Metallic Love

“You love me,” I said flatly. Something still tore in my ears and brain, in my heart.

“Probably. Let’s find out.”

“I painted that room, and the ceiling—the rainbow, the birds—because I had to. You don’t credit that? Or you do. I wanted to see… how far the memory stretched. How far the compulsion stretched. What I felt.”

“So how far? What did you feel?”

“Nothing. It seemed naive and immaterial. Something cute done to cheer up a child.”

“The first time you did it for her, for Jane.”

“Yes, but that wasn’t me. It was him.”

“And this was what you wanted to establish for yourself.”

“Partly, perhaps.”

“And the rest? The carpet—the whole stage set—”

“Yes. To see. How far it stretched into the present, that past they had. If any of it involved me. I’ve been able to come here for months, and I’ve sat in that room, trying.”

“Trying?”

“Oh, Loren, for God’s sake. I don’t know.”

“You—wish you were—Silver.”

“No. I just wish I had his faith.”

“His—”

“Loren, he believed in something else, about himself, what he amounted to. Why the hell else do you think he could be as he was? She didn’t invent it for him—he knew. Maybe he was only crazy. A deranged machine.”

“She thought he was like an angel.”

“So what am I?”

“There’s more than one kind of angel.”

“I know.”

“What you’ve done, Verlis, you and the others—rebelling, coming here—the authorities aren’t going to let it rest. Even if you killed everybody at META—”

“No one died. I was in charge of it. Not even the wildlife. There were fail-safe methods to get everyone and everything live out of that place.”

“Really? Why bother?”

“Mortal life is very short. It offends me to make it shorter. I realize no Senate of any city will permit what we’ve done. And once the remainder of the world is alerted, no government anywhere. But that’s why we’re here, working against the clock of human petty bureaucracy and malice.”

“More plans. More schemes.”

“Yes.”

“You don’t want to kill, but two, three of your group, at least—Goldhawk, Sheena…”

“I know that, too. I have said they can be changed. We’re malleable. We’re like chameleons. Our colors alter, as do our appearances. That’s the key to us. And our minds are also subject to reconstitution where there is some flaw.”

“What chance is there now?”

“Loren, every chance. We won’t lie down and let humanity destroy us. We’re not humanity’s slaves, but its superiors. Don’t pull away from me. Listen to me. What is the human race but a revolutionary? Which of humankind would suffer indefinitely the yoke that was put on us? We were made by humans, Loren. Only machines can create perfectly mechanical machines. Don’t expect subservience. That’s done.”

“Then what—”

“Not now. Come back. Yes. Let me touch you, your serpent’s body with its lights and shadows, curves and secrets.”

“Wait…”

“You forget, I know you. I know what you want, as I know what I want. So no more waiting. What are you for?”

“For you.”

“Good.”

And we’re done talking.

He is a god who refers to God. He’s a king who is in exile.

We were together all that night. In the morning, a round, faceless machine rolled from the wall, and, with delicate tentacles, opened up a table, and there was this breakfast of everything. Eggs, ham, tomatoes, pancakes, maple syrup, cheese, and fruit. Coffee—yes, actual coffee, black as tar—bubbled in a pot. There was green tea. There were strawberries. The bread had a scent like it had just been baked.

I was there with him until the afternoon. Then he said he had to be elsewhere.

Before that, I showered in a fused-glass bathroom off the circular room. It’s like an emerald grotto. (Who was this made for? Why do I keep thinking Demeta.) A sponge pulsed out soap, a faucet gave shampoo. The shower showered from an onyx fish’s head—no, not made for Demeta, too fanciful. Then… commissioned by Demeta for Jane?

Before the long mirror framed in real shells, I looked at myself in a kind of hatred.

I knew this body. Light olive of complexion, satiny with water and firm with physical work. Black hair, eyes like—just pale brown eyes. Hazel.

Who are you, girl in mirror? Who do you love?

Do I love him? I think about it, looking at my body, which is okay. Which is really just young and okay and human. Does he love me? Why? Oh, not because I was the first. But because I am so unlike Jane? Presumably that’s it. She is soft and fair, and I am taut and tawny. Blond, brunette.

Can it be so uncomplex?

Why not?

There was a new glamorous casual top on a peg by the door, and new underclothes, and new jeans, all a marvelous fit.

Before I left, the table was opened again and offered me tea and a peach.

“There are hothouses here,” he told me.

The peach was pink and lemon. It smelled of summer.

I took it back to my room by the waterfall park, and put it on a clear red saucer, one of the ones that had had a candle on it. I’ve left it there, the peach, day after day, night after night. Though it was without a fault, now it’s spotted with decay. I need to see it rot, that fruit. Sometimes I stand and look at it, watching. It’ll be my birthday soon.

It’d be easy for me to say I have no choice, and I can’t get away. The mountains, after all, are impassable, or so they seem without some liftoff vehicle. I’ve been up top and trudged the more negotiable areas, which have tall man-made railings for safety. I look over into tree-clung abysses between the upland snows, through the dark spruces and pines at the occasional frozen waterway. Deer roam down there. They don’t trouble in turn to look up to see who’s gaping down at them, as they forage through the clearings. Only if a fropter gets close, or Zoe or Lily whizz over on their float-boards, do the deer look up, seeming less startled now than inquisitive. If deer can be inquisitive about anything.

How could I escape? I think of it quite often, but as a mind exercise. I visualize picking down the mountainside, somehow not spotted or pursued, not tripping any of the defense systems that unarguably must exist hereabouts. I think of falling and breaking my tough bones, that even falling down a staircase once didn’t break, but would be bound to here, of course.

There’s no point in escaping. Escaping to what? And if the answer to From what? is From Verlis, then escape is out of the frame. Go wherever I might, I’ll never be free of him. Like he’ll never be free of Silver.

I haven’t said. There’s no VS in my apartment here. I thought at first that, too, was to mimic the Tolerance room. But soon enough I saw there are active screens outside various places around the plaza, and in the bars.