Its eyes were gray and they were odd, but I wasn’t sure why they were odd. I checked one of the other exes to be sure, then I came back to the first one. I moved my head back and forth to see if it was something about the light. Something was wrong. I needed to focus on this better. I was missing something obvious.
Oh. Of course. Exes always turn their heads. They lack the fine muscle control to move their eyes. I’m still not sure they need to move their eyes, in the same way some blind people never move theirs.
The dead man with the hole in its cheek was watching me. It was following me with its eyes.
I found myself very focused. I checked the Nest again. It was still on, still sending the new pattern.
“Wehhh ahhh I?”
The ex was trying to talk. This was more than I’d ever hoped to achieve. I was so amazed I couldn’t wait to tell Eva and Madelyn about it, and then I was horrified I’d forgotten they were
How could I forget? It was only fifteen months. Since they went missing.
“Wahhh tha fugg ess thsss,” said the young man. Its face had twisted into a scowl. I could see its jaws and tongue working through the hole in its cheek, trying to get the bit out.
My mind tripped over three or four different things to say. I leaned over the ex and its gray eyes focused on me. One of the irises had a small tear in it. “Can you understand me?”
“Wahhh tha fugg! Gehh diss hing owdda ma moff!”
I knew I shouldn’t take out the bit. At the very least I should call for a few soldiers to stand guard. But part of me was too intrigued.
And the other part…the other part didn’t care at all.
I unstrapped the neck brace and tossed it aside. A normal ex would be stretching its head, trying to bite me. This one just looked annoyed. I reached behind its head and tugged at the velcro straps which kept the bit in place.
The ex started talking as soon as the wooden bar was out from between its teeth. “‘Bout fucking time,” it said. “What the hell is this? What you doing to me, pinche ?”
It was looking around. It was making observations. It was thinking.
“What is…” I tried to think of an appropriate question. I’d never expected to have this level of success. “What is the last thing you remember?”
“I was in Hollywood,” it said. “Just outside the Mount. Fighting with that metal…” The ex seemed to lose track of its thoughts, and for a moment I wondered if I’d made a mistake. “No,” it said. “I was in the mountains. One of those ski towns.”
Its tone was familiar. It was uncertain. Hesitant. I realized it sounded like me.
It also had a strong Spanish accent, which was odd for a young blond man with Anglo features.
“I was a bunch of places,” it said. “Like I’ve been traveling, but I don’t …”
The head lunged up, looking down at its torso. It turned to me and I yelped. Its expression was vicious. “What the hell is this? What you trying to pull?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“What is this? Where’s my body?”
“What…what do you mean? I don’t under—”
“This isn’t me,” it shouted. “Where’s the rest of me? You sew my head on a new body or…”
Its voice trailed off. It stared at me again.
“Waitaminute,” said the ex. It ran all the words together into a mishmash of English. “I know you. You’re the mad doctor.”
I shivered. “What do you mean?”
“You’re the one who got me out. They wanted to court martial me and shit and you gave me a clean bill. Said all those drugs and things were out of me and I was good to go.”
The phrases swam in my head. I knew this should be familiar, but it was from before. The longest conversation I’d had with anyone in a year and I was freezing up.
“This is, whassit, Project Krypton, right? Some Army base?”
I blinked. “Yes. You…you’re that private. Casares. The one from the previous trials.”
“Yeah. What day is it?”
“Tuesday.”
“No, stupido , I mean what’s the number? The date?”
“The fourteenth,” I said. “Of December.” As I said it, I realized I hadn’t done any shopping, and Eva and Madelyn would be so upset. I’m a very good gift-buyer. And then I remembered I didn’t have to buy gifts this year, either. And there still wasn’t anywhere to buy them. And they probably both hated me.
I must stay focused on work.
He growled. “A month,” he muttered. “My boys prolly fell apart without me.”
It wasn’t until that moment that I started thinking of him as a he. He was conscious. Sentient. No longer an it.
“Your mind has been reactivated,” I explained to him. “There’s a device on the left side of your skull which I call a Nest. It stands for neural stim—”
“Hey, esse ,” he said. “Your gizmo don’t do jack shit, okay? This is one-hundred percent Rodney talking, you get me? How long have I been here?”
“Your body was brought in two weeks ago with three other—”
“No, doc,” he said, shaking his head. “Me. My head. Did they ship it here or something?”
“I…I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“Get me a fucking mirror!”
There was a hand mirror in the scrub room. I used it to make sure nothing splattered on me when I had to drill. I brought it in for the ex and caught a glimpse of myself in it. I needed a haircut. And my beard needed to be trimmed. Eva always hates it when by beard gets too long, because it was short when we met in grad school.
“What the fuck,” he said. The ex tilted his head left and right. It took me a few moments to realize he was looking for a different face. He turned his head and poked his tongue out through the hole in his cheek. “Guess I can get in a lot of practice for the chicas , eh, doc?” His mouth pulled into a grin.
It was an eerie expression for a dead thing.
I cleared my throat. “You…you said the Nest wasn’t working?”
His eyes came away from the mirror. “What?” He squinted his left eye a few times, making the Nest unit shift on his temple. “Naw, this thing’s crap. It was keepin’ the brain warm, that’s it. Kinda gives me a headache, too.” He lifted his chin to his chest and let his eyes roam around the room. “So what is this place? You still trying to make everybody be all they can be and that shit?”
“Yes. And trying to return some of the exes like you to a semi-cogitative state.”
“Not like me,” he said. His eyes focused past me and flitted back and forth. It was as if he was speed-reading an invisible book. Or in REM sleep. “Three fences,” he said. “And you’re low on guards.” He squinted. “Fuck me, is that Colonel Shelly? I hated that fucker.”
“How did you…”
“I’m everywhere, doc.” He looked at one of the other test subjects. “So, what, you need to get ‘em all under control? That’s what your thing’s supposed to do?”
“Yes.”
He nodded. “Well look at this. Put your left foot in and shake it all about, eh?”
The five other exes all swung their left feet side to side.
“Or what about this. Drumroll, mi amigos .”
One of the exes was missing a hand, but nine sets of fingers tapped against the padded gurneys. They were in perfect unison, already like a military unit. They stopped and their fingers went straight to the sides of their legs.
The dead man grinned again. “I’m gonna make a deal with you, doc,” he said. “You need a bunch of exes doing what you say. I need somewhere to lay low while I figure out what I’m doing. You see where I’m goin’ with this?”
I didn’t.
The grin spread even wider. It pulled at the flesh around the hole in his cheek, forming an oval crater in his face. “Congrats, doc,” he said. “Your gizmo works.”