A Princess of The Linear Jungle (3 page)

Flustered, Merritt pondered how to respond. Impulsively, she pinned Professor Chambless with a steely gaze and said boldly, “That is absolutely correct.”

Chambless stood, and Merritt prepared to be informed of her dismissal.

“Miss Abraham, you are precisely the kind of person I am happy tomentor. You may count on me for any assistance toward your noble goals. But please, I ask only that during our days together, of whatever duration, all your assignments be completed by deadline, and manifest all your considerable skills.”

Merritt began to weep. Professor Chambless came around the desk and laid a companionable bony arm across her shoulders, and handed her a square of embroidered fabric. Merritt mentally catalogued the piece as a ceremonial menstrual cloth from the Borough of Gartonstolz. She blew her nose on it nonetheless.

“Dry your eyes, Miss Abraham. The Throy Diaries beckon, and there are still the Squillacote scrimshaws to consider.”

Merritt complied. Professor Chambless said, “Do you have any family back in Stagwitz, my dear?”

“No, none. I was orphaned from birth.”

“And have you made many new friends here in Wharton?”

“Not a one.”

“Well, I suggest that you include a little room for fun and relaxation in your program, Miss Abraham. All work and no play makes Vasuki spew poison, as we all can attest.”

3.

OFF WORK

AS A PRESTIGIOUS UNIVERSITY BOROUGH, WHOSE reputation had spread far Uptown and Downtown, Wharton drew newcomers from afar and boasted a decidedly heterogenous population, more so than many another segment of the Linear City, including Merritt’s stuffy home of Stagwitz. In her daily rounds—and this was an admittedly limited itinerary, generally including only her lonely, cloistered apartment, the NikThek, and either Marley’s corner grocery store (home to economical stuffed grape leaves and potent plonk atone bull the bottle) or a cheap greasyspoon such as the Termite Terrace—Merritt passed in the street dark-skinned natives of Alms-grave; almond-eyed, honey-complected expatriates of Bento; veiled men and topless women from Quercus Major; and a plethora of other exotic types, rendered so by appearance, accent, attitude, or some combination of the three.

Given this wealth of potential comrades and lovers, representing a huge spectrum of congeniality and worldviews, Merritt initially felt that she should have no trouble finding a congenial social set. But for one reason or another—her own skittish hesitancy and vocational intensity, or the clannishness of those far from their own homes—she simply could not—at least in her first two months residence—make a dent in any of these convivial circles.

Not being a student, she had no access to collegiate circuits, nor was she enticed by her fellow employees at the NikThek (a musty bunch, truth be told, too long immured in spider webbed archives).

Consequently, when she sought to follow the advice of her newfound mentor, Professor Chambless, she wound up falling back on familiarity, in the form of Ransome Pivot.

Merritt and Ransome had met late in their junior year at Jermyn Rogers, when Pivot had chanced to eat at the restaurant where Merritt waitressed, the Buenasuerte. Miscalculating the check in the favor of the handsome customer, and having him nobly point out her mistake, saving her money out of her own pauper’s pocket, made their initial connection, resulting in but one formal date, an evening at a concert by the legendary Jigsaw Five.

Merritt felt no immediate romantic chemistry with Pivot, and so swiftly abandoned him. She soon learned that any neutrality was not mutual, as an infatuated Pivot haunted her path thereafter—in then on-threatening, addle-pated manner of some alien suitor out of Patchen’s
Age of Swains
. He was a pre-med student, following in the footsteps of his father, the well-known and wealthy Chamfort Pivot, and so he and Merritt shared no classroom time. But he made sure to engineer numerous encounters—right down to choosing Swazeycape’s med school as his post-graduate destination, and the
Samuel Smallhorne
as his transportation thereto.

So when Merritt reluctantly but with a curious sense of anticipation sent Ransome Pivot a letter, asking if they could meet for lunch one day, she expected him to fall all over himself arranging the date. But his reply did not come for several days, and when they finally hooked up, Merritt found the doctor-in-training oddly distracted and inattentive. The cares of the world seemed to have descended on his broad shoulders, and it was all she could do to wrangle a date out of him.

“I’d like to meet some of your new friends, Ransome. I’m sure the med school is full of bright lights just like you!”

“Yes, of course, grand bunch of fellows. Wild parties every weekend.” Pivot examined the veins in his own wrist as if seeing them for the first time. “But look here, why don’t the two of us go out first alone? Just you and me. Maybe take in some music at a club.”

“Well, all right, I suppose. But remember, I do need to broaden my horizons beyond the sons of Stagwitz.”

Ransome smiled for the first time since he had shown up for lunch. “Sure, sure, we’re in the big leagues now, I know. Meet and greet, network, all that important stuff. Listen, Mer, I’ll pick you up at seven this Friday.”

Merritt dressed in her classiest outfit for their date: stack-heeled shoes that gave her a little needed height; a black A-line skirt that helped diminish her hips; and an original Hazelgrove silk blouse in green that she had found on a sale rack back home (the price-cutting stain easily concealed under a neckerchief). Emerging from her brownstone on the arm of Ransome Pivot, she felt like a princess out of one of the semi-mythical kingdoms in the Hundred Thousand Blocks.

When she saw that Ransome had rented their own private pedicab, she felt even more special. As the driver gracefully huffed and puffed them Uptown, Ransome chattered in a light-hearted manner.

“Do you recall those Kynard impellers on the ship that brought us here? Someday soon you’ll see them installed in cabs. Just as quickly as the ingeniators get the battery problem licked. Weight and capacity, that’s the key. Mark my words, you can’t stop progress. Why, a couple of centuries ago, no one even knew that the Day sun broadcast power beams. It makes you wonder what else remains to be discovered about our world.”

Merritt nodded, and enjoyed the ride. Oddly enough, and most unlike herself, she did not feel compelled to talk at all, beyond an occasional affirmative interjection, during the entire trip of nearly forty-five minutes. But this change did not bother her, and she was content to rest comfortably against Pivot’s big frame.

They arrived at Wharton’s Block 52, well-known as a strip of luxe music clubs.

“Which one are we going to?”

“The Black Poblano. They have a new singer named Loona Poole. I’ve heard great things about her.”

The scene outside the Black Poblano was hopping. A doorman ushered Merritt and her date inside, and Ransome tipped him with a bill large enough to furnish Merritt with a week’s worth of stuffed grape leaves for her suppers. A blonde hostess in a backless, sparkling crimson gown conducted them to a table. Ransome ordered champagne.

The band went through several instrumental numbers, alternately lively or dreamy, including such imperishable standards as Rumbold Prague’s “Gone Scaling.” Dancers danced, drinkers drank, and diners dined. Merritt participated in everything, becoming gay and tipsy, and having a wonderful time. Professor Chambless had been so right!

Then the lights went down, noise levels dropped, and Loona Poole emerged.

A silvery cascade of thick hair fell nearly to her waist. Beneath the tresses, Poole’s abundant curves appeared naked—until Merritt detected flesh-colored tights.

Ransome whispered, “The gimmick is, she’s supposed to be some kind of emissary from a far-off Borough much more advanced than ours.”

Poole uncorked a vibrant contralto croon, employing a language which Merritt at first thought to be High Didierian, but which she soon realized was a clever kind of gibberish, or scat-singing. Swaying hypnotically, the singer stepped with high-heeled grace off the stage, microphone in hand, and began to circulate among the hushedpatrons.

Merritt found herself responding to the singer’s self-possessed animal heat despite her rational analysis of the act’s tacky premise and tawdry execution.

Poole finished her first song, began another, and soon stood close to Ransome and Merritt.

Without warning she plopped herself in Ransome’s lap, never missing a note. Poole winked so that only Ransome and Merrit could see. With her free hand she slid back her hairpiece a fraction—a gesture easily interpreted by the remoter members of the audience as a smoothing of her locks—thus revealing her true dark hair beneath the silver wig.

Merritt experienced a bomb-burst of recognition.

Loona Poole and the detestable Cady Rachis were one and the same!

Poole lifted herself up sinuously and sauntered on, still crooning her nonsense syllables.

Merritt lurched clumsily to her feet, overturning her chair, and rushed toward the exit, provoking little notice, since all ardent eyes remained fixed on the singer.

Ransome caught up with Merritt on the sidewalk.

“What’s wrong, Mer? What’s the matter?”

“You brought me here as a foil, just so you could see that—that sneaky sexy bitch!”

“But I didn’t! I swear it! Why would I even involve you, if I only wanted to see Cady? I had no idea Loona
was
Cady. Everyone knows she signed that exclusive contract at Topandy’s! This must be a dodge to earn a little more money. I can’t help that she spotted us in the audience, Mer. Really, I’m not responsible. You must believe me!”

Merritt began to calm down. She assessed the handsome ingenuous face of Mr. Ransome Pivot for signs of self-preserving prevarication, and found none. Nevertheless, she remained angry—until she suddenly deflated to weary, despairing dismay.

“Please take me home, Ransome. I don’t feel like staying out any longer.”

“But, Merritt— Oh—Oh, fine, whatever you want!”

Nearly a month of dull uneventful evenings passed. The semester would soon commence. Merritt knew she’d have no free time, what with her work at the NikThek and auditing courses. If ever she planned to make some friends, she needed to start now.

She wrote an apologetic letter to Ransome Pivot. In return, she got a scrawled invitation to a party that very Saturday night. BYOB, and meet you there.

Well, Merritt mused, she probably would’ve responded the exact same way, if the shoe had been on the other foot.

The address given was an unlikely one: a warehouse in the meat-packing district.

Half past nine, and the designated Block stretched as lonely, sad and empty as a drunkard’s beer keg. Broken streetlights outnumbered functioning ones. Rats dashed from the Riverside of Broadway to the Trackside as if conducting a relay race. Holding her bottle of cheap plonk ready for use as a cudgel, Merritt stayed close to the walls of the buildings, instinctively seeking protection, although against just what, she could not have said. Studying the posted address numbers—when available—she reached the relevant structure. From beyond its thick, humidity-slimed, glazed cinderblock walls, music thumped faintly, and Merritt relaxed a little.

Her knock on a big metal-sheathed, riveted door eventually brought a response. She expected wariness, but instead the door swung wide, spilling out light and sound.

A thin Bentoan fellow, amazingly composed despite his sweat-slicked golden face, regarded her with impartial suspicion. “Yes?”

Merritt had to shout. “Ransome Pivot invited me!”

The Bentoan nodded politely. “Certainly. Come in.”

The door swung shut behind her, and Merritt found herself in a vast tall open space, pulsing with music, chatter and odd lighting effects, and festooned with a hundred madcap amateurish decorations. Scattered seating and other furniture seemed lost across the huge, people-packed floorspace. She smelled spilled liquor and dope smoke and a hundred cheap perfumes.

“I am Henry Yun. Ransome and I are both pre-med. Goodge Adams and I own this joint. Please make yourself at home.”

Yun left Merritt then, and she stepped with tentative enthusiasm into the scrum.

Merritt never encountered Ransome that whole evening. But she chatted with dozens of strangers, gradually loosening up with every sip of free-flowing gin. After a while, she realized she was having a great time.

Goodge Adams proved to be a chubby, excitable short guy, the antithesis to his roommate Henry Yun’s slim sangfroid: earnest and bright-eyed at the moment in an intoxicated fashion. He trapped Merritt in a corner on a broke back sofa, her on the cushions and him perched above on the arm, and bent her ear about the rigors of med school.

“Nothing but work, endless work! Swotting up awesome big books. And the lab hours. Endless! Not to mention anatomy! And try practicing anatomy without corpses! It’s the essential medical conundrum!”

One word in the tirade made no sense to Merritt, and not merely because she was very drunk herself. “Corpses? What’s that?”

Goodge ignored her, or perhaps did not hear her. “And all that competition and struggle, just to graduate at the top of your class. Gotta get hired by the richest hospital, the chicest practice.”

Here Goodge displayed a sly look for which Merritt could discern no reason. “But Yun and I have a leg-up on the others. Oh, yes, we do! We’re learning anatomy all right, ‘way deeper than the university allows!”

Goodge leaned forward and ran a hand up Merritt’s leg to her thigh. In her alcoholic haze, she figured she was intended to provide the extra anatomy lesson he refered to. She brusquely displaced his groping paw, causing him to fall drunkenly off the arm of the sofa and lie peacefully on the filthy floor.

Subsequent hours could only be reassembled in fragments, with many segments missing. But one incident stood out.

Merritt was in search of the WC. She had wandered far from the crowd, toward the back of the huge building, and had her hand on a doorknob. But the door was locked. She struggled with it, convinced for some unfathomable reason that this room contained the sought-after toilet.