June 12, 2003

[It's still Fiction Week. And so here is another science-fiction sketch from a work-in-progress titled "Drinking Black."]

Ronald came to the Katta-K club because he saw absolutely no reason to deny himself anything. He didn't enjoy any of the things that went on at the Katta-K in particular but, he reasoned, these things do go on in the world, and there was really no reason not to see them, so he did. This didn't explain his continued patronage, long after the various insertions, expulsions, and contortions had lost any novelty they might once have had. His reasoning didn't go that far, because he wouldn't let it. His perversion, he told himself, was boredom. He was above it all. And, occasionally, when a client was in need of his peculiar services, he liked to meet them at the Katta-K. He learned a lot about them from where their eyes went.

This particular client was trying valiantly to be all business, sitting across from him at the small chrome cylinder table near one of the holograph boxes towards the back of the club, in the relative darkness. Ronald gave her some credit: it was hard to stay focused in this place. The Katta-K was loud, very loud, and bright, and sparkly. There were pinpoint projectors hidden everywhere, seeking out the whites of eyes and then projecting tiny monochrome graphics directly onto retinas, so that at any moment the laser wash of the stage lighting could be augmented by flickering cartoons gamboling in and out of peripheral vision. Ronald himself wore lenses that prevented such advertisements, but the white-haired girl clearly didn't, and was regularly startled anew as one lurid image after another flickered into her eyes. But she lacked the continuous darting glances of someone whose attention could truly be caught by the happenings onstage, or in the holograph boxes that lined the walls. She was trying, very hard, to pay attention to what he was saying.

“Once you've transferred the credits, there will be a forty-eight hour wait while the necessary parts are fabricated.” The white-haired girl frowned, her snowy brows furrowing. A nude-pink server-synthetic brushed by her, carrying a tray piled high with an impossibly precise pyramid of clear lexan tumblers full of various colored fluids, and she recoiled slightly, brushing absently at her silverweave sleeve. “Something the matter?” Ronald asked pointedly.

“Why two days?” she wanted to know. They usually did.

“One, it takes twenty-four hours to grow everything.” He paused. “And two, I tack another day onto that so you can think about what you're doing.”

“And if I change my mind?”

“You get to walk away with the body you've got.”

“But not my credits.”

“Parts are made, credits have been spent, and I've got to be compensated for my time.” He smiled thinly. “You understand, of course.”

“Of course.” Her eyes sparked brilliant blue as one of the projectors found her retinas, and she jerked her head to break the unit's tracking. Clubgoers who couldn't afford lenses developed a practiced twitch, and looked like they had some kind of neurological tic. “That's kind of you.”

“Pardon?” Ronald stopped with his Blue drink halfway to his lips. He had been called many things by clients-that word usually wasn't among the terms employed.

“To give a day, for thought.” She smiled a smile that was as incongruous as she was in this place-genuine. It made her look even younger. “Most people like you, in your business, I mean, wouldn't care if I was making the right decision or not.”

“I've got my credits,” Ronald replied, and tossed back his cool Blue, feeling it chill its way down his throat and into his brain. “It really doesn't matter to me what you do after the transfer.” She kept up with that smile. “In fact, I may even make more credits, if someone else can use the parts we've made for you.” The smile faded a bit.

“Unlikely. Don't you think?” She tilted her head slightly, and twitched to throw off another scan.

“Yeah.” Very unlikely, actually. He squinted at her through the sparkle and noise, trying to suss her out some more, to fathom some motivation. Young, certainly-no more than seventeen. Not used to places like the Katta-K. Not a drinker-not of Pinks, anyway; the one he comped her sat untouched on the mirror tabletop in front of her. Money from somewhere, though-enough to pay him, and to buy that very expensive silverweave she was wearing, not to mention the hair, and-he squinted-the Audiovox in her throat. Why she wanted what she wanted was beyond him. “Two days, then.” He rapped at the table to summon the server screen and pushed a drink icon for himself, ending the conversation. She took the cue and got up, tall for her age and lithe beneath the tight shimmer of her weave.

“Two days,” she returned, and hastened away, making directly for the exit, nimbly dodging the clubgoers, dancers, and servers on her way out. One of the servers she passed made for Ronald's table and set a squat tumbler down in front of him with its rubbery pink paddle. Ronald looked at the Black he had ordered for a moment, then shrugged and tossed it back. All in a day's work.

Twenty minutes later a soft tone sounded in his left ear. He clicked his teeth and called up his banking link. The numbered account he had assigned to the white-haired girl was full of many tens of thousands of credits, now. Apparently she had made her decision. Ronald grimaced and impulsively ordered another Black from the table. Then, before it arrived, he clicked his teeth again and left a message for Doctor Ohno.