Synners

by Pat Cadigan

  I don't know what it is, but it makes me horny, and that's all that matters.

  "Fucking right there's nothing fucking wrong with porn," said Quilmar. Quilmar was one of the stone marathoners. He'd taken so many years off his age, he'd have been nine when he'd cut his first single (okay, maybe eight and a half), and he'd had it polished and tightened so much, his lovers said the dimple in his chin was actually his navel. Maybe, Gina thought, the Beater hadn't been so rucked after all to do what he'd done. "Porn is the fucking secret of life, sister-mine. If you can't fuck it and it doesn't dance, eat it or throw it away. That's the fucking order of the universe, and I'm at the fucking top of the food-fuck-and-dance chain."

  Then he tried to corner her in Valjean's long, narrow kitchen but he got a little bit confused, and she left him dry-humping the refrigerator door. Wait till he tried to throw that away.

  "Talent squeezes out brains." Jolene, looking older, but good-older, wiser, full of dignity. "Shit, you told me that the first time I helped you drag Mark home. How's he surviving the corporate life?"

  When she couldn't answer, Jolene took her up to the top floor, to Valjean's secret oxygen supply, and gave her a few hits off the mask. This was how she kept track, she thought, by who was helping her find Mark and how toxed she was herself. The O2 helped; there was a little more in it than God's pure oxy. She and Jolene sat out under the eaves and looked down the canyon, held hands, didn't say much. Didn't have to.

  "I get some work," Jolene was telling her after a while. Jolene's head was resting on her shoulder. Gina was a flaming hetero, but Jolene liked to keep her options open, as Jolene herself said. Being with someone who wasn't afraid of knowing you needed to be touched was okay whether your options were nailed down or wide open and flapping in the fucking breeze. "I get work from some of the indies, outlaws most of them with one leg over the fence, thinking about going legit. Don't get much legit air, but that's where the scene is getting to be. The Dive'll have people crawling through the clubs on their hands and knees to steal from us soon. Except you, Gina, because you're there already, aren't you?"

  "Yah. They tell me to come, but I'm already there."

  "Walk," Jolene said, suddenly urgent. "Walk away, what are they gonna do, throw you in debtors' prison?"

  Gina nodded. "Does the phrase 'contempt of court' do anything for you?" She drew up her knees, rested her chin on them. "You know you could theoretically spend the rest of your life in the can on a c-of-c charge? Die of old age in the can for nothing more than saying, 'Fuck, no.' "

  "You're lost, girl."

  She laughed. "Oh, no. What it is, is, I been found. That's the fucking problem, I'm found, and they're gonna keep me. And Mark's the one so found he's lost for good."

  – -

  !! U B THE *!!

  Many Main-Run Features Starring U!

  Available Now:

  Raid on Buenos Aires * Thrash-Out * Love Kills

  The Buddy Holly Story (3rd-and BEST!!-remake)

  1000s of others available, come in and BROWZE!!!!

  Complete Rock Video Catalog, Too!

  (Take-Out Xtra)

  She read it through and then went back to the first line, puzzled. U B the asterisk? Was she too toxed or not toxed enough?

  You be the ass to risk.

  Gina nodded. For all she knew, she was looking at the secret of life. You be the ass to risk. Love Kills. 3rd-and BEST!!- remake.

  Complete Rock Video Catalog, Too! Where old rock videos went to die, hers, Mark's, everyone, here in the wannabee parlors, in the wannabee pipe on the dataline for those who could foot that kind of FOB.

  Quilmar hadn't had it quite right. If you can't fuck it, and it doesn't dance, eat it, be it, or throw it away.

  A woman with tiny old-fashioned movie reels twined in her hair and arcs of silvery spectrum mylar instead of eyebrows was trying to get a rabbity-looking guy in a rented bodyshield to step through the beaded curtain in the open doorway. "Anyone can say they'll make you a star, but we're the only ones who can really do it, whaddaya say? What you wannabee?" The mylar wiggled up and down, the beads swaying in the doorway clacked lightly, and the traffic on the boulevard nattered and chattered and popped.

  "Come on, homeboy, it's so easy. What you wannabee? You wannabee Buddy Holly? You wannabee a raider on Buenos Aires, you wannabee a killer and get away with it?" She pushed up the sleeves of her slatternly kimono and took both his hands. "Come on, homeboy, tell me. I'm your Hollywood landlady with a full pot of coffee or whatever else you drink and all the time in the world to listen to you. Just tell me what you wannabee."

  The guy looked around like he was afraid someone was going to catch him at this. "You got full-body hotsuits?" he asked. "Full coverage?"

  "Homeboy, where are you from? We got the full coverage, the full coverage, they don't make em better than the ones we got. Ain't no part of you gonna be neglected, just tell me what you wannabee."

  He looked around again, and his gaze snagged on Gina where she was standing by the sign. The woman frowned a little, no mean trick with mylar eyebrows. "That stuff with you?" she asked him.

  "No," he said, but uncertainly, as if he weren't really sure. Gina wanted to laugh. Yah, I'll tell you what him wannabee. Him wannabee somebody who doesn't live in Culver City or Inglewood or some other damned place like that in a three-roomer with a two-screen dataline subscription, not knowing what to do with himself when he's used up all the series and the movies and the videos and the insty-parties and wondering why he can't go out and find a life like what he sees on a high-res screen, or at least why he can't afford a hotsuit with full coverage.

  The guy's expression was a mixture of defiance and embarrassment as the woman pulled him through the curtain. The beads rippled, and then the woman poked her head through them again.

  "You wannabee getting off my sidewalk, okay, homegirl?" Gina gave her the sign of the horns and moved off, laughing to herself.

  "What's so funny, homegirl?" A real homegirl, a green-haired boulevardette wrapped in a red trash bag with the words Hazardous Waste stenciled in large repeat all over it and the same thing tattooed on her forehead.

  "I'm lucky I can dance," Gina said.

  They were all dancing in Forest Lawn, whether they actually could or not. The music was cranked up so loud that the cops had to be comatose not to hear it. Hit-and-run, but Mark wasn't there, either. Some little snipe named Dexter with a laptop had her backed up against Liberace's tomb, claiming he was a fucking orchestra, and off to one side a familiar figure with a cam was trying to look like he wasn't taking her picture.

  He looked good tonight, too, and she could hear the sexy laugh in her mind, and what the hell, she could pretend there wasn't anything he wanted to know about, at least for the duration. But even if there hadn't been, all he'd be for her was another furnished room: whatever she needed, none of it hers.

  "What's new?" he asked, coming over.

  "You mean, what's news."

  "However you want it," he said, sounding honest.

  She glanced at the snipe, who was standing by on a wish and a prayer. "Whack the road," she told him, and he moved off trying to look too chill to be hurt.

  "This how you get to night court?" she asked. "Go someplace you know the cops'll give you a ride from?"

  He smiled, looked down the rise to where most of the jumping was taking place. The pickle stand was still in business, but the group had packed up their keyboards and motored; the music was coming out of a box now, but the kids weren't working out any less for it. She saw Clarence or Claw sweating in the middle of a frantic group of kids trying to peak before the cops got around to crashing the party.

  "I got something might interest you," he said, after a bit.

  "If I tell you what I know," she said. "Don't bother. I still don't know dick."

  He looked at her speculatively for a long moment and then shrugged. "Would you tell me if you did?"

  "What do I look like to you, General News? Po
p-Cult Index?"

  "Dear Mrs. Troubles."

  She grinned. "Fuck you."

  "I wouldn't rule it out."

  Youwin the game, Mark had said once, as soon as you get them to say it. Then you do whatever you want. Which would have explained a lot, except she'd never said it to Mark, not once.

  He waited, and she waited, and then he shrugged again. "Take a look." He set the cam on preview mode and gave it to her. She looked through the eyepiece and saw him sitting in the sand, leaning back on his hands and staring dreamily upward. "I took that tonight. From the state he was in, I'd say he's probably still there."

  She gave the cam back to him. "Thank you."

  He looked startled for a second and then covered it. "I thought you'd want to know. I did a little research on you. And him. It's kinda hard to do any research on one of you without getting the other. Tell me something, how did a soul sister come by a name like Ay-ee-see?"

  "Eye-ay-see," she said. "It was easier than you'd think." She hopped down off Liberace's resting place and started to walk away.

  "You want a ride?" he called after her. She turned around and looked at him. "To the Mimosa," he added. "You shouldn't be driving."

  "Gotta drive." She grinned. "Too fuckin' toxed to walk."

  He was on her in three fast strides, taking her to the gate. His hand on her arm said it was settled if she said so, but she could feel how he was willing to adapt to any changes she might want to make. Sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll, sure, homeboy, you want that in any particular order?

  Shit, she was old enough to be his mother, if she'd started a little young (just a little). So what was it? Her looks were an acquired taste, not popular demand, and they didn't make it a secret she was holding on for forty.

  Then again, maybe it wasn't her; maybe it was him, all him. The gypsy journalist's urge to probe. Curiosity kills the cat, satisfaction brings him back, and brings him and brings him and brings him.

  Nah. Mark was waiting on the Mimosa, and there'd been too many furnished rooms already.

  She got there in time to see the Beater bending over him, looking harried and anxious, the slicked-back hair hanging loose now. Defiantly she knelt down next to Mark, now stretched out in the sand seeing miracles in the black sky.

  "He got away from me," the Beater said. "I was trying to keep him detoxed. As long as you're here, you can give me a hand with him."

  Mark's gaze slowly traveled over to her and stopped on her face. How come it always ends up like this? she asked him silently. Where are you, and what do you really do when you go there? Why did I ever want you, and why do I want you now? Because it can't just be the music, and it can't just be the video.

  "Change for the machines," he said.

  The Beater took one side, and she took the other, and they got him up on his feet. The gypsy got the footage of their leaving. What the fuck, he should go home with something, even if it was really nothing at all.

  They took him back to the Beater's place and put him to bed on the couch. He was already asleep, or passed out, whichever. "They asked me to keep him clean," the Beater said, pulling off Mark's shoes. "So I told him you were gonna kill him and he could stay with me."

  "I'd say 'fuck you' but I don't feel that friendly," Gina said.

  "I didn't want him out loose where he could get into trouble. Rivera had him Purged once, I didn't want it to happen again."

  She winced. "Christ, why didn't they just scour him out with a wire brush? That could have killed him."

  The Beater nodded wearily. "Yah, well, I didn't find out till after the fact. I didn't find out a lot of shit till after the fact." He went to her and looked into her eyes carefully. "You keep this up, Rivera might Purge you, too."

  "What's so fucking important that Rivera would Purge me?"

  The Beater went past her into the kitchenette.

  "What's going on?" she called after him. "What kind of sling is my ass in that I'd have to get Purged and I don't even fucking know it?"

  He stuck his head out of the kitchenette. "You want some coffee?"

  She stared at him evenly, and he dropped his gaze. "Maybe I should have let you take care of him." He pulled his head back, and she heard him fussing with the coffeepot. Son of a bitch was actually going to make fucking coffee. For real. She went to the kitchenette and stood in the doorway with her arms folded. The drip machine on the counter wheezed and bubbled as coffee poured into the carafe. Rediscovery Cuisine beverages. Little Jesus Jump-Up.

  "First place you ever had of your own back in Boston had a real kitchen, with a table and chairs in it," he said. "I remember."

  "That wasn't my first place. That was a few apartments later, by the time I met you. They all had kitchens, though."

  He faced her in the tiny space. "Is it the tox, or are you just tired enough to have calmed down?"

  "Maybe I'm getting old." She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. "What's the fucking use. You gonna tell me all that whole lotta shit you found out after the fact now?"

  "I can't. Not yet."

  "And why the fuck not?"

  "It's not mine, all right?"

  "No, it's not all right, why the fuck would you think it was?"

  The Beater ran a hand through his half-lacquered hair, wincing at the pull. "Christ, how many years was it? You think I'd let anybody hurt him now?"

  "Galen would. Galen doesn't give a fuck about him. Neither does Rivera. And goddamn Joslin thinks Dachau was a fucking spa."

  "It's something different," the Beater said heavily. "Whatever you're thinking, it's something different than that."

  "Thanks for the juicy fucking hint." She pulled her shirt off. "And no, I don't want any fucking coffee." She headed toward the bedroom, shedding clothes.

  "Gina!"

  She stopped at the doorway and looked back.

  "You better show for work tomorrow. You been gone three days. You got videos to do."

  "Kiss me," she muttered. Stripped down to her T-shirt and underpants, she crawled into the Beater's bed. Sometime later she felt him slide in next to her. Old stuff; life is uncertain, catch bed space where you can get it. When she woke a few hours later, Mark was gone again.

  15

  They kept tripping over Jones's body in Rosa's tiny apartment, but there was nowhere to put him, so they had to leave him lying around. Human clutter; how did we reach this pinnacle of civilization, Sam wondered.

  "I've got to stay away from him," she told Rosa. "Sometimes I'm afraid I'll just start kicking him, and I won't stop till there's just shit and blood, and I'll be kicking that, too."

  "Life's so unfair," Rosa said. "You care about Keely, and he loves that pile of refuse."

  "Keely's the brother I never had," she said shortly. But in spite of everything, it felt good to be back. Rosa split some gypsy jobs with her, mostly scut work, recalibrating automated inventory programs, whipping up a rip-off of the Dodge-M, cheaper, faster, and smarter than the Dive's clumsy, overpriced notion of a fooler loop, encrypting data for spenders who didn't care to answer too many questions as to why they needed encryption. The work kept them both in enough bearer chips to survive on. And it was good to be back on the net, popping around looking for Dr. Fish's Answering Machine to see if anyone had uploaded anything interesting lately, seeing what crazies had come on-line and which ones had crashed themselves. And going over to Fez's place to see if he'd gotten Keely's zap figured out yet.

  Fez seemed to be making better progress with Adrian's Mandarin translation program. Privately she felt much the same as Rosa did: Spoken Text wasn't so bad. She'd been known to use it herself when she wanted the illusion of Company. But Fez was adamant that the boy should be able to read, and the kid wasn't averse to the idea. What the hell; it wasn't her worry. Not that she knew of, anyway.

  But then, up until she'd come back from the Ozarks, she wouldn't have thought Jones would have been her worry.

  "How can he go on like that?" she said. "How can his system lake
it? He should be in massive failure of everything."

  "Fuck if I know," Rosa said grimly. She gripped the wheel of the cramped rental hard with both hands, glancing at the nav-unit screen bolted into the dash, and made a sudden hard right turn. "He's not continually comatose, just sleeping a lot. Regular sleep, I mean. Depressed people do that, sleep like it's gonna be outlawed. But he was up last night for a while."

  "He was? I must have been dead myself."

  Rosa made a left that threw her against the door. "Sorry. GridLid says bad clog, we'll have to go around it." She nipped around a bullet-shaped tour bus that was obviously lost and slipped into the gap just ahead of it, almost kissing the bumper of the old-style stretch limo in front of them. "Conspicuous consuming pigs," she said. "Who do they think they're impressing?-Yah, he got up, drank all the milk, checked the dataline for mail, futzed around, and then went back to his lying-in spot. I'd've gotten up except I was more asleep than awake myself. I don't think he's actually been dead for quite a while."

  "He looks stone-home dead to me all the time now," Sam said. "He looks like the Grim Reaper's no-account brother."

  Rosa stomped the brake, slamming the steering wheel with one hand. "Goddammit, a clog." She flicked a finger against the screen. "Damn you, GridLid."

  Sam craned her neck out the window. "It's just a little one. We'll be out the other side in ten minutes."

  "Who're you trying to shit? More like twenty. Fucking GridLid's so stuffed with viruses that someday the viruses are just gonna take over. Probably do a better job, too." She leaned an arm on her open window and rested her cheek on her fist. "Wake me when we're totaled."

  "Don't go to sleep now, this is the fun part. Listen, what else do you know about this program Fez is running Keely's stuff through?"

  "Only what I told you," Rosa sighed, running her right index finger around the circle of the steering wheel. "It's some kind of hyperutility embedded in an AI assembly."