A Different Flesh (39 page)

That evening, Dixon sat up on the guest-room bed he shared with Melody. “Poor miserable bastard,” he said as he peeled off the rubber he was wearing. “I wonder if I should have offered him one of these.”

“That never occurred to me.” Melody sat up too—languor afterward was not her style. She looked interested. “Do you think he could have used one?”

Dixon had been half joking, or more than half. Now he gave it some serious thought, and regretfully shook his head. “I doubt it. I massacred a fair number of them learning how, and I suspect he wouldn't care if he tore one putting it on. Sims aren't careful over details like that.”

“No, they aren't,” Melody admitted, adding, “A lot of people aren't, either.”

“I suppose not,” Dixon said. “But if a man didn't like a rubber, he probably wouldn't take it off halfway through and go on without it. I'm afraid Matt might. That's the other reason I didn't think I ought to try to give him one.”

“I'll tell you why
I
like rubbers.” Melody waited for Dixon to let out a questioning grunt. Then she said, “Because with them,
you
have to go clean up.”

“Harumph.” In almost high dudgeon, he did just that.

When he came back to the bed, Melody was wearing a nightshirt and a serious expression. “Ken, why did you get into the sim justice movement in the first place?”

“What brought that on?” he asked, blinking, as he sat down beside her.

“Oh, I don't know.” Rather to his relief, she did not meet his eyes. But she did go on even so: “I suppose it's just that you seem to keep emphasizing the ways sims are different from people, and less than people, not the ways we're all the same.”

“Melody, they
are
different from us,” he said, as gently as he could. Her mouth went wide and thin, a sure danger sign. All the same, he continued, “No matter how much you want justice for sims, that doesn't mean you'll ever see one elected censor, or even see one learn to read. I've known people—not you,” he added hastily, “who sometimes seem to forget that.”

“I don't think you answered me. Everything you said sounds as though it ought to put you on the other side.” Now she did look at him, in the same way she might have at a roach on her salad plate.

“Oh, for heaven's sake,” he said in some exasperation. “Doesn't my being here count for anything? Look, as far as I can see, we have a responsibility to sims, just because they aren't as smart as we are and can't stand against us without people on their side. That's always been true, I suppose, but it's especially true now that we have machines to drudge for us instead of sims. We don't need to exploit them anymore, and we shouldn't. All right? Do I pass? Can we go to sleep?”

She seemed taken aback at his vehemence, and needed a moment to collect herself and nod. “All right,” she said, and turned out the light.

“Good.” He lay down beside her. His outburst had startled him a little, too. He thought about what he'd said. He believed all of it. That was not the problem.

The problem, he eventually realized, was that he hadn't given Melody all his reasons. One of them was the hope of being just where he was now, in bed with her.

Would he have worked for sims' justice without that hope? He looked inside himself and decided he would. That appeased his conscience and let him slide toward sleep. More time on the road was coming tomorrow.

Doris dumped the morning's pile of mail on Dr. Howard's desk, then went back to her own station outside his office. Howard went quickly through the stack, dividing it into things he had to deal with now, things that could wait, and things that could go straight into the trash. The waste-basket gave a resounding metallic
clunk
as he got rid of the latter stack.

An insta-picture of a sim fell out of an envelope as Howard opened it. Swearing, the doctor pulled out the sheet that accompanied the photo. The lead line shouted,
MATT IS STILL FREE
!

Howard jabbed the intercom button with his thumb. When Doris came on, he growled, “Fetch me Coleman. We've got another one.”

“Yes, Dr. Howard.”

While he waited for the security chief to get there, he read through the sheet. It was much like the others that had come to the DRC—and the copies that had gone to television outlets and papers all across the Federated Commonwealths. Whoever had Matt knew how to keep reminding the country about it.

Even some of the phrases were ones he had seen before: “no longer a victim of experimentation,” “freed from the shadow of certain death in the laboratory.” Howard's mouth quirked sourly. That last was an out-and-out lie. He knew it, and he expected that the people who had stolen Matt knew it too. He hoped they did.

The intercom buzzed. Coleman came in without waiting for Doris to go through the formalities; he and Howard had been seeing a lot of each other lately. Coleman was in his fifties, with red hair going white at the temples. His movements were quick and jerky, as if he had abundant energy seeking some kind, any kind, of outlet.

He fairly snatched the picture and sheet out of Howard's hand, then made a grab for the envelope still sitting on the doctor's desk. “Posted in Philadelphia,” he noted, adding a moment later, “Different printer from the one for the text. Probably came to somebody who sent it on to us. Makes it hard to trace.”

“‘Impossible' would seem a better word,” Howard said.

If he hoped to get a rise out of the security officer, he was disappointed. All Coleman did was nod. “Nothing we can do with it,” he said gloomily. “I'll pass it on to the Terminus greencoats, but no reason to think they'll find anymore on it than on any of the others.”

“Meanwhile, of course, all the commentators and reporters in the country go right on giving it to us,” Howard growled.

“Nothing I can do about that,” Coleman said. “Long as these folks care to, they'll feed the newsies whatever they want.”

“Oh, get the hell out of here,” the doctor shouted at him. Unruffled, Coleman took the photo, the sheet of paper, and the envelope and left. The door closed softly behind him.

Howard stared down at his hands, ashamed of his angry outburst. Matt had been gone more than a month now, and no one was having any luck tracking him down. No one even knew what commonwealth he was in. The FCA was just too big, had too many people—and sims—to make finding ones who did not want to be found easy.

The doctor was also aware that Coleman had not been quite right. Howard knew to the hundredth of a cubic inch how much HIVI the thieves had stolen. He knew almost to the day how long that HIVI would hold off the AIDS virus in Matt.

He also knew what would happen when the HIVI was gone. For Matt's sake, he hoped the people who had him did too.

The coughing from the next room went on and on and on. Ken Dixon looked at Melody, who was looking at the closed door. Worry had drawn her mouth down, put two deep lines between her eyes and other, fainter ones on her forehead. She looked, he thought, the way she would when she was forty. It was not the kind of thought he usually had. That endless cough, though, left him with mortality on his mind.

“The antibiotic isn't helping much,” he said reluctantly. In fact, it wasn't helping at all. He and Melody both knew that, although she had not yet admitted it out loud.

He thought she would not answer him this time, either. But she did, saying, “No,” in a low voice.

“It's probably not a bacterial pneumonia, then,” he said. “It's the one caused by protozoans.”

“Yes,” Melody said, as low as before.

“Which means Matt's immune system is going south again, or he never would have come down with it,” Dixon said. He wished Melody would make things easier by helping with the chain of logic, but after her two one-word comments she went back to moodily staring at the bedroom door. He would have to say it himself, then: “Which means the AIDS virus is loose in him again.”

“Yes,” Melody said—whispered, really. As quietly as she had spoken, she began to cry; Dixon did not realize it until he saw tear tracks glistening on her cheeks. “Oh, Ken,” she said, and then sobbed out loud for the first time, “we tried—so—hard!”

“I know. Oh, how I know.” His voice was heavy. He would have lightened it, but could not. He was tasting defeat now, for the first time in his life. The young think things come easily, as if by right, that the world shapes itself to the bidding of their will. One by one, generation by generation, they learn how small a part of truth that is, how the world shapes them far more than they it.

When Melody said, “What are we going to do?” he knew what he had to answer. Knowing hurt worse than staying blind would have.

He said, “We're going to give Matt back to the DRC.”

“What?” She stared at him.

“That's the only place he can get more HIVI, and without it he won't go on too long. If this round of pneumonia doesn't finish him, the next one will, or some other infection he won't be able to fight off and we can't treat. Come on, Melody, is it so or not?”

“Yes,” she said grimly. AIDS was not a quick or easy way to go; too many thousands of deaths had left everyone knowing that. “But they'll only go on using him as a lab rat—”

“A live one,” Dixon broke in, “at least for a while, and with the HIVI he feels all right, for as long as it stays effective.”

“However long that is.” Melody was still fighting the idea.

“Longer than he has with us.”

She flinched. “The cause—”

“If you think that cause is worth more than what happens to one sim in particular, how are you any different from Dr. Howard?”

“That's a low blow, Ken.” But she did not give him any direct reply. For some time, she did not give him any reply at all. She finally said, “Let's see what Matt has to say about it. If he wants to go back—oh, shit.” It was not much of a concession, but Dixon knew it was as much as he would get.

They went to the closed door. Melody, usually impetuous, stayed behind Dixon, as if to say this was not her plan. He opened the door. They both frowned at the stale sickroom smell that met them.

Matt lay on his back on the bed. He lifted his head a couple of inches when they came in, then let it fall back to the pillow, as though the effort of holding it up was too much for him. For the moment, though, he was breathing well.

He had lost weight, but had no appetite; a bowl of soup, almost full, stood untouched on the nightstand. His eyes were the only live things in his thin face. He looked, Dixon thought, like a camp survivor from the Russo-Prussian War. Dixon knew the comparison was a cliché. Nonetheless, it fit all too well.

Once inside the bedroom, Melody took the lead; Dixon's idea might have been her own, once she was with Matt. “You've stopped coughing,” she said quietly. “Are you feeling any better?”

Tired
, the sim signed.
So tired
. His arms flopped down on the mattress as soon as he was done using his hands. Then one of them came up again.
Medicine
? he asked.
Medicine that helps
?

“I'm sorry, Matt. We have none, and don't know where to get any,” Melody said. Dixon winced at Matt's shrug of resignation. Melody went on, “They do have that kind of medicine at the towers, Matt, if you want to go back.” Somehow she held her voice steady.

Back home
? Matt signed, which only made Dixon feel worse—he had not thought he could. The sim's somber features brightened.
Medicine back home
? He tried to sit up and eventually succeeded, though it set off another spasm of coughing, this one fortunately brief.
Females too, yes
? he signed with a sidelong look at Dixon and Melody.
Tired of hand
.

That set Melody laughing so hard she had trouble stopping. Finally, at Dixon's quizzical look, she explained, “I read in my great-great-grandfather's diary that the only reason he ever came home from a trapping run was that he got bored with his hand.”

“Oh.” Dixon laughed too, a little, before turning serious again. “Matt seems to have made his choice.” That brought Melody up short; after a moment, she gave a reluctant nod. He went on, “Now we have to figure out how to give him back without giving ourselves away to the greencoats.…”

The intercom buzzed. “Yes, Doris?” Dr. Howard said.

“Call for you, sir,” his secretary said. “Won't give a name, won't speak to anyone but you. He says it's about Matt.”

“Put him on,” Howard said wearily. He'd had enough lunatic calls since Matt was taken to last him a lifetime, but there was always the off chance.… He picked up the phone. “Yes? This is Dr. Peter Howard. Go ahead.”

The man on the other end of the line sounded young and nervous, but what he said made Howard sit straighter in his chair: “If I were a fake, would I have any way of knowing that the last three pamphlets you got were red, green, and gray, in that order?”

“No,” the doctor said, excitement rising in him. “I don't believe you would. This is about Matt, you say? Where is he? Is he well? Is he alive?” The stolen HIVI should have been used up some time ago. After it was gone, anything might have happened.

“No, he's not very well, but he is alive,” the caller said. “As a matter of fact, he's sitting on a bench on the corner of Peachtree and Sherman, waiting for somebody to come pick him up. We're giving him back to you.”

If that was true—! Relief left Howard limp. “Thank you,” he whispered.

“You're anything but welcome,” the young man said bitterly. “You made him sick, but you're the only one who can slow down the AIDS in him now, so we don't have any choice but to give him back. I wish we did.”

“People will be better because of what we've done to him,” Howard said.

“Will Matt? He didn't get a choice.”