Metallic Love

At the end, I heard him make a stifled sound against my breast. But I’d already been well aware Verlis came. Oh, yes.

It was like short thick grass under us. The Asteroid hadn’t moved, nor any of the stars. We got up, and he said, “We go in there, do you see, that doorway in the wall?” The doorway was in the night. We went through the door and into a daylit room, not very large.

“Loren, sit down. I have to tell you now what will happen next.”

“One of your team will kill me.”

No. Sex hadn’t made me approving, either. Separated from his unflesh, the rage was rising in me, and the terror.

“Their more savage instincts are correctable,” he said. “And anyway, all that has nothing to do with your safety.”

“Goldhawk—Kix—Sheena—?”

“I still ask you to trust me. Can you try, Loren?”

“You mean, ‘practice,’ and I might eventually get it right?”

My vision had adjusted. He, too, wore silver, darker than his skin. His hair, which I had seized in my hands, which had stroked my body, was almost the shade of mahogany. He looked grave and composed. His eyes were nearly red, that color between resin and fire.

“Tonight,” he said, “things will alter. No, no one can hear us. Anyone monitoring me sees me alone, and speechless.”

“Then where do they see me?”

“They’re not tracking you very seriously. They underestimate you, despite your many talents. But there is a tiny chip in your cuff. It’s one of several left in the clothes they had ready for you here. I know you checked them. Shall I say, no human, unaided, could locate this sort of stuff. You would need, or need to be, a fully primed machine. They’re less than the size of a pinhead. However, you’ve prowled round the complex enough times, the tape is showing them a resume compilation of six of your walks. Yes. I’ve sometimes watched you, too. Didn’t you ever feel my eyes blazing down on you from the sky?”

I sat rigid. I said, “What will happen tonight?”

“For one thing, Jane’s mother is due to arrive.”

“Jesus.”

“Yes. Despite her barracuda grip on the company, no one has ever seen her at META. Apparently, she’s abruptly become interested. Jane’s here. There’s the connection. This woman has always liked to play puppet- master with Jane. Perhaps Demeta never had a doll when she was young.”

“Where is Jane?”

“In her suite, or the hospitality gardens. They’ve merely blocked your calls to her. Tirso attempted to call Clovis on the Hatfield line. They interrupted the circuit there, too.”

“What are they—META—what are they doing?”

“Trying to retain control. It doesn’t matter about that.”

“Because you and the—team—”

“We are in control. And tonight, we finalize it. At least, the first stage. I need you to know this, Loren. I want you with me. It’s that… banal. But if you can’t stand the thought, then you’ll be able to leave. Once this evening’s over.”

“What will you do?”

“Wait and see.”

I could only see him. Inside myself the robotic fish of my fears and doubts swam in circles, beating themselves against my angry mind. Uselessly.

“Do I believe you,” I said bleakly, “when you say I’ll be able to leave you, if I decide that?”

He came towards me and lifted me up from the chair. “No,” said Verlis, the silver metal lover, holding me with his hands and his gaze, “don’t believe me. The meaningful phrase was I want you.”

• 3 •

There was an evening gown in my room when I went back. It was the gown from Russia, complete with the shoes and amber bracelets.

A card lay on the bed. Gold lettering, some kind of built-in light effect that spangled the words. It was in the Hatfield Block. One more party, this time for the select few, and at which the director and First Unit staff would be present, and to which the founder of META would pay a surprise visit. And that, presumably, was her.

Mother, do you realize you’re rich enough to buy the City Senate? So… I can safely publish this manuscript.

Perhaps you’d like to tell me what the manuscript contains?

Had I felt disappointment, horror, or sadness when Jane told me, “I think I still somehow wanted her approval… after everything I’d learned, all he showed me—I still made that bloody stupid mistake.” I don’t know what I felt, but it had to be a pity that she did.

Yes, even after I’d been with him today, in all the closest and most intimate ways, until this very afternoon, some crouching part of me still thought that: a pity. Surely only God can bring back the dead. And when the Devil tries it—

No one came to make me up. So I did that myself, in the normal facile way. The dress had been cleaned, though, and impregnated with some smoky scent. The costly bangles I left in the room.

Vera and Dizzy and the usual pack were out in the yard, drinking their nightly rations. The girls hadn’t realized, of course, I wouldn’t be at dinner, sharing my half wine bottle with them. But they just gaped at me, like one or two others round the fountain.

“Oh, Loren, are you going to Hatfield?”

I smiled and said not a word.

And Dizz dug Vera in the ribs, “That’s Lor’s business.”

“Sorry, Lor,” said Vera. But then she smirked and added, “Have a great time. Give my best love to B.C.”

“Shut up!” sizzled Dizz.

Vera shrugged. (Has she had—tried out—Black Chess?)

The guys by the archway parted respectfully to let me through. I was a valued employee, indeed, if I was going to Hatfield tonight. Maybe I might be worth dating, after all….

As I walked over the “campus” in the cold clear twilight, past the inaccessible buildings and lots and underground areas marked by High Security: First Unit Only notices, I didn’t ask myself why I was going. He’d told me to. And although META had sent the invitation, the summons was from him. You can’t easily refuse a reigning king.

But I’m not being straight with you, am I? I’m not saying what I felt. And in this case, it wasn’t that I didn’t know.

“I want you,” he’d said.

I want you.

A man cornered me the moment I rode in on the moving stair. Probably he was looking out for me, as others of his tribe were looking out for others of mine.

“You’re Loren, right? Oh, that’s good. Let me escort you in. What a fabulous dress, absolutely Now.” He was young and highly M-B, rather a relief, until he said, “You knew poor old Sharffe, didn’t you? Jesus, what a rotten deal. That darn car of his. I wouldn’t have trusted it. You know the mech report showed he’d actually tried to switch to auto—but it just hadn’t kicked in. That