In the dim light, her smashed body looked no different than the piles of trash strewn about the abandoned warehouse. Eduardo noticed it as he walked from the broken-door entranceway to the creaky stairs leading up to the old offices. He barely gave it a glance, but then something caught his eye.
Looking closer, Eduardo saw twisted arms, legs, and hair. Jeannie’s hair. He gasped, dropping to his knees. It took him a moment before he could reach out and touch.
She’d fallen, or jumped, or been pushed from the offices that hung from the warehouse ceiling far above. Eduardo gently gathered her into his arms, and carried her limp plastic body up the stairs, past the other recharging harlots, and into a back room where he kept his tools.
He tenderly pulled Jeannie’s clothes off and looked her over. She’d hit hard and at a bad angle. The body looked mangled, despite it being a tough IBM. Still, with the right parts she might be salvageable. Eduardo thought about the other harlot andies, about which one he could scavenge. Laura was an IBM but a newer, more modular design — her parts were incompatible. The other girls were all Mitsubishi, Panasonic, or Intel. Completely different inside and out.
The realization she was dead caught up to him, and tears came. Eduardo held her broken body and cried, rocking her gently, whispering half-insane words that sounded stupid even to him — but they came from his heart, and he couldn’t stop them.
None of the other Spaz were around so he couldn’t blame them, though he would definitely have suspected Jojo. Jojo would have done it just because. Fader wouldn’t, unless he was mad, and Eduardo couldn’t think of a reason for that. Tony wouldn’t have bothered. Ramón was in the hospital dying, and Billy and Samuel were both in jail.
Eduardo held tight to Jeannie even after the tears stopped. He couldn’t bring himself to let go. She wasn’t supposed to leave him.
Her whole purpose was to stay.
#
The city had somehow won the honor of hosting the World Financial Summit, which meant the police and the feds tightened security like a noose around the city’s throat. Because of this, Tony told Eduardo to stop fishing for andies until things were back to normal. Eduardo fished anyway. He had to find another old IBM for parts, so that he could fix Jeannie.
All andies had cell modems in them — used as their program control interface — and Eduardo had discovered an antique program from the pre-Internet days that could be modified to find them. Called a “war dialer,” he had it running on a spare PDA, ghosting random phone accounts as it called phone numbers from sequential lists, one after the other, frustrating hundreds of people an hour.
If a person answered the phone, the war dialer would hang up. If an android answered, the war dialer would ignore the login prompt and signal it’s modem to go into diagnostic mode. “What is your ROM number and version?” it would ask.
“ICTC10Z419 Ver. 27.6. Login please?”
“Goodbye.” The war dialer would hang up, then take this ROM information and compare it to a list that Eduardo provided.
Is this a ROM known to be used in harlot-class androids recently in production?
Yes?
It would add the cell number to the log, then call the next sequential number on the list.
While other hackers terrorized the Internet and blackmailed multinationals with stolen information, Eduardo quietly brought in andies. It was only a matter of time before other hackers figured it out. After that, the media heads would open their big mouths and warn everyone.
Then the fun would be over.
#
“Goddamn. Your andie killed herself? Shit. I didn’t realize she was so fucking smart.”
“Fuck you, Jojo,” Eduardo said. He, Jojo, and Fader were walking toward the bus stop, on their way to meet Tony at the hospital.
“Does that piss you off?” Jojo asked.
“Yes,” Eduardo said, “it does.”
“Then why don’t you fucking hit me?”
“Fuck you.”
Jojo laughed. “You’re a moron, you know that? You have a two-word vocabulary.”
Fader finally spoke. “You reduce everyone’s vocabulary to those two words, Jojo.” Turning to Eduardo, he put his hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “Jeannie isn’t dead. She was never alive in the first place.”
“I know.”
“You need to get over this obsession with a machine. You need to find a real, live girl.”
“That’s what Tony keeps telling me.”
“No,” Jojo said, “Tony keeps saying you should go find your Mama. Get in some of that ubiquitous action—”
“Some what?” Fader said.
“You know,” Jojo said, “that mother-fucking guy.”
“Oedipus?”
“Yeah, that’s him.”
Eduardo frowned at him. “I don’t want to fuck my mother.”
“All guys do.”
“Fuck you.”
“See?” Jojo said. “I told you. Two-word vocabulary.”
“You’re sick. If I…” Eduardo’s voice trailed off as he spotted the bus. It was either ahead of schedule or they were lagging behind. “Shit!”
They started running, and made it to the bus stop just before it got there — the driver had no excuse to keep going, and was forced to stop. Sometimes they kept going anyway, but this wasn’t a human driver. The doors hissed open to reveal a retro-fitted box and camera array strapped to the driver’s seat. Cogs and rollers spun the steering wheel.
They found seats and rode in silence. There was an armed and mean-looking Transportation Marshall on board. He rode with his sawed-off shotgun held ready. Even Jojo didn’t dare mess with him. They got off at the hospital and met Tony in the waiting area.
“Hey,” Tony said to the gang. To Eduardo he said, “Sorry about Jeannie.”
“Who told you?”
Tony looked at the other two then back at Eduardo. “One of the other andies. Why? You’re trying to keep it a secret from me?”
“No.”
“‘Cause I really don’t give a shit. One andie is as good as the next.” Tony turned and walked away, heading toward the elevators. At the elevators Tony turned toward Eduardo once more. “It’s a shame to lose a perfectly good harlot, though. She was a hot one.”
Eduardo said nothing. They all boarded an elevator and stared at the doors, waiting for the seventh floor. Jojo farted on purpose.
When the elevator let them off, they went down the hall and to the left. Eduardo had been this way so often he didn’t have to think about it. When they reached Ramón’s room, it shocked Eduardo to see how thin his friend had become. The guy used to have a beer belly, and now he looked like one of those people in concentration camp photos. His eyes were dark and sunken. “What?” he said. “You fags bring me some pussy?”
Eduardo laughed. Ramón was so obviously doomed — and he knew it, too — but he always joked. It didn’t faze him.
“We didn’t think we could get an andie in here,” Tony said. “But if you really want…”
“You’d have to give me a boner pill.” Ramón scoffed. “It wouldn’t be worth it for an andie. I want some real pussy.”
“I’ll bring my sister in,” Jojo said.
“Fuck. I’m not that desperate.”
Fader sat on the bed next to him. “So, you see the dude yet?”
“Who?”
“That guy with the hood and the scythe?”
“Oh, him. He’s been around.” Ramón pointed. “Sucker in that bed there died last night. Heard him moaning and calling for his momma about two A.M. When I woke up this morning, they had the sheet over his head and was wheeling him out.”
“That guy who kept talking about his bird?” Jojo said. “The parrot or whatever?”
“Yeah.”
“He was an annoying fuck anyway.”
They stared at each other. The silence stretched. Death had been in the room, and that made it all too real.
#
They lost another one of the girls that night. Their andies were programmed to call in case of trouble; Eduardo got the call and heard the audio feed as the cops interrogated her. The video was slow and low-res, but it was enough to see she was in a squad car. Probably a result of the Summit, which had the cops whipped into a frenzy.
“Goddamn moneyheads just had to have their big party here,” Fader was saying. “Too bored with New York and London. Shit.”
“I’m erasing her,” Eduardo said. “We’ll get some more.”
“Which one was it?”
“Nadine.”
“Tony’ll want us to call the rest back in. Before we lose all of them.”
Eduardo sent a signal to Nadine, instructing her to erase herself, then he deleted Nadine from the list and had his PDA call the others in. After that, he went out to the ‘net to check on the war dialer’s log. It had been depressingly empty of late. Eduardo was afraid people were catching on.
He was surprised to find fifteen new numbers on the log. Fourteen of the numbers were very close to each other, nearly sequential. A bordello. The last time they’d liberated some bordello harlots, the mob came looking for them. Eduardo deleted the numbers from the log, not wanting to mess with it.
That left only one number on the list, and there was good and bad news about it. The ROM number matched Jeannie’s, so it was possible he had replacement parts. But, if she was the only one he brought in, the rest of the Spaz would be pissed at him for parting her out.
“Nothing,” he told Fader.
“No new ones?”
“Only bordello bitches.”
“Shit!” Then Fader shrugged. “Well, it’s not like we’d be putting them on the street right now anyway.”
One by one their harlots began coming in. They hadn’t been out long, so they hadn’t earned much. Barely enough for pizza and beer.
“Hey Eddie,” said one of them. It was Laura, the other IBM. “Sorry about Jeannie.” She stopped in front of the mirror they’d set up for the andies, and checked her hair. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to make you feel better.”
Eduardo wondered if he could transfer his feelings for Jeannie to this andie. They looked enough alike that Laura could have been her sister. He came up from behind her, and slid his hands around her waist. She leaned back against him, tilting her head to the side so he could kiss her neck. She smelled of perfume and plastic.
It was familiar and comforting, but it ultimately felt wrong. This wasn’t Jeannie. He couldn’t get that thought out of his head.
Eduardo let her go, and wandered off through the dim, ruined halls of the office. He ended up in the back room with poor broken Jeannie. Sliding his hand up her arm, he held her shoulder and bent down — ignoring her crossed eyes — and kissed her.
She didn’t move. Without power, there was no warmth in her skin. Eduardo sighed, and pulled out his PDA. Loading his hacking programs, he called the one new number. The andie with the IBM ROM. He hoped to God it was compatible — and that it wasn’t male.
As it dialed, Eduardo thought about its owner. What if this guy was in love with his andie, like he was with Jeannie? He imagined an old, bald guy waking in the morning to discover his andie had wandered off on her own. Would he cry? Would he be heartbroken? Eduardo doubted it. The guy would probably just be pissed off, and his insurance would buy him a new one.
His PDA connected. The hacking programs did their thing. It took three tries and five times as long as usual — this andie had some serious protection. Beyond were audio and video feeds, a complex array of sensing registers, and settings for armament software.
A jolt of fear pulsed through him.
The hacking software blinked a message: Artificial Intelligence Detected. Sophistication Level: Very High.
Through the video feed, Eduardo saw a dimly lit room, and the view of a TV set between bare feet with red-painted toenails. Beyond the television was a mirror on the wall, and in that mirror Eduardo saw a beautiful, black-haired woman sitting on a bed. He was seeing her through her own eyes.
Digging deeper into the andie’s control program, Eduardo found controls for bomb detonation, lists of names and phone numbers, and sectional maps of the city. There were also 3D schematics of several hotels as well as the city convention center. Maps, escape routes, everything.
Eduardo swore under his breath. I should just hang up on this one, he thought. I should just hang up. This is serious shit. It’s going to get me killed.
He couldn’t hang up. The Financial Summit was being held at the convention center, so the goal — the purpose — of this andie was obvious. The programming was bad, bad, bad. Pure evil.
He liked it.
I really shouldn’t touch her, he thought. It would serve the moneyhead bastards right to get their shit all blown up. Ninety-eight percent of the wealth was held by two percent of the population, or so Fader kept telling them. This andie had a good chance of wiping out a good chunk of that two percent.
But, still … Eduardo didn’t hang up. He went in and started making changes to the parameters, changing security codes, turning off tracking systems … all the normal preparations to bring an andie in without getting caught. Bringing it in just like the others. Oh, yeah, he thought. Oh, fucking yeah. This is insane.
He couldn’t wait to get his hands on her.
#
Eduardo made his way through the crowd at the train station, blending in with the commuters, looking for people with wires in their ears. She’s probably not even here, he thought. But then he spotted her, over in the corner.
His footsteps slowed, then stopped. People jostled past him, unnoticed. She stood there, looking around as if lost, doe-eyes searching for someone familiar, someone safe.
Her features were absolutely real. Suddenly Eduardo had doubts … maybe this wasn’t the andie. Maybe… But it had to be. She looked just like the low-res image on his PDA.
Eduardo walked up to her. “Are you looking for someone?”
Her eyes fixed on him like magnets snapping onto other magnets. Camera lens eyes. It was subtle, something only a person used to working with andies would notice. “I’m looking for Waldo. Have you seen him?”
“I’m a friend of Waldo. Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
“Come with me.”
He led her out of the train station, up onto the street, and they caught a bus. Eduardo didn’t care about the bus’s destination — he wanted to be on the move. He watched out the window to see if anyone followed. The traffic massed all around them in near gridlock, making it impossible to tell.
Pulling out his PDA, he dialed into this andie’s cell modem and changed her CMOS settings, giving her a new phone number. It was a stolen number, but it would work for at least a few weeks. Finally he double checked to make sure all the tracking devices were shut off.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
Eduardo looked up in surprise. Andies never asked things like that. “Nothing,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Gabrielle.” She smiled. “My friends call me Gabby.”
“Mine’s Eduardo. You can call me Eddie.”
“Pleased to meet you, Eddie. How long have you known Waldo?”
“Years.”
“Is he nice?”
“Sure.” Eduardo finished, and put his PDA in his pocket. “How do you feel?”
“I feel fine. But, I’m a little confused.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I know I came to town for a specific reason.”
“To see Waldo.”
“No. It was something else, but I can’t remember. I can’t remember any of it.” She frowned. “It was like everything in my mind evaporated, and now I have to see a guy named Waldo.” She looked him in the eyes. “Does that make sense?”
Eduardo stared back at her, feeling unnerved. Andies never talked like this. It was like she didn’t know she was one. Then it came to him — she was fucking with him. That had to be it. She knew all along, and she was jacking him for information. He had to remember that this andie not only had a bomb-on-board, her programming gave her the ability to snap his neck without mussing her hair.
“We all have shit we have to do,” Eduardo said, trying to remain calm. “Maybe the thing you had to do before was wrong, and so, like, God gave you a new goal.”
“God? I don’t believe in God.”
“Oh.” Eduardo licked his lips. If she even twitched wrong, he was ready to jump out the bus window. “What could it have been, then?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Fate?”
“You believe in fate, but not God?”
“I don’t believe in anything,” Gabby said.
Eduardo smiled despite himself. “Neither do I.”
#
To his surprise, the Spaz weren’t mad at him. Eduardo took the new andie back to the abandoned warehouse, explained everything to the gang, and they laughed and smacked him on the back. Even Jojo told him he was a genius.
Gabby was in the bathroom, cleaning herself up. Eduardo had found the right parameter and adjusted her to be promiscuous, and they’d all given her a try. Tony had a dazed smile on his face — he’d been with real women, so he knew the difference. “She’s the real thing,” he told them. “That’s what it’s like.”
“Maybe Eddie’s not completely wacko,” Fader said. “Maybe falling in love with an andie makes sense.”
Jojo laughed. “You just like the thought that there’s a bomb inside her.”
“All real women have a bomb inside them,” Fader told them. “That’s what makes them so interesting — you never know when it’ll go off.”
“Fucking A!”
Eduardo wandered away, trudging through the grimy dimness to his back room; his tools and his dead andie. He kept a pile of musty sleeping bags along the far wall, and he shook the bugs out and flopped down on them. Jeannie used to cuddle with him there. They’d hold each other for hours, and sometimes it would trigger a subroutine in Jeannie and she would start rocking him like a baby. When she did that, he would hold on and cry.
Gabby was too different. He liked her, but it wasn’t the same. Her only connection to Jeannie consisted of a ROM chip embedded somewhere inside her, and everything else — including the bomb — was bleeding edge proprietary equipment. So she was not the answer for saving Jeannie.
Eduardo noticed a shadow at the doorway, and then Gabby stepped in. He saw her naked body in the dim light, and without asking she slid into the bundle of sleeping bags with him. They cuddled, and she felt warm and soft, and smelled of perfume and girl-sweat. No hint of plastic at all. No faint sounds of servos, no clicking, no mechanical movements. She’s fluid, he thought. Graceful.
A woman.
“When will I get to see Waldo?” she asked.
Eduardo almost told her that he was actually Waldo. It almost came out of his mouth. For some reason, he wanted her to love him. Bomb and all. “Soon,” he told her.
“You keep saying that. When is soon?”
“Why do you want Waldo?”
“Waldo is my destiny.”
Eduardo mulled this over. He thought about the bomb. “No one else can be your destiny?”
“There is only one true love.”
“I doubt that.”
“It’s true.”
He raised himself on one elbow so that he could look her in the eyes. “What does love mean to you?” he asked.
“Why?”
“I’m curious.”
“What does love mean to you?” she countered.
Eduardo sighed. Throwing a question back was the classic AI tactic for when the program had no answer. This disappointed him — made him think the program wasn’t so sophisticated after all. “I don’t have an answer either,” he told her. “My mother abandoned me when I was a kid. So she didn’t love me. My dad couldn’t care less where I am, or what I’m doing, as long as it doesn’t cost him money. I’ve never been with a real woman. So, I guess I don’t know.”
“No one loves you?”
Eduardo shrugged.
Gabby remained silent for a while. “I’ll love you,” she said. “But you can’t be my one true love.”
“You’ll love me?”
“Yes.”
“You will?”
She nodded.
He almost laughed. “That’s very kind of you.”
“Not really,” she said. “You’ll still be trapped in this Hell. At least I can try to make it more pleasant for a while.”
“Are you talking about life?”
“What else would I be talking about?” She pulled back and looked at him through the tangled curls of her hair.
“Were you programmed to think of life as Hell, or did you come up with this on your own?”
“Programmed?” She took offense to the word.
“Yeah, programmed. Andies are programmed.”
“Who are you calling an andie?” She frowned hard. It looked real.
“You’re not an android?”
“No!” She pulled away from him, wrapping one of the sleeping bags around herself. “What made you think I was an android?”
Eduardo chose his reply carefully. “I’m just joking,” he said. “You’re joking about life being Hell, and I’m joking about us all being androids. It’s, like, an analogy, you know? That’s all.”
She glared at him.
He wondered how close he’d been to setting off the bomb.
#
When Gabby was off with Fader, Eduardo approached Tony and Jojo, his shoulders slumped and head hanging. “I’m sorry guys. I’m sorry I brought her in.”
“What are you talking about?” Tony said.
“She’s fucking insane. She thinks she’s real.”
“She is real,” Jojo said. “You’re the one that’s fucking insane.”
Tony laughed. “She’s wonderful. You outdid yourself, man. Gabby is incredible.”
“You guys don’t understand!”
“Do you realize how much money we’re going to make, pimping her?”
Eduardo couldn’t believe what he heard. “She’s got a fucking bomb, Tony! And, she insists she’s a real woman—”
“That’s what makes her perfect,” Tony said. “We’re taking a weapon and turning it into an instrument of love.” He shook him. “Don’t you see?”
“That’s the problem,” Eduardo told him. “She’s set to explode when she meets the one she loves.”
That got their attention.
“Slide that by me again?” Tony said.
“You gotta understand the way she works. AI programs need a goal. That’s what motivates them, right?”
“Yeah?”
“Gabby is a very smart, very fucked-up stealth bomb. She’s programmed to love someone — that’s her goal, right? — but she’s programmed to think life is a shitty thing, so when she finds her true love, she’s going to save him from his shitty life.”
“You can’t change that?”
“No! I can’t! I can change the program parameters, but not the program itself. She was set to love some moneyhead bastard, but I changed it to Waldo. That’s all I can do.”
“Waldo?” Tony said.
“Oh!” Jojo exclaimed. “Waldo! I get it!” He laughed. “Where is Waldo? Oh, there he is! Boom!”
Tony was grinning again. “I like it.”
“We can’t pimp her,” Eduardo told him. “Can’t you see? Besides, some real cutthroat motherfuckers are going to be looking for her, and we have no idea who they are.”
“Oh, to hell with them. The world is full of cutthroat motherfuckers.” He put his arm across Eduardo’s shoulder. “You still did good. Don’t you see? This is perfect.”
Eduardo didn’t understand. Jojo did, though, because he had the same gleam in his eyes as Tony. “Gabby is a fucking angel of God, man. Life is shitty.”
Looking back and forth between the two, Eduardo wondered what the hell he’d gotten himself into.
#
Over the next week, they checked Ramón out of the hospital and into the hospice. Ramón’s parents never showed. Ramón didn’t seem to care — he just seemed happy that the Spaz were still with him.
Once they got him settled, Tony leaned over and said in a low voice, “We got a girl for you, man.”
“Huh?”
“A real hottie.”
Ramón sighed. “I’m not in the mood, guys. It’d just depress me.”
“She’s not an andie,” Tony told him. “I said a girl.”
“She’s one fine bitch,” Jojo said. “You’ll cream just lookin’ at her.”
“What?” Ramón said, looking at them doubtfully. “You mean she’ll…”
Tony nodded. “We’re paying her, of course, but she’s hip to doing it because she’s a nice girl. Caring.”
“She’s like a porn star,” Fader said.
“Really?” Ramón looked distressed, and moved his arm to make all the tubes rattle. “Look at this crap, though. Look where I’m at. All my fucking hair is gone.”
“She won’t care,” Eduardo said.
“It won’t be here, either,” Tony told him. “We’ll take you guys out on a date. Get you high on some good drugs and a couple boner pills, and she’s gonna ride you like a girl on a plastic pony.”
Ramón was speechless for a few moments. “When?” he finally blurted.
“How about tonight?”
The look on his face was priceless. It was like he’d been told the cancer was gone. “I feel my best about seven,” he said. “I’m puking by ten.”
“We’ll pick you up at seven.”
Ramón had such a wide grin that drool poured out.
#
Jojo had a cousin whose husband wanted someone to steal their junky old Winnebago so he could collect insurance on it. They made arrangements to be gone for the evening, and wouldn’t report it stolen until midnight. Eduardo hotwired it and Jojo drove. The engine barely ran and the exhaust blew plumes of oily blue smoke.
They drove out across the central valley, sputtering for miles along a lonely road. Eduardo was afraid it would break down and die before they could make it. Jojo knew how to keep it going, though — he had experience driving it — and after several miles he pulled onto a levy road that led into a barren, ploughed field. The sun sank and touched the horizon. They reached their destination, and Jojo eased the lumbering machine off the levy and into the soft grey dirt, then killed the engine.
Tony was already there. He and Fader helped Ramón out of Tony’s car. A moment later, Gabby emerged. She was stark naked.
Eduardo and Jojo looked at each other.
Ramón was smiling, and drooling. It looked like he didn’t have much control of his muscles, but he definitely wasn’t feeling any pain. They helped him into the motor home and into the back double-bed. “She’s beautiful, man,” he was saying. “Isn’t she? Huh?” He looked at Eduardo. “She was giving me head in the car.”
Eduardo managed a big smile. “Nasty.”
“Oh, yeah!”
Tony leaned close, and said, “Remember what I told you.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Ramón nodded. “Thank you guys. You’re the best fucking family a guy could have.”
“You have fun,” Tony said.
“Yeah.” Ramón nodded, his head wobbling. “I’ve got the secret.” His laugh sounded goofy and stupid. Eduardo was glad to hear it anyway.
As they piled out, Gabby was coming in. She looked unsure. “He’s back there,” Fader told her.
“We’ll be back in an hour or so,” Tony called out to Ramón.
They waited for a minute, watching as Gabby went to the back and started helping Ramón out of his clothes. Eduardo leaned close to Tony. “What did you give him?”
“A bit of this, a bit of that.”
“He’s stoned out of his mind.”
Tony grinned. “He’s got a boner that won’t go away.”
They climbed into Tony’s car. Tony started it up, and drove back down to the end of the dirt road, then pulled out onto the blacktop and parked. There wasn’t another car in sight, anywhere.
“When’s he going to say it?” JoJo asked.
“I told him to tell her right as he’s coming,” Tony said. “I told him to say, ‘I’m Waldo, baby, I’m Waldo.’ Told him it would drive her wild.”
“And then she’ll…?”
Tony nodded, and turned toward Eduardo. “Right?”
Eduardo nodded without saying anything.
They waited silently, the dashboard clock ticking the minutes away. Eduardo felt the tension like a tourniquet around his chest. Each minute tightened it a bit more. The air inside the car seemed to run out of oxygen, and Tony looked at him with a concerned expression. “You okay, man?” he asked.
Eduardo realized he was gasping. “We can’t do this, Tony,” he said.
Tony shook his head. “Calm down—”
“This was a bad idea!” He reached for the door handle, gave it a yank. He heard the Spaz yelling at him as he shoved the door open, but the words were nothing more than a buzz. He couldn’t breathe.
Trees alongside the road blocked their view of the field and the distant Winnebago. He pushed passed them, through the undergrowth, heading out into a field full of yellow straw. Before he could get far, the Spaz were surrounding him, and Tony circled in front, blocking his way. “Don’t be an idiot!” he yelled.
“Man,” Eduardo said, “I have to do something! I can’t let this happen!”
“It’s already done,” Tony said. “She could blow any second. We’re not going back.”
“It’s like when you light a big firecracker,” JoJo said. “You leave it the fuck alone.”
“You can’t do nothing, Eddie,” Fader told him, his expression sad.
“You don’t understand,” Eduardo said, “this is my fault. I brought Gabby in—”
Tony punched him, hard, right in the stomach. Eduardo stumbled backwards, doubled over, gasping and coughing. It hurt so much his eyes couldn’t focus.
“We’re doing the right thing,” Tony said, his voice calm. “Sometimes when you love someone, you have to do harsh things. Like just now. I didn’t want to hit you, Eddie, but I had to bring you back to here and now. And we don’t want Ramón to suffer a long painful death, so we’re giving him a happy quick one. We do these things out of love, man. You have to be brave enough to make the hard choices, with a clear head. To do things that are for the best.”
Eduardo coughed and spat, catching his breath, and still doubled over he looked up at Tony. Right then, he knew. He knew what had happened to Jeannie. “You fucker,” he said. “You cock-sucking son of a bitch!”
“I didn’t want to hurt you, man, but I don’t want you do go out there and die.”
“You killed her, didn’t you? You killed Jeannie!”
Tony’s mouth dropped open, his eyebrows furrowed. “The fucking andie? You bring her up now? She was a fucking machine, Eddie.”
“You killed her, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I fucking killed her, Eduardo! She was becoming your mommy. You’d be in there suckling her teats right now if I hadn’t—”
Eduardo straightened up suddenly, launching himself with both feet and swinging a right hook. It connected solid and painful with Tony’s mouth, sending a shock of agony through Eduardo’s hand and up his arm, blood spraying from teeth gashed against knuckles. Tony reeled backward, and Eduardo took a step back himself, wringing his bloody hand. While he was distracted, Fader and JoJo grabbed hold of him.
“No!” Tony yelled, mouth drippin blood. “Let him go.”
“But—”
“Let him go,” Tony insisted. He held his hands to his mouth, then, muffling his voice. “Fucker!”
Eduardo felt the others release him. He raised his fists again, but hesitated. Tony still held onto his mouth, not attempting to defend himself.
“Go on,” Tony mumbled. “Beat the shit out of me.”
Eduardo lunged forward, his fists swinging, and Tony closed his eyes. He landed blows against Tony’s chest, his arms, the side of his head, but they lacked strength. After one more half-hearted punch, Eduardo stopped.
“If you’re going to hit me,” Tony said, “hit me.”
Eduardo stared at him, panting. “I don’t want to hit you,” he finally said. He looked beyond his friend, far across the fields at the distant Winnebago. “I’m going to go check on Ramón.”
“Don’t do it, man.”
Eduardo shook his head. “I must have been wrong about Gabby. It would have happened by now—”
He was cut off by the loudest noise he had ever heard. The concussion felt like a earthquake; the shockwave knocked them over, wrenched the trees behind them, and sent pieces of Winnebago for miles. The noise went on and on.
Eduardo struggled to his feet, staring at the mushroom cloud of fire and smoke, unable to believe the size of the blackened crater. As the Winnebago fragments began to rain down, JoJo stepped up from behind him and said, “I want to die like that, man. Just like that.”
“Me too,” Fader said. “See?” he said to Eduardo.
“Huh?” Eduardo had trouble hearing anything over the ringing in his ears.
“Now can you see that we did him a favor?”
“Maybe,” Eduardo said, “but that’s not the fucking point.” He turned and looked at Tony, then back over at Fader and JoJo. “We don’t know if that’s what he wanted. I never heard him complain, did you? Did he say, ever, ‘please kill me?’ Did he?”
“Well, no,” Fader said, “but—”
“That’s the point, man!” Eduardo shouted. “I don’t give a shit if it’s for the best or not. It’s not your fucking decision to make.” He tromped off toward the road, and said, “I’m getting the fuck out of here.”
Opening the driver’s door of Tony’s car, he got in behind the wheel. The keys still hung from the ignition, and for a moment — just a split second — he considered driving off and leaving them there. But no, he couldn’t bring himself to abandon his brothers, at least not in the middle of a field.
No more stealing andies, though. No more pimping them out for beer and pizza money. If I survive this, he thought — if someone doesn’t hunt me down and pop a cap in my head for stealing that bomb — I’m moving on. Time to do something real. Time to put this shit behind me.
Time, he thought, to find myself a real woman.
One who doesn’t leave. Or explode. Or get pushed off a ledge.
The others climbed into the car, not saying a word. Not even Tony, who sat in the back seat with all the blood still dribbling down the front of his shirt. Eduardo started the car, put it into gear, and drove away.
