Wetware

by Craig Nova

  In the bedroom he put on his blue suit and noticed that the seat and the elbows were a little shiny, although his cap was new, and the bill of the visor was shiny. He tied his blue tie, shoved up the knot until it was tight around his neck. His collar was a little looser than usual. He was losing weight.

  He got the car out and drove to Blaine’s apartment building. Usually, Blaine would be right behind the door of the lobby, and as soon as Jimmy pulled up, he’d come out, under the awning, and then Jimmy would come around and open the door, saying, “Good morning, Mr. Blaine.”

  Blaine didn’t always answer this greeting, but Jimmy could distinguish the varieties of silence. Sometimes it was amused, other times it was preoccupied, as though he couldn’t be bothered. Sometimes Jimmy would say it was the reticence of a hangover. Now, though, he pulled up in the car and waited. Blaine was late.

  It was raining, and Jimmy watched the windshield wipers swinging back and forth, obliterating the small, crown-shaped splashes where the drops hit. The wipers made a little sound, a flip, flip, flip, that he had always found reassuring, but this morning all he heard was the sound, nothing more. It wasn’t reassuring so much as hypnotically gloomy. Before Jimmy had a chance to get out and open the door, Blaine had stepped away from the awning, in the rain, and had jerked on the handle and gotten into the backseat.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Blaine,” said Jimmy. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Just sitting here.”

  “It’s all right,” said Blaine.

  “Did you get wet?” said Jimmy.

  “No,” said Blaine.

  Jimmy pulled away from the curb. Through the gray rain, the lights of the other cars looked bright and serious. In the rearview mirror Jimmy saw that Blaine hadn’t shaved very well, and his shirt didn’t look clean. At a signal, a boy came along with a morning paper, under plastic, the headline right there for everyone to see. The plastic was covered with drops that looked like wax from a candle that was as clear as water. They both looked at the headline: PANIC SPREADS.

  “Push on through,” said Blaine.

  “The light’s against us,” said Jimmy.

  “Push on,” said Blaine.

  “The light,” said Jimmy. He pointed upward, through the hypnotic movement of the windshield wiper.

  “Oh?” said Blaine. “Well. All right.”

  “Some traffic this morning,” said Jimmy.

  “What? Oh yes,” said Blaine. “Terrible.”

  Jimmy gripped the wheel and looked in the rearview mirror. The rain fell with that quick and irritating tempo. He thought about his hand in the warm spot that his wife had left in the bed; he had put his hand in the warmth for many years. He had always been able to depend on it, like sunlight, or her kiss on his cheek. This kiss had never been perfunctory, and as the years had gone by, he realized that she had always meant it. Warm, slightly damp, constant. He thought about the heat under the sheets, like a hen’s warmth around an egg. Blaine was watching him through the mirror.

  “My wife says I should talk to you,” said Jimmy.

  “Your wife?” said Blaine. “I didn’t know you were married.”

  “Twenty-five years,” said Jimmy.

  “Twenty-five years,” said Blaine. He nodded. It was as though he was weighing regret parceled out in years. Or decades. It all added up.

  “Yes,” said Jimmy. “She says the papers say you aren’t doing anything, and it’s going to cause trouble.”

  “And did she say anything else?” said Blaine.

  “Just that,” he said.

  “And what about you?” said Blaine. “What do you think?”

  “Me? I don’t know. My wife is pretty upset. That’s all.”

  Blaine looked out the window. The rain came along in lines, like pieces of silver wire, all lined up in the same direction.

  “I know I should do something, but I don’t know what.”

  “You’ve lost your nerve?” said Jimmy.

  “You could call it that. That’s as good a way of putting it as another,” said Blaine.

  “Oh,” said Jimmy. “Well.”

  The black windshield wipers thumped back and forth, looking as though they were made of licorice. The water on the windows ran down in rivulets that had a little texture to them and in which the colors of the street, the reds and yellows, seemed to run, too. Blaine looked through them.

  “Twenty-five years,” said Blaine. “That’s a long time, isn’t it?”

  “It goes by pretty fast,” said Jimmy.

  They worked their way through traffic, going over the film of light on the moist pavement. The rain had pushed some gulls in from the ocean, and their wings tottered from side to side as they landed on the sidewalk and started pecking at crumbs of something there. White birds with orange beaks. Jimmy looked at their feet as they landed: splayed out, like tines on a garden tool.

  Blaine sat back, not looking one way or another.

  “Right in front?” said Jimmy.

  “Yes,” said Blaine. “Right in front. Just as always.”

  CHAPTER 5

  April 22, 2029

  “HI, REMEMBER me?” said Jack as she came out of the skating rink. Her cheeks were bright with the exercise, and she had her workout clothes in a bag, her skates tied together with their laces and slung over her shoulder. She emerged from the lobby into the lines of rain. It was right there, when she hesitated, that Jack came up to her.

  “Yes,” she said. “How could I forget someone who skates like you, Jack? Hi.”

  She looked one way and then another. Good, no one to meet her.

  “I’ve been thinking about you,” said Jack.

  “And what have you been thinking?” she said. She smiled now, and looked around again to make sure.

  “Oh, this and that,” said Jack. “What’s your name?”

  “Gloria,” she said. “Will you just look at this rain? How am I going to get home in it?”

  Then she glanced back at Jack.

  “Where’s your friend?” she said.

  “Friend?” said Jack.

  “You know, the woman. The one you were with at the skating rink?” she said.

  “Kay?” said Jack. “Well, she had something to do.”

  Gloria kept looking up at him, her eyes moving back and forth across his face, from one of his eyes to the other.

  “You know all I do is practice,” she said.

  “I know,” said Jack. “No one ever lets you do anything.”

  “Yeah. That’s the way it is,” she said.

  “But you can work a little fun in. You know what I mean?” said Jack.

  She looked around, then reached under her coat to scratch.

  “I’ve never just gone off this way, with a stranger,” said Gloria.

  “Who are you kidding?” said Jack. “Anyway, I’m not a stranger. We went skating together just the other day.”

  “My mother would kill me,” she said. “If she knew.”

  “You’ll be a little late,” said Jack. “So what?”

  The rain fell around them all, the puddles looking like insects were hatching from them. From the street came the sounds of horns and engines, and a man rolled down his window and yelled at the car ahead of him, “Why don’t you hire a hall, you idiot.”

  “Maybe they’ll get out and have a fight,” she said.

  “Maybe,” said Jack. He took a look at the man who had yelled. Then he said, “But I don’t think so.”

  “What makes you such an expert?” she said.

  “You can tell,” he said. Jack went on looking at the driver, and when he turned back to Gloria, his lips brushed her hair, her ear under it. She looked up, her eyes on his. She blushed and then reached out and took his arm. “You don’t think badly of me for going off like this, do you?”

  “Me?” said Jack.

  “Well, I’d just like to know,” she said.

  “I like a girl with spunk,” said Jack. “Why, everyone around here is like some kind of gloomy
bird . . . ”

  “It’s a goony bird,” she said. She laughed. “You don’t even know that it’s a goony bird . . . ” She stepped away from him and put out her arms, and waddled like a penguin. “See, that’s a goony bird.”

  She took his arm and he felt the slight bounce and tug of her as she laughed against his side.

  “Yeah, well,” he said. “So long as it isn’t gloomy. I get so sick of hanging around and never living or anything.”

  “I know,” she said. “What do they think we’re made out of, anyway?”

  He stopped and leaned down and kissed her, the heat of their mouths touching in the slippery instant. She leaned forward, and when he turned back, up the street, she said, “You shouldn’t do that out here, where everyone can see.”

  “Let them look,” said Jack.

  She giggled, but then said, “Let’s be a little more private next time.”

  They stepped into a retro pinball parlor, and in the damp heat of the place the machines made that bing, bang, bing. Jack started to play, making the flippers work, and then he got her to play, putting his hand over hers, guiding her fingers and pushing them at the right moment. She put her lips against his ear and said, “You’ve got good reflexes.”

  “Well, I guess,” he said. He paused for a moment. Then he went back to the game. She moved impatiently from one hip to another.

  “Jack,” she said.

  “What?” he said.

  “Where are we going to go from here?” she said.

  “A hotel,” he said.

  “I’ve never been to a hotel,” she said.

  She looked at him in the heat of the room.

  “Boy, am I going to get in trouble.”

  She giggled.

  “I wouldn’t be here if you weren’t such a good skater.”

  They went out into the street, into the rain, and as they hurried along, her skates thumped against her shoulder like the beating of an anxious heart. When she looked up, she had to turn her face into the rain, and her wet hair, which was plastered to the sides of her face, made her skin seem pale.

  They came to the steps of the hotel. The street was more deserted here, nothing but gray light and reflections off the windows. The lobby had a marble floor and a couple of sofas, which were empty. The elevator was in the back, and they walked toward it, Gloria taking his arm and putting her damp face against his shoulder.

  They got into the elevator.

  “I’ve never done anything like this,” she said. “I’m shaking in my knees.”

  “Me too,” he said.

  He put his arm around her.

  “Oh darling,” he said. “I wanted you to come up here with me the minute I saw you, you know that?”

  “Did you?” she said.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “And you don’t think badly of me for coming with you?” she said.

  “No,” he said.

  They stepped out into the hall and up to the door, which Jack opened. Inside she put down her skates and took off her shoes and her coat. Then she looked around the room. A double bed, a mirror at the dressing table, some of Kay’s things hung up on the door. Gloria went over to them and ran her finger over them.

  “If my friends could see me now,” she said.

  He stood next to her, in the slight odor of her skin from skating. She said, “Well, I guess we better sit down, don’t you think?”

  THEY LAY under the sheet with their legs drawn up, so that their knees made four white peaks. She kept the cloth around her waist, beneath her belly button, and a slight golden curl showed around the edge of the sheet. Her arm was behind her head. Outside, in the street, occasionally they heard the sound of a horn.

  “I like it when you . . . ” she said. “When you put your tongue . . . ” She turned toward him.

  “I thought so,” he said. “I like it too. That was my first time.”

  “Oh, come on,” she said. “You say that to all the girls.”

  “No,” he said.

  “Well, you might get some of them to believe it, but not me.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  “How can you say such a thing?” she said.

  He shrugged.

  “You’ve got to realize that I don’t lie,” he said.

  “Oh, sure,” she said. She rustled around in the sheets. “When are we going to see each other again?”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “What does that mean?” she said. “You aren’t going to disappear on me?”

  “No,” he said. “I’ll try not to do that. I’ll come by the place where you skate.”

  “When?” she said.

  “Soon,” he said.

  She turned toward him.

  “Can I depend on that?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  She turned on her side and put one arm under her chin so she could see him. Then she glanced around the room. It was cluttered, but it seemed to her to be a place where only transients stayed.

  “What are you doing here, Jack?” she said.

  “Just visiting,” he said. “You know, looking around, seeing the sights . . . ”

  He slid his hand along her thigh under the sheets.

  “And how are the sights so far?” she said.

  “So pretty,” he said.

  She blushed.

  “And do you have any friends, Jack?” she said.

  “Sure,” said Jack.

  “Like who?” she said.

  “Well, I’ve got friends. You know, people I could go to for help,” he said.

  “Oh yeah?” she said.

  “Sure,” said Jack.

  “Oh, Jack,” she said. “Just don’t tell me any lies, okay? When can I see you again?”

  “In a couple of days,” said Jack.

  She looked at him, from one eye to the other, trying to decide if she could trust him, and as she was doing this, Kay came into the room. She stood there with the door open, just looking for a moment, her raincoat open and her hand lingering on the doorknob. Then she came in and closed the door.

  “Hi, Jack,” she said.

  “Hi,” said Jack, “This is Gloria.”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s right,” said Kay.

  Kay sat down at the dressing table, although she could see in the mirror that Gloria had gotten up out of bed and slowly and deliberately started getting dressed, bending down and pulling on her underwear, putting on a brassiere, fastening it beneath her breasts and then turning it around so that the clasp was at her back. Gloria went into the bathroom and then they heard the sound of the toilet flushing. Kay sat without moving, eyes down. Gloria came out, although she didn’t say anything until she had gotten her shoes on, and then she picked up her skates and stood by the door.

  “Well, I better be going,” she said.

  “I’ll come to see you,” said Jack.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll see you later. ’Bye.” She turned to Kay and said, “ ’Bye.”

  Then she went out the door.

  Jack didn’t have any clothes on and he came around and sat behind Kay on the edge of the bed. His image was in the mirror in front of her, and she leaned forward, and with a quick, damp exhalation, she made the cool surface of the mirror cloud over. Jack disappeared into it.

  “How come everyone except me has someone?” she said.

  “You’ll get your chance,” he said.

  “Yeah, well,” she said.

  “You aren’t upset, are you?” he said.

  “What’s it to you?” she said.

  She put her head down on the mirrored surface of the dressing table.

  “Oh, Jack,” she said. “What was it like?”

  “It was real nice,” he said.

  She looked at his reflection in the mirror.

  “Like how?” she said.

  “Oh,” said Jack. “It’s hard to say. You’ll have to see for yourself.”

  She sat there, looking down.

  “I’ve got
to warn you, though,” said Jack. “It isn’t something you just want to do once. It’s not like you get your curiosity satisfied and that’s it. It’s more like you want to keep at it. And there’s something else.”

  “What’s that?” she said.

  “It might change you,” he said.

  She looked up at the mirror, and into her eyes.

  “Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing,” she said. “I’m tired of being this way.”

  “What way is that?” said Jack.

  “So alone,” she said.

  He reached out and touched her. She was sweating and laboring as she breathed. She put a hand to her head.

  “It’s just the flu,” she said.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I guess.”

  BOOK V

  CHAPTER 1

  April 23, 2029

  BRIGGS SUBSCRIBED to a newsletter of the Artificial Life Association. A lot of the stories in it were filled with lousy reporting, mistakes, and suggestions of problems that didn’t really exist. The editors were interested in sensation, and Briggs took this into account. It had a listing of jobs and a who’s-who section that gave the lineup of the people who were in the business now. It also had a registry of what were called “wild diseases,” new ones that turned up without a perfect etiology.

  He scrolled through lists of medical calls now, dismissing one and then another as obvious reporting errors or lousy lab work, or just a mild flu that some college student had hatched up for a prank. He stopped, though, at an entry that had just been posted. The woman who called in the case said that a clerk in a hotel, a fleabag of a place, had gotten sick. There was nothing unusual about that. In that part of town there were all kinds of things. For instance, there were new strains of sexually transmitted malaria. Hard to treat, but not impossible. But what got Briggs’s attention was that the clerk’s eyes were itchy and his lids looked dark, as though he were wearing mascara. The lining of his mouth had been black, and his lips had been black too. A medical technician had been dispatched to take a look, but aside from the color, there wasn’t much else to go on. That was it. Briggs had been uncertain what amount of time a new disease would require for an incubation period, but he guessed it would be more than three weeks and less than six. Kay and Jack had been missing since almost the end of March, and it was now close to the end of April. Say four weeks.