Machine Man - Max Barry [40]
Lola looked at me through eyelashes. When she spoke, her voice was low and throaty. “Charlie … what have you done?”
“Well,” I said. “You know.”
“Show me.”
I glanced around. The other patrons had returned to their business, or pretended to. I placed my hand on the table.
Lola sat rigid. She didn’t seem to be breathing. “Can I touch it?”
“Yes.”
Her fingers crept closer. They explored my index finger, then ran down to the back of my hand. It was the first time I had really missed sensation feedback. “Oh, Charlie.” Sunlight bouncing off a building across the street played across her cheeks. A few stray hairs that had escaped her ponytail glowed orange. I felt myself lifting out of my body. That’s how it felt: like I was leaving physical form behind, becoming something weightless and untouchable.
Then a hard shard of light skipped across Lola’s face. I turned. I’d heard the motor. Outside the café window, a white van jumped the curb and disgorged Better Future security guards.
“Damn,” I said. That was all I managed before they burst into the café and began to knock down tables. Plates hit the floor. People yelled. In the midst of this, Carl spotted me. He raised his gun and yelled, “Lie down on the floor!” He looked nervous. I didn’t like Carl nervous. Not when he had a gun pointed at me. “LIE down!”
I couldn’t lie down. That was physically impossible. Didn’t Carl know that? Lola grasped my biological hand. I saw fear in her eyes and felt sad, because a second ago she had been happy and Carl had ruined it.
“Lie down!”
I had been foolish to imagine Better Future wouldn’t track me. I was wearing millions of dollars’ worth of equipment. The guards hovered at a radius of twenty feet, bristling guns. It occurred to me that as far as they knew, my legs were armed. Conceivably, I could have built in some firepower. I wished I had.
“Charlie, don’t let them take you back,” Lola whispered. “They came to the hospital. They destroyed your records.”
I heard a noise and turned my head. Two guards were trying to sneak up on me.
“Go, go!” said Carl. He came toward me.
“No!” Lola stepped forward and threw out her arms. It was as if she was going to fly toward Carl and wrench his gun away, or call down the wrath of the gods, or something. I don’t know. All I know is Carl pivoted and shot Lola twice in the heart.
IT SOUNDED like: Clang! Clang!
“WELL, THIS is really unfortunate,” said Cassandra Cautery. “I feel terrible about this.”
I couldn’t see her. My eyes wouldn’t open properly. I didn’t know where I was, or had come from.
“What we need now, I think,” said Cassandra Cautery, “is to take a few deep breaths.”
My right eyelid peeled open. My left was still gummed up, but I could see a blob where Cassandra Cautery’s face must be. A frame of watery blond hair. Beyond her was a ceiling. I recognized that ceiling. I was at work.
“Would you like some water? You must be thirsty.”
I struggled to bring her into focus. I said, “Ag.” I smelled something acrid and unforgiving.
Cassandra Cautery disappeared, then returned holding a small plastic cup. “Drink.”
I tried to sit up. Something swam in my head, sick and heavy.
“I think there’s been miscommunication on both sides,” said Cassandra Cautery. “There are some real lessons to be learned.”
Lola, I said.
“It’s understandable you’re upset. I’d be upset in your place. But please bear in mind: it was a high-pressure situation. Our people were forced into split-second decisions.”
“Lola.” This time it was a real word. My left eye fluttered open. In a minute, I would be able to sit up. Shortly after that I would be able to get my hand around Cassandra Cautery’s tiny neck and squeeze.
“It’s the unknown,” she said. “It scares people. Makes everyone worry about worst-case scenarios.