"Pretty posh, huh?" he said. "May I come in?"
She folded her arms. "Sure. Fly on down."
He started toward the little platform lift. "I said, fly."
He stopped and looked at her.
"Go on, jump. Or I'll drag your ass back up there and push it off."
He leaned on the rail. "Tell you what-I'll just get down any old way I can, and you can take a swing at me. I won't even duck."
She grinned flatly. "Heard about that already, did you."
"You've made your usual good impression, yes." He stepped onto the lift and pressed the down button. "Manny Rivera told me that a chemical leash would be available if you got completely out of control."
"Chicken-fucking-shit. He didn't say dick at the time."
"I'm your supervisor, I'm supposed to take care of your misbehavior." The lift thumped to a stop, and the Beater stepped off. All fifty-plus years were showing hard on him today, mostly in the slumping posture of his softening body and in the hint of jowls on his oblong face. She had an urge to rumple his hair, but there was so much lacquer on it, it would probably break off in her hand.
"Supervisor. It's come to that already." She sat down and put her feet up on the console. "What have they got here, a demerit system? Five black marks and I don't get my fucking Christmas bonus?"
"Stop it," he said quietly, resting one haunch on the desk a careful distance from her. "I didn't want this any more than you did."
"Hey, you had no control, right?" She spread her hands. "They musta given you a fat little package for your share of EyeTraxx, so if you don't like what you see, you can walk away. Not like some of us."
"Where would I go?" The Beater's face was expressionless. "I don't have enough to start up a new production company, not with what it takes today, and I couldn't deliver the artists if I did have it. Our groups are contractually bound to Diversifications now. And I can just see me strolling the Mimosa or hunting the clubs looking for talent. Sign with me, boys and Kids, I'm real old, and I know what I'm doing." He sighed. "It worked out shitty. Go with the money you'll get. Maybe you'll pay off your father before you get to be my age."
"Except for Mark, I'd walk," she said. "They could put me in fucking debtors' prison, and I'd walk anyway. Except for Mark." She gestured at the pit. "How long do you think he's gonna make it in a place like this?"
There was a funny change in the Beater's face then, as if a wall had gone up somewhere inside him. "Maybe a lot longer than you think."
"Yah." She offered him a leg. "Pull this one, it's got bells on it."
"Shit, how long do you think he'd last anyway?" the Beater said, disgusted. "You've seen what he's been doing lately- the same goddamn thing over and over, stealing from himself. We had to redo most of the last video he made behind his fucking back, or don't you remember?" He leaned forward. "He doesn't remember. He doesn't even know. Half the time he doesn't know where the fuck he is or how he got there. He needs to be taken care of."
"And Diversifications is gonna look after him like a mother."
"They've got ways to help him."
Gina's mouth dropped open. "Shit, what did you do, put him in for implants? You gonna turn him into that corporate vegetable I popped in the goddamn company cafeteria, make him deliver good product? You're his friend, shit, he lived for you, he saw fucking visions for you, and you quit on the music and you quit on him, too." She stood up and grabbed the front of his crisp white shirt. "I oughta give you the beating I was saving for him."
He pried her hand off him and held it. "Badass Gina Aiesi, always looking for a head to punch. I can see why you'd want to punch mine, but not Mark's."
She gazed at him for a moment and then laughed without humor. "I thought so. You don't know."
"What." His expression didn't change, but the grip on her hand tightened a bit.
"Mark made an appearance in court night before last. With Boy-Wonder Galen, Frankenstein Joslin, and Manny Fucking Rivera. Do the words state's evidence do anything for you?"
The Beater was mystified. "Mark was state's evidence?"
"No, that part was played by an unknown," she said sarcastically, slipping her hand out of his. "But Mark was in on it. I thought you were, too. Guess not. Maybe you want to talk to Rivera about your career path. Isn't that what all you hot executives talk about when you lunch it up?"
Now he looked troubled. "Mark in court… with Galen, Joslin, and Rivera…"
"It was some big deal. Instant gag order. Unlawful congress with a machine."
The Beater snapped to attention. She shrugged at his alarmed expression.
"Maybe Joslin was fucking an earth-mover, and they caught her at it. You figure it out, son." She paused. "Can you figure it out?"
"Some of it," he said slowly. "I think."
She grabbed his shirt again, closer to the collar this time. "Then you better fucking tell me what's going on."
He shook his head, pulling her hand off. "Not till I find something out for sure. I'll talk to Rivera." He started to get up, and she seized the waistband of his pants, yanking hard.
"Fuck Rivera and his mother, too, my man, you oughta be talking to me!"
The Beater pulled away from her, shoving her back into her chair. "Goddammit, Gina, will you grow the fuck up? What do you think this is, a hit-and-run? We lost EyeTraxx, it's over! The corporations took over the world, that's not my fault! Mark spent the last twenty-five years toxed, and now he's paying the price for it. Nothing stays the same, Gina, nothing works forever. If I don't like it, that's too bad. If you don't like it, that's still too bad."
She stared up at him darkly. "All I wanna know is just what it is I don't like. And how bad is 'too bad.' "
The Beater pressed his lips together. "Just do the videos. Just do the videos and hope for the best."
He stood on the lift with his back to her.
She sat for a while, thinking nothing, the pit so much empty space around her. In the old days at EyeTraxx, they'd have killed to get something like this. Or the Beater might have. Operating out of a converted warehouse hadn't made much difference to the videos. Sometimes they'd all been practically on top of each other, especially when the groups came in. Valjean and that cape, the crazy skiffle-revival group, the Little Cares; Vlad had done most of their videos, usually bouncing one of his seven kids on his knee while they all watched a rough cut on flatscreen. Galen had laid Vlad off early, and when Vlad had gone, he'd taken the Little Cares with him in a show of solidarity that had lasted through one more video, a gypsy production, and when it had failed, they'd all dropped out of sight.
Kim had gone next, Galen insisting they were losing money like crazy, and Jolene had stomped out after her. Kim had taken off for parts unknown, but Jolene was still around, picking up the work wherever she could. Guerstein had been Galen's final cut, Guerstein who did news like other people did dope, and that left just the three of them, the way it had been in the beginning, except that someone else owned them now, and Galen partitioned the warehouse and rented out three-fourths of it for storage. And that had lasted something over a year before the real end came.
It was strange, but sometimes she couldn't remember what it had been like; it was almost as if those years had never happened. Except for Mark; that was where the mileage really showed.
Just do the videos and hope for the best.
Sure. Do the videos. Do it their way. She looked around the pit. This was a place to make commercials, and fool with feature releases, and maybe play a few nifty games, but it wasn't rock'n'roll. Rock'n'fuckin'roll. Jesus. Yah, what the hell, we'll just put that in a nice clean box and keep it business, keep it all business, and maybe she'd go out of her mind in the nice clean box.