Subterran

Part I: Reinventing Bone Structure - Chapters 13 - 18

When the program ended, she went through the pretense of giving me her phone number, even though I'll never see her again. Just like a real woman.

# #

Ernest was the toughest and the easiest person to get an appointment with in all of Generik, both always available and always on holiday. Today when I entered the Mystical Magical Momentary Musical Museum at noon he was out, but I was allowed entrance nonetheless.

"The Professor will see you now," his Mechanical Mini-man twanged in his vidscreen game voice. "Right this way." He shifted into drive and led me down a tube-shaped corridor, my shoes tap-tap-tapping across the surface of translucent blue glass, past Picasso puzzles partially assembled on children's game tables, past groups of exercising globats, past the blocks of complex sheet music roughly etched in the oceanic glass, and into the room marked Pressurized Chamber.

The room was white, tall, and circular. I kneeled in response to a force field, eyes straight forward and arms raised up above my head in a compulsory salute. In front of me was a large screen—a mirror, a portal, a piece of see-through polymer. Ernest the Hologram, or Ernest the solid reality appeared in the screen, pale blue eyes sparkling and long blonde beard billowing in the air conditioning.

"Jonah, Jonah. Why have you come? Why have you come?" His image hovered in front of green countryside hills full of sheep and horses, space Hubble telescope skyscapes just beyond them in the distance, blue-black-purple-green, stars and stripes forever.

"I wanted to talk to you about my son. He was born just a few months ago." My arms lowered themselves to a 90-degree angle. "His name is D.E.F. Every time I see him, he looks more like me."

Ernest tutted a bit as his image wavered left and right, left and right. "Do you love him? Do you love him?"

"I don't watch many films about love," I said. "Those are for women."

"He is yours though, he is yours," said Ernest the shifter. "If nothing else, you should care for something which you possess."

"He doesn't come with an owner's manual, sir. Besides, before he's even old enough to get to know, he'll be gone, off to the training facilities."

"It is a shame, a shame." He flipped a switch and turned me round to face the exit. "But they must keep the machine going. Keep it going."

I sighed, no more or less resolute than when I'd entered. "Just tell me this before I leave. Knowing he'll be gone one day, should I still go to visit him?"

"Indeed," he said. "While you can, while you can."

Outside, the purple star night indicators pierced through the black, as the doors to the Mystical Magical Momentary Museum swished shut.

#

I was headed over to Mari's, with gifts for both her and D.E.F. in hand, when scrolling ads on the pavement for the NightChapel's Gelatinous Bisexuals event caught my eye. Wavering with indecision, I checked the karma clock function on my acu-tank. Time to enjoy yourself, it said. So I went home to prepare, arriving at the NightChapel hours later decked out in cellophane and fire-orange vines. I vowed to meet the man of my dreams that night and paid extra to the TaxiDermy to get me there on time. Space-age Fusion Midnight Madness was in full swing and I could not resist the tempting forbidden fruits which were offered to me. I took a handful of PsycheUp! Gummy Tummies and let "Gesticulating and Gyrating" mode on my acu-tank do the talking for me. It wasn't long before I met Paranoid Phil Harmonic, a teckie waif who played the nose-flute beautifully, could hit notes with it that cooked live fish dead on the spot. His slight build of one-and-a-half meters did not in any way diminish his appetite for artificially created aestheticism. He was very polite, if a bit manic, and complimented my eyes, my technology, and my protruding ribcage like they all do. He reminded me of simpler times—when corporations were green, women were liberated, and cameras followed you wherever you went.