Filter House Read online

  21:00 hours.

  IT’S THE BOMB!!

  [link to mckennapage.home]

  Sent via Citynet 01.18.2065, 13:34:10

  FROM: [email protected]

  TO: [email protected]

  CC: CAPTAINGROUP, [email protected]

  Subject: Attached Posting

  Body:

  Allow me to bring the attached to your attention, Miz McKenna, as it may somehow have escaped your notice. It purports to issue from a “goodboy,” currently unlisted as a Citizen. But the voice ID closely parallels your own, and reveal commands show your login.

  Miz McKenna, aside from the highly questionable language of this “invitation,” the obvious irresponsibility of organizing a frivolous assembly now, at the height of an epidemic, leads me to conclude that the posting is a clever but childish hoax on the part of your normally quite level-headed daughter. Please take immediate steps to disavow it as such.

  Far be it from me to meddle in your personal affairs, Miz McKenna, but I’m sure you’ll agree that her understandable longing for popularity does not excuse Kressi’s participation in a prank of this magnitude.

  Sent via Citynet 01.18.2065, 18:42:33

  FROM: [email protected]

  TO: [email protected]

  Re: Be a Souldier in the Army of Uncle Jam!

  Body:

  Passela told me to tell you this is such a swollen idea! Or I guess I should say it’s The Bomb! Those fashions on your page were just wild, and I hope we can get our printers sufficiently togetha in time for the big partay!

  Now for the important news—I heard Fanfan ask his daddy if he could borrow his record player! And some of his old jams! I bet he has lots of the songs your page listed, because I was over at their place one time, and in one closet they had this whole big rack of those black plastic circles! So it’s only the guns you have to worry about getting.

  Are you sure your mother won’t mind?

  Sent via Citynet 01.19.2065, 00:16:29

  FROM: [email protected]

  TO: [email protected]

  CC: CAPTAINGROUP, [email protected]

  Re: Attached Posting

  Body:

  Are you purposely TRYING to set off a City-wide panic? Of all the officious, unscientific nonsense I’ve heard on this expedition, yours, Pearl, takes the pound cake! This is not, repeat NOT an epidemic.

  There is no, repeat NO single, underlying organism that I can discover at the root of this recent wave of disorders. On the other hand, whatever it is seems to be affecting just about everyone on Renaissance. To a greater or lesser extent.

  I’ve attached several tables I’ve been working on in my copious free time…. I don’t know what they mean yet, but there’s an unprecedented variation in the degree to which symptoms manifest, in the number of symptoms any case exhibits, and in the comparative seriousness of symptoms. Fear of insanity, salt cravings, heart palpitations, fevers, hernias, sore feet, sprained backs, tonsillitis—what have they got in common? Nothing. Except that they all cropped up as problems at about the same time. But not in the same household or among workers on the same shift at the same plant.

  So whatever this thing is, it’s not contagious. There’s no excuse for your killjoy attitude, Pearl. Let the kids have their party.

  Sent via Citynet 01.19.2065, 12:12:12

  FROM: [email protected]

  TO: [email protected]

  CC: CAPTAINGROUP, [email protected]

  RE: Attached Posting

  The invitation is entirely legitimate. Those who find the language in which it’s couched to be odd should refer to the available historical data on mid-Twentieth Century black musicians, specifically Sun Ra, Parliament, Funkadelic, and Earth, Wind & Fire. A notable space-travel mystique developed around their work, and it is to honor its creative impetus that I’ve arranged for y’all to party up! Everybody party up! Come fly with me! I am the Mothership Connection. You have overcome, for I am here!

  “At times the cross-model synesthetic projection may help…excitation coming in the objective hearing mechanisms can be converted to excite visual projection. The commonest excitation used here is music….”

  A good long ride on this one. She a strong horse, Ivorene. I even let her get some sleep, talk to her tickety-tap machine a little, calm her daughter down with some kinda explanations. No danger of losing my seat. She don’t buck, don’t rear. Three days.

  All the partay people comin now. I made many preparations. Poor nervous daughter Kressi done helped, shown me how ta cook the candy and color over them too bright lights. But the pole, I erect that sucker all myself.

  We sit in chairs by the door. “Raise up the blind,” I say. She a good, obedient girl. And wearin the blue I said, most pleasin to the ocean. Her mother and I both told her time and again, till I do my business I ain’t goin nowhere.

  Fillin up the ramp, the peoples who been waitin come in. They laugh, but not too loud yet. One brought me some a my music. Kressi gets up to make it play. I watch while more people arrive. Everybody stop an stare when they see my big ole pole. It stuck up in the middle a everthing, hard to miss.

  The expression on that there lady’s face make me wonder how she ever gonna reach escape velocity. Don’t she know this a partay?

  Apparently not. “I couldn’t believe you’d actually allow this to take place,” she tells me.

  I smile. “I allow all sort a things.” I offer her Kressi’s seat.

  “Well, no, I can’t really stay…”

  “But how else you gonna know all the people wind up comin?”

  She give me a narrow-eyed look. “Ivorene? What’s gotten into you? Are you—you’re not—you haven’t been—”

  She think my horse drunk. “Siddown and fine out,” I say, and now she accept my invitation. I get her to take some candy, too. Lemondrop. Ain’t no need to shock her system with too much sweetness.

  All this time, guests keep arrivin. All dressed up, nice, bright colors, shiny fabrics, boots, big belts—not quite right, not exactly how they did it, back in the day, but—they lookin pretty good! I keep handin out the candy, hopin everyone get to enjoy themself.

  Grooves start jumpin. I can’t contain myself, never no good at that. Fore she know it, Miz Mealymouth holdin my candy bowl, and I am out on the dance floor actin like anybody’s fool. “Put a glide in your stride and a dip in your hip!” I sing over the music. Why they all just watchin me?

  Next song. Kressi come up behind me, stand still a minute. I turn so she see me smile. Take her hand, spin her round, dosi-do an play the clown. She lose some a her worry, gain some grace. Soon she swishin her robe like waves and dancin like light on the water. Very Yemaya, very Mother of Fishes. Good. That’s who we got to bring down here tonight.

  Boy over there wanna dance with her. I get out the way. In a minute a whole bunch of em cuttin loose. Flyin elbows, flashin feet. Funk start to rise.

  Someone important at the door. I go see why they not comin in.

  Cause the one told me she really can’t stay tryin to keep him out, that’s why! Big shinin man in a paper dress standin there while she tell him get on back in bed. She call him Edde. “Yes, Miz Yancey,” he say, and nod. Too polite to push her out the doorway.

  Not me. But I do it without touchin. All a sudden, she sittin down. I help her back up. Edde head for the pole.

  “Call Dr. Thompson!” this Yancey tell me. Tell me. Tell me!

  She won’t leave, now I wish she would. I could make her, but I rather dance. Rather she did, too. Like everybody else but her. Funk steady risin, but this woman drag us down. And we close, so goddam close.

  Gotta get over the hump. Gotta get over the hump.

  Where my bopgun?

  I look all around. Someone shoulda brought it to me before now. Ain’t I already asked? Sure, when my horse first pray to me. Nobody better make me ask a second time.

  Edde hoppin all around, jumpin so he see over people’s sho
ulders, headed for my pole. He there. He grab it.

  Swing down, sweet chariot, stop, and let me ride.

  Two now. I on two horses. Much easier. Look at me across the room. Look at me back. These are the Good Times.

  Homin in on Miz Yancey. All she wanna do is stan there. I bring me some dancers. Soft music, an they swirl like liquid, spillin over the floor. Swoosh, shoosh, they spin Miz Yancey round, rock her shoulders, sway her hips, draw her deep into that psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop. Carry her like a cup a foam on they tide. Over to my pole. Twirl her round, turn her loose and let her grab on to stand steady. She ready. I watch the funk gettin up for the downstroke. Watch it fall upon that horse’s head.

  She come! Mother of Fishes, she come! Twistin, slidin, slippin, ridin—here among us! Yemaya has come!

  “…control is based upon exploration of n-dimensional spaces and finding key spaces for transformations, first in decisive small local regions, which can result in large-scale transformations.”

  Kressi opened her eyes on chaos. How long had she been dancing? It had felt so good to forget, to let the music take her far away. But where was she?

  Surging dancers squeezed her against a wall. Perpendicular. Smooth, unjointed. She was in a corridor, outside the yurt. But Good Boy’s music still surrounded her. Someone had patched the yurt’s sound system into the City’s speakers.

  Miz Sloan capered by in Ali’s arms, transparent slippers kicking high. Then the flood of dancers ebbed, trailing a pair she recognized with a shock as Passela and Fanfan. They were—he was—from behind Passela had shoved her hands inside the front of his pants, way inside. As she watched, Fanfan squatted down slightly, allowing Passela to leap astride his hips. Without dropping a beat, they vanished into the crowd. Kressi caught her breath, then started slowly after them, thinking hard.

  Either they had all gone crazy at the same time, or it was a very good thing she’d spit out that piece of candy her mother gave her.

  No. Not her mother. Whatever it was Ivorene had called up to help them. A supraself metaprogram, to use her term. Three days ago, Kressi had agreed to go along with anything it wanted. To believe that her mother had known what she was doing and that this—entity—would somehow perform the task it had been set and leave. It had been hard to stick by her decision. It wasn’t getting any easier.

  The corridor emptied. Kressi spotted her favorite fossil embedded in a nearby stretch of likelime. She was outside the infirmary.

  She went into the empty lobby. Over the music’s steady throb, she heard Dr. Thompson’s angry protests. She had to see what was happening in the cubicles, in the ward. Even if there was nothing she could do to stop it.

  There was nothing she could do, or even see. Nothing but the brightly colored backs of her fellow Citizens, pulsing rhythmically, flaring and floating and— She closed her eyes. Tight. But shining patterns formed, even more dangerous to her focus.

  She opened her eyes again and pounded on the back before her. The drug would wear off soon. John C. Lilly used LSD, but Ivorene had opted for a tailored version of Narby’s Amazonian formula in her early experiments. Presumably this was what Good Boy had printed out and put into the candy. The dancers’ ecstasy would last no more than half a shift, and the effects on Kressi would be slighter, and of a much shorter duration.

  Long seconds passed till the man blocking her way moved. He backed up suddenly, kicking her in the shins. Others did the same, and the tight knot of dancers dissolved into a loose semi-circle around the door of Cubicle One. Kressi peered between shifting shoulders and saw Captain Yancey emerge. Her unblinking eyes seemed to protrude slightly from her head. She raised dusty, chalk-white hands and held them clasped in front of her, then began to move them slowly together, as if working up a lather.

  Without warning, Captain Yancey whirled and stalked off to her left. Kressi scrambled to follow her. A high, burbling voice wailed through the speakers: “I can’t swim! I never could swim! Let go mah laig!”

  Six’s occupant looked oddly serene, though his room was filled with partying strangers. Two men sat on opposite sides of his bed, propping him erect. Sweat glittered on his forehead as he swayed lightly to the music. Kressi glanced automatically at the headboard: Charles Tobin—temp 40/heart rate 120—

  Captain Yancey leaned forward and placed both hands on Mr. Tobin’s head. The patient slithered down onto his bed as if to avoid her. She stooped to maintain contact and began to shudder slowly, so deeply she shook the patient and his cot. Mr. Tobin’s body straightened, then arched like a leafspring, vibrating faster and faster. Horrified, Kressi tried to call up the courage to step forward and touch him, somehow stop what was happening. But it ended on its own before she could manage that. Captain Yancey stood back and left him flat on the cot. His hair and face were white with whatever she’d rubbed on her hands. He seemed to be asleep. The headboard thought so, too.

  The room emptied. Kressi hesitated, then hurried out.

  She barely made it into Seven. Dancers screened the cot. A new voice sang to what sounded like the same song, assuring everyone that they could swim in the water and not get wet.

  A child’s frightened crying cut through the music. It came from the cot. Kressi struggled to reach it. By the time she got there, the child lay quiet and calm.

  It was Junior Watt. Kressi recognized the normally feisty ten-year-old despite his mask of white. His eyelids fluttered briefly as she called his name, then he sighed and smiled. As she watched, the headboard’s readouts flickered, changing to those of a healthy sleeping boy.

  “What are you doing?” she asked Captain Yancey.

  In response, the older woman grabbed Kressi by her braids and pulled her closer. Shutting her eyes reflexively, Kressi felt a hand scrub her face with a slightly gritty powder. The press of dancers suddenly stilled to hold her motionless. She twisted stubbornly in place, getting nowhere. The hand’s scrubbing motions softened, becoming oddly gentle, reminding her of—of—

  Of how her mother washed her face one morning, grooming her for an online interview, just weeks before the ascent to their ship. She’d fought Ivorene, flung away the washcloth, but her mother had picked it up and persisted in her work. Captain Yancey’s touch felt as tender, and as determined.

  No. Not Captain Yancey’s. This supraself metaprogram’s touch.

  It was cleaning its children.

  Kressi relaxed. And sensed a lightness, a lifting. As if old, nameless, chains had fallen from her, training weights she’d put on long ago and since forgotten.

  She opened her eyes slowly. The room was empty. Then Dr. Thompson walked through the cubicle’s doorway holding a gun. “Kressi?” he asked.

  “I’m okay. It’s just—”

  “What’s that stuff on your face?”

  Good question. “I dunno.”

  “It’s on the others, too. I’ll get a sample container.” He turned to leave.

  “Wait—you’re not going to shoot Captain Yancey, are you?”

  “No. Where’d you get—” He looked at the gun he was tucking absentmindedly under his robe’s sash. “Oh. This. It’s only a water pistol.” He pulled it free again and looked down at it as if it belonged to another person, someone immature and hopelessly embarrassing. “I had it in my office for some reason, and when they all came in at once it seemed….

  “Here. Take it.” Dr. Thompson handed her the gun. It felt heavy and wet. “I’m not going to try to stop them. This laying on of hands, or whatever you want to call it, it’s working.”

  Kressi had come to the same conclusion, but it startled her to hear him say so.

  “I knew from the beginning an unconventional course of therapy was called for, but—” He shrugged his shoulders and waved an arm vaguely in the air. “Next time you talk to Ivorene, ask her to give me a call so we can discuss what she’s done.”

  It was at this point that Kressi realized that her mother had been missing from among the dancers. That she’d been absent ever s
ince Kressi roused herself from her trance. Ever since the party’s migration to the infirmary. So Ivorene must still be back at home.

  No, not Ivorene. Or maybe, yes. If the wave of symptoms had been conquered, the Good Boy metaprogram might have finally given up his hold. It would be Ivorene waiting for Kressi at the yurt, worn out from her long ordeal, not even sure of her own success.

  With that in mind, Kressi called home. No answer. Maybe all it meant was that her mother felt too tired to open the feed. But when A Shift’s crew showed up minutes later, unaffected by candy, she was happy to leave Captain Yancey and her entourage to them. By then the music’s volume had dropped, and a lot of partiers had drifted off; perhaps half their number remained. Dr. Thompson followed them through the ward, smiling and recording notes, nodding at Kressi as she took her leave.

  The blind was still raised at the bottom of the yurt’s ramp. She plodded to the top without shutting it, expecting to find drugged or sleeping stragglers, but the place was empty. Everyone had gone. Everyone except one slim figure robed in black and red, sitting at the base of the pole Good Boy had erected. Her mother?

  No. The figure popped to its feet like a button and lifted its chin to peer at her through half-lidded eyes, and Kressi knew there was one more guest to get rid of.

  But how?

  “Well?” asked Good Boy. “I kep all a my promises now. How bout yours?”

  Promises? “I said I’d help you for three days. I did. You said you’d cure the mystery disease. Okay, that’s pretty much taken care of. Which means it’s time for you to go.”

  Good Boy tilted his head consideringly. “There was the partay, yes. Music, dancing. Sweetness we shared. But these wasn’t all a my requirements.”

  “I require my mother back! Good Boy, you gave your word—” Kressi lowered her head and took a deep breath, trying to imagine life if Ivorene never recovered possession of her body. Her mother would be locked up, drugged helpless. Kressi would get handed off to someone to be fostered till she reached sixteen, probably Captain Yancey or worse, and of course nobody’d ever be able to make Ivorene any better because there was nothing really wrong with her—