Holy Fire - Bruce Sterling [115]
Kurt sat up. “My, our new guest is very lovely.”
“She’s on lacrimogen,” Brett said defensively.
“Women need a man when they’re on lacrimogen,” rumbled Kurt. “Come cuddle up with me, darling. Cry yourself to sleep.”
“I’d never sleep with anyone so dirty,” Maya blurted.
“Women on lacrimogen are also very tactless,” Kurt remarked. He turned away onto his side with a hammocky squeak.
There was silence for a while. Finally, Antonio picked up his book again and began to read aloud again.
“I’ll tell you a secret,” Brett whispered to Maya.
“What’s that?”
“Let’s lie down.”
They lay down together in the hammock. Brett put both her arms around Maya’s neck and looked into her eyes. They were both feeling so much pain that there was nothing but deep solace in the gesture. They were like two women who had crawled together from a burning car.
“I’m never going to make it,” Brett said. A tear rolled slowly down her nose and fell onto Maya’s cheek. “I want to do clothes, that’s all I want. But I’ll never make it. I’ll never be as good as Giancarlo Vietti. He’s a hundred and twelve years old. He has every file ever posted on couture, every book ever written. He’s had his own couture house for seventy-five years. He’s a multimillionaire with an enormous staff of people. He has everything, and he’s going to keep it forever. There’s just no way to challenge him.”
“He’ll have to die someday,” Maya said.
“Sure. Maybe. But by that time I’ll be ninety. I’ll never get a chance to really live until I’m ninety. Vietti got to start young, he got to have experience, he got to be king of the world through this whole century. I’ll never have that experience. By the time I’m ninety, I’ll be turned to a stone.”
“If he won’t let you play in his world, then you’ll have to make your own world.”
“That’s what all the vivid people say, but the old people won’t let us. They won’t give us anything but a sandbox. They won’t give us real money or real power or any real chances.” She drew a ragged breath. “And this is the very worst. Even if we had those things, we’d never be as good as they are. Compared to the gerontocrats, we’re trash, we’re kitsch, we’re stupid little amateurs. I could be the most vivid girl in the world and I’d still be just a little girl. The gerontocrats, they’re like ice on a pond. We’re so deep down we’ll never see the honest light of day. By the time our turn comes around, we’ll be so old that we’ll be cold blind fish, worse than Vietti is, a hundred times worse. And then the whole world will turn to ice.”
She burst into wracking sobs.
Kurt sat up again. He was angry this time. “Do you mind? Who asked you here? If you can’t get a grip, get out!”
“That’s why I love junkies!” Brett shouted shrilly, sitting up red-faced and weeping. “Because they go where gerontocrats never go. To wrap up in a fantasy and die. Look at this place! This is what the whole world looks like when you’re not allowed to live!”
“Yeah, okay, that’s enough,” agreed Antonio, carefully putting down his book. “Kurt, throw the little idiot out. Kick her hard into the street, Kurt.”
“You kick her out,” Kurt said, “you let her in.”
There was a sudden violent burst from the bathroom. A blast of explosive compression. The door flew open and banged the wall hard enough to break a hinge.
Everyone stared in amazement. There were gurglings, then a sudden violent burst. Sewage jetted obliquely from the toilet and splattered the ceiling. Then rusty bolts snapped and the commode itself jumped from its concrete moorings and tumbled into the cellar.
A gleaming machine with a hundred thrashing legs came convulsing from the sewer. It was as narrow as a drainpipe and its thick metal head was a sewage-stained mass of bristles and chemical sensors. It grabbed at the doorframe with thick bristle-footed feet, and its hindquarters gouted spastic jets of white chemical foam.
It arched its plated sinuous back and howled like a banshee.
“Don’t run, don’t run,” Kurt shouted,