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Paul shakes his head.

  “You coming back?” the man asks.

  The brick is staring. Another strange wave passes through Paul, tingles beneath his scalp like scrubbing bubbles wiping his brain clean. Telling him what to do.

  “Yeah,” Paul says. “I’ll be back.”

  He follows the white car and U-Hauls to the loading dock.

  13

  The sun is out.

  It’s burned away the steel mat of clouds that’s entombed the sky for four days. Sunlight reflects off the wet streets. Marcus slouches in the back seat, watches the oblivious citizens of Seattle blunder down sidewalks and wait for streetlights. The fabric of humanity is like parched linen dangling over a flame of biomite technology; a flame that could incinerate any shred of human semblance, leaving human forms like empty cicada shells, like pillars of salt.

  Sodom and Gomorrah.

  If not for Marcus, they would all perish without a thought. If not for his dedication, there would be no one to extinguish the flame. And now, after so many struggles, the tide will finally turn.

  He could hardly sleep.

  The hotel was comfortable and quiet but Marcus stared at the ceiling. Even a sleeping pill took longer than usual, its effects still swimming in his head.

  He’s waited twenty years for this day. Twenty years to have the boy—he’s a man, but will always be a boy—in his grasp. He’ll take Nix back to M0ther and watch her digest him slowly.

  Marcus pats Anna’s bare knee just below the hemline. Her lipstick is magenta and perfectly lined. She appears unfocused, staring past the front seat, through the windshield.

  “M0ther is updating,” she says.

  Marcus cringes. He prefers not to call the massive artificial intelligence that monitors biomites by her acronym. She might overlook humanity, but he had a different relationship with her, something on an equal level. No, he couldn’t match her processing ability, nothing could. Marcus brought her passion; he brought her wisdom that only one of God’s creatures could bring.

  Marcus caresses the inside of her knee then folds his hands on his lap. “Why didn’t she call me?”

  “She prefers to speak with you when you return home.”

  The car stops at the stoplight. A man on the corner stares at the white car. Above him, a billboard advertises a long-lasting Dreamland experience.

  “Continue,” Marcus says.

  “Free the girl.”

  Marcus chuckles, waiting for more. Anna is looking at him now, her eyes focused on his lips. “We’ll do nothing of the sort,” he says. “The girl contains everything and the boy knows it. He’ll do something rash and we’ll have him.”

  “Her projected analysis suggests that if the girl is released, Nixon Richards will find her and lead us to his sister. The probability of success is 83%.”

  “The probability of capturing Nixon Richards right now is 100%.”

  “That is not the objective.”

  “And when we have him, his sister will come out of hiding. We’ve already discussed this.” Marcus checks his jacket for his earpiece. “I want to talk with her now.”

  “She has already implemented the change, Marcus. Her projections are complete.”

  “She didn’t discuss this with me!”

  That was the issue. It wasn’t that she just snatched Nix out of his hand, not that she shit on this glorious morning; it was that she didn’t consult him. That’s not how this works. She continuously conducts endless scenarios, analyzing human behavior and motivation, predicting the probability of outcomes with greater accuracy than anything on the planet…but she could not see the future!

  These were probabilities. Chances. Science, by its own admission, is less than perfect. It works from educated guesses and refines its mistakes. Only God is perfect.

  And Marcus speaks for Him.

  That was the agreement. M0ther did the math, but Marcus spoke the divine. They worked together.

  The car waits at the final stoplight. Three cargo trucks are lined up behind them, their diesel engines idling loudly. The satellite imagery of their approach would be blurred from public record. No one would see them make the final approach to the warehouses.

  When the light turns green, Marcus realizes he’s staring at a billboard that advertises free biomite boosters.

  ***

  Jamie’s mouth is slack, drool slipping from the corner, a glistening trail to her chin. Yellowish light filters through the opaque glass dimmed with age and neglect. Dust particles hang over her.

  Marcus watches her from the dark end of the room. The door is closed but the odor reaches him. It permeates everything, but no longer reminds him of victory. Now it’s just the stench of death and the possibility of losing everything.

  Right there, sleeping, is the key. That pill inside her is the key.

  From the other side of the door, the warehouse has come alive. Some of the bricks grunt, dropping heavy objects on the concrete. There’s an occasional sound of fabric and zippers, of vinyl bags rustling.

  Marcus steps on a soft cord, smells the tang of biomites. It’s a whip-like tail. He nudges the limp animal with the tip of his shoe, its skin smooth, leathery, and red. In the dark, it looks like a dog but the ivory fangs protruding from the oversized snout are evident.

  Fabricated abominations.

  The pets range from mouse-sized animals to Great Danes, each of them outfitted with customized limbs and unnatural colors. Some with fur, others hide. All of them with teeth. They were likely prowling around when the nixes were shutdown, dropped like the power cord had been pulled.

  Before M0ther put a stop to it, everyday people were working their way up to fabricating larger organisms, kept them around like freakish pets. How far were they from fabricating dead loved ones?

  All the warehouses in this sector were owned by the same subsidiary. This was just the beginning. If the brick hadn’t discovered their activity, they would’ve expanded into the neighboring buildings, opening doorways through the back walls like Marcus had done. How much would someone pay to fabricate a son or daughter?

  This wasn’t just a party scene. It was the fuel that kept the biomite flame growing, that pushed it closer to the fabric.

  How many more of these dens are there?

  Meanwhile, M0ther will free the girl, the drooling Sleeping Beauty who contains all the answers. They could drop her in the digesting vats, absorb the information and locate places like this all over the world. They could fabricate an army of bricks to stage a global raid. And she wanted to let her go.

  He could override M0ther. Marcus had that authority.

  He could force her to capture Nix and lure his sister into the open, but he knew better. He knew his desires were distorting his rational thinking, that M0ther had the same wish as he did without the emotional attachment.

  She wants them both, too.

  Jamie sounds like a child caught in a nightmare. Marcus kicks the dead pet and limps over to the lounger. The muscles on her neck are rigid, her tongue working hard to break free.

  Marcus strokes her chin with the backs of his fingers, runs them softly to her throat. He leans close enough to feel her breath on his lips and her eyes snap open.

  He squeezes her throat, feels the muscles collapse in his grip. Her breath catches and her eyes widen. She’s still caught in Anna’s catatonic grip, unable to move, unable to look away. He doesn’t have the ability to sense if Nix is in there, if he’s still pawning her perception field, but he hopes so. He hopes that boy sees him.

  He will always be a boy.

  If freeing this girl will give him Nix and Cali, he will not stand in the way.

  Marcus shoves off.

  The girl struggles to breathe; unformed words fall off her lips in grunts and squeaks. Marcus ignores the pathetic attempts to curse him. He opens the door, walks into the putrid fog of dead flesh.

  Anna is waiting for him. He watches the bricks work like soldiers. They carry body bags across the warehouse, dropping
each one next to a nude body.

  Marcus looks down at a teenage boy named Charlie. Most of his flesh is sickly pale, the stomach slightly bloated. A small patch of hair is tufted between his nipples.

  A pair of bricks drops a body bag next to it, pulling the flaps to the side to reveal an exact duplicate of Charlie. The skin is even discolored with veiny, marbled patterns near the surface, even the bruises around his bicep where someone grabbed him. Maybe his girlfriend was trying to stop him from taking the nixes.

  Or maybe she was trying to get away.

  The bricks lift M0ther’s stiff fabrication from the bag and quickly slides Charlie—the real Charlie—inside. They dress the imposter with the clothes that are stacked near the corpse using photo images they recorded upon arrival, adjusting the coat and pants to match what he looked like before he was undressed. Even the wrinkles in the sleeves and the inadvertent cuff of the pant leg are exacted.

  They haul the body bag to the trucks. They will return with another.

  Marcus is tempted to bend down. Even though the pain in his knee has subsided, he’ll pay for it. The people outside the warehouse, the ones waiting for answers, will never know the bodies of their loved ones will be flown to M0ther for deep analysis, where they’ll be pulled apart, where every cell, every part of them digested for future reference.

  What they’ll find in the warehouse once Marcus leaves are fabricated duplicates made of biomites and a small amount of clay, just enough to fool an investigation. They’ll bury these fabricated bodies, mourn over them, take flowers to their graves and never know the difference. In God’s eyes, it won’t matter. Their love for their sons and daughters will still be true.

  And Marcus will be that much closer to stopping this plague.

  “Contact the chief of police,” he says. “Tell him we’ve concluded our investigation and the families are allowed to view their loved ones.”

  “The press will want a statement,” Anna says.

  “Have someone else do it.”

  “You’d like a brick to handle PR?”

  “Yes.”

  She did that on purpose, knew he was struggling with the new course of action. She referred to her kindred as bricks, as if the insult of their fabrication is completely lost to her. He liked that.

  “I’d also like to give the press full access to the premises. Bring the camera crews inside, even sneak some of those bloggers in. I want a team of bricks to stay behind to be interviewed. I want the public to be saturated with details. Let them see what their future looks like.”

  “Public beheadings…you know that tactic doesn’t work.”

  “Humor me.”

  “I’ll take the lead in public relations, then.”

  “No. I want you to be on the plane with me, I’ll want company. I’ll be flying back with the bodies, I want analysis to begin immediately.”

  The bricks work ceaselessly as always, hauling bag after bag into the warehouse, swapping and dressing bodies down to the last detail. There’s no need to encourage them to work faster. They’re such good slaves. Marcus revels in the fact that he never has to deal with human employees, imperfect and slow.

  An ironic twist, but effective.

  Perhaps, he always thinks, there’s a place for bricks in society once humans stop defiling God’s temples.

  Two body bags are dropped near the back office and left unattended. Marcus shuffles near the foot of them. Anna takes a knee, pulls one of them open to reveal a young girl inside. Jamie’s fabrication is chalky but well-preserved, as if she only passed this morning.

  Marcus sighs. “Set her free, then.”

  He limps toward the back exit, bricks avoiding him as he heads toward a waiting car with no idea of what M0ther plans to do.

  But it’ll work.

  It usually does.

  14

  A buzzy hum swarms Paul’s head, carries him through colors and images, random thoughts and memories.

  His eyelids are heavy. Hands like rubber.

  Dim light filters through the shade of a door directly ahead of him. Cries of outrage and grief hail from the other side.

  General chaos.

  Words that don’t quite connect.

  A reclining lounger sits in the waning light. A girl lies on it, her head back, mouth open. The dead light falls on her like an old lamp, yellow and dusty. Her chest rises and falls in slow, steady rhythm.

  Shadows pass across the shade.

  The door rattles.

  They’re coming for her. They’re coming for…Jamie.

  She was a victim in a heinous crime, she was held against her will. The cops were going to do terrible things to her.

  Not cops. Someone else.

  Paul’s feet are glued to the floor. His legs, rigid wood. He raises his fat hand, breaks the paralysis like a brittle cocoon. He bends his knees, takes a step. His blood flows.

  Her hands are folded over her stomach, bright red lines around her wrists where plastic cuffs chafed the skin. Paul slides his arms beneath her, lifts the dead weight. There’s a body slumped against the lounger. It’s a man. His chin is against his chest, the face hidden by the shadows. Paul ignores that one.

  I’ve only come for Jamie.

  He walks through a network of corridors enclosed with unfinished walls and sheets of plastic, occasionally bumping her limp body into bare studs. His instincts tell him to turn left when the exit feels left. Go straight when that seems to be the way.

  He’s got to get far away.

  His intuition leads him to a large room with huge rolling doors. One is open, leading to a concrete ledge for loading. A white sedan is parked next to a police cruiser. Paul climbs down and slides Jamie in the back of the white car.

  He drives down the alley, onto Beech Street.

  To get her away.

  To keep her safe.

  15

  The crowd has doubled. The police had tripled. The chief of police and three of his lieutenants are behind a podium inside the barricade.

  Nix stands two blocks away on a berm of soil, his vision enhanced on the male and female bricks stepping to the podium. They’re brunettes of average build and forgettable features but large, soulful eyes. The barricade buckles as the crowd pushes forward. Their grief had transformed into anger that blamed the bricks and police for their halfskin sons and daughters.

  They have no one else to blame.

  Nix tunes into a blog stream to hear the audio while he watches the chief of police and his lieutenants stand behind the bricks, chins thrust out, eyes hazy with the dullness of old silverware.

  “Let me express our sincere apologies for this delay,” the female brick says. Her cheeks sag with the weight of sorrow, her eyes heavy, eyebrows slightly pinched with concern. “I speak on behalf of the Seattle Police Department, the Biomite Patrol Agency, and all the men and women dedicated to serving humanity when I say we are deeply sorry. A tragedy like this affects everyone, but especially you. It is deeply regrettable.”

  The crowd rebels against the false empathy although, with time and repeated delivery, they’ll soon be swayed. The imitation of human emotions and body language speaks directly to the subconscious.

  When the female brick finishes, she bows her head, makes room for the male brick to step front and center. While his expression is also mournful, it is heavy with the weight of severity.

  “We have asked for your patience,” he announces to the crowd as well as the millions watching it stream through the blogosphere, “to ensure that events like this will never happen again, that we can ensure the safety and well-being of everyone. It is our hope that you will join us in ending technology abuse.”

  The crowd grows impatient. Cries of grief can be heard all the way up the street. He continues his empathic message before turning to the chief of police.

  “Would you care to explain the procedure for these good people?”

  The chief steps forward and delivers a dead set of instructions for people that have
been previously identified as family to come to the right where they will be ushered inside to view the deceased.

  Letting family walk all over a crime scene?

  “Verified media will also be admitted,” he announces, half asleep.

  The barricade opens and the police usher them forward.

  “What now?” Raine’s image stands barefoot on the grass.

  “I’ll have a look,” Nix says.

  “She won’t be in there.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “Then why risk it?”

  Nix starts toward the heaving crowd. Raine’s image keeps up.

  “Nix, there’s nothing in there. They’ve already picked the place clean and the girl is gone. You can’t save her even if she is in there—there are just too many bricks. It’s not your fault.”

  Somehow, it is his fault. His sister ignored all his calls while he sat in a hotel room watching blogs stream updates. He analyzed half a dozen ways to infiltrate the warehouse. When they announced that media would be allowed access, he could create a diversion or find an exit. There had to be a way, he just needed some help. And she ignored him.

  He knew she would.

  When he arrived that morning for the press conference and crazy fucking announcement that family would be allowed to meander through the warehouse while bloggers streamed their reactions to the world, he knew Jamie would be gone. He felt it. He scanned the area for her biomite identity—as unique as her fingerprints, indelibly stamped on her awareness.

  Gone.

  “Let’s not go in there.” Raine’s hand falls on his shoulder. “There’s always tomorrow.”

  That was the real problem. This will happen somewhere tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that. There will be an endless string of Jamie’s and warehouses full of lifeless halfskins. Marcus and the bricks know what they’re doing now. With Jamie and that nixed pill inside her, they have intel and know how to get more. Before long they’ll be shutting down halfskins daily. How long before Nix is one of them?

  He blends into the crowd, slowly makes his way to the entrance. An identity scan penetrates his bones.