Tides of Hysteria Read online

  “I’ve been waiting,” she said, swinging her feet to the floor.

  “I completely forgot. I’ve been up to my neck in meetings all day.” It was possible, he thought. He’d been forgetting things more and more recently.

  “That’s alright. You’re here now. What can I get you?” She stood and pressed herself to him, which meant pushing herself into his oversized belly. A hand stroked his bare arm.

  “Umm, I think I’ve had enough for one night. In fact, I think I’m done for the night, I’m sorry.” But you won’t be.

  She pouted, got closer, her breasts pushing over the top of his belly. There was almost a stir, a little twinge of the prostate and then nothing else. “But I’ve had this marked on the calendar for weeks. Are you sure?”

  “I’m exhausted, my love. And lovely you are, but I’m afraid I would be next to useless.”

  “That’s okay,” she smiled, sliding a hand up to his ample neck. “You can just relax.”

  He laughed quietly. “You’re awfully keen for someone who just wants to get out of here.”

  She pouted again. “I’m offended. You’re one of my favourite clients. You always treat my right.”

  “I’ll reschedule.”

  She pulled back, shrugging. “Alright, I still need paying though.”

  “Of course, of course, my pad is through in the bedroom.”

  “How convenient.”

  He turned his back on her and ignored the comment, and heard her rustling as she got dressed. In the bedroom, he set up a five-hundred dollars transfer and when Faye entered, allowed her to pass her wrist across it. The pad beeped.

  “I can’t just leave you like this,” she said. “Come on, let me help you to bed.”

  I’m not an invalid.

  He slumped on the edge of the large, deep bed in the night-light rays cutting across the gloom of the room. She cast a long shadow, the hall lit behind her. In a crimson silk dress and barefoot, she padded over and begun removing his shoes. He let her undress him and let his mind wander back to Jen. She was a sure-footed one, that one. He saw the ghost of his own ambition following in her wake, an ambition that would put her on the authority’s map. These were turbulent times but there was one positive to come from it all; people’s allegiances only became more black and white. There was opportunity everywhere for the right person, with the right forward-thinking mindset. And Jen was one of those.

  Still so young. She had quite the career ahead of her.

  So blue-blooded. Naïve. And she didn’t know the city as he knew it, how it once was. When he was Grand Mayor. She didn’t love the city as he loved it. Didn’t love the people as he did. It tore him apart to watch as the fires blazed and the blood ran free in the streets. He wanted it to stop – she wouldn’t care if the blood ran so deep it started to waterfall to lower Neon; he imagined the pits rising with the red rain and bodies floating, swirling, around and around, bobbing head down with backs riddled with bullet-holes. The city’s heart not unlike his own; swollen and murmuring, prone to attacks. Maybe this was one attack that should be allowed to happen, after all, the blood ran black in the authority. Would a little change really hurt?

  Let them rise.

  As Grand Mayor, he’d imagined having great power to make changes; to make people’s lives better. In truth, in all his sixty-plus years in government, he’d not been able to change one significant thing. It was all head-nodding and self-important, bloviating speeches. Long dinners and even longer parties with link-blocking technology that halted iris recording and broadcasting. Weekends lost to debauchery and memory. He’d return to daylight, blinking, wondering what had just happened. Maybe a slap on the back as he did so, Kirillion’s white smile beaming. Until next time, eh, Chief.

  Faye’s hand pressed against the weight between his shoulders as he reclined towards his pile of pillows stacked high. The room grew darker, somehow; her hair hanging over him, the smell of her breath sweet upon his nostrils. Another prostate flutter and then a stillness so private it made him feel as though it were just himself and Faye left in the entire city. Imagine that. Of all the nights he had shared with her, only now was there a sense of intimacy where there must never have been before; the act of caring supplanting the act of love. He met her eyes and said, “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Is there anything else I can do for you while you’re still breathing?”

  His face crinkled. An odd expression. “Water, perhaps.”

  She smiled and nodded and retreated silently to the en suite bathroom. Seconds later, he heard the tap running.

  “What do you think of the authority?” he called out.

  Her voice came through faint over the water. “What do you mean?”

  He waited until she reappeared. “The elite. What do you think of them?”

  She shook her head. “Not much of anything, really. Unless… is this a test?”

  “A test?”

  “Yeah, I mean. You’re one of them, right? Just like most of my clients. In which case, I love the authority!”

  I am one of them. “I…”

  “Drink up.” She pressed the glass of water to his lips, almost forcing him to take the gulps. “Good boy.”

  “I’m not one of them.”

  “Of course you are!” Her voice almost shrill. “If you’re not the authority, then who the fuck is? Who is running this place if not the likes of you, dear?”

  “I never belonged, you know. Not really. I lost people, very close to me, early in my career. From that moment on I just… existed…” He could feel his eyes drooping, his throat growing dry. “I just did my best, when I could. I did what I was told.”

  “Doing what you were told, or not. That still makes you the authority. The elite of this city.”

  “I was… everyone and no-one.” We are all the authority; all of us at the top who keep the illusion alive.

  “You’re tired, dear. Get some rest now.” He felt her fingers brush his eyelids and didn’t fight the drawing of the darkness. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  For what? Did he say that out loud? He tried and failed; his lips, mouth, chin, face, body, seemingly paralysed. What…? Let me… no.

  Faye

  She watched him die, chewing her lip while her heart thumped. An acidic sharpness burned behind her eyes which she tried to ignore.

  His belly rippled as he convulsed, and marbles rumbled around in his palpating, wheezing chest. Blood drained from his face and she’d never seen him so pale, so white, a preview of his coming ghost. And then his cheeks grew purple and his eyes began to bulge and she swore, his chins ballooned like a frog’s.

  She let out a small cackle, imagining a ribbit – almost hearing it in the death rattles. His hand tightened on hers and she held it absently, waiting for the end. Eventually, his grip fell limp, and he was no longer an elite. No longer anyone.

  “Well, you were right, in the end; you weren’t one of them, not any more at least.” Maybe she was imagining it, but his hand already felt cold when she let it drop. He’d been a gentle, kind man: not one of her favourites but far from the worst. Orders were orders.

  She returned to the en-suite bathroom and washed her hands. Her make-up felt heavy on her face – her mask. It was what she wore to work, and unfortunately had the habit of drawing unwanted attention when in public. The Chief kept a variety of creams and ointments in his bathroom cabinet, including Vaseline, which she retrieved and dabbed to her eyelids and lips, splashing water across the rest of her face. After using the toilet, she balled up some cotton wool and carefully removed her eye-shadow, mascara, and lipstick, revealing her naturally pale skin-tone. Blue eyes gleamed youthfully.

  There you are. She blinked a few times and stretched her face in the mirror, pouring over the details of the woman she only half-remembered sometimes. Then she returned to the living room and her handbag and drew out her AR-glasses. She put them on and connected to Patient X. He, or she, never said a word. They made sure her diar
y and bank account was full in exchange for services rendered, no questions asked. She was happy enough to keep her silence.

  Back in the bedroom she looked at the body once more, giving the AR-glasses enough time to evaluate the lack of health in the victim and send the results to the receiver. The words ‘Well done’ splashed in the upper-right of her vision, and Patient X signed off. Her bank balance rose healthily in the upper-left.

  Here, in the bedroom; through, into the lounge where she had waited for him so patiently, now possessed the chill that always seemed to eventually pervade her crime scenes. Death as a leech crawling the walls. She put on her shoes and retrieved everything that belonged to her; a shawl, a pair of earrings, a bottle of lube. You could have had one final hurrah, she thought as she placed the items in her bag. Then she left, closing the door behind her. No need even to call the police and feign surprise that her client had had a heart attack while fucking her – one of the easiest night’s work in a while! Certainly the simplest kill.

  The corridor immediately felt warm, and in the elevator she told it to rise. Her apartment was large, bigger even than the Chief’s – and on a much higher floor.

  Patient X

  As the shit drained from him, so calmness substituted it. Nothing like a colonic irrigation hand-in-hand with a successful hit to settle the nerves. “It’s done,” he called out to Jeri on the other side of the room; she was busy having electrolysis applied to her groin while someone else plucked at her eyebrows.

  “Do you feel purged?”

  “The Chief: it’s done,” he repeated.

  “Oh.”

  “And yes, I feel light as a feather. Lighter than a dust mote.” He glanced up at the specialist analysing the Enamatic 4000; checking out his shit. “It’s good, right?” he smiled.

  “Yes, sir,” replied the straight-faced man; hair short and black and cut sharply across the brow.

  “There’s some room to spare, if you want to shove it up a little higher.”

  “I think we’re getting everything.”

  He chuckled and felt the tube squeeze as he tensed. “Sorry, sorry, I hope nothing splashed.”

  “We’re okay.”

  He had to bite his lip to prevent another chuckle; instead he took a deep breath and adjusted his sideways-lying posture a little, and closed his eyes. He listened to the rhythmic pumping of the machine and discovered it was quite soothing, like the clippers whenever he had a haircut. The colonic was long overdue by a few years, which was odd considering how much of a rage it used to be just a decade or two ago. Or was that centuries? Damn his memory; when days had no date or name or even length, the months passed anonymously and the years were born to bastardry. He was an orphan to time. They all were.

  “He had a good old run for a lowcase,” said Jeri.

  “Shame he strayed.”

  “They all stray, in the end.”

  “And it’s always someone they trust who betray them!” In this case, Jen. Jeri laughed but he managed to control himself.

  “Sometimes I miss the old days,” she said, reclined on a plush, purple chaise longue. An oval light recessed into the ceiling cast a dull light, replicating the ring in which they resided at the top of the dome. “Can’t we go back to the old days?”

  “We’re almost there, my love. A few more weeks of this and you may well get your wish.”

  “I just miss the honesty, you know. When you killed someone, everyone knew it. It instilled fear. Instead…”

  He cut her off; “Have you forgotten how tiring that was? Micro-managing everything and everyone? I don’t want to go back to those days! Maybe you do!”

  “I just miss the time you didn’t need to provide an explanation or reason for anything. Everything was so much simpler.”

  It was true, he thought, the water flushing him out tickling his insides. The past always made him sad though; so many of his friends and lovers now dead through accident or foul play. Having the key to life everlasting didn’t armour you against vehicles crashes or falling from buildings; or even being a little too enthusiastic with your food. He always made sure to chew; chew, chew and chew. Nothing went down his throat that could choke him. On purpose.

  There used to be nearly five hundred founders or descendents of founders up here (before the key had been forged); and now there were three-hundred and forty seven. The attack on the ring a few months ago had taken Penny – sweet, sweet Penny – and Earle. Penny had been as old as the rest of them, but truly youthful at heart. There were those like Kirillion and Gauge who grew stern and determined with age; that sense of responsibility and adulthood pushed into overdrive. Well, Kirillion was dead now, thanks to the outsiders; look where your arrogance got you. But Penny; she was all child. She’d decided early on that if she was never going to grow old, she would damn well make sure of it.

  All this mess now – everything – was Kirillion’s fault. Damn him. He brought in the outsiders. It was he who could never be satisfied with what they had – had to go off and find the unfindable. Solve the unsolvable equation. They’d been friends once, proper friends, not like it was with some up here who simply tolerated your company through lack of other options. No, he enjoyed Kirillion’s company, and vice-versa.

  Memory meant little anymore, but what little he did recall came in splashes of colour on a canvas already faded. Records like photographs and videos were other things that became redundant in the light of immortality; when everyone around you stayed the same and when it was perfectly feasible to repeat events over and over and over; there were no ‘once in a lifetime’ memories to savour, no Polaroid moments. Just Kirillion’s teeth and wide smile. Snapshots of dark shadows and waiting. Muzzle flashes of unremembered assassinations – of blood on their hands, dirty and real. Of gunpowder residue in the pattern of stars and planets; wounded chests and blood-let skulls. Late nights mingling with the lowcases in their bars and strip clubs, night upon night in the sex clubs. It didn’t matter if it was in the highest tower or the lowest depths; some of the best lays were in the pits. Back when they had been all work then play; before play took over. Except for Kirillion. He lost the play and kept the work and that was that.

  And that was that.

  They, the elite, drew back from the micro-managing and set up a system in which fear and reward played equal parts. Elude to freedom but don’t give it. Open a palm but keep it poised to slap. Maybe somewhere along the line they had lost control; the population in this cycle was certainly greater than it ever had been before. Complacency born of apathy. Funny, really, considering that particular genetic marker was meant to reside in the lowcases.

  “Hey, you listening?”

  He returned to the present and his senses, feeling particularly empty. “Sorry, what did you say?” Looking at the specialist: “You can take it out now.” He felt the tube slide out of him.

  “As I was saying; what do you think? In way of reward?”

  “For who?”

  “This Jen?”

  “Can’t we delegate someone to that?”

  Jeri laughed. “Are we really so lazy as that?”

  “Yes, my love. Haven’t you been paying attention?” He sighed and sat up and strolled over to the drinks cabinet. “I need a fix to contemplate my life.”

  “Get me one while you’re there.”

  The specialist cleared away the machinery and shit bags. Specialist. What’s the one thing you’re good at? Sucking the shit out of arseholes. Once he had packed up he gave his leave and retreated back to the servant’s quarters. The price of an elongated life – You get to live longer, but you have to serve us hand and foot. It was easy to forget sometimes that the very antigens they relied on was in every breath they took, circling and regurgitating throughout the ring; and in every drink they drank that had the ring’s specially fortified water. If age-old rumours were true, the key to everlasting life had been forged by a boy, experimenting on his own, in his free time; back when Neon was still young. The boy had died befor
e being able to try the key for himself. Building doors is a lot easier than building the locks that keep them closed.

  Patient X, aka Jhon, returned to Jen with their alcoholic fix. “This Jen; she stays on the payroll. While she’s still eager to impress us she’ll work twice as hard, and twice as hard is what we need right now. We bump her up, she’ll get complacent.”

  “Apathetic,” mimed Jeri, widening her eyes and raising her eyebrows. “Thank you.” She reached out and grabbed the glass.

  “They all do. Once they get what they want they either realise it hasn’t made them happy, or they begin to lose themselves. That’s fine, if they then delegate efficiently themselves, but it takes a special kind to do that. In the end, it all amounts to the same. My dear, your pubis is redder than a slapped arse.”

  Jeri sat up and drew her legs together. “I’m done, shoo.” She waved away the electrolysis specialist. What do you do? I zap pubes for a living.

  Jhon reclined in the chaise beside her, sipped at his drink with his arm stretched over the back.

  “You think everything will sort itself out?” she said, once they were alone.

  “It normally does. Push comes to shove, all the firepower – all the technology – is on our side. They can break through the barriers; they can come after us, but they won’t get very far. They need us – we don’t need them.”

  “Don’t we?”

  “Do we?” he said, gazing into eyes that were as vibrant as they were five centuries ago. Longer. Who knows, anymore?

  “Why don’t we just give them what they want?”

  “And what’s that? Truth? Autonomy? How long before they come after us, for real? To ask questions about our long and varied lives? It’s for their own good. They overbreed as it is: imagine if they could live forever. Imagine that chaos. You think this is bad? What about when the food runs so dry people start eating each other. It’s happened, you know. What about when they breach the dome? Our blood supply at jeopardy. Contaminated air. The deaths of millions on our conscience as they try to farm the unfarmable. Surf the neon sands in search of domes destroyed years ago. How did that work out for Kirillion?”