The Artificial Mirage (19 page)

He stopped and looked up at a proximity pointer for Taboo. It was just ahead. The building appeared on the corner outlined in red LEDs with an AR banner the size of a truck flowing like cloth above the street. He took off his glasses and realized there were no LEDs. It was all part of the app. Inside, there were gilded sofas and mirrors and AR murals of camels walking through desert landscapes rotating on axes. Rail-thin Chinese women in black vinyl skirts and shorts were playfully singing their own version of a Lebanese pop song on a small circular stage amid tables of plump Saudi men in white thobes who gave off the strong scent of customized personal fragrances combining with one another. Thick plumes of frankincense smoke made it difficult to see the photo galleries and cartoon animals above the women’s heads. He walked to the back of the room where there were circular black sofas the same shade of black as the plush black carpet that his feet sank into with each step.

In the next room was a large atrium painted pitch-black with a ceiling of backlit stained glass windows emitting dull reds and dark greens and cobalt blues. There was an AR archive depicting the history of the razed
church they were salvaged from, but he didn’t click on it. Pale and plump American and British women wearing form-fitting black abayas were sitting in clusters or dancing slowly by themselves. Seated at tables right next to them were a dozen or so Saudi men drinking Indian whiskey from pint glasses and watching them intensely. One of the women removed her headscarf for a moment to reveal long blonde hair, which brought howls of appreciation from the Saudis.

Thai waitresses in short white PVC plastic dresses were busy delivering trays of drinks. In contrast to the explicit array of photos and profile details displayed by the female customers, the waitresses had only a menu option above their heads for ordering food and drinks. None of them even took notice of him as he passed. Back in Saigon, his glasses would be lit up with Matchbook invitations to coffee or lunch. A group of Chinese women stood shoulder to shoulder against the curved wall as he passed. It was difficult to approximate age with any certainty, given the new stem-cell treatments, but they seemed young. They wore ripped black stockings and torn black vinyl jackets with holographic buttons for Chinese pop bands that had pop-up AR menu options. Their personal data was cascading down around them, arcing over invisible umbrellas above their heads and into a row of fluorescent AR teddy bears doing a synchronized dance. Some of the bears were larger than their hosts.

Charlie’s profile was blank; there was nothing he wanted to share. He noticed a Saudi man sitting across from Harold and Cameron in one of the sunken islands. If any of them had AR profiles, they were turned off. At least a dozen cans of Tsing Tao were on the table, along with chilled ice buckets full of small bottles of Bacardi 151. There was an assortment of intricately garnished snacks on small trays that swiveled in and out on an AR mobile suspended from the ceiling.

“Quite a place…It’s hard to tell when they’re joking,” Charlie said as he sat down across from Cameron and grabbed one of the small bottles of rum. He looked around and noticed all three were sitting motionless with blackened glasses in occluded VR mode.

“It’s not Abqaiq,” Harold said after a long pause.

“No, it’s definitely not the big cake,” Cameron said before taking a sip of what looked like Sambuca glazing the inside of a glass next to his can of Tsing Tao.

“That’s quite a drink combo,” Charlie said.

“Sure is,” Cameron said. The lack of irony or humor of any kind was familiar. Charlie had noticed this sort of blank stare from Saudi expats before. It was like they had gone past all the arguments with themselves and had learned to resonate with silence.

“What is that?” Charlie said as he pointed to a plate.

“Wagyu steak. It’s what qualifies as a pork chop around here. You should order one,” Cameron said.

“I already ate. Thanks.”

“I have never tried to eat pork. What does it taste like?” Saleh seemed genuinely interested, like it was the first time he had asked the question.

“You’re not missing anything special, Saleh. It’s more like chicken with a lot of fat. What you’re eating there is a lot better—trust me.”

Harold smiled at the interaction as he swirled the last slice of goose liver in raspberry sauce with his ivory chopsticks before wiping them off with a white linen napkin and returning them to his jacket’s breast pocket. One of the Thai waitresses came by and licked the last trail of raspberry sauce from his plate. “Clean,” she declared before taking it away.

“So many girls, eh?” Harold gave Charlie a grin.

“This isn’t really my scene.”

“What is your scene, Charlie?” Harold said, bringing up his AR translator, thinking he had missed something.

“I think he’s asking if you’re gay,” Cameron said.

“Look…I don’t know what kind of party you’re planning on taking me to, Harold, but you can forget it.” Charlie drank the last of the small bottle of rum.

“Party only for you. I go to Abqaiq.”

“That’s nice. I hope you can enjoy yourself there without me.”

“I only go to Saudi Arabia for business.”

“Excuse me?”

Harold pulled out his chopsticks and tapped them next to Charlie’s ear. “Someone convince you to buy something you have.”

“I don’t understand.” Charlie looked at the chopsticks.

“Sex you need. The women sell it. Alcohol—this is very expensive in Saudi Arabia. This is business. You understand business, right?”

“I try,” Charlie said.

“Yes. Good,” Harold said.

“No rum, Harold?” Charlie said as he looked at the collection of bai jiu bottles next to Harold’s plate.

“I only drink bai jiu,” Harold said.

“Right. I forgot.”

“No romance in Saudi Arabia for you.”

“Whatever you’re taking to Abqaiq must be important,” Cameron said as he looked out toward a nonexistent horizon and then refocused on Charlie.

“Vintage wine. The cooler keep it cool. The year is hard to find—especially here,” Harold answered.

“I hope they enjoy it,” Charlie said.

“Don’t worry, they will. And if you get caught, you won’t spend much time in prison,” Cameron said.

“What do you mean?”

“Saleh will have you out of there in less than an hour. Wasta.”

“Yeah. Wasta. Look…I don’t like jail, Cameron. Not even for a minute.”

“Nobody does. But it’ll be over real fast—if it happens.”

“Like a bad dream.”

“No. A happy dream, my friend,” Saleh said.

“Yeah. Something like that. I left you a bottle of Chivas under the seat. Don’t get too drunk. A little is OK. They’ll be expecting that. But chew some gum.”

“What about the bottle?”

“Don’t be too obvious. Toss it before you get to Causeway Customs. It’s lit up with floodlights and Hawks.”

Harold paid the waiter from his phone with a flick of his wrist. He flicked it again to leave a tip. Cameron’s constant reminders that the Chinese never tipped had finally succeeded in shaming him into tipping.

“Good night, my dear friends,” Saleh said before clapping his hands and ordering a set of wreaths for the new Chinese band that took to the stage.

Back in the heat. Back in the womb. Charlie’s AR glasses fogged up immediately. He clicked on Lauren, and she stood in front of him in a purple cocktail dress. As the condensation left his glasses, he could see the beginnings of a smile in the right corner of her mouth. She brought her head up and opened her eyes to a slower cadence than her neck. It was one of the movements that Charlie had been very precise about when he created her
back in Saigon, and they had gotten it down perfectly. The sand parking lot was filled with dust and the omnipresent fog coming in from the Gulf. He followed her along a trail of red Fairy Dust that hung in the air with a glittery sheen. She waited for him to catch up and sidled up next to him. She placed her head on his right shoulder as he kept walking. He pressed the key, and a blue icon hovered above the green Caprice. It was new.

“See you on the other side,” Harold said before getting into the white Hummer next to him.

Charlie clicked through the windshield HUD menu options and linked up with Harold’s Hummer on the Autohighway. An AR scroll with a picture of the King of Bahrain the size of a commercial aircraft slowly unraveled from the top of a tall white office building all the way down to the bottom as AR fireworks went off around it. He watched the process repeat itself a second time before taking notice of the advertisements spilling across the windshield. There were phrases in ornate black and gold Arabic script and some animated characters he didn’t recognize doing cartwheels and jumping around. Remembering the bottle Cameron had told him about, he reached under the seat to retrieve it. He laughed as he grasped at a small bottle of Chivas.

Harold’s Hummer maintained an even meter in front of him as they entered the causeway. He put the passenger window down and tossed the bottle into the Gulf. After ten minutes, the traffic became dense as they approached the immigration island. Hundreds of cars sat stagnant, waiting to go through Bahrain Passport Control. His seat was almost fully reclined as he glimpsed the old traditional graphic billboard displays declaring “Mohammed is the Mercy of Mankind.” An assortment of icons lit up on his windshield HUD—all of them citing passages from the Koran. He swept them away, but the icon in the top right corner, an arrow showing the direction of Mecca, could not be deleted. The slice-of-life commercials of Bahrain ceased to pop up the moment he cleared Bahrain. He had entered the zone on the island that was neither Saudi Arabia nor Bahrain—a marketing void.

Two hours later he reached Saudi Passport Control. He glided through the passport control booth after they had checked and stamped everything in addition to the iris check and the swiping of his passport chip. Somehow they maintained a trust in stamps and seals that went beyond nostalgia, which Charlie found amusing. When he got to customs, there was a robot standing upright on its hind legs like a fawn as it scanned the VIN number of the car
and directed him to Customs Station 23. Shiny silver Hawks swooped overhead in an elliptical orbit pattern. Harold had told him that if there was any suspicion of contraband, a team of Indians would set about taking the car apart to find it. The key was to remain confident and calm. The air was stagnant as Charlie put the windows down and handed his passport and stamped papers to the Saudi attendant sitting perched on a stool. Lauren looked over at him with a soothing expression, but he couldn’t help clenching his teeth. The Saudi official waved his arm and gestured for him to get out of the car. As soon as he was out, one of the Indians started ripping at the interior of the passenger door. The inspection lights that shone as bright as day revealed the Caprice’s brand-new emerald finish. The Saudi official was standing and leaning up against his console attached to one of the concrete pillars and tapping at the antiquated screen while looking disdainfully at the visa in Charlie’s passport. Soon, there were more Indians taking the car apart. It began to rain heavily, and the soothing patter on the aluminum roof covering customs felt grossly out of place under the circumstances. Charlie tried not to appear flustered, but he stopped short of smiling—Cameron had told him that was a sure sign of weakness. He thought about the time he made his first big institutional trade and smiled inwardly. He was ready for that moment like he was ready for redemption. He was happy about it. They weren’t going to find anything. It was just a demonstration of their professionalism. He looked around as Harold was waved through along with dozens of cars behind him as more Saudi inspectors and Indians came to supervise the tearing apart of his car. Then, he saw one of them stabbing at the center console with a crowbar. That was it. The bottles were out. But as he walked over with a disbelieving expression on his face, he saw that the bottles were some generic brand. Whatever it was, it certainly was not the rare vintage wine he had thought he was carrying. And then his disbelief became genuine. But no measure of disbelief would prevent his arrest. His mind ran through all the combinations and variables implicit in what was going to take place. A white-and-green Dragonfly was hovering just two feet above his head. He watched the cursory inspections of other cars taking place as all attention was now being directed solely at him and the emerald Caprice. The Saudi inspectors weren’t even looking inside some of the trunks. Harold had made it through. And then it dawned on him what had happened.

As he sat Indian style on the asphalt next to the car, two Saudi policemen in brown uniforms as thin as the Chinese girls’ at Taboo drove up in
a golf cart. Without saying anything, they motioned for him to sit on the back. After he had sat down, they each gently grabbed one of his hands and handcuffed him to the cart. The Indians were busy reassembling the interior of the car as they pulled away. Five minutes later they arrived at a tower that looked like a small version of the Seattle Space Needle. After a cursory inspection of his body, his AR glasses and everything in his pockets were sealed in a plastic pouch. They removed the restraints on his hands and locked elbows with him as they walked to the base of the tower, where a clear plastic elevator took them to the top. They arrived in the center of a large circular room with a white tile floor. Vacant clear plastic cells lined the edges. After locking him in one of the compartments facing the lights of Manama, they returned to a white desk in the center where they seemed to be filling out paper forms as they feverishly looked through the pages of his passport. He looked behind the white plastic divider at the back of his cell; there was a white porcelain squat toilet with rusty brown water trickling down from a thin pipe that ran flush with the floor.

“British?” one of them asked him after a few minutes.

“No,” Charlie said. He wasn’t going to help them unnecessarily. He peered out through the clear plastic between white slits at the Causeway and Bahrain. He was caught. In a country where they had no belief in anything happening that wasn’t destined to happen, he wondered how his case would be regarded. The glowing neon skyline of Manama beckoned, but it was just a collection of buildings without his AR glasses. They had his AR glasses and, more importantly, they had Lauren. He felt stifled and nauseous as the adrenaline pulsed through to his extremities; he waited for the futility of his situation to register with his lagging biochemistry.