Metallic Love

Mathematical Equation:

God made man?

Man made gods?

• 1 •

There’s something I should tell you. It isn’t that I lied, just left it out. It concerns my mother, she who dumped me on Grandfather when I was born. Well, I did see her one more time.

I was fifteen. I was working in Danny’s gangs. But the Senate authorities can find almost anyone if they claim their subsistence money, and at that time I did. Danny said, “Don’t be nervous. Look, they’re not after you for illegally working. They want you to identify someone.”

How could they think I’d know? I’d only seen her for that single month after I came out of her womb.

Crazy thing is, I did know her when I saw her. She was kind of like me, just twenty years older. And she was dead.

Good-looking, which takes some doing, if you see what I mean, under such circumstances. She had long, dark red hair. I don’t know if it was dyed. Her eyes, in the photofix they showed me, were hazel-brown, or amber. In the cold of that place, her skin—had a kind of frosting. Silvery.

That’s all I want to say about my mother.

I wrote up the last piece of this book (if it is) once I was here. In this curious haven. But I’ll have to write up the rest, to show how I arrived here. Where do you think I am? Paris?

I’ll describe my room. See if you can guess.

The walls are textured creamy pale, and the ceiling a soft blue. I have a bed, two chairs, a table, a bookcase, a closet, a VS. There’s an ensuite bathroom, white as fresh ice, and the shower or the bath run at a word, and the toilet doesn’t have to flush, it has an evaporation method, as necessary. The windows, which have blinds that come down or go up at a word, look out on a garden courtyard with a little fountain and tables and chairs, and at night, a yellow-rosy light bathes it.

Any ideas yet? Okay, a further couple of salient clues. Over the rather strictly modeled buildings that close in the yard, I can see familiar tall white mountains, and a couple of stately pines. No, we didn’t make it to Europe. Not even to the airport.

Crushed into the cab, Tirso had been telling Jane, and incidentally me, about a mall on fire in the city, robot ambulances and fire vehicles rushing past, and then the electricity going out in one large black blink all around the mall area.

I recollected, when we had left the house, that I hadn’t noticed the gold islands of lights through the trees.

“I could see it, this inky blot, and just the fire-glare from the mall. There was a lot of trouble in the hotel, people saying, ‘Is it a quake? Is the power going to go out here, too?’ And the VS was on in the lounge, showing the blackout and the fire and how many casualties—I didn’t like it, Jane. So I checked out and found a phone kiosk for a cab.”

Jane said nothing. It was Loren who inquired, “Did the VS reports give any reason for it?”

He shot me a look. “Some attack in the mall. That’s what started the fire. Guy and gal. Someone they interviewed said the guy blew out a cable. But it was pretty confused. Someone else said that as everybody was trying to get out of the precinct, the blackout happened. No one was sure what that was. They’re blaming Mexico—faulty exchange of power and so on. It just looked like the whole of the city could end up with no power, and burning for blocks.”

“The guy and girl,” I asked quietly. “Any more on them?”

“Acrobats,” he said, “I think that was it. Made up like clowns, gold-scale suits, white faces, and black hair. Jumped about. Used swords instead of guns. No one saw where they got them from—like a magic act. Vicious and homicidal. Quite a group of injured, even before the fire started.”

There was something in his voice I didn’t like—more than the words—as if he was trying to shock me. Perhaps not. Unlike her, of course, he didn’t trust me, not a bit.

Jane said, “Loren?”

“It’s them,” I said. “The gold range. What used to be the golders. I think so.”

Goldhawk and Kix, fake white this time. Swords from nowhere.

The highway, though lit, was missing a lamp here and there. It was eerily deserted, too. Nothing had passed us, or approached. And then something did. Three big tailored cars came sheering up the lane towards us—I mean, they were in the same lane we were, and coming head-on.

“Jesus—” Tirso shouted.

The cab, geared to its auto, tried to veer aside, but the barrier was there. We skidded to a halt, sparks flying off the paintwork as the cab rubbed its side against the concrete.

The other cars congealed to a matchless stop.

I already guessed, and maybe so did Jane and Tirso. Out of the first car came two men in smart coats, just one of whom was carrying a pistol, almost casually.

“Good evening. May I request some ID?”

“You’re not the police,” said Tirso. I could see him shaking, and probably so could they.

“The police are busy. This is META security. ID, please.”

Jane and Tirso fished out their cards, which were the kind people get who aren’t too poor or too affluent. I hadn’t anything on me. I said, “I left it back at the flat.”

“That’s okay,” said the man bending to our window, round colorless eyes on me. “We have you filed. You’re one of ours. Gentleman and ladies, kindly step out of your vehicle.”

There were six of them, standing on the roadway. No traffic anywhere else. The ghostly ghastly lamps spraying down their acidulous pallor. Black gaps between.

“It’s Jane, isn’t it? Yes, that’s fine. And your male companion. And Loren. Just leave your cab, we’ll take you on.”

Jane said, “We’re not going to—”

“You’re going to the META complex. The city’s a tad upset tonight. It’ll be better with us.”

“No,” said Jane. Her voice was firm, but her face was hopeless.

“Your mother,” said the man, “wouldn’t like you to be involved in any unpleasantness.”

“This is unpleasant.”

“I regret that. Please ride in the first car.”

We got in the back. The original occupants went over to another of the cars and crammed in. The driver of our car was behind a partition, and some kind of hulk of a minder sat at his side.

Jane stared straight ahead of her. Her profile could have been cut from white paper. I thought, Is this reminding her of that time with him, when they took him from her forever?

Tirso said, “I’ve been a real help, haven’t I? Christ.”

The car drove directly at the barrier in the middle of the highway—which dropped suddenly down until level with the ground. Somebody must have winked, or maybe the car itself was chipped. Probably. We swam over into the other lane, not a bump, and arrowed back the way we’d come.

They took a turnoff after about five minutes. I couldn’t read it; the car was going so fast I didn’t try. The other two cars didn’t go with us. They kept on towards town. Then we were on one more of those tracks through the pines.

“I will sort this out,” said Jane. “They know who I am.” Little lost voice.

Tirso sighed.

Above, huge skies were opening, fringed by spear-points of pine trees, and ablaze with white, brass, and blue stars, and the Asteroid was tucked down where the moon had gone, reddish tonight, as if catching the light of a fire someplace.