Machine Man - Max Barry [97]
“The id is supposed to stay underwater, Charlie. It’s not supposed to be conscious.”
“The id. That’s psychology! A soft science!”
Carl said, “Dr. Neumann, I understand—”
“Shut up. You don’t understand. You have parts. I am parts. I’m technology. You’re a man with help. You are nothing like me.” Shoot him, suggested a part of me. It was a solid idea.
“I should have realized earlier,” said Lola. “I should have stopped you.”
“You shouldn’t. Move away from Carl.”
“Charlie, we need to get you out of those parts before you go crazy.”
“You’re crazy,” I said. It was not a very good argument. I was panicking because Lola was supposed to be on my side. “The thing is, Lola. The person I was. Nobody liked him. Then I did this. And people got interested. People like you. So how is. This bad? It’s not. It’s … a lot of parts. I’m still getting. Used to them. But let’s not talk about. Going back. There’s no back. I’m better now. Yes, the parts talk. But that’s okay. It’s like having company. And nothing works perfectly. The first time. You don’t scrap a project. Every hitch. You look for. Iterative improvement. The point is. On balance. Am I not better?” I could see from Lola’s expression that this was not very persuasive. “Forget that. Fact is, I need parts. To live. There’s nothing I can do. My hands are tied.”
“It’s possible that—”
“I don’t care! Even if I could. Survive. On some shitty life support system. I don’t want to! Do you know what. This body can do? I have GPS! What are we supposed to do? Go back to maps?” I forced myself to calm. “What you’re talking about. Is asking me to live in a cave. Like a Neanderthal.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“I didn’t say we.” But maybe I did. “The parts and …” I didn’t finish this sentence. Shoot, said the parts; they had been saying this for a while and it was increasingly hard to ignore them. My eyes moved to Carl. He was the source of trouble. He had been since day one. Shooting him would solve everything. Or not. Maybe the logic of that wasn’t quite there. But the part that wanted to shoot didn’t care. It just wanted him smashed. Lola would understand. Not right away. Eventually. It was the only way, because Lola wasn’t going to stick around for a head. I didn’t care what she said. That was not a viable long-term relationship. It was best for everyone if I shot Carl now.
Lola walked toward me. My heart leaped, because this opened up an excellent opportunity for firing on Carl. She stopped a few feet away. “Charlie … you never wanted to be a gun. Did you?”
“There’s nothing wrong with. The gun.” My legs rose up on their hooves, settled. Things were going to happen whether I wanted them to or not. It was out of my control.
“We can get through this. Somehow we will—”
“Look at Carl!” I shouted. “He’s got arms! If the parts are so dangerous. Why is. He wearing. His arms?”
Carl looked at Lola, then back. “Well …” He sounded apologetic. But only a little. “Because if you won’t give up your parts, I have to take them off you.”
HERE’S WHAT should have occurred to me about Carl: he had attacked Better Future and lived. They had deployed armed guards and serious hardware and he prevailed through clever planning and tactics. What this made clear, or should have, was that Carl was not an idiot.
HE TURNED away a moment. Then his arm flicked in my direction. Something dark and cubelike hurtled toward me. Even before I saw what it was, it revealed that I had seriously misread the situation. Because being stronger than Carl, and faster, and better armed, that didn’t matter if he could surprise me by throwing things. The factor I had forgotten to include in my behavorial model was that I had never fought anyone in my whole life. I had almost hit a girl in elementary school. She pushed me over before I could commit. That was the extent of my hand-to-hand combat experience. Carl was trained to overpower people. It was his job.
The cube was a car battery. I flinched. The car battery ricocheted off my shoulder with