Accidental Creatures (16 page)

“You slept together,” she said, as they stood in the doorway, staring at her owlishly. “My girl and my best friend.”

“You’re girl? Good gods!” exclaimed Hyper.

“Well, it was too late to leave,” said Helix.

“No, I mean you had sex.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah we did,” said Helix. “It was different than with you. What’s the matter?”

“Was it better?”

“What?”

“Chango please,” said Hyper.

She ignored him. “Was it better, Helix? Do you like him better?”

“I like both of you.”

Hyper spread his hands, “Can’t argue with that, can you? Don’t tell me Miss Free Love Michigan is going to claim ownership of her lover’s body.”

Chango put her face in her hands. “I don’t know. I just don’t know anymore.”

“The shoe hurts when it’s on the other foot, doesn’t it?” said Hyper. “But that’s not really what you’re upset about. I mean maybe you are, but what’s really bugging you is that Helix is going to be a vatdiver.”

“I can’t believe you support her in this. Don’t you care if she dies?”

“Of course I care,” Hyper approached her, and put his hand on her arm. “But let me show you something-”

“No!” Chango recoiled and jumped off the stool. She started gathering her clothes from the front room, stuffing them heedlessly in her back pack. “I don’t want any more explanations.” She turned to Helix.

“You’re going to dive in the vats and you’re going to die.” She looked at Hyper, “And you’re helping her. Well, I’m not going to stick around and watch it happen. I’m out of here,” she said, and she left, banging the screen door shut behind her.

oOo

Helix arrived at the gates to the vat yard at a quarter to eight the next morning. About twenty vatdivers congregated on the street in loose clusters, talking amongst themselves. A tall, broad shouldered woman looked up as she approached the gate, and muttered something to her companions. They all darted glances at her, their conversation becoming more animated. “Must be crazy,” Helix overheard as she passed, and “What makes her think she has the right?” She quickened her pace, entering the vat yard and searching among the domed vat houses for one labeled nine. Before long a security guard spotted her and ambled up. “Employees only, ma'am,” he said.

“I am,” she said, “that is, I will be. I'm here for orientation, Vat 9.” He looked at her dubiously, “What's your name?”

“Helix Martin,” she told him.

He switched on his transceiver, scanned through a list of names, and found hers. “Okay,” he shrugged,

“It's the one over there, second from the end,” he pointed to the opposite end of the yard.

“Thanks,” she said, and made her way across the cloncrete towards it. Inside, the vat house was astir with end of shift activity. Divers filed towards the detox shower, a pair of porters went by, lugging a plasmic barrel marked “Grow Med. Batch 1234-9896,” a supervisor shouted instructions to a team in he vat, her voice ringing clear above the general din and murmur of voices bouncing off the polished cloncrete floor and the glass dome above. It was bright inside, lit by halogens and the morning sky. A balcony ran along the second story, with catwalks connecting to the upper rim of the vat which filled most of the room.

An ample woman in white coveralls approached her, glancing at a clipboard. A badge above her left breast said April. “Helix Martin?” she eyed her impassively.

“Yes.”

She nodded. “You're early. Come on, there's some forms for you to fill out.” Helix followed her to a small office on the ground floor, where a stoop-shouldered, smiling clerk handed her waivers and contractual agreements and tax forms, and she signed them. When she was done, April took her to the locker room. It seemed a vast sea of tile and steam, with rows upon rows of lockers, and divers in all stages of undress. April took her down one long aisle, a narrow bench running its length down the middle, to a locker at the far end, near the wall. “This is yours, number 302,” she said and opened it. “Take off your coat, I have to measure you for a suit.” A small throng of divers hung out at the other end of the aisle with an expectant air. She glanced at April, who stared back with patient indifference. She swallowed and reached for the buttons of Hector's overcoat with trembling fingers. She adjusted her position to put as much of April between herself and the divers as possible, and slowly, with economical gestures, she unbuttoned her coat.

“Na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na,” someone sang the tune to The Stripper, and someone else hooted, and there was general laughter among the audience. Helix's face burned, and she stood there, her coat hanging open, her hair standing on end, sweat breaking out under her armpits and she glared at April, who pretended not to have heard anything.

“Well,” she said, “C'mon, you can't dive unless you've got the gear.” There was silence as Helix removed the coat and hung it up in the locker. She turned back to face April and the divers again, her limbs revealed in the polyweave bodysuit and tunic she wore. April pursed her lips and whistled softly. “I don't know,” she said, loudly, turning to one side so everyone could get a good view. “I don't know if we have a suit that'll fit you,” she cast a winking, sidelong glance at the divers, who snickered. “Follow me, we'll have to see what we can do.”

The vatdivers dispersed as they approached, wandering off in muttering clusters to the showers or their own lockers. April led her out of the locker room, back onto the vatfloor, and then to a room crowded with suits and tanks and face masks. With a sigh she began taking suits off the rack and holding them up to Helix, squinting and frowning. “They're supposed to be skin tight, but you're gonna have to take a larger size.” She nodded her head, gazing at Helix's lower arms, “You'll have to keep them inside. Less'n you want to forfeit your first five paychecks for a custom job, that is,” she added with a smirk. “and I'd recommend against it, seeing as how you may not live that long. Might as well spend the pay while you can.”

Helix stared at her. April stared back, with blank, implacable hatred. “What do you care?” she asked, finally.

April shrugged, "Only that you're a damn fool on a suicide stunt, that you're liable to endanger my divers, and that you're keeping this job from someone who deserves it. I guess they're looking for cheap labor. They want to see how long you last, see? If it's long enough, and they can convince more of you to sign waivers on medical coverage and future compensation, why then, they've got fresh, cheap, labor to replace the rest of us with.”

Helix nodded with sudden comprehension, “You think I'm a scab.” April snorted, “Shit yeah. Ain't yah?”

She shrugged. “If I am, I don't mean to be. But I am going to dive. And you are going to show me how. Besides, if all of what you say is true, then I'll croak in a month and I'll be out of your hair. Right?” April raised an eyebrow and a slow, sly smile slid across her mouth. She voiced a single crack of laughter, and shoved a suit at Helix, “Try it on, smart ass.” By the end of her shift Helix felt as if her suit had fused to her body, and her lower arms were painfully cramped. She trudged wearily to the locker room, found her locker and sank onto the bench. She unfastened the seals of her suit and extricated her aching arms. Propping her upper elbows on her knees, she let her lower arms dangle between her legs, her fingertips grazing the tile floor. They tingled with pins and needles, the pain increasing sharply as blood rushed in and circulation resumed. Helix was blinking back tears when she heard footsteps behind her. She turned to see four vatdivers sauntering down the aisle towards her. “So how was your first day, sport?” said Vonda, a narrow, sarcastic smile across her face. She threw one leg over the bench and sat down, the others ranged themselves behind her, leaning against the lockers and smirking at one other.

“It was alright,” said Helix, sitting up and reaching for her clothes.

“Yeah? Is it everything you dreamed it would be?” said one of the others, a man with brown skin and dark hair curling on his chest.

“I hope so,” said Coral, still in her divesuit, the hood pulled down to reveal her straight dark hair.

“‘Cause it’s going to cost her plenty.”

“Mmm-hmm. What would you give her, Vonda? Six months?” asked the fourth one, a fair-skinned guy with a broad face and blue eyes.

“Oh, if that long,” answered Vonda. Her eyes took in Helix's body with ravenous curiosity, “With a mutation like that, I’d say four months, tops.”

Helix fumbled for her bodysuit. She got the limp thing in her hands, only to realize that she still wore her dive suit over her legs, and she'd have to get completely undressed in order to get dressed, and she'd have to do that, apparently, with an audience. She clutched the body suit to her breasts and turned around, brandishing her lower arms. “Look,” she said, “Get a good look, all of you, because next time, it won’t be a free show.”

They glanced amongst each other, and giggled. “‘Fraid not, honey,” said the fair skinned man. “You’re on our dive team. We’re all going to be seeing a lot of each other.”

“If you stick around, that is,” added Coral.

“And I’d advise strongly against it,” said Vonda, standing and putting one hand on Helix’s shoulder, pushing her, gently but firmly into the locker behind her, “Because we don’t want you here, and we can make you not want to be here too.”

Helix stared into her hazel eyes and then laughed. “Fuck off.”

Vonda’s eyes flashed, and she tried to punch Helix in the stomach, but Helix caught her arm with her lower two, and grasping her fist, bent it back against the wrist. She gave it an extra twist before shoving her away hard with all of her arms. The bench hit Vonda on the back of the knees, forcing her to sit down suddenly, nearly falling backwards.

“What’s going on here?” said a new voice. It was Benny, down at the end of the aisle, his hands on his hips. At the sound of his voice, the others started drifting away, all except for Vonda, who still glared at her, nursing her wrist, daring her to tell him what happened.

“Vonda and her pals here were just welcoming me to GeneSys, that’s all. She was trying to teach me the secret vatdiver handshake, and I must have got it wrong.”

Benny stopped the others. “Wait a minute, since you guys haven’t been properly introduced, allow me. You already got Vonda’s name, and I think you know Coral. This is Val,” he gestured towards the blond guy, “and this is Claude. Everybody, this is Helix.”

“Helix?” said Claude, “her name is Helix? What a joke.”

“Yeah,” said Helix, “pretty hilarious.” She turned her back on them and got dressed.

“Don’t you guys have something to, you know, do?” Benny said, and she heard them walk away, their footsteps slapping against the tile floor.

When she turned around again, he was still standing there. “Sorry about that,” he said.

“Why should you be sorry? You didn’t do it.”

“No but, I could have warned you. Obviously they aren’t too happy about having you here.”

“Plenty of people warned me already, I don’t care. I’ve had worse.”

He shook his head at her and smiled. “This is really important to you, isn’t it?”

“Naw, Benny, it’s just kicks, can’t you tell? I’m sorry. Yes, it is, and I don’t know why.”

Nathan Graham took a candicane lozenge from the dish at his bar and sucked it in frustration as he returned to his desk to sort through the mail. He had neglected it during the two weeks it took him to settle the Wichita affair. He was behind on his real work, and now there was that out of control project of Dr. Martin’s to contend with.

He had a message from Brea Jeffries, the lead personnel clerk for production. He remembered Brea. She was diligent, conscientious and had a fine eye for detail. He’d always had trouble with her. She questioned anything that did not follow strict hiring protocol. He skimmed her letter in annoyance. She was enquiring about some missing application records for a recent hire.

“I’m not in production anymore, dammit,” he growled and deposited the letter in his low priority stack. He checked his watch. It was ten o’clock. In another hour, Colin Slatermeyer would make his weekly pilgrimage to the Belle Isle Aquarium.

oOo

Nathan’s maglev parked itself beside the aquarium and he got out, admiring the delicate glass structure of the arboretum on the side of the building. He’d been here once before, years ago. They hadn’t gone inside the aquarium; they just wandered around among date palms and banana trees inside the arboretum’s domes. He remembered the heady musk of orchids and the aridity of the cactus room. It was a strange place to come to alone, he thought as he ascended the steps to the brick archway above the entrance, but then, you probably didn’t get out of ALIVE! without being a little strange. Inside, the aquarium was cave-like, with black and green enameled brick walls, the mortar between them dark with age. Reflections from the display windows in the walls lent the dim light a greenish, watery cast. The air was cool, and his footsteps echoed on the floor with an odd, hollow sound. The place was nearly deserted. In fact, except for the jaded attendant who took his admission fee from him, it seemed that he and Colin had it all to themselves.

He hadn’t seen Colin yet, but he didn’t need to. He’d seen his maglev in the parking lot. Nathan strolled slowly along, looking into the tanks in the wall beyond the railing. Everything about this place, including the fish, had an air of the forgotten to it. He paused to stare at a huge gar, grey-green and ancient, its narrow, pointed nose nearly as long as his forearm. It floated there in the softly glowing water, barely moving, contemplating eternity, until he walked past and one eye swiveled to follow him.

He found Colin at the far end of the aquarium, gazing at blind, white little cave fish. He stepped up behind him quietly. “You can still see where their ancestors had eyes,” he said. Colin jerked around, his already wide eyes bulging further when he saw who it was. “Mr. Graham!” he said in alarm, and then quickly feigned pleased surprise. “What are you doing here?”

Nathan waved at the tanks, “Same as you, looking at fish.”

He laughed nervously, “That’s weird. I’ve never seen you here before, I come here all the time and-”