Hannah felt the annoyance mounting.
– Do you realise that when you ring up it’s a machine asking you the questions? she blurted. Then instantly regretted breaking protocol.
Tilda flushed deep red.
– Well, they’re very clever, aren’t they, these computer programs, she said finally, twisting in her seat. A good sight cleverer than real people, I reckon. They’ve done an excellent job.
But she looked slapped. A small itchy silence.
– Nice arrangement, tried Hannah, indicating some red sticks emerging from a flat vase on the television cabinet.
– It’s not finished, said Tilda defensively. It needs pods. She pulled off a fluffy slipper, laid it on her lap and stroked it like a cat. Her lips puckered into a knob.
– What happened to that young man at Head Office then, she asked, the technical one who you were on that course with?
Hannah fingered the plastic tube of her inhaler. She should have seen this coming.
– Nothing happened, Ma, she said tersely. You know that. We’re just friends.
– Friends, spat Tilda. That’s very trendy, isn’t it, to be just friends with a man.
Hannah said nothing. Looked at the Ikebana. Wondered what kind of pods you’d –
– I expect you’re still a virgin then, blurted Tilda. She flushed. Looked shocked with herself, but pleased too.
Hannah swiftly shoved the small mask over her nose and mouth and inhaled deeply.
A terrible silence flapped its wings between them.
An hour later, Hannah was back in Harbourville, breathing in the zestful, wake-up smell of peppermint. Walking from the tram station along the estuary embankment, watching the reflection of Head Office ripple out in broken stars, she felt a little zing of relief to be home. In her small apartment on the tenth floor of the ziggurat, she watched the news. The yes choice had been over 95 per cent. The nos would be questionnaired.
The departmental celebration party was at six.
As she cut herself a strip of bubble-wrap from the big roll by her bed, and then fought with the flaps and zips of her yellow party dress, she again tried to picture a turkey. Annoyed at her lack of recall, and curious, she flicked on the encyclopaedia and ran a search. And there was a bird-creature called a turkey, its bottom-feathers arranged in a curious flip-out fan at the back, its wattles red. She clicked to hear its cry, and the turkey jiggled its red wattles and opened its beak to release a low chattering bark rising to a squawk.
The bird-creature looked nothing like what she had eaten at lunch.
Life kept doing this.
She shared the lift with a tall blond man, youngish, wearing earphones: a field associate. He was handsome, with the soap-sculpted face of a mannequin, but he had a defeated look about him. His strong jaw swivelled as he chewed gum. When he asked her which floor, she could see the crinkled blob of it in his mouth: a bright, frightening green.
– Nineteen. Please.
– Festival party? he asked. His eyes were blue.
She nodded and looked at the floor, feeling his eyes on her as they shot upwards. Always too fast; she hated the lurch of it. Yet you were never quite sure when you were in motion, and when you’d stopped.
– It’s Hannah Park, isn’t it, he asked. She saw the blob again. I’ve seen you before, he said. Planning meeting. You’re in Munchhausen’s, right?
– Yes, said Hannah. She felt uncomfortable. She never ceased to be puzzled by the ease with which her colleagues struck up these mini-encounters with each other. She’d seen it happen time and again; people beginning a conversation with a virtual stranger, like this, and ending up friends, or enemies, or lovers. Fleur Tilley had slept with fifteen people in Customer Care alone, according to e-mail gossip. In lunchbreaks. On office floors. Someone from In-house Surveillance tipped her off about the spot checks in return for –
Hannah reached in her pocket for her bubble-wrap.
– This may be the last time you see me, the man volunteered, chewing more fiercely. I’m being questionnaired.
He must have done something or said something quite serious. Hannah wondered if he might be drunk.
– What happened? she asked reluctantly. The lift stopped. She wasn’t used to this.
– I said we were drones.
– Drones? she asked, as they stepped out.
– You know. Like worker bees. Servicing the queen. It was just a quip. But I said it to the wrong guy.
– Uh-huh, mustered Hannah. Drugs maybe, she thought. You could get them.
– Catch you later, he said, sauntering off ahead of her.
Just a boy really, she thought, seeing the way his jacket hung limp on him.
– Hi, people person! Leo Hurley greeted her hoarsely.
Hannah started, jolting her tonic water. Some splashed out and fizzed on her wrist, and she reached for a napkin. It had the Festival logo on it – a big square with a bold cross in it, the Bird of Liberty flying above. She always felt ill at ease at these functions. Leo had a crisp-crumb stuck to his beard. His hair was dishevelled, and there was something restless about his eyes. They were gleaming, like he was asleep, and she was the nightmare.
– How are your Munchies? he asked. Hannah sensed he was just making small talk; his glance kept shunting about the room. They were standing in a corner, away from the throng that crowded round the stainless-steel bar. The place was rapidly filling.
– Irritating, replied Hannah. If I hear one more faked suicide, I’ll scream.
– Fleur told me about one today, threatening to kill his whole family with dry-cleaning fluid, said Leo, still scanning the room. But there must’ve been a programming error, or a mis-route, because Dolly kept asking him about brands. What brand of dry-cleaning fluid he was planning to use. Whether he’d like it delivered, or would he be going to his local parc. Was he aware of the loyalty discount.
This wasn’t new.
– So what happened?
– Don’t know. He hung up. Leo gave his barking laugh. He said it was like talking to the wall. He –
Hannah followed the line of Leo’s eyes.
The room had hushed.
Wesley Pike stood framed in the doorway. Some people have a magnetic presence. They inch their way into your subconscious and you think about their bodies more often than you’d like to.
He was taller than almost everyone else in the room, but not only taller; broader, bigger. It was as if he were built on a different scale, out of different materials – not banal gristle and blood, but something more potent, more valuable. Just looking at him – he’d begun working the room now, up and down, like the shuttle of a loom – made Hannah blush. It was unnerving that she could so easily picture his torso beneath. Hairless, muscular. He spent about twenty seconds on each interchange, clutching an arm just above the elbow, patting a shoulder, gripping a hand for a tight, stimulating second. It was like receiving a small electric charge – one that was weirdly prone to trigger a sex thought. He flashed his smile like a fat wallet. It made you feel special. She knew she wasn’t the only woman to feel violently attracted to him. Men were too, apparently. Even those who weren’t usually that way inclined.
– He uses a pheromone spray for sexual charisma, murmured Leo, picking up on her train of thought. Someone saw him in the Mens’, once, doing his armpits.
She laughed, then cupped her hand over her mouth, embarrassed. The idea was bizarre, ridiculous.
– Why would he do that?
After all, Wesley Pike was famously celibate. The only rumour about him that remained consistent was that he had a relationship with the Boss herself. Not a physical relationship, obviously. Something more mysterious. Almost spiritual.
– Just for the hell of it, said Leo, smiling crookedly. It’s the only power he’s got really, when you think about it.