Body of Glass (45 page)

“How will I know what to weed?”

“Nobody pays attention to what day labour does. Just look busy.” Where will you be?”

“I’m going to take the next road over and go where they came from. I’ll see if I can spot Josh’s number or anything I recognize in any of the houses. I’ll work my way up and down the streets until ten to noon. Then I’ll come find you. I used to bring Ari home for lunch. I don’t know if Josh does that, or if he works through. We may have to wait until sixteen.”

“I can handle the ape, Shira. Easily. I can move before he gets his weapon out of its holster.”

“But not before he signals for help. He only has to press that wrist-con. You’d have to take him out before he knows what hit him. Or we have to wait to catch them without him. I bet he doesn’t sleep with Ari.”

“Any alarm systems I’m convinced I can disarm.”

“I’m sure they have good security on their house computer now, but I bet it’s nothing like Malkah’s.”

She was out walking. The four basic patterns of house alternated in a randomly generated design. All along the narrow roadway, where children would ride bikes and hikes and wheelies and where delivery pedicabs and occasional mototrucks travelled, flowers were planted in beds. Then on each side came a pedestrian walkway lined with trees and lawns. Many had hedges or low fences. What could be planted was strictly controlled. People in the lower and mid tech and management areas were responsible for their yards, but the roadways were maintained by day labourers. They were always about, clipping, weeding, feeding, but they were essentially invisible. No one spoke to them or knew them. It was a service like the water that flowed from the tap or the cleaning robots that here as in Tikva shuffled around all day and all night.

Everybody was at work by now. Mostly she saw an occasional robot on the street, cleaning, replacing burned-out lighting. Once she saw a team of human labourers repairing underground pipes in an intersection. They paid no attention to her. Construction workers were better paid than gardeners. All of them rode in and out on the tubes. Interaction between day labourers in the enclave was severely discouraged. She passed the shop where she had used to pick up dinner most nights. Nothing touched her feelings except for the flashes of Ari that came to her: Her son staring at a red rose just at his eye level, face-to-face, with his lips parted. He lunged forward and put it in his mouth before she could stop him. Then he howled with disappointment. That same rosebush stood at the intersection, flanked with two uncomfortable cast-resin benches. She passed the house that had been theirs and managed to read the number, but it was not Josh’s.

She covered forty blocks. Every house had a number implanted in the door, which identified the employees who lived there, but she could hardly walk up to each door. If a spy-eye was watching, that would be a tip-off. As it was, she stopped and worked regularly. She depended on recognizing something familiar ― curtains, a toy ― or on a hot flash of intuition. She found nothing. Even the midtech-level park where she had so often brought Ari to play in the sandbox seemed as devoid of nostalgia as a parking lot. At eleven-thirty, she turned back to meet Yod.

thirty-eight

Shira

Parents, mostly mothers, came and took their children for lunch. Josh did not appear. When she realized that he was not coming, she walked slowly down the street on the far sidewalk. Ari, wearing green-and-yellow rompers that looked none too clean, was playing with two little girls in a sandbox. He still had that way of tossing the sand up and laughing when it fell. She did not dare look any longer or harder. The guard was lounging on the grass, eating a lunch brought him by pedicab. She longed to run across the street and snatch Ari in her arms. Her hands closed on air. She kept going. She went to work on another flower bed.

Obviously the guard was remaining on duty. Josh would appear at sixteen hundred and collect Ari when the centre closed. She motioned to Yod, and they went off to sit on a bench in the next intersection. The curved resin benches were honey-coloured and slippery, designed to be looked at rather than sat on. Around them yellow and maroon chrysanthemums were planted in a double knot, the ground between the plants carpeted with glaring white pebbles. She ate the remains of the cheese and apples, keeping the food under cover. No day labourer would have real food. Yod did not bother with lunch.

“I hadn’t considered that your ex-husband would be with the boy,” Yod said. “How will he respond?”

“He’ll be as furious and as frightened as I was. It’s not fair to him to steal Ari. But he didn’t hesitate to take Ari from me. He began the war.”

“But once you loved each other.”

Shira chewed the last of the cheese without tasting it. “Truthfully, I don’t think I ever felt as close to him as I do to you. I thought I should get married. I thought Josh needed me. All self-delusion. A sad mistake all around, Yod.”

“They’re taking the children back in.”

She squinted, watching Ari and a girl from the sandbox pushing and shoving at each other, doubling over with giggles. Then Ari shoved too hard, and the little girl hit him and began to cry. It was agonizing to be kept at a distance, unable to speak, to touch him. She felt as if she were bleeding from a great rent in her side. She would rather die here, violently and at once, than leave him again.

“The guard is assuming his stance outside,” Yod reported.

“In a week it will be Rosh Hashanah. I imagine us home with Ari. We give him a toy shofar to blow. He blows it in the courtyard again and again and drives us all crazy. We are deliriously happy.”

“This year I’ll attend services with you. Avram wouldn’t allow me in public in previous years.”

They explored the streets of the city, looking for exit routes. Once they had Ari, what would they do? Could they slip out in a train, as they had come in? But where would they end up? This was not a manufacturing facility. Y-S plants were in China and South Africa. Empty cars might sit in the desert for days. They could not pass out through the communications channels from Base to Net, as once they had mentally.

“We can wrap Ari in your sec skin, since you don’t need it. If we’re seen, we’ve had it anyhow.”

Yod frowned. “But we can hardly walk across the desert.”

We can’t go out by train. They won’t stop at the first refuelling station. They only use that in this direction.”

“If I could steal a floater, we could head straight for where we left the fast-tank, blow up the floater so it can’t be tracked. Or go all the way to Omaha on the floater. I can reprogram it to bypass the controlling mechanism.”

“Or we could just pass out with the flow. If we grab Ari quickly enough between sixteen and seventeen, we can take the tube with the workers. They don’t check prints leaving. They move everybody out as fast as possible … But a child ― what would he be doing with the day labourers?”

“There’s no day care here for the labourers’ children?”

“I never thought about that. I guess they leave their children where they live.”

“You took tranks along. We can put him to sleep and carry him out in an equipment bag.”

She had a container of shots, each the size of a straight pin, that could put Ari to sleep. “Yod, we must come up with some plan. The worst thing we can do is grab him and then get caught.”

“I don’t think the actual abduction will represent much of a problem, once we’ve located their residence. Getting out ― we should devote the time we have remaining to that problem.”

The water was filtered and recirculated. Trash was used to generate power. What could be recycled was compacted here and shipped to another plant, but those cars were open and solidly packed. They could not hope to ride with the compacted trash. What passed out of the enclave every day were the labourers. After as much exploration as they dared, they were left at sixteen hundred with the same ideas they had begun the afternoon with: If they could grab Ari fast enough, they could pass out with the workers. If they had to wait, they would need to steal a floater, reprogram it and escape across the desert to the hidden fast-tank. All they accomplished was to work out two means for getting from the dome to the floater field outside.

As sixteen approached, Shira took a position around the corner, so that she could no longer see the centre but could still watch Yod. Finally he nodded to her, rose from his weeding and began strolling. Keeping her distance but maintaining him in view, she followed. The streets were filling, and Yod speeded up to stay within sight of Josh and Ari. In the crowd, she hurried and caught up to Yod. Now Josh and Ari were only a block ahead, the guard beside them. Yod and she pursued, a loose procession among the others flooding the walkways, spilling over into the narrow vehicle tracks. On the busier streets, moving sidewalks sped people and packages along. Josh picked up Ari, who clung to him, and, followed by the guard, used a mover to jump the next forty blocks. No wonder she had had no luck finding their residence.

Their three quarries exited the moving sidewalk and strolled down a side street. Nervous about chasing them on a block with little traffic, Shira and Yod lingered at the corner. Halfway along the block, Josh turned off at a house, identical to the one in which she had lived her married life. Layout, paint job, even the shrubs in the yard were the same. The guard saw them into the house, turned and came back. She and Yod scurried up the main street. People were getting in line for picking up their laundry.

The guard mounted the moving sidewalk and sped off. Yod and Shira at once headed for the house. They were all right for the next forty-five minutes. Day labourers worked till five, so that they did not get in the way of management and technical workers coming home or changing shifts. Her heart was pounding, and she could not draw a breath deep enough to relieve the crushed feeling in her chest. They would be caught. Yod would be dissected, and she would be rendered autistic by mnemosine. She would be a turnip stored in a mental ward; or they would quietly sell her to an organ bank.

“I’ll use the small sensor-muter I’ve been working on. I believe I can disarm the house with it. Wait outside while I make sure.”

“Yod, I can’t wait outside. I have to go in.”

“You can wait five minutes, Shira. In order to vastly increase the chances of securing your son.”

Yod walked up to the door, while Shira waited. He had the rod-shaped device in his hand. He touched it to the door. A moment later, he opened the door and passed inside. The muter must have worked. She looked too suspicious, standing on the sidewalk outside a tech house. Quickly she followed Yod. The lights in the house went out. It was still daylight.

She heard Josh calling down, “There’s a power outage, Sylvie. Keep Ari in the high chair.”

A woman’s voice said, “The power is out down here too, Mr Rogovin.”

“Go next door and find out if it’s general or just us.”

Yod intercepted the woman on the way to the door. He held her, a hand over her mouth, while Shira administered a hypo that would knock her out. It was the same kind she had used to vaccinate Ari every month or two against whatever new scourge was rampant. It was the size of a straight pin and could be inserted in any muscle. They carried the woman to the couch and laid her down. Yod opened and shut the front door. Shira ran into the kitchen.

“Ari.” She tried to speak calmly. His brown hair had darkened a little more, but it was the same tangle of curls, cut a little shorter than she preferred. His eyes, brown and oversized as her own, were wide with shock.

He stared at her, his mouth open. “Mama?” he screeched.

“Shh, my precious, I’ve come for you. I told you I’d never give up.” She kissed him. He was unresponsive, staring at her, his fists clenched. She lifted him out of the high chair. He let himself be lifted. Tears began to roll from her eyes. Tears ran down on to the shoulder of his dirty green-and-yellow rompers. She snuffled and shook her head hard. Must not cry. She would frighten him. “Mama’s so glad to see you!” He was heavier than she remembered. He did not struggle but did not respond.

Yod climbed the steps silently. Not a step creaked. He slipped upward and vanished. Ari had not yet seen him.

“When does the other guard come?” she asked Ari.

“Morning. When we go day care. Oscar.” He made a scowling face. Was he imitating Oscar?”

“Is it always Oscar?” She had to wait for Yod to take care of Josh. Frightened until she felt as if she was babbling, she was very, very careful to sound calm. She slid him back into the high chair and began to feed him some miso soup. If he did not eat now, he would be cranky soon.

“Sometimes George. Don’t like George. He yells.” Ari began bouncing up and down in the chair. The soup dribbled down. “Who was the woman who went next door?”

“My nana. Sylvie.”

She fed him the food that Sylvie had laid out. From upstairs came the sound of someone running, then thuds. A falling of furniture. “Somebody knocked things over!” Shira said cheerfully. Ari was staring at the ceiling, but he continued eating his soup. Then she grabbed some jars of food from the cupboard and stuffed them in her backpack. She hoped Yod had not hurt Josh. She was hurting him enough. What does your nana do?” she asked, hoping to keep him from wondering what was happening.

“She feed me. Give me bath. Daddy, he dress me. Nana put my things on chair. Then she go home.”

“Where does she live?”

“Far, far away. With her little girl. Her little girl Suzie.”

“Does she go on the tube?”

“What the tube?”

Yod flowed down the steps, swift, silent. “Let’s go now.” He carried a large duffel bag. She recognized it as Josh’s weekender.

“Who you?” Ari pointed.

“Yod, do we have to give him the hypo? He’ll walk with us.”

Yod smiled at Ari. “Hello. I’m Yod. Are you Ari?”

“I’m afraid of giving him too much.”

“I can adjust it. Give me the hypo.”

Ari stared as the hypo as it passed from Shira to Yod. “Doctor?”

Yod said, “This won’t hurt.”

Shira rolled up his sleeve. His little fat arm. “Not too much!”

“No! No! Don’t stick me!” Ari began to bang his spoon against the high chair and to twist under her hands.

“If it hurts, I promise you can stick me tomorrow. Deal?” Yod brought the hypo to Ari’s arm. Ari jerked and hit at him, but Yod got it in. “Did that hurt?”

Ari tensed as he got ready to cry, but then his face softened and his eyes lost their focus. He began to droop in the chair. In a moment he fell forward. Shira cleaned the food from him and then slipped him into the duffel bag. “Can he breathe?”

We should leave the zipper open as far as we can. Now we must exit before someone comes. The computer reports in regularly. I’ve reprogrammed the system to report everyone sleeping.” Yod slipped the duffel bag over his shoulder.

“Just one minute.” Shira ran upstairs. Ari must have his blanket, his bear, familiar things.

“No, Shira!” Yod tried to block her, but moving with the duffel slowed him. He made an aborted noise but did not follow her upstairs.

In the upper hall, Josh lay on the floor. His neck was turned at an unnatural angle. She knelt over him wringing her hands, with the sense that it was all her fault, that she must do something. She heard herself speaking to him, stupidly repeating his name as if that could wake him. “I’m sorry, Josh, I’m sorry!” Finally she made herself touch him. No pulse at the neck. No pulse at all. His skin was still warm, but he was dead.

For a moment she could not believe it, and she listened at his nostrils, pressed on his chest. He had to come back to life, he had to. But he would not. His face in death was oddly relaxed, the mouth fallen slightly open, the eyes half shut. She lowered the eyelids, wondering why she felt compelled to do that. It seemed polite. Sometimes he had looked like that in bed. She could almost remember when she had been full of hope for them, in the very beginning, when tenderness for this man had turned her to warm jelly. She began to weep, kneeling over him. Everything felt shattered.

She was furious at Yod, shocked but unsurprised. Just as she would never be truly astonished if Yod killed Gadi accidentally or on purpose, she was finally not surprised that he had killed Josh. But Ari must not find out. Ever. She got control of herself. She made herself leave Josh, leave the body where it lay. She found Ari’s room, grabbed his favourite bear and his blanket, blue jammies. She ran down with them and stuffed them in her backpack. “Okay, now.” She avoided looking at Yod. He seemed about to speak, then did not.

The house came on around them as they left. Lights turned on, pop music in the kitchen, security that would report everyone sleeping. Sylvie lay unconscious on the couch. “Should I tie her up?” she asked.

“We must leave at once. She’ll be out approximately three hours.”

They trotted along the block to the moving sidewalk. The riders had changed from Y-S personnel in backless business suits to workers in their various colour-coded uniforms. Shira and Yod headed straight for the tube station. Behind them rose the sound of an emergency vehicle, but it could have been anything. She did not turn, she did not look back.

They switched sidewalks twice more, Shira leading the way. She knew the fastest route across the enclave. As they approached the tube, the sidewalk grew more and more crowded. She was jammed against Yod. She interposed her body between Ari and the other bodies, so that no one could feel what was being carried. It was awkward, and she was jostled and pummelled, but she kept her position. She must protect him equally from injury and discovery. How frightened he would be! Did she have the right to do this to him? But the life to which she was taking him was a better one, freer, more independent. He was being raised by a hired woman torn from her own daughter in the Glop. She and Malkah and Yod could do a better job. She swore they would. Now Ari had only her and her family. He had no father. They had killed him.