Islands in the Net Read online

  “OTEC,” David corrected absently. “The power station. Yeah, it’s nice out there.”

  “I’ll see you at supper then. Be good, you two.”

  Four more Canadians came in for breakfast, yawning. Margaret Day filtered past them and left the dining room.

  “You had to step on her toes,” David said quietly. “What’s wrong with Marubeni? Some creaky old Nipponese trading company. You think they sent Loretta’s grandma here to swipe our microchips or something?”

  “She’s a guest of Rizome,” Laura said. “I don’t like her criticizing our people.”

  “She’s leaving tomorrow,” David said. “You could go a little easier on her.” He stood up, hefting his tool chest.

  “All right, I’m sorry,” Laura told him. There wasn’t time to get into it now. This was business.

  She greeted the Canadians and took the baby back. They were part of a production wing from a Rizome subsidiary in Toronto, on vacation as a reward for increased production. They were sunburned but cheerful.

  Another pair of guests came in: Señor and Señora Kurosawa, from Brazil. They were fourth-generation Brazilians, with Rizome-Unitika, a textile branch of the firm. They had no English, and their Japanese was amazingly bad, laden with Portuguese loan words and much Latin arm waving. They complimented Laura on the food. It was their last day, too.

  Then, trouble arrived. The Europeans were up. There were three of them and they were not Rizome people, but bankers from Luxembourg. There was a banker’s conference in the works tomorrow, a major do by all accounts. The Europeans had come a day early. Laura was sorry for it.

  The Luxembourgers sat morosely for breakfast. Their leader and chief negotiator was a Monsieur Karageorgiu, a tawny-skinned man in his fifties, with greenish eyes and carefully waved hair. The name marked him as a Europeanized Turk; his grandparents had probably been “guest workers” in Germany or Benelux. Karageorgiu wore an exquisitely tailored suit of cream-colored Italian linen.

  His crisp, precise, and perfect shoes were like objets d’art, Laura thought. Shoes engineered to high precision, like the power plant of a Mercedes. It almost hurt to see him walk in them. No one at Rizome would have dared to wear them; the righteous mockery would have been merciless. He reminded Laura of the diplomats she’d seen as a kid, of a lost standard in studied elegance.

  He had a pair of unsmiling companions in black suits: junior executives, or so he claimed. It was hard to tell their origins; Europeans looked more and more alike these days. One had a vaguely Côte d’Azur look, maybe French or Corsican; the other was blond. They looked alarmingly fit and hefty. Elaborate Swiss watchphones peeked from their sleeves.

  They began complaining. They didn’t like the heat. Their rooms smelled and the water tasted salty. They found the toilets peculiar. Laura promised to turn up the heat pump and order more Perrier.

  It didn’t do much good. They were down on hicks. Especially doctrinaire Yankees who lived in peculiar sand castles and practiced economic democracy. She could tell already that tomorrow was going to be rocky.

  In fact the whole setup was fishy. She didn’t know enough about these people—she didn’t have proper guest files on them. Rizome-Atlanta was being cagey about this bankers’ meeting, which was most unusual for headquarters.

  Laura took their breakfast orders and left the three bankers trading sullen glares with the Rizome guests. She took the baby with her to the kitchen. The kitchen staff was up and banging pans. The kitchen staff was seventy-year-old Mrs. Delrosario and her two granddaughters.

  Mrs. Delrosario was a treasure, though she had a mean streak that bubbled up whenever her advice was taken with anything less than total attention and seriousness. Her granddaughters mooched about the kitchen with a doomed, submissive look. Laura felt sorry for them and tried to give them a break when she could. Life wasn’t easy as a teenager these days.

  Laura fed the baby her formula. Loretta gulped it with enthusiasm. She was like her father in that—really doted on goop no sane person should eat.

  Then Laura’s watchphone beeped. It was the front desk. Laura left the baby with Mrs. Delrosario and took the back way to the lobby, through the staff rooms and the first-floor office. She emerged behind the desk. Mrs. Rodriguez looked up in relief, peering over her bifocals.

  She had been talking to a stranger—a fiftyish Anglo woman in a black silk dress and a beaded choker. The woman had a vast mane of crisp black hair and her eyes were lined dramatically. Laura wondered what to make of her. She looked like a pharaoh’s widow. “This is her,” Mrs. Rodriguez told the stranger. “Laura, our manager.”

  “Coordinator,” Laura said. “I’m Laura Webster.”

  “I’m the Reverend Morgan. I called earlier.”

  “Yes. About the City Council race?” Laura touched her watch, checking her schedule. The woman was half an hour early. “Well,” she said. “Won’t you come around the desk? We can talk in my office.”

  Laura took the woman into the cramped and windowless little suboffice. It was essentially a coffee room for the staff, with a data-link to the mainframe upstairs. This was where Laura took people from whom she expected the squeeze. The place looked suitably modest and penurious. David had decorated it from his wrecking expeditions: antique vinyl car seats and a modular desk in aged beige plastic. The ceiling light shone through a perforated hubcap.

  “Coffee?” Laura said.

  “No, thank you. I never take caffeine.”

  “I see.” Laura put the pot aside. “What can we do for you, Reverend?”

  “You and I have much in common,” Reverend Morgan said. “We share a confidence in Galveston’s future. And we both have a stake in the tourist industry.” She paused. “I understand your husband designed this building.”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “It’s ‘Organic Baroque,’ isn’t it? A style that respects Mother Earth. That shows a broad-minded approach on your part. Forward-looking and progressive.”

  “Thank you very much.” Here it comes, Laura thought.

  “Our Church would like to help you expand services to your corporate guests. Do you know the Church of Ishtar?”

  “I’m not sure I follow you,” Laura said carefully. “We at Rizome consider religion a private matter.”

  “We Temple women believe in the divinity of the sexual act.” Reverend Morgan leaned back in her bucket seat, stroking her hair with both hands. “The erotic power of the Goddess can destroy evil.”

  The slogan found a niche in Laura’s memory. “I see,” Laura said politely. “The Church of Ishtar. I know your movement, but I hadn’t recognized the name.”

  “It’s a new name—old principles. You’re too young to remember the Cold War.” Like many of her generation, the reverend seemed to have a positive nostalgia for it—the good old bilateral days. When things were simpler and every morning might be your last. “Because we put an end to it. We invoked the Goddess to take the war out of men. We melted the cold war with divine body heat.” The reverend sniffed. “Male power mongers claimed the credit, of course. But the triumph belonged to our Goddess. She saved Mother Earth from the nuclear madness. And She continues to heal society today.”

  Laura nodded helpfully.

  “Galveston lives by tourism, Mrs. Webster. And tourists expect certain amenities. Our Church has come to an arrangement with the city and the police. We’d like an understanding with your group as well.”

  Laura rubbed her chin. “I think I can follow your reasoning, Reverend.”

  “No civilization has ever existed without us,” the reverend said coolly. “The Holy Prostitute is an ancient, universal figure. The Patriarchy degraded and oppressed her. But we restore her ancient role as comforter and healer.”

  “I was about to mention the medical angle,” Laura said.

  “Oh, yes,” said the reverend. “We take the full range of precautions. Clients are tested for syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, and herpes, as well as the retroviruses. All our
temples have fully equipped clinics. Sexual disease rates drop dramatically wherever we practice our art—I can show you statistics. We also offer health insurance. And we guarantee confidentiality, of course.”

  “It’s a very interesting proposal,” Laura said, tapping her desk with a pencil. “But it’s not a decision I can make on my own. I’ll be happy to take your ideas to our Central Committee.” She took a breath. The air in the tiny room held the smoky reek of the reverend’s patchouli. The smell of madness, Laura thought suddenly. “You have to understand that Rizome may have some difficulties with this. Rizome favors strong social ties in its associates. It’s part of our corporate philosophy. Some of us might consider prostitution a sign of social breakdown.”

  The reverend spread her hands and smiled. “I’ve heard about Rizome’s policies. You’re economic democrats—I admire that. As a church, a business, and a political movement, we’re a new-millennium group ourselves. But Rizome can’t change the nature of the male animal. We’ve already serviced several of your male associates. Does that surprise you?” She shrugged. “Why risk their health with amateur or criminal groups? We Temple women are safe, dependable, and economically sensible. The Church stands ready to do business.”

  Laura dug into her desk. “Let me give you one of our brochures.”

  The reverend opened her purse. “Have a few of ours. I have some campaign pamphlets—I’m running for City Council.”

  Laura looked the pamphlets over. They were slickly printed. The margins were dotted with ankh symbols, yin-yangs, and chalices. Laura scanned the dense text, spotted with italics and words in red. “I see you favor a liberal drug policy.”

  “Victimless crimes are tools of Patriarchal oppression.” The reverend dug in her purse and produced an enameled pillbox. “A few of these will argue the case better than I can.” She dropped three red capsules on the desktop. “Try them, Mrs. Webster. As a gift from the Church. Astonish your husband.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Laura said.

  “Remember the giddiness of first love? The sense that the whole world had new meaning, because of him? Wouldn’t you like to recapture that? Most women would. It’s an intoxicating feeling, isn’t it? And these are the intoxicants.”

  Laura stared at the pills. “Are you telling me these are love potions?”

  The reverend shifted uncomfortably, with a whisper of black silk against vinyl. “Mrs. Webster, please don’t mistake me for a witch. The Church of Wicca are reactionaries. And no, these aren’t love potions, not in the folklore sense. They only stir that rush of emotion—they can’t direct it at anyone. You do that for yourself.”

  “It sounds hazardous,” Laura said.

  “Then it’s the sort of danger women were born for!” the reverend said. “Do you ever read romance novels? Millions do, for this same thrill. Or eat chocolate? Chocolate is a lover’s gift, and there’s reason behind the tradition. Ask a chemist about chocolate and serotonin precursors sometime.” The reverend touched her forehead. “It all comes to the same, up here. Neurochemistry.” She pointed to the table. “Chemistry in those pills. They’re natural substances, creations of the Goddess. Part of the feminine soul.”

  Somewhere along the line, Laura thought, the conversation had gently peeled loose from sanity. It was like falling asleep on an air raft and waking up far out to sea. The important thing was not to panic. “Are they legal?” Laura said.

  Reverend Morgan picked up a pill with her lacquered nails and ate it. “No blood test would show a thing. You can’t be prosecuted for the natural contents of your own brain. And no, they’re not illegal. Yet. Praise the Goddess, the Patriarchy’s laws still lag behind advances in chemistry.”

  “I can’t accept these,” Laura said. “They must be valuable. It’s conflict of interest.” Laura picked them up and stood, reaching over the desk.

  “This is the modern age, Mrs. Webster. Gene-spliced bacteria can make drugs by the ton. Friends of ours can make them for thirty cents each.” Reverend Morgan rose to her feet. “You’re sure?” She slipped the pills back in her purse. “Come and see us if you change your mind. Life with one man can go stale very easily. Believe me, we know. And if that happens, we can help you.” She paused meditatively. “In any of several different ways.”

  Laura smiled tightly. “Good luck with your campaign, Reverend.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate your good wishes. As our mayor always says, Galveston is Fun City. It’s up to all of us to see it stays that way.”

  Laura ushered her outside. She watched from the walkway as the reverend slipped into a self-driven van. The van whirred off. A flock of brown pelicans crossed the island, headed for Karankawa Bay. The autumn sun shone brightly. It was still the same sun and the same clouds. The sun didn’t care about the landscape inside people’s heads.

  She went back in. Mrs. Rodriguez looked up from behind the front desk, blinking. “I’m glad my old man is no younger,” she said. “La puta, eh? A whore. She’s no friend to us married women, Laurita.”

  “I guess not,” Laura said, leaning against the desk. She felt tired already, and it was only ten o’clock.

  “I’m going to church this Sunday,” Mrs. Rodriguez decided. “Qué brujería, eh? A witch! Did you see those eyes? Like a snake.” She crossed herself. “Don’t laugh, Laura.”

  “Laugh? Hell, I’m ready to hang garlic.” The baby wailed from the kitchen. A sudden Japanese phrase leapt into Laura’s head. “Nakitsura ni hachi,” she blurted. “It never rains but it pours. Only it’s better in the original. ‘A bee for a crying face.’ Why can’t I ever remember that crap when I need it?”

  Laura took the baby upstairs to the tower office to deal with the day’s mail.

  Laura’s corporate specialty was public relations. When David had designed the Lodge, Laura had prepared this room for business. It was equipped for major conferences; it was a full-scale node in the global Net.

  The Lodge did most of its business as telex, straight print sent by wire, such as guest dossiers and arrival schedules. Most of the world, even Africa, was wired for telex these days. It was cheapest and simplest, and Rizome favored it.

  “Fax” was more elaborate: entire facsimiles of documents, photographed and passed down the phone lines as streams of numbers. Fax was good for graphics and still photos; the fax machine was essentially a Xerox with a phone. It was great fun to play with.

  The Lodge also took plenty of traditional phone traffic: voice without image, both live and recorded. Also voice with image: videophone. Rizome favored one-way prerecorded calls because they were more efficient. There was less chance of an expensive screwup in a one-way recorded call. And recorded video could be subtitled for all of Rizome’s language groups, a major advantage for a multinational.

  The Lodge could also handle teleconferencing: multiple phone calls woven together. Teleconferencing was the expensive borderland where phones blurred into television. Running a teleconference was an art worth knowing, especially in public relations. It was a cross between chairing a meeting and running a TV news show, and Laura had done it many times.

  Every year of her life, Laura thought, the Net had been growing more expansive and seamless. Computers did it. Computers melted other machines, fusing them together. Television-telephone-telex. Tape recorder—VCR—laser disk. Broadcast tower linked to microwave dish linked to satellite. Phone line, cable TV, fiber-optic cords hissing out words and pictures in torrents of pure light. All netted together in a web over the world, a global nervous system, an octopus of data. There’d been plenty of hype about it. It was easy to make it sound transcendently incredible.

  She’d been more into it when she’d been setting it up. Right now it seemed vastly more remarkable that Loretta was sitting up much straighter in her lap. “Looook at you, Loretta! Look how straight you can hold your head! Look at you, sweetie-face.… Wooga woog-woog-woog …”

  The Net was a lot like television, another former wonder of the age. The Net was a va
st glass mirror. It reflected what it was shown. Mostly human banality.

  Laura zoomed one-handed through her electronic junk mail. Shop-by-wire catalogs. City Council campaigns. Charities. Health insurance.

  Laura erased the garbage and got down to business. A message was waiting from Emily Donato.

  Emily was Laura’s prime news source for the backstage action in Rizome’s Central Committee. Emily Donato was a first-term committee member.

  Laura’s alliance with Emily was twelve years old. They’d met in college at an international business class. Their shared backgrounds made friendship easy. Laura, a “diplobrat,” had lived in Japan as an embassy kid. For Emily, childhood meant the massive industrial projects of Kuwait and Abu Dhabi. The two of them had shared a room in college.

  After graduation, they’d examined their recruiting offers and decided together on Rizome Industries Group. Rizome looked modern, it looked open, it had ideas. It was big enough for muscle and loose enough for speed.

  The two of them had been double-teaming the company ever since.

  Laura punched up the message and Emily’s image flashed onto the screen. Emily sat behind her antique desk at home in Atlanta, Rizome’s headquarters. Home for Emily was a high-rise apartment downtown, a cell in a massive modern beehive of ceramic and composite plastic.

  Filtered air, filtered water, halls like streets, elevators like vertical subways. A city set on end, for a crowded world.

  Naturally everything about Emily’s apartment struggled to obscure the facts. The place abounded in homey quirks and little touches of Victorian solidity: cornices, baroque door frames, rich mellow lighting. The wall behind Emily was papered in paisley arabesques, gold on maroon. Her polished wooden desktop was set as carefully as a stage: low keyboard at her right hand, pen and pencil holders with a slanting peacock plume, a gleaming paperweight of gypsum crystal.

  The Chinese synthetic of Emily’s frilled gray blouse had the faint shimmer of mother-of-pearl. Emily’s chestnut-brown hair had been done by machine, with elaborate braids and little Dickensian curls at the temple. She wore long malachite earrings and a round cameo hologram at her neck. Emily’s video image was very twenties, a modern reaction against the stark, dress-for-success look of generations of businesswomen. To Laura’s eye, the fashion suggested an antebellum southern belle filled to gushing with feminine graciousness.