The Amber Columns (The City of Dark Pleasures Book 2) (9 page)

Her smile wavers for a moment. There’s an air of distrust that permeates our society and it’s never more evident than when we speak of the upper echelons.

“We have some things,” she says guardedly. “But none of it has been cataloged so it’s a bit of a mess.”

Even better, I think. If they catalogued it they would be more likely to come across things they thought people might be better off not seeing. And perhaps hide those things away somewhere. Or even destroy them.

“I’m fine with a mess. I just want some things to go on. Light-hearted stuff. Childhood or school or whatever.”

She looks doubtful, but steps out from behind her work-table and gestures for me to follow her.

Moments later, after hurrying to keep up with her long stride down a seemingly endless corridor, we arrive at a numbered door, which hisses open at a wave of the archivist’s wrist pass. Behind the door is a long narrow room lined with shelves piled high with books and papers. There doesn’t seem to be any order at all that I can discern.

“There’s no rhyme or reason to this. It just hasn’t been a priority all these years. We’ve been trying to make sense of critical stuff – medical, engineering and the like. So this is…well it’s all a jumble. But if you poke around you might find something. I’ll leave the door open.”

I don’t watch her leave. I’m too mesmerized by all the data just lying around, waiting for me to explore it. I did visit the Archiva a few times when I was in college, but I never got into any of these uncatalogued storage rooms. I feel like a fairy tale thief about to plunder a dragon’s hoard.

But where to start? There are piles of yellowing file folders – a quick glance at those tells me they are financial records. Nothing of interest there – the Porteros are as rich as it is possible to be. Everyone knows that. One tumble of books seems to be genealogical records dating back centuries. While it might be interesting to see what the family was up to before the Climate Wars it’s hardly something that might be discussed in an interview.

I step back for a moment, feeling a little overwhelmed. There’s so much here, it’s hard to know where to start. I try to hear my mother’s voice again. Though she wasn’t a journalist herself, she had a wealth of advice about it for me. None of it has ever steered me wrong.

“Look in the
least
obvious place first,” she would say, both when I was researching an assignment and when I’d lost a shoe or a data-stick.

I scan over the shelves and piles again. My natural inclination is the stuff that looks important, official—the large leather volumes of genealogy, the brown edged broadsheet newspapers, a relic of the days when we could still import wood pulp for paper. They look serious, like things educated people would read. They look like they would print the truth.

But by the time Trenoweth Portero came to power, truth was a tricky thing, and the influence of money on the media had already resulted in a lot of pain and suffering.

I turn instead to a pile of colorful glossy magazines. Among the piles are print copies of the very trashy publication I now work for—Island News Daily. I run my fingers over the gloss finish, which has become slightly sticky over time. “Hottest Bachelors” is one headline, with Portero’s gormless smile dominating. He’s one of those men who has improved with age. When he was a young bachelor, over forty years ago now, he had a rather doughy face. Age has chiseled him somewhat, frosted his hair, rendered his plastic appearance more like stone or wood. He’s not handsome, but I can see why some women would find him a worthy husband, even to share with a thousand others.

Later issues talk of his first marriage, then subsequent ones. He already had a dozen wives when the Expiation started. There’s a tragic story about him bidding his many younger sons goodbye as they fled on a refugee boat to the mainland. “Refugee boat”. It looks like a luxury yacht. His older sons…

I turn the sweaty page and find an advertisement for luncheon meat. Someone has torn the next page of the article out. Now I’ll never know what happened to the older sons. Perhaps they were killed by mobs as so many boys were.

I flip back to the beginning of the article, the title “Tragic farewell” emblazoned over a faded photograph of a stream of small boys boarding the boat. Portero himself stands off to the side, looking stoic, watching his sons with a grim expression. There are crying women behind him—his wives, the mothers of the boys I assume. I can only imagine their sorrow, their fear.

Well, I don’t have to imagine it that much. I saw my own mother in the days after my brother died. I remember her screams. That’s not something you easily forget.

Among the wives, one looks up, straight at the camera, an air of defiance in her face. I find myself oddly drawn to her, though I’m not sure why. The photo is grainy, and the light in this storeroom is dim. I take out a data-stick and turn on the photo function. No one has told me I
can’t
take pictures so I’m taking that as authorization that I
can.

I click the data-stick over the image, then slip it back into the pocket of my jacket, clicking it into the d-port there. Then I lift my sleeve and activate the view screen. I used my last paycheck to upgrade my view screen so the image that pops up is crisp and clear. With my finger I draw a square around the woman’s face.

“Enlarge,” I say. Her face fills my screen. “Enhance”

The picture begins to rebuild, the software of the display analyzing the grainy image and extrapolating a high resolution replacement. It won’t be perfect, but many hidden things are discovered this way.

I gaze around the room again as the picture reloads, line by line, infuriatingly slowly, thinking perhaps I’ll investigate the pile of cheesily published memoirs next. Almost every member of the Portero family wrote one in those days—it was quite fashionable.

I glance back at my display screen and my heart jumps so quickly it causes my sensor to do a scan, buzzing my neck like a moth has landed there.

The woman looking at the camera has vibrant golden eyes.

A resolution glitch, I think. Golden eyes are rare. Brown is the most common color and occasionally blue. But this caramel shade is very rare. I’ve only seen it once before.

On Tully.

I quickly draw a square around the faces of several of the other women, repeating the process. Enhanced I can see all of them have the dark brown eyes that are typical on our island – like mine, my mother’s, my brother and father’s.

My wrist scanner beeps. I look down at it. Apparently it doesn’t like my heart rate.

“Reading something exciting,” I say. The scanner beeps in reply. I find myself smiling. Several times with dorm sisters, sneaking around somewhere we weren’t supposed to be I would give this same excuse when my scanner beeped its dismay at my elevated heart rate. This time I’m telling the truth.

I look at the golden eyed woman again. It could just be a coincidence. That eye color is rare, but not unheard of. But now I have the idea in my head I’m aching to see what was on that torn out page.

I search through the other magazines, hoping there might be another copy. No luck. Nor are there any other issues from around the same time, or anything else that seems to include information about Portero’s family, his sons.

I flip back to the article, closing the magazine and looking at the cover and the date of publication. I tap my wrist pass.

“Access open data servers,” I say

“Open server accessed,” I bleeps back.

“Give me historical or newsworthy events on this date.” I read out the date carefully. Seconds later a list of events scrolls over my sleeve display. Dull political events, nasty cut gang attacks, the closing of the low level public schools.

“Expand the date range back two weeks,” I say.

More events scroll by. I strain my eyes to follow. I’m looking for something in particular, but I don’t know what it is yet. Something newsworthy, but not critical. Something the Archiva might have also set aside to catalog later. It’s a long shot but if I find it…

Fashion.

Frivolous but relevant. And sure enough during the very weeks in question data-wear was first re-introduced. A fashion from before the climate wars, data-wear disappeared for nearly fifty years before roaring back into style in of all moments just before the end of the Expiation. Not for the first time I’m slightly disgusted about how history and culture proceeded practically unfettered while young men were being sliced open in the streets.

Many things were lost in the Climate Wars. I guess human decency might have been one of them.

I flip back through the magazine. The center pull-out section is a twenty page review and advertorial about data-wear. There are schematics, theoretical analysis, a historical take. It’s quite detailed. Relevant but frivolous. Just what I need.

I step back out into the long hallway. None of the archivists seem to be around, and this might be something best pursued without their help. My wrist scanner beeps another complaint at me.

“I just saw a spider,” I say, striding down the hall. At the end of the hallway is a wall terminal. It beeps a greeting at me as I stop.

“Bring up the listings of uncatalogued collections,” I try. To my surprise the terminal comes up with the goods. A long list of topics, some with sub-topics, each accompanied by a room number. I find “fashion” easily enough and scroll through the sub-topics until the word “data-wear” comes up. The room number seems to be another level.

I run. My wrist scanner will register the physical exertion and be less concerned with my elevated vitals. And there doesn’t seem to be anyone around who might care that I’m running.

I find the stairs and climb them by two, gasping when I reach the floor I need.

Another long hallway. An archivist is pushing a cart of what look like children’s books towards me.

“Can I help you?” she asks in a friendly tone.

“Yes. Thank goodness,” I say. “I was doing some research on data-wear the other day, for a story on cheap ways to update jackets, and I think I dropped the data-stick with all my notes in the archive room. I can’t find it anywhere.”

The archivist smiles. “How frustrating. Let me let you in to look for it.”

Just like that, she leads me down to the room, opens the door with her pass and steps aside.

It’s another jumble of books and files, and vid tapes and photographs.

“It’s a terrible mess I’m afraid. I hope you can find it. Let me take this collection downstairs and I’ll come back to see how you’re doing.”

“That’s not necessary…”

“Not at all. It’s my job. I have to bring this back anyway,” she says as she wheels the cart away.

I dive into the room as soon as she’s out of sight. I’ve already spotted what I think I need. A leaning stack of glossy magazines.

I begin flipping through them frantically. If the archivist comes back before I find what I’m looking for I’ll have lost my chance. The magazines aren’t in any kind of order. The dates are all muddled. There are several copies of some issues, several different publications. Finally just as I hear the squeak of the cart returning I find the one I’m looking for. With trembling hands I turn to the article—
Tragic
Farewell
.

I flip the page, missing in the other copy, and there they are. Trenoweth Portero and his older sons, the ones that stayed behind as the little boys left on the boat. One, the oldest, very muscular and mean looking, his dark eyes glowering at the camera. I recognize him as the current minister of something or other. Defense, maybe. The other, barely bigger than the small boys who boarded the boat, still a sweet child himself, with medium brown skin, suggesting his mother shared that coloring. And the middle boy, slim and beautiful, dark haired and golden eyed.

It’s no longer a question of resemblance. The boy doesn’t
look
like Tully. He
is
Tully.

Tully is Trenoweth Portero’s son.

Chapter Nine – Tully

“Bray? Bray?” Bray lies on the floor. I caught him just in time to keep him from hitting his head, but the stool crashed down on top of him. He won’t thank me for the bruises. “BRAY!”

His eyes open, focusing on me blearily. “You’re an asshole,” he says.

I let him sit up as I return to my keyboard.

“That’s the last incapacitation frequency isolated. I’m going to record them a bit higher at either end and block them from your implant.”

Bray scratches his neck while I reprogram his implant with right codes.

“If you’re ever in a situation where it looks like a guard is trying to incapacitate you can you fake it? Otherwise I’ll get busted and the game is over.”

“Fake being knocked on my ass?” Bray says, struggling upright. “You know it’s really complicated being friends with you, Tully.”

“Totally worth it though, right?”

Bray gives me a weak smile.

I shift my own stool, pushing the fat cable providing electricity to my boudoir out of the way. It snakes out my door and up to the eighth level, where a machine servant recently needed some of my expert software advice. The barter system is alive and well in the Obsidian Stairway.

“I want to work on the pain relief frequencies now,” I say.

Bray groans. “Can
you
try them? I’m seeing stars.”

“Fine. Let me set it up.” I tap away at the rattling keyboard, streams of numbers filling my screen. “Start with the lower frequencies and work your way up. I really have no idea where the analgesic codes are so we’re fishing a bit.” I plug in my implant’s unique code. Since I only have the low power hand scanner I stole from a guard a few years ago, any signal I send has to be either concentrated right on the back of the neck or directly coded to a particular implant. And just this morning Bray had his implant upgraded, paid for by a grateful harem wife, whose sciatica vexes her terribly without Bray’s weekly work-overs. And of course, the implant technician misplaced the documentation again, clumsy girl. No doubt she’ll assume that it will eventually get into the secure disposal where it belongs. And she’s right. I incinerated it right after programming Bray’s code into my computer. Once you have the factory assigned code, any command can be sent directly to it.

The things you learn while doing techno-medical experiments on yourself. My head still hurts from falling off my stool three times yesterday.

I let Bray take my stool. “Just click here,” I say, pointing to the screen. “And then activate the scanner.”

I sit across from him, hanging onto the stool. I’ve no desire to end up on the floor again.

Bray clicks on a number and points the scanner at me. Nothing happens.

“Okay. Try the next one. Ascending order.”

He repeats the process a few times. The Authority would have chosen an exact frequency to activate a coded pulse in the implant. The implant pulses have always been able to do a few things – scan for medical problems like trauma or illness, give you a whack of pain strong enough to knock you off your feet. I’ve even heard there’s an interrogation function. It disorients you so you have trouble lying. Now these new implants have a few added things. A full incapacitation pulse, which I’ve just demonstrated on poor Bray. It doesn’t surprise me that the Authority has added this one. But the other new one – pain relief—that surprises me. It seems too compassionate for the Authority to care about pain. But maybe I’m thinking of them from a servant’s perspective. Maybe the pain relief is designed for citizens. We all get the same implants; it’s just ours are programmed with specific codes that shut us out of certain citizen privileges. Maybe pain relief is one of them. But the implants can be programmed externally now too. Which means that some frequencies might cause unexpected reactions—unplanned ones. Given the severity of the phantom pain that lays me low periodically it’s worth the risk of discovering some adverse reactions in my quest for the pain killing frequencies. It probably won’t kill me. Only one way to find out.

“What?” Bray says.

“What what?”

“You made a funny face on that last one.”

I lean forward to look at the screen. Bray has worked through about half the frequencies I listed. I haven’t felt anything.

“What kind of face?”

“I don’t know. A weird face.”

“Put a star next to it and keep going.”

He tries a few more frequencies, frowning at me. I smile back at him, sighing.

“Tully,” Bray says, pausing. “How do you feel?”

“Fantastic,” I say without thinking. “Keep going.”

Bray clicks away. A few seconds later I definitely feel something, though it’s hard to define what.

“There!” Bray says. “You made the face again.”

“What kind of face?” I check my wrist scanner. My vitals are elevated. Not dangerously, but noticeably.

“Like…kind of like the face a woman makes when I do the leg tension release thing during a massage. Like
uhhhhhh.”
He rolls his eyes blissfully as he clicks on the next frequency.

I have a bizarre urge to touch him, to kiss his pouty young lips. I’ve kissed plenty of men over the years—young, old, pretty and not—generally speaking I’m really not that interested in men. I’ve certainly never thought of Bray in this way before. He’s like a little brother to me.

I turn away from him, shaking my head.

“You wanna stop?” he asks.

“No. Cycle through them a bit faster though. See what happens.”

Bray frowns but offers no further comment. He thinks I’m insane for the experimenting I do. He watched me developing my dream machine by testing it on myself, with him to pull me out of it if things got nasty. Probably a little inappropriate a job for a sixteen year old, but beggars can’t be choosers.

I realize I’m staring at my hands, tightly fisted on my knees.

“Okay?” Bray says.

“Uh…” I say nodding. Something is happening. “Faster.”

The sound of the clicks and beeps from my computer are drowned out by the rushing of blood in my ears. My body is tingling, and I feel a kind of desperate longing rising up in me. I close my eyes and O’Mara’s lovely face swims in my mind. Her eyes wet and searching, her skin glowing, her hair silken. She opens her mouth, revealing the soft pink passage inside her, inviting and warm. Her legs wrap around me as she swallows me.

“Ahhh, god…” Then I’m consumed by a kind of fire of pleasure that swirls around me like a tornado shooting upwards from my feet over my legs, my disfigured groin, my torso, down my arms to my fingertips and up my neck and face to tingle out of my scalp.

I’m dimly aware that I’m on the floor on my hands and knees, quivering as the muscles of my abdomen contract in pulsing spasms.

“Fuck…” I manage to whimper. “
Fuck
…off. Turn…it…off.”

The spasms slow; the fire of pleasure relents at last. I stare at the floor, feeling my heart pound in my chest.

“That was fun to watch,” Bray says, lightly. “Did you just…you know?”

I nod, speechless. Like me, like every servant in the Pleasures, Bray has witnessed dozens of sexual climaxes. Maybe hundreds. Never had his own though. As for me, I was an unbroken teenage boy once. I remember how it feels to come.

That was the first time I’ve done it in fifteen years. At least the first time I’ve done it
awake
. And the dream machine doesn’t work that well with me. The dreams usually
do
end up pretty nasty. But I think I’ve just discovered a way to make my implant give me an incredible full body orgasm.

This is literally the best day of my life.

“I take it you’ll want a star next to that one too?” Bray says.

I laugh down at the floor. “Yes, please. Show me what you did.” I pull myself back up onto my stool next to him, checking the computer screen. It looks like a range of frequencies caused the effect. I assume that cycling through them in an ascending manner is the key but I wonder…

“Move out of the way.”

Bray stands and I take his stool in front of the keyboard.

“What are you doing?”

“How long did that take?” I ask, copying the frequencies into a new program file. I churn out some code, tapping away on the keyboard, almost on autopilot.

“About a minute, I suppose,” Bray says. “From when you made the first funny face. It was about fifteen seconds from when you first started to …like….pant and stuff.”

Pant and stuff. Bray’s not so good with the techno-medical jargon.

“As I’m sure you’ve discovered,” I tell him, “Sexual response is supposed to last longer than fifteen seconds. At least that’s the ideal in most cases. So I’m putting these frequencies into a program that will modulate them up and down for a while, increasing in frequency slowly, to mimic gradual sexual arousal.”

“Okay. Then what?”

“Then push into these frequencies here. The ones that made me fall off my chair.”

“Then you come?”

I nod. The little program downloads into the hand scanner.

“Try it on me,” Bray says.

“I don’t think that’s appropriate. You’re underage.”

“Come on Tully. You can’t always have all the fun.”

He’s right. The poor kid has fallen off his stool four times already today. He deserves a little relief.