Forever (71 page)

'Oh, the poor thing!'

With Gilda acting as interpreter, Stephanie
spoke to the adults accompanying the children and asked about each
child. What she heard would squeeze tears from a stone. 'The
doctors give her three months . . .'

And ' . . . this is our last hope. Everyone
else has given up on him . . .'

And ' . . . It's a miracle she lived this
many days; what is needed now is another miracle . . .'

Stephanie listened, her heart breaking. She
had always known there was unfair pain and suffering in the world,
but coming face to face with it, and in children so young and
innocent, was unbearable.

When she went back to her seat, she stared
unseeingly out of the window.

Gilda smiled at Stephanie. 'Please fasten
your seatbelt, Ms Williams. We're making our final approach.' She
bent down and tapped the round window. 'There is Si'tto da Veiga
now.'

Stephanie squinted out of the window. A mile
off the dipping port wing and two thousand feet down was what
looked like a giant, light-refracting crystal pyramid rising up out
of the emerald jungle. At first glance she marvelled at its size.
Then, slipping on her sunglasses against the blinding glare, she
saw that it was a much bigger complex than her initial impression
had led her to believe.

Like spokes radiating outwards from a
central hub, six glass-enclosed walkways connected six other
geometrically shaped buildings with the pyramid: a square, a
trapezoid, a rectangle, a cone, a cylinder, and a sphere - all
sheathed with the same solar mirror energy cells. And up ahead,
cutting a clean white swathe through the jungle, the airstrip - a
seven-thousand- foot-long runway.

There was a shudder as the landing gear was
lowered and locked into place, and then the ground rushed up and,
moments later, the pilot set the jet smoothly down. Stephanie felt
herself thrust against her seat belt as the plane braked; then they
taxied slowly to where two glass-topped buses waited.

As soon as the jet stopped rolling, the
first bus pulled up alongside and an accordion-like jetway was
connected between the two conveyances. Gilda opened the aircraft's
door.

'I hope you don't mind letting the children
off first?' she asked Stephanie.

'Not at all.'

She watched them being transferred to the
bus. When that was completed, Gilda shut the door again and waited
for the second bus to drive into position. Again, an accordion-like
jetway was connected between jet and bus, and Gilda opened the door
once more.

'I hope you had a pleasant flight, Ms
Williams. We will have your suitcase transferred in a minute.'

Outside, the sweltering jungle was a
steaming 101 degrees and the humidity was 85 per cent, but thanks
to the accordion jetway, Stephanie stepped from air-conditioned jet
to air-conditioned bus without having to take a single breath of
fetid jungle air.

A man was waiting for her on the bus. 'Ms
Williams?' he enquired, getting to his feet.

'Yes?' She looked at him questioningly.

He extended his hand. 'Welcome to Si'tto da
Veiga. I am Dr Luiz Medrado, the director of the facility.'

She shook his hand. 'Dr Medrado,' she
repeated, so that she would not forget his name.

He was in his late thirties, she guessed,
thin and sallow-complexioned, and seemed all arms and legs. His
wiry hair was prematurely grey, drawn back in a pony tail. He wore
what looked like thin green scrub clothes, and white plastic
massage sandals.

'You must excuse the way we dress here,' he
said, 'but our sealed high-tech environment requires it. Please,
have a seat. As soon as your luggage is aboard, we will get
going.'

She sat down next to him and the driver
helped the cabin attendant with her suitcase. Then the bus door
hissed shut and the driver disconnected the accordion tunnel by
remote control. Stephanie watched it fold itself up; there was
a.small jolt, and it disappeared completely. Except for the sighs
and hums of the air conditioning, the bus seemed very quiet. Then,
with a soft whirr, it began to move.

'The engine's extremely quiet,' Stephanie
commented.

'That's because it's electric,' he
explained, it works on batteries which are charged overnight from
electricity generated by the solar walls of Si'tto da Veiga. One
question. Do you smoke?'

'No.' She shook her head.

'Good. Smoking is not permitted except in
rooms designated for such. More than a health issue is the reality
that smoke creates dirt. It would really screw up our
state-of-the-art machinery.'

Stephanie kept looking through the
glassed-in bubble top at the approaching mirrored complex. 'This
place is very impressive,' she said. 'And huge!'

He nodded, it was an ambitious undertaking
and cost in the neighbourhood of three billion dollars. As you've
probably gathered, the central pyramid is the nerve centre of the
entire complex.'

'Is its shape supposed to be significant?'
she asked.

He laughed. 'TTie pyramid was chosen because
its geometric form is easy to fabricate. Also, it made the most
sense in this climate. With the equatorial sun almost directly
overhead, all four sloping sides can simultaneously absorb solar
power all day long.'

'How long have you been involved with Sitto
da Veiga?' she asked.

He allowed himself a modest smile. 'Since
its conception. I was part of the team which designed it.'

Stephanie stared out as the dense jungle
growth abruptly disappeared, replaced by incongruously mown green
lawn. And there, sprawling upon one hundred cleared acres, was this
startling futuristic city of mirrors in all its splendour.

There was a jolt; the remote-activated
accordion tunnel unfolded itself, connecting the bus with the
entrance to the complex. The accordion tunnel led into a cool,
three-storey-tall, cone-shaped atrium.

'This is our arrival and departure lounge,'
Luiz explained, gesturing around. 'Also, this is the one building
on the premises for which decontamination is not required.'

He shepherded her to a door in front of
which a young woman, also in green scrub clothes, sat behind a
marble slab. She was leafing through a French
Vogue
, and
looked up and smiled pleasantly as they approached.

'Boa tarde
,' she said.

Returning her greeting, they walked past her
and stopped at a brushed-steel door. Luiz slid a plastic card into
a slot beside it.

The door slid open noiselessly and they
stepped through; behind them, it slid shut with a hiss.

'It's airtight,' Luiz told her.

'But what about the air we breathe?'
Stephanie wanted to know.

'It's filtered repeatedly and recycled. I
should mention that each time you leave this airlock, you must be
decontaminated again before you return.'

He slipped his plastic card into another
slot; another door slid open; they passed through and it hissed
shut behind them. Now they were in a completely tiled room, where a
heavy-set woman in scrub greens was waiting.

'I shall turn you over to Margarida here,'
Luiz said. 'She will take you through there -' He pointed to a
swinging door marked with a female figure. 'I will go through this
one.' He gestured to an identical door marked with a male
figure.

'Please to come,' Margarida said in passable
English, and held open the female door.

Stephanie went past her and Margarida
followed. They were in another, smaller tiled cubicle.

'Please to undress. Put your handbag and all
of your clothes, jewellery, and accessories in here.' She indicated
a wire basket. 'All items will be cleaned appropriately.'

Stephanie stripped down and stood there
waiting.

Margarida picked up the basket and pushed it
through a flapped hatch, opened a tempered glass door, and gestured
Stephanie inside.

It was a small modular cubicle made of
special heat-resistant glass.

Margarida said, 'This is steam bath, then
comes foot bath and shower, and three more shower. All is timed
automatically. You will stay in each until the treatment stops and
the door to the next opens. Also, you are not to drink any of the
water.'

With that, the woman shut the door.

Stephanie waited and looked around. There
was a door opposite the one she'd entered - presumably the one
which a timer would open.

Ten seconds later, hot billowing steam
poured in from vents in the walls. Within moments, the cubicle was
dense with fog and her pores were opening and she began to sweat
profusely. Then, after five minutes, the steam abruptly stopped
coming in and fans drew it all out.

Ping! The door she'd guessed would open slid
aside and lights clicked on in the next cubicle. Her body slick
with moisture, she walked inside; behind her, the door to the steam
room slid shut.

Again, a wait of ten seconds. Then swirls of
luke-warm water crashed in until her ankles were covered. Then
showers popped on and hit her from all around with a fine cooling
spray.

Ping! The next door slid aside; she stepped
over into another cubicle, the lights switching on as she
entered.

Another shower blasted her, this one
hot.

Ping! Another shower. Ping! Another yet.
Then one last cubicle, where powerful heat blowers dried her, and
she found herself back in a tiled room identical to the one where
she'd started.

Another woman, also in green surgical
scrubs, waited for her there. The woman gestured. 'Now. Your
clothes and personal things finished decontamination. You may wear
what you like. Your own clothes -' She pointed to a basket
containing Stephanie's decontaminated clothes and purse. 'Or
these.' She pointed out another basket, which was filled with
light-green scrub clothes and white plastic massage sandals in
sealed sterile packages.

'What do people around here usually wear?'
Stephanie asked.

'Most find these comfortable.' The scrub
clothes.

Stephanie said, 'Well, you know what they
say. "When in Rome . . .

'Pardon me?'

'The green,' she decided.

To help me blend in.

It was the kind of day that made a private
eye want to throw in the towel - and hanker for the simpler, safer
jungles of Cambodia or Nicaragua.

At breakfast, Myles Riley's fifteen-year-old
daughter announced that she needed an abortion.

When he got to the office, his surly
Morticia-haired secretary announced that her paycheque had bounced
and that if it wasn't covered by the time the banks opened in the
morning, she'd quit.

He snatched the telephone messages from
Morticia, and shut himself in his office and made a call.

'It's Riley,' he said, when a woman picked
up.

'I got what you want,' she half
whispered.

'I'll meet you in the lobby of your building
in twenty minutes.'

'Unh-unh!' she told him. 'I can't get away.
Besides, someone might see us. You know O'Neal's Balloon at
Sixty-third and Broadway?'

'Yeah,' he said.

'Meet me there. Five-thirty, okay?'

'Yeah,'he said.

'Got my money?'

'Yeah,' he said again, tonelessly. And hung
up.

Si'tto da Veiga • New York City • Ilha da Borboleta •
Rio de Janeiro

Luiz was giving Stephanie the VIP tour of
the facility. They began in the central ten-storey pyramid where he
showed her the administration department, a mini-mall shopping
centre, the thirty-room hotel, the book and microfilm library,
restaurants, a video arcade, bank branch, barber shop and beauty
parlour, the bar/cocktail lounge where there was nightly
entertainment, and a 200-seat cinema.

'Now I know why it's called Sitto da Veiga,'
she said, it really is a self-sustaining city!'

The next stop was the rectangular building,
the four underground floors of which contained the hospital
facilities.

'This is one of the best places on earth to
get sick,' Luiz told Stephanie. 'We have the highest doctor per
capita ratio in the world - plus all the latest in equipment. No
expense has been spared.'

The six above-ground floors of the rectangle
contained a school, a gym, and one hundred compact but completely
furnished apartments. There was also a large communal recreation
room, and a party room complete with kitchen, a day-care centre,
laundry and dry cleaner's, and a hermetically sealed, glassed-in
sundeck complete with Jacuzzi and indoor pool.

The next stop was the seven-storey cylinder.
Going inside, Stephanie could only stare: the entire cylinder was a
forest of vertical tubes sprouting plants. It was one huge,
flourishing, vertical greenhouse!

'All vegetables and all grown without a
single grain of earth.' Luiz proudly moved aside some leaves so he
could show her.

She held up her hands. 'But this must take
massive upkeep!'

'On the contrary. What you are looking at is
the farm of the future. Only three people work here, and they
mainly harvest. All the rest is done by computer and robotics.'

'A robot farm!' She shook her head
slowly.

Next, they headed for the trapezoid-shaped
building, which required that they once again return to the pyramid
to take yet a different glassed-in tunnel.

Remembering all the security cameras on Ilha
da Borboleta, and noticing the dearth of them here, Stephanie said,
'I don't see any video cameras mounted anywhere. Isn't that a flaw
in the security system?'

'No.' Luiz shook his head. 'Security is much
tighter than it looks. We have a number of security devices, but
the most important is our internal alarm system. We use an infrared
alarm system. There are electric eyes mounted in the walls of the
labs and all the security-sensitive areas. They send out beams of
light, which are invisible to the naked eye. The moment someone
breaks a beam with a foot or an arm, the alarms sound. If you
wander around at night, and happen across guards wearing red
goggles, don't get spooked. They're just security guards doing
their jobs while trying to step around the cobweb of beams without
making the alarms shrill.'