Grey

Standing, she put her arms around me, nestled her mouth close to my ear, and said, “A week of green rain.”

Her words completed the full quote from our first date. And she was

right,

we had become that dead couple in Pure H, who lay side by side, their hands an inch apart. Only it wasn’t rigor mortis or chance that had separated our hands, it was the world… it was our families.

I held her to me for the first time and discovered how our bodies matched, how her eyes met the height of my lips, how my arms surrounded her and exactly fit the curve of her back. Squeezing her to me, I inhaled the sweet sandalwood of her hair.

Then she removed the goggles and air supply from my face. I felt silly for having left it on and was about to say so, when she tilted her head to the right then touched her mouth to mine.

Like an enormous bubble, the universe collapsed, and the only thing that remained was the two-dimensional plane where our lips met. Hers felt warm and creamy, like butter frosting. Then, I don’t know which of us began moving first, we were circling our lips against each other.

A tension like the winding of a miniature watch spring begin

to build. We rubbed our lips together, and then we were pressing our bodies firmly against each other. We opened our mouths, and just as I felt like I wanted to kiss her hard, or bite her, she pulled back.

Her nostrils were flared, her lips, swollen. She was breathing through her mouth. And several errant hairs fluttered in front of her eyes. One stuck to her moist forehead. With a husky breath, she said, “Stop.”

I wanted the opposite like I have never wanted anything and moved toward her, but she pushed me away. The world returned. I had completely forgotten, but we were in public—in the SunEcho auxiliary room. Fifty fake Noras were glaring at us, several were muttering to themselves, and all of their cheap perfumes filled the air with a saccharine and impatient musk. A shameful heat covered me. And as I let my arms fall to my sides, I could feel the ventilation system in my suit struggle to circulate air beneath the velvet jumpsuit.

“Michael,” she said, as she stroked the side of my face with one of her dove-grey gloved hands.

“Another time.”

She looked down shyly.

“Excuse me,” said Joelene leaning in, “ten more seconds.”

“Already?”

I asked, dismayed.

Leaning in, Nora put her mouth beside my ear. I thought she was going to kiss me goodbye, but she said, “Someone is trying to keep us apart.”

Her words surprised me.

“Who?”

“Someone close.”

Her words caused a shiver to pass through me. “Could someone close be keeping us apart?” I asked my advisor.

“We can’t stay on the system,” she said, glancing toward the camera in the corner of the room. “We must go.”

Nora said, “Be careful, Michael.”

I wanted to grasp her, maybe even pick her up and run. I wanted to take us somewhere where we would never be found.

“It’s time,” said Joelene.

Nora hugged me again. She said, “Light is falling.”

All the way to Kobehaba, where we were to meet Father for the wrap-party, I sat slumped in my Loop car seat. As much as I had been alive when with her, now I felt dead apart.

“It was Father,” I said, not looking up. “He’s trying to keep us apart. He hates what I’ve become, and he hates her.”

“As yet,” Joelene said, while monitoring her screen, “there’s no evidence to support that theory.” Her eyes met mine. “However, I do not mean that it can be completely ruled out either.”

“He did it!” I said, sure. “This is his revenge for when I quit dancing. He made it so I couldn’t be with Nora. He did this!”

Joelene didn’t reply. A moment later, her eyes latched onto something on one of her screens. She turned it toward me and increased the volume. Intellectuals and Soup was on again.

“Unequivocally,” said Bow Tie, “it was Michael Rivers.”

They played a system video of Nora hugging me in my goggles and jumpsuit from the SunEcho only minutes before.

“They found us?” I asked, surprised.

“Impossible!” scoffed Iron Bra from behind her glass bowl. “I’ve just checked the history from the channel cameras in the elevators and the stairs of the MonoBeat. He wasn’t there. He could not have gotten from SpecificMotor to the SunEcho in time. What we’re seeing is some sort of theater.”

“I don’t believe so,” said Pink Hat thoughtfully, stirring a new bowl of soup. “It is Michael. And that’s Nora. Just look at the sensuality of their kiss. It’s palpable and pungent.

The kind of kiss that connects the spheres, the spirits, and the glands.

They are sharing a final moment together. I feel sorry for them and their companies. Certainly with that power, the union of RiverGroup and MKG would have been strong, authoritative, and commanding.”

“When she took your goggles off,” said Joelene, as she snapped off the screen, “your disguise was compromised. I’m not surprised we were discovered, but I thought it wouldn’t be for a day or two.” She shook her head slowly. “We should have found a place off the system.” Leaning back on her chair, she touched her fingertips together, and said, “This is trouble.”

A moment later, the car entered the garage of the building where the wrap-party was, and as we headed up in the turbofan-powered elevator, operated by a woman in a violet hoop skirt and bonnet, I asked, “Does Father watch that Soup show?”

“Doubtful. But other channels will surely be speculating soon, so I suggest we make this as short a visit as possible.”

“I’m telling him that I know what he did,” I said. “He let

the freeboot

shoot me because he hates me.”

“Michael,” she said, quietly, “we don’t have evidence to prove his involvement. I appreciate your ambition to confront him, but don’t advise it now.”

When the bonnet woman pulled a huge iron lever and the doors opened, I had to squint and cover my ears. Screeching music played and patterns of light flashed in all directions. The floor vibrated an agitated violet. All over the place, screens played over-saturated snippets of Ultra epics.

Screaming men… knives cutting through flesh… stone clubs bashing stuffed animals, fruit, and medical specimens.

A hostess with heavy dark eye makeup, white lips, and a tube in her right nostril led us in. All the swirling colors, signs, and screens were giving me a headache. I closed my colored eye, but still the place blinked and vibrated like a hundred electrical storms.

Partiers, in all manner of Ultra costume, waved and remarked as we passed.

–  She’s hotrod!

–  Loved her furry tits!

–  Bereave her tail!

–  Billion times better!

–  Subtract her and abstract her. Turn her and burn her!

Keeping my eyes straight ahead, I ignored them and their words and ridiculous lyrics. Meanwhile, I wondered if Joelene was right. If I did accuse him, all he would do was deny it and scream louder than I ever could.

We came before a large, round table made out of a fresh redwood stump with the RiverGroup logo carved on top. Father sat with his back against the window that looked out onto the sparkling lights of the port city. His chocolate cake Afro was fluffier than ever. Around his neck he wore a green ruff, and his enormous jacket was covered with wet hunter-green paint. Stuffed in the breast pocket was what looked like a cut of raw pork and a black rubber

glove.

His girls sat on either side. A blonde wore blue foil. A redhead was covered with tar. One wore blinking sequins and nothing else. A brunette looked like the Frix bikini girl from the date. The last was decorated with