A Solid Core of Alpha (36 page)

C.J. smiled and looked mildly surprised. “Yeah? You didn’t tell me that.”

Anderson furrowed his brow. “I’m not sure it’s true,” he confessed, squinting a little. He was going to try to explain that some mornings he got confused about the actual lap pool, instead of the small workout pool they’d had on the station, and the sense of space around his body made him flounder, lost in the echoes inside his head, but he left the edge of the sentence hanging too long, and C.J. burst into laughter.

It felt better to laugh with him for a moment, to forget that truth and reality were sometimes, at best, cold and distant cousins, than it would have to tell C.J. how far he really had to travel in order for them to walk side by side.

Anderson studied C.J. while he laughed—his head tilted back, his teeth gleaming whitely against his cocoa and milk colored skin. Anderson picked up his hand and studied the contrast—Anderson’s paleness against C.J.’s darker, almost golden tones.

“It’s sort of pretty,” he said, and mentally shooed Bobby away, because Bobby was cracking up at what a moron he sounded like.

C.J. smiled, though, but didn’t laugh. “You’re beautiful,” he said softly, and Anderson shook his head and added the important part.

“I’m broken.”

C.J. shrugged. “You’ll heal,” he said with such utter certainty that Anderson actually found himself tearing up. He shook the tears away before he could make the goodbye any harder and gave C.J. a hug. Standing up, he was aware, as he hadn’t been, of how good that body felt pressed up against his own, how protected and warm he’d felt in C.J.’s bed, in his life. Anderson tightened his arms and shuddered.

“Every night,” C.J. promised in his ear. “I’ll buzz you on the monitor every night. If it gets bad, just promise yourself you’ll make it through, okay? Every night.”

“Every night,” Anderson echoed. Then, because he had to, he said, “I love you, C.J.”

There was a gasp, and C.J.’s arms got so tight it was hard to breathe. “I love you too, baby. Get better, hear me?”

“Yeah.”

And then C.J. swung around and was surrounded by his family, and Anderson was left with Dr. Cherry and Dr. Silverberg to make sure he didn’t simply fall, like a sculpture made of water.

Wake up, eat breakfast, go swimming (if Kate and Bobby would let him), talk to Dr. Cherry—a.k.a. Jensen, whom Anderson was starting to suspect had known C.J.
very
well—eat lunch, meditate or read in the garden, talk to Dr. Silverberg—a.k.a. Molly, whom Anderson was starting to suspect knew Dr. Cherry
very
well—and then dinner.

And then talk to C.J.

“Hey, Anderson, how was your day?”

“Boring and monotonous. How was yours?”

You don’t ask
us
how our day went!

We were here the whole time, moron. He knows how our day went. Pretty much the same as his.

I think we entertained each other more.

How come we never have sex anymore, Henry?

C.J.’s days were never boring and monotonous. There was always a non-humanoid interface or a ship that had started anthropomorphizing or a scuffle with his sister, who, apparently, was much easier to deal with now that she was back on the station with Marshall and getting laid on a regular basis. C.J. told Anderson about “Magic Marshall and his octo-peter” one night, and Anderson and company had pretty much giggled themselves to sleep. C.J. always had a story to tell, even if it was about how the coffee at his favorite kiosk had added a new spice and it made the whole world feel yummy.

Anderson watched him hungrily, his senses feeling oddly truncated and numb. He often found himself reaching for the computer, remembering those nights when the world came down to the feeling of C.J.’s flesh on his and the sound of his breathing in the dark.

Didn’t you clowns write an algorithm that did that?

Yeah, but it was probably different in real life.

Which begs the question. If a simulated life is so real you can’t tell the difference, is it simulated anymore?

Henry, please don’t discuss post-modernist theory right now. It makes my head hurt.

Sorry, sweetheart. I forget.

Shh… listen. C.J. is talking some more.

“So, Anderson—you still with me?”

Anderson jerked his head away from the usual chaos in his brain and nodded. “Uhm, yeah.”

“So I’ve been gone for about two weeks, and Jensen said you’re not even
trying
to get better while I’m gone. He says it’s like you’re going through the motions.” C.J.’s animated face had gotten a little rounder in the last two weeks, but now he started pinching around the eyes again. “That’s not true, is it?” he asked quietly. “Because… I mean, Anderson, Jensen’s about ready to tell me we can’t talk at all.”

The chorus in Anderson’s head shut up in shock. “What do you mean, at all?”

C.J. shook his head. “Baby, he says it’s like I’m not even gone. It’s like… it’s like I’m holding you back. I’m your safety blanket, and you’re not letting go of me to feel if the rest of the world is real.” C.J.’s lower lip actually started to quiver. “He said… he said I’m like your new Alpha in your head.”

Oh hell no!

That’s not true!

Anderson, tell him he’s mistaken!

Oh, poor C.J.!

“You’re nothing like Alpha,” Anderson said numbly. Alpha was cruel and deceitful and used pain and intimidation to make Anderson comply. C.J. was… was kind and funny and… and
human
and….

“He’s saying that you think I’m… I’m a hologram, like Alpha. You’re letting me hold you together. Baby, you’ve got to start holding together for yourself.”

I thought
I
was the one holding us all together!

Anderson, ignore them all. Order is totally fucking overrated.

Interesting. I would have thought Dr. Cherry would have ascertained that Alpha was obviously a manifestation of Anderson’s will.

Anderson, you’re
not
holding us together?

Anderson squinted hard at C.J. on the screen and willed the voices to shut up. They ignored him. “You’re not Alpha,” he said numbly.

“Yeah, but… Anderson, don’t you miss touching me? You know that you’re not touching me anymore, right?”

Well yeah! The only sex going on is the sex between me and Kate.

Yeah, sorry about that, Anderson.

Since Anderson’s not heterosexual, that’s not even going to get him hard.

Henry, has he seen
all
the sex we’ve been having?

“I remember touching you, yes,” Anderson said, and he wasn’t trying to be funny, and he was thankful when C.J. saw his confusion for what it was.

“We did touch,” C.J. whispered. “We touched, and it was amazing. But it wasn’t perfect. You weren’t all there with me in my arms.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry!” C.J. snapped. “Be hurt or angry or… or insane or foaming at the mouth or something, but don’t be fucking sorry!”

Anderson gasped. It was the first time—the only time—he’d ever seen C.J. truly angry. “I’m… I’m… I’m….”

Well, he’s got a lot of nerve!

Apologize to him, Anderson!

Why do you think he’s angry?

Don’t make him yell at us!

“You’re what?” C.J. yelled. “You’re… you’re indifferent? You’re tired? You wish you’d never met me? You’re thinking about your family? You’re guilty? What? Because in two months, you haven’t given us a status report, dammit! You sit there and look at us serenely and say that yes, you know you’re crazy, and no, you don’t remember anything, but you
don’t tell anyone what’s going on inside your head
!”

“It’s… all white noise in here,” Anderson lied.

“
Shut. Up!
”
C.J. snarled. Anderson recoiled, even though C.J. was two hundred thousand miles away.

Don’t be afraid. He’s not here.

Don’t you want him here?

Why would you be afraid of C.J.?

C.J. loves us.

“What did I—”

“You’re
lying
to me! You’ve been lying to Jensen this whole time, and to Molly and to… oh hell, maybe even to yourself. I was going to recreate your holodeck, do you know that?”

“Yes,” Anderson said numbly. “Your sister told me.”

“You didn’t want me to do that?”

“No.”

“That’s all you’re going to say?”

“It wouldn’t help,” Anderson said. Every word was weighted with the opinion of the other voices in his head. It felt like the voices of everyone else he’d killed had added their sounds to the babble—the school, his teachers, the people he’d programmed for the amusement parks—all of them were weighing in on what he should tell C.J., how he should fix this.

“How do you know that, Anderson? Because Jensen’s so fucking desperate he actually asked me if I wanted to try it again, and it almost killed me the last time I obsessed over it.”

“You can’t hurt yourself!” Anderson was not aware that he was standing up until he realized he couldn’t see C.J.’s face from this position. He had no mirror to know if the things he was feeling or saying were actually in sync.

“He can’t,” Anderson muttered. “He can’t hurt himself. He can’t.”

But if it will help you….

It won’t, genius. It won’t help him.

He looked so lost for a while. We can’t let C.J. do that, not when it won’t help.

Why won’t it help again?

“You’re not in there!” Anderson shouted, and C.J. was making noises on the other end of the computer screen.

“I’m not in where, Anderson?”

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Anderson snapped, and he realized that he was agitated and that he wasn’t making sense and couldn’t seem to stop himself.

“Then who are you talking to?”

Don’t tell him.

He’ll only think you’re crazy.

Maybe he wants you to be crazy.

Wait, why can’t he know we’re here?

“No one,” Anderson muttered. “C.J., don’t recreate the holograms again. You can’t. You just can’t.”

“But you’re not getting better. You just keep it all in. You just hold everything you’re thinking or feeling there in your head. Anderson, anything we can do to get it out of your head, man, it’s got to be better than this!”

“What’s so wrong with this?” Anderson asked, hearing Risa whimper loudly in his head.

“Man, don’t you want to touch me?” C.J. asked, his voice too bald to be embarrassed or broken. “Don’t you miss the feeling of my hand in yours? Or even my hands on your body?”

“Yes.” Anderson nodded. “I miss the sound of your breathing. And your smell.”

“But don’t you want more? You can get the sound of my damned breathing from a brother or from a fucking recording, and you bought the damned soap I smelled like!” C.J. shook his head, and now the break set in. “Anderson… I love talking to you every night, but… I’m getting the same thing from you that I got when I was there. Don’t you miss me at all?”

Well, you really only knew him for two days….

Three months, moron, where were you?

Nearly four months. Am I the only one who can count?

It seems like forever.

“Yes,” Anderson whispered. “Yes.”

“But you don’t show it. I miss you every day, do you know that? I walk into my quarters and think, ‘Oh, he’s out, I wonder what he bought? I wonder what he saw? I wonder what I can say to make him laugh?’ And then I remember that you’re not here, and even if you were here, you wouldn’t be here, and….” C.J. rubbed his throat absently like he was trying to make something stop aching. “Man, my chest hurts. Does it feel like that for you?”

Eight and a half years, Anderson. We were your life for eight and a half years. Do you really want to dump us for him?

He wouldn’t be dumping us. Anderson doesn’t have to tell C.J. we’re here just to let him know how he feels.

You guys, even if we were real blood family, Anderson has the right to leave us when he’s found a compatible mate.

You fucking dorkuses! Don’t you see?

That’s not a word, Risa!

Who gives a fuck! He’s
dying
without C.J.! Are you so busy trying to be the loudest voice in his head that you can’t see that the outside of him is
dying
?

“Yes,” Anderson said through the confusion between his ears.

Anderson, don’t lie to him!

He’s not lying!

He’s hurting.

Come on, Bobby, don’t you want him to feel safe?

“I don’t believe you,” C.J. muttered. It was hard to read his expression. He looked hurt and furious, probably at himself.

You shouldn’t.

Anderson, make him believe you.

“I’m probably not even real to you, not even when I’m there,” C.J. said when Anderson didn’t answer.

He’s not.

You have to admit, you don’t dream about touching him nearly enough.

Maybe he’s right. Maybe you should live in your head some more.

That’s not what he’s saying.

“You’re real to me,” Anderson mumbled.

Really? Oh, shit. Now I’m a total asshole. I’m sorry.

Anderson, I don’t believe you, and I can see your brain. You need to make him believe you.

Kate’s right, Anderson. If you want him to believe you, you have to be louder about that.

Oh, C.J. Anderson, he’s heartbroken.

“God,” C.J. muttered, tilting his head back and squeezing his eyes tight. It dimly occurred to Anderson that he was crying. “I want to believe you. It’s hard for me, you know? It would be hard to be apart anyway. That’s why I haven’t tried the long-term thing up here, right? But… you used to be so animated, you know? For two months I lived to watch you laugh. Now I’d settle to see you get pissed off. I just… I just need….”

“What?”

Why does it matter? It’s not like he’s any more real than Alpha.

Yeah, that’s a possibility. You know, maybe he’s
not
real. Maybe that
is
the problem.