Doctor Leo Vahanian hated emergency room work at the best of times, but he hated doing it long distance most of all. He had flown to Key West for the weekend, with strict orders to his staff that they not disturb him for any emergency short of nuclear war; halfway through a Saturday night of lust and coconut liquor, his subcutaneous beeper had gone off, and that had been the end of the lust, at least. Slamming the bedroom door on his partner, he hurled himself across the hotel room to the wall Net console, and snarled his hospital access code into its electronic ears. Moments later, mist swirled in the Net screen, and resolved into the frightened face of his chief aide, Drupesti. "What?" Vahanian barked.
"Absolutely necessary, Doctor; absolutely," whined Drupesti.
"What?"
"Big field problem; no time to explain: I'll patch you in."
The screen jumped, and chaos filled it. Vahanian took it in at a glance: outside, night, neon glare, undulating sign in the background: THE IRON BEGONIA. That nightclub, thought Vahanian, up on Claramore. It's happened; oh, Jesus. Copcars flashed their warning-lights; some had parked on the ground, some hovered in mid-air. A high fence of perforated metal rose about the club; it was full of watching faces, pressed tightly together, drinking in the devastation.
As Vahanian had expected, there were two bodies, one already being bagged, another sprouting nose-tubes and blood-pumps. The face of a woman, pale and harassed, hove into view; a paramedic, but not one from the hospital to which Vahanian was attached: she wore the white snood of a Sister of Mercy. "All right, paramedic; you're coming through," snapped Vahanian. "What's going on here?"
"Doctor Vahanian," said the Sister. "I'm Angela Surrey. We have two jumpers. One's dead, the other's on his way. No chance of recovery: tremendous amount of spinal damage, and he's losing blood as fast as we pump it in. Doctor Merrivac diagnosed."
"Then what in hell did you call me for?" yelled Vahanian. "Do you have any idea what time it is?"
"Doctor, the jumpers—" The paramedic's face vanished and was replaced by that of Chief Inspector Henrietta Cloud. Cloud was a heavy-jowled woman with snow-white hair and red-rimmed eyes; Vahanian knew her well.
"My fault, Leo," said Cloud. "These two were patients of yours: Philippe Mondrian and George Just."
"Gautama Buddha," said Leo Vahanian. "Close-up." The Net obliged, zooming in on the bodies. Mondrian was the dead one; his blond curls were just disappearing into the body-bag. Well, well, Mondrian, thought Vahanian. We've come a long way together, boy, from that table where I had them build you all those super bioenhancements. Everyone I know watched your shows. "Patch in George's readings," Vahanian ordered the unseen paramedic. The picture on the Net screen compressed to two-thirds its normal size, and the remaining third began to flow with statistics. "Cloud," Yahanian snapped. "Merrivac's right. How did this happen?"
"I think it was a double homicide," said the Chief Inspector. "That's one of the reasons I wanted you called, aside from our responsibility to notify you as their private physician. I need a brain-drain authorization from you, Leo."
"Absolutely not," said Vahanian.
"I need it now," continued Inspector Cloud. "No witnesses but these two, and Mondrian's noggin's colder than last month's chili."
"Inadmissible evidence," said Vahanian.
"Maybe," said Cloud coolly, "and maybe not. A lead, anyway. He can't last, Leo."
"Doctor," said Sister Surrey off-screen. "If you're going to drain him, you've got to do it right away."
Vahanian chewed his moustache for four seconds. Hell, he thought. In the end it won't make a bit of difference anyway. "Authorized," he told the Net. "I'll do the talking. Sister, monitor for me. Get an HTL bleed going. Hurry it up, and Henrietta, stay the hell out of the way." Inspector Cloud grinned toothily, and left the screen. Vahanian saw her reappear in the background, waving her arms at an HV crew. Vahanian smiled to himself. My fellow soulsuckers, he thought. They got there pretty damn quick. A floating mobile camera unit was in dispute: Cloud wanted it berthed, and the reporters wanted it closer in to the action. I wonder which one's Old Bugeye, thought Vahanian. Maybe George called all the cameras that. They do look like eyes, actually. He watched paramedic Sister Surrey connect the drain-pads to George's ruined skull.
Her voice came to him. "HTL bleed affirmative," she said. "Go ahead, Doctor: you're plugged into the cortex directly." She might have been talking about the time of day. That's what you're supposed to be, Vahanian, the doctor thought. Objective. Last time for George, kiddo; last duty for the Network, and you can wash your hands of the whole mess. Do this right. He waited until the pattern on the left third of the screen had stabilized, and began to speak, softly into the ears of the Net:
"George, can you hear me?"
* * * * *
George, can you hear me?
Oh, God, Mondrian! Why did you do it? It could have just been a cruise, just another Satnite, like when it was Halvo and you and me. I wouldn't have even minded Old Bugeye, not really. Oh, I didn't like the cameras, it's true, particularly in the beginning, but I don't know if it was the cameras as much as what we had to do in front of them, and our never being able to get away from them, ever, except when we were asleep. Oh, I'm afraid, I'm—
There's nothing to be afraid of, George.
What?
George, this is Leo. There's nothing to be afraid of.
Doctor Leo? What are they doing in my head?
George, tell me what happened. Tell me about Mondrian. What did Mondrian do that you wish he hadn't?
Mondrian's dead, Doctor Leo.
Tell me about Mondrian when he was alive.
I used to watch him in the common Net; you know, the one for us grunjes downtown, in the Park. I'm sorry, Doctor Leo: low-lifes, not 'grunjes;' I know you don't like me using street-slang. Oh, but Mondrian! He was the strongest man in the world. We watched him; we knew. He could run faster than anybody else. He could climb like a rat. He saved babies who were burning up. He stopped those guerrillas from kidnapping the Mayors. He was tall, with yellow hair. The Network made him that way. Not just with special HV effects; no, for really real. Before he signed on to do his show, he was just like anybody. He worked for the WestEur Net in some office. Then he had that accident, and it was his lucky break. He signed over what was left of his body to the Net people, and they remade him so he could see in the dark and hear you whisper a room away if he turned his head just so and he smelled, God, he smelled like a summer back when there was that tree on display in the Park. My God, Mondrian's dead!
Sister Surrey, bleed George some more HTL.
Yes, Doctor.
George, think about the good times. Think about Satnite, about you and Halvo and Mondrian. You can use slang if you want; I don't mind. Talk to me, George. What was it like?
Oh, the cameras ate us up then. We'd strut the Avenue arm in arm, and nobody could say us nay, Halvo in her body armor, me in my bare skin and leather nasties, and Mondrian just like himself, glowing to beat a star. He really did glow, in real life, I mean, not just in the HV's: it started at his feet and worked its way up to the top of his head, pure and pearly and lovely, like Christmas. Halvo would swing that whip, she would, taking sparks off the pavement. "I'm ready!" she'd say. "Are you ready, Rutmates?" I'd say, "I'm as ready as I'll ever be," it would be in the script for me to say that, and then Mondrian would smile that smile, oh, and leap the way he could, up above our heads and the heads of the gawking grunjes, and turn three somersaults.
Then he'd clap his hands and his generator pack would let rip with a light discharge. The Avenue would skip and boil with every color you ever saw! That was real, too, not just a special effect. The grunjes loved it. They'd hoot and jump up and down, those grunjes, the ones with legs, and there was a little fella we used to see all the time who'd jump up and down on his hands.
Then Mondrian would open his mouth and whisper, "Satnite." Just like that. "Satnite." I couldn't do it like him, but it was like he was making love to the whole city with that one word, wrapping himself around it and pushing into it and making it his, just with a whisper. He'd glow and glow; he'd outglow the sidewalk lights along the Avenue; he'd send Halvo's armor into a moonbeam dance. I could feel that glow on my face; then he'd turn his eyes down to me, and that glow would shoot down my spine into where I live and I'd know it was my night, my Satnite, and that he was king of it.
Then he'd be back down putting his arms around Halvo and me, and he'd say, "Let's do it for the Goddess, children," and we'd go.
Go where, George?
Wherever the script told us to.
To the Iron Begonia?
Sometimes. Not a lot. That was a Special; it always cost the Begonia people a lot of money for us to show up there. Two, three times a year, maybe. Then we didn't for a while because of the badness between Mondrian and me.
When did the badness start between you and Mondrian?
Can't say.
When did it start, George?
Can't say.
Why not?
Because they'll make me eat my heart.
Who will?
The Sisters. The Sisters of Mercy. Don't tell them, Leo, oh God, don't tell them.
Doctor Vahanian?
Yes, Sister Surrey?
That's a common paranoia among street people. That field paramedics somehow cause death, that it follows us about. The indigents often accuse us of euthanasing nonterminals.
I see. Sister, he's beginning to disassociate. I'm afraid we'll have to stimulate direct regression. Begin a hyperphenyl, line B.
With this much HTL in his system, Doctor?
Considering the shape he's in, Sister, does it matter?
* * * * *
Suddenly, George's memory rises to confront him, and the day that first leaps out of the throng is the day he first met Philippe Mondrian. Some years earlier, George had made a nest for himself out of plastic crates in an alley adjoining the Two Moons Restaurant, and the owner of the eatery had let him be in return for his services as rat-catcher. In those days, George was a good rat-catcher. For one thing, he was short, not quite four feet tall; he could get into places normal adults could not. For another thing, he was very swift, and possessed a tracking sense nothing short of uncanny. He ate the rats and made his clothing out of their skins.
He had never known his parents; he had never lived in a house. He could not read, but many people could not, even wealthy, normal people; the Net made literacy less important than it had been. Oh, how he loved the Net. On the days when his sores were not running, George walked the forty blocks to the Park, and watched Tales of Mondrian on the huge common screen. Had George possessed a credit rating (nobody used money any more) he would have filled his hidey-hole with Mondrian pix and Mondrian knick-knacks; since he had none, he filled his dreams with the man himself. Very late one night he was awakened by sounds of a scuffle outside his nest, and you may imagine his feelings when, peering around the edge of a crate, he saw Mondrian in the flesh.
Two nuns were fighting him. They had saffron robes and no hair; George could tell the color because the floating cameras recording the scene had lit up the alley. The first nun hit Mondrian in the solar plexus with her unshod foot. The second jumped onto his back and began biting his sternocleidomastoid (look it up). The first one moved to hit him again, but he rolled, bringing the nun on his back directly into her cohort's foot. Something snapped. "Abductor hallucis, meet seventh cervical vertebra," cried Mondrian. He was not winded. The first nun had fallen down; he broke her neck with a quick thrust of fist and left the two women twitching together on the alley floor.
"Hooray," said George. He clapped. Mondrian did a standing broad jump twelve feet straight upward to where an ancient sign hung rakishly at an angle. "Mondrian," said George, "get away. They'll be coming for you!"
"Who, little one?" came the rich voice from above. The cameras still hummed.
He's talking to me, thought George. Mondrian is talking to me! For the first time in his life, he did not feel ashamed of his dwarfishness. "The police! They'll catch you for killing those two!"
"You seem concerned."
"Of course," said George. "I love you. Everybody does."
"Come out where I can see you better." George climbed from his nest and stood shyly in the cameralight. "What's your name?"
"George."
"George whom?"
"Just George."
Mondrian laughed, and George nearly fainted with pleasure. "Just George. George the Just. You seem undaunted by the murders you've just witnessed."
"They came at you first."
"So they did." Mondrian leaped again, and landed beside the nuns. The light caressed his broad chest and strong arms, and the lump in George's throat suddenly became as big as the world.
"You're beautiful," he breathed. "You're the most beautiful thing there is. We all think so. You're better than the Timehoppers and Teddy the Tumblebunny and Moko Javvis put together." George had always wanted to say these things to Mondrian; all at once, he feared his boldness. He turned and bolted, back toward his nest.
Mondrian barred his way. "Don't go," he said. He was glowing, feet to head, just as he did on HV. His glow surrounded them both. He squatted, so as to be nearer George's height, and the muscles in his calves bunched. "I want to show you something," he told George. "Look at them, the nuns." George did as he was bid. "Touch them. Go ahead. Go up to them and touch them. They're not real." George tiptoed over to the corpses, which had stopped twitching, and laid a hand on one dead arm. He jerked his fingers away.
"Cold," he said.
"Yes," said Mondrian behind him. "Far too cold for a real corpse; it takes a long time for the blood in a body to lose its heat." George backed away from the nuns. "Fear not, my George; they're just skinbags."
"Z-zombies!" George scurried to Mondrian's side.
"It's all right. They're just robots, made out of body parts. They look real when I hit them for the holos, and Goddess knows there's no shortage of replacements! The studio controls them long-distance." Mondrian touched George's nose with one long strong finger; the dwarf felt a tiny zap of power, like static electricity. "I'm an actor, George. What you just witnessed was a scene. I did what my script told me to do."
"A scene?" said George. "Not real?" He hardly heard; his legs felt weak. Don't go away yet, he thought. Oh, please. "What about Mother Angina? What about the Chaos Brigade?"
"They're made up for the show."
"But they tried to kill you! I saw them, in the Net!"
"That was pretend." The cameras continued to hum. Mondrian began stroking George's matted hair.
"You're not pretend," said George. "You're strong. You can see in the dark. You have power; I know. We watch you. You jumped just now." He searched Mondrian's face, and saw him nod.
"Yes. I really do all the things you see me do."
"You're the best!"
"Because the Network built me to be." And Mondrian told George all about it: who he had been; his accident; which body parts they had replaced and which they had merely augmented. He told George why they had chosen Chicago for the debut of the first real-life cyborg superhero action and romance show (almost real-time, too: only one hour delay between filming and broadcast!); what he had done with the millions he had earned so far. George heard all of this and understood little. What he did understand, mostly from what he saw down deep in Mondrian's eyes and heard at the edges of his well-modulated voice, was enough. When Mondrian had finished talking, George reached out, trembling, and took his hand.
"I'll be your friend," he said.
* * * * *
We're too far back, Leo. Can you hurry this up?
Dammit, Commissioner, butt out of this!
We don't have much time, Leo.
All right, Henrietta. Brain functions holding steady; I'm going to bring him forward. George, do you hear me?
They're hurting me.
Who are, George?
The doctors. They're taking off my legs, one at a time. They're doing something to my arms. Mondrian said it wouldn't hurt, but it does.
What's he referring to, Leo?
His operation, Henrietta. The one Mondrian financed. I planned it; it's how I met them.
I don't understand. Operation?
Obviously you've never seen early holos of George, Commissioner. He was achondroplasia, a dwarf. His long bones never grew in properly. Many indigents are stunted, ask Sister Surrey; it may be a side-effect of the Q-420 the City uses to disinfect the ghettos. When Mondrian ran into George, the Network decided George would make a good supporting character. So they bought new limbs for him, cleaned him up, put him in the show.
That was nice of them.
It was just good HV, Henrietta. George, can you hear me?
* * * * *
George and Mondrian met Halvo in the Iron Begonia. It was George's first night out as New George, his very first Satnite, really; of course Old George had never gone anywhere for fun, except to the Park, or ratting. "I'm tall," he kept saying. "I can see up high, Mondrian!"
Mondrian was a glory of muscle and light and blue eyes, George a restless ball of hair and black leather strapping, but the two of them already moved as though they belonged together. "It's Satnite!" shouted Mondrian, as they pranced with the cameras down the Avenue. "Feel your strength, my loves!" The grunjes hooted and grunted and growled. A wasted sugarsipper veered close to them. George had seen her type before; they made corpses you could never eat, because their bodies were full of sarcomane, an illegal substance which had long since replaced heroin at the parties of the world. She was thin as the tube the paramedics would soon be forced to feed her through, and Mondrian's glow touched her black gauze with violet. "It is Satnite, my love!" he cried to her.
"I would die for you, Mondrian!" she shrieked.
"Live for me, child," said Mondrian, and the crowd wept at his compassion. They moved with the cameras past an intersection; a lay paramedic, bent over a dying grunj, looked up briefly at them. "Good Satnite, Sister!" called Mondrian.
"Good Satnite, Mondrian," she replied.
"Why did you call her 'Sister?' " whispered George. "She's not a Sister of Mercy."
"All women are my sisters, all men my brothers," said Mondrian. The crowd cheered. Mondrian lifted his hands and his voice. "Weekend, friends!" he cried. "Week is ended, cares are mended, life's begun and death is tended! Behold my beloved George, who is one of you!" George shook his fists above his head with joy. "We celebrate his regeneration! On this Satnite of Satnites, we go to the Iron Begonia!"
"The Begonia!" roared the crowd. "The Begonia!" There had been teasers on the holos for weeks; only three or four per cent of all the adults in the City had actually sampled the delights of the nightclub, and Mondrian's semiannual penetration of it had supplanted the Fourth of July, Kennedy Day, and Thanksgiving in the imagination of the masses. The throng cheered; those who could not cheer thumped the pavement with parts of their bodies. From the night sky, a limousine descended, bedecked with flowers; the door opened, and Mondrian and George stepped inside. "The Begonia, the Begonia!" roared the crowd, and the limousine rose and raced.
Upper Avenue lay spread below George like a field of jewels. The cameras caught his wonder, and his gratitude, and a dozen sponsors drank toasts to Leo Vahanian. At one point they passed over a police barricade; bodies lay here and there, and Sisters of Mercy padded among them. Mondrian kissed George. When George recovered, the limousine had descended to a landing pad similarly flower-decked, and there before them was the Iron Begonia. George had never even seen pictures of it—he had missed Mondrian's HV specials—and he was a little disappointed at first. It was simply a building of cream plastic, surrounded by high fences, lit by a sign that seemed to ripple in the air. Its front door stood open to darkness, like a mouth. George saw faces behind the fences; he caught the glint of metal and the glow of jewelry. For a Mondrian special, the Begonia was barred to its regular customers.
"I'm inside and they're outside," murmured George.
Mondrian lifted him out of the car by his leather harness and held him at arm's length. "Are you ready, my love?" he asked George. The cameras purred. To George it seemed as though Mondrian had undergone a subtle change. His hair seemed wilder, his skin ruddier, his eyes abruptly filled with purpose, as though they looked out on a matter of immense moment. My first script, thought George. "Are you ready?" Mondrian asked him.
"You know," said George.
Mondrian put him down, and they leaped into the dark mouth of the open door together.
* * * * *
What then, George?
We did things.
You said you met Halvo that night, in the Begonia.
There were bodies. He wasn't Mondrian any more. I'd missed the Begonia shows, when Mondrian had done them before; I'd never seen him like—like the way he was then. He was beautiful, but scary. Those Bugeyes followed us all over.
Where was Halvo? How did you meet her?
Some shugs brought her. It was all in the script, only I didn't know.
Sugarsippers, Leo. Sarcomane addicts.
Thank you, Commissioner. I know what they are.
He told me, "It's what the viewers want." We were all his, that night. It didn't seem bad, what he did, till you thought of somebody less wonderful than Mondrian doing it. Well, it hurt some.
Were you angry with Mondrian afterwards?
No! Well, yes—but not—oh, God, he's dead!
Didn't you meet Halvo in the Sea Room?
* * * * *
George found Halvo floating like an embryo in an aquamarine womb of a pool. He had stumbled into this area of the Begonia to get away from the pheromone mists and the rutmusic and the thrashing bodies and the driving power of Mondrian. He was scarcely aware of the camera following him, and it was not until he slipped into the water and felt the sting of antiseptic that he noticed that he was bleeding, in many secret places. Mondrian had been savage. He made for the woman, and when he came abreast of her, he saw the pink cloud in the water around her that told him she had been bleeding, too. He could not remember having seen her with Mondrian; he wondered how she had received her wounds. "Come on," he said, concerned for her. "Wake up. Wake up." Her face was under water. He touched her hesitantly. When she did not respond, he turned her over and cradled her in his arms.
She opened her eyes. "Let me go or I'll kill you," she said.
George let go. The woman uncurled and stood up in the pool. She was taller than he, nearly as tall as Mondrian. She had ebony skin that might have been natural and might have been a product of melanin implants. She also had things in her nose, which George realized had to be respirators. "I thought you were hurt," he said.
Her eyes narrowed. They were sharp, like her nails. "You mean, these?" she asked. She fingered the long scratches on her abdomen and grunted. "All in a Satnite's work. Some of those sippers get plenty mean for stimulus." She looked him up and down. "You're no shug," she said.
"I'm just George."
"Not Mondrian's George." She did not glance at the camera.
"Yes."
Her lip curled. "Not any longer. You're mine." She made a move toward him. George was ready to fight her, not for his freedom but for Mondrian's right to own him; he stood his ground and she stopped.
"What's your name?" George asked her.
"Why, I'm Halvo the Homicidal Whore. I have sex with people; then I kill them." She took another step toward him. Mondrian had told George generally what to expect of the evening, but he had said nothing about Halvo, and George wondered what to do. He was spared a decision by Mondrian's entrance, with a second camera. His limbs were streaked with blood and sweat, and where they touched the water, they stained it. George splashed to his side, clumsy in his relief.
"Mondrian, this lady says I belong to her."
"Oh, I'd forgotten," said Mondrian with amusement. "We're to fight, Halvo and I. Well, Sister, let's get on with it."
They fought. Halfway through the fight, George realized that although the encounter had been arranged for the sake of the holo cameras, the battle was real, and for the first time he wondered what would happen to him if Mondrian lost. Mondrian won. "Shall I break your back or drown you?" he asked Halvo.
"Don't," said George. Mondrian raised an eyebrow, and Halvo looked astonished. "I'm not worth it."
"We could be a team," suggested Halvo. "The three of us." Mondrian pretended to consider the scripted question, then released his hold on the Homicidal Whore. "Thanks, George," she said, straightening prettily. "You saved my life."
"Can we go now?" George asked Mondrian. Mondrian smiled.
"Sorry, dear heart," he said. "I've got to degrade her now. It's in the script. We'll go home tomorrow."
He degraded her far into the night.
* * * * *
Leo?
God damn it, Henrietta, what did I tell you about staying out of this?
Leo, if George did it—pushed Mondrian off, then fell himself—the root of it could be here. You know: Idol Has Feet of Clay. This might have been where the seeds were planted.
Kill him? Oh, my God! Doctor Leo, I didn't—tell them I'm not—
Damn you, Commissioner! Sister Surrey, we need more hyperphenyl. George, it's vital that you remember more for me. You and Halvo and Mondrian started doing scripts together; you went on tours. Remember?
Oh, yes. The party in Amsterdam. We killed that man in the orange shirt. He was a spy; it was in the script. And we saved all those children in Tokyo. That was nice. Halvo wanted to buy some of them, but Mondrian wouldn't let her. In Switzerland there was snow.
Leo, get him to focus.
Leave this to me, Commissioner, will you please? George, when did Mondrian start to change? When did the badness happen between you? Was it in Switzerland?
Not then. Switzerland was nice. He covered us in chocolate and ate it off. I told him it would make him fat, but Halvo said no, it was left-handed sugar and it couldn't make him fat. Mondrian said even if it had been right-handed sugar he could have burned it all up.
When did Mondrian start to change, George?
In November.
* * * * *
November came to Chicago like an old woman looking for trouble: shrill and shaking, with a knife-edge of cold. Although the cameras were, still with them, the three had earned a month free from scripts, and Mondrian had decided to throw a party. He had trisected his penthouse to give George and Halvo places to stay; on this occasion, he locked away all his valuables and took down the partitions. Some guests attended by two-way holo; most came in person, and the vast suite of apartments was filled. Like ancient Chinese wives, the cameras followed Mondrian, George, and Halvo at a discreet distance, but the eyes missed nothing. Bodies glittered and illegal compounds fizzed.
The evening dazzled George. Although he had emerged from the hospital contracted to the Network, he had met none of his producers and writers; that night he bumped into them at every turn. "They keep touching me," George said to Halvo. "They keep saying how hot I am. What does that mean?"
The Homicidal Whore had had too much to drink. "You're alive, Georgie," she said. "Anybody feels hot to a corpse."
"You mean they're skinbags?" George exclaimed. He had had to work with, around, and under a number of animated bodies since his encounter with the killer nuns, and he felt no more at ease with them than he ever had. Halvo guffawed.
"You're sweet, George," she said. A robot rolled by, an antique resembling an end table on wheels; Halvo snatched a drink off its tray. "I hope you never find out how sweet you are. Where are you going on vacation?"
"Mondrian hasn't said." Mondrian was across the apartment, playing the sun to a system of ten hangers-on. "What about you?"
"I'm off to Io to see my honey."
"You have a partner?"
"Don't act so surprised, pignuts. You think I'm in this business for the fun of it?" Halvo idly flipped her left breast. This was not difficult for her: her costume was fashioned of one of the new high surface tension liquid fabrics; it left little of her inaccessible. "He's a hormone engineer; we met when I was filming Rings Around Uranus. We're working toward buying a place on a sat."
"I wish," began George, and stopped.
"I know what you wish," said Halvo, "and you can just forget it. It'll never happen."
"What won't?"
Halvo stuck her dark face close to his. She often did this in a script, but when they were acting her eyelids never drooped, and her breath never stank. "Mondrian won't ever be your partner, that's what'll never happen."
George stood up so suddenly that Halvo fell over. Someone came up to him and said something; he did not respond, and the person went away again. "We're partners now," George said to Halvo.
"In what sense?" asked the Whore.
"We just are."
"Physically? Yes, on camera. In front of Bugeye."
"Bugeye's always there. So what?"
"Spiritually?" She grinned a grin, not sunny like Mondrian's, but feral. "Intellectually? What do you two talk about when I'm not around, hm? Ellis-Van Creveld Syndrome? The flow mechanics of fluid draperies?"
"Don't," said George. "I don't understand you when you talk like this. We just talk. About places we've been together. About you. About the wind. About—the Avenue, and people we've met at the Begonia. What does talking have to do with it?"
Her eyes were bleak. "It's a script, George," she said.
"What?"
"You, me, him. Us living here. It's a script. You think he fell in love with you in that stinking alley of yours? Think he took you in out of the goodness of his heart? They replaced his heart years ago, with something more efficient. You were written in, same as I was, kiddo. Two barren souls brought to flowering by Apollo."
"Of course I'm in the script. I know that. He told me. I knew that."
"You don't follow me," said the Whore. She pulled him down to his knees, down to his old level. "His love for you is part of the script, too. Haven't you ever read Pygmalion?"
"I can't read," said George. He pushed her away and stood up. The party fluoresced around them. He went out onto a balcony and looked out at the Avenue illuminating the fog far below. He knew that whatever the truth was, he was better off than he had been before he had met Mondrian. Someone touched his arm. "Go away," said George.
"You look awful," said Mondrian. His beard was a pale curl against his throat. "The party will be over soon; it's winding down."
"Go away," said George again. The camera hummed in the doorway. "I mean, I'm sorry; I'm sick, I'll go away. It's your apartment and I don't know the script." He tried to rush past Mondrian, and as usual, Mondrian was swifter.
"I thought I heard Halvo sliming me," said Mondrian. His frown was a fury. "What did she tell you?"
Bugeye continued to watch. "What should I say?" asked George. "You always tell me, 'Just be yourself in a scene, George.' I'm tired now; I don't know which self to be. Will you let me by, please?"
Mondrian gripped him by the shoulders. "What did she say to you, my heart?"
"Ask Bugeye," said George. "I bet he got it all down."
* * * * *
After that, things were different between you?
Mondrian said we were partners for real, not just for the Network. We did things together off-camera.
Off-camera?
Yes. Mondrian said the producers would let us have privacy if it meant keeping me in the show. He said I was important to the ratings. He said all the grunjes loved me, because I was one of them, and they lived it all through me. Do you know I met the President's husband?
When did they take Bugeye away, George?
After I came out of the hospital. The cameras were still around for our script scenes, but they went away when we needed them to.
When were you put in the hospital? Why?
You know, Doctor Leo. You were there.
Tell me, George. For the record. My friend Henrietta needs to hear it from you.
Well, they had to fix my right leg. One night Mondrian and I went to a restaurant and when I tried to get up my leg wouldn't work where they'd lengthened it. So I went to the hospital, and when I came out my head hurt, but my leg worked, and Bugeye was gone when we wanted him to be.
Your head hurt?
Yes, Doctor Leo. I had earaches and eyeaches. You said they were tension.
He's sounding very distant, Leo. You've got to get him stronger.
Commissioner, please. This is where it gets tricky. We're very close to the present, now, very close to the central trauma. I wish you'd let me handle the questioning.
I'm an antsy old woman, Leo. Wait a minute, Sister Surrey. Who's that behind you?
She's from the Network, Commissioner. She says she's here to inspect the damage.
Damn it, I'm Commissioner around here, that ought to count for something! What does she think she's going to do, reclaim George's legs? Keep her away from here till this is all over.
Yes, Commissioner.
George, this is Doctor Leo again. Can you hear me? How did Mondrian come to the Begonia tonight? Was he sad? Was he angry? George?
I can't! They'll cut out my heart!
Henrietta, it's not going to work. He's blocking the hyperphenyl. I'm afraid it's no use.
No use? We'll see about that. George!
Who are you?
George, this is Henrietta. I'm Doctor Leo's friend. George, I know you didn't kill Mondrian. Do you hear me? I know you didn't kill Mondrian.
I loved Mondrian!
I know you did. You've got to help me find the person who killed him. You know who it is, don't you?
Ask Bugeye.
Why ask Bugeye, George?
He knows.
How does Bugeye know, George? I'm Doctor Leo's friend; you can tell me.
He knows because he never went away. They lied to me. Mondrian lied to me. Doctor Leo lied to me! They did something to my leg to make it bad, so I had to go into the hospital, so they could put Bugeyes in my eyes and ears.
This is Henrietta, George. Tell me, sweetie. Tell me the rest of it.
* * * * *
When George came home from the hospital, he discovered that Halvo had left Netrutting and had gone back to her partner on Io. Mondrian and George began a half-year sweet as sarcomane. On camera, they broke up a child slavery ring in Montreal; they rescued an heiress, supposedly virgin, from the clutches of the Ku Klux Klan; they sailed a sunpowered skiff around the isles of Greece, hunting spies; they braved the graveyard of the Amazon and ravished a hundred willing natives, mostly female. Off-camera, ostensibly, they walked through Lastwoods in California, enjoyed what remained of the sequoias; they spent a rollicking week as lay brethren in a monastery at the North Pole; they read books of poetry (Mondrian read, George listened); they touched one another in ways that did not often involve ravishment, or even union, but combined the pleasures of each. George's headaches worsened in stages. Each time they reached a new plateau of pain, he complained of them, and chilled to Mondrian's withdrawal.
They threw other parties. At one of them, a doe-eyed young woman approached George for sexual favors, and he frightened himself and her by the intensity of his acceptance. At another, a grey-haired sculptor told him he was ugly and stupid but had beautiful legs, and George threw the man into a fountain. This scared him, too. Mondrian only laughed. "You're becoming yourself," he said. "You're growing up."
"Why should I care what part of me people like?" asked George. "I should be glad they like me at all. I'm just a grunj with long bones."
"You do have beautiful legs. The man was right."
George blinked. "They're the Network's legs, not mine. Only the ugly parts of me are mine. That, and my caring for you." He brightened. "That's not ugly!" George thought that saying this would spark another smile from Mondrian; instead, Mondrian looked troubled, and did not say anything for the rest of the day.
That is how it happened, step by step, hour by hour, until the last Satnite.
It had been a long and difficult day of filming. The cameras had been everywhere, swift and more relentless than usual. The scene, George thought, was silly: he was tied up to a cross, pretending to be tortured by some villains who were really just remote-controlled skinbags; the set was littered with parts of bodies. He began to grow impatient, waiting for Mondrian to knock in a door and rescue him. One of the skinbags, a tall one dressed in a red robe and hood, was getting more and more violent; before long, the whip the zombie was holding began to really sting, and George began to cry out in real pain. At that moment, before the cameras, the sadistic skinbag whipped off its hood and stood revealed as Mondrian.
"Mondrian!" cried George. The cameras closed in, catching the men's expressions; then they winked their CAMERA OFF lights, and zipped out the window, bound for processing. George sighed and relaxed against his bonds. "You've been here all along?" he asked his partner. "I'm beat. I sure wish the tech people would get here; I want to go home. Mondrian, would you untie me?"
"Hush," said Mondrian. He raised his whip, and with fire in his eyes, lashed out with it. The leather caught George in the right cheek.
"Mondrian, what are you doing?"
"Hush," said Mondrian, and struck again.
Some time later, when the beating was over, George was barely conscious. He felt himself lifted from the cross, carried to an aircar, laid out in bed at the apartment. He swam back to full consciousness to watch Mondrian dress. "You're going out?" George managed.
"Yes. It's Satnite," said Mondrian. His voice was cold, cold.
"No script tonight, is there, Mondrian?" Mondrian did not reply. "Mondrian, where are you going?"
"The Begonia."
"But there's no script," said George. He added weakly, "I don't think I can."
"I don't want you with me."
"Oh," said George, and for the first time, he realized that some sort of ending was near. "Why?" he asked. Mondrian came over to him and stuck a heavy thumb hard on the bone below George's left eye.
"Because I don't want to be watched," he said, and left.
When George was able to stand, he could not see out of his left eye, and his ears were buzzing. He went into the bathroom and stopped before a mirror. Mondrian had written something on his forehead in blood. George thought of showering, then decided against it; he did not want to wash off what Mondrian had written, whatever it meant, because he had the terrible gut-empty feeling that it might be the last communication he might ever have from his lover. He went to the Net console and activated the company hotline. "Mondrian's crazy," he told the Net people.
"So we've noticed," they replied, not warmly. "We've had to cancel the series."
"What?" George's head swam. "Cancel Mondrian? You can't. Everybody loves him." His brain grasped at straws. "The shugs love him, the grunjes, everybody."
"Not after tonight, they won't," the company replied. "Where have you been, George? Check out the Iron Begonia." The hotline snapped sourly.
George remembered how quickly the Network had judged him and Halvo worthy additions to Mondrian's show. Mondrian had called it market projections. "The Net does it in a flash," he had said. "It analyzes probable audience reactions and makes split-second hiring, firing, and scripting decisions." What could Mondrian do to make people hate him? thought George. He discounted the beating he had received; no cameras had been present to relay it to an audience. As quickly as he could, George dressed, called a car, and flew up the night-blotched Avenue. Copcars were circling the Begonia. There were fires, and screams. Inside, there was worse.
He had to crawl over the bodies. Some were ice-cold, zombies brought in by necrophiliac patrons, but most were warm and some were alive. None had any eyes, and the ears of many had been mutilated. The Sea Room was full of blood. George found himself looking for Halvo, then remembered that she was on Io with her sweetie. When he could stumble no farther he found a robot in working order and said, "Take me to the roof." It dragged him to the elevator and they rose together.
Mondrian was there, disemboweling a mewing sugarsipper with a gold knife. George recalled having seen the knife at the apartment; it had been a gift to Mondrian from someone in Japan. The wind was strong on the roof; George could see the copcars hovering above them, but he could not hear their engines. He let go of the robot and crawled. Mondrian saw him, and began to glow, from foot to knee to trunk to chest to neck to tear-streaked grinning face. "Do it for the Goddess, children," he said. No wind could outproject him. "Look me over, George, so the folks at the Network have a good shot for their morning show."
"I don't understand," whispered George.
Mondrian's fabulous ears heard him. "Take a gander," said Mondrian. He nodded toward a Netscreen. Someone had left it on, and there they were, courtesy of the hour delay from filming to broadcast; or rather, there Mondrian was, dressed as an executioner, facing the camera. The sugarsipper's blood spotted the screen and hid some of the details.
George heard his own voice say, "You've been here all along? I'm beat. I sure wish the tech people would get here; I want to go home. Mondrian, would you untie me?"
He saw Mondrian the Executioner smile and raise his whip. "Hush," said the screen Mondrian. His eyes were on fire, just as George remembered them having been. Screen Mondrian lashed out with it. The whip passed to the right of the camera.
"Mondrian, what are you doing?" George heard himself say.
"Hush," said Mondrian on screen.
The show continued, but George did not watch it. "I said those things after the cameras left," he whispered. "After they left."
"Like hell," said Mondrian. "You're Bugeye now, kiddo. We've never been alone. I never will be. I'll always be theirs, body and soul. I thought I could take it; I even thought it would be fun." He grinned again, skin gleaming like Apollo's; then he bit through the sugarsipper's jugular vein. "I was wrong," he added.
George's right leg stirred. "Mondrian," he whimpered. "It's—I'm not—" His left leg followed suit. His legs sat him up, then stood him against the wind. That's funny, thought George. They can make my legs move when I don't want them to. I'm a zombie and I'm not even dead. "It's not my fault," he said to nobody in particular. His legs tensed, muscles ready. "Mondrian, this isn't a funny script. Stop me, please!"
Mondrian heard. Hope blossomed in his bloody face. George's legs rushed him forward so quickly that he did not realize what was happening until he had already pushed Mondrian over the edge of the building. They fell together, locked, he and Mondrian, arms and legs in loving embrace, Mondrian ablaze like a son of the morning, down to the earth below.
* * * * *
"I'm sorry, Doctor Vahanian," said Sister Surrey over the Netlink. "I couldn't drain any more. He was just too far gone. That's all I could get."
"That's all right, Sister," said Vahanian from his hotel room. Behind him in the bedroom, his partner called out. On screen, Commissioner Henrietta Cloud heaved a deep and sorrowful sigh. She turned from George's still body.
"My God," she said. "All that carnage. Leo, are you still listening?"
"Yes," said Vahanian.
"You knew, didn't you?" She did not wait for a reply. "My Christ, ratings wars! If they can predict trends so goddamn quickly, why couldn't they predict Mondrian's instability and warn us, for God's sake? Those are people in there, Leo, real Satniters, not paid rutters and skinbag remotes!"
"Henrietta," said Vahanian, "it's not that simple."
"Not that simple?" She cast him a look of cold fury. A well-dressed young woman stood behind her; Cloud whirled on her. "You a Network person?" Cloud demanded.
"Yes, Commissioner. May we make our retrieve now?"
"No."
"Commissioner Cloud, we have our contractual rights in this matter. The body parts in question were leased to Messers Philippe Mondrian and George Just till brain-death. It is our right—"
"This is the end," said the Commissioner. Her nose was an inch from the young woman's. "You people are going to be investigated from here to Io and sued up your asses to boot. This was criminal negligence, criminal."
"Well, we'll see you in court," said the Net lady soberly, "but I fail to see how we're responsible for the actions of private citizens. Mister Mondrian was on his own time. Now," she continued, smiling at Cloud, "if we could examine the bodies?"
"Not till after the autopsies," said the Commissioner. "You people implanted surveillance devices within George Just without his knowledge or consent. The drain reveals that much. That's a crime."
The Net lady's smile grew fainter. "A brain-drain is not admissible evidence in a court of law," she hazarded. "Our lawyers can provide you with signed and fingerprinted documents proving, oh, anything necessary." She peered at George, glanced at Cloud, and began moving back to the Network vehicles. "By the way, Commissioner, you mustn't put too much store by the words of a dying man. George was sweet and much beloved, and we'll all miss him, but he wasn't what you'd call a class act, was he? Just between you and me, Ma'am, when we heard of the ruckus down here tonight, it only took the Network computer a second to figure that George could never carry Tales of Mondrian by himself. And with all the havoc here, what would the sponsors say? Ah, well."
"After the autopsies," said Commissioner Henrietta Cloud. The Net lady nodded, unruffled, and disappeared. "Signed and fingerprinted," repeated the old woman. "By whose hands, and when, I wonder?" She stuck her face close to the Net screen, startling Vahanian. "Do you know, Leo, dear? When was it that George signed those consent forms? Who held his hands and told him it was just a formality, there was nothing to be afraid of? Someone he trusted, perhaps? Someone who was medical consultant to the Network folks? Someone who had planned his long bones, perhaps, with a little something extra in the muscles in case remote control was needed in a dramatic emergency?"
"I just went to the hospital to see him," said Vahanian. "That's all, Henrietta. That's all I know."
"Gave them their privacy, did they?" said the Commissioner. "Only way to keep George in the show. Poor schmuck." The Netscreen caught a glimpse of George's face before the body-bag covered it. The word written on George's forehead in blood had dried brown, but it was still legible. It said, BUGEYE.
"Ah, well," said Henrietta Cloud. "It sure as hell made a grand finale."
The show was in reruns for years.
MNQ/2009.12.20
8,300 Words