After letting me sweat toxins for a while, Turbo said, “I suppose it would satisfy the set’s honor if we were to bring you up to the top of the George Washington Bridge and toss you off—”
“Oh, holy radwaste, Turbo, my molar, my proxy, I really don’t think that’s necessary—”
Turbo held up his hand. “But the ecoharrys might arrest us for dumping shit in the river!”
All the Body Artists had a good laugh at that. I tried to join in, but all that came out was a sound like “ekk-ekk-ekk.”
“On the other hand,” said Turbo, rotating his upraised hand and forearm around a full two-seventy degrees, “if you were to become a Body Artist, then we could let it be known that you were under consideration all along, even when you were making your konky boasts.”
“Oh, Turbo, yeah, yeah, you don’t know how much—”
Turbo shot to his feet then, launching Chuckie into a series of spontaneous cartwheels all the way across the club.
“Jeeter, Hake! You’re in charge of escorting the pledge. Everyone! Back to nets!”
We blew out of Club GaAs like atmosphere out of a split-open o’neill. My head was spinning around like a Polish space station. I was running with the Body Artists! It was something I could hardly believe. Even though I had no hint of where they were taking me; even though they might be setting me up for something that would wipe me out flatter than my eft-balance—I felt totally frictionless. The whole city looked like a place out of a fantasy or stiffener holo to me, Middle Earth or Debbie Does Mars. The air was cool as an AI’s paraneurons on my bare arms.
We headed west, toward the riverside park. After a while I started to lag behind the rest. Without a word, Jeeter and Hake picked me up under my arms and continued running with me.
We entered among the trees and continued down empty paths, under dirty sodium lights. I could smell the Hudson off to my right. A dirty-harry buzzed by overhead but didn’t stop to bother us.
Under a busted light we halted in darkness. Nobody was breathing heavy but me, and I had been carried the last half mile. Hake and Jeeter placed me down on my own feet.
Someone bent down and tugged open a metal hatch with a snapped hasp set into the walk. The Body Artists descended one by one. Nervous as a kid taking his first trope, I went down too, sandwiched between Hake and Jeeter.
Televison City occupied a hundred acres of land which had originally sloped down to the Hudson. The eastern half of TeeVeeCee was built on solid ground; the western half stood on a huge platform elevated above the Conrail maglev trains.
Fifteen rungs down, I was staring up at the underside of TeeVeeCee by the light of a few caged safety bulbs, a rusty constellation of rivets in a flaky steel sky.
The ladder terminated at an I-beam wide as my palm. I stepped gingerly off, but still held onto the ladder. I looked down.
A hundred feet below, a lit-up train shot silently by at a hundred-and-eighty mph.
I started back up the ladder.
“Where to, molar?” asked Hake above me.
“Uh, straight ahead, I guess.”
I stepped back onto the girder, took two wobbly Thumbsucker steps, then carefully lowered myself until I could wrap my arms and legs around the beam.
Hake and Jeeter unpeeled me. Since they had to go single file, they trotted along carrying me like a trussed pig. I kept my eyes closed and prayed.
I felt them stop. Then they were swinging me like a sack. At the extreme of one swing, they let me go.
Hurtling through the musty air, I wondered how long it would take me to hit the ground or a passing train and what it would feel like. I wouldn’ta minded so much being a Boardman just then.
It was only a few feet to the net. When I hit, it shot me up a bit. I oscillated a few times until my recoil was absorbed. Only then did I open my eyes.
The Body Artists were standing or lounging around on the woven mesh of graphite cables with perfect balance. Turbo had this radwaste-eating grin on his handsome face.
“Welcome to the nets, Mister Pledge. You didn’t do so bad. I seen molars who fainted and fell off the ladder when they first come out below. Maybe you’ll make it through tonight after all. C’mon now, follow us.”
The Body Artists set off along the nets. Somehow they managed to coordinate and compensate for all the dozens of different impulses traveling along the mesh so that they knew just how to step and not lose their balance. They rode the wavefronts of each other’s motions like some kinda aerial surfers.
Me? I managed to crawl along, mostly on all fours.
We reached a platform scabbed onto one of the immense pillars that upheld the city. There the Body Artists had their lab, for batching their black meds.
I hadn’t known that Ziggy was the Artists’ watson. But once I saw him moving among the chromo-cookers and amino-linkers like a fish in soup, if you know what I mean, it was clear as hubble that he was the biobrujo responsible for stoking the Artists’ neural fires.
While Ziggy worked I had to watch Turbo and Chuckie making out. I knew they were doing it just to blow grit through my scramjets, so I tried not to let it bother me. Even when Chuckie—Well, never mind exactly what she did, except to say I never realized it was humanly possible to get into that position.
Ziggy finally came over with a cup full of uncut bugjuice.
“Latch onto this, my molar,” he said with crickly craftsmanly pride, “and you’ll know a little more about what it means to call yourself a B-Artist.”
I knew I didn’t want to taste the undiluted juice, so I chugged it as fast as I could. Even the aftertaste nearly made me retch.
Half an hour later, I could feel the change.
I stood up and walked out onto the net. Turbo and the others started yanking it up and down.
I didn’t lose my balance. Even when I went to one foot. Then I did a handstand.
“Okay, molar,” said Turbo sarcastically, “don’t think you’re so trump. All we gave you is heightened ’ception, extero, intero, and proprio. Plus a little myofibril booster and something to damp your fatigue poisons. And it’s all as temporary as a whore’s kisses. So, let’s get down to it.”
Turbo set off back along the nets, and I followed.
“No one else?” I asked.
“No, Dez, just us two good proxies.”
We retraced out way to the surface. Walking along the I-beam under my own power, I felt like king of the world.
Once again we raced through the streets of Televison City. This time I easily kept pace with Turbo. But maybe, I thought, he was letting me, trying to lull me into a false sense of security. I made up my mind to go a little slower in all this—if I could.
At last we stood at the southern border of T-City. Before us reared the tallest building in all of old Nuevo York, what used to be old man Trump’s very HQ, before he was elected president and got sliced and diced like he did. One hundred and fifty stories worth of glass and ferrocrete, full of setbacks, crenellations, and ledges.
“Now we’re going for a little climb,” Turbo said.
“You got to be yanking my rods, molar. It’s too smooth.”
“Nope, it’s not. That’s the good thing about these old postmodern buildings. They got the flash and filigree that make for decent handholds.”
Then he shimmied up a drainpipe that led to the second floor faster than I could follow.
But follow I did, my molars, believe me. I kicked off my shoes and zipped right after him. No disinfo, I was scared, but I was also mad and ecstatic and floating in my own microgravity.
The first fifty stories were frictionless. I kept up with Turbo, matching him hold for hold. When he smiled, I even smiled back.
Little did I know that he was teasing me.
A third of the way up we stopped to rest on a wide ledge. I didn’t look down, since I knew that even with my new perfect balance the sight of where I was would be sure to put grit in my jets.
We peered in through the lighted window behin
d us and saw a cleaning robot busy vacuuming the rugs. We banged on the glass, but couldn’t get it to notice us. Then we started up again.
At the halfway mark Turbo started showing off. While I was slowing down, he seemed to have more energy than ever. In the time I took to ascend one story, he squirreled all around me, making faces, and busting my chops.
“You’re gonna fall now, Dez. I got you up here right where I want you. You ain’t never gonna get to lay a finger on Chuckie, you latch? When you hit, there ain’t gonna be anything left of you bigger’n a molecule.”
And suchlike. I succeeded in ignoring it until he said, “Gee, that Ziggy’s getting kinda forgetful lately. Ain’t been taking his mnemos. I wonder if he remembered to make sure your dose had the right duration? Be a shame if you maxxed out right now.”
“You wouldn’t do that—” I said and instinctively looked over my shoulder to confront Turbo.
He was beneath me, hanging by his toes from a ledge, head directed at the ground.
I saw the ground.
Televison City was all spread out, looking like a one-to-one-hundred-scale model in some holo studio somewhere.
I froze. I heard one of my fingernails crack right in half.
“Whatsamatter, Dez? You lost it yet, or what?”
It was the konky tone of Turbo’s voice that unfroze me. I wasn’t gonna fall and hear his toxic laugh all the long stories down.
“Race you the rest of the way,” I said.
He changed a little then. “No need, proxy, just take it one hold at a time.” So I did.
For seventy-five more stories.
The top of the building boasted a spire surrounded on four sides by a little railed off platform whose total area was ’bout as big as a bathroom carpet.
I climbed unsteadily over the railing and sat down, dangling my legs over the side. I could already feel the changes inside me, so I wasn’t surprised when Turbo said, “It’s worn off for real now, Dez. I wouldn’t try going down the way we came up, if I was you. Anyway, the harrys should be here soon. The stretch for something like this is only a year with good behavior. Look us up when you get out.”
Then he went down, headfirst, waggling his butt at me.
So, like I asked you before.
Now that I ain’t no Dudley Dendrite anymore, how the fuck am I gonna get down?
LITTLE WORKER
Little Worker came awake instantly. Lying curled on the red-and-black-figured carpet before Mister Michael’s bedroom door, she stretched her limbs beneath her plain beige sleeveless shift, then stood on bare feet. Mister Michael, she could sense, was still asleep. Mister Michael deserved to sleep, for Mister Michael worked hard. Little Worker worked hard too, but she never slept late in the mornings, for there was too much to be done. (If Mister Michael stayed put in his office today, Little Worker would nap at his feet.) But in the mornings, Little Worker always awoke before Mister Michael. She always would. It was her way.
Little Worker appeared unwontedly reluctant to leave her nightly station. Something, this morning, did not smell right. She sniffed the air intently, nostrils twitching. The troublesome odor was nothing she could identify. It was new. This was not necessarily bad, but might be. The new smell emanated from behind Mister Michael’s door. It was not a dangerous smell, so Little Worker could not bring herself to knock or otherwise disturb Mister Michael. He would be up and about soon enough, for Mister Michael had a busy schedule. Perhaps then the source of the new smell would be revealed. Perhaps not. In either case, Mister Michael would instruct her about anything she needed to know.
Little Worker tucked strands of her moderate-length, stiff brown hair behind her ears. She brushed the wrinkles out of her shift. They disappeared swiftly from the dull utilitarian fabric. She curried the short fur on her face and licked beneath her arms. Her morning grooming completed, she set out for the kitchen.
First Little Worker had to go down a long hall. The long hall had a veined marble floor, down the center of which ran the red and black carpet with its oriental design. The long hall had large mullioned windows in its stone walls. Some of these windows had panes of stained glass. Through the eastern windows came bright winter sunlight. When it passed through the colored panes, it made lozenges of various hues on the carpet. Little Worker admired these dapples, for they reminded her of dabs of jelly on toast. Little Worker liked jelly on toast. She would have some this morning. She usually had some every morning, except when she took an egg to add glossiness to her coat. Little Worker, with the aid of the food-center, could cook whatever she wanted for herself. This was one of her privileges. Mister Michael himself had said, when first she came to live here, “Little Worker, you may order the food-center to prepare whatever you want for yourself.” This had made her proud. In the Training School, she had had to eat whatever the trainers set out for her. But Mister Michael trusted her.
The next door down the long hall from Mister Michael’s belonged to the bedroom of Mister Michael’s wife. Little Worker lifted her nose as she came abreast of the door, intent on passing without stopping. However, noises from beyond the door made her stop. The noises were thrashings and moanings and grunts. Little Worker suspected what the noises were, but curiosity impelled her to look anyway.
The handle of the door was shaped like a thick curled gold leaf. Above the handle was a security keypad. Below was an old-fashioned keyhole. Little Worker put one big hazel eye to the hole.
It was as Little Worker had suspected. Mister Michael’s naked wife was draped bellydown over a green plush hassock, being covered by her latest andromorph, a scion of the Bull line. Little Worker could smell mixed male and female sweat and a sexual musk.
The sight disturbed Little Worker. Mister Michael’s wife was not the kind of wife he deserved. Little Worker ceased her spying and continued on toward the kitchen.
At the end of the long hall was a curving flight of wide marble stairs. Here the runner ended. The marble was cold beneath Little Worker’s feet. She went down the stairs quickly.
On the ground floor, Little Worker first crossed a broad reception hall along the walls of which were ranged busts on plinths, potted plants, and gold-framed paintings. She passed through a huge salon used for formal affairs, then through Mister Michael’s study, with its big walnut desk and shelves of books and wall-sized plasma screen. Several more chambers intervened before the kitchen, but finally Little Worker reached that chrome and tile room.
Most mornings, as now, the large kitchen was empty. On the mornings of those days when there were to be state dinners, the kitchen was bustling early with hired chefs, who prepared the more complex dishes the food-center could not handle. Little Worker disliked such interruptions of her normal schedule. However, this was not such a morning. The kitchen was empty.
Little Worker advanced to the food-center.
“Food-center, prepare me toast with jelly,” she said.
“There is no more bread,” replied the food-center.
No more bread. Little Worker was disconcerted. She had had her heart set on toast and jelly. What could have happened to the supply of bread? Yesterday there had been plenty.
“What has happened to the bread?” asked Little Worker.
“Last night Mister Michael’s wife fed it all to the Bull andromorph. He ate three loaves. There were only three loaves. Thus there are no more.”
Mister Michael’s wife had fed all of Little Worker’s toast to her Bull. It was the fault of Mister Michael’s wife that there was no toast this morning for Little Worker.
“The bakery delivery occurs at ten o’clock this morning,” offered the food-center helpfully.
“I will be gone with Mister Michael by then. I will not be home at ten o’clock. I must eat something different.” Little Worker paused to reflect. “I will have hot cereal with a spoon of jelly on it.”
“There is no jelly. The Bull ate that also. With peanut butter.”
Little Worker tensed her fingers reflexively. Her m
orning, disturbed already by the new odor coming from Mister Michael’s bedroom, was not getting better. The change in routine upset her. It felt like a morning when chefs came. But no chefs were here.
“I will have an egg then,” said Little Worker.
“There are eggs,” said the food-center.
“There is no jelly for an egg?” hopefully asked Little Worker one last time.
“There is no jelly even for an egg.”
“Then I will have an egg alone.”
Little Worker sat at a table with metal legs and white tile top. When her egg came she ate it, licking the plate to get all the yolk. It would serve to make her fur glossy. But it did not taste as good as jelly.
When she was done, Little Worker ordered the food-center to prepare and serve breakfast for Mister Michael and his wife in the south dining room. Then she walked through halls and storage rooms until she arrived at the south dining room.
Mister Michael was already there, seated at one end of a long polished table, reading a newspaper and sipping coffee.
“Good morning, Mister Michael,” said Little Worker.
“Morning,” said Mister Michael somewhat gruffly.
Little Worker quivered inside. Mister Michael did not seem himself this morning. He worked too hard, thought Little Worker. He had too much on his mind. The state demanded too much of him. He should be better to himself.
Little Worker coiled up at Mister Michael’s feet beside the table, where she could watch everything that happened.
Breakfast was served. Mister Michael’s wife did not arrive on time. Mister Michael began to eat anyway. Only when the fine Canadian ham and scrambled eggs and poached fish were cold did she come through the door.
Mister Michael’s wife was dressed for shopping. She wore an ivory jacket short in front but with long tails that hung to her knees in back, over a pale blue silk blouse and tulip-hemmed ivory skirt. She wore blue metallic stockings and creamy high heels. She smelled heavily of expensive perfume, which failed to conceal entirely from Little Worker’s keen nose the aromas of her recent mating.
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