The two-lane highway that traveled around the world roughly at the Tropic of Cancer rose high above the desert, cut through mountain ranges, floated over oceans, and was the way to get around the globe fast. After we exited the compound and wound our way down the slope, we came to the desert floor and then began to curve around Ros Begas, toward the long entrance ramp. No other Loop cars were out, so it felt like I was the only one in the world moving, and I liked that. As each of the sixteen vacuum-arc motors started, wound up to speed, and then kicked in, I was agreeably pushed into the seat. Although I was stylistically against speed, I couldn’t help but feel a surge of adrenaline and allowed myself to enjoy it because I was heading toward her.
From the outside, my car was shaped like a giant teardrop with the fat end forward and the back slowly tapering down to a needlepoint. The metal skin was covered with millions of little fibers that felt velvety when it was still, but vibrated at high frequency when the car was in motion. It had something to do with aerodynamics, but I wasn’t sure. Dozens of skinny tires protruded below and made the whole thing look like a fat centipede. Mine, like the other RiverGroup Loop cars, was painted the company orange and blue, and on the stabilizing fins, like the dorsal fins on a fish, were the logos of the company, products, and those of our strategic partners.
Soon we were on the Loop nearing full speed. The white road and the orange guard walls on either side were a blur, but the distant mountaintops passed in stately fashion. We had left the city and were traveling through the slubs, where millions of tiny orange and yellow houses and small square buildings covered the landscape like so many bits of sand. A few of the taller and steeper mountaintops were bare, or unicorned with a transmission tower. All around, in the valleys, the air was thick with a grayish haze.
“Four point three,” announced the driver.
Releasing myself from the safety seat, I stepped back to the bathroom and leaned over the toilet. Nothing came up, but I wished I could have vomited what was supposed to make me part of my family—whatever nurture, or DNA. Finally, I stood, unhappy that I couldn’t rid myself of my lineage so easily. At the duralumin sink, I splashed water on my face then studied myself in the mirror. First I closed my left eye and lamented the pinkish tone of my cheeks and ears, which made me appear bothered and anxious. But when I closed my right, and the flush faded away, I felt I looked stronger and in control. This black and white version was the real me—the me beneath the hues.
Once I got back to my seat, I checked the camera views of the road flying past us. They were clear, but just in case, I asked the driver, “Anyone following us?”
“Negative, sir,” was the answer through the intercom.
“Nothing?” I asked, surprised.
“Negative.”
Maybe this was all it took. Maybe Father finally heard and understood. Years ago, he had finally accepted that I would no longer be the dancer he wanted me to be. Maybe today he understood that I could not and would not date Elle. And maybe he saw that our only course of action was reconciliation with MKG.
The rust-colored mountains gave way to flatter and flatter vistas covered with a crazy quilt of house developments, shopping malls, sweat shops, all interspersed with fields of corn. In the distance, a cloud of greenish vapor tinted the horizon.
At night, much of the slubs were black, but a few dots of electric light or bonfires mirrored the dozen stars in the sky. During the day, it was ugly, limitless, flat, and dull. Worse, it made me feel insignificant.
I wished Joelene were with me. She would surely applaud my daring. Several times lately, she had congratulated me on puzzles solved and initiatives taken, but this was the boldest yet.
The car began to slow, but we hadn’t even come to the Gulf Coast yet. I glanced at the red emergency stop button, with its big white E, at the front of the cabin, as if I had accidentally pushed it, but of course, I hadn’t. “Driver,” I said, “what’s the matter?” A second later, Ken Goh’s blue and orange painted face filled the screen.
“I know you just had a terrible ordeal,” he said, “and I feel very very bad for you, but your father and the company are under tremendous pressure right now.” His eyes, nostrils, and mouth were outlined in dark blue, the rest was orange so that he looked like a tangerine skull. “He is trying. He really really is.”
“He is not.”
“No, he is.” Ken had worked for Father for more than a year, but what he did besides agree with everything Father said, I didn’t know. My impression was that there was nothing inside of him. He didn’t care what he kissed, how many times, or how bad it tasted. “I know you’d agree that he’s brilliant and yet modest.” Ken smiled, and across three of his front teeth the letters y e s were stenciled in blue. “Trust me, he knows your situation and feelings.”
I snapped off the screen, but he turned it back on from his side.
“See,” he smiled a big yes smile, “your father predicted that you’d turn me off.” Leaning in, Ken whispered, “He knows. He’s much wiser than you might think.” Scrunching up his citrus face, he added, “Sure, he’s got a temper. And sometimes it flares up badly. But all great men have fits. I think it is part of being that great.” He turned to his left. “Right?”
Xavid and his huge square glasses leaned in. “Elle is a peach. Squeeze her and you’ll get nectar.”
I had liked Father’s previous hairdresser. She was a tall, bosomy matron of a lady who was always complaining about the horrible styles he wanted. But he got rid of her. Xavid was a scrawny little man who dressed mostly in oily, black sealskins. His huge amber eyeglasses made his eyes look yellow, watery, and distorted. For some reason his lips were always an odd bluish color, as if he lacked oxygen, and his little whitish tongue often darted out of the right corner of his mouth like a feeding sea worm. Mostly, he was just creepy and odd.
I clicked it off again, waited for them to come back, but it stayed dark. Just as I decided they had given up, Father’s face appeared.
“Hey, Michael,” he said slowly, “I know I was loud before. I’ve got a talent for loud.” He laughed and held his smile until it slowly wilted. “Anyway, I know you’re not into Ültra, or Heâd, or Bäng anymore.” He paused as if to lament my transformation once again. “Look,” he said, his voice quieter, “I know you’re unhappy about being shot… and everything about that… you know… and that MKG girl and everything…”
He couldn’t even say Nora’s name. I reached to turn it off.
“Wait! Hold on! I’m upset too. I really am. And you know what I think? I think that freeboot was nothing more than dick fuzz!” He held his grin as if waiting for me to agree. “Look,” he continued, after he decided that I wasn’t going to play along, “the deal is—the company needs you. We’ve got to have something for the show. So come on back home, we’ll sit down with your little tutor and we’ll get this all hammered out.”
“No.” The word came out easily and I was proud of myself. In the past, I had had trouble standing up to him. To the driver, I said, “Full speed, please.”
“Elle’s not so bad,” he continued. “You see the stats on her tits? They’re pointy!” His eyes lit up. “Remember there was a girl who looked kind of like her from the PartyHaus? She had that kind of nose.” He flicked up the end of his with a finger.
I did not remember, nor did I want to. “Driver,” I said into the intercom, “increase speed now.”
“No,” said Father, speaking louder, as if commanding my attention, “I’m pretty sure you said something about her once. You have to remember! She was the one who swallowed everyone and everything.” As he always did, he got too close to the camera, and his face became distorted so that his nose looked like the front of a blimp. “Sheila! Wasn’t that it? Remember her? Slurping Sheila we called her.”
I glared at him. Dividing her name into two faux syllables, I said, “No-ra.”
“Shut up!” he exploded. “Don’t even say her fucking name! From now on, I’m banning it.”
I reached out and flicked the off switch. Nothing happened.
“Ha!” Father winked off camera. “Lard work, Ken.”
“Please,” I said, “go away.”
“MKG is our enemy. Two minutes ago Nora’s dad was on Profit Ranch 5000. The bastard said we’re community butt plugs!”
“I’m sure he’ll apologize if we just explain.”
“No explaining! No apologizing! They rejected us, and now we’re total enemies.”
“We can go back and explain that it was no one’s fault.”
“Stop with the explaining!” He flung his hands into the air. “They want to bury us. I’m telling you, they were behind that damn freeboot. They’re against us.”
“Against us!” echoed Ken from off camera.
“I’ll talk to Nora,” I said.
Father began laughing so gutturally at first I thought he was retching. “Oh, boy! That’s a big mug of flush water!” Turning to his guys, he said, “We’re saved! He’s going to talk to the pud-girl for us. He’s going to have her go tug on her daddy’s trousers, and he’ll fix up everything!” Then he leveled a stare at me. “You’re dumb,” he said sadly. “I’m sorry, but it’s the truth. I thought you wanted to become smart! Your tutor has taught you dick spit!”
I wanted to scream at him, but that would mean loud had won. “I am not your son,” I enunciated. “I’m not a Rivers anymore.”
With a big roll of his eyes, as if I had to be fooling, he said, “Come on! You don’t have a choice there!” Then he leaned in, bumped his nose against the lens, and left a greasy spot. “If you want to get all quiet, and still, and grey, and whatever… fine! But you are Michael Rivers. You have your duty so get your ass home! Get ready for your damn publicity date, and that’s it.”
I pushed the off button as hard as I could and managed to get the screen to shut down. To the driver, I said, “Full speed,” and an instant later, the acceleration pushed me back into my seat.
It felt over. I was no longer Hiro Bruce Rivers’ son. I was no longer Michael Rivers, and I no longer had his worries. The only thing I felt was the anticipation of seeing Nora. Of inhaling air she had breathed, of touching her face, and gazing at her with my grey eye.
Then the car began to slow again. “No!” I said, “don’t stop. Speed up!”
“Sorry, sir,” was all the driver said.
“Keep going!” I switched to the next seat and jabbed a finger at the screen. An instant later, I saw Father. Now he held a glass of that horrible sweet, black, fermented carrot liquor he liked. “Let me go!”
“Oh, you’re going,” he said, as he tilted the glass and let a glob of the stuff ooze into his mouth like tar. After he struggled to swallow, he said, “And if you’re out, then you’re really out!” His foot flew up at his screen and it went black.
I asked the driver to continue to Europa-1, but outside, I could see the baffle brakes open up and the air began to howl. “Please,” I begged, “for me. For Michael Rivers, please don’t turn around.” Red and yellow emergency lights began to spin all over the car. A siren, like a slide whistle, sounded and a deep voice repeated: Warning—remain in your seat for safety.
Thirty seconds later, we had come to a stop. I turned and looked behind, afraid another car was coming. I didn’t see anything, and as I looked around at the enormous flat lands that spread out on both sides and the road that split me down the center, I started to feel a strange dread. I was no longer on my way to see Nora, but I also felt that something else was about to go terribly wrong.
On the monitors, I watched the driver get out of his cockpit at the front and come around to the side. I’d never seen a car stop on the Loop before, and wondered if maybe we were having mechanical troubles. “Everything okay?” He didn’t answer. Instead, he opened the lock on the large side door and slid it open. The air that rushed in was humid and hot and smelled like rotting garbage. “Is there a problem?”
My driver was a short man with watery eyes and gentle, worn fingers. He wore the blue and orange RiverGroup uniform. The awful blue pants, with a long, padded, orange codpiece that snaked down the right leg, were leftovers from a previous product show—a costume hand-me-down. With his head bowed, he said, “Master Rivers senior says you must leave.”
“Leave?”
“Step out of the car.”
I wanted to laugh. “Where am I supposed to go?”
Shaking his head fearfully, he said, “I’ll lose everything, sir.”
Pushing myself up, I stepped to the threshold. The direct sunlight felt like it would caramelize my skin in a minute. While I didn’t want to get out of the car, I wasn’t going to call Father and plead. Besides, stepping onto the Loop—something I never fathomed doing—was a call of his bluff. The drop to the roadway was three feet. I always entered the car from the garage platform, but was sure I could make it down. As I lowered my right foot, a line of copy from Pure H came to mind. A sad fog. We jumped anyway.
I landed awkwardly and fell into my driver’s arms. “Excuse me!” I stepped back and straightened my jacket and tie. Standing on the road’s white octagonal tiles—that had never been anything but a blur before—I found I could no longer see into the slubs. The orange safety walls on either side blocked the view. And although the road stretched to the horizon in either direction, the feeling was claustrophobic even with the sky and the blaring sun overhead. After a second, the ventilation fans hidden in the shoulders of my jacket turned on and kept me comfortable.
“There!” I said into the interior so Father could hear on the system. “I am out, but now I’m continuing to Nora.” I turned to ask my driver for help getting back in, but he was heading to the pilot’s door.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Do we have a step or something?” He climbed into the small round opening at the front and closed the door. “Hello!” I said, knocking. “I’m still out here!”
At the nose end, the car was ten feet tall. Halfway up was a curved black windshield eight feet across and eight inches tall. Trying to peer through it, I asked, “What are you doing?” The engines, which had been idling, began to rev. Banging on the windshield, I said, “Open the door! I’ll die out here.”
The car lurched forward, and I twisted out of the way before it ran me over. As the big teardrop body taxied forward, I beat on the side with my fists. “Stop it! Stop the car!” The vibrating surface felt like sandpaper, but when the engines engaged, it slipped ahead like a big blue and orange fish into the rippling heat.
“You can’t do this to me!” I screamed after it. A moment later, I laughed because I had never fathomed that my driver would do something like this, but of course, ultimately, he worked for RiverGroup and that meant Father.
Glancing around for security cameras, I said, “Joelene, can you see me? I’m on the Loop. I don’t know where I am, but please come now. My driver left me out here.” The problem was I didn’t see any channel cameras anywhere. Turning, I said, “Joelene! Please help me!” I knew that the Loop was not completely on the system, but there had to be a camera somewhere.
In the direction we had come, skittering headlights appeared in the boiling heat. For a second I panicked then decided it had to be Joelene. Or Father. Either way, I would be rescued from this reeking oven. Although I saw emergency yellows blinking, the car was still coming fast. And the sound—a high-pitched whine like a tiny but powerful drill—was getting louder by the instant.
Terrified that it would flatten me like a mosquito, I threw myself into the other lane and covered my head with my arms. As I clenched my eyes, a blast of air flattened me against the opposite wall. An instant later, I heard a tremendous crash.
Out of a murky, purple darkness, I woke. I was lying on my stomach, nose flat against the burning tiles. My head felt like it was on fire, and I could barely pull air into my lungs. My right elbow throbbed, my neck was stiff, but I was alive.
In the distance, I heard the whistling of another car approaching from the other way. Crawling on hands and knees, I scurried to the far wall and covered up. As it howled past, I was smashed into the corner, then whisked up, and tossed across the tiles like a piece of paper.
I didn’t black out, but landed on my back and slid for what must have been fifty feet. When I came to a stop, I stared up into the sky where the clouds spun around a center point. My head ached and my left leg felt broken.
Thinking I heard another car, I pushed myself up and saw lights coming from both directions. If I wasn’t run over, the opposing blasts would rip me in half.
Ten feet away, I saw an orange tarp tied to the wall as though covering a repair. If I ran toward it, grasped one of the ropes, maybe I could somehow vault over. Although my legs ached, I got myself up and started for it. After two steps, I swear a bone in my left broke, but I kept going.
As I neared the tarp, I knew I couldn’t jump over and wondered if I should just fling myself at it in desperation. Then I saw that the far end was loose and that the tarp covered an opening. Planting my right, I clasped my hands over my head, and as if I were diving into water, leapt at the hole.
The two cars whipped past at that instant and the sonic boom shot me forward like a flesh and bones bullet. The plastic-coated fabric smacked my face and wrenched my head far to the side. Then I was flopping head over foot down a sandy embankment and couldn’t tell which way was up. I thought it would never end, and then all motion came to an abrupt stop with a splash.
I lay in rank water that stunk of excrement and made me want to retch. Sitting up, I expected to find fractured bones protruding from my chest like a rack of lamb gone awry. And although my hands looked like they had gone through a zester and were well seasoned with sand and grime, I was okay. In fact, Mr. Cedar’s suit was clean dry. Of course, I had never been sitting in sewage before, but I couldn’t believe how clean it was. Dipping a sleeve into the goo, I pulled it out and watched the fabric shed the mud and sewage like water on waxed steel. Surely, its strength had saved me.
Slowly, I crawled to dryer ground, collapsed, and caught my breath. I had survived the fall. I was off the Loop and away from the cars’ whirlwinds, but I was also off the system, beyond the security cameras, and farther from the families than I had ever imagined.
Then I started to cry. Although alive, I was doomed. And I wasn’t going to see Nora! So much for touching her hand, or feeling the heat of her blood again. And so much for my declaration of independence! Now I was nothing more than a hurting body sitting in sewage somewhere in the slubs, waiting to die under the burning sun.
In Pure H issue seventeen, a nothing of a salary man decided to become immortal. After an exhaustive study of his options, he submerged himself in a geologically perfect bog and dies knowing that his body will become a fossil in a billion years.
I heard voices and laughter. Twenty yards away, in a muddy lot between what looked like abandoned warehouses, stood a dozen men. Half wore ill-fitting silvery jackets. The rest wore what looked like shiny white plastic bags. Their translucent khaki and brown pants hung like skirts. Most wore belts of rope or thick leather. Many had hair on their faces and what looked like purplish patches of skin.
All I had ever seen of the slubs were images on screens: gangs of marauders in silver, whites, and beiges, the massive, dark factories, the hordes of bugs, the wretched workers, the running noses, and the miles of polluted cornfields.
The men laughed again. Then, I heard glass breaking.
Pushing myself up, I realized that the lower left pant leg had become stiff and thick. It was like my suit had sensed that I’d cracked a bone and turned itself into a cast. I’d heard of such things, but was surprised that my tailor had outfitted me so.
Turning, I gazed up at the Loop atop a steep, sandy embankment. Before the men noticed me, I wondered if I could climb up, and walk beside it until I found a camera. Surely Joelene was monitoring the system for me.
Making my way back from where I had just come, through the mud, wasn’t easy. I couldn’t put much weight on my left leg, and at one point, my right sunk in so far I wasn’t sure if I could pull it out. What I had to do was fall back into the gunk and slowly wiggle it free. Several times, I stopped to rest and let what felt like white-hot embers of pain in my left subside.
When I got to the base of the Loop, I doubted I could make it. It was thirty feet high and steep. After I took a breath, I started to climb, but when I dug my fingers into the sticky soil, black roaches scurried out of holes as if I had disturbed their sleep. I got maybe three feet before the soil let go and a half-ton of it avalanched down.
After slapping the bugs from all over, digging dirt from my eyes, nose, and ears and spitting the stuff from my mouth, I tried again. This time I went slower, but my climbing had brought out so many waterbugs I spent half my time flicking them off my arms and legs. When I got four feet high, the earth let go again and half-buried me in a mound. Once I had pulled myself out and cleaned off, I felt sick. I vomited blood, and knew I didn’t have much time.
Turning, I watched the men. One had taken off his silver jacket and was waving his arms about as if explaining something. The sleeves of his undershirt—if that’s what it was—hung to his knees like long pillowcases.
The undershirt man began wrestling one of the others in white plastic. They pushed each other back and forth and shouted. When the plastic man fell, the others cheered. I feared they were going to start kicking him or pummeling him, but a moment later the fallen man was helped up. They all laughed as though it was fun.
They were people, I reminded myself. They weren’t unlike me. They just lived in a different place and wore different clothes. Some of them had to be friendly and polite.
Pulling myself out of the sand, I stood, and started limping toward them, avoiding the deeper water and mud and muck. When I was ten feet away, the one in his undershirt pointed at me. He had frizzy-looking light brown hair, round, bloodshot eyes, a thin crooked nose, and a patch of oozing purple skin on his forehead. Up close, I could see that his undershirt was a ghastly nonwoven that looked as rough as unfinished oak plank. Just below the neckline was a small, blue bug-looking thing with text below that read M. Bunny. Pointing at me, he said, “I thought I recycled you!”
The others laughed.
I tried to smile, but felt instantly ostracized. One of them in a silvery jacket pointed to my suit, snickered, and nudged the man next to him. Another said something about my bride throwing me in the ocean and I wondered if they knew of Nora. Pure H issue seven had copy that read: Mechanical Man. Exquisite Oceans. After swallowing a knot in my throat, I said, “Hello. I’m Michael Rivers.”
“Who?” asked the man I presumed was Mr. Bunny.
“First son of RiverGroup.”
“No!” said another. “What shitting team you with?”
“He doesn’t shit. That’s why his jacket is that color!” answered someone else.
They all laughed.
“I fell from the Loop,” I continued. “Can anyone help me back?”
“He’s the enemy!”
“He stinks!” said another, covering his nose.
“I used to dance,” I said, hoping they might know me from my PartyHaus days. “I was on the channels.” None of it seemed to register. Instead they giggled and pushed each other like schoolboys.
“He’s ill and delusional,” said one.
“Could be high-fructose psilocybin!”
“Wait!” said Bunny, as he looked me up and down. “He thinks he’s the one who dressed in gold.”
It was true. I had a twenty-eight-carat-gold outfit. “Yes,” I said, glad he remembered if disheartened how.
Bunny stepped beside me, and as if introducing me to the group, said, “You slubber idiots, it’s the evil banging-boy. In the deadest jacket ever seen with his diseased face in need of serious recycling!” He got them to laugh again.
I tried to smile to show that I didn’t mind, but worried that no good was going to come of them. I wished I had blacked out in the mud and suffocated.
“That’s not him!” said another, who had hair all over his face. “That kid was the richest pill ever. He’d never be here.”
“Yeah,” concurred Bunny. Wiping his dripping nose with one of his huge sleeves, he asked, “Who are you, and who do you shit for?”
“I need to get back to the families,” I said, as a ripple of fear, like gamma rays passed through me.
“I don’t want to hear any families!” The thing on his forehead oozed a yellowish puss, and he smelled like rancid frying oil.
“If he came off the Loop,” said someone. “Could be soaking with p’thylamine!”
“Satins will zap a slubber dead if you get up there,” said one of the others. “They electrocuted my uncle. Half his body was burned away. Couldn’t get anything for him.”
I retreated a step from Bunny and tried to make eye contact with the other men. “Will someone help me?” No one spoke. “I could assist you,” I suggested. “I know we’re supposed to be foes, but I could have some clothes tailored for you.” They looked at each other and laughed again.
“What’s wrong with our knits?” Bunny wanted to know, as he primped his sleeves and smoothed the stiff spunlaid material over his belly.
“No, nothing,” I said, taking another step backwards. “Sorry. Um… my family company keeps information… and… identity and…” Bunny glared at me as if I wasn’t making any sense. My voice trailed off.
“Michael Rivers,” said a female voice from farther back in the group. A short, chubby woman in red shorts, a sparkling red bra, and a small, white plastic jacket stepped forward. Her hair reminded me of Mother’s from last time—a stiff, multi-colored muddle shaped like a garden shrub—only hers was so laden with tiny silvery trinkets, it sparkled and tinkled like an enormous charm bracelet. Around her otherwise naked belly was a wide red plastic belt with a large button in the middle. “I heard he’s getting married to that Gonzalez-Matsu girl next week.”
“I was going to,” I said, “but there were complications.”
“Complications!” roared Bunny. “There’s going to be more than complications when they grind your ass into pâté and spread you on bunny crackers!”
Everyone laughed except the woman. Instead, she peered at me suspiciously.
“I am Michael Rivers,” I told her, and thought I saw a glimmer of recognition in her eyes. I quoted, “The moment became her life.” Her expression darkened, and I cursed myself for thinking she knew Pure H.
Tilting her head to the right as if sizing me up, she said, “You look like that boy.”
“If he is,” said one of the men, “he is a big pill.”
Bunny said, “Pay for all of us to do Kandi’s hole.”
“Shut up!” she snarled.
“I was playing!” he said. “Next time you’re at the clinic, get a humor implant!”
Curling a lip, she said, “No more for you. Never again!”
“I was just joking!”
While the other men made cooing sounds, Kandi stepped forward and asked, “What are you doing here, honey?”
“I don’t know,” I said, glancing at her belt. The thing in the middle wasn’t a button but a plastic lid attached to her stomach.
She noticed my eye-line. “You want it?” she asked, with a sly grin. “You have to wash, honey.” She licked her lips and smiled.
It felt like the cooling system in Mr. Cedar’s suit had given out. “No, thank you,” I stammered, ashamed. I knew what it was: she had a vagina implanted where her bellybutton had been. Back when I danced, some women had it done, but it was terribly out of fashion in the cities now.
Meanwhile, the men were laughing at me again. Someone had said virginity. Another said spilling Grandma’s gravy, whatever that meant.
“Can’t you help me,” I asked the woman. “Please?”
“You got money?” she asked. “You with Segu or Bunny or what?”
I glanced at the logo on the front of Bunny’s shirt, but didn’t know what she meant. And since I didn’t carry any money, I didn’t know what to offer. Touching my chest, I said, “What about my Mr. Cedar jacket?”
She curled a lip. “That thing?”
It was Bunny who touched the fabric. “Weird thing is,” he said, “you’re covered with shit, but the knit is all sweet and pretty.”
While I wanted to tell him that it wasn’t an awful knit, I thought better of it. “It’s self-cleaning,” I said, hoping it might impress them. “It also has a temperature control system. My tailor is famous. He’s from outside Seattlehama. It’s probably worth…” Since I had never directly paid, I had no idea. “Maybe seventy-five billion?”
I saw green and red bits of food on Bunny’s tongue when he laughed. “You’re a fucking round sugar pill. Stupid and blank.”
“I’m not sure exactly,” I said. “My family buys them.”
His fist came at me in a blur and hit me in the gut. Next, I was on the ground trying to get air back into my lungs.
“Don’t be stupid,” he said, wiping the drip from his nose. “I’m intelligent, disease-boy! And your ugly, gray, sick jacket isn’t even worth a good shit.”
As the woman came to my side, she said, “You’ve got a bad testosterone imbalance!” to Bunny.
“Fuck you!” he screamed, then opened a small jar and tossed several tiny emerald tablets onto his tongue.
When the rest of the men teased Bunny, he hit the back of the woman’s head and knocked her across me. As three others helped her up, I saw that the lid on her belly had fallen off. Inside was a wrinkled daffodil of purple and pink flesh. I turned away as she grabbed the lid and snapped it back on.
“No looking,” said Kandi angrily. “That’s ten right there!”
“You contaminated whore!” said Bunny. “I’m taking him in for recycling. You take all your fake cunts and get out!”
“Go have a cell storm!” she scoffed. From a beaded red bag, she got out a pill and popped it into her mouth. As though it gave her strength, she stood, and said, “Don’t get near me.” She grasped my arm, yanked me up, and nearly dislocated my shoulder. I tried not to cry out. “Come on,” she said, tugging my hand, “we’re going.”
“No, you’re not!” Bunny grasped my other arm and the two of them played tug-of-war with me. I lost my footing, and when she let go, fell face first in the mud.
Then I heard shouting and feet going in all directions. Pushing myself up, I saw three large men dressed in orange satin skiing down the sandy embankment where I had fallen. Family satins! I was saved.
The one in front, who wore a helmet with a gold visor, hoisted a clear fashion rifle to his shoulder. He fired. An orange streak zipped through the air. To my right, I heard a soft thud. Someone in the distance screamed. Then it was quiet.
“Michael Rivers?” asked the satin in the gold visor, as he stepped before me.
“Yes.” I coughed. “Thank you.”
Grasping me under the arms, he lifted me, and threw me over his shoulder. From there, I could see Kandi face up in the mud. Blood covered her implant. No! I thought, not her!
The Loop was blocked in both directions and an air-conditioned tent had been set up. To the left sat Ken, Xavid, and the film crew on folding chairs. On a puffy, orange, over-inflated marshmallow of a couch were Father and one of his women, like king and queen of the Loop. In his right hand he held a glass of his fermented carrot gunk. With his big pink straw, he idly poked at the stuff.
He wore white pants with little blinking blue dots all over them, a red shirt with RiverGroup logos and fornicating bunnies, and a tiny, frosty green vest that looked like it might properly fit an infant. His current girl had orange hair, blue lips, and the sort of haughty, upturned nose that he preferred. Her frilly, awful pink and green dress ended at her midriff so the whole world could see the orange-painted treats inside her translucent bloomers. I didn’t see Joelene and figured he forbid her.
The satin had set me before them on a wooden crate. My whole body hurt. My right elbow throbbed as if it were shattered. When I wiped my mouth, I saw a brilliant smear of blood on the back of my hand. And even seated, I had trouble keeping myself upright. All I wanted was to be put out of my misery.
“So,” said Father, “how’s things?” He laughed, winked toward his ever-present film crew, and then nudged the girl who had become absorbed with a tiny golden robot that lived in her navel. Seemingly annoyed that he hadn’t gotten a big laugh, he said, “Hold this, spaceship!” and thrust his glass at her. After glancing at the hole in the Loop wall, he asked, “What were you thinking? First, it’s illegal to go into the slubs. They are the enemy. The families are gonna fine us big for this. And second, they’re all drugged-up savages down there. It’s hell. There’s no system, and there’s not one good satin.”
Pointing at Gold Visor, I said, “He killed that woman!”
“He did not!” He stood and stretched his back. “Besides she’s one of those stupid bellybutton whores anyway. That’s like so old!” Then he turned to the right, held his chin with a hand, as if trying to look philosophical or letting the camera soak up his profile. “What we’re doing—and I’m saying this because you don’t seem to be catching on—is we’re talking about family. And we are a family. I’m the dad; you’re the son. It’s a natural thing for us to be at odds at times. It’s how it goes with fathers and sons.” He glanced at the girl. She nodded weakly. “And as I see it, the funny thing is, we’re the same in so many ways. I know you don’t see it, but I do.”
“Is she really ok?”
“You used a fuckin’ tranquilizer?” he asked the satin.
“Sir!” Was he replied.
“There!” said Father. “Anyway, my dad, Alexander Rivers, built RiverGroup—”
“I’ve heard this a trillion times,” I interrupted.
“A trillion and one!” he screamed. “Anyway, Dad was a fuckin’ genius. He invented the little box; he programmed it so it kept things secret and secure and just right, and soon, everyone had to have one. And low and behold, RiverGroup becomes so big the controlling families have to let us in. We’re part of the system: we vote on the rules and kick ass when necessary. We’re lard. Hard lard.” Shaking his head sadly, he added, “He was so completely super-super smart! Do you even understand what he did?”
I nodded, because I wanted him to stop. My head and spine were throbbing. “Where’s my advisor?”
“You don’t need her! Be a man for once.” Squinting, he paused. Then his eyes shot back and forth. “Right!” he said, snapping his fingers, “anyway, Dad invented a way to completely cloak something. You could send it from A and it arrived at B, but in the middle, it was gone. It was vanished. It literally did not exist. Or you could put whatever you needed in the box and no one but you could get it. No one. Ever. Completely and totally secure because until you looked inside, it didn’t exist.” He laughed. “I think about how crazy genius that was every single day.” He waved to Ken and Xavid and asked, “Right? Dad was a super genius?” Ken gave two thumbs up. Xavid nodded vigorously, then pushed up his huge amber glasses. “So, there’s money and power, and more money, and more power and then… and then came me!” Holding up his arms as if to the gods above, he screamed, “Then came Hiro Bruce Rivers!”
His arms flopped to his sides. His head fell onto his chest. “I had to come along and fuck it all up. Even before the freeboot shot you, I had done a pretty good job of ruining the whole damn thing.” He shook his head. “I’m the biggest idiot in the world!”
“No, you’re not!” said the girl, with her bottom lip sticking far out.
“Thanks,” said Father, coochie-cooing the girl’s chin.
Ken spoke up. “It’s a difficult time. Very difficult time.”
“You’ve done exceptionally!” added Xavid.
“You guys are too much,” he said, exhaling a deep breath. “I wouldn’t be here without you two!” He faced me and continued. “So anyway, Dad croaks. We have him cremated, sprinkle his ashes on a bunch of naked high school girls playing volleyball, and I take over. And since that instant—since that exact instant—everything went butt rocket.” As an aside, he added, “All you can argue is how fast.” Then he laughed at himself. “So, my fabulous, giant, and genius point is,” he said, as if trying to regain his momentum, “I’m sorry. I screwed up. But I can’t let the company turn into fuck water. I want you to have something when I die, and merging with Ribo-Kool is the only way.”
He had admitted that he was an idiot before, but it never prevented him from being an idiot again. “Let’s go back to MKG.”
“Nooo!” he screeched like a baby. “Don’t say those three letters! I hate them. And you know what the new rumor is? They’re gonna make a big announcement soon, like they think they have a big booger on their finger and want to show the world!” He turned to his girl, “Right, my little pünta?”
She giggled obliviously and then pouted. “It’s stinky out here.”
“Yeah… stinky!” he said inhaling deeply and appreciatively, as if odor were his own invention. A second later, he dropped to his knees. “Look here, son, I’m begging you. The company really needs your help.” He smiled a big phony smile. “You’ll do it?
“No.”
“Do you see my knees on the ground? That means I’m begging you. I’m really begging you!” After a beat, his shoulders sank and he sat back on his haunches. “Fine. I grant you, it’s not real begging. There is a difference. In real begging, I’m just on my knees… you know… begging.” He scrunched up his mouth as if he thought he was being clever. “Here, if you don’t do what I want, I’ll throw you over the wall and let those slubbers slice you into hors d’oeuvres.”
My head hurt so much and felt so heavy I could barely keep upright, but I did my best to stare back at him.
“But technically, with the knees on ground, it is begging. And you can tell people I begged you if you want. Right, guys?”
“Tell them your father begged you, Master Rivers! Big deal, that!”
“Extra-extraordinary,” said Xavid.
“Anyway,” he said, “we’ve got an agreement, right? You go on your publicity date with Elle—pretend to like the bitch if you have to—but be nice, and at the product show you say good things, and smile for the cameras. Do that and I’m not going to dump you back into slub hell. That’s our full agreement.”
I glanced toward the hole in the Loop wall. I wouldn’t last for more than minutes there, but I didn’t want to go back. I couldn’t betray Nora and our dreams.
“You hear me?” he screamed.
I wished a Loop car would run him over—or both of us.
“You hear what I’m fucking saying?” The veins on his forehead and neck bulged. “Say something! Open your fucking mouth and push some air over your vocal chords.”
“No!”
Father snapped his fingers. In an instant, Gold Visor picked me up by my ankles and held me over the Loop wall. At first, the rush of blood to my head felt good, but soon the pressure made my eyeballs feel like they were going to burst. Then my stomach felt like it was going to slide down my throat.
“Which is it?” asked Father. “Are you going on the date, or should I have him drop your ass?”
Beneath me, I could see the sandy embankment, the rank water, the dirty square where the slubbers had been, and the body of the prostitute, where swarms of black flies now crawled over her face and bloody abdomen.