Tears in Rain

by Rosa Montero

  “Excuse me for a minute,” she said to Nopal.

  She swiped her mobile across the electronic eye on the table, paid twenty cents, took one of the tiny earpieces out of the dispenser and put it in her ear. She could hear the chanting of the Apocalyptics and, over the top of it, the voice of a reporter who was saying: “impression of this tragedy which has shaken the Radical Replicant Movement again. This is Carlos Dupont from Madrid.” And then a block of advertisements started playing. Bruna took out the earpiece, discouraged and somewhat concerned. Were they still talking about Chi’s death, or was it something else? She’d check the news on her mobile as soon as she left the writer.

  “Why is he following you?” asked the memorist.

  “Who?”

  “That guy.”

  Bruna turned in the direction Nopal’s finger was pointing. Her stomach churned. Paul Lizard was sitting at one of the tables at the back. Their eyes met and the inspector gave a small nod of his head in greeting. The rep sat upright in her chair. Her cheeks were burning. She thought she could still feel the guy’s eyes on the nape of her neck.

  “What makes you think he’s following me?” she asked, trying in vain to keep her voice sounding normal.

  “I know him. Lizard. A wretched, persistent bloodhound. He was giving me grief when...when I had my problems.”

  “Well then, you could be his target.”

  “He came into the pavilion behind you.”

  Bruna blushed slightly. How could she not have realized that she was being shadowed? She was losing her faculties. Or maybe the encounter with the dying Valo had upset her too much. A black rock weighed on her chest. A profound premonition of misfortune. The rep stood up.

  “Thanks for everything, Nopal. I’ll keep you informed.”

  She walked decisively toward the exit and as she went past the inspector’s table, she bent down and whispered in his ear, “I’m going to the RRM headquarters. In case you lose me.”

  “Many thanks, Bruna,” the big man replied.

  And he smiled, granite-faced.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Nopal watched Bruna as she walked off. He saw her stop briefly next to Lizard, whisper something in his ear and then continue toward the exit with a light, confident step. She was a beautiful creature, a rapid, perfect machine. Thirty seconds later, the inspector got up and walked out after her, tall and sturdy, with the swaying gait of a sailor on land. His body is the exact opposite of Bruna’s razor-sharp one, thought Nopal.

  A gentle drumming above his head made him realize that it had started to rain. The drops were falling on the transparent dome and then tracing swift-running trickles of water across the cover. A pale ray of sunlight filtered through a gap in the clouds, and the sky was a tangle of mist in every conceivable shade of gray. It was a perfect sky to accompany sad feelings.

  Sadness is a genuine luxury, the memorist thought to himself. He hadn’t allowed himself that calm and unhurried emotion for many years. When you experience pain so acute that you’re afraid you won’t be able to bear it, there is no sadness but rather despair, madness, rage. He sensed something akin to that despair in Bruna, something of that pure sorrow that burned like acid. Of course, he had a clear advantage when it came to sensing her feelings. He knew her. Or rather, he recognized her.

  In his time as a memorist Nopal had always behaved in the manner he’d described to the rep at the Museum of Modern Art. He’d always tried to construct solid, balanced lives with a certain sense of purpose. Lives that were comforting in some way. Only once had he transgressed that unwritten personal rule—and that was with the last job he did, when he already knew they were going to expel him from the profession. And Bruna was carrying that memory. The Law of Artificial Memory of 2101 strictly prohibited writers from knowing which specific technohumans would end up with their implants, and vice versa; it was assumed that such knowledge might generate various abuses and problems. But his work on Bruna’s memory had been exceptional in every meaning of the word; it was a much more comprehensive, deeper, freer, more passionate, and more creative memory. It was the masterpiece of Nopal’s life, because it was precisely his own life. In a literally re-created version, naturally. But the basic emotions, the essential events, they were all there. And since you are what you remember, Bruna was in a way his other self.

  From the very moment he handed over the implant, Pablo Nopal tried to discover which technohuman was carrying it. All he knew was that it was a female combat model, and her age to within six months. He would have preferred the techno to have been a male, and a computation or exploration model, as these allowed for greater creativity and refinement, but the specifications were set by the gestation plant, and Nopal concurred. Anyway, he had been extremely free in creating her; he had ignored all the rules of his profession. Poor Husky: by being his final opus, she had received the poisoned gift of his grief.

  During the six years Nopal had been searching for her, he had investigated scores of technohumans. The only way to discover the recipient of his memory was to talk to them and try to deduce it from their comments, with the result that he had become a combat rep stalker. He discovered that some reps had a morbid fascination for memorists, and he ended up taking a liking to those quick and athletic reps with their perfect bodies. He slept with several of them, but he only became truly intimate with one—Myriam Chi, who was not, in fact, a combat rep but an exploration model whom he met while he was hanging out with an RRM militant. So his relationship with Chi was free of any utilitarian considerations. She was a very special woman. Her memorist, whoever he might be, had created a real work of art. They ended up being friends and he spoke to her of his search. She made him promise that he would say nothing to the android when he found her, but she agreed to help him. Thanks to Chi, he had managed to draw up a list of the reps he still had to probe. There were twenty-seven, and Husky was among them. When the detective had spoken to him about Chi in the museum, Nopal had been unable to discern if Chi had sent Bruna to him in order to help him out or in order for him to help Bruna with her investigation. He had intended to give the RRM leader a call to ask her, but they had killed her before he could do so.

  They killed her, the man repeated to himself, feeling that the hurtful, sharp edge of the word was slicing his tongue.

  Nopal’s father, too, had been killed by a criminal one night when the memorist was nine years old. That was one of the centers of pain he had implanted into the detective. But things had become even more difficult for the writer because, a few months later, his mother committed suicide. Then there was the year he spent in the orphanage and, just when he thought he’d reached the absolute depths of hell, his uncle appeared and adopted him—and that was when he learned there can always be something worse.

  Nopal stirred in his seat, feeling too close to the abyss. Each time he thought about his childhood he remembered that child, Pablo, as if it weren’t him, but some poor child they’d spoken to him about sometime in the past. He knew that they had hit that boy and had kept him in the dark in a cellar for days at a time, and that the child was terrorized. But he had no memory of those experiences from within, of the interminable darkness of the dirty cellar, of the dampness when he wet himself, of the pain of the burns. Inside Nopal’s head that child who wasn’t entirely him continued to be shut away and ill-treated. Just touching on that thought filled his eyes with tears at the pain and anguish that clutched at his throat like a hunting dog, preventing him from breathing normally. That was why Nopal tried not to think, not to remember.

  The writer didn’t really know why he had toned down his experiences when he translated them into Bruna’s memory. Perhaps out of compassion for the rep who was going to become a life-size version of that young Pablo he carried inside him. Or maybe a professional obsession made him fear that if he included everything, the story would seem exaggerated and barely plausible. Or it could be that he had kept quiet about some of those things because authentic pain is indescribable. Even
so, investing the rep with his own memories had helped Nopal to lighten the load of his own pain. Not only because he had, in a way, passed on some of his misfortunes to another, but also, more than anything, because that other existed, because there was someone who was like him. Because he was no longer alone.

  The loneliness was worse than being locked up, worse than the sadism of the other children in the orphanage, worse than the beatings and injuries—worse, even, than the fear. Nopal had been left completely alone when he was nine years old, and the absolute loneliness was a terrifying and inhuman experience. After the murder of his father, the memorist had not been needed by, or important to, anyone. Nobody missed him. Nobody remembered him. Not even his mother had thought about him when she killed herself. It was the closest thing to not existing. But this replicant was, to a great extent, like him: she had a share of his memories, and she even possessed actual objects that came from Nopal’s childhood. Bruna was, in short, more than a daughter, more than a sister, more than a lover. There would never be anyone as close to him as that android.

  That afternoon at the museum, when Bruna’s identity and the end of his search had finally been confirmed, he had come out in goose bumps. It had been a deeply touching moment, but fortunately he had been able to hide his feelings; he had spent his entire life learning to hide his emotions. Nopal had felt instantly attracted to the rep. She was beautiful, wild, and tough, and suffering and burning inside in the same way that he was. He found her fascinating from the first moment perhaps because he sensed the similarity, and when he finally confirmed that she was the one, he liked her even more. But he couldn’t give in to that narcissistic impulse, the memorist told himself. He couldn’t make love to the replicant. That would be an act against nature, something incestuous and sick. And the memorist, contrary to what many might think, considered himself to be a highly moral man, almost a puritan. It was just that his morals tended to be different from those of everyone else.

  No, it was better to continue like this. He’d look after her from afar, as a benevolent god might look after his child. And for the few years of life she had left, he’d try to delight in her, in the relief from pain that Bruna’s existence provided him. The memorist sighed, enfolded in a delicate sorrow. The cafeteria was empty and all he could hear was the soft drumming of the rain. It was a perfect day to experience the melancholy of the impossible. He would never be able to tell Bruna who he was. He would never be able to hold her in his arms and love her as only he knew how. Oh, what a refined luxury sadness was!

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Bruna had just left the Bear Pavilion when she answered a call from Habib.

  “I’m on my way over to you now. Can we catch up?”

  Habib’s well-proportioned face was distorted with distress.

  “Don’t even think about coming here. It’s dangerous.”

  “Dangerous?”

  “Because of the demonstrators. The police have already arrived, but I’m still wary. It looks like reps are being attacked all over the city.”

  “Attacked?”

  Habib looked at her, astounded.

  “Haven’t you heard anything?”

  “Anything?” repeated Bruna, unable to prevent herself. She felt like a total idiot parroting everything the man was saying.

  “Husky, something terrible has happened. It’s...it’s...”

  He was so upset that he seemed to be choking on his words.

  “Valo has...has exploded a bomb on a travelator. There are many dead. Dead humans. And children.”

  Bruna could feel a chill running down her spine. And she suddenly realized that around her all the public screens were broadcasting the same images of blood and slaughter.

  “But how? And what about her? Was she wearing the explosive device?”

  “Yes, of course. She’s blown herself up. Do you remember what we talked about, Husky? This is horrible. We need to find out what’s happening. Check out Hericio! We’ve heard he’s asking for a funding permit, and he’s trying to raise funds for his party. He’s getting ready for something. By the great Morlay, Husky, we have to do something or they’ll finish all of us off. Listen, I have to go. It looks like the supremacists are trying to assault our headquarters. Be careful. The humans are enraged.”

  Habib’s face disappeared. Bruna connected to the news on her mobile. Again, the flames, the confusion, the cries, the broken bodies being transported by medical services. But this time, the detective knew what she was looking at: the destruction caused by Valo Nabokov. Revenge, she’d said.

  The news services were talking about the antirep wave of violence that had been unleashed throughout the entire region. Supremacists armed with clubs and knives had encircled the RRM building in a menacing way. It seemed to Bruna that the angry reactions of the humans were too well organized to be spontaneous. By all the damned species! The supremacists were even carrying 3-D banners! Once again, she was disturbed by the loathsome suspicion of a conspiracy in the making.

  She felt the weight of someone’s gaze on her and raised her head. A small child was looking at her with a frightened expression on his face. When their eyes met, the child clung to his mother’s legs and started to cry. The woman tried to calm him down, but it was clear that she was as scared as her son. Bruna glanced around. The humans were avoiding her; they were switching sidewalks.

  Dismay. It wasn’t as if Bruna were an idealistic supporter of happy coexistence between the species; she did not in fact believe in happiness, and even less in coexistence. But she detested violence. In her years of military service, she’d had enough to last her a lifetime. Now all she wanted was tranquility. She wanted them to let her be. And a society on the brink of civil disturbance wasn’t exactly the most suitable environment for that.

  Four years, three months, and eighteen days.

  She couldn’t rid her mind of the image of the wasted, spaced-out face of Valo Nabokov. Dying and lethal. The worst part was that children had died. Humans went berserk if you touched their children. Those children that replicants could never have.

  Four years, three months, and eighteen days.

  The detective felt she was on top of an avalanche. She felt she was caught up in a slippery mass that was hurtling into an abyss and growing exponentially by the minute, swallowing everything in its path. Scarcely a week and a half had passed since Caín had tried to strangle her, and things were moving with a terrifying speed.

  Four years, three months, and eighteen days.

  Enough, Bruna! she thought, cursing herself mentally. Enough of this mechanical litany, this nervousness, and this anxiety. The detective was still standing in the middle of the sidewalk, and the passersby were making their way round her like the sea around a rock. They were all humans; the technos must be hiding under their beds. The humans were looking at her and shivering. They were looking at her and whispering. A monster was reflected in the eyes of those men and women, and she was that monster. She missed Merlín with an acute longing. If he were still alive, she’d have a place to go to.

  Four years, three...Oh shut up, you stupid rep, she said to herself, shaking her head. She suddenly realized she was hungry. The monster’s stomach was empty.

  She caught the sky-tram to Oli’s bar, and as soon as she reached the rear section, the rest of the passengers began to migrate toward the front half of the vehicle, some brazenly and as quickly as possible, others with ridiculous stealth, moving one tiny step at a time, as if they were playing that ancient human game What’s the Time, Mr. Wolf? Two stops farther on, the android was totally alone in her half of the tram and the remaining passengers were crammed into the other half. I could put in some contact lenses, thought Bruna. Of course she could disguise herself, wear a wig and cover her vertical pupils in order to avoid the humans’ fear and anger. That wasn’t hard to do, and there were bound to be some disguised technos out there already. Maybe one of those characters who had rushed to move to the other end of the tram was a camouflaged rep o
bliged to behave like the others so as not to give himself away. How humiliating. No, she would never disguise herself out of fear, she decided. She wouldn’t pretend to be someone she really wasn’t.

  Just then, the sky-tram stopped abruptly next to one of the emergency staircases. The doors opened and a robotic voice ordered an immediate evacuation. It was a Risk Level 1 recording. Against a soothing background of harp music that had presumably been designed to calm things down, the soft voice repeated “Vacate the tram quickly and calmly, imminent danger” in the same banal tone used to read the results of the Planetary Lottery. Bruna always found the risk recordings counterproductive and ridiculous; each time people heard the harp riff, they panicked. The mob of passengers jumped chaotically onto the emergency platform and began to go down the stairs, pushing one another out of the way in their desire to distance themselves from the android. Suddenly, an explosion was heard somewhat farther down, shrieks, thuds. Then came smoke, a stinking smell, and information loudly exchanged by the passengers: “It’s not reps; calm down, it’s just an Ins who’s blown himself up.” They prefer those damned terrorist morons to us, thought Bruna. Damned shit of a world!

  When the obese mulatto welcomed her with her usual smile, Bruna realized that it wasn’t just physical hunger that had driven her to Oli’s bar, but also a need to find an unaffected spot, a small refuge of normality.

  “Hi, Husky. You were the only one missing.”

  Oli pointed with her chin toward the end of the counter, and Bruna spotted Yiannis and RoyRoy, the billboard-lady. And for some reason, she wasn’t surprised to see them together. She went over to where they were. A sort of muffled whispering, a surreptitious murmur, was emerging from the woman’s body: “Texaco-Repsol, always at your service.”