Janice thought she understood comfort and easy living. Before her exile to Yomi, she had lived the life of a corporate dependent. It was a comfortable, cozy life, complete with all the easy conveniences of civilized society. Renraku took care of its dependents. She had felt safe and secure. Yomi had taught her just how fortunate they had been.
Her corporate comfort had been due to her brother. She had often wondered what would have happened to them after their parents were killed if Sam hadn’t caught the eye of old Inazo Aneki, the master of Renraku Corporation. Sam was eighteen at the time, five years older than she was. There had been no money and few prospects, but Aneki had taken an interest in Sam and seen to it that her brother finished his education.
Under the distant but benevolent patronage of Aneki, Sam had gotten started on the fast track at Renraku. Aneki’s charity had been like a gift from God, an offering of a long, comfortable life. They certainly wouldn’t have been able to make it on their own. Her brother’s position was exalted for a gaijin, and she had been proud of him. His salary and position should have ensured congenial accommodations for both of them for life.
Now, her thoughts of Sam’s success were less kind. He had abandoned her to keep his sinecure, unwilling to be tainted by her goblinization. Kawaru, the Japanese called it, a pretty euphemism for an ugly thing. The English word, with its harsh syllables and awkwardness, was so much more fitting.
Sam would call it kawaru. He had always been so enamored of things Japanese, aping their attitudes and manners. The Japanese corporate society liked to pretend metahumans didn’t exist, casting them away to rot on the edges of society and dwell in the polluted shadows of those gleaming corporate towers. The pure stayed home, safe from taint. Secure in their bastions, they ate their regular, balanced meals, slept in their soft, warm beds in their precisely controlled climates, watched their approved entertainments, and ignored what they wished did not exist.
Those hypocritical overlords spoke of financial aid, readjustment programs, and subsidized communities, while shipping what they considered refuse to the hell they called Yomi. They had seduced Sam from her. Yes, he would refer to her as a kawaruhito, if he referred to her at all.
In just one month Yomi had taught her more about the world and how it worked than her eighteen years in corporate society. The lessons were harsh, but she had learned. She’d had to. Failure meant death. Despite the pain, the rejection, and the horrible realization that she was no longer normal, she had not been ready to die.
She’d learned just how luxurious her former corporate life had been. Renraku menials had a better life than even the self-styled overlords of Yomi. The depths to which the weak and ordinary inmates sank was beyond rational thought. It was just as well that most of those confined to the island didn’t remain rational long.
She had learned how to survive.
Over a year ago her body had changed, and twisted her life into a new pattern. Now, for whatever reason, her body had changed again. Was she condemned to keep changing? God forbid that she was infected with some nasty new type of goblinization that never stopped. She had survived one change and was stronger for it. Thus far, she had coped with the new change, but she didn’t know how much she could take. What if she changed yet again?
The face she now saw in the mirror was alien. After her first time, she avoided looking in mirrors, having found the asymmetry of her ork physiognomy repulsive. But her new visage was more regular, though hardly more human. She was finding her new body shape more congenial as well. She had expected to find the fur unbearably warm, but it hadn’t been so. Her long limbs were still uncoordinated, making her every movement awkward. She felt ungainly and frustrated at her lack of control. If Shiroi hadn’t found her in the Walled City, she would have been prey for the jackals who scoured that garbage heap.
But he had found her and offered help. She had been scared when she had accepted his offer. Scared of her surroundings. Scared of what had happened to her. Scared of trusting him. So she had taken a chance. After all, what did she have to lose?
Now, her life was taking another crazy twist. This time it was a dream instead of a nightmare. Her memories of her “luxurious” corporate life were being tattered to shabbiness. With Renraku, one had to be at least a vice-president of a regional branch to rate a private aircraft such as the one in which she travelled.
The flight was over now. The craft taxied to a halt and the vibration from the engines stopped. The pilot emerged from the cockpit, nodding and motioning her forward. His smiled was forced. The rest of the crew was nowhere in sight. She’d be seeing Shiroi soon. Who was he to command such extravagance?
Janice rose from her seat. With three long, wobbly strides, she reached the pilot’s side. Undogging the toggles, he lifted the latch and swung the cabin door wide. Brilliant sunshine flooded through the opening, forcing her to squint painfully. The cabin’s climate control coughed and shuddered into high gear to fight the invasion of hot, humid air. For a moment, she was back on Yomi and she shuddered. Remembering to breathe, she sucked in air. It was thin, and she felt lightheaded. Even her new, larger lungs didn’t seem to have enough capacity.
The pilot stepped through the hatchway and pressed himself against the railing of the stairway. He seemed to want to give her as much room as possible. Up close, she could smell his fear. What did he think she was going to do? Eat him? Ignoring him, she looked out. A short, dark man in a white suit waited at the foot of the stairway. As her eyes settled on him, he smiled.
“Welcome to Atzlan,” he said in accented English. “I am Jaime Garcia. I offer Mr. Shiroi’s apologies. He was unavoidably detained by business, and has asked me to entertain you until he is available. I hope you had a good flight. You have no complaints of your treatment?”
Shivering in the sunshine, the pilot tensed. He relaxed only a little when she said, “Everything was fine.”
“Most excellent,” Garcia said. His dazzling smile vanished as he turned away to speak rapidly in what she assumed was Spanish. The people to whom he spoke were short and dark like him. Their eyes never left her. Most of the crowd wore loose-fitting blouses and pants, but a few wore tailored coveralls or suits like Garcia’s. He finished with an obvious command, scattering the blouses and coveralls. Minions, jumping at his word. She had seen such feverish obedience once when some important Aztechnology officials had visited the Renraku compound. Was it a universal trait of the underlings in Atzlan-based corporations? She didn’t like it.
After a few softer exchanges with the suits, he turned his attention to her again. The brilliant smile returned as if it had never been gone. “Please, señorita. Come down and join us.”
She wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but she stepped through the hatchway. There was something about this Garcia she didn’t like. She ran her tongue across her lower lip, wishing she knew what he hid behind his smile. Her eyes were still hurting as she walked carefully down the stairs. She squinted down at Garcia and realized he looked different. He was no longer a small man in a suit, but a long-limbed, furred metahuman like herself.
In her surprise, she nearly stumbled. He was up the stairs to meet her before she could recover her balance on her own. His grip was strong, steadying her. He was a suit again, armored behind his smile. Solicitously, he helped her down the remaining steps.
She didn’t like his cologne.
He seemed unaware of her dislike. “You appear to be taxed by your journey. Perhaps some refreshment would restore your spirit?”
“No, thanks. I’ll be fine. Besides, they served a meal on the plane only a couple of hours ago.”
“And you found it to your taste?”
He really did seem to be concerned that she be pleased. Maybe he wasn’t so bad. She gave him a friendly smile, but remembered her fangs and closed it down. “The meal was quite tasty. My compliments to your corporate chef. I don’t believe that I’ve ever had meat with quite so delicate a flavor.”
Garcia’s smile grew wider. “Yes, it is a specialty. I will be sure to communicate your compliments.”
Garcia escorted her across the landing field to a waiting helicopter. They climbed aboard and took a short flight over Mexico City. Their destination was a compound on the north side of the ’plex. The GWN monogram she had seen on the uniforms of Garcia’s minions at the airport gleamed on the side of the eighty-story skyscraper at the center of the enclosed blocks.
Oozing charm, Garcia took her on a whirlwind tour of the facilities. GWN was an obviously successful corporation. Most of the plants were devoted to food processing and nutrient farming; labels on containerized cargo lots told her GWN shipped worldwide. She wondered briefly what brands belonged to the firm. Comestibles weren’t the corporation’s only product. Several impressive structures were dedicated to information technologies and small, high-tech manufacturing plants. The combination wasn’t surprising; no megacorporation could survive without at least dabbling in the Matrix and data technology. If all of this belonged to Mr. Shiroi, as Garcia implied, her benefactor was a powerful man.
They had just left a building where cheap simsense players were being assembled, and were walking through a section of employee tenements, when a telecom box on a street corner called Garcia’s name. He excused himself, leaving her to stand in the heat. Off-shift employees who had gathered on the front stoops to take in the afternoon sun suddenly found business elsewhere, but not before she had seen their fearful glances in her direction.
Garcia returned. “Ah, Mr. Shiroi will see you now, if you wish. But there is no hurry. Plenty of time for you to freshen up or partake of some refreshment, if you wish.”
She shook her head. Freshening up was something for norms. Make-up on her face would be a travesty, and she didn’t have a curry comb for the fur. Let Mr. Shiroi see her as she was, because that’s what he got.
“You are not hungry yet?”
“No. I’m not hungry at all.”
“That is understandable. After the change, one’s appetites are often erratic. It is best to trust your feelings. Your body will know when you need sustenance. One should not overdo things.”
Garcia took her to an elevator, holding the door open as he tapped a code into the keypad. He wished her well and stepped back, letting the doors slide shut. The car rose silently, with very little sensation of motion. After a few moments, the doors opened on a lavish office. Chill air swept into the car, cooling her comfortably.
The walls were the palest of pale blue. She might have taken them for white if not for the pure alabaster of the deep pile carpet. The room was huge, but its furnishings were few, and they were dominated by the presence in one corner of a carved column. The stack of stylized faces on it stretched at least three meters; it didn’t reach the ceiling, yet seemed to fill the room. Two-thirds of the way across the chamber, a dark wood desk stood between her and the tinted window-wall. Behind the desk, in an oddly shaped chair, sat Mr. Shiroi.
“Ah, Janice,” he said. “It is good to see you again.”
He was smiling—with pleasure, she thought. Why he should do that, she didn’t know. She wasn’t pleasant to see. She felt awkward and out of place.
“Wish I thought so, Mr. Shiroi.”
His smile faded a bit and his eyes filled with concern. “You must learn to accept what you are, since there is no way to change it. Denial only prolongs the pain. I do not wish to see you in pain. And please, call me Dan.”
She slowly walked across the room, since that was expected. When he indicated the chair in front of the desk, she sat. She started as the soft grey upholstery shifted beneath her.
“Just relax. It will settle down,” he said. There was a hint of amusement on his face.
She didn’t like being laughed at. Forcing herself to ignore the squirming chair, she waited. The cushions slowed their wriggling and finally stopped. She was surprised at how comfortable it was. She was almost as surprised that the chair seemed to fit her oversize body. Shiroi must have read her reaction on her face.
“You have just had your first experience with a Tendai-Barca Glove Lounger. They are always a little unnerving the first time, but, if you will excuse the pun, one adjusts quickly. I doubt you will find better seating anywhere in the world.”
She calmed her breathing, relaxing. The chair shifted again to accommodate her. Perhaps her anger at his amusement was out of place. Anyone feeling a chair writhe under their butt would look comical. She still wasn’t comfortable mentally, though. He had brought her halfway around the world. Surely, it wasn’t all for the sake of this small joke?
“What do you want, Mr. Shiroi?”
“There is no more reason to be abrupt than there is to distrust my motives, Janice.” He took her bad manners in stride. She even thought she detected a hint of sadness behind his soft voice. “I want to help you find yourself. I want you to accept a place in my organization. If you choose to follow your own path, I will understand, but it is my hope that you will find us congenial. It is very lonely being on your own. It could also be dangerous.”
“Trying to scare me, Mr. Shiroi?”
He laughed. “No. The outside world holds enough terrors for our kind. We need not prey upon ourselves. And I do wish that you would call me Dan.”
“Dan. You say ‘our kind.’ I know you and Garcia are like me, but your employees don’t know it because you hide behind illusions, or whatever it is you do so that they see you as norms. Why? Why do you hide what you are?”
“Why?” he asked. All trace of his humor sank beneath an expression of seriousness. “You should not have to ask that. You have seen yourself in the mirror, Janice. You have seen how the norms react to you. That is the answer. Do you wish to deal with the unreasoning fear all day, every day?”
Of course she didn’t. Who would? She had felt the fear and hate too often when she was just an ork. Orks were common. She didn’t like to think what was in store for her as a rare, more monstrous metahuman. Against that dread, her objection seemed petty.
“I don’t like pretending to be something other than what I am!”
He swiveled his chair ninety degrees, presenting her with a profile. She watched his chest rise and listened as he let the air out in a long sigh.
“We all wear masks and pretend to be something other than ourselves, do we not? The norms do it. Even you did it before your change.” He swiveled back to face her, cutting her off before she could object. “Were you not a different person with your peers than when you were with your family? How about when you dealt with your corporate superiors? Every set of people with whom we interact sees a different person, a different facet of ourselves. This magical disguise is like that, a mask of necessity. In our case, it hides the physical reality. Beneath the masks we are still ourselves. The illusion is simply necessary grease for the machine of social interaction. Nothing more. Having spent so much time in the Imperial Japanese Empire, surely you are familiar with the need to smooth relations between people.”
At the mention of Japan, she shivered. The chair shifted in response.
“I am sorry. I should not have mentioned Japan.”
He watched her for a while, saying nothing. She was glad; she didn’t know what to say. He was right, of course. It still seemed…odd that someone could make the metaphorical masks a reality. If a magical spell could be called reality. She taxed the Tendai-Barca, seeking to get into a physically comfortable position, while it was her mental state that unsettled her. He, of course, noticed.
“If you will be more comfortable, I will drop the spell. You are among friends here.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what I want. It’s been so confusing. I just want to get things under control.”
“I want to help you do just that. Here. Look.” He had dropped his spell. He was huge, bigger than she was. His Tendai-Barca flowed to support his increased size; panels expanded, slumped, and thickened as the chair reshaped itself to accommodate him. His fur was stark white, as pure as polar snow. The skin of his broad face and powerful hands was dark and glossy with health. Once she might have shrunk from his visage, but now she was as monstrous as he. But then, he didn’t consider himself monstrous. Or did he? He hid beneath a spell. Or was that true, either? What did he see when he looked in a mirror? The smooth Oriental features of Mr. Dan Shiroi or the wide nose, deep-set eyes, and fangs of his metatype?
“Now that the mask is down, anyone can see that I am of the same metatype as you. Believe me when I say I understand what you are going through. Between us there need be no false fronts. Illusions are for the norms.”
A sudden stir of bitterness swirled across her mind, rippling through what she realized had been a growing sense of fellowship. He might be her metatype, but he was still something she was not. “Even if I accepted your philosophy, Dan, I couldn’t do what you do. I’m mundane.”
“And how do you know that with such certainty? You cannot be totally without talent if you pierced our illusions.”
Once again, his expression hinted he knew something she did not. She felt uneasy under that knowing gaze. She felt more disquieted by the growing belief that he meant her well, that he really was interested in her.
She heaved herself up out of the chair, staggering a little when it released her more easily than she had expected. Pacing around the desk, she made her unsteady way to the window-wall. Beneath her spread the panorama of the towers of Mexico City. The spires of man’s arrogance, lofting above one of the largest cities on earth while the bases of those towers lay hidden in smog. Hidden, too, were the people who thronged the Atzlan capital. People…she wasn’t one of them anymore. This city couldn’t be her home. Cities were places for people, and people had cast her out. Would she ever have a home now?
She had been beginning to think that she might find one with Shiroi…no, Dan. But now she saw that slipping away as well. He thought she was just like him, but she knew better. She was incapable of doing what he could, and she knew it all too well.
She owed him for his kindness. His manner was so accepting, his interest in her welfare so clear. The least she could do was to tell him how she knew that she had none of the magic. She turned around to find that he had risen from his chair. He stood a step away, concern and anxiety plain on his face. She smiled sheepishly. “I’ve never told anyone, Dan. None of my friends. Not even my brother. I was embarrassed to tell anyone.” He reached out a long arm and rested a hand on her arm. She drew strength from the comforting touch. “I was tested for magical ability once.”
“By whom?”
“The Hoboken Institute. They are a very reputable firm.”
“Perhaps they made a mistake.”
“That’s what I told myself at first. When I was growing up, I always wanted to be a magician. I never told anyone, of course, because my dad was dead set against magic. He called it all nonsense and tricks. But I was a kid, and I knew better. I knew I had the magic in me. So I saved every nuyen I could, took an after-school job clerking in a Soy Shack for the extra creds. I didn’t have enough before…before the accident, and I wasn’t able to save much for the next year, till my brother got his stipend from the Renraku grant. Once he was in the university, things got easier, and I wangled a corporate temp job. It was boring and deadly dull, but I knew I could last it out because it would give me the credit to get tested and once I was certified as trainable there would be no question. I was going to be a high circle mage. I was so sure.
“Finally I saved enough creds, and I went to the Institute. I was hell to live with for two weeks until the test results came in. My brother never knew why I was such a bitch, and I lost a couple of my few friends. I even risked corporate censure, skipping my work assignment that afternoon in order to run off and find a private place to read the report. It was only one word, but it smashed my dreams. ‘Negative.’
“I was crushed. If living with me had been hell while I was waiting, the next two months should have qualified anyone for sainthood. But I didn’t have any friends who wanted to stick around for the final exam. I was queen bitch of the Wash-Bait Metroplex Education Center. I really didn’t shake off the depression until I met Ken at Tokyo University. He made me feel special. He always said I had enough magic for him.”
The memories were too much. She couldn’t help it, she started to cry. Her body shook with her sobs. Dan gathered her in, enfolding her with his arms. She buried her face in his fur, feeling it go damp with her tears. He stroked her back, saying nothing until she quieted. When she regained control of herself, he released her and took a step back as if fearing to impose on her. She felt chill without his warm fur meshing with hers.
“Ken is your boyfriend?”
“Was.” The pain was old but she still felt the ache. It was duller now, but it still hurt. “He doesn’t deal well with kawaru. “
He nodded with understanding. “Ken refused to see you after your change?”
She sniffed and shook her head. “He wouldn’t even talk to me or answer any letters.”
“He sounds like so many people I have known. The prejudice and fear attached to the metamorphosis is very strong. I think, perhaps, even stronger now that it is not so common. Do not think too badly of him. As a product of his environment, he was hostage to his society. Given time, he might have come to accept your change…if he truly loved you.
“You need not worry about acceptance here. We all know what you have gone through. We have seen the fear. Some of us have felt it turn to hate and violence. We have banded together for mutual aid and support. I speak for all when I say that we want you to join us.
“I will not be shy in saying that your joining will make us stronger, something we all devoutly want. But do not think that we only think of ourselves. Well, some of us do. But, Janice, I did not invite you here just to strengthen the organization. I felt something when I found you in that hovel in Hong Kong. I don’t really understand it myself, but I know it’s there. I want you to prosper. I want you to gain the strength to stand on your own feet and take a well-deserved place among us, and I am willing to do whatever is necessary to see that happen.”
She turned and stared out at the skyscrapers and megastructures. They reminded her of the guard towers and bunkers that ringed Yomi.
His words were tempting, freely offering what she had longed for in the long months of exile on Yomi. There was a hint of more than fellowship, a hint of something that had been torn from her life by the change. Did she dare believe he was honest? Did she dare reach out for it? She had been spurned so often. What if she changed again? Would his concern change along with her body? The questions made her head spin.
He placed his hand on her arm. Her muscles locked for a moment, leaving her frozen like a small animal in a spotlight. He waited until she relaxed to make his tentative contact more firm. She felt the warmth of his palm and the prickly touch of his nails through her fur. When she didn’t shrink away, he encircled her again in his broad, strong arms. She turned within that enclosure and stared into his face. She found only concern.
“Can I trust you?” she asked.
“As much as you can trust anyone.”
“That’s not a comforting answer, Dan.”
“It is not a comfortable world, Janice. I am fallible like anyone else. Sometimes the best of intents yield terrible consequences and the finest of feelings sour. I will not start our relationship with lies and high-sounding promises, but, by all the lights of heaven, I will vow to help you become all you were meant to be. If you let me, I will be your strength now. When you are strong, we can speak of the future.”
“You’ll wait?”
“I am patient. I will wait for you at each door until you are ready to step through.”
“No pressure?”
“No more than the press of life demands.”
His eyes were sincere. She wanted to believe. Wanted desperately to believe. But she was afraid. “Just hold me.”
And he did. His arms were strong, and she felt safe.