Corpus Chrome, Inc.

by S. Craig Zahler

  “You aren’t going to—”

  “Help me!”

  Lisanne leaned beside the tall beauty and curled her fingers around the vehicle’s side bumper.

  The cabbie looked at the women. “Don’t you dare!”

  The women heaved, and the tires nearest them lifted from the ground until the car stood on its side. Pressing their palms forward, the women shoved, and the vehicle toppled onto its roof. The driver, still inside the capsized foam-rubber cab, spewed epithets in five different languages.

  Osa remarked, “I always wanted to know how to say ‘bitch’ in Portuguese.”

  * * *

  “I cannot believe what we just did,” remarked Lisanne. “That was barbaric.”

  Her pulse thudded as she strode from the nether level of a multi-tiered sidewalk, through a living wall and into the firelit reception area of Motile. Flowers grew like tree roots, downwards from the ceiling, adding a luxurious scent to the maroon-wallpapered room. A host in a burgundy tuxedo stood behind a wooden lectern on the far side of the room.

  Osa emerged from the living wall and replied, “That asshole brought it on himself. He deserved it.”

  Lisanne did not actually agree with Osa’s assessment of their reprisal—they had carried a verbal dispute into the realm of physical action—but capsizing the cab had been more satisfying than she ever would have expected.

  The petite blonde said, “I have never done anything like that before, not even with—” She still had a problem saying her sister’s name casually, and so completed the statement with the word “—anyone,” which did not quite fit.

  A wooden orb with four knobbed spokes floated toward the women.

  Lisanne helped Osa out of a gray-green slickwax coat. The garment underneath was tailored to the Swedish-Indian American’s tall curvilinear form: a black sleeveless dress with a sapphire-bejeweled neckline that plummeted like a rapier to her navel, and a spiral hem that wound from her thighs to her ankles.

  “That is a very beautiful and very flattering dress,” complimented Lisanne.

  “Danke.”

  The petite blonde set the overcoat upon a spoke, and the orb swiveled to present a free arm for the next garment.

  Osa helped Lisanne from her blue trench coat.

  “That is a very nice ensemble,” the tall woman said of her date’s stylish—albeit unspectacular—beige silk suit.

  “Danke.”

  Osa briefly appraised her date’s torso: The apparel did not in any way obscure the fact that Lisanne had flattened her breasts. (The petite blonde felt that it would be better for her date to have a moment of disappointment now rather than later, when a startled hesitation or a furtive glance or a minute frown might prove hurtful.)

  Unaffected by the revelation, Osa flung Lisanne’s coat upon the orb. The machine fled like a haunt with manifold pockets and flapping arms.

  “Miss Breutschen and Madam,” the English host said, “good evening and welcome to Motile. Please follow me into the dining room.” He turned around, strode into a large cornucopia fresco and vanished.

  Osa took Lisanne’s hand, which was an unexpected (but not unwanted) connection, and the women walked forward. Crackling nanobuilders scattered before them.

  The burgundy dining room was lit by quartz chandeliers, around which hybrid flowers grew down toward the seventy guests who filled every single table, excepting the one in a sequestered corner to which the host led the new arrivals. Eyes flickered like struck matches at the petite blonde and her tall companion, and conspiratorial whispers eddied in all directions.

  “Does this happen whenever you go to places with rich people?” inquired Osa.

  “I believe that they are discussing your dress and how divinely it sits upon you.”

  The tall woman squeezed a ‘thank you’ into her date’s hand.

  At the table, the host withdrew an upholstered wooden chair for Osa, and slid it beneath her as she sat. He then seated Lisanne and presented each guest with a sheaf menu.

  “Would you prefer waiter service this evening, Miss Breutschen?”

  “My companion and I are capable readers.”

  The host grinned. “Very well. Dial your food whenever you are so inclined: The bringers will see that you dine undisturbed.” The man bowed respectfully and walked away from the table.

  Lisanne glanced at her date: Osa seemed simultaneously excited by and wary of the elite environs.

  “I feel like I need to talk quietly in a place like this,” whispered the tall woman. “Like regular conversation would shatter the champagne flutes or something.”

  Lisanne surveyed the room and saw a dozen eyes retreat from her gaze like falling stars. “I do not often dine in establishments such as this, but the chef here is superb.”

  “I haven’t had much animated food.”

  “Jing Duck LePierne-Chawpa-Fan is an innovator in the field. The walking courses on screen six are divine.”

  “I’ll check them out,” said Osa, though she did not look at her menu. Instead she stared across the table, directly into Lisanne’s eyes, for a long moment. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course.”

  “Why am I here?”

  “Why are you in this type of restaurant? Is that your question?”

  “No. I’m asking why I’m here with you. Why is Lisanne Breutschen taking me out to dinner?”

  “I enjoyed our first date and wanted—”

  “You aren’t gay.”

  Lisanne had not at all anticipated her date’s declaration and was momentarily stunned.

  The tall beauty continued, “I did a search after our first date. You were married twice. Both men. You lived with another man for a year in Hamburg when you and your sister were first becoming famous. You had several high-profile romances. All of these relationships were with men.”

  “Many people are attracted to both genders,” replied Lisanne.

  “Of course, but you don’t even seem to be bisexual—at least according to what I’ve listened to and seen. So…sitting here with you—in a place like this—up here in your stratosphere—I felt like I needed to say something. To ask.”

  “I have been with women before,” replied Lisanne. “Does that make you feel more comfortable?”

  “Not really. You are particular about punctuality, and I am particular—very particular—about people I might get emotionally involved with. I don’t want to be some experiment for you.”

  “Is that why you think you are here?” asked Lisanne. “As an experiment?”

  “Who knows why rich people do anything?”

  Lisanne leaned forward and looked into Osa’s dark deep eyes. “I am very attracted to you.”

  “Have you ever maintained a serious long-term relationship with a woman?”

  Lisanne hesitated, but answered truthfully. “I have not.”

  Osa nodded, her eyes scrutinous. “Do you see why I’m asking you this? Why I question your motives?”

  “I understand your apprehensions.”

  “I was planning to ask you after dinner, but this place—these people—I just had to say something. I couldn’t wait.”

  Lisanne looked at the maroon carpet and nodded slowly. “My feelings are difficult to verbalize—I am not sure that I fully understand them myself—and they will sound…strange.”

  Osa silently awaited a better answer. It was clear that the evening would not continue until her fears were allayed.

  Lisanne looked into her date’s suspicious eyes and nodded her head. “In graduate school, I had an affair with a married woman who was a professor at the university I attended. Three years later, while on a tour in Europe, my first husband and I invited another woman i
nto our bed. She and I continued to see each other privately and this ultimately led to the end of my marriage, though the relationship with her ended not long afterwards. Since then, I have found myself in relationships with men. No—I should not phrase it so passively. I chose relationships with men and have more good memories than bad ones.”

  “So what’s different now? You get tired of football and screwing?”

  “My sister died two and a half years ago. Since—” Lisanne’s voice cracked. “Verflucht…I will not cry.” She paused for a moment and gathered herself. “I miss talking to her, and I miss the things we made together.”

  Disbelief widened Osa’s eyes and lips. “You’re looking for a replacement for her? That’s why you’re taking a woman out to a romantic dinner? Do you realize how—”

  “I am not looking for a replacement,” Lisanne said, her perfectly modulated voice six decibels louder and meaner than she meant it to be. “Ellenancy and I were the Sisters Breutschen: We created sequentialism and together reshaped the landscape of modern music. There is no possible replacement for her as a person in my heart or as my creative partner. But there is an emptiness.” She looked at Osa’s face and there saw a beautiful but inscrutable mask.

  Lisanne continued, “Since Ellenancy’s death, I dated two men. Both relationships were light and ended in a matter of months. More recently, I dated a woman for six weeks, and although we were not well matched, she helped me realize that the thing I most needed in my life was a strong female presence. That is what I am looking for.”

  Osa silently ruminated upon what she had just heard.

  Exposed and vulnerable, Lisanne waited for a response. She wondered why she had revealed so much to a tardy woman who capsized cars and shouted across rooms, but did not find an answer.

  Osa shook her head. “This sounds like a very bad reason to skew your sexuality. And also…a little bit like incest.”

  Lisanne’s cheeks burned scarlet.

  “I’ll call you, if I can digest it.”

  Before the surviving Breutschen sister could respond, the tall Swedish-Indian American rose from her seat, strode from the table, and—in the long black dress that was a benediction to all onlookers—walked through the living wall.

  Genteel whispers rippled throughout the dining room, and a few beefy men coughed.

  Lisanne looked at the sheaf on the table before her, and in its obsidian surface saw her own reflection, and the second person who was always there.

  * * *

  Later that evening, seated alone in the back of a cab and clutched by pseudopodia, the petite blonde said to the hunched Japanese driver, “Please take Fulton Street across town and proceed north.” The suggested route was a circuitous one to her apartment in Central Park.

  “Hai.” He nudged a ladybug out of the way and guided the foam-rubber vehicle onto Fulton Street.

  Ten minutes afterwards, she saw the cylindrical skyscraper that was the Corpus Chrome, Incorporated Building. One kilometer underground, sealed within an autonomous cryonic capsule, lay the frozen brain that was more similar to her own than any other in existence.

  Chapter VI

  The Renter’s Gambit

  Claws and teeth bared, the obese feline hissed venomously as it sped toward Champ Sappline’s face. The furry meteor knocked his upraised palms aside and smacked into his nose. Cartilage snapped. A spike of pain lanced his face, and he tasted fur. Thorns that were the beast’s claws harassed the garbage man’s ears and cheeks and chin while its needle teeth pierced his left eyebrow. A furry tail shot up his nose and triggered a violent sneeze.

  The scientific foe known as gravity combated Architect’s tenuous grasp and pulled. The fat feline fell from Champ’s head.

  “Um,” R.J. the Third said as his pet thudded upon the carpet.

  Uninterested in the carnage that it had wrought, the cat returned to its master.

  Something red dripped from above, and soon, Champ realized that the source of the fluid was not the ceiling but his left eyebrow. Like a score of marathon runners who had just heard the starting gun, beads of blood traversed his stinging face.

  “Do you have fleshtape?” inquired the savaged guest.

  R.J. the Third—who was surveying various points centimeters above, below and upon either side of Champ’s eyes—nodded and said, as if from a great distance, “I’ll retrieve some fleshtape. Do you have any allergies?”

  “No.”

  “I shall be back presently.”

  The popinjay in silver arose from the fur sofa and strode across the room toward a door that was adorned with an icon of a toilet that had its lid raised. Quietly, the fleximetal barrier slid into the floor, revealing a rose-hued enclosure, which R.J. the Third soon entered. The door shut behind him, its icon now depicting a closed toilet.

  In the den stood Champ, his face a constellation of throbbing punctures.

  He looked at the malicious culprit, but the bloated cat did not return his gaze. Instead, the beast looked at the turned-off mote aquarium as if awaiting an encore showing of The First and Final Rocket, or its sequel, or anything more interesting than a stupid bleeding man.

  The injured party (also known as Champ Sappline) took the lily from his ear, pointed its lens at his face, double-tapped and said, “Camera: Record.” The device beeped once. He extended his arm, panned the lily across his sundered visage and repeated the process from a lens distance of twelve centimeters for a more detailed view of the injuries. “Save to vault,” said the garbage man. “Save to public reservoir.” The lily beeped twice. Satisfied, the garbage man placed the transmitter back into his ear and bled.

  The bathroom door slid into the floor, and R.J. the Third emerged, carrying a clear medical box. Architect trailed its master like a rolling boulder.

  The popinjay knelt beside the garbage man and set the kit upon the silver rug. Inside the box were two tiny spray cans of sterilizer, a Perfect brand thermometer, codeine candy (with nauseous side effects to discourage recreational use), ultrasprin, antitoxin shots, vomit pills, chewable penicillin, spermicide capsules, vasectomy-in-a-bottle, abortion capsules, three coils of fleshtape, one container of gore putty and a Smart-stitch brand miniature sewing machine.

  Lathered with sweat, R.J. the Third stood and inspected Champ’s injuries.

  “Do I need stitches?”

  “No. It’s mostly punctures and a couple of cuts; there aren’t any significant lacerations.”

  “That’s a pretty cute ministitch. I’ve never seen one that small.”

  R.J. the Third withdrew a four-centimeter-tall spray can that was labeled ‘Germicide’ and said, “Shut your eyes and hold still.”

  Champ closed his eyes and heard erratic hissing. The burning wound on his left ear cooled; his left eyebrow stopped throbbing, and the rips in his cheeks turned to ice. A terrible taste like brine and old socks filled his mouth.

  “Yuck.”

  “Keep your mouth shut!” admonished R.J. the Third. The spray can hissed once more near each wound, and soon, the sterilized injuries became numb. “You may open your eyes.”

  Champ complied. Opposite him, the popinjay seized a coil of fleshtape from the medical kit and poked the vacuum seal, which belched. He plucked the starter, tore off a five-centimeter strip, stuck it on the garbage man’s left ear and soon applied similar-sized chunks to the victim’s other wounds.

  R.J. the Third inspected his patient, nodded his head and gestured across the den. “You may use the bathroom to deal with aesthetics.”

  “Fine.”

  Champ stood up, wobbled momentarily (at which point R.J. the Third put gloved hands on his shoulders), said, “I’m fine,” and walked across the silver carpet toward the toilet icon. The automated metal door slid into the floor, revealing a mono
chromatic rose bathroom. There, the garbage man trod upon porous linoleum until he reached the sink, where he stopped and looked into the mirror. Blood (mostly dry) decorated his face and neck like a doily, and patches of brownish-red fleshtape adhered to his wounds. His nose was askew.

  “Shit.”

  “Please use the disposable cloths,” R.J. the Third requested from the other side of the closed door.

  Champ pulled a paper towel from the wall slit, held it beneath the faucet and wiped blood from his face and neck. He shouted when he accidentally poked his nose.

  “Are you okay?” asked R.J. the Third.

  “Yeah. Just touched my nose by accident. I think it’s broken.”

  “It looks quite broken.”

  Champ moistened a second towel, wiped away the remainder of the blood and dropped the pink, red and rust-colored disposables into the chute that led to the building’s containment tank. He then exited the room and returned to his seat in the common area, where his blood had already been wiped (or licked) off of the inflatable chair.

  “Would you like some juice,” R.J. the Third inquired, “or a protein drink? I have one with an iron supplement.”

  “I’d like the room you advertised,” Champ said with precision.

  The demand did not surprise R.J. the Third.

  “The waiver on the front door won’t protect you from any claim I make on these injuries,” added the garbage man.

  “I am aware of that.”

  “I want the room, and I want a discount.”

  R.J. the Third looked at Architect and said, “Bad cat!” This was the first time the feline had been reprimanded, and it huddled in globular shame. The popinjay looked up at Champ and said, “Please describe this ‘discount.’”