The Second Cure

by Margaret Morgan

  ‘G’day, sunshine,’ said Brigid, disconnecting her vocomm and shoving it into her jacket pocket. She was there to socialise with actual people, not computers. And there were quite a few people to socialise with, judging by the crowd in the hallway. She didn’t recognise any, and made her way towards the kitchen to deposit her stubbies of ale. She opened the fridge to find a spot for them and was staring at its complete lack of space when a waiter, bedecked in a black suit, offered her a flute of champagne from a silver tray.

  ‘I’m guessing I missed the bit about this not being BYO …’ said Brigid, and she dumped her beers on the counter and took a glass of bubbles instead. ‘Thanks.’ Another waiter passed with a plate of hummus and carrot sticks, and she snaffled some. Big brother was clearly doing well for himself, she decided. Before going off to find him and give him a big, sloppy birthday kiss, she decided to leave her overnight bag in the spare room. She shuffled her way down another passageway, excusing herself as guests defended their champagne glasses from her passing elbows. A number of the partygoers were sporting the latest in forehead tats: extraordinary animated patterns that changed colour. Charlie had explained to her they used genetically modified skin tissue, containing octopus and cuttlefish genes, to produce colour-changing cells called chromatophores. The more expensive versions had iridophores, which created iridescent golds and silvers, and blues and greens. Most were programmed by a simple chip inserted behind the ear, but with the most sophisticated models the wearer’s own neurological wiring had connected to the neurochip, allowing the colours to be controlled at will. A hell of a party trick, thought Brigid. Times had certainly changed since she interviewed the two thete kids all those years ago. Just as startling as the animated tats was the complete absence of purity masks, a fashion accessory Brigid definitely didn’t miss. Perhaps they wouldn’t have offended her so much if they were worn by men as well as women, but it looked far too much like the sort of garment used to symbolise female sexual purity and modesty for her taste, despite the protests from the wearers that the similarities were just coincidence and the government’s pretence that the masks were still a protection from the Plague.

  She reached the guest quarters, which now served as a library as well as Brigid’s refuge whenever she came down to Sydney. The walls were lined with Winnie’s old bookshelves, and her books from a lifetime of reading and teaching. Of course, though, one space was reserved for the smart wall – Richard did love his technology – and as Brigid entered the room she saw, standing in front of it, a woman with deep-brown skin and jet black hair in the most ornate corn rows and box braids that Brigid had ever seen. She was slender, wearing a long and flowing crimson dress, and was gazing at the kaleidoscope of yellow and ochre that was swirling on the screen. One of Richard’s digital neuro-art works.

  ‘It’s gorgeous, isn’t it?’

  The woman turned to her and smiled. ‘Stunning. Are you a thete?’ The question threw Brigid momentarily and she had to remind herself that this wasn’t Capricornia, where such a question would never be asked socially, so casually. Here, being a thete didn’t mean you’d be denounced and arrested. It meant you had a gift.

  ‘No, I’m not. I got the vaccine when it first came out.’

  The woman nodded. ‘Me too. But you don’t need to be one to appreciate this.’ She gestured at the wall.

  ‘Richard’s really talented,’ Brigid agreed.

  The woman was staring at her. ‘You’re his sister, right?’

  ‘We haven’t met, have we?’ said Brigid. ‘I think I’d remember,’ she wanted to add. The woman had a tantalising accent – there was French there, with a dash of something else. Brigid would absolutely remember.

  ‘I’ve seen you on TV.’

  Brigid nodded. ‘I used to be foreign correspondent for Capricornia with ABC Media. I’m freelance now, though.’

  ‘Juliette Moreau. I work with Charlie.’ She shook Brigid’s hand.

  Brigid’s palm was sweating. God this woman was cute. Once she’d have been able to turn on the charm like a tap, but years of the Capricornian closet had rusted up her flirting skills.

  ‘So, how do you go about being a journalist in Capricornia? Freedom of speech isn’t exactly high on Effenberg’s priorities.’

  ‘No, it’s not. He and I go back a long way, though, and I suspect I get a little more latitude than many would. Still, self-censorship is part of it.’

  ‘That can’t be too satisfying. Is it even journalism if you can’t write the truth?’

  ‘It’s a compromise. I think Effenberg thinks a few authentic news sources give him legitimacy. I take what I can get.’

  ‘At a price.’

  ‘I’m playing a long game,’ said Brigid, feeling a need to justify herself to this earnest woman. ‘I won’t be there forever.’

  ‘I’d hope not. I was reading a Human Rights Watch report on academic freedom in Capricornia. What exists of it. It’s terrifying.’

  Wow. Gorgeous and smart. ‘But listen to me,’ continued Juliette. ‘This is a party and I’m talking politics.’ She had, amazingly, taken Brigid’s hand again. ‘Come outside? Jazz band’s starting soon. Swing, stuff from last century. Love that stuff. Do you dance?’

  She rarely did, but for Juliette Moreau, thought Brigid, definitely. ‘You bet. I’ve got to head back tomorrow and I’m going to milk the pleasures of decadent Sydney for all I’m worth.’ Juliette laughed and Brigid followed her to the verandah and down the stairs. This was definitely not how she’d expected her brother’s party to play out.

  The back garden was transformed. In the centre was a marquee from which guests, chatting and laughing, spilled onto the lawn. Hundreds of tiny white lights floated among the trees like fireflies, and a dance floor lay in front of a stage where the band was readying itself. She spotted a trombone, a trumpet, a sax, an old piano – it was Winnie’s, she realised, the one that she and Richard had learnt on as children – an upright bass, a drum set, and a singer, setting up a microphone. In a corner was a fire pit – not real fire, of course, but one of those new solar-powered things: a holopit that let out heat and shards of programmed colour – and a semi-circle of Richard’s friends sat around it on tree stumps, deep in conversation. Others were gazing at it, mouths slack. Thetes, obviously, minds transported by the visuals, like a mob of tripping hippies from the seventies. And walking among it all, waiters and waitresses, distributing food and drinks. A dronelight rose up from next to the stage, illuminated the jazz singer with its spot, and the band began to play.

  Every honey bee fills with jealousy

  When they see you out with me,

  I don’t blame them goodness knows

  My honeysuckle rose

  Two and a half hours and a blister on her heel later, Brigid had learnt many things. She had learnt that Juliette was a great dancer, especially at the jitterbug. That she liked white wine, but not red. She was born in New Caledonia to a Kanak mother and a Vietnamese-French father, and had studied in Paris before moving to Sydney. The conversation between them veered between earnest discussion of politics and the way the parasite had changed their worlds, and the personal. Openness. And laughter. Brigid found herself relaxing in Juliette’s company in a way she hadn’t for years. Her life wasn’t tailored for relaxation these days.

  She was ninety-nine per cent sure Juliette was gay, but no longer trusted her gaydar as she once had. It had been too risky to make assumptions in Effenberg’s world. So she plunged in.

  ‘Ever been married?’ she asked with forced lightness as she poured two beers from Richard’s keg.

  ‘No. I got close a few years ago, but she got cold feet and we broke up soon after.’

  She. Brigid suppressed her smile.

  ‘Since then, nothing serious. Nothing committed. You?’

  Brigid passed Juliette her drink. ‘You don’t get to be serious or committed in Capricornia. I haven’t been celibate, but …’ She shrugged.

  ‘Why stay, Brigid? That’s cr
azy.’

  Brigid regarded this remarkable woman. ‘Yeah. Yeah, it is.’

  They sat on cushions beneath the magnolia tree, and Juliette told Brigid about her research. She worked in synthetic biology, designing DNA, proteins, cells and tissues specifically tailored for individual patients. Brigid knew a little about it, how it had begun to abolish inherited diseases like cystic fibrosis, and made chronic inflammatory conditions like arthritis and diabetes rarities in much of the world, but to hear Juliette talk about it with such passion and insight was, she had to admit, simply inspiring.

  Then, just as abruptly as Juliette came into her life, she told Brigid she had to leave. ‘I’m really sorry. I wish I could stay, but I’ve got to get to my lab at six in the morning. I’ve got a student who’s doing a time-sensitive organelle synthesis, and I need to hold his hand.’

  Brigid’s thoughts of spending the night with Juliette in her single bed in the spare room dissipated into the evening air. ‘No time for one more drink?’

  ‘I shouldn’t drink any more, anyway. I’d better go and say goodbye to Charlie and Richard …’

  ‘Come back and say bye to me before you go?’ Her voice sounded needy to her own ears.

  Juliette’s smile, though, was warm and promising. ‘I will. Stay there.’ And she moved off into the crowd.

  The party was still swinging, with the more energetic keeping the dance floor packed, and others sitting on the grass, vaping the latest drugs for enhancing their synaesthesia, their eye tats shimmering. Brigid felt like a tourist in her own hometown. This freedom, this indulgence … She caught herself thinking ‘hedonism’ and chastised herself. Capricornia was getting to her.

  She saw Juliette approaching through the crowd, nodding to people she knew, stopping to chat to someone. Brigid couldn’t hear what she was saying, but she watched her new friend shrug and pout in a way that was pure Gallic, and felt a fresh pang of desire. Juliette looked up. She caught Brigid’s gaze and held it. The connection was electric.

  Juliette had summoned an Auto2, and the two women walked around the side of the house to where it was waiting for her at the curb. A half-moon was rising in a sky untouched by clouds and a tawny frogmouth’s repeated hoot could be heard over the sounds of the distant party. They stood closely together, not touching but so near they could feel each other’s body heat.

  ‘Good luck back in Capricornia,’ Juliette said. ‘I’m not sure I could cope with living there.’

  ‘It has its upsides.’

  ‘Like what?’

  Brigid found Juliette’s eyes on hers almost unbearable. ‘I’m not sure I can think of any right now …’

  Juliette smiled and leant in for what Brigid thought would be a good-night kiss on the cheek. But it wasn’t on her cheek. Brigid’s first reaction was panic, and she almost pulled away. To kiss in public, where anyone could see them … But then she remembered. This was Australia, not Capricornia. This was safe.

  Juliette’s lips melted into Brigid. She felt a wash of wanting, of relief, of amazement. ‘Oh hell,’ she murmured, unable to believe her fortune, and then let her body and mind succumb to this effortless melding.

  Then it was over and Juliette climbed into the car. ‘Soon,’ she mouthed, and Brigid nodded mutely. As the Auto2 silently accelerated out of sight, Brigid felt as though it was doing more than taking Juliette away. It was leaving her empty.

  The party over, Charlie and Richard sat with Brigid by the light and warmth of the holopit, catching up beneath the constellation of floating lights, with Goblin at their feet. The winter night was mild, but there was still an edge to it. Charlie wondered if the flush on Brigid’s cheeks was the holopit lighting, or more related to the company she’d kept all night. She quietly rejoiced and regretted she hadn’t brought the two together sooner.

  They discussed the party, gossiped about guests, and Richard talked about the SynDome recently opened in Los Angeles. He’d been there for the opening, which featured the premiere of his new work based on paintings by Rothko. He spoke of the excitement and energy he’d sensed in the Union of New America. As its political and creative capital, Los Angeles was a world centre of Neuro-Aestheticism, and Richard was smitten, not least by the acclaim his work received.

  ‘Maybe you should move there,’ said Brigid. ‘Sounds like they’d adore you to stay.’

  ‘We couldn’t leave this place,’ said Charlie. ‘I mean, who could, now the wildlife is returning?’ She told Brigid about the quolls, bilbies and Tasmanian devils recently reintroduced to various national parks under the new post-feral cat conservation program. She and Richard had seen a tiger quoll only a week earlier.

  ‘Are they going to survive?’ asked Brigid.

  ‘It’s hard to know. There are still foxes, but most have been eradicated, and now the cats have gone, the quolls don’t have many predators.’

  ‘And ’cause the rabbit population’s still huge, they’ve also got plenty to eat,’ added Richard.

  ‘So, yeah, people are cautiously optimistic,’ said Charlie. ‘It’s pretty exciting. Beautiful animals.’

  Brigid told them about a forcible detention she’d witnessed at Cairns airport on the way down. Charlie, not for the first time, felt a churning fear about where Brigid had chosen to live and work.

  ‘What happens to them?’ asked Charlie. ‘The people who get taken away like that?’

  ‘Forcibly cured,’ said Brigid dryly. ‘Then released back into the wild if they’re cured before they become symptomatic.’

  ‘And if they are symptomatic?’

  ‘Depends on the symptoms. Some people just … disappear.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘I know. It’s one of the things I’m trying to find out. What happens to them.’

  ‘It makes me feel sick that the treatment we developed is being used like that.’

  ‘Could be a lot worse. In some countries it’s summary execution.’

  ‘I know. But it doesn’t make it right. I wish you’d move back here.’

  ‘You just have to be careful.’

  ‘But “careful” doesn’t protect against what’s going on up there. It’s all so … arbitrary. It’d scare me witless. I don’t know how you cope.’

  ‘I wouldn’t if it weren’t for the job.’

  ‘But doesn’t the job make it even more dangerous?’

  ‘Oh, don’t start her off,’ said Richard. ‘You’ll get an earful of the importance of shining bright light into dark corners, a free and fearless media, freedom of speech …’

  ‘And you don’t think that’s important?’ Brigid was rising to his bait.

  ‘Teasing, little sister.’

  ‘But I’m serious, Richard,’ said Charlie. ‘The more that Brigid stirs things up, the riskier it is for her.’

  ‘And the more alluring it is for the foreign correspondent. That’s how it works, right?’ he asked Brigid, standing and not waiting for a reply. ‘Anyway, I’m for bed. And a huge sleep-in tomorrow.’

  ‘’Night, old man,’ his sister said.

  ‘I’ll be there soon.’ Charlie suppressed a yawn.

  Goblin followed him up to the house. The women watched as the dog passed within metres of a grazing rabbit and scarcely even registered it.

  ‘Goblin’s getting old, too,’ said Brigid.

  ‘If he doesn’t chase rabbits, he doesn’t chase quolls, so I’m happy.’ She drained the last of her drink. ‘I mean it, Brigid, about you coming back here. This house is half yours. Richard’s away weeks at a time, and it’s just going to waste with no one but me.’

  ‘And Goblin.’

  ‘And Goblin.’

  ‘And Grandfather.’

  Charlie laughed. ‘Surely there’re plenty of good jobs in Sydney?’

  ‘There are, and I’ve had offers. But that bullshit Richard was going on about, shining light into dark corners? It isn’t bullshit.’

  ‘I bet you could find some dark corners here, too.’

  ‘What, in th
e enlightened, progressive, creatively evolved Republic of Australia? Surely not!’

  Charlie winced. ‘God, do we really sound that smug?’

  ‘Not all of you. Some of you are quite tolerable.’

  ‘I know what you mean, though. There’s a sense of superiority here that does get galling. There’s such certainty, you know, that our way is the right way, and everyone else is to be pitied.’

  ‘Maybe we do deserve pity. It’s dreadful in Capricornia and getting worse. Everyone’s constantly fearful, scared to talk, scared to stick out, scared of what’ll happen if they don’t conform.’

  The seriousness of her tone was troubling. ‘You don’t conform, Brigid.’

  ‘I try. Sometimes I even succeed.

  ‘And when you don’t?’

  Brigid looked up. ‘There have been threats. Nothing physical, yet. There aren’t many of us left there. The gay escape was pretty comprehensive. So the closet isn’t big, but the door’s tightly shut.’

  ‘It must have felt good to be dancing with Juliette, then. I never knew you could dance.’

  Brigid allowed herself a wry smile. ‘If you can call it that. She was leading, if you didn’t notice. Makes a difference.’

  The hue of the holopit made it hard to tell, but it looked like Brigid’s blush was deepening.

  ‘It was nice to see, anyway.’

  ‘So, are you still being overrun by rats these days?’ asked Brigid. That she was changing the subject told Charlie even more than the blush. Brigid had never before been coy about her love life back when it was a high-turnover business Charlie and Richard had found hard to keep up with.

  ‘It’s not as bad as it was before the neutering virus was released,’ said Charlie. ‘A lot of people hate it, but there are still too many for the natural predators to deal with. The dingos are giving it a red-hot go, though, outside the cities.’

  ‘Effenberg brags that Capricornia has more cats per human than any other country. Saying they’re bad for the environment can get you deported.’