Metallic Love

by Tanith Lee

  I think of him at those parties in the Book, on the streets with her. Think of him singing, like a young man. Wonderful and clever. Passing as human. I think of it. Like stars seen far off, which if ever seen close, are great and terrible, burning, burning bright.

  I don't want to write about his concert anymore. Forgive me if you think I should. But as I said, I'm not a writer. And I don't care. I can't. And anyhow, maybe you were there. Or maybe you can picture it all even better if I shut up. Either way, now we come to afterwards.

  When the hall had emptied of its hordes, I was still sitting in the plush seat. I thought there was no point in trying to abscond, for someone really would come now, and they did.

  Of course it was Sharffe, in a repulsively exquisite one-piece.

  “Lawrr-nn,” he drawled, “how entirely fabulous you look, ma belle chère. And I'm not amazed at all. And patiently waiting, how sensible.” He indicated the steps, and when I got up, guided me down the two or three tiers to the edge of the stage. A little bridge-thing slunk out to connect the proscenium to the auditorium—he must have winked. “It's easier just to go straight backstage, avoid the trampling herds.”

  We crossed the vacant stage, where Silver Verlis had sung and played his orchestra, and went out stage right.

  A dim corridor, then stairs. The concert hall had been made old-fashioned inside as well as out. Ironic he should play here. Or cunning.

  “A little party,” said Sharffe, predictably.

  Parties. They haunt these books, hers, mine. Mockingly.

  We emerged suddenly into a more modern interior, with a wide glass cup of roof overhead—presumably under the dome. You could see the Asteroid adrift there in the black, like a strange fish.

  The room had people in it, but not so many. They were all well dressed up, sleek as brushed otters. Jewelry flashed and glasses clinked and delicate cigarine vapors unraveled.

  “Champagne, mais naturellement,” said Sharffe, pressing a goblet into my hand.

  All eight robots were in the room.

  Silver, asterion, copper, gold. Unlike my dream, none of them glanced at me. They were mingling artlessly with the guests. He, too—Verlis—still in his dark red outfit, was doing that.

  “We have a little surprise for him,” said Sharffe. “Although, he has been told to expect . . . something.”

  The glass nearly fell out of my hand. Not quite. I knew what the expected surprise must be, and in that moment, it was there.

  A door opened and a woman walked into the room. She had a male escort, but I didn't notice him at first. She was taller than I'd anticipated. But she'd probably grown a couple of inches; after all, she'd only been sixteen back then. Her hair was ice-blond, the kind that gets silvery lights on it. (Silver.) She wore a very plain, long, dark dress on her slender body, and no jewelry. She didn't look rich, or pleased. She hesitated a couple of feet into the room, with META people swooping round her, and her head lifted and her green eyes turned towards the spot where Verlis stood, talking and laughing with a group of men and women.

  If she wore makeup, it didn't disguise her paleness.

  Sharffe was muttering at my ear, as if we needed to be discreet. “Now, I don't know if you know who that is, but I'm taking a tiny bet you might.”

  I could have fenced. Didn't.

  “Jane,” I said.

  “Yes, Jane. L'h´eroine extraordinaire. The famous Jane who wrote the Book about the famous Silver who is now the even more famous Verlis. Ah,” said Sharffe, “excuse me a moment. They're taking her across.”

  I'm shivering as I write this. Then, I couldn't move. I must have grunted something, or maybe not, for it wouldn't matter, Sharffe didn't need my permission.

  Standing with my hand locked on that glass I mustn't let fall, I watched the cloud of META reps gust the blond girl in the dark dress across the room, mildly clearing the way for her, so in the end she was there in front of him, and he in front of her, surrounded only by a distant moat of people. I saw a man, not Sharffe, introduce them to each other. Christ, how did he phrase that? “Say hallo again, Jane, to your dead lover. Verlis, this is the lady who once loved and bought and nearly died for you.”

  Verlis was looking down at her, down into her eyes. That intent look of his, compassionate and engaged. Her face was expressionless. No doubt, she, too, had seen him this evening, playing his concert gig. Did that lessen the shock now, or make it worse?

  She said something to him. She was the first of the two of them to speak. I thought she only said, “Hallo.”

  Verlis put out his hand and took up hers. He stayed still, holding her hand in his. (Yes, I remembered his hand holding mine.)

  If I was frozen, then so it seemed were they. They just stood there, holding hands, staring at each other. Then Verlis spoke to her. I can't lip-read, but I read it: You'll have to give me time. That was what he said. And she shook her head, not saying “No,” simply denying all of it—the past, the present, the future? Or so it seemed to me. And then Verlis was leading her away across the room, towards one of the doors that led to somewhere else. She didn't resist. They went out, and no one in that watching crowd followed them. I heard some cretin unctuously murmur, “He knew her before, you know. Isn't it sentimentally charming? However must she feel?”

  I managed to work the hinges of my arm and jaw and bolted my drink. I put the glass down very carefully.

  Sharffe was there again. “Loren—did you see? What an astonishing moment.” He seemed oblivious of anything I might feel or think, but I suspected he was actually keeping a note for the firm. “Oh, shit, look at the guy she came in with. Is he going to kick up a stink? Didn't he know?”

  Because Sharffe pointed him out to me, I noticed Jane's human companion then. He was slim and good-looking, not badly dressed in casuals. His hair was long and fair and tied back from his face. A lot of META people were suddenly talking to him, and he had the look of a rather dangerous scared animal in a trap. But he took the glass of champagne they presented and downed it, as I had.

  “There's a reserved sitting room,” said Sharffe. “That's where they've gone. Give them ten minutes or so of privacy.”

  “Only ten?” I asked, like an idiot.

  “Sure. To start with. Un petit peu. And they're being monitored, of course.” He awarded me his hideous smile. “We're not really heartless, Loren, as you seem to think. But we do need to know.”

  I thought, Verlis has told me he can block your surveillance out. Is that what he's doing, blocking you and feeding you some irrelevant ordinariness. And in fact, are they making love—making——, that act he and I achieved together on the turquoise sheet? Is that what they're doing? Or are they crying (Can he cry? Seem to?) in each other's arms?

  How can he not love her again? She was the reason his soul woke up. And she's beautiful, rare.

  Why do they want me here to see all this, too?

  Sharffe said, “I tell you what, Loren. Let's go for a drive, shall we? They don't need me till later. Let's get some air.”

  He wants me damaged, and also to collect, finally, on his investment that first night. That's why I'm here: for Sharffe. Only a moron would think now I'd been brought here for Verlis.

  No way out of this, then. Come on, Lor, you're a grown-up. You knew you'd have to pay.

  Verlis is with Jane. That's all over. So back to the garbage-tip of the world.

  Outside, there it was, too, the Orinoco Prax, and into the white fur seat I sank.

  We drove to downtown Bohemia, to some bar. In memory it's somber brown in color, and the lights are smeared and old like rancid oil lamps in a visual. It couldn't have been like that, could it?

  He kept talking. I attempted to talk back to him. What did we say? Nothing. It was again all about Sharffe, his early, useless life. I didn't believe he'd had one. Though clearly he wasn't a robot, he seemed to have sprung, fully formed in his limited entirety, out of some peculiar egg. He drank, and I tried to. The alcohol didn't help. Part of m
e was dying, painfully, inside. The part that wanted Verlis.

  From the miasma Sharffe says, “Shall we do dinner?”

  I say, knowing food will choke me, “I'm not really . . .”

  “Well, then. Why don't we go back to your place.”

  And there it is, gaping up at me from the gloom. “Why not?” I lightly reply.

  We drive to my place, 22-31 Ace Avenue, which isn't. When we're about to go in, I almost race off up the street. But that's silly. There isn't any way out.

  He had another bottle of champagne, which he opened with dire expertise in the kitchenettery. He brought me the booze in one of the water glasses, which were all I had. And put his mouth instead at once on mine, and his hand on my breast. I slid my arms round him and gave up.

  After about a minute, Sharffe drew back. He was grinning, and he wagged his finger at me. “Let me guess,” he said, “you don't want to do that.”

  “It's okay.”

  “No, it ain't. You don't want to, mon ange.”

  He didn't look threatening, only avuncular again, amused.

  So I said, “It's just I'm—”

  “It's just you don't want to, at least, not with me. Right?”

  “Oh, if you think it's because—”

  “Of Verlis. That's exactly what I think.”

  “Come on, don't be—”

  “Hey, I think it's time we were straight with each other, maybe? Yes?” He poised, less avuncular, on the carpet of my META apartment, taking his champagne in small medicinal sips. He said, “You read the darn Book, yes? Own up. We know you read the fucking Book.”

  “Yes.”

  “Can't hear you, ma chère.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you've been crazy on him—Silver, Verlis—ever since. And now he's laid you, and it's worse. You'll probably never be able to stomach flesh and blood again. That's possible. Though, of course, our Jane turned up with her boyfriend. Intrigues me, that. But then, you all do, in your own little ways. N'importe, I understand. Tell you what, go and look out your front window there.”

  I did as he said. Down on the street, incongruous as a tyrannosaurus rex, the Orinoco hulked at the curb. Next to it, leaning there weightlessly, was a slim, flawlessly proportioned feminine figure. She wore a short white dress, and down her back gushed wheat-yellow hair. In the dark, her copper skin seemed only like one more fake tan.

  “That's right,” said Sharffe, at the window with me. He waved, and the graceful figure below waved gracefully back. “Sheena,” he added, in case I hadn't worked it out. “You see, I, too, have acquired a taste for them. The females, that is. Sheena and Irisa, they're my favorites. And I get to play about with them sometimes. So you see, Loren, I don't take it sorely, being rejected by a skinny little weasel-faced poubelle like you. No, ma chère, you really don't compare to any robot.”

  I moved away from him. He went and collected the champagne and opened the apartment door. He said, “But META stays grateful, Loren. Lots of info; you've been very helpful. We've learned a whole lot. So the apartment is still yours for the year, and all the other benefits. Like that gown you have on that we gave you. Bit better than the last piece of tat I saw you wearing, hah? And if you were going to ask me, no, baby, you won't see him again, at least not in your life or bed. Now he's gotten himself other more important dates to keep.”

  I sat down under the window, and soon heard the big car drive away. I didn't cry. I don't. It doesn't do any good. After another short or long time, the window grew light, and it was morning.

  • 4 •

  Second City, like most cities, had its crime scene. There had been five persons found dead that night. One of them was Sharffe.

  I found out when I randomly turned on the VS and the local news. The other four didn't register. But when I saw the wreck of the huge golden car half-down a rocky ravine among broken pines, my vision and hearing clicked back into focus.

  I heard the voice say, “. . . employee of the META Corporation, who've recently been causing such a stir with their new deluxe-formula robots. A spokesman has told us that, though a valued member of META's Second Unit Team, the victim had been taking counseling for a slight alcohol problem, and had admitted to not always using the auto-mechanism of his car when over the safe limit for self-drive. The police have as yet provided no details, except that only the man himself occupied the car at the time of the accident, which occurred at approximately six A.M. META have extended their sympathies to any members of their employee's family or friends, and are picking up the tab for road clearance of the vehicle. They may also face a fine for failing to report unsafe driving. And now to other news . . .”

  In the quake garden the leaves were falling thick and fast. The two magpies flew about, as if trying to locate a preferred tree now unidentifiably bare. The sky was dull.

  He had been alone in the car. The accident had occurred at six this morning—the mechanical clock in the car would have registered that accurately, the instant it hit the pines. (Why hadn't the air-cushion saved him? A car like that couldn't not have had one. Maybe it was faulty. It must have been. Again, surely unlikely in such a car?) And six A.M.? He had left me here after five. . . . He had gotten into the Orinoco with copper Sheena, all set to play about. He had driven really fast to get out on that mountain road with her—

  What had happened to Sheena? Had she been in the car when it tipped down the rocks into the trees? Metalically impervious, had she simply survived, got out, and walked away?

  Why hadn't Sharffe switched to auto? Sure, he'd been drinking a lot. That time with me he had, too, and he'd turned the auto-drive straight on after the restaurant.

  Did he forget? So aroused at her—no. He wouldn't forget. A self-preserver, that was Sharffe. Only, somehow, this time it hadn't worked.

  As I paced round the rooms, I thought of Sheena and Sharffe on the furry seats in the moving car, and Sharffe switching to auto and putting his hands on her, and Sheena saying, “Too much for you—” and . . .

  In imagination, a blur inside the vehicle. Copper and wheat, and what he'd stipulated, human flesh and blood. A kind of explosion.

  And Sheena, who was a robot, connecting to the robot auto-drive and changing it and swerving the car so it tilted sideways, off the road, bounding through trunks and over rocks until it hit home on the bigger pines. Bones and branches breaking.

  Then the door was quietly undone, and one silky, immaculate figure climbed out and moved away, into the night.

  And there wasn't even red on the real white fur, because the water-repellents shook it off.

  The magpies had settled, pragmatic, in a fir tree. They were all I'd miss—not even the carpet Sharffe had stood on, or the turquoise bed Sharffe had wanted to lay me in—and if he had, then maybe he wouldn't be dead right now. Would anyone miss him?

  I pulled off META's orange gown and the bracelets that were too expensive for me to be able to sell without questions.

  I dressed in jeans, shirt, and jacket, my most recent buys. I could buy something else later and change, in case of microchips.

  I stuffed the jeans and jacket pockets with the bills and coins I'd accumulated. The I.M.U. card I left inside a drawer. I took one shoulder bag, and in it I put the loose pages of this book, nothing else. Do you see? No other Book of any kind.

  It was early, not long after eight.

  When I opened the apartment door, I was holding my breath. But no one—no thing—was outside.

  The caretaker was in the elevator. “Say, what a lousy day.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  He got out on the second floor. I went down to street level.

  I'd almost reached the foyer door when a pair of shadows darkened it. Then the door swung inwards.

  Does anyone think in such moments? I didn't think.

  There wasn't much light in the hallway, and not much outside in the sky. They loomed, a tall black guy in leathers and a blond white guy in dirty-looking denim. Both had cropped hair.
They came straight at me, and I pictured—but didn't think—it was to be a mugging, and I cursed because every nickel I possessed was on me.

  But the black guy took my arm and he had the profile of a young African god, and the handsome white guy was tanned, only it was a fake, and his blue eyes were either contacts or another self-sponsored change.

  “Loren,” said Black Chess, “do you know us?”

  “Hey,” said Copperfield, “of course she does.”

  I wouldn't move. Can you believe it? With muggers I'd have had the sense to give in. But with these irresistible beings, I resisted.

  I said, “What do you want?”

  “He says to bring you.”

  “Who says? It can't be Sharffe,” I heard myself babble, “he's dead. So who wants me now?”

  “Verlis.”

  “Ah,” said Copperfield, all tender campness, “look, she's relaxed again.” He stroked my hair over-gently, maternally, with his undisguisedly elegant hand. “All soft and dovelike at the mere mention of his name.”

  “Let's go, Loren,” said Black Chess.

  As they walked me, like just two more very good friends, down the steps to the sidewalk, I heard myself say, “You were in my rooms yesterday morning, weren't you? Both of you, and Goldhawk.”

  “Of course we were, sweetness,” said Copperfield affectionately. “Though you're a clever little girl to remember.”

  “Why wouldn't I? You're unforgettable, aren't you?”

  “Oh, well, true, darling. We are. But you see, there was a little something, just so you'd sleep a little longer.”

  My dream had been a fact—the threat of Goldhawk knowing me from the train; the false courtesies; and the ring Verlis made from his metal flesh, that would only last twenty-four hours . . . even that?

  Verlis had drugged me. How? When? But I'd been aware enough to recollect a scramble of the truth.

  And where now? “Where are we going?”

  “To meet him. He wants to see you.”

  Sharffe had told me I'd never see Verlis again, but Sharffe, obviously, had no say in anything now.