The Android and the Thief

by Wendy Rathbone

  Trev would be well cared for if he could just learn that lesson. To Khim it was obvious. As calculating and manipulative as Dante was, amid possession and whippings, there was also love there. Such a rare thing, for Khim. It must not be squandered.

  A voice came to him in the back of his mind. A birth memory.

  He’s crying. It happens. They want their mommies, sometimes.

  Then another voice. It almost sounded like Trev.

  You’re a human being. And what they did to you is awful.

  Khim had been sitting on the edge of the cage’s neat bed. Now he got up, his fists clenching. An accident of birth. Wasn’t that everyone’s plight? Didn’t everyone cry when they were taken from warmth, nurturing, and peacefulness at the moment of birth, or at any other moment for that matter? Didn’t every child cry, shaking their baby fists against the night? Didn’t everyone deserve a chance to be more than a knot of muscle, flesh, and blood pulled screaming into the vastness of a harsh and heartbreaking but glorious life?

  Maybe Trev should not accept, not settle. Not fold himself into an obedient slave for the reward of less drama, more peace. Maybe Khim had been wrong. Maybe he should not have pulled away from him.

  But for love, his greatest desire was to see Trev stop hurting, stop suffering. Khim would give anything to help him get what he had not been able to accomplish for himself.

  Thoughts at war, Khim began to pace again.

  SOMEONE FROM the hotel, not a Damico, came into the dungeon and brought Khim food. He had on the white uniform of the kitchens. He did not speak.

  It surprised Khim that after he ate and assessed his body, he detected no zotic effects. No one came to scatter the smoke of zotic over his face. No one came to drag him to the shower to wash and prepare him. No one came to brush stardust into his skin and paint his eyes.

  Well, Dante did say he had other plans for Khim.

  Khim lay back on the bed and waited.

  He felt the glass over his heart, newly formed, thin like digital paper. Within the structure he’d built for himself was a hollow man, his insides never fully grown, just enough to function. Enough to breathe, to become an efficient killer. A nonquestioning soldier, an obedient slave. It was fine to be someone with very little concern. He didn’t have to question. He didn’t have to feel. There was a strange peace within, as if he were a monk who’d attained a quest and reached a higher pinnacle of being. He could float, and contentment would leak into him, serene, addictive, the right way to be.

  But now behind that new thin glass, when he tried to find his way back to that, things came at him—images, feelings, a rush—a torrent of thoughts flooding in, filling the crevices, the corners, the empty long halls of his being.

  Storms crested inside him, filled with activity. He saw himself turning on a red velvet couch, coming up and grabbing the man behind him, twisting the head. Killing outside of combat. He saw guards rush him. Felt the sudden pain, not only of the rape, but of the beating. In hurtling winds came prison scenes. Trev looking up at him, wondering why Khim hated him but still chasing off the bullies. Trev smiling, Trev commanding. How Khim felt when he followed him, like all the reason in the world lay in the heart of that man. All the things he ever wanted, ever needed, were in that voice since his own conditioning had broken, since all his peace and inner monk’s silence had vanished.

  More images swamped him. He had killed three more men and given no thought to it until Trev’s voice woke him, turned him, brought him back into a kind of desperate light he’d been craving without knowing it.

  Khim was broken, wounded in places he’d never before felt, but Trev’s presence pieced him back together, lit the way.

  When he remembered their kiss, he could not breathe. Such a short time ago—was it only yesterday? And yet it was forever etched upon him, as was their night together. Last night. Trev asking to touch him, Trev wanting to “just feel.”

  And Khim wanting the same.

  More than anything, he wanted to feel that again. Trev in his arms, so easy-tempered and affectionate. The focused desire of his kisses. The slippery but firm body pressed to his.

  Trev the thief. Trev the acrobat. Trev the youngest Damico son and the smartest, most sensitive of the clan.

  Khim had fused the glass around himself in a perfect, seamless bubble. But the world outside had already infected him. He’d brought the thunder of it inside with him. The rain, the flowers, the hearths of passion. All the spilling inward, a swirl of books, fanned playing cards, singing sentries, stolen fliers, and Trev’s dark eyes and sunlit smiles.

  The glass no longer protected him. His conditioning was gone and could not be reconstructed. He heard Trev, standing in the pale, magnified light of Arch’s back porch, say, “You seem different now.”

  The careful glass was cracking again. But this time it was barely there, not strong, hardly a breath between Khim and the world. A mist dissipating.

  Khim folded his hands in front of him. Stopped pacing. Leaned his head down.

  It was impossible for him to accept this situation now. He needed to think. Think.

  But it was so hard now. Alone. Broken.

  Trev did deals. Trev would make a plan. Swift and creative, smart and outrageous.

  What to do? It was hard to think with no one to tell him.

  It was hard to think over the sound of his own sobs.

  NO ONE came.

  Khim finally slept a little. In his rest, his mind relaxed. Thoughts formed. The subconscious mind began to work. Even before he woke, he was thinking. Logistics. Contingencies. Outlines. Oh-so-fine dreams of escape in neon-blue backlit alleys surrounded by stars. In starships made of fire. Beyond the folds of space, he floated, Trev at his side.

  Khim woke and waited for his food to come. It seemed like such a long time before the door at the far end of the dungeon opened and the white-clad kitchen boy entered.

  When Khim heard the door, he sat quietly on the floor by the opening at the bottom where the tray slid in. He folded his legs in front of him, placed his hands together before him as if in a meditative position. The boy came forward. When he was directly in front of the bars, Khim said, “Is the food drugged?”

  “No.”

  “Why not? Why is there no one else here?”

  Slowly, shyly, the boy, who could not have been more than seventeen, said, “After the murder they were all taken somewhere else. Too many cops, I guess. The place has been closed for a while, but I hear they’re going to open again. Very soon.”

  Khim’s stomach convulsed at the thought. “I will hopefully be out of here by then.”

  The boy, whose hair was very curly and brown under his white uniform hat, said solemnly, “By the looks of you, I thought you were a performer. I thought you were a sex android.”

  “If I were, wouldn’t I be on zotic and out of my mind?”

  “I don’t know if I should be talking to you.”

  “If I were truly dangerous, they wouldn’t be sending you down here alone with food, would they?”

  “Oh, I’m not alone. There are guards in the hall.”

  It was good information, and Khim filed it away for later. They probably sent the boy in for a good laugh. Or to test them both. To see what a boy of seventeen would do in a situation like that seemed rather cruel. But Khim had been surrounded by cruelties all his life and was not surprised.

  The boy said, “Stand back, or I won’t slide the food under the door.”

  Khim obediently got up and moved to the bed.

  The boy quickly bent and slid the tray partway under the bars. Then he straightened and backed quickly away.

  Khim’s metal hand twitched. He might’ve been able to grab him. But then what? To mask his disappointment, he asked, “What is your name?”

  “Cody.”

  “You don’t have to be afraid of me, Cody. I promise.”

  Cody’s face reddened very slightly before he turned and ran from the room.

  Khim thought
he heard laughter in the hall.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  TREV DID not sleep the day away as the Damico family usually did. He sat in the living room with the windows darkened, feet up on the couch—which Dante had always forbade them to do—and stared at nothing. The desolate shadows of the sculptures hovered over him. The fountain by the front door, with the embracing angels, clattered.

  All the sounds and sights that he’d grown up with, grown used to, now defined a horrible, luxurious sort of despair.

  The front door was locked against him, as were all the doors, programmed to deny him any exit except by permission of Dante. He had already tried to leave once, had not realized Dante had been standing in the hall, facing the room.

  “Where are you going?” Dante asked.

  “To the House of Xavier, of course. To see Khim.”

  “We just came from there.”

  “I don’t care. I want to go back. See where he is, how you’re treating him.”

  “You are forbidden to go there.”

  “I can’t see him?”

  “No.”

  “Ever?”

  “No.”

  “That’s not right, and you know it!”

  “What’s right is that you need to forget about him,” Dante said, coming into the room. He was dressed in a sleeping gown, but he still appeared formal and foreboding.

  “How can I do that? He means everything to me.”

  Dante frowned. He came up to the couch but did not sit. “You escaped a prison together. You formed a bond in the heat of the moment. It’s not real. He’s not anyone you need to concern yourself with anymore.”

  Trev sat up straighter, angry. “Who do you think you are to tell me what’s real? You live a life of lies.”

  “All life is a lie. It’s what you do with it that counts. Be smart, Trev. You are the smartest of all my children.”

  “I won’t work for you. You can threaten me all you want, whip me, but I won’t work for you ever again.” He gazed up at his father, the darkness all around though the day continued bright and alive outside.

  “You’re angry right now. I understand. Still in shock. This will all pass. My son, don’t you know everything I do for you is out of love?”

  “It is not love!” Trev twisted away on the couch, feeling very much like a child instead of the man he had the right to be.

  Dante chose not to argue but said instead, “You have everything here. All luxury. All that you could want or need. What is missing that you need to leave all this so badly?”

  “Right now? Khim is missing.”

  “Khim is not—”

  “He’s what I want. Provide it and I’ll shut up.” His words surprised him. He sounded very much like his father in that moment in voice, in command.

  “Is it an android you want? I can have one purchased for you if that is the price for you to stay here with us.”

  Imploringly, “You never hear a word I say! I don’t want an android!”

  “And you don’t hear me. I have told you this feeling you have will pass. Maybe you shared a moment. It is nothing in the whole span of your life. I will not allow you to throw it all away for that… that thing.”

  “We shared more than a moment,” Trev said. “And you would deny me that thing in the same way you deny all your children. We are things for you to control, to manipulate. Now you tell me that thing, as you so insultingly call him, is nothing, when he is everything to me.”

  “I am tired of this, Trevor. Sit and think for a day. That is what I ask. We will continue this discussion tonight.”

  “It won’t make any difference. You never change,” Trev mumbled.

  But Dante was gone, and Trev was not sure whether his father had even heard him or really cared.

  Now he sat in the shadows of a house that did not belong to him, in a life he had never fully embraced.

  After a while he got up and headed to his room on the second floor. He had to pass by the punishment room, and still, even after everything he’d been through, his skin prickled. The whippings… the gentle wiping away of the tears afterward. He remembered it all in too much horrific detail. Today it had been Vance in there, punished for speaking out of turn. A grown man, subjected to the demands of the father.

  Trev had not seen Vance since his return. He figured he was in his room now, nursing the pain on his back, probably blaming Trev for everything, including Vance’s own insolence. Trev tried not to care—they had never been friendly—but he could not help but believe that even Vance, whom he hated, was a victim of their father’s brutal conditioning. All any of them had ever tried to do was gain Dante’s approval and love in any manner they could, even if it meant sometimes being cruel to each other.

  As Trev moved quietly down the dark hall toward the entrance of his own room, the door opposite his opened. Light came out of that room, elongating the shadows in the hall.

  Breq stood tangled among them. “Trev,” he said.

  Breq was not wearing his suit anymore, but instead had on loose shorts and a T-shirt that looked two sizes too big.

  Trev stopped. They stared at each other. Then Breq said, “You blew it big time, bro.”

  “I don’t care.” Anger flared again. “And you’re an ass to me and always have been, so what do you care?”

  “I was going to say thank you for saving my life,” Breq said impatiently. “You and the android—uh, Khim—could have gotten away. He is that strong. You could have left me and Vance for dead, and no one would have caught up to you. You guys were doing good. I only caught you because I have a friend in that town who saw your fancy flier. We checked it out on a hunch.”

  Trev balked. He could see the bruises in the shapes of handprints on Breq’s exposed throat. “Even if it meant escaping, do you think I would have done that? Ordered the murders of my own brothers? Made Khim, who I care about, kill for me? Who do you think I am? And Khim… he’s not some tool.”

  Breq began to wave his hand to get Trev to stop. “I know. I know.”

  “Did you ever know me, Breq?”

  “That’s just it. We all did. We all do. That’s why the rest of us are jealous. Always the smartest and brightest, Trev.”

  “But I—”

  “You’re Father’s favorite,” Breq interrupted. “Sure, we hate you.” He smiled to soften his words. “And that moral compass of yours—what are we supposed to think? It’s going to get you killed. It’s already gotten you into so much trouble. The rest of us look to avoid that at all cost.”

  Trev felt his hands form into fists. He wanted to hit. He wanted to fight. Breq’s words did nothing to comfort him. “You were there at the Rainspeer, the night Khim was. I remember you guys talking about it at dinner the day before I went to prison.”

  “Yes. I didn’t see everything. But let’s go into my room and I’ll tell you.”

  Trev hesitated, then walked into the filtered light of Breq’s room. He had been in there only a few times in his life, since his brother was so adamant about his privacy.

  It was a little bit of a mess—clothing strewn over chairs, gadgets on a desk, walls lined with shelves holding leftover childhood items like starship models, electric-light spheres, old rocks and seashells he’d collected as a kid. The bed was big and all black—the sheets, pillowcases, even the coverlet. An alcove to the right led to a private bath. All the bedrooms of Dante’s estate had private baths.

  Trev found a leather-back chair and sat. Breq sat on the foot of his bed.

  “The House of Xavier isn’t a nice place,” Breq began.

  “I gathered.” Sarcasm.

  “It’s completely off the map. Only for the extremes in tastes, designer drugs, designer sex workers, designer androids. There’s a huge clientele for the parties it hosts.”

  “What about your tastes? You go there,” Trev stated flatly.

  “I am one of five managers. But I don’t ‘go’ there. We don’t dip into the family goods. You know that. Dad doesn’t
allow that.”

  “I know, no drugs, we don’t get to keep what we steal. It’s all sold, all in constant motion, constant turnover.”

  Breq nodded. “I was there that night. I didn’t see everything that happened, but I heard the commotion. I didn’t know what Khim was, that he wasn’t what we bought him for. He was… so beautiful. The first chosen off the stage to come into the crowd. Everyone there wanted… well.” He cleared his throat. “There was a crowd around him. I admit it was probably too much, even for someone trained in that sort of thing.”

  Trev winced and couldn’t help the fresh tears that blurred his vision. “You let that happen.”

  Breq shrugged. “What was I supposed to think? When we heard the screams, me and Vance came running, but it was too late. One of our top clients was already dead on the ground at Khim’s feet. A broken neck. The guards rushed in and started beating Khim. He did that thing, like when you called him off me, where he curls into the ground, you know.”

  Trev couldn’t look at him. He nodded. “That’s when he’s trying to get his control back. He knows he’s not allowed to harm humans, except on orders. He was in war for ten years. That’s all he knew. They sold him when he wasn’t of use to them anymore.”

  “Well, the military sucks, then, because Khim came to us as a sex model. And with his looks, who would have thought otherwise? Plus, that night the shipment of zotic that we give all the slaves, all the workers, was different. Diluted. Someone had diluted the batch on the seller’s end, obviously for more profit. It wore off. If not for that, Khim would probably not have remembered that night or all the rest to come. And he wouldn’t have had any strength to fight. But after all the fuckups, all Dad could do at that point was use his influence to keep Khim alive.”