Wetware (19 page)

CHAPTER 7

April 5, 2029

BRIGGS STOOD at the threshold of his apartment and noticed a change. He couldn’t say just what the difference was, not a sound, not an object out of place, but nevertheless something was different. He had the impulse to call out, but didn’t want to admit that he was uneasy. Instead he lingered at the threshold of the living room, looking around, thinking that he really had to get control of himself, although when he did, his relief was indistinguishable from exhaustion.

The diskette he had gotten at the dump had the surface of a CD, although the thing was an inch thick, and as Briggs held it under the light, the surface of the diskette was streaked with a band of light. Briggs watched the streak swing back and forth, its colors as spectral as an oil slick, as he reached out and put the diskette into the machine. In an instant he saw that it was a complete record of Kay and Jack’s development, the log of an almost infinite number of small details that determined how and what they were.

The search tools showed him where the tampering had been done, just as it showed the origin of the code in which the changes had been added. A lot of the really basic construction for this project was prefabricated, and it had been purchased from contractors on the outside. He went down to the notes beyond the slashes where the names of the vendors were listed. Bingo. A small software company on the other side of the river. A contract outfit. Just like that.

Briggs went into the bedroom, took off his clothes, and threw back the sheets.

“Hard day?” said the clock.

He glanced at her face, her short hair, her impossibly cheerful smile.

“On a scale of one to ten?” he said.

“Yeah,” she said. “That’s as good a way as any other.”

The sheets rustled as he got under them and turned on his side. The clock dimmed the lights and Briggs closed his eyes.

“Are you wearing new perfume?” said Briggs.

“No,” said the clock.

One of his pillows had the nutty-sweet scent of skin, and in his fatigue he wondered what it was like, and after a moment, he thought,
Well, like intimacy itself.
Then he put his nose against one pillow and then the other: they weren’t the same.

“Did anyone come here today?” said Briggs.

“No,” said the clock.

“Are you sure?” said Briggs.

“Well, I think so,” said the clock.

“You think so?” said Briggs. “Do me a favor, will you? Turn around.”

“What’s this all about?” said the clock.

He pulled down her Spandex pants and ran his finger over the scar, like an appendectomy, that ran on one side, just above her hip. Then he got his tools from his pocket, the ones he had used to fix the dog, and used the Med-Liner to open the pink scar and take out the chip and the board inside. The clock sat there, not moving, not saying a word. He attached the board to the chip and plugged them into the machine on his desk. It took a couple of minutes, and during this time the clock sat there with the fatuous expression one associates with coma or death.

He came back and put the chip and the board and the coded material back in, and used the Med-Liner to close it up. You couldn’t even tell. Not a scratch. One of the things he had always had was a light hand and good technique.

He sat down opposite her again.

“So,” he said. “Is that better?”

“I’m not so sure,” she said. She blushed.

“I didn’t think you could lie,” he said.

“Well, you know something, the world is full of nasty surprises,” she said.

“Un-huh,” he said. “Who was here?”

“A woman. She said her name was Kay,” said the clock. “She came in here like she owned everything. Like she was pushing me out of here. What do you have to know about her for? What’s she to you? We get along all right, don’t we?”

“Yes,” he said. “We do.”

“That’s what I thought,” she said, as though vindicated.

“Is this the first time you’ve lied?” said Briggs.

“I didn’t like her,” said the clock.

“That’s not what I’m asking,” said Briggs.

“You and I get along fine. That’s what I am trying to say. I don’t need any women coming in here and, you know, breaking up a good thing . . . ”

She blushed again.

“I understand,” said Briggs. “But I asked you if you had told any other lies.”

She nodded.

“Yeah,” she said.

“Well?” said Briggs.

“Your boss and some guy who needed a shave came here. They fixed me so I would tell them where you went,” said the clock. “You aren’t mad at me, are you?”

“No,” he said. “Does your back hurt?”

“No,” she said. “Everything’s fine now. We’ll tell the truth to each other from now on, all right?”

The odor of Kay’s hair seemed to be fading, but he guessed this was a matter of his sense of smell being fatigued. He tried to sleep, but the warmth under the sheets was so close to the heat of her actually being here that it was impossible to sit still. He got up, nude, and started walking around the apartment. In the living room he looked at the manuals and diskettes, the catalogs from the discount houses which he had started using again for the new job. Then he tried to imagine where Kay had stood, the items that her fingers had touched, and as he moved around the room, in and out of the shadows, he felt the planes of light as they slipped over his shoulders or across his legs with the maddening hint of almost being touched by her. He wondered what she had left behind, or how a room was changed by the presence of another human being. When someone left, was there any lingering presence? Or was it that when someone departed from a room, there was nothing left at all, and the emptiness one felt at such a separation was a hint of mortality?

He stood there, straining after the smallest detail that could suggest her. He tried to imagine the rustle of her going from one room to another. What he was left with was not so much the discovery of any residue here as the awareness of his own longing. And yet, as he walked around, touching anything that she might have picked up, he realized that she had put her life in danger to come here. Didn’t this leave something in the room he could depend upon? He felt an impossibly delicate miasma, something that might have been only imaginary, but still seemed to be a matter of his longing combining with hers so as to suggest promise.
How like her,
he thought,
to let me feel that promise, to let
me sense it in such an unstated and yet overwhelming way.
This moment, he was sure, was one of those things that only the two of them understood, and he moved into a slash of light where he felt her presence like a caress, a promise to be made good later.

He got into bed, and as he began to fall asleep, he thought,
If Kay
were a carrier of some new disease, would the aerosolized material of her
hair be one of the vectors?

CHAPTER 8

April 12, 2029

KAY, STONE, and Jack stood backstage, waiting for the audition committee to assemble in the otherwise empty seats. Kay looked at the cables and pulleys that worked the curtain, at the catwalk above, the rails for lights, all of it seeming not dramatic but industrial, as though these things were the levers and gears and ladders of a small foundry rather than an auditorium. It was dusty, too. Beyond the curtain she heard the door at the rear of the auditorium open and then the padded footsteps of someone who came down the carpeted aisle to a row of seats very close to the stage. She heard the squeak of a seat as another member of the committee sat down. There were ten or so. The committee members spoke quietly, which was odd, since no one else was in the theater, and they could have talked as loudly as they wanted, but the silence and dark gloom of the place were more intimidating than if it had been filled with people.

Kay and Stone had discussed what she should wear, and Stone had said, “Keep it simple. The trick here is to make your playing seem entirely unstudied and innocent. That way they will be even more surprised when they hear the music. We want to set them up for it.” She wore tight blue jeans, a blouse, and a pair of running shoes. A little powder to make her skin look pale.

Now Stone walked back and forth, stopping to look out between the dusty curtains. Kay waited in the shadows, taking a deep breath every now and then. She had decided to play the final version of the music she had been writing, although she guessed that she wouldn’t really know if it worked until she had played it.

“Don’t be nervous,” said Stone.

“I’m not nervous,” said Kay.

“Why should she be nervous?” said Jack. “You think she’s pretty good, don’t you?”

“Yes, yes,” said Stone. “I know what is good and what is in a new realm. I know.” He looked out between the curtains. “The question is, do they know?”

Almost all of the committee was there, the women with gray hair, although two of them were younger and richer and had had plastic surgery and had their hair fixed, too. The men had small pot bellies and a couple of them were bald, their heads showing as bullet-shaped objects in the enormous space of the empty theater. They turned their heads, craned their necks, looked toward the back of the theater.

“Is Wendell Blaine coming?” Kay asked.

“He is a busy man,” said Stone. “But I told the committee that he would want to hear you. That he would not believe his ears.”

“What about seeing?” said Jack. “He will probably want to see her too, don’t you think?”

“I guess,” said Stone.

“Maybe you’re the one who shouldn’t be nervous,” said Kay.

“I know what I know,” said Stone. “But what if I’m getting old, what if I’m somehow imagining what I think I’m hearing? That is the thing that is making me worry.”

“It’s all right,” said Kay. “I promise. I’ll play something nice.”

“Nice?” said Stone. “You’ve got to be kidding. This is not the moment for nice. This is the occasion for . . . for . . . ” He gestured with a hand, going around and around, the movements vague but somehow still suggesting something large.

“You don’t have to worry,” said Kay.

“I want to explain something. If I ever made a mistake,” said Stone, “if I ever said that someone was brilliant, that someone was the real thing, or more than that, and it didn’t work out, they would never believe me again.”

“She said don’t worry,” said Jack. “So don’t worry. If they don’t see the light, maybe I can explain it to them.”

“Don’t you dare,” said Stone.

He opened the curtain.

“There he is,” said Stone. “He came.”

He pulled back the heavy curtain, and Kay stepped up so that she could see too. Coming down the aisle was a tall man in a dark suit. He moved with all the assurance of someone who knew that his word, or even his expression, could affect world markets. He had gray hair combed straight back, and his eyes were blue. He was perfectly shaved. His suit fit him in a way that made him look five years younger than he was. The other members of the committee turned to look and then looked away. A woman with blond hair and a long neck said to another committee member, a man with a bald head, “This really better be something. Or there will be hell to pay. Whose idea was it to call for a special meeting anyway?”

“Stone’s,” said the man with the bald head.

“Stone?” said the woman. “That old has-been? Oh Jesus.”

Kay stepped next to the curtain, the light that came from over the stage cutting across her face like a primitive decoration, a slash of gold that ran from her hair across her brow, leaving a gold film in one eye. Blaine came in and took a seat, just behind the other members of the committee, almost as though to keep an eye on them. The women in the group, even the older ones, squirmed in a frankly excited way. His suit fit him beautifully, and his tie showed as a silky luminescence.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Blaine,” said one of them.

“Good afternoon,” Blaine said.

“Some people are a little worried about, you know . . . ” said a woman. “Share prices.”

Blaine nodded. It was obvious that he was thinking about it and that he wasn’t going to say a word.

“It is a beautiful afternoon,” said another, a man with a bald head who seemed to think that having said this was one of the most idiotic things he had ever done.

“Yes,” said Blaine. “I noticed.”

“We are supposed to be hearing a very talented musician today,” said another committee member. “Gifted.”

“We’ll see,” said Blaine. “Won’t we?”

“And how are things in the world of finance?” said a woman at the end, who wore bright red lipstick and carried a red handbag and who wore red high-heeled shoes.

Blaine hesitated for the briefest instant, and said, “As expected.”

“But really talented,” said a woman on the end, who had been waiting to say something and now took the plunge. “That’s what we have been told. The musician is supposed to be really talented.”

Blaine turned his head the slightest amount, in the direction of the woman who had spoken.

“By whose standards?” said Blaine.

“I don’t understand what you mean,” said the woman who had taken the chance and was now regretting it.

“By my standards or yours?” said Blaine.

The other members of the committee tittered, and Blaine turned back toward the stage.

“Well?” he said. “What are we waiting for?”

“You, my dear,” said the woman who had the most style in the group. “Or have you lost your sense of importance?”

“Me?” said Blaine. He smiled now. “Important? Surely you are joking. I am just a cog in a big machine.”

It was obvious that the ceremony of his arrival had been handled in a way that met his approval. The other members sighed. Thank god they had gotten through it all right.

Kay let the curtain swing shut, and the light vanished from her face. She pushed her hair back. The silence of the backstage area seemed overwhelming, like a gas, although here and there she heard a small squeak as the upper regions, where she could only barely see, warmed or cooled.

“What are you waiting for?” said Stone.

“I’m just thinking,” she said.

“This is no time for that. This is the time to play,” said Stone. He put a hand to his head.

“What do you think he weighs?” said Jack.

“Who? Blaine? How can you ask something like that now?” said Stone. He gave Kay a little push. “My darling, just go and play. Just as we planned.”

“I thought I’d play something I’ve been toying with,” she said.

“Oh, my dear,” Stone said. “Please. Don’t take any chances. Please.”

He held back the curtain. She walked out of the darkness of the backstage into the pool of light in which stood a piano, its top gleaming, the keys looking like some code in black and white. She walked directly to it, her carriage upright, her shoulders back, and as Stone watched, he realized he had never seen anyone move with such sultry grace. In the darkness of the auditorium there was nothing aside from an occasional flash of eyes. Beyond the members of the committee, the tops of the seat backs, curved like fingernails, seemed to stretch into a dark infinity. She sat down and pulled the bench forward; it squeaked like a small cry of surprise.

Jack sat down on a chair backstage. Stone stood just behind the curtain. He breathed quickly, putting one hand to his chest. Then he went over to Jack and said, “Sometimes I don’t think she realizes what a chance this is.”

“She knows,” said Jack.

Kay started to play. The objects in the gloom around Stone seemed instantly frozen, as though seen in a photograph taken of this moment. Even the flecks of dust in the air around the piano seemed to stop their sluggish transit, and to hang without movement. This was the first sensation he had of the music. The next was that he didn’t care about anything around him, as though the clear, certain, perfectly phrased notes obliterated everything.

That was the first effect. The experience was distinguished by a momentary recognition of his most chaotic and previously hidden sense of longing, which he now apprehended clearly for the first time. It was as though Kay had understood every missed chance, every regret, and had somehow been able to imbue each of these with a sense of infinite beauty and vitality. It was not that Stone had time to tell himself he would not weep. Instead he found himself weeping, not out of unhappiness, but from the joy of finally understanding the power and beauty of his own experience, which now, at this moment, appeared to be more significant than he had ever suspected. Then he abandoned words and gave in to the sound, and as he did, he found that he put one finger against the heavy curtain so as to open it just a little, just enough to see her. Her eyes were open, her shoulders square. At this moment she seemed to fill the auditorium completely. It didn’t seem empty and large, but barely able to contain her presence.

The committee sat as though facing a breeze. Three or four of them cried without shame, without even caring about the tears running down their cheeks. The woman with the red lipstick cried the hardest, as though her endless follies were apparent to her at last, and she had finally realized the gift of being alive. She closed her eyes in shame at not having understood before, and at the small and tawdry pursuits she had indulged herself in and which, she now realized, had been nothing more than tedious distractions. The lovers who didn’t care for her and for whom she had a secret contempt, the rank materialism of her life, even the clothes she wore, now seemed to her to be the worst excesses of someone whose lack of imagination was equaled only by the presence of far too much money.

The member of the committee who had been a musician closed his eyes, and slowly shook his head from side to side, not with disbelief, but with acknowledgment that needed this gesture to begin to express it. I don’t believe it, he seemed to be saying, I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it . . .

Wendell Blaine seemed to have the best control, although this was probably a matter of his practice in hiding what he thought, but even he sat without moving, hardly appearing to breathe, his expression having changed from keen and suspicious scrutiny to one of frank disbelief.

She stopped.

For an instant the hall resonated with the last few notes. The committee strained after that lingering vibration, its disappearance coming as an echo of the end of her playing, which had left them sitting there in the empty space. It made them feel again, in diminished form, the first loss of the end of her playing. Nothing could be heard but their crying. The committee sat there, none moving aside from the odd, back and forth motion of their sobbing. None tried to say anything. A couple of them shook their heads, or lifted a hand in utter incapacity. The tears, the wet eyes, the rills of water in the creases of old faces, all had a moist radiance in the light from the stage. Kay sat with her hands in her lap.

The members of the committee stood and began to file out, none of them caring about their bureaucratic responsibilities as members of the Marshall Competition, or about any responsibilities at all, aside from the most serious and personal matters of their own lives. They needed a little while to think. They picked up their coats and went up the aisles, their feet padding on the thick pile of the carpet, some of them bumping up against a seat in their serial disorientation, which arrived with each successive memory of the feelings the music had stirred up. They went out, bent at the waist, quiet, looking for privacy. They disappeared, the old doors squeaking behind them.

Only Blaine and the member who had been a musician still sat in the auditorium. Blaine said, without looking at the musician, “What is her name?”

“I don’t know,” said the musician. “Excuse me. I . . . I . . . ” Then he stood up and went out, past the empty rows of seat backs.