ONE

Heartbeats and Spinners



A rusted scaffold from a long-abandoned restoration project twists about the charred ruins of the Hollywood sign. It rattles as a flying train arcs over the hills and plunges into the vast iridescence of a damp L.A. night.

Eliot Lazar lies beside Iris Matsuo on a slant of undergrowth beneath the blackened H. His hair is mussed, his body thin, his chapped lips default to a grateful smile. With his left hand, he rubs the pain in his right shoulder where a prosthetic has replaced the arm that was mangled in an explosion when he was young. It's a well-made arm, smart metal amalgam-you'd never know it's mechanical if not for the scar on his back that marks the border between the part of Eliot that's metal and the rest that's made of flesh.

"The island formed from a volcano that erupted in the Pacific," he tells her. "People came for the black-sand beaches and the surf. Heartbeats and spinners cultivated the land. They built windmills and dams and solar roofs for juice. They planted orchards and palm trees. They coded hemp to grow synth-skin. They imported gen-modded livestock to trim the blue-green fields."

"What kind of livestock?"

"Some cross between a goat and a sheep. My mom says it's got a goat's face, but it's furry like a sheep."

"You mean woolly."

"Right. Woolly. Whatever."

"Tell me more." She hangs on his every word describing Avernus, an island he has never seen-she knows he has never seen it-though she likes to hear him describe it.

"And the Avernians share everything. All property is communal. They trade with the ships passing along the cargo routes. And if the ships won't trade, the Avernians attack."

"Like pirates!"

"Just like 'em," he tells her. "And at night, they camp along the cliffs and bang drums around a fire. They sacrifice their woolly goats. They eat a big feast and sing and dance and drink rum 'til the morning comes."

A locket hangs loosely from her neck. The oval stone is brown with a red fleck on the edge, an echo of the red flaw in her left eye. Otherwise, you'd never know Iris isn't a heartbeat. You never can tell with these late-model androids, not unless you're looking at their outlet navels or feeling their wrists for a spinning engine pulse. But the red flaw gives her away. Some bot fucked up on a Hasegawa assembly line and the C-900 got stuck with it. The flaw became her namesake, Iris, she likes to joke, like a Dalmatian named Spot.

"They have a leader called the Admiral," he tells her, "who doesn't allow any tourists. No runways for a plane to land. You can't dock at the port unless you're invited or taking cover from a storm."

"But you're invited," Iris reminds him. "Your mother invited you."

"She said I can work on the boats, and you can teach an art class."

"She said that?"

"She said they need an art teacher at the school. Someone to teach the kids how to draw and paint and sculpt."

"You told your mother about me?"

"Not everything. Not on a brane. Not when someone could be listening."

Lying on her side, she stares out past her feet across the valley where the police floaters and drones hover over Hollywood. "I always wanted to teach children," she says, "ever since I first came out of the factory. I always wanted to see the world through a child's eyes."

"And we'd be safe in Avernus," he tells her. "No one will threaten us there. We'll be treated no different from any other couple, and we'll be together so much you'll be sick of me."

"I'm sick of you now."

She smiles, and he kisses her thinking, I had heard about love, I had read what the authors and poets wrote about it, but I never expected it to happen to me. The relentless force of it pulling me by my back teeth toward another being. In thirty years, I neither expected nor sought love, but it came to me nonetheless, despite my having done nothing to earn or deserve it. It came like some grand inheritance from a relative I never knew, and now I couldn't imagine life without it. I wouldn't want to. I have seen the world with love, and I have seen the world without it, and I have made my choice in which world I want to live.

"Now all we need is a boat," she says.

A stick breaks in the bushes. Their bodies tense until they see the coyote's eyes. The animal turns back into the dark woods to look elsewhere for its prey.

But what if it hadn't been a coyote? Eliot wonders. What if it had been a cop or a Militiaman or an Android Disciple discovering us in the woods? He has seen the hanging, burnt, dismembered bodies of interspecies couples, tortured and put on display. He has heard the radio ads offering rewards for information. He knows it's only a matter of time before their relationship is discovered.

"Someone's been following me," she tells him.

"A trapper?"

"I don't know."

Rain taps on the roof of Eliot's car parked a few yards away.

"What's he look like?"

"Who?"

"Whoever's following you."

"I haven't seen him," she says. "I just got a sense."

"You're paranoid."

"Androids don't get paranoid; we do the math. You heartbeats feel an emotion then find a way to justify it. Bots work the other way around."

"And you're being careful?" he asks.

"Always."

"Have you told anyone about us?"

"Have you?"

"No."

"Maybe you should stay at my place for a few days, until things settle down."

"It's too risky," she says, rolling to her side as she turns away. "What if your neighbors see me? What if they report us both?"

"I'm not saying to move in. I'm just thinking a few days."

The soft ends of her hair graze his face. Oriental Agrisilk, black #42. Used to come standard on a Hasegawa C-900. She backs in close to him and pulls his arm around her body.

"One big deal," he assures her, "and I'll be able to buy that cabin cruiser for sale in the marina."

"What about a loan?"

"I got two busts on my record."

"Can you ask your brother for his?"

"Shelley loves that boat. He'd never give it up."

Their fingers intertwine. His nails are pink and clean while hers are short and black from years of grinding metal.

"Monroe Extraction is coming in at the end of the week," he tells her as she turns her body into his. "I make that deal with Dale Hampton, and we can get out of here."

She wipes a raindrop from her cheek lest he think it's a tear. He slides his hand inside the back of her jeans. She moans for a moment, her eyes close until they open in a sideways squint. She props herself up on one elbow and pushes him away.

"How do I know you're serious?" she asks. "How do I know you're not just leading me on?"

"I'm not just leading you on."

"How do I know you're not stoned, and this isn't the drip talking?"

"I don't need the drip when I'm with you."

"You promise you'll quit?" she asks.

"I promise."

"And you'll take me to Avernus?"

"I'll marry you on Avernus."

She closes her eyes and buries her face in the crook of his neck. His shoulder smarts as her engine spins madly against his chest.



Copyright © 2015 by Judd Trichter