“Anyway, you two just make it good,” she said indulgently. “The INN is picking up the tab.”
They both chatted away, as amused as birds in a cage, looking at the selections from Billy Logos. Ludmilla went up to the second floor where the offices of the INN annual meeting were located. She showed her ID again with the palm tattoo and was ushered into the inner sanctum by a freckle-faced black girl with a Swedish accent in a blue Camilla Sarden pants suit.
Colonel Broder Sarcosian looked up from the map desk with the high-resolution cartography. His gunmetal hair bristled on the top of his scalp, and the light from the map desk showed up his jaw line in macabre relief. She had never liked his surety. The remnants of violence in his manner never failed to alarm her. Still, she tried hard to set a firm rein on her prejudices for the sake of the Repho. He was one of the best young military minds that they had.
“I have a question I need answered. I know something is wrong with Chagnon. I want you to tell me the truth. If I can't be trusted, then I am prepared to resign my position and go back to teaching.”
“Dear girl. What are you talking about?”
“He would never have gone on an unannounced vacation to some undisclosed location in the middle of an INN annual meeting. What the hell is going on? Why wasn't I consulted? As his personal assistant I deserve to know.”
Sarcosian studied her blankly. Then he spoke.
“I’ll check on that. One second.”
He put in an earpiece and spoke into his artifex, using the cone of silence so his lips moved, but Ludmilla could not hear. After a conversation that lasted for several minutes, he removed the earpiece and smiled with a polished expression.
“He is on a mission. Nobody knows. Code Red, the highest level of compartmentalized information. Not even you, Ludmilla Dimitrievsky.”
“Well, that’s better than an unannounced vacation. That was very ham-fisted, if I may say so. Who were you speaking with just now?”
“I can’t tell you. I’m very sorry for that. I apologize for the lack of communication acumen. I will relay your complaint. You can be sure, my dear. But all of this explains something. Let me show you what I’m talking about. I’ve been making myself sick about this all day.”
He waved her around to his side of the desk and shifted the layers of the cartographic display. The lights now were blue and orange, showing up in bubbles of different sizes in different nodes of urban clusters. Ludmilla could make out no obvious pattern. But she could feel the officer’s body heat as he sat next to her. It was not unpleasant, nor the first time they’d enjoyed this sort of frisson. She didn’t expect it to develop any further.
“What is this displaying?” she asked.
“Seditious activity. Our algorithms predict and then we listen. Two days now have seen spikes. It’s as if there’s an alternate to the Augment that can read against the flow, like a tidal backwash and a developing counter-mind. With Chagnon’s absence, you see these weeds sprouting up, all connected by unseen roots. But you can bet that they exist. Look at this one. The west of Ireland. And here, southern Colombia. And here, northern Mexico, huge bubbles of activity. What do they have in common?”
“I don’t know. What?”
“They’re all in or near Creative havens. The non-augments are somehow linked and timed to the same impulse. Does it have something to do with your boss’s strange disappearance? I would venture to say so. Still it’s a mystery to me. There are patterns of thought and consciousness that escape our detection.”
“What if there are levels of activity that aren’t even being considered in your analysis? Like underground, or undersea or quantum links in the sphere of the collective unconscious? What if some of it is not even human?”
“Well, I like the way you think. Always looking beyond the frame. Never satisfied.”
He stood and pushed back the swivel chair so that it rolled across the plastic floor. Ludmilla admired his posture as he stretched his legs. She could see that he also admired her.
“That’s true. You’ve analyzed me well. I'm never satisfied,” said Ludmilla.
“That’s not the only thing I’d like to do with you, dear girl. If I was being completely honest.”
“Don’t feel so free with me, Coronel.”
Her expectations shifted. They made love in the office, the cartographic display beneath their bodies pulsating slowly with green and blue lights. Ludmilla pushed the Colonel off her. She was always careful not to allow herself any more intimacy than required. Awkwardly, he pulled his pants back up, buttoned his shirt and checked himself in a hand mirror he kept in the drawers built into the wall. Ludmilla stayed where she was, observing him, feeling his hands and mouth still where they had left their marks on her.
“I was just beginning. We were just beginning, I should say,” said Sarcosian. He had almost a feminine sense of vulnerability underneath the military indoctrination. She was touched, despite herself.
“Maybe we can do it again some other time. I have to run. It’s been lovely. I trust you will erase the surveillance,” she said, still not moving off the desk.
“Of course. You make a most interesting map. But not for posterity.”
“Yes, I do. Don’t I?” She finally sat up. Her clothes and underwear were at her feet. She pushed herself forward and off the desk, her bare feet scratched by the felted nanofabric underlay.
“We’ll get the CUA to finish the flooring in here before long, don’t you think?” said Ludmilla.
“Not a high priority. The loo is through to your left.”
“Thank you.” She picked up her clothes and stood before him and kissed him on the chin. “I’m at the Babylon Trump tonight. The reception for Mullah Ahkbar. Perhaps I’ll see you there.”
The Colonel smiled enigmatically.
After the steaming shower and the bot’s massage, she printed out a new Camilla Sarden suit in neoprene on the wall sconce printer and put it on in the office bathroom. It was a little tight, but it would do for the trip back to the rented house in the Roman hills. Then she checked the mirrored cabinet and was surprised by herself again when her reaction to seeing the bottles of perfume was one of dismay. Still, she tried out the scent of orange blossoms on her wrist and was pleased with it. The Colonel’s foresight and taste were admirable after all.
The Erringbeck was empty except for a trickle of students. The Split Art Academy ran night classes. They were setting up to discuss one of the Marlitz sculptures in the atrium. It was getting dark, and the overhead tracking lights were going on discreetly as Ludmilla approached the security bot on duty at the entrance to the current exhibit of collages. She knew they were three-dimensional, printed dreamscapes funded by the Boehner Corporation, the prototypical American tobacco and energy company that dealt in everything from nuclear facility maintenance and upgrade to marijuana comestibles. She asked the bot if it had seen anyone answering to Fatima’s description, dark-skinned, in her middle thirties, healthy physical appearance, long-limbed and a medium gait, wearing sunglasses to hide her eyes. She had a deep penchant for privacy. The bot nodded its head towards the inside. She was here, it seemed. Ludmilla guessed it was the detail about her need for privacy that had tipped the bot. It was usually those personality traits revealed to their trained sensors, more perceptive than human intuition, which made the difference between random luck and probable identifications.
There was Fatima, holding a synthetic, caffeinated cream candy soda from the Romany deli across the street. She stood in front of a famous Genea Bennet piece, Submerged Errata -- streaks of aquamarine on black and the signature background rays of light, as if piercing a bottomless depth. Fatima’s tilted head and the way she looked at the painting sent a shiver of unrequited pain through Ludmilla. She was hard-pressed to understand what Fatima was thinking. It reminded her of her childhood, her feeling of long-standing consequence that her father ignored and her attempts for many years to rattle off accomplishments in order to gain his attention. In
the same way now she wanted Fatima to look at her instead of at some silly work of art, as if it was deserving of a veneration she would never understand or receive.
“Here you are,” she said, from behind. Fatima turned and smiled slowly, removing the sunglasses, returning from her reverie. Ludmilla looked her deep in the eyes, searching for the roots of her thoughts before they appeared to Fatima herself. She saw the fright that gleamed for an instant. So, she thought bitterly, she was frightening to her best friend. That was to be expected, but nevertheless the truth made her feel the losses piling up on this day of reckoning even more. Now it was Fatima receding from the shoals of her isolated self.
“Don’t you think it’s a bit trite?” she asked.
“What’s trite?” responded Fatima, a note of hurt in her voice.
“All this. This concern with the past, with what's been lost, the sunken worlds of yesterday. What a cliché.”
“But we like it. The public, we’re like just children, Ludmilla. We need to have our feelings validated. By recognizing what’s been lost, the great cities of our ancestors, entire countries in the case of...”
“We have all of that. There’s nothing new. It’s not moving on. It’s too late.”
“Too late for what, Lulu?”
“I’m sorry. I’m not making sense.” Ludmilla shook her head. Where was she going with all of the negativity?
“Should we have some dinner, Fatima? There’s a nice little Gallic bistro, speaking of lost worlds. Baguettes and custards and some very strong coffee.”
“That sounds perfect.”
The restaurant was tucked away on a nearby side street. They walked to it in the dusk, talking some more about art in general. They took a table and continued their conversation. Ludmilla took Fatima’s hand across the table and confessed she was feeling out of sorts, lost, after a day that had started out badly. And the art had failed to inspire. She wasn’t sure what she needed. She didn’t want to be such a drag, but...
“Well, what else? What else is bothering you, Lulu?”
“I don’t know. I feel like I deserve better. Why does everything seem so flawed to me?”
“Maybe you know something the rest of us don’t.”
“What could that be?”
Fatima laughed.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“I don’t either,” Ludmilla said. “But don’t you feel it, Fatima? Is it just me?”
“I feel it,” said Fatima. “I feel it if you do.”
Maybe it was down to her. Perhaps she was the bottleneck. She wanted to reject such an irrational thought, but she couldn’t. Not on her own. What if there was a chain reaction, an anti-growth spiral, a toxic thought pattern that grew from a single well-placed seed, bringing down the Augment from a negative impulse indulged for too long? That thought led to a dark door her mind refused to open. Instead she opted to double down on the track of time, racing to get ahead of it. Enough mucking about in the backwaters of private reflection, led only by the whimsical currents of thought that had been spawned by this unfortunate day. But that was a silly thought also. There was no fortune in a day, only the options brought about by the cast of one's healthy, augmented mind.
“Why do we want to go to the Prince’s party?” asked Fatima.
“It’s advantageous. We can make connections. Build some personal inroads with the Sunni elites.”
“Yes, but what about us? What about just kicking back and relaxing? I feel like that would be a good thing for us. You seem like you need some relaxation.”
Fatima had read her mood correctly. Of course she had. She was intelligent enough to recognize her needs but not savvy enough to seek to capitalize on her failings. She wondered if they would ever be more than just loyal friends. Fatima, of the two, was in a stronger position, knowing that Ludmilla wanted the stability and respectability that came with an established and recognized family relationship. That could happen with a child arranged through an embryonic tripling of both their genes and a male donor. They were both ready for it, but tonight was calling. The night was a pool of mystery and she, Ludmilla, meant to pierce its secrets. She wanted to make it clear to Fatima that theirs was not a relationship of equals, not just yet. She wanted her to feel the need to sing for her supper, so to speak.
“I’ve sort of committed to the Prince, Fatima. And you’re my guest. But if you’re not feeling up to it, I understand.”
“Oh, no. I’m fine. Whenever.”
“Then let’s finish the bottle and go.”
“Fine. Excuse me,” said Fatima. She pushed her chair back with a metallic screech. She was making her way unsteadily to the front of the restaurant and the bathrooms. Ludmilla watched her go and poured herself most of the rest of the bottle of wine. Between the two of them she could hold her liquor better, she thought. It was something to do with the strength of her augment. Despite efforts to remediate inequality, it was still true that certain metro-region hospital systems had better facilities and procedures for neural lace implant and upkeep. It was just a fact of life that where you came from still had an impact on your outcomes in life and in death. Call it privilege if it made you feel any better. Ludmilla was not one to rail against it, having benefitted from her family’s connections and reputation all her life. And when she died, if augmentation had not yet developed the capacity for eternal life as promised, along with interstellar connectivity, she had reserved for her a space in the Dimitrievsky family's private, cryospheric alcoves in the Hitchcock-St.Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis. The Hitchcock-St. Vincent was a result of the merger of two of the largest health systems of the old USA, and it was where her grandfather, great aunts and uncles and all the dozens of cousins had their bodies frozen, their neural networks uploaded and digitalized into all the known computer languages, and their stem cell lines replicated and periodically rejuvenated. It was a comfort to her still, one of the few left, it seemed, the thought of her family alcove in Indianapolis and the eventual day when they would be reunited, together again, all the children and grandchildren of her grandfather Franz.
When they arrived at the Babylon Trump, the residences of Bantar Abdul Aziz Al-Hashimi, there was a line of stretch porters letting guests out at the entrance and the pop of flash photography of the paparazzi hired to lend an air of ancient decadence. Women in silky body length dresses, with hair piled and lacquered to the top of their heads, and the men, in suits of the latest fashion, smiled and disappeared through the carpeted entrance doors, while two large man-cat chimerae stood on guard with fangs bared and saliva drooling from their lips. The elevators to the penthouse carried ten at a time of the guests, the men looking hard and the women smiling politely with some excitement, as if nights like this were not such a common occurrence. At the top, human servers, well fed, muscled Sudanese and Somali boys greeted them bearing trays of sweet meats and iced purple rain in cocktail goblets. Ludmilla and Fatima took a drink each and made their way to the edge of the dance floor. The band was playing a medley of spunk hits, and some of the young Sunni men were jumping up and doing gymnastic tricks, threatening to kick anyone unwise enough to get in their way. Fatima spotted Antwine and Jesus at a table underneath the desert tent. She grabbed Ludmilla by the elbow.
“Follow me,” she said, and they made their way through the thickening crowd around the stage to the tent. Ludmilla listened to the buzz of languages around them: English, Russian, Carioca, Hindi, Mandarin, Hebrew. She couldn’t help feeling her heart beating faster with the romance and pleasure of music and elegance and the elevation, almost 2,000 feet above sea level, with the day behind her forever and the night still young. She came almost face to face with the Prince before she recognized him.
“Hello. I am honored you could come.”
“Bantar?”
“Yes. Ludmilla Dimitrievsky, no?
“That’s right. And this is Fatima. My friend. It’s a nice place. Thanks for the invitation.”
“Enjoy yourself. And later perh
aps we can dance.”
“That would be nice,” she smiled.
Fatima and Ludmilla pressed together excitedly through the crowd. Ludmilla admired Fatima’s slim-waisted body. Sometimes the unexpected managed to dent the sense of entitlement of the augmented. This night might be one of those times. What a turnaround from the downer of a day, if it were true. The reversal of outlook could possibly just happen on its own, without any personal effort. Perhaps it would be enough to maintain faith in the promise of things, she thought.
When they got to the table, Fatima turned behind her and beamed.
“My God. To think that the Prince asked you to dance, Lulu.”
“Oh please. Don’t be such a goose. He was just being polite.”
“Yeah, like you’re not excited.”
“Ladies,” said Antwine, standing and pulling back the two chairs.
As soon as she was seated, Ludmilla proposed a formal toast. She was determined to seize the initiative and press forward aggressively.
“To my beautiful friends on this night, this so special night we have together in space and time. May we break through all the barriers separating us from what we truly want and deserve in life.”
“Such a nice thought,” said Antwine.
“Okay, my turn,” said Jesus, stopping a young Maori on his way with a tray of drinks. He grabbed a freshly poured fluted glass of liquor and stayed standing by the table. Several people stopped what they were doing and stared at him. With his hair tied back in a bun he looked like a Universalist preacher or a young prophet, perhaps a more sophisticated version of his namesake, thought Ludmilla.
“We don’t know where we come from, or why we’re here. All we know is good friends and good times rock, and Lulu, you are the rockingest friend ever. This is one party we are never going to forget.” He downed half the glass of liquor and stood at his spot with eyes glazed. Fatima’s eyes glistened with tears. His dissipating pain touched her deeply with the power of friendship. This was the affiliation Ludmilla had desired, or at least a fleeting glimpse of it in her friend’s eyes. But she still wasn’t feeling it.
The Saints of David (The Jonah Trilogy Book 3) Page 13