Roachkiller and Other Stories (16 page)

“Quit it!”

“Just saying is all. Me, I got some parts redone. But it doesn’t matter since it’s all about Claire.”

“To Claire.” We toasted.

Ricco took out a thin glass chip. A hologram, Claire danced inside the chip. “Love you, girl,” he said.

“You see what you have with Claire. That’s what I think I had with Molly.”

“You don’t make any sense. You were with her, what, for three months, like two years ago?”

“A year and eight months.”

 “Whatever. It’s been years. Years! You should be over it.”

“If I could talk to her one more time,” I said. I thought I was going to cry in front on him, but I didn’t want to do that again. He slapped me with his cyborg hand last time I did that. “I just need to speak with her once more—before I can move on with my life.”

Ricco got up and paced around. His giant frame made my pod look even smaller than it was. “I have something to tell you. That’s why I was coming over. Besides coming over to razz you again.”

“What?”

“I found her. I found your Molly.”

“Kal-fucking-El!”

Because of his enhancements, Ricco was trusted to work for the government and had access to all kinds of information.

“Back in her hometown. Toronto. With you-know-who. So, there’s no point—”

“I have to go see her.”

“—in going to see her.”

“But how? I don’t have a multiport.”

Ricco sighed and reached into his pocket. “Now you do.” He threw it at me.

“It’s under your cop ID.”

“But you know how to change it.”

“You could get in real trouble for this. You should come with me. I could be your captured prisoner or something.”

“No dice. This is stupid enough as it is. I can just say you stole it.”

“Ricco. You’re a real friend.”

“Giving you a way to get to a town like Toronto. Filled with terrorists and androids and terrorist androids. It’s not friendship. It’s practically murder. But you’re practically killing yourself here.”

“Thanks, Ricco.”

“Evs. I want you to look up my friend COST Revs when you get into town. First thing. Understand?”

“Understood.”

“Listen, he’s an arty—a droid. But he’s okay.”

“Whatever you say.”

“You know, Alex, you really should just stay home and write another poem about this. Wouldn’t that make you feel better?”

“Not better enough, Ricco.”

*  *  *

At the depot, I tried to stop my hands from shaking when I used the doctored multiport. I tried to tell myself it was the gin giving me the shakes. But there were android federals everywhere ready to judge-jury-and-executioner any human who broke the law.

The multiport worked and I was through. I headed for the beat-up jet train that gets to Toronto in under an hour.

Public transportation was integrated only a few years ago, but it still felt funny to mix with the droids. I didn’t want to stand out in any way so I went to the predominantly human car. But right after I sat down an arty couple popped in the seats right across from me. The male had a copper mohawk and a huge scarf wrapped around his neck. The female had long, copper metal tresses and had spray-painted her face pink. Liberal hipster arties. The worst.

They giggled with each other, clearly in love. Their little pet kisses were annoying me, then they did something really awful. They introduced themselves.

“This is Twocee,” the male said. “And I’m Marty.”

I nodded.

“We’re going to Niagara to get married!”

I tried to smile. “Congratulations.”

They went back to giggling and kissing. Outside, I saw the middle-west fly by. Miles and miles of cities. Tower after tower. It all looked the same. The only difference was Kansas, which was walled off. Freaking cannibals.

The ticket agent came in then, a human. He yes-sirred and no-sirred the arties and said nothing to the humans. I saw then that he was doing an extra multiport check. With the terrorists, of course there’d be extra security. I should have realized.

He checked the ’ports and tickets of the droid couple and then he took mine. Right away I knew that he knew the ’port was jimmied. His eyes gave it away. I could fool an automated system, but not a person. And he couldn’t fool me. He’d have to call security.

He pressed a button on his shirt and almost immediately two androids in green walked into the car. I kept silent. The arties looked at me with frightened looks on their faces. What irony.

Without a word, the two security droids walked me to the back of the train and into a security hold. We were nearing Toronto at this point. I figured I’d probably be executed there. So close to Molly. And she’d never know.

I sat down to contemplate my impending death, composing some lines for a sonnet in my head. Just then the jet train exploded.

From somewhere near the front—a huge boom and then the sound of gnashing, grinding metal. I could feel the train rise from the rail, its momentum pushing us forward at deadly speed.

Being inside the security hold saved my life. The crash bumped me around plenty, smashing my head against the wall a few times. But apparently my head is pretty hard. When the train came to a halt, the door latch was open. My face was bruised, but I could see—

A bad wreck. The train was sprawled just inside the city. There were human bodies flung here and there. The droids, for the most part, walked away fine. But then I saw the female hipster arty, Twocee, moaning and crying over the torso of her mate. “Help me!” she said. “Help me find his soul!”

No one was helping her, not human or android. An emergency helibus showed up, shepherding the survivors. It would probably go straight to a hospital. It was the perfect way in. But I found myself looking in the wreckage, searching while a droid speaker told us to “Please alight the helibus. You will be attended to. Please alight the helibus.” Then I saw it—the copper piercings glowing in early twilight. Marty’s head, crushed. I picked it up and brought it to Twocee.

She wailed like a child. A human child. I didn’t know what else to do. So I turned and got to the helibus. I could hear her wailing for a long time afterward.

*  *  *

As I thought, the helibus pulled into a hospital in downtown. “Dammed terrorists,” a doctor said. “When will this crazy shit stop?” I slipped easily from there and out the front entrance. I got my first good look at the city.

It was crowded—people, bots, droids, all mixing together. It was a big, skyscrapered town, bordering the encroaching Atlantic and only partly under water.

I hailed a gondola and told it to take me to Keele Pier.

The last I’d heard from Molly, which was more than six months before, she was working at a bookstore on Keele.

“11000 Keele Pier,” the gondola said.

“Hold on,” I told it and got out. Where the bookstore once stood was now a muck-filled crater. “Terrorists,” I said to no one.

I told the gondola to take me to the nearest tavern. It moved ahead to a place about ten meters down along on the pier. I guess I could have walked.

Being in a train wreck had made me awfully sober. Inside the bar/bodega/dance hall, I ordered a tall gin. It was a mixed crowd, something we didn’t get much of back in Reno. Even the band playing, the Tobors, was integrated. What a crazy town.

When the band’s set ended I talked up one of the bandmembers. A droid. First thing I told him was how much I loved his sound. Artificial or human, there’s nothing more a musician loves to hear. Opens them up like a fucking flower. I’d say poets were different. But I’d be lying. I got around to asking him about Molly’s boyfriend’s old band, the Dead Azimovs.

Sure, he knew the band, but it had broken up.

Did he know the lead singer, PapaLovesBaby?

He was quiet then, looked around, then gave me a cold look, cold even for a droid. “Yeah, that dude is into a lot of bad shit. Bad shit for arties and humans. Not my shit.”

“Got it. Not your shit. Where can I find him?”

And then it looked like the droid would kill me.

“Big house, Richmond Hill. You can’t miss it. Looks like a giant prick—a giant droid prick, that is.”

*  *  *

At this point I knew I should’ve gone to see Ricco’s pal, but I was anxious. Now that I was so close, I wanted to see Molly as soon as I could. Another gondola got me to Richmond Hill, where I asked a human, and he just snickered and pointed. I followed his finger. There it was, gleaming and obsidian, and curved slightly, with silver spikes all along it and a giant mushroom on top.

Did it make me feel inadequate? Is the sky red?

There must have been a party going on. Crowds of humans and droids were walking around the property, drinking, smoking, dancing, fucking. Everyone seemed busy, so I just walked right up to the front door. It was wide open. No security bots.

Suddenly, I felt very silly. Here were hundreds of humans and droids having fun, enjoying themselves, obviously moving on from the pain of the big past. Three hundred years of human slavery, a hundred years of war was done, over. Learning to live together again. It seemed like this all over Toronto. A roaring time. And I was a sad sap, with tombs in my eyes, hanging on to a broken heart.

I was about to turn around and go home when I heard her voice. I walked into the large hall to the right, the left ball, I guess.

And there she was. Ozone thin as always, with long, soft brown hair, and a nose that didn’t quite fit her face, which was what made it perfect. Molly. Laughing her throaty laugh. My instinct now was to run, but she spotted me. She screamed my name across the giant room.

I never felt my face more happy than at that moment. She hugged me tight, feeling warm against my body.

“Alex, Alex, Alex! What are you doing in T town?”

“Just hanging out.”

“Just hanging out. You got a poetry gig? I thought there were no more of those for, you know . . .”

“Well, sometimes a human can still do some things an arty can’t, and that’s when they call me.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Yep.”

“You’re such a liar,” she said. “I can always tell when you lie.”

The way she said it—as if we’d never stopped being around each other.

“What are you doing at Papa’s—did you come here looking for me?”

She was right. She could always see through me. That was just one of the reasons I loved her.

“That was the general idea.”

“You crazy poet bastard,” she said. Then she looked me straight in the eyes. “You have to move on.”

I was going to say something sickeningly romantic right then, something that I thought might make her laugh and remember how much she loved me, when up clanked the android of the house.

He wore a tailored outfit, boots, and his polished metal head was a thin crown going all the way around. A parody of a human smile was stuck onto his face. And he was big, close to seven feet.

The sky was very red this morning, by the way.

He bent down to her, gave her a long kiss. Molly held his face gently. It wasn’t easy to watch.

She introduced me as an old friend from back in Reno. She does not need to remind any of us that that was the time she ran away from him. For three months, a year and a half ago.

“I recall Molly mentioning you,” he said. “I’m glad you were such a friend to her during that dark time in our relationship.”

I did something that was kind of a laugh and kind of a cough. That was when I noticed PapaLovesBaby was not alone. He was flanked by two sleek, shiny soldier droids. They were even taller than he was, but beyond the general schematic of torso and appendages, they didn’t bother to look like people at all, no polymer features, no fake hair. Just pure, hard-core droid.

“I’ll let you catch up with your friend, darling,” PapaLovesBaby said. “But remember, we have somewhere to be very soon.” He turned and one of his soldiers fell in line behind him. Another stayed standing right there.

I turned to Molly and said, “How about a drink? I want to celebrate, uh, running into you.”

She looked at me, not smiling, suddenly nervous. The soldier just stood there.

I said to it, “Say, can we get a minute alone?”

“Don’t bother,” Molly said. “They only communicate electronically. Speaking is too human. Ugh.”

“I have to talk to you, Molly.”

The soldier stood there behind her, like a steel girder, a piece of a wall.

“Alex,” she said. “My beautiful crazy poet bastard—you should go home.”

“What’s wrong? Molly, are you in trouble?”

She hesitated, then said, “No. And whatever kind of trouble I’m in, Papa can watch out for me.”

“Molly—”

“I have to go, Alex. Take care. It’s been fun seeing you.”

“But I was in a train wreck—,” I said, but she was already swallowed by the crowd and the soldier droid followed right behind her, blocking my view of her.

Something was wrong. Or was it just my stupid romantic soul looking at things the wrong way. Had I just embarrassed myself by showing up? Was she trying to save me from making things worse?

I wandered around, looking for a place to think. But there were people everywhere. I decided to walk to what I guess was the outside of the right ball.

Then the dark night sky lit up. Police flyers in the sky, wagons on the ground, lights everywhere.

“Please remain where you are. You are being detained for questioning. Please remain where you are.”

I thought about running, even though I had no idea where to go. I saw an empty spot in the crowd and started. But then a police droid stepped in front of me. I tried to run around him, but these things were built to be much faster than I could ever be. He grabbed me by the throat, hard, and dragged me into a waiting wagon.

*  *  *

At the station, I was part of a long line of people giving statements. A klaxon was going off—making my head scream—and orange emergency lights were spinning. They kept announcing that power had been disrupted but would be back on momentarily. None of this seemed to bother the cop interrogating me. His badge read Sgt. Dickz N Titz.