Peter returned to the trideo, which had switched back to the news studio. “The anti-metahuman organizations known as the Hand of Five, the Knights of Humanity, and MetaWatch, have each claimed responsibility for the destruction of the IBM Building, citing IBM’s practice of hiring metahumans as the reason for the terrorist attack. They demand that corporations across North America fire their metahuman employees or else suffer similar acts.”
The reporter paused, placed a hand to his ear, and then said, “Humanity One, another anti-metahuman group, has claimed responsibility, as well as the Elven Support Coalition, which claims to be protesting the lack of IBM support for metahuman hiring. We’ll have a full list by the end of the day, but now we take you live to a helicopter over the Loop, where fires rage out of control.” A fancy computer graphic swirled out from the center of the trideo: THE SECOND CHICAGO FIRE!
Peter flipped from trideo to telecom mode. Selecting voice-only he keyed in the telecom code for his father’s office at the university. When he asked for his father, the receptionist inquired whether she could take a message. Peter told her it was very important, and she told him she’d see what she could do. A minute later she came back on, saying Dr. Clarris was unavailable, but he’d call back as soon as he could. Peter briefly considered pleading with her to get his father on the line, but gave up.
Peter didn’t know what to do with himself. There was always the trid, but he didn’t want any more of that, nor did he have anyone else to call. Except maybe Dr. Landsgate.
At the thought of the man, Peter instantly relaxed. Landsgate was the only person in the sciences with whom Peter felt comfortable—and since he only knew people in the sciences…
He went up to his room, and punched in Landsgate’s code, keeping the telecom in voice-only.
It was Laura who answered. “Hello?”
“Um, hello, Mrs. Landsgate? This is Peter. Peter Clarris.”
She remained silent for a moment. “Hello, Peter,” she said finally. “How are you?”
He knew she knew, and he decided not to go into it. “Fine. Is Dr. Landsgate there, please?”
Another pause. “I’ll get him.”
A few minutes later Landsgate was on the line. “Hello? Peter?”
“Hello, Dr. Landsgate.”
“Peter, it’s good to hear from you.” Before Peter could respond with the appropriate pleasantry, Landsgate added, “I heard what happened. I want you to know I’m sorry your life is more difficult. But I also want you to know that I’m with you. You can count on me.”
Peter stood silent for a moment and sucked in the comfort of the words. “Thank you.”
“How are you?”
“I'm frightened.”
“Are you in danger?”
“No, but the IBM Tower…”
“I know. It’s on the trid. Where’s your father?”
“At work.”
Peter heard Landsgate sigh.
Peter felt his chin tremble. “Dr. Landsgate. Why is my father…why does he…why doesn’t he love me?”
Landsgate’s voice dropped low. Peter guessed he didn’t want Laura to hear. “Peter, I don’t know that he doesn’t love you. I think he does, in his own way.”
“He ignores me.”
“Yes, I know.”
“I just want someone I can…I don’t know.”
“Yes, I know.”
They remained silent for some time.
“Peter, I’d like to see you.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I really would. It feels like you’re hiding from me.”
“I am.”
“Well, I don’t want you to.”
Peter wanted to refuse again, then decided he had to know how someone other than his father and a hired therapist would respond. He reached out and tapped a key that switched on the screen, which flickered to life with the image of Landsgate’s face. Landsgate looked apprehensive at first, but then smiled warmly. He was young, and carried his enthusiasm around like a hobby.
“I didn’t think you’d look at all the same.”
Peter touched his hands to his face. “I don’t look the same.”
“Of course you don’t. But there’s part of you still there that I remember. You’re different, but you’re still Peter.”
“Thank you,” Peter said with relief. No one knew what to say like Dr. Landsgate.
“Is anybody with you?”
“No. I have a therapist, a physical therapist, a shaman, but he went to help with the fire.”
“A shaman! Well, never let it be said your father didn’t lavish cash on you. But the shaman left?”
“I’ll be all right.”
In the background, Peter heard Laura shout out the news that mages and shamans were casting spells to put out the fire.
“I’ll try to come out and visit you. Maybe next week.”
“Really?”
Landsgate laughed. “Yes, really.”
“All right.”
“I’ll let you go now. But it was good seeing you again.”
“Yeah. Same here.”
“I’ll call tomorrow. To check in.”
“All right.”
“But if you need anything before then, just give me a call.”
“All right.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
The screen went blank.
With a sigh, Peter selected trideo mode once more. The explosions from the gas lines and the damage from the collapse of the IBM Tower had turned the Loop into something out of a war. Some blocks burned so hot no one could get near then. Working in teams, mages had joined forces, summoning air and water elementals to help put out the fire. Meanwhile, rescue workers struggled to dig trapped office workers out of buildings.
The announcer said, “Already the death toll is expected to be in the thousands…”
Thomas did not return that night.
Peter made dinner—a frozen synth meat dish he flashed through the micro—and ate while watching the trid. The fire was out, but the rescue work would continue for days. So absorbed was he that he didn’t hear his father come in until he looked up and saw him standing in the doorway.
Peter and his father looked at one another silently. Please say something, Peter thought.
“How are you?” his father said.
“Fine. Thomas went to help at the fire. In the Loop. He hasn’t come back.”
“Hmmm. Well, he’ll either come back or he won’t. We can get you someone else.”
“I like Thomas.”
“I can’t do anything about that.”
Peter slammed his hand down on the table. “I’m not asking you to do anything about it! I’m just telling you I hope nothing happened to him.”
His father remained silent. “They told me this might happen.”
“What?” asked Peter, exasperated.
“That you would have outbursts.”
“I’m upset. Why is that bad?”
“It doesn’t matter to me. You’re the one who’s upset.”
Peter slumped down in the chair. He wanted to shout at his father for turning his anger around on him. But he knew that would only make his father’s case stronger. He said nothing.
“Good night,” said his father.
“Good night.”
Peter stayed at the kitchen table, completely motionless, for another half-hour. Then he rose, his half-eaten meal forgotten, and went up to bed.
Three days passed and still Thomas did not return. Peter called the hospitals, but the body had not turned up either dead or alive. He also spoke to Dr. Landsgate each day, and felt better for a while after each conversation.
Each night Peter’s father came back from the U. of C. and greeted Peter with little more than a nod. He never asked about Thomas, and Peter volunteered nothing. Peter’s body ached, but he kept telling himself he would give Thomas one more day to come back before finding a replacement.
Meanwhile, he continued to practice his walking.
On the third night after Thomas left, Peter pulled his portable computer from the shelf. The plastic material of the case irritated his hands, so he placed it on his bed and carefully used his fingernails to start it up. The machine seemed pitifully small against his new, large body.
Returning to the shelf, he looked at the racks of optical chips. Some of the words—the short words—he recognized, but many others he did not remember. He tried to sound out some of the longer words, but it was hard, as if his memories were hidden behind gauze curtains. “Biology,” he eventually said. It meant nothing to him, no more than a group of sounds. He suddenly realized only too clearly what iconerate meant. If someone had said to him, “Peter, go get all the chips with the word biology on them,” he could have done so. He didn’t have to know what the word meant; he didn’t have to know the word’s implications.
And that’s what bothered him as he looked at the seven letters strung out in sequence. He recognized the word now, but behind it was a wealth of meaning to which he’d lost access. Maybe it was enough to see the letters and to grasp the image of the word, the single sound that they represented—but he knew there was more, and he longed to have access to that part of language.
He knew that it wasn’t just a matter of memory. His thought process had changed, and Peter could actually feel the difference now. His thinking was slower. Whatever he had been, however smart as a pure human, as a homo sapiens sapiens, that was gone now. His own body had betrayed him.
He sensed someone watching him, and turned to see his father in the doorway.
“What are you doing?” his father asked.
“Looking at my opticals.”
“Why?”
“I want to learn them. To re-read them.”
His father pursed his lips together. He stepped into the room, as if to have a lengthy conversation, then stopped in his tracks. “Peter…why?”
Peter thought about explaining his plan to find a genetic cure, but was too embarrassed to do so. His father would put him down. “I just…I want to…”
His father’s face took on an expression of infinite sadness. “Peter, you…I’m sorry. Do as you wish.” He turned to leave, then stopped in the doorway, his shoulders impossibly tired. With his back still to his son, William Clarris gave a deep sigh before turning around once more. He rubbed his hands over his face. When he took his hands away, his flesh looked cool and corpse-white before warmth and color flowed back in. His mouth looked pinched taut and old, though he was no more than forty. “Maybe you don’t understand what has happened to you…”
A fury bubbled up through Peter. “Dad, it happened to me! How could I not understand?”
“You’re young, that’s why. And because… I don’t even know what you do understand. You’re a troll, Peter. You used to be exceptionally bright. You had that. No matter what else, you could depend on that. You had something that made you wanted. Now what do you have?”
Peter wanted to say, Me, dad, what about me? but he didn’t know if that was enough. So he said, “That’s why I was looking at the opticals. I want to learn it again.”
“Peter, you’re not what you were. You can’t.”
“Why not?”
His father shook his head. “Do what you want.” He turned to leave once more.
“I’m going to find a cure!” Peter shouted. “I’m looking at the opticals because I’m going to find out how to be human again!”
Peter’s father rested his hand against the door jamb. “Now, that, Peter, is impossible. That is completely beyond our reach right now. No one knows if it’s possible at all.”
“But it’s not impossible.”
“That!” his father said and whirled, a finger pointed at Peter. “That right there is the youth I’m talking about. ‘Not impossible.’ What kind of statement is that? And yes, it might happen someday. But it won’t be you. Do you understand me? It won’t be you.” He walked quickly out of the bedroom.
Peter chased his father into the hall. He could feel the pressure of tears in his eyes, and the words tumbled out so fast he thought they might be unintelligible. “What do you expect me to do? What am I going to do for the rest of my life?”
His father turned on the stairs and looked at him with some surprise. “I expect you to live here. To stay here and be safe.”
“Just stay here?” Peter spluttered. “Just stay here? And do what?”
“Peter, what can you do? Corporations all over the continent are cutting back their metahuman employees. They’re afraid of people like you. They don’t like you. The world doesn’t want you. I know I haven’t been the best father, but I will do what I can. I will take care of you.”
He continued down the stairs.
Peter watched him go, then rushed back into his room and slammed the door shut. The handle snapped off from the impact and clattered to the floor. He stared at his gray-green hands and arms, his fury growing. He wanted to show his father… He had to show his father. He wouldn’t sit around his whole life.
The thought of that, waiting to die…? He imagined the years passing by, one year after another ticking away, while he sat in the house, waiting, waiting, waiting for death. But each year wouldn’t be the same, one after another. No, they would gather an oppressive momentum.
Would he wait for it to happen?
No.
He would prove his father wrong.
From the closet he pulled out an old gym bag, a gift from Landsgate to encourage him to exercise more, and began to pack. He threw in a few of his new troll-size clothes and, at the last minute, decided to take a few chips and his portable computer.
Later that night, Peter stood before the kitchen telecom screen.
Carefully, he typed out a message to his father: When you see me again, I will be human.
He looked at it, and thought the words sounded cold. It was exactly the kind of phrase his father might write. He wanted to give something more.
He added, I love you. I will make you proud.
Then he left his father’s house and stepped into the night.