Engineman Part 43

He stood me upright and gripped my elbow, and I played the idiot. I babbled in Kampuchean and made as if stuffing an invisible club sandwich into my mouth with both hands.

The woman glanced at the chauffeur. "I do believe the girl is hungry."

I nodded. "Bouffe, merci, mademoiselle!"

Then I saw the pix on the wall behind her.

There were perhaps a hundred of them, all depicting the same woman, close-ups and stills from old films and others of her accepting awards - small, golden figures with bald heads - framed and displayed in a monomaniacal exhibition of vanity. I thought I recognised the woman in those shots, though the face was subtly different, the planes of her cheeks altered by cosmetics to conform to some bygone ideal of beauty. Also - but this was ridiculous - the woman on the wall seemed older older than the woman who stood before me. than the woman who stood before me.

She saw the scars on my neck that the collar failed to hide. She reached out, and I pulled my head away. Her lips described a moue moue, as if to calm a frightened animal, and she unfastened the top three b.u.t.tons of my cheongsam cheongsam.

She stared at me. I felt the weight of pity in her eyes that I came to understand only later - at the time I hated her for it. The usual reaction to my injuries was horror or derision, and I could handle that. But pity was rare, and I could not take pity from someone so beautiful.

She said in a whisper, "Take her away." And, before I could dive at her, the chauffeur dragged me from the silent room and frog-marched me through the mansion. I was holding back my tears as we hurried outside and through the grounds. He opened a pair of wrought iron gates, pushed me to the sidewalk and kicked me in the midriff. I gasped for breath and closed my eyes as his footsteps receded and the gate squeaked shut. Then, painfully, I pulled myself to my feet, fumbled with the b.u.t.tons at my chest and limped back to the main drag.

I knew the woman. I'd seen her many, many times before.

That same face...

Her poise, the way she had of making her every movement a unique performance.

Stephanie Etteridge.

But that was impossible, of course.

Dan was out when I got back. I left the lights off, swung the Batan II terminal from the ceiling and dialled the catalogue of cla.s.sic Etteridge movies. I sent out for a meal, sat back in the flickering luminescence of the screen and tried not to feel sorry for myself.

For the next hour I ate dim sum and noodles and stared at a soporific succession of dated entertainments. Even in the better films the acting was stylised, the form limited. At the end of every scene I found myself reaching for the partic.i.p.ation-bar on the keyboard, only to be flashed the message that I was watching a pre-modern film and that viewer partic.i.p.ation was impossible. So I sat back and fumed and watched the storyline go its unalterable way, like a familiar nightmare.

There was no doubting that, despite the limitations of the form, Stephanie Etteridge had something special. If I could suspend comparison between her movies and the holographic, computerised partic.i.p.ation dramas of today, I had to admit that Etteridge had a certain star quality, a charismatic presence.

When I'd seen enough, I returned to the main menu and called up The Life of Stephanie Etteridge The Life of Stephanie Etteridge, a eulogistic doc.u.mentary made only two years ago.

It was the usual life of a movie star; there was the regular quota of marriages and affairs, drug addictions and suicide attempts; low points when her performances were below standard and the fickle public switched allegiance for a time to some parvenu starlet with good looks and better publicity - and high points when she fought back from slash addiction, the death of a husband and universal unpopularity to carry off three successive Oscars in films the critics came to hail as cla.s.sics.

And then the final tragedy.

The film industry died a death. In Geneva, a cartel of computer-wizards developed Inter-Active computer-simulated holographics, and actors, directors, script-writers were a thing of the past, superseded by the all-powerful Programmer. In one month the studios in Hollywood, Bombay, Rio and Sydney shut up shop and the stars found themselves redundant. A dozen or so mega-stars were paid retainers so that their personas could be used to give Joe Public familiar, rea.s.suring faces to see them through the period of transition - until a whole new pantheon of computer-generated screen G.o.ds was invented for ma.s.s wors.h.i.+p. Etteridge was one of these tide-over stars, which was how I recognised her face; I'd seen many 'Etteridge' Inter-Active dramas as a kid. But it didn't take a degree in psychology to read between the lines of the doc.u.mentary and realise that lending your face to a virtual character was no compensation for the denial of real stardom.

The doc.u.mentary didn't dwell on the personal tragedy, of course; the last scene showed her marriage to an Italian surgeon, and while the credits rolled a voice-over reported that Stephanie Etteridge had made her last film in ten years ago and thereafter retired to a secluded villa in the South of France.

I was re-running that last film when Dan came back.

He'd washed and changed; he wore a smart, side-fastening blue suit with a high collar. I preferred him in casuals - but perhaps that was because I knew where he was going.

"You dining with that woman, Dan?" I asked.

He nodded. "The Gastrodome at twelve."

"I wish you wouldn't," I whispered, and I was unable to tell whether I was jealous, or scared at what the woman might want Dan to do.

"Like you said earlier, we need the dollars." He mussed my hair. "Did you find out who she is?"

I told him that I'd followed her to a mansion on the left bank, but I said nothing about my capture.

"There were tons of blown-up stills on the walls," I said, "all of the old film actress Stephanie Etteridge. I know you're going to call me dumb, but the resemblance is remarkable. Not only her face, but the way she moves. Look..."

I turned the screen to him while Etteridge played the spurned lover with a bravura performance of venom and spite. "Recognise?"

He leaned close and whispered in my ear. "You're dumb."

"I know, I know. But you must admit, the resemblance..."

Dan nodded. "Okay, the woman does look like Etteridge. But that film's what...? Thirty years old? I'd say that Etteridge was about forty there. That'd make her seventy now... Are you trying to tell me that the woman we saw here today was that old?"

"But why all the pictures?"

He shrugged. "Beats me. Perhaps she's the daughter of the actress. Or a fan. Or some fruit-cake who thinks she's Etteridge. Have you accessed her? A hundred to one you'll find her dead."

So I turned back to the Batan and called up the information on Stephanie Katerina Etteridge. We scanned her life story in cold, doc.u.mentary fact. Date of birth, education, professional status, the four marriages, her involvement with an American businessman jailed for an unspecified misdemeanour a matter of days before they were due to marry - though the doc.u.mentary had said nothing about this. And her death...?

I threw the nearest thing to hand - a tape cartridge - at Dan. "You owe me!"

He fielded the cartridge and waved it. "Okay, so she's still alive - a crotchety old dame somewhere living on caviar and memories. She's over seventy, Phuong."

I turned away in a huff.

Dan readied the tape on the desk. He slipped a small mic into his pocket so that I'd be able to monitor his conversation with the woman over dinner.

"Catch you later."

I came out of my sulk. "Dan, take care. Okay?"

I ran to the door and tried to pull him to me, but he stiffened and kissed the top of my head as if I were a kid. Despite all the Zen he'd been pumping into his skull, he still could not accept me. From needing to show affection, my feelings polarised and I wanted suddenly to hit him, to hurt him as much as he hurt me. He murmured goodbye and took the downchute to the boulevard.

Two years ago Dan had been an Engineman with the Canterbury Line, a s.p.a.cer who mind-pushed bigs.h.i.+ps through the nada nada-continuum. Then the Keilor-Vincicoff Organisation developed the interfaces, and the bigs.h.i.+ps Lines went out of business, leaving thousands of Engineman and -women strung out and in need of the flux. Denied union with the bliss of the nada nada-continuum, Dan drank too much and got into Buddhism and to feed himself started a third rate investigative Agency based in Bondy. He advertised for an a.s.sistant to do the leg-work, and I got the job.

We got along fine for weeks, even though I was evasive and distant and didn't let him get too close. Then as I got to know him better I began to believe that we were both disabled, and that if I could accept the state of his head, then perhaps he could come to some acceptance of my body.

Then one night he asked me back to his place, and like a fool I nodded yes. The usual scene, as far as I could gather from the films I'd watched: soft light, music, wine... And after a bottle of chianti I found myself close to him. His fingers mimed the shape of my face, centimetres away; it was as if he had difficulty believing my beauty and was afraid to let his fingertips discover a lie. But it was no lie, just reconstructed osseous underlay and synthi-flesh done with the touch of an artist. We kissed. He fumbled my b.u.t.tons and I went for his zip, meaning to get him with my mouth before he discovered my secret. I didn't make it. He touched me where my right breast should have been, then ripped open my bodice. He gagged and tipped me to the floor, strode to the window and stared out while I gathered my stuff and ran.

I stayed away for weeks, until he came for me and apologised. I returned to the office and we began again from the beginning, and it was as if we were closer, having shared our secrets - though never, of course, close enough.

Soon after that night at his place he began experimenting. He claimed that he was doing it for me. By embracing illegal skull-tapes, second-hand Buddhism and the Bardo Thodol Bardo Thodol rewritten for the modern era, he said he was attempting to come to some acceptance of my disfigurement - but I knew he was also doing it for himself. rewritten for the modern era, he said he was attempting to come to some acceptance of my disfigurement - but I knew he was also doing it for himself.

Now I stared at the mystical junk that littered the desk and the chesterfield: the pamphlets, the mandalas, the meditation pins and bootleg tapes. In a rage I picked up a great drift of the stuff and threw it the length of the room. When the desk and chesterfield were cleared, and my anger was still not exhausted, I ran across the office, fell to my knees and pitched tankas tankas and pins, magazines and effigies of Gautama through the window. I leaned out and laughed like a fool, then rushed down into the street and stomped on the useless relics and idols of mysticism, ground them into the sidewalk and kicked the debris into the storm drain. Then, as the rain poured down around me, I sat on the kerb and cried. and pins, magazines and effigies of Gautama through the window. I leaned out and laughed like a fool, then rushed down into the street and stomped on the useless relics and idols of mysticism, ground them into the sidewalk and kicked the debris into the storm drain. Then, as the rain poured down around me, I sat on the kerb and cried.

h.e.l.l, real real love rarely lasted; so what chance had our corrupted version of attraction, what chance had the relations.h.i.+p between a screwed up Engineman attempting to rewire his head with bogus Buddhist tracts so that he could, in theory, ignore the physical, and someone whose body was no more than a puckered ma.s.s of raddled meat? It was unfair to both of us; it was unfair of myself to expect love and affection after so many years without hope, and it was unfair of me to keep Dan from other women who could offer him more than just companions.h.i.+p and a pretty face. love rarely lasted; so what chance had our corrupted version of attraction, what chance had the relations.h.i.+p between a screwed up Engineman attempting to rewire his head with bogus Buddhist tracts so that he could, in theory, ignore the physical, and someone whose body was no more than a puckered ma.s.s of raddled meat? It was unfair to both of us; it was unfair of myself to expect love and affection after so many years without hope, and it was unfair of me to keep Dan from other women who could offer him more than just companions.h.i.+p and a pretty face.

The tape was running when I returned to the office.

I lay on the chesterfield in the darkness and listened to the clink of gla.s.ses, the murmur of polite conversation. The Gastrodome was the de-commissioned astrodome of an old French bigs.h.i.+p, amputated and welded atop the Eiffel tower. I'd been up there once, but the view had given me vertigo. Now I lay half asleep and listened to the dialogue that filled the room.

All I wanted was for Dan to refuse to work for the woman, so that he would be free from the danger of whatever it was she wanted him to do. Then, when he returned, I could tell him that I was leaving, and that this time there was nothing he could say to make me return.

"Tell me about when you worked for the Canterbury Line," the woman said. "Is it true that in flux you experience Nirvana?"

"Some Enginemen claim that."

"Did you?"

"Do we have to talk about this?" he said, and I knew that his hands would be trembling.

In my mind's eye I could see the woman giving an unconcerned shrug. "Very well, but I hope you don't mind discussing your occipital implant-"

Dan, "Why?" suspicious.

"Because I'm interested." Her tone was hard. "What kind is it, Leferve?"

"Standard Sony neo-cortical implant-"

"With a dozen chips in the pre-frontal lobe, sub-cortex, cerebellum, etc...?"

"You've done your homework," Dan said. "Why the interest?"

"When was the last time you fluxed?"

I cried out.

It took Dan aback, too. The silence stretched. Then: "Almost two years ago..."

"Would you consider doing it just one more time," she asked, "for twenty-five thousand dollars?"

I balled my fists and willed him to say no...

"I have a smalls.h.i.+p I need taking on a short haul," she said.

There was a brief moment of silence, then Dan spoke.

"Insystem or interstellar?"

And I yelled, "Dan..."

"Neither," the woman said. "I want you to push the s.h.i.+p through the nada nada-continuum from here to Frankfurt."

Dan laughed. "You're mad..."

"I'm quite sane, I a.s.sure you. From A to B and back again. You'll be in the flux-tank for less than one hour."

"And the s.h.i.+p?"

"An ex-Indian Navy Hindustan-Tata with Rolls-Royce ion drive-"

"Crew?"

"None. Just you and me. The s.h.i.+p is pre-programmed with the co-ordinates. All it needs is someone to push it."

"And I'd be wasting my time asking what all this is about?"

The woman a.s.sented. "You'd be wasting your time. Can I take it that you want the job?"

Dan murmured something.

"Good," she said. "Here's my card. If you arrive at five, we'll phase out at six."

They left the restaurant and took the downchute to the landing stage. I sat in the darkness and stared at the wall, wis.h.i.+ng that Dan had had the strength of will to turn his back on the flux. He craved union with the nada nada-continuum, but this gig would be just a quick fix after which his craving would be all the more intense.

I switched off the tape, then switched it on again. I couldn't face Dan and tell him that I was leaving - that way I'd end up screaming and shouting how much I hated him, which wasn't true. I'd leave a message to the effect that I needed a long break, and quit before he got back. I picked up the microphone.

Then the Batan chimed and Claude's big face filled the screen. "Phuong, I got the information on that flier."

"Yeah?" My thoughts were elsewhere.

"Belongs to a guy called La.s.solini - Sam La.s.solini."

I just shrugged.

Claude went on, "He's a surgeon, a big noise in European bio-engineering."

I remembered the doc.u.mentary, and Etteridge's last marriage. "Hey, wasn't he married to-"

Claude nodded. "That's the guy. He hit the headlines a few years ago when the film star Stephanie Etteridge left him."

"You got his address, Claude?"

"Sure. De Gaul building, Montparna.s.se."

"Pick me up in five minutes."

I thought about it.

Now why would Sam La.s.solini follow the Stephanie Etteridge look-alike to her mansion in Pa.s.sy...?

There was only one way to find out.

The de Gaul building was the old city morgue, deserted and derelict but for the converted top floor, now a penthouse suite. Claude dropped me on the landing stage and I told him to wait. I took the downchute one floor and hiked along a corridor. I came to a pair of double doors and hit the chime. I felt suddenly conspicuous. I hadn't washed for two days, and I'd hardly had time to learn my lines.

A small j.a.panese butler opened the door.