“She was just tired. You want to listen to the radio?”
“Okay.”
Paul leaned out from the covers into the cool of the room and grabbed the small transistor radio. Back inside their fort, he turned the round switch on the side of the radio. There was a familiar squelch of static, and the light came on behind the tuner.
They rolled through the stations, listening to scraps of news broadcasts, rock, big-band music. Then Paul found a comedy about a giant fish: there were exaggerated voices and funny sound effects. The giant fish was upsetting boats and terrorizing people. An old fisherman hooked it from the bridge, but the fish was so big the whole bridge came down.
They were giggling under the covers, sticking their heads out every once in a while to gulp in some fresh air.
“You sleepy?” Paul asked when the play was over.
“Uh-huh.”
Paul made out the sharp contours of Sam’s body, sprawled out, his head on a pillow, eyes closed.
“You going back to your room?”
“Yeah,” came the muffled reply. He didn’t move, faking sleep.
“Well, you can stay here if you want.” Paul tried to sound reluctant. No answer. Smiling to himself, Paul turned over on his side and went to sleep.
* * *
“You were crying in your sleep,” Monica said, stirring beside him.
“I wasn’t asleep.” He’d been wide awake since Sam left. He scrubbed away his tears with the back of his hand. “I was thinking about when we were little kids. He came down here while you were sleeping.”
“He did?”
“He’s helping them—you were right. They want to test the water on me.”
Monica just stared, speechless. Her hands were trembling. “We’re going to get out of here, Paul.”
He felt as if he were peering down at himself from a great height. “He said he stopped trusting me after what I did to him. People are unreliable, he said. You know what? He sounded exactly like you.” He shivered, suddenly cold.
“Paul, look—”
“So maybe he’s right. You were both right. I came down here thinking I could fix things between us, my head full of all this junk I might say, stuff out of greeting cards. It was a waste of time.” He clenched his teeth. “He doesn’t need me anymore.”
“Paul, he’s gone crazy with the water.”
He felt hollow, like some gutted machine slumped in a junk heap.
“We’re getting out of here,” she said fiercely. “Give me your belt.”
“What for?”
“I might be able to use the pin to pick these locks.”
He made a halfhearted attempt to reach his belt with his manacled hands. “Can’t do it.”
“Try again.”
“There’s no point.”
“Paul, give me the belt!”
Even in the near dark he could see the flash of her tears. “Don’t do this, Paul. Please don’t give up like this. Give me the belt. I need you to do this for me. I need you.”
He stretched out his arms as far as the chains would allow, but his hands still couldn’t quite reach the belt. He was disgusted by his self-pity. He arched his back, wrenching his hips up higher, grunting with the effort.
With two fingers he caught the end of the belt and tried to pull it loose. The strain was too much. He had to rest. He tried again; this time the pin popped out of the belt. He flicked the pin away so it wouldn’t snag in any of the other holes and slowly pulled away the buckle.
“Good, you’re doing it,” said Monica.
He took another rest before taking hold of the belt and starting to ease it through the loops in his jeans. It slid out smoothly at first, then caught halfway. He yanked hard, and his jeans bunched up around the waist. He took a deep breath, trying to ignore the hot pain in his armpits and lower back, and with gentle tugs pulled the belt through the rest of the way.
He handed it over to Monica and sank back, sweating. He couldn’t watch her as she worked, clutching the pin between two slender fingers and bending her wrist, almost to snapping, to fiddle with the keyhole in the manacle. Her neck was twisted up and around so she could catch a glimpse of what she was doing. Sometimes the pin slipped out, and it took a long time to get it back into the keyhole; other times, she gave up with a growl of rage. But she always went back to it.
Finally, there was a metal clink, and the first manacle popped open, releasing Monica’s right hand. She was pale with the effort.
“That’s one,” she panted. “I’ve never done locks before. The others should be faster.”
Paul heard the sound of a bolt being shot back in the cell door. Monica quickly put her wrist back in the manacle. The door creaked open
13
“HOW DOES IT feel to be shackled?”
On deck, Paul shuddered in the night air. Without speaking a word, Sam had unlocked the chains that tethered him to the wall, leaving his wrists and legs manacled. “Where are we going?” Paul had asked as he shambled through the doorway, guided by Sam’s viselike grip. But Sam made no reply. Paul was afraid, but what he felt most was utter loneliness. At least Sam hadn’t noticed Monica’s unlocked manacle or the belt, which she’d shoved behind her back.
“I’ve been shackled all my life,” Sam went on, “inside my body, rotting away.”
Paul looked around the deck, confused. He’d assumed he was being led back to the forge, to Sturm and the Cityweb men. But he and Sam were alone.
“Look how strong I am now!” Sam cried out. He darted to the ship’s railing, ripping away thick wooden struts, heaving them into the water.
“And look how high I can jump!”
Paul watched Sam leap into the air, to the top of the severed mast, dangling from the jagged tip by his fingers, then letting himself fall slowly to the ground, landing lightly on two feet, knees barely bending.
“I’m stronger than you now, Paul. Faster, too.”
Paul frowned. A part of him couldn’t accept this. It was Sam who had always been the weak one, not him. Sam had the brains, Paul the strength. It wasn’t right that Sam now had both. It made Paul redundant.
“You want to arm wrestle, Paul? I think I’ll hold out longer than last time! I’ll try not to twist your wrist off.”
“Why’d you bring me up here?”
“You know me better than anyone else.”
Paul thought there was a pleading quality in his voice, but he tried to block it out, wishing he felt nothing.
“There’re some things I need to tell you,” said Sam, again almost confidingly. “I want you to understand why I’m doing this.”
“You hated your body; you always did.”
“But you never truly knew what it was like. You probably think the worst thing was the humiliation of getting bullied, my helplessness, my hatred of the Randy Smiths of this world. But the worst of it was the guilt.”
Paul stared in astonishment.
“The guilt of needing to be protected, needing to be taken care of, needing special attention, needing pills—always, always needing! But worst of all, the guilt that I’d failed myself. Every time I went to the doctor’s, they weighed me. It seems like such a simple thing, doesn’t it? But I was sweating when I stepped onto that scale. They’d adjust the weights, starting high, and work down, down, down. The numbers were the same almost every time, maybe a few pounds lighter, but never heavier. I felt responsible: it was my fault. Somehow, there was something I wasn’t doing right! And the nurses and doctors would look at me, look at the weight on the scales, then write the number in my file: silent, invisible blame.”
“It’s just not true. How could it be your fault? It’s nobody’s fault.”
“Ah, but it doesn’t work that way, does it? You blamed me, too, Paul.”
Paul was about to protest, but he faltered, remembering his reaction when Sam told him he wasn’t going to live a full life. He’d felt pity, grief, but revulsion, too—a drawing away, an angry pointing of the finger. This
is your fault.
“And Mom and Dad weren’t any different,” Sam went on. “They wanted me to get better—I really do believe that. They took me to the best doctors they knew, spent hours with me in hospitals. But I wasn’t performing—that’s the way they thought of it. I could see it in their silences, the way I caught them looking at me sometimes. They were putting x into me, but I wasn’t putting y out—like some math equation! When it came right down to it, I was an embarrassment, their failure. They were glad when I left for college. It was a big sigh of relief for them.”
Sam paused, wiping a hand across his mouth. Paul realized with a start that he felt strangely happy; there was something connecting them again. Sam needed him—even if it was just as an audience.
“With the refined water,” Sam said, “I’ll finally be able to heal myself. On the diskette, I said I was hyperaware of my body’s structure. Now I can start to focus on specific groups of cells. Soon I’ll be able to control them individually. Didn’t you ever find it incredible that millions of things go on in your body without you even knowing? Only the body knows how to do these things. But now I’m linked up. I’ll witness all the subatomic secrets scientists and doctors have been theorizing about for decades. I’ll be able to repair all the damage that was done to me before I was even born!”
“But how?” Paul wanted to know, mistrustful of the unwieldy excitement in Sam’s voice. “Tubes into your veins? Let all the blood out, so that you look like Sturm?”
Sam shook his head, a condescending smile on his lips. “Sturm’s totally dependent on the water. Interrupt the flow and he’d be dead in minutes. He’s a slave. I need to take a huge amount of the refined water all at once. And in that single burst of awareness—that’s when I’ll be able to do the work with my mind. A bloodless operation, Paul.”
“An overdose.”
Sam shrugged. “I wouldn’t have used that term.”
“I’m afraid for you. I’m afraid you’re going to kill yourself.”
“No. I’m going to make myself perfect.”
Paul thought of Leonardo da Vinci’s perfect man—Sam’s version, the one whose body was half machine. In his head he heard the oiled push of steel pistons, the rustle of rubber hosing. He heard the low roar of a powerful furnace and realized it was the sound of a steel heart pumping relentlessly, flawlessly, without feeling.
“Perfect,” Paul said, his voice almost a whisper. “What does that mean, Sam? That your body will never give out? You won’t get a cold, you won’t get cancer? You’ll live longer? Who wouldn’t want all that? But you’re more interested in being a machine than a human being.”
Sam smiled. “Like you, Paul.”
“What?”
“Strip!”
Paul could only stare in bewilderment.
Sam violently tore open Paul’s shirt. “Show me your muscles!”
How often Sam used to ask that. Show me your muscles. But there was a savageness in his request now—a hatred.
“Come on, flex!” Sam shouted. “You know the position, Paul! You did it every night in front of the mirror. Arms up and out, legs spread, chest swelled. Do it for me now! Da Vinci’s perfect man! You loved that power. You loved the power it gave you over others, over me! You worshipped that machine power of your body, labored over it, honed it!”
Paul felt his whole body shaking; he couldn’t breathe. Something was tangled in his guts, wedged in his throat, as if Sked were choking him again. Then all at once it broke through, and he was sobbing.
Sam was right. The truth had been staring back into his eyes—his reflection in the mirror, his own image of perfection. He’d been so vain, so stupid. Why hadn’t he seen it in Watertown, where he was weak; he broke things, fell behind, needed babysitting.
All the time he’d searched for Sam, he’d been telling himself to stay strong, as if for some epic track event, as if finding Sam were a physical feat. He thought of his fight with Sked; it had left him sick and frightened of what he could make his body do.
But beneath the muscle, he was eggshell frail. He thought of Monica and her big iron gate, trying to stay in perfect control so nothing could get close enough to hurt her. And Armitage, hoping to build his own perfect empire on revenge. All their pathetic ideas of perfection.
“I still need you, Paul.”
Paul almost laughed through his tears; the idea was so ludicrous and so cruel.
“Do you know why I called you?” Sam’s voice was gentler now, almost apologetic. “It wasn’t to set you up. I phoned you before Cityweb found me. I called you because I wanted you down here, to show you what I’d found. I had a plan.”
“Yeah, what was that?”
“You’ve got one wish.”
The familiar words, the start of the game.
“Only this time,” said Sam, “we share a wish, because it’s for both of us. I know what your wish is. It’s mine, too. Shall I say it?”
Paul swallowed hard and nodded.
“I want us to be equals again.” He paused, then said, “Take the water with me, Paul.”
His words hung in the air, still whispering.
“Put us together, and we really could have been something, huh?” Sam said.
Paul smiled weakly. But he was remembering when he’d looked into the mirror, past his brother, and seen their bodies welded together. Even then he had known they were complementary, inseparable.
“I’ll teach you how to use the water, Paul. Sturm’s killing himself. He thinks a transfusion of the refined water will make him even stronger, but it’s burning his body away. A month, that’s the most he has. It’ll be just you and me, Paul—our rules, our place.”
Our fort—it was being held out to him. Here, take it. He would never have to worry about Sam leaving him again. He could have everything back the way it was. Was this the perfection he’d wanted all along? But there was a persistent shimmering at the back of his mind.
“Monica,” he said, as if talking in his sleep.
“She’s a problem, Paul. They were planning on killing both of you after the tests. I can bargain for you, Paul, but—”
“I want her safe, too.”
Sam sighed impatiently. “Paul, she’s got the water in her. She doesn’t have more than five years before it starts burning her down.”
“No—” He’d told her she’d be all right, that she wouldn’t end up like her mother.
“I’m sorry,” said Sam, “but it’s the truth. I’ve got all the data.”
“But you can help her! Can’t you?”
“Paul. Forget about her. Remember what’s important. You and me!”
He’d forget about her, wouldn’t he? How long had he known her? A few days, no more. He’d known Sam almost a lifetime. So just one more betrayal, that’s all it would take. A quick nod of his head. And then? He would drink the refined water with Sam, and they would become perfectly equal. He would never need a mirror again, because Sam would reflect his own perfect image back at him.
He sucked in his breath, as if in pain. His head cleared. It was selfish. It was utter loneliness. And it would never be enough.
“Let’s leave. Together,” Paul said. “Right now.”
“Listen to me! I’ve been working toward this moment for years. I’m almost finished. Besides, where would I go, Paul? Back to Governor’s Hill? Like this? Look at me. I’m a freak, a horror. What would the neighbors say? Say I stopped taking the water, say there were no aftereffects. How many years do I have? Twelve, if I’m lucky? It’s not enough! Stay, take the water with me!”
“I can’t do it, Sam.” He had to force himself to say the words.
“You owe me this!”
In Sam’s voice, Paul thought he heard a very small child, resentful, bitter, raging. The same boy that was in him, too. He’d hated Sam when he’d left home; he needed Sam too much.
He had to turn away. “I’m sorry, Sam.”
The movement was so sudden Paul recoiled in shock. Sam grasped the
shackles around his wrists, buckling the metal with his fingers. He then dropped to his knees, breaking his ankle chains.
“Leave, then.”
Paul hesitated.
“Get Monica out, and leave.” Sam threw a ring of keys at his feet. “But you do it without me!”
“Sam, please!” He was in agony. How could he just leave, knowing what Sam was going to do? He seized his brother’s arm. “Come with us!”
But Sam gave him a punch in the face that sent him sprawling, a grunt of surprise still locked in his throat.
“My work here isn’t finished yet!”
Paul touched his cheekbone in amazement.
“Get going!” Sam said. “Before I change my mind.”
“Wait, listen—” But Sam punched him again, hard.
“All right then, let’s fight.”
They squared off. Paul didn’t know why he was doing this; he knew he’d lose. He made a halfhearted lunge, which his brother easily avoided, jabbing him under the chin. Paul staggered back, dizzy. He was a ninety-pound weakling getting sand kicked in his face.
He pushed himself forward, hoping to knock Sam over, but his brother darted effortlessly behind him, pinning his arms against his sides. Paul writhed to get free, but Sam held him in the steel hoops of his arms.
“This is important,” Sam breathed against his ear. “I need to do this for myself.”
“You don’t,” Paul choked. “Let me go! Come with us!”
“No.”
Sam’s grip loosened slightly, just enough so that it no longer hurt. Paul could feel their bodies moving in tandem as they both gasped for breath. He could feel the faint tremor of his brother’s pulse beating against his back. And Paul suddenly knew Sam wasn’t fighting with him anymore. He was hugging him, holding him fiercely in his arms.
“Go!”
Paul whirled around, but Sam had already disappeared.
14
HE SHOULD HAVE paid more attention earlier. Which way? Right or straight ahead? What if she’d picked the other locks, set herself free? She might have left the ship already. He tried to think straight. He’d have to go back to the cell to make sure. But Sam. How could he leave him here? He felt bruised where he’d been hugged.
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