by F P Adriani
“I’ve forgotten about eating. It’s been so long since I had an actual meal and not the oily bar fare we’ve been living on here. That’s some great planning on the trainee diet.”
His smile faded. “You could get food elsewhere, offsite.”
“With what time?”
“Now you’ll have more time. So, dinner?” From the desktop beside him, he pulled a notepad and a pen toward him, scribbled something down on one of the pages, then tore it out. “Here’s the address and the directions. I think you can handle finding it.” He held out the paper, and I yanked it from him, slid it inside my jacket.
Shaking my head at myself, I said, “I don’t know why I’m agreeing to this.”
“You’ll soon see,” said Tan.
*
I left him right afterward and ran back to the barracks, half-expecting to be arrested along the way. When I finally burst into my room, I locked the door behind me, then ran around fast, grabbing the shit I’d packed Just In Case. Well, the Just In Case had happened; now I had to get out of there. The UPG never protected people like me, even from its own contractors. If I ever got caught at anything during a job, I’d be on my own.
A knock on my door. I dropped my bags. I waited, I listened; then I heard Tan’s voice. “Pia, open up.”
I pulled out my gun. “Go away.”
“I need my gun. You know I can’t let you keep it.”
For a moment I debated whether I should walk up to the door because he could have another gun and could shoot me through the door. Then, I sighed: if he wanted to hurt me, he would have done it already. And he probably could have unlocked the door; there must have been an override for emergencies.
I looked out the peephole, saw that he was alone, and unlocked the door. He came in, closing the door behind him.
In one big dramatic motion I yanked out his gun then yanked out the metal gas-containing cartridge from the inside and flung it across the room toward the bathroom door. Our eyes met.
Now, I saw his head shake. “You’re some piece of work,” he said. I flung his gun at him; he caught it.
“Good catch. Now get the fuck out.”
He looked behind me, where my suitcases sat. “Running somewhere? If I wanted to arrest you, I would have done it already.”
“Yeah whatever,” I said, and then I turned my back on him. I was shaking and I didn’t want him to see it. “I told you to leave.”
His voice was softer now. “You’re always so angry, Pia. Doesn’t it ever stop? Don’t you get tired?”
To my horror and disappointment, I realized I was having one of those bathroom moments again. I felt the tears hit my cheeks.
There was a long silence. I was hoping he’d leave. But he didn’t. And I was shocked when I felt his hand close over my right shoulder from behind.
That soft voice again. “I shouldn’t have said that. It was out of line. I’m sorry, Pia.”
I nodded, but I wouldn’t turn around because then he’d see my face. I rushed toward the bathroom, closed the door behind me.
Moments later, my face wiped, I walked back out—and he was still there, sitting on my bed now!
“You don’t listen,” I said to him.
He sat up straighter. “I want to make sure you’re all right.”
“I’m fine.”
“And that you show up tomorrow night at my place.”
“I don’t think so,” I said, thinking that I would still leave here tonight. I didn’t trust him one bit. I didn’t trust anybody, including myself.
I suddenly noticed a key card in his hand and now he handed it to me, sighing loudly. “It’s late. You shouldn’t be running around outside The Complex when you don’t know where you are. At least take my car—it’s in the lot beside The Foundation Hall, should be the only red one there.”
“What—so you can sic the police after me?”
He glared at me with an impatiently twisted mouth.
So I said, “And how will you get home tomorrow without your car?”
He shrugged, then stood up. “Don’t worry about that. I can always use one of the official cars here. And, somehow, I think I can trust you to bring back my car tomorrow. You’re not a thief. You’ll show up. Tomorrow—at seven. Goodnight, Pia,” he said, then he walked out of the room.
What a bizarre goddamn man, what a bizarre goddamn night.
*
Not long after, I was riding in Tan’s car through the nearby farm fields and closer to the nearest town; I finally came across a hotel. It looked fancy, so didn’t look cheap. I drove past the hotel a ways, intending to park there and walk back to the place. But, before I did, I remembered I was in Tan’s car. My fingers suddenly got a Snoop! itch.
I turned on my neck light, my itchy fingers rummaging through the front and side car compartments. I only found some tissues, an empty emergency water bottle, a new-looking flashlight, an old text-only grimy Complex ID of Tan’s, and a few pictures—one of Tan, looking his usual goddamn gorgeous self, and another of an older woman, who looked a lot like Tan, except she had browner hair and a rounder face. His mom probably.
I studied both photos for longer than my conscious mind liked, then I shoved them back where I’d found them and jumped out of the car.
*
The hotel had looked better on the outside than it actually did on the inside. But, no matter: I didn’t need fancy to sleep, and, surprisingly, I slept well in a room there that night, my trusty gun beside me.
I made it through till the next day, unmolested. As I showered and got dressed, and thought over the night before, I realized how weird it had all been. Tan finding out what I was doing AND not having arrested me afterward, AND then giving me his car. What the hell did it all mean? The whole thing didn’t fit right. I was missing a piece somewhere.
I went down and had lunch in the hotel restaurant. On my way out, I stopped at the concierge desk and asked about more permanent residences here.
“Sure, we’ve got accommodations like that,” the woman concierge said. “Small suites with kitchenettes. Here’s our brochure with the rates outlined….”
*
Later, I locked my most important case in the trunk of Tan’s car, then I drove into the nearby town. I needed a pair of shoes.
“Ridiculous,” I said to myself while driving, mentally acknowledging that I’d go to Tan’s later. And what the hell was I thinking in doing that? And what the hell was I thinking in caring about how I dressed for the occasion?
I’d never worn many frills or much make-up or anything, and I would NOT wear any tonight. But I hadn’t brought any dressy shoes with me to Diamond and had so far had no chance to shop for anything outside The Complex.
I needed some palella oil for my hair too, to make it shine. Gloss at least for my lips? Yeah.
I spent several hours leisurely walking through the town’s stores, and wound up buying more than oil and gloss.
The day was too hot to stay awake for too long. Back at my new suite room, I set the alarm and took a nap.
When I woke up, I showered again, blowing and brushing my hair till it shone, and then adding a little oil to make it shine doubly. I only had a knee-length black dress with me—I wouldn’t go to THAT much trouble for the dinner, so I’d wear what I had.
I put on that dress…and liked what I saw in the mirror; I looked good in spite of the fact that I was too pale, almost eerily pale, and could have used some blush or something.
“Fuck it,” I said, grabbing Tan’s key card, my case, and walking out the door.
Tan’s house sat in the country outside the very same town I’d just browsed. Lots of pines grew in this area, and when I finally pulled up in front of his place, the tall pines sheltered both sides of his house so thoroughly that I couldn’t see beyond them.
I got out, closed the door, stood for a moment, watching the sky above as the low Sun began turning the air a rich purple. The purple of the sky, the green of the pines and the pale blue of Ta
n’s house—beautiful.
I heard a door open: Tan stood in the front doorway, dressed in his usual slim all black. I walked toward him, stopping on his stoop.
“So, you came and here you are,” he said then, but, strangely, not with his familiar smile beaming. His face looked a bit stunned as his dark eyes roamed down over me and back up at my face.
“Pia, you look…” he hesitated “…like me. You’re in all black.”
“Surprise, surprise,” I said. “You’re not the only person in the Universe who wears black.”
His eyes met mine and he sighed. “So that’s the way it’s going to be tonight, huh?”
“What do you expect?”
He waved an arm at the inside of his house and said, “Just come in.” So I did.
Not surprisingly, lots of black furniture decorated the inside, but, surprisingly, in the living room beyond the hall, I saw color too, bits of red and purple, but mostly bits of hot-pink. A pink crystal pyramid sat on a black end-table, a purple neon-iridescent painting shone down from above, and the light from the two colors mingled in the air against the black background. Big red flowers sprung from a vase on another table, only this table was red.
“This is very nice,” I said, and I meant it. I hadn’t been in such a clearly intentionally beautiful place in a long time.
Tan grinned at me. “You like it, huh? I do too. I don’t get here enough. I try to at least three days a week, but the job doesn’t always allow that.”
“You work too hard,” I blurted out. Then I felt my face blushing.
His eyes flashed at me…with something. “Oh? How do you know that?”
“It’s obvious. And, anyway, everyone says so.”
“I didn’t know everyone talked about me.”
I shrugged. “You’re the boss, and people can’t help bullshitting about their boss. It’s the way it is.”
“One of the things I like about you, Pia, is that you never hold back your opinion on anything or anyone.”
I looked at him for a moment. “Don’t count on that. And was that meant sarcastically anyway?”
“Nope. No sarcasm from me to you. That only goes one way, from you to me. Speaking of sarcastic, Maggie, the woman who helps me around here and watches the place when I’m not around—she helped decorate here. I told her what I wanted and she made sure I got it. She’s sarcastic too, always quipping about me, about my working too hard. She reminds me of my mother.”
I thought of that little picture in his car and said, “I hope that’s a good thing.”
“Of course. I like my mother. Now, come in and out the back onto the patio. I’ve set up a table there.”
I followed him across the living room, glancing at the long narrow kitchen alongside, and then we walked out through the sliding-glass back doorway. The night had washed over the area even more, and in the distance, beyond the patio, a huge magenta mountain jutted into the blue-black sky.
My mouth fell open a bit as I stared. I could make out bits of green and red on the mountain—pine and palella forest probably. Lights from an occasional house dotted the green and magenta valley below. The wind blew warm and soothing here, lifting my hair till my muscles relaxed beneath.
I took a slow deep breath through my open mouth. “Tan…this is amazing. Just absolutely gorgeous here.”
My eyes were still on the view, but I imagined that he was grinning while he spoke. “Thanks. It is gorgeous. Now you know why I come here as much as I can. Let’s sit down.”
At the end of the patio, right in front of the view, he’d placed a small gray metal table and two chairs, and right beside that sat a serving cart. Both the table and cart seemed full of dishes and food and drink.
I sat down in one of the chairs, and tipping his head toward the view, Tan continued, “That’s Magenta Mountain there. Part of the reason I bought this place. Ever seen it before?”
“Nope. And I’ve never seen anything like it here, period. For sure it’s something special.”
“That it is,” he said, looking at me intently, standing on the opposite side of the table.
I swallowed a bit, my throat twitching nervously. “Tan, could I have something to drink? Some juice or something? I’m dying of thirst in this heat.”
“Jesus, yes! I’m sorry I didn’t offer you something sooner.” He rushed over to the cart; as he poured both of us something from a pitcher, I thought I saw his hand shake on the glasses.
He turned toward me, and I took a glass from him, then saw him wipe his brow a bit as he walked to the table’s other side.
“You’re right about the heat today,” he said, sighing and sitting down. “Now let’s see what Maggie brought here. I won’t lie and say I cooked the whole meal. I made the salad and put the fruit bowl together, but I didn’t have time today for anything else.”
“You didn’t have to do this at all,” I said. And then my tone turned ironic. “It’s quite bizarre, especially after last night.”
“Ah…yes. Last night.” He took a drink from his glass, then he lowered his glass. And then he looked at me with those same intense eyes again. I should have pulled mine away from his, but I couldn’t. A magnet always seemed to exist between us, drawing our faces together somehow.
“You’ve got to stop this,” I said then, still with our eyes locked. “These long looks.”
“You do it too,” he replied. And then he turned his head away a bit. “Right now, I think we should eat. Then we’ll talk. Later.”
We did as he’d said—at least we ate, but we wound up talking during. I told him what I thought about that nearby town, Pineview, and he told me a bit of the history there, that it was actually one of the first residential areas on the planet.
“This house is old, from back then,” he said when I was putting the finishing touches on my second plate of food.
“I couldn’t tell. It’s in beautiful shape.”
He gave me one of his looks again, this time with the old version of his lewd mouth.
I sighed, loudly, obviously.
And he laughed. “I did it again, huh? I can’t help it. The first time I saw your picture on the application….” He shook his head slowly now, almost sadly.
“You are a pain in the ass,” I said. “You’ve been one since the first time I saw YOU. In that hall.”
He waved a quick finger in the air. “I remember that, oh yeah. I remember that!” Then, with the same hand, he picked up the last bite of food off his plate, shoved it in his mouth, chewed, then quickly wiped his fingers and mouth with a napkin. He tossed the napkin onto the table.
“So what do you want to do after dinner and after we talk?” he asked me then, looking at me again.
“After?” My face warmed so badly, I could feel the heat even in my eyes and ears.
“You know what I mean. Yes or no?”
“If you mean what I think you mean, you know the answer to that. NO. One-hundred percent NO.”
He pulled a hurt face. “Ouch! Not even ninety-nine percent—not even a little yes, a tiny bit of YES?”
“What on earth are you all about? You come onto me, and then you pull a gun on me—”
“Yeah—after I realized you broke into the Records Building.”
“And how the hell did you do that so fast? I could have gone anywhere.”
“When I first saw you outside, I ran into the office afterward—there’s a monitor for all the sensors, the alarms.”
“But I disabled the alarm.”
“There’s a sensor for that too.”
“There’s a fucking sensor for everything there!” I spat out, exasperated, looking to my right, toward the beautiful mountain. The air was doing strange things to me, so was being around Tan.
I sighed and said finally, in a quiet voice, “I can’t be trusted.”
“Like I don’t see that? Will you just be honest for once and tell me what you’re specifically here for?”
I turned back to him, stared at him for a long
moment. “I’m here on a job.”
“No kidding.”
“That’s not what I meant. But I can’t tell you anymore than that. What about you? Your background? How long you been at the Pine Mine?”
“About ten years. I’ve been a Commander for seven. My parents were from Earth, from The States. Two of my grandparents were from New China. I was born here. I’ve never lived anywhere else. And it’s too bad the density increase doesn’t also increase a Sander’s longevity. Life is way too short. I try to do things when the opportunity comes UP.” That suggestive grin of his suddenly came back again.
My eyes rolled to the sky. “Honestly, I don’t know why you keep persisting. I’m nothing special in personality. And to look at? What you said about my picture? Give me a break. My nose is too narrow, my flat hair’s the color of shit, and my chest is almost as flat as my hair. AND my butt’s too big.”
“Well, I like all that. Yes I do. And have you seen how wide my mouth is? My scary unibrow and my too-skinny legs?”
“Hah! B.S.”
“And that’s what I say to you. We could offset each other. We could make a beautiful baby together.”
“I’m not interested in making babies now.”
“What about fifteen minutes from now?” He grinned.
And I laughed.
His grin faded, his head turned, to past the patio, toward that big magenta silhouette beyond. “I really do want a happy child who can play ring-around-my-mountain here.”
“Your mountain? It doesn’t belong to anyone,” I said.
He looked at me hard now. “Some would argue that point. Now, twist around, reach over and look under that red bowl there on the cart.”
I turned but I also hesitated, afraid to overturn the bowl; given everything in the conversation we’d just had, I didn’t know what to expect now.
But, my fingers finally flipped the bowl and inside found an ID—his.
When I saw the card’s UPG seal, my eyes shot up to his face, which was straight now. “Why the hell didn’t you ever say you work for the UPG!”
“Because. I wanted to see if you could make it through the training. I thought it would be good for you. It is for everybody. And I don’t even know what, if anything, I’m supposed to tell you. Who are you and what the hell are doing here?”
