But I didn’t. Instead, I lay in my bed in my apartment, doubled over and sobbing until I hurt from it, wanted to hurt from it. I didn’t care what happened to me. Mord could have dug me up and swallowed me whole as a morsel and some part of me would have been grateful. And yet there was another part of Rachel, the part that had lasted six years in the city, who waited patiently behind the scenes, saying, Get it out, get it all out now so it doesn’t kill you later.
When I woke after however many hours, days, or centuries, I checked on Wick. We found only the least number of words to say to each other, we made the least connection, and I couldn’t look at him, because it was as if we were different people who had had different conversations, and I didn’t know who I was talking to, had to begin to inventory all our many meetups the past months, to gauge which had been him and which Borne as Wick. Later we might tally them as requiem, claim those we had no right to claim so as to tell the other person that we wanted whatever supported a story that told of our love, our friendship, and nothing but those things.
Then, after a time, instinct took me back, the instinct for traps and avoiding them. Instinct took me to Borne’s apartment—both to make sure he had truly left and to search it. I entered soft, slow, so hollowed-out that I felt nothing, but also half expecting to find Borne there, in the apartment.
But Borne was gone, and Borne had not left much behind. He hadn’t had much to begin with. The three dead astronauts still hung from hooks on the wall, but they had no power over me; they were almost old friends now, so thoroughly had Borne acclimated me to their skeletons.
I found only what was in the closet—so many clothes, other people’s clothes, in all sizes and styles, most of it ragged, worn, or bloodstained. Some of it I recognized as salvage from other parts of the Balcony Cliffs, and some I did not and of these most must have come from those he had “absorbed.” There were fifty or sixty shirts in the closet. At least.
Hidden at the bottom, under mounds of pants, I found a thick journal with a B written on the front. It looked like nothing at all—tattered and foxed, something he’d rescued for reuse. It was locked, but the tiny key had been placed in the lock. I looked at it for a long time before I opened it. I stared and stared. I couldn’t stop staring until the words blurred into oblivion. I guess that means I didn’t want to read it. But I was Rachel the scavenger, and this was salvage of a particular type, and I was empty and searching for answers.
Much of the journal was in languages I couldn’t read. But on the first page was his first, stuttering attempt to write.
My name is Borne.
—My name is not Borne. That is just something Rachel calls me. It means to carry something you don’t want to carry.
My name is not-Borne and I came here on Mord’s body, no matter what Rachel says.
—I did not come here on Mord’s body.
—I became entangled in Mord’s fur. (Who entangled me?)
—Where did I come from before that?
My name is not-Borne. I did not come here on Mord’s body, but I am human.
—I am not human. I am not human. I am not human.
—Rachel says I am a “he.” Am I he, she, or both or neither?
—I am a person.
Not nice. Not nice.
Beautiful.
I came here from a distant star.
I came here from the moon, like the dead astronauts.
I was made by the Company.
I was made by someone.
I am not actually alive.
I am a robot.
I am a person.
I am a weapon.
I am not/intelligent.
I have nine senses and Rachel only has five. I can make eyes anytime I want and Rachel can’t. If she lost her eyes, she’d be blind. If I lost my eyes, I could still see.
I do not know when I am being what they want me to be and when I am myself. It is better when I am “cute.” It is safer.
Not nice. NOT NICE.
Borne traveled from a distant star. Borne traveled from a distant Company. Borne could not stop eating. Borne could not stop killing. Borne doesn’t think of it that way, but it must be. It must be killing.
BORNE MUST STOP KILLING. BORNE MUST STOP TASTING. BORNE MUST STOP BEING BORNE. BORNE MUST EAT WHAT IS ALREADY DEAD, LIKE NORMAL PERSONS.
What if I am the only one?
What if I cannot die?
What if no one made me?
Everything was in there. Everything I’d done to help him and everything I’d done that hadn’t. Everything I’d made him into and everything I hadn’t made him into. As he’d said, Borne had snuck into our apartments because he’d seen me sneak into Wick’s apartment. He’d pretended to be me and pretended to be Wick because he didn’t want us to argue, wanted us to be nice. Had seen us playing out roles, with all our baggage, and thought: What’s the harm in doing the same?
I’d been teaching him the whole time, with every last little thing I did, even when I didn’t realize I was teaching him. With every last little thing I did, not just those things I tried to teach him. Every moment I had been teaching him, and how I wanted now to take back some of those moments. How I wanted now not to have snuck into Wick’s apartment. How I wished I had been a better person.
Rachel can’t protect me from Mord, and I can’t protect her from me.
In so many ways, Borne had told me, “I can’t stop.” I can’t stop growing. I can’t stop who I am. I can’t stop killing people, and I had shut him out, ignored him, tried to pretend he was something other than what he was, and in doing so I had betrayed him. Because Borne knew what he was.
I didn’t want to move out of Rachel’s apartment. But I had to. Otherwise, I don’t know what will happen to her. I keep eating lizards, but it isn’t enough. On my own, maybe things will be better. Maybe I can be the one in control.
Days and moments noted when he’d gone out and “been able to resist” and “not able to resist.” Charting patterns. Trying to understand himself. Experimenting with substitution. But the worst substitution was when he knew it was wrong but couldn’t stop, couldn’t ever stop, would never stop, and killed people so he wouldn’t kill me. Getting desperate, at his wit’s end and unable to talk to anyone about it.
The number of shirts in his closet multiplying as Borne grew larger.
Becoming … what? Originating … where?
He’d been more alone than I could have imagined. More desperate. There was no other way to describe it.
Worse still were the entries where Borne felt “grateful” to me. How kind I’d been to him, how much I’d taught him, how much he’d learned, how he would “never forget” me, as if he knew already when writing that someday he would be driven out of the Balcony Cliffs.
Nothing I found in Borne’s apartment gave me comfort. But I did not believe I deserved comfort.
*
A week or so later I saw Borne again, from afar. It was twilight. We still held the Balcony Cliffs and I’d come out to the balcony to look down on the polluted, beautiful river and all the shadows created by it. I was in a quiet mood. Wick had healed well enough, although not completely.
Far below, down below, I saw myself running along the river. I was running free, so fluid and lithe, over that rocky terrain. And I was not quite me, and, anyway, I was standing on the balcony, so I knew it was Borne below.