by Sage Walker
They slipped away, all of them. Signy saw Jared with a new lover, Pilar in the embrace of a less sedate group, one that wouldn’t nag her about silly things like funds or remind her that she needed to sleep, sometimes. Pilar, with Janine following her, ever hopeful, ever ignored.
Paul? Paul would likely not even notice if everyone vanished. He’d just sit there in his study and vector out the future history of the African coalitions. But he’d forget to publish, and no one would ever know he’d been right.
Signy’s arms ached. All through the night, she figured, she’d been trying to hold something that couldn’t be held. She didn’t want Edges to fall apart. That had happened to her once, a group dear to her, lost. And Paul was part of it.
* * *
Signy’s Ph.D. in neurobiology and five years of hard work had given her a lab of her own at Genapt Technologies, where she coordinated the work of six researchers and their complement of techs. They had worked on aging in mammalian brains. Semistarvation increased life spans, that was a given. If lean animals were fed microdoses of growth hormone, the spans increased again by a significant amount. Signy’s team fed small doses of pharmaceuticals to these geriatric marvels. Central nervous system stimulants produced remarkable learning curves in the youthful old rats. Excited, her team watched changes in oxygen use, neurotransmitter concentrations, the busy chemistry of vertebrate brains in real time. Their simulations taught them the colors of the brain at work in situations of anger, of fear, of fatigue. They had good times, good arguments; they battled among themselves and defended their own mental constructs of mental processes.
Signy had headed up the Atlanta lab until the takeover. Then Paul had appeared, Paul the outsider, the opposition.
In the cool light of the conference room, his tweeds had looked too heavy for March in the South. She stared at the fabric of his jacket, nubs of various wools and soft glossy fibers as well, maybe silk—while he calmly tore her world into shreds. Takeover, department cuts, alteration of research goals.
Signy tried to keep her voice calm. She tried to ask questions to give her some hope to take back to her team. They were hard workers and they had families to support. Jim had a new house and an old boat, his pride and joy. Sara supported her divorced daughter’s kids. Damn it, these were lives in her care and it looked like there was nothing she could do, nothing, to keep them safe.
Paul Maury studied her face as if for clues that would tell him how to phrase his delivery; his brown eyes kept watching her for reactions as he made his speech to the wary group of Genapt execs. Signy tried to stay calm, while she felt sweat soak her armpits and the sides of her shirt. She wanted to take it off and throw it at this effete intruder.
Shifts in government funding, Paul said. New emphasis on foodstuffs research, less interest in neurologic disease, particularly in the aging.
Signy wished he would just shut the fuck up; she had the picture, okay?
She had survived the last minutes of her first meeting with Paul by thinking about escape. Her town house in a secured compound promised safety. The house could have been anywhere, anywhen, except that the bloom of wisteria and the white painted columns outside made it seem somewhat Southern. On her way out, Paul smiled.
“You care about your people,” Paul said.
“Damned right I do.”
“Will you come to dinner?”
Know your enemy, someone had said. Then he can’t surprise you.
“I think I will do just that. Thank you.”
Paul Maury, Harvard Law, Boston Brahmin, hid profound shyness with wry wit. She had not been offended that he seemed to expect that she would pay her half of the bill. There were no sexual moves on his part that first night. She wondered if he might be gay.
The negotiations continued through that Atlanta spring. A repeat invitation from Paul, that Signy show him the countryside, had pleased her. She didn’t know this enemy quite well enough; he might still surprise her. They toured plantations and museums and walked through lush gardens in soft spring air; they searched antique shops. He was looking for a silver bowl, he said. For an old family place in New Hampshire. By some alchemy of understanding, they did not mention the company. Signy would have bribed him, with sex or money, but he didn’t seem bribable.
She remembered the sepia light of dusty shops on Paul’s thin face. Intent on the details of the chasings of antique jewelry, garnets and emeralds in baroque settings, he would ask, “Do you like this?” And he waited for Signy’s approval, as if it mattered.
The spring night was unseasonably cool, cool enough for Paul’s tweed jacket to feel comfortable on her shoulders when she asked to borrow it. It smelled good. So finally she asked him to bed. And found him shy, no pro, but gentle and willing to learn.
Two weeks, he told them in the boardroom the next morning. Two weeks to reapply for the jobs that will remain.
Signy clenched her jaw on rage. She managed to get up from her chair and out of the room without saying a word.
Her mother’s voice had sounded in her memory just then. We don’t cry, Signy. Outrage, however, was perfectly acceptable.
She had to walk Genapt’s long bare hallway, under its silent rows of cables and conduits; she had to go back to the lab. Jim waited, and Sara, and Signy had to tell them it was over. Behind her, Paul followed, keeping his distance. She looked back at him and watched his pace falter. He stopped and turned away.
But when she came back into the hallway, an hour later, he was there, leaning against the wall.
“Signy?” Paul kept his hands behind him, and his face was vulnerable if she chose to punch him. He looked scared. “Come and work with me.”
“Damn Yankee.” She’d grown up in Tucson but he was a damn Yankee, and even as she said it she knew her accusation was ridiculous.
“Yes,” he said. “I suppose that’s true.”
He’d only been doing his job. The company that had hired him was based in Singapore. He was still a damn Yankee. “Come and work with me,” he repeated. “Please?”
* * *
That was how we started. That was then. This is now, Signy told herself. I will not let us lose each other.
Am I still mad at Paul after all these years?
Wondering about it, she rolled over, hauled the down comforter up over her nose, and firmly sent herself back to sleep.
FOUR
Signy walked toward the dining room at Gulf Coast Intersystems with what she hoped looked like assurance. The familiar elastic tension of her dress-for-the-public skinthin felt reassuring, firm against her skin. She wore the taupe Lycra one, still new enough to look glossy. Her red silk jacket was loose and floaty and just slightly luxurious, but not too rich for this group, not offensively so.
“You’re beautiful,” Paul said.
The sensor resting on Signy’s cheek itched, and she tapped at it. She wore a headband camera, but no goggles to give her a heads-up data display. For communication with Paul, who had promised to monitor, she had a speaker patch behind her ear and a throat mike taped in place, hidden beneath the skinthin’s high turtleneck.
“Our shares of Gulf Coast Intersystems are down three this morning,” Paul told her.
“Paul, why do you pick these particular times to give me news like this?” Signy whispered. “I’m walking into the damned dining room right this minute.”
“I know,” Paul said. “But I thought you’d be interested.”
“Hmmph.” Beyond the double doors, people circulated in the large room and wanderers checked the buffet with idle interest.
“Where’s Jared?” Signy asked.
“I don’t know. He hasn’t called in since yesterday. Maybe he’s stuck in Chile or something.”
“Great,” Signy said. She scanned the room, checking the setting. Tall windows draped in bitter green velvet opened to holos of an idealized harbor, complete with gulls.
Gulf Coast employees moved toward the buffet, where dishes were arrayed on ice or sheltere
d under heavy silver domes. The tables were draped with floral brocades and bouquets of hothouse red tulips. The setting seemed designed to recall memories of oil barons and opulence, so unlike Houston’s desperate poverty now. Gulf Coast kept that poverty out with razor wire and walls of reinforced concrete faced in cosmetic fieldstone.
Wary of crowds, Signy stepped into the room, trying to ignore the part of her that feared strangers. Don’t frown, she told herself. You’re on duty. She set her expression to combine business with vulnerability. Jared had taught her to mold her body language, practicing reactions with her and a dozen virtual Signys. A dozen Signys, a dozen Jareds; the work had ended in a kaleidoscope of flesh and laughter, and they had made love while their multiple images cavorted around them. Signy let the memory reach her face, knowing it would lend a touch of lust to her expression and would brighten her eyes.
Jared was good at evoking lusty thoughts. Signy hadn’t looked at the message from Jared’s Susanna yet. Somehow, she just hadn’t found time.
It occurred to Signy that she might be indulging in a little procrastination. Indeed. Okay, she’d look at the damned thing as soon as lunch was over.
At the buffet table, Signy picked up a handheld mike that she had placed just there, yesterday, and tested—maybe three times. She cleared her throat. The mike picked up the sound. Wups.
“Hello. My name is Signy Thomas. My company, Edges, is buying your lunch today. While you’re eating, some words will sound through speakers that are placed here and there throughout the room. This isn’t subliminal stuff—you’ll hear the words if you listen for them.
“We’re collecting responses to terms concerning Antarctica. Edges plans to use your reaction sets to help us optimize the use of Earth’s largest wild fishery.”
Some people had already started to talk again. That was good.
“Please pass your cards through the counter at the door as you leave. We are paying seventy-five dollars for your information. Thank you.” Signy turned to all corners of the room, made eye contact where she could (the woman in the chartreuse coverall looked so tired), smiled, and traced her way through the crowd. That tall man, she had seen him—where? When? He was a redhead, and attractive in a rawhide sort of way. Signy smiled at him, keeping eye contact for the benefit of her cameras, and Paul’s views of what they saw. “Who?” she whispered.
“I’m looking in the company files. Alan Campbell,” Paul said. “Engineer. Astronaut, ex. He helped build the Station.”
“Hello,” Campbell said.
“Nice to see you again, Mr. Campbell. If you’ll pardon me? Biz.” Signy continued out the door and upstairs to the control booth and sat down with a sigh of relief.
She wasn’t alone. Her companion, sitting in a rolling chair next to her, wore black cottons that contrasted unfavorably with his dead-white skin. He was pudgy. He wore a full skin-thin under his cottons, and padded headphones over his ears.
“Hello. I’m Jimmy.”
“Jimmy?”
“Jimmy McKenna. Temp contract with Gulf Coast.”
Which meant Signy couldn’t kick him out. She didn’t need any help in here, for pity’s sake. And she didn’t appreciate a Gulf Coast observer. What did Gulf Coast think she was going to do? Broadcast “fuck your boss” all over the room? “Hello,” Signy said, while Paul’s voice said, “Jimmy McKenna. Not at all what I expected. He pitched us to Tanaka, or so Tanaka says. Thank him for us, when you get a minute, would you?”
“I’m Signy.” Jimmy’s soft features made it hard to judge his age. She’d thought eighteen at first. He could be thirty.
Behind the bank of monitors, one-way glass gave a discreet view of the dining room. Signy peered down at the crowd. There was a nice trickle of repeat visitors at the buffet. That was reassuring. The caterers must be as good as their fees said they were.
“Signy. That’s a nice placement,” Jimmy said. He nodded his head toward a monitor that graphed the position of Signy’s mikes. “I’ve tried a few setups in the room before. You found all the dead spots.”
“Thank you.” Signy keyed in Pilar’s and Janine’s stash of replicated conversations and fed them to speakers directed at random tables, matching their volume to the level of the room’s chatter. She listened to scattered voices; her hands flew over the studio’s consoles. Ghost voices fed themselves to the diners, voices that seemed to come from the next table, from across the room. From various tables, she heard some of the key words come into conversations: COCAINE, IVORY, KRILL, SALAMANDER. Signy smiled. There were other words, other phrases: TOXIN, which was blunted from overuse but a good monitor of precisely that parameter; WHITE, as a simple adjective. At the exec tables, others words played, ERMINE, SANDALWOOD. Some of the conversations in play spoke of appetites, of flavors.
Later, she and Paul would pair responses to the words. Negative connotations were easier to correlate than positives; positives often had to be inferred. SALAMANDER.
“… and Costa Rica still maintains some pristine areas of rain forest,” someone said. “Of course, ‘pristine’ is a relative term.”
Signy let herself relax for a moment. RAIN FOREST, all the key words were in circulation. Signy feathered up the volume of her recorded phrases to match the rise in talk as people finished their meals. Some began to leave, not too fast, not too slow. The program synched with the volume of conversations and faded in good order. Signy risked a few spot checks. So far, so good.
“That’s it, then,” Jimmy McKenna said.
His voice startled her. Signy had managed to forget he was in the room.
“Yes. That’s it.”
Jimmy spun his chair to face her. “I could help pick up the mikes. When everybody’s cleared out.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Ask him about the Tanaka contract,” Paul said.
“My partner says you helped us get a contract with Tanaka.”
Jimmy had started to get out of his chair. He sat back down.
“Yes. I did.”
“Thank you.”
Jimmy stared at her as if he wanted to memorize her face. He stared until Signy felt uncomfortable, so she asked, “Why did you recommend us?”
He didn’t quite make eye contact. “Because you’re good,” he said. “You work with Pilar Videla, don’t you?”
Ah-ha. A contract won on a little case of adulation. She would tell Pilar.
“Yes.”
“She’s wonderful.”
“I’ll tell her you said so.”
Jimmy looked past Signy’s shoulder to the door. “Campbell’s here. I’ll go get the mikes and pack them for you. Your cases are in the service hall, aren’t they?”
“Yes, but…”
“I’d like to do it. Don’t worry, I’ll be careful.” Jimmy dug for something in his hip pocket. “Would you take this? Please? It’s a gift.”
He handed over a flat white plastic chip case and left without a word, squeezing past Alan Campbell, who stood aside for him. Campbell carried a plate swathed in plastic wrap.
“Hi,” Signy said. She couldn’t think of any reason for Campbell to seek her out. Paul had arranged the paid luncheon but Edges had no other business scheduled with Gulf Coast. Not that she knew about, anyway.
“Alan Campbell. We met at a party when Gulf Coast got the booster contract. I didn’t think you’d remember me.”
“I had to get some help with your name,” Signy said. “But I knew I’d seen you somewhere.” Alan spoke with a soft cadence that wasn’t Texan. “So that’s where it was,” Signy said.
“You were with a doctor fellow. We talked for a while.”
“Jared. My partner, yes.”
“You’ve met Jimmy?” Campbell asked.
“I think so,” Signy said.
“Right. He’s not much on conversation, but he’s damned good with schematics. I brought you some lunch. Working a lunch hour, people don’t usually get fed.” Campbell put the plate down and pulled the plastic
away. “Of course, if you’ve eaten…”
“I haven’t,” Signy said. She reached for a skewer of beef saté and bit into it. It was excellent.
Campbell sat down in Jimmy’s vacated chair. He had a relaxed air about him, a competent presence. “Did you get what you needed?”
Signy forked up some pilaf. Alan reached in a pocket and pulled out a bottle of mineral water. Signy unscrewed the cap and took a long pull, icy cold. “I won’t know until we’ve run some correlations,” Signy said. She tried some of the veggies. They were nicely seasoned.
Alan waited while she ate. He seemed comfortable waiting, as if he had all the time in the world. Signy finished the saté, put the skewer down, licked sauce from her fingers, and tried to pull the studio headset away from her ears. A lead snagged in her hair and she tugged at it.
“Got it,” Alan said. He untangled the wire, deft and gentle, and there were scattered freckles on the backs of his hands. His wrist brushed against her cheek as he lifted the headphones away, and his touch was soft.
“Thank you. Mr. Campbell?”
“Alan.”
“Alan, is this a business meeting?”
He grinned. His eyes were hazel, and the corners of his eyes crinkled when he smiled. “No. And nobody sent me to entertain you, if you were wondering. I happened to notice that your plane doesn’t leave until morning. I happened to notice you are in town alone. So I came to get acquainted.”
Alan Campbell had helped build the Station, and small though it was, it was the only space station. He was lean and relaxing to be around and not at all like Jared. Some choice pheromones seemed to be floating around this little cubicle. Perhaps.
“All you’ve done is watch me eat,” Signy said. She looked at the monitors. All the data had been dumped to temporary storage in the guest suite the company had assigned to her. Signy closed down the boards and got up. Alan rose when she did.
“That’s right. So I hardly think we’re acquainted at all yet. I plan on taking the night off, if you’d like some company,” Alan said.