Grey

by Jon Armstrong

  As he held a stick before him where a burnt wiener dangled on the end, he said, "Our product offers a dramatic choice and much less operating costs. Super non-symmetry takes a lot of power. We don't." He tried to laugh a friendly laugh, but all the lines in his face pulled the other way.

  "Were you insulted by Mr. Rivers' assertion that mkg was at fault for the freeboot?" asked the interviewer, a man dressed in aquamarine and pink flannel who was toasting several marshmallows on a long fork.

  "Idiots!" shouted Nora's father with such energy that his wiener did a summersault on his branch. "I don't have any comment. Except they're idiots and grubs!"

  Beside Mr. Gonzalez-Matsu sat what were obviously his versions of Ken Goh and Xavid, two men in wooden suits with big hairdos, who chimed in with Idiots and Grubs, respectively.

  To the right of the yes men, sat Nora. Her face was so serene, so perfectly at ease, and her clothes so minimal and colorless—that she looked like she was a photo of a woman from a different world pasted into the picture.

  She wore a brilliant white shirt that looked at once downy-soft and as smart as folded high-silica paper. Her tailored jacket was a deep charcoal and the fabric had flecks of what looked like black quasar dust. The shoulders and arms so perfectly fit her body, in a strange way, it was indecent because it so perfectly reflected her nude body beneath. Her eyelids were a smoky brown; her eyelashes resembled the sable of a fine paintbrush lightly dusted with crushed black iron, and her hair had been trimmed and brushed so that it resembled finely grained mahogany.

  She would breathe in, hold her air for an instant, and then exhale. Her blinking was the same. Each time her lids closed, they held as if she were resting, sleeping, or escaping for a single instant. When open, she focused on her father's profile in such an intense way that I got the idea that she had been required to be on the show, as if it were punishment for her meeting me at the SunEcho.

  Her father tried to talk about their new product, and something he called integrity-cloak, but the interviewer kept asking about RiverGroup and me. After a minute or two of the back and forth, Nora's father began screaming. "RiverGroup is a foul and constipated old lady!" After he spoke, he wrenched his face into a smile.

  Nora's eyes turned to mine. While I had been concentrating on her before, now I was transfixed. And I swore she could see me through the electromagnetic fields between us. As I looked back into her eyes, the blush in her face deepened, and the corners of her mouth quivered toward a smile. I wanted to reach through and pull her through to my side.

  Her right hand, in one of her grey chenille gloves, moved from her lap and then her index finger touched one of the black chrome buttons on her jacket. Her hand held for an instant, and then fell back to her lap as if it had never moved. A moment later, her eyes returned to her father.

  "We are a prestigious family of true blood!" he continued. "We will persevere and work hard for our clients. And as for that other so-called company, council has advised me not to mention that Ribo-Kool is nothing but an assemblage of snot-dripping vagrants!"

  The screen went black. One of Walter's nannies had snapped it off. She then came to Walter's side and began stroking him. "There . . . there! Never mind him! He's nothing but an angry old snuffly-guffly."

  I stared at the blank screen. Of course Nora could not see me—there was no possible way. And yet, I knew she had. Moreover, she had sent me a message, but what it meant, I wasn't sure. Did it reference a Pure H story in issue nine where a woman touches a shirt button on her blouse to signal her former husband that she has returned from an affair with machines? If I remembered, though, the reader knows that her heart stops the same instant she touches the button. Perhaps she was referencing a photoR6 in issue nineteen. Amid a mass of black threads is one silvery button. The copy read A single cast iron snowflake. At least, that wasn't negative.

  The front door opened. I expected Joelene, but in came a man in a four-foot-tall orange chef's hat and matching jacket, wheeling in a tray.

  "Good morning!" he said, with a big smile. "I've brought a special breakfast especially chosen by Mr. Rivers Senior, himself. And this exciting, fast-breaking meal has graciously been provided by Frix Food Product Corporation—Making Your Life Something You Can Snarf." His broad smile faded as he glanced about, as if trying to find the cameras.

  "They're gone," said one of the nannies.

  "Oh," he said, disappointed, as if this was supposed to be his big moment.

  As Walter's nannies seated him at the table, I said I'd be right back, and hurried to my bathroom, but she wasn't there. In the dressing room I knelt and looked under the hangers. "Hello?" I asked, as I opened the servant's door. Surprisingly, inside was a dark stairwell, and just ten feet ahead, a heavy locked gate.

  She must have gone out the back door. I headed out of my dressing room and straight toward it. As I did, I heard Walter's feet across the iron tiles.

  "Wait! Where're you going?" he asked, as if afraid I was leaving.

  I pushed open the iron door and stepped outside. To the far left was the black PartyHaus, covered in shadows. Straight ahead were several technology buildings, and to the right, were the garages and storage buildings. I didn't see Joelene anywhere.

  What would she be doing somewhere else in the compound? Or had she left me? Had she gotten so frustrated and angry she had quit? It didn't seem like Joelene, but maybe the past few days had been too much. And Father's punch last night couldn't have helped.

  "What is it?" asked Walter.

  "Nothing," I replied, discouraged.

  "Look it!" he said, pointing at the PartyHaus. "The place you danced!"

  "Yeah. Come on. Let's eat."

  Back at the breakfast table, I told myself Joelene was doing as she had said—working to get me what I wanted. Maybe she was in a secret place sending Nora a message. She would be back soon; she would have good news. I had to be patient.

  Meanwhile, the chef held a large covered dish before us, and then lifted the cover. A steam cloud rose and revealed two long cakes shaped like scantily clad women. I recognized Frix's slut cakes, as Father ate them all the time. The skin was a sweet, rubbery fondant. Inside was a layer of soft cake, around a candy skeleton, which, when fresh, bent at the major joints. The one nearer me was a brunette in bright green shorts, red platforms, and pasties. The other had red hair, a tiny blue skirt, boots, and big, dark nipples. The cook served them.

  Walter clapped his pudgy hands as his was placed before him. "She's beautiful!"

  I stared at the doll's tiny bump of a nose; her full, fuchsia lips, her large, dark-circled eyes, and her two sharp eyebrows and imagined Nora lying on an enormous plate in a sugary, suspended animation. Better yet, I saw the two of us, lying next to each other for a sweetened eternity.

  Just then, I remembered that in Pure H seven was a photoR4.5: the front of a grey woolen jacket was wrapped over a fist, and over the middle knuckle a buttonhole was stretched taught. The image was violent and angry, and I hoped that wasn't what Nora was feeling. Then again, she had surely been coerced to appear with her father on that business show. Maybe she was expressing her frustration.

  "How do you eat her?" asked Walter, turning his head from side to side, as if looking for instructions.

  Father, Xavid, and Chesterfield returned after we'd eaten. Now Father and Xavid's hair was orange and braided into complicated shapes.

  "We had the mother ass of all meetings!" said Father, spreading his arms as if to demonstrate. "The ScrotümKings sang their new hit to start us off. Then Xavid did our hair. And if all that wasn't lard enough, Chesterfield got up and jammed with the Kings." Father laughed an easy and joyful laugh that sounded so real compared to his usual forced guffaws and howls.

  "Heard you enjoyed your slut cake!" Father said to Walter.

  "Oh, I did, indeed!" he beamed, as he knit his hands together and then tried to pry them apart in a wiggly sort of excitement. "First I licked her boots, and then her bottom!"

&n
bsp; "They're good that way! Take some home," said Father, as he presented him with a box. "You know, sometimes I bite off their feet first. Or other times, I start with their hair. I guess it's true what they say—there's no right way to eat a slut!"

  "Thank you so much," said Walter, his face aglow. "We had a very enjoyable morning." He shot me an odd, rather mischievous smile.

  Walter's nannies packed up his magazines, straightened his clothes and hat, and led him to me. Holding out his hand, he said, "It was my pleasure to meet you!" Without moving his lips, he whispered, "We can have a grand adventure in the slubs if you want."

  "Thank you." I said, as I shook his moist hand.

  He and his uncle then left and the second the door closed, Father turned to me. "Fucking disastrous destruction! Your Joelene is our second traitor of the day."

  At first, I thought it a joke, but he wasn't laughing or making one of his stupid faces when he thought himself funny. "She is not!"

  "We caught the bitch in the code workshop trying to send a message to mkg! So we tossed her in the dungeon next to Ken." By the end of his sentence he was screaming as loud as of one of his Ültra bands.

  "Let her go!?" I said. "She's not a traitor!"

  Father closed his eyes for a moment. "Anyway," he began, "here's the story. If I send the freeboot and he kills Nora now, then you're not going to be properly motivated for the product show. So, what we've come up with is that we send him to harm her, then she's still alive, and you're still in check." Father turned to Xavid. "Right?"

  Xavid pushed up his glasses. "We'll just have him break off one of her little toes."

  "Yeah . . . that's good!" said Father. "So, I could send him to—"

  I reared back but when I flung my fist at his face, he grabbed me and threw me to the iron tiles. A pinpoint of black pain burned at the back of my head. As I pushed myself up, I said, "Do not do send that beast!"

  "God, you're weak!" said Father with a laugh. "I barely knocked you."

  "Do not send the freeboot!"

  He glanced at Xavid and rolled his eyes. "You're embarrassing me!" He started to head for the door then stopped. "Oh, and for the show . . . none of your Pure Haggis clothes. Get some color."

  Eleven

  Once they left, I turned right around and raced to the back door. I was going to run to the garage, get in my car, and somehow make it to Nora's this time. Once I opened the door and stepped out, though, I nearly slammed into the orange satin with the gold visor.

  "Out of my way!" I said.

  He didn't reply, but grasped my shoulders and picked me up like a bag of groceries. After placing me back inside, he closed the door.

  "Bastard!" I said, as I watched him through the peek-cam, hoping he'd go, but he just stood staring back through his visor. Turning, I sprinted to the front door, but an identical satin waited there.

  I rushed to my desk and opened Joelene's screens. I turned every knob, but they had been wiped clean. Frantic, I grabbed the remote for the big screen, hoping to find the Soup and Intellectual show or something, but all the channels were blocked. Smacking the controller, I must have hit the history knob as it began playing a recording of Heavy Profit Camp that hadn't been erased.

  Mr. Gonzalez-Matsu complained about RiverGroup again, and there was Nora.

  "Hide," I told her. "Go somewhere safe." Stepping before the screen I leaned forward to kiss her gloved hand, and just before I did, she lifted it, and touched the button. Up close, though, I saw something. Hitting the stop knob, I realized that she was pointing to a capital f that had been scratched into the shiny black surface of the button. The letter wasn't perfect and it looked as though Nora had done it with a needle or pin.

  What did it mean? Father? Farther? Famous? Furious? I could think of a vulgar word, but surely Nora would never use it. Staring at it, I willed myself to understand, but without Joelene's help, I couldn't figure it out.

  The estimator clock said Father wasn't due back for forty-seven minutes, but I had a bad feeling, so I erased the memory and switched off the screen.

  At my desk, I pulled open the refrigerated drawer, took out several Pure H magazines, and began rifling through them, but nothing made sense. I felt a presence. Looking up, I saw Xavid with his head held high, his hands on his hips, as if he were posing. Once he saw that I'd seen him, he smiled, stepped closer, and said, "I crept up on you," as if pleased.

  "What do you want?" I asked, irritated.

  Combing his white-capped hair with a hand, he gazed around my place and said, "We are going to have to learn to work together, because you are also one of the extremely valuable assets here."

  Assuming that was some sort of bizarre compliment, I just asked, "Can you help me with Joelene?"

  He laughed at me. "You're fond of her, aren't you?"

  "Yes."

  "I'm not. There's something strange about her. I have a sense like that. I'm good with people." He pushed up his amber glasses. "Besides, her hair is awful. That color is wrong for her and it's ugly. I've never liked it."

  Her natural curly hair was fine. I said, "I'd like to see her."

  Frowning, he said, "She's gone."

  I hoped he didn't mean dead. "I thought she was at the PartyHaus dungeon."

  He whipped around as if someone was sneaking up on him. His eyes darted left and right behind his amber glasses. Finally, when he seemed satisfied that we were alone, he turned and asked, "What?" as if he had forgotten what we were talking about.

  "Joelene . . . " I said, wondering what was wrong with him, "is she all right?"

  As if it didn't matter, he said, "I suppose."

  "I want to see her."

  He started walking around my apartment, looking over my things. "I don't think so." He stopped before my couch, bent close enough to smell it, and asked, "Do you have any real skills or anything?"

  For an instant, I felt depressed. The truth was I wasn't sure. "What do you want?"

  He then headed to my small kitchen. "I think RiverGroup can make a comeback," he said, admiring the black gold cabinets. "Some don't, but I do. They don't know what I know." Turning, he smiled and asked, "Did I tell you that I'm very fucking smart?"

  "I think you did." I knew I'd heard him say that before.

  "If I can turn it around, there will be profits. Extraordinary profits, because it's one thing to build something, it is quite another to rebuild. That's a particular type of skill. It's not just creating, but destroying, too. Do you know what I mean?"

  I said, "Yes," but didn't and didn't care.

  Narrowing his eyes, he said, "You never answered. Do you have any skills? Are you smart at all?"

  "I am smart," I said, and lamented how little conviction was in my voice.

  "Well," he said, as though disappointed, "when the time comes . . . if it does . . . will you support me?"

  I had no idea what he meant, but said, "Yes, if I can see Joelene."

  "Excellent!" Pushing up his glasses again, he said, "I'll give you one minute."

  "I want more than that!"

  "I don't expect I'll actually need your approval. Your father has all the voting rights, but you never know . . . you might become useful." He stared at me blankly. "At this point, that's all you may have. One minute."

  Outside, while Xavid explained to Gold Visor that we were going to the PartyHaus for business, I watched Father's hairdresser. Obviously, he thought he was more important than he was, and while I had found talking with him demoralizing, Joelene was worth a million humiliations.

  Soon, the three of us, Xavid, the satin, and I started along the path toward the access road. A buzz filled the compound like it had not in years. From a dozen delivery trucks, men hauled crates of carrot wine, food, fuel, and other equipment toward the black building. In the oxygen gardens and all along the access roads, a battalion of gardeners were clearing away weeds, pruning trees, planting flowers, and Fluffing father's prized dandelions.

  Bamboo scaffolding covered half of the P
artyHaus where workers were repainting it, or adding highlights of gold leaf. And as much as I hated the building, had hoped for years that it would collapse, I felt as if its restoration summoned the end of things, like it was the rearming of a bomb.

  When we reached the base of the stairs, I paused and gazed up at the fifty-seven steps, not relishing the climb. After maybe twenty, I had to stop. My legs burned.

  "Back when you danced," said Xavid, as he wiped his brow, "I bet you could have walked up on your hands."

  "I suppose," I replied. Then, as if to show him, I climbed the rest without pause.