Gloria wasn't at her desk. I looked at the candy dish out of habit: Tootsie Rolls. Gunther's door was ajar, and it sounded like he was on the phone. I raised my hand to knock before sticking my head in.
'—Really a think tank more than anything. We don't have a product to sell, but we provide an invaluable service to companies that do. What we do is analyze all the information relevant to your campaign and then synthesize a plan based on all known market factors . . .'
I put my hand to my temple. What's he talking about? An image of one of Serge's girls flashed across my mind. I felt a wave of dizziness and I reached out to lean on Gloria's fica, then realized it was only a plant and leaned on the wall instead. I felt cold.
'. . . Closely guarded secret. Our system analysis is not only unique, Marty, its success rate speaks for itself. We can tell you what ads will be successful across a broad demographic spectrum, independent of the Nielsens and in advance. Our predictive success is right here in these charts, and I think you'll have to agree that nobody else has come close.'
There was a silence. I hovered there, aware that I was eavesdropping and I'd look like a jackass if I got caught, yet unable to move away from the door.
Of course, Gunther wouldn't be talking openly about the war on the phone. We are a secret agency housed within a corporate structure. He has to keep up the fiction.
'Daytime TV, Marty, is our strongest area in these last six months. We've penetrated the cartoon market—'
But what about the memo?
What about the cereal? The cartoon market?
'—For the next offensive, where a full-frontal assault on prime-time will begin.'
What about Serge, drowning in the well; giving destruct orders? What about Arla Gonzalez shooting down my Gossamer, the traitor?
I put my notes on Gloria's desk and fled. I felt weak and ashamed. I slunk out of Dataplex without talking to anybody.
I didn't want to think about Gunther or his company politics. I'd been shot down. I'd lost the nex with Gossamer.
My self-pity was unsurpassed. Again I drove home baffled by the life I was living. I looked in other people's cars as they passed me on the Parkway. I looked in yards and at stores when I got to my neighborhood. I didn't know how to participate in any of this. I couldn't even see the point of it.
But at the same time, I was sad that I wasn't a part of this world with its cars and stores and jobs and TV. I was missing being someone who had a mother. I had never realized what an anchor she'd been for me, until she wasn't there anymore.
I had no niche in this world. I couldn't go to the movies on Friday night. I couldn't share the talk about the latest episode of Remington Steele with the other girls by the coffee machine. I had a whole chocolate cheesecake in the freezer and it was no use to me. I couldn't eat it. There was no escape.
Watching Serge get swallowed by the well had been horrible. I could still see her face disappearing in the honeycomb of well cells. I could still see her open mouth, her epiglottis moving. But the worst thing was losing Gossamer.
Don't get shot down, she'd warned me.
By the time I got home, I was bawling openly. I ran into my apartment with my head down, opened the freezer, ripped out the cheesecake, and threw it across the room. It landed in one of my mother's ferns.
I opened a tiny bottle of vodka that I'd saved from a plane flight. I sipped it and then spit it out. Vodka makes me sick even under the best of circumstances.
In the end the only thing I could think to do was take a bath. I sat on the bathroom floor where I'd spent so much time recently, vomiting. But I couldn't even enjoy the relief of being sick. Nebbie came in and jumped into the empty tub, flinching when the water splashed her face. She jumped out again. Rocky came in, tail making a question mark, and Nebbie jumped up on the side of the tub, spitting at him.
I clambered into the tub as it filled.
'I hate this,' I sobbed into Nebbie's fur. 'Why can't I channel Middle Earth or Narnia? Or Pern – I'd love to channel Pern, I've always wondered what klah tasted like. Why do I have to have the Grid? The thing isn't nice. It's like a cancer. It's like when you see a melanoma on some white lady's back at the beach, it looks like she's got a well-done hamburger stuck to her shoulder, your skin crawls just looking at it. Why do I have to be in the middle of it? Why? Nebbie, I'm so miserable.'
Nebbie purred and pointed her pink butt at me. I was out of bubble bath, which brought on another flood of tears.
The water was too hot. I didn't get out, though. I made myself stay, hissing and puffing, until I got used to it. Slowly, the sobs began to subside and after a while I relaxed. I leaned back in the water and reached for a towel to dry my hands. I was just reaching for the copy of Dragonsinger that I kept on the toilet tank, to start rereading it for the umpteenth time. Then I saw my own legs.
Normally the bubbles would prevent this from happening.
I could see muscles. Those thigh muscles that are always aching from doing sumo stances. What do the weight-lifters call them? Quadriceps. Quads.
I was so surprised that I dropped the book in the water. I had to get out of the tub and fetch one of my spare copies from the bedroom.
I thought: I'm becoming not fat.
I thought: what next?
Never ask that question.
As soon as I got to work in the morning, Gunther called me into his office and wordlessly handed me my pink slip.
I stared at him.
'Is this permanent?' I said.
He didn't want to look at me. He was ripping the blue fuzzy hair out of a Troll doll.
'That depends.'
'Depends on what?'
'On whether they change their minds at Headquarters. I went to bat for you, Cookie. What can I say? If you can't see anything, you can't see.'
'I didn't say I couldn't see, I said I got shot down.'
Gunther shrugged. I could see my briefing lying in his in-box, still encased in its yellow-ochre interoffice-memo envelope. Had he even read it?
I added, by way of explanation, 'I'm not about to open the nex in case Goss has landed in the well. That would be dangerous, wouldn't it? It could cause feedback. Right?'
He didn't say anything. He was rubbing little balls of wadded-up Troll-doll hair between his fingertips.
'Plus, in light of everything that's happened with Dr. Gonzalez, isn't anybody at Machine Front interested in knowing why she shot us down? Look how she trapped Serge.'
Gunther gave the impression that he was thinking about this, but he didn't say anything.
'Gunther, can't we try to fix it? Maybe Goss can be recovered. Maybe we can re-establish the nex.'
He sighed, looked at the ceiling. He opened his mouth as if to say something, and then changed his mind. Scratched his head.
'Gunther?'
The phone rang. Gunther set the troll down, wiggled his eyebrows at me apologetically, and picked it up again. I could hear Gloria's angry voice on the other end. She made no effort to keep her voice down: not only did her words carry across the phone, I could actually hear her where she sat at her desk on the other side of Gunther's office wall.
'You told me to give it two minutes and call you. So I'm calling you.' Gunther hastily covered the receiver.
He gave me an embarrassed shrug.
'Gloria says I got to go,’ he said, standing up. 'Big meeting with Bob Hagler. Take your time clearing out your cubby'
'But. . .' I spluttered. 'What am I supposed to do?'
Gunther took his suit jacket off the back of his chair and tossed it over his shoulder like a part-time male model posing for the Stern's Supersale catalog.
'I'll give you a reference if you want to go over to Military Psychokinesis now.'
'And that's it?'
'Sorry. Sayonara, kimosabe.'
I went home, stunned, and took out a half-gallon of ice cream. I wanted so badly to binge, but it melted in my lap. I couldn't eat it. I couldn't get the spoon more than halfway to my mo
uth.
It's not as though I like the war. I hate it. But who am I going to be now?
While we were waiting for the guys to show up for pocketbook-and-broom practice, I told Miss Cooper that I got laid off and she said, 'Well, now you have no more excuses. You can get serious about your training.'
'I never thought about it that way.'
'Are they still paying you?'
'They're treating it as a disability.'
'So, you don't have to worry about money. This could turn out to be a good thing for you. I'll help you, if you want. Train.'
'Would you?'
'Yeah, of course. I think you could be really good, Cookie. You're strong and you're not afraid.'
'I'm strong?'
'Yeah! People don't think big people are strong, but they are. You're carrying around a lot of weight every day. You have good muscles. If you could lose the fat, you'd be really powerful.'
'I don't feel powerful,' I said. I hadn't eaten in weeks. I was amazed that I was still alive.
Mr. Vukovich and Mr. Adams came in to practice pocketbook-and-broom. The demonstration team has various set pieces that are performed to attract new students. Breaking bricks obviously is very popular; there's also the nail-bed demonstration that Miss Cooper does, where she lies on a bed of nails and Shihan breaks a cinder block on her stomach with a sledgehammer. There are weapons demonstrations, and self-defense for women – i.e. pocketbook-and-broom. We have several scenarios where we demonstrate a woman innocently going about her business: standing at a bus stop, sweeping her front porch, etc., and some guy comes up and grabs her or otherwise attacks her. Our job is to beat the guy up using our pocketbook and/or broom. It's all choreographed and nobody really gets hurt. The guys fly convincingly through the air when we throw them. We always know exactly what they are going to do and when.
It's supposed to be fun, and everyone laughs when they see our performance. But it kind of bugs me sometimes.
'Don't you think it's a little demeaning that we have brooms and purses?' I said. 'I mean, I carry a purse, OK, so maybe there's something in that. But what are the chances of me being attacked while I'm doing housework? Which I do with a vacuum cleaner anyway, by the way.'
'The point is that you can use everyday objects as weapons,’ said Miss Cooper. She comes from Allendale, by the way. Her father is a dentist. I doubt she's ever had to worry about being mugged in reality. She'd probably be fine. But what could she know about using everyday objects as weapons, exactly?
I ought to have shut up. But I couldn't help it. I was feeling grumpy about everything.
'OK, but why do they have to be such sexist objects? Why not a hammer or a tennis racket?'
'Oh, come on, can't you see the funny side?' Cori said. I'd noticed that she took a sadistic pleasure in ramming the broom up into the attacker's crotch and watching him writhe on the floor. 'Don't be so touchy.'
If you hadn't had a good meal in a week, you'd be touchy too, I thought. But I shut up. I twirled my pocketbook. I couldn't fly. Miss Cooper was right: this was what I had now. I'd better make the most of it.
On Tuesday I did my first push-up. I mean a real push-up, not a girl push-up where you rest on your knees. Actually, I did three of them. My hips had shrunk and my upper body had grown stronger in the weight room. I was so excited I saw stars.
I was seeing stars a lot lately. I had bought a book on fasting for health purposes, and I knew that I was getting near to the point where my body would start consuming its own vital organs. I didn't want to be sick again, but I knew I couldn't keep training without eating. So after my workout, I mixed orange juice with my water. I never tasted anything so sublime, and the sugar hit my veins like an electric shock. After that, I had so much energy that I decided to walk all the way to Miles's and surprise him.
Miles answered the door with half a pastrami sandwich in one hand. He waved me in. He was in the middle of debugging Spazmonia! He had his work up on the screen of one computer, and some text game on the other. He was in the habit of switching back and forth between work and play constantly. I always found it amazing that he could get any work done at all with all the distractions he needed to surround himself with.
As I moved a stack of computer paper off Miles's spare squeaky swivel chair and sat down, I had the feeling that I was just another convenient distraction. Miles looked glad to see me, almost gleeful. He said he wanted to show me some new miniatures he had bought at The Compleat Strategist so he could ask my opinion on the right colors to paint them. I went into his office and waited, glancing idly through the libretto for his newest comic rock opera, The Marriage of Fig Newton. The next-door neighbors had put the stereo speakers in their windows and Weird Al Yankovic blasted into the backyard while they splashed in the above-ground pool. I heard Miles go down to the basement to get the stuff. The phone rang, and then cut off. He must have picked up the extension.
As I sat there with the sultry breeze bringing summer in through the window, ruffling the pages of Miles's notebooks, an inexplicable sense of well-being crept over me. I could smell the warm, new plastic of the computer, and the static coming off the screen. Outside I swear I could smell warm maple leaves, too, and the inchworms on the leaves. I was in my own place and I was perfectly happy. Even the stink of Miles's half-eaten pastrami sandwich balanced on top of a Garfield coffee mug couldn't mar the perfection of this moment. I was in harmony with something cosmic.
I didn't know that was possible for me.
The cords of the Venetian blinds flapped. It was going to rain later.
I don't know how long I sat there before I took a look at the text game that Miles had been playing. Pale green letters showed on the dark screen.
Light hitting the well is like a dog chasing a car. It starts out frenzied. Where it meets the surface it explodes against the fluid, producing a crystalline dazzle; but as it penetrates it starts getting tired and colors appear: amber turns green turns Indigo as the dog's tail whirls in braising circles. Finally halts. The dog wanders off diffidently, as if giving up were always part of the plan. As for the light: it has been eaten, its energy dispersed, and all the while the well's honeycomb cells rock in a sourceless current.
Her experience didn't feel like drowning. It didn't even feel like being in water. She had the sense instead that she was floating high in the Grid, suspended by filaments fine as spidersilk, turning gently in the breeze. Motes of blown Grid-proteins came and some of them attached themselves to her as filings to a magnet. Others passed through her like subatomic particles tunneling through metal. She was being taken apart to be remade. She was having her clock cleaned.
There are no pronouns down here. The grammar is reflexive, the well's an inclusive set; all members commit feedback. There are no passengers. So that by the time she was herself, she was almost fully assembled, almost ready to leave and become something other than the well.
At first she didn't know where her own body left off and the well began. Strings of sensation passed from it to her and back again: a million tiny umbilical cords, tugged gently by the current, feeding her and feeding back to the well and feeding her again.
She felt the battle armor forming itself around her and realized she could move. She wasn't breathing. She felt the hair on her head sprouting.
The well spat her out, slowly, over the course of a day. Shadows wheeled across her; smells passed, some of them lingering a while. They must have been pulling at deep memories, for they made her mind swollen and uneasy with unconscious matter that refused to name itself. She didn't know how to distract herself from what was happening. She could do nothing but stare at the lattice structure of the Grid, above, until she lost herself in the mosaic it made of the sky.
By night she had been cast up, full length, on the ground or what passed for it here. She lay there, not dreaming, until—
Miles came in whistling and the nex snapped like a cobweb. He plopped a foam-lined box of unpainted miniatures down next to the pastr
ami and said, 'Check out the manticore.' Then I could hear him rummaging through little bottles of model paint.
I glanced back at the screen.
What do you want to do?
This probably isn't a good time to stop for a ham sandwich.
I gathered that this was the text of the real game, which was getting impatient with Miles for not entering a response.
The Earth cooled. Invertebrates appeared.
I gave a little shake and looked away. He closed the window and switched on the air-conditioning. The sound of the fans shuddering to life sent chills up the back of my neck.
'Cook? What's the matter?'
'Nothing.' I stood up, which was a mistake. Time seemed to slow down and black patches formed on the periphery of my vision, moving like clouds across my eyes. My legs felt vague and the next thing I knew I was on all fours on the carpet, sliding in and out of consciousness like a little ocean licking the beach.
Miles brought me some water.
'It's this heat,’ he said. 'And you're not eating.'
He took my pulse. 'You wanna lie down? You want me to take you to the doctor?'
I shook my head.
'Lifesavers,’ I managed to say. I was still feeling strangely high and distant, and my heart swelled to include Miles, his computer, his air conditioner and his overgrown spider plant with an indiscriminate feeling of compassion.
'What? Cookie, you're being a little . . . huh-huh. . . Cookie?'
'Do you have any Lifesavers?'
'What? Yeah.' He rummaged in his desk. He had half a roll of wild cherry.
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