Slant

by Eikeltje

  "Jack. This is my team, here. We've worked together before, in odd little

  :-- :-.

  tto rr,,nrrv I know these leople and

  I

  trust

  them.

  /

  SLANT 187

  work. Pickwenn and Pent... They're oddballs, but they've never failed me. Park--I've never worked with him before, but he has a good reputation. You,

  Jack..." Hale regards him with a flat, alert expression.

  "You know nothing about me," Giffey says.

  "Or about Jenner."

  Giffey leans his head to one side, acknowledging that the situation is unusual.

  "I understand that our window of opportunity is narrow, that your contacts

  and my contacts have never worked together before. And what I've been told

  about both of you.., what I know about Park ... is encouraging."

  "Same with your folks," Giffey says.

  "Thank you. The rules of engagement are that we agreed to say that I'm in

  charge. I get the feeling you're used to being the one in command."

  "I'm flexible," Giffey says.

  "We're in an awkward situation here, and there's a lot of missing pieces to

  our side of this puzzle. I'm not used to that. This MGN concerns me. I have

  no idea in hell how you or anybody could get such stuff. I know--contacts in

  government and the military, Raphkind sympathizers, all dog-inthe-manger,

  and not hard to believe. But some of this stuff hasn't even been hinted on the

  ribes. Yet here we are, with you and Jenner, relying on stuff that supposedly

  doesn't even exist to overcome what may very well be stiff resistance inside

  Omphalos."

  Hale licks his lips and leans his head back. "I appreciate your trying to keep

  it all in perspective, calm us down about what to expect, but I don't find any

  of this calming. My people were not told about Ferrets, and we weren't told

  about this MGN, or why we should even have it. I am frankly concerned on

  both accounts."

  "I understand."

  "I'd like to know more about your sources. Procurement. Where Jenner

  comes in, his past experience... If it's any exchange, I'll level with you about

  my people."

  Giffey stares down at his clasped hands. "I am as ignorant about some of

  this as you are. Mr. Park made some of the arrangements, and he brought us

  together. Perhaps you should discuss this with him."

  "Park works with people who expect big returns on their investment. He

  doesn't talk much, and he doesn't like to put himself in danger. But getting

  MGN is as much a surprise to him as it is to me. Have you met Park before,

  or worked for him?"

  "I've worked for his superiors . . . indirectly."

  Hale lifts his eyebrows, encouraging Giffey to continue.

  "I can't say any more about that."

  Hale backs down for a moment. "Pickwenn and Pent are the best in this

  business. They tell me Omphalos may be vulnerable, but they also tell me

  188 GREG BEAR

  "We've known that from the beginning," Giffey says.

  Hale's face screws up in sudden, childish frustration. "God dammit, Jack,

  you don't seem at all concerned about how shoved together, how last-minute

  this is."

  "High risk for high gain," Giffey says.

  Hale throws this off with a toss of his hand. "I know the Aristos, Jack. I've

  worked with people who worked with them at various times on various jobs.

  I've come to know their operations, but they don't know anything about me.

  That's how I've managed to get us this appointment. They are not nice people,

  not at the top. I don't know about the lackeys, but the guys at the top--they

  are vicious, cold, and arrogant. They scare me, but I hate them more than I'm

  afraid of them."

  "So it all balances out. Gain, risk, a blow against the big bad boys."

  "Do you know what kind of connections the Aristos have in government?"

  Hale asks.

  "Enough to get them Ferrets," Giffey says.

  "Is it possible that folks who can get us MGN are even more hateful and

  dangerous than the Aristos?"

  Giffey grins. "We are in no position to choose moral sponsors," he

  says.

  "No," Hale says. "No, we're not. After this is over, if we're still alive, Hally

  and I are going to get the hell away from all of this. Southern China, maybe.

  A few tens of millions will do it. Financial sigs and notes we can exercise before

  anybody wises up..

  "This is my last, too," Giffey says.

  e

  Hale sits up in the chair. "I need you and Jenner, Jack, but I don't trust

  you. I think you're more comfortable in command, and you may even be more

  experienced than I am."

  "I am not going to challenge your leadership," Giffey says.

  "No, but you'll have the MGN. You'll have the balance of power."

  They watch each other closely for four or five long seconds.

  "Don't underestimate my contribution, Jack," Hale says.

  Giffey shakes his head.

  "Don't underestimate my desperation in putting Hally and myself and Pick-

  wenn and Pent in this kind of operation. I can't stay in this business much

  longer. Too many birds are coming home to roost. I assume it's the same

  with you."

  Giffey says nothing.

  "Well, I'm glad we've got all this straight," Hale says with a sour face,

  standing. "Glad to be on firm footing and in complete sync."

  Giffey chuckles. "It'll be quite a romp, Mr. Hale," he says. "A fine capstone

  for our checkered careers."

  .... ,:c: ...... A ,inr hi finer at Giffev. "A warning, Jack. I'm

  /

  SLANT 189

  being misused, or cheated, or put in unnecessary danger... If she gets hurt

  for no good reason...

  Giffey nods solemnly. This much he can completely sympathize with.

  "I believe in treating women right, and putting them in no more danger

  than I'm willing to face myself," Hale says. "And for me, there are no other

  women. Just Hally."

  Hale nods emphatically and leaves, shutting the door behind him. Giffey

  leans against the file cabinet in thoughtful silence.

  Jenner returns to the office a moment later, carrying an almost-empty bottle

  of beer. He sits in the chair Hale has vacated, watching Giffey as if waiting

  for orders.

  "Don't stare at me like I'm your goddamned general or your father," Giffey

  snaps. "I'm not." He jabs his finger at the door. "Hale is the boss. Not me."

  "Yes, sir," Jenner says respectfully. "Are we all going to work together

  smoothly, sir?"

  "I hope so, Mr. Jenner."

  "I hope so too, sir," Jenner says, and finishes the last swig of his beer.

  13

  "I thought you said this wasn't going to be a fryball," Alice murmurs to Twist.

  Fryballs are vid and Yox entertainment parties, typically frenetic and overblown.

  Twist makes a sour face.

  "This is all I could find," she says. She wriggles with half-restrained energy

  and frustration, then pleads, "You can get us in! Some tro shink people are

  here. We should meet them, you know, make touches, do the flow."

  "Like who?" she asks.

  "Men and women, why can't they get along?" a woman's voice calls out

  along the pathway to the big house. Huge house, really, perched high on />
  Capitol Hill, in the shadow of the old Corridor/Sound Relay Tower. The

  woman's voice echoes across the street.

  Twist pokes the side of her nose and shakes her head, grinning. Alice is

  waiting for the other side of the question/conversation, for somebody to answer.

  "Christ. Everybody's from a different planet," she hears a man's voice say.

  "I wonder, could that be true?" Twist asks.

  Alice feels the deep little burn again, as if someone has pressed a just-extinguished

  match somewhere into the center of her head. They've made it

  up the front walkway, through the forest of twisting angels and fairies on

  slender black poles, through the glowing green archway to where they are

  190

  GRE6 BEAR

  "Non-invite," Twist tells Alice at the last minute, with a little shimmy

  straightening her flimsy dress beneath her coat. She smiles sweetly. "You try

  first. You're more famous than I am."

  Alice grits her teeth and glares at Twist.

  The arbeiter pushes Alice's name and palmscan through a status filter.

  "You're not on my list," the arbeiter says in a snooty voice, nasal and slyly

  false. "It is apparently not a true spin name. Are you currently employed in a

  sly project?"

  "I've finished working on a Francis Cord Yox," Alice says. She may not

  want to go to this party, but even less does she want to be forbidden to enter.

  "I'll push that and see if it goes through," the arbeiter says, and quickly

  enough a little bowing fairy dances on its head, beckoning them to enter.

  "Welcome, Alice Grale; you are part of the cast of The Faerie (ueene."

  "This is my friend," Alice says, and the arbeiter records Twist's image. Twist

  smiles brightly.

  "Yow," Twist says. "Francis is sly again." They enter through the high front

  door. "Heat made flesh!'

  The main hall is filled with men and women standing in threes or more--

  the party is young and they have not yet broken into more intimate groups--or

  strolling, many carrying drinks and plates of food. Arbeiters roll through with

  more food and more drinks; a particularly large arbeiter, at least eight and a

  half feet high, moves ponderously on delicate insect legs dispensing jewelry

  promoting a new fibe-direct action Yox, Ten High Command.

  Twist grabs a drink in a crystal bulb and squeals with delight as she moves

  through the crowd and approaches the big arbeiter. "I collect these things!"

  she calls back to Alice, plucking up a necklace. "Yow! Sapphires!"

  e Alice looks over the main hall. She recognizes a few ex-spin and slow-rev

  faces, folks who two or three seasons past might have been sly indeed in the

  eyes of billions, greater than she ever was, but who are now living on residuals

  and scheming on how again to lay siege and take the town.

  A few figures shimmer every few minutes, projections of famous men and

  women from the eighties and nineties, expertly mimicked by out-of-view

  INDAs rented for the occasion. She recognizes Richard Thompson, looking

  uncomfortable in a denim jacket, hands in pockets; Thompson became

  hugely popular again just last year. A pair of young women are talking with

  him; they wear almost nothing, as subtle as steel-toed boots, and they're just

  killing time, sweeping the room with opal eyes to see what the solid men

  are up to.

  Thompson shimmers like a mirage and then meets Alice's gaze and smiles.

  He seems to be looking for somebody who wants to talk intelligently; he's

  long dead and he can't do anything with half-naked wahinis.

  Alice doesn't feel up to talking with dead people. She moves on to the

  e:ond bi room, a ballroom and group Yox chamber, and more people. Bits

  /

  SLANT 191

  --"All that backmind. Never even reached the cerebrum."

  --"Top dyne in that deal. Signed clauses with references in three dimensions, never

  experienced that kind of protection..." ."

  --"He's at Topps/Bally now, trying to hold together the Monte Carlo Yox deal.

  They got a point last year and now they're on the board of directors."

  --"Have you caught Melissa Missile on Twentieth? She's been tapping into White

  House secrets and the FBI is going after her puppeteers."

  --"So I asked her. 'Senator, which would you rather see, a real Yox of people fucking,

  or a fake Yox of people getting killed?' She wouldn't answer. She could not answer.

  That's one of those questions no politician will ever be able to answer. And the whole

  committee chamber--"

  Twist comes back to Alice, clutching a ring and two necklaces, all flashing

  tiny logos and designs from the as-yet-ungated Yox.

  "Who's giving this party?" Alice asks, a little dismayed to realize Twist has

  told her nothing about the celebration, not even who owns the house.

  "Some producers," Twist says. Twist is bright and happy, all her mental

  troubles forgotten. Still, in the middle of her broad grin, Twist's lips jerk and

  she tosses her head as if avoiding a fly. "You did vids f)r them back when.

  Jake Sanchez and Tim Shandy."

  "Oh. I did vids for Jake, not for Tim."

  But Twist has darted off again, leaving Alice staring at empty air and

  unfocused figures beyond. She looks around and then up at the ceiling, uneasy.

  She hasn't seen Jake Sanchez in nine years, and Tim...

  Tim never did vids with Jake. He left Jake before Jake ever signed Alice.

  Thinking of Tim, she doesn't really want to be here. The image of her apt

  beckons, small and close; her mind is unsettled, and her insides twist with

  worries so deep she can't remember what they are.

  But she's here and the party is just winding up and she is determined not

  to be down in an up and swirling world. Steeled, she looks around not for

  familiar faces, but prepares to engage in the old and pleasant game of finding

  new attractions.

  The house seems to go on forever. One room is surrounded by terraces with

  springy floors, like rice-paddy beds rising to meet walls glimmering with

  twilight skies. No free behavior is evident yet, but Alice senses that couples

  will soon condense. The joins may evaporate and new duets rain out, several

  times before the night is over.

  She feels a renewal and some of the old party stir watching the attractive

  men and women talking, getting ready to seize the night. Her entrails settle,

  away from worry and into drives that have always been strong and facile for

  Alice; she has never had trouble connecting, first with words and then with

  hands and later with her entire body. Sex is like running free in clear cool air,

  or so she convinces herself yet again.

  She assumes the posture, the expression, of challenging indulgence that

  192 GREG BEAR

  a spectacular Apollonian body dressed in slender ribbons of orange, and starts

  to walk toward him.

  She turns, surprised, to see Jake. With dizzying speed, she shifts to wary

  professional friendliness, not provocative, but familiar. She allows him to kiss

  her cheek--he takes a tongue-swipe at her earlobe, to which she blandly ac-quiesces-and

  they hold hands at arms length, turning slowly in mock joy,

  examining each other.

  "You are still the most beautiful, you
know?" Jake says. He is in his fifties,

  tightly handsome and brown, with a band of gold and clear ruby embroidered

  around his forehead. His eyes are different colors, by birth not

  design, and his nose is still large and bulbous, a trademark distortion men

  of his power can get away with. "I hear you're working with Francis. How

  is the old artiste?"

  "Precise," Alice says.

  Jake laughs in dubious recognition. "Yeah, the whisper is he's onto something

  big. May even get a SexYule exposure and be expanded to the WorldWide

  Yox. It's lit, what can the Grundys and Exons say?"

  Alice smiles. She's small in whatever success Francis may have, but at least

  she's on the list.

  Jake grins on. "I remember when we worked on a vid with Francis and he

  made you retake a simple entry fourteen times. The lights kept wandering

  away and he wanted your lovely navel like a swimming pool, with sweat, you

  know.., just right."

  Alice does not remember that. There have been so many takes on so many

  entries. Burn.

  "You know Tim and I are working together now. After all these years."

  "I didn't know," Alice says.

  "Amazing, friends all these years. We've got some heavy projects, total

  audience grabs. Not your usual Jakey schmaltz. Tim brings real class."

  She can't imagine Tim working with Jake. "Things have changed," she says.

  "He got hungry," Jake says with shrug. "Hey, didn't know you'd be here,

  but slide free. Maybe we can talk later."

  "You own the house?" Alice asks. Jake nods proudly. "Introduce you to my

  wives. They're twins, paired, with plugs, you know. Amazing team. Parallel