Virtually True (38 page)

MAXI

Give me back my wrist-top.

TRUE

Fucking usurious Ozzie bastard.

CUT TO

The CLONES, who don’t even twitch at the sight of TRUE and MAXI. Breathing hard and heavy, sweat flowing down their heads into their eyes, stinging them, making them blink. TRUE and MAXI wait. Finally, TRUE slowly reaches into his pocket, wincing as the guns, unwavering, point at them, and extracts his hologrammed press pass.

TRUE

See? Journalists. Observers.

CUT TO

The CLONES, who don’t waver. From behind them, TRUE can hear explosions, then the buzzing, hacksaw sound of a laser. Some of the CLONES drop, their armor melted to their skin. But they don’t cry out, don’t exhibit the human characteristics of pain. They are merely incapacitated. The thought crosses TRUE’S mind that it was a shame he couldn’t have been a CLONE when his life with Eden fell apart.

CLONE lasers blind them, the sound of screams and agony of men and women in battle. TRUE turns to advancing mercenaries.

TRUE

Hope none of the clones makes a DNA miscue.

CUT TO

TRUE and MAXI sprinting into the CLONE stronghold. The CLONES ignore them, keep their weapons trained on MERCENARIES. TRUE and MAXI swivel through the first wave of CLONES, dive behind some mortar and cement—the remains of the factory—and thousands of pairs of sneakers. The stench of melted rubber is almost suffocating. From behind the wall, TRUE and MAXI keep recording the action, catching the battle on screen, trying to remain calm as MERC and CLONE alike are maimed and killed.

CUT TO

TRUE’s wrist-top screen, EDEN in the right-hand corner, sitting quietly in the apartment as the other 15 screens are taken up with vicious fighting, 15 tales of bravery and cowardice, violence and retreat, death and injury, lasers, guns and hand-to-hand combat.

EDEN

Are you all right?

TRUE

So far.

CUT TO

An explosion nearby, and hundreds of pairs of sneakers raining down on and around them.

EDEN

(
screaming
)

True!

CUT TO

TRUE and MAXI, huddling under sneakers, dust, concrete, and glass floating down.

MAXI

(
tossing a sneaker away
)

I got a bloody headache.

TRUE

Tell me about it. We’re OK, Eden.

EDEN

Incredible footage. I feel like I’m in the middle of the war.

TRUE

Funny. So do we.

CUT TO

MAXI, grinning broadly, then wincing, although the smile stays intact as a whole platoon of MERCENARIES is wiped out.

CUT TO

TRUE. CLOSEUP. EYES WIDE OPEN, MOUTH AGAPE.

CUT TO

THE FACTORY, TRUE and MAXI, part of a world that’s gone haywire. Suddenly, their positions change, the whole battlefield has shifted, kaleidoscoping, like falling off a motorcycle. In a blink of the eye, they are 10 meters from where they were before.

CUT TO

The CLONES, still firing on the MERCENARIES, who seemed to have all of a sudden increased in size, as if reinforcements have been sent in. And then CLONES begin disappearing, but not from mercenary fire. One second the CLONE is firing or moving to shore up a position, the next it’s gone. Whole lines of CLONES disappear, like a shuffling deck of cards.

TRUE

(
Seems to understand something important
)

Maxi. We have to get out of here.

MAXI

OK, just a little more footage. Look at them disappear. Like they’re dissolving. This is incredible.

TRUE

Now!

CUT TO

MAXI, who doesn’t answer, wrapped up in the battle.

CUT TO

AN OVERVIEW OF TRUE and MAXI’s WRIST-TOP SCREENS, as CLONES disappear in a domino-effect crossing screen to screen.

CUT TO

TRUE, running, waving MAXI on, as he heads out onto the battlefield

PULL BACK TO REVEAL

THE BRUNT OF THE MERCENARY ARMY, their guns trained on him

CUT TO

A TEENAGE MALAY MERCENARY, tattered and bloody, taking aim

CUT TO

TRUE wincing and running, looking suspiciously like a video game character

CUT TO

MAXI, still in the same spot, filming

CUT TO

TRUE, doing a quick 180, the MALAY missing him, then aiming elsewhere, as if he couldn’t be bothered with TRUE, and TRUE racing back to MAXI

CUT TO

TRUE screaming at MAXI to get moving and

CUT TO

MAXI shutting off his wrist-top, muttering “Ready to rock and—”

CUT TO

CLOSE UP. MAXI looks at the camera, says “Holy Fuck,” and photo-flashes invisible.

CUT TO

TRUE hitting the deck where Maxi was, hugging the ground, his nose nudged under sneakers

PULL BACK TO REVEAL

THE WHOLE BATTLEFIELD and the ensuing mayhem, as the battle intensity picks up, one long gun report and laser hiss, the air redolent with blue smoke, chemical lasers, burning flesh and hair, rubber and gun powder. There is a loud thud that seems to come from within True’s head and his world spins out of control, the atmosphere’s molecules breaking up into molecules, a Seurat painting, thousands of colors shimmying, shimmering.

There’s another thudding explosion, the world shifts again, and True is lying on something soft, gooey. The stench of burnt flesh and hair is melted into his clothing. Something familiar lying by his head. The dregs of an oil skin hat. Maxi’s wrist-top beside it.

True rolls out of the muck, frantically rubs at the viscous material. In his mind he’s screaming,
Get it off! Get it off!
but knows he’ll never get Maxi off his clothes, never get him out of his mind.

The battle is over as the clones chase the remnants of the mercenary army.

True in unfettered shakes. Looks over the battlefield. A clone steps around him, ignores him.

True picks up a half-melted sneaker. Heaves it at him. Misses.

CHAPTER 29

Eden gasps when True walks in, stained with vomit, dirt, and Maxi. “Are you all right?”

True nods stiffly, afraid he’s on the verge of losing control.

The apartment is crowded with flowers. Roses. In vases, bouquets, planters, wrapped in plastic or displayed in pancake-thin origami. The air is thick with their perfume.

Eden explains. “Someone named Piña sent them. There’s a note.”

She draws a bath, strips him. He knows she’s surveying Piña’s chafes, the scratches running along his spine, the purple-olive splotches on his chest. Artillery, she may ask? But she doesn’t and True doesn’t say.

After he’s immersed in the stinging water Eden takes off her panties, steps in, hiking up her skirt and lowering herself on him. She soaps his body, the arms first, gently; his shoulders, kneaded. She lathers his toes and works herself up his ankles, shins, knees, thighs. True’s aroused despite his pain. She encloses him in her, her legs rubber-banding around his waist. She urges his hands onto her breasts. The nipples push hard against her soaking dress. She rises, falls, tension and release, stroking him as she dances.

The tub is slippery and True slides along the bottom. As her movements animate, her fingers and toes curl behind his back. Husky breaths. She throws herself all the way down on him, driving almost inside him, pulling close. He’s coming down from her climax. His nose is mushed into her cleavage and he’s thinking about the cycle of life, how it’s really just a cycle from childhood to childhood. Except in his case, his childhood was taken away from him, spent in a lab.

Eden’s hair is steam-damp. She hugs him as if this is the last time. But her message is different. “I love you, True. I love you. And I’ll always be there for you. I know you don’t believe me. I know you don’t trust me. But I’ll show you. I promise.”

Plagued by guilt. He has a lot of work but little time.