Kalifornia (10 page)

“Mm.” Sandy opened his eyes, saw rooftops, swimming pools, stunted
nut trees. They had come farther than he’d realized. “SacraDelta?” he said.

“The Reverend Governor?”

“Just an aimless drive, okay?”

Corny gained altitude, avoiding the low local air traffic, banking
southeast.

The SacraDelta complex occupied the heart of the Franchise. Once
a distinct entity, the amorphous capital was still one of the seediest
districts in the state. The glittering dome of the Capitol Mall crowned a
transparent mountain, a meshwork matrix of transport tubes, metalworks, and lock-to-fit
office quondos where civil servants could be seen in the process of shredding
paper and hair, or engaging in coffee-break quickies in windowed vending
lounges. At the golden pinnacle, a tapering spire marked the headquarters of
Thaxter Halfjest. Cornelius looked at Sandy questioningly, but he shook his
head.

They swerved away from the bureaucratic fantasia, skimming over
crowded alleys. He could lose himself down there in the dives and skids, but
what he really needed now was someone to talk to. He needed a friend, someone
who understood the ambivalence he felt toward wires.

“Look there,” Cornelius said. “I believe that’s Rancho Navarro-Valdez
coming up below.”

“So it is,” he said, not wanting to rebuke Cornelius for this blatant
ploy to cheer him. “What a coincidence. I was just thinking of Dyad.”

This bald, weed-colored spot in the midst of the dense-packed
Franchise was occupied by a few old Spanish-style houses. Sandy had visited the
hacienda
a number of times when
Raimundo’s family held parties for California’s notables. Today, no other air
traffic crossed over the region; in fact, most cars seemed to be going out of
their way to avoid it.

“Why don’t we, uh, drop in on Raimundo and Dyad?”

Cornelius headed straight in. Sandy waited for someone to come on
the radio and question their identity.

He was still waiting when two silver needles lofted from the
ground below. Twin plumes of cloud grew behind them, leaning in the direction
of the Jaguaero, like tentacles feeling for them.

“Look out!”

Cornelius pulled the car straight up, spinning away from the
ranch, and just in time. Rockets exploded where they had been. Shock waves
cuffed the car like an irate parent’s hand.

Sandy
laughed nervously, leaning toward the radio.
“Yo! Rancho Navarro-Valdez, you almost hit us! I’m an old friend of the
family.”

“ ‘Tate your name and biddinet,” said a voice with a slight speech
impediment.

This was no time to hedge. “Santiago Figueroa. I’ve come to pay my
respects to, uh, Mrs. Navarro-Valdez.”

“You hab no appoinmin.” It was not a question.

“This was sort of a spur-of-the-moment thing.”

“All vititor mut be clear by Raimundo Navarro-Valdez. He it away
on biddinet.”

“Look, would you please just tell Dyad that Sandy wants to see
her?”

“Only de matter of de howt may grant permitton for entry. Crott
our airtpate again and your vehicew wiw be detroyed.”

“Tufferin’ tuccatat,” Sandy whispered.

He signaled Corny to keep circling Rancho Navarro-Valdez just
outside the proscribed area. The
hacienda
buildings
looked white as teeth in the center of the dry, dusty land. He thought of Dyad,
a hostage in her husband’s house.

“My only friend in the world,” he said, “and I can’t even drop in
to say hi.”

He studied the far-off towers of SacraDelta with new interest.
“All right. Thaxter it is. But let’s catch him at home. I can’t handle the mall
right now.”

They pulled away from the ranch. Behind them, another explosion
filled the sky—a parting shot. The radio had transmitted Sandy’s lisping
imitation.

East of the government’s magic mountain, north of Rancho
Navarro-Valdez, was an estate that looked like a green and leafy carnival in
contrast to the dirty gridwork of suburbs surrounding it. Aircars darted up and
down at this spot, like bees that had found a bottomless throat of nectar. Sandy didn’t fear getting shot at here. Thaxter welcomed all comers.

Cornelius dropped the car into a crowded parking tower and took
one of two spaces reserved for Figueroas. That’s what fame and fortune bring, Sandy thought wryly. Parking spaces across the land. And a mass of fanatics willing to die
so they can squirt in your shorts on company time.

Sandy
and the sealman strolled across a lawn of
spongy hybrid dichondra that gave off unpredictable odors when crushed
underfoot. One step smelled like roses, the next reeked of garlic; they padded
through an olfactory jungle of lilac and roast beef, rosemary, lemon verbena,
and rum. Mercifully, fresh air kept the scents from growing too thick and
confused, otherwise he would surely have grown ill from the nauseous mix. They
climbed a flight of broad, golden steps through clouds of hot cocoa and fried
onions.

The customary crowd milled throughout the lower stories of the
house. Some hovered in dim lobbies, murmuring more softly than the music,
others danced in bright ballrooms. Children chased up and down the stairs. A
haughty Spaniel bitch hung on the arm of a Lab in black leather. (Thax was
genetically liberal—-had to be in a state whose teegee population grew by 5
percent every year.) The very same party had gone on without relief for as long
as Sandy could remember. Many of the guests hoped to be glimpsed by Thaxter
Halfjest, to interact with him, however briefly, and thus become part of his
perpetual broadcast.

Naturally, Thaxter couldn’t play host all the time. He was rarely
seen in his own home. Most guests knew their roles and performed them smoothly;
in this self-contained society, they intersected with the outer world mainly
through gossip and the catering crew. Conversations recirculated endlessly,
like the indoor waterways that flowed up the walls and down the stairs—a
delicate, entirely artificial cycle that could never have survived in the real
world.

Sandy
asked after the RevGov and was referred to a
transgenic butler. The tuxedoed figure stood stiffly in a corner of the
ballroom, bearing a covered hors d’oeuvre tray. His face was a purplish mass of
wrinkles and soft pouches, perpetually dribbling on the silver dome that
provided essential protection for the canapes. The teegee watched Sandy through clusters of bright blue and red carbuncles, something like a scallop’s eyes.
Thaxter had been toying with aquatic designs, but not wanting to impinge on
patent rights, he had settled on something less mammalian than the sealman. Sandy wasn’t sure where the original genes could have come from. Cornelius seemed
peculiarly disturbed.

“Excuse us,” Sandy said. “Is Thaxter at home?”

The butler’s mouth proved an unwelcome sight. Instead of teeth, it
featured a fused beak and a parrot’s livid tongue. And instead of English, what
it emitted was a series of cackles and sputters, accompanied by some distinctly
rancid brine.

“I’d like to see him if he is.”

“Krrrawww,”
the butler said, inclining
his head with the air of someone being as helpful as he could be under the
circumstances.

“Could you maybe point out someone who might know?”

“Krrrawww.”

“Tan, dude. Thanks.”

They wandered the upper halls, listening at doors until Sandy heard the distinct singsong of Halfjest’s voice, forever proposing solutions to
problems no one else had noticed. Sandy knocked softly and leaned in.

A teegee guard with a face worse than the butler’s tried to slam
the door on Sandy, but the commotion caught the attention of Thaxter Halfjest,
embroiled in argument with a small group at the far end of an opulent chamber.
Halfjest beckoned to Sandy and the purple guard opened the door the rest of
the way. He was part seacow, Sandy realized. A slug with a spine.

“Sandy, my boy!” cried Thaxter with his arms spread wide, ever the
showman. Cornelius folded his arms and remained near the door, just within
earshot. “I’m sure you remember Mario Vespucci.”

Sandy
nearly tripped on the end of an impossibly long
trailing robe of red velvet edged with sable. Its source was an enormous man
with a beaked nose nearly as bright as his vestments. The Pope of Las Vegas.

“Santiago, great to see you,” said the pope. “How long’s it been,
eh? Five years? Ten?”

Sandy
remembered to bow and kiss the proffered
diamond ring. As he did, he was able to read the inscription around the band:
CLASS OF ’00.

“Your Holiness,” he said. “I believe it was the ‘Figueroa Family
Christmas Spectacular.’ ”

“Ah, yes. I floated in to bestow a special gift-tax dispensation.”
He nudged Sandy discreetly, lowering his voice as if to keep secrets from his
entourage. “Now I’m traveling incognito. That tightwad Scot in the White House
wants to tax all electronic memos that pass between the states. Can you believe
that? Taxing the business of politics! Bloody McBeth!”

“Mario,” Halfjest pleaded, “calm yourself down. Find your alpha!
It’s not good for the cardiovascular system to get so excited.”

“Mine’s solid plastic,” the pope said, thumping his chest.

Sandy
wondered how anyone could hide the Pope of Las
Vegas, especially in Halfjest’s society hothouse. “It’s not much of a disguise,
Your Holiness,” he pointed out.

“I suppose not, but it doesn’t have to be.” Vespucci pointed at
the ceiling. “Like a god, I drop from the sky. Like Superman, I leap home again
in a single bound.” He winked. “No one’s the wiser. You’re out of the redwoods,
I hear.”

Sandy
shook his head. “Haven’t gotten high in weeks.”

“Did I ask for a confession?” He threw up his fatty hands. “It’s
the curse of my profession. Everybody wants to spill his guts!”

Sandy
shrugged. “Sorry.”

The pope leaned closer. “You’re not by any chance a sender these
days, are you? If you are, I’ll have to ask you to edit this meeting out of
your life.”

“I’m strictly RO. But what about Thaxter?”

The RevGov grinned, took Sandy’s elbow confidingly. “I’ve acquired
a new special-effects device, straight from the Livermore Livewire Labs. It
fabricates new scenes out of old sensations, and blends them into my broadcast
seamlessly whenever I wish. That’s what my adorable audience is living at the
moment.”

“You’re kidding. You mean you’re feeding your receivers canned
reality?”

“I prefer to think of it as synthetic.”

“But why, Thax? What’s going on?”

“You heard the pope. McBeth wants to tax our intercourse . . . so
to speak. (He’ll be doing that too, I don’t doubt.) He wants to know
everything
that
goes on. Getting a wee bit paranoid, I’m afraid.”

“And here you are talking about him behind his back,” Sandy said.

“He’s driven us to it. There’s no privacy anymore!”

“When did you ever have privacy?”

Thaxter bowed slightly, smiling. “That’s different. I was alone
with my audience, whom I trust. But McBeth is pressing for presidential
censure. He’s anal in all the worst ways. He wants everything I experience to
pass through the White House before public release. That goes against
everything I stand for. California isn’t beholden to those tiny zipperdown New England minds. I’m not standing for it.”

“So there really
is
a
conspiracy against McBeth.”

“There is now, perhaps, a teeny one, but he brought it on himself.
Not that I ever trusted the man. He still won’t let himself be wired, despite
all the petitions. I can’t understand that mentality. He’s completely backward!
The man gets all his news from flatscreens. He’s out of touch. He has something
wicked to hide—he and all his neopuritan cronies.” The pope made a pooh-poohing
gesture. “It’s the last gasp of the old guard, Thaxter, why don’t you believe
me? After this, the revolution.”

“I think it’s already started,” Sandy said. “A bunch of kamikazes
just went after Dad’s seascraper in protest of—”