The preacher nodded. “Yeah. Actually. I thought I was fucked there, for a minute, and then bang, you swoop down like Superman.”
“I did not s-swoop. Real men don’t swoop.” Javier rolled his neck. The stammer was his least favourite part of the failsafe. It made him sound like such a pendejo. It was worse when he was speaking English. The adaptive behaviours got all entangled with the stemware programming. “Though I guess I’m n-not a real man, either.”
“Like hell you’re not.” Powell was staring at Javier. “What about you? Are you good?”
Javier looked down at himself. His shirt – the nice cotton one – was ruined. Carbon streaked across the front. He turned around. His back was sticky. She’d pierced his skin. He sucked his teeth.
“Take that off,” Powell said. Javier did as he was told. Powell whistled low. “Damn, son.”
“Is it bad?”
“Not as bad as it could be. Your legs, though…”
Javier flexed his feet. “They feel just fine.”
“We should check, though. Be a shame to damage a donkey kick like that one.”
Javier looked up at him. “Are you asking me to take off my pants?”
Powell smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ll still respect you in the morning.”
Javier started unbuttoning. “Oh, I’m not worried about that,” he said, as he stood. “I find people tend to respect me more with my clothes off.”
His pants fell, and the preacher’s brows rose.
“Shit,” Powell said.
“That’s putting it mildly,” Javier said. He turned. “How’s it look from the back?”
He heard a soft crunch in the dirt as Powell stepped up behind him. He was still too warm, in the way that humans were all too warm when they were afraid or angry or aroused. Javier didn’t know which one it was. He was still safe, he reasoned. Still on the right side of his relationship. Still faithful to his mechanical bride (who hadn’t said yes, who saw no need to say yes, who wouldn’t change him, even when it led to moments like this). His own responses wouldn’t kick into high gear unless Powell’s did. You couldn’t want them until they wanted you. You could make them want you, of course, just to set things in motion, but you couldn’t force them. It was part of the failsafe. They could force you, but you couldn’t force them.
Powell’s fingers lit on the base of his spine. “Looks all good to me.”
“Why did you provoke them?” Javier asked. “I told you to stay put.”
“I just wanted to see.”
His warmth moved down Javier’s back. He was kneeling. He was widening Javier’s stance, like a police officer searching for weapons. Between the legs.
“What did you want to see?” Javier asked.
“I wanted to see you,” Powell said. “That’s why I came to your room.”
Javier swallowed. He focused on the tree. He focused on the details of its bark, Amy’s fingerprints all over it, the backyard she’d never had and always wanted, the space she’d made for him and his children. Amy. Amy. Amy.
“Why are you really here?”
“Here on my knees, or here on the island?” His fingers traced up the insides of Javier’s legs as he stood. He pulled up Javier’s pants, reached around, and buttoned them. “That’s a good question, Javier. That’s a really good question. Because if Amy really does see everything on this island, she saw what just happened. And she didn’t stop it. Any of it.”
Javier turned. “What are you saying?”
Powell looked just as calm as ever. “I’m saying that maybe there are things in Never Never Land that Amy doesn’t see,” he said. “I’m saying that her control of this place might not be as complete as she wants us all to believe.”
Javier picked up his shirt. He buttoned it as best he could. “If you’re talking about the attack, that was just a default.”
“A default that almost failsafed you.”
“Well, what else could it be?”
Powell reached over and started rebuttoning Javier’s shirt. “I think we both know the answer to that.”
“The answer to what?”
Amy was lit by a halo of botflies, green and red and white, circling her lazily. Her hands were fists.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“We…” Javier looked toward the Veldt. Her gaze followed. “There’s something going on–”
“I can see that, Javier.” Her mouth was a thin line. “You took a human being into the Veldt.”
“Yeah, but–”
“Where the children are.”
“The kids are all fine, they’re asleep–”
“These people rape children, Javier. That’s what they do.” Amy stepped closer. Her voice got lower. She pointed. “That’s why their leader – his boss – is in prison. LeMarque raped children. He raped his own children. He made a multi-player game about raping children. And now his followers keep their vN small, so they can keep fucking them. And thanks to the failsafe, they can’t possibly say no.”