“You’re very cheerful for someone who just lost a job.”
He smiled sleepily. “Must be the company I keep.” He leaned in and kissed me, and for a moment we both forgot where we were, until I nearly lost my plate off my lap. Sam caught it, laughing, and we looked up to find Mali watching us, both critical and possessive, as if we were a work he was still in the middle of creating.
I left reluctantly to take Micah his dinner, then got caught telling him about the cancellation of the tour. I couldn’t get backstage again before curtain. Micah and Lou were running cues so he could man the lighting computer during the dress, leaving Lou free to go to Town Meeting. Marie had already gone, declaring that Mark took all her notes anyway, so why sit useless in the theatre when she could be yelling at the mayor? Lou left soon after with Micah’s proxy, in case it really did come to a vote. I didn’t see Hickey around once the preset was in. I hoped he was keeping his promise.
Then it was Micah and me, alone behind the production table as the theatre filled for the open dress rehearsal.
“Not much of an audience tonight, with everyone at Town Meeting.”
“The dregs.” Micah surveyed the house. “Tourists with shopping bags, SecondGens too young to vote, and all the geriatric subscribers who wouldn’t miss a paid-for ticket if it were doomsday tomorrow.”
He was right, and the shopping bags were going to be a particular problem. I let myself be transfixed by the amber numbers glowing in the bank of tiny monitors on Lou’s console, as if they were the excuse for my silence.
“You’re worried about tonight?” Micah asked kindly.
“Micah, you’re worried. How could I not be?”
He smoothed the ends of his mustache, gazing into the emptiness downstage center. “There are so many things to worry about.”
We sat in silence a bit longer.
“Do people ever leave Harmony?” I asked him finally. “Willingly, I mean. On their own?”
“Some do, if assured of a welcome in another dome. Harmony is not everyone’s idea of utopia, no matter what we try to tell ourselves.”
It was mine, I thought sadly, once upon a time. “Why do they leave?”
“They’re seeking a plainer life-style, or they can’t stand the tourists. It’s the tourists, mostly. Writers especially find the open studio policy intolerable.” He chuckled privately. “Rosa’s forever finding places she thinks we might like better than here.”
“What would you do if she found one?”
Micah’s look was a gentle warning.
“Sorry.” I glanced away. “It’s just, well, these people who leave… do you ever hear from them again? Do you see their work?”
“Do they manage to succeed, do you mean? Certainly. Harmony is not the only place to build a career. London is a thriving theatre town, so is Beijing. But none of them have our apprentice program, and as you know, there’s a problem getting residence in a dome if you’re not born there. Once you’ve won citizenship in Harmony, it’s barterable at any of the arts-conscious domes.” He looked at me closely. “Why? Are you unhappy here?”
“I am not welcome here.”
“A minority opinion. We hope this is being resolved as we speak. When it is, I’ve little doubt you’ll win your citizenship.”
I fidgeted in silence.
“There’s more to this…”
There is an expanse of blue, I thought, and like walls falling away it surrounded me, sucking my breath into its vastness. Always before, some power in Mali’s presence had brought this vision, but Mali wasn’t here now and the sky was inside me. Blinded by light and blueness, seized by inexplicable longing, I buried my face in my hands to hide the evidence of my madness from Micah’s kindly inquiring eye.
“Do you ever feel cheated?” I blurted. “Does it ever bother you that your movements are so circumscribed? Do you ever want to just walk out of Town and over the next hill to see what’s there?”
“Always,” he replied after a while. “Therefore I invent the other side of the hill in my work, every day.”
“It’s not the same!” I replied, harsh with frustration, not meaning to be cruel.
“No, but what choice do I have?”
I slid lower in my seat. “The Eye says we have a choice.”
“Ah.” Micah fit entire volumes of comprehension into that syllable. “Well, I suspect they are right. They are the first truly free-flowing thought current I’ve dipped into for a long time. They are the future, no doubt, but I hope they are premature. I’m too old for the kind of hard choice and radical change they advocate.”
“Oh no,” I said. “Mali would want you there with him in the vanguard.”
“Old men to the front!” Micah laughed soundlessly. “He might even convince me.” He let his attention wander over the audience for a moment. “But we’re weren’t talking about Mali, were we?”
I looked at my hands. “No.”
“The issue of citizenship should be persuasive on the side of staying.”
“I know.”
“Perhaps he could be convinced to stay here.”
I just laughed sourly, and Micah nodded. “Are you asking my advice? In a matter of the heart? You couldn’t have picked a less appropriate source.”
“There is no appropriate source. I ask the sanest person I know.”
He grunted, pleased. “All I can offer without ambivalence is an observation: you have thus far faced the critical decisions in your life with balance and determination. My guess is you’ll know what’s right when the time comes.”
I thanked all the gods I knew of, Chicago’s, Harmony’s, and Tuatua’s, that I had four weeks to ponder this dilemma.
Howie trudged up the aisle, particularly bearlike and melancholy, popping giant red grapes into his mouth in a steady stream. I wasn’t sure he even tasted them.
“You heard about the tour?” he asked Micah.
“I heard.”
“You heard he wants Crossroads instead?”
“I heard.”
Howie bent narrowed eyes on the sparsely filled house. “Where the hell is everybody? It’s almost curtain.”
“At Town Meeting, we hope,” said Micah.
“Oh. Christ. Yeah.”
Cris sidestepped through the row in front of us and leaned over the lighting console. “I’ll tune one of these monitors to Town Hall to give you visual. Gwinn can listen in on the headset now and then.”
Mark joined us with his notepad as the lights dipped to half. I slipped on the headset. Around us the rustle of shopping bags and conversation carried well on into the blackout. I’ve never understood audiences who are restless even before the show begins: if they don’t want to be here, why do they come?
The first act was not visibly different from the afternoon. The cast was a little tired, Mali’s performance was perhaps a bit darker and less giving. It was nothing you could put your finger on. It just didn’t ignite. My attention wandered to the Town Meeting broadcast. I couldn’t bring myself to tune my headset away from the show, in case… in case anything, but my eye was caught by those soundless images deciding my fate: the mayor pressing her hands against the podium, anonymous SecondGen faces scowling in the speaker’s box, Cora Lee’s determined profile filling the screen as she rose in protest. During one slow pan of the packed hall, I was sure I saw Sean, yelling with raised fists.
Applause was sparse at intermission, and conversation immediate in the house, the same dull and silly conversations, picked right up as if the first act had never happened.
Howie snatched my headset. “Liz, what was the time on that act? Jeez, really? Only twenty-five seconds longer than this afternoon and we’re losing ’em. Tell the cast I’m coming back to talk to them.”
“They’re angry about the tour,” I suggested.
“Reede always had wonderful timing for this sort of thing,” remarked Micah acidly.
Cris appeared at my elbow. “I’m watching from the greenroom. Guess who’s here.”
“Ohh.” Again, I’d forgotten about the trap.
“He’s in the shop. Just, you know, hanging out with the running crews. They’ve got Town Meeting on there too, along with a keg of beer. Raucous as shit. Surprised you can’t hear the commentary through the loading door.”
I shivered. “What’s happening at Town Hall?”
“You weren’t listening?”
I shrugged, gestured wanly at the stage.
“You better listen,” he warned grimly. “There’s a new proposal on the floor: immediate expulsion for all apprentices.” When my jaw sagged, he laughed skittishly. “Cora Lee took the mike to complain about intimidation tactics and virtually accused the CDL of murdering Jane. I thought she might flush them out, but after that a secret ballot was voted in. The wording’s still under discussion.”
“Immediate expulsion?” Micah repeated.
Nodding, Cris looked at me, showing fear for the first time.
The houselights dipped and rose, signaling Act Two. Cris stroked my arm awkwardly. “I’m back to the greenroom.”
I sat back. “What more can you expect when you expected the worst?”
“No premature panic, now,” Micah said.
“Think I’ll watch from house left again.”
Whatever Howie had said to the Eye, their energy picked up in the second act. But the audience didn’t. They didn’t understand the play or didn’t care to. The only things that caught their attention were Sam’s sleight of hand and the young lovers’ quarrel. The harder Mali wooed them, the stonier they got. It was excruciating. I wanted to leave, to be anywhere that I didn’t have to suffer the Eye’s humiliation along beside them.
But I couldn’t leave. Two, five was approaching and I’d just caught a glimpse of movement at the lobby entrance to my left. It was dark onstage and darker in the house. The black recess of the double doorway could have hidden ten men. I tried to stare into it without seeming to. Whoever was there could see me better than I could see him.
The Matta came out, enveloping Mali in its winding green folds.
The vengeful shadow of the Ancestor lifted its arms.
The flash was blinding. Through the bright sear on my retina, I saw Mali flung aside, twisted in the fabric. He landed facedown on the deck and lay very still as tiny flames chewed the edges of the Matta.
Behind me, an old lady cheered.
They don’t even get it. They think it’s part of the show.
Sam made it look godlike and effortless as he scooped up Mali’s limp weight and swept upstage into darkness. The loose ends of the Matta trailed behind, fluttering greenly. Ule and Cu wheeled after him. Had something gone wrong? Was this what they’d intended? Before I was even aware of moving, I was up and stumbling for the pass door. Onstage, Omea began the final scene as if nothing unusual had occurred. My hands fumbled for the release bar. I shoved the door open and bolted through, heading backstage.
“Hold the door,” someone hissed.
In the work-lit connecting corridor, I glanced behind me. Sean.
“Move along,” he urged. “I’m just as worried as you are.”
Bearing down on me in the dim light, intent and unshaven, he was terrifying.
“Oh, Sean, what have you done?”
“Me? C’mon, it’s probably nothing. A lot of harmless sparks.” He pulled me along. “You make it sound like I planned it.”
“Wasn’t Jane enough?”
He slowed. “… What?”
I sprang away from him down the corridor and pushed through the fire door at the end, freezing as I burst into the stark light of the stage right hallway. Omea’s chant filled my ears. People were in frantic motion, Mark looking helpless and stricken, Ule on his knees, Sam tearing at the pile of green silk that had Mali’s feet sticking out of it. A monitor on the wall flashed images of Town Meeting: Cam Brigham orated soundlessly from the podium while the speaker broadcasted Omea’s mournful chant as the play finished onstage. I struggled to make sense of what I was seeing.
The rest is just good acting.
“He’s breathing, let him breathe!” Ule yanked at the Matta.
“Mal, Mal, come on, Mal,” Sam pleaded. He peeled back Mali’s eyelid, laid an ear to his chest. “Heart, come on, heart.”
Sean shoved past me. He grabbed Mark and flung him toward the pass door. “Get a doctor, for chrissakes!”
Mark nodded, sprinted away, then stopped when Sean moved on to Sam and Mali. He caught my eye, shook his head, two sharp jerks. He threw the inside lock on the pass door and slipped around the corner into the stairwell to the trap room.
Sean crouched beside Sam. “What happened? Is he all right?”
Sam turned, snarled, and lunged at him. Sean was too stunned to defend himself. He staggered, twisted away, and went down, scrabbling across the tiles until he could get his feet under him. “Wait a minute! Wait a minute!”
“I’ll tear your bleeding throat out!” But Sam pulled up just short of leaping at him again as Ule rolled Mali over gently, tossing away the last charred shreds of the Matta. Mali’s face was slack, but I saw his fingers brace against the floor and I relaxed a little.
Sean stood up shakily. “For god’s sake, what happened?”
Te-Cucularit bounded up the stairs from the trap room. He dropped a melted twist of fine wire into Sam’s outstretched hand. Sam shoved it in Sean’s face.
Sean snatched it from him angrily. “What the fuck is this?”
“You ought to know. You put it there.”
Ule said, “He’s breathing, but barely.” He bundled up the torn Matta and placed it under Mali’s head.
Sean stared at the wire, then at Sam. “I put nothing there ‘cept what I was meant to.”
“Yeah? On whose orders?”
Sean looked at me. “What’s he talking about?”
In the end, no matter how much my fear had talked me into, I couldn’t believe it of him. Sam was wrong this time. Sean hadn’t planned this thing. Or even known about it. I glanced around, frightened again. The corridor was empty. Was Peter still somewhere in the building?
“Somebody wired the trap,” I told Sean quietly.
Sam glared at me.
“A bomb?” Sean glanced at Mali. “Oh, sweet Jesus.”
“Spare us the innocent act.” Sam pushed close. “One of your crew was down there last night, working late. We saw what he did.”
“Who?”
“Peter,” I supplied.
“Your man,” Sam accused.
Sean dropped the wire and stepped back, palms raised. “None of mine. He’s only in ’cause…” He stopped, frowning.
“What?” Sam demanded.
“Gwinn, you know this kid, right? Friend of Micah’s?”
“No. Never.”
“Wait. I remember. It was Cam asked me. Said the kid needed a job, would I put him on?” Sean pressed his hands to his temples as if trying to force comprehension. “Christ. Cora was trying to tell me…”He kicked at the wire lying by his foot. “Oh, that motherfucking son of a bitch. Using my theatre for… !”
“Now it’s coming back to you,” prodded Sam nastily.
Sean shoved his hands in his pockets, confounded. “You think I’d… Gwinn, for chrissakes, tell them about me! You know I’d never… no, I don’t like their ideas but, Christ, innocent people? Jane? Gwinny, please, you never thought I… ?”
I looked away helplessly.
He jabbed a finger at Brigham’s image on the monitor. “It’s him, gotta be! He’s the one! Look, fella, you get your man looked after. I’m going back to Town Meeting. That bastard’s there putting his fuckin’ lies on record, and I’m gonna fuckin’ put a stop to it!”
Sam moved to intercept. “You’re going nowhere.”
Sean backed around me. “No, you come along if you want but I’m going!” He shoved me abruptly at Sam, a full body block. Sam threw me aside and grabbed for him. Sean swerved free. “Come on, then! We’ll wring his friggin’ neck to
gether!” He took off for the stage door, veering like a hurdles runner around scenery and costume racks.
“Go!” Sam hissed. Ule and Cu plunged down the corridor. I grabbed for Sam as he whirled after them.
“No! Sam! Don’t go! It’s not Sean! I swear!”
He shook me off with a growl and bolted. On the monitor, Cam Brigham raised a clenched fist. Racing feet echoed down the hall. Mali turned on his side, rose onto one elbow.
I smiled at him uncertainly. “I was worried about you when they didn’t stop the show.”
“No point, when they thought it was all part of it. But we seem to have flushed out the enemy.”
I began my denial, but Mali glanced past me, his eyes widening. Movement caught the corner of my vision. I turned to see…
Peter. In the doorway to the stage right wing, his face blank with purpose. He raised his arm, pointed it at Mali. Something dull and gray…
Mali scrambled to his feet.
I screamed. “Oh no oh no, Sam!!”
The muffled cracks were like a blow to my jawbone. One. Two. I was unable to look away from the horror of Mali slammed back like a rag doll, splayed against the white wall, a terrible knowledge in his eyes as he slipped toward the floor on a slick of red as bright as a child’s fingerpaint.
“Sam!!” I heard pounding in the corridor, returning.
Sam’s animal yowl shocked me into motion. As he threw himself across Mali’s sinking body, I fumbled for my knife.
Peter’s mad calm didn’t waver. He aimed for Sam’s head. He got off two more shots before I landed on him screeching, with all my weight. I had the advantage of surprise. Terror and rage drove my blade into his neck once, twice, then I lost count before he grabbed hold of me and smashed me against a wall. My head hit first. I had the sensation of bouncing, very hard, and then no sensation at all.
THE CHOICE:
I woke in a bed in a white curtained cubicle. My limbs were heavy and unresponsive, my brain very drifty. I’d always assumed being drugged would feel this way. If I just go with it for a while, I thought, I’ll remember where I am, and why.
Then I remembered why. A wail rose from my gut like reflex but it couldn’t shut the memory out.
The curtain jerked aside. Hands pushed me to the pillow, patted at me, tried to soothe my struggles. A familiar voice. I opened my eyes, wary little slits.
Harmony Page 47
