Grey (13 page)

Although Nora and I didn't need reservations, we were not going into the main sitting room. As was the custom, when one suggested to meet at the SunEcho that meant the auxiliary room.

It was a square room thirty by thirty feet at the back of the shop. Why it was there, or what purpose it served wasn't clear, except to the owner, one assumed. The walls were covered with a warm, double-warp wool broadcloth. Underfoot was a mosaic made of scrap metal from 100 Loop accidents. Besides the two doors, one leading out into an alley, and the other into the concierge's area, the only other feature was a single small, straight-backed wooden chair that sat in the middle.

The room was packed and warm. As my eyes adjusted to the dim, I saw Nora two feet from me. She wore a long grey coat buttoned to the neck. Her hair looked darker, her nose flatter, and something was odd about her eyes. For an instant, I worried that her father had hurt her—beaten her or given her some terrible and disfiguring drug. A second later, I realized it wasn't Nora.

The two women on either side of her resembled Nora, too. The one on the left had her eyes, but her lips were too thin. The other had her chin and neck, but her eyes were the wrong shade of mahogany. The three of them looked me up and down and sneered.

As my eyes continued to adjust to the dim, I saw that the room was filled with young women all Nora's height, with dark hair, and olive complexions. Each was similar to her, but wrong.

My heart sank. Nora wasn't here! She hadn't come because she had hated the date. And she hated me. She didn't want to see me after I had even pretended to flirt with that cat-bunny-beaver girl. And now instead of her, I was in a room filled with
Pure H
imposters and
Pure H
pretenders. I felt heartbroken and angry, and was about to tear off my goggles and throw them to the floor, when I noticed someone on the chair.

She too wore a long grey coat, but its material was smoother and more refined than all the others. And her loosely hanging hair had been brushed not combed and was at once perfectly ordered and yet free and unfussy. Most of all though, she was the only one not glaring at us, not trying to guess who we were, or trying to decide if we belonged. She alone waited patiently and calmly.

When I stepped before her and saw her face, I chided myself for thinking that any of the others even slightly resembled her. And it wasn't just that her skin was softer and smoother, her features perfectly symmetrical, her eyes a deeper achromatic black, but that she seemed at once stronger and more vulnerable than all of them put together.

She had been gazing forward, with her smoky-colored eyelids half closed, as if meditating. When I stepped beside her, first she looked up with fright, but then as she peered into my eyes through the mask, warmth filled her. Standing, she put her arms around me, nestled her mouth close to my ear, and said,
"A week of green rain
."

Her words completed the full quote from our first date. And she was right, we had become that dead couple in
Pure H
, who lay side by side, their hands an inch apart. Only it wasn't rigor mortis or chance that had separated our hands, it was the world . . . it was our families.

I held her to me for the first time and discovered how our bodies matched, how her eyes met the height of my lips, how my arms surrounded her and exactly fit the curve of her back. Squeezing her to me, I inhaled the sweet sandalwood of her hair.

Then she removed the goggles and air supply from my face. I felt silly for having left it on and was about to say so, when she tilted her head to the right then touched her mouth to mine.

Like an enormous bubble, the universe collapsed, and the only thing that remained was the two-dimensional plane where our lips met. Hers felt warm and creamy, like butter frosting. Then, I don't know which of us began moving first, we were circling our lips against each other. A tension like the winding of a miniature watch spring begin to build. We rubbed our lips together, and then we were pressing our bodies firmly against each other. We opened our mouths, and just as I felt like I wanted to kiss her hard, or bite her, she pulled back.

Her nostrils were flared, her lips, swollen. She was breathing through her mouth. And several errant hairs fluttered in front of her eyes. One stuck to her moist forehead. With a husky breath, she said, "Stop."

I wanted the opposite like I have never wanted anything and moved toward her, but she pushed me away. The world returned. I had completely forgotten, but we were in public—in the SunEcho auxiliary room. Fifty fake Noras were glaring at us, several were muttering to themselves, and all of their cheap perfumes filled the air with a saccharine and impatient musk. A shameful heat covered me. And as I let my arms fall to my sides, I could feel the ventilation system in my suit struggle to circulate air beneath the velvet jumpsuit.

"Michael," she said, as she stroked the side of my face with one of her dove-grey gloved hands. "Another time." She looked down shyly.

"Excuse me," said Joelene leaning in, "ten more seconds."

"Already?" I asked, dismayed.

Leaning in, Nora put her mouth beside my ear. I thought she was going to kiss me goodbye, but she said, "Someone is trying to keep us apart."

Her words surprised me. "Who?"

"Someone close."

Her words caused a shiver to pass through me. "Could someone close be keeping us apart?" I asked my advisor.

"We can't stay on the system," she said, glancing toward the camera in the corner of the room. "We must go."

Nora said, "Be careful, Michael."

I wanted to grasp her, maybe even pick her up and run. I wanted to take us somewhere where we would never be found.

"It's time," said Joelene.

Nora hugged me again. She said, "
Light is falling
."

All the way to Kobehaba, where we were to meet Father for the wrap-party, I sat slumped in my Loop car seat. As much as I had been alive when with her, now I felt dead apart.

"It was Father," I said, not looking up. "He's trying to keep us apart. He hates what I've become, and he hates her."

"As yet," Joelene said, while monitoring her screen, "there's no evidence to support that theory." Her eyes met mine. "However, I do not mean that it can be completely ruled out either."

"He did it!" I said, sure. "This is his revenge for when I quit dancing. He made it so I couldn't be with Nora. He did this!"

Joelene didn't reply. A moment later, her eyes latched onto something on one of her screens. She turned it toward me and increased the volume.
Intellectuals and Soup
was on again.

"Unequivocally," said Bow Tie, "it was Michael Rivers."

They played a system video of Nora hugging me in my goggles and jumpsuit from the SunEcho only minutes before.

"They found us?" I asked, surprised.

"Impossible!" scoffed Iron Bra from behind her glass bowl. "I've just checked the history from the channel cameras in the elevators and the stairs of the MonoBeat. He wasn't there. He could not have gotten from SpecificMotor to the SunEcho in time. What we're seeing is some sort of theater."

"I don't believe so," said Pink Hat thoughtfully, stirring a new bowl of soup. "It is Michael. And that's Nora. Just look at the sensuality of their kiss. It's palpable and pungent. The kind of kiss that connects the spheres, the spirits, and the glands. They are sharing a final moment together. I feel sorry for them and their companies. Certainly with that power, the union of RiverGroup and mkg would have been strong, authoritative, and commanding."

"When she took your goggles off," said Joelene, as she snapped off the screen, "your disguise was compromised. I'm not surprised we were discovered, but I thought it wouldn't be for a day or two." She shook her head slowly. "We should have found a place off the system." Leaning back on her chair, she touched her fingertips together, and said, "This is trouble."

A moment later, the car entered the garage of the building where the wrap-party was, and as we headed up in the turbofan-powered elevator, operated by a woman in a violet hoop skirt and bonnet, I asked, "Does Father watch that
Soup
show?"

"Doubtful. But other channels will surely be speculating soon, so I suggest we make this as short a visit as possible."

"I'm telling him that I know what he did," I said. "He let the freeboot shoot me because he hates me."

"Michael," she said, quietly, "we don't have evidence to prove his involvement. I appreciate your ambition to confront him, but don't advise it now."

When the bonnet woman pulled a huge iron lever and the doors opened, I had to squint and cover my ears. Screeching music played and patterns of light flashed in all directions. The floor vibrated an agitated violet. All over the place, screens played over-saturated snippets of Ültra epics. Screaming men . . . knives cutting through flesh . . . stone clubs bashing stuffed animals, fruit, and medical specimens.

A hostess with heavy dark eye makeup, white lips, and a tube in her right nostril led us in. All the swirling colors, signs, and screens were giving me a headache. I closed my colored eye, but still the place blinked and vibrated like a hundred electrical storms.

Partiers, in all manner of Ültra costume, waved and remarked as we passed.

– She's hotrod!

– Loved her furry tits!

– Bereave her tail!

– Billion times better!

–
Subtract her and abstract her. Turn her and burn her!

Keeping my eyes straight ahead, I ignored them and their words and ridiculous lyrics. Meanwhile, I wondered if Joelene was right. If I did accuse him, all he would do was deny it and scream louder than I ever could.

We came before a large, round table made out of a fresh redwood stump with the RiverGroup logo carved on top. Father sat with his back against the window that looked out onto the sparkling lights of the port city. His chocolate cake Afro was fluffier than ever. Around his neck he wore a green ruff, and his enormous jacket was covered with wet hunter-green paint. Stuffed in the breast pocket was what looked like a cut of raw pork and a black rubber glove.

His girls sat on either side. A blonde wore blue foil. A redhead was covered with tar. One wore blinking sequins and nothing else. A brunette looked like the Frix bikini girl from the date. The last was decorated with yellow icing like a birthday cake. The word
unhappy
was written across her chest with blue.

"There's our cunt Romeo!" said Father. As he stood and started around the table, he pointed left to right. "These are my girls: Conni, Penni, Hunni, and Benni." He stopped, pretended to suck a thumb, and spoke like a lisping baby, "All the
wittle
spaceships of cunt!" He guffawed so hard I feared he might cough up his spleen.

As he finished coming around, I noticed that whatever his jacket touched got smeared with green paint. "Close-up!" he said to his film crew, then proceeded to throw his arms around me.

"Get off!" I said, pushing him away. His jacket left stains on my hands, but not on my suit.

"The stock is up!" he said, pumping his fist. "You were still dull, but she was great, right girls?" The women rang in with approvals.

"If you don't mind," said Joelene, "we would like to retire. We're both very—"

"What's the matter?" interrupted Father. "You just got here! Come on! Have a drink! We've got some very lard car-
rot
juice." He then put his face before mine and breathily sang, "
Welcome to my fermented intestinal garden!
"

His breath was like compost. "You smell!" I said, leaning back.

Father thought that hilarious. Whipping around he said, "Ken-baby! O keeper of digits . . . what were the magical and astounding ratings?"

Ken, who sat beside the birthday cake girl, glanced at a small glowing screen and answered, "The magical and astounding ratings were twenty-one point seven, sir!"

"Twenty-
fucking
-one-point-
fucking
-seven!" howled Father. "Is that a number!"

"That's a number!" said Ken.

"It's exceptional," said Xavid, who I hadn't noticed before. He was dressed in his usual black seal pelts, his huge, amber glasses, and a peak of white hair on top of his head.

"Five times higher than any of your dates with Nora," added Ken.

"There are mitigating factors," said Joelene. "The shooting caused a spike in—"

"And look here," continued Father, ignoring her. He pointed to a man who sat on the near side of the table between a woman with some sort of chrome medical-looking device that held her mouth open to expose her teeth and gums, and a nude man covered head to foot with what looked like olive oil and broken insect legs. "Let me introduce a real glazed ham: President, ceo, and Chief of Long Dickness at the distinguished company of Ribo-Kool, Chesterfield Kez." Father laughed and shook his shoulders like he was doing an odd, little dance. "He's Elle's uncle. Chester, this is my super famous son, Michael . . . in person and completely alive!"

Chesterfield had a hard, bony face that looked like little more than a skin-covered skull. His nostrils large, his lips, blue. Over his bright beetle-green suit, he wore a pile of carved wooden necklaces just like the devoted businessman's
LardLik
reader he obviously was. He stood, extended a hand, and said, "Very large pleasure, indeed."

Without shaking his hand, I said to Father, "I refuse to see Elle again."

"Hold on!" bellowed Father, with a laugh. "Family meeting. Be right back!" Grabbing my arm, he dragged me across the aisle in front of a row of flashing and whirring gambling and sex machines. "Shut your hole!" he snarled. "We're cooking with lard. Chesterfield likes the numbers so much we're going ahead full force. We're going to marry you two at the product show. That'll blow those mkg semen suckers away!"

It was a joke. It was insane. "No," I said, "I can't! I won't!"

"You're going to!" he said, stretching the "o" in
to
and covering my face with his vile breath. "You're marrying the spank skank and that's it!"