Tanith Lee: Metallic Love

I hadn’t heard anyone say anything like that for years, not since Babel Boulevard.

It made the short hair rise on my neck.

I was thinking, in the pragmatic region of my mind, Just gather up the girls, tell this nutter Danny will settle what she owes for any work done, and get out of here.

Then a white, wide chamber opened out on the screen. And there in the middle of it was an old-style chair, simulated carved wood, like something from a play written about 1515. On the chair a man sat, his long legs stretched out, one arm gracefully raised a little, so a big, black-striped bird—a falcon, maybe—could sit in turn on his wrist. He was dressed, approximately, in how we—I—think of Italian Renaissance clothes. A dark red silk doublet, almost black, white linen shirt, lace cuffs—but also black jeans, and black-red boots. His hair was long. Long red hair.

I’d never seen him before in my life.

I’d seen him a million times, in my brain, in my dreams.

It was him.

It was Silver.

I was seeing Silver.

My legs, as they say they do, went to water. (Had only happened to me once before.) Water. That’s what it feels like. I gripped the back of the client’s couch to keep myself up, and heard her say, deadly and miles off, “It’s time this world ended. It’s really time now. Come on. It’s time. ”

I thought, confusedly, does she know him— did she know him—?

Then the red-haired man got up out of the chair and walked easy and relaxed towards the camera. He smiled at us with his white, perfect teeth. His skin—silver. Amber-eyed.

“I’m here for you,” he said. That was all. And your insides dissolved.

I never heard a voice so musical, so unarrogantly confident, so calm, so gentle. So sensual. So personal. But no, of course I had. In my mind. In my dreams.

The bird flapped its wings. Was it a robot, too?

The camera had gone in very close, and every feather was visible. And every feature of his face. The skin was poreless, yet real. It was both matte and burnished. Metallic—but only as if under first-class silver body makeup. Just as Jane described.

This wasn’t any robot. This was a man, cunningly made up to look as if he maybe could be. What a low-down trick.

The woman in the chair muttered.

“He’s the same. Only—I’d forgotten how… special. Just that one time. In the room off the lab. They let it happen—just that one time.”

The man on the screen turned from us. He picked up a slender, carved wooden pipe. Setting his mouth to it, he produced music. I didn’t know what the melody was, but it was fast and complex and ornamental—surely impossible to play so many runs and curlicues at such a speed.

I heard her mutter again: “Turkish Rondo.” Then, “No, even a virtuoso can’t go that quick. What is it? Approximately three times faster than the best. But there’s expression, too, tonal color. It used to be a guitar. Or a piano. Now it’s a flute. Does he still play guitar? Does the new program allow for it?”

The screen blinked out. And I nearly passed out. The small shock so sudden, right against the initial shock of seeing him.

She’d hit the remote and cut the image off. She was crying, and she raised two inflamed eyes to me. “I fucked him,” she whispered. It wasn’t an obscenity, not the way she said it. When she said “fucked,” it was as if she said, “I died awhile and was in Paradise.” Then she said, “But you, you ignorant bloody bitch, what do you know about it? You’ll never be able to afford a go at him. Nor will I. Funny that. Just lucky, that one time, just lucky they tried him out on me—me and several others. Electronic Metals. Anything for the shitty firm.”

Jizzle was viciously clawing and tugging at me, trying to pull me away. I could smell Jizzle’s perfume, slightly expensive, one thorough dousing stolen from a previous client. But I only leaned over this blond woman’s couch, staring in her feral eyes.

According to Jane, he had said he’d been tested on women—and men, presumably—before they let him, and the others of his tribe, loose in the city. How not—he’d been a pleasure robot.

Jizzle squealed, “Come on, Lor—she’s cracked. Let’s go—let’s get out—”

And the woman shrieked, “Yes go, you filthy little whores. Run off and dream about a man you can’t have. What they did to him—oh, Christ—and now they’ve brought him back like it doesn’t matter.”

She was staggering up. Jizzle and Coo and Daph were yanking me by my arms and hair towards the apartment door. As I reeled backwards with them, the woman’s coffine mug went straight in through the VS screen. Which shattered like thin ice. A cheap, inferior set, after all.

Margoh said to me, husky with frankness, “I stole that pendant of yours. Never sold it yet. Do you wan’ it back?”

“Which pendant?”

“One like a snake’s head holding a glass bead.”

“Oh, yes… I thought I couldn’t find it. No, it’s okay, Margoh. You keep it—or sell it. Whichever. Farewell present.”

“You’re a doll, Loren.”

“Like anything else?”

“Well. Your last winter coat, the fake fur. That’d really fetch a price.”

“If you say so. It’s full of holes. Take it anyhow.”

“Er…” Margoh looked shifty and sly. I’d never seen her look like that. When she lied to the people she stole from, she was up-front and passionate with distress at their loss. I cottoned on. I said, “Well, why don’t I just leave it in the closet, and you can kind of take it sometime today, before I go. Surprise me!”

We laughed. Like old friends. Which I guess we were.

Me leaving. That’s the reason she owned up.

But there had been half a day more before I knew I was.

Out on Compton Street I had turned and slapped clinging, clutching Daphnia away from me. That wasn’t fair. I said I was sorry. She started to cry, and I started to shake, and Jizzle said, “I got some brandy in this cola bottle,” and passed it round.

“What the hell was wrong with that old bat?” they asked.

They invented possibilities, giggling at the brandy and the stress of escape.

I said, “Okay, girls. Why don’t you go and buy a sandwich. Something nice. Here’s the money. Then move on to the next job. That’s over on Marbella, isn’t it? I’ll square all this with Danny.”

They went off, tweeting at my handout, which was quite generous. I walked slowly, somewhere. I couldn’t tell you where, but hours slid over me and away. All I saw, all I thought of, was him.

You see, if I’d ever met him when he was with Jane, I couldn’t have helped being insane over him, but I would have dragged a steel lid down on it. Unlike Margoh, I don’t steal from my friends. But this—what had the blonde on Compton said? And now they’ve brought him back.

Can you raise the dead? Apparently Christ could, I didn’t and don’t see why not, if it was Christ doing it.

But surely, too, a scientist could re-create a machine. Even—especially—Silver.

I thought, naturally, all this was down to Electronic Metals, the company Jane talks about, the ones who made him in the first place. The raging blonde had mentioned them, as well. She had worked there. You could understand why she wouldn’t forget.

She must have been really afraid, told to go and have—my God—sex with a robot. Then. Then she met him.

Guess where I found myself at seven P.M.? Over on East Arbor. Where E.M. had been situated, according to the Book. Number 21⁄2.

The third shock. The building was there . Jane reports E.M. went east, but even so, we know that’s some sort of lie. Maybe it was strange I’d never tried to find this one venue, of all those in the Book I had tried to locate—and hadn’t—except the rich landmarks like the New River apartment blocks (Clovis) and The Island (Egyptia). Though even there, I had never discovered their exact flats. Aside from anything else, general surveillance and security around such residences would begin to question me as soon as I walked in a lobby, or, as with The Island, the instant I stepped off the ferry.