Machine Man (serial)

Cassandra Cautery emerged from the darkness, picking her way across the rubble. She was followed by three very cautious-looking Better Future security guards, who were not armed, as far as I could tell. Others hung back with the vehicle, shuffling and murmuring, clanking things I couldn’t see.

Cassandra Cautery stopped when she saw Carl. She did not seem particularly surprised, or sad, or anything else. But she looked at him for a long time. Then her eyes turned back to me, full of sympathy and understanding. “Oh, Charlie.”

“Stay away from us,” said Lola.

“There are cops downstairs,” said Cassandra Cautery, as if Lola wasn’t there. “A lot of them. And I’m sorry, Charlie, but we have to get you out of here before they come up.” She nodded to the guards, who headed for Carl’s body. “Thanks to you, we still have a chance to salvage this.”

“I killed Carl.”

She nodded. “And it’s a good thing, Charlie. It might not feel that way, but it really is. Come back to work, and I’ll show you.” She glanced at the guards, who were now trying to figure out how to pick up Carl. “Get in the van and everything will be fine.”

“I don’t want to lose my parts.”

“Of course you don’t,” said Cassandra Cautery. “Who said you did?” I looked at her, because we both knew she had been listening, and her face changed. “Okay. Look. I don’t want to talk trash about your girlfriend, Charlie, because she’s been through a lot. We all have. But what she suggested to you a minute ago, that’s monstrous. That’s the most horrible thing I’ve ever heard. And I’ve, well…” A noise came out of her: not quite a laugh, but not anything else, either. “My honest opinion, Lola Banks has a few psychological issues of her own.”

“You’re a twisted person,” said Lola. “You’re really evil.”

“You just calm down,” said Cassandra Cautery. “You’re enough trouble without working yourself up. Charlie, I don’t want to put pressure on you, but we have to go. Now.”

My eyes met Lola’s. I thought: Can I trust you? A part of me said yes and a part said no and in the end it came down to which part I liked better. I didn’t feel a closer affinity with one part. I didn’t try to figure out which felt more like me. I had come to suspect I had no core self: it was all malleable. When I was a kid I felt scared a lot for no reason and then I got older and it just stopped, so which of them was me? I got happier when I drank coffee, bad-tempered when I was tired, and, with a certain combination of stress, missing limbs, and drugs, I could kill people. And maybe none of that said very much about me. Maybe it was pointless to ponder who I was, because mostly I was neurochemicals. So I didn’t try. Instead, I chose who I wanted to be next. And I liked the part that trusted Lola. I decided I would be that. “Okay,” I said.

176.