Levels: The Host (14 page)

The slapping sounds grew louder and closer together. The pauses stopped. The donor was pounding hard now with a building lust. Watly felt the rising tickle in his balls and abdomen—the spreading fullness—as he heard an animal groan from the back of his own throat. The huge bed
shook violently.

After orgasm, the donor stayed in the woman for a few moments, eyes closed. Watly found it a welcome relief. With his eyes closed, somehow Watly felt more in control. At least he didn’t have to look at what someone else wanted him to. He could pretend it was just he, Watly, relaxing. Relaxing after an admittedly incredible orgasm. One of those big colorful ones, where the sweet spasms seem to go
on forever.

The period of rest was short-lived. Watly’s donor kissed the woman on her beautiful full lips and left the bed. She had not moved more than a fraction of an inch during the whole episode. Aside from the spreading stain on the sheets between her legs and the damp sheen to her body from Watly’s sweat, she looked just the way she had when they’d found her. Beautiful
and still.

What was this? What had just happened? Rape? Had Watly just been party to the obscenity of a rape? Who had drugged the woman? And why? Just to
rape her?

The donor got
dressed again.

“A momentary diversion from our main objective, Watly. I’m sure you don’t blame me. She is a beautiful specimen. Try not to judge me too harshly for taking advantage of the fair maiden while she dreamt. I suspect her dreams were no less vivid. And Watly, my friend, what man could resist such a treasure?” The donor stopped and looked back at the bed. After a long moment of visual caressing, the donor
looked away.

“But now we must hurry, Watly. Time is passing. I wouldn’t want to leave your body before our true job is done. No, that wouldn’t do
at all.”

After pulling on the boots and lacing the workervest, the donor left the room without looking back. Watly wondered if the woman would realize what had happened to her when she woke up. If she would feel the trauma of rape. The ultimate abomination. He also wondered, somewhat guiltily, if he’d ever see the woman again. He wondered if he’d ever see
anyone
again.

They did not head downstairs as Watly expected. They continued right past the curved stairway and turned down another hallway. After passing more foreign-looking antiques on more wooden tables they came to a stop at a bank of elevator doors. They were old elevators but looked in perfect condition. The donor summoned up a car. It arrived rapidly and they stepped in. After it climbed three floors, the donor stopped the car and
stepped out.

This hallway was virtually identical to the others. The only real difference was in the donor’s behavior. Watly sensed a new cautiousness. The walk became slower and more like that of a stalking animal. Occasionally the donor would glance up at the battery of recorder lenses that appeared every few yards on this floor of the building. There was no attempt to hide from them. If anything, Watly almost felt the donor was putting on a show for their benefit. Performing for
the recorders.

They turned left at a branch in the hallway and approached the door at the end. The donor slowed as they silently neared. The door looked the same as all the others. It was, of course, made of real wood. The donor pressed an ear against it. Watly could
hear nothing.

With great care Watly’s donor opened the door a crack. Inside was a spectacular den. The walls were covered with leafcases and old prints and maps. Two wooden desks held brass keyboards and ornate globes. Antique chromells glistened dully from the shadows. Scattered around the room near the ceiling were more recorder lenses staring blankly out. Watching. Listening. Recording everything. A real gas fire burned from a stone fireplace in the corner, casting flickering shadows over the entire room. A heavy leatherlike wingchair faced toward the fire. Watly could see the shadows of two feet under the chair’s legs. Someone was sitting in it, feet
crossed comfortably.

The donor slipped in and closed the door without even a click. It seemed to Watly that they had stopped breathing. The donor reached into the workervest and slowly removed the surgeon’s cutting blade from
its case.

The person in the chair shifted and the leatherlike squeaked. The
donor froze.

For what seemed to Watly like a full ten minutes the donor remained frozen in position, ignoring any of the body’s protests or cramps. Then the scalpel was transferred smoothly to the right hand and gripped there firmly. They took a silent step toward the chair. Then another. The
boards creaked.

The occupant of the chair stood and looked over the
wing back.

“Who the rape are you?” It was a middle-aged woman. She stepped away from the chair and began backing up. She was thin with short black hair and dressed in an expensive business suit. There was obvious fear in her eyes. She dropped the leaf she had
been reading.

Watly felt himself answer. “I’m a friend, my dear. A good friend.” The donor moved closer and the scalpel gleamed as it reflected the firelight. Watly felt his whole
body tense.

The woman had backed her way into a corner. “What do you want? What the rape do you want? Take it and get the hell out!” Her hands
were trembling.

The donor kept advancing. “I want you, my dear. You don’t know how long I’
ve waited.”

The woman’s eyes were frantic now. She knew she was trapped. Watly wanted desperately to help her. He’d never seen such terror in another’s face. She grabbed the edge of her desk and pulled a brass keyboard up by its cord. “Stay away from me!
Stay back!”

The donor kept coming. The woman swung outward with the keyboard and, just as it contacted weakly with the side of Watly’s head, he felt his own arm come down violently with the blade. His body was a savage thing, unstoppable. The keyboard bounced to the floor harmlessly as the first stab went into the woman’s left shoulder. The charged scalpel went in cleanly and cut clear down the front of the woman, almost removing her arm at the shoulder. And it was Watly who had done it.
Watly
. He had seen his own body do it to her. She screamed horribly and went down, with her right hand up
for protection.

The me is not the body
,
thought Watly.

The donor neatly sliced the woman’s hand off at its wrist. Blood splattered all over the prints, the chromells. Her screaming continued and her
eyes pleaded.

The me is not the body
....

The donor came down again with the blade and it opened a huge hole in the woman’s stomach as she kicked out with
her feet.

The me is neither hand nor face nor sex
....

There were blood and intestines everywhere and still the woman screamed, twitching
and spasming.

The me is Watly Caiper, I.

(A sense of self
....
)

Watly watched his hand come down once more and the blade cut out a huge hole in the woman’s chest. Her
screaming lessened.

The body is an it.

The body is a that
....

The woman squirmed and twisted, but she no longer screamed. A gurgle came from the back of her throat. Blackish blood flowed from her mouth. The donor raised the
blade again.

It could belong to another.

For the me is a movable thing
....

This time the blade went into the center of her face and cut deeply down, slicing it almost in half. She
stopped twitching.

The me is a movable thing.

The me is a movable thing.

The donor slowly stood up beside the mangled corpse, gradually controlling their body’
s breathing.

“Mea culpa, Watly Caiper. Mea culpa. I’m afraid you’ve been a bad boy,
my friend.”

Watly hardly heard. He was somewhere else entirely. He was dancing with Alysess. Dancing in that warm and friendly place where no one ever heard of hosts, or donors, or money, or Alvedine.
..
or murder. Most importantly, no one ever heard
of murder.

PART TWO

MAXIMUM CULPABILITY

Beware the air

–Watly Caiper’s dream

CHAPTER 14

“Y
ou’ve been fighting again, Little-Watt,” P-pajer said. It was not a question. Watly’s small body was a mass of cuts and bruises. His clothes were filthy. He stepped in closer. The orange light of sunset—Brooklyn sunset—sliced in sharply through the kitchen window, making it hard to see his mother’s sad eyes. She led him to the sink to clean him off. The kitchen table was messy with papers from the neighborhood petition she’d been collecting. She smelled good—musty, dirty good. Hard-work good. The kitchen smelled good too. Spicy
and warm.

Young Watt winced as she cleaned the wounds. “For a good reason, Mom,”
he said.

“Isn’t it always a good reason, Watly?” She frowned. “How many times have I told you? Hmm? Never throw your fist, Watly.
Raise
it, yes. And your voice too. And
your head.
...
”

“They were calling
you
names
—”

“Yes?” P-pajer stopped cleaning the scrapes on Watly’s face. She turned his small body toward her. “And?”

Now Watly felt stupid. “That’s it,” he said, feeling suddenly teary. “But
bad
names.”

P-pajer looked honestly bewildered. “So?”

Watly felt sure the tears would come any second now. He tried to fend them off with silence. There was an achy, full feeling behind
each eye.

His mother held her hands out to him. “I can fight a word with a wound? A verbal insult with a physical injury? I have the right to hurt someone’s
person
for a word?” She gripped his shoulders. “Listen to me, Watly. This is important.
No one
has the right to hurt anyone. No matter
what
. Not you, not me. No matter
what
.
That
is the truth no one dares to face.
That
is the frightening reality of life. No one has the right to
touch
anyone
.
”

“What if they touch you first?” Watly said. Now the dam burst and tears flowed freely down his scraped cheeks, stinging. He tried not to sob but that
came too.

“Then there are ways.
..
” P-pajer looked off toward the source of the last golden rays touching the tiled floor. “There
are ways.
...
”

“
What
ways?” Little Watly cried. “Tell me
the ways!”

P-pajer turned and smiled wistfully. “Soon, my baby. Soon. When you’re old enough to need them, I will tell you the secrets. For now, you don’t need them. You just need to
stop fighting.”

“I can’t stop fighting,” Watly said, and his mother hugged him hard as he cried. Her strong hands stroked his dusty hair. There was caked blood there, too.

“You can if you want to,” she whispered, close to his ear. “That’s all
it takes.”

And Watly pulled back from her arms to look at her. He thought he’d never loved her more, nor understood her less. She smiled at his questioning look. Her hair was caught in the last ray of orange—it burned at the edges with light. The lines in her face were strong lines, forceful
human
lines. The face was loving and kind and oh-so-very wise. Watly felt more tears bubbling up. Through them he saw something sparkle over his mother’s shoulder. Off in the far distance out the kitchen window, a building reflected the last of the sun. Watly squinted at the glare. It was a Manhattan building. Way, way off. It was the Alvedine Building. Glowing from
on high.

Later, over the rich smells of dinner, Watly’s mother raised her hands from across the table, catching Watly’s eyes with hers. She wanted his complete attention. Watly stopped eating. He swallowed the weeder he had
been chewing.

“You’re not selfish enough, Little-Watt,” P-pajer
said solemnly.

Watly smiled slightly, thinking she was
being sarcastic.

“I’m serious, Watly. You’re not selfish/good enough. Selfish/good. Good/selfish. That’s the answer.” Her eyes were unwavering. “The world would be a better place if more people were selfish. Selfish/good. It is the answer, Watly. Everything you do in this life is for yourself, anyway.
Everything
. If you give me a gift, you are giving it because it makes you feel good. You do it for yourself. If you martyr yourself for some cause you do it because the idea pleases you, makes you proud. You do it for yourself. You do
everything
for yourself. It’s important to realize that. To
remember that.”

P-pajer looked down and took another bite of food. Watly kept watching her as she ate, mesmerized. She looked up again and continued. “When you are old enough to have sex, Watly, you will see that the only good sex happens when the participants are selfish. They work for their own pleasure, and the pleasure of giving pleasure. Bad sex happens when they try to please each other at their own expense. That never works. And this is true of the rest of life as well. Fight for yourself, Watly; fight for your own freedom, for your own pleasure, for your own dreams; fight for your own food and shelter, for your environment, and for the satisfaction that doing it for others gives you. Helping others is selfish, Watly. It feels good. It is
profoundly
selfish. Selfish/good.”

“Then fighting is good,” Watly said. P-pajer wiped her mouth and sighed. “I know, I know,” Watly jumped in. “Fighting is
not good.”

“Fighting
selfish
, Watly,” she said strongly. “Fight without hurt. Fight so your hands don’t get bloody. Fight so they don’t shed
your
blood. Fight so you don’t feel guilt over injuring another. Protect your fear. Fight so you never have to feel bad about a single move you made. Protect yourself.
Fight selfish.”

P-pajer leaned forward. “Fight like a coward, Watly. It takes
more courage.”

Watly stiffened at the thought. The idea confused him. Even
offended him.

His mother whispered softly now. “Anyone can be a hero, Watly. That takes no guts
at all.”

Watly stared into those dark, wise eyes. They seemed so deep, so far away.
I love those eyes,
he thought.
I love them but I don’t
understand them.

He tried, as the years went on, to understand her more. But somehow, though there was love and there was caring and connection, he found little understanding. She was a strange woman. A mysterious woman. He needed more time to figure
her out.

He never
got it.

When Watly Caiper was twenty his mother died. The medicion said it looked like a ruptured appendix, but there was no way to be sure. They couldn’t afford a real doctor. They could hardly afford
the medicion.

And by the time the medicion came, P-pajer was dead two hours—Watly’s tears were dried up on his cheeks and his fingers were cramped from holding a dead woman’s
cool hands.

The day after it happened, Watly wanted to hit, to hurt. It was a day Watly hungered for violence as never before. Bloody violence. He wanted to lash out and attack the world. Where was a nose to bust? A throat to strangle? Who could he kick? He wanted to kill someone—to kill someone hard—and avenge P-pajer Caiper’s death. There was no one to kill. There was no one to hurt. There was no one to kick or strangle. There was only the emptiness—an emptiness that eventually faded. Even his anger passed
with time.

But something had changed in him. He didn’t want to care anymore. He didn’t want to feel for the world as his mother had. Where had it gotten her? What had it done for her? She died in agony, clutching her belly and crying. She died poor. She died with no money for a doctor to heal her. She died with nothing. Crying. “Watly,” she’d said between sobs of pain. “You do good, Watly. Do good.” And then the hurt got so bad she couldn’t talk. She died with nothing. Just a son named Watly. The pass-along.

He rented out half the apartment and got some odd factory jobs. He, too, cleaned the cleaning machines. Just like Mom. Time passed slowly. He fell in love and he fell out of love. And again. He worked and he didn’t work. And again. He dreamed and planned. Babies filled his thoughts. And his ambitions. He got in a few fights. He lost a little hair. He fought less. Then not at all. There was, he discovered, no one to hit. No one to hurt. Mom was right. But Watly revised her. Rewrote her. He decided there was no reason to fight
anything
—whether anyone got hurt or not. The only thing to do was follow your dream. To hell with everything else. To hell with caring. Only care for the self. Selfish/bad, maybe.

Watly focused on his goal. Watly saturated himself with the idea of mothering. He researched it. He read up on it. He tried to find a way around the laws, around the prophies. And finally, on a whim, he wrote to an uncle. He had an uncle who actually lived on that almost mythical island. The island that had always dazzled him from afar, the one he always watched on CV, the one where the money was.
..
the one where his goals could be realized. A long while later a response came back—return address: Narcolo Caiper, First Level, Manhattan.

And so the process began. Watly Caiper was destined to leave behind the golden-sunset land—the place of his youth, the melting place of his mother’s body, and the only place he’d ever known. After applications, forms in duplicate and triplicate, inoculations, interviews and formal requests, visas and travel papers.
..
his move was finally granted. He donated the apartment to his local community housing center. This was the same apartment he’d grown up in, the same apartment that smelled like home, that smelled like a meal had just been cooked, that smelled of old scented soaps, and that—yes—still smelled of P-pajer Caiper’s sweet sweat. He packed one small backpack with spare clothing, looked around a last time, and set off down the road
on foot.

It was a two-day walk. The weather was good and Watly’s spirits were high. He found it a pleasant journey. As he grew nearer he could make out more and more up ahead. Manhattan looming larger. At one point he even saw the tops of a few trees between buildings. Of course, he knew it was Second Level he was seeing and admiring but First Level he would be going to. It didn’t matter. He was
still excited.

At the water, Watly was quickly cleared to pass through the gate. To the guard it was nothing—another poor beanhead with dumb dreams and another stamped visa. To Watly it was everything. He stood at the mouth of the tunnel a long while before entering. His mother would be proud, Watly believed. In spite of everything, she would be proud.
I’m in the big time now, Mom. Look at me. I’m finally in the big time. I’m doing good, Mom. Doing good, like
you wanted
.