The Heart Goes Last

VI | VALENTINE’S DAY Limbo

It’s the tenth day of February, and Stan is still in limbo. Charmaine didn’t reappear on the switchover day, as he’d been both hoping and fearing she would. Hoping, because – he has to admit – he misses her and wants to see her, especially if she replaces Jocelyn. Fearing, because would he lose his temper? Tell her he’s seen the videos of her with Max, confront her with all the lies she told him, belt her one, the way Con might? Would she be defiant, would she laugh at him? Or would she cry and say what a mistake she’s made and how sorry she is, and how much she loves him? And if she does say that, how will he know she means it?

He himself would be on shaky ground. What if Jocelyn takes her side, what if she shares what she knows about Stan’s pursuit of the fake Jasmine and adds in a few details about what she and Stan have been doing on the blue sofa? And elsewhere. Many elsewheres. The inside of his head turns to a snarl of string every time he tries to picture his reunion with Charmaine.

“I think you two need more time apart,” was what Jocelyn said about it, as if he and Charmaine were squabbling children who’d been given a time-out by a loving but strict mother. No, not a mother: a decadent babysitter who’d shortly be charged with corrupting minors, because right after that prissy little sermon, Stan found himself on the blue sofa with its chaste but by now grubby lilies enacting one of Jocelyn’s favourite scenes from the frequently replayed video-porn saga featuring their two energetic spouses.

“What if it were both of us at once?” he found himself growling as if from a great distance. The voice was his, the words were Max’s. The script called for some handwork here. It was hard to remember all the words, synchronize them with the gestures. How did they manage it in films? But those people got multiple takes: if they did it wrong, they could do it over. “Front and back?”

“Oh no, I couldn’t!” Jocelyn replied in a voice intended to sound breathless and ashamed, like Charmaine’s on the video. And it did kind of sound that way: she wasn’t acting, or not entirely. “Not both at once! That’s …”

What came next? His mind went blank. To gain time he tore off a few buttons.

“I think you could,” Jocelyn prompted him.

“I think you could,” he said. “I think you want to. Look, you’re blushing. You’re a dirty little slut, aren’t you?”

When would this be over? Why couldn’t he just skip all the role-playing crap, cut to the chase, get to the part where her eyes rolled back in her head and she screamed like ripped metal? But she didn’t want the short-form. She wanted dialogue and ritual, she wanted courtship. She wanted what Charmaine had, right there onscreen, and not a syllable less. It was pitiful, once Stan stopped to think about it: as if she’d been left out, the one kid not invited to the birthday party, so she was going to have her own birthday party, all by herself.

And she was having it all by herself, more or less, because Stan wasn’t present in any real sense. Why doesn’t she just order herself a robot? he thought. Among the guys down at the scooter depot, talk has it that full production has begun on the new and improved sexbots that are in the trial stage somewhere in the depths of Positron. Maybe it’s an urban legend or wishful thinking, but the guys swear to it: they have the inside track. It’s said to be a line of Dutch-designed prostibots, some for the domestic market, but the majority for export. The bots are supposed to be really lifelike, with body heat and touch-sensitive plastic fibre skin that actually quivers, and several different voice modes, and flushable interiors for sanitary purposes, because who wants to catch a dick-rotting disease?

These bots will cut down on sex trafficking, say the boosters: no more young girls smuggled over borders, beaten into submission, chained to the bed, reduced to a pulp, then thrown into sewage lagoons. No more of that: plus, they’ll practically shit money.

But it won’t be anything like the real thing, say the detractors: you won’t be able to look into their eyes and see a real person looking out. Oh, they’ve got a few tricks up their sleeves, say the boosters: improved facial muscles, better software. But they can’t feel pain, say the detractors. They’re working on that feature, say the boosters. Anyway, they’ll never say no. Or they’ll say no only if you want them to. Stan doubts all of this: the empathy modules at Dimple Robotics wouldn’t have convinced a five-year-old. But maybe they’ve made strides.

The guys joke about applying to be prostibot testers at Positron. It’s said to be a wild experience, though creepy. You get to choose the voice and phrase option, the bot whispers enticing flatteries or dirty words; when you touch her, she wriggles; you give her a jump. Then, while the rinse cycle is kicking in – that part is weird, it sounds a little too much like the drain cycle on a dishwasher – you have to fill out a questionnaire, check the ratings boxes for likes and dislikes of this or that feature, suggest improvements. As an on-demand sexual experience, it’s said to be better than the bonk-a-chicken racket that used to go on at Positron, they add. No squawking, no scratchy claws. And better than a warm watermelon too, the latter being not all that responsive.

There must be male prostibots for the Jocelyns of this world, thinks Stan. Randy Andy the Handy Android. But such an item wouldn’t suit Jocelyn, because she wants something that can feel resentment, and even rage. Feel it and have to repress it. He knows quite a lot about her tastes by now.

The night before New Year’s Day, she’d made popcorn and insisted they eat it while watching the video prelims: Phil’s arrival at the derelict house, his restless pacing, the breath mint he’d slipped into his mouth, his swift preening of himself in the reflection of a shard of glass left in a shattered mirror. The popcorn was greasy with melted butter, but when Stan moved to get a paper towel, Jocelyn laid a hand on his leg; lightly enough, but he knew a command signal when he felt one. “No,” she said, smiling that smile he increasingly can’t read. Pain, or intent on causing it? “Stay here. I want your butter all over me.”

At least it was something extra, that butter. Something Phil and Charmaine hadn’t done. Or not on the videos.

And so it went on. But toward the end of January, Jocelyn’s ardour or whatever it was had flagged. She seemed distracted; she worked in her room at the computer she’d set up in there, and instead of wanting sex on the sofa she’d taken to reading novels on it, with her shoes off and her feet up. He knows more about her now, or more about the story of herself she’s using as a front. How did she get into the Surveillance business? he’d asked her, for something to do at the breakfast table.

“I was an English major,” she said. “It’s a real help.”

“You’re bullshitting me, right?”

“Not in the least,” she said. “It’s where all the plots are. That’s where you learn the twists and turns. I did my senior thesis on Paradise Lost.”

Paradise what? The only thing that came to Stan’s mind was a nightclub site in Australia he’d once seen online when looking for soft porn, but the place had shut down years before. He wanted to ask Jocelyn if that book was made into an HBO mini series or something, in case he might have seen it, but he didn’t do that because the less ignorance he displayed, the better. Already she was treating him like a brain-damaged spaniel, with a mixture of amusement and contempt. Except when he was in full-throttle pelvic action. But that was happening less and less.

Some nights he found himself drinking beer alone because Jocelyn was out of the house. He felt relief – some of the performance pressure was off – but also fear, because what if she was about to discard him? And what if the destination she had in mind for him was not Positron Prison but that unknown void into which the bona fide criminals originally warehoused at Positron had vanished?

Jocelyn could erase him. She could just wave her hand and reduce him to zero. She’d never said so, but he knew she had that power.

But the first of February had come and gone, with no switchover for him. He’d finally dared to bring the subject up: when, exactly, would he be leaving for Positron?

“Missing your chickens?” she’d said. “Never mind, you might be joining them soon.” This made his neck hair stand up: the nature of the chicken feed at Positron was a matter for grisly rumour. “But first I want to spend Valentine’s Day with you.” The tone was almost sentimental, though there was an underlayer of flint. “I want it to be special.” Was special a threat? She watched him, smiling a little. “I don’t want us to be … interrupted.”

“Who’d interrupt us?” he said. In old movies, the kind they showed on the Consilience channel – comic movies, tragic movies, melodramatic movies – there were frequent interruptions. Someone would burst through a door – a jealous spouse, a betrayed lover. Unless it was a spy movie, in which case it would be a double agent, or a crime movie in which a stool pigeon had betrayed the gang. Scuffles or gunshots would follow. Escapes from balconies. Bullets to the head. Speedboats zigzagging out of reach. That’s what those interruptions led to, though followed by happy endings. But surely no such interrupting was possible here.

“No one, I suppose,” she said. She watched him. “Charmaine is perfectly safe,” she added. “She’s alive and well. I’m not a monster!” Then that hand on his knee again. Spider silk, stronger than iron. “Are you worried?”

Of course I’m fucking worried, he wanted to shout. What do you think, you twisted perv? You think it’s a kiddie picnic for me, being house slave to a fucking dog trainer who could have me put down at any minute? But all he’d said was, “No, not really.” Then, to his shame: “I’m looking forward to it.” He’s disgusted with himself. What would Conor do in his place? Conor would take charge, somehow. Conor would turn the tables. But how?

“Looking forward to what?” she said with a blank stare. She was such a gamester. “To what, Stan?” when he stalled.

“Valentine’s Day,” he muttered. What a loser. Crawl, Stan. Lick shoes. Kiss ass. Your life may depend on it.

She smiled openly this time. That mouth he would soon be obliged to mash with his own, those teeth that would soon be biting his ear. “Good,” she said sweetly, patting his leg. “I’m glad you’re looking forward to it. I like surprises, don’t you? Valentine’s Day reminds me of cinnamon hearts. Those little red ones you sucked. Red Hots, they were called. Remember?” She licked her lips.

Cut the crap, he wanted to say. Drop the fucking innuendo. I know you want to suck my little red-hot heart.

“I need a beer,” he said.

“Work for it,” she said, abruptly harsh again. She moved her hand up his leg, squeezed.

Turban

Charmaine is called in to verify her data: sit for the retina scan, repeat the fingerprinting, read Winnie the Pooh for the voice analyzer. Will these steps re-authenticate her profile for the benefit of the database? It’s hard to tell: she’s still alone in her cell, still shunned by the knitting circle, still stuck in Towel-Folding.

But the next day Aurora from Human Resources turns up in the laundry room and asks Charmaine to accompany her upstairs for a chat. The other towel-folders look up: is Charmaine in trouble? They probably hope so. Charmaine feels at a disadvantage – she’s covered in lint, which is diminishing – but she brushes herself off and follows Aurora to the elevator.

The chat takes place in the Chat Room beside the front checkout counter. Aurora is pleased to be able to tell Charmaine that she will have her cards and codes restored to her – or not restored; confirmed. Just as Aurora has been assuring her, the database glitch has been repaired, and she is now once again who she’s been claiming she is. Aurora smiles tightly. Isn’t that good news?

Charmaine agrees that it is. At least she has a code identity once again, which is some comfort. “So can I leave now?” she asks. “Go back home? I’ve missed a lot of Out time.”

Unfortunately, says Aurora, Charmaine can’t depart from Positron quite yet: the synchronization is off. Although in theory she might move into the guest room of her own house – Aurora makes a laughing sound – her Alternate is of course now living in the house they share, it being that person’s turn. Aurora understands how upsetting all this must be for Charmaine, but the proper rotation must be preserved, with no interaction between Alternates. Familiarity would inevitably lead to territorial squabbling, especially over such comfort items as sheets and body lotion. As they have all been taught, possessiveness about our cozy corners and favourite toys isn’t limited to cats and dogs. How we wish it were. Wouldn’t life be simpler?

So Charmaine must continue to be patient, says Aurora. And in any case she’s been doing such a good job with the knitting – the blue teddy bears. How many has she knitted now? It must be at least a dozen! She’ll have time for a few more of them before she leaves, hopefully at the next switchover day, which is when? The first of March, isn’t it? And it’s almost Valentine’s Day – so, not long to go!

Aurora herself has never learned to knit. She does regret that. It must be calming.

Charmaine clenches her hands. One more of those darn teddy bears with their bright, unseeing eyes and she’s going to go sideways, right off the tracks! They’ve filled bins of them. She has nightmares about those teddies; she dreams they’re in bed with her, unmoving but alive. “Yes, it is calming,” she says.

Aurora consults her PosiPad. She has another piece of good news for Charmaine: as of the day after tomorrow, Charmaine will be taken off towel-folding and will resume her former duties as Chief Medications Administrator. Positron does reward talent and experience, and Charmaine’s talent and experience have not gone unnoticed. Aurora gives an encouraging grimace. “Not everyone has the soft touch,” she says. “Coupled with such dedication. There have been incidents, when other … other operatives have been tasked with the, with the task. With the essential duty.”

“When do I start?” asks Charmaine. “Thank you,” she adds. She’s thrilled to be getting away from the towel-folding. She looks forward to re-entering the Medications Administration wing and following that remembered route along the hallways. She visualizes approaching the desk, accessing the possibly real head on the screen, advancing through the familiar doors, snapping on the gloves, picking up the medication and the hypodermic. Then on to the room where her Procedure subject will await, immobile but fearful. She will soothe those fears. Then she will deliver bliss, and then release. It will be nice to feel respected again.

Aurora consults her PosiPad again. “I see here that you’re set to resume your duties tomorrow afternoon,” she says. “After lunch. When we make a mistake here, we do move to rectify it. Congratulations on a good outcome! We’ve all been rooting for you.”

Charmaine wonders who’s been doing the rooting, because she hasn’t noticed anyone. But like so many things around here, maybe the rooting has taken place behind the scenes. “Goodness, I’m late for a meeting,” says Aurora. “We have a whole new group of prisoners coming in, and all at once! Any further questions or points of information?”

Yes, says Charmaine. While she herself has been detained in Positron, what has Stan been told about her situation? Surely he’s been worried about her! Does he know why she wasn’t there? At home. Was he told what happened? Or did he think she’d just been subtracted? Sent to Medications? Erased? She hasn’t dared to ask about this before – it might have sounded like complaining, it might have cast suspicion, it might have interfered with her chances for exoneration – but she’s been cleared now.

“Stan?” says Aurora blankly.

“Stan. My husband, Stan,” says Charmaine.

“That’s not information I have access to,” says Aurora. “But I’m sure it’s been taken care of.

“Thank you,” says Charmaine again. To demand any more answers during this delicate transition that’s taking place – this rehabilitation – might be pushing her luck.

Then there’s Max, kept equally in the dark. Longing for her! Lusting for her! He must be going crazy. But she couldn’t ask Aurora about Max.

“Could I maybe just send him a message?” Charmaine says. “Stan? For Valentine’s Day? To let him know I’m okay, and that I …” A tremulous pause on the verge of tears, which she feels she might really shed. “That I love him?”

Aurora stops smiling. “No. No messages while in Positron. You know better than that. If prison isn’t prison, the outside world has no meaning! Now, enjoy the rest of your experience here.” She nods, stands up, and bustles out of the Chat Room.

At least there won’t be much more of these darn towels, Charmaine thinks as she folds and stacks, folds and stacks. Maybe you can get a lung disease from the fluff. As she’s wheeling her completed set over to the Outtake window, there’s a sort of murmuring behind her, coming from the other women in Towel-Folding. She turns to see: it’s Ed, the CEO of the Positron Project, ushering in an older woman who isn’t wearing an orange boiler suit. On her head she has something that looks like a turban, decorated with red felt flowers.

“Oh my god!” Charmaine says. It just sort of comes out of her. “Lucinda Quant! I used to love your show, The Home Front, it was so … I’m so glad you got better!” She’s babbling, she’s making a fool of herself. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t …”

“Thanks,” says Lucinda Quant gruffly. She seems pleased. She’s quite leathery, or at least her skin is. She didn’t used to look like that on TV, but maybe it’s the illness.

“I’m sure Ms. Quant appreciates your support,” says Ed in that suave voice he has. “We’re giving her a quick tour of our wonderful project. She’s considering a new show called After the Home Front, so she can tell the world about the wonderful solution we have here, to the problems of homelessness and joblessness.” He smiles at Charmaine. He’s standing close to her. “You’ve been happy here, haven’t you?” he says. “Since coming to the Project?”

“Oh yes,” says Charmaine. “It’s been so, it’s been so …” How can she describe what it’s been, considering everything, such as Max and Stan? Is she going to cry?

“Excellent,” Ed says. He pats her arm and turns away, dismissing her. Lucinda Quant gives Charmaine a sharp glance from her beady, red-rimmed eyes. “Cat got your tongue?” she says.

“Oh no,” says Charmaine. Is Ed going to make trouble for her because she didn’t say the right thing? “It’s only … I wish I could’ve been on your show.” And she does wish that, because then maybe people would’ve sent in money, and she and Stan would never have felt the need to sign on.

Shuffle

Stan does the countdown: two more days before Valentine’s Day. The subject hasn’t come up again, but every once in a while he catches Jocelyn looking at him speculatively, as if measuring him.

Tonight they’re on the sofa as usual, but this time the upholstery will remain unsullied. They’re side by side, facing forward, like a married couple – which they are, though they’re married to other people. But they aren’t watching the digital gyrations of Charmaine and Phil tonight. They’re watching actual TV – Consilience TV, but still TV. If you drank enough beer, slit your eyes, wiped the context, you could almost believe you were in the outside world. Or the outside world in the past.

They’ve tuned in at the end of a motivational self-help show. So far as Stan can make out, it’s about channelling the positive energy rays of the universe through the invisible power points on your body. You do it through the nostrils: close the right nostril with the index finger, breathe in, open, close the left nostril, breathe out. It gives a whole new dimension to nose-picking.

The star of the show is a young light-haired woman in a skintight pink leotard. She looks familiar, but then such generic women do. Nice tits – especially when she does the right nostril – despite the air bubble chatter coming out of her mouth. So, something for everyone: self-help and nostrils for the women, tits for the men. Distractions. They don’t go out of their way to make you unhappy here.

The pink leotard woman tells them to practise every day, because if you focus, focus, focus on positive thoughts, you’ll attract your own luck to yourself and shut out those negative thoughts that try to get in. They can have such a toxic effect on your immune system, leading to cancer and also to outbreaks of acne, because the skin is the body’s largest organ and extra sensitive to negativity. Then she tells them that next week the feature will be pelvic alignment, so they should all pick up their yoga mats at the gym. She signs off with a freeze-frame smile.

Could that be Sandi, Stan wonders, Charmaine’s erstwhile slut friend from PixelDust? No, too pretty.

New music comes on – “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” sung by Judy Garland – and with it the Consilience logo: consilience = cons + resilience. do time now, buy time for our future.

Yes, it’s another Town Meeting. Stan yawns, tries not to yawn again. He opens his eyes wider. Here come the usual head-deadeners: the graphs, the statistics, the hectoring disguised as uplift. Violent incidents are down for the third time in a row, says a small guy in a tight suit, and let’s keep that arrow moving down: shot of a graph. Egg production is up again. Another graph, then a shot of eggs rolling down a chute and an automatic counter registering each egg with a digitized number. Stan has a pang of nostalgia – those chickens and eggs were once his chickens and eggs. They were his responsibility, and, yes, his tranquility. But now all that has been taken away from him and he’s been demoted to chief toe licker for Jocelyn the spook.

Suck it up, he tells himself. Close the right nostril, breathe in.

Now another face comes on. It’s Ed the confidence man, onscreen to make them all feel confident, but an Ed who’s more substantial and assured, weightier in manner, more full of himself. Maybe he’s scored a major contract. In any case, he’s puffed up with the importance of what he’s about to deliver.

The Project has been going well, says Ed. Their unit, here at Consilience, was the first, the pioneering town, and others in the chain have similarly prospered. Head office is getting inquiries daily from other stricken communities, who see the Project as a way of solving their own problems, both economic and social. There are different solutions to similar problems – Louisiana has kept its honey-hole model, the for-profit hosting of recalcitrants from some of the other states, and Texas is still dealing with its criminality statistics by means of executions. But many other jurisdictions are looking for a more rewarding … for a more humane, or at least a more … for something more like Consilience. There is every reason to believe that their twin city is being viewed at a high level as a possible model for the future. Full employment is hard to beat. He smiles.

But now, a frown. In fact, says Ed, the model has been shown to be so effective – so conducive to social order, and, because of that, so positive in economic terms, and indeed so positive for the invest – for the supporters and visionaries who’d had the courage and moral fibre to see a way forward in a time of multiple challenges … The Consilience model has been, in a word, so successful that it has created enemies. As successful enterprises always do. Where there is light, it does seem a rule that darkness will shortly appear. As it now has, he is sorry to inform them.

An even deeper frown, a thrusting of the forehead, a lowering of the chin, a raising of the shoulders: an angry-bull stance. Who are these enemies? First of all, they are reporters. Muck-raking journalists trying to worm their way in, to get evidence … to get pictures and other material that they can distort for so-called exposés, in order to turn the outside world against everything the Positron Project stands for. These shady so-called reporters aim to undermine the foundations of returning prosperity and to chip away at trust, that trust without which no society can function in a stable manner. Several of these journalists have actually made it inside the wall, pretending they wanted to sign on, but luckily they were identified in time. For instance, just the other day a female TV journalist with excellent credentials had been given a mini-tour under strict conditions of confidentiality but had been discovered in the act of taking clandestine pictures intended to present a slanted view.

How to explain the wish of such people to sabotage such an excellent venture? Except by saying they are maladjusted misfits who claim to be acting as they do in the interests of so-called press freedom, and in order to restore so-called human rights, and under the pretence that transparency is a virtue and the people need to know. But isn’t it a human right to have a job? Ed believes it is! And enough to eat, and a decent place to live, which Consilience provides – those are surely human rights!

These enemies, not to mince words – says Ed – have already been involved in stirring up protest gatherings, luckily quite small ones, and have been writing hostile blog posts, though happily without credibility. None of this has gone very far as yet, because what evidence do these malcontents have for their scurrilous allegations? Scurrilous allegations that he will not dignify by repeating. These people and their networks must be identified, and then they must be neutralized. For, otherwise, what will happen? The Consilience model will be threatened! It will be attacked on all sides by what may seem at first like small forces, but together in a mob those forces are not small, they are catastrophic, just as one rat is negligible but a million rats is an infestation, a plague. So the sternest of measures must be taken before things get out of control. A solution is required.

And such a solution has indeed been devised, though not without much careful thought and the rejection of less viable alternatives. It is the best solution available at this time and in this place: they can take Ed’s word for that.

And this is where he needs their cooperation. For the jewel in the middle of Consilience – Positron Prison, to which they have all given so much of their time and attention – Positron Prison has been chosen for a vital role in that solution. Every resident of Consilience will have a part to play, but for the present they can best help by simply going about their daily routines as if nothing unusual is happening, despite the unavoidable disruptions that may occur in that routine from time to time. Though it is earnestly hoped that such disruptions will be kept to a minimum.

Remember, says Ed, these enemies, if they had their way, would destroy everyone’s job security and their very way of life! They should all bear that in mind. He has great faith in the common sense of the citizens of Consilience, and in their ability to recognize the greater good and to choose the lesser evil.

He allows himself a tiny smile. Then he is replaced by the Consilience logo and the familiar sign-off slogan: a meaningful life.

Stan has found this news of interest, if it is news. Are there really enemies? Are they really trying to undermine the Project? What would be the point? He himself has fucked his life up, but for the other people in here – anyone he knows, at least – this place beats the hell out of what they had before.

He looks sideways at Jocelyn. She’s staring thoughtfully at the screen, on which a toddler in the Positron preschool is playing with a blue knitted teddy bear, a ribbon around its neck. They’ve taken to running kiddie pictures after the Town Meetings, as if to remind everyone not to stray off the course Consilience has set for them, because wouldn’t they be endangering the security and happiness of these little ones? No one but a child abuser would do that.

Jocelyn switches the TV off, then sighs. She’s looking tired. She knew what Ed was going to say, Stan thinks. She’s in on his solution, whatever it is. Maybe she wrote the speech.

“Do you believe in free will?” she asks. Her voice is different; it’s not her usual confident tone. Is this some kind of trap?

“How do you mean?” says Stan.

The first truck arrives the next morning. It’s unloaded at the main gates. The people herded out are wearing the regulation orange boiler suits, but they’re hooded, their hands plasticuffed behind their backs. Instead of being driven straight to Positron, they’re shuffled along the street, shepherded by a batch of guards. The prisoners must have some way of seeing out the front; they don’t stumble as much as you’d think. Some are women, judging from the shapes muffled beneath their baggy clothing.

No need to parade them like this unless it’s a demonstration, thinks Stan. A demonstration of power. What’s been going on in the turbulent world outside the closed fishbowl of Consilience? No, not a fishbowl, because no one can see in.

The other guys in the scooter repair depot glance up as the silent procession shuffles past, then return to their work.

“Sometimes you miss the newspaper,” one of them says. No one replies.

Threat

Charmaine saw the Town Meeting on TV, along with everyone else in the women’s wing. Nobody had much to say about it, because whatever was happening wouldn’t affect them, especially while they were inside the prison, so why worry about it? In any case, said one of the knitting circle, so what if a reporter got in, because what could they report? There wasn’t anything bad going on inside Consilience. The bad stuff was on the outside; that’s why they’d all come in, to get away from it. Nods all round.

Charmaine isn’t so sure. What if some reporter happened to find out about the Procedure? Not everyone would understand about that; they wouldn’t understand the reasons for it, the good reasons. You could put a really unpleasant headline on such a story. She has a flash of herself, in a front-page photo, in her green smock, smiling eerily and holding a needle: DEATH ANGEL CLAIMS SHE SENT MEN TO HEAVEN. That would be horrible. She’d be the target of a lot of hate. But Ed won’t let the reporters get in here, and thank goodness for that.

The next evening, after the communal meal in the women’s dining room – chicken stew, Brussels sprouts, tapioca pudding – they all file into the main space, where the knitting circle meets. The teddy bear bin is half full; it’s their task to fill it before the month is out.

Charmaine takes up her allotted bear and sets to work. But when she’s done only two rows, one knit, one purl, there’s a stir. Heads turn: a man has walked into the room. This is almost unheard of, here in the women’s wing. It’s Ed himself, looking the same as when she saw him in Towel-Folding, though less relaxed. His shoulders are back more, his chin is up. It’s a marching stance.

Behind him is Aurora with her PosiPad, and another woman: black hair, squarish face, a strong body, like someone who works out a lot – boxing, not yoga. Nice legs in grey stockings. Charmaine recognizes her: she’s one of the talking heads from the validation screen in Medications Administration. So those heads are real after all! She’s always wondered about that.

Is it her imagination, or has this woman singled her out, given her a brief nod, a quick smile? Maybe she’s a secret ally – one of the behind-the-scenes rooters, one of those who’s restored Charmaine to her rightful job. Charmaine gives a little nod in her direction, just in case.

Aurora speaks first. Here is Ed, their president and CEO – they will of course recognize him from his excellent Town Meeting presentations – and he has some very simple but very crucial instructions to give them at this juncture.

Ed begins with a smile and a gaze around the room. On the TV he’s always friendly, he’s made eye contact, he’s somehow included everyone in. He’s doing that now, putting them at their ease.

He begins to talk. He knows they’ve seen the Town Meeting, and he has something to add about the crisis they are all facing –well, it isn’t a crisis yet, and it’s his job, and their job too, to make sure that it never becomes one. Scrutiny from the outside world is something Ed welcomes – he’s happy to go out and speak on behalf of all of them here, and to gather support – but he will not allow the inmates to be pestered and slandered, because that is the aim of those who are set against them: pestering and slandering. Why should they be subjected to such treatment? It would be most unfair, after all the hard work they’ve been doing.

The women are nodding. He has their sympathy. How thoughtful he is, protecting them in this way.

The situation is under control, he continues, but meanwhile he’s calling upon all of them to exert themselves even more than usual, in order to repel the barbarians at the gates who have declared themselves against the new way of ordering society they have been creating right here. The new order that is a beacon of hope, a beacon that risks being deliberately sabotaged.

But necessary steps are being taken. Some of those saboteurs have been identified, and they are being brought right here to Positron to be dealt with. Some might not view such a move as strictly legal, but desperate situations require a certain bending of the rules, as he is sure they will agree.

He would ask them to help out in the following ways. No fraternizing with those new-style prisoners, even if an opportunity may present itself. Any unusual sounds are to be ignored. He can’t say what these sounds might be, other than unusual, but they will know them when they hear them. Otherwise they are to carry on as normal, and to mind – he will put this colloquially – to mind their own business.

As if it’s been orchestrated, there’s a scream. It’s distant – hard to say whether it’s a man or a woman – but it’s definitely a scream. Charmaine holds herself perfectly still; she wills herself not to turn her head. Did the scream come over the sound system? Was it from outside, in the yard? There’s an imperceptible rustling among the women as they steel themselves against hearing.

Ed has paused a little, to make room for the scream. Now he continues. And finally, he says, he will now share with them, and he does apologize for this: during this crisis, and he does expect it to be cleared up soon, Positron Prison will not be the comfortable and familiar haven of friends and neighbours that they have helped to nourish. Regrettably, it will become a less trusting and open place, because that is what happens in a crisis – people must be on guard, they must be sharper, they must be harder. But after this interlude, if the forces acting for the greater good are successful, the normal pleasant and congenial atmosphere will return.

Now he hopes they will relax and keep on with what they’re doing. He’ll just stroll around and watch them at their work, because it is deeply encouraging to him to see them so peacefully and usefully employed.

“I guess that means keep on knitting,” Charmaine’s neighbour says to her. The knitting circle is being friendlier to her now that they know she’s got her old job back.

“What was he talking about?” says another. “What sounds? I didn’t hear anything.”

“We don’t need to know,” says another. “When people talk like that, it means don’t even listen, is what they mean.”

“I didn’t get that about a crisis,” says a third. “Did something blow up?”

Dang it to heck, thinks Charmaine. I dropped a stitch.

Then Ed is standing right beside her. He must have crept up. “That’s an attractive blue bear you’re knitting,” he says to her. “It will make someone very happy.” Charmaine looks up at him. He’s against the light: she can hardly see him.

“I’m not very good at it,” she says.

“Oh, I’m sure you are,” he says as he turns away.

It comes to her in a flash: He knows about Max. She can feel herself blushing with shame. Now why did she have that thought? Why would he have any reason to know? He’s too important to be bothered with people like her. She only had that thought because of the way she is, the way she can’t shake Max out of head. Out of her body. The way she can’t get clear.

Valentine’s Day

It’s Valentine’s Day. Stan lies in bed. He doesn’t want to get up, because he doesn’t want to plod through the hours ahead, expecting to be ambushed at any minute by whatever foul or embarrassing surprise Jocelyn’s planning to spring on him. Will it be a red cake plus tawdry heart-sprinkled crotchless lingerie for Jocelyn – or, worse, for himself? Will there be a soppy and mortifying declaration of love from her, with the expectation of an equally soppy and mortifying one from him in return? Hard-shelled women like her can have slushy interiors.

Or will it be Option B – We’re done here, you fail. Sandbag to the back of the skull from the lurking goon she’s got hidden in the broom closet – he casts her regular chauffeur for that, supposing there is one and not merely a bot – then a needle in the arm to keep him out cold; then dragged into that creepy stealth car with the darkened windows and hauled off to Positron to be processed in whatever way they process people there. Then into the chicken-feed grinder, or wherever they dispose of the parts. The cake and the melting, tender, velvet-eyed confession, or the iron-fisted sandbagging? She’s capable of either.

Having bullied himself upright, he pulls on his scooter-depot work clothes, then sneak-foots along the upstairs hall to listen at the top of the stairs. She must be in the kitchen; there are food smells and clinkings. He descends gingerly, peers around the doorframe. She’s sitting at the kitchen table texting on her phone, a plate of tousled breakfast leftovers in front of her. She’s wearing her I-mean-business outfit: tidy suit, gold earrings, the grey stockings. Her reading glasses are perched on her nose.

No cake. No goon. Nothing out of the ordinary.

“Sleep in?” Jocelyn says pleasantly. Should he say “Happy Valentine’s Day,” then advance and give her a kiss to forestall any nastiness? Maybe not. Maybe she’s forgotten what day it is.

“Yeah,” he says.

“Bad dreams?”

“I don’t dream,” he says, lying.

“Everyone dreams,” she says. “Have an egg. Or two. I poached them for you. They might be a little hard. Coffee’s in the thermos.” She turns the two eggs out onto a piece of toast: they’ve been done in heart-shaped poachers. Is this the Valentine surprise? Is this all? He feels massive relief. Get real, Stan, he tells himself. She’s not so bad. All she wanted was a bit of fun, plus getting back at her letch of a husband. She’s looking at him to see his reaction.

“Thanks,” he says. “That’s nice. It’s a nice … a nice gesture.” She gives one of her all-teeth smiles. She isn’t deceived for an instant, she knows he hates this.

“You’re welcome,” she says. “A token of my appreciation.”

A tip for the houseboy. Demeaning. He needs to wolf the food, then beat it out of the house. Hightail it down to the scooter depot, make small talk, rewire some circuits, hit something with a hammer. Take a breather. “I’m a bit late for work,” he says, to prepare her for his rapid exit. He slabs one of the eggs into his mouth, squeezes it down.

“You won’t be going to your job today,” she says in a neutral voice. “You’ll be coming with me, in the car.”

The room darkens. “Why?” he says. “What’s up?”

“I suggest you eat that other egg,” she says, smiling. “You’ll need the energy. You’re going to have a long day.”

“Why is that?” he says as calmly as he can. He peers down over the edge of the next half-hour. Mist, a sheer drop. He feels sick.

She’s poured herself a coffee, she’s leaning in across the table. “The cameras are off, but not for long,” she says. “So I’m going to tell you this very quickly.” Her manner has changed completely. Gone is the awkward flirtation, the dominatrix pose. She’s urgent, straightforward. “Forget everything you think you know about me; and by the way, you kept your cool very well during our time together. I know I’m not your favourite squeeze toy, but you would have fooled most. Which is why I’m asking you to do this: because I think you can. We need to smuggle somebody to the outside – outside the Consilience wall. I’ve already switched your database entries. You’ve been Phil these past months, but now you’re going to be Stan again, just for a few hours. Then after that we can get you out.”

Stan feels dizzy. “Out?” he says. “How?” Nobody gets out unless they’re top management.

“Never mind how. Think of yourself as a messenger. I need you to take some information out.”

“Just a minute,” says Stan. “What’s going on?”

“Ed’s right about some things,” says Jocelyn. “You heard him on the Town Meeting. There really are some folks who want to expose the Project. But they aren’t all out there. Some of them are in here. In fact, some of them are in this room.” She smiles: now her smile has an almost elfish quality. Dangerous though this conversation must be, she’s enjoying it.

“Whoa, just a minute,” says Stan. This is too much in one sound bite. “How come? I thought you were part of the top management in this place. You’re high up in Surveillance, right?”

“I am. As a matter of fact, I’m Ed’s founding partner. I supported the Project in the early stages. I believed in it; I believed in Ed. I worked hard on it. I thought it was for the best,” says Jocelyn. “I bought the good-news story. And it was true at first, considering the alternative, which was a terrible life for a lot of people. But then Ed brought in a different group of investors, and they all got greedy.”

“Greedy about what?” says Stan. “It’s not like this place makes a profit! On the fucking Brussels sprouts? And the chickens? … I thought it was more about saving money, or like a charity thing, right?”

Jocelyn sighs. “You don’t honestly believe this whole operation is being run simply to rejuvenate the rust belt and create jobs? That was the original idea, but once you’ve got a controlled population with a wall around it and no oversight, you can do anything you want. You start to see the possibilities. And some of those got very profitable, very fast.”

Stan can hardly follow. “I guess the building contractors must be making …”

“Forget the contracting end,” says Jocelyn. “It’s a sideshow. The main deal is the prison. Prisons used to be about punishment, and then reform and penitence, and then keeping dangerous offenders inside. Then, for quite a few decades, they were about crowd control – penning up the young aggressive guys to keep them off the streets. And then, when they started to be run as private businesses, they were about the profit margins for the prepackaged jail-meal suppliers, and the hired guards and so forth.” Stan nods; he understands all of this.

“But when we signed on,” he says. “It wasn’t like that. They didn’t lie about what we’d have, inside. We got the house, we got … Before, we were broke, we were miserable. In here we were a lot happier.”

“Of course you were,” says Jocelyn. “At first. So was I, at the beginning. But this isn’t the beginning any more.”

“What’s the bad news, then?” says Stan.

“Suppose I told you about the income from body parts? Organs, bones, DNA, whatever’s in demand. That’s one of the big earners for this place. It was going on in other countries first, and they were making a killing; that aspect was too tempting for Ed. There’s a big market for transplant material among aging millionaires, no? Ed’s bought into a retirement-home chain, and he’s set up the transplant clinics right inside each facility. Ruby Slippers Retirement Homes and Clinics: it’s big. The main operation is in Las Vegas: he figures there’ll be less scrutiny there, because anything goes. He doesn’t miss a trick.”

“Just a minute,” says Stan. “Whose body parts? It’s still the same number of guys in Positron, I know them, they’re not being cut up for organs, it’s not as if anyone’s vanishing . Not once we got rid of the real criminals.”

“Yes, Ed thinks it’s a shame we ran out of those,” says Jocelyn. “He’s got plans to import some more, take them off the hands of the public, so to speak. But your guys are the good citizens of Consilience, they keep the place running day to day, they’re the worker ants. The raw material ‘s being shipped in from outside.”

The truck. The hooded, shuffling prisoners. Oh, great, thinks Stan. We’re stuck in a grainy black-and-white retro-thriller movie. “You mean they’re rounding people up, carting them here? Killing them for parts?”

“Just undesirables,” says Jocelyn, smiling with her big teeth. She’s kept some of her badass sarcasm, anyway. “But now undesirable is whoever Ed says. Ed says the next hot thing is going to be babies’ blood, by the way. It’s being talked up as very rejuvenating for the elderly, and the margin on that is going to be astronomical.”

“That’s …” Stan wants to say “fucking gruesome,” which doesn’t begin to cover it. Or else he could say, “You’re shitting me.” But he remembers that thing he heard about the mouse experiments; also she seems deadly serious. “Where are they planning on getting the babies?”

“There’s no shortage,” she says with that other smile of hers, the ironic one. “People leave them lying around. So careless.”

“Has anyone heard about this?” he says. “Out there? Have they put it together, shouldn’t they …”

“That’s what Ed’s worried about,” says Jocelyn. “That’s why the ultra-tight security. A few rumours were circulating, but he’s managed to shut them down. Now nobody connected with a news outlet can get within a mile of this place, and as you know, no information is allowed out. That’s why we have to send a person, such as you. You’ll be taking a digitized document dump and some videos, on a flash drive. We’ll try to set you up with a key media target. Someone who’s not pals with Ed’s political friends, and who’s willing to take a chance on breaking the story.”

“So I’m supposed to be what?” says Stan. “The errand boy?” The one who gets shot, he thinks.

“More or less,” says Jocelyn.

“Why don’t you take it out yourself? This document dump.”

Jocelyn looks at him pityingly. “No way,” she says. “It’s true I have a pass, I can go out. I’ve been setting up the outside operations, paying off the people we hire to do the less legal things Ed’s got us involved in. But I’m monitored the whole time. To make sure I stay safe is Ed’s excuse. He trusts me as far as he trusts anyone, but increasingly that’s not much. He’s getting jumpy.”

“Why didn’t you make a break for it? Just get out?” says Stan. It’s most likely what he would have done.

“I helped create this,” says Jocelyn. “I need to help fix it. Now, time’s up. We have to move.”

Sandbag

They’re in the car now; he can scarcely remember walking out to it. In front of them there’s a driver – a real one, not a robot. The driver sits upright, his grey shoulders straight, the back of his head noncommittal. The streets glide past.

“Where are we going?” says Stan.

“Positron,” says Jocelyn. “Our exit strategy for you begins there. Need to get you prepped, then see you through the day. This move is not without risks. It would be very unfortunate if you got caught.”

The driver, thinks Stan. It’s always the driver, in movies. Listening in. Spying on everyone. “What about him?” he says. “He’s heard all this.”

“Oh, that’s only Phil,” says Jocelyn. “Or Max. You’ll recognize him from the videos.”

Phil turns around, gives a brief smile. It’s him, all right – Charmaine’s Max, with his handsome, narrow, untrustworthy face, his too bright eyes.

“He’s been such a help in creating motive,” says Jocelyn. “We chose Charmaine because we thought she might be …”

“Susceptible,” says Phil.

“Sufficient to have stood but free to fall,” says Jocelyn.

“What?” says Stan. This is some slur on Charmaine. He clenches his fists. Steady, he tells himself.

“It was a gamble,” says Jocelyn.

“But she paid off,” says Phil.

The lying bastard, he wasn’t even sincere, thinks Stan. He was shitting poor Charmaine all along. Setting her up. Leading her astray for motives different from the ones you’re supposed to have when you lead someone astray. It’s as if Charmaine wasn’t good enough for him; not good enough for a genuine illicit passion. Which, if you think about it, is actually a criticism of Stan. His hands are burning: he’d like to strangle the guy. Or at least give him a solid punch in the teeth.

“Motive for what?” says Stan.

“Don’t be sulky,” says Jocelyn. “For why I’d want to have you eliminated. I have superiors. I’ll need to account to them for my decision.”

“Eliminated? You’re going to do what?” Stan almost shouts. This is getting more demented by the minute. Underneath the heroic talk, is she a psychopath after all? With designs on his liver as a bonus?

“Whatever you want to call it,” says Jocelyn. “Among our management group, we call it ‘repurposing.’ I have the discretionary power for that, and I’ve made those kinds of decisions before, when things have gone seriously … when I’ve had to. For this particular scenario – the one geared toward getting you past the wall in one piece – anyone likely to be checking up on me, such as Ed, knows power corrupts, they’ll have experienced that first-hand. They’ll see how I’d be tempted to use my own power for personal reasons. They may not approve of that, but they’ll buy it. The evidence is all there, supposing I might ever need to use it, which I hope I won’t.”

“Such as?’ says Stan. “Evidence?” He’s feeling cold all over and a little dizzy.

“It’s on record, every minute of it – everything you’d need to establish a reason. Phil and Charmaine, their torrid affair, which I have to say Phil threw himself into; but he’s good at that. Then my own degrading and jealous attempts to re-enact that affair and punish Charmaine through you. Why do you think we had to go through all that theatrical sex in front of the TV? Your reluctance was fully registered, believe me – the lighting was good, I’ve seen the clips.” She sighs. “I was a little surprised you didn’t take a swipe at me. A lot of men would have, and I know you almost lost it a couple of times; I worried about your blood pressure. But you’ve shown impressive restraint.”

“Thanks,” says Stan. He has a moment of pleasure at having been tagged “impressive.” Cripes, he tells himself. Get a grip. Are you buying this? Do you believe for one nanosecond that this stone-cold bitch wasn’t getting off big-time on treating you like a fucking galley slave? Do you trust the two of them? No, he answers. But do you have any choice? Pull back, say you won’t do it, and they’ll likely kill you.

“It was a plus that you had to force yourself,” says Jocelyn. “Your reluctance played well, though it was hardly flattering. Anyone watching would conclude it was sex at virtual gunpoint.”

“She’s not really like that, underneath. She can be very attractive,” says Phil gallantly. Or maybe even honestly, thinks Stan. Tastes differ.

“I agree,” he says, because agreement is called for. “It was hardly at gunpoint, it was …”

Jocelyn crosses her legs. She pats Stan’s thigh as if steadying him. “Anyway, those who might have to be shown those videos will see why I might want to get rid of you. And by means of Charmaine, for, after all, she poached my husband, right? Double punishment. It has to be watertight, this stunt. Something that can fool Ed, supposing he’ll go looking. He’d buy that kind of malice, coming from me. He thinks I’m a hardass as it is. That’s why I’m his right-hand gal.”

Is this leading where Stan thinks? His hands are clammy. “What stunt?”

“The part where Charmaine goes in to work in Medications Administration – where on a normal day she administers an exit dose to someone slated for repurposing – and then finds out that the next Special Procedure she has to perform is on you. And then she does perform it. But don’t worry, unlike the others, you’ll wake up afterwards. And then we’ll be halfway there, because you won’t be in the database anymore except in the past tense.”

Stan’s getting a headache. He can hardly follow this. So that’s what Charmaine’s been doing at her confidential job. She’s been. … He can’t believe this. Fluffy, upbeat Charmaine? Fuck. She’s a murderess.

“Wait. You haven’t told her?” he says. “Charmaine? She’ll think she’s killed me?”

“For her, it has to be real,” says Jocelyn. “We don’t want her to act, they’d see through it: they have facial-expression analyzers. But Charmaine will believe the set-up. She’s really good at believing.”

“She enters readily into created fantasies,” says Phil. Is that a grin?

“Charmaine won’t kill me,” says Stan firmly. “No matter …” No matter how far into her you got, you lying dickshit, he wants to say but doesn’t. “If she thinks it’ll kill me, she won’t go through with it.”

“We’ll find that out too, won’t we?” says Jocelyn, smiling.

Stan wants to say, Charmaine loves me, but he’s not completely sure of that any more. And what if there’s a mistake? What if I really do die? he’d like to ask. But he’s too chickenshit to admit he’s chickenshit, so he keeps quiet.

Phil starts the car, moves them soundlessly along the street toward Positron Prison. He turns on the dashboard radio: it’s the Doris Day playlist, again. “You Made Me Love You.” Stan relaxes. That crooning voice is such a safe place for him now. He closes his eyes.

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” says Jocelyn softly. She pats his thigh again.

He hardly even feels the needle go in; it’s just a slight jab. Then he’s over the edge of the misty cliff. Then he’s falling.