Grey

nothing more than an ocean of syrupy strings and an unflinching beat that sounded more like dynamite than a drum.

Fortunately, Elle had so much trouble balancing her wig that our proposed dance didn’t happen. We wound up standing side by side, her assistants holding up her hair.

Fireworks filled the air with smoke, and as the Beavers ended their song with big bucktoothed smiles, the swimwear Frix soda man and woman returned, each cradling plastic baby monkeys in their arms. The crowd had been quiet until then, but must have been prompted to stand and cheer. And, as the silver-haired director called to us to smile and wave into the cameras, the house voice said, “There it was, folks… the greatest, most magical and romantic evening in the history of corporate mergers!” 

Seven

During the post-date interviews, the reporters were supposed to just ask about us and our feelings, but kept questioning my experience in the slubs, RiverGroup’s troubles, the stock collapse, the exodus of customers, and the like. When someone finally asked Elle what she thought of me, she threw her arms around my chest and applied her tongue to my ear. The director thought that the place to end and yelled, “Cut!”

Minutes later, Joelene and I were back in the green room. Slumping in a chair, I swabbed the furrows of my ear with a sanitizing towelette. “Did you hear how vicious she was?”

Joelene got onto her stomach on the floor, opened the trapdoor, and stuck her hands in. After she had entered a code, the back wall disappeared. Standing, she picked up a bag, stepped before the wires and tubes, and ran her finger over a shiny metal label on the biggest pipe.

“Joelene,” I said, worried she had lost her mind, “what are you doing?”

Pulling a handful of folded material from the bag, she tossed it to me and said, “Put that on.”

When I shook the velvety thing open, it was an ugly dark maroon jumpsuit with a gathered waist, a hood, feet, and attached mittens. Worst of all were the closures down the front.

“Snaps?

What is this? I don’t want to wear this.”

As she began to slip into a matching outfit, she said, “Protection from the cold. Come on, we don’t have much time. Put it on!”

“What are we doing? Are we going to see Nora?”

“Yes.” She pulled the hood of her outfit over her head, and then she grasped the large, metal sprocket—like a steering wheel—and with great effort began turning it. The wide toilet-bowl-shaped opening began to fill with a clear, viscous liquid that reminded me of corn syrup.

Glancing at the maroon jumpsuit and the pipe and back, I said, “I am not getting in the sewer!”

“This is the building’s cooling system.”

“Whatever it is,” I said with a nervous laugh, “I’m not getting in. Besides, I don’t know how to swim.”

She turned to me. “The elevators are on the system.

The stairs—which would take us a couple of hours to climb down—are on the system.

Even jumping off the side—as foolish and difficult as that would be—would be on the system.

If you want to see Nora, this is it.” Since I hadn’t moved, she took the jumpsuit from my hand, tore open the front so that the dozen snaps sounded like a drum roll, and then held open one of the pant legs. “And don’t worry,” she added, “

we

won’t be swimming. We’ll be falling.”

I didn’t like her joke, but stepped into the first leg. “I’m not going to die, am I?”

“What kind of a question is that?” She eyed me. “No! The SunEcho isn’t far. I’ve charted a course that will get us within one block. We just don’t have much time.” After I stepped into the other pant leg, she pulled the velvety material up and over my suit and began snapping the front closed. Then she dug into her bag and handed me what looked like a yellow diving mask. “Put it over your head,” she said, showing me how it worked.

I gazed at the open pipe and the strange, convex bubble of thick liquid that looked like a clear pillow.

“You sure about this?”

She grasped the metal wheel above, pulled herself up onto the rim, and straddled the opening. “It’s just bulk metallic water.” The phrase meant nothing to me. From a pocket, she produced a small spray bottle, and spritzed the surface, which turned dull like beach glass. Then she began stamping on the stuff with the force one might use to try and kill a steel cockroach.

Because she looked ridiculous, I laughed, but obviously the stuff was tough skinned, like a tomato. After several kicks, her foot finally punched through with a heavy glop. Clamping her teeth around the air-supply mask, she lowered herself in and as she did, the liquid made wet gurgles and burps. Holding onto the rim of the pipe with one mitten-covered hand, she turned, and reached her other toward me. She spoke, but with the air supply in her mouth, the only word I thought I understood sounded like Ora.

“I don’t like this,” I said, backing up.

“Ora!” she said louder.

“Ome ere!”

Pushing herself up a foot, she shot her hand toward me, and grasped the front of my jumpsuit.

“No!” I cried, as she began to pull me toward her.

“Joelene, stop!”

Although I tried to twist away, her mitten-covered grip was as strong as iron. I got my hands on either side of the pipe and, as though I were doing a push-up, tried to keep her from dragging me in. The jumpsuit stretched over my neck and shoulders. My arms began to vibrate and I could feel my muscles lose power. The stuff stunk like gasoline and bleach. “Okay!” I said, giving up.

“Stop!

Let me put the mask on!” When she let go, I slipped the mask over my face and bit the mouthpiece. For a second, I wasn’t sure if I could breathe with it on. The plastic tasted sour and the goggles made everything distant and hazy. Peering at the thick fluid, I wasn’t sure I really wanted to get in. There had to be another way!

Joelene, as if impatient, grasped the front of my jumpsuit again and dragged me in. Next, I was falling head first in complete darkness. I screamed into my air supply, but the stuff absorbed all sounds. I hated to be going head first, but there wasn’t room to turn. It was like I was a human bullet in some strange slime-filled gun barrel.

A tiny green light shot by and for a split second illuminated the shiny walls and my mitten-covered hands. Two beats later another flew past at a hundred miles per hour. Craning my neck, I saw Joelene ahead in the next green strobe. She was two feet farther down and was covered in a slipstream of elongated bubbles like jade scimitars. Her head was down as if trying to see where we were going. In the next flash, she gazed up, as if checking on me.

How long were we going to fall? And what would happen when we hit bottom? Would we be squashed? Would they find us days later flat and frozen?

We were never going to get to the SunEcho. Nora would wait and wait. Finally, when the news of my death came, she would throw herself to the floor, devastated.

Trying to wave at Joelene, I wanted to signal her to stop this and get us out of here, but in the next several green flashes, she was gazing down. Then she extended her arms above her as though she were going to catch me.

Next, I smashed into her. Only, somehow we didn’t quite touch, and when I flipped over backward, and fell onto my back, I was dizzy and shocked, but not hurt. Maybe the liquid had insulated the impact.

We weren’t in the pipe anymore, but in a large tank, fifteen feet wide, illuminated with a grid of tiny blue lights like a geometric sky. The liquid was thicker, heavier, and colder down here, and it took all my strength just to suck air through the mouthpiece.

Joelene stood and put her masked face before mine. First she nodded, as if to confirm that I was alive, then she pointed left.

I shook my head. She pointed adamantly, but I shook my head harder.

Grasping my arms, she hoisted me up and carried me over her shoulder. I hit her back because I hated her and wanted her to get us out of this. After a few steps, she pushed me into another smaller pipe, and that’s when I panicked because I didn’t want to fall again.