by Jon Skovron
“Venus,” she said.
“Ha. Seriously.”
“You don’t believe in extraterrestrials?”
“Do I believe they exist somewhere out there in infinite space? Yes. Do I think they’re hanging out around our solar system, occasionally sneaking over to steal a cow or probe someone’s ass? No.”
“Arse-probing gets a bad rap,” she said.
“Do you just not want to talk about it?”
“What, arse-probing? We can talk about it all you want. It just didn’t sound like you were interested.”
“No, I mean talking about where you’re from. Why, is it some major secret?”
“I’d tell you,” she said, “but then I’d have to probe your arse.”
“Never mind.”
We drove on in silence for a little while.
Then Sophie said, “So who was the girl?”
“What girl?”
“That one girl you slept with.”
“Forget it. I’m not telling you.”
“Well, it’s going to be a very dull road trip if you refuse to dish the whole ride.”
“I’ll tell you, if you tell me where you’re from.”
She rolled her eyes. “Lame. Look, it’s not a big secret or anything. It’s just that dwelling on the past a lot brings out Claire McGrumpypants and I’m not ready to go back in my box yet.”
“I thought you guys had a schedule or something.”
“Sort of. But it’s loose, right? Because I’m better at some things and she’s better at others.”
“Like?”
“Like road trips. She hates road trips. So if we changed right now, she’d just be miserable, anyway.”
“What’s it like? Being in your ‘box’?”
She shrugged. “Hard to explain.”
“I’m a pretty smart guy. I might get it.”
“Imagine being in someone else’s body, feeling what they feel, but not in the way they feel it. Hearing their thoughts, knowing they hear yours.”
“Do you and Claire like each other? I mean, do you get along?”
“Sometimes. When she’s not being a royal bitch.” She smirked suddenly, and I could almost imagine Claire silently fuming somewhere inside their brain.
“Does that make any sense?” she asked.
“Some,” I said. “I have my own weird brain stuff.”
“Oh, yeah? Like what?”
“I can disconnect my emotions.”
“What, like make it so you don’t feel anything?” Her eyes grew wide.
“Yeah.”
She was silent for a moment, then in a strangely subdued voice she said, “That sounds fucking brilliant.”
“But it’s just temporary. It builds up, and when you reconnect, it all hits you at once.”
“Ouch. Never mind.”
“Exactly. My dad has to do it every night for The Show. It’s what makes him immune to all the magic. So if Medusa or the Siren or whoever loses control, he just steps in and takes care of it.”
“And every night he has to deal with the backlash?”
“Yeah. My mom tries to help him through it, but…there’s only so much she can do.”
“Sounds dreadful.”
“Yeah. But he just takes it, you know? Pisses me off. That’s one of the reasons I had to leave. I did it once, so I know how awful it is. It comes back to you like a nightmare, where you see and feel things, and you remember your actions almost like they were someone else’s. This other you, cold, hard, and unfeeling, and he’s in control.” I shuddered as a light flash of the pain ghosted up my neck. “There’s no way I’d do it every night like he does. No way in hell.”
We drove on for a while in silence, the farmland giving way to suburban clusters and shopping centers.
“What about your parents?” I asked.
“Oh, shit!”
“What?”
“Shopping mall. We’re taking a detour.”
“What? You’re not serious.”
“I’m completely serious. I need new clothes desperately.” She looked over at me critically. “You could use a little something yourself.”
“We barely have enough money for gas and food to get us to New Mexico,” I said. But we were already turning off the interstate and taking the exit ramp into a massive shopping complex. “Is this because I brought up your parents?”
“You got me, Dr. Boy!” she said cheerfully as she hiked the wheel suddenly and jammed us into a parking spot. “Now, let’s conduct some retail therapy, shall we?”
I’d never been in a mall before, and I had to admit that I was curious to see what they were really like. So I followed her through the tinted glass doors of the front entrance.
It turns out a mall is like an indoor Times Square. Big posters, lots of flashing lights, packs of people everywhere. There were even random carts full of stupid crap you don’t need, just like the kind you see on 42nd Street. About the only difference was how much cleaner it was. Everything was polished and shiny, fake marble, glass, brass, brushed metal. It all gleamed slickly in the harsh, unnatural light.
Well, there was one other difference.
“What is up with these people?” I muttered as I followed Sophie into a clothes store full of faceless aerodynamic mannequins.
“What do you mean?”
“They’re all staring at me like I have two heads.”
“Come on, Boy, what were you expecting? You look like something out of a Tim Burton movie. Just ignore them.”
“People never stared at me like this in New York.”
“That’s because no self-respecting New Yorker would be caught dead with a look of surprise or shock on their face. But believe me, they were all staring at you in their subtle, New Yorker, peripheral-vision kind of way.”
“Yeah, well, we can’t all be pretty like you.”
“Whoa, what are you on about?” She seemed surprised I was getting upset. “Look, I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. I love your stitch-punk look. But you asked why people were staring at you, and that’s the answer.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’m going to go walk around. I’ll meet you at the car later.” I needed a little break from Sophie. I was suddenly starting to see why Claire found her so annoying.
“Sure, I’ll catch you later,” I heard her say as I walked back out into the main hallway.
People just wouldn’t stop staring. Some of them even came to a dead stop and started talking to each other. “Did you ever see anything like that?” or “What the hell happened to him?” Like I couldn’t hear them. Or maybe they assumed that since I was big and ugly, I must be stupid, too.
I started to get this claustrophobic feeling, eyes pressing in on me from all sides. I had this urge to sprint down the hallway and crash through the doors. Of course that would send some of those people into a panic. I could almost see them picking up torches and pitchforks, cornering me in some trendy accessories store.
Then I caught sight of a computer store. My people. Without even thinking, I went in. It was so nice to be back among the tech I knew. My hand ran across a smooth PC tower casing. It had been over a month since I’d even touched a computer, and I didn’t realize until that moment how much I missed it. It didn’t even get me down that “my people,” the actual other computer people in the room, were staring at me just as much as everyone else. I ignored them as I made my way to the high-end gaming machines. I read off their specs like it was a recipe for my favorite food. I would have given anything to have my custom USB jacks. But I’d lost those back when my apartment in New York blew up.
Thinking of that made me pause my geek bliss for a moment. I really shouldn’t be in here. I didn’t know how far VI’s reach was. It was better to be safe than sorry.
But God, I missed computers. If I was really careful and connected through an encrypted tunnel for a few minutes, just long enough to check email and my old IRC channels, how could she possibly catch me?
But less than a m
inute after I connected, a big red pop-up appeared on the screen:
FUCKER
Then all the lights in the store went out. There were about fifteen people in there with me who had been more or less staring at me since I came in. When the mall went dark, they all started talking at once. But then there was a short burst of noise over the PA speakers and everyone went quiet. A moment later, every TV and computer monitor in the store came to life, displaying a plain white square. Naturally, everyone looked at it. Everyone but me. Not that I knew what was happening, but I just had this feeling that looking at the screens was bad. This was VI, after all. Was it ever good?
I could see in the window reflections and at the edge of my peripheral vision that there was some kind of strobe-light sequence on the screens. I looked at the faces of the people watching it and they were totally mesmerized.
A minute later, it was over. The flickering screens stopped, the lights came back on and I wondered if whatever VI had tried to do hadn’t worked.
But then the people in the store all turned to look at me. Their faces curled up in snarls of rage, and then they all attacked me at once.
Individually, I could have handled them easily. But fifteen very fragile humans coming at you at once makes it impossible to protect both yourself and them. I blocked their punches and kicks, or just took them when I couldn’t, and that wasn’t too bad. But then they started chucking big computer parts at me. And finally one of them began lighting things on fire, and that’s when I knew I was really screwed. Fire is basically my Kryptonite. Because as tough as I am, stitches are very flammable.
I tried to fight my way to the door, but there was a wall of clawing flesh and bone in front of me. I tried shoving them, or hurting them in little ways, but they seemed totally indifferent to minor pain. I was going to have to start breaking people if I wanted to get out of there alive.
“Boy!”
I looked up and saw Sophie standing in the doorway, holding a big shopping bag.
“Help!” I said, pushing a screaming woman off me.
But the way she stared at me, her eyes wide with fear, I could tell she couldn’t help me. Sophie wasn’t cut out for stuff like this. She was utterly terrified.
And then the wall of people fell on me all at once and I went under. Tense, sweaty flesh pressed against me on all sides. I realized I probably wasn’t going to burn to death. I was going to suffocate. I pushed as hard as I could, no longer holding back. But it was too late now. Even at full strength, I couldn’t force my way out. I screamed. But they pressed down harder and screamed back. I was going to be killed by a mass of brainwashed computer geeks.
But then the weight began to lift. People went flying one by one, crashing into counters, walls, windows. An unnaturally strong hand grabbed my forearm and hauled me up to a standing position.
Claire stood in front of me, breathing hard, Sophie’s smaller-sized clothing stretched painfully tight on her athletic body.
“What the hell just happened here?” she yelled at me.
“I’ll tell you in the car,” I said.
She looked like she wanted to yell at me some more, but she nodded tersely, shoved one of the struggling humans back down, and walked out of the store, not waiting to see if I was following.
WHEN WE REACHED the car, Claire tossed me the keys. “You drive. I’ve gotta change into something that actually fits me before I lose all feeling in my legs.”
“I’ve never driven before,” I protested as I slid into the unfamiliar driver’s seat.
“Gas, brake, steer. Follow the yellow line. It’s not rocket science.” She climbed into the backseat. “Time for you to learn, anyway. You’re mad if you think I’m going to drive all the way to New Mexico myself. And if I catch you looking back here while I’m changing, I’ll hit you so hard it’ll pop your stitches.”
My first time driving was a little touch and go, especially since I couldn’t use the rearview mirror. Plus, my hands were still a little shaky from the mall incident. Somehow VI had been able to hack into the brains of those humans through their visual cortexes. Obviously, it wasn’t as fine-tuned a method as the audio attack she’d deployed at the rest stop in New Jersey. In fact, it seemed to be limited to “Make them crazy, turn them loose.” But now she had two ways to control humans. And I was pretty sure that if there were more ways possible, VI would figure them out eventually.
“So.” Claire climbed into the front passenger seat. She wore a plain white T-shirt and a pair of nylon running pants. “I’m going to ask you again. What the hell just happened?”
There really wasn’t any other way to do it, so I told her everything. If there was even a possibility that this might happen again, she had a right to know. I told her about The Show and about my fight with Shaun and about my dad’s plan to send me to Switzerland. I told her about how I left, and about Gauge, and what I thought was my failed great experiment. I told her about Liel and about VI. She listened to everything without comment. I really appreciated that. And when I was finished, she just stared off into the horizon for a while.
Finally, she said, “Don’t you think it would have been a good idea to tell me about the crazy AI stalker before we began this road trip?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m sorry. It’s just…god, it makes me feel like an idiot whenever I think about it.”
“Idiot? I think you mean arsehole.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You could have handled the whole thing a lot better. You could have handled her a lot better.”
“What was I supposed to do? By the time I talked to her, she’d already become this crazy thing.”
“Crazy? Maybe just terribly immature with way too much power. I mean, she’s like a superintelligent toddler, right? Desperate to please, throwing tantrums when she doesn’t get her way. And it sounds to me like there were a couple of points where you could have talked her back down. Believe it or not, most people want to be talked down from a homicidal rage.”
“What do you know? You weren’t there.”
“I bloody well know what it’s like to be labeled a ‘bad creation.’ I’ve seen arsehole creators before, mate. And from where I’m sitting, the way you treated her seems a lot like the way Victor treated your dad.”
“How can you possibly say that? Victor abandoned my dad. I never abandoned VI. I didn’t even know she existed!”
“But when she came back to you, all confused and misguided, you immediately put the ‘bad’ stamp on her.”
“Because she did bad things. She had my roommate thrown in prison. She threatened my girlfriend. She used humans as puppets. She even killed some of them.”
“So did your dad, didn’t he? Strangled nearly everyone in Victor’s family, if the stories I’ve heard are true. And I think you’d agree that your father deserved a second chance. So maybe she does, too. I can’t believe you of all people can’t see that.”
“Why me of all people?”
“Because you’re creation and creator. Shouldn’t that make you sensitive to both sides? But instead, you apparently hate both sides. So where does that leave you, eh? Christ, I thought I was the most self-loathing person I knew, but you bloody well take the biscuit. Cheers.”
I drove on in silence, not really trusting myself to speak. The anger burned up through my face and down into my hands. The steering wheel creaked from the pressure. She didn’t know anything about me, or my family, or the Frankensteins, or VI. She was just one of those people who liked to kick others while they were down.
The hours went by, and neither of us spoke. The vast, flat Kansas farmlands slid past on either side, never changing. Two days before, when Mozart and I had been driving through Pennsylvania, the scenery had changed constantly, and it had given me a kind of peace. But here, on these endless plains, it wasn’t like that. There was no way to gauge our progress. It felt like we weren’t even moving. For all I knew, we were on a treadmill. Like nothing we did made any difference.
“Really?” I asked. “That place?”
“I like Americana,” she said flatly. “Chicken-fried steak, biscuits and gravy, that sort of thing. You got a problem with that?”
The truth was, I’d never had country stuff before. This whole rural Midwest area made me feel a little uncomfortable. Like I was too “urban” to fit in here. Not tough and manly enough, I guess. I knew that was dumb. I’d survived a lot of stuff. I could handle myself. But I couldn’t help feeling like there would be some unshaven cowboy type who was going to say some cheesy line about me being a “soft, city boy.”
I was also worried there’d be more staring. I was really not in the mood for more staring.
But what could I do? We were both hungry, and it wasn’t like I was going to admit my nervousness to Claire. She’d be all over that.
So I just said, “Whatever. It’s fine,” and pulled into the parking lot.
It was a narrow place with wood paneling, small booths along one wall, and a long, white Formica bar along the other. A few guys were at the bar drinking coffee, and an old couple sat off in a booth in the corner.
We sat down in a booth by a window and looked through the menus. It was pretty simple, so it didn’t take long to read cover to cover. Then we just stared out at the empty Oklahoma plains as the clouds gathered for an afternoon storm. I wasn’t sure how much longer we were going to do the not-talking thing, but I wasn’t going to be the one to break it. In the silence, there was only the distant clink of dishes and the whiny steel guitar sound of a country song on the radio.
Claire closed her eyes and breathed deeply. “I love American country music.”
“Really?” I asked.
“You don’t?”
“Not all Americans like country.”
“It’s not just for Americans, anyway.” She turned back to the window. The clouds grew darker and the grass on the plains bent down in waves. The music played on, some guy singing about his pickup truck breaking down or something. I didn’t get it. I guess I didn’t get a lot of things.