Alien Nation #6 - Passing Fancy Read online

  George nodded at Susan’s sketches. “To be continued,” he sighed, and strode out of the room, knowing, as he entered the hallway, that Vessna had once again attached herself to mommy.

  “Ow,” he heard, softly behind him, “ow, ow, ow, ow, ow . . .”

  And heard Buck, much more loudly, just ahead of him, shouting, “You have no sense of proportion, no sense of time, no consideration for anyone else, I’m down there trying to concentrate and you—”

  “And I what?” Emily fired back. “You moved into your precious RV, you have your ‘space,’ if you need quiet, why don’t you—”

  “Buck! Emily!” George snapped, in his best martinet fashion. They went abruptly, gratifyingly silent. George shifted immediately to solicitous politesse.

  “Can I be of some help?”

  “She’s just making this noise, Dad!” Buck complained.

  “And it was disturbing you.”

  “Yeah, sure, it would disturb anybody—”

  “Sure,” mimicked Emily, “anybody who didn’t have a place of their own. He can’t move out and also expect to control things in the house any time he—”

  “Emily,” George reprimanded gently, “I was talking to Buck.”

  He held the gaze of his teenage eldest, studied the fierce eyes in the boyish, almost beautiful face.

  “However,” George added, “Emily has a point, of sorts. You are always welcome in the house at any time, you know that, but we arranged to let you establish residence in the RV so that you could have your independence and solitude there.”

  “See?” said Emily.

  “On the other hand,” George continued, shifting his gaze to Emily now, “the noise was a trifle excessive for this time of night.”

  “Oh, I get it,” said Buck, “I know this game. Nobody’s right, nobody’s wrong, you’re off the hook, we go back to our corners.”

  George kept himself calm. It was so easy sometimes to get sucked into the vortex of Buck’s rebelliousness. To forget, with a loved one, that anger is not met best with anger.

  “It is entirely possible, Buck, and in this instance especially, that there is no right or wrong. I don’t see where Emily’s intentions meant to hurt you directly or indirectly. Do you?”

  Buck remained silent. George continued:

  “What were you doing when you felt disturbed?”

  “Thinking,” Buck replied. Cryptically.

  “. . . Dare I ask?”

  “I don’t think you—”

  Would understand, George finished in his mind, with a father’s intuition, but Buck pulled back, leaving the thought unresolved.

  “—uhh, kind of personal.”

  “I see. Well, it does rather seem as if the RV would be useful for that kind of introspection. In fact, I always thought you meant to use it as a retreat for just such occasions.”

  “You chasing me out?”

  “Never.”

  And then something, some sixth sense or something popped an odd question into George’s mind. After all, Buck did usually spend his nights, and his thinking time, in the RV. The Recreational Vehicle had originally been purchased for the family’s use, but as Buck’s need for independence had become fiercer and fiercer, it became apparent that its greatest use would be as a place for Buck to call his own: outside of the household but close enough to the family to afford him the emotional support a teenage boy would need.

  “But I do wonder, and understand I am just wondering. Was there any particular reason you needed to do your thinking here in the house? Anything you needed our presence to—”

  And George knew he’d hit a nerve because Buck utterly circumvented the question. “You are chasing me out, I knew it,” he announced, and then whirled on his heel and made a show of pounding down the stairs.

  “Buck,” George called.

  “Just forget it!” Buck shouted from the foyer, and then he was out of the house, the front door slamming behind him. George turned his bewildered gaze on Emily.

  “Don’t look at me,” she said expansively, with an exaggerated shrug. “I didn’t do anything.”

  George allowed himself a small smile. “Well, actually you did do something. What was all that jumping about?”

  Emily’s expression lit up. “It’s my turn to come up with a dance exercise for the gym club in school.” And that was the moment George registered the fact that Emily was in her gymnastics outfit. “I was putting the finishing touches on it. Wanna see?”

  First Susan’s sketches, now Emily’s choreography. Both his big girls, it seemed, wanted his appraisal of their creations tonight.

  “Certainly,” George smiled.

  She invited him into her room with a toss of her head. The floor had been cleared to give her as open a space as possible.

  “You have to imagine the running start. There’s not enough room in here to do it full out.”

  “I’ll do my best,” George assured her.

  Starting flat against the wall, Emily took a single hop, bounded up several feet, landed,

  Thump,

  deep bending at the knees, arms up, uncoiling like a spring, arms at the side now, pirouetting full in midair, landing,

  Thump,

  kick starting a forward tumble,

  de,

  landing on her hands,

  thump,

  bending at the elbows, uncoiling again, pushing herself into the air, somersaulting backward until she was again erect and landing,

  Ka-flump!

  with a flourish.

  Her face was beaming, radiant, flush with the enthusiasm of accomplishment, her eyes had turned from blue to brown with the exertion.

  What, George wondered, was he to say?

  That the coordination was lovely, but that the style lacked cohesion? That in his eyes it was less a dance routine than a youthful, slightly self-conscious, slightly self-aggrandizing display of dexterity?

  His daughter’s extraordinarily pretty face was a study in twelve-year-old vulnerability.

  Tell her what I truly think? The night before her presentation?

  Nope, he thought. Not me.

  “It’s just wonderful, Emily,” he said. And he did not lie.

  “Really?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Thanks, Dad!” And he was rewarded with a bear hug, which put all the hardship of fatherhood in perspective.

  He then bade her good night, advising that some sleep was necessary, and exited her room into the hallway, reflexively belting his robe tighter for the walk he was about to take outside.

  It was a cool Los Angeles night in late September, cool even for George as he padded barefoot over the front lawn to the door of the RV. He knocked.

  “Buck? Are you in there?”

  There was no immediate response.

  It was possible he wasn’t. It was possible he’d gone for a walk, but George hoped not. He didn’t like the idea of Buck walking around the streets this late. In a mood.

  “Buck?”

  Then, at length, through the door:

  “Go away, Dad.”

  Ah. Well. Some relief, anyway.

  “I just wondered, son, if you wanted to talk. In private.”

  “Not necessary, Dad.”

  Father and son shared a leaden silence. George opened his mouth to break it when, from inside the RV, in a softer tone, Buck said:

  “I’m okay, okay? I mean, I appreciate it, but I’m fine.”

  George wanted something more than that, but it was clear that more would not be forthcoming, nor could he reasonably expect more without forcing the issue. And he wouldn’t force. Not without good reason. It was important these days that Buck find his own way. George only wished he knew what the hell his son was trying to find his way through.

  “All right, son,” he conceded. “Good night.”

  He said the last with a little emphasis, hoping to elicit a response. But there was silence from within the RV—and from without: crickets and birds, birds and cric
kets. The odd sounds of cars approaching and fading in the distance. The cold, burning indifference of the stars above.

  He went back into the house, suddenly very tired, wiping the soles of his feet on the inside mat, and climbing the stairs to return to his bedroom. He found Vessna asleep in her crib, Susan likewise asleep on her side of the bed. He popped quickly into the adjoining bathroom, quietly attended to that which needed attending, emerged again into the bedroom, slid between the sheets, thinking of Vessna’s voracious appetite, Susan’s tender breasts, Emily’s need to impress, Buck’s enigmatic crisis, and everybody’s desire for his approval.

  He then wondered if he should bother nudging Susan gently awake to tell her how much he admired her sketches. But as he rolled over, his hand touched her side and, rather than rocking, nestled comfortably in the warm valley of her hip, and he half thought he’d remember to tell her in the morning—which, of course, he would not, it being only a half thought—and then his eyes closed and there was no clear thought anymore, half, whole, or otherwise, only the abstraction of dreams . . .

  C H A P T E R 3

  SOMETIMES THE SHIELD worked wonders. Sikes flashed it at the paramedics and circumvented all the crap when Cathy insisted that the case of a normal-looking white woman had to be rerouted to the nearest hospital with a Newcomer trauma center.

  He and Cathy rode with the ambulance, and Cathy oversaw Fancy’s treatment until the hospital. (Fran’s treatment, Matt corrected himself, but he couldn’t quite wrap his mind around the new name.)

  The trauma team was there at the ready when the ambulance arrived and Fancy was whisked away, Cathy following, as Matt stood at the threshold of the big hospital doors, feeling alone, useless, and stupid.

  At length, he wandered into the waiting area, sat, flipped through magazines. And eventually looked up to see Cathy consulting with a human intern—there, no doubt, to train for emergency service in centers where Newcomers were rarer—and then an older Tenctonese doctor. She disappeared again for something like a half hour.

  Flip through the magazines. Flip. Flip.

  He was half dozing when he sensed Cathy’s warmth next to him on the couch. She touched his arm and he roused himself.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hi. You were a long time.”

  “Fortunate we were there, actually. Some of the medical research I’ve been doing at work came in handy. She’s out of immediate danger, anyway.”

  “Good. That’s good.” He paused. “Hey, I didn’t—”

  She touched his lips. “Set her off? No. What happened was building up all by itself. Coming for a long time.”

  “What did happen?”

  Cathy shifted her position, knees no longer in toward Matt, but facing the opposite wall. She leaned her head against the couch and sighed.

  “There’s a . . . procedure. That some of our people have undergone on Earth. Very underground, very low key, usually only discussed in hushed whispers. It allows Tenctonese men and women to take on human appearance. It involves very specialized plastic surgery, plus a combination of skin grafts and skin dyes, in addition to an infusion of certain genetically engineered hormones. It’s very difficult, sometimes painful, but it produces credible human ears, hair, removes ‘telltale’ markings . . .”

  “Sounds dangerous.”

  “It can be. Incredibly dangerous. Primarily because the Tenctonese physiology is delicate and complicated—somewhat more so than yours.”

  “You don’t have to tell me. I’m the one delivered George’s kid when he went into labor on the job.”

  “Then you’ll appreciate what I mean when I tell you that a Tenctonese body receives cosmetic medical alteration as a kind of mutilation. The body’s natural predilection is to regenerate the unaltered form of fleshy appendages and renew its original appearance. Not a pleasant process, though. It’s like kicking heroin cold chicken . . .”

  “Turkey. Cold turkey.”

  “Oh. Right. Like that, yes. But worse. The only thing that keeps withdrawal at bay and maintains the cosmetic alterations is a drug called Klees’zhoparaprophine.”

  “Quite a mouthful.”

  “Quite. Which is why no one much uses the chemical name. The street name is Stabilite. Tells everybody what it is, what it does . . .”

  Matt sat in silence for a moment.

  “How come I’ve never heard of this?” he asked eventually.

  “Two reasons. Among my people, the willful alteration of appearance mocks the gifts of our gods, Celine and Andarko. It’s considered an act of shame. Secondly, Stabilite is hideously, even prohibitively, expensive. I don’t know what Ms. Delaney can be earning doing the play, but it can’t be much. I’m astonished she can afford the drug at all.”

  “But she has been affording it. So what happened?”

  “I can answer that,” said a male voice.

  Matt turned to see the human intern with whom Cathy had consulted earlier. The man was young, sporting curly blond hair worn in a near shag.

  “I’m Dr. Steinbach. I’m working with Dr. Casey on this case. He’d be talking to you right now, but he’s breaking the news to two more friends of the patient. Or colleagues, I guess.” He extended his hand and Matt glanced around him to see the older Tenctonese doctor speaking to a wiry, prematurely gray man and a matronly, strong-jawed woman.

  Matt looked back into the intern’s eyes, said, “Matt Sikes,” took the proffered hand, and smiled lopsidedly. “Let me guess. Dr. Ben Casey?”

  Steinbach returned the smile. “Courtesy of Ellis Island West.”

  Matt tsked in understanding. Just like bureaucratic Earth humor to find out that a Newcomer had medical training and name him for a fictional 1960s TV neurosurgeon.

  Matt released Steinbach’s hand and said: “How about that answer?”

  “Sure.” Steinbach unceremoniously lowered himself onto a corner of the magazine table, pushing aside some periodicals. “Your friend Ms. Delaney is a very sick gal. She was taking Stabilite, all right, but not in its pure, FDA-approved form.”

  “It’s FDA approved?”

  “No reason not to be. Manufactured by an otherwise pretty stand-up company, Richler Pharmaceuticals.” He pronounced the name with a soft “ch,” as in chuckle.

  “Richler,” Matt repeated, filing the name away.

  “Uh-huh. But because it’s so pricey, there’s an illegal knockoff that’s been showing up on the streets. It’s cheaper, but it’s slow poison. The buildup of impurities can cause any number of illnesses. Including the big one you don’t get to cure. In your friend’s case . . . too soon to tell. I’m sorry.”

  Matt leaned forward, dry washed his face. “Aw, Jesus . . .” he whispered. “Is it worth all that just to blend in?”

  Cathy put a hand on Matt’s back.

  “For a serious actress who can only do what she can do? What if blending in were the only way you could be an effective cop?”

  “The truth? I’d find another profession.”

  “Then I envy your pragmatism. For some people there’s simply no choice.”

  “I don’t buy that. What she’s done to herself is—I have to say it, forgive me—inhuman.”

  “Actually,” Steinbach interjected, “no, it’s not.”

  Matt just looked at him.

  “I don’t know about you,” Steinbach continued, “but in high school they made me read a book by John Howard Griffin, Black Like Me. Remember it?”

  Matt shrugged, guiltily. “I was one of your Cliffs Notes personalities. And I didn’t retain much of that.”

  “Oh, you’d remember this one. It’s an autobiographical account of something that happened in the late fifties. A white reporter took drugs and underwent ultraviolet skin treatments to make himself appear black. And then he went into the Deep South.”

  “Kind of like putting a loaded gun to your head, isn’t it?”

  “Well, that’s sort of the point. His firsthand experience with racial prejudice was . . . pretty gr
im. And he was just a visitor. Now imagine yourself living on the inside as a permanent resident. Looking out. Wanting out. Or if not out, wanting to be ‘in’ somewhere else. Where your kind isn’t appreciated. I always think about that book when I treat these Newcomers pumped up with bad Stabilite.”

  Matt looked at Cathy. He tried to imagine her altered, humanized. He couldn’t. And realized it was because he didn’t want to.

  Cathy returned the look.

  “What?” she said.

  In lieu of answering, he turned his gaze back to Steinbach. “How long’s this phony Stabilite been on the market?”

  “Not real long.”

  “Lot of variations in the formula? Like from different suppliers?”

  “So far it seems to be pretty much from the same batch. Why?”

  “Sooner we start looking, sooner we can zap it at the source.”

  “We?” asked Cathy.

  “Me and George.” Adding, for the intern’s benefit, “I’m a cop, George is my partner—and a Newcomer.”

  “I have to warn you,” Steinbach cautioned, “Dr. Casey and I have reported other cases to the police. This problem is not first on your colleagues’ list of priorities. I think some of them even want to bury it. You know, the fewer slags they have to deal with . . .”

  “Let me worry about that. Can I see Franc—I mean, Fran?”

  “She’s pretty heavily sedated.”

  “Is that a ‘no’?”

  “It’s an ‘I can’t imagine what good it’ll do.’ But I don’t suppose it’ll do any harm.” The doctor rose from his perch and gestured. “Come on.”

  They entered Fran Delaney’s room as Dr. Steinbach opened the door for them—and immediately Matt was struck by how pale and fragile she looked. What a contrast to the woman onstage . . . the woman in his memory . . .

  He was walking down a corridor in the station house. It was the same one she was walking up, and there was no way to duck out of sight or avoid her gaze. Their eyes had met and contact was irrefutable. Shit.

  “Hi,” he nodded perfunctorily and shouldered past her, a lame but efficient getaway, or so he thought, until she called, “Hey, Sikes.”

  He turned. Waited.