She was crying again. This time when I put my arms around her, she did not protest. Her face turned to bury itself in my shoulder. Her tears soaked a damp rectangle through my shirt. I could feel their moisture on my skin.
Holding her like that, stroking her infinitely fine hair, thinking of her austere face, those pale, pale eyes, I felt the shunts and blocks shifting within me. All my emotional components wheeled about the still instant, ready to collapse into a new paradigmatic state at the least provocation. The touch of a hand, the merest ghost of a smile, the right word. I could have fallen in love with her then and there.
Which is the price one pays for having a wild mind. You’re constantly at the mercy of forces you don’t fully understand. For the moment I felt like a feral child standing on the twilight lands between the cultivated fields and the wolf-haunted forests, unable to choose between them.
Then, as quickly as it began, it was over. Hellene pushed herself away from me, once again in control of her emotions. “Let me show you something,” she said. “Have you got home virtual?”
“I don’t use it much.”
She took a small device out of her purse. “This is an adapter for your set. Very simple, very safe. Give it a try.”
“What does it do?”
“It’s a prototype recruitment device, and it’s intended for people like you. For the space of fifteen seconds, you’ll know how it feels to be optimized. Just so you can see there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“Will it change me?”
“All experience changes you. But this is only a magnetic resonance simulacrum. When the show’s over, the lights come up and the curtains go down. There you are in your seat, just as before.”
“I’ll do it,” I said, “if you’ll agree to try out something for me afterwards.”
Wordlessly, she handed me the adapter.
I put on the wraparounds. At my nod, Hellene flicked the switch. I sucked in my breath.
It was as if I had shrugged off an enormous burden. I felt myself straighten. My pulse strengthened and I breathed in deep, savoring the smells of my apartment; they were a symphony of minor and major keys, information that a second ago I had ignored or repressed. Wood polish and hair mousse. A hint of machine oil from the robot floor-cleaner hiding under my bed, which only came out while I was away. Boiled cabbage from a hundred bachelor dinners. And underneath it all, near-microscopic traces of lilac soap and herbal shampoo, of Ambrosie and Pas de Regret, of ginger candies and Trinidadian rum, the olfactory ghost of Sophia no amount of scrubbing could exorcise.
The visuals were minimal. I was standing in an empty room. Everything—windows, doorknob, floor—had been painted a uniform white. But mentally, the experience was wonderful. Like standing upon a mountain top facing into a thin, chill wind. Like diving naked into an ice-cold lake at dawn. I closed my eyes and savored the blessed clarity that filled my being.
For the first time in as long as I could remember, I felt just fine.
There were any number of mental exercises I could try out. The adapter presented me with a menu of them. But I dismissed it out of hand. Forget that nonsense.
I just wanted to stand there, not feeling guilty about Sophia. Not missing her. Not regretting a thing. I knew it wasn’t my fault. Nothing was my fault, and if it had been that wouldn’t have bothered me either. If I’d been told that the entire human race would be killed five seconds after I died a natural death, I would’ve found it vaguely interesting, like something you see on a nature program. But it wouldn’t have troubled me.
Then it was over.
For a long instant I just sat there. All I could think was that if this thing had been around four years ago, Sophia would be here with me now. She’d never have chosen optimization knowing it would be like that. Then I took off the wraparounds.
Hellene was smiling. “Well?” she said. She just didn’t get it.
“Now it’s your turn to do something for me.”
For a flicker of an instant she looked disappointed. But it didn’t last. “What is it?”
“It’ll be morning soon,” I said. “I want you to come to Mass with me.”
Hellene looked at me as if I’d invited her to wallow in feces. Then she laughed. “Will I have to eat human flesh?”
It was like a breath of wind on a playing-card castle. All the emotional structures my assemblers had been putting together collapsed into nothingness. I didn’t know whether I should be glad or sad. But I knew now that I would never—could never—love this woman.
Something of this must have showed in my expression, for Hellene quickly said, “Forgive me, that was unspeakably rude.” One hand fluttered by the side of her skull. “I’ve grown so used to having a mediator that without it I simply blurt out whatever enters my head.” She unplugged the adapter and put it back in her purse. “But I don’t indulge in superstitions. Good God, what would be the point?”
“So you think religion is just a superstition?”
“It was the first thing to go, after I was optimized.”
Sophia had said much the same thing, the day of her optimization. It was an outpatient operation, in by three, out by six, no more complicated than getting your kidneys regrown. So she was still working things out when she came home. By seven she’d seen through God, prayer, and the Catholic Church. By eight she had discarded her plans to have children and a lifelong love of music. By nine she’d outgrown me.
Hellene cocked her head to the side in that mannered little gesture optimized businesspeople use to let you know they’ve just accessed the time. “It’s been lovely,” she said. “Thank you, you’ve been so very kind. But now if you’ll excuse me, I really must go. My children—”
“I understand.”
“I face a severe fine if I don’t see them at least twice a month. It’s happened three times so far this year and quite frankly my bank account can’t take it.”
On the way out, Hellene noticed the portrait of Sophia by the door. “Your wife?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“She’s exquisite.”
“Yes,” I said. “She is.” I didn’t add that I’d killed her. Nor that a panel of neuroanalysts had found me innocent by virtue of a faulty transition function and, after minor chemical adjustments and a two-day course on anger control techniques, had released me onto the street without prejudice.
Or hope.
That was when I discovered the consolation of religion. Catholics do not believe in faulty transition functions. According to the Church, I had sinned. I had sinned, and therefore I must repent, confess, and atone.
I performed an act of true contrition, and received absolution. God has forgiven me.
Mind you, I have not forgiven myself. Still, I have hope.
Which is why I’ll never be optimized. The thought that a silicon-doped biochip could make me accept Sophia’s death as an unfortunate accident of neurochemistry and nothing more, turns my stomach.
“Good-bye,” I said.
Hellene waved a hand in the air without turning around. She disappeared in the direction of Queen Street Station. I shut the door.
From Hill Street, which runs the height of Glasgow’s Old City, you can stand at an intersection and look down on one side upon Charing Cross and on the other upon Cowcaddens. The logic of the city is laid clear there and although the buildings are largely Victorian (save for those areas cleared by enemy bombings in World War II, which are old modern), the logic is essentially medieval: The streets have grown as they will, in a rough sort of grid, and narrow enough that most are now fit for one-way traffic only.
But if you look beyond Cowcaddens, the ruins of the M8 Motorway cut through the city, wide and out of scale, long unused but still fringed by derelict buildings, still blighting the neighborhoods it was meant to serve. A dead road, fringed by the dead flesh of abandoned buildings.
Beyond, by the horizon, were the shimmering planes and uncertain surfaces of the buildings where the new people live
d, buildings that could never have been designed without mental optimization, all tensengricity and interactive film. I’d been in those bright and fast habitats. The air sings within their perfect corridors. Nobody could deny this.
Still, I preferred the terraces and too-narrow streets and obsolete people you find in the old city. The new people don’t claim to be human, and I don’t claim that being human is any longer essential. But I cling to the human condition anyway, out of nostalgia perhaps but also, possibly, because it contains something of genuine value.
I sat in the straight-backed Charles Rennie MacIntosh and stared at the icon. It was all there, if only I could comprehend it: the dark dimensions of the human mind. Such depths it holds!
Such riches.
10
The Raggle Taggle Gypsy-O
Among twenty snowy mountains, the only moving thing was the eye of Crow. The sky was blue, and the air was cold. His beard was rimed with frost. The tangled road behind was black and dry and empty.
At last, satisfied that there was nobody coming after them, he put down his binoculars. The way down to the road was steep. He fell three times as he half pushed and half swam his way through the drifts. His truck waited for him, idling. He stamped his feet on the tarmac to clear the boot treads and climbed up on the cab.
Annie looked up as he opened the door. Her smile was warm and welcoming, but with just that little glint of man-fear first, brief as the green flash at sunset, gone so quickly you wouldn’t see it if you didn’t know to look. That wasn’t me, babe, he wanted to tell her. Nobody’s ever going to hit you again. But he said nothing. You could tell the goddamnedest lies, and who was there to stop you? Let her judge him by his deeds. Crow didn’t much believe in words.
He sat down heavily, slamming the door. “Cold as hell out there,” he commented. Then, “How are they doing?”
Annie shrugged. “They’re hungry again.”
“They’re always hungry.” But Crow pulled the wicker picnic hamper out from under the seat anyway. He took out a dead puppy and pulled back the slide window at the rear of the cab. Then, with a snap of his wrist, he tossed the morsel into the van.
The monsters in the back began fighting over the puppy, slamming each other against the walls, roaring in mindless rage.
“Competitive buggers.” He yanked the brake and put the truck into gear.
They had the heat cranked up high for the sake of their cargo, and after a few minutes he began to sweat. He pulled off his gloves, biting the fingertips and jerking back his head, and laid them on the dash, alongside his wool cap. Then he unbuttoned his coat.
“Gimme a hand here, willya?” Annie held the sleeve so he could draw out his arm. He leaned forward and she pulled the coat free and tossed it aside. “Thanks,” he said.
Annie said nothing. Her hands went to his lap and unzipped his pants. Crow felt his pecker harden. She undid his belt and yanked down his BVDs. Her mouth closed upon him. The truck rattled underneath them.
“Hey, babe, that ain’t really safe.”
“Safe.” Her hand squeezed him so hard he almost asked her to stop. But thought better of it. “I didn’t hook up with a thug like you so I could be safe.”
She ran her tongue down his shaft and begun sucking on his nuts. Crow drew in his breath. What the hell, he figured, might as well go along for the ride. Only he’d still better keep an eye on the road. They were going down a series of switchbacks. Easy way to die.
He downshifted, and downshifted again.
It didn’t take long before he spurted.
He came and groaned and stretched and felt inordinately happy. Annie’s head came up from his lap. She was smiling impishly. He grinned back at her.
Then she mashed her face into his and was kissing him deeply, passionately, his jism salty on her tongue and her tongue sticky in his mouth, and he couldn’t see! Terrified, he slammed his foot on the brake. He was blind and out of control on one of the twistiest and most dangerous roads in the universe. The tires screamed.
He pushed Annie away from him so hard the back of her head bounced off the rider-side window. The truck’s front wheels went off the road. Empty sky swung up to fill the windshield. In a frenzy, he swung the wheel so sharply he thought for a second they were going to overturn. There was a hideous crunch that sounded like part of the frame hitting rock, and then they were jolting safely down the road again.
“God damn,” Crow said flatly. “Don’t you ever do that again.” He was shaking. “You’re fucking crazy!” he added, more emphatically.
“Your fly is unzipped,” Annie said, amused.
He hastily tucked himself in. “Crazy.”
“You want crazy? You so much as look at another woman and I’ll show you crazy.” She opened the glove compartment and dug out her packet of Kents. “I’m just the girl for you, boyo, and don’t you forget it.” She lit up and then opened the window a crack for ventilation. Mentholated smoke filled the cabin.
In a companionable wordlessness they drove on through the snow and the blinding sunlight, the cab warm, the motor humming, and the monsters screaming at their back.
For maybe fifty miles he drove, while Annie drowsed in the seat beside him. Then the steering got stiff and the wheel began to moan under his hands whenever he turned it. It was a long, low, mournful sound like whale-song.
Without opening her eyes, Annie said, “What kind of weird-shit station are you listening to? Can’t you get us something better?”
“Ain’t no radio out here, babe. Remember where we are.”
She opened her eyes. “So what is it, then?”
“Steering fluid’s low. I think maybe we sprung a leak back down the road, when we almost went off.”
“What are we going to do about it?”
“I’m not sure there’s much we can do.”
At which exact moment they turned a bend in the road and saw a gas station ahead. Two sets of pumps, diesel, air, a Mini-Mart, and a garage. Various machines of dubious functionality rusting out back.
Crow slammed on the brakes. “That shouldn’t be there.” He knew that for a fact. Last time he’d been through, the road had been empty all the way through to Troy.
Annie finally opened her eyes. They were the greenest things Crow had ever seen. They reminded him of sunlight through jungle leaves, of moss-covered cathedrals, of a stone city he’d once been to, sunk in the shallow waters of the Caribbean. That had been a dangerous place, but no more dangerous than this slim and lovely lady beside him. After a minute, she simply said, “Ask if they do repairs.”
Crow pulled up in front of the garage and honked the horn a few times. A hound-lean mechanic came out, wiping his hands on a rag. “Yah?”
“Lissen, Ace, we got us a situation here with our steering column. Think you can fix us up?”
The mechanic stared at him, unblinking, and said, “We’re all out of fluid. I’ll take a look at your underside, though.”
While the man was on a creeper under the truck, Crow went to the crapper. Then he ambled around back of the garage. There was a window there. He snapped the latch, climbed in, and poked around.
When he strolled up front again, the mechanic was out from under the truck and Annie was leaning against one of the pumps, flirting with him. He liked it, Crow could tell. Hell, even faggots liked it when Annie flirted at them.
Annie went off to the ladies’ when he walked up, and by the time she came back the mechanic was inside again. She raised her eyebrows and Crow said, “Bastard says he can’t fix the leak and ain’t got no fluid. Only I boosted two cases out a window and stashed ’em in a junker out back. Go in and distract him, while I get them into the truck.”
Annie thrust her hands deep into the pockets of her leather jacket and twisted slightly from foot to foot. “I’ve got a better thought,” she said quietly. “Kill him.”
“Say what?”
“He’s one of Eric’s people.”
“You sure of that?”
; “Ninety percent sure. He’s here. What else could he be?”
“Yeah, well, there’s still that other ten percent.”
Her face was a mask. “Why take chances?”
“Jesus.” Crow shook his head. “Babe, sometimes you give me the creeps. I don’t mind admitting that you do.”
“Do you love me? Then kill him.”
“Hey. Forget that bullshit. We been together long enough, you must know what I’m like, okay? I ain’t killing nobody today. Now go into the convenience there and buy us ten minutes, eh? Distract the man.”
He turned her around and gave her a shove toward the Mini-Mart. Her shoulders were stiff with anger, her bottom big and round in those tight leather pants. God, but he loved the way she looked in those things! His hand ached to give her a swat on the rump, just to see her scamper. Couldn’t do that with Annie, though. Not now, not never. Just one more thing that bastard Eric had spoiled for others.
He had the truck loaded and the steering column topped up by the time Annie strode out of the Mini-Mart with a boom box and a stack of CDs. The mechanic trotted after her, toting up prices on a little pad. When he presented her with the total, she simply said, “Send the bill to my husband,” and climbed into the cab.
With a curt, wordless nod, the man turned back toward the store.
“Got any more doubts?” Annie asked coldly.
Crow cursed. He’d killed men in his time, but it wasn’t anything he was proud of. And never what you’d call murder. He slammed down the back of the seat, to access the storage compartment. All his few possessions were in there, and little enough they were for such a hard life as he’d led. Some spare clothes. A basket of trinkets he’d picked up along the way. His guns.
Forty miles down the road, Annie was still fuming. Abruptly, she turned and slammed Crow in the side with her fist. Hard. She had a good punch for a woman. Keeping one hand on the wheel, he half-turned and tried to seize her hands in one enormous fist. She continued hitting him in the chest and face until he managed to nab them both.
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