Slow River

by Nicola Griffith

  The car pulled into a driveway. The wheels crunched on old-fashioned gravel. It was too dark to see the apartment building as they were led inside, but Lore got the impression it was big. She smelled the close greenery of a formal shrubbery; a brick wall enclosed the courtyard.

  Food was already laid out on the low table in the living room. They sat down, Lore and Spanner on the outside leather couch, the woman and man on chairs opposite each other. They ate and talked. The man seemed almost not to be there. Gradually they stopped paying attention to him. There was icy, sparkling wine, dry as carbon dioxide.

  Then the food was gone, and the woman was pushing the table aside. Her cheeks were flushed. Even in her thin dress, Lore was hot. Spanner looked serene and detached, untroubled by the heat.

  “The film now?” the woman asked, ignoring the man. Lore, pleasantly heavy-eyed, nodded. Whatever the woman wanted: she was paying. Or Lore assumed she was.

  The screen unfolded from the ceiling, opposite the couch. The woman dimmed the lights.

  There were no titles, and the music was lush and eerie. Figures walked and ran and whirled in various locations—beach, moor, desert—and Lore began to wish she had not had so much to drink. She could not make sense of anything.

  “I’m a little warm,” she said.

  “I would rather keep the temperature as it is,” the woman said softly.

  “Why don’t you just unbutton your dress if you’re uncomfortable?” Spanner asked. “I’m sure no one will mind.” She raised her eyebrows at the man and the woman. The man was staring at the carpet. The woman shook her head.

  “No, please go ahead. Make yourself comfortable. No one minds a bit of flesh if you don’t.” And she turned back to the screen.

  It felt like a suffocating dream. This was it. Spanner, and the woman, wanted her to take her clothes off: She wanted to jump up and scream, demand to know if anyone else would be naked. I have been naked too much! But she knew she would not do that. This time she had a choice.

  On the screen, the characters were talking, then eating breakfast. Half of them were not wearing clothes. The scene changed, and one woman was lifting a teenage boy onto what looked like an altar.

  “Unbutton your dress,” Spanner whispered. “I won’t let either of them touch you, or take pictures.”

  The woman was watching the screen, rapt. As Lore watched, the woman took off her jacket and laid it aside, not glancing back at the couch The man seemed to be asleep.

  They needed the money, and it was just a dress. In a dream, Lore unbuttoned her dress and pulled it down to her waist. She sat back in the couch. The leather was cool against her naked back. On the screen, the woman was positioning herself over the naked teenager, and the onlooking audience—or chorus, or whatever they were—were touching each other slowly. The heat, the alcohol, the film all made Lore feel as though she were under water. A trickle of sweat rolled down between her breasts.

  “You still hot?” Spanner asked. “Why don’t you take the dress off?”

  “Aren’t you hot?”

  “No.” Spanner smiled. “Come here.” She held out her arm. Lore slid over next to her. “It’ll be fine. Just take the dress off.” Spanner kissed her on the forehead, stroked her neck. “It’s dark in here anyway.”

  Lore shook her head, trying to clear it, and wondered when the drug would start to work, when she would stop caring. The heat decided her. She stood up, pulled off the dress, then her underwear, and dropped them on the carpet. The woman turned briefly, nodded, then turned back to the screen. Lore snuggled back next to Spanner. Spanner had said she would protect her.

  Spanner turned, smiled, ran a finger under her chin, then turned back to the screen.

  As if being naked had freed something, all of a sudden Lore could smell the shampoo in Spanner’s hair, the musk of her skin. She kissed her neck below the ear. Spanner’s hand, resting on Lore’s shoulder, began to stroke her neck absently. The woman was still watching the screen, Lore laughed quietly and slipped her hand under Spanner’s tunic.

  “Kiss me,” Lore whispered. Spanner turned away from the screen. “Kiss me,” she said again.

  Spanner put her hands on both sides of Lore’s face and kissed her very, very gently. “More…” Spanner did it again. Her lips were like fruit, soft and ripe and very slightly moist. Lore leaned forward, pushing, wanting Spanner to kiss her harder, wanting to feel the warmth of Spanner’s body. Her breath was harsh and rapid.

  “Sshh, quietly.” Spanner glanced over significantly at the rest of the room. The man was asleep. The woman was still watching the film. She would notice nothing if they kept very quiet. It was a game.

  Spanner turned to face Lore, stroked her shoulders and upper arms, across her throat and the top of her chest. Lore tried to sit up, so that the stroking hands would brush her breasts. Spanner smiled and put a finger to her lips. Then she unbuttoned her tunic. Lore climbed right up onto the couch and reached for her. Spanner held up her hand: no. Lore sat still, knees hunched under her chin. The leather was warm now, and soft, like skin. Her hairless vulva felt swollen and slippery. Spanner stood up, got off the couch carefully, slowly, so that the woman would not see them in her peripheral vision. She got back on the couch behind Lore. Hard nipples rubbed Lore’s back below her shoulder blades. A hand came around and cupped one of Lore’s breasts.

  “Ah.” Lore was moving now, unable to keep still. Her belly was full of lava and blood ran thick and heavy under her skin, making her feel slow and liquid.

  “Yes,” whispered Spanner, “yes. Oh soon, soon.” Her hand was running down Lore’s ribs now, cupping her hip-bone, running back up to her breasts. Then it began to move slowly, very slowly down the center of her body. It held her stomach, pressed. On the screen, bizarre images of red and purple flowers shimmered; the music was rising to a deafening crescendo.

  Spanner had both arms around her now, both hands moving rhythmically over her body, belly, flank, thigh, inside her thigh, back to her belly, over and over, “Please, Spanner. Oh, please,” and Lore no longer cared whether or not the woman heard, no longer cared whether or not she saw. She writhed in Spanner’s arms, trying to thrust herself onto Spanner, any part of Spanner, just so that she could feel hot, live skin between her legs. And the room was thick with her own smell, sweat and need and sex, and Spanner’s, and she wanted to spin inside her need forever, without touching, but now Spanner was urging her, turning her to face the back of the couch, belly against the leather, breasts over the top, legs apart. She heard the soft zzt of Spanner’s zipper and felt breath on the back of her neck, Spanner’s thigh pushing between her own. She arched backward, trying to make the connection, but then Spanner’s hand came around the front to dip slowly, teasingly, through her labia. “Ah…” She shuddered. “Please Spanner, oh please.” But Spanner was positioning herself, wet and hot against Lore’s moving buttocks, and suddenly the couch cushion sagged to one side as the woman, naked from the waist down, climbed onto the couch. She touched Lore’s hair with one hand. The other was between her own thighs. She was looking at Spanner.

  “Now,” she said, and Spanner slid her finger deep inside Lore and Lore’s muscles were clamping down around it, she was straining, humping, and Spanner was gasping behind her, pulling herself up and down, leaving hot, wet trails, and the woman was flushing deep deep red and laughing and crying out and their triple need tore up inside Lore, right up into her guts until she screamed and every muscle in her body went rigid and she slid sideways onto the cushions, Spanner still inside her.

  It was still hot. The man snored gently. The screen was blank.

  * * *

  The hardest part of the shift for me was always half an hour after the break, when there were still nearly four hours to go and my blood sugar was low. Today, I felt restless and tense and hot. At the readout station I pushed the hair off my face with the back of one hand and just hoped there was nothing toxic on my glove. Hepple, though he was keeping a low profile since Magy
ar had hinted I was a Health and Safety spy, was still demanding hourly readings.

  The readings were normal, absolutely normal, but something nagged at me. Maybe it was just the fact of Hepple’s demands, but something seemed not quite right. I checked everything I could think of, even the enzyme levels and secondary by-products like dichloroethylene. Everything on the button. It must be the heat making me tense. I waited for my neck muscles to relax. They didn’t.

  I missed Paolo, wondered what he was doing now, but it wasn’t that. I was waiting for something to happen. I just didn’t know what, or why.

  I downloaded the latest results onto a slate and went to find Hepple. He was in his glass office.

  Instead of motioning me to put the slate on his desk, he reached for it immediately. He was looking the numbers over thoroughly when I left.

  Maybe he was expecting something, too.

  I went back to trough forty-one, decided to replace some of the rushes, just because I was restless, then changed my mind and went back to the readout station and checked the monitors. Everything was fine. So why wasn’t I happy about it? Think. Start at the beginning. The plant and equipment itself? Everything seemed in order. The influent? No. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with the bugs, either; they were standard tried-and-true van de Oest series. Guaranteed, as long as they were supplied with…

  And then I remembered. The puddles, the truck, the driver calling, “Sorry about that!” The logo: BioSystems.

  I swore, ran a sample on the bug food. Took down one of the slates and after a few minutes’ fiddling managed to access some old records. Compared the two. Just as I thought. I picked up the phone. “Magyar, I need to talk to you.”

  “What’s happened?” Even over the line I could hear her tension. She was waiting for something, too.

  “Just get here.”

  I felt savage. If Hepple had appeared right then I think I would have kicked him until he bled. Four million gallons a day, straight into the city’s mains, and he was risking it all for the sake of shaving half a percent from the plant’s operating costs.

  Magyar arrived, breathless. “Tell me.”

  “Hepple. Stupid bastard.” I was so angry I could hardly speak. “The bug food. Hepple bought the cheap stuff. Generics.”

  The folds around her eyes seemed to swell slightly, making her eyes look smaller. “How bad is that?”

  “Right now, not very, but I don’t know how long it will stay that way. I can try adjust the nutrients by hand until we can replace it. The system should catch any big swings—ones that are within known parameters, anyway—but the van de Oest proprietary nutrients have got to be restored.”

  “How much time do we have”

  “Hard to tell. These bugs are genetically designed to fail without exactly the right ingredients, but given the mixture of microbes and varying substrates available here, I couldn’t begin to predict when or what form that failure will take.”

  “But you’re sure they’ll fail.”

  “Yes.”

  A beat of silence. “Give me your best estimate of how much time we’ve got.”

  “A week? It depends on what we get down the line.” All it would take, was one big spill… “I can’t believe Hepple’s done this.”

  “Oh, he’s probably got some very plausible-sounding reasons.” She sounded vicious.

  “Then you’ll need to go over his head.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Try hard. Meanwhile…” I started pulling down all the slates, feeling about on the shelf. Empty.

  “If it’s the manual you’re looking for, I’ve got it. Oh, don’t look so surprised. I knew Hepple was up to something. I just didn’t know what. I decided to prepare for disaster.”

  I felt foolish for underestimating her.

  She read my expression and gave me a tight, amused look. “What do you know about emergency and evacuation procedures here?”

  “Not much.” Which is why I’d wanted to take another look at that manual.

  “We’ve got just about enough sets of emergency escape breathing apparatus, if you include the SCBAs and the moon suits. But I haven’t had the chance to check them and find out if they’re properly maintained. And I don’t know how many of the shift know how to use them. Which is why I need you. I don’t know who you are, or why you’re here, but I’ll use you if I can.”

  I took the manual home. There were two messages waiting. The first was from Ruth; she was smiling. “Hope you enjoyed the dinner the other day. Let us know when and we’ll come and help you redecorate.”

  The second was Spanner: “It’s just before midnight. I’m on my way out. I should have the money we need by morning. I’ll call you.”

  I ate, and opened the manual at random. I would not worry about Spanner and I would not feel guilty that it was her taking the risks. I would not.

  After an hour or so, I pushed the manual aside. Rules and regulations were not enough to distract me from how Spanner might be earning the money for our scam. She chose to take the risks, I told myself. It was she who had suggested the scam in the first place. I was doing my part, too.

  Maybe she was back already, safe. I called. No reply.

  I turned on the edit box. Tom appeared on the screen. If I wasn’t going to get any sleep, I might as well do something useful.

  At six in the morning I was playing the short video of Tom over and over again, obsessively. I called Spanner’s number for the tenth time. Nothing. I ran the video again. By the magic of digital imaging, Tom stood at a slide pole, looking bewildered; faced the image of his bank-account representative and wept; threw a book against the wall in frustration. Text drifted across the pictures: You can help. Send money now. The account numbers would be inserted later, when I got them from Spanner.

  I tried her number again.

  I had started out taking notes: shave a frame here, a pan there; add a zoom focus and fade. Now I was just watching, over and over.

  It was after seven. This time when there was no reply from Spanner, I knew there was something wrong.

  There were no lights shining around Spanner’s door seal; no reply to my knock. I tried the handle. It swung open.

  “Spanner?”

  No reply. I went in.

  “Spanner?”

  No one in the living room. I put my head in the bathroom, the bedroom, the kitchen, and stopped abruptly.

  She was standing very still by the kitchen counter, profile to the window. “I was worried to death! Why didn’t you-”

  She turned her head very, very slowly.

  “Oh, dear god.” She tried to smile and I felt my face stiffen in shock. I reached out to hold her, support her, but stopped short of touching her; She was standing rigidly and her face was a grayish, doughy color. Pain. Pain would do that.

  “Is the medic’s number on your system? No, don’t try to nod. Just… just blink if the answer’s yes.” She blinked. I raced into the living room, punched in his number. It was his service. I told him to get here right away, then, worried I might be garbling my words in shock, told him everything all over again. I ran back into the kitchen. Spanner was still standing there, helpless.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t touch you. Do you need to lie down?” She blinked twice,

  I couldn’t touch her. She wouldn’t lie down. She couldn’t seem to talk. We stared at each other. Her breathing was stertorous. I smiled. I didn’t know what else to do.

  “You’ll be fine. The medic’s on his way. He’s very good. But you know that. Remember how he fixed me? You’ll be fine.”

  I don’t know how long I kept up that inane chatter, but when the medic banged on the door my throat was beginning to feel sore. I didn’t dare take my eyes off Spanner. “In here!” I called. “The door’s open.”

  He came in in a blast of cold air and had his coat off before I could even say hello. “Tetany,” he said to no one in particular. “Saw that in a horse, once.” A horse? “It’s the pain.” He had his b
ag open. “Have you tried to touch her’.”

  “No.”

  “Any idea where she hurts?”

  “No.”

  “Can you talk?” he asked Spanner. She blinked twice.

  “That means no.”

  He grinned at me over his shoulder, and it occurred to me that he thought we were some kind of comedy act. No. And she says no, too. My legs started to shake.

  He held up a spray hypo.

  “No!”

  He looked at me, raised his eyebrow. “Allergic?”

  “Yes. I mean, no. I am, but she isn’t.” He waited patiently. This is not the past! “No, I’m sorry. It’s all right. She’s not allergic.”

  He reached up to touch Spanner’s shoulder, but she inched visibly so he sprayed it into her left buttock instead. “Watch.”

  She began to shudder like a dog, and sweat. Her breathing came in great gasps.

  “Help me get her to the bed.”

  Between us, we shepherded Spanner into the bedroom.

  “She won’t want to lie down.” She balked at the bed. “I can give her one more shot, but it’ll put her out. Can you authorize payment?” I nodded. He squirted the stuff into her right buttock this time. “Catch her!”

  She fell as I imagined a robot might: arms and legs stiff and not swinging quite right.

  “We need to get her clothes off.”

  I think the worst thing was that I couldn’t see anything wrong: no burns or cuts or rashes. No bruises or welts. Nothing.

  We had her clothes off and he was palpating this and that, bending knees, thumping her chest, nodding to himself.

  “She’ll need watching for twenty-four hours.” He laid out six hypos. “Painkillers and antibiotics. One every four hours. Then I’ll come back.” He had pulled on his coat, held out his reader for me to V-hand, and was opening the door before I realized he hadn’t told me anything.