Part Two
Years
pass. Things have changed. The City has
slept and risen and slept again, a never ending circle.
***
Turn your head. Turn it away from your life, and face the box
in front of you. See the static‑y,
electronic shapes. See the truth inside
the whispering screen, see facts, see revelation, see
it all spilled before you, in a cacophony of images. See the shouting reporter, hand clasped to
her ear. Hear her words, but also hear
them rush past you, incomprehensible, unknowable. Hear the screaming people,
see the camera twist and heave. See the
reporter duck, see her wide, racoon eyes frantic and
terrified. See all this in a fraction of
a moment. See it through the careful
lens of the box. See it through the
great eye of the watching camera.
Then‑
You see the blurred
figures. The camera strives towards
them, but is thrown back by invisible arms.
You see the smaller figure break away, fleeing the others, fleeing the
two men in dark coats. The fleeing form
runs with the desperation of the lost, with frantic, terrified speed, but it
cannot go far. The camera says so, and a
great booming noise, horribly final, tears the figure apart. It falls and lies on its side, curled
protectively around itself. A redness surrounds it now.
The camera pants, delighted, and leans closer.
You pull away, perhaps repulsed. Perhaps you put your hands to your head. But you still watch. You can pull back, but you cannot turn away.
You are held captive by the flickering box, by the roving camera, as its turns
its single defining eye upon the two men.
The older man, the taller
one, the one whom you recognize with an uncomfortable jolt, glances down at the
shotgun in his hands. There is blood on
his blond hair, and his blue butcher’s eyes are obscured by the glare on his
glasses. He is looking over at the
figure curled on the ground. There is
nothing on his face. It is as though it
is etched from stone. A brief wind moves
his blond hair, and for a moment the sun catches it. His head is now suddenly ablaze, lit by the
sun, a shining crown.
You hear the reporter. You hear her distant, tinny voice, as though
it is being piped through tin cans and a string, the kind you made with your
brother when you were a child.
“. . . City
legislation. This is the second
such occurrence in barely a week. These artificial beings, although human‑like in appearance
are known for their viciousness when dealing with human life. There have been two android related murders
in the past year alone, and the City Council has moved, at the urging of
Councilwoman and business magnate‑‑”
You miss the name, but
suddenly the screen is filled by the still photo of a woman. She has a beautiful, soft face, and tendrils
of dark red hair curve loosely around her chin.
She is smiling, but the smile only curves the ends of her round mouth.
Her eyes are sharp and intelligent. Her
cold, not‑real smile bothers you.
The announcer drifts away
from you as the camera once again falls upon the prone figure. You watch the spreading redness underneath
it, and wonder why it’s bleeding, if it is indeed an artificial creature.
The camera jolts one final
time, and focuses on the second man. He
is smaller than the first, more slender, and his face is not empty; it is
pained. His brown eyes stare away, beyond
the camera, to where the broken android must be lying. His gaze is lit with a confused, empty pity.
***
When you went into The
Edge, you always went in looking for something.
Mostly it was a good time, the chance to lose yourself in the flow of
the music, to catch the tail of the light show, to feel the beat of the drums
through and through your sobbing soul, and forget. Some of you go to call on your mistress, be
she person or alcohol, and move across the dance floor clasped to each other,
body to body. Surprisingly few come
through the neon doors looking for friends. You came alone, but if you were
lucky, you wouldn’t leave alone.
Grant came looking for his
daughter. There is a room above the
club, next to the DJ’s stand, a room lit with pink clouds and prancing ponies
where only the vaguest beat from the music could be heard. The room is a favor
for Grant, who often dealt in favors, in trades and bargains, as they brought
better results than money. The room is a
large favor, a favor out of tune with the club, with the dancers below and the
racing lights, but the bargain struck was beneficial to all, and all are
distantly content.
Grant trots up the iron stairs with a
light tread, keeping carefully out of tune with the music. He is also careful not to look down, where
the neon lights raced and bodies twisted.
He frowns, and turns the collar of his jacket up, to hide the view
below. It was unforgivably late. He’d have to take Owly
out the back way. God forbid she’d look
below and become entranced by the music.
He reaches the above, the
wide iron catwalk, the DJ’s platform, the room‑that‑is‑a‑favor
and opens the door, swinging it inward.
Immediately in time with the soundproof walls, the music silences.
May sees him from outside
the wide window, out on the DJ’s roost, and waves. She leaves the twisting turntables and comes
through the opposite door, to stand on tip‑toe to brush her lips against
his cheek. This is her greeting, made to
all and meaning nothing, but he still stiffens involuntarily and turns his eyes
away.
“Heyyyy,”
she smiles. “She conked out a while back. I let her be.
God, you’re late.”
“I know,” he says,
ashamed. It wasn’t May, of course. There was no guile, no judgement
in her open features, but he still feels unworthy. The critic inside him roars, screaming bad
parent bad father how could you?? and he shouts
back at it: I’m here, aren’t I?? I’m
not abandoning her, I have to work!
Leave me alone.
But it still didn’t excuse
his lateness.
“What happened?” she asks,
but her eyes were bright, and he knew if he told her the truth, it would
eventually reach the dance floor, and rise up, a delicious, haunting rumor for
all to tell. Rumors about him are the
best kind of rumors. Rumors about him reach up, to the glowing throne of
politics and power.
“Oh, nothing,” he shrugs. “Just late.
Sorry. Where is she?”
“Asleep
in the back. Where else?” she says teasingly,
eyeing him. Her oval face is lit with a
curlicue half‑smile, beguiling under her shock of green hair. C’mon, she begs, c’mon, dance with
me. He isn’t in the mood; the just‑finished day weighs too heavily on
him and he moves past her, towards another door, this one decorated with a
smiling cartoon elephant.
And so she was. Asleep, chubby starfish‑shaped hands tucked under her round
chin, indigo hair haloing her face, clashing with the pristine white of the
pillow.
“Thanks, May,” Grant says,
and bends suddenly, to press his own adult face against the sleeping child’s
neck. What are you doing? something inside him shrieks, and he squeezes his eyes shut,
wishing. What am I doing...? he thinks, echoing the voice. What am I doing keeping her here? God, if I wasn’t so broke... If I didn’t have to work... If if if...
If only the City spun
away, and came back washed pure and clean of its neon garb. If only its cleansing
meant green parks and swingsets. If only the grey sky split and blue spilled
upon the drab buildings, blue that rose up and above, that curled around him
and her and made all . . . perfect.
She wakes, suddenly,
sensing him.
“Hi Daddy,” she says groggily,
and reaches for him.
“Hi Owly. Ready
to go?”
May watches them from the
outer room. The music calls to her, the
turntables gyrating with animalistic fury, sounding in time with the twisting
bodies. But there, in the inner room
ringed with fluffy clouds and doe‑eyed ponies, there, as Grant pulls the
child’s sweater over her head, so that her hair is caught in the neck, making
her giggle sleepily.... There, that
there, in some distant inner womb, that calls to her too. She turns away.
“Daddy, can I say good‑bye
to Max?”
She is still half asleep,
and Grant dismisses the ‘x’ as a mere lisp.
“Sure, May’s right outside‑”
“No,” and she insistently
comes awake. “Max! I want to say good‑bye to Max.”
He carries her into the
outer room, where the wide window displays the muted club. May is still standing there, still looking
with that bemused expression.
“Who’s Max?” He asks her.
She grins, broadly.
“Oh! New
girl. Just came in last
week. She’s singing for the club, but I
think she likes kids or something, ‘cause she was up
here earlier. Read a book to Owly.” It comes out
in a rush, and May’s cheeks flush. There
is something there, something interesting and sly about her words. Grant tilts
his head, looking at her quizzically.
“Max? A girl?”
“It’s what she calls
herself. We don’t put . . . uh, we don’t
care about names here. She’s Max.” And again May smiles, again with that excited,
knowing smile. Again, and again. It chimes in time with the vague beat of the
muted music.
“Wanna
meet her?”
“I want to say good‑bye,”
Owly says, head tucked beneath Grant’s chin. She is
slipping away again, and the words have a dreamy quality.
“I . .”
he hesitates. “I really should go. It’s really late.”
“Yeah,” says May. “Pity. You’d like her.” Again the smile.
“I should go,” he mutters
again, and moves to the door, which opens suddenly from the other side.
He is close enough to see
the freckles spotting her snub nose. He
is close enough to see the sudden dilation of her pupils as she takes him in,
close enough to see the flowers painted childishly around her eyes. The flowers are three
different shades of blue, and circles her dark eyes, the colours sharp next to the paleness of her skin. This must be her.
“Hi,” she says, but it was
not for him. Owly
reaches a starfish‑shaped hand out to her and she catches it between
slender fingers.
Her gaze jolts back to
him, her eyes as wide and unfocussed as a newborn’s. She blinks, carefully, the way an owl blinks,
in animalistic innocence. She is
beautiful in that way. Whole and untouched, the blue flowers the only sign of
man‑made interference. In an age
of cosmetic perfection, her freckles burn on her upturned nose, and her eyes
are brown, not kewpie‑doll blue.
He holds his breath. He wonders if May knows. No, she must know, and the girl in front of
him would have been hired to make a point, despite the horrible illegality of
the action.
But the girl smiles at
him, and is even more beautiful for it.
If she saw through him, there is no sign.
“Hi. You’re Grant, right? I’ve heard a lot about you,” she says shyly,
and blinks again, still in that careful, mechanical way.
He smiles, nods, and turns
his head downward, to Owly, so he will not have to
look at her. He is conflicted, and Owly’s voice rises in the past: No! Max! I want to say good‑by to Max. He dangles between what he has been taught,
and what is standing before him, with freckles on her pretty nose.
They speak, briefly. She smiles and ducks her head awkwardly and
laughs once. Below the beat of the music
changes and black light roars across the club.
White becomes lit by black, and shines with a neon glow. Smiles glare in the night, people laughing at
their shining teeth.
“That’s my cue,” she says
suddenly, and almost bows.
“See you!” And she skips away, lightly. Lighter than him, lighter than anything
human. He
looks away, careful not to watch her as she leaves. He is almost trembling.
“I can’t believe you let
that thing near my daughter,” he says, and May’s head jerks up, surprised.
“Grant,
she’s just as human as you or I. Don’t
tell me you believe that shit the politicians shove down everyone’s throats‑?”
“No, its not,” he says
softly. “It’s a machine. It’s not
human.” Owly
squirms in his arms. He takes her out the back way. She has her arms wrapped so tightly around
his neck he is almost choking. At the
top of the iron stairs he pauses. He
hadn’t meant to stop there, but he still pauses, and
the music from below rises up and swirls around his ankles. She is on the little stage now, brown hair
flying. Her eyes are brilliantly lit, and even from the top of the stairs, he
can see the freckles sprinkling her imperfect nose. Lights explode behind her,
pierce her, and for a moment he imagines he can see through her, into her
mechanical skeleton and heart. But the
voice that rises about the chaos is tragic, and unspeakably beautiful.
“That’s Max,” says Owly, but her voice is worried. Something has twisted in her little world,
confusing her.
“Yeah,” he says, and turns
away.
From the little stage, the
android looks out over the bobbing heads of the dancers and watches him
go. Her dark, very‑real eyes are
filled with a wordless pity.
***
And now raise your eyes
from the girl on the stage, if you can.
Look out over the great expanse of the City. Look out over its dark depths, the way you
looked into the dance club, with favor and excitement. Look now, and look hard. Follow the City skyline, see where it is etched against the sky, a
mechanical being, its great buildings reaching up to stab at the stars. See the
City, the great City, smell its exhalation, hear its sighs, and when you are
tired of this, look deeper and see the building.
No, not
that one... the one beside it. The one with the great towering
spires, and wide gardens beside it.
The one with power ingrained into its iron girders. The building that
screams that it is so important so very very
important, that inside its walls is held the beating heart of the City. See how different it is from the rest of the
City. See the two stained glass windows, see the roses inching up the bricked walls. The
dusky vines that cradle the great building, that wrap tightly around its marble
columns, snake up the bricked walls, and entangle themselves in the wrong iron
bars of the balcony. There is something
majestic about the building. Something
in its great body harkens back to an earlier, less complicated time. A time when the City did
not stretch so far. A time so
very long ago, and so very lost to now.
The woman, whom you must
remember from the photo on the television, stands on the balcony, which is
halfway between the sea and the sky. The
building crouches gracefully on a slight rise, and below it foams the rushing
sea. All cities, all successful cities, sit at the mouth of a sea, and this
water is wide and dark and full of stars.
She stands on the balcony,
surrounded by the creeping roses, and turns her face to them. They rise to meet her, and open their petals
in adoration. She looks at them, and
they at her. Her hair is as dark and red
as they are, and is curiously unbound.
She has thrown off the shackles of the day, and her suit lies crumpled
on the floor of the apartment behind her.
Her bare shoulders are bright in the City’s night.
A wind, colder, harsher
than the breeze, rushes suddenly out over the sea and
lifts her red hair from her neck. She raises her head, eyes searching; the wind
also carries the distant roar of the club, and the android’s voice whispers
softly.
The roses mutter among
themselves. She is so quiet she is so
still whatever can be wrong? They
chant. The woman stares away from them,
and remains there, looking out over the rush of white‑capped water,
listening as the final strain of music dies away. A great darkness settles on her face. It tints her brilliant eyes, and curves
around her mouth.
The roses sigh, distantly,
then gasp with relief as the door to the apartment
opens with a noisy whisper. He's here
he’s here now everything will be well they murmur, but she does not turn
towards the sound of him entering. The
roses do, however, and see from the exhausted slope of his shoulders that it
has been a trying day. Days do not roll
off him, as they roll off her. She
remains untouched, eyes unlined, face as smooth as a
child’s, while worry distantly creases his eyes. The long dark coat slides from him, and he
tiredly shakes his blond head. The roses
turn to her, waiting.
“There’s a machine at that
club,” she says softly, and bends to cup a rose between careful hands.
“You’ll have to go
tomorrow, and kill it.”
***
Grant woke early the next
day. He hadn’t meant to, but a heaviness, a strange guilt had followed him home, allied
with the itchiness of a restless night.
The stars had been out by the time they’d returned to their little
house, twinkling desperately against the blazing City nightlights. The street was lined with streetlamps,
electric heads bowed as if in reverent prayer.
They had watched him silently, watched him carry the sleeping child
beneath their wide gaze, watched with voyeuristic pleasure as he fumbled with
the keys to the door, watched, grinning, as he slipped
through it, and was finally hidden.
An uncomfortable night
pressed, and he lay on his bed with the curtains open, staring into the City
night. He wasn’t sure what he felt. He thought distantly of the young woma‑the android, he corrected himself, and
felt an even heavier weight settling in his stomach.
Finally, sleep insisted.
“Daddy?”
He feels her climb onto
the bed, and sighs, pulling the covers over his head.
“Daddy?”
She clambers on top of
him, and merrily bounces on his chest.
“Wake up! Wake up!
You promised!”
He sighs again. He hadn’t
exactly promised, but to a child everything is a promise. He pushes the covers back, and regards her,
bemused. Sunlight staggers into the
room, drunk and giddy, painting the walls a brilliant yellow. If the City had beautiful days, this could
have been one.
“Alright, alright,” he
shrugs the blanket from his body, and swings his legs over the side of the bed.
Owly bounces higher, and springs shriek under her
somersaults. A wide smile splits her
face, and she raises her hands in time with the groaning springs.
“Yaaaaaayyy! Today we go to
the park!” She shouts, as though there
is someone besides Grant to hear her, as though she is telling someone else a
glorious secret. “Today today today today!” she shouts, and the sound roars off the sun‑shined
walls.
Grant reaches for her, and
pulls her to him.
“Okay, yeah . . . In a
minute. Don’t wake the neighborhood.”
She tucks herself into his
arms, head under his chin, eyes wide and fingers in her mouth. She presses her face to the scratchy fabric
of his T‑shirt and sighs deeply.
He places his chin carefully on the crown of her head and together they
sit like that, the sun drifting past their bronzed figures.
***
You see the arching
buildings reach out to the sun, see them stained red in the Sunday light. You see the sun lance through the wide, open
balcony doors, the doors that are normally closed on the apartment. But now they are flung open, welcoming the
sun, and the roses curled around the balcony raise their faces upwards,
silently worshiping. You see the man
standing on the balcony, forearms resting on the iron fence, the roses ignoring
him with steadfast calm. He stares down
into the rising water, which licks greedily at the base of the building. His cold blue eyes watch the rushing sea, and
the sun lights his blond head, so that it blazes in the reddening dawn.
Behind him the woman is
curled in their bed. Her red hair spills out on the pillow, encircling her bare
shoulders. The sheets are twisted around
her body. In her sleep, she sighs,
dreamily. The man glances back at her,
then turns suddenly, and strides through the apartment. He pulls a shirt on over his head, and shrugs
into the long black coat. He pauses
before leaving, though, and stops to place the tips of his fingers on the
woman’s forehead for a moment, as though in silent prayer.
She does not hear the
sound of the door closing, and sighs again, pulling the sheets closer around
her. In her sleep, she whispers after
him: don’t forget.
***
You see the child skip
towards the playground, which glints with newness. You see Grant following, hands stuffed into
his pants pockets, shoulders hunched against the sun. He is not old, but his hair is a shocking
white. You see the android, perched
gracefully on the top bar of the jungle gym, watching him curiously. She remembers his eyes from the night before,
dark and quiet, distantly judgmental.
She thinks how odd it must be to have white hair like that, and yet be
so young. She wonders if he was teased
as a child; if other children, frantic for acceptance, had turned on him with
his white hair, and made up horrible chants that would later haunt his dreams.
“Owly,”
Grant has just seen the android. He sees
her out of the corner of his eye, the dark shape balanced on the inch‑wide
bar, balanced on the balls of her feet, hands clasped behind her head. She looks as though she is about to take
flight, and stares out over the playground, waiting for the perfect wind.
“Owly,
come here now,” he reaches for her, but she has skipped too far ahead,
intent on the hanging swings. Her head
turns, looking at him in confusion. Her
blue eyes, so dark that the pupil is almost lost, squint against the glare of
the sun.
“Owly, NOW.
Come here NOW.”
She looks past him and
sees the dark bird shape of the android.
“HI MAX!” she bellows, and
waves a starfish‑plump hand. “HI
MAX!”
The child yelps when he
grabs her, yanking her away from her waving.
She struggles suddenly against him, human instinct overwhelming the
rational thought of this is my parent he will not harm me he is here to
protect me I am his. Flight response
whirls in her brain, and her knee connects brutally with his stomach.
He gasps, and manages to
fall backwards on the grass in a most spectacular fashion.
The android chuckles and
stares down at him, face lit with amusement.
“Hi Max,” says Owly, and is suddenly shy, and looks down too.
He scrambles to his feet, body twisted so that he is always facing her, and
nudges Owly.
“Go to the swings, Owly, please.”
The child glances from
adult to adult. Her eyes are round and
bewildered. Grant opens his mouth to ask
her again, to beg her to go, but suddenly she turns and wanders away. He edges carefully to the side, hoping the
movement looks natural, casual, and places himself between the retreating child
and the mechanical woman.
Except
there is nothing mechanical about her.
The strange, delaying motions, the wide, all‑too innocent stare is
strangely absent. He feels his heart sink.
The android laughs,
bitterly.
“May said
you were different. She’s idealistic, her and her Edge‑friends. Always making a point, I suppose. I think it’s funny when you prove people
wrong.”
Her smile is very
distant. It is not angry. It is just empty and defeated. She looks almost like a broken doll, its
painted smile still shining from its cracked, mauled face. Her brown almost‑real eyes turn down to
the grass beneath their feet.
“I’m second generation,”
she says abruptly. “We don’t do those
stupid tics... The
blinking. The thing with the eyes. We’re not that . . . inept. We’re developed, as beings. Not like those
first generation models. I guess you
would’ve only seen those. I’m different. I’m new.
Like the movie said: more human than human.”
It is as though she is
reciting a factory line, listing her specifications to a prospective
buyer. He half expects her to do a
pirouette, and sing a jingle that goes with her model. He blinks, disbelieving. Her eyes are still downcast, and he gazes
strangely at the top of her dark head. For some reason he wishes she would look
up, so he could see her freckled nose.
“You...” he shakes his
head. The concept trickles blandly
through his mind, shocking him. In the
background, the swings creak musically, and Owly
pumps her chubby legs, soaring higher with each stroke. “You did that on purpose... At the club.”
She looks up.
“Yeah. May, the way she talked about you, it was
like you were a saint.”
It was Grant’s turn to
look away, frowning. It wasn’t
fair. He was far from a saint, and May
knew it. Favours
were traded at the club. And if those favours were information, little tidbits about the inner‑workings
of the City’s power‑mongers, in exchange for a safe place for Owly... well, that meant nothing. There was no cause. He couldn’t afford to take sides. It had only been a favour. It had only been Alistaire’s
idea: Hey, Grant, he had said,
smiling. Smiling ever
so pleasantly. You need
a hand? C’mon, we’re friends... I’ll help you. All I want are a few words... A few harmless little
words. You’re on the inside. You
know the politic. Just a few words,
that’s all I want. We’re not trying to
start a revolution, just bring down something that’s rotten and corrupt. And he had continued smiling, thinking he was
making Grant choose. Choose between the place he worked in, and that which Alistaire
thought was right. He had not,
though. Alistaire’s
world was no better than the one Grant frequented. He was no more right than they were.
“But...” the android’s
voice choked off, and he snapped back to the now, frowning.
“But I saw you on the
television. With him. A cop would never give a shit about an
Automata, so I knew‑‑”
“I’m not a cop,” he is
surprised at the viciousness in his voice.
“No,” she says softly, and
her eyes blaze with a sudden judgement. He knows what she is thinking, what she is
chanting merrily in her head: you’re not a cop, you’re WORSE! You’re lower
than that, you take your power fro TRILOGY, from the dammed--‑
“I’m sorry,” she says, and
when he looks closely, he sees that she is indeed, very sorry. The brief judgment is gone.
“I shouldn’t have said
that. I don’t even know you. It’s just...” she fidgets, glancing
around, at the park, at the stubby trees,
at a soaring seagull. “May and her
friends, they see everything in black and white. This is good, that is bad. We’re in the right, they’re in the wrong, and
it can’t be like that . . .”
“So I’m sorry,” she says
again. He is shocked to see a strange
agony in her eyes, as she looks past him, where Owly
spins on the creaking swings. She turns away, intent on fleeing.
“Max . . ?” The name catches in his throat. There is a distant roaring in his ears. The great heaviness in his chest stirs as
though it is alive, as though it is a snake curled in his lung. “How’d you get that name?”
She turns back and smiles,
genuinely this time.
“It was a gift.”
***
“We used to give each
other names, because they wouldn’t,” says Max.
They sit on the park bench, the chipped wooden slats which bear the
scars of a thousand knives (A.E loves G.B, J.S. is a perv)
digging into their backs, and watch Owly in the
sandbox. She is building a miniature
city. It rises up around her, stacks of
damp sand crafted beneath her fingers.
Max swings her legs under the bench, childishly. Grant peers at her out of the corner of his
eye. He rationalizes, insisting to
himself that she is not a threat. He
tells himself that if she meant to hurt them, she would have tried to by
now. But he still watches her watching
his daughter, and is strangely disturbed by it all.
“At night, we used to
creep around the lab and write our names into the walls. It was like we were proving we had existed, that
we were permanent. It was sort of
like--” she looks at him, sneakered feet suddenly
stilled. “It was like we were . . .” she
pauses, and Grant sees frustration on her face.
She has no words for the action. Nothing
can describe it.
“Like graffiti. Leaving
proof of yourself?”
He phrases it like a question.
She shakes her head.
“No one remembers us,” she
says. Grant looks away. Owly has made
another castle, packing the wet sand into a hump‑like shape. He hears her
talking to herself: “. . . and then the dragon came along and said ‘who’s been
living in my castle?’ and the princess said--”
“Who gave you your name?”
asks the android.
“Um.
. . my father. I’m named after him.”
Grant rubs a hand through his white hair. He stares intently at Owly.
“That’s . . . nice.” Max
whispers, and Grant laughs, nervously. Yes, it is nice, to be named after
fathers and grandfathers, to have a lineage and a family. To trace yourself
through the years, to have your blood ingrained into the ages. How nice. How wonderful. Such things are not so common, and the
android’s eyes are lit with a kind of jealousy.
“No,” he says
quietly. “It’s not nice. You didn’t know my father.” He clutches at a
clump of hair at the back of his head.
He looks away, an old anger rising in his chest. He presses it down, subdues it with a
familiar, blinding calm.
The cell in his pocket
chortles suddenly, and he lunges for it, relieved. The little phone never brought good things,
but this surreality, chatting with an artificial
creature accused of atrocities and terror, talking with it so casually. . . it was almost more than he could bear.
He watches the numbers
dash across the little display on the cell, unknowing, uncaring. They collect in an orderly, coded
fashion. They spell out death with
pristine clarity. He feels his breath
catch in his throat as he interprets them.
The heaviness in his chest rages once again, and he is suddenly aware of
the illegality of his actions. The woman
beside him . . . My God, I should’ve
arrested her. It’s my bloody job, for pete’s sake . . . If they knew . . .
Max is staring at
him. For the first time, he lets
himself look back, look at her full in the face. He sees realization wash over her, sees the
sudden, frightened dilation of her pupils. She must have seen the code flash
across the cell’s display. But it is
just that, a code. She shouldn’t know, she shouldn’t be able to solve it.
“I. . .”
“We have our own
language,” she says, and takes the little toy from him. He lets her, unprotesting. She cradles it in her hands and speaks, as
though to a friend: “There will be a death tonight. Someone will die because of a law unfairly
made. Because of
scapegoats, and the need to understand.
I see my death.” The future
unfolds around her. It unfolds like a
bird stretching great black wings. It
unfolds into the night ahead with wrenching finality. He see is it flee in
front of him, terrible and haunting. He
sees it end in a shotgun blast.
He tries to breathe, ever
so carefully. He feels the heaviness in his chest. It must come out, another Grant,
another voice thinks practically inside his head. It must be fixed. It must be banished. It is still there, coiled oppressively around
him. It will drown him, he thinks. I’m going to drown in a sea of sprockets
and wires and mechanical blood. . . But the words were not his own. He remembers them from last night, Umber’s
head bent in his hands, whispering: I’m going mad.
“We’ve nowhere else to
go,” she says. Her head is still bowed
to the little cellphone. Her voice is quiet, solemn. It jumps just then, though, betraying
her. “We come here, to hide, but he
always finds us. I watched the
television last night. I saw what he
did.”
“Who?”
he asks, carefully. He knows who, but
wonders if she will use his name.
“When you name someone,
you give them power.” She says softly, as though reading his mind. Grant frowns.
She still has not looked at him. She stares at the cell as thought its power
is great and wide, and will save her.
“I’ve never done anything
to them, ever, and still they want to . . .” she looks up at Grant,
bewildered. There is a terrible anguish
in her eyes. A breeze gently moves her
dark hair. Loose strands waft into her
eyes, across her freckled nose and into the corner of her mouth. She ignores the rebellious hair, and stares
intently at him. “I’ve never done
anything to him,” she says again.
“He doesn’t care,” Grant
answers truthfully. “It’s the law. No artificial beings or androids allowed in
the City. We just do our jobs.” He hesitates, then adds, ruthlessly; “It’s
not personal.”
She still stares, not
accusingly, but the look is unnervingly intense.
“Are you friends? You and him?”
He finds he cannot
answer. He knows what the answer is,
that yes, they are friends, that yes, they tell stupid jokes and complain about
women, while side by side in the violent world where they work . . . That is friendship, isn’t it? Some bare
commonalities mixed in with liking someone, liking who they are and how they
laugh. He answers, unsatisfactorily.
“It’s hard to be friends
with him.” But that too is the truth. It
is hard. He cannot bear the other man’s
secrets, and is frightened by the murder in his blue eyes. Sometimes it is hard to know how unfairly
decisions are made, and how human those in power are.
In the sandbox, Owly laughs loudly, and pummels her castle. It crumbles beneath the blows, damp sand
scattering. “Take that! And that! Silly princess!” she chortles. “I am a dragon! I am bigger than you!” Her laughter rings
wildly through out the empty park. It
echoes merrily throughout the silent trees, and she beams up at Grant and the
android, eyes joyful beneath her black bangs.
“I should go,” The android
stands, gracefully. Grant thinks back to
when she perched on the jungle gym, balanced with inhuman agility, like a bird
about to take flight.
Suddenly she reaches
forward, and grasps his hand.
“Please,” she says, final
desperation making her grip painful.
“Remember me. Please. May won’t. I’m just a cause to her, and she’ll find
another, sooner or later. Owly’s too young . . . Please, will you? Remember me . . ?”
He wants to pull his hand
away. He does not want to look at her
face and see the wholesome beauty in her dark eyes. He wants to remain balanced between two
worlds, taking from each, never giving.
He wants things to be the same.
He wishes she is not holding his hand. He wishes he could not feel how
soft her skin is, nor see how earnestly she looks at him.
“I will,” he says. The
words are clear. They do not catch in
his throat.
“Thank you.” The moment is understated. There is no brilliant flash of light. Policemen do not appear out of the park’s
foliage to arrest him for this final choosing.
There is nothing but Owly laughing in the
sandbox. The dragon has sent the
princess and her army fleeing from the City, in tattered rags. They will hunt for a
“I will remember you too,”
says Max. She turns and walks away from
him. He watches her straight, proud back
as she disappears out of the park, the trees bending their great leafed
branches to encircle her.
On the bench, Grant tips
his head back and looks straight up, through the clouds, to the ravaged
sky. It’s going to be a very beautiful
day, he thinks, and is glad for it.