Accidental Creatures (10 page)

Graham pulled up his pay stubs, and scanning them, smiled. Slatermeyer was taking a pre-tax deduction of $500 off every check, and squirreling it away in an escrow account. It would be reported to the IRS

as investment income, not earnings, and therefore, it would be invisible to ALIVE!’s auditors.

“Clever, clever,” breathed Graham under his breath, and he scanned ahead to his quarry’s current profile records. He had an economy model maglev, dark brown. Its navigation module revealed sporadic trips to bars and restaurants around town, an occasional foray up north, no trips downriver whatsoever, and every Sunday like clockwork, a visit to the Belle Isle Aquarium.

Helix woke up in the middle of the night, her head and her ribs and the wound on her side all hurting at once. She lay there for a while, listening to the quiet, looking at the darkness, until her thoughts got round to the previous day, the restaurant, and the men in the alley. When she started to think about the playground, she got up, and walked carefully to the bathroom.

To the right of the toilet, beneath a window cracked and peeling with water damage, sat a porcelain bathtub. She looked with longing at the old, claw-footed affair. Wincing, she pulled off her t-shirt and turned on the water. She looked in the medicine cabinet, but there was no kosher salt. You can't have everything, she thought, gazing at the steaming tub, and she eased herself into the warm, delicious water. oOo

Chango awakened blearily on the couch in Mavi’s living room. Her head throbbed and her face was mashed into the textured upholstery. When she sat up she carried an imprint of Fleur de Lis on her cheek. Rubbing it she made her way to the bathroom on unsteady legs and flung open the door. Something splashed in the bathtub and let out a sharp cry of dismay.

“Gah!” shouted Chango, startled by the movement, and found herself staring at Helix, naked in the bathtub, and staring back at her with bewildered, sleep filled eyes. “Sorry, I didn't know you were in here,” she said, turning to the sink and running the tap. She splashed water on her face, and then turned back to Helix. “Were you sleeping?”

Helix sank beneath the edge of the tub. “Yes. Sometimes when I can’t sleep, it helps.”

“Oh,” said Chango, still looking at her.

“I’ll be out in a minute, if you could just-”

“Oh, sure, sorry.” Chango dried off her face and backed out the door. She went into the kitchen, where Mavi was leaning over the sink, pouring water into the coffee pot. “Guess who I just surprised in the bathroom?”

Mavi looked at her jadedly, “Helix?”

“Well, yeah.”

Mavi nodded and set the coffee pot on the counter. “I thought so. It wasn’t me and as far as I know, you’re not in the habit of surprising yourself. Why didn't you knock first?“ Chango sighed and shrugged. ”I wasn't thinking. I didn't expect-Mavi, she was in the bathtub."

“So? She can take a bath if she wants to, Chango, what's the problem?” Chango leaned closer and lowered her voice. “She was sleeping in there, Mavi, in the water.” oOo

Helix stepped carefully out of the tub and toweled off. Her ribs were still sore, her neck stiff, but her knife wound was almost healed, and the lump on her head was way down. She stepped into her freshly laundered, custom made four-sleeved body suit. The cellweave fabric warmed slightly at the touch of her damp skin, helping her dry off. She wished it wouldn’t. Her skin was always too dry, no matter what moisturizers or oils she used. The only thing that ever really seemed to help was soaking in a tub of salt water.

She slipped on her tunic and went out into the hallway and stood there, torn between the security of her room, and her curiosity about the house and its neighborhood. She’d been gone from Hector’s for three days now, and so far she’d spent most of it in one room. Someone was making coffee in the kitchen. She followed the smell down the hall.

Chango and Mavi stood close together by the sink, their conversation breaking off abruptly as Mavi saw her. “Oh, Helix, it's good to see you up and about.”

“Thanks,” she said, remaining in the doorway, at a loss for what to do next. Chango and Mavi stood looking at her expectantly. Her cheeks burned, and she realized she was blushing.

“C'mon in,” said Chango, suddenly darting across the room to her and guiding her to the table. “Have a seat. You want coffee? Mavi just put some on.”

Helix nodded slowly, “Yeah. Yes, thank you.”

Hanging from a peg near the door was Hector’s raincoat. Just the sight of it made her feel better, more secure. Chango and Mavi had both seen her, seen her arms, seen everything, Night Hag too, but still she felt naked, being anyplace but Hector’s apartment without that coat on. She glanced at her companions. Mavi was stirring sugar into her coffee, Chango was pouring a bowl of raisin bran. “Oh, there’s my coat,” she said, feigning surprise.

“A little the worse for wear, I’m afraid,” said Mavi.

“That’s okay. I’m a little cold, that’s all.” It was true, she usually was cold. She used to keep Hector’s apartment so warm he could hardly stand it.

Chango and Mavi exchanged glances as she got up and slipped into the raincoat and buttoned it over her lower arms. “That’s better,” she smiled and seated herself at the table again. Mavi poured her a cup of coffee and handed her the steaming mug.

“Want some cereal?” asked Chango.

“Sure, thanks.”

Chango poured her a bowl and added milk.

“So what are you up to today, Chango?” asked Mavi getting up to retrieve a basket from next to the stove.

“Oh, I have a few errands to run. Helix, maybe you’d like to come along, see the neighborhood, get to know a few people.”

“I don’t know.”

“You said you left your father because you wanted to find something for yourself. You’re not going to find it hiding out here, are you?”

She was right. She’d left Hector to find out about the rest of the world, and now she was just turning this place into another Hector’s apartment; walls to hide behind.

Mavi sat down, pulled a length of knobby yarn out of her basket and wound it around her fingers. “Fresh air would be good for you, but no adventures.” She pointed a long hook at Chango. “Stay in the neighborhood, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am.” said Chango.

“What are you doing?” asked Helix as Mavi worked the yarn with her hook.

“Crocheting. My mother taught me, but you just can’t find yarn anymore.”

“What’s that, then?” Helix pointed at the blue-green-red-yellow length of ropy stuff in her hands.

“Oh, they save it up at vat 9. Every month or so Benny brings me a bag of it. The bodies aren’t good for much of anything-”

“Except bouncing balls,” said Chango

“-but I tie the tendrils together and make stuff with them. Pele sells them for me at the Eastern Market. I used to do a lot of afghans, but lately I’m doing hats.” She had begun working the yarn into a round.

“The hats sell better.”

Helix’s eyebrows rose of their own volition. “They’re — they’re that stuff you fish out -”

“Agules,” said Chango, “Mavi’s a recycler.”

“Since you’re making the rounds Chango, you want to drop some of these off for me?”

“Sure, but it wouldn’t kill you to let sunlight strike your face either, you know, instead of just sitting around in here all the time, smoking and knitting.”

“Crocheting. Besides, I’ve got things to do. Xenia sprained her ankle and needs a sassafras poultice, and Harvey is still trying to come off Blast. He needs more goldenseal tincture. Oh, and stop by Hyper’s while you’re out, see if he needs more valerian.”

“Sure,” said Chango, getting up and taking her bowl to the sink. “Helix, will you join me?”

Helix gnawed at her lower lip with one fang. “I don’t know. Actually, I should start looking for a job somewhere. Do you know anyplace around that’s hiring?”

Chango and Mavi laughed. “Not hardly,” said Chango, her smile narrowing to a smirk. “Besides, come with me and you won’t need a job.”

oOo

Helix followed Chango across the street to her motor car, a yellow behemoth covered with patches of red polybond. It was a warm, cloudy, humid day; the air dense and full of a strange, yeasty smell. It felt soft and damp against her skin, soothing. “Wow, it’s nice out,” she said. Chango looked at her incredulously. “Nice out? You must be joking. Days like this GeneSys should issue everyone in Vattown a divesuit. Smell that? It’s growth medium, and it’s probably morphing us as we stand.” She opened the door for Helix. “You have to get in on this side, the door on the passenger’s side doesn’t work.”

Helix slid into the spacious seat, cracked and shiny with spots of bioadhesive. They pulled out and rumbled down the street, and Helix leaned back and watched the sky pass above them.

After innumerable turns down narrow streets pitted with erosion and lined with vacant lots and houses in varying stages of disrepair, Chango pulled over in front of a vast field of brick and metal rubble. “All that’s left of the Russell Industrial Center,” she said and got out of the car. Helix watched as she ducked under the half-hearted barricade and picked among the dust and stones. She returned with a fragment of concrete. The brief but intense heat of the disintegration process had melted a crescent wrench into its surface like an instant chrome fossil.

“What’s that?” asked Helix.

Chango looked at her and then heaved it into the back seat. “It’s art,” she said, and got back into the car.

oOo

“Hey Hyper!” called Chango opening the screen door. “Why don’t you lock your door, fool?”

At one of several metal worktables, a scrawny young black man was busily removing solder from a circuit board. He glanced up at them, “Because then I’d have to get up to let you in. I'll be done here in just a sec.”

Helix looked up in wonderment at the ceiling, nearly tripping over a stack of holocubes. There were things hanging up there that she’d never consider hanging from a ceiling; whole computer systems, a fish tank filled with murky water.

The front of the house was furnished with stained cushions, a threadbare beanbag and a bucket seat from a levcar. Chango flopped down in the levcar seat. Helix just stood there, staring as Hyper's hands flew with soldering iron and vacuum tube. He was right, he was done in just a sec.

“Hi,” he said as he suddenly stepped around the table, and then, “Hi!” as he noticed Helix.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hyper, this his Helix. Helix, Hyper, a very old, dear friend of mine.”

“Hey, Helix,” he said, dodging forward to shake her hand. Helix took his hand in her upper right one.

“Thanks for lending me your transceiver.”

“Hey, no problem. Glad to see you’re doing all right, have a seat.” He pointed her to the beanbag. “Can I take your coat?” he added.

She looked up at him, “No, that’s okay. Thanks.”

“Oh for heaven’s sake,” said Chango, “it’s fucking eighty degrees out today. Aren’t you hot?”

She wasn’t hot, not really, but the lining of the coat was sticking to her arms and the back of her neck. And she did feel sort of stupid wearing it, when everyone else was in t-shirts and shorts. She looked carefully at Hyper. Chango had said he was a sport, but she could find nothing out of the ordinary about him except for his bizarre taste in home furnishings. “What’s different about you?” she asked.

“My metabolism. It runs high. I have to eat a lot of small meals and I don’t sleep too much.”

She was disappointed. She’d been hoping for nictating membranes or retractable ear flaps, at least a tail. It must have shown.

“I know, it’s boring, but it’s the only mutation I’ve got,” he said. She nodded in silence, and as casually as she could manage, slipped the raincoat from her shoulders. It felt good to stretch her arms and feel the air against her skin.

She watched Hyper for his reaction; saw his eyes travel down her body and up again to her face. He was smiling. “Now that’s a significant mutation. Do you have complete use of them?”

“Yeah,” she said, sliding into the chair, “but my bottom hands are better at fine work, and they don’t really lift up to the sides too well, top ones go three-sixty degrees, though.” Helix crisscrossed her hands about her knees and rocked self-consciously.

“That is so cool looking.”

“Thanks,”

“You know,” said Hyper, “She needs to meet Orielle.”

“Not Orielle,” said Chango.

“Who’s Orielle?” said Helix.

“Oh, just somebody who would make you fade right into the woodwork,” said Hyper.

“She’s a drug dealer,” said Chango.

“And a drug inventor, don’t forget about that,” said Hyper.

“Yeah, but she still makes her bread and butter by selling blast in this community. It keeps the vatdivers down, keeps them from doing anything about the company. They just do as they’re told, and collect their pay and use it to get blasted, that’s all.”

“It’s not just the blast, Chango,” said Hyper, “besides, you used to do blast, before...”

“Yeah, but I don’t any more, do I? And you know why, too.”

“You always say Ada didn’t dive blasted. Don’t you believe that?”

Chango glared at him, and finally stood up, to walk past them and stare at something hanging from the ceiling. “Fuck you, Hyper,” she growled softly.

Hyper shrugged and looked at Helix. “She’s a bundle of contradictions, she is. Can I get you something?

Water, Cool-Aid, Chromium 50?"

“Water, please.”

Chango, still standing, still staring at the ceiling, shook her head. “You’re going to regret it.”

“You want anything, Chango?” asked Hyper, heading towards the back of the house.

“Only your immortal soul,” she said, and sat back down in the lev seat. Hyper returned in an instant with a cup of doubtful looking water and handed it to Helix. She sniffed it. It smelled like solder. Casually she set it down on the floor.

Hyper tapped his foot, rooted around in his shirt pocket, came up with a half-empty pack of Reefer Madness, pulled one out, lit it and offered Helix the pack.

“No thanks.”

“I'll take one,” said Chango.

“So you're new in town huh?” said Hyper, switching on his holotransceiver and flipping through channels.