Grey (19 page)

"My old anthem," I said. The song I associated with my first death would also be connected to my second. "Perfect."

He switched off the video. The screen returned to the ironing competition and a buzzer sounded—the ironers were to report to their boards. I watched Isé–B step onto the stage. He added several more embers into his iron, primed it, rolled his shoulders and neck, and then stared at the heated vacuum table. What I loved about him was that he existed in his own perfect world, concerned with nothing but cotton, heat, and steam. I longed for such a purity, such a singularity of mind.

"He doesn't have a chance, does he?" I asked, trying to be lighthearted as if that might temper yet another second-place finish.

My tailor was busy at his drawing screen and had finished half a dozen quick sketches. The drawings disturbed me. And the way the material shimmered and smoldered made it look like fire. Worse, the silhouette was large, bold, and muscular like something a satin would wear.

Before I had time to figure out how to express my displeasure without insulting him, the commentator said, "They're off! This is the final heat for the gold!"

Fanjor and Isé–B stood beside two parallel ironing boards arranging their white cotton shirts. Fanjor started on the cuffs, Isé–B, the back.

"Fanjor is off to another fast start," said the announcer.

"He's been in a zone all week," enthused the color man.

"Go Isé," said Mr. Cedar.

"Isé–B has finished the back," said the commentator. "But Fanjor and his incredible quickness are already in evidence!"

Isé–B got out his sleeve board and began the left. Fanjor didn't bother and just crushed the material flat, leaving two creases on the sleeve.

"Why isn't he penalized for that?" I asked. "That's not right!"

"Indeed," agreed Mr. Cedar.

"He just guts it out with that speed," added Color, as if he'd heard my complaint. "Fanjor wills his victories. They're not subtle or graceful, but they're fast."

"They're brutal!" I complained. "And they're ugly!"

"Isé–B is close," said Mr. Cedar. "He's got a chance."

"I just want him to beat Fanjor!"

A close-up showed Fanjor leaning in as he started the collar. While picking up his iron, he hit the steam and a blast filled the air. His goggles fogged so badly, he had to stop, and wipe them off.

"Uh oh!" cried the announcer. "That could be a costly error!"

"Yes!" I screamed. "Go! Isé–B. Go!"

"Three years ago, a steam-up just like that cost Fanjor the Northern Invitational," explained Color. "That was the last major won by the veteran Matús before he retired, leaving Fanjor to dominate. Today of course, Fanjor is the veteran, and Isé–B, the upstart."

I couldn't believe it, but I was about to see Isé–B finally beat him! "Go!" I shouted, as Isé–B ran his Schiaparelli across the shoulder yoke. Then he flipped his shirt around and worked the collar.

"Faster! Come on! Hurry!"

"It's neck and neck!" said the announcer.

"I'd say it's completely up for grabs!" added Color.

"No!" I screamed. "Isé–B's ahead! He's winning!"

As Isé–B finished the collar; Fanjor flew his Intel across the front. In another flash, he grabbed a hanger and slapped it onto the finishing rod. The horn sounded. An instant later Isé–B, hung his.

"Incredible!" said Color. "Just incredible!"

"Fanjor pulled it out again!"

"He's unbeatable," declared Color. "And you could see it in his eyes. Right at the end, he just wanted it more."

I felt teased, then crushed again. And it wasn't so much that I wanted Isé–B to win, but Fanjor to be beaten, as if I wanted some proof that good things happened, if not for me, for someone somewhere. But it was just like the Tournament of Ironing Champions, The Weave, and Fiber-Con. It was always the same. It was unfair, just like everything.

"We're going to go down to the boards," said the announcer. "Our own very attractive Lindsay Beech is down on the stage with Fanjor, who—"

Mr. Cedar snapped off the screen. He worked on his sketching board for several moments "Watch," he said.

On the screen played a rendered movie of myself in a radiant orange suit. I stood in a generic-looking coffee shop of polished iron, black cement, and silver furniture. In my right hand, I held a black glass of what I assumed was cream coffee.

"It's boxy," I noted, unhappily.

"It's the bastard child of early Ültra and
Pure H
."

"Indeed."

Holding up a finger, he said, "Observe." He touched a few things on his board. Another figure, wearing black, entered the frame. He tossed what looked like a fist-sized rock. When the rock hit the orange suit, it exploded in a white flash, sending the head and arms flying. An instant later, nothing but a few glowing embers and a black spot remained on the floor.

"I'll deliver it this evening," said my tailor.

During the first few minutes of my trip back to the family compound, a feeling of regret began to swell in my stomach like a hastily eaten meal. I wanted to tell my driver to turn around, so I could go back to Mr. Cedar, ask him to design a normal suit, and devise some other way to stop Father. When I had thrown
Love Alone
to the floor, it had burned like a piece of paper, not a stick of dynamite. I didn't want to end up as a fireball with my limbs flying across the stage in different directions.

Each time I was about to press the intercom button I came up with a reason why the suit made sense. First, instead of a smoldering fire like the tie, when the suit detonated, I probably wouldn't feel much. I'd see a flash of yellow, sense a flare of pain, but then I'd be dead. Second, the power assured Father's elimination.

Then I worried about the color of the suit. While the
Adjoining Tissue
orange was symmetrical and fatalistic, did I really want to end my life in an Ültra disaster? And more importantly, what would Nora think? My death would devastate her, but would the color of the suit and the ferociousness of the explosion contaminate my sacrifice and ruin our grey perfection? Or did the color separate my death from our love and protect our colorlessness?

Gazing straight ahead at the red emergency brake button with its big white E, I took several deep breaths, and tried to clear my head. I thought of how desperate Father was. I thought of Elle and the ridiculous marriage that was supposed to happen tonight. And most of all, I thought of my beautiful Nora and the freeboot and Father's threats of violence. No, the orange was good. Father had asked for color and he would get it.

Then I felt the car slowing. We weren't stopping again, were we? Pressing the intercom, I asked, "What's going on?"

"A car is approaching from behind."

Spinning around, I saw a shiny gleam on the horizon. "Is it Father?" He had discovered my plan!

"They have not identified themselves, but are nearing our safety zone."

"Is the car blue and orange?"

A beat later, the driver said, "Negative. Green and gold . . . mkg colors."

I raced to the back of my car and peered out the window. Was it Mr. Gonzalez-Matsu coming to get me? Was it he all along? Or was it Nora? And if it was, what was she doing?

"They're gaining on us," said my driver. "I have orders to take evasive action." After he spoke, I could hear a harsh whine from below as the engines began to overdrive. When they engaged, we would be shot out of range, and I would never know who it was.

Then a peculiar feeling filled me, as if I had just seen something. I searched the inside of the car, hoping the answer was close by. When I looked at the red emergency button up at the front of the cabin, my skin went cold. When Nora had touched the button on her jacket during
Heavy Profit Camp,
her finger had covered the bottom edge of both the button and the letter she had scratched on the surface. It wasn't an F. It was an E!

The vacuum motors had just about reached their final velocity. As fast as I could, I ran forward, leaped, and hit the red button. The brakes engaged instantly. Baffles and airbrakes shot out from the sides of the car, and a large parachute was released behind. The force slammed me into the upholstered partition.

When I came to, I sat up and felt a spasm of pain shoot through my head and neck, like a long skewer had been plunged through me. I heard nothing. The motors were all off. Everything was still except for a flickering emergency light in the center of the cabin roof. The air was sour with the tang of burnt electronics and rubber. Then from the car speakers came the message, "Emergency stop engaged. Rate: zero. Systems: go."

Holding my head with my right hand, as if that eased the pain, I stood, and looked out back. The road was clear. I rubbed my eyes, but they weren't deceiving me. Striding to the back of the car, I was sure I was missing something. Nothing but sunlight reflected off the white tiles for a thousand miles.

Nora's car was gone. It had disappeared, or had been a mirage. It probably hadn't been her at all, but some mkg official, a muskrat of a man dressed in stripes and plaid, who cared for nothing but statistics, investments, and earnings. He didn't stop. He didn't slow, but raced past to a board meeting in Kong. Moreover, the letter scratched onto her button had been an f, not a partially covered up e as I had thought. And what it meant, I was just too dumb to figure out.

I felt desolate, and for several moments just stood there staring out at the Loop.

When I turned around to glare at the emergency button as though it were to blame, I saw a green and gold Loop car twenty feet ahead. It was in our lane, but sat at a slight angle, as though it swerved at the last second to avoid a crash. Several steamy wisps of smoke came from beneath, but it was intact.

Wrenching the side door open, I jumped down to the tiles, stumbled, but kept my balance, and ran. The sun was scorching, the air stunk, but I didn't care. She was here.

A hatch on the back of her car was partly open, and several gears were recoiling the last of a green and gold parachute. She must have been watching and hit her emergency button a split second after me. Beside her car was the orange tarp where I had fallen off the Loop. I couldn't believe I had returned to the same spot. But maybe it was perfect because I knew we were off the system here.

"Nora!" I called. The windows on her car were tinted a dark green and it was impossible to see in. "Can you hear me?" I banged on the door with my fist and worried she was unconscious. "You all right?" A second later, I heard a tap from the inside. The lock disengaged. The seal broke and a small whoosh of cool air escaped. The door rolled back.

And there she stood. For each of our four promotion dates, she had worn her signature satellite suits and jackets. This time she wore an evening dress and her hair was up. I was so surprised how elegant, formal, and beautiful she looked that I inhaled a gulp of air and almost choked.

Her dress was made of hundreds of layers of the sheerest fabric I had ever seen—probably the incredibly rare nano-wool that only came from the soft underbelly of a single, faultless, genetic-t angora goat from Asia-1. The outer edge resembled vapor, but as the layers built up and created ever-shifting moiré patterns, the tone deepened to where the center was the absolute black of outer space. The fabric hung beautifully from her hips like a spray of gradient mist and was four feet wide at the floor. On her feet, she wore shiny black pumps made of what looked like unnilseptium-coated deerskin. The waist was small, and the charcoal bodice, covered with an intricate pattern that reminded me of ginkgo leaves scattered on pond water, fit her like paint. Her hands and arms were covered with long, chenille opera gloves that matched her dress. The scoop neck showed her graceful neck, around which hung a single string of the rare, double-heterojunction, light-emitting diamonds.

Her lips were painted a soft, moist watermelon. Her eyes looked luminous and pure black. Her lashes were thick, and her eyelids, the color of ironwood smoke. Woven into her hair were glistening strands of silvery-white rhodium isotope.

With an impish smile, she said, "I'm no longer a Gonzalez-Matsu," as though she had become a nameless outlaw. Then her expression turned serious and sultry. "What I am . . . is yours."

Grasping the doorframe, I pulled myself up. "I'm not Michael Rivers," I said, as I inhaled her redolent mixture of exotic woods and ambergris. We stood inches apart, and for several seconds her eyes darted from my left to right eye before finally settling on my grey left.

In that moment, we left ourselves, and as we closed our colored eyes, we shed our names, our families, and even the hues of our being.

Softly, I touched my lips to hers, but a moment later, I felt like my being was falling into her mouth. As we kissed, I gathered a handful of the gossamer of her skirt and squeezed it hard enough to press my fingerprints into the fibers. She in turn, put her chenille-covered hands around my neck and began to press on my Adam's apple as if to heighten my senses.

We lay side by side in the near silence of her car. It was only after we had become one that I heard what was playing on the sound system. It was Love Emitting Diode's
Down for Piano-forte
, where a ton of goose feathers were slowly dropped puff-by-puff onto a vintage Steinway Grand.

Across Nora's upper lip and forehead were droplets of perspiration. While listening to the chromatic silence, I watched the light refract in them, like so many tiny magnifying glasses. The rhythm of her breathing was just now returning to normal.

Sitting up on an elbow, I closed my eyes for a moment as if to gather strength. "Father is trying to harm you. He has a freeboot looking for you."

With a sad and mocking laugh, she said, "I heard my father hired satins to hurt you."

Her news confirmed my plan in a way I hadn't even thought of before, but the fighting between mkg and RiverGroup was sure to escalate unless it was stopped. "After tonight," I said, "there won't be anything to find."

Her eyes flit right and left as if trying to decide what I meant.