Should he return to mnem? He could still do that, he knew. He would hardly be the first—or the tenth or the hundredth—person to try to drop mnem, and fail. The addiction was more subtle than that of physiological-dependence drugs. Some experts still refused to classify mnem as addictive at all. But those people were ivory-tower fools; addiction was more than a physical dependency, as cocaine users knew. A person's fundamental perception of self was involved; if he lost his memory, he lost his identity. That was Sister Beth's nemesis. So Paul could admit his error and go back and—
No! This was his penance for killing the innocent girl; it might not be rational, but it was final. He would live or die a free man—as she had sought to be free.
Meanwhile, he played. Seven of Cups on Five of Cups; Five of Wands on Tower Trump—oops, he had misplayed. He should have aligned the two fives—no, it didn't make a difference in this case. But he should at least have considered the fives before choosing the other option. On such decisions wins and losses were determined.
Paul moved on, concentrating his play more efficiently, matching suits and numbers to second or fourth piles down, condensing his spread in the fashion that gave this game its name. The frequent half-wild Trumps gave him valuable spacing, enabling him to keep the accordion contracted, but of course his opponent had the same advantage. And the man was pushing him, for in match-Accordion both players had to agree to the lay-down of each new card. Paul's opponent had evidently seen a play Paul had missed, and had his layout contracted one card smaller than Paul's, so that he could draw two or three cards while Paul's layout was hung up. He knew how to play competitive Accordion, all right! He had Paul on the ropes and knew it, and never let up. Try as he might, Paul could not regain the initiative.
The final card was a Trump: the High Priestess, ironically associated with memory. Memory—now his liability. Sure enough, she was reversed. The Tarot had uncanny ability to turn up significant associations! So now the Priestess was full-wild, ready to help him compress his spread impressively. But he had not anticipated this, simple as it would have been to count Trumps, and was able to knock off only two piles. He was left with eight piles: not a good score, for him.
Sure enough: his opponent had seven piles. Paul had lost. He scowled and brought out his credit card.
"No," the man said, becoming slightly magnanimous in victory. "Settle in private."
What did that mean? An exchange of credit was inherently unprivate; it became a matter of instant record in the broadest computer network in the world. So the man did not want money. But the bet had been for money; Paul was not obliged to make any other type of payment.
He shrugged. They left the casino. In the street the man began talking, softly and rapidly. "You are a mnem addict on crash-cure. I am a federal drug agent. Your credit will be cut off soon, if it has not been already. That's why I kept you from making any credit transactions; we don't want anyone to know yet. You're in trouble. Turn state's evidence and we will guarantee that no one ever will know."
A federal narc! So deliberately clumsy that Paul had entirely misread him!
"I don't know what you're talking about," Paul said, knowing protest was useless.
"You carried a load that you delivered this morning for the cartel," the man insisted. "We've been watching you for six months, along with a hundred other addicts. We didn't nail you because we don't want you, we want the wheels. Your psych profile indicated you were one of our best prospects, because you're honest and intelligent; mnem is a dead end for you. Sooner or later you'd have to break with it, and you had the courage to carry through when you did. Something happened, triggering that break, and now you're out of it. Was it that female you turned in, that cult nut?"
"She was no cult nut!" Paul snapped. "She was a nice girl!"
"Very well, she was a nice girl, too unstable to sit still in a police copter. Very nice for us, because she must have done what we couldn't do, and set you up for your break with mnem. Her fanaticism infected you, maybe. She was a pretty girl, I hear. Now we're moving in on you because you're ready to turn against the wheels. With your help we can break this thing open, and close mnem down permanently."
"No," Paul said.
"I know you're off it; I saw the signs at blackjack. Your mind was drifting. I broke that game up and took you out of circulation before your casino employer caught on. It was worse in the Accordion game. You've lost your enhancement, and soon you'll suffer withdrawal lapses. Talk to me now; finger the wheels. Give me the data while you can still remember it, and well take care of you. There are counter-drugs we can use to ease the transition and protect much of your memory. My recorder is on. It's your only chance."
For a moment Paul was tempted. But he realized that this man was just as likely to be a mnem cartel agent as a fed narc. The cartel might be testing him, making sure he was keeping the faith. And he had to keep the faith, or he might be rapidly dead. "I don't know anything about it," he said. "Leave me alone."
"You can't make a living anymore," the narc (mnem agent?) insisted. "You're finished. We can help you if you'll help us. Right now—while you can."
Paul ducked into the crowd, leaving the man. He wove around and through knots of people until he had lost the narc. Soon he was on a different street. A huge nova-neon sign illuminated as his approach activated its mechanism: CHRIST=GUILT.
Paul smiled. Was this unintentional irony? One never could tell with religious cults. He passed under it and glanced back. From this side it said: SEX=SIN. No mistake, evidently; to many religionists, any form of pleasure was immoral, and no person could be holy unless he felt guilty. Even in the Joy of true faith, he had to feel guilt for that very emotion of joy.
Yet in some people it assumed an attractively demure quality, and there could be a certain allurement, the security of belonging. What was that one Sister Beth was in? The Holy Order of Vision. His memory had not failed! Maybe that was just another repressive cult, reacting to repressive society—but she had been one sweet girl. Why had she had to die?
Paul paused, feeling a kind of explosion in his chest. Heat erupted and spread out under his ribcage, a burning tide, slowly fading. Suddenly he understood what was popularly called heartbreak. There was no physical pain; the sensation was oddly pleasant. But something that had been subtly vital to him was gone, even as he realized its existence. In its place was— guilt.
There was a moment of confusion, then it was late afternoon and he was alone, entering a rundown building. It was unmarked, but everyone who had business here knew its name. It was the Dozens—the hangout of the disowned. More specifically, it was the expressly nonwhite enclave of an age when there was, by law, no societal discrimination based on race or creed. So this institution had no legal foundation. But neither did the mnem cartel. Legality deviated from fact, and no white person was foolish enough to set foot inside the Dozens.
Paul's presence caused an immediate stir. In moments, three husky men blocked his progress. One was the reddish hue of an almost full-blooded Amerind; another was Oriental; the third was black. "Maybe you just lost your way, snowball?" Black inquired softly.
A snowball was a hundred-percent white person, and would not survive long in this colored hell. Paul dropped into a balanced crouch whose meaning could not be misinterpreted. "No." He refrained from using the counter-insult, "Pitchball."
"Mine," Yellow said. The two others gave way. The Oriental stood opposite Paul, standing naturally. "Karate?"
"Judo."
"Kodokan?"
"Ikyu," Paul replied.
"Nidan," Yellow said.
They bowed to each other, a stiff little motion from the waist. They had just identified their schools of martial arts and respective ranks. Yellow outranked Paul by two grades, and these grades were not casually acquired things; he was quite likely to tromp Paul in a normal match. Paul could fight Yellow if he wished, but he would not remain long on the Dozens premises. It would be better to desist from this approach. He
had, at any rate, obtained his hearing, which was his purpose.
"I belong," Paul said. "I am one-eighth black. I'm a casino dealer, a skilled mechanic, and the feds are after me. Mnemdict" This was the one place where he would have nothing to fear from either fed or cartel; the Dozens took care of its own with fiendish efficiency, and its resources extended as far as nonwhite blood did. But first Paul had to gain admittance.
Yellow stepped back and Black came forward. "We can use a mechanic. But you're seven-eighths white." The tone made it an insult.
"Yes. My name is Paul Cenji. I was raised white. But you can verify my ancestry with the bureau of records."
Black produced a button transceiver. "Paul Cenji," he said into it.
In a moment it responded. "Twelve-point-five percent black. Three percent yellow. Trace admixture of other nonwhite. On the lam from fed and cartel this date."
Black studied him critically. "You are in trouble. Your body makes it, by the skin of your prick. But your soul is white."
"Try me," Paul said. He knew they would—and before they were through, the truth would be known.
Black spoke into his unit again. This was evidently no standard computer terminal; the Dozens had information more current and extensive than he had believed possible. They knew about his mnem complication and the federal man's offer already! And that three-percent Oriental ancestry; this was the first Paul had heard of that. It must derive from somewhere in his white component; he had not checked that out as thoroughly as the black. "Karrie."
In another moment a brown-skinned girl about six years of age joined them. Black gave way to her with a certain formal courtesy reminiscent of the martial arts practice. What was developing?
The child gazed at Paul with open contempt. She had a slightly crooked lip that lent itself admirably to a sneer. "Know the dozens?" she asked.
She was not referring to this building. Not directly. Disconcerted, Paul raised his hands in partial negation. "I know it some—but not with women or children."
"Then haul your white ass home," the girl said.
Paul stared at her. He did know the "dirty dozens," or contests in insult, a typically black form of ordeal. Black humor, in a very special sense. The name of this club derived from it. This was a most appropriate challenge; if he could beat the house champion, he would prove the blackness of his soul, for Whites seldom competed and were not good at this. He had come prepared. But he had thought of it strictly as man-to-man. This man-vs.-female-child situation was extremely awkward.
Yet this was the way they had set it up. If he wanted to join the club, he would have to perform.
He focused on the child, Karrie. She had demonstrated her readiness to fight with shocking directness. This was as real an encounter as the prospective judo match with Yellow, and rather more to the point. Little Karrie had invited him to depart with an unkind reference to the color of his ass. He had to refute this, turning the insult on his opponent, and rhyme it if he could.
"I'll haul ass home/when you learn to use a comb," he said—and was immediately disgusted with himself. He had gotten the refutation and rhyme, but it was a pretty weak attack. A girl her age would use a comb—if she chose to. Often it was a point of pride to need no comb, or to borrow one from a male companion. So he hadn't really scored. He had merely entered the lists.
She snapped right back: "I'll take that comb/and jam it through your chrome." She paused, then struck hard: "With foam."
This was no innocent, despite her age! Chrome generally reflected white, not black. Foaming agents were still used by minority groups for prophylactic purposes. Score a couple of points for her; she had adapted his concept to his disadvantage.
"If your mama had put foam in, you'd never have come out," he told her. No rhyme—but the insult was stronger: the suggestion that she had been an accidental, unwanted baby. It was hard to put it all together, relevance, rhyme, and insult, without time for thought. But that was what made it such a challenge. Even many blacks could not perform well at the dozens, lacking the ready wit. If he could handle it, it would more than compensate for the marginal quality of his genetic score. Now, too late, he thought of the rhyme: "you'd never have been."
A crowd was gathering. This was their kind of entertainment. Not all of them were against him; he was beginning to prove himself by fighting dozens-style, and a number of them were light-skinned blacks like himself. A dozen or so. A pun, perhaps; the dozens had nothing to do with the figure twelve. It derived from a white expression applying to stunning or stupefying. If he won this contest, he would have instant friends, and his future would be feasible, if not absolutely secure. "Good shot," one murmured.
Stung, Karrie came back viciously: "Your ma's foam squirted out/when she fucked that white lout."
"Reversed," one spectator commented with professional acumen. He meant she had taken Paul's insult and applied it to him, reinforced by rhyme and another racial reference. Those "white" shots were hurting him, here!
He had to take off the gloves. He could not afford to think of Karrie as either female or child; she was the enemy, out to destroy him. "That was no lout, that was her man. Your ma got two bucks for baring her can."
There was a smattering of applause. Paul had topped her verse with his own, implying that her mother was a prostitute. The mother was always the target of choice in such contests, the vulnerability of every living person. "Two bucks!" someone muttered appreciatively. That figure had been traditional half a century ago; now it denoted impossible cheapness, barely the price of the required shot of foam—which improved the quality of the gibe. He was hitting his stride now, after a shaky start.
The girl felt the thrust and knew she had been wounded. Maybe she was the accidental child of a prostitute. The insults were not intended to be accurate reflections on one's opponent, but if one struck close enough to home to make a person lose his composure, he was also losing the contest. "Get out of here, seven-eighths ball!" she screamed. "Go back to your ma's lily-white cunt!"
"Hoo!" someone exclaimed admiringly. Losing ground, Karrie had struck hard indeed, producing a marvelous eight-ball pun on his white ancestry, and calling him a motherfucker. That was close to the ultimate insult, almost impossible to top in the normal course of the game, and in this case he was unable to reply in kind. She could not convincingly be called a motherfucker. He realized now that the match had been weighted against him; some prime insults did not apply to females or children. Karrie presented a disconcertingly small target.
Still, he was warmed up now, and not out of it by any means. "My ma's in Africa; I never saw her cunt./And it's none of your business, you little black runt."
No comment from the gallery. Paul had defended himself aptly enough, but had not taken the attack to her. He had lost the initiative.
Karrie sensed victory. She went for the kill. "Her ass is in Africa so she can see/how to get the cure for your pa's veedee."
Making him the child of venereal disease. How was he to top that?
Suddenly it came to him: the irrefutable implication, utterly dastardly. The fecal connection! "When your pa fucked your ma, he missed the slit;/he peed up her ass and didn't quit;/and you came out as brown as shit." A triple rhyme, yet!
Karrie stared at him, defeated, unable to respond. He had really nailed her, making her the spawn of urine and defecation. But there was no applause from the audience; all stood in stony silence.
Then he realized: he had won the dozens, but lost his objective. For he had by implication likened all brown people to feces, and yellow people to urine, including his own nonwhite components. In his heat to win, he had let the means justify the end, and so destroyed the value of that end. Only a white soul would have conceived and executed that insult.
Once again, he had grasped salvation—and discovered a turd.
It seemed only a moment before it happened. He found himself standing in the street, wondering where he was going. He knew that hours had passed, for now the
city's shadows were long, and he was hungry. The mnem was draining from his system, and he had no replacement; his memory was going. He must have suffered a blackout; the drug was like that. Sometimes the fading was perceptible; at other times it was in chunks.
He smelled shit. And he knew. This was the Animation that revealed his inner worth, the sources of his feculence. The woman Amaranth had played the part of Sister Beth—but the memory was genuine. He had murdered an innocent girl, ten years ago. Or nine, or eight. Mnem had shrouded his memory, and now Animation had brought it back, his dirtiest secret. He was worthless.
A window lighted. He stood before a residential building, and the shade was not drawn on this ground-level aperture, or else he was up on a fire escape, snooping. It wasn't clear, and it didn't matter. He peered in, and saw Therion standing naked while the girl squatted, clothed, in the corner. Call her Amaranth, call her Light, call her Sister Beth or a cartel secretary or an anonymous casino waitress; she was Everygirl, the focus of man's eye and penis. This was the castle of discovery of human interrelations.
Something nagged him about the positioning of the two in the room. It was the same room he had shared with them, and he understood why he himself was absent, because now he was out here looking in, seeing it all from another perspective. But he had made love to her in the center, not the corner. And she had been nude, not clothed. Here it was Therion who was in the center, naked.
Now Paul heard Therion's voice: "Stab your demoniac smile to my brain; soak me in cony-ack, cunt, and cocaine." And the paunchy man pushed out his flabby rear.
The smell of shit became overpowering. Paul's gorge rose; he tried to suppress it, but could not. He turned away from the window, teetering vertiginously o'er the abyss of the alley. Vomit spewed out of his mouth and nose, heave after heave, brown in this light, trailing yellow strings of mucus that would not let go. Yet even so, he smelled the shit.