Halfskin Boxed

by Tony Bertauski

  Special colors just for you.

  Nix made it to his bed and lay down without looking suspicious. Cali told him on the last visit that Avery was working on a special drawing. He knew something was coming. Intuition told him to smell it.

  Something embedded in the colors.

  His sister was a genius. She spiked the drawing with something—probably a new breed of biomites, ones that eluded the ring’s effect. Nix could feel them spread out in his head like cold webbing. If the guards suspected something, they would already be in his cell.

  She’d discovered something new.

  Something undetectable.

  Nix lay back and closed his eyes. For the first time in a long time, since the day that ring went around his neck, he smelled the ocean.

  11

  Cali wiped her eyes with a tissue. It was the first time she’d teared up during a visitation. She’d cried when they took her little brother from the house, but not since. Not ever. She’d never allowed herself to feel those emotions, but the thought of her little brother coming home was just too real.

  It got to her.

  It probably didn’t hurt her performance. It would be completely expected, probably bored all the people watching.

  She walked out without a word from any of them. She stopped outside the final door. The sun was overhead. Nix didn’t see that very much, at least not on his own terms. That’s what he always requested of his niece to draw for him: suns. Draw me something yellow, he would say.

  Cali peeked through the back of the car. Avery was laid out on the seat, eyes closed. Cali closed the door behind her quietly so she wouldn’t wake the angel. She stopped herself from giving her daughter a hug, giving her the good news.

  Uncle Nix will be home soon.

  12

  The head of the table was empty. Marcus entered.

  The other chairs were filled with children. His wife, Janine, was seated at the other end. Her head was bowed. He could tell when she was thinking. Always thinking. Never here. Always somewhere in her head, combing through facts, through paperwork and scenarios. A lawyer’s work never rested. Not for good ones, she would say.

  The children had their hands on their laps, heads slightly bowed. They weren’t thinking of clients and affidavits. Only dinner.

  Marcus sat down. “Let us pray.”

  Their heads bowed deeper.

  “Bless us, O’ Lord, and these Thy gifts which we are about to receive from Thy bounty. Through Christ, our Lord. Amen.”

  The clinking of china was preceded by signs of the Cross—Father, Son, Holy Ghost. Ariel moved into action and helped the children spoon sauce over their noodles. Marcus smoothed a cloth napkin over his lap and watched that no one put their elbows on the table. All the napkins were in place. His wife was on her second glass of wine.

  Pick battles.

  He began eating. The dinner proceeded as it had every night, in relative quiet. Nothing but the tink-tink and the occasional slurp. Not too many. They were kids, after all.

  Marcus twirled noodles on his fork and, before filling his mouth, pointed at the empty seat he hadn’t noticed. “Where’s Andrew?”

  “Fever and a sore throat, sir.” Ariel filled Janine’s water glass.

  Marcus chewed carefully and spoke again once he swallowed. “Is he getting clear liquids?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Another bite. Swallow. “Have you given him herbal tea for the sore throat?”

  “Yes, sir,” Ariel said.

  “It helped a lot, sir,” Margaret, the new part-time nanny, said. “He fell right to sleep when he was finished.”

  Marcus nodded thoughtfully. He wasn’t thrilled with another nanny, even part time. But his job had him away from home more often and Janine was too busy playing lawyer.

  Janine asked the children how their day at school was and how they were feeling. No one felt the least bit sick, although someone puked in William’s class after recess. He started to describe the smell when he was cut off. He managed to say chunks of meat before his name was called. Sternly.

  “You know, my sister’s son, he’s seven,” Margaret said, helping Clifford cut his noodles, “and he come down with a fever and they took him to the pharmacy, where they got these little temporary biomite injections. Have you seen those?”

  She held up her fingers a half inch apart, indicating they were real small.

  “They fight infection and then get washed out through the kidneys. They’re not like regular biomites that reproduce. He was better that evening.”

  Marcus chewed slowly with his lips closed. He flipped a glance at Ariel, who did not return the look. The meal finished without much conversation.

  ______

  Marcus unzipped the suitcase and threw it on the bedspread. He began the weekly ritual of packing for a trip. He started with his underwear—pressed and folded. All of them white with tiny red stripes on the elastic band. Next were socks, followed by gym shorts for working out in the hotel exercise room, bathing suit for the hot tub, and T-shirts for lounging. His suits and ties would be packed in a hanging case.

  He went to the bathroom—open to the bedroom—to pack toothpaste and the rest. Janine came out of the shower room, rapidly working the water from her ear with her finger. She was wearing a white robe, not the one he’d gotten her for Christmas but one she’d bought a year before that. She always said she liked the way the old one felt, she’d get to the new robe one of these days. Just not until she was finished with the old one.

  Janine fished through the drawer to the right of the sink, found a pair of tweezers and went into the walk-in closet. She sat on the bench in the middle of her closet and hiked her foot up on the stool and began to work on her toenails, digging out the ingrown portions.

  Click.

  She liked to pick.

  Click.

  She’d been to the doctor but preferred to work out the problems on her own.

  Marcus found his razor, his cologne, shaving cream and the rest, shoving it into a toiletry bag, and went back to the bed. It was one thing to listen to the click, click, but quite another to see the cottage-cheese-laden legs beneath the frayed edges of that worn-out robe. He used to rub those legs, when she was in law school, when she’d be up seventy-two hours at a time, sleepless from leg aches.

  She didn’t look like that then.

  More like a linebacker, now. And not one from Harvard. More like NFL All-Pro. Marcus gave her a P90X for Christmas. Never got opened.

  Click.

  “I’ve arranged for Ariel to bring the kids home after William’s play,” Janine said. “Will you at least see some of it?”

  “Afraid not. I’ll be on the West Coast, starting in Seattle tomorrow morning and finishing in San Francisco on Thursday.”

  “His performance is on Wednesday.”

  “I’m not flying back for that, Janine.”

  Long pause. Not an empty one.

  Marcus finished packing his carry-on. He pulled three suits from the closet and laid them on the bed. They were pressed and clean and spotless. They went into the hanging garment bag.

  “How many halfskin shutdowns are you going to attend?” Janine leaned against the closet door frame.

  “As many as there are, dear.”

  “They’ll only increase.” Her tone was final. “This… biomite war you’re waging… you can’t win it, Marcus. People are going to keep seeding unless they become illegal.”

  “Then we’ll keep turning them off.”

  “Until what? Until you’ve wiped out the human race?”

  “Just the seeded ones.”

  “This is an infringement on their liberty—”

  “Spare me the lawyer speak.” He dropped the suitcase on the floor and snapped out the telescoping handle. “People will destroy themselves if we let them.”

  “That’s their choice.”

  “Then why not just legalize everything, Janine? Why not just set up heroin shops and cocaine dens outside t
he kids’ school? Let’s not have a drinking limit; it’s their life, after all. It’s their choice to destroy it.”

  He hung the garment bag on the top of the bedroom door and paused. Janine dropped the tweezers in the drawer. Her robe crumpled on the floor. Her granny panties snapped around her waist. Marcus didn’t turn around.

  “Technology will catch up,” she said. “They’ll be able to control runaway replication at some point.”

  “I hope it does. I don’t like shutting down halfskins.”

  “I think you do.”

  Immortality is meant for the soul. Not the flesh.

  Marcus slid his feet into moccasin slippers and pulled his suitcase with the garment bag over his shoulder.

  “In case you’re wondering,” Janine mumbled, “I’m going to a fundraiser tonight with Helen. Make sure the children have brushed their teeth. Alexander has not been flossing.”

  She was standing in front of the mirror with bobby pins in her mouth, pulling her black hair back. Her nipples pointed at the faucet.

  “Tell her I said hi.” He started and stopped. “And I want the new nanny fired.”

  “Mmm-mm.”

  Marcus went to his office. He texted Ariel to make sure Alexander flossed.

  13

  Nix stared at the ceiling.

  He was cautious not to daydream. He kept his attention on his breath, emptied his mind. It had been weeks since Cali delivered the special drawing. She continued her weekly visits, as usual, and asked how he was doing.

  Good. Real good.

  Then they talked about Avery needing braces, how the Holloways’ dog got hit by a car, how crappy the weather was. She didn’t bring any more pictures, just said that Avery was probably going to make him another one in two weeks. She was pretty clear about it. In TWO weeks.

  But Cali wasn’t bringing another picture.

  She was telling him how long to wait.

  She had embedded biomites into the waxy yellow sun. They were undetected by the ring that registered him at 48.8%. But Nix felt the effects. They weren’t suppressed at all.

  They were fully active.

  The ring had no effect on these new-breed biomites, had no recognition of their proliferation. His senses slowly enhanced as they integrated into his body. He smelled the subtle odors down the hall, knew when the guards were eating, when they last showered. He saw more colors, felt more textures.

  The new-breed biomites heightened it all. He had become… more. If he had to guess, they put him over 50%. He was probably halfskin and no one knew it.

  Cali told him to wait. Wait until there were enough of them, until the levels of these new-breed biomites were more active. Then he’d know what to do.

  Waiting was the hard part.

  At night, he closed his eyes and fell into rhythmic breathing. If anyone was watching, he was sleeping. But these were opportunities to smell the lagoon. Occasionally, he could hear Raine’s laughter. Maybe he imagined it.

  Maybe not.

  Each night, he hoped to know more, perhaps to see the blue cliffs and the trees framing the crystal water. Each night, he only sensed a glimmer of that world. He’d wake in the morning, still a prisoner.

  On the week that Avery’s next drawing was to be delivered—four weeks since he snorted the yellow sun—Cali didn’t come to visit.

  ______

  George was waiting outside his door.

  It had been a month since he last saw George, but there he was with the table and the box under his arm. George began setting up the board. He didn’t say much, just pushed the pieces around.

  Nix smelled something new about him, something metallic, the ting of aluminum on the edges of his tongue. He looked at George sorting out the blacks and whites. That’s when the new-breed biomites whispered Cali’s plan. Her ghostly voice was inside his head. It was a recording that was triggered by the sight of George and told him what to do.

  Told him it was going to hurt.

  Such a hypocrite. Such a liar.

  George was 10% biomite. Maybe more. Nix realized he could read George’s thoughts. Somehow, Cali’s new-breed biomites were seamlessly scanning and connecting with other biomites within a short range, like wireless computers. And the biomites he was sensing were in George’s brain.

  Like a book.

  “A game?” George tapped the small table outside the door. “Or you have somewhere to go?”

  Nix looked up from his bed. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, sleepy.

  “Heh-heh,” George added. “I’ve been thinking about our last game, where I went wrong… I have to be honest, I was cheating.”

  “I know.”

  “I know you know.” George touched up the pieces, centering them in each of their squares. “But I figured I should come clean. I was using a machine to beat you and that’s not fair. I’m here as a man, as a human being—” he thumped his chest “—to redeem the spirit of Man!”

  George muttered a little pep talk. He clapped his hands and asked what color Nix wanted. Nix balked, so George took white.

  “The good guys,” he said, and moved queen’s pawn two spaces.

  Nix went to the sink and splashed water on his face. He wiped his scalp, the back of his neck. Dabbed himself dry with a hand towel. He just realized that, in his dreams, he had hair. I had hair before. And now I’m this.

  I’ve forgotten what I look like.

  “Come on, already.” George looked at his watch. “I go on shift in an hour and you’re over there making yourself pretty. You ain’t got a date, halfskin, and I ain’t easy to look at, either. So let’s go.”

  George wasn’t a bad guy. Maybe not good, but not bad. Nix felt a pang of guilt for what he was about to do to him.

  But George was his ticket.

  It needed punched.

  M0THER

  The End of Spelling Bees

  ______

  Joni Neisler’s blue placard poked her in the chin. She walked to the slender mic at the front of the stage, far too timidly for someone at the National Championship. But probably just right for a five-year-old.

  She tugged at the pleats in her dress.

  The judges were conferring.

  There was a man behind them. She couldn’t see him so well, it was dimly lit beyond the judge’s table, but she saw enough. He sat there with his barrel arms latched over his chest, next to his tiny wife. He was scowling. They both were. They’d been doing that ever since the contest started. Always at her.

  The judge looked over his laptop, his face bluish. “Spell ‘Otorhinolaryngological.’”

  Joni was supposed to take a deep breath. She was supposed to ask the judge to use it in a sentence. Ask the origin of the word. Her father told her to make it look like she was thinking it through, but the lumberjack dad and his little wife kept staring at her.

  They were so angry.

  She just wanted to get off the stage.

  “Otorhinolaryngological.

  “O-T-O-R-H-I-N-O-L-A-R-Y-N-G-O-L-O-G-I-C-A-L.

  “Otorhinolaryngological.”

  Joni went back to her seat. She didn’t wait to hear if she was right. She was right. She spelled everything right. She didn’t know what was so hard.

  The crowd rumbled. There was shifting around. The judges leaned their heads together as the next contestant went to the mic. None of the other kids looked at Joni. Joni was half their age, but that wasn’t why they always looked at her strangely. It was something else. Probably the same reason the lumberjack dad was mad at her.

  And he was standing, now.

  He pulled his wife up, too. They were scooting down the aisle, not making much of an effort to walk sideways like you’re supposed to when you walk down a crowded aisle.

  “Quiet, please.” One of the judges, the nice one with perfect teeth, said, “Please settle down.”

  “We’re done here,” lumberjack dad said.

  “Sir, you need to take your seat or your son will be disqualified. Distractions need
to be kept to a minimum.”

  More disruptions.

  Someone else stood.

  Lumberjack dad stared at the nice judge. Joni thought he was going to slug him one.

  “You test her?” He pointed that giant arm right at Joni.

  “You have no right!” Now Joni’s momma was standing up.

  “Did you test her?” Lumberjack dad didn’t pay any attention to Momma. “The rules clearly state this is a natural-born spelling bee. There are competitions for biomite-enhanced young ones, but this is not one of them. And even if it was, that girl is five. She’s too young to be seeded; it’s against the law. So did you test her?”

  Arguments broke out in the studio. Judges were standing, crew from off the stage were coming over, and security was already putting hands on the lumberjack dad. People were walking out. One of the contestants’ dads came up on stage and dragged him off by the arm. He gave Joni a mean look.

  That’s when the first tear came out.

  “Did you inspect her brain stem?” lumberjack dad was shouting over the chaos. He was pointing at the back of his neck while security ushered him away. “There’ll be a knot the size of a BB where the seed point is.”

  One of the judges left. The others were calming the crowd. Joni’s face felt hot. Her papa came out of nowhere and put his arm around her. She hid her face while people stomped off the stage. The lights turned up. There was a call for recess, a call for order.

  And Joni cried in her papa’s arms. She rubbed her tears, smearing them on her cheek, and reached behind her ear. Her little fingers crawled through the hair braided on the back of her head, the braid her mama did for her before the event, and searched the base of her skull.

  Where she found a knot the size of a BB.

  14

  Cali unpacked.

  Avery’s clothes were on top. She placed them in the empty drawers, all the shirts nicely folded and cleaned. All perfectly stacked. Next, she took hers out, placing them in the larger drawers, not so meticulous with them.