Counting Heads

2.16

Mary and Fred swallowed oxytabs before leaving the apartment. Rolfe’s was located on a floor nearly three thousand meters above sea level, and they planned to spend some time on its unpressurized Stardeck. An uptraffic watch advised them of a dixon lift making nonstop trips between the 150th and 475th levels.

Mary wore a subdued cocktail face; a sleeveless sheath of plum-blue crepe de chine; a pair of pearly black, open-toed heels; and a necklace of black coral beads. Her newly black hair was glued into a stack on top of her head.

However, it took her only one glance at the crowds in the elevator station to see that her initial, wilder impulse had been closer to the mark. She and Fred were surrounded by a group whose party clothes played off each other’s in gaudy ripples of color from one end of the station to the other. Mary felt conspicuously drab.

It was no better in the dixon lift where there was too much shrieking, singing, and drinking. Too many people wearing smart perfumes, fragrances with competitive algorithms that vied for exclusive niches along the sweet and randy scales. To Mary, the elevator car stank of rotting swamp flowers, and she felt vomit tickle her throat. She closed her eyes and clutched Fred’s hand.

Fred said something to her, but she couldn’t hear it. She tabbed their personal channel, but he didn’t reply, and it took her a moment to realize that he was off line. The dry-cleaning would have stripped him of his implants, and he’d left his loner valet down in the apartment.

Fred leaned over and spoke directly into her ear, “Do you copy?”

Mary nodded her head once.

“I was saying,” Fred continued, “doesn’t this remind you of the centennial celebration? Nuts, eh?”

Mary nodded again. It was so Fred to forget that evangelines had been released to the world only in this century, and thus had missed out on one of the defining parties of the previous century.

IT WAS QUIETER on the upper pedways, and Fred could finally hear himself think. What he was thinking about, as they steered a course from the elevator station on Level 475 to Rolfe’s at the southeast corner of Level 500, were those fiery little rollmops of Mary’s that still glowed like coals in his gut. He wondered what had happened today to propel his Mary into the kitchen to experiment with dangerous recipes? Something must have happened, and he debated coming right out and asking her what. She had looked pale in the elevator. She seemed better now, but hardly festive. Opening his mouth was risky, but if he didn’t at least try to prick the bubble of her mood before they got to Rolfe’s, she’d suffer silently all through the evening, and by extension so would he. So, avoiding all known pitfalls, and as breezily as he could, he said, “You look lovely tonight.”

“Yes, for a funeral, I suppose.”

Fred nodded his head. This didn’t sound promising, but he had to have faith and go with it. “Someone we know?” he said and braced for bad news.

She glanced up at him with bewilderment.

“The funeral,” he said.

Mary slumped against him in total evangeline resignation. “There’s no funeral, Fred. Only a cake.”

“Ah, a cake.”

“Yes, a cake. I did an intro unit in Cake Design this morning. My friend Marion told me about it.”

“Cake Design.”

“Yes, Fred, as in birthday cakes, wedding cakes, cupcakes, petits four, blintzes, torts—a ‘veritable array of confections,’ as the professor says. Don’t let the name mislead you. Cake Design covers ‘a broad field and ambitious craft.’”

As dispassionately as humanly possible, so as not to reveal any bias for or against the idea, Fred said, “This interests you?”

“Oh, I don’t know. It’s not as bad as I thought. You get to design not only cakes but also ice statuary, punch fountains, wine grottoes, chocolate installations—stuff like that. The requirements are strict enough so not everyone can get into the program. A number of evangelines have already been admitted, but no dorises, so that should tell you something.

“There’s real chemistry involved too,” she went on, “colloidal emulsions and the branching properties of starch molecules, for instance—as well as sculpting, composition, and subem-assisted engineering and physics. It takes about a year to learn the basics, and another year of journeywork.”

“And?” Fred prompted, but probably too eagerly, for she fell silent again. So he put his arms around her and didn’t push his luck. Probably she’d gotten some insulting duty offer on the DCO board this morning that had driven her to the course on cakes. Pet-sitting or something like that. Bartending maybe, or worse, closet management for some rich fool—the kinds of call outs that evangelines dreaded. Fred didn’t envy Mary her evangeline lot—never to work in the field they were bred to. To have the lowest duty person/hours of all commercial iterants. No wonder she was driven to the kulinmate to dial up gut grenades.

Mary squeezed his arm and said, “Food, no matter how cleverly assembled, Fred, is still just food.”

ROLFE’S WAS HOPPING, wall to wall, overbooked. Extra tables encroached on the dance floors and vidwalls. Revelers were pressed tight around the bars and out to the Stardeck beyond the pressure curtain. The noise was deafening. Mary swiped them in, and Fred broke trail for her to the Tin Room where their friends gathered each Wednesday. But their usual table was occupied by strangers.

Mary tuned to her FDO channel and said, Hey, guys, where are you?

Is that Mary? someone replied. We’re in the Zinc Room, on the bandstand.

Mary pointed to the Zinc Room, and Fred steered a course through the masses.

The Zinc Room bandstand had been dragooned into service for additional table space. Their friends had three small tables pushed together. Sofi waved at them. Yoo hoo. Over here.

The tables were laid with carafes of drink and plates of Aegean appetizers: feta and kasseri cubes, and grape leaves stuffed with spicy bits of meat and vegetables. There was a bowl of giant, glistening green and black olives.

“Isn’t this great?” Sofi shouted.

“What?” Mary shouted back, cupping her ear with her hand.

I said isn’t this great? Sofi was their helena, their Mediterranean doll woman, petite and dark, with wide hips and wide eyes and flashing teeth. She swayed in time to some music channel and opened her arms to take in the whole frenzied dining hall.

Oh, the crowd, Mary replied. Yes, it’s great. Just like the centennial.

Sofi’s brown eyes lit up. You’re right! Just like the centennial.

As Mary and Fred found their spot at the table, Mary looked around to see who all was there. Their jerrys—Wes, Bill, and Ross—were sitting at one end of the table, with their jenny wives—Liz, Gwyn, and Deb—sitting opposite them. Their sole jerome—Peter—and their sole joan—Alice—were present without dates, as well as their other helena—Sazza—and her frank husband Mickey. Their ruth, isabella, and jack, all present and accounted for.

Missing were their two lulus—Abbie and Mariola. Also missing was the other evangeline/russ couple—Shelley Oakland and Reilly Dell.

Shelley would be late. She had a long commute. She was the only envangeline Mary knew who had a real evangeline job and had had it for over five years. Other ’leens hated Shelley as much as they admired her, and Mary would have hated her too except that Shelley was her best friend. Also, Shelley’s client was a famous death artist, so Shelley’s working conditions weren’t ideal.

After settling in with small talk, Mary scanned the furious, engorged dining hall. People, tables, chairs—all were pressed together in a solid mass, forcing the arbeitor waiters to ride overhead, suspended on a network of cables. Most of the tables were mixed, like theirs, though there were the inevitable jane/john and juanita/juan tables.

The dance floor looked like a squirming, many-headed monster as everyone danced to their own music channel. Mary picked out Abbie and Mariola. At least they looked like Abbie and Mariola. Anyway, she picked out two lulus practicing dance steps who were possibly their lulus.

At the end of the table, jenny Gwyn said, Wes! Take off that visor. You promised.

Wes looked around, all innocence. What? What’d I do now?

Don’t give me that, said Gwyn. If that game means so much to you, why don’t you go back to the flat and watch it there?

And take Bill with you, added Liz.

Bill shot back, It’s a tournament, not a game. And I’m not watching it either.

The main topic of conversation around the table seemed to be the canopies: where each of them had been seventy years ago when the first city-wide canopies were erected. Mary, along with about half of their gang, hadn’t been decanted yet, but she found the topic fascinating nevertheless.

Alice, their joan, related her experience in New York City, when the Outrage first washed in from the Atlantic. She had been inside a pressurized office that day and so had survived the initial slaughter. She described the weeks and months of terror and strife, as the streets were filled with the dead, and food and water ran out. We endured; like we always do, she said, summarizing a year in hell with typically joan understatement. Seventy years ago, Gwyn the jenny had been taking an advanced nursing course in Sydney when one day she was the only student to show up for practicum. Meanwhile, Mickey the frank had been in Kyoto and lost everyone he knew up to that point in his life. Peter the jerome spent three whole days stuck in a Hong Kong noodle shop in which over a hundred people died. He’d had to fight (a jerome fighting!) a free-ranger who tried to steal the hazmat suit off his back and tore it in the attempt.

After a while, the stories took on a sameness. Seventy years ago they were living in this or that region, were employed at the same sort of work they were still employed at today, were enjoying or not enjoying their lives, when on that fateful May Day, the whole world changed.

Chicago was the first city to experiment with a semisolid atmospheric filter to protect its urban biosphere. The new technology quickly spread to all the cities of the United Democracies. Over the next few months, the canopies became larger, deeper, and more reliable until they were able to hold the Outrage at bay.

Mickey said, Compared to the ones we have today, the first ones were pretty porous, but you have no idea what a relief it was to be inside one of them.

Gwyn said, We called them our blessed shields of normalcy.

Peter said, I’ve lived under this same canopy for sixty-eight years, and I swear, I’m not ready to give it up.

Here, here! chorused the others. They raised their glasses in a toast to the Chicagoland canopy. Fred poured Mary white wine from one of the carafes and ginger ale for himself. To our blessed shield of normalcy, they cried. Fred didn’t know what the toast was to, but he raised his ginger ale anyway.

Mary gagged on her wine. It had a sharp, sour flavor and it reeked of turpentine. It’s retsina, Sofi told her. Do you like it?

Yes, Mary said. I just wasn’t expecting it.

It goes well with food. Try it with the octopus.

Forget that stuff, Wes said and poured her a glass of what he was drinking. This goes down better. He passed her a glass of an oily, colorless liquid that smelled like licorice. It was too strong for Mary’s taste, but she thanked him and took a few appreciative sips.

When the conversation came around to Fred, he seemed to know that something was expected of him, but he didn’t know what. He pointed to his ears and shook his head. Mary leaned over to him and shouted over the noise, “They’re reminiscing about when the canopies first went up!”

“Who’s missing?” he shouted back.

“No one’s missing — reminiscing! The Outrage! Where were you seventy years ago?”

Gwyn quipped, So what’s the score, Fred?

He’s not watching the game, Mary replied.

Sure he is, said Liz. Just look at him.

Wes banged an empty glass on the table to get everyone’s attention. Yo! Myren! Fred’s off-line. He was sheep-dipped today. Can’t you smell it? Everyone looked at Fred, and he flinched under the sudden scrutiny.

Alice asked, Was there an attack?

Well, duh, said Wes.

Inside or outside the canopy?

Can’t say, said Wes.

You know what? interjected Peter. In a few hours there won’t be that distinction anymore. We’ll all be outside.

Shut up, Peter, said Alice. Where was it, Wes?

The jerrys—Wes, Bill, and Ross—huddled with glances, and Wes said, We can’t say—we got it off the Jerrynet. But I’d suggest you search the WAD for “waterworks.” There’s bound to be some public account.

Fred shouted to Mary, “Tell them I was off-planet during the mid-2060s. So I missed the whole thing.” Despite the conversational drift, Mary dutifully relayed his statement to the others, but no one was interested anymore.

Peter said, I don’t find anything on the WAD. You got any other keywords for us?

I’ve said too much already, said Wes.

Give us a straight answer, damn you and your confidentiality, Alice said. Are we in any danger here?

“What are they talking about now?” Fred shouted. Mary was tired of playing his interpreter. She was saved by a truly grand roar from the crowd on the Stardeck outside the pressure curtain. Everyone inside the Zinc Room paused at the same moment to listen, causing an eerie silence in the room that stretched several surreal moments until a woman shrieked and the deafening cacophony crashed once more upon them.

Fred tapped Mary’s shoulder and gestured at the dance floor. “Those our lulus?” he shouted.

A ring of dancers had opened a little floor space for the two lulus who Mary had spotted earlier. She nodded her head, yes. Then she noticed a tiny table next to the dance floor where three evangelines sat together hunched over their drinks. They looked like the three saddest people in Chicago, and she wondered in alarm if that was how she, herself, appeared to the world. It was certainly how she felt.

It was no secret that her type was in trouble. Success stories like Shelley’s notwithstanding, more and more evangelines were turning to their sisters for mutual support. Lately, Mary spotted little groups of them eating in inexpensive restaurants. They pooled their slim resources for apartments even worse than hers and Fred’s. Soon, Mary expected to see destitute evangelines moving to the subfloors where Applied People subsidized dormitories and food courts for the underutilized. Eventually, they’d wear their poverty in the wrinkles of their faces, since Applied People did not subsidize rejuvenation treatments.

Mary switched to a public hail channel and pitched her voice to the little table. Greetings, sisters, she said, and when they looked up, she stood and waved her arm to get their attention. My friends and I have extra seats here. Please join us.

The evangelines thanked her graciously, but declined. They said they preferred it where they were, the long-suffering liars.