by Kyle Harris
After a time, Chaz looked down at the screen again. At the tears. She said, “I’m sorry.”
“Charlene, baby, you were hurting yourself. And when you never talk to me, when you spend days away from home, how am I supposed to know what’s going on? The way you were acting, it was like you hated being human. And you went into this shell and never came out again.” She couldn’t hold back crying anymore. Her hands didn’t catch all the liquid.
Sitting there, Chaz tried to count in her head how many times she had talked to her mother—real back-and-forth conversations—since she had moved off the Nova Atlas and to the mainland. Five times? She couldn’t remember any of the dialogue, so maybe that was a high estimate.
I push people away. I hurt people. It was who she was. She had to look no farther than the crying face on the screen to know it. But, for a small fee of one hundred grand, she could fake any emotion. Kindness. Sympathy. Even affection. Shit, with a little extra on the top, she might fucking shed tears. The whole walking, talking human package. Almost indistinguishable from the real thing.
Chaz hung her head. No, she told herself. That was real. That was all real.
And she knew a way to prove it.
Dragging the videochat off to the side, she initiated a search for the Love Conquers All Foundation—the charity that Libby had donated a million dollars of her father’s money to. Chaz opened up the transaction form and filled in the necessary blanks with her bank account information.
For the donation amount, she put in: $100,000.00.
She sent it.
When the confirmation page came up, she waited to see if the insistent throb in her chest cavity would dissipate. It didn’t. If anything, it grew stronger. She took that as a good sign—one, she wasn’t a total irredeemable piece of shit; two, her feelings for Libby hadn’t disappeared with the money. But that didn’t bring her back from the dead. It didn’t undo the carnage at the Wehrlein building, the people Chaz had killed, the warrant that would soon be out for her arrest.
It didn’t fix the path of destruction she always left behind.
Her mother was still connected. Chaz brought the video full-screen again. After a moment, she asked, “Am I a terrible person?”
“Of course not, sweetie.” The woman’s eyes were still puffy, but she had wiped her cheeks. “I think sometimes you put walls between yourself and other people, but you’re not a terrible person, Charlene. Not by a light-year.”
Chaz nodded. “Thanks for saying that.” In her mind: I don’t want you to be dead ever again.
Sirens blared overhead, but they passed. The rhythm in the street had mostly returned to normal, but a few people were still gathered around the terminals.
“Have you been watching the news?” her mother asked.
“The accident downtown?”
“They just switched to it up here. I hope no one was seriously injured.”
I’ve got bad news, thought Chaz.
“How’s everything else? Do you have a job?”
“I did. But it kinda blew up.” Fairly accurate. More sirens closed in. “Listen, Mother. I have to go. I don’t know when I’ll be able to talk to you again. Something’s happened, and—” She cut herself off. She’d already said too much.
“Charlene, what is it? What’s happened?”
She just shook her head.
“Okay. You don’t have to tell me, but please stay out of trouble. I don’t want it to be another two years.”
“Yeah. Me neither.”
“Okay.” The smile shed at least a decade of age off her face. “I love you, sweetie. Don’t ever forget that.”
“I love you too.”
The face blinked away.
Chaz sat there for a full minute more. Part of her was waiting for another incoming videochat connection. Maybe even hoped for it. But it wasn’t to be. She wondered if, up there a few hundred kilometers above her head, her mother was doing the exact same, staring at the dark space where Chaz’s face had just been. She thought so.
It was time.
She stood and returned to the alley with the subtrain grate, tasker still in hand. What she was about to do made her think she was losing an eye, but it had to be done. If she was to live a life beyond this moment, there was no other way. Almost everything that could compromise her was there in her palm. It had to go.
The tasker actually held up reasonably well to being hurled at the ground—the major damage was concentrated on the screen, which now displayed a spider web–shaped knot of cracks, whereas the case had survived with a few dings. It might have still turned on if she pressed the button.
That’s what she had her foot for.
She didn’t finish stomping on the tasker until it lay at her feet in at least two dozen pieces. Then a gust of cold wind came through the alley, and a few of the fragments started to tumble away.
Chaz gave a tug to her coat.
There was an interactive advertisement for a high-end clothing store. She had missed it the first time around. Passing it, she expected to see herself in another fucking outrageous dress—boobs out there on a shelf, arms and pits shaved, hair borrowed from a professional stylist’s portfolio. But there wasn’t, because a message had popped up. The facial-rec didn’t know who the camera was looking at, so first the simulation needed some basic information.
The message said:
PLEASE SELECT ONE TO CONTINUE:
[MAN] [WOMAN]
Chaz picked the third option: her middle finger.
The church itself was dark, but the basement door was open. Lights were on inside, and people were singing. A hymn.
Chaz lit a cigarette.
Two months ago, Libby would have been in there among them. An innocent girl whose body—if someone were to open it up and look within—probably functioned on just faith and love. Chaz had once criticized that faith. It had been wrong to do that. Because faith was how Libby had survived, how she had endured her abusive parents and the barrage of humiliation. Faith had been her armor. Her undying strength.
Chaz listened to the music. She had never heard Libby sing before, but she was certain she could pick out her voice through the others. It was beautiful. Just like the rest of her.
She smoked her cigarette, and she listened to Libby sing.
When everyone filed out after the service, Chaz was still standing there. They saw her. They knew her. None of them said a word.
Alysia Fowler was the first to come forward and open her arms. Then the others. They each came into a growing circle with Chaz at the center.
Together, as one, they hugged.
And Chaz cried.
Chaz returns in Synthesis.
The package from Western Shore had come; Synthia set foot for the post office as soon as the news was delivered to her.
Through the narrow, people-jammed streets, remembering when to turn left and when to turn right, doing her best to not bump into anyone. Bright neon-lit signs and dark, dark shadows; grating music from a vacant-looking building shelling her ears; a lustrous billboard harping about workers’ rights, which turned out to be an advertisement for Humanity Prime (HUMAN UNEMPLOYMENT HITS 50%. OUR CHILDREN ARE STARVING WHILE BILLIONAIRES GET RICHER. FIGHT BACK! STRENGTH FROM UNITY, JUSTICE FROM ENTITY.); a homeless man getting kicked in the gut by two thugs, then relieved of his charity-filled plastic cup.
Eyes forward. Walking.
An old woman came up to her and begged for help to find her child, her little baby boy. She was wrinkled as a prune, and was missing the pinkie and index fingers on her right hand; grubby bandages covered the sever points. “My sweet James, I need to find him,” she moaned. “I lost him in that alley over there. Please. Just help me look for him. He can’t get far.”
Eyes forward. Saying nothing.
Eventually, and not soon enough, she came upon the post office and went inside, where she had to wait in line behind two other people. She had never been inside a post office before. There was a whole corner area for
lockboxes, a rack of greeting cards, an aisle of stationery and writing accessories. On the far wall was a screen of colorful images, each illustrating how to properly package an item for shipping, and what was permitted and what wasn’t. The prices seemed expensive.
When it was her turn, the Case civvy behind the counter addressed her: “How may I be of service today?”
“There’s a package for me,” she stated. “From the Western Shore Mining Company. I’m here to pick it up.”
The robot stared blankly at her face. “One moment, Synthia Garland.” It turned and walked away, and disappeared into a back room.
She could remember being young enough to think the civvies were just people inside mechanical suits—why people would wear such suits, she had no idea, but it hadn’t stopped her from believing it. Around the city, the Case models were the most common. They had no movable facial parts, and she was not convinced that their heads were anything but old repainted fire hydrants.
After a moment, the robot returned holding a cardboard box. Synthia felt air rush into her lungs, and slowly out again.
“Package for Synthia Garland,” it said, holding the box out to her.
She took it, and held it as if the FRAGILE warning on the top came with dire consequences for any sudden, wrong movement. The civvy thanked her and told her to have a wonderful day, and she was heading for the door.
She was outside before the sensation of autopilot had completely washed off; she was staring at the box in her hands, a box that was no larger than her head and could not have weighed any more than a couple kilograms. She knew it contained only bone powder, and probably an urn, and maybe some packing materials. But she kept thinking there should be more—not a bigger box, or a heavier box, but just more.
Years of writing messages, and she had a cardboard box.
Sighing, she began the journey back to the orphanage with her father’s remains.
She didn’t get far before she heard commotion: twenty or thirty meters ahead, where the street dipped slightly. A lot of shoving and pushing, foul language being shouted. As Synthia stopped and watched, the general pandemonium in the crowd appeared to be focused around several guys wearing black-and-red jackets, maybe a dozen of them, all formed up in an uneven line intersecting the street. They resembled gang members.
The Hellions? wondered Synthia, with a pit in her stomach.
These guys were accosting anyone that passed between them—barking questions in the passersby’s faces and, if they had any belongings, throwing those onto the ground. It was like the gang members were looking for something, or someone. Their eyes scanned the crowd and the buildings continually, searching.
Holding the box of her father’s ashes firmly, Synthia looked around. There was an alley to her left. She could take it to the next north–south street. It wasn’t a far detour, and she knew some of the landmarks, and could find her way to the orphanage with a basic sense of direction. On the other hand, it was an alley: the territory of drug dealers and other creeps she would rather not run into.
The one other option was to backtrack to—
Shit. More of them were behind her, four that she could see. It was the same deal: they harassed and interrogated people. One was particularly fat and wore a bloodstained medical eye patch. He looked to be the one giving orders. He then grabbed a woman, and his hand went between her legs. She screamed to be let go—she was, but only after the one-eyed man nearly choked himself laughing.
The alley, Synthia decided. It was the only option.
It seemed to be mostly empty, which was good. She saw a few beggars on garbage-padded mattresses. A subtrain roared beneath her feet. Steam that smelled of rotten sewage billowed from a nearby grate, like some subterranean beast’s foul breath. Further on, a yellow cat hissed at her, then scampered off behind a dumpster.
She had gone a ways into the alley, safely thus far, and then she remembered: she had a weapon. The sharpened butter knife that Clay had given her. It was still in her coat pocket from yesterday. Holding the box with her left hand, she used her right to find it—not to pull it out just yet, but to be ready, in case she needed to be ready.
There were countless dark corners, and shadows, and she tried to watch them all. Tried to anticipate. She gripped the knife harder, listening to her inner cheerleader say, You’ll survive, you’ll survive. She hoped the voice was right.
The end of the alley was just ahead. Nearly there. Except there was one critical impediment: a man with his back to her, standing right in the center of the path. It was too dark to tell if his jacket was black and red, but Synthia didn’t think it was. And beyond him was the street: bright lights, enormous advertisement billboards, an endless flow of people. Safety.
She went to squeeze by him…
…and was thrown against the wall.
“You,” the man growled, flinging spittle. Something sharp scraped against her neck. “Where the hell is she? Huh? Where the hell is that fucking bitch?”
Synthia closed her eyes; she tried to shake her head, to apologize for whatever she had done wrong, but the knife—it had to be a knife—pressed harder into the soft flesh under her jaw. Hot flashes pulsed through her right hand, inside the pocket where her own knife was. She couldn’t get her fingers around the weapon without feeling tremendous, searing pain.
“Who?” she mumbled, cracking her eyes open.
Her assailant had a fake eye. It flitted in tandem with the other one, searching her face, her expression, looking her over. “Don’t play games with me.”
“I’m not! I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
He had taken the box—he was ripping it open, rifling through the bubble wrap, holding the gray urn that contained all that was left of her father. He raised the urn, threatening it without saying a word.
“Please, no! Please don’t—”
He swung his arm and let go, and it shattered on the ground.
“Let’s try this again,” he said, getting into her face. His breath was every awful smell in this city. “Girl about six feet tall, dark hair, with stupid makeup on her face. A dyke bitch. Where is she?”
“I don’t know her!”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not!”
“Tell me the truth.” The knife’s pressure sharpened. “Or you’re gonna bleed out.”
Synthia closed her eyes again. In her terror, she found herself in a whirlwind of last-minute thoughts—memories and feelings of a measured significance that were above all else. She tried to think of one, of any of them, something to hold on to when the pain came, something to relax her for when the lights went out.
Her mind drew a blank.
Suddenly the man was screaming, howling: he was in agony. There were two pairs of footsteps, sounds of a struggle, a clatter when what must have been his knife fell to the pavement; splashing puddles, muffled noises, gasps for air. He was suffocating someone, or someone was suffocating him, but she dared not look. She didn’t want any part of this. She just wanted to be alive and free to go when it was over.
Then, the heavy sound of someone falling down.
“You can open your eyes,” said a new, winded voice. The victor. “I’ll assume the smell of shit is from him.”
Synthia slowly opened her eyes. The first thing she noticed was the body on the ground—her attacker. He wasn’t moving or breathing. No signs of life. Then her gaze drifted over to the new entity beside him—with the fear still pumping through her blood vessels, it was impossible to make sense of the shape immediately. She only saw something humanoid, about 180 centimeters tall, a vague shadow-encased face with large raccoon eyes of pitch-black makeup. For a second it was frightening.
When her heart began to finally slow, she mumbled a “Thanks.”
“You all right?”
Synthia nodded. She studied the face, the hard angles, and also the soft features that connected them. “You’re…you’re a girl?”
“That’s what people keep
telling me,” said her savior. She glanced at the fallen man. “Looks like I saved your ass, didn’t I?”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I want to thank Kelly and Christine, my fierce editors, for understanding the scope of this novel and for their tireless work on the manuscript. You gals rock. And my long-time friend James for answering any oddball questions—such as the possible euphemisms for tit-jobs that didn’t make it into the final manuscript. Maybe next time Chaz can bobsleigh the Kahuna Range. I also give thanks to anyone else who read, critiqued, or told me the temperature of the water I was stepping into by writing this book.
Side note: please seek proper medical help for an abortion. While it can give successful results, getting stabby with a fetus is not a recommended solution. In fact, it has a history of being very deadly. And Chaz giving herself a miscarriage should not be treated as a guide for any such actions.
Though, it was pretty badass.
COVER ARTWORK: RUIZ BURGOS
COPYRIGHT
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, locations, and events are entirely fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, places, incidents, or entities is unintended by the author.
Copyright © 2019 by Kyle Harris.
All rights reserved.