Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, Cory Doctorow [big ebook reader .txt] 📗

want to discuss it."

"It's the right thing to do," she said. "It's not fair to you to stay."

"You want to have your wings cut," Alan said. "That's why you want to go
back to him."

She shied back as though he'd slapped her. "No --"

"You do. But what Billy didn't tell you is that Krishna's out there with
other women, I saw him today. With a girl. Young. Pretty. Normal. If he
takes you back, it will be as a toy, not as a lover. He can't love."

"Christ," she said. "Why are you saying this?"

"Because I don't want to watch you self-destruct, Mimi. Stay here. We'll
sort out Krishna together. And my brother. Billy's here now, that means
they can't sneak up on us."

"And these?" she said, flapping her wings, one great heave that sent
currents of air across the room, that blew the loose frontispiece from
*Alice in Wonderland* toward the fireplace grate. "You'll sort these
out, too?"

"What do you want from me, Mimi?" He was angry now. She hadn't spoken a
word to him in weeks, and now --

"Cut them off, Alan. Make me into someone who can go out again, who can
be seen. Do it. I have the knife."

Adam squeezed his eyes shut. "No," he said.

"Good-bye," she said, and stood, headed for the stairs. Upstairs, the
toilet flushed and they heard the sink running.

"Wait!" he said, running after her. She had her hand on the doorknob.

"No," she said. She was crying now. "I won't stay. I won't be trapped
again. Better to be with him than trapped --"

"I'll do it," he said. "If you still want me to do it in two days, I'll
do it."

She looked gravely at him. "Don't you lie to me about this," she
said. "Don't you dare be lying."

He took her hands. "I swear," he said.

From the top of the stairs then, "Whups," said Billy. "I think I'll just
tuck myself into bed."

Mimi smiled and hugged Alan fiercely.

Trey's ardor came out with his drunkenness. First a clammy arm
around her shoulder, then a casual grope at her boob, then a
sloppy kiss on the corner of her mouth. That was as far as she
was going to let it go. She waited for him to move in for
another kiss, then slipped out from under his arm so that he
fell into the roots of the big tree they'd been leaning
against. She brained him with the vodka bottle before he'd had a
chance to recover, then, as he rocked and moaned, she calmly
took the hunting knife she'd bought at the Yonge Street
survivalist store out of her bag. She prized one of his hands
off his clutched head and turned it over, then swiftly drew the
blade across his palm, laying it open to the muscle.

She hadn't been sure that she'd be capable of doing that, but it
was easier than she'd thought. She had nothing to worry
about. She was capable of that and more.

#

They climbed into bed together at the same time for the first time since
they'd come home, like a domesticated couple, and Mimi dug under her
pillow and set something down with a tin *tink* on the bedstand, a sound
too tinny to be the hunting knife. Alan squinted. It was the robot, the
one he'd given her, the pretty thing with the Dutch Master craquelure up
its tuna-can skirts.

"He's beautiful," she said. "Like you." She wrapped her wings around him
tightly, soft fur softer than any down comforter, and pressed her
dimpled knees into the hollows of his legs, snuggling in.

He cried like a baby once the pain in his hand set in. She
pointed the knifepoint at his face, close enough to stab him if
need be. "I won't kill you if you don't scream," she said. "But
I will be taking one joint of one toe and one joint of one
finger tonight. Just so you know."

He tried not to fall asleep, tried to stay awake and savor that feeling
of her pressed against him, of her breath on the nape of his neck, of
the enfolded engulfment of her wings, but he couldn't keep his eyes
open. Soon enough, he was asleep.

What roused him, he couldn't say, but he found himself groggily awake in
the close heat of those wings, held tight. He listened attentively,
heard something else, a tinny sound. The robot.

His bladder was full. He gently extricated himself from Mimi, from her
wings, and stood. There was the robot, silhouetted on the end table. He
smiled and padded off to the toilet. He came back to find Mimi splayed
across the whole bed, occupying its length and breadth, a faintly
naughty smile on her face. He began to ease himself into bed again, when
he heard the sound, tinny, a little rattle. He looked at the robot.

It was moving. Its arms were moving. That was impossible. Its arms were
painted on. He sat up quickly, rousing Mimi, who let out a small sound,
and something small and bent emerged from behind the robot and made a
dash for the edge of the end table. The way the thing ran, it reminded
him of an animal that had been crippled by a trap. He shrank back from
it instinctively, even as he reached out for the table light and
switched it on.

Mimi scrunched her eyelids and flung an arm over her face, but he hardly
noticed, even when she gave an outraged groan. He was looking at the
little, crippled thing, struggling to get down off the end table on
Mimi's side of the bed.

It was the Allen. Though he hadn't seen it in nearly 20 years, he
recognized it. Tiny, malformed, and bandy-legged, it was still the
spitting image of him. Had Davey been holding on to it all these years?
Tending it in a cage? Torturing it with pins?

Mimi groaned again. "Switch off the light, baby," she said, a moment's
domesticity.

"In a sec," he said, and edged closer to the Allen, which was huddled in
on itself, staring and crazy.

"Shhh," Adam breathed. "It's okay." He very slowly moved one hand toward
the end table, leaning over Mimi, kneeing her wing out of the way.

The Allen shied back farther.

"What're you doing?" Mimi said, squinting up at him.

"Be very still," he said to her. "I don't want to frighten it. Don't
scream or make any sudden movements. I'm counting on you."

Her eyes grew round and she slowly looked over toward the end table. She
sucked in sudden air, but didn't scream.

"What is --"

"It's me," he said. "It grew out of a piece of me. My thumb. After Davey
bit it off."

"Jesus," she said.

The Allen was quaking now, and Alan cooed to it.

"It's hurt," Mimi said.

"A long time ago," Andreas said.

"No, now. It's bleeding."

She was right. A small bead of blood had formed beneath it. He extended
his hand farther. Its bandy scurry was pathetic.

Holding his breath, Alan lifted the Allen gently, cradling it in his
palms. It squirmed and thrashed weakly. "Shh," he said again. His hands
were instantly made slippery and sticky with its blood. "Shh." Something
sharp pricked at his hand.

Now that he had it up close, he could see where the blood was coming
from: A broken-off sewing needle, shoved rudely through its distended
abdomen.

"Cover up," Bradley said, "I'm coming up." They heard his lopsided tread
on the steps.

Mimi pulled the blanket up around her chin. "Okay," she said.

Bert opened the door quickly. He wore nothing but the oversized jeans
that Alan had given him, his scrawny chest and mutilated feet bare.

"It's going to die," Brad said, hunkering down beside the bed. "Davey
pinned it and then sent Link over with it. It can't last through the
night."

Adam felt like he was choking. "We can help it," he said. "It can
heal. It healed before."

"It won't this time. See how much pain it's in? It's out of its mind."

"So what do you want me to do?"

"We need to put it out of its misery," Brad said. "It's the right
thing."

In his hands, the thing squirmed and made a small, hurt sound. "Shhh,"
Alan said. The sound it made was like sobbing, but small, so small. And
weak.

Mimi said, "I think I'm going to be sick."

"Yeah," Brian said. "Yeah, I can see that."

She lifted herself out of bed, unmindful of her nudity, and pushed her
way past him to the door, to the bathroom.

"Stop being such a baby," she told Trey as he clutched at his
foot. "It's almost stopped bleeding already."

He looked up at her with murder in his eyes. "Shall I take
another one?" she said. He looked away.

"If I get word that you've come within a mile of my brother, I
will come back and take your eyes. The toe and the finger joint
were just a down payment on that."

He made a sullen sound, so she took his vain and girlish blond
hair in her fist and tugged his head back and kissed his throat
with the knife.

"Nod if you understand. Slowly."

#

"The knife is under Mimi's pillow."

"I can't do it," Alan said.

"I know," Brian said. "I will."

And he did. Took the knife. Took the Allen. It cried. Mimi threw up in
another room, the sound more felt than heard. The toilet flushed and
Brian's hands were sure and swift, but not sure enough. The Allen made a
sound like a dog whistle. Bruce's hand moved again, and then it was
over. He dug a sock out of the hamper and rolled up the Allen's remains
in it. "I'll bury it," he said. "In the back."

Numbly, Alan stood and began dressing. "No," he said. "I will."

Mimi joined them, wrapped in a blanket. Alan dug and Brent held the sock
and Mimi watched solemnly.

A trapezoid of light knifed across the back garden. They looked up and
saw Krishna staring down at them from a third-floor window. He was
smiling very slightly. A moment later, Link appeared in the window,
reeling like he was drunk, giggling.

They all looked at one another for a frozen moment, then Alan turned
back to his shoveling. He dug down three feet, and Brent laid the little
Allen down in the earth gently as putting it to bed, and Alan filled the
hole back up. Mimi looked back up at the window, eyes locked on
Krishna's.

"I'm going inside," Adam announced. "Are you coming?"

"Yeah," Mimi said, but she didn't. She stayed out there for ten minutes,
then twenty, and when Alan looked out his window at her, he saw she was
still staring up at Krishna, mesmerized.

He loudly opened his window and leaned out. Mimi's eyes flicked to him,
and then she slowly made her way back into the house.

She took his pants and his shoes and left him in the park,
crying and drunk. All things considered, it had gone well. When
Trey told her that he had no idea where her brother was, she
believed him. It was okay, she'd find her brother. He had lots
of friends.

Alan thought that that was the end of