her garden.
I swallowed, tried to will my nerves to steady, failed, and then walked around the cabinet and stood before the chair. “Hello, father.”
“Stop calling me that. I am not your father,” the computerized voice said.
“Oh my gods,” DJ said in a voice so tiny and thin that I barely heard the tremor there.
I glanced over to see how she was managing. She was managing about as well as I thought she would. Her narrow eyes were open so wide I could see the outline of her eyeballs and were fixed firmly, immovably, on the chair’s occupant. Her little mouth hung open and her bottom lip trembled like she’d been dropped into a tub of ice water.
I sighed and looked back at the disaster in the chair. What was left of him, at least I think he’d been a he last but I couldn’t quite recall, was shriveled, wrinkled, wretched—the color and texture of red clay left out too long in the sun. His oblong head seemed too large for his withered body and was completely hairless. His right eye was all white and dead. His left eye was missing. Red, green, and blue wires came out of the socket and ran to a camera mounted to the top of the chair. As we stared the camera swiveled back and forth with a hum of servo motors and the lens spun in and out with a whir as it sought focus. A small black and white screen on a shelf showed a fishbowl-view image of DJ and me. His left arm and both legs were gone. All that remained of his right arm was a stump that flapped up and down as if he were trying to take flight. Several thin tubes ran from an ivory case and entered through his abdomen. A thick, white tube went into his mouth and kept it permanently opened. A ribbon cable entered his skull though an incision that weeped a yellow ooze that ran down the side of his hideous head. Several open sores were on his chest and had been dabbed with a clear ointment.
One of the black cabinets held a vertical bellows that rose with the suck of air and fell with the squeak and release. Several pieces of machinery on shelves had blinking lights, glowing dials, inviting knobs and switches, and screens displaying oscilloscope style wave forms.
The other cabinet held two tall, porcelain encased electrodes. A large spark shot between the electrodes with a loud, regular snap. A machine there displayed a heartbeat, temperature, and other vital signs.
It was a horrible sight, and I knew it.
I reached over, set my fingertips under DJ’s chin, and closed her mouth.
With some effort she pulled her eyes off of the husk in the chair, looked up at me with tear filled eyes and spoke in an exacerbated tone. “Why? How…how could you?”
I hung my oil lamp on a hook beside the window then looked at my invalid cyborg in the flickering light. “I’m keeping him alive, that’s all.”
“But,” DJ said and turned to look out the window as if the shutters weren’t closed. “He’s your father.”
“Don’t call me that,” the computer generated voice said. I was thankful it was unable to express any sort of inflection.
DJ stood there staring at nothing for a long time. She reminded me of a naughty child who’d been forced to stare at a wall. When she turned around her eyes were dry, relaxed, and her face was placid. She reached her lamp closer to his shriveled-apple face. “What do I call you then?”
The speaker crackled then broadcasted, “People call—”
“Don’t!” I covered the speaker in the right cabinet with my hand. “Not a word,” I snapped, pointing a finger at the camera lens. A wire ran from the speaker to a small amplifier, and the ribbon cable ran from the amplifier into his skull. I looked at DJ over my shoulder. “You don’t have to call him anything. You’re here to observe only.”
“Why?” DJ asked.
Fairly certain that he’d heed my instructions, I removed my hand from the speaker and took a moment to map out my words. “Because if anything ever happens to me, I’ll need someone to look after him.” I took DJ’s shoulders and gave them a good squeeze. I stared into her eyes with all the sincerity I could muster. “And you’re the only one I’ve ever trusted enough to bring here, so I need you to be strong and to trust me, just this one more time.”
“Why are you keeping him alive, like that?” She pointed at the rudimentarily human thing strapped into the leather chair.
“You may tell her nothing,” his computerized voice said.
“I may tell her anything I like,” I said pouring anger into the words. “And you may sit there impotent and insignificant for the rest of eternity.”
There was a moment of absolute silence except for the pumping of the breathing bellows, the snap of the heart pacer, and white noise from the speaker. Then he said, “I will not remain alive forever. Despite your efforts eventually I will die.” The computer struggled to phonetically form the word, ‘eventually,’ but what the heck; the technology was over a century old.
“We’ll see about that,” I said with a level of bravado that only the truly uncertain can muster.
“Hear this,” the computer generated voice said, “when I die, I will not forget your treatment of me.”
I brought my face very close to the camera lens. With a whir it spun closed, trying to get my too-close face into focus. “And you hear this, daddy, you come to me looking for trouble and I’ll show you real mistreatment.”
“Jazz,” DJ said and tugged at my blouse sleeve. “Don’t…don’t make this worse, it’s bad enough. Just do whatever you came to do and let’s get away from here.”
I stepped back, looked at the floor, rubbed the back of my neck, and heaved out a sigh. Man, he could really push my buttons—could knock me off balance and out of control. I never understood why I let him get to me.
The camera aimed right at my face and the lens spun. “How old are you?”
I felt impatience tighten the skin around my eyes. “What?”
“How old are you?”
I rolled my eyes and huffed. He was at something but there was only one slim chance of knowing what. “Nineteen.”
“No, you are not,” he said. “But you look the same.”
Gods, he was aggravating. “Umm, I think I know how old I am, unlike you.”
“Perhaps you don’t,” he said, then asked, “Why are you still here?”
“That did it,” I said, my impatience transforming into furry. “You’re getting shocked.” I reached toward a component housed in the left cabinet.
“Jazz, come on,” DJ said. “What’s the harm?” She tipped her head toward the decrepit body in the chair.
I puffed out some of my anger. “You have no idea,” I said then turned back to face the camera. “I’m here, to my shame, because I needed to see you.”
“No,” he said. “Why are you here, on Mirth? You should have returned by now, like an elastic cord stretched too tight for too long, it should have snapped. You’ve done something to set anchor.”
“What the devil are you talking about?” I shouted the question and could feel the heat in my face. “I didn’t do anything.”
“What the nether realms, Jazz?” DJ shouted, but not like an, ‘I’m really so angry at you here comes a punch in the nose,’ yell, more like a condescending, ‘I can’t believe you pooped on the rug you stupid dog,’ kind of yell.
“Look, DJ, you’re disturbed, and I get that, and you’re mad at me, I get that too, but you don’t know him,” I said and pointed. “He’s only capable of lies and manipulation. I have no idea what he’s talking about, but I know that he’s trying to lead me somewhere and I won’t let him manipulate me, never again. I’m here now, and that’s all that maters.”
DJ held up her open hands. “Okay, whatever. You know best.”
DJ’s words reeled my head back. She was being sarcastic. Could she feel like I’d been manipulating her? Worse yet, had I been? A great big hole opened up in my belly.
“Where do you think you are?” his computerized voice asked.
“Right now, I feel like I’m in hell,” I said.
“I don’t think you realize where you are,” he said.
DJ
stared at the small speaker like it was his face. “What does he mean?”
“Nothing,” I said. “He’s just playing with out heads. He likes to act like he knows everything.”
“You have questions,” he said in the stoic voice.
“What makes you say that?” I asked, feeling more than a little caught. Despite his wretched state, he still had the power to make me feel like his inferior.
“Because you always have questions—pointless questions are your staple. Also, the magistrate has issued multiple warrants for your containment. You’ve eliminated most of your more powerful enemies, which means you believe that you’ve uncovered the source of Mirth’s power. But now you are here. That means you don’t know how to overcome the power you’ve discovered.”
My heartbeat quickened, my temperature rose and disbelief reshaped my features. “How do you know about the warrants and the attacks?”
“How do I always know?” he said.
“DCK,” I grumbled.
“Jazz!” DJ snapped. “Look, I get that he messed you up, messed you up really bad,” her eyes locked again on the shriveled form in the chair. “Really, really messed you up, but that gives you no right to talk to him with that kind of language.”
“No,” I said in my very most gentle tone of voice, partly because I was still shaken by how much he knew. “It’s an anagram. It stands for, Deep Conscious Knowing. Somehow he can tap into the field of consciousness. Although I cannot believe that it still works despite all the magnetic shielding and RF