Idolon (21 page)

Pelayo followed the two yamps from the Get Reel to Marini's candy, where they bought a bag of assorted coffeine drops. From the Serf's Up fast-food kiosk next door, he watched them suck on the raspberry, cherry, grenadine, and mint-flavored drops while they jawed at each other.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Atossa said over his earfeed.

Pelayo shrugged. "It's up to them," he said. "Their choice." If they didn't want to do it, he'd find someone else. It wasn't like he was forcing them. "I'm sure they can take care of themselves."

"Just so they know the risks," Atossa said.

The girls stood, preparing to leave. He sauntered over to their table. "You wanna score some cold hard?" he asked..

The yamps stared at him, then smacked their lips in unison. Pelayo caught a whiff of raspberry and rum.

"Blow me," the shorter of the two said when she'd finished swallowing. Then she turned away, giving him the shoulder.

Her friend ignored her. "How much?"

Pelayo held up a cache chip, projecting the amount onto the d-splay screens on the inside of their spex.

"You're shitting us," the short one said, turning back to confront him.

"Half now, half when you're done," Pelayo said. "Word."

"You a cop?"

"What do you think?" Nothing he said would convince them. They'd make their own read.

The tall one pursed her lips, sucking the pierce on the tip of her tongue. "What do you want us to do?"

_______

It didn't take long for the yamps to find a TV. There was one camped out on the sidewalk, at the corner Of Pacific and Walnut. He'd set up a hand-scrawled sign, SLAVATION IS NEAR, and seemed content to sit there humming to himself with his eyes closed.

Pelayo watched as the yamps approached the TV. His view was limited, restricted to the nanocams in the eyes of the ad mask the tall yamp was waring. The feed was jerky and the up-and-down, side-to-side movement left him feeling motion sick until Atossa got the image stabilization synched to his eyefeed. After that, his stomach settled, but not his nerves.

They were going to screw it up. For a while, it looked like they might take off on him. They had already paused at several clothing stores and jewelry kiosks to smob shop. It had taken Atossa a while to find a mask the yamp would ware, one that wouldn't make her look like a total Douglas, da ugliest person on the street. Finally, they'd settled on a mukudj white-face mask, which was occasionally rented out by Third World Threads and Gateways. The mask, worn by the Punu people, represented feminine beauty and spirituality. It had a rounded forehead, high-arched brows, almond eyes, and an elegantly thin face that tapered to a small chin under full, red lips.

"Hey," one of the yamps said. Pelayo couldn't tell which one. Vocalware made them sound alike, and the ad mask's audio wasn't all that great.

When the TV didn't respond, the taller yamp prodded him in the knee with a pink-sandaled foot. "Hello?"

The TV opened his eyes but said nothing.

"Aren't you supposed to be, like, talking to people?" the yamp asked. "Spreading the good word, or whatever."

"I was meditating."

"I guess."

"You should try it sometime," the TV said.

"We have a problem," the short yamp said. "We were thinking maybe you could, like, help us."

The TV regarded them serenely. "What kind of problem?"

"Well"—the tall yamp squirmed—"it's kind of embarrassing."

"You're not fucking with me, are you?" the TV said, his tone placid but edged with savoir faire.

"No!" The short yamp clapped a hand over her mouth in mock horror. "Of course not!"

The tall one shook her head soberly. "We would never do that."

"Because a lot of people give me crap. That's all right. I can take it. It's all part of the vibe."

"It's just that we're, like, kind of desperate."

"Who isn't?"

"Yeah, well, we're not sure where to go. And we hear you might be able to help."

"With what?"

"Medical expenses."

"Our boyfriends don't know," the tall yamp said by way of explanation. "They'd, like, kill us if they did."

"You know?" the short girl said, inclining her head.

The TV nodded, gathered his feet under him, and stood. "I might be able to help." He looked directly at the ad mask. "But you have to ditch the adware."

"It's not an ad mask," the short yamp said. "I'm doing a simage cast to a friend of ours in Africa."

The tall yamp concurred with a nod. "She has the, uh, same exact problem we do."

The TV seemed to accept this. "All right. Let's go."

_______

An hour later they stood on West Cliff, facing a hotel conference center that overlooked the Boardwalk and the brown splinter of the Santa Cruz pier, embroiled in late-afternoon fog that had turned the sun mercurochrome pink.

"Here you go," the TV said.

"This is it?" one of the yamps asked around a cof-feine drop.

The yamp waring the mask tilted her head back at what seemed like a precarious angle to look at the building.

The conference center was a multitiered structure with several terraces shaded by palm trees. Architectural philm covered the modular frame, shrink-wrapping it in fuzzy white haze. The building resembled a solid, three-dimensional mass of static, or random noise, no different from the TV standing next to the yamp. In fact, as the TV took a step forward, he appeared to vanish into the static or be absorbed by it.

It wasn't hard to picture the same thing happening to every other TV. They were all waiting to be assimilated, preparing to become one with one another.

"You really think Marta's in there?" Atossa said, splicing into the earfeed from the ad mask.

"I don't know, maybe." But Pelayo found it hard to believe it was where she really wanted to be.

"So what happens now?" one of the yamps asked.

"You talk to those guys." A bare hand materialized in the static, pointing. "They'll get someone to let you in."

The mask's gaze dropped, centering on a glassed-in lobby where two hefty security guards were stationed. The guards were well armed, packing some serious weaponry and 'tude. It was clear they weren't just window dressing.

"You know," the tall yamp said, gnawing on a black nail, "those dudes seem, like, way scary. Totally roided out. They're giving me the jeebies."

"Me, too," the other yamp said.

"It's not like that," the TV countered. "You can trust them. They're here for your protection."

"Yeah, sure. Like we haven't heard
that
before. Jesus. You people are the same as everyone else. All show and no tell."

They flounced down the hill, back toward downtown. After half a block the yamp with the mask peeled it off.

"Okay," she said, holding up the cache chip where the mask could image it. "We kept our end of the bargain."

Pelayo freed up the remaining balance on the chip and watched them scurry away.

"Now what?" Atossa said. She piloted the ad mask away from the street and the sidewalk, close to the wall of a parking garage where it would be less likely to get blown around by wind or passing traffic.

"The roof," he said. "Can you go up there and take a look around?" There was a cool breeze gusting off the bay, but she might be able to fly the ad mask up high enough to take a look at the roof and see if it was as heavily fortified as the ground-level access.

"Even if I can," she said, "what good is it going lo do?"

From this angle, Pelayo thought he could see the rotors of a helicopter just above the roofline and the terraced gardens—accessible from the ground by gated stairs—that formed patios and balustrades along the topmost floors. "There might be a way up," he said.

Nadice woke to the carnival lights of th Boardwalk. Lipstick smears of red, blue, green, and yellow neon splashed against the window next to the bed.

She was like that light. Only a smal part of her shone through into the world. The rest of her was a ghost.

Nadice became aware of quiet-but-alert breathing beside her, and a pleasant radiant heat pressing against her skin.

Marta. They'd dozed off on the bed when the fog started to roll in, dampening the low-slanting rays of the sun.

"What are you thinking?" Marta said.

"I was just wondering what time it was."

There was no clock in the room; they had been cut loose from time. First the past, now the present.

Marta shifted slightly. Nadice turned her gaze to the acoustic-tiled ceiling. "Have you been awake all this time?"

"Yes."

"You're not tired?"

"I can't sleep."

They were beyond sleep. It was as if they had crossed into another country.

"I've been thinking," Marta said. "Listening."

"For what?"

"Anything," Marta said. "Everything. You. My heart. The helicopter."

Nadice hadn't heard it.

"I'm glad one of us was able to get some rest," Marta continued. "I have a feeling we're going to need it."

Nadice rolled onto her side, facing her. "What for?"

Marta shrugged, shaking the bed. Then she raised an arm to her forehead, resting it there.

"What do you think's going to happen to us?" Nadice said.

"It's already happening." Marta's voice grated, abrasive as stone in the pastel gloom.

"You know what I mean. After the babies." Where would they live?
How
would they live? Would they be allowed to care for their babies? Or would the babies be taken from them?

Marta lowered her arm, found Nadice's left hand on the bedspread between them, and guided it up under her blouse to her belly.

Marta's skin was warm and smooth under Nadice's fingertips. Taut. She felt her own belly tightening and the warmth spreading downward.

"Feel that?"

"Yes."

"Inside of you, I mean." Marta placed her hand over Nadice's fingers, and gently pressed them into her flesh.

Nadice's breath caught. Deep inside of her, she felt the pressure. Her own hand, she realized. As if it was her body she was probing, pushing against. "What's going on?"

Marta withdrew her hand. "Our babies are joined. Or it could be that they're the same baby."

Nadice kept her hand on Marta's abdomen, measuring her pulse and the slow rise and fall that came with each breath. "Joined how?"

"Who knows. Maybe something we're each carrying inside us, connecting up so that we have one womb. One baby. You and me. Maybe all of us."

"That's crazy." There had to be a reasonable explanation. Dr. Kwan had installed some kind of biodigital interface. They were caught in a virtual web. Tug on one thread and the vibration traveled to all the others.

"I don't know what to think anymore," Marta admitted. "What's crazy and what isn't." A note of fatalistic resignation scratched the surface of her earlier determination. "What about you? Where are you at?"

A tremor passed through Nadice's fingertips. "I'm not going to kill myself, if that's what you mean." It no longer seemed like an option. If what Marta said was true, and they really were one body, one person, what would happen to Marta if she injured herself? Would Marta be harmed, too? Would the baby? What about the other women who were pregnant?

Nadice shifted her hand, brushing Marta's navel with her fingertips. A muscle in Marta's stomach jumped. Nadice felt the echo of the spasm reverberate within her own abdomen, followed by a tingle that spread to her thighs. A long shudder coursed through her.

Marta wet parched lips. "I don't know if this is..." The protest floundered on an indrawn gasp.

"You don't like women?" Nadice said.

"It's not that. It's just—they might be watching."

"I'll stop. If you want."

Marta tensed, rigid with fear and desire. "No." Nadice's hand drifted downward, light as a hummingbird.

_______

"Are you all right?" Nadice said later.

"Fine."

A puffy, immobilizing silence swelled to fill the space between them. "Then what's the matter?"

"Nothing."

"Don't give me that."

Marta's chest heaved, dissolving a clot of emotion in her chest. "It's been a while. That's all."

"Me, too." They'd both been wrapped tight. Neither one of them had been able to let go entirely.

Let go and they might be pulled out to sea. Lost forever.

_______

"If it's really just one baby," Nadice ventured, "then how does it get born?" The neon glow from the window glossed their hair and annealed the sweat on their bare skin. Either time had slowed, or their lives had sped up.

"I guess we'll find out."

"Should we tell Kwan?"

Marta shook her head on the pillow. "I'm not telling that bitch anything."

"Do you think she knows?" Nadice said.

"Damn right she does."

Nadice tasted salt on her lips.
Their
salt. She felt alert but calm, strangely sedate.

"What about us?" Nadice asked. "If we're becoming one person, what happens to each of us?"

Marta said nothing.

"Will I forget who I am?" Nadice went on. "Will I lose my personality... my memories?"

"I don't see how," Marta said. "We'd have each other's memories, but we'd still have our own. Like now."

"Not if they get all jumbled." Things were already getting jumbled, just between the two of them.

"That might not be such a bad thing," Marta said.

True, Nadice thought. Only the strongest memories would remain, the most useful and important ones. The runts would get stomped out. "Survival of the fittest," she said.

"What do you mean?" Marta asked.

"Not all of the babies will be born," Nadice said. "Only the strongest will make it to full term. All the others will die."

She was talking about them, as well, she realized. The mothers. They couldn't all live through this.

"You don't know that," Marta snapped. "You don't know anything. None of us knows a goddamn thing."

Nadice gave her a few minutes to simmer down, then placed her mouth to Marta's ear. "There's something else bothering you," she whispered.

Marta tightened under her breath. "I can't tell you."

"Why not?"

"Because I can't tell anyone." The planes of her face shifted in the half-light, hard and angular where they chipped away at the shadows.

"Something in your past," Nadice said, hoping to draw her out.

Marta touched a ringer to Nadice's lips. "Not now." Not ever, her breath seemed to say.

It was funny, Nadice thought. The last thing sex guaranteed was intimacy or trust. She took the tip of Marta's finger between her lips and sucked on it gently for a moment, letting the taste of her infiltrate the words forming on her tongue.

"When I came to the Get Reel," Nadice said, "I was working as a mule, smuggling black-market ware into the country from Africa."

"You don't have to tell me this."

"I want to. I don't care if they hear. It doesn't matter. It's not going to make any difference."

Marta opened her mouth, thought better of whatever she was about to say. "What kind of ware?"

"I don't know. It doesn't really matter. What's important is that it's still inside of me."

"You didn't deliver it?"

"No. I had this feeling as soon as I did, they were going to get rid of me. That's why I ran."

"How long do you think you can hide?"

"As long as I have to."

Marta narrowed her eyes. "They'll never stop looking for you."

Nadice swallowed but held Marta's gaze. "I just thought you should know, you're not the only one with baggage."

Marta touched the wet tip of her finger to Nadice's chin, tracing the rigid curve of her jaw.

"I'm not asking for help," Nadice said, keeping her voice steady. "I'm not looking for your protection."

Marta withdrew her finger. "I don't know what I have in me, either. All I know is, like you, I can't leave."

Can't, Nadice thought. That was different from won't.

_______

A knock on the door roused Nadice. Next to her, Marta sat bolt upright, her legs slipping over the side of the bed. She was on her feet, padding silently past the endless flicker of the Boardwalk lights before Nadice had blinked the sleep from her eyes.

"Time to get up." The muffled voice was followed by a second knock, firmer and more insistent.

"What do you want?" Marta said, standing next to the door.

A sliver of light sliced through the paper-thin darkness and cut across taupe carpet. Nadice sat up, straightened by adrenaline, and waited.

A TV appeared in the rapidly widening gap, suffusing it with static. "You need to get ready."

It sounded like an older woman, her voice brusque and matriarchal, accustomed to giving orders.

"For what?" Marta asked. She stood to one side of the light, a rigid silhouette.

"A trip," the woman said. "You're being moved."

"We're leaving?" Nadice said. She smoothed the wrinkles from the body of her dress, adjusted the straps.

"Be ready in a half hour. There won't be any stops or amenities during the trip, so make sure you use the bathroom if you have to."

Outside their room, Nadice could hear the same conversation taking place, up and down the hallway.

Marta pulled on her brown leather jacket. "Where are we going?"

"Just be ready." The TV stepped back, pulling the door shut.

Above them, from the roof, a guttural whine shuddered through the steel frame of the building.

Nadice readjusted the straps of her dress, her hands fumbling as the roar vibrated through them.