David Marusek: Getting to Know You

“Cancel my order. We’ll do that later.”

“Tower directory lists no Victor Vole.”

“I didn’t think so,” Zoranna said. “Call up the houseputer log and display it on the mirror.”

The consumer page of Nancy’s houseputer appeared over the mirror. Zoranna poked through its various menus and found nothing unusual. She did find a record of her own half-dozen calls to Nancy that were viewed but not returned. “Bug, can you see anything wrong with this log?”

“This is not a standard user log,” said Bug. “The standard log has been disabled. All house lines circumvent the built-in houseputer to terminate in a mock houseputer.”

“A mock houseputer?” said Zoranna. “Now that’s interesting.” There were no cables trailing from the service panel and no obvious optical relays. “Can you locate the processor?”

“It’s located one half-meter to our right at thigh level.”

It was mounted under the sink, a cheap-looking, saucer-sized piece of hardware.

“I think you have the soul of an electronic engineer,” she said. “I could never program Hounder to do what you’ve just done. So, tell me about the holo transmissions in the other rooms.”

“A private network entitled ‘The Hospicers of Camillus de Lellis’ resides in the mock houseputer and piggybacks over TSN channel 203.”

The 24-hour soccer channel. Zoranna was impressed. For the price of one commercial line, Victor—she assumed it was Victor—was managing to gypsy his own network. The trickle meters that she’d noticed were not recording how much money her sister was spending but rather how much Victor was charging his dying subscribers. “Bug, can you extrapolate how much the Hospicers of Camillus de—whatever—earn in an average day?”

“Affirmative, CE45 per day.”

That wasn’t much. About twice what a hairdresser—or dance instructor—might expect to make, and hardly worth the punishment if caught. “Where do the proceeds go?”

“Bug lacks the subroutine to trace credit transactions.”

Damn, Zoranna thought and wished she’d brought Hounder. “Can you tell me who the hospicer organization is registered to?”

“Affirmative, Ms. Nancy Brim.”

“Figures,” said Zoranna as she removed her UDIN from the panel. If anything went wrong, her sister would take the rap. At first Zoranna decided to confront Victor, but changed her mind when she left the bathroom and heard him innocently singing show tunes in the kitchen. She looked at Nancy’s bed and wondered what it must be like to share such a narrow bed with such a big man. She decided to wait and investigate further before exposing him. “Bug, see if you can integrate Hounder’s tracing and tracking subroutines from my applications library.”

Victor stood at the sink washing dishes. In the living room Nancy snored lightly. It wasn’t a snore, exactly, but the raspy bronchial wheeze of congested lungs. Her lips were bluish, anoxic. She reminded Zoranna of their mother the day before she died. Their mother had suffered a massive brain hemorrhage—weak arterial walls were the true family heirloom—and lived out her final days propped up on the parlor couch, disoriented, enfeebled, and pathetic. Her mother had had a short, split bamboo stick with a curled end. She used the curled end to scratch her back and legs, the straight end to dial the old rotary phone, and the whole stick to rail incoherently against her fate. Nancy, the baby of the family, had been away at teacher’s college at the time, but took a semester off to nurse the old woman. Zoranna, first born, was already working on the west coast and managed to stay away until her mother had slipped into a coma. After all these years, she still felt guilty for doing so.

Someone on the ceiling coughed fitfully. Zoranna noticed that most of the patients who were conscious at the moment were watching her with expressions that ranged from annoyance to hostility. They apparently regarded her as competition for Nancy’s attention.

Nancy’s breathing changed; she opened her eyes, and the two sisters regarded each other silently. Victor stood at the kitchen counter, wiping his hands on a dish towel, and watched them.

“I’m booking a suite at the Stronmeyer Clinic in Cozumel,” Zoranna said at last, “and you’re coming with me.”

“Victor,” Nancy said, ignoring her, “go next door, dear, and borrow a folding bed from the Jeffersons.” She grasped the walker and pulled herself to her feet. “Please excuse me, Zoe, but I need to sleep now.” She ambulated to the bedroom and shut the door.

Victor hung up the dish towel and said he’d be right back with the cot.

“Don’t bother,” Zoranna said. It was still early, she was on west coast time, and she had no intention of bedding down among the dying. “I’ll just use the houseputer to reserve a hotel room upstairs.”

“Allow me,” he said and addressed the houseputer. Then he escorted her up to the Holiday Inn on the 400th floor. They made three elevator transfers to get there, and walked in silence along carpeted halls. Outside her door he took her hand. As before she was both alarmed and aroused. “Zoe,” he said, “join us for a special breakfast tomorrow. Do you like Belgian waffles?”

“Oh, don’t go to any trouble. In fact, I’d like to invite the two of you up to the restaurant here.”

“It sounds delightful,” said Victor, “but your sister refuses to leave the flat.”

“I find that hard to believe. Nancy was never a stay-at-home.”

“People change, I suppose,” Victor said. “She tells me the last time she left the tower, for instance, was to attend your brother Michael’s funeral.”

“But that was seven years ago!”

“As you can see, she’s severely depressed, so it’s good that you’ve come.” He squeezed her hand and let it go. “Until the morning, then,” he said and turned to walk down the hall, whistling as he went. She watched until he turned a corner.

Entering her freshly scented, marble-tiled, cathedral-vaulted hotel room was like returning to the real world. The view from the 400th floor was godlike: the moon seemed to hang right outside her window, and the rolling landscape stretched out below like a luminous quilt on a giant’s bed. “Welcome, Ms. Alblaitor,” said the room. “On behalf of the staff of the Holiday Inn, I thank you for staying with us. Do let me know if there’s anything we can do to make you more comfortable.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“By the way,” the room continued, “the tower has informed me there’s a parcel addressed to you. I’m having someone fetch it.”

In a few moments, a gangly steve with the package from General Genius tapped on her door. “Bug,” she said, “tip the man.” The steve bowed and exited. Inside the package was the complimentary Diplomat Deluxe valet. Ted had outdone himself, for not only had he sent the valet system—itself worth a month’s income—but had included a slim Gucci leather belt to house it.

“Well, I guess this is good-bye,” Zoranna said, walking to the shipping chute and unbuckling her own belt. “Too bad, Bug, you were just getting interesting.” She searched the belt for the storage grommet that held the memory wafer. She had to destroy it; Bug knew too much about her. Ted would be more interested in the processors anyway. “I was hoping you’d convert by now. I’m dying to know what kind of a big, bad wolf you’re supposed to become.” As she unscrewed the grommet, she heard the sound of running water in the bathroom. “What’s that?” she said.

“A belt valet named Bug has asked me to draw your bath,” said the room.

She went to the spacious bathroom and saw the tub filling with cranberry-colored aqueous gel. The towels were cranberry, too, and the robe a kind of salmon. “Well, well,” she said. “Bug makes a play for longevity.” She undressed and eased herself into the warm solution where she float-ed in darkness for an hour and let her mind drift aimlessly. She felt like talking to someone, discussing this whole thing about her sister. Victor she could handle—he was at worst a lovable louse, and she could crush him anytime she decided. But Nancy’s problems were beyond her ken. Feelings were never her strong suit. And depression, if that’s what it was, well—she wished there was someone she could consult. But though she scrolled down a mental list of everyone she knew, there was no one she cared—or dared—to call.