by Apex Authors
"She seems scared,” Jake said, “and sort of apprehensive. I've seen her walk alone and turn around as if she thought someone was following her.” After a while, he added, “and she seems angry, too. With that crease between her brows. She sits at her desk like an angry statue. But, since you really understand her,” he glanced at Milo, “you probably know what's going on."
* * * *
Milo checked his watch and glanced at the entrance of Vex. Terri should come out any moment. He took a deep breath, not used to being outside. The flurry of smells and voices choked him. He adjusted the caffeine cannula in his arm.
It had been a couple of days since the meeting with Jake. He had continued to use Spinnetje but, seized by guilt, was unwilling to sample the simulations. He wanted to make peace with Terri first. He needed to tell her about Spinnetje. Many things needed to change between them. He needed to turn around the greedy vortex inside his mind.
Terri started when she passed through the revolving door and spotted him waiting. She crossed the stairs with small steps. Her hair, lighter than ever, bounced behind her. She'd lost more weight and compensated for the loss of presence with loud make-up.
She pecked him on the cheek. “What brings you here?"
"Nothing,” Milo said. “I just wanted to see you.” She appeared tired instead of angry. She'd concealed the rings underneath her eyes.
"Okay.” She took his hand. They walked toward the metro, bumping into each other at times because their steps didn't match.
Terri said, “Sometimes I just want to leave. Take a year off. My brain feels like—” she kneaded the air with her free hand “—like a dripping sponge in need of a good wringing. Full, yet empty.” She winced. “That was deep."
Milo squeezed her hand.
She squeezed back.
She sighed and stopped to gaze at a selection of chocolates displayed in a shop window, then moved on without commenting, lost in thought. She walked next to him, as remote as in the days before Spinnetje.
She said, “Milo. I noticed something. About you."
He shifted, and their steps fell into synch.
She said, “You don't see me anymore. You look at me, but you don't see me. You seem to—” she let go of his hand as if her next remark couldn't be made while touching him. “You seem to anticipate something when you look at me. Or plan something."
They'd arrived at the metro entrance. She stopped at the top of the stairs. People streamed around them, pushed them closer together.
She said, “This is going to sound bad. But I don't trust you anymore."
* * * *
At home, Terri boiled quick pasta. Milo sat at the table. Neither had spoken since her declaration at the metro entrance. Milo snapped his fingers and MosquiBot buzzed over to sit on his shoulder. Terri stirred tomato powder into the boiling water.
Milo grabbed an orange from the fruit bowl, held it over a glass and let MosquiBot latch onto the peel. The bot rammed its proboscis into the pulp and squirted juice into the glass via a hose dangling from its back. Milo had made it as a birthday present for Terri.
Without turning around, Terri said, “Okay, it happened when you wanted to dance with me."
Milo let MosquiBot crawl from one palm to the other.
She drained the pasta. Her voice shook like high-strung wire. “One day, I walked home and, without knowing why, I saw myself dancing. Music played in my head, even though I have no musical talent. I imagined I was wearing this princess dress. It was quite embarrassing, actually, considering I hate dancing and princess dresses in real life.” She distributed the pasta onto two plates and poured sauce over the maggoty heaps. “But there I was, dancing away in my mind, and it made me happy. And part of it was that no one was there when I danced—it was just me. No handsome prince. No brilliant programmer."
She put the plates on the table and retrieved two sets of silverware from the dispenser. “You had no business knowing about this dance. But you did. In fact—” she sat down and raised her voice “—you bragged about it. You said, ‘I know things about you.’ That one phrase haunted me. ‘I know things about you.'” She chewed fiercely, punishing the pasta for Milo's transgression.
"So, what do you know? And how?” she asked. “It's something abnormal. I feel it."
Milo didn't touch the pasta. MosquiBot crawled on his palms, back and forth, back and forth.
"Sometimes, when I'm all alone,” she said, “I let my mind wander, and it's as if there are were footprints telling me someone has been there before me."
MosquiBot stood still and waved its antennae at her, as if it sensed her distress.
"Talk to me!” Her shout made him flinch. She swiped the metal insect from his hands. It pinged on the ground. “Tell me I'm wrong! Or crazy! Anything!"
In the face of Terri's rage, an image flashed in Milo's mind. Terri and himself, amorphous and sexless, clinging to each other like two embryos, feeding on the same nutrients, the same blood and brain.
Terri stomped on the floor. When she raised her foot, MosquiBot lay flattened, its antennae twitching once, twice, no more.
Milo hated her. She would stomp on Spinnetje. She would stomp on anything he could do.
Her face turned red. She opened and closed her mouth, shouted and gestured at him. He hid in a shell of cold rage. Shaking his head, he waited her out.
"I don't know what you mean,” he said.
His voice rang flat. He repeated again and again that he didn't know what she meant, until the absence of her yells told him she had gone.
* * * *
Milo didn't dare let Spinnetje feed on Terri again. The procedure had affected her, draining her mind of flavor. The bot hadn't harmed her physically, but it had damaged her in ways he couldn't comprehend, no matter how often he stared at the data retrieval logs. He didn't want to find out what would happen after more of Spinnetje.
They lived past and around each other for a while. Terri took the month off and spent her days outdoors. Color returned to her cheeks. She stopped dying her hair. She made her own food and asked Milo to sleep in the living room. She seemed to be gathering the strength necessary to leave him.
Her grains and juices sat in the fridge. Milo couldn't stomach them without her company. He dissolved powders in sugar water and chewed energy cubes. He sat naked in the breakfast bubble and watched the leaves float past.
Over the days, Terri's physical presence ceased to affect him. He didn't notice her comings and goings any more than he would have noticed the weather outside.
In his lab, Spinnetje moved around in its box. Its unrest pulsed through Milo's veins. He dreamt of Spinnetje throbbing with Terriness. He only needed to log in and suckle another delicious dose of his elusive wife. Spider legs tickled his naked skin. He paced back and forth. Give in! Be her!
He paced faster. His buttocks rippled.
Spinnetje was bursting with unvisited simulations of Terri. His strict discipline—no more than an hour at a time, never on consecutive days—paid off now. He had so many simulations left. Why not taste just a little sip—be with her for a moment, mingle with her, sneak a peek at the secret solo dances she craved.
Did she miss him, too? Or had Spinnetje digested part of her mind, so she missed the lost part of herself? Whatever was left of her couldn't be as sweet, as fragrant and pure as Spinnetje's treasure.
He crouched in front of the lab door, listening for scurrying legs on the synthetic panel. When he slept, he dreamed of the Terri locked in his lab and forgot about the real one.
* * * *
The lab looked the way he'd left it. Dried soup pots cluttered tables and keyboards. Wave patterns saved the screens. The cool air gave him goose bumps. He wrapped his robe around his body and started the computer.
Spinnetje didn't jump up when he opened its box, but it shifted its legs and lifted its body.
"Sorry for the wait,” Milo whispered.
Milo selected a recent date from Spinnetje's recordings and tra
nsferred the rest to his computer. More data would mean a clearer vision, but he couldn't waste all of Terri in one go. He'd noticed that the simulations grew flat if he experienced them more than once, as if they wilted in an alien brain.
He started the procedure. With Spinnetje ready, he lay down on his cot and clutched his robe with one hand. Spinnetje clung to his earlobe. The telltale warmth in his head told him the dissolution had started.
"Hi honey,” he whispered. “I'm home."
* * * *
He swam in the warm water of her mind. Golden swirls enveloped him, chocolate and caramel. He landed on a dollop of whipped cream. Cardinals chirped in marzipan trees. Fresh grass grew through him, black earth and roots as soft as silk tassels.
Pain. He snapped back, ground into a mesh of bone and blood. He'd hit a concrete wall. A red splotch proved it. He spun around. Doors slammed shut around him. Garage doors crashing down, fridge doors smacking shut, creaking trap doors, every door imaginable. He became a blur as he spun faster and faster, carried by the cacophony of shutting doors until he flattened and thinned out and stopped.
He floated over a lake of black ink, still throbbing with pain. A bright patch twinkled. It grew until a cone broke the water surface, shaping into a moving statue of a man and a woman, her legs wrapped around his hips. They made love. Terri's body was unmistakable. The man looked up at her, eyes bulging in that stupid pre-orgasmic grimace that doesn't care.
An unknown. Her dream man.
* * * *
Immediately after waking from the simulation, Milo got up and paced back and forth, clenching his teeth. Terri moved away from Milo, into the black lake of solitary imaginations. She constructed traps for him, slammed doors in his face. He mustn't let her disappear. For the sake of his dream, for the sake of their intertwined embryonic fingers, he had to protect her. He would keep her safe.
Milo was sitting at the table when her key turned in the lock. A moment later, she entered the living room.
She played with a strand of hair, light at the tip and darker at the root.
"Hey,” she said.
Spinnetje convulsed in Milo's hand. “Hey."
She took small steps toward him, her ankles shaking slightly on her high heels. She had developed freckles.
"Look at you,” she said. She sat down on the coffee table.
He crossed his arms, Spinnetje safe in his fist.
"What happened to you? You're a mess.” She picked at a dried slab of all-in-one meal that clung to his chest hairs. After a while, it came loose.
"Everyone misses you at work,” she said. “Please, can't you ... snap out of it?"
"I invented something wonderful."
She didn't flinch.
"Do you trust me?” he asked.
"I don't know.” But her eyes said she wanted to.
"This is Spinnetje,” he said, and opened his fist.
Terri shrieked. She shot up, stepped back, and almost fell over the coffee table.
Her shrieking rang in his ears. What a stupid woman she could be. Milo held the spider under her nose. “Don't be so ridiculously prejudiced!"
She slapped at his hand. The spider jumped onto her face and, circumventing her screaming mouth, crawled down her neck.
"Get off me, get off me,” Terri screamed. She grabbed Spinnetje and, with a wail, slammed it against the wall. It bounced off and came to lie on the floor.
Milo fell to his knees next to the spider. He prodded its body and tugged at its legs. “Spinnetje, stay. Please."
Spinnetje didn't move. After a while, Terri knelt down next to him. “What is this?” she whispered. “Did I break it?"
Spinnetje blinked red and arranged its legs. Terri jumped. Milo grasped Spinnetje with one hand, and Terri's neck with the other. She struggled to escape his grip, and he fell on top of her. His hand holding Spinnetje struck her temple. Recognizing its target's identity, Spinnetje dissolved into Terri, restoring her skin as it did so, making for the main prize, her brain. Terri stared into space as the insect dug into her, Milo's hand patting the bulge of tissue and crowding nanites in her head until, finally, she fainted.
"I'll explain,” he whispered, his brow touching hers. “One day."
As soon as Spinnetje reappeared, he downloaded the data and sent it into Terri's brain again, ignoring the requirement for deep sleep, the identified limit of one feed per day, her convulsions. And then he did it again, and again. When Terri grew still, he went to the lab and let the salvaged remains of Terri invade him in an orgy that lasted hours.
* * * *
Jake visited Milo and Terri on the first day of winter. The snowflakes melted on his boots as he entered the apartment. Milo didn't comment. He looked good, slim and neat. He wore a suit. Next week he'd be back to work. It had taken him some time to live through Terri's breakdown, but he looked calm. Ready.
The apartment sparkled. Milo put a plate with fresh cookies and two glasses of orange juice on the table. He motioned Jake to sit down.
Terri sat in a wheelchair. Her neck was propped up in a padded steel collar. Her head lolled against the padding, one eye squinting past Jake, the other half-hidden under a swollen eyelid. Spittle covered her lower lip. Jake had to look away.
"Look, Terri,” Milo said, crossing his legs, “Jake is here. Do you remember Jake?"
Terri didn't make a sound.
Milo shrugged. “I like to talk to her, you know? It's probably silly, but ... I like to think it pleases her."
"I'm so sorry,” Jake said, ashamed of the tears in his voice.
Milo picked up a cookie and took a bite. He chatted about a new technology he planned to introduce to Vex soon after his return, something about attaining more complete and immersive access to sensory perceptions, emotions, and memories.
Jake had difficulty listening. The dreadful apparatus that used to be Terri distracted him. He was also struck by a new quality in Milo. If he hadn't known better, he'd call it feminine. The flourish of his gestures, the wide smile, the melody of his voice ... it all seemed familiar, like an old song, but Jake couldn't pinpoint the familiarity.
Confused, Jake took a sip of juice. Milo joined him.
"Something bothers you,” Milo said. “What is it?"
"I don't know,” Jake said.
Milo gestured at Terri. “Is it her?"
Jake cringed. “Maybe."
Milo said, “Jake.” The melodious syllable floated across the table in outright seduction.
"I want you to know something, Jake,” Milo said, leaning back, holding his glass with a familiar grace. “Terri and I were close before she ... broke down. Very close. The body you see here, this ... thing in the wheelchair, has nothing to do with the real Terri. The real Terri—” he touched his chest “—is here. In my heart. The real Terri is in my mind, my thoughts. We are one, she and I.” He smiled again. “She's safe."
Milo's smile kindled a memory inside Jake. He'd almost grasped it, almost put a name to it, when Terri grunted. She twisted her neck and grunted again. Milo took her hand, kissed it, and turned back to Jake.
"It seems your visit is over-stimulating her. Would you excuse us?"
Dan Keohane's short fiction has appeared in Cemetery Dance, The Pedestal Magazine, Fantastic Stories, Gothic.Net, Extremes, Poddities and many others. His novel Solomon's Grave was recently released in Italy (as il Segreto Di Salomone) and is due for release this November in Germany from Otherworld Verlag (as Das Grub Des Salomon). One of these days he'll sell a book in English. You can visit his website at www.dankeohane.com.
RAY GUN
By Daniel G. Keohane
Hank Cowles’ eyes opened with a start. He stared at the ceiling, trying to place the morning. Where he was; who he was. It came to him, slowly, as it often did these days. His waking had been sudden, not his usual slow rise out of sleep. Pushing aside the heavy quilt, Hank muttered, “Shit,” and got out of bed. He did this slowly, the way a man in his early eighties needed to do everything if he
wanted to make it back unscathed at the end of the day. Most days he succeeded.
He stood beside the bed and rubbed his face with his hands.
The slippers were in the right spot. A nice surprise. A couple of days ago he'd taken them off halfway down the hall and there they'd been, waiting for him like dogs too tired to run to their master. He slipped into them now and shuffled out of the room. By the time he was standing over the toilet, his right leg had begun to shake with the tremors of a new day. Not badly, though. It would settle down soon enough.
Hank looked to the left out the bathroom window. Rain pattered against the glass, running in slow rivulets before pooling at the bottom of the pane. Beyond, his wooded backyard was blurred, gray in the dawn light. It was too gray out there. Too early. He hadn't bothered looking at the clock. Maybe he'd been woken by thunder.
When he was finished, he buttoned up his pajama pants and hesitated in the hall. If it was too early, he could go back to bed. If he went into the kitchen, early or not he'd be too hungry to sleep.
"Piss in a shoe,” he muttered, and turned toward the kitchen.
The clock on the microwave read five thirty-one. A good two hours early. He almost turned back toward the bedroom, but he made the mistake of looking out the large picture window facing the woods. More rain, the wind blowing in from the northwest. Even so, he could see there were less trees back there than yesterday. Deeper in, if he looked long enough—
Something went BAM BAM BAM against the storm door. Hank gasped and stepped back.
A man's shape hovered beyond the curtained window of the door. Hank stepped heavily in his slippers across the kitchen and opened the door with as much force as he could manage. His left wrist screamed in protest. Stupid, he thought, should have used the right. He recognized his visitor a moment before shouting, “What the fuck are you doing, Martin, slamming on my damned door at five-fucking-thirty?"
Martin Greenough, seventy-one, unruly white hair pressed down under his blue Red Sox cap, smiled beneath his umbrella and tipped his cap's rim in greeting.
"Heya, Hank,” he said over the light patter of rain above him. He looked at his watch. “Five thirty-four, actually. Just thought I'd check in with you before going UFO hunting in your backyard."