‘Open pod,’ said Uncle. And the pod opened and Daniel was lying there looking up at us. Though his eyes were different now. They seemed blank and empty, the way Echo eyes were supposed to look.
‘Right,’ said Uncle, smoothing back his own hair. ‘I’ll leave you to ask your questions. Now, I am going to see how the house repairs are going.’
So he left us there. Alone.
But obviously we weren’t really alone.
You couldn’t really be alone anywhere in this house. You were always being watched, recorded, monitored. Uncle Alex could have been in his pod or in the security room, watching us in real time.
I tried not to think about this.
I tried to concentrate on Daniel.
It was weird. This whole thing was weird. Was he asleep with his eyes open? As I got closer I saw the blood. I was reminded that Echo blood and human blood is almost identical, except that Echos have fewer white blood cells, so theirs is darker. It was already drying, beneath the back of his head on the harsh-looking surgi-pillow and matted into his light hair.
‘Hello,’ I said.
Nothing. Not so much as a blink.
‘Daniel, it’s me, Audrey. You saved my life. I want to say thank you.’
There might have been something then. The smallest twitch between his eyebrows. A sign that he might be hearing my words.
And here’s the thing . . .
He was not terrifying.
I had always been troubled by the way Echos looked; their perfect faces and bodies. It was a perfection that I had found ugly. Beauty was about imperfection because that was what made people special. Or maybe that’s what I told myself because I had large shoulders and walked like a boy. Whatever. But if everyone was made to look perfect, then no one would be special because being special meant being different, by offering something that wasn’t on offer elsewhere, and Echos were all the same. The models changed, but they were equals in perfection.
Echo skin wasn’t quite like human skin. There were no pores or marks or blemishes. Everything was made to be symmetrical and visually appealing. Some people liked that sort of thing, obviously. (Which, I suppose, was the thinking behind Universal Affection and Echo Echo and 3.14 and Love Circuits, and all those other manufactured Echo ‘boy’ bands, which I had always seen as the absolute opposite of something real and messy and human like the Neo Maxis.)
But beauty was something else. Something hidden slightly away, something that existed inside every living thing, which could only be seen by certain people. And once they saw it, they couldn’t unsee it, because like all those old dead poets said, beauty was truth and eternity and it connected you to the infinite.
Beauty did not belong to machines. It did not belong to Echos. And yet it was there, as difficult to spot as the little crease that had momentarily appeared on Daniel’s forehead.
‘This shouldn’t have happened to you,’ I told him. ‘I am sorry. What happened? Why did you stay awake? Why didn’t they switch you off? It’s torture. That’s what happened. You felt pain. You aren’t meant to feel pain, but anyone who heard your screams knew you were in pain. I’m sorry.’
His eyes closed for the slowest of blinks, and when they opened again they were looking at me. But this was not the Echo boy who had saved my life. That boy seemed lost. Totally. He didn’t seem to be there.
‘Please. Say something. Anything. Just speak. I know you can hear me.’
I couldn’t help but feel he was my responsibility. When somebody saves your life, you owe them a whole world. I touched his skin.
‘You told me you had met Alissa. You told me you were designed by someone called Rosella Márquez.’
Another blink.
‘You had more to tell me. About Alissa. About Uncle Alex.’
His eyes stared into mine, but it was hard to say what he was really seeing. I suddenly felt self-conscious, aware that I was just a mass of human imperfections.
His mouth moved.
He was about to speak.
‘Who are you?’ he said, in a voice that sounded empty and flat and neutral.
It was a weird feeling. Relief to hear him speak, but disappointment at the words.
‘I’m Audrey. Audrey Castle. I am Mr Castle’s niece. My parents were killed by an Echo called Alissa. She was a Sempura Echo, not a Castle one.’ Then I whispered, ‘I’m starting to think that I am only alive right now because I’m useful. I can help him score points against Sempura.’ It was only as I said this that I realized, with a sudden jolt of fear, that it was true.
He frowned again. It was like someone trying to learn a language. He turned his head a little towards me. This movement appeared to cause him great pain. He winced. Instinctively I placed my hand gently on his face.
‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry. I’m troubling you. I don’t want to trouble you. You saved my life.’
I remembered a poem. It was one of Mum’s favourites. As I looked down at him, I tried to imagine what he was feeling, and the first line of that poem came out of my mouth: ‘I am: yet what I am none cares or knows.’
His eyes weren’t so blank now. There was a sadness inside them. I didn’t know if it was better that he was sad than nothing at all. I remembered that day in his room. I remembered him holding me. I remembered his warm breath. I remembered feeling things I wasn’t meant to feel.
And then I kissed him.
I leaned down and kissed him softly on the lips.
The kiss wasn’t a silly romantic h-movie kiss. It was just the kind of kiss you give someone you care about. And I knew that I had once been wrong about him, and I knew that he was confused and in pain. I knew that he had risked a lot for me. He’d been trying to protect me all along. And I knew that, right at this moment, he was the only real ally I had in the world, so I wanted to bring him back and show that someone cared about him.
I had changed. I was feeling emotion towards something that was technically a machine. If a machine could develop enough to become almost human, maybe a human could develop enough to understand that. Maybe that is what growing up was all about. It was about changing your mind. Opening it right up. Admitting to yourself that you were wrong about stuff.
‘You aren’t like the others,’ I said. ‘You are different. You care. You feel pain. But one day you will feel other things. Nicer things, I promise you.’
He whispered something.
‘Audrey.’
He knew my name. My heart felt like it would burst now that I knew I was helping to bring him back.
He looked like he might speak again. And he did.
‘He changed Alissa.’ That is what it sounded like, but I couldn’t be sure.
‘What? What?’
But then I stopped talking because the door opened and my uncle re-entered the room and said, ‘All right, lovebirds,’ he said. ‘Time to say your goodbyes. Because I don’t think you’ll be seeing each other again, do you?’
FROM
FORBIDDEN
BY
TABITHA SUZUMA
Lochan
He arrives at ten past seven. Maya has been on edge ever since she got in. For the last hour she has been upstairs, vying with Mum for the bathroom. I even heard the two of them laughing together. Kit jumps up, banging his knee on the table leg in his haste to be the first to greet him. I let him go and quickly close the kitchen door behind him. I don’t want to see the guy.
Fortunately Maya doesn’t invite him in. I hear her feet pounding down the stairs, voices raised in greeting, followed by: ‘I’ll be with you in a minute.’
Kit returns, looking impressed and exclaiming loudly, ‘Whoa, that guy’s loaded. Have you seen his designer gear?’
Maya rushes in. ‘Thank you for doing this.’ She comes straight over to me and squeezes my hand in that annoying way she has. ‘I’ll take them out all day tomorrow, I promise.’
I pull away. ‘Don’t be silly. Just have a good time.’
She’s wearing something I??
?ve never seen before. In fact she looks totally different: burgundy lipstick, her long russet hair pinned up, a few stray wisps delicately framing her face. Small silver pendants hang from her ears. Her dress is short, black and figure-hugging, sexy in a sophisticated kind of way. She smells of something peachy.
‘Kiss!’ Willa cries, flinging up her arms.
I watch her hug Willa, kiss the top of Tiffin’s head, give Kit a punch on the shoulder and smile again at me. ‘Wish me luck!’
I manage to return the smile and give a small nod.
‘Good luck!’ Tiffin and Willa shout at the tops of their voices. Maya cringes and laughs as she hurries out into the corridor.
There are slamming doors and then the sound of an engine starting. I turn to Kit. ‘He came by car?’
‘Yeah, I told you, he’s loaded! It wasn’t exactly a Lamborghini, but Jeez, he’s got his own wheels at seventeen?’
‘Eighteen,’ I correct him. ‘I hope he doesn’t intend to drink.’
‘You should have seen him,’ Kit says. ‘That guy’s got class.’
‘Maya looked like a princess!’ Willa exclaims, her blue eyes wide. ‘She looked like a grown-up too.’
‘OK, who wants more potatoes?’ I ask.
‘Maybe she’ll marry him and then she’ll be rich,’ Tiffin chips in. ‘If Maya’s rich and I’m her brother, does that mean I get to be rich as well?’
‘No, it means she dumps you as a brother ’cos you’re an embarrassment – you don’t even know your times tables,’ Kit replies.
Tiffin’s mouth falls open and his eyes fill.
I turn to Kit. ‘You’re not even funny, d’you realize that?’
‘Never claimed I was a comedian, just a realist,’ Kit retorts.
Tiffin sniffs and wipes the back of his hand across his eyes. ‘Don’t care what you say, Maya would never do that, and anyway, I’m her brother until I die.’
‘At which point you’ll go to hell and never see anyone again,’ Kit shoots back.
‘If there’s a hell, Kit, believe me, you’ll be in it.’ I can feel myself losing my cool. ‘Now would you just shut up and finish your meal without tormenting anyone else?’
Kit tosses his knife and fork onto his half-finished plate with a clatter. ‘To hell with this. I’m going out.’
‘Ten o’clock and no later!’ I shout after him.
‘In your dreams, mate,’ he calls back from halfway up the stairs.
Our mother is next to come in, reeking of perfume and struggling to light a cigarette without smudging her freshly painted nails. The complete antithesis to Maya, she is all glitter and crimson lips, her ill-fitting red dress leaving little to the imagination. Soon she disappears again, already unsteady on her high heels, screeching up at Kit for having nicked her last packet of fags.
I spend the rest of the evening watching TV with Tiffin and Willa, simply too exhausted and fed up to attempt anything more productive. When they start to bicker, I get them ready for bed. Willa cries because I get shampoo in her eyes, and Tiffin forgets to hang the shower curtain inside the bath and floods the floor.
Teeth-brushing seems to take hours: the kiddie toothpaste tube is almost empty so I use mine instead, which makes Tiffin’s eyes water and Willa gag into the basin. Then Willa takes fifteen minutes to choose a story, Tiffin sneaks downstairs to play on his Gameboy and, when I object, gets unreasonably upset and claims Maya always lets him play while she reads to Willa. Once they are in bed, Willa is immediately hungry, Tiffin is thirsty by association, and by the time the clamouring finally stops it is half past nine and I am shattered.
But once they are asleep, the house feels eerily empty. I know I should go to bed myself and try to get an early night but I feel increasingly agitated and on edge. I tell myself I have to stay up to check that Kit comes home at some point, but deep down I know that it’s only an excuse. I’m watching some stupid action movie but I’ve no idea what it’s about or who is supposed to be chasing who. I can’t even focus on the special effects – all I can think of is DiMarco. It’s past ten now: they must have finished dinner, they must have left the restaurant. His father is often away on business – or so Nico claims, and I have no reason to disbelieve him. Which means he has his mansion to himself . . . Has he taken her back there? Or are they in some dodgy car park, his hands and lips all over her? I begin to feel sick. Maybe it’s because I haven’t eaten all evening. I want to wait up and see for myself what kind of state she’s in when she gets home. If she decides to come home. It suddenly strikes me that most sixteen-year-olds would have some kind of curfew. But I’m only thirteen months her senior, so am hardly in a position to impose one. I keep telling myself that Maya has always been so sensible, so responsible, so mature, but now I remember the flushed look on her face when she came into the kitchen to say goodbye, the sparkle in her smile, the fizz of excitement in her eyes. She is still only a teenager, I realize; she is not yet an adult, however much she may be forced to behave like one. She has a mother who thinks nothing of having sex on the floor of the front room while her children lie sleeping overhead, who brags to them about her teenage conquests, who goes out on the piss every week and staggers in at six in the morning with smudged make-up and torn clothes. What kind of role model has Maya ever had? For the first time in her life she is free. Am I so sure she won’t be tempted to make the most of it?
It’s stupid to think like that. Maya is old enough to make her own choices. Plenty of girls her age sleep with their boyfriends. If she doesn’t this time, she will the next, or the time after, or the time after that. One way or another it’s going to happen. One way or another I’m going to have to deal with it. Except I can’t. I can’t deal with it at all. The very idea makes me want to pound my head against the wall and smash things. The idea of DiMarco, or anyone, holding her, touching her, kissing her . . .
A deafening bang, a blinding crack, pain shooting up my arm before I realize I’ve punched the wall with all my might: pieces of paint and plaster are flaking away from the imprint of my knuckles above the couch. Bent over double, I clutch my right hand with my left, clenching my teeth to stop myself from making a sound. For a moment everything darkens and I think I’m going to pass out, but then the pain hits me repeatedly in shocking, terrifying waves. I actually don’t know what hurts more, my hand or my head. The thing I have feared and railed against these past few weeks – the total loss of control over my mind – has set in, and I have no way to fight it any more. I close my eyes and feel the coil of madness climb up my spine and creep into my brain. I watch it explode like the sun. So this is it, this is what it feels like after a long hard struggle – to lose the battle and finally go crazy.
Maya
He’s lovely. I don’t know why I ever thought he was some arrogant tosser. Just goes to show how flawed one’s perception of others can be. He’s considerate, he’s courteous, he’s polite; he actually seems genuinely interested in me. He tells me I look beautiful and then gives me a bashful smile. Once we are seated in the restaurant, he translates every single item on the menu for me and doesn’t laugh or even look surprised when I tell him I’ve never tried artichokes before. He asks me lots of questions, but when I explain that my family situation is complicated, he appears to take the hint and backs off. He agrees that Belmont is a shithole and admits he can’t wait to get out. He asks about Lochan and says he wishes he could get to know him better. He confides that his father is more interested in his business than in his only son and buys him ridiculous presents like a car to assuage his guilt for being abroad half the year. Yes, he is rich and he is spoiled, yet he is as neglected as we are. A completely different set of circumstances; the same sad outcome.
We talk for a long time. As he drives me home, I find myself wondering if he is going to kiss me. At one point, as we both reach out to turn down the radio, our hands touch and his lingers on mine for a moment. It feels strange, his fingers unfamiliar.
‘Shall I walk you to your door or wou
ld that be . . . awkward?’ He looks at me hesitantly and smiles when I do. I envision small faces peering from upstairs windows and agree that it’s probably best if I get out alone. Fortunately, in the darkness, he has overshot the front door by two houses so no one from home can see us.
‘Thank you for dinner. I had a really good time,’ I say, surprised to find myself meaning it.
He smiles. ‘Me too. D’you think maybe we could do it again sometime?’
‘Yeah, why not?’
His smile broadens. He leans towards me. ‘Goodnight then.’
‘Goodnight.’ I hesitate, my fingers on the door handle.
‘Goodnight,’ he says again with a smile, but this time he cups my chin in his hand. His face approaches mine and suddenly the realization hits me. I like Nico. I actually think he’s a pretty decent person. He’s good-looking and I’m attracted to him. But I don’t want to kiss him. Not now. Not ever . . . I turn my head away just as his face meets mine and his kiss lands on my cheek instead.
As I draw back, he looks surprised. ‘OK, well, till next time.’
I take a deep breath, groping for my bag at my feet, grateful for the darkness that hides the blush spreading across my face. ‘I really like you as a friend, Nico,’ I say in a rush. ‘But, I’m sorry, I don’t think I can go out with you again.’
‘Oh.’ He sounds surprised and a little hurt now. ‘Well, look, just think about it, OK?’
‘OK. See you Monday.’ I get out of the car and slam the door behind me. I wave, and he is still wearing that look of perplexed amusement as he drives off, as if he thinks I am playing games.
I lean against a thick tree-trunk, staring up through the drizzle at a moonless sky. I have never felt so embarrassed in all my life. Why did I spend the whole evening leading him on? Acting fascinated by his stories, confiding in him? Why did I agree to see him again ten seconds before telling him we could only be friends? Why did I turn down a guy who, as well as being hot, actually turned out to be nice? Because you’re crazy, Maya. Because you are crazy and stupid and you want to spend the rest of your life as a social outcast. Because you so wanted this to work, you so desperately wanted this to work, you actually kidded yourself into believing things were going really well. Until you realized that the idea of kissing Nico, or any guy you could think of, was not what you wanted at all.