time understanding the things he did, and why he did them, but this is as much his story as it is mine.
This is how he died.
***
I hadn’t thought I’d ever see Helen again.
But there she stood, on our front porch, smiling demonically. She wore a jean jacket over a skintight halter top, a black velvet skirt speckled with glittering cheap nanodiamond rhinestones, her skin fashionably pale. She’d picked up a little weight around her hips, a little rounded white belly, but she was still long and mostly lean. She wasn’t wearing the navel ring anymore.
Still breathtaking.
“Helen,” I said. “Uhhhh.”
“You lost your hair!” she wailed. “How disappointing!”
I ran my hand through the quarter inch fuzz lining my skull. I had a bad autoimmune reaction to the cheap implants, and regenerating the follicles from my own stem cells was expensive, so I’d just gone with the look.
“You look old.” She took a step closer. She’d accumulated a fine webbing of lines at the corners of her eyes herself, I noticed.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I deprogrammed myself.”
Sylvia made a gentle, questioning sound from the bedroom. She always fell back asleep for awhile, afterwards. I closed the door behind me, stepping out on the porch.
I felt dizzy. My morning coffee backed up a little bit, a bitterness at the back of my throat. “Your last text said I would burn eternally in hell.”
“I was mad at you.”
“You told me you’d never see me again.”
Helen put her hands on my shoulders. Her eyes weren’t blue or green exactly, but some impossible shade in between. I recognized her scent.
“I lied,” she said.
“Don’t do this.” I insist I said that.
She kissed me, her mouth opening, her tongue at once familiar and new. I ran my hand through her short, brown hair, my neck pivoting back the ten degrees needed to really kiss Helen right. She was six feet two, after all, a full two inches taller than me.
A tiny voice piped “Is he my logical father?”
I nearly bit our tongues off.
The toddler had been hiding behind her skirt. Helen started to laugh, hard, braying like a horse. I’d enjoyed her laugh, though it had embarrassed me in public. She drooled a little, she was laughing so hard. She wiped it on her jacket sleeve and swooped the little girl into her arms.
“Yes! He’s your bio-logical father. Evan, I’d like you to meet your daughter, Faith.”
The girl was small, waist-high, like kids are, dressed in a cute blue denim dress and mud-spattered white tights. Blonde hair, blue eyes, but all kids have those, right? She looked familiar. Very familiar. She’d been eating chocolate, or something like it, from the smudges on her cheeks. She smiled, revealing perfect teeth like white chicklets pressed into pink bubblegum. Her eyes were huge and placid.
“Impossible.” I tried to take a step back, encountered something hard, the door I’d closed behind me. “You, we. Us. Us. Ten years.”
I’d lost syntax. I felt cold.
“She froze your sperms,” Faith said solemnly.
“You were always talking about getting a vasectomy. You never did, did you?” Helen said.
I shook my head. “Frozen,” I repeated. “Sperm,” I added. “Ahh.”
“Men always talk about vasectomies. They never get them.”
“Oh.”
“Men don’t like little knives down there, do they?”
“My.”
“Teeth don’t scare you, though, for some reason. Good thing. That’s how I got your sample. That last date we had. Popped it in the freezer.”
“God.”
“Leave God out of this!” Helen frowned and set Faith down again. The little girl started fiddling with the beaded sash around Helen’s hips. “My Enclave is starving themselves to death. We’ve had three, count them three, failed Raptures. How many times can you shiver in the cold waiting to be taken and not feel like an idiot? But I couldn’t leave, either. So I found a BlackNet server. I bought a metaprogrammer, asked it to figure
This is how he died.
***
I hadn’t thought I’d ever see Helen again.
But there she stood, on our front porch, smiling demonically. She wore a jean jacket over a skintight halter top, a black velvet skirt speckled with glittering cheap nanodiamond rhinestones, her skin fashionably pale. She’d picked up a little weight around her hips, a little rounded white belly, but she was still long and mostly lean. She wasn’t wearing the navel ring anymore.
Still breathtaking.
“Helen,” I said. “Uhhhh.”
“You lost your hair!” she wailed. “How disappointing!”
I ran my hand through the quarter inch fuzz lining my skull. I had a bad autoimmune reaction to the cheap implants, and regenerating the follicles from my own stem cells was expensive, so I’d just gone with the look.
“You look old.” She took a step closer. She’d accumulated a fine webbing of lines at the corners of her eyes herself, I noticed.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I deprogrammed myself.”
Sylvia made a gentle, questioning sound from the bedroom. She always fell back asleep for awhile, afterwards. I closed the door behind me, stepping out on the porch.
I felt dizzy. My morning coffee backed up a little bit, a bitterness at the back of my throat. “Your last text said I would burn eternally in hell.”
“I was mad at you.”
“You told me you’d never see me again.”
Helen put her hands on my shoulders. Her eyes weren’t blue or green exactly, but some impossible shade in between. I recognized her scent.
“I lied,” she said.
“Don’t do this.” I insist I said that.
She kissed me, her mouth opening, her tongue at once familiar and new. I ran my hand through her short, brown hair, my neck pivoting back the ten degrees needed to really kiss Helen right. She was six feet two, after all, a full two inches taller than me.
A tiny voice piped “Is he my logical father?”
I nearly bit our tongues off.
The toddler had been hiding behind her skirt. Helen started to laugh, hard, braying like a horse. I’d enjoyed her laugh, though it had embarrassed me in public. She drooled a little, she was laughing so hard. She wiped it on her jacket sleeve and swooped the little girl into her arms.
“Yes! He’s your bio-logical father. Evan, I’d like you to meet your daughter, Faith.”
The girl was small, waist-high, like kids are, dressed in a cute blue denim dress and mud-spattered white tights. Blonde hair, blue eyes, but all kids have those, right? She looked familiar. Very familiar. She’d been eating chocolate, or something like it, from the smudges on her cheeks. She smiled, revealing perfect teeth like white chicklets pressed into pink bubblegum. Her eyes were huge and placid.
“Impossible.” I tried to take a step back, encountered something hard, the door I’d closed behind me. “You, we. Us. Us. Ten years.”
I’d lost syntax. I felt cold.
“She froze your sperms,” Faith said solemnly.
“You were always talking about getting a vasectomy. You never did, did you?” Helen said.
I shook my head. “Frozen,” I repeated. “Sperm,” I added. “Ahh.”
“Men always talk about vasectomies. They never get them.”
“Oh.”
“Men don’t like little knives down there, do they?”
“My.”
“Teeth don’t scare you, though, for some reason. Good thing. That’s how I got your sample. That last date we had. Popped it in the freezer.”
“God.”
“Leave God out of this!” Helen frowned and set Faith down again. The little girl started fiddling with the beaded sash around Helen’s hips. “My Enclave is starving themselves to death. We’ve had three, count them three, failed Raptures. How many times can you shiver in the cold waiting to be taken and not feel like an idiot? But I couldn’t leave, either. So I found a BlackNet server. I bought a metaprogrammer, asked it to figure
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