A Good Old-Fashioned Future (21 page)

“People say that, until they have their first Wende,” Sardelle said. “Then it’s all different. Once you know a Wende can actually happen to you … well, it changes everything.”

“We’d take steps to stop it, that’s all. Take steps to control it. Can’t you people take some steps?”

Sardelle tugged off her pinstriped gloves and set them on the tabletop. She worked her bare fingers gently, blew on her fingertips, and picked a big bready pretzel from the basket. Eddy noticed with surprise that her gloves had big rock-hard knuckles and twitched a little all by themselves.

“There are things you can do, of course,” she told him. “Put police and firefighters on overtime. Hire more private security. Disaster control for lights, traffic, power, data. Open the shelters and stock first-aid medicine. And warn the whole population. But when a city tells its people that a Wende is coming, that
guarantees
the Wende will come.…” Sardelle sighed. “I’ve worked Wendes before. But this is a big one. A big, dark one. And it won’t be over, it can’t be over—not until everyone knows that it’s gone, and feels that it’s gone.”

“That doesn’t make much sense.”

“Talking about it won’t help, Eddy. You and I, talking about it—we become part of the Wende ourselves, you see? We’re here because of the Wende. We met because of the Wende. And we can’t leave each other, until the Wende goes away.” She shrugged. “Can you go away, Eddy?”

“No … not right now. But I’ve got stuff to do here.”

“So does everybody else.”

Eddy grunted and killed another beer. The beer here was truly something special. “It’s a Chinese finger-trap,” he said, gesturing.

“Yes, I know those.”

He grinned. “Suppose we both stop pulling? We could walk through it. Leave town. I’ll throw the book in the river. Tonight you and I could fly back to Chattanooga. Together.”

She laughed. “You wouldn’t really do that, though.”

“You don’t know me after all.”

“You spit in the face of your friends? And I lose my job? A high price to pay for one gesture. For a young man’s pretense of free will.”

“I’m not pretending, lady. Try me. I dare you.”

“Then you’re drunk.”

“Well, there’s that.” He laughed. “But don’t joke about liberty. Liberty’s the realest thing there is.” He stood up and hunted out the bathroom.

On his way back he stopped at a payphone. He gave it fifty centimes and dialed Tennessee. Djulia answered.

“What time is it?” he said.

“Nineteen. Where are you?”

“Düsseldorf.”

“Oh.” She rubbed her nose. “Sounds like you’re in a bar.”

“Bingo.”

“So what’s new, Eddy?”

“I know you put a lot of stock in honesty,” Eddy said. “So I thought I’d tell you I’m planning an affair. I met this German girl here and frankly, she’s irresistible.”

Djulia frowned darkly. “You’ve got a lot of nerve telling me that kind of crap with your spex on.”

“Oh yeah,” he said. He took them off and stared into the monitor. “Sorry.”

“You’re drunk, Eddy,” Djulia said. “I hate it when you’re drunk! You’ll say and do anything if you’re drunk and on the far end of a phone line.” She rubbed nervously at her newest cheek-tattoo. “Is this one of your weird jokes?”

“Yeah. It is, actually. The chances are eighty to one that she’ll turn me down flat.” Eddy laughed. “But I’m gonna try anyway. Because you’re not letting me live and breathe.”

Djulia’s face went stiff. “When we’re face to face, you always abuse my trust. That’s why I don’t like for us to go past virching.”

“Come off it, Djulia.”

She was defiant. “If you think you’ll be happier with some weirdo virch-whore in Europe, go ahead! I don’t know why you can’t do that by wire from Chattanooga, anyway.”

“This is Europe. We’re talking actuality here.”

Djulia was shocked. “If you actually touch another woman I never want to see you again.” She bit her lip. “Or do wire with you, either. I mean that, Eddy. You know I do.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I know.”

He hung up, got change from the phone, and dialed his parents’ house. His father answered.

“Hi, Bob. Lisa around?”

“No,” his father said, “it’s her night for optic macrame. How’s Europe?”

“Different.”

“Nice to hear from you, Eddy. We’re kind of short of money. I can spare you some sustained attention, though.”

“I just dumped Djulia.”

“Good move, son,” his father said briskly. “Fine. Very serious girl, Djulia. Way too straitlaced for you. A kid your age should be dating girls who are absolutely jumping out of their skins.”

Eddy nodded.

“You didn’t lose your spex, did you?”

Eddy held them up on their neck chain. “Safe and sound.”

“Hardly recognized you for a second,” his father said. “Ed, you’re such a serious-minded kid. Taking on all these responsibilities. On the road so much, spexware day in and day out. Lisa and I network about you all the time. Neither of us did a day’s work before we were thirty, and we’re all the better for it. You’ve got to live, son. Got to find yourself. Smell the roses. If you want to stay in Europe a couple of months, forget the algebra courses.”

“It’s calculus, Bob.”

“Whatever.”

“Thanks for the good advice, Bob. I know you mean it.”

“It’s good news about Djulia, son. You know we don’t invalidate your feelings, so we never said a goddamn thing to you, but her glassware really sucked. Lisa says she’s got no goddamn aesthetics at all. That’s a hell of a thing, in a woman.”

“That’s my mom,” Eddy said. “Give Lisa my best.” He hung up.

He went back out to the sidewalk table. “Did you eat enough?” Sardelle asked.

“Yeah. It was good.”

“Sleepy?”

“I dunno. Maybe.”

“Do you have a place to stay, Eddy? Hotel reservations?”

Eddy shrugged. “No. I don’t bother, usually. What’s the use? It’s more fun winging it.”

“Good,” Sardelle nodded. “It’s better to wing. No one can trace us. It’s safer.”

She found them shelter in a park, where an activist group of artists from Munich had set up a squatter pavilion. As squatter pavilions went, it was quite a nice one, new and in good condition: a giant soap-bubble upholstered in cellophane and polysilk. It covered half an acre with crisp yellow bubblepack flooring. The shelter was illegal and therefore anonymous. Sardelle seemed quite pleased about this.

Once through the zippered airlock, Eddy and Sardelle were forced to examine the artists’ multimedia artwork for an entire grueling hour. Worse yet, they were closely quizzed afterward by an expert-system, which bullied them relentlessly with arcane aesthetic dogma.

This ordeal was too high a price for most squatters. The pavilion, though attractive, was only half-full, and many people who had shown up bone-tired were fleeing the art headlong. Deep Eddy, however, almost always aced this sort of thing. Thanks to his slick responses to the computer’s quizzing, he won himself quite a nice area, with a blanket, opaquable curtains, and its own light fixtures. Sardelle, by contrast, had been bored and minimal, and had won nothing more advanced than a pillow and a patch of bubblepack among the philistines.

Eddy made good use of a traveling pay-toilet stall, and bought some mints and chilled mineral water from a robot. He settled in cozily as police sirens, and some distant,
rather choked-sounding explosions, made the night glamorous.

Sardelle didn’t seem anxious to leave. “May I see your hotel bag,” she said.

“Sure.” He handed it over. Might as well. She’d given it to him in the first place.

He’d thought she was going to examine the book again, but instead she took a small plastic packet from within the bag, and pulled the packet’s ripcord. A colorful jumpsuit jumped out, with a chemical hiss and a vague hot stink of catalysis and cheap cologne. The jumpsuit, a one-piece, had comically baggy legs, frilled sleeves, and was printed all over with a festive cut-up of twentieth-century naughty seaside postcards.

“Pajamas,” Eddy said. “Gosh, how thoughtful.”

“You can sleep in this if you want,” Sardelle nodded, “but it’s daywear. I want you to wear it tomorrow. And I want to buy the clothes you are wearing now, so that I can take them away for safety.”

Deep Eddy was wearing a dress shirt, light jacket, American jeans, dappled stockings, and Nashville brogues of genuine blue suede. “I can’t wear that crap,” he protested. “Jesus, I’d look like a total loser.”

“Yes,” said Sardelle with an enthusiastic nod, “it’s very cheap and common. It will make you invisible. Just one more party boy among thousands and thousands. This is very secure dress, for a courier during a Wende.”

“You want me to meet the Critic in this get-up?”

Sardelle laughed. “The Cultural Critic is not impressed by taste, Eddy. The eye he uses when he looks at people … he sees things other people can’t see.” She paused, considering. “He
might
be impressed if you showed up dressed in
this
. Not because of what it is, of course. But because it would show that you can understand and manipulate popular taste to your own advantage … just as he does.”

“You’re really being paranoid,” Eddy said, nettled.

“I’m not an assassin. I’m just some techie zude from Tennessee. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes, I believe you,” she nodded. “You’re very convincing. But that has nothing to do with proper security technique. If I take your clothes, there will be less operational risk.”

“How much less risk? What do you expect to find in my clothes, anyway?”

“There are many, many things you
might have
done,” she said patiently. “The human race is very ingenious. We have invented ways to kill, or hurt, or injure almost anyone, with almost nothing at all.” She sighed. “If you don’t know about such techniques already, it would only be stupid for me to tell you all about them. So let’s be quick and simple, Eddy. It would make me happier to take your clothes away. A hundred ecu.”

Eddy shook his head. “This time it’s really going to cost you.”

“Two hundred then,” Sardelle said.

“Forget it.”

“I can’t go higher than two hundred. Unless you let me search your body cavities.”

Eddy dropped his spex.

“Body cavities,” Sardelle said impatiently. “You’re a grown-up man, you must know about this. A great deal can be done with body cavities.”

Eddy stared at her. “Can’t I have some chocolate and roses first?”

“It’s not chocolate and roses with us,” Sardelle said sternly. “Don’t talk to me about chocolate and roses. We’re not lovers. We are client and bodyguard. It’s an ugly business, I know. But it’s only business.”

“Yeah? Well, trading in body cavities is new to me.” Deep Eddy rubbed his chin. “As a simple Yankee youngster I find this a little confusing. Maybe we could barter then? Tonight?”

She laughed harshly. “I won’t sleep with you, Eddy. I won’t sleep at all! You’re only being foolish.” Sardelle
shook her head. Suddenly she lifted a densely braided mass of hair above her right ear. “Look here, Mr. Simple Yankee Youngster. I’ll show you my favorite body cavity.” There was a fleshcolored plastic duct in the side of her scalp. “It’s illegal to have this done in Europe. I had it done in Turkey. This morning I took half a cc through there. I won’t sleep until Monday.”

“Jesus,” Eddy said. He lifted his spex to stare at the small dimpled orifice. “Right through the blood-brain barrier? That must be a hell of an infection risk.”

“I don’t do it for fun. It’s not like beer and pretzels. It’s just that I won’t sleep now. Not until the Wende is over.” She put her hair back, and sat up with a look of composure. “Then I’ll fly somewhere and lie in the sun and be very still. All by myself, Eddy.”

“Okay,” Eddy said, feeling a weird and muddy sort of pity for her. “You can borrow my clothes and search them.”

“I have to burn the clothes. Two hundred ecu?”

“All right. But I keep these shoes.”

“May I look at your teeth for free? It will only take five minutes.”

“Okay,” he muttered. She smiled at him, and touched her spex. A bright purple light emerged from the bridge of her nose.

At 08:00 a police drone attempted to clear the park. It flew overhead, barking robotic threats in five languages. Everyone simply ignored the machine.

Around 08:30 an actual line of human police showed up. In response, a group of the squatters brought out their own bullhorn, an enormous battery-powered sonic assault-unit.

The first earthshaking shriek hit Eddy like an electric prod. He’d been lying peacefully on his bubble-mattress, listening to the doltish yap of the robot chopper. Now he leapt quickly from his crash-padding and wormed his way
into the crispy bubblepack cloth of his ridiculous jumpsuit.

Sardelle showed up while he was still tacking the jumpsuit’s Velcro buttons. She led him outside the pavilion.

The squatter bullhorn was up on an iron tripod pedestal, surrounded by a large group of grease-stained anarchists with helmets, earpads, and studded white batons. Their bullhorn’s enormous ululating bellow was reducing everyone’s nerves to jelly. It was like the shriek of Medusa.

The cops retreated, and the owners of the bullhorn shut it off, waving their glittering batons in triumph. In the deafened, jittery silence there were scattered shrieks, jeers, and claps, but the ambience in the park had become very bad: aggressive and surreal. Attracted by the apocalyptic shriek, people were milling into the park at a trot, spoiling for any kind of trouble.

They seemed to have little in common, these people: not their dress, not language, certainly nothing like a coherent political cause. They were mostly young men, and most of them looked as if they’d been up all night: redeyed and peevish. They taunted the retreating cops. A milling gang knifed one of the smaller pavilions, a scarlet one, and it collapsed like a blood-blister under their trampling feet.

Sardelle took Eddy to the edge of the park, where the cops were herding up a crowd-control barricade-line of ambulant robotic pink beanbags. “I want to see this,” he protested. His ears were ringing.

“They’re going to fight,” she told him.

“About what?”