by Stanley Bing
In hopes that he was joking, the room chuckled appreciatively. “We couldn’t get the party started without you,” said Jerry with a little bow. Arthur acknowledged the gesture and then entered the room to a variety of handshakes, backslaps, and simpering protestations of affection.
“I believe my better half will be along a bit later,” he confided to Jerry. “She extends her regrets for her tardiness as well, but I believe her favorite synth needed some kind of servicing.”
“Well, we’ll just have to limp along without her! Shall we sit?” Jerry was expansive, the ultimate host. “You sit here by me, Artie,” Jerry said, patting the back of the chair adjacent to his.
The partygoers found their places marked by name tags installed in small silver frames. “These are stainless steel,” said the board member whose part of the operation controlled the production of foodstuffs for most of the globe. “I would think you would have sprung for silver, Jerry.”
“Small economies, my friend,” said Jerry, who remained standing. There was more rustling as the rest settled in. Then they leaned back in their chairs and awaited developments, one of the great tasks demanded of all executives. Finally Jerry raised his glass.
“I’d like to offer a little toast,” he began. The entire room constricted like a giant muscle. Each had seen his or her fill of bad toasts. A bad toast can destroy not only the toaster, but do damage to he who is toasted as well.
“This is a historic moment,” Jerry intoned. “We have a couple of people here who have changed the course of human history. First, of course—always first—we have here a guy named Arthur, who is now inhabiting the body of a person who would probably have preferred to have kept it. It was the ultimate unfriendly takeover, and we will be its beneficiaries.” A shudder rippled through the room, and then it laughed, sort of. It was a laugh, to be sure, but there was a lot of mucus in it. “Anyhow, now we have a situation where this person, Arthur, has made us a deal which, when you factor it all in, is reasonable. He gets the business. We get life. Thank you, Arthur.”
This seemed an occasion for some applause, so one of the attorneys started it. To be fair, the resulting golf clap was rather protracted, and everybody seemed to relax a little.
“And then there’s Bob. Bob the mad scientist. Dude, I think I speak for the rest of the room when I say, you are . . . the man.” At that, the room actually erupted in genuine spontaneous approbation taking the form of some huzzahing, some ejaculation of the name “Bob!” and some buzzing and trading of nods.
“So. To Arthur and Bob, we raise a glass,” Jerry said, and did so.
Those who could stand rose to their feet, and the rest held their glasses high, and then they all drank. Bob, for his part, felt it would be churlish not to drain his flagon to the dregs. Arthur took a little sip, just to be polite. There was a window then, wide open, filled with the silence that comes before the next person under pressure to make a toast capitulates and rises to his or her feet. Arthur realized with horror that it was he who was absolutely required to be that person. It wasn’t that the refusal would mark him as a jerk. It would mark him as a coward. It would be viewed universally by these geezers as a sign of weakness, a recognition that he had power, yes, but in the end? He was a pussy. When the time came for him to make the toast of his life, he wilted. Sat there and did nothing.
Arthur stood and clinked his glass.
“Look, I don’t reveal myself to a lot of people,” he said. “But I’d be lying to you if I said I wasn’t very aware of what a lucky guy I am. And I am grateful, but I don’t know who to be grateful to, so I’ll just say I’m grateful to myself. But seriously.” Here he paused for a moment, perhaps aware that his opening hadn’t achieved the degree of levity he had anticipated. “I don’t know what the fuck to say. I’m terrible at speeches and toasts and shit.” Here he took another sip of Cabernet. “Let me describe the science to you,” he said suddenly. Then he began to wander around the room, staring into his balloon of Chateau Montelena. It was very, very hard not to take another mouthful, feel it rolling around on the back of his tongue, aspirating the lovely bouquet of orange and chocolate and burned leather. This was his day of triumph! He took a sip. “Oh well,” he continued. “Fuck it anyway. All you need to know is that all of this—the body I’m in, the fact that I am in this body—was in the works for the last fifty years and culminates in me, Arthur. And now I am this person, where before I was another person, and now I’m this person.”
He paused and looked bemusedly at the group. “At any rate,” he said after a time. “This has been a very fucked-up toast, but I salute you all and look forward to working with all of you to shape a new future. We have a tough road ahead of us to build on our great foundation and grow the business for the next generation of leaders to make this Corporation great again. Sacrifices will have to be made, hopefully by other people. But seriously. Thanks.” Then he sat down and drained his glass.
“Arthur!” Jerry once again raised his glass.
“Huzzah!” cried the multitudes.
“On the other hand,” said Arthur ruminatively, seated now, the philosopher king in repose, “there’s the whole question of what happened to the guy whose body I’m in right now.” He poured himself another glass of wine from a bottle on the table and downed it in one great gulp. “Like”—here he hiccupped—“in order for the mental transference to happen, I had to be downloaded into a functioning human being. And the thing is, sometimes I feel him . . . creeping around inside me. In fact, oh good Christ. What have I done?”
There was an appalled silence.
“Who the fuck are you guys?” said Gene, looking around himself like a man just awakened from a really weird dream. Then he rose, went to the sidebar, filled a massive tumbler with the Macallan 45-Year-Old Fine Oak single-malt scotch, and poured it in one great draught down his throat.
Then he thought about things for a long, long time, or at least it seemed like a long time, the scotch flowing through his system, warming him to his core, the joy of feeling himself again. He stared into the empty tumbler and then slowly reached for more ice. When the glass was full, he poured a moderate amount of liquor over the rocks and then turned to face them, presumably as Arthur. “Ah, that’s good,” he said, with the proper Arthurian gravel in his throat. “I feel more like myself.”
The room regarded him with a variety of feelings. Terror, to be sure, but primarily confusion. What was Arthur up to? Asking who they were? What was up with that? On the other hand, they were all drinking heavily, too. Perhaps it was their judgment that was screwed up, and it was Arthur who was all right?
“Let’s eat some food,” said Gene, but it was Arthur who they saw saying it.
“Good idea,” said Jerry, motioning with one hand in the air, the universal signal for servants to begin the beguine.
In this case, what they had were mostly things that were soft. That still leaves a remarkable variety of delicious stuff. Pâté. Caviar. Most sushi. Salmon, the go-to fish for antique executives everywhere. Pureed vegetables. Things cut in very small pieces, like the salad, which was minced.
About ten minutes into the appetizer course, there was another small ruckus in the hallway, and Sallie appeared at the door. In her arms was Lucy. Sallie was bedecked neck to ankle in a translucent silver sheath of artificial lizard skin. Her hair was slicked back in an iridescent helmet, and a million or so dollars of jewelry accented her neck, her wrists, her fingers. She smelled, very faintly, of wildflower.
“Woof woof,” said Lucy.
Greeting people she recognized as she went, Sallie made her way over to the table where Gene sat, watching the beautiful woman approach, the lovelight in her eyes. “Artie,” she said, and bent down to kiss him. Just a light, very slightly protracted brushing of the lips, nothing that the board would find inappropriate. Gene kissed her back. It wasn’t a hard decision. She stood up abruptly and looked at him, still holding his hand in hers.
“I’ve been drinking,”
said Gene, with a little piece of Arthur in there.
“Well,” said Sallie, looking him over speculatively, “I guess I’d better catch up.” She motioned for a drink.
This was the occasion for a decent-sized house laugh, which she acknowledged and then sat down in the chair that had been reserved for her. A host of floating robots genteelly swarmed her and attended to her every need. People approached. Lots of greetings, air-kissing, hugging. She attended to it all, superb-corporate-wife mode on high. And through it all, she looked at the person she had accepted to be Arthur and who had kissed her somewhat differently. Better, actually. More tenderly. Eyes focused on hers. She thought about that quite seriously, too. Holding himself different. Less stolid. More . . . jaunty? He really was quite drunk. She’d never actually seen Artie so incredibly hammered. Not like him, really.
“I had that upgrade done on Lucy,” she said, presenting the synth to him for a kiss. Gene kissed Lucy, who then also skewered him with a quizzical expression.
“Artie!” Sallie beamed with surprise and pleasure. “You kissed her!”
“It’s not every day that a good friend like Lucy here gets an upgrade,” said Gene.
“I can say a lot more than ‘woof’ now,” said Lucy.
“Wow!” Gene was impressed. “That’s quite an upgrade.”
“We should have a conversation sometime,” said Lucy.
Mortimer had appeared at Gene’s elbow. Gene noticed then that the Segway named Officer O’Brien had appeared out of nowhere, rolled quietly to the door, and was now blocking any attempt to leave. That was fine. Let it play out. The only thing he knew was that he had to stay drunk all the time now. That was okay. He could do that.
Mortimer sat down and looked at him with professional seriousness. “Arthur,” he said. “My briefings have informed me that there is always a danger that there may be occasional . . . reversions. And I should watch for those and make sure that you are helped during any such episodes to return to yourself. So I need to ascertain if you are indeed you. I’m sure you understand no disrespect is intended, sir.”
“No, no,” said Gene. “You may fire when ready, Gridley.”
Here Mortimer leaned in. “What was it you and I discussed after the board meeting? Just the high concept. You don’t have to go into the nuts and bolts.”
“We’ve got total market domination in every possible vertical,” said Gene, who had been listening. Now he grabbed for as much as he had fathomed. “But changes in the population—instability in the marketplace, call it—have created a situation where we will, in effect, become nothing more than a master Utility providing boring goods and services to people. We need new markets, and that means reclaiming portions of the customer base that we’ve lost through . . . whatever. Attrition? It doesn’t matter. We need to pull them back in. And we’ve got the muscle to do it. That’s you, Mort. You’re the muscle.”
“Okay, Artie,” said Mortimer. “I see you in there.”
“Keep doing what you’re doing. This country is soft. Even the hard parts don’t know what a dedicated army can do. We don’t need to be mean about it, though. We’re gonna win, but we’re not going to be Sherman marching through Georgia.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Artie.”
“Readiness is all.”
“You didn’t make that up,” said Mortimer. “O’Brien.”
“Yes, sir,” said the artificial policeman.
“Your orders are to help Artie here do any the fuck thing he wants to do.”
“Within the limits of the law, sir,” said O’Brien. Mortimer gave him a narrow look. “Just kidding,” it added.
Gene had poured himself another stiff bolt of amber goodness. “Excuse me,” he said. And he drank it.
“Hey, everybody,” said Jerry, who had been looking on as the aged board, one by one, drifted off into the Land of Nod. “I think we’ve all put up with just about enough of this shit.” He stood. “Look. I guess we could all fuck each other in any number of ways during this transaction, but I hope we all play it straight up, and each of us ends up happy and healthy and a whole lot younger. I’d raise a glass, but this is not a fucking toast. It’s what I really feel. Good night. I’ll see you all in the morning.” He went to the door and then paused and turned to the guy he thought was Arthur. “Artie,” he said, “I’m just gonna say it once: play this one straight. I know there’s a lot of angles. But play this one straight.”
“Jerry, man,” said Gene. “You insult me.”
“No, Artie, never,” said Jerry. Then he shouted to the completely plastered form twitching at a table in the corner, “Bob! You da man, right?”
“Right!” said Bob. Then he put his head down on the table and cried like a baby.
“We’re drunk on our asses,” said Jerry. “Sallie. You deserve better than this.”
“Thank you, Jerry,” said Sallie. “You do too.”
“True dat,” said Jerry, and he left. This event sent a shockwave of resolution through the entire board, which as one decided that a bell had rung that had released them from this duty. They leapt, within their capacity, to their feet or their alternatives, donned sweaters and microventilators, and blew out of there like puffed rice shot from a cannon.
The room was a bit quiet for a moment or two then. All who remained looked about them, ascertaining who was left on the playing field. There was Arthur, of course, and Sallie, and the little green synth, and Mortimer, sitting with a drink in his lap, a cigar plugged into the corner of his mouth, waiting for further instructions and wondering why none seemed to be forthcoming. And Officer O’Brien, patrolling the periphery. And Bob.
“So,” Sallie said after a while. “Who am I talking to, really?” She turned to Gene and looked deep into his eyes.
“It’s me, Sallie,” said Gene, in his very own voice.
“Yeah,” said Sallie. “I thought so. Artie would never have kissed the pet like that.” Then, after a little while: “Is she coming to get you?”
“Yeah, Sallie. At least I think she is. Bob?”
“They’re coming. And we’re going.” Bob didn’t look so good. But he hadn’t thrown up yet. He would probably feel better after that.
Then they just sat there with each other, Sallie and Gene, waiting for Liv to come. For a while, they held hands, and then they didn’t anymore.
19
The Battle of Nobu
When they came, it was in one of the least inventive ways imaginable, and they fooled precisely nobody.
“Mort,” said Sallie.
Mort looked at her. Then he looked at them. Then he looked at her again. And then he got it. “Oh, look,” he said sarcastically, rising and taking his weapon out of the holster beneath his sports jacket. “A small group of restaurant workers here to clean up the room.” Bob had let them in, without consultation, since that was the role he had been assigned to play in this little drama of rescue and extraction.
Livia was dressed in the simple white shirt and black slacks of a non-gender-specific waiter. Bronwyn was by her side, in identical attire. They had two accomplices flanking them. One was a very tall, dumpy, hulking fellow with a short, scraggly beard and a ponytail who looked like a roadie in a touring cover band. The other was a short, trim, very fit young person of no particular gender at all, attractive—charismatic, even—with his or her hair tucked up into a square cap with no brim. These two hung behind the two women, who were doing their best to look innocent. Livia’s implant, however, glowed hot behind her ear. She could never hide the interface between her hardware and wetware, thought Gene. It always betrayed her.
“Put your heater down, Mort,” growled Gene in his best Arthurian tone of command.
“But—” It was difficult for the rock-hard leader of the biggest army west of the caliphate to stand down. But this was the order of his superior officer. If indeed it was. Could it not be? Could this be the complication about which he’d been briefed? Sallie stood.
“Shoot him, Mo
rtimer,” she said. “But not too badly.” Mortimer raised his disruptor and pointed it at Gene, but hesitated just a moment too long.
“I don’t think so,” said Bronwyn, and in one fluid motion she raised her arm, with one finger pointing directly at Mortimer’s chest, and fired a small, throbbing orblet into the pocket protector directly over his heart. Mortimer immediately went into an impressive display of atrial fibrillation and fell to the floor, twitching and spasming and frothing from the corner of his mouth.
“Wow,” Bronwyn exclaimed. “Bob! It works!”
“Pisses me off when you doubt me, Bee,” said Bob, easing his way toward the exit.
“Stop right there,” said the rolling Segway named Officer O’Brien, who had dynamically spun away from the door at a 45-degree angle and begun to hum in a most threatening manner, a variety of his constituent parts cycling from green to yellow to bright red as he did so.
“No fuckin’ way,” said the shorter of the two faux waiters who had stationed themselves behind Liv. He or she walked directly up to O’Brien, who was clearly preparing some dramatic defensive maneuver, reached into the middle of its face unit with two fingers splayed, and ripped off the thing that would have been called its nose.
“You have removed my mobe,” O’Brien moaned. Then it was utterly still.
“Gee,” said the attending behemoth, “it worked.” He and the other nonwaiter exchanged a discreet low five, then they both maintained a respectful watch on the room.
“Of course it worked!” said Bob, who seemed a little offended.
Livia went over to Gene and took him by the hand. He had been standing in the middle of the carnage, perusing the devastation with a combination of surprise, delight, and trepidation.
“Now what?” he asked Liv.
“Now you kiss me.”
He gave her a rather restrained kiss, then stepped back and stole a quick glance at Sallie, who had resumed her seat and was watching the action with surprising calmness.
“What?” said Liv. And then: “Oh. I sort of get it. Although it’s possibly too complicated for me.”
