The Not Yet Page 10

  *

  My story was, I was a WELLMED courier. Under the lid of the case on my lap were fifteen vials set into foam. These were supposed to be experimental elixirs. So precious they had to be personally delivered.

  Usually, there was no trouble, but once, a Securitas approached me. He wore a black suit with bright yellow lettering on the back and the yellow collar and cuffs. Contract enclaver logo: New Phase Mercenary.

  “This way,” he said politely. For some reason, he’d singled me out. He had to inspect me, look hard at my overskin. I was certain he was counting pores, looking at their size.

  I wondered if he could hear my heart. I was far too fast in that department—dead giveaway. I held my breath without raising my chest. My rate of respiration might bring questions. Heirs were so incredibly slow.

  “What division of WELLMED do you work for, H. R. Sir?” the fellow asked me.

  “Varietology.” That was my script. I nodded, and fished the ersatz ID-pendant-transmitter out of my loose shirt. He made that gesture with the backs of his four fingers, touching the palm that said to me, come a little closer. I leaned forward. I knew if he looked at the nape of my neck, he could possibly see the seam on me, the lack of prodermis sutures. I hoped he didn’t see where the patches were. The false flesh they’d pasted on me.

  But then, I realized I didn’t have to put up with any of this. I drew up all haughty as if an Heir, and asked, “Isn’t this enough?” The way Greenmore would say it. And that put him off.

  That was as risky as it got. My boss thought this was some kind of test.

  Easy to pass.

  *

  A thousand miles took less than a day. I went to all the major centers, saw all the architectural wonders, things I’d read about.

  I knew I should appreciate it all, but my mind was on her amber eyes, her blue black lashes, the way she said the word “bagasse,” the way she walked out of my life and never said, never said—

  Around all the cities were the very high walls, fifteen stories. Most had balloon domes above that, a sky projected. Re-New Orleans, where the Curing Tower was, had a partial covering overhead, and a primitive system for weather styles. It was, by comparison with others, a small town, on the very edge of the U.A. These wealthier Urbs had more complex displays. Styling the climate and all of that was a great art: synchronizing it, making it more like music, factoring in enough chance and order, a branch of varietology. The larger cities competed for the most innovative composers. There were fashions, like everything else in Heir life. If I had to choose, I liked the more unreal places, the ones with fanciful rains—something besides ordinary water—genenfabric petals, shining crystals of sweetener. Once I saw a moon that morphed into a white rose right as it hung in the sky, over the course of the evening. By morning, it had turned back into a bud.

  A few Urbs didn’t have producers for the weather. They actually lived under the real sky because the climate was considered ideal. Snow White in the west was one of these. It was in a deep dramatic valley, at the Western edge of the U.A., right next to the Pacific DE-AX, lands that were “let go” after the Great Rim Earthquake.

  It was late in my travels that I visited there. Securitas sentinels stood on top of the wall—holding rifles, with headsets and sight glasses and night vision goggles. Keeping out the Western Bands. I had heard by this time that some of his friends had helped Jeremy recover from his despondency and gathered up the money to give him passage to the Western DE-AX, the mountains.

  One morning when I was out walking, I saw a scrawny street vendor outside the Urb gates. The mustache was white, but the brows were still black, and I saw that funny “M” across the ridge at the top of his face. I was about to call out to him. Of course it would blow my disguise, I knew I was a fool, but I was lonely. I was half an inch from it.

  I saw his eyes, and I was sure.

  And he recognized me. He understood. Or he understood I was already an Heir—which would have been quite extraordinary, as I was only eighteen. But I looked the part.

  But then, the next moment, he waved his finger at me, wagged it back and forth across his face, like a metronome.

  He was being generous, magnanimous. I knew his expressions.

  No. Don’t. Come. Near.

  Beat.

  No. Don’t. Come. Near. Forget me. I am lost.

  I knew that was right. I could hardly bear to obey him. I stood there and burst into tears: Lazarus would be furious with me, I knew, but I wept anyway. I was weak, like that. I wanted to get better.

  IX

  7:30 PM October 12, 2121

  Crawley’s Crobster House on the Quay

  Sunken Quarter

  New Orleans Islands, Northeast Gulf De-Accessioned Territory,

  U.A. Protectorate

  Gepetto wasn’t that concerned about my inebriation.

  “Why don’t you let the boy be at peace? A little Q plus some aguacalicali? Not so bad. A buzz, that’s all,” he said to Serpenthead. They went back and forth a few times. Serpent took my chin again, and asked, softly, “Malcolm? You know who I am?”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Your pupils are big big big, ya know what that means?” he asked.

  “Number seventeen,” the girl with the toque called out, before I could respond. Serpent reached for the tile I’d left on the table. Peet appeared—from nowhere, it seemed—and said, “Bebum. I’ll get them.”

  I looked down when Serpent released my chin. The floor was even more interesting than before—studded with crobster shells which suddenly seemed the size and shape of the elbows of small children swimming in a pool. To me they moved, ever so slightly, and the floor was liquid, and each little scrawny arm in its turn got out of his way, an illusion done so very well, so very well I thought. In the street under a green glazed faux copper lamp, I saw a pair of musicians also in green—golden green, actually, and one leaned in while the other leaned back, and they chatted that way, compensating for the other’s movements, perfectly choreographed, and I thought of the beats in Peet’s and sometimes in Serpent’s speech, which were part of the same phenomenon, and I asked, “Who is the artist? Who did this night?”

  “Artist? Artist?” Gepetto’s pencil thin eyebrows rose, with a question, then he said, “You are right. It has its charm. That rough thing they are doing now, that danger that people find so entrancing. It’s the same aesthetic as the big new Underground Sims. You have been following them? Ginger? Perhaps?”

  “You hear something about Ginger?” another fellow asked in a tiny whisper, one who had just sat down, by the eyes and the teeth and the headjob, undeniably an Heir, slumming. Perhaps he assumed Gepetto was one of his kind. I wasn’t going to tattle. The new Heir was in a costume for the night—a fancy cultured overskin, which had white feathers about the face. He was a mad owl, his eyes wild.

  The two of them started in on gossip about a big “Ginger” Show, a Sim, something I knew nothing of, when Peet returned with his sack of crobsters, and said, “Come on, let’s go. We can’t waste time. We’ve got another job. It’s that thing over in the Far East DE-AX. Everybody has been following it. Updates for over three years. It’s finally been called. The finale. The tickets went on sale six hours ago, and already sold out. There were bidding wars, the cost—It’s tonight. Lordy’s got us hired as bouncers—pay is good. We got to find a ride over there—”

  “Where they putting it on?” Owl asked. “I heard they changed the venue. True? Bigger theatre?”

  Peet turned to him and said, “Not at liberty to divulge.”

  Serpent said to me, “Come on, we got to hurry, scare up a water taxi. First, we gonna get your compos fuel? Come on, you can walk can’t you?” He gestured to the fuel can against the leg of the table. It had an ugly stink.

  I was trying to take all the information in. It wasn’t easy. I had to go to the fuel place. Had to move. I would. Of course. I’d be seeing Lazarus in an hour or two. Find out what was behind this mess with my Tru
st. Redeem myself.

  White Owl said, “There are no water taxis left tonight. They are all taking people to see Ginger. The whole Quarter is clearing out. I’m looking for a ride—” He pulled out a ticket, the size and shape of a playing card, which read,

  ADMIT ONE

  THE SIM OF A LIFETIME

  FAR EAST PLAYERS PRESENT

  GINGER’S GOODBYE

  DATE AND VENUE TBA

  *****************************

  NOT-YETS, ENCLAVERS, OUTLIARS,

  NOT ALLOWED UNLESS

  ACCOMPANIED BY AN HR.

  PROPER ID, WELLVAC MEDALLIONS REQUIRED

  Gepetto took a hard look, held the ticket up to the light, and told the rest of us the thing was “counterfeit.”

  “So you idiots think.” Owl stomped off.

  “You can do it? Walk?” Serpent asked me, when we were back to four.

  “I am fine,” I said, trying to stand, then sitting down again because of dizziness.

  “Bebum,” Peet interrupted. “Hate to say say say this, but he’s too drunk. Put him back on his boat. Let him sleep it off—”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “He’ll get rolled. They’ll strip him,” Serpent said, chewing his lip, then he asked, “You gonna steer that boat? Get up to Audubon Island? You able?”

  “Let me go to the Ginger with you. I have a transport,” Gepetto said.

  “You have a ticket?” Serpent asked.

  Gepetto shook his head.

  “Excuse me H. R. high, you offering us a ride?” Peet was interested.

  It was impossible, that was true. An Heir proposing to ride with our strat. But he wasn’t an Heir. “He’s Imposse,” I blurted out, then realized the faux pas. Again I tried to stand. I managed this time, head swirling.

  “The fellow said there are no water taxis. I have a transport up by the ramp to the ferry, get you there quick,” Gepetto said, not bothering to contradict me. Then he turned to me. “You want to talk about artistry, these new Sims are—you really should come along. You sure you don’t want one last adventure? You’ll love these new Undergrounds—entirely new concept—” His eyes were lines drawn by a fine pen.

  “And you know this guy?” Serpenthead asked me. “You trust him?” To Gepetto: “What you gonna do when you get out there?” To me: “You trust him?”

  “We just met,” I started. “We are still going to this compos place, right? Jeddy’s is it?”

  “Who trusts Imposses? You?” Serpent asked me.

  Peet looked at me, then Gepetto, trying to make up his mind.

  I could only shrug.

  Gepetto took mock-offense. “I’ll drive you two there, or three, you get me in. Deal? What have you to lose?”

  Serpent said to me as if Gepetto weren’t really there. “He’s a T, an Heir. Imposses don’t dress that rich, never, no.”

  Peet looked me over. “Who is this Nyet to you?” he asked.

  “Saved his life,” Serpent said.

  “Bebum. And so you gonna do it again?” Peet asked, nudging him.

  Serpent said, “I promised I’d get him to Jeddy’s fuel place.”

  Peet didn’t want the detour. He was eager to take Gepetto up on his offer, or quit all of us. “Whatever. We have to go. Jeddy’s quick, then we head off.” He shook his shoulders, as if he had a shiver, said, once more, “Bebum.”

  We set off, gas can and sack of crobsters in tow. Serpent and Gepetto were in front, Peet and I behind.

  “So what is this guy?” Peet asked again as we stomped into the crowds.

  “Imposse,” I said. “I already told you. Look at his eyelids—wrinkles. Crows feet. Dead giveaway.”

  Peet paused. “That rich why doesn’t he go to Memphis?”

  “Ah, very perceptive question,” Gepetto turned back and answered us—he’d been listening. He had very good hearing, as good as an Heir—did he even have the implants? He continued—“One day I will explain.”

  Serpent, Peet, Gepetto and I turned off the main street and proceeded through the narrower ways of the Quarter to the Northern Basin Rim. They marched, I staggered. I learned from their conversation that the build-up had been quite spectacular for this show. It was technically called a “Sim Verite,” whatever that was. Apparently independent operators had been putting them on for the last few years. They’d discerned some portion of the Heir population still had a hunger for the “living production.” Soft cruises didn’t do it for everyone. Unlike the old Sims, those I was in, where artificiality was the hallmark, these were very gritty. People in the Sunken Quarter had been following bulletins broadcast every few weeks, detailing Ginger’s “progress.” There were a great many subscribers to the saga, running commentaries—bets laid on the day. The Far East players never put on a Sim before, yet the screen installments were riveting, had drawn in a huge audience, of all stripes.

  I was the only one of the four of who knew nothing of this sensation.

  “In the story, she has what they call cancer,” Gepetto told me. “An ancient disease Nats still get. Only here. They’ve cured it in the fugue countries.” He elaborated that in fugue countries the society spent money to keep the Nat population alive, curing all kinds of diseases, when the people weren’t going to have but seventy or eighty years in the end. I knew that WELLFI controlled common doctors as well as Heir doctors, didn’t believe in wasting resources that way. I’d heard at the Curing Towers that sick Nats had to go overseas for care, the few enclavers who could afford it.

  “Who are these Far East Players?” Peet asked.

  “Chef Menteurians,” Gepetto said.

  “No, not Chef Menteurians,” I slurred. “They don’t even have pictures on their walls.” I protested.

  Peet interjected, “Bebum. It can’t be them. I heard that whole enclave was shut up, closed, or something, what was it?—big doings over there, no visitors these days—can’t be putting on parties. What you think?”

  “I never heard of this Verite, what is it?” I asked.

  “Where have you been? Why are you so out of it?” Gepetto asked me.

  “The country,” I answered. “West shore of Sea of Pontchartrain.”

  “And what brought you to the end of the earth?” he rasped.

  Part Two:

  The Grand So-Long

  I

  September 22, 2119

  Curing Towers

  Re-New Orleans

  South Central District, U.A.

  Greenmore’s exile brought me to the country.

  She was hounded out of her position at the Towers after she gave her talk about the Chronics.

  It was a year after I started traveling for her. I thought it was a perfectly wonderful talk. I helped her write it, in fact. I was thrilled she wanted my help.

  She gave it at the Re-New Orleans Curing Towers Conference on New Therapies for Clustered Anomalies. A conference I helped her put on. Many were watching from a distance on a limited Net, all over the U.A., but several hundred had come to this assembly live.

  We’d planned her speech before the entire group for the afternoon of the second day, when attendance would be at its height. I had even edited her phrasing. For the first several minutes, she gave examples about Chronics—showed holos, read eyewitness accounts, case histories—things I had helped her distill from the data I collected. Sitting near the front as she spoke at the podium, I thought it was a persuasive beginning, excellent. At one point, for some reason—perhaps I heard a whisper, or a sigh—I looked back at the faces, the audience of her peers—doctors in the field of Reveal Psychology—and I saw, to my surprise, that it wasn’t going well.

  “It is incontrovertible if you look at the data, that Clustered Anomalies are not random as others have postulated, but actually a sequenced syndrome with regularized, even predictable, stages. Typically, the subjects begin with retreat from normal identity interests, including the denial of previously-held truths.”

  She described their complaints: they say they a
re “enclosed,” no matter what sort of setting they are in. They have hallucinatory conversations. Next, the Chronic Stall. Personalities become erratic, diffuse. When she mentioned that they often skipped the rules of sequence—reported things that had not happened yet, as if they had already happened—there were quite a few louder gasps in the audience. She went on, she was brave.

  “We see those finding normal physical barriers objectionable, or insisting they are unnecessary, or illusory. There are also examples—too many to be dismissed, I believe—at this stage, of remote viewing.” (More groans.) “I will admit these run against our present understanding of the physical universe, and gravity, and even the conventional view of the ineluctable direction of time.” (A loud sigh. A laugh or two.) “But this is what is happening to our pioneers in the Elysian Reality—and there are reports, and records, as I have shown. And should we dismiss all of it? Testimony of scores of experts in this now-growing field?”

  “What?” a woman next to me asked at that point. An Heir with silver corkscrew curls, shaking her head. “All this has been explained.” I turned to look at her. I was wearing the sort of headjob I often used on my travels, but I wasn’t disguised. When she realized I was a Nyet, she turned away as if she had seen a monster, and asked the Heir on her other side, “Why is the seating mixed? What is wrong with these down here?”

  Rumblings began throughout the audience; Greenmore soldiered on. “My hypothesis is this: we have come to a new boundary, in Heir development. Their minds are so mature, they are testing the limits of the normal range, if you will, of existence. Because these growth spurts are irregular and uncontrolled, we are seeing symptoms of a new, previously unclassified, psycho-soma-metabolic illness. But our very mature patients’ consciousnesses may be expanding in ways that challenge their physical status. Revolutionizing their metabolisms, their relationship to time, once again. Once again.