"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