Atwood Margaret - The Heart Goes Last

He now knows where Jasmine goes during her time as a Consilience citizen: she gets on the very same pink-and-purple scooter and heads to the gym. She must work out a lot. How lithe and toned and strong her body must be.

That alarms him: she might put up a struggle when he surges out of the

swimming pool like a powerful giant squid and wraps her in his wet, naked arms. But she won’t struggle for long.

He’s taken to going to the gym himself, checking around. Not that Jasmine would be there, she’d be inside Positron. But the weight machines, the treadmills: her alluring bum must have reposed on one of the former, her agile feet must have walked upon one of the latter. Though he knows it’s impossible, he half expects to find signs of her: a dropped handkerchief, a glass slipper, some fuchsia bikini briefs. Magical signs of her presence.

Sometimes when he’s loitering he feels watched; perhaps by the shadowy face at the window one floor up, overlooking the gym’s swimming pool. That’s where the upper-management supervisors are said to get their exercise, so naturally they’d have a Surveillance person somewhere around. That thought makes him nervous: he doesn’t want to be singled out, he doesn’t want to be of special interest. Except to Jasmine.

The Town Meeting today skips the preliminary shots of happy workers and pie charts and focuses right in on Ed, who’s in full pep-talk mode. How well they are all doing with their Project tasks – beyond Ed’s highest expectations! They must be so proud of their efforts and achievements, history is being made, they are a model for future towns just like theirs; indeed, there are now nine other towns that are being reconstructed according to the Consilience/Positron model. If all goes well, soon that model will be deployed wherever the need is great – wherever the economy has flagged and left hard-working people stranded!

Better still, thanks to this model and its reordering of civic life, and the construction dollars that have been generated and the waste that’s been saved, the economy in those areas is pulling out of the slump. So many new initiatives! So much problem-solving! People can think so creatively when given the chance!

Hold on, thinks Stan. What’s underneath all the horn-tooting? Some folks must be making a shitload of cash out of this thing. But who, but where? Since not that much of it is trickling down inside the Consilience walls. Everyone’s got a place to live, true, but no one’s richer than anyone else.

So are they all being lied to, played for suckers? Sucked into doing the work while others roll around in the cash? Conor always said Stan was too trusting, that he could never sniff out a bent motive, that given the choice he’d pay top dollar for a baggie full of baking soda and stuff it up his nose. Fuck, said Conor, he’d probably even get high on it.

So how much of a dickwit have I been? Stan wonders. What exactly did I sign away? And is there really no way out except in a box, as Conor warned? That can’t be true: those at the top must be able to come and go at will. But apart from Ed, he doesn’t know who those people are.

He really wants another beer. But he’ll wait until this show is over, because what if the TV can see you?

Stan, Stan, he tells himself. Cool the paranoia. Why would they be interested in watching you watch them?

Now Ed has put on a fatherly frown. “Some of you,” he says, “and you know who you are – some of you have been dabbling in digital experimentation. Now, you all know the rules: phones are to be used for personal intercommunication with your friends and loved ones, but no more. But we take boundaries very seriously here at Positron! You may believe you’re engaging in private entertainment, and that your attempt to invade the private space of others is harmless. And so far no harm has been done. But our systems are very sensitive; they pick up even the faintest of unauthorized signals. Disconnect now – again, you know who you are – and we will take no action.”

The Consilience theme song comes on – it’s the barn-raising music from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers – and the slogan zooms up: DO TIME NOW, BUY TIME FOR OUR FUTURE. CONS + RESILIENCE = CONSILIENCE.

Stan feels a chill. Sober up, he tells himself. That message from Ed seemed aimed at several people, so they might not be on to him personally. Still, he’ll take that phone out of the scooter immediately. Never mind, he’s got Jasmine in his crosshairs. On switchover days, it’s first stop the house, next stop the gym.

Ambush

It won’t be the gym, he decides: that would be too public. Instead it will be right here, at the house. On switchover day Charmaine will leave on her scooter and possibly inspect more real estate, after which she’ll park the scooter at Positron Prison, after which Jasmine will get onto it and drive it here. Meanwhile, he himself will stash his pile of clean, folded clothes in the green locker, key himself out of the house, and then, instead of heading right to the prison, he’ll wait in the garage. When Jasmine turns up he’ll watch her go into the house. Then he’ll follow, and the inevitable red-hot encounter will take place. They might not even make it upstairs, so overpowering will be their lust. The living room sofa; no, even that’s too formal. The carpet. Not the kitchen floor, though: that would be hard on the knees.

They won’t be interrupted by Max, because how can he get here without the scooter he shares with Stan – the red-and-green one? Which is supposed to be arriving at Positron about now, but which is still in the garage. He takes satisfaction in the thought of Max cooling his heels and checking his watch while his wayward, insatiable Jasmine is winding her arms and legs around Stan.

Now he’s in the garage. It’s warm for December 1, but he’s shivering a bit: it must be the tension. The hedge trimmer is hanging on the wall, newly cleaned, battery charged, ready for action, not that scum-bucket Max will appreciate the care Stan has taken. The hedge trimmer would make a good weapon, supposing Max makes it to the house by some other means and there’s a confrontation. The thing has a hair-trigger start button; once at full throttle, with its sharp saw whizzing around, it could take off a guy’s head. Self-defence would be his plea.

If that doesn’t happen and instead he gets involved in some heavy tangling with Jasmine, he’ll be late for check-in. That’s frowned on, but he’ll have to risk it because he can’t go on the way he’s been going. It’s eating him up. It’s killing him.

There’s a crack in the front door of the garage. Stan is peering through it, waiting for Jasmine to drive up on her pink scooter, so he doesn’t hear the side door opening.

“It’s Stan, isn’t it?” says a voice. He jerks upright, whirls around. His first instinct is to go for the hedge trimmer. But it’s a woman.

“Who the fuck are you?” he says. She’s on the short side, with straight black hair down to her shoulders. Dark eyebrows. A heavy mouth, no lipstick. Black jeans and T-shirt. She looks like a dyke martial arts expert.

There’s something familiar. Has he seen her at the gym? No, not there. It was the workshop, when they’d just signed on. She was with that dork of an Ed.

“I live here,” she says. She smiles. Her teeth are square: piano-key teeth.

“Jasmine?” he asks uncertainly. It can’t be. This isn’t what Jasmine looks like.

“There is no Jasmine,” she says. Now he’s confused. If there is no Jasmine, how does she know there’s supposed to be one?

“Where’s your scooter?” he says. “How did you get here?”

“I drove,” she says. “In the car. I’m parked next door. By the way, I’m Jocelyn.” She holds out her hand, but Stan doesn’t take it. Shit, he thinks. She’s in Surveillance, which is the only way she could have a car. He feels cold.