“I’m older than I look. And I wasn’t in for long.”
“What happened?”
She tilted toward me so that I could see her breasts. “One way to find out,” she whispered.
There was a jack joint two doors down. In a few minutes I was in the dark humid cube with this intimate stranger, memories and feelings crashing together and mingling. I felt our finger slide easily into our vagina, tasted the salt sweat and musk of our penis, sucking it rigid. Breasts radiating. We shifted around so we were two mouths working together. There was a slight distracting ache from two of her molars that needed work. She was terrified of dentists and all of her beautiful front teeth were plastic.
She had thought about suicide but never attempted it, and our sexual rhythm faltered while she relived my memory—but she understood! She had spent one day as a mechanic, assigned to a hunter/killer platoon by a clerical error. She watched two people die and had a nervous breakdown, her soldierboy paralyzed.
She knew nothing of science or mathematics, physical education major, and although she felt my end-of-the-world anxiety, she just linked it with the suicide attempt. For several minutes, we stopped the sex and just held on to each other, sharing sorrows at a level that’s hard to describe, independent of actual memory, I suppose body chemistry talking to body chemistry.
There was a two-minute warning chime and we re-coupled, hardly moving, slight internal contractions bringing us to a slow-flowing orgasm.
And then we were standing in the lemon heat of the afternoon sun, trying to figure out what to say.
She squeezed my hand. “You aren’t going to do it again—kill yourself?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I know what you think. But you’re still way too upset about him and her.”
“You helped with that. Having you, being you.”
“Oh.” She handed me her card and I signed on the back.
“Even when you don’t charge?” I said.
“Except for husbands,” she said. “Your own, that is.” Her brow furrowed. “I got a little ghost of something.”
I felt a sudden new sweat break out. “Of what?”
“You jacked with her. Only once? Once and a . . . another time that, that wasn’t really the real thing?”
“Yeah. She had a jack put in, but it didn’t take.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.” She came close and plucked at my shirt. She looked up at me and whispered, “The stuff I was thinking about you being black, you know I’m not a racist or anything.”
“I know.” She was, in a way, but not malicious and not in a way she could control.
“The other two . . .”
“Don’t worry about it.” She’d had only two other black customers, jacked, full of anger and passion. “We come in all flavors.”
“You’re so cool, so thoughtful. Not cold. She ought to hang on to you.”
“Can I give her your phone number? For a reference?”
She giggled. “Let her bring it up. Let her talk first.”
“I’m not sure she knows I saw them.”
“If she doesn’t know, she will know. You got to give her time to work out what she’s gonna say.”
“Okay. I’ll wait.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
She stood up on tiptoe and kissed me on the cheek. “You need me, you know how to get me.”
“Yeah.” I repeated her number. “Hope you have a good day.”
“Ah, men. Never get any real action before sundown.” She waved with two fingers and walked away, the silk artfully revealing and concealing with every step, a flesh metronome. I had a sudden backflash and for a moment I was in her body again, warm with afterglow and hunting for more. A woman who enjoyed her work.
It was three o’clock; I’d been gone for six hours. Peter would throw a fit. I took the Metro back and got an armload of groceries at the station store.
Peter didn’t say anything, and neither did Amelia. Either they knew that I’d seen them, and were embarrassed, or they’d been too busy to worry about my absence. Whichever, this week’s bundle of data had come in from Jupiter, and that meant a few hours of painstaking sorting and redundancy checks.
I put away the groceries and told them chicken stew tonight. We alternated cooking—rather, Amelia and I alternated cooking; Pete always called out for pizza or Thai. He had some private source of money, and got around the rationing because he’d wangled a reserve commission in the Coast Guard. He even had a captain’s uniform hanging in plastic in the front hall closet, but he didn’t know whether it fit.
The new data gave me plenty to do, too; pseudo-operator analysis requires some careful planning before you actually start to grind numbers through it. I tried to put the disturbing events of the day behind me, and concentrate on physics. I was only partly successful. Whenever I glanced over at Amelia I had a flash of her face lost in ecstasy, and a pang of reactive defiance and guilt over Zoë.
At seven I put the chicken into a pot of water and dumped the frozen vegetables on top; sliced up an onion and added it with some garlic. Zapped it to a quick boil and then left it to simmer for forty-five minutes, while I put on headphones and listened to some of this new Ethiopian stuff. The enemy, but their music is more interesting than ours.
Our custom was to eat at eight and watch at least the first part of the Harold Burley Hour, a Washington news distillation for people who could read without moving their lips.
Costa Rica was quiet today; fighting in Lagos, Ecuador, Rangoon, Magreb. The Geneva peace talks continued their elaborate charade.
It had rained frogs in Texas. They actually had amateur footage of that. Then a zoologist explained how it was all just an illusion caused by sudden local flooding. Nah. Secret Ngumi weapon; they’ll go hopping all over the country and then suddenly explode, releasing poison frog gas. I’m a scientist; I know these things.
There was a consumer “demonstration” in Mexico City, which would have been called a riot if it had happened in enemy territory. Someone had gotten hold of the three-hundred-page manifest that detailed what was actually created last month with their “most favored nation” nanoforges. To everyone’s surprise, most of it had been used to make luxuries for the rich. That was not what the public record had said.
Closer to home, Amnesty International was trying to subpoena the strings recording the activities of a 12th Division hunter/killer platoon that had been accused of torture, in an operation in rural Bolivia. Of course it was all pro forma; the request was going to be held up by technicalities until the heat death of the universe. Or until the crystals could be destroyed and convincing fakes synthesized. Everybody, including Amnesty International, knew that there were “black” operations whose existence was not even recorded at the division level.
A potential terrorist had been stopped at the Brooklyn Bridge customs point and summarily executed. As usual, no details were available.
Disney revealed plans for a Disneyworld in low Earth orbit, first launch scheduled to go up in twelve months. Peter pointed out that that was significant because of the inside information it implied. The area around the half-completed Chimborazo spaceport had been “pacified” for more than a year. Disney wouldn’t start building if they hadn’t had a guarantee that there would be a way of getting customers up there. So we were going to have routine civilian spaceflight again.
Amelia and I had shared a bottle of wine with dinner. I declared that I wanted to get a few hours’ sleep before I pasted a new patch, and Amelia said she’d join me.
I was lying under the covers, wide awake, when she finished in the bathroom and slid in next to me. She held herself still for a moment, not touching.
“I’m sorry you saw us,” she said.
“Well, it’s always been part of our arrangement. The freedom.”
“I didn’t say I was sorry I did it.” She turned on her side, facing me in the darkness. “Though maybe I am. I said I was sorry you saw us.
”
That was reasonable. “Has it always been like this, then? Other men?”
“Do you really want me to answer that? You’ll have to answer the same question.”
“That’s easy. One woman, one time, today.”
She put her palm on my chest. “I’m sorry. Now I feel like a real shit.” She stroked me with her thumb, over my heart. “It’s only been Peter, and only since you . . . you took the pills. I just, I don’t know. I just couldn’t stand it.”
“You didn’t tell him why.”
“No, as I said. He just thought you were sick. He’s not the kind of man to press for details.”
“But he is the kind of man to press . . . for other things.”
“Come on.” She scrunched over so her body was long against my side. “Most unattached men constantly radiate their availability. He didn’t have to ask. I think all I did was put a hand on his shoulder.”
“And then surrender to the inevitable.”
“I suppose. If you want me to ask for your forgiveness, I’m asking.”
“No. Do you love him?”
“What? Peter? No.”
“Case closed, then.” I rolled over on my side to embrace her and then tipped her onto her back, pressing against her lightly. “Let’s make some noise.”
I was able to start, but not finish; I wilted inside of her. When I tried to continue with my hand, she said no, let’s just sleep. I couldn’t.
* * *
the case was not closed, of course. The encounter with Zoë kept coming back to him, resonating with all the complicated emotions he still felt for Carolyn, dead more than three years. Sex with Amelia was as different as a snack is from a feast. If he wanted a feast every day, there were thousands of jills in Portobello and Texas who would be more than willing. He wasn’t that hungry.
And although he appreciated Amelia’s directness, he wasn’t sure he quite believed her. If she did feel some love for Peter, under the circumstances she could justify lying about it, to spare Julian’s feelings. She certainly hadn’t looked casual, his face buried in her womanhood.
But there was time for all that later. Julian finally fell asleep some seconds before the alarm went off. He groped around for the box of speedie patches and they both took a paste. By the time they were dressed, the cobwebs were melting away and Julian was one cup of coffee away from math.
After they ground the fresh data through the mill, Julian’s modern method and Peter’s tried-and-true, all three were convinced. Amelia had been writing up the results; they spent half a day cutting and fine-tuning it, and zapped it to the Astrophysical Journal for peer review.
“A lot of people will want our heads,” Peter said. “I’m going to go away for about ten days, and not take a phone. Sleep for a week.”
“Where to?” Amelia asked.
“Place down in the Virgin Islands. Want to come?”
“No, I’d feel out of place.” They all laughed nervously. “We have to teach, anyhow.”
There was a little discussion over that, optimistic on Peter’s part and exasperated on Amelia’s. She already had been missing one or two classes a week, so why not a few more? Because she had already missed so many, she insisted.
Julian and Amelia flew back to Texas thoroughly exhausted, still running on speedies since they didn’t dare come down until the weekend. They went through the motions of teaching and grading, waiting for their world to fall apart. None of their colleagues was on the Aph. J. review board currently, and apparently no one was consulted.
Friday morning, Amelia got a terse note from Peter: “Peer review report due this afternoon. Optimistic.”
Julian was downstairs. She buzzed him up and showed him the message. “I think we might want to make ourselves scarce,” he said. “If Macro finds out about it before he leaves the office, he’ll call us up. Just as soon wait till Monday.”
“Coward,” she said. “Me, too. Why don’t we go out to the Saturday Night Special early? We could kill some time at the gene zoo.”
The gene zoo was the Museum of Genetic Experimentation, a place that was regularly closed by animal rights groups and reopened by lawyers. Ostensibly, the privately owned museum was a showcase for groundbreaking technology in genetic manipulation. Actually, it was a freak show, one of the most popular entertainments in Texas.
It was only a ten-minute walk from the Saturday Night Special, but they hadn’t been there since the last time it was reopened. There were lots of new exhibits.
Some of the preserved specimens were fascinating, but the real attraction was the live ones, the actual zoo. They had somehow managed to contrive a snake with twelve legs. But they couldn’t teach it how to walk. It would step forward with all six pairs at once, and lurch in one rippling flop after another—not a conspicuous advance over slithering. Amelia pointed out that the legs’ connection to the animal’s nervous system must be the same as goes to a normal snake’s ribs, which undulate together to make it move.
The value of a more mobile snake might be questionable, and the poor creature obviously was made just as a curiosity, but another new one did have a practical application, besides scaring children: a spider the size of a pillow that spun a thick strong web back and forth on a frame, like a living loom. The resulting cloth, or mat, had surgical applications.
There was a pygmy cow, less than a meter tall, that wasn’t touted as having any practical purpose. Julian suggested that it could answer the dairy needs of people like them, who liked cream in their coffee, if you could figure out how to milk it. It didn’t move like a cow, though; it waddled around with earnest curiosity, probably gene-jumped with a beagle.
* * *
to save credits and money, we went to the zoo snack machines for some bread and cheese. There was a covered area behind the place with picnic tables, new since the last time we’d been there. We got a table to ourselves in the afternoon heat.
“So how much do we say to the gang?” I said, slicing cheddar in crumbling chunks with a plastic knife. I had my puttyknife but it would make a raclette out of the stuff, or a bomb.
“About you? Or the Project?”
“You haven’t been there since I was in the hospital?” She shook her head. “Let’s not bring it up. I meant should we talk about Peter’s findings; our findings.”
“No reason not to. It’ll be common knowledge tomorrow.”
I stacked an uneven pile of cheese on a slab of dark bread and passed it to her on a napkin. “Rather talk about that than me.”
“People will know. Marty, for sure.”
“I’ll talk to Marty. If I have a chance.”
“I think maybe the end of the universe might upstage you, anyhow.”
“It does put things into perspective.”
The half-mile walk to the Saturday Night Special was hot and dusty, even with the sun setting; a chalky kind of dust. We were glad to step into the air-conditioning. Marty and Belda were there, sharing a plate of appetizers. “Julian. How are you?” Marty said with careful neutrality.
“All right now. Talk about it later?” He nodded. Belda said nothing, concentrating on dissecting a shrimp. “Anything new on the project with Ray? The empathy thing.”
“Quite a bit of new data, actually, though Ray’s more up to date on it. That terrible thing with the children, Iberia?”
“Liberia,” I said.
“Three of the people we were studying witnessed that. It was hard on them.”
“Hard on everybody. The children, especially.”
“Monsters,” Belda said, looking up. “You know I’m not political, and I’m not maternal, either. But what could have been in their minds, to think that something so terrible could help their cause?”
“It’s not just a warrior mentality,” Amelia said. “Doing that to your own people.”
“Most of the Ngumi thinks we did it,” Marty said, “and just manipulated things to make it look like they did . . . as you say, no one would do that to their own peo
ple. That’s proof enough right there.”
“You think it was all a cynical plan?” Amelia said. “I can’t imagine.”
“No, the word we have—this is confidential and unsupported—is that it was one lunatic officer and a few followers. They’re all disposed of now, and Ngumi Psychops, such as they are, are doing a lot of smoke and mirrors, proving that for some reason we would want to destroy a school full of innocent children, to make a point. To show how ruthless the Ngumi are, when of course everyone knows they’re the army of and for the people.”
“And they’re buying it?” I asked.
“A lot of Central and South America is. You haven’t been watching the news?”
“Off and on. What was the thing with Amnesty International?”
“Oh, the army let one of their lawyers jack into any string he wanted, on condition of confidentiality. He could testify that everyone was genuinely surprised by the atrocity, most people horrified. That’s pretty much gotten us off the hook in Europe, and even Africa and Asia. Didn’t make the news down south.”
Asher and Reza came in together. “Hey, welcome back, you two. Run off and get married?”
“Ran off,” Amelia said quickly, “but to work. We’ve been up in Washington.”
“Government business?” Asher said.
“No. But it will be, after the weekend.”
“Can we wheedle it out of you? Or is it too technical?”
“Not technical, not the most important part.” She turned to Marty. “Is Ray coming?”
“No; he had a family thing.”
“Okay. Let’s get our drinks. Julian and I have a story to tell.”
Once the waiter had delivered the wine and coffee and whiskey and disappeared, Amelia started the tale, the threat of absolute intergalactic doom. I added a few details here and there. Nobody interrupted.
Then there was a long pause. There had probably not been that many consecutive seconds of silence in all the years this group had been getting together.
Asher cleared his throat. “Of course the jury’s not in yet. Literally.”
“That’s true,” Amelia said. “But the fact that Julian and Peter got the same results—down to eight significant figures!—using two different starting points and two independent methods . . . well, I’m not worried about the jury. I’m just worried about the politics of shutting down such a huge project. And a little worried about where I’ll be working next year. Next week.”