She must have seen something on his face. Uncomfortable now, he goes to replenish his coffee. With his back to her, he says, 'It's not easy, but sometimes we do. Have long-term relationships, I mean.'
'One of your own sort?'
But he won't talk about Laura.
Chloe adds another log to the fire, straightens his mitts and balaclava, which are drying on the mantelpiece, then joins him by the table.
'What was your offence?' he asks.
'Defacement of public property.'
'That must have been one hell of an axe job. Or did you use an explosive?'
'Graffiti.'
'Now you're axing me. No way they'll send you here for a bit of spray paint.'
They must learn it early on, like their lying-that trick with the eyebrow. He frowns at her, not bothering to disguise his distaste, then crosses the room to the larger of the two windows and twitches aside the curtain. The building faces south: a thin bruising low on the horizon, dark violet and cobalt, is the most anyone will see of the sun for many weeks. Laura has to be out there somewhere, perhaps at another camp, perhaps trekking in the open.
'Maybe I ought to help Ethan.' Zach says. 'Butchering a seal sounds like a time-consuming task.'
'He likes to butcher, and he likes to do it alone.' She laughs softly. 'I expect he'll be in this place for a very long time.'
'You mean-'
'He doesn't talk much about it, but it's pretty obvious.'
'You're not afraid?'
'You'll just have to keep bringing us fresh kill. I do like my meat.'
Zach can't tell whether the glint in her eyes is mere amusement-the teasing which is as much a secondary sexual characteristic as functional mammary glands-or a taunt to repay him for his rejection.
Chloe begins gathering together the coffee things. After a moment she stops, walks around the table to one of the bookshelves, and turns her back to him with all the appearance of searching for a title. Zach spends a few minutes trying to piece together the events of the morning. He can recall the journey to the ice, he can recall the wait, recall the advent of the polar bear, recall the return trek with Lev, seal in tow; but he's not sure if recall is the right word for the jarring sense of disjointedness, of double exposure, of slippage when he pictures Lev and the bear on the ice. Which had been which? And that memory of raw liver: would he even eat raw liver?
There's no point eroding a client's confidence in him any further. 'Chloe-' he begins.
She turns to face him, a half-smile on her face and one hand behind her. After a moment her smile broadens, then she reaches up and slowly unzips her fleecy top. She isn't wearing a bra.
Shit, he thinks. Not again.
'Lovely as buttered crumpets, the last bloke said. Want a taste?'
'I thought you understand.'
'Last chance.'
'No.' And maybe because they are quite lovely, and his imagination has begun to work, and there are all kinds of loneliness, he snaps, 'No bloody way. Get it?'
'Oh yeah, I get it.'
With no more than a slight tightening of the skin around her eyes, as if she's just applied a cooling astringent, she brings her other hand out from behind her.
'I forgot to mention that I've always painted my graffiti in fresh blood.'
And then she throws the knife.
A sound like a seal's harsh bark. A puzzling sensation, as though a fishhook has snared his gut and tugged sharply. No pain. Some burning deep inside. He moves sideways, but slowly, very slowly. The ice is thin, he has to slide one foot forward, then the other, till he can reach her. Laura is clinging with both hands to the jagged edge, her knuckles white. It's too cold for her to pull herself up. At this temperature you freeze before you drown. Her eyes are wide and dark, fixed on his face. I'll always hear you, Zach. He can see her forearms trembling. Not long now. Another step. Another. And then the ominous ping of cracking ice, a live wire in his midriff, sudden pressure, the smell of blood, and the world begins to tilt. Her fingers loosen. As he falls, his last thought before losing consciousness: she swims like a sleek seal of ice across her lips.
* * *
Watchdog duty-routine, necessary, boring. Andy drums his fingers on the console, working out a pull that's been giving him trouble. Gradually switching up the tempo till his muscles begin to tense, he breaks off, shakes out his hand, begins again. Like any dead-tired mother who sleeps soundly along with her infant but can jolt awake at the first snuffle, he suddenly leans forward to study the code riffing past. That's odd. After watching for long enough to recognise a break in the usual pattern, he fires off an instruction, then a second. An instant later he swears and keys in the manual override. It takes him only a few fingerstrokes to realise that there's no change in the data stream. He swears even louder and reaches for the phone. Litchfield, however, is in the midst of a synapse procedure and can't be interrupted. After another attempt to modify the code, Andy rings the division head. Reluctantly. Russell F.-he always insists on the F, too blinkered to cotton on to the wisecracks-is a total arsehole.
'Russell,' Andy says, 'can you come down?'
'I've got a conference in a few minutes.'
'Postpone it. We've got a problem.'
'What kind?'
'An anomaly in the stream.'
'Where's Charles? That's his domain.'
'In neurosurgery.'
A sigh. 'Which simu is it?'
'Zach.'
'Well, correct it.'
Unfuckingbelievable. 'First thing I tried, of course. No response. We may have to abort the run.'
'Nonsense,' Slade says. 'The system's got more backup than a space probe.'
'And I'm telling you that I know this baby. Better than my vintage Ibanez. Way better. This isn't a hardware issue.'
'Then what?'
'I don't know.' He stares at the display, sweat gradually soaking through his shirt despite the room's carefully regulated temperature. 'I've never seen anything like this before.'
'You know how much each run costs. They'll have our heads if we pull him too early.'
'Fuck that. I'm not going stand by and let you kill him for a better balance sheet.'
Andy can just about hear Slade wince. 'I've warned you before, watch your language. And nobody's said anything about killing.'
'Oh yeah? The way this looks, something's degrading fast. I'm not even sure we can still get him out. Call it, Russell. Now.'
There's a short silence.
'You're overreacting, son,' Slade says. 'I'll send word for Charles to pop down as soon as he's finished. A few hours won't make any difference.'
'No way, Russell, I'm warning you, I'm begging-' Andy breaks off, suddenly aware that he's speaking to the trilling dialtone Fulgur prefers for its phone system. The bastard has rung off.
Chapter 9
Laura crouched at the child's side. Up close she could see the cracks in his lips, traces of blood and spit caked at the corners of his mouth. Cheeks rouged by fever. Bruises-livid, horrifying bruises. And from the stench and the state of his pants, it was clear that he'd been left trussed like an animal for a very long time.
Laura glanced back at Owen. 'Have you got a pocket knife?'
As Owen advanced into the room, the boy seemed to shrink further inside the loose husk of his skin, while his shudders became more pronounced. Soon Laura could detect a new smell, though she wondered how his body managed to spare enough moisture to sweat. At least I've still got some of my apple juice left for him, she thought. Usually she drank all of it right after swimming.
'I don't own a knife,' Owen said, dropping a hand to her shoulder. 'Come away, this is none of our business.'
Laura twitched aside. 'He's scared of you. Go and try to find something sharp. A piece of metal, some broken glass, whatever.'
'What for?'
'For godsake, isn't that obvious?'
'What's obvious is that you're set on getting into more trouble.'
With the same hair-trigger response that made her racing starts so effective, Laura sprang up and rounded on Owen. 'You can't be serious. What if he was your little brother?'
Owen tried to make a joke of it. 'An auger?'
The boy's whimpering prevented Laura from slapping Owen. But she came close.
Owen retreated a step or two from the fierce expression on her face before capitulating. 'OK. Have it your way. I'll have a look.' He turned to go.
'Wait,' said Laura, rummaging in her backpack for her mobile. 'Maybe we ought to phone for an ambulance.' She didn't like the sound of the boy's breathing. How long had he gone without that serum? Zach's words came back to her. Worse.
'You can't do that. You'll get your dad fired.'
'For ringing emergency services?'
'All calls are recorded.'
'Then use your mobie.'
Owen slowly shook his head. 'They know we go out together.'
There was a misunderstanding here, but Laura wasn't about to tackle that now. She pulled out her bottle, dropped to a squat, and addressed the boy in as soothing a voice as she could muster. 'We're not going to hurt you. I want to turn you over and give you a little apple juice, then my friend's going for a doctor. Don't be afraid. You're safe now.'
In certain parts of the world simu eyes are prized for their putative occult properties, and it's rumoured that a single one on the black market will yield enough for a luxury flat in your metropolis of choice, housekeeper included; and an undamaged matched pair, a lifetime of leisure. However, to be of prime value they must be harvested from a living 'donor'.
The boy stared at Laura with eyes so occluded that she couldn't tell if he understood her. But he let her roll him onto his back with only a faint cry of distress, or pain. Striving to hide her disgust-she'd never seen anyone quite so filthy-she raised his head and moistened his lips from the bottle, then allowed him to take a few sips. 'Not too much at once,' she said when he gulped and rooted for more. 'I'll be right back,' she added, and pulled Owen out of the room.
'Look, he's not OK,' she said. 'We're going to need help.' But what if the EMTs had no idea about the serum? Or even the doctors at the hospital? Isn't that what Zach had implied?
'There's bound to be a phone box somewhere. We can make an anonymous call.'
'And leave him on his own?' Contempt, she remembered too late, tended to make meek people like her dad meekly obstinate.
'He's not in any condition to notice. And he must've endured far worse.'
Worse. 'Give me your mobie! I'm going to ring Zach.'
'Bad idea. Anyway, I don't know his number.'
'I do.'
An angry rash mottled Owen's cheeks. 'You're not still-'
They both startled at the loud retching from the room behind them. 'Shit!' Laura rushed back to the boy, who by now was choking weakly on the fluid he'd brought up. She got him onto his side in a modified recovery position, thumped his back as much as she dared, then stroked his long dank hair away from his forehead. Washed, she thought, it'd be almost as beautiful as Zach's. The child had closed his eyes. His breathing was shallow; his skin, no longer flushed but pale and cold and clammy-alarmingly so.
'Give me your mobie,' she hissed at Owen. After a moment's hesitation, he acquiesced.
'Yeah?' Zach answered.
Typical. Not even a polite hello. 'It's me,' she said. 'I need your-'
'Sabra,' he broke in, 'nice of you to ring. What's up?'
How the hell could he think so fast? Sabra was another simu at school, she'd cover for Zach without blinking. Especially after the way Tim had twatted off about having a simu on his ecology team. Which gave her an idea.
'What do you mean, nice? Where the hell are you?' If the Insects routinely monitored voice patterns, however, no one, except maybe Owen, would get away with only a warning. 'Me and Owen have been waiting for ages-fucking ages-by the canal to finish up the stupid project for Tines.'
'Damn. I forgot. Was it today?'
'What's got into you? You're acting like a monkey with mashed bananas for brains. Get down here doublequick on your bike, and bring that pocket knife of yours for scraping off the sludge from the stones, like you promised. We've got everything else ready.'
'Look, I'm sorry. Where exactly are you waiting?'
'Behind the old cannery.'
'OK. Fifteen minutes.'
'And Zach?'
'Yeah?'
'Got any of that nosh you were desperate for last time? Remember? The one my dad also likes to whip up? There's someone here with a great whacking hunger.'
Laura heard, in his drawn silence, the questions a lesser intelligence would blurt out. Simus, she was learning, are quick studies at not betraying themselves. She rang off at his 'OK, I'll have a look' and handed Owen his mobile.
'Go outside and wait for him,' she said, making it plain she'd tolerate no dissension.
Once Owen had gone, she fetched her damp swimming towel from her backpack and wiped the boy's face and chest. Aside from fluttering his eyelids, he lay still. He seemed barely conscious. With the cleaner portions of the towel she sponged his body as best as she could, then settled down beside him, taking his hand. To hearten herself perhaps more than him, she sang softly until she heard the muted drone of Zach's motorbike-a sound that she'd come to recognise as readily as her own ringtone.
* * *
'What's going on here?'
A backpack slung over his shoulder, Zach strode into the room. As Owen came up behind him, Zach glanced from Owen to Laura with a contemptuous twist to his lips. Then he saw the boy. At once he gestured Laura aside and knelt next to the limp body. Zach's hair was tied back in a ponytail, enabling Laura to observe how his face darkened. Very gently he rolled the boy onto his back and laid his head against the sunken chest to listen for a heartbeat.
