Head Full of Mountains (10 page)

“Are there more people? I had a sister once.” He felt a tightness in his chest. “Her name was Luella. Not a haptic. A girl. But like me. Who was that I saw in the escape? In the dark uniforms? There was some kind of— There were twelve huge drones.”

“The paladins.”

“What?”

“The quorum. I told you.”

“Was that something that happened a long time ago?” Crospinal tried to turn onto his side. “Or was that some other place?”

“You need to regulate your breathing,” said the metal rat. “You’re getting worked up. You’ll need to be tranked again, if you continue. My advice would be to ramble less and ask fewer stupid questions. And keep your names to yourself, and the name of your so-called sister.”

The canister bobbed along, banking gently, and entered the aperture to a small, discreet station. His anger at the elemental’s attitude about his family broke, transformed, and settled into something else entirely. As the door slid shut behind him, a controller swooped in through the crack.

Crospinal, with a surge of anxiety, had seen the console: periscope and thumb plates, thin flap covering the twin holes.

“I’m bleeding,” he said.

“There’s no bleeding.”

“Something’s wrong. I can feel blood, running down my calf inside this thing. The uniform’s not dealing.
I’m bleeding
!”

The metal rat leaped up onto the canister, and leaped again, onto Crospinal’s bare chest. Delicate feet caught on his skin as the elemental walked, but the machine was very light. Crospinal looked into the unreadable red eyes and got a whiff of cordite and ozone before snatching the metal rat, rather easily—much easier than he’d thought—in his fist.

Shrieking, “
What the fuck
?”

Thin titanium arms offered little resistance. Crospinal clutched the rat tighter. His weakness was gone.

“I’m trying to
help
,” said the metal rat. “You’re insane!”

The controller orbited, nonplussed.

But the chassis of the small elemental was not crushing easily, so Crospinal took one of the legs with his free hand and twisted it backward, buckling titanium until a thin wire tendon snapped, stinging the flesh of his palm, marking the mitt there with a white slash as the Dacron parted.

“Stop,” said the rat. “Please. For fuck’s sake. You’re crazy! You’ve wrecked my leg!”

“Release me,” Crospinal hissed. “I asked you ten times and you never let me out.”

“You’ll fuck everything up.
Stop
!”

A small bolt popped off. The elemental made feeble sounds. Green coolants dribbled.

“I won’t be able to fix myself.” Even the voice was faint now, garbled. “I should have let you die again. I tried to help. Without me, you’re a goner. You’re making a big mistake. You’re—”

“I’ll pull you apart, you piece of
shit
.”

But as Crospinal sought the battery with his fingertips—fumbling in the confounding miniature interior of the machine’s underside—some form of anesthesia was administered and he blacked out.

The year of disparate viewpoints was perhaps his happiest, in relative terms. He had yet to learn father would die, and that he, too, would one day disperse into nothing. Disappointment over failed tasks had not soured the atmosphere in the pen. No girlfriend, no dream cabinets: a simpler life.

Crospinal would sit on the prayer mat (in his own fashion, legs splayed), rubbing at his knees as the lessons played.

Whenever Fox or Bear took him to the garden for recreation, Crospinal would have fun annoying the surly elementals, who could, at least, throw a ball. Spirits knew hide and seek really well but that was about it. Crospinal was able to get around pretty efficiently; the discomfort had not yet reached levels it achieved a mere year or so later. Young Crospie, at this point in his life, came closest to sensing positive elements of a potential future, as if possibilities were available and opening up before him, but never made the leap. He felt, if not a sense of wonder, at least burgeoning belief in an interesting and maybe even rewarding life.

Father was calmer, too, his apparitions less frantic. The dogs liked nothing better than to remain inactive for hours at a time, drifting, or curled by Crospinal’s side, feigning sleep as he learned.

Father, during one of the lower points that followed, with cancer already destroying his marrow, described this halcyon period thusly:

“You’d get up from your daybed with a spark in your eyes. Each morning, I watched you—how you woke, of a sudden, a smile playing across your face. I was ecstatic. Or as close as I have been since waking. From the moment I opened my eyes, my desire had been to raise children. A mad desire. To raise a child from the dim seas of oblivion. To know that my testimony to civilization and enlightenment was healthy and happy, brought a joy like no other. I had gone to great lengths to establish and grow our safe haven. Your sister was already striking out. You both wore the freshest of uniforms, amber helmets, and your minds were compounding mine. . . . 

“Learning held potential for both of us. I discovered, each day, the rewards of sharing knowledge. I began to understand who I was. As you grew, my purpose became clearer and clearer.

“The lost past drew closer, my memories more real. . . . 

“You were a flame in the darkness.

“Of course, there was still paracetamol available, which might have helped, I suppose. I let it trickle into your dispenser. I was willing to sacrifice anything for you, Crospinal.

“But I couldn’t sustain it.

“I’ll never forget that spark in your eyes, and how, over time, that spark faded.”

The station was absolutely quiet when Crospinal woke. For a second, he thought he was back in the pen, with father, wild-eyed and pacing, not having slept at all, but he was not able to retain this particular illusion. Ambients were dim. The metal rat was not around. Recalling his attempt to dismantle the elemental, Crospinal looked about for evidence of the carnage—tiny fragments of machinations; flakes of fractured shell; other residue—but there was none.

He lay there, staring up at the ceiling for some time—curves of composite deposits covering a fine array of polymethyl—feeling sorry for himself. The controller watched from a corner, out of its league. Inside the canister, Crospinal was still able to move his toes. Pain was minimal. These discoveries did little to cheer him.

“I’ve left the pen, father,” he whispered. “I’ve been in new halls and ended up with my ass in a box. I’ve been knocked out and dumped and busted up pretty good.”

But praying was not the same without a mat, or without father, so he let his words fade. Along the farthest wall, within the narrow counter, the holes of the console were just visible under their cover, as if it might transform or otherwise offer some form of answer to a question he could not even conceive.

What harm could there be?

“Take me,” he told the controller, pointing.

“I can’t.”

“I just want to go over there. See where I’m pointing.”

“I’m not allowed.”

“
Take me.”

“Your heart is racing.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my heart. I’m ordering you to move me over to that counter.”

After a brief stillness, the canister and support armature bearing Crospinal drifted closer to the console. Due to the angle of approach and his awkward position, Crospinal was only able to get one arm into a hole. With limited motion in his wrist, his fist penetrated part way. He could not find the bottom, so the hum was feeble, at best, though he felt mild energies coming up through the bones of his hand.

“An elemental’s trapped me,” he said quietly. “I think it might have abandoned me here. Useless. I need you. Are you there?”

But again the angry woman erupted next to him, standing so close the hairs on his head rose and every muscle in his body began to twitch. Crospinal heard the controller squawk. The woman’s face seemed right up against his own; he flinched but did not pull out.

“I need to speak to my girlfriend. What have you done with her?”

“You were told to stay away,” replied the woman. “You’re an abomination.”

Crospinal’s hand was throbbing and his teeth stung. “You’ve done something to her. I know you have. She loved me.” Then, to his own shock, he said, “I’m coming. You’ll see. I’m coming to find her.”

“You will not succeed,” she said.

“And I’m no abomination. I’m Crospinal, father’s only son.”

“
Father
?” She hissed. “You were
named
? Passengers are criminals and idiots. Do you know the damage he’s done?” The image flickered briefly. “He stole you, and raised you in isolation, as a monster. He mutilated you. He filled your mind with ramblings and hijacked data and nonsense about an awful past that should remain forever forgotten. You will not come any—”

Crospinal managed to yank his fist free, for it had become somewhat stuck. His wrist tingled. His anger and frustration with the attitudes of the woman and the metal rat was tainted with a chill he could not stop from spreading.
Mutilated, when he was an infant?
The scars? Father had told him his arms were cut when his infant body had been freed from the placental wall; the metal rat had indicated some other, more deliberate source altogether.

Too dark here, in the small recovery station, to see details on his skin, but he had rubbed the textures of his forearms many nights, to help him fall asleep—the texture a smooth ridge, fingers sometimes pushed right inside his sleeves, riding the tissue back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, patterns a glyph, from wrist to elbow, to lull him.

Raised in isolation, as a monster.

“Come, Crospie, I want to see you through my
real
eyes, not through loupes and accoutrements and eyes of the world. I want to
look
at you. Come closer.”

Goodness knew what cocktails were being fed into father’s mind. At least, he seemed to be in a good mood. Crospinal had looked up from the sculpture he was moulding. He frowned. Next to him, a dog woke abruptly, aware of father’s agenda, and quickly became agitated, wanting Crospinal to
please
father, so it could doze and fade again.

“Stand here, son, on the edge of the prayer mat. Don’t worry, I won’t touch you. I was thinking about how fast time goes by. I haven’t slept in ages. I feel as if we’ve so much work to do.”

Crospinal rose painfully, knees popping, using a carbon rod to support his weight. He brushed static charges from his hands so they rolled down his uniform to the floor, causing the apparitions there to waver.

“
There
you are. How are you today, son?”

Crospinal shrugged.

“Your arms?”

“There’s nothing wrong with my arms.” He did not like to stand this close to father. The ozone offgas from the gate was enough to make Crospinal’s eyes water. “It’s my legs that hurt. . . .”

“Come closer. Unhitch your mitts. Let me see your arms. Push your sleeves up. Spandex, too. Don’t worry. Hold them out. Palms up.”

“My arms are fine.”

“Indulge me, Crospie. I’m an old man.”

So he did as he was told. After some amount of struggle, Crospinal held one arm out, wrist up, sleeve bunched, so that father’s eyes, narrowing, could survey as if reading the delicate web transversing his exposed skin.