Alice looks down at her hands, knotted in her lap.
"Was all that pain wasted and pointless?" Tim asks.
Alice deliberately relaxes her hands and lays them on her knees, fingers
spread. "I've had to change."
"So have we all."
"I've thought about you."
I Tim raises his brows. "Thought what?"
"I wondered how you were doing. Who you were with and how they were
treating you."
"Four women since you," Tim says. "They varied. I varied. And you?"
There it is again, even in his presence; the burn is back. She frowns and
tries to say something, but there is no good answer. Statistics can't describe
her life. Hundreds, a thousand, most of them work; twenty-five or thirty relationships,
but none of those even came close to what she trashed with Tim.
None of them made her feel so together, or so inadequate.
"A lot, I presume," Tim says tightly. "Variety."
"Men," she says, laughing.
"Alice and men," Tim says, not laughing. "Alice and men and women and
all varieties in between."
"We both have nobody significant," Alice says. "We've taken different roads
to the same place." She does not want him to score all the points.
"The same place," Tim agrees.
"You scared me. You still do."
/
SLANT 199
"You were--you are--the only man who makes me wonder what it would
be like to live a straight settled life. With. With you. Working as a team and
being loyal. Sharing everything. Raising children. As a team. The only one."
"My type can't be so rare," Tim says.
"No. For me. I've been very choosy.., believe it or not."
"Don't cry," Tim says, his voice rough, resentful.
"I'm not." But she is, the tears sliding down her cheeks. "It's been a tough
week. Forgive me."
"You're a tough woman."
"I'm worn down. Something seems to think it's time to show me how stupid
I've been. Willful."
"What does that mean?" he asks.
Just like Tim; he hasn't been tracking the scandal ribes. She does not want
to tell him about Crest, so she generalizes.
"Somebody suggests I should do this, go this way, I go the other way. I'm
not in charge. Everybody else is in charge, they just do it in reverse. Whatever
they want me to do, they tell me to do the opposite."
Tim shakes his head. "That I don't understand at all."
"I am a little desperate and more than a little lost," Alice says. "And you
don't have anybody."
They stare at each other with that sappy, deceptively meaningful gaze that
seems to last forever but conveys no useful information.
The burn is coring and singeing its way to the center of her brain. If Tim
reacts the way she needs him to, she will be saved; if he does not, she thinks
she might as well just lie back and shut her eyes and stop breathing.
"No, Alice," Tim says, and his voice is very gentle, very soft. "I have a lot
of unresolved miseries to deal with. I hold grudges. I'm not who you think I
am, and I'm certainly not what I was."
"It might be worth some sort of effort, a try?" Alice suggests.
"It hurts me that things haven't worked out for you," Tim says again.
"Because to justify the pain you caused me, you would have to have been right.
You would have to have done what was best."
"I was wrong."
"I don't want to hear that. I thought you were the finest, the most complex
and beautiful. I would have cut off my limbs to live with you. I dreamed about
you night after night. You lived inside me, I worshipped you. It was too much
and you proved that. You proved to me that I did not deserve you and could
never reach your standards."
"I was cruel and stupid."
Tim shakes his head vehemently. "If you did what you did for no good
reason, that means we come from different planets."
Alice remembers the voices outside. Echoes of Tim; not Tim.
"On my planet," he continues, "we don't flit around stomping on people,
200 GREG BEAR
work to do and I just can't sit around and play the keys on women's emotions,
as a lark. On your planet, apparently, it's possible to do whatever you want
and forget about it. You haven't been thinking much about me, have you,
until now? You didn't suffer." His voice goes loud and deep, gravelly. "You
changed my li."
Tim stands. He's trembling he's so upset. "I'm all I have. I can't let anyone
break me twice."
Jakey finds her in the main ballroom, trying to get lost in the crowd. She's
looking for Twist but she's no longer in sight; off with the Goon gaining
experience, probably.
"Hey, Gorgeous," Jake says. "I've got something for you. One of my live
talent bookings fell through. I need a replacement, a real showpiece. There are
a lot of sly top people here. I can introduce you, let you shine... Interested?"
Alice decides something should be salvaged. "Sure," she says.
"You look roughed," Jake says with professional candor. "Pull it together
and we have a deal."
"I'm together," Alice says.
"I have another fellow here . .. You two are perfect. You've worked with
Minstrel before, haven't you?"
Alice nods. "He's here?"
"You two are perfect," Jake repeats. "It's a beta demo on full-spine interface.
The next big step. We have a major studio-produced Yox that glows. You can
do the demo with Minstrel--it's sensuous as all hell, Alice. People will rec4ognize
you. You're rising with Faerie Queene. You'll be on the sly spin!"
"Where's Minstrel?" Alice asks.
Jake leads her to a small side room decorated with fall colors. Ghosts of
leaves fall with an eternal rustling sound just outside the surface of the walls.
Minstrel is sitting on a pliant burnt-orange couch, pushing his bare feet into
the paradise garden pattern of a Persian rug. He looks up and grins, then
stands, and seems a little startled when Alice clings to him, pressing her face
into his shoulder.
"Hey, not so fast," Jake says. "Give us time to do setup. It's all arranged--you're
getting twice your temp scale. I'll add another share if it goes well.
Wait here a few minutes and I'll come back and get you." He rubs his hands
together and shakes his head in admiration. "You two are so hot/"
Jake leaves and Minstrel strokes Alice's cheek. "I am being squeezed to
death by a lovely woman," he says. "Do I dare ask why?"
"Because you're the only decent man on this planet," Alice says into his
shirt. She pokes her nose into his shoulder, then draws her face up and back.
"You can't believe what's happened to me since we were at Francis's studio." "lnn'r le,n on me too hard," Minstrel warns. "My foundations have been
/
SLANT 201
"Do you think that's it?" Alice asks, half serious, staring up at him. "We're
cursed by old king Fuck?"
"Undoubtedly. Two half lovers, starscrewed by the tetragrammaton." "What is Jakey planning?"
"You volunteered without knowing?"
"We're supposed to demo a Yox, he said."
"Jakey's tied up with a company that wants to market full spinal interfaces.
Glue a neural induction ribbon from tail to tete,
and live Yox to the fullest.
Even better if you've swallowed a monitor or two."
"What sort of Yox?"
"Knowing Jakey, and knowing us, it's not going to be a train ride through
the Urals."
"I'll do anything as long as it's with you," Alice says.
Jake enters, and behind him steps the three men in longsuits who had
been conferring with Tim. Tim is nowhere in view. Jake introduces Alice and
Minstrel; these are top execs and investment managers with Golden Nitro,
who are slotting Jake's next ten Yox productions for limited fibe release in
California and Kansas, test markets before opening gate to the world. They
seem to be familiar with Alice, and one of them knows Minstrel and has warm
eyes for him.
"We can NOT do better than these two," Jake enthuses. "They look eggs-ce/lent for a demo strip to show the full spinal, get the crowd's blood up, and
then we let them experience the full Yox. The crowd sees a vid and limited
monitor version. How you two react," Jake hints, "will impress the hell out
of the crowd out there."
"All right," Alice says. "Let's do it."
"It's a sensual feast, multicultural, very exciting and very relaxing," Jake
adds, a bit taken back by her eagerness. He can't believe he does not have to
sell the idea a little harder.
"Got it," Alice says. "Gentlemen, do we gate it or do we stand here with
our clothes on?"
"I'm ready," says one of the execs warmly, watching Alice like a hungry
puppy. She brushes past him through the door. She knows the routine. Jake,
whatever his tendency, is not a pimp. She's good behind glass today.
Richard Thompson is standing in the main ballroom with Catherine De-neuve
and Judy Garland. They just aren't attracting that much attention today,
perhaps because they seem to be malfunctioning: fading and rippling every
few seconds. Thompson is still staring at Alice and she does not like it.
Jake makes his announcements and does his puffery, hyping the process.
Alice strips with style until she is naked, and Minstrel removes his shirt as if
preparing for an underwear shot. They stand on a foam pad set in the middle
of the room. Some of the men in the audience hoot.
Twist is still out of sight. Maybe she's falling in love with the goon.
202 GREG BEAR
the crowd can see. Two techs, a man and a woman, give up on trying to make
the celebs work smoothly and open the silver canisters carrying the inducers.
These are long and slender, skinsticky on one side, with a silver stripe up the
length, like minimal jewelry for the spine. Alice stretches her arms up provocatively
as her inducer is applied. Minstrel gets his, and the inducers are
hooked to a fibe which feeds into a larger than usual Yox player.
"Just to show you what the future holds," Jake says, "we'll let two of the
most sensual people I know revel in a world of sensation, total emotional and
bodily immersion. Silk and fire and scented oil."
"Not a dry seat in the house," one of the execs comments. Jake lets this
crudity pass.
Alice will ignore the people, concentrate on Minstrel and on this exposure.
She needs a boost now, affirmation, both the crowd's and Minstrel's. Proof of
her solid worth.
Jake gives them sheer silk robes and whispers in her ear, "You're on. Alice,
let it all go. You can do all it takes."
Let them stare.
One of the techs seems to be having difficulty. "Excuse me," Jake says,
smiling broadly. "A few beta snags."
"Bugs for tea," someone in the crowd says, quoting a familiar vid punch
line. The crowd is warm and receptive. She can feel the energy, the support.
They're all lovers now.
Alice hears the tech mutter to Jake, "We're getting some feed from another
line. You have a high-flow system running somewhere?"
"No," Jake says. "Maybe the neighbors."
4
"It's here," the tech says, and then the other tech says, "We're clear. Let's
do it."
Alice and Minstrel improvise a small dance on the pad, stepping over their
ribes as they cross, hands held high, gallant and elegant before the unknown.
The party crowd eats it happily.
"We're worth a fortune," Minstrel tells Alice, smiling at her. Alice beams
and leans her head to one side, coming in tune with the moment and the
simple grace of this man. Her body treats this as a seduction already and the
Yox has not begun.
She has never seen Minstrel more handsome. Eyes just skirting sadness,
mouth wry, attention on her.
The adolescent male with his feet in dirt is back, flickering and shimmering
in the front of the circling crowd. Alice ignores him.
Then the inducer becomes a warm tea-bath along their spines, with a smell
chosen. She feels sun on her face and arms. It lacks the hints of jitter she's had
under previous Yox immersions; this is round, velvety, and totally convincing,
I:. gl A
h
oh-r? wirh(
ut being iaed.
/ SLANT 203
is falling and they are shivering. This is going to be some demo; hot and cold,
sweet and sour.
The gate opens and beyond lies a Maxfield Parrish twilight over an Arabian
Nights bazaar, small beautifully dressed people walking on streets paved with
shimmering wet cobbles. The air is full of tinkling raindew that lands sweetly
on their hands, warming like alcohol on the tongue. Her shoulders are
weighted with heavy brocaded cloth and she looks to one side to see Minstrel
in a suit of the same, violet and blue and red and shot through with gold
threads.
Lightning splits the sky and the rain becomes little moths.
A sweeping cut and they stand at the parapet of a palace, and behind them
a vast round chamber filled with beautiful men and women, large and small,
some giants, some barely the size of her hand, and they murmur and whisper
of the beauty of the two on the parapet, with the ancient city spread beneath
them.
Alice does not care about being female, she is too powerful for that, all her
misconceptions are erased and new embodiments replace them. The play of
sense is all in this city, this chamber. To dance is to experience an intense
pleasure in one's feet, as if they might melt in supplication. For Minstrel, all
of her will melt; he can command and she can command, and they will flow
into one another.
Alice and Minstrel continue to dance on the pad in the middle of the
ballroom, but the moves are repetitive. They are elsewhere.
Jake and, at last, Tim, along with the rest of the crowd, watch the vid
screens and ooh and ahh in communion. Tim avoids looking directly at Alice;
he seems numb to the whole spectacle. He is here because Jake has asked him
to be here.
The sim celebs have all shut down and moved to a corner to get out of
the way.
Alice knows this structure; Yox at its most abstracted, sweep and visual and
now intense sensory excitation, all flesh and muscle but no joints, all push
without leverage, linearity abandoned for immediate g
ratification. The gratification
would ring hollow if not for the artistry of the sensory, its own kind
of music; the Ygxicians have developed this to a fine art, and the producers
have hired the best to showcase their new enhancements.
For a moment Alice forgets who and where she is. The parapet is a universe,
the figures all around are her friends, she is awash in social confirmation from
tail to tete, as Minstrel said. Stars twinkle in a false sky better than real; stars
and moon are her friends, beaming sharp jewel approval down on her liaison
with the Partner. What she sees is enhanced. Minstrel is her Partner, but he
is, if anything, even more beautifully angular, and his skin seems bathed in
musk.
"It's what we're here for," the Partner tells her, bringing her closer. The
204
GREG BEAR
nipples need to weep honey and milk. She sees the dripping gold and cream
fluid from her breasts bead on his curled hairs, smells his musk intensifying,
becoming very nearly skunky.
Somewhere, the crowd is caught up and has fallen silent, good Yoxers riding
on a thick saddle the horse that Alice rides bareback, but all with accepting
uncritical nerve endings, all seeking that release more controlled and artifactual
than a drug-induced plunge.
Minstrel tells her again this is what they're here for. She can feel his reaction
echo her own and then double it, wavetrains in phase, they are being