Accidental Creatures (14 page)

“Hey! If you’re going to fight, take it outside,” shouted Mandy from behind the counter. “Don’t destroy my store!”

Coral looked like she was trying to decide how to hit Helix without getting tangled in her arms. Chango rushed forward and interposed herself between them. “We’re leaving,” she said, grasping Helix’s lower left elbow, pushing her along as she sidled past the vatdivers. Helix broke from her grasp, and turned once more to face them. “Go outside,” said Chango, pushing her back. “Go play in the rain some more. It’ll hardly be worse than the beating they’ll give you if you keep this up.”

Helix hesitated, staring blankly at her as the rage faded from her eyes. She nodded and went outside.

“Sorry,” Chango told Mandy as she picked the shattered cereal box up off the floor and took it to the counter to pay for it. As she stood there she was aware of the vatdivers muttering amongst themselves and staring, but they troubled her no further.

oOo

“That was really some stunt you pulled yesterday,” Chango said as they sat in the garden behind Mavi’s house. “I don’t know what got into you. First the thing with the rain, and then that fight with Coral. You know after what you told me about hiding out at your father’s place all those years, I was really worried about what would happen when you had to deal with the vatdivers. Now I’m beginning to think they better watch out for you.”

Helix shrugged and scratched her arm in remembrance of the rain’s touch. She looked around the garden. The weather had cleared, and it was a bright, warm day, still a little humid as the sun burned off the lingering damp. If there was any growth medium in the rain, it hadn’t done these plants any harm. Green, luxuriant growth surrounded them, making the air heavy with the scent of life and death. “What are those?” she pointed at the tall, bushy, silver-leaved plants growing in a clump in one corner.

“That’s mugwort, and it’s pretty out of control, but Mavi likes it. She says it brings visions.”

Helix leaned back on her upper hands. The ground beneath her palms was warm and springy. It was a nice feeling, being enclosed like this in a sea of green, cushioned in the quiet by the gentle humming of insects. About a foot from her knee lay a dead sparrow; feet curled delicately against the grey belly. A thin bodied bee hovered nearby, and flies took turns crawling into her body to lay their eggs. Chango was saying something about marking, or marks, but Helix wasn’t listening. She was thinking about what would be found in this garden in November, the bones...

“-And so I was thinking, you’d be an ace scanning once you got the hang of it, and in the meantime, you could be the stall.” Chango paused to see Helix looking at her blankly. “You know, distract them.”

“Distract who?”

“The mark. Are you all right? You feeling okay?”

“Yeah. It’s nice back here. No one can see us.”

“You’re right,” said Chango, leaning closer to her, and taking her lower right hand. She cradled it in her own small hand, splaying her fingertips across Helix’s broad digits. Chango’s hand looked very small indeed there, next to her own, and it was warm and light, like a little brown bird. “Do you know that you’re very beautiful?” she asked Helix.

Helix stared at her. Her face felt warm, and her hands tingled. A small smile crept across her lips of its own volition. “Beautiful...” she whispered, looking away.

“That's right,” Chango said, gently turning Helix's chin so she was facing her again. Chango searched her face, her two color eyes bright with intent. “Your eyes, your face, your hair,” she glanced down and then up again, and she smiled, “your body; it all goes together, and let me tell you,” she said, locking her gaze to Helix's, her face dead serious except for her shining eyes, “it is one majestic fucking harmony.” Helix blinked, and then Chango was leaning over, her face coming closer and closer to hers. Alarmed, Helix tried to back away, but there wasn’t much of anyplace for her to go. There was something crashingly immanent in the air around them but for the life of her she couldn’t figure out what it was, or what Chango was trying to do, and then she felt her lips on hers, another mouth, speaking to her mouth in a moist, sweet language mouths know. She lifted her arms around Chango to hold her, to steady her, to feel with curious fingers the fabric of Chango’s t-shirt sliding against her skin underneath. They lay down on the ground together, there in the garden, and somehow they just lost track of whose body was whose. Chango’s tongue got into Helix’s mouth, a large, slippery serpent, flickering about, and Helix’s lower hands found some way under that t-shirt and she stroked her; smooth warm skin covered with fine, fine hairs, all but invisible to her fingertips. When Chango reached her hand up to cup one of Helix’s breasts, she jumped at the unexpected jolt which overrode all fear at being touched, being seen, being known — an electric bolt which ran lengthwise through her body, and threw her mind into some other place, where for once she was not at odds with herself, but was just what she wanted to be, and did just what she wanted to do.

One afternoon when Chango had gone down to Greektown to scan codes, Helix went on her own to Hyper’s house. “Helix,” he said in surprise, pushing the screen door open to let her in. “Where’s Chango?”

“She went to Greektown,” Helix said, stepping through the doorway.

“Oh.” Hyper raised his eyebrows meaningfully. “Codes.” He turned to his workshop. “Come on in,” he said over his shoulder. “I was just rewiring a telephone.”

Helix sat on a stool across from him as he dismantled an ancient push button phone. “I’m not sure what I’m going to do with this yet,” said, frowning down on it. When in doubt, take it apart.” His fingers jabbed the buttons idly, producing a ragged tune. “Hey.” He looked at her. “If I got three more of these, I could make you a musical instrument. A keyboard only you could play.”

Helix made a face. “I don’t think so.”

“No? Oh well,” he shrugged. “So what’s up?”

Helix lifted her shoulders to mimic his gesture and bit her upper lip. “If someone were to apply for a job, as a vatdiver, how would they go about it?”

“Someone wants a job as a vatdiver?” Hyper leaned forward, staring at her, grinning in amazement. “Are you sure?”

She nodded her head. Hyper’s eyebrows arched and he gazed at the ceiling with a long drawn out sigh. When he looked back at her it was with a quizzical expression. “Why do you want to dive?”

Helix opened her mouth, but she didn’t know what to say.

“You don’t know, do you? You just want to do it.”

She nodded and then shook her head. “It’s a job, that’s all. I need a job.”

“Uh-huh.” Hyper nodded faintly, and returned his attention to the telephone. “Well, if someone wanted to apply for a job in the vats, they’d have to place an application with personnel. Someone could do that either by going to the personnel office at GeneSys or by filing the application over the holonet.” His eyes slid across the table to his transceiver headset, and back to her. “You can use it, if you want.”

Helix sat in the bare, tiled examination room, clutching a flimsy paper gown about her. The air was chilly, and she shivered.

The door opened and a tall, white-coated figure entered. “Helix Martin?” he said, glancing at a mylar form on a clipboard.

“Yes,” she shifted nervously on the examination table.

“Stand up please, and turn around.”

Helix turned her back to him, and felt his hands exploring her shoulders, her back, her arms... “Candidate possesses obvious mutations; quadruple arms and overdevelopment of the canine molars,” he murmured into his transceiver. “You can sit down again,” he said to her. She climbed back onto the examination table, and he fastened a monitor to her naked back. “Heart-rate slightly elevated,” he said, gazing at the readout. “Are you nervous?” he asked her, smiling. She nodded.

“There's no need to be, it's just a routine examination. I'm going to take some blood now, okay?” She shrugged. “Okay.”

He pricked her finger with a sharp tube that drew her blood up into it, set the tube in a labelled capsule, and handed her an empty beaker. “All I need now is a urine sample. There's a rest room down the hall. You can get dressed first. Just leave the sample on the shelf in the bathroom. The personnel clerk will be getting in touch with you in a few days.”

“That's it?”

“That's it. Fill this, and you can go. Not as bad as you expected, huh?” She shook her head, and after he left, scrambled gratefully into her clothes. oOo

Chango pushed mashed potatoes around on her plate and wondered what could be taking Helix so long. She said she had to run an errand for Hyper, but she didn’t say what it was, and when Chango offered to go with her, she refused. For that matter, she hadn’t been able to get much out of Hyper about this errand either. He only mumbled something about machine parts and went back to his welding. They were living with Hyper now. Mavi needed the pink room for Hugo. She and Helix made a bed for themselves among the cushions in the front room, and Chango made sure the door was locked.

“Hey,” said a voice beside her. Chango looked up from her demolished plate special to see Helix standing there, still wearing the raincoat, but unbuttoned now. It was a start.

“Hey, what took you so long? Have a seat.”

Helix sat down across from her, smiling widely, her fangs poking out from her lips.

“What’s got you so happy, huh?”

Helix shrugged, her eyes flickering uneasily over Chango’s face. “It’s a nice day out. And it’s good to see you.”

“Huh. I don’t know. You’ve got what I’d call a shit eating grin on you. You up to something?”

Helix shook her head slowly, then took one of Chango’s hands in hers, brought it to her mouth and started chewing lightly on her fingers.

“Hey, stop it. Not in here,” regretfully she pulled her hand back.

“No? Okay.” Helix folded her four hands primly on the table. “So what are we doing tonight?”

“Think you’re ready to go to the bar? There’s a band playing at Josa’s tonight.”

“Hmm.”

“I’ll be with you. And Hyper said he’s going.”

Helix nodded. “Okay.” And then, to Chango’s amazement, she took off her raincoat. “You were right you know,” she said. “People aren’t as bad as I thought they’d be.”

oOo

Chango clung to one of Helix’s hands and squirmed through the crowd at Josa’s. It was fine for her, she was good at slipping through crowds, but Helix kept getting caught on people. By the time they got to the bar, she’d had the best possible introduction to a fair percentage of the Vattown population, and was looking pretty panicky. “Sorry about that,” said Chango, “It’s kind of crowded.”

Helix shook her head, and laughed. “That was so weird!” she said, looking more like the victim of a roller coaster ride than a person actually terrified. She’d left her raincoat at Hyper’s, wearing just the green polysuit and a blue sylk swing tunic they found yesterday behind Clothzillion’s. Her color was high, her eyes sparkling. With a twinge of pride, Chango noticed that other people were staring at her too.

“People were all pushed up against me,” said Helix. “No one could really see me. But I felt them,” she leaned forward and ran a hand up Chango’s arm. “like I felt you.”

Chango’s eyes widened. This was a far cry from the person who’d fled in terror because Chango bumped into her in a casino. “I can’t believe how well you’re handling this!” she shouted as the band started up. “I didn’t think I’d get you in the door!”

“Hey kids!” it was Hyper, popping out of the crowd like a cork. He still had his transceiver on, with a projector lens screwed onto it so he could flash pictures up on the walls when he danced. The Ply-Tones started playing Zinc Oxide, and Chango jumped off her stool. “I have to dance to this!”

she said.

“Yeah!” Hyper nodded his head at the dark walls of the bar, “I’m with you, sister. What this place needs is a good light show.”

Chango shook her head, “We can’t leave Helix here alone!”

They glanced at Helix, who stood. “I’ll dance,” she said, her voice barely audible over the urgent beat of the music.

Hyper danced in a manic jitter, frantically switching channels, providing the bar’s denizens with visuals ranging from detergent commercials to open heart surgery. The images flashed and flickered on the walls as his head swayed to the music, but his efforts were in vain. Everybody within eyeshot was watching Helix.

She danced like a temple goddess, her arms waving, her skin glistening with the reflected colors of Hyper’s wall projections. Space formed around them as the other dancers slowed and backed away to watch her. When the song ended, they were surrounded by a ring of onlookers who burst into spontaneous applause. Helix stood in the middle of the circle, her eyes suddenly wide with surprise and fear. But then another song started, and her body seemed to take over from her mind, turning and swaying with the undulating rhythms of the music.

oOo

The set ended and Helix, out of breath and dizzy from dancing, followed Chango and Hyper back to the bar. Hyper ordered a round of drafts. With just the jukebox playing, the noise in the bar settled down to a dull roar. The door opened, and a discernable ripple ran through the place. The crowd parted to let a stately creature through. She walked with either indolent grace or extreme carefulness, Helix wasn’t sure which. She was upwards of seven feet tall, her hair — pure white and fine as spun glass — was swept up over her brows in an elaborate filigree of braids. Her skin was not so much white as it was transparent. She looked blue. Not the black blue of the night sky, but the softest, palest powder blue imaginable, and even from here, Helix could make out the tracery of veins across her face and hands. Accompanied by her bodyguard, she glided to the back of the bar and softly folded herself into a corner booth.

“The Doctor is in,” muttered Chango.

“Who is that?” whispered Helix.

“Orielle,” Chango told her. “They say if it weren't for her, there'd be no blast in Vattown. Of course that's not all she deals in.”

People began to drift over to Orielle's table singly and in pairs. They'd sit with her for a time — you never actually saw the money or anything else, but in a little while they’d get up and another set of buyers took their place.