Chapter 6
James
The question is so startling, it cuts short all thoughts of running out the door. James holds out his arms, showing her his living, breathing flesh. “I guess I don’t understand the question.”
A pitying expression weighs down Kate’s bright features.
“James, the year is twenty-three ninety. New York City is underwater. You’re not the James Alexander Fletcher you used to be.
” She pauses, jumping up mid-thought, rushing to the room he awoke in.
When she comes back, she has an empty box in her hands.
James recognizes the logo from the website she visited earlier. And there’s that word again: manupartner.
“A week ago, you were nothing more than a DNA sample attached to a GROW Pad,” she says.
The information whirls through his mind.
She’s implying that he was in a petri dish?
And in one week he became him—a fully formed human?
Like a clone? Not only is what she is saying impossible, it’s implausible.
He can imagine a future world with advanced medical technology, but what she’s describing can’t be real.
He must look incredulous because she braces herself, like she’s preparing for something.
“Manupartners—flesh robots, as I call them—are biological products genetically programmed to grow into an adult human body. While they come from human genetic material, as in people who actually existed once upon a time, they aren’t those people.
They have no memories, no hopes, no dreams. They are programmed to be shells, ready for their owner and the production lab to imprint whoever they want them to be onto them. ”
“No fucking way.” He scratches his head as if it will keep his mind from imploding.
“It gets worse. All the consumer has to do is check a series of boxes representing traits, and voilà! Their GROW Your Own Boyfriend or Girlfriend Kit will arrive to their delivery box ready to morph from a small sample of organic material into a fully formed human, capable of eating, drinking, laughing, and, of course . . .” She hesitates, glancing around like she might find the correct word sticking to a wall or drifting past the window.
Understanding, and unwilling to use a more comfortable euphemism, he fills in the word for her. “Fucking.”
“Right,” she agrees, biting her bottom lip.
At least he was right about one thing. But if what she’s telling him is true—if he is one of these clone things—then how does he have his memories?
Or some of them at least. If she’s suggesting he’s a manupartner, could that explain the incomplete picture he has of himself?
Suddenly, his body feels as if someone’s dipped him in an ice bath.
He shivers as an image of himself at sixteen, submerged in a metal tub surrounded by floating chunks of ice, pops into his head. He latches on to the memory, trying to unfurl as much of it as his mind will allow.
A man looms over him. The name Jimmy feels right.
James had gone behind his parents’ back and hired a boxing coach.
They’d forbidden it when he expressed his interest, saying boys like him didn’t take up sports like that.
Why couldn’t he choose something dignified like polo or golf?
But Jimmy’s voice sounds in his head, overriding his parents.
If you’re determined to get that silver spoon out of your mouth, it’s going to require a few scars, son.
He’d been taking secret boxing lessons for years at that point.
“You’re having a memory,” Kate astutely observes.
“I used to box,” he says, diving deeper into the memory. The first day he’d approached Jimmy at the old club on the North Side, the coach rejected him outright. No trust fund kids in my club.
“My father’s expectations made me want to punch things, so I went to a club to take lessons.
My parents forbade it, and even my coach, Jimmy, turned me away at first. I figured out he was testing me, trying to see what I was made of.
It worked, and I showed up every day for two weeks, giving him new reasons to accept me.
” He chuckles, running his hand through his hair.
“I have no idea why I’m telling you this. ”
“Did Jimmy finally accept you?” She leans forward like she’s truly interested.
“Yes.” He hopes his one-word answer conveys that he has no desire to share anything with this woman.
Still, the memory continues to unfurl. Every day he would crawl into the town car, defeated.
Eventually, his driver knew where James would ask to go after school before he’d even asked.
Then finally, one day, Jimmy gave in. James remembers exactly what his argument to Jimmy had been that day as clear as if he said it yesterday: I want to feel like I can become somebody on my own.
It’s ironic, considering that he’s sitting in a strange woman’s apartment, stripped of his autonomy. Momentarily powerless, but not for long. If boxing gave him one thing, it was the confidence to meet challenges head-on. An abduction is no different.
Beside him, the couch shifts. When did she move so close?
“I’m sorry. I know this must be difficult.” She places a hand upon his, but he jerks back, jumping to his feet.
James bites down on his knuckle. “I don’t understand. You’re lying.” He throws the accusation at her as he stares at the GROW box as if he could contract something from it, like ringworm or whooping cough.
Kate reaches behind the couch to the window ledge, picking up a remote.
A moment later, the windows flicker. Flicker!
Then, from the top down, the image dissolves.
Outside, not forty feet away, another building stands.
A bland, filthy-looking structure. “God,” he shouts, jumping back, nearly colliding with the computer desk as a car-like thing zips by at breakneck speed.
“That’s a SAT. It stands for Sealed Air Transport. We have more impressive technology now, but the SATs are the most pollution-efficient mode of transportation. Plus, they require very little maintenance once in operation because of the alloys available now.”
Three more zip by in quick succession. He approaches the window and braves a glance down, unable to see the street below. “How high are we?”
“Floor one hundred and sixty-three. This tower goes to two hundred. Most of the ones in C Quadrant do.”
“I see.” Outside the window, across the open expanse, the SATs slow to move up and down along a track. Kate’s warmth slides up beside him.
“That’s the MagTrack interchange. During your time you would have had the Maglev in China, I think. Did you ever ride it?”
James clears his throat. “No.”
A dazed sensation settles over him. He mindlessly wanders to the computer. Seats himself. Points to the screens and the little keyboard-shaped block, which seems to be stuck mid-flip between two sets of alphabet characters.
“Three-way-keyboard, or 3key,” Kate explains.
“It has three sets of characters to choose from: the standard Hanzi characters, the Latin alphabet, and one of digital symbols like emojis, but more sophisticated.” She reaches forward, forcing the mechanism to settle on the Latin alphabet.
“What did you want to look up?” She asks the question gingerly, like he’s a fucking child.
But she’s right to be cautious. Saying the words makes James’s stomach swirl. There is no helping it. “If what you’re saying is true, there must be a death record.”
Kate crosses her arms, face pinching in concentration.
“I don’t remember how far back the digital records go.
But, I think so. Yes. Sometime in the early 2000s, they digitized everything.
It might take some digging, but we should be able to find something.
If not a medical record, the news subscription papers you had? ”
“The obituaries,” he suggests.
Her face brightens. “Yes. Those. I keep an account because I’m fond of reading about the past through the editorial section.
” Her chest brushes against his shoulder as she leans over him to activate the screens.
She nods to the network portal on the center screen, where an article from January 15, 2028 is open:
Dating coaches recommend women fulfill more traditional gender roles to attract a partner.
“Regressive, right?” A moment later, she opens an app called Old News, which appears to be the database she referred to, and the cursor is flashing in the search bar. “When did you say you were born?”
“Two thousand.”
Without confirming, she types “James Alexander Fletcher dies death obituary, New York City 2000 2035” into the search.
The screens flash as results populate.
Headlines. Dozens of them.
Infamous vulture capitalist James Fletcher’s plane falls short in landing attempt.
Plane crash kills six, among them up-and-coming equity broker James Fletcher.
Entrepreneur James Fletcher lands in hospital after biggest deal of his career.
Fletcher, James Alexander dies at thirty-five.
Fletcher’s friends and family mourn.
James Fletcher pulled from plane’s fiery remains. Dead hours later.
Entrepreneur James Fletcher donates remains to science.
Fletcher’s big bet pays off.
Fletcher poised to join the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires list.
Fletcher’s untimely death instigates federal investigation.
With each headline, James becomes greener and greener. He places his clammy palms flat on the cool desk as if it might steady him. It doesn’t. “Make it stop,” he pleads. By the time Kate shuts down the screens, he is certain his flesh resembles a stagnant, algae-ridden pond.
He died. Died.
Bile swirls in his stomach, bubbling up to sting the base of his throat. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” What type of sick joke is this? He pushes past Kate, racing for the kitchen. The few sips of Vine he drank come up, coating the sink.
She rushes up behind him. “Oh dear. I suppose I should have fed you before the Vine.”