Idolon (34 page)

Zhenyu al-Fayoumi paced outside of the courtroom, waiting for the custody hearing to conclude.

He'd tried in vain to hear the proceedings through the closed door. He had even considered opening it a crack and peeking inside. In the end, he paced, read part of a newzine segment he downloaded from a d-splay in one corner—a story about Uri Titov, who had been charged with murder in the death of Apphia Atherton—and watched the other people around him whose lives hung in the balance.

Would he get foster custody? He could think of no reason, and a million reasons, why he shouldn't. He'd been interviewed and cleared by Social Services, DNA-printed, and retina-scanned. He'd even changed apartments, moving to a nicer, more expensive building that didn't accept flies as pets.

In the end, though, it came down to Lisette. Did she want him, or not? She hadn't said she didn't want him. But she hadn't said she did, either.

Maybe she just wanted to put the past behind her, and he was a painful reminder she could do without. Or maybe she was waiting to see if her mother would come back. After a month, the woman still hadn't been heard from. But she could turn up. That was the rub. Social Services wanted to keep open the option of reunification.

Still, for all intents and purposes, Lisette had been abandoned. There was no sense keeping her in a group home any longer. It was time to move her into a more permanent living arrangement. If not with him, then with someone else..

What would he do if the Judge denied custody to him? Go back to his flies? And what then?

He had a grant, from the Neonoetik Institute, to study inheritance mechanisms in programmable matter.

Al-Fayoumi checked the time. Half an hour since Lisette, her lawyer, the social worker, and the social worker's lawyer had gone in to talk to the judge. What could be taking so long? Was longer better, or worse?

Worse, he decided. The longer things dragged on, the more questions the judge would be asking, the more reservations she would have.

Had he become too attached to Lisette? Did he need her more than she needed him? If so, why? What did he want from her?

Al-Fayoumi wasn't sure. Did he want Lisette to change him because he couldn't change himself? Seen in that light, his situation seemed less tenable—patently selfish. It might be better—for her—to be with someone else. After all, he had almost gotten her killed. Because of him she had
seen
a person killed. Those weren't the kinds of childhood memories that formed the basis for a happy life.

Al-Fayoumi was sitting on a wooden bench along the wall, staring at the nothing between his feet, when the courtroom door opened and Lisette came out, flanked by the social worker and the two lawyers.

No one looked pleased. Lisette stared at the ground. Was she unhappy, afraid to meet his gaze, or merely preoccupied?

Al-Fayoumi couldn't tell. He stood up. All he could see of Lisette was the top of her head.

"Congratulations." The social worker finally smiled. "You've been awarded full custody as a foster to adopt."

"But?" Al-Fayoumi waited for the other shoe to drop.

Lisette looked up, the corners of her mouth crimped. "The judge said even if my mom comes back and goes to jail, I have to visit her if she wants."

Al-Fayoumi nodded. So reunification with her mother was still on the table.

"For now," the social worker said. "I would have preferred a clean break, but the judge wants to keep things open in case the mother returns with a reasonable explanation. I don't think that's going to happen, but it could."

"Even if I don't want it to," Lisette said.

Al-Fayoumi let out a breath. "Is that it, then?"

The social worker nodded. "I'll be in touch—to keep you up to speed on what's going on."

And to check on them, no doubt, see how things were going.

"Come on," Lisette said. "Let's go."

"Where?"

"I don't know. Someplace new, where we've never been."

Lisette took his hand, tentatively at first, then more firmly, getting a grip on their new reality.

Each year Marta took Isobol to the Delta for summer vacation. There they spent three months in a tin-roofed shack, shaded by 150-year-old oak trees and tattered eucalyptus with peeling bark that curled like flames at sunset and set the evening sky on fire.

"Will I get to go fishing with Uncle Pelayo?" Isobol asked on the magrail trip to Bethel Island.

"Maybe," Marta said, carefully noncommittal. She gripped her daughter by one hand and guided her down the rickety gangplank that led from the pontoon walkway to the tall grass and soft mud of the island.

"Please?" Isobol pursed her lips and looked at her with black eyes.

"Let's see what Uncle Pelayo and Aunt Atossa say. If they think you're ready this year."

Isobol pouted. "That's what you always say." She toyed with the green plastic fish attached to a chain around her neck.

Every year, for the past five years, the fish grew slightly larger, as if paralleling the girl's growth spurts.

They passed the raised walkway to the TV enclave along one shore. Still hanging on, she noted, after all this time. The wooden slats were in poor repair, rotted and broken. A few cells survived here and there, but for the most part the church had disbanded in the wake of the miscarriages. Some people just couldn't let go.

What would Jeremy have thought? Would he be pleased with the outcome? She couldn't help wondering. Had he accomplished what he wanted with his life? His death?

What about Concetta?

"Are we going to go to see Nadice?" Isobol said.

Marta squinted against the early-afternoon glare. "Yes." She cupped a hand over her darkened spex.

Isobol folded her arms across her chest. The pout deepened. "Do we have to?"

Marta reached for the thrust-out lower lip. She nearly pinched it between a thumb and forefinger before the pout succumbed to a giggle.

"But it's a boring old poster," Isobol complained. "And the FEMbot doesn't even move."

"It might be different this year," Marta said. "You never know." Overhead, high, thin cirrus clouds shredded the sky.

"How come we always go there?" Isobol's tone crept toward a whine. "How come we never go anyplace new?"

"It's important." Marta turned down the grass-walled path that went to Pelayo's raised shotgun shack.

"Why?"

"It just is. One of these days, you'll understand." Ahead, Marta could see the dirty glint of the solar-paneled roof, the piezoelectric siding, and other found tech he scavenged for resale at flea markets around Dockton.

Despite the slow encroachment of philm—new Monet foliage here, Tiki-bar siding there—Marta liked the Delta. Dockton. The way the air shimmered, and the tall wetland grass undulated to the circadian rhythm of tides and the noonday heat. There was a quiescent movement to the place, an unhurried pulse she found it easy to sink into or that sank into her. She wasn't sure. Not that it mattered. It was one of the reasons she came. But not the only reason. Not the one that brought her back... that kept her bringing Isobol back.

"There you are," Pelayo said. " 'Bout time." He sat on the porch behind the house, under an umbrella, listening to the unhurried slap of waves against pontoons, the chafing of wood, and the whisper of a hot breeze too weary to lift itself above a sigh.

He had relaxed here. Something inside of him had let go, like old elastic losing a little tension, going slack but not entirely limp. Comfortable.

Maybe it was living with Atossa. It couldn't be Nguyet or her father. The reason Marta hadn't been able to settle here. Yet.

Marta kept waiting for the same sense of comfort to embrace her. One of these days, she told herself.

Eventually, she would forgive him. Pelayo had finally come clean to Marta about Concetta. How her sister had come to him late one night, asking to be 'skinned, because she was working for a cast intervention network called DART—Deprogram and Reprogram Together—and needed to go underground.

As proof, there was the databead Jeremy had given her, listing her sister and the contact frequency for the shortwave.

In retrospect part of her had always known. It was the only thing that made any sense. And all it proved was that Concetta had been right, that evening. Her sister had stopped being real when she got philmed. She became someone else—unrecognizable, unknowable—a grizzled philmhead who could look her in the eye, that morning behind the Get Reel, and treat her like a total stranger.

Where was her sister now? Pelayo had stopped wondering. He had given up all hope of ever seeing her again, admitted the truth that Concetta was dead, if not literally, then figuratively, and let her go.

Maybe that was where peace came from, accepting the inevitable, something she wasn't yet ready to do.

Isobol ran ahead of Marta, sprinting up the steps to the porch. Pelayo picked her up, twirled her around.

Marta mounted the stairs. The zesty aroma of jambalaya wafted from the thin-walled house. She glanced through the utility curtain covering the doorway. Atossa stood at the stove, fixing lunch. Nguyet sat at a table, preparing a divination. Rocio sat next to her, dozing in his black exosuit.

Nguyet motioned Isobol to the table. "Time to do a reading," she cackled. "To determine how much fun you're going to have with us."

While Nguyet performed the water divination, Marta walked over to Atossa and gave her a hug.

"She looks good," Atossa said, peering over Marta's shoulder at the table. "Tall. Have you told her anything?"

Marta stepped back. "Not yet."

"Maybe this year."

Marta shrugged. "We'll see. She's still pretty young."

Atossa put a hand on her arm. "It's not just her I'm thinking about."

Pelayo came up next to them. "Here's something I saved for you. Thought you might like to see."

A newzine d-splay opened over her eyefeed. The time stamp on the inset was two hours old.

After a four-year legal battle, Giles Atherton, the CEO of Atherton Resort Hotels, had been convicted of corporate fraud in a case brought against him by Iosepa Biognost Tek. According to Ilse Svatba, a senior vice president of marketing for IBT, "Giles Atherton had contracted with IBT for an original equipment manufacture he intended in advance to sell/distribute illegally via black-market download." The appeals judge in the case ruled that Atherton had violated the terms of the agreement, which had granted IBT exclusive marketing rights to the ware in compensation for up-front research and development costs. Actual and punitive damages had not yet been determined. Atherton was still facing criminal charges stemming from the illegal import of foreign technology.

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" Marta said when the story ended, and the d-splay vanished.

"Is that possible?"

Marta sighed. Maybe it
was
time to finally let go— to open up some of the locked rooms and clean them out once and for all. Maybe without all that baggage from her old life, she could float to the surface of a new one and start over.

"It's time," Nguyet announced. She stood. "Nadice is waiting."

_______

The FEMbot was stored in a shed at the end of an overgrown footpath. The shed had thin sheet-metal walls and a corrugated plastine roof that dripped watery light onto antique beer cans, old fishing poles, mud-choked bicycles, and other paraphernalia Pelayo had dredged from the muck.

"It doesn't seem as far this year," Isobol said. She swatted at a big, iridescent fly, philmed with pterodactyl wings.

"That's what happens, the older you get," Atossa said. "Everything keeps getting closer."

"Especially the past," Nguyet said.

Isobol puckered her brow at this, then wrote it off as one more silly pronouncement from her grandmother.

As they came around the last turn in the path, the fish slipped from the chain and, spreading its dorsal fin into origami wings, darted ahead with a flick of a vellum-pale tail.

"Hey!" Isobol clutched at the empty chain.

"See." Nguyet chortled, pleased one of her predictions had come true. "I told you something extra special was going to happen this visit."

Pelayo looked at Marta. "Has it done that before?"

Marta shook her head. Isobol turned to look up at them. Her eyes brimmed with surprise and fear.

"It's all right," Marta said. Her voice thin and tight in her throat. "They do that when you get to be a certain age."

Isobol peered down the path, through the narrow space in the grass where the fish had disappeared. "What if it doesn't come back?"

"It will," Atossa said. "Sometimes they go away for a while, but they always come back."

The fish was waiting for them in the shed, next to the FEMbot and the old plywood sign it sat against. Pelayo claimed to have scavenged the sign from the Boardwalk, on one of his trips to the coast. Marta suspected he'd found it in the Trenches and hauled it back to the Delta. The faded peeling paint showed a smiling young woman in a blue dress. She had short black curls, black Mary Janes, and a generous red smile.

Isobol squealed. Pointed at the faded ad mask the FEMbot wore. "Her eyes are changing!"

It was true. They were going from blue to brown, turning a darker shade of honey. So was the FEMbot's dull, cloudy 'skin, dead for so many years.

Fabric materialized on the limbs and torso of the doll, a few threads at first. But in no time, it looked as if a dress had been fitted over the dry, splintered wood. Tufts of hair stirred to life under the tepid breeze that sifted through cracks in the foam-insulated sheet metal.

Isobol reached for Marta's hand. "I'm afraid, Mom."

Me, too, Marta thought. "Don't be." She squeezed the little hand clasping hers. "There's nothing to be afraid of. I promise."

"See," Nguyet said. "She's smiling at you. Nothing but good thoughts. Nothing but love for you."

And it did look as if the mask were smiling, nano-mated lips creaking to life.

Isobol's grip tightened in Marta's as an option d-splay, with a selection for Beach Boardwalk, opened over each of their eyefeeds. "Who is she?"

Nadice turned to the small voice. Marta forced her fingers to relax... her breath to slow. Blood hammered in her ears.

Pelayo squatted next to Isobol. "You didn't know? The fish never told you?"

Isobol shook her head. "Is that why you never took me fishing before? Because I already had one?"

"The most important thing about fishing," Pelayo said, "is patience."

Nadice shifted her attention from Isobol to Marta. "She's beautiful," the doll said over her earfeed. "Your baby."

Marta cleared her throat.
Our baby,
she thought. Easier to think the words than to speak them out loud.

Dry fingers touched the mask. "Does she know about me?"

Marta nodded. "I told her we used to be... friends. That you had to go away for a while, where you could live, and that someday you would come back and visit us."

Isobol pointed at the plywood sign, with its merry-go-round and roller coaster. "Is that where you live?" she asked.

Nadice turned toward Isobol. "Would you like me to take you there? Just for a while?"

Isobol bit her lower lip. She glanced up at Marta, seeking approval. "Can we?"

"If you want." Marta smiled as reassuringly as she could through her uncertainty. "It's up to you."

"It will only be for a while," Nadice said. "Then we'll come back and have some dinner. How does that sound?"

"Okay."

Nadice reached out a hand. Isobol hesitated, then stepped forward. Marta willed her fingers open.

What was it Pelayo had said? There are two kinds of cages. One others try to put you in, and the one you put yourself in.

Hold on too tight, she told herself, and all you'll create is a cage that she wants to escape.

The damselfish swam toward Isobol, wiggled into one hand. "I'll go with you," it said. "Show you the way home."

Seated beside the carnival scene, Isobol looked up to Marta. "Aren't you going to come with us?" she said.

"Not this time," Marta said. "We'll wait for you."

"How come?"

"We have to get dinner ready," Pelayo said.

"Have fun." Marta swallowed a sniff. "I love you." She touched a finger to her lips.

"I love you, too," Nadice and Isobol said.

A moment later two images appeared on the plywood, a young woman and a girl, accompanied by a flying fish, growing smaller as they walked away, one with the scene ghosted on the sign. Next to them, the girl's face went slack and her eyes dimmed as her thoughts drained out of her, into the mural and the simage that lay beyond.

Pelayo put an arm around Marta. "She'll be back," he said.

Marta resisted the hug, unable to relax into it. "I hope so."

"You came back," he said simply, matter-of-factly. And it hit her, the difference between her and Concetta.

The kiss cooled on her fingertip. Marta felt a part of herself evaporate with it into the tear-salty air. Not a release from the world, but a return to it.