under a black moustacheand waved him on.
Southeast Asian Faction Customs waited in the form of a small
Thai woman in a brown uniform with indecipherable scrawls across
yellow badges. Her features were pleasant and impassive; she wore
her black hair pulled tightly back and held with a clear plastic
comb. She stood behind a gray metal table; on the floor next to
it was a two-meter high general purpose scanner, its controls,
screens, and read-outs hidden under a black cloth hood. Dirty
green walls wore erratically-spaced signs in a dozen languages,
detailing in small type the many categories of contraband.
The woman motioned for him to sit in the upright chair in
front of the table, then for him to put his clothes bag and cases
on the table.
She spoke, and the translator box at her waist echoed in
clear, neuter machine English: "Your person has been scanned and
cleared." She put the soft brown bag into the mouth of the
scanner, and the machine vetted the bag with a quiet beep. The
woman slid it back to Gonzales.
She spoke again, and the translator said, "Please open these
cases" as she pointed toward the two shock-cases. For each,
Gonzales screened the access panel with his left hand and tapped
in the entry codes with his right. The case lids lifted with a
soft sigh. Inside the cases, monitor and diagnostic lights
flashed above rows of memory modules, heavy solids of black
plastic the size of a small safety deposit box.
Gonzales saw she was holding a copy of the Data Declaration
Form the memex had filled out in Myanmar and transmitted to both
Myanmar and Thai governments. She looked into one of the cases
and pointed to a row of red-tagged and sealed memory modules.
The translator's words followed behind hers and said, "These
modules we must hold to verify that they contain no contraband
information."
"Myanmar customs did so. These are SenTrax corporate
records."
"Perhaps they are. We have not cleared them."
"If you wish, I will give you the access protocols. I have
nothing to hide, but the modules are important to my work."
She smiled. "I do not have proper equipment. They must be
examined by authorities in the city." The translator's tones
accurately reflected her lack of concern.
Gonzales sensed the onset of severe bureaucratic
intransigence. For whatever occult reasons, this woman had
decided to fuck him around, and the harder he pushed, the worse
things would be. Give it up, then. He said, "I assume they will
be returned to me as soon as possible."
"Certainly. After careful examination. Though it is
unlikely that the examination can be completed before your
departure." She slid the case off her desk and to the floor
behind it. She was smiling again, a satisfied bureaucrat's smile.
She turned back to her console, Gonzales's case already a thing of
the past. She looked up to see him still standing there and said,
"How else can I help you?"
#
The machine-world began to disperse, turning to fog, and as
it did, banks of low-watt incandescents lit up around the room's
perimeter, and the patterns of console lights went through a
series of rapid permutations as Gonzales was brought to a waking
state. The room's lights had been full up for an hour when the
desynching series was complete and the egg began to split.
Inside the egg Gonzales lay pale, nude, near-comatose,
machine-connected: a new millennium Snow White. A flesh-colored
catheter led from his water-shrunken genitals, transparent iv
feeds from both forearms. White sealant and anti-irritant paste
had clotted around the tubes from throat and mouth. The sharp
ozone smell of the paste was all over him.
An autogurney had rolled next to the egg, and its hands,
shining chrome claws, began disconnecting tubes and leads. Then
it worked with hands and black flexible arms the thickness of a
stout rope to lift Gonzales from the egg and onto its own surface.
Gonzales woke up in his own bedroom and began to whimper.
"It's okay," the memex whispered through the room's speaker.
"It's okay."
Some time later Gonzales awoke again, lay in gloom and
considered his condition. Some nausea, legs weak, but no apparent
loss of gross motor control, no immediate parapsychological
effects (disorientations, amnesias, synesthesias)
Gonzales got up and went to the bathroom, stood amid white
tile, polished aluminum and mirrors and said, "Warm shower."
Water hissed, and the shower stall door swung open. The water ran
down his skin and the sweat and paste rolled off his body.
3. Dancing in the Dark
The next morning, Gonzales stood looking out his front
window, down Capital Hill to the city and the bay. After a full
night's sleep, he felt recovered from the egg. "Halfway down the
hill stood a row of Contempo high-riseshalf a dozen shapes in
the mist, their sides laced with optic fiber in patterns of red,
blue, white, and yellow.
>From the wallscreen behind him, a voice said, "The Fine Arts
Network, showing today only: the legendary 'Rothschild Ads
Originals and Copies,' a Euro/Com Production from the Cannes
Festival; also showing, NipponAuto's 'Ecstasy for Many
Kilometers.'"
"Cycle," Gonzales said. He turned to watch as the screen
split into windows, showing eight at a time in a random access
search. In the screen's upper-right corner, the Headline Service
cycled what it considered important: worsening social collapse in
England; another series of politico-economic triumphs for The Two
Koreas. And the Ecostate Summaries: ozone hole #2 over the
Antarctic conforming to predicted self-repair curve, hole #3
obstinately holding steady; CO2 portions unstable, ozone reaching
for an ugly part of the graph; temperature fluctuations continuing
to evade best predictions
Why call it news? wondered Gonzales. Call it olds. Christ,
this stuff had been going on forever it seemed
He said, "Memex, what do you think about the attack?"
"A bad business," said the memex. "We are lucky to have
survived." It seemed a bit subdued in the aftermath of the trip in
the egg, as though it, too, had come close to dying. Gonzales
didn't know how it experienced such things, given its limited
sensory modalities and, he presumed, lack of a fear of death.
"What's happening in the real world?" Gonzales asked.
"Your mother left a message for you. Do you want to look at
it now?"
"Might as well."
On the screen she lay back in a lawn chair, her face hidden
behind a sun mask, her mono-bikinied body a rich brown. She sat
up and said, "Still in Myanmar, huh, sweetie? When are you coming
back? I'd love to talk, but I just won't pay those rates."
She removed her sun mask. She had dark skin and good bones;
her face was nearly unlined, though her skin had the faint
parchment quality of age. Her small breasts sagged very little.
Body and face, she appeared an athletic fifty year old who had
perhaps seen too much sun. She would turn eighty-seven next
month.
Since Gonzales's father had died in a flash flu epidemic