by H. A. Swain
“Let’s dance!” Veronica attaches herself to my arm like a barnacle and drags me toward the back.
“Zim! Zimri!” I call, but she’s smirking at my predicament. Just to get her back, I twirl Veronica around, dip her a few times, and put on my best moves, all while keeping Zimri in my sight. She lurks on the sidelines, next to Brie, giggling and pointing, but I can tell she doesn’t love the way Veronica keeps dancing back to me. Finally, I spin Veronica like a top, sending her whirling across the floor. Then I dance over to Zimri, grab her around the waist, and pull her to me.
“Come on!” I yell in her ear. “Give a guy a break. I know you can dance better than these other girls.”
With a half-smile/half-smirk she says, “Oh what the hell!” and finds the rhythm of the techno remix medley of Geoff Joffrey’s biggest hits featuring Minerva VaVoom. I love watching Zimri spring and pop on her rubber-band knees, like the best backup dancers on any stage. Nobody in the Strip can take their eyes off her. Even Veronica, who stands to the side, arms crossed and clearly annoyed. I do my best to keep up with Zim while staying out of her way until she grabs me. I hook my arm around her waist and pull her close. We move cheek to cheek under the lights so everyone can see that Zimri Robinson has chosen me.
When the song ends, we head to the front and plop down at a table with Zimri’s friend Brie, whom I’ve heard a lot about but only met this evening. I already like her. She and Zimri finish each other’s thoughts and laugh at jokes I don’t understand. They’re so excited to see each other now that Brie is switched back to days again that they barely notice me. Behind Zimri, I glimpse Dorian’s blond dreds. I hold my breath, preparing myself for an ugly scene, but he glances over at us then moves off into the crowd like a shark disappearing behind a reef. I let my breath go, relieved.
“Admit it,” I turn to Zim and say. “You’re having fun!”
“No way,” she teases and downs a fizzy drink. “This sucks. I hate the Strip with all its sanctioned entertainment.”
“She always says that,” Brie tells me.
Up on the giant screen behind the bar, two announcers, Isolde and Ike, whom I knew at SCEWL, both perfectly proportioned and beautiful in that plasticky Plute way, banter over a steady stream of pix and vid about what movies debuted today, which celebs are dating, and how far up the Stream the latest songs have gone, but for the first time in my life, I’m truly more interested in the conversation in front of me than what’s happening in the Buzz.
“So, Brie,” I say. “Do you have any embarrassing stories about Zimri when she was young?”
“Oh believe me, I’ve got stories!” she says, eyes twinkling.
“Don’t you dare!” Zimri punches Brie on the shoulder.
“Was she always this violent and bossy?” I tease.
“She was way worse when she was little,” Brie tells me.
“Got any pix of Miss Bossypants?”
“Embarrassing ones?” Brie asked.
“Of course,” I say.
“All right, that’s enough!” Zim says, but she’s laughing right along with us.
From the screen behind Brie’s head, I hear Ike say, “And now a quick sneak peek at an anticipated new release from Chanson.”
“This one’s sure to be hot,” Isolde adds.
I ignore their drivel until I hear, “It’s Arabella Lovelace giving us a taste of her debut song, which will officially drop next week.…”
Zimri’s head snaps around to stare at a twenty-foot-tall Arabella taking up the screen. She’s in a thick denim jumpsuit, cut off just below her butt. Her hair is up, her zipper down to reveal a hint of cleavage, and a name patch, which says Nobody, is sewn above her breast. She clings to a metal shelving unit where dancers ride up and down in giant baskets. All around her RoboForklifts drive in formation as the beat comes in and Arabella begins to sing.
I am Nobody from Nowhere
A speck upon your screen
An non-automated worker that you’ve never seen
I’ve packed your purchased footholds
I’ll tie them with a bow
But I live a life that you’ll never know
I stare stupidly as Arabella dances half-naked with guys in skintight jumpsuits gyrating all around. Then Zimri’s on her feet, shouting, “What the hell?”
Everyone in the Strip has stopped to stare at what’s going on.
“That’s not her song!” someone in the crowd yells.
“That’s about us!” someone else calls.
A bowl of noodles goes flying and hits screen-Ara square in the ass.
“I … I … I…” I stammer. I cannot wrap my mind around what I’m seeing and hearing.
“We were just there!” Zimri says, horrified. “Like three hours ago. How is this happening?”
As quickly as the snippet started it’s replaced again by Ike. “Can’t wait to see the whole thing,” he says.
My face burns. My hands are in fists and there is a roaring in my ears. “They stole it! They stole your song!”
Then I hear Ike say, “Big news from Elston Tunick,” and my attention swerves back to the screen. “The renowned video artist released her newest remix today and sparked controversy when she claimed to have located missing music industry heir Orpheus Chanson.”
This time on the screen there is a slow-motion video of shoppers flooding through the doors at Black Friday. Bodies undulate, arms flail as if underwater, and faces become distorted as they grimace slowly in the onslaught of bodies pouring forward. I watch the man I saw this morning trip, again. This time each motion of his fall is caught in agonizing detail. How his head travels back, his eyes widen with the realization that he’s going down. He opens his mouth to yell but the sound is guttural, a howl of despair as his chest heaves forward. He slumps to the floor with others landing on top of him like heavy sandbags tossed against a riverbank during the rains. And then there I am, as clear as anything. I pass by, each movement a slo-mo ballet. I reach for the man. Over my shoulder, Zimri comes into the frame, a warped smile on her face as she reaches out to me and pulls me back. The video stops on a close-up of my face, twisted in a strange grimace halfway between excitement and horror.
“Chanson Industry spokesperson Esther Crawley says they are cautiously optimistic that Chanson has been found,” Ike says. An image of Esther in front of my father’s office flashes on the screen.
“So far this sighting is unconfirmed. It may be a staged event with a look-alike meant to draw attention away from Project Calliope, but we have not yet ruled out foul play,” Esther says. “If it is Orpheus Chanson then we believe Project Calliope may have kidnapped and brainwashed him when he was in a most vulnerable, drug-influenced state. Harold Chanson is cutting his trip to Europe short and returning to retrieve his son.”
“What the…?” I whisper.
My father, blustering toward his jet, quickly replaces her on screen. The whole thing is so clearly staged. Probably by Piper, who is a master at unfolding these kinds of dramas. “Project Calliope is a terrorist organization,” he shouts. “Hell-bent on destroying the sanctity of private property. They will stop at nothing to bring me down. First Calliope Bontempi brings a spurious suit against my company and now her group has taken advantage of my family’s deepest tragedy.” Then he looks straight at the camera and says, “I’m coming, son. Don’t worry. Your father is here for you.”
“Oh. My. God,” I say and fall into my chair.
“Sources close to the family say Orpheus Chanson has battled a Juse addiction and acted erratically the last time he was seen in public,” Isolde says.
Then Rajesh is on the screen from the garden at the Deep End restaurant. His thick black hair is pomped up and he’s wearing a sleeveless shirt to show off his impossibly buff arms. The words Best Friends of Orpheus Chanson scroll below.
“I tried to talk him out of running away,” says Rajesh, “but he’s a complicated and troubled person with a tragic secret.”
“Liar,�
� I say. My stomach roils with anger.
“What sort of secret?” Isolde asks, eyes wide with interest.
“I’ll reveal everything in my new book about our friendship,” Rajesh says and he lowers his sunglasses. “The first installment is available now,” he adds with a twinkle in his eye. A link to the e-book appears on the screen below him.
I shake my head, appalled by how conniving he is.
The camera pans right and there is Elston next to Rajesh at the table. “I couldn’t believe when I saw Orphie in the footage I’d found today. I knew I had to make it public. You can view the whole video and others like it at the Niachis Gallery through next Friday.” A link appears on screen for Elston’s new exhibit.
“Even Chanson’s newest star, Arabella Lovecraft, had something to say,” Ike adds.
The camera sweeps right again. Arabella, at the table with Rajesh and Elston, pushes up her gem-encrusted sunglasses then dabs at her bright and blinking eyes until a single tear rolls down her perfect cheek. “I just hope he’s okay,” she says. “My heart goes out to his family, especially his father, Mr. Chanson, who is such a generous and giving patron to be releasing my debut song, ‘Nobody from Nowhere,’ next week.”
Before I can react to my supposed friends’ performances, the vid switches and my mother comes on the screen.
“Libellule! Libellule!” voices shout as she scampers down the steps outside of her apartment building in a flowing shirt with wing-like sleeves. At first she appears shocked to find ’razzi on her doorstep, but I can see the calculation in her face.
“What do you think of your son?” Ike asks her through a drone.
She stops and blinks her giant eyes at the camera. “I’m just thrilled that he is safe and alive!”
“Do you think he’s been kidnapped and brainwashed?” Isolde asks.
My mother laughs this off as ridiculous. “Orpheus is a young man of the people. He understands the price Plute children pay for sparking false genius with Acquired Savant Ability surgeries. Just as Calliope Bontempi has brought the issue to the surface by suing my ex-husband. Orpheus is working a real job like a real man and I am proud of him! Like every mother, I just hope my son has found his bliss because in the end, that’s what each of us deserves.”
Zimri turns slowly in her chair to stare at me, but I can’t look away from the screen because there’s my mother’s skeevy boyfriend, Chester, jogging down the steps behind my mother wearing a patchwork blazer that looks as if it’s made of ten different drapery fabrics.
“And have you found your bliss?” Ike asks my mother, a preplanned question if ever there was one.
My mother cozies up to Chester who slings his arm around her shoulder as she tosses her hair back and lifts her chin to laugh, an old trick to hide the lines around her eyes from the cameras.
“Yes,” she says. “I have. I’ve started a clothing line.” She opens her arms and both she and Chester twirl as if they’ve been practicing this routine for hours. She stops abruptly mid-spin, whips her head toward the camera, sultry and inviting, then purrs, “Dragonfly Designs.”
Ike comes back on screen in front of the freeze-frame image of my twisted face from the Black Friday vid. “Could this really be Orpheus Chanson shopping like a Plebe?” he asks Isolde.
She flips her hair. “Guess some people will do anything for a discount?” she says, then a laugh track kicks in as if her snide remark is the funniest thing ever uttered, and they move on to the next story.
I feel like I’m in a slow-motion Elston Tunick video then. It seems to take hours to get out of my chair. Forever to locate an exit for my escape. All eyes have turned to us. “Quick,” I say to Zimri. “We have to get out of here.”
Despite the shock she’s suffered, Zimri takes my hand and pulls me out the door while Brie puts her body in between us and the crowd. Outside, I look up and down the street, sure that at any moment, ’razzi drones will be on my tail.
“We have to get away.”
“In here.” Zim hops into a dark alcove between the buildings just as the door to the Strip opens and a deluge of people come outside.
“Where is he?” Veronica shouts above the noise of the crowd. “We have to get pix with him!” Swarms of people hustle by the alleyway but Zimri and I stay pressed against the wall, holding hands until they’re gone.
When the street is quiet again, Zimri lets her breath go. “I can’t believe it,” she says, shaking her head. “I just can’t believe it. How’d they do it so fast?”
“I’m so sorry, Zimri. I’m so so so sorry. I knew they were bad, but I didn’t know they were this horrible. I would have never let Piper hear you sing if I had known this is what she would do!”
“What about all of those awful people using your situation to get attention for themselves?” Zimri says. “Your friends! Your father! Your mother! After we just saw her.”
“Oh please,” I say, waving away her disdain. “Doesn’t surprise me for a minute. I guarantee, hits are going through the roof for my father’s company, Rajesh’s book, Elston’s exhibit, orders for my mom’s clothing line. Even Arabella’s stolen song.”
Zimri’s face goes dark. “My song,” she mutters.
“Yes,” I say. “Your song.”
She shakes her head. “This is terrible.”
“You think that’s bad? Just wait a few hours until the ’razzi swarms the Complex. Then you’ll see how bad it can get. I have to hide before they find me.”
As I pull her out of the alleyway, Dorian steps out of the Strip. Zimri stops in her tracks. They lock eyes. Then he stands in front of us, blocking our path, fists clenched and chest heaving.
“You’re a Chanson?” he demands.
“Dorian,” she says and steps between us.
“No, it’s okay,” I tell her. “No reason to deny it.”
“And you’re still with him?” he asks Zim.
People walking by slow down to watch.
“Yes,” she says simply and relief floods my body.
Dorian scowls, as if the situation makes no sense. “But Chanson, his father … he’s the one who prosecuted your mom! He’s the one who filed the suit against her for stealing his company’s music! He’s the one who demanded that she pay back the damages times two and when she couldn’t, he was going to force her into jail to work off her restitution, which is why she took off.”
“Is that true?” I ask Zimri.
She blinks and blinks as if trying to process what he’s saying.
“Yes it’s true!” Dorian stomps toward us, pointing at my chest and the small circle of people around us stirs. “This guy’s family is the reason your family fell apart!”
“Zimri, I…” I start to say.
“Stop it!” she yells at Dorian. “Just stop it!”
“How can you stand beside him after what his father did to your mother?” Dorian yells.
“What about what your father did to my mother?” Zimri screams back at him.
Dorian staggers. “What are you talking about? She’s the one who broke his heart.”
“He threw her under the bus!” Zimri yells. “She took the blame for everything. She never named him. Or Tati. Or Calliope Bontempi. Or anybody who came to her concerts or paid her for the downloads. She protected them all. I was there. I was at the trial. I remember. When the Arbiter asked her who else made music with her, she said she was the only one. When they asked her who hacked the HandHelds, she said she did it on her own. My father begged her to out Marley and Tati and Calliope so her sentence would be lightened, but she wouldn’t do it. It’s time everyone knows that!”
The people around us murmur in surprise, but Dorian’s face collapses.
“We are not our parents!” Zimri says. “I am not my mother. And he is not his father. And we can’t right their wrongs. So please, Dorian, please,” she cries. “Stop telling me who I can be with and what I can do with my life because so far you’ve gotten all of it wrong. The only thing you’ve gotten
right is that I am like my mother. And I’m going to do what I want—just like she did.”
Someone in the crowd says, “Right on, girl!” But Dorian refuses to make eye contact with her.
“Then you’re on your own, Zimri,” he tells her and she nods as if she’s known that all along.
* * *
The next morning in my new POD, I get up early and ready myself for the ’razzi. I kept my Exo off all night because I didn’t want to answer any questions or see any more coverage of my disappearance and Elston’s miraculous discovery. I think back over our meeting with Piper, trying to put the pieces together. Zimri made a joke about shopping at Black Friday. I wonder how long it took Piper’s minions to find the video and leak it to Elston? I wonder what my father promised her if she released it to look like she’d stumbled across it on her own? And my mother? How much did she know in advance? Most likely producers were calling her for a comment and she jumped on the bandwagon like Rajesh and Ara, hustling and scraping for whatever attention they could get.
By now news-stream producers probably know where I work, where I live, and all my usual routines, but for a second or two on my way down the stairs, part of me worries that the ’razzi won’t be waiting. What if I step outside, ready to be swarmed, and there’s nothing there? I told Zimri I wouldn’t wish that kind of media scrutiny on my worst enemy, but the truth is, for a Plute, being irrelevant is far worse than choosing to remove yourself from the limelight. It was one thing for me to run away, it’s another for nobody to follow, ever again.
But the ’razzi do not disappoint. Outside, dragonfly drones have settled like a thick mechanical carpet on the walkway. Other workers skirt around them, peering close, trying to understand what they’re seeing. Since my ExoScreen glove is in the POD, they can’t locate me via GPS, but surely they’ve sent scanners to recognize my face in a crowd. I put my head down and join a stream of people walking toward the warehouse trams until one of the drones makes a beeline for me. I don’t try to outrun it or pretend I’m someone that I’m not. Instead, I stop and turn to face it.
“Hello,” I say when it zooms up and hovers in front of me. “How thoughtful of you to come.”
