"I've just come from my tailor," I explained, "with my last suit."
Her expression turned to concern. "You mean . . . "
"Nitrocellulose," I confirmed.
"Michael," she said, frowning, "not that."
"The fabric is orange . . . Ültra orange." She flinched as if she knew that color was a precursor of worse things. "My plan is to eliminate Father." The corners of her mouth darkened, and I could tell she was about to tell me that was unacceptable, but before she spoke, I added, "Unless he is destroyed, you're never going to be safe. And I can't kill him to be with you. Everything must end."
The quarrelsome spark in her eyes faded, and slowly, like a turtle retreating into its shell, she sunk into her self. "I feared this," she said quietly, as tears rolled down her face. "We are not for this world."
With my fingertips, I gathered the drops on her cheeks, and touched them to my lips. "We aren't," I agreed.
She looked into my eyes as if for possibilities, options, or alternatives. Then, as if she couldn't find any either, her gaze fell. "I'll say goodbye to my Michael now. Later, I'll know you're someone else. Someone who is sacrificing himself for us."
That was it! I could see myself as a young boy—in the very beginning when I had loved the music and the crowd's adulation. This would be his final appearance.
"And afterward," she said, her lips trembling, "I'll join you."
"No!" I sat up and grasped her hands. "Please, Nora. Hide. Go somewhere where you won't be found . . . somewhere far off the system. Stay there and you'll be safe."
"Without you?" As if defeated, as if our time was over, she smoothed the silky chenille on her forearms and hands.
I could have argued. I could have insisted that she go on, live her life, find someone else, but I knew I wouldn't convince her. Knowing we would both be dead tonight, I felt wretched and hallowed at the same time.
When we were both gone, the world would know how we were meant for each other and how much we were willing to sacrifice.
Reaching toward her, I grasped her cool, smooth chenille-covered hands, after squeezing, I let go, and pulled back an inch. We looked at each other, and I could tell she was thinking the same: we
were
the beautiful but dead couple in the plutonium button ad with our yearning hands outstretched but unconnected.
Without another word, I stood, straightened my pants and jacket, opened the door, and stepped out into the putrid, hot air. I walked quickly, hoisted myself up into my car and sat. I knew if I looked back I wouldn't have been able to leave.
As I buckled myself into my seat, I could hear the vacuum-arc engines in Nora's car rev. A part of me couldn't believe that we had just made love. I wished it could happen forever. And even now I could feel my memories shrink and darken like a fall leaf.
"Close the side door, please," I said into the intercom.
Her car began to roll slowly. I fought back tears, but willed myself not to cry. After taxiing fifty feet, the engines engaged and her car shot forward. Goodbye, I thought after her. Goodbye, Nora.
Once I had wiped my face and blown my nose, I repeated, "Side door, please." No reply came. Nora's car soon shrank to a watery-looking dot on the horizon. "Driver? Hello?" I pressed the intercom switch firmly. "Please acknowledge!"
Since we had stopped, I hadn't heard from him. Undoing my seatbelt, I worried that something had happened. I lowered myself to the tiles again and headed to the front. The round pilot door was ajar. Wedging my fingernails under the edge, I coaxed it open. "The intercom isn't working," I said. "Could you close the door?"
Inside, it was pitch-black and silent. A second later, a pinkish light flickered from what I assumed was some control panel low on the dash. I hadn't ever been inside a pilot's cabin. They were barely four feet tall and the seat was designed for someone who weighed less than seventy-five pounds. On the silvery dashboard were two steering sticks, several switches, and knobs. In the sculpted black seat, the driver looked young—my age perhaps. All of my previous drivers had been older. He looked like a bug boy, and I wondered why someone so inexperienced was driving.
"Are you all right?" I asked. When my eyes adjusted to the dim, I saw that his helmet was off kilter and half of his face was dark. I was about to ask what was the matter, when I realized it wasn't face-paint, but blood flowing from a gash on his forehead. His eyes were three-quarters closed. Touching his neck, I was glad to find him at least warm.
This was my fault! I had pressed the emergency button without any warning. As soon as I had thought that, I saw that his seat belts were hanging at his sides and a corresponding splat of blood was on the inside of the windshield.
Reaching in, I got one hand under his legs and the other behind his shoulders, but the space was so cramped, and he so heavy, I couldn't budge him. Then I worried he had a neck injury, and left him in the chair.
Glancing up and down the Loop, I saw nothing either way. I could wait and hope help came or try to drive myself. I didn't want to do either, but I decided to see if I could get in and at least move the car to the side of the road.
I barely fit through the pilot door, but I was able to squeeze my way in. The best I could do was to lay sideways, propped up on one elbow with my feet dangling out the open door. That way, at least I could operate the controls, see out the windshield, and watch the three screens below.
The leftmost was on. A woman with frizzy hair in a white plastic jacket placed an enormous blue and white capsule on a man's tongue. After he wiped his nose, he struggled and swallowed it. Then he returned the favor with a pill the size of a baby's fist. He shoved it into her mouth and while she gagged and her eyes watered, he continued to push it farther down her throat with his thumbs. Snapping off the screen, I felt repulsed by whatever smut or torture that was supposed to be.
Then I had a bad feeling. Pushing myself off the driver's lap, I glanced down at his crotch; his uniform was unsnapped and there, lay a flaccid, ruby-colored organ.
"Gross!" I said.
Fetching a handkerchief from my pocket, I spread it over him and returned my attention to the controls. On bits of white tape someone had labeled the six switches. From left to right they read:
Warm up, Full, Tuning, Cruise, Decay
, and
Off
. I flipped the first to see what would happen and heard the familiar gradual rising whine of the motors. After thirty seconds, I hit the second, but the motor's pitch continued to rise and red lights blinked on a dial. I switched off
Full
, but the motors kept going faster and faster. I smelled an acidic smoke. Switching off
Warm up,
they finally began to slow. Once they returned to what sounded like their normal speed, I flipped
Full
and they held. One switch at a time, I told myself.
Now, how did the car actually move? As I looked over the controls, the middle screen blinked on. I saw Xavid's big glasses and his snow-capped hair. As he squinted into the dark, I quickly covered my face with my arm. "Turn on the lights!" he said. "Where are you? You hear me, you slubber butt? You're late! Get that fucking shit-ball dancing-boy back here. I need him for my show."
I didn't move or breathe.
"You pill freak, where are you?" A blast of static came from the screen as if Xavid had huffed at it. "Fucking useless Goddamned cousin!" he muttered. A second later, it shut off.
While Xavid's Ültra bombast and complete hatred of me weren't surprising, what was his obviously incompetent cousin doing driving my car? And why was Father's hairdresser hiring key personnel?
Grasping the left steering stick, I turned off
Full
and flipped
Cruise
. The car didn't move.
"How do you make this thing go?" I asked. My unconscious driver had no advice. The middle screen came on again. Only this time it wasn't Xavid, but a diagram. At the bottom was a teardrop, which I guessed represented my car, and at the top was a blinking light. Looking through the windshield, I saw nothing. A moment later, though, I saw the familiar shine of a Loop car on the horizon.
Was it Nora, returning to help? Or was it Father and his orange satin coming to get me? Or was it just some other car? And what would happen when it blasted past me? When I had been on the road, the winds from the passing cars pummeled me. I knew that the vibrating skin on Loop cars had something to do with their stability, but if we weren't moving, I didn't think it worked.
Bending my head until I was against the driver's shins, I saw three more knobs below labeled
Tempo
,
Track
, and
Mode.
I gave Tempo a twist and the car barreled forward into the other lane. Grabbing the left steering stick, I leaned it hard the other way, but not before we slammed into the wall, and a horrible twisting metal sound reverberated all the way down the side.
The center screen blinked the word
collision
as if I had no idea. The right showed a diagram with several red arrows, presumably where I had just caused damage. I maneuvered the car back into the right lane and just as I did, the on-coming car blasted past us and knocked us against the other wall. The screens lit up again.
Seconds later, I had centered the car and we were moving fast. Soon, I saw an exit sign to America-3 and made the wide turn. I was no longer on the Loop proper, but a tributary heading north.
"Find Walter Kez," I said to the screens. The center one displayed a map, and it didn't look far. Less then fifteen minutes later, I switched from
Full
to
Decay
and then
Off.
The car came to an easy stop. I had made it!
Once I had extricated myself from the pilot's cabin, I turned to get a look at the Kez residence and the surroundings.
The house was just two stories made of a blush-colored brick. The windows on the second story were covered over with red-painted wood. Fifteen feet from me was the matching red front door centered on a dilapidated front porch. For about half a mile in all directions were browned fields of corn. Beyond that were thousands of the yellow and red square houses that dominated the slubs.
The front door opened. Walter stepped out. He wore a silver jacket over an undershirt. His hair was a mess, and he looked sleepy. "Elle's not here!" he shouted, as if reluctant to come closer.
"My driver's injured," I said. "Can you help him?"
He turned and darted back in.
While I waited, I told myself that this was the slubs—not a terrible area obviously, but the slubs anyway. Had Father come to look at their place? Did he have any idea who he was trying to merge with? Sure, they could have some amazing new technology behind those covered-over windows on the second story, something that might even save RiverGroup, but I doubted it.
Walter came back out, pulling on the same light-grey suit jacket as he had worn before, and I figured it was the only one he owned. Behind him was the other nanny.
"Where is the patient?" she asked, with a modicum of medical authority. I motioned to the pilot door and while she stuck her head in, Walter dug a toe into the dirt.
"You probably shouldn't be here."
"I know, but do you have any more of that aru?"
"Oh," he said, pouting, "sorry. I ate the last one."
"Can we get more?"
"My sister has the car. She's in Yooku getting ready for the show." Peering up, he asked, "Aren't you going to marry her at midnight?"
Glancing out at the dusty cornfields, I felt far away from everything. I said, "I don't know."
His nanny had managed to pull out the injured driver. She held him in her arms as a mother might cradle a baby.
"He's bloody!" said Walter, stepping back.
I asked, "Will he be all right?"
She nodded once then took him back to the house.
"Do you have someone who can drive my car?"
He said he did and he directed us around the main building to a small slubber shed of a house ten feet square. As he knocked on the black door, he said, "She's very nice. And very helpful."
A young girl, in loose beige pants and a long, ugly unwoven undershirt, answered the door. She didn't look especially pleased to see Walter, and her eyes were heavy as though his knock woke her.
"We're going to buy aru. We need you to drive Michael Rivers' Loop car."
This child could drive a Loop car?
Leaning around Walter, she peered at me as if she were the one unsure. "
The
Michael Rivers?" she asked, as she wiped her wet nose.
"See!" he said, teasingly. "I told you I know him!"
Curling a lip, she asked, "What are
you
doing here?"
Once I had a better look, I decided she was probably in her twenties.
"Trying,"
I said, emphasizing the word because I was beginning to doubt my decision to come here, "to get aru."
"For you?" she wanted to know.
"A friend."
She rolled her eyes, as if she didn't believe. When I showed her my car, the first thing she did was walk all the way around it, dragging her finger over the surface.
"It's nice, but we'll probably barely get three point two." Turning and squinting accusingly at me, she added, "Someone scraped off a bunch of the fast fibers."
"Fine," I said, unhappy with her manner, but at least semi-confident she could drive. I asked Walter, "Where do we get the stuff?"
"Asia-12."
I wanted to collapse. After all I had gone through to get here, the place was on the other side of the globe, hours and hours away. We would never make it in time.
Wiping her nose again, the girl asked, "What about the Arctic pass?"
"What's that?"
She turned and spoke toward the north presumably. "Supposed to be part of the new Loop, but they never finished."
I asked, "Is it safe?"
Starting toward the pilot door, she said, "Nope," and crawled in.
Walter grunted and stepped on a waterbug almost as big as his foot. Gritting his teeth in disgust, he said, "Come on! She's good."