Shadow Life

by Jason Mather

  Lori smiled.

  Then Bacall came in. Lori screamed, leaped from his arms, and knocked the chair over trying to climb on the table. Bacall, the more nervous of the pair, bolted from the room, tail between her legs.

  It took Hans another ten minutes to get Lori down again.

  — «» —

  Hans awoke to another body in his bed. Lori. At least she was clothed this time; Pat had given her a flannel nightgown. Hans hadn’t had much trouble getting Lori to sleep. She’d started nodding off early, still feeling the side effects of her journey and injury. She appeared OK, but Hans was going to take her to the doctor in the morning. He needed someone’s opinion besides his own.

  She’d wanted to sleep with him, had even propositioned him. How do you deal with something like that? It was the only way she’d learned to show affection. He’d acquiesced with the stipulation that she keep her nightgown on. Then she wanted her blanket. In the fuss Hans had forgotten about it. He found it crumpled up under the seat in their purloined car. With her blanket found, Lori promptly fell asleep beside him, and just as promptly spread out and started snoring, taking up most of the small twin in his mom’s guest room. He’d somehow managed to fall asleep crammed up against the wall, helped by a combination of exhaustion and years of sleeping with two furry bed hogs.

  He was awake now. Where was Onyx? She’d said little since they’d arrived, and spent most of her time standing or sitting on the periphery as Hans dealt with getting Lori settled down. Pat had tried her best to be civil, Onyx was indifferent. Did the woman sleep? He found it absurd to think of her wrapped in one of his mother’s nightgowns, bedding down on the couch. She probably slept upside down, hanging from the rafters.

  He was worried for her.

  Hans extracted himself from the mass of Lori, trying to be gentle and quiet. He needn’t have bothered. Lori slept on even as Hans lifted her head to extract his arm. Climbed over her, stood to put on his shirt. He’d finally been able to get some real clothes. Well-worn jeans, and loose, comfortable button-ups. A pair of old work boots. This room had been his when he was a kid, with Grit across the hall, and Mom downstairs. Nostalgia mixed with the strangeness of the last few days. He could almost forget them if not for the girl in his bed, and the enigma downstairs.

  He went looking for Onyx, doubting she was asleep.

  She wasn’t. It was pitch black outside, the kind of darkness unknown in the city. Visibility was ten feet or less if the moon wasn’t out. Through the downstairs window he saw the tip of her cigarette glowing. He felt a sudden jones for one; it’d been over twenty-four hours.

  She held one out to him, squinting in the porch light he’d turned on. She lit it for him, moving back further beyond the circle of light. They smoked in companionable silence. Was she a friend now? Certainly, they’d been through a lot. She’d promised him some answers. It’d been on the back burner since Lori woke up.

  Bogie scratched at the door and Hans opened it to let him out. The old dog curled up on the porch by his mom’s rocking chair. Hans took the hint and sat down.

  “You grow up here?” A question from the dark. A silhouette leaning over the railing.

  “Yeah.”

  “So, you live with you mother?”

  “No, my place is about a half a mile down that path.” Bogie wanted his head scratched, Hans obliged.

  “This place is very peaceful.”

  “Ma doesn’t have any boarders at the moment. It can get pretty lively when all the guest houses are full.”

  “Show me where you live.”

  “Here it is.”

  “No, I mean your house.”

  “You want to walk in the dark?”

  “Sure.”

  “All right.”

  Hans didn’t know how Lori would react if she woke up and he wasn’t in the house. He hoped she slept.

  It was a ten-minute walk down the well-maintained dirt path. Bogie trotted easily beside them, sniffing and marking familiar spots. He’d gotten too old to go tearing off after the squirrels and foxes that made their homes here, but he’d still point and stare at them in frustration before catching up to Hans.

  The walk took two more cigarettes each.

  It’d been a guest cabin before Hans moved in. He’d made no major changes beyond giving it a fresh coat of paint. He was decently handy with tools, but gained no satisfaction from home repairs beyond being glad it was done. A small cabin, with two bedrooms, a bathroom, kitchen, and living area. Hans had picked it because one of the previous boarders had spent a considerable amount of time digging a basement workshop. The workshop contained most of Hans’ livelihood.

  The key was under the porch mat. Hans gave Onyx the tour, the strangeness of being back combined with this domestic façade. An international criminal, a woman who commanded an army of death-dealing high-end technology, standing in his kitchen pretending to admire the duck painting he’d hung to cover a water stain. The place had not been opened while he was gone, and it smelled empty and vacant. Luckily, he kept very little in the way of food on premises. Hans usually went up to the main house to eat with the other boarders.

  “How long have you lived here?”

  “About fifteen years, ever since I moved out of my mom’s house.”

  “You ever bring women here?”

  The question embarrassed him slightly. “I’ve never had a lot to offer a woman. They don’t tend to stick around when they realize they’re sleeping with a grumpy misanthrope with no prospects.”

  “What do you do?”

  “Whatever pays. I’m OK with tools. I’ve gotten a decent reputation for repairing old electronics. People pay me for special jobs. Wanna see?”

  She nodded. This was weird. Play along.

  They exited the house, walked around the side to the old storm cellar doors. There was a heavier lock on this one, connected to an old fingerprint ID scanner. He miss-scanned the first time because of dust on the screen. He wiped off, scanned again. Success.

  — «» —

  Here was Hans’ livelihood, if you could really call it that. The basement was strewn with broken electronics, some old, some ancient. Vacuum tubes harvested from obsolete cathode ray televisions, video recorders that still used disc and even tape media. Large unwieldy devices that only made phone calls or sent basic text messages. It was all piled haphazardly around a large workbench hewn roughly from trees. Tools of the trade included soldering irons, various types of pliers and wrenches, gauges and testing equipment, and spools of wire and insulation. Currently the workbench was occupied by a large metal box sprouting a seemingly random array of tubes and spouts. Onyx asked him what it was.

  “It’s an old coffee machine. I’ve been repairing it. I’ve gotten all the plumbing working, but it works on an ancient power system, and I’ve been trying to find the parts to adapt it.”

  “Is it valuable?” she asked, turning one of the large black dials.

  “No. I was repairing it for myself.”

  Onyx twisted the knob back, and turned to look at a row of toasters. She was distracted, playing for time.

  “Something on your mind?” Hans asked

  She didn’t reply, played idly with a lever, stooped to rummage through a box.

  “What’s this?” She pointed at a mass of wires and rusted metal.

  “An old electric motor. It used to power a cart my mom drove around.”

  “Hmm…”

  She stood, wiped her hands on her pants, leaving dusty streaks on the black leather.

  “You don’t need to pretend. None of this can be that interesting to you.” Hans crossed his arms across his chest.

  “Actually, I find this rather fascinating. You spend your life trying to rebuild the past.”

  “And you spend it trying to control the future.”

  “I thought so once… now…” she tapered off.

  “Now what?”

  Onyx shrugged, “I can’t reach my contact. I haven’t been able to most
of the day.”

  “Is that common?”

  “No. It’s never happened before. I’ve always been in constant contact, but the last day or so almost nothing.”

  “Who’s your contact?”

  “Hmm?” She turned to look at him. He repeated the question. She didn’t respond, removed an old television from a rickety chair, tested its sturdiness, sat down.

  Hans tried again. “You said you’d give me some answers.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “So, who’s your contact?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Hans raised his eyebrows, waited for her to elaborate.

  “I… can’t remember.”

  “You can’t remember who you’re contact is? Even though you’ve been in constant communication with him?”

  Onyx’ face scrunched up a little, real fear and confusion crossing it. “No, I can’t,” she admitted. “I think I knew at one point, but there’s a hole where it used to be.”

  “Convenient.”

  “Very.”

  Hans swallowed his frustration. “OK, let’s try a different one. What were those things we saw in the crate at Brigham’s?”

  “The what?” She looked genuinely confused. Hans didn’t buy it.

  “The bodies. What were they?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You. Me. Buried in a crate while your minions dug us out. The bodies. Copies of your assistant Elena, copies of your bodyguard, copies of the man who I talked to in your building, copies of you.”

  Onyx stared at him like he was a bug. No recognition in her eyes.

  “How about the one you killed in my room. Elena strangling me, you slit her throat, then she was serving us breakfast. Remember that?”

  “I don’t know what you’re trying to do here, Hans, but…”

  “OK, here’s an easy one. What color are your eyes?”

  She frowned and twisted away on the chair. Hans continued badgering her.

  “For a long time I thought you were just keeping things from me, just fucking with me, pretending not to remember. But you really don’t know, do you? Something, maybe you, maybe your contact, is editing your memory. Your brain is Swiss cheese.”

  There was real anger in her voice. “What is the point of this interrogation?” Now she had a knife in her hands.

  “My point? My point is that I don’t think you’re in control here. I don’t think you can even trust yourself. I’m not even sure you’re human.”

  Onyx jerked the knife and stood to show him blood dripping from her palm.

  “Is this human enough for you?”

  “Elena bled, too.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “What color are your eyes?”

  “You can see them. You tell me.”

  “What color do you think they are?”

  Onyx stood defiantly, dripping blood onto the concrete. She’d really cut deep with that sharp knife of hers. Hans expected her to attack him. There would be nothing he could do. He’d invited her rage. It would be in his best interests to back off. He didn’t.

  “What color are your eyes?”

  “Hazel, like my mother’s.”

  “Wrong.”

  The knife flew through the air, passing perilously close to his head, and embedded itself in concrete. He felt a trickle of blood run down his neck. She’d nicked his ear. He didn’t move.

  “Are you human? Or are you one of them?”

  “One of what?”

  “The constructs, the clones, the aliens. I don’t know what they are. I watched you die, saw you come back. Same with Elena. And you all have the same eyes. Pale gray. No one has eyes like that.”

  “Why are you doing this?” The area around her was nearly melting with her anger.

  “You don’t have to trust me. There’s a mirror in the bathroom upstairs. Check your eyes. While you’re at it, I suggest you check to see if you’re completely intact.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning the bodies I saw had no genitals. Check to see if you still got your parts.”

  Her anger was fading a bit, fear replaced it. Confusion. She crossed the room and Hans tried not to flinch as she reached past him and retrieved her knife from the wall. She stormed up the stairs.

  Are you there?

  Answer me!

  …

  I want an explanation.

  Is this your doing?

  What have you done?

  Why can’t I remember?

  Are you fucking with my memory?

  Answer me, goddamn it!

  Where are you?

  What the hell is going on?

  Where is the real me?

  Is there a real me?

  …

  Hans gave Onyx a quarter of an hour. He listened to her moving around in the cabin above, heard her gasp, break something. She stomped out, slammed the front door.

  He tinkered with the coffee machine, searched aimlessly, paced. He’d finally confronted her. He’d known it would happen eventually. She didn’t know, hadn’t known, probably would forget again, but for now she was struggling. He’d never seen someone more alone. She needed a friend, even if she didn’t agree.

  He went upstairs, ready to walk back to the house and search the woods, barely lit by a crescent moon.

  There was no light from the house; she’d turned them off. Hans stood for a moment, trying to decide where she might have gone. He saw the tip of her cigarette glow from a small hill a few dozen feet away. She stood in the darkness, always had. He cautiously walked over.

  They stood in silence. A minute became two, became ten. Something moved through the woods nearby. There were bears here sometimes, mountain lions, too. Hans feared for them if they attacked her. Finally, he broke the silence.

  “You got one of those for me?” She’d been chain smoking, lighting each cigarette on the end of the previous one. Where she kept getting them from was as mysterious as the knives.

  “You’re gonna have to get your own soon.”

  “Do it tomorrow.”

  She gave him a cigarette. He lit it with a lighter he’d swiped from his mom’s house, the flame momentarily blinding in the dark. They smoked awhile. She handed him another, then another, the ribbing gone after the first time.

  “You want a drink?”

  A pause before answering, then she mumbled something and turned toward the cabin.

  He found an old bottle of vodka on a back shelf in the freezer. Not as good as hers, but it’d do the job. He let the water run until the brown tinge disappeared, then washed the dust out of a couple of old glasses. He brought it out to the porch, where she sat on one of the old rockers. He filled her glass, offered it. She drained it, handed it back. He filled, she drained, for four glasses, without blinking. Hans kept quiet. She took the fifth and placed it on her lap. Hans sat with his own, sipped. Not great, but it was ice cold.

  They smoked. They drank. They didn’t speak. An hour passed.

  — «» —

  “I wasn’t always this way, I can’t have been.” Her voice was startling after the extended silence, and slightly slurred. Whatever her body was, it could get drunk. Hans chose not to respond.

  “I had a real body once, I’m certain of it.” She was waiting for a response, he grunted at her.

  “I’m human, Hans. I don’t know what happened, I don’t know how I got here, but I’m human.”

  Hans grunted another assent.

  “You don’t believe me.” Her voice was desperate for assurance.

  “I don’t know what to believe. Everything that’s happened since I woke up has been unknown territory. I don’t know what you are.”

  “Human, Hans, I’m human,” she practically spit it at him, “How can I not be? I have a history, memories. How can I be anything else?”

  “I don’t know, Yana. Your memories are not entirely reliable. Something’s been editin
g them.”

  She took another drink, drew on a cigarette. “I think I’ve known or suspected that my memories have holes in them for awhile now. Nothing specific, just a feeling of emptiness. Maybe I am doing it. A psychotic break or something.”

  “You’re not crazy.”

  “You sure?”

  “No crazier than anyone else, no crazier than me.”

  “That’s not much of a vote of confidence.”

  “It’s all I got.”

  He stood up and flipped on the porch light. The dim bulb brought her profile into focus. Her eyes were bleary and far away, face flushed, mouth pulled into a tight grimace. She pulled on the cigarette like it pained her, downed the rest of her drink, and held the glass out to him.

  “That’s the last of the vodka,” he said.

  “You got anything else?”

  “I’ll look.”

  He searched the kitchen fruitlessly, then remembered that he’d stashed an old bottle of whiskey in the pantry. He retrieved it, still half-full.

  She grimaced when he brought it out. “I hate whiskey.”

  “It’s what I got.”

  He filled her glass. She drank, choked, took another sip.

  “How drunk you plan on getting, lady?”

  “I still have one of these tablets from the bar. I can sober up whenever I want.”

  “I ain’t holdin’ your hair when you puke.”

  “You’re no gentlemen.”

  “Nope.”

  She downed her glass, coughed, held it out to him defiantly. He took it from her and filled it all the way to the brim. She downed the whole thing and stared back at him, the glass extended again. Hans handed her the bottle.

  “Here, finish it. I don’t like whiskey either.”

  “If you’re trying to get me drunk and take advantage, you should know that I don’t have the equipment.”

  “I don’t think we’ve reached that point yet.” He sat down in the rocker and sipped his still-full glass of vodka. She drank from the bottle, spilled some, wiped it off her chin, and sucked on her finger. Her poise was disappearing rapidly.