Robin Wasserman - Frozen

“But they can’t catch me .” I nodded toward the biosensors. “No bio, ergo, no sensing.”

Auden shrugged. “And they don’t care about catching me. No one’s paying attention.”

“How do you know?”

He unwrapped a slim sandwich with some suspiciously greenish filling. “Where do you think I used to eat? Before you took over my territory, so to speak.”

“Oh.”

“‘Oh’ is right.”

“So I guess I should thank you or something,” I said. “For yesterday.”

“I guess you should.” There was a pause. “But I can’t help noticing that you didn’t.”

I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or shove the sandwich in his face. I certainly wasn’t saying thank you.

“So what’s in the bag, anyway?” I asked instead.

“What bag?”

I rolled my eyes. “That bag.” I pointed to the green sack he always toted around. “Or is it just your security blanket?”

Auden flushed. “Stuff. Nothing important.”

“Really?” I doubted it and reached for the bag. “Let me—”

“Don’t!” he snapped, snatching it away. His fists balled around the straps.

“Okay, whatever. Sorry.” I held up my arms in surrender. “Forget I asked.”

“Look, I’m sorry, but…”

“I mean it. Forget it. I don’t want to know.”

I wasn’t sure if I was mad at him or he was mad at me. Or if neither of us was mad. There was an uncertain silence between us, like we were deciding whether to settle in and get comfortable or to leave.

“What do you want from me?” I asked.

“What makes you think I want something?”

“We don’t even know each other, and you keep—you know, sticking up for me. Being nice. And now you show up here. What is it?”

“So you think if someone’s nice to you, it means they want something?” he asked. “Interesting.”

“What’s so interesting about that?”

“If I were a shrink, I might wonder what it means for your relationships with other people and what you expect to get out of them,” he said.

He was so deeply weird. “What the hell is a shrink?”

“They were like doctors, for your moods. Someone you talked to when you were feeling screwed up.”

“Why would you talk to some random when you could just take a b-mod to feel better?”

“This was before b-mods, I think,” he said. “Or maybe for people who didn’t want them.”

“Sounds kind of stupid, if you ask me.” Who wouldn’t want to mod their mood, if they could? Something to make you happy when you wanted to be happy, numb when you wanted to be numb? I missed them more than chocolate. And what did I get in exchange? Eternal life, for one thing.

And to help with the feeling-screwed-up part? I supposed there was always Sascha.

I missed the drugs.

“And, by the way, my relationships are just fine,” I said. “At least I have relationships, unlike some people.”

“Oh, excuse me,” he said with exaggerated contrition. “I forgot—You’re popular .”

For some reason, maybe because it was so far from reality, maybe because he made being popular sound like a fatal condition, maybe just because there was nothing else to do but cry and I was a few tear ducts short, I laughed. So did he.

“People are idiots,” he said when he caught his breath.

“You don’t have to say that.”

“I’m not just saying it. Those girls you used to hang out with? Superficial bitches. And the guys—”

“Stop,” I said.

“They’re not your friends ,” he said. Like I needed a reminder. “They dropped you.”

“I noticed. Thanks. But they’re still…” I shook my head. “So is that what you think of me, too? Superficial bitch?”

“I think…” For the first time he seemed not quite sure what to say. “You’re different now. And that interests me.”

It wasn’t an answer.

“So that’s why you helped yesterday? I’m, like, some kind of scientific study for you?” I said bitterly. “Something neat to play with?”

“Why do you have to do that?” he asked.

“What?”

“Turn everything into something small like that. Mean.”

“Are you trying to be my shrunk again?” I said.

“Shrink.”

“That’s what I said.”

“I just want to know what it’s like,” he said. “Being…”

“Different?” I suggested. “It sucks.”

“No. I know what it’s like to be different.” He wound the strap of his bag around his fingers. “I want to know what it’s like to be you . To be downloaded. To have this mind that’s totally under your control, to know you’re never going to age, never going to die, this body that’s perfect in every way…” He looked up at me, blushing. “I didn’t mean it like that. I mean, I just…”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “No one’s meant it like that. Not since… before.”

He blushed a deeper pink. “You do, though,” he mumbled. “Lookgoodlikethis.” It took me a second to decipher what he’d said. “Better than before. I think, at least.”

The body couldn’t blush. Not that I would have blushed, anyway, just because Auden Heller gave me a compliment. The Auden Hellers of the world were always giving compliments to the Lia Kahns of the world. It’s what they were there for.

But it was the first time in too long that I’d really felt like a Lia Kahn.

“Thank you,” I said. “For yesterday, I mean.”

“So what does it feel like?” he asked eagerly.

“Like… not much.” It wasn’t that I didn’t want to explain it to him. I did , that was the strange part. But I didn’t know how. “Everything’s almost the same, but not quite. It’s all a little wrong, you know? It sounds different, it looks different, and when it comes to feeling…”

“I read that every square inch of the artificial flesh has more than a million receptors woven into it, to simulate organic sensation,” he said.

“If you say so.” I hadn’t read anything; I didn’t want to know how the body worked. I just wanted it to work better. “But maybe a million isn’t enough. I can feel stuff, but it doesn’t feel…” I brushed my hand across the surface of his bag. This time he didn’t pull it away. “It’s like if I close my eyes and touch the bag, I know it’s there. I know it’s a rough surface, a little scratchy. I know all that, but I can’t… It’s just not the same. It’s like I’m living in my head, you know? Like I’m operating the body by remote control. I’m not inside it, somehow.”

Auden nodded. “The sensation of disembodiment, an alienated dissociation common to the early phase of readjustment. I read about that, too.”

“That doesn’t mean you understand,” I snapped. “You don’t know what it’s like.”

“I know I don’t,” he said. “But I want to, believe me.”

I almost did.

The final note, a fever-pitched, keening whine, seemed to stretch on forever. It didn’t fade, didn’t swell, just sliced through us, a single, unending tone until, without warning, it ended. For a second everything froze—and then the applause crashed through the silence. A thunder of cheers and screams. The band went nuts, jumping up and down, smashing instruments against the stage, waving their arms in an obvious signal to the fans: more applause, more shouting, more, more, more. Only the lead singer stayed frozen, her mouth open like she was still spooling out that final note, this time in a register too high for us to hear. I felt like she was looking at me.

“Nothing?” Auden asked, stripping off his gear.

“Nothing.” I dumped the earplugs and goggles on the pile of crap next to his bed. “But that’s what I figured.”