by Curtis Hox
She moved closer to his closet door. She didn’t want to just jump out and disturb him. She wanted to respect his privacy ...
“Hutto.”
She heard him jump out of bed and land on the floor with a grunt. “Fuck!” She heard him fumble for the light. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” The slit under the door lit up. “Simone! Is that you?”
“Can I come out?”
“You’re in my closet?”
“It stinks in here.”
The closet door yanked open, and Hutto stood there in his underwear, no shirt, and his hair akimbo. He squinted. He looked half asleep still. She tried not to stare at his perfectly sculpted muscles and his flawless skin.
“Hey.”
“What the crap, Simone?” He stepped away, as if she might jump out at him.
“I just wanted to chat,” she said, emerging out of the stink. “And you need to wash your clothes.”
He smiled. “You can’t knock, I guess.”
“No.”
He sat on his bed. “I was about to fall asleep. I guess you heard: big day coming up.”
“Joss call you?”
He smiled again, and she forgot she was a ghost, and thought she might flirt and secure that boyfriend she thought he’d be. Ever since her last boyfriend she’d been free, but she hadn’t had much time to think about boys, even though she did think about Hutto and what they’d done by the swing set, even though he never brought it up, not once, and she wished he would …
Hutto began talking about how crazy it was they were going to fight in an unsanctioned match and that he was confident he could control his entity. She couldn’t pay much attention, not with him standing there in his underwear.
“Your mom is amazing. She’s really helping us.” He stopped. “Are you listening to me?”
“Uh … your brother … he’s … interesting.”
“He’s from another planet.”
“Intense guy.”
“Sorry if he hurt you.”
“Not bad. I recover fast. My entity’s pride was hurt, though. It’s not used to me being a ghost. Gravity issues and all that.”
“That’s a plus you heal so fast.”
She floated to his desk where he kept some cologne, a comb, paper money, his tablet. She ran a finger over them, as if she might pick an item up. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. You can go back to sleep.”
“You’re a peach.” He crawled into bed, as if the act meant she’d disappear.
“Why did you pick the other one?” she asked.
Hutto paused as he pulled the covers up.
He scrambled to say something witty. But nothing came. “I don’t know, Simone. She seemed more annoyed.”
“You think of me as always annoyed?”
“Well, no. But—”
“—you kissed her.”
“It was you I thought I was kissing.”
She increased in brightness so much that she saw her reflection in his blue eyes. “It was a copy of me, but not all of me, you bozo.”
“Sorry,” he said.
She pulled the collar of her hem down and displayed her brand.
He grinned. “If you’d done that ... I’d have picked you for sure.”
“My mistake.”
He sat all the way up. “What happens if you take off your dress all the way off?”
“What?”
“I mean, you’re a ghost. Does it disappear? Can you get it back?”
She put both hands on her hips and considered doing more than illuminating herself. “You want to see me without my dress on?”
“I mean, on stage that time in school when you ... channeled, you were wearing a cool outfit. Showed your abs and all that. You had it on when you were wearing that dress.”
“The night I died.” She relaxed, the slightest hint of a smile. “You liked it.”
“It was hot.”
“Very.” Her hair flared, as if a strong wind had sprung up.
“So?”
“So what?”
“Let’s see. I mean, that’s what you were wearing that day? Right?”
“Yeah.”
He waited, about to say something else, but he obviously possessed enough discretion to keep his mouth shut. She pulled one arm through her sleeve and out the top, pulled the other, and let her dress fall. It looked like it might crumple into a pile but disappeared in an actual poof. She saw herself in his mirror: a monochrome cobalt girl in a sports bra, hot-shorts, and knee-high boots. She looked hot as hell.
“What about the whips?” he asked.
“I got ‘em. You want to see?”
He nodded, trying to be cool, but now smiling like an idiot at a strip cub.
She snapped her wrists and the whips appeared.
“Oh, hell!” he said. He arranged his blanket to cover what she assumed was the beginnings of an eager chubby. “You’re smokin’!”
“You think?”
She stood there, posing, happy he was staring at her. She was about as sexy as a natural girl could be. He seemed to like that. The packaged girls all ended up looking the same, even the exotic ones—something Simone thought of as a definite liability. In her own way Simone was realer. She just rarely let anyone see it.
“How about I try to give you that kiss now?” he asked.
“You want to kiss me?”
“Yes.”
“Now, after you messed up?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Another grin crossed his face, this one probably designed to make the ladies as pliable as soft leather. “You know what else we could try?”
She flared with blue fire, lines of energy rippling along her arms. “Try what?” The whips slithered like snakes.
“You know.”
“Oh my god, what a perv,” she said. The whips disappeared with a flick. “I’m a ghost, Hutto, if you haven’t noticed.”
“We can try.” He edged toward her. “We’ve done it before.”
She lightened and smiled back at him. “You’d like to do that again, wouldn’t you?”
“I would.”
“I bet.” Her dress appeared. “Keep dreaming. Maybe some other time.” She imitated his grin as she floated toward him, as if she might kiss him. She descended slowly. He backed up into the headboard. She lingered for a second, letting her lips approach in slow motion. His eyes were so wide she saw glimmers of herself in them. Her lips touched his and he jolted. He groaned and tried to suck her in. She enhanced the eruption of contact, letting him enjoy himself.
She even reached down and brushed her hand against his crotch. The contact with him sent up another series of sparks. He groaned again, bucking as if he’d been electrocuted.
As he reached for her to pull her in, she yanked back and smiled.
“That’s all for now,” she said before rocketing up into the ceiling.
* * *
The next morning, even before Coach Buzz arrived, Simone moved through her psy-katas, now practicing with her whips. When the doors slid open and Agent Nable walked in with his repaired cydrone, Iku, Simone paused.
Agent Nable stared forward behind his Mirrorshades, but said nothing. He closed the door, and like the cyborgs he so admired, he walked over to her, stopped, and waited for Iku to follow him inside. “I’ve rebooted it. We have your digital fingerprint. You’ll be blocked if you try again.” Just the slightest tilt of the head suggested he wanted her to try.
“Uh, okay.” She snapped her wrists, and her whips disappeared. “What is it with you and my family? I know my brother hates you.”
She floated across the mat, and the cydrone swiveled its head to follow her. The room was cool, the humidity low, and the pressure high. She couldn’t feel the crispness that meant winter wasn’t far away, but as she moved through the space, she imagined she could feel it. She wanted to feel it, sure. Still, she told herself at least she wouldn’t have to start wearing a jacket.
“Your father helped me understand my un
ique skills with interfacing,” Agent Nable said. “When I joined the Consortium, I chose a different path from the one he had taken. I ended up hunting him.”
“You one of the hardliners?”
“I don’t know what—”
“Alters should be burned at the stake? Is that we are to you? Marshmallows on a stick?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think.”
“You’re just here to babysit?”
“I’m a Consortium-minder and Ghost Hunter operator.”
“But you haven’t captured me.”
“I’m here to make sure—”
“—I don’t do anything too dangerous.” She twirled around a foot off the ground like a demonic dervish. “This must really upset you ... and your toy there.”
Something about Cliff Nable made Simone want to flick his earlobe a hundred times until he ended up crying on the floor. Something about him made her think he would do just that because her family had taken him in—her ambitious but difficult father, her honorable but stubborn brother, her glorious but intolerable mother—and he’d betrayed them. Also, he’d been at Sterling a few days already and hadn’t made any effort to be nice.
“I can handle the assignment.” He stepped aside. “Do you know what a Ghost Hunter can do to an Unperson like you?”
He looked Iku’s way. It moved with such speed she would have stumbled if she’d had a body. Instead, she fluttered backward, just before it halted where she had been.
“This particular model,” Cliff said, “is adept at sniffing out its target like a good hound dog that never loses a scent.” He walked around it, and Simone could swear it was now looking at her like it wanted to bite. “What it does is use a high-powered array of active sensors to immobilize a ghost and erase it bit by bit. I could order it right now to do that, and you’d be gone in ten minutes. Your double would live for eternity in Cyberspace. Whatever geno-pheno-script backup you have would be unusable. They’d destroy it within a year. The Real Death, Simone Wellborn.”
The doors slid open. “Get away from my sister.”
Simone saw her brother Rigon Wellborn slumped in an automated track-chair, like someone with a wasting disease but enough money to buy the best equipment. He was wrapped in a metallic mesh robe the color of lead. He wore his shades over a mesh monk’s hood with a veil.
“Rigon!”
Her mother and Coach Buzz followed him in. Her mother was in her Rejuv body bandages with her head uncovered, Coach Buzz in his Rejuv robe, and here was her brother ... in Rejuv mesh, half alive.
Simone moved as close as she could to him and saw a skeletal form under therapeutic material that glistened with condensation. She could feel the energy emanating off the mesh. It was the most advanced form of mobile husking technology out there, and it was rebuilding him cell by cell every second.
“You look different,” he said.
Because of the hood and veil, all she could see were his blue eyes. “So do you.”
“I’m sorry, Simone.” His voice was raspy, as if he had a bad chest cough. “I wish I could remember what happened ...”
“It’s not your fault you can’t.”
She knew he was agonizing over her condition and the fact his memories of everything that happened after his last genoscript capture were gone. Her mother had told her he’d lost the memories from almost four months of his life. He was never good a keeping up with his scans.
“But I kind of like the chair.” He laughed. He wiggled the track chair, like a new toy. “I can do donuts in this thing.”
“You sound like Dad,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell me about him?” She regretted asking it right away. “I mean ... he’s alive.”
“He made me promise, Simone. He was hoping to win before you became involved. Mom said the minute the Tricad sensed you, though, he made plans to speak with you. It’s all happened so fast.” He looked past her. “And that turncoat over there is threatening you with Real Death.”
His sophisticated chair moved forward on its tracks like a personal tank. He faced Agent Nable and his cydrone as if they were no more threatening than two mall cops.
“Rigon ...” Agent Nable said. “We were just having a—”
Rigon coughed, took a deep, labored breath. “If you threaten my sister again, you and I’ll find ourselves together somewhere remote. We’ll go fishing, maybe. Or hiking. We’ll have a great time. You understand?”
Agent Nable gulped. Simone understood how Consortium agents made threats. Everything was recorded. So Rigon couldn’t say what he meant. He said the opposite. It was legal, and it was crystal clear.
“Where’s your father?” Agent Nable asked.
Yancey moved behind Rigon. “He’s not your concern.”
Agent Nable swung on her, his eerie equanimity gone. “He is my concern! When this ... Program is over, I go back to my job. I’ll find him after.”
Rigon tracked forward some more. Iku rounded on him. “My father gave you a home.”
“He’s a ghost,” Agent Nable replied, “and he’s responsible for all of ... this.” He looked around, looked at Simone. He grimaced as if his soles were on fire. “You Wellborns think you’re special. You think you’re immune to consequences. I’ve now seen what an Alter is. I’d heard rumors. But, this week, I saw those things you summon.”
Simone swore he was about to mewl. Coach Buzz moved to her mother’s side. He looked better than he had since she’d first met him. He also looked like he wanted to take a shot at Agent Nable.
“You have an assignment, Nable,” Rigon said. “When it’s over, I’m sure you’ll get another. I suggest you take it.”
“Clifford, my husband made your career,” her mother said. “What happened to you?”
Cliff looked from Rigon to Yancey to Simone with such disgust all of them understood. He lingered on Simone the most.
He’s afraid of me, Simone thought.
“You spend too much time in your metaverse, Cliff,” Rigon said. His voice had softened just a bit. “That’s dangerous. You need to get back into the real world and see what’s happening. This”—he brandished the nanomesh that was reconstructing him—”technology is just as distancing as what a ghost goes through. You can’t see that, though. And quit staring at my sister.”
“The world will never be as ordered as you want it,” Yancey said. “You should know that by now. The Rogues—”
“—can be dealt with in a rational way!” Agent Nable snapped. He backed away a few steps, aligning himself with his cydrone. He trembled, his normal equanimity gone as he deliberated some action.
Rigon righted his chair. “Agent Nable, if you command that thing ...”
Yancey raised a warning hand. “Don’t you dare.”
“Cliff Nable.” Skippard Wellborn’s voice echoed from across the club. “I think you’re looking for me.”
Everyone saw Simone’s father, Skippard Wellborn, the Unperson Digi-Ghost himself, emerge out of a far corner. The Ghost Hunter activated and launched into an aggressive posture. But her father didn’t seem to care. He came forward, as if it were no more dangerous than a slot machine.
“Hello, everyone.” Skippard looked at Coach Buzz. “You must be Buzzal Vaughn. I’ve heard your father and sister talk about you often. How are they?”
“Taking a break from Sterling, since everything happened. They’re considering leaving the Association.”
“Skippard,” Yancey said. “Get away from it. That thing ...”
“He’ll do it, Dad,” Rigon said.
“No, he won’t. Right, Cliff?” Skippard stopped a few feet away. He was a huge ghost, bigger than before, and even though he was dressed in his standard bath robe, Simone could see how commanding he must have been when alive. “Tell them why you won’t, Cliff. Go ahead.”
“He’s safe,” Agent Nable said.
“What?” Yancey moved to her husband’s side. “You are?”
“I found out it’s official, Yance. Don’t get
mad.”
“Your husband has agreed to help us execute our current objectives with the IGL initiative. He’s back on the Consortium’s clean list.”
“Skippard, what did you do?” Yancey asked.
“You think I’m going to let my little girl be a pawn? Hell no on the high road. I offered myself as the prize—”
“Skippard!”
Simone watched her mother struggle not to lose her cool right there in front of everyone. It’s what she imagined used to happen at home before her father left, when her mother had someone to worry over besides her. Simone looked around and wondered if the Glad Club was about to get demolished.
“You can’t afford to lose another contest, Dad,” Rigon said. “This next one—”
“—will be my last, if I lose. I stipulated that if I do, my wife and daughter will not be sought as prizes for at least five years. The Consortium agreed this was smart, and the word in Cyberspace is that the Rogues accepted right away.”
“This contest is between you and the Rogues now ... and you negotiated?” Simone asked.
“Yes, he did,” Rigon said.
“Yes, he did,” her mother said.
Her father’s half smile hid what looked like annoyance. “They want me. I set the Protocols and created the Guardians. I’m the one who can change them. I own the decryption key buried in the hidden vaults.” He paused. “The Rogues have control of the IGL, which means they have an organized place to compete with humans. Last month’s incursion at Sterling was as much about reminding the Consortium what could happen if the Consortium doesn’t play along as it was about winning the contest. So the Rogues have the Consortium brass in a bind, and since the Conflict has always been about this final confrontation, I realize the time has come. I’ll face them in the arena.”
“No, Dad!” Simone said.
“That’s too risky,” Yancey said. “You told me. Your entities—”
“She’s right,” Rigon said.
He waved them away. “My entities will come when I call.” He smiled. “I may not have a body, but do I have something my entities want.”
“A chance to kill your double,” Simone said.
He nodded.
“But isn’t SWML too strong?” Yancey asked.
“I have a few tricks up my sleeve. I built them, Yance. They’re my creations.”
