She dropped me off at the theater and vanished into the night. I unlocked the building and went to my apartment, thinking about this mysterious man, the ass that cowed her. I assumed he had to be someone well-placed in the Administration. It explained everything. Her ability to move about without leaving a trail in the network, unrestricted resources, and of course, her own trapped life. And when it came to beautiful women how many men throughout history had abused their position and power? Why should Nocturnia be any different? By the time I reached my apartment, I was determined to free her.
I almost skipped playing the memory tab.
Instead of some idiotic ‘family fare’ my screen displayed Baby Face and my breath caught in my chest. In the literature this film was nearly a legend of pre-code cinema. It had been heavily censored and lost for decades, and only a strange twist of luck preserved the original transgressive storyline. This was too important for my slate’s tiny screen. I pulled out the tab and hurried to the office.
Within a few minutes I was seated alone in the auditorium, all thought of exhaustion driven out by cinematic lust. I darkened the houselights and played the film. Luckily the feature did not have a long running time. While I thoroughly enjoyed this delicious story, even its ‘bad woman turns good’ ending, the long night dragged heavily on me. With precious few hours left, I eventually cleared the buffers and went to bed.
* * *
The morning alarm sounded, slamming my head with pain. I stumbled nude from my bed to the fabricator and ordered painkillers. The network noted the request and started fabricating the pills while it displayed the number remaining for the rest of the month. Massaging my temples, I waited as the fabricator’s quiet processes quickly finished. I snatched the pills from the tray and swallowed them dry. By the time I finished dressing the agony had subsided to mere misery and I could at least think about food.
While the food fabricator produced breakfast, I dressed. Ugly and unwanted, another meeting with Hui-Fen Jones waited for me on the day’s agenda, but nothing with Brandon, and I didn’t know if I was relieved or depressed. Talking with him always made my day better, but after our dustup I wasn’t sure.
I fed myself without staining my clothes, a minor miracle considering the lack of sleep, and very nearly felt human again.
In the office I queued up films I wanted to pry from Jones’s overly protective fingers. I had slim hope of success, particularly after that trouble with the DNS vote. Sure, I could roll over, program exactly what she wanted, exhibit an endless parade of socially acceptable plots with men and women starting families, rejecting selfishness for the greater good, and sacrificing for their children and their nations, but selective history is a lie. We weren’t those people because they never existed.
Thinking about lies brought Seiko to my mind. Her breaking voice and the sadness in her eyes stabbed at me from an all-too-fresh memory. Making sure I had time before Jones’s arrival, I pulled out my slate and reached out for her.
“Hello.” Her voice was level, calm, and unemotional, sure signs of a simmering anger.
“Good morning, my love.”
She said nothing.
“I can’t explain.” Now that was the truth. “But I know I acted terribly.”
“I cried myself to sleep.” She remained preternaturally calm. “I don’t want to do that again.”
“I don’t want you to.”
I made a mental note that I’d have to manage my time better.
“Let me make it up to you, tonight.”
“I don’t know.”
“Sure, you do. We can do anything you want, Seiko, anything.”
“That’s what you’re saying now.” Her eyes narrowed, the simmering anger threatening to explode into a firestorm. “But what are you going to tell me tonight?”
“Don’t be like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I did something wrong. Something came—”
“Something you can’t tell me about. Some terribly classified film review for the Administration, maybe?”
“Seiko—”
“Or maybe you’ve found some slut.”
I flinched as if I had been slapped.
“There’s no one,” I lied, stunned she had jumped so quickly to this terrible suspicion.
“Maybe.”
“What makes you think that? How can you even consider it?”
“Someone has.” She crossed her arms and glared at me. “I got a message last night. It said you were fucking someone you met.”
Brandon – my own anger flared and I wanted to lash out, hit something, but I kept myself under control.
“Who said that?” I let anger have full rein in my voice, hoping I sounded properly indignant and not guilty.
“It was anonymous.”
He was a coward too.
“It’s not true. I swear it.”
She softened, wanting to believe me, and my own guilt flooded in.
“You’re the only woman for me.”
The corners of her lips twitched up, but she fought back the smile.
“Okay,” she said. “Sylvester’s kids are playing tonight. We’ll go.”
“It’s a deal.”
I restrained my disappointment. Her brother’s kids had taken with enthusiasm to the Admin’s attempts at reviving ancient sports. Somehow only the most tedious were popular. However, an evening of adolescent softball might soothe Seiko’s hurt feelings.
We exchanged a few more pleasantries and toward the end of the call her demeanor finally warmed. Feeling slightly less like a fugitive from a Morals and Indecency Squad, I returned to work. Everything seemed to improve until Jones, always trying to spoil my day, arrived early.
I barely noticed her on the monitor, striding up the theater’s steps. Hurrying and throwing on my jacket, I rushed to the lobby and got there just moments before she disabled the security system and entered. She gave me a cool gaze, running her eyes up and down my lanky frame.
“Out of breath?”
“You’re early.”
“Early to bed, early to rise….” She left the cliché unfinished and moved to concessions.
“Wouldn’t you rather work in the office?”
She shook her head.
“Not today, Kessler. We’re going to need the auditorium.” She smiled a thoroughly counterfeit expression. “You’re always lecturing me that a small screen cannot possibly be adequate for judging a film.”
Surprised by her sudden attitude, I followed her into the auditorium. We seated ourselves near the center and using our slates we began reviewing snippets. Here the surprises stopped; she rejected film after film, deeming all of them too morally questionable. We also reviewed proposed titles from other subcommittee members and Jones herself as well. Very few of the suggested titles were outright bad; most simply repeated the same trite clichéd plots, driving home moral messages with an astounding lack of subtlety. After just over two hours we stopped and dealt with our biological necessities.
After returning from the restroom, I paced back and forth on the stage waiting for Jones’s return. Frustrated by her long absence, I leapt down and moved back our seats.
Minutes dragged by and I picked up her slate. Still active, menus and selected items glowed bright on its screen. It took me several moments to realize what I was seeing. Jones had a number of folders and directories; most were locked, but one was still open – exploitation movies of the late twentieth century, a rich period of experimentation and transgressive filmmaking. When the Firsters had set up the committees and subcommittees they had sealed everything in that directory. I only knew these movies by their low reputation.
I looked over my shoulder, making sure Jones hadn’t returned. Yes! My password and user ID accessed them.
Well, if she forgot to close down access that was hardly my fault, and no one would know anyway. I hastily put the slate back just as she came through the doors. Jones walked with a strident gait that repelled all casual contact.
“I think we’re almost finished here,” she said, picking up her items. “I do have a question, though.”
I shrugged my permission.
“Why are you here? Your suggestions undermine our cultural reclamation project. They border on the indecent. Clearly you don’t believe in the project.”
“You’re so right and so wrong.”
I stood, refusing to let her tower over me. I reached out and tapped her slate, still blinking the listing we had just approved.
“Those films, the approved ones and the ones you don’t approve of, are what’s left of our ancestors’ culture. It’s a culture that produced tremendous works of art but what we’re doing here isn’t going to bring that back to life.”
“Not if you keep undermining it.”
“I’ve got nothing to do with it, Jones. That culture is dead.” I drew a hand across my throat, emphasizing the point. “What we’re doing here, no matter how hard we try to be true to our ancestors, is going to be a new culture, with new ways of thinking, of living, of dying.”
“Even if you are right, and I don’t think you are, you’re still trying to bring in corrupting influences. We don’t have that luxury.”
I almost spoke out against the church, but my irritation hadn’t made me that stupid. Hundreds and hundreds of years ago people terrified by approaching death had sent out our Ark, ordering us, their unborn descendants, to give their silly superstitions a rebirth, as though the universe cared one whit what prayers you muttered.
“That culture,” Jones continued. “At the end it was pretty sick. You’ve seen the classified histories. Those films are disease vectors, not art.”
“This isn’t real,” I insisted. “We aren’t a nation born from Puritan colonists. We never fought a civil war that tore us apart for more than a century. We aren’t our ancestors.”
I tapped my overcoat, and then gestured to her outfit.
“We mimic their fashions, their social conventions, and their speech, but it’s just imitation. If we study all our history and culture and not just the things people believed made them special we’d have a better chance of making something that can really work.”
I stepped past her and headed up toward the lobby. She followed but I didn’t really care if she did or not.
“We have to learn how to be human, to be the best humans we can, and people who died light-years away really didn’t have the answers and we should listen a lot less to their out-of-date advice.”
We stopped at the door out and she again looked me up and down; for once her face was free of disdain.
“Hmm, your ideas aren’t new, but I’m surprised you had thought it out this much. Frankly, I thought you just wanted an easy job.”
She stepped out into the fading daylight.
Jones added, “It doesn’t matter, your job is to follow policy.”
* * *
I met Seiko and her family at Nocturnia’s small ballpark. She wore a long off-white dress with matching gloves and hat. The colors worked well with her dusky skin and long brown hair. She would have been perfectly cast as some Spanish noble in one of those colorful and unrealistic pirate adventures. She spotted my arrival and moved next to me, kissing me lightly on the cheek.
“Darling, I’m so happy work let you escape tonight.”
An undercurrent of reproach hid in her voice, but perfectly modulated for no one but myself.
“There’s been a lot of work lately.” I tried to smile, but it felt forced. “It looks like there’ll be more in the future.”
She glowered briefly, angling her head so the large hat shielded her from the rest of her family.
“I certainly hope not.”
The rebuke delivered, she turned away from me and acted as though we were the colony’s happiest couple. Her brother Sylvester kept a wary eye on me as we took our seats in the simple bleachers. Both the Founders and the Firsters had neglected to build the park and when the Administration discovered a history of athleticism the field had been constructed in a single Long Night.
The game was primarily a family affair. Sylvester and Monica watched along with the four littlest ones while their two older boys battled for runs. I sat next to Seiko, unable to concentrate on the players’ action.
As she watched, apparently engrossed by the play, I stared at her face, the smooth sandy skin, the deep brown eyes, and started fantasizing. Socially conservative, she had never agreed to anything that even approached improper. No mixed swimming, no unchaperoned dates, no immodest clothing, putting off everything physical until after marriage.
I envisioned her naked: sweaty, breathless with ecstasy, trembling with orgasm. Shifting in my seat, trying to hide my arousal, I focused on the game. I reached out and gently placed a hand on her covered leg. She slapped my hand away without a second glance then she turned and looked me in the eye.
“Be good.”
She smiled, a genuine and forgiving smile, her eyes twinkling with love.
“You’re astonishingly attractive.”
Leaning in, she kissed me quickly on the cheek, but her lips briefly brushed mine. Not an accident.
“I love you,” she whispered, “and soon….” Her voice drifted away, silence hinting at her meaning.
Seiko turned back to the game while her sister-in-law, Monica, looked in my direction with an intense scolding stare.
I tried to remain focused on the game and not think about Seiko covered with sweat, spent from endless sex. When the time came to leave her with Sylvester and his brood, my fantasies had gradually transformed from her to Pamela.
Under darkened skies I rode alone in the car back to the theater. I tried calling Pamela, but the contact line repeatedly went to her message system. My imagination filled that unanswered call with endless images of Pamela in that other man’s arms. In my nightmare her face twisted with disgust and shame as this unknown pig forced himself on her. Afterward she’d cry and I wouldn’t be there. Impotence fanned my fury and by the time I stormed into the lobby my anger boiled.
The musicians had finished their rehearsals but I never made it as far as my apartment. I pulled out my slate and tried again to reach her, again resulting in nothing but a dead-end message. My hands shook and sleep would be nothing but hours of frustration.
Giving up on reaching Pamela, I tried the directory Jones had left open, fully expecting she would have discovered her mistake. But the directory opened, unlocking a treasury of forbidden films. Quickly I saved the slate to the theater’s network and hurried into the auditorium.
Settling into my favorite seat I queued up a film. Hours passed unnoticed as I watched movie after movie. Nothing I had seen or read prepared me for the raw unfinished power expressed by this subversive cinema. Animalistic violence, emotion, and sex swept across the screen. The ‘exploitive’ genre contained every concept feared by the Administration. Never would the Governing Council allow any of these movies out.
I skipped sleeping and when the day arrived I didn’t care about exhaustion, looking forward to sharing this treasury with Pamela. A fast shower and reused clothes would see me through the day.
I was working in the office when Brandon arrived.
“Good morning.” He ambled straight to the fabricator and started a pot of tea, acting as though this morning was simply like any other.
“That was a low stunt,” I said, not bothering to keep the growl out of my voice.
“What stunt?”
He moved to his desk and started the network, casual and unconcerned.
“Don’t play dumb.”
He stopped his routine and turned to look at me. “Guess I’m dumb.”
“She told me about the message.” I stomped over to his desk. “I know you don’t approve, but I didn’t think you’d go behind my back to Seiko.”
He held up both hands, like I was robbing him. “Not me.”
“It has to be you, dummy. No one else knows. At least you didn’t have the courage to let her know who you were. You she’d believe. At least—”
“And she’d be right to believe. It’s true.”
“You admit it! You sent her that damn—”
“I didn’t send Seiko anything!” He jumped to his feet, his dark angry face inches from mine. “If I was going to do anything I’d do it face-to-face with you there. Not like some damned gossip.”
“There’s no one else,” I insisted again. “I certainly didn’t and Pamela isn’t going—”
“Pamela?” he said, leaning back against his desk. “Is that her name?”
“It’s none of your business is what it is!”
“It is my business. It’s very much—”
“It has nothing to do with the media.”
He shook his head.
“That isn’t what makes it my business.” His voice softened and a little of the anger drained from his scowl. “You’re my friend, Jason, my best friend.”
He put a hand on my shoulder. “It’s my business because I care. And I know, even if you don’t, something like this always ends badly.”
My anger didn’t fade as quickly and I knocked his hand away. “And so you sent—”
“I didn’t—”
Storming out of the office, I didn’t hear the rest.
* * *
My hard angry footsteps echoed loud in the lobby. Not bothering to summon a car, I stalked off on foot, putting as much distance as I could between Brandon and me. I moved quickly downhill, gravity and anger powering my stride. A small glade of greenery surrounded the theater but I passed through that and when I reached level ground I walked through the shuttered blocks of an outer district.
Brandon’s betrayal burned in my stomach. All of our lives we had been close, closer than a lot of married couples, and that knife in my back cut deep. Sure, I understood how he felt. Brandon always obeyed the rules, but he should have talked to me first. If he wanted me and Seiko to get married, enraging her was an idiotic plan.
Thinking of Seiko set off fresh pangs of guilt. Yeah, I was being an ass, and on some level I knew that, but that didn’t justify this betrayal. Jesus, Seiko and I weren’t married yet. Pamela didn’t want marriage. We both knew that whatever we had, whatever we shared, was going to be history.
History.
I tried to imagine a life without Pamela and saw only dreariness and boredom. There, walking among the sealed high-rises waiting for future families, I wanted it all. I wanted Seiko. I wanted Pamela. I wanted my position. I wanted to master my fate and tell the rest of the colony to stuff it.
I stopped and looked at one of the tall pre-commissioned apartment complexes. A faint breeze carried the building’s vaguely antiseptic smell. Far from the populated districts, no one moved on the streets. I considered my options. No solution appeared, no bright moment of epiphany showed me how to win. Instead I stood lost, confused and racked with unrelenting wanting.
“Jason Kessler, stand still.”
Startled from my thoughts, I jumped back as a security drone sped up the block toward me. The drone, barely a meter across and its ducted fan’s hum barely audible above the light wind, moved closer, pointing its camera directly at me. The voice of a bored security officer sounded through its speaker.
“This district is closed to foot traffic.”
“I’ll leave.”
I turned and started back toward the theater.
“Stand still.”
I stopped and turned back to the drone.
“This district is closed! I understand that, okay. I’m leaving! Isn’t that what you want?”
“Stand still,” the officer repeated, offering no explanation.
Faintly I heard the automatic locks on the building’s doors cycle. Unlocked – open – closed – locked – unlocked – open – closed – locked. Understanding blossomed. Idiots thinking they had outwitted the Administration sometimes tried to set up all sorts of indecency in shuttered districts – orgies, narcotics, prostitution – and they always got caught. There’s no escaping the Admin’s all-seeing eye.
Except for Pamela.
“Oh, hell. I didn’t touch the place.”
The unidentified officer said nothing. No doubt my citation for fabricating a condom when I was 17 was right now flashing on his screen and Officer No-Name was thinking he’d made a big catch. Minutes passed, adding to my anger and frustration.
“Jason Kessler.”
“Yes!”
“You may go.”
I threw a rude gesture in the drone’s direction and stalked back toward the theater. As I walked I pulled out my slate and tried to reach Pamela, but again got nothing but her message. Visions of her biting a pillow as some entitled politician used her burned in my imagination.
When I entered the office Brandon looked up from his desk and without any inflection said, “Jones is looking for you.”
“She could have called my slate.”
He shrugged. I might have started another fight, but his resigned expression and utter indifference disarmed me. He had sent the damned message, but it wasn’t worth getting into it again, not with Jones nosing around. When she didn’t call my personal slate it always turned out badly.
I settled in at my desk, taking an absurd amount of time getting my chair just right, adjusting the desk camera, in general putting off the call. Having wasted five minutes, I finally called Jones. Her personal assistant, William, a rather likable guy in an unlikable job, kept me waiting on hold while she took her time. I knew better and didn’t switch off, despising every moment of her petty power games. Finally her thin face and black hair appeared in my monitor.
“Kessler.”
“Jones. Brandon mentioned you needed to speak with me.”
“Yes.” A flash of smile played at her lips, but she quickly suppressed it, returning to a neutral business expression that somehow still struck me as predatory.
“I’ve got a troubling report here.”
I said nothing, but my heart slammed hard and fast. Did Brandon send a message to Jones too?
“It’s from Network Security.” She dragged out her revelation, undoubtedly taking joy in each and every syllable.“There’s been a data breach at the theater.”
She made a show of turning to study the report on her slate, but I’d watched enough good actors to see through a bad one. I wiped my suddenly sweaty palms on my trousers and I grew dizzy.
“Someone violated the committee’s secure file storage. They accessed morally reprehensible and socially unacceptable filth.”
A roaring started in my ears and the dizziness grew worse. I braced myself with a hand on each leg as she continued closing her trap.
“Security is working to reconstruct exactly what happened, but we’re fairly certain the breach took place last night and extended clear until morning.”
I realized how she had set me up, placing the perfect bait within my reach, and now my head was in the noose. Pamela, Seiko, and Brandon all vanished from my mind. When this was done I’d be at the far end of the island, living out of tents.
“Well?”
I snapped back to the present.
“No,” I answered. “I don’t know anything about it.”
I might have been doomed but I’d be damned if I was going to make it easy for her. She nodded, trying to be professional, but again she flashed that smile.
“This is very serious. The subcommittee is meeting Monday. I am turning the matter over to Security for a full report.”
She paused and now she let the smile flower. “Your presence at the meeting is required.”
She transmitted the exact time and then without further fake pleasantries ended the call.
“Data breach?”
I turned to Brandon. He leaned on my chair’s arm and considered me with concern. He might be an ass about Pamela, but he was still my friend.
“She set me up.”
I quickly recounted the event and how Jones had ‘accidentally’ left the secure directory unlocked. He never said ‘I told you so’, but listened and only occasionally shook his head.
“It looks bad,” he said.
“Yeah.”
Exhaustion crashed over me like high tide swamping the low islands and I put my head on the desk. I wanted to sleep, to sleep forever and ever. I stayed like that for several minutes before the powerful smell of fresh coffee pushed its way into my senses.
Opening my eyes, I saw Brandon sitting down and a mug of fresh coffee waiting inches from my nose. I gave him a thankful smile, sat up and sipped, enjoying the luxury. There wouldn’t be very many in the bush.