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Making a dart for the staircase, she still couldn’t escape the light of the kitchen down the hall, and the voice of her Mother, who’d been sitting there, waiting…
“Rachael?”
“Yes, mom…”
“I’m not sure about this guy, what’s his name…” she said, without preface.
“Kim.” Replied Rachael with a little too loud a tone. She was surprised that her first concern was Kim, not the fact that she was getting in at nearly midnight.
“What’s wrong with Kim? He’s so sweet and innocent.”
“Helen says he’s a little…off.”
“Off?”
“Those were her words?”
“How would Helen know Kim mom?”
“I don’t know but Jenny sure talks up a storm about you two as well…”
“Mom, just between you and me, Jenny is a stupid little half-wit and anyway, has seen and hung out with us, like, once. What else did Helen say about him?”
“Look I’m not a racist sweetheart but he is Eastern Pacific. All I’m saying is that he may be a little…well, different for you.”
“Different? Mom, he’s grown up like, all around the world, speaks English better than I do, with an American accent, no less, and–I know what you don’t like about him—he’s different, like everyone else I like that you don’t. He’s not gonna pick up a golf club and start going to the range like you and John mom, but that doesn’t make him a psycho.”
“I have no idea where you’re getting these ideas from, but all I’m saying is that you two might have some cultural differences to work through, and besides, is he even going to College?”
“Where the hell are you getting this from mom??’ ”
“All right Rachael, so Helen knows his parents.”
“Helen knows a lot of people doesn’t she?”
“She’s on the PTA, goes to Wakefield Chapel Rec., golfs with me and the community and is in touch with nearly every out reach group in Fairview.”
“So, what, what mom? What inextricable evidence do you have against my Boyfriend?”
Pam had known at least part of how sexually active Rachael had been and didn’t care so much about that, but had no idea she would go as far as to have a Boyfriend at this age.
“What? Boy—what???”
“That’s right, my Boyfriend mom!” she declared with utter confidence, wondering how she’d bring this up to Kim tomorrow.
“So, tell me mom, make an argument for once, what exactly do you not like about Kim?”
“I don’t appreciate having my intelligence insulted young lady.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t appreciate these little nightly interrogations.”
“Oh get off it Rach—so melodramatic, everything has to be this big soap opera with you.”
“Mom, look around you, life is a soap opera, especially when John and you pick a fight by the way.”
“OK, that’s it, up to your room you go Rachael!”
“By the way, you’re grounded.”
“What—”
“—I didn’t forget you were late.”
“You never forget anything mom,” Rachael said, and quickly climbed the stairs off to bed.
The next morning Rachael waited in the car in the sluttiest outfit she could find: The shortest little miniskirt she had, hoop earrings, plastered red lipstick, overdone mascara, and a sleeveless tacky yellow open belly shirt constricting her tits looking like they might pop out at any moment.
“You’re Jon here, at your service!” said her mom. “You’re not going to school in that.”
“Apparently, mom, I am.”
Pam took in a long breath and let it out steadily.
“Fine, you be mommy’s little Hooker today, how about that?”
“Mom, in case you hadn’t noticed, every girl’s a hooker nowadays.”
“Yeah, well, that doesn’t mean you have to be.”
“How you’re ever going to get a guy to stay with you, let alone marry you dressing like that.”
“People don’t stay out of how you dress, they stay cause they love you, or they should or they’re fucked up.”
“No, Rachael, no matter what anybody tells you, a guy stays with a good girl, and leaves the sluts at the bachelor party.”
“Where’d you get that, you’re weekly issue of Good Housekeeper? Actually, studies will show you most people regardless of what they say, cheat on each other at least 35% of the time, if not half.”
“There you go again with those statistics, but statistics won’t tell you anything. You’ll learn, they don’t have anything to do with the world and certainly aren’t going to win you a man, Rach.”
“Whoever said I wanted a man anyway…?”
To this her mom simply shook her head and clasped the steering wheel tighter.
“Why don’t we drive the Capris mom, this is such a gas machine.”
“Rachael, both our cars take gas.”
“Yes, Mother, but one of them consumes far less energy in gas than the other, plus this big ol boat Cadillac all the time gets old.”
“Rach, a car’s a car, and cars take gas and cost money, and you can’t ever predict gas prices anyway.”
“Actually mom, I think the Cadi takes far more considering its old, and the Capris is built as a partially Bio- Based car anyway. What do you mean you can’t predict them?”
“I mean it just depends, like where we’re going for one thing.”
“Where we’re going, mom, gas isn’t that expensive near The City.”
“One gas station is totally different from the next.”
“What are you talking about mom? How much different, like what are the rates?”
“A lot.”
“Like how much?”
“I don’t know Rachael, how much, I mean…”
“If you don’t know, why’d you say they’re totally different?”
“Okay, well this is a bit more of an adult concern, but if you really must know Miss Smartypants, gas is completely a different price depending on what station you’re at.”
“Like, how much? They’re not that much different in price per area.”
“I don’t know Rach—like, Lidel’s is 153A’s to the liter, but if you go to Ruby X it could be like 162 or something, and if you go outside CAMBIAN it could be astronomical.”
“How are those so totally different mom, what’s astronomical?”
“What’s astronomical? Like 168 is one I saw the other day.”
“Mom there’s an average gas price in this area and in all the ‘totally’ different prices you just quoted, there isn’t more than a 15% separation from the first to the third, your most astronomical example. At most your only spending like four thousand which is like 350A’s to fill your tank–not that much. And just so you know, things are totally different when there’s a shift of close to at least like 30% or more. Plus the fact that the Capris gets 45K a liter and this car, prolly close to like 25 or 30 at best.”
“Yeah, then spend two hours in traffic and have half your tank gone by the time you get home.”
“Mom, there’s no way half a tank is spent in two hours idling even through dense traffic. Even this car is like a 20 liter carrier, if you get 25 kilometers to the liter, you’d have to have traveled equivalent to like 250 Kilometers, like almost halfway to New York! Simply in two hours of idling through a traffic jam?? I don’t think so.”
“New York is less than 250 Kilometers, way less.”
“No, it’s not, New York is like 6 or 7 hundred Kilometers from here.”
“Whatever Rachael, I go up to New York once every year, it can’t be that far. When was the last time you went to New York?”
“Mom, that doesn’t matter, believe it or not, a fact is a fact regardless of whether Rachael or Pam has visited New York, now or ever. And I assure you New York is like I think 667 Kilometers away. If we were in the Capris I would just ask Janus, bet you two days off from school, I’m right.”
“Oh God Rachael, you and your father both, always into these endless numbers. Numbers, numbers, numbers, statistics and numbers. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again–the real world isn’t as simple as a bunch of numbers or percents. And I assure you, gas is quite expensive these days.”
“That’s not what I was saying—that’s not even what we were—Forget it, let’s just get on the road…”
Pam had stopped facing her daughter a long time ago and was more than ready even before she stopped speaking.
The heavy traffic started in their neighborhood, taking five times as much as an everyday commute in terms of getting to the highway. Consequently, they passed through a detour to avoid hitting the crest of the Mountaina Village suburb, and even headed through D.C. this time to get to school.
Once they finally got out of the suburbs, office buildings and shopping centers marked their graduation into the urban environment. Rachael always tended to look up at the buildings while her mom curiously enough, never seemed to divert her attention, as scenic a ride it might be, her eyes never deviated from the road.
“Hey look mom, there’s the old Chinese parlor.”
“Oh yeah, we used to get Ice Cream there.”
“Well, ya ma, it’s an Ice Cream—Parlor.”
“Right.”
They passed a few hot dog stands and the CAMBIAN City Library when they suddenly found themselves stuck in traffic.
“Oh great, I’m gonna be late for work and you’re gonna be late for school,” her mom said, nodding her head, half in expectation, half in a feeling of security.
“Hey mom! Fuck! Look, there’s a guy up on the building there!”
“Rachael, enough language okay?!”
“No, seriously, Mom, look, right there!” She pointed to the very top of a tall glass office building where indeed stood a man, alone.
Pam tore her vision from out of her mental blinders long enough to take the briefest of glances. “It’s probably just some prospector.”
“Ah, it’s kinda weird mom, I never see anyone on top of those buildings.”
“I suppose you’ve kept track of exactly that building in particular.”
“Well, yeah, actually, I’ve always done that.”
She looked closer with the vision on her Switch-Light. He had on a wife-beater T and business slacks. He also appeared to be on the very edge of the building from her point of view, looking down.
“He’s gonna jump!”
“Oh come off it Rachael! More melodrama.”
She kept looking, zooming in further. He didn’t jump, just stood there.
“Actually, he’s just standing there.”
“Enough Rachael.”
***
When she got to school, Dave and Linda were in their usual place underneath the staircase to the first floor by the exit doors.
“Hey Dave, Linda…”
“So how was the rest of the party? What’d you guys end up doing?”
“Eh, it petered out, everyone ended up going out to a late night diner and eating breakfast. Dave ended up hitting on one of the old bags that worked there, he is such a fiend.”
“Why the long faces guys?”
“We have an Assembly today.” said Linda as if exhaling her last breath.
“Oh Christ, are you serious? Ugh.”
“Yeah, some douche-motivational speaker.” added Dave.
Linda continued. “Wait, it’s an Assembly, I mean, isn’t that good, we’re gettin’ outta class? And I think he’s like someone famous though or something, some dude named Edwin or some shit…He’s with um, ya know something affiliated with what Jenny’s mom does, at least that’s what I heard Jenny say. Plus, apparently he’s like, Totally Hot.”
“Oh yeah? We’ll somethin’ to look at, at least? How long is it supposed to last?”
“I don’t know, like maybe an hour, I’m sure he’s not the only one speaking.”
“You guys wanna pop some Meds before class?”
“Naw, I feel like shit anyway.” said Rachael.
Linda merely waved her hand in dismissal of the drugs he was offering.
“Hey, what the hell, is that him?” Linda inquired with a brief sense of urgency.
There stood a very tall, slender man with stern broad shoulders wearing a jet-black suit and silky blood red tie. He was smiling and chatting a bit with the school Principal, Mrs. Elaine Kimsky. His smile looked inviting, but something about him kept you looking rather than simply wanting to approach him.
“Well, I’m getting wet,” Linda pointed out, adding nicely to what Rachael had been thinking.
“Yeah, Jenny said he used to be married to some model or something, very Haute Couture kinda guy.”
“Hmm. How come he’s the motivational speaker at a school like Fairview?”
“I don’t know, it’s a rich area, maybe he’s making his rounds to future lawyers, Techies and doctors and shit.”
When it came time for the Assembly, Rachael made sure she had her Switch-Light to take a picture. Her second Session teacher, Mrs. Arola, lead her class to the entrance to the theatre.
The kids shuffled into the auditorium in the manner of horses filling an oversized stable. The large Views on either side of the stage faded in and out of Ads for Bitzeri and other sub-companies. Fashion had been the Ad Theme for last month. Now it was food, and Camello’s was actually one of the Ads featured.
Rachael caught a glimpse of Ms. Deanard, her Psych teacher heading to the double doors of the auditorium.
“You guys ready to get pumped?!” Cried Dave who’d snuck up right behind Rachael.
“Fuck off Dave, this is serious,” she retorted in the most ridiculously sarcastic voice she could muster.
girl thoughts Vesper Heliotropic Graphic Novel
“Schr–pecken Zi- R’aLAnglaissS?”
“Yes, yes, we speak English, thanks,” said Pam.
“It’s an opening line mom!” said Rachael, chagrinned.
It was a very small blonde Japanese girl on a levitating Segway. She had on the shortest little orange miniskirt, fake NeauTats, bubble GumLips, retro airbrushed mascara, and candy blue eyes. “Oh, ok, um, what’s the Offset today?”
“Um–”
Rachael chimed in. “She means the like, what is it, Projection Costs for the end of the meal.
Her Grandfather went off to the restrooms after making the long journey out of his booth.
“Ah–I think…Let me come back to you.”
“Fine,” said Pam, dismissively.
The waitress came back with news on her face.
“We are protected under First Privacy Rights or whatev, um, well, you guys have nothing to worry about.”
“Oh okay fine then,” said Pam, instantly reposing to her colorful Static cardboard menu.
“Wait, what do you mean?”
“Ah–”
After a while the manager arrived.
“Hey you guys, is there a difficulty ordering, I ah–my Server Angela here told me there were some questions that you had…”
Both of them at once. “Yes,” “No.”
“Rachael forg–”
“–What’s the meal gonna be at the end of the stay here?”
“You mean…the price?”
“It’s fixed on the menu.”
“Fixed, meaning, it changes.”
“Well, it can change, but it doesn’t usually.”
“Why is that? What is this?”
“Well, we’re immune to Price Projections cause of Bitzeri.”
“Cause of Bitzeri, how?”
“She is still four years old good sir, don’t worry about it, go about your business,” dismissed her mom.
Rachael didn’t care quite enough to press on.
“Ok Rach and Nana, while we’re waiting… why don’t wait a little bit longer until your Grampy comes back and then we’ll ah, well, we’ll start opening presents…?” It was also her Nana’s birthday, or at least, they were celebrating it today.
When Grampy came back he still had nothing to say and looked sick. “You okay Grampy?” inquired her mom, formalistically. “He’s all right,” reassured Nana.
Unwrapping of presents had been going on in the meantime. Pam had actually given Rachael a set of NeauDice, and she was beaming out of it. “Thanks mom,” she was utterly surprised. How’d she remember, she never remembers anything important…?
In another, slightly larger box, Rachael again bolded her eyes and then squinted a out of what might have been shock. There it was, the holy grail: “NeauMaquillage!”
“Oh my God oh my God, thank you so much Mom!” The inside was nothing but a tini-black box that could barely be seen inside a clear white box. It had a large CAMBIAN insignia that burned its way to the top seemingly rising from inside some kind of invisible liquid. She touched it and it came to life, first turning a dark steel black, like some kind of molten liquid, after which it opened and gave a little Halo presentation of the assortment of different ways to make use of the little blue stick set in the center of the black steel.
Rachael picked it up and examined it as it were a little wounded bird, cupping it in her palm and raising it to try and make out details on the muted material. There were none.
“Remember Rach, when you go back to the presentation, touch instructions and it’ll tell you all about it. You gotta put it in its box every night now…”
“Oh, really why”
“Yeah, I don’t know, but that’s what it says…”
Rachael replayed the last part of the presentation.
“It says it needs to soak…” Rachael then turned to her mom and looked at her glassy eyes. She was trying to look in. Was it in her head or was her mom just impenetrable. At least she hadn’t stopped smiling, and that seemed genuine.
Pam even gave her a big hug after that when she said thank you. She held her tight and seemed to tremble slightly. No one else would have noticed, it was faint and subtle, but Rachael did.
“Okay folks, let’s start picking up this wrapping paper eh?” said Pam, Nana and Grampy had opened their presents halfway. Nana had indeed opened the first of three little boxes and beheld a set of incense candles and a Rap Music gift receipt.
“Nana you sure do like you’re ghettie rap huh?” Rachael was feeling generous. “Yeaahup,” said she, from another world, blank eyes.
Pam took up the baton. “So, we’re…we’ll this is what your Grampy picked out for us to see tonight…
The waitress decided to leave and come back. “It’s okay, he left abruptly, so…” Rachael said to the waitress, apologetically. Pam didn’t even think of it.
Pam distributed the brochure like pamphlets to everyone and left one sitting there for the ol’ Colonel on his place setting.
Rachael then faintly pantomimed all the actions involved, had she vomited all over the table when she thought everyone’s attention was securely sucked into their spectacles, reading… Her Nana, her Grandmother, caught it, sitting right in front of her, amongst the four of them at the round loud yellow table. She then gave her a brief smile, but then a half-joking look of warning.
“At Last, Something Wicked,” it read, a Playbill for some cheese-ass, as Rachael would put it– ‘old-people play.’ All the actors and actresses were featured as glossy crystal clear and colorful images and indeed, were all seniors of the Bitseri-Maryland Resort itself. The peppier ones. Or at least, Senior actors of the München District.
“So…” It was the ‘I have news tone,’ Pam always used.
But Rachael stopped thinking of that and settled into a weary feeling creeping down her spine…
“We have someone waiting actually!” said Pam, now beaming of some virginal light.
Standing there, right there, coming into her vision, was a tall attractive boy with dirty blonde hair. Beside him was Helen, directly in tow.
Rachael turned to Pam instantly. She’d already processed what she thought her mom’s root motive was in this.
“Mom, that is fucking not fair, you did not tell him there would be this kind of company.
She thought she was using her mom’s own sense of etiquette against her, but it was no use.
“I do not fucking care, you will take him and her away, as soon as we get a break!” She was whispering. Violently.
Her mom merely smiled, gloating. Then reached over to take Rachael aside.
“Give us a moment.” She had not ceased to beam light.
“Rachael, I know I just brought it up, but Helen contacted me because there’s a new event, soon, for engineers, and girls have a leg up being a minority…”
There was a dagger of betrayal engulfing Rachael’s throat, making it thicker and thicker, breathing harder and somehow clearer, profound gasps, though she was trying to hide the physicality of her indignation. Tears were welling up. Arms were cold and jittery.
Yet she could not in that moment muster the feelings of hatred for her mom at the likes of clear and rational Helen. Lone Helen, as of Troy? Maybe not, Rachael considered. But of somewhere better, and got plopped into this shit, this culture…then ended up believing half of it…
Such was Rachael’s theory anyway.
The betrayal in that moment, was mixing in, not like oil and water, but homogenizing into a distinct affection for Helen.
Girls don’t fucking have periods anymore, Camille! What the hell is causing these emotions!?
Rachael thought this, reproachfully, yet eagerly and in some way, unidentifiably greedy for it. Whatever ‘it’ was.
Andrew was an Adonis.
Vesper Heliotropic Excerpt Sons of the Silent Age
The multitude of paper Thyn, textureless, organic and intelligent data systems comprised the surface of its perfectly self-illuminated white walls, cascading fourteen meters tall, from ceiling to floor, covering every inch of the length of the Hall. There were featureless steel looking vaults at either end. Only spoken User-Authorized command could let anyone in, and only those pre-Authorized on the fly, every time anyone entered. Even the echoes of voices were dwarfed by the immensity of the space it enclosed. And it was wet, but only on either side, so the floor and ceiling were perfectly dry. Thin, and sometimes, micro Thyn waterfalls of all kinds of speed and slowness fell either toward or away from gravity, only to disappear, then seemingly reappear from the ceiling. Or was it the floor? One couldn’t tell the difference unless the streams were ‘mapped out.’
“We’re all glad you’re back Helen,” said her boss, Dr. Damiand, his voice, echoing next to the quietly streaming water putting a dancing light on Helen’s smooth round face. Her eyes were even more crystalline in the blue and yellows reflected off the sparkling falls. The side of her face that stood next to the water, caught the glint of a sharp melting pocket of light when it mixed in with her hair.
“Yes, good to be back!”
She’d taken off a few days from work to help David with the yard software.
“Yeah, good to have you back!” he repeated as if nothing had been said the moment previous. “We were getting a tad worried you’d get too used to the retired life, after three days, that is…”
Helen moved the petrie dish that seemed to have nothing on it, from one tiny rectangular white plate to another, then began to feed it into the blank wall. The flowing water opened smoothly, like a curtain, its edges quickly conforming to the shape of her hand. Her delicate finger tips pressed to the surface of the unrelenting Wall, perfectly dry, as it took in the petrie dish. A featureless levitating metal slate stood beside her at arm’s level that held a whole set of different lengths of Thyn glass cylinders, a dull surface to each one. They looked almost too Thyn to support their own length.
She and the head Dr. or U-Dr., were in the Una-Hall, right there in the center of the ‘Higher Dynamics’ department at UNATRAD Headquarters, deep within the compound she had so acclimated to over the years.
The walls had no markings on them of any kind other than the fact that it was white and the surface looked like seamless, polished marble. It was actually a series of machines with interacting nodes that lit up if anyone touched any of them. The vault door they were closest to, looked to be the size of a car wheel, the other, the diameter of a dime.
“Turn on the Emo-Reader,” said the Dr.
“Yes, of course,” said Helen. “Yes, Final Sunset please, it will soothe her…”
Helen clicked her fingers over a few green squares that emerged from the wall as buttons and then receded back into the wall as if never having changed its shape. This activated a set of instructions read in yellow light with light grey outlines, emerging as real as ink on paper, in the consistency and most of the physics of both. This was her work, she and this wall. “Me and my wall,” she’d joke about at home. She could say certain things, as long as they were without context or claim. It was here on the surface of the wall that Helen spent most of her hours and days. She lived through this, because she couldn’t think outside of ‘the many.’ Not in a serious way. She was and would always be of the few, and for the many.
The instructions that had appeared, were as follows:
U CAN = Run. Syntha TURBINES Cron Manager Commencing via POWERLITE INC. = NMR to CVR 25655 (Africa) S C E N A R I O
THEN. U = Enis.
UNDER. U = Run 62% Enis; Then. All Sub Drives.
WITH. Ab U = Collate. Divise. Collaborate Run Program.
IF. U = F-Dev. Avail. Capacity. Trans.
THEN. UJ = Run Gateway
IF NA THEN U = Gateway Active
IF LESS – THEN U = Run Forum: January.
U = U
“Okay, here we go then..,” said Helen, stretching dormant vocal chords with a choppy start.
IF U = U. THEN –
Please wait a moment…
She could remain still like this while the computer processed, sometimes for whole half hour stints.
THEN. (U)
.U = January-Transitional Commencing.
U = Forum Inactive.
U = Run + X O X A X B X X L X I S T X X X XXXX||||
She tapped something in midair and then this appeared…
U = Run + S O X A X B X X L X I S T X X X XXXX JuXXX
U = Cron-Morning-Snow.
U = Forum Active.
U = Gateway Active.
U = DoubleFace. Active.
U = Morning Active.
U = Phonograph Commencing Periodic Sound Vibration ‘Music.’
USC = “To whose star do you face Helen XXXXXXXX?”
“Morning Snow,” said Helen back to the MachineWall.
UJ + USC = DoubleFace. Active.
D345fgh9987d345fgrpentagonissued=+?< – RUN PENTAGON ISSUED DOCUMENTS TO USC INDONESIA CLIENT – ON -MEGA-FLIGHT 25655 USC (Affiliate) AIR – >Ca>Home<-/-*DARA> U = RUN HOME = END STATE THEN <-/-*DARA HOME> wait the birdcage is|
a fw-class-678cf2122651d430a0e345ea7406ee74 Indonesia Client 25650 = FALSE. libido animals produce| D345fgh9987d345fgrpentagonissued=+??D345fgh9987d345fgrpentagonissued=-?D345fgh9987d345fgrpentagonissued=+?< D345fgh9987d345fgrpentagonissued=-?< D345fgh9987d345fgrpentempty|more
agonissued=-?< ++
TRUE>libido animals . more
Active = Morning + Snow += linkedseries = linkedseries ++
MORNING ACTIVE 2…
“I Face Early Morning Snow.”
And with this more zillions of calibrations were made, and she was finally in. For that day.
“Okay, Dr., now I think we’re ready to proceed.”
“Good, good, okay…Is Gateway Active?”
“Sure is. And, the new Sonic-Architecture is underneath everything.”
“Great, okay,” he said, adjusting his spectacles, appearing also to get slightly more situated in his medical Jacket. He was a much older man than anybody she worked with, in his late 90s.
“Did you tell it what Star to Face?”
“Yes, she is facing Morning-Star, January Transitional Commencing.”
“Cron is checking for receding fractions. Oh, sorry, receding Pairs.”
“Receding Pairs?”
“Yes doctor, the fractions are finally multiplying in pairs.” Pairs are the most efficient way that equations of this sort could multiply organically.
“Ha, my god, that’s…That—are—are you sure??” He knew she couldn’t be more sure.
“Well, aren’t you surprised at least, I mean, the Theorem worked, we have Gateway responding intelligently to multiplying exponentials here, that act biologically, no less. Don’t you get it–not only a Learning Brain, but a brain that can self-evolve its own biological matter!”
The absence of excitement was shored up by Helen’s ever present miniature smile existing only on the right or left side of her face, like the Mona Lisa. At least that was the joke around the Lab.
“Well, it’s what we’ve been working toward all along here, isn’t it?”
“Helen, you’re such a talent, and yet, you don’t give a shit or a hoot about any of it.” He’d said that smiling, but reproached himself when he suddenly asked why. To himself, of course. But it was too late, he had to pay attention, and resigned his thought on the scroll of his presently focused mind.
She knew what a revelation he must have felt, what a breakthrough this was for him. For him. For everybody else. She was simply delighted though, in the emotional reaction people made, that actually made things, produced things–could feel like. She’d always pay his passion just the proper amount of lip service though.
But all she could think about was The Game with her Hubby later on that evening. It had been like this, for as long as she worked at UNATRAD. She was just so damn good at everything requiring the quick witted understanding of harmonics and Bio-Symbol-Systems, I mean, you name it in terms of what she’d sought out to do. Certain concepts that took others forever, she could do in minutes. Made her non-expendable.
The good Dr. did find it mildly odd she shared no exchange of passion with him, ever. Maybe that’s just how women are, he thought. It never occurred to him what actually resulted in putting this conclusion to action. Then again, he didn’t do much other than spend time at the lab’s facilities in some way or other.
There were also the rumors. Oh, the rumors, she’d say to herself. But in the end, she told herself she cared and ignored the fact it didn’t change her life in any immediate way, so her interests would then stray to thinking about something random, like Jenny. This typically wouldn’t last very long before she was on to Kenson’s new album and her top Fetish shows.
She looked at him just then, almost to test herself. She knew what he’d done. The child he molested was nine, not ten as the authorities reported, and there were rumors that bounded through Space and Time itself, it seemed, that he had been molesting his daughter, Harietta, all along. There was no way to prove anything either way but the surveillance of the church the incident occurred in.
Intra-Cam Nano Surveillance wasn’t allowed in the homes of certain elect Diplomats. Dr. Damiand had no Nano Recording installed in his home, ever, due to his membership to Global Community One, GCO–CAMBIAN’s Central Global Networks, since 2044.
She had known the wife, Johanna. But whenever this thought came back into her head, somehow she had a harder and harder time imagining it. What she didn’t realize is that if she’d ever tried, she would have discovered the same difficulty in imagining anything. And the test resulting in the same thing: she couldn’t feel more than distant from actually loving this stuff.
She also and weirdly, knew that his daughter was no longer ‘present’ on God’s Good Earthen Soil, either. Harietta Damiand had died in a horrible Hover accident involving several or more automobiles. She was nine at the time of her death.
He had loved her, like Daddy’s do. Or like, Daddy’s can. To complicate things, Johanna, his wife was going senile. Her sudden dementia was combatted with restructuring software and everything, but in the end, she just slipped away.
This made things more convenient for him of course, especially. Harietta had been made of God’s Good Flesh when she lived. She was made of God’s Own Good Born Silicate and now, well now, she was made of wood. Dr. Damiand, resurrected her by copying what the Intra-Portable Equiv-MRI Bot, that is, the brain software, had recorded for the duration of her life. Damiand, being privy to software and Skins in the Lab, got quite a discount in taking over the more expensive parts of her. Unfortunately, he wasn’t a Hollywood man, nor exposed to many artists, so he regarded Human Silicates to be cost prohibitive. Anybody with his income could have found a less expensive Human Silicate Equiv., but he was an old fashioned kind of guy, and the new Networks Spots and channels were a little too fast paced for the likes of him.
The IPE-MRI Bot had obtained most of the details. Things like the surface textures identities of formica or certain types of metal and wood etc., didn’t copy over. Amongst an entire host of lost data, such as her first time using the toilet, which as a mahogany wood Real Girl, a subtype of Rubber Girls and RBoys.
So, Harietta was now made of mahogany, fine polished dark cherry wood. The Dr. Had grown to like the aesthetic of wood. But his sexual appetite was taken care of on behalf of the FED Marriage Sexual Health Act of 2067. He had amassed enough FED-MSHA-2067 money in a special FED linked account, to buy him RealSkyyn, or actual organic home grown genetically engineered flesh and muscles in a small private Lab. She would have RealSkyyn, soon.
There was something different though, even to her now. She had begun uttering things her mom had said, his wife and himself, could only have known, as they had never shared certain details with Harietta.
***
“Hey Cam, come here quick for a second.”
“Ok, what’s up?”
“All right, first of all–are you Mikin’ sure that this Switch Light is the only data device that’s retaining this event?”
“I mean except for Unambiguous. eah…why?”
“Take a look at this. Look, the two numbers.”
“What? Oh, wait, yeah, I guess–they’re not the same number but…”
“But they are the same number of digits.”
“Holy fuck, you are right! So what does that mean? Naw, no way, were not doin’ what I think you’re getting at.”
“Oh, so you know what I’m getting at?”
“I think so, you wanna use these digits somehow to…to make money somehow…”
“Yeah, literally, like, Print money.”
“No one uses Print money anymore.”
“Not off the Main Line.”
“So, the only places we could use whatever you’re concocting is here in central CAMBIAN?”
“Not, ah, what about Oakland Community Mall?”
“OCM is so…”
“Ghettie I know, but not entirely, they have some good stuff cause like, business men go through there…”
“I don’t know, Oakland? That’s so dangerous though.”
“You know it’s funny, as much as you say you hate your mom, sometimes you really listen to what she says…”
“What?? Whatever, I guess, well anyway, I’ve got nothing against going, but well, what are we even talking about here Kim?”
“Camel Toe, this is an entry key code for bills, and its just a coincidence it matches up here, I mean, not just the digits, but the letters and dashes too! And Una gave it to you, prolly for a reason. Mike! This is what my Dad does or well at least knows a lot about money printing in the old days and he pointed out the number range of certain numbers that are or were allegedly, numeral skeleton keys.”
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The restaurant had indeed been the one they thought of; the old Maryland-Bound TransCar. It was enormous, all steel and some kind of special glass. It leaned ever so slightly to one side, still levitating off its remanning energy store. Energy in ‘the good ol’ days’ wasn’t energy today–a single power bond Nano-battery store could last a hundred years in its day. The world just couldn’t afford millions of transports like this, as the Feds never came in with more than a few hundred thousand of these units.
They were waiting nearly an hour to get inside the battleship-museum of a restaurant, and their conversation dissipated into silence upon seeing the large crowd made of proud American dining. Camille felt like Rachael again, and got that ever-returning tinge of ‘I have no idea what to say to him.’ She dismissed the feeling though in a moment of fight or flight.
Camille Linderen Heroine of Vesper Heliotropic Sci-Fi eBook & Paperback Series
She could feel the cool air pushing through the marble and steel of the stairway behind her.
The doors had ball bearing hinges with square and circular portals of double beveled glass. They were large enough to make even her look somewhat dwarfed by its size.
Though they appeared from a distance to be clear and transparent, at closer inspection, she noticed, at eye-level no less, the mid section of circular portals, were anything but transparent. In fact, one could barely even make out the most obscure shapes coming through from the other side.
It felt as though she had suddenly boarded an old cruise ship.
An antique clock with iron hands struck midnight with a loud clank of its gears above the elevator on the opposing wall. She thought of the clock. ‘Time isn’t made of metal parts anymore,’ she concluded, looking ponderously back at the clock as if it had been someone she was discussing the matter with.
It was precisely the time she’d been told to meet her.
She wore a black sleeveless romper belted with a white strap and silver hoop buckle. Her hair was cut much shorter and was almost as dark as her outfit. It was now a deep crimson with curls on the ends of where it met her chin.
She had no bra on and liked the feeling of her breasts making suggestive teardrop shapes through the fabric. It felt like someone could just reach in and hold one for a moment, that feeling of utter accessibility. The material clung to her hardening nipples with a mildly stimulating grip. Her breasts felt weighty
and she liked the feeling they gave her, perhaps it was a strange mixture of fertility and arousal, she couldn’t be sure which.
The romper cut off in an exacting line right where her torso ended, extending her smooth long white feminine legs connected to checkered wedge shoes.
She never wore pantyhose and didn’t have the money for NeauSmoothing, so she always just went bare legged, and felt more raw that way anyhow.
This was all in spite of a rather small but deep patch of blemishes on her lower left calf, rattling around the back of her mind.
I should have tried to cover it up. No time.
She was also slightly concerned that her waist was Thyn enough, but was comforted to see in the reflective surface of the glass in front of her, that her small gut was covered up by the wide belt and buckle which met each other a tiny bit above where her little pouch began. Her hips were a little more padded than she might have liked, but the romper was loose enough to obscure them.
To boot, the SM software of her LSwitch had a password problem, so she’d actually gone with conventional facial makeup, looking somewhat hurriedly applied.
Her shoulders, bare, appeared to be more like pale straight edges cutting out the stark color of her figure from the hazy, dull, muted red of the door. As if she were making the attempt at conforming to its shape, yet all in spite of its lackluster.
Then the door opened without a knock, and a heavyset middle aged lady with grey hair she’d never seen before, greeted her.
“Are you the friend of Beatriz?”
I sit by myself at Christmas…thankful for many things, for being in a warm house and near a lit tree And wonder what dreams are made of, old hat, something of a dead horse after its fifteenth beating.
Nevertheless, I still revel in Joseph Campbell’s call to action: Life as that which seeks bliss. Your bliss. Utter bliss, as the point of life. Later Asimov, McLuhan, and finally, Rand sealed that line of vigilant individualists. Including MM.
Nevertheless, every time I enter a shopping mall or whiff that corporate scent of well, nothing more or less than what I grew up on–I revel in that sense of divine intervention of a secular method, the notion that most things are possible.
But I have finally found it again, that peace with the world enough that at least I have my own piece cut out. That part of the brain that tells you, “Yes, indeed, you are doing something right.” That something, is something I would like to call Philosophy. So, thank you philosophy. Thank you thinkers and ideas. That is what has brought me to a fourth bliss. The only romantics left are rock stars and soap commercials.
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“Rachael!” shouted her mom’s high pitched voice from downstairs.
“Yessssss, mother! It’s Camille now by the way!”
There was no answer. And then…
“Don’t forget your make-up!” her mom’s faint voice could now barely be made out.
“Ugh,” Rachael said to herself.
“Okay!” she yelled back, vein and limply.
Rachael sat upright on the edge of her bed, her widish butt planted Indian style. There were disheveled bra straps under…Read More
Neal Cormier 