September 2612
Mayhew waited for a break in the traffic and crossed the street. Dozens crossed with him, but he did not wish to appear as one amidst the common fray, pushing and fighting their way to the Absinthe Moon's doors. He hung back, allowing the more desperate around him to push on ahead as he followed behind at his own pace.
Not all of those who pushed and shoved their way to the Absinthe Moon's entrance were to be allowed inside. The Moon's standards were strict, its rules and guidelines unassailable. Many of those who came would be turned away: they who had exhausted their privilege, who had been too greedy with their rationed allotment of luxuries, who had been careless in their conduct, at home and at the Moon.
The guards stood at the door—Praefectors they were called—hulking and massive and clad in black uniforms that bore the gold-threaded insignia of winged Icarus. The men looked the next applicant over and, in an instant, dismissed him. Had he once looked as Mayhew himself now appeared—tall, rosy-fleshed, and virile? The man was far from that now, though the pale, bloodless face, the dark shadows beneath the eyes, and the ubiquitous blue staining of the fingers were hardly beyond the norm; it was the trademark of those whose bodies had absorbed too much of this smog-choked and polluted city. He knew that lost and lifeless look too well. It was what they all looked like in the outer annexes—where he had come from today. Where he had lived...until today. Robert Mayhew had been an exception in the Fourth ward. He would prove to be an exception here as well.
Mayhew stepped forward. It was his turn to present himself to the entrance guards. They gave him a quick once over and nodded their admittance to the doorman, who opened the double doors for him as if he were royalty. One look. It was as simple as that. For him, yes. For the man before him as well—though with a different result, of course. The poor fellow who had been turned away bore so heavily the evidences of the city's pollution that his disqualification was quite apparent. For Mayhew, who bore only the merest traces of the city's taint, his qualification could hardly be debated. But making such distinctions was not so easy in everyone's case. Thus, the necessity of the screenings, of which the Absinthe Moon had become a chief purveyor.
Inside the Moon's doors, anyone whose physical condition qualified them—verified by the required screenings—could, for a few hours at a time, live as the Chosen lived. It was in this way that the citizens of New Londinium were encouraged to try a little harder toward that aim. But though the Absinthe Moon's offerings were purer than anything that might be found elsewhere—from its women, to its food, to its drinks and drugs and entertainment—it was not perfect. And there was as much to be said for quantity as there was quality when it came to consuming one's pleasures.
Arriving in the foyer, Mayhew took a moment to appreciate the sumptuous luxury of the place: the high ceilings with gilt details, embossed wallpapers, and richly upholstered furniture. Every appointment was thoughtfully and intentionally rendered. Was it possible to get used to this? He certainly intended to. But first he must pass the scrutiny of the receptionists, with their screenings and their databases.
Collecting himself, he entered the reception area. Here, a long counter divided the receptionists from the customers. Before each of the receptionists—several dozens of them—were lined those hopeful patrons who wished to avail themselves of the Moon's services. Mayhew chose the shortest queue and joined its impatient ranks, watching as each receptionist greeted the next in line, performed the simple procedure, and waited for the impending results. Between each receptionist and her customer was a protective copper screen, and, for further protection, the Praefectors stood nearby. The Absinthe Moon was a place of leisure and luxury, yes, but it was also a place of order and decorum, and it kept protective watch over these, and over its carefully selected staff, with jealous ferocity.
Mayhew, without much delay, soon found himself next but one in line. His confidence was resolute—or so he had thought until this moment. The gentleman before him, it seemed, had received some disappointing news.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Jones," the receptionist said in a silken voice that betrayed just how accustomed she was to making such pronouncements. "I'm afraid you no longer qualify for the Moon's services."
"It can't be right!" he objected. "My results were acceptable last week. It's true I've felt a little under the weather, but it was nothing but a passing cold! If I were to rest for a few days, I could come back next week and—"
"Yes, you do that, Mr. Jones," she said in a sympathetic manner that was kind yet firm. "Come back when you think your condition has improved."
He nodded dejectedly, for they both knew the truth. Despite the promises made by the Icarus Project that everyone had a fair and equal chance of reaching the heights of the city's social stratum, once one's screenings disqualified a person from certain benefits, they were not likely to get those benefits back. To gain rank for good work while maintaining one's health and physical condition was one thing, but to regain rank after a decline was quite another.
The receptionist signaled the Praefectors, who stepped forward to assist the man out. He moved back to avoid them and bumped into Mayhew. The man looked up at him in something like awe. The Praefectors seized him, and seeing that it was pointless to argue or resist any further, he submitted to them. It would not end there, Mayhew knew. Poor screening results resulted likewise in demotion in all aspects of life; in employment, in living conditions, in the quality and quantity of the rations supplied—both to that person and to those who depended on him.
Mayhew watched as the man was led out of the building, but he was not unmoved by the scene. Inwardly he was panicking. That might be him, today, tomorrow, in a month or a year. Perhaps it wouldn't be his screening results that would prove his expulsion, but something else entirely. He was not without his flaws, after all, and some of them—one of them in particular—would prove devastating were it discovered.
"May I help you, Mr. ..."
It was the silken-voiced receptionist, calling his attention back to the task at hand.
He flinched a nervous smile. "Mayhew," he said. "Robert Mayhew."
"Welcome, Mr. Mayhew. If you would be so good as to grant me a sample...." She had the needle already in hand. A prick of the finger was all that was required, and so he offered his right index. He was pricked and the blood collected onto a small glass plate and then covered with another. These were placed into a wire frame and inserted into a slot on the desk panel. Then they waited as the clicks and whirs indicated the machine was hard at work examining his blood for toxicity levels and matching it to the information previously collected by the Bloodmen and entered into the databases that the Icarus Project collected and closely monitored. At last the computer finished its work.
The receptionist examined the results and then cast a curious look upon him. "This can't be your first visit to the Absinthe Moon," she said. "You've qualified these last two years."
"It is my first time," he assured her, but the information was superfluous. She had it there before her, after all, flickering on the computer's screen.
"You might have come," she said, looking at him as if she did not quite understand, "and yet you didn't."
"I've been busy," he said.
"Busy?"
Rather than answering, he glanced pointedly toward her computer screen, inviting her to take another look.
"You live in the Fourth ward?" she said, growing increasingly confused. "You do know you have First ward designation. You must."
"Perhaps I'm waiting for the designation I'm really after. You know what a pain moving can be."
"But—" she began and stopped again, blinking at him as if he could not possibly be serious. "Why would you live there if you could live—"
"Here?" he said, interrupting her. It was not what she was going to ask, but he wished to make a point. It seemed he had.
"You wish to work here?" she asked him. "As...?"
"Do I not qualify?"
She needn't look again at his results to answer. She could look directly at him and tell that he was more than qualified to enter the Moon's doors, and to do it in any way he wished. That was not to say he was quite free of the evidence of the city's pollutants. No one was. He displayed a slight shadow beneath the eyes, as if coal-ash had been smudged there on purpose. It suited him, made his blue eyes all the bluer. His fingers, those he needn't hide beneath thick leather gloves, were graced with the pervasive indigo hue borne by every person who lived within the city's walls. His tinge, however, was lighter than most, a cerulean that just clouded his nails and stained his cuticles, but which had not yet touched the flesh of his fingers. He was remarkably clean for a man of his age. For a man who had lived the entirety of his life in the Fourth ward and not above it, in the First and Second, from which wards the majority of the Moon's clientele were selected.
He was young, though; twenty-three as of today. The contamination would grow and spread. It must. But it was not the greatest of his flaws by far. He would do whatever it took to keep up the pretense of physical perfection, for disabilities—disfigurements such as Mayhew possessed—were not tolerated by the Icarus Project. For him, today or any day, it was quite literally the difference between life and death.
"I've come to see Madame Moon," he said, at last stating his purpose.
The receptionist smiled at him awkwardly. "I would be happy to put in a request for you," she said, "but it often takes weeks, even months, to get an appointment with Madame—if she'll grant it at all. And to be quite honest, she usually doesn't. Madame Moon's time is guarded very carefully. No doubt you understand."
He smiled in return and resisted the temptation to let the gesture slip into a smirk. "I think you'll find she'll be willing to make some time for me." He took a slip of paper from his coat's inner pocket and scrawled a message—An old acquaintance wishes to reacquaint himself on his birthday. He slid it across the counter to the receptionist, who read it and looked up at him.
"You are already acquainted with Madame Moon?"
"Let's just say that she was, at one time and briefly, intimately acquainted with me," he said as if the connection meant little to him.
She considered the note a moment longer before motioning to another of the Praefectors. He arrived at the window.
"Take this to Madame, won't you?"
He gave her a sideways and doubtful look, which turned briefly upon Mayhew before he at last turned and left to deliver the message. Mayhew was instructed, then, to move to the back of the reception room, where he waited five minutes, ten, then twenty, checking his watch every minute or so. Would Madame receive him? He had spoken with certainty but in truth he was anything but certain. She might not remember him, might not want to. She might be revolted and throw him out, reveal him as the charlatan he was, for if anyone knew his secret, it was certainly she who had been there to witness the events that had resulted in the necessity of keeping it.
He checked his watch again.
"She'll see you," the Praefector said, reappearing suddenly, his tone gruff and impatient. "Follow me."
Mayhew returned his watch to his pocket and followed as the Praefector led the way. On the top floor the elevator stopped and opened onto a private foyer. There were no other doors. The Praefector struck the knocker and then left him alone. His heart beat so hard he felt the blood pulsing in the back of his throat, threatening to strangle him. If only he could remember to breathe!
The door at last was opened by a young boy and Mayhew was led without question into a lavishly appointed sitting room, where one of the Bloodmen was putting away his needles and the sample he had just taken. He closed his case and, without looking at Mayhew, nodded his respect to Madame and then quit the apartment.
Madame sat half-reclined on a tufted and richly upholstered divan. She appeared pale and somewhat ill at ease in a kimono-style robe that was loosely tied over a long skirt and a bustier. Madame Moon was known throughout New Londinium as a timeless and ageless beauty, as the goddess of her profession and a representation to all women everywhere as to what it was possible for a woman to accomplish. For all of the acclaim, she appeared rather spent and tired as she sat before him.
"What can I do for you?" she said, tucking an artificially red curl behind one ear and addressing him with an air of indifference. Her trembling hand suggested she was anything but indifferent.
He did not answer her but looked away as he laid his walking stick and hat aside. With a gloved and trembling hand that he did his best to steady, he unlatched the closures of his overcoat and drew it off. He laid it over the back of a chair. It nearly tipped over with the weight of it. He caught it in time and laid his coat, instead, upon the chair's seat. He unbuttoned his waistcoat next and laid it, too, aside. He removed his right glove and added it to the pile before loosening his necktie and then, one by one, each of the buttons of his shirt. He hesitated a moment before removing it, but at last slid it from his shoulders and let it drop to the floor. He drew off his left glove and tossed it aside, and then, and with greater courage than he had so far exercised, he looked at her, prepared at last to receive her reaction to this display. He was not here to audition. Not here to enjoy the fruits the Moon had to offer—not from Madame, at any rate. He had merely come to introduce himself, and to do it by the only way he knew she would understand. His secret was now revealed—his disfigurement on display for her to see, to understand, and to judge him and determine, as she had the power to do, whether he should live another day or die as he was meant to have done twenty-three years ago today.
There was no reaction on her part. At least there was hardly one. Her face was devoid of both emotion and color. And then she closed her eyes.
Was that it, then? Was it over? Just like that, after all these months and years of preparation?
At last her eyes opened again and he waited for her to summon one of her guards. She remained silent, though; staring at him, she examined his face, first; then, pausing as if to steel herself for the rest, she shifted her gaze to his shoulder and allowed it to lower very slowly down the length of his arm. She looked again at his face, her eyes now filled with emotion.
"You have come back to me," she said and smiled through tears.
Mayhew, overcome by relief, sank to his knees. "You are not surprised," he said. "You do not ask why."
Her answer was simple and unexpected. "I already know."