by Jerry
I sucked in a deep breath, considering several arguments why this was a very bad idea. Basically we would be breaking a strict rule. I restrained a shiver, imagining the smell of fresh lemon leaves. But, finally, stiff with uncertainty, fear, and excitement, I said hoarsely. “You’ve been down before? To what Level?”
She didn’t answer, only took my hand again. “We’re wasting time.”
WE WERE LOOKING INTO A DARK RECESS IN THE SUBLEVEL wall, a pair of smooth metallic doors meeting together. She slipped her card in a slot in the wall and the doom slid apart:.
Inside now, Oberon flicked on a light. “Sit,” she instructed me, letting go of my hand. We were in a tiny cubicle, a bench running along the side wall, wide enough to accommodate us both. We sat, turned, and faced a panel with rows of numbered buttons near the closed doors, the numbers apparently corresponding to the Levels. She selected one on the bottom row.
The light dimmed, then momentarily blinked out, and for a few moments I felt like I was falling rapidly, dropping down, down into the dark unknown.
We stopped abruptly.
The doors slid apart.
We stepped out of the transporter, and like a tour guide, Oberon announced, “Welcome to the legendary 01 Level.” We were in a dark alley, dimly-lit openings at both ends, but to the right the way was partially obstructed by litter. I stumbled along, following Oberon to the left.
We reached the mouth of the alley and stopped, my senses bombarded by the strangeness of it all.
Back up on Top Level, everything was all chrome and stainless steel, forever bright daylight, an impression of order and cleanliness.
Here it was obviously different: Nighttime—a humid darkness surrounded my body down here at street level, but there were all kinds of lights up there among the high-rises stretching up into the night. Everywhere along the facades windows gleaming like pale rectangular eyes stared into the muggy darkness, and advertisements cast their neon-green, -red, -yellow, and -orange messages in English and Korean and Japanese and a few symbols I didn’t recognize. There were rich, pungent odors—meats roasting, spices, and a sickening-sweet smell of decay; sounds clashed dissonantly—humans shouting, screaming, and laughing, and vehicles screeching, and braking, and even sirens screaming like animals in pain; and the air was constantly charged with a tingling electric excitement. It was an almost overwhelming barrage of sensory impressions; the Level seemed so dirty, dangerous, and decadent. I loved it—!
Just at that moment, I shrank back into the shadows as two black-clad figures passed by, carrying batons and come-along-stuns. “Companymen,” I whispered to Oberon, feeling vulnerable, our tattooed faces an obvious giveaway that we were Upper Level bobbers.
“Hey, we’re just tourists to them, no problem,” she said, ignoring the two law officers and glancing at me with her sexy eyes. “Now, we need two new personas.”
I had no answer to that, just following as she quickly led me out into the crowd on the passing thoroughfare.
IN A FEW MINUTES WE WERE IN A MUCH BUSIER AREA, PEOPLE shoulder-to-shoulder, jostling each other as they went in and out of the surrounding businesses. “You can be anyone here,” Oberon announced, as we stopped and surveyed the cluster of shops, all offering different personas. I glanced around, reading the bright script, most of it in English. The closest one described its service in bright neon-blue, Neo-Images. Another, in neon-green, proclaimed Be all you can be. Then my gaze wandered across the street to the shining golden script on a large shop attracting many customers: Other Levels. All, I thought, realizing that was the reason no one paid attention to our tattoos. Before I had time to speak, Oberon hustled me into a small hole-in-the-wall shop, offering: Outside Vid Stars Of The Past.
Inside, the walls were lined with plastic covered postern of faces of both men and women. The shop was busy but not jammed like some of the others, apparently not offering the most popular images.
I whispered to her, “Are these people bobbers?”
“No,” she said, shushing me. “Many live here on 01.”
I glanced around again and restrained a chuckle. Most of the customers didn’t look much different in manner and dress than the posters on the walls, the new images they were considering—“This is you, Sandoval.” Oberon was pointing at a man with close-cropped sandy hair, sideburns, faded-denim eyes, and a ruggedly handsome face. “Steve McQueen. He was quite the movie star at one time.”
I nodded, remembering the old term.
“I’m always Cher,” she explained excitedly, indicating a gaunt woman with long black ringlets, wearing a dress that covered none of her rather modest endowments, including a tiny tattoo near her dark pubic patch.
After making our choices, we were escorted by a clerk into what appeared to be a dressing room, complete with a long closet and mirrored walls. A tech handed Oberon a garment from the closet, murmuring, “Simsuit.” The plastic-like material was clear, containing a spidery network of fine wire and an occasional chip about the size of a thumbnail. “Here you are,” the tech announced, flipping me a similar garment. “I’ll dial up your personas.” He went to a terminal, punched out a pair of codes, and waited.
Oberon and I slipped into the lightweight simsuits. Resting below our shoulders were the powerpacks, about the size of a deck of cards.
The tech slipped a rectangular chip into Oberon’s powerpack, “Okay, you’re good for about five hours of continuous use, then you need to peel off the simsuit, because you can bum badly after that. Okay?”
As he talked, Oberon was framed by a thin neon-blue tracing that flared, then blinked-out, and she was Cher. A grinning Cher.
In a moment, I was Steve McQueen.
“Okay, now we have some fun.” Cher announced.
I’D ASSUMED THAT ALL THIS EFFORT WAS PERHAPS DIRECTED toward an evening of sex between Oberon and I. Why go to all the trouble to drag me along, if not? And, in fact, not far from the persona shops, we’d passed a kind of high-class cabaret area, including a number of hotels. We returned to the area.
But I was wrong.
We moved past a hotel to a glitzy nightclub called: The House of the Rising Sun.
Inside, Oberon, in her persona, was greeted warmly by many people we elbowed past on the way to a little stage. “Hey, Babe,” someone shouted at her, “are you singing tonight?”
Oberon nodded.
And after a live band finished a number, the announcer invited her onstage. She began to sing in a kind of gaudy but sexy style, the first number something about being born in the wagon of a t raveling show . . . The audience crowded close, clapping and hooting. And it was obvious that if I were to be included in Oberon’s evening of entertainment, it was to be much later. She was having a grand time, working the crowd, actually making a kind of love to the collective body—she was in her element.
FINALLY, I WANDERED OFF, OUT OF THE CLUB AND AWAY FROM the brightly lit-up cabaret area. Just walking, enjoying the muggy night that pressed down on the Level with its promise of excitement.
Suddenly, along a very dimly-lit section, two women dressed in gala modtrend blocked my way.
“Hey, you want to have a party?” the closest one asked. She smiled, her gaudy makeup and dark red lipstick highlighting her provocative smile; and as she moved closer her garment colors lightened, faded, and turned transparent. I was close enough to touch any part of her well-endowed nakedness. I wondered if they wore personas or perhaps they were just 01 Level citizens, working the tourist trade; but as I dropped my gaze, staring at her pubic triangle dyed a fuzzy-pink, I decided I didn’t really care, because I felt a tightness growing in my groin area. Yes, I was slightly aroused by this, this . . . sleazy encounter; and I ignored the melodic whisper at my ear.
“I don’t know,” I managed to answer, glancing at the other woman, “do you mean all three of us?” She was a younger version of the speaker.
“Sure, man, whatever, you know,” she said in a husky tone, her modtrend shifting through several col
ors before turning transparent and revealing a boyish nakedness, her thin frame contoured by modest breasts and hips. She licked her full lips in a contrived suggestive manner.
Still I might have resisted, paid attention to the whisper lingering at my ear; except neither woman wore any facial or body tattoos, which accentuated their exotic nakedness, and this fact more than any of their clumsy maneuvers inflamed my desire.
I was hooked.
ABOUT AN HOUR LATER, FEELING MORE THAN JUUST GUILTY—kind of empty and unfulfilled by the strictly commercial encounter—I wandered into a small bar called Muddy Waters. There were about seven or eight customers at tables gathered around a singer, who was sitting on a stool on a small stage, strumming an acoustic guitar.
She was singing old-time stuff, and her sad, melancholy voice was haunting, very effective. I ordered a drink, took a seat at an empty table, and relaxed, listening to her perform.
A placard on a small easel gave her name: Riga Maroux.
As I listened and watched, I was struck by her unusual looks. She wore her hair shoulder-length, and it wasn’t really blonde but white, almost silver; and her long face was very pale, high-cheeked, full-lipped, unsmiling; and the eyes . . . her eyes reflected the metallic quality of her hair.
She wore a black dress that clung to her tall, athletic body, and no jewelry, except for a pair of dangling silver earrings t hat reflected the dim light when she looked up from her guitar. Her appearance perfectly matched the sad, haunting voice.
As she finished a number, the customers, all men, clapped softly. That’s when I noticed the cigarettes. Several of the customers had been smoking, creating a bluish haze in the dimly-lit interior of the club. Of course I’d read of the old habit, but I didn’t know it was still alive, even down here on the 01 Level. But I shouldn’t’ve been surprised: Everything seemed to go here. And the self-destructive old vice seemed to fit in with the music and style of the singer in this little club.
I sat quietly, listening to this woman called Riga Maroux sing and strum the music she called the blues, feeling myself strongly attracted to both her and the music. I sent over a drink and put a healthy tip in her tip glass. She nodded her thanks, and later, when she’d finished the long set, she got up and joined me.
“Don’t get many tippers in here,” she said, and her speaking voice had the same melancholy tone.
“You’re really good,” I said sincerely. “You ought to be performing in one of the high-rent places.” I nodded in the general direction of the glitzy cabarets.
She smiled, sipping her drink, then shook her head. “They can see one of the greats from the last century up there.” She mentioned several names, none familiar to me. “I can’t compete with them. Not a nobody. And I sing the blues, something that has almost disappeared, you know.” With a hint of a smile she added, “Only a few really understand it. “She looked around kind of wryly at the few patrons left in the bar.
“Is there anyone on 01 who can sing the blues as well?”
She shrugged and smiled gratefully. “Doesn’t really matter, does it? . . . Now, what’s your name, anyhow? I know you’re not McQueen.”
“Call me Sandoval,” I replied, smitten by this woman’s talent, unusual looks, and apparent honesty.
“You a bobber, Sandoval?” she asked flatly.
I nodded, not feeling any apprehension in telling the truth, feeling I could trust Riga. “Yes, I am. First time on your Level.”
She nodded knowingly.
“And you?”
She chuckled and sighed. “No, I belong down here on the Bottom Level . . .” Her voice trailed off as her gaze grew distant. I wondered what she was thinking about . . . some past sin? But I didn’t intrude on her obviously sad revery.
After a long silence we talked for a few minutes more, then I realized my simsuit time was growing short. “I have to go,” I announced.
She took my hand in hers. “Wait, I have a song for you before you go,” she said. Then as she got up, smoothing out her dress, she asked, “Will you be coming down again?”
Without really thinking, I answered, “Yes, tomorrow night.” Of course I wanted to see her again.
On stage once more, she began to sing something she’d written, looking down, her gaze riveting. It was a song about a bobber being caught, receiving a judgment of color, then being cast Outside to wander a pariah, dreaming and yearning to come back Inside. And though I was pressed for time, I was caught up in the cautionary ballad, unable to pull away.
After leaning the simsuit at the shop, I’d taken the wrong turn back to the alley with the transporter booth, coming up from the littered side. As I weaved through the debris, I spotted a pair of silhouettes in the light, at the other end. I moved more cautiously, finally pausing at the double doors, recognizing the two to be a pair of Companymen, standing back in the shadows, as if they were waiting for someone—
I sucked in a breath, realizing they might have been waiting for Oberon or me! And only a stupid miscalculation had saved me from being caught.
Quietly, I slipped into the transporter and headed up.
BACK SAFELY ON THE TOP LEVEL IN MY CONAPT, I CHECKED first on Oberon with the viewphone. She was not back. It wasn’t unusual for her to disappear during her four days off. But I wondered if she had stayed down on 01. And was that really safe to do?
Then I sighed and watched a holo message left on my recorder: It was the dragon man, Kinjo . . . yes, two new cases on the 01 Level, both with the characteristic frosty-pale features.” He nodded, then with a I-told-you-so look on his tattooed face, he asked, “What do you think of that, Sandoval?”
I shrugged as he blinked from existence. What did I think about, that? Did I even believe him? I’d check it out later. I made my way into the bedroom and flopped down on the airbed. Although I knew it was a risk, I had to return to Muddy Waters and see Riga Maroux again . . .
SHE WAS AS LOVELY AND SAD AS LAST TIME, BUT SHE WAS WEARing a baggy, grayish shirt and baggy, dark-blue pants, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, which gave her longish features a masculine cast. When I walked in and took a table in front but. to the far left of the stage, she was in the middle of the same set as she’d sang last night before coming to visit. But she added the bobber blues piece at the end, obviously for my benefit; and I knew that it was indeed a cautionary warning.
“You look very nice tonight, Riga,” I said, greeting her as she came to my table.
“Thank you, Sandoval,” she answered, her smile warm but her silverish eyes remaining distant and cool. “I wasn’t sure you’d take the risk.”
“My friend, the one who brought me last night, says there is no risk,” I said, signalling for the waiter. “We are no more than tourists on this Level.”
She nodded thoughtfully, indicating she’d drink what I was drinking. “I think that’s normally the case, and we have very little security down here, few Companymen. But occasionally there is a kind of crackdown for some reason—I think ordered from above, perhaps your Level? Anyhow, it can be dangerous sometimes. So, you are taking a risk.”
I thought, about the two Companymen apparently lying in ambush yesterday. And wondered about Oberon. Then I pushed the thought to the back of my mind and smiled, saying, “It’s worth the risk.” We tipped glasses.
For the next two breaks, Riga taught me about the old-time blues. And I learned that the bar itself was named for a famous blues singer from the last century. It was all very interesting, and I enjoyed watching her talk, maintaining that kind of haunting tone even when her voice grew more animated. Her life was, indeed, the blues. But I still wondered about the personal element that’d caused her so much pain, for she occasionally drifted off, obviously recalling something sad . . .
The evening was growing short, and I asked about the possibility of her getting off early. She understood my desire to be alone with her, but still she remained kind of vague, suggesting that maybe she could arrange it in the future.
On her l
ast break, I said, “I would like to see you again. But you need to see me, the real me. I’m not anything like this, you know.” I indicated the McQueen persona.
She smiled wryly and said cryptically, “Perhaps neither of us are what we seem.” Then added: “Maybe tomorrow we can leave early, get better acquainted, if you want.”
I nodded, stood, and replied, “I’ll be here early. But now I must go.”
She stood, took my hand, and led me back toward the stage. “There’s a shortcut down the alley out this way.”
Outside in the alley, I kissed her softly, then more passionately, finally drawing away as the heat other body began to excite me. I knew she could feel my arousal. I was charged with desire, but tugged away. “I must leave, get back, turn in the simsuit.” She moved away to the door, saying, “Goodbye, Sandoval.”
HURRYING BACK TO THE PERSONA SHOP area, I slowed as I neared Outside Vid Stars of The Past, noticing the two black-clad Companymen loitering on the walkway, both appearing to be searching the crowd that was going in and out of the shops. Were they looking for someone in particular? Me? Or Oberon, maybe? I didn’t know, but I figured if they were looking for me, they’d be searching the crowd for Steve McQueen. I hit the power on my backpack, my persona blinking out, t hen hurried by the lawmen, who did indeed seem to be searching for someone specific.
But I made it into to the shop without being apprehended, and I slipped out of the deactivated simsuit before leaving through the back of the shop, and working my way cautiously t o the alley and transporter booth.
Oberon was still not home, not answering her vidphone. Where was she? What had happened?
Sitting alone in my conapt; I began to worry about her welfare. It was true she often disappeared for a few days, but after bobbing? Maybe she’d been picked up by the Companymen down on 01. And after the last two experiences, I knew it was growing more and more dangerous to bob back. But I also knew I couldn’t resist the attraction of Riga Maroux and the implicit promise of tomorrow. Still I had to do something. I’d check the persona shop, see if Oberon had been back yesterday. Also I’d look in at the House Of The Rising Sun.
