I turn my face away.
“Please,” he says. “Talk to me. Tell me your name.”
“No,” I whisper, cringing at the sound of my own voice, all hard at the edges and soft in the middle.
I turn my key and think of shapes and blue not-walls and a wide expanse of green.
§
Big remakes the legs of the woman in black but doesn’t smile when he finishes. He stops in front of my box and taps on the glass until I look up. He taps the glass again, harder, and then a third time, harder still, and I hear a small sound, like a finger bone cracked in two. The gears on his forehead click to a stop, tick backward, once, twice, and move forward again. With a shake of his head, he walks away.
Little Big breaks the collared man in two pieces and fills in the empty spaces with metal and tangled wire.
§
I turn my key, and a word rushes in: Naomi. Is this the dark shape? I say the word aloud, feel it slip and slide on my tongue.
“Is that your name?” the blue-eyed man asks.
Naomi.
Is it?
§
Big doesn’t come back.
No one will be perfect. No one will leave.
§
Big tapped the glass too hard, and now there is a crack, a line with shattered edges, all the way at the top. I stay crouched down, away from the crack, turn my key, and remember. The dark shapes were birds that fluttered and circled and sang. A little hand tugged mine, and we ran across the green and under the birds, under the blue not-wall. A pain tugs deep inside where metal and flesh stick together, and I try to turn the key back, to take it away.
I am afraid of what I’ve forgotten.
I try to pull out the key, but it won’t move. I try to bend it, break it, but it is harder than bone.
I am afraid I will never remember.
§
“Where were you before this place?” His blue eyes are bright under the lights.
“I have always been here.”
“Even when you were a child?”
I turn my key. Wide, dark eyes. Chubby fingers. A soft voice whispering.
“I had a daughter with hair the same color as yours. Her name was Lucy. They took her away,” he says, his voice breaking in little pieces.
They took me away and made me almost perfect. Maybe they made Lucy perfect and let her go.
“When did you forget?” he asks.
The pain reaches out and my eyes burn.
“Naomi, when did you forget you were human?”
The pain digs in knife-sharp, and I slap the glass with my hands. Big changed most of me, but he left my hands the same. I strike the glass again; a small star blooms at the edge of the crack.
I forgot everything the day I couldn’t remember her name. The one with the little hand. I turn the key, but it won’t give me her name.
§
Little Big smashes the collared one with a hammer. Shards of metal fly up and bounce off my glass, specks of red spatter the walls. He laughs and shakes the hammer in front of our boxes but doesn’t break the glass.
§
“Naomi, you’re still human.”
Inside, the gears move.
Am I?
§
“They call themselves gods, you know. Maybe they are, I don’t know. They say they killed the old god.”
The collared man said the same thing, but the words mean nothing. The key has not shown me god yet.
“They’re remaking, changing, everything. The oceans are black now.” He laughs, but the edges are hard. “I didn’t even believe in god.”
I turn my key until I find the ocean, the kiss of water drops on my skin, the salt taste on my lips. She ran into the blue-green water, splashing, and I said, “Be careful, be careful.”
“Naomi, please, why won’t you talk to me?”
Because I can’t remember her name.
§
Little Big takes the woman in black out of her box and cuts off her arms. He puts her in the cage where the collared one used to live, and she sits in the corner, motionless. She doesn’t weep like the others.
In a rush, Little Big leaves the room; I never see him again.
I hit the glass until another star appears.
§
“Naomi?”
§
I think about gods and birds and the key in my back. I think about the crack in the glass, how it stretches almost to the bottom now. Every day, slap-crack. I think about scars and stitches holding me in place.
Tearing me apart.
I’d like to leave the blue room and see the ocean. I’d like to remember the little one’s name. I turn my key, and the gears click.
I’d like to be human again.
§
Slap.
Crack.
Until the glass falls like rain. I remember the taste and the way it turned my hair into wet tangles. Before they took me away, before the remaking and the pain. There are still holes in my memory, spaces for forgotten things, but I remember enough, and if Big finds me, I won’t let him put me back in the box.
I step to the edge. Thick dust covers the wooden table and the floor and shimmers like a grey veil. I think we are the forgotten things now. Broken, remade into almost perfect, yet left behind.
“Naomi, be careful,” the one with the blue eyes says.
William. His name is William.
“I will,” I say.
I will break his glass, too, and find a way to free the others. I won’t leave anyone behind. I hope my legs are strong enough to break my fall, but I am not afraid.
I remember her name.
Sugar, Sin,
and Nonsuch Henry
Sugarsin bumped into Henry VIII at a yard sale.
One minute she was making her way between two tables draped with a floral cloth and loaded with a haphazard array of junk; the next, she rounded the table, and her shoulder struck something hard and unyielding. She said, “Sorry,” glanced up, and froze in place.
He’d been placed off to the side like an afterthought, next to a wrought iron coat rack and an umbrella stand in the shape of a penguin. No one had bothered to wipe the dust from his face or brush the cobwebs from his hair, and dark stains riddled his doublet and hose. At least his codpiece was intact.
In spite of the grime, there was no mistaking his visage, captured in the prime of his youth before he went to fat and ruin and rage. She checked the nape of his neck, under his hair, and smiled. The factory seal remained intact, which meant no one had altered his programming. He was an older model, an unsuccessful one, despite the massive media campaigns. Too old-fashioned for anyone but the faux-flesh collectors.
And for her.
The company called them historical companions—to amuse your friends and family. Sugarsin always thought it would be interesting, albeit strange, to have one, but even after the price on the Henry model was reduced by half, it was still more expensive than she could afford. She thought of her house, the quiet; it might be nice to have some signs of life, even of the artificial variety. And how many strippers could claim to have a Tudor king in residence?
She took a step back and bumped into another shoulder, this one attached to a living man with sculpted biceps, a cleft chin, and hair artfully dyed grey at the temples.
“Interested?” the man asked.
“Yes, I am,” she said with a smile. “Can I ask why you’re selling him? Does he still work?”
“He worked fine the last time we turned him on. He was a gift for my wife, but she hated him. They wouldn’t take him back, so he’s been in the attic ever since. We don’t have the manual anymore, though, but I think you can probably find it online.” His eyes, an unnaturally bright shade of green, dropped down to her cleavage, then back up with a grin.
“How much are you asking?”
“If you can carry him yourself, you can have him for free.”
Sugarsin bit her lower lip. Free usually meant broken, but what the he
ll. She could clean up his clothes and put him in the corner of her living room. “Okay, I’ll take him.”
The man nodded. “Good, good. My wife will be happy. His accent was too heavy for her to understand so I got her a John Wayne instead.”
Sugarsin laughed out loud.
Despite his earlier statement, he ended up helping her carry Henry to her car.
Once home, she paid the neighbor’s son to help bring him in. She found the on switch located in the center of his back but hesitated. After being offline for so long, he’d need to stay on for at least twelve hours, and she had to get ready for work. She pushed a strand of ginger hair out of his eyes. They didn’t use real human hair on all the models (it was an extra, and pricey, option), but she was lucky.
She removed his clothing to run it through the wash. Nude and anatomically correct, he gave the appearance of a sleepwalking man who had wandered into her house and paused while his dreams caught up. A cold shiver traced its way down her spine. No, he wasn’t a man; he was a robot and nothing more.
“All right, Henry,” she whispered. “We’ll get you setup tomorrow.”
§
When Sugarsin walked through the door at Whirlygigs, the gaze of the new bouncer followed her until the dressing room door shut. She was something of an oddity, the only natural at the club; all the other women wore enhancements like a second skin. In Lulu’s case, her enhancement was skin, a removable artificial layer of ivory pale to cover up freckles and other unacceptable imperfections. Silicone and injectables still remained high on the list of wanted, and expected, adjustments, but technology moved faster than tips on a Saturday night.
Born two years before fetal manipulation was approved, Sugarsin had genetic luck on her side, and thanks to her mother’s alcohol-induced sense of humor, she didn’t need a stage name.
Mouth set in a tight line, she pulled a costume from her bag. She was dressing as Anne Boleyn tonight, more than fitting. Although she’d get to keep her head.
She had the right hair for the part, no wig required, but her eyes were the wrong color, not that it mattered. The men and women who came to the club didn’t care about the costumes—she could go on stage with a burlap sack—they wanted what was underneath.
Once dressed, she adjusted the choker around her neck and waited by the stage curtain with the vibration of the heavy techno music thumping through her body. In her gown, she felt like a displaced time traveler. New dancers always looked askance at her costumes, but the owner indulged her choices because she had a steady, loyal, and well-paying clientele, attracted to the real.
The music stopped, and after a few minutes of applause, Miria stepped through the curtain, wiping sweat from her forehead. Her enhancements included a set of tits the size of baby torpedoes. What the clients couldn’t see was the internal system used to hold them upright, a fine net-like material that ran from the implants, over her shoulders and down to her waist, anchored with screws into her spine.
“Your boys are here, Sugar,” Miria said with a grin. “I warmed them up for you.”
Sugarsin’s music started, and she stretched up high on her toes, rotated her shoulders back and around, and shook out her hands. This was the easy part. After her show, she had to go out, chat up the customers, and pretend she didn’t mind their hands trying to creep under her robe to cop a feel.
She put on a smile and moved through the curtain, slow and lazy in her long gown, the very picture of Tudor loveliness. Except for the lace g-string underneath, of course.
§
Sugarsin redressed Henry, checked his factory imprint again, and wrote down his model and serial number. While she drank coffee and searched for the manual online, her feet tapped out an impatient rhythm, stilling once the manual opened up on her screen. She read for half an hour, her coffee turning cold and forgotten.
“Okay, Henry,” she whispered. “Let’s see if you work.”
She pushed the on/off button hard and held it for the required thirty seconds, designed that way so it couldn’t be pushed accidentally. If someone had Elvis serving drinks to their dinner guests, it wouldn’t do to have an errant pat on the back result in total shutdown and spilled martinis.
Inside Henry, a tiny click sounded, then a subtle whir. The synthetic skin warmed beneath her hand. After another click, another whir, his hands closed into fists, then relaxed. His eyes opened. He blinked.
“I like her not,” he said, his blue eyes narrowing. His voice held a deep, rich resonance, his accent heavy, though not difficult to understand.
Sugarsin stepped back.
“Blighted in the eyes of God.”
“Well, hello to you, too,” she mumbled, crossing her arms across her chest.
“If it were not to satisfy the world, and my Realm, I would not do that I must do this day for none earthly thing.”
“No wonder people didn’t like you. Keep it up and I’ll shut you off, stick you in the corner, and dress you up with string lights.”
He gave a small bow. “Good morrow. I am Henry VIII, by the Grace of God, King of England, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith and of the Church of England.”
“Yes, I know.”
He cocked his head to the side. “Of course. How could you not?”
“I have a feeling you’re going to be a handful.”
He lifted his chin, but said nothing. Instead, he walked around the room with his hands clasped behind his back. When he stopped at her bookcases, she looked down and nudged the carpet with her toe. More than half the books were accounts of the Tudor dynasty, with more than half of those focused solely on Henry VIII.
“Are you fond of history?” he asked over his shoulder.
“Sometimes.”
“Tudor history?”
“Sometimes.”
She followed him into the kitchen, where his only comment was a wry “No servants?” into the dining room, and up the stairs. He paused in front of the picture in the hallway, a reproduction of Hans Holbein’s Henry VIII after 1537, peered into the small spare bedroom, the bathroom, and then her bedroom, where her costume from the previous night hung from a hook on the wall.
He stepped into the room. “Do you also sometimes have a fondness for dressing as historical figures?”
“It’s a costume for work,” Sugarsin said.
“And what do you do?”
“I’m a dancer.”
He turned. “A dancer. What sort of dance do you perform?” he asked with a smile.
In that moment, Sugarsin could see why the real Henry had charmed a legion of women, even if the construct had only a tenth of the charisma of the real man. “The sort with no clothes.”
One eyebrow raised. “That must be…challenging.”
Sugarsin laughed.
“My dear lady, I fear I’ve been remiss. May I ask your name?”
“Sugarsin.”
The eyebrow raised again. “Sugarsin. I quite like it.”
He paced back and forth while he recited a long poem about the divine right of kings, his voice rising and falling with each line. She read passages from several books on Tudor history, and he scoffed at the differing opinions in each book, until she read from a fairly obscure tome that contradicted nearly everything in the earlier narratives. He took the book from her hand and tossed it aside. “I like it not,” he said.
She settled him into the spare bedroom. According to the manual, he needed several hours of system downtime, a state that resembled sleep (minus the snoring, tossing, and turning) to recharge. When she bid him goodnight, he trailed his fingers through the ends of her hair and lifted his hand to her cheek, but she pulled away before his fingers made contact.
§
“I’d like to see you dance with no clothes.”
“I’d like you to keep writing whatever it is you’re writing and let me finish my coffee.”
He pushed the chair back from the kitchen table and held his hand out over the paper. “It is another poem.”
/> “More divine rights?”
“No, a discussion of children and their fathers. Tell me of your father.”
Sugarsin set down her coffee mug. “I never knew him.”
“Are you a bastard, then?”
She ran her finger along the edge of the table. “Good question. I don’t know. If they were married, my mother never mentioned it. He split when I was two, and I never saw him again.”
“Have you any memories of him?”
“No.”
“’Tis a pity. Are you close with your mother?”
Sugarsin shook her head. Hard. “No. Tell me more about what you’re writing.”
“When are you going to allow me into your bed?”
She choked down a mouthful of coffee. “What?”
“You’ve given me no tasks to perform, no parties to attend to. You have neither a husband nor a lover, so I assume I am here to warm your bed.”
“You assume wrong.”
“Oh? Do your tastes align with commoners, then? Most women would give almost anything to bed a king.”
“I’m not most women. And anyway, several women gave up their lives when they bedded Henry VIII, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“But I am a false king, am I not? Do you prefer to bed women?”
“No, I don’t prefer women.”
“No husband, no women. Are you frigid?”
Sugarsin slapped her hand down on the table. “Enough.”
“As you wish,” he said. “Milady. Will you tell me why you’re so enraptured with Tudor history?”
She shrugged. “The tragedy, I suppose. They had everything, money and power, and it wasn’t enough. It should’ve been, but it wasn’t.”
He didn’t say a word, only nodded in response.
Later, he watched her put makeup on and pack costumes in her bag.
“Why are you taking those, if you dance with no clothes?”
“Because I wear them first, then they come off.”
He touched the sleeve of her Anne Boleyn dress. “Are you not taking this one?”
“No, not tonight.”
Sing Me Your Scars (Apex Voices Book 3) Page 7
