Love Is Strange (A Paranormal Romance)

by Bruce Sterling

  THE STORY

  They're futurists in love. They don't believe in romantic happy endings.

  Farfalla Corrado is a globetrotting Italian witch, trained in Brazilian voodoo. Farfalla can tell real fortunes, see real ghosts and speak real curses. Farfalla doesn't just know the future – she can feel in in the dark, twisted depths of her heart.

  Gavin Tremaine is a high-tech Seattle venture capitalist. He can forecast the future, spot its trends, and invest in its business models. Gavin has a big future ahead of him – unfortunately, Gavin knows what that big future holds for the little people.

  When their worlds collide, history itself begins to crumble. They already know how this love story is bound to end – and it's not what the other expects.

  BRUCE STERLING

  Bruce Sterling lives in Austin, Turin and also Belgrade. He is married to the Serbian feminist and novelist Jasmina Tesanovic.

  He is an American science fiction author, best known for his novels and his work on the Mirrorshades anthology, which helped define the cyberpunk genre.

  His nonfiction works include The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier; Tomorrow Now: Envisioning the Next Fifty Years; and Shaping Things.

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  LOVE IS STRANGE

  Bruce Sterling

  Chapter One: The Haunted Hotel

  Gavin rubbed the glare from his jet-lagged eyes and stared into the Mediterranean. “Capri is Paradise.”

  His sister wiped at her runny mascara. “I guess Capri’s okay. I’ve seen better.”

  “Check out the giant rocks in the breakers down there.”

  The cliff top loomed over a peacock-blue ocean. The little Capri park exploded in a flower-basket of scarlet, violet and orange. Eliza was dressed all in black-long black sleeves, long black skirt, black eyeliner, black lipstick, black combat boots.

  Eliza plucked her black iPhone from her black laced bodice and tapped at her screen. “Those are the Faraglione Rocks.”

  “Wikipedia,” Gavin nodded. “Wikipedia on wireless broadband. Wow, what a handy service that is.”

  “I keep telling you that iPhones rule! You gotta get an iPhone right away, Gav! They get new apps all the time!”

  Gavin smiled and shook his head. He used a solid, dependable Blackberry. Besides, he worried about Steve Jobs. The Apple honcho seemed frail to him, ghostly. ‘Reality distortion field.’ How long could that last? Nobody could distort reality. The very idea was so weird.

  Eliza squinted at her screen from under her droopy black hatbrim. “A Roman Emperor built this garden. This place we’re standing in. The Emperor Augustus Caesar. Two thousand years ago.”

  “Yeah, Italy is all about wizards and emperors,” nodded Gavin. He stretched his arms out and basked in the dazzling sunshine.

  Gavin did a lot of business in Italy — Milan and Ivrea, mostly — but with his little sister at his side, the charm of Italy touched his soul. The past and future wheeled around them, clean, winged and airy, like two island seagulls.

  Or, maybe that swooning sensation was jet lag. The past and future, spinning around in his head.

  A chattering crowd of tourists trampled the Capri garden. They rambled in clusters, past the marble fountains and the rust-specked iron benches. Sweaty, sunburned foreigners, in baggy shorts and flowered shirts.

  The foreign tourists were the livestock of Capri. Like sacred cattle, they roamed wherever they pleased. Some took a stony walkway that zigzagged down to the sea, like the tortured path of a video game. Others vanished uphill, into long green ridges clustered with chalk-white vacation villas.

  Down in that foamy, sparkling surf, the Faraglione Rocks beckoned to Gavin. Towering giants of stone-unearthly, primeval, majestic. Like stone ghosts of a past life, or stony promises of a future life. A promised future life that was haunted by a ghostly past life... anyway, a life that was different.

  “I wonder,” said Gavin, “how many people, for how many centuries, have looked at those rocks. There must have been millions, even billions, just looking.”

  “Whatever. Google gets a billion looks every day.” Eliza tucked her iPhone away. “Gav, watch me now. I’m gonna stare at your giant rocks like nobody else ever has!”

  Eliza lifted her sharp chin, took a deep breath and pulled her narrow shoulders back. Eliza had the serious, bone-deep glumness that only seventeen-year-old girls could achieve.

  Then, Eliza glared at the ancient rocks with a burning glower of teenage fury. As if she could crack those ancient stone towers with the mystical force of her will.

  Gavin watched his little sister in bemusement. Why did Eliza always do things like that? What was she trying to prove? That witchy, sullen, Goth Chick thing.… such a very old look for such a young girl.

  Why did she have such a weird look in her eyes? Somebody deserved to look that strange. But never a modern Gothic girl.… An ancient Gothic girl!

  A Gothic princess in the garden of a Roman Emperor!

  Gavin smiled. He reveled in this insight. Gavin was a techno-futurist. He worked on budgets, statistics, hunches, buzz and VC forecasts. Sometimes, though, an idea just struck him out of nowhere, a burst of intuition. This was one of those moments. It was perfect.

  Once, yes, there had been a Gothic girl standing here. Really, truly. Standing, just like them, here, in this very garden. A living human being from the distant past. Gavin could practically smell the reek of pagan patchouli. A Gothic barbarian princess, glaring at those big Roman rocks. As if she could destroy them, just by resenting them.

  This Gothic princess of Capri longed to topple the Emperor’s rocks. Because of what they meant. Because of who she was.

  A sea breeze whistled up the cliff side and lifted Eliza’s coal-black hair. Suddenly, she looked up at him and smiled.

  For once, the beauty of the world had made her happy. Gavin recognized the importance of what was happening. He could feel a change, a transition, but also the sense of something returning. The past as a future that has already happened.

  What a pretty smile Eliza had, as pretty as any Capri garden. Up to this moment in her life, Eliza had been... Well, she had just been his little sister, a slouching, petulant, Goth kid. But they were far away from Seattle now, far away from their parents, far away from all the aching pressures of business, the family, the fear...

  Eliza was happier already. Something joyful had awoken inside her, now that she was free. A more genuine Elizabeth Tremaine was coming out of her shell.

  Eliza suddenly looked so grown-up to him. Maybe this was the last time Eliza would be his kid sister. Still his sister, no longer a kid.

  Gavin placed both his hands on the cold iron railing of the overlook. “Eliza, I want to tell you something,” he said. “When I was seventeen — as you are now — I made some big decisions about my life.”

  Eliza turned her head toward him. “You found out that you were an accountant?”

  “Well, yeah, I am an accountant. But no, that’s not what I’m trying to tell you.”

  “I don’t want a business career,” sniffed Eliza. “You know what I want? What I really, truly want from my life? Because I already know.”

  “I’m eager to hear this,” Gavin told her.

  She looked him in the eyes. “You’re not teasing me?”

  “I would never tease you, Elizabeth. I want you to tell me. I study futurism, and I think that I can help.”

  “Well, in the future, I want to be a princess.”

  His little sister wanted to be a princess. What a fairy-tale notion. A six-
year-old would laugh at a fantasy like that.

  “I see,” he said.

  “No, you don’t see! I need to be a princess! That’s the only thing that will help! I have to be like royalty! That’s the important part! When I make the scene, everybody has to stop and stare. They all just look at me! Just because, wow, it’s me: Elizabeth Aimee Tremaine! Or whatever cool name I have, in the future: Madonna, Shakira. One of those one-name names that only stars can have.” Eliza’s shoulders suddenly slumped. “Every dorky chick in this world is named ‘Elizabeth’.”

  “So, uh, you want to be an entertainer? That’s a pretty tough life.”

  “No, more like Paris. I mean, Paris Hilton. Paris is famous and powerful, and she gets all kinds of international respect. She’s a girl from a rich L.A. family, but in Seattle we do real work.”

  “Look, Paris Hilton is in movies. Paris had her own TV series. Paris cut a record.” Gavin had closely studied the career of Paris Hilton. Because Paris Hilton was trendy. Trends were always important to futurists. “I don’t think that you want to get famous the way that Paris Hilton got famous.”

  Eliza opened her furry black satchel. She pulled out a portable CD player. “Gav, look here. Once, I loved this machine. Because it plays all my CDs. But nobody buys music in the stores any more! Even I don’t pay for music, and I’m rich! I’m carrying a zombie in my purse!”

  “Well, yes, that platform is obsolete now, but a new business model will arise for music.”

  “No it won’t! That’s a lie! Nobody will ever pay! The music business is the walking dead! Don’t lie to me.” Eliza stuffed her doomed device back in her furry purse.

  Gavin rubbed his chin. “Your Digital Native generation really has some issues.”

  “The music business is dead! And someone has to raise the dead! Me! Why not me? Who else, if not me? Elizabeth Aimee Tremaine, the bride of the music vampire! I would do that, I love music! I’d do anything for music. Without music I’m not even alive.”

  Gavin nodded, rocking from heel to toe in his Timberland brogues. “Okay. Sure. I get it.”

  Gavin felt pleased to see his sister taking such an interest in technology issues. He’d been afraid that his geeky lectures on those subjects had flown right over her head. Dedicated platforms, Mp3 files, copyright, intellectual property, piracy, bandwidth, it could get a little tedious. But, Eliza understood those things. Just, in her own way.

  Eliza pulled at her wind-tangled hair, which was blonde at the roots but dyed the lifeless color of coal dust. “When our music scene dies in Seattle,” she told him, “our town will become a dead city. Everything will be quiet and evil and covered with thorns.”

  “Aw, come on, that’ll never happen to Seattle. We’re an inventive, creative city. We love the arts!”

  “Well, I love music with all my heart, and I have to watch music walk around dead every day. In the shadows!”

  Gavin didn’t know how to respond this lament. He was certain that he should say something. Something upbeat and reassuring, older-brother style. Something that was good, wise and cheerful, that would make everything better for Eliza.

  Here was his sister, finally spitting up the source of her misery. Confiding in him, and trusting him. He should do something. Yet, he couldn’t console her. He had nothing to tell her. He lacked a prepared position statement.

  “Back home,” Eliza grumbled, knotting her brows, “we have that huge skyscraper tomb thing, that’s like that stupid Rock and Roll Museum that Paul Allen built. But there’s nothing in there now but some science fiction weirdness. That sucks!”

  Gavin cleared his throat. “Well, the music industry does have potential revenue models. Subscriptions, touring, merchandise sales...”

  “Gavin, every idiot keeps saying that. Are you stupid? That’s not reality! That is a fantasy! When the money walks away, money never comes back! Not by itself! And when all the money’s gone, there’s nothing left but zombies. Zombies and vampires! It’s the truth! It’s so obvious.”

  Gavin was completely thrown. He’d been doing pretty well with Eliza on this trip, but now the gears froze solid in his head.

  Whenever he talked to Eliza, there was always some moment where she jumped into a kinky flight of fancy. He just couldn’t follow her there. He couldn’t speak that language. The paradigm there was all wrong. It came straight from the heart of Elizabeth, but it just wasn’t about anything that Gavin himself was about. This was another one of those unhappy, broken moments.

  All that he could do was try to show her that he loved her.

  “Eliza, I’m very glad we’re having this discussion. I know that you have some strong concerns in this direction. I, just, never heard you frame them quite like this.”

  “Can you talk to Dad about this for me? I mean, about me and my big plans to save the vampire soul of music?” Eliza kicked at the rocky path with her combat boot. “I know my life, as, like, a Goth-music princess... Well, I know, we Goths are not, like, realistic.”

  “Well,” Gavin hedged, “we’re here in Capri to attend a futurist conference. We’re here to plot and scheme about the future, and learn all about the world of tomorrow! So, if you can show me that you’re serious about your plans... sure, I’ll talk to Dad for you.”

  Elizabeth raised her eyes. “Dad will hate my ideas. Dad wants me to mind my grades and study law. If I tell Dad that I love music more than anything else, he’s gonna start yelling at me again.”

  “Listen, never mind that. Dad should have come out here to Capri himself. Dad really needs a vacation. This finance crisis has got Dad all keyed up.”

  Elizabeth shrugged. “Money isn’t everything.”

  “Of course it isn’t,” Gavin said. “I agree with you there. That’s a fact. Just take Detroit, for instance. Because I studied Detroit in detail. Over at Cook, Bishop & Engleman, we just held a big futurist workshop about contemporary issues in American urbanism. Detroit is totally broke, and yet Detroit’s a great city for music production. That’s a vital data-point.”

  “Gavin, you do sort of understand all this, don’t you? I mean, you understand some parts of it. In your own way.”

  “In some ways, I do,” he said. “Yeah, sometimes I do really understand the future.” That didn’t mean that he was happy about it.

  “Gavin, everybody knows that you’re way ahead of your time. You started Fettlr and sold it to Yahoo for 20 million dollars. Our Dad is like this so-called ‘great businessman’ — but Dad never did anything like that.”

  Gavin silently looked at his Omega wristwatch. “Are you hungry?”

  “I could eat.”

  “We have maybe an hour before the conference opens. Let’s grab a couple of sandwiches.”

  They hiked up the steep, scaly pavement, which wriggled over rugged Capri like a snake. An old hotel stood on the peak of the stony ridge.

  The hotel commanded a view of Capri that was divine. Capri was insanely gorgeous in the way that Apple products were insanely great. This mystical, timeless island had divine beauty the way lesser islands had oysters. Not just Roman Emperors, but Roman gods and goddesses would drop here on their vacations. Pan, Venus, Mars, would forget their overloaded calendars to hole up here in Capri, and never age, never know mortal sorrow.

  The azure sea surged and sparkled like imperial jewels. The sky hovered over Capri like a dome of sapphire art glass. Paragliders swooped and fluttered in the celestial blue. Angels, sprites, daredevils, graceful and fearless, free of all gravity, immune to harm.

  The old Capri hotel housed a somber, crooked dining room. A grandmotherly Italian led them to a creaky, wooden table tucked away in the darkest corner, as to hide Eliza and her kinky Goth attire from the other customers.

  This hotel had nothing to eat that was fast. Patrons of majestic, old Capri hotels were supposed to eat thoughtfully, in a civilized, European fashion — to start, an appetizer and drink; then, the first real course, followed by a good, solid second course; next, a sweet, and
finally, some brandy, nuts and cigars.

  After a polite debate in his college Italian, Gavin managed to order them a couple of salads, an overpriced bottle of mineral water, and nothing else.

  Gavin spread the hotel’s linen napkin over his cargo pants. The hotel’s old parquet floors were spotty and warped. The inner walls had been rebuilt so many times that they leaned at odd angles, like a stage set for a silent film. Everything in this old hotel had been patched or painted over, re-wired, re-furbished, or re-polished.

  Eliza busily flicked at her iPhone, her burgundy fingernails skidding across the screen. “An arms merchant built this hotel. He was this rich German guy who made cannons in World War One. His company killed a million people.”

  “Welcome to Europe, Eliza.”

  Eliza glanced up at him, her blue eyes full of wicked satisfaction. “A million ghosts! This old place has got to be haunted.”

  Gavin had a bite of his hotel salad, a leafy construction that featured capers, olives and anchovies. He’d expected a quick tourist salad to be pretty mediocre, but this was a magnificent salad. It was the best salad Gavin had ever eaten in his life. It was like an opera in a bowl. Miracles could happen on an island that had such salads.

  Gavin sloshed pink vinegar from a cut-glass cruet. “Capri is like paradise, but it’s got war and guns and ghosts. That’s Europe. ‘There is nothing new except what has been forgotten.’ Marie Antoinette said that.”

  “’Marie who?’”

  “Marie Antoinette, Eliza. The Queen of France. A European princess,”

  “Oh, yeah, Marie Antoinette! Marie Antoinette was in that Sofia Coppola film with the techno soundtrack. I loved that movie, it had great music! And I love this hotel! Can we check out of our lame modern hotel, and move into this cool, old hotel? This cool, old, haunted hotel? Please, Gavin, just for me, please, please?”

  Chapter Two: The Convent of Crossed Destinies