Cyberpunk, page 8
Pico tentatively put his arm around her and let his hand rest on the bicep of her goosebumped bare arm and she moved into his embrace.
I'm scared, he whispered and she shushed him, but it was not unfriendly.
He held absolutely still then, wary that anything he might say may disrupt their pseudo embrace. But he couldn't help himself, the nacker in front of them haunted him and he wanted to explain it, to tell her that if he could only fix it up maybe the others would forgive him, that he knew he could do it, but when he turned to tell her she surprised him with a kiss and he kissed her back.
After a while she pushed him backward into the trash and climbed on top and they stayed curled like so, keeping each other warm. The putrid smell of the dump combined with the smell of her, and Pico thought maybe he could die like this after all. He was so happy to touch her skin. Around her, he felt he could see a soft electric-blue glow, electron residue perhaps, or it was only his eyes playing tricks.
Then the dogs came. At first it was just the sound of a scrabbling out in the dark, and the sound moved fast, circling about them. Pico and Mouse stood and gripped their tharpoons, pointing the ends toward the roving sound. There was a dim light from the city far away, where real people were, in their real houses, doing. He didn't know what the pendejos did. He could feel Mouse shivering next to him, and this alone made him want to run at the dogs, stupid as it was. Güey, he thought. I don't want to die. He felt like crying. I have a nacker and almost a girlfriend.
You got any charge for light? Mouse asked.
Maybe couple minutes, but it'd just call the rest.
There was a low growl off to Pico's right and he crouched with the tharpoon. The growl was followed by a series of eerie barks, answered by many others. Dios, Pico whispered. Mouse, he said.
It's okay, Pico.
The sound of dogs' feet scrabbling was intense now. They had no idea how many were out there.
Pico heard one come close and Mouse swung her tharpoon at the sound and connected. They heard a howl of rage and other dogs answered, a terrifying chorus of sound. Then one got a jaw's grip around his tharpoon arm. He yelled and punched at it with his other fist but its hold was strong. It pulled him over and he heard Mouse behind him fending off another. On the ground another one got a bite-hold on his shoe. Another tore into his thigh and he kicked and screamed and clawed.
An intense flash lit the terrain suddenly. They saw a dozen or so dogs frozen in the instantaneous light. In the ensuing blackness, there were two shots fired and an answering canine howl of pain. The dog biting Pico's thigh yipped away into the night. The one on Pico's arm got suddenly light, its jaws loosening, and when Pico went to punch it off found that only its head remained, dripping blood and wire. It slipped to the ground with a soft, wet thud.
Hello? Mouse said, her voice a lonely human sound in the dark, afraid and hopeful.
They won't trouble you now, a woman answered.
Pico tenderly touched his thigh and his hands came away slick. His arm burned and ached and felt cold. I'm hurt, he said.
Who are you? Mouse said.
My name is Lucy. The voice was close now. Reach out your hand, Pico.
I can't see, Pico said. Light?
No lights, Lucy said. She took hold of his hand and slowly placed something on his forearm. He could feel it grab hold of his arm hairs and then it crawled along his body.
He screamed and demanded to know what it was.
It went under his shirt and crawled quickly and creepily around his torso and he slapped at it with his hands but it was too fast.
Don't, Lucy said. Leave it be. It's a Senti, it will seal your wounds.
The Senti was in his pants now and he jumped, despite the pain in his thigh, and then it was at his leg wound and he had to resist the violent urge to brush it off. It gripped him there and he screamed again, and then as it dug into his flesh he retched. A moment later, he felt a cool ooze and his thigh went numb. Oh, he groaned.
See? the woman's voice said.
He could hear her wrestling with some kind of gear.
My nacker, he said, it's mine.
I'll carry it, she said.
How do you know my name, Pico said.
Your friend. She is leaking data.
Really? Pico looked toward Mouse in the dark but she did not respond. He remembered the scar at the back of her neck and puzzled at it all over again.
You were jamming GPS, correct?
Yes, he said.
And then you weren't.
My battery ran out.
I suspected there was a wreck in the dump, a downed helicopter, but instead it was you. The helicopters will be here soon, though.
The Senti slinked under his clothes to his arm wound and he bent over and breathed through the initial stab of pain this time.
Let's go, Lucy said.
Lucy walked fast in the dark and they heard the loose limbs of the nacker clack together as she went. They struggled behind her. He felt like he could hear others out around him in the night, strange sounds that his imagination morphed into the most terrible things. He reached out and clasped hands with Mouse. He could feel her stumbling, the shock hangover leaving her woozy. He wrapped his good arm around her shoulder and they walked tentatively as a single unit over the compressed trash. Pico began to work up what he would tell his parents, and fantasized about Mouse, the memory of being close to her in the night fresh. She had secrets. He tried to remember if Suto had a similar scar.
Lucy stopped suddenly and they pulled up beside her. They could see just her outline in the dark, a deep black shape against a deep black night.
From here, she said, the way is down and the trail is treacherous.
Down? Pico said, and the word came out as more of a terrified bark. They were standing on the lip of the wall, he realized. No way, Pico said, we're not going down.
You'll stay close to me, and we'll each hold onto the rope. Señorita, are you stable?
Yes, Mouse said.
Listen, Pico said, you're crazy. We're not going down the wall. Nobody goes down the wall.
I have to go down, Pico, Mouse said.
What? Why?
Because, Lucy said, a firm consistency to her voice, otherwise they will find her. Quickly.
Lucy's hand took his and placed it on the rope, and he realized stupidly that she could see in the dark. She was augmented then.
Who will? Pico whispered to Mouse. Who will come for you?
Mouse did not answer and the rope began to pull in his hand as Lucy went over the edge of the wall and proceeded down the steep slope. The ground underneath was hardened, and he could tell they were on a trail of some sort.
It was a long hard hike to the bottom, over layer upon layer of trash, the history of the city buried in the wall he descended. He kept one hand out, his fingers surfing the edge of it as he descended, and wondered what was contained within. The dump was his curse and home. It was treasure. It was where he would die, he was sure.
At the bottom, they followed Lucy along a dark path, where stunted trees brushed against his face, and cactus pulled at his clothing. Live things. The smell of the dump was sickeningly stronger here, the wind of it flowing down the wall and flooding their nostrils. But there was more, too, a complex smell of dampness and death.
Pico had a thousand questions that rushed him in disorderly fashion, but his amazement and fear kept him from organizing them into words.
Instead he listened to the sounds around him. There were others they passed, low structures with low voices inside, the smells of cooking which made his stomach ache. They were in a camp of some sort. Twice he heard a voice call out to Lucy and then there was silence after. He held hard onto the rope.
They turned and he followed the rope into a dwelling of some sort.
Mouse? he said.
Here, she said from in front of him.
The rope went slack in his hands and the darkness was absolute and he stood where he was. Around him he could feel there were objects, the place close and dense with things.
Give me your GPS jammer, Lucy said.
Why?
Give it now!
Pico unhooked it from his belt and handed it to Lucy. A moment later he saw the faint purple glow of the jammer's light.
Well, Lucy said. We get to work.
No please, not yet, Mouse said.
Dearheart, Lucy said.
Can't we turn on the pinche light? Pico said. I want answers.
To what, love, Lucy said.
Pico wasn't sure to what. Who are you? he said finally.
I already told you my name. You mean, Señor, what am I? Am I a pinche leper?
There was silence, until Pico said quietly, yes.
Yes, I am what they call a leper.
Pico no longer knew in which direction the door was. He resisted the urge to crouch to his knees and put his arms over his head. He'd grown up hearing about the lepers, the cyborgs.
For a while, Lucy said into the dark room, cyborgs were made. Or rather, humans evolved into cyborgs. I like to think of it that way. These humans feared death, and thinking that machines do not die, became half-machine. After a while, it became a challenge to name them: Were they more machine or more human? At some point, a line was crossed. You know this story?
Yes, Mouse said.
I don't know, Pico said. Kind of.
I will tell you, Lucy said.
In the dark? Pico said.
After, if you wish to see, we may have light.
There were the rich and old, Lucy continued, desperate for a taste of immortality, who fought the body's desire to change. Replace a heart and an eye, an ear and a knee, a parietal lobe, a face. Replace it all. There were government experiments. Androids with flesh, with heartbeats, who subsisted on food. The call of augmentation is strong. Who does not wish for improvement, for immortality?
No one knows where the disease came from. Perhaps there is such a thing as an evolutionary memory, a sense of wholeness. Perhaps the very skin and flesh rejected the system it had become a part of, the hard impassive elements that bound them. Perhaps God did not like his creations so tinkered with. In the end, we began to fall apart, become undone. Our flesh peeled from the metal and plastic implants, and vice versa. To stay alive, I employ a swarm of Senti to keep me whole. Listen.
She was silent a moment until Pico realized he could hear a soft sound, like a fleet of cockroaches pattering lightly along tin. She meant these things covered her, the Senti she had given him earlier.
Does our species' history, our very evolution, contain a binding principle? Is there a soul that fetters us? Maybe the sustenance we eat, of the earth and returned to earth, locks us into something we do not yet understand. I don't know. But we became sick, and the disease was infectious, even for the less augmented. So we were outcasted.
I have an implant, Mouse said.
Of course you do, dearheart, Lucy said. But since we will remove it tonight, you need not fear the disease.
Turn on the light, Pico said.
There was a click, and with a whir a glow bloomed into the room. The place was absolutely full of things. Strollers and dish racks and hubcaps and toasters and robotany strapped to the wall and ceiling, layers upon layers of scavenged dump junk.
Lucy sat straight-spined on a plush red chair, one leg of which was bound and fixed with wire. On her nearly bald head a swarm of centipede-like insects feverishly worked a wide swath of skinless area encrusted with blood. She had no lower lip, and Pico could see the skeletal roots of her teeth. Her eyes were dull and inhuman, and surrounded with bruising, swollen blue and yellow stretches across her face. Lucy's hands were crossed over her knees, and they were beyond age, crackled and parched, some fingers with long ragged nails, others missing nails entirely, in their place a sort of pus. She wore a worn black velvet suit.
Mouse let out a sob and covered her face.
Shall I turn out the light? Lucy asked.
Pico shook his head no. He wanted to be in the dark with her even less. He could feel the Senti crawling across his own thigh and he grabbed it in a quick swoop and offered it back to Lucy.
Keep it, she said, a gift.
Is it expensive? he asked.
Extremely.
He nodded and put it back on his leg, still disgusted by its function. Thank you. Pico sat down on the floor, a patchwork collage of rug scraps, and studied the ceiling.
Your friend Mouse has a bounty on her head, did you know? Lucy said to Pico. Her whole family does. Did.
Pico looked at Mouse who still covered her face.
Not Basucorp, Lucy said, government. The dogs were nothing. You would have received a helicopter ride to oblivion had I not found you. Her wi.n is damaged—it used to protect her identity, but its defenses are fried and now it's spouting a fire-hose of data, the slutty little thing.
What should we do? Pico said.
Lucy shrugged, we must remove it. She turned toward Mouse and exhaled through her lipless bottom teeth in consideration, her cheeks puffed out grotesquely. They won't send patrols down here, they are too afraid of the disease. But they know you're around here somewhere. They will be waiting and listening for you. She unfolded her long hands and beckoned. Come here, dear. We must do it now.
I don't want to, Mouse said.
Wants, Lucy said, rarely make much difference.
It has everything.
I know, but I cannot fix it. You will be a real pepenador after this. Not many get the chance to start everything over. In time you might even appreciate this. Come. Pico, fetch us a scalpel from the top drawer. Lucy pointed to a set of listing enamel kitchen drawers.
Lucy slowly pushed Mouse's face down into her lap and bared the thin white scar at the back of her neck that Pico had seen earlier. Pico balled his fists and hopped once in nervous anticipation, then he bent close and held Mouse's hand. It repulsed him to see the leper's ugly claw touch Mouse's hair.
Lucy pulled a Senti from her own scalp and placed it on the scar, where it hunched into her flesh. Mouse tensed and then relaxed. After Lucy removed the Senti back to her own scalp she made a deep incision with the scalpel, following the old line of the white scar. Mouse was quiet.
When the incision was just right, Lucy reached her claw-hand into Mouse's neck and Mouse screamed. A moment later Lucy pulled out the wi.n, a small white cylinder covered in blood which trailed wispy lines back to Mouse's neck. Lucy cut the lines.
Here's the awful little thing, Lucy said. Now you are one hundred percent human again. You are lucky. You are immune.
Mouse cried quietly in her lap as two Senti patched up her wound, and then fell asleep there, with Lucy stroking her hair.
Lucy held out the bloody wi.n and scalpel to Pico. Take these and clean them off.
He was unsure of how to clean them off and Lucy offered no suggestions. Finally he wiped them on his pant leg. She said nothing after that, so he put the wi.n in his pocket and replaced the scalpel.
They are helping her get through it, Lucy said. If you wish, there are tools in the bottom drawer.
Pico found his nacker in a corner and pulled out Lucy's tools and eagerly set to work disassembling it. He was relieved to have something to do. He repeated in his mind the tharpoon throw that had disabled the machine, and fetched the small module he'd chipped from its top.
As he worked, he tried to block from his mind what he'd just seen. The image of Lucy's face behind him, the object that had been extracted from Mouse. Instead he wondered who she was. Who her brother had been. He didn't remember when they'd come to the dump. Three, maybe four years ago. He thought they'd come like everyone else: When there was nowhere else to go. When they had nothing left to do but become nobody. For himself, he was born there. Nací en la basura, crecí en la basura, yo soy de la basura.
What will you do with it, Lucy asked, pointing her fleshless chin at the nacker. He thought she looked at it with distaste.
Pico shrugged. He didn't know. He only knew he wanted one, and had disassembled and reworked it with a confidence that it could be his. Maybe like a pet, he said finally. But he knew it was not that.
Lucy raised her eyebrows and Pico turned away from her. She was a ghastly sight.
I can teach the pepenadores how to cha! He mimed a karate chop at the top of the nacker to demonstrate how one might disable one. You know? Then we can get more. They can protect us and help us make finds, Pico grinned, and thought: and I will be of them again.
After that, it was quiet in the hut. There were strange murmurings from outside, from the other hovels in the odd village of outcasts. He thought he could hear something else. Like a mangy dump cat's overeager purr. He stared toward the trash ceiling and listened. They're out there, aren't they, he said.
Lucy nodded.
He felt a charge of panic and for a moment, pictured himself running with Mouse in his arms, helicopters circling above him. Then he knew what he had to do.
He hurriedly reassembled the nacker, but left its primary power disconnected. He hoped the module that he'd loosed on top with his tharpoon was not damaged.
From his pocket he pulled Mouse's wi.n and looked at it and his nacker with regret. He would have liked to have tinkered with them both. Would have liked to have known what it meant to have one. Instead he borrowed some wire from Lucy's tool drawer and wired the wi.n firmly to the underside of the nacker. When he was finished, he picked up the bot and hauled it outside.
He sat with it under the smog glow and felt an electricity of excitement and fear and disappointment.
He thought of his time with Mouse before the dogs came. He touched the wound on his forearm and felt only a braille scar. In his hands the nacker was cold and still and he knew he must sacrifice it. Someday, perhaps, he'd get another chance.
When he was ready, he reconnected the nacker and stood up. There was no chance to run, he knew. It powered up and rebooted and for half a moment did nothing, and this made him nearly laugh, to think of its confusion.
The next instant it sensed him and reached out its tentacle, sending a searing bolt of electricity. He heard the short yelp his mouth made, and as he collapsed a wink of thought passed through him. How its machine instincts would call it home. How it would skitter along the trail at high speed. How a moment later it would exit the umbrella of the GPS jammer, carrying Mouse's wi.n. It would go home, he thought, to be with its kind, and the soldiers would have to search that nest for her. And perhaps, he hoped, his nacker carried a touch of the disease.
