by Moira Crone
“One day, but still not yet!”
How I loved him. I would take that sadness away. Someday, I told myself as I walked off, I would deserve his affection, earn it. One day I would be good enough, be an Heir, so he could touch me.
*
The Islands were still linked by a few bridges then. The next morning, I caught the Nat Car on the Sky Rail—lemon yellow, with metal seats. The Heir Car ahead of mine was brilliant white, with foam cushions. We went on a narrow cable strung along the hook of the shore of the shining Sea of Pontchartrain, which in those days was a fast slide, of two hours. When I arrived at the station on the U.A. side, I took the elevator down several stories. Through the glass I got a wide view of Re-New Orleans. It was crisp and pastel and full of turrets and verandas and pergolas—exquisite, clean, shining, and fashionable. Houses were close together and you could see the little patches of walled gardens behind them. I’d come into Re-New a few times when Jeremy took us over to perform in special, private Sims. This time, though, I had no lines to repeat to myself, no one reminding me what to say. Jeremy wasn’t there holding my costumes, making me laugh. Reminding me to say Heirs, not T’s, and never to say the worst names—Shades, Bonesnakes, Zombos. Vee wasn’t in the dining tent, telling us to eat the breads he baked, the rice, the greens he stewed with fish. “Keep your strength,” he always said. “Don’t think you can eat that spun grass. That candy!” The “spun grass” was Heir food, brosia. Flax, not grass.
At Customs, I showed the appointment letter for the interview, and they let me through. I entered a Walled Urb alone for the first time. Outside the station, a few private vehicles, and one low, rubber-tired trolley rolled past, and Heirs waved their arms in greeting to each other, calling out, all smiles. They carried packages from the brosia merchants, the genenfabric stores. I contemplated their blank, open faces. Vee had told me once, “If you make a man’s face, his soul comes to you.” It was quite the opposite of what Jeremy used to say, which was, “All you have to do is look at them and figure out what face they want from you. Give them that, and nothing more.” When it started to rain, I saw some of them open up the glowing shell umbrellas popular that season. In less than a minute, there were fifteen turban-shapes in the street, Heir legs poking out the bottom, all scurrying home.
As I waited under the awning for the very pretty rain to pass, I tried Vee’s way. I fixed my eyes on the middle distance and held my mouth slightly open, hardly breathing, the way they did. I tried to investigate my inner emotion. But all I saw within was that silver skin the sun made on the Sea of Pontchartrain, that silver that was white, but also opal and pearl and steel, that silver that is no color at all of its own. I imagined it was a hint of what they felt: their solid, obvious ecstasy.
I hated the way my mind rushed about like a bird trapped in our old attic. Or one of those baby rats when they were finally set loose by their big tired mother. I was not an Heir, not yet. I still had thoughts of Ariel—what did he do or say that was beyond the limit? And of Jeremy—he did everything right, and he’d lost.
I was troubled. I felt no ecstasy at all. I did not even feel solid, or whole.
*
November 1, 2117
Curing Towers
Re-New Orleans, South Central District. U.A.
“You are the one H. R. Gold Lazarus sent? You look young,” she said. My new, possible boss, Dr. Lydia Greenmore, was speaking. She’d come to meet me in the reception area. An exceptionally handsome Heir. Slim, long legged. Doe-like features—a flared, very thin nose. Her beauty was practically an electric charge, an assault.
“My age is only approximate,” I said. It was true. Nobody knew exactly when I was born. “They gauge sixteen this year.”
“Of course, you wouldn’t know, you were a toss-out, weren’t you?”
Yes, that’s what I was, all I was—I knew it, an upstart toss-out, nothing.
“Follow me.”
I obeyed, keeping a respectful distance. She wore the standard WELLMED tunic. Underneath was a sculpted prodermis, in the current, dimpled, baroque style. She must have just had her Re-job. When we came into her vast blue office with the big marble desk, she turned to me and asked, “Are you hungry?” Then she raised her chin, awaiting an answer. Of course, she owned the conversation.
I hadn’t developed a taste for brosias. I should have by now. I blamed Vee’s influence. I couldn’t forget that he’d said they were “good going in,” but dissolved into “little slimies” in the mouth.
“Victuals, whatever you like,” she said. “Go ahead, there is no penalty.”
In no time she had ordered noodles in a peanut sauce and I was eating them from a white plate in my lap. They were very good, as Vee did them, spicy hot, with a little fish and big helpings of pepper. I began to sweat. She pointed to a napkin. I felt racy, daring, and awkward eating in front of her, but I couldn’t help it. She didn’t complain, not once, about how it smelled.
When I was done, I missed the slop, wished for more. My lips tingled, my mouth burned.
She had four orange lumps on her plate she hardly picked at.
“So this is your first day independent of the Foundling House? The Sim Company, Jeremy de Rayborn’s Celebrations, went under, didn’t it?” she said.
I nodded. I remembered what Lazarus had told me. “Be brave. Answer, but don’t elaborate. And never ask us about years, or count, never ask about family. Or what Wave—some of us are very touchy about where we came from after we enter this strat. When you go through your Boundarytime, you will realize you are not the same as your root self anymore. I know I’m open about such things. He really wasn’t that open. I knew very little of his Nat past. I’d asked once, and he said, “There are all kinds of trouble back there. Sorrows. I’ve escaped and come to save all of you. From the uneven world, the world of consequences. We have found the way out of that. Never forget there is a way out.” I said to my interviewer, “Yes. I’m not in the Sims anymore.”
“Are you attached to the sunken gardens you come from? The stenches? The floodwalls, the ring levees, the green courses, the raised roads, canals? Don’t worry. Say what you think. We all know it’s charming—even some Heirs can’t leave it. Will you be able to adapt here? There’s no point—tell me what you think,” she leaned in, closer.
Say what I think. Everything I’d been taught went against this impulse.
I imagined the thin film, the mirror surface of the Sea of Pontchartrain I had noticed on the ride over on the Sky Rail. I knew there were lost towns underneath the sea that had lined the Northern shore and the Eastern edge of the old lakes—the Pontchartrain and the Maurepas—before they spread into a single sea, after the lands were lost and the Mississippi changed course. On cloudy days, I’d seen floating lamp posts under the surface, wrecked ancient cars, broken streets, the ridge pieces of old roofs. When the sun shone this morning as I was coming over, though, all I could take in was the shining surface.
“What are you thinking right now?” she asked and started to stand, which I found alarming. Would she leave so soon?
“That I will be happy here,” I tried. I knew I sounded faint. I wanted to want this, but I really hoped to go home.
“Be truthful,” she said.
“I’m thinking, I’m here to learn, to work.”
“What?”
“Don’t know what,” I said, then I heard the voice in my head that got me into trouble, the one Lazarus disapproved of. Jeremy wasn’t here to direct me. I added, before I could stop myself. “I am imagining that silver skin on the Sea of Pontchartrain.”
“Why?”
I knew I should have kept my mouth shut. But I had too many things on mind. Because that is how I want to be, to be like you, I almost said. What I did say was, “I just was—”
She cocked her head. “Well let’s play a game.”
Women were awful, I thought. They read too well.
“The game, the game,” she said. “If I was Jeremy, your director,
and I asked you this, what would you say?” She had a list on a piece of paper. She read from it. “What is your first memory, Malcolm?”
“I don’t have anything particular,” I said. Never talk about yourself. You haven’t earned the right to be a subject. I stared at her.
“Well I have a report that a Yeared assaulted you when you were five by count. Remember this? You pulled on her flapping skin? I don’t blame you. The record says she was seventy-two by count, no surgeries! Who lets these abominations roam in the general population? I certainly sympathize. And there is a report you were found on the edge of the Old River with another child, older? There was a note you floated there in some kind of contraption? They theorized it might have been a drawer? You remember any of this?”
My whole life was written out for her there. “Not being found. Not much of the other, either—Lazarus told us not to bother with feelings and memories until we have the time to iron them out.”
“He didn’t,” she said, throwing her head back, as if she saw the light, it was coming down from above. I’d know this gesture well in time.
“Yes he did.”
“How brutal,” she said, bending in. “That’s what—your technique?”
“Lazarus was never brutal,” I said. “He looked out for me. He still does.”
“He was stealing something from you.” She looked concerned, upset.
“We all know we will have time to iron it out, if we—”
“Is that what he told you?”
“Everybody knows that,” I said. I was chanting to myself by this time, mirror silver, mirror silver, but I still felt a sharp pain in my chest.
“Have I upset you?” she asked.
“Is this still the game?” I asked. I was losing!
This surprised her. But then, she took it on. “If you want. If I were Jeremy, this director, or someone else, what would you say now?”
“Stop looking at me that way,” I blurted. I couldn’t believe it. I covered my mouth, so nothing else so awful would escape.
“What way?”
“As if you want to scour me,” I said—this line just leapt out. I knew I was dredging up the mess like what was at the bottom of the Sea of Pontchartrain. “You don’t have any idea.” I kept it up. What was I doing?
“Idea of what?”
“How we really are,” I said. That was it. I was hopeless. I’d been hopeless since I’d come. I sounded like Ariel. As if how we were made any difference to her.
“I was Untreated once,” she said. “I was a Natural until I was forty by count. I’m a Third Wave. Practically a Nuovo. I won the Albers Prize for my research. I am considered the inventor, or one of the inventors, of the process called Re-description, that Heirs go through. Heirs with bigger counts. Have you heard of that? That’s how I got a Trust. Got this research position. Didn’t Lazarus tell you who was going to interview you?”
“I’m sorry,” I offered. “Truly. I shouldn’t have said—”
“There’s nothing to be sorry for.” One eyebrow was raised. She started to stare then. She could do this all afternoon, and not be tired by it. She was scouring me. All I could do is look back, and try to parse out the song of those last lines, didn’t Lazarus tell you who was going to interview you? There’s nothing to be sorry for.
I knew there were people who said the opposite of what they meant. Heirs and Nyets and even Nats did this. You could tell what they intended only by the song. Jeremy taught me all kinds of songs for sentences. Sarcastic song, doubtful song, sincere song, insincere song. But she had a different beat from me, an Heir beat, and her voice was breathy and nearly tuneless. I couldn’t be entirely sure.
She rose then. All I was sure of, was what an idiot I’d been. This disturbed me terribly, but something in me, also, didn’t care. That awful reckless part I was always trying to kill off. I’d had it bad since Jeremy lost out. I was doomed because of it. She asked, “What did Lazarus tell you?”
“You might want to employ me. I’d help with your research. You would pay for some education. I would not get a better chance.”
“I see,” she said. She rose then, which disturbed me. “So are you going to obey Lazarus and work?”
“I always obey him.”
“Why?”
“He cares for me,” I said. I knew it was a weak answer. I was supposed to say that he would make me an Heir.
“I see.” She was going. Finally. I was relieved. “Someone will come by.”
I wanted to ask, What about the job? But I knew the answer, and besides, it was bad form. Heirs thought of all of us as beggars. Even Not Yets with large Trusts like me were beggars—some of them saw us as the hungriest of all, so close to the finish, the prize—
When she was gone, I believed I’d never see her again. I was confused, about that, about why I’d blown the interview, disobeyed everybody—I was miserable, but my misery wasn’t going to last.
V
6:20 PM October 12, 2121
Sunken Quarter New Orleans Islands, Northesast Gulf De-Accessioned Territory,
U.A. Protectorate
“Bebum, don’t know what the job is. Gotta go see him.” Peet shrugged, tapped his wrist, which had no watch. “Just heard of it, in the Crobster House.”
“Let’s go, then,” Serp said.
“Hey,” I said. The shadows of the wide pillars behind us seemed to be growing. I touched my face. It didn’t clang quite as badly as it had. “I need my compos, remember?”
Serpenthead explained to Peet. “I got to get him over to Jeddy’s lot. He’s never been around here.”
“Bebum. You wanna gig tonight or what?” Peet said.
“Okay,” Serpent said, then turned to me. “Jeddy’s ten minutes from here, tops. We’ll talk to Lordy, come back, and then go get your fuel. Stay here.”
Peet held up a tile that read:
CRAWLEY’S CROBSTER HOUSE
ON THE QUAY
NO. 17
He said, “Bebum. I was waiting on crobsters, not going to give up on ‘em.” He pointed to a restaurant. “Already paid.”
“Okay,” Serpent said, then his bulgy eyes surveyed the two of us. “Look Malc. You take the tile, you wait in the Crobster House—you see it over there?”
I could see the sign on the inner ring of the Old Market, the arcade Peet had come through.
“We’ll go see Lordy, and come back to meet you, then go to Jeddy’s. Promise.” He was nodding, to reassure me. I think he saw I was a little scared, being alone in this raucous place.
Peet was eyeing me, in double time.
“He’s a Nyet. He’s going in for the Boundarytime ceremony. Fasting. He’s not interested in your dinner! Let him wait for it. Then he knows we’ll come back,” Serp said.
“What, wait,” I said. “I’ll just get my compos. Tell me where the station is.”
Both of them said, at one time, “You will never find it.” Serp pulled on my sleeve, whispered into my good ear. “It’s under the table. You familiar with this concept? They won’t sell to you by yourself, see? One of us who knows Jeddy has to go to Jeddy’s lot, get it, boy?”
I nodded. He was always ahead of me, somehow.
“Just sit anywhere inside and go up when they call the number 17. Got it? We will go talk to Lordy, get the job, then we come back, get the fuel, and the eats—” Serpent snapped his fingers. Before I could say no, they were off on the cobblestones, and I was going to a restaurant holding a wooden tile.
In Crawley’s window, a short red-haired enclaver girl with a hat like a mushroom stirred away, the steam swirling up into her freckled face. Her smile greeted me through the hot mist. “Seat yourself inside,” she said.
I lifted up my tile to show her.
“Ten minutes at the most,” she nodded.
There were about a dozen picnic tables. People sat communally, where they could, many next to strangers, it seemed.
I took an empty one in the front so I could watch the street. It was a
strange place to me—all strats together. I’d never seen this, only heard of it, and seen pictures in Lydia’s (Lydia now, I could hardly believe it!)—picture albums. The ones from before the Troubles.
Some of the clientele inside were obvious Heirs, others, Nyets done up in decent, clean, expensive clothes to indicate their strats, their collars shining—the way I used to dress when I was working at the Towers. Seeing these clothes, I was ashamed, for mine were dirty, crumpled, from my nights in Port Gramercy, one in jail, and another on the wet, eventually bloody deck of Serio’s boat. I’d been wearing them for three days. I counted, in despair. And with this gash on my ear, surely, I looked like an Outliar myself. I tried covering it with my hair. I plucked at my Not-Yet band, elongated my neck, so people would notice. But would they believe it? You could be anybody in this place. Altereds were strolling outside. One went by who was equipped with those wings—its clothing was cut out in the back so anyone could see the fine work of the surgeons. The muscles across the front of the chest were bulging, making him deformed—then I realized he’d developed that way to carry the weight of the new appendages. His spine was bent.
A set of three passed by in blue gowns, all exceptionally tall, with snouts like borzoi dogs. A group of four in yellow short pants, with dragonfly style double wings on their backs. Following behind them, a mascot on a leash perhaps two feet tall, a folded face like a bulldog, a gargoyle. I had never heard of an Altered that owned an Altered, but that seemed to be the case. There were also several Heir women with cut-out gowns which exposed their handsome custom prodermis breasts, covered in the latest eye-catching overskins. These baubles bounced and swayed. A few had three, one four. I couldn’t keep my eyes off.
There were many normal-looking Heirs wearing genenfabric sheaths, and headjobs, with braids and cascades, as well—Second Waves, and Third, I thought. Also, what I took to be Nuovos fraternizing easily with their betters. All out for an evening watching the show.
At one point, a female Heir stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, bent down, and threw-up about three tablespoons of bluish liquid. Her companions didn’t halt and scream, and pull the WELLVAC alarm on her pendant, order helicopters to the scene, the way they usually did at the slightest indication of illness. Instead, the other T’s with her just stood there, a bit miffed. Then one, a man, put his hand in the small of her back and whispered to her to move on, which is exactly what she did. Never seen anything like it.
