‘Yes.’
‘Interesting.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘You poor thing. She should not have brought you here. What a mess you are.’ She sighs. ‘But perhaps that is what she needs now, to prove something.’
‘I don’t understand.’ He tries to read the woman’s expression, but the subtle cues of gevulot are not there. This is one of the things that has always drawn him to Pixil, the riddle. But in her mother it is merely frightening.
‘What I wanted to say was that you should not expect too much from my daughter. You understand, she already has a connection to something bigger than herself. That is one reason why I told you the story. She experiments, and that is fine, and so should you. But you two are not entangled. You will never be a part of that. Do you understand?’
Isidore breathes in sharply. ‘With all due respect, I would say that our relationship is our business. I’m sure she would agree.’
‘You don’t understand,’ the Eldest says.
‘If you are saying that I’m not good enough for her-’ He crosses his arms. ‘My father was a Noble of the Kingdom. And I thought one could join a zoku. What is to say that I don’t decide to do that?’
‘But you won’t.’
‘I don’t think it is your place to say that.’
‘Oh, but it is. This is a zoku. We are one.’ Something flashes in her eyes. ‘Do not be deceived by this little dress-up. This is not who we really are. You haven’t really seen her: we made her to go out amongst you and know you. But underneath-’
The Eldest’s face ripples, and for a moment, she is a shimmering statue made from a billion dancing dust motes, with a beautiful face floating within, surrounded by dazzling jewels like the one on the sword, arranged about her in complex constellations. And then she is a middle-aged blonde again. ‘Underneath we are different.’
She pats Isidore’s hand. ‘But don’t worry. These things will follow their due course.’ She gets up. ‘I’m sure Cyndra will be back soon. Enjoy the party.’ She walks into the crowd, sword swinging at her hip, leaving Isidore staring at the pixel rain on the monitors.
A while after that drinking starts to feel like a good idea, so Isidore tries the beer. It is stale and foul, and he would prefer wine, but he gets two cans down before the effects hit. The day starts to catch up with him, and he almost falls asleep watching the monitors. Two other guests – a young man and a girl wearing makeup that makes her look like a corpse – sit down and play the game. After a while, the man turns around and gives Isidore a sheepish grin.
‘Hi,’ he says. ‘Would you like to try? I’m not much of a challenge to Miss Destroyer of Worlds here.’ The girl rolls her eyes. ‘Lover, not a fighter, huh?’ she says.
‘Absolutely.’ The man looks a little older than Isidore, in his early Martian teens, with Asian features, a pencil moustache, well-tailored suit and slicked-back dark hair. He is carrying a leather shoulder bag. ‘So what do you say?’
‘I think I’m too drunk,’ Isidore says. ‘You go ahead.’
‘Actually, drinking sounds like an excellent way to save face. Sorry, mistress. You have defeated us.’ The girl sighs. ‘All right. I’m going to play Werewolf. Puny humans.’ She blows Isidore a kiss.
‘Enjoying the party?’ the man asks.
‘Not really.’
‘Well, that’s a shame.’ He picks up one of the beer cans on the table and opens it. ‘As you will have discovered, the beer here is absolutely horrible. It’s all authentic, you see.’
‘Works for me,’ Isidore says, opening another one as well. ‘I’m Isidore.’
‘ Adrian.’ The man’s handshake is clearly from the Oubliette. But it does not seem important, with the odd freedom from gevulot and sweet intoxication.
‘So, Isidore, why are you not out there, dancing and entangling and picking up zoku chicks?’
‘I’ve had a very strange day,’ Isidore says. ‘I nearly got killed. I caught a gogol pirate. Or two. With chocolate. As for zoku chicks, I’ve already got one. Her mother is a goddess, and she hates me.’
‘All right then,’ Adrian says. ‘I was expecting something along the lines of I saw a tzaddik, or I had somebody else’s dream last night.’
‘Oh, there was a tzaddik there too,’ Isidore says.
‘Now, that sounds like a story! Tell me more.’
They keep drinking. It feels right to tell the story of the chocolatier.The words pour out easily. It makes him think of Pixil. How much did we ever really talk? And without gevulot restraining his thoughts or tongue, he feels like a stone skipping on water, light and free.
‘Who are you, Isidore?’ Adrian asks, after he is finished. ‘How did you get involved in this stuff?’
‘I couldn’t help it. I have to think about things I don’t understand. I used to wander the Maze and break gevulot locks, just for fun.’
‘But why? What do you get out of it?’
Isidore sits back, laughing. ‘I don’t understand people. I need to deduce things. I don’t know why anyone says or does anything if I don’t think about it.’
‘That’s amazing,’ Adrian says when Isidore pauses to sip his beer. Distantly, he notices the man is scribbling on a little notepad, old-fashioned, made from paper. That can only mean one thing, and even through his clouded brain Isidore realises he has made a mistake.
‘You are a journalist,’ he says. The momentum is gone, and the water swallows the skipping stone. His head feels heavy. In a world of perfect privacy, there are still analog holes, and publishing newspapers is one of the most lucrative tolerated crimes in the Oubliette. They have been after him ever since his first case with the haute couture thieves. But they have never managed to breach his gevulot. Until now.
‘Yes, I am. Adrian Wu, from Ares Herald.’ He takes out an old-fashioned camera from his bag – another trick to get around gevulot. The flash blinds Isidore for a moment.
Isidore hits him. Or tries to: he leaps to his feet and swings wildly, failing to connect. His legs buckle. He grabs the nearest object – the computer monitor on the table – and falls to the floor with it with a crash. He struggles to get up, reaching for Adrian ’s camera. ‘Give me that.’
‘Oh, I will. You and fifty thousand other readers, tomorrow. You know, we have been dying to interview you since you were first spotted with the Gentleman. Any chance you’d like to tell us more about her?’
‘About her?’
‘Oh yes.’ Adrian grins. ‘And you are supposed to be the detective? The word on the street is that the Gentleman is a woman. Speaking of which – here is the lady of the hour.’
‘Hi, pumpkin,’ Pixil says. Even through the shock, anger and alcohol haze, seeing her makes Isidore feel warm. Her black lipstick makes her lopsided smile look like a comma. Her tiny body is squeezed into a tight tartan-patterned dress with leather straps that highlight her shapely dark-skinned shoulders just right. ‘Cyndra told me you made it. I’m so glad.’ She gives Isidore a kiss that tastes of punch.
‘Hi,’ Isidore says. ‘I brought you chocolate. The monster ate it.’
‘Goodness me. I think you are drunk.’
‘Better than that,’ says Adrian. ‘He’s a story.’ He gives Isidore a little bow and vanishes into the crowd.
The next hour is a blur, and after a while he forgets about the journalist. It is hot, and absolutely everything everybody says sounds funny. Pixil takes him from one zoku group to another. They talk to quantum gods who sit in circles and argue about which one of them is a werewolf. Pale-skinned super-heroes in ill-fitting latex costumes ask him questions about the tzaddikim. And it is hard to think about anything else except her small hand, warm between his shoulder-blades.