“So, what can I do for you?” He rubs at the condensation with one elbow, scans each of the labeled tubes with a molecular pen, and squints at the resulting readout. “Or did you just miss me?”
“Both,” she says. Then, “I need some help.”
Beni straightens. “For yourself or someone else?” He slides open the door, takes out one of the chilled test tubes.
“Ibrahim Darji.”
Beni eases the door shut, thoughtful as he ambles over to a pherion analyzer on the counter.
Anthea dutifully trails after him. A breath of chill air from the refrigerator follows her. The ghostly presence raises goose pimples on her arms. “You did a workup on him yesterday.”
“I remember.” He sets the test tube in a holder, retrieves a sequencing wafer, and inserts a pipette into the test tube.
“He’s dying,” she says.
Beni grimaces. “I know.” He draws a gossamer of blood into the pipette, delicate as a hummingbird sipping nectar from a rose.
Anthea hugs herself, rubs her chill-dappled upper arms. “There may be no way to help him.”
Beni’s mocha brown eyes meet her gaze. “But you think there might be.” This is a side to him that she hasn’t seen before. Sober, almost serious.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
Beni smears the top surface of the wafer with blood, then slots the wafer into the analyzer. The wafer is coated with enzymes that react with DNA and all known pherions and drugs. A positive reaction results in a specific chemical signal, displayed on a three-dimensional topographic map that renders concentration as amplitude. A typical output resembles a digitized skyline of New York viewed from a few thousand meters above the Atlantic. All unidentified chemicals are broken down, sequenced, and logged for further analysis.
“His workup had a lot of unknown pherions. Stuff that hasn’t turned up in any of the library cross-references.”
“I know someone who might be able to identify them.”
Beni’s cheeks bulge as he probes his tongue around the inside of his mouth. “I take it you’re talkin’ black-market. A private pharm.”
“Could be.”
“And you want me to give you a sample of his blood for analysis by this person, is that right?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not going to get into any trouble, are you?”
“I know what I’m doing. We’ve done business before—”
Beni raises a hand, cutting her off. “I don’t want to know. The less I know, the better.”
“Does that mean you’ll do it?”
Beni makes a pained face. “If this is what being a sugar daddy means, I’m gonna have to rethink my sweet tooth.”
EIGHT
The pod slows to a stop in front of a stodgy Queen Anne. The house is as prim as an octogenarian ballerina caked with makeup. It’s color coordinated, dolled up in pastel green, beige, and blue. There’s even a turret, of all things. The lawn is pedicured, the plants ornamental—freeze-dried. Everything in Carmel is that way. The buildings, the streets, the dinosaur remnants of late twentieth-century automobiles that have been converted from petroleum to hydrogen fuel-cell power. The whole clade has the feel of a zoo or a natural history diorama.
“Very pretty,” Varda quips. “Maybe you should put on something a little more fitted.”
Rigo frowns at what he’s got on—loose cotton slacks and shirt—checks out the clothing in the in-pod stores. Much as he hates to admit it, Varda’s sense of fashion is several orders of magnitude beyond his. “What do you suggest?”
“Something more period,” the IA suggests.
“Such as?”
“Polyester.”
“I have a nice Hiz Claiborne leisure suit,” the pod says helpfully.
Rigo walks over to the display window a few seats down from him. The dispenser offers a wide selection of bodyware: jewelry, cosmetics, accessories, and a large variety of personal hygiene products. In addition, there are several sprayon suits, slacks, and sport jackets.
“Would you like to see what it looks like?” the pod-turned-store-clerk asks.
What the hell.
Rigo waits for the store to scan his image, calculate his measurements. A moment later an image of the suit appears on his eyescreens, modeled by Rigo himself.
“It’s definitely you,” Varda says. “Dressed to murder.”
“I guess,” Rigo says. It’s a little retro for his taste, but all in all it doesn’t look too bad.
“Shall I deduct it from your account?” the pod inquires.
“Yes,” Varda says before Rigo can object. “Thank you.”
At times like this, Rigo wonders if it’s a good idea to entrust Varda with his basic financial affairs. The IA’s done a good job keeping him organized and out of debt, but there are times he definitely feels a lack of control—even though the hassle of managing one’s daily expenses can be a total pain in the ass. Still, he doesn’t want the headache or the responsibility, has better things to do with his time.
The sprayon canister rotates into view on its carousel. Rigo opens the dispenser door and takes it out.
“Hiz Claiborne thanks you for your purchase,” the pod chirps. “Hiz Claiborne, a leading purveyor of image-enhancing products for over fifty years, realizes that you have millions of shopping options and appreciates your business. Thank you for choosing Hiz Claiborne for all your personal decor needs!”
“Try it on,” Varda says.
Rigo sprays the suit on over his shirt and pants. It takes a few minutes for the new fabric to overwrite the old. But pretty soon he’s sporting an open-collared canary yellow shirt, a chartreuse wide-lapel jacket, and matching stretch pants with knife-edge crease down the front that’s sharp enough to slice ripe tomatoes.
“What do you think?” Rigo asks, straightening the sleeves and the collar. At least he doesn’t have to wear a tie.
“Dynamite,” Varda says enthusiastically. “You’re a bomb.”
“Please exit,” the pod interrupts, polite yet firm. “I have another passenger pickup and am running behind schedule. Your fellow commuters thank you in advance for your cooperation.”
Just before he depods, Rigo doses himself with most of the antipher Whipplebaum gave him, then tucks the rest in one of the many pockets afforded by his new jacket.
The air outside the pod is scented with a rose-water deodorizer, sweated out by the surrounding vegetation. By and large, the air freshener masks the offshore smell of brine, rotting kelp, and seagull shit. But as he heads up the brick walkway and wooden steps to the front door of the house, he catches a furtive whiff of Monterey Bay that hints at dead fish and deep, underlying currents of decay. A stately Mercedes Benz trundles by, drooling water from its exhaust pipe.
The door is polite in an effete sort of way—Tiffany glass set in a floral pattern of lead tracery—though not particularly snobbish. If anything, it sounds embarrassed by its role as butler.
“Please place the tip of one index finger in the middle of my central-most flower,” it tells him in a pained tone.
Rigo imagines the door must get a lot of humiliating deflowering jokes, which it is forced to endure with complete equanimity. He decides to exercise self-restraint. There’s nothing quite as confining and potentially claustrophobic as an unfriendly door.
“Thank you,” the door says. Relieved but anxious to get Rigo on his way, it opens with a flourish, ushering him into a dainty, parlor-sized anteroom filled with laughter and party babble. In front of him, a staircase angles steeply up to the second floor. Doorways on the left and right access what appear to be living and dining rooms. The aroma of savory hors d’oeuvres hangs in the air: crab dip, smoked salmon, fresh salsa, and buttered popcorn sprinkled with kick-ass chili powder. The floors are polished hardwood, blond oak. Gauzy curtains, demure as wedding veils, hang on the windows. Brass lamps throw incandescent cones of light over fancy sitting chairs and chintz-pattern sofas.
“Rigo!” Antoine calls from the appetizer table across the room.
Rana, Luis, Claribel, and Hsi-Tang—most of his vat crew—are with Antoine, dressed in their best formal attire. Lots of improvised gold lamé, black silk, and starched white rayon.
“What took you so long?” Hsi-Tang says, chiding. “You missed out on all the good food, dude. They had this great sesame-seaweed paté.”
“He needed to pick up some rad sprayons,” Luis says. He touches a fingertip to Rigo’s new jacket, makes a hissing sound between his teeth.
“I’d be careful if I were you,” Rana warns Rigo. “Anthea might not like a strange man in her bed. You could end up sleeping alone.”
“Hell,” Claribel drawls, raising a half-fisted hand. “There’s always Rosie. She’ll treat you right.”
Rigo picks up a Szechwan calamari-rice cube, pops it in his mouth. “Where are TomE and Naguib?”
“Making the rounds,” Antoine says, winking.
“Not to mention downing them,” Luis says.
Whipplebaum materializes in a doorway to the left, balancing a brandy snifter in one hand and a plate of topiary vegetables in the other. Carrot nubs have been sculpted into roses, cucumbers sliced and carved into water lilies. A cauliflower elephant wallows on its side in a pond of white chive-speckled dip. He nods for Rigo to join him.
“I’ll catch up with you later,” Rigo tells his team. He grabs another rice cube, and goes to meet Whipplebaum.
“Glad you could make it, my boy.” Whipplebaum gives him a friendly clap on the shoulder. “Nice suit. Very spiffy.”
“Ditto.” Whipplebaum is decked out in a cummerbund, a long black coat with tails, and a rawhide bolo tie bristling with barbed wire. A white ten-liter Stetson completes the ensemble.
“This way.” Whipplebaum steers him into a dining room where several people are grazing at a table. There, Whipplebaum grabs a bottle, pours Rigo a drink, and hands it to him.
Rigo sniffs the amber liquid. “Wine?”
“Gallo,” Whipplebaum says. “The finest pre-ecocaust vintage still available.” He lifts his glass in mock toast and then dispatches it in one fell swig.
Rigo tosses his shot back and chokes on the taste of vinegar. He blinks rapidly, as if every nerve in his body’s undergone anaphylactic shock.
“I thought gallow was a kind of humor,” Varda says, sounding perplexed.
Whipplebaum laughs. “Brings tears to the eyes.” His pupils gleam, his cheeks flush. He refills Rigo’s glass.
“What about quark flipping?” a woman at the table says. It’s as if Rigo’s hearing has suddenly shifted bandwidth, tuned in a new frequency.
“You mean in protons and neutrons?” a man in the group asks, hand poised over a silver tray heaped with crab cakes.
“Why not? That way, you could quantum toggle between resonance states. Á la femtoswitch.”
Shop talk. Rigo’s thoughts skitter across the surface of the conversation, trying to penetrate the words. A femtoswitch, he reminds himself, uses the up-down arrangement of quarks in protons and neutrons to represent two different states, 0 or 1. He can do this. He can play this game if he wants. It’s not that hard. He has a lot to learn. Sure. But he doesn’t have to be an outsider. With a little bit of vigorous mixing, he can blend in.
“Follow me,” Whipplebaum says. “There are some people I want you to meet.” Taking Rigo by the arm, Whipplebaum guides him through a crowded doorway, into a crammed kitchen, out a back door, down a wooden stoop, into a lantern-illuminated yard. The lanterns consist of square, cylindrical, and triangular frames over which handmade paper has been folded. The paper is decorated with colorful flotsam, backlit flower petals that resemble pink and blue fireflies trapped in amber.
“Is everybody here from Xengineering?” Rigo asks as they enter a small patio area walled by trellises on three sides.
But Whipplebaum has disappeared.
“You’re intoxicating,” Varda informs him with clinical detachment. “You have a blood-alcohol level of point-oh-six.” The IA’s disembodied voice sounds very far away and tinny.
Someone in a tux sloshes wine into his empty glass. Just what he needs. His head feels detached, borne aloft by a sense of unreality. His alcohol-infused limbs are lighter than air. He’s fairly certain the air, food, and drinks are drugged, and that anything is possible. No different from the hood, really. Except that here a veneer of decorum softens any act of impropriety. It’s a world of euphemisms in which ass-holes are tolerated—are in fact revered—and fondly referred to as eccentrics.
Instead of being drawn in, Rigo finds himself pushed toward the outer edges of the social melee. It’s cooler at the fringe, the babble quieter, easier to parse. Rigo can almost make sense of the esoteric bon mots being exchanged by a nearby gaggle of upper-clade caucs engaged in a cluster fuck. They flirt and tease each other with ideas.
Rigo sits down on a bench. On the pinwheel tree overhead leaves twirl, spinning hypnotic, kaleidoscope patterns of color. Rigo watches, mesmerized.
“I trust you’re enjoying yourself?”
The voice startles him. Wine sloshes onto the patio’s red paving bricks. Rigo lunges to his feet, stares into the face of the moribund
vieja
who propositioned him at Salmon Ella’s.
“Uh . . .”
“That’s all right. I’m surprised to see you here, too. Pleasantly, I might add.” She offers him a hand. He takes it the way he would a raw gutted fish—not at all certain how to handle the dead creature he’s holding.
She looks better than Rigo remembered, not as desperate or haggard. Could be it’s his imagination, or the low light. Plus, she’s rocking this ocher-colored silk dress, intricately patterned, that hangs nicely on her, goes well with her gray hair and parchment skin. The dress has the surface texture and look of a Navajo rug, but is sheer and tastefully revealing.
“Dorit,” she says.
“Rigo.”
She withdraws her hand, flops it in the direction of the party. “How come you’re not mingling?”
Her gaze holds his. She seems to know the answer in advance. Because he doesn’t fit in, doesn’t belong.
“I just needed to get some fresh air. It was getting kind of stuffy over there, hard to breathe.”
The woman laughs, genuinely amused. “I know exactly how you feel.”
“Really?” He’s regaining his composure, some sense of equilibrium. He doesn’t have anything to be ashamed of or embarrassed about.
“More than you might think,” Dorit says. The admission is flip, offhand, but Rigo gets the impression she’s not playing coy.
For some reason—“You’re three sheets in the wind,” Varda warns him—he’s not repulsed by her. Not like before. Perhaps because the situation’s different, and he isn’t feeling nearly as uptight.
“Would you like to go for a short walk?” Dorit says.
“Sure.” Rigo knows what this means. She wants to have a
conversation
. Most likely about their little tête-à-tête the other night.
Dorit leads him along a flagstone footpath that takes them deeper into the garden. It’s a fairy-tale garden of Popsicle plants, dandelion wood, and big tulip-shaped shrubs with leaves that are taller than him. Ecotecture he’s never seen, doesn’t know the name for or even what it is supposed to do. A dull, pounding roar fills the air. It grows steadily louder with every step.
“How do you feel?” Dorit asks. “You look a little peaked.”
“Okay.”
“Good. I imagine this is the first time you’ve attended a party quite like this. It can be rather unnerving.”
“Yeah.” He can hear condensation trickling deep inside the tulip bushes, plopping into secret ponds. No doubt, underground roots carry the condensation back to the house, purifying the water and boosting the pressure.
Dorit rubs her arms against the night chill. “My advice is to take advantage of the situation while you can. Who knows when you’ll get another chance to be totally free, to act without restraint.”
“What do you mean?”
“Find out what it’s like to be yourself. Hold on to that, and take it with you when you leave. Try not to forget who you are in the morning.”
They enter an orchard of pinwheel trees. Thousands of leaves whir frantically in a steady ocean breeze. The sound is as loud as an angry hornets’ nest.
“Tell me,” she says. “What does it feel like?”
“What does what feel like?”
She stops and spreads her arms wide. The diaphanous sleeves of her dress fall aside, fully exposing the mesh exoskeleton that encases her body. “This. Being
some
place you’ve never been to before. Mingling with people you wouldn’t normally get a chance to meet, let alone talk to.”
“You’re shitting me, right?”
Dorit lowers her arms in a jerky pantomime of a wooden puppet. “I’ve led a very sheltered life.”
“I guess.”