It was spring and Lore had the windows open. The soft breeze that blew across her editing desk smelled of new green. There were tiny buds on the branches outside—all the branches except one. She wondered how that had happened, why one branch would die while the others thrived. She supposed it just happened. Parts of things died. Nature. The door banged open. She turned, smiling, expecting Spanner to tell her they had made a lot of money.
Spanner threw a bag on the couch. “They’re not selling.”
“What?” Lore’s smile faded.
“The films aren’t selling.”
“You’ve been making a lot of copies.”
“Oh, I can move the units, but not for enough money. Not as much as we need. People tell me they’re tired of the same bodies in different situations.”
Lore looked at the frame lit on the screen. She did good work, but her library was so limited. “I need some live action. Or a bigger library.”
Spanner nodded and dropped onto the couch.
“You want me to stop?”
“No,” Spanner said. “Let me think about it awhile.”
Two days later, she disappeared for more than twenty-four hours. When she came back, she looked exhausted, but she was grinning.
“I’ve got something special.” She held up a vial full of some clear, oily liquid.
“What is it?”
“You’ll see. Come here.” Spanner dipped a fingertip into the neck of the bottle, rubbed the finger along Lore’s throat. She did the same for herself. “Just a little. It’s very concentrated.”
“It’s a drug? What kind?”
“You’ll see,” she said again, and her voice was low and multilayered, her eyes dark. Lore wanted to trace Spanner’s cheekbones with her fingertips, run her palm across her shoulders, reach down into her clothes, touch her, feel her moving under her hands. She wanted it urgently. She ached.
An aphrodisiac, then, a pheromone, but more powerful than any she had heard of, legal or illegal. This was unstoppable. Spanner began to unbutton her dress. Lore moaned.
“Anything you like, baby, anything.”
There were about thirty people in the big room, spilling out into the kitchen, onto the steps. Lore introduced people, though most of them knew each other better than she did. Everyone was drinking very steadily. She brought out snacks, made sure the music never faltered. She avoided Billy, who just stood in the corner and watched everything with his small, flat eyes that reminded her of all the things she tried not to think about.
“I don’t like him,” she hissed to Spanner in the kitchen.
“You don’t have to like him,” Spanner said, “just be civil. This is business.”
Lore refilled her glass and went back into the living room. Her wine was cold and aromatic, like sunshine at thirty thousand feet. The music was loud and insistent. Ellen was talking to someone at the other side of the room; they were laughing. Lore sat on the floor and wondered where Ruth was.
When Spanner came out of the bathroom she moved slowly from one group to another, smiling, shaking people by the hand, touching a cheek. The whole party suddenly seemed to Lore a gross parody of the business parties the van de Oests had occasionally hosted before Ratnapida.
“What’s the occasion?” Ruth asked, and sat down next to Lore on the carpet.
“Hmm?” Lore was thinking about Ratnapida: long cocktail dresses, expensive jewelry, uniformed caterers. Always for a reason, to gain or cement advantages. Never for fun. From the other side of the room, Spanner’s finger glistened just before she touched someone under the ear.
“The party. What’s it for?”
“I’ve no idea,” she lied, and nodded over at Spanner, who was still doing her hostess bit. “She just came home one day and said, ‘party time.’ So it is.”
Ruth looked at her curiously. “You know, you’re nicer than I expected. Not like Spanner’s usual-” She went red. “I mean…”
Lore wanted to tell her it was all right, but she knew that if she did, other things might come tumbling out—she would tell Ruth to find Ellen and run, now, before it was too late, before they were caught up in Spanner’s web. And mine, she thought, I’m the one with the camera. “Did you know the woman Spanner was with before?”
Ruth nodded. “And the one before that, and before that. They don’t usually last more than about six weeks.”
Lore looked into her wine. What would she do, where would she go without Spanner? “Have you known her long?”
“Less than two years.”
Lore wanted to ask more, but Spanner was heading toward them. “Ruth! Glad you could make it.” She touched the back of Ruth’s neck lightly. “Oh, there you are,” she said to Lore. “Why don’t you go get your camera?
Spanner’s pupils were tiny: the antidote, Lore assumed. Her own probably looked the same.
There were three people on the bed when she went to get her camera. They did not seem to notice her as she edged past them and lifted the Hammex. She checked the disk on the way back to the living room, where Spanner drew her aside. “Make sure you get everything. We need all the live action we can get.” She nodded over to the corner where a couple was kissing.
No one took any notice of the amorous couple. It was not the polite ignoring of an inappropriate display of lust but, rather, that everyone was becoming engrossed in his or her own partner. Everywhere eyes were glazed, skin gleaming, lips moist. The air was thick with sex. While Lore watched, one woman started to unbutton the fly of the man opposite her.
Lore turned away, lifted the camera to her shoulder. A man was turning around his partner and pulling down her trousers. Lore cleared her throat, pointed to her camera. “It’s switched on,” she said to the air eight inches above their heads, “but I need your permission before I…” She trailed off. They completely ignored her. She licked her lips, remembering how it felt to be wrapped in the drug.
She saw Ellen with Ruth and hurried over, intending to stop them, get them out of there, but they were already kissing. From the other side of the room, Spanner was watching her. Don’t let Spanner see even a chink. “Do I have your permission to film?” she asked dully.
“Just don’t get in my way,” Ellen said, and reached up under Ruth’s dress.
Lore put the camera to her shoulder and filmed. Her face ached and her cheek, wet with tears, chafed against the eyepiece, but she filmed for hours.
When Lore edited the film, she swapped around heads and bodies, or used library heads. She needed these images—they needed these images—to make films that would sell for enough to feed them, at least until summer, but she could not bring herself to use her friends without some kind of disguise.
Weeks later she got a call from Ruth. “You bastard.”
“What-”
“The film. I saw it. At a friend’s. You bastard.”
“Ruth… Ruth…”
“You think asking permission all nice and proper makes it right?”
“Ruth, I wanted to warn you-”
“I didn’t see any pictures of you,” Ruth cut in.
Yes, you did, Lore wanted to say. You’ve seen pictures of me in far more humiliating circumstances; and my abductors did not even have the courtesy to swap my head for another’s… And all of a sudden, Lore did not care. What did it matter that Ruth was upset? She, Lore, had been through much, much worse. Ellen had given permission of a sort, hadn’t she? And at least Ruth had enjoyed it while it was happening. Lore had not enjoyed one single minute of her ordeal.
She turned off the screen. Her mouth felt strange. She knew that if she looked in a mirror she would see her lip curling, like Spanner’s.
The first people into the breakroom were Meisener and Kinnis. Meisener flicked a look in my direction but said nothing. Maybe he’d heard something. Kinnis either had heard nothing or didn’t care. He went to the wall screen and V-handed the PIDA reader. He made a disgusted sound when the figures came up.