The Artificial Mirage (23 page)

“It’s a little late for coffee,” Darren chided.

“Oh, it’s always too early,” Albert said as he contorted his pouting collagen-enlarged lips and waved a straw with white powder on the end like a magic wand. Darren handed him a glass of sid and quickly grabbed a bottle of cranberry juice from the refrigerator and splashed some into the glass. “And you must be?”

“Charlie.”

“Right. Darren said we were getting resupplied. It’s been utterly treacherous for him. But I don’t mind. I prefer artificial things.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Care to partake in some industrial spillage?” he asked as he waved his straw at him.

“No, thanks,” Charlie replied.

“Suit yourself. But I prefer a bit of a bionic boost to keep me sober. Someone’s got to keep the network secure from nasty infiltrators.”

“Where’s the bathroom?” Charlie asked.

“Upstairs. Majed should be there, too. He’s a Druze from Lebanon. He’s been in Saudi Arabia for five years, and he’s the best assistant a man could ask for.”

“A druid?”

“No. A Druze. Aristotle and all that. Don’t worry, you have to be born into it…so he’s not going to try and convert you.”

Charlie walked upstairs to use the bathroom and found Majed sitting in a corner at the top of the stairs playing a game in full occlusion and completely unaware of his presence. He had a curled mustache that added a circus-like quality to his checkered black-and-blue suit with matching AR
obelisks that hovered around him. Sensing Charlie’s presence, he paused the game with a wave of his forefinger but kept the glasses on.

“I’m Majed. I would shake your hand…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Charlie said.

“Majed, help Charlie unload. You need help, don’t you, Charlie?” Darren called up from downstairs.

“I appreciate it. Just a minute,” Charlie said.

When he came out of the bathroom, Majed was standing in front of him. He had put on clear AR glasses and was surveying Charlie like he was a painting. They walked downstairs.

“You don’t have a profile, Charlie.”

“Didn’t think I’d need one here in Saudi.”

“How long have you been here?”

“A few months.”

Everyone laughed as if his comment were uproariously funny. “Saudi isn’t as boring as you’ve been led to believe,” Darren said with a knowing glint in his eyes. “There are some lively parts to it.”

“Not for straight guys,” Majed said, and everyone laughed except Charlie.

Charlie looked past him at Lauren, who had stopped dancing ballet in a pink silk dress and was standing erect on her toes. She was staring at him beneath clown makeup with painted tears. He didn’t remember applying that particular app.

“Are you going to help me get that stuff out of the car?” Charlie asked after a long, silent pause.

“Just a second,” Majed said as he scrolled through a long menu that had him waving his hand before flicking him some Iconmaker apps.

“What’s this?”

“To spruce up your profile. Don’t worry. No viruses. I promise.”

“Wallah?”

“Something like that.”

After they returned from the car, Darren rambled on in corporate speak about meeting challenges versus facing problems, and Charlie tuned out. “I’d better get going,” Charlie said.

“Are we going to that concert in Dubai next week?” Albert asked.

“Hmm. I haven’t decided. Let’s have another glass. Who’s driving?” Darren said to Albert.

“Majed.”

“Where is he?”

“I think he went back upstairs,” Charlie said.

Charlie walked out without bothering to say good-bye a second time. He slid back into the car and quickly proceeded to scroll down to the navigation attachment to his next address. “Got it,” he murmured to himself as he clicked on it, and the car roared into a jolting K-turn. Lauren sat undisturbed in the passenger sheet, mouthing the words to a love song she seemed to be listening to on the Bahraini radio station.

29

T
here was a stoplight in the middle of the desert. Across the intersection were the blackened outlines of a few shuttered storefronts. Charlie let his head slide over to the left in a meditative dream, which ended before it could begin with a tapping on the window. He looked over and saw a woman in an abaya. Only her black eyes were visible between the slits in the black fabric covering her head. He nodded as she held out her black-gloved hand, seeking alms, but the light turned green, and the car accelerated on its own just as he was reaching in his pocket.

“Who was that woman?” Lauren asked.

“Nobody. A ghost. She was lost.”

“Oh.”

After twenty minutes, there were streetlights illuminating the sand-colored walls, which conspicuously lacked razor wire. The car turned down one of the nameless residential streets that were only differentiated by AR numbers that lit up on his windshield and disappeared as he passed. The car slowed to a walking pace, and the map indicated the house in a 3-D aerial view on the windshield.

He parked the car across the street from a large house surrounded by high walls and a faux gilded gate. Lauren appeared in front of the gate, pointing triumphantly before running back to the car; she blew him a kiss as the windshield faded out. He lifted up the back seat and grabbed one of the last remaining satchels of hash. Above the gate, a phosphorescent blue Butterfly with a telescopic lens protruding from its head was flapping its wings just fast enough to stay aloft. He looked up and examined it; it had the wingspan of a somewhat diminutive Hawk. He decided to wait before putting his glasses back on. The pastel gray and khaki walls of the neighboring houses stretched to where the streetlights ended at the black empty space of the desert. Turning back, he looked across the street at the sidewalk and wondered if it had ever been used by anyone.

The gate parted gently, and he walked into the magenta cobblestone courtyard that sparkled under the LED floodlights. It was difficult for him to discern which way to go at first. The Butterfly, flapping lazily, hovered behind him as the gate closed. The main house was directly in front of him with fresh white pastel paint like icing on a cake. Saleh had said Omar was in a tent. He walked to the left of the main building and down an alley to the back of the house. The tent consisted of a hardened acrylic white canopy above a structure made of white PVC siding. He turned and saw the Butterfly making its way back toward the entrance.

Three blonde women in their midtwenties were sitting on cushions on the floor, giggling among themselves. They paid no attention to him as he passed. To his left, a man in a black thobe was lying in a hammock, projecting the view from the front gate in AR. “You can bring that inside,” he said.

“You’re Omar?”

“Yes, I am. Here.” He removed a stack of Saudi riyals from his thobe pocket and held it out for Charlie to collect.

“Y’all are really philosophical about death.” The voice, coming from inside the tent, sounded like Cameron.

Charlie crouched down a little to fit in the small entrance. The door opened, releasing billows of hash smoke. Cameron was sitting in the corner. Five young Saudi men in thobes and baseball caps turned backward were sitting like Native Americans along the edge of an intricately designed Pakistani carpet that came to within a few feet of covering the white tile floor completely. Everyone was high and laughing uproariously. As he turned, he saw the Butterfly was so close to him that he felt a light breeze on the back of his scalp.

One of the Saudis, sitting in the back corner like it was the head of a dining room table, shooed it away dismissively with his hand. Charlie noticed the silver ring that wrapped around his thumb like a snake. “Is that a stylus?”

“Yes, of course. It was custom-made in Morocco.” He gestured for one of the blonde women sitting next to the entrance to shut the door. She giggled innocently as she heeded his command. “We are playing them.”

“Isn’t that illegal?”

“In your country, perhaps. Our morality is more open-minded.”

“I guess.”

“Here, take this.” He handed him a small pellet of hash.

“Why not.”

Two of the blonde women, Scottish by the sound of their accents, were wrestling with electrode caps on their heads. One was green, and the other was red.

There was an AR scoreboard above them. Two Saudi men were wearing matching electrode caps that could pass for Muslim skull caps if it weren’t for the colors. The Saudi wearing a Yankees cap was tweaking the module on the floor to synthesize their brainwave frequencies.

“Stop pulling my hair,” shouted the blonde on the bottom.

“This isn’t what I was expecting to find in Saudi Arabia,” Charlie said as he brushed away the thick cloud of hash smoke and looked around the room at its bare white walls. It was odd being around people so unscathed by any sense of urgency or need.

“What were you expecting?” one of the Saudis said with an other-worldly calmness.

“I don’t know.”

“This is how you dreamed it. This game cannot change it. When the women take off the hats, they go back to being who they are.”

“Which is what?”

“Whatever. Their jobs.”

“I didn’t know you were going to be here, Cameron.”

“Neither did I,” Cameron said.

“I thought you were staying in Bahrain for the weekend.”

“I was. Not anymore. I’m done with this fucking place.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean there’s no reason for me to be here anymore. I don’t give a fuck no more.” He leaned back against the wall, exhaled deeply, and closed his eyes.

Charlie put his glasses on. Lauren sat next to him and lowered her head on his shoulder. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Me neither. What’s the point of this place?”

“Money.”

“Yeah.”

“What’s the matter, Cameron?”

“Nothing. I don’t need this place no more. I don’t need the money.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Back to Abqaiq…get my things.”

“I thought it didn’t matter if you stayed.”

“It doesn’t. Not no more. Like I said, I don’t need to be here no more… Hey, Charlie…I need to leave.”

“All right. Are you sure you’re OK?”

“Never been better.” Cameron stood up like a camel that didn’t want to race anymore. “Bye, y’all. Have a nice trip!” And then he grabbed the outside of the doorway like he was going to jump out and staggered through.

Lauren faded without Charlie doing anything and reappeared in the far corner in a tight black velvet dress and large occluded sunglasses that made her look like a sexy insect. She mouthed the words “I miss you” and looked at Charlie. She kept staring at him with no change in her expression, and yet there was a feeling of empathy that Charlie felt radiating from behind her sunglasses. He wondered how that was possible in AR as he turned to engage the Saudis, who were busy wrestling each other after they had concluded their match with the blondes. The hash had made the room seem like it was breathing. He got up and sat down next to Lauren. She greeted him with her way of blinking her eyes slowly and emphatically. He looked over at the blondes, who were still rubbing their sore muscles from the wrestling match. “Are they going to be OK?” he asked the room.

“Don’t care about these bitches,” the Saudi with the red electrode cap said.

“Excuse me?”

“They are our friends. They are not our wives. We are all just friends here.”

“You guys are kind of young.”

“So are you.”

“Young for marriage, I mean.”

“Yes. I am young like you, but I am also married. I have two wives, and they are with my children now.”

“So what are you doing here?”

“Playing. Like you, yes?”

“Actually, I’m here to drop this off.” Charlie lifted the leather satchel with the bricks of hash in it and placed it next to him.

“You should stay. Take a break and enjoy life.”

“I do my best. Anyway, I thought enjoyment was illegal here.”

“Not for us. Why pray when you can play?”

“What about sin?”

“That is what Haj is for.”

“Redemption?”

“If you are a Muslim. Are you?”

“No.”

“Then enjoy, my friend.”

“Your English is really good.”

“Thank you. I studied in America—UCLA.”

“Oh yeah? What do you do here?”

“Network security.”

“I feel safer already.”

“We have the best AI.”

“I’m sure you do.” Charlie stood up. “It’s been nice meeting you gentlemen.” He walked out and noticed that Omar had fallen asleep in his hammock. The blue Butterfly automatically followed him as he walked down the long alley on the side of the house. It ascended above the gilded gate and continued to follow him to his car. He got into the car and watched it return to the house and resume a locked pattern of flying in semicircles.

30

H
ours had passed, and Harold’s legs were cramped from being in the trunk. He pressed the release button and squirmed into the back seat. With his body still churning at an adrenalized vibrational frequency, he pulled himself up and looked over the edge of the window. He was on a side street next to the mall, and the Mutawa was nowhere in sight. He climbed forward to the driver seat and clicked on the manual driving icon with his stylus. Anonymity engulfed him; his car was one of thousands painted with the latest sand storm-resistant nanotech matte finish paint that never needed washing. An old police video feed streamed across the windshield, warning that it was dangerous to drive manually in the city of Al Khobar, first in Arabic and then in English. The concrete barriers lining the raised highway were lined with blue LED stripes reminiscent of the ones on the highway loop around Harbin. After getting off the access road, he clicked the Autohighway icon on the windshield.

As he leaned back and looked at the rearview monitor, he saw a black Caprice with a blackened windshield tailgating a few inches behind. It bore all the indications of a government car. It wasn’t a police car, because the siren would have been on. Instinctively, he pressed on the brake and let the car bump into him. He heard the bottles rattle. It was something he had been meaning to do since he first arrived. He could see the young Saudi man with his gutra perfectly adjusted on his head shouting and flashing his headlights in the rearview mirror. He eased off at the next exit that led into another highway and pulled over to the side.