Synners (21 page)

Tim Chang cruised over and slid his empty glass across the bar for some more of the sticky-sweet liqueur he sucked up by the quart. He gave Manny a brilliant smile. Chang was his not-quite-counterpart in the Entertainment division; he supervised the personnel who did the refinements and finishing work on Hollywood releases, but Manny was senior to him.

Technically rock video should have been Chang's bailiwick, but Chang was smart enough to realize he and his division were going to be under Manny's umbrella, the big new umbrella Diversifications was going to present him with when they finally went public. Chang was another lightweight, but at least he had sense enough to defer to the inevitable. And, Manny reflected, every rising executive needed a good stooge.

". . . senator's big baby is education," Chang was saying.

A tall tuxedo-clad woman with a mass of reddish gold hair came up beside Chang and slipped her arm through his. "I'm all for education," she said. "Especially when I can learn something like I learned tonight."

"Rana!" Chang said, oozing with delight. "I'm so glad you could come. Manny, you remember Rana Copperthwait from Para-Versal."

Copperthwait took his hand and gave it a hard squeeze, looking into his eyes for a moment. Manny thought the tuxedo made her look like a bartender, but he smiled at her anyway, returning the look. He hadn't been sure of inviting anyone from any of the studios—if anything leaked, they'd have the unions screaming all over the place, even though there were signs that the Old Hollywood was finally starting to breathe its last. More and more was being left to simulation, which left more and more of the profits for people like Copperthwait. If they ever got to the point where they could produce casts made-to-order the way they produced settings and special effects, there'd be a shakeout that would make the Big One look like a hiccup, and Copperthwait's look had said she was thinking about just that very thing.

He'd hinted at it without being specific during the first part of the presentation; a direct interface with the brain certainly raised the possibility. The alert person would be watching to see how things would break—would people like Rana Copperthwait suddenly decide they wanted in-house staffing instead of continuing to job out their refinement work to places like Diversifications? It was possible. It was also possible that such a development might be more profitable for an ambitious person than the old corporate game, more profitable and more rewarding than supervising zeros like Gabe Ludovic and enduring the blandishments of office suck-ups like Bergen Clooney.

They made a little pleasant, clever conversation until Copperthwait dragged Chang off to introduce her to someone else. Mirisch stopped by the bar to grab another drink and congratulate him on a job well-done.

"And don't worry about old Senator Sideburns," Mirisch added, almost as an afterthought before he went back to working the room. "The phrase 'school-age children' is code for 'Gimme-gimme-gimme.' "

It's not
my
worry,
Manny thought, returning his knowing smile. He watched Mirisch move off to connect expertly with another well-dressed senator, and then leaned against the bar, feeling his energy suddenly draining out of him. Definitely past-due time for a stabilizer.

He was feeling for the inhaler in his pocket when his glass jumped out of his hand with an impromptu fountain effect and thudded on the carpet a few feet away. Startled, he could only stand and stare while a couple of the cliffsider service staff sprang out of nowhere into quiet action. The mess was gone before he even had time to register that his hands were shaking. He glanced around, but no one had noticed. Relieved, he headed for the bathroom.

"Mr. Rivera."

A tall man standing near a shifting holo display of an Olympic gymnast stepped forward, intercepting him. Manny gave him a gracious smile; the bathroom door was closed anyway. The tall man took his hand and pumped it up and down a few times. "Congratulations on a fascinating presentation."

"I'm glad you liked it."

"I didn't say I liked it. I said it was fascinating." The amusement in the man's face didn't extend to his eyes. "You don't know who I am, do you?"

Manny wished for a wall or a chair to lean against. "I'm sorry. If we've met, I've somehow forg—"

"It was very brief, some time ago. I'm the one who should apologize, actually. Edward Tammeus. Senator from Michigan. " He stepped back and took a pipe and small bag out of his inside breast pocket. "As I said, it was a fascinating presentation. You have a very nasty piece of work there."

Manny took a breath. "I see. And what was it you found so nasty about instantaneous and permanent cures for brain dysfunctions?" As soon as the words were out, he regretted the defensive sound of them. It wouldn't do any good to get defensive, especially with this character.

"Now, Mr. Rivera, you don't actually expect me to believe that you're doing this just for the poor dyslexic kiddies, do you?"

The man was laughing at him, Manny thought with a flash of anger. A moment later his calm returned. No, it wasn't him; the senator didn't even really see him. It was the Upstairs Team, the company itself, but he didn't have the cojones to mix it up with them, so Manny was elected.

"Well, there are a number of commercial aspects to the project," Manny said. "I'd say bigger and better rock video will go a long way toward subsidizing the nobler aims."

"We can help most dysfunctionals right now with standard implants," the senator said, tapping overflow from his pipe into the bag before he closed it and returned it to his pocket.

"Sockets can help them
all,"
Manny said.

"And how do you figure that?"

"Well, that's quite technical, and all of our best technical minds are at our Mexican installation at the moment." Manny gave a small shrug. "They can explain better than I can—"

"I'd like to talk to them." The senator gazed at him over the flame from his pipe lighter.

Manny could feel the tremor from his hands starting to creep up his arms. Just a few more minutes and he could take the edge off. If the senator delayed him any longer, he'd have to take a larger dose, and he'd be up all night again.

"Yes, I
am
asking you to arrange something," the senator added, as if Manny had spoken.

"Of course," Manny said quickly. "You'll have to let us know your schedule—"

"My office will call. It's a nasty, nasty thing, and I want to know as much about it as possible." He blew a small bluish cloud of smoke into the air over their heads. The aroma was honeyed.

"I understand," said Manny. "You would have to, in order to vote in an informed manner."

"Oh, I already know how I'm going to vote." The senator glanced into the bowl of the pipe and took another puff. "You people don't have to worry about that, I'll vote for legalization, though it could be a rough ride. It's the nastiest thing I've ever heard of. Possibly diabolical. If I thought I could stop it, I would."

Insane people everywhere, Manny thought. What the hell was he smoking anyway? "I'm sorry, Senator, I don't think I understand. You're
for
legalization, but you'd stop it if you could?"

"That's it. What don't you understand?"

Manny glanced down, putting on a self-deprecating smile. "Perhaps I've been up too long today, and I'm too tired."

"You see, Mr. Rivera, it's out now." The senator pointed the stem of his pipe at him; a small wetness gleamed on the mouthpiece. "You've done it, and something like this can't be undone. Like the start of the nuclear age, way back when. You can't stuff it back into the box and tell Pandora you'll get back to her when you're more ..." the senator shrugged ". . . more
moral,
to use the quaint terminology. So if we can't undo it, we'd better have as much control over it as possible."

It's out of control.
The thought came to Manny in Joslin's nasal, highpitched voice. He blinked. Had the senator actually used the word
moral?

"That's what I'm going to tell any of my recalcitrant colleagues, anyway," the senator went on. "I wouldn't be surprised if that argument swings it for you. Funny idea, isn't it, putting something aside until you're moral enough to use it." He laughed a little. "Everyone gets a certain look when I use that word.
Moral.
It's a word with very bad PR, thanks to certain pressure groups that have come and gone over the last several decades." He drew on the pipe again, pausing to hold the smoke in his lungs. "However, it was one of the tenets of the church I grew up in, waiting to use something until you're moral enough. It sounded like a great idea. But according to the church, we're only moral enough for a very simple level of living."

Manny clenched his jaws together against a yawn and glanced at the bathroom door; still closed. Apparently he wasn't the only one present running on borrowed energy.

"Obviously, a better idea is to be, oh, immoral enough to manipulate something instead of being manipulated by it." The senator produced a pipe tool and began poking into the bowl. "Diversifications will provide transportation, accommodations, and any other necessaries, then?"

Manny nodded. They all had their own way of asking for things. Some had to pump themselves up, and others had to make sure you knew they had only the best reasons, the most rational motivations, and the sincerest desire for clear understanding. As far as Manny was concerned, an envelope of money was just an envelope of money, whether you gave it to a senator or a hacker. But if there had to be rituals, he would perform them as requested.

The bathroom door opened, and one of the FDSA people came out, wobbling a bit on her high heels, relief large on her face. Manny made a slight bow to the senator. "Excuse me."

He had to force himself not to dash for the lav and slam the door behind him. It took him five minutes to adjust the inhaler and another five minutes before he felt steady enough to plunge back into the action.

The Beater was waiting for him when he came out.

She was supposed to settle into a routine now.

She was supposed to accept everything the Beater had told her, leave Mark alone, do the videos, hope for the best. Hope for the best. What the fuck kind of talk was that? She couldn't ask him; he was suddenly unavailable, closeted with Rivera, busy, busy, busy, and she couldn't ask Mark, because Mark had been spirited away again.

Her own goddamn fault, most likely, for opening her big mouth to the Beater. He'd gone to Rivera, and Rivera had probably waved his magic corp-wand and removed the only person who could have given her an answer.

She looked for him anyway, on the off-chance that he was simply dodging her to avoid being smacked around. Looking for Mark had become a fucking way of life in the past few years. She didn't really know how to do anything else, except make the videos, and somehow, making the videos was too hard when she didn't know where he was.

Fuck it all, she thought, walking the boulevards, scoping the clubs, making at least one nightly run to the Mimosa, scouting the hit-and-runs. Fuck it all, let Mark come to her if he ever decided there was something she should know. Twenty-umpt years could make you tired; she had a right to be tired. And then she looked some more.

"Ain't seen him," said Loophead's little percussionist, rapping her sticks on the table. It was some empty night between one empty day and another in a nameless little Hollywood joint trying to hold its own with a combination of videowall and live music. The postage-stamp-sized dance floor was packed with boulevardettes, and attitude-mongers pretending they were Somebody, and vidiots who had finally had to go somewhere, and a couple of hungry kids with handcams hoping to capture something they could manipulate into some semblance of a video, probably on hardware built from paper clips and masking tape and held together with spit. Then they'd watch it on one of the public-access channels while the rest of the world watched just about anything else.

The little percussionist's name was Flavia Something. She dressed like a cavewoman on food stamps, and she took her sticks everywhere. They beat out a sequence of shifting rhythms on the tabletop as if of their own will, unperturbed by the conflicting beat coming from the band up front. All of Loophead's music grew out of percussion.

"When you comin' over, do the new one?" Flavia asked her. "You come do the video with us on our turf. Finish wherever you want, but you
do
with us, okay?"

"I thought Mark had your next," Gina said, taking a healthy swig from the bottle of LotusLand in front of her. Flavia tapped the bottle as she put it down, hesitated, and then tapped it again, liking it. As if she could hear it over the thrash.

"Told you, ain't seen him. Can't do video with the invisible man." Flavia's shrug was exaggerated, but the sticks never stopped. On another night, some time ago, Flavia had taken Mark to bed with her, sticks and all. Gina remembered it; Flavia remembered it; Mark didn't.

Up front, a kid in rags and plastic wrap made an old-fashioned stagedive into the dance-floor crowd, helped along by a kick from the group's hoarse vocalist. The kid sank by uneven degrees into the hobbling mass of jerking bodies and resurfaced several feet away, hopping up and down like a maddened kangaroo. There was a distinct heelprint on his forehead.

"A synner in the making," Gina murmured.

Flavia tapped a stick directly in front of her. "You gonna syn, syn bravely. I forget who said that. Vince Somebody, I think, died in a terrorist raid in Malaysia."

Gina shook her head. "Somebody else. Died like a dog, probably."

The group came to a screaming halt and cleared the stage in a minor brawl as the video screen went on. One of Mark's. Gina finished the rest of the LotusLand, putting on a solid tox while she watched the big curved screen. The texture of the stony shore came through vividly even in this format.

"Rocks,"
Flavia said, and made a face. "I get it already, wish he'd stop doing it, do something else."

"Pass a law."

The perspective traveling along the shore came to a slow stop and focused on a smooth red gold stone, stutter-zooming in close enough to show the graininess of the surface, changing, melting into unreadable symbols that merged with the patterns she was getting from the hallucinogen in the LotusLand. The symbols resolved themselves into regular shapes, an aerial view of a foreign land that began to roll, earth and sky switching places like the flapping of a huge wing.