The Dead Are Too Loud

I mean, he wasn't exactly a person. So what I did wasn't that bad. This is what I'm thinking this as the sun beats down on my unaccustomed limbs, and I signal the waiter to bring me another drink. It's good and cold, with plenty of ice. My sunglasses shield me from the worst of the glare. Keeping my book open and my eyes trained on the pages means that most people will leave me alone to my thoughts. It's silly, then, with this moment of respite, to travel mentally back across the ocean. To the problems left behind. Prodding at it, like you might niggle at a loose tooth. He used to be a person, okay, but now something has gone wrong and he's just a human-shaped robot. Malfunctioning, too. So what I did was actually a good thing. When you think about it. Look at it this way, it would have been worse to leave him it wandering around unchecked. Who knew what he it might do? I didn't kill him. He might not be a person, not properly, in fact I'm almost definitely sure about that, but he still looks basically like one. You'd have to be a real psycho to hurt a person-shaped person, even if they weren't actually a person. Even if I was the pyscho sort, the killing kind, I wouldn't bump him off. Bodies are too much hassle to get rid of. Unless you're experienced and skilled, I suspect the living are quieter, and easier to hide. No I just sewed his mouth closed so that he couldn't keep screaming, which he does a lot, and locked, him in the spare room. I couldn't leave the implant in it, so I took that out. Besides, my Jac is still on there. I can't bear to leave him. Once he was unconscious, I made the smallest incision I possibly could. Wielding a small pair of boiled pink tweezers and lot of confidence, I got the chip out through the tiniest hole. I closed my fingers around the little prize, soft and gentle as you like. The only thing stopping me from kissing it tenderly was the blood dripping from it.

I'd kept the cut as small and neat as possible, but it still meant he had an injury in the same spot as Ronnie. Someone might notice that. Use it somehow, to connect me to it all. I considered having him shave his whole head. Then he'd have little nicks, scratches, scrapes and gouges all over his scalp. Ultimately, I felt that it would draw attention to the injury rather than obscure it. Besides, I quite like his hair.

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