Too, Too Solid Flesh

by Nick O'Donohoe

  Billy returned with two frail teacups. “Have a care with these. They’re bone china. You’ll like the tea.” He scurried about, not sitting. “You do drink, don’t you? I’ve never known an andr—one of you before.”

  Horatio thought he meant ‘drink alcohol,’ then understood. “I eat and drink, yes. Please sit down.”

  Billy shook a finger, but smiled and spoiled the stern effect. “You relax. I’ll sit in a minute.”

  Back from the kitchen, he brought tiny cakes cut into triangles. “Butter shortbread. I don’t suppose you’ve—”

  “Butter shortbread.” Horatio remembered it from rare treats when he was a boy, sneaking extra slices of the rich yellow biscuits that were almost cakes, spoiling his dinner. “Thank you so much.”

  “Oh, stop.” Billy thumped about the room looking for something else, hovered, gave up, and sat down. “Isn’t this lovely? There are cucumber sandwiches for later, too.”

  Horatio felt his muscles relaxing, the air coming out of him. He hadn’t known how tense playing an android made him. “It’s wonderful, Billy. And you do this every afternoon when you come home?”

  “Heavens, no.” He patted his stomach, which pressed out the front of the tunic. Once in a while, I buy baklava or cheesecake and eat it by myself,” he said anxiously.

  “Anyone would.” Horatio looked at the palm, the wandering Jew, the ferns. “Those are in pots. No support pods.”

  “If you love something, you should care for it.”

  Horatio sipped and munched happily. “Why don’t men like you go into politics?”

  “Don’t even think it. Half the time I don’t listen to what they say: polynuclear chess and tactical pre-engagement strategies and hostility-free order maintenance and so forth. And that’s just our side.” He laughed. “I don’t understand Lefties at all. More tea?”

  “Thanks. What’s your job?”

  “Just information moving. I Access. I answer. I send and receive.” He sighed loudly. “If it weren’t for my hobbies, I’d feel I had a wasted life.”

  “What are your hobbies?”

  “Plants, of course. And furniture shopping for this place; I watch for bargains. And then there’s ballet” He said it firmly, almost defensively.

  “You dance?” The idea was ridiculous.

  “Well, no, not—I belong to a club. We pay terribly high dues; I scrape to get by. We meet weekly in a room leased from the Globe Hamlet Troupe. That’s why so many of us show up at your performances. Not that we wouldn’t anyway. They’re very good,” he added hastily.

  “Thank you. Why at the Globe?”

  “They give us Access time. We use it for simulas.”

  “Simulas? You mean you make old actors do ballet?”

  “Good lord, no. I mean, Sir Arthur Koestner doing ballet. Can you imagine?” He laughed lightly. “No. We’ve recreated Bolshoi performances, Royal Ballet, and American ballet companies for their last eighty years. We have simulas of Margot Fonteyn, Rudolf Nureyev, Aleyna Ruskov, Andrew Hold—all the great ones. And each week we feed an old choreography into a Simula National system bank, hold auditions, and see a performance. It’s wonderful, really.”

  “I can imagine.” He was almost able to: a group of hungry enthusiasts patching bits of the past into the last ballet troupe on earth. “Who directs?”

  “Nominally we take turns; most of the time, Eric Valentin. You’ve seen him in the audience—a tall, thin, angry-looking bald man?”

  “He wears as much black as Hamlet does.” Horatio remembered Eric’s request for more stabbings, and the way Eric treated the blonde woman.

  Billy frowned. “Eric likes dark things. He’s very violent and a bit of a bully. The way he treats poor Mary—”

  “The blonde woman? Sort of thin?”

  “‘Sort of?” He grabbed Horatio’s wrist. Horatio was startled at Billy’s intensity. “She’s terrified that she’s overweight. She’s punishing her body. I knew a woman once who was like that.”

  “And?”

  “And she quit eating. Completely. She lost ten pounds, then twenty. She wore tight tunics so that we could see her ribs, and she spent a lot of time asking Access for her reflection and touching her cheekbones. Do you know what she was doing?” Billy caught himself. “That’s right; you couldn’t guess. She’d bought a hospital organ-tank support-pod on the black market. It sustains only the organs in the host body. And she went to an alley surgeon and had it implanted to plug her esophagus.” He stopped.

  Horatio said softly, “Did she die?”

  Billy sighed. “When I found out, I threatened to tell the police if she didn’t remove the pod and start eating again. I was bluffing—I couldn’t have gone to the police, because of—some things I own, but she didn’t know that. She’s still angry with me.”

  “You did what’s good for her.”

  Billy thumped the arm of his chair. “She didn’t want what’s good for her, and Mary’s the same way. Do you see the way she hangs on to Eric? Do you know what he dreams of doing to her, or what he does? I’m sorry. Eric Valentin is an evil, evil man, and I—I’m already fond of Mary.”

  “I see.”

  “Not in a sexual way, of course.”

  “Of course.” Horatio kept his voice neutral.

  Billy smiled. “Perhaps we could talk of more pleasant things.”

  For a while they did: about the new bird life in New York City (Billy was also a bird watcher), about the comfortable, completed feel of deadwood over live, and how Hamlet could add more music to his productions. Finally, Billy set down his cup and excused himself, then came back looking nervous again. “Do you need to return yet?”

  “Not until an hour before performance.” Horatio was hoping unashamedly for a home-cooked dinner.

  Billy was suddenly shy and very eager. With an effort, he looked directly into Horatio’s eyes. “Something I would very, very much like if you would do.”

  “What’s that?” Horatio was dubious.

  “It’s embarrassing.” He looked aside again. “I look silly. It’s complicated, really.” He gestured at the chair arms. “These are part of it.”

  He rose quickly and opened a sideboard drawer, producing five massive deadleather straps. “So are these.” Billy opened a cupboard, exposing a chip player. “So is this.” He came back, hands cupped as though he were holding a butterfly. “And finally, these.”

  He held something out to Horatio, who took it carefully. It was the usual clear plastic holder with a read-only chip inside, the pins barely breaking the surface. On the outside was printed: “Petrouchka.”

  Horatio looked up. “The musical piece?”

  “No. I mean, yes. But most people only have a suite from the ballet. This is the whole ballet.” Billy still had something in his hand, and he was half drawing it back.

  “What else are you holding?”

  Billy unfolded his hand, palm tilted slightly toward Horatio. A pink chip in a clear plastic case rested on it.

  Horatio knew, from his morning in the Cloisters, exactly what it was. His chest tightened, and he tried not to shrink against his chair.

  Billy didn’t notice. “It’s a biochip. Commercial ones load temporary knowledge. You don’t use them?”

  Horatio shook his head violently.

  “You mean you learned your lines the old-fashioned way? I never would have guessed.” He went on in a wistful rush, “I knew a piano player once, this is quite a few years ago of course, who would only memorize music that way. She never used a chip. She also insisted on a deadwood piano… Some artists called them ‘cheater’s chips,’ you know.”

  “I didn’t know.” Horatio wanted it clear that he knew nothing about chips.

  “Well, there aren’t any performers now.” Billy closed his palm around the chip case. “But this chip is special.” Billy held it up reverently. “It’s the complete choreography for Stravinsky’s Petrouchka, from the view of Nijinsky’s role—Petrouchka. You know the story?”
/>   “Something about a puppet.” A puppet who came to life and was killed, he continued to himself. Horatio glanced toward the door nervously.

  “A magical puppet. He dances stiffly, but he’s alive. And he falls in love and fights and dies. It’s lovely to see, and the music makes it a wonderful ballet—I’d better tell you, there’s one more thing involved in what I want—”

  “Tell me.”

  Billy took a deep breath. “I can show you.” He leaned forward and brushed his long hair, the hair Horatio had assumed was to comb over a bald spot, aside. “Here.”

  Behind Billy’s right ear was a small slit with a plastic retaining rim. It had a clear plastic lid over it.

  Horatio said in relief, “You want me to load it for you?” He reached for it.

  Billy drew back. “No, no.” He pointed to the chair. “First I have to be strapped down. Then I take something—I forgot to mention that, didn’t I? I was a little embarrassed—then you load the chip, and then you turn on the music.”

  “Oh.”

  Billy, blushing, glanced down at his legs. “I dance it, you see.”

  “Oh.” Horatio looked at Billy’s pudgy body and poorly defined legs.

  “There are no chips like it on the market; it actually makes you dance the ballet. Since I’d hurt myself badly by actually dancing it, I tie my body down.”

  He stared at Horatio earnestly. “Will you please, please help me? I can’t do it myself; I mustn’t be able to get free and start dancing. You’d have to stay here a little longer, but if you knew what it meant—” He trailed off.

  Horatio thought of how easily Paulette ordered him around and how quickly some of the theater audience simply demanded things. “I’d be happy to. It’s the least I can do after this lovely afternoon.” Horatio carefully took the biochip from Billy. “Blue end in, right?”

  “No, no. Out. Not yet, please. Oh, this is just wonderful.” He ran to the bathroom and came back with a small nasal spray and a cottonchief. “I do use live fiber for my nose; it’s so sensitive” He tilted his head back, sprayed twice. “Oh. Oh, my, that’s strong.”

  He returned the spray to the bathroom and scurried to the chair. “Now, quickly.”

  Horatio leaped for the straps and began with the left arm. “Like this?”

  “Tighter. I’d rip myself apart if I came loose. Hurry.” Already his fingers waved idly, and his voice slurred.

  “I thought you needed control when you danced.”

  “For real dancers.” He was barely understandable. “The legs. Do the legs, or I’ll break something.”

  Horatio waved the final strap. “What’s this for?”

  “Neck.” He barely got it out. “Hurry.”

  Horatio hurried. At the last minute, he took the scarf from on top of the sideboard and padded the neck strap. Billy’s sigh told him it was a wise decision.

  Horatio slid the music chip into its slot but didn’t start it. He held the biochip in front of Billy. “I’m going to load it now.”

  “Yes.” It barely came out. “Yes…”

  He felt along Billy’s scalp, gauging the slot by feel as much as by sight. He pulled the lid off it as gently as possible, then, holding the biochip by the edges, slid it delicately, carefully into Billy’s head. He could imagine it passing through the skull, into brain tissue. It moved on two tiny tracks, and its upper end snapped in place. The blue line replaced the slit lid.

  Billy made no noise at all until Horatio punched up the music. Full, realistic sound moved in and around them, not concert hall acoustics, but the feel of an orchestra playing from a stage pit. Billy sat. Horatio watched, saddened; the biochip must be in wrong. Billy didn’t move through the opening or through the flute solo that went with the dance of the puppeteer / charlatan.

  Petrouchka’s theme, two woodwinds in two keys, played a fanfare. Billy’s eyes snapped open.

  He was stiff-faced, but younger, and completely indifferent to the straps. Billy’s arms and fingers worked mechanically, and Horatio knew that the puppet Petrouchka had come to life.

  Billy’s feet moved first, the heels lifting off the floor. Horatio hadn’t even noticed that Billy was barefoot; his shoes lay behind the chair, in third position.

  The feet, on toe, raised the front of the chair. Billy’s head, smiling rigidly, snapped from side to side. The neck strap kept it from going too far either way. Horatio watched. He had always heard Petrouchka as slightly exotic orchestral music. Now it was a background for movement, a set of clues in code for body motions.

  Billy grunted and stretched. For a fraction of a second the oak chair lifted off the floor, then dropped back. Horatio walked out of the room.

  The bathroom was the apartment’s only bioroom. The tub was rock, the floor moss. A cascade ran into a natural basin, around which were a few ferns. On the rock tub were a bamboo water dipper and a Japanese tea set.

  Horatio quickly found the medicine chest, spring operated from a fault in the tub-rock. The shelves were roughhewn; the cologne and shaving gel tubes seemed too geometric, too constrained. Horatio ignored them and pulled out a small bottle with a dropper for loading sprays.

  He pressed its label. “Habla Espanol?” the label said faintly. “Sprechen sie Deutsch? Do you speak English?”

  He leaned down quickly and answered, “English.”

  The bottle said promptly, “This is Bi-Mate G, a chemical matrix /dematrix which lessens conscious control of the mind and increases suggestibility. It is available only by permit, for laboratory and psychiatric use only. Misuse on oneself is a felony under Substance Abuse statutes. Misuse on another person is a federal offense covered under the Chemical Kidnapping Statute, with all actions suggested to the victim to be considered as crimes of violence against said victim by the inductee.

  “Do not take alcoholic beverages or narcotics while using this product. Do not operate heavy machinery or large animals. Exercise caution when loading biochips during use.

  “CAUTION: THIS PRODUCT CONTAINS A DEMATRIX. Excessive or prolonged use leads to memory loss, loss of motor control, and system failure. In case of an overdose or side effects, Access to a Poison Data Base or, in house, Access the Globe BiochemTek section, whose property this is.

  “Keep out of the reach of children.”

  Horatio put it back quietly. He went back to the hall and stared at a ficture as it moved.

  Paulette, affecting poverty, owned still posters, probably originals. More fashionable people, laid in wall-organics: bloom boards, ant-war ant farms, anemone beds. Billy had an old digital fiction picture, with multiple settings and looped action scenes.

  Horatio watched as Ulysses’s men bound him, the sirens (greek-vase imitations, not erotica) sang, and Ulysses wept and struggled. Behind him he heard Stravinsky’s music, Billy’s grunting, and the chair’s intermittent thud and creak.

  * * * * *

  Late in the afternoon, Billy opened his eyes. His face was sleek with sweat. “Oh, my. Oh. That was…” He focused on Horatio. “You could have turned on a light.”

  “I didn’t want to disturb you.” He stood up and went to Billy. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, fine. How long has it been so dark?”

  “Not long.”

  Billy looked embarrassed. “Were you here the whole time? Did you watch me?”

  “I left the room pretty early. Should I have stayed?”

  “Oh, no.” Even his breathing sounded relaxed. He smiled weakly. “Imagine watching my fat body, fighting to be Nijinsky against these—”

  “Let me loosen those.” He undid the straps. Billy slumped. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  Billy fumbled with unsteady fingers. “Just a moment.” The biochip slid out. He put it back in its case reverently. “I’ll be sore tomorrow. My back is sore now” He lifted his head. “It’s worth it. Thank you.”

  “Can I help you anywhere now?”

  “My bed.”

  His bed was livecotton with a thick qui
lt. He dropped easily, limply onto it. Horatio tucked the quilt around him. “I wonder what your brain waves would look like just now?”

  Billy mumbled, “Not like much, I imagine. The chip alters them from the normal pattern.”

  Which might disrupt a security scan, Horatio thought. He asked, “Where did you get it?’”

  Billy said innocently, “It’s so funny you should ask that. I got it in the very theater you perform in.”

  “No. Really?” Horatio pulled the covers higher around Billy, then sponged at Billy’s forehead.

  “It’s true. Eric—the man I spoke of—said after a simula ballet that if I wanted, he’d show me what it felt like to dance.” Billy reached down and shifted his right leg. “I don’t trust Eric, but I couldn’t resist.”

  “And you took the chip home then?”

  “I tried it in the labs first, supervised.”

  “This was late at night?”

  “Yes. So that no one would know.” Billy looked embarrassed again. “This chip is illegal. It was kind of Eric to offer it. Please don’t tell anyone at the theater.”

  “Not a human soul.” Horatio promised. “Do you need me to stay now?”

  “Believe me, I’m all right. Can you make your own way back to the theater? I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”

  “No trouble.”

  Billy was asleep, sprawled on his stomach and breathing lightly, before Horatio left the room.

  On the way out, Horatio reset the Petrouchka chip, starting it on low volume. He glanced back toward the bedroom. “Pleasant dreams.” He tiptoed out, conscious of how clumsy he was on his toes.

  10

  Horatio stood in an Access-created cylinder of light and noise, watching Thibodeaux’s chair sidle up out of the distance. Thibodeaux wore a glare-white suit that hid his body against the background, and he didn’t smile.

  Thibodeaux’s mouth shifted rigidly twice before he spoke. “You got a report?”

  “If this is secure.”

  “Guaranteed. Don’t waste my time.”

  “You want the short version?”

  “Yes, dammit.” Thibodeaux jerked his head to the right. Horatio guessed that it was a pain spasm.