by Beth Ryan
She raised her hand, brushing her hair out of her face. However, she didn’t move anything else. She didn’t push herself to get up, or change the odd angle of her legs where they were twisted under her.
Even at eight years old, I’d known that something had gone terribly wrong. There was a horror hidden in her features that I didn’t miss.
“It’s okay,” she’d rasped out.
Her hands were reaching out to grab her legs, and still, half her torso lay across my lap. When she grabbed at her pants, patted at her thighs, concern grew within me.
“I shouldn’t have,” I told her. “You’re hurt.”
“It’s okay. You haven’t done anything wrong.”
She hadn’t denied something was wrong with her. I still had her blood on my hands, and staining my pants. I had my mother in my arms, immobile from the waist down.
“Mama,” I gasped. “Mama, I’m so sorry.”
“This is not your fault, Nathan.” She said the words so fiercely, grabbing my shoulders and staring up at me from her weak position. She was wrong, though, and I knew it.
I’d heard of the horror stories. I’d watched the lesson videos in class that warned what might happen to people who tried to cut out their trading chips. There was so much damage that could be done at the top of the spine, to both the mind and the body. Damage that couldn’t be undone.
Inside, she was still the same woman who had raised me. However, because of my hand, she was now paralyzed.
“If you want to blame someone, you can blame your father.”
“I don’t...”
My hushed words trailed off. I tried to think of a man I could call my father. I couldn’t remember meeting anyone who fit the description. I knew, from seeing other families and talking about it in class, that I had to have had a father at some point. He had to exist. My mother never talked about him, though, so I’d always figured he must be dead.
Her words put me at a loss, unable to picture whoever it was she had blamed for the mess we were in.
“I hope you never meet him,” she’d said. Her eyelids were drooping. She looked tired, and laying there on my lap with her limbs at odd angles didn’t look comfortable. “Your father is a terrible man. He is the reason we are here. He is responsible for what has happened. Nate, I know you are scared, but I still need you to help me. Now more than ever.”
So I’d done as she’d asked. She’d been careful with her words as she guided me through the process. I’d been careful with her as I used all the strength I had inside me to drag her closer to the computer. The code had already been written out, though I doubted she was the one who had written it. She’d vanished two days before and come back with what looked like relief, after spending weeks running from something I couldn’t see—my father, and whatever that letter had said, I’d surmised in the many years afterward.
With the cord attached to her chip and the code loaded up, she seemed to calm. She didn’t look upset at all that she’d lost the use of half her body. Instead, she’d held me in her arms as we curled up on the floor. She’d sang a song that I could no longer remember the words to. She’d whispered about how things would get better after that, how my father would never be able to find me. How she would do anything to protect me.
I’d fallen asleep listening to her words of comfort and woken up to find her gone. The door to the basement was open, and one of her shoes was left wedged on the wooden staircase. I wondered how she’d managed to drag herself up those stairs without making a sound. I’d always wonder if that had been the most difficult part of her escape, or if leaving me behind had hurt in any way.
I hadn’t gone to look for her. I was smarter than that. The effort she’d put into walking away from me, especially without the use of her legs, was all the confirmation I needed that she wouldn’t be coming back.
There was still blood on my hands, and the scalpel on the floor, but from that point on, I was alone in life. An orphan, though my mother was not dead.
I shut my eyes against the images. My mother didn’t exist anymore. There was no Eleanora Donovan to remember. No clever but tortured woman to cry over as she forced me to cut her open with shaking hands and blurred vision. She’d stopped existing ten years ago.
Reminding myself of the client now waiting for my help, I took a stabilizing breath. I knew now what I’d done wrong when I’d cut her open. From that day forward, I’d thrown myself into learning how to avoid the mistakes I’d made that night, both with the knife and with my trust. I’d learned from my mother that I shouldn’t get attached to people who would vanish the moment I turned my back.
It was a lesson I refused to forget.
8
By the time I pulled myself together and turned back to catch Cooper’s eye, he was looking away. He appeared more rigid than he had a few moments before, if that were possible. I marveled at how wound up he could get, even as I reminded myself it wasn’t my job to unwind him.
I pulled the sharp knife out, along with the bandages and antiseptic tucked away beneath it. I could see from the corner of my eye as Cooper drew back at the sight of the blade. I lifted it up between us so that it was in plain view. The little spot of rust on the handle near my thumb was the only sign of how long I’d owned the thing.
“There is no way around this,” I told him. “It’s the only option. Are you certain?”
“I—” He paused, conflicted. I was moments from putting the knife back in the box, when I caught his firm nod. He looked more like he was trying to convince himself than anything. I ignored my own observations, taking the jerk of his head at face value. “Yes. I have to do this.”
“Alright,” I said, running a hand through my hair.
I wasn’t shaking anymore. The world wasn’t spinning. All at once, what had seemed like intense excitement and nausea vanished. The CAPS had left my system.
I was ready to begin.
I pointed a finger at Cooper and moved it in a little circle to indicate that he should turn around again. He did, still stiff as a board on the corner of my bed. It crossed my mind that no one had ever looked so very uncomfortable in my bed before. I squashed the thought before it could devolve into places I wasn’t allowed to go.
I didn’t need to remind myself that this was a client, a man who was vulnerable and had come to me for help. I could see it in his actions. Letting me near his neck had to be a terrifying prospect. The wrong kind of cut, and he’d have a severed spine. The wrong kind of cutter, and his entire mind could be wiped or downloaded for nefarious uses. The sort of person who subjected themselves to this process was desperate in ways I prayed I would never be.
Cooper flinched and then shivered when I applied the antiseptic. He continued to twitch as my fingers brushed against his skin. I paused, knowing better than to press the knife into the flesh of someone so jittery. A wrong move from him could do just as much damage as I could have done when I was still enduring the CAPS effects.
I waited a moment to see if he would calm, but the shivers and twitches continued. He had every right to his tension, though it wouldn’t do us any good. When it became clear that he wouldn’t settle down anytime soon, I laid my palm against his spine to hold him still.
He froze. The way he swallowed was nearly audible. Under my hands, I could feel the taut muscles shifting.
We stayed like that for several moments, motionless, as I applied pressure to the back of his neck. His skin was warm and soft beneath my hand. Where my fingers pressed into the side of his throat, I could feel his heart racing.
I was about to pull away, to suggest another course of action—any other course of action. Then he exhaled. The tension broke. He still wasn’t moving, but it wasn’t the same as it had been before. The muscles that had him jumping and flinching unintentionally were no longer so tight. The anticipation had vanished.
I imagined that if I moved my hand at all, that would change. If I brushed my thumb over the first vertebrae or even shifted my fingers, he wo
uld tense up once more. The temptation to do so was more instinct than thought. I ignored in in favor of getting the job done while I still had the chance.
In a practiced move, I brought the blade down with my free hand and slid it along the pearled skin between my ring and middle finger. Blood beaded up.
Unlike previous clients, he made no noise against the pain of the cut. Some of them would whimper when I did this. One had even tried to curse me in a foreign language. Cooper Hall did nothing. He didn’t appear aware that he’d been sliced open at all. He just continued to stare at the wall across from him, unaffected.
In an effort to keep the bloodstains off his white shirt, I pressed a cloth to the wound. Grabbing his hand to hold it in place, I set to work. Lifting the lid of the second box revealed a long, black cable with two different ends. Plugging one side of it into the computer on my desk, I dragged the free end toward Cooper Hall.
With careful fingers, I nudged the wound open. Beneath flesh and blood, I caught sight of the metal square that ruled our lives. As I pressed deeper into his neck, Cooper’s shoulders bunched up again. I stopped moving, giving him time to relax before brushing my fingers against the trading chip inside him. The metal wasn’t a part of him. He couldn’t feel when I touched it, that much I knew. Still, he seemed to sense when it happened.
He inhaled, sharp and shaking.
My own breath caught in my throat. I struggled to keep my hands steady as I wiped the blood away from the chip’s port. Meant to be used only at birth and death to identify a person, the port was the only analog connection to who Cooper Hall really was. One wrong move, and I could sever that connection or damage the nerves that had grown in and around the chip.
A part of me wanted to get this over with, to rush through it without regard to the delicate nerves. I wanted to save both of us the intense intimacy, though it was unavoidable. His blood on the tips of my fingers was red and wet. It was a constant reminder that I was working on a living human. The metal inside was the most vulnerable spot in his body, and my blunt fingernails were pressed up against it without anything else between us.
I took things as slow as I could bear, pressing the cable’s open end into the port with careful precision. The line of wiring ran from Cooper’s back to my desk, where his file was loading up.
As I stepped away and rubbed my fingers clean of the sticky red that clung to them, Cooper turned his head a fraction before hissing in discomfort. The cord moved with him. It brushed along his spine and rustled across the floor, the only sound in the room. Not for the first time, I decided I was pleased with finding such a long connection cable for a decent price. Clients weren’t good at sitting still when it came time to get the job done.
I pressed a few keys to start up the program I was using to pass the profile onto the trading chip. Unlike the cord, which I’d bought in secret, the software I was using had been stolen outright. Without it, this endeavor would not be possible.
“Almost there,” I murmured.
The whir of the computer filled the air as information passed from machine to man. The progress bar moved with the reluctant speed of raw procrastination. The only sounds in the room were those of technology, hushed breathing, and a distant scream that was cut off almost before it began.
I unbent from my position hovering over the keys and turned toward him. It wasn’t until I felt just how much he was shaking that I realized how close we were. The tremors that wracked his body were like small earthquakes beneath his skin, and I understood his fear.
Those who were caught with fake profiles were served no better than those who created them. The government had never looked fondly on anyone who attempted to avoid their regulations. There was real reason to be filled with terror.
Despite his fear, he remained silent.
I raised my hand to rest on Cooper’s shoulder. He turned his head toward me, and the cable slithered along the wooden floor. Before I could stop myself, I was squeezing his shoulder in an offer of comfort.
The gentle exhale against my pinkie finger caused gooseflesh along my arm. I imagined I could feel his lips brushing against the skin there as well. I glanced down to find his gaze tilted up toward me. Our eyes met. I couldn’t move. My lungs ached, and I swallowed against something tight in my throat. He sucked in another shuddering breath.
Neither of us said a word. Even if I could manage to say something without sounding broken, I wouldn’t know what to say. This was different than comforting a worried client or putting their mind at ease in order to tease information from them. There was something about this. Something that was more than I’d ever had to deal with before.
We both jumped at the ding of a completed transfer. My hand left his shoulder like it had been burned. His eyes wrenched away from mine in much the same manner. I felt a sharp stab in my gut that no weapon could have inflicted. A rush of shame washed over me as I turned my back on Cooper Hall and tried to pull myself together.
I felt my claims at professionalism crumbling around me as I fiddled with the computer and kept my face turned away.
He’d come to me for help, but it was clear he didn’t want to show his vulnerabilities. He’d refused to react when I’d cut him open, and he’d remained silent during the procedure, though his body was shaking. Instead of politely ignoring what he didn’t want me to see, I’d drawn it into the open. Like using my scalpel to slice into his neck, I’d laid him bare.
From the reflection in the monitor, I could see that Cooper was still again. His face was blank as he stared out the window. I forced myself to focus, scanning for results of the data transfer rather than signs of emotion on his face. It occurred to me as I worked that I hadn’t seen him so closed off until this moment.
With a few more taps of the keyboard, I found that the file I’d built for him was fully integrated with his chip. Another few minutes of working, and the trigger shifted from my computer to my glasses. From there, I could kill or complete his new file with just the press of a button. That was something I’d had to do more than once to keep the profilers off my trail, and I’d learned the hard way to not take chances. Clients weren’t always as smart as I hoped they would be.
“Well, that’s step one finished,” I said.
I was louder than I needed to be. There was something about breaking the silence between us that felt sacrilegious.
“What’s step two?” Cooper asked. He still wasn’t looking at me.
I didn’t reply right away. Instead, I stepped up behind him again and placed a firm hand on his back. I felt his body give an involuntary jump before he forced himself to stay still. With careful fingers, I removed the cable from his neck. It disconnected with a wet squelch and dropped to the floor.
I searched through one of the boxes for the supplies I would need to close the wound. I tossed aside the pain relievers I had stashed there. It was clear that Cooper didn’t need them. There were other odds and ends I’d gathered from the local hospitals. A suture kit, some bandaging, and a handheld 3D printer. Any other day, Cooper would have to deal with a less than pretty fix for his new incision.
Luckily for him, today wasn’t any other day. Today was the one day I’d managed to swipe a handful of skin replacement patches from a poorly watched maternity ward and still had a few left.
With a flourish I pulled out the last true medical advancement we’d had since the world fell apart. The wound all but vanished as I pressed the light mesh over the bloody incision in his neck. The material blended and merged with his skin, looking like he’d grown it himself. There would always be a scar there, but he wouldn’t get an infection or bleed out because of what we’d done here. Unless they were looking for it, no one would ever notice that the incision had been reopened.
I stepped back to give him room. Cooper Hall was quick to button up his shirt and wrap his coat around himself again. It wasn’t all that cold in my building. I got the feeling that he wore the coat as a precaution rather than a need to keep warm. He looked like
he was prepared to flee at a moment’s notice. Whatever was chasing him, it must have been hunting him down hard, if he couldn’t be sure where he’d be from even one minute to the next.
“Settle in,” I told him, toeing off my shoes to emphasize my point. I draped my overcoat across the upturned bucket and snagged the last cigarette from the pack at the window.
Cooper remained on the edge of my bed, unrelenting.
Pointing the long white stick in his direction, I shot him a charming grin. “We’re going to play a game.”
9
The tension in the room doubled under the weight of my words. I waited for the inevitable reaction. He didn’t seem like the kind of client who was willing to joke around. Too high brow and high strung to realize that my words were playful on purpose, meant to keep attention away from our dealings.
“I was under the impression that you were a professional,” he snapped, standing up in a flurry of cloth and indignation. “I don’t have time to waste with your childish games. Finish your job now, or I’m leaving.”
“Sit down,” I said, waving my unlit cigarette in the direction of the bed. I didn’t leave room for argument in the order. The wisp of a man stood straighter, trying to tower over me as though he were the one in charge. As though he were the one who knew all the risks and all the techniques that came with a new profile. “I am the best at what I do. There isn’t anyone more professional than I.”
“I find that hard to believe,” he said. There was real anger in his eyes as we stood toe to toe. The effect of his glower was lost in his shorter stature and my unwillingness to give a damn. “You aren’t any older than I am, you have fewer credits than a common street rat, and you live in a pile of rubble and garbage.”
“So?” I met his challenging gaze, refusing to be cowed by anyone in my own home.
“So, I shouldn’t have come here. I should have looked into other options. I certainly should have realized how incapable you were before you suggested something as banal as a game.”
