Even so, some were more lethal than others, and at a club called the Mea Culpa, near the city’s port area, he eventually found the woman he was looking for. To his certain knowledge, Demea had murdered at least forty people, including several children. That she was also extremely attractive made the pleasure Rimmer took in her company all the more enjoyable. And had it not been for the virus, he might even have let her suck him.[37]
‘There you are at long last,’ said Rimmer. ‘You’ve been hard to find in here.’ And it was easy to see why. Demea was wearing an expensive dress made out of synthetic Melanophore, a material that imitated the skin of a chameleon.[38] ‘To say that you fit right in here would be something of an understatement,’ he added, sitting down.
Until that moment, Demea’s dress had been colored black — like the walls, the ceiling, and the carpet — and silver — like the haphazard structure of cushioned tubular steel she lay on with the studied insouciance of a baroque Venus. But as Rimmer occupied the almost invisible black cushion beside her, the dress began to reflect the light blue of his Antimo silk suit.
‘Not so close,’ she drawled. ‘You’re spoiling my hue.’
‘Sorry,’ Rimmer grinned, and shifted a short distance away. He inspected the side of her dress for a moment and then said, ‘It’s all the same in the dark, you know.’
‘What is?’ Demea hardly looked at him.
‘Color. Decomposition of white light. Electromagnetic waves of a certain frequency. What color of drink can I buy you?’
‘Absinthe.’
‘Green,’ said Rimmer. ‘The color of hope. Although if my memory for art serves me right, the effect of the drink is rather less cheerful.’ He glanced around for a waitress, and since the club was almost empty, it wasn’t long before one came his way. She was naked, like all the waitresses in the Mea Culpa Club. That was another reason Rimmer liked going there.
‘Hi there,’ said the waitress. ‘What can I get you?’ She leaned back on the table in front of them and spread her legs so that Rimmer could hardly fail to notice the several rings that pierced her genitals.
‘Well, well,’ said Rimmer. ‘I see you’re married. To five guys.’ He smiled and the waitress smiled back. He was now in his element. No doubt there were some men who thought of mountains. Others of great waterfalls. But this was what Rimmer thought of when he brought to mind the sight he enjoyed most in the world. ‘Absinthe for the lady. And brandy for me.’
‘Thirty,’ said the waitress and, with a long fingernail on which a tiny hologram of a couple were forever making love, she tickled the rings meaningfully.
Rimmer rolled up a banknote and tugged it through her five piercings while the waitress watched patiently, as she was required to do by her employers.
‘Keep the change,’ he told her. ‘That is if you can find somewhere to put it.’
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Be right back with your drinks.’
Rimmer watched her bare behind in retreat. ‘And she shall have music,’ he said, turning his attention back to Demea. ‘I like a bit of music. How about you?’
‘Don’t mind it.’
Rimmer removed a Sony Pinback from his ear and showed it to Demea as if to corroborate his assertion.
‘Of course, it’s not turned on right now,’ he said. ‘That would be rude. Just in case I miss anything.’ He paused. ‘Such as your stimulating conversation.’
Demea remained resolutely silent, and Rimmer wondered if she might be on some drug, but her sapphire-blue eyes seemed clear and alert enough. As Rimmer looked at her more closely, it seemed to him that she was actually watching the room, as if waiting for someone. He dropped the Pinback earpiece inside his pocket alongside its mate and the tiny playback unit.
‘These days, when I kill someone,’ Rimmer explained, ‘I almost always wear it. Just the one ear. I should hate to miss the sound of a gunshot, or a knife going in between two ribs, or a plea for mercy — never given.’
The waitress came back with the drinks. Demea took the absinthe and sipped it silently. Rimmer tasted his brandy. It was cheap synthetic nano stuff, but that was all part of the authentic low-life experience; and anyway, he had bottles of real three-star cognac at home.
‘I have found that I prefer something classical, but upbeat, when I’m in at the death of someone,’ he said. ‘Something German, or Austrian, it goes without saying. Did you know that the German Nazis used to have orchestras in their death camps, to give people a bit of spring in their step on their way to the gas chambers? Clever people those Nazis. Music is the perfect accompaniment to violent death.’ Rimmer nodded appreciatively. ‘Schubert’s Symphony number five is a personal favorite. The allegro of course. And sometimes a little Strauss. I’ve always thought that there was something rather murderous about the Voices of Spring. And not forgetting Mozart. It’s the mathematical precision of Mozart that provides a nice counterpoint to the general mayhem of death. And what about you? Is there a piece of music you favor when you’re working?’
Demea frowned. She actually seemed to be thinking about an answer.
‘I do it because I have to do it,’ she said at last. ‘Not because I enjoy it.’
‘You disappoint me, Demea. I took you for a fellow hunter. Diana to my Nimrod.’
Demea looked at Rimmer with undisguised contempt. ‘We’ve nothing in common, you and I.’
‘People are always saying that to me. I’m beginning to feel quite distinguished.’
‘If I had half your advantages.’ She shook her head. ‘You’re a queer one, Rimmer.’
‘Oh, there I must take issue with you, Demea dear. As an embryo, I was screened for a predisposition to homosexuality. My hormone levels were corrected while I was still a fetus. I’m as heterosexual as the next man. Thanks to medical science there’s simply no excuse for anyone to be queer in this day and age.’
‘Oh yes,’ laughed Demea, ‘medical science has been so good to us.’
‘Well, I admit, medical science doesn’t have all the answers. There are still important discoveries to be made. Like finding a cure for P2. But...’
‘We already have the cure for P2,’ insisted Demea. ‘We’ve had it for years. The problem is that it’s only the people who don’t have the disease who can afford it.’
Rimmer shrugged. ‘A cheaper cure, then.’
‘That’s hardly in Terotech’s interests, is it?’
‘Oh I think you’re being a little unfair,’ he said. But she was right, of course. Cheap cures really weren’t in the company’s interests. They were bad for depositors — everyone who was healthy knew that. Class One blood was only precious because there was so little of it around. And a cheap cure was what all healthy people, not just companies like Terotechnology, feared most. You wouldn’t be able to give the stuff away if something like that happened. All the market analysts said as much. Just look what had happened to gold. Some fool had started to exploit the ocean’s vast reserves of gold,[39] and ended up flooding the market. After that, all the smart money moved into blood. No one wanted to see another financial crash like that.
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