"No problem," says the man. He puts the car in gear. Charmaine hears the locks clicking shut. Holy shoot, she thinks. I am darn well not delusional. You can't be mistaken about a man who's done those kinds of things to you. With you. But what if that woman knows about us? What if the two of them have planned this thing together? Is this about Max wanting to get rid of me? Blow me off, like a failed blind date? What a coward.
Don't cry, she tells herself. Now is not the time. There's nobody on your side.
She'll need to keep her wits about her if she wants to lead any kind of a half-decent life in Consilience from now on. The life of a respected widow, keeping her mouth zipped, her smile at the ready. Rather than ending up in a padded cell; or worse, as a blank line in the databank.
She'll have to bury the truth about Stan, and the truth about Max too, as far down inside her own head as she can. Make sure she doesn't blurt things out, ask the wrong questions the way Sandi did. Or give the wrong answers, like Veronica. Even if she could tell someone, and even if they believed her, they'd pretend not to, because they'd see the truth as botulism. They'd fear contamination.
She's on her own.
IX | POSSIBILIBOTS
LUNCH
Stan's in the Possibilibots cafeteria with the guys from his team - his new team, the team he's just been inserted into. He's having a beer, that weak, urine-coloured beer they're brewing now; plus a side of onion rings and some fries to share, and a platter of Buffalo wings. Sucking the fat off a wing, he reflects that he himself might have tended the owner of this wing when it had been covered with feathers and attached to a chicken.
The guys on his team look normal enough, just ordinary guys sitting around in the cafeteria having lunch, like him. Not young, not old; fit enough, though a couple of them are getting plump around the middle. They've all got nametags. His says WALDO, and he really needs to remember that his name is Waldo now, not Stan. All he has to do is to stay Waldo until someone hands him the flashdrive with the hot-potato crap he's supposed to be smuggling out and reveals what he's supposed to do to get himself past the wall. Or else until he figures out how to make a break for it on his own.
Tiptoe Through the Tulips is supposed to be the signal, the secret handshake. Will his unknown contact speak it or sing it? He hopes there won't be singing. Who chose that annoying tune? Jocelyn, naturally: along with her other complex personality traits, she has a warped sense of humour. She'd relish the idea of compelling some poor sod to croak out that brain-damaged ditty. Not one of the guys at lunch looks like the Tiptoe Through the Tulips kind; nor do any of them look like a possible undercover contact. But then, they wouldn't.
Waldo, Waldo, he tells himself. You are Waldo now. It's a feeble name, like something in a kids' kitten book. The other names around the table are more solid: Derek, Kevin, Gary, Tyler, Budge. He's only just met them, he knows nothing about them, so he has to keep his mouth shut and his ears open. And they know nothing about him except that he's been sent to fill a vacancy on their team.
There've been a lot of yuks at the lunch table, a lot of in-jokes that Stan didn't catch. He's trying to read the facial expressions: behind the genial grins there's a barrier, behind which a language foreign to him is being spoken, a language of obscure references. Around the room, at other cafeteria tables, there are other knots of men. Other Possibilibots teams would be his guess. He's doing a lot of guessing.
The cafeteria is a long room with light green walls. Frosted-glass windows down one side: you can't see out. On the side without the windows there are a couple of retro-looking posters. One of them shows a little girl of six or seven in a ruffled white nightie, rubbing one eye sleepily, a blue teddy bear cradled in the crook of her other arm. There's a steaming cup of something in the foreground. SLEEP TIGHT, says the slogan. It's like a hundred-year-old poster for a malted bedtime drink.
The other poster shows a pretty blond girl in a red and white polka-dot bikini and a pin-up pose, hands clasped around one drawn-up knee, the foot in a slingback red high heel; the other leg extended, the shoe dangling from her toe. Pouty red lips, a wink. Some writing in, it must be, Dutch.
"Looks like a real girl, yeah?" says Derek, nodding at the pin-up girl. "But it's not."
"Fooled me too," says Tyler. "They did that poster in a fifties style. Those Dutch are so far ahead of us!"
"Yeah, they've passed the legislation and everything," says Gary. "They anticipated the future."
"What's it say?" Stan asks. He knows what they're making at Possibilibots. Replica women; slut machines, some call them. There was earnest talk about them among the fellow scooter repair guys: the real-life pain they might prevent, the money they might make. Maybe all women should be robots, he thinks with a tinge of acid: the flesh-and-blood ones are out of control.
"It's Dutch, so who knows what it says exactly," says Kevin. "But something like Better than real."
"And is it?" says Stan. "Better than real?" He's feeling more relaxed now - nobody suspects him of not being Waldo - so he can risk a few offhand questions.
"Not exactly. But the voice options are great," says Derek. "You can have silent, or, like, moans and screams, even a few words: more, harder, like that."
"In my books they're not the same," says Gary, head on one side as if tasting a new menu choice. "I didn't go for it that much, myself. It was too, you know, mechanical. But some guys prefer it. No limp-dick worries if you fuck up."
"So to speak," says Tyler, and they all laugh.
"You need to fiddle with the settings," says Kevin, reaching over for the last onion ring. "It's like a bicycle seat, you need to make the adjustments. You guys want another round of beers? I'll get them."
"I vote yes," says Tyler. "And throw in some more of those hot wings."
"Maybe you just picked the wrong model," says Budge to Gary.
"I don't think they'll ever replace the living and breathing," says Gary.
"They said that about e-books," says Kevin. "You can't stop progress."
"With the Platinum grade, they do breathe," says Derek. "In, out. I prefer that. With the ones that don't breathe, you sense there's something missing."
"Some have got heartbeats too," says Kevin. "If you want to get fancy. That's the Platinum Plus."
"They should stick some knee pads into the kit, anyway," says Gary. "Mine got stuck in high gear, I skinned my knees, damn near crippled myself, and I couldn't turn the damn thing off."
"You might like that feature in a real one," says Kevin, who's back with the beers and wings. "No Turn-off button."
"Trouble is, with some of the real ones, there's no Turn-on button," says Tyler, and this time it's laughs all round. Stan joins in: he can relate to that.
"But you need to remind yourself they're not alive; they're that good, the top grade anyway," Derek says to Stan. Of all of them, he seems the biggest booster.
"We should let old Waldo try it out," says Tyler. "We all did, first chance we had! Let him have a test run. What about it, Waldo?"
"It's not officially allowed," says Gary. "Unless you've been assigned for it."
"But they turn a blind eye," says Tyler.
Stan gives what he hopes is a lascivious grin. "I'm game," he says.
"Bad boy," says Tyler lightly.
"So you don't mind bending the rules," says Budge. "Pushing the boundaries." He gives Stan a genial smile, the smile of an indulgent uncle.
"Depends, I guess," Stan says. Has he made a mistake, put himself at risk? "There's boundaries, and then there's boundaries." That should hold it steady for a while.
"Okay then," says Budge. "First the tour, then the test run. Step this way."
EGG CUP
Charmaine slept poorly last night, even though she was in her own bed. Of course this bed isn't really hers, it belongs to Consilience, but still, it's a bed she's used to. Or she was used to it when Stan was in there with her. But now it feels alien to her, like one of those scary movies where you wake up and find you
're on a spaceship, and you've been abducted, and people you thought were your friends have had their brains taken over, and they want to do kinky probes; because Stan isn't in this bed with her any more and he will never be in it again. Face it, she tells herself: you kissed him goodbye and then you stuck the needle into him, and he died. That's reality, and it doesn't matter how much you cry about it now because he's still dead and you can't bring him back.
Think about flowers, she tells herself. That's what Grandma Win would tell her. But she can't think about them. Flowers are for funerals, that's all she can see. White flowers; like the white room, the white ceiling.
She hadn't meant to kill him. She hadn't meant to kill him. But how else could she have acted? They wanted her to use her head and discard her heart; but it wasn't so easy, because the heart goes last and hers was still clinging on inside her all the time she was readying the needle, which is why she was crying the whole time. Then the next thing she knew, she was lying on her own sofa with a headache.
At least she didn't have a concussion. That's what they told her at the Consilience clinic after the CAT scan. They'd sent her home with three kinds of pills - a pink one, a green one, and a yellow one - to help her relax, they said. She hadn't taken those pills, however: she didn't know what was in them. Slipping a person some kind of knockout thing was what those aliens did before they got you onto their spaceship, and then you woke up with tubes going into you, right in the middle of a probe. There aren't any aliens really; but still, she didn't trust what might happen to her while she was sleeping like a baby.
"You'll sleep like a baby" was what Aurora had said about those pills. She'd been at the clinic, waiting for Charmaine. They were all in on it, whatever it was: Aurora, and Max, and that woman who'd driven her to the clinic, the woman with dark hair and hoop earrings.
Thinking about what happened, Charmaine feels maybe she shouldn't have blurted out, "You're the head in the box!" Telling a person they were a head in a box was too blunt.
She'd messed up on the subject of Max too. She shouldn't have let on she knew him at all, much less make those pathetic demands. But it was too stupid, him claiming his name was Phil. Phil! She could never have flung herself into the arms of a man called Phil. Phils were pharmacists, they were never in the daytime-TV shows, they had no inner shadows and banked-up flames of desire. And Max did, even in that ugly driver's uniform he was wearing. She knew he longed for her; she's sensitive, she has an instinct for knowing that.
Then she got it: she should act dumb, because they were messing with her head. She'd seen movies like that: people disguising themselves as other people and pretending not to know you; then, when you accused them of doing it, they'd say you were crazy. So it's safer to go along with whatever made-up version of themselves they want to put out there.
Though if she could corner Max alone, and make him kiss her, and get a firm grip on his belt buckle - a familiar buckle, one she could undo in her sleep - then his cover story would smoke and burn and turn to ash, like the flammable thing it is.
--
After they'd driven her back from the clinic and she'd crawled into bed, Charmaine kept as quiet as a mouse. She couldn't even pace the floor or wail because Aurora had insisted on sleeping in the guest bedroom. Someone needed to stay with Charmaine, said Aurora. Considering the shock of the chicken facility tragedy, Charmaine might do some rash thing that Aurora was obviously dying to spell out.
"We wouldn't want to lose you too," she said in her falsely considerate voice, the one she used to demote people. The dark-haired woman, who'd said she was from Surveillance, had backed Aurora up. Strongly advisable was the phrase she used about Aurora staying over. Though, she added, Charmaine was free to make her own decisions.
Like heck I am, Charmaine thought. "Leave me the heck alone!" she'd wanted to scream. But you didn't argue with Surveillance. Pick your battles, her Grandma Win used to say, and there was no point in getting into a tug-of-war over whether or not pushy Aurora with her pulled-back fail of a face was going to muss up Charmaine's neatly ironed floral sheets.
And muss up the clean towels. And waste a rose-scented miniature guest soap; though she and Stan never had any guests, because no one you'd known before could get into Consilience for a visit, you couldn't even phone them or email them. But just thinking you might some day have a real guest, like an old high school friend, people you hoped wouldn't stay long and they most likely hoped it too, but still, it was nice to catch up - just thinking about it was a comfort. She tried to see Aurora as that sort of a guest, instead of a watchdog; and that was when she finally went to sleep.
--
"Rise and shine," says Aurora's voice. Darn it if she isn't barging in the door, carrying Charmaine's tray with Charmaine's teacup on it. "I've made you a wake-up tea. My goodness, you really did need that beauty sleep!"
"Why, what time is it?" Charmaine asks groggily. She acts groggier than she is so Aurora will think she's taken those pills. She'd flushed a couple of them down the toilet, because she wouldn't put it past Aurora to count.
"It's noon," says Aurora, setting the teacup down on the nightstand. There's nothing on that stand, none of the usual clutter - the nail file, the hand lotion, the lavender aromatherapy sachet pincushion - only the alarm clock and the tissue box. And Stan's nightstand has been cleared off as well. Where have they put it all? Maybe better not to make a fuss about that. "Now, you take your time, no hurry. I've fixed us brunch." She smiles her tight, wrinkle-free smile.
What if it's not her real face? thinks Charmaine. What if it's only stuck on and there's a giant cockroach or something behind it? What if I grabbed her by both of the ears and pulled, would the face pop off?
"Oh, thank you so much," she says.
--
The brunch is laid out on the sunny-nook kitchen table: the eggs in the little hen egg cups Charmaine ordered from the catalogue as a tribute to Stan's chicken work, the coffee in the mugs with gnomes on them, a grumpy one for Stan and a happy one for Charmaine, though sometimes she'd switch them around for fun. Stan needed more fun in his life, she'd tell him. Though what she'd meant was that she needed more fun in her own life. Well, she'd got some. She'd got Max. Fun plus, for a while.
"Toast? Another egg?" says Aurora, who has taken full possession of the stovetop, the pots, the toaster. How has she known where to find everything in Charmaine's kitchen? A horde of folks has been trooping in and out of her house, it seems. The place might as well be made of cellophane.
"More coffee?" says Aurora. Charmaine looks down at the mug: Aurora has given her the happy gnome. She feels tears trickling down her cheeks. Oh no, not more crying; she doesn't have the strength for it. Why had they wanted to kill Stan? He wasn't a subversive element; unless he'd been hiding something from her. But he couldn't have been, he was so easy to read. Though that's what he'd thought about her, and look how much she'd hidden from him.
Maybe he'd found out something about Positron, something really bad. Dangerous chemicals in the chickens, and everyone was eating them? Surely not, those chickens were organic. But maybe the chickens are part of some terrible experiment, and Stan discovered it and was going to warn everyone. Could that be the reason they wanted him dead? If so, he really was a hero, and she was proud of him.
And what happened to the bodies, really? After the Procedures. She'd never asked; she must have known that it would be crossing a line. Is there even a cemetery in Consilience? Or Positron Prison? She's never seen one.
She wipes her nose on the serviette, a cloth one with a robin embroidered on it in tiny stitches. Aurora reaches across the sunny-nook table, pats her hand. "Never mind," she says. "It will be all right. Trust me. Now, finish your breakfast, and we'll go shopping."
"Shopping?" Charmaine almost shouts. "What in the heck for?"
"The funeral," says Aurora in the mollifying voice of an adult to a balky child. "It's tomorrow. You don't have a single stitch of black in your entire wardrobe." She open
s the closet door: there are all Charmaine's suits and dresses, hung up tidily on quilted hangers. Who took them out of her locker?
"You've been going through my closet!" Charmaine says accusingly. "That's not your right, that closet is my private -"
"It's my job," says Aurora more strictly. "To help you get through this. You'll be the star feature, everyone will be looking at you. It would be disrespectful for you to wear...well, pastel flowers."
She has a point, thinks Charmaine. "Okay," she says. "I'm sorry. I'm on edge."
"It's understandable," says Aurora. "Anyone would be, in your place."
There has never been anyone in my place, Charmaine thinks. My place is just too weird. And as for you, lady, don't say understandable to me, because what you understand is nothing. But she keeps that observation to herself.
TOUR
After lunch is over, Stan gets the tour. Or Waldo gets the tour. Waldo, Waldo, drill it into your head, he tells himself. He hopes to fuck there's no other Stan in this unit, because then he might make a slip. Someone would call his real name and his head would snap up, he wouldn't be able to stop himself.
Budge leads Stan and the rest of the team along a long hallway, blandly painted, blandly tiled. On the walls there are glossy photographs of fruit: a lemon, a pear, an apple. Round white-glass light fixtures. They turn a corner, turn another corner. No one teleported in here would have a clue where he was - what city, what country even. He'd just know he was somewhere in the twenty-first century. All generic materials.
"So, there's basically six divisions," Budge is saying, "for the standard economy-class models: Receiving, Assembly, Customization, Quality Control, Wardrobe and Accessories, and Shipping. Past that door you have Receiving, but we won't bother going through, there's nothing to see, it's just guys unloading boxes from the transport trucks."
"How do the trucks get in?" asks Stan, keeping his voice neutral. "I never saw any big trucks driving through the streets of Consilience." It's a scooter town; even cars are a rarity, reserved for Surveillance and the top brass.