Maul

Book 438: Gateway Essentials

by Tricia Sullivan

Genres: Science Fiction; Genetic Engineering; Hard Science Fiction

Synopsis

The gun straps to the inside of my leg with Velcro. It's not the absolute zenith of fashion to do this anymore, but girls who wear theirs with leather straps and buckles aren't serious: with Velcro you can get at the thing when you need it. I also have a pink ammo belt. It's heavy, but who said fashion was easy?' In a mall like any other, a gang of teenage girls are suddenly caught up in a maelstrom of shopping and violence. But - as the designer bullets fly - it is not only their own lives they are fighting for. Unknown to them they are battling for the life of a man trapped in another place, in a different world, and with very different enemies. He is a man they have never met, but who represents the future of the human race ... or could destroy it.

Release date: October 31, 2013

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 425

Sample

IT FEELS SMOOTH and heavy and warm when I stroke it because I’ve been sleeping with it between my legs. I like to inhale its grey infinite smell for a while before I pass my lips down its length, courting it with the tip of my tongue, until my mouth has come to the wider part near the tip. This I suck, and blow gently into the hole. It becomes wet in my mouth but doesn’t soften. It remains achingly solid and I put it between my legs. Its tip snuggles around my clit. On the day I bought it, I had to test out several models before I found one that fitted, and Suk Hee’s gangster cousin Woo kept trying to look around the side of the van to see what I was doing. Woo was afraid someone would come and he’d get caught with the van and everything. I came. It was the only way to be sure I had the right one.

It’s narrow enough that I can slide it into my cunt without breaking the hymen. I grope around for a while trying to find my G-spot but the urge to pee is too great when I press there and anyway I think the whole thing’s gotta be a myth so I go back to where I started.

Astronomy.

Bodies of light fence and entwine on a mantle of blue. Leo and the Hydra.

The fine hairs on my arms are electric and there’s a tingling down my legs and up the back of my head. It’s a tropical kind of feeling. The Lynx, and Ursa Major, which looks like a reindeer not a bear. My nipples are standing up and rubbing against the sheet. My clit gets more sensitive first in one spot, then in another: but it can’t elude the round metal that encircles the glans and works every aspect at once.

Orion, Orion, Cassiopeia and Auriga buried deep in the Milky Way.

It’s good if I twirl the cylinder, a spinning circle around my flesh sinking also into, and. Come in. Its muzzle seeks me out: Factory made in New Mexico, it noses toward its original home. Deep deep. Into the danger; the curves, the trigger. Its steel pin has butterflied me: I’m spread out on a card. The metal wraps me and I wrap the earth in starpaper. I can see myself now in the third person. She is splayed across the planet: a contortionist, her hands and feet meet behind her head, she is whirling fast and the stars become lines become a ribbon of light becomes a curtain. Her body. MY. Appearing, the taut, her legs

SEE HER a torn place, there’s a dark SHE’S darkness beginning to split open now tears the curtain THE GOLDEN a wet rending sound the consequences if seen I AM

a deep place of no light. NOW yeah yeah yeah

the missile, it’s—YEAH.

A deep PLACE. Something’s THERE. It’s really BIG and it’s going to, deep in the Earth where it’s hot there’s a core of IRON it’s coming towards sliding metal on metal black black fire

LYRA! SCORPIUS!

IRON Fe chemical number 26 which is made of the original matter of the SUN a great gob that split away in the primordial moments of deep in the consequences if seen a rending Plieades like a doll’s veil

YOU ARE MADE OF STARS

and here comes the big missile past the point of recall it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s

TOO LATE now oh it’s much too late you CAN’T stop

YEAH YEAH

yeah!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!

don’t end

!!!!!!!

!!!!!!

PLEASE stay

!!!!!

!!!!

no. oh. no. don’t go.

!!!

Hmm. Not bad.

!

Not bad.

Pretty good.

What time is it? Late. Better quit here. Stay hungry.

I lie back in bed and grope for a cigarette.

I smile.

I used to wish I had a boyfriend but now I know better.

Even a hypothetical boyfriend wouldn’t understand.

How I feel.

About my gun.

Finish cigarette. Late. Too lazy think good English now. Get up. Legs feel rubber, chowdery and I nasty juicy but no time shower. 11:30 a.m. Clean gun, splash on CK1, load gun, whip bra from hanging place on telescope arm, get dressed. Think about Mom who I know lurking nearby. Hear Mom small voice taking me through routine: dropped articles & shitty grammar. Shut up, inner Mom.

That’s better. The gun straps to the inside of my leg with Velcro. It’s not the absolute zenith of fashion any more to do this, but girls who wear theirs with leather straps and buckles aren’t serious: with Velcro, you can get at the thing when you need it.

I have a pink ammo belt. It’s heavy, but who said fashion was easy?

Ken is playing piano down the hall in the music room. Scriabin. I’m beginning to feel slightly more alert. I kick open the door, take a flying leap across the room, and land on the piano bench, bringing my hands down on his shoulders like creepy-crawlies.

‘Boris the Spider!’ I shriek, and he hunches and goes rigid, his clever hands pausing mid-stroke, his face at once blank and angry.

‘Get off, you fucking bitch,’ he squeals, flapping his elbows.

‘You,’ I hiss in his ear, ‘are the result of a tragically misinterpreted amniocentesis. Did anyone ever tell you about that?’

‘Sun!’ Mom, in doorway, dressed in golf clothes. Holding entire pitcher of fresh-squeezed orange juice. Shit. ‘Sun, breakfast!’

‘Mom, she called me amniocentesis, can you get her away from me, please? She’s ruining my life.’

Down the hall to the kitchen, trying to step on the backs of Ken’s sneakers as he trots after Mom, who having abandoned the orange juice pitcher on an occasional table now whips out her English pocket dictionary to look up ‘amniocentesis’.

‘No, it’s M-N-I, Mom, but never mind—’

‘Sun, what you do? Tell me what you say little-brother.’ Mom getting all flustered, waving the dictionary in my face. In a minute she’ll break into Korean, which must be prevented at all costs.

‘Mom, it’s a new band, all right, G?’

‘What you want breakfast? Egg? Pancake?’

‘Forget it,’ I say. ‘I have to meet Suk Hee. We’re going to the maul.’

I hear Ken mutter something like ‘Losers’ but he’s too far away to kick.

After I leave I feel guilty because I used to be nice, or at least some of the time I was nice, or at least I wasn’t a complete mean bastard at all times like lately; but the weight of my piece drags at my thigh and I know it’s just nerves. Nerves. I’ll be much better once today’s over. I’m sure of this. I’ll take an interest in Mom’s horticulture and I might even give Ken some of my old George Clinton CDs in hope of teaching him some real culture. But later. Later. Not now.

Standing outside the Cyprus Towers apartment complex, squinting up into the half-rain. Piles of uncontemplated homework in my backpack, crumpled money in my pocket, about to slip onto the conveyor belt of Saturday in New Jersey. Thinking, Please not to let me get fucked up today.

Suk Hee’s waiting at the bus stop.

Let’s get it over with straight away: Suk Hee is beautiful. There’s really no point in describing her. She’s just beautiful, end of story. As she stands in the bus shelter under a little yellow silk umbrella I feel all the usual pangs of jealousy and resentment and at the same time I want to go stand next to her as if it will somehow rub off.

Turning, she sees me and gives a fetching scowl.

‘Did you see the Whackback highlights this morning?’

‘No.’

‘Could you believe it when Xacto bit Python on the tooshie?’

‘I didn’t see it,’ I repeated. ‘Where’s Keri?’

‘It was so fake. As if Python would ever let him do a thing like that. And now they’re trying to make out like Helga and Cowgirl Jobeth are fighting over The Reaper so what’s up with that, Katz?’

‘Maybe we should call her,’ I mused.

‘What’s the matter?’ Suk Hee said suddenly, gazing hard at me as if she’d only just noticed me. ‘You look awful.’

Suk Hee doesn’t seem to be aware that she’s a boytrap. I’ve known her since eighth grade and in that time she’s had seven boyfriends. One of them was a 24-year-old stockbroker she met at a record store in the medieval-music section. He was kind of an asshole but he did take us all clubbing. This 38-year-old friend of his tried to get me to sit on his lap.

‘I attract pervs and old men,’ I said, recalling the incident. Suk Hee always reads my mind. Today she was right on top of it.

‘How many times do I have to tell you I’m sorry about that?’ Suk Hee got out her phone and frowned at it. ‘I mean, thirty-eight, that’s disgusting. People should stop having sex after a certain age. Like when my grandma got her driver’s licence revoked ’cos she couldn’t see.’

Anyway, I lifted up my skirt and showed him my gun and he desisted.

Suk Hee is speed-dialling.

‘Keri?’ She reached out and played with the ends of my hair as she listened to the phone. She said, ‘Where are you? Katz and Dogs is worried.’

‘I’m not worried,’ I snapped, and bit savagely into an overgrown cuticle, drawing blood. SH started talking to Keri about calculus. I was thinking about something Suk Hee said yesterday. We were standing in the parking lot at lunchtime and I was smoking a cigarette and shivering and I had this thought. Mr Beardsley made us watch this film on the Holocaust and they showed bulldozers ploughing the bodies. I turned to Keri – who is also half-Jewish but doesn’t smoke so she was only keeping me company – and I said, ‘Where were the girlz when this was happening?’ and she said, ‘They were oppressed and having babies,’ and started going on about it, and Suk Hee in a small voice goes, ‘They were watching.’

I didn’t think much of it at the time but for some reason it started bugging me now.

‘Iggh,’ Suk Hee said into the cellphone. ‘I think I’m breaking out.’

I said, ‘Why didn’t they do something?’, thinking about the women who watched every war and mended their husbands’ battlefield socks or however it worked but of course Suk Hee didn’t know what I was talking about so she covered the mouthpiece of the phone and said, ‘I think you’d look good in Dusky Pearl.’

The bus came and we moved out of the way to let people on. Suk Hee hung up the phone and craned her neck to see around the bus. Keri must be on her way.

It turns us on when you fight, I thought. That must be why. We get off on it. It’s OK with us if you don’t give head or haven’t historically – we don’t need orgasms as much as we need wars. Otherwise why would you guys be fighting them?

After WWII the Allies tried a bunch of Japanese bigchiefs on the grounds that even if they didn’t perpetrate the atrocities directly, they were part of a giant fascist machine, a giant human meat-grinder and they were to blame. Actually, the Allies put the entire Japanese Imperial culture on trial in a certain sense. But how come nobody tried the women? I don’t mean the comfort women who were literally captives, I mean the ones who made tea for the guys who ordered the rape of Nanking.

We’re the engines of life. We’re it. And men think we’re their victims. How did that happen?

Are we really that sneaky?

& could we get away with this for ever?

A black Saab pulled up to the bus stop and flashed its lights at us. Suk Hee squealed delightedly and dashed through the rain to jump in the back seat, beckoning me to follow. There was a burst of music when she opened the door; I recognised the bass line of ‘Birthday’ by the Sugar Cubes.

‘Whose car?’ I said, getting in the passenger seat. Keri was at the wheel, looking uptight. With one manicured thumb she turned down the stereo as though squashing a bug.

‘Sandra got it when she passed the bar. She’s pissed at Mom so she’s letting me drive it.’

I sank back into the leather seat and enjoyed the acceleration. The car had a moonroof and I was thinking how nice it would be to drive out into the middle of the desert and lie back and look at the stars while some particularly awesome man was driving, going about 115 and some P. J. Harvey maybe was playing on the stereo. As I storyboarded the Saab commercial I couldn’t figure out who the man would be. I tried out several models in my mind but I couldn’t work out what kind of man would be dangerous enough and dark enough and hot enough to be next to me in the car commercial, and yet not be totally repulsed by me. Or for that matter who I’d trust to drive my Saab, if I had a Saab (because it definitely wouldn’t be his Saab). This is the main reason there are never any men in my sexual fantasies. I just can’t seem to construct one that fits me. So now as I lean back in the seat and watch raindrops accumulate on the moonroof while we crawl past Yaohan market through the Saturday traffic, in addition to feeling nervous and tense and scared I feel thwarted.

All this despite having gotten myself off this morning. I squeeze the piece gently between my legs to remind myself: whatever happens, I’ve got my little friend.

We’re approaching the entrance ramp to the George Washington Bridge.

‘Let’s go to the city,’ I say suddenly. ‘C’mon. Fuck the maul. We’ll go to SoHo.’

‘I’m not allowed to drive in the city,’ Keri answered. ‘Besides …’

She shot me a sidelong look.

‘Besides what?’

‘Besides, Sun. You know as well as I do.’

Yeah, I do but I don’t wanna think about 10Esha’s cryptic e-mail right now. We’re past the bridge; we have achieved Route 4. I’m not feeling too happy.

‘They should have a thing,’ Suk Hee is saying from the back seat, ‘to make the windshield wipers stay in sync with the music, you know?’

Keri stalks a Lexus, pulling up behind it, flashing. She tailgates it until it moves over. She turns up the stereo, probably to drown out Suk Hee. Björk is shrieking about spoons.

‘Seriously.’ Suk Hee doesn’t give up so easy. ‘And what about direction signals? Yours are out of sync with the wipers and the stereo.’

‘How can you tell?’ I’ve never known Keri to use signals.

‘Shut up, Sun. At least I passed my test.’

‘I think I’m dyslexic,’ Suk Hee added.

‘Yeah. That’s relevant.’

‘I’ve decided,’ I said suddenly in a last-ditch attempt to distract myself from the fact that we’d almost reached the maul, ‘to give up on sex.’

‘You’ve never had sex,’ Keri reminded me.

‘I mean, trying.’

‘Get thee to a nunnery,’ said Keri. She offered me some bubblegum, which I refused. She chewed hers noisily and began blowing a bubble. ‘I hope you’re not planning on going lesbo.’

‘I’m serious,’ I protested. ‘I don’t need men in my life.’

‘Boys,’ said Suk Hee.

‘Whatever. I don’t need them. I really don’t. I’m going to concentrate on intellectual things from now on. That’s what I’ve decided.’

Keri’s bubble was getting so big I couldn’t work out how she could see to steer the car.

‘Intellectual things?’ Suk Hee said it slowly as if pronouncing a foreign language. ‘You mean like books?’

‘Yeah, among other things, books—’

‘But Katz, you only read to know stuff to impress them.’

‘That’s not true,’ I said weakly.

Keri snorted and slammed on the brakes to avoid a lopsided station wagon. The bubble popped and Keri peeled it off her face, zagging through lanes.

‘I have lots of my own academic pursuits,’ I said.

‘Oh, give it up, you limp twat,’ Keri said, stuffing the gum back in her mouth. ‘Let’s list your intellectual interests. World War II – that would be Mark Stein in eighth grade, right? Entomology—’

‘Myrmecology, actually.’

‘Bug stuff, whatever, anyway that’s Kevin Handley. Then we have computers. Tommy Green.’

‘That lasted, like, one day. The computer hated me.’

‘OK. What about astronomy? Alex Russo. And you know the really sick thing? You always end up being better at their hobbies than they are.’

‘Yeah, that’s like whatyoucallit,’ Suk Hee added. ‘That spider who eats her mate after her gazz.’

‘Spiders don’t come, S-H.’

‘How do you know? How does she know when to eat him if she doesn’t come?’

‘Look,’ I said. ‘I admit I only took up astronomy so I could go lie on my back on Alex Russo’s lawn and look for the Hyades with binoculars. I thought it might lead to something. But since then I’ve developed a genuine—’

‘Why didn’t you just go over there and say, Alex, I realise I’m a freshman and you’re a senior, but I want to lick you and I hope you reciprocate. Why did you have to take a summer course at Columbia, Sun? And then he goes out with Kristi Kaleri.’

‘I have a bigger telescope than him.’ I smirked.

Suk Hee has been looking preoccupied. Now she gives a tiny moan.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘I forgot to line up my stuffed animals.’

‘What?’

‘In alphabetical order. I always line them up before I leave my room in the morning. I put Alpha the wolf in charge, and then I go out. But I forgot and I think Gerald the crocodile is in front. Fuck. I can’t believe I did that.’

‘It’s OK,’ Keri said. ‘Maybe Alpha needed a day off.’

‘Yeah. That’s possible.’ Suk Hee brightened. ‘Good. For a second there I thought it was an omen.’

Keri pulled into the maul entrance.

I put my finger on the moonroof.

‘So did I,’ I whispered.

THE BUGS ARE eating him alive. They live in the iridescent blue stain that Naomi painted upon his skin in a snaky pattern: down his back, across one thigh and up his abdomen, where her brush stopped. But the bugs do not stop. They march onward, sidling around his flank and aiming for his right kidney, leaving an azure trail where they go. The colour of the Az79 Y-assassins is very beautiful, for which he is grateful because they are after all consuming him cell by cell. He appreciates beauty and doesn’t want for it here: through the glass of his habitat’s walls and ceiling he can see the snapdragons by the Fun Park’s lake, the arc of gold sky, and best of all the brilliant coloured beads of cars slippering through DNA Xpress. At precise intervals of forty seconds, bursts of screaming are blown to him on the wind in a never-changing rhythm, the respiration of his life outside Mall. At night the ride lights up and he can see the cars whipping through the helices, trains crossing magically. They look like phosphorescent animals. They are abstract and soothing. It is not always so easy to sleep.

Here come the little girls.

‘This is Meniscus,’ says the guide, planting herself in his line of vision; the spiral of the roller coaster crawls through her windblown hairs, violating the rules of perspective. Right on time come the screams: eeeee!

‘Can anyone tell me what Meniscus is?’ the guide asks.

Small hands are raised.

‘Bonnie?’

‘A man, he’s a man!’

The guide tilts her head, ‘Yes, well, that’s true.’

Giggles and little whoops of excitement.

‘But could you be more specific? Tabitha.’

‘A charity clone?’

‘Yes, Tabitha, that’s right. Meniscus is a male clone, and he was donated by his father for an experiment. Can anyone tell me why male clones are so rare and important?’

‘Ooh! Ooh!’

‘Yes, Crystal?’

‘Because of the legishun …?’

‘Legislation.’

‘Because of the legislation changing after the Y-plagues killed men.’

‘Yes. Very good. The legislation changing meant what, Margot?’

‘I forgot.’

‘You forgot. Well, does somebody else remember – Kimba! Are you biting Angel?’

‘Sorry.’

‘Kimba, can you answer my question?’

Kimba twists a cornrow between her gappy front teeth, speechless. From the back of the pack, a tiny voice pipes up. ‘We can only use clones dedicated for science while their fathers were still alive to give permission. And there isn’t much of that tissue left.’

Meniscus can’t see where the tiny voice comes from, and the Hibridge tour guide doesn’t seem to hear it. Two teachers are standing off to one side, smoking and comparing fingernails, equally oblivious. One of them points to Meniscus’s display of reward stones, meticulously arranged on a shelving unit by him; he often moves them around as he plays the game. To the viewers, his reward stones are part of some weird Y-autistic ritual. To Meniscus, they are his own private solar system. They are special beyond anything else.

‘Come on, Kimba,’ prompts the tour guide. ‘Your teacher tells me your class has been studying the Y-plagues. What did the change in legislation mean?’

Kimba clears her throat and parrots the phrases exactly as spoken by the tiny voice: ‘We can only use clones dedicated for science while their fathers were still alive to give permission. And … and … there isn’t much of that tissue left.’

‘Ah, that’s more like it! So you have been listening.’

Somebody raises her hand and asks, ‘But – why can’t the men who live in the castellations make clones of themselves?’

‘That’s not in the lesson plan for today, Margot.’

‘Oh, please tell us!’ It’s the tiny voice again, a little louder now so that the teacher can hear it from behind Kimba’s shoulder. She squints a little, puzzled. Meniscus is still straining to see where the voice came from. Its tone tugs at him. He lets Mall drift to the back of his awareness, tuning in to the moment despite the fact that he feels the bugs in his skin more without the cushion of Mall to protect him. His left forefinger rests on the malachite, third planet from the Sun. It shifts slightly beneath the pressure, like a Ouija board.

‘Well, briefly, the answer is that clones are genetically unstable and we can’t risk the weakening of the species by letting them reproduce. And we need the uninfected castellation males for the Programme, but their clones would only be a burden on society because they’d be vulnerable to Y-plagues without being able to provide quality sperm. A clone like Meniscus, on the other hand, can serve a valuable purpose.’

In the time it has taken the guide to explain, the girls have begun poking each other and giggling.

‘But why’s his skin all funny colours?’

‘Because he’s a farm, right, Ms Kang?’

‘People can’t be farms, you stupid shit.’

Giggles, before Ms Kang can shout, ‘Children! Language! Kimba, don’t you dare bite—’

A violent shiver gripped Meniscus, an impossible sort of feeling as if the stained area on his body were moving the muscles beneath his skin. The bugs were up to something.

Meniscus sat down. He let his eyes roll back in his head so that his consciousness could drift deeper into Mall. He had heard the tour guide give talks like this one a thousand times before. They offered no real distraction from the bugs in the blue stain, which were attacking nerve endings, teasing his immune system. He breathed deeply, trying not to react. Being Y-autistic made this easier for Meniscus than for other people. He had lived this long because he remained physically passive. He used Mall as a distraction and an outlet for his energy; to temper the pain; to reconcile himself to the deadly invasion and survive in spite of it. What happened outside his body shouldn’t matter to him. But even now, deeply engaged in the game, he could not help overhearing the tour guide’s occasional phrase. Neurochemical harvesting. Pig testes. Legal rights of Pigwalk contestants. Prevent extinction. Mitochondrial DNA. Inevitable.

Mall is really useful at times like this. When he first started playing it, he could do nothing but regulate the heat and electricity and water services, occasionally managing to subtly influence buying patterns. But since Naomi started painting him with Set 10E, Dr Baldino’s newest Azure design, the sensory detail has become richer, so that sometimes Mall seems more real than his familiar habitat. And he is getting to know the people who inhabit it, especially the employees. Security guards, salesgirls, janitors have become transparent to him. He moves them around so as to make himself feel better; just as he moves around the planets of the reward stones. It is all play.

And no one seems to mind if he plays a lot, even if he racks up big expenses in the process. Last week there was even a visit from Ralf of NoSystems – The Pioneers in Do-It-Yourself Adventure Gaming® and her lime-green Kangoo van. Ralf spoke to Naomi, the chief manhandler.

‘Tell Dr Baldino we’ll add more modules for her. The game’s eating up all its space. A lot of people don’t realise how much processing power is needed with NoSystems products. The self-engendered thing really throws them for a loop and so they miscalculate when they’re making their initial purchase. It’s OK. I’m going to upgrade you for $299,999.99 and the rest on instalment. You won’t regret it.’

‘OK, as long as you charge it to Dr Taktarov’s account,’ Naomi answered. ‘I should be so lucky to have the guy for a patron. I could spend every weekend in Neiman Marcus.’

‘Hi, Meniscus,’ Ralf said.

Meniscus didn’t answer, but he studied her covertly. Ralf had on jeans and a faded Red Hot Chilli Peppers T-shirt. She had big pecs but practically no breasts, and her moustache was always immaculately trimmed. She had a deep voice and swollen muscles that she liked to flash, and a prominent Bicyclefish tattoo. Meniscus had often heard her and Dr Baldino talking politics; Ralf claimed that castellations were no more than harems, and asked Dr Baldino how she felt about experimenting on a human subject. Dr Baldino always retorted that men had gotten themselves into this situation and women were left to clean up the mess, as usual, and that Meniscus wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for the experiment because a wild Y-plague would have got him by now. And Ralf would say, ‘Hmm’ and fold her arms across her chest, flexing the Bicyclefish tattoo. Meniscus wondered what it was like driving around in the Kangoo all day. He’s sure he would far rather hang out in Mall than have to listen to WYNY and pay tolls every few miles on the Parkway. Especially now that he can use the people in Mall to taste the tacos in the food court, or smell the garbage in the dumpster behind Borders if he really feels like showing off.

Too bad he can’t stop the bugs from scarfing up his skin, though.

At first Meniscus doesn’t notice when the Piscataway fourth-grade class moves away, nor that one child, smaller than the rest, has stayed behind. Then the chime sounds on his pass-thru chute, as if lunch has arrived early. He pivots on his seat bones and sees the child watching him. She has placed something in his pass-thru, which has sterilised the object before presenting it to Meniscus.

He feels nervous, bites back bile. He adjusts the planets slightly to make himself more comfortable; Mall obliges by shifting focus a little, and for a few moments he can almost forget about the Az79. Then he stands up and goes across to the child. He recognises her now. She is featured in the pictures that Dr Baldino keeps in the lab. She’s Bonus, Dr Baldino’s clone daughter, and he doesn’t think she goes to Piscataway fourth grade at all. Dr Baldino has Hibridge Education Privileges – Silver Class, meaning that Bonus is being expensively educated via a NoSystems Kid Trix Adventures in Cognition® MuSE package. She has wide-set brownish eyes and the kind of blonde hair that will turn brown at puberty. She wears a green T-shirt with the word ‘Spoonfed’ scrawled across it and a picture of the band etched on the sleeve. It hangs to her knees. Looking at her face makes his whole body go suddenly dark, and when she leans against the glass and speaks the stars come out in him.

‘There’s a wolf loose in the Meadowlands.’ The tiny voice belongs to her. Her voice finds an echo in his neurochemistry. His planets tremble. Invisible tensions tug at the bug colonies inside him, like gravities.

When he doesn’t answer she rolls her shoulder against the glass as if she’s nudging him, even though they’re not touching nor could he even imagine it.

‘I saw it on the news this morning. I cheated on my Learning Adventure and snuck out early. I’m not really supposed to be here.’

The confession made him uneasy. Why would Bonus want to be here without her mother? Why would anyone want to be here if they didn’t have to? His feet itched, and the vague ache in his spinal column grew more pronounced. Maybe she saw this occur. Her brows wrinkled cutely.

‘You’re really blue. Is it tattoos?’

Meniscus shivered. Her voice rose sweet as a bird’s on the question.

‘I’m a clone, too,’ she said. ‘I don’t get to reproduce either. It’s not fair, is it? Meniscus, have you seen a mouse around here? They keep talking about exterminating her, but I’m going to find her first and let her go.’

He was hurting. He ought to take his senses back to Mall, where the pain would translate into something more cognitive, less physical. Something abstract. Something he could cope with. But she fixed his attention as surely as if she’d pinned his skin in place with a nail gun.

‘I’m going to find that mouse. But you have to be quiet, OK? Or I’ll get caught.’ She starts to turn away, then thinks again. Her tone becomes almost accusing and her eyes flash. ‘Why do you let my mom do this to you? Why don’t you run away?’

The sound of her voice is high and whispery through the intercom: the metallic overtones intensify the little-girl quality almost beyond his endurance. Meniscus doesn’t want her to leave. But he never speaks. To anyone. Ever. It’s part of his pathology, a law that he always thought was physical.

Now he surprises himself. He answers, and although his voice sounds hunched, muted, and grotesquely deep, he can speak. He tongues the syllables awkwardly.

‘Where would I go?’

‘You could live in th