Belonger (An erotic novel): Part One (52 page)

Her gaze found Manassa’s lavish form three
circuits below, a lingerie-clad spectacle of muliebrity trailing a
dox or trix of clandestine admirers. Her gaily colored bag was
crammed with casual clothing she would be wearing by the bottom of
the hill and formal apparel for beyond, little of it sufficient to
gird her outrageous curves. Ione knew the reasonable thing to do
would be to offer her a ride—it was a long walk down to the
park—but she didn’t have Emma’s easy facility for conversation with
the bigger woman. Manassa had mentioned at the Club she might be
able to gain status working at a clothing boutique, but it wasn’t
clear what was involved or what would come of it. She likely didn’t
know herself; there was some sort of orientation to attend
first.

Ione reached the streets and left the
foothills of the Dowser’s domain, proceeding along a major
thoroughfare toward the center of the City. She cut a wide circle
around the park, shaded by the broad knot of cloud permanently
lodged on its misty updraft, bypassed intersections watched by
burly mannermen lurking where traffic stopped for the red glare of
glow gnomes. Where they could not be avoided she was preserved from
notice by her elaborately concealing clothes, which was a fortunate
thing; she had no idea what she would do if called out in front of
traffic to display her lingerie. Ione hated them for the dissonance
they generated in her self-image—she had no problem with either
nudity or modesty as a consistent standard.

Her route neared the long morning shadow of
the Gnomon’s Tower, draped solemnly across buildings and traffic,
and her gaze was drawn inevitably to its lofty source; her present
destination, a glittering round phenomenon of blue-tinted glass and
chrome that so far surpassed its neighbors in altitude as to impose
a helpless reckoning on them. It vaulted up to meet the sun and
boldly resolved its compass, marking each moment in time as its
shadow swept about the City.

Ione resorted to an embarrassingly simple
means of navigation, simply turning as needed to keep herself
within the Tower’s broad umbral alley. The go gnome cranking next
to her acquired a subtly intimidating aura, but she was used to
that by now. Looking back she noticed the effect was even more
pronounced on her silent passenger, which Dean called the
Metrognome. It was a musician’s tool apparently.

As she passed the facades of progressively
larger buildings she saw whole communities of men and women at
work, a sight that had fascinated her yesterday, eventually
prompting her to leave the convertible with Mark. Venturing forth
in their best clothes—he looked marvelous in a steel-blue suit, she
had to admit—they elbowed among busy citizens, accessing the
pedestrian experience.

After they had explored the City on foot for
a while she chose an imposing edifice guarded by level-eyed
doormen, and was shortly being subjected to a verbal test conducted
by a personnel manager in a smart beige tunic. But her unerring
response to his questions, mostly propositions of logic, obligated
the increasingly intimidated functionary to refer Ione to the Tower
of the Gnomon, where all employment screening above a certain level
was administered.

And so she was returning to the mirrored
skyscraper today. This required a considerable commitment in time;
the City was unthinkably intricate, and her journey spanned almost
the whole length of the valley in which it lay. But she loved
driving, felt a novel relaxation gradually steal over her senses as
she wove through the dense agglomeration of buildings that marked
the Gnomon’s sphere of influence. Was it the concentrating geometry
of the streets—spokes radiating from her destination—or the
cloud-baffled sunlight and humid air sweeping the hypethral vault
of the metropolis? Perhaps… But Ione realized the abhorrent
clanging of the Dowser’s bucket could not be heard this far, or the
lingering subsonic hum of the giant cavity in his hill.

As she drew close to the Gnomon’s stronghold
Ione saw that a wide plaza surrounding the building was ornamented
with a circular arrangement of blue-flowered planters, figurative
“hash marks” that allowed for a precise reckoning of time as its
silhouette swung about. Looking up she could not differentiate the
Tower’s distal tip from the sky, instantly disorienting her.
Blinking away the sight, she pulled onto a ramp leading underneath,
wishing Mark had come after all, or everyone better yet. They
should not have become separated like this. Not so quickly. So
casually. But she was already here, and nothing alarming had
happened yet…

The chill atmosphere of the subterranean lot
instantly dispelled the City from consideration, and she followed
glow gnomes blinking this way and that to get her vehicle parked.
Everyone was naked here, and Ione pumped the top back in place to
undress in the privacy of the convertible’s rear seating. Walkways
were crowded with a unidirectional flow of employees. Stepping out,
Ione was shortly among them.

She followed the crowd to a brightly lit
hallway that inclined up into a bustling foyer. There she was
directed by an alert functionary into a reception area painted an
adventurous cerulean hue. A woman with short black hair and
intelligent eyes looked her up and down with something more than
functional interest, then formally registered her intention to seek
employment. Ione was given a number; ”one-two-three-six”, and told
to wait with a multitude of earnest-looking applicants in a grid of
interlocked tubular chrome chairs arrayed under a high-intensity
glow gnome.

She was intimidated by the number of people
she was competing with; there was no one like Dean around to put
her on a fast track to success here. But her apposite recollection
of Emma’s evaluative term at the Dowser’s Club quickly reassured
her. She dwelt on the affairs of the pervious evening to pass the
time, chuckling quietly. Nothing so bizarre or demeaning would
transpire in the eminently sensible establishment of the
Gnomon.

Her number came up. She was directed to a
chamber nearby and subjected to another intelligence test, much
harder than yesterday’s challenge. The clerk graded her answers
with an increasingly respectful air.

“
Well done. Your score
qualifies you for the Gnomon’s challenge,” she stated at last,
regarding Ione speculatively.

“
I, uh… what does that
involve?” she hesitated.

“
It involves following me,”
said the clerk. It was almost a rude response, but under the stolid
performance of her role Ione sensed the plainer woman’s interest,
weightlessly indirect next to last night’s drunken
flirtation.

“
Okay.”

She was led deeper within the Tower to a
doormanned arch bordering a great circular atrium at the center of
the structure. Its floor was occupied by an underlit well from
which a gleaming metal shaft rose to an indefinite height. Ione
watched a round platform glide down this beam toward them. It
arrived with a sibilant gurgle.

Her guide nodded and they stepped onto it
with a crowd of people waiting at the perimeter. A so far moderate
hum of interaction expanded here to the brisk mingling of many
voices, an unexpectedly upbeat sound. The platform was many paces
in diameter, capacious enough to serve the needs of the whole
Tower, simultaneously transporting a sen of employees and several
dox of heavy carts loaded with materials. Ione noted the way the
elevator reprised the sundial motif of the Tower; by a contrivance
of lighting the shadow of the shaft ranged the incremented lip of
the platform, mirroring the building’s exterior time-keeping.

In a transparent housing at the center a flow
gnome was visible, the mechanism’s hydraulic unit, the clean lines
of its jaw opened wide to embrace an enormous hose. Ione considered
the muscular form of the handsome, blue-toned creature. It was
identical in appearance to every other gnome she had seen, but this
one was endowed with an almost inconceivable power. If it could
casually loft the platform they were on then it could drain the Lap
reservoir in a day.

“
That’s
the
Flowgnome,” the clerk explained,
noting her interest. “Mightiest of its kind. The Gnomon’s most
potent creation.” Ione stared wonderingly at its compact physique,
no larger than Emma’s body.

The last riders stepped onto the elevator and
her lips parted in helpless astonishment as they smoothly ascended
from the lobby, passed level after level, steadily losing and
recovering passengers at the edge. Various floor-spanning ecologies
reared into momentary visibility; lounges and dormitories,
recreation halls where various court and table sports were
indulged, design studios and product showrooms, technical
facilities glittering with specialized tools, and manufacturing
zones labyrinthed with gnomes and machines they powered. Ione was
hopelessly in awe of it all, listened avidly to the clerk’s
untiring recitation of place and purpose.

Each floor had a doorman who could halt the
platform, but they had stopped only once to acquire a gnome-driven
cargo cart loaded with freshly forged metal primitives; bars and
tubes and plates scheduled for immediate welding and shaping.

“
Does anyone ever jump
instead of waiting for the elevator?” she wondered after a sen of
levels had come and gone from view.

“
It’s considered bad
etiquette,” the other woman shrugged. “But it happens. I fell from
mid-tower once,” she confided. “It was an accident, of
course.
Not
a
drunken, metaphoric gesture to a former lover,” she insisted,
trying on a coy look. Ione smothered a grin at her artless
flirtation.

The passengers thinned somewhat as they rose
further, then her guide stepped to the edge of the platform when a
totally concealed level swept into view. “You exit here. See you
around?”

Ione nodded noncommittally and strode off the
elevator as bidden, carefully timing her departure to effect a
graceful deceleration into a small vestibule where another
functionary sat behind a podium. He looked up in surprise,
apparently unaccustomed to visitors, scrutinized her with
interest.

“
I’m here for the Gnomon’s
challenge,” she hesitantly explained.

“
That’s the purpose of this
floor,” he laconically acknowledged, then nodded to a solemn
archway with sliding doors behind him.

“
I’m the test proctor. When
I indicate, you will enter there. Within you will have but one
task, and that is to exit as quickly as possible. Are you
ready?”

“
Um, yeah. I guess…” The
conspicuous simplicity of the challenge shrank her
confidence.

The proctor spun a flywheel and the arch
parted onto a caliginous void that breathed warm vapor at her
feet.

“
Your test begins…
now
.” He turned behind
him to note the time on the departing elevator, which was also
represented underneath the platform.

Ione stepped into a dimensionless space,
blank but for her own faint penumbra thrown dumbly forth. It
sharpened focally as the doors slid shut then vanished into utter
darkness. A dense humidity flooded her nostrils, put an instant
sheen of moisture on her brow.

Anything could be in this room, she realized,
fighting a sudden undertow of paranoia. It was perfectly silent.
She felt no sense of the City around her, suffered an immediate
compulsion to restore its ambience. She sought for the door,
fingers sweeping anxiously about, but found the wall featureless.
This unwitnessed cowardice was enough to goad a cynical courage
back into operation, though; Ione knew she would never have reacted
so fearfully under observation.

She turned around and collected herself,
carefully considering what she knew. The object of the test was
speed, the one thing she couldn’t manage in the dark like this,
canceling the value of her rare athletic prowess. So it was a
mental test, maybe. For that she needed data.

Ione ventured cautiously forth. She whistled
experimentally after a few steps but could make no sense of the
queerly gyring echoes that returned. Moisture accumulated on her
chest to sweat distractingly from her nipples.

Was that… She blinked, trying to resolve
something faintly glimmering at the limit of perception. A
head-high bloom of light… it was a glow gnome! She raced to
confront this lonely creature, realizing the dense mist reduced her
sight to a dox or trix of paces.

As with all gnomes, its only visible
distinction was its context. Ione circled the muscular form, almost
a head shorter than her own, touched its smooth, angular jawline,
traced down the chest to brush its limp penis. Abruptly conscious
of the time elapsing she peered about the darkness, but nothing
else lay in view.

If the gnome was her only clue then she had
to work with it. Did it tell her anything? It seemed to offer no
guidance beyond physical orientation. So she would use that.
Sighting along its gaze Ione strode hesitantly forth to discern
another glow gnome, distant enough that she would lose sight of the
first to reach it.

That was it! It would point her to another
one, then another, and it was just a matter of speed from there.
Her body tensed, readying for a furious effort.

Ione didn’t move, forced herself to relax.
There was no way the test could be so simple, though she could
easily imagine a less sophisticated applicant falling for the ruse.
She might have been fooled into a pointlessly physical performance
herself by subconscious pride in her footspeed—but the Gnomon
probably wasn’t that concerned with an employee’s ability to
sprint. This was a predominantly cognitive challenge, disguised as
something physical. She needed more data for any further
conclusions.