But—
*
“Yes?”
Markus opened his mouth and closed it slowly.
The young woman standing in front of him in her tired training suit, a yogurt with the spoon sticking out in her left hand, was a normal woman. Thick black hair, black eyes, medium height, pretty, but not exceptional.
“Yes?” she asked again.
“Gloria?”
Markus’ voice croaked, making him feel stupid.
The young woman frowned and took a step back, her eyebrows almost meeting over her small pointy nose.
“Who are you?”
“Orlando.”
Gloria/Badia’s face twisted slightly, as she tried to figure out what mask she should wear. A slight smile finally spread across her lips.
“You.”
Markus nodded.
“Me.”
She stood aside and gestured him in with the yogurt holding hand. The apartment was the typical NoCred crappy functional two rooms, with a tiny functional kitchen and, Markus imagined, a tiny functional bathroom. There were movie posters on the walls and a small bookshelf. Classics, he noted, with some distaste. The TV was on and there was a red couch to sit on. Markus hesitated.
“I’m not staying long. I just wanted to say ‘congratulations.’”
Badia sat on the couch stirring her yogurt. On the table there was a plate with a few leaves of salad and a beer.
“Congratulations for what?”
Markus felt very warm and very stupid.
“Your marriage.”
Her laughter hurt his ears. It was brief and as cutting as mirror shards.
“What marriage? There’s no marriage . . . You can sit down, if you want. It’s actually nice to put a face on you. What’s your name by the way?”
“Markus. You’re not getting married?”
He grabbed a folding chair and sat down, not daring to open his jacket although he found the heat almost unbearable. Synth offered the Arctic, which he declined.
Badia shook her head.
“No, no marriage. That was just a lame excuse to tell you I wouldn’t be back in Erewhon® for a long time. Didn’t want to tell you the truth, that I have been downgraded to NoCred. You understand, don’t you?”
Markus looked around. Gloria’s real face, her real apartment. He thought about their talks, their complicity, their affection, but the small TV screen seemed to attract his attention like a dark magnet.
“Yeah, I do. Well, I think I do. I’m Cred myself.”
“So you understand. NoCred. The Black Hole. At least my debt isn’t huge. Should be back up in a couple of years.”
Markus nodded. That’s what all NoCreds said. But he knew that once you were down, you couldn’t come up. The City owned you—they said helped you—and very, very few NoCreds ever made it back to Cred. A bestselling biography now and then. A TV special. Hundreds of self-help books.
Their eyes met and she smiled again. She put the yogurt on the table and patted the sofa next to her.
Markus complied, feeling heavier and heavier. He suddenly wondered if he wasn’t experiencing Synth withdrawal symptoms, but no. He was simply experiencing reality.
Their shoulders almost touched and Markus could smell her—sweat, perfume, deodorant and spicy food subtly mixed together.
“How did you find me?” she asked, her eyes on him as she rested her elbow on the back of the couch.
Markus realized he liked her face. She had strong cheekbones he hadn’t noticed at first and her black eyes were intelligent, reinforcing the erotic harshness of her thin lips. He lied.
“I work for Cyber Magic®. Network maintenance. I got access to the customer list.”
She nodded, apparently unmoved by the illegality of the process.
“Well,” she said, “here I am. And here you are, Orlando. I mean . . . Markus. For real. Isn’t that weird?”
Markus nervously fingered the buttons of his jacket. He was beginning to regret his mindless impulse.
“Yes, it is. It’s my fault. It’s stupid. I think I’d better go now.”
Her hand caught his arm as he was about to rise from the couch.
“Are you in a hurry? You had plenty of time to talk in Erewhon®. Or is the NoCred situation bothering you?”
Markus sat down again. Synth was no help. Or he felt it was no help, controlling it firmly with his mental reins. His thoughts collided in endless colorful accidents.
“No, not at all. On both counts.”
They smiled and there was a long pause. The TV screen flickered and mumbled to itself on the other side of the small room.
“I miss my computer,” Badia finally said. “And my broadband connection. That’s the worst part of being here. I’m stuck in the middle of reality and there’s no way of escaping.”
Markus thought about the Synth pills rolling around their cellophane wrap in the warmth of his pocket.
“My plan,” she resumed, “is to save enough so I can get a second-hand computer and a broadband subscription. With my wages, I should be able to be back in Erewhon® in a year or so. I miss our talks. I really do.”
“Me too.”
They stared at each other, smiling. Markus enjoyed looking at her in a finer resolution than 1024 x 768.
Karen hated computers.
Six. Shift
Staring blankly at his office wall, he wondered how Ole and Nick were faring. After the trial, they had been sent to different prisons with a strict interdiction against getting in touch again. Markus didn’t even know to which prisons they had been sent. The only thing he knew was that they had been sentenced to thirty years each—a shorter term than his own because they only had been accessories to the crime, which was true, in a sense. But—
They had been a team.
Real good friends.
Sharing politics, IT classes and booze. Youth. Ideals. Vomit. Dirt. Illusions. Anger. Rebellion. Lucidity.
Key words.
Satellites locking on.
No more viruses, though.
Youth of today lobotomized with comfort and the pursuit of happiness. Even the NoCreds—and that was the worst part of it all. No fear of the future. Slaves all their lives. Provided for as long as they provided back. Then medicated retirement homes. They could cast their votes there too. Special voting machines with large letters so that they could read out the names of the candidates.
Liberal-National or Social-Liberal?
Red or blue?
Zero or one?
Synth trembled and tried to escape, but Markus held it down with a tight fist. He had his own reality check with Badia last night.
He had found her face attractive. Her high cheek bones and black eyes were intelligent, reinforcing the erotic harshness of her thin lips.
She’d smiled and asked him if he wanted a beer.
“Sure.”
They drank from the can. No glasses offered. None needed. They were old friends, after all. Three years of cyber talking. Now, without the avatars to protect from one another. Synth began to reconstruct Erewhon® and this time it was fine. The old bench. The cinema. The bookstores. She smiled. Synth hesitated. Gloria? Badia?
Badia.
He suddenly felt like kissing her, but the anklet tightened up.
“It’s funny to see you for real,” she said, running her hand through her hair. “You’re not at all like I pictured you.”
“I hope you’re not too disappointed.”
She shrugged and Markus felt a pinch in his heart.
“No. Surprised. Destabilized.”
“Me too. Reality often has that effect on me.”
They laughed.
For once, he had taken a cab home. Needed to feel the confusion and loss on a black leather back seat, the city turning in the rear window.
Synth slowly dissolved and the sharp light of the office hurt Markus’ tired eyes.
Synth was digression.
Digression was life.
Ye
t the syllogism didn’t have a third part. No therefore. Just a statement hanging in mid-air. Maybe he should quit Synth altogether. Maybe he should go back to facing the harsh reality and see what happened.
Actually, he realized, he had never done that.
Childhood had been childhood, and adolescence, well, a hormonal initiation novel. And youth—ah, youth. Illusions. Politics. Rebellion. Action.
For what?
Freedom.
Yes, freedom.
He was surprised to notice that Synth didn’t react to the word.
Freedom.
Fantastic word meaning what? To be out of prison when in prison. But then, what else?
Was freedom a self-sufficient word, an empty shell in which one could cram whatever one wanted?
Freedom.
He tried to make Synth react, but only got black sweat and chills. Bad juju.
“Freedom,” he insisted.
His head split in two and his own image stood in front of him, grinning stupidly. The worst possible toothache drilled his jaw and he couldn’t repress a shrill yelp.
For Synth, it seemed that freedom was pain and bad craziness. Okay. He accepted that and returned to his computer screen. Better leave freedom aside now and concentrate on real issues, like NOT returning to prison.
We want reality and we want it now.
Synth produced a shopping mall, with the delicious smell of a first rate cafeteria.
*
The door suddenly burst open and Markus nearly fell from his seat. It was Sørensen, looking very upset, with flushed cheeks and shiny eyes.
“Olsen, we have a problem. A very serious problem.”
Markus was confused.
“Again?”
Sørensen shut the door carefully.
“What?” Markus asked again.
“Christensen. He’s dead. Was killed, actually.”
“When?”
“This morning, in the shower. His throat was slit.”
“Who did it?”
Sørensen shrugged.
“Nobody. Everybody. We’re putting all the prisoners in solitary.”
“You know why he was killed?”
Sørensen’s face distorted into a grimace.
“That is the question. Too early for a gang related action. Too early for him to have made enemies. What’s more, he had an individual cell. So it’s probably a hit.”
Markus pondered this.
“The card? The PersoReader?”
Sørensen nodded.
“Of course. What else?”
Yes. What else? Black sweat.
“Terrorists,” Sørensen mumbled, as if to himself.
“What, sir?”
“Terrorists. This is clearly linked to a major operation. Maybe they wanted to use the card to buy weapons. Nuclear waste, biological weapons . . . Maybe they already have. The clock is ticking, Olsen. Everything is in your hands now.”
Sørensen wiped his forehead with a Kleenex. Markus wondered if he was on drugs too. Amphetamines.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good, good. Keep me informed.”
The door slammed.
Amphetamines?
*
Panic, anyone?
Synth produced a woody vale on the flank of a formidable mountain. Something moved between the trees, like a three-dimensioned shadow and a creepy scream suddenly filled Markus’ ears, making him want to turn and run away.
The Great God Pan.
Horns, hooves and flute.
But Markus didn’t turn and run. He remained, staring at the edge of the forest.
He wasn’t panicked.
Not in the least.
With a shrug, he dismissed the hallucination.
What was he, then?
Amused. That was it. Amused at the irony of it all.
*
Badia’s body was fantastic. He couldn’t believe he was against her, naked, on the sofa. They hadn’t turned the TV off and it was still projecting programs and ads onto their moving flesh. Her breasts were soft under his hands, only the nipples hard and willing. Her back, a long curve. The angle of her hips, perfect against his. They weren’t machines, programs, citizens. They were naked and making love. Her eyes were closed as if she was drowning—drowned?—and he, the swimmer, was slowly taking her back to the surface with kisses and thrusts. She hadn’t minded the anklet when he’d shyly shown it to her before removing his trousers.
“What did you do?” she’d asked. “I hope it wasn’t violent.”
He’d shaken his head.
“It wasn’t violent, I swear.”
Just destroyed a satellite. Nothing much, really.
“Then I don’t care.”
She opened her eyes and smiled as he moved inside her, along her warmth and welcoming moistness. She was real. She was here. She was Gloria. No, she was Badia.
She was both.
Synth flickered and hesitated.
Later, in the back of the cab, he wondered if it really happened or if it was yet another of Synth’s tricks. The feeling of loss and loneliness. Where did that come from?
*
The irony of it all.
*
After work, he felt like seeing Badia again, but he hesitated, standing with his cell phone opened at the foot of the Viborg Security building.
The evening sky was wet and gray, darkening on the eastern edge. Markus stared at the large billboard standing over the square. “Vote Olsen.” The prime minister, wearing a white shirt with no jacket and tie, was smiling. A Liberal-National trying to pass for a Social-Liberal. It had worked until then. It was his third election. Ten years since his first. Potemkin Crew anniversary, exactly. The elections. Tomorrow. Yes. He had forgotten.
“What’s the matter, son? Don’t you believe in democracy anymore? Are you becoming a fascist? Worse even, a nihilist?”
He shut the phone and walked to the subway station.
“Are you becoming, son?”
*
Viborg City, pearl of the North, throbbed overhead, with its copper roofs, second-hand bicycles and wide canals. Tourist attractions. The Hamsun Wheel. Nordic gardens. Nougat ice-cream. Beautiful women. Chilled beer. A catalog of colorful pages. A dream within reach. Markus smiled and looked at his ghost reflected in the black window-pane, trembling in the thundering chaos of the train’s wheels. He looked tired. He looked absent. He looked.
*
Erewhon® was its usual self, filled with avatars and on-line shops. Only Gloria was missing and that felt like a huge black hole in the scenery. To experience melancholy in cyberspace was one of the strangest feelings Markus ever had. Synth offered Caspar Friedrich, a yellow moon shining over dramatic clouds. Perfect. It matched his avatar’s 19th century British Navy uniform. The streets were half-empty, indicating either a temporary loss of interest among the general public or a football match on television involving the national team.
Markus strolled slowly along the deserted shops, answering politely when spoken to by unknown avatars. Without Gloria though, the emptiness and shallowness of this recreation struck him painfully.
A paradox.
Emptiness making emptiness palatable.
He arrived at the usual bench—unoccupied now—and sat down.
“Worse even, son?”
Gloria.
Had he fucked her or—?
Who?
Badia?
Her body rubbed against his, her nipples rolling hard as small thumbs up and down his chest. Synth could be so real sometimes. But it had been real, hadn’t it? Impossible to remember. No, incorrect. Impossible to tell if the memory was real or imaginary.
Black sweat.
He turned away from the computer screen and stood up. Drowning with eyes wide open. He stretched and extended his hands to feel the emptiness. Synth was the only reality now, or so it seemed. He took out his cell phone and rang Badia. A voice told him the number wasn’t registered. That topped it. He couldn’t suppress
a bitter smile. Had she given him a wrong number on purpose, or had he punched it in wrong as she had enumerated it to him? He tried to collect his thoughts, but only a blurred chaos came across. Was it Synth? Was it the alcohol? Was it old age?
Another thought crossed his mind.
Christensen. Dead. Throat slit, throwing up blood.
The CashCard. Limitless money. The end of the rainbow.
The PersoReader and the unknown novel. A best-seller. He, the hero. Ha, Ha.
The Potemkin Crew’s tenth anniversary. Something he should have forgotten. Something he should have. Something.
But couldn’t.
Wouldn’t.
Couldn’t.
Maybe Synth wanted him to concentrate on the case and forget about Eros and Agape.
Maybe Synth was Sørensen in disguise.
Something moved awkwardly inside him, making him feel sick. Black sweat. I shall not think bad thoughts. I shall not think bad thoughts. Synth was freedom. Synth was good.
GOOD.
Images of suntanned, bikini-clad girls playing beach-volleyball surrounded him.
*
Markus was relieved to see that Carlo’s bookstore was empty as he stepped in. Some Synth-Jazz played in the background, its twisted melody accompanying a cloud of smoke rising from behind a pile of books.
Carlo was sitting at his desk, reading a worn-out vintage paperback. A hand-rolled cigarette. He waved when he noticed Markus, but didn’t put the book down.
“So, finished the Miller? How’s the heartache?”
“Gone. Now, it’s more of a headache.”
Carlo frowned.
“Don’t think I’ve got anything for that. On the contrary.”
Markus smiled.
“Maybe not.”
Carlo stared quizzically at the PersoReader Markus had produced.
“You know I don’t do downloaded books.”
“I know. But this one is special. You might find it interesting.”
Carlo looked at the screen and stared back at Markus.
“Yes? What’s the problem?”
“The problem is that this book is not registered anywhere and the publishing company doesn’t even exist!”
Carlo’s lips extended and he laughed.
“Man, where have you been all your life? In prison?”
The Song of Synth Page 6