Ectopia (22 page)

She's not looking at me though, not looking at Paul whose fingers keep tapping coz loud as Karen screams he's not heard a thing. She's staring up the cellar stairs. She lifts her hands to protect her face as fragments of brick spit down to hit her but still she stares.

Two sledgehammers hit our brick wall with one more single pound and the bricks hurtle down the stairs. It's Dad, I think. Ex-Dad. We're dead and this is the underworld. Dad's bursting in to claim us.

It's weird the crap your mind thinks up in an instant so small no time passes.

A white blue light flashes into the cellar and stays there. I watch a cloud bulge through the hole. It spills off the stairs and hits the walls. Malik's gone. Karen's gone. Instead there's nothing but cloud. It washes my eyes and streams in through my mouth and nose. It's a white cloud but filled with rain that coats me. My hands slip in the moisture that lands on the floor and I fall back. My only move is to shiver, to shiver so fast my body won't freeze and turn direct to ice.

It's Dad's breath, I think. Ex-Dad's breath, as I catch the stink of sulphur. He's gusting down the stairs. I hear his steps, and the crash of the table as he pushes it out the way. A jar with a candle in it splinters on the floor. A figure stands above me, grey within the cloud. It crouches lower, and presses a tube of cold black metal against my head. An electronic beep shifts to keener and higher, as high-pitched as Karen's early-teen screams.

- Got him, a voice says. It's a male voice in electric mode, clipped and hollow – Entering chill. Demist now. Repeat, demist now.

The cloud is sucked away. The figure is revealed. It's dressed in the full black fibogear of a Statesquad trooper. A trooper on detox maneuver. A fire trooper. The cold light sparkles as he flashes out a silver blanket and drapes it around me, crinkling it to my sides. My shivers stop as my bodyheat turns back inside.

Operation code SG17, the voice reports – Item number 5HP3 ready for evacuation. Incapacitated. Unconscious. Request flatbed assistance.

If this is unconscious then alert's a firework of psychodrama too intense to shit.

2.0

Steven carved his initials on his headboard when he was nine.

– You want to turn your headboard to a tombstone, his Dad said when he found out – Then I guess I'd better kill you.

His Dad had a canvas shoe with a rubber sole. The canvas was worn but he kept it for these special moments. It was his punishing shoe. The sole had imprints of stars that he left on the bare flesh of Steven's little-boy ass.

– That'll teach you some respect for furniture, he said when he'd done.

Now the bed's burnt to black and landed in the hall. I look up to where it fell from. The bedroom's a smudge of sky.

Vibrations reach up through the flatbed's padding as firetroopers stretcher me out of the house. Motors are at work, beaming my body image to a diagnosis lab. Other troopers work the garden as I pass.

Fiberglass bubbles stud the earth like farts coming up through a bath. Some are tiny. It's crazy to think even Runt or Pint would burn down to a tinderpatch that size. One's so huge though that ex-Mom could roll around inside it. It's in the middle where teensquad clustered. Its bubble shell is frosted but still I see through it somehow. Inside is a mixture of fleshmelt and dust. I see what looks like a hand, then another, then another. The hands are black and the fingers are straight and stretched, not gripping but letting go. When we ran as undertow, when we ran as teensquad, we ran as one body with one supermind. We ran as one animal. This animal's not that one. It's got too many hands and no feet that I can see. Maybe this mess is just a skin. Maybe the feet of my dead friends aren't crumpled out of sight but kept on running. Maybe I'm crying even though my eyes are dry.

The fence has gone. The troopers step from burned earth to asphalt with only a charred rim in between. They fit my flatbed to a trolley and hoist it up to the back of a van. I'm slid inside and the trolley is bolted in place.

- You hear me OK Bender?

I know the voice.

- It's Lester. Dr Lester Drake. Remember me?

I try to lift myself, to look around.

- Stay still Bender. The scans show no breakage but we need to be sure. You're immobilized. Your body's sucked on to the flatbed as safe as a vacuum. Your head's contoured in a flexigrip. Blink your eyes. Shut your eyes. You'll understand.

I do as he says. I shut my eyes. It makes no difference to the light that comes in.

I practice some more, shutting and closing my eyelids. It's a new experience. It takes getting used to. Shutting my eyes makes a difference to what I see but not how I see it. What I see is myself, my head fixed to the flatbed as my eyes open and shut. So if my head's fixed, how the fuck can I be seeing it from somewhere else? How can I watch from the outside as my own eyes shut?

- Shall we take one last look at your old house, Bender?

From inside my head I stare through a tinted window reinforced with wire netting. A thick vaporhose trails across the garden but it's idle. It's done its job. The fire's gone out. It's a new house now. The door and windows have been knocked out from downstairs, the outer walls and roof are gone from above. Everything's turned to black. Doc Drake laughs, a low chuckle.

- That was quite a blast. Your neighbors have got your fence in their front rooms. Fence posts flew in through the windows or straight through the brick. You want my advice? Don't ask for those fence posts back. Did you help your Dad or did he do it on his own?

I've got no Dad.

- OK Bender. You can't talk but I register your emotions. You just showed anger not guilt. When you took your first look at your burnt-out home you registered relief. I'm a psychiatrist. I trust emotions more than words. That's why we're working through this little exercise. You're linked to my field of vision, Bender, but the reactions to what you see through my eyes are purely your own.

I look from the house and back inside the van. Malik is strapped to a shelf that runs along a steel wall. I look down on his face. He's relaxed. His eyes are closed but I sense movement behind the lids. A slight smile touches his cheeks.

- Ah-ha. A hard emotion to label but let's be unprofessional. Let's call it love. Don't worry Bender. Your friend is in good hands. We've got him sedated.

No way. No fucking way are they going to do to Malik what they say they did to me.

Doc Drake laughs.

- Don't worry, Bender. We've got no designs on your friend. We have plans for him maybe but ultimately we've only got his wellbeing at heart. You did well to lend him your slinksuit. He's come through that experience unscratched.

My view turns away from Malik and takes in Paul. He's strapped into a chair, seated to face the wall of the van that backs the driver's section. The sight doesn't interest me. Where's Malik?

- You want to see more of your friend? You've not exhausted that emotion yet?

Malik comes back into view. He has the thickest eyelashes I've known, even in pictures. He's beautiful when awake too but that's different. Then the beauty's in the motion, in the flow of his body streaming through life. Awake he's alert and that's what grabs you. The rest of life finds a mirror in his face. Nothing passes by when you're with him. Everything excites. In sleep though he's gone soft. He's gone gentle.

A hand reaches in to stroke his cheekbones. A black-skinned hand. It runs a fingernail along the outer line of Malik's nose, around his lips, and down to his throat.

- You surprise me, Bender. You're more refined than I knew. I was sub-labeling your love-emotion as a teenage lust thing but it contains several underlying components. One is aesthetic, a real appreciation of beauty. And this one …

The hand goes out of sight then returns to press the flat of a short steel blade against the skin of Malik's throat. My look turns away, to a monitor scrolling green numbers across a black screen while a red line at the bottom jags high.

- That's a real maternal protective thrust you're showing there. I label it maternal because of its ferocity. You sense vulnerability in the one you love, you see the presence of danger, you flash out a stab of violence. What now, Bender? As I insert the blade you see a thin line of blood stretch across your loved one's throat …

I see nothing. The doc gives a commentary of flesh parting and blood streaking across Malik's throat but doesn't let me see it. All I see are more numbers that spurt across the screen as the red line scrawls a dense scratch of panic lines along the graph.

- Interesting.

My vision turns from the screen and across my body, reaching toward the other side wall of the van. Someone else is strapped there. I find I'm looking down on Karen. How's Malik? What's he done to Malik?

- Don't be stupid Bender. Do you think I'd hurt Malik. I'm a doctor. Look.

I see back across my own body to Malik. He's smiling still. His throat is intact.

- You see? He's alright. Calm as a baby. Is that OK now Bender? You've settled down? Let's get back to business.

My sight now shifts to linger a while on Paul. His chest is strapped to the chair and another belt wraps round from the seat to bind him round his thighs but his hands are free. His fingers are working a keyboard though he's facing no screen, simply the rear wall of the van. Anything he sees is through the visor clamped round his head.

- You see his mouth?

His mouth's open, the lips stretched back across his gums to show his teeth. I hear nothing but it seems he's laughing.

- He's happy. We've made him happy again. We're doing what we can for all of you. You're all mending. Paul was ripped too soon from his reconstitution program. If you'd left the program to run its course you'd have noticed little difference in his behavior now from the Paul you've always known and loved. We only download excess neural capacity. It's like piercing a boil and letting out the pus. He's better for it. We leave full social and animal functioning. He could have enjoyed a perfectly happy birthday. Indeed that's what he's doing now. Happy birthday to Paul.

My sight drifts round to the wall on my left and to Karen. Her eyes are shifting behind her closed eyelids, much as Malik's were doing. Her cheeks are touched by a similar smile. Even though that's what I see it's not where I look. It's not where I focus. Instead I glimpse a reflection of Doc Drake in the shine of the steel wall. He's looking down on Karen through a pair of clear plastic goggles strapped round the back of his head.

- Now that's interesting, Bender. I catch a spike of aggression more usually associated with intense male rivalry. Is this your usual reaction to your sister or only when she's made up to look like you?

I get it. I'm learning how to play this game. It's like watching a movie but only focusing on the bottom left corner of the screen. The camera's working to grab your attention, to show you something else, but you say fuck it. Fuck your entertainment schedule. I'll see what I want to see. So you focus on some little scrap the camera's just passed by. You screw attention to a touch of world they expect you to ignore. You decide what's special. You make something special just by seeing it. That makes you special too. I've watched movies that way. It works. You get a buzz of creating something instead of just a brainwipe.

I try it now. I only get to see where the doctor's looking, but inside his field of vision I can focus where I want. I spotted his reflection. That's what got me going but he doesn't even see it. He's staring down at Karen. He wants me to react to what he's doing to her. Well fuck him.

- I worry as a doctor that you've bound her chest too tight, Bender. I'm concerned about her breathing.

His hands reach out to fold around her breasts. I focus on the perimeter of what he sees. The silver bag containing me is reflected in the steel wall. He looks up to check the monitor and gauge my reaction. I take the chance of this shift in visual angle to focus on the back of the driver's head glimpsed through a window at the front of the van.

The view changes. I look down at myself for a moment, then out through the window at the burnt ruin of home. In the bottom left corner of the view two firetroopers have sliced the ground below one of the smaller fiberglass bubbles and are setting it down on a thin sheet of steel. The van begins to move and the image to recede. Bye bye house.

My view turns back to Malik. The flat of the blade presses into his cheek this time. It's a small variation, an old story. Slice away if you want, doctor. There's fuck all I can do about it. I check the reflection in the section of wall above Malik's head. I'm getting to see what I'm not meant to see. It seems the body of the van is empty of anyone but the doctor and us four.

- That's impressive, Bender. You've shifted to steady analytic mode. How have you done that? Time to abort this experiment, wouldn't you say?

I'm looking down on myself from up close. I'm looking into my own eyes. I shut em.

- Ah-ha. Got you. I've got your full attention. There's still a little vanity left in you I see. Don't worry, your eyelashes should grow back in time. Till then you'll have to live with the blink of a newborn rat. The blemishes to your skin are just that. It's nothing to concern you. The flash of heat dried your skin but didn't truly burn it. We'll have you looking fresh-faced again in time for your release. Now let's slip forward your protective headshield, shall we?

His hands reach down and a black Perspex hood arches up from behind my head.

- Your attention's become too keen Bender. As a doctor I'm concerned for your state of conscious equilibrium. This particular emotive program is designed for work on the subconscious mind, but you've grown too excited. I'm switching you back to your own vision. What you'll see is the inside of this hood. What you'll see is blackness as wide and as high as you can look. Now this will hurt just a bit but don't worry. It's an injection of nothing stronger than I've already administered to your sister and your friend. You've been through trauma. This is a sedative. Sweet dreams, Bender. Sweet dreams.