by M M Buckner
“It’ll revive your life force, beau.” As she rubbbed the Egyptian talisman over my eyebrows, the ambulance lifted off, and I got a close-up view of her jiggling young bosom compressed in spandex.
“You’re right. I feel revived already.”
That day, she had lacquered her hair with midnight blue wax, lined her eyes to look oriental and covered her arms in temporary tattoos. Her contact lenses were yellow. Sheeba went in for strong fashion statements.
“Don’t worry about your ear. The docs can grow you another one.” She opened a small vial and tipped a drop of clear liquid onto my pillow. “Cypress oil. It heals psychic wounds.”
My health church wanted to keep me for seven weeks, but when I agreed to pay the full fees, they let me go after two days. I spent the next month holed up in my condo, mostly dozing in anesthetic haze while my bioNEMs rebuilt my burnt flesh cell by cell. I loathe convalescence. Memories of that time drool together like marbling paints, and the first lucid impression I recall is Sheeba standing in my doorway, a potted hothouse orchid cradled against her hip and a tin of southern-hemisphere chocolates tucked under her arm.
Her complexion may have been chartreuse mat day. She had a penchant for skin dyes—in fact, I’d never seen her natural skin tone. And her hair was a work of art. Waxed pale green to match her face, it was sculpted in a spiky crest, interspersed with something frilly and pink that might have been plastic bird feathers. She also wore contact lenses the color of tangerines. Now imagine her appetizing green body squeezed into a short, white, pearl-studded, faux-leather chemise.
“Showboat,” I said. “Come here and kiss me.”
She rewarded me with her lullaby of laughter, dropped her gifts on the floor—where the orchid pot cracked in two—then galloped across the room to jump on my bed. A bouncing rainbow of rouge and paint, her embrace set off my IBiS, and I bit my left thumb to stop the tingling.
“This is for you,” I said, offering her a box wrapped in fragile pink papyrus. Chad had gotten it through the Net.
“You don’t have to keep buying me things.” Sheeba eagerly tore off the paper and opened the box like a five-year-old kid on her birthday. “Wow!”
“You like it?” The gift was an antique seashell, rough and chalky outside, but inside, as pearly pink and smooth as the inside of Sheeba’s ear.
“I love it, beau.” She cradled the shell in both hands and gazed at it exactly the way I longed for her to gaze at me. Then she planted a wet, smacking kiss on my cheek. “You sweet man.”
‘I’m glad it pleases you,” I said, quietly thrilled. While she played with the shell, I slipped out a small minor and adjusted one dangling curl over my forehead.
“Nass, I have a million things to tell you. Scoot over so I can sit.” Sheeba made herself comfortable on my bed. “Let me see the flecks in your irises.”
For the next hour, she tuned my aura, ran kinesiology tests on my muscles and battened me on gossip, the choicest, most nourishing little slanders about everyone I knew. She made me laugh till my new skin prickled. Sheeba understood my appetites.
“What about the Agonists?” I finally asked. “Have they been surfing? I’m sans loop.”
Shee hopped off my bed and started kicking the pieces of broken flowerpot Her succulent lower lip protruded. “You guys ate always so hush-hush about war stuff.”
I knew what was coming. “Did Kat say something rude?”
“Katherine’s mad at the world.” Sheeba kicked the pot.
“Probably she’s upset because you lurked on our broadcast. It’s supposed to be private.”
Sheeba lifted one shoulder in a half shrug.
“Forget her. You can watch us anytime. I’ll give you the password, the dates, the places.” (Plus my fortune, my life’s blood, my layered soul, anything you ask, Sheeba—though this part I left unsaid.)
“Thanks, beau.” She picked up the naked orchid by its stem. Live plants were outrageously expensive—her gift flattered me and fanned my hopes. But she jiggled its curly roots with a roughness that wasn’t like my gentle darling. “They breed these things to live on pure air,” she said, “or maybe it needs a little mist. Where did I put the user’s guide?”
As she ripped angrily through her bag for the orchid’s documentation, I wondered why she’d become so agitated. Was it because I mentioned war surfing?
My sport wasn’t popular with junior execs. Call it a generational disconnect. Sheeba’s age group had missed the grisly Crash of 20S7. Junior execs had no conception how fast the climate changed or how disastrously the markets collapsed. They’d never witnessed crowds of storm refugees trying to sleep in noxious, waist-high water or clawing each other like animals for one can of sweetened milk. Sheeba’s friends couldn’t imagine how gruesomely people died—or how barbaric the survivors had to become. Kids like Shee grew up safe and secure, and their placid lives never drove them into frenzies of gut-wrenching boredom. So a lot of juniors just didn’t get our need for the salty thrills of the war zone.
But Sheeba was different. I didn’t see that at first. I assumed she disliked my sport as much as her friends did. So that night, I steered the discussion away from war surfing. While she gave me a deep-tissue massage that verged on sensual nirvana, I told wicked jokes about Kat that made her laugh till tears rolled down her cheeks. Then I coaxed her into helping me with my stretches. Sitting face-to-face with Shee in her workout shorts transformed the dull therapy routine into an act of libidinous pleasure. I drew the session out, asking for special guidance with the yoga moves and savoring the feel of her hands on my newly cloned skin.
As soon as she left, though, I linked into the Agonist Web site and browsed the latest video. Our crew had logged several fairly interesting surfs, and watching their archives made me antsy to get back in the action. I scanned their blogs all night.
Chad, my cyberassistant, called every few hours to go through my mail, doctors’ appointments and day trades. When I missed board meetings, Chad voted my proxy. He was also remodeling several floors of my eighty-story condo, and he kept flashing me color swatches. Avocado, lime, mint green—Chad blissed on the cutting edge of style.
“Stick with white. It goes with anything,” I said, which made Chad heave a quantum sigh.
One by one, the Agonists dropped in to see me. Verinne came first. Two meters tall, slender and cool, she stalked into my room like a frigid fashion model. Her pewter-colored hair lay flat to her skull like a pelt, and she’d plucked her widow’s peak into a sharp point, dividing her high forehead into two pale half-moons. Her narrow gray eyes canted upward at a slight angle, hinting Siberian lineage. She glanced at me briefly and dabbed her lips with gloss.
Her voice crackled. “You look better man I expected, Nasir.” Then she planted a dry kiss on my cheek.
Verinne’s ghoulish beauty had once bewitched me. But now, her dead-white skin wrinkled like fine crepe. After exhausting cosmetic creams and surgeries, Verinne resorted to high collars and long sleeves. She suffered from Sjogren’s Syndrome, a disease of desiccation mat not even bioNEMs could heal. Her skin, eyes, mouth, even her internal organs were literally drying up.
Once you love a woman, you never stop caring. That’s my belief. Verinne wasn’t beautiful anymore, but she’d always been a true friend. Solid. No nonsense. The sound of her failing voice tore at my heart.
“Do me a favor, Verinne.” I kicked restlessly at my bed covers. “Convince me why any sane person would choose to live this long.”
She coughed into her fist. “No time for chitchat. I need your condo password. The crew wants to meet tonight”
“You’re planning a surf?”
“I have to hurry. Watch the Web site. You’ll see.” Verinne was not the type to discuss personal issues.
Grunze visited the next morning. He brought me a gift, an ePage calendar he and some of his weight-lifter pals had self-published, with pictures of themselves in various brawny poses. Grunze was February. His pale blue spandex jump
suit displayed every swell of his physique, knotted and overdeveloped to the point of grim vulgarity. All execs doped their genes to improve muscle mass, but Grunze went radical. A few decades ago, the docs diagnosed him with sarcopenia—age-related muscle weakness. Since then, he’d fixated on bodybuilding.
Grunzie’s fondness for me sometimes came out in awkward ways. Attached to the calendar was a schmaltzy gift card, and while I read the poem inside, he paced and blushed and rubbed his boulder head. He’d eliminated the problem of hair by surgically cauterizing his follicles.
“Grunze, why do we keep doing this?” I was in a pensive mood. The tedium of convalescence gave me black thoughts. “Why do we keep putting our bodies through this recuperative torture?”
He grinned uncertainly and shook my foot with rough affection. When we first met, his blue eyes had been round and bright, but now they looked like raisins, lost in the heavy musculature of his face. “How’s the new ear?’ he said. “Should’ve grown yourself a new prick while you were at it.”
I pounded the mattress. “I’m sick of getting well. Why don’t we just say, ‘Enough!’”
“You first, sweetheart.” He blew me a kiss.
Later that afternoon, Winston brought a sultry brunette and a hamper of champagne, though two of the four bottles were already empty and the brunette fell asleep across my feet. Good old Win, what an elegant man. His mane of auburn hair made him look like a statesman, or an actor, or perhaps a celebrity spokesman for life insurance. Noble chin, azure eyes, chiseled patrician nose. The features of his memory were a little less clear-cut.
“Why are you in this stupido bed, Nass? We’re having maximal fun war surfs. Kat’s talking about Heaven again. You’re missing everything.”
“Win, I had a little accident, remember?”
“Oh, that’s right. Yeah, I think I remember that.”
“Who’s talking about Heaven? That’s a suicide zone,” I said.
“Well you know, Kat always wanted to do it. Why shouldn’t we? Just because it’s in outer space. How hard can that be?”
“Polar orbit, Win. Not outer space. But it’s totally off limits.”
“Right. Yeah. But that’s, like…But I bought this sleek new space suit”
Katherine the Grand presented herself a few days later. How had I endured living with Kat for so many years? Maybe because we were both short? Even with her empress heels and tall hairstyles, she never overtopped me. Yet despite her lofty hair weaves and numerous face-lifts, to me Kat still looked like an angry fox with large teeth. Strangers often remarked on her blushing beauty, but friends knew the cause of her blooming complexion: intractable high blood pressure. She’d already gone through four self-cloned hearts. Still, Kat had her charms.
“Katherine, do you remember how we used to wake up early and watch the dawn?”
“What are the servants feeding you, Nass? You look abysmal.” She yanked the fork from my hand and started chopping the blueberry waffles on my tray table. “Don’t tell me you eat this dreck. I’d rather starve.”
“You have to quit picking on Sheeba,” I said.
“That girl is laughing at you. She despises all of us.” Kat dropped the fork in my ice cream. “She thinks we’re dirty-minded old stiffs.”
Jealousy. Poor Kat’s irrational jealousy blinded her to Sheeba’s goodness. I didn’t respond to her ravings. “What’s this nonsense about surfing Heaven? You know it’s impossible.”
“Don’t be a total Fred. All we need is the right gear and—”
“Over my martyred body, Kat. The idea’s loco. No sane person would even think of surfing Heaven.”
Kat fanned her red cheeks. “You’re such a weenie.”
“And you’re such a birdbrain.”
“Candy pants.”
“Nudnik.”
She threw a waffle at me, and I spritzed her with syrup. Food fights were our favorite style of communication.
Sheeba visited most often. She played healing music disks, aligned my chakras, piqued my pressure points and fed me wonderful chocolate bars smuggled in from the southern pole. I didn’t bring up war surfing, and neither did she—not until the last night before my so-called “surprise” party.
That evening, I’d bought her a new set of aromatic massage oils, and she stayed longer than usual trying each one to see how they affected our moods. I’d forgotten a war surf was scheduled. Chad had set my screen on auto. The Agonists planned to buzz a zone in the Manhattan Protectorate where a few thousand ship builders were striking, and the employer, Trandent.Com, had brought in heavy energy guns. That night represented a rare treat, a war zone on Earth’s surface.
Not many worksites remained on Earth’s surface anymore. I don’t have to tell you how our planet’s fierce heat and pollution have driven most of humanity underground. But Trandent.Com’s shipyard operated under a sealed dome on the Atlantic seawall, which made for unique conditions. If those big e-guns blew out the dome, then everyone inside would be exposed to Earth’s malevolent atmosphere. For the Agonists, that meant wearing full hermetic surface suits. Glossy black Kevlax, tailor-made and bristling with gadgets. Molto sexy.
When Chad pinged me a reminder and the virtual screen automatically rastered at the foot of my bed, it caught me off guard.
“Do you have a show coming on?” Sheeba bounded onto my bed, giggling. “I hope it’s an old movie. Wanna snuggle and watch together?”
“Snuggle? Yes.” I breathed heavily. I moved toward the bed, ignoring the screen. Sheeba sat lotus style on top of the covers, hugging a pillow to her belly. With solemn restraint, I stretched out beside her and tested my hand on her bare knee. Her workout shorts were wrinkled and sweaty. They smelled ambrosial. My breath caught in my throat
Don’t let me lead you astray. Sheeba and I were not lovers, but every day I continued to hope. As the screen image sharpened, she wiggled her hips to make a nest among my pillows, and my face flushed with heat I sidled closer and rested my head against her hipbone. The angle felt awkward and voluptuous. We watched the Agonists suit up.
Grunze and Kat were coating their faces with wild streaks of camo paint—a ludicrous conceit since they’d be wearing full helmet visors.
“What is this show, Nass? A comedy?”
“It’s—” I eased my hand around her thigh and braced for rejection. “My friends are surfing a war tonight.”
Sheeba had been stuffing pillows behind her rump, but my words arrested her.
“Flip the channel,” I said. “You don’t like violence.”
“No, I want to see,” she said.
I fingered her warm inner thigh, smoother than natural silk. It seemed almost sacrilegious to touch that pure, swelling firmness. I buried my nose against her clothing and breathed nectar.
Meanwhile, she opened sidebars to browse everyone’s point-of-view video. She made a little gasp when the Agonists came under fire, and I glanced at the screen irritably. Reconnaissance mini-bots swarmed among the shipyard derricks, and plumes of smoke rose from the wrecked barricades. Spotlights glared like false suns. For an instant I imagined being mere. The intensity. The gunfire. The teleconference banter. All these weeks, I hadn’t even placed a bet
“Are they in danger?” Shee asked.
“Not really.” I watched my friends with one eye while my inflamed fingertips searched the delicate pocket behind Sheeba’s knee.
Surfers use a danger scale of One to Ten, and as zones go, the Trandent.Com shipyard would rank Class Six. Lots of booming thermal blasts. I nuzzled higher against Sheeba’s torso, till my eyelid fluttered against her spandex-covered breast. I struggled not to groan.
On screen, Verinne’s camera went in for the usual Reel close-ups in purple-and-gold metavision, bodies scattered in skewed positions, mostly male, not always intact. If Sheeba hadn’t been there, I would have turned that part off. Instead, I rolled sideways and burrowed under her armpit, nibbling her hollowed flesh.
“Silly beau, that tickles.” She
pushed me away and continued watching with serious attention. The Reel seemed to magnetize her. When she glanced at me, three tiny furrows creased her perfect eyebrows.
Even with the audio muted, we could hear Kat cursing. Her royal grandness had just noticed a rip in her surface suit, and she wanted to quit playing. Verinne and Grunze got into an argument then, and Winston tried in his oblivious way to mediate. Kat walked off the game field in disgust. Then we saw the whole crew exit the dome through an airlock and climb into Verinne’s van, where Winston immediately uncorked the vodka. What a lame surf.
I killed the virtual screen and scowled. That zone had so much potential. Our crew could have played it for hours. Why did they pick tonight to go limp—just when Sheeba was watching? I eased toward her to snuggle again, but she moved away, bunching her luscious lips in a frown. I expected her to ask the usual newbie questions about gear and transportation, maybe risk factors.
Finally, she blurted, “Doesn’t it whiplash your mind?’
“Whiplash?”
She hugged her knees to her chest and pointed at the foot of the bed as if the screen were still there. “I mean, one minute you’re skipping through this gruesome battle where people are fighting for their lives. The next, you’re safe and cozy, drinking beverages. It’s gotta gnarl your psyche.”
I held back the smart remark. Sheeba often spouted nonsense, and I’d learned not to argue. My fingers traced the elegant hard curve of her anklebone.
“Sometimes I feel so—dumb,” she said, “I’ve never talked to an employee in my life. Why do they start these wars? They have guaranteed homes and incomes, right?”
As she pleated a crease in my blanket, I watched her hands move. Large soft knuckles, sparkling rings. If she’d been a little more mature and logical, I might have explained the numbers behind these employee rebellions. Twelve billion people on the planet, 2 percent annual population growth, 4 percent annual resource deficit. We senior execs did our level best to keep everyone employed. After the Crash, we rebuilt the economy brick by virtual brick, and we swore in blood never to let it fail again, but…
