by Moira Crone
What was she going to do?
A small sensor, a tiny hat, over her index, and her finger hovered above the place where the blood went in blue lines into my naked hand.
Her eyes floated in their chemical syrup toward the upper left, then away, then back up toward the upper left again where the slightest piece of dust, actually two fronds of a down feather, each about three centimeters in length, floated down and rested on her long implanted lashes. My nail was sharper than hers and so I lifted my hand and reached to help her with this bit of dust, but then I remembered myself, I knew I could not, and so I hesitated, until the feather was far enough away—what was the safe distance? I’d forgotten. Eight, ten inches—from her face as it fell. Eventually, I caught it on my finger.
When it was balancing there, I let go the smallest little package of air from my cheeks through my mouth and blew. The feather drifted away, from left to right to left. I watched it—I saw she watched it too. Everything was excruciatingly interesting. She smiled as if she were amused, and said, “Thank you Malcolm.” I looked at her eyes—impossible yellow. Her overskin the palest taupe, just a few strands of silver. Jeremy would have said, “A very good Re-job was done on her.”
Eventually she concluded, “You can have a little more. Your vitals are fine.” She seemed to pull back, to increase the distance between us.
It tasted like vanilla this time. Higher dosage.
“You have to absorb all that,” she said. “I’ll give you about forty hours.” She left.
I missed her.
After, I was supposed to sleep, but instead I watched the story of the day jumble itself into the most exquisite designs that eventually had nothing to do with the day at all. When I woke, I asked myself where I was, for I had lost track. But the whole idea of “I” seemed suddenly bizarre—a little vessel I decided to remind myself to go searching for, searching for “I,” the Malcolm, as I was gloating, floating, in a sea of elementary details. Such as, how many thousands in a million and water vapor making rain and cirrus and cumulus and crystals, and the amazing meaning of the word “snow” and too and two and to, and to, and into, and forward, and toward and per and perpetual, and persuasion and perspective and persona, and person. And person. Dr. Greenmore. Myself. Person. Malcolm. The person Malcolm, the foundling from Audubon Island, which is capitalized, and here, Re-New Orleans Curing Towers, in the South Tower. The calendar year 2117 it was, one hundred and twelve years after the Reveal, when they claimed everyone could live forever. Then somehow drowsiness ambushed me with two huge paint brushes in its hands, my itchy eyes had to close so things mumbled into nimbuses, and I knew somewhere some things I’d never known. My head was ten times bigger than my little feet and hands and I thought I’d scream about this but I was asleep, and I had to give over to it. It was so delicious, to sleep, to have strange pizza in my belly, for I was aware, even, of all the explosions in my stomach, and the dissolving and the pressing on, everything. I also knew how to count and the word for the line around a square that delineates what was outside it and what was inside, like a fence or a border or a frame or a wall, or a skin. A skin was a perimeter, I thought. My skin was a perimeter, which must surround a being, a boundary, and that being would be Malcolm. And Malcolm was the name of the “I.” What was inside it? Inside him? Any ideas?
Sometimes, I looked down and saw that chasm, where “I” was supposed to be. It terrified me.
*
History. Review. For the exam. Two and a half months later. I spent my time suspended in a flood of images, except for Camille’s longed-for visits (she came nearly every day) and occasionally, checkups from Dr. Greenmore. The solitude was necessary—all my attention was meant to be attuned to the endless screens, the hoods they put me in. I couldn’t even be taken out into the courtyard—just looking out the window was too maddening. They locked the shade when they realized this. I’d finished elementary education. My trials had all been excellent, the screens told me.
Then one morning when I was listening to a lecture in Reveal History, something happened that changed me.
“Dr. Shamir Albers explored a system of life extension treatments beginning in the early 1960’s. He began in secrecy at the Pfizer-Wellcome labs in Tacoma Park, Maryland (Now the Delmarva District in the United Authority). His firm was later renamed WELLFI, INC. Four decades later, his laboratory announced to the scientific community that their cure for the disease of aging had achieved extraordinary results. Mice that should have had a life span of 36 months were living twelve years. His discoveries were based upon the work of many before him. He relied upon metabolic manipulation studies that went back thirty years and more. In the 1980’s, starting with a combination of therapies involving his original “cellular rinse” procedure, endocrine manipulations and nano level monitoring and feedback, Albers initially developed a method of periodic holistic treatments that could be regulated to postpone the onset of age-related conditions virtually forever. A further refinement was the prodermis and overskin, to provide cushioning and UV protection. He offered these to volunteers in his immediate circle, and then created a large group, who took the treatments covertly, and invested in Albers’ company. Almost all are still alive today. They are known as the Albers Prototypes, or the Protos. They were first shown to the world in the year 2005, the date of The Reveal.”
Camille walked in, and stepped in front of my screen. Not out of the ordinary.
But, her little jacket was tighter than usual. Or she had put on a pound or two. When she shoved her hands in her pockets, I missed them. “Finished with this review?” she said. The desire to touch her springy body, her more unpredictable flesh, so vulnerable and with a will of its own, not under her control entirely, compared to a prodermis. It was, what was the word? For “possible to be perforated.”
I thought: all this education and I still hadn’t lost my low traits. In fact, the education, or the drug, more likely, just made me worse. I was abashed, how much I wanted her. The screen: “…Shamir Albers experimented upon himself, and did a so-long at the unfortunately premature count of 111. Some of his early working theories were later proved to be false, and even harmful… yet his research and the technique remains the foundation of longevity science.”
She put her fingers in the corners of her mouth, and pulled down. Mock tragedy.
“Stop,” I said. “Have some respect!”
She made a loop with index and thumb. The other fingers rose, and the eyes went up. OK. She was awful, awful. I walked over and took hold of her hands. Both of them. I couldn’t stand it if she hid them again.
“The shrine of this great man, who changed the entire meaning of being human, was permanently moved into the rotunda of the building previously used as a parliament of argument during the days of the old republic, when that unstable form of government was replaced by the United Authority Council, in 2047.”
She let me hold her a second, the she pulled away. She was staring right at me. Up from my arms towards my shoulders, the strangest feeling—a kind of web forming. I couldn’t tell if it were coming from her. Or from me. I could hardly breathe—
“The narratives of sacrifice, martyrdom and privation in the lives of the earliest subjects, the first Protos, are the stuff of legends. Collectively, Albers and his fellow scientists have changed the world, postponing possibly infinitely the greatest source of suffering—evolved beyond the simply human state.”
“What bagasse!” she said, smiling, showing me something, dark like a bird at night, flying, and beautiful, I saw it in my mind’s eye. I couldn’t help it, I took her around the waist.
She inhaled the slightest bit of air, surprised, then kept my gaze. “That would make me tragic?”
“What is bagasse?” I asked. My mouth was dry. I was dizzy.
“The chaff of cane, pulp, garbage!”
Why were we talking about history? About anything outside what spanned us? I couldn’t even think—
She said, “bagasse,” again
, and bit her lips. Her heart was pounding too. She had not pulled away.
“In the year 2005, the President revealed that he was a Prototype, as was most of his cabinet. Hundreds of scientists gathered to attest to the fact that the several hundred thousand who had been taking Albers Treatments had technically not aged at all in the 26 years they had been under Dr. Albers’ care. Except for their replaceable prodermises, their low BMI, the First Wavers were no different from people around them who were only middle-aged or younger by count. Their mental and sensory capacities were the same, except for the absence, or decrease, through hormonal manipulations, of some of the lower appetites, which gave them a superior vision of reality.”
“Superior? Bull,” she said.
“Bull?” I asked, still holding her. She had not pulled away.
“Albers’ subjects were, chronologically, between the ages of sixty and a hundred by count. An elevated age in the old world, but in the new one, young men and some women, in their prime! Public reception of this news was immediate and profound. The President announced this to be the greatest achievement in human history, greater even than the discovery of the Americas, or the ventures into space, saying, and ‘All of history is Prologue.’
Acceptance of the new, Post-Reveal Age was not universal. After the first few years, protest groups emerged, forms of political/pseudo-philosophical objection, both based in what Arturo calls the ‘Grand Substitutions’ for Immortality—ancient mass religion and 20th century salvationist-plastimaterialism. The latter continues to be practiced today in foreign regions still in the throes of fugue capitalism and unregulated digital elaboration—both developments were outlawed in our territories in the early 2020’s, in the start of the President’s fifth term, at the same time of the New Constitutional Convention that established the first underpinnings of the United Authority and re-drew the boundaries of the former United ‘States.’ There were pockets of rebellion well into the late 2070’s, and in the De-Accessioned Territories under Authority protectorate rule until the end of the last century, the final one being the long siege of the West Florida Federation, the Police Action of Perdido Bay, which, when WELLFI Security prevailed, was the end of the military phase of the partition, pacification, Enclavization of those on the continent still resistant to the Reveal. Internationally, today, all elites have begun to be Treated, and the struggle to transform culture has made great strides. Old philosophies are slowly dying out. The rearrangement of the economy away from the wasteful fugue cycles, and toward the preservation of the Heirs and values based on the Elysian Reality has led to a—”
She was in my arms. Our ribs were touching, our waists, our—
In that dangerous moment, this was my thought: if she were to kiss me once, I would be ready to throw it all over. Trust, hope, Lazarus, job, collar—I knew it was wrong, but I was willing, and purely, I didn’t care.
She was still pretending this wasn’t happening. “Greenmore says you should be ready for your tests.”
I nodded. “I know.” I knew all kinds of things now, including what something in me wanted to do to Camille, not just the mute and shameful desire, but every English word for it.
Finally, she pulled back enough to slide a drive in the slot. And blink. Trying to break the trance.
“Give me the Galcyon,” I said.
“She said half a dose.” But my arms were around her again.
“Now she’s got you hooked, you gotta be unhooked,” she whispered.
“Don’t leave me,” I pleaded. I could have sworn we had run off together already. “Just say the word—”
“Why you tease me like that? You know it’s not fair—” But she was still in my arms.
“What’s fair?” I said. “You and me, that’s fair.” I kissed her. Smack. She was sweet and rich and better than I could have thought. Smack again. No slap. She was on her tip-toes, she was pulling down her beret to hide our mouths. She kissed me back, she did. Twice. I slid my hand under that waist of hers, soft. Everything so soft. She was my girl. She was—
She threw her head back, snorted—but it was too late, said, “Don’t.”
“You kissed me!”
“Don’t,” she said. “It’s a danger.” She looked so sad.
“You want me,” I said.
“I do not. I do not.”
“But you know what’s true.”
“Wish I did!” she said.
“I thought you were so sure!”
“You think this is a game?”
“I don’t, I don’t,” I said.
She said she had to go, and she left.
I was grieving then, truly grieving.
*
A week later Dr. Greenmore showed up after dinner. I was in my room, leaning against my desk. Exactly where Camille had been. She said, “You have done better on your tests that we had any reason to expect.”
I was more normal, then. Not on so much Galcyon. They had been letting me out in the evening to eat, since I’d finished the tests. I was being detoxified, re-socialized. It was a process that would take months. Sometimes I believed my obsession with Camille was just an artifact of those druggy days. But there was such a certainty about it, at other times. She was mine. It would happen. I found myself seeing it coming true. I wondered could Greenmore see it. She was scouring, again.
“You—” she said, when she opened those gold eyes. “You don’t have much of a dent on your lip, it’s a bit odd, has anyone said anything to you about that? Ever?”
I knew that. Something so silly. That was it? That little dip between nose and mouth others had. Mine was quite faint, in fact, you could say, non-existent. But my upper lip itself had quite a peak, fleshy, and it hooked over the bottom one, which made my mouth interesting, Jeremy told me. Camille had kissed it, so it was worth something. “Somebody must have sewed it,” I said.
“When?”
“Jeremy told me it must have happened. He said it must have been slit, cleft, a little bit, not much, and then sewed.” He said I had a period face. Ariel had the lip, too. This was true, but I hadn’t thought of it in years. Some trick the people who threw us away had done to us before they left us to rot. They circumcised certain tribes, marked animals to brand—that was one explanation, at least. Jeremy had suggested it. Some enclaves stitched a web between the first two fingers, took off the earlobes. Loose bands of Outliars did it too, marked their progeny with tattoos—the “S” girls.
“Well,” she said, backing away, as if she suddenly smelled me, or took some other offense, I had no idea what it was. “That would be the fact of it, then. Though there isn’t any scar I can see.”
“I don’t remember. My lip was like this when I was found,” I said.
She raised her brow, she was done. “Well, what can it matter? Anyone who might say anything would just be superstitious,” she said. Then she stood, without explaining, and said good night.
*
For a while, I eased into the Curing Towers routines. I took a job as a dishwasher in the Victuals Hall, which was for “Nats and Nyets.” I was mentally and physically exhausted during these days, and couldn’t endure much stimulation—I slept a great deal, and I was quite forgetful about everyday things for a while, though my education didn’t fade.
I hadn’t met any other real Nyets working or eating there though, I was the only one. They were all enclaver contract workers, like Camille. I sat with her at breaks. She let me, after some protest. She just avoided being alone with me. Never ever came to my room anymore. Since she wouldn’t kiss me, I fought with her.
She said things like, “time is the medium of life.” I said, “Time is what life is trying to escape.” She said, “Time is on a cycle.” I said that was her enclave propaganda. She asked, “Well how can you take the color out of paint?” I said, you can, and she said, “With what, bleach? What is paint with no color?” This was a Free Wheel bromide. I told her she wasn’t original. I said, more than once, “There is such a thing as pigment—col
or in its ideal form, it’s pure.” This one flummoxed her for a while. I was even sorry. But then she came back. “By themselves I don’t think pigments mean much. They are like, what, waiting to live, waiting to be brought to life? Before the cloth is dyed or the emulsion is brought out and blended and spread, when the pigment is still sitting in the closet—waiting to be color—what is it then? What?”
“What’s eternal?” I asked.
“Well, those Shades don’t seem Eternal to me, they seem miserable,” she said.
“You’d be Treated if you could do it. Anybody would.” I was being cruel. Free Wheelers weren’t ever allowed to go in, no matter if they somehow got the money. That was what it said in their Charters.
“I would not,” she said. “Go see them in the North Tower. Then you tell me.”
I said she was exaggerating. No Heir I’d ever talked to, and I had talked to many, carried on long conversations with them I was proud to say—had ever mentioned such as what she described.
I’d been in the Curing Towers for months at that point, and I had never seen the “clients,” as they were called. And I’d heard very little about them except Camille’s extreme descriptions. Most of the workers refused to speak of them at all.
“I’ll show you then,” she said.
My ploy had worked. She said she’d meet me. We would be alone, sort of. Did this mean she’d decided something? That there was a chance?
We made a date for one night at sunset, when there weren’t that many dishes to wash. I was still too sensitive to the day sun.
The gate to the North Tower garden was not locked. I was supposed to meet Camille inside. The orange–pink balloon lamps went on just as I approached the place. The stone pathways crossed. There were palm trees in the center in a ring. If I turned around I could see all the other Towers of the center, the signature gleaming mosaic tiles. No Camille.
Eventually, I spied a group of very quiet Heirs sitting on chairs in a row on a patio outside. Their pale grayish-blue organdium gowns blended with the dusky sky, which was almost like water. They stared, unresponsive.
