by AJ Kalliver
Claudia slumped in her chair, barely aware of the look he was giving her.
"This case isn't the first where we've noticed a certain… oddness in your behavior." He continued. "For nearly six months now we've seen measurable declines in your performance, deficiencies which have only been tolerated because of your long association with our company, and your excellent overall record." Her lips pressed together in a thin line as she stared fixedly at a pen lying on his desk. "We had hoped, Claudia, that by offering you a chance at the Rewind treatment we would be helping to alleviate whatever emotional problems you might have been suffering." That made her raise her eyes to his, and he gave her a look that mixed disapproval and long-suffering affection. "And then you come back looking like, like…." He shrugged helplessly. "Well, you look like someone from those movies they make, based on comic books."
Scowling, Claudia went back to staring at the pen.
'Good.' She thought to herself. 'I grew up with comic books, and those movies. I still like them, and I don't look half as bad as everyone's saying'
Out loud she said "You sent me to the clinic, you said the firm would cover half of whatever I wanted done there."
"Well, we certainly never expected anything like this." He answered. After hearing what he had said about her performance, she certainly expected to be dismissed from the company then and there, but his next words had been a complete surprise. "Despite whatever problems have lead you to undertake this childish display, I need you here, Claudia. Barret, McCandless and Stone need you here; you're an excellent lawyer, one of our very best. All you need to do is get your head on straight. To accomplish that, we are going to provide you with psychological counseling, to help you get to the root of your problems and to solve them." So stunned was she at not being tossed unceremoniously out the door, she almost missed the rest of it. "Before that happens, though, we'll have to do something about your appearance." That had prompted an attempt at argument from her, but he easily overrode her weak protests. "None of that, now; it's settled. I'm told that it isn't safe to undergo the Rewrite process again quite this soon, so we'll be giving you a bit more vacation time before scheduling another appointment at the clinic; perhaps a cruise?" He nodded, satisfied that he'd thought of everything. "I'll have my secretary make the arrangements, and deliver the tickets to your apartment this afternoon. Relax, enjoy your trip, and think about how you nearly threw away a fine career. When you get back we can see about changing this blue and purple nonsense back to something reasonable."
And that had been that.
Now she was in the second day of a three-day flight across the continental United States on the luxury airship Athena. Along with three hundred other passengers, she could eat the finest foods, drink the finest wines, and generally dance and party at any hour of the night or day, all while cruising serenely above the wretched masses and their earthbound concerns.
Concerns like cancer, from which hundreds of thousands would die before Infinite Spiral finally got around to applying its new process to something so prosaic as healing the mortally ill.
Her head pounding from the overly-loud dance music which leaked into the lounge from the adjoining club area, Claudia took another sip of her drink.
Of course there's no reason to think that they won't price the treatment out of reach of half the planet even when they do release it. She mused, staring glumly down into her glass. I know damned well they didn't do the research for Rewind or Rewrite, that they got if for just the cost of whoever it was that they paid off in InnovaTech, and they're still charging half a million dollars per person for the treatment. And that doesn't even count the quarter million every two years for the maintenance sessions, to keep everything from going back to the way it was, or even worse, because of the stress the whole thing puts on the body.
And I'm the one who won their case for them; I'm responsible for all the money they're already starting to rake in… just like I'm responsible for everyone who'll die needlessly because InnovaTech lost in that courtroom.
She looked up, at the mirror behind the bar, and her reflection within it. She still had the startling eyes, the pale, pale skin and the black-violet-blue hair; she would have them until she got back to Boston ten days from now and checked back into Infinite Spiral. For the first time she wondered if the reason she'd opted for such an extreme change in her appearance wasn't because of some urge to rebellion against her law firm, but because she could no longer bear to look at a face, a person, who had done so much harm. Maybe she needed to be able to pretend that the exotic young girl she saw now and the weary, older woman she had been before were not the same person at all… but lawyer or no, she just wasn't that good a liar.
Staring at herself in the mirror with a strange sense of loathing, she barely noticed the man who sat down beside her until he spoke.
"That's a very pretty girl." She looked over at him, tucking an errant, brightly-tinted lock of hair behind her ear as she did so, but he wasn't looking at her. He was looking at her reflection behind the bar. Turning her head back, she met his eyes in the mirror. He smiled. "Sorry, I couldn't help but notice you were staring, so I had to join in. And you're right; she's certainly worth looking at."
Claudia closed her eyes.
God, not another one. It wasn't the first time she'd been hit on since boarding the airship in New York; there had been eleven invitations so far, some of them far more blunt than this one, but she'd turned them all down. Not that she had anything against sex in principle, it was just that her life didn't need more complications right now, not even something as empty as a shipboard (airshipboard?) romance.
Opening her eyes, she looked at the man, watching as he turned to order another drink for her, and one for himself.
Not bad, actually. He's good-looking enough; not that I'm used to having the luxury of picking and choosing. It would be a shame, going back to being bland and unnoticed, with her brown hair and brown eyes. Of course, given that the Rewrite process would eventually be widely available (if still very expensive), it might soon be considered cliché to be beautiful. Maybe in ten year's time it would be the short, dumpy women with homely features who were all the rage on the Paris fashion runways.
She snorted softly at the unlikelihood of that ever happening. No, young and beautiful would always be in fashion, just as the rich and powerful would always be calling the shots. No one, most certainly not a somewhat-talented but easily-manipulated lawyer would ever change that.
Her drink arrived, but she left it untouched, rising from her stool as she swiped her card through the inconspicuous slot to charge what she'd already had to her account.
"Hey! Where're you going?"
She looked down at him, seeing clearly the lack of anything behind his eyes, the absence of anything at all except an instinctive need for gratification.
'Empty shipboard romance' is right; he's so obvious, does he think I can't see it? Or do I just have the look of someone who doesn't care if something is real or not?
Given the utter falseness of everything about her she thought it best not to think too deeply on that question.
"Sorry," She said, and only her long years of using her voice as a tool in the courtroom let her sound even remotely sincere. "I'd love to stay, but I'm feeling a little airsick." She raised one hand quickly to her lips and puffed her cheeks out slightly. The handsome, empty man looked suddenly less anxious to make her acquaintance.
"Ah… that's all right." He managed, turning hastily back to the bar. "Maybe later, when you're feeling better."
She wandered away, annoyed at being driven away from those lovely margaritas but unwilling to deal with a would-be suitor if it could be avoided.
The story of my life, really; following the path of least resistance. The lounge was dim, but it was too likely that he would spot her if she stayed, so she walked towards the entrance to the dance club. It might not seem that way; most people who lack ambition don't make it through law school, much less int
o a well-known firm. But mom more or less pushed me all the way through; she was so determined that I make something of myself. Then she died just a year after graduation… of cancer. She lived to see me get accepted at Barret, McCandless and Stone, but after she was gone I didn't really care anymore. Whatever I accomplished there was because I didn't have anything else in my life that mattered, so I spent more time on my cases than anyone else, plodded along more stolidly than most of the others.
Looking in on the dancers glittering in their fashionable, revealing clothes made her all too aware of how she was dressed. Despite her half-hearted try at youthful rebellion, she was still a woman in her late forties, and her conservative silk blouse and knee-length dress showed that all too clearly; she looked like a teenager dressed up in her mother's office outfit. Besides, she had never been much for dancing, and the high-decibel music shrieking from the speakers was quickly rousing yet another headache. A final glance at the scene within made her hesitate, even as the throbbing in her temples ratcheted up another notch or two. The Athena's builders had apparently spared no expense when it came to outfitting their lavish creation. Some sort of holographic effect, doubtless aided by the eye-tricking lighting within the club, was making one of the women on the dance floor seem to flicker in and out of existence. The dancer was tall without seeming gawky, regal without looking pretentious, and stunningly beautiful in a stylish outfit of the same color scheme as the crew's uniforms; blue, silver and green. She not only seemed to be alone, which was strange enough given how she looked, but she was actually being ignored by everyone within the club, which seemed like the next best thing to impossible. To all appearances untroubled by the crowd's lack of attention, she danced in the center of the room, gracefully moving through the dancing couples who were ignoring her, flirting mischievously with onlookers who seemed determined not to acknowledge her existence… and all the while she shimmered with a faint, pearly aura. When she moved from place to place, her form blurred slightly, trailing strands of soft light, only to fall back into focus when she stood in one spot for more than a moment.
Oh; she must be just a projection or something. Claudia thought, feeling a little dense for not having realized it sooner. That's why they're all ignoring her; they've gotten used to the show.
Though that didn't explain why the woman had paused to stand staring back at where the lawyer stood in the doorway, looking in.
Claudia blinked in confusion, the stabbing pain in her head making her feel slow and stupid.
T-the disc with the recording must be stuck? She thought, shifting in place nervously. That was disproved when the woman's head tilted slightly, her eyes tracking Claudia's movements. With a smile the woman raised one insubstantial hand and beaconed her into the club, something about the expression on her face and the set of her body hinting rather strongly that the offer was for more than just a dance or two.
Shaking her head from side to side so emphatically that it set the blue hair flying, Claudia backed away.
No; none for me, thanks. Don't let the look fool you; I'm older than you think, and I'm an old-fashioned girl… that way.
She got a pout in reply, and then a dazzling smile to show that there was no offense taken. A moment later the woman had turned away, dancing her way through a throng of revelers who paid her no mind whatsoever.
Claudia retreated, feeling more than a little foolish.
That's so embarrassing; either she's connected to some kind of automated feedback program that's intended to get passengers into the club to have a good time, or there's an operator in a little room somewhere who's having a good laugh at me right now.
At any other time she might have been inclined to laugh along, but not now. Not when her head felt like it was about to split in two, and her vision was blurring with pain-induced tears. Stumbling her way through a nearby door, she struggled to navigate her way back to her room.
I think… I need to lie down. Lying down would be good.
That, though, hinged on her managing to make it to her room, and what had been a joke few minutes earlier was now looking a lot like a prophecy—she felt suspiciously close to vomiting right there in the corridor. At the next branching of the passageway, she peered upwards at the sign, hoping for a bathroom, instead she found 'Observation Deck; Portside Forward' looking back at her. After only a moment's hesitation she passed through, waiting a moment for an airtight door to slide aside before moving up the gentle ramp within the dim, narrow passage, hoping she wouldn't meet anyone there. One bit of jostling now and her stomach might empty itself with disastrous consequences.
Luck seemed to be with her for once, however, and when the exterior weather-door slid back with a soft hiss of equalizing pressure, she found the platform empty save for herself. Her exit, though, did trigger a quiet announcement from a concealed speaker.
"Attention, passengers. In order to avoid inclement weather, we are currently operating at an altitude of two thousand, two hundred meters, and a relative airspeed of eighty-three kilometers per hour. While this is well within the tolerance of most passengers, some individuals may experience headaches, shortness of breath, or other difficulty at this altitude. Also, though there is no danger whatsoever, current atmospheric conditions may cause some slight turbulence, and moderate gusts of wind may enter the observation deck. We recommend you return later to enjoy the view, but this does not constitute a passenger-safety command. The crew of the Athena thanks you."
Claudia ignored the automated recommendation and walked out onto the deck as the door hissed shut behind her. If the message had been a passenger safety command, security would be on its way to forcibly remove her to her cabin, where her refusal to obey would have been grounds for her to remain locked in until the airship reached its next port of call. As it was, she had been warned that it wasn't a good time to be out of doors, and if she got sick or rained on it was her own problem. That wasn't something she worried about right now, though.
The space where she stood was perhaps three meters deep and six long, and although it was spacious enough, all of it lay within the volume of the ship except for the area right along the safety barrier. This ensured that passengers were not exposed to the slipstream generated by the craft's passage through the atmosphere, which would otherwise have made conditions on the deck unpleasant, to say the least.
The air outside was chilly, and her ears did feel a little funny with the change from the pressurized interior of the ship, but it wasn't like they were at the altitude where airliners operated. This was low and slow travel; for those who could afford to take three days to travel from New York to Seattle, and pay thirty times what an airline ticket would have cost for the privilege of the slow transit.
It sure isn't worth the price for the company, She thought, leaning gratefully against the slightly inward-sloping barrier that was about sternum-high on her. But this… this is a definite selling point for the whole thing.
Looking out from her position high on the left side of the mammoth, kilometer-and-a-half long airship, a seemingly endless expanse of sky was open before her. They looked to be approaching the northern range of the Rocky Mountains, and the 'Inclement Weather' the recording had mentioned was clearly visible.
The nighttime sky was illuminated with flashes of lightning that flickered within towering clouds in the middle and far distance. As she watched the panorama shifted slowly, the ship presumably altering course to find the best passage through the oncoming weather front. Claudia wasn't worried; since the revival of airships for passenger travel nearly fifteen years before, they had operated with a flawless safety record. Part of that was due to the incredible advances in both materials and engineering science since the disaster of the Hindenburg and other, similar craft nearly a century before. Vastly improved weather science and satellite-aided navigation completed the equation. Athena was easily as safe as any of her ocean-bound cruise-liner cousins, if strictly limited so far as passenger capacity as well as being somewhat more expens
ive to operate.
Claudia knew all that quite well, and so it wasn't fear that moved through her as she stood looking out at the looming, anvil-topped clouds, and listened to the muttering thunder that came through the faint, ever-present thrum of the airship's engines from far aft of where she stood. What she felt, through the pain in her head, and the underlying despair that had been a part of her for so very long, was wonder.
My god; it's so very beautiful.
The Athena cruised forward through a vast canyon of cloud, the ground below visible only as scattered lights that marked human habitation. There was no moon visible tonight, so all the illumination there was came from the brilliant stars burning overhead, mirrored by the points of light from down below, and the continual, strobe-like flickering within the clouds; yellow, orange, green and blue. Suddenly, long kilometers away, a vast bar of lightning leapt from one cloud to another; a brilliant flash of blue-white fire that left Claudia's eyes dazzled for long seconds, until at last the louder rumble of its passage reached her ears.
Idle, intermittent gusts of wind swirled gently around her, despite the carefully-designed shape of the deck itself, whose layout prevented the wind created by the airship's speed from making the observation area uninhabitable. She didn't mind it; the sensation of the air slipping softly past her was uniquely soothing. It had always been a secret pleasure of hers, watching storms approach, feeling the wind grow fresher and the air cool as the clouds surged past, low and brooding overhead.
Only now she was among them, not below them, and not locked within a sealed, sterile can of an airplane. This was intimate, wondrous, peaceful, and she took the deepest breath she could, as if she could take some part of that wonder in with the pure air of the high places….
Of course, it was in that moment that her headache chose to return… with a vengeance.
"Ah--Aaaahhhhh!" White light flashed through her brain, and when it faded enough for her to see again she found herself kneeling, with her forehead pressed against the rubberized traction-matting on the deck below her. There was a keening in her ears that was not from any actual sound; it was as if every part of her nervous system was an antenna, pulling in a million channels of static to crush her unprepared mind. Agony crashed in on her again, all the worse for the momentary respite, and this time she couldn't hold back a helpless, wordless scream of pain as she collapsed to lay on one side.
