Mind Over Ship (19 page)

WHILE IN THE shower, Fred caught up on news and mail. He was shaved, trimmed, and spritzed with cologne. He donned his old robe and moccasin slippers and set forth in search of coffee, item six on his morning list. In the living room there were, as he had guessed, three evangelines: Mary on the sofa in her robe, her bare feet tucked beneath her; her best friend Shelley, who was strapped into a Slipstream tube car and was visiting by holo; and Cyndee, one of his escorts at the prison, who was present in realbody. They cut short their conversation when he appeared in the hallway.

“Good morning, Cyndee,” Fred said into the silence. She offered her hand, and he gave it a gentle squeeze. Her hand was small and delicate. Evangelines were such dainty women, which was one reason why he loved them so. He turned to Shelley and made a holo salute. “Hello, Shell.”

“Hello, Fred.”

“You’re looking well.”

After she made no reply for several long moments, Fred continued around
the coffee table to sit on the sofa next to Mary. “Good morning, dear heart.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek, finally satisfying item one on his list. Mary was scratching her ankle. He took her hand and kissed it too and held it out of harm’s way. Other than itchy ankles, Mary seemed at ease. Cyndee, too, appeared relaxed, which probably meant that their client’s condition was improving. Not that he gave a crap about Ellen Starke’s condition except in how it rubbed off on Mary.

He had lied about Shelley looking well. She looked a mess. She drooped in her seat. She had puffy eyes. Her hair was flat and dull. She peered at him with cool resentment.

“What are we watching?” he said in a hopeful voice. On the coffee table were a half-dozen stacked holocubes. In one he recognized Shelley’s employer, Judith Hsu, the renowned death artist, who was reading from a paper book. A second holocube showed a ride through a pinkish sewer on a stream of lumpy, greenish slurry. A third depicted a funeral tableau of a black enameled coffin and bowers of snow-white carnations.

Mary said, “We were comparing Hsu’s earlier deaths to her current one.”

Fred turned to Shelley. “She’s already on the next one? I guess I missed the last one.”

Shelley stared blankly, and Mary said, “It just premiered last week, Fred. Though it hasn’t really found its legs yet.”

The arbeitor arrived with Fred’s coffee and Danish, and he released Mary’s hand. Mary was disappointed, for her ankle still itched. Fred seemed to be adjusting to life outside prison, all things considered. He sure was making good use of the apartment’s null room. His sexual appetite was Olympic. He was working too. With his acquittal, Applied People had been forced to reinstate him, though not willingly. Mary’s hand crept back to her ankle.

In the sewer holocube, the cam entered a section where the walls turned from pinkish to bluish, and the passage was blocked by a huge, pulsing mass that was spiderwebbed with red veins.

Fred pointed and said, “So, what is it this time—colon cancer?”

Mary said, “No, Fred. That was three deaths ago. Don’t you remember? ‘Treasonous Plumbing’?”

“Oh, yes, how could I forget ‘Treasonous Plumbing’?” He smiled at Shelley, but she didn’t respond, so he turned to Cyndee. “Are you a Hsu fan?”

“Yes, I am,” Cyndee said. “ ‘TP’ broke a lot of new ground in documemoirs and established Judy Hsu as one of our leading contemporary artists.
The first time she died, and the jennys just let her lie there—
dead
—minute after minute, not jumping in to intervene, not stabilizing her, just letting her go, like in the bad old days, it was the most terrifying thing I ever saw. People used to just get sick and die!”

Mary said to Fred, “They had supersaturated her tissues and brain with oxygen, so she could go a half hour without oxygen. But we didn’t know that at the time.”

“That’s what made it so disturbing,” Cyndee said. “It made me glad to be born in this century.”

Through all of this, Shelley fiddled with her seat harness and seemed not to be paying attention. Fred asked Cyndee, “What about that one?” He pointed at a holocube, and its volume came up. Hsu was reading from a book:

 

“. . . lingering, raw-nerve, helpless, hopeless, an assault on basic human dignity. So overwhelming that self-awareness begs for extinction.”

 

Cyndee said, “Oh, that’s death lit. Hsu loves it. She reads it continuously until she gets too sick, and then she has Shelley and her other companions read it to her.”

Mary said, “He knows that, Cyn. He watched this with Reilly. He’s just playing dumb to be a good conversationalist.”

“Oh, of course,” Cyndee said.

Someone changed the cube. Now it was Shelley reading a death poem:

 

I’s hungry. What’d you do? Is it dead? Look at it bleed!

Can I pluck it? Do chicken’s insides have names?

Do we have insides like chickens?

Can you take my insides out so I can see?

I like breast the best. Can we cook it up?

I’s hungry. Let’s start the fire. Chicken’s good.

 

“Bravo, Shell,” Fred said. “All it needs is a soundtrack.”

“It has one,” Cyndee said. She twirled her finger and brought up the strains of a solo cello fantasia.

Fred set down his coffee mug and clapped. “Perfect!” He squeezed Mary’s foot and rose from the couch. “If you’ll excuse me, dearest, I need to get dressed for duty.”

When Fred left the living room, Mary said, “Because having the living flesh rot off your bones is so appealing.”

“Which is to say that colon cancer
isn’t
appealing?” Shelley retorted. “Or pancreatic cancer, for that matter. In any case, the scleroderma was a ratings flop—you should look it up—and so we have this.” She wiped the colon holocube and replaced it with a new one. It was the familiar rustic breezeway at Hsu’s Olympic Peninsula home. Hsu, looking completely fit, her recently ravaged skin restored to flawless youth, was sitting at a crafts table and swirling something around on a plate with her finger.

“What’s she doing?”

“Finger painting.” Shelley raised the view to look at the plate from over Hsu’s shoulder. The death artist was repeatedly tracing a simple shape, a zigzagging spiral with a diagonal slash through it. “It’s supposed to be a deadly figure from the Dark Reiki,” she said.

“Which is what?” Cyndee said.

“It’s the opposite of reiki.”

“Which is what?” Mary said.

“It’s a superstitious healing technique that claims to channel energy into a person’s body by means of touch. Conversely, the Dark Reiki sucks life energy away. Don’t ask. Now, look at this.”

The holoscape changed abruptly to a candlelit nighttime scene. Judith Hsu was sitting on a low bench and rocking slowly back and forth. She appeared to be naked under a simple paper shift. She was chanting some incomprehensible string of words. The view zoomed to the cleavage between her breasts to reveal what looked like a little bag hanging from a cord. It was decorated with feathers and beads and long, curved talons.

“It’s a voodoo fetish for causing mortal harm to an enemy,” Shelley said. “Only she’s trying to turn it on herself. That and a dozen more charms and spells from a dozen other superstitions. But so far she hasn’t even conjured up a decent migraine.”

Mary said, “She wants to kill herself with magic?”

“With willpower.”

“That’s absurd.”

“What’s absurd? That she’s trying to will herself to death or that she can’t seem to get any traction?”

“Both. No one can
will
themself to death. It’s not physically possible.”

“Oh, don’t be so sure about that, Mary Skarland,” Cyndee said. “There are plenty of documented cases. The trick is you gotta
believe
you can.”

In the breezeway, someone passed through the death artist’s holospace, and Mary said, “Shell, was that you?”

“No,” Shelley said and panned the view to show a figure seating herself in the shadows. It was a Leena.

Mary and Cyndee exchanged a glance.

“That’s right, a Leena,” Shelley said. “Hsu likes Leenas so much lately that she’s talking about replacing half of her evangelines with them.”

Mary covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh, my God, Shelley, are you being let go?”

“Not yet, but the writing’s on the wall. You guys have done your work well. Our clients are beginning to prefer your sims more than the real us. And it’s not just Judy Hsu. We’re being replaced everywhere.”

“Are you sure? Leenas cost ten times what an evangeline makes. Only the novelas can afford to use them.”

“Look at the figures,” Shelley said, “and I think you’ll find that’s not so.”

Cyndee said, “Even if it’s true, Shell, what’s wrong with it? There are ten thousand Leena units and ten thousand of us. Except for Mary’s, Georgine’s, and mine, the Sisterhood receives royalties from all ten thousand units. If even a fraction of them keep working, none of us will ever have to work again.”

“Except that I love to work!”

“No, you don’t!” Mary said. “Give us a break, Shell. You’ve been bellyaching about Hsu for the last six years!”

“Let me rephrase,” Shelley said evenly. “I love the fact of having the opportunity to work. No offense, but I’m not interested in living off your and Cyndee’s and Georgine’s largesse.”

“Our largesse? What are you talking about? The Leena earnings belong to the Sisterhood; they belong to all of us.”

Just then, Fred came from the hall wearing a teal and brown jumpsuit and scuffed-up cross-trainers. Cyndee pointed to a wad of khaki in his hand. “What’s that?” she said.

“That’s his hat,” Mary said. “Fred isn’t taking any chances.”

“You bet I’m not taking any chances,” Fred said and unfurled his hat. The brim was so wide that it draped over his shoulders like a pair of droopy wings.

Cyndee laughed out loud, and Mary said dryly, “He’s afraid of his hair catching fire.”

“You got that right!”

Cyndee said, “Is it one of those turismos?”

Fred looked insulted. “A turismo? Have you been outdoors lately? No, it’s a Campaigner 3000.”

“We spend time outdoors every day,” Mary said, “and the Campaigner 3000 looks dashing on you. Along with the shoes.”

“Thank you,” Fred said and admired his cross-trainers. He leaned over and kissed Mary on the lips, the penultimate item on his list. All that remained was walking out the door. “Great to see you again, Cyndee. Say hello to Larry. And, Shell, I hope this death improves for you. And give my regards to Reilly.”

Shelley replied coolly, “You’ll have to do that yourself, Fred. Reilly and I have broken up.”

Fred was astonished. Even Mary and Cyndee were taken off guard. “Oh, Shell,” Mary said, half rising from the couch, but Shelley signaled curtly for her to stay away from her.

“He couldn’t get over his first death,” Shelley went on. “You remember that one, don’t you, Fred? It was the strangulation one. In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, the Roosevelt Clinic recording is freely available. Or I can get you a copy if you like.”

Fred twisted the Campaigner hat in his large hands. “No, thanks, Shell,” he said softly. “That’s not necessary. I see that movie every time I close my eyes. I’m very sorry to hear your news. I truly am.”

As Fred and the evangelines talked, no one was watching the holocube of the Leena who was still sitting in the shadows of the death artist’s breezeway. The Leena was painting a dark figure in the air with two spit-wetted fingers. First she made a counterclockwise spiral, and then she slashed across it. Again and again she did this, as though trying to summon death from the air.

A few floors down, Fred paused at the pedway merging ramp to shape his floppy hat into a cycling helmet. It didn’t take him long, but by the time he joined the throng of rush-hour commuters, he had attracted a cloud of media bees.

Fred sprinted onto the pedway and entered a jogging lane. After building
up a little speed, he began a skating stride, pushing his cross-trainers sideways with each step, and the pedway plates beneath his feet switched to skate mode. When he was skating fast enough, he merged into the velolane. Just then, the pedway emerged from the interior of the Lin/Wong gigatower, and he was suspended two hundred munilevels over a deep traffic well. Around him, the towers rose as high above as they stretched below, and Fred had to focus in order to manage the passing and weaving of velolane traffic. He reached for the ideal stride that he could maintain for hours, and the bees fell far behind. Then two skaters came up on either side of him. They wore form-fitting crashsuits in glowing colors. They weren’t iterants. They glanced at Fred with scorn and pulled ahead with ease. A challenge! Fred was game. He increased his pace and adjusted his stride multipliers, and when he caught up to them, the race was on. They moved as a group into the fastest lanes and reached truly frightening speeds. The two skaters appeared to have augmented bodies, and he couldn’t tell by their figures if they were male or female. They outclassed him in technique, but he was fueled with spit, and he managed to keep up with them all the way to the interchange plaza where he would have to turn north.