Claire, page 5
“That’s what lager and sports vids are for. Far less expensive.” Lisette wagged her tabula for attention. “Oh, here’s a bit about your smelly orange stuff. ‘During the final compliance phase the Drone will have been fitted with one or more Anal Nutrient Packs. The size and frequency of insertions are dependant upon the Series of Drone. This allows the Drone sufficient nutrition while undergoing compliance imprinting.’ In other words, while its in the brainwashing machine. Oh.” She looked up on that last bit at Claire’s dismayed face. If she hadn’t escaped… “Well, they didn’t get you, did they?”
Claire’s answer was silence and a stare at the floor. It had been the longest of days, and she was exhausted. Finally, she mustered, “It’s, um, it’s getting late. I’d like to turn in if you don’t mind.”
“Yes, of course.” A second, awkward silence took them both. This was Claire’s first night back in the house since Lisette broke up with her. Neither of them expected to ever again spend the night together even under normal circumstances, and these were certainly not normal. Finally, almost simultaneously, Lisette offered and Claire stated that she should take the guest bedroom. Claire made her goodnights and mounted the stairs wearily. I’m a guest here. A guest, in the house that was once my second home, that I was sure would be… That thought trailed off into a sigh that wasn’t quite audible from the lounge.
She found the guest room in that kind of tidy state which hinted of disuse. Without ceremony she flopped on the bed and wrapped herself around one of the huge pillows that sat like white clouds on the sky-blue sheets. But she was denied the smooth caress of the sheets, the softness of the pillow. Everything was deadened by the Drone suit she now permanently wore. It seemed a presence of its own, a cocoon she could not escape.
From downstairs she heard the sound of Lisette pacing, the clack of her phone removed from its cradle, the tik-tik of buttons pushed.
“Hello, Patrice. Yes, fine, thanks. Sorry to call you so late. Look, I know it’s a bit of short notice, but I’ll have to take a day or two out of the office. No, nothing serious…well, I suppose it is. I have a friend who is recovering from cancer, and she’s not doing so well. I’ve asked her to stay with me a few days, get her back on her feet. I’ll call Jennifer in the morning, she can wrap up the Beckett case on her own…thanks, Patrice. I hope she’ll be all right too. Talk to you soon, good night.”
Claire turned on her side towards the wall and curled up. She felt lost, confused. Old and unanswered questions whispered from dark corners. Lis is so good to me, always has been. So why did she break up with me? Why wasn’t I good enough for her? It all got the best of her. She buried her face in the pillow to stifle the sobs that were prelude to an uneasy sleep.
Unheard as she had mounted the stairs, unseen in the doorway, Lisette peered from the threshold and saw Claire, shaking as she wept. She gripped the door jamb tightly before forcing herself to walk away.
- Ͼ -
Niall found Bigelow in the factory control room, scrutinizing the many screens showing myriad activities in the Drone production facility. He waited for his employer to notice him, rather to acknowledge him. Bigelow had a reputation for situational awareness that bordered on the uncanny. Finally, while appearing to scrutinize the activity in the extraction hall, he called out to Niall.
“Have you an update, Mr. Harris?”
“Yes, sir. It appears that the Drone left the building approximately thirty-five minutes after reinsertion, while the attendant was, er, attending to other things. It appears to have taken the clothes it had been wearing with it, as well as the packaging and paperwork for its new suit. We’re not sure why. Security has reviewed the surveillance footage and noted a Drone of her Series carrying a white package left via the front entrance at about the time I was making my initial report to you.” Niall coughed nervously. “The Drone left the property and headed north. I’ve made a request to the city authorities for a review of their own video system but its been assigned a low priority. We’ve issued an updated bulletin to the Monitors, informing them that a CLR Series Drone is unaccounted for and may have left or been taken from the building without authorization. I also have three teams on foot conducting a round-the-clock search within a two-kilometer radius of this building, and four more in vehicles covering a five-kilometer radius. Our teams are operating under pretense that the Drone in question was attacked by thugs and might be injured or disoriented.”
He turned to scrutinize Niall. “Are you sure these actions are sufficient, Mr. Harris?”
“Sir, I feel the delicacy of this situation encourages discretion. I don’t want to raise the alarm in case our competitors should use it against us, never mind anti-Drone agitators in the general population. We can count on the Monitors to handle this quietly.”
“I see. And have there been any leads?”
“None yet, sir.”
Bigelow grunted thoughtfully. “Stay on top of this, Mr. Harris. Expand your foot search, both the area and number of teams. And go do a bit of walking about yourself. It might give you ideas.” He returned his attention to the screen, his usual way of indicating the end of a conversation. Niall waited a long, uncomfortable moment before exiting.
- Ͼ -
The night had not been a refreshing one for Claire. She slept poorly and fitfully. The unfamiliar bed and her new skin conspired with her angst to prevent her from finding comfort. She finally had dropped off near sunrise more from exhaustion than anything else. She found no rest, for it brought with it dreams that brimmed with dismaying flashes of faceless strangers and disembodied hands that wrapped her roughly in ebon bandages. More than once she awoke with a start or a shout, twisted within the bed clothes, finally giving in to it all and crying herself to a sleep that stuck, for a while.
Unseen by Claire, Lisette came in early after and checked on her. She saw her friend curled up in a fœtal position, a twitching black ball twisted in azure sheets, eyes darting under clenching eyelids. Sympathy welled within Lis. She sat gently on the edge of the bed and listened as a whimper escaped from Claire’s troubled dream. Lisette’s hand drifted up to Claire’s brow, fingers caressing her gently as she whispered. “You’re safe now. You’re with me.” Her words were a tonic that seemed to soothe Claire, her face relaxing with a sigh of release.
Her hand gently traced its way down the side of her face, over her cheek and to her jaw. Lisette had loved to trace Claire’s features as they snuggled in bed on lazy mornings, watch her lips break out into a smile whose happiness shone in competition with the sun. Now those lips, so soft and supple in her memory, were pursed and pale, surrounded and under siege by the ebon cowl that enveloped the rest of her face. Lisette moved to stroke Claire’s ear with her thumb, something they had both once enjoyed, only to find the suit flat against her skull. Her hand froze a moment before she withdrew it in shock. They didn’t. Oh, how could they! Bastards! How many more ways did they hurt her? She took Claire’s hand in her own and waited for the moment of anger to pass, feeling her return the grip ever so slightly from within her troubled dreams.
Lisette lingered there some moments until she found herself stifling a yawn. Claire was not the only one to sleep poorly. Lis’ own thoughts had found her in the night, thoughts of her past with Claire, of what they had had and how Lisette had cast it all down in one stupendous blunder. It was for the best, it had to happen. Or, so she had been telling herself since...Since I wrecked everything. It had been such a cliché, that tearful scene in the lounge. Lisette being so firm, acting the trial lawyer she had never been while Claire lost all composure, shouting and weeping for Lisette to give a reason. Claire leaving in misery. Lisette not seeing her again until the cancer, its treatment advancing from the clinic to hospital as the patient declined in kind. Shuddering as she walked into the room at that first image of Claire lying in that torturous bed, surrounded by vampiric machines, so weak and grey, but her eyes coming alive on seeing Lisette as if her dreams had come true –
It was Lisette’s turn to choke up, and she banished the memories with a hard shake of her head as she stood and walked out of the room where her Claire once again lay in torment. No, not my Claire. Not mine anymore. She took a moment to compose herself before slowly closing the bedroom door and going downstairs.
Lisette spent the next hour or so in her home office scouring the vids and boards for any hint of Claire, but found nothing beyond the notice of the missing CLR from the day prior. She glanced at the clock. It’s been a full day since she passed out in the park. Was abducted? Whatever, no one has beaten down my door so they must not know where she is. Maybe I should get something, a gun or a stun rod. No, that would only end badly for both of us. I need to act on this before they have a chance to move on Claire, if they find out where she is. Well, first things first. I need to know she’s going to be healthy for the duration. Lisette grabbed the phone and spent several minutes making arrangements and pulling in a favor.
Phone call complete, she returned to her research for anything relevant to Claire’s situation. There was a lot of high-level info on the Drone suits, such as an oft-repeated blurb the Capriccio PR department distributed in its advertising. Seems the suits were more than a uniform. They really were a second skin for the Drones. They interfaced with the nervous system to enhance tactile sensation, while providing a durability and resistance to abrasion, heat and cold far beyond the norm. An array of micro-perforations allowed the natural dermis to breathe and exude sweat and oils. The inner coating was both anti-microbial and suppressed follicle growth. Their resistance to chemical or biological invasion was such that a fully-encased Drone was able to perform hazmat tasks with little more than a gas mask or full-face respirator. What’s more, the suit would integrate with the pod at every rest period to report on and diagnose its Drone’s physical condition, even to predict disease. Lisette considered the irony of that in the face of Claire’s illness. Too bad this didn’t happen to her before she developed cancer. If you believe their PR, the suit might have caught it sooner. The suits also provided real-time telemetry on the wearer’s location and stress levels, should its protection prove inadequate. Lisette took notice of that last part, thankful she had the Umbrella unit in place to occlude Claire’s presence. OK, so I guess the suit won’t harm her and it might even help in a way. Good to know. She glanced around the clutter of her office with a sigh. And if she’s going to live here she might as well be in a hazmat suit.
She happened upon an old vid of some talking heads discussing the ethics of Drone usage. It seemed the same tired scenario one sees in any such forum, where two persons who will never agree with one another bash away like billy goats in heat. One was a well-groomed industry rep in an expensive suit, the other a shabby-looking academic type from a “Drones’ rights” group, whatever that meant. Lisette turned the volume low and let them duel in the background while she perused various Drone-related sites of interest, occasionally turning to watch as one talking head or the other tried to make some point.
One such moment had the industry rep smiling genially while he spoke, as if talking to a demented child. “They are not an expense, they are an investment. Drones are exempt from many regulations. We don’t have to pay them, they don’t take vacations. Health is replaced by maintenance, housing by warehousing. A building need only be fitted with a few rows of pods and some excretion and feeding stations. The Drones make use of them in shifts. A Drone-staffed factory can stay in operation around the clock with proper human supervision. In the long run it can be quite cost-effective.” Lisette shivered with the horrid image of a darkened factory, of Claire emerging from an endless row of pods into an endless row of identical Drones, a brainwashed automaton, lost to her forever.
A bit later, he caught her ear again as he responded to some jibe with a bit of fluster in his tone. "We don't hand them out like candy bars to anyone with the money! All applicants undergo a rigorous screening process. That's not to say some miscreant might slip through the cracks. Certainly we have had our share. But it eliminates many potential problems."
The shabby advocate pressed his attack with a nasally bellow, laying out a litany of Drone abuse real and suspected. He related how they were early on stolen by criminals who wanted their organs for resale, which forced Capriccio to make them undesirable by engineering them to live short lives, which the speaker insisted was itself a crime of ethics. There was also something about thugs who might gang up on a Drone and physically or sexually abuse them, and how this brought about the creation of the Monitors, whose existence he also seemed to disagree with. Then he went on with a bit too much verve about rumors of brothels staffed by Drones. It all started to get to Lisette. The thought of Claire suffering any of those fates put her ill at ease. She clicked the screen off with a huff.
Later, Lisette went up to the guest room to see that Claire was stirring rather groggily. She went over and sat on the edge of the bed. “I’d ask if you slept well, but I can see that you didn’t.” She ran her hand over Claire’s brow. “You’re not hot in that thing, are you? I’d think you would be sweltering.”
“No, not really. A bit, I guess. But nothing too bad.”
“Well, we’ll get you something cold to drink. I’m sure you could use it.” She paused. “I took the liberty of calling a friend of mine, a Doctor. She’s going to make a house call this morning and give you an exam.”
“Lis, I don’t want to-“
“Sssh. Listen to me. We have no idea what else they might have done to you. And you’re still recovering from before, remember? I don’t want any more surprises. You can trust Beatrice, she promised not to say anything and I know her well enough that she’ll keep it. She should be here in a few minutes.”
It was the better part of an hour before Claire heard the doorbell and the sound of a woman’s voice in greeting. Lisette and her visitor spent a moment in hushed conversation before mounting the stairs and entering the guest bedroom.
"Pixyish" seemed the best way Claire could describe the petite, middle-aged woman with the spiky blonde hair and the warm smile that entered the room. Claire could imagine her presenting a children's video show. She paused a moment in the bedroom doorway as she first espied Claire but quickly recovered and made her introductions.
"Hello, Claire. I'm Doctor Beatrice Bhombé. Lis has told me something about your recent experiences. I'd like to give you an exam, if that's all right." Lis came in behind the Doctor with an encouraging expression.
Claire nodded, eyes downcast. "Yes, of course."
The Doctor wasted no time in unpacking her satchel and removing several devices.
She presented a cylinder with some kind of grip. "Splendid. Hold this, please." Claire took it as her examiner tapped on her tabula and pressed a sensor to Claire's midriff. She frowned. "Hmm. The suit must be interfering with my scanner. Let me try to make some adjustments." She tapped some more and looked satisfied. "There, that's better. Now", she looked at Claire directly, "I understand you've recently been diagnosed with cancer?" Claire nodded, told her the basics. "And you were treated successfully?" Another nod. "How long ago were you cleared to come home?"
"Nearly six months now."
"Have you had a follow-up in the past month or so?"
A nervousness crept into Claire’s voice. "No, why? Do you see something?"
The Doctor shook her head. "No, I don't see anything cancer-related. You are showing massive signs of stress, though, and a touch of malnutrition. No surprise, considering." She lowered her scanner. "Let's see your eyes. Look up, please." Claire complied as the Doctor pointed her scanner at first the left orb, then the right. She shook with flashbacks of her encounter with the Monitors. "Eyes are clear. Lisette tells me you had a nasty fall, hit your head. Can you show me where?” Claire nodded and reached back with her right hand to point to the spot. Beatrice held her scanner over it a few seconds. “Hm. No signs of blood clots or bone fracture. Is it still bothering you? Sharp pain, dull ache?”
“Aches a little, nothing too bad.”
“Well, it doesn’t seem serious. Your suit may be acting as something of a compression bandage. Speaking of which, I'll give this suit of yours a look now. Hold still." Claire stiffened with tension as the Doctor ran her fingers over various area of her suit, then pressed, pulled and pinched, the last getting an "Ow" from her subject.
The Doctor leaned back and put down her tools. She turned to Claire, "Is the suit causing you any physical discomfort or restriction?"
"Aside from not being able to piddle normally? No."
That cracked a smile in the Doctor’s professional demeanor. "Not much I can do there. I'm seeing an amazing latticework of what might be micro-pores. Look." She held up her tabula for them to see a magnified image of the suit's surface. "See here? I think it may allow your skin to breathe, even sweat. I really can't say. Only ones who could are the techs at Capriccio.”
Lisette nodded, remembering something of that from her earlier vid scan. But she saw Claire breathe in sharply at the mention of her abductors. She firmly interjected, "Well, we won't be asking them soon, will we?”
“Hmm. I’ve seen what I need to see for now, and all things considered, Claire, you’re in good shape. I do recommend you take it slow the next few days, get plenty of rest and don’t push yourself. If you don’t feel any improvement in the next week or so let me know. I’ll come back and we’ll see what you need then.”
Claire nodded. “And what about the suit? Do you think you can get it off me?”
Lisette interrupted the silence that answered her question. “Claire, I'm going to walk the Doctor out. I want you to get back to bed, rest up like the Doctor ordered. I'll check up on you in a while." The usual pleasantries were exchanged, and Lisette and the Doctor walked out of the room, closing the door as they went.
