Bright's Light (22 page)

Bright had never spent any time in the Productive Zone. All she knew about it was that it was where boring people in brown outfits worked to earn credits to spend in the Entertainment Zone. It, like the Natural Experience, wasn’t the kind of place anyone with taste went willingly.

As she and Fon walked, sticking to side streets and alleys, she felt something move on her neck. Air. There was air brushing her neck! She held her hands up and, for the hundredth time, felt for her missing hair.

“Wigs,” said Fon. “When we get into the House of It, we’ll get awesome wigs and everything will be fine. Some clients even prefer fake hair. There are extensions and follicle techniques available in personal maintenance, and it will be fine.”

Bright sighed, loudly. She wished Grassly hadn’t ruined the whole House of It thing for her.

“I know,” said Fon. “I feel the same. My hair is just such
an ongoing concern, you know? And these cord pants. I keep nearly barfing when I see them.”

Bright took a deep breath that didn’t quite fill her lungs with air. She tried again, and once more they wouldn’t fill. No problem. She was used to breathing from the top of her lungs when sucking in her stomach.

They had reached the border of Mind Alter and Gaming, and were going to have to cross a large street before they could continue. Bright was just about to tug Fon out onto the street when she heard the sound of many boots marching.

Bright froze. To her left, she could see the dark silhouettes of dozens of men. Maybe as many as a hundred. They were unmistakably PS staff: the blackest shadows in the darkest night.

Bright pulled Fon back, and they pressed themselves against the side of a building.

When the line of support staff had passed and the sound of their boots had faded into the eerily quiet night, Bright took a sip of air. Neither she nor Fon said anything about what they’d just seen. If everything they’d experienced over the past twenty-four hours hadn’t been proof enough that the PS staff were best avoided, the sight of so many officers marching in tight formation convinced her.

When Bright could will her feet to move, she ran swiftly across the street and down an alley. She heard Fon’s soft footsteps behind her.

Now that they were in the Gaming District, there was more light, thanks to the rides and outdoor games of chance.

They caught the odd glimpse of other people, but everyone slipped away when they caught sight of Bright and Fon.

Only a few hours before, Bright and Fon would have been mobbed if they’d tried to walk outside on their own. Now they could barely get a witness.

At first, being shunned made Bright feel like crying, but then she started to get irritated. How dare people assume that, just because they looked terrible and depressing, with their cords and funny glasses, they
were
terrible and depressing?

“I feel like we should be choosing colours or making up a song or something,” whispered Fon. “Do you think sensitives have fun when they design stuff? You know, since they don’t really have fun anywhere else?”

“I guess.”

Fon nodded. “I guess they are kind of talented if you think about it. Maybe their work makes them happy.”

As if to answer any questions they might have about sensitives and what they did and did not enjoy, a real sensitive shuffled into view. Bright thought he would trudge right back into the darkness, but instead he approached them and blocked their path. Bright could see that he was crying. Naturally.

Would a real sensitive be able to identify them as fakes? Or would his tears get in the way of seeing clearly?

“It used to be different,” he said. “I’m sure of it.” His face was white, and he was kind of old-looking, even for a sensitive. They aged badly because of their overabundance of emotion, which was hard on a person’s collagen.

Bright felt warm air pressing down on her skin. Was it her imagination or was it getting hotter and harder to breathe? Why did the pink construction helmet in her bag suddenly seem to weigh as much as three party favours after double helpings of nutri?

“I can tell that you guys feel it too,” said the sensitive. He had on old-style clothes that were too big and too checked, including a T-shirt with some words on it, a sweater vest, and loose pants with a funny striped texture. His eyeglasses had thick black frames, just like the ones she and Fon wore.

“I see you shiver with awareness,” he said.

Bright was panting a little bit, but not shivering, except in horror at his outfit.

“Did you know that there used to be animals?” he said.

She nodded. Everyone in the Store was glad to be safe from that particular threat.

“Some of those animals had wings to fly.”

“It’s too bad,” she said. She was pretty sure that was an acceptable thing for one sensitive to say to another.

“Yeah, too bad,” echoed Fon.

“I try to fly through my music. But I can’t, and I can’t make anyone else fly either.”

“Too bad,” repeated Bright and Fon.

“Besides, no one here wants to fly. Not unless you can pay credits for it.” He spit out the last words like broken glass on his tongue. “I wrote a song about a bird once.” He paused. “Do you know about birds?” he asked. “And their feathers?”

“I once had feathers on one of my—” Fon started, but Bright cut her off.

“Old times,” said Bright. She had no idea what she meant by that, but it seemed like a sensitive thing to say.

“I would kill myself to see a bird,” said the sensitive. “And to never have to write another piece of advermusic for Zip Fizz.”

“You write that music?” said Fon. She loved the Zip Fizz songs because they were extremely easy to remember. “That’s so awe—”

“Awful,” Bright interrupted. “That’s really too bad.”

“Do you think there are birds outside the Store?” the sensitive asked. He lowered his voice. “I would go outside if there were birds there. Even with the weather and the poisons and the biotoxins and everything. Because that would be better than writing more pointless songs for brainless, credit-grubbing party favours and their pathetic clients.”

Bright felt her mouth fall open. She’d never heard anyone speak that way about her and her purpose. About her profession!

“You can’t talk that way about the most important and fun purpose there is,” said Fon, as fierce as she had been with the PS officers. “I’ll have you know that we’re—”

“Walk!” directed Bright, propelling her dressing-mate past the sensitive before Fon could say any more. To disguise what she was doing, Bright turned the words into a song. “Let’s get walking. Walking, walking, walking!” Bright made up the words as she went, just like a real sensitive.

Her heart thumped in her chest and her breath rasped in her throat. But it wasn’t like the sensitive would report them. He was worse off than they were.

She could feel the sensitive staring after them. “Hey, can you breathe?” he asked. She didn’t turn around and she didn’t answer.

She thought she heard him say the word “bird” again before he was lost in the darkness.

The most noticeable thing about the favours scattered around the House of Gear was their gear, of course. It seemed to be in the process of eating them.

As Grassly looked around the Jousting Room, he had the terrible feeling that no one had made it out of the House of Gear. One favour lay beneath an enormous lance and shield. All that could be seen of him was his feet and hands sticking out.

Another lay half in and half out of a portable duck blind as though it was trying to swallow her. Her high-heeled camo-print hunting boots pointed at odd angles, as though she’d been trying to take them off when she’d fallen.

A favour in full Sniper look had collapsed on top of two clients. She was only half their size, but they lay flattened beneath her as though she weighed ten thousand pounds.

Every room in the House of Gear was like this. Not empty of people, but empty of living people.

The PS staff had used extreme discretion. Grassly wondered if he could have stopped it and thought probably not. He had many times as much intellectual and physical power
as the ancestors, but was beginning to acutely feel his limitations. They were laid out before him now in yet another violent tableau.

He’d spent countless hours observing the House of Gear favours as he worked to understand the ancestors and their dances and to consider how best he could help them, but watching them from the comfort of his hidden workshop was vastly different from walking among their corpses and their discarded gear. He wished he didn’t have to see the carnage inadvertently unleashed by his light. Perhaps in time he would forget some of this, if he survived and was able to return home to his Mother.

Grassly thought of one of his Mother’s last messages, which had faded from his consciousness as he moved out of her range. “We are with you,” she had said. That didn’t feel true anymore. He was operating on little more than nurturing and instinct.

The deep functions of the feed had failed almost entirely. Databases flickered on and off, but the only things that still worked reliably were the vision-related functions of his dataglasses. He could use the night vision and access some of the surveillance cameras, though the images they fed him were often disordered and unstable.

Grassly made his way to the dressing room that had been Bright and Fon’s. The scent of death hadn’t yet penetrated it. Instead, the air in the small red room was fragrant with traces of their perfume. The heating and cooling systems were clicking on and off. He hoped the lights would come back on when the switch was flicked.

Grassly looked around the room. Favours were certainly messy. It was one of their more endearing qualities. Even with bots to clean up after them, they managed to leave a trail of debris everywhere they went: discarded outfits, towels, robes, slippers, makeup and tint applicators, wrappers and pill bottles and empty glasses.

He thought he could tell Bright’s mess from Fon’s. Bright’s was smarter, he decided. It spoke of restlessness, with vague hints of subversion. Fon’s profusion of higher-quality garments and accessories and gear lay about more prettily, yet to Grassly’s eye, not so distinctively.

Grassly gave his head a shake. There was no time for speculation. He needed to pick a protective outfit and be on his way.

He strode to the large gear box and spotted a pile of fabric and unidentifiable gear behind it. He pulled a handful of the items away to reveal two bots, a pink one and a silver one with orange splotches. They crouched in their hiding spot, blinking worriedly.

“It’s okay,” he said. Of course, service bots weren’t sentient, but they were programmed to be responsive to emotions. He found himself relieved to see the little machines. Anyone or anything that wasn’t a PS officer on a rampage was a nice change.

He coaxed the bots out from behind the gear box. “I need you to help me get dressed,” he said. “Something with a lot of coverage.”

The pink bot made a cute, questioning noise, and Grassly felt gently disposed toward it.

“That’s right,” he said in a voice that was nearly a coo. “Thank you.”

The two bots chattered together as their robotic arms delved deep into the gear box and shot into racks of clothing next to the box. Every so often, one would turn around with a garment or a piece of gear clutched in its grippers.

“Your programming is terrible,” Grassly said softly as the pink bot showed him a small white dress with a red logo and the splotched one held up a pair of frilly white balls on a string and shook them to demonstrate how they should be handled.

The poor things were probably under stress thanks to the slaughter in the house and the problems with the feed. If he got angry or frustrated, they might retreat to their hiding place or into a bot chute.

“Bigger,” he said, spreading his arms wide to show what he meant. “Much bigger.”

The bots twittered. The orange one nearly disappeared into the rows of racks, emerging a moment later holding an insulated white suit in one hand and a round, glassed-in head covering in the other.

Not to be outdone, the pink bot held up a bra covered in round mirrors.

“Great. Both of you. Now, can you find me some tape?” said Grassly, taking the garments. When the pink bot turned around to look, Grassly tucked the bra under some clothes draped over a chair.

He began to struggle into the retro spacesuit. It was designed for a female party favour and was much too small.

The sleeves ended halfway down his forearms, and the legs barely reached his shins. It took tremendous effort to squeeze his wide shoulders into it, and the two bots had to work together to seal up the back.

After he forced his feet and hands into the boots and gloves, he had the bots wrap the exposed parts of him with silver tape. He pulled the helmet on and instructed the bots to put an extra few loops of tape around his neck. When he leaned forward so they could reach him more easily, he smacked his head, encased in the shatterproof helmet, on the ready station table. He felt almost nothing, which seemed like a good sign.

When he was thoroughly sealed into the spacesuit, he stood. Tape pulled at his arm and leg hair, but he could move, albeit stiffly.

It was time to go.

“Come on,” he said to the bots.

They whirred and twittered and blinked.

“It’s okay,” he said. “Come with me. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Even though he was only speaking to bots, guilt turned lazily in his stomach. “At least, I’ll try not to let anything happen to you,” he corrected. “You can’t stay here. We have terrific robotics maintenance on H51. If we make it there, we’ll get you back into top condition.”

The pink bot whistled. Grassly took that as assent.

Grassly’s knees were constrained by the tight suit and he had to walk with straight legs and ease his weight from side to side. Turning was difficult, so when he got through the door, he simply hoped the bots were following him.

Grassly’s breath was loud in his ears, and the filtration systems on the suit were for show only. As a result, his faceplate fogged up before he made it halfway down the dark walkway. His balance faltered and he wondered if he was about to pitch over the side of the railing and plummet seven storeys to the Choosing Room floor. Behind the faceplate, his night vision dataglasses weren’t much use. Grassly suddenly felt dizzy and staggered sideways. Before he could bump up against the wall, two pairs of strong, slim metal arms reached out and steadied him.