Once they left, I turned right around and raced to the back door. I was going to run to the garage, get in my car, and somehow make it to Nora’s this time. Once I opened the door and stepped out, though, I nearly slammed into the orange satin with the gold visor.
I said.
He didn’t reply, but grasped my shoulders and picked me up like a bag of groceries. After placing me back inside, he closed the door.
I said, as I watched him through the peek-cam, hoping he’d go, but he just stood staring back through his visor. Turning, I sprinted to the front door, but an identical satin waited there.
I rushed to my desk and opened Joelene’s screens. I turned every knob, but they had been wiped clean. Frantic, I grabbed the remote for the big screen, hoping to find the Soup and Intellectual show or something, but all the channels were blocked. Smacking the controller, I must have hit the history knob as it began playing a recording of Heavy Profit Camp that hadn’t been erased.
Mr. Gonzalez-Matsu complained about RiverGroup again, and there was Nora.
“Hide,” I told her. “Go somewhere safe.” Stepping before the screen I leaned forward to kiss her gloved hand, and just before I did, she lifted it, and touched the button. Up close, though, I saw something. Hitting the stop knob, I realized that she was pointing to a capital f that had been scratched into the shiny black surface of the button. The letter wasn’t perfect and it looked as though Nora had done it with a needle or pin.
What did it mean? I could think of a vulgar word, but surely Nora would never use it. Staring at it, I willed myself to understand, but without Joelene’s help, I couldn’t figure it out.
The estimator clock said Father wasn’t due back for forty-seven minutes, but I had a bad feeling, so I erased the memory and switched off the screen.
At my desk, I pulled open the refrigerated drawer, took out several Pure H magazines, and began rifling through them, but nothing made sense. I felt a presence. Looking up, I saw Xavid with his head held high, his hands on his hips, as if he were posing. Once he saw that I’d seen him, he smiled, stepped closer, and said, “I crept up on you,” as if pleased.
“What do you want?” I asked, irritated.
Combing his white-capped hair with a hand, he gazed around my place and said, “We are going to have to learn to work together, because you are also one of the extremely valuable assets here.”
Assuming that was some sort of bizarre compliment, I just asked, “Can you help me with Joelene?”
He laughed at me. “You’re fond of her, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not. There’s something strange about her. I have a sense like that. I’m good with people.” He pushed up his amber glasses. “Besides, her hair is awful. That color is wrong for her and ugly. I’ve never liked it.”
Her natural curly hair was fine. I said, “I’d like to see her.”
Frowning, he said, “She’s gone.”
I hoped he didn’t mean dead. “I thought she was at the PartyHaus dungeon.”
He whipped around as if someone was sneaking up on him. His eyes darted left and right behind his amber glasses. Finally, when he seemed satisfied that we were he turned and asked, “What?” as if he had forgotten what we were talking about.
“Joelene…” I said, wondering what was wrong with him, “is she all right?”
As if it didn’t matter, he said, “I suppose.”
“I want to see her.”
He started walking around my apartment, looking over my things. “I don’t think so.” He stopped before my couch, bent close enough to smell it, and asked, “Do you have any real skills or anything?”
For an instant, I felt depressed. The truth was I wasn’t sure. “What do you want?”
He then headed to my small kitchen. “I think RiverGroup can make a comeback,” he said, admiring the black gold cabinets. “Some don’t, but I do. They don’t know what I know.” Turning, he smiled and asked, “Did I tell you that I’m very fucking smart?”
“I think you did.” I knew I’d heard him say that before.
“If I can turn it around, there will be profits. Extraordinary profits, because it’s one thing to build something, it is quite another to rebuild. That’s a particular type of skill. It’s not just creating, but destroying, too. Do you know what I mean?”
I said, “Yes,” but didn’t and didn’t care.
Narrowing his eyes, he said, “You never answered. Do you have any skills? Are you smart at all?”
“I am smart,” I said, and lamented how little conviction was in my voice.
“Well,” he said, as though disappointed, “when the time comes… if it does… will you support me?”
I had no idea what he meant, but said, “Yes, if I can see Joelene.”
“Excellent!” Pushing up his glasses again, he said, “I’ll give you one minute.”
“I want more than that!”
“I don’t expect I’ll actually need your approval. Your father has all the voting rights, but you never know… you might become useful.” He stared at me blankly. “At this point, that’s all you may have. One minute.”
Outside, while Xavid explained to Gold Visor that we were going to the PartyHaus for business, I watched Father’s hairdresser. Obviously, he thought he was more important than he was, and while I had found talking with him demoralizing, Joelene was worth a million humiliations.
Soon, the three of us, Xavid, the satin, and I started along the path toward the access road. A buzz filled the compound like it had not in years. From a dozen delivery trucks, men hauled crates of carrot wine, food, fuel, and other equipment toward the black building. In the oxygen gardens and all along the access roads, a battalion of gardeners were clearing away weeds, pruning trees, planting flowers, and Fluffing father’s prized dandelions.
Bamboo scaffolding covered half of the PartyHaus where workers were repainting it, or adding highlights of gold leaf. And as much as I hated the building, had hoped for years that it would collapse, I felt as if its restoration summoned the end of things, like it was the rearming of a bomb.
When we reached the base of the stairs, I paused and gazed up at the fifty-seven steps, not relishing the climb. After maybe twenty, I had to stop. My legs burned.
“Back when you danced,” said Xavid, as he wiped his brow, “I bet you could have walked up on your hands.”
“I suppose,” I replied. Then, as if to show him, I climbed the rest without pause.
At the top, two workers stepped aside from the huge front doors. I had forgotten how intricate and demonic they were. Made out of black marble, they had been carved with hundreds of animals, but like a zoo gone sexually mad, tigers kissed hogs, ducks groped gophers, boa constrictors fellated elephants, and bison mounted giraffes.
Gold Visor took hold of one of the massive handles and pulled. It creaked open with a low, painful note, and we entered. Before my eyes adjusted, I couldn’t see anything, but heard sounds all around. Straight ahead, metal banged against metal. From the right, I heard a high-pitched grinding. Several amplified voices wove together into a mishmash of feedback and reverb. Curiously, the air still smelled like it had years ago: a blend of sweat, sex, and desperation, like a pungent curry.
In the foyer, while Gold Visor and Xavid conferred with another satin, I peered toward the main dance hall. As my eyes became accustomed to the darkness I saw a hundred workers polishing the floors, cleaning the walls, washing the ceilings, the carvings, the mosaics, and the bronzes. All of them wore ugly blue and orange leotards and they reminded me of the velvety maroon thing I had worn when Joelene and I had descended the cooling system in the MonoBeat. And I felt nostalgic—not for that dreadful experience—but for all the times we shared. I knew she wasn’t a traitor, and her profanity before, even her grumpiness was because she was hard at work on what sounded like our exit strategy. How I longed for exactly that.
The PartyHaus was laid out in the shape of a giant X. In the center were the circular dance floor and the balconies that surrounded it. In the four arms of the X were bars, restaurants, shops, and the guest rooms. When the rages were happening every night, thousands crowded every floor and every inch of the building. These days, Father said it housed ten times as many rats.
“This way,” said Gold Visor. Xavid and I followed.
We headed across the old dance floor. When I did my routines, it had been covered with a springy black material. It looked like they had put down uranium tiles. On the other side, a stage had been erected. At the back a forklift was placing a jet engine into some sort of pipe organ. On it a vivid test pattern of horizontal stripes. At stage-front were three actors and father’s silver-haired director who had also worked the promo-date with Elle.
“You go to that side. That side,” he said to a man who wore a sign that read Super Distinguished RiverGroup CEO. The other man wore a sign that said Michael. The girl’s read Interest. “Yes,” he continued, “and now the girl will come down the middle. She’s the center. She’s bringing not just the two families together, but this family as well.” He spotted me and waved. Michael. How you doing? Look here, this is the wedding blocking! We’re mapping out the big wedding!”
“I see.”
“It starts out minimal then gets maximal. You know? Smiling and combing back his chrome locks, he added, “You know, you can’t have loud without quiet. You can’t have big without small. So at first, it’ll just be you and your dad, and then we’ll add the girl. Then we’ve got the triangle. Shape follows meaning.”
I nodded, if only to indicate that I’d heard, as we continued across the dance floor.
At the far side, we came to the stairs that led into the building’s bowels. Most of the entrance was in the process of being covered over with a wall of vending machines. When I danced, streams of people were always going in and out but I had never set foot below. It was where the real freaks: the Wets, the Kate Wools, and the Bügs went. I’d heard rumors of the surgically and pharmaceutically enhanced sometimes killed themselves for pleasure or fantastic dance moves. Supposedly, one woman hadn’t come up for two years and lived on nothing but sweat and semen.
The farther down we went, the cool and heavier was the air. The odor was of mildew and rotting meat. And as the cacophony of construction from above dimmed, odd sounds, like the pings of electronics and the squelches of bats, began to echo and ricochet around us. Orange sodium bulbs had been placed here and there on stands as a few workers mopped the floor and patched, what I decided hundreds of rat holes.
“Where is she?” I asked.
“Lower level,” said Gold Visor. His deep voice reverberated into the recesses.
We continued for several minutes then came to another set of stairs. The satin held out his arm for support as these stairs were wet and slippery. The light was dimmer here and I was afraid that if I lost my footing, I would tumble to the center of the Earth.
Gold Visor produced a flashlight. The walls looked wet, and all around water dripped from tiny stalactites that covered the ceiling. I saw a large black salamander with yellow eyes hold for a second, then dash off, its tail zigzagging in the liquid.
We reached the end of the stairs and continued forward. As the satin shone his light back and forth, I decided that the walls weren’t as wet as I thought, but made of glass. Ten feet ahead, we came to a forest of sculptures like the carvings on the front doors only huge and more repulsive. A twelve-foot-tall teddy bear had an enormous, veined phallus so it rose five feet above its head.
After we had wound our way around a dozen ever more cartoony and debauched turtles, hamsters, and bunnies, we came to a clear area. Another orange satin, with long white hair, sat at a table covered with half a dozen screens. He stood and bowed.
Beyond him, on the black floor, lay Joelene, in nothing but her green bra and underwear. I crouched beside her. Her skin was mottled with a hundred small bruises, as if she’d been peppered with pool balls. Father had beaten her and left her to die.
Xavid stepped above us. He kicked at the thick metal cuff on her left wrist. Then he toed the chain that connected it to the floor. “Good,” he said, peering down at her.
“Get away,” I told him. After he sneered at me and stepped away, I knelt closer to her. “Joelene, can you hear me?” She didn’t speak or move. I had been hoping she could help me with Nora’s message, but clearly, I was the one who would be helping her. Touching her cheek, I found it warm and worried she had a fever. “It’s me. Michael,” I said. She moaned like she was dreaming. “I’m going to help you.” Her eyes finally opened, and I was never happier to see those amethyst irises.
“Pain,” she whispered, her dry lips sticking together. “Get me…” Her voice faded and her eyes closed.
“Get you what?”
Farther back, I heard Gold Visor say, “This prisoner’s dead.”
Beside the satin, I saw Ken Goh ten feet away. His mouth was wide open as if he had died screaming.
Xavid stepped over him. “Corporate selection,” he said. “Only the smart survive.”
I wanted him to shut up and go away and was about to tell him so, when Joelene mumbled something. Putting my ear close, I asked her to repeat it, but she just moaned. “Don’t worry,” I said, stroking her forehead, “I’m going to get you out of here.”
“Are you…” she began.
“Am I what?” I asked. She didn’t reply. “Am I marrying Elle? No! I’m not. I’m not going to.”
“Are you…” she repeated.
“No, I’m not!”
“That’s it!” said Xavid. “Your minute’s up. Let’s go.”
“I’m staying here with her.”
Xavid rolled his eyes far up in his glasses. “It’s been more than a minute.” Pointing a thumb at the satin, he said, “He will be happy to drag you back to your apartment.”
“I want more time.”
He stepped closer. “I used to watch you dance on the channels. I thought you were just wonderful. But now that I’ve gotten to know you, you’re as selfish and stupid, as your father says.” I could have hated him—I probably already did—but wasting more energy on him seemed futile.
Behind, I heard Joelene say, “Are you…” again. An instant later, I understood.