I realize: Cyrus’s bed is closer to the door.
If anyone comes through, he’ll be there to greet them first.
Cyrus left his humor back in our apartment. Not that I blame him.
I don’t think either of us slept last night. Now that I’m staring at the blank canvas set up in my studio, I’m wondering why I ever thought this was possible. We’ve been here two hours, and there’s not even a pencil mark on it. I get up from my stool and stalk the perimeter of the room. It’s small, not even fifteen feet on a side, just three walls and a side with a sink—pacing the edges is almost like spinning in place.
“Does that help?” Cyrus asks.
“No.” I keep stalking.
“Carry on, then.”
I reach a wall and drive my charcoal pencil into it like I’m killing a vampire with a stake. It just slides in my hand; the wall is impenetrable. I let loose a growl and glare at the streak of carbon black it leaves behind: the only art I’ve accomplished so far.
“Does that help?” Cyrus asks again.
“No.” I smudge the carbon with my finger, succeeding only in blackening my fingertip and making the mark an even uglier tarnish on the perfect, dirt-resistant, ascender-tech wall. Slowly, as I watch, the wall hums. The sound is so minute, I almost don’t hear it. The smudge loosens, then spreads, then breaks into microscopic pieces that will eventually lift and drift away, leaving the surface clean once more.
Even my frustration can’t leave a mark behind.
I turn to Cyrus, but I can’t look him in the face. “It’s hopeless.”
“That’s the spirit,” he says drily.
I look up. “I’m serious, Cy. There’s no way I can do this. I don’t even know where to start.”
“I’m no expert, but I’m going to guess that stabbing the wall isn’t it.”
I sigh. “I don’t even know what I should be working on. Maybe if Lenora were here—”
Cyrus comes to life. “Okay, look.” He covers the floor of the studio in three strides and stares me down. I shrink a little under his glare. Not to mention his oversized form towering over me.
“I may not be your hot ascender patron,” he says, “but I’m your friend. I actually give a crap about whether you win this thing. And this is no time for your mopey, moody, I’m-an-artiste drama.”
“I’m not being moody!” Then I realize what I sound like, and it makes me even more depressed. I glower at him.
Cyrus grabs hold of my shoulders. “Don’t think I’m above punching some sense into you. Because I will. For your mom.”
I push him away but not hard. Just enough to get some space. I scrub my face with my hands then bang my head back against the wall a few times. I stop and draw in a deep breath. “For my mom.”
“Now you’re talking.” Then he starts to pace.
“I can’t paint a gold-medal-winning piece on demand,” I say.
Cyrus stops and gives me a sharp look, like he’s ready to hit me.
I hold up a hand. “But… I can when I’m in the fugue state.” Cyrus has known about the fugue since the Puppet Boy painting, the one he showed to his boss. Like an idiot.
“So, the key is figuring out what triggers the fugue.”
I nod.
“How many times have you done this fugue thing?” he asks.
“I don’t know—six, maybe seven?”
“How can you not know?” he asks, like maybe I really am crazy. Because, obviously, I should know how many times I’ve passed out and made great art while unconscious.
“It’s been going on my whole life,” I say defensively. “Since I was little.”
“Okay, fine. How many times do you remember doing it? For sure.”
“Five.”
“The only one I’ve seen is the Puppet Boy painting.”
“That was the fourth,” I say. “The fifth was at Lenora’s, when I painted a picture of my mom as some kind of spirit. That’s the one Marcus saw. Before that was a picture of a woman I’ve never seen, another one with a field of flowers, and the first one was an abstract. I didn’t even think it was anything, but my mom kind of freaked out about it at the time. I was seven. That’s the first time I remember for sure, but there might have been times before that.” I shrug. “Maybe my fugue art was developing just like my regular art. Only on a completely different plane.”
Marcus nods, thoughtful. “Doesn’t sound like they have any kind of theme in common. Or even a style.”
“They’re all in acrylics,” I offer.
“Do you paint in something other than acrylics?” he asks, eyebrows fighting each other as his face contorts.
“Not normally.” Acrylics are fast-drying and unforgiving… and difficult for detailed work. All of which makes it a medium conducive to performance art, like the Olympics, where time is a limiting factor. Serious artists work in all mediums, but most compete in acrylics.
“Okay, you’re the artist. You tell me. What do they have in common?”
“They’re brilliant? They’re eerie and move people? They… wait.” A thought pushes on the edge of my mind. “Every time the fugue came before, I blacked out completely… except this last time. I had a vision of my mom, only it didn’t feel like a vision. It felt… real. But she was completely healthy and a lot younger than she is now. I was watching her paint.”
“Okay, that’s a start.” But Cyrus sighs like he’s frustrated. He stomps over to the easel and stares at the canvas. He picks up a pencil. “Tell me exactly what happened the last time. Back it up, like five minutes before. Walk me through it, step by step.”
I come up behind him and take the pencil from his hand. He looks back at me, questioning. “Lenora wouldn’t let me sketch first. She took away the pencil.”
Cyrus nods.
I face the canvas and wave the pencil in front of it. “I try to paint my mom from memory, but it’s coming out horrific.”
“What’s Lenora doing?”
“She’s hovering over me, distracting me, making me nervous.” I turn my head toward the studio door. “Then Marcus comes to the front door.” I slowly walk to the studio door, replaying that scene in my head. “I snuck up on the two of them. They weren’t touching.” I give Cyrus a sheepish look. “They were talking. You know, silently. Transmitting their thoughts back and forth, or whatever they do. Lenora sent me back to the studio.” I slowly turn and step back to the canvas. “I realize that what I have is a mess.” I pretend to wipe paint away. “I get the acetone out, but I’m just making it worse. Everything’s smearing. I throw the rag on the ground.” I mime the action, then look over my shoulder, back at Cyrus. He’s watching me intently. “Then I feel it coming.”
“The fugue?”
“Yeah. It’s like…” I fumble for words. “Like a mountain collapsing on you. You hear the rumble first. The rush. The sense of it. Then it hits. And you’re out.”
“Then you paint?”
“I guess.” I frown, tugging at the memory, but there’s just a blank spot where time should be. “I had the vision of my mom painting, then the next thing I knew, I was waking up on the floor.”
“What were you feeling right before the fugue hit?” he asks.
I close my eyes, trying to picture it. “Frustration. Anger. Embarrassment. Longing. It’s like an ache in my chest, a hole I can’t fill.” My eyes pop open. “Jealousy.”
“You were jealous of Marcus. Because he was with Lenora.”
“Jealous of Marcus. Jealous of everything he has. But it was more than that… like there was this other me who could produce great art, and I was jealous of him.” I spin away from Cyrus and dash to the fully-stocked paint cabinet. I use my implant to unlock it and fumble with t
he paints, the palette, the brushes, juggling them all in my haste.
Cyrus steps back, watching me. “Can I help?”
“No.” I’m trying to hold onto that feeling. The aching hole in my chest. The extreme desire to fill it. With paint. With control. With something beautiful and real.
I sweep away the pencils lying next to the canvas and make space for my palette and the tumble of tubes. I’m mixing and blending and dabbing. I move back and forth—palette, easel, palette, easel. I dip, wiggle, sweep, just like my mom. As soon as I think of her, though, all the jealousy flees, leaving just the hole. It’s like air escaping a balloon, deflating all at once.
I stall out.
There’s nothing on the canvas, but a smear of angry reds and tortured grays. Just like the inferno of torment I created before the fugue in Lenora’s studio.
But nothing more.
I throw the brush to the floor. It skids across the room, leaving a bloody trail in its wake.
“Eli—” Cyrus says, then stops.
I lurch toward the door and scan my way out into the hall. My vision is blurred with pathetic, angry tears. Or maybe my frustration has reached such epic levels that it’s literally blinding me.
I stumble past the other doors. The windows are all dialed down. I picture other artists, ones who have some control of their art, working inside. They’re painting or sculpting, practicing their showpiece for the competition. Not only do I not have a showpiece, I don’t know if I can even paint anymore. It’s as if my Muse is real, an actual creature that lives inside me, possesses me… and now it’s gone. I stride past the doors, looking for one where the window is clear. I want to bang on them and demand the true artists let me in and tell me their secrets.
How do they master the beast?
My rational brain knows that most of these studios house different artists: musicians, actors, singers. They’re not all going to be painters, and they probably don’t have this insane split personality like I do. But my irrational brain is convinced every single one is hiding a painter who is superior to me in every way… who holds the key and can give me the secret… right up until I find a door with a clear window.
And it’s not a painter inside.
It’s the tall girl from the Lounge.
I tell myself her nudity is just an illusion: she must be wearing some kind of leotard that matches the creamy brown richness of her skin. But my face heats anyway.
I stare, mouth open, and watch her dance.
She lifts from the ground as if weightless. Her legs leap into an impossible stretch, and her arms carve the air with delicate strokes of grace and strength. This is how humans would fly—if their bones were made of gossamer steel and their muscles were exquisite lines of female beauty. I can’t hear the music, but I don’t need to. She spins, arms splayed like wings, then she takes another soaring leap that turns her into a human butterfly taking flight. When she lands, her bare feet quickly kiss the floor and depart again.
I don’t breathe.
I have only one thought: I need to paint her.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
I startle and blink rapidly at Cyrus. When did he arrive? I have no idea what he’s talking about.
“Now?” he says incredulously. “Now… when we’re training for the Olympics… now is when you decide you like human girls?”
“I… what?” My gaze is drawn back to her. She twirls past the window, so close I catch my breath. She keeps spinning, oblivious to us. I gesture to the window because it’s obvious. She’s amazing to watch. Anyone would be affected. Anyone. “I’m just admiring her… form.” I stop because I know how it sounds, and that’s not what I mean.
“Yes, you are,” Cyrus says with high amusement. “I’m going to have to call a maintenance bot to clean up the drool.”
I’m strangely embarrassed, but I shouldn’t be. It can’t be wrong to watch beauty like this and be moved. I fling my anger at him. “You can’t tell me you don’t think she’s incredible.”
“Well, sure,” Cyrus says, peering through the window and pretending to give her a serious look. I know him well enough to see this isn’t going to end well for me. “She is tremendously hot. And anyone who dances naked gets a serious yes vote in my book.”
I briefly squeeze my eyes shut, then tip my head up to stare at the ceiling, searching for patience. When I look back to him, he’s barely holding in his laughter.
“I’m not interested in dating her,” I say with as much disdain as I can muster. I peer through the window again. She’s still doing it. Still creating beauty in movement like it’s as simple as breathing. “I am, however, very interested in painting her.” I say it like a starving man might be interested in his next meal. Because, suddenly, that’s how it feels to me.
Necessary. And urgent.
Cyrus sighs. “Man, you are one strange bird.”
I ignore him. But then we’re both startled by a face appearing in the window.
It’s the short Arabic girl from before—the one who splashed her drink all over Cyrus then freaked out. She’s barely tall enough to peek out the window.
She disappears, and a moment later, the door slides open. “Hey!” she shouts over the blast of music from inside. “You guys came to visit! Hey, Kamali, look who’s here.”
I frown and look past her. Kamali stops, somehow graceful even in her half-completed step. She glares at us. I bite my lip, not wanting to be the cause of her stopping the dance any more than she obviously doesn’t want us interfering with her training.
We’re interfering… just what Marcus said to look out for.
“I’m sorry,” I say, quickly. The music dies, and my voice suddenly carries into the room. “We don’t mean to interrupt.”
“No, don’t be silly!” The petite girl smiles to reassure me, but her smile grows even broader for Cyrus, who is strangely quiet. She sticks her hand out to him. “I’m Basha. I don’t think I ever introduced myself. So rude! But I was worried you were… well, you know. This place…” She leans forward, conspiratorially. “It’s completely nuts.”
Cyrus grins as he holds her hand. Too much of both smiles and hand-holding, I decide.
“Well, it is filled with a bunch of creatives,” he says.
“I know, right?” Then she starts counting our sins on her fingers. “Moody. Demanding. Messy. Can’t keep track of time.”
“Don’t forget arrogant.”
She looks up at Cyrus like he’s her sudden soul mate with this insightful bashing of creative types. “You are so right.”
“Hey,” I protest. “Standing right here, you know.”
Cyrus shakes his head like I’m hopeless, but I ignore him because Kamali has just joined us. I swallow. She has slipped a uniform over her nearly-nude leotard, making it a lot easier for me to keep my eyes on her face—which has a carved beauty of its own. Tiny beads of sweat glisten on her forehead. Her dark hair is pinned tightly behind the nape of her neck, and her liquid brown eyes are almost too large for her sculpted face… but they’re gorgeous.
Even though they’re glaring at me.
“I’m sorry,” I say again. “You were…” Amazing. The compliment sticks in my throat. There’s no way I can say it without having it sound wrong. Or having Cyrus make it wrong. “You were training. We didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“Why are you here?” she asks. Her voice is flat. Demanding.
Wandering the halls? Looking for my Muse? Finding you? I can’t think of anything to say.
Basha saves me. “I’m sure they’re just heading to lunch, right? I promise not to dump our drinks again all over… um…” She shakes a finger at Cyrus, like she can’t remember his name. I’m pretty sure he never offered it.
“Cyrus,” he says with a grin. “The artiste is Eli.”
“Great! Cyrus and Eli are joining us for lunch.” Basha announces this like she’s the Queen of the Olympics and has just laid down a decree, daring any to disobey. Then she hooks he
r arm around Kamali’s and drags her into the corridor. “Let’s see what fresh drama there is to be found in the Lounge today.”
Cyrus is all smiles as he follows the girls down the hall. I have no choice but to join them, not least because Marcus said we should stick together. But the truth is I’m already calculating ways to ask Kamali to model for me.
I think she might be just the inspiration I need.
Agon is still a maze I haven’t deciphered.
But the girls know the way to the Lounge, and I’m sure Cyrus does, too. He studied the maps and tried to explain them. All I could see was a mass of giant centipedes in some kind of death dance: four of the five Olympic rings have spiraling main hallways with studios and apartments sticking out like a thousand tiny legs. The fifth ring is filled with the Lounge on the inside, and the competition stage and stadium on the outside.
It must be the lunch hour because the place is jammed. Cyrus leads us to the food line, bending to hear Basha’s running commentary of the artists and their support teams: where they’ve come from, what kind of art they’re known for, what odds the legacy net is placing on them. There’s no official betting on the games allowed—at least for legacies, who knows what the ascenders do—but that doesn’t keep people from speculating.
Kamali is behind me in line, not saying a word. I try to catch her gaze, but she’s studying the selection of vegetables intently.
“…and when you dropped into the competition,” Basha gushes, capturing my attention as her words spill over onto me, “well, everything just got turned upside down.”
“Why is that?” asks Cyrus. “I’m mean Eli’s art is great, but he’s just one more competitor.”
“He’s a dark horse,” Basha says, knowingly. “Came into the competition late, no established artistic record… of course, there’s the Lady in the Light, but that’s just one piece.”
“The Lady in the Light?” I ask.
Basha turns her wide brown eyes to me. “Isn’t that what you call it? I mean, that’s what the net was calling it. Well, not the official net,” she says with a sly grin. Then she catches a dark look from Kamali and clamps her lips tight.
The Legacy Human (Singularity #1) (Singularity Series) Page 9
