Javier spent the next day learning as much about his mark as possible. Chris Holberton was a hotel and theme park designer specializing in themed environments. His latest project was Akiba, a Las Vegas hotel and casino meant to emulate the experience of visiting Mecha, the peninsula of Japan where vN could apply for citizenship. Mecha was nothing more than a government-funded theme park the size of a city, so asking a theme park designer to reproduce it made a certain kind of sense. Once, Javier had wanted to immigrate to Mecha. There was a lottery. There was vN food everywhere, and you could watch any content you wanted anytime without a Don’t Look Now bug appearing in the corner of the display, and all the soap worked with vN skin. And all you had to do to ensure your status was keep the human visitors happy, and make sure you iterated something like only once every seven years. It sounded like paradise, when Javier’s father first told him about it. He resolved to move there as soon as he could.
Then he met Amy.
Prior to Akiba, Holberton worked on Hammerburg – a theme village located in central Romania. Transylvania, to be exact. The goal of that themed space was to emulate a series of horror films that, as far as Javier could tell, seemed to revolve around skinny British guys staring menacingly at buxom women in diaphanous nightgowns. The movies were very charming in their own way. He almost made it all the way through The Curse of Frankenstein, before all the screaming wriggled its way into his failsafe and he had to shut it off.
He could understand why someone might want to visit there, though. Everyone seemed to be wearing velvet smoking jackets and living in castles. What wasn’t to like?
Hammerburg took Holberton five years to create. In an interview, he said: “You know, I think we’ve really lost the meaning of fear in this culture. We spend so much time being afraid of everything that we’ve forgotten what a thrill it is to be scared. This place is about reawakening those feelings. That’s what horror is about, for me. It’s about being in touch with your feelings. If you look at the people who were in these movies, like Cushing and Lee, they were incredibly sweet people who felt things quite deeply. They were sensitive men who were secure enough in themselves that they could feel things at a profound level and bring those sentiments to their work. As a designer, I try to do exactly that.”
Sensitive. Javier could work with that.
Holberton himself was a very dapper man. He had white hair cut close to his head. It curled at the top, but he kept it short and wiry to the sides. He had a sharp nose, thin lips, and pale green eyes set deeply. He stood about five feet ten. He dressed impeccably. In order to attract his attention, Javier was really going to have to raise his sartorial game.
“Concierge?”
“Yes, Mr Montalban?”
“I’d like to set up an appointment with the ship’s tailor, for this afternoon.”
“I’m afraid we don’t have a staff tailor, sir, but we do have a men’s ready-to-wear shop onboard, and one of their services is tailoring.”
“That’s fine. Send them up this afternoon.”
“What will you be needing, sir?”
Javier looked down at himself. “Everything.”
“Will you be charging this to your account?”
“Yes. Thank you. Please include the tip there.”
“Very good. Mr Hayward and his assistant will see you at four.”
Javier continued researching Holberton from the deck of his private balcony, once the sun got stronger. There was a display inlaid in the little table, there, and he could tab through it at leisure. For lunch, he ordered a vN ceviche with a big bottle of fizzy electrolytes. Fifteen minutes later, a vN wearing his shell brought it up. Javier had nothing to tip him with, so he simply divided a bit of the ceviche onto a napkin, and shared it with him. Both the food and drink tingled pleasantly on the tongue. The ship’s kitchen seemed to understand that vN food was more about texture than flavour; the ceviche was almost obscenely pliant under his teeth. He kept the bottle in an ice bucket and watched the Gulf of Mexico waving away from him as he read on.
When he wasn’t working out of the country, Holberton lived in unincorporated land in New Mexico. He claimed it was for his health; the desert climate was hypo-allergenic. Despite numerous requests, he had never allowed his home to be photographed. He had even sued a guest at a New Year’s Eve party for posting some of the images from the party online. They settled out of court.