Orphans

26

26 It is the end of our day and the end of our trip. We have cajoled, manipulated, twisted the truth and created a morphed version of what may or may not be the future as we know it. We have been forceful, seductive, penetrating and dramatic. We have been selling, closing and spinning tales of hopes and dreams that have opened wallets and driven people to invest in a future they cannot quite yet see. We have done our jobs and we are tired, drained from selling but dialed-up too, full of energy to burn, heads spinning, thoughts cranking, adrenaline coursing, all of it seeking release. “Gentlemen,” the E.C. asks us, “it’s been a long trip. Would you like to go back to your room and get some rest before your flight?” I look at Ricky. I have a package to deliver and it’s now or never. I will follow his lead, but eventually I will head out and take care of my business. “Are you fucking crazy,” Ricky says, “we’re going out— Good Luck Sector here we come.” I hope we will get some dinner, maybe go shopping— I would like to find a necklace for Shalla and maybe a toy rocket for Joey—but I know better, Ricky clearly has other plans. “The high-end restaurants and stores are fine, Norrin,” Ricky says, “but that’s for people who don’t know any better . Follow me.” We are soon wandering the back alleys of Good Luck Sector, where the street vendors rule, their little food carts filled with exotic meats from other planets. Fish O R P H A N S 86 tacos from Saturn, all flaky and thick; skewers of lamb, or some distant relative of lamb, from Neptune, gamey, but sweet, the grease dripping across our chins; and cold Plutonian yogurt drinks, delicious mixes of fruits previously unknown to me, and highly viscous, which I gulp until my head aches and I start to feel drunk. As I pause to rub my forehead I see shadows dart across the walls and paths before me and behind me and I begin to wonder if we are being followed, a feeling of paranoia only exacerbated by the vibrations suddenly emanating from Morg’s package which is nestled deep in my front pocket. We walk next toward the Good Luck Sector bazaar and its endless morass of stalls, the space between and around them veering one way and then the next. The bazaar is a chaotic hive of activity, selling, buying, bickering and negotiating. “This,” Ricky says, “is the unacknowledged fuel that drives the machine that is Fu. The workers from across the galaxy who come here, welcomed but not, working clandestinely and at the fringes of what we otherwise sell as an oasis. The cleaners, domestic help, landscapers, servants are all human fodder. They move away from light and exposure by day, and by night they shuffle about down here, selling whatever they can and buying whatever it is they need to get through the week, the month and how ever long they will be needed here.” As Ricky says this, he dramatically sweeps his hands to the left and the right, walking ahead of me, briskly and possessed. I try to catch up with him, but briefly lose him in the crowd. I stop to scan the stalls and Morg’s box begins to vi- B E N TA N Z E R 87 brate more intensely, slamming into my thighs. I look to my left and then to my right, and the vibrations begin to crescendo, the box nearly bouncing out of my pocket and onto the ground at my feet. I walk down one aisle then the next and I soon find myself in the farthest reaches of the bazaar and facing a vendor of undefined place and origin. “Do you want the kind, this is the kind, the kindest of the kind,” the figure under the enormous hood says to me even as I briefly sense movement behind me, and then off to the side. The vendor is selling variations of SynthKhat that I’ve never seen in Baidu. The Rings of Saturn, long leaves, purplish green and curling into a circle. Moonbeam, milky white leaves, nearly see-through and luminescent. And Martian Skies, streaky red leaves that go on forever and forever. “I do want...