Authors: Ian McDonald
‘Papai!’ Luna exclaims, dress hitched up and calf-deep in running water. ‘It’s cold!’
Boa Vista is Rafa’s now but still Lousika won’t share it with him.
‘Do you think you’ll move back?’ Rafa asks.
Lucas shakes his head.
‘Too close. I like my distance. And the acoustics are terrible.’ A touch on the sleeve of Rafa’s Brioni jacket. ‘A word.’
Rafa wondered why Lucas had sought him out at the far end of the garden, risking wet trouser cuffs and stained shoes among the stepping stones and pools.
‘Go ahead.’
‘Mamãe and I talked a lot in the last hours.’
Rafa’s throat and jaw tighten with resentment. He is eldest, hwaejang, golden. He should have had these last words.
‘She had a plan for the company,’ Lucas says. The play of falling water masks his words. ‘Her will. She’s created a new position: Choego. She wanted Ariel to fill it.’
‘Ariel.’
‘I’ve been through this but she was quite obdurate. Ariel will be Choego. Foremost. Head of Corta Hélio. Above me and you, irmão. Don’t argue, don’t make suggestions. I have this already planned. There’s nothing we can do about the will. That’s set, locked in.’
‘We could fight …’
‘I said don’t argue, don’t make suggestions. It would be a waste of our time and money fighting through the courts. Ariel knows the courts, she would tie us up forever. No, we do this constitutionally. Our sister was badly wounded in a knife attack. She is effectively paraplegic. Her recovery will be slow, and by no means certain. The constitution of Corta Hélio contains a medical competency clause. The clause allows for a board member to be retired from office in the case of sickness or injury that would prevent them from fully discharging their duties.’
‘You’re suggesting—’
‘Yes I am. For the company, Rafa. Ariel is a supremely competent lawyer, but she knows nothing about helium mining. It wouldn’t be a board-room coup. Just placing her powers and responsibilities in temporary abeyance.’
‘Temporary until what?’
‘Until such time as we can restructure the company more in line with what it needs, rather than our mother’s whims. She was a very sick woman, Rafa.’
‘Shut the fuck up, Lucas.’
Lucas steps back, hands help up in appeal.
‘Of course. I apologise. But I tell you this; our mother would never have survived her own medical competency clause.’
‘No, fuck off, Lucas.’
Lucas backs off another step.
‘All we need are two medical reports, and I have those. One from the João de Deus medical centre, the other from our very own Dr Macaraeg, who is very pleased to have been retained as our family physician. Two reports, and a majority.’ Lucas calls back through the spray. ‘Let me know!’
Luna goes splashing down the stream, kicking slow-settling sprays of silver water into the air. They catch the light of the sunline and diffract it: a child crowned with rainbows.
The door of the tram closes, the door opens. Ariel looks out.
‘Well, are you coming?’
There is no one other than Marina on the platform that Ariel could intend, but she still frowns, mouths,
Me?
‘Yes you, who else?’
‘I’m technically out of contract …’
‘Yes yes, you didn’t work for me, you worked for my mother. Well, you work for me now.’
Hetty chimes: incoming mail. A contract.
‘Come on. Let’s get out of the fucking mausoleum. We’ve got a wedding to arrange.’
Meridian loves a wedding and there is no wedding bigger than the marriage of Lucasinho Corta and Denny Mackenzie. The Eagle of the Moon has donated his private gardens for the ceremony: the trees have been dressed with bows and biolights and twinkling stars. The bergamots and kumquats and dwarf oranges have been sprayed silver. Paper lanterns are strung between the branches. The path will be strewn with rose petals. AKA has donated a hundred white doves for a spectacular, wing-clapping release. They’ve been engineered to die within twenty-four hours. The vermin laws are strict.
The contracts will be signed in the Orange Pavilion. Behind the happy boy and boy a squadron of aerialists will perform a winged ballet high in Antares Hub, weaving ideograms in the air with streamers attached to their ankles. The Eagle of the Moon has made small grants available for the residents of Antares Hub to decorate their neighbourhoods. Banners hang from balconies, streamers festoon the crosswalks and the bridges drip strings of Diwali biolights. Balloons in the shape of manhua bats and butterflies and ducks navigate the hub’s airspace. Space rental on those balconies with the best views has hit six hundred bitsies. The finest vantages on the bridges and catwalks were tagged and bagged long before. Exclusive image rights have been signed to Gupshup after a ferocious auction: the access agreement is stern: media drones must keep a respectful distance and no direct interviews with either oko will be entertained.
The four hundred guests will be waited upon by twenty catering staff and eighty servers. Cultural and religious diets will be accommodated, and all manner of dietary intolerances. There will be meat. A joke is running around that Lucasinho made the wedding cake, in his signature style. Not true: the Ker Wa bakery has the longest established tradition of oko cakes and moon cakes. Kent Narasimha from the Full Moon bar of the Meridian Holiday Inn has created a celebratory cocktail: the Blushing Boy. It involves a designer one-shot gin, foams, cubes of jelly that dissolve and send spirals of colour and flavour up through the gin and flakes of gold foil. Virgin cocktails and herbal waters for non-alcohol drinkers.
The security screening started a week ago. LDC, Corta and Mackenzie security have liaised on an unprecedented level. The gardens of Jonathon Kayode are being scanned down to the level of dust-motes and dead skin-flakes.
Three days to the wedding of the the year! What will the boys wear? Here are spreads of Lucasinho Corta’s latest looks. The preppy colloquium boy. His moon-run party tweed and tan pants. His two weeks as a fashion icon, when everyone pulled on suit-liners and drew on them with marker pens. His grandmother’s eightieth party; his grandmother’s memorial, so sad, so soon. His return to the fashion flashlight: who does his make-up? So very defining of this season. Heads up, boys! You’re all going to be wearing this look. Denny Mackenzie: oh who cares? When was a Mackenzie ever fashionable? But who will design the wedding suits. We simply can’t leave it to the familiars. Design AIs we’re loving include Loyale, San Damiano, Boy de la Boy, Bruce and Bragg, Cenerentola. Who will get the contract? And the cosmetics …
Two days to the wedding of the year! What makes the Dragons so much better than any of us: class. The Cortas have shown sheer class throughout the matrimonial process. It’s less than a month since the terrible attack on Ariel Corta, but not only is she as mobile as ever on her bot legs, she arranged the nikah from her hospital bed! And only two weeks ago, the whole moon was rocked and saddened by the news of the death of Adriana Corta. But what better way for the Cortas to show their courage than chin up, dress up, glam up: the wedding of the year! Class tells.
One day to the wedding of the year. The sure social signifier of the now is: are you on the guest list, or aren’t you? No one’s telling, but Gupshup has called in a few debts, dealt out a few threats, lavished kisses and micro-kittens and we can exclusively tell you who’s on the guest list! And who’s not! Prepare to be shocked …
The day of the wedding of the year. It starts with a small row; the celebrity spotters with berths booked on the best viewing stations versus the blimp bats and butterflies and beasts of good omen. At the prearranged time, the residents of Antares Hub all flick their banners over their balcony rails and let them slowly unroll into a tapestry of blessings and wedding charms. Security takes up positions as the guest elevators arrive. Invitations are scanned, guests directed to the reception and given their special Full Moon bar bespoke Blushing Boys. Jonathon Kayode and Adrian Mackenzie are delightful hosts. Drone cameras flit and jockey at the prescribed range, battling for celebrity close-ups. Half an hour before the signing, the guests are guided to the Orange Pavilion. Choreography is subtle and tight, the seating plan rigorously enforced. Wedding ushers sends fountains of rose petals into the air. Twenty minutes: the families arrive. Duncan Mackenzie and okos Anastasia and Apollinaire Vorontsov. His daughter, Tara, her okos; their rambunctious sons and daughters. Bryce Mackenzie, lumbering with determination on two sticks, accompanied by a dozen of his adoptees. Hadley Mackenzie, poised and very handsome. Robert Mackenzie is unable to leave Crucible and sends his apologies and congratulations to the happy couple, with all best hopes for a peaceful settlement between the great houses of Mackenzie and Corta. He is represented by Jade Sun-Mackenzie.
The Cortas: Rafa and Lousika, Robson and Luna. Lucas alone. Ariel and her new escolta, who takes a place among the family to flurries of murmurs through the guests. Carlinhos, filling his suit well. Wagner and oko Analiese Mackenzie, looking nervous, and his pack mates; thirty of them in dark colours, a wedding party in themselves, adding a spice of danger to the silver and ribbons of the wedding garden.
They take their seats, a small ensemble performs
Blooming Flowers and Full Moon Night.
Now all that is necessary for the wedding of the year is the groom and groom.
A man should undress from the bottom, Lucasinho has heard, so to dress he should reverse the order. The shirt, fresh from the printer. Silver cuff links. Gold is trashy. The necktie is dove grey with a Seikai-ha pattern, tied in an elaborate five-strand Eldredge knot Jinji showed Lucasinho and which he has practised every day for an hour. Underwear: spider silk. Why are all clothes not made from this? Because no one would ever do anything else than adore the feel. Socks also, mid-calf. No visible ankle: a terrible sin. Now the pants. Lucasinho dithered for days before deciding on Boy de la Boy. He turned down five designs. The fabric is grey, a shade darker than the tie, with a ghost of a floral damask pattern. Pants: no turn-ups, sharply creased, two pleats. Two pleats is on trend for now. Two of everything is on trend: for the jacket, two buttons at the front, two buttons at the cuff, cut away at the front. Four centimetre lapels starting high. Buttonhole for a buttonhole. A pocket square; folded into two triangular peaks. The square in-line fold has been old for a lune. Matching stingy-brim fedora, two-centimetre silk band and bow, which Lucasinho will carry, not wear. He doesn’t want it to interfere with his hair.
‘Show me.’
Jinji shows Lucas himself through the hotel room cameras. He turns, preens, pouts.
‘I am so freakin’ hot.’
Before the hair, the make-up. Lucasinho tucks a towel into his collar, sits at a table and lets Jinji close in on his face. The cosmetic pack is also a bespoke commission from Coterie. Lucasinho enjoys the rhythm of the ritual; the layers of application, the refining and blending, the fine touch and nuance. He blinks his kohled eyes.
‘Oh yeah.’
Next, at the same table, his hair. Lucasinho carefully builds up the quiff, reinforcing it with back combing and strategic applications of spray, mousse, gel, hair-concrete. He shakes his head. His hair moves like a living thing.
‘I’d marry me.’
Last thing. One by one he inserts his pierces. Jinji gives him one last look at himself, then Lucasinho Corta takes a deep breath and leaves the Antares Home Inn.
The waiting moto opens to accept Lucasinho Corta. A command from Jinji sends it whirring away into the traffic on Hang Yin Plaza. The hotel is centrally located, an elevator ride from the Eagle’s Eyrie. Nothing left to chance. The people on the plaza glance, double-take, recognise. Some nod or wave. Lucasinho straightens his tie and looks up. The hub is a waterfall of coloured banners; manhua-balloons wallow and nudge each other. The bridges are fuzzy with humanity, he can hear their voices echoing down the great well of Antares Hub.
Up there is the wedding of the year. Across the plaza from the front door of the Home Inn is an AKA commissary, an up-market affair for recreational cooks. Lucasinho steps out into the street and walks towards it. The traffic detours around him, ripples of self-organisation running from the plaza out along the five prospekts. Trays of bright vegetables in the window, a prominent meat locker with hanging lacquered ducks and poultry sausage; fish and frogs on ice; at the back of the store, freezers and bins of beans and lentils, bouquets of salad under a freshening mist. Two middle-aged women sit at the counter, rolling and lolling together with a secret shared laughter. They wear adinkra familiars in the Asamoah manner: the goose of Sankara, the asterisk of Ananse Ntontan.
Their laughter stops when Lucasinho enters the shop.
‘I’m Lucas Corta Junior,’ he announces. They know who he is. The society channels have been filled with nothing but his face for a week. They look afraid. He sets his fedora on the counter. Lucas takes the metal spike from his left ear and sets it beside the hat. ‘Please show this to Abena Maanu Asamoah. She’ll know what it means. I claim the protection of the Golden Stool.’
We’re Earth and moon, Lucas Corta thinks. Bryce Mackenzie a gravid planet, I a small svelte satellite. Lucas takes pleasure in the analogy. Another pleasure; this is the same hotel from which Lucasinho absconded. Two small smiles. That will be the extent of the pleasure in this meeting.
Bryce Mackenzie stamps his way to the sofa, stick, foot, other stick, foot, like some antiquated quadruped mining machine. Lucas can hardly watch. How can the man bear himself? How can his many amors and adoptees bear him?
‘Drink?’
Bryce Mackenzie grunts as he lowers himself to the sofa.
‘I’ll take that as a no. Do you mind if I do? The staff from the Holiday Inn are on hourly contracts and, well, you know me. I like to extract the maximum value from any situation. And these Blushing Boys really are rather good.’
‘Your levity is not appropriate,’ Bryce Mackenzie says. ‘Where is the boy?’
‘Lucasinho should be arriving in Twé even as we speak.’
The guests, the families; then the celebrant. The role was nothing more than witnessing the signatures on the nikahs, but Jonathon Kayode had brought the full magnificence of the Eagle of the Moon to the role. When Ariel has suggested he celebrate, he had feigned surprise, even coyness.
No no, I couldn’t possibly, well, oh all right then.
Jonathon Kayode had arrayed himself in formal agbada, adorned with golden regalia he had commissioned for the occasion. ‘Is he wearing built-up shoes?’ Rafa whispered to Lucas. Once noticed, it shaded everything. Without the elevator shoes, the Eagle would have been a head shorter than the couple he was marrying. Rafa caught his own joke. He squeezed his eyes shut, clenched his mouth, but Rafa quaked with suppressed laughter.
‘Stop that,’ Lucas hissed. ‘I have to get up there and hand him over.’ The infection was irresistible. Lucas swallowed a tight giggle and discreetly wiped tears from his eyes. The orchestra stuck up
The Blooming of Rainy Night Flowers
. Bryce Mackenzie rose and took his position by the Orange Pavilion. Every head turned. Denny Mackenzie walked the rose petal path. His walk was clumsy, self-conscious, half-hearted. He had no idea what to do with his hands. Bryce Mackenzie beamed. Jonathon Kayode opened his arms like a summoning priest.
‘Show time,’ Rafa whispered to his brother. Then every Corta familiar whispered simultaneously
call from Lucasinho.
Within thirty seconds Gupshup had sent the news around the moon.
Lucasinho Corta: runaway groom.
‘You’ve been in touch with your son?’ Bryce Mackenzie asks.
‘I haven’t heard from him.’
‘Pleased to hear that. I was under the impression that this was something you had knocked up between you.’
‘You’re being ridiculous.’
Bryce Mackenzie shakes his head, a tic of annoyance.
‘The question now is how do we repair the damage?’
‘There’s damage?’
Another tic: a flare of the nostrils, an audible breath.
‘Damage to the image of my family, the reputation of Mackenzie Metals; our compensation for the suit Gupshup will bring against us.’
‘The drinks bill must be pretty high too,’ Lucas says. He has met Bryce Mackenzie twice, both times social occasions, never in business, but Lucas has worked out the man’s trick, his malandragem. Physical intimidation, not by muscle, but by mass. Bryce Mackenzie dominates a room as if by gravity; a trip, a fall will break you. I know how the trick is done, Lucas thinks. But you are the Earth and I am the moon. He feels lightheaded with potential. Everything is clear, clear as never before.
‘Flippant,’ Bryce Mackenzie says. He is sweating, big sweaty man.
‘Neither your family nor mine are intimidated by threats of litigation. What’s your proposal?’
‘The wedding is re-staged. We’ll split the costs. Can you give me a guarantee that your son will actually be there?’
‘I offer no guarantee,’ Lucas says. ‘I can’t speak for my son.’
‘Are you his father or not?’
‘As I said, I can’t speak for Lucasinho. But I stand by his decision with all my heart,’ Lucas says. ‘For me, I say, fuck you, Bryce Mackenzie.’
A third tic: a chewing in of the top lip. Those others had been irritation. This is fury.
‘Fine.’ Bryce’s blades enter from the lobby and help the man from the sofa, steady him on his stick and surprisingly neat feet. He stalks past Lucas, click by click. There is a third pleasure, Lucas realises, a small, mean but very sweet one, in discommoding Bryce Mackenzie.