“Government cheese?”
“It’s a term. It means…” Holberton’s mouth opened, then closed. “Who the fuck knows what it means. What I’m trying to say is that it’s not all that bad. It could be a lot worse. It could be fucking Warsaw, and it’s not.”
Javier didn’t know what Warsaw meant, either, but the length of the vowels and the sharpness of the consonants made it sound unpleasant. He didn’t want to ask, either. He didn’t like how much he liked Holberton. He didn’t want to start liking him even more.
The car chimed.
“Chris?”
“Yes, Rosie?”
“You have a call from Washington.”
“… State?”
“… No.”
Holberton sighed. “Well, shit.” He made a quick turn. “I guess we’ll have to save the tour for another time. Are you OK coming to my office?”
They pulled up at a campus of buildings whose sign proclaimed it the “CITY LAB.” No one there wore lab coats, though. It was mostly cargo shorts and climbing shoes and T-shirts with beer slogans on them.
“In the summer, we have a lot of students,” Holberton said. “Things get pretty casual.”
Holberton led him into a main building. It was all steel and glass and polished concrete, with big walls in hacienda colours with huge displays of art that faded in and out as humans passed. Javier paused to examine one of the displays. It hung over a dead fireplace, and as he watched it switched from Diego Rivera to a mobile shot of a group of Amys at the playground.
“Come on. I’ll give you the full tour later. For now, you’re kind of stuck here.”
Holberton fobbed open a steel door set in glass at one end of the hallway, and ushered Javier through. Once inside, the air was much quieter and cooler, and the art completely nonexistent.
“I know I should do more to encourage team spirit,” Holberton said, pointing at the bare walls, “but I don’t do interiors for free.”
Holberton fobbed open yet another door. It opened onto his office. The sheer number of greys made the entire room look as though it had emerged fully formed from an ancient strip of film. The only spots of colour available were in the assistant’s clothes: a single turquoise scarf delicately arranged over a boat-neck T-shirt and a pair of capri pants. Javier had the feeling that Holberton had chosen her solely for her sense of style.
“Hi, Georgia.”
“Chris!”
Georgia stood up at her desk. She blinked. Her skin was very deep black. She reminded Javier of a woman he’d met in Panama. He’d just iterated Matteo and Ricci, and she’d been very helpful, and all she wanted in return was somebody nice who could be gentle. She’d been sewn up, down there. Javier almost failsafed just looking at it: the perforated labia, the vanished clitoris. She came from Sierra Leone. He’d named Léon after her, sort of.
“What are you doing here? You’re not due back until tomorrow.”
“I found a new consultant,” Holberton said, and nodded at Javier. “Let’s work up some papers for him. And some food too, OK? It’s a long drive.”
The food arrived shortly: a salad for Holberton, and a selection of vN tea sandwiches for Javier. The sandwiches came with different stripes of feedstock tinted and sculpted to look like smoked salmon and whisper-thin wedges of cucumber.
“Printed on site,” Holberton said. “In another lab, a couple of miles from here.”
“They taste like shit.”
Holberton laughed. “I’ll pass that right along.” He dabbed his mouth with a napkin. Then he stood up, and checked something on the surface of his desk. “OK. Now that you’re taken care of, I have to get going. Turns out it’s just an exit interview.”
“FEMA called you for an exit interview?”
Holberton rolled his eyes. “I know, I know. They hate my work at the casino. I’m willing to bet they logged me coming in when we went through the checkpoint, and decided to fuck with me since I was close by.”
It was a pathetic story. Javier’s own children told him better lies by the time they were a week old. But he nodded and smiled anyway, and said: “Wow. That sucks.”
“Tell me about it. I’ll be right back. Georgia can take care of you, if there’s anything you need.”
“I’ll be OK. I think I’ll take a nap, actually.”
“God, I’d kill for one of those.” Holberton winced. “Not really, though. Don’t worry.”
“It’s OK. I know what you meant.” He gave his most compassionate smile. “Go on ahead. The sooner you finish up, the sooner you can give me the tour.”
“Right! The tour! I’ll get right on that, as soon as I get back.”
Javier watched him leave. He waited by the window, to see Holberton exit the building and enter his car. It was a distinctive make, so it wouldn’t be any problem to follow. Not from the rooftops, anyway.