“You call it tuff, I call it obvious. When you’re rich, you don’t have to die. That’s clear. Put together the whole run of therapies—selective germ plasm optimization, continuous health surveillance, genomic therapies, preferential transplant access.… If I believed in private property, I’d give you odds that the first generation of immortal humans are alive today. They will outrace and outpace their own mortality.”
She watched him try to disagree without being rude and remembered how she’d worried about offending people when she’d first gone walkaway. It was adorable.
“Just because money can be traded for lifespan to a point, it doesn’t follow that it scales,” he said. “You can trade money for land, but if you tried to buy New York City one block at a time, you’d run out of money no matter how much you started with, because as the supply decreased—” He shook his head. “I mean, not to say that there’s supply and demand when it comes to your health, but, diminishing returns for sure. Believing that science will advance at the same rate as mortality is mumbo jumbo.” He looked awkward. She liked this guy. “It’s an act of faith. No offense.”
“No offense. You missed the most important argument. Life extension comes at the expense of quality of life. There’s a guy about two hundred miles that way”—she pointed south—“worth more than most countries, who is just organs and gray matter in a vat. The vat’s in a fortified clinic and the clinic’s in a walled city. Everyone who works in that city shares that guy’s microbial nation. It’s a condition of employment. You’ve got one hundred times more nonhuman cells in your body than human ones. The people who live in that city are ninety-nine percent immortal rich-guy, extensions of his body. All they do is labor to figure out how to extend his life. Most of them went tops in their classes at the best unis in the world. Recruited out of school. Paid a wage that can’t be matched anywhere else.
“I met someone who used to work there, gave it up and went walkaway. He said the guy in the vat is in perpetual agony. Something tricked his pain perception into ‘continuous, non-adapting peak load.’ He’s feeling as much pain as is humanly possible, pain you can’t get used to. He could tell them to switch off the machines—and he’d be dead. But he’s hanging in. He’s making a bet that some super-genius in his city who’s thinking about the bounty on the bugs in this guy’s personal bug-tracker will figure out how to solve this nerve thing. There’ll be breakthroughs, if everything goes to plan. So the vat will just be his larval phase. You don’t have to believe it, but it’s the truth.”
“It’s not weirder than other stories I’ve heard about zottas. The only unlikely thing is that your buddy was able to go walkaway at all. Sounds like the kind of deal where you’d get hunted down like a dog for violating your NDA.”
She remembered the guy, who’d gone by Langerhans, all weird tradecraft stuff—dead drops and the lengths he went to in order to avoid leaving behind skin cells and follicles, wiping down his used glasses and cutlery. “He kept a low profile. As for that NDA, he had weird shit to tell, but nothing that I could have used to kickstart my own program or sabotage the man in the vat. He was shrewd. Absolutely raving bugfuck. But shrewd. I believed him.”
“It’s just like I was saying. This guy is enduring unimaginable pain because of his superstitious belief that he can spend his way out of death. The fact that this guy believes it doesn’t have any connection with its reality. Maybe this guy will spend a hundred years trapped in infinite hell. Zottas are just as good at self-delusion as anyone. Better—they’re convinced they got to where they are because they’re evolutionary sports who deserve to be exalted above baseline humans, so they’re primed to believe anything they feel must be true. What, apart from blind, self-serving faith by this zotta leads you to believe that there’s anything other than wishful thinking?”
Limpopo remembered Langerhans’s certainty, his low, intense ranting about the coming age of immortal zottas whose familial dynasties would be captained by undying tyrants.
“I admit I don’t have anything to prove it. Everything I know I learned secondhand from someone scared out of his skin. This is one of those things where it’s worth behaving as though it was true, even if it never comes to pass. The zottas are trying to secede from humanity. They don’t see their destiny as tied to ours. They think that they can politically, economically, and epidemiologically isolate themselves, take to high ground above the rising seas, breed their offspring by Harrier jets.
“I’d been walkaway for nearly a year before I understood this. That’s what walkaway is—not walking out on ‘society,’ but acknowledging that in zottaworld, we’re problems to be solved, not citizens. That’s why you never hear politicians talking about ‘citizens,’ it’s all ‘taxpayers,’ as though the salient fact of your relationship to the state is how much you pay. Like the state was a business and citizenship was a loyalty program that rewarded you for your custom with roads and health care. Zottas cooked the process so they get all the money and own the political process, pay as much or as little tax as they want. Sure, they pay most of the tax, because they’ve built a set of rules that gives them most of the money. Talking about ‘taxpayers’ means that the state’s debt is to rich dudes, and anything it gives to kids or old people or sick people or disabled people is charity we should be grateful for, since none of those people are paying tax that justifies their rewards from Government Inc.
“I live as though the zottas don’t believe they’re in my species, down to the inevitability of death and taxes, because they believe it. You want to know how sustainable Belt and Braces is? The answer to that is bound up with our relationship to the zottas. They could crush us tomorrow if they chose, but they don’t, because when they game out their situations, they’re better served by some of us ‘solving’ ourselves by removing ourselves from the political process, especially since we’re the people who, by and large, would be the biggest pain in the ass if we stayed—”
“Come on.” He had a good smile. “Talk about self-serving! What makes you think that we’re the biggest pains? Maybe we’re the easiest of all, since we’re ready to walk away. What about people who’re too sick or young or old or stubborn and demand that the state cope with them as citizens?”
“Those people can be most easily rounded up and institutionalized. That’s why they can’t run away. It’s monstrous, but we’re talking about monstrous things.”
“That’s creepy,” he said. “And cinematic. Do you really think zottas sit around a star chamber plotting how to separate the goats from the sheep?”
“Of course not. Shit, if they did that, we could suicide-bomb the fuckers. I think this is an emergent outcome. It’s even more evil, because it exists in a zone of diffused responsibility: no one decides to imprison the poor in record numbers, it just happens as a consequence of tougher laws, less funding for legal aid, added expense in the appeals process.… There’s no person, decision, or political process you can blame. It’s systemic.”
“What’s the systemic outcome of being a walkaway, then?”
“I don’t think anyone knows yet. It’s going to be fun finding out.”
[ii]
The guy’s friends woke from their nap while Limpopo and he were clearing dishes, which meant filing bugs where the dish-clearing routines failed. The tricky thing was that half the bugs were already tracked, but it wasn’t clear whether they were the same bugs, and it was dickish to create duplicate bugs when you could spend time to determine whether the bug was already there. Plus, adding more validations to an existing bug made it more likely to get fixed. If you wanted your bug fixed, you should really check it in depth.
They wandered over, gummy-eyed and torpid, whiffy of unwashed skin. Limpopo suggested they visit the onsen in the back. Everyone was amenable. They gave up on the bugs—let the other B&Bers get a crack at filing bugs of their own—and shouldered their shlepper packs and headed, staggering, to the back of the tavern.
“How’s this work?” the girl said. “G
ive us the FAQ”—she pronounced it “fack”—“for this kinky soapy thing of yours.” Limpopo thought she was putting up a front and the “kinky soapy” snark was a tell for anxiety about being inducted into a walkaway orgy.
“It’s co-ed, but there’s no sexytime, don’t worry. It’s thirty percent walkaway, seventy percent Japanese in approach. Just enough formalism that everyone can enjoy themselves, not so much that you worry about doing it wrong. The thing to remember is that baths are for relaxing, not washing. You don’t want to get anything except clean skin into them. No bathing suits, and you sit down at the shower stall for a hardcore scrubadub and a decontam stage before you get in. The hot water is limitless—it’s solar pasteurized in barrels on the roof, then there’s a three-stage filter through printed charcoal with the surface area of Jupiter’s moons.
“Once you’re clean, do your own thing. Some of the baths will parboil you in ten minutes, some are cold enough to give you hypothermia if you stay in them, and the rest are in between. Go where the mood takes you. I like outdoor baths, but the fish in them may creep you out. They’ll eat your dead skin, which tickles, but something deep-seated rejects being something else’s snack, so wave them away if you don’t want them nibbling. I like ’em, though. The little towels are all-purpose; keep them handy but don’t wring them out in the pools.”
“Is that it?” the smart-ass guy said.
“That’s it.”
“What about the dirty stuff?”
She rolled her eyes. “If you meet someone of your preferred gender and want to do something, get showered, get dressed, and get a room. We don’t do dirty in the onsen. Strictly platonic.”
“If you say so.”
“So say we all.”
“Where do we leave our stuff?” That was Etcetera, and her mental assessment of him dropped a notch. Shleppers and stuff.
“Anywhere.”
“Will it be safe?”
“Dunno.”
The noobs exchanged easy to read glances: That’s not cool. I’m sure it’s safe, don’t be such a tourist. This is all our stuff. Don’t embarrass us.
“Ready?”
They followed her. They all changed together in the dry-room, and she didn’t bother being subtle about peeking, that was the deal when you were a walkaway. Skin is skin—interesting, but everyone’s got some. These three were young and firm, but not offensively so, and the smart-ass had totally depilated, which had been a style when she went walkaway, but had since atrophied, judging from the lush bushes the other two sported.
The funny thing about not caring if you get caught peeking is you get to watch everyone peek, and these three did, in a way that made her sure that they weren’t a sex thing with each other—yet. The other thing about not caring about peeking is you catch other people peeking at you, which all three did in turn, and she held each of their eyes in turn, frankly and unsexually. It was her duty to these noobs to help them go walkaway in their minds, from the sex and scarcity death-cult they’d grown up with and turned their backs upon.
She needed to do it for herself, too. She knew it was possible to be in the presence of naked people without it being about sex—she knew that stuff was a liability, not an asset; she knew that work was not a competition—she still needed to remind her psyche. Habits didn’t die easy, they were so closely tied to her fear and fear was hardest to ignore. Taking noobs into the onsen was occupational therapy for her own walkaway.
“Let’s hit the showers.” She led them into the cleanup room, pretending not to notice their anxious glances at their packs in the unguarded room, which were no more subtle than their looks at her bare ass as she led them onward.
She started in the hottest pool, a trick to get her mind out of her muscles. That heat made thought impossible, all she could do was be, willing each muscle in turn to unclench, breathing the mineral-scented steam, until she melted beneath the water, legs, arms, ass, back, the soles of her feet, and the palms of her hands going soft as perfect barbecue, flesh just about ready to fall off her bones, relaxation lapping up her spine. The panic of the heat oozed down from her brain, warring in tiny neck muscles and in her occiput, until they gave way, and the last centimeter of stress that she’d not known was there gave. She was sensation, play of muscles and heat, pleasure balanced upon the knife-edge of pain. She relaxed deeper, the postural muscles that kept her in a Z loosened, her butt floated one increment off the porous stone step, and the sudden occurrence of a gracious interval between flesh and unyielding rock caused a deeper loosening, starting with the crisscrossing muscles of her butt, working deep into her pelvis and core. She was so relaxed her tummy bulged as the girdle of tissues that wrapped from ribs to hips gave. She felt like sous-vide meat, muscle fibers unraveling, underlying tissues sloughing away from the bag of elastic fascia that wrapped them. She let out a bass groan that hummed in her loose vocal cords. “I’m cooking.”
Someone was next to her in the water, probably Etcetera to judge from the amount of displaced water. He panted as he struggled with his body’s instinct to flee the remorseless heat. She listened to his breath deepen, heard the sighs as he unwound. There was a sympathy between their bodies as the ripples carried the signals of relaxation between them.
You can’t stay in that kind of heat forever, no matter how much you’d like to. She stayed right to the last instant, then stood up quickly, cool air tingling everywhere it kissed her. She gasped. The heat cooked away all self-consciousness. She could stand naked and gasping on the pool’s steaming edge without even the awareness of not being self-conscious. She walked in measured steps, smooth flagstones sensual against her feet’s half-boiled soles, to the edge of the coldest pool. She dipped a nearby pail into it, then used the pail to wet her small towel, squeezing it on her skin, starting on the top of her head and nearly choking as the icy water sluiced down her shaven scalp and behind her ears and into her eyes, nose, and mouth.
She dipped the towel, scrubbed her skin, clenching her jaw to keep from gasping. She forced herself to scour her skin with the water, dipping the towel again and again, lashing herself with the cold until the pail was empty. She contemplated another pailful—sometimes she did two or three—but couldn’t bear the thought.
She stepped into the coldest pool, up to her ankles, made herself descend the steps, keeping her hand light on the grab rail despite the death grip she wanted. One more step and she was in the water to her knees, another step and she was up to her thighs and the water lapped at the bottom of her butt and her vulva. The thought of taking one more step was impossible, no sane person would plunge their tenderest places into icy hell. She knew from experience that if she didn’t go for it, she’d lose her nerve. She brought her weight forward until she had no choice but to plunge chest-first into the water, head dipping under for a moment that made her ears go instantly numb and the skin on her eyeballs and forehead feel like it was being pulled to her hairline.
She refused, by iron will, to allow herself to gasp. She made herself stay in that punishing water for one long breath, and then walked out in measured steps. The air, chilly before, now felt hot. She took her small towel back to the hottest pool and filled a fresh bucket and started the process in reverse. The water was blister-raising, scorching, scalding, but she made herself wash down with it before sinking back into the hottest pool.
Five minutes before, she’d thought every muscle had released its reservoirs of tension. This time, as the hot water boiled her, the feeling was transcendent. She closed her eyes and there was nothing behind them, no flickering worries, nothing but animal joy.
The sensation ended with a shocked cry from the coldest pool. She turned placidly, saw Etcetera in the cold water, face a rictus, nostrils flared so wide they looked horsey, and he snorted down them with steam-train intensity. To his credit, he stayed for a five-count and came back to the hottest pool with a slow pace. She smiled lazily as he washed himself with his small towel. He stepped into the hottest pool and their eyes met.
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She held his gaze as he let the heat and his muscles and nerves do their dance.
“Oh, wow.”
“Yeah.”
“Wow.”
She waited for him on the next cold plunge, and they locked eyes as they stepped into the cold, a playful dare. Neither of them made a sound, not even when the water touched his scrotum, though he gave the smallest jolt. They waded in up to their necks, and, without saying a word, dipped their heads, surfaced. Neither wanted to be the first to get out. They stared, then glared, until he muttered “you’re crazy” between gritted teeth and started for the stairs. She followed. He had a cute butt, she noticed, in the most abstract way.
She had to admit that it wasn’t all that abstract.
Back into the hot, giggling as they silently dared each other to sluice the scalding water over themselves, to step into the bubbling heat, quickly sink in. The third immersion in the heat took her to places she had forgot, driving out all conscious thought, turning her into a thermotropic organism that reacted to the convection currents through a process below her brain stem.
Once again, her body told her she couldn’t stay in this heat much longer. It was a return to awareness from that blissful no-place, eyes opening to cracks, then fully, head lifting out of the water. He joined her a moment later, just long enough that he might have been proving some macho point about his ability to withstand pain. She banished the thought. If it was true, he was only hurting himself. His business, not hers. If it wasn’t true, she was being needlessly mean.
They stood beside the pool beside each other, stress wrung out of their flesh, faces falling into unconscious bliss.
“Now what?” he asked.
“Now we go for the normal pools. She pointed to the onsen’s other pools, where a dozen bathers sat, chatting quietly or contemplating their eyelid-backs. His friends sat in a warm, bubbly bath with an awkward distance between them.
They ambled over, and as always happened in the baths, Limpopo found the stimulus had dissolved any sense of nudity. Even their eyes on her body didn’t awaken any feeling of nakedness. It was the psychological equivalent of the ringing in your ears after a long-humming refrigerator compressor shut down. The baseline hum of worry about her appearance, where she was hairy, what the hair looked like, where she had fat, where her bones protruded, where her skin was striated with stretch marks and where it was curdled with burn scars, all ceased to matter.