Shimmer (30 page)

“So you know,” she said, “I'm not so good at this either.” She was reaching to me then, her face close, closer, kissing Whitley, my eyes open, then closing, fading, kissing Whitley.

I heard her say, “I'm married.”

A crisp white shirt, close around her sides.

“Can you keep a secret?” Whitley asked, kissing me, then not.

I tried to say yes, but could only nod.

“This,” she said, touching me slowly, “this has to be a secret.”

I tried to answer, but could only nod.

“I was twenty-three when I fell in love,” she said. “I believed I knew everything I would ever want,” she said.

Her jacket pushed slowly off her arms. The faintest edge of a bra just visible through the shirt. Thinking,
Whitley in a bra.
Thinking,
Whitley beneath a hundred suits I've seen, a hundred pairs of jeans and sweaters.

“This is only about touching,” she said.

I nodded. Thinking,
Whitley naked.
Realizing it was possible. Realizing it was here.

“Nothing more,” she said.

I nodded. Thinking,
Whitley against me.

“Tell me,” she said, breathing slowly now, mouth against mine, pulling away for each word, each phrase. “Tell me it's nothing more.”

“It's nothing more.”

She had pulled herself very close to me. She had her hands on the buttons of my shirt.

I heard myself say, “I'm afraid of you.”

I saw her nodding, heard her say, “I know.”

“Should I be?”

“I know.”

“SWAT,” I was saying, touching, feeling her arm beneath her shirt, her hand on me.

“I know,” she said, pulling me closer, pressing herself against me.

“Should I be?”

And she was at my mouth, she was kissing me, and my eyes were open, and hers too, and I could see her cry.

And she kept saying something I could not hear.

And I kept kissing her.

And finally I heard her say, “No.” Finally I heard her say, “Everyone, everyone is afraid of me.”

And I was kissing her more.

“Be one person,” she was saying, quiet, “please be one person who is not afraid.”

And now, now I was light and warm and against her, all the motion so bright, so warm and full and bright, and now I couldn't think about why she was doing this, couldn't think about anything except her, there, Whitley's white bra, the edges of her breasts, my hands just inside the edge of her pants. Light and warm and for now this felt like everything.

“This is more,” I heard her say.

“I know,” I said.

“This is more than touching,” I heard her say.

“I know,” I said.

“I am not happy,” I heard her say.

“I know,” I said.

“I am not in love,” I heard her say.

And I could only nod. Nodding. So close to her and nodding.

“There's word from Finland,” she said, the shirt sliding, then down. “Regence drew blood from a mainframe,” she said, the black pants open, then off.

We had moved to my couch. Her panties pressed against me. Her bra pressed against me. Whitley, against me. Whitley, taking down my pants. Whitley, hair hanging across my face. Whitley, three years, a thousand meetings, a million moments, Whitley, now with bra open, breasts against me, her panties sliding off.

Saying quietly, I said quietly, “How much time do we have?”

Above me, mouth close, breasts moving gently across my chest, moving now and it was like she was inside me and my breathing was gone and hers was gone and I only heard myself echoing, “How much time?” saying it only because it'd been said, echoing those words but really lost to the motion of her above me, across me, against me, inside me.

“A few hours,” I heard her say.

And I heard it again,
a few hours,
not sure if she'd said it or I'd heard it, and I was breathless, moving, turning, breathless.

She was pushing harder against me now. “They'll announce it tomorrow.”

Trying to breathe now. Everything seemed to be about breathing.

She was more beautiful than I'd ever known.

“I am not happy,” she said.

And I was nodding.

“They'll begin sales tomorrow,” she said.

Breathing. All of it had to be about breathing.

She was the most beautiful woman I'd ever known.

“I can't control this,” I heard her saying, words all broken and light, drifting emptily through our breath and motion. “This time,” I heard her saying, “this time no one can stop what will happen.”

Their message comes by fax. And the messages, they never come by fax. Too insecure, they had said. Too susceptible to intercept.

Whitley had liked that, about the spies. When she had set up the system of corporate spying. She'd liked their lingo, their formality and importance. They'd called the system an apparatus. They'd called the information she wanted targets. They'd called themselves her assets.

Now there is the fax, coming through on the private machine in her office.

She has to enter a code before the message will print.

The message is short. Just a few paragraphs. Regence is about to unveil its Green Box. Regence is about to launch a system cheaper and faster than Core's.

She reads the message just once. She turns. Stares out her window. Holding her breath. Closing her eyes. Wanting simply to lie down now. To sleep now. To cry now. To give up now.

And she wants something more.

She wants to not be alone.

She is so tired of being alone.

She isn't sure she can take a breath.

She knows grace is moving. She can almost see it disappear.

And she knows that she wants something more.

She cannot manage to take a breath.

And she knows that she wants something more.

She wants to be with Robbie.

She wants to be close to him.

She wants to be so close to him.

She can't remember how to take a breath.

She isn't sure what will happen next.

She is so afraid of where this will go.

She is so afraid this is about to end.

It was really only a coincidence that Trevor had a bad connection when he called me. His voice was breaking up, a constant popping and static on the line, the noise of an airport all around him. But somehow that noise, the bad connection, all of it seemed to have been caused by the introduction of the Regence Green Boxes.

“Where are you?” I asked, voice raised so he could hear me.

“I'm in fucking hell!” Trevor screamed back. “The world is collapsing out here! Regence had four or five hundred sales reps. Trained and ready. Pouring out of Finland. Suddenly they were fucking everywhere.”

Friday, four days since the Green Boxes had been introduced. And four weeks lost off the life of the shadow network. It was a horror really, to see the date. The date Shimmer had found for the collapse. Because now Shimmer was continually recalculating that date. Seeing the fall in our stock price, forecasting a downturn in sales and recalculating a date for collapse that moved closer each time.

“They're undercutting us on price, on service contracts, on warranties, on delivery time,” Trevor was yelling through the noise. “They're buying out our agreements, cash on the spot. It's an assault, Robbie. In every market, on every client we have or wanted.”

Usually I had an idea of what country Trevor was in when he called me. But now Trevor was in the midst of traveling to every territory in the Core sales universe. Fifteen countries. Twenty-five states.

“They did it in one fucking day, Robbie,” he was saying. “I mean, on Friday they didn't exist. Then I look around and they are everywhere.”

Four days, and when I had slept I'd woken up in the midst of dreams about Fadowsky or my father, dreams where they simply walked through the building, or my office, or sat down in a chair near me, and I would wake up because they would not talk in the dreams, would not say a word, no matter how much I asked or begged or screamed.

Four days, and I'd had sex with Whitley four times. In my office. On my couch. Quiet, barely speaking, sex of the last survivors, clinging together as Regence threatened to reach us.

“We see them in airports, Robbie,” Trevor said, voice shrill now, the phone pinching down on his words. “The Regence reps. All my people have seen them. In airports, getting into cabs. Checking into hotels. Entering and leaving offices.”

Outside my window, it was late afternoon, the sky just turning from blue to black.

“You see them from a hundred feet away,” Trevor said, a wind and roar all around him, natural or electronic I couldn't tell. “They're perfect. All of them are goddamned perfect. They're human clones, biologically engineered, handsome and beautiful and more confident than a person could ever really be.”

A jet engine began to roar over the phone, wiping out Trevor's voice. Apparently he was outside, and I pictured him walking quickly, head bent forward and bags across his shoulders, fighting his way across some darkened airport tarmac.

“And these spineless companies I've been meeting with!” he was yelling, engine roar fading, Trevor's voice still broken by the interference from the phone.

“The price, though,” I said quietly. “Regence's price is half of ours. Companies aren't going to sign up with us if Regence is so much cheaper. These are businesses. It's about money for them. Just money.”

Outside my window, I could not tell how cold it was.

“Is this hurting us?” he asked now.

“Of course it is,” I answered.

“No,” he said. “The collapse. I mean the collapse. Could this cause everything to collapse?”

I didn't say anything for a moment. Not sure what I should let him know. But then nodded, nodded again and I found myself saying it. “Yes.”

“I'm asking how much, Robbie. How much sooner?”

“Much sooner.”

“Christ, Robbie, tell me. You know what it means. Tell me exactly what this means.”

I nodded. Stared. Heard silence suddenly in his phone.

“We have eleven months. But some days, we lose almost a week.”

And the noise from the phone was steady, loud, complete.

“Probably,” I said slowly, not sure he would hear, “if we can't stop the fall in the stock, probably we'll collapse in just a few months. Or weeks.”

His voice came a moment later, once more rising from the steady, perfect noise. “I know, Robbie,” I heard him say, his voice now fading in and out of the noise, Trevor speaking quietly, unable to compete with the warring sounds around him, but finally he'd reached his airplane, his cab, his end point in the battlefield he'd been crossing through these last ten minutes. “I know that this is your release, Robbie,” I heard him say. “This is your escape.”

Outside my window, it seemed like everything had slowed to stillness, no movement. “I think,” I heard myself start to say, saying something,
filling the space, thinking Trevor could see this, thinking Trevor could see everything I thought and saw and heard.

“Don't take this escape,” he was saying. “Don't go.”

And I was nodding, touching the window, pressing against it and it was cold.

“I have nothing without this,” he said. “My whole life, my whole purpose, my connection to you, to myself even, all of it goes through this.”

I pressed harder against the window, harder and I thought I could feel the wind pushing back, a silent motion I could not see, now pushing back against that window. “There's more than this company, Trevor,” I heard myself saying.

“Don't take it, Robbie,” he said. “Please don't let this go.”

And we watched the stock fall.

And we watched our sales fall.

And we watched the press, the analysts, all of them turn on us.

The board wanted a response for the markets and shareholders.

And I listened as the analysts wanted action, a response quick and severe.

And the shadow network needed room. Every bit of life I could give it.

In the morning I laid off a hundred people in Asia. I made the call to each of the six offices myself. Six conversations with vice presidents and managers. Hearing out their concerns, their sadness, their anger and regret.

I said,
Yes.
I said,
I understand.
I said,
This is what I had to do.

Cliff, when he'd given me the list of names, said only, “I'm trying to give you the smallest numbers I can.”

I could only nod. And when I'd done it, let them go, I was sure I would never sleep again. Each voice on the phone, each name on the paper, each person now placed so clearly in my mind, all of it was gone from the company. Yet all of it, all of them, the memory of each person had fallen to me.

I will never sleep again.

In the afternoon I laid off two hundred people in South America.

I looked at the pictures of each of them. Pictures in their files. Names on the pages. Names of daughters and sons and husbands and wives. And I fired them all.

You deny someone their hope when you fire them. You deny them the future they woke up expecting. The self that they, minutes before, had thought they were.

But I had no other choice. Except giving up. Killing the shadow network and walking away.

And I couldn't do that.

Please don't let this go.

I walked across floors. Heard voices loud and rapid as people dealt with the problem of Regence, the falling stock. Saw the desks and conference rooms filled even higher with documents, with plans, with work to be done. Watched the people so tired as they made their way through the hallways and toward the desks.