by Tam MacNeil
Rak: Still in the lab?
Simone: I am the queen of pipetting.
Simone: This is my glamorous life.
Simone: Twelve years of school for this.
Rak: You need an assistant.
Simone: PLS TELL THAT TO ART.
He laughs.
Rak: Your budget, you tell her.
Rak: Getting Thai food. What do you want?
Simone: Chicken pad thai.
Rak: Beer?
Simone: YY. You’re the best.
He locks up his office and takes himself through the quiet halls out to the sun-filled street, where the air is full of fumes and clinging, and the heat is radiating up from the pavement and the sun is arrowing between buildings and down streets. It’s only a couple blocks to the little place that his cousin owns. He leans on the counter and chats while Chai does up the noodles, wrangles a couple bottles of beer to take out with the food, and he heads back.
After six the Annex is more or less dead. The lights are reduced to half, and around ten pm they go down half again. There’s nobody but the two evening security guards at the front desk and they’re old hands, they all nod at each other when Rak goes by.
He flashes his card anyway - good practice. Plus, it keeps the guards from having to ask, which they will, he’s tested it. They’re good at what they do. And in this weird new world where monsters like shinigami call and people go running to die for them, and where people like Simone can alter the configurations of bodies, and people like him can see into the past, well, it wouldn’t surprise him if there was someone who could change their shape, maybe take someone else’s form and sneak through security at the Annex. In fact, since he developed a little magic of his own, he kinda feels like there’s not much that surprises him any more.
He goes on down to the lab, where most of the lights are still on. Simone is there, looking through a selection of tubes, each one of them meticulously labeled. He knows better than to interrupt and goes through to the little break room that stands just off the triage room and starts parceling out the food. There are plates in the cupboard and cups and cutlery because Simone does a lot of late nights. Sometimes it’s almost like she lives here. She’s not supposed to do overnights, but Rak knows she’s crashed out on an empty bed on more than one occasion. He won’t say anything, though. Simone’s work is her life. It’s enough that sometimes he’s allowed to be a part of it.
She comes in as the food is starting to get a bit cold. He knows better than wait for her, already cleaned his plate and started in on seconds.
“Got satay too,” he says, pushing a plate toward her.
“You’re a life saver,” she says, sitting down opposite him and digging in. He knows that when she gets busy, she forgets sometimes about the needs of the body. “Holy god I’m hungry.”
He goes to the fridge and cracks the beers Chai slipped to him and passes one to her. She sighs happily and takes a drink.
“You’re a good man, Rak Boonliang.”
He grins. “Wanna do my performance review?”
“Nope.” She finishes what’s on her plate and goes in for more. He sits back and watches her scrape the last of the peanut sauce out of the container. “Sean had a little emergency today,” she says, and all the warm contentment of the moment is sucked away. She glances at him. “It’s ok,” she adds. He didn’t realize he’d rocked forward when she said it.
“Something to do with Alex?”
She shrugs, tears the meat off the satay stick with her fingers and eats it, frowning. “Total meltdown,” she says between bites. “Crying. Screaming. God, the screaming.” She chews a bit more. “If he’s not the poster child for PTSD I don’t know who is.”
Rak tells himself to be calm. Which he is. But there are about twenty-five things he’d like to ask Simone and all of them are variations of Why isn’t he in the mental health ward of VGH wearing yellow pajamas? Instead he says, “You ok?”
She shrugs. “Sean was pretty rattled.”
“Yeah,” Rak says, “but are you ok?”
Simone looks at him and smiles faintly. “Shook me up a bit too,” she admits. “I didn’t go into mental health for a reason.” She looks down and seems to discover there’s another satay left in the bag. “Mind if I finish that? I didn’t end up getting lunch.”
He shakes his head and she grabs it. “So Rob and I had a long talk. He’s going to see both of them separately, since Sean’s basically home support. He doesn’t think Alex is likely to get violent with others, but he might hurt himself.”
“You still going to ask if you can take blood samples?” he asks, since it was something Simone was talking about yesterday.
She shakes her head. “Ugh. No. I’m not touching him till he’s more stable.” She finishes the satay and starts in on the second round of noodles. Then she puts down her chopsticks and leans across the table. “He literally told Rob he could do anything he wanted to him, as long as nobody hurt Sean.”
“He came on to Rob?”
“Not how you’re thinking.”
It takes him a moment, then he gets it. Rak exhales. “Jesus Christ.”
“Yeah.”
He doesn’t like Alex, and if he's being honest with himself it's because Simone is fascinated by him. But he's also like finding a stray dog in the house - might have shots, but might have rabies. Might sniff your hand, but could bite it off. Still, it’s hard not to feel a pinch of pity for someone whose first line of defense is something like that.
“Jesus,” he mutters again. He looks at his beer. “You know, I heard rumors about the Fifty when I was coming up. People in suits talked about them the way kids tell each other ghost stories.”
She’s looking at him, chin resting on her palm. She looks tired. Unsurprising, considering the last few days have been so crazy. Maybe the food and the beer are mellowing her out.
"What'd they say?" she asks.
“Well, I heard they spent a week in a high roller suite in Vegas a couple years ago. And that they had access to private doctors and jets.” He shrugs. “I guess I kinda thought of them like a pair of James Bonds or something. The more I hear about it, the more sick it all seems.”
She nods. “I think,” she says carefully, “that the idea of physical autonomy is pretty new for both of them.”
He peels the label of the beer and drops it on the plate. “That’s… horrible.”
“Yeah.” She sighs. “I know I complain about ethics committees and Art and whatnot, but I’ve been reading a lot. About MKULTRA and the crazy mind control stuff that people tried in the fifties and the sixties and I get it. And I just read Marshal Campbell’s latest article on the human limits of pain endurance and it made me feel a bit sick. I see why we need the committees. I sometimes forget that these are people I’m dealing with. I went into research because I never did have a bedside manner, but I don’t ever want to be that kind of doctor.”
Rak looks her in the eye. “You aren’t,” he says. “You’re not that kind of person. You never will be.”
She smiles at him, some of the weariness disappearing as she does. “I’m so glad you came,” she says and it’s like water in the desert, it makes his heart light in his chest.
“Any time,” he says, and means it. “I’m heading home soon. Need a lift or are you going to pipette all night?”
She groans and slumps back in her chair. “If I keep this up I’m going to develop an RSI.”
“Pipetter’s Thumb,” he says, and grins. “You’re doing unauthorized overtime, you know. I don’t know if medical will cover your rehab.”
She laughs. “Well that’s it then, I’m going home.”
It’s late, the sun’s setting and the sky is a kind of mottled pink and orange and blue before Rak drops her off at her place. She’d almost fallen asleep in the car, jolted awake when he pulled against the curb in the loading zone.
“Sorry,” she says.
He grins. “Don’t worry about it. You going to be abl
e to keep your feet under you till you get to your place?”
“Yeah.” She finds her keys and gets out of the car. “Say hi to your mom,” she adds. “And tell her thanks for the book recommendation.”
“Did you read it?”
“Haven’t had a chance.”
He laughs again. “She’d tell you you’re working too hard.”
“She'd be right.”
“Go get some sleep.”
She waves and closes the door, passes through the lobby with a nod at Johan, who’s on duty at the desk, and goes to through the door that reads Staff Only and down the hall, past the elevator, to her door.
She’s too tired to do anything more than throw her bag on the leather bench by the door and then throw herself down on the couch. Even going to her bookshelf, full to overflowing with things she bought because she really wanted to read them, is too big an effort.
Two weeks of long hours; it’s starting to run her ragged. Sometimes she thinks that if Rak didn’t work late so much she’d miss most of her meals and one of the janitors would find her collapsed in a heap on the floor one morning. Then she’d be in trouble with Rak for overnighting at the lab.
She thinks about texting him. He’s sweet and she likes him. But he worked just as late as she did and then he bought her dinner and drove her home, and it seems like an imposition. Besides she’s not ready, not really, to think about the two of them as an item because there’s something she’d have to say then that she’s not sure she wants to talk about. And it’s really not the kind of thing you text about. Face to face or not at all. Besides, they just spent an hour talking over dinner. Seems a bit much to be texting him now.
Still, she cradles the phone while she flips through what’s on TV, which is nothing, and considers getting up to make a cup of tea. She ends up staring at but not really watching SpongeBob repeats and eventually manages to drag herself over to the kitchen, make a cup of tea, and get back to the couch. When she gets back there’s a text.
Rak: See the sky out there?
She grins, grins like a fool, like she’s just won the lottery, like she’s in love. She burrows into the couch just a little, and texts back Gorgeous isn’t it?
Fifteen
When Sean drags himself into the common kitchen the next morning, Rak’s already there. He’s seated at the little round table with a magazine in one hand and a mug in the other. It’s the best sight he’s seen in a while. Rak’s a colossal caffeine addict. If he’s around, there’s a pot of coffee on. “Morning,” Sean manages through gummed-up lips.
Rak looks up from his magazine and his mouth drops open. “Jesus, Sean. You look like hell.”
He hasn’t looked at himself yet today, but he’s not surprised. Didn’t get much sleep last night between talking with Rob and jerking awake every time Alex made a noise. He pads over to the counter, gets a mug, and pours out some coffee. “Don’t be fooled, I feel great.” His voice is like a car engine that won’t turn over.
“I was going to ask you how Beridze was doing, but I think I know the answer.”
“You mean you didn’t talk to Simone?” Sean asks. It’s a bit meaner than it ought to be, but everybody knows Simone and Rak are banging, and if they aren’t banging yet, they’re going to be soon.
“Simone doesn’t talk about patients,” Rak says, “No matter how much I ask.” Sean has the strong suspicion he’s lying. Mad’s the only one in the whole place with a thing about honesty. Everybody else is pretty free with the fiction. Might be part of why Sean feels so at home here.
Sean scrubs his eyes with his fist and looks back at Rak. There’s a mysterious box on the table right by him. He squints at it. “What's that?”
Rak sets down his magazine. “Mad brought doughnuts. And made the coffee.”
“Mad?” he asks. Things like that just don’t happen.
“Yeah,” Rak says. “I think she’s sucking up since she’s late with the monthly paperwork. Again.” He gets up and holds out the box and Sean takes one. Pink, with sprinkles. “You get any sleep last night?”
“Well I fell asleep after the Maji-Pant infomercial, but the Learn-to-speak-Finnish lady woke me up.”
“So not really.”
He shrugs. Bites into the doughnut but doesn’t really taste it.
Rak settles back down in one of the molded plastic chairs that rings the white-topped table. He stretches out long legs. “You hear Art got a visit from the RCMP this morning?”
Sean looks over the rim of his mug.
“Seems somebody made a complaint about Annex people tampering with SysCorp property.”
“He’s not property,” Sean says, angry, and surprised by how fast it comes up.
“You guys left the rope on the mech,” Rak says.
Oh.
“Well, we chased off the fucking shinigami,” he grumbles.
“Hey man, I know it. Some of the papers know it too. You check the Sun website this morning? You’re internet famous. Spider-man.”
He rolls his eyes. “Jesus,” he mutters. “That’s all I need.”
“Well, it's pretty grainy. You can't really tell it's you. And it could have been worse. It could have been Mad they got pictures of.”
Both of them are silent for a bit. Mad’s in hiding, and Sean’s not exactly sure why, but he just dealt with someone he loves needing to be sedated, and he doesn’t need Mad going down too. “Anyway,” Rak says, “Art’s got her lawyers on it. You know the drill.”
Keep your mouth shut, keep your head down, order in for a couple days, anybody corners you, you tell them you’re not authorized to speak to the press. Should be easy enough, since he’s going to be shut up in this apartment with Alex anyway.
“Yeah, I got it.”
“Art’s going to want to talk with you about it.”
He sighs. “She in yet?”
Rak checks his phone. “Should be.”
Sean fills his cup again and goes off in the direction of the elevators, rides on up to Art’s. It’s officially an office, but he knows she sleeps there more often than not. There’s a couch that he’s pretty sure does more duty as a bed, and a set of weights in the corner by the long bank of windows that looks out over the city and down to the water. He’s not surprised to find her there, sweating in the exo-suit as she lifts. She turns when he comes into the place, puts down the weights she’s been swinging and reaches for the towel.
“You look like hell,” she says.
He frowns. “So I’ve been told.”
She wipes her face and takes a long drink of water. “What brings you up here this morning?”
“Rak told me the RCMP think we were tampering with SysCorp equipment.”
She smiles at him. “Yep. There's a photo of you on a mech on the front page of the Sun today. Obviously fake, but people love stories. Anyway, I’ve asked Lana to formulate an official response and the communications team is working on a press release. In the mean time, I am assisting the RCMP in all their inquiries.” He grins and hides it by taking a sip of his coffee. He’s tired, but he can still appreciate how fancy Art’s footwork is. If the place is bugged, or if somebody’s listening in, they’re going to hear a very civil conversation.
“Anything I can do to help?” he asks.
“Yes, actually.” She gestures to him and he sits on the couch. “That survivor you found at the shinigami site the other day?”
“Yeah?”
“You know him, is that right?”
This is definitely being recorded. “Yes,” he says instead of just nodding, because he figures it’s audio, and if Art is asking him these things he needs to be clear about his answers.
“I ask because SysCorp has asserted that the Annex stole an android from the cockpit of the mech.”
He didn’t think he had anything left in him, but it turns out you’re never too tired to be angry. “Alex is not a fucking android,” he says through his teeth. “I know him. We grew up together.”
“And you d
on’t think his behaviours could be simulations?”
“Jesus Christ, no,” he snaps. “He’s not…” he stops. He knows from the media training he took that you never say more than you absolutely have to. But he knows there are not supposed to be live humans in the mechs, and he wants to ask if this is a legal thing, if Cameron has to say they lost an android because the truth will ruin them. He hopes so. “No I damn well don't. You should talk to Simone. You’d think she’d be able to tell if someone was a human or an android.”
“I will be talking to her next,” Art says.
“Can I go?”
“Of course,” she says. He gets to his feet, hesitates. Being on the radar means being available to the organs of the state and he doesn’t like it. He doesn’t really know how it works. His only experience of Canadian law enforcement is the VPD at the house on Hastings and he’d like to keep it that way.
“You think the RCMP are going to want to talk to me? Or him?”
She smiles at him. “Don’t let it worry you,” she answers. He nods at her.
On the way back, he pours another cup of coffee, this one for Alex, and scoops him a doughnut too. Alex used to like the plain ones, the crullers, but who knows now. He hesitates when he gets to the door. Because Alex is behind it. Or something that lives in a body that might have once been Alex’s is behind it.
It’s hard and it hurts when he lets himself acknowledge that Alex might never come back, that maybe things are never going to get better, that maybe this is as good as it gets. But Alex once bathed his bloodied mouth and bandaged up his cut-up hands. He woke him from the clutches of nightmares and hid him from violent punters, and always shared what little he had. He ran interference when Cameron was raging. Maybe even loved him once. So there’s no question, really, about what Sean’s got to do.
He’s just putting together the will to reach for the door handle when his phone buzzes. Sean pulls it out of his pocket and looks down at the screen.