by Moira Crone
“Sim of a lifetime—” Gepetto called out again.
“Oh, shut up, he’s got other stuff on his mind,” Serpent said. “Come on, Malc. They will hire you, I bet.”
My feet landed on the black, cracked pavement. I was going in, of course. I didn’t need persuading.
We went single file behind Peet to the entry way, a narrow walk covered in a dirty carpet. We opened a crude door. Inside was a dull corridor, with a sign pointing to the elevator, which we took down into the actual lobby, which was coated in slick tan stucco. There were fluorescent lights across the tops of the large black squares. I realized, when I looked again, these were the hotel’s plate glass windows, now buried.
The whole place had the odor of old beans, a filthy wall-to-wall carpet, two couches in one corner, one with a broken leg in the front. Peet led us all over to a short man with a very long pair of eyelashes who was standing behind the Reservation Desk.
Leaning in, so as not to be heard by the other clerks, he said, “Sebastian, Penthouse Arena.” And the man immediately gestured to a service elevator in the corner. It was filthy too, with thick gray blankets on the walls, and crushed boiled egg and empty brosia bags on the floor. We all got in together—Gepetto was planning on being hired along with me. Two extras, hardly likely. Imposses were considered decorative beings, not good for any employment. But owning up to being an Imposse was his only shot—an Heir would never be allowed backstage at a Sim of any kind. He didn’t even have a ticket.
The elevator door refused to close the first few times Peet banged on the “Penthouse,” button, but finally it did and we heard the sliding whir that meant we were moving.
Just when the brass panel of lights beamed the number 8, we stopped dead. And the lights went out. There were five more floors to go.
“Power outage, surprise,” Peet said. So there we were in a box in the sky in the dark. Gepetto started to moan. Peet mumbled something, might have been prayers.
“So’kay,” Serp reassured me.
“I know,” I said.
The elevator noises came on again. “Well,” Gepetto said in his low sliding voice. “A bit of excitement.” Then we jolted, and were grinding upward again. I lost my balance. Serpenthead caught my arm.
“That drink with Q, I’m surprised you are standing,” he whispered. “Young and pure and chaste a man as you? Empty stomach. Giving you credit.”
After several more starts and stops—doors opening, no patrons standing on the landings, my heart rising and falling at every rattle—we arrived at the very top of the building, and walked into another bare corridor. As we came around a corner, a slender woman with long silky dark hair and a wide round white collar appeared. She came up and asked, “Word?”
Peet knew what that meant. “Bebum. Sebastian. Security.”
“Sebastian. Like Ariel’s companion in The Little Mermaid,” Gepetto said to me, excited. “Remember?
I said, “Yeah, it just keeps coming—”
The woman with the collar had a long silver ring with a dazzling pear-shaped stone on her right index, which she waved in front of us as she led us though the winding halls until we reached a door that said, “MIRAMAR PENTHOUSE ARENA. BACK STAGE. AUTHORIZED ONLY.” There were two big Nat men with black stretch shirts inside. They paid no attention to us newcomers. Our guide turned to all of us, finally sizing us up, preparing to introduce us.
Gepetto paused—would he be hired? Would they accept him? Could he go where honest workers went?
“What’s this?” our guide asked, noticing him.
“Bebum. Imposse who drove us,” Peet said. “He insisted on coming. Wants to be backstage.”
She looked askance.
Gepetto’s tiny lips were quivering.
“You vouch for him?” she asked.
“Please,” Gepetto said, under his breath.
Peet shrugged, turned to the moon face. “Bebum. You ever worked? The likes of you? Tell her—”
“Sure, sure,” Gepetto said, nodding wildly. “I’m Imposse, but I used to work.”
The girl said to the rest of us, “I want someone on him. How do we know he’s not undercover? You understand?”
“Yes, I’m under no cover, no cover,” Gepetto said and wagged his head. Then he turned to us, for she still looked dubious. “Let me back here with you, or I’ll go now. I won’t take you back!” he threatened.
Peet’s eyes rolled around. Then he looked at me with a new urgency. “Listen, you stick to him, like glue—that’s your task.” He had my wrist, held it tight, squeezed.
“Well?” the girl with the collar asked.
“He’ll get in no trouble. Bebum, he’ll not get near—” Peet said.
She looked us all over one more time, said, “Okay, follow me.” And then she was leading us through that first gathering room. After that, we were backstage.
There was an area in the center of the stage, curtained on four sides with white canvas. I could hear murmuring and grunting coming from inside the cube. Several pairs of feet and something that looked like two sets of wheels were revealed by the few inches gap between the canvas and the floor. “That’s the talent,” our guide said, and then she turned around and called out, “SEBASTIAN, the muscle is here.”
So Sebastian was a person. He appeared as if out of nowhere, down among some seats. He had a head like a soccer ball, wore a tight black shirt, similar to the others I’d seen, but he had epaulets. “We are the muscle,” Gepetto said as an aside to me, with delight.
The house lights were turned on higher. I could see we were playing to a wide steep arena—perhaps three thousand could be seated. There were two aisles leading up to the doors at the top.
Although the set-up was different here, with the formal stage, the audience more or less in one place, I felt an excitement I always felt before a performance, from my acting days.
A new woman, this one in a dark green dress, dark brown skin, her black hair in a tight ball at the nape of her neck, emerged from behind the tent of canvas. “I’m Tamara,” she said to me. “I’m with Ginger. Part of the family. Her husband is my brother.” She offered her hand. “Sebastian promised—we demanded extra security. You?”
“See how they keep it up? Stay in character? Dazzling,” Gepetto said, ignoring her. “Thank you for letting us be part—”
“Who is this Heir?” Tamara asked.
“Imposse,” I said.
She relaxed.
I was actually an actor, so I wasn’t that impressed. I would tell Gepetto that when this Tamara was gone. In fact I thought it rather silly. We all knew who they were, the parts they had to play, or we would soon enough. They didn’t have to fake it with the technicians, the stage hands.
“You are all the extra security?” she asked, glancing at Gepetto, whose long, ridiculously skinny arms were dangling out of his sleeveless, semi-transparent gown. He was simply too well dressed for this occasion, this task. And too weak, to look at him. And why did they need security? Or have a fear of undercover inspectors—who gave a damn what happened in the Far East? She said, “We wanted someone right up on the stage, in case—”
“You know why you are here?” the Sebastian fellow offered—he’d bounded down the left aisle, climbed up on to the stage, and joined us. “You know what to do? Hey, you, what happened to your ear?” His eyes were fast, and bulgy.
I hadn’t felt my injury for hours. Instinctively I reached up, tried to cover it with my hair. The Q. I thanked it. “In Port Gram, got shot at—” I said.
Sebastian was not surprised by this report, apparently. “They get ugly up there, got too many rules,” he said and nodded, then moved on. “If anything goes on, and I tell you, pull this lever.” He strode to the right wing, to show me a gray metal wand sticking out of the wall, and ropes. “Drop the curtain, put up the house lights. Understand? Very simple.”
I didn’t know what all the fuss was about. Gepetto tailed me over to the edge of the stage with Sebastian. He noticed h
im, finally, and asked, “What’s this one? He with you?”
“Imposse,” I explained.
Gepetto looked at Sebastian with his most pitiful face, his tiny lips disappearing into a bite. He looked so nervous he seemed mock-nervous.
“Muscle?” Sebastian asked.
“He drove us here. He volunteered. I told him he could be backstage. It was the deal, or we would never have got here on time.”
Sebastian looked at me hard, to see if I could be trusted. Apparently I somehow passed the test. “And you are? Is that a Nyet collar?”
“Yes. I’m ready for my Boundarytime. ”
“Is that so?” he asked, unbelieving. Then he turned to Gepetto and said, “Don’t get in the way.”
“No, no sir!” he said, timidly.
Sebastian moved on to Serpenthead and Peet. “I want you standing down there, in the orchestra pit,” he told them. “Keep an eye on the entrances, and be flexible—go up to help the ushers, or work the stage if—”
“If what?” I called to them.
They acted as if the question had no meaning. “Okay. You are the last resort, if I give the signal—”
“Pull down the lever,” I said. “Do the ropes.”
He made me practice opening and closing the main curtain a few times, using the long loops. “That’s right, quick study,” he said, nodding. “I’ll be up there,” he pointed to the catwalk. “I don’t have those curtain controls. I’ll have all the others. Don’t ask. I didn’t design this place.” Then he went to the opposite wing of the stage and climbed up a ladder along the wall. Soon he was right above our heads. From there he could oversee cues for changes in lighting, in music, sound effects. Orchestrate.
I squatted down on the edge of the stage. Peet had left the crobster bag there. A few tails remaining. I forgot myself. I started to pull one out.
Immediately, Tamara came over. “What do you think this is? A picnic?”
“Look, you don’t have to—I was an actor. I understand. You don’t have to keep up the character,” I said.
“What are you talking about?” she asked me. “My brother’s wife can’t bear the smell. It’s disrespectful.” She stalked off with the food.
Gepetto hunkered down beside me. “They are good, aren’t they?”
I said I thought they were way over the top.
Not long after Sebastian’s ascent, about 10:15, the doors opened. The house lights were suddenly bright, piped music came up, and the audience rushed in, all either Heirs, in costume and regalia—or Altereds of every description, on leashes. The jewels and headjobs were impressive as ever. I always liked the glory of seeing them in large groups, gave me an old rush from my boyhood.
Eventually, Sebastian ordered the house lights down, the canvas “tent” parted. So I saw the set and the Sim. This touted Ginger Sim. The costumes were drab. Current day, not period. Nothing special. Maybe shabby was the point. Tamara was still wearing her green outfit, the best dressed of the bunch.
A skinny woman—terribly skinny, emaciated, the way Lydia looked when we flayed her, possibly sixty or seventy pounds—lay on a hospital-style bed, which accounted for the two sets of wheels I’d seen showing at the bottom. Her color was not the delft blue Lydia was, though, instead, brownish pink, like bleached cypress. They could be Chef Menteurian, that was true, to look at them. But Vee had always had that prohibition against copying. Perhaps it was just the makeup. Perhaps they were from somewhere else. No variety in the grouping. I wasn’t used to that. The emaciated one was set up on pillows, propped up rather high, so the audience could see. Her hands like claws were hooked over the white sheets and a single knitted blanket. Bags hung beside her on a pole, from them, intravenous tubes, which appeared to run into her at places along her arms.
“Let the grand so-long begin,” Gepetto quipped. I tried, but I couldn’t laugh. There was something about this dull little tableau that upset me deeply, but for the life of me, I couldn’t say what it was.
VII
September 12, 2121
Wood Palace on the Sea
Western Gulf De-Accessioned Territory, U.A. Protectorate
We went through winter, spring, and summer with the “Natural” Greenmore. She continued her “research,” insisted she was getting somewhere, having marvelous “excursions.” And we were scared all the time something would happen to her, that she was about to dribble down. Also, she was kind of interesting, a little tiny woman who bustled about along with us, ate at the table, like a bird, but still—spoke in a different voice, had quickness, a different kind of vitality. She was vulnerable, she felt everything. I got to like her that way.
Then, WELLFI found out and stepped in. We got a certified notice. Klamath and Mimi suspected Chotchko intervention. Klamath told us we would all be accused when they saw her stripped like this, eating this way. And what if she wouldn’t go for her Treatments? Heirs left exposed eventually reached a tipping point, different for everyone. Then they deteriorated rapidly, and could not be saved. The judgment went first, he said. As in Greenmore’s case, he implied. “They will twist it all around and say we killed her,” he said. “You are our only hope.” We were in the kitchen at the time, peeling the perpetual shrimp for the East Menteur market, but he turned up to look at me straight on. “You. The only reason she hasn’t leapt into the lake.”
I had no idea what he meant by that.
The same day the messages came from WELLFI, about her Treatment times, I got my first news about the trouble with my Trust, wrote Lazarus for a clarification. No answer.
It was a hot day, muggy, no wind, but a storm was approaching. I’d seen it reported.
Hurricane Horace. I asked Klamath if he’d heard. Of course—he followed the weather closely. Everyone from Chef Menteur had to. A whole team of tropical storms had formed this season, worse than the previous years, he told me. Most collapsed out in the Atlantic, but the last two hit Florida—Fantasia and Gilbert. “And now Horace,” he said, nodding. “They say it is a very organized storm. Not a good sign. Nothing these days is a good sign. So, talk to her, please.”
I finally got up the nerve. I found her on her bed, her tiny body folded up near the top under layers of fabric, mummy-like.
She had a stack of books spread out over the blankets—not those she was always reading, from the dismantled library on Audubon Island that day I last saw Ariel. They were wider, broader, and they had little pieces of paper sticking out on all sides—things stuffed in, markers.
“These are scrapbooks of when I was a Not-Yet, but I didn’t call myself that. I didn’t know I’d ever be Treated,” she said. “This is what I looked like.” She opened one book. I had to sit beside her on a stool to see it.
Flats on paper, fading. A young woman with dusky skin—sort of the kind mine was. Dark, wavy hair. Dark eyes. Her features were different—flatter and wider in the photos than now. What remained the same was something about the bridge of the nose, how the eyes met together there—intelligence in her gaze that she had not lost in her transformation from Nat to Heir.
In one she stood on a shore, bright green behind her.
“We used to go see what was left of the beach, I mean the strand, the sand,” she said. “There was still a little left along the Panhandle then. It wasn’t summer. We didn’t care. We liked it in winter. No one knew how long it would last. It was as if we were saying goodbye to it. It was a pilgrimage. The sea was rising then, so quickly.”
She wore black stockings without feet and a long tunic, and a small stone, a little moon pendant around her neck on a black cord. “Blue Mountain,” she said. “It was the last of the old beaches to survive, without artificial means. It was high above sea level, by comparison.”
The sea was green as baby grass.
“I’d just graduated university,” she said. “Decided to take a post-doc in Advanced Extension Psychology. We were having a vacation. This was a man I met at the Defuniak Research Center.”
Just the dark
sloping shoulder of a man’s jacket, and those collars I’d seen before in old photos, starched and broad, pointed, standing up, exaggerated. The picture had been torn. The body had no head.
“I was going with him. We used such terms, as going. Can you guess what the year is? Twenty forty-five. Before the Great Transfer. That’s years away. None of us knew then how we would, or if we ever would. Make it. So many resources had dried up. The Troubles had started, the rebellions, the bombings, and the combat in the old cities—all over there being no ‘economy,’ no fugue cycle. Heir communities just started to wall themselves in. No jobs but in WELLFI. Psychology or Physiology, or Endocrinology or Extension Studies. And there was Varietology, which was big. I was lucky, I had an aptitude. I thought I would be special, have a chance, break out, and be someone. Arrive. Come up with a theory of everything.”
“You did,” I said. “Re-description.”
“I thought I did, too, for a long time. He—the man who is missing here—was very brilliant, too. He was in genetic studies, and we spent our spare time watching the old flats. He had nostalgia, somehow, for the mess life used to be, the redundancy. He was the one who had the theory about how we could evolve. We couldn’t just live on and on—the goal was immortality. Different. He made this distinction, between our epochal lives, and immortality.”
I felt something strange, awkward, a little fit of rage, in my consciousness. I was glad that he had no face in the photo. “Where did he go?”
She put her fingers over her mouth. “I don’t know,” she said. Then she put the photo down, slipped it under a thin clear film. Jeremy had once told me that covering one’s mouth was a good signal of a liar—I had used the gesture in a play. She turned the page.
A restaurant in this photo. I still didn’t find her easily recognizable. She seemed older. A plate in front of her, spread with victuals. Curlicues of fried things—fish or shrimp. Still that dusky skin. She wasn’t an Heir, not yet. I liked the way she looked: smart, authoritative. A man beside her. She hadn’t torn out his image. He had a big head and broad but sloping shoulders. His jacket was close cut, with a severe “v.” The high wide collar again, this time slightly less exaggerated. He had a very dark brow; it almost merged, like Ariel’s. And his skin was pale, ivory. “There he is—the only photo I didn’t destroy. We had such a bitter falling out. He thought my invention—Re-description—was a ‘superficial version’ of his theory. I’d appropriated his ideas, and ‘cheapened’ them. We stopped speaking. But at this time, he was my mainstay,” she said. She pointed to another picture on the opposite page: Treated men, early Heirs, Protos—I could tell by the teeth, and the puffy stylized skin, the tight popped-open eyes—sheet lenses were cruder then—otherwise, they dressed like everybody else, like Nats. The tablecloth was the same; it must have been taken at the same, or a similar restaurant. They had plates with little dollops on them, which I recognized as early, crude brosias.
