“She has a marriage belt hanging in her pod, and she
“Wait!” Benko held up his hand. He stood in the middle of the three pods and cocked his head to one side.
“What are you looking for?” Laki asked.
“Not looking. Listening. This mix is depressing.”
He walked to the sound module in his pod. He sped up the rhythm of Mahini’s song, then mixed in a hard, fast beat. Zaha went to her sound module and added the sound of an animal yelping, then punctuated it with intermittent high-pitched tinkling sounds. They looked at each other and grinned.
Laki did a little shimmy. “Nice.” She kissed each of them on the cheek.
The pods shook suddenly. Laki, Benko, and Zaha stumbled a bit. They looked up to see two pods joining them at once. Laki waved at her arriving friends then shot Benko a look.
“Okay, okay, I’ll go set up the screen,” he said and walked toward his pod.
Laki linked arms with Zaha, and they walked over to where Laki’s friends’ pods were fusing with the party. When the pods merged, the space Laki and Zaha were standing in expanded.
Zaha saw Benko float away in his pod.
“Where’s he going?” she whispered in Laki’s ear.
“Setting up the screen,” Laki said.
“What’s the screen for?” Zaha asked.
“Oh, you’ve never been to any of Laki’s parties?” one of the newcomers asked.
Zaha shook her head no. She and Laki glanced at each other before Laki leaned in to hug each of the newcomers and kiss them both on the cheek.
“I see,” said the other newcomer. “You met in the Stretch.”
Zaha laughed loudly. “No, we met at a mother-unit training.”
There was an awkward pause.
“I’m going to go help Beni,” the first newcomer said and walked away.
A silence settled over the group. Then Laki slapped her friend’s arm lightly. “Don’t get all weird. You have a mother-unit.”
“I know, but I don’t know anyone going into one…except you.”
“So what? You think we’re contagious?”
“No, it’s just that…”
“It’s weird knowing you’re gonna spend the rest of your life with a veil on,” Laki said in a mocking voice.
“Why get to know you when you’re just going to disappear after maturation,” Zaha added with a high- pitched wail.
“Aren’t you depressed? Don’t you ever think about escaping?” Laki whined.
There was a dangerous glint in her eye, and her relaxed stance had become combative. Her aggression with her peers had grown over the past year. All anyone wanted to talk about was maturation. And why not? It wasn’t a death sentence for any of them. None of her friends would be entering mother-units; they had no need. That kind of work was for girls who were hungry, girls with no choices, girls whose families couldn’t afford to have a mother-unit raise their children—girls who were relieved to have somewhere to go after maturation.
“I’m sorry, Laki, I just…”
Laki stared at her friend daring him to say something else that would wound. Both she and Zaha were highborn and fully endowed with the indignation of the privileged. But Laki had been orphaned and Zaha abandoned. Their intended futures had dissolved, making them interlopers among their friends and siblings.
“I’ll go help Beni with the screen, too,” Laki’s friend said and left awkwardly without another word.
“These blocks act like I have some fatal disease. It’s not my fault things turned out this way.”
Laki was breathing heavily as her mind tossed through anger, shame, and guilt at blinding speed.
“Tonight is not the night for this, Laki,” Zaha said.
Outside, Benko flew by again, this time with a long piece of cloth streaming from his pod.
“Tell me about the screen,” Zaha said.
“The screen?”
“Yes. What’s it for?”
“To shield the party from peepers and crashers.”
“Didn’t know you could do that in the Stretch.”
“Yeah, we look like an empty part of the Stretch with the screen up.”
“But then the regulators can’t verify you, or anyone else in the party. Don’t they come looking for you anyway? Is this legal?”
A slow smile spread across Laki’s face. She draped her arm around Zaha’s shoulders.
“Well, maybe we’re bending the rules a little bit, but I don’t think we’re breaking any laws.” She winked.
Zaha laughed. “So breaking the law relaxes you?”
Laki giggled, then someone grabbed her from behind.
“Okay, screen’s up,” Benko said, spinning Laki around. “If they catch us and they try to ban you, it won’t matter. You’ll be in a mother-unit.”
“Ban you?” Zaha’s eyebrows went up. She turned to Benko, “By the way those words are banned tonight.”
“What words?”
Zaha mouthed “mother-unit” to him, and he nodded.
“Right. So back to Laki getting banned, she can’t control her parties. Once she gets them started, they just keep growing and growing. The whole level gets packed. Nobody can get in for a rendezvous…”
“But this one won’t be that big,” Laki interjected. “I only invited twelve people.”
“Please,” said Benko. “The news will spread like wildfire.”
Benko gripped Laki around the waist, and they swayed together. Laki grabbed Zaha’s hand and pulled her close. As the three of them moved against each other, more pods joined the party. Before long, Laki, Zaha, and Benko were sweaty and buzzing with the joy of movement. They were surrounded by many others who had joined them on the dance floor.
Once the sweet vibe of languid ecstasy had engulfed all who were present, Laki decided it was time. She lifted her arm and aimed her finger at a pouch that was hanging from the top of her pod. She plucked, and the bag popped, releasing a wet blue fog into the air. Laki inhaled; an intense sweetness burst across her tongue. When she exhaled, her smile was a little wider and her limbs were a little looser.
“She always has the best smoke at her parties,” Benko said into Zaha’s ear.
Laki threw her head back and let out a long wordless moan. For the next hour, she didn’t speak a word to anyone. She was too busy flinging off her troubles and releasing her body in total surrender.
While Laki was slipping into a delicious stupor, Se-se was entering the Velvet Stretch for the first time. Her last three messages to Laki had returned undelivered. The only place Laki could be where Se-se’s message globes couldn’t reach was the Velvet Stretch.
“No registration on record,” the concierge stated.
“First time,” Se-se said with what she hoped was a charming smile.
“No rendezvous?” the concierge asked, without even bothering to acknowledge Se-se’s friendliness.
Se-se shook her head.
“You only have clearance for the rendezvous-less zone; that’s right past the entrance here. There are some basic rules and regulations.” The concierge stopped speaking long enough to pluck a message globe at Se-se. The globe floated through the walls of her pod and hovered near her shoulder while the concierge finished his speech. “People who violate these guidelines may be barred from the Velvet Stretch. Any questions?”
Se-se did have a question—where is my sister?—but she knew better than to draw attention to Laki. She opened her hand to receive the message globe.
“You have been cleared.”
