The worker led me through the black box and outside. In the sunlight on rue Gagous, I opened the envelope to find a ticket to the night’s performance.
Folded around it a typed note read:
Thank you for your interest in this position. After careful consideration, we have determined that your qualifications do not match our needs.
—The Great Gajah-mada.
The room recalled an old-fashioned cabaret: deep red curtains, elaborate wooden chairs around tables with red velvet tablecloths, a wall of expensive bottles backlit in soft light behind a polished mahogany bar. The waitresses wore silver-lined flapper dresses cut unevenly to the knee, suggestive (incorrectly) that there might be paid ladies waiting upstairs.
This was not a theater but rather a cabaret where audience participation was encouraged. Fried calamari and skewered beef were served. For a thousand francs, giant aphids would solicit patrons to lick a honey-like paste from their posteriors.
I had hoped for a room full of morose applicants. Instead, the patrons squealed when someone tried the aphids, or a fried scorpion or any of a dozen bug-themed delicacies. They giggled with anticipation.
It can’t be that good.
Most wore the silk shirts and European-cut dresses de rigueur for the nouveau riche. The tourists, dressed in wrinkled casual dress, pointed and gossiped in eager bunches. Two or three white-haired ladies flirted shamelessly. Most were native African.
Only one person appeared out of place, a chocolate-skinned lout at the bar carefully enunciating compliments at each waitress who passed. He spoke far too loudly.
I raised my hand for another gin and tonic.
Isabella, now in a topaz sheath dress, appeared from the wings. She sparkled. I couldn’t decide if I were angry or infatuated with her. Her rejection was nothing personal, of course—my failing. The fear-wall defeated me.
She shook hands and greeted acquaintances. Jealousy flashed through me each time she kissed a man’s cheek. I caught her eyes. She waved discreetly.
I set both feet flat on the floor. My knees bounced. I hoped she would make it to my side of the room . . .
The lights dimmed. Cello music murmured.
And then a scream cut across the audience. The lout at the bar had pulled a waitress onto his lap. Her legs flailed above her head, bright red panties flashing in the strobes. I stood, knocking my chair over backwards, and began clawing between the tables to free her when the woman’s chest collapsed beneath his hand. Her head slumped forward, melting like chocolate in a microwave. The drinks she carried on a tray clattered to the ground as she dissolved into a gigantic swarm of bugs which flew, crawled and scuttled backstage.
The lout fell back in shock, bellowing like a wounded bear. Bouncers dragged his limp form out. I had nearly the same reaction, reaching the scene with a look of abject astonishment. Other souvenir hunters had arrived before me. I reached down and snatched the only remaining article of clothing—her bright red, lacy panties. A spotlight found my dumbfounded expression, eyes glued to this undergarment, and I became the laughingstock of the room. My ears warmed.
The performance began. Uncountable cockroaches poured down the center stage and began building a living city, a replica of Abidjan. A waitress helped me regain my seat. My eyes took in the performance, and yet my mind cycled.
The waitress—a construct.
Impossible. How could she hold together?
The man in the café outside: I have seen his best work. Many times.
What artistry. What mastery!
I searched the room. Isabella had departed. Still, I felt her presence, her watchfulness, as though our sharing of the circlet hadn’t quite ended.
There was no question. I would return.
It took four days for me to find the makeup, wig and materials I needed to perform my “bearded Dutchman” routine. Insect sculptors love practical jokes, and I had learned a thing or two over the years. I glued cuttings of donkey hair to the wings of my termites, a decent facsimile for salt-and-pepper hair. I painted my insectarium blue and bought a loud red leather jacket to attract the eye. I practiced.
Each day at three, I waited at the outdoor café. The applicants arrived universally on time. In the evenings, I walked the quay on the beautiful Baie du Banco, marveling at the orange sunset rippling on the water. I inhaled the sea breeze, the smell of charcoal fires, the freedom of the moment.
On the fifth day, I knocked on the performer’s entrance at ten minutes to three. A worker opened the door.
“I have an interview with Isabella Mada.”
He looked at his watch, nodded and led me through the black box and scene shop. Isabella’s door stood open. She turned to greet us.
I held out my hand. “Hello. I’m Frank van Straalen. I have a three PM appointment. I apologize if I’m early.”
She tried to glance at a list on her desk, but I held firmly to her hand. “You said your name was . . . ?”
“Van Straalen. I flew in from Denmark this morning. No problems, I hope. It was a horrible flight. The child next to me barfed from all the turbulence. I had to buy a new shirt on the way over. And my termites didn’t like it either.” I patted my insectarium. “Well, let’s get started?”
I dropped the case on the desk—covering her list of candidates. “You’ll want to see a demonstration. A lifting of the mask, so to speak.” I judged my cover nearly blown. And so, at my mental command, the termites comprising my sideburns, mustache and beard climbed to the top of my head. There, they formed a green man, obese from donkey hair.
I smiled my best Humphrey Bogart.
“The eyes.” She tilted her head. “I should have recognized the eyes.”
I returned the termites to their home, removed the wig and held it in both hands, projecting humility. “Well?”
“You have a long way to go, Adam. A long way.” She smiled.
“Good. That is why I came to the Hive. But I have another thing to tell you. I intend to do more than just apprentice. I intend to court you.”
Isabella introduced me to the cast: eight dancers, three insect sculptors and nineteen crew. Many more worked in Gajah-mada’s laboratory across town, providing genetic engineering and breeding facilities for the Hive and supplying GM bugs all over the world.
Hans Wasserman, the chief sculptor, clapped his hands. He stood six four, an imposing Afrikaner with crew cut and square jaw. He wore black sweats and a white polo shirt. “Good. He can start with me this afternoon. I could use the help.”
“Adam will not be working on the show. He is not qualified.”
Wasserman’s slack jaw reflected my bewilderment, if not my embarrassment. “Then what is he doing here?”
“Learning.” Isabella turned heels and strode away. I hurried after.
“I wish you hadn’t done that.”
“You needed it. And Wasserman did as well. Now he won’t be bothering you all the time.”
We descended the stairs into a large basement atelier broken up by hydraulic lifts and machinery, metal trees rising to the stage above. Pallets of honeycomb containers stood ready to lift insectariums into the stage’s wings. Workers vacuumed up fallen performers. Laboratory technicians in white smock coats and hairnets hustled to and from the incubator wing.
Everything smelled of insects which, when dead and dry, smell like the interior of a vacuum bag, but when active smell of pumpkin bread. This room held something of both.
“I still intend to court you,” I warned.
“And I will play hard to get.”
She led me to a short overweight man in blue overalls and a white T-shirt. He looked vaguely familiar. His overalls sported a badge. Dieudonné, chief mechanic.
“You will be working together until Dieudonné decides otherwise,” Isabella said. “You must learn to mesh insects with robotics until the beginni
ng and end cannot be perceived.”
I bowed slightly. “Adam Clements, enchanté.”
Dieudonné frowned. “Monsieur. I believe you have something that belongs to Eve.” He gestured to the manikin he had been polishing with a white cloth, a buxom woman of semicircular aluminum tubes. Louvers created the outline of a pretty face.
I circled it, noting tiny hinges at the joints, smelling machine oil on its hinges.
Dieudonné removed a touch-screen device from his breast pocket and tapped with his fingertips. The robot drop-folded onto the floor, taking up no more than a foot square by six inches tall. Wheels emerged and it scooted away.
After a second of incomprehension, I burst out laughing. This hollow frame was the “waitress” from the show! I stuck out my hand, which startled him, but he shook it. “I’m sorry, but I left the red panties in my hotel.”
“She loses one an evening. Such a slut!”
And then I recognized him—the lout from the cabaret. I took an instant liking to him.
“Good. Adam knows nothing of your art. See that he learns.” Isabella winked at me. “Good luck.”
Dieudonné’s eyes followed her swaying departure. “If only I could create such perfection.”
I, too, watched. “Is she single?”
At this Dieudonné lifted his gold necklace. The chain supported a fig beetle with green metallic wings encased in plastic. Looking closely, I saw that it had one solid wing. Useless. Fused with genetic engineering. I noted the shape, the ridge . . .
A fingernail.
“Did you get one of these?” Dieudonné asked.
I ran my tongue around my teeth. “No.”
“Well, play your cards right. She has nine more.”
His brown eyes did not mock me. “She has false fingernails?”
“She is a construct, as sure as the sun rises.”
“I can’t believe it. Impossible.”
He placed a thick hand on my shoulder, as if I had joined some sort of club. “We all love her. But take my advice, my friend. Do not believe she loves you in return. She is incapable of love.”
A shell of genetically engineered bugs, with proper studio lighting and theatrical diversion, could mimic a waitress. But it wouldn’t fool people for long. Isabella was too perfect, from her teeth and gums down to the Achilles tendon that stretched against her high heels as she walked. No one could maintain that kind of control over the insects without descending irretrievably into rapture.
And yet . . .
And yet I half believed him. Her sense of humor could be borrowed. Her intelligence might be Gajah-mada’s intelligence. Her lilac presence inside the circlet had meshed so intimately with the insects.
Was she Gajah-mada’s greatest creation?
My jumbled emotions made progress difficult. The fear-wall blocked it entirely.
I learned other things, however. The Great Gajah-mada lived in an apartment above the theater. Few performers had ever seen him.
The show was faltering, but not from lack of popularity. Indeed, they sold out months in advance. The problem lay in Gajah-mada’s wavering control. Rumors abounded that he had finally succumbed to rapture. Or Alzheimer’s. Or both.
Wasserman tried to take up the slack, but the locusts escaped his control. Twice. Dinner was spoiled, tickets refunded.
The cast resented me. They refused to eat with le Canadien, as they called me. I burdened Dieudonné. I didn’t pull my weight.
They were right.
Every time I coordinated Eve’s termite shell beyond a couple of steps, the insects emitted floral-like pheromones more attractive to my cerebral peduncle than opium. The aroma bypassed logic, appealing directly to desire. They wanted me to meld. The nearer I approached, the more difficult the invitation became to resist.
The roar crescendoed until I could not think. Like a man plagued by vertigo, I dared not descend the stairway.
We managed to make Eve walk and talk, even carry drinks. But the termites sat on her with all the aplomb of flies on dung.
“It is time to present Eve to Isabella,” Dieudonné told me. “The season is half over.”
“I’m not ready.”
He shrugged. “You have stopped making progress.”
After a minute, I nodded.
She came with Wasserman, he showing the fatigue of the season, sunken eyes, slack shoulders and limp spine, she looking so hopeful it broke my heart.
We did our best. A “naked” Eve cantered around Isabella and Wasserman, grinning, spinning and finally collapsing into a square and rolling away as the termites fled to their insectarium.
A mud-man would have looked more alluring. I lost control from the start. The termites clung together in lumps. Bare aluminum flashed. Some termites took refuge inside the metal frame and got caught in the moving parts, their extinctions jolting my consciousness like an electric shock. I nearly loosed my bowels as Eve collapsed down, squashing hundreds.
I would have done anything to avoid the inverted smile on Isabella’s visage. I picked lint from my trousers, waiting for somebody to fire me.
Wasserman cleared his throat. “He needs your help, Isabella.” His head sat jauntily on his neck. A grin pulled his face upwards.
He doesn’t want Isabella to hire anyone else. He sees in me a rival to set up to fail.
My stomach knotted.
Isabella rubbed her right triceps with her left hand, her arm crossed under her breasts. Her cheery blue jean jacket bunched at the shoulder. “There’s not enough time.”
Dieudonné was shaking his head.
“You’ve spent so much on him already,” Wasserman insisted. “He knows how to coordinate with the robot. He lacks finesse, true. But you can teach him the finer points . . . or no one can.”
My cheeks tightened. Never had Wasserman’s six-foot-four seemed so intimidating . . . and so in need of a wallop.
Dieudonné stepped between us. “This is deeper than coordination, and you know it, Wasserman. He can’t get past his fear.”
“I should have listened to my instinct,” Isabella muttered, as if unaware everyone could hear.
I stepped around Dieudonné. “I can do it, Isabella. If I don’t succeed in five weeks, fire me.”
Wasserman laughed.
“Take my money, my life savings. Here. It will cash in a Canadian bank.” I pulled my wallet from my back pocket. I always carry one blank check there, and I wrote it out to the Hive for $28,300 dollars, all the money I had in the world. If I lost this, I would own a credit card, a plane ticket home and nothing else. I handed it to Isabella. “If I don’t break through the wall in five weeks, my savings are yours.”
Dieudonné stared into headlights, eyes flipping from me to Isabella.
Isabella folded the check and slipped it into her jeans. “Let’s get started.”
We made for the stairs.
Wasserman chuckled behind our backs.
A maze of four-inch-diameter, white plastic PVC pipe sprawled over Isabella’s desktop. Every few inches a T-joint covered in plastic wrap faced skyward. This provided light for the bee inside. There was one entry, one exit and many dead ends.
A new hole had been drilled in the side of one of the PVC sections from which a black electrical cord led to the wall.
I tried to smile. “A bug light?”
“I’m not joking. I had Dieudonné fit it into the pipe.”
“I didn’t suppose you were.” Four weeks had passed, time for desperate measures. My eyes roamed from the pipe to Isabella, attracted and repulsed at the same time. I adored her Ivory Coast accent and shiny black skin. Her braided hair and slinky legs. Her personality. Her confidence.
Whose confidence? The Great Gajah-mada’s?
A Mary Shelley creation or a woman?
Under normal circumstances,
being asked to work with a single bee would have been an insult. But not here. I could not see the bee. I had to guide it through the maze by using its own senses. No cheating. No going halfway.
The fear-wall rumbled.
Isabella reached out. “If you walk the bee into the bug light, it will be electrocuted. That won’t be pleasant—for either of you.”
“I know.” My throat dried. If this bee dies with me sharing its consciousness, I could go insane. My heart could stop.
“Adam, I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors about the Great Gajah-mada. They are true, in essence. I fear he won’t live much longer. Wasserman is good, but he can’t hold the show together without help. If you don’t succeed, I must begin training someone else immediately.”
“I know, I know. Thanks for putting me at ease.”
“Just remember, this is your twenty-eight-thousand, three-hundred-dollar try.” She took a deep breath. “Let’s make sure this bee doesn’t die, shall we?”
My fingers trembled. If Isabella is a construct, what will happen when Gajah-mada dies? Will she dissolve like the wicked witch? If Wasserman takes over, will she acquire his personality?
I couldn’t bear that. “I’ll do this alone.”
I plugged the circlet into the socket behind my ear, finding the bee in a dead end, confused by footprint pheromones left by previous bees.
We walked blind, careening off the walls as if in a stupor. I brought my consciousness-mist as close as I dared to the single pulsating gel cap that represented the bee’s mind. In the distance a white disk beckoned—the bee’s view of the world.
I dared not access it.
The urge to fly grew harder and harder to resist. What a glorious feeling, to fly. But that would only speed my demise. The legs moved, the abdomen rocked against the thorax.
“Describe what you see.” Isabella’s voice came from far away.
“A circle of light above my head.” I lied. I saw nothing.
“What is written on the pipe?”
My palms dampened. The fear-wall thundered like a train. Now or never. I gulped a breath and wrapped my mist around the gel cap. The world turned white. I thought I had gone blind until I realized that I saw the PVC pipe from the inside.
Writers of the Future, Volume 28 Page 45
