by M M Buckner
Someone came into the cafeteria, and I turned so fast, I knocked the table and spilled tea. But it wasn’t die cyberdoc with news about Luc, just somebody wanting Jin’s autograph.
“You love him, don’t you?”
“Huh?”
“Luc Viollett. You love him?”
Jin’s question caught me off guard. He’d been silent so long. I saw his concerned expression and quickly lowered my eyes. Funny, my other five tour guests couldn’t wait to get away from me, but Jin had stayed. I stared at the puddle of pale green tea on the white table. There was no napkin, and in my muddled state, I started pushing the liquid around with my hand. Then I soaked some of it up with my shirtsleeve. I made a big mess.
Jin grabbed my hand and smiled at me in a troubled sort of way, as if he could see right into my heart. His mouth moved, but he stopped short of saying anything. I wondered about that. His uneasiness touched me.
“Mr. Sura,” I studied the tabletop and began steeling myself for humiliation. “Thank you for saving Luc’s life. I should have said that before.”
“People say a lot without words,” he replied.
I glanced up again. His black eyes flashed liquid light. Had he sensed my dislike all along? “Sometimes we get things wrong,” I said.
He smiled. “You weren’t wrong about me. I’m just as rotten as you imagine.”
He must have read my embarrassment, because he laughed. He had a pleasant laugh. It lightened my mood.
He asked me questions about Luc, so I told him how we first met. One hot night years ago in Paris, I saw this scrawny little towhead standing on a crate, peddling counterfeit edu-disks. The boy had the slickest line I’d ever heard. He looked like an underfed cherub, but I swear he could have charmed the horns off a devil.
Me, I’m always hoping to learn stuff, so I asked if he had any disks on the Laws of Physics. Luc said I could have three disks free if I would buy two at the regular price. Sounded like a good deal to me. Anyway, while I was bending over his plastic case, pawing through his stock, little did I know he was secretly rifling my backpack.
Then he yelled, “Jesús, Newton and Einstein! You are the Surfer Girl!” That was my Net alias back then. Anyway, I spun around and caught him holding my surface helmet, staring at me in disbelief. He started sputtering in pure gutter-Fragñol, his English all forgotten. “You are my priestess. I know of your exploits in the world above. I worship your feet…” and other similar trash. He made me laugh till I hyperventilated. Talk about turning on the charm, he did.
Ça va, I made the mistake of letting him clean my helmet. Next thing, Luc was following me everywhere, polishing my surf-boots, sweeping my cube, sorting my email, managing my schedule. He latched on to me for good.
Jin listened attentively. “Luc is your family, yes? Your little brother?”
“You could say that.” The thought made me grin.
Sir Jin liked the story about Luc. I decided he wasn’t such a prick after all. Talking about Luc came as a relief, and after that, Jin asked me about me. So I told him some scary trip stories. My “Jolie’s Trip” stories were always a hit.
First, the infamous “Jolie’s Trip to Mecca.” Most of North Africa is just a moving ocean of sand now. On our one and only trip there, we nearly lost three clients in a rogue dune that blew up out of nowhere. That drift stood ten meters high, I swear. Thank the Laws, we’d brought sail-skids to carry the gear, so Luc got the other clients windsurfing the sand waves in those skids, while I hauled the first three out of that monster drift using a souped-up-metal detector. Everybody had a blast. They thought we’d planned the whole thing for their amusement.
I really liked the sound of Jin’s laugh. He wanted to hear more, so I narrated “Jolie’s Trip to Hawaii,” which is a cluster of sunken islands in the bubbly hot latitudes of the Pacific. Usually, my guests on the Hawaii trip are content to hover above the waves in a copter-jet and view the flooded cities with remote-control bathyscaphe cameras. Bathysnorkeling, we call it. But one time, I had this guy—from Nome.Com wouldn’t you know—who insisted on SCUBA diving. The Hawaii story has been much embroidered over time, and I can’t remember how it really ended, but in the version I narrated to Jin, the guy paid us double the fee because we convinced him the parboiling effect made his skin look younger. Jin laughed so hard, his eyes watered. He said he knew that guy.
I have to admit I started to like Jin. One thing led to another, and I found myself blabbing my plan to settle in the south someday, maybe right here in Sydney. South Australia is part of the Confederacy of Transkei Free States, which also includes South Africa, Zealand, and Antarctica—all the southern landmasses still cool enough to live in. Even before the war, the southern states had never been aligned with the big Coms in the north. Southerners knew how to enjoy themselves. I couldn’t imagine anyone starving in the south. But the downside was, no southerners could afford my trips.
“You cater to the rich,” Jin said.
That sent me off on a tear. “D’accord, the rich. And what’s wrong with that? My expenses are preter-vicious. The gear alone, not to mention transport And Com execs, they’re the only ones who can pay enough. Mes dieux, those scuzzin’ Commies have money to spare!”
Jin had touched a sore point. I was always trying to justify my livelihood to myself, and once I got started, I just blundered on, forgetting that Jin was a Commie, too. “Those fat-ass execs hole up in their secure domes calculating their profits, while their so-called ‘protected workers’ sweat underground. Protected, my eye! Protes are no better than serfs. My parents were protes. The Commies say they take care of their protes. Free air, housing, and meds. But have you ever seen an underground factory?”
“You take the Com money to get even,” Jin said.
“Yes! That’s it exactly!”
How had he guessed? I’d never explained that rationale to anyone but Luc. Taking money from the scuzzin’ Commies was my brand of revenge.
“You’re a gall to the system, Jolie. Have you read about trees?”
“Huh?”
“Trees.” Jin smiled. I could tell he liked to explain stuff. He should have been a teacher. “Long ago, tall thick plants called trees covered large areas of Earth’s surface. Some trees grew over thirty meters high, can you imagine? And very strong. But tiny insects nested inside their huge bodies and sucked life out of them. The homes these insects made in the trees were called galls.”
I had to think about that for a while.
Jin’s eyes shifted to the ceiling, then to his hands folded on the table. He’d stopped smiling. He went on, in a darker tone. “Yes, Jolie, I have seen underground factories. My father owns quite a number of them. In Deep-Tokyo, I saw a three-year-old girl whose skin had turned gray from lack of light It’s vile, the way we live now. The whole situation is wrong. But what’s to be done? If we overthrow this system, the next one may be worse.”
He shoved his chair back from the table and stared toward the wall. I knew he wasn’t studying the messages posted on the clinic bulletin board. His fists knotted in his lap. “You think I’m rationalizing,” he said. “Perhaps you think I should oppose my father and stop what he’s doing?”
Actually, the thought hadn’t crossed my mind, but I didn’t interrupt. Jin didn’t seem to expect an answer.
“Perhaps I could stop him somehow. But others would step into his place. Nothing would change. I wish I knew the right course to take. Believe me, I would give anything to know.”
When the cyberdoctor finally called, sometime after midnight, to tell us Luc was out of danger, Jin and I were both too keyed up to sleep. So we went for a walk in the Sydney Subterrain. Sydney was brighter and flimsier man Paris in those days. The patchwork market stalls wobbled and swayed as if they wouldn’t last out the week. Southern businesses were mostly small-time affairs run by co-ops and health churches. Unlike the Commies, southerners didn’t computer-analyze every monetary unit.
The thing about Sydney was, along wit
h the claptrap stalls came plenty of open public spaces with lightwells to the surface. You saw colorful graffiti and laser shows and street performers. Juice bars filled the air with sugary aromas. And people strolled. That’s it. They actually strolled. Many of them recognized Jin that night. They pointed and followed us, and some came up to talk. Jin wore a special smart ring on his little finger just for signing autographs. He seemed unfazed by the attention.
Jin wanted to hear music, but he couldn’t decide what kind. We peeked into several cabarets, and I think we would have wandered all night discussing pros and cons if I hadn’t finally picked one at random and shoved him inside. Bien sûr, he took it with a laugh. And the place was nice. A band of real musicians was playing, and a live human waitress came to take our order. We drank beer, and Jin analyzed the music. He should have been a professor, the way he talked. He told me the longer riffs derived from classic sizz, while the backbeat was pure Transkei rip-rap.
I decided Jin was an interesting guy. That soft Pacific accent was growing on me. In the bar, people were dancing the old-fashioned way, not slinking around in separate colored energy fields, but actually standing together in ordinary space and moving their bodies to the music. When Jin suggested we try it, I agreed. Luc’s recovery made me want to celebrate. I would have said yes to anything.
“La Sauvage, you’re a fresh breeze.” Jin stood smiling at me for a moment when the dance was over. He brushed a strand of stiff white hair off my forehead, and I blushed. Back at our table, we dropped into our chairs and ordered more beer. We were both perspiring a little.
I liked the way Jin pronounced my name, but sometimes I wondered if he was making fun of me. We kept chatting about surface travel and dancing and Sydney, and after the fourth round of beers, things grew a bit unfocused.
“So, your father runs Pacific.Com. Must be plenty wild to have a meta-magnate for a father.”
His jaw quivered with sudden tension. I guess I’d put my foot in it. How fast his mood could change. “A father who lets three-year-olds work in factories,” he said. “Yes, that’s plenty wild.”
“At least you have a father. My parents died before I could know them. What about your mom?”
“Mother was fortunate. Like your parents, she died young.”
That wasn’t kind. Jin swirled his beer, and his expression was so grim, I almost decided to stop right there. But not me, not Jolie Blanche Sauvage. I tried another subject. “Tell me about your work in the movies.”
“Work?” His laugh was short and dry. “I’d hardly call it that.”
“But acting,” I said, “you have to invent a whole world and live in it. That must take a lot of imagination.”
He grunted and drained his beer.
“If you don’t like it, then why did you choose it?” I asked.
“I’m heir to a Com throne. Who says I get to choose anything?” Jin laughed bitterly. Then he tipped his empty glass on edge and spun it till it wobbled and fell over. I barely managed to catch the thing before it smashed on the floor. I set it carefully on the table between us, and when Jin finally spoke again, his voice was small and hard.
“You might say my father helped me decide on acting. My father is the first head of our family to have a son in ‘the entertainment business.’ My career embarrasses him. But not much. Not enough.”
Jin was glaring at that empty glass like he wanted to crush it with his mind. Right then would have been a very appropriate moment for me to keep my mouth shut, but I didn’t. “Judith Merida saw your face in a scandal ezine. So what scandalous thing did you do, Sir Jin? Get high? Break heads and hearts?”
Even though I was inebriated, I noticed the shadow deepen under his eye. He moved the beer glass back and forth, making a pattern of moisture rings on the table. “You guess right, Jolie. Drugs, brawls, sex, the usual crimes of the idle rich. The choices I make require no imagination at all.”
Instinct told me that wasn’t the truth. Jin was working through some serious trouble, but I couldn’t seem to hold my tongue that night. He had just saved my best Mend’s life, and all I could do was hassle him with stupid questions. Our hands lay near each other on the table. His were dark and elegant, with pale manicured nails. And mine—bony, callused, almost as white as the plastic cloth. I didn’t dare touch him.
Without thinking, I blurted, “You’re such a smart man. Why aren’t you happier?”
Jin uncrossed his legs and sat up straighter in his chair. “Your friend Judith Merida, she says we dream the world. What if the choices we make don’t matter? What if we dream a different life with every heartbeat?”
“Don’t I wish!” I shoved ragged bangs out of my eyes.
Jin regarded me thoughtfully. “Pretty Jolie.” All at once, he gripped my hand. “There’s so much to know, Jolie! Twelve billion people on the planet Are there really twelve billion separate personalities, or is it a trick with mirrors? Are we all the same person? Am I the only one?”
His intensity surprised me. Earlier, he had seemed so—detached. He ran fingers through his hair and continued in a subdued voice. “The way we live is terribly off-balance. And moral sense tells me I have the resources to make things better. If I only knew what to do! But as your friend Judith says, my frail brain constructs layers of distorted perception that lead me in circles. Jolie, I’m tired of dreaming. I need the truth.”
What a load of drivel, I thought But I didn’t say so. I didn’t want Jin to think I was ignorant. So I said, “You could study science.”
His nostrils flared. “Alchemists and quacks. My father hires them by the gross. I’ve read their reports. The more they discover, the less they know.” Jin brushed imaginary dust from his trouser leg with a gesture of disdain. The move was so characteristic of Com arrogance, it had the effect of reminding me who Jin Sura really was. I watched the waitress refill our beer glasses. Jin still held my hand.
“Nobody can know everything,” I said. “We’re only human.”
“I have to know.”
Mes dieux, how he lifted that noble chin. Just a Commie prick after all. “What makes you so special?” I snapped.
“That’s precisely the question, Jolie. Why am I special? Look at my position, my wealth, my intellect. Even my physical appearance—just look at me. Why have I been singled out for so many gifts?”
Sacred Laws of Physics, what a peacock! I tried to pull my hand away, but he held it.
“I may be the only real person in the universe,” he said. “Everything may depend on the decisions I make. But I don’t have accurate information. I can’t decide what to do!”
Pitiful, I though. “If you’re the only person in the universe, what does that make me, a cyberscrawl?”
“You might be a figment of my imagination. Of course you would be convinced of your own reality to keep up the illusion for me.”
My jaw dropped. By this point, you can imagine my pique. “So let me guess,” I said, spitting saliva, “If everyone is a figment of your imagination, then no rules apply.”
Jin swallowed beer and watched me over the rim of his glass.
I sailed on. “The brawls or whatever juvenile behavior landed you in the scandal ezines, so what? It doesn’t matter if you hurt people, or shame yourself, or embarrass your father. No one is real but you. Life is a dream.”
He said, “I told you before, you were right about me.”
“Rotten. That’s the word you used.”
“To the core,” he replied.
“Or maybe you just dreamed that personal history with your latest heartbeat.”
I think that caught him off guard. For a long moment, he sat unmoving, searching my face with his liquid glance. Then he burst out laughing. “Jolie, you’re a better guide than you know.”
He squeezed my hand. Then he kissed my knuckles, and my fingertips, and my rough, callused palm. I’m thin and pale, but people do say I have a sweet face. Anyway, Sir Jin was definitely coming on to me.
I can’t deny I w
anted him, despite my anger. Jin was a beautiful man, and I hadn’t been with a man in quite a while. Female hormones have a mind of their own, n’est-ce pas? His hair felt silky against my cheek, and I could taste the heat coming off his body. My fingers wandered to the back of his neck. I was more than tempted. Then I remembered the way he had flicked that dust off his trousers, and I could picture him flicking me off just like that. So I said something dirty and pushed him away.
“Jolie, have another beer.” He spoke through laughter. “Pretty little Jolie. Drink with me.”
I had to push him off me again. “D’accord, let’s get drunk. That’s a real smart way to find the truth.”
“Tonight we’ll enjoy ourselves. Tomorrow I’ll seek the truth.”
“Right. Tomorrow. And where will you look? Down in the Java Sea? In those rock carvings at Belahan?”
Jin stopped trying to grab me and fell back laughing. “In California, actually.” He tapped his forehead. “Your friend, Judith Merida. She’s promised me a little neurosurgery. To enhance my brain. For an appropriate fee of course.”
I blinked my eyes in disbelief. “Dr. M.?” Then I whispered, “Don’t go.”
“Why not? It might be interesting.”
For once, I bit my tongue. Who was I to say how a rich actor should spend his time and money? Sail, what Jin said spooked me to the core. He started pawing me again. I hadn’t noticed before how much beer he’d consumed. He was soused. I grabbed his square shoulders and tried to shake him sober. “Don’t go,” I whispered over and over. But Jin Airlangga Sura was beyond listening to me.
4
Later Than I Thought