Tears in Rain (22 page)

The cafeteria’s screen continued to show disturbing images. Now some people appeared in ash-colored tunics, their faces painted gray, holding a sign that read: “3/2/2109. The end of the world is coming. Are you ready?” It was some of those crazy Apocalyptics. Recently, they had become very active because
their prophet, a blind physiotherapist called the New Cassandra, had predicted on her deathbed fifty years earlier that the end of the world would take place on February 3, 2109—in other words, in less than two weeks. Bruna frowned. Judging by the images, the Apocalyptics were giving their fiery speeches right in front of the RRM headquarters.

“Excuse me for a minute,” she said to Nopal.

She swiped her mobile across the electronic eye on the table, paid twenty cents, took one of the tiny earpieces out of the dispenser and put it in her ear. She could hear the chanting of the Apocalyptics and, over the top of it, the voice of a reporter who was saying: “impression of this tragedy which has shaken the Radical Replicant Movement again. This is Carlos Dupont from Madrid.” And then a block of advertisements started playing. Bruna took out the earpiece, discouraged and somewhat concerned. Were they still talking about Chi’s death, or was it something else? She’d check the news on her mobile as soon as she left the writer.

“Why is he following you?” asked the memorist.

“Who?”

“That guy.”

Bruna turned in the direction Nopal’s finger was pointing. Her stomach churned. Paul Lizard was sitting at one of the tables at the back. Their eyes met and the inspector gave a small nod of his head in greeting. The rep sat upright in her chair. Her cheeks were burning. She thought she could still feel the guy’s eyes on the nape of her neck.

“What makes you think he’s following me?” she asked, trying in vain to keep her voice sounding normal.

“I know him. Lizard. A wretched, persistent bloodhound. He was giving me grief when...when I had my problems.”

“Well then,
you
could be his target.”

“He came into the pavilion behind you.”

Bruna blushed slightly. How could she not have realized that she was being shadowed? She was losing her faculties. Or maybe the encounter with the dying Valo had upset her too much. A black rock weighed on her chest. A profound premonition of misfortune. The rep stood up.

“Thanks for everything, Nopal. I’ll keep you informed.”

She walked decisively toward the exit and as she went past the inspector’s table, she bent down and whispered in his ear, “I’m going to the RRM headquarters. In case you lose me.”

“Many thanks, Bruna,” the big man replied.

And he smiled, granite-faced.

N
opal watched Bruna as she walked off. He saw her stop briefly next to Lizard, whisper something in his ear and then continue toward the exit with a light, confident step. She was a beautiful creature, a rapid, perfect machine. Thirty seconds later, the inspector got up and walked out after her, tall and sturdy, with the swaying gait of a sailor on land.
His body is the exact opposite of Bruna’s razor-sharp one
, thought Nopal.

A gentle drumming above his head made him realize that it had started to rain. The drops were falling on the transparent dome and then tracing swift-running trickles of water across the cover. A pale ray of sunlight filtered through a gap in the clouds, and the sky was a tangle of mist in every conceivable shade of gray. It was a perfect sky to accompany sad feelings.

Sadness is a genuine luxury
, the memorist thought to himself. He hadn’t allowed himself that calm and unhurried emotion for many years. When you experience pain so acute that you’re afraid you won’t be able to bear it, there is no sadness but rather despair, madness, rage. He sensed something akin to that despair in Bruna, something of that pure sorrow that burned like acid. Of course, he had a clear advantage when it came to sensing her feelings. He knew her. Or rather, he recognized her.

In his time as a memorist Nopal had always behaved in the manner he’d described to the rep at the Museum of Modern Art.
He’d always tried to construct solid, balanced lives with a certain sense of purpose. Lives that were comforting in some way. Only once had he transgressed that unwritten personal rule—and that was with the last job he did, when he already knew they were going to expel him from the profession. And Bruna was carrying that memory. The Law of Artificial Memory of 2101 strictly prohibited writers from knowing which specific technohumans would end up with their implants, and vice versa; it was assumed that such knowledge might generate various abuses and problems. But his work on Bruna’s memory had been exceptional in every meaning of the word; it was a much more comprehensive, deeper, freer, more passionate, and more creative memory. It was the masterpiece of Nopal’s life, because
it was precisely his own life
. In a literally re-created version, naturally. But the basic emotions, the essential events, they were all there. And since you are what you remember, Bruna was in a way his other self.

From the very moment he handed over the implant, Pablo Nopal tried to discover which technohuman was carrying it. All he knew was that it was a female combat model, and her age to within six months. He would have preferred the techno to have been a male, and a computation or exploration model, as these allowed for greater creativity and refinement, but the specifications were set by the gestation plant, and Nopal concurred. Anyway, he had been extremely free in creating her; he had ignored all the rules of his profession. Poor Husky: by being his final opus, she had received the poisoned gift of his grief.

During the six years Nopal had been searching for her, he had investigated scores of technohumans. The only way to discover the recipient of his memory was to talk to them and try to deduce it from their comments, with the result that he had become a combat rep stalker. He discovered that some reps had a morbid fascination for memorists, and he ended up taking a liking to those quick and athletic reps with their perfect bodies. He slept with several of them, but he only became truly intimate
with one—Myriam Chi, who was not, in fact, a combat rep but an exploration model whom he met while he was hanging out with an RRM militant. So his relationship with Chi was free of any utilitarian considerations. She was a very special woman. Her memorist, whoever he might be, had created a real work of art. They ended up being friends and he spoke to her of his search. She made him promise that he would say nothing to the android when he found her, but she agreed to help him. Thanks to Chi, he had managed to draw up a list of the reps he still had to probe. There were twenty-seven, and Husky was among them. When the detective had spoken to him about Chi in the museum, Nopal had been unable to discern if Chi had sent Bruna to him in order to help him out or in order for him to help Bruna with her investigation. He had intended to give the RRM leader a call to ask her, but they had killed her before he could do so.

They
killed
her
, the man repeated to himself, feeling that the hurtful, sharp edge of the word was slicing his tongue.

Nopal’s father, too, had been killed by a criminal one night when the memorist was nine years old. That was one of the centers of pain he had implanted into the detective. But things had become even more difficult for the writer because, a few months later, his mother committed suicide. Then there was the year he spent in the orphanage and, just when he thought he’d reached the absolute depths of hell, his uncle appeared and adopted him—and that was when he learned there can always be something worse.

Nopal stirred in his seat, feeling too close to the abyss. Each time he thought about his childhood he remembered that child, Pablo, as if it weren’t him, but some poor child they’d spoken to him about sometime in the past. He knew that they had hit that boy and had kept him in the dark in a cellar for days at a time, and that the child was terrorized. But he had no memory of those experiences from within, of the interminable darkness of
the dirty cellar, of the dampness when he wet himself, of the pain of the burns. Inside Nopal’s head that child who wasn’t entirely him continued to be shut away and ill-treated. Just touching on that thought filled his eyes with tears at the pain and anguish that clutched at his throat like a hunting dog, preventing him from breathing normally. That was why Nopal tried not to think, not to remember.

The writer didn’t really know why he had toned down his experiences when he translated them into Bruna’s memory. Perhaps out of compassion for the rep who was going to become a life-size version of that young Pablo he carried inside him. Or maybe a professional obsession made him fear that if he included everything, the story would seem exaggerated and barely plausible. Or it could be that he had kept quiet about some of those things because authentic pain is indescribable. Even so, investing the rep with his own memories had helped Nopal to lighten the load of his own pain. Not only because he had, in a way, passed on some of his misfortunes to another, but also, more than anything, because that other existed, because there was someone who was like him. Because he was no longer alone.

The loneliness was worse than being locked up, worse than the sadism of the other children in the orphanage, worse than the beatings and injuries—worse, even, than the fear. Nopal had been left completely alone when he was nine years old, and the absolute loneliness was a terrifying and inhuman experience. After the murder of his father, the memorist had not been needed by, or important to, anyone. Nobody missed him. Nobody remembered him. Not even his mother had thought about him when she killed herself. It was the closest thing to not existing. But this replicant was, to a great extent, like him: she had a share of his memories, and she even possessed actual objects that came from Nopal’s childhood. Bruna was, in short, more than a daughter, more than a sister, more than a lover. There would never be anyone as close to him as that android.

That afternoon at the museum, when Bruna’s identity and the end of his search had finally been confirmed, he had come out in goose bumps. It had been a deeply touching moment, but fortunately he had been able to hide his feelings; he had spent his entire life learning to hide his emotions. Nopal had felt instantly attracted to the rep. She was beautiful, wild, and tough, and suffering and burning inside in the same way that he was. He found her fascinating from the first moment perhaps because he sensed the similarity, and when he finally confirmed that she was the one, he liked her even more. But he couldn’t give in to that narcissistic impulse, the memorist told himself. He couldn’t make love to the replicant. That would be an act against nature, something incestuous and sick. And the memorist, contrary to what many might think, considered himself to be a highly moral man, almost a puritan. It was just that his morals tended to be different from those of everyone else.

No, it was better to continue like this. He’d look after her from afar, as a benevolent god might look after his child. And for the few years of life she had left, he’d try to delight in her, in the relief from pain that Bruna’s existence provided him. The memorist sighed, enfolded in a delicate sorrow. The cafeteria was empty and all he could hear was the soft drumming of the rain. It was a perfect day to experience the melancholy of the impossible. He would never be able to tell Bruna who he was. He would never be able to hold her in his arms and love her as only he knew how. Oh, what a refined luxury sadness was!

B
runa had just left the Bear Pavilion when she answered a call from Habib.

“I’m on my way over to you now. Can we catch up?”

Habib’s well-proportioned face was distorted with distress.

“Don’t even think about coming here. It’s dangerous.”

“Dangerous?”

“Because of the demonstrators. The police have already arrived, but I’m still wary. It looks like reps are being attacked all over the city.”

“Attacked?”

Habib looked at her, astounded.

“Haven’t you heard anything?”

“Anything?” repeated Bruna, unable to prevent herself. She felt like a total idiot parroting everything the man was saying.