Velvet Dogma

chapter 9



Identical three-story flats lined the street like criminals awaiting an execution. None of them were older than a few years, but the quality of the material used after the tsunami was poor, creating a drab, weather-worn look. This part of Melrose used to be fancy, but after the fires raged through Beverly Hills, nothing was left but scorched and smoking rubble. Environmentalists, savvy after decades of the cycle of fire, rain and mudslides, had the hills removed so that everything west of Sepulveda was a wide flat plane that reached the ocean.

But the aesthetic was gone. The street looked like parts of Baltimore or Brooklyn rather than Southern California. Even the palm trees had been removed. Rebecca had always loved palm trees. They grounded her, reminding her that she was in a sort of paradise. With all the problems, with all the negativity, she tried to imagine how bad it would be without palm trees. Although people didn't realize it, she'd always believed that the palms dressed up the city like a middle-class hooker in a sequined dress. Looking at the buildings, she felt the depression endemic to neighborhoods in those old industrial towns of the East Coast.

"What do you think?" Andy looked at the grime covering the front stoop. A mixture of white bird droppings and mystery grease, the steps looked far from inviting. "Do you want to go up?"

After the sterility of prison, the filth layering the concrete made Rebecca squeamish. To think she'd have to walk on that sent tendrils of let's get out of here through her system. She tried her best to ignore her inner voice. She'd come too long and too far to balk now. With a tight-lipped grin she proceeded up the steps without looking down. Once she reached the top she looked over her shoulder. "You coming, or what?"

"So I guess we're going up," he said, scampering to catch up.

The security door had been jimmied long ago and hung open an inch on sprung hinges. She opened it, strode through, passed the bank of elevators that read out of order and up the stairs.

The ascent was an orchestration of creaks and moans, each step evoking notes only a sick and dying building could make. Rebecca couldn't help but wonder at the true age of the building. If this was only a few years old as Andy had said, why'd it look so dilapidated? Why did it seem so old? New material shouldn't look this drab, nor should it break down so quickly.

She somehow managed to reach the third floor landing without falling through the floor. Only moments more and she found a door labeled O. Pavarnick.

She was barely able to wait for Andy to catch up, as excited as she was. But the second he stood beside her, she knocked. It'd been so long since she'd seen anyone. Andy was the only one from her previous history, and she didn't know him very well. But she and Olga had been best friends. Their every secret, their every wild desire shared, compared and filed. And she needed someone like that right now. So much had happened since she'd been released. She'd kept such a close hold on her emotions that at times she'd felt robotic, going through the motions and not trusting herself to show anything real. A part of her hoped that she and Olga would be as they'd been before, because she had some secrets to tell. She had some horrors to share.

She knocked again.

She had so many conflicting emotions that she hoped Olga could help her with. Her own low-level reaction to the death of her brother bothered her. She should be more distraught. She'd known people to withdraw into a cocoon for months after a family member's death. But here she was acting almost as if nothing happened. Who was she?

She knocked again.

Then there was Andy. She felt something, but wasn't sure what it was. He made her angrier than she'd felt in an age, but at the same time she felt titillation when he spoke or walked across the room.

She heard the scrape of metal on metal. She glanced nervously at Andy, then back to the door. Her heart bobbed in her throat.

The door opened inwards, stopping halfway open. She stuck her head in the room and saw a woman dressed in a bathrobe, bare feet and bed head staggering back to a couch that dominated the center of the room.

"Olga? Is that you?"

The woman didn't respond.

"Olga, it's me, Rebecca. Rebecca Mines."

The woman stopped with one hip thrust out. She seemed to teeter as she began to turn.

Rebecca stepped into the room and pushed the door open the rest of the way. The apartment smelled of soiled clothes, sweat and rotting food. She wrinkled her nose and turned to see if Andy was following. He was right behind her. He nodded, but his attention was entirely on the woman who, with excruciating slowness, finally turned. Whatever Rebecca had anticipated, this hadn't been it. Never in her wildest dreams did she imagine this could happen.

It was Olga, all right. Her robe hung open revealing sickly gray skin and sagging breasts. Stained underwear hugged her crotch. Her mouth hung slack. A thin line of drool had made a permanent home at the corners of her mouth. Grimy PODs rested over each eye and the overhead light reflected off the lenses turning them green.

Andy shook his head. "She's an iDict. What a waste."

Rebecca's hands went to her temples. "Olga? Jesus. What can we do, Andy? Look at her."

He shrugged. "We can't do anything." He looked at the pictures on the entryway wall. "Look at these."

Rebecca looked and saw Olga in a far happier time. Healthy and hale, she'd been the beautiful mother of four kids. What could have possibly happened for things to change so drastically?

"Olga, honey? Can you hear me?"

"Mmm...hear me..." repeated Olga as if she were rising from a deep sleep, her voice high-pitched like a child's.

A ray of hope. Rebecca hurried over and grasped her friend's hand. Maybe it wasn't too late. All wasn't lost. She stared into the green-lensed end of the PODs knowing from conversations with Andy that Olga could see her if she toggled for external view. "Olga, if you can hear me, say something."

"Mmm...something."

Rebecca grinned happily at Andy. "Look—she can hear me."

He frowned. "Just parroting, Bec. She's gone too far in. I've seen this before. Really, there's nothing you can do."

"I don't believe it," Rebecca said hotly.

"You don't have to. That's just the way it is."

"But she's answering me!"

"No, she's repeating your words. Just impulse. Reflex. What have you."

Rebecca shook her head. She couldn't believe it. She shook Olga's arm and vigorously rubbed her hand with her own. "Olga, snap out of it, honey. It's Rebecca. I've come back to see you."

"Mmm...Rebecca?"

"Yes. Olga, it's me. Rebecca. Remember college? Remember your roommate, Rebecca?"

"Mmm...Rebecca." The timber of Olga's speech changed. "I've missed you."

"Oh, my God. I've missed you, too."

"Mmm...Where were you?"

"This shouldn't be happening." Andy frowned as he approached and examined the PODs. He pressed a tiny button on the side and a display lit up. "Nothing special about these. Moderately expensive X-94s. Ah ha, look at that. These PODs have been deactivated." He glanced at Rebecca. "That's why she can respond. Frankly, I'm surprised her brain isn't fried."

" What can I do? Can I get you some water?"

"Mmm...Water. Yes." She began to show more life. Her mouth had closed, remedying the slack-jawed look.

Rebecca hurried to the kitchen and managed to find a glass that wasn't caked in filth. She found water in the refrigeration unit along with several dozen packets of Game Joy. She scanned the packet. Dehydrated food supplements for gamers.

She hurried back with the water and held it to Olga's lips. It took a few moments for Olga to figure out how to move her lips properly, but eventually she drank what was in the glass.

Andy snapped his fingers. "Maintenance cycle, that's it. She's on her maintenance cycle." When Rebecca looked uncomprehendingly, he added, "She must have programmed the PODs to shut down at a certain time every day so she could eat, drink, and whatever. Smart girl. Too many forget and starve to death or die of dehydration."

"Mmm...My children." Olga licked her cracked lips. "Where are my children?"

"She wants to know where her children are, Andy."

He examined the room and shook his head. "My guess is that they're long gone. Either daddy or child services took them."

"Rebecca? Mmm...Is that you Rebecca?"

She turned back to Olga and smiled. "Yes. It's me honey. It's Rebecca."

Suddenly the woman stiffened, her body straining as if electrified. Then she fell to the floor and began to twitch and shake. Her head and legs beat against the floor in a spastic tattoo. Rebecca knelt beside her, but could do nothing to help.

"What's happening?" she screamed. She fought to hold one of Olga's arms still. "Andy, help me!"

He dropped to his knees on the other side of Olga. At first he mimicked Rebecca's attempts to hold the woman still, but after a moment he abandoned this. Instead, he reached up and unhinged the PODs from Olga's face.

Rebecca was horrified to see that the PODs had been held in place by hooks attached to bolts jutting from Olga's temples. The skin beneath the PODs was red and raw. Sores wept with putrid yellow pus. But that wasn't the worst part. As Rebecca watched, Olga's eyes filled with blood, changing from a pale yellow to a deep red, until even her pupils were lost in the plasma swell.

As suddenly as it began, the seizure stopped. Olga's limbs stilled. Her breathing hitched, then failed. Within seconds she was dead.

Neither Andy nor Rebecca spoke for a moment as each of them stared down at the ruined woman. Andy was the first to break the silence. He pointed to the display on the side of the PODs. "Something downloaded. Or at least tried to."

"What was it?"

"We'll never know. Whatever it was killed her, though."

Rebecca looked at her hands as they grasped Olga's arms. She looked at the pasty skin, the soiled clothing, the rash around the woman's once beautiful green eyes and the bolts protruding from the sides of her head. She suddenly felt ill. She let go of the dead skin and stood shakily. She waved off Andy as he tried to help. When she found her balance, Rebecca finally relented, holding out her hand. "Just get me out of here."

The bile rose in her throat. She hated this place. She hated this world. If this was what had happened to the world, she didn't want to be a part of it.