by Eikeltje
to think about such things, Hans. I do what I think is best. I'm sorry you
couldn't stay on for the ride."
"No," Hans says, quieter now. "You bucked me right off, Ms. Bronco."
"You knew what was happening. I started my reversal before I met you."
"I know," Hans says, deflated completely. "I just wanted to say goodbye
and let you know that I'm suffering, at least a little. I wish I could understand."
"Thank you, Hans." She stares steadily at the pad's camera eye, giving
nothing, hating him. Then, something makes her say, "If it's any consolation,
I miss you, too."
It's time for her to leave to make her appointment. Still, she lets the camera
observe, sitting in her chair with the pad unfolded on the table, a real paper
napkin still tucked under one corner. Mary remembers the atavistic rough
absorption of the napkin, and the feel of Hans's lips on her own, a little dry,
like the napkin, but strong and hungry.
Hans looks down, lifts one hand, stares at the fingers nervously. "What are
you doing now?"
Mary sees no reason not to tell him. "I'm having lunch in a restaurant," she
says. "I'm going to give a talk soon."
"PD stuff?"
"Yes. I'm reading while I eat."
"Lit? A book?"
"Yes." They had that much in common, an enjoyment of reading.
"Which?" --"Alive
Contains a Lie," she says.
"Ah. The book for bitter lovers."
"It's a little more than that," she says, though in truth that's what made
her access it.
"Mary. I don't want you to..."
Hans stops there, mouth open, but does not seem to know what more to
add.
"Good-bye," he says.
Mary nods. The touch ends and she closes her pad more forcefully than is
necessary.
The air itself seems freer and more natural to her; today it is crisp but not
below freezing, and looking south down the wide crossing thoroughfare between
the Cascade and Tillicum towers, she can see Mount Rainier, like a
44
GREG BEAR
The light on the street pounds irly sparkles and the mufflered puffy-coated pedestrians
walk briskly with hands in pockets. Very few of them are obvious
transforms. To Mary, this is all the more interesting, because the Corridor--and
particularly Seattle--has assumed a leadership position over the past fifty
years in the Rim and mid-continent economy. In Japan or Taiwan, fully half
the Affected--those who are politically active, who bother to work and vote
and believe they can change things, and who are tied in to temp agencies and
employed in the hot and open marketplace--are transforms. In Los Angeles,
nearly a third... And in San Francisco, almost two thirds.
Here, a mere five percent.
She reaches the gaping entrance of the Tillicum Tower. Winds swirl and
Mary clutches her small gray hat as she passes into the orange and yellow and
jungled warmth of the tower court. Several sunlike globes hang over the broad
indoor plaza. Tailored birds twitter and screech in the massive tropical trees
that entwine the inner buttresses. She might be in a corporate vision of Amazon
heaven, with glassed-in rivers to right and left, graceful plant-cabled bridges
arching between the floors overhead, and everywhere the adwalls targeting their
paid consumers, their messages barely aglimmer on the edge of Mary's senses.
She has never subscribed to adwalls, considers their presence an invitation to
subtle slavery to those economic forces she has long since learned never to trust.
The paid consumers, however, thrive, feel connected, bathed in information
about everything they can imagine. They stand transfixed as new ads lock on
and deluge them.
Mary guesses at what one couple is experiencing, in the shadow of a huge
spreading banyan. They are in their mid-twenties, pure comb sweethearts,
contracted for pre-nups but definitely not life bonders, playing for the moment
while they take LitVid eds and gain status with their temp agency. Both are
likely clients to the same organization--Workers Inc, she judges from the cut
of their frills. They are being hit by sophisticated material, dense and frenetic,
catering to all the accepted vividities--sex within relationships, domesticity,
corporate adventure, insider thrills. These they will admit to enjoying, and
discuss, in public. The male of the pair, Mary specks, will secretly tune in to
the massive TouchFlow SexYule celebration next week--and the female will
likely stew in whole-life hormoaners for hours each day.
Yox siphons twenty percent of the total economy, even here in her beloved
Corridor. LitVid (more often in the last few years divided into Lit and Vid),
older and more traditional, takes a mere and declining seventeen.
She is up a helix lift, the broad steps resembling solid marble but reshaping
with the fluidity of water; she climbs through the quaint delights of the farmers'
market on 4, spiraling up through the stacked circular substructures of
the clubs and social circles of 5 and 6, above the tallest trees of the courtyard,
and all around, coming in dizzying sweeps, the hundred-acre open spaces of
the comb--a lake to the north, where children boat and swim, and adolescents
/ SLANT 45
V[ry admires the architecture and feels her familiar protective warmth for
the comb players, but she is not of them; she was not born of them, would
not be considered acceptable social or sexual fodder, and is even handicapped
by being new in the Corridor.
That is the Corridor's greatest failing: a deep and abiding suspicion of the
outsiders who come to live and work here. This is not racism or even classism;
it is pure provincialism, remarkable where so much data and rney flows.
The helix takes her above the open spaces, and she is within the inmost
heart of the tower. Free community art here dances from the walls, lively and
colorful, conservative enough that it appeals to Mary. Collages of flight, birds
and free-form aerodynes, and on the opposite side, hundreds of smiling faces
of children, all surrounding an astonishingly moving ideal of a Mother, with
eyes half-closed in tender motherly ecstasy...
She remembers E. Hassida's portraits of women, equally moving but in
different ways.
Glassed-in floors pass, pierced by interior residential blocks, the cheapest of
a very expensive selection, like milky rhomboid crystals glued to the walls of
the shafts and sinks.
Higher still, the civic function spaces and blocks take up the eastern flank
of the tower at the two hundred meter level. She debarks from the helix and
inspects herself in a gleaming porphyry column. The curve of the column
makes Mary appear even taller and thinner than she actually is, but her clothing
has kept itself in order, unwrinkled and fitted.
She is about to enter the PD block when her neck hair bristles and she turns
at the presence of a man a few feet behind her. She must appear startled and
apprehensive, for Full First Ernie Nussbaum, chief investigator for her division,
makes n apologetic face and holds up his hands.
"Sorry, Choy!" he says as she takes a long step ahead.
/> Mary shakes her head, forces a smile. "Sorry, sir. You surprised me."
"I didn't mean to invade your space."
"My mind was elsewhere," Mary says. "What can I do for you, sir?"
"I'm on a jiltz and I thought you'd be useful. It's not far from here, in this
tower."
"I have a meeting," she says, pointing to the translucent entrance of the
civic hall.
"I've reassigned that duty. I had hoped to catch you here.., outside."
"An active jiltz, sir? I didn't think I rated such confidence yet."
"You've donetoo many jiltzes in your career to be left cold so long. LA is
a tough town."
"Thanks," Mary says. She feels a sudden quickening of confidence; Nussbaum
is not known to be a softy, yet he has singled her out for a criminal
investigation.
She falls in step with Nussbaum, gives him a side glance. He is not tall,
46 GREG BEAR
His eyes are his best feature, meltingly brown and sensitive, but his mouth is
straight and broad and comically serious, like Buster Keaton's. The combination
is striking enough to make him attractive. In LA, Mary thinks, he would
be a true hit--with so many transforms and redos, a confident natural phys
stands out.
They turn and walk east through lunchtime throngs. Corp workers from
Seattle Civic and the local flow offices on these levels are socializing at small
eateries, slowing Nussbaum's deliberate pace. This does not seem to bother
him; apparently there is no rush.
Mary checks herself for attitude, her day's variation from status alertness (a
sleepless night convinces her there's probably some deficit here) and limberness.
She wishes she could dytch now, perform a small exercise warmup and focus
mind and muscles.
"This isn't a pleasant case," Nussbaum says. "We don't see this sort of thing
often in the Corridor, but it happens. Actually, I thought you could provide
some deep background. It's right up your alley."
They stop before a tube lift. Mary knows this sector of the tower well enough
to recognize that the lift will take them to top residential, between fifteen
hundred and two thousand feet above sea level.
"What's it like to back down from a transform?" he asks as the lift curtain
ripples aside.
In the lift, accelerating rapidly, Mary says, "Not too difficult. I wasn't too
radical; not nearly as radical as the styles this year."
"I remember. Very dignified. A male public defender's wet dream."
Mary inclines with an amused smile. "I didn't know men your age still have
wet dreams. Sir."
Nussbaum makes a face. "Still have your cop's feet?"
Mary hides a small irritation with a larger mock shock. "Sir, you're embarrassing
me."
"I like your feet, what can I say?" Nussbaum says. "Days I wish I had feet
like that. Great walking-feet, never give out, no flats no strains, stand for hours.
But my crowd--they'd definitely frown on that."
"Christian?" Mary asks levelly.
"Old Northwest. Loggers and farmers.., once."
"I kept my feet," Mary confirms. "I'm mostly going back on skin color and
my face. The rest.., very convenient, actually."
"Who's taking care of you?"
"I'm on fibe with a doctor in LA," Mary says. "But that's probably enough
talk about me, sir. Why would this, whatever this is, be up my alley?"
Nussbaum pokes a thick, dry, expertly manicured finger at the lift controller
and the elevator slows for their stop. "Choy, I am not a bigot. I just don't
approve of a lot of things happening today. But you've been through the
r, rncdnr I never have. What we're going to see is hard enough to look at,
/
SLANT 47
They get off on a residential level, looking out over a vast view of Eastside,
the Corridor's extended sprawl, the Cascades and even into Eastern Washington.
A huge curved wall of fortified glass blocks the high cold winds, and
unseen heaters keep the air springtime warm. The stepped-back roof of the
level accommodates the graceful curve of glass: more daring than anything
Mary has seen in a tower or comb elsewhere.
A street mocking black asphalt and paving brick stretches from the edge
of a small grassy park through a residential block. Large single family frame-style
houses are fronted by grass yards and real trees. The style is John Buchan,
high nineteen-eighties and nineties, what some call the Sour Decades, replicated
at extraordinary expense. It mocks a suburban neighborhood of the time,
but the view of these old-fashioned sprawl homes is high-altitude, surreal.
"Ever hear of Disneyland?" Nussbaum asks.
"I grew up about fifteen miles from where it used to be."
"This is rich folks' Disneyland, right?"
Mary nods. She has never liked ostentation, never felt at ease in high comb
culture, and she's pretty sure Nussbaum isn't comfortable, either.
"You know, we give Southcoast hell for bad taste," Nussbaum says. "But
sometimes we really take the cake."
Mary sees no pedestrians, observes no delivery or arbeiter traffic on the road
nor on the side streets that push back to the load-bearing wall of the tower
behind this glassed-in suburban gallery. A hundred yards away, however, she
observes two city property arbeiters and a man and woman in PD gray, standing
before a three-story house whose mansard roof nearly reaches the arching
curve of glass.
Mary looks at the windows of the houses they pass, curtained and lighted
but spookily uninhabited. "They're all empty," she says.
"Lottery homes for corp execs," Nussbaum says. "Finance's finest deserve
their rewards."
"So when's the lottery?"
"Metro vice shut the game down after some low managers confessed to a
rig. They were paid half a million by each of the lottery winners. Fifty million
total. The whole neighborhood's in dispute now. You must not access metro
vids."
"I've been concentrating on qualifying," Mary says.
"It's all old black dust," Nussbaum says. "We actually don't see that sort
of thing much up here. How about in LA?"
"Not for a long time," Mary says. "Fresh dust is Southcoast's specialty."
"Yeah," Nussbaum says. "They're trendsetters." They approach the PD officers
and arbeiters.
"Good afternoon, First Nussbaum," the female defender says. She nods to
Mary. The defenders' faces are grim. Mary feels a creeping shiver along her
back and shoulders. She does not like this outlandish place.
48 GREG BEAR
I've seen. We've had it tombed and we have one man in custody. Apparently
the block caretaker let them use this house."
Nussbaum shakes his head. "I thought therapy was supposed to clean us."
He looks steadily, appraisingly, at Mary, and asks, "Ready?"
Mary lowers her head, glances at the woman. Her name is Francey Loach
and she is a full Second, coming up on forty years of age. For Mary's eyes
only, Loach curls her lip and lifts her brows, warning Mary about what
waits inside.
The man is Stanley Broom. He is twitchy and unhappy. Loach and Broom.
There's really nothing inside. They're going to laugh at me back at division.
dust has to be involved.
"Let's suit up," Nussbaum says. Within the large house's brick entry alcove,
a portable black and silver flap-tent has been erected. Nussbaum pushes
through the flap and Mary follows. Even with the front door closed, guarded
by a small PD arbeiter, she can feel the deep cold within.
They don loose silver suits, cinch the seams and joints, and Nussbaum palms
the top of the arbeiter. The little machine affirms his identity and the door
opens. Frigid air pours out. Within is another tent, and beyond, milky fabric
contains the deepest cold within the house. The suits warm instantly. They
push through the second flap.
No spiders have yet been mounted on the ceiling to survey. Small lights
dot the rug every few feet, guiding them on paths that will not disturb important
evidence. The suit feet are antistatic and clingfree, exerting pressure
on the frosted the floor, but no more.
Mary looks up at the atrium. Compared to her apt, this place is a cathedral,
a church of nineties ostentation.
"Five thousand square feet, thirteen rooms, four bathrooms," Nussbaum
says, as if chanting a prayer to the gods of the place. "Made for one family,
plus guests. Don't tell anybody, Choy, but I'm a temp man through and
through. I hate corp side." He distinctly pronounces it "corpse side."
"But the accused--they didn't own this place, didn't even rent it, right?
Someone got illegal squat through the caretaker?"
"That's the allegation. No traffic up here, quiet and well-protected, they
can do whatever they want."
The atrium leads into a grand dining hall, with balconies overlooking a
huge frost-covered oak table. Real wood, and probably wild not farm. To the
left, a hall leads to the first-floor rooms, including the entertainment and
