Halfskin (8 page)

The other chairs were filled with children. His wife, Janine, was seated at the other end. Her head was bowed. He could tell when she was thinking. Always thinking. Never here. Always somewhere in her head, combing through facts, through paperwork and scenarios. A lawyer's work never rested.
Not for good ones
, she would say.

The children had their hands on their laps, heads slightly bowed. They weren't thinking of clients and affidavits. Only dinner.

Marcus sat down. "Let us pray."

Their heads bowed deeper.

"Bless us, O' Lord, and these Thy gifts which we are about to receive from Thy bounty. Through Christ, our Lord. Amen."

The clinking of china was preceded by signs of the Cross—Father, Son, Holy Ghost. Ariel moved into action and helped the children spoon sauce over their noodles. Marcus smoothed a cloth napkin over his lap and watched that no one put their elbows on the table. All the napkins were in place. His wife was on her second glass of wine.

Pick battles.

He began eating. The dinner proceeded as it had every night, in relative quiet. Nothing but the tink-tink and the occasional slurp. Not too many. They were kids, after all.

Marcus twirled noodles on his fork and, before filling his mouth, pointed at the empty seat he hadn't noticed. "Where's Andrew?"

"Fever and a sore throat, sir." Ariel filled Janine's water glass.

Marcus chewed carefully and spoke again once he swallowed. "Is he getting clear liquids?"

"Yes, sir."

Another bite. Swallow. "Have you given him herbal tea for the sore throat?"

"Yes, sir," Ariel said.

"It helped a lot, sir," Margaret, the new part-time nanny said. "He fell right to sleep when he was finished."

Marcus nodded, thoughtfully. He wasn’t thrilled with another nanny, even part-time. But his job had him away from home more often and Janine was too busy playing lawyer.

Janine asked the children how their day at school was and how they were feeling. No one felt the least bit sick, although someone puked in William's class after recess. He started to describe the smell when he was cut off. He managed to say
chunks of meat
before his name was called. Sternly.

"You know, my sister's son, he's seven," Margaret said, helping Clifford cut his noodles, "and he come down with a fever and they took him to the pharmacy where they got these little temporary biomite injections. Have you seen those?"

She held up her fingers a half inch apart, indicating they were real small.

"They fight infection and then get washed out through the kidney. They're not like regular biomites that reproduce. He was better that evening."

Marcus chewed slowly with his lips closed. He flipped a glance at Ariel who did not return the look. The meal finished without much conversation.

Marcus unzipped the suitcase, threw it on the bedspread. He began the weekly ritual of packing for a trip. He started with his underwear—pressed and folded. All of them white with tiny red stripes on the elastic band. Next were socks, followed by gym shorts for working out in the hotel exercise room, bathing suit for the hot tub, and t-shirts for lounging. His suits and ties would be packed in a hanging case.

He went to the bathroom—open to the bedroom—to pack toothpaste and the rest. Janine came out of the shower room rapidly working the water from her ear with her finger. She was wearing a white robe, not the one he'd gotten her for Christmas but one she'd bought a year before that. She always said she liked the way the old one felt, she'd get to the new robe one of these days. Just not until she was finished with the old one.

Janine fished through the drawer to the right of the sink, found a pair of tweezers and went into the walk-in closet. She sat on the bench in the middle of her closet and hiked her foot up on the stool and began to work on her toenails, digging out the ingrown portions.

Click.

She liked to pick.

Click.

She'd been to the doctor but preferred to work out the problems on her own.

Marcus found his razor, his cologne, shaving cream and the rest, shoving it into a toiletry bag and went back to the bed. It was one thing to listen to the
click, click
, but quite another to see the cottage cheese-laden legs beneath the frayed edges of that worn-out robe. He used to rub those legs, when she was in law school, when she'd be up 72 hours at a time, sleepless from leg aches.

She didn’t look like that, then.

More like a linebacker, now. And not one from Harvard. More like NFL All-Pro. Marcus gave her P90X for Christmas. Never got opened.

Click.

"I've arranged for Ariel to bring the kids home after William’s play," Janine said. "Will you at least see some of it?"

"Afraid not. I'll be on the West Coast, starting in Seattle tomorrow morning and finishing in San Francisco on Thursday."

"His performance is on Wednesday."

"I'm not flying back for that, Janine."

Long pause. Not an empty one.

Marcus finished packing his carry-on. He pulled three suits from the closet and laid them on the bed. They were pressed and clean and spotless. They went into the hanging garment bag.

"How many halfskin shutdowns are you going to attend?" Janine leaned against the closet door frame.

"As many as there are, dear."

"They'll only increase." Her tone was final. "This... biomite war you're waging... you can't win it, Marcus. People are going to keep seeding unless they become illegal."

"Then we'll keep turning them off."

"Until what? Until you've wiped out the human race?"

"Just the seeded ones."

"This is an infringement on their liberty—"

"Spare me the lawyer speak." He dropped the suitcase on the floor, snapped out the telescoping handle. "People will destroy themselves if we let them."

"That's their choice."

"Then why not just legalize everything, Janine? Why not just set up heroin shops and cocaine dens outside the kids’ school? Let's not have a drinking limit, it's their life, after all. It’s their choice to destroy it."

He hung the garment bag on the top of the bedroom door and paused. Janine dropped the tweezers in the drawer. Her robe crumbled on the floor. Her granny panties snapped around her waist. Marcus didn't turn around.

"Technology will catch up," she said. "They'll be able to control runaway replication at some point."

"I hope it does. I don't like shutting down halfskins."

"I think you do."

Immortality is meant for the soul. Not the flesh.

Marcus slid his feet into moccasin slippers and pulled his suitcase with the garment bag over his shoulder.

"In case you're wondering," Janine mumbled, "I'm going to a fundraiser tonight with Helen. Make sure the children have brushed their teeth. Alexander has not been flossing."

She was standing in front of the mirror with bobby pins in her mouth, pulling her black hair back. Her nipples pointed at the faucet.

"Tell her I said hi." He started and stopped. "And I want the new nanny fired."

"Mmm-mm."

Marcus went to his office. He texted Ariel to make sure Alexander flossed.

13

Nix stared at the ceiling.

He was cautious not to daydream. He kept his attention on his breath, emptied his mind. It had been weeks since Cali delivered the special drawing. She continued her weekly visits, as usual, and asked how he was doing.

Good. Real good.

Then they talked about Avery needing braces, how the Holloway's dog got hit by a car, how crappy the weather was. She didn't bring anymore pictures, just said that Avery was probably going to make him another one in two weeks. She was pretty clear about it.
In TWO weeks
.

But Cali wasn't bringing another picture.

She was telling him how long to wait.

She had embedded biomites into the waxy yellow sun. They were undetected by the ring that registered him at 48.8%. But Nix felt the effects. They weren’t suppressed at all.

They were fully active.

The ring had no effect on these new breed biomites, had no recognition of their proliferation. His senses slowly enhanced as they integrated into his body. He smelled the subtle odors down the hall, knew when the guards were eating, when they last showered. He saw more colors, felt more textures.

The new breed biomites heightened it all. He had become...
more
. If he had to guess, they put him over 50%. He was probably halfskin and no one knew it
.

Cali told him to wait. Wait until there were enough of them, until the levels of these new breed biomites were more active. Then he'd know what to do.

Waiting was the hard part.

At night, he closed his eyes and fell into rhythmic breathing. If anyone was watching, he was sleeping. But these were opportunities to smell the lagoon. Occasionally, he could hear Raine's laughter. Maybe he imagined it.

Maybe not.

Each night, he hoped to know more, perhaps to see the blue cliffs and the trees framing the crystal water. Each night, he only sensed a glimmer of that world. He'd wake in the morning, still a prisoner.

On the week that Avery’s next drawing was to be delivered—four weeks since he snorted the yellow sun—Cali didn't come to visit.

George was waiting outside his door.

It had been a month since he last saw George, but there he was with the table and the box under his arm. George began setting up the board. He didn't say much, just pushed the pieces around.

Nix smelled something new about him, something metallic, the ting of aluminum on the edges of his tongue. He looked at George sorting out the blacks and whites. That’s when the new breed biomites whispered Cali’s plan. Her ghostly voice was inside his head. It was a recording that was triggered by the sight of George, told him what to do.

Told him it was going to hurt.

Such a hypocrite. Such a liar.

George was 10% biomite. Maybe more. Nix realized he could read George's thoughts. Somehow, Cali's new breed biomites were seamlessly scanning and connecting with other biomites within a short range, like wireless computers. And the biomites he was sensing were in George's brain.

Like a book.

"A game?" George tapped the small table outside the door. "Or you have somewhere to go?"

Nix looked up from his bed. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, sleepy.

"Heh-heh," George added. "I've been thinking, about our last game, where I went wrong... I have to be honest, I was cheating."

"I know."

"I know you know." George touched up the pieces, centering them in each of their squares. "But I figured I should come clean. I was using a machine to beat you and that's not fair. I'm here as a man, as a human being—" He thumped his chest. "—to redeem the spirit of Man!"

George muttered a little pep talk. He clapped his hands and asked what color Nix wanted. Nix balked so George took white.

"The good guys," he said, and moved Queen's pawn two spaces.

Nix went to the sink, splashed water on his face. He wiped his scalp, the back of his neck. Dabbed himself dry with a hand towel. He just realized that, in his dreams, he had hair.
I had hair, before. And now I'm this.

I've forgotten what I look like.

"Come on, already." George looked at his watch. "I go on shift in an hour and you're over there making yourself pretty. You ain't got a date, halfskin, and I ain't easy to look at, either. So let's go."

George wasn't a bad guy. Maybe not good, but not bad. Nix felt a pang of guilt for what he was about to do to him.

But George was his ticket.

It needed punched.

M0THER

Historic Pitch

Jonny Miser took the ball from the catcher halfway between the mound and home plate. He chickenwinged his glove under his right arm and rubbed the new off the ball with both hands. He made one loop around the pitcher's mound, careful not to touch the dirt until he was back around the front.

Bad luck, if he did.

Wrigley Field fans were on their feet. Even the fans on the rooftops were up and waving and whistling and shouting. He wiped the sweat off his forehead.

It was hot for October.

He blinked, focused on the scoreboard. A one-run lead. Three balls, two strikes. He looked around the diamond, St. Louis Cardinal base runners looked back from all three bags.

Last game of the season.
Win, you're in.