Futureland. Part 41

Above the anchorman's head appeared a patch in which was the head of a man with a thin face and large ears. In childhood he was probably cute.

"Are you with us, Dr. Jeffers?"

"Yes, Letter."

"Seven cases of this terrible illness," Letter said. "How many have been fatal?"

"All of them."

"How long did they suffer?"

"Three days, at least. No one lived out the week." Dr. Jeffers looked as if he had been frightened and now he was numb.

"What is the cause of this disease, Doctor?"

There was a pause then. Maybe the audio line had gone down and the doctor was simply waiting to hear. But Harold believed that Jeffers was considering his answer. He was wondering what to say.

"We believe that there is an environmental cause to the illness, Letter. As we speak federal agencies are trying to discover some link between the victims--where they worked, what they ate, where they went swimming. It's something like that."

"So you don't believe that this could have anything to do with the potential act of terrorism in the Northwest."

"I can't see any connection whatsoever," Jeffers said. "The immunization centers are for children only, and none of the victims down here have been immunized in over a year."

"That's a relief," Letter said with a big smile.

Jeffers didn't seem relieved. His image faded.

"On the lighter side . . ." Phillips began.

"Vid off," Harold said.

He sat back in his new Propper Chair, a thin sheet of transparent and flexible Synthsteel held aloft by pulsating magnetic waves emanating from a disc anch.o.r.ed to the floor. Like floating on air, the holo-ads claimed. And it was true, but the feeling was only physical. There was nothing light or buoyant about Harold's life. And this was strange, because he was in love. Yasmine M was the center of his life. It was true that he only saw her at the Blanklands Eros-Haus; that he had to pay for her attentions. But she never charged him the full rate and once a week she'd allow him to spend the whole night in her cubicle.

Harold's heart and body were Yasmine's to command. But there was a downside to love. The IT curve, the Propper Chair, and all the other little perks of the working life had lost their sheen. He felt small and vulnerable.

Lately Harold had been thinking about his parents, Clarence and Renata Bottoms. By the age of forty they had both faded into White Noise. He hadn't heard from either one in years. He supposed that they were migrants living in what was known as the undertow, the currents of illegal labor under the cycles of unemployment. These migrants moved from city to city, living in Common Ground.

They were gone.

Harold had been recalling the last conversation he'd had with his father. They'd met at a China Tea stand on One forty-first and Lenox. Harold paid for the drinks.

"Thanks, son," the elder Bottoms said. He was five eight but seemed shorter because he stooped a little. "Your mama and I had to give up the apartment. I think she goin' down to Florida. I'ma make it out to St. Louis. Maybe your brother got a hoe in the garden for me."

He never asked to stay with Harold. There were stiff penalties for stacking up in a rental. Either you made your own rent or you stayed in Common Ground. If you were found sheltering someone unemployed you were evicted, fired, and thrown into a double unemployment cycle.

"I'm gonna miss you, Dad," Harold remembered saying. Not I love you or Can't you stay? Just acceptance. And even that weak farewell was a lie. He had never missed his parents.

It wasn't until he experienced the sweet-faced, rough loving of Yasmine that he began to miss them. He wondered if they still spoke to each other. Everyone had a communication number. This code took the place of the Social Security number after that program went bust in 2012.

Jamey and Harold spent a lot of time together and at the Blanklands. Jamey's wife had had their marriage license revoked for emotional and material incompatibility. She married the woman she worked for and moved to Seattle to join a state-run pottery studio.

The bachelors frequented the Blanklands, where Harold spent all of his extra money on Yasmine. Yasmine for her part was pleased by the young man's interest and spent more time with him than he paid for. So it was no surprise that she called him when she found out that she was dying.

"It came on me on Sunday night." She only transmitted her voice, and so Harold found himself looking upon a speeded-up rendition of the birthing of far-off galaxies in the void of s.p.a.ce.

"But that was only three days ago."

"Meds say it's some kinda fast-working cancer."

"But they cured cancer, Yas," Harold said.

"Not this kind. They said that it works on a chromosomal level. Something like that. I had to quit the road show. s.e.x-no-more." She giggled to lighten the mood.

"Can I see you?"

"I'm not really pretty anymore," the disembodied Yas whispered. "And I can't do anything."

"I don't need you to do nuthin'."

"You don't?"

"No. Uh-uh. I don't go there for you to do stuff. I go there to see you. s.h.i.t. I'd be happy payin' for dinner or sumthin' like that."

For a long span Yasmine was silent in the depths of unfolding s.p.a.ce. Harold forced himself to concentrate on two giant galaxies colliding in the far-off reaches.

"They're gonna take me home. My parents are gonna come on Friday to take me back to Tehran. You could come tomorrow after work if you wanted."

"All right. At six?"

"Okay."

"Just one thing."

"What?"

"Where do you live?"

"You wanna come wit' me?" Harold asked Jamey at work the next morning.

"Naw, man. Hey, I don't wanna remember Yas like that," Jamey said.

"That's cold, J."

The sandy-headed cycler didn't reply. He was studying ghostnet on his wall monitor, reading an article and looking over his shoulder now and then.

Periodically a member of the Shaker Party embedded a ghostnet chip in the L&L system. Before the chip was destroyed anybody could enter the word ghostnet and get the weekly download, which included a banned issue of the Daily Dump. This chip had been working for over four days.

"They said it's five marks if they catch you ghostin', J," Harold said.

"s.h.i.t," Jamey said, not to his friend.

"What?"

"Somethin's happenin' in MacroCode Russia, man."

"I didn't see anything on the mornin' report."

"Ghost says that they're killin' Techs. They destroyed five labs and killed all the scientists. A general has formed an army. s.h.i.t. An army. An' they been killin' big time."

"How could that be?" Harold asked. "How could they raise an army and it's not on the news?"

"They lie on the vid all the time, nig, you know that."

"But not about somethin' like that, man," Harold said, ignoring the lack of respect. "They're not gonna lie about an army and a revolt against the biggest company in the world."

"They say at least four hundred and sixty-five thousand people killed. That they dropped clean nukes on Jesus City."

"That's crazy," Harold said.

"Okay, then." Jamey hit a b.u.t.ton and the ghostnet blipped off. Then he said, "M-R-L-L-Tak," and a blank green screen appeared.

"Moscow's L&L branch is temporarily off-line," a friendly voice said. This was Leda, the computer voice that Jamey preferred.

Jamey turned to look at Harold.

"Don't mean a thing," Harold protested. "Russia's off-line more than half the time and you know it."

"I don't know a thing, man," Jamey said flatly. "And neither do you."

"f.u.c.k you," Harold said.

Even though Harold knew that Yasmine's parents were wealthy, he didn't expect a Park Avenue penthouse high above the streets of Upper Level Manhattan. The elevator opened up inside of her apartment.

"Go down the hall to your left and knock on the last door you get to," said the black elevator operator in a red uniform.

Yasmine had lost most of her body fat in the four days that she'd been sick. She resembled a humanlike rubber toy that had been deflated.

"It hurts, Harry," she said. "It hurts all the time. They gave me opium and nerve killers but it still hurts."

The fading young woman had lesions down her face that looked like the clawing mark of some predatory beast. They were red, almost iridescent.

"It's okay, honey," Harold said as he cradled her in his arms.

"Hold me."

Harold tried not to squeeze the New Age courtesan too hard, fearing that her bones might snap. She clung to him with greater strength than he would have imagined. She smiled.

"Somethin' funny?" Harold asked.

"I feel safe with you, Harry. You make me feel better. That's kinda funny, don't you think?"

"How come funny?"

One of the lesions on Yasmine's face pulled open and blood trickled down. Harold pressed closer to her so that the pillow covered the bleeding.

"How come funny?" he asked again.

"Because here I am all alone and dyin' in this big place and my boyfriend is a john." She stopped talking in order to swallow twice. "It's really nice."

Harold held her for a long time after she was dead. He wasn't ready to go on for over an hour.

"How come they don't send a nurse up to watch her?" Harold asked the same elevator operator going down.

"Nurses, firemen, security force, everybody in city service been called up."

"Called up for what?"

"Some kinda big emergency in the outer fiefs where the white people live. Jersey and Long Island. You know white people throw a fit in a minute."

5.

"Wake up, Harold! Wake up!" It was either his brother or his father, but Harold kept his eyes shut because this was a Sunday or it was a summer day. All Harold knew was that it wasn't time to sign on to school yet. And he was sure that it wasn't one of the days he was supposed to go in for sports or socialization cla.s.s.

"Get your a.s.s up outta the bed, nig!"

Harold sat up and said, "I told you that I don't want you calling me that. Now if you don't mind, I was about to sign on to cla.s.s."

"You awake, Hair?" Jamey was standing in the IT curve's interior. The plastic screen had unfurled automatically when the call came in.

"No," Harold said. "But I'm waking up right now and I'll be with you in a minute."

"Hurry up, man," Jamey said. "The world is almost over and we ain't got time for you to sleep."

"Huh?"