Levels: The Host (3 page)

“Denied? Just like that?” Watly felt his face
getting hot.

“Just like that.” Oldyer was sealing up the papers in a plastic sanifile. He finished quickly and pulled out another file from behind his desk. The next person’
s file.

Just
like that.

Watly stood still. Breathing. In-out. In-out.
Just like that a man crushes another man’s dream. Just like that.
Watly felt dazed. He cleared his throat gently. “Are you asking me
to leave?”

Oldyer snorted. “I’m
telling
you to leave,
rape face.”

Watly started to back slowly out of the cubicle. This couldn’t be happening. This man
arbitrarily
decided to deny Watly’s application.
Arbitrarily. Just
like that.

Watly stopped at the doorframe and scanned the small cluttered office.
There must be some way to change this huge man’s mind.
Watly wouldn’t give up without a fight. This was too damn important. This was
his
life
.

“Mr. Oldyer?” Watly let his voice go louder than he had all day. It felt good. It
felt right.

“I thought I told you to leave, Caiper.” Oldyer spoke without looking up from his new set
of papers.

“Two minutes, Mr. Oldyer. Two more minutes of your time. Just two.” Watly found himself pacing wildly back and forth in front of Oldyer’s desk like some crazed salesman. “Two little minutes—that’s all. Humor me for two minutes, Mr. Oldyer, and then I’ll get out of your
life forever.”

Mr. Oldyer glanced up from his desk and manipulated the pockets of flesh around his mouth to form a sneer. It was not a pleasant sight. “Why the hell
should I?”

Watly swallowed and stopped his pacing. “Entertainment,” he said deliberately. “Think of me as a
minor diversion.”

Oldyer smiled and leaned back. His chair squeaked as if in pain from the change in weight distribution. Watly wondered if it was reinforced. “You’ve got
one
minute, Caiper. Make
this good.”

“Okay. Okay
...
” Watly was trying to think and talk at the same time. “Supposing, sir, just supposing I owed you a certain sum of money. Let’s say one thousand New
York dollars.
..
”

Oldyer rolled his eyes. “A bribe won’t get you anywhere with me, Mr.—”

“No no no.” Watly started pacing again. “Not a bribe—not a bribe. Just suppose I
owed
it to you. Legit. Hypothetically,
of course.”

Oldyer smiled again. “How the
hell would—”

“Just humor me for a second. If I owed this to you.
..
there’d be virtually no way for you to get it. You know
why
, Mr. Oldyer? Because I’ve got zip. I’ve got nothing in my pockets and nothing in the bank. No savers. Nothing. I’ve got no job, and any job I
could
get—it would take me years to pay you back on the best salary. Except one job.
Hosting
. Hosting’s the only job. If—hypothetically, of course—if I owed you that thousand, I could easily pay you back with interest after only a few
minutes
of hosting.”

Oldyer was looking impatient. “What’s the point, Caiper? You don’t owe
me nothing.”

“No, that’s true, that’s true.
..
but bear with me a second.” Watly pressed his fingertips together. “If—hypothetically—I had, say,
stolen
the money from you or owed you because I
wronged
you in some way, it wouldn’t pay for you to turn me in. No, it wouldn’t pay. If you had me arrested there’d be even
less
chance I could ever repay you. You’d
never
see the money. No, the best thing for you to do would be to make me a host, right? Then I’d pay you right back, because basically—” Watly smiled, “basically I’m an
honest fuck.”

“Are you threatening me, Caiper?”

“No, sir. Absolutely not.” Watly stood opposite the big man, right up against
the desk.

“Sounds to me like you’re either trying to bribe me or threaten me. I can’t figure which. Either way I don’t like it and either way I’ve had enough of this. You’ve had
your minute.”

“I’m not bribing you and I’m not threatening you, sir. What I
am
doing.
..
“ Watly reached over in one swift movement and snatched up the No. 2, “is breaking your pencil.” Watly snapped it neatly into two pieces and then broke each one again with a
loud
pop
.

All four of Oldyer’s chins dropped. “You bolehole! Do you know how much that thing cost me?” His huge features seemed ready to explode. Watly leaned back and let the wooden pieces fall through
his fingers.

“Exactly,” Watly Caiper said with
a smile.

CHAPTER 2

T
he daylites were down to half by the time Watly Caiper left Alvedine Industries’ Hosting Building. He walked down the front steps to the street, looking upward. Even after a month of living on First Level Manhattan, Watly still wasn’t used to the absence of sky above. It remained uncomfortably disorienting—even claustrophobic—to step out of a building and still be under cover. The stagnant oily air, the thick upright girders, the oblong daylites, constant drips, hollow echoes—all took some time getting accustomed to. Not to mention that constant
mildew stench
....

And where is the sky? Where has the
sky gone?

“Spare a dollar, boss?”

Watly turned to look at the bum. There were ten or fifteen others right behind him, looking like a gauntlet of derelicts. This was a prime area for begging—right outside Alvedine’s Hosting Building. The guy who had asked first looked relatively well kept for a bum. More likely he was a tenter out for extra cash. His clothes seemed pretty new and his face looked washed. Watly gave him a buck anyway and moved away quickly, walking down the center of
the street.

Fifty-seventh Street was full of tenters down both sidewalks and in the gutter. Some of them looked packed so close they seemed edge to edge. Street cats ran between rows of tents, looking for food. Watly heard a police cruiser, so he stepped aside and let it pass. He gave out three more bucks before hitting Second Avenue. It was all right to be extravagant, Watly thought, considering they’d given him a two hundred New York dollar advance toward his first hosting. Quite a fuckable amount. He patted his right pocket where the wad of bills sat comfortably. It felt good. He felt good. Tired,
but good.

He headed downtown at First Avenue. By his estimation, Watly had at least two hours before the daylites would go to night. He walked slowly, enjoying the exercise. It’d been too long since he’d had a chance to move much at all. His muscles had cramped up from almost fourteen hours of bureaucratic shuffle. “Follow the orange arrows
....
Follow the green arrows
....
Name?.
..
Age?.
..
Turn
and cough!.
..
”

There were fewer tenters in the forties but a lot of people walking. The occasional whine of a bus or police cruiser cleared them all toward the sidewalk. A few lowtrucks and bicycles passed slowly. The eateries, sunbean cafés, bodegas, music tube stores, and used clothing shops were full of browsers, if not customers. Someone was hawking hot birdhats from a cart. The dripping was pretty bad, so Watly took out his own plain hat, unfolded it, and put it on. At least it wasn’t raining up above on Second. Then the drips and falls and flooding here below would
really
start. This was mild. This was tolerable.
Almost pleasant.

On Thirty-eighth a strong breeze started as Watly neared one of the major exhausts. He clamped his hand over his hat to keep it from being sucked up into the huge fan. Those near him did the same. Everyone’s loose clothing whipped and danced around their bodies. A few people held their ears to protect them from the fan’s
steady roar.

Directly below the fan some old guy stood staring up, his white hair blowing wildly. Whatever it was—hat, bills, whatever—he hadn’t held on tight enough. Poor old guy would have a hard time recovering whatever he’d lost up there. That was next to impossible. As Watly understood it, the guy would have to fill out requests, affidavits, and a million other forms out the bolehole. Then, after all that, a few months later he’d probably see some policeman wearing whatever he’d lost. Can’t fight
the system.

The old guy was shouting something now, cursing up at the fan. Watly couldn’t hear the words, but it looked like he was saying something like, “The time is coming, you sofdicks! The time is coming!” And then there was more Watly couldn’t make out. Maybe the man hadn’t lost anything up there after all. Maybe he was just standing there yelling up toward Second Level. Maybe.

Clamping his hat down even tighter, Watly passed quickly underneath the exhaust and moved on. The wind and noise lessened rapidly.
Something about California. The old guy had said something
about California
....

Watly made a pit stop at a corner W.C. Aside from the obligatory urine test, he’d been holding it in all day. Usually Watly avoided streetcorner water closets, but at this point he had little choice. The W.C. experience was survivable. They weren’t so bad if you breathed through
your mouth.

Back on the street the people were starting to thin out as night approached. Watly continued on leisurely, enjoying the lack of crowds. It had been a day full of crowds. The lines at Alvedine had been enormous. Bodies mashed against bodies. From one examination or medical to the next, one room to the next, one floor to the next, Watly had spent most of the time staring at the backs of different heads. It had been quite an ordeal. Questions, questions, questions. “Name?”
Watly Caiper
. “Mother’s name?”
P-pajer Caiper
. “Ever broken a law?” No. “What do you think of when I say the following words: Hot?”
Cold
. “Sex?”
Good
. “California?”.
..
Beach
. Questions and more
dumb questions.

And then, of course, came Oldyer. Ol-die-yer. What a nightmare. Watly almost lost the whole deal on that one. But it worked out after all. Somehow. The pencil idea had been desperate, but in the end Watly guessed it had served its purpose. Not as he’d expected, yet—strangely enough—everything had worked out in
the end.

The fat man was a real cipher. His reaction had been unexpected. Oldyer had frozen in what looked like shock after his initial outburst about the pencil’s cost. Then he seemed about to burst once again. Suddenly and with absolutely no warning the man began to shake with laughter. He clutched his enormous sides and howled, almost tipping his chair backward. His belly bounced with it. Tears poured down the puffy cheeks. His jowls flapped. The laughter was so loud a security guard stuck her head through the doorway to see if everything was okay. Oldyer just waved
her away.

When the laughter finally subsided Oldyer spoke again. “Okay, Caiper. Okay. You got me. You got me good, Caiper—so far as you’re concerned. You pulled what you thought was a fast one. You can be a host. Don’t ask me why, but you got it, Caiper. You got guts, little man. Little man. You got
oves. Huevos
. You got eggs, I’ll give you that. Didn’t think you’d go for it. I’ll make you a host, Caiper. And you know what, Mr. Watly Caiper? I hope you make it. A mother, huh? You haven’t a chance in hell, but I hope you get your little dream. I hope you do. I could almost feel sorry for you, considering what’s in store. But then, what do I know? Here’s a booklet for you. Follow the green arrows
to registration.’’

Oldyer started laughing once more when Watly turned to leave the office. Watly stopped at the doorway when the big man spoke one last time to him. “Oh, and Watly
....
Watly, about that pencil,” Oldyer said between short, panting breaths. “That pencil—it’s a fake. Made out of placene and paint. Sells for five New York dollars down on Fourteenth. You think I’d keep something expensive in
this
office? In
this
raping shithole?” A fit of laughing once again overcame him. “You kill me, Caiper. You
kill me.”

Watly walked out of Oldyer’s office feeling dazed. He registered and picked up his advance. The woman in registration smiled mechanically and told him, “Congratulations and please report tomorrow at nine o’clock
a.m.” Watly smiled back and left the building feeling like he was part of some enormous practical joke he knew nothing about. Life itself was a practical joke.
But he’
d won.

How the subs did I pull that off?
he wondered.
Or
did
I pull
that off?

Either way he was glad to have the job. Either way he’d somehow done it. He was
a host.

As Watly continued down First Avenue, he realized there was only one thing about the whole day that really disturbed him. The pencil turning out fake didn’t really bother him. Perhaps it was just some kind of standard ingenuity test or something. “Is the applicant smart enough to break wood?”—that sort of stuff. No, the thing that bothered him—really bothered him—was Oldyer’s attitude at the end. Even the words he used were strange. He called Watly “little man.” “You’ve got guts, little man
....
” If anything, Watly Caiper was on the tall side. Tall and solid—that was Watly. “Little man.” Watly supposed
anyone
was little next to the bulk of that interviewer. But that’s not how he’d said it. He’d said it like Watly’s
part
in life was little. His
role
. It was said like Watly was a sunbean headed for the
breakfast table.

There was a tone in Oldyer’s voice—and even in his bone-rattling laughter—all through those last moments, that seemed to imply Watly had done exactly what was expected—that he was just an overgrown key on a jumbo-sized keyboard who’d been pressed as planned. A trace of something in Oldyer’s manner said,
Watly Caiper, you just fell for it.
When Watly had glanced back one last time and caught Oldyer’s eyes, he’d witnessed a frightening sight. Truly frightening. Worse than the condescension, the loathing, the superiority, there was
pity
in those buried, officious little pupils. It seemed to Watly that Oldyer thought he was staring at a dead man. In fact, Oldyer looked sure
of it.

Watly shuddered the thoughts off and tried to relax as he continued to walk. Things had gone well. He was in. He was a host and that’s all that mattered. Work started tomorrow. Money would start coming soon. More money than he’d ever had before. After a short while hosting he’d be able to save up enough to fulfill his dream.
His calling.

The word
calling
was common when referring to motherhood. Watly didn’t like the expression. To him it implied something mystical or spiritual or religious.
You want religion, move to Jesusland,
he thought.

There was nothing supernatural about his ambition. Parenting was not exactly a new idea. Granted, it was next to impossible for a person of Watly’s station to achieve motherhood, but that didn’t mean he was “blessed” to want it. Or cursed. Watly was more realistic than that. His desire since youth to be a mother was no different than someone else’s desire to be an office worker or technician. In some ways, Watly thought his goal was more reasonable than those of the Manhattan dreamers who lived on First Level but wanted to work on Second. Or worse, those who thought they’d work their way up to living permanently above. Talk about your bad odds. Winning the Level Lottery was probably more likely
to happen.

Watly always knew the chances were slim. But he couldn’t remember ever wanting anything else. As his mother used to say, “A life without dreams is not worth living.” And now Watly’s dream was closer to being a reality. If anything could get him what he wanted it was money, and—now that he was a host—
that
was no longer a fantasy. After five or ten hostings, Watly should have enough to buy antiprophies, and then it was a matter of finding and hiring a willing female—just to father the kid—and, of course, getting a license. The license part was the hardest. If hosting went well—and he could stay in good shape through it—then the biggest obstacle ahead would be fitting the requirements for his
mothering license.

But Watly was getting ahead of himself.
One step at a time, Caiper. One step at a time. First concentrate on earning the money, then worry about the other problems. You’ve got to take off the covers before you get out of bed,
and all.

The most difficult thing about this whole mothering idea was that Watly knew nobody who
was
one. He had no role models—at least not of his age. The only successful mother he’d ever known personally was his own (a female), and she’d had him before the population laws were enacted. He’d come in just under the wire. She’d had Watly two years before they implemented the controls: prophy-laced water, the mother licensing, high-priced antiprophies, and so on. There was no one Watly could emulate. No rule book to follow. Watly hadn’t seen a kid in person since he was a kid himself. But this just reinforced his desire. He was all the more determined. Back in the old neighborhood in Brooklyn, the other kids used to say, “If you want Watly Caiper to do something, just tell him it’s impossible.” In a way, they were right. Watly smiled at the memory. Perhaps he did have a calling. Anyone in his right mind would never try to be a mother. Maybe there was some deeper reason Watly needed a child. Watly laughed.
Yeah, maybe. And maybe if I flap my arms hard enough I
can fly.

Watly looked up just in time to stop himself from walking into an upright. His mind had been wandering so much he hadn’t been watching his step. He’d drifted from the center of the street to the side, where the huge support girders stood every thirty feet or so. He glanced around, embarrassed. A few pullers passed by, pulling an empty lowtruck. No one was staring.
That’s right, Caiper. Walk into a plasticore upright and break your raping face the day before you start hosting.
Real smart.

He was in the Stuyvesant area, coming up on another exhaust. He cut across Eighteenth Street and headed down to Second Avenue to avoid the fan this time. The wind didn’t bother him but he wasn’t in the mood for
the noise.