by David Gullen
‘What’s under here?’ Gould pulled at the material of her short skirt.
She looked back at him, lips parted. ‘Just me.’
Gould used his blank voice again, the one he’d used on the phone with Black. ‘You like I get two more guys in here, and we make you airtight?’
Just a flicker then. The smile never faltered but those dark eyes betrayed her.
‘Sure, Mr Gould.’ She became bright and brittle. She gyrated her bottom against his groin, an artificial, contrived movement. ‘Anything you want,’ she breathed. ‘Anything at all.’
Content with her reaction, Gould pushed down on her shoulders. ‘Another time. Right now, this is what I want.’ She sank to her knees and turned to face him.
She was good at that, too. Exquisite. He told her.
Life could be good. It would be good again.
Afterwards she tried another play. He was relaxed and didn’t mind.
‘You know what I think you should do, Mr Gould?’
He sighed with mock exasperation. ‘Whatever it is, I know you’re going tell me.’
‘Even if your people are good at what they do they are not much use if you don’t keep them in awe.’
‘Agreed.’ Idly Gould parted the long black hair hanging across her chest. Her nipples were hard, the areolas of her breasts swollen and shiny. He took one between his finger and thumb.
‘In your position I think you should do more killing.’
Startled, Gould laughed out loud. She darted her head forwards and kissed his mouth. A faint taste of himself lingered on his lips. He kissed her back, taking his time.
‘What’s your name, girl?’
‘Ayesha, Mr Gould.’
‘Call me Mitchell.’
- 11 -
Palfinger Crane – just how rich is rich?
The short answer is, like you can’t imagine. He’s that rich.
Pretend you earn a million dollars a year. That’s not too hard, lots of people do that. For Crane, it’s a drop in the ocean. Make it a BILLION dollars a year. You save every cent, after a thousand years you’re not even close.
There are three things to remember about Palfinger Crane: he’s the richest person alive; he’s richest person there has ever been; and he’s the richest there ever could be (probably).
So how rich is that? Nobody knows. Crane doesn’t even know. It’s a lot. What we do know is that last year 67.819% of the GDP of the entire planet flowed through, or was generated by, that massively interlocked and ever-expanding cascade of corporations called the CraneCorp BuisPlex. The Global MegaCorp arrived years ago and we didn’t notice. One man owns the planet, lucky for all of us he seems to be a nice guy.
– One Man and his Wallet – Special Feature, BFBM magazine
The land of the Totally Rich is another world. You may hear the horns blowing, you may run as hard as you can, but you will neither meet the king nor marry his daughter.
You can’t take anyone there -- it’s a state of mind and a point of view, far more a frame of reference than a piece of dirt.
The people you knew, the kind who used to be your friends before you became TR, they can walk by your side and see what you see. They can meet the same people and eat the same food, but unless they are Totally Rich like you, they are simply outsiders looking in. There’s so little overlap it gets embarrassing. The best thing for you both is to leave them behind.
Life as a Venn diagram.
It’s all about you.
It’s a land where nothing happens unless you want it to. You’ve got everything, including things you didn’t even know you had, because someone you employ has anticipated your desires. The car, or the person, or the country house is already yours: gravel raked, stones whitewashed, staff in a line on a lawn where every blade of grass is the right height. You own the land and the land and its inhabitants are watching you. They make sure everything is just so, that the crisp things are crisp, the smooth are smooth, and all the other things are hot, or lemony, or naked enough so you don’t have to worry about trivial things like that ever again.
So you can be free.
Weather can’t reach you here. Life, on the other hand…
Palfinger Crane stood at the top of a wide fan of marble and limestone steps and watched his pretty, dark-haired daughter cross the palm-fringed lawn. He wore cream linen slacks, open-toed sandals and a pale blue Nehru jacket. His frame was slender, his fair hair and beard close cropped. He was as worried as any father could be.
Despite her 1,750 lb bulk Ellen Hutzenreiter-Crane moved easily across the daisy-free grass. She walked with the strange, graceful daintiness of the super-obese, a hippopotamus en-pointe on her load-spreaders, every movement assisted by the steel and carbon-fibre exoframe that supported her body and balanced her metabolism. The discrete pistons, servos and fuel cells did most of the work for her youthful, and immensely corpulent, body.
The Caribbean breeze blew mild and fresh, the sea below the cliffs a vivid azure. At the top of the steps a large, domed conservatory held cycads, tree-ferns, dendrons, horsetails, lycopodium and the other ancient plants Crane collected.
Today he was accompanied by three remarkable doctors, all dressed in chinos and colourful short-sleeved shirts. Sam Yeo, aged 35, was American, short and dumpy, his skin baby-smooth – a renowned neuronic psycho-surgeon and parasitologist. Beside him was Chandra Smith, tall, with steel-grey hair, and more handsome in his late middle age than in his youth. He was a genetic teratologist, morphic developmentalist, and the finest transplant surgeon in the world. The third person, dark, sleek and brilliant, was Olivia Karpozy-McNichols, hormone nutritionalist, Chi-balancer, and renal, lymphatic and blood-plasma nexialist.
It was irrelevant that they were the best money could buy because they worked for free. Palfinger Crane funded the universities, hospitals and research institutions where they worked. He had come to know them personally, they liked him and they liked his daughter. They felt honoured to be his friends. Crane felt honoured too, he was the only one without a Nobel prize.
Palfinger Crane, the world’s first and only trillionaire, the only man ever to be declared Totally Rich, had made his first fortune by giving away company products for free. He made his second by buying those companies. He knew there were still some things money couldn’t buy, and it seemed that a normal-sized daughter was one of them.
Crane watched Ellen leave two-inch deep footprints in the perfect lawn. ‘You’re out of ideas,’ he said.
Beside him, the three doctors made awkward movements, winces, grimaces, shrugs and silent gestures.
‘Yes, we are,’ they confessed.
‘Suppositions? Intuition?’
‘Not really,’ said Chandra Smith.
‘Wild guesses?’
‘Palfinger, we’ve been there,’ Olivia said.
Crane folded and unfolded his hands. Olivia was right, they really had tried absolutely everything. Hormones, diet, exercise, surgery, analysis, infections, parasites, acupuncture, cancers, mutations, voodoo, dowsing, prayer, meditation, drugs, minerals, transfusions, infusions, and every scan, analysis, assay and biometric measurement it was possible to take. Everything. They had tried it all and then they’d done it all over again.
Hell, they had even tried homeopathy.
None of it made the slightest difference. Ever since Crane’s billions had turned to trillions Ellen had put on weight relentlessly. It felt so very unfair.
Ellen reached the base of the steps and trotted up the flight, assisted by the near-silent exoframe, surgically attached to, and through, her body.
The edge of one step crumbled under her weight. It would be repaired overnight just as the gardeners would re-lay the lawn. In this land all problems were solved, all issues turned to opportunity.
All but one.
‘Hi, Daddy. Hello, Sam, Chandra. Hi, Olivia.’ Ellen’s dimpled cheeks shone, her eyes were surrounded by pads of fat. On the shoulder of her frame a red light pulsed, the soft roar
of fans wafting cool air through her clothes.
Palfinger Crane loved his daughter. He loved her far more than her estranged mother, Bianca, currently eking out the last millions of this year’s allowance to save the coral atolls of Micronesia.
Crane had a lot more to give than anyone who had ever lived, more than corporations, more than nations. He’d already given a great deal and, for Ellen, was willing to give much more.
On days like these it seemed there was little point.
Ellen took in the sombre expressions of her father and his guests. ‘Shall we go in?’
Crane led the way into the conservatory, where the central plaza had been reconfigured for an informal conference. Crane sat in a wicker armchair, the legs of Ellen’s exoframe locked into an optimal resting position. The doctors stood beside a tall screen softly lit from within by pastel light.
Ellen was intelligent and educated. She was inherently cheerful and had been brought up to be forthright and assertive without being demanding. She preferred to receive bad news without prevarication.
‘You don’t know what to do,’ she told the doctors.
‘Ellen,’ Palfinger said, ‘something new is bound to turn up. Just give it–’
‘No, you’re right,’ said Chandra. ‘We don’t know what to do.’
‘What’s going to happen to me?’ Ellen said.
Olivia began pressing buttons on a keypad. ‘We’ve put together a presentation. Statistical-spread prognoses, time-adjusted whole-body trend analysis. Meta studies–’
‘Just tell me the results,’ Ellen said.
Olivia squared her shoulders. ‘We think…’ She started again, ‘I think we can maintain a steady state, health-wise, for some time, despite the continuous weight gain.’
‘How long? Exactly?’
Olivia’s smile flickered and died. ‘A good time, Ellen.’
Sam Yeo raised his hand. ‘I believe aquastatic therapy still has something to offer.’
‘Which one was that?’ Ellen asked.
‘It’s one of the hydro-suspension treatments. It relieves strain on the heart, skeletal and circulatory symptoms.’ Sam lifted an invisible object with his hands. ‘We’ll float you–’
Ellen shook her head. ‘I’m not a whale, Sam. I might look like one but I’m not going to end my days in a fish tank.’
Chandra Smith gave a dry cough. ‘You’ve got linear weight-gain, nearly a kilo a week.’
‘I know what that means.’
‘We can mediate metabolic distortion, manage the diabetes.’ Chandra coughed again. ‘There are still some avenues we haven’t explored. They’re radical, very radical, but they may help. They must. Surgical bulk mass reduction. It will keep you mobile. We’ll give you fully cybernetic limbs, bio-silicon nerve interfaces. With just your torso–’
‘Stop, please,’ Ellen begged, her voice pitifully small.
Sweat plastered Chandra’s hair to his scalp. He coughed again and again. Olivia handed him a glass of water.
‘This weight gain, Ellen, we don’t understand it, we can’t stop it,’ Olivia said. ‘In the end it’s your heart. It’s already hyper-enlarged, even with all the assists it’s getting exhausted.’
‘Just tell me.’
‘Your suit needs an upgrade.’ Chandra wiped his face with a paper towel. ‘Six months. A year at the outside.’
‘And then I’ll die?’ Ellen said.
Palfinger Crane steadfastly looked up through the roof of the conservatory.
‘Yes,’ Sam Yeo said. ‘Then you’ll die.’
‘I see.’
‘We’ll upgrade the suit.’
‘Thank you, Sam.’
- 12 -
Federal sources described today’s incident at the Ciudad Acuna border crossing as a premeditated armed invasion by a large group of CCRs.
A spokesperson for UNHCR described this as ‘Frankly incredible. Climate Change Refugees simply want a place to live.’
‘Talk to the gun,’ commented the tearful widow of Stephen Miller, one of seven US officers killed in this latest development of the on-going environmental and political crisis caused by Hurricane ‘Permanent’ Larry,
US troops continue to occupy the Mexican side of the crossing. ‘We’ll stay until we go,’ President Snarlow has stated. ‘Mexico is colluding with the CCRs to destabilise our southern border. Enough is enough.’
Formed nine years ago, Permanent Larry is the world’s first, and so far only, type 7 hurricane.
– KUWjones.org
‘Mr Wilson.’ It was a statement.
Jericho Wilson lay on his mattress on the floor and looked up at the young, white, female intruder.
Her body language kept him there, her aura of competence and disdain. Slim, muscular and poised, hair short above her high forehead, he knew she would take him apart before he moved. Wilson, unshaven and hungover, naked under dishevelled sheets, felt highly vulnerable. A few years back it would have been a different story. Then again, a few years back he wouldn’t have been alone and he wouldn’t have been living like this.
She was trained, this one. Trained and drained. Whatever she used to be, now she was the type for whom pain and disablement were tools of the trade.
A young black man stood in the open doorway behind her. He was lightly built, a wisp of beard and moustache. ‘Where’s your gun, Mr Wilson?’
‘He doesn’t use firearms,’ the woman said before Wilson could answer.
‘I know. I meant his neural mop.’
The woman prodded the mattress with her shoe. ‘Tell him. And get up, coffee’s on.’
Wilson knew they wouldn’t leave him alone to dress so he didn’t bother asking. He stood up and pulled on yesterday’s jockeys and socks while they watched, the woman by the window, the man at the door. He took a perverse pleasure in taking his time, letting them get a good look at his paunch and heavy thighs.
Out in the main room coffee was indeed on. Wilson tried to be polite. ‘You want a cup?’
They ignored him. The man still leaned on the door frame, the woman paced the room. Both looked at the heap of unwashed laundry in one corner, the cheap desk and filing trays in another, three nights’ unwashed plates in the sink. Wilson had lived here for two years but the place looked like he was in transit. Furniture, curtains, white goods, all were cheap, with bold colourful logos. The desk held some photos – Mandy’s portrait with her hair all done; holiday snapshots of her and Wilson on beaches, at bars and scenic views; Mandy in uniform before they went plainclothes. The woman picked that last one up.
‘Don’t tell me, you’re therapists,’ Wilson said.
She didn’t look up. ‘A man unhappy with solitude should choose better company.’
‘What do I call you?’ Wilson said.
‘Johnson,’ the black man said.
It figured.
‘Masters.’ The woman looked at him, daring him to laugh, to say something. It wasn’t humour, they were just checking to see what kind of an asshole he was.
‘I bet you like your Martinis dry,’ Wilson said.
Masters looked down at the photo then back at Wilson. For a moment she looked puzzled, as if she couldn’t remember the connection.
Wilson helped her out. ‘I quit. I burned out.’
‘Yeah, we know,’ Johnson said.
Masters put down the picture. ‘That’s why we’re here.’
Whoever they were, whatever they wanted, Wilson just wanted them to go away. ‘I’ve already got a job.’
‘We’ve got a better one,’ Johnson said.
‘I don’t work for you.’
‘You will if we want you to.’
This was too good. Wilson chuckled as he unscrewed the cap on the cheap blended malt and poured some into his coffee.
‘I get it. There’s this case of supreme national importance that only a middle-aged loner, a retired, widowed, hard-drinking fuckup of a former Federal Agent, can solve. A man who works as a part-time bondsman to service
the mortgage on his bar bill.’
The faintest look of amusement crossed Masters’ face. ‘Not really. Anyone could do this, we just thought you’d like to.’
Wilson stirred cream into his coffee. ‘Like I said, I have a job.’
Johnson grinned. ‘Chasing a parole bust. Yes, we know. Your man Novik is on the edge of our gig. We don’t want him, or you, tripping us up.’
Masters took the coffee mug from Wilson’s hand and poured it down the sink. ‘Mitchell Gould has an Away Team chasing loose change. We want to render them down and you’re motivated. Help us out and you might get a chance for a crack at Gould himself.’
Mitchell Gould. It wasn’t anything near what Wilson expected.
That long-ago night in Birmingham, under the sodium lights. Wilson had Gould in his sights and his finger on the trigger. When he fired Mandy was there, right between them. In that instant the meaningful part of his life was over.
Wilson needed to sit down, to lean on something. Blindly, his hand knocked against the kitchenette worktop and he let it take his weight.
‘I’m in,’ he managed. ‘I don’t care about the deal but tell me anyway.’
‘No special deals,’ Johnson said, and pulled a flat white electronic pad from his inside breast pocket. ‘Do the job and get paid. You’re reinstated to resignation rank for the duration, without authority and for purposes of remuneration only.’ He held the pad out at arm’s length. ‘Agent Johnson affirming recruitment of Jericho Wilson to perform any and all duties as and when required under executive order Glass Onion.’
Holding the pad out to Wilson, Johnson said, ‘Jericho Wilson, do you swear to perform your duties as an irregular agent?’
This is meaningless. I don’t play ball I disappear, Wilson thought, then said, ‘I do so swear, so help me.’
‘Eye scan.’ Johnson held up the pad and a red light briefly dazzled Wilson.
