by Bob Proehl
“We have a room upstairs for situations like this,” Dom says. “He’s been temporarily disappeared.”
“See what I mean?” she says. “Perfect.”
Dom takes a tiny bow. “Are you speaking after the music?” he asks. “I can have the DJ start up immediately after, or you could say a few words.”
“I’ve said everything I need to,” she says. It isn’t precisely true, but she’s said everything she’s going to. Every delegate has gotten their tailored sales pitch, and now they’re trying to lose themselves in the performance, to forget the ultimatum on the table. Fahima tries to find her way back into the music, but the door is closed and she’s stuck in her own head.
She sneaks into the kitchen, hoping some of the hors d’oeuvres are still warm. She’d watched longingly as trays buzzed by her while she talked up the delegates. Some of them grabbed crab cakes and puff pastries and chewed on them as Fahima talked, although most didn’t have the stomach. The kitchen is empty, the staff spirited away to alcoves and corners where they can watch Hayden play without being seen. Ruth is plucking items from a tray and looks up when Fahima comes in.
“Hey, you,” she says. “I was making you a plate. I figured you might not have eaten.”
“I’m good,” Fahima says. Ruth looks crestfallen, and Fahima wonders why she tries not to accept kindnesses from Ruth. She’s never liked being taken care of; she used to hide minor illnesses from Alyssa for fear she’d be treated like a patient. It’s the burden of having someone care for you, the weight of their help and the way it pulls you toward them. Ruth puts the half-filled plate on the counter and smiles to show it’s no big deal. Fahima slides the plate toward herself and eats two canapés and a baby carrot, enough to indicate gratitude but make it clear the gesture wasn’t necessary.
Omar enters holding three drinks. He proffers a martini to Fahima like a boy offering a flower to his crush, and against her better judgment, she takes it. He hands one of two bright purple cocktails to Ruth and keeps the other for himself.
“Enjoying the party, boss?”
“Please kill me,” Fahima says.
“You should win an Oscar,” he says. “I’m tired of people dying.” He clasps his hands, his voice cartoonishly earnest. “Won’t you help me protect…life?”
“Stop talking,” Fahima says, sipping her drink.
“She did not say that,” says Ruth.
“I’m paraphrasing slightly,” he says. He sits next to Fahima on the edge of the counter, and Ruth takes a spot on the other side. For a second, it feels like she’s with Sarah and Patrick. The relationships she formed when young locked in patterns she goes back to.
“So the kraut’s an asshole,” says Omar.
“He’s scared,” Fahima says. “The future is always scary when you’re an old white man.”
“They’re not all old,” Omar says. “Curious; what is the policy on sleeping with the delegates?”
“The policy is don’t.”
“What is the policy on activities that are not technically fucking but might be, say, in the realm of sexual activity.”
“Keep it in your pants for one night,” says Ruth.
“You should talk,” he says. “The Spanish ambassador has been eyeing me like I’m a snack is all I’m saying. If there’s any doubt of him being on board, I could help seal the deal.”
“Everyone’s on board,” Fahima says. “The only problem is we don’t have a boat.”
“You’ll figure it out,” Ruth says.
“So if they’re already in the bag, there’s no real harm.”
“Go ahead and fuck him,” Fahima says. Her eyes dart to Ruth’s, and she feels a hot flush in her cheeks. “Duplicate yourself into dozens, make an orgy of it. We can celebrate.”
Omar extends his glass to cheers. “We did good, right, boss?” It’s an honest question, exactingly phrased. Omar doesn’t mince words. He doesn’t want to know if they did well, if they’ve been successful. He wants to know if what they’ve done this evening is for the best. If it’s good.
“We did good,” Fahima says, clinking her glass against his, then Ruth’s. It says something about the work they’re doing that everyone Fahima works with has to ask if what they’re doing is right. She’s not sure getting consent from governments on behalf of the people they represent or rule is better than setting off a global Pulse without asking. Her pitch reeks of old world diplomacy. What would it mean for Germany? She speaks to them in the language of nations when what she wants is to end nations. Some of them know that. Some see the threat she offers them, the promise of an empowered populace. Guaranteed revolution. They’d take it for themselves and keep it from their people. She’ll work around them. She’ll find ways to build the devices in secret, near villages, far from palaces. Fahima knows exactly the shape of the world to come. No masters. All gods.
Ruth puts her head on Fahima’s shoulder and holds it there for a second before applause starts in the ballroom. “Oh, the music!” she says, rushing out. She turns back, grabs Fahima’s empty hand, and gives a tug. “Don’t let me forget, I got you a present,” she adds before disappearing through the doors.
“I bet she did,” Omar says. Fahima swats at him.
“I’ve got to shut that down,” she says.
“What you need is to consider what she wants and what you want and see if there’s some hot little area that overlaps,” says Omar.
“Why are these things so much easier for you young people?”
“ ‘You young people’?” he says. “You sound fucking ancient. It’s not easier for us. We do the work rather than sweat over our baggage.”
“I don’t have baggage,” says Fahima. “And I’m only thirty-nine.”
“You carry the whole world around,” he says. He kisses her on the cheek. “The world’s going to rise or fall without you. Tell yourself that every now and then.” He leaves, letting stray notes through the door as it swings open, then shut.
* * *
—
After the performance, Hayden is surrounded by half the delegation. Whenever Fahima thinks about Hayden, she remembers telling Avi Hirsch that what Resonants needed was a celebrity best friend in the public eye. Hayden hit that mark perfectly, if too late. Their star rose before fighting broke out, but they’d spent a year in the camp at Topaz Lake as conflicts rose to a boil outside. Now they’re one of the safe ones, a Resonant who can move through the world without being perceived as a threat.
“It was so intimate,” the Belgian delegate says.
Hayden waves this off. “Intimacy’s easy in a small room,” they say. “The challenge is being intimate with a whole stadium of folks at the same time.”
No one laughs—the translator nanites can’t cope with double entendre. One more thing to work on.
“Excuse me,” Fahima says. “I need to borrow Hayden a minute.”
“Of course,” Hayden says. They hold out their hand so Fahima can extract them. “I’ll be right back,” they assure the group. “And I want to hear more about the value-added tax as soon as I do.” They let Fahima guide them out of the circle and into the narrow hallway that leads to the bathrooms.
“Thank God,” Hayden says. “They were boring the shit out of me. How did you find such a collection of drab little men?”
“Drab little men run the world,” Fahima says. “For the moment.” She pulls up her sleeve, revealing a thin bracelet set with a single pearl. Fahima pinches the pearl, and the noise of the party grows faint and fuzzy. “Baffler,” she says, as if Hayden will know what this means. “Act as if we’re having a normal conversation.”
“I don’t remember what normal conversations look like,” Hayden says.
“Every thirty seconds or so laugh like I’ve made a joke,” Fahima says. Hayden breaks out a stage laugh, and Fahima rolls her eyes. “You have
n’t reported in,” she says. “I thought you were dead.”
“My phone was confiscated in Moscow,” Hayden says. “I bricked it before I handed it over and told them it was a memento of simpler times.”
“They bought that?”
“The Russians aren’t buying anything,” Hayden says. “At least not from us.”
“Who are they talking to?”
“They’ve talked to everyone here,” Hayden says. “The quiet line is anyone who signs on with you catches hell from them.”
“What’s their play?”
Hayden shakes their head. “All I can tell you is there were Americans at the after-party,” they say. “They didn’t come up and introduce themselves, but they wanted me to know they were there. They wanted to be seen cozying up to the Russian bigwigs.”
“The Russians are signed on,” Fahima says, incredulous. “They didn’t send a delegate because the agreement’s already gone through.”
“They didn’t send a delegate,” Hayden says. “And an agreement’s a piece of paper.”
“Anything else?” Fahima asks.
“I need a new phone,” says Hayden.
“When do you head west?”
“Tomorrow,” they say. “Hoping to see some friends in Chicago before I cross over.”
“I’ll get one to you,” Fahima says. “Be careful out there. I know there’s talk about reconciliation, but don’t forget they hate us.”
“That’s the name of my next album,” says Hayden. “Anyway, I’m always careful.” They down the rest of their drink and turn to leave. “By the way,” they say, “the Japanese delegate isn’t Eito Higashi.”
Fahima looks out at the dance floor, where Higashi stands apart from the other delegates, eyeing the kitchen door. “How do you know?”
“He hasn’t spent the evening staring at my ass,” says Hayden. “I met him in Tokyo. He was…affectionate. He hasn’t so much as said hello.”
“Maybe he’s shy.”
“He’s a fake,” Hayden says. “You get the difference between seeing something and knowing something?”
“Let’s say yes.”
“You look at him and you won’t see him, but you know it’s him.”
“Psychic?” Fahima asks.
Hayden nods. Fahima glances at Ji Yeon and her Bloom that is missing one member. Maybe he’s here after all.
“Faction?”
They shrug. “Racist as fuck pretending to be Asian, though.” They take a deep breath as if drawing their star persona back into their body. It works. Hayden looks taller, more full and complete, as they rejoin the crowd. Fahima clicks the baffler off, and the noise of the party floods in. She follows Hayden at a distance, then wanders the floor. One loop of the room is enough to tell Fahima no one here wants to talk to her. Most actively avoid her eyes. This is a funeral for the old world, and Fahima’s the one who’s killed it.
She passes by Eito Higashi and sizes him up, which causes a tiny headache in the spot between her eyes. It’s like what Hayden described: she can see it’s not him but knows it is. There’s a compulsion to move along that starts in Fahima’s feet before it registers in her head.
Fucking psychics, she thinks. She makes a mental note to find out what’s happened to Eito Higashi but worries her memory of him will be gone by tomorrow.
On the edge of the dance floor, a waiter sets down his full tray of champagne flutes, which topple like bowling pins, spilling champagne onto the parquet. He approaches a knot of bureaucrats conversing among themselves, their backs to him. He catches Fahima’s attention because he’s moving slowly across the empty floor. His lips are moving, but she can’t make out what he’s saying. She grabs Dominic, who’s futzing with the lighting. “Who vetted the servers?” she says.
Dominic looks at her, dumbfounded by the question. The waiter reaches into his pocket and comes out with something the size of a roll of quarters. His voice builds to a shout that barely rises above the sound of the DJ. “They who collaborate with devils will be treated as devils,” he says. “We true kindred will defend our own even unto death.”
Fahima’s eye catches Eito Higashi, whose lips move along with the waiter’s. Ji Yeon yells something, and the hulking girl from her Bloom is across the dance floor faster than anyone that big should be able to move.
“Down!” she shouts as she throws her body at the waiter and the waiter’s body is engulfed in flames. Dominic steps between Fahima and the bomber, transforming his body to crystal. Shrapnel strikes him with a tinkling sound like glass breaking. Fahima doesn’t register the sound of the blast, only the ringing afterward. She watches over Dominic’s shoulder as the agent’s body expands outward, shielding the visiting dignitaries. Chaos erupts on the floor as the charred remains of the waiter and the Faction agent’s body fall away from each other like dance partners bowing at the end of a waltz. Omar doubles and doubles again, dispatching duplicates to rush the dignitaries to safety.
Fahima spots Ruth, her eyes welling with tears that won’t fall, mouth moving like a fish. Fahima grabs her by the shoulders. “Are you hurt?” she says as slowly and loudly as she can.
“I don’t know what happened,” Ruth says. “I was dancing. I was—” Her voice is husky, her throat singed by a breath of smoke. Fahima presses her keys into Ruth’s hand.
“Go to my apartment,” she says. “Wait for me. Stay safe until we know what this is.”
Hearing without comprehending, Ruth nods and walks out of the building like a wind-up doll set on its course. With one less thing to worry about, Fahima scans the scene. She grabs an Omar by the sleeve of his perfect suit. She doesn’t know which one he is, but it doesn’t matter. She points to the agent’s corpse at the center of the varnished dance floor.
“Get everybody out, including them,” she says, her eyes on Ji Yeon and her diminished Bloom. “Then disappear that body. Whatever happens, do not lose it.” Omar nods. Copies of him check the delegates for injuries while one coterie of Omars ushers Ji Yeon and the others out the main exit and another picks up the Faction agent’s body and leaves through the kitchen.
A Bloom of Faction agents loiters on the corner across from the bar, failing to look casual. You can spot a Bloom because together they look like a public service ad for cultural diversity in the workplace. There’ll be a Mohawked punker and a businessman and a soccer mom; there’ll be a flannel-clad hipster sharing a cigarette with a woman on her way to a cocktail party, a homeless man chatting intently with an academic. You see all five together only when they want to be seen, and the spot across from Vibration is a regular observation post. The Faction gives zero fucks about Waylon’s side business with Hong, but it’s important he know they know.
Carrie feels the urge to walk up to them and confess, although she doesn’t know what she’d be confessing. Since they oversaw the evacuations after the Armistice, the role and mandate of the Faction have been ill defined. Somewhere between a police force and a domestic KGB. By merely being there, they inspire a sense of guilt. Carrie’s sure she’s not alone in feeling this. She walks by the Bloom without making eye contact, her arm held across her stomach, left hand resting on the phone in her right pocket.
On the corner of North and Ashland, an old man sings a Simon and Garfunkel song out of both of his faces, harmonizing perfectly as he accompanies himself on guitar. The sound echoes in the chasm of the empty block. He’s past her apartment, but Carrie walks over and throws a five in his hat. He nods appreciatively without breaking off the song.
Carrie grabs the mail and climbs the stairs, the high harmony line following her like a frail ghost. She drops everything on the counter and tosses junk mail in the trash, amazed that junk mail persists as a thing. Shuffled in with the flyers for the Church of Resonant Truth and the Unity Council meeting is an envelope addressed to Carrie and Miquel in calligraphic script. There’s no
note, just two tickets to Hayden’s concert at Symphony Center next week. Better seats than the one Carrie bought for herself. Carrie lets herself imagine going with Miquel. A date. A small, normal thing completely out of their reach.
Last time they talked, Carrie tried to give Hayden the impression things with Miquel were not that bad, getting better. She knows it isn’t the intent, but the tickets feel like a challenge to that, Hayden’s way of saying prove it. She puts them back in the envelope and puts her hand in her pocket, feeling the warm metal of the flip phone. Something hums in her head like a stereo left on in a silent room. It’s not a message or a transmission, not someone trying to contact her through the Hive, but an aggregate of feelings, shame mixed with a righteous anger, and it’s in her head without being of her head. She braces herself on the counter. My mind is a cool white flame, she thinks. She visualizes emptiness, processes and flows, until the hum fades. It’s been so long since it’s caught her alone, she’s forgotten the gut-sick feeling when it’s gone.
She opens the window, hoping the busker on the corner is loud enough for his song to find its way in, but there’re only the low sounds of the city going to sleep. She thinks about putting on a record to fill the space, but the weight of choosing one is too much to bear.
She goes to the fridge to get herself a beer she doesn’t need. As she bends and reaches in, she’s eye level with a Polaroid pinned to the freezer by a souvenir magnet from Navy Pier. It’s the only item on the front of the fridge, and it wasn’t there when she left the apartment a week ago. She snatches the beer, closes the fridge, and pulls the photo from under the magnet. She sets the beer on the counter unopened and examines the picture. It’s her and Hayden, huddled into the frame with two kids Carrie doesn’t know, a boy and a girl younger than any of the students she met this morning. They’re all smiling, and if Carrie’s smile is less energetic, it matches the overall weariness on her face. A scar she doesn’t have runs from the center of her forehead to below her left cheekbone, a livid lightning bolt. She looks at the kids. A memory for faces is critical in Carrie’s work. Spotting a newcomer to a settlement where you’ve felt safe can keep you clear of trouble. There’s something familiar about the kids, like aspects of her face in a black-and-white of some long-dead great-aunt. Carrie doesn’t like the way the picture makes her feel, vertiginous, as if she might topple into it and keep falling forever.
