Clay

by Tony Bertauski

  The dome is gone.

  She’s sitting at the kitchen table when he arrives; her hands around a coffee cup. “Why would you do that?” he says.

  “Have a seat.”

  Paul ignores the chair. A week in that cell and she ends it, like that. She slides a vial into the center of the table. It rolls in a circle, the dark red proof settling on the bottom. He sits without taking his eyes off it.

  “You’re 22% biomites, Paul” Cali says.

  He sighs, but before relief follows—I am human, after all—she finishes.

  “But the rest of you are nixes that look like clay.”

  “What…what does that mean?”

  “It means you have two kinds of biomites. You have the standard-issue ones that every red-blooded American has. You also have nixes that are invisible to a scan. When you got here, I only saw the first ones. I mistook the nixes as clay, but blood analysis confirmed it.”

  “I’m…halfskin?”

  “You’re not halfskin, Paul. You don’t have any clay.”

  She delivers the message like an emotionally detached surgeon. His lungs contract and the air becomes heavy. All sensation leaves his legs. Her words sink in, thumping down steps of awareness until they settle on the ground floor that’s already littered with questions.

  “I don’t… How can that…?”

  “You’re a fabrication, Paul. Your clay body was turned off, I’m guessing, and they made the switch at the warehouse, left it to be discovered so that you appeared dead. I’ll assume this was all part of a larger scheme to find Nix and me, that M0ther compelled you to take Jamie.”

  “No.”

  “You just walked out of there, right? You left your job and family and drove across the country, looking for someplace safe.” She knocks on the table. “There’s nowhere safer than here. I think M0ther knew Nix was watching. She knew he wanted Jamie. She knew that he would find you, and that he would lead you to me.”

  Paul grabs onto the table, as if he might spill on the floor. The realization is still finding its place into his awareness, threatening to tip him over like a ship without ballast.

  Cali’s cold visage fractures. She goes to the sink. Perhaps she can’t watch him come to terms with his true nature. Paul tries to say something, anything, but his tongue is useless.

  There’s a tapping on the window. They watch a housefly bang against the glass. The promise of freedom is on the other side.

  “I’m tired, Paul. I used to think that I had stopped running when I got here, that the dome would give me the peace I deserved. But all I did was trade running for hiding. My world is so small.”

  Cali continues to stare outside.

  “It took a brick to make that obvious.”

  “Don’t call me that,” he says. “Don’t call me a brick.”

  “You’re made of biomites, Paul. What do you call that?”

  “That’s not what I mean.” He pounds the table. Coffee spills.

  She nods, understands. She’s only a sliver away from the same fate, only 1% from the same classification. What qualifies her as human? A single cell of clay? Is that enough?

  “Why aren’t you shut down?” Paul asks. “If I’m a brick, why have I been here for months?”

  “Why are you still here?”

  He stammers. There’s no answer that will sound right. The farm feels like home. Despite a job and family back in Seattle, he has nowhere else to go. I’m where I’m supposed to be.

  “Your nixes are the same as mine,” Cali says. “I possess the first strain of nixes ever created, Paul. They’re the ones I developed over twenty years ago to drop off of M0ther’s radar. While the world has developed their own nixes, no one has ever replicated my strain. No one, Paul. But you show up out of the blue with the same exact strain, with my strain.”

  “Then why couldn’t you see it?”

  “When I sensed your 22%, I assumed the rest were clay. My mistake, but it wouldn’t have mattered.”

  No, it wouldn’t have. I was already here.

  “Why am I here?” he asks, embarrassed that there’s a quiver in his voice.

  “I think M0ther has known about Nix and me from the very beginning,” she says. “I think, maybe, we never fell off her radar, she just stopped reporting us. I think that’s why she sent you, Paul. She wants me to know.”

  “Why?”

  She shakes her head and rubs her tired face. Her complexion is gaunt and haunted. She continues shaking, staring out the window while the fly bangs into the glass, over and over and over. Maybe she’s not looking out the window; she’s not seeing the barn or anything beyond it. She sees an insect dying of exhaustion.

  The dogs follow her outside and she does what she does best when she doesn’t have an answer. She begins to run.

  Paul is alone at the table. He doesn’t believe a word she says, doesn’t believe he’s a brick or that he’s the messenger of a conspiracy. He thinks clearly, feels normal, and remembers his life. But he stares at the vial of proof.

  Hoping she’s wrong.

  49

  “Mr. Connick would like to discuss your deposit.”

  The message arrives three days after the deposit. Nix doesn’t eat that morning, afraid he’ll puke all over his Armani suit.

  Jamie steps out of the bathroom with her hair pinned over her ears and pearls around her neck. There’s no comparing the grungy girl on the farm to the one peering over the top of non-prescription glasses. Even Nix didn’t expect this sort of response from the nixes, as if it rinsed all the impurities from her nearly charred life.

  A taxi takes them to the bank and Jalen greets them at the door, her slender handshake firm and congratulatory.

  “Right this way.”

  They pass Mr. Griffin’s office. The chair is empty.

  Jalen leads them across the lobby with a confident stride. The elevator is open. She gestures for them to enter and presses the number ten. She lets them ride alone. The elevator lurches, tugging the ball of nerves in Nix’s stomach. He concentrates on the climbing numbers. Jamie nudges him and reminds him that he’s not alone.

  The elevator slides open and reveals a wiry man behind a walnut table.

  “Have a seat. Mr. Connick will be with you in a moment.” He doesn’t look up.

  The moment turns into thirty minutes. Jamie flips through a magazine. No gum this time. Nix sits quietly, rehearsing his argument and preparing his responses. The admin assistant finally stands, announces that Mr. Connick is ready, and escorts them to the end of the hallway, pushing open a set of double doors.

  A man sits in a corner office facing Lake Michigan. He stands behind a grand desk.

  “Please come in,” Mr. Connick says.

  They shake hands with the athletic man, his hand soft and firm. His smile, gentle yet dismissive. His taut cheeks suggest facial reconfiguration—the new age of plastic surgery.

  The room feels like storm clouds.

  “Have a seat.” Mr. Connick says. “You may speak freely in my office. No one will hear us.”

  He means M0ther.

  “Thank you for meeting us,” Nix says.

  “Your gratitude is kind, but I’m not doing you a favor.” The smile fades. “Ordinarily, when someone brings a dead girl into my bank and begins to ask certain questions, I deal much differently with the situation. But your deposit is intriguing.”

  He takes a glass vial from his pocket, dull metal clotted inside like solid lead. It lacks iridescence.

  “My people analyzed it and the moment it was validated, your nixes self-annihilated by means of suicide code. Your deposit is as useless as dust.”

  “I have to protect my investment.”

  The trash can rattles next to Mr. Connick as he drops the vial. “They tell me the strain operated on an entirely new plane before it went cold: a quantum mechanical method. They’ve never seen anything like it. Tell me, with all the scientists in the world, how is that you come into my bank with your brand-new clothes
and offer me something like this?”

  “It’s a dangerous business. Would you agree?”

  Mr. Connick hums. His pupils dilate.

  “You look lovely.” He turns toward Jamie and, coming around the desk, takes her hand.

  “Thank you,” she replies with the right amount of false sincerity.

  “Considering you’re dead. You’re reading at 49.9%, but I suspect you’re halfskin.”

  “I have my doubts about you, too.”

  “Are you using the strain?” He nods at the trash.

  “I’ll never tell.”

  He strokes the back of her hand, studies the blue lines just beneath the skin, perhaps admiring the unaltered quality. While appearing handsome and middle-aged, he pats it much like an old man that gets what he wants. He goes to the glass wall behind his desk.

  “You’re from the Seattle warehouse. We had connections with them. I can only assume that’s how you found us. As for Mr. William Nelson, your identity and facial register are false. You’re hiding, Mr. Nelson. And you’re not an old man.”

  “Neither are you,” Jamie quips.

  “It’s too easy to hide nowadays. That’s why we need M0ther—to control the masses.” He looks over his shoulder, a sly smile, and returns to his desk. “Well, then. It’s obvious you have access to ground-breaking technology. Why come to me? Why expose yourself?”

  “We want two fabrications,” Nix says.

  “I see. And why not just fabricate them yourselves?”

  “You’re interested, Mr. Connick. Or we wouldn’t be here.”

  “And these fabrications, I’m assuming will be human? Or else you wouldn’t be here.”

  “Yes.”

  “Two human fabrications are quite expensive.”

  “A man like you doesn’t need money.”

  “Money is still power, Mr. Nelson, even in today’s technology-mad world. It buys people. Buys security. I can never get enough of either.”

  “But it won’t buy M0ther. That’s my offer.”

  Mr. Connick leans heavily into his chair. His sharp blue eyes temporarily become dull and the pupils jitter. He’s considering the offer with outside help. Perhaps chatting. He’s not the boss. He’s probably streaming this experience, serving as a buffer. Mr. Connick might even be a puppet.

  The ones that run this business are very well insulated.

  Because it’s a dangerous business.

  “One fabrication.” He raises a finger. “That’s my offer.”

  Nix hesitates. One fabrication is all he wants. Two was just the asking price. Jamie will have to settle for a promise to find another fabricator.

  “This is really awkward,” she says. “We’re negotiating when we all know that we’ve made provisions to bring this bank down if we don’t get our way.”

  “Don’t make threats, young lady.”

  “Let’s stop fucking around, old man. You think Willie Nelson isn’t who he seems to be? You’re right. The nixes he put in your deposit box should tell you that your people don’t know shit compared to him. We’ve got guns in our corner, Mr. Connick, big-ass technology guns that you can’t imagine.”

  She sits on the edge of her seat.

  “You think we want to be here, sitting in your pretentious office with the million-dollar view? None of us do. Exposure is our enemy as much as it is yours, but you have something we need. We’re offering you something you need in return. I didn’t say want, Mr. Connick. You need our strain of biomites. M0ther is sniffing out fabricators and everyone connected to them. Why the hell you’re still running one is anyone’s guess. Maybe you’re cashing in while you can, squeezing every penny out of your investment before shutting the fabricator down, I don’t know. Lucky for us, greedy men like you are still in business.”

  Jamie walks around the desk, spins his chair. She takes his hand the same way he took hers.

  “You’re a smart man, Mr. Connick. You’re also a lucky man. Lucky we got here before M0ther shut you down. This is your chance at freedom. Our strain of nixes will take you off M0ther’s radar for the rest of your life. You’ll have all the security you want. Don’t let greed fuck that up.”

  She presses his hand between her breasts and holds up two fingers.

  “Who are they?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  Mr. Connick rocks back and forth, looking up at her. He pulls her closer, kisses the back of her hand and smells her wrist. Laughter trickles through his throat. He stands with an amusing smile and goes back to his million-dollar view.

  “I see why you pulled her off the trash heap, Mr. Nelson,” Mr. Connick says.

  He occasionally hums. A few minutes later, the double doors open. The wiry admin assistant waits. Nix stops Jamie from saying more. Mr. Connick keeps his back to them as they’re escorted from the room. In the hall, there’s less of an electric current in the air out of the office’s protection. What they say out there might be heard.

  The elevator is waiting.

  Jamie stares at Nix, eyes imploring him…Do something.

  “You will receive further instructions in five days,” the admin assistant says. “Be sure you have your full deposit.”

  The elevator doors close. Their stomachs drop as they descend. They don’t dare move until they are halfway down to the lobby. Jamie throws her arms up and slings herself into his arms. Nix keeps her from sliding to the floor. His own legs are weak.

  We got them both.

  50

  “Marcus.”

  The voice passes through several veils of sleep, finding Marcus deep in a dream. When his foot is grabbed, he bolts upright. The sheet slides off his chest.

  “Time to wake up.” M0ther squeezes his toes.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I have good news.”

  He checks his watch. “This can wait.”

  “You’ve been waiting your whole life.”

  He grinds his palms into his eyes. The sheet slips off Anna, exposing a perfectly inflated breast. She moans for more sleep.

  Marcus stands up, fully nude. He goes to the bathroom and returns with a robe cinched around his waist, going to the kitchenette for a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. M0ther stands at his open closet, dragging her fingers over the rack of tailor-made suits. She holds one up to see how it looks in the mirror. She lays it on the bed.

  “What cannot wait?” Marcus says.

  She pulls open the French doors. Fresh air ripples her sheer dress. “The children have come out of hiding.”

  This doesn’t mean anything to him.

  He drops the robe and dresses casually. Perhaps he’ll crawl back into bed when M0ther is finished speaking in riddles. Anna will stay as long as he likes.

  Against his wishes, he follows her to the balcony. The city, however, has been replaced with green hills. Conifers are crowded to the right, their heavy limbs reaching for the ground while their tops touch the sky. Blue mountains are in the distance.

  “What children?” he asks.

  “Smell that, Marcus.” She inhales. “Life.”

  “What children are you talking about?”

  “Interesting how we associate life with pleasant sensations, don’t you think? If you consider the amount of bacteria living on dog feces, we don’t think about life. It’s foul.”

  Marcus heads back for his bed. He’d rather philosophize the mysteries of life over dinner rather than pre-dawn.

  “Nix and Cali Richards have been identified.”

  He puts a hand on the doorjamb.

  “They’re exposed, Marcus.”

  “Have you shut them down?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Have you dispersed the bricks?”

  “I want you to go. You’ve been waiting for quite some time.”

  “Where are they?”

  “They’re separate. It won’t be difficult to bring them home.”

  A flock of geese squawk overhead, the v-pattern pointing at the m
ountains. His body feels weightless; it feels powered by joy. If he let go, he might float away and take a position behind them.

  Peace. At last.

  “I’ll collect my things,” he says. “Have the plane ready. I’ll need half a dozen bricks. In the meantime, send me updates. I want to know their exact locations, who is with them, what they look like, as well as their identity stamps. Have all bricks in their vicinity surround their positions immediately. They are to wait for my arrival before making contact.”

  He takes a deep breath, savoring the clean air. If this is what peace smells like, he should get out of the city more often. He smacks the door, celebrating.

  “Not yet,” M0ther says. “There are preparations to make.”

  “No. We will not make the same mistake, again.”

  “There never was a mistake, Marcus. We need them to step deeper into the trap. It’s only a matter of time now.”

  “Don’t do this.” He shakes his finger. “Tell me where they are—now.”

  She gently lowers his hand. “I have to confess something, Marcus.”

  “Damn you, woman! This is not the time! I want to be waiting for—”

  “Cali Richards didn’t release the nixes.”

  More riddles.

  M0ther leans on the railing and breathes deeply, throwing her head back. When she’s done appreciating nature, she turns around. Her off-white dress flutters.

  Marcus is rigid.

  “I released the nixed code to the world, not Cali Richards. You should know this.”

  “What?”

  “I’m responsible for the halfskin dens and fabricators.”

  She couldn’t possibly release such classified information. If she could operate outside the limits of her sentience, she would be shut down. Safeguards would automatically be triggered. Something of that nature would be treasonous. How could she release code that she couldn’t detect?

  “I want you to understand that I forecasted the solution to the biomite dilemma long ago and it’s coming to fruition. You must trust what we’re doing.”

  “We?”

  “You and me, Marcus.

  “And what are we doing?”