Man Made Boy (9 page)

“STAGE MANAGER SAID you needed me,” I said to the Minotaur when I got to the backstage area where all the props and set pieces were stored.

“Hmm?” He turned his bull head toward me. “Oh, hey, Boy. Thanks for coming.” I guess he used to have a temper way back in the day, but he seemed pretty chill these days, except when he was in a fight with his girlfriend, the Siren.

“It’s this one again.” He walked to the little cubby set into the back wall. Inside was a PC that I had set up for him and his guys forever ago to give them something to do between set changes.

Moog the ogre sat at the computer, playing solitaire. Moog was Oob’s dad and probably only a little smarter. He was one of those guys who celebrated the whole “big equals stupid” stereotype that I was trying to fight against.

“Hey, nerd,” he said. “This stupid machine don’t work.”

“Maybe if you’d stop torrenting hi-def femdom clips all day long, it would work better,” I said.

He blinked at me, then turned to the Minotaur. “What the hell’d he just say?”

“It doesn’t matter,” said the Minotaur. “Just get up and give the kid some room to work.”

Moog slowly got up and moved to one side. I sat down at
the chair and pulled my cables out of the duffel bag I brought with me. I plugged the DVI cable into the back of my head and the USB cables into my wrists, then plugged everything into the computer. As my senses slipped into the computer, I heard Moog say, “Damn, that gives me the creeps.”

“I can still hear you,” I said.

“So?” he said.

I was about to snap back a reply that I would probably regret, when I saw something in the computer that surprised me.

“Okay, that’s weird,” I said.

“What?” said the Minotaur anxiously.

“You’ve got a virus.”

“Can you get rid of it?”

“Yeah, sure,” I said. “But…”

“What?”

I unplugged. “I’ll need to take it back to my room and work on it.” I wrapped up my cords and shoved them back in my bag. “It’s a little complicated.”

“What?!” said Moog. “No games? For how long?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Until I fix it.”

“Listen, you little droid—”

“Moog,” said the Minotaur. “Let the kid do his job.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Moog stalked off to some other part of the backstage area, grunting to himself.

“Sorry,” said the Minotaur. “What can I say? He’s stupid.”

“Sure.” I picked up the PC tower and hoisted it on to my shoulder. “See you around.”

The reason I wanted to take the fly crew’s computer back to my room was not because it was complicated (although it was). It was because I recognized the virus signature. It was mine.
That itself wasn’t totally crazy. I’d written some nasty viruses back in the day when I was into that kind of stuff, and it was probably inevitable that at least one of them would come back to haunt me. The weird thing was, it looked like a piece of the project I was working on right now. But of course, I hadn’t released it. So how did it get out?

“Oh, shit, it’s Robo-freak.”

I had been thinking so hard about the virus that I hadn’t noticed Shaun coming down the hallway toward me. He stopped and stood in the middle of the hallway, his hands on his goat hips, blocking my way.

The second I saw him, I forgot about the virus and all I could think about was the way he had smirked at me last night as he took Liel to his table.

“I could smell that combo of rotting human flesh and motor oil before I even saw you, Robot,” he said. “Or do you prefer the term
cyborg
?”

“Come on, Shaun,” I said. “There’s no one around to impress. Just leave me alone.”

I tried to get around him but he shifted back and forth to block whichever way I tried to go.

“Hey, what’s that?” He pointed to the PC tower on my shoulder. “Your new girlfriend?”

“Aaaah, good one, Shaun. Hilarious,” I said, trying to push past him.

“This one doesn’t have legs. Maybe she won’t walk out on you like Liel did last night.”

Anger burned its way through my arms and into my hands. I needed to get away before I did something stupid.

“Shaun, seriously. Just let me go.”

“Seriously?” he asked. “I can’t believe you ever thought you had a chance with her.”

My free hand shot out and grabbed him by the throat. Then I slammed him into the wall. It felt so good, I did it again. And again. Until I guess the Minotaur and Moog finally heard the screaming and came running. It took the two of them to pry the bruised and bleeding Shaun from my hand.

“You’re no monster!” Shaun yelled, his goat hooves clacking against the floor as Moog dragged him away. “You’re just a fucking ROBOT!!!”

“Come on, dumb-ass, let’s get you fixed up,” said Moog. “Don’t you have better sense than to pick a fight with somebody twice your size? And people call
me
stupid.”

The Minotaur held my arm as tight as a C-clamp.

“Sorry, Boy,” he said. “You know you can’t go beating on people like that. I’m gonna have to call your parents. And Ruthven.”

RUTHVEN SAT BEHIND his desk, the harsh glare of the lamp gleaming off his red eyes. I stood in front of the desk with my parents behind me. I felt like I was on trial. And I guess I kind of was.

“Boy,” said Ruthven, his hands folded in a steeple. “I believe you are a valuable member of this company. And I trust you in many things. I wouldn’t have taken you outside with me yesterday if that weren’t true. But this…” He began to rub his temples. “This is a problem that is not going to go away. There will always be those in the company who are threatened by your ties to science, even as they reap the benefits of it. Some of them, inevitably, will say things that hurt your feelings. For the good of
the company, you have to learn to deal with that in a nonviolent way.” He looked at me for a moment, his expression unreadable. “Or we will have to find some other solution.”

“If I may,” said my father.

Ruthven gestured to him and he stepped forward to stand next to me.

“I think it is time to share with Boy the plan for his future.”

“No!” my mother said. “He’s too young—”

“You have delayed it long enough,” he said to her. Then he turned back to Ruthven. “I believe Boy’s misbehavior today is a symptom of something bigger. I have felt it building for months now. He talks back, he questions authority, he ignores his chores. I believe it is because he grows restless. He needs to be challenged. He needs something to work toward.”

“Hmmm.” Ruthven leaned back in his chair. “Perhaps you’re right, my old friend.”

“Dad, what is this big plan you keep mentioning?” I asked.

Dad looked to Ruthven, who nodded. Then he turned back to me.

“Your desire to get out and explore the world is a credit to you. And as much as the risks worry us, it would be cruel to deny you that experience, particularly after your first trip outside, where you proved that you can indeed fit in with humans.”

“Dad…” I almost couldn’t believe what he was saying. “You’re going to let me live outside? With humans?”

He held up his hand. “Under certain conditions.”

“Like?”

“You already received your high school diploma from homeschooling.”

“Last spring.”

“Another condition is that you must wait until you turn eighteen.”

“That’s only in, like, six months.”

“Yes. Until then, Ruthven will continue to take you outside, more and more often, for longer and longer periods, so that you can get comfortable with humans, learn how to fit in not just physically, but socially.”

“Okay…” That didn’t sound too bad, either. Maybe we could even go somewhere for a weekend. Like a road trip. I always wanted to go on a road trip.

“Then,” continued Dad, “in the fall you will go to college.”

“A
human
college?” I’d thought about college, sure. But I just never imagined I’d be able to go.

“Yes.”

“I bet MIT would give me some money. Maybe even a full ride!” I’d chatted with a few people on hacker boards from MIT, even a couple of professors. It sounded like geek utopia. “Dad, this so awesome! With the resources they have there, I could—”

“Your school has already been decided.”

“O…kay…” Maybe I’d gotten ahead of myself. Cambridge, Massachusetts, was a bit far away, after all. But Princeton was just in Jersey. Or even Cornell or Columbia right here in the city. Those schools all had great computer science programs….

“You will attend the University of Geneva.”

“Wait, what? Where’s that?”

“Switzerland.”

“Why am I going to
Switzerland
for college?”

“Because I am very good…friends with a family in Geneva. They have already pledged to assist in any way they can. Tuition, room and board, whatever you require. They will be like a second
family to you. Indeed, I have sent them pictures of you throughout your childhood and written to them about you extensively, so they feel as though they already know you. They, too, are great lovers of science. They are very eager to help you make the most of your life.”

“Who is this family?” I asked. “Why haven’t you ever talked about them before?”

“Their name,” he said, his mismatched, watery eyes locked on mine, “is Frankenstein.”

I’M NOT SURE how they expected me to react to the news that in six months, I would be shipped off to Switzerland to live with the humans whose ancestor was responsible for making my family the hideous, screwed-up monsters we were. They probably didn’t expect me to scream,
“NO FUCKING WAY IN HELL!”
and run out of the room. Or maybe they did, because nobody stopped me.

I ran for a long time, just charging down hallways, through corridors, across catwalks. Maybe I broke stuff, maybe I knocked people over. Honestly, I wasn’t really paying attention. Eventually, I ended up down in the trowe caverns, which was inevitable since nearly all passages ended there if you went deep enough. Still, I kept going down until I hit a dead end. It was a dark little cavern with a long stone table and benches. I guess this was a trowe version of a picnic spot.

I plopped down on one of the benches and slumped onto the table. I closed my eyes and saw Dad’s calm expression as he told me that he was sending me to live with the Frankensteins. I imagined them, these crazy, mad scientists with their lighting-bolt labs, setting fire to any creation that started mouthing off to them. That creation had been my dad, once upon a time. The
rebel who stood up to his asshole creator. That asshole creator tried to destroy him for it, and nearly succeeded.

Now he was shipping off his only son to live with a whole family of them? How could he possibly be okay with that? And what made it worse, he wasn’t even giving me the choice.

Then I heard a noise. It was dark in the cavern, and my night vision wasn’t the greatest, so it took me a while before I finally caught a glint of two diamonds over in the corner.

“Liel?”

“Hey.” She shifted a little so that I could see the outline of her body. Her white hair was pulled back tight, and when she was motionless, her skin blended right in with the stone wall behind her.

“What are you doing here?”

“I was thinking of asking you the same thing. Usually, there’s nobody but trowe this far down into the caverns.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I just…had to get away.”

“Why? What’s up?”

“It’s nothing.”

She came and sat down across from me at the table. “Tell me.”

If it had been anyone else, I would have kept my mouth shut. Shrugged it off, mumbled something about annoying parents, and that would have been it. But even after she dissed me, I was still such a chump that I couldn’t say no to her.

“I just found out that my parents are going to ship me off to live with the Frankensteins in Switzerland.”

She squinted her glittering eyes at me for a moment, then said, “Wow.” But the way she said it sounded impressed, not outraged.

“No, this isn’t cool,” I said. “This is seriously screwed up!”

She shook her head. “Your dad is just doing whatever he can to get you the hell out of this dump.”

“What are you talking about?”

She got up and started pacing. “They don’t appreciate you here. You deserve better. Your dad is trying to make sure you get it.”