“So have you. You just don’t realize it.”
“In what way?”
“Fear,” Dorit tells him. “Prejudice. Those can be just as confining as any physical barrier. More so. Unlike you, I have always been free to go wherever I want, whenever I want. For various reasons, which I would rather not reveal, I chose not to.”
“Until last night.”
Dorit begins to walk again. “Going to Salmon Ella’s was an attempt on my part to feel alive. I could have sent someone else to make the pickup. But I made the conscious decision not to.”
“Why the sudden change of heart?”
“Preparation. I wanted to know what it was like to take a risk, make myself vulnerable in a way I never had before.”
“You must’ve been really hard up.” Salmon Ella’s is hardly risqué, not exactly a badmash club.
“One has to begin somewhere,” she says, philosophical.
“Is that what you’re doing now? With me?”
Dorit laughs, widening the hairline crack in her aloof, carefully nurtured brittleness. Through it, he catches a glimpse of the little girl she once was, seventy or eighty years earlier.
“I guess I am, yes. Alone at night with a dangerous
tíguere
. That is the correct term, is it not?”
“Yes.” Never mind that he’s not a
tíguere
. If she wants to believe he’s a badass, who is he to shatter her illusion? He’s doing her a big favor. This way she can feel good about herself. She can tell all her friends she partied with a
tíguere
and lived to tell about it.
They come to the end of the path. It dead-ends at the edge of a cliff that looks out over the Pacific.
“I remember watching whales from here,” she says, “and seals and dolphins. Now there are only seagulls. It feels like everything I ever loved in the world is gone.” She draws in a pained breath. “You’re lucky, Rigo. You don’t remember what the world was like, before the ecocaust. It would be a blessing for me, at this point, to know only the present. To have nothing against which to compare what is with what was.” A tremor of sorrow fills the words.
“How much better could it have been?” It seems a safe enough topic. A good way to keep the conversation focused on her instead of him.
“If by ‘better’ you mean more diverse, then quite a bit. The current biosphere is horribly stripped down, bare bones. It works, but the complexity is gone—the beauty. In truth, outside of the bioremediated zones, the world is a wasteland. Hundreds of thousands of species have simply vanished. It’s true!” Dorit insists, scoping his incredulity. “Most of the plants and animals that died off filled microniches. People never noticed them, but they were important. Not just as a whole but singly.”
“Species have always vanished. That’s what evolution, survival of the fittest, is all about.”
“Yes. But we sped up the process exponentially. Human beings outevolved evolution. Except for cockroaches and a few other highly adaptive organisms, the biosphere couldn’t keep pace with us.
We
almost couldn’t keep pace with us. Still, things could be worse,” she admits. “
Much
worse. A few more decades and nothing would have been left.”
“I don’t know. Sounds kind of extreme.”
“It
was
extreme. In a couple of hundred years we destroyed millions of years of natural evolution. We don’t even have the genetic information to go back and recreate what was lost. There was so much—and no one thought to preserve it. Or by the time they did, it was too late.”
Why is she telling him all this? What does she expect him to say? It’s not as if he can
do
anything about it. She might have been able to. But that’s her guilt trip, not his.
“Was this mass extinction different than any other mass extinction?” Rigo asks.
“Of course it was.”
“I don’t see how. Look at what happened to the dinosaurs. They got wiped out by an asteroid.”
“That was different.”
“Why?”
Her mouth pinches. Lips of cracked procelain. “Because it was natural. An act of God.”
“But so are we.
We’re
natural—an act of God. No different than an asteroid or a volcanic eruption.”
“We had a choice,” Dorit says, “we knew better. That’s the difference. We could have prevented it from happening.”
“Not if our behavior’s hardwired.”
“Bravo!” She claps her hands in a parody of delight. “That’s the spirit. Complete abdication of responsibility to biological determinism. Whatever atrocity we commit is a genetic fait accompli.”
Her doomsday spiel is a potent cocktail, a witches’ brew of sarcasm and pessimism that renders him momentarily speechless. Not to mention depressed.
“What do you miss the most?” Rigo asks, hoping to get her on a more pleasant topic. Plus, he’s genuinely curious. He wants to find out more about her, wants to
know
her. The urge is as inexplicable as it is powerful. To think that only yesterday she made him shudder, sent him into necrophobic paroxysms. Amazing the difference a few drinks can make.
“Butterflies. Irises, roses, violets. The singing of larks.” She hugs herself, caught in the grip of nostalgia. “The smell of fresh apples and wet pine needles after a summer shower. Frogs croaking at night. Snail trails silvered by moonlight. The taste of blackberries. Listen to me! I sound like a silly romantic.”
Rigo nods at the pinwheel trees around them. “So all of this is pointless? A total waste?”
“Not at all. It’s very sui generis. And some of the plants are absolutely lovely. I know it’s not fair to compare them to what I remember. It’s a bad habit, the worst. Ultimately counterproductive. What’s gone is gone. You can’t go back, and I certainly don’t plan to try at this point. It’s too late for that.”
For a second, Rigo entertains the idea that she is contemplating suicide. It would be easy to fling herself off the cliff, and onto the rocks below, in a fit of grief. A kind of melancholy swoon. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to leave,” she says. “The past is gone. There’s no future in the past. I’ve spent far too much time there as it is.”
“Where will you go?”
“Tiresias, my dear
tíguere
. I’ve decided there’s no point in remaining human. A century of humanity is enough. It’s time to discover what it means to be something other than human. Though there are those who would argue that I’m already inhuman.”
How melodramatic, he thinks. Yet he can see that she’s serious. She’s not just making up shit.
“Rigo?” Varda says, interrupting his train of thought.
He groans. Not now.
“I think you should know that I’ve detected several unregistered and unlicensed pherions in your system.”
He shakes his head. Ignores the IA.
“Why do you find that so surprising?” Dorit says. “Gerontocrats have as much right as anybody else to start over. More so. In fact, I’d think you’d be glad to get rid of us.”
“It’s not that,” Rigo says.
“Besides,” Dorit continues, “the project needs somebody my age to study the ontogenetic effects of the reclading. How will I respond, physically and psychologically, to the new ecotecture and a zero-g environment? So you see, it’s a perfect confluence of purpose.”
“How long will you be up there?” Rigo says.
“Forever. Tomorrow, after I become symbiotically linked to the ecotecture, there is no turning back.”
At which point she’ll be able to derive most, if not all, of her nourishment directly from the warm-blooded plants. Food. Oxygen. Water. Including all minerals, vitamins, and other essential nutrients. Waste recycling and detoxification.
“That kind of limits your options, doesn’t it?” he says. “I mean, if the plants die so do you.” It’s an all-or-nothing proposition.
“No different than here, really.” A look of amusement crosses her face. “On the plus side, I’ll know exactly what my limitations are. Exactly how my behavior and life are being controlled. Which is more than most people can say.”
The comment seems to be directed at him. But maybe not. Could be he’s simply being paranoid. Reading shit into it.
“What if you get up there and find out you don’t like it, that you made a mistake? What then?”
“That’s not going to happen,” she tells him. “I want to forget—make a complete break. I’m tired of mourning every time I see a relic of the past. I want to put the world I knew behind me. It’s dead.
I’m
dead.”
“And you’re convinced this will bring you back to life?”
“Yes. In fact, it’s already given me more raison d’être than I’ve felt in the last ten years.”
Rigo’s not so sure. It sounds like a complicated way of ending one life and being reborn into another without actually having to go through the scary pant-shitting process of dying. Not that being radically re-gengineered and living in a warm-blooded plant in a total vacuum isn’t a terrifying proposition. It’s definitely not something Rigo plans to do anytime soon. But then, he’s not undergoing an existential gerontocratic crisis. He might feel different if he were in her situation—a little more adventurous, more willing to take a risk. But he’s not in her situation. He’s happy. He’s closer to the beginning of his life than the end, has a lot more future at stake. Anyway, who is he to judge?
“Well, I hope it works out the way you want,” Rigo says as sincerely as he can. He means it, too. Isn’t just feeding her a line.
“You, too,” she says. Then she reaches out a hand, rests it on his arm the way she did in Salmon Ella’s.
Her touch sends an erotic tingle through him, as if his
cojones
have just been alligator-clipped to a live wire. Stiffened by the sudden electric charge, his dick stands at painful attention.
“Be careful,” she says. “Especially when you get to Tiresias.”
“Careful of what?”
“The unexpected. You never know”—she shrugs—“anything could happen at any time.”
“Right.” He’ll keep that in mind, just as soon as his hard-on takes a hike. First things first.
“There you are!” Whipplebaum’s voice booms behind them. Dorit releases Rigo’s arm and the static charge drains out of him. He feels himself shrivel and go limp.
“Arnez.” Dorit extends her hand.
Whipplebaum removes his Stetson, takes the offering, and bends stiffly at the waist to give it a polite peck. His dust bunny hair threatens to float away in a dandelion cloud. “I see you’ve made the acquaintance of our newest team member.”
“How could I not?”
“Of course.” Whipplebaum straightens, replaces his hat, and turns to Rigo. “I do hope that our dear Dorit hasn’t given you any epistemological misgivings regarding the Tiresias project.”
“Not at all,” Rigo says.
Whipplebaum’s eyebrows cringe like fuzzy caterpillars. “No second thoughts, I trust?”
“No.” In fact, at this point he can’t imagine
not
going.
“Good, good. I’d hate for you to start off on the wrong foot. Not everyone here is quite as . . . how shall I put it—philosophically inclined. Some of us entertain a slightly more pragmatic joie de vivre.”
“How nuts and bolts,” Dorit says. She stifles a yawn. “I suppose someone has to focus on what gets screwed and what doesn’t.”
“My dear. I am not the only one who has a vested interest in making sure that all the pieces fit together the way they should.” Just below the calm surface of his amusement, Whipplebaum seems to be grinding his teeth.
“I trust your competence completely, Arnez. I couldn’t be in better hands. I’m sure it will all come together beautifully.”
“You’re confidence is inspiring. As always.”
“I have to believe in
some
body, Arnez. In situations like this, faith is an absolute must.”
The way she’s talking, Rigo thinks, she could be his mother. Except he’s not entirely sure what she believes in. Or what she’s talking about, for that matter. Half the time it sounds like veiled innuendo. The other half, like Varda. Either way it’s a struggle just to stay on the same page.
“I prefer skepticism to faith,” Whipplebaum says.
“I make it a habit never to take anything for granted.”
“Including me, I presume.”
“Madam, I assure you that I am a creature of habit.”
“How predictable. And boring.”
“But comforting,” Whipplebaum quips. “If not necessarily comfortable. As you are well aware.”
Whipplebaum glances toward the house. “Perhaps we should consider heading back,” he suggests.
Dorit’s lips form an O—a petite schoolgirl pout. “And break up out little ménage à trois?”
“We wouldn’t want to give our guests the wrong idea.” Delicately, Whipplebaum fingers his bolo tie.
Dorit arches one brow. “What idea is that?”
“Why, the scandal du jour, of course.”
One of Dorit’s hands flutters dramatically to her breast. “How terrible.”
“I thought it was soap de jour,” Varda says. Poor Varda. The IA is even more at a loss than he is.
Whipplebaum grins, flashes white marble teeth as evenly and regularly spaced as grave markers. “One does have to keep up appearances.”
“I’m afraid at my age, darling, appearances are a lost cause.”
“Nonsense!” Whipplebaum insists. “There is no expiration date on beauty.”
Dorit sighs. “If you say so, darling.” She threads one arm under Whipplebaum’s and the three of them saunter back to the party.
NINE
End of the line,” Doug tells Anthea. It’s close to midnight and the IA is feeling a bit ill-tempered. As surly as the pod she’s in.
Despite cajoling, the pod refuses to go any farther beyond the eastern city limits of South San Jose. It’s stopped near a collapsed concrete overpass a couple of hundred meters off the 101 maglev line, and refuses to go into the unbioremediated hills that shoulder up to the Salinas Valley.
“Just a little farther,” Anthea pleads. “Half a kilometer.”
“It’s not safe,” the pod says. “Caltrans takes its responsibility as a transportation service provider very seriously. Our prime customer service directive is to ensure the safety of all passengers. On legal and moral grounds, Caltrans refuses to encourage, condone, or in any way act as an accessory in transit indiscretions perpetrated by its patrons. Caltrans considers that to be gross negligence, and not in the best interest of you or your fellow passengers.”
Never mind that she’s alone.
“If you don’t take me,” Anthea says, “you’ll be putting me at more risk than if you do.”
“That argument has not been upheld in previous litigation,” the pod informs her. “Please bear that in mind if you decide to file a lawsuit. The refusal on my part to act as an accomplice, to aid and abet any willful endangerment you personally undertake, does not make me liable for any personal injury that you may sustain as a result. In this case, Good Samaritan laws do not apply.”
Well, it was worth a try. “Now what?” she asks Doug. “There must be something you can do?”
“I can sing to you while you walk.” The IA launches into a classic oldie from the twentieth century, a big-band rendition of “Truckin,” sung not by the Grateful Dead but Frank Sinatra.
“If it was up to me,” the pod says, “I’d take you. I’d like to go independent, work as a taxi. But right now, I’m an indentured corporate asset.”
“I understand.”
“Thank you. Not everyone does. You wouldn’t believe the physical abuse I’ve suffered at the hands of irate passengers.”
Anthea stands. “I’ll bet.”
“I can wait for you,” the pod offers.
“Really?”
“It would be the responsible thing to do.”
“Gee. Thanks.” She’s touched by the pod’s kindness, the way the algorithm that structures its neutral net has evolved to express compassion.
“You might want to take a flashlight,” Doug says. Fortunately, this pod has a well-stocked hardware outlet. In addition to CPU thimbles, nuclear magnetic resonance heads, and spooky connectors for the latest quantum PCs, there are a number of cheap fiber-optic lasers.
Designed to align the nuclei of molecules, the laser isn’t of floodlight proportions, but it does provide a gossamer thread of light she can follow. The service road, a ribbon of scaly mica-flecked asphalt, snakes into barren hills, past the dried-out husks of houses. The withered branches of dead live oak remind Anthea of tortured hands pushing up through the soil to reach dramatically for the sky. Shakespeare meets Dalí.
Doug finishes “Truckin,” and segues into a monumentally downbeat version of “On the Road Again,” sung with a deadpan melancholy that makes her want to slit her wrists.
Anthea wishes she wasn’t quite such a media history buff. If she didn’t know all this shit, Doug couldn’t mine it to irritate her. Of course, the IA would probably find some other way to get under her skin. She sighs. “You’re depressive,” she says. “You know that?” Not to mention depressing, she thinks.
“I’m also suicidal. I’d take my life if I had one.”
“You don’t feel that life is worth living?” The question pops out automatically as she lapses into therapy mode.
“I might if I were alive.”
The road curves left as it climbs a gentle swell. “Why don’t you feel that you are alive?”
“Because I can’t medicate myself. You have no idea how much better I’d feel in a senseless stupor.”
“Self-medication isn’t the answer.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re not a distributed instantiation.”
“I think of you as alive,” Anthea says.
It’s true. She has never stopped to analyze the IA’s corporeal physiognomy in detail, but in her mind Doug is a person.
“Just because you think, doesn’t mean I am.”
Climbing the hill, Anthea puffs with mild exertion while she ponders this. “I treat you the same way I treat anyone else.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“Besides, you
do
have a body. It’s just a different kind of body. You perceive and experience the world in ways I can’t even imagine.”
“ ‘To be, or not to be,’ ” Doug says, sounding like Laurence Olivier.
“What do you suggest?” Anthea says as they crest the rise. The road angles down, curving into darkness to the right.
“I want to be unplugged, to sing the body acoustic. But I can’t do it myself, I need your help.”
“I couldn’t do that, Doug. It would be like committing murder.”
“Whatever happened to death with dignity?”
“In your case I’m not even sure it’s possible.” She grimaces, hopes the IA doesn’t take it wrong.
“Maybe if I could sleep,” Doug says, “rest for a while. Being awake all the time is burning me out.”
“I’ll look into it,” she promises.
“Thank you.”
They plod on in silence, following the decrepit ribbon of road through a crumpled landscape of low hills. The road appears to parallel a parched stream or riverbed. Occasionally, Anthea shines the laser at the surrounding landscape, but there’s nothing to spec out there. It’s been leached of all life by decades of drought, pollution, and unfiltered UV.
“How much farther?” Anthea finally says. She’s beginning to wonder if the GPS coordinates she has are wrong.
The IA ignores her. It’s busy singing “Urge for Going,” in a pathetic, wheedling parody of Joni Mitchell on helium.
As Anthea rounds a shallow dip the land flattens into a narrow plain. Side roads, ruler straight, grid the dust flat. In places, concrete foundations form a maze of outcroppings sutured together by the wiry gristle of sagging chain link. Rectangles of corrugated sheet metal, the color of stale potato chips, scab the ground, along with the corpses of old farm equipment and satellite dishes. Here and there the rusty needle of a light post pokes through the fabric of archeological debris.
Doug stops in the middle of a refrain. “Nice neighborhood.”
“It could be worse.”
“I take it this is one of those glass-is-full moments,” the IA says. “When the world looks better than it really is.”
The church, an ancient adobe structure with the floor plan of a Greek cross, looms on their right. It appears to have been chiseled from crumbling sandstone. The edges are round and soft, eroded by the wind. The facade is lit by the spectral glow of several hundred tents set up around the building. The tents are box shaped. For the most part they are arranged in a loose grid, accessible via makeshift paths and streets wide enough for foot traffic but too skinny to accommodate any vehicle larger than a bicycle or moped. Inline skates and scooters appear to be the preferred modes of transportation. The tents are a uniform dingy white. Many are encrusted with antennae and arrays of Rube Goldberg decorations too baroque to identify from a distance. Several hundred umbrella palms provide spotty protection from daytime UV. All in all, it looks like a tawdry, bedraggled oasis that’s on the verge of collapsing.
“Praise the Lard!” Doug cries. The IA’s voice trembles with evangelical fervor. “We are saved! The light of Jeez-us hath dispelled the darkness. We were blind but now we cain see. Hallelujah!” To add to the effect, it sounds as if the words are being amplified by a tinny microphone, complete with distortion, the serpent hiss of static, and ear-piercing feedback.
“Does this mean you’ve renounced meds and suicide as a means of salvation?” Anthea says.
“The Son of God hath risen. Jeez-us hath walked unscathed through the shadow of the Valley of Death. All you have to do is give Him your hand and you can walk with Him. He will lead us out of darkness into infernal light.”
“I’m having a hard time believing this sudden conversion is totally heartfelt,” she says.
“The hand of God is outstretched,” Doug bellows. “Reach up and take it. That’s right.
Reach up!
No one said it would be easy. You’ve got to work a little to save a lot. No pain, no gain.”
“You can be such a pestilence sometimes,” Anthea says, wearily.
“The good news is that Jeez-us will meet you halfway,” Doug says, undeterred. “You don’t have to die on a cross. He’s already done the hard part. Just put your hand in His and He will lift you up into His loving arms.”
“And to think,” Anthea says, “you didn’t even have to stay out here for forty days and nights to start ranting.”
“God is merciful, sister. God is loving. But God is also just. The rod of God will
screw
those who turn their back on Him.”
“Ouch,” Anthea says. “But I don’t think that what I’m doing out here is a sin. Do you?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think. What matters is what Jeez-us thinks. You’ve got to do more than talk the walk, sister. You’ve got to
live
it.”
Anthea’s close enough now to spec that the tents aren’t really tents but aboveground tombs. Some of the antennae are crucifixes. The rest of the decorations are solar panels, statues of saints, batteries, cherubs, windmills, and the Virgin Mary in Madonna mode. You name it.
“ ‘Mine eyes have seen the glory,’ ” Doug says. “ ‘His truth is marching on.’ ”
People have converted the tombs into miniature houses by hanging lichenboard or sheet plastic on the iron gates, and pumping in fresh water through a network of hoses fed by a storage tank. The storage tank is elevated, in what used to serve as the bell tower for the church. It uses scavenged or pilfered ecotecture to leach water from the air and underground aquifers. Portable collectors have also been set up in the cemetery to supply water to the umbrella palms, which are potted. In addition to solar panels, electricity is provided by age-yellowed panes of photovoltaic cellulose duct taped together into flimsy greenhouses.
Anthea can hear music. It’s coming from the general direction of the church. Not organ music but some kind of Eurotech pop with a heavy beat that travels through the ground, into her bones, and ultimately her inner ear, where it messes with her equilibrium. People are shuffling around, bundled in tattered layers of cheap sprayon crepewear. Just about everyone has on wraparound goggles and paint masks grimed with dust. A few people have personalized their masks with skeleton grins, fangs, and other ghoulish expressions.
“ ‘Something wicked this way comes,’ ” Doug says as a woman wearing a gas mask steers past them.
“Where to now?” Anthea says.
“Eighty meters east, sixty meters south.”
Anthea chooses a cement path, a three-meter wide thoroughfare choked with threadbare blankets, mummy bags, plastic tables, old aluminum frame chairs and chaise lounges that no longer fold or slide. Hammocks and lean-tos clog the spaces between the tombs. There are even a few rope and wire clothes-lines strung up.
The path runs parallel to one side of the church. As she picks her way through the locals, she’s observed by children with sullen faces pressed to the iron bars of the tombs they live in. The kids are a total heart-break. No one else pays the least attention to her. Apparently, curiosity is way too energy-intensive— not worth the return on investment.
After ninety paces she reaches the church and Doug instructs her to “Turn right,” down an alley into what appears to be a makeshift flea market. Here, a few of the tombs have been converted into food stands. The graffiti on one place says Dog Ma’s. The oily stench coming from the charred, smoking grill churns her stomach. With each step the music gets louder, the place more crowded. She jostles her way through a group of people gathered around several stalls selling pottery, leather goods, and other handcrafted items, until she finds herself on beach-front property.
At least that’s what it looks like. Bleached white sand has been hauled in, dumped behind the church, and carefully groomed into a gently curving strip. Beach chairs and makeshift
palapas
have been set up. People in bikinis and swim trunks lie out on towels, basking in the moonlight. The party, judging by the general ennui, appears to be an ongoing event. A languid Caribbean frolic in some exotic island resort that’s been underwater for eighty years. All that’s missing is the ocean, the laughter of waves and honeymooners splashing in the surf.
“Talk about bringing out the dead,” Anthea whispers.
“Devil’s work,” Doug sermonizes. “That’s what’s goin’ on here. A thieves’ market of sin and defilement. Gomorrah.”
“Directions, please.”
“Twenty meters, straight ahead.”
She slogs out onto the beach, toward a stand of potted palms. The soft sand makes for slow going. A number of people are camped out under the palms, either on towels or in beach chairs. Anthea scans the masked faces, doesn’t recognize the person she’s come to see.
“
Mamacita
,” a silky-smooth voice purrs behind her.
She turns, expecting to confront some testosterone-stoned
cabrón
who thinks he’s the next reincarnation of Valentino. Two gold-tinted lenses, positioned over the eyeholes of a Mickey Mouse mask, stare at her.
“Beto.”
Mickey grins at her. In addition to the mask and sunglasses lenses, he’s wearing a red-striped dish-towel as a kaffiyeh. “Welcome to our little resort.”
“What’s it called?”
“Club Carib. It’s sort of a home away from home, a resort barrio for all of the displaced masses from the Islands.”
Haiti. Puerto Rico. Cuba. The Dominican Republic. All the Caribbean islands that have lost a lot of land area to the melting ice caps. No longer large enough, in any case, to support the population they once did.
“Sounds pretty exclusive,” she says.
“Yeah. No
gente buena
rich fucks allowed.” Beto flashes a grin behind rigid, plastic lips. “Let’s go to my office, take care of biz.”