Bruce Sterling - Islands in the Net

"Let me look at you She sneaked a look at his crotch and began giggling helplessly. "Oh... It's not that funny but. .. Oh, David, you look like a horny giraffe." She rubbed his shoulder, hard, with her thumb. "It's not coming off, is it.... Honey, you've really done it this time."

"This is revolutionary," he said soberly.

A fit of laughter seized her.

"I mean it, Laura. You can be black, from a tube. Don't you see what that means?"

She bit her knuckle until she got control of herself. "Da- vid, people don't want to risk skin cancer, just so they can be black. "

"Why not? I would. We live under a hard Texas sun. All

Texans ought to be black. In that kind of climate, it's best for you. Sensible."

She stared at him, biting her lip. "This is just too, too weird... . You're not really black, David. You've got an

Anglo nose, and Anglo mouth. Oh look, here's a patch on your ear that you missed!" She shrieked with laughter.

"Stop that, Laura, you're making me mad." He sat up straighter. "Okay, maybe I'm not black, up close.... But in a crowd, I'm a black man. Same in a car, or walking on the street. Or at a political meeting. That could change everything."

His passion surprised her. "Not everything, David, come on. Rizome's CEO is black. America's had a black president, even."

"Bullshit, Laura, don't pretend racism's a dead issue, why do you think Africa's in the mess it's in? Goddamn it, these

Grenadians have really got something! I'd heard rumors of stuff like this, but the way they painted it, it was some kind of risky freak experiment.... But it's easy! I wonder how much they've made? Pounds? Tons?"

David's eyes were full of visionary fire. "I'm gonna walk up to the first Third Worlder I see, and say,. 'Hi! I'm a white

American imperial exploiter, and I'm black as the ace of spades, compadre.' This is the greatest thing I've ever heard.

Laura frowned a little. "It's just color. It doesn't change how you feel about yourself, inside. Or the way you act, either. "

"The hell you say. Even a new haircut can do that much."

He leaned back against the pillow, cradling his head. His armpits were splotchy. "I gotta get more of this stuff."

Now he was involved. At last. It had taken something very weird to jolt him, but now he was with her all the way. He'd found something to galvanize him, and he was off and run- ning. He had that look in his eyes again. Just like when they were first married, back when they were planning the Lodge together. She felt glad.

She reached across his chest, admiring the svelte contrast of her arm against his dark ribs. "You look good, David, really.... It suits you somehow... . I guess I never told you this, but I always had a kind of minor thing for black guys."

She kissed his shoulder. "I knew this guy in high school, he and I--

David clambered suddenly out of bed. "Atlanta, who's online?"

["Uh, the name's Nash, Thomas Nash, you don't know me..."]

"Tom, I want you to get a look at this." David picked up his glasses and scanned himself head to foot. "What do you think of that?"

["Um, seem to be having some trouble with brightness levels, Rizome Grenada. Also, you're not wearing clothes.

Right?"]

Laura waited for David to come back to bed. Instead he started calling people. She fell asleep again while he was still ranting.

They were under the mansion's foundations with a hydraulic jack when they heard Sticky calling. "Yo

Bwana, Blondie! You be comin' out now, time to face the music...'

They wormed their way back into afternoon sunlight. Laura hauled herself through the foundation's concrete crawl hole and got to her feet. "Hello, Captain." She picked at her hair, and came away with strings of cobweb.

David crawled out after her. His jeans and denim work shirt were caked at the knees and elbows with stale mud.

Sticky Thompson grinned at David's darkened face. "You datin' locals now, Blondie? Where's the Great White Hunter?"

"Very funny," David said.

Sticky led them back around the mansion's west wing. As they walked under newly pruned ylang-ylang trees, David juggled his glasses and jammed the earplug in. "Who's online?

Oh. Hi. What? Hell, I got mud on my lenses." He cleaned them with his shirt tail, ruefully.

Two military jeeps were waiting on the gravel drive-olive- drab hardtops with silvered windows. Three uniformed mili- tiamen sat on the flat, square bumpers, sipping soft drinks from paper cartons. Sticky whistled sharply; the skinniest guard leapt to attention and opened one door. A colored decal flashed on the door panel: garish red, gold, and green-the

Grenadian flag. "Truth-tellin' time, Mrs. Webster. We ready when you are."

"She'll need to change-" David said.

"No, I won't," Laura broke in. "I'm ready at any time.

Unless your Bank thinks I'll soil their upholstery." She pulled her glasses from a buttoned shirt pocket.

Sticky turned to David, pointing to the second jeep. "We got a special tourist show for you, today. This other jeep be escort duty for you, they driving you down to the beach. We got some very special building projects. You be loving this one, Dave."

"Okay," David told him. "But I gotta finish some bracing work under the house first, or the kitchen falls in." He gave

Laura a sudden hard hug. "Looks like I'm taking the baby today." He whispered into her ear. "Luck, babe. Give 'em hell." She kissed him hard. The soldiers grinned at them.

Laura climbed up into the jeep's front passenger seat. One of the soldiers got in back, his assault rifle clattering. Sticky lingered outside. He had slipped on a pair of polarized glasses.

He scanned the sky carefully, shading his eyes with both hands. Satisfied, he vaulted into the driver's seat and slammed the door.

Sticky fired the engine with an old-fashioned ignition key.

He took the estate's winding curves at hair-raising speed, driving loosely, easily, one dark hand on the steering wheel.

Laura understood now why his skin color had varied. It wasn't makeup, but chameleon technical tricks, right down in the cells. Lots of changes-maybe too many. The little half- moons of his fingernails looked oddly yellowish. He'd been gnawing them, too.

He grinned at her breezily-now that he was driving, he seemed elated, high. Stimulants, Laura thought darkly. "Aren't you a sight," Sticky told her. "I can't believe you didn't call time for pattin' on a little rouge."

Laura touched her cheek involuntarily. "You mean video makeup, Captain? I understood this was to be a closed hearing."

"Oooh," Sticky said, amused at her formality. "That's seen, now. Long as the camera not lookin', you can run around in you grubbies, play dress-up all workin' class, huh?" He laughed. "What if you college-girl pal see you?

The one what dress up all southern belle slavery drag? Emily

Donato?"

"Emily's my closest friend," Laura told him tightly. "She's seen me a lot worse than this, believe me."

Sticky raised his brows. He spoke lightly. "You ever wonder about this Donato and your husband? She knew him before you did. Introduced you, even."

Laura throttled her instant spurt of anger. She waited a moment. "You been having fun, Sticky? Running barefoot through my personnel file? I'll bet that gives you a real feeling of power, huh? Kind of like bullying teenage guards in this toy militia of yours."

Sticky glanced sharply at the rearview mirror. The guard in the back pretended not to have heard.

They took the highway south. The sky was leaden with overcast, the greenish mounds of trees gone dusky and strange on misty volcanic slopes. "You think I don't know what you up to?" Sticky said. "All this workin' on the house? For no pay just to make an impression. Giving the servants propa- ganda tapes.... Tryin' to bribe our people."