The Waning Age Page 6

  I followed her to the hallway and into a small room off it, an even cozier version of the lobby islands. The linen sofas had embroidered throw pillows; abstract prints in warm pastels hung like prospective sunsets on the walls. Kathy motioned me onto a sofa, and as I sat down, one of the Lucys came in carrying a tray with tea. “Thank you,” Kathy said without looking at her. She poured me a cup from the white china teapot and handed the steaming cup across. It smelled nice. Something flowery and maybe licorice. It tasted nice, too.

  Holding my tea, I perched on the edge of the sofa and watched as Kathy leaned back, running a hand comfortably through her hair, crossing her legs. Her smile was confident. “I understand you’re looking for someone.”

  “My brother, Calvino Peña, is a student at Moses Elementary in Oakland. The on-site physician there, Dr. Elizabeth Baylor, is employed by RealCorp. Today she brought Calvino here for testing to use RealCorp equipment, and I’m trying to find him.”

  Kathy had been nodding thoughtfully, as if I’d presented her with a real puzzle. “What makes you think he was brought here?”

  “The principal at Moses told me so.”

  “Hm.” Kathy shook her head slightly. “Dr. Baylor does work here, but we have no record of anything like what you describe.”

  “Could I talk to Dr. Baylor?”

  “I already have. She remembers testing your brother at his school recently, but that’s all.” Kathy leaned forward and met my eyes, her expression earnest. “Sorry I can’t tell you more.”

  I felt something in my head unspooling, a ribbon of thought that was normally tight and logical but that now seemed on the verge of unraveling completely. “Are you saying that the principal at my brother’s school lied?”

  Kathy’s eyebrows shifted to concerned. “That would be strange, I agree.”

  I took a breath. “Look, Mr. Freeman is many things, but he’s not imaginative. He doesn’t care enough to lie about this.” Even as I spoke the words, I was trying to figure out some reason, any possible reason, for Mr. Freeman to go bananas and make up some story about Dr. Baylor and Cal. Maybe he wanted a junior assistant at his funeral parlor. Maybe he needed someone to help hold cold cartons of ice cream. It was unlikely, but it was the only thing I could think of if Cal wasn’t at RealCorp.

  “There must be some explanation,” Kathy said, still looking concerned. There was something else there, besides the false concern. Eyes and mouth relaxed: confidence. And patience.

  As I watched her face, I realized that something had changed. The hard questions at the front of my brain began softening. It was hard to remember what they were, exactly. I sat back against the embroidered pillows. Incredibly, I felt relaxed. More than that—I felt good. Content, at ease. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt this way.

  Even as I thought about kicking off my shoes, I understood that something was wrong. I knew, rationally, that I should not want to chat with Kathy for a little while longer and then take a nap on the sofa. I looked at her. “Did you put synaffs in this tea?”

  She smiled. “It’s just a little pick-me-up that I like to drink during the day.”

  That seemed like an understatement. I took a deep breath and put down my tea. I struggled against the enveloping, persuasive feeling that everything was okay. Everything was not okay.

  Then Kathy made a mistake. She reached out and put a hand over mine. “Miss Peña, I can see that you are a very conscientious sister. But I’m sure that Cal will turn up on his own. In the meantime, I’d be happy to help with a longer-term synaff regimen that can take the edge off. On the house.” She smiled.

  For a moment I looked at her. The smile was fixed, unchanging. Her eyelids had come down a millimeter, intending to convey relaxation, and thereby reassurance. Instead they conveyed avarice.

  It didn’t bother me. What I felt was pleased—pleased at the prospect of more synaffs, and pleased that Kathy was so nice. I forced myself to say the words I knew I should say: “I want to see Calvino.”

  Kathy regarded me. “Why don’t you sit here and make yourself comfortable? You look like you could use a rest. I’ll be back in a little while.”

  “No.” I pushed myself to my feet. It was excruciating. I had to get out of that room. I had to get away from this woman. From that tea.

  “Miss Peña,” Kathy objected. She stood up as well.

  I pulled myself over to the door and opened it. Outside, a discreet five feet away, stood two men in loose blazers who would never make it as models. They held themselves with the encumbered weight of bulky muscles and concealed weapons.

  Even the two thugs didn’t dim my sense of sleepy well-being. I felt the tug of the room behind me, the warm light, the soft cushions. The tea. I forced myself forward. As I wheeled out into the hallway, the guards didn’t move. I walked away from them as quickly as my mushy brain would allow. When I glanced over my shoulder, Kathy was watching me leave, her expression calculating.

  Mr. Freeman hadn’t lied to me. Not by a long shot. Cal was somewhere inside RealCorp, and they weren’t going to give him back. He’d been snapped up into the steel and glass trap as surely as a little bird in a cage, and I was going to have to break it if I wanted to see him again.

  As I scurried out I did not look up at the cameras that I knew were there. My heels clattered against the lobby floor and I stepped out into the fog. It had thickened. I couldn’t even see the sidewalk under my feet.

  9

  CALVINO

  oct-11

  4:15 p.m.

  calvinopio:

  Essay: What is the difference between instincts and emotion? By Calvino Peña

  Scientists say that emotions and instincts are different because adults still feel instincts. The five instincts they feel are hunger, exhaustion, shock, self-preservation, reproductivity. They say these instincts still exist because they keep people alive, unlike sadness and happiness. Adults still get hungry and eat, get tired and rest, getting shocked is like the body’s way of saying it is overwhelmed, self-preservation is when you run out of the way when a car is coming, reproductivity is about human beings reproducing.

  Instincts are very important. Children have them too. Adults have them and they use reason and instincts because they do not have emotions. Reason is something you can use when emotions are no longer kicking in. For example if you come home and find the door to your house open, a child would feel afraid but an adult would not. But an adult can use reason to think that someone must have broken into the house and then call the police.

  There are some reactions like surprise and curiosity and suspicion that children can have as emotions but adults can have through reason. They are thoughts rather than emotions, for example with the open door I was describing that would make an adult suspicious but not afraid. There are also some reactions like discomfort or disgust that children would have as emotions but adults would have as instincts. It would be uncomfortable for an adult to sleep with a rock as a pillow, that is the body responding with an instinct. But for a child it would be uncomfortable for everyone to be staring at you. An adult wouldn’t feel that.

  Another one is humor. Humor is not an emotion. Humor is achieved by the intellect, which is part of reason. If you laugh at a joke it is not the same as laughing because you are happy. Just as crying because you are sad is not the same as crying because someone broke your leg. Both adults and children can laugh and cry. But children laugh and cry with emotion.

  (Note: There are also emotions that can’t be explained by reason or instinct that adults still have. For example it is true that liking something can be rational, such as liking money is rational because money allows you to survive. But liking a person is not rational.)

  hglt: Thanks for this response, Calvino! Don’t you think it could be rational to like companionship? There’s a lot of evidence demonstrating that people do well—they thrive—
when they are part of social units, like couples or families.

  calvinopio: Maybe but I can’t think of a rational reason for wanting children around and yet people do it. They just take a lot of work.

  hglt: Are you thinking of your own situation?

  calvinopio: Partly. There is no rational reason for my sister to want me to live with her, but she does.

  hglt: Well, your sister has been through high school and has learned the value of social bonds. She’s probably an excellent rule follower.

  calvinopio: I really don’t think so.

  hglt: Then what do you think it is?

  calvinopio: I have told you that there are invisible emotions. You may not believe that my sister can feel love but she does. You are going to say that it’s projection again.

  hglt: You know me so well!

  calvinopio: Not really because all we have done is type. I know nothing about you.

  hglt: What I mean is that you’re very quick at picking up concepts.

  calvinopio: Why isn’t my sister here?

  hglt: I’m afraid she can’t be here right now.

  calvinopio: You’re afraid? Really? I thought you weren’t capable of being afraid? Or are you on synaffs?

  hglt: It’s a figure of speech, of course.

  calvinopio: How do I know if you are feeling afraid or not? How do I even know you are one person or many? Or a person at all? When are you going to let me out?

  10

  NATALIA

  OCTOBER 11—MIDDAY

  The fog was my friend at the moment. Even RealCorp cameras couldn’t see through the San Francisco fog. I walked down the block to the corner, crossed the street, and ducked into the trolley stop that was waiting for me, invisible, in the mist. There was an old man sitting there with a folded shopping cart and he gave me a quick look as I leaned back against the wall of the shelter, but he didn’t say anything. I took deep breaths, willing the air into my lungs. I didn’t know what I would do if the RealCorp thugs came after me. It took all my willpower just to focus on what I needed to do next. My whole body wanted to rest.

  The trolley came and picked up the old man and deposited two passengers on the curb. I sat, and sat, and kept working against the synaffs.

  Finally, after about an hour, they started to wear off. The contentment faded, and I was back in a familiar landscape. Now the sharp edges of my problem started to reappear out of the fog, even harder and more unyielding than they’d been earlier.

  I changed into my crepe soles while I sat in the shelter. Then I walked back out toward RealCorp. Instead of following the main street toward the entrance I made a long detour that took me around to the side. I figured the back of the building facing the water would have all the fancy offices with views, so the loading dock and pleb entrance had to be on one of the sides. That was the case. On the north-facing side I found that the glass and steel frame hung suspended over a narrow alley. The fog allowed a view of an exceptionally well-lit loading dock and a set of steps that led to a double-door entrance.

  I cuddled up with the building on the other side of the alley, an old-fashioned brick behemoth that might have been a prison for all the windows it had. There wasn’t much in the way of hiding spots, so I looked at my watch and decided I would only stay as long as the fog.

  I was lucky. In the thirty-five minutes I spent watching, I saw one shift leaving and another starting. Seventeen cleaning staff went in, seventeen cleaning staff went out. Two floors per person, roughly. Given the time of day, that meant they probably had three shifts. Six in the morning to two in the afternoon, two to ten in the evening, ten to six again. The uniforms were standard gray-and-white janitorial—easy enough to pick up at any rental place—but predictably the staff all carried identification cards in plastic holders clipped to their hips. I noticed that the people starting the two p.m. shift didn’t use their cards for access—that was something. They just filed in through the open door past two seated security guards who barely spared them a glance. I had to hope it would be the same at ten.

  I padded back the way I’d come and went back to the trolley stop. I checked De rerum again, just in case, but there was nothing from Cal. Only a question mark from Joey, which I answered with a brief explanation while I waited for the trolley. Joey texted back with more question marks and a few expletives while I was looking for a uniform rental place. I found one downtown in the Financial District, so I made for that one.

  The city seemed cheery now that the fog was rolling back, as if happily surprised to find there were still a few hours of sunlight left to burn. There was no one wearing dried blood on the trolley, which I counted as a benefit. Only a man with a dramatically broken nose and a bouquet of stitches around his left eye. Two schoolkids with matching high-tops cast silent, woeful looks his way. When he was gone they whispered feverishly, their eyes wide with horror. They talked each other through the spectacle, murmuring theories and consolations. I watched them and tried not to think about what Cal was doing at that moment.

  I spent more money than I meant to at the uniform place because they didn’t have rental plans for single uniforms. That meant I had to buy the piece of polyester junk. Go ahead, take my money, I thought. It’s still cheap if it gets me in to Cal. It was almost four by the time I got back on the BART to head to the Mission. I had one more stop, and it involved a place near Sixteenth that made credible fake identification badges. I was hoping I wasn’t the first fool to contemplate breaking into RealCorp and that they had something like a template, because I didn’t have a thing.

  Probably because I was distracted sending more explanations to Joey by phone, I didn’t think about why the train car I stepped into was almost empty. When I closed De rerum and put it back in my bag, I discovered the reason. There were three Fish hanging out together in the middle of the train.

  Almost all Fish who know what they are embrace the term, and they wear something to signal membership in the decidedly not organized organization to which they belong. This makes them easy to spot, and I’m sure they consider the sidelong glances a benefit. Most settle for a fish pin on the lapel, but I’ve seen more extravagant gestures. Once, a narwhal costume, which seemed more cumbersome than it was worth. And another time a full-body tattoo of scales on every inch of visible skin, which . . . Well, you couldn’t question his commitment, I guess.

  These three were going for Roaring Twenties with flair, wearing tuxedo coats adorned with shark fins. They stood on the seats and looked around the car with an air of placid expectance, trying to figure out what to do with themselves. There were only two other people in the car. An older woman who was sitting near-ish to them, her back straight, her hands clasped firmly around a shopping bag, an expression of doggedness on her worn face.

  And me.

  The Fish looked in unison from her to me and back again. It didn’t take much imagination to figure out that one of us was about to become Fish bait.

  11

  NATALIA

  OCTOBER 11—AFTERNOON

  The three Fish were what I think of as prep school Fish. There is another choice besides the penitentiary, excuse me, school system that people like me go to. If your parents have a lot of money in the bank, you can go to one of the private high schools where they teach less discipline and more Shakespeare. I can see the appeal, but having met a few graduates I can say with conviction that it doesn’t work out well. It probably worked swell back in the old days, but nowadays serving up Shakespeare to a bunch of untrained adolescents is like handing a serial killer a pack of gum. Yeah, thanks for that tasty diversion. Now let me get down to the business of carving your fingers off.

  Two men—boys, really—in their early twenties. One girl a little older. All three with short, slicked-down hair and bright, curious eyes. Their eyes settled on the old woman. I could see their appetites getting whetted.

  Fine, I thought. Ch
ange of plan. The whole identification card thing was a long shot anyway.

  I had lost track of which station we were at, but we must have passed the downtown stations because the roaring train wasn’t slowing down. Maybe three minutes, I estimated. I walked toward the old woman just as the Fish were jumping down from their seats. They looked at her speculatively, like they were trying to decide which appendage to remove first.

  Still, she was staring at them with naked condescension. She was a tough old bird. Tough, but silly.

  I stood next to her and she glanced up at me. “You should go stand by one of the doors,” I said to her. She stared at me. “Really,” I said.

  The Fish were hovering around us in a semicircle, their eyes gleaming. The girl, who wore bright lipstick that looked bad with her complexion, pulled a switchblade from her pocket. She held it comfortably at her side; they were old friends, the girl and the switchblade, I could tell. But I could also tell that she didn’t know how to balance her weight well, and the two boys even less so. Right now they were slipping on brass knuckles and watching the girl for guidance.

  One of the many things my bone-crushing public school has over prep school? Officer Gao. I could hear his voice in my ear as I took out my expandable baton.

  “Only fight in self-defense,” Gao barked.

  I snapped the baton open. The Fish looked at me, their glassy eyes bright. The girl held the switchblade to the side like she was going to toss a Frisbee. Then she swung toward us, aiming to hit me and the seated old lady with a single swipe. I blocked her arm with my hand and used the baton on her exposed ribs. She crumpled a little, and her face made a twisted mask.

  “Always aim to disable.”

  The two boys, surprised, took a moment to jump in. They had already forgotten about the old lady, and despite having done this many times together, they seemed to have no instinct for coordination. One of them raised his fist to my face, and the other lunged forward with no clear objective.