Alien Nation #6 - Passing Fancy (11 page)

Fran’s eyes went wide at recognition of the Tenctonese word that meant “The Healing.” She tried to cover the recognition by shaking her head emphatically. It looked more like she was trying to shake off the last vestiges of sedative.

“No,” she said. Then with each rock of her head, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don’t know what that thing is you say. I have high blood pressure. I need—”

“Fran, this is a
hospital.
You’re surrounded by
doctors.
You can’t keep it up, not in here.”

“I need my medication,” she repeated hoarsely.

“No, that’s the last thing you need. It was killing you.”

Fran Delaney beat her head against the padded wall three times. “They told me it was
saaaafe,”
she whimpered.

“I know. They lied.”

Fran buried her face in the padding of the wall, sniffled a while. Cathy tried another tack.

“I saw you perform last night. You were magnificent.”

Fran’s eyes closed, shutting back tears. She sniffled, did not turn away from the wall.

“Thank you.” A long pause. “Looks as if you caught the farewell performance.”

Cathy moved in closer. “It doesn’t have to be like that.”

Sharply, suddenly, head whipping about:
“What would you know about it?”

The abruptness startled Cathy. Alerted her, too, that despite any appearances to the contrary, normalcy was simply not a guest in this room.

“I know that our people can do anything,” she replied, quietly, choosing to ignore that the question had been rhetorical.

“Civilians,” muttered Fran disdainfully.

Then she looked up at Cathy, really looked at her for the first time. Taking her measure.

“Tell you something, civilian,” she said, and this time the word did not sound unkind, “I used to be pretty like you. Now I’m pretty like this . . . This is what pays the bills.”

Cathy crouched down at a slight distance.

“I don’t think it was ever about paying the bills for you, Fran. At least not
primarily
about that. I
saw
you last night, I
saw
how . . . how you transformed yourself. Not cosmetically. I mean the
other
way. It’s a remarkable gift. And it must be a remarkable release, borne of a remarkable need. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have such a gift and . . . and feel as if you couldn’t share it, express it, use it.”

One corner of Fran’s mouth lifted.

“Yeah. Yeah, you can. You’re pretty smart for a civilian.”

“Thanks.”

“You a doctor?”

“In a sense. Biochemist.”

“You don’t have patients, then?”

Cathy allowed herself to sit.

“Just you,” she said.

“And
what
is so special about me that you feel compelled to guide me through a
Leethaag?”

Cathy considered the various ways to answer that question.

She could mention being here on behalf of Matt Sikes. But Matt had been vague about the nature of his relationship with Fran. And Fran had bolted from Matt at the theatre last night. Big gamble, with those facts in evidence, to assume that Fran held Matt warmly in her hearts. The bond she’d created with Fran was fragile enough. Any mention of Matt might undo it completely, with no chance of repair.

I’m here on behalf of a friend.
Another possible way to answer Fran’s question. But such a response would certainly arouse Fran’s curiosity, and it might complicate matters later.

The best answer was a no-frills truth.

“I’m a volunteer,” said Cathy. Probably Fran would assume there was some kind of official program.

“Oh,” responded Fran. “A do-gooder.”

Fine. Let her.

“Curious phrase, do-gooder,” Fran continued after a while. “It always sounded backwards to me. Shouldn’t it be good-
doer
?”

Cathy laughed a little. “I take your point.”

Fran laughed too.

Moment of connection. The first.

“I was a do-gooder once,” Fran said wistfully.

“Tell me?”

“Might,” Fran replied easily, so easily that when she slipped in, “Think we might take this thing off for a while?”—talking, of course, about the straitjacket—Cathy was barely aware of the desperate manipulation.

They will do anything to get loose,
Steinbach had warned.
That’s a step removed from getting out. And that’s a step closer to the drug.

And this one’s an actress, Cathy reminded herself. A great one.

“Let’s see how it goes first,” Cathy replied, just as casually—but, wow, did something go hard in Fran’s eyes, and, wow, did it happen fast.

“Sure, I know what that’s about.” Fran said it calmly, but with a layer of frost, and made a tacit point of looking away.

Cathy reached out hesitantly to touch Fran. Lightly, barely a brush, nothing too familiar, just . . . an overture. Something. Damage control.

“I’m going to have to earn your trust, I know that. But if it’s anything to start with, I am in this for the long haul. I’ll be here for you . . . all the way.”

Fran shrugged under the straitjacket.

“Good,” she said.

Yes, he’d better love me a whole lot,
thought Cathy.

And on that note the
Leethaag
began.

T
HE STORYBOARD LAID
out like this . . .

PANEL ONE: Start out with a Tenctonese businesswoman in a swank restaurant; she’s as classy as her surroundings, a genuine stunner in a form-hugging business outfit, just sexy enough to raise eyebrows, though not so revealing that you get any vibe from her other than top-of-the-line smarts. It’s lunch hour, and in the background, with all the suits, attaché cases and cellular phones around, we know this woman is a serious player.

PANEL TWO: The waiter serves her prelunch cocktail, a sour-milk-and-strawberry daiquiri.

PANEL THREE: And as she starts to raise it to her lips—

PANEL FOUR: A glimpse of her earlier in the morning, huddled with a human male client, poring over paperwork, real face-to-face stuff. (This panel is shaded in sepia, the idea to indicate that, on film, we’d cut from full-color steadicam shots to hand-held cinema verite stuff, the better to instantly distinguish between the restaurant and the rest of her day.)

PANEL FIVE: Back at the five-star feed, and now starters are being served, raw beaver tail in an endive sauce over purple cabbage with slices of carrot and raisins.

PANEL SIX: She starts to eat, delicately forking a slice into her mouth and—

PANEL SEVEN: Another part of her day, she’s at a department store, the jewelry counter, the salesgirl helping her adjust a very elegant earring, and, as before, the faces are close and—

PANEL EIGHT: The restaurant again, an over-the-shoulder angle on our heroine, as the main course is placed on the table: a half weasel covered in a special, cold orange glaze and we proceed to—

PANEL NINE: —and in this one we don’t see her chow down (because we’ve seen her eating twice now, no need to be artlessly schematic), we just see her beautiful face turn up to thank the waiter, and if we’re alert (and if all goes well, we should be), we’re starting to detect a pattern. She’s eating some pretty odiferous stuff—at least by human standards—and yet she has to interact on a
constant, face-to-face basis
with humans. And, to make the point emphatically—

PANELS TEN and ELEVEN: She races for, and gets into, a crowded elevator, a
seriously
crowded elevator, and as the doors close, we return to—

PANEL TWELVE: —the restaurant, one last time. Our heroine is spooning the last of her dessert from a parfait glass. This time we don’t
see
what she’s eating, but chances are it’s just as Newcomer-specific as every other course. And that explains why—

PANEL THIRTEEN: —she reaches into her pocketbook and her hand emerges holding—

PANEL FOURTEEN: —a tiny breath-spray vial and—

PANEL FIFTEEN: —she opens her sensual mouth and gives herself a discreet little spritz.

PANEL SIXTEEN: Insert of the product in its various forms. Bottled mouthwash, breath spray, breath mints. Especially prominent is the logo design. It resembles a famous work of art in one respect: looked at one way, it’s the silhouette of a goblet (and one might imagine that goblet filled with sour milk). Looked at another way, it’s the silhouette of two faces, nose to nose. Difference between the logo and its famous progenitor is in ours the goblet shape appears engagingly uneven. That’s because when your eyes invert the silhouette to perceive faces, you realize that one face is the silhouette of a human, the other the silhouette of a Newcomer. The product name, underneath, in a Chicago-based font, reads:
TENCTON-EASE.

PANEL SEVENTEEN: The last. The Newcomer businesswoman exiting the restaurant, returning to the hustle and the bustle of the streets, the fast-paced rhythm of her consequential life. And over this, the slogan, the moral of our story:

“Tencton-ease. It helps. Face it.”

“Well, it couldn’t be finer,” Jonathan Besterman said. “I like it a lot. And I
love
the logo.”

Jonathan was one of Susan’s coworkers. He was slim, brown-haired, good-humored, managing to be very friendly while staying a little bit remote; an interesting fellow from Chicago (just like the logo font), whose speech was flavored with that city’s characteristic broad
a.
It was rumored that he was homosexual, and it was rumored that he was not, but he never betrayed his preference either way, not at work. He was no less an enigma to Susan than to anyone else in the office, but she tended to gravitate toward his energy, which was positive and enthusiastic. Very
much
so, right now.

“Yeah. Classy. Understated. To the point.” A beat. “A little
funny
. . .”

Susan blinked. A bit defensively, she said, “I didn’t
mean
for it to be funny.”

Jonathan held up a soothing hand. “I know, I know, and that’s
okay.
I just want to prepare you, that’s all. You’re gonna get some smiles, and they shouldn’t throw you. Smiles are good if you’re hip to them.”

They were standing in the plush, blue-carpeted office of one of their bosses, account executive Keith Berries. Neither Keith, nor the client for whom Susan’s pitch was designed, was there at the moment. Susan had been allowed this advance time to set up her presentation. Jonathan, a more experienced hand at the ad game than she, had volunteered to help her with some last minute refinements. And encouragement.

Or at least what
should
have been encouragement. The “smiles” part was throwing her.

“Why should anyone smile?”

Jonathan spread his hands, shrugging in a way that made him resemble Tevye the dairyman in
Fiddler on the Roof.
“Like your slogan says, face it. You’re about to show a coupla white guys a woman eating weasel in a five-star restaurant. To most of them it’s a total incongruity. And, even though they’ll be too smart to say anything, you can just bet they’ll be making off-color jokes to themselves about the appetizer.”

“What kind of jokes can they make about a simple appetizer of—”

“I’ll tell you later. But, as I say, that shouldn’t be a problem. If you know it’s gonna happen, you can roll with it. Keep in mind that the ad is directed at Newcomers, not humans. Make sure
they
keep it in mind, and I think you’re gonna come outta this smelling like money.”

She pursed her lips. “I don’t know that money smells like anything much.”

“As long as it smells like something they want.” Jonathan took one last look at the easel holding the storyboard sketches, made a
Here, help me
gesture, and they grabbed the easel on either side. “Move it a bit more to the left where the light is better, if they’re gonna be sitting where those chairs are.”

He stood back, appraised everything once more.

“Beauty.”

There was a tap on the door, which then opened, with, no pretense at waiting for a response. Keith Berries stuck his head in.

“You ready?”

As always, the voice was soft, but authoritative.

“Willing and able,” Jonathan said on Susan’s behalf, for which she was grateful.

“All right, veddy good,” Berries said lightly, and entered.

He was a tall, solidly built man with close-cropped red hair and a fashionable mustache. He was renowned, justifiably, for his brilliance at the ad game; for being one of those uncanny fellows who could look at a problem from five different angles simultaneously, drawing upon not only the perspective of his own long experience, but the history of media advertising in America, which he knew cold. “Cold” likewise described the impression he left on most people. The same objective detachment that allowed him to function so effectively at his job also limited his personal appeal.

Whereas Jonathan was private, Berries had no particular secrets. Yet it was Jonathan who was emotionally accessible, while Berries treated everyone with clinical bemusement. It was said that on a passion scale ranging from one to ten, Berries’ personal barometer stopped at approximately seven.

Berries’ entrance was followed by that of a shorter, dapper, slightly stocky fellow, dressed in the kind of clothes that are made to appear casual while seeking to draw attention. He had longish blond hair swept back over his ears, which were unusually large, and the air of someone who was industrious but somehow lazy; someone who survived on great personal charm and unrefined instinct more than intellect; someone who was arrogant, and knew it, and liked it. This was Kent Allman, the client, who also happened to be vice president of the company that manufactured Tencton-ease.

“This is where I do my graceful exit,” Jonathan whispered, and winked. “Good luck.”

He left as Berries made the introductions and the two men took seats, Berries behind his desk, Allman in a new-wave swiveler that allowed him to alternately face Berries or Susan when she was at the easel.

At a nod from Berries, Susan began her pitch.

Not an easy thing to do, pitching, not for Susan, anyway, and it was her least favorite part of the job. It wasn’t enough that her idea was good, she had to tell it well,
sell
it well; and no matter how much she’d rehearsed it in the privacy of her office or home or car, there was an intangible
something
about the live bodies in front of her that changed the equation and altered every preconception. The energy in the room could be up, or down; the people listening could be enthusiastic or bored and could change from one extreme to the other like
that.
She had to concentrate not only on her proposal, but
their
level of interest, and she had to modulate the presentation accordingly. If she was losing them, she had to get to the good stuff, cut to the chase. If they started asking a lot of questions, or became needful of reassurance, she had to be prepared to pad with extra material, or worse, to improvise. (She had no particular desire to perform, but on occasions such as this, she admired people like that actress Fran Delaney, for whom it all came so easily.)