by Sarah Lahey
Slowly Quinn turns to face the man. “Okay. Thank you.”
He grins. “My name is Louis, and this is my cousin Consortia. Come with us.”
Consortia stalks away, scowling. Louis beckons to Quinn before following his cousin. Quinn sighs and trudges after them.
Thirty-One
She has Tig’s eyes in her pocket.
HALF AN HOUR LATER, after a hot and dusty solar tuk ride, they pull up outside an ancient complex of buildings—stately stone structures, hundreds of years old, possibly from the fifteenth or sixteenth century. The complex is three levels high, with ornate windows, pediments, and columned arches symmetrically centered along the front facade.
Quinn follows Louis and Consortia through the arched entrance, and they enter a large, rectangular plaza bordered by fruit trees. The interior architecture mirrors the front facade, with the addition of deep balconies supported by fluted columns. At the far side is a large stone water fountain in the shape of a giant sea turtle. Residents gather in the courtyard, sipping cool drinks and enjoying the shade of the balconies, and groups of children splash under the fountain. The scene is delightfully commonplace and nonthreatening, and Quinn feels the angst of the last thirty minutes abate.
Louis asks Quinn to wait by the giant turtle, then he and Consortia disappear into the building. Quinn sits on a wooden bench in the shade of a fruit tree adorned with wind chimes shaped like butterflies, which clink softly in the breeze. Nearby, a group of young girls draw on the pavement with chalkstone. They sketch a map of an island with little houses, palm trees, and fishing boats. Quinn tilts her head; the island is a butterfly. She sees metal bracelets tucked under the sleeves of the young girls’ climate suits. These are Tig’s people. She’s in the Maldives. Her angst returns; this could go very badly.
Louis and Consortia return with company: an older man and an older woman. The older man walks with a cane and moves with a limp, and the others are careful not to overtake him. Quinn stands to greet them, and the man offers his hand.
His name is Flax. He has dark, hooded eyes, wiry grey hair, a well-kept beard, and something akin to scorn lurking behind his unpleasant countenance, but when she takes his hand it’s warm and he smiles. Flax introduces the older woman, Brie. She is Consortia’s mother.
Brie wants to know about the bracelets.
“They were a gift from a friend . . . from Tig,” says Quinn.
Consortia is visibly crushed by this news and collapses onto the bench. Apparently, this news is the worst of the worst. Brie slides onto the seat to console her daughter. Louis rolls his eyes at the two of them huddled together, and Flax chuckles.
Without sympathy, Flax indicates that they should go and Quinn should stay and sit with him under the fruit tree. With a little laugh, he looks her over, smiles, and nods to himself.
His amusement is infectious, and she grins despite herself.
“Okay.” She holds out her arm, taps the red bracelet. “What does this mean?”
He chuckles. “I’m sure you know. You’re a woman, he’s a man— intimate things between the two of you.”
Oh fuck, he is giving bracelets to every woman he sleeps with. “So she’s his . . . wife?”
“No, no, no. It was arranged at one point, but it’s not to be. They don’t always take place.”
“An arranged marriage!”
“Ah, don’t be so quick to judge. Many arranged marriages are very successful. My wife was chosen for me. She was the love of my life, until she died. Again, and again, and again.”
“Wait. Your wife died more than once?”
“Yes. And this is a good story. It’s a very good story. But it’s a tale for another day. We both have things to do. Tig is not here; he left this morning. He lives on the harbor, on a blue boat called Nanshe.” He retrieves a silver box from his pocket. “Please, give this to him. I don’t trust the tuk drivers and can’t take it myself.” He lifts the cuff of his climate suit, revealing his ankle—degenerated, bacterial, and probably incurable. He drops the trouser leg down and opens the box. Inside are eyes. Two bionic, hazel eyes.
“I don’t know where . . .”
“He’s waiting for these, and I suspect he’s also waiting for you.”
“I’m not so sure . . .”
“Well, I need someone to take these to him.” He offers her the box. “If you’re going that way anyway . . .”
She smiles and nervously takes the box. “Okay. I will, I will take them.”
He rises and heads for the entrance. She follows.
“Go now, but be careful,” Flax says. “The city is not safe. The people aren’t happy. If they don’t get right political result, they’ll rise up. Be careful.” He orders her a solar tuk.
***
There’s a certain allure to Harmonia—Quinn sees this now. In a couple of hours, she could be back there discussing what it’s like to be human with Mori, drinking beer with Hitch, working on the climate system, and, if she had to, toiling fourteen hours a day for eMpower. That’s a life. There are worse things to do. She could make that work for a year or two. Or, she finds a TechHub, gets her Coin, and moves back to Hobart, back home to her Pod in the boring area of the city. Or, she goes to stay with Matt in his house in the forest.
But she has a big problem: She has Tig’s eyes in her pocket and his bracelets around her wrist, and both these things make her nervous. If she were a spiritualist, not a scientist, she might make more of this fact, this improbable coincidence. But she’s not a spiritualist; she’s a scientist. She knows chance happenings are not remarkable; they are not destiny or fate. They are improbable occurrences that become probable. As a scientist, she also knows there’s not one person for her. That’s a ridiculous statistic, an impossible fraction. She’s compatible with thousands, maybe millions, of people all over the planet. The problem is, she tried that. She tried compatibility, and it didn’t quite work. The problem is she has his eyes in her pocket and her heart is about to burst through her chest. She wants to jump off a very high mountain.
***
The solar tuk driver drops her at the top of the rise, before the descent to the harbor. She thinks walking the last hundred meters might calm her down. She’s nervous, hot, and clammy in her defective climate suit, which feels like it’s trapping the heat. Unzipping the top, she pulls it down, letting the air in. Sex changes everything.
The harbor is a massive floating city, with thousands of boats connected by ramps and makeshift wharfs. Half of them are blue. She opens the box of eyes and stares at the hazel orbs. They stare back. What is she doing here? They had sex because they were alone on a deserted island, which is still an excellent reason to have sex, but what if he doesn’t want to see her? He never came back. But he gave her the bracelets. He told her she was beautiful. But what’s he going to think of her when he gets new eyes? She considers keeping them.
There are rows of pop-up stalls, two and three deep across the entrance to the dock—Tech stuff, paint, material, boat supplies, clothing venders, food, shoes, hats, 3D material, and empty water bottles. The first stall sells hand-held solar fans and large, broad-rimmed hats. She asks the owner, a petite woman with short black hair and far-apart eyes, if she knows someone called Tig. But the owner only wants to sell her fans. Holding one in each hand, she blasts Quinn with her solar fans. Quinn agrees, they work very well, and she would buy one to help her out if she had Coin. The woman hurls abuse at Quinn after she realizes she’s only after information. Quinn can’t understand a word she’s saying. Finally, the woman points to a character at the end of the dock carrying bags of water.
Black water. It’s not Tig.
Thirty-Two
I wish I’d never met him. I hate him.
THE PERSON HAULING THE bags of black liquid is a dealer. They’re traveling between the boats dispensing the liquid in regulated drops and accepting Coin or barter for the transaction.
Taking in the dealer’s continence, Quinn is confused, unable to di
stinguish a distinctive male or female persona. The closer she gets, the more masculine they appear—very tall, with broad shoulders and short, red-tipped hair—but with a distinctly attractive face: full lips, high cheekbones, and arching eyebrows. A bejeweled earring dangles from one ear, and on it Quinn spies the genderless symbol, a circle within a circle, containing both horizontal and vertical lines—this person is gender neutral.
Ze wears an original climate suit—dusty grey, trimmed with black—and is humming a tune in a deep, lyrical voice.
Quinn moves quickly to catch up. “Excuse me, sorry to bother you,” she says. “I’m looking for someone. Maybe you know him.”
“Doubt it,” ze says without pausing or turning to look at her.
“Someone called Tig.”
Now ze stops, drops the bags, swings around, and walks toward her with an assumed swagger. Looking her over—the complete elevator, head to toe, both hands on zirs hips—before zirs eyes finally come to rest on her bracelets. “It’s you. Of course, it is. I didn’t expect it, but here you are, in the flesh.” A hand is offered. “I’m Planck. What happened to you?”
“I’ve had the worst bloody time. It’s been awful,” Quinn begins. “Everyone died, and they said it was my fault, but it wasn’t, I had nothing to do with it, then I was kept on this stupid atoll for months, I nearly went insane, thought I’d slipped into a parallel . . .”
“I mean your face. What happened to your face?”
“Oh.” She presses her cheek, and it stings; the tree incident with the robber. “It’s nothing.”
“Really? Well, it looks like something to me. You know, the city is not safe right now.”
“I can look after myself.”
“Of course, you can, and you have a lovely purple eye to prove it.” Ampules of power are fixed to zirs belt. Ze opens a canister and treats Quinn’s cuts with Decorin, a skin protein that creates a net inside her wound so she won’t scar. “Now, Tig won’t be back for a few hours. Stay with me. I need an assistant.” Ze passes her the smaller bag of black water. Quinn slings it over her shoulder and follows zir into the sea of boats.
Most of the boats are not real boats and many are not seaworthy; they are prefab housing Pods mounted on floating pontoons, modular systems that lock together. The hull configurations are standard; the owners choose the desired width, height, and finishing materials. They are the size of two or three shipping containers. Many are round, while others are double-story, with rooftop balconies. Still others have curved rooflines and spiral staircases. All have little front terraces, the obligatory solar energy fit-outs, saltwater purifiers, and hydroponic gardens—everyone is growing something.
The black stuff Planck is hawking is in demand; ze doesn’t have to work hard to make a sale. There is a regular clientele of takers waiting for zir with empty jars on the dock. Quinn’s job is to dispense small amounts into the customers’ containers. She counts out six, eight, or ten drops, while Planck watches.
“That was twelve,” ze scolds. “You’re bad for business.”
It wasn’t; it was ten, exactly ten.
Planck gives instructions on how to mix and dilute the solution, ten to one. It should be administered both morning and evening. When Quinn asks what it is, ze says it’s the elixir of life, a home brew of vitamins, minerals, and salts. Quinn figures it’s a potion to combat the heat and any other ailments life in this sweltering city brings on. Planck also dispenses an array of ointments and potions, after private consultations Quinn’s not privy to, and small packs of green herbs that ze tucks into clients’ pockets.
Planck knows everyone, and not just by name—ze has entered their inner sanctums and gained detailed knowledge of their lives.
“Up here on the left we have Tilda and Nick,” ze says as they approach a teal-colored pontoon with timber trim. “She’s action packed, a real doer. Want something done, and she’s your woman—she’ll probably do it twice. Used to work in mining, driving those monster trucks. Can you imagine? Nick, complete opposite. Hates change, sits in the same chair, walks the same path, eats the same thing at the same time, routine, routine, routine. Last year they moved the boat. Two spaces. I though he was going to have a coronary. As much use as a one-legged cat trying to bury a turd on a frozen lake.”
After Tilda gets her black liquid, she discusses vegetable rot and aphids with Planck and Quinn realizes the black stuff is not meant for human consumption—it’s fertilizer. Every boat has a micro garden— vegetables, small fruit trees, and herbs. Planck is selling, or trading, nourishment for the micro plants.
Their next delivery is covertly deposited on a disorderly boat with tinted windows and no signs of life. Planck leaves a few drops in a container on the back deck. “Malory,” ze whispers when they’re out of hearing range. “She’s lonely. He died in the war. She can’t move on. It’s been eight years. Stunning when she was younger. I’ve tried to set her up. Three dates, all disasters. First time, she didn’t stop talking about her hero, the dead husband. So we practiced, you know; came up with some new topics of conversation. Second time, she got nervous and cried. Overwhelmed, she just cried and cried. And the last time, she drank too much and passed out. She’s got no idea, like fucking Captain Hook at a gynecologist’s convention.”
“You know a lot about people.”
“Double degree. Psych and fashion. Online, of course.” Ze gives Quinn’s climate suit the once-over. “This, this ensemble, it’s not really working for you, is it? No one ever said, ‘When in doubt, wear char-treuse’—it looks like dehydrated piss.”
Quinn knows ze is right; it’s appalling, she looks terrible, and she wishes she didn’t.
A young boy races towards them and dives into Planck, entwining his wiry little body around zirs legs. Quinn takes the bag of liquid as ze attempts to remove the squirmy child. But the kid is persistent. He attacks from the rear, trying to shimmy up Planck’s back.
“What part of ‘no’ do you not understand?” Planck pulls the little rug rat off and digs a hand deep into zirs pocket, revealing a handful of sweets.
The boy pops one into his mouth.
“Manners?”
The kid sticks out his tongue, crosses his eyes, gives a two-fingered gesture with both hands, and runs away.
“Charming child. Graham family.” Planck rolls zirs eyes. “She’s got a husband and two children, but honestly, there are three children. She waits on him hand and foot. No help whatsoever. Useful as a one-armed trapeze artist with an itchy arse. And the youngest child, a fucking nightmare. They think he’s gifted. Gifted at being a little prick. Hopefully, one day, he’ll have children just like himself.”
“We can only hope.”
“People without children are happier—did you know that? It’s true, studies show it’s true.” Ze pauses. “I only said that because I’ll never have children.”
“Me either.”
“And are you happy?”
“You can’t ask me that.”
“Why not?”
“We’ve just met. It’s not something you ask a person you’ve just met.”
“You don’t look that happy to me.”
“Well, you’ve just met me, so you wouldn’t know. And . . . I’m not unhappy.”
“Surely you can do better than that.”
***
Two hours later, they’ve sold out of the “black gold,” but profits are down and there are disappointed customers who have missed out due to Quinn’s generous dispensing technique. Planck tells her economics is not her thing, and she agrees; consumption, production, wealth creation, these ideas are beyond her life skills.
“I’m just a simple scientist,” she says.
“In my experience, when someone calls themself simple, they rarely are.” Planck points to the exurbia of boats and floating abodes, says they’re headed beyond, to the far side, to the outskirts, and it’s a trek.
“There must be thousands and thousands,” Quinn says.
“Yes,
well, two choices: a boat or a compressed cardboard box. Half the population of Unus lives, sleeps, and raises its children inside what was once packaging material. They own nothing. The housing ladder toppled in the early 2030s. There were no limitations on what people could buy, so those with Coin kept buying. Corporations and wealthy individuals purchased everything there was to purchase. Hard work and good fortune were no help; the doors to the property market were firmly closed.”
“The fruits of the planet don’t belong to everyone.”
“Indeed, then, global warming and the refugee crisis; more homeless, more unemployment; less housing, less motivation, more dissatisfaction. Things got worse, 3D printing took over, manufacturing and distribution slowed, unemployment rose, and jobs were lost to AI and High-Tech. The city stagnated.”
“The illogicality of a flawed capitalist system.” Good lordt. That’s something my mother would say.
“Yes, and still the rich were asking how would these displaced people affect the property market, the housing market, the share market?”
“Profoundly.”
“Indeed. Then the crash of 2035, capitalism crumbled, and the RE Wars began. And here we are, two hot, not unhappy people, amongst a hundred million, trying to find . . . what? What are you trying to find?”
Tig. A blue boat, my mother, my data, my Coin, a stupid message in a diamond, the G12, a neurologist, and a new climate suit. “Too many things.”
“Indeed.”
***
Their destination turns out to be a navy blue sailing boat, traditional Asian style, forty meters long, two levels plus an open deck. Ze calls it Nanshe. Quinn never would have found it. Never. They scramble across other boats, using decks as passageways to reach the navy boat. She follows Planck up a ladder, over the deck, and then through a hatch, into the galley and living zone.