Space and Time Issue 121 (5 page)

I tell her about Enrique and Tony and the portable swaplights they expected to pick up in a couple of days.

“I still wish you’d contacted me sooner.” She lights a cigarette and blows the smoke away from me.

The teenager behind the counter looks up in annoyance and points to the “no smoking” sign on the far wall. Natalie flips him the finger and he sighs loudly, turning his attention back to his link-pad.

“I’ve been thinking since you called... Drew, you don’t seem like the type to be into swapmeats.”

I give her a questioning look.

“I know you have a crush on me,” she continues. “And it’s sweet, really, even though I don’t... I don’t deserve it. So I was wondering. Did you follow me to that party? It’s okay if you did. I won’t get angry.”

I stare down at the table. Grease coats it like a protective layer.

“I figured as much,” she says.

“I know it was wrong. But I’m glad I did it, because now I can help you.”

“I don’t get you. Why are you so interested in me? We’ve barely spoken three sentences to each other before now.” She pulls on her cigarette and taps ashes from it into her coffee cup.

I try to put it into words, but all I can say is, “You were– You’re so beautiful,” I say.

She exhales smoke like a drawn-out sigh.

“But that’s not it, not entirely,” I say. “I mean, I could tell there was something else, another side of you, you were hiding at work.”

“Drew, we all do that. Every fucking person in the world.”

I confess about the night I’d seen her outside of that nightclub wearing the red miniskirt, her clear and confident laugh with the man in the Lamborghini, the glimpse I’d had into her hidden life.

She rolls her eyes. “You can’t possibly know who I am from that.”

“You made assumptions about me, too,” I say. “You decided I wasn’t worth your time without giving me a chance.”

She stabs out her cigarette and lights another. “Maybe you’re right. I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore. This is all so unreal, Drew. And I do appreciate you helping me out. But...if you’re doing this because you expect something more...”

Smoke hangs over the table between us, burning my eyes.

When Natalie’s back in her own body, when her memories are where they belong, she’ll think more clearly. I will too, without all this confusion over my feelings for Tony. She’ll be grateful. And everything will make sense again.

* * *

We approach the pick-up location, an abandoned tenement with boarded-up windows and a crumbling stoop. The rust-speckled front door is crisscrossed with yellow caution tape, but unlocked.

Our flashlights illuminate scattered syringes, food wrappers, used condoms, and chunks of ceiling plaster. The stairwell reeks of garbage as we climb to the third floor.

“The apartment’s over here,” Natalie says. She’s wearing less makeup today and a white blouse and navy blue slacks that fit her body better. She still has a phlegmy cough that hits her when she’s not speaking.

“Nice work, darling,” Enrique says. He’d objected to Natalie joining them, but she wanted to get swapped immediately so I had insisted on bringing her along. My conversations with Enrique have become more strained ever since that evening he decided to comfort Tony. The two had become inseparable. When I think about them together–my body and Natalie’s body–while I’m stuck in this form, my hands turn to fists.

Enrique and Natalie enter the dark unlocked apartment ahead of me. I lug a small generator to power the swaplights and Tony strides beside me.

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” I whisper to Tony. I’m worried about what might happen to him if something goes wrong.

“It’s the right thing to do,” Tony says. “This body belongs to your girlfriend. And swapping will buy me some more time. Keep my neural patterns intact.”

“She isn’t my girlfriend.”

We enter the apartment and find Enrique opening a hard plastic briefcase. He pulls out a familiar string of blue bulbs and a tablet-sized piece of black metal with glinting nodules affixed to its four corners.

“I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in my life,” Natalie says.

“Let’s do this,” Enrique says. “Ladies first?” Following the illustrated instructions printed inside the briefcase, he arranges the lights in a circle, connects them to the generator and removes the nodules, pressing them to Natalie and Tony’s temples.

The apartment floods with a dim blue light that sends mice skittering along the walls. Tony and Natalie stand in the center of the glowing ring. Instinctively, they hold hands.

“Party time,” Enrique says. He presses a button.

The blue lights hum and flicker.

At that moment, a searchlight shines through the window, washing out the blueness. And a siren shrieks outside while smashing wood reverberates from downstairs.

“Give me a break!” Enrique screams. “How did they know we’d be here?” He glares at me. “Your sister.”

“No,” I say. “Lena wouldn’t...” But she had pressured me to turn myself in, and a bust like this would make a great story. I push the thought away, wondering where it came from.

Natalie holds her hands in front of her face, cups her breasts. “No! I’m still in here.”

“It didn’t work,” Tony says glumly. He tears off the nodules.

“Not enough power,” Enrique says. “Piece of junk.” He kicks the generator over and the room plunges into blackness. I hear the clinking of the bulbs as they’re shoved into the briefcase. The searchlight shines through the window again, sweeping through the room, seeking us out. We bolt out of the apartment into the hallway. Loud boot-steps echo up the stairwell around the corner.

“This direction,” Enrique whispers, racing ahead.

“This is insane,” Natalie says. She coughs loudly. “We need to give ourselves up.”

Enrique leads us to an elevator at the opposite end of the corridor. I pull the door open and prop it with a brick. I switch my flashlight on and point it down the shaft, catching the glint of a metal ladder just below.

Silhouettes appear at the other end of the hall.

“Turn that off!” Enrique says. He snatches the flashlight from me and it slips out of his hand, clattering to the bottom of the shaft.

“Shit,” he says. “I’m not usually so clumsy.” He opens and closes his fingers. “What’s happening to me?”

Tony dangles his long legs over the side until his feet find the service ladder.

“Wait!” Natalie says to Tony. “You’re not taking my body down there.”

I look from her to Tony, who’s clinging to the ladder.

“Tony, the police can swap us,” Natalie says. She suppresses a cough and reaches her hand down to him.

“That’s where I know you from! The police!” Enrique pulls a gun from his waistband and points it at Natalie. “I thought you looked familiar.”

“What are you doing? Are you crazy?” I say.

“I saw her at the party.” Enrique’s hand shakes.

“Of course you did,” Natalie says.

“No! She’s a cop,” Enrique says. “Don’t you see? She’s in one of the officers’ bodies that got swapped with us.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I say. “Tell him, Natalie.”

But Natalie stares at the floor, her lower lip quivering. “I didn’t have a choice. I knew I couldn’t get away in a cop’s body. So I turned myself in. They made me a deal.”

“You sold us out?” My mind reels.

“Don’t move!” a voice shouts from down the hall.

Enrique swivels and a flashlight beam reflects off his gun. Shots explode and his right knee explodes in a spray of bone and blood. As he starts to fall, he jerks backward when another bullet tears through his right shoulder.

“No!” I say.

“Enrique!” Tony cries. He starts to climb up out of the shaft.

“No! Get out of here!” I shout. “I’m right behind you.”

Enrique writhes on the floor. Plaster bursts above him spewing a plume of white dust. I look down at him–at my own body–gushing blood onto the tiled floor and lock eyes with him for a moment.

I snatch the briefcase and head for the ladder.

“Drew!” Natalie says. She’s desperate, frantic, as she presses her hands to Enrique’s shoulder, trying to staunch the wound. “Your body’s injured!”

No, it’s too late, I think. That body isn’t me. Not anymore.

“Don’t leave me, Drew,” Natalie says. “The cops can help us.”

I hesitate, staring at Natalie then at Tony–at Natalie’s body–below me on the ladder. No, the cops won’t help Tony. They’ll just let him fade away.

“Drew?” Natalie asks.

“You were right,” I tell her. “I don’t know you at all.”

I scramble down the ladder.

* * *

I arrange the lights on the floor of the hotel room. Hopefully the electric current from the wall outlet will do the trick this time. I’m still grungy and exhausted having spent the night hiding in a garbage bin with Tony until we were sure the cops were gone.

“Enrique may be dead,” Tony says. He paces back and forth.

“I don’t care,” I say.

“But you could wind up just like me. Without a body!”

“We’ll stay alive by swapping with each other every week. We should be able to maintain our neural patterns that way.”

“In theory. If you can get the lights to work,” Tony snaps. “And if our brain patterns don’t degrade from constantly being swapped.” He pushes back his blond bangs and places his hands on his forehead. Is Natalie’s personality reasserting itself at last? I’m tempted to wait and see. I can fill her in on what’s happened. Most of it. The Natalie that emerges in her own body wouldn’t have betrayed me to the cops; she’d be grateful that I protected her body...

No, I can’t risk losing my own consciousness standing around and doing nothing, and I can’t abandon Tony.

“Drew?” Tony stops pacing and draws closer. Fear and confusion washes across his face. “What are we?”

“What?” I ask, though I know exactly what Tony means. It’s the same thought that’s haunted me ever since Lena first told me how swapping works. I stare at Tony, at Natalie’s round face and dimpled cheeks, her blue, teary eyes.

“We’re just copies, right?”

“No, we’re more than that,” I say. “And we have every right to live.”

I plug in the lights. The blue bulbs glow, brighter than they did on the portable generator–all but one. I tap the dark bulb, tighten it, but it doesn’t come to life. It shouldn’t make a difference; I’m pretty sure the lights are just for effect.

“I mean, do we have souls, Drew? Or did those stay with our original bodies?”

I drop the string and pull Tony into the circle with me.

“You’re still you.” I affix the nodules to my forehead then gently attach one to Tony’s left and right temple. I brush Tony’s hair back.

Tony leans up and kisses me.

“Are you sure?” I whisper.

Tony unbuttons his blouse. I help him undress, then fumble to remove my own clothing.

It’s finally happening.

We lie down together in the center of the circle of swaplights. And as we kiss and stroke each other’s bodies, the lights buzz.

A flash.

Vertigo.

I’m on my back. A tanned man next to me sits up.

“Drew? Did it work?” the man asks. His eyes widen and he rubs his biceps and flat stomach. He reaches down to his crotch and grins. “That’s more like it.”

I stagger to my feet and hold out my hands, studying my slender fingers. I stumble forward and yank open the closet door, stare at my naked reflection in the full-length mirror.

Natalie.

Me.

A second later, Tony steps up behind me, his hands covering his crotch. “Excuse me?” he says. “Madam? What’s–what’s going on here?”

“Tony?” I say. But he stares back at me, confused. He blinks, shakes his head. “Something’s happening to me.”

* * *

I lumber down the green-walled hospital corridor. Between the high heels and spots of dizziness, it’s all I can do to keep myself upright. I don’t have much time left.

My migraine flares up again, and a blue-white flash blinds me. Suddenly I’m ten feet farther down the hall–the micro-blackouts are coming more frequently.

I find the hospital room and stop short when I see Lena seated in a chair beside the bed. I should have known she’d be here. I consider coming back later, but I may not have another chance.

I stumble inside, tripping over nothing, but quickly regain my balance.

My bandaged body lies in the bed.

“Natalie?” the original Drew says to me, sitting up.

So Enrique’s personality is really gone. I’d expected as much, but part of me feels sorry for the stupid bastard. And Tony, poor Tony, has gone too. Maybe the broken lights had malfunctioned, or perhaps Tony’s memories were already too far degraded. I hated to leave him behind at the hotel, but I didn’t want to deal with the personality emerging in his body.

If I don’t swap again soon–using a properly functioning set of lights–I know I’ll suffer the same fate. I lock eyes with my old body. The original me is only missing a week of memories, but they make all the difference.

My high heels clack against the tiled floor. I hand Lena a bouquet of tulips, my favorite flower, which I’d purchased in the lobby, and smooth my black miniskirt self-consciously.

“Tony?” Lena asks hesitantly.

I stare at her blankly.

“No, this is Natalie. From work,” Drew says.

“I know who she is,” Lena says.

“You look great,” Drew says. He struggles to sit up further, wincing. His right leg is in traction, bound tightly at the knee. His shoulder is similarly bandaged.

“Drew, you’re supposed to rest,” Lena says.

He points at the flowers. “Would you mind putting these in a vase, Lena?”

Lena frowns. “I’ll be right back.”

I nearly call her back into the room, to say goodbye. But I let her go. There’s only one brother she cares about, only one she gets to keep.

Another shock. A blue-white flash. My vision clears and I find myself sitting on the bed next to Drew. I notice the effect my new body has on my old one.

“I c–can’t believe you’re here, Natalie,” Drew says to me.

I can barely stand the sight of myself. Had I always been so pathetic around her? I perch on the side of the bed, allowing my skirt to ride up my thigh, just to see the reaction, and place a hand on my original self’s arm.