Ectopia (9 page)

I watch the image of Karen. Of me as Karen.

Her mouth bends up. She's smiling. Her mouth opens. She's laughing.

Words spill out. I don't catch their sense for they come from many voices. Many women's voices. Thousands of women's voices. Their high notes blend together like an insect drone and rise higher. Higher. Its pitch climbs to the edge of my range of hearing.

 

- You OK, Bender?

Malik crouches in front of me. I'm on my knees. He's taken the headphones from my head and puts one cup to his ear, then snatches it away again.

- Man, he says – That's some fault, Bender. Hey, listen to this everybody.

Pint's closest. He holds the headset to his ear then snatches it away.

- It's a whistle, Malik says – A high-pitched dog whistle. They're calling Bender home.

Everyone laughs. It seems Malik's told a joke.

- We've been reassigned, he explains – We've succeeded. The streets are clear of dreks. They've given us a new job. Look.

He points up at the screen. A flashing red arrow points to the center of a map that switches to close-up. It takes a moment, then I recognize it. I read the street name HALEWOOD. My street. See number 17 in the middle of the screen. Recognize its shape.

- That's my house.

- It's more than that, Malik explains – It's the center of a new model community. That film, morphing us into girls, it shows what we're running for. We're running so one day girls get to run free. Drekfree streets are safe for girls. The first two families with daughters under 21 are ready to relocate. They'll be your neighbors. One family in 15, one in 19. We're assigned to go in, clean up both houses, splash some paint around, make the places decent.

- We're not painters. We're runners.

- It's just two houses. It won't take long. We'll be back on the streets again.

I don't believe it. I close my eyes. Keep em closed till I feel the cool of Mal's hand pressed against my forehead.

- What's up, Bender? You're burning.

I open my eyes. It's hard to see. The depot's dull in its neon lighting, no match for the flames that were licking round inside my skull. I cough, clearing my lungs of the sense of smoke.

- You seeing something? Mal asks.

My mouth's dry. I lick my tongue around it so I can speak.

- Eyes, I tell him – A pair of fixed eyes, spitting flame.

- Weird, he says.

- Not weird, I tell him – Just Dad. He's reeling us in.

 

Soo does the picking. He's not designed for mental calculation. His decisions are as random as tossing a coin. When Soo does the picking, no-one gets to complain.

I'm in the first group, assigned to house number 19, to the right of my own home. The second group gets to clear out 15. Soo makes his choice while we're standing on the street between the two houses. So as we're standing and waiting we're on the street outside number 17. Right outside my house.

The first time we hear Dad is when he speaks. People must have hated Dad as a kid for him to learn to sneak round like that, without a sound. No-one would welcome him, seeing him coming. Sneaking without a sound is the way he gets close. He speaks to me.

- When you've thrown out their garbage next door, you can come back and clear your own room.

He's in his tower, gripping the outer railing, staring down. We all look up.

- Watch the birdie, he says. Mom calls him a relic, the way he speaks sometimes, linking words together that if they used to make sense don't do so now - Say cheese.

It's clear what he means despite what he says. He points at a camera that's fixed to one of the poles that hold up the roof of his control tower. The camera's angled down to where we stand in the street, and hums as it pans between us.

He puts a cap on his head. It's light green with a dark green peak and the eagle logo of statesquad.

- We're a zone of extra protection now, boys, he tells us – You should have seen em when they came to fit the camera. Officials stood in this tower and widescanned the whole layout of my defenses. They were impressed. They especially liked the concept of my trenches. I can see my layout here forming a whole new home defense model. They gave me this cap. It's like a medal. A medal of honor. They respect me. They've asked me to oversee your work and report back. I've started. I'm filming. I'm watching. And I've found nothing good to say about you so far.

Metal scrapes against brick behind him. He turns round, and we all step back so we can see over the fence.

It's Karen. Her head comes into view, then her body, climbing a ladder up the outside of the house toward her window. The window's closed, and she's carrying a bucket.

- See, Dad says – You scum laze around while we're at work. Keeping up standards. While you stand there chatting like old women, my girl's busy keeping the place in order.

Karen's dressed like she's stepped straight off her treadmill, lycra shorts glued to the curves of her backside, sweat coating the whites of her legs. She's wearing one of my T-shirts, loose and white, but tied in a knot to bare her midriff. Her hair's tied too, a tight orange plait hanging down her back. Putting the bucket on her window ledge she stretches up to wash the glass with a cloth. The water runs down her arm to soak her body. She just carries on, cleaning the higher panes and not the lower so the water keeps running down her.

- Great ass Karen, Furbo shouts up. He's good at appreciation.

She brings out a squeegee and scrapes the top of her window dry. More water runs down her arms.

- Full infrared capacity, Dad calls down – That's what this camera's got. It's state of the art. The night won't hide you. Any of you scum come crawling round here after dark, this camera will catch your every move.

- So far we've got to know two big cunts in your family, Furbo shouts up to Karen at the window – One's your Dad. The other's your brother Paul. What about you, Karen? Have you got a cunt you can show us?

- You're the first, Dad shouts, his finger quivering as he points it at Furbo. His voice is hoarse, rage squeezing out the triumph – You're logged, kid. The camera's got you. Your time's up. You're dead.

We ignore him. Karen's got our attention. She turns round. The wet shirt clings to her skin. The dark pink of her nipples shines through, as broad as targets. She pauses and smiles out at the street, then finds handholds for herself. It's hard going down a ladder backwards. Her legs part as she stretches down the rungs.

She gets more attention than I'll ever get.

- Clamp em, Dad tells us – Clamp those thoughts inside your dirty little minds. My daughter, she's a national treasure. She's not for the likes of you.

- Who says? Furbo shouts back – You and whose frigging militia?

- You, Dad yells back to remind him – You're first!

He points down at Furbo like his finger has the power to shoot laser. His stare is made of cold stone, but his anger's too much for his voice. It breaks to a squeak, like a twelve year old kid. Everyone laughs.

Everyone but me.

I know Dad. He's a black streak. Make light of him, you get scorched.

 

Two houses at once felt wrong. We came together at number 19. We'll finish
that then move on to 15.

The workday's finished. Teensquad's split up and goes home. Dad's developing the trench I finished for him. I ignore him and head straight upstairs to lie on my bed. Crashes come from the front of the house. I go through to Karen's room to take a look down into the garden. A wooden chair flies over the fence. A leg breaks off as it lands but Dad won't sweat over that. He's not into sitting. Furniture's lumber. He tacks it on to his defenses or stacks it in a corner of the garden.

A table comes over. Crash. A wooden base for a lamp. A roll of chicken wire. Stuff teensquad cleared out next door, things we viewed as trash, Dad's busy collecting.

- That window cleaning stunt, I ask Karen – Was that your idea or Dad's?

She's posturing on the floor, one foot gripped behind her back. She calls it yoga.

- You think I do what that creep wants? she says, and switches foot.

- He set the ladder up for you. I saw him.

- So?

- He's using you, I tell her.

- I want to do something, I do it. I don't want to do it, he can go stuff himself. No-one uses me Steven.

- You're bait, I tell her – This house is a trap. He's building a trap. He's showing you off as the bait.

- Are you going to get me out of here? she asks.

I just look at her. She lets go of her foot and sits up.

- See, she says, like she's won a point – You say he's building a trap. And you're not going to get me out. So who is?

She goes over to her treadmill, turns it on, and starts running.

- If I've got to be bait to get out of here, then I'll be great bait, she says.

Dad's got carried away. Next door's front door slides up over the fence then tips down on our side.

Suits me. Get all the lumber you want, Dad. Fire's coming your way. You may as well fuel it.

0.14

Karen's shout wakes me. It seems I've slept in. Paul's bed's empty and Dad's sawing in the garden. I slip on my shorts and go to her room.

Whatever excited her seems to have passed. She's staring down the snout of her visor, her hands flashing around in her fiberoptic gloves. Her fingers squeeze invisible things into place. It's feverish work for a few minutes.

- Shit, she says. Her shoulders sag, she takes off the visor and turns to find me watching. I expect her to frown, to stare me out, to yell. Instead she's smiling.

- Look at this, she says.

I fit the visor over my head. She presses replay and I see a white creature squirming in blood.

- I did it, Karen says – It's alive.

- What is it? I ask.

- A baby. I pulled it out of the stomach and kept it alive.

The sound's turned off but the baby's mouth is open and wailing. Its legs and arms jerk on its blood soaked mat.

- It's a girl, Karen says – I've just delivered a baby girl.

I remember the drill from the old surgeon's voice. Step 1, if it's a boy, keep the parent alive. Step 2, if it's a girl, keep the baby alive. I reach up to the controls and click the scene forward. The wound in the adult belly gapes open, but the scene is still. The belly doesn't move with breath. Blood doesn't pump. Small white clamps are fixed to tubes and what I guess is the placenta is stuffed inside the corpse. I take off the visor.

- So you killed her, I say.

- No, I told you. She's alive.

- The mother. You killed the mother.

Karen snatches the visor back to view what I've been seeing.

- You don't get it, she says – OK, the mother died, but look at her. It's carnage inside that body. I'm a beginner. I'm on my own. I doubt a team of top surgeons could save her. But I pulled a baby out of that mess and kept it alive. It's a miracle.

She shifts the scene backwards till she's staring again at the squalling mess. I know she's got the baby in her sights coz her cheeks tighten back into a smile.

- What do you see in babies? I ask her – It looks like a maggot to me. A maggot fattened on its mother's blood. You know what you've done? Saved the parasite and killed the host.

- OK, she says – Get out.

- You going to moon over that baby all day? I ask her.

She turns her ant head toward me.

- Mom did what she could, she says – She sprogged me and you and Paul but she never got over it. I'll never do that. I'm not emotional over babies, Steven. I'm clinical.

- You're not natural, I tell her, but she doesn't listen.

The planet's screwed, the future's now, and Karen's stuck on hope and science. Her ant head's poised before its vision and her hands are adjusting the nanocamera. She's giving birth again.

 

Paul's at the console in the front room. His lime green muscle shirt is dark green on his sides where sweat's poured down from his armpits. The screen's streaming a sequence of zeroes and ones as he stares into it through the goggles. A counter in the bottom right blinks as it tallies his score. It's a game of instinct I've never cared to handle. The streaming figures are a program, and the eye dilations adjust it. Paul can't know what he's doing at that speed. He just does it.

A message in flashing red type tracks across the top of the screen. It's a command to call in for a message. It's in my name. I reach over Paul's shoulder and tap my ID and password into the keyboard.

- Fuckhead, Paul says. He stares unblinking into the screen as his stream of numbers disappears and my message comes up.

Steven Sickel. Deliver the suitcase of Alison Sickel's personal effects to Cromozone front gate by 10.00. Report operation code SG17. Key password for mission acceptance.

Paul feeds my password in for me, then rattles off another chain of commands. My statesquad message shifts into scrolls of code, white figures on a blue screen. Paul grins.

- Bye bye big bro, he says.

- What's up? I ask him.

- I sourced your message, he says – Tagged in your operation code. That crap about Mom's personal effects? It's a shitline.

- How do you know?

- Nothing so simple comes up so complex. Look at it.

He scrolls down. The white figures on blue run for page after page.

- You know what it means? I ask him.

- Not the specifics, he says – I need to access the program for that. It means one thing though. Statesquad's got your number.

- More, I say – Find out more. Access the program. Find out the details.

He flashes round the keyboard. The series of zeroes and ones returns. His eyes start to dilate. The tally in the bottom right corner mounts again. He's back to his game.

- Paul, I say, shaking his shoulders.

He sets his game on pause, pushes my hands away, and stares up at me through his goggles.

- You're my brother, he says – Not my rat. Go run your own maze.

 

Dad's laid the hatchet to next-door's chair. Its legs, back and seat are splinters. Dad's setting em in a line across the garden, crawling in the dust and laying the blond wood scraps down like he's a craftsman. He tries to refocus when I come outdoors but the process is slow. He's looking for stuff he can use. He blinks at the suitcase in my hand.

- What's that? he says.

- You remember Mom? She used to live here?

- Don't get fresh, Steven, he says – Your mother packed that case for our honeymoon. It's seen better days. What you doing with it?

- It's her things. She forgot em. I got a message to deliver em to Cromozone this morning.

- A real message? Not just one of those flash fantasies you get in that screwed up brain of yours?

He's staring at me. I stare back.

- You're planning this, aren't you? I say – This fire.

- Ha, he says – What fire? You won't catch me out with trick questions like that, my boy. I know what you've been seeing. I know what you've been writing. Paul's told me. You see me going up in flames. You see your old Dad burning. You think you see the future Steven but you see nothing. The future's what you make it. I'm prepared. You and that scum gang of yours, you'll find I'm prepared. You won't catch me when the time comes. It's my time, Steven. My time that's coming.

The front door opens and Karen comes out.

- So it's true, she says, seeing the case – Paul says you've been called to see Mom.

- Not to see her. To deliver her things. I'm late. I've got to be there by ten.

I've got time enough. I just don't want to hang around. I want to be gone.

Karen holds out a silver chain. A small enamel dove hangs from it. The dove's white, and it's got a green-leafed twig in its beak.

- Give Mom this will you? she says.

The chain's short and thin.

- You should keep it, I tell her – Mom'll never fit this round her neck.

- For fuck sake, Steven, she says – You've got Mom's things. You're about to run off on your own while I'm locked in here. You can't take me, so take this. Take the fucking dove. Mom gave it me. I love it. It's my favorite thing. I want it out of here. So take it, Steven. Just take it.

She presses the bird and chain into my hand.

- You'll see your mother? Dad asks.

- I'm just delivering the case, I tell him.

- You see her, he says – You tell her from me, I'm on course, you tell her. We might have lost, her and me, but it doesn't end there. You tell her nothing ends while I'm alive. We might have lost, but no-one else'll win. No little pricks'll inherit this earth, you tell her. Not while I'm alive. You tell her that, Steven. Let her rest easy.

Dad's madness sucks up all the air. I go out through the gate and don't look back.

It's not easy running with a suitcase, but it's easier than walking. Easier than staying home.

I put the case down at the edge of town and rest a moment. I'm panting, but at least I'm breathing.

 

One thing I've never been. I've never been lonely.

Till now. That's what this is, I think. If lonely's feeling small that's what this is. My heels spit up dust but no cloud. Teensquad running is something. It's power. Going solo is puny. I turn and my dust trail is already settled, flat and lost on the road. The town's a smudge behind haze.

Cromozone is close. It fills the horizon. I'll already be logged on Cromozone's screens as a dot on the approach road. I feel small.

It feels lonely.