Why’s everyone so glum?
Two arbeitors arrived, clinging to the spiderweb of cables overhead and lowered trays of candy-colored daiquiris for the lulus from admirers at other tables, many more than they could drink. They passed the glasses around to their friends, after playing the sentiments attached to them.
“’Lo, lulu! I’m a love-starved steve,” said a glass. “How ’bout we shimmy a little in my room?”
That’s rather unimaginative, said Mariola. But then, what can you expect from a steve?
“Hi there,” said another glass, “I think you’re the toots!”
“I know some Twen Cen dances too,” said another. “How’d you like to do the horizontal boogie with me?”
Alice said, Hey, waiter, where’s our dinner? We’re starved.
“Yeah!” the others shouted at the arbeitor above their heads. But they were drowned out by the clapping and foot-stomping coming from neighboring tables. The lulus’ fans wanted an encore.
Abbie and Mariola rose at last. Come on, folks, Mariola said. We’ll teach you to shimmy. They led an exodus to the dance floor shouting, “Free shimmy lessons!” The jennys followed them, as well as Sofi, Heidi, Mack, and most of their gang.
Mary went too, but before she did, she poured Fred a glass of ice water and shouted, “You’re supposed to stay hydrated!” When she left, he sniffed the water—Chicago Waterworks tap water. He set the glass aside and ordered more ginger ale.
Their table was abandoned except for the joan and jerome, two russes, and the three jerrys. With so many from nearby tables gone to the dance floor, it was suddenly possible to carry on a voice conversation, but Fred was content to sit and watch. Alice and Peter snagged a couple of the untouched daiquiris.
“I think I love you,” said one of the glasses.
“My name’s Johnny Case,” said the other. “Ask around about me, then give me a call. You’ll be glad you did.”
Fred said to Alice, “You should go out there and shimmy too.”
Alice snorted, “Joans don’t shimmy.”
“Sure they do. It looks like fun.”
Peter said, “Joans don’t do fun.” Then, to be fair, he added, “I guess neither do jeromes.”
Alice patted Fred’s hand. “Thank you, Fred, but I’d rather sit here quietly with you and watch them. My, aren’t they gorgeous?”
Abbie and Mariola had marshaled enough dancers to form two lines across the dance floor, and twice as many to watch. They walked them through the steps. Michelles, jennys, kellys, isabellas, laras, ursulas, helenas, ruths, dorises, and evangelines. All of them gorgeous. But none so physically stunning as the lulus. From their goddesslike toes and chiseled knees; their frank round asses and innocent bellies; to their poke-you-in-the-eye breasts; long, sculpted throats; and slightly too large noses, lulus were the very pulse of desire. And the most appealing thing about them was their unquenchable thirst for merriment. No matter what they were doing, from waiting for a train to screwing your lights out, for them, everything was too much fun.
Which made Fred think of the hinky Inspector Costa. No matter how much she may have resembled a lulu physically, she was no fun at all.
Fred closed his eyes and shook his head. Was he still obsessing? What was wrong with him? When he opened his eyes again, Reilly was studying him.
The two russes calmly contemplated each other for several moments until Alice said, “Stop that, you two! Why do you do that, that russ mind meld? It gives me the creeps.”
“I’ve noticed russes doing more of it lately,” said Peter. “I hear it’s related to the clone fatigue.”
Wes, miraculously, had overheard this and tore himself from the tournament long enough to declare, “That’s a racist statement, Peter. There’s no such thing as clone fatigue. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“It was a joke,” Peter protested, but Wes’s attention had already flown.
“What’s a racist statement?” said a new voice. Fred looked up and saw Shelley approaching the table.
Upon seeing his wife, Reilly crowed, “Petey thinks I got the clone fatigue, dear.”
“Lucky you,” Shelley said. “All I have is plain old body fatigue.” She sat on Reilly’s lap, only to rise again. “What is that?” she said, touching the exoassist brace under his jumpsuit. “And that smell?”
Alice said, “Our russes ran into some bad foo-foo today, but nobody wants to tell us about it.”
“Oh, Reilly,” Shelley said and sat in the chair next to him.
“It’s nothing, really,” Reilly said, which caused Fred to snort.
Shelley peered at Fred, and he fell instantly silent under the spell of her all-consuming scrutiny. Now, that was sexy, Fred thought. But Shelley did seem fatigued. Her shoulders drooped. Her smile sagged. What with her West Coast commute and all, she worked twelve-hour days. Ah, the price of success. He would have liked to discuss her job with her, but of course the confidentiality oath prohibited it. The only reason the gang knew where and for whom she worked in the first place was because her client broadcasted her life—or rather her drawn-out deaths—on her own Evernet channel.
Shelley took one of her husband’s big hands in hers, brought it to her nose to sniff, and kissed it.
Peter slurped the last of a daiquiri and started another. “Ah-hem,” he said. “The presence of a certain Fred Londenstane is requested on the dance floor. Paging Fred Londenstane.”
Alice squeezed Fred’s arm. “To be desired is Fortune’s blessing.”
Fred rose and threaded his way to where Mary was waiting for him. The dance floor was a maelstrom. Couples and triads progressed counterclockwise around the periphery in a variety of steps: the fox-trot, merletz, and waltz. Because each set of partners danced to the music of its own private orchestra, there were many collisions. Closer to the center of the floor were sets of cha-cha, zoom, and rhumba. Through all of this wove a conga line, led by the lulus. Another artifact of their History of Dance course.
Mary wanted to waltz. Because Fred couldn’t hear the music she chose, she hummed it to him, and he obligingly ONE-two-three, ONE-two-threed through the traffic. He did more steering than dancing, but it felt good holding Mary. He wondered what the world would be like if everyone danced to the same music for once.
Mary, meanwhile, was decorating a dance-floor-sized, many-tiered cake in her imagination, and she and Fred were waltzing on the topmost tier.
2.19
Justine and Victor Vole were explaining to Samson how Moseby’s Leap worked, but Samson wasn’t getting it. A young man, a hollyholo character, leaned over a distant parapet on the other side of the stadium.
“That’s a character named Moseby,” Samson said, “and he’s going to jump?”
“No, no, Myr Kodiak,” Justine said. “That’s Jason. There are no more Mosebys left anymore. The Moseby line is dead. There’s a lot of Jasons, though, and they’re having a rough time of it. This one may or may not jump today. It all depends. And there will be a lot of viewers tuned in to see which way it goes.” The topic of suicidal simulacra seemed to have loosened the old woman’s shy tongue.
“It all depends on what?” Samson said.
“On life,” Justine said, stroking her gray and white cat. “On love, forgiveness, redemption.”
Samson saw the patient look in Victor’s face. Apparently, he didn’t share his wife’s enthusiasm for the novellas. “So, what’s he doing now,” Samson said, “besides blubbering like a fool?”
“Yes, I suppose Jason tends to be emotional,” said Justine. “What he’s doing is waiting for his lady love, Alison, to arrive and talk him down.”
“What he’s doing now,” Victor added with a wink, “is waiting for audience numbers to threshold.”
Justine looked at her husband with pity. Two of the counterfeit children behind them began to squabble over a doll, and Justine leaned over her seatback to straighten them out.
Samson was glad he’d come here in secret, giving no
one the chance to talk him down. He wondered if the worldwide audience for this novella foolishness would exceed that of his own more genuine swan song, and he wondered if this was Hubert’s idea of a joke—to bring him somewhere where sims deleted themselves, or if Hubert could even tell the difference.
“Mama,” said one of the little boys, “I have to pee pee.” He held his crotch and bounced in his seat.
“Who else has to go?” Justine said.
All their little hands shot up. “And I’m hungry,” said a little girl.
“Me too!” chorused the others.
“Ah, the bliss of family life,” Victor said to Samson and winked again.
He winks a lot, Samson thought. Or maybe it’s a nervous tic.
Justine sighed and lifted the cat off her lap. “Here,” she said, reaching around Samson to hand Victor the leash. She excused herself, unlatched her and the children’s seats, and retracted them to the loading gallery, leaving the men and cat alone, suspended over Soldier Field.
“Easy, Murphy,” Victor said. The gray and white cat was standing in his lap, its claws sunk into the fabric of his clothes. Victor tried to soothe the cat, but it climbed the cushion of his seat and perched itself on his seatback behind his head.
Murphy seemed oblivious to the sheer drop to the stadium floor. He sat on the seatback and meowed aggressively at Samson, regarding him with yellow eyes. The cat had a scrappy look to it, like an alley cat, and a vaguely Siamese-shaped face.
“Quiet, Murphy,” Victor said gently. “He doesn’t like strangers, our puss. He doesn’t like me, for that matter; only Justine. The kids he doesn’t even see.”
“Still, he must be a comfort to have,” Samson said. What Samson wanted to say was the cat was real at least, unlike the children. Samson still possessed a trace of social tact, but his curiosity was strong, and today of all days allowed no time for subtlety, so he said, “Aren’t your children those—I don’t know the brand name—”
“Fracta Kids,” Victor said.
“Yes, Fracta Kids. You buy a newborn and raise it like it’s real. Feed it, burp it, tell it bedtime stories. Send it to school. Loan it money. It grows up eventually and leaves home, sends you Christmas cards, etc., etc.”
“That about sums it up, yes,” said Victor. “Only these are orphans. We scavenged them out of recycle bins. My dear Justine has a heart as large as this arena, Myr Kodiak.”
At Moseby’s Leap, a female hollyholo joined the man at the railing.
“Uh-oh,” Victor said, “Alison’s here. Justine, dear, can you hear me? Yes, do hurry or you’ll miss it.”
Hubert spoke to Samson, None of the Voles’ Fracta Kids are sentient, Sam. Myren Vole’s subem isn’t powerful enough to support the apps. They have only basal logarithms: hungry, happy, sad, sleepy, and the like. They don’t grow or develop.
How ghastly, thought Samson. All the hassles of child rearing and none of the payoff. Even he, father of an unconceived son and genetically unrelated daughter, had enjoyed more parental bliss than that.
Justine returned. Her seat bumped Samson’s and latched to it. She said she had put the children down for the night, which Samson took to mean she had switched them off. Murphy, the cat, quit its howling and climbed over Samson’s seatback to Justine’s lap.
It was already twilight in the huge space. Only the rim of the stadium opposite them was still in sunlight. Elsewhere it lay in shadow. There were no lights except for the exit chutes, the biolume railing and walls, and the scape surrounding Moseby’s Leap.
“What did I miss?” Justine said.
“Nothing, my love,” said Victor.
“Bring them in closer, please.”
The parapet, with its hollyholo characters, zoomed toward them until it appeared suspended directly in front of Samson. Now he could see and hear the characters clearly. Jason, who straddled the railing, one leg dangling over the abyss, flung angry, tear-soaked words at Alison.
“But Cindy said the castle belonged to Carole and Candy!” he shouted.
“Cindy lied to you,” Alison protested. “It doesn’t belong to them or to Teddy, Patrice, or Oliver either. It doesn’t belong to anyone we know. That’s what I’m trying to tell you!”
“But why would she lie? And what about the diamonds? Surely, you’re not trying to tell me that Frank would—”
“Feck Frank. Forget about him. It was Karman’s scheme, or his sister Kameron’s—no one knows for sure. The only thing we know is that someone stole the deposit and blamed Roddy who now faces revocation of his parole, but you know he won’t testify because of what Charles said.” Alison took two cautious steps closer to Jason, who balanced precariously on the railing.
“Charles? Are you sure it was Charles?” Jason gasped for air like a drowning man. But when Alison took another step closer, he shouted, “Stay back!” and swung his other leg over the rail. “I’ll jump! Can’t you see I’m serious?”
“All right, Jason. Relax. Look, I’m backing away.” But she only pretended to backstep.
Jason began to weep again. “Charles,” he said between sobs. “Charles—my cad, my curse, my dad, my cure, my love.”
Next to Samson, Justine leaned forward in her seat and said, “Oooh!”
“Jason!” Alison gasped. “Did you just say that Charles is your dad—your father? And he’s your lover too?”
Jason turned a face of self-loathing to Alison and let go of the rail, but Alison snatched the collar of his jacket just in time and was nearly pulled over by his weight. She was doubled over the rail, unable to lift him, unwilling to let go.
“You fool!” she gasped. “Don’t you know who I am? Don’t you know what I sacrificed for you?”
The quality of the scape changed then, and there seemed to be two Jasons and two Alisons struggling within the same frame. “Interactive audience divergence,” Victor explained to Samson. “I fixed it so Justine can watch all the branchings instead of just one.”
Two Jasons sobbed, and two Alisons strained against his weight. Then one Jason cried out, “Don’t you get it? Charles is my father, but he’s not my lover. He’s my victim. I raped him.” And with that confession, he shrugged himself out of his jacket and hurtled head first, down, down toward the field below, where now, inexplicably, there was a track meet in progress. The field was awash in light, and the lower stands were jammed with spectator placeholders. The Alison still clutching his jacket fell backward from the rail, leaving the other pair of lovers struggling there.
“Oh!” said Justine.
Samson snuck a peak at Justine. Her hand moved delicately over her breast, and he wondered if she perhaps wore a simsock under her clothes in order to enjoy the feely track of this novella. The first Jason, meanwhile, was taking an inordinate amount of time to hit the ground. He was tumbling in an overly artistic slow-motion flashback summary of his life. Key scenes and whole episodes of his past streamed off him like ribbons. Interested viewers could prolong this high dive for weeks as they replayed the whole sorry story tree of his life. Samson looked away and remembered why he never watched this crap. Had he come all this way to waste his final hour like this?
Jason hit bottom at last, but instead of splattering like a water balloon, he landed on a pillowy pole vault mat. Bruised but unbroken, he would live to cheat another day.
“For crying out loud,” Samson said. He looked at Justine. She was happy. He looked at Victor, who winked at him.
Meanwhile, Jason and Alison No. 2 lost their balance and fell together from the railing. They also fell in slow-motion, but instead of reviewing their past, they were relishing the present. They had somehow managed to undress and couple in midair and were frantically banging away at each other. They drifted down past a mural of spectator faces with O-shaped mouths, down toward the fifty-yard line (for the sport in this thread was American rules football). Samson had no doubt but that the lovers would climax simultaneously at the moment of their impact.
A musical score that Samso
n had not noticed till now rose in an emotional crescendo as the grunting, straining couple hit. At least they did burst open in a satisfying way. Justine shuddered. Samson tried not to notice. Justine wiped tears from her eyes. “That was so sad,” she said. In her lap, Murphy was purring.
Victor reached across Samson to squeeze Justine’s hand. “Life is full of tragedy,” he crooned.
The Moseby’s Leap parapet, with its bereft Alison, receded back to its real spot, and the scape lights faded out.
“A glass of wine to wish our novella friends bon chance?” said Victor.
Samson didn’t want more alcohol. He wanted to be clearheaded. But then he thought that a high blood alcohol content might make a hotter fire, and he said, “Sure, I’ll join you, but isn’t there something a little stronger than wine?”
“Whiskey!” replied Victor. “A man with a taste for life!” He produced a flask from an inner pocket and unstoppered it. He wiped the spout with his sleeve and passed it to Samson. “Please excuse the lack of ice.”
WITH THE FLASK empty and the evening well advanced, Samson fell into a maudlin mood. “I’m afraid I’m eating and drinking you out of house and home,” he said.
“Nonsense,” said Justine. “We entertain so few guests these days.”
“Neverthelesh, I insist on replenishing that lovely liquid. Hubert!”
Yes, Sam.
“Don’t yessam me. You heard me; order my hosts a case of Glenkinchie.”
I’m sorry, Sam, but that would be very expensive, and I’m not sure how I would transport it here without alerting the authorities to the Voles’ presence.
“Are you telling me I’m broke? I can’t even afford a lousy case of booze?”
The brand you named is distilled according to traditional methods and—
“You’re a fucking mentar, aren’t you? Figure it out, for crying out loud, and don’t bother me with the details.”
Justine and Victor pretended not to listen to the audible portion of this conversation. Samson’s face was as dark as a blood blister. “Drop the hack!” he shouted. “I don’t need it. I’ll squeeze through these straps and fall to my death. I gotta hand it to you, Hubert, you brought me to the right place. Maybe you can convince Alison to come back and jump with me. We could screw on the way down and still have enough time for my eulogy.”
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