Halfskin (28 page)

“I know, but I like you better this way.”

They studied the view. Drank more coffee. Nix ate another breakfast. When they were ready to go, Cali put the bill on the room that would be erased before they left. But they would stay a bit longer.

64

The office doors were wide open.

It wasn’t that Marcus didn’t close them, he just didn’t lock them. The kids hit them like piledrivers, launching the doorknobs into the bookshelves as the hinges groaned. William, Andrew, and Clifford chugged into the office single file, like a juvenile train on a mission to see their daddy.

“Ho!” Marcus threw up his hands like stop signs. “Slow down there, boys!”

They lined up at the corner of the grand desk, snickering. Marcus pulled at the edge of the laptop, turning the screen away from them. Not that they knew what any of it meant. It was just habit.

“Now, one at a time,” he said. “What do you want?”

They didn’t want anything, really. Half-dressed on a Saturday, the boys wondered what their daddy was doing. And to see if they could use his wheelchair. That was the deal. When he was sprawled out on the bed, they could take turns running each other up and down the hallway if—and only if—the housekeeper was there to supervise. Marcus was supposed to be walking on his reconstructed knee, not pampering it with the wheelchair.

The physical therapist could kiss his ass.

William started off with, “Sir, uh…”

Marcus’s leg was still braced and stuck straight out, supported by the wheelchair’s bracket. William nervously pinched at his dad’s big toe. It tickled, but the young man’s cold fingers felt good.

“Sir,” he started, again, “can we use the wheelchair, please?”

“Does it look like I’m using it?”

They nodded, straight-faced. They were old enough to interpret their dad’s expression correctly. It was not time to play.

“Have you done your chores?”

“Yes, sir,” the three of them said.

“Good. Brushed your teeth?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, do it again. Teeth can’t be too clean.”

They didn’t really need to brush their teeth, he just ran out of things to say. Their faces slumped. Even William’s.

“Tell you what, I’ll let you take the chair for a ride after lunch.”

He patted Clifford on top the head, stiffly.

They cheered. Ariel, the housekeeper, corralled them before they stormed out. They weren’t going to brush their teeth. No big deal. Ariel closed the doors behind her, without having to be asked. Too bad she didn’t lock them.

He turned the sound up on the TV, waiting to hear a story on Cali and Nix. So far, there was none. They’d done a good job keeping it away from the press. He needed to give his staff a bonus, made his life easier, gave him time to make sure this never happened again.

Once he had some documents prepared and had his team ready, he could make a convincing argument for new halfskin thresholds. Clearly, they were waiting too long to detain and observe. He would propose detainment start at 30%, perhaps a weekend check-in arrangement. Extreme, yes. Some would argue it was the beginning of a new age holocaust, but cancer has to be cut out to be cured.

Marcus knew how to bargain. Start high. His proposals  would strike fear in the biomite industry, force them to slow down, force them to conform to the government’s regulations. There had to be a precedent, that anyone tinkering with biomite transparency would be dealt with swiftly and firmly. There would be no compromise.

Marcus would not rest until Cali and Nix were apprehended, until he had their biomites analyzed. Until those outlaws were shutdown.

That’s a promise.

Part of his proposal would include an increase in his operating budget to expand his staff. More agents trained for this sort of confrontation. Also, research to develop biomite resistance to outside influence. Ideally, they needed more purists like Marcus, but he was a realist. They wouldn’t have many candidates to choose from if that was the requirement. Besides, if he was honest, the enhancement of biomite-seeded agents was nice. His men were stronger, faster and smarter. Hypocritical, sure. He chose to fight fire with fire, as long he wasn’t the one getting burned.

And when Cali and Nix were located and detained—not if, but
when—
he would know the exact coding that knocked them off of M0ther’s map. They would have that and that, he knew, would sway his superiors more than anything. Invisibility was something that should be reserved for the government.

He’d already arranged for global scanning of facial recognition and personal asset activity. So far, Cali and Nix had completely abandoned their house, bank accounts, automobile…
everything
. He didn’t expect them to come back. But Cali’s hallucinatory re-creation of her daughter proved a lapse in judgment. He hoped, on the outside chance, they’d make that one swipe of a credit card, that one withdrawal that would give them a lead.

The doorknob turned. Marcus was about to shout at the kids. He’d make them go outside and play if they came asking again, but his wife stepped inside. He preferred that she knock before marching inside, but it was her house, too. Janine dropped a stack of papers on the desk.

“I need you to sign these.”

“What is it?”

“Refinancing on the house. Remember? We talked about this a few months ago.”

He flipped the top page. “I’ll read them later.”

“Just sign, Marcus. I’ve already been through them.”

He never signed anything without reading, even those contracts that came with software where you just click the box and hit OK. He read those, too. Even if his wife said she read the papers and said it was all right, he read them.

“How’s the knee?” she asked.

“Better.”

“Have you done your exercises?”

“This morning.”

She waited, hands on hips. No make-up, just frumpy sweatpants and a loose t-shirt that jiggled without a bra. She looked heavier. Each inhalation pressed her nipples against the fabric. Marcus looked back at the papers.

The laptop sounded off with an email. He itched to look.

“I’ve got a conference call in ten minutes with a congressman that’s interested in hearing what I’d like to propose. I promise, right after that, I’ll go through these and sign them.”

Janine deflated, dropped her chin on her chest. Her gut pushed out. She was preparing to launch a verbal attack. He’d seen that posture before, she was just lining up the words like bullets. She gazed out the bay window.

Here it comes.

“What’re you doing?” was all she said.

He waited for the rest. Instead, she looked at him. Her brow was not stiff, lips not thin. There was nothing there, no expression at all. Like she’d given up, maybe.

A cold quiver stabbed him.

“What do you want?” He threw his hands up. “You want me to stop working, is that what you want? This isn’t a 40-hour a week job, Janine. I don’t punch a clock, I can’t just take off when I feel like it. You don’t even know what the hell happened, but I can promise you I can’t leave it on the desk for tomorrow so I can watch William hit a home run or Alexander ride his bicycle with no hands. The world depends on me, Janine.
On me
.”

He thumbed his chest, a reminder of whose career ranked higher.

“Everything depends on me, right now, Janine. You have no idea. So have Ariel watch the kids. That’s why we pay her.”

Janine didn’t move. Still expressionless, she listened. Even looked like she was holding her breath. A series of nods were the first sign that she’d even heard him. She turned around, hands still planted on her hips, and paced away. Marcus, silently, thanked his good fortune. He glanced at the email icon in the corner. He reached for the mouse.

Janine didn’t leave the office. She faced the bookshelves near the exercise bicycle, looking up. Thinking. This was unusual for her. Too passive. Was she giving up?

He opened the email. It was short. He read it twice, not understanding.

I can find anything. Leave us alone.

He didn’t recognize the username, CNN, no one in his address book that he could remember. He didn’t subscribe to that liberal news outlet and it was certainly no one he corresponded with. He had a very good spam filter but occasionally one would slip through. This one had an attachment, something he certainly wouldn’t open. The pointer hovered over the trash icon. He looked at the username again.

CNN.

C and N.

The attachment was an .AVI file.

He downloaded it through virus protection. It came up clean.

Janine was still there, still thinking. Still quiet. Still looking up.

Marcus opened the video file.

At first, he was confused. He looked at Janine, then over her head at the books on the top shelf, then back to the video.

Finally, connecting the dots.

Marcus turned the sort of gray that a dead man wears beneath the mortician’s makeup.

Fear stabbed him once again, freezing everything inside.

He closed the laptop.

It was a long time before he spoke again.

65

The horseshoe crab lay still, half beneath the receding wave. The tide was going out, leaving behind ocean detritus to bake in the South Carolina sun. The spiny ridge glistened along the domed shell as saltwater ran off.

A flower—yellow petals with a burgundy center—fell and stuck to the shell. The next wave knocked it off.

Cali clenched the flowers in both hands. Her toes sank in the sand as the water washed it from under her feet. When she was little, long before Nix was born, they lived on an island not too far from there. She remembered seeing—every morning when she looked for sand dollars with her mother—the beached horseshoe crabs, dead and dying. They’d flip them over and, sometimes, see a dead carcass stinking beneath.

A living fossil,
her father would say about the horseshoe crab.
One of the only things still alive that has fossils dating back 500 million years.

Cali wondered how they were living when they seemed to die so easily.

She wondered if a horseshoe crab cared when it died.

Some kids screamed in the waves. Judging by their sunburns, they were on vacation. She did the math, figured they were Avery’s age. If she was still alive. She would do the math like that, whenever she saw kids. She’d do it for some time to come.

The curtain had been lifted. No more giggles. No more hugs.

Avery is gone.

She’d been gone a long time.

Cali remembered laying daisies where she was buried. She’d picked them out of a neighbor’s yard. Didn’t ask, just wandered through and grabbed a bundle. No one stopped her from such eccentricities, not when they knew what happened. They looked much like the flowers she was now dropping into the water, watching the waves drag them out.

Watching them go to the ocean.

Watching them disappear. Forever.

Nix’s shadow covered the horseshoe crab. He remained silent until the last flower fell. It stuck on the sand. The next wave pushed it between Cali’s toes. It bobbed in place, waving at them until the wave receded. The foam took it under. The color paled beneath the green wash.

“I’ve got some food.” Nix held out an apple.

Cali took it. She picked at the sticker, shined the red skin with her thumb.

“You okay?” he asked.

She nodded. “Yeah.”

She took a bite, smiled. She said, once she swallowed, “You say hello to Raine for me?”

“Not yet.”

Guilt kept him from meeting her eyes when she brought up the dreamland. After all, he still had his delusion. Long ago, he would tell her all about the lagoon—the crystal water and black sands, the funneling waterfall and clear sky. And his beautiful girl. His best friend.

She knew what he was thinking. She could have that, too. Cali could create her own lagoon inside her head. The new breeds could make it as realistic as the sand beneath her feet, the water on her toes. The flowers in the water. She could have anyone there.

And I would never leave.

She had enough of illusions. She fooled herself for all these years, it was time to live right here and now. Perhaps there was nothing wrong with Nix’s lagoon. He insisted if there was something more to it, that it wasn’t just a lucid dream.

Delusions, though, can be pretty convincing.

“You sure you’re all right?” Nix asked.

Nod.

“You want to come in, grab some dinner?”

The sun touched the horizon. “Think I’ll go for a walk first.”

“You sure you should be out like this?” He looked around like Marcus Anderson might be on vacation down the beach. “I mean, shouldn’t we lay a little… lower?”