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  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I go home alone to draw and calm down. Cliff can do whatever he likes. I mean, I know he had to get his dad to the hospital fast, but he could have at least said goodbye- and thanks for averting your eyes. Thanks for understanding. How could I have been expected to look into his face at the moment his scarf was ripped off by a thug?

  Forest Mortimer is going to be the most challenging portrait I’ve ever done. Not for lack of visual information: the whole of his ranting, high volume face is seared into my memory forever. It’s on account of the shocking absence of symmetry or stillness of any kind. I start with an imperfect oval because he has loose skin everywhere, especially his jaw line. It’s more of a square face, so I alter it, to match his stocky build. I’m not recording the damage, none of the red stuff, only what existed before- and will exist again, after nanosurgical repair.

  I think I’ll even give him a banner, make him noble in battle. Thing is, Forest is this heaving mass of over-used expression. His is a face of free structure, in fact, he reminds me of one of those weird melting buildings a few prominent politicians went crazy over last year. Crucially, you can see Forest’s expressions coming. His eyes may be concealed under low-hanging brows, but the laughter lines point them out like arrows. So I start with the fan of arrows. He has a snub nose, a baby nose. It reminds me of Daimon’s but all grown-up. Ears like the dispensing flaps on an Analyzer.

  When I first laid eyes Forest Mortimer, I struggled to read him because his face got in the way. Nothing on it is easy. But now I’d dare anyone to misunderstand his desires. That face would come looming in at you on its thick neck and shoulders, obliterating your personal space, and there would be Forest, in his entirety, Forest against the world.

  What if you were forced to kiss him? Where could you even plant that kiss, there’s no clear landing patch, it’s all surface texture. What would Natural skin feel like to touch and hold? I couldn’t do it.

  I sit back and study what I have created: this loud, creased, sunken face of a Natural leader. He’s no advert, but you could never walk past him. His face is a promise.

  Next up, I’m drawing Cliff. He doesn’t get his own noble portrait or anything- he doesn’t deserve that. It’s just that I’ve realised exactly what Forest needs to be finished: he needs a t-shirt. And he deserves one with his son on, Family Resemblance protest-style.

  I screw up my eyes to scan my sub-conscious- is anything lurking, repressed? Details of Cliff’s face snatched in those milliseconds when I was getting to grips with the sudden violent turn of events, this afternoon? Disappointingly, I summon nothing new. Only the memory of Cliff tugging his fedora angrily back down, under the watchful eyes of Merlot on the building facade, in that moment when all the cars had stopped and cleared a path between us.

  I turn instead to Forest’s features, my starting template. I know the eyes already, so I sketch a smoother version of Forest’s snub nose and mouth, trying to match the positioning of the features, the length of the chin, the exact shape of his forehead. Here are Cliff’s steady, watchful grey eyes that I know so well. Those eyes were his parting gift to me through the rear window of the car, only different. Closed down like a stranger.

  I rustle around in the heap of papers on my desk and eventually find what I’m searching for: my previous portrait of Cliff, face-down where I concealed him. It’s the Cliff I created a few days after our first real meeting in the park. He had just informed me that it wasn’t against the rules to look at him, before abandoning me on the tunnel in the half-dark. The eyes on this one almost make me gasp out loud- they are ridiculous! So pretty, he’s practically winking out of the page. His real eyes are so different. Cliff had indeed stared at me the whole time, so I was trying to capture something real, but these are more like Dollar’s eyes: the parting hook. Cliff can’t do that. Cliff’s face doesn’t work that way.

  Next up is the earlier portrait of my Library Stalker. This one takes longer to find and it turns up in my bedroom recycling bin. It’s a simple line drawing of Cliff, with massive plunging eyebrows scribbled in at the last minute. He’s looking as threatening as only a cartoon villain can, but with Dollar’s curls. Cliff as the new boy who wouldn’t show himself. He has shifty eyes. I didn’t know how to draw quiet eyes back then- I’d never met any. I’ve labelled it ‘Repulsive Cliff.’

  I finish off the eyes on the ‘t-shirt Cliff’ with ease. Here they are, father and son united as one Original art work, and I reckon Forest would love it. His son portrayed unmistakeably as a part of him. Cliff would hate to be on a t-shirt. I’m the walking banner these days. All of which is fine by me.

  I scan the three pictures into my phone in chronological order. Only, as I watch ‘t-shirt Cliff’ materialise on my screen, I get this powerful sinking feeling that this isn’t Cliff. This is not the person I would have been confronted with this afternoon, out on the pavement, had I not averted my gaze in the nick of time. Cliff is not a cartoon villain; he does not own movie star eyes; but neither is he a mini Forest Mortimer. I mean, he just can’t be. It would spoil everything.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I log into History of Science Monday after lunch to find a crowd around Cliff’s desk: it’s Day, Story and a handful of early kids, mainly girls. This is annoying; I wanted him to myself; I’ve decided that it will be easier for Cliff to apologise to my avatar than to me in person. If he’s still blanking me, at least it’s not to my real face this time.

  Seven is hanging back and I join her. She is watching the scene unfold in the classroom with interest, but still finds time to give my avatar a squeeze.

  “You made the wrong choice. Now you’re gonna pay- with your life!”

  Cliff gets the voice exactly right. Day’s face spreads into appreciation.

  “Wait- it wasn’t like that,” the pernickety kid, Dali, steps forward waving his hands around, an attempt to erase Cliff’s performance. “It’s: ‘Now you’re gonna pay...with your life!’” Dali slashes the air but all eyes are on PsychoCliff.

  In repose, Cliff’s new avatar is an impressive match to PsychoDollar in the film trailer, released today. It’s a face release over any plotline, nobody’s pretending otherwise. The rings of gold have been subtracted from his eyes, rendering them flatter, colder, just as I expected them to be. Deeper set psycho-eyes that seem to sink into the structure of his face, a brave and unexpected nod to the ageing process of a Natural. His hero’s nose is broken, damaged, but his sensuous mouth sits untouched. You could spoil it all with body language, but Cliff does a passable copy of Dollar’s snake-like poise, an emphasis on the threatening nature of hidden desires.

  “Come closer, I’m so much prettier on the inside.” Cliff drawls in a well-rehearsed chilling monotone, except for a slight hint of boy bravado. He’s a teenager channelling a movie star channelling evil. Seven raises one neat eyebrow.

  “He’s actually not bad.” she says.

  Was that a real invitation to come closer I wonder, or just a line from the film? I shuffle forwards and the Psycho-gaze passes over me and suddenly this is not Dollar anymore, Dollar draws you out of the crowd, Dollar builds you up.

  “The eyes are the worst,” Story says, wrapping her arms around herself. “You don’t know if he’s about to flip. They suit him.”

  Beijing giggles. “Dollar’s still there, isn’t he? I love what they did to him.”

  “You’re seriously twisted, Lady.” Day says. “No hang on...the magic is coming through! He’s still the man, isn’t he, girls? Who wants to try out those new lips?”

  Cliff twists his Dollar lips into a sneer and Beijing lets out a frankly grating Hollywood shriek.

  “I so want that avatar!”

  “Come closer. I’ve got the information you need.” Cliff pats the desk.

  New arrivals wander up, eager to get in on the show.

  Day seizes the role of commentator. “Option One: Beijing approaches the Psycho for information- gathering purposes. Option Tw
o: Beijing runs like hell. Option Three: Beijing kisses PsychoLips. Can she survive?”

  “Press your green buttons now!” overlapping voices recite, displaying amused, open avatar faces.

  Cliff squirms on his chair, the suddenly self-doubting psycho.

  “Run!” hisses Seven, under her breath.

  Beijing approaches PsychoCliff with yet another unnecessary giggle and there are wolf whistles, as she parks herself at his desk.

  “You made the right choice...” Cliff rolls out the phrase with a reel-them-in lowering of the gaze, “...too slow!”

  He clambers up onto the desk (not quite as smoothly as planned) and dips into a crouch, sneering straight whites and miming a knife slash, which causes his audience to scatter laughing, all except for Beijing who covers her face: that well-known defence against murder. PsychoCliff- being half school-boy- can’t quite decide what to do with Beijing, so he continues to slash the air in a direction which leaves her personal space untouched. I notice that Cliff is getting real smiles, not the polite whites. He is still slashing and humming the murderous theme tune when Mrs Singh materialises at the front.

  “Settle down everyone.”

  It’s totally classic, because Mrs Singh has appeared before a crouching, singing psychopath mid-slash, without so much as a glimpse in his direction. I guess she’s seen some angry faces in her time, lecturing the History of Molecular Science.

  “Back to your seats everyone.”

  I try to catch Cliff’s eye on my way back to my desk, but he’s off on some glory trip, wallowing in his own performance.

  PsychoCliff gets into this animated conversation with Day at the end of class. Talking freely he is more recognisably Cliff, the confident tone and sweeping gestures. I wonder if Day is updating his original ‘Freak’ diagnosis. Somehow, borrowing the face of a killer has made Cliff look sane.

  Day logs off and Mrs Singh switches off the lesson title:

  The History of Molecular Manufacturing: Module Two: The Nanotechnological Revolution. I know that Cliff sees me, now that all the shimmering airborne lettering has gone. Me standing motionless in the sea of rapidly disappearing faces; easy faces that leave in twos and threes. Any second Mrs Singh will turn out the light and plunge the virtual classroom into darkness; that sweet reminder to log into your next lesson.

  “Come to mine tomorrow after school.” Seven says, a command softened by a blown kiss as she logs off.

  Beijing is still here. Cliff is apparently in demand.

  “How come you’re allowed to come to class as Dollar?” she asks him and her voice wavers. This should be interesting.

  “Every school needs its resident psychopath.” he says, reassuringly smooth.

  Beijing’s laughter is self-conscious now that her friends have gone.

  “Where did you download your avatar from? Send me the link?”

  Cliff promises that he will and Beijing logs off. Cliff and I face each other at last. Fake light falling across the empty desks, open fields to the fake horizon. What we need is a fully functioning Emergency Exit, for encounters such as these: a big old creaky door to slam, with plenty of reverberation, instead of the silent and ever-present threat of the log off, or lights out.

  Cliff moves first; Dollar’s pumped-up shoulders roll towards me, in that precise, rhythmic way of an avatar approach. An expanding square that fills my screen and blocks my virtual light. You could slip around Cliff’s frame. I guess this is some kind of power trip for him. Some kind of a game, with hidden points. I watch my avatar reach out to touch his forearm. In my bedroom, my real skin prickles.

  “How’s your Dad?” I say.

  He doesn’t answer. Instead he turns his not-Cliff eyes upon me, shards of silver, glistening symbols of PsychoDollar’s weapon of choice. Cliff rolls closer, far closer than we’ve ever been; personal space between avatars is ripe for testing.

  “Dollar still doing it for you, True? Or did he go too far for your liking?”

  Cliff swivels his head from left to right, mechanically, like the Profile Preview that presents itself before you Accept an Update. I don’t care about rating a film trailer face when the lights are about to go out; but I don’t want it to come out sounding dismissive of his whole triumphant performance here today, and I can’t even get my own face set right to begin speaking. As it turns out, he hasn’t quite finished:

  “...Thanks for looking at me today. It’s been a pleasant change.”

  I stand there like an idiot, until it goes pitch dark.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Seven is expecting me after school. But I’m stuck here instead, outside Cliff’s house.

  “I enjoyed your new PsychoCliff avatar.” I deliver my pre-prepared line.

  “But you preferred the old one.” Cliff says

  “I prefer pre-PsychoCliff for sure.”

  “I meant Dollar. He’s not tempted you to go Natural then?”

  “Maybe one day.”

  “Liar.”

  “Yeah. Psychopath isn’t my thing. I’m not that crazed level of fan, I have my limits.”

  His eyes graze with a studied lack of interest.

  “...Anyway. I just came by to return this.” I hold out the newborn teddy bear scarf, Cliff’s gift to Daimon, all businesslike. “It’s cute, but I don’t want my brother to feel like he needs to hide.”

  “Won’t that be his choice to make?”

  “It’s your choice. Daimon is just a baby.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Cliff makes no move to collect the scarf. He starts to fidget, and I recognise this, I wait for him to wind himself up to what he really wants to say.

  “When my scarf was torn off you couldn’t look away from my face fast enough.”

  “Hey, it wasn’t like that-”

  “I thought we were friends or something.”

  “I was trying-”

  “If that’s the reaction I get from my friends, what should I expect from all the rest? Trust me, Daimon will need the scarf as soon as he’s old enough to understand.”

  “Wait, slow down. It would have made me into some kind of pervert, wouldn’t it? Gawping at what you go to so much trouble to hide?”

  “Mm.”

  “A holiday from all the stares, isn’t that what you called it?”

  Today’s scarf sits taught and high, almost interfering with his lower lashes. It does not look comfortable.

  “Can I come in?” I say.

  He shifts his weight to the other foot.

  “You want to show me your face? Go on then. Whip it off right now.”

  Cliff makes some funny noises, rising excuses. I’m triumphant.

  “That’s fine, because actually, you’re not hiding as much as you think you are. For example: right now, you’ve totally and utterly forgiven me and you’re desperate to invite me in, but you can’t quite bring yourself to say it.”

  Cliff turns his back on me and starts to climb the stairs. But I saw it in his eyes, the challenge, and it’s as good as an invitation. I shut the door behind me, shut myself in, and watch. See how far up he goes without me.

  “Give that boy an Oscar!” I call after him.

  Cliff pauses. It’s a fake strop now, I know it. The real strop is out of juice. Those quiet eyes can’t touch me, not from all the way up there. Bad luck Cliff.

  “Are your parents in?”

  “Out.”

  “How’s your dad’s nose?”

  “Bigger than yours.”

  “He’s all fixed up?”

  “His nose broke, his jaw dislocated, he was in a lot of pain, True.”

  “Yikes! He was holding it together so well...”

  I have spent a disproportionate amount of time thinking about Cliff’s face.

  “Yeah, he does that. It was a nightmare at the hospital. Every time his face gets pummelled for taking his scarf off in public and shouting about it, he insists he wants his same old ugly mug back, exactly as it was. He insists they study pictu
res of how it was before, from every angle, because sometimes the nanobots fix things up a little too much for his liking. It always takes four times as long as it should. Dad gets to sit there in pain, arguing. Only this time I had to do it because his jaw wasn’t working. The Doctor was this little twitchy guy, with all these masked people hanging about...it’s worse for us, to be in a crowd.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “He’s gone back to the scene of the crime, Ultiface headquarters- his regular spot out front. Mum’s been filming him all morning for the site. They’re doing a thing about it. Come on up, then.”

  Impatience now. He leads the way to his room, first on the left, and as I’ve come to expect, he studies my reaction as if storing it up for later.

  “Spacious. Lucky you.”

  “You haven’t seen the size of my front teeth. I told you, Bugs Bunny.”

  “Liar. All of that-” I point to the wall of storage units of assorted sizes, “- it’s for your scarf collection. Plus, I’ve been introduced to the wood-effect wardrobe before.”

  His lowered brows indicate confusion.

  “Your first ever call to me, leaving me to talk to that wardrobe?”

  His belly shudders twice, a not-so hidden laugh.

  “That’s right, you shouted at my furniture.”

  “We didn’t really click.”

  Cliff topples a pile of clean laundry, sweeping a space to sit at the end of the bed. The only chair, the desk chair must be for me. I take a swipe at his hat as I stroll past, knocking it forward.

  “Hands off!”

  A bit of an over-reaction if you ask me. I re-position it for him, give it a final downwards tug.

  “Hat respect.”

  Over his shoulder I spy that grey scarf, freshly washed and folded into squares. The scarf that had seemed so threatening in the park, at twilight; I couldn’t see how it flattered his eyes. Cliff folds forward, his forearms on his thighs and hangs his head and I look at the knot, peeking out from under the rim of his hat. Maybe that thing really is on too tight today because I can tell he wants to Talk but there’s a sound delay. He raises his grey eyes, but they don’t give previews.