I say as serenely as I can manage, ‘Congratulations on your temporary promotion.’ I tap my fingers on the desktop. ‘I’m not sure about reporting to you. Ra specifically told me that I must report directly to him.’
‘We’re on the same side, Heracles.’
‘Are we? Until Ra informs me directly, I shall keep to his original instructions.’
As if in answer, there is a click on the screen informing me that I am about to receive a personal inter-mail from Ra. I open it. It confirms what Athene has just told me. To all intents and purposes she is now my boss and I should share all my research with her. I don’t tell her the contents of the personal inter-mail, but I’m aware that she knows. For a moment I wonder if she has sent it herself. Maybe it’s not just Durga and myself who have aspirations to be CEO of Worldwideculture. Athene may be a contender too.
I lean forward and look her straight in the eye. ‘How loyal are you to Ra?’
She doesn’t blink. ‘The real point is how loyal are you, Heracles?’
‘I’m totally loyal,’ I answer. ‘You have failed to answer my question.’
‘Because it doesn’t need answering. OK, here is your answer: I have always given Ra one hundred percent of my time and effort and intend to do so in the future.’
‘Even though he fired you and appointed me.’
‘That’s not what happened. Your appointment was my idea.’
‘You really expect me to believe that?’
‘Believe what you like. It’s the truth.’
I sit back, cross my arms and think about what she said. I already know that Ra is a paraplegic and that’s he’s had a heart attack. Athene would have been aware of his poor health and my appointment could have been part of her plan for the future.
If indeed my being given this position was her idea, her intention must have been to groom me to be her number two when Ra stepped down because of ill health. She becomes CEO over my dead body, I think, but I’ll play along for now.
She curls up in the shaper, waiting for me to react.
It won’t hurt to show her my latest hacking effort, the conference call between three sister-wives of Shiva. I switch on the recording and watch her, carefully judging her reaction to Durga’s schemes. Her first response is to sit up straight and open her eyes wide. ‘You’re able to eavesdrop on personal intercom-fone calls? That’s really cool.’
‘Child’s play,’ I yawn, stretching languidly, though it’s a feat I’m proud to have achieved.
‘You’ll have to teach me a few tricks.’
I don’t think so. I need to keep my expertise to myself or I’ll be redundant. ‘Don’t you think you should stop admiring my compu skills and listen to what they’re saying?’
She shrugs. ‘I’ve heard it all before. They’re always plotting. Attack C55, reinstate Kali, compensate Jaga by finding a token post for her, put Sati in solitary…. Am I right?’
I could switch it off now, but I want her to hear it to the end, to realise that I really have discovered something new and that Durga’s ambitions are far from innocuous. I’m not disappointed. The end of the conference call provokes a frown on Athene’s usually smooth forehead. She asks me to play the last few exchanges again and I note her complete concentration as she listens and watches the replay.
As it finishes, she gives a short laugh. ‘Over-confident bitch,’ she says. ‘She’s heading for a fall.’
She rises elegantly to her feet and offers me her hand. ‘Good job, Heracles,’ she says, ‘you’ve done well,’ and she glides to the door as elegantly as an old-time film star.
Over-confident bitch yourself, I think as she closes the door neatly behind her. You’re the one heading for a fall.
Not more than a couple of days after this, I find what I’m looking for. The portal to Oasis. Up it comes and I maximise the screen to see the full image.
It’s quite a place: green parks, wide avenues lined with mansions, immaculate gardens bursting with exotic flowers and public buildings that seem to be made entirely of glass. A city-paradise. A few people are walking about, but no cars, no transport of any kind as far as I can make out.
From what I’ve read, Oasis is the best of the satellites, the flagship, just as C99 is the flagship compound for mutant humanoids. Only completes live on these specially constructed satellites. There are about fifty to date, including Hos-sat and Pris-sat, but more can be built as needed. Each satellite houses human beings of the same nationality or at least those who speak the same language. There are several for English speakers, Oasis one of them.
The camera focuses on a group of small humans playing in the park and there under a tree sits a female with a pram. Children. So, the completes are still able to give birth. We are not. Or only rarely. When mutants of my generation die there will be no more of us. Have we been deliberately sterilised as the “final solution” to the mutant problem? If so, is there an antidote? I doubt I can find the answer to that, however much hacking I do. Even this superior machine is unlikely to reveal secrets of that nature. Mutant humanoids are not permitted to know too much.
What I need is a satellite of my own. Forget my previous plan of building new cities here on Earth. A brand new satellite in the sky will be better. The mutant humanoids were left on Earth to stagnate in these compounds while the uncontaminated were whisked off to live in a series of utopias. Bloody discrimination. Just because we have physical mutations doesn’t make us less intelligent or less worthy of enjoying the same luxurious life-style as them. This prejudice has gone on long enough. I haven’t got an army but I do have my wits. What Durga intends to do by force, I will achieve by negotiation.
Thor knocks on my door, a more tentative knock than usual. Even he has come to realise my importance in the hierarchy of Worldwideculture. I haven’t much time for him any more. I’m focused on my future and any spare time I allow myself I spend with Athene, when she’s not visiting Ra in Hos-sat. She’s become more amenable and often suggests we dine together, sometimes in the intimacy of her cube. It’s not a regular dormo-cube. It has a living area as well as a sleeping space. She calls it her aparto-cube and I suppose it is rather like the apartments in American filmograms. Her living-cube is furnished simply with a low table and several shapers, one of them a double, but we always sit in the singles, and I’ve never ventured into the dormo-space. I don’t want to push my luck. I’m learning to control my urges. I’m no longer the impetuous, randy young mutant humanoid I used to be.
Another knock. I stand up, stride across the work-cube and open the door. Thor’s grinning face greets me. ‘Hungry?’ he asks.
Aware that I’ve been neglecting him lately, I sling an arm loosely round his shoulders as we stride out in unison to the dino-cube. He’s a good mate, the one humanoid here I can really trust. Worth keeping him sweet in case I need his assistance.
We collect our food packoids from the bar and choose a table in the corner. I think of the images I’ve just seen of Oasis and can’t help contrasting the lightness of the glass-walled buildings there with the gloominess of this dark prison. The artificial pools of neo-lite here seem cold and harsh in contrast. Depressing.
I glance at Thor who is munching a huge sandwich in his lower mouth. I wonder how far I can trust him. How much should I tell him? Not much, I decide.
‘How do you fancy an adventure?’ I ask him at last.
His face lights up. ‘Oh man, how can you ask such a thing? You know I’m with you whatever you decide to do.’
He tells me he’s bored sitting at the compu all day and that it’s no fun going sharking without me.
‘A lot of the females have left and their replacements are not as hot as the others. There are one or two specials, but they’re out of my league, if you know what I mean.’ He touches me on the arm. ‘But not out of yours. You should come to the disco-cube tonight. It won’t take you long to fix yourself up.’
For a moment I’m tempted, but somehow it doesn’t appeal any more. I’
ve moved on. ‘Can’t, I’m afraid. I’m having dinner with Athene.’ It’s true, but why do I have to boast about it? A bit of the old Heracles swagger coming to the fore, I suppose.
He raises his eyebrows. ‘Wow. You’ve made it then.’
‘Not at all,’ I tell him. ‘Just business.’
‘Oh yeah.’
He doesn’t believe me and part of me – the reckless, arrogant part – is pleased about that.
Athene wanders in, nods at me, goes to the lunch-bar, takes her food packoid and sits down at a separate table.
‘Have to go,’ I say to Thor. ‘Keep an eye on your personal intercom-mail. Read it, delete it and follow the instructions exactly.’
‘Sure, Mr. Bond,’ drawls Thor.
‘Believe you me, James Bond is nothing compared to me,’ I assure him.
He looks after me as I leave, grinning all over his face.
I touch Athene lightly on her shoulder as I pass, but don’t speak to her. We’re playing a cat-and-mouse game at the moment, but who is the cat and who the mouse?
I click on Oasis and see a huge Plaza. It begins to rain a little and all the humans run for shelter. They must be weaklings, not able to put up with a trickle of water. A sudden change. The rain comes down in force, huge sheets of the stuff, splashing over the ground. Brutal. No wonder they scuttle for shelter. They know how swiftly the weather can change. I make a mental note of that: useful information for a prospective space traveller.
My eye falls on a small figure in one of the shelters. I zoom in to take a closer look. There is no doubt about it. It’s Mercury. Kali’s suspicions are justified. Mercury vanished the day the complete in a suit came to talk to us. But why would he take Mercury, a mutant humanoid, to a satellite designed for completes? My first thought is to contact Kali to tell her that Mercury’s safe but change my mind. She’ll want to know where he is and there’s no way I can tell her that. Not yet.
The rain stops and everyone comes out of the shelter. Mercury too. There is something odd about the way he moves. No, I’ve got that wrong. There is nothing odd about the way he moves, no little jumps, skips or jerks. He is walking the same way as everyone else. Either it isn’t Mercury or he has learnt to control his movements. I zoom in again. I’m sure it’s him. What a smart little mutant to learn to walk so that he can mix with the inhabitants of Planet Oasis! Mercury has few mutations. He does have extra large ears but I can’t see them, his hair longer than it used to be. It would be more difficult for me to pass as a complete with my extra eye and three legs.
I think of that word “pass.” I once saw a filmogram in which a lightly coloured female with a black mother decided to “pass” for white in order to get a white husband. It ended in tragedy when she gave birth to a black baby and her husband turned her and the baby out. It seems that Mercury is passing successfully as a complete. Good luck to him.
I zoom out to see where he’s going. He walks under an arch with a sign over it: Oasis University.
He always was a clever little chap. Like me, he’s a wizard on the compu. He must be studying at the uni. He winds his way smoothly through a throng of other students but doesn’t stop to chat to any of them. He always was a loner. How useful it will be for me to have an accomplice on Oasis. Mercury will know how everything works, who’s in charge, the right completes to talk to. We’ve never been close, but he’s a good little man and I’m sure he feels the injustice of only allowing completes on the satellites and will help me to initiate change. If not, why is he there? I must contact him. I’ve tried before, sending out random messages, but he’s never replied. I tap into the university compu system and try out various possible electro-addresses, mercury@unioasis. inc being the most obvious, and send a series of personal intercom-mails asking him to contact me. Should I send them or not? I don’t want to do anything to compromise my proposed mission. We were never friends. I regret not being nicer to him at Headculturedome, but surely he wouldn’t betray me, a fellow mutant humanoid. I make up my mind, click SEND and off it soars into the ether.
It takes me the rest of the afternoon to find the teleport co-ordinates from here to Oasis. At last I have them. Tomorrow, while Athene is visiting Ra on Hos-sat, I intend to make a little trip of my own.
Chapter Eighteen
Games People Play
(according to Heracles)
Dinner with Athene. She’s going to cook for me, she says. I shave, shower, change my clothes and squirt some perfume behind my ears. One advantage of being on C99 is that there is plenty of everything: clothes, toiletries and food. Adjoining the RR are some outlets. I suppose you could call them shops except no money changes hands. We are free to take what we like. There is a bit of a scramble on the day new merchandise arrives and some good-natured squabbling about who saw a favoured item first, but no serious arguments. My latest acquisition, picked out today, is a two-piece blue jog-suit, which I believe accentuates the blue of my central eye. Athene beware. I’m irresistible.
She is waiting for me, dressed in a long white gown. A cover-up job but then she always dresses discreetly. She looks as beautiful and untouchable as ever. Dinner is simple, a selection of sweetmeats arranged with finesse on silver plates. We sit on our separate shapers and eat in silence for a while. I take a mouthful of cold Chablis.
Athene’s cool grey eyes narrow. ‘I see you’ve made contact with your old friend.’
For a moment I think she has discovered my personal intercom-mails to Mercury but as she continues speaking, I realise she’s referring to Thor.
‘He’s a bad influence on you, takes you away from your work.’
‘He’s a good mate, helped me to settle in when I first came.’ I pop another sweetmeat into my mouth and relish its sweet-sour taste.
‘I noticed. Took you clubbing to meet females. Sharking I believe it’s called. Is all that nonsense about to start up again? Is that what your reunion was about?’
‘I had lunch with him today because he asked me. I’ve neglected him lately. I spend all my time working, as well you know.’
‘So?’
‘I’m a loyal humanoid. Once I have a friend I stand by him – or her. I feel I should see him sometimes if only for half an hour.’
Those cool grey eyes never leave my face. ‘That’s all there is to it?’
‘That’s all.’ I can’t resist adding, ‘He did want me to go to the disco-cube tonight but I told him that was impossible, that I had a hot date.’
My eyes don’t leave hers and finally hers are the ones that look away. She gives a little laugh. ‘Is that what you think this is – a hot date?’
‘Not at all. I told him that to get him off my back.’ I pick up another sweetmeat but change my mind and put it down. It’s delicious but I’m not hungry. ‘What makes you think he’s a bad influence? He seems harmless enough to me. A regular guy.’
She smiles. ‘They’re the worst. Still, it’s up to you who you choose as friends.’
‘Yes, it is.’
She stands up suddenly and holds out her hand. ‘Come, I want to show you something.’
I’m not sure if she intends me to take her hand or not. She reaches out and clasps my wrist, pulling me gently along behind her into the adjoining cube. I feel out of place, massive and clumsy, in the prettily decorated dormo-cube with flowered wallpaper and matching curtains around the double-bunku, a four-poster.
‘Lie down,’ she says.
I hesitate, unsure what she intends to do. If this is a seduction it’s a strange one.
‘On your back. That’s right. Now – put your arms above your head and spread your legs wide.’
I grin and sit up.
‘I said lie down. Do as I say.’
She takes a piece of silk and ties first one wrist, then the other, to the posts at the top corners of the bunku and binds my two outer ankles to the posts at the bottom. My middle ankle she ties to a horizontal pole in the middle. I allow her to do this without question.
Wha
t kind of sex game is this?
I think of the bondage porno sites that Jason and I used to giggle over as teenagers. We would jerk off together and see who could hold out the longest. The difference between those filmograms and this real life episode is that I am fully clothed and so is Athene. She tests the knots, making sure they are secure and that I cannot escape, presses a button and the top half of the bunku rises up to support my back, so that I’m in a sitting position.
‘Is this some sort of sex game?’ I ask.
She gives me a disdainful look. ‘If you can’t keep your mouth shut I shall have to gag you,’ she says.
She turns to leave and it crosses my mind that she intends to leave me here, tied to her bunku, while she teleports herself to Hos-sat to see Ra or to somewhere more exotic. I wriggle a bit, but she’s done a thorough job. The bonds stay in place.
She is back almost immediately without her robe. She seems to be wearing a tight-fitting leotard that covers not only her torso but also her legs and arms. It takes me a moment to realise that this is no leotard or body stocking. She is naked. Her body and limbs are covered with what I take to be tattoos. Whenever I’ve imagined her naked (quite often) she has been marble white all over, like a classical statue, but in reality only her face, neck and hands are white. Every other centimetre of her skin gleams with opaque, rich colours. That must be the reason she wears long dresses with a neckline almost up to her chin and long sleeves covering her wrists – to keep secret her richly decorated body. Is this body art the way she earns her creative points for Worldwideculture targets?
She stands at the foot of the bed, her back to me and, very slowly, revolves to face me. A spotlight directly above her increases in intensity to illuminate the intricate patterns that make up her body art: an exotic jungle of trees, plants, birds and animals. Incredible. A creative wonder.
As mystical music kicks in, Athene begins to move. Her lithe body twists and turns, flexibly, gracefully, her arms and legs bending and stretching in time to the music.
Ascension Page 18