by Ian McDonald
“Pardon?”
“Give me your number and go and join Line B.”
“Number?”
“Shareholder's number. You have a Shareholder's number?”
“Then you'll have a temporary visitor's visa. Could I have that, please?”
“I don't have a temporary…” The fat receptionist's outraged shriek turned heads all the way across the marble cathedral.
“No number! No visa! Holy Lady, you're one of those…one of those…” Bells began to ring. Black and gold Company policemen appeared from unnoticed doors and advanced. Mikal Margolis looked for a place to run.
“Arrest this, this gutter boy, this tramp, this freebooter, goondah and bum!” screamed the receptionist. “Arrest this…Freelancer!” Thick foam sprayed from his mouth. The police drew short shock-staves and charged.
A sudden explosion of automatic fire threw everyone to the ground. The customary shrieker in such events shrieked. A figure in a grey paper suit stood by the door to line A, intimidating the lobby with a small black MRCW.
“Nobody move!” he shouted. Nobody moved. “Get over here!”
Mikal Margolis looked around for someone else the gunman could have meant. He pointed at himself, mouthing the word me?
“Yes, you! Get over here! Move!” One of the Company policemen must have reached for his communicator, for another burst of fire sent marble chips screaming and whining. Mikal Margolis stood up sheepishly. The gunman motioned for him to come around by the side, leaving clear his field of fire.
“What's happening?” asked Mikal Margolis.
“You're being rescued,” said the gunman in the business suit. “Now, whatever happens, follow me and don't bother me with any questions.” From an inside pocket he flipped a smoke grenade into the lobby. “Run.”
Mikal Margolis did not know how far he ran, along how many marble, oak or plastic corridors: he just ran, with the high stepping gait of one expecting a bullet in the spine at any moment. When the sounds of search and pursuit were sufficiently remote, the rescuer stopped and opened a section of plastic wall panelling with a rather clever tool.
“In here.”
“Here?”
The sounds of search and pursuit suddenly increased.
“In here.” The two men dived into the wall cavity and sealed the wall behind them. The rescuer thumbed the laser setting on his MRCW to random emission and by its blue light led Mikal Margolis through a jungle of cables, ducts, pipes and conduits.
“Mind that,” he said as Mikal Margolis reached for a cable to steady himself after teetering at the lip of a two kilometre airshaft. “There's twenty thousand volts going through that.” Mikal Margolis snatched back his hand as if from a snake, or a cable carrying twenty thousand volts.
“Just who are you?” he asked.
“Arpe Magnusson, Systems Service Engineer.”
“With an MRCW?”
“Freelance,” said the systems service engineer, as if that word explained everything. “See those glowing dust motes there, mind them. There's a communications laser in there. Take your head clean off, it would.”
“Freelance?”
“An independent in the closed Company economy. Term of abuse. See, like you, I wanted to see someone in the Company, I had this great idea for revolutionizing the Kershaw airconditioning system, but no one wanted to see me, not without a number or a visa. So I came here, behind the walls, because you don't need numbers back here, and joined the Freelancers. That was about four years back.”
“There's more than one of you?”
“About two thousand. There's places in this cube don't appear on any Company schematics. Time to time, I do some independent work for the Shareholders; domestic stuff mainly, something breaks, things are always breaking, Company policy, built-in failure rate, and they're not keen on repairing things, better for the Company if you buy new, so they pass the word and I come and fix it. Also, I keep a look out at Enquiries there for potential Freelancers: every so often someone like you turns up and I get them away behind walls.”
“With an MRCW?”
“First time I've ever had to use it. Bit slow getting to you, the computer almost missed tracking that call to the police. Watch the draft from that ventilator…it's not easy living here, but if you make it past the first twelve months, you're all right.” Magnusson turned and extended a hand to Mikal Margolis. “Welcome to the Freelancers, friend.”
Between pitfalls, acid, chemical waste, power blackouts and electrocution, the months that followed were the happiest of Mikal Margolis's life. He was in constant danger, from both the perils between the walls and the sporadic raids of Company Kleenteems and had never felt more comfortable or relaxed. This was what he had dreamed of in his long sojourns on the desert rim. Life was brutish, dangerous and wonderful. The Freelancers’ computer, Jitney, which lived in their headquarters, a web of support cables stretched across Airshaft 19, provided him with the identity number of dead Shareholders and thus equipped, Mikal Margolis could eat with impunity in any Company refectory in the city, bathe in Company bath houses, dress in Company paper suits dispensed from street-corner slot machines, and even sleep in a Company bed until the Company withdrew the deceased's number from circulation. At such times he would return to the world of the crawlways and access shafts and doze in his hammock suspended over a kilometre-deep air-well, rocked with the breathings of a hundred thousand Shareholders.
When the alarm came he almost vaulted out of his hammock. But for his Freelancer-trained wits, he would have jumped straight down the airwell. He paused to gain composure. Composure was survival. Think before you act. Forethought, no spontaneity. He checked that the roll of documents was on his shoulder, then seized the swing rope and tarzaned to the lip of the shaft. Proximity alarms. Kleenteems. The backlog of complaints about vermin in the circuitry had built up until the department of water and sewage treatment was pressured into action. He felt for his gas mask. It was exactly where he had left it. He slipped it on and swung up into a major power conduit running parallel to the service duct. Thousands of amperes pulsed next to his cheek. He squinted through a chink in the cladding and watched the clouds of riot gas roll down the tunnel.
Flashlight beams lanced through the clouds of toxic gas. The Kleenteem waded into view: two men and a woman, paper-suited executive types from the department of water and sewage treatment, fat balloon men in their transparent plastic isolation suits. From their backpacks they poured a fog of neurotoxic gas down the tunnel and warped the air with their wrist-mounted sonic disturbers. One of the Kleenteem picked up Mikal Margolis's alarm and showed it to the others. They nodded and their helmet beams bobbed and curtsied.
Arpe Magnusson's gasmasked head poked out of a hatchway, followed by an arm and a written note.
FOLLOW ME, AND WATCH CLOSELY.
The two men scurried through the labyrinth of access ways, gantries and airshafts until they arrived at the junction with the level ten airduct which the Kleenteem had recently passed. Bodies of dead mice lay stiffening on the metal grilles, proof of the efficacy of the Kleenteem's weaponry. Arpe Magnusson pointed to three snaking plastic hoses. Mikal Margolis nodded. He knew what they were, the Kleenteem's umbilicals. Arpe Magnusson traced the umbilicals back to the air outlet. Motioning for Mikal Margolis to watch carefully, he uncoupled the airhoses and connected them to the level ten sewage pipe. Brown filth poured down the hoses and raced into the gas-milky distance. At once the headlamp beams froze in position, then began to wave frantically to and fro. Finally they fell to the ground and remained motionless. A few seconds later the two men distinctly heard three soft, brown, wet explosions.
Mikal Margolis had been two years in the tunnels when the opportunity came. The computer reported a death in the North West Quartersphere Planning and Developments Department, iron and steel division. Some junior sub-sub-production assistant secretary had thrown himself into a geyser in Yellow Bay because of a bad decision over the Arcadia project. Even b
efore he was fished part-cooked out of the geyser by the Chrysanthemum Brigade, employed specifically for such duties, Mikal Margolis had taken his number, his name, his job, his desk, his office, his apartment, his life and his soul. The risk in approaching the North West Quartersphere Projects and Developments Manager/Director in such a direct fashion was great: the likelihood of recognition was nearly one hundred percent, but Mikal Margolis was not prepared to spend several years and a virtual economy of black money weaving his way up through personal assistants, junior sub-managers, temporary liaison officers, production assistant managers, sector organizers, junior systems analysts, sales directors, financial directors (junior and senior), area directors, chief directors, project directors, sub-managers and project directors’ personal managers. The information on his roll of papers was important.
So it was that upon a Tuesday morning at approximately 10:15, this being the best morning for a business man's peace of mind according to Lemuel Shipwright's Psychology of Managerial Practices two volumes, Ree and Ree, Mikal Margolis straightened his paper tie and knocked on the North West Quartersphere Projects and Developments Manager/Director's door.
“Come in,” said the North West Quartersphere Projects and Developments Manager/Director.
Mikal Margolis entered, bowed politely and said in a clear but not too loud voice, “The mineralogical reports on the Desolation Road project.”
Busy with his computer terminal, the North West Quartersphere Projects and Developments Manager/Director's back was turned to him.
“I don't recall anything about a Desolation Road Project,” said the North West Quartersphere Projects and Developments Manager/Director. Mikal Margolis's mouth suddenly felt like a parrot's crotch. There was something oddly familiar about the voice.
“The Desolation Road project, sir: the ore sand extraction project. The feasibility studies the planning council requested.”
The bluff was so enormous it must succeed through audacity alone. Mikal Margolis was certain that the North West Quartersphere Projects and Developments Manager/Director did not know the face and name of every employee in his division. He was equally certain the North West Quartersphere Projects and Developments Manager/Director was so busy that he could not possibly remember all his decisions.
“Remind me more.”
The bait was being taken.
“It was found that the red sands in the region around the isolated settlement of Desolation Road contain a phenomenally high level of iron oxides, the sand being, in effect, virtually pure rust. The project was to study means of exploiting this resource through bacteriological action upon the rust sands, rendering it more easily processable. It's all laid out in this report, sir.”
“Very interesting, Mr. Margolis.”
Mikal Margolis's heart stopped dead for a perilous moment. The North West Quartersphere Projects and Developments Manager/Director turned to face him. At first Mikal Margolis did not recognize the elegant young man, smooth, powerful, dangerous, not the least bit blubbery or whining as Mikal Margolis remembered him.
“Good God. Johnny Stalin.”
“Shareholder 703286543.”
Mikal Margolis stood waiting for the Company police to come. He waited and waited and waited. At length he said, “Well, aren't you going to call them?”
“They won't be necessary. Now, your files.”
“What about them?”
“I want to see them. If they're worth the risk of coming out of the walls and engaging in this charade, oh, I know all about you, Mr. Margolis, everything, then they must be worth seeing.”
“But…”
“But you are a convicted murderer and a Freelancer…Mr. Margolis, my father was a fool and if I had stayed in Desolation Road I would be a dirt-poor farmer and not a man of business and industry. What you may have done in the past to my family is all past. Now, show me the files. I take it you have conducted a full mineralogical, chemical, biological and cost-effectiveness study to back all this?”
Mikal Margolis fumbled with his stolen briefcase and spread the papers across the North West Quartersphere Projects and Developments Manager/Director's desk. He weighted the corners down with little paperweights in the shape of naked boys lying on their backs with their legs in the air.
“I will give her the earth,” said Umberto Gallacelli, siestaing on his bed, his head resting on a pile of soiled underpants. “Only the whole earth is good enough for her.”
“I will give her the sea,” said Louie Gallacelli, fastening his bootlace tie before the mirror. Business had been brisk since the pilgrims started coming. “She is so like the sea, boundless, untamed, restless yet yielding. For her, the sea.” He glanced at Ed Gallacelli, oily and immersed in a copy of Practical Mechanic. “Hey, Eduardo, what are you going to give our lovely wife for her birthday?”
Never much given to unnecessary speech, Ed Gallacelli lowered his magazine and smiled a subtle smile. That night he left on the Meridian Express without telling his brothers when he would be back. There were seven days to Persis Tatterdemalion's twentieth birthday. Those seven days passed in a flurry. Louie prosecuted sixteen hours a day in Dominic Frontera's petty sessions: the pilgrims had brought petty crime and petty criminals and though mayor and harassed attorney heard up to fifty cases per day the town lock-up was always full. The three goodnatured constables Dominic Frontera had seconded from the Meridian constabulary barely contained the flow of small crime.
Umberto had made the short move from farming to real estate. Renting his fields had proven so profitable that he went into business with Rael Mandella converting bare rock and sand into tillable farmland and letting it out at rents only slightly less than ruinous. Even Persis Tatterdemalion was so hardworked that she had taken on extra staff and was considering opting for a lease on the house across the alley to extend the premises.
“Business is booming.” she declared to her regulars, and nodded in the direction of the pinched pious pilgrims sitting in their corners with their guava cordials, thinking pure thoughts of the Lady Taasmin. “Business is booming.” Then Sevriano and Batisto would skip out together the same time every night and she would look at them and sigh and wonder how they had gotten so big in only nine years. They had their fathers’ devilish good looks and rakish charm. There was not a girl in the whole of Desolation Road who did not want to sleep with Sevriano and Batisto, preferably simultaneously. Remembering this, she would call them to the bar and fuss over them and smooth down their curly black hair which would spring up again the second they walked out the door, and while no one was looking slip packets of male contraceptive pills into their shirt pockets.
Nine years. Not even time was what it used to be. Nostalgia certainly wasn't. With a start Persis Tatterdemalion realized her twentieth birthday was only five days off. Twenty. The halfway point. After twenty there was nothing to look forward to. Funny how time flies. Ah, flies. She hadn't thought about flying for…she couldn't remember how long. The sting was gone but the itch remained. She was not a pilot. She was a hotelier. A good hotelier. It was no less honourable a profession than pilot. So she told herself. When people talked about a pilgrimage to Desolation Road, they talked Bethlehem Ares Railroad/Hotel. She should be proud of that, she told herself, but she knew in her heart of hearts she would rather be flying.
With a start she realized she had a customer.
“Sorry. Way long way away.”
“It's all right,” said Rael Mandella. “Two more beers. Any sign of that runaway husband of yours? Umberto says it's been three days.”
“He'll turn up.” Ed was the black clone in the brood. While his brothers were hungry for success and had made themselves attorneys and realtors, Ed was content to remain in his shed fixing small things and asking no money for the privilege. Dear Ed. Where was he?
The twentieth birthday dawned and Umberto and Louie threw a surprise breakfast party for their wife with cakes and wine and decorations. Still Ed did not appear.
“No-goo
d bum.” said Umberto.
“What kind of husband is not present at his wife's birthday?” said Louie. They presented their gifts to Persis Tatterdemalion.
“I give you the earth,” said Umberto the soily-fingered farmer, and gave his wife a diamond ring, hand-crafted by the dwarf jewelsmiths of Yazzoo.
“And I give you the sea,” said Louie, and he gave her a voucher for a holiday on the Windward Islands in the Argyre Sea. “Ten years you've worked here without a holiday. Now, you take off all the time you want. You've deserved it.” And they both kissed her. And there was still no Ed.
Then Persis Tatterdemalion heard a noise. It was not a very big noise, it would have been easily lost in the happy din of partymaking had she not been listening for it for ten years. The noise grew louder but still only she could hear it. As if gripped by the compulsion of an Archangelsk, she stood up. The sound called her from the hotel into the open. She knew what it was now. Twin Maybach/Wurtel engines in push-pull configuration. She shielded her eyes against the sun and peered. There it was, coming out of the sun, a speck of black dirt that became first a bird, then a hawk, then a howling thundering Yamaguchi & Jones twin-engine stunter that blasted over her head and she stood in the cloud of dust and pebbles thrown up by the prop-wash and watched the airplane make its turn. She saw Ed Gallacelli wave from the passenger seat, quiet Ed, dark Ed, happy-to-be Ed. From that moment onward Persis Tatterdemalion loved only and utterly him, for of all her husbands, he alone had understood her sufficiently to give her the one thing she wanted most. Umberto had given her the earth, Louie the sea, but Ed had given her back the sky.
a reminiscent weakness she had been unable to break brought her back time and time again to Raano Thurinnen's Seafood Diner on Ocean Boulevard. It was not the quality of the chowder, indisputable though that was. It was not the cheery countenance of Raano Thurinnen, rosy from Stahler's beer, even though he called her “Miss Quinsana” now. It was, she thought, that the three years she had worked here could not be washed away into forgetfulness.