Come Home
It all comes back to that fox. It should have been my first sign. So why did I put it to the back of my mind so easily? Because Buckley said he hadn’t seen it? Its wrongness had been almost visceral, stayed with me for months, though I didn’t recognise it for what it was until the next watcher. And by then backing out was impossible.
I glance through the evening dimness towards the fox – my fox – curled up amongst the weeds.
‘What do you think?’ I whisper. ‘It couldn’t have been anything natural.’
It doesn’t stir.
‘Not that you’re particularly natural yourself . . . But I can trust you, can’t I?’
The only answer, the drone of rain on leaves.
When it’s finally dark, I prepare to leave my hiding place. I can’t help hobbling as I set out, last night’s run raised blisters on my heels. InRessy I would never let the pain get to me like this; I’ve been too soft on this body by far.
Right now I need to work out my next move. Seeking the help of another phenomenaut would seem the obvious answer but they’re too close to ShenCorp to trust. Even if I could, would it be fair? If Mr Hughes found out he’d only try to silence them too.
Old school friends? We haven’t spoken in years.
And Dad?
I slow. Is he worried about my absence? He should still be in Chad, photographing his precious hippos, but he could have been sent a message. It’s unlikely though, the polar bear jump was scheduled to run until the end of the week and if Buckley were to tell him it’s been extended he wouldn’t think anything of it. As for Mum . . .
I perch on a garden wall, eyes watering at the release of pressure from my feet. The fox hunkers down a few steps away and starts to hunt for fleas.
No point pretending, I’m on my own with this. If I want anyone to believe me over ShenCorp, I need proof. And to get proof, I have to return to the Centre. Which really would be insanity.
My mind feels a night sky, emptied of all thought; or overcome by one terrible one, too large to see.
‘I have to do this, don’t I?’ I say. ‘Go back?’
The fox just nibbles fur showing no sign of even hearing.
The shop windows are still lit on Park Street, mannequins with a hand on a hip or running through hair, but at this hour it seems less of a catwalk and more like teenagers experimenting in front of their bedroom mirrors. Looking feels voyeuristic so I drop my gaze to the pavement where the alchemy of street lights turns the puddles to gold.
At the turning to the Centre, the fox won’t go any further.
You’re on your own in this, Kit.
I creep on but as soon as I’m close enough to see the gleam of light on the clam logo, feeling flees my legs. The space between me and the entrance could be as substantial as the tarmac itself for all it’s in me to walk it.
Coming back here was all very well, but ShenCorp has twenty-four-hour security; if anyone sees me that will be it. I back into the hedge and crouch.
How many times have I walked this road? Hundreds? Thousands? It’s become so familiar that I’d stopped even noticing it. Broken now. That old life, so close I could touch, beyond me forever; like finding a frequented bridge collapsed. For a moment of startling vertigo, it could have been years, not a day, since my escape.
A lone car moves through the night, placated to a purr by distance. The back of my neck tingles.
Someone else is here.
I lift my head to find myself staring into two eyes, so white and round they could be moons in orbit of my face. The shadows around them gather to reveal the leer of wonky teeth.
Grandma Wolf.
I burst out of the hedge, stumbling in panic, not caring about staying hidden.
Only the echo of my own footsteps follow but the force of terror carries me. Just keep running, running, running – until I trip.
My hands ring from where they slapped the concrete and for a time all I can do is breathe.
Easy, Kit. Just breeeathe.
When the static withdraws from my ears, I sit. There’s a tear in a trouser leg; these things aren’t made to last. I’m lucky it’s not that big.
Why did I run? Grandma Wolf would be no match for me if it came to a fight – she’s even smaller than I am, not to mention old. And it seems unlikely ShenCorp sent her after me. She has enough problems with them of her own.
Last I saw her, it had been a neuroengineer training day and, with Buckley away, I took my lunch in the courtyard. Somewhere nearby, a raven croaked at the greying sky, grumpy with the promise of rain. The twinge of turning weather fretted at my mood too. Still, it wasn’t raining yet and walls quickly become oppressive, so I projected the latest draft of the bonobo report onto the bench top and chewed on an apple as I proofread.
Buckley and I would put so much effort into these papers; all those carefully built observations, arguments, ‘facts’. Even on the bus home, I’d keep working; for lack of another surface, mapping the document onto the back of a hand where words flexed with skin as if tattooed.
But sometimes I’d wonder, for what? Such marks could never match the experience itself. However much Buckley and Mr Hughes praised me, I’d squirm at their fundamental insufficiency. Because how do you cram the lived experience onto a page? the words available to me were never enough. Something would always slip the sentences. Human language developed around human bodies, it never quite fits other ways of being.
At the time I thought it’d get easier with practice, that I’d find some clever system of staying true to the experience and the science, but in retrospect, the opposite was closer. The more I came to understand, the more difficult it was to disseminate. Knowledge that seemed perfectly self-evident inRessy became confused, even insane, back in my Original Body. Truths just wouldn’t translate.
But sometimes, between consciousness and sleep, comprehension seemed an itch just beyond the reach of my fingers. Was it understanding, or simply learning to give more of myself over?
Distracted by the report, it took me a while to notice that the raven’s cough had quickened into the shrill used for trespassers. I turned and jolted to see an old woman crouched in the flowerbed. White wisps of hair puffed from the gaunt mask of her face, those eyes so dark they were almost black. Yet what was most alarming, what took me longest to believe, was that that croaking came from her throat.
Grandma Wolf.
At least, that’s the name she’d been given around the Centre. Though she might look like she could be your crazy grandma, beneath the skin there’s nothing human. If Kyle can be believed, he laughed at her once and she chased him up a tree.
This wasn’t the first time I’d seen her. She breaks into the Centre every couple of months, making a total joke of the security. But I’d never been caught alone with her like this.
No one knows how she keeps getting in, let alone why she’d want to. I’ve heard too many rumours about her to count – she was a professor who used to lecture in the building, back when it was part of the university; or a high-class call girl who lost her marbles along with her looks; or even an Asian princess, run away from her responsibilities from across the sea. Although admittedly only Si actually believed that one.
Making sure not to alert her, I opened the message tab in my Specs and dropped Mr Hughes a line. But Grandma Wolf was edging closer. Perhaps there really was something to Kyle’s tree story.
She pounced and I leapt from my seat, only to realise that she was already running away. She stopped in a corner of the courtyard and huddled in on herself to stuff her cheeks with what I now realised was my sandwich.
Perhaps salvaging the rest of my lunch and retreating inside would have been the best response, but she was between me and the door, so I sat back down and hugged my coffee in case she decided to go for that as well.
She threw little glares at me as she ate, as if to say ‘Don’t try it’. But it’s not like I wanted the sandwich back now.
With the last bite swallowed, she dropped the remains and sucked on her fingers.
‘Hey!’ I said. ‘You didn’t eat the crusts.’
She studied me, fingers still stuck in her gob. And call me crazy, but there was something piercingly sane in that look.
I put a hand against the bench, ready to push myself up, but to do what I didn’t know.
‘How could you steal my lunch and not eat the crusts?’ I said, ashamed of the whine in my voice.
The fingers popped out, damp with earth and saliva, but when her lips parted all that emerged was a purple tongue that licked a spot of chutney on her chin.
When she’d first snatched the sandwich I’d thought it the kind of desperate hunger I’m used to inRessy, but now I was wondering if it had been more calculated than that. She had played me for a fool.
Either way, Grandma Wolf couldn’t care less, she’d already headed over to the dustbin and stuck her head right inside. I obviously wasn’t considered a threat, but despite my annoyance, she was right, I stayed sitting like a stupid lump.
When she emerged, it was with an armful of rubbish. She crouched to sort it – crisp packet on one side, half an apple on the other; a drinks can joined the crisp packet, an umbrella the apple. Useless and not.
‘Any buried treasure?’ I said.
She glanced up long enough to expose a row of yellowed teeth and returned to her sorting. Impossible to tell if it was a smile or a threat. Or both.
‘Miu!’
Mr Hughes had appeared in the doorway; yet now he was here, I found myself more annoyed than relieved.
‘A while since we’ve seen you. How about we go for a little walk, eh? Take a turn.’
Grandma Wolf bristled, a snarl curling down her mouth. Condescension was not the tone I would have struck if I’d been Mr Hughes. But he didn’t even flinch. Inwardly, I cheered her on to lunge.
When the arm he offered was rejected Mr Hughes looped his hands into the waistband of his trousers and stuck out his gut.
‘I was talking to our friends the other day, Miu. They asked after you. Wanted to know if you’re being a good girl.’
I couldn’t understand it – at those words Grandma Wolf deflated as if there had been a pin taken to the pouch of a toad. My teeth bit right through the cardboard of my cup, though I hadn’t even noticed I’d been chewing on it. With the savagery emptied from her face, she looked a tired old woman.
‘Good girl.’ Mr Hughes held out the arm once more. ‘Now, how about that walk?’
This time, she took it.
Yet before the door shut behind them, she stabbed a look back at me.
‘I’ll remember you,’ it said.
I had run into Mr Hughes coming out of the lift later that afternoon. Though his weight is more fat than muscle, he carries it like a silverback, and the courage almost left me.
‘North?’ His tone was almost expectant.
‘Grandm—’ I caught myself. ‘That woman in the courtyard. Miu? What you said to her?’
‘Yes?’
‘You said something about friends? Her friends?’
He tapped his temple. ‘Ah yes, Miu’s a cunning one, you have to give her that. As she keeps escaping the home, I had to ask her psychiatrist how to deal with her. She hears voices, apparently; “her friends”, she calls them. Lord knows what she’s thinking. Fairies probably!’
Under that crescent of teeth I felt forced to nod.
‘But best keep it to yourself. Patient confidentiality and all that.’ He continued down the corridor, a limp hand raised in farewell. ‘Don’t hesitate to contact me next time you see her.’
Only once the lift doors had shut did I release my breath. Either I was turning into an old cynic early, or that was a steaming pile of bullshit.
‘You’re as bad as Kyle,’ said Buckley when he was back from his training. ‘She’s mentally disturbed. She deserves our kindness but otherwise you should stay away.’
Then later, when he noticed how quiet I was being: ‘Seriously, Kit, put her from your mind.’
And as it was Buckley, I did.