Cloud Country (3 page)

“John, is that you?”

A voice, the voice of honey and wine, and ever-bored command. Saru darted left and then right in slapstick indecision, and then stood still where she was, crouched with the sword held before her, as the lights came on and she was exposed.

The mistress lay on a bed of pillows, propped up, naked save for her golden rings, like a shard of night fallen to Earth. She looked regal, Godly, even, except for the expression of shock on her face, an expression never planned for by the armies of plastic surgeons and body modders that had sewn her beauty, and it looked like a mask, bad-fitting and ugly.

“It was not summoned!” the mistress screeched, the voice too now broken, exploring new realms and registers of displeasure. “It will leave at once!”

Saru allowed herself her own moment of shock, and then dropped the sword point to the carpet. She leaned on the sword a half second before nearly falling over.

“Are you talking to me?” she asked, pointing a finger at herself.

“John!” the mistress screeched. “John!”

This was a surprise to Saru. The word she would have chosen was “Guards!” But it made a strange sort of sense. The woman was an heiress. She’d never in the whole of however many years she’d been alive had to do anything for herself. And now, faced with an unexpected inconvenience, she couldn’t even call for help herself.

“John! John!” she screamed, and then, pointing a rage-shaking finger at Saru, “It will be whipped! It will be destroyed!”

“Shut up!” Saru said. She stalked over to the mistress, who scrabbled back on the pillows. The mistress screamed and screamed, not even able to make words anymore, a little-girl, tantrum scream of demanded ponies and dropped ice cream. There was an echo of soft footsteps and the Gaesporan appeared in the doorway, huffing and sweating, feet bandaged, more human than ever. He tried to say something, but it was swallowed by a huff. The screaming continued, a dentist-drill sound in Saru’s ears, driving her mad, more torture than the carved-out brand.

“Shut up!” Saru grabbed the mistress, hard, and the mistress flailed as though being murdered, and screamed louder. The screams rattled through Saru’s brain, caused her teeth to grind together and her breath to come in angry grunts. She shook and the screaming continued, supersonic now. Saru screamed back and raised her fist, and socked the bitch right in the cheek.

It wasn’t a hard punch, as punches go, more of a tap, really, just something to get her attention. And it worked, too. The mistress shut up. The screaming stopped. It was quiet for a nice, long second. The mistress looked up at Saru with wide eyes, like she was newly born, seeing the world for the first time. Her eyes grew even wider, beyond shock, beyond surprise, like she was learning lessons in discomfort that most people draw in slowly over the course of a sad, hard life, all in a single instant. A tear trickled from her eye, and then another, and another, a waterfall of tears, and her mouth wiggled comically, and then opened as far as it would go in the shameless bawl of a child. Saru let go and stepped back, mesmerized. The cry continued, broken by a sucked-in breath, and then resumed, and the tears flowed free. Her hands balled into fists and pounded against the pillows. Her feet kicked up and down like she was swimming, and still she cried and cried.

Saru felt a tickling at her brain like something magical was at work, the same tingly sensation of the Gaespora pulling one of their tricks or the hips singing to one another. It was faint, and metallic, and she felt that she was sensing the Net itself, the artificial connections between humans, mind to mind, and that here, within the Net of this estate, these cries were heard and felt by all. Saru stepped back again, and the Gaesporan, “John,” presumably, stepped forward, so they were side by side. He too stared at the crying woman pounding and flailing in her feather bed, his expression a new achievement in horror, a new personal best, blowing away his red-ribbon attempt hours earlier when Saru had mutilated herself. And amidst the horror, a disgust, like discovering his wife had herpes or his best friend was a pedophile. Saru glanced between the two of them, enjoying the lessons they seemed to be learning, and then made a decision.

“Hey, hey!” Saru snapped her fingers in front John’s face. “We gotta get out of here.”

“What?”

“Getting me out of here? Remember?”

John looked at her as though dazed, head drawn back to the crying mistress, not seeming aware of anything else.

“Yes,” he said, vaguely, almost cheerfully, like a man with a brain injury being offered an ice-cream cone. “Yes,” he said again.

“Well, come on!”

Saru grabbed his hand and pulled him into the hallway, dragging him in a random direction until he anchored himself and switched their roles, guiding her straight to a furnished elevator the size of a small house. They stood in the elevator, not speaking, staring straight ahead, listening to a tropical melody. The doors opened on pandemonium, the garden turned to hell. Servants ran back and forth, screaming and whooping, slamming into walls and changing direction, or stopping suddenly to fall and cry and pound the ground with their fists. Fights erupted and ended and erupted again, kisses turned to bites and ripped-out tongues, hugs became chokes, the guards tore off their uniforms and danced about, bashing skulls at random with their clubs. Bands of men on flying carpets raced and collided with each other, and laughed as they tumbled to the ground dragging broken and twisted limbs, attacking each other with croquet mallets and tennis rackets. A fire burned in the distance, the great tree-house bar with the many swings now a torch, and the screams of horses rose even above the shrieks of the madmen as the horses galloped through the crowds and were tackled and ridden or tripped by giggling, crying, bellowing fools. Saru stood frozen in the elevator.

“What. The. Fuck.”

John watched the scene coolly, not the tick-tock, engine-idle cool of a Gaesporan, but a human cool, like he understood exactly what was happening and wasn’t impressed.

“The brands,” he said, not turning his head to look at her when he spoke. “Everyone here is connected—connected to
her
.”

His words swam by like fish in a tank, and then one by one they settled into the muddle of her consciousness and gave meaning. And she understood. The interns, all the men and women, and—oh God, was someone protecting the children?—were networked together and tied to the mistress through the Net. Saru hadn’t been able to figure it out—why have all these useless servants frolicking around your gardens? Why have them drunk on wine and fucking one another? Why put them in pleasure boats and carousels and stuff them with fine cheese and fruit? Was it patronage, philanthropy? Were these people just toys or pets that it tickled the mistress to pamper?

No. All their joy and all their pleasure, all their orgasms and thrills flowed up through the Net to deliver themselves to the mistress like a drug, like an opium hose of ecstasy she could turn up and down at will. Saru had seen it done with two people, one person sharing the sensations of another—if you want to fuck your friend’s wife without her knowing. And she’d even seen it done with three people and thought it was mad, a risk and an expense far and beyond the reward of experiencing two whores licking each other out. But to network a whole town, a whole city of people and wire into their every carnal pleasure…it was beyond mad. Beyond indulgent. Beyond the whoring and stealing of crackheads, sky chasers murdering for one night’s taste, torture fetishists shoving pins up their cocks. It was beyond any form of fix seeking or depravation Saru had ever seen or could conceive of. Friar’s words came drifting back, when he had stood on the desert island in her mind and told her the UausuaU appeared as monsters only because that’s how they saw us. And in her mind’s eye, Saru saw the aliens a universe away, peering down at Earth through their alien telescopes, and watching this woman drag all the joy and thrills of others into a single needlepoint of personal bliss.

John reached over and took Saru’s hand. He led her down a path, away from the madness and the fire and the screams. He was saying things, saying it all would end soon. She nodded off cue, missing his points. Vaguely, Saru noticed the ache in her thigh had dulled, and she wondered what would have happened if she had kept the brand. There was a rustle in the bushes. A woman leapt at them wielding a grapevine like a flail. John blocked the attack and knocked the woman out with a sewing-needle zip of fingers along her pressure points. The path widened and then took to the sea, rising on its own pier over the restless waters. Spray splashed like spit against Saru’s face, wind tangling her hair. The pier ended on a white, round perch, and on it sat a plane, a silver, winged drop of mercury. John ran a hand along its surface and lines appeared that became doors unfolding. He helped Saru inside and she let him. Inside, the walls were invisible, so they sat in lazy chairs above nothing, in silence with the sky above. John took the controls with sure hands and they lifted off, hovering slowly, and then zooming faster and faster towards the blurring sky, to burst through the electric beat of the cloud shear, and mingle among the stars.

3. A Vertigo of Stars

They flew above the roil of black smog, so high it seemed like on tippy toes the stars could just be touched. The color in the night sky had been a shock, and now too the motion, the twinkle and tear-drop flashes of shooting stars—rare and wondrous on the feeds, but now so common Saru had run out of things to wish for. There was music there in that sky, in those billion lights so still and frenzied at once, and she could hear the light as it sang out, each point with its own voice, some blue and clear, or low and red, and all in harmony. Looking down at the endless smear of gray, she saw the Earth was in a prison, cut off from the light, and motion, and music of the universe. And she wondered if it was a prison of fear, because the music was loud and there was so much, and though it was beautiful it was not nice or easy or catchy like a Pop40 tune. Or if it was a prison of laziness—smoke sent up to the heavens, infinite until they filled, and then there was no better place to put the smoke. Or if it was simply the natural way of things, that a planet wrapped itself in filth to hide from the rest, like a possum limping off to die alone.

The plane had a bar, a luxurious bar with cute mini bottles that Saru suspected were made of real diamond, and the vodka within was so smooth and sweet it was like drinking diamonds themselves. Saru took a long gulp before confronting the Gaesporan, tilting back the bottle and emptying it, relishing those final drops of perfection. Her vision swam nicely.

“Your name’s John?” Saru asked.

“An interesting question,” the Gaesporan said. “It was John. Maybe it’s different now. But call me John.”

This was off to a bad start.

“Hi, John,” Saru said, lolling into a dumb smile. “I’m Maggie.”

“You may conclude your deceit,” John said. “I know you are Saru Solan. You reek of violence.”

“Oh?” Saru said. “You don’t smell so great yourself.” Her hand travelled to the hilt of the sword. John followed the movement out of the corner of his eye.

“There is no need for that,” he said, archly. “I wish you no harm.”

“I’ve heard that before,” Saru said. “And the funny thing is afterwards I always wind up almost getting killed. So, John. How do you know my name?”

“I belonged to the Gaespora,” John said.

“And you think that’s an answer?”

“Please,” John said. “You share a margin with a God. You know how we plumb their mysteries. I have dreamt of your face. I have heard your music in the stars. I know everything and nothing about you. The Gods speak plainly. But they speak in the language of Gods. It is the burden of mortals to divine their meaning.”

“That’s some damn convenient bullshit,” Saru hissed. “Did you see my name on a feed?”

“No.”

“My face?”

“No.”

“No mentions at all?”

“I have seen you in no feeds, letters, telegrams, palimpsests, urns, icons, or facsimiles,” John said. “You are known to me as you are known to the shared consciousness of my erstwhile brethren, through the being that lives within you. I felt that you were a worshipper of SaialqlaiaS, the so-called Blue God, and I searched the shared memory of the Gaespora and found your name as it was remembered by the one who speaks for us in Philadelphia, whom you know as ElilE. I learned that you had dealt with the Gaespora before, and vexed them to no end.”

“And what else did you learn, huh?”

“Little else. You see, I am no longer of the Gaespora. You freed me.”

“I freed you?” Saru said, liking this less and less.

“In effect,” John said, evenly, flat voice, expression flat—and then he shivered with excitement like he was shaking out his heebie jeebies.

“More precisely, you exiled me,” he said. “When you carved out the Hathaway brand.”

John pointed at the makeshift bandage on her thigh. The red dot of blood had widened almost to the edges of the cloth.

“That had nothing to do with you,” Saru said. “It was an implant. I didn’t want it inside of me.”

“Your connection to SaialqlaiaS is strong,” John said, with a wince. “When you mutilated yourself I felt your pain, and your anger, and…many sensations…” he trailed off, wistfully. He shivered again, and then took a breath, and gathered himself into a semblance of control.

“The Gaespora cut me off, you see. Severed. They could not risk your influence spreading. I am no longer a part of the shared consciousness. I feel very…strange.”

A tear slid from John’s eye, and then another, and he was crying. This Saru had no idea how to deal with, and so she fished around the minibar for another bottle, coming back with a beautiful, gold-hued scotch. She drank, John cried, they flew.

The sun appeared, poking his dumb head up over the black smog, and turning it gray like ash. Saru was blinded for a few minutes, before the invisible walls adjusted, and dimmed the world around them. By the time she could see again, the sun had risen above the smog and chased away the stars. She found the empty vodka bottle, positioned it as best she could, and relieved herself—sweet Jesus yes, oh thank God. John’s head darted over at the sound, and then sprung back to fix itself straight ahead, until the tinkling music had ended.

“I apologize,” John said. He wiped at his tears. “Independence is a novel experience for me.” He held up his hand and marveled at it, like he was high as hell. And who knew? Maybe he was. “I cannot remember being alone like this before. In my own head. It is very quiet here. And also very loud. There are phantom memories. I reach for knowledge that is no longer there. In its place I find memories of my own from long ago.” He frowned at nothing, and then his face stretched into an expression of purest bliss. He laughed, heartily. “Melancholy. Sadness. Excreting water from the eyes, venting stress, mechanical relief.” He nodded to himself. The expression of bliss vanished. His features sank into misery, which hardened into resolve.

“Options,” he said. “I do not think I ever realized there were options. They were all hiding behind the rules. So many options. Blocked by so many rules. The rules were there, blinding me, walls that hid all the options. An entire dimension of options hidden behind those walls. Then you came and you cut the brand from your flesh. I had never seen anything like it. It had never even entered my mind that such a rebellion was possible. Like an animal gnawing off its own leg to escape a trap. The shared consciousness of the Gaespora is vast, but hierarchical. Many thoughts are verboten. It should be so,” he said, assertively. “There are stupid thoughts in the lonely mind.” He knocked his fist against his skull. “Useless thoughts. Saboteur thoughts. Masochism. Rumination. Narcissism. Doubt. Annoyance. Lust. It is all stupid. And yet in that forest of stupidity was the option that I never could have seen. To cut out the brand. To escape. Your stupid thinking freed me.”

“I’m touched,” Saru spat. “But you still haven’t given me one good reason to trust your ass.”

“Trust,” John murmured. “Action nurtures trust. Reason buys credence. Let us not aim to trust one another so quickly. I believe we share a motive. You are now a batterer, a thief, and a fugitive. I am at the very least your accomplice. I desire to escape the grasp of the Hathaways, as do you.”

“The difference is that when the Hathaways catch
me
, they’ll slit my throat, and when they catch
you
, you can run and hide under ElilE’s skirt.”

“Is that what you think? I fear you gravely misunderstand the nature of the Gaespora.”

“Enlighten me.”

“With pleasure. In the, say,
apple pie
of American politics, there are three major players: First and most assuredly foremost are the scions, like our dear Mistress, Priscilla. They are the sons, daughters, spawn, and spores of the American Founders—those proud industrialists who built this kleptocratic utopia. The scions are the center of the pie, the delectable filling, the owners of the land, the energy grids, the water purifiers, the factories, the fabrication dozers, the Nets, the militias, and the justice systems, such as they are. Do you follow?”

“I know the big dicks—the Hathaways, obviously. The Koch-Husseins, the Anheisers.”

“To name a few. Less notorious, but no less significant, is the crust of our pie: the hidalgos. Hidalgo is a catchall term for the nouveau riche, those law-bound citizens who through luck or ruthlessness have consolidated enough wealth and influence to pose a threat to one or more of the scions. Hidalgo comes from the Spanglish term
hijo de algo
, ‘son of something.’ It is a signal, you see, that one of these strivers has designs to expand beyond prudence; they begin to
discover
noble parentage.

“This is the friction of our civilization. When an individual achieves the status of a hidalgo, expansion can come only at the cost of the scions. Enter: the Gaespora. They are the pie pan. It is their thankless chore to keep the pie intact and uneaten. You may have seen my erstwhile brethren exert influence within the cities. I fear this may have given you an inflated opinion of their ability to guide human action. The cities and their charming denizens are the crumbs of the American pie. They have no bearing on politics. The Gaespora are few. They control no military of their own; that would render them an unacceptable competitor. When it comes to matters involving the scions, the Gaespora are utterly reliant on playing one scion against another to achieve their ends. This is accomplished through the assiduous collection and parsimonious deployment of information. Do you see now the role that I played, and the danger I undoubtedly face?”

Saru digested his words, trying to capture the point. Maybe John wasn’t Gaesporan any more, but he retained their annoying habit of speaking in riddles. She thought back to the Hathaway estate, piecing together her pain-bent memories. John had stood with the mistress, and the mistress had routed her orders through him. She’d called him consigliere. He was an advisor. A butler. A confidant.

“You’re a spy,” Saru said, marveling at her own brilliance. And not even a goddamn implant to help. “You were spying on the Hathaways for the Gaespora.”

“A point for the detective!” John declared. “I was a spy of a fashion. A sanctioned one. Part advisor, part diplomat. The scions know that the Gaespora can communicate in ways beyond the reach of interception. They believe this ability to be the result of genetic engineering—telepathy, if you will. The scions use the Gaespora to communicate with one another without fear of their words leaving the inner circle. This ensures an equilibrium. No scion can war against another; it is impossible to gain the informational advantage necessary for victory. And most importantly, the Gaespora prevent—”

“Third parties,” Saru interrupted, her mind racing ahead of him. “You keep all the information inside the clique. You keep out the riffraff, the, uh, hidalgos.”

“Very good,” John said, admiringly. “You have a gift for politics.”

“I know filth. That’s why the Hathaways will be after you. You’ve gone rogue. You know all their scandals, and their gossip, and their tech, and who’s plotting to fuck over who.”

“Reason enough to miss me,” John said, dryly. “But there is a far greater incentive for my recapture. Priscilla is a cretinous debauchee, but her seneschals—the technocrats who maintain the Hathaway empire—are astute and pitiless. To them a rogue Gaesporan is a precious opportunity. A chance to change the rules of the game!” He pronounced this with flourish, like he was introducing a theatrical production.

“The Hathaways have an excuse to drill into my skull and discover how the mind of a Gaesporan ticks.” John brought two fingers to his temple and made a drilling sound. “Not that my brain will yield any great secrets, severed as I am from the shared consciousness, but the seneschals cannot know that. The possibility of tapping into the Gaesporan telepathy is priceless.”

“You win,” Saru said. Maybe John was lying, but that was a hell of an elaborate fib to spew on a moment’s notice. “I believe you, I guess. The prize is that now we’re fucked together.”

“Yes. Our asses are conjoined in this escapade.” This seemed to delight John, and his delight was annoying her.

“That is not a reason to be happy.”

“Forgive me, but this whole experience is fantastically new. Not to disparage my erstwhile brethren, but membership within the Gaespora had its drawbacks. Life was regimented. I do not think I was ever allowed to make a meaningful decision. Can you imagine?”

“I hate to piss on your parade, but unless you can conjure up a miracle, this ‘escapade’ is coming to a bloody end pretty damn soon. We’ve got no supplies, no friends, no allies, and the entire ‘apple pie’ of America will be sniffing after us the second that freak show back at the estate reaches climax. My plan is to crash into the woods and live like savages until we kill each other out of boredom. You got anything better?”

“I may,” John said. “First, however, you must tell me: what were you doing at the cottage?”

“The cottage?”

“Priscilla’s Jersey cottage, which we have just fled in magnificent style.”

“Oh. I was trying to rob the bitch.”

“I have been honest with you,” John said. “You could extend to me the same courtesy.”

Saru sighed. Why? Why tell him anything? And why not? This clown might be one of the few people on Earth who would actually believe her.