Wetware

by Craig Nova

  He went through the decisions he had made that had brought him to this moment, each one small and seemingly minor, but all of them adding up, the calculus of them leaving him with the sense of being able to see who and what he really was. In the distance, when he looked out the door and across the veranda, he saw a rainbow as the sunlight shone through the vapor that came from a wave breaking over the reef. How could he do the right thing?

  “My darling,” she said, waking up now, her voice sleepy.

  My darling . . .

  In that same sleepy voice, she said, “You know I keep thinking about having a child. But, Briggs, would you protect the child?”

  “Kay,” he said. “That’s a long way off . . . ”

  “Is it?” she said. “Well. Tell me. Theoretically speaking?”

  “What do you think?” he said.

  “I have my hopes,” she said. “That you won’t fail me.”

  She got up from the bed and pulled on her shorts and shirt and went out, into the veranda, and when she turned, all that was left was the rainbow over the reef. She vanished into the flowers and the shade, the shapes of the parrot’s feathers opening and closing.

  The weave of the mosquito netting interfered with itself where it hung in folds around the bed. After a while he stood up, the tropical flooring giving under his feet. Then he went down the steps and into the shade where the parrots preened their head feathers, their black beaks searching along a wing for a spot that itched. Briggs walked through the jungle and emerged onto the light and heat of the beach. Then he opened his eyes and heard the voices in the gaming parlor, angry and insistent, despairing or triumphant.

  “How did you like it?” asked an attendant.

  “It was all right,” said Briggs.

  “Oh, it was better than that,” said the attendant. “You’ll be back. I can always tell. This one is going to be a hit.”

  “I don’t know,” said Briggs. “It depends.”

  BOOK IV

  CHAPTER 1

  April 18, 2029

  THE FIRST names started to appear on the walls. They were written in the New Wave script, which was wavy, the letters drifting into each other, and done in such a way as to suggest three dimensions. Something like subway graffiti, but more intricate, harder to do just right. Of course, a lot of people tried to settle old scores by just putting names on the wall, but they couldn’t get the script right. The lame or the uncool tried, but it never looked right. You could tell they weren’t authentic.

  Briggs stood in front of a wall. The script looked right.

  Once your name was up, you could start waiting for the piss and fishy odor of a Mungo Man, who reached out for you in the hallway of your building, the cold touch of his fingers, the stink of his breath all showing that, as far as the New Wave was concerned, you had been found wanting. Were your clothes right? Your slang? Or were you out-of-date and speaking the Language of the Dead? One night you smelled the fishy odor and felt the surprising bump, just like being punched, but that’s the way the ice pick felt. After that, they went through your apartment for what was left.

  This is why a sniff of disdain about one’s style was so ominous: you could be on the way out. The New Waves were cool, and who didn’t want to be cool? Of course, when one came, it was used to get rid of people who were in the way.

  Briggs recognized two of the names. One was an impossibly dowdy woman who worked at Galapagos. She left used Kleenex around, and her blouses had sweat stains on them. She picked her teeth with a matchbook. But Briggs had always liked her. She did her work and never said anything stupid. Briggs put his head against the wall. Mashita was the other name.

  That leaves just the two of us, me and Krupp, he thought.

  Everything was quiet, but then he heard a shuffling as a man came along on the pavement. The footfalls seemed erratic, as though someone who kept a dog to beat was dragging the thing along the pavement. Then the Mungo Man stooped and looked up at the script on the wall. He wore a gray coat that, even in the darkness, had the sheen of a fly. He took a stump of pencil and a piece of brown paper out of his pocket, spreading the paper on the wall. Then the Mungo Man looked up, moving his lips as he read the names. The flylike sheen on his coat was exotic, like a peacock feather, and yet deadly too, as though the color were associated with a serious medical condition. Gangrene, for instance. The man smelled of sweat, food, piss. He wrote slowly, checking the names, the work done one letter at a time with the cadence of a grave digger who has learned that the way to get through the work is with a steady, deceptively slow pace. The Mungo Man’s eyes went back and forth, between the paper and the wall, and then he turned and looked at Briggs.

  “Your name here?” said the Mungo Man.

  “No,” said Briggs.

  “Sure?” said the Mungo Man.

  “Yes,” said Briggs.

  “Then what are you hanging around for?” said the Mungo Man. He stepped closer to Briggs.

  “There’s no law against standing here,” said Briggs.

  “You’re going to talk to me about law?” said the Mungo Man. “Say, what’s your name?”

  “That’s all right,” said Briggs.

  The Mungo Man took a step closer, his nose almost up to Briggs’s. The brown paper made a crinkling sound as it was folded up and stuck in a pocket of the man’s coat. The Mungo Man nodded to himself, then he stood back, glanced once at the enormous, stylish script on the wall. The mist seemed to be absolutely still, fish-colored, and it smelled of the ocean. The Mungo Man turned and walked away, his gait irregular but still having purpose. He jerked his gimpy leg, grunted at the effort, and disappeared into the mist.

  CHAPTER 2

  April 19, 2029

  BRIGGS TUGGED at the button on his coat that was about to fall off. He pulled at it just hard enough to feel that it was loose, but not hard enough to break the thread. He twisted it one way and then the other while he scrolled through the results of the tests he had ordered for Kay’s fluid. The lists of proteins went from the bottom of the monitor to the top, but he didn’t have a diagram of the shape of each one, and it was this architecture that determined the practical impact a protein would have. In the midst of it, in a bright orange band, he saw one that was labeled PATHOGEN. He stopped, highlighted the protein that had set off the alarm, and asked for a library search on it. It took a minute or two, but then he understood why so much time had been used: the library had no papers, no information at all. It was something new. He asked for clinical tests with animal models. He got another prompt that said, INSUFFICIENT PARAMETERS. ENTER PROTEIN INFORMATION. He ripped the button off and sat there with the small, useless thing in his hand. A couple of black threads stuck out of his jacket where the button had been, and he picked at them, hoping that this way he could disguise the fact that the button was gone.

  A materials salesman came in, smoking a cigar and looking around, trying to figure out just what kind of budget Briggs had to work with. The salesman, whose name was White, glanced at the button in Briggs’s hand, then at the shelves in the office, most of them filled with broken equipment. He sighed. White’s shirt was an old-fashioned one with pointed collars.

  “You’re new here, aren’t you?” said White.

  “Yes,” said Briggs.

  “I hate it when that happens,” said White. “When I lose a button.”

  Briggs put it in his pocket.

  “I’ll sew it on tonight,” Briggs said.

  White didn’t look convinced, but he nodded as though that was the right thing to do. He glanced around again and said, “You know, I figure you in for ten percent of the order.”

  “What?” said Briggs.

  Briggs turned around and saw that the word PATHOGEN was still there in bright orange. Then he closed it up. White was rolling his shoulder as though he had a cramp in his neck.

  “Your order,” said White. “You’re going to need materials.”

  “Oh,” said Briggs. “Sure. Materials. I get a lo
t of stuff from a discount house.”

  White looked as though he had eaten something that didn’t agree with him.

  “A discount house doesn’t figure you in for ten percent,” said White. “Do you see what I’m saying?”

  White said he could get Briggs good polymers and he would make sure they arrived when they were needed, and of course he could make sure there wasn’t any mismatching of colors, which happened with the cheap discount places, always mixing different batches, taking just the dregs of what was left over and making it seem that it was all one batch. It wasn’t. Sometimes it was three. That’s why it was discounted.

  “You’re offering me a kickback,” said Briggs. “Is that it?”

  White looked a little sour.

  “I didn’t say kickback,” said White. “I just said ten percent of the deal. It isn’t like it comes out of my pocket. And it doesn’t come out of yours. So who gives a shit? You just increase the bill by ten percent, and then we split it. What could be better?”

  Briggs reached into his pocket and picked up the button again and fingered it while he thought about the orange band that had run through the monitor, rising like a spirit released from the depths. The same color as a Halloween pumpkin.

  White said that his competitors mixed batches of texture too, and this caused problems you wouldn’t believe. His expression was that of a man who had seen real trouble.

  “I can imagine,” said Briggs. He stared at the wall where someone had written, “Please, O Lord, in thy mercy . . . ” Briggs squeezed the button.

  White said, “All right. Fifteen percent. That’s as high as I can go. See? That’s seven and a half for you and seven and a half for me. It’s like free money. If the orders go up, why, great. I use my share to keep a little place downtown . . . ”

  “I’m sorry,” said Briggs. “What did you say?”

  “If that’s the way you want to be,” said White. He shrugged. “No skin off my nose.”

  White stood and picked up his case, zipped it up, hiked up his pants. Then he stood at the door.

  “All right,” said White. “Ten for you and five for me. Now I can’t do better than that. You know that.”

  White looked around to see if anyone was listening.

  “I mean, you don’t want me to take less than that, do you, for Christ’s sake?” said White. He began to flush a little.

  Briggs looked down at the button again.

  “Maybe we can work it out,” said Briggs.

  “Yeah,” said White. He was still insulted. “Like how?”

  “Can you get me antibiotics?” said Briggs.

  “What do you need stuff like that for?” said White. “In a junk outfit like this? Come on. Who are you kidding?”

  His eyes flitted around the room, trying to figure out what to do.

  “I’ve got another project,” said Briggs.

  “Yeah?” said White.

  Briggs nodded.

  “In a place like this?” said White. He looked around again, as though he were seeing it all through the haze of a fever. He blinked.

  “I’ll need stuff for all stains. Red, purple, yellow. The works.”

  “Sure,” said White. “I could do that. Fifty-fifty split for the fifteenpercent increase. Right?”

  “Okay,” said Briggs.

  “Say, what are you working on out here?” said White. “This isn’t some dummy outfit, is it? You didn’t come out here to do something you want a little privacy for, did you? Because if that’s the way it is, you can count on me.”

  Briggs stared at the scrawled line on the wall. Mercy. Then he looked back at White.

  “See what I’m telling you?” said White. “Don’t go out to Dow or Borg or any of those big outfits. I can do just as well. With a good order, I can play with the big boys.”

  “I’ll remember,” said Briggs. “I’ll need all stains. Can you get them?”

  “Don’t be silly,” said White. “I can get almost anything. Didn’t I just say you could count on me?” He glanced around the office again with a commercial disbelief, and then back at Briggs. “Say, you don’t look so good. Have you got a fever?”

  “No,” said Briggs. Not yet.

  “Well, there’s something always going around,” said White. “You got to eat right. You got to lose weight. I got to lose thirty pounds. I want to be light on my feet.”

  White put his hands in the small of his back, and from somewhere in his body Briggs heard a small, definite crack. Then White put his cigar in his mouth and blew out little puffs of smoke. He sighed. Then he made his way down the hall, mumbling to himself, the keys and change in his pocket jingling as he hitched up his pants and sighed again. Briggs looked at the smoke that hung in malignant puffs, like exhaust from an engine that was burning oil. He took out the button and fingered it. He looked at the phrase on the wall, and then, as though it were too painful to read, he glanced around the room filled with broken equipment. The accumulation of things that no longer worked added a muted presence to the room. It was keenly silent, but filled with a minor dread that could be felt in every junkyard in the world.

  CHAPTER 3

  April 20, 2029

  FROM THE front, the hotel’s fire escapes resembled a series of enormous black Z’s, one on top of another. Kay and Jack stood underneath them and looked up the street, where some buildings made a broken-toothed clutter against the sky. Kay waited for a moment, testing the wind, since she knew that the neighborhood had two contradictory aspects. It was like a man who was nice when sober, but nasty at night when he was drunk, although there was a peaceful, even angelic period of transition. And when Kay and Jack came out of the hotel, it was the angelic hour of the afternoon when such a man went into a bar where a waiter, with a fatigued wariness, put down the man’s first diamond-clear martini.

  “You know, I’d like to have a little fun,” Jack said.

  “Okay,” she said. “What do you want to do?”

  He blushed. Then he looked down the street. On the front of one of the buildings he saw a marquee that said, ICE SKATING. FREE SKATE EVERY AFTERNOON. Jack gestured toward the sign. “I’d like to go down there.”

  “All right,” she said.

  They started walking, and as they went, she said, “Are you carrying it?”

  “Carrying what?” he said.

  “Don’t be cute,” she said.

  She reached over and touched his jacket pocket. The pistol was there.

  “You can never tell,” said Jack. “Everything is fine now, but wait until dark.”

  The lobby of the rink was like a motion picture theater, and they bought their tickets from a booth. Inside, they heard the music that the rink played, old songs and waltzes. A sign said, RENTALS INSIDE. Beyond it they saw the ice, a white oval, opalescent and obviously cold under the theatrical lights. A dozen skaters went around and around, looking as though they were dressed in cloaks torn from a black flag. One skater had both his arms out as he tried to keep his balance. The music was from a long time ago, and it gave the place a retro feeling.

  The counter where they rented skates was covered with green linoleum that had been worn down to a white around the edges. Jack ran his finger over it, trying to guess how old it was, perhaps a hundred years, maybe more. They both rented a pair of skates and went over to a line of chairs to put them on. Kay giggled when she stood up. Jack laughed too.

  “You walk like a penguin,” he said.

  “Oh yeah? Well, what do you think you look like, Mr. Big-Time Skater?” she said.

  They managed to get out to the ice. Kay pushed off and began to skate, putting her weight on one blade and then the other. Jack caught up with her and took her hand. They went around together, and then Jack said, “Watch.” He turned on his skates and started going backwards, right next to her. She laughed and said, “Oh, Jack. I didn’t think you could do that.”

  “Here,” he said.

  He put out his hands and invited her to dance, old-style danci
ng like one saw in movies. What did they call it? Ballroom dancing. She kept her eyes on his and then reached out, putting one hand on his shoulder and taking the other hand. The sound system played a waltz, and they went around, Jack looking into her eyes every now and then, leading her, turning her from time to time. They came to a stop in a spray of ice shavings.

  “Come on,” he said. “You aren’t going to stop now, are you?”

  They waited at the side of the rink for more music. Kay’s breath came in heaves and she leaned back, her cheeks red with the cold, her eyes bright. One of her skates made a chipping sound as she tapped in time to the music.

  “Just let me catch my breath,” she said.

  On the other side of the ice, a woman came out through the door in the waist-high enclosure of the rink. She wore a white short skirt, and a white blouse, white tights, and white skates. The woman shoved off, her hips moving with the thrust of skating, the blades flashing as she went around in time to the music. Jack watched.

  “I’m going to take a turn while you rest,” he said. “Do you mind?”

  “No,” she said.

  She suddenly felt the coldness of the room penetrate the heat of the skating. No, she didn’t mind. Not really. She wanted him to have a good time. Mostly all he did was sit around the hotel or go to practice with her. Her sense of loneliness came over her with a sudden heaviness. “No,” she said. “Go on. Have a good time.”

  “Are you sure?” he said.

  “Yes,” she said. She tried to smile. “Go on. I’ll watch for a moment.”

  She leaned back against the rail. Jack went out, seeming to slide around the rink, his hands clasped behind his back, his skates swinging out in short, stylish strokes. He gained on the woman in the white skirt, who glanced over her shoulder once and smiled. She went a little faster, putting her weight into it now, and yet Jack came up beside her, with a speed that was hardly imaginable. They went along, the skates silent on the ice. The music changed. Kay could almost recognize it: something from a previous age, but still having a sweetness to it that she was ashamed she responded to, and as she did, that sense of surprised loneliness came over her again. Well, she didn’t want Jack to stop. She guessed. Jack reached over and took the woman’s arms and then they went around together, blades of the skates flashing together. Jack bent closer and whispered something and the woman laughed, and when he spoke again she put her fingers to her mouth, pleasantly shocked. They went on skating with each other. The woman’s cheeks were red now, her eyes turning every now and then to Jack, as though she couldn’t believe her good luck.