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'You mean the lager, don't you?' She dipped away from his noisome, raucous laugh. 'What deal is that?'
His 'whisper' could probably be heard in Randall's penthouse suite. 'My dad's got me an interview. They need someone my age as a control subject for their teen rehab project. Good money.' This time it was a belch, and her stomach clenched. 'Three times what they pay for wanking off. You know, a sperm donation.'
Could be Tim's dad was smarter than his son. Any rehab had to be better than none, and 'control subject' sounded like a splendid pretext. Tim was too dim to realise that though it wasn't illegal to pay research subjects who were minors, Fulgur avoided the practice. 'Child abuse' had a nasty tendency to terminate executive careers prematurely.
'Tell Owen I'll be right in,' she said.
The thought of Owen's arm, Owen's breath on her neck, Owen's signature cologne, the thought of the hot sweaty half-drunken party-goers brought on another wave of nausea, and she rushed back into the toilet where she'd already spent fifteen minutes. But there was nothing left to heave up except some foamy spit, less bitter than her thoughts. She rinsed her mouth at the washbasin, then drank a little cold water. In the mirror her face looked composed: this time tears hadn't reddened her eyes or blotched her cheeks, and she'd already redone her lashes; some fresh lipslap would be enough. She was tempted to head for the bus stop, but she'd promised to rescue Max from the children's party after the speeches, and she was curious what Randall had to say. Fabio had hinted that it would be something important, hadn't he?
She was not hoping that Zach would think it important enough to make an appearance—or that they would let him. You hoped for a decent grade on that last history essay; you hoped for a new pod for Christmas; you certainly hoped your protection was good enough (hadn't you heard something about vomiting?); maybe you even hoped that a long-lost, long-lived, and lifelong celibate great-uncle in South Africa would die and leave you a goldmine; but nobody with a nanogram of sense wasted any energy on hoping that an alien spacecraft would land in your yard with the mission to treble your IQ and transform you into a drop-dead gorgeous, honey-voiced number with big tits, megastar charisma, and a custom board that seduced every bloke to surf the wave; aliens who'd beg you to accept the gift of immortality, plus, if you were lucky, exclusive world rights to the grand unified theory of the cosmos.
From the doorway Laura searched the crowd, determined to avoid Owen (and Tim). Either the conference hall had shrunk, or the numbers had swelled like flies to rotting meat. Laura swallowed, then swallowed again. After a deep breath she pushed her way through the swarm of noise and smell to the back of the hall, her eyes roving restlessly, registering for the first time how few simus were in attendance. Most of them were tall enough to stand out, though few as tall as Zach. She tried to remember how it had been last year (her first time at the 'real' party). Surely there had been more of them. Her stomach cramped. She could feel the juices sloshing like cold slops in a bucket, ready to spill. You are not going to do this to me, she instructed her gut, not here, not again. But her real dread had little to do with throwing up in public.
Laura wedged herself between a display board on casters—the latest success story in Tim's rehab programme, some girl who'd just won a place to study psychology, 'I want to help others like me' bannered in fucking gold across the top, do you believe that crap—and a fleshy potted plant as tall as a small giraffe, which growled at her. In her present mood she was ready to growl back, and tear off a few leaves with her teeth for good measure, till she noticed the flash of a metallic collar. The man holding the cat—black, sleek, hardly bigger than a kitten—was half-hidden by the foliage, though he stepped forward as soon Laura caught sight of him.
'What a lovely cat,' she said, a faint inflection conveying her puzzlement.
'Jasmine's an absolute beauty, isn't she?' He took another step forwards. 'Go on, stroke her. She adores attention.'
Laura extended a hand, then jerked it away with a small cry as the cat hissed and sprang into the planter. 'Shit!' Three scratches, already welling. She'd begun sucking the back of her hand before it occurred to her to wonder about pathogen transmission. Animal viruses were mutating all the time.
'Has Jasmine clawed you? How odd.' The man stooped and with a single murmured word enticed the cat back into his arms. 'Let me have a look.'
'I'm surprised Security let you in with a cat,' Laura said as the man examined her hand. He had a plump laugh to match his smooth plump cheeks, pink from heat—he didn't look the sort to drink or dance. The little cat settled back into the crook of his arm like a kangaroo into its mother's pouch, and her purring was so loud that it could be heard above the music.
'Worried about health clearance, are you?'
'Not exactly—'
'Here, take one.' With one hand he extracted a handful of foil packets from his pocket. His laugh became a loud guffaw when he caught sight of the expression on her face. 'Disinfectant, Laura. A special formula, but only disinfectant. I always carry a few, since Jasmine has got some genetic material from a panther. You're a right little savage, aren't you, sweetheart?' This last to the cat, who, Laura could have sworn, smirked at her the way even your best mate would smirk when asked by the hottest lad at school to the cinema.
Laura broke open one of the packets, removed the strong-smelling swab, and ran it over the scratches, which were still oozing slightly.
'Don't worry, Jasmine's absolutely clean. The disinfectant is just in case she's picked up some stray bugs from the floor. She likes to wander.'
A placebo, then. 'Who is she?' Laura asked.
Jasmine hissed, and her fur puffed to give her the appearance of a small dark thundercloud about to discharge a bolt of lightning. Again the man murmured to her, and though her fur settled back in place, she flicked her tongue as if about to speak, an entirely unfeline movement. Laura wondered what other genetic material this creature incorporated.
'Jasmine's one of my charges.'
'She must like to hunt birds. What about bigger ones, like swans?'
With a yowl Jasmine sprang from the man's arm and disappeared in the direction of the double doors. The man muttered something under his breath, but at that moment the music ended, and in the hush the electronic crackle of the speakers indicated that Randall had stepped up to the microphone. Like everyone else in the hall, Laura's attention shifted to the stage. Grey-haired and elegant, Randall was nearly as tall as a simu. It was said that he spent considerable time on the tennis court and ski slope, and since he was always travelling, his tan might be natural; certainly his crow's feet were. He carried his extra weight with ease, confident of his magnetism, energetic in a way her scrawny dad would never be. It always surprised her when fat people—not that Randall was precisely fat, at least not yet—could move with such agility, grace even. Whenever Olivia had complained about getting out of breath while dancing, Laura used to say, 'Just stop eating the stuff.' Where had she learned to be so smug? And that Olivia had never retorted—how stung she must have been.
Just stop thinking about him.
Laura watched Randall take charge of his audience before saying a word. Admittedly there was something engaging in the way he fumbled with the mike, and then the almost boyish, apologetic shrug as he handed it to an assistant for adjusting: it had Laura wondering what Zach would look like in ten years—in twenty. That black hair, threaded with silver? He also had a taste for classy gear: she pictured him coming into the house, tossing a dark tailored jacket over a chair, loosening his tie, unbuttoning his shirt, rumpled, lightly sweat-stained. She pictured the silky skin, with just the right amount of comfortable fleshiness—a bit soft around the centre like a favourite praline; love-handled like a familiar memory.
'All good speeches begin with a joke. But since this isn't going to be a speech, and we all know that CEOs have no sense of humour whatsoever'—Tim was probably braying with laughter—'I'm going to tell you a story instead. A very short story—word of honour.' Mor
e laughter, and mostly genuine, though his remarks weren't particularly funny, or original. The man was a natural. 'One of my favourite memories.'
It's not enough, she whispered fiercely under her breath. I want more than memories; more than storied daydreams. They can claim what they like about our brains—there's a difference, a bloody great difference.
All at once she was desperate to know what Fulgur did with the simus. Why would nobody ever talk about it, not even Zach? She turned to smile at the animal man, whose friendliness might lead afterwards to some information, but he was gone—chasing his Jasmine, probably. A good name for the little wildcat. And with that thought came another, accompanied by a prickling of unease: he'd called her Laura. He'd known her name.
'. . . so this latest research means that, thanks to you, we have finally achieved what we've long been striving for. Thanks to each and every one of you in the Fulgur family. There is good reason to celebrate.'
This was insane, could she have missed the announcement already? With a silent oath she brought her mind to heel.
The crowd crackled with expectancy, reminding Laura of earlier Christmas mornings before the presents were opened. She'd missed the stocking, she concluded, but not the pile under the tree. Then she noticed that a number of children, each carrying a large basket, were working their way through the throng, distributing crackers. Max was among them, and he was heading in her direction with a fixed smile on his face, devoid of all humour, anxious; he wanted to talk with her.
'Some of you may have already heard the rumours, so let me reassure you. Like all the tastiest morsels of gossip, they're true.'
This time the laughter felt like the blast of hot air upon opening an oven door. You took a step backwards.
'To get to the point: the UN has just passed a new international law requiring all children to be base-scanned at birth, scanned once again upon entering school, and a third time at age eighteen, thereafter every ten years, so that their neural network—like their genetic code—will be part of their permanent record. Because of Fulgur's breakthrough work in the field, we have been awarded the primary contract to undertake this enormous endeavour.'
Randall paused, a broad smile on his face, till the applause died back. He held up his hands.
'You know what this means, of course. Rehabilitation in case of brain damage, illness, ageing. For those who want it, the opportunity to recover lost memories, lost skills.' He put his arm round his wife, who was standing alongside him. 'Celia is always telling me I really must do something about my creaky Spanish.' The city's mayor, she was a clever and able politician who joined in the laughter.
'And at first for some, but one day for all of us—the indestructible storage of consciousness. Minds that no longer perish.' He didn't have to say the word; it was already being whispered through the hall: immortality.
'So,' he concluded, holding up his own cracker, 'to celebrate with a flourish, I'm going to break with tradition. Celia and I won't pull first. Instead let's all pull together, as in fact we've been doing here at Fulgur all along. But before we do—on the count of three—let me just add a word about your Christmas bonus.'
Quiet fell while Randall's eyes passed over the assembly, so that each person felt the CEO was speaking directly to them alone, a private and intimate interview, a reward. Even Laura felt it, though it annoyed her. Something about this man was beginning to remind her of her mother.
'Take one,' Max whispered to her. She hadn't noticed that he'd reached her side. 'Don't stand out.'
'Twelve percent. Twelve percent of your annual salary, tax free. And not in options.'
This time he had to wait for the cheers to end before he could begin his count. Laura braced herself for the noise of the crackers, but in fact it was Max's words, muttered just before the outburst, that drowned out everything else.
'After the crackers, get your jacket and meet me outside by the fountain. There's something wrong. Weird stuff is going on, evil stuff. We've got to help Zach.'
Chapter 32
Absorbed by the intricacies of the sonata, Zach hears nothing until a small clump of snow slides to the floor by the cold sink, followed by a second. He lowers the clarinet to listen, but assumes it's only some pieces breaking off from the roof of the entry porch. Almost immediately, a shouted greeting brings him to his feet. Casting the instrument onto the sleeping platform, he snatches up the panak and hastens to peer up the narrow passageway. The voice doesn't sound hostile.
'Lev? Is that you?' he calls out with more hope than conviction.
'Hunters,' comes the response.
'What do you want?'
A laugh, followed by a second and deeper voice. An older voice, Zach guesses. 'A mug of tea would be welcome.'
Zach lowers the snowknife. 'How many are you?'
'Three. Two and a half.'
It's the half that intrigues Zach, and he bids them to join him, leaning his knife within easy reach against the storage box.
Traditionally dressed, the three remove their mitts, parkas, and outer boots, while Zach puts water to boil and sets out dried fruit and biscuits. Hospitality first, questions afterwards. (Could these be Lev's hunters?) The older man settles on the fuel drum, keeping an avuncular eye on the half, a boy perhaps Max's age, who first arranges the parkas on Zach's line, then collects the mitts and boots to take to the cold sink, where he flips them inside out and scrapes the cuffs free of snow and ice with his panak. Hardly a word is exchanged, so well does the lad know his routine, but his eyes, bright with curiosity, dart often to the clarinet. The younger man refuses a seat on the sleeping platform, preferring instead to squat by the stove. After the last mitt is hung up to dry, he takes out a chunk of frozen meat from a leather pouch for the boy to shave into thin slices.
'Caribou,' the man says, flashing, of all things, a facetted gold gem implanted in perfect teeth. And their accents! It has to be Mishaal and that bizarre sense of humour of his. 'It's good. Eat.' It's also raw, but Zach takes a tentative bite, then gnaws away upon realising that the boy will not touch his share till the adults have eaten.
The tea passed round, all of them stir in plenty of sugar, and for a while slurping noises fill the iglu, a discreet belch or two. From somewhere another pouch appears in the younger man's hand.
'Smoke?'
'No thank you, but please go ahead.'
Soon the pall of tobacco mingles with the smell of stale sweat and drying fur, all smells which remind Zach of Lev and Bella and the glow of a small, improbable stove in a blizzard. There's never been a run where things hurt so much, never a run where the rabbit hole loops straight back into his own cerebral vortex, and looping, traps him in the prism, or chasm, of memory. Chesterton: 'It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all.' How long can he, a simu, yes, and yes, one of their trained Fulgriders—one of their chosen—yet willy-nilly flesh & blood, piss & puke, little more in fact than a rough, slouching beast, just how long can he remain in the gyre and reel and icy thrall of this place, his thoughts ever snowier, his memories ever more arctic, before he dims and dims and dims, finally to go out altogether like a guttering lantern? Are there limits to how much irreality the mind can absorb? He'd like to believe that despite Fulgur, despite reason, despite all that he knows about the interface, he'll turn round one balmy April afternoon at a tap on his shoulder and there, there will be Lev, smiling his irksome, unrepentant, cream-lapping, and utterly beautiful smile. He'd like to believe in answers, not riddles. Damn it, he'd at least like to believe he'll remember the questions.
'What are you hunting?' Zach asks, a safe start.
'Seal,' says the younger man.
'I thought they're only found on the sea ice at this time of year.'
'It's not far,' says the boy shyly.
The man clouts him on the head. 'Mind your manners, Pani.'
Pani drops his gaze and murmurs an apology.
'Haven't you got any dogs?' Zach asks.
&n
bsp; 'Out on the ice,' the older man says. 'We'll be leaving soon, we've come by canoe to fetch you.'
'What for?' Zach asks rather too bluntly.
The two men exchange glances. 'We could use an extra hand,' the older one says. 'One of our men has taken ill.'
'How did you find me?'
'In the Arctic there are few secrets.'
Oh yeah? Obviously you haven't run into a certain Lev. 'I'm sorry, but I prefer not to kill a seal.'
The older man's nod, though slight, seems to convey a message to his fellow hunter, who removes a small object from his pouch but keeps it hidden in the palm of his hand. Zach crosses his arms over his chest and studies his kamiks in order not to stare.
'It's good to have the proper respect and humility,' the older man continues, 'particularly when there are signs that the ice is threatened.' He pauses to draw on his cigarette, then coughs. 'In difficult times sacrifice and survival sleep under the same skin.'
'I wouldn't be of much use,' Zach says. 'I've never even held a harpoon.'
'Nor will you be holding one. The people do not kill the Raven's wife.'
A lame wisecrack about skewering his own foot plummets from reach. 'Who?'
'She who gives life.'
'Your god?'
'Sea Mother. Woman. White Seal. She takes many forms.'
Zach waits till his voice is sure to be steady. 'The form of a stranger? A young woman?'
'That will depend on your journey.' He forestalls Zach's protest. 'A shaman with the gift of raven song is not bound to this world and this time and this body.'
Now he knows Mishaal is up to his tricks, Mishaal, whose father was a professor of anthropology renowned for his research into shamanic cosmologies and who, unlike Zach, never opens the seven-volume collection of myths—'Imagine, a grown man wasting his life on fairytales!'—which remains, even unfinished, the classic work in the field.