by R. Narvaez
“Okay, Manolo,” she said.
He didn’t seem to hear her.
* * *
The iguana den smelled wet, and there was something else, a kind of shit smell. She was in the room she had seen from outside. But from inside the window was a viewscreen that showed a jungle of thick, dense leaves, shivering with dew and a million shades of green Oonie had never seen.
She ignored the iguanas. They ignored her back.
She went through to the bedroom, which was even larger than the living room. The bed was up on a platform, almost up to Oonie’s shoulder. The room smelled sweet and soft, and suddenly Oonie realized how she must smell after weeks on the road. She quickly went into the bathroom.
In the large shower, she tapped the water pressure and temperature as high as she could take it—she had never had the luxury to before. The water beat on her skin, making her skin hot and red. She heard Manolo’s voice in her head, If you leave me, you’ll never find a way back, you’ll never amount to anything, you’ll just die. The water ran into her nose and mouth. It tasted like nothing. She watched a whirlpool of dirt disappear into the floor.
“You’re much more pleasant to look at wet,” she heard. She turned around and there in the doorway stood Chandresh, with a pile of clothes in his hands. “Put these on. I’m sure Daya won’t mind if you use her things.”
He was waiting for her inside the iguana den.
“Sit down,” he said, pushing an iguana off a chair made of something Oonie did not recognize.
“Sit in Daya’s prize wooden chair.”
Next to the chair, on a table, was a glass of white liquid and a plate of brown cubes. She had to step around and over three iguanas to get to the chair.
“There sure are a lot of these animals,” she said.
“Yes. They are actually very rare,” Chandresh said. “Very expensive.”
“I’d guess.” The chair was cool where the iguana had been sitting. She took the drink. “It’s sweet.”
“Yes,” he said. “Tell me something about yourself.” He changed the viewscreen to a scene of a beach. Blue water crashed against a pink beach. The red sunset colored the room and lit him from behind. The sleeping gown became almost transparent.
Oonie realized she should have gone after him in the kitchen, gotten things over with. Now, looking at him, she didn’t know if she’d be able to go through with it.
“I’m just like everybody else,” she said. “Trying to live.”
“There is so much more to life than merely living.”
She ate the food in three quick handfuls. “If you have the means.”
“If you have the means,” he said and laughed. “Of course.”
“Tell me about you,” she said.
“I’m just a prize. Like my wife’s iguanas.”
“Is that so bad?”
He laughed at that. “Come with me.” He held out his hand and she took it. “Bring your drink.”
She brought her rucksack with her. There might still be a chance.
He led her to the living room and sat her down. As she sat, she felt warm. She looked down and his hand was on her thighs.
He handed her a thin red disc. “Here,” he said, and she took it.
After a few seconds, the music in the room began to turn into colors and the colors began to float and make little explosions in her head.
“Amazing,” she said. In her mind, she saw the man called Chandresh and Manolo blending together, their dark bodies intertwining, becoming one. She realized she liked it. Realized she wanted to keep things that way.
“I hate being alone here with all these cold animals,” he was saying.
That was it.
That was a new plan.
Oonie would stay. She would keep this woman’s stuff. This woman’s pleasures. Everything she needed was here. Why go back? What was there for her that she could not have here?
“I like you even though I don’t know your name.”
She was about to tell him, but then he said, “I don’t want to know it.”
Then she felt his hand moving, caressing her. She wanted to say something, but his hands were doing wonderful and amazing things to her.
She thought about the gun.
She would wait for the vehicle to pick up the woman and bring her back and then she would shoot her.
“Mine,” she said in a whisper.
“Don’t talk,” he said. “That ruins everything.”
He put his mouth on hers. As he kissed her, she saw the blue iguana moving away and off the couch.
Her body moved and responded. She remembered moving back through the iguana den—all the iguanas seemed to turn their heads to follow her as she was being led—into a bedroom, and even in the haze she was in she had reached for her rucksack and brought it with her. It was a huge bed covered by a bright soft material. The gun made a soft thud in her rucksack as she threw it on the floor.
* * *
Oonie woke up alone, feeling sore and starving. Light blazed into the room from the unshaded windows. Her head hurt. And then she heard a sound. A muffled popping sound. She reached for her clothes on the floor. She slowly got dressed and picked up the rucksack. The blue iguana Kimi was on the bed, looking at her. Oonie picked it up in both hands and it wriggled its tail as she shoved it into the rucksack.
She realized then that the gun was gone.
Her plan was to go out the front door. But she had to pass the iguana den first. And there, on the floor, was the woman called Daya, on her back. She wore a full bodysuit, the kind people wore if they had to go outside. There was a red hole in the middle of her stomach, and blood leaking from behind her. Iguanas walked slowly through the blood, leaving small red clawprints.
Chandresh sat on the wooden chair with the gun in his hand. “This is a nasty little thing.”
He pointed it at her.
“A man always knows what his woman is up to,” he said. “Some men blind themselves to it, but I’m not that kind of man.”
Oonie smirked at him. “There is only one bullet.”
“Daya lied to you, child. There are two. I have inserted the other one. The authorities are on their way.”
“Why?”
“Because you killed my wife.”
“No. I—”
“You stole her vehicle, convinced me to let you into the house, and raped me. When my wife arrived to rescue me, you killed her.”
“But—”
“Then while you were resting from the vigor of your ardor, I recovered the gun and killed you.”
Oonie watched the way he held the gun. He knew how to use it. He held it firmly and with control.
“Before I do that, please tell me something. Who is this ‘Manolo’? I’d like to know, since you called me by his name a dozen times last night.”
Oonie stared at him with cold eyes. “He is dead,” she said. “He has been dead for years.”
“Sad,” he said. “Daya came back early, I suspect, to kill two birds with one stone.”
“What is a bird?”
“I don’t know. It’s just an expression,” he said, shrugging, and in that moment Oonie saw a chance and flung the rucksack with the wriggling iguana at him. He fired the gun—that popping sound again—but the recoil surprised him and the shot went wild. Frightened, he dropped the gun. Seeing that she was not bleeding from anywhere, Oonie pounced. She hit him in the face again and again, bloodying his mouth and nose. He shoved her back and she fell over him and onto her ass. He moved toward her, but she grabbed the gun and, from the floor, she held it at him.
“There are no more bullets,” he said, standing up. She watched his face. She saw the fear.
“Liar,” she said. Then Oonie fired the gun the way the woman had said.
She missed, but the bullet went behind him and through the viewscreen, cracking it.
“Bastard! That was mine,” he said. He began to move toward her. She fired again.
The impact sent him
back into the window and pushed his body through it. A hole opened. Through it she could see the dirty world outside.
* * *
The hole in the window was big enough for her to walk through. She stepped over the man’s body. She considered taking Daya’s bodysuit, but there wasn’t time.
She started walking fast, then running, feeling the weight of the iguana in her rucksack. She looked back and saw the house, not so far behind. The sky was gray, but she felt the sun blazing through, heating her shoulders, beginning to burn them.
She found a small dune. The authorities would find her. Or the sun would. It would not be long.
She sat on the warm sand and opened up the rucksack and took out the iguana. It blinked back at her, flicked its tail. Her mouth began to salivate. Anything to survive. She stroked the animal’s rough skin once, twice, then lifted it to her mouth and began eating.
Rough Night in Toronto
If I were a smart guy, I’d be at home with only a hangover to worry about.
Instead, I was at the midnight fights at Eaton Centre on Dundas Pier. Waiting for the right moment.
Inside the ring, two bare-geared bots circled and beat each other. Clangs. Pings. Sparks. I’d put money on the bot in the green trunks. If it was legal for me to bet.
I was way in the back, of course, and security was focused on the fight. I snuck forward until I got sight of PapaLovesBaby, the sleek droid with a polymer smile stuck on his face, in the front row. Next to him sat Molly. The reason I got into this mess.
In my pocket was the dingus. Which I could get executed just for carrying.
If this plan didn’t work, I would have traveled a long way, survived a crash, gotten detained, beaten up, and almost eviscerated, just to end up dead.
In the ring, the fighters pummeled each other. One said, “You’d better stop this fight! You ain’t nothin’ but a bum!”
Then he hit the other bot with a decisive uppercut.
The crowd roared.
The severed head hit the canvas. The head said, “Ain’t gonna be no rematch.”
The moment. I quickly put my shades on, almost poking myself in the eye. I took the dingus out of my pocket, clicked it, then ran toward the first row. I raised it and fired at PapaLovesBaby. It exploded in a brilliant light that burned for seconds. I grabbed for Molly, surprising her.
“Alex!”
The dingus was made to send a small EM pulse out, the purpose of which was to shut bots and artificials down. It hadn’t been fired in decades. So what happened next wasn’t really a surprise.
PapaLovesBaby held me in the air by my hair. “Nice try, meat,” he said.
He shocked me with his left hand, making my bowels flow like a river.
Like I said, if I were a smart guy . . .
* * *
Ten hours ago I was at home in Reno, planning on filling an afternoon with gin and nicotine. I caught the smell of the ocean coming in through my window. I rushed to find what must be another broken window. It was in the bathroom. I could just see the brown water lapping against the piers from here. I sealed the window with wadded teepee. Nasty ocean smell.
Then my wall beeped.
I let it beep.
After five times, it prompted, “Please leave a message.”
It was Roy Ricco: “Alex. I was thinking about what you said, about letting you work your problems out alone, what with you needing years to wallow. I understand and agree.”
I nodded at the wall. “Finally. Thank you, Roy.”
I poured myself a tall glass of gin, neat.
“So you know,” the message went on, “whenever you need to talk about stuff, I’m here for you, buddy.”
“Thank you, Roy,” I said to my wall.
And then my door was caved in. It was Ricco, his cyborg left arm extended in front of him like a battering ram. “My grandmother’s furry ass I understand.”
“Give me a break, Ricco. Doors are expensive.”
He ignored that. “Time to crawl out of your sinkhole, buddy,” he said.
* * *
We were two bottles in, the late afternoon light dancing red on the walls, when he told me, “You wanna know why she went back to him?”
“Stop it.”
“’Cause arties can go all week long.”
“Cut it.”
“Take as many pills as you want, you can’t do it for more than two days in a row. And you can’t change size and thickness and you can’t vibrate.”
“Quit it!”
“Just saying is all. Me, I got some parts redone. But it doesn’t matter since it’s all about Claire.”
“To Claire.” We toasted.
Ricco took out a thin glass chip. A hologram, Claire danced inside the chip. “Love you, girl,” he said.
“You see what you have with Claire. That’s what I think I had with Molly.”
“You don’t make any sense. You were with her, what, for three months, like two years ago?”
“A year and eight months.”
“Whatever. It’s been years. Years! You should be over it.”
“If I could talk to her one more time,” I said. I thought I was going to cry in front on him, but I didn’t want to do that again. He slapped me with his cyborg hand last time I did that. “I just need to speak with her once more—before I can move on with my life.”
Ricco got up and paced around. His giant frame made my pod look even smaller than it was. “I have something to tell you. That’s why I was coming over. Besides coming over to razz you again.”
“What?”
“I found her. I found your Molly.”
“Kal-fucking-El!”
Because of his enhancements, Ricco was trusted to work for the government and had access to all kinds of information.
“Back in her hometown. Toronto. With you-know-who. So, there’s no point—”
“I have to go see her.”
“—in going to see her.”
“But how? I don’t have a multiport.”
Ricco sighed and reached into his pocket. “Now you do.” He threw it at me.
“It’s under your cop ID.”
“But you know how to change it.”
“You could get in real trouble for this. You should come with me. I could be your captured prisoner or something.”
“No dice. This is stupid enough as it is. I can just say you stole it.”
“Ricco. You’re a real friend.”
“Giving you a way to get to a town like Toronto. Filled with terrorists and androids and terrorist androids. It’s not friendship. It’s practically murder. But you’re practically killing yourself here.”
“Thanks, Ricco.”
“Evs. I want you to look up my friend COST Revs when you get into town. First thing. Understand?”
“Understood.”
“Listen, he’s an arty—a droid. But he’s okay.”
“Whatever you say.”
“You know, Alex, you really should just stay home and write another poem about this. Wouldn’t that make you feel better?”
“Not better enough, Ricco.”
* * *
At the depot, I tried to stop my hands from shaking when I used the doctored multiport. I tried to tell myself it was the gin giving me the shakes. But there were android federals everywhere ready to judge-jury-and-executioner any human who broke the law.
The multiport worked and I was through. I headed for the beat-up jet train that gets to Toronto in under an hour.
Public transportation was integrated only a few years ago, but it still felt funny to mix with the droids. I didn’t want to stand out in any way so I went to the predominantly human car. But right after I sat down an arty couple popped in the seats right across from me. The male had a copper mohawk and a huge scarf wrapped around his neck. The female had long, copper metal tresses and had spray-painted her face pink. Liberal hipster arties. The worst.
They giggled with each other, clearly in love. Their little pet k
isses were annoying me, then they did something really awful. They introduced themselves.
“This is Twocee,” the male said. “And I’m Marty.”
I nodded.
“We’re going to Niagara to get married!”
I tried to smile. “Congratulations.”
They went back to giggling and kissing. Outside, I saw the middle-west fly by. Miles and miles of cities. Tower after tower. It all looked the same. The only difference was Kansas, which was walled off. Freaking cannibals.
The ticket agent came in then, a human. He yes-sirred and no-sirred the arties and said nothing to the humans. I saw then that he was doing an extra multiport check. With the terrorists, of course there’d be extra security. I should have realized.
He checked the ’ports and tickets of the droid couple and then he took mine. Right away I knew that he knew the ’port was jimmied. His eyes gave it away. I could fool an automated system, but not a person. And he couldn’t fool me. He’d have to call security.
He pressed a button on his shirt and almost immediately two androids in green walked into the car. I kept silent. The arties looked at me with frightened looks on their faces. What irony.
Without a word, the two security droids walked me to the back of the train and into a security hold. We were nearing Toronto at this point. I figured I’d probably be executed there. So close to Molly. And she’d never know.
I sat down to contemplate my impending death, composing some lines for a sonnet in my head. Just then the jet train exploded.
From somewhere near the front—a huge boom and then the sound of gnashing, grinding metal. I could feel the train rise from the rail, its momentum pushing us forward at deadly speed.
Being inside the security hold saved my life. The crash bumped me around plenty, smashing my head against the wall a few times. But apparently my head is pretty hard. When the train came to a halt, the door latch was open. My face was bruised, but I could see—
A bad wreck. The train was sprawled just inside the city. There were human bodies flung here and there. The droids, for the most part, walked away fine. But then I saw the female hipster arty, Twocee, moaning and crying over the torso of her mate. “Help me!” she said. “Help me find his soul!”