The Hunt for Pierre Jnr (6 page)

A diode above the doorway lit up and a man older than his years shuffled in. He obviously wasn’t one to shave regularly and, to Pete at least, his thoughts were as wild as his eyes.

Pete stood and held out his hand. ‘Mister Sandro. My name is Peter Lazarus.’

Pierre Snr looked warily at the hand and then shook his head in declaration.

Mister Sandro, I am one of you,
 Pete thought to himself.

Pierre Snr didn’t react; his file was seemingly correct that he had no telepathic ability and was skilled mainly as a bender. As if in demonstration, the empty chair in front of him pulled backward of its own accord and Mister Sandro sat down. His posture sagged and his eyes fell low, moving side to side rapidly.

As he took his own seat, Pete’s arm thudded down hard on the table, alarming them both. ‘Sorry, I’m still not used to the weight of this thing.’

Pete pulled back his sleeve to show Pierre Snr the symbiot. It flashed a hello at him and Pierre recoiled. ‘I hate those things.’

‘Have you ever had to wear one? This is my first time.’

‘I’ve got a passive on my ankle.’

‘Oh. Of course.’ Pete watched the man slouched across from him. His mind was all over the place, a bit like a child’s, a drugged child’s. ‘Do you know why I’m here?’

‘It’s about Junior, I assume.’

‘That’s right. I’m part of a Services team trying to find him.’

‘Good luck to you.’

Pete couldn’t deconstruct Pierre’s stain of emotions that came at the thought of his son. He decided to leave the probing to Tamsin and concentrate on the interview; it was too tiring doing both.

‘I’ve told them everything I know a thousand times.’

‘I’ve read your testimonies. I’m more here to get a sense of what you’re like. I’m hoping if I can get to know a little about the parents, it may give us a picture of Pierre Jnr.’

‘Yeah?’ Sandro scoffed. ‘I don’t know whether to be insulted by that or not.’

At first he was. His reaction to being linked with Junior was strong, then it grew vague and his eyes wandered more slowly as if he’d forgotten where he was.

‘I guess it makes sense,’ he mumbled.

‘Tell me, Mister Sandro, what is it like here? You’ve been on the islands nearly seven years now.’

Sandro nodded. ‘Yes. After the project, they left us on the islands. I’ve only been on this one for eight months. They like to rotate us.’

‘Sounds like they’re trying to stop you getting so bored.’

‘Oh, nothing can stop the boredom, mister.’ Sandro smiled miserably and looked downward again. ‘But you’re right, it keeps life moving along.’

Pete waited for him to speak again; he was determined to get Pierre to open up.

‘You know they’re talking about sending us into space?’ Pierre Snr commented at last. ‘We hear it on the Weave.’

‘I’ve heard that too.’

‘Some of us wouldn’t be against it. Maybe we could set up a new society someplace. You know anything about this?’ He was assuming Pete was higher up than he was.

‘I’m afraid not, Mister Sandro. I’m really just assigned to your son’s case.’

Pierre grunted and stretched his neck. ‘Yeah, I wish I could help you more. I’ve had no contact with him since he left.’

The man’s mind was uncomfortable; the memory was like a dream that refused to fade away, leaving forever a moment of unreality inside him.

‘I understand that, Mister Sandro. I just wondered if you could give me any impression of Pierre Jnr from the time you spent with him.’

‘He ruined me. He ruined all of us.’

‘As an infant?’ Pete asked.

‘He was never that. He was a monster born whole.’

‘When did you first become, let’s say, 
aware
 of him?’

‘I never did. Not like that. I’m just a bender, you see?’ The table playfully floated up and down.

‘When did you first know that your son was different?’

‘Well, we knew what he was about six months into the pregnancy. Mary knew before then. We didn’t tell anyone. We were excited. My partner, Sullivan, was even more excited, even though ... you know.’

‘He was your partner at the time?’

‘Yeah. Yeah. But our partnership was annulled. A lot of partnerships were annulled during the project. We all thought we were being accepted, you see, that the laws would be lifted ...’

He drifted off again. These memories made him mopey and he obviously expended a lot of effort trying to ignore them.

‘Please go on, Mister Sandro. I need to know as much as I can.’

‘Okay.’ A glass of water floated to his lips and he drank in big gulps. ‘As I was saying, my partner, Sullivan, loved communicating with Junior. We’d already named him by then. It was sort of a nickname we never explained to the researchers. Sullivan stuck with Mary through the whole thing, more than I did. I spent my days competing against the other psis. Even at the birth Sullivan made sure to be there, and he had already explained to Junior what was going to happen so he wouldn’t be frightened.’

Pete sat forward and let the man talk it out.

‘I’d never seen a surgical before, not even a real birth, but I know there’s supposed to be crying. It had to be a surgical because we knew about Junior’s head already. There was no way he was going to fit through. When Mary was opened up, it was dead silent in the room. Even the operating team was silent. I watched from the viewing room and nobody spoke, only the machines moved ... and then they lifted him out. There wasn’t a sound from him ...

‘And they were right about that head. It was big. He couldn’t turn it. I know most babies can’t, but the doctor holding him took him around the room, stopping so the baby could have a look at everybody present. I didn’t even think they could really see at that stage, no?’

‘I don’t know. I could check.’ Pete began to interface with the symbiot.

‘It doesn’t matter. It’s just how things were I’m trying to tell. That’s what you wanted. Junior didn’t cry. Ever. But we all did for him. If he was cold, we wrapped him in a blanket. If he was hungry, he got fed. If he wanted to look out the window or cross the room, the nearest person would pick him up and take him. Do you understand? We knew what we were doing, but we weren’t the ones doing it. It was incredible. Like a dream where things happen and you just watch. Do you understand?’

‘I think I follow, but I’ve never experienced it.’

‘Good.’ Sandro’s blue eyes stared wildly into Pete’s. ‘I hope you never do.’

‘What happened to the mother after the birth? Miz ... Kastonovich?’

‘She was worst off. Mary had been under his control for the longest. When he left, she just dropped to the floor.’ His eyes lost their edge, and dropped back to an obsessive study of the tabletop. ‘They had her on intravenous right up until she had the strength to kill herself.’

‘I didn’t know she died,’ Pete said, and he ran a query through the symbiot. It confirmed his prior information that Mary Kastonovich was alive and living on a nearby estate. ‘I have an appointment with her later today.’

‘That woman — that 
thing
 — is an abomination, a clone so the researchers could continue their studies.’

It was clear that Sandro believed what he was saying, but the Weave said otherwise. Pete sent a missive to Geof to check it out. ‘Tell me, Mister Sandro ... didn’t anyone in the project, one of the readers, sense that she was going to kill herself? Couldn’t somebody have stopped her?’

‘Stopped her? Perhaps, if we weren’t all thinking the same thing. Those were bad days. The project was over. Everyone knew it. Even the docs were wasted. You don’t know what it was like.’

‘I’m sorry to bring back such memories for you.’

‘It’s okay. I know you’re under instruction. But you’ve got to know what he took from us, Mister Lazarus. He ruined any chance we psis had. Mary was the best of us. She was a beautiful lady, and she had the most amazing abilities. I don’t want you confusing that clone with her. That thing never went through what she went through.’

‘I understand.’ Pete thanked Pierre Snr for his time, watched from his chair as the man exited, and waited for the diode above the door to flick to safe before looking toward the mirror. 
Are you there?

He stared at his reflection, waiting for a response. It would be just like her to sit there and not respond. And just as likely for her to have left and not told him.

I’m here.

What were your impressions of Pierre Snr
?

The same as yours. He’s of no use to us.

Where’s Sullivan? He and Junior seemed close.

Missing.

Missing?

Would you prefer ‘in the grey’?

Is Mary a clone?

There is no basis for that claim. Pierre Snr must have created that delusion.

I’d believe it. Then again, I’d believe almost anything.
 Pete sighed and stood up, stretching his back. ‘I can neither see you nor sense you.’

Tamsin chose to respond over the intercom. ‘Does that frustrate you, Pete?’

‘It certainly does. I’m not used to it. It’s like you only half-exist.’

‘Oh, I exist, Pete. You can be sure of that.’

‘How?’ he asked the mirror.

Silence was the only response.

How?
 he asked again.

~ * ~

‘We spent our days training.’

‘Training? How did you train?’

‘Oh, you know, party tricks mostly, at first. Card reading, putting out matches from across the room. Later it became a real gymnasium, lifting tables up and down, talking over distances.’

‘Was it hard?’

‘For some.’ She shrugged. It was to her the plain truth; she couldn’t help that she was skilled. According to the records, she had once managed to communicate a coded sequence over five hundred metres. ‘They worked on developing stimulants.’

‘Did any of them work?’

‘They seemed to, but it could have just been placebo.’

‘And now, can you still ... do some of those things?’

She hummed to herself and rolled her head. ‘On good days. The islands are covered in the black noise, which makes it annoying. Not debilitating, just annoying. And they lace the water too, you know. It’s hard to focus, but it keeps us happy.’

A miniature breeze evaporated on Pete’s cheek. ‘Was that you?’ he asked.

She nodded. ‘After eight years, even that was hard.’

Pete looked Mary over again. She was still a beautiful woman, dark-haired and athletic, a dancer out of training. He couldn’t quite credit Pierre Snr’s statement; her sadness was embedded deep. ‘What was it like when you were pregnant?’ Her eyes and mind glazed over at the question. ‘Do you remem—’

‘Sleep,’ she answered. ‘It was like sleeping.’

‘Like a dream?’

‘Sort of. But with no real dreaming. It’s hard to remember.’

Pete could see she really didn’t recall much from those months, just a vague sense of existence. Maybe Pierre Snr was right, though the memory gap could be explained just as easily by contact with Junior.

‘Do you think memory is tied to consciousness?’ Mary asked quietly.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t follow.’

‘I just wonder if the reason I can’t remember is because I wasn’t really aware. I can’t remember much from the time he controlled me.’

‘That’s an interesting thought.’

‘Is it? I don’t know.’ She smiled and looked blankly at him.

‘You aren’t resentful at all? He used you, Miz Kastonovich.’

‘He didn’t create himself, Mister Lazarus. I did that. Me, Pierre and that whole institution.’ Her gaze quickened as she spoke. ‘Are you going to try and stop him?’ Her dull lips rounded in amusement. ‘Peter?’ He looked at her without answering. His symbiot informed him that no answer was permitted. ‘You can’t, you know? He’s a force of nature. I gave birth to a god.’ Her face was bright with excitement. ‘He will save us.’

‘I doubt that.’

‘Doubt? I have doubted a great many things that have come to pass.’ Now she looked straight at him and stretched: 
I notice you haven’t touched your water.
 But then she was gone again, pupils dilating and energy fading away.

‘If you find him, you’ll just disappear like I did ... Can I go now?’

~ * ~

The halls were floored with synthetic panels of grey-blue and white. There was a murmur from each door they passed: children learning, out of sight.

‘I’m sure you’ll be happy here, Pierre,’ piped the Matron touring them. Pierre said nothing and the woman took this for shyness. He seemed such a lovely boy. She chose to speak to his mother. ‘We use only the most contemporary techniques: mixed classes, no symbiots until sixteen — but that’s a while away for you, Pierre.’ The boy’s placid smile flickered.

‘That sounds fine,’ Gail answered.

The boy has no bot. A boy his age should have a bot. Maybe it’s small, hidden in his pocket perhaps. Or, the mother might hold with some more traditional beliefs. Unless he is wired already ... it has been known to happen. 
The Matron shuddered with thoughts until her worries disappeared and she looked down at the most darling child she had ever seen.