The Subject Steve: A Novel (19 page)

"Look at the man," she said. "Saddest thing I've ever seen in my life."

"They said you'd never walk again."

"They never actually said that."

"You're walking," I said.

"Injections," she said. "Incisions. Experimental stuff. Animal cells. I have some antelope in me. Some silverback."

"Gorilla?"

"Very avant-garde. It's not the animals, though. It's the chip."

"The chip?"

"A chip in my gut. Electrodes in my legs. Bobby paid for it. Look at my crutch handles. See the buttons? I'm remote-controlling myself."

Renee twitched towards me, her crutches buzzing. Heinrich's voice careened around the room.

". . . and the hunter felt the tusk slide through him, and I'll put it bluntly, kids, the cold, sharp tusk slid through him from behind, through his anus and curving upward, just tore right through his guts and punched out his chest. Skewered, he was. Completely, irrevocably skewered. Yet even then, wriggling with the last of his life on that great bloody ivory shaft, even as the elephant lifted his head and the hunter felt the hot rank breath of the beast blanket him and its horrendous trumpet blast shatter his ears, the hunter could not understand it, and with what was left of his strength he said to the elephant, 'Why? Tell me why? You called me brother.' And the elephant blinked once and nodded, and with his trunk pushed the gored hunter to a mangled heap on the jungle floor. 'I know I called you brother,' said the elephant, shrugging his great white shoulders. 'My mistake. I must have had you mixed up with somebody else.' "

Pink pinwheels spun in Heinrich's eyes.

"Needless to say, children," he said, "Cleveland is not the manufacturing center it once was."

There were more squawks and the screen went white.

"Christ," I said.

"This is content," said Renee.

"I heard on the radio. Your big multimedia deal."

"PR bullshit. This kind of idea has been dead for a long time. We were out in the forest, what did we know? We're fucked. We're the fuckers and we're fucked."

"I've met fans."

"Like I said," said Renee.

"Renee."

"What."

"You're walking."

"This isn't really what I had in mind."

She hit the button on her crutch, just stood there, buzzing. Then she jerked away.

Everyone had gathered around Trubate's hub, a sea of wet haircuts and ghosted skin. The Rad Balm girl sat in back with a boy who'd come off the plane with us. He had lime-colored muttonchops, a denim jacket in his lap. Apparently he was getting some sort of handjob.

"Yo," I said.

"You," said the Rad Balm girl, slid her hand away.

"Get your jollies, geezer?" said the boy.

"Nice sideburns," I said. "They remind me of my father's. He was a fire captain."

"That's the most engrossing story I've ever heard."

"Better watch it," said the Rad Balm girl. "Warren's a writer, you know. That sounds so stupid. Of course you know that."

"I do now," I said.

"He's like the most famous writer in the world. The spokesman of our generation. I mean that in quotes. Spokesman in quotes. Generation, that's just generation. Whatever that means."

"Hey," said Warren. "I just do what I do. If people like it, that's cool."

"How's the fish?" I said to the Rad Balm girl.

"Fish?"

"Musician talk."

"Yeah, okay."

"Don't you remember?"

"What, do you have a photographic brain thing?"

"Excuse me?"

"Never mind."

"Okay."

"Sometimes I can't believe I actually took this job," said the Rad Balm girl. "You know, I almost went to SarinNet. That's the other big desert dot-com. They're in the silos. Package was worthless, though. Not like this is any better. People like us, we fucking made the information economy, now they're flushing us down the toilet. San Francisco, New York, Hong Kong, Brussels, Tehran, Perth, I've been pimping code all over. I just hope I can squeeze another few months out of this bullshit before everything goes bust. I know people have been saying that for years, but it's coming for real now, mark my words. What I really want to do is study medical ethics. Like what are the moral ramifications of putting a monkey head on a human body? Or a horse dick. Or like a lot of cow tits. Or is it wrong to fuck a clone of your brother if you use a rubber? That kind of crap. This place is weird, huh? The Realms. You should see some of the shit they do down there that doesn't make it past post. Bobby seems pretty creepy. What's with the robe? But I guess he has a viable business model."

"I'm sure," I said.

"Hey, you're the dying guy. You used to ball Renee, right? Somebody said that. Because Bobby's balling her now. Me, too, when I have time. I love to say ball."

"Okay."

"Just a heads-up, to use the old hippy term."

"Right," I said.

There was a man in a tight Lycra hood standing with some others near a water cooler. When the man turned to cough I saw it was the Philosopher, tricked out like some aerodynamic Franciscan. He nodded me an amen. Nearby an obese Japanese kid in a hunting vest just like Naperton used to wear was conducting impromptu Bible study with some Realms techs.

"Moses waited for the slave generation to die off," he told them. "That's why they wandered. They could have been to the Promised Land in a day. A few hours. It's like the Realms. We could expand in the snap of a finger. But if it's not the right time, our options won't be worth shit. Have you ever heard of Heinrich of Newark?"

"You mean the old freak on the bed?" said a woman with a tattoo of a water bottle on her arm.

"I mean Moses."

The kid in the vest waved off his proteges, stepped up on the dais.

"My name is Desmond Mori, Chief Personal Resources Officer, and I say to you, Good morning, morning!"

"Good afternoon," called the gathering.

The voices of the Realms were low broken things.

"Evening is upon us somewhere!" said Desmond.

"Good morning, evening."

"The past is before us!"

"We're coming, past."

"The future is gone!"

"Fare thee well, future."

"Now is . . ."

"Now."

"Now is . . ."

"Now."

"Iam. . ."

"Me."

"Iam. . ."

"Me."

"And who, pray tell, are you?" called Desmond, pointed over to one of the New Zealanders.

"Not a buggering bastard like you!" he said.

"I am me, me am I!" someone shouted.

"Fair dinkum?" said the New Zealander.

The woman with the water bottle tattoo punched her head against a systems panel.

"Watch my tower!" someone screamed.

"I me ma! I ma me!"

"Enough!" said Desmond, leaped from the dais, hugged the woman down to the hangar floor.

"You are you," he said, stroked her hair. "My sweet Fair Dinkum."

The room went quiet and Desmond rose with the woman in his arms, led us single file out into the sun.

"There's going to be a new policy on sick days."

Trubate stood above us on a heat-cracked mound. His mesh had stiffened with sweat. Sunlight caught the metal at his neckline. It did not make him dazzling. It looked like he was getting knifed by God.

"There will be a memo about it," he said, "but basically, no sick days."

Some hissed.

"Listen, people. We're in a tight spot right now. Forget what you hear about megadeals. That's just smoke and mirror signals. It's nothing tangible. It's nothing fungible. I'm doing everything I can for you but I need you to help yourselves. Help yourselves by working every day. All day. For us. For this. For the Realms. They want us to fail. Do you hear me? They want us to fail!"

A cheer went up and Trubate chuffed some dust with his sandal.

"I adore you all," he said. "You are my brothers and sisters. In the future they will do in-depth half-hour bios of each and every one of us. That's how important this is. Save your office party JPEGs, people! Now, I want to introduce a new family member to the Realms, the star of our latest, most innovative offering. I've known him for a long time, but it wasn't until I had a little talk with Dr. Goldfarb that we realized what a contribution he could make to our content division. So give it up for Steve!"

Nobody gave much of anything up.

Some stood and started to chat. Others found flat rocks for tanning. Desmond Mori appeared to be consoling a stick of deadwood. The St. Louis kids stalked scorpions with staple guns. Fair Dinkum scoured her head gash with sand.

We ate at long picnic benches in the back of the hangar. Bobby sat with Renee, fed her hunks of raw carrot, fondled her animatronic feet. Dietz was up on the wall in a handstand, babbling to Warren and the Rad Balm girl.

"Altamont? Best hologram I ever saw. Look, with the exception of Chuck Berry, every major entertainer was on a CIA payroll at one time or another. Doesn't matter much anymore. You kids, with your computers, your complacency beneath the boot of global capitalism, you've done in a few years what it took the pigs decades to put together."

"I'm an anarchist," said Warren.

"Let me tell you," said Dietz, "they're all immensely frightened."

"Well, what are you doing here then?" said the Rad Balm girl.

"Where was I supposed to go?"

I took a bench next to Desmond Mori, watched him spork kale from his bowl.

"I miss Parish's stew," I said.

"You knew the man they called Parish, then?"

"Why are you talking like that?"

"I'm sorry," said Desmond.

"What do you do here?"

"I'm the Chief Personal-"

"But what do you do?"

"I choose the chairs. I study ergonomics reports and choose the chairs. I respond to Frequently Asked Questions. I lead Team Greeting."

"It used to be called First Calling."

"Hey, don't tell me. I'm the only one who's even aware of shit like that around here. Except for the Pre-Realmers. Like Dietz and Renee. I always wanted to meet Heinrich. When I was a kid, a few years ago, I ordered his book through the mail. I guess he's not like he was, though."

"I wonder what happened to everybody," I said.

"Scattered."

"I like your vest."

"It's an exact replica of the one Naperson wore in the mothering hut."

"Naperton," I said.

"I was testing you," said Desmond.

Now Trubate's cackle burst across the hangar.

"Renee," he said, "you kill me. What are you even talking about? The Heinrich stuff is classic."

Dietz joined us on the bench, pointed over to Trubate and Renee.

"Look at them all cuddly together," he said. "Remember that old ad for the Poconos? They had those bathtubs shaped like pussies. Filled them with champagne."

"Hearts," I said.

"They put hearts in them?" said Dietz. "I thought it was champagne."

I waited for Renee to rise, tailed her to the serving table. Available now was some arid ziggurat of soy cakes and sunflower tortes.

"Dessert?" I said.

She pointed to the coffeepot and I drew her a cup of the house brew, yellow, sweet, carbonated, cold. Across the room Trubate was demonstrating the heroin walk he claimed to have perfected for a transgressive high-eight Hamlet.

"You've got to understand," I heard Trubate say, "the Prince of Denmark was a trust-fund brat."

"Well," I said to Renee, "as long as you love the guy."

"Love?"

Renee popped the top off a plastic vial, tapped out powder the texture of iron filings into her cup, sipped it.

"What's that for?" I said.

"I have a happiness-deficiency."

"Let's go," I said. "Let's get the hell out of here."

"You and me?" said Renee.

"Yeah."

"Steal the van?"

"Yeah."

"Hit the road?"

"That's it."

"Sleep under the stars with ketchup stains on our shirts?"

"Beautiful."

"You and me?"

"Screw Trubate," I said.

"I do," said Renee.

"What is it? Your chips? Your legs? We'll figure something out."

"No, we won't," said Renee. "Why do people always say that? We won't figure anything out. We'll stare at each other and wonder why the other person hasn't figured anything out. That fucker said we'd figure something out, and we haven't figured jack shit out. That's what we'll say to ourselves, and it's just a matter of time before we say it to each other."

Her head started to loll a little.

"You look really happy right now," I said.

Spit slid down her chin.

"Take me downstairs," she said. "I've got to do my miracle."

We rode an old cage elevator down to the lower levels. One of Desmond's reluctant acolytes rode the brake lever, whispered into his sleeve.

"Pathogens," I heard him say. "With a P."

"Aren't you supposed to be sick?" said Renee.

"Fine fettle," I said.

"You look pretty sick."

"That won't work," I said.

"Sure it will."

We hit bottom with a soft bump. The boy flipped the lever back.

"No," he was saying now, "you have to coat it before insertion. You didn't coat it, did you?"

We walked down a corridor and through a doorway into darkness. And then there was light, or lights, high blinding banks of them blasting down on an enormous soundstage. Camera crews clustered around a series of sets, three-walled ceilingless rooms, some white, some papered over with photo sheets of trees, or seascapes, or city squares at night. People scurried by with power strips and prop boxes. We passed the soil room, saw a masked man there in buckskin. He was tinier than he'd seemed on TV. He leaned on his shovel near a man spooling cable on his arm.

"Let's do one," said the man. He called for quiet and we stood off near some steel cases. The Digger dug, struck concrete, began his drag and scrape.

Renee led me away from the shovel screech.

"They'll shoot that shit for hours."

"What's the gimmick?" I said. "I don't get it. It's boring."

"We prefer trance-friendly."

Renee hobbled on towards the next set, a barren blue room with gym mats on the floor, a lone stool. Identical posters lined the wall. "Go, Gimp Snatch!" they said. The Rad Balm girl approached us with a clipboard.