‘Weird,’ Janis said as they walked out along narrow passages between banks of bed-cells. ‘Like left luggage.’
‘Left passengers.’
Little Japan hit them like a rock concert as they stepped out of the door. They took the slidewalk, changing tracks frequently, swaying in the crowds. Moh found he was half-consciously generating a running mutter of body-language that created a small space around them, whatever the crush. He gave up trying to process the incoming information, the solid-state semiotics of the place.
‘Doesn’t feel oppressive,’ he said. ‘That’s what’s so strange.’
‘Something in the food,’ Janis said. ‘Inhibits the anti-crowding pheromones.’
It bothered him that he couldn’t tell if she were making it up.
The trailer park, in an indeterminate zone between Little Japan and one of the more multi-cultural areas, felt like open space. There was an average of a metre between bodies here. The huge trucks lay charging up, drivers lounged, and vendors vended.
‘Ah, the wonders of the free market,’ Janis grouched, narrowly avoiding a tray of hot drinks being carried at alarming speed on the head of a five-year-old.
‘Not as free as it looks,’ Moh said. ‘These places tend to be run by gangs. Shady jurisdictions and that.’
They found the light container truck they were after in a corner of the park near the feeder road. The driver shoved a magazine into his pocket as they approached, and stood up, looking slightly embarrassed.
‘Hi,’ Kohn said. ‘River Valley. You’re expecting us?’
The man smiled and nodded. He handed Moh the key, took a receipt and headed off, evidently not straight to the nearest rail station.
Janis and Moh climbed into the cab. The truck was owned by a rental company and changed hands often – that much was obvious from the condition of the interior. Moh had a sudden thought. He passed the key to Janis.
‘You drive,’ he said.
Janis took the key, smirking, and turned the switch with a flourish. The engine responded with a faint hum.
‘Aw,’ she said. ‘It’s not like the films I saw when I was little.’ She made internal-combustion-engine noises as the truck glided out of the park.
‘Nah,’ Moh said, adjusting his seatbelt. ‘It were a man’s job in them days – aaarrrgh, stop…’
12
The Cities of the Pretty
There actually was a wall called the Stonewall Dykes, but it was more to prevent people from entering unwittingly than to keep anyone out – or in. In the bad old days of the Panic it had had a more serious function, but now it was just a bit of retrovirus chic – isolation camp. The real protection of the area – the Gay Ghetto, the Pink Polity, the Queer Quarter – was in the strong, gentle, capable hands of a militia called the Rough Traders.
The truck pulled off the clearway and down a side street, past a portion of the wall on which someone had written ‘Sodom today – Gomorrah the World!’, and they were in. Just another street, except suddenly there were no women. A bit further and there were no men; further yet and there were both, but you couldn’t tell which was which, all gaudy and glad-ragged and gay.
‘What’s the difference between this sort of thing and what’s outside?’
‘None at all, that’s the point. There’s nowt so queer as folks, as they say up North—’
‘Oh shut up. That’s not what I meant. What’s the difference between these specialized neighbourhoods, or whatever you call them, and the mini-states?’
‘No wars.’
‘It can’t be that simple.’
‘Looks like it can.’
‘The future and it works, huh?’
Kohn laughed. ‘It keeps people like me in work. In my future society we’d be out of a job. No wars over territory and no fights over property.’
‘Yeah, yeah…’
Kohn gave directions for a few more turnings. They came to a halt in a car park in front of a large housing estate built as a single block: four sides around a courtyard, the side in front of them having an opening about three metres high and five wide. Through it they could see a lawn and flowerbeds. All the windows in all eight storeys of the block had curtains of ruched peach satin in front of other curtains of frilled net. Another truck and some small vehicles and bicycles stood unattended in the car park.
A man came out of the entrance and walked up briskly. He wore a plain brown loose-fitting smock and trousers and had short blond hair. He stood for a moment at the front of the truck and then stepped up to the door beside Kohn.
Kohn lowered the window. He decided for the moment, to stick with the ostensible reason for their visit. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘I’m the security adviser—’
‘Mr Kohn? Ah, hello. My name’s Stuart Anderson. Your agency told us to expect you. I’ll be asking you in in a moment, but first I’d like a word with the lady.’
Janis leaned across. ‘Yes?’
‘I’m sorry, ma’am, but would you mind waiting while your companion looks around? No offence intended – it’s just the rule of the community. The only women allowed in are those who live here or are associated with us, and you…’ He smiled regretfully like a waiter telling you something is off tonight. ‘Refreshments will be brought out to you if you wish, or you may take a walk in the area.’
‘Thank you very much,’ Janis said. ‘What sort of women-oriented community keeps ordinary women out and lets men in?’
‘Femininists,’ Anderson articulated.
‘Ah, so,’ Kohn said. ‘You should have worn a frock, Janis, make-up like lacquer and false eyelashes. Then they might have let you in for a boring examination of their building, which is what I’m down for.’
Anderson gave an open, genuinely amused laugh.
‘Don’t take it to heart, ma’am. We won’t be more than an hour, and in the meantime, if you wouldn’t mind easing the truck forward a bit so we can get it unloaded and reloaded…’
Janis shrugged and blew a kiss and a scowl. Kohn climbed out.
‘Please leave any weapons,’ Anderson said.
Kohn detached the computer and heaved the bag back into the truck. Anderson coughed politely. Kohn thought for a moment, sighed, and passed Janis a pistol, a throwing knife, a flick-knife and a set of brass knuckles.
They walked across the courtyard. People strolled about or worked at the garden. The women, as Kohn had expected, were wearing every exaggeratedly feminine get-up known to man. The men looked rather drab and conventional by comparison. No old people; no children.
‘So tell me, Stuart, what’s it all about? If you don’t mind me saying so, you don’t look very sissy to me.’
‘Of course not,’ Stuart said. ‘That’s not what we’re into. Our aim isn’t to merge or reverse the sex roles but to make femininity the dominant gender.’
Moh shook his head. ‘I still don’t get it.’
‘It’s all to do with peace,’ Anderson said earnestly as they entered the block and walked down a bright corridor. ‘We’re sickened by the violence that goes on all around us, and the femininists have a theory which explains it. The so-called masculine virtues have outlived their usefulness. Aggression, ambition, production. We’ve reached a point where the whole earth can be a home, a garden, a sanctuary. Instead it’s used as a factory, a hunting-ground, a battlefield. That’s what we mean by the dominance of the masculine virtues. What femininism advocates and tries to practise is the long-overdue domestication of the species through the feminine virtues: domesticity itself, of course, plus gentleness, caring, contentment: channelling energy into art, adornment, decoration…All low-impact activities, you see, and utterly absorbing. Take embroidery, for example, which many find entirely satisfying as a full-time, lifelong occupation, yet the material resources used in it are negligible…and of course the product is valuable, including to rich collectors.’