Elvissey

by Jack Womack

  "It's doornailed," I said. My eyes were wet as the mouse's nose, as our sheets, as John's hair. "Angel?"

  "Sorry," he said. "Forgive."

  "No," I said. "Forgive me." No response. IfJohn cried, his tears streamed unseen within. Standing, feeling my own head light of blood, I tore open two dusty condoms taken from the drawer and rolled them over my fingers; grasped the mouse's tail and ran with it to the bathroom, to jet it down the toilet. I watched the pink water swirl away; washed and rewashed and rewashed my hands, feeling as Lady M herself. Then I returned to our room, bedding again beside my husband. He lay wide-eyed; some nights, lately, he only halfslept, thrashing through undreamt dreams, recalling none at morningside.

  "I've done unforgivables," I said. "I have."

  "You weren't trained for such, even streetways-"

  "No, John. With you, I mean."

  "Nada," he said; I stared at his back. "Guilt undeserved scars spirit and soul, Iz. Never know guilt sans reason."

  "You do constant," I said.

  "Sans reason, said."

  "You're lying, not truthing," I said; sighed. "Saming, not changing." I fit myself anew into my spot alongside him, touching his skin; he couldn't stop shaking, and I wondered if this was a hitherto undetected side-effect. "Better or worse, John. Love. You slay me."

  "Never!" he shouted, rising as if to slap me down. "Never. Disallowed."

  "Not literal, John. Misinterpreted. I'll demetaform-"

  "Never hurt," he said. "Not you," he added. "No one," he sighed. "None."

  "You're abandoning you, John," I said. "And me. Without fault of yours-"

  "With fault."

  "No. Oh, John, it hurts-"

  "Mutualities," he whispered, "best unsaid."

  "Least said soonest known."

  "Over there," he said. "Difference will become us again as it did. I know it'll be so, over there."

  "So hoped," I said. Pressing closer, I felt him warm: again glimpsed the shimmers, our bright reflections, the heatshine above the highway; imagined for an instant that Godness might indulge our prayers. He shifted, as if to face me; suddenly reached downward, his face wrinkling as if at once he showed a hundred years, each unwanted.

  "What hurts, John?" I asked. "What-?"

  "Leg-!"

  Asiding our damp sheets, he flailed and pounded his knee with his fist, reslotting his joint. Since the ninth operation the implants never quite took, and rarely responded as desired, however much he concentrated when guiding their action. Guards, heretofore, forever required refitting; artificialities had merits but permanence was not among them. John's add-on leg would suffice several months to a year sans problems: then fluid dried, the marrow-channels bubbled, the cables knotted; down to the clinic he'd hobble, knowing well inevitable obsolescence's inescapable pain. He stilled anew, pillowing his head, gasping for breath.

  "Are you AO?" I asked. He nodded. "I love you. I'm sorry."

  "For loving?"

  "Sometimes," I said.

  His lips downturned, as if they'd been pinned. "Known," he said. "Understood. I love, too. Overmuch contained within. Overmuch to bear."

  "Overmuch inexpressible?"

  He nodded. "Spillage unavoidable, sometimes. Hurt to avoid hurt, unavoidable," he said. "Ergo, implode within. Better, because safer."

  We'd had a friend in the trade; after graduation she was implanted with finger-razors which, commanded, sprang from undernail that with them she might lunge and slash. One afternoon while she was grating cheese for dinner they unexpectedly emerged, freezing in extremis. At her operative time, years before, such gear was bonegrafted direct; only through amputation could she have been loosed of her superfluous knives. Still, Dryco found her retainable for special use; in time such acts as turning doorknobs again came naturally to her. Upon regooding's instilling she foresaw her unavoidable obsolescence; the edict passed, and a week passed, and then one night she lay full-uniformed in her tub; resting there for a time, she must have made motions as if to adjust her collar. John once loved her, before our meet; I never jealoused. Love was love, however manifest.

  "John-"

  "It'll remake us. I'll exemplarize, and protect sans harm. The change'll come, over there," he said. I clasped his shimmer, fearing-his words notwithstanding-he was lost to us both, if not till endtime, at least for our present. Curling inward, feeling mouse-size, small and dark and bottled within smooth walls, I stared out into a wide white world. "Peace yourself meantime with dreams, Iz. Sleepaway."

  Once sex netted us tight, giving life, renewing our souls as Godness so hoped; our love was Godness. Now I fancied that John thought if we were to swive he'd only shoot into me unneeded poison, embodying me overmuch with a readjusted virus. He shivered: I rubbed his stomach, felt his muscles and the curls of his hair, and held his penis in my hand. He never told me how he'd lost the tip.

  The TVC switched on again. "E," the desparate called throughout our rooms; their pleas rebounded soft against my ears as I lay there, unswived, unsaved. "Return to us. Cleanse. Renew. We beg."

  E would return to them, if and when we found his double in the shadow world; if our mission accomplished, and we stole that world's E away, bringing him into ours where he was so wanted, Dryco would present him returned anew, its soothing gift for its regooded world. Some at Dryco wanted-needed, in truth-E more than any of his believers ever had.

  I wanted John so much; I couldn't say how much I still needed him. Avoiding my eyes, he looked elsewhere now. One suicidal stares at death to see who'll soonest blink. Too soon, morningshade eked through our bamboo curtains, and so I ascended. Mayhap, heavenbound, my husband could ride me.

  2

  "New always overcomes old," Judy said, sounding the words as if to convince not me, but herself. Judy, I called her; that was her name, and that was how I'd known her. Most of Dryco were familiared with her chosen pseudonym; as befit corporate etiquette, none save Mister O'Malley officially called her anything other than Madam. "New throttles old groundward, sighs and shudders, and tramps a remapped path. Nature's way, irregardless of old's needs." She drew in air as if each breath stung her throat; with pencil-thin fingers she smoothed her hair's gray cap. "John'll readjust or he won't, Iz. If he doesn't, you will."

  "There's great unfairness in that," I said.

  "Great unfairness in all," she said. "Regooding essentials that those in Security must readjust, if regooding is to effect. Cruelty no longer satisfies Dryco's intent. So says Seamus, at Leverett's request."

  Through Judy's wallwide windows I watched pigeons and sparrows descending through clouds, swooping sillward, shelterbound. At touchdown they burst into blue bubbles; their leavings feathered the air.

  "Since regooding underwayed John's gone holloweyed and withery," I said. "He'd have exed himself by now if we hadn't volunteered."

  "He was awared of Security's needs at time of hire," Judy said. "Such deliberate positioning infers predisposing traits. Disregarding one's own life essentials to enable the undertaking of others. Prior to regooding, Security readied its members for their chosen hell, as was intended. Heaven doesn't become them, Iz. You knew that when your wedlock clamped."

  "I never imagined this."

  "Nor did I," she said. "Seamus reveals like patterns daily, and his training never so thoroughed as John's, or the others. If your husband breaks, he breaks. Accept that."

  "He's failing, however hard he tries," I said. "It's so hurtful to watch."

  "Blind yourself," she said. "I disapproved from moment primo, Iz. You deserved better. Where do they have him, this morning?"

  "Clinicking," I said. "My turn, after. Such an awful place. Such awful people."

  "Professionals all." She avoided my look. "So Leverett reminds me when I mention your complaints. I've long suspected those in the clinic are hired once they're proved too disturbed for Security. Still, this passage he's coursed for you demands full health."

  "Mental health, too?"

  "Nonadherent t
o this project," she said. "Absolute madness. Nada comes of breaking a mountain over a mouse for gravel."

  "Mister O'Malley's unyielding?" I asked, relieved to assume that he still was.

  "Leverett's silvertongued his ears shut."

  Judy's surety in our project's purpose was considerably less than absolute. As her assistant, I was positioned prime to take the bait before any others; but Leverett had, after all, recommended that John and myself would be best suited for assignment needs. As vice-president overseeing New Projects, Leverett had conceived not only the policy of regooding; he'd as well originated the concept of our mission, bypassing Judy in mothering his idea, slipping it along to Mister O'Malley direct. Judy controlled Mister O'Malley as no others did; he'd bestowed full favor before she could call halt.

  "The sole plus," Judy said, "Leverett's so occupied by these mechanics he hasn't time for his usual plots. He'll be dealt out unless this results as he pretends."

  "You're hostiling so," I said. "You weren't so upset earlier-"

  "You're needed here," she said. "But he's got you in the midst of this. You've unheeded all warnings-"

  "My decision," I said. "We volunteered."

  "At whose prompt?" she asked. "Your worser half's, or mine?"

  "My husband and I are mutualed. Change essentials, Judy, but I don't wish to asunder, and he'll not last if we do."

  "What fears you most, then?" she asked. "His desire to go, or yours to accompany?"

  "Neither," I said. "Both."

  "You've worked for me too long-"

  "There's much unsaid," I told her, unable to say what it was. "We need togetherness. He's adrift unless I anchor," I said. "We've never tripped in simulcast." Her stare evidenced no sign that she would ever comprehend my love for John; so often, lately, I couldn't either. "I fear we'll return unchanged, with finis stamped through and through."

  "If you return."

  "Judy-"

  "Forgive," she said. "Danger overwhelms all aspects of this. Pointless imbecilities."

  "It does frighten at immediate level," I told her. "With John unable to act as might essential-"

  "That's unconcerning me," Judy said. "I've seen you both act. His was learrned. Yours was born. If emergencies arise over there, you'll handle. I've seen you handle before."

  "Years before," I said. "I'm no child any longer, Judy."

  "Known," she said. "Don't mirage yourself, Iz. Our beloved enhance bad so well as good. Certify whose thoughts you're thinking before you act." Standing, she walked over to embrace me. "You're missed," she said. "Such a color you're turning, Iz." Her hand was dark against my cheek, as it had never been before; the six weeks treatment of Melaway they'd dosed me with had lightened my skin as if I'd been painted with milk. "Plainly a sister still, and here you leave two days hence. Problematic. That world's no place for our people, and it'll do you no good to show. Biggerstaffll aware you of that-"

  "Leverett's told me of that. They all have," I said. "I've inklings it's doing more than what's desired. Aches and pains rack me. They deafen to my complaints at the clinic."

  "Tell Leverett. He raves so of the drug's worth, and I'd never heard tell of it. I suspect he'd like to dose me with it, to lessen his discomfort when I direct him and his peers," she said, laughing. "Time's here, Iz. Fond farewells await."

  "Mister O'Malley?" She nodded. "What're my lines?"

  "Mute yourself. He's nonresponsive, lately, to most," she said, stepping hallways; I flowed after her in her wake. "You smile, I'll transmit."

  AbandoningJudy's office, we drifted through Dryco's new halls. A month before, as we underwayed our training, the Bronx headquarters finally opened, and all operations up- towned from Manhattan. The building's saffron spear stabbed heaven, scattering clouds; appeared altitudinous enough to be struck by rockets as yet unglared. Dryco Tower epidermed perfect; its innards yet transitioned. Topladen containments crowded passages, farragoed workstations cluttered all around; rugs awaited laying, charts wanted posting. Not all elevators elevated, yet all yawned at command to admit the unwary. Three days earlier, an executive marketeer in charge of Dryco's Indonesian sphere-suffering work-induced insomnia, entering her third foodless day-had misstepped, and expressed one hundred floors; incompany looselips gossiped that she dropped not by chance, but choice. Regooded Dryco gifted her husband with the cost of her urn.

  "What's meant, he's nonresponsive?" I asked; wondered what prevented her gown's hem from sweeping the floor as she walked.

  "He's introverting," she said. "He'll word me, or his sister, or the damned computer-"

  "Alice?"

  "None other. Even when he words us, he words us sole in Ambient talk."

  "Serious?" When we were young we'd heard such talk, down in old Loisaida, where they hid; in secreting their gloriously misshapen husks from the world, Ambients secreted their speech as well, burying thought in the brambles of a clotted argot. Some believed their cant melodied pure; its garble headached me each time it hit my ear. None spoke it any longer, I'd thought; weren't all Ambients, like Loisaida, gone and lostaway for years? Certainly Ambients would never have stood to be regooded.

  "And so I reply likewise. And Alice now words to no one but him. If I say something he chooses not to hear, he deafens; Leverett's plugged him twiceover. So no one listens, and sense goes unheard. Such complications madden, Iz. Fuckall. A better job I'd choose, if I druthered. But then Leverett would only see greater chance to grab. I'll see him six under first."

  "Then he's not speaking to Leverett-?" I asked.

  "Never did," she said. "Leverett speaks, he listens. That's what's downfalled."

  Judy superiored Leverett, as she superiored all, though he'd been the sole Dryconian who'd been at his position since before her arrival. For years he'd worked his duties, unseen and unheard; then at once some short time before, he enlivened as if possessed, as if another had crept into his bed one night to supplant his being as he slept.

  "Where'll my office be?" I asked, realizing I'd not been shown it during my initial visit. Judy didn't immediately respond; waited until we turned a corner, and faced a humming white wall.

  "We'll decide after this project's put down."

  She twisted her bracelet, twice to the left and once to the right. As the hum ceased the wall opened and Mister O'Malley's outer office revealed itself, free of furniture, executar- ies, or any corporate accoutrements. Judy proclaimed our arrival as we entered the space, shouting her name so that those listening might hear.

  "Avalon," a man's voice responded, crying out from unseen speakers. "Behold me."

  Mister O'Malley's doors parted, sans sound; peering sanc- tumways, we beheld. I'd not seen him in eighteen years; in the old building his entrances and exits were separate from all others. Here, twenty meters distant, he sat desked, staring south through the glass behind him, across his Bronx garden toward a dozen multistory trellises with covers but halfencircling. We crossed a lake-size maroon rug isled with stains of coffee. Dryco's owner was John's size squared; his sagging shoulders and wrinklepuckered eyes falsified his look as John's age quintupled. John had seven years advantage over his superior; or disadvantage, depending.

  "Friends, Seamus?" asked a woman at Mister O'Malley's deskside. His sister, of whom I'd often heard, though again, never seen: as legended incompany, it passed that she'd been in some way treated, and wasn't quite right. She evidenced more years than me, though like her brother she might have held fewer; her biceps were larger than my thighs, and she could have tossed her sibling at command, if she wished. Drapes of auburn hair curtained her eyes, and her smile belied content.

  "Friendsall, Enid," he told her, swiveling round to confront us; his voice-pitch was higher than his size would have led to expect. "Tell," he said, regarding Judy.

  "Watched pots ready to boil, Seamus," Judy replied. "Our pigeons keen to fly. Pose last wishes, and so beglow the chosen."

  "Then give ear to the wind and hear the hurricane. Regooding demands redem
ption," he said, his stare losing its focus in the gap between his eyes and ours. "Lovers love, journeyending."

  "He wishes well. Hopes all settles, husbandwise," she retold to me. Extending his hand, he motioned for us to come forward; I noticed that his right forefinger lacked its first knuckle. A micromonitor broke his desktop's plain; I estimated that daylong he gazed into Alice's blue mirror, awaiting answers, perhaps recalling old secrets, slipping away from the day. His sister's head jerked as she craned her neck, as if her form were guided by strings. She spoke, keeping an expression seeming tacked to her face.

  "Who are your friends, Seamus?" she asked, with fourteen-year-old's apprehension; with taloned fingernails she raked pink designs into her legs.

  "Co-conspirators," he told her. "Night's fellow travelers."

  "They go to your school?"

  He nodded. "Our rails parallel at close range, commingling as one once horizoned."

  "Word as preferred, Seamus," Judy said, her voice commanding obeisance. The company he kept was Dryco; as CEO, the company was hers as well: Judy had heretofore fulfilled all Mister O'Malley's wishes while furthering her own designs; they had always symbiosed well. "Bestill all fear. Grant your tongue to flap. The blind need one-eye sight."

  "Sight betroubles those who viz too clear," he said. "Pluck loose lying eyes, and cast skull's dry sockets over green, pleasant land."

  "Seamus?" his sister interrupted, rubbing spittle-foam from her grin's sharp points. "Lunchtime. Take us to lunch."

  "Hushabye, Enid," Mister O'Malley said; turning to us, employed a softer voice. "Lookabout. This wicked world befuddles master and servant likeminded. Chaos fences tempers round. Millions cling to dead past longbegone, sucking dead hosts, spending like moths in unseen flame."

  "Old hinders new, flying in fact's face," Judy translated. Time to move on."