Glimmering

At first he couldn’t tell. But as his eyes grew accustomed to the light he began to get a fix on the immense space soaring above him. Somewhere, very very high above the trees, above the clouds even, and the radiant sun, there seemed to be wires, or catwalks, or some kind of grid that moved in subtle ways, so that his eyes were never quite able to focus on what was there. When he turned to look around, he saw in the distance numerous mezzanines and balconies and glass elevators that did not climb any walls—there were no walls that he could see—but crept along glowing green cables that slanted above the crowds like a spider’s draglines, moving toward some unimaginably distant apex. When he looked down he saw earth, and stones. There was a faint purl of running water, the smell of crushed ferns. But he saw no pebbles, no twigs or fallen leaves. And when he began to walk, slowly, as he used to on the beach at Moody’s Island looking for shells, he saw that all the stones were fairly large, and flat. When he tried to nudge one with his foot it didn’t move. None of them did. He strolled past several trees, white birches with great masses of granite grouped around them, like benches, where people sat and laughed. Ferns grew beneath the trees, and moss; but when he looked carefully he could see that the ferns were set in some kind of elaborate planter, designed to look like stone. So were the trees. He noticed other things—faucets poking up from the ground like mushrooms, cables threaded along tree trunks like vines. After a few minutes even some of the people started to look odd: they smiled at him, but their gaze remained on him a little too long: if he glanced back they would still be staring at him, and only pretending to have a conversation. He wondered if they were security guards, or if someone in this vast complex actually paid people to sit around in mountain-climbing gear and look as though they were enjoying the great outdoors.

This thought brought Trip to his senses. He tried to look purposeful, jostling into people until he found an information kiosk where he was directed to yet another glass booth from which enclosed walkways radiated like the arms of a sea star. He went inside and sat on a patchwork sofa as another security dog nuzzled his legs, waiting as a guard buzzed Nellie Candry’s office.

“You’re all clear.” The guard watched Trip sign a logbook, then pointed him down one of the enclosed walkways, to an elevator. A minute later Trip got off at the thirtieth level, dizzy and slightly nauseated by the ride.

“Welcome to Agrippa Music,” a voice announced. Trip opened his mouth to respond, snapped it shut when he saw there was no one there. “Bien venu à Agrippa Music,” the voice went on, repeating the welcome in Japanese and German and Spanish. “Living in the Light…”

Everywhere he looked there were video screens showcasing various Agrippa acts. It took him a moment to find the door, cobalt glass with AGRIPPA MUSIC spelled out in shifting holographic letters. Behind it a young man sat monitoring phone calls.

“Hi!” he called cheerily as Trip entered. Silvery plasmer implants hid his eyes, but he didn’t wear a mask, and his smile seemed genuine. “You must be Trip Marlowe! Come on in, come on in!” He adjusted his body mic and announced, “Nellie? Your date’s here,” then gestured at a chair. “Sit down, honey, she’ll be right with you.”

Trip’s heart sank when Nellie Candry stepped into the reception area, alone. “Aren’t you sweet to ask Marzie out!” she said, then laughed. She wasn’t wearing a mask today, or heavy makeup. Beneath a sheen of light foundation her scars had the silvery roughness of beech bark; the cicatrices left by petra virus gleamed like lacquer. “Hey, don’t worry—she’s upstairs, waiting for you. Did you think you were going to be stuck with me ?”

“He should be so lucky!” the receptionist cried as Nellie pulled Trip through another door.

“So. The Museum of Natural History.” Nellie grinned as they padded down a hall carpeted with thick spongy black rubber, the second life of a hundred old steel radials. “Is that where you nice Xian boys go on a first date?”

Trip tried to smile. “Yeah, I guess. I’ve never been, actually. I wanted to see the planetarium.”

Nellie laughed again; it made the vertical gashes on her cheeks move in a strange way, as though they were composed of a different material than the rest of her face. “The planetarium! God, that’s great! Real James Dean, huh?” Trip looked at her blankly. “You know, Rebel Without a Cause ? Oh shit, never mind. They never finished the renovation there, you knew that, right? Here we are.”

They turned a corner, and she took him by the arm.