Michael Cunningham - Specimen Days

Twenty yards from the corner, he jumped up in front of her, startled her. She emitted a shrill squeak. Not a pretty sound. Her skin darkened. Her nostrils contracted to pinpoints.

“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s me. The guy from the park. Remember?”

She took a moment to recover. He wondered how difficult it had been for her to refrain from dropping the girl. She said, “Yes.”

The little boy gaped at Simon, paralyzed by fury.

Simon said, “I have to ask you. What did you say to the drone back there in the park?”

She hesitated. She must have been wondering if Simon was working for the authorities, if she had made a fatal mistake. Nadians lived in an endless agony of uncertainty about whom to obey. Most found it easiest to obey everyone. This sometimes got them imprisoned or executed.

“It’s all right,” he said. “I don’t mean you any harm. Really and truly. I’m afraid you may have gotten yourself in trouble back there. Please. Tell me what you said to the drone.”

She answered, “I tell it you went differently.”

“Why did you do that?”

Mistake. When a Nadian felt accused, it could go catatonic. One theory: they were playing dead in hope that the aggressor would lose interest. Another theory, more widely held: they decided that they were already dead and might as well make it easier for everybody by just hurrying things along.

She straightened her spine. (She had no shoulders.) She looked directly at him with her bright orange eyes.

She said, “I try to help you.”

“Why did you want to help me?”

“You are kind man.”

“I’m not a man. I’m programmed to be something that resembles kind. Do you know how much trouble you’re probably in?”

She answered, “Yes.”

"Do you?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not so sure you do.”

“I am ready to go away,” she said. “I have no joy.”

Then the little boy reached his limit. He screeched. He knew something was up; it probably didn’t matter what. He was being neglected. His nanny was talking to a strange man. Clutching his drone, the boy ran screaming to the entrance of his building.

Simon said to Catareen, “Come with me.”

“Come where?”

“Just come. You’re fucked here. We don’t have any time.”

He plucked the little girl out of her arms. Catareen was too surprised to resist. The girl awoke and howled. Simon ran with her to the building’s entrance, got there a second before the boy did.

He handed the girl off to the doorman. “Here,” he said. “Take care of them.”

The doorman took the wailing girl, started to speak. Simon was gone already. He grabbed Catareen’s elbow.

“We have to move very quickly,” he said.

They took off down Seventy-fifth Street, headed west. She was a good runner. Flight was prominent on the list of Nadian talents.

They got to the subway stop at West Seventy-second and ran down the stairs. Simon whizzed them in with his card. A handful of players huddled in clumps on the platform. The subways were not popular with tourists. Tourists had their hoverpods for getting from place to place. Only a few sticklers and historical nuts wanted subway rides, and then only for short distances. The overwhelming majority of riders were players going to and from the residential complexes.

Simon and Catareen stood panting on the platform. He said, “We’re on the uptown side.”

She said nothing. He implored her silently not to go catatonic.

“We should go up into the Nineties, I think,” he said. “They keep the cars up there. We’ll need a car.”

Still nothing from the Nadian. Her lizard eyes stared straight ahead at the empty tracks.

“We should be able to get across the George Washington Bridge. Once we’re on the Jersey side, we’re out of Infmidot’s jurisdiction.”

He would be illegal in New Jersey, too, but the Council’s enforcement system didn’t interface well with Infmidot’s. And Catareen might not have committed a New Jersey crime at all. It was impossible to know the variations from state to state.

The train arrived. Its clatter was always shocking. The doors rumbled open, and Simon nudged Catareen forward. She moved. He was grateful for that.

The car was mostly empty. There were four other people, all players. Two dreadlocked bicycle messengers; an Orthodox, also dreadlocked; a homeless man in a Mets cap, two sweaters, and flip-flops all headed home for the night.

They clustered at the far end of the car. They looked tense. Simon wondered for a moment if they knew, if some kind of instantaneous bulletin about him and Catareen had gone out from Infmidot and reached the citizenry at large. Which was unlikely. Then he remembered. He was with a Nadian.

“Sit,” he told Catareen. She sat. He sat beside her.

He said, “We can get off at Ninety-sixth Street. Are you okay?”

Her nostrils dilated. The orange orbs of her eyes blinked twice.

“I’m going to assume you’re okay,” he said. “I’m going to assume you’ll tell me if you’re not okay. I’m going to assume that when it’s time to move, you’ll be able to move.”

From the far end of the car he felt the homeward-bound players not looking at him and Catareen. When the train started up again, the two messengers and the Orthodox got up and changed cars.

Simon saw the homeless player struggle with a decision. Should he switch cars, too? He half rose, then settled back down again. Nadians were harmless, after all. It was just that they were oily. It was just that they smelled.

Simon saw a drone flash by the subway window after the train had passed the Seventy-ninth Street station. It was a blur of golden wings.

They had sent a drone into the tunnels. It would be waiting at the next stop.

He said to Catareen, “The malformed limbs are tied to the anatomist’s table, what is removed drops horribly in a pail.”

She blinked. She breathed.

He tried again. He said, “A drone just went by.”

“I have see.”

“It’ll be waiting at Ninety-sixth Street,” he said. “It’ll probably follow the train to the end of the line. We are now probably fucked.”

She said, “Wait here.”

She stood. She walked quickly to the opposite end of the car, where the homeless player sat not looking at her.

She stood before him. He kept his eyes on the floor, hoping she wouldn’t hit him up for a yen, as Nadians sometimes did. She bent forward slightly to get into his line of vision. She opened her mouth and showed two rows of small serrated teeth. She hissed. Simon had never heard a sound like that. It was sharp and urgent catlike but more guttural.

She raised both her hands and held them before the player’s face. She extended her talons. Her skin glowed molten green. She seemed to get larger and brighter.

The player shrieked. She said to him, “Be quiet. Give your clothes.”

The player looked desperately in Simon’s direction. Simon shrugged. This bit of unappreciated, nonrecreational violence was jerking his circuits a little, even though he wasn’t the assailant. His gut felt numb, and a fizziness started up behind his eyes.

Catareen took the player’s face in one clawed emerald hand and turned it to look at her.

She hissed, “Take off clothes and give to me. Now.”

The player obeyed. He removed his cap and both sweaters. He kicked off his flip-flops.

She said, “Pants.”

He rose and struggled out of his greasy work pants. He gave them to her. He stood plumply terrified in his underwear.

Catareen threw the clothes to Simon. She said, “Put on. Quickly.”

He did as he was told. As he was pulling one of the sweaters on, she crouched, catlike, and put a lethal-looking finger claw to the quivering player’s throat.