Synners

9

"So, then," said Dinshaw, pushing a hand through her frizzy red-gold hair, "after it's all approved and ready to go into the pipe, Manny comes back with just one more tiny little fix.' "

Over the civilized din in the Common Room, Dinshaw was holding forth to a less-than-rapt audience gathered more by inertia than choice around the circular table, a scenario more or less duplicated all around the room at the other tables, among the rest of the employees of the Advertising and Entertainment Division.

Gabe tried to give Dinshaw a semblance of attention, since he was sitting right next to her. He'd spent the morning tracking down headhunters in New Orleans with Marly and Caritha, and he was feeling alternately energized and drained. Marly and Caritha had blind-selected a voodoo track, and he had almost been crucified on a cypress tree. The authenticity may have been dubious, but the excitement had been real. Relatively. It seemed more real than Dinshaw's slightly nasal, slightly hoarse complaint, anyway.

Across from him LeBlanc was keeping one eye and ear on the six-screen dataline in the wall behind him, occasionally tabbing the remote in the center of the table, switching between What's Entertainment?, Dear Mrs. Troubles, and The Slurs, Crystals, and You Show. Next to her, Shuet was methodically breaking pieces off some unidentifiable snack food and tucking them into his mouth, the designer-sculpted jaws moving in a deliberate way, as if he were counting his chews. On LeBlanc's other side, Silkwood was also watching the dataline, his wide, wholesome face looking alternately anxious and hungry. LeBlanc nudged him. "How's the diet going? Should we switch to food porn?"

"No, thank you," he said primly. "The weight is coming off, I'm fine. I haven't watched food porn since I got my buttons."

"That's what you call them?" LeBlanc was amused.

"The buttons that switch off the urge to overeat. Is there something sick about that to you?"

"Hey, they're your implants. Excuse me, I mean buttons." LeBlanc shared a secret smile with Gabe.

"… concept's perfect, clothes're perfect, every little detail down to the spear carriers, all perfect," Dinshaw was saying. "But, Manny says, the client says I'm not thinking thin enough, the viewpoint character just didn't feel like a tall, slinky model stalking through the world, she felt like, and I quote, just anybody who'd buy off the rack.' Unquote."

Gabe nodded in automatic commiseration as LeBlanc made a sympathetic noise of disgust. "Did you tell Manny to take the test-driver and spin on him? Had to be a him, right?"

"Of course," said Dinshaw. "TexTones employs something like nine hundred women, and they can't spare one, not one, to test-drive the spot. Instead, we get one of their paunchiest old farts, and we shoehorn him into a hotsuit, stick a header on him, turn on the simulation, and say, 'Okay, now you're this gorgeous woman, roll with it, Zeke.' "

"Look at that," LeBlanc said, pointing at the dataline. "Damien Splader's going to do a talk show from prison. They send him up for life, and he gets his own show. Just what we need, another porn show. Prison porn. You know something like sixty-eight percent of all new programming on the dataline is some kind of porn now?"

"Where'd you get a figure like that?" said Shuet. "News porn?"

LeBlanc looked at him evenly. "Hey, a tabloid should know."

"Oh, how could there be prison porn? Who would get hot looking at prison stuff?"

"Who would get hot looking at food?" Silkwood said glumly.

"Are you sure those implants of yours are working?" LeBlanc asked him.

"Yes, I'm just thinking of my former bad habits." Silkwood eyed the now-empty wrapper in front of Shuet.

"Manny starts giving me this dissertation," Dinshaw went on, "about how a really good simulation can erase barriers and differences and convince a woman she's a father or a man that he's a sexy, high-priced model showing off daywear. And if it can't, it's just not vivid and alive enough."

"What about the companion spot?" LeBlanc asked. "Or have they gone budget-slashing cheap-assed, like Kickers, Boots of the Wild? I hope I never see another Kicker in my life."

"Amboy's working on it, from a template lifted off mine. The program'll automatically select it for a male viewer, and it's the default for flatscreen format. That means I can't change mine now."

"Sure you can," Silkwood said distantly. "Just zap a new template over to Amboy."

"Sure I can. And the minute I do, he'll be down in Manny's office, raising hell about how is he supposed to get anything done on time when Big Bad Emily Dinshaw keeps changing everything around on him. Then Manny'll call me in and give me a lecture on how he wasn't asking for a total recompose, just a little more feeling."

"Tell him to feel this," LeBlanc suggested.

"Not without a hotsuit. Not even with a hotsuit."

"That's what we need!" LeBlanc laughed. "Diversifications porn! Right? We could tell our horror stories for a cam, let the home audience know what kind of hell we go through to give them those commercials they eat up with two spoons. Sorry," she added to Silkwood. "No offense."

"You did that deliberately, but I don't care." Silkwood gave her a lofty side-glance. "My buttons are working, all's right with the world."

"So did Manny have any helpful advice to offer?" Shuet asked.

"Manny's a veritable fount of helpful advice-" Gabe glanced across the room to the drink machines, idly considering another coffee, and then looked again. The skinny figure standing there searching the pockets of his jeans seemed to have congealed out of the empty air, like a special effect suddenly tossed into a particularly realistic simulation. His stringy brown hair trailed over the shoulders of his loose shirt, which had either been yellow once or was going yellow now. The jeans were almost threadbare enough to be translucent, and the shoes seemed about to give up and fall to pieces. As the man turned slightly, Gabe saw the security button attached to his shirt, a twin to his own. The guy was with the company, all right, he wasn't just a lucky wanderer who had managed not to set off any alarms.

"What is that?" said Shuet in a low voice. "And how the hell did it get in here with us?" Chatter was dying all over the room as everyone began to notice the stranger.

"Well, I see the new members of our Entertainment department are starting to trickle in." No one turned to look at Clooney, who had come up to the table and was standing behind one of the empty chairs, waiting to be invited to sit down. Gabe could practically feel everyone willing Clooney to go away.

"He goes by the colorful appellation of'Visual Mark,' " Clooney went on relentlessly, "and he-"

"That's Visual Mark?" Dinshaw said, without really acknowledging Clooney's presence. "I'll be damned. He looks like one of his own rock videos."

"Rock videos?" Silkwood raised an eyebrow at her.

"My kids live on them." Dinshaw made a face. "Yah, I know. But this guy actually does some interesting work. Even when he's stealing from himself."

"You watch rock video?" LeBlanc put a hand to her throat with an exaggerated flutter. "Emily Dinshaw, a banger? I'm shocked."

"Stuff s junk," Silkwood declared. "Worse than all the porn put together. I don't know why we had to go into the music-video business. The company's survived this long without it." The man at the machines was still patting himself down in a way that seemed strangely rhythmic, oblivious to all the attention focused on him.

"It's big money," Clooney said importantly. Dinshaw almost turned her head far enough to give him a dirty look. "Really big money, if you've got the means for distribution and promotion that we do. It-"

"It may be really big money on the corporate level," Dinshaw said, still not looking at Clooney, "but it doesn't seem to be too rewarding on the individual level. Guy doesn't even have change for coffee."

"I'm going to loan him some," Gabe heard himself say, and got up just as Clooney was pulling out the chair.

"Quick thinking, Ludovic," LeBlanc called after him.

"Video reflexes," he called back, and regretted it immediately. Clooney would probably make something out of that to Manny. It was no secret that Clooney was Manny's self-appointed stooge. The only secret was that Clooney apparently didn't know it wasn't a secret. Nonetheless, he seemed unperturbed that he was openly and actively disliked. Perhaps he figured it as jealousy over his frequent raises, or perhaps he was just thick. Why are people so weird, Gabe wondered, and tapped Visual Mark on the shoulder.

He turned slowly, as if he were underwater, his faded green eyes seeming to search Gabe out from a distance. "Can I help you?" He put a slight emphasis on the second and fourth words so that it actually came out, "Can I help you?" Which, Gabe thought later, was not so unreasonable.

"Ah. I thought you looked like you needed, um, change for the machines." Gabe shrugged self-consciously; he could feel the entire Common Room watching.

The man's smile was unexpectedly broad and sunny. "That's a good way to put it. How did you know?"

Gabe had the sensation of going over a mental speed-bump. "Excuse me?"

"My whole life has been, 'Okay, change for the machines.' Every time they bring in a new machine, more change." He leaned a little closer, and Gabe caught a whiff of several smells, none of them cologne. "They're gonna think I spilled my guts to you, and I don't even know you." He paused, thinking. "Do I?"

Hurriedly Gabe pressed some change into his hand. "Here. Maybe you could use some coffee."

The man's head went up and down in a slow, deliberate movement. "God, the truth is running in the gutters today. Karma so thick you can cut it with a knife." He fed the coins Gabe had given him into the coffee-machine slot. "Gets that way every time there's change for the machines." A few moments later he pulled the cup out of the delivery well and toasted Gabe with it. "And the more change, the more you don't know what the fuck is going on. Right?"

"I don't think I can argue with that," Gabe said, backing up a step.

The man winked at him. "Stone-home right."

Feeling as if he'd had his brains stirred with a swizzle stick, Gabe turned around and started to walk away.

He must have stepped directly into the path of her fist, he thought later, adding his own momentum to hers and making the blow more powerful. At the time all he knew was that his head had exploded with color and sensation that did not register as pain until a full second afterwards, so that the secondary hit of his body against the carpeted floor was too slight for notice.

When his vision returned he was looking up at an uneven ring of faces hovering over him. The growing pain in his cheek suddenly skyrocketed to unbearable. He closed his eyes and waited for it to recede, but it wouldn't. It was like being tortured, like having all the free-floating anxiety and hostility in the room poured into one little area of his face. He drifted away from consciousness while someone demanded that everyone move back, move back, he needed air, goddammit.

Sometime after that he heard Dinshaw's slightly nasal voice saying, very seriously, "You could be fired for this. You could be arrested for this."

Marly's face appeared before his inner eye, smiling sarcastically. Are you gonna take that, hotwire? You can't possibly have done anything that bad already today.

"Bullshit," said an unfamiliar voice, low and gravelly with irritation. "I just got here. Nobody's gonna fire me this week."

That's telling them, Gabe thought. He imagined Caritha leaning over him now, her fingers squeezing his arm gently. Hotwire, you gonna live?

"Answer me, Gabe! Are you all right?" The hand on his arm squeezed harder, and he opened his eyes.

LeBlanc was bent over him. "Don't move, the doctor's on her way up. You went down like a stone, I think you even went out for a few moments. Did you lose consciousness, can you remember?"

He blinked into the barrage of words, feeling cheated.

"Now if he lost consciousness, how the fuck is he gonna remember it?" asked the strange voice.

Clooney leaned over LeBlanc from behind. "Gabe, do you know where you are?"

Gabe groaned. "I'm here."

"That oughta be good enough for anyone," the strange voice said, from somewhere to his left. "Get him on his feet, he can go another round."

Gabe struggled to sit up, LeBlanc still gripping his upper arm. He brushed her hand away and looked around. He was sitting on the floor, surrounded by everyone except the crazy man. Visual Mark, who had needed change for the machines No sign of him at all. Gabe touched the side of his face carefully

"Maybe that's all right where you come from," Dinshaw said glaring at someone, "but around here, we don't go trying to break people's faces." She glanced briefly in Clooney's direction. "Usually."

"I wasn't gonna break anybody's face." The edge in the voice hinted at a change of heart. Gabe finally focused on a medium-sized, solid-looking person dressed in what seemed to be odds and ends from the various closets of Rude Boys, mystics, and urban guerrillas. Had she slept in those clothes? It must have been a hell of a night. No wonder he'd gone down, he thought; even the dreadlocks looked mean.

The double doors to the Common Room whispered open. He couldn't remember hearing that before, when this woman had come in to punch his face. What had he done, anyway, and why wasn't anyone asking?

"What happened?" The doctor knelt in front of Gabe and held his chin between her fingers, looking into his eyes.

"That person hit him," Dinshaw said, pointing at the woman. "She just swung on him and knocked him down."

The doctor looked over her shoulder at the woman, leaning against the coffee machine with her arms folded. The fateful coffee machine, Gabe thought, feeling a sudden absurd urge to laugh.

"It was an accident," she said. "He stepped into the line of fire."

"Really." The doctor sounded amused. Gabe squinted against the light she was shining in his eyes. "Can you open your mouth?"

He managed to part his lips as she felt his jaw carefully. The strange woman moved a little closer, trying to see over the doctor's shoulder, and Gabe thought he saw her face soften a little with concern. She looked substantial enough to have taken that shot and possibly a bit more without as much trouble.

"No dislocation or break that I can feel," the doctor said, "but we'd better take your picture, in case there's a hairline fracture. And I'll give you some 'killers. That's gonna bother you for a while."

Clooney cleared his throat importantly. "Well, Gabe, do you think you can work on 'killers?"

Gabe wanted to give him a dirty look, but the doctor still had a firm grip on his chin. "Just local stuff, Clooney," she said, "transcutaneous patches. Don't worry your little head, nobody's going to get toxed on the job today."

"Quel fromage," said the stranger.

The doctor looked over her shoulder at her again. "You just said, 'What a cheese.'"

"I let it stand."

The double doors to the Common Room whispered open again, and Manny Rivera came in, looking slightly hurried and rumpled. He paused inside the entrance, forcing the doors to gape around him.

"So this is where it's all happening today," he said with false congeniality. Not real emotion but an incredible simulation, Gabe thought, suppressing the urge to laugh again. Manny looked around slowly, as if he were memorizing faces, before his gaze came to rest on him, where he was still sitting on the floor with the doctor holding his chin. The artificial friendliness in Manny's face faded as his eyebrows went up. "Is it physical?" he asked.

"Of course it's physical, just look at him." The stranger was glaring at Manny as if she wanted a piece of him, too. The crowd around Gabe melted away as everyone else in the room remembered there was someplace else to be. Manny moved away from the doors, releasing them briefly before they flapped open again for the mass emigration. Only the strange woman and the doctor remained where they were.

"It's nice to meet you at last," Manny said to the stranger when the room was empty. "You were always out when I visited EyeTraxx."

"Yah?" The woman tilted her head and frowned at him. "Which one are you, Chang or Rivera?"

The doctor got to her feet. "Downstairs for pictures before you do anything else today," she told Gabe firmly. "Pick up your patches after." She glanced at the woman again and deliberately walked in front of Manny on her way out.

Feeling ridiculous, Gabe pulled himself up on a nearby chair, started to sit, thought better of it, and simply stood, wondering if he could actually get out of the room without further exchange with Manny. But somehow it seemed unfair to leave the woman, whoever she was, to face Manny alone. Even if she had hit him.

Manny turned a mildly bewildered smile-frown on him. "And what happened to you?"

"I hurt my face," Gabe said through his swollen jaw. It came out sounding more like I hate I fashe.

"Well." Manny's brow wrinkled with a show of concern. "I presume we're still on for lunch?"

"Shertainly," Gabe said, nodding quickly.

"Good. That's good." Manny gave the woman a sidelong glance and left, marching through the center of the double doors, which promptly flew open and closed behind him, as if they understood their role in terms of his authority.

Unsure of what else to do, Gabe tried to smile at the woman with the still-functioning half of his mouth, to show her there were no hard feelings, while he waited for her to say something like, Sorry I hit you, or You would have been within your rights to say something, or even, Does it hurt much?

Instead, she turned away to pour coins into the nearest cold-drink machine and hit one of the buttons with the same fist she had used on him. A can rumbled down into the delivery well, and she picked it up, her fingers almost circling it entirely. She had big hands. No long red claws.

She paused and stared at him as if she were surprised he was still there.

"Why the fuck didn't you watch where you were going?"

Without waiting for an answer, she strode out of the Common Room, swinging around the left-hand door and giving it a shove as if it hadn't opened widely enough.