Clay

by Tony Bertauski

  Nix feels a brick’s psychic intrusion like energy particles wriggling through his body, examining his cells, his biomites, searching for verified identification. It’s as if the hand of M0ther emanates from this diminutive female brick standing by the steel door, her green eyes unblinking, unforgiving.

  Perhaps another strain of nixes would’ve spilled its secrets to her, but Nix wasn’t cloaked with just any biomite. These were the nixes Cali engineered when she had saved him twenty years ago, a strain she never released to anyone else. While most nixes were produced in small batches and distributed to buyers, Nix and Cali’s were unique and, as far as he knew, the only ones in the world.

  The female brick waves him forward.

  Inside, the grief is palpable. He can taste the sadness as people hug corpses. The news feeds clog the data stream. Bloggers silently stalk the perimeter, network reporters attempt to interview police. Why would they do this?

  And then it all makes sense.

  No one would allow people to see their loved ones lying on a cold concrete floor, their features tainted with unnatural color.

  Marcus wants the world to see this.

  The door at the back is closed, a sheet thrown over the glass. Nix walks around the outside of the warehouse, remembering the view through Jamie’s eyes when the door was left open. The bodies are dressed now. They look normal. They were nude. So was the boy that she came with. Nix still remembers his name.

  Charlie.

  The door is cracked open. Nix slows as he approaches, taps it with his boot. An empty lounger faces the doorway. A plastic cuff hangs from beneath the frame. There’s a body slumped against it. A cop. Nix doesn’t bother identifying him. The poor bastard must’ve already been a halfskin when the investigation began. The bricks figured him out, dragged him back here like garbage.

  Light seeps to the back of the room.

  The floor is clear of mutant pets. The glass fabricator is gone. They took it all, including the girl.

  Nix braces his hands in the doorway. This didn’t have to happen. They chose their fate, but the girl…she didn’t have to be part of this. If Marcus has her, her suffering is just beginning.

  But Nix is wrong.

  Jamie’s not in the back office. Her body lays next to Charlie’s, her hands folded over her stomach. Nix stands over her. He didn’t see her face when he pawned her senses, but he recognizes the coat and the slim fingers, the blue polish on her fingernails.

  He takes a knee, straightens her collar, brushes the hair from her face. She looks younger than he imagined. What’re you doing in here? He feels a twist of sadness not for her death but the fact that her body is so undisturbed. She’s been left alone.

  No one has come to mourn her.

  He bows his head, his hand over hers, still and cold.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” a female brick says.

  Nix feels his eyes mist up, sadness for Jamie.

  Sadness for a lot of things.

  16

  A red pickup drives toward the house pulling a trailer. A man and his son start unloading bales of hay into the barn’s breezeway. Cali sneaks around the trailer, greets them with a paper bag.

  “How are you, Hal?” she asks.

  “Better than I deserve,” the man says. “What you got there?”

  “A little something to take home.”

  Hal pulls out a jar of preserved tomatoes. He exposes his tobacco-stained teeth with a crooked smile, says that his wife will be happy and that Cali should come over to eat. His son hauls the bales—one in each hand—while the dogs run circles around him.

  Cali sways as pressure pulses in her head. Bing.

  “You all right?” Hal grabs her elbow.

  “I think I’ve been in the sun too long.” She touches her forehead.

  “I got some aspirin in the truck.”

  “No thanks. I think I’m just a bit dehydrated. Let me grab some water. I’ll be right back.”

  She could put an end to these calls if she shut down the connection. After three days, she still wasn’t answering them because, if she did, they would argue and that was pointless. She just couldn’t bring herself to disconnect their chat line. It’d be like cutting Nix out of her life.

  Cali grabs a box in the pantry with a stack of newspapers and pauses at the kitchen sink. A little green light flashes in her vision followed by a soft ping. A message this time.

  It’ll be fifteen minutes before Hal and his son are finished. Cali locks the front door, just in case, and goes back through the kitchen to an old door in the narrow hallway. Steps lead down to a landing before turning left, creaking louder the deeper she goes.

  The cellar is cool. A naked bulb pushes darkness into the corners, warm light reflecting off endless jars of pickled produce and preserved fruit.

  Cali pauses, takes a deep breath.

  Messages, she thinks.

  The jars recede into a fuzzy background as a file opens across her vision. Scenes of a warehouse overlay the basement. There are bodies and people grieving with police trying to keep order. The scene comes from various angles. She’s about to erase it when the view focuses on a single body. It’s a girl. She’s all alone, her hair disheveled. Her coat bunched around her throat.

  “We could’ve saved her,” Nix says. “This is your fault.”

  Cali bumps into the shelves behind her, the glass rattling.

  “Marcus Anderson is rubbing our noses in it.”

  Delete.

  She squats next to an empty box, hand over her face. She should’ve followed her instincts, never should’ve answered it. Yet she still can’t cut the chat line completely. He’s the only one she’s got. But Marcus isn’t the only one rubbing her nose in it.

  17

  The airliner hits turbulence.

  Marcus clutches the armrests. The sun disappears as they drop below the cloud cover. Ahead, a dome sits near the shore of Montana’s Fort Peck Lake, wedged in the lower fork where the Missouri River and Dry Arm split. Its smooth walls, once white, have dulled with dust and algae. It looks like a sports dome without windows—a monstrous, dirty igloo that could house a hundred thousand people.

  Scientists named it the Mitochondria Terraforming Hierarchy of Record, something that describes the changes occurring at the cellular level. Normal people call it something else.

  M0ther.

  The massive intelligence required Montana’s cold climate and the chilled water of Fort Peck Lake to maintain operating temperatures which, in turn, have elevated the water temperatures and drastically altered the aquatic ecosystem—just one price for her protection.

  The airplane’s wings tip again and the drop registers in Marcus’s gut. He latches on to the armrests as the plane lines up with the south side of the dome. Several landing strips extend from the perimeter like spokes. One airplane sits outside, the sun gleaming off the wings.

  We have company.

  Anna sits with her legs crossed, watching the rough terrain soar past as the engines cut back on the approach. Marcus’s grip doesn’t relax until the wheels are on the pavement. The plane taxis toward the square gate opening on the side of the dome like a mouth. Marcus could feel the filth of the warehouse still clinging to him. Death fills his senses. Now that he’s home, he can purge the decay.

  The hanger is spotless, the floor shiny. There are several jets inside, including drones that retrieve food and supplies.

  “Where are they?” he asks.

  “Director Powell and the secretary of state are in your office,” Anna says. “I can delay them if you’d like to shower first.”

  She knows me so well. “I’ll deal with this now.”

  The plane pulls deep into the hanger, the engines winding down. The wind buffets the aircraft until the gate is fully closed. When the steps are pulled open, Marcus limps off. Golf carts are plugged in for journeys across the dome. Anna goes to the open elevator that’s to the right of the bay doors that lead to M0ther’s inner workings.


  “Inspection teams are already meeting with the service technicians,” Anna says.

  “We’re not scheduled for an inspection.”

  “No.”

  “Where are the teams?”

  “First-floor servers.”

  Twenty men and women work for Marcus, assigned to service M0ther. Isolated from their families, they are compensated well. Most of them will take the money after a year and quit. Inspections teams come around from time to time: the government likes to make sure they’re doing their jobs. Marcus hasn’t met most of his service technicians, but it doesn’t matter, really. M0ther fabricates bricks to assist them.

  As the elevator rises, the pain recedes from his knee. When they reach the top, it’s gone. Relief is always waiting at home.

  The doors slide open and reveal the simple, yet spacious, office. The director of Biomite Oversight Committee is leaning against Marcus’s sprawling walnut desk. The secretary of state is standing in the middle of the room.

  “What are you doing here?” Marcus says.

  “Babysitting you, again,” the secretary says.

  “You’re wasting your time, Hank.”

  “You’re a public disaster, Anderson.” The beefy secretary loosens his tie. “You broadcasted that entire event—are you out of your mind? I’m watching mothers crying over dead bodies while a herd of goddamn bricks are prowling the warehouse and giving fucking press releases.”

  His cheeks are flushed.

  “Your face doesn’t need to be associated with shutdowns. We made that clear when we sent you here.”

  “Mark this day,” Marcus says. “This will be a turning point.”

  “It’s a goddamn public relations nightmare.” Hank cuts him off from entering the office, stabbing his fat finger at Marcus’s face. “I want you out.”

  Anna gets between them. In heels, she’s a few inches taller than both of them.

  “Gentlemen,” Powell says. “Let’s slow down.”

  The athletic middle-aged man pats Hank on the shoulder, gently guides him toward the glass wall overlooking the industrialized view of M0ther’s inner workings. They have a few words before Powell comes back.

  He shakes Marcus’s hand.

  “We need to recognize the significance of the Seattle event,” he says. “The preliminary reports are, quite frankly, staggering. The prognostics suggest countless operations tied to this one. I agree, this could be the turning point, Marcus.”

  “You came all this way to offer me congratulations?”

  “Certainly. And to inquire about your mental health.”

  “Mental health?”

  “We’re concerned about you.”

  “I assure you, I couldn’t be better.”

  “You’ve skipped several health reviews. When’s the last time you were scanned?”

  Marcus laughs. He stands behind his desk, immediately imbuing him with a sense of executive power. “Scanning me for biomites? I’m afraid you’ve wasted the taxpayers’ money, gentlemen, and my time. So, if you don’t mind, Anna can show you out.”

  He gestures to the elevator.

  Powell buries his hands in his pockets, half turning toward the open elevator. He makes eye contact with Hank. Several seconds pass.

  “You can speak up,” Marcus says. “Chatting isn’t a secret here. Anna’s monitoring your conversation.”

  Powell placates him with a smile. “Secretary, would you mind if I spoke with Marcus alone for a few minutes?”

  Sweat stains have spread across the secretary’s pits. Several choice thoughts stiffen his upper lip, but he goes to the elevator. Anna offers to escort him to one of the inspection teams. Powell waits for the elevator to close.

  “Let’s walk,” he says.

  Marcus gets a bottle of water from the mini-fridge beneath the desk. Powell ventures to the broad curving window. He waits with his hand on the door. They walk out to the portico, greeted by industrial humming and lubricated steel.

  In some ways, the office is a sky box. Instead of a field below, there’s an endless array of tiers and doorways that reach up to the dome’s curved roof. A long corridor separates the dome into two sides. An oily haze obscures the far end. Skeletal catwalks connect each level, dull metal scaffoldings that, farther out, are swallowed by the haze. Marcus likes to think the design resembles two halves of a brain, but it looks more like a futuristic prison for all the world’s criminals.

  Far below on the first few levels, the servers store all collected data. Farther up in the “thinking” rooms are the processing units. Above those are labs for experiments and research and things the inspection teams won’t find. It’s not difficult to keep secrets in M0ther’s maze.

  “Personally, I don’t give a shit about your appearance in Seattle. Broadcasting it through the bloggers was brilliant, if you ask me. You let the viewers know what will happen when they get caught.” Powell leans on the polished rail. “The problem, Marcus, is that you looked batshit crazy. People don’t like a madman at the wheel.”

  He stops grinning.

  “You drive up with a cavalcade of bricks, get out with Anna, who looks like a goddamn sexbot. Don’t get me wrong, she’s nice and she’s effective, but she’s a brick, Marcus. And the world knows you’re fucking it.

  “Now I’m not saying men in power don’t do crazy things, but they do them behind closed doors. You paraded yours across the world’s stage. All those secret videos of you getting freaky with your other biomite porn dolls? We put that behind us. You can bet your ass the bloggers are dragging those back out.”

  Marcus clenches his fists. It was one of the reasons he wanted to hang Cali Richards from the rafters. Twenty years ago, she threatened to reveal his perversions if he didn’t leave them alone. But when videos of his Biomite Real Doll orgies leaked on to the Internet, his family stopped talking to him. His career was over.

  Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.

  “I get the job done,” Marcus says. “It’s my mission.”

  “That’s right. And that’s why we appointed you. But we put you out here, in the middle of this godforsaken part of the world, so that the public would forget you. And they did, Marcus. They forgot all the nutty places you were sticking your cock. Your job is to stay here, in the dome, and get the job done. Are we clear?”

  Powell’s expression softens.

  “Listen, the world is a little jumpy when it comes to what we’re doing. You’re working with this Big Brother dome to essentially turn people off and we don’t call it murder.”

  Marcus pitches his halfskin argument: Humans with more biomites than clay are mostly machines.

  Powell holds up his hand. “Save your breath. I’m not here about your mission; this is about your approach. We need you to slow down. Whatever shutdowns you conduct, do them quietly. Make the world believe that the worst is over, that there are no more Seattles out there. You pull another warehouse stunt—strutting around with Anna on your arm—and the powers-that-be will bury you.”

  Marcus’s chin juts forward.

  “We want the public’s support, Marcus. Win them over. You’re fighting for them, remember? Make them believe it. We on the same page here?”

  He stares at a small group of technicians crossing a catwalk several floors below. The humming grows louder.

  Powell looks out over the industrial matrix. They watch another group of technicians rise in a clear elevator shaft. A few of the men are inspectors. They’ll be escorted to selected labs, take their readings and write their reports. They’ll never realize there are sections they missed.

  “You doing all right, Marcus?”

  “I’m doing fine.”

  “The technicians say you’re almost non-existent. Some of them have never seen you. We’d like you to occasionally interact with the staff, meet with them. You don’t have to hide up here. You should also meet with the staff counsellor.”

  It wasn’t a request. Powell wants him to talk about his feelings and thought
s. Powell and his “powers-that-be” can’t pry inside him since he doesn’t contain a single biomite. A whole industry of hackers has specialized in hacking biomites, using them to look inside a person’s mind.

  Impossible when you’re clay.

  “This place runs itself, Powell. I need to run the program. No one needs to see me.”

  “Except for the counsellor. Right?”

  It takes several moments for Marcus to agree. He hates lying.

  “Good. The inspection will take a few more days. In the meantime, your service technicians will report for health screenings. You, too.”

  Powell pulls a slim black box from his pocket. He holds the cell phone-sized object up. Marcus lifts his chin, proudly. Powell slides it under Marcus’s collar, presses it against his skin. An electric web of tendrils vibrates throughout his body.

  The instrument reads 0%.

  “You’re a disciplined man, Marcus. Wish I could say the same for the rest of us.”

  “We all sin.”

  “Some more than others.”

  “God forgives.”

  “I’ll remember that.” Powell nods at the view. “I don’t know how you do it. This place depresses the shit out of me. Promise to start with the counsellor. We’ll be monitoring reports.”

  “Of course.” The lie slides from his mouth like a serpent’s tongue. It disturbs him, but still he smiles. M0ther holds so many secrets.

  She reveals them to the chosen.

  Part Two

  ROADS

  The horizon is never reached.

  M0THER

  The Strain of Biomites

  Steven picked a week-old scab.

  “Stop,” his mom said.

  Instead he slouched in the chair, stared at the color print on the wall. The sling made it hard to cross his arms. Besides, his forearm hurt too much. But once her eyes dulled, she was back to internal chatting and he went back to picking.

  The door opened.