by Roy C. Booth
There she was, in the video with some of the other girls, treating them like pets herself, stroking their hair, smiling lovingly at them, giving them sweets from her food tray—treating them like toddlers, really. The other meergas were clearly little more than imbeciles. Passive, gently playful imbeciles—imbeciles who were potty trained, who showered; who brushed their teeth and could learn simple massage and songs. They all had perfect pitch. But they were essentially imbeciles. All but Meerga.
Meerga was intelligent, compassionate, empathetic—no one had modeled empathy for her, until the study, but she had always had it—and there was a good possibility her IQ was higher than Murray’s. She wasn’t quite ready to take the test yet.
He fast-forwarded to a video of Meerga drawing on her walls. Intricate designs. They were naïve landscapes, very neatly done, with perspective. Things she’d never seen in person.
“Murray.”
He started to hit the off switch on the screen, then realized he was being foolish, and smiled up at her. “Meerga. I was just looking at your art.”
She stood shyly in the doorway, Beth Ganset standing like a fond aunt behind her.
Meerga was tall, willowy, blond, blue-eyed; not one of the bustier meerga models. She wore sun-yellow pyjamas and slippers. She refused to wear the diaphanous outfits that were used for sales presentation. Any refusal was unthinkable for a meerga—but that one had stunned the trainers.
“Hello Meerga. Beth.”
Almost as old as Murray, Beth Ganset wore a white doctor’s jacket and the wrist scanner. Her horn rim smart glasses and bobbed hair made her seem more medical, somehow. Murray was a PhD psychologist; Beth was a psychiatrist, crucial to the study’s funding. She was about a head shorter than Meerga, and had to look past the girl’s shoulder to be seen by Murray. “She wanted to talk to you, Murray. Is now okay?”
“Sure. How’s her schoolwork going?”
Beth chuckled. “I cannot keep up with the girl.”
“I’m not surprised. She’s scary smart.”
Meerga raised her eyebrows. “It’s scary?” She seemed faintly alarmed, though her voice remained soft, lilting. It was designed that way.
“No. Just an expression.”
“What are you up to?” Beth asked him, nodding toward the screen.
“Trying to decide if the initial video interview should go in the study’s final report, amongst other things. Come on in, you guys, don’t hang about out there…”
Beth shook her head. “You guys talk. I’ve got to get back to checking brain volumes…”
“Anything new there?”
“Nope. No one else like Meerga so far.” She waved goodbye and walked off, murmuring to her smart glasses.
Meerga came in. She looked at the chair across from him.
“Have a seat, Meerga.”
“Thank you.”
She sat down. Her movements were sensuous, graceful. She was designed that way, too.
He looked in her crystal-blue eyes, and saw a seamless mix of intelligence and puzzlement. “You always look a little puzzled,” he said, gently. “What are you puzzling about?”
She tilted her head to one side and thought about it. “It’s more confused than puzzled. When I look at you, and Beth, and the trainers, here, and I look at the other girls…”
“Beth and I explained how you were all gestated. The lack of parents, the profit motive here, what money is…”
“Yes, I understand all that.” She fluttered the delicate fingers of one hand. Her fingernails were innately colored a pearly pink. They were always perfectly shaped, without a manicure. If she broke one, another grew. Otherwise, they had stopped growing.
It was all in the study. Which was coming to an end.
“I’m confused about why I’m more like…like Beth. Than I’m like the other girls. I mean, the way I think and talk.”
“Beth explained mutation to you?”
“Yes. You think it’s that?”
“We’re not sure. But it’s something along those lines.”
“But I am like the others in some ways.”
“You’re very different in important ways, Meerga. You’re not suited for—well, I think it’s all a mistake, really, to sell meergas. Completely wrong. But you especially…don’t belong here.”
“Not sure I belong outside. I don’t know. Haven’t seen much.”
He nodded. “Not so far.” They’d only let Beth take Meerga to the park. She’d shown real excitement on seeing the trees, the pond, the ducks, lifters flying overhead. It was an excitement she never displayed in the training center—except just a little, when she was given new reading on her tablet. The encyclopedia download lit flames in her eyes. “Beth told you we’re working on taking you out of here—and I think we’ve almost got it arranged.”
Her eyes widened—it was a beautiful effect. “Really?” She frowned prettily. “But the Creskes won’t allow it.”
“They won’t have a choice.”
“And—the study is ending?”
“Oh yes. Just a few days more. They’re going to be glad to see us gone. I was hoping the study would push Congress into making this place illegal but…” He shook his head. “The preliminary report didn’t seem to impress them. A lot of congressmen own meergas.”
“What if someone buys me before you can get me out?”
“I…had a discussion about that, yesterday, with Addy. He says it won’t happen. You’re…” He didn’t want to use the word defective. “You’re not the kind of product they sell. He says the study can take charge of you, if we pay costs.”
Her lips parted. She seemed to stop breathing for a moment. “I can go with you?”
“Um—yes, with us. You can stay with one of us, and we’ll find somewhere you can…someone to adopt you.”
“I want you to adopt me, Murray. I want to live with you.”
His mouth went dry. “…Ah.”
“And I’d like to have children. Someday.”
“What?” He’d thought Meerga was clear she couldn’t have children. And did she mean with him?
“I mean,” she said, “I’d like to adopt a baby someday. A normal baby.”
“Oh! Someday you probably can. First—”
Murray’s screen chimed. URGENT CALL lit up. He touched the screen icon. “Yes?”
“Dr. Stathis?”
He felt a chill. “Yes.”
“This is Meredith Kinz at Hartford Central. We have your son Ryan here. He’s been shot. He’s lost a lot of blood...”
4. Cell Repair
“I know: ‘It’s been a month, so get out of bed,’” Ryan said, his voice listless. He was sitting up in his bed, looking at the tablet in his lap.
The tablet, Murray knew, was looking back.
“I didn’t say anything like that, Ryan.” Murray stretched and yawned. He had slept in, too. He’d managed trousers and a T-shirt, but he was still barefoot.
“I was going to get up,” Ryan murmured. “It doesn’t hurt much to walk now… Just not sleeping that well.” He still hadn’t looked up from the tablet.
“I’ve got a prescription for you from Beth, for that. But you can’t start being dependent on pills.”
“Okay, hey.”
When I was his age, I’d have said whatever, Murray thought. It was saying the same thing.
Murray cleared his throat. “Actually—I came in to ask if you want to have some coffee with me.” He’d never known Ryan to take an interest in coffee, but he thought Ryan might like the man-to-man inclusion of the offer.
Ryan tilted his head—but kept looking into the tablet. “Um…I don’t like coffee. Makes me anxious.” He shrugged. “I like hot chocolate.”
“I want to try hot chocolate,” Meerga said, coming in. “They didn’t give it to us at the training center. No hot drinks. I think they were afraid we’d burn ourselves.” She wore jeans with a hole in one knee, and an oversized sweatshirt, and dirty white tennis shoes. Yet she was impossibl
y attractive, even dressed like that.
And now Ryan looked up from the tablet—at Meerga.
“That place we went by last week, when we walked in that park,” Ryan said tentatively. “They have hot chocolate. If we can get a driverless to pick us up, and…”
His voice trailed off; his eyes got a little glassy. He was probably thinking about Tarina.
“Did she call?” Meerga asked.
Meerga had an eerie way of seeming to read minds. But Murray thought it was just her precocity—and her gift for observing people.
“No.” He glanced at the tablet. His voice was hard to hear. “She went back under tech soon as her dad let the ambulance guys in...”
“How do you know?” Murray asked. “You were out cold.”
“I talked to Sharma…her cousin.” He nodded at the tablet. “She went to see what was up. They’re all three still under tech. More than a month later…”
“I see. Well. Let’s get a driverless, and go get some hot chocolate. Actually I think I’ll have a mocha.”
“Is that place safe?” Meerga asked, looking at Murray.
He felt the usual inner shock when she looked at him—her frankness, her openness, her almost diabolically sculpted beauty. “There’s some auto security around the coffee shop, but it’s nothing like in the residential areas. We’ll be fine.”
“I’m not going to do anything else stupid,” Ryan said, looking at her a little resentfully.
But he couldn’t keep any sullenness in him, long, when he was looking at her. After a moment, a dreamy smile ghosted the corners of his mouth…
I shouldn’t have brought her here, Murray thought. How could he not become sexually obsessed with her?
She never seemed to flirt with the boy. When she looked at Murray, though, sometimes—he thought she was trying to convey something. Which worried him almost as much.
But she needed the home. Beth’s place was really small. And she was helpful; she wasn’t intrusive. She had social skills that should’ve been beyond her. Some other residence could be found. But she was so attractive he was afraid for her. He had arranged for her entry into the wide world; he had to take responsibility.
Murray took a deep breath. “I’ll call a driverless.”
5. Embraced
“Ryan’s been home from the hospital for a month and a half, Beth, the nerve damage has been repaired and…well, he has a small limp but really, he’s healed up well. It’s just—I guess it’s the thing with Tarina. He has some form of PTSD. He’s hardly sleeping, at all. I don’t know…”
He was talking to her from the screen in the extra bedroom he used for an office. Beth listened to him a little like a psychiatrist, but there was intimacy in it too. They’d dated, recently, and sometimes he thought about asking her to marry him. She might well say yes. He wasn’t madly attracted to her, but she was a kindly, intelligent woman, she was his good friend, and she liked Ryan. The boy was merely polite to her, though.
“I don’t have to tell you to be patient with him,” she said. Then she smiled. “But be patient with him.” She hesitated, then added, “There are some very clean antidepressants now. Almost no side effects.”
“Right. But…I’d rather not go there if we don’t have to.”
“How’s he getting along with Meerga?”
“Oh—he adores her. What boy wouldn’t?” He laughed softly.
“He doesn’t do anything to…”
“No, no, he knows she’s really only seven years old.”
“When I was there for dinner I thought she was…gazing at you, sort of.”
“Gazing?”
“I mean, she may be somewhat emotionally fixated on you.”
“We’ve pretty much adopted her, after all.”
“You know what I mean…”
“Well…Yes.”
Two nights ago she’d knocked on his bedroom door…
“Doctor Stathis?”
“Yes, Meerga?”
“Am I disturbing you?”
“No, I was just watching an old movie.”
“Can I watch it?”
“Oh…” He was lying on his bed, watching a very old movie indeed. Early Fred Astaire. What was the harm in watching Fred Astaire with her? “Sure.”
She came in, wearing a slip, her bathrobe and slippers, and sat down cross-legged on the bed beside him. On the screen, Fred and Ginger were gliding across a shining ballroom.
“Wow. They look happy,” Meerga said.
“Sure. But really, Ginger was probably hoping desperately that this was a final take because her feet were killing her.”
Meerga laughed, apparently getting the joke. She looked fondly at him. “You’re sweet to let me watch this with you.” She kissed him on the cheek. “Thanks.”
She put a hand over his. And she was gazing at him.
He looked at her. “What’s up, kiddo?”
“I’m made for men…”
“You’re going to school and you’ll be going to go to college. You’ll meet men. In twelve years or so you’ll be legal to…do whatever you feel like with them. I doubt you get much resistance.”
“But what about you?”
His heart was pounding. But he managed to smile dismissively. “You’re something like magic, Meerga. But that part of your magic, I will always resist. I’m too old for you and…it would be wrong for about ten reasons. I’d rather not recite them…”
They watched the movie a little more. He knew she was crying, silently, as she watched it. He didn’t look at her. Then she squeezed his hand and left the bedroom...
“Yes,” he said now. “But she’ll get over that. I don’t encourage her. You can ask her about it if you want.”
Beth shook her head. “I’m sure she’s safe with you. I wouldn’t hold it against you for just being tempted that way. You’re only human and she’s…designed.”
“Right. She is very thoroughly designed. But I’ve got it under control. I was actually thinking you might be able to help me out with that temptation thing. I was hoping we could have a weekend, you know, just you and me.”
Beth’s quick smile was as genuine as a sudden light in a dark room. “Yes! That’d be great! Only, we should bring Ryan and Meerga, get them each a room. She’ll see how things are. And…so would Ryan.”
They talked a little more, and then hung up—and Murray had a sudden urge to check on Ryan. Just have a quick look in on his son. Who was so like him, in some ways.
Meerga had been spending a lot of time with Ryan. Hadn’t he heard her footsteps, padding by, earlier, on the way to Ryan’s room? He hadn’t thought about it, then…
“Oh Jesus,” he murmured.
He got up quickly, went down the hall—and hesitated, his hand on Ryan’s bedroom door. He could smell her natural scent. She had been here, at this door.
You have to know…
Murray opened the door and froze. She was there, in the shadowy room—and she was in bed with Ryan.
“Meerga?”
She stirred. Murray went closer, his eyes adjusting to the dim light. After a moment, he could see she was lying on top of the comforter. Ryan was under the blankets, turned away from her. She had her arm draped over Ryan, spooning against him like a mother with a child. Or like a comforting big sister. He remembered the way she’d been with the other girls, at the training center; he remembered she wanted children.
They were both asleep. He hadn’t given the boy his sleeping pill, but Ryan was breathing deeply, and smiling in his sleep.
Murray felt a sick tautness go out of him. He felt better than he had in months. Maybe years.
He left the room, quietly closing the door behind him.
END
JOHN SHIRLEY is an American author of science-fiction, fantasy, and noir fiction, a prolific writer of novels and short stories, TV scripts, and screenplays who has published over 30 books and ten collections. Shirley is known for his cyberpunk science fiction novels, such as the A Song Called
Youth trilogy, City Come A-Walkin', and Black Glass, as well as his suspense (Spider Moon and The Brigade), horror novels, and stories (“Demons, Crawlers, Black Butterflies”), and horror film work.
Shirley can be found on his official website www.darkecho.com/JohnShirley/.
TO SLEEP, PERCHANCE
Mark Terence Chapman
“So this is it, the end of the line.”
Ada floated between the stars, alone and dying—slowly—in the only undamaged escape pod. Undamaged, that is, except for the transponder—and the slow leak in the air supply. The thin padding of the bunk on which she sat did nothing to cushion the torment of her thoughts.
No more hopes and dreams; no more career advancement; no more chance at a family. It all ends here. Not in the heat of battle, but in the chill darkness of the aftermath.
She chuckled bitterly to herself. “Fine time to be turning eloquent.”
The battle was over; her ship destroyed in the Chanthi ambush along with the rest of her squadron.
“How did they know when to be waiting by the jump point?”
She shook her head as if to clear it of unanswerable questions. The only thing that matters right now is that the Chanthi are gone and I’m alone out here.
I suppose it worked in my favor that the escape pod is beat up enough to look like just another piece of wreckage. On the other hand, without the transponder, there’s no hope of rescue—not that there’s any fleet left to rescue me. The only ships in this region still in one piece are the enemy’s.
She sighed and shrugged. It’s just as well the transponder’s out. I’ve heard what they do to prisoners—especially female prisoners.