The Way of All Flesh: Illusions Can Be Real

by Corey Furman

  Their silence to his question had started to make him feel awkward, but it was her reaction that caused his brow to furrow as he spoke. “Did I say something funny? I didn’t realize.”

  “I didn’t mean it, Sir. It just slipped out,” she said.

  “Why don’t you explain it to me, Maré? It seems like an odd way to respond to a serious question.”

  “Please, Sir,” Luna quickly interjected. “We don’t want to be – I mean, we don’t want to upset you.”

  “I feel like my question is being avoided, and that very much seems like an answer.”

  Maré paused and shook her head slightly before she spoke cautiously. “Mr. Breylin, families are built on trust. I’m not sure we have that.”

  “I’d like you to acknowledge that I’ve been very patient lately. Do you have anything to add, Luna?”

  Avoiding eye contact, she spoke carefully. “You haven’t beaten us since I’ve been here, Sir, but… you do scare us sometimes.”

  Maré showed more of the courage she’d found, meeting his gaze directly. “We don’t know what you’re capable of,” she said.

  “So that’s it, huh? Fine.” He pushed away from the table and stood up. “Make sure the house is clean when I get home tonight. Anything else will be unacceptable.” He grabbed his stuff and moved to leave, but paused and turned around. He bored into them with his eyes from under a lowered brow. “The love of a family can cover many wrongs, but it looks as if we won’t have that. We’ll have to see how things go this evening, but I fear I will become cross later.”

  Then he stormed out to the lift port.

  “I think the time of it being quiet around here may be over,” Luna told her in a tremulous whisper.

  Maré squeezed her hand again, and she thought of the music that she had listened to on a few occasions. There had been two times when she’d pleased him enough that he let her turn it on for herself, but mostly she had been a vicarious listener. Breylin would sit in the living room, sit in that chair of his and stare out, and she was sure that whenever she had to edge past him as she was about her chores that he must be rather unaware of the hollow, constant thrums of the wind, but every once in a while he would look up as some particularly fierce gale would rattle the window shutters. On those times, he would get up with barely focused eyes and turn on the music, what the announcer had declared to be classical pieces that were ancient yet still pleasing to the attentive ear. Breylin had never given any indication as to what he thought of the sometimes long and epic music, but she had certainly appreciated them – though she had been careful to avoid letting him know. They were tremendously varied in composition; the individual tracks were usually like segments in a larger story she could almost visualize, but sometimes the movements stood alone and were like marches, or slow, hauntingly beautiful piano solos. There was a lot of variation in those songs, she thought, but one thing almost all of them did have in common – you could always tell when they were ending.

  She could see the truth of it fully for the first time; either the music slowed, or seemed to recede back and down, or occasionally it would build to a dramatic cataclysm. The form it took really didn’t matter – you could just tell in some hard to understand way. And now our lives are like all those musical stories – winding down. You can just tell.

  “I know, Chroma,” she replied. “We’re going to have to be very careful now.”

  Twenty Three

  Nervous about having company later, Joss gripped the steering handles with white knuckles and pushed down harder on the accelerator on his way home after work. Knowing he wouldn’t have a lot of time to fix anything that was missed, he rushed so he could arrive first, and hopefully have just a few minutes to look around. On the other hand, maybe the girls would get it right and he was worried about nothing.

  Walking in from the lift port, he found them sitting on the sofa in the living room when he arrived. “You two look relaxed. Is everything done?”

  “See for yourself, Sir,” Maré intoned.

  Her comment sounded a bit smug to his ears, and he stopped in his tracks. “I’m not sure I heard you correctly, Maré.”

  “We did as we were told, Sir. You can look around if you don’t believe me,” she replied.

  He didn’t care for the implied push she was giving him. He walked over to the sofa, grabbed her by the arm and hauled her to her feet. “I don’t need you to tell me that I can look around my own house, and I shouldn’t have to. You want to try again?” He spoke quietly, but as close as they were she could feel the breath leaving him as he pushed each word out.

  Luna jumped up at the same time and carefully laid her hand on his arm. “She didn’t mean anything, Mr. Breylin! Just that we think you’ll be happy with our work,” she pleaded.

  “Right,” he said, and shoved Maré back down onto the couch. “It better be. One last thing – no affection or touching between you two.”

  “What’s the problem, Sir?” said Maré. “We’re not doing anything wrong!”

  As the pressure in the room thickened a few atmospheres, he shrugged Luna’s hand off his arm and backhanded Maré with about half the force he would have like to use. “You always did have a smart mouth, and it keeps getting you in trouble.”

  Maré righted herself and glared angrily at him as the faint outline of his hand started to show itself on the side of her face.

  “Please, Sir! Your company will be here soon!” Luna said urgently.

  He paused, and looked at her while he forced his tempter down. “Yeah, the company.” He squatted down in front of Maré where she sat and looked at her closely. Without breaking eye contact, he pulled out the collar controller, held it between them and ran his thumbs over its tiny buttons. “Maré, you and I are going to address your attitude later.”

  They heard the whine of a lift’s drives swell as it pulled up outside. “Shit, they’re here. You two had better be right about the place.” He stood up and moved to the front door, and a warm, moist breeze that spoke of recent rain blew in as he opened the door to the first guests he’d ever received.

  He could feel that there was a tension present as Sirvon’s eyes found his, but it passed as he spoke. “Hey, I’m glad you guys could make it. This is Maré and Luna, my girls.” He spoke evenly in a hopeful attempt to hide anything he might be feeling. “Girls, this is Harry and his wife, Sirvon, and their children.”

  The girls came forward at his words, wide eyed at meeting new people. Maré had her mouth partially open again, and Joss had to suppress the smile that wanted to put in an appearance.

  Sirvon decided to bridge the gap. “Luna, Maré, it’s nice to meet you.” Holding up the box in her arms, she said, “can you show me the kitchen so I can get things heated?”

  “Sure, I can,” responded Maré somewhat unsteadily. “It’s nice to meet new… faces.”

  As they walked towards the kitchen, Luna asked, “hi – can I take your coats?”

  “Sure,” said Harry. “Kids, can one of you get your Mother’s?”

  “I will, Dad,” said Amber. To Breylin’s eye, she appeared to be stiff, uncomfortable. He wondered if it was the new environment or his presence that made her feel that way. This is going to be a long evening…

  Luna took their things and spoke to Harry’s son. “My name is Luna; what’s yours?”

  Smirking to her, he said, “I’m Aaron.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Aaron,” she responded. “Would you like to help me carry the coats inside?”

  “Yeah, sure.” His father shrugged out of his jacket, and he took it, then his mother’s from Amber when she came back with her arms full. He looked back at his father with a smile as he followed Luna into her room, and a thought flashed into Breylin’s mind. I wonder if he thinks she’s attractive… I suppose it’s a normal enough response from a young teenager, but from a simulant?

  He recovered quickly and called to Luna as she and the boy retreated down
the hallway. “Please help your sister and Sirvon in the kitchen when you’re done, dear.” To Harry he said, “why don’t we sit down while the girls get the food around?”

  “You seem nervous, dear,” said Sirvon to Maré as she put the box on the kitchen table.

  “Do I? I don’t mean to. It’s just… new, I guess.”

  She brushed her arm. “What do you mean?” she said sweetly.

  “I don’t have a lot of experience to draw upon.” She looked back towards the living room. “I need to be careful in what I say – forgive me for upsetting you.”

  Sirvon gave her a sad smile. “I’m not sure I’m the one who’s upset, dear,” she said as she gently stroked her fingers over where Breylin had just struck her.

  Maré smoothed her face. If she gave away too much to this well-meaning woman she could get herself and Luna in serious trouble – the painful kind – and it might not be avoidable already. “No really, everything’s okay. My Chroma and I just aren’t used to new people.” She thought perhaps she should try to lighten the mood. “Anyway, we’ve never met anyone from another bloodline. It’s a little strange.”

  “I think I see what you mean. I guess it must be at first, but try not to think of us as simulants. We’re just people, Maré. Different, maybe, but still people,” she said, echoing nearly the same words to her that she had used to Luna. “And it might be our circumstances, but I think the chromanity are more sensual, more feeling than most humans.”

  “Really?”

  “Like I say, it might be just my perspective, but yes. Most of us only ever get to truly live in our heads. And not all humans are heartless, of course.” She smiled. “Harry is a terrific man.”

  “What’s it like, being married?”

  “It’s not so different from having a Chroma – usually far less connected, but it can become pretty close with time and work,” she said. “The syncing up that comes natural to us takes a long time with humans. We are much more like family to begin with, and that closeness makes a good foundation for our relationships. And like I said, I think our status gives us all a certain amount of gravity for one another, but most especially for our Chromas.” Her eyes became foggy. “Chroma… I’m sorry, I just haven’t thought about it in a long time…”

  “Did you have one once?” Maré asked reverently.

  She nodded her head. “Harry saved me from the accident that took mine. It was a long time ago.” She refocused on Maré, and cleared her throat. “Are you happy with each other?”

  Deciding that she liked Sirvon, she drifted a little closer to the older woman so she could speak in a confiding but guarded tone. “Life has a way of helping you figure out what’s important and what isn’t; I’m not sure we could survive without our love.”

  Sirvon nodded and looked towards the living room past her as she spoke. “I understand. It’s one of the ways we really don’t differ from them. He may not be my Chroma, but I’d definitely die without his love.”

  After that, they dug the food out of the box and prepared it in a surprisingly easy silence.

  It was a fairly large kitchen table, but with seven people it was still crowded. “So,” said Joss around a mouthful of chicken gumbo. “How old are you kids?”

  “We’re both fourteen, Mr. Breylin,” said Amber.

  “They grow up fast,” said Harry as he tussled his annoyed son’s hair.

  “You can just call me Joss. ‘Mr. Breylin’ reminds me of my father too much.”

  At his words, Luna shot Maré an incredulous glance, who gave a barely perceptible shake of her head as if to warn her off.

  “Thank you for having us,” Sirvon said to Joss carefully.

  “Sure. It seemed the least I could do, especially since you guys brought the food. The girls did the most, cleaning the place to within an inch of its life.” He surprised himself by lifting his glass to them, nodding to each in turn. “Thank you, Luna, Maré.”

  Maré spoke with obvious happiness. “We were glad to do it, Sir. We’re excited to meet new people.”

  “It must be pretty lonely out here at times,” said Sirvon. “What do you girls do while Joss is at work?”

  Breylin was beginning to get a little uncomfortable. He didn’t want the girls talking too much and risk saying something unfortunate.

  Luna answered. “Mostly we take care of the house. Other than that, we exercise or read. Sometimes we listen to music.”

  “Aaron, Amber, how do you like school?” Breylin asked in the brief silence that followed. With their kids being simulants, it seemed like an absurd question to him, but he needed to shift the conversation, and keep the peace with Harry as well.

  “I like it a lot – I have great grades,” said Aaron with a smile.

  “I get pretty good grades, too, but I hate school,” Amber grumped. Looking at her father she said, “I wish I didn’t have to go.”

  “I wish I didn’t have to send you,” said Harry with a wicked smile of his own. “But I do, pumpkin.”

  “You know, Joss,” said Sirvon, “you might bring the girls down to see us sometime. Maybe they could help Amber and I cook another big meal.”

  “Ah, that would be a big change for them,” he said nervously. “Let’s just see how this goes and take it from there.”

  “Please, Sir. We would really love that!” Maré implored.

  Breylin silenced her with a look, and she put her eyes down on her plate. The kids began to fidget in the silence that followed. He felt trapped, like things were getting out of his control.

  Sirvon shot Harry a look, and he cleared his throat. “Joss…” He said. “We think it would probably do you some good, too. You know, to be around other people.”

  Breylin’s mood darkened. Why is everyone pushing me? He punctuated the discussion by loudly dropping his fork on his plate. “That’s an interesting idea, Harry. I’ll give it some thought, and maybe you and I can discuss it away from the others, instead of putting me on the spot. Would that work for you and your wife?”

  The awkward silence that followed was thick with tension. Sirvon exhaled in a rush like someone threw open the valve on a cylinder of compressed gas, but Harry stilled her by laying his hand on her arm, without taking his eyes off Joss. “This is your home, and we don’t mean to upset you, Joss.”

  “Oh, clearly. But since you did, maybe it’s time to pack things up,” he replied in the same even tone.

  The muscles in Sirvon’s jaw started to tighten, and she spoke angrily. “Man, what is your issue –!”

  “Please,” Maré said, cutting her off quietly. “It’s best if you just go.”

  Sirvon swallowed the rest of her comment. There seemed to be nothing more to say.

  “Let’s go,” Harry said with defeat in his voice. “Luna, would you get our coats, please?”

  After Harry’s family left, Breylin stalked back to the kitchen. Standing in the doorway, he silently watched Maré and Luna clean-up. They worked quickly and did their best to hold up their end of the silence. When they ran out of things to do, they turned to him. Maré had the sense to keep her eyes off him, but Luna made eye contact. Then he noticed that they were holding hands.

  He held up his right thumb and index finger nearly touching and said, “I’m this close to punishing the two of you. What stops me is that Maré had the sense to ask them to leave.”

  “Thank you, Sir,” she said. “May we go to our room for the night?”

  “Just a second.” He moved over to one of the drawers and pulled out a long, slotted spoon. He walked back to them with an air of indifference, but then he lashed out with the utensil and smacked their joined hands – hard. Luna squealed and clasped her hand to her chest as blood began to well out of a cut on her knuckles. Maré yelled too as she drew her hand back, but if he’d cut her he couldn’t tell. As they recovered from the initial shock they began crying.

  “I thought you two understood where I was on the subject of your aff
ections,” he said. “You can either confine it to your room entirely, or I’ll put an end to it. I’m warning you – if you upset your mother I’ll be very cross with you.”

  Luna was sobbing and staring at her wounded fingers. Maré got a disposable cloth, wet it in the sink and took it to her. Once she had it covering Luna’s hand, she said, “you don’t have to hit us, Sir. It was an accident.”

  Breylin struck her in the face, hard, with the flat of the spoon, and immediately welts from the pattern of the slots rose up angry and red. “I did promise you a discussion about your attitude, Maré.” He threw the spoon in the sink. “Consider yourselves on probation – the tiniest screw up and I’ll strip the hides off of the two of you! Now get in your room!” As he spoke, he drew the collar controller from his pocket and used it to give them several welts each on the backs of their legs to hasten them as they ran wailing from the room.

  “Harry, you have to do something. You can’t just let him…” Sirvon let her words trail off as she looked at her own kids in the back seat of the lift as they sped southward. They were sitting there quiet, but they were taking it all in.

  “I know, dammit, I just don’t know what yet. Let me think… Fuck, I need a smoke!”

  When they got home and put the kids to bed, Harry paced the bedroom.

  “Just call corporate security, Harry.”

  “And tell them what? That we think maybe he’s hurting the simulants he’s legally allowed to do whatever the hell he wants with?” He sat down on the edge of his bed, put his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. “I’m not angry at you, but we have to think of something better than that, hon.”

  She thought for a moment. “What about the Marines? You said he used to be one of them.”

  “That was a long time ago. I don’t know if they’ll be any better, but it’s worth a shot. I’ll call them in the morning.”

  “Let’s hope he hasn’t killed them by then!”