alt.human (12 page)

I don’t know how it happened, but suddenly it was just the watcher and me, as if everyone else had taken a step back.

I straightened. I remembered trying to stop Jemerie making a suicidal fool of himself earlier and now I wondered exactly how I might avoid that fate too.

“!¡
threat | menace
¡! We know you have associated with fugitives,” said the watcher.

I stared into its featureless face and it was as if it was reconfiguring itself all the time, nothing ever fixed. It was like watching water swirling, flowing, surging. I swallowed, struggling to overcome the phreaks that made me just want to fall to my knees and sob.

“!¡
persuasion | authority
¡! We know you have harboured Reed Trader. And we know he has smuggled people through transit, and for that he will be punished. We will find him. And when we do, we will punish all those who helped him.”

I had no idea who Reed Trader was, but I hoped the watchers would find him soon. He had never been here, I didn’t know him; they could have him, as far as I was concerned. If they found Reed Trader we would be in the clear.

I only felt a little guilty that it appeared the only reason they wanted Reed Trader was because we’d used his pids as cover at Precept Square.

“!¡
threat
¡! You will behave with subservience and praise us. You will control your people. You will stay in line. Do you understand? Because if it is that you do not, then we will punish
you
and your people will run out of ones foolish enough to be their leaders.”

I nodded. Swallowed. And then, as the watcher turned to leave, I looked around at my people.

My
people...

How exactly had this happened?

Chapter Ten

I
T’S NOT THAT
I had a problem with the idea of taking on a little more authority within the clan.

In principle it was fine.

In theory.

But just then wasn’t exactly the best of times. The watchers had taken all of our clan elders. They’d warned us that they would return, and they would be looking to punish more of us. And all around, our city was falling apart under an onslaught we didn’t understand.

Had my friends and sibs deferred to me because I was the best candidate, or simply because they didn’t want to be stuck with it themselves?

E
VEN AS PUPS,
my nest-sibs had deferred to me, just as they did that dawn on the roof terrace. I’d known a bit about the world, I’d understood how to make things happen and could make them happen for other people too. Back when we’d roamed the city, a gang of adolescent hoodlums out for shits and giggles and easy pickings, we had never had a leader. It didn’t work like that. We were blood.

But times when Jemerie had wanted to cruise the beer houses of Precept and Skids had wanted to bum around the phreak joints of Satinbower instead, I’d always been able to do the haggle thing: why one or the other when we could do both on Cunnet Street just off Precept? I’d stop them fighting, I’d break the tensions, I’d find solutions. Like I say, I knew a little about the world, I understood how to make things happen.

Others recognised this, too. Sol and the other clan-parents had learned to come to me when they were struggling to deal with issues with my sibs, like the time when Pi got pregnant and was fighting with Jemerie about it all, and when Jacandra and Carille had lost most of a summer trogging out on bootleg phreaks and snout.

And when Skids had started getting the night screams and scaring the sibs with stories of being snatched by the watchers...

That was when we’d started to lose him, and I’d played my part in that; oh, yes. I’d been the one who’d let him down. The one who betrayed him.

T
HE SCREAM WOKE
me. High-pitched and loaded with sheer terror.

The sib cell was in darkness, a low-ceilinged dormitory deep in the caves at Villa Mart Three. Eight of us slept there back then, all adolescent male sibs born within a couple of years of each other.

Skids was next to me and it was his scream that woke us that night. We had thin horsehair mattresses on the rock floor and he was sitting upright, blanket twisted around his chubby, naked body.

The scream went on and on, long enough for my eyes to adjust to the dark and for me to see him clutching his head in both hands.

I scrambled to my knees and went to him, held him like a nest-mother holding a wailing newborn, clicking soothing clicks, trying to still him. The scream subsided into coughing sobs, and I was momentarily angry at his slobbering all over my chest before I started to get scared.

This wasn’t just a bad dream. He was terrified.

I pulled at his blanket and it was wet.

“!¡
soothing | calming
¡! It’s okay, bub,” I crooned, wondering what exactly the fuck had invaded my best friend’s dreams.

He calmed down, slowly, the sobs becoming deep, gasping breaths and clicks, becoming wheezy breathing, becoming normal.

“!¡
gently pressing
¡! What’s up, Skids? What’s up?”

He stared at me, eyes so wide I could see the whites all the way round. Then he shook his head. I didn’t know if he was unable to speak or simply wouldn’t, but it was clear that I wasn’t going to get anywhere just then.

The next morning we went to Madder’s class on street protocols and for a time it was as if nothing had happened in the night. We learned about orphids and chantras and the differences in intonation and phrasing in their click and body language, subtleties that could make the difference between a normal day and getting shot cold by a grunt for giving the wrong response.

Skids had been quiet, not his usual self. When Madder mentioned the watchers, he snapped his finger and thumb for attention. Madder paused to let him speak.

“!¡
belligerent
¡! The watchers,” he said. “What do they want us for?”

Madder looked briefly thrown by his question, then said, “!¡
authority
¡! The watchers care about order. They don’t want us to be a problem to them. They want us to be subservient and respectful.”

“!¡
agitated
¡! No, no,” said Skids. “!¡
insistent | confrontational
¡! What do they
want
us for? Why do they take us? Why do they take us away like that?”

I
GOT HIM
out of that situation. I could see he was close to the edge, close to breaking down, like he had in the night.

“!¡
calming | soothing | supporting
¡!” I clicked to him, softly.

I glanced at Madder and she gave a slight nod, recognising that Skids was having some kind of crisis. Understanding that I was the best one to sort things out. She cut the class short and Jemerie, Pi and I steered Skids up on to the roof terrace.

“!¡
stern
¡! So what is it?” I asked. “What’s got to you?”

He barged past me, went to the edge of the terrace. For a moment I thought he was going to throw himself over the low surrounding wall, but he stopped and waved a hand instead. Gesturing to the north, towards the skystation, I realised.

“!¡
angry | frustrated
¡! Them,” he said. “!¡
confused
¡! Don’t you... Don’t you remember?”

I glanced at Pi and Jemerie. None of us understood what was happening to our nest-sib, but it was awful seeing him like this. I didn’t know what to say or do.

“Yesterday?” said Skids.

I shook my head. I still had no idea what he was talking about. “!¡
patient
¡! We went to Satinbower and Cheapside,” I said. We’d spent the morning there, a gang of us, all adolescent showing off and flirting. I remembered Jemerie roof-running over an orphid phreak plant in Cheapside, a stupid risk he’d taken to impress Pi, but she hadn’t even seen it. He could have been shot or jagwired and she was drinking bull spirits with Carille and Jacandra and totally oblivious. I remembered the dry midsummer heat and the dusty, shitty smell of the streets.

I didn’t remember anything out of the ordinary. Not then, at least.

“!¡
dismissive
¡! Sure we did,” he said. I’d never seen him so agitated. “But what did we do in the afternoon...?”

I shrugged, said, “Nothing much. What do we ever do?”

He clammed up after that. Just sat himself on the wall, legs dangling into space, looking north towards the skystation, while somewhere in the back of my mind I kept coming back to his question: what
had
we done that afternoon?

I
N THE EVENING,
after we’d eaten, I found Skids in the earth closet puking his guts out.

I thought at first that this might explain his sudden erratic behaviour: all the result of a fever. But no, even while I was there, he buried his hand in his mouth, pushing a finger down his throat to make himself throw up again.

All that came out was phlegmy spittle. Judging by this, and the stink from the closet, he’d already emptied himself quite thoroughly.

I put an arm around his shoulders and guided him back out.

I sat him in a small communal space and said I was going to get water.

Instead, I went to Jersy and Madder’s room, a level below. They were both there when I slapped the doorsheet and burst in. Jersy put a calming hand on my arm as I blurted out, “!¡
scared | concerned
¡! It’s Skids. I don’t know what’s up with him but his head’s all screwed up and I thought he was going to jump off the terrace this afternoon and now he’s making himself puke his guts out, and...”

I ran out of steam, tears of frustration rolling down my cheeks.

Jersy hugged me. I was only a kid, still, and I knew that what was happening to Skids was bigger than I should have to deal with on my own. I needed help.

Jersy and Madder went to Skids and managed to calm him, but that night he woke screaming again. As I jerked awake, I saw him fingering his throat, retching.

“!¡
calming | concern
¡! What is it, Skids?” I asked. “Why are you doing this?”

He stared at me with those big eyes, whites showing all the way around the irises again. “!¡
scared
¡! They’re in me, Dodge,” he said. “Help me get them out.”

S
KIDS CALMED DOWN
over the next few days, but was never the same again. He took to roaming alone rather than with the usual crowd of nest-sibs. He took to vanishing after lessons, or skipping them altogether, and turning up again in one of the nest villas well after curfew. He rarely even ate with us, if he ate at all: his adolescent chubbiness left him, and he became lean, gaunt even.

I saw him coming back a few times, sticking to the darkest parts of the street, always from the north. That was when I realised he had been visiting the skystation. And that was when I started to fear that we were losing him.

“!¡
concerned
¡! So what do we do about it?” Pi had asked, on the night we decided to save Skids for his own good. “He’s lost it. Gone totally screwy-in-the-head mad. Do we just let that happen?”

I looked around at the small group. Jemerie, Carille, Jacandra and Ruth were also there. All were looking at me, as if somehow I had the answers.

“!¡
uncertain
¡! I don’t know,” I said. “Jersy and Madder have been keeping an eye on him. Sol, too.”

“!¡
dismissive
¡! What they done for him? They hardly even seen him. He’s never here,” hissed Jemerie. “All they do is a piss in the stream. They done nothing. What’re we going to do, Dodge?”

“Maybe we should make him stay,” I said. “!¡
decisive
¡! Maybe we can knock some sense into him.”

And with those words I ensured that my closest sib would be driven away for good.

We sprang the trap at Villa Mart Three when he came back one night, long after curfew. We jumped him just as he came in and bundled him into a storeroom in the caves deep in the heart of the nest.

I’d thought it would be easy, but he had a remarkable amount of fight in him for one who was now so thin.

“!¡
authority
¡! Come on,” I hissed at him, as we finally barred the storeroom door shut and stood facing him. “We want to help you, Skids. We want to save you.”

He stood there twitching, eyes flitting about, a trapped animal.

“!¡
seething
¡! It’s all right for you. You don’t have them
in
you...”

“What?” I asked. “What do you mean?”

“!¡
frustrated
¡! The watchers! They were there, all over me, crawling, slithering...”

I had never seen a watcher close to, but I knew how they were made up of slug-like polyps, independent beings that came together to form one body. I imagined them flowing over me, smothering me...

“!¡
intense trauma
¡! They crawled
into
me. I could feel them sliding down my throat. Into me. Everywhere. Some of them came out, but not all.”

As he said this, he was clawing at his throat with hooked fingers, leaving red marks. I went to put a calming hand on his arm, but he flinched, jerked away, then backed off until he was against the wall. Slowly, he slid down until he was sitting with his knees hugged to his chest.

“They’re still in me. I have to get them out.”

We left him with food and water.

It had seemed a good idea at the time, but we hadn’t worked out what would come next, if locking Skids up in a storeroom until he got better didn’t work.

We kept him for that night and most of the next day, but when word of what we were doing somehow reached Sol, that was an end to it. She was furious, and she made sure we knew it. We were confined to the nest for twenty days, and I got an extra ten as ringleader.

By the time we were free, Skids had gone.

W
E SEARCHED, OF
course.

We went to all our usual haunts, but there was no sign of him. We spread our search farther afield, but no luck. At the end of the day, until long past curfew, I took to sitting on the roof terrace at Villa Mart Three, watching out for that shuffling figure in the shadows, but nothing.