Husk

by J. Kent Messum

  ‘I’ve heard some stuff about that guy through the grapevine, Rhodes,’ Phineas says. ‘I think you and I should have a chat in London later this week.’

  I nod, too tired to talk any more. They leave without another word. As I lock the front door I hear my Liaison ping and check the screen. It’s an automated message back from the bank that says the suspensions on my accounts have been lifted. I breathe a sigh of relief as I gently pick up my sleepy Ryoko from the couch and carry her to bed.

  10

  ‘Wilhelm Winslade,’ I mutter.

  The deep breath I take does little to calm my nerves. On the varnished oak door before me is a solid gold placard engraved with the number thirty-six. My client owns the whole floor. I’m standing at the entrance to a penthouse on Central Park West with a heavily armed guard either side of me who have been my escorts from the moment I set foot in the building. Both are decked out in the latest body armour. They’re not packing personal-defence weapons like the Vector. No, these guys have fully outfitted assault carbines with drum magazines to lay down extensive suppressing fire if needed, enough to repel a small citizens’ uprising. Winslade must be worrying over what is growing outside his window. Half his investments are helping to hollow out the middle class. The other half is tied up in weapons manufacturing and defence contracting. The people who hate him most fit the profile of the average disgruntled civilian, and his death was never announced to the public.

  One of the guards raps on the door. We wait a minute. Time to reflect, think my own thoughts before I get taken for a spin. When I awoke this morning Ryoko was already gone. My heart sank. The plan was to make her breakfast in bed, get her to stay another hour or two so we could talk, mindless chatter, heart to heart if possible. More time alone with her seemed imperative. In her presence there had been fewer flashbacks, fewer unnerving thoughts. I still have that weight on me, pressure from an unknown source, but Ryoko eased it somehow. The girl has a habit of sneaking out the back door after an overnight, a habit I’m trying to break. A note was left on the kitchen counter. Said she will miss me while I’m gone and that we need to talk when I get back. It was signed Love Ryoko, something she’s never done before in our history of leaving notes. The thought makes me smile, even as the penthouse door opens to reveal a wiry man in a shirt and tie who tries his damnedest to smile back.

  ‘Mr Rhodes,’ he says with a French accent, the smile re-forming into a sneer of sorts. ‘Good to have you back.’

  ‘It’s a pleasure to be back.’

  We’re both lying, and we both know it. Renard is the man’s name, the only one I know him by. He serves as Winslade’s butler, assistant and personal bodyguard all rolled into one. As he receives information through his earpiece, my eyes are drawn to his shoulder holster. There it hangs, the gun, the prototype weapon that destroys living tissue in such a way as to haunt my dreams. I know ‘M-6 Rapier’ is stencilled on the gun barrel, and its presence alone is enough to invoke fear in those who recognize it. Even the security guards give it a nervous glance. To a guy like Renard it is merely an accessory, a tool, something to aid him in his tasks. I’m no science geek, couldn’t tell you specifics, but I know that gun shoots a whole new kind of bullet technology, advanced cartridges filled with corrosive chemicals and projectiles, firepower that carves a smooth and sizeable chunk out of an unfortunate target.

  ‘Come in,’ Renard grumbles, dismissing the guards with a nod. ‘Time is money and Mr Winslade wishes to waste neither.’

  I sincerely hope the Rapier, with its state-of-the-art munitions, is slowly giving Renard inoperable cancer, feeding some tumour next to his heart, if he even has one. I enter the penthouse, Renard ushering me ahead. You do not walk behind this man. He keeps rear guard at all times, never takes his eyes off you for more than a second.

  ‘I trust you have been keeping well?’

  The inquiry is about my personal health, the quality of me as a product, not my wellbeing. I look around the luxurious living space. It’s twice as big as Navarette’s place in Las Vegas, adorned with three times the wealth. Old Money lives here, and lots of it.

  ‘Well enough,’ I reply.

  My response does not impress Renard. He picks up a tablet from a desk and types into it. I stroll the massive living room, inspecting the military antiques on the walls, Renard always close behind. I feel his eyes on me constantly. It makes me feel cheap and criminal, like some kind of shoplifter. I’m a Husk, the ultimate whore, not just a gigolo. For my services I expect to be treated with a certain amount of respect, maybe even a little class. It’s a lie I tell myself a lot. Old Money has no regard for anything except its own interests, no matter what is said or done. Renard appraises me, sees something he doesn’t like, approaches with a hand held out.

  ‘A moment, s’il vous plaît,’ he says, reaching toward my throat.

  ‘Certainly.’

  He removes my necktie, shaking his head at my pathetic attempt at an Eldredge knot, making tut tut noises as he undoes it. I watch as he drapes it over his own neck and effortlessly ties the knot correctly before handing it back with a look of contempt.

  ‘There,’ he says. ‘Better.’

  As I don the tie my eyes are drawn to a framed photo of Winslade shaking hands with the former President of the United States, closing the deal that made him his last billions by supplying the Defense Department with the EMU, or Escalation Military Unit, an eight-foot-tall odd-looking bipedal drone that specializes in walking, running and killing on rough terrain. Initially meant for warzones grown too treacherous for conventional soldiers, EMUs now roll off assembly lines en masse to be sent out ahead of platoons in order to cripple and demoralize the enemy before an offensive. I pick the picture up, looking past the two powerful men at the remote-piloted machine in the background.

  ‘Please put that down,’ Renard says.

  I do it casually, but carefully. ‘How have you and Mr Winslade been keep—’

  Renard puts one finger to his lips to silence me, holds another against his earpiece before typing something else into the tablet. Feeling unwelcome, I walk through sliding glass doors and step out onto the penthouse balcony to look out over Central Park. The Occupy Movement below is unmistakable. The Great Lawn has become an enormous scab among greenery, the field a mingling mass of disaffected and disenfranchised. Incessant protest marches flow in the park’s concrete veins. Organized chants rumble in the air. OCP was a smart move. Back in the day, Occupy Wall Street annoyed employees of the financial district more than anything. But this new location is too close to home for the one per cent. Every wealthy weasel and rich bitch living around Central Park look out of their window every day to see a swelling resistance, reminding them just how much they are pissing off the majority of the country. There are fewer surveillance cameras in the park too, putting facial-recognition software at a disadvantage. Aerial drones don’t like to operate much in daylight either. It’s a perfect place for social disobedience, handy for criminal elements like Integris too. Renard clears his throat loudly and I re-enter the penthouse without hesitation.

  ‘He will see you now.’

  Renard points down the hallway. Unaccompanied, I make my way to Winslade’s room. I feel relieved not having Renard, or his weapon, at my back. Relief is short-lived, however. At the end of the hall is a reinforced stainless-steel door that slides open for me. The room is poorly lit as I enter, window curtains closed as always. In one corner lies a silver-skinned server system housing customized virtual worlds. On the other side of the room, before a large fireplace, a darkened figure sits in an overstuffed throne of a chair, deathly still, enough to be my client’s corpse. I gulp, feeling a knot plumb my neck.

  ‘Hello, Mr Winslade,’ I manage.

  In the quiet of the room I hear the subtle whirring of machinery as the robot turns its head to regard me. The polished eyes glint as the silicone-composite face remoulds into something that vaguely resembles being pleased. Painted lips pull back to reveal teeth made
of rare ivory. Regardless of how many times I see it, the smile freaks me out. As with most robot technology, no matter how lifelike it may look, it still doesn’t look real.

  ‘Good day, Mr Rhodes,’ Winslade replies in a replica voice that sounds inhuman to me. ‘Please have a seat.’

  I sit in the vacant chair beside his and try my best not to look at him. He leans closer, his movements slow and deliberate. The soft clicking and humming of his prototype body, one he is very unsatisfied with, bothers me. From the corner of my eye I see his head tilt as he examines me through those silvery lenses he calls eyes. The cold fingers of his manufactured hand rise and stroke my cheek awkwardly, trying to feel what they cannot.

  ‘I have missed you, my boy.’

  My boy bothers me even more, makes me feel like I’m an item owned. I want to pull away from his touch, but that would be bad for business. Reluctantly, I lean into his hand, feeling the metal skeleton underneath the soft materials impersonating muscles and sinews. The hand cups my chin and turns it toward him. His eyes don’t blink. They never do. I try not to appear uneasy. The machine staring absently into my face is supposed to resemble Mr Winslade when he was in his thirties. To me it just looks like a wax sculpture come to life. The fake smile falls away. Features become blank, expression erased.

  ‘I don’t like that scratch on your cheek,’ Winslade says.

  ‘Sorry,’ I reply, swallowing hard. ‘I was hoping to have more time to heal properly before my return.’

  The blank look maintains. ‘No matter. I require you now.’

  Winslade peels back a layer of pseudo-skin from his temple to reveal an input jack. His head bobs up and down, ushering me to proceed. I take out my Liaison and start the Husk sequence. Winslade holds out a hand. I plug one cable into my Ouija and place the other in his smooth upturned palm. Robot eyes stare at it, the rest of him completely still. For a moment I think he has shut down.

  ‘Pity,’ Winslade remarks suddenly. ‘Only one day this time.’

  I nod as if I agree, even though I don’t. Winslade plugs the cable into his head as I retrieve my pillbox and select a red one for a twenty-four-hour session.

  ‘See you tomorrow, Mr Winslade,’ I say, and swallow the pill.

  Soon a sleep tunnel opens and I’m sliding backwards into the emergence of night, watching as the world before me grows smaller. My thoughts become sluggish, slipping into stasis. A figure passes in the gloom, travelling in the direction I have come from, moving toward earthly existence. It does not acknowledge me. My last controlled thought wonders where Winslade will go with my body.

  I settle down in the recesses of my mind, cocooned by the dark for what seems like ages, unmoving, unthinking. When the dreams finally come they are vivid, like memories playing on a movie screen. Most of them are of Miller. I recall the first time I met him, in a private booth at a restaurant in Greenwich Village where he touched on the aspects of my new profession, explaining Husk life and protocol. I see him and Tweek taking potshots in the Solace offices, ribbing each other relentlessly until they both break into fits of laughter. I watch Miller chatting with Nikki at the reception desk, complimenting her clothes, her hair, making her blush with well-timed charm. His death seems so distant, impossible even. There is a most unnatural sense of immortality about the man. I call out to him and he turns my way. The image on the screen becomes pixilated, images and sounds breaking down. His face becomes haggard, sullen. His skin turns pallid, mouth widening to shout something that never comes. As the screen burns up I swear he’s an animated corpse.

  It is then that I notice Miller sitting in the dark with me. Abstract shadows cover most of his face, cast from things unseen by light that does not exist. A sliver of sun reveals the stubble on his cheek he always grew to give him that rugged look which made him so desirable to others.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I ask.

  I have a responsibility to be here.

  His voice, it makes a connection, reveals a truth that has been eluding me. The voice in my head that’s been talking back recently sounds eerily similar to Miller’s. I don’t know why I haven’t noticed it before. We sit in silence, me unsure what to say, him unwilling to give me a clue. I slowly realize this is not completely Miller, only a piece of the man. I reach toward him, but my hand never seems to get any closer.

  ‘Is there something you want to tell me?’

  The head nods, but he says nothing. Muffled sounds come, speech straining against a gag. Shadows retreat, revealing the mess that was formerly Miller’s face. The skull is bashed, opaque fluid leaking from his hairline. Eyes are closed, criss-crossed with scars. Lips are sewn shut. Ears have become melted lumps of skin. There is a ragged hole behind one of them where Tweek removed the Ouija. Despite the damage, I can see past it, see the beauty lying beneath it all. Miller is still handsome to me, still someone worth coveting.

  ‘Jesus, what happened to your face?’

  He can’t talk. The stitches are pulled tight. I feel something in my hand and look down to find my fingers curled around a pair of silver scissors. I reach for Miller and this time manage to grab him by the shirtsleeve. I pull him close, hug him with one arm.

  ‘Hold still.’

  I work the scissor blades between the stitches sealing his lips, carefully snipping each one from right to left. His mouth pops open, dust and a dead smell expelling with a bad breath that has been held for far too long.

  ‘You need to be more careful,’ he says, gasping. ‘Life is sacred.’

  ‘I’m trying to be more careful.’

  Miller shakes his head, unsatisfied with my answer. ‘Ignorance was bliss, but I still knew. I still figured it out.’

  ‘Figured what out?’

  ‘Where I went, what I did.’

  Miller raises a hand and pulls the cut string through the holes around his mouth. I watch as he dangles them over his tongue and eats each one.

  ‘You need to retrace your steps,’ he says, chewing, licking perforated lips.

  Suddenly he’s distracted, attention drawn to something unseen out there in the black. For a moment I get the feeling he has forgotten about me completely. His mouth moves ever so slightly. I have to strain to make out what he’s saying.

  ‘You’ve been given a sign,’ he mutters. ‘And all signs point to …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Can’t you read the signs?’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  Miller turns a horrible grin on me, scarred eyelids straining open to reveal milky white over his soothing blues.

  ‘You need to wake up, sleepwalker.’

  There is a creaking sound, a door opening at the opposite end of a large, quiet room. I get the distinct feeling that something else now shares our space. Confirmation comes with the sound of approaching footsteps.

  ‘I have to go,’ Miller says, beginning to crawl away on his hands and knees.

  ‘Wait,’ I say, reaching after him. ‘I need you to tell me more.’

  I watch as the soles of his feet slide off into the dark, shuffling sounds of movement fading. I want to reach out again, try and hook a piece that can pull me away too, but I already know it will be futile. He calls back to me only once.

  ‘You have to go now too, sleepwalker.’

  The footsteps stop directly behind me. The breathing I hear is rapid, rasping. I don’t turn to look. I don’t want to look. A heavy hand drops on my shoulder, cool to the touch. In the next second I know it is also my hand. Then, for a few moments only, I become one with this entity and hate myself.

  11

  I have no doubt my body is sprawled as I re-emerge. All four limbs seem cast away from my centre, draped over whatever I’m sitting on. A hand grips my shoulder, pressing me into cushions and steadying me. The fingers of another are pulling apart my eyelids, holding them open. I paw at whoever has me pinned.

  ‘Get off of me,’ I whine.

  ‘Relax,’ Renard says, checking my pupils. ‘I’m not going to hurt
you.’

  He checks the other eye and grunts, satisfied. The pressure on me is suddenly lifted. I sit upright in the same throne of a chair my mind went dormant in twenty-four hours before. Fresh clothes feel soft on my skin; expensive loungewear that isn’t mine. One of the data cables is still plugged into my head, connecting me to the silver-skinned server system beside the fireplace. I unplug it eagerly, feeling relief as the proboscis pulls out. Vision is a bit blurry, but I see the robot sitting in the other chair where I last saw it, head slumped forward, eyes staring at its lap, seemingly deactivated.

  ‘Apologies,’ Renard says, typing on his tablet. ‘But I had to restrain you.’

  ‘Why?’ I ask, rubbing my face. ‘What was the problem?’

  ‘As Mr Winslade was trying to extricate, you began struggling … You almost pulled the damn cord out.’

  He gives me an unimpressed look. I give a perplexed one in return. What he’s describing almost never happens. Client upload and download times are normally calm, uneventful, someone slipping out of a stilled body through a fibre-optic cable. One mind exits while the other re-emerges, barely enough time for a hello and handshake.

  ‘Just what the fuck was that all about?’ Renard snaps.

  I see it now, the anger in Renard’s eyes. If I had ripped that data cable out during his employer’s defection from my head, there might have been serious consequences. I’ve heard stories about partial transference; interrupted transmissions to and from a Husk that turn both clients and whores into demented halves of their former selves. It’s one of the reasons secure hard-lines are so important.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I admit. ‘It’s never happened with me before. There might be a problem with my Ouija.’

  ‘See that you get it fixed then.’

  I look at the robot, still shut down for all I can tell. ‘Where’s Winslade?’

  ‘Returned to one of his worlds for the moment,’ Renard says. ‘He’ll be with us shortly.’