Keeping It Real

by Justina Robson

  The studio was set up in an underground room, insulated for sound. Above that, on the ground level, the administrative offices filled the space. Most of the areas were populated, so Lila used her day clearance pass on the Fire Escape door and went up another flight. Through the concrete and steel of the walls it was hard to obtain any accurate scans but she did her best, searching another empty office, a storage cupboard, a room full of old equipment. It was here that she detected a trace of illegitimate radio transmission-Inside, junk was stacked to the roof. Lila lifted boxes and crates and old packaging. It was covered in dust and soon she was quite filthy but she persisted. The transmitter was behind a filing cabinet which was full to the top with broken mikes, old amplifier stacks and lumps of electronics that must have been made before Lila was bom. She couldn’t be bothered to unpack it for its trip to the corridor so, after checking that nobody was near, she engaged her internal hydraulics and lifted the entire thing, sliding it along the carpet on one edge until it snagged on the lintel. Breathing out, sucking her stomach in, Lila sneaked past it into the corner of the room, felt a tug against her leg and heard a ripping sound.

  “Ah, crap,” she said and looked down at the burst stitches on her new pants. It was just a whole day of too-late, she thought.

  With more force than necessary she bent down and yanked up the carpet. In a billow of dust and dead flies she sneezed and reached down, carefully letting the little finger of her right hand rest against the tiny object which looked like a pebble. Intricate receptors housed where a knucklebone would have been identified it as a Faery device, part silicon and part metal. It was using bounce-retort techniques to get a reasonably clear sound pickup from the studio, and was broadcasting on a coded frequency to somewhere quite local. It must have been here a long time for its battery power was almost exhausted. Lila listened through the bug for a moment or two.

  She could hear Zal and the band. The raw energy of the music reached up and caught her. Zal’s voice was a shamanic, self-destructive growl— “the pleasure is to play, makes no difference what you say…” It made a strange, dark exultation rise in her chest, the sensation so clear and quick that she jerked in surprise. Her Al-self picked up frequencies that her human ears couldn’t hear. She wondered for a split second if there were lots of dogs and cats in the intended audience, but her AI

  corrected her. Zal’s anomalous sounds were in the sub-audible band, not the high pitches of specialized whistles.

  Lila stored the information to send back to the lab later, in case it was an important slice of data, and took her finger away from the bug, deciding to let it lie there for the time being. It took a few minutes to replace all the crap where it had been. When she’d done she dusted herself down and tried washing in the Ladies. The soap and water did a reasonably good job but there was nothing to be done about the tiny tear she’d made in the outside seam of her trousers where it had caught against the corner of the filing cabinet. She patched the inside with a piece of sample tape which she carried along with the rest of her field forensics kit in a capsule container that fitted inside her jacket pocket like a wallet, and went back to the studio.

  What she really wanted to do was get outside and trace the broadcast to its reception unit, but that would mean getting too far out of range of His Highness. Lila had to settle for a seat next to Jelly in the recording booth where she watched everyone except Zal do ten repeats of the same song whilst Jelly fiddled levels and mix and his assistants dashed around making much of nothing to do.

  During the repeats she watched everyone closely. The musicians were so used to the regime that they patiently repeated everything. Poppy smiled once to Lila and they had to stop that take.

  Jelly screamed at her, “Stop grinning! We’re self-destructing here, not selling hamburgers!”

  Zal looked briefly at Lila through the glass, when he turned around from talking to the DJ between takes of Luke’s bass track. He mouthed something at her which she wasn’t meant to hear, but Lila could read his lips even if she hadn’t been able to instantly recalibrate her hearing filters to pick up the actual sound. It was elvish words saying a thing she was reasonably certain no elf had ever said before.

  Zo na kinkirien. I love your pants.

  She was puzzled for a moment but pleased she didn’t actually look down as she realised the tear on her seam must be visible and that he was taunting her for going off instead of sticking like glue to his side. He’d turned away before she could give him her frosty look.

  Jelly listened through his private headphones, jouncing on his seat. “One more time. Everyone except the lord of darkness himself—Zal, you’re done,” he said through the connecting mike and added. “Ear bleeding effort ladies and gennlemen.” He cued the intricate, slamming drum line with a fingertip and glanced at Lila. “Hey, don’t go getting ideas about Zal. You know I have to say it. Every girl comes in here and the boys… okay they’re like mostly engineers or admin and shit … they always end up getting… you know what I mean?”

  Lila had no idea but she could guess. She nodded, rather interested that this was still standard practice after so many years—warn the new girl off, insult the bodyguard’s intelligence, make sure she knows she doesn’t count. She smiled vacantly at him with agreement whilst inwardly seething.

  “Good. Cos you have to like be around him all the time and that’s not gonna be a picnic. Don’t tell him what to do. And don’t tell him what to take. In fact, don’t speak, because that all pisses him off and we have to start touring on Monday and I can’t hand him over to Jolene all pissed because good tour managers are like rocking horse shit and if she quits we’re all screwed. Don’t let him go on another goddamned bender. He missed two dates last month, off his head out in the woods somewhere, and it took four days to find him even and we never found whatever it was he took, maybe it was mushrooms or some elfy thing he dug up, you know? And he’ll resent you. Oh man, he already resents you. He’d resent you more if you was a guy, though, if that makes it any better. That’s all I can say.” Jelly paused as the music started and then turned back. “Do you have to shower with him?”

  “No,” Lila said.

  Jelly made a face that said it was a sport he was sorry he was going to miss, and then he slapped his headphones back on.

  Lila tested her patience to the limit by sitting quietly for the next hour simply watching, learning that when Jelly said it was the last take, it wasn’t. She used the time to sharpen up her intelligence on Alfheim and tried to use the extensive database of genealogical data given her by Incon to try and place Zal.

  The only thing he’d ever said about where he came from was in the Vanity Fair piece and it read: “There’s no reason for me to be here other than the music. I like to sing.”

  He’d lived in Queenstown, in the north of the Bay City area, for six months before The No Shows got their act together. Before that there was no record of anything unusual. He’d entered Otopia from the Alfheim gateway under the usual restrictions and all his paperwork was in order. Lila thought Zal must be a shortened version of his real name, but the database contained no elvish names beginning with a Z. He was good at talking in Otopian, but so were many elves, who picked up languages and accents like good carpet picks up dog hair. Lila couldn’t genome test him without his permission according to international law, so that was out of the question for the time being, unless he were involved in a provable criminal action. It really looked like he was just an elf who wanted to be a rock star. If only that weren’t against every chosen or given trait of Elfdom she’d ever known. But then nobody here seemed to have a problem with it, probably because they were all getting rich off it.

  Lila was grimly aware that stereotyping had provided the majority of her own attitudes towards his species, and what had happened to her in Lilirien, the Second Realm of Alfheim, two years ago hadn’t done anything to broaden her mind. The problem with Alfheim had always been that the elves had very little contact with humans in or out o
f Otopia. They didn’t mix with faery much either, and they had active rules of avoidance regarding demons—it was something to do with the magic systems each used. Ancients and elementals moved freely among elves and were even welcome, but this was because all of them had derived from similar magical roots. To Otopia they were neighbours; cordial and distant, as out of Lila’s league as though they belonged to a country club that she could never afford to go to.

  To the rest of the elves Zal must look like he was slumming it. She wouldn’t be surprised to find all the threats of any substance coming from resentful authorities and individuals there. “Ace of Spades’, in its Mode-X format, was comprehensively about as opposed to the serenity and rarefied values of elven society as you could get. Which is why she took the letters seriously. She knew that the elves” protectiveness over their precious culture extended well beyond simply keeping secrets and writing letters.

  At last everything had been done according to Jelly’s incomprehensible standards. The engineers began to pack their equipment, and the band decided they all wanted to go out and eat, with a view to staying out all night It was the last thing Lila felt like doing but it wasn’t her place to argue. Only as they settled down in their private dining room at the Lizard Lounge did she realise how hungry she was. She found herself placed next to Jolene and Luke, across from Zal.

  “Cool ‘tacts,” Luke said, grinning at her. “Good hair too.”

  “Thanks.” His flirting with her made her sorry her suit was so ordinary.

  “No problem. I was a bit offish before. Sorry. We get a lot of shit about that, y’know?” He passed her a menu as the waitress handed them out.

  “I know.”

  “Yeah, you read those letters?”

  “Yes.”

  “Think they’re real?”

  “Luke,” Jolene broke in rather sharply. “Can we not talk about it now?”

  “I was only asking,” Luke said and gave a glance at his menu before tossing it down.

  “No, I want to know too,” said Poppy from the end of the long table.

  “And me,” Viridia chimed in. “After all, we’re the ones who are in the firing line. Well, maybe from some angles.”

  Lila glanced at Zal, braced for some sarcastic or otherwise difficult response but he picked that second to take his coat off and didn’t meet her eye. She looked back at Luke and then at Poppy. “They’re real. Doublesafe has put on extra security at all hotels and venues. I’ll be with you all the time.”

  Jolene rolled her eyes and gave Lila a thanks-for-nothing stare.

  Lila tried to reassure her, “You shouldn’t worry about it. That’s my business.”

  “Easier said, man,” Luke said. “D’you have a gun?”

  “Several,” Lila assured him.

  “Where?” he leant back and stared at her chest. Viridia kicked his ankle. “Ow.” He laughed and kicked her back.

  At that moment the waitress returned. Everyone except Zal and Lila ordered beer, Lila skipped on drinks, not wanting any distraction. Zal drank water. She guessed it wasn’t because he was trying to stay sober because he smoked some funny cigarette of Sand’s and she could measure the dilation of the pupils in his eyes enlarging by the second. Jolene made a few comments, but he paid no attention to her.

  They talked amongst themselves as though Lila wasn’t there for the most part. She preferred it that way. It let her watch them closely because she didn’t have to concentrate on finding things to say. Poppy excused herself just as the food came and Lila tracked her idly as the humans all tucked into pizza or burgers. The fey ate strange set jellies, and honey from the comb and big lumps of sweet milky pudding. Zal did something Lila couldn’t believe she was watching at all.

  She hadn’t thought he could sing but she’d been dead wrong about that.

  She’d expected him to treat her with contempt but, whatever he was treating her with, it wasn’t that.

  Now she was sitting opposite an elf with unmistakably high-caste features, who could have easily passed for High Snot of the Brotherhood of Ultimate Superiority, a member of an entirely vegetarian species, watching him eat raw steak.

  Beside her Luke snorted and said through a mouthful of fries, “Like watching Bambi eat Thumper, innit?”

  Zal looked at him and he went quiet. Zal looked at Lila, a glance not unlike the way she’d once been looked at by a lion in the zoo at feeding time, the sort of glance you didn’t want to linger in. She shrugged and went on with her sandwich. Until that moment she’d really begun to imagine that Zal had stepped out of Alfheim one day and decided to act on a temporary whim for a taste of the lowlife. Surely there must be traumas that elves could suffer that could allow them to be as messed up as any human rock singer or songwriter? And they must have rebellious sons and daughters with a yen for travel? Or maybe he was born with an unusual talent that had never had any outlet in Lyrien and the wider elf nations? But now she had to put all those theories on hold. Even in situations of starvation she had never come across any evidence of elves eating flesh. They would rather die.

  After a few more minutes Lila excused herself, checked that the room was secure, scanned outside the building, and went to the Ladies. She found Poppy already in there waiting for her.

  Poppy chattered excitedly about the coming tour, her hopes of finding handsome groupies, how fun it was going to be having Lila come along, as she fixed her makeup. It was the kind of gush that didn’t need a response; fey friendly goodwill, like their badwill, came in seemingly random scattergun blasts that claimed anyone in range.

  Lila looked at her own face—she looked clean and her metal didn’t show. She looked away again. She didn’t like the sight of her new face. In recreating it the surgeons had made her well, even reasonable to look at, but the face wasn’t hers. It felt like it from the inside, until she saw the outside.

  Lila had once had soft features, round cheeks, a pretty face. Now she was not pretty and she didn’t know the word for her look these days. Her hair had grown back auburn on half her head and scarlet elsewhere, because of the magic that had stained her to the bone. They washed it out eventually, but bits of her were gone for ever and in their place was this machine, strong and restless and ill at ease with the flesh that was left. They were growing into each other, her Al-self and her real body. It would take years, they said, but one day the joins would become invisible.

  “Gods, I know I shouldn’t say this,” Poppy said, beginning to floss her pale-green teeth, “but Zal really really likes you.”

  “How d’you figure that out?” Lila said.

  “He watches you like all the time. Hadn’t you noticed?”

  “No,” Lila said honestly. Had he been?

  “No you wouldn’t,” Poppy said, ripping a new length of floss. “Not to worry. It’s a magic thing. But I can tell.”

  “Hey,” Lila said, feigning interest, though she didn’t know what to think. She had the sense that Poppy was one of those girls who very quickly become girlfriends who like to fix up their other girlfriends with their friends and have coffee shop fantasies about the whole thing.

  “And Zal doesn’t like anybody like that really,” Poppy added. “Not like that, you know. Especially not…” She paused. “Well, not.”

  “No, go on,” Lila said, lounging against the sink as if she had all day, as if they really were friends already.

  “People of non-magical extraction,” Poppy said as fast as she could. “Sorry, I know that’s really not the right thing to say.” She covered her mouth with her hand.

  “No, no,” Lila assured her. “It’s fine. Who likes everyone? Anyway, I’m an employee.” So, like all the others of his kind she’d ever met, he was racist. Figured.

  “Yeah, but if you’re like with us all the time you’re one of us, right?”

  Female faeries couldn’t stand non-inclusivity.

  “Right,” Lila said, smiling. “Absolutely right.”

  “Well, good, I’m glad we’ve sorted th
at out.” Poppy smiled. She really was gorgeous, Lila thought, feeling a stab of envy that was as unwelcome as it was unusual. She reminded herself strictly that she was lucky to be alive.

  “Does Jolene have a thing for Zal?” she asked as she held the door for Poppy.

  “Oh big style,” Poppy said. “Who doesn’t?”

  Lila followed her back to the table. More beer had arrived, more fancy cigarettes. They were in it for the long haul.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  It was three a.m. when Lila was finally alone in her room which adjoined Zal’s in the enormous, empty house on the hill. She sat on her bed and stared around her at the unimagined luxury of the place as she listened to him moving around next door, her hearing filters deep in her AI processes grooming every minute vibration as they searched for things that shouldn’t be there. Their apartments led off the ocean-view room that she’d first met him in. If she tried hard she could hear the sea. Its soft rhythm was soothing after the night’s activities.

  After the restaurant they’d gone to several bars. After the bars, two clubs. At the Ebony Bar Luke had tried to hit on her.

  At Lazy Daisy’s a group of fans had tried to mob the whole band.

  At Voudou Zulu there was an almighty street fight between The No Shows’ and another band’s fans, and Lila had ended up having to rush Zal through the cellars and out a back alley after punching out the drunk minder of an A-list film star who seemed determined that she’d started the entire thing.

  Zal had been laughing so hard she barely managed to get him to walk. He’d asked her if he could drive back. She said no. He didn’t argue. She was disappointed at his lack of response and the sulkiness made her angry and her anger made her resentful because it shouldn’t have mattered that he didn’t care. She rode too fast and nearly took them off the road and into a gully. By the time she’d got herself together they were walking through the echoing hallway. Jolene, who had returned home before one a.m., had met them and shown Lila to her room alongside Zal’s with palpable irritation. Zal had politely thanked Jolene for all her work—she was organising the whole tour after all—and Jolene had melted under his attention. Then Zal had simply shut his door on Lila. So she went into her room and shut hers with exactly the same finality.