"You don't care," Will said, "do you?"
Emma stood up and walked across to him as he picked up his clothes. She reached for something on the chest of drawers and Will lunged for her wrist, but she picked up a phone, switched it on.
"There's me and Brian," she said. A picture of a sleek-looking man accompanied by a black-haired pale-faced woman dressed in a black top and what seemed to be black PVC trousers with a transparent outer layer. "That was my monochrome era. Black hair, black gear."
"Hottie," Will said.
"That's what they all say," she said. "It's like being telepathic. I can tell what all the guys are thinking: I'd love to fuck her, and I never will.
"But him. Brian. He looks all right but you have no idea. You thought 'pig-fucker' was just a term of abuse, didn't you?" She stood by his shoulder, naked, trembling. He put an arm round her waist. "You've seen the people in the streets--the NEDs. Not Exactly Dead. The Gov wants to use them as a cheap workforce. Too dazed to complain, too confused to argue. Differently metabolic was another of the brute's phrases. I heard him use it on the phone to the Prime Minister. I was sucking his dick at the time in his private office overlooking the Thames.
"It's too late," she said. "Now come back to bed and fuck me."
Somewhere at the back of his mind there was a reason not to. Wood-panelled rooms in another office block overlooking the river, people in dark suits, a basement where they kept evidence that was hidden even from the Prime Minister herself. But it faded away; the things in glass jars taken from the craft that crashed in the Atlantic and which was made of no known alloy, and the evidence of a plague more emotional than physical in content, the report submitted by Lawrence Harrison, the Institute's Chief Scientist, found hanged a month later and nobody believed it was suicide.
And then, part of him saw no reason why. Particularly, he admitted, the part that was growing between his legs. And yet the images of the strange things in jars, the wood-panelled rooms, the blandly-named Institute for Foreign (read: Alien) Research; wasn't that all just a movie he'd seen long ago? He took off his underpants.
"I think," Emma said as she sat on him, her strong hands pinioning his wrists to the bed, "you're a cop."
"No," he said. Truthfully, although it was hard (so to speak) to remember what he was.
"You wouldn't be lying, now, would you?" she said, leaning forward so her hard cinnamon-coloured nipples touched his chest. She moved backward until her arse-crack was touching his erection.
"I told you what I am," he said, knew he could break her hold if he so wished; stop Tuesday killing Pavey if it wasn't already too late; but wasn't there something else?
She raised herself over him and put long, cool fingers around his cock.
"Were you sent to stop me?" she asked.
"Don't stop," he begged.
* * * *
But they had to stop. The knock on the door was specific: three, pause, one, pause, three.
"He's back," she said. "Tuesday. Unless those bastards have caught him and frogmarched him to the door."
She got off him, pulled her T-shirt on--it was decent at least from the front--and he heard the stairs creak as she went downstairs.
There were raised voices. After a while, two sets of footsteps pounded upstairs. Will Bruce was dressed and alert when the door burst open.
A bulky figure in a scarlet blouse, black skirt and black crepe-de-chine jacket, black stockings and blue DM boots. His head close-cropped grey hair atop a grey face. Behind him, Emma.
"The fucker's dead," he said, his voice hoarse and with a broad Geordie accent. "And you," he said, pointing at Will, "are fucking dead too, son."
"I don't think so," Will said levelly, his pulse quickening.
"That wasn't a threat, son," Tuesday told him. "You, my lad, are dead. Me too. Don't you remember?"
"Frankly, no," Will replied.
Tuesday turned to Emma, who had gone to stand by Will.
"All right then," Tuesday said, "They've got you good and proper, ha'n't they? Were you listening to Charlie on the telly this morning?"
"Who?"
"Charlie. His Britannic Majesty King George the Seventh. Or did you miss hearing that the Queen died?" Tuesday shook his terrible head. Emma had climbed into her knickers and leggings behind him.
"Officially regretting," Tuesday went on, "that us NEDs are officially non-persons courtesy of the Home Office and can, well, just fuck off." He stopped, suddenly looked vaguely around him, shrugged his shoulders and stomped downstairs.
"Oh they won't," Emma said, stepping forward into the pool of light from the room's lampshade. Will looked at her with a pang of something undefinable, a feeling that didn't have a name. Regret, perhaps.
"Too late," she said, sadly. "I knew you might try to stop Tuesday from doing what he did."
"You knew?"
"You don't remember, do you?" she said. "Yes, the band; yes, the affair with the Home Secretary. But I was also working for the Institute--the IFR." She sighed. "Sometimes politicians get above themselves," she said decisively. "So you were infiltrating us, to find that job had already been done, by me. And poor Tuesday, he's just a victim. Plausible deniability and all that, me feeding him no info that could be traced, just suggestions. Has the sickness far worse than you. I like it in you, it makes you uncomplicated."
"And the rest of the group?" Will asked, sitting beside Emma on the bed.
"There were more once," Emma said. "But not now. It's just you, him and me.
"Oh Will," she said, and the shadows seemed to darken in the room. "You have no idea what it would have been like if he'd lived. An army of NEDs, no better than slaves, an army of cheap labour, even being made to fight to the death for their masters' amusement. The sickness spreading, spreading."
It was raining outside now, and the sky was a metallic brown above the rain-lashed grey of the roofs. Will looked into the eyes of the girl beside him.
"You saw that?" he asked. She nodded.
"Things you can't imagine," she said, leaning back on the pillows. "This way at least we give people a chance to work on a cure. Otherwise, well, y'know, the NED army would be too valuable to do away with. And I'm sorry that you got a dose, but you were there when the canister was opened. Oh," she said, eyes wide, "oh, you don't remember that?"
"No," he said. "I don't remember anything. I was with the IFR?"
"You were," she said. "We both were. Never knew each other but we were both there. But the Institute keeps people on retainers, y'see. They can be doing their day job then, well, you're called back. Happened to me, happened to you. And they said to me, Emma, go and slip inside a little group of troublemakers and make them work for you. Us." She looked down, drew up her knees and slid her hands under them. "I don't think your name is Will Bruce either. I suppose you could say, it is now. Like a stage name. A name for a new stage of your life now you're not exactly dead. Indeed, I think you're nothing like dead. Not at all."
"And you aren't afraid," he asked, "of catching the sickness?"
"No," she said. "It doesn't work that way. And there's some evidence that regular sex may stop it spreading--might even reverse it. Which is quite a nice thought."
"But how?" he asked. "How did you see those things? The things you talked about. The army of NEDs, the spreading sickness? And what happens now?" He faced her, alarmed. "A shadowy Government department assassinates a minister--where does it end?"
She kissed him.
"Don't ask," she said. "Just let it wash over you. Now hold onto me."
They could hear Tuesday thumping about downstairs, and the front door opening and slamming shut. Outside, the rain kept up its drumming on the roofs and the pavements and the people passing by.
The Masterless Man
T.C. Mill
Allen Keir knew how very rare he was: an artist whose lifestyle was more interesting than his work.
Not that traffic photography wasn't a groundbreaking study; a strange and sometimes
charming way of looking at something as invisible as the country thoroughfare. Allen wouldn't have created these sorts of pictures if he didn't believe in their value to his clients. That was because he couldn't afford to offer anything but the best, having only clients and not a patron. Allen Keir was a Masterless man.
He lived from show to show, and for the past seven years it had kept him from needing Charity. Not as if many of the Charities would be willing to take him in anyway. Where Masters looked for talent and obedience, Charities would only support those who kept to certain codes of conduct, and there, too, Allen's lifestyle was rather atypical.
But there was no reason for such pessimistic thoughts now. Allen turned to this show's centerpiece: a wide shot of three red cars as they passed each other at an intersection. He'd never have made it without the AI driving his car, but the expensive technology--in navigation and photography--had paid off: three slick cherry-red shapes, for a split second forming an elegant triangle against the gray sky, a navy station wagon in the middle ground, the yellow glow of street lamps at the borders. The composition might have been deliberate, but of course it wasn't. Just luck.
In shaping his brand, Allen had made a point of not even suggesting titles, leaving that up to the ultimate buyer. In this case, he couldn't even imagine a title that might do the subtle, striking image justice.
"Stunning," a voice said behind him.
Allen turned, pleasant smile plastered across his face. "Isn't it? Another moment fiddling with the soundset and I might have missed my chance."
"It makes me wonder what we all miss, going through our narrow lives." The stranger smiled. His lips were full and lightly coated with pearlescent color, matching the silver of his bleached hair. His skin was dark against it, smooth as velvet stroked in the right direction. At first Allen wondered if it was colored, too, but the tone shifted naturally as the man shook his head, changing the angles of the light striking his long cheekbones and jaw.
"But enough of that." He stepped closer to Allen, who was torn between irritation and a measure of relief at having the philosophy his work prompted passed over so quickly.
In a lower voice, the stranger said, "I'd like to make you an offer, Mr. Keir."
Allen's hands slipped into his pockets, his habitual bargaining position. "I'm glad to hear it. Of course the show will last for a few weeks yet, and the centerpiece has to remain in place for at least--"
"Oh, not for the art." He stood so close that his breath brushed Allen's face. His lip color was faintly scented, like salt and spice.
"I'm not seeking patronage."
"My Master isn't seeking an artist, talented though you are. Instead he sees another use for your skills."
Allen wanted to turn away, cut off this conversation before it started. But this fancy boy's Master might be one of the clients drifting through the gallery, or at least a friend to some of them. An influential friend. A trendsetter.
He nodded stiffly. "Go on. What sort of use?"
"Perhaps I should introduce myself first." The stranger drew an identity card from his breast pocket and held it up for Allen's inspection. The dangling bondsman's ribbon was blood red--Allen forgot which Master that indicated. The card claimed to belong to Devan Lamott, but there was a pristineness to the ivory plastic and silk ribbon that suggested a prop, a fake.
And so Allen got the gist of the offer even before the man said anything more.
Devan stepped up to the centerpiece picture, peering closely. Creases appeared amid the folds at the corners of his eyes, enough to show he was getting mature for the fancy-boy style. Whether it was also an act, Allen wasn't sure. He tried to stay circumspect about his preferences, but if whoever this man's Master was knew his tastes well enough to cater to them…clearly he wasn't circumspect enough.
"Here," Devan said. A manicured nail tapped the window of the navy-blue station wagon. Allen squinted at the picture, but couldn't see anything of interest. Then Devan was taking a camera-communicator from his pocket, snapping a photo, magnifying it with a touch of his fingers. The silhouette of the passenger became distinguishable. A few more manipulations, and she sprang to life with color and details.
"You use one of these for your work, right?" Devan held the device up before Allen's face.
He was going to remark that he used a more powerful version, but he realized from the resolution of the image that Devan's was more powerful than the standard. "Yeah," he said ruefully. "The best of them are far more powerful than most people realize."
"We realize."
"And who are you?"
Devan smiled. It took years off him, years that hadn't rested very heavily in the first place. "Now look at the passenger. She's holding a card."
"An identity card--with a blue ribbon."
"And what is she doing?"
He swallowed. "Tearing off a Charity Stripe." The deep forest green of the Unitarian Mission. Well, someone would be glad enough to take her place--one of the hundreds who needed help but couldn't meet the approval of other Charities, the persisting minority who weren't of use to any prospective Masters. Or who were too proud to sign themselves over to one.
Devan nodded. "She belongs to Miriam Noelle now, if I judge the blue right. She must be on her way home from signing the Contract. Mistress Noelle likes to keep her new bondspeople secret at first--but with just a moment of carelessness and a click of the camera, one of her secrets slips out. Think of what we all miss, going through our narrow lives, that a photographer might capture." He looked under his eyelashes at Allen. "Think what you could capture."
"Your Master wants to recruit me as a spy, then?" Allen asked.
"He offers generous support, and it would make little difference to your lifestyle. We may suggest certain intersections or streets for you to shoot at, we might ask for a first look at your portfolio, and for access to pictures you might otherwise discard--"
Allen whipped out his ident card and held it up. In all its bare plastic glory, it was free from bondsman's ribbon as much as Master's border, and there wasn't even a shadow of a torn-away Charity stripe. "I've been self-supporting since I reached my majority. I like it that way."
"It's a hard life," Devan said. "Terribly uncertain."
"At least I don't have to jump whenever a Master snaps his fingers, wondering what favors I owe this time."
"Some of those favors can be quite pleasant." Devan's voice took on a silken quality. "You don't need to fear losing yourself to my Master's demands. He wants you because of what you are."
"I'm an artist, not a spy."
"Anyone can be a spy," Devan said, almost gently.
"The offer is, of course, generous," Allen said. "And of course I'm honored, but I must confess I have no interest in Contracting at this time. If you'll excuse me--"
Devan's slender hand closed on his arm as Allen turned away. The bondsman leaned close, speaking into his ear.
"That business aside, I have a personal offer to make. My address. I'll be home next Sixthday afternoon, alone and undisturbed for some hours."
He smiled shyly at Allen's stare, a flush deepening his rich color. "We bondsmen have desires, too."
"Desires your Master doesn't satisfy?"
If anything, Devan's smile broadened at that. Allen's stomach flipped. There was danger in this invitation, too, but… He'd been cautious in the weeks leading up to this show, when eyes were on him. Nothing to disturb the moral qualms of even the most conservative buyer. He hadn't had a liaison since New Year's, and extended celibacy didn't agree with him.
"Don't wait for me," he said sharply.
Devan shrugged and held out an infotab. It would have directions to his apartment. Allen accepted it, as there was no way for him to refuse without causing a scene.
The bondsman nodded to him. "I'll be there, nonetheless."
* * * *
Devan Lamott's apartment was in a high rise near the heart of the city, though on one of the cheaper levels--far up enough to be inco
nvenient, not enough to be prestigious. The elevator trip was so long as to be nerve-wracking. Allen's nerves were wracked as it was. His brain kept screaming that this was a stupid idea, while his skin felt so sensitive that the brush of his linen suit was leaving him raw. All his buttons and zippers were too tight. His harsh breathing filled the small car, and he tried to steady it before any other passengers joined him.
As it was, nobody did, and the hallway the elevator landed on was empty. His footsteps all but echoed. He imagined he was the only person here, he and the man waiting for him, and his breath went short again.
There were fancy boys everywhere, plenty for rent. He should have found one of them, rather than get tangled with the business of a Master who was already interested in him. But there was something about Devan--a certain elegance made up of confidence and composure, even more than beauty.
Allen had passed some time in the shower the past few mornings by imagining him losing that composure. A well-groomed fancy boy was an aesthetic treat…a dirty one was much, much better.
And then, making Devan happy--as he certainly intended to--might go a long way to smoothing relations with his Master, or at least filtering any reports the bondsman passed on to him about Allen. Damage control.
By the time Allen reached the right apartment number, he had almost convinced himself this was a good idea.
The door slid open smoothly at his knock.
Devan was unpainted this time, his lips rusty-rose against his skin, though his hair was as pale as ever. It looked slightly mussed, and his clothing, though high quality, looked distinctly lounged in. In fact, it looked as if Devan had spent most of the morning tossing and turning, waiting restlessly for Allen's arrival.
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