Anonymous, unmonitored, he passed through the living room and
out the door and walked away.
#
Gonzales strolled alongside Ring Highway, drawn to nothing in
particular but absolutely unwilling to go back to the empty block
of apartments and the isolation and anxiety waiting there.
He found himself in the Plaza, where Lizzie had taken him and
Diana their first night at Halo. He passed across the square, by
the sign that read VIRTUAL CAF, then stood motionless, watching
the flow of people around him. Some walked alone, striding
purposefully, or moving slowly, lost in thought; others walked
together, talking cheerfully or intently: monkey business,
Gonzales thought, wondering what HeyMex would say about these
people and their movementswhat did it all mean?
'Gonzales,' he heard, his name called in a high-pitched,
unfamiliar singsong. He turned and saw the twins.
As they approached, one was muttering in a fast, low,
gibberish; she wore black coveralls and stared sadly at the
ground. The other was smiling; her face was daubed with white
paint, and she wore a white blouse and a peculiar skirt of light-
blue cloth that had been rough-cut and stitched together without
benefit of measurement or seams; on its front a crude likeness of
a rabbit had been drawn in red neon paint.
The smiling twin, the one whose dark skin was streaked with
white, said in clear tones and formal cadence, 'Today she is
Alice.' She pirouetted clumsily, her skirt billowing around her.
She said, 'Her sister is Eurydice.' She pointed to the other
girl, who buried her face in her hands. She said, 'Alice is
sweetness and smiles, small steps and starched crinolines;
Eurydice is sorrow and languorous repose and black silk. Between
them they measure the poles of dream.' She stepped back and
smiled; her twin smiled with her. 'Are you having problems,
Mister Gonzales?' she asked. 'The collective believe so. We
believe you are lost between worlds. Is this so?'
'Perhaps I am,' he said.
'Well, then,' she said. She put the index finger of her
right hand to pursed lips and her eyes looked back and forth.
'I'm thinking,' she said. Seconds passed, then she said, 'I know
what you must do.'
'What's that?' Gonzales asked.
'Follow us,' she said. The other twin nodded, spoke
gobbledygook, looked at Gonzales through a mask of intense sorrow,
as if on the verge of shedding endless tears.
'To where?' Gonzales asked.
'Don't be stupid,' the Alice twin said. 'Where would Alice
and Eurydice take you?'
'Down the rabbit hole?' Gonzales asked.
The Alice twin smiled; the Eurydice twin shook her head
'Underground?' Gonzales asked again.
The twins smiled in what seemed to be perfect
synchronization.
#
At the bottom of Spoke 2, where a lighted sign announced
ELEVATOR ARRIVES IN 10 MINUTES, the twins led Gonzales through
an arched tunnel under the spoke. As they walked, the two ahead
of him muttering back and forth in their unintelligible patter, he
realized the floor must be curving downward, passing underneath
the main level of the ring. Blue globes down the center of the
ceiling provided soft light. After about another hundred steps,
they came to a door at the tunnel's end. Across the door, bright
red lighted words said:
CASUAL SIGHTSEEING DISCOURAGED BEYOND THIS POINT.
DO YOU WISH TO ENTER?
The Alice twin turned and pointed to the sign. She shrugged
elaborately, as if to say, well?
'I want to enter,' Gonzales said.
'Come in,' the door said, and it slid sideways into its
frame.
The three stepped into a dim vastness, a world beneath the
world, and followed a central walkway marked with flashing arrows
and an intermittent legend that flashed, UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL
FOLLOW LIGHTED PASSAGE.
They passed a series of workshops, partitioned cubicles
screened behind containment curtains. Light came from one open
doorway; the twins stopped, and the Eurydice twin gestured for
Gonzales to look inside.
Hundreds of pots stood on shelves that lined the small room's
walls from floor to ceiling. Many were simple, almost spherical
containers with wide top mouths, in baked red clay. Others of the
same shape were glazed and painted and marked with a single band
of color around the waist: bright primaries against clear pastels.
Still others were of complex shape and design, difficult to take
in at a glance.
An old woman sat bent over a potter's wheel. She crooned
tuneless gibberish as her large hands shaped the wet, spinning
clay. She looked up at Gonzales standing in the doorway. Her
face was deeply-lined, her skin pale; she had straight brows above
dark eyes. She wore an off-white dress that fell to the floor and
an apron of a black rubbery material. Her hair was covered by a
dark blue scarf that was pulled tight and tied at the back.
The old woman laughed, turned back to her wheel, and began to
croon once more. Under her hands the clay began to grow upward
and acquire form. She shaped it inside and out, demiurge reaching
into the heart of matter, until it became a squat-bottomed pot
rotating on the wheel.
The wheel stopped, and with quick, delicate movements she
placed the new-formed pot on a stand next to the wheel. She
reached inside the pot and her hands worked, but Gonzales couldn't
see precisely what she was doingher body screened him. Then she
