Veneer (10 page)

Finally, Deron said, “You don’t have to be.”

It was hard to talk when the edges of her lips were plunging involuntarily. “That doesn’t mean I’m not. He almost killed you.”

“But he didn’t.”

So it
was
Russo, she thought. “I never would have done it if I thought Russo... He’s a psycho, but how could anyone...”

“He has issues,” agreed Deron, “but that’s not your fault.”

“He should be in jail.”

“Probably.”

In the resulting silence, Rosalia felt her anger boiling over, but in Deron’s company, it had no choice but to fade away.

“Hey.” He put his hand on her shoulder, gave her a little squeeze. “Do you know what I’ve been thinking about for the last three weeks?”

She shook her head.

“It wasn’t Russo.” As he said that, his hand moved to her neck. “I thought of you, of what you must be feeling, if you thought this was your fault. I actually thought that for a minute, too.”

Rosalia scrunched her eyes together and turned away.

“But then I realized, there are two ways this makes sense. Either this wasn’t your fault and you shouldn’t feel bad.”

“Or?”

“Or it was indirectly your fault.” Before she could recoil in shame, he added, “In which case I forgive you. I know you. I know what you would do and why you would do it.”

She couldn’t think of anything to say, so she repeated, “I’m sorry.” When he put his arm around her, Rosalia knew he truly meant what he was saying. It was what she wanted, but the guilt remained. Deron loved her and would probably forgive anything; couldn’t he just once afford a little anger?

They sat together for a long time, not talking, just watching the pond together, the lifeless water that rippled with the occasional breeze. The smell of smoke was in the air, perhaps from a nearby restaurant. It reminded Rosalia of a bonfire and she thought of the beach, or at least, the beach sims she had run with Deron. It was the only way to go without having to deal with the garbage-ridden sand and toxic water.

That was life in Easton; everything enjoyable was just a simulation.

Eventually, the last piece of the veneer dropped into place and Rosalia felt herself speaking casually again. “Sebo misses you.”

This got a chuckle from Deron, though he followed it with a groan. “I know. He messaged me like a hundred times. He wants to go to Paramel tomorrow night, but I don’t know...”

“You should go,” said Rosalia. “You’ve been cooped up for too long. Did the doctor say you could play video games?”

“Not full contact, but sims should be okay. I’d rather spend time with you though.”

“Full contact?”

His teeth glinted in the moonlight. “So long as you’re on top.”

She nudged him with her elbow. “You pick the time and place and I’ll be there.”

“Here,” he declared. “Now.”

“In front of the turtles?”

He leaned in close and Rosalia felt his chin move across her cheek. He was nodding.

“Did they give you any drugs for the pain?”

“Yeah,” he replied, “but nothing really hurts anymore. My neck just feels like I slept on it wrong.” He rubbed at the base of his skull.

“It’s horrible what he did.”

“Don’t think about it. It’ll give you nightmares.”

She looked at him and raised an eyebrow.

“No, not me,” he assured her. “I don’t really remember much of it. I think he got me on the side of my head to start with, so everything was kinda fuzzy after that.”

Rosalia shuddered, tried not to imagine someone truly intent on hurting her. She buried her face in his shoulder and took a deep breath. “Feels like you’ve been gone forever.”

“Yeah, I don’t even know how I did on the English test.”

“You got a C.” She chuckled.

“What else have I missed?”

Of all the things, she thought. All the things that have come and gone since he was put out of commission. What news, what art, what music and shops have lived and died in that interim? She tried to think locally, to the immediate, to the things that both of them really needed. It wasn’t passionate sex on a bench at Gillock Pond, nor was it simply his arm draped over her shoulder. There had to be something in the middle, a happy place that could make the world melt away, shed its color, and become background for a moment of oblivious contentment.

Forgoing any warning, Rosalia pulled herself up and pressed her lips to his. He resisted at first, but softened as she put her hands on his neck. It felt like she expected—reality with the volume on mute. Everything had been reduced to the pressure on her lips, the heaviness in her cheeks as her eyes threatened to water again.

It was a long way from her lips to her fingertips, but there was a small subroutine running, keeping track of the skin that moved under her fingers. Deron’s neck was smooth—no five o’clock shadow like her dad. A large vein pulsed rapidly, increasing in tempo as she applied more pressure. She moved her hands up, cresting the edge of his jaw and flirting with the tips of his ears. It was there that she found the first stitch. She traced it up his head and behind his ear, a good three or four inches long.

She cursed the deceptive veneer.

Of course he wouldn’t show her the injuries he’d sustained. He would cover it up, and he had, very convincingly. But while he could trick her eyes, he couldn’t change what her fingers felt and as she continued to explore his face, she learned the true extent of his pain. The scars were everywhere: on his ears, forehead, and cheeks. She pulled back, looked into his eyes as she traced over his nose, felt the course texture of a second-skin bandage. He winced when she touched the bone around his eyes and that brief flash of pain was enough to splinter the dam and drown her in a deluge of guilt.

Without another word, Deron pulled her in close and held her tightly. Rosalia’s veneer put up a fight, obscuring the tears as best it could. But eventually they got too far away, broke free of her cheek, and landed on Deron’s shirt where residual reconciliation made them disappear again.

In her mind, Rosalia saw Deron’s face as her fingers had felt it.

“Oh, God,” she cried, unsure of how to finish such a prayer.

12 - Russo

The Drag on a Saturday night wasn’t one of Russo’s usual hangouts, but he had walked its lengths several times in the last few weeks. Blending in with the crowd was easy, especially when he could just copy their veneers on a whim, be anyone he wanted for that five block march through obscurity. The mission he had undertaken called for the utmost security, a constantly shifting veneer, a changing of color and texture so that his presence would go unnoticed. Walking amongst the very people he wished to subjugate was a necessary annoyance; they were, after all, giving him cover as he made his approach to the TNC Bank building.

They were old and young, rich and poor, yet all had the same stench of consumerism on them, coming to The Drag in the evenings to check out the recently erected booths, to see what junk the local artisan community was selling. There were necklaces, rings, and little pieces of stone—all useless, but all haggled over and bought up. Even Russo wasn’t immune to the conditioned desire to acquire junk. He passed a table full of multi-colored stones shaped like eggs that caught his attention. Most were vibrant and flashy, but one egg on the corner had an understated veneer of black obsidian with a streak of red running through it. The edges of its crimson lightning bolt sparkled with electricity.

Emerging on the other side of The Drag, Russo ducked along the scaffolding in front of the TNC Bank and slipped inside. They had an expansive atrium along the front of their building, extending six floors up. The first floor opened to elevators and stairs that led up one level to a food court. There, ample seating dotted the outer windows, giving patrons a clear view of the intersection and the buildings on its corners. One of them was a tram station, and the other had the green and white color scheme of Notacorp Investments. The last building, in plain view from where Russo sat down, was the Easton Police Department.

It looked different at night, with large spotlights along its steps that shone up into the dark sky, a beacon to uniforms and criminals alike. Saturdays seemed to be particularly busy; the flow of Easton’s oppressed citizens into the jail had already begun. It would continue until around four in the morning, but Russo had no intention of waiting that long again.

He had started observing the police department only a few days after his arrest and subsequent encounter with Agent Eric Tavarez, or as Russo called him, the Seer. His dreams had centered on the man’s piercing eyes, seeking an explanation for how a veneer could be undone. The more he thought about it, the more he wanted to understand the Seer, to know where he had learned to harness such an amazing power, and ultimately, to wield that power himself. At one point, he even entertained the idea of committing a misdemeanor so they would arrest him again, just to meet with Eric face to face. Unfortunately, there was no guarantee that he would even get a complete sentence out before they socked him in the gut with a baton.

The only way to learn about the agent was to bump into him outside of his daily job. But so far, Russo had not seen him enter or leave the building once. The possibility of Eric being a machine, some kind of advanced cyborg, began to take shape, as far-fetched as it was.

Russo spun the black egg on the glass table and waited for its energy to dissipate. The individual sparks flew away from it, creating a barrier that encircled the already protected contents. When it came to a stop, Russo picked up the egg and examined it closely. Somewhere beneath the fancy exterior was its original color. But how could he get at that color? Looking around at the chairs and tables and large banners hanging on the tall beams, he wondered what they all looked like on the zero level. Did they even have a true color?

A casual glance backwards revealed a lumbering Jalay coming up the steps to the food court. His veneer resembled a young entrepreneur that had dropped out of college to start his own business. There was black in his hair and on his shoes, making him the very picture of a man who belonged downtown. The only pieces that remained Jalay were his eyes; they were as devious and dim as ever. He stood at the edge of the cafeteria until he spotted Russo by the windows, at which point he moved nimbly through the maze of tables to join him.

“Look who took a shower,” said Russo, spinning the egg again.

“My dad made me go to church,” he explained. After an unimpressed look from Russo, he added, “There were some girls there. In dresses.”

“You must have pissed yourself.”

Jalay pulled his chair closer to the table and set his palette on it. As he waited for his sites to load, he asked, “What have
you
been doing all night?”

Russo motioned to the police department with his head. Two cops were struggling with a rowdy drunk who had managed to pull down his pants.

“You see him yet?”

Shaking his head, he replied, “I wonder if it has a room. Or a closet.”

“Closet?” Jalay tapped into his desktop, filling the palette with a browser, a notepad, and a little picture frame that shuffled through various genres of pornography.

Snatching up the egg, Russo said conspiratorially, “I think Eric might be a cyborg.”

“Where’d you get that?”

“Drag,” replied Russo. “This old lady wanted twenty bucks for it.”

“That’s a bit steep,” said Jalay, distracted. His portal was displaying three photo streams at once, images culled from an array of mixed-media blogs. When one of the pictures caught his interest, he dragged his finger upwards, reversed the stream, and enlarged the photo. A young Asian girl appeared, naked, sitting on the floor with her legs tucked under her. She was looking up, somewhere off camera. Jalay dragged the image to a folder on the left, saving it.

Russo looked away, outside again to a small group of uniforms coming out of the building. It was getting close to ten, which was start time for the third shift. He had learned a lot about the way the police force operated over the last three weeks, from when shifts began to what uniforms looked like before they hit the street. There was some kind of auto-reconciliation happening when police boots came into contact with the sidewalks. The group of uniforms making their way down the steps looked like they were off-duty, but their bluish gray clothes suddenly became black after that last step. Then the standard attire took over, making them appear more menacing to the public.

“You weren’t in school yesterday,” said Jalay. He dragged another Asian into his save folder.

“Fuck school,” Russo replied. “If I can learn to do what Eric does, I won’t need high school at all.”

Jalay chuckled. “Oh, I thought you skipped because of Deron.”

“The fuck does that mean?”

“He...” Jalay started, but then paused as Russo’s face turned serious. “They let him out of the hospital. People say he’s probably going to press charges.”

“The hell he is!” Russo turned away. “I should have ended him.”

“Sure, why not?” asked Jalay, bobbing his head sarcastically. “Let’s just murder anyone who gets in your way. Don’t be retarded.”

Russo’s fist shot out and caught Jalay on the shoulder. “I tell
you
what to do, not the other way around.”

“Whatever,” he replied, rubbing his arm.

Jalay had been acting strange for weeks. He was never around when Russo needed him and even though he had shown up in detention a few times, they couldn’t talk. Most likely, the principal had gotten to him, given him one of those signature lectures about hanging out with the wrong element.

The wrong element.

Russo thought about what that meant, tried to see himself as everyone else did: a bully, an asshole, and an attempted murderer.

“So he lived.”

“He lived,” parroted Jalay. “They say he was in a coma for the first week, but it’s not like he’s brain damaged.” A chuckle. “Well, no worse than before.”

“Why didn’t he tell the cops when he woke up?”

Jalay shrugged. “Who knows? He hasn’t even broken up with Rosalia yet.”