Dark Matter (11 page)

With a flicker of irritation, he dove
deeper.

Memories drifted in the night of his mind
as the eye yawed gently.

He spoke the question again. It paused. The
deeps stood still. Then the eye rolled sharply one way, halted, and returned at
double the speed. Rasputin bit back bile. The eye slowed, then floated,
aimless.

He repeated the question through clenched
teeth.

The eye pitched forward, sending the
constellations careening overhead. He steeled his will, drove it harder, only
to have it spin more wildly still, zigging and zagging as if in REM sleep until
the sky became a chaotic tracery of light.

At last, nauseous, he relented. The globe
resumed a gentle drift.

Are you telling me I didn’t catch one TV
commercial, one magazine cover, one shred of hairdresser gossip about the 2007
Logie Winner? That nowhere in the entire catalogue of trivia tucked away in my
head is that one useless fact?

He knew he had aced the audition, but his
pride was stung. He answered the remaining eight questions without fuss, but 42
sat on the paper, blank and obvious, taunting him.

Of course, he had known there would be
holes
,
in theory. He was no All-Seeing Oracle, was he? But the experience left him
disturbed. What was the sum total of his experiences compared to the unknown? A
speck. His fears suddenly inverted. It was the
unknown
that would
swallow him whole, and round that speck to naught.

The voice of the studio exec broke over
him. She sounded relaxed. (Rasputin wondered if she was auditioning for the
role of auditioner.) “Some of you at least are eager for the answers. Swap your
sheet with someone to mark.”

Rasputin perked up. He looked at the 49
answers arrayed on his sheet, thinking there had never been a cat better
bagged. He handed it to Mr. Bullet-time, who reciprocated without making eye
contact.

The answers came quick-fire, and
Bullet-time’s eyebrows rose a little higher with each until they threatened a
tryst with his receding hairline.

The answer to 42, Kate Ritchie, struck the
bonnet of Rasputin’s pride and took a little paint. It might have stung less if
he thought it would ever be of use. He began to cross Bullet-time’s answer by
habit when he read it: Kate Ritchy. He glanced at the man, who returned
something that wanted to be a smile.

When the marking was done, those with the
lowest scores left until only the 30+ club remained, twenty-three people in
all.

Rasputin soon found himself sitting in a
cubicle with a studio representative. She had glossy black hair, and TV teeth
that glistened below the camera she was pointing at him. She snapped a photo,
and checked the result in the camera’s screen. From her expression the subject
might have been a septic toe, or so he thought.

“So, Mr. Lowdermilk,” she said, “I need
some personal information from you. When you get on the show—”

“How soon is that?”

“Could be weeks, could be months,” she
began, but then evidently catching his mood, “But more likely weeks. We’re
short of meat (no offence) hence the rushed audition.”

“Sorry to nag,” he said, “but...”
But
what?



“Wouldn’t have picked you for a serious
player Rasputin. Most people we get are neighbourhood Trivial Pursuit champs
looking for their five minutes of fame.”

“Must be easier ways to get on TV,” he
said. “There was a guy back there who got 7cm of pen up his nose.”

“I’ll pitch it to the station: Extreme
stationery.”

She thumbed the form in front of her.
“Family?”

Rasputin sighed.

She raised an eyebrow.

She waited, then wrote “Issues” big enough
for him to read upside down from the other side of the desk.

“Occupation?”

“Can I say it depends on how I go on the
show?”

“You
can
, but seeing as how you’re
yet to give a straight answer, I can’t see that going so well.” She left it
blank.

“I also need an anecdote. Can be anything,
a story, a unique talent (but nothing pen-related). The host will introduce you
with it.”

He pondered. He could say he had had
cranial surgery following a life-threatening collision, or that his memory was
the love child of the Library of Congress and a Guinness-record-holding ball of
yarn that had been bitten by a radioactive spider. The first was morbid for
dinner-time TV. The second was flat-out disturbed.

“When I was young I shook the Queen’s
hand.”

“Gotta love Liz,” she said, and scribbled
on the form.

Why did I lie?
It pricked him, and he wished then to undo it. But what did they
say about lies? They found you out? By the heaping up of lie upon lie, the
mortal memory breaks under the strain and reveals the deception.

Yeah,
mortal
memory.

She finished writing and opened her mouth
to speak, when a man appeared at the cubicle’s entrance.

“Mr. Lowdermilk?”

“The one and only,” he said, and swivelled
his chair to face the newcomer.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the man said, “but there
are no more slots available. There’s no point in you staying.”

“Come again?”

“The auditions are closed. Our quota is
full.”

Rasputin shot a look at the girl, who had
just closed her mouth. He spoke to the man, unable to keep the anger from his
tone. “What do you mean full? I got 49. Doesn’t 49 make your quota?”

The man was silent a moment before a storm
head developed over his brow, breaking his professional composure.

“Yes, the other
scores ranged between 0 and 37. Yours is—”

“The highest.”

“Passing credulity.”

Rasputin’s volume shrank in disbelief.
“What?”

“We don’t know how, Mr. Lowdermilk, but we
believe you cheated.”

Rasputin strode past a row of
cubicles, oblivious to the conversations bubbling from them, and summoned a
lift. When it arrived, he entered, and punched the button for the floor above, the
street level. The doors hesitated a moment, then began to close. They were
scant inches apart, when a hand shot into their path. They jolted to a halt,
and opened to reveal the girl who had interviewed him. She appeared out of
breath.

“Here,” she said, thrusting a slip of paper
at him. “For what it’s worth, you don’t look like a cheat.” Then she was gone.

He unfolded the slip. Apparently ‘it’ was
worth $300. He held a coupon for credit in the Crown Complex, enough for a
fancy room or fancier meal. It was the kind of courtesy you gave a successful,
out-of-town auditionee. Not a cheat.

He
was
hungry. All that thinking had
burnt up a lot of energy.

He licked his lips. He was thirsty, too,
for a drink that would drown the voice of the studio man still looping in his
head—
cheated
,
cheated
,
cheat
...

He ran his gaze over the lift buttons
again, then stabbed a finger at one promising a bar and casino floor. The cabin
jerked once and then lifted him toward the heavens.

He was passing the tenth floor when he
remembered he had arranged to meet Jordy in the foyer below. But his tongue was
already tasting the promised drink.

Within ten minutes he had made good the
promise. He was seated at a bar, draining his first Guinness. The barman had
rung up his credit, and told him it was good for anything in the complex.

The second Guinness looked smaller than the
first. He cradled it in a hand numb from the chilled glass, feeling as if he
had snuggled a blanket over his legs. From his vantage point atop the stool,
the casino floor seemed somehow both dark and bright. Tables littered the floor
like giant counters, some empty, some thick with patrons, and at the far wall a
bank of slot machines glittered. Smoking was not allowed, but a layer of haze
obscured the ceiling’s faux starscape, which pulsed from blue to green to white
and back again. He let the alcohol knock the edges off the room, and waited for
it to knock the edges off his anger.

Rasputin guessed it must be working, when
he realised someone had been trying without success to talk to him. Rasputin
swivelled on his stool and found the bartender looking at him. The man was
fortyish, with sideburns sharp enough to cut.

“Come again?” Rasputin said, feeling like
an idiot.

“What’s the deal with the voucher?” the
bartender said. “I normally get them from fat guys in suits.”

Ah.
He had
asked the question.

By now Rasputin’s anger was cushioned by a
layer of Guinness-fuzz. It was a de-clawed cat, wrapped in a towel. He recounted
the audition and interview, while attempting to read the man's body language—not
enthralled, exactly, but curious. The story was novel to a guy who had heard a
lot of grief, and grief was a bartender’s staple, wasn’t it? So long as it was
someone else’s.

“So did you?” the bartender said.

“Did I what?”

“Cheat.”

“Get me another. And no, I did not cheat.”

The bartender began drawing the brew. It
lapped against the side of the tilted glass, then rose like liquid velvet.

“So what are you?” the bartender said. “Med
student? Law?”

“Student of life,” Rasputin said, and
drained his glass. The bartender smirked as if to say ‘student of bullshit.’

“How did you do it then? I’ve seen plenty
of guys up here after the audition. They all say it’s hard, harder than the
show. No one tells me their score, but they all say they’ll be back.”

Rasputin leaned forward. “Can I tell you a
secret?” he said, negating any privacy his posture afforded by whispering like
a deaf octogenarian. The bartender played along, and leaned closer as the froth
neared the lip of the glass.

With a deadpan face Rasputin said, “I
cracked my head open and now my brain doesn’t make mistakes.”

The bartender roared with laughter.

Rasputin suspected he should be offended,
but the blanket around his legs had become a recliner and slippers. He took it
philosophically.

“I know that’s crap,” said the bartender.
He placed the drink by Rasputin’s elbow. A runnel of foam snaked down one side
and pooled on the coaster. “Here’s your third mistake in half an hour. You’re
no drinker, and tomorrow you’ll wake up feeling like the Devil's pressing a
steel-capped boot into that special brain of yours.”

“I’m serious,” Rasputin said. “I remember
everything I ever saw. And I can draw! Do you wanna picture?” He patted his
pockets, hunting for a pen.

“Maybe, mate,” the bartender said. “Do it
again, and maybe I’ll believe it.” He left, evidently having lost interest in
yet another drunk.

Rasputin didn’t notice him leave.

Again. Yeah, that would show them.
But by the time of the next audition he would be a regular in the
dole queue.
If
he was allowed to audition
again. Which he probably wasn’t. His gaze meandered past his cane propped
against the next stool. He flung a foot at it and missed, and instead almost
knocked the stool over.

Mercifully, his conscience rallied. It gave
him a glimpse of how pathetic a creature he must appear, drunkenly perched atop
the stool. He folded his hands in his lap and resolved to sit until his cheeks
felt less rubbery.

A couple came and leaned on the bar nearby.
Their conversation mixed exuberance and nervousness, unable to abide a second’s
silence. Rasputin guessed they were a dating service hook-up, before chiding
himself for indulging in speculation. Pop psychology seemed to fill every
time-slot and genre nowadays.

He sat with his back to the bar, listening
to the chatter next door, eyes on the blackjack table three feet away. His ears
pricked when he heard the couple talking about clans and murders, before he
realised they were referring to an online game.

Internet
romance, then. Close enough.

A man joined the blackjack table. He
slumped into a seat like a dropped sack of potatoes, tugged his tie away from
his neck, and arranged both hands before him ready to receive cards. A yellow
stain marked the fingers of his right hand, and they curled as if remembering a
cigarette. He made the third player at the table.

The dealer distributed cards from the fifth
of eight decks in the shoe. Rasputin admired the efficiency and fluidity with
which he slipped cards from the deck and slid them to the waiting hands. The
player nearest him had plenty of colour showing.

The Internet Romance switched to the
housing market. If that wasn’t the bottom of the barrel, it had to be close.

At the table, the hand finished. One player
left and was replaced by another. A machine emptied and reshuffled the shoe.