“Now,” said The Tax Man, inserting the other end of the cable into his own hedometer, “let’s see what we have here.”
The Tax Man reclined on the state-funded couch, and waited for Gemini’s memory dump to begin. He stared at his wristwatch, which displayed a progress bar. “100%” it flashed eventually.
He tapped the “Marriage” menu, the “Highlights” sub-menu, and let the program run. “Memories sorted in hedon-descending order,” his watch flashed, “playing in 3 … 2 … 1 …”
*
Suddenly, The Tax Man was lying in the dark. But he wasn’t … him, anymore. He was Gemini. Despite the darkness, somehow he knew where he was. He was on the district heap, the plastic sweaty beneath his palms. Little starlight penetrated the smog blanketing the ghetto, but Cyan’s breasts were bone-white beneath him. He placed one nipple between his lips, then the other, while she giggled.
“What would Master Dzogo say?” Cyan mocked.
“Master Dzogo,” Gemini said as his tongue travelled down her stomach, “would eat you up.”
Laughter erupted from Cyan’s mouth.
“Shhh.”But Gemini was laughing too. “Do you think Master Dzogo would do … this?”
Cyan stuffed her fist into her mouth to hush the guffaws that racked her trembling ribs.
“Or what about … thiiiis?”
*
The dank stench of the heap was replaced by the ammonia-white tiles of a butchery. He, no Gemini, was scrubbing his hands. But he felt the blood in the creases between his knuckles, under his nails. He scrubbed.
Mr. Epstein had gone home already, and left Gemini to clean and lock up the shop. He knew it was a large responsibility, especially for his age. His father said that few sixteen year-olds in the ghetto were lucky enough to find a job.
Gemini thought of his father as he locked the polycarbonate doors to the front of the shop. The aging man wasn’t feeling well this morning when Gemini had left. A trembling in the old man’s hands.
Gemini jumped at the touch on his shoulder.
“’Scuse me,” a girl’s voice said.
Pale, pale skin with hair blacker than soot.
“Uh … yes?” Gemini swallowed.
“My mother sent me to buy meat. Are you closed already?”
Her voice sat on the sunset, just right. Gemini’s breath caught.
“Cyan,” the girl said, extending a hand. It was cool against his. When he shook it, his hand felt clean.
*
Now he was standing on the sandy ground, watching the start of a fire. The logs of the pyre were green and thin, requiring the Wall for support. Would they burn? Gemini wondered, as the priest said the final rites for his father.
“We release this man’s soul to the pure world,” the priest intoned, “where he may be free from suffering.”
Tears stung Gemini’s eyes as the acrid smoke ate into his corneas. The taste of burning hair was astonishingly painful.
A hand squeezed his. Held onto him, and squeezed tighter still. Until the rivulets and then streams of grief poured from his heart, and the stench of hair was lost on the north wind. Cyan held him until the pyre had burned through.
*
“We won!” she yelled, skipping and hopping into the butchery.
Gemini looked up from Mrs. Goldstein across the counter. “Won what?” he asked.
Cyan beamed, took Mrs. Goldstein’s hands in hers, and swirled the old woman around the room gently. “We won,” Cyan said, laughing and crying.
“Won what, dear?” the old woman asked, enjoying the dance.
Cyan hopped over the counter, landed in Gemini’s arms.
“We won the lottery.” She held up the ticket, gold and red, and scratched clean. “We won.” And she kissed him right there, in front of the world, in front of Mrs. Goldstein. The old woman nodded, smiling, her foot tapping to some silent beat.
*
“It happened,” said Cyan, closing the bathroom door behind her. Her hair was mussed with sweat. Her shoulders sagged with the weight of it.
“It’s only been three weeks,” Gemini said, placing a hand on hers.
“Yes,” she said mournfully, “three weeks.”
Cyan’s hand was still, dead beneath his.
*
His cock chafed against her. It never used to. He’d never had to use the oil before. But now he applied it repeatedly, every few minutes. And it hurt … but it felt good too. A delicious friction drawing him closer and her further.
*
Cyan turned on her side, let her hair fall across her eyes, as he pushed his way into her. Gemini tried to think of something else, to be somewhere else. It hurt. And if he wasn’t a coward, he would have moved her hair aside, and seen the tears falling from her eyes.
*
The walk home from the Cartoon Bureau was long, but not long enough. The first week they’d lived outside the ghetto, he would stride back to the apartment. Run the last hundred yards. Take the steps of the spiral staircase in threes. But now the walk home took an eternity, because an eternity waited for him in the apartment. She lay on the sweat-soaked mattress, skin pasty, legs parted, eyes swollen and vacant. The oil waited on the bedside.
*
The Tax Man’s wristwatch beeped to indicate the end of the memory dump. He opened his eyes, and regarded the lonely cartoonist. Gemini’s downturned face was gray in the cold light of an LED lamp.
When The Tax Man blinked, the memory of Cyan’s moonlit breasts flashed behind his eyelids. He could taste the nipples, warm and pink.
His voice formed on his lips, but it felt different somehow. Hollow. As if there were an echo inside him. “Where is your wife, Citizen Rustikov?”
The apple tart was hot and tangy on her navel, as Anand’s tongue brushed the wet crumbs away. Cyan glanced at her chronometer. “20:32”, it flashed at her accusingly.
“Oh fuck Kwan-Yin!”
Gemini. She hadn’t thought about him all night. Not since she’d found Anand’s gaze at the market. Not while she and Anand had eaten and fucked and eaten and fucked. Not while Anand had kissed her eyes. She should feel guilty, she knew. More than that, she should feel terrified. How would she explain her absence?
“I must go,” Cyan said gently.
The Embryology Bureau did regular checkups on lottery winners. Her marriage was already in tatters. After this, how could she and Gemini pass the satisfaction spot-checks. One couldn’t hide much from a marriage counselor. They’d send her back to the ghetto. Or worse.
“I must go home,” she repeated. The apartment suddenly felt tiny. A moment ago, it was big enough to hold the world.
Anand was lying on her chest, inhaling her. He lifted his head, mussed hair falling across his eye. He kissed her slowly.
“Let’s go,” he said.
Minutes later, they were speeding toward Gemini’s apartment on the back of Anand’s bike. The north wind whipped at Cyan’s skirt as she clung to his leather jacket. The rush of air in her ears drowned out her terror and excitement. Her world may very well be over. Her life. She licked his skin. The taste of vanilla on Anand’s neck, cumin still lingering in his hair, was worth it. Whatever was to come.
“Stop here,” she shouted as they neared the market. “I’ll walk the rest of the way.”
Anand removed his biker helmet, and his shirt lifted enough to show a sliver of golden skin along his waist. Cyan willed her eyes not to linger.
Anand’s brow creased. “When will I see you again?”
“Again?” Cyan asked. Tonight was the end of the world. She couldn’t imagine it continuing long enough to see him again.
The furrow in Anand’s brow deepened. He looked away from her, in the direction of the ghetto Wall. “I see,” he said. His cheeks set sharply.
Something had happened, Cyan knew. Something had broken. But she didn’t know what, and she didn’t know how to put it right.
Cyan watched as Anand shoved his helmet onto his head, mounted the
bike, and was gone. He didn’t look back.
Her plastic sneakers protested as she walked the two blocks to Gemini’s apartment. There was a nail or something metallic in the left shoe that tapped against the tar with every step. Tap … tap … tap. The streets were empty – curfew was at 9pm – and the tapping of her shoe was deafening. One after another, lights were snapping out of existence in the apartment blocks, tiny universes winking out. But a few remained lit. Pale faces loomed from the dark windows, watching her.
She increased her pace, eyes glued to the pavement. She’d say she’d lost track of time in the market. But the market was closed – long ago. But Gemini didn’t know that – he’d never been shopping. Her heart stopped – she’d left all the shopping at Anand’s. She didn’t have even one packet of food to show for her endless excursion. Mugged, that’s right. She was mugged. But there’d be an inquiry. The Brownies would want to read her memory. She could refuse – she could try. But that would look suspicious.
A hundred yards from the apartment, she glanced up at the third floor. There, two windows from the end, was Gemini’s. The light was on, and there was Gemini’s silhouette, pacing in the lounge. Except … except it wasn’t Gemini. He wasn’t that tall, nor that broad. There, yes, there was a second silhouette, and that was Gemini’s. His spiky hair.
Cyan stopped walking. Why was there a second person in the apartment? A man, it appeared, from the broad shoulders.
Had Gemini already called the police? In the ghetto, she had a cellphone. She could have called him. But almost five years ago the Minister of Addiction had outlawed cellphones outside the ghetto. There was no way to reach Gemini, to ask what was happening. No way, but to go home. But if it was the police? They’d arrest her on the spot. As a lottery winner, she had a duty: to fall. And being out past curfew, away from her husband’s bed, was obviously shirking that duty.
Cyan’s heart pounded. She didn’t know what to do. Where to go. She couldn’t go home – the Brownies were waiting for her. She had no friends this side of the Wall. No family. All she had was Gemini. And … Anand.
What was a woman in Shangri without a man?
She remembered the way he’d driven off, pebbles kicked up by the back tire in his hurry to get away – he wouldn’t want to see her again. But she had no choice. Cyan turned on her heels, and began the long windy walk back to Anand’s apartment.
Tap … tap … tap.
It was past 9pm. Past curfew. Gemini paced the living room, his knuckles in his mouth. “Venerable Sir, I don’t know. She’s never done this before. Cyan can be … whimsical, but she’s never just disappeared like this before. She –”
“Citizen Rustikov.” The Tax Man held up a hand, and Gemini slurped a sharp inhalation.
“You do not have control over your woman,” said The Tax Man.
Gemini thrust his hands into his pockets.
“I … sir, I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s happened to her, sir.”
“Do I need to report this incident to the Embryology Bureau? To the police?”
“N…n…no sir. That won’t be necessary. I’ll find her.”
The Tax Man placed a heavy hand on Gemini’s shoulder. “Yes, you will.”
Gemini startled at the touch. He nodded so fervently, The Tax Man worried the pale Breeder’s neck might snap right off.
“You have a week,” The Tax Man said, stilling the man’s forehead with his enormous hand. “I’ll be back then to do a memory dump of her hedometer. But from what I can see, she’ll need a reset. I’ll take her memory back to the time when the two of you won the lottery.”
“Yes, Venerable Sir. That would be ideal.”
“Got to keep this woman on a leash, Gemini,” The Tax Man said. “They go off on all sorts of tangents if you don’t keep them in check.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll be back in a week,” The Tax Man reminded him.
The drive back to his estate was … different this time. The feel of the leather steering wheel wasn’t as satisfying as usual when he squeezed it. When he sighed, the scent of the Breeder lingering on the Merc’s passenger seat threw him back into the memories he’d dumped from Gemini’s hedometer. The memory of Cyan beneath Gemini on the district heap was supple and immediate. She had a freckle on her upper arm. A tiny imperfection on her milky skin.
The Tax Man had forgotten to wipe the memories – standard procedure dictated that he needed to erase the memories once the marriage counseling session was over. Why had he forgotten?
He stopped the car on the side of the highway, and was about to tap the delete command on his wrist-controller when he recalled the feeling Gemini had when he rubbed his thighs inside hers. The warmth of her gaze. Nobody looked at The Tax Man that way. Fear, terror, shame – that’s all he saw in people’s eyes. And he thought he was alright with it. Someone had to do this job. Someone had to keep the populace in check. But he missed … warmth.
The edges of a memory formed and died in his mind. A woman. The way she’d looked at him was similar to the way Cyan had looked at Gemini. The glow in her eyes. But the memory was gone as quickly as it had appeared. Who had she been?
The Tax Man tried to remember. Strained to thrust his brain into the distant past. But there was nothing there. A black, impenetrable wall met him when he tried to remember anything from before the Collapse. When he looked at himself in the rear-view mirror, the lines on his narrow face spoke of a man over fifty. But the Collapse had happened hardly twenty-five years ago. Who was he before? Before Shangri?
He hadn’t really thought about it until now. Why should he? He lived a good life. Shangri took care of its own. He had a magnificent house, the Merc, colleagues at the Tax Bureau, respect. What more could he ask for?
But the memory of Cyan stared up into Gemini’s eyes. Into his eyes. The spark and dance of that moment. And the distant, fuzzy recollection of a life lost somehow seemed more important. Despite the vagueness of the memories, they felt … as real as the white leather of his seat.
What was his name? At the Bureau he was assigned a number – 16 – and referred to by his title: Tax Man. But what was his name? Gemini had a name. Cyan had a name. What was his?
A panic that The Tax Man didn’t recognize, but somehow knew intimately, rose within him. It spilled up, up through his life. Flooded the Merc’s perfect interior, his estate’s swimming pools and gardens, his 16th century four-poster bed that once housed Mary Queen of Scots (sometimes he imagined he could smell her cunt on the heavy velvet curtains). The panic bubbled and broiled. It simmered and seethed. And he sat, gripping the steering wheel – a buoy in an ocean of uncertainty.
What was his name?
Sam … Tony … Samuel … he couldn’t remember. Instead, he remembered the way Gemini’s heart had fluttered as he danced with Cyan in the butchery. The way they’d held each other as they left through the gates of the ghetto. And the way Cyan cried as he fucked her, her fingernails digging into Gemini’s buttocks. The burn of torn skin was hot, and alive. Real.
The Tax Man’s fingertips were poised above the wrist-controller, above the flashing “DELETE” button. He pressed “CANCEL” instead.
The Merc roared into life. And as he drove past the ghetto Wall, his panic subsided. A plan formed in the dusty, graveled interior of The Tax Man’s brain.
He needed more. More memories.
Chapter 4
Happiness is a habit – cultivate it.
– Elbert Hubbard
“155lb,” the scale flashed after a moment. But Donys stood there, naked, a while longer, just to be sure. The eyes of the older men raked across his back. Snaked along his buttocks.
He sauntered to his locker, towel in hand, and pulled on his paramedic outfit slowly. The pants were tight around his thighs, his calves, as he watched himself wiggle into the uniform in the full-length mirror. The shirt was especially clingy – he’d been doing pushups every morning this week. He liked the way the Bodhisattva necklace la
y between his pecs. Donys flicked back his hair as he shut his locker.
Another man would have crumpled at the gray morning that greeted Donys as he left the black doors of BIGS, and found his way to his motorbike lined up with all the others. But his chassis was flaming red, a design he’d had sprayed on just last week – only eighty hedons. He could afford it.
He kick-started the Suzuki with one chop of his muscular leg, and the engine leapt to life, eager to begin the day. Donys’s ebony hair trailed in the wind as he sped toward the hospital. It was another day. Another opportunity to help the desperate and hurt. To make the world an even better place. Donys loved his job.
It didn’t take long. Ten minutes after he’d clocked in at the ER front-desk, the first call came through. He leapt to his feet, his white sneakers tight and ready on his feet.
“Florence!” he called to his driver.
“Have to wait for the tax guy,” she said. Florence was thicker-set than Donys, with railroad sleepers for thighs and a smudged, rough-shod face.
“Tax guy?”
“New regulations,” Florence said. “Tax man rides with us at all times.”
Donys tapped his sneaker against the linoleum floor. “Need to go,” he said after a minute. “We can’t wait any longer.”
But Florence, implacable, crossed her ample arms.
The man stooped through the ER doors a minute later. A giant in a leather jacket and PVC pants, he stood at least a head taller than Donys (who considered himself vertically well-endowed). The Tax Man’s golden knuckledusters swung heavily from his belt, his gun holstered around his left thigh.
Donys stared up at himself in The Tax Man’s reflective glasses. “Can we go now?” he asked.
“Tax Man 16,” the giant rumbled, ignoring Donys’s question. He extended a long, knuckled limb toward Florence. Donys reached up to grab it before Florence could. “We have to go,” Donys repeated.
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