Grey

“Ken Goh!”

I hadn’t even recognized him without his blue and orange face paint. At once I felt furious at him, sympathetic for his present suffering, and confused. “Why would he do that?”

“We don’t know!” said Father, as if I wasn’t even supposed to ask. “But he did it. We caught him. End of story. And it was my hairdresser who figured out the evil plot.”

“Simple deduction!” said Xavid, as he pushed up his glasses.

Father then snapped his fingers. “Take the prisoner to the dungeon beneath the PartyHaus.” The gold visor satin picked up Ken and headed out. “You,” he said to me, “get dressed. Chesterfield Kez is here, and he’s brought Elle’s brother to be your friend.”

“Wait,” I said, “if Ken was behind the

shooting, that

means it wasn’t MKG!”

“Forget those puds! They’re rancid lard! Besides, Elle’s ratings killed Nora’s. We need that hype to cover our asses.”

I asked, “Why do we have to cover anything? I don’t even understand why we have to merge with anyone in the first place.”

That stopped Father. He stood staring at me for a long time.

“What?”

“All right!” he said, pretending to be happy. “So, what new product do you have? And what technology are you using?

Frequencies?

Anomaly theory?

Or are you just hiding more shit in Brane-7, like your good ol’ granddad?” He laughed because he knew I had no idea what he had just said. “Yeah!” he continued, “That’s what I thought. And that’s why it’s your job to get out there and smile and wiggle your nut sack to the rhythm!” Before he stormed out, he added, “Get dressed! We’ll be back in two minutes!” The door slammed shut.

I had heard of Brane-7 before. It was another dimension and had something to do with the RiverGroup system, but that was all I knew. As the sound of the door slamming repeated in my head, I felt contrite, even useless. And for the first time, I understood how much my ignorance trapped me.

On the tiles I saw several drops of blood. “Why would Ken want to kill me?” I asked Joelene.

She let out a breath. “It does seem odd.”

“What’s a code worm? And

what’s

Brain-7 and those other things?”

“A code worm…” she began, “is a very complicated type of leech that attaches itself to the host and can create a new entity that is formed…” Her voice faded, as she seemed to sink into thought.

I waited for her to continue, but she turned, headed to her screens, and began working as if she had forgotten about me. Annoyed, I asked, “Were you talking to someone earlier?”

Her amethyst eyes darted toward me. “No.” She smiled stiffly, and then said, “I need several minutes here. Why don’t you get

dressed.

”

“Before I woke, you were talking to someone.”

“Please,” she said, returning her eyes to her screen, “I have to work.”

“You swore. And you said leave him alone. You were talking about me.”

After a deep breath, she said, “Listen to me, I am trying to secure our future. Things have become extremely dangerous. Yes, I used strong language earlier, but I am working for exactly what you want.” With that she continued to operate her screens.

I didn’t know what to think. “What are you planning?” She didn’t acknowledge me. “Hello? What is the plan?”

“Will you stop bothering me?”

Her tone was as harsh as I had heard before. Throwing off my blanket, I stood, and sped to my dressing room. After I rounded the corner, I waited for her to come after me, but heard no footsteps. I felt worse that I’d been forgotten.

My dressing room was as big as my living quarters, and was decorated with several shiny, charcoal-hematite chairs, an unfinished hemlock plank floor, adobe walls, and both color and black-and-white iMirrors. It was a simple, meditative space where I had spent hundreds of hours observing fabric in my loupe, admiring the evenness of stitches, and reading about the histories of various fibers. Today, I just wanted to break something.

To the left of my makeup chair was the tie rack, the underwear warmer, and shoe engine. Next sat my Mr. Renovation shirt machine, and filling most of the

space were

three rows of Stanley-Dior suit racks with my sixty Mr. Cedar suits. I couldn’t touch them, so I grabbed a charcoal-and-burgundy- striped tie, reared back, and whipped it at the floor as though I were killing a snake.

I felt a stab of pain in my shoulder. The tie just lay there. The gesture had been pointless and I felt ridiculous. A moment later, the tie began to smoke, and then flames appeared. I had grabbed one of my favorite Mr. Cedar ties, Love Alone, which had nitrocellulose fibers. Using the dressing room fire extinguisher, I doused it with white powder. So much for my show of fury! I’d ruined a beautiful tie, covered my pajamas with sodium bicarbonate, tweaked my shoulder, and felt exactly the same sense of futility as before.

From the racks, I grabbed a suit at random, tore off my pajamas, got a pair of shorts and an ironed shirt from my machines, and dressed. Checking myself in the iMirror, I felt transformed. Without realizing it, I had gotten a suit titled Constant Heart. Mr. Cedar had designed it several months ago for a fashion show I hadn’t attended. The fabric was a creamy moon-wool charcoal. The silhouette was slim and efficient.

“Joelene!”

I called. “What tie should I wear?” Usually, my dresser, Stefano, would have come from his servant’s entrance. I guessed he was sleeping. “Joelene,” I said again, “Stefano’s not here. Can you please help me?” I thought I heard a bump in the main room and headed out to check.

Xavid, Father, and his film crew were coming in. I didn’t see Joelene.

“Come here!” said Father, waving urgently. “Let’s do the big RiverGroup introduction together.” Smiling, he added, “It’ll be fun!”

“I’m not dressed. Where’s Stefano?”

“We let that old fart go,” he said.

“Cost-cutting.”

He looked me up and down. “You’re fine. Come here.” Pointing at the closed door, he said, “They’re waiting.”

“I don’t want to see anyone,” I said, wishing Joelene could get me out of this.

“Get over here and be nice,” he growled.

“Leave me alone.”

“Why is everything a war with you?”

“Why are you threatening Nora?”

“I don’t want to,” he said as if it were self-evident.

“But you are!”

“I have to because you’re such a disaster of a son.”

“I hate you,” I told him. “I hate the family, I hate the company. All I want is Nora and all you do is

keep

me from her.”

His face turned purple. He looked angry and hurt, but mostly hurt. “Fuck-tastic!” he spat. “Things were going so lard six seconds ago. We caught Ken and his code worm. What do you think? That shows you I’m trying.” Propping his hands on his hips, he said, “Thanks for ruining the whole day!”

“You’ve ruined my life.”

He threw his hands up. “I can’t believe you. I just can’t deal with…” He kicked the air, then turned away, and while muttering, shook his head.

“Should I introduce our visitor?” asked Xavid.

Father said, “Whatever,” with a flick of his wrist. He looked at me as if he had never been more disappointed with anything.

“I want my own life,” I told him.

“You’re not going to have anything if RiverGroup crashes and burns. And we’ve already crashed, and we are on fire!”

I asked, “Why did you hire Ken?”

For a second, I didn’t think he was going to answer. His lips slowly tightened and it looked like he was going to have another outburst. “He passed all the tests! Okay?”

“What are your tests?”