Chapter I. Ariadne’s Thread #4
You need to follow the thread, somebody whispered in her ear, caressing the thick dark hair on her forehead.
Ariadne woke up, or thought she did; her mind was awake, but her body was tied to the mattress by invisible chains.
You need to follow the thread, Ariadne, the voice continued, and heavy claws choked the air out of her.
Ariadne moved a finger. At first, she feared breaking it, but her consciousness reminded her that all her limbs could be fixed, starting from her lower thighs to the tips of her toes, and from above her elbows to her hands.
She continued the movements until she was able to open and close her fist, and she kicked the duvet away, exhausted.
Ribbons of light invaded the bedroom through the venetian blinds, and the tablet on the nightstand announced the time: eleven in the morning.
How long since she stopped having that dream?
Ariadne sat on the bed, massaging her thighs and observing the intersection of flesh and carbon fiber.
Erik’s invention bordered on perfection: robotic arms and legs that allowed full mobility, removable synthetic skin, a neural implant, and delicate waterproof sensors that allowed her to experience heat, pressure, and even pain.
All of that made just for her. First, for her teenage body, then for the adult woman she became.
I just want your life to be as comfortable as possible, Erik had said, petting her hair.
He also taught her how to maintain and update them, so she wouldn’t depend only on him.
If I can help you a tiny little bit, I’ll be the happiest man on earth.
Ariadne touched her own skin like Erik used to, her head raspy against her palm. Even her bangs, black and sweaty, had been part of the dream … By her side, the tablet blinked with a notification under Quaint’s name, reminding her of his ominous words:
I’ve been trying to contact Genebra, but a friend in common told me he has not seen her in a year.
Can I bring you lunch?
Her answer was a dull “yes” before she entered the shower.
Scalding water eased the pain but didn’t erase the thought that haunted her like the voice of her dreams: You’re allowing a gul inside your house.
Ariadne slipped on her pants and walked to the office with a towel around her shoulders.
So what if she did? What was the worst thing that could happen?
Look at you, Erik again, his voice pitiful and sweet.
Look at you. Now it was her, checking the robotic articulations exposed without the skin.
It has nothing to do with guls, Ariadne answered herself, furious for even humoring the doubt.
She was nothing like the amputated advisers on TV.
Her limbs, her life, had nothing to do with them. Stop making things up.
If she tried, she could see Erik opening the door, but the office was exactly like they had left it the previous day: the cabinet had been pushed aside, the storage area was unlocked, and the papers were disorganized over the desk.
It wasn’t the Erik of the photos, but the one of her memories: light hair sprinkled with gray falling over his eyes while he worked, sun-spotted skin, a straight nose that pointed down, a narrow mouth that smiled too well.
But Erik wasn’t there. He had been, while she slept, or on the rare occasions she left the building.
He had spoken to Terebê downstairs, broken into the apartment, pushed aside a gigantic cabinet, left his belongings inside the storage room.
And then disappeared again. Ariadne sighed.
Quaint sent another message saying he would be there soon, so she went back to the bedroom to put on her skin, bra, and shirt before going downstairs.
The intercom rang ten minutes later, and he crossed the threshold with paper bags smelling like moqueca capixaba.
“I hope I made the right choice” was the first thing Quaint said, leaving the bags on the living room table. “Since I can’t actually eat it, I tend to choose based on what smells good and looks nice.”
Quaint had brought more food than any person could possibly need: a bowl full of salad, another with white rice, a third of pir?o paste, some plantain, and a container of fish stew garnished with chives, parsley, and onion, along with a box of Belgian truffles.
“Do I look like I eat this much?” Ariadne set the table for two, even if he was just going to watch. Quaint adjusted his dark glasses with a finger, the corners of his lips turning up.
“I might have been accused of overdoing it in the past.”
“Did you eat?” The question sounded casual enough, and Quaint’s smile grew.
“Two weeks ago. Worried about my diet?”
“I want to know if I smell like food to you.” She helped herself to a generous portion of moqueca. An adult male who ate fourteen days ago could either spend the whole month without eating, or eat again in less than a week. “How many fangs do you have?”
Quaint laughed and threw his head back, his Adam’s apple going up and down. From that distance, she could see how massive his canines were.
“Ten pairs, Doctor. Is it worrying?”
“To me it is. To you, it’s excellent. The guls I’ve treated so far had four pairs at most. Erik said the average is six.” Stewed fish and tomato melted on her tongue, and she nodded, pleased. “The damage must be impressive.”
“My mother had an astonishing eleven at her peak, and my father had seven. You should see the wreckage that tiny little creature could cause in her day.” Quaint scratched his chin, rings glowing under the light.
“Even I was scared of her when I was a child. Not that she’s any less threatening with eight pairs. ”
“Is?” Ariadne narrowed her eyes, trying to imagine his mother to no avail. “Present?”
“Present, yes.” Quaint swallowed another chuckle. “Sometimes, I think she’ll outlive me. Last year, she made it a promise…”
“I’m sure she’s fascinating.”
“But rest assured, Ariadne, I don’t feel any joy in terrorizing harmless humans, nor in mistreating them. I only eat those I deem deserving of it.”
“Meaning I shouldn’t get on your bad side.”
“You can disrespect me and loathe me as much as you want.” Quaint pressed his lips together.
“Still, the bar is set above petty disagreements. I only eat the violent and truly dreadful. If I never considered Erik for a meal, I doubt you’d end up on my list. You’re far more pleasant company than he is. ”
“Is this about what happened in 1972?”
Quaint joined his hands, reflecting for a few seconds before answering.
“No—it’s about our last clue. Have you ever heard of Cabaré?”
“Once, but I don’t know much about it,” said Ariadne.
Erik had told her about it when she was a teenager, and described it as the most traditional gul club in Brazil, built three centuries ago and remodeled a few times since.
It’s an interesting little place, frequented by the gul elite and powerful people, Erik had explained with a thoughtful smile, but I wouldn’t recommend humans go there.
“Do you think they did something against him?”
“I doubt it, but the others might know something,” answered Quaint. “I’ll be in Rio in two days to find out.”
Her lips parted, trying to form a response.
Quaint had appeared in her life without a warning, different from anyone she had ever met, different from Erik, from herself.
Part of her wanted to laugh with relief, glad to be back to her little routine, where she hid inside the house and pretended the years were not passing and the clock was not ticking, stuck in an endless cycle of repetitive days.
She would not know what had happened to Erik; she would only be given a report later, from the mouth of someone else.
Ariadne closed the plastic boxes to put them in the fridge. “What about your tattoos?”
“The tattoos can wait.”
Quaint looked like he intended to say something else, but gave up before he even tried. He got up to help her with the dirty dishes.
“I’ll let you know if I have any news.”
The day dragged after Quaint left. In less than forty-eight hours, her life would continue to be the same as it always was.
Wherever Erik had vanished to, if he was in danger, Quaint would solve everything by himself.
Ariadne extracted one of Boniface’s damaged molars, left food outside for the stray cats, and, at night, she turned on the television to watch the news after curfew.
The whistle blew religiously at nine in every neighborhood, and she preferred to distract herself to avoid thinking of what happened in the streets at night.
She believed, in part, that the government had made a secret deal with the guls: after a certain hour, the world was there for the taking, far from curious eyes.
But that didn’t explain the mutilated advisers, or the squads that patrolled the streets for anyone they deemed unfit, from the homeless and the ill to those who broke the arbitrary laws that changed every other day.
“… The Civil House released a memo stating that the president vehemently rejects any association of his person with death squads, and is solely focused on his recovery…” Ariadne glanced at the TV as footage of the president entering the hospital from a helicopter from the previous month, looking horribly, humanly frail, appeared on-screen.
Serves him right, she thought, unlocking the tablet and typing an answer to Quaint’s last message, then deleting it.
“… The president continues to be under observation after a hip fracture. Tomorrow, the vice president…”
Ariadne typed again, but this time she pressed send:
Quaint, are you going tomorrow? I need to ask you something.
Three dots appeared under his name, but instead of a message, she received a new call.
Ariadne accepted it without thinking, and his face appeared on the screen.
Quaint, still wearing his round sunglasses, a strand of black hair falling over his forehead, and tattoos up his long neck, with the elegant yet nondescript wall of his hotel room looming in the background.
He was watching the same news on his TV: “The armed forces have arrived in S?o Paulo today to control an insurgence of protests…”
Quaint smiled when he saw her.
“Good evening,” he said. “I see we are doing the same thing.”
Ariadne muted the TV. “This channel is horrible, turn it off.”
“But we’re not going to talk about the news, are we?” joked Quaint, the image blurring as he moved to turn off the television.
“Erik helped me when I needed it.” Ariadne tried to ignore her ugly little face in the corner of the video call.
She held the tablet in the air, feeling like her wrists were about to glitch under the weight of it, and she convinced herself that the pain was not real, just an illusion of the implant. “I want to help him, too.”
Quaint didn’t answer. With the glasses, it was hard to guess what he was thinking, but she took his solemn expression as encouragement to continue:
“Take me with you, please.”
On the television, the news had been replaced by ads: a family enjoyed a particular brand of coffee, then it changed to an obligatory health campaign. Finally, Quaint answered with a reassuring smile:
“Two heads are better than one.”