5. Snips and Snails
Max made a quick pit stop, to leave groceries for Joshua. If she forgot, he didn't eat. Or worse, he'd forage, and that was much too dangerous. Joshua was big and scary-looking. He had been the first of Manticore's experiments with recombinant DNA. Unfortunately, a dose of canine genetic material had given him a markedly dog like face. Manticore had perfected their technique by the time they got around to the X-5 series. Max had a measure of feline DNA, but she looked like a human girl.
Joshua had to stay indoors and out of sight, all the time. Nobody wanted to capture Joshua. They wanted to erase him. They thought he was some sort of freakish mistake. White, or even the cops, would shoot to kill.
Confinement was hard on Joshua, although he enjoyed relative freedom when compared to his former existence at Manticore. At least, holed up in Sandeman's old house, he had a place of his own, his books and paints. He had friends who looked out for him, even if they didn't see him as often as they should. She thought guiltily of all the times she'd sat on her ass on Logan's couch, watching the minutes melt away. She should have been spending that time keeping Joshua company. She wished desperately, as she always did, that there was an alternative. She knew time was long for Joshua. It was a cruel joke that a man like Joshua had to exist in the margins, blending into the twilight, while a sociopath like Alec could pull up his collar and enjoy the many entertainments offered by the police state they all knew and loved as Seattle.
Max put two big paper sacs on the kitchen table. "Hey, Big Fella," she said, seeing Joshua at his easel. "What'cha workin' on?"
"Hey, Little Fella," replied Joshua. He dragged a fan-tail brush through a smeary spot of vermillion. "No name yet."
Max squinted at the painting. While she loved the fact that Joshua painted, she never really got the paintings. "Is it something?" she asked. "A thing? Or a person, I mean?"
"Max," said Joshua. He turned and kissed the top of her head. "Come back later, okay? Joshua is at work."
"Very busy," said Max. "I'm sorry, I can see that." He had given her permission to leave, practically shoved her out the door, and it wasn't like she didn't have places to be. But she couldn't quite get her feet moving. She felt sad, sad all over.
One day, after they were all dead and gone, someone was going to tear down this house and find Joshua's paintings. They would have a big show in a fancy gallery. Rich people would wander around with cheese and white wine, wondering who Joshua had been. Maybe they would make up stories about him, what he was like, the reclusive artistic genius. They would wish they could have met him. Those people would never know, though. They would never know that if they had bumped into the real Joshua in the street, they would have run away screaming.