by Schow, Ryan
The voice on the other end, the voice that was once a girl’s voice—a baby’s voice—now sounded womanly, both calm and controlled. She said, “Who is this and what can I do for you?”
He fell silent. Maybe he wouldn’t need the manual just yet. “This is Shelton Gotlieb.”
“Mr. Gotlieb,” she said, her voice full of knowing.
“Natalya?”
“Gem.”
Looking at the manual, seeing the proper command, he said, “System analysis.”
Gem—the system’s control program—gave Shelton a detailed analysis of the system, and it was startling. The skinny girl who was twenty-three years old and once graced the covers of Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Allure and Teen Vogue magazines was not in good shape. She was perfect for the Van Duyn job, but he was going to have to do a full overhaul.
“Tell me about your handler,” Shelton said.
“Delta 2B felt our survival necessitated Robert’s death,” Gem told him, matter-of-fact, “so he killed him. There was nothing we could do.”
This particular model had her brain stem scarred as a child, the resulting effect being a photographic memory. “Details, Gem.”
Gem recalled the events over the last four days. Apparently Robert let his monitoring and programming duties slip in favor of what would apparently become a four day bender of cocaine, heroine and Vodka. Making matters worse, he spent the better part of that time starving and sexually abusing the girl’s body.
“Assessment,” Shelton said.
“Amnesic walls need rebuilding. Partial integration has occurred. We’re getting rapid switching of our alters.”
“Spinning?”
“Yes.”
“How severe?” he asked.
“We need a basic reset. And a new handler.”
“I’ll send someone to pick you up.” He paused a moment, then: “How is Delta 2B?”
“Fully functional, if need be.”
“Are you in control of the system?”
“With a basic reset,” Gem said, “I can be.”
“Good. Get your things ready. You’re coming home.”
Playing Host to an Unbearable Darkness
1
The stress of dealing with the three girls and Savannah was taking its toll. Wolfgang Gerhard had officially switched from ice water to Vodka, but even the alcohol couldn’t seem to cull his foul mood. When it came to a couple of the girls, he couldn’t seem to make heads or tails of the mess. Then Warwick called and that took him back to his old self.
“Wolfgang, this is Warwick Bundy,” he announced, as if Gerhard would drop everything to act on Warwick’s every pressing need.
“What can I do for you, Bundy?”
“What have you found out about the elusive Savannah Van Duyn?”
“Why is Christine Kennedy dead?” Gerhard retorted, cracking open a fresh bottle of Hangar One Vodka. “That’s a more important question, wouldn’t you say?”
“How do you know about this? It hasn’t even hit the papers yet.”
“Sometimes I hear things,” Gerhard said, filling a nearby tumbler with the chilled German based drink. “Like how Ms. Kennedy spent her final minutes taking a swan dive from the balcony of her seventh floor condo.”
“What she does in her spare time doesn’t concern me.”
“You smug piece of scheiße,” Gerhard said, immediately trying to rein in his temper.
If he got too upset, he would surely revert back to his old, homicidal self. He took a drink, felt his mood unwinding a bit as the vodka rolled silken down his throat. Just as easily as he bit down on his temper, however, it came roaring right back up.
“Sticks and stones, Gerhard. Sticks and stones.”
“You know by now the family murdered in the Van Duyn home wasn’t the Van Duyn’s, yes?”
“Of course,” Warwick said. “Which makes me wonder what you’re doing to find her.”
“I made some calls,” Gerhard said.
“You’ll let me know if any of those calls bear fruit.”
“My job is not to be at your beck and call,” Gerhard said, his accent thicker than usual. “I’m only helping to be helpful.”
“The minute you think you’re irreplaceable, consider my association with Evan Cameron in Canada. He was your protégé, and now he works for me, which means he knows almost all of what you know. Which is more than enough for me.”
Wolfgang’s face flared into a blistering heat, his fists clenching so tight the nails cut into his palm. Who the hell did he think he was threatening? Gerhard thought. There wasn’t enough vodka in the world to cure him of the likes of Warwick Bundy. Through clenched teeth he said, “First off, Dr. Cameron does not care about genetics as much as he cares about schizophrenia and drug-induced torture. And second, I’m thrilled for you, Bundy. Thrilled for your overabundance of confidence.”
In the back of his mind, he recalled throwing a screeching baby into a pit of flames. That was a million years ago, and the memory served as a reminder of his darker instincts. No matter his time-acquired wisdom, or his genius, or even his time away from the camps, he would always play host to this unbearable darkness. It was bred into him the way the fight was bred into a Pitbull. But he didn’t have to be like that—so unrefined, so barbaric. Yet here was this deranged ego maniac, needling him the same way a stupid kid pokes a rattlesnake with a stick. Sooner or later that kid will get bit and die. Just like Warwick Bundy.
“Anytime I want to wipe my ass with you,” Warwick snarled, “I could do it without a second’s thought. You’d do well to remember that.”
“What’s your number, Bundy? Because last time I checked, your cousin Ted had you beat by a mile.”
“He does not. And he’s not my cousin.”
“Let’s recap, because I think he’s a specimen worth remembering. Theodore Robert Bundy—”
“Theodore Robert Cowell—”
“—went on a seven year, seven state killing spree and has an official victim count of thirty. The rumor, however, is that the list tops a hundred, easy. In addition to the murders, he had sex with his victims both alive and dead, and he has twelve recorded decapitations. These statistics alone are impressive, but when you consider he kept several of the heads at his apartment as souvenirs, you must really give the man style points. And when asked about himself, he said he was ‘the most cold-hearted son of a bitch you’ll ever meet.’ You may think you’re cut from the same cloth, Warwick, but really, you’re just a high-society sociopath. You throw darts at girls. And you posture and make threats over a telephone half the world away. You’re no Ted Bundy.”
“What’s your point?” Warwick said, barely deflated.
“My point is I make him look as weak and as unaccomplished as he makes you look, so don’t expect me to budge so easily for you whenever you call. If Savannah is alive and hiding, I’ll find her and call you. If not, I won’t. Simple as that.”
“One day you and I are going to meet in person, Gerhard.”
“Oh, I pray for the day.”
Pink Waters
1
I wake up in a vat of fluid, underwater with almost nothing on. The second I realize my body is submerged in pink fluid, panic sets in. It takes hold and…I can’t breathe!
I’m literally drowning.
I want to slap the glass sides of the tank, but my arms aren’t working right; I try kicking the walls with my feet, but they’re just as sluggish.
Looking down, at the blurred haze that is my body, I see wiring protruding from me and I want to rip it out, even if it makes me bleed.
Then I realize I’m breathing. It’s not easy, but I’m breathing!
The fluid that fills my mouth and lungs is thick and tasteless, but it’s also breathable. Barely. I will myself to calm down as I manage several labored breaths. My eyes adjust enough to see a little more clearly. Wires aren’t really coming from me. They’re coming from the canister I’m in. Also, my eyes notice people standing outside my canister, this water cof
fin that’s holding my suspended body in place.
Faces look at me.
The sharp lines of their features are blurred behind the thickness of the fluid and the bend of the glass, but they are the size and shape of adults.
A thin white strip of gauze wraps my breasts and vagina, and for some reason, part of me regrets not making an appointment to have my bikini line waxed earlier. Then a fourth person enters the room and that’s when my mind completely clears. I know where I am now.
My body is in one of Gerhard’s tanks.
Dread is the veil that falls like lead upon me, suffocating me, terrifying me. But at least I have my newfound anger for strength. Or do I? After a moment of sheer panic (because there isn’t an ounce of anger in me), my insides begin to quake. I felt so strong with my anger, invincible! But now?
Where is my anger when I need it?
The side of me I was coming to know so well, that unpredictable side of me that would dump urine on a boy or drop f-bombs without thought or conscience, can’t be accessed. What compels me most right now is curiosity. And a deep, nourishing sense of euphoria.
What the heck?
The pink fluid on my bare skin is like a hundred caressing hands. Each finger of each hand carries an electric spark that charges me, awakens me, stirs the lower parts of my abdomen. I feel…sexual? Yes, sexual. Oh boy…
Not good.
I watch as one of the blurry people outside my tank accesses the main control panel. The tank begins to tilt backwards at a slow, mechanical pace; I lie back on the glass as it becomes a bed. The fluid starts draining. When enough of the pink liquid has drained, the weight of the fluid in my lungs grows heavy and my body revolts. Lying in the solid curve of the glass, my body parallel with the ground, I’m coughing up pink gel, drowning, hacking, my eyes watering and clearing.
All this time, I’m thinking, here we go again.
Anyone who knows me would probably say I puke more than any girl they know. It is, in fact, my defining characteristic. It’s disgusting, yet it’s me. The human sloth in disguise. Or not. How I look right now…well, I guess I’ll know the state of my body soon enough. That’s when I look down and see I no longer have dark skin. The new me, whomever I am, is now white.
White?!
I start to cry and it’s so unlike me. Well, the new me anyway. Now I suppose there’s the new new me: Savannah Van Duyn, version 4.0. Or Abby Swann version 2.0 depending on how you look at it.
Either way, I can’t help wondering, who am I now?
The sight of people closing in around me pulls me from my thoughts, my fears, the panic. I see the four of them clearly now: Gerhard, Nurse Arabelle, my father and mother. Holy meatballs, did I just think that? Did I just think, mother? Did I just think holy meatballs? Holy crud, something’s definitely wrong here! What the heck did they do to me that made me just humanize the monster? Or replace s-h-i-t with the word meatballs? Oh, man, now I’m spelling out cusswords in my mind.
2
When they open the lid to the canister, I suck in a giant breath of fresh air, nearly choking on it. I cough out a few more sprays of pink liquid, and then—despite my ragged state—my lungs finally feel clear of most of the fluid.
Gerhard drapes a blanket over me and, looking down, I can’t see myself, only the grey blanket. Fatigued, my mind is having a hard time getting itself right. “Well that wasn’t a smooth landing,” Gerhard says, presumably referring to my awakening.
I say, “Who am I now?”
Smiling with watery eyes, my father says, “Fixed. Different, but fixed.”
With great effort, I work a hand under the wet gauze, over my previously ruined breast, and it feels full again, my once useless nipple rock hard to the point of—oh, no—ecstasy. I run my fingers over it again, feeling that low charge again and it both thrills and sickens me. I return the gauze to its place, then slide the hand out of the blanket to stare at its white skin.
“You changed my race,” I say with a scratchy, barely intelligible voice. I look at Gerhard, but I’m still too weak to summon any anger. In my own estimation, I’m coming across as dumbfounded, which totally lacks the conviction I need to get straight answers.
“Your previous body was too damaged,” Gerhard offers, “and your original clone is out of the country right now. Maybe permanently. I’ve made some calls, but for now I had to work with what I had.”
“I liked that me,” I hear myself say. I move my hand to my face and it feels perfect. Well, not falling off the bone anymore.
Margaret says, “Yours is about the most lovely face I’ve ever seen. Even though it’s not your original…color.” This has to do something to her, since she has the light brown skin of a goddess, and now she’s the only one. She seems genuine, though, and my father looks pleased by her comment. I see him slip his hand into hers and now I feel the bloom of anger. It may be mostly depleted, but perhaps I can nurture the old rage back to life. Or redevelop it. I think the word “bitch,” but I can’t get any sound from my mouth. I must look retarded the way I’m staring at her. She makes a face, then looks at my father with a confused look that says, what’s wrong with her?
Nurse Arabelle hands me a mirror, but I turn away from it. “Let me just get my head right before I suffer yet another shock,” I say, my voice now coming easier.
“The awakening from stasis should have been a much smoother transition,” Gerhard says to no one in particular.
I’m thinking, yeah, like he’s ever been bathed in the pink liquid before!
“The shock isn’t from being in the tank,” I say, my ever improving voice now losing its more gravely edges. “It’s coming from seeing those two being affectionate. They hate each other.”
“We don’t hate each other,” Margaret says.
“But we hate you,” I hear myself say. It’s cruel and ill timed, but the mere fact that I’m re-inflating my lady balls settles me.
“We don’t hate her,” my father says. “We just hate how she’s handled the pressures of our past life together. But that’s changing.”
“She’s had the novelist inside her, dad. You don’t know where his cock’s been.”
Holy cow! I just said cock and…I’m delighted! Maybe everything will be alright after all.
“There’s the trucking driver’s mouth,” Nurse Arabelle says, smiling.
“I wondered, no I hoped, that side of her was cleansed,” Gerhard says to my parents, “but apparently her hostility is a permanent thing. Perhaps a core trait.”
I try to sit up, but my body protests. My muscles refuse to work. The bigger ones anyway. I try flexing my fingers and they are slow to move. Even my jaw is weary from what little use I’ve given it. And yet I have so much to say.
“How long?” I ask.
My father seems to know what I mean. “A bit.”
“Is Christmas over?”
“I’m afraid so,” Margaret says.
“I didn’t ask you,” I say glaring at Margaret. “I asked him.”
Gerhard says, “All that pain you felt, the suffering that was truly a joy to know about—no offence, Atticus—all that is no longer necessary. A semi-stasis bath in the nutrient enriched solution is now the new pain-free full body transformation. Genius, right? I told you we were evolving.”
“You mean, no more shots like before?” He smiles and I can’t stop staring at that gap between his two front teeth. I swallow a deep breath, then say, “I hate the way you look, Wolfgang. You’re a rotten man in spite of being so damn…smart.”
It takes everything in me to get the words out, but then I’m done. Left only to wonder why I hate him as much as I do. Maybe because I feel something below the surface of him, an old evil brewing. An ancient energy, like malevolence, trapped within him. Or perhaps fueling him.
Nurse Arabelle raises her eyebrows and says, “Very unkind words for man who saves your life and makes you pretty and whole again.”
I look away. She could’ve spared herself all those cl
unky words and just called me a hypocrite. She would’ve been right.
When the silence becomes uncomfortable enough, I turn back to Nurse Arabelle and say, “Mirror.”
Nurse Arabelle puts the large, square mirror before me and after a moment of not wanting to confront my image, I look at my new face.
I can’t breathe. Oh my God…I’m gorgeous. I look a lot like Kate Middleton before she went and got hitched to the ghastly, horribly balding Prince William. Except for my sopping wet hair and my slick face, me and Kate, we could almost be twins. Which makes me wonder about her for only the briefest moment. And my eyes…they’re a brilliant green, ethereal, magnetic.
“I see you’re pleased,” Gerhard says. To my parents, he says, “She likes it.”
Nurse Arabelle smiles out of half her mouth and says, “Now you have your own beautiful eyes.”
Yes, apparently my amethyst-colored eyes are gone.
I suppose these will work.
3
Gerhard and the monster help me sit up, the monster protecting my privates from unnecessary exposure. I wonder what I’ve missed in the world and realize the only thing I’ve truly missed…is nothing.
In the pink gel, I felt nothing.
This has me wondering about my previous stance against the clones’ treatment in stasis. But before my mind can really hit a sprint, I’m standing in the bathroom with the monster who is apparently here to help and support me. My father appears a moment later with my clothes.
“Why don’t you look at your body in the mirror,” the monster says.
“Not with you here.”
“I’ve already seen you naked, darling. I just want you to see yourself.”
“Don’t call me ‘darling,’” I mumble.
My voice is returning, and with it, my strength. I can’t exactly stand on my own, but I don’t want Margaret’s help either. Reaching for the wall, I steady myself. To my surprise, my legs hold me, and my back doesn’t bow or give out.
My eyes haven’t wanted to see my body until now, but my brain is like, “It’s going to happen sooner or later, so just freaking do it already.”