Halfskin (3 page)

3

Nix just finished draining the dishwasher when the doorbell rang.

He stopped to turn the television off where cartoons blared loud enough that his sister would hear them in the basement. He was going to take her something to eat, considered mashing up a sleeping pill in some cottage cheese. She swore she was taking naps but her face was caving in. He'd laced her food once before, when she pulled a week's worth of all-nighters to finish the coding on a new batch of biomites in time for a presentation at a global convention.

He dried his hands, slung the towel over his shoulder. There was a car in the driveway, a black four-door sedan and an unassuming man in the driver's seat. No sunglasses, no badge. Just an ordinary guy sitting like a waxy replication of a normal everyday somebody.

BING.

Nix slowed. He thought-commanded a self-analysis of the biomite population in his body.

39.8%.

He was composed of less than 40% biomites; that meant over 60% of his body was good, old-fashioned organic cells. That meant he wasn’t redline. That meant it couldn't be them. But biomite patrol didn't make house calls to see how you were doing. They showed up for one reason.

There's some mistake.

He gripped the door handle.

They'll understand. Gear sometimes needs calibrated.

The door opened.

The man standing there, unlike his partner in the driver’s seat, was wearing sunglasses, the reflective kind.

They stood there, facing each other. There were no words. No greeting or informal nods. Just a silent recognition. They'd never seen each other, but they knew what the other was about.

"I'm not redline," Nix stated.

The agent didn't flinch. He unclipped a cell phone-sized gearbox from his belt. He held it up like a badge and waited. Nix took a half a step forward. The agent lowered the box, pressed against Nix’s flesh, between the breastbone and bobbing Adam's apple.

Nix felt the thing whir, hotly. Its effect scattered over his skin like electric spider webs, wrapping over his shoulders and across his back, penetrating his body like feeder roots to estimate the biomite population. The agent pulled the gearbox away, leaving Nix feeling weak. He looked at it, turned it so Nix could see the number.

"It's wrong."

"We'll confirm at the office."

"It'll say the same thing, and it's wrong."

"You need to come with us."

Nix took a step back. He considered running. The agent shook his head one time. There would be no running. Any attempt to resist would be met swiftly. M0ther was in Wyoming and Nix in southern Illinois, but she could see him like he was standing right next to her. She knew what his biomites were doing, what he was thinking. If he ran, if he disobeyed a biomite agent, M0ther would flip a switch. He'd hit the floor.

Obey. Or else.

It's the law.

"It is my duty to bring you into a Detainment and Observation Center to be fully analyzed. You are not under arrest, simply detained for further observation. If our readings are wrong, you will be brought back to your home and compensated for your time. Do you understand these rights?"

Nod.

He brandished a stiff metal ring, the color of a cold weapon. "For your safety and ours, I'm going to place this suppression ring around—"

A door cracked inside the house.

"NO!" Cali bound across the room, wrapped her arms around Nix. "He's not redline, you can't take him."

"Ma'am, this will be your only warning. Do not interfere."

A car door shut. The driver approached the house.

"Look, look." Cali fumbled her own reader, slimmer and colder, against Nix's neck, shoved the reading in the agent's face. "38.8%. He's under, we still have time."

"He'll be verified at the satellite office. If there is a mistake, he will be back before dinner."

The driver stopped behind the first agent.

"No," she whispered.

"Ma'am."

Her hand clamped on Nix’s arm.

There was a long moment of staring. Nix could sense all the thoughts floating around them like transparent bubbles. He couldn’t hear them, but he sensed them. Thoughts of escape. Thoughts of apprehension.

Violence.

Nix reached up, gently squeezed her hand. It would be bad enough to be taken away. He wouldn't be able to handle watching his sister punished for it. She was still shaking her head, mouthing the same word, over and over.

The agent reached up, lowered the suppression ring over Nix’s head to rest around his neck. It was cold against his skin, warming quickly.

Heaviness fell on him as the biomites in his body slowed down, diminishing their activity. They were not deactivated, just reduced to keep him alive, to keep him subdued for his safety and others. Thoughts became dull, memories began to pale.

But worst of all...
Cali is alone
.

Nix was guided to the car. A few of the neighbors watched. One leaning on a rake, relief on his face that it wasn’t one of his kids.

Cali wasn't in the doorway when Nix sat in the back seat of the new-smelling sedan. The front door was closed. She was already in the basement.

The suppression ring wasn’t fully powered. There was still time to say goodbye.

Nix laid his head back and closed his eyes. The car rocked as it backed over the curb. Traffic sounds faded. He no longer heard the cars passing or felt the pavement grind under the tires. The world around him disappeared. Nix went to his safe haven, went to a place he discovered many years ago, a place that protected him from the world. Where he wasn’t different.

He went to a lagoon deep inside his mind.

4

The lagoon was deep and clear with striped mussels and bright starfish on the sandy bottom. Sometimes sharks would find their way through a small channel that funneled water from the ocean. They would skim near the beach, their dorsal fins cutting the surface. They'd come so close that Nix could run his hand over their slick skin.

A fire smoldered from inside a pile of sticks, a thick column of smoke withering in the still air. There was no scent, no sting in his eyes. He smelled very little in this dreamland, good or bad.

The smoke obscured the view across the lagoon where, above the palms on the far shore, blue cliffs rose up. Halfway up was an opening that spewed water like a giant faucet, its roar heard a mile away. The water poured forth and sprayed misty droplets, leaving an ever-present rainbow stretching into the palms.

[Away.]

The smoke twisted away like a vacuum simply pulled it in the other direction. The waterfall hadn't changed much over the ten years he'd been coming to the lagoon. In fact, it was exactly like the day he first saw it. He was only eight. In fact, it was the day after he showed his best friends, Alex and Parker, the biomites in his finger. Even though he was just a kid, he knew the dreamland wasn’t normal.

But, then again, Nix was anything but normal.

He knew his body was in the back of a biomite agent’s car. Time between the dreamland and fleshland wasn’t synced. Dreamland time went so much slower. Still, the ring would suppress the biomites that powered dreamland.

Maybe, he’d never visit again.

He looked around for Raine. The fire was there, she must be getting ready for something. Nix pulled a stick hard against his shin, heard it crackle until the dry fibers gave way and split open. The pain on his shin was dull and slight.

He dropped the branch on the smoldering fire. Sparks spit out from the bottom. He gathered the bark that flaked off and piled it onto the embers, waving and blowing it back into flames. Smoke billowed up. He squatted, rubbing his hands, as if he could feel the heat. Perhaps he could, but it was tepid. Like day-old dishwater.

The foliage rustled behind him. Something dragged through the weeds and then across the sand.

"Is the fire ready?"

Nix smiled.

"Such a slacker." Raine pulled a cord with a wild boar tied to the end, the tusks curled out of its mouth. Raine’s skin was brown. Her black hair, cropped and choppy. Her eyes green, like the green of verdant forests when the sun rises.

She was about Nix’s age, he guessed; eighteen years old or so. Her body was taut with muscle, roiling around the bikini top. She showed up at the lagoon about five years ago. Before that, he would explore on his own, but now they did everything together.

She slid a knife from a holster tied on her leg and cut the hog loose. Nix piled more sticks on the pathetic fire and watched her dress dinner. Grit and sweat smudged the perfect skin on her shoulders. She wiped the back of her neck with the knife wedged between her fingers.

He swore he could smell her, that her fragrance—that essence that was Raine—permeated everything inside him. He knelt behind her, kneaded the cords of muscle that flexed over her shoulder blades. She agreed with a guttural
mmmm
.

"You know, I'd rather have a fire than a massage."

Nix pushed his thumbs into her back and worked the knots loose. He kissed her neck, a distant taste of salt.

"Stop, now. I want to catch some waves and that fire looks like an ape built it." She clapped. "Chop-chop!"

She finished dressing dinner while he set up the spit. Reluctantly, he shaved more bark and gathered kindling. A fire was roaring before she was ready. He watched her wash tubers in the clear water of the lagoon and slice them into the beast's splayed belly.

They rested against a fallen palm trunk while dinner slow-roasted. If it all ended, he wouldn’t be disappointed. This was a good way to say goodbye. She nestled into the crook of his arm and lightly snored. He never got tired of that sound: the sound of her sleeping against him. The way her lips fluttered. The way her fingers twitched as dreams came.

Did she dream? Did she snore when he wasn't there to hear it?

Nix always thought that question exposed the self-centered nature of humanity. If a tree fell with no one around to hear it, did it exist? The snoring question was different, though. The lagoon was his dream and Raine was part of it. Sometimes, he wasn’t so sure, but perhaps that was wishful thinking. The only thing that existed at the lagoon was what he wished to exist.

The sun was close to setting when Raine pulled the meat from the roasted carcass. He wondered where the car was in fleshland—how close it was to the satellite office—as Raine dished the meal onto primitive coconut bowls and piled cooked tubers onto it. They ate with their fingers. The food didn't do much for Nix's appetite. He didn't have one. And he hardly tasted it. Raine moaned with each bite. Grease glistened on her lips. She licked her fingers. Her joy pulsed through him.

"You crying?"

Nix wiped the corner of his eye. No, he wasn’t crying, but she caught him wishing this moment would never end. This might be the last time he watched her eat like an animal, listened to her snore, watched her swim…

So, no, he wasn’t crying. "The fire... smoke... making my eyes itch."

They left the fire burning, left the meat for scavengers if they got to it in time. Raine grabbed a well-worn surfboard that she carved from the trunk of an ancient tree years ago. “Come on,” she said, shoving his on the ground. “Let’s catch a wave.”

He lay there, in the sand. The sun was low. Her skin, darker.

“Something wrong?”

He shook his head, smiling. “Go on. I’ll catch up.”

She hesitated, sensing the secret inside him. Or did she already know it, preferring to enjoy their last moments instead of soaking in them. He watched her push into the glassy surface, plowing the water with sun-kissed arms, powerful strokes driving her towards the narrow channel that led to the ocean where she’d catch perfect waves.

Always perfect waves.

The water shimmered. Turned white.

Then black.

Nix stared at the black sedan’s roof. The biomite agent stood next to the car with the door open. He helped him out, led him toward a small brick building where they’d test his biomite population again. Where they’d officially call him a redline.

Where they’d power up the suppression ring.

Where he could say goodbye to dreamland.

M0THER

Public Introduction of Biomite Cell Regeneration

Jennifer Adams wore a pair of khaki slacks and a white blouse. A small metal American flag was pinned above her left breast. She wasn't sure what to wear to a press conference, one where she'd meet her half-dead husband. This seemed appropriate.

Her daughter rode on her hip, resting her head. The pacifier squeaked, compulsively. Jonathan held her left hand. He wanted to wear his Cub Scout uniform. He tugged at the yellow kerchief snug against his neck. It seemed appropriate.