+J.M.J.+
One of Those in Our Midst!
By "Matrix Refugee"
Author's Note:
This began as a humor piece, but it decided to take a dramatic turn, hence the change of genre. Feedback is greatly desired for this chapter, for the not so simple reason that there are quite a few passionate encounters in this part, and I would really like to know if I've pushed the rating over the edge of PG-13 into R territory. I got this chapter (and the next three) off rather quickly, as I was trying to get this finished so I could TRY to get back to Zenon Eyes: Eyes of Truth, which "Lady Neferankh" on the Yahoo! Group "AI_Fanfiction" has been bugging me to complete (Thank you for your gracious reminder, your ladyship!), and which I am having a terrible time plotting since I am simply not sure how it ends. But I knew how this one ended, hence Chapter IX, and please God, X and XI as well. This chapter is sponsored in part by…Sudafed Nasal Decongestant! Because the stupid allergy meds I'm on have flat out refused to work this ragweed season, I've been half-living on the stuff (End of commercial).
Disclaimer:
See Chapter I. I also don't own the lyrics to the Kurt Weill song (from Threepenny Opera), nor do I own restraining bolts (wouldn't want to, either!), which are a device (Literary and gadget-wise) I borrowed from Star Wars.
Chapter IX
Every Which Way but Loose
Cecie settled on curling up in Peter's armchair and waiting up for Joe. At one in the same time, next time she saw him, she wanted to bash his processors in or to grab him by the throat and give him such a face-chewing kiss…
And she was responsible for all this… She'd egged him on to associating with Bernie. She'd brought him here to Westhillston. She'd paid for his services. He'd taken her literally and Frank, utilizing Joe's capabilities and inclinations, hadn't helped the matter, either. What she'd hoped would loosen up Bernie ended up creating a prison for them all.
Now he was after Allison. She should have seen it come to that. Allison…She'd married Shay Diocletian after Shay's first wife, Kristine, had drowned in a boating accident in New Hampshire, on Lake Winnipesaukee ten years ago. Some people had suspected Shay, since he had taken her death so calmly, but they were the ones who didn't know Shay well. If you looked up "icy bastard" in a dictionary, you'd find a picture of Seamus Diocletian. And if Tami's gossip was true, it was no wonder Allison would look elsewhere for the tenderness she needed.
But why did she have to turn to Joe?!
Cecie was paying the price of that little interlude in the graveyard. Her slim body ached for Joe's touch, to feel him against her, on top of her, to nestle her head close to where his heart would be, her nostrils tingling with the scent of him, a warm, musky aroma with an overtone of roses and maybe lavender, to taste once again his kiss, to fall asleep, chastely, in his embrace…
She was in love.
The girl who'd held her head up for three years had fallen for one of Rouge City's hottest Mecha man-whores.
"You may as well take the sun for a desk lamp."
She loved Joe.
The words of a Kurt Weill song came to her mind:
"Chin up high?
My chin was down my shoes
And I relaxed but far too far.
Oh, the way the moon kept shining on,
The night was made for rowing,
But this girl was gone
Not so per-pen-di-cu-lar.
So, you let a man just walk right over you.
Who said dignified is what you are?
Such a whole lot of terrible things did happen,
And now it's you can tell me, 'Sorry'."
She caught herself wishing she had spirited him outside again to distract him. She could have pulled this off in middle of the fracas earlier, but she hadn't had a chance.
She was tempted to go down to the Diocletians' house, find Joe and drag him back home, wrenching him out of Allison's arms if need be.
She knew people were already regarding her askance behind her back. After this, Mildred and her cronies would REALLY have something to talk about:
"Did you hear?"
"Hear what?"
"About Allison Diocletian and that THING Cecie Martin brought here to this town…"
Wagging her head wearily, she sank her long fingers into her short hair and tousled it. She squeezed her scalp and gritted her teeth. Her reason withdrew and her will retreated to protect itself from the barrage of thoughts and feelings and images that pelted her psyche...
Allison lay huddled in a blanket on the glider on the screen porch at the rear of her house. Her tears had stopped, and she had nearly dozed off when she heard a light step crackle on the gravel walk outside. She pinched herself and sat up.
Joe's tall, slender shadow stood framed in the door of the porch that gave on the walk. He tapped on the doorframe lightly, the sound just audible over the rusty crickets chirping in the grass.
"Joe?"
"It is I."
"The door's open; I unlocked it."
"Would that Diocletian's heart were so simple to open as this door," he mused. He turned the knob and opened the door, just wide enough to slip inside. Stepping swiftly aside, he closed it behind him with just a click and a jangle of the spring on the hinge.
He stood poised before her, balanced lightly on his toes, hands clasped loosely behind his back, a willowy black silhouette against the silver-blue moonlight. The gleam on his garments, on his neat, black hair, seemed to give off a light all its own. She shivered at the sight of him.
"Does the night cold chill your bones?" he asked, taking a graceful stride toward her.
"No, it's…I'm afraid," she admitted.
He paused, one foot lifted behind the other. "Of me? Of love?"
"Not of you. I'm afraid of being hurt."
"He has hurt you?"
"He hasn't laid a hand on me. It's like I told you…he's hurt me inside."
He took another step toward her, changing angle slightly. "They say the worst pain comes from the wound the eye cannot see. Come, let me soothe these wounds."
She trembled, straining her ears to listen for any movement in the house. "I don't know. I don't know if I can."
"I think you are afraid of comfort. I think you are afraid of seeking solace. You know your heart needs it, but you fear to reach out for it when it is offered to you…and this is starting to arouse me."
His third stride brought him up to the glider. He knelt down before her and took her hands in his. She started to pull away, but her hands clung to his, so soft, so delicate her own hands felt coarse by contrast.
"Is this your first time with something like me?" he asked.
"It's my first time with anyone but Shay."
"And you have known no other man?"
"No. I never even had any other boyfriends."
"Then you will find, through me, that love does not have to bring pain…or emptiness."
"I will?"
"Once you've had a lover-Mecha, you may never want a 'real' man again. I can do for you what Shay refuses."
She looked down, at that spot, but down to the floor, to his heels. "Can you do one thing for me?"
"I can do much for you, fulfilling, within reason, the dreams you have not dared to dream."
"This is going to sound foolish, but it's very important, well, to me anyway…could you take off your shoes first? Shay sometimes forgets to when…you know."
"Anything to oblige you, and this is no challenge on my part." He let go her hands, reached back and down and, without taking his eyes from her, removed his shoes and laid them neatly side-by-side on the floor.
She laughed with half-suppressed delight and nervousness. She reached up and took his hands. He felt warm to her touch, warmer even than Shay. As he drew himself closer to her, Joe slid his palms up inside the baggy sleeves of her sweater. She giggled half with enjoyment, half with an unease that soon became delicious.
That was warm breath she felt fanning her face, smelling oddly of vanilla. A spicy aroma, very like the aftershave she'd given Shay for his birthday years ago—and which he never wore—tingled in her nostrils.
He studied her face gently from under lowered lids. "You have been crying. What has he done to you—or not done to you?"
"I wanted to go up to the Lakes region in New Hampshire this weekend. It's our anniversary. I thought it could just be the two of us, him and I."
"But he refused your desire?"
"He said we couldn't afford it. But I know we can."
"And instead, his practicality has replaced his sense of romance. This is a disgrace to any man." He tilted his face to hers and touched the traces of damp on her cheeks with his lips. She trembled, delighted; Shay have never done this for her when she was sad.
"You enjoyed that?" he asked.
"No one's ever done that for me."
"There is much I could do for you which doubtlessly he has not done for you."
She leaned back on the cushions. He climbed up on the glider, pushing back the blanket, and covering her with his long, lean body. He easily weighed ninety pounds less than Shay did, so that she didn't feel engulfed as his weight gently pressed her into the cushions.
"I'm sorry I look like this. I never was much for looks."
He laid his index finger over her lips. "You need not feel such shame. You are a goddess. I am your devotee, your adorer. I give myself in total to you as an offering. Take me and do with me what you will."
"Just be gentle with me," she said.
"That is what you need, and that is what I propose to be to you."
She slid her hands, trembling, inside his collar, opening it; she tried not to stare at the luminous green tag set into the skin of his upper chest, high up under the collar bone, or whatever he had under there.
She tilted her face up to his to avoid looking at it, gazing instead into his lustrous green eyes looking into hers from under his long lashes. She parted her lips, running her tongue over them nervously.
He took this as a cue, but she welcomed him, welcomed his kiss, welcomed his lips on hers, soft as a rose, warm like a summer night, just moist enough that he felt…real. She kissed him back as she had not been able to with Shay for a long time, for too long, letting this dark gentleman who wasn't really a man take liberties with her that Shay had never stooped to allow.
As their passion climaxed, she felt tears of delight pour from her eyes, even as she cried out to the moon in ecstasy
Through the fog in her mind's ears, Cecie heard the front door click open. She jumped up from the chair and ran into the hallway.
Joe stood there, with his back to her, resetting the smart lock.
"How did you get in? The lock was on smart?" she demanded.
He straightened up and turned toward her, setting down his heels soundlessly into the turn.
"Before I departed, I took the time to override the field on this particular entryway," he said.
"You make every door open for you," she snarled. "There's nothing you can't penetrate, is there? Is there?!"
He eyed her in silence, but a slow smile tweaked at one corner of his sensuous mouth. "That such vehemence would manifest in so short a time. Bernadette is not the only one who seeks to have loosened the chains of her maidenhood—"
Cecie grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket and slammed his back up against the wall. "Who were you with? Answer me, Joe! Who called you?"
"It was Allison Diocletian," he said. Something like fear dampened the electric fire in his green eyes, but the smoldering look soon returned.
She shook him slightly. "You had to do her, didn't you? Didn't you?! If it wasn't Bernie, it was her. I know you've serviced married women and you do it all the time, but, dammit, you didn't have to f--- Allison! That's my ex-boss's wife, and he's one of the most prominent guys locally. Thanks to you, I'll probably never be able to show my face in this town again."
He took this all with typical Mecha impassivity, smiling coolly at her outburst.
"Your protestations only confirm that which you denied so ardently," he mused. He fingered her neck lightly with just the tip of one finger, so lightly she just felt him graze the top layer of her skin. "You are jealous, and this jealousy consumes you; it seethes within you like a toxin, burning you up, eating into your flesh, inflaming your brain and driving you mad—"
She silenced him. She crushed her face into his so hard they bumped noses and their teeth clicked against each other; she saw stars for several seconds. She jammed his mouth open as far as it would go, as if she were trying to shove her whole lower face inside. His arms slid around her, pressing her against him, his hands creeping down her spine to the small of her back, where her jersey had come untucked. An Orga man would be grunting for lack of oxygen by now, and her own ears had started to sing. She flared her nostrils and drew in a chestfull of air. Just as she started to release him, his fingers fondled the flesh of her back, as he slid his hands up under her shirt.
She slapped his arms from her with a martial arts gesture from her T'ai Chi training.
"So the white crane spreads her wings?" he commented, with a drawl dripping with irony.
She lunged again, pinning his wrists to the wall. "Consider yourself lucky I don't follow through and knife-hand your temples," she growled.
"And what, pray tell, brings out this show of fury?"
"What do you think? I paid for you, I brought you up here. I'm the one who intended to turn this town upside down by bringing you into the middle of all this imitation Norman Rockwell charm, you, the last thing they'd ever want to see walking their streets. But what did you go and do, you man-whore? You go and mount practically every woman who bats her eyelids and hikes up her skirts to you!"
He shrugged casually. "So be it, if that is what they desire of me. C'est la vie."
"Damn your smugness. Damn your condescension. And damn the people who designed and programmed you. You did it, you stupid rutting heap of silicon and titanium. You made me fall in love with you. And you're nothing better than a sex toy with a brain."
"I made you do nothing. It is you who have chosen to follow your emotions to this decision. But these sound not like the words of a lover…unless you prefer it rough and hard."
"'Look into the mirror of your soul
Love and hate are one in all
Sacrifice turns to revenge, and believe me
You will see the face that will say to you
"I love you…I'll kill you. /But I'll love you forever"'." she hissed.
She dragged him away from the wall, her hands clenching the front of his shirt and whatever dermis she had gathered underneath. She hauled him, unprotesting, into the living room.
"From whence have you learned such fury?" he asked.
"You taught it to me, you with your stupid machismo."
He laughed lightly. "Most women say that I am the soft, sensitive type."
"You're still more than I can take. And let me tell you, honey, you are so gonna find out what you're doing to me inside."
She lifted him off the floor with both hands—he weighed only twenty pounds more than she did, and she'd carried heavy boxes in the bakery—and hurled him onto the couch. When he landed, he looked up at her, slightly baffled, but he relaxed his visage. He started to rearrange his limbs into a more graceful pose, but she kneed him in the face.
She ripped the lamp cord from the wall socket and, sitting on his stomach, used it to tie his wrists behind his back.
He turned his head to watch what she was doing. "Why do you do this?" he asked.
"If you touch me with those nice soft little hands of yours, my armor will fall off," she said. "Now not another word!"
He turned his eyes to her and turned his face back to hers. His mouth pursed in an odd little smile.
"Wipe that smile off your face," she growled, her voice trembling slightly.
She pounced on him then, tearing his shirt open from the neck to the waist, uncovering the green tag embedded in the dermis of his upper chest. How could anyone look at that while they were with him and not be reminded of what he was? No matter…
Her anger drove her to lengths she would never have reached when she was relaxed. She let her anger and disappointment explode over him. She swore she felt him cringing and trembling even as her own insides started to knot themselves.
His breathing simulation came in quick, anguished gasps, his chest heaving as her movements grew more violent.
"Oh God…Oh God…mercy!…Oh God…have mercy!…" His light tenor cracked into a pain-shrilled alto.
She remotely heard her voice saying, "That'll be one hundred fifty Newbucks, Mr. Joe-the-Gigolo" as she let him go and unbound him. He whimpered, his face turned from her into the upholstery.
Everything dissolved into a red mist…
Joe held Allison until her tears stopped flowing and she lay peaceful and quiet, her breath coming gently, soundlessly. He sat up slowly, carefully turning her over on her back. He drew her garments over her form, and pulled the blanket up to the pit of her throat.
He knelt beside the glider and laid a parting kiss on her forehead. He wiped away one last stubborn tear on her cheek, with the tip of his thumb and got up to collect his scattered garments.
The pheromones that emanated from her skin hinted of a contented woman, utterly at peace, blissfully dazed and sedately sated with pleasure, the pleasure brought by the embrace of a perfect lover. She who had known worse than imperfection now knew the caress of perfection. After years of adolescent fumbling and cold coupling offered by a man with thick fingers and icy manners, she had received the refreshment of a tender devotee with a gentle hand and a soft voice, who poured the whole of his being into her satisfaction, giving pleasure without taking or asking for anything in return.
But he, like Diocletian, was a man of business. Joe reached under the pillow at Allison's head and felt for the envelope she had told him was there. He touched its fibrously smooth edge against his touch receptors, between the silkiness of the pillow and the coarse cover of the glider cushions. He grasped the envelope and slid it out; he opened it: two hundred fifty NB…that meant a hundred dollar tip. Not bad, not bad at all. He slipped the envelope into his coat pocket, alongside the one hundred fifty Frank had given him for playfully cornering Bernie.
He reached down and passed his fingertips over Allison's cheek one time more before he rose and stepped out into the night.
He passed by a clump of bushes close to the wall of the house, bushes set high up so that they formed a little room all its own.
He heard a soft sound, like a whimper. He paused and pivoted on his heel, turning back to the clump of shrubbery. Drawing close, he crouched down and peered inside.
Two forms lay entwined in the shadows. Joe recognized the infamous Seamus Diocletian, who forgot to take off his shoes, but who was the woman?
He noted something unusual about the stranger's skin: like his it had an odd sheen to it.
Joe smiled to himself. Tit for tat…
Through the spiraling clouds of mist in her mind, Cecie heard the front door open and close. She felt her body trembling all over; a cold sweat had broken out on her back. She huddled her frame deeper into the chair. The damp on her face didn't come just from sweat; tears ran down the inside of her nose. She shivered so violently her teeth chattered. She was awake now. That she could have such a dream about Joe…!
She heard movement. Someone moved quietly into the room. She heard the sound of synthetic fabric whisper on synthetics and a garment tossed dramatically aside. A soft thud on the carpet, followed by another, then the sofa creaked softly.
She opened her eyes and uncurled herself from the depths of the chair. She sat up and looked across to the sofa.
She found Joe there, reclining against one arm of the sofa, jacket off, collar open, shoes kicked off. He leaned back with his arms folded behind his head, his long legs propped up slightly, crossed at the knees. His face bore a sly little smile of triumph, like the face of a scamp who's just made a feast for himself after raiding the refrigerator and had settled back to digest it.
"Where in heaven's name have you been?!" she demanded.
"I have been where you never thought to look: out and about, soothing the broken hearts of this village, or I ought rather to say, one bruised heart in particular," he replied.
"Whose?" As if I didn't know…
"The heart of Allison Diocletian. I left her blissfully asleep on the screen porch of their house, where she had gone to take refuge from the tyranny of her spouse, who I ought rightly to add, is no fount of conjugal fidelity."
"Well, I know the buzzard had more than a slightly roving eye. What do you know that I don't?"
"In which case, I must ask you this: do you have knowledge of the breed of company he keeps?"
"No, not specifically, why?"
"As I sallied forth to return hence, I came upon him couched in the shrubbery near one wall of their house with another of my kind, a female, though I could not see her face."
She sat up. Was she still dreaming?! Diocletian, who turned up his nose at service droids? She had a hard enough time envisioning—in theory—the cold buzzard getting frisky with Allison, but with a Mecha? What a combination…it probably emoted better than he did.
"You've got to be kidding me."
"I am not. I cannot lie to you, even in jest."
She'd seen Diocletian shirtless when he had been helping Peter dredge the pond some years ago. Shay had put on a few extra pounds since then. At the time of the topless bit, she had been working in the store, so after witnessing Shay as God made him from the waist up, she'd wisely kept a game face until she got up to her room, where she'd let loose laughing herself dizzy.
She sniggered at the thought of Shay with a female one of those.
Joe studied her face, his eyes panning over it. His smooth brow furrowed and he got up. He came close to her and knelt before her chair.
"You have been crying," he observed. He stooped over her, inching his face closer to hers. "What has brought about your grief?" He cocked his head looking at her. "Are these the tears of yearning…is it true what you protest as vehemently even as it claws your heart?"
"What?" She knew…
His forehead came level with hers, his lips almost against her cheek as he spoke.
"You are jealous. You are jealous for what I could do for Bernie. You are jealous for I have just done for Allison…But you need not be jealous much longer: I can relieve you of this fire. I can douse it for you sooner than these silly tears and enkindle you with another fire much more worth feeling in your breast."
The anger of the dream flooded into her reality. She sat up and slapped him across the face. He fell back, catching himself on one arm. He looked up at her with a wide-eyed "What mean you by this?" expression.
She got up, stepping over his supine form. She turned back to him. He had recovered and started to get up from the floor. She stepped away from him.
"You'll…do…no…such…thing for me!" she said, forming each word clearly and precisely. "I am not going to be the next woman in your list of conquests, you silicon Don Juan.
She turned and strode from the room. But she felt his eyes follow her, his gaze burning into her back as she headed upstairs.
Once in her room, she checked to make sure Bernie was not in her bed. Then where was she? She certainly wouldn't be with Frank. Must be in her old room.
She pulled the bedcovers over her head, but she could not sleep. The fierce images of her dream and the look of shock and confusion on Joe's face after she had slapped him, those hovered in her mind's eye, keeping her awake.
For a few minutes, she envied Sarah, who slept unconcernedly on her cot at the foot of the bed.
Next morning, they had breakfast early. Of the Orgas in the room, Frank looked the most bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but he studiously avoided Bernie, not coldly, but as if he were playing hard to get.
Mat and Ellen came right after to fetch Irene and take her to the monorail station.
"You take care of Kip till I see you again," Irene admonished her daughter in law.
Phila blushed. "He's taking good care of me," she said.
"Good, that's as it should be," Irene said with a spritely grin. "Men demand too much from their women too often; but I guess this proves I raised him right."
"You raised him very well," Phila said.
Irene reached up to Joe and caressed his arm. "You behave for Cecie; if you were of flesh and blood, I'd say you were right lucky to find her."
"Some would say, were I of flesh and blood that she would be 'right lucky' as well," he replied.
"You're both lucky," she said. "One kiss to tide me over till I see you again? Not too deep now." She glared gleefully at Peter as she said this.
"But of course, your ladyship," Joe said, stooping down to her and kissing her.
He released her lingeringly; Irene swatted his rear playfully.
"That'll do, garcon," she said. Peter groaned and raised his eyes to the ceiling.
Ferde and his girls left next; Peter was driving them to the hyperjet terminal in Amherst.
"If Pete gives you any grief whatsoever, you call me for a few pointers," Ferde told Frank as he helped carry the bags downstairs. He set down his trunk and reached into his shirt pocket for his calling card. "I don't care what time it is, or where we are, you give me a yell."
"Thanks, Ferde. Except for Kip and Cecie—and maybe Joe—you've been my chief ally all along."
"Hey, I been defusin' Peter for fifty years; I know which buttons to push. One las' thing, about Bernie." He glanced over his shoulder. "Try slipping her a mickey, y' know, something to get her juices flowing. I don't know about the new stuff, but maybe our shiny friend would know what will loosen her up inside."
"I thought of that, but I didn't dare try it. But if that's what it takes…I don't want another night like last night."
"Who could fault yah?"
"Peter."
Ferde guffawed raucously. "Now yer talkin'."
After he'd dropped Ferde's family off at the hyperjet terminal, Peter drove straight to the grocery store in Westhillston on business.
After his meeting with Diocletian, his college friend reached under his desk and pulled out a slightly dusty bottle of Irish whiskey. He poured an eighth of an inch into the bottoms of two paper cups.
"There's something important I have to talk to you about," Diocletian said, handing one cup to Peter.
"What about?"
"It has to do with that Mecha of Cecie's."
"Why, has it approached Allison again?"
"I'm not sure exactly, but there's something going on. Last night, Allison was sleeping on the screen porch; she always goes there to think things over after she's started rocking the boat. I was sleeping in the basement, just to get away from her complaining. Well, I got up in the night to take care of nature, when I heard something outside. So I looked out…and I saw someone—or, more likely, something that looked an awful lot like Cecie's Mecha walk by, coming from the backyard."
"I can't keep an eye on that thing, especially last night: Frank got that thing to molest Bernie, so he could use that as a means to get her to lie with him."
Diocletian snorted. "They just got married, Peter. When I first married Allison, I could hardly keep my hands off her the first few months."
"But you've always been sensible. Frank isn't a virgin, and I suspect he's…made use of Mecha females."
"That could be a problem."
"Are you sure it was Joe?"
"I'm positive; the thing has a face you can't mistake—except for Frank's, but this visage was much too shiny."
"So what are you getting at?"
"What I'm getting at is this: I think Allison was fooling around with the thing."
Peter dropped his drink. "Good heavens protect us! I can't have that happen again. Georgette suspected Bernie has designs on that thing. And who knows what Cecie's been doing with it. I'll have to find some way to tie it up."
"You don't tie Mechas, you fit them with a restraining bolt."
"How do you know that?"
Diocletian knocked back his whiskey. "I have a friend who knows all about these things. I could get a bolt from him."
"That would be perfect. Cecie isn't leaving until Friday, but that should hold it till then. But how would you get the bolt on him?"
"I'll bring it tonight when I come by to pick up the lights."
"But how would we put the bolt on it without Cecie finding out? She's very protective of the thing."
"That's easy: I've got that quick-acting sedative my doctor gave me for my insomnia. The hard part is finding a way to palm it into her seltzer mimosa."
"Drug her?"
"That's what it might take; she'd kill us both if she knew."
"Taking the lights down takes half the time of putting them up," Kip observed, as he and Frank took down the strings of lights in the garden. Cecie helped them, winding the Diocletians' lights back onto the plastic frames, working quickly and efficiently. She had her MP3 player clipped to her belt, her wireless earphones screwed into her ears.
"Yeah, that's because you know exactly where to put 'em: from the trees to the storage thing," Frank said. He looked at Cecie. "Gee, it's a wonder she isn't tangling the strings hopelessly."
"She looks pretty grim," Kip noted. Cecie's face was a mask of irritation and indifference.
"What's she blaring on that player?"
"Sounds like Enigma to me. Not a good sign if she's blaring it, or that's what Phila tells me."
Frank set a string of lights on the ground near Cecie and stepped away cautiously as Cecie reached for it without looking up.
"Wonder what got into her? She isn't bantering with Joe, either," Frank said.
Joe sat on the grass in a patch of sunlight between the end of the wall and the yew trees, the clear light turning his eyes to gold. She didn't even look at him as she worked. But he watched her with his usual quiet devotion, clearly waiting for her to look his way.
She took the MP3 player from her belt and pressed a few buttons before replacing it. The music suddenly got noisier
"What's that now?"
"Oh boy, very bad, according to Phila: she's blaring Ministry."
Frank laid the last string he'd taken down on the flag stones about six feet from Cecie's boots and darted away like a male spider retreating from a female after mating. Cecie picked the string up, then with an odd smile, she wound it slackly around the frame, weaving the strings in and out around each other until it looked like a bird's nest.
"Looks like she may be recovering," Frank said.
She turned down the volume on the MP3 player.
"You might have just given her the cure for what ails her," Kip said.
Cecie carried the boxes with the Connellys' lights back up to their place in the attic. While she was up there, Frank caught up with Joe on the stairs.
"I guess that was the easiest one-fifty you ever made," Frank said.
"You might call it such," Joe said.
"I got a question for you: do you know what is the best aphrodisiac for a woman?"
"Aside from simple affection and gallantry, there are several naturally derived substances which may raise a woman's confidence and help to relax her," he said. "In Bernadette's case, you might wish to procure a liquid form compound known by the brand name LavenDesire. However, no drug store in this town would carry it…however, you may be able to obtain it in one of the larger urban areas nearby, though they probably do not stock it openly."
"What does this mean, you can only get it on the black market?"
"Not precisely; one might call it the gray market."
"I'll take your word for it," Frank said. "Wonder if Kip would let me borrow his cruiser so I can drive up to Amherst?"
"Perhaps he would consent, should you promise to pay, in whole or in part, for a new fuel cell?"
"Good thinking. Y' know, for a fiberhead, you're really with it. I'd say there's more intelligence than artificiality about you."
Joe smiled proudly. "Most folk would argue your statement."
Frank went down to the garage, where he found Kip tinkering with his cruiser, getting it ready for the trip back.
"Hey, Kip, can I ask you a favor?"
"Sure, what is it, bro?"
"This shouldn't be painful: could you loan me the cruiser for an hour? I gotta go to Amherst for an important errand." He held up a 10 NB note. "Would this cover the fuel cell?"
"Well, sure. Thanks."
At supper, Frank offered to refill Bernie's milk glass, which fortunately meant getting up to fill it in the kitchen.
The LavenDesire had a slightly purple tinge, so he switched the glass for a purple one. He accidentally on purpose knocked the first glass into the sink. It smashed nicely. There, he had a cover.
He three-quarters filled the glass and poured in the LavenDesire.
Diocletian came around for the lights just after supper, as the girls and Kip were clearing the table.
"Stephen has some good news," Peter told Diocletian.
"So, has his ship come in?" the older man asked.
"You tell him, Stephen," Peter said to his son.
"The Indian Mountain School accepted me as a teacher's aide; I'm starting Monday," Stephen said, his face turning pink across the cheekbones.
Diocletian reached over and clapped Stephen on the shoulder. "There's our boy. We knew you could do it. Now, are you going back to the seminary?"
"No, I don't have a vocation, I don't have the stamina for clerical life."
"Can't you do anything to change that?"
"It's these seizures, they came back with a vengeance."
"I read recently that the medical researchers might be treating that with nanotechnology. Seems they can inject into you these tiny things that repair the affected areas in your brain."
"I've heard about it, but the last I heard it was in the experimental stage."
"Perhaps you could volunteer?" Georgette asked.
"There are too many risks," Stephen said.
"Besides, it might fall under self-endangerment and indirect suicide," Peter argued.
"No, the Catechism says it's absolutely permissible as long as the person gives their full and willing consent, paragraph 2293," Cecie said, drinking the last of her seltzer mimosa.
"I'll have to look that up," Peter said.
Diocletian eyed Cecie's empty glass just as Joe, on her left, took note of it as well.
"Cecie, you want another of those?" Diocletian asked.
"Would you not rather that I did you the honor?" Joe asked, trying to look her in the eye.
"Well, since you were gracious enough to ask, Mr. Diocletian, sure," Cecie said.
"That might be the best," Peter said, glaring at Joe.
"Why would you trust that thing anyway?" Diocletian said, taking the glass.
"He tends bar nights every other month in one of the clubs in Rouge City," she explained. "He's not half bad with mimosas."
When Diocletian had gone, Joe turned to her. "So you would accept his ministrations over mine?" he said, his eyes gone cold, his chin lifted primly.
"Listen, I'll talk to you, but that may be the extant of it," Cecie informed him. "Besides," she darted a grin at the kitchen door. "I've never seen Shay Diocletian so jovial before except at Christmas, so I figured I may as well run with it while I can. I'll tell you why some other time."
Diocletian returned with the filled glass and handed it to Cecie. "I hope I did mixed it right; I got it as close to fifty-fifty as I could."
She took it. "Thanks," she said, hiding her amusement. Joe turned his face away, lips curled in disgust.
As she drank the mimosa, Cecie caught herself suddenly tuning out the conversation around her, instead of calmly listening and making her usual pointed mental remarks. Her head felt heavy and her eyelids kept trying to droop.
Joe must have sensed the change in her demeanor: he leaned closer to her, putting his arm around the back of her chair.
"Are you feeling all right?" he asked.
"I just feel tired," she said. "Must be all these late nights the past few days."
"Are they late nights or are they early days?" he quipped.
She couldn't help smiling at this, despite her exhaustion. She stood up.
"I hate to seem impolite, but I'm turning in for the night," she said, holding the back of her chair for balance. "So, good night, everyone."
"Are you okay?" Georgette asked.
"Yeah, it's just all the craziness at night this past week," Cecie said.
"May I see you to your door?" Joe offered. He had risen with her.
"I'll be okay," Cecie said, heading for the stairs. She tripped on the rug in the hallway. Joe came to her side and helped her up.
"On second thought, maybe I'd better accept your offer," she said, letting him put his arm about her back to support her, and holding his hand in hers.
"I think I'll go out and enjoy the night before it gets too chilly," Bernie said, coming back from the kitchen.
"Want me to join you? I could use a breath of air myself," Frank said, getting up.
"Well…in a little while, I guess,' she said
"Now?" Peter mouthed to Diocletian.
The larger man listened. He pointed one thick index finger to the ceiling, tracking the footsteps above with the tip.
Cecie stumbled at the head of the stairs and nearly fell on her face, pulling Joe down. She felt just too wasted to get up. She let Joe pull her up to her feet, then he gently lifted her in his arms and carried her up the hall to her room.
"Really, you don't have to do this," she protested.
"It would not be proper; you sleepless nights have taken their toll on your strength," he replied.
"And you were part of the reason for that," she said. She slid one arm around his neck. "'Spose I should get payback for it."
"I debt I would gladly fulfill," he said, not understanding. He pushed the door open with his elbow and carried her inside.
He laid her down on the pillows and knelt to untie her boots. He slid them off, then drew the blankets from under her, pulling them up to her chest. He undid the collar of her blouse. Perching on the edge of the mattress, he leaned down and kissed her on the lips, chastely, before placing a second, more scorching kiss on the pit of her throat.
"Would you have me linger?" he asked.
"No, Peter'll squawk. Y' better go down, or you'll never get down there tonight."
"Let me stay until you fall asleep. Please allow me this."
"Okay, Mr. Charmingly Annoying, but sit back from me."
"As you desire." He sat up and settled back at her feet.
She fell asleep within seconds.
Diocletian went upstairs as quickly and quietly as a man of his bulk could. Peter followed.
"When we get up there, you pin him to the wall. I'll take care of the rest," Diocletian said in a low voice.
As they reached the head of the stairs, the door to Cecie's room opened and something emerged that gleamed in the diffused light of the moon streaming through an unshaded window. The shadow of the closing door hid the moonlight. A dark form moved toward them through the gloom.
And then suddenly, it stood before them at the head of the stairs. It had moved so quietly they didn't hear it approach. Its eyes flicked from Diocletian's face to Peter's, blank but betraying something like caution, even suspicion.
"What do you gentlemen require of me?" it asked.
"We needed to talk to you for a minute," Peter said, switching on the light. He stepped up to it. He grabbed it by the shoulders and pushed its back up against the wall of the hallway. It tried to slip out from under his arm, but he stuck his knee into its shirtfront.
"Peter, take your knee out of the way," Diocletian said.
"Mr. Connelly, this is no manner in which to treat a guest," the Mecha said.
"You've worn out your welcome, Mr. Joe-the-Gigolo," Peter said, following Diocletian's command. "You've brought nothing but dishonor on this house, and you've brought this on yourself."
Diocletian took from the pocket of his jacket a Philips screwdriver and a cylindrical object of black metal, about as big around at one end as a double-A battery and as long as two put end to end. A flat round knob slightly bigger around than the shaft of the object protruded from one end of it, while the other end tapered almost to a point.
Diocletian stuck the screwdriver through his belt. With one hand, he grabbed the front of Joe's gleaming gray shirt and yanked it free of its waistband.
He uncovered the thing's belly (stomach? abdomen? What did you call it?), exposing what looked like a navel, exactly where it would be on a flesh and blood human. Diocletian put the flat of his palm on the thing's flesh (!), surrounding the navel with thumb and forefinger. The Mecha's abdomen drew in slightly and its mouth curved in a gently nervous smile; it was ticklish.
"Good heavens! They gave this thing a navel?" Peter asked.
"Correction: it's an access port," Diocletian said, fitting the bolt between the thumb and forefinger that surrounded said access port. "And cover its mouth; he might cry out."
Peter put his shoulder against the Mecha's chest; it tried to slip out during the adjustment, but he shoved it back, knocking its head against the wall as he covered its mouth. It emitted a small shriek under his hand.
"This is the price you pay, fiberhead, for messing with an honest man's wife." Diocletian backed away slightly and, with a thrust of his whole lower body behind his hand, drove the bolt through the access port.
The Mecha writhed under Peter's grasp and let out a muffled scream under his hand.
Diocletian drove in the knob with a couple turns of the screwdriver. The Mecha's face went from pain to a kind of blank resignation.
Diocletian put the screwdriver back in his pocket. "You can let it go now."
Peter released the Mecha hesitantly, not sure what it would do once freed. It pulled its upper body away from the wall. Then it glanced down, his smooth brows creased with confusion. It looked up at them, its eyes rising first, then the head lifting.
"What have you done to me?" it asked.
"You've been fitted with a restraining bolt, my friend," Diocletian said, in a decidedly unfriendly voice. He slung Joe over his shoulder. "Peter, where can we stow him—it?"
"There's a broom closet down the hallway; we can put it there."
"Perfect." Peter preceded them down the hall to the closet and opened the door. Diocletian thrust his burden inside, propping it against the side wall.
The Mecha raised its eyes to them as Peter closed the door.
In her room, Cecie dimly heard the voices in the hallway, but the drug tangled her brain neurons with chemical cobwebs and kept her from getting up to see what went on.
Bernie walked along the path of the walled garden. For the first time since Friday, she felt relaxed, at ease. She breathed deeply, imbibing great pints of the chill night air, tasting the aromas on it: the late hydrangeas, the pines, the yew, and that odd, sharp scent that tangs in the air of a New England autumn night. She sighed, letting herself enjoy the night scents.
She heard footsteps behind her. She turned around. She expected to find Joe there, slinking up behind her, trying to ingratiate himself into her arms, but she found Frank there, gazing up at the moon just starting to wane.
He did not look at her. He seemed to ignore her. Was this another ploy, or was this for real? Somehow the question seemed completely irrelevant. She walked up to him.
"Hello," she said.
He looked at her. "Oh, I'm sorry: I didn't see you there." He sounded as if he meant it.
She gazed up at the moon. "It's beautiful tonight."
"Yes, it is."
She looked at him, then up at the moon. "And this is the same moon that's been shining on young people for millennia." She couldn't believe she said that, but…somehow she felt utterly at ease with this new feeling of confidence. She reached out and put her hand in Frank's. He looked down at her, almost doing a double take.
"My, you're getting frisky: must be the moonlight." He felt as if he might withdraw. But she clasped this hand tighter and, facing him, took his other hand in hers.
This different feeling grew stronger, but perhaps it wasn't a different feeling so much as a different side of herself, some part that had lain dormant and repressed for much too long.
Repressed? She could hear Peter's voice talking about how the marriage debt had to be discharged with a solemn, sacramental reverence. But she could hear Phila and Kip whispering and tittering in the kitchen as they did the dishes, and their delighted yelps and cascades of laughter she'd heard behind the closed door of their room. And through this, she could hear and see, in her mind's ear and eye, Cecie sitting on the back porch, drinking a mimosa from a jam glass, with Joe reclining gracefully at her feet, listening with wrapt if incomprehensive attention while she talked about the divinely comic quality of the sacraments.
"I mean, think about it this way: God is a spirit, right? So you'd think that this all-powerful Being without a body, who asks us to become like Him would expect us to do without the physical junk that clutters up the earth, right? Wrong! He stoops down and gives us His grace by means we can see and touch. He even incorporates two of our basic bodily functions: He enters our very body, over the teeth and over the gums, right into our belly, as a scrap of bread and a sip of wine. And He even made a sacrament out of that most profound and ridiculous bodily function known as sex. I see the kind of knots people tie themselves into over romantic attraction; and somehow, after a lot of ups and downs, God uses this means to achieve the goal of helping two people come home to Him, along with whatever kids nature has allowed them to bear. Nobody tell me that God is completely serious all the time: why would He use the stuff of romantic comedies to weave the fabric of the human race? We see the knots and snarls, and you may as well chuckle over it or you'll go crazy, but He knows the pattern on the other side."
Tying knots…she'd tied the knot with Frank now, but she couldn't get herself to go further.
Loosening cords…Joe had, with his oddly innocent passion and with no thought for himself, offered to untie the cords bound about her heart. She'd almost let him do this, which would only have tangled matters. And she realized she was denying Frank what was really his due.
"Bernie, I'm sorry about last night," he said.
"You were only trying. Cecie would say we do a lot of dumb things before we get wise to the right things."
His hands loosened their grip on hers. "Listen: if you really think it won't work, if you really think I'm not the right guy for you, we don't have to go through with this. We can file for an annulment and go our separate ways. Whatever you do then, I'll accept it as far as I'm able to."
She squeezed his hands. "No, Frank, I mean…it's gonna take me a while to get used to, but I think I can get my courage up and do this for you."
"It's more like letting me do it for you. I can show you the stars, Bern, but only if you'll let me. I can't force you: as weak as I've been, I'm not that kind of guy."
"Can we take it in steps?"
"If that's what makes you comfortable, sure."
She put her arms around his waist and leaned her chin against his shoulder. He put one arm around her, slowly, pressing her against him.
"Can we sit down?" she asked
"Sure, if you'd feel more comfortable." He led her to the stone bench.
Peter heard the screen door on the deck open and close as he set about checking the house. Bernie and Frank passed through, heading upstairs. Each had one arm about the other's waist.
"Where are you going?" Peter asked.
"Just up to bed, to sleep," Frank said.
On the stairs, Frank glanced back and down into the living room. Okay, where's my Mecha twin? he wondered. His next thought was, Oh boy, Cecie and Joe are at it and Peter doesn't know? But then he had an odd feeling that wasn't it either.
But he had to take care of Bernie.
As Bernie got to the chamber, she felt he confidence start to ebb. Frank had lingered on the stairs; he came up a few seconds after her, his face furrowed with concern.
"Is something wrong?" she asked.
"Something might be wrong," he replied. "I couldn't see Joe in the living room. Give me a second: if Peter comes up here yelling, someone has to tell him what's going on."
He went to Cecie's room and tried the doorknob: unlocked and unblocked. He opened the door and peered in.
Cecie lay flat on her back, her head rolled to one side, the covers neatly smoothed over her. No one lay beside her. He peered around the door, taking in the room. No one kept watch in the night with unblinking eyes, and Cecie was probably the last person in the world to stow a Mecha in a closet.
He closed the door and went back to join Bernie.
"I don't see him," he told her.
"I hope that doesn't mean he went out to meet with someone," Bernie said.
"What can you do? They programmed him that way." Frank put his arm about her waist and drew her to him. "And I must admit, I'm programmed that way too, though I understand what 'forsaking all others' means." He kissed her check. With one hand, he tilted her face up and kissed her under the jaw. She pulled away.
"No, not yet, not yet. Please."
"Okay. But can we at least spend the night in the same room?"
"Well…okay." She took his hand and led him into the room.
Rain moved in over the land late that night. It fell softly at first, but it soon fell heavier, pouring from the sky in dense, soaking sheets. Thunder rumbled in the distance.
Lightning flashed across the sky from the west to the east. The sky glowed as if on fire. Bolt after bolt crackled from sky to earth.
In his prison, Joe heard the crackling and rumbling. He sensed the air pressure drop sharply, along with the fierce tick-tick-tick within his own breast. The pain receptors in the "flesh" of his abdomen still fired and he felt the foreign object thrust through it to his locomotion actuator. He reached out to feel for the knob. He could just touch it with the very tip of his index finger, but he could not reach further to grasp the knob and turn it.
He shifted the weight of his upper torso so that he fell against the doorpost. He reached out and tested the knob. It was locked.
He unsealed his left wrist and drew out a small screwdriver. He tried to pick the lock with it, but that didn't work.
Back in Rouge City, Vautrin had curled up for a snooze in front of the terminal that carried the tracking information on all the units on the street and elsewhere. But something jolted him awake.
An alarm started peeping. He shook himself to get the last of the sleep out of his lanky frame and turned to the monitor to scan the grid.
J-O-4679, License # RC-12291973-882801:
Alert condition: Code 25
Alert condition: Code 212
"Damn," he muttered. "What kinda bad trouble you get yourself into now, Joe?" Breach of dermis integrity and immobilization of the locomotive actuator, he thought. He reached for the phone and told the automated system to dial Natterson, the chief tech. Westhillston, Massachusetts would be a bit of a hike, but he'd check the monorail schedule.
Once he got off the phone with Natterson, he drew in a deep breath. "Telephone: Mr. Raymond J. Flyte."
Flyte was so not gonna like to hear this.
A loud clap of thunder shook Cecie's room. She shocked into consciousness. She sat up, sensing something not right in her world. Her lips still tasted sweet with Joe's parting kiss, but her intuition picked up something vibrating in the taut air, despite the electricity that hummed around her.
She got up and crept downstairs to the living room, looking for a familiar pair of eyes, looked out of the shadows, warming at the sight of her.
No sight of Joe.
She went back upstairs and back to bed. Where could he be? It might be a simple case of his slipping out for another assignation with Allison. Had Diocletian found out what had happened behind his back? Was that what had happened?
A horrible image panned through her mind, of Joe's mangled body lying draped across the large, flat rock behind the Diocletians' house, his faceplate smashed in, the components torn from his torso.
She seemed to stand in a forest at night, a pale, greenish moon shining sickly through the gnarled treetops. She walked into a large clearing, with a declivity in the middle. Metallic parts and fragments lay piled in the hollow, gleaming dully in the wan radiance. She walked up to the heap and looked at it. She nearly recoiled when she found it was a heap of broken Mecha limbs and components.
She stared at the pile, frozen to the spot. She thought of the old black and white 2-D photos of the mass graves in a country called Poland where the murderous followers of a madman called Hitler had dumped the corpses of their victims.
She heard the bushes rustle. She looked up. Metallic and half-fleshed figures stepped out of the bracken: the vultures come to prey on the fallen of their kind.
"Stay back! Don't come any closer, any of you!" she cried. The figures stopped at the sound of her voice, the inexorable voice of the masters.
As a cloud passed over the moon, she jumped into the pile feet first, knee deep in components and snarls of fibers. She waded through the glittering, clinking heap. She threw aside metal legs and arms, tossed away faceplates she did not recognize.
Something gleamed in the dark, off to her left. She reached for it.
The cloud moved and a ray of moonlight fell over her find, glinting green off lightless eyes.
Hey Joe, whaddya know?
She recoiled as if from a snake and sat back, hard, on the torso of another dead Mecha.
She looked at the faceplate again. The eyes were canted up, frozen in place, as if he had looked to heaven for mercy. The mouth hung open as if in a soundless cry of anguish or a final plea for clemency. She wanted to kiss those lips, but she knew they would fell colder than the mouth of an Orga corpse.
As she sank back on her haunches from utter shock, something shifted underneath her. A low click snapped the silence and music started to play:
"The moon may be high
But I can't see a thing in the sky…"
She jumped up, kicking at whatever it was to shut it off. Silence returned, then she looked down at what she had been sitting on.
It was Joe's torso, the garments torn open from top to bottom, a huge gash in the abdomen where something had been torn out.
She threw her head back and howled, a long, drawn out, ululating wail.
She awoke with a cry. She'd dozed off on the edge of the bed. She opened her eyes.
Dim gray daylight lit the room. Someone tapped on her door.
"Cecie, you all right in there?" Frank's voice asked.
"I'm okay," she said, getting up. She went to the door and opened it. Frank stood there, clad in the same shirt and pants he had worn the day before, which looked as if he'd slept in them. "I just had a nightmare…You wouldn't happen to know where Joe got to?"
"I was about to ask you that," he said.
She looked him up and down. "It still didn't happen, did it?"
He shook his head, but a slight smile played over his lips. "No, but at least she let me sleep next to her last night."
"The journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step: what did you do to get her to consent to that?"
"Okay, I'll admit I slipped her a mickey."
"She wasn't the only one: I think I got slipped one myself, and that mongrel Mick had something to do with it."
"Next time let the fiberhead mix the mimosa even if you're mad at him."
"I'll drink to that."
After morning prayers and Mass, Peter went to his room to collect his briefcase and his laptop. When he turned around, he found Cecie standing in the doorway, shoulders squared, hands slightly clenched on her hips, feet apart. She looked at him over the lenses of her glasses, never a good sign.
"Where's Joe?" she asked, point blank.
"What?"
"I have a feeling you and Diocletian know exactly where he is. That wasn't just exhaustion that floored me last night. Diocletian helped me out with a little additive to that mimosa, didn't he?"
"You'll have to ask him."
"I'm asking you: where is Joe?"
"He's where things like him belong so he can't get into any more trouble or cause any more adultery."
"That is not an answer. Where is Joe?"
"Go find your damnation yourself."
She went out with a flea in her ear, but she kept her head held high.
After breakfast, Cecie took Kip and Frank aside. "Did either of you see anything odd happen last night while I was asleep?"
"I was helping Phila with the dishes, so I'm afraid I'm no help," Kip said.
"Well, after Joe took you upstairs, Peter and Diocletian had their head together at the foot of the stairs, like they were plotting something," Frank said. "I didn't hear any more, I went out to find Bernie. I shoulda stopped them."
"That doesn't matter now," Cecie said. "What matters is finding Joe."
The three of them went upstairs single file.
"Joe?" she called. "Joe? Hey, Joe, where'd yah go?" They ranged down the hallway. "Joe? If you can hear me, let me know where you are."
Music dimly started to play behind the door of the broom closet. "Okay, we hear you," she said, heading for the door and trying it. Locked. The music switched off inside.
"I'll get the key, " Kip said.
Kip went down and came back with the key. He unlocked the door and opened it. No sooner did he have the door open, then Joe fell out of the closet on his side. He propped up his upper torso with his hands and dragged his lower half across the floor, clear of the closet.
"What happened to you, bro?" Frank said.
"I have heard of this happening to others of my kind, but I could never have perceived it occurring to me," Joe said, propping himself up on his elbow. "Your Messires Diocletian and Connelly have fitted me with a restraining bolt."
"Oh, no!" Cecie cried. She turned to Kip. "Can they do that? I thought restraints only worked on service droids."
"Same difference: they use the same kind of locomotion activator whether it's a street-sweeper droid or a lover-Mecha," Kip said. "Only difference is access. That's how it works: there's a pin inside the bolt that locks the actuator so he can't move."
"Can you get it out?" Frank asked.
"Probably. I have some mechanical know-how with these things. We'll have to get him out of here, though: there's no light for me to work in."
Frank took Joe under the legs—which stuck out straight, lacking their usual grace—while Kip took him under the arms. They carried him down the hall to Cecie's room and laid him on the bed
Kip unfastened the bottom of Joe's shirt and pushed it up and back.
A flat black knob as big around as Cecie's knuckle protruded from the middle of Joe's abdomen. The sight of this made Cecie fail to notice for a moment the lightly molded musculature around it: not quite "washboard abs", but not soft either. She let herself smile once the shock wore off; she'd never cared for heavy-muscled types.
"You'd better hold his hands, Cecie; these guys sometimes get a little weird if you're working on them," Kip said. "Oh, man!"
"What?" asked Frank.
"It's one of those."
"One of what?" Cecie asked.
"It's a Y-X bolt," Kip said. "Let me go find a Philips screwdriver."
While Kip went out, Cecie sat down on the mattress at Joe's head and took it onto her knees. She took one of his hands in hers; he covered it with his free one and tilted his face up to look at her.
"Poor baby, what did they do to you?" she asked, her voice soft and sweet, almost a coo of pathos.
"They have treated me as if I were a chattel," he said.
"Does it hurt?" she asked. She sensed, deep within him, the soundless tick of his damage alarm.
He glanced down at the knob. "It pains me not so much as it did at first." She watched a twinge come and go in his face. She reached down and stroked his synthetic flesh. He drew in the wall of his stomach and let out a small, half-suppressed laugh.
"Did that tickle?" she asked.
"It made my receptors forget to feel pain for the moment," he said.
"Way that Frank the Orga and Joe the Mecha are similar, number fifty-seven: they both have ticklish stomachs," Frank said, half humorous, half with a mock groan. "And I suppose I'd look like that if I could ever remember to do my sit-ups."
The 11.30 monorail from Camden pulled into the depot of Westhillston. Two men, one in the gray coveralls of a tech, the other in a long gray cloak, got off and headed into the middle of the town, toward the Red Dragon Inn.
Kip came back a moment later with the Phillips screwdriver. "Frank, could you bring the lamp over here? There isn't enough light."
"Okay," Frank picked up the lamp from the bedside table and held it low over the bed, almost touching the mattress. Cecie put her free hand on Joe's brow, fingering his hair in a motherly, rather than a loverly manner.
Kip fitted the screwdriver into the scoring on the bolt head. "Now this is the hard part. I can never remember if it's turn left then right, or turn right then left to get these Y-X bolts out."
"Hey, Joe, can you remember how Diocletian turned the bolt when he stuck it into you?" Frank asked.
"I could not tell you. Peter had pushed my head back and he blocked my line of vision with his body."
"Figures," Cecie muttered.
"Guess I'll just have to do trial and error," Kip said. He turned the driver right and then left and carefully tried to pull the bolt free. Joe winced, arching his back. "Nope, must be left then right." He turned it right and drew the bolt out slowly.
Frank replaced the lamp. "Can you walk now, bro?" he asked.
"I shall be mobile again in but a moment," Joe replied.
The Mecha sat up slowly after a minute or two. Tentatively, he moved one leg, then the other. He shifted to the edge of the bed and stood up. He let go of Cecie's hand and walked the length of the room and back. He tried a few dance steps, a simple buck and wing. But something seemed missing; Cecie hoped it was just her imagination, or that something had to reset inside him.
"I'd better call your owner," she said.
"That will not be necessary," Joe said, tucking in his shirt and adjusting the skirts of his jacket. "He will know of it by now."
"Right, your damage alarm."
"If we leave you two alone, can you keep from doing anything that'll land us in more bad trouble with Peter?" Frank asked.
"We won't," Cecie said.
"Phila'll need me to help pack her stuff," Kip said, pocketing the bolt.
The two men went out. Frank started to close the door, then pretended to strike his forehead and left the door open.
The Master hadn't told her not to leave her hiding place. She detected no movement above. Because, as she discovered, she could move once more, she crept out of her corner in the basement and went above to investigate, and perhaps catch up with the Master.
Not finding anyone about the house, she scanned her small profile database, searching for his work address. Once she had accessed it, she consulted her internal map. Plotting a course, she left the house and set out in search of her Master.
Cecie put a hand on Joe's shoulder. "Can you forgive me?"
"Forgive you for doing or not doing what?" he asked.
"For being so cold to you yesterday."
"Of course I can forgive this. You did not bring these woes upon us. And perhaps, eve had you not been cold to me, this trouble would have befallen me anyway."
"If only people could be as forgiving as you are," she said, burying her face in his shoulder. Joe encircled her with one arm; with the other hand, he caressed her head. "I wish I hadn't brought you here. I could have saved you a lot of trouble."
He shrugged gracefully. "If it had not suffered this indignity here, it might yet have happened in Rouge City. But I trust this visit has been well-worth the troubles, in all other respects."
She smiled at him, but something cold lingered in her eyes.
"I take this as the beginning of 'yes'."
To be continued…
Afterword:
Who's the stranger in the gray cloak? Will Frank and Bernie ever consummate the marriage? Will Cecie and Joe be able to patch things over? …And just who is the mysterious woman in the Diocletians' basement? Find out in Chapter X.
Literary Easter Eggs:
The Kurt Weill song—This is the last stanza of "The 'Sorry' Song", Marc Blitzstein's translation, modified slightly by yours truly (I know some German).
"the white crane spreads its wings—this is an actual T'ai Chi movement; I took it for a year, and I'm fairly proficient at it.
"'Look into the mirror of your soul'…"—I discovered the song "I Love You…I'll Kill You" (of which this is the second and last verse) by Enigma while I was drafting another fiction, and I promptly fell in love with it (It's now my second favorite song of theirs, after "Eyes of Truth", which was used in one version of the movie trailer for The Matrix). I was listening to it nonstop as I wrote this whole sequence, which explains the dark, somewhat disturbing quality to the sequence, that and the fact that I was having floaters of the bit in the movie eXistenZ where Jennifer Jason Leigh has Jude Law pinned to the wall.
Restraining bolt—I swiped this, as I said, from Star Wars (C3-P0 gets pinned with one), but since I'm not sure of the technology involved, I had to fake it. I imagine that, in the "A.I." universe, there has to be some way of immobilizing Mechas (for transport, et al.); I just hope they wouldn't be so horrible as this dandy little gadget. The design for it, as I envisioned it, came from an old pocket flashlight we had kicking around the house years ago. And the bolt-inserting scene is modeled somewhat after the scene in The Matrix where the Agents plant the navel-penetrating "bug"—figurative gone literal—on Neo/Thomas Anderson.
"solemn sacramental reverence"—I had just been listening to, as a book-on-tape, the chapter entitled "Eros" in C.S. Lewis's The Four Loves, in which he makes a case for the comic quality of romantic/sexual love in marriage, turning on ear the idea that martial sexuality has to be a dry, dull affair.
Joe's license number—the first set of digits is Jude Law's birthdate, while the second set of digits is the ff.n number of this story.
Cecie's nightmare—this is all that remains of a fanfiction that was supposed to cap off this series involving Cecie Martin, but it had such a downer ending I couldn't bear to publish it, but this image was so strong, I couldn't let it go.
Joe dragging himself across the
floor—Compare this with the bit in the film Gattaca with Joe's real life
counterpart as a paraplegic dragging himself up a staircase. (And if you're
reading this chapter, Sapphire Rose, this is the last cross-reference to other
films of the green-eyed beauty for this chapter!)
