Beta
Page 6
“BC?”
“That’s what people call Biome City.”
I scan my database for more information about BC. The interface reveals that it’s a new city built after the Water Wars, and was designed using the principles of biomimicry, whereby the primary elements in the city take inspiration from nature. The graphics display shows me office skyscrapers that look like tree and rock formations instead of concrete behemoths, hovercars gliding across the sky in traffic patterns like migrating birds, and sustainable green housing built in shapes like termite mounds and anthills. Since BC was built after the time of the fossil fuels that polluted the old places, the city views stretch out unobstructed by air pollution to massive sand dunes rising like mountains in the distance, and a night sky twinkling with thousands of stars.
Says Greer, “BC is my favorite place. It’s like, when you go there, you don’t feel all depressed and hopeless. When you’re there, you can see that the Water Wars weren’t totally useless, in the end. Because of them, where desert wasteland used to be is now epic party.”
“Oh. But doesn’t a desert need there to be little water?”
“Sure the desert does. But the people there don’t.”
“The water does not change the environment?”
“That’s the desert’s problem, not the people’s. The desert adapts. The people adapt. Live. Die. Struggle. Suffer. Create. The people in the real world beyond Demesne’s ring are not all this manufactured perfection. They deal.” She gestures with her hand to indicate Demesne’s atmosphere as her eyes home in on me, to let me know I am included in her phrase manufactured perfection.
After an hour, I have exhausted Greer with my questioning. Below us, Farzad, Ivan, and Dementia appear to be stirring. Their toes and fingers wiggle as their bodies elongate into stretches.
“Finally,” Greer says. “What a waste of a day.” The spark of some idea lights up her expression. “Hey. All this time I’ve been feeding you information, now you can do something for me.”
“What?”
“Just…do something cool. Ivan said you’re a good diver. Go…dive.” She points in the direction behind her shoulder, to the ocean beyond the cove, where the water is deep enough for a proper dive. Probably. My map data does not specify.
We walk over to where the bluffs tower over the ocean. I am not sure I can pull off a dive from this vantage point, but since I have been asked to, I must try. Clones do not produce adrenaline, so I have no fear of the height or difficulty involved. I understand that death is a decent probability. I also sense that to attempt the dive could be a first step toward understanding who my First was. If I can do this, she might have been able to, as well. If she could do it, then there would be a reason. She was an athlete, or a gymnast, or an acrobat. Or just a…
“Daredevil,” Greer says. “Jump.”
The rock beneath my feet is smooth enough to serve as a platform, though it offers me no springboard. I stand with my toes dangling over the ledge, looking down into the whirling expanse of water that I calculate to be about twenty-five feet below me.
“I can do better than just jump,” I tell Greer.
I’m not sure that I can.
I stand on my toes and extend my arms high above me. I don’t know how shallow the water is, or whether there are rocks below the water’s surface to obstruct the impact. Dive could equal death. Or dive could equal power. Knowledge.
I leap.
My arms remain raised high as my legs spring forth, out and then up. My arms lower to touch my extended feet—pike position—then my torso falls back as I extend my toes upward. My body extends in a vertical line upside down as it hurtles into the water. All my muscles seem to know exactly how to align themselves. My fingers shine out long and parallel as the water sips them in before engulfing my whole body.
Beneath the water, there is darkness and confusion and if it’s as if every fiber of my being experiences the physical tingle of elation. Because there he is again. Z! He beckons me. He swims around me, his blond hair rising in the water as his turquoise-blue eyes lure me closer and closer. His arms open for me to fling myself into. You know I can’t resist you, Z. Get over here! I try and I try to press myself to him, but he remains out of reach. I feel that I will die if I can’t touch him. The pull of him is irresistible, almost suffocating, and entirely…amazing. I calculate this is what Greer meant by “mighty mighty.”
But his face and body disappear as I plunge deeper into the underwater vortex. My body curls against the current, finally allowing me to take control and spring up into the air. Above me on the bluffs, Greer is shaking her arms wildly. She spreads her arms wide into a victory stance. “Flawless reverse dive!” she yells down to me. “Unbelievable! Perfect rip!”
I know she means that my reverse dive produced little splash, an ideal entry “rip,” which refers to the ripping sound as a diver enters the water. I also know what I have just experienced—again, only more intensely this time—is something no Beta—or any clone, for that matter—should have.
Not only do I have taste, but I have something much, much more forbidden.
I have memory.
That beautiful man I saw below belonged to my First. She felt joy when she experienced the water with him; when she swam with him, those were the happiest moments in her life. She loved him—deeply, passionately, maybe even a bit obsessively. I don’t know how or why I know this. But I know it to be true. I feel it to be true.
“You should have seen it,” Greer tells the now-awakened Farzad, Ivan, and Dementia. “Her First was definitely a trained diver.”
The others are still coming off the ’raxia; they’re indifferent to Greer’s enthusiasm.
“Help me put this back on,” a sleepy-eyed Dementia requests of me. She holds the strings of her bikini top to the back of her neck so I may tie them. My head is woozy from the dive followed by the swim through the rough waters back into the cove at Hidden Beach, and the flash of memory that feels like a thunderbolt ripped across my skull. My sore fingers tie the strings on her top. Her own bikini top now securely fastened, Dementia cups her covered breasts and says to no one in particular, “Look, Ma, no tan lines!”
I wonder if I may request of Mother a proper one-piece swimsuit to wear to practice more dives. Astrid’s sports bra ensemble barely held on during my swim through the rough surf.
“Did you even hear me, Dementia?” says Greer. “You have got to see what this Beta can do.”
Farzad, bleary-eyed, mumbles, “We had a Beta once. Dr. Lusardi called him a landscape-artist Beta, but that was just a fancy term for gardener. Dude went totally mental and started pruning our trees into obscene private-parts shapes.”
“Sounds like an awesome Beta to me,” Dementia says.
“Porny!” says Farzad. “That’s what that Beta was. Taught us not to buy before the product has been tested. Tahir said when he flew the plane over our compound, it looked like a garden of obscenities.” Farzad settles into a deeper awakening, his face brightening. “Hey! I forgot to tell you all. Tahir’s coming back next week.”
“Who is Tahir?” I ask.
“Farzad’s cousin,” answers Ivan.
Dementia says, “Tahir’s dad—Farzad’s uncle—is practically the richest man in the world.”
Ivan says, “He can not only turn water into wine, he can turn water into…lots more water.”
Greer asks Farzad, “Is Tahir better?”
“I don’t know,” Farzad says. “He Relays to me that he is, but I need to see it for myself. He’s been so different since the accident. Totally checked out. I feel like the injury was worse than the doctors said.”
“What was the accident?” I ask.
The humans all point to the gigantes in the distance. Greer says, “Surfing accident. Tahir got caught up in a swell and pulled under. He suffered major head and neck trauma. It’s only because his father’s hovercopter had dropped him down there and was still flying over that he even survived.”
Ivan removes Farzad’s hands from touching me. “Bro, she’s my clone. And you know the rules on Demesne,” says the Governor’s son to Farzad. “Look, but don’t touch.”
EVEN WITH A PERFECTLY-PREPARED CHOCOLATE soufflé set down in front of her—Mother’s favorite dessert, which the Governor requested the chef make specially to appease her—Mother is still pouting after dinner. The terrace deck where the family dines looks out over Io, which this evening offers views of dolphins leaping through the violet waters. Tropical birds sing from the trees surrounding the deck, while the family’s resident parrot, who is a fireworks display of contrasting red, yellow, and blue plumage replete with its own tree and nest, chirps from its large cage, “Chocolate for Mother! Chocolate for Mother!”
None of this display impresses Mother. To Ivan, she grumbles, “You kept her to yourself all day.”
The Governor says, “Enough already. What would you have done with Elysia—taken her to Haven and have her cheat at mahjong with you?”
“I don’t cheat!” Mother snaps.
Ivan and Liesel both look down, trying not to laugh.
Mother totally cheats, I can see on their faces.
“Cheater!” the parrot parrots. Mother snaps her fingers, signaling for her bodyguards to come outside. She looks toward the cage and they know exactly what to do. It takes two large men to remove the huge cage from the deck, out of sight and audible distance from the dinner table.
Mother returns her attention to Ivan. “You can’t keep Elysia all to yourself, Ivan,” she says. “She’s here to keep me company too. Your father is at work all day and Liesel is being tutored. I have to do everything here all by myself.” A server clone refills her wineglass.
“You’re just bored,” Ivan tells Mother.
The Governor ignores her and asks Ivan, “How was your workout this morning?”
“Killer,” Ivan says. “Elysia put me through some serious paces.” He neglects to tell his parents he “eased out” his recovery from our morning workout with an afternoon chemical ’raxia escapade with Farzad and Dementia. Before we returned to the house, Ivan ordered me to keep that piece of information on the “down-low.” When I looked down low at his feet for traces of ’raxia, Ivan let me know he only meant I shouldn’t tell his parents about his ’raxia indulgence.
“Excellent,” the Governor says. “And how was the surfing with Farzad this afternoon?”
“Awesome,” Ivan lies. “We dialed wave max.”
“Good,” the Governor says. “That kind of surfing works your core hard. You need to lose that gut before basic training or it’s going to be that much harder. I just saw the stats report I ordered of your incoming class at the Base. Your competition there will be fierce, the toughest and strongest kids from across the world. You mostly got in because you’re a legacy.” As Ivan lifts his fork for a bite of chocolate soufflé, his father adds, “Maybe lay off the chocolate?”
Ivan grins at his dad. “How about I lay off the chocolate tomorrow? Today I just feel so…” He looks at me and lets out a sigh. “Great.”
“I told you having a new girl would be good for the family,” Mother tells the Governor.
I’m sure the spot of ’raxia helped Ivan’s mood too.
“Ivan will need all the help he can get before he goes to the Base,” Governor says, and seems to nod approvingly in my direction before looking at his son to offer his fatherly wisdom. “You don’t know, because you’ve always lived here, but the world out there is hard. The Base is fiercely competitive.”
Mother says, “I’m sure Ivan can more than hold his own there.”
Liesel says, “He’s from Demesne. Of course Ivan will be the top of his class at the Base. He earned it.”
Her brother hasn’t earned it yet, but somehow Liesel has not made that distinction.
Mother asks Ivan, “Have you given any thought to what assignment you’d like to get after basic training?”
Ivan says, “Maybe I’d like to return here after training and start, like, a military police mission.”
“We don’t need police on Demesne!” Mother says, horrified. “But you do have that kind of brute strength. Perhaps it be nice if you could use that for more gentle purpose. Perhaps you become some kind of builder. An architect for military compounds?”
Ivan says, “Or perhaps I could be a camouflage fashion designer. Or a strategic campaigns astrologer.”
“You can go to the Base to learn astrology?” I ask, surprised. According to my interface, the Base is where young recruits go to hone their physical endurance, learn military history, and gain weaponry skills. It shows me no correlation between astrology and the military.
“Ivan’s doing sarcasm,” Liesel informs me. “He learned it from Astrid.”
I datacheck this word.
Sarcasm [SAHR-ka-zəm]: Expressing ridicule that wounds.
I leap from my chair and run to Mother’s side, and grab her seated upper body into a hug. “Don’t be wounded, Mother,” I say.
The family roar with laughter. Mother places a kiss on my cheek and then gestures for me to sit back down. I am so confused.
“Thank you, darling Elysia, but I am not wounded by sarcasm,” Mother tells me, smiling. “But surely I’m grateful that at least one of my children seeks to protect me instead of just mocking me.” Her mood has shifted: brightened. I did this. She extols the group, “Let’s enjoy this wonderful dessert, shall we?”
“Yummy yummy yummy,” says Liesel as she digs into her dessert.
I can smell the chocolate. The scent should give me no feeling other than ambivalence, but instead, my mouth fills with saliva and my nostrils feel directly assaulted with the air of enticement. It’s as if the chocolate is singing to me…El-EE-zee-ya…you know you want me, Beta. I’m even more delicious than you can imagine.
I want to taste it so bad. It smells so good. I swallow the saliva that has accumulated in my inexplicably tantalized mouth.
“Does chocolate compel ataraxia?” I ask the family.
“Darling,” says Mother, cutting a piece of her soufflé and placing it on my plate. “It’s the antithesis of meh.”
“What is meh?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Indifference. Chocolate is the opposite. It’s the very essence of happiness. Try some.”
“She can’t enjoy it,” the Governor says. “It’s wasted on her.”
Liesel tells me, “I don’t think there’s any better ataraxia than chocolate.” Ivan snorts.
“Women and chocolate,” the Governor says, choosing a sip of wine instead of the soufflé. “I’ll never understand it.”
“That’s because you don’t understand women at all,” says Mother.
“Be quiet already,” the Governor says.
It’s hard to listen to the Brattons’ bickering and not wonder if the humans’ notion of ataraxia as being a true happiness is really just a perceived perfection, subject to its own bumps and disappointments.
My fork wanders into the soufflé to grab a small portion. I place the chocolate soufflé onto my tongue, which is instantly alerted to a taste of such exquisite beauty that I want to gasp from the sensational shock. Warm chocolate, both cakelike and gooey, penetrates all sides of my mouth, spreading sweetness and wonder. It’s not as if I want more evidence that, in addition to being a Beta with memories of her First, something else is off about me. But surely this chocolate provides it; I think I love it even more than that stupendous concoction called macaroni and cheese. I want to round up all the chocolate soufflés on the dinner table and devour every one.
I force myself to stop after the second bite, and I wash the flavor down with my strawberry shake. I should delete this memory, or I will become greedy for more.
“How was the chocolate soufflé?” Liesel asks me.
I shrug. “I suppose I
can see why humans would find it satisfying, despite its lack of nutritional necessity. It’s no strawberry shake.”
The family laughs again as if I am not only their substitute daughter but also their personal comedian. I don’t understand why I am so funny. Chocolate soufflé really is no strawberry shake. They are two completely separate and unrelated food items.
I will not confess it to the family, but I’m a true believer. Chocolate may in fact produce ataraxia.
The Governor’s luxisstant, Tawny, vined in red-and-yellow marigold on the left side of her face, steps out onto the deck. Her aesthetic reminds me of the human myth called “mermaid.” She wears a white scalloped minidress over her tanned skin, and she has long, white-blond hair with aquamarine-blue tips falling down to her waist, sculpting her perfectly proportioned figure. Tawny tells the Governor, “The envoy’s new assistant has arrived. He came directly here to greet you instead of going to Haven as I instructed him on his itinerary. I asked him to wait in your study. Shall I rebook your massage for later tonight?”
The Governor sighs, throws his napkin on the table, takes one last swig of wine, and stands up. “Yes. Thank you, Tawny.”
Mother asks, “Is this the new assistant who will be preparing the report to the Replicant Rights Commission?”
“Indeed,” the Governor says. “Fresh young officer straight out of the academy. Big potential, this kid. Or so the Board of Directors tells me. Army probably gave him this nonsense job to season him a little before he gets a real assignment.”
“Should I invite him to tea? Perhaps he’d like to be on the planning committee for the annual Governor’s Ball,” says Mother.
The Governor and Ivan both laugh.
Ivan says, “Um, I doubt some guy who trained to be a commando, then got sent here for his first assignment, really wants to plan a party that only socialites on Demesne care about, Mother.” His face registers sympathetic horror for this poor envoy’s assistant, who could have been sent to battle but instead was sent to paradise.