Kalifornia

by Marc Laidlaw

  Calafia’s mouth and eyes dropped open. Staring up at a face of showering fiery gold pyrotechnics, the child began to scream. The baby’s eyes and the face of fire were the same color.

  More explosives shook the fire escape. Poppy offered a perfect target, acting like stupefied prey. After several moments, her mind sifted out a few separate components of the bicentennial chaos and realized that someone was breaking down the door of the room behind her.

  She hurried to the first double-back and pounded down to the level below. All but one of the windows along the fire escape were lit. She hurried to the dark one and found it ajar; sounds of moaning issued from within. No help there. Her elbow brushed a liquor bottle standing on the sill; as it tipped over, it gurgled as softly as Calafia, who remained mysteriously calm.

  Halfway down to the eighth floor, Poppy glanced up and saw a shadow untangling itself from the torn curtains of her window. It poured over the sill like spilled ink and quickened after her.

  Poppy’s steps caused tremors in the ironwork. The corroded structure, which had clung to the crumbling brick wall for a hundred years while the building codes governing it fell into disuse, began to quake as if an army were descending.

  She stumbled to the seventh floor. This was the maximum height from which she could hope to leap and stand any real chance of survival.

  Sixth. The odds were only slightly better. Broken legs and spine for her . . . and for the child, who knew?

  From above came a screech and a thud. More shadows roosted on the fire escape. Some dropped directly from level to level, ignoring the stairs, slipping over the rails and leaping.

  Fifth floor. The street below looked like a doll street, a model awaiting her hand. Pedal cars, bikes, and wagons swerved around pedestrians who clogged the walks and teetered on cement columns that otherwise supported only flowerpots. Llamas and cows cried counterpoint to their owners’ frustrated shouts. More pervasive were the cries of glee, of celebration. Every bar was full, the drug counters crowded with jostling bodies. Houses doubled as saloons. Celebrants packed onto the balconies of other buildings, jumbling from the habimalls. She wished for revelers on this fire escape, to offer camouflage.

  From above, as she reached the fourth floor, she heard crumbling metal. A shape tumbled past her, followed by a rain of rust and particulate iron. It landed on the sidewalk in a heap of garbage, one of the night’s many casualties.

  Poppy hesitated. The third-floor landing was ragged and full of dangerous gaps like broken teeth.

  As for the second floor ramp, it hadn’t existed for years.

  Whispering, screak of rubber, a breathy, bubbling voice called out: “Poppy!”

  She must descend, futile as it seemed. Bricks and boards blinded all the windows of the third floor. The ruinous landing sagged beneath her weight, inching closer to the street. Old brackets tore from the walls, brick dust and iron flakes sifting down like poor man’s confetti onto the revelers below. No one noticed. They brushed the grit from their shoulders and hurried on.

  She stepped gingerly over the largest of the gaps, clutching the rail with one hand. The whole landing moaned. She was level with the streetlamps now, still dizzyingly high. As she shifted her weight to the far side of the hole, suspicious of the metal, two of her pursuers dropped into her path.

  She threw herself backward, over the gap.

  The fire escape screamed and broke in two.

  Poppy landed on the edge of rotten metal, her legs dangling. The two pursuers watched from the far side, holding perfectly still. She stared into their dark, liquid eyes, saw their pink tongues lolling.

  “You can’t escape,” one growled, extending a shaggy hand. “The child is ours.”

  It was the hoarse voice from the hallway.

  “Tell the president to go to hell!” she cried.

  They stared at one another, then sniffed the night. Both were transgenic—or teegee—dogs, leftover “Lassies” from the first days of animal-human hybridization. The SPCA had fought against creation of such unhappy teegee breeds, with limited success. Animal rightists argued that it was purest cruelty to subject innocent canines to the traits of humanity; cruel to instill the happy creatures with guilt, remorse, ambition, indecision. Other creatures arguably benefited from the humanimalism, but the change destroyed dogs, turning the mildest breeds into killers.

  Loyal killers, true. Auggie-doggies made superb assassins, risking anything to please a full-human master. In this case, President McBeth.

  Very carefully, the Lassies began to clamber upward. They would, she realized, run along the fourth-floor ramp and come down again beside her. They might knock the whole ramp loose. She would fall . . . she would probably die, or be too stunned or crippled to run.

  She looked down at the street, the crowd. “Look at me,” she murmured. “Why won’t anyone see me?”

  In the constant flood of traffic, in the unprecedented midnight clangor, the groan and collapse of the fire escape was little noted.

  Rubber-soled feet tiptoed overhead.

  She moved a fraction of an inch. The fire escape shuddered. Another fraction and the baby moaned, opening golden eyes. It was worth any risk to spare her from the president.

  “You don’t deserve this, baby. You weren’t the one who cheated on your taxes.”

  Clarry Starko loved stories portraying President McBeth as a villainous tightwad.

  “She owes a birthdebt!” called a dog from above. She looked up, about to argue with him, then realized that he was only trying to distract her. “Hand her over!”

  The fire escape protested the addition of another dog’s weight.

  She leaned forward, over the dark-bright street, over the agitated stew of people and creatures and cars and contraptions. She clung one-handed to the cold iron rail, holding the child out before her in midair.

  Not yet . . . not yet.

  The landing swayed with too much weight. She would lighten it in a moment. The dog at her level moved cautiously, though not fearfully.

  Not yet . . .

  An old gas-powered station wagon appeared directly beneath her. The top was sawed away, leaving an open bed. The horn blared as the driver pulled up on the sidewalk to negotiate a stalled clump of singers and beasts. Bundles and baskets jostled in the bed of the wagon, fat soft sacks and heaps of black cloth. The wagoneer cursed and slammed on the brakes. The vehicle stalled for the moment, awaiting an opening.

  Now.

  Poppy let go and watched Calafia fall. Her daughter made an acceptably soft landing on a bale of cloth, then slipped down among baskets and bundles as the wagon started up again, moving off through a clearing in the shifting crowd.

  The shock of what she’d done almost broke her from trope-trance. She had dropped her baby daughter. As if this were a real threat, and not a mere wire show.

  The landing had looked safe enough. The Shock-Pruf in the swaddling would protect her. But still . . .

  Behind her, curses.

  Poppy looked back. Time to face the Lassies.

  Her free hand stole into her garment and pulled out a gun. The dog on the landing growled when he saw it, lips peeling back from inhumanly sharp teeth. She knew he wouldn’t ask for mercy. Not now. Nothing could keep her from firing.

  Nothing but the weight that hit her from above.

  The second dog caught her by surprise, crushing her in furry arms. She relinquished the rail and both of them fell. People screamed, catching the show at its climax. An instant later, they struck cement.

  Poppy lay stunned, pinned beneath the dog, wondering where she would find the strength to push him off and flee. The Lassie moaned and tightened his grip on her throat. The world went black. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. He was choking her, really doing it now, caught up in the tropes, believing the role, a canine actor overcome by his innate ferocity and hatred of humanity.

  They should have used a man in a dog suit, she thought. He’s really choking me!

  The
weaker half of the fire escape, rigged to fall, tore away from the wall. Clarry had meant it to create a convincing end for her attacker. But as she toppled into blackness, she knew that it would come too late.

  “Kai,” she tried to say. “Kai, it’s me. It’s Poppy!”

  He didn’t seem to recognize her, and she could hardly speak. He was strictly the president’s dog now. And she was a fugitive. His legal prey.

  Blackness. Light nowhere.

  “Kai!”

  Calafia . . .

  “God!” exclaimed a gawker. “This is so realistic!”

  ***

  “Cut! That’s enough, Kai. Let go of her, you fucking mutt!”

  Poppy felt as though she’d been washed up on a reef, drained and exhausted. Clarry Starko and a few hands dragged the Lassie away. Kai looked cowed, timid now, his vestigial tail tucked up between his legs beneath baggy trousers. They led him off. Clarry crouched and helped Poppy to her feet.

  “Feel okay?”

  “Dizzy.” She clung to him for a moment, looking around at the crowd. People only now were beginning to realize that they had seen a livewire session.

  Several men pulled the fire escape aside. It was hollow, almost weightless, and couldn’t have crushed a puppy. The sidewalk was padded to cushion her fall, though at the moment she’d hit, caught up in the tropes of the chase, it had felt cruel and hard as real cement. So much unreality made the hotel look fake; its bricks seemed to turn soft and waver in the damp night wind. This whole back alley, with its lights and revelers, could have been just another set.

  “You look way tawdry,” Clarry said. “Way pale. Here, have a twist and tan out. ‘Grats, by the way. You did a great job as a mommy.”

  He handed her a cool silver vial. She started to push it away, but he folded her fingers around it. His large, black, long-fingered hand dwarfed her small, pink one. “Go on, you deserve a break. I’ll take care of the cleanup.”

  “I don’t want a twist tonight, Clarry. I want my baby.”

  “That’s tan. I’ll go get her. You stay right here.”

  He walked off past the studio van. The street was busier than it had been during the recording, but down here in the midst of the crowd it all seemed two-dimensional, as if pieces of cardboard were cut into people shapes, all sliding past each other in shifting planes. She felt a bit flat herself tonight. Painted eyes followed her. Recognition. Everybody knew Poppy. Her spin-off was scaling the ratings, though it might never be as popular as the “Figueroa Show,” in which her whole family had been wired and continually live. She should bask in the recognition, not cringe from it. But tonight fame didn’t satisfy her. Was this any kind of life for a child? Poppy had been brought up for the wires, but not born in them. Her youth had been inviolate; she’d been neither sender nor receiver. The media surgery, the teasing growth of polynerves, had been (more or less) elective on her seventh birthday, which was older than most kids were when they got their wires. But then, most kids were RO—receive only—and she had been a sender all the way.

  But Calafia never had a choice.

  She sank back in an alley between a drug shop and a sushi-taco stand, twisting the halves of the silver vial. Clarry was right. A twist would help clear her thoughts. She glanced up at the hotel across the street, seeking out the broken window of the room where Calafia had been born. Maybe she would get a room and sleep up there with the baby tonight. She didn’t want to stay with the cast and crew again. The baby deserved better.

  Clarry found her again just as she was setting the twin halves of the twist against her temples. He slapped one arm down before the current could hit her wires.

  “Hey,” she said, mildly irked. Then she saw his face. “What is it, Clarry?”

  Clarry was a smiler: he rarely quit grinning unless something awful had happened. Now his face looked as gray as old cloth. He was chewing on his vitamin-fortified tobaccorish rope at an alarming rate, unspooling hanks of it from his deep vest pocket.

  “Poppy, I don’t know how to say this. There . . . there was some mistake.”

  “Oh my God. The baby.” She started past him, but he caught her by the elbow.

  “Where you going?”

  She spun about to face him. “What do you mean? Where is she? I want to see her.”

  He shook his head. “Poppy, when you tossed her . . . where did she go?”

  She felt herself collapsing inwardly. Everything coming apart. Alone. The wires carried none of this; no one could share the fear she felt, the growing panic. What was happening?

  “What do you mean?” she asked. “I dropped her in the wagon, right on the padding.”

  Clarry shook his head. “It wasn’t our wagon, Poppy. I told you there’d be coordination problems in this crowd. Our wagon got stuck in traffic half a block away. No one knows where the other one came from—or where it went.”

  Clarry caught her to keep her from falling.

  “Hold on now, babe. It’s gonna be tan, totally tan. We’ll find her.”

  “You lost her?” she whispered.

  He sighed, drawing her into the street, toward the studio van. A pack of mangy Lassies—street dogs, macho canes—trotted past, sniffing obscenely in her direction.

  “Do you remember what kind of wagon it was?” Clarry asked. “What was in it? Who was driving?”

  “It was just like we rehearsed. You recorded everything! Play it back!”

  “Settle down. I wondered if you had any other impressions.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. No one knew what happened till our wagon showed up empty.”

  “You better find her, Clarry.”

  He gnawed on his rope ferociously, hardly stopping to spit the chewed bits and brown juice. He gulped and swallowed before speaking.

  “How hard can it be with those eyes of hers? If we can’t find the wagon tonight, we’ll advertise—we’ll go global. She can’t slip through the net, Poppy. We’ll offer a reward, how about that?”

  She nodded, but she was hardly listening. A ransom was more like it.

  “I never wanted her involved in this.”

  “Come on, Poppy, tune it down, we’ve been over this. There’s no danger to the kid. She’s safe, I swear it.”

  “I didn’t want her in the recordings. I’ve got the stuff to draw an audience by myself. But you had to have one more tawdry gimmick. You had to have my baby!”

  “Look, we’re getting her, it won’t take an hour.”

  “If you lose her, Clarry . . . Goddamn you.” She stopped in the middle of the street and covered her face. “I want my baby back!”

  “Sh, sh, now, baby. You’re making yourself pale. Hey, Poppy, look who’s coming! Isn’t that Cornelius? The seal from your old show?”

  She turned around, searching the crowd for the familiar face.

  Yes. Here he came, in his customary pinstripe suit and liquid tie. Black fur neatly oiled, long whiskers combed, pointed teeth polished and gleaming. The usual scent of sushi and Old Spice attended him.

  “Good evening, Miss Figueroa.”

  “Cornelius,” she whispered, putting her hands on his shoulders. “What are you doing here?”

  “Your father sent me to inquire if you and Calafia would like to attend a birthday party. To celebrate her birth as well as the state’s bicentennial.”

  “My daughter.” She started to back away, but Clarry caught her from behind.

  “Hey,” Clarry said. “We haven’t met. I’m Poppy’s wire-man.”

  Cornelius bowed slightly. “Clarence Starko, how do you do? I’ve enjoyed the series so far . . . in the flat versions.”

  “You’re not wired? Oh, sealie, you’re missing most of the show.”

  “I was never wired, not even for the Figueroas,” Cornelius replied. “I don’t suppose anyone missed my point of view, there being so few seals in the audience.” He turned to Poppy again. “The delivery went without trouble, I take it?”

  She started to shake her head. “Cornelius . . .”
<
br />   “What is it, miss? You look frightened.”

  “She’s fine,” Clarry said. “Just a bit burned from her busy—”

  “Leave us alone, Clarry.”

  “I’m telling you, Poppy, an hour, two hours at the most. Don’t turn all pale over this.”

  “Clarry, just leave us alone.”

  She waited until he was gone, then took Cornelius by the elbow and led him down the street.

  “The baby’s missing, Cornelius. Missing.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I can’t go anywhere tonight. I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do. I have to stay here and look for her. Maybe she’s somewhere nearby. Maybe it was all an accident. I can’t believe it. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Missing?” Cornelius said.

  She couldn’t answer him. An accident. What else could it be? Why was she afraid it might be something more sinister? What if someone had kidnapped her baby?

  “Is there anything I can do, miss? Have you called the police? Your father will want to help.”

  “I haven’t done anything yet. I just found out.”

  A sudden eruption of barking and growling interrupted her. Cornelius jerked around, startled by the sound. A Lassie rushed toward them, unrestrained, fangs bared, saliva dripping all down his shirt. It was Kai, the dog who’d nearly strangled her.

  “Kai, what’s—”

  He struck her aside, leaping at Cornelius, teeth snapping at the sealman’s neck. Poppy screamed for help, so loud that every head in the crowd turned. People converged on them, trying to pull the humanimals apart. Cornelius lay where he had fallen while several strong men hauled Kai off. The seal’s suit was in shreds.

  “I only want an autograph!” the dog snarled. “He’s my favorite fur star!”

  Clarry Starko reappeared from the crowd. “Shit. That Kai’s crazy. He’s a mad dog.”

  They stared as the transgenic Lassie was led away, still snarling. Blood speckled the faces and hands of the men who’d collared him. Poppy knelt beside Cornelius. His snout was badly gashed, his clothes in ruins, but he managed to smile and sit up.

  “Dogs are always chasing me,” he said.