The Mangrove Suite

by Tim Niederriter

  But on that road, thoughts of the world outside the valley felt fanciful. I followed the curve of the road toward town and was less than a half mile from my house, near the western edge where the ground softened and we risked flooding every year in the spring, when the sound of a loud combustion engine made me turn to look back.

  A single vehicle appeared around the bend of the road, a white van with dirty sides and a cracked windshield. I watched the van approach with its roaring engine and the smell of fuel drifting closer. The vehicle sputtered and slowed as it neared where I stood with my messenger bag tucked under one arm.

  I raised my other arm and waved, as innocent as youth can be, never having seen a vehicle on this highway before. The van slowed and stopped not far from me. I walked toward it, searching through the windshield for whoever might be driving the old-fashioned machine.

  A sliding door opened to the side where I couldn’t see. Then the driver’s door swung outward with a clank. I froze. A towering man with tanned skin and a thick black beard stepped out. A girl in a white and blue shawl that covered her hair came around the side from the sliding door. She looked to be about my age, skin the same color as the man’s.

  Her face came back to me in a rush, how Rebecca had looked when I’d first seen her. She was thinner and less healthy looking at thirteen, but her eyes were as beautiful as always. She smiled when she looked at me on the road.

  “Father,” she said. “It’s a boy!”

  The man with the fierce beard looked at me with a level gaze. “Are you from this area?” he asked.

  I looked between the father and the girl with the entrancing eyes. “Y-Yes, yes,” I said. “I’m from the town up there.” I pointed at the hill where houses were interspersed among the trees. I looked at the father. “Are you travelers?”

  “We’re from further north.” His dark eyes looked nothing like his daughter’s. “But we’re not travelers. We’re settlers.”

  My eyes widened. I stammered out some words even the enhancements of ichor did not allow me to recall.

  The father laughed. “Come on boy. Don’t just stand there, I want you to show my family and me to town.”

  “It’s right on the hillside,” I said. “You probably don’t need my help. Not really.”

  The girl walked up to me, put and put her face close to mine. Her expression changed from playful amusement to gentle concern. “Father gets what he wants,” she said softly. “Or he hurts people.”

  I swallowed and fell back a step from the girl. “Oh. Okay.”

  She led me to the van where a woman in a dark shawl held a young boy in her lap in a seat behind the driver. The girl and I sat beside them. She smiled weakly at me, then leaned close to my ear. “I’m sorry. But don’t worry, I’ll make sure he doesn’t hurt you.”

  “Thanks,” I said, suddenly very aware of this beautiful girl so close to me. “I won’t forget.”

  My heightened memories diminished as the ichor went inert in my system. By then dusk crept over the megalopolis from the seaside to the westernmost Aeon Heights. I shivered, my mind made up. I walked back to the market. Confidence drained from my mind like fading ichor with every step as I entered through the front gate. The lights inside the market were brighter than ever, casting my shadow across the ground.

  Did I really dare do this? Elizabeth could still be sensitive even after we decided to limit our relationship to the professional, and I had almost no proof beyond the memories in my mind that this clean was Rebecca. Had been Rebecca. Unless the whispered rumors of a cure for cleans were true.

  Still, I walked to the stalls near where she had been dancing that morning. The giant still stood there, propped against an adjacent stall’s side by one huge arm and still standing easily over two meters tall. His eyes moved toward me as I approached, but I ignored him.

  I ducked the giant’s tattooed arm and approached the raised area where this woman who so-resembled the Rebecca of my memories once again danced among the other cleans on display. Her form shifted, and she turned her face to scan the crowd. No expression graced her features beyond the simple bliss of emptiness that came with being cleaned.

  I stared at her, eyes searching that face for a spark of recognition. One thing was certain—despite the gulf of time and place—she was Rebecca.

  I stifled my cry of dismay with one hand to my mouth. Then a man’s heavy arm fell around my shoulders. It was the giant. “Sir,” he said. “I take it you see something on display you like?”

  My eyes moved to meet the grinning face of the huge man. I stammered, “I-I believe I might.”

  “You know the dancers on display are among the finest cleans sold at this market, especially on a day like today.”

  “I am aware. Are you selling?”

  “Not all of them are mine.” He whistled and pointed at the clean that looked like Rebecca. It can’t be her, I told myself. It must not be her. She must be free, probably having long forgotten me, but free. “That one is. She goes by the name of Rain.”

  “Rain?” I said.

  “That’s her name.”

  I looked at Rain’s face, unsure of myself with the giant’s arm still across my shoulders. “I am sorry,” I said. “How much for Re-For Rain?”

  “You make up your mind fast, my friend. Don’t you want to know where this one comes from first?”

  “Let me guess,” I said.

  He shook his head. “You’ll never figure it out.”

  “Have you ever heard of a place called the Green Valley?” I asked.

  His jaw dropped ever so slightly, betraying his surprise. “Someone you knew?”

  “No,” I lied, “but I happen to have an eye for the middle country.”

  “You must, but there aren’t many of her kind out there.”

  “And what kind is that?”

  “No need to get testy, sir.”

  “Fine. How much for her?”

  He released my shoulder and looked me up and down. “Two thousand.”

  Two thousand. That would have made up a sizable portion of my investment in the network building I was planning on renting with Elizabeth soon. Of course, we didn’t strictly need a building being that we could relay everything by ourselves using ichor in our own apartments, but it could help for when we had more staff, and Elizabeth wanted more staff. But I made over two thousand in a month when I was working on high commission for the Aeon Omasoa’s network as I had been doing lately.

  I stared at this woman called Rain, who’s mind had been cleaned by the aeons. I closed my eyes for a moment, frowning. Thomas would be curious. He would ask about her. I knew right away I would tell him the truth. For all his baseness at times, Thomas was a good friend. Rain’s eyes opened, at last, sparkling and dark. Those eyes, that face. These belonged to Rebecca, whatever she had become.

  “I’ll take her.” I held out my cred card to the giant man. Now that face, those eyes will belong to me.

  The giant took the card and scanned it. “A pleasure doing business with you, sir. Just give us a moment to get her down and dressed.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  And I meant it. I’d never missed anyone like I missed Rebecca. Cleaned or not, I wanted to be near her again. And I couldn’t bear to see her taken away by some slave master or brothel owner. Part of me warred with these thoughts because that part of me knew, even if she resembled Rebecca, Rain did not know me. Rain did not care if she spent her remaining days in some brothel being sold to anyone who could afford her for an hour, a night, a day.

  The giant sent a more ordinary-looking man up to the platform to retrieve Rain. When the man returned with her she wore a long coat of shabby gray material. “Is this acceptable?” the giant asked me.

  “I think so,” I said.

  The giant leered at Rain. “You think?”

  “It’s fine.”

  “Stars be with you friend.” The giant turned to the other man who pushed Rain gently from the back, directing her toward me.
“If you have any trouble with her, here is my card. I’ll gladly take her off your hands, at least until the market closes next month.”

  “Thanks.” I took the man’s card as well as my cred card. I wanted to scream at myself. What was I doing? She’s clean. The Rebecca I knew is dead. Yes, but if there’s even a chance… A chance of what?

  Everyone knows the cleans cannot be restored, only urban legends say otherwise. I stuffed the card in my pants pocket and took Rain’s soft hand as gently as I could. “Hello, Rain,” I said softly.

  “Hello.”

  “Jethro,” I said. “Call me Jeth.”

  “Jeth?” Her voice reached my ears, so familiar. Her breath touched my neck as she passed close to me.

  “Yeah,” I said. Some structure inside of me collapsed at the questioning tone of her voice. She really remembered nothing.

  I took Rain’s hand and led her away from her former owners. When we reached the center of the path, I stopped and looked around for Thomas. My friend was walking toward me, leading a handful of cleans and checking his card’s light cell to see how much he could still afford on it.

  “Well, well.” He looked at Rain, then at me. “Mister Jethro Gall, it looks like something could tempt you after all.”

  “Someone,” I said. Then I leaned closer to him, one hand still holding onto Rain. “I’ll tell you the rest later.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Alright,” he said. “I don’t get it, but alright.”

  “Maybe I should go back to the ferry.”

  I stared at Thomas, brows bent, and hoped he got my meaning.

  He nodded. “Sure, Jeth. I think we’ve got everything you need right now.” He clapped me on the shoulder, almost jarring my grip on Rain’s hand loose. But I didn’t let go. I turned and led Rain out of the old stadium that now served as a trading ground for empty-minded cleans.

  Girl from The Green Valley

  That evening, Rain and I rode the ferry back to Lotdel Tower district, sharing the vessel with Thomas and his dozen or so new additions to the Mangrove Suite. I decided we should stay on deck despite the falling temperatures because I didn’t want to lose track of Rain among the other cleans.

  The night sky lit up with ghostly aeon lights that danced from the skyline. I stood by the tower of the bridge, watching the heart of the city grow closer. Rain shivered beside me, and I resisted the urge to put my arm around her. It would do me no good to think of a clean as a person. Though, if that was the case why had I bought her?

  She pressed herself to my side, seeking warmth. Her touch thrilled me, as much as it would were she still Rebecca. I wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Should we go inside?” I asked.

  “Is it warm inside?”

  I frowned, taken aback by the clean’s lucidity. I had never really tried to communicate with a clean before, not as an adult at least, but I did not expect such a human answer in a perfectly normal voice.

  “Yes,” I said.

  She stared at me wide-eyed. “Please. Let’s go in.”

  “Alright.” I led her toward the entrance, guiding her with my arm.

  When we entered the ferry’s upper hallway, I found Thomas waiting by the door, back leaned against the wall.

  “Jeth,” he said.

  “Thomas.”

  “I think it’s time you came clean,” he said. “Just this morning you told me you weren’t going to buy anything.”

  “Anyone.”

  “Forget your damn terms for a minute, Jeth!” Thomas pushed his back off the wall and faced me. “You bought a girl.”

  I swallowed bile. “I recognized her.”

  “You what?” He put a hand to his ear.

  “Recognized her.” I glowered at Thomas. “She’s an old friend.”

  “She’s a clean. Cleans aren’t friends with anyone.” Thomas folded his arms. His eyes moved to Rain, who was still pressed to my side.

  “I know what you’re saying.” I held back my anger at Thomas’ words. What he said was common knowledge. Cleans don’t remember anything. Cleans don’t want anything but pleasure. “I just… I knew her when she was human.”

  He took in a sharp hiss of breath. “So, you bought her.”

  “Yeah, I bought her.”

  Thomas sighed. “You know how bad this idea is?”

  “I didn’t want to see her taken away. Again.” I clenched the fist at my side. “I didn’t think about the consequences.”

  “You sure as hell didn’t. What’s Elizabeth going to say?”

  “I don’t know, but I can guess she won’t be happy.”

  He shook his head. “Look, I want to help you. Maybe she could stay at the Mangrove Suite while you explain things to Elizabeth.”

  “I’d be alright with that if you promise me one thing.”

  “She won’t work any clients. Cross my heart and drown me if I should lie.”

  I looked up at him. He appeared earnest. I unclenched my fist. “Thanks.”

  “It’s nothing. You still have to tell Elizabeth about her.”

  “Do I? Me and Elizabeth, we’re just business partners.”

  “She may be under a different impression, Jeth. I shouldn’t have to tell you that.”

  I felt heat in my face. “I’m not leading her on.”

  “I know. Okay. Let’s focus. What are we going to do about her?”

  I released my hold on Rain’s shoulder. She stepped to one side of me and Thomas, looking at the space between us with an empty gaze.

  “I don’t know,” I said, “but haven’t you heard the stories? The stories of cleans being restored by aeons.”

  He frowned. “I’ve heard stories, Jeth, but I don’t think the cleans want it. They gave up their humanity to escape from pain, not because they were forced into it.”

  “You’re right.” But was he? I couldn’t believe Rebecca would willingly give up her mind. “Forget I mentioned it.”

  “No problem. I really wish you hadn’t brought that up in the first place.” He frowned. “Look, Jeth. I think we’ll have to see what happens. I’ll take her with me tonight. She can stay in the Mangrove Suite until you and I decide what to do.”

  “Okay.”

  “I need to check on the other cleans.”

  I nodded.

  Thomas turned and walked down a passage to the cabins. I turned to Rain.

  “Warm,” she said.

  “Yeah.” I smiled at her.

  She gave me an expressionless gaze in return.

  We reached shore and took Thomas’ aging gray van to Lotdel Tower. There, Rain and I parted. Thomas took her up to the fortieth floor of the gleaming skyscraper that was Lotdel Tower. I rode the elevator to the twelfth floor, where my apartment overlooked Bailey Court Garden and its always-green central trees.

  I drew the curtains and sat down on my bed. Tomorrow, I’d be back to work at my network, and I’d be back to making plans with Elizabeth, but tonight, I needed to remember why I missed Rebecca so much. I needed to remember because a wall had come tumbling down today, a barrier I didn’t ever expect to fall.

  I lay back on the bed, darkness and warmth all around, and I closed my eyes.

  Unregistered Memory, 2066

  When I was sixteen and living as a student in the Green Valley far to the west, I had one great friend. Her name was Rebecca Malik, and I loved her.

  The two of us went through life like any other students at the time, almost fifty years after the rise of the aeons. We shared a few classes, physics and biology, and we sat side by side during them. Neither of us paid much attention to the material.

  I was more interested in memeotecture and the advanced study of ideas relayed by ichor. Without reliable electronics because of the war, the biological-ichor relay had become indisputably the best way for humans to communicate over great distances to mass audiences. Rebecca loved memeotecture even more than I did. She took to constructing thoughts for others from her own mind easily.

  Rebecca and I drank our ichor c
ups in the morning like the nectar of the gods. Some people still think of aeons as gods so I suppose that makes sense. They sure seemed like it at the time. Ichor enhances human senses and gives us access to sensory and memetic networks.

  Her parents were hard on her. And they never liked me or ichor much. Some days she would come to school with bruises. On those days, she wouldn’t say a word to anyone but me and wouldn’t answer when called on in class. She told me it was her father, trying to beat the evil out of her.

  I told her she shouldn’t take that kind of thing from anyone.

  Through all of it, I thought we’d grown closer than she must have. Because she left for the east coast five years before I did. A week after her sixteenth birthday, she jumped a train and rode out of my life. She left me a note at school, delivered by our dull-eyed homeroom teacher. The last line is the only part I remembered clearly.

  I’m sorry I won’t see you again, Jeth, but you would do the same if you were in my shoes.

  I was angry for a long time.

  Eventually, the anger faded. Then I just missed her.

  Five years after she left, I followed the railway as far as I could go on foot, the side of the great highway leading out of the Green Valley and across the hills. I hitched a ride on a truck that burned diesel like an athlete burns calories. That truck carried me to the east.

  I never forgot Rebecca, but I thought I’d never see her again.

  When I woke in the morning, the day after buying Rain, I still wasn’t sure if I would or not.

  I left my apartment for the restaurant on the tenth floor around seven in the morning. Nageddia, the aeon who owned Lotdel Tower, mandated a credit-free breakfast for all inhabitants of the building. Apparently, she didn’t like to see people underfed. I brought the smaller of my two ichor flasks with me, because I had to work today, and met Elizabeth when I stepped out the elevator doors.

  The doors closed behind me.

  Elizabeth smiled from under waves of golden brown hair. “Good morning,” she said. “Guess Thomas didn’t keep you out too late.”