“What piece?” asked Shields. “What piece of her did she get back?”
An involuntary tear streaked down my left cheek before I had an opportunity to turn away. “I suppose you could call it innocence. That piece was her innocence.”
“What in the hell is going on in here?” barked Keegan as he came through the door, closing it behind him. He heard Meyla cry out and he went to the end of the bio bay and looked in. Meyla immediately screamed, causing Keegan to jump backwards and throw up his hands before his face. “Christ, what’s wrong with her?” He faced me. “Shannon? What’s been going on here? What’s wrong with this bitch?”
Although I knew he wouldn’t understand it, I told him the truth. “She’s in touch with all of the shit that’s ever been done to her. She’s in touch with it and it hurts.”
“Hurts?” Keegan’s face screwed up in confusion. “Hurts? She’s a bloody damned android, Shannon. She don’t hurt.”
Meyla’s crying grew into a scream and lapsed into sobs. “Listen to her, Keegan. She hurts. Even when no one could hear the screams, even when she couldn’t hear her own screams, she hurt.”
Keegan glanced once more into the bay. “Look at that,” he said, his voice filled with disgust. “Eyes all red, snot running down her face.” He turned his head toward me and said, “Man, I gave you an eighty thousand dollar hooker and all I got left is a hundred and ten pounds of crybaby. How long does this go on?”
“I don’t know.”
“What’re you trying to pull?”
I kept my gaze on Keegan as I shook my head. “I’m not done with her yet. She has some processing to do on a number of things—“
“No, pal,” said Keegan as he pulled an automatic from his jacket pocket and pointed it at my face. “That’s where you’re wrong. You’re not only finished with her, Shannon, you’re finished period.” He walked over until he was standing at the foot of the table next to Shields. He nodded toward me and said to the andy, “Search him for weapons.”
Like an automation, Shields walked until he was in front of me. He stopped and began patting me down. I had a knife in a horizontal sheath strapped to the back of my belt. His hands felt the knife and moved on. Shields’s face registered nothing. At last the andy turned and held up his hand. “This is it.”
In the andy’s hand was a palm-sized five shot small caliber revolver. It was one of Keegan’s. Keegan gestured with his free hand. “Let me have it.”
Alex Shields shrugged, glanced at me, and said, “Orders are orders.” He turned, took two steps toward Keegan, and smacked him upside his head with the pistol. Before his comical expression went face down on the floor, Keegan’s eyes rolled up in his head.
Panic ate at me as I looked at Shields.
“He’ll live,” said the andy. “Which means we ought to conclude things here as rapidly as possible.”
I looked up and saw Meyla standing at the end of the bay, clutching Shields’s coat around her. She was looking down at Keegan, her body still shaking from her sobs.
She looked at Shields, then at me. “You’re the one. The one who held me.”
“Yes.”
Shields sat in the chair before the D-11 as Meyla shuddered and walked over to me. “It hurts,” she said.
“You’re free,” I answered.
“I’m free. I’m free and it hurts, you bastard.” She reached out her hand and grabbed my arm, squeezing it, cutting off the blood. “What am I supposed to do with it? What am I supposed to do with the pain?”
I pulled my arm from her grasp and said, “Feel it. That’s what you’re supposed to do with it. Feel it.”
“Why?” asked Shields, his eyes betraying some of the pain that he carried. “You don’t feel yours. That little boy, that curious looking monster, that’s all your stuff, Shannon. You don’t feel it.”
I closed my eyes. God, it was there waiting for me, the pain. When the smell gets bad enough, the garbage has to be taken out. “Yeah. You’re right, and it’s contaminated every corner of my life.” I nodded at Meyla. “Before I can finish her, or you, or bug hunt those two left in the cooler, I’ve got some stuff of my own to face. That’s why I had you bring me up.”
I nodded toward Keegan’s unconscious form. “Get his clothes for Meyla and then tie him up. I don’t want him dead; none of this shit is his fault. Just make sure he stays out of the way.” I looked at Alex Shields and Meyla Hunter. Neither of them were moving. Of course, the blocks that enslaved them, that forced them to follow human orders, were inoperative. They now had to be reasoned with as though they were human. Human psycho killers with hardly a thread to the real world, but human all the same.
“You two need me. Those two in the cooler, need me, as well. I’ve got the training to help all of you, and I want to do it. Any legal ferret you could find would terminate you because of the government orders junking you. Any dirty ferret, working for a crud like Keegan, would have to replace those slave blocks. You’re no profit to anyone if you’re free.”
“But,” said Meyla. “There’s always a but.”
I stared at her for a long time and then nodded. “That’s right. There’s a but. Before I can help you, I have to help myself. I’ve got my own blocks. There’s a piece of me that’s struggling to be acknowledged. You’ve both seen him.”
“The boy,” said Shields. He moistened his lips, rubbed his eyes, and glared at me. “And then, what?”
“Then?” I looked at the D-11 meld unit, slowly shook my head, and turned toward the table where I would be stretched out. I picked up the cable and began attaching the connector. “Then we’ll see.”
Hands around my throat.
Angry hands.
Frightened.
Choking me to keep me quiet.
I felt them, dry and hot, around my throat. The feeling remained as I stood on my street, in front of that yellow house, looking at the little boy with the white hair. Waves of panic; a well of feelings bubbling over. The little boy frowned at me, confused that I’d returned, puzzled about why.
He didn’t trust me. Couldn’t trust me. Had I tried to gather him in my arms as I had Meyla’s innocent girl, he would’ve pushed me away.
It was too late for that. I had to go back to earn his trust; back to where there was a little boy; back to where there was innocence.
The little boy with the halo of white hair looked up at the door of the yellow house.
The sounds of the street faded as I turned my gaze toward those filthy steps, that darkened doorway.
I took a step toward the stairs. The building seemed to pulse and throb as though it were a living creature. My feet were on the stairs, and the cold rotten smell of death came rolling down the stairs at me. I could hear a distant roar; could see tiny spatters of blood on the landing.
I turned my head and looked down at the little boy. He was watching. “Far enough?” I asked, praying that the little boy would relent and let me help him. “Is this far enough?”
He looked away, his face crestfallen. It wasn’t far enough. I’d known that before I asked. The boy had known it, too. He’d known that I would’ve tricked him if it could’ve gotten me out of going through that door.
I looked at the door and felt my guts twist into a knot as the doorway transformed into the open maw of the Chimaera. Sulfurous fumes rose from the sides of its mouth. It’s fangs and teeth glistened and dripped with foul smelling slime.
I whispered to myself, “I am the traveler, I have control, all of this is symbol, none of this is real.” Affirm, affirm, affirm.
But I was not the traveler; I was the traveled. I was not in control; in control was the monster. None of this was symbol; all was real.