by Simon Royle
“Yes...” I said doubtfully, wondering what was coming next, thinking maybe she wanted me to go and visit her parents, which was not something I was looking forward to yet.
“Sexual partners,” she said and gave me a very direct look.
“Yes,” I said confidently.
“Just you and me unless we agree otherwise, agreed?”
“Yes, agreed,” I said and smiled.
Taking my face in her hands, she climbed out of her seat and straddled me, kissing me deeply with her tongue.
Chapter 20 A Lunchtime Chat
Jonah’s Env, Unit A, 20th Floor, Woodlands Envplex, Woodlands, New Singapore
Friday, 27 December 2109, 8:45am +8 UTC
I woke up lying face down on the sleeper in my Env in Woodlands. A shaft of sun streamed through the window. With one eye open I saw the rose lying on the pillow next to me, and I smiled. I turned my head the other way and looked at the Dev beside the sleeper. 8:45am.
I turned over on my back and scooted my backside up so that I could rest against the wall of the Env. It had changed a lot in the last two weeks since being occupied by Mariko. Books, paper books were piled in stacks around the room.
“Our library,” she had said, as if it were obvious that we needed paper books when we could read them on a Devstick. “A Devscreen with all the titles of the books you have on your Devstick just doesn’t have the same meaning as seeing the spines of real books,” she’d continued as we returned from another visit to the second hand book store on Orchard, near the Hyatt VacEnv. And she was right. I found myself absorbed in the feel of a book in my hands. So different from reading them on the Devstick. It is strange that although paper is such a low-tech medium, it allows for a far more random relationship with the data than a Devstick. What could be more random than laying books on the grass and allowing the breeze to select what you will read? You can’t do that with a Devstick.
Apart from the rose, she had also bought croissants from the French bakery on ground level, three blocks down from my Env, and started the coffee pot. Another new vice that I’d acquired – but then I’d lost a couple as well so maybe I was ahead of the game. Thinking about her I knew I was ahead of the game.
Since that day when we’d returned from the Lev port at Changi and she’d insisted on bringing me back to my Env, I was embarrassed at being that affected by the alky, and she had laughed it away, stripped my outers off me and pushed me into the outlet. I’d showered and felt clean and when I came out of the outlet she’d put new sheets on the sleeper and folded it back for me to crash on. She’d been sitting on the sleeper and patted the empty space exposed by the folded sheet. I’d walked over and laid down. She’d brushed the hair off my forehead and out of my eyes. No one had ever done that before. And it was a first of firsts. I’d fallen into a deep sleep, waking later to see her in the sleeper beside me, her arm over my stomach.
That was fourteen days ago now. I swung my legs out of the sleeper and walked across the padded floor of the Env to the outlet near the door. I took a seat on the recycler and tapped the Devscreen set into the wall opposite. Keeping myself on silent, I hit the menu for my data stream and, with my elbows on my knees and my chin resting on my knuckles, watched the screen. Mariko would be back at 2pm and then we’d go. I rubbed my unshaven jaw. It was unfamiliar to feel the stubble against my fingers, but since I’d resigned from my contribution at Coughington and Scuttle, a lot of things felt unfamiliar to me. I liked the feeling. It felt like I had gotten off a treadmill.
Finished, I pressed a button on the side of the recycler and a blast of ice cold water hit me full force. I yelped and jumped up, the water immediately cutting off. Mariko, I thought, and laughed. She had set the temp to manual and turned it to an icy three degrees Cel. She had a nasty sense of humor. I would have to think up something in return.
I reset the switch on the recycler to automatic and sat back down. A sec later the water, now warm, sprayed and cleaned me. I rose and entered the shower cubicle, but as I did so a new direct datafeed on the Dev caught my eye. It was from my uncle. I hadn’t told him of my decision to quit Coughington and Scuttle, nor of my decision to quit the pro bono work at UNPOL. I had just done it. I had acquired enough self-leave, and as a partner I could leave when I wanted, so I had quit within a week after returning to Earth. After that I had spent all of my time with Mariko when she wasn’t contributing. The rest of my time I’d spent reading and writing. I had never been happier.
I tapped the Dev and saw that my uncle had invited me to lunch at the UNPOL Executive Club located on the Topside of the UNPOL Complex. I thought about replying, and then decided I’d take a shower first, and shave. I checked that the switch of the shower was set on auto and that the temp was set at thirty cel. It was. She hadn’t booby trapped the shower as well as the recycler, and while I showered I occupied my mind thinking of how I would pay her back for her prank.
Coming out of the shower, I stepped into the dryer and the warm air blasted the water off my body, sanitizing at the same time. Once out of the dryer I looked at myself in the mirror that ran above the counter of the outlet. A single wash basin occupied the counter along with my shaver. I ran a hand over my jaw. I hadn’t planned on shaving today, however I hadn’t planned on the lunch with my uncle either, and now both were things I had to do.
I studied myself in the mirror. I hadn’t really paid any attention to what I looked like before, but Mariko had touched me in so many little ways and this was one of them. I wanted to look good for her. There were wrinkles at the corner of my blue green eyes. I could have them disappear with a little regen but I thought they suited the tanned face they were in. My light brown hair was long, longer than it had ever been. I hadn’t had it cut or styled in over three months. Usually I’d had it done once a month, to a level above the collar on my outers.
I am of average height at one hundred and eighty-six cents and slim, weighing in at seventy-nine kilogs. My shoulders are slightly stooped and I have to remind myself to stand up straight all the time. Mariko said that the rounded shoulders came from me thinking so much with my jaw resting in the palm of my hand. An image that conjured up another image, that of the runner who had called himself Jibril and who had disappeared. I picked up the shaver and ran it over my face, its wide laser removing my facial hair without a touch. The skin underneath was a slightly whiter shade than the rest of my face, but nothing that a casual observer would notice. Sir Thomas will notice, I thought, and I ran my hand again over my chin, leaning forward across the counter to be nearer the mirror, checking for any missed spots. I didn’t find any and thought ruefully of how nervous meeting my uncle made me . That had never changed. My uncle still inspired a childish fear in me, the fear that I had done wrong and was now going to be held accountable.
I exited the outlet and went back into the main room, threading my way between the containers that held mine and Mariko’s sparse belongings. Outers and inners mainly, but hers also held a collection of images of family and friends in image frames, plus objects gathered on her travels. When she had first moved into my Env, and we had collected her belongings from the EnvDorm on Orchard, I was surprised at the amount of baggage she had with her. Just as she was surprised when, the day after they’d returned from the Moon, she’d asked me how long I had been in the Env. When I’d told her four years, she had gone wide-eyed.
“Four years!” she’d exclaimed. “There’s nothing in here at all. It looks like a VacEnv.” And she was right. It did look like a VacEnv – there was nothing to show that the Env was mine, nothing except my Dev and my clothes.
There were two empty containers that sat on the floor nearest the shelves that contained our outers and inners. I was supposed to pack those and then this afternoon when she returned from the UNPOL Complex we would pack the car that was arriving at 3pm and set off for our new Env on the beach in Kampung Tanjung Sisik.
I walked across to the shelves that held my remaining unpacked inners and outers, an
d putting on my inners, leafed through the outers on the shelf. I decided to go and cred some new outers. I dressed quickly, poured myself a half cup of coffee from the pot that Mariko had put on earlier that morning, and took a gulp, putting the cup back down. Grabbing my Devstick off the sleeper side table, I walked to the door of my env and said, “Leaving.”
I turned right, heading the sixty meters down the corridor to the Lev port. I’d been lucky to get the Env on the twentieth level, but now the plastic walls hemmed me in and I couldn’t wait for that moment when I informed the Env Dev that I was leaving permanently. The molded Env with its smooth one piece cream interior just didn’t seem like the place to be anymore, and I thought of the work that needed to be done on the beach house. I was looking forward to the work, it would be fun to do, and I hadn’t had much fun my life.
The Lev was on level eighty-two but descending rapidly and I called up a map on my Devstick, saying, “Walkys to men’s outers and clothing shops, Johor.” The new shop space, ‘Credabiliti’ in Johor featured as the address for over fifty of the top one hundred listings, so I decided I would go there. The Lev arrived and I stepped in. It was just after nine, past the time for the half morning shift to have already arrived at their contribution, and apart from a woman with a baby strapped to her chest, the Lev was empty.
The woman smiled at me. Smiling back I said, “Ground level please.” You didn’t have to be polite to a Dev, but it’s a small thing to say please.
The woman with the baby got out on Level Ten, probably going to the mothers’ and babies’ center within the complex. The Lev door cut off the sounds of children’s happy shouts and resumed its journey. It was one of the older models from Otis, and hadn’t been upgraded, but then that was one of reasons that the Env was a low cred Envplex.
The Lev finally reached ground level. I stepped out into the ground floor of my Envplex. The door to outside was about one hundred meters straight ahead. I didn’t bother with the directional lights in the rubberized walkway as I already knew the way. I had trod this path over fifteen hundred times in the past four years.
I strolled along a walkway lined with Angsana trees, each keeping the path in shade when it was sunny. Overcast as it was now, the trees still seemed to provide some respite from the humidity, and seeing the lights take a left turn over a grassy hill with a fountain on its crest, I followed the path into the shopping center named Credibiliti. It was here that I could find that shop to get some outers for the meeting with my uncle.
Credibiliti had only been completely finished six months ago, but it was already full and had a waiting list for retail shop space that ran into the hundreds. Even at this early hour it was packed, but then inside and under its roof, time had little meaning. It could be any time day or night and Credibiliti would be packed.
I stopped walking and took a look around to get my bearings. I had entered at the northern end of the shop space and the clothier’s shop that I wanted was in the middle.
I followed the lights and a short while later reached the shop I had selected on my Devstick, ‘Smooth – finest men’s clothing’ said the sign above the door.
The door opened and, as I entered, the noise level from outside was immediately cut to a minimum. The shop was minimalist in design – white, dark grey with full-length image screens set into the walls in undulating curves, providing a chromium finish when not in use as now. The shop staffer rose from where she was sitting at a glass table with a black matte iDev positioned exactly in its center. It looked like it had never been used.
She took in my attire with a glance, looked like she had made her mind up about something and said, “Good morning, sir. How can I help you?”
I smiled at her. She was an attractive woman of Chinese origin, slender and tall, perhaps as tall as one hundred and seventy-five cents. Her pale angular face was highlighted with a gold blush under her cheekbones and her lips accented with a lighter gold.
She looks good: sophisticated, expensive, much like the shop, I thought. I said, “I’d like to get some new outers, something for formal occasions, and a couple of others for smart-casual occasions.”
Smiling, she walked over to where I was standing and took my arm. She led me to a black circle about a meter in diameter. “Please stand naturally as we take your measurements,” and stepping back she pressed a button on the Devstick in her right hand. My body was crisscrossed with thousands of thin beams of rose-colored light that turned off as quickly as they’d come on. Taking my arm again she led me over to an unfinished but smooth stone bench and, indicating that I should sit with a gesture of her hand, sat down beside me on my left side.
A bench rose from the floor in front of us and then extended itself and opened in two. The top withdrew to reveal cloth of a myriad of colors made from natural fabrics inside. I reached out with my right hand, leaving my Devstick on the bench beside me and felt the cloth nearest me.
“That’s Thai silk,” she said. “Do you have a favorite color?”
“No,” I said with a chuckle as I thought about it and realized I didn’t, “but for the formal wear I was thinking of something in a darker shade and more matte. This is a bit too shiny.”
The woman looked quickly down the row of cloth and, pressing a button on her Devstick, the conveyor moved swiftly forward and stopped with a selection of dark cloth in front of me. A dark grey material with a very thin, almost invisible, line of scarlet red running through it caught my eye. I reached out to feel it with my thumb and forefinger, rubbing the cloth between them.
“This feels nice,” I said.
She smiled and said, “Good choice. This particular cashmere comes from Gobi in Mongolia, and as you can see it has this very thin silk thread running through it.”
“How long does it take you to get everything together?”
Her eyes squinted slightly and her forehead creased. “About forty-five minutes.”
“Great, I’d like this cloth for the formal outers and what about something really comfortable to relax in? Something that will keep me warm on a tropical night, but cool in the day. Do you have that sort of thing?”
She smiled and leaned over, taking out the bolt of cloth and putting it on the stone bench beside her. She sat straight-backed and her movements were efficient. Turning to me she said, “We’ve just got a new cloth in and it is exactly what you are looking for.” She reached and pressed the button on the cloth conveyor again and the bolts moved in a quiet hum. “This is AC, short for ambient cloth. It takes on different thickness according to the ambient temperature. It’s very expensive,” as she said this she arched an eyebrow and looked me straight in eye.
She’s in her element, I thought, and smiled in return. “Well,” I said, leaning forward and feeling the cloth. I turned, put my elbow on my knee, and cupped my chin in my hand. “Well, even though I might be a pauper when I walk out of here, I simply must have it.” I spoke in the voice of a young flick star batting my eyelids at her at the same time.
“Can I ask you a personal question, and it has nothing to do with my selection?” she asked.
“Sure, go for it,” and I smiled knowing what was coming.
“Are you in a committed relationship right now?”
I’d been right. “Yes, I am. Does it show?” And I gave her an innocent grin, looking at her under hooded eyelids with the grin playing around my lips but not breaking out fully. “But you can be sure that should the day come when I am not in a committed relationship – and I have to say I hope that day never comes – but should it, then the first thing I am going to do is come back to see you and cred some new outers.”
She burst out with a laugh and turned back to the input, concentrating hard on the Devscreen in front of her. The intensity of her look could have been professional focus, but I suspected it was more a shield to hide the sudden jolt of loneliness I had seen in her eyes.
I went and stood next to her and leaned in close, our arms touching. It was closer than socially acceptable fo
r two people who did not know each other, but I reasoned that we had communicated more in the last five minutes than some people do in years. She stepped back from the Dev and swung her arm in an arc, the palm of her hand slightly tilted and pointing to the black circle where I had been measured. With a shake of her head, a little blink of her eyes, and a soft smile, she said, “There. What do you think?”
My image was facing me wearing a combination of the cashmere and the AC.
“That’s the formal – short collar, cuffed with five black pearl buttons on each cuff, and a single black cut palladium button. More on that later, as you can see.” As she said this the image spun around to show the back. “I have kept the single silk red threads in the back and one running down the inside of each sleeve. The AC inner outer, is set for white, but you can change its ambience to a more subtle burgundy or a midnight blue, depending on the mood or occasion.” The image changed. “For casual, I’ve gone with AC throughout and as you can see I’ve included inners for your extremities as well.”
“And the palladium button?”
“Ah yes, sorry.” She smiled, back in form now, in her element. “That controls the height of the collar and the width of the lapel. It allows for greater configuration of the top outers, say if you’re going to a slightly less formal event. But if you still have a need to perform then you can adjust.”
“So am I going to be a pauper?”
She smiled wider, her nose scrunching up in a cute way, flicked her eyes down to the corner of the iDev sitting on the glass table and said, “Most probably.”
***
Two hours later, I walked slowly up the steps of the UNPOL Executive Club on the Topside of the UNPOL Complex. Security was discreet but heavy due to its patrons, and I guessed because of the recent terrorist attacks. A hard-looking young man gave me a nod as I passed through the entrance. Firearms were rarely seen, so it was a shock to see one riding casually on the right breast of the UNPOL staffer. Another rarely-seen item, upon an old wooden desk next to the entrance to the club, was the sign-in book with a pen lying in the crease between the pages guarded by an old Chinese man wearing a white outer top and black trousers. He bent slightly at the waist as I approached.
