Descending Road - PULLING MY FACE OFF by Dana W. Paxson

PULLING MY FACE OFF

1560 4D

Caladrina‘s feedspot, with tables and chairs and plants in clusters in a big half-circle out under the snake-sculpted dome of the Aswar Tyrae crossing, is nearly empty. Essa in her tight purple moneymaker bodysuit and puff of silvered hair is bending over a table, setting down a tall glass of blue stuff. I slide over to her and open my mouth, and a voice says,

“Tomas. What a nice gesture, on this special day.” I shut my mouth. It’s my ma.

She’s been to the remaker‘s. Her cast-iron black hair is sculpted into a lot of leaves, like, and she’s got on this leather body suit, and the long dark-green nails match her eyes.

Around her neck is that beetle necklace, with the thumb-length beetle still alive in its gold stat coating, suspended forever in mid-scuttle. She takes a pull on the blue stuff, dabs a bit of froth off her lip, raises one eyebrow and says, “You remembered, didn’t you?”

Essa‘s watching me with this smirk on her face. I start sweating and say, “That’s why I’m here, Ma, you know I wouldn’t forget,” and it’s worse than those two gacks, because she’ll hand me more than my face if she sovs I have no frogfaced notion what she’s talking about.

She looks up at me with that suspicious squint, and I think, Damn, here it comes, and she says, “Don’t tell me you’re trying that facial place again. Their grafts never take.”

I grin and shrug and just then the two patches of dressing fall off my sweaty smiling cheeks and she can see the nerves and fat cells all sitting out in open air. They’re burning me like fire.

“It’s ugly. You should go ask for your money back. Doesn’t it hurt?”

Oh, my, yes it does hurt like someone has just started pulling my face off with a tractor and a red-hot chain, and of course I say, “No, Ma. It’s fine.”

Essa snickers and walks off, wiggling her ass.

“So what did you bring me on my hundred and first?” Ma holds out her hand.

Birthday. I go numb, and then I remember the little globe I lifted from Armana‘s with the seedfish swirling in it. “Close your eyes, Ma.” I get it out and put it in her palm.

She grabs it and looks, and her eyes get big, and then get small again looking up at me. “You stole this, didn’t you?”

“No, Ma, I got it for you. Don’t you like it?” Now my nose and eyes are running.

“These are worth a lot of money, several hundred pieces for ones half this size. You don’t buy these at a store, Tomas.” She’s got that squinty look again.

“Ma, I swear, I got it at an effects sale some guy tipped me to. Don’t make me out like that all the time. I love you.” I sniff.

She keeps squinting but she puts out her hand to me. Safe at last. I get down on one knee by her chair, and she puts me in a headlock and I want to scream at the fire in my face, and she says, “All right, Tomy, you’re my very own,” and she rocks me until I’m afraid I’ll bleed on her leather suit and pass out besides. “I love it and I think it’s the most wonderful gift you ever gave me. It reminds me of Thringe, the one I used to read you at bedtime about the jewels of trust singing light.” I twist free at last to take her hand. Her eyes are glistening.

“Happy Birthday, Ma,” I say, and then I pass out from the pain.

I wake up on Caladrina‘s stone floor, and Ma and Essa are kneeling over me. Ma finishes pouring a pitcher of water on me and Essa has some adhesoplast waiting.

“Just where is that facial place, Tomy? I’m gonna go tell them to refund your money.” Ma sets the pitcher carefully on the table and hauls me up to sit in the puddle of water.

Essa smooths the plast into place over my skinless patches. The burning settles down a bit, must have been some ‘caine in the plast. She gives me her cool smile, like she thinks I’m interested in her. Well, sometimes I am.

“Thanks, Essa. Have you seen Armana?” I scooch out of the puddle.

“Not today,” she mutters, “but--“

“Tomy?” Ma never gives up.

What’ll I do? As long as I get her out of here, so Rask won’t find her… “I got it done at Ogi‘s, down the screw about four levels and five streets west,” I lie. She never goes down from here, only up, like to where she lives. And Ogi‘s got burned out a week ago, for selling bad skin to an Argaz guy. The zone down around Ogi‘s is core grotesque; she’d never--

“I’m going down there right now for you. You just sit right there and I’ll be back with your money.” She picks up that bag of hers that’s big enough for her to hide in, and she slaps a small fistful of coin on the table and marches off, the leather suit squeaking.

“No, Ma, don’t,” I call out, but when I try to get up, the blood leaves my brain and Essa catches me just before my head hits the table edge.

“She’ll be fine,” Essa says to me. “They should be scared of her down there. You just sit here and I’ll be right back.”

Marvelous. Now I’m about to get killed, and my mader is about to get killed, and my face is carved up. I’m not in a good mood, so I drop a big jolt of pyro. “Where in the Pit is Armana?” I say to myself, looking around, and I leave my mouth open on the last syllable. Looking in at me between the plants at Caladrina‘s entrance is Rask.

She’s tall and muscled like an ironhumper, pale-pink skin, no hair, and wide frown-angled eyebrows over a long, sharp face. She’s got on this skintight watersuit that seems to flow down over her body and limbs. She steps into the doorway like a large cat, and two cocks flank in behind her, same size and build as she is. In her left hand she holds a biojector. It’s her favorite toy, Jackie B says, when she’s hunting; she loads the bugs into her prey and watches the slow death. She’s loaded the bugs, and then put the victim in stat, too. Takes ten years to die, standing paralyzed in gold, while the bugs eat one nerve cell at a time.

She looks unhappy.

“Tomas Shanxi. You’re here early, but your metal’s long late.” Her words come soft and low, but they carry ten strides as if she whispered them in my ear. She’s got this amazing voice, sounds like any voice she wants.

“I’m still calling it in,” I say in a voice that doesn’t want to be a voice. Essa is off to clean tables, out of the way. My pyro hasn’t kicked in.

“That’s what you said last halflight, little cock.” She takes these slow, flowing steps in my direction as she talks, and she starts to raise the one finger that says to her cocks, Take him, and my pyro finally plugs in, and I goose my brain out of its hole and do the Kai Ren thing.

Kai Ren training takes a lot of time. It’s one school from which I actually graduated, where they keep hitting you until you learn how not to be there when they try to hit you again. The Kai Ren Hau make sure all their families’ kids do the full course, and I finished at the top after five years. Being my vader‘s kid gave me a head start.

So by the time Rask‘s cocks step out after me, the entire route is all wired into my spine, and I wait and look helpless long enough for them to relax just a bit.

Kai Ren calls it Crossing The Ice: my foot hooks a chair into the left one’s knee as I move forward and left, fake a jump over the plant and reverse direction as the right one’s bullets go past my throat, and now the left one is my shield against the other two.

I angle a chair seat at the muzzle of his gun, his bullets ricochet off through the crossing, and the chair belts his face, and I coil behind three tall plants as more bullets go bump, bump into the pot soil. My hand inside my coverall leg, I fire Armana‘s beamer at the sculpted stone ceiling, sizzling my own knee; with a roar a section of rock breaks loose from above, and I sprint zigzag away through a blizzard of fire as the rock thunders down between me and them, throwing up a cloud of stones and dust.

Beamers are not considered civilized down here, but what to do? I exit the crossing, with Caladrina screaming curses at me for the third time this year. Rask and her remaining cock charge out of the cloud, and I’m already in a service closet, busy disappearing.

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	PULLING MY FACE OFF 1560 4D Caladrina‘s feedspot, with tables and chairs and plants in clusters in a big half-circle out under the snake-sculpted dome of the Aswar Tyrae crossing, is nearly empty. Essa in her tight purple moneymaker bodysuit and puff of silvered hair is bending over a table, setting down a tall glass of blue stuff. I slide over to her and open my mouth, and a voice says, “Tomas. What a nice gesture, on this special day.” I shut my mouth. It’s my ma. She’s been to the remaker‘s. Her cast-iron black hair is sculpted into a lot of leaves, like, and she’s got on this leather body suit, and the long dark-green nails match her eyes. Around her neck is that beetle necklace, with the thumb-length beetle still alive in its gold stat coating, suspended forever in mid-scuttle. She takes a pull on the blue stuff, dabs a bit of froth off her lip, raises one eyebrow and says, “You remembered, didn’t you?” Essa‘s watching me with this smirk on her face. I start sweating and say, “That’s why I’m here, Ma, you know I wouldn’t forget,” and it’s worse than those two gacks, because she’ll hand me more than my face if she sovs I have no frogfaced notion what she’s talking about. She looks up at me with that suspicious squint, and I think, Damn, here it comes, and she says, “Don’t tell me you’re trying that facial place again. Their grafts never take.” I grin and shrug and just then the two patches of dressing fall off my sweaty smiling cheeks and she can see the nerves and fat cells all sitting out in open air. They’re burning me like fire. “It’s ugly. You should go ask for your money back. Doesn’t it hurt?” Oh, my, yes it does hurt like someone has just started pulling my face off with a tractor and a red-hot chain, and of course I say, “No, Ma. It’s fine.” Essa snickers and walks off, wiggling her ass. “So what did you bring me on my hundred and first?” Ma holds out her hand. Birthday. I go numb, and then I remember the little globe I lifted from Armana‘s with the seedfish swirling in it. “Close your eyes, Ma.” I get it out and put it in her palm. She grabs it and looks, and her eyes get big, and then get small again looking up at me. “You stole this, didn’t you?” “No, Ma, I got it for you. Don’t you like it?” Now my nose and eyes are running. “These are worth a lot of money, several hundred pieces for ones half this size. You don’t buy these at a store, Tomas.” She’s got that squinty look again. “Ma, I swear, I got it at an effects sale some guy tipped me to. Don’t make me out like that all the time. I love you.” I sniff. She keeps squinting but she puts out her hand to me. Safe at last. I get down on one knee by her chair, and she puts me in a headlock and I want to scream at the fire in my face, and she says, “All right, Tomy, you’re my very own,” and she rocks me until I’m afraid I’ll bleed on her leather suit and pass out besides. “I love it and I think it’s the most wonderful gift you ever gave me. It reminds me of Thringe, the one I used to read you at bedtime about the jewels of trust singing light.” I twist free at last to take her hand. Her eyes are glistening. “Happy Birthday, Ma,” I say, and then I pass out from the pain. I wake up on Caladrina‘s stone floor, and Ma and Essa are kneeling over me. Ma finishes pouring a pitcher of water on me and Essa has some adhesoplast waiting. “Just where is that facial place, Tomy? I’m gonna go tell them to refund your money.” Ma sets the pitcher carefully on the table and hauls me up to sit in the puddle of water. Essa smooths the plast into place over my skinless patches. The burning settles down a bit, must have been some ‘caine in the plast. She gives me her cool smile, like she thinks I’m interested in her. Well, sometimes I am. “Thanks, Essa. Have you seen Armana?” I scooch out of the puddle. “Not today,” she mutters, “but--“ “Tomy?” Ma never gives up. What’ll I do? As long as I get her out of here, so Rask won’t find her… “I got it done at Ogi‘s, down the screw about four levels and five streets west,” I lie. She never goes down from here, only up, like to where she lives. And Ogi‘s got burned out a week ago, for selling bad skin to an Argaz guy. The zone down around Ogi‘s is core grotesque; she’d never-- “I’m going down there right now for you. You just sit right there and I’ll be back with your money.” She picks up that bag of hers that’s big enough for her to hide in, and she slaps a small fistful of coin on the table and marches off, the leather suit squeaking. “No, Ma, don’t,” I call out, but when I try to get up, the blood leaves my brain and Essa catches me just before my head hits the table edge. “She’ll be fine,” Essa says to me. “They should be scared of her down there. You just sit here and I’ll be right back.” Marvelous. Now I’m about to get killed, and my mader is about to get killed, and my face is carved up. I’m not in a good mood, so I drop a big jolt of pyro. “Where in the Pit is Armana?” I say to myself, looking around, and I leave my mouth open on the last syllable. Looking in at me between the plants at Caladrina‘s entrance is Rask. She’s tall and muscled like an ironhumper, pale-pink skin, no hair, and wide frown-angled eyebrows over a long, sharp face. She’s got on this skintight watersuit that seems to flow down over her body and limbs. She steps into the doorway like a large cat, and two cocks flank in behind her, same size and build as she is. In her left hand she holds a biojector. It’s her favorite toy, Jackie B says, when she’s hunting; she loads the bugs into her prey and watches the slow death. She’s loaded the bugs, and then put the victim in stat, too. Takes ten years to die, standing paralyzed in gold, while the bugs eat one nerve cell at a time. She looks unhappy. “Tomas Shanxi. You’re here early, but your metal’s long late.” Her words come soft and low, but they carry ten strides as if she whispered them in my ear. She’s got this amazing voice, sounds like any voice she wants. “I’m still calling it in,” I say in a voice that doesn’t want to be a voice. Essa is off to clean tables, out of the way. My pyro hasn’t kicked in. “That’s what you said last halflight, little cock.” She takes these slow, flowing steps in my direction as she talks, and she starts to raise the one finger that says to her cocks, Take him, and my pyro finally plugs in, and I goose my brain out of its hole and do the Kai Ren thing. Kai Ren training takes a lot of time. It’s one school from which I actually graduated, where they keep hitting you until you learn how not to be there when they try to hit you again. The Kai Ren Hau make sure all their families’ kids do the full course, and I finished at the top after five years. Being my vader‘s kid gave me a head start. So by the time Rask‘s cocks step out after me, the entire route is all wired into my spine, and I wait and look helpless long enough for them to relax just a bit. Kai Ren calls it Crossing The Ice: my foot hooks a chair into the left one’s knee as I move forward and left, fake a jump over the plant and reverse direction as the right one’s bullets go past my throat, and now the left one is my shield against the other two. I angle a chair seat at the muzzle of his gun, his bullets ricochet off through the crossing, and the chair belts his face, and I coil behind three tall plants as more bullets go bump, bump into the pot soil. My hand inside my coverall leg, I fire Armana‘s beamer at the sculpted stone ceiling, sizzling my own knee; with a roar a section of rock breaks loose from above, and I sprint zigzag away through a blizzard of fire as the rock thunders down between me and them, throwing up a cloud of stones and dust. Beamers are not considered civilized down here, but what to do? I exit the crossing, with Caladrina screaming curses at me for the third time this year. Rask and her remaining cock charge out of the cloud, and I’m already in a service closet, busy disappearing.