“Oh yeah,” said Helix, “She licks my teeth.”
For a moment, silence reigned, and then Orielle's face split apart, shattered and dissolved and reformed itself into laughter. Her voice pitched through the bar in earsplitting peals, and the crowd, perhaps in self-defense, raised their voices in whoops and shouts. She looked at Helix closely. “They say you are the strangest sport since I came along,” she said. “Some even have the umbrage to say you are stranger than I am. But-” she smiled a broad thin smile, like a crack in a windowpane “-I think they may be right. What ever shall I do?" She shook her head sadly.
"Why do you want to be the strangest?" asked Helix.
"Well, I must be something, mustn't I? Especially since I won't be anything for terribly long."
"It seems to me you're pretty accomplished without the goofy chromosomes," Helix said, nodding at the broken ampule laying on the table.
"Yes, but without the chromosomes, without the strangeness, I never would have had the initiative to do any of it. It wouldn't have mattered. Oh, how I pity those unfortunate creatures whose differences are invisible, and no less deadly,” she nodded at Hyper.
"You say creatures..."
"It is a more noble term than sport. Sport, as if we were someone else's amusement."
"Maybe we are," said Chango.
"Maybe some of us are," said Orielle with a pointed look. "I know I’m not. A creature is its own being. It exists on its own terms. Others may attempt to enslave it, but it will always thwart control. Haven't you seen the movies?"
Chango stood up. Helix glanced at her, and then at Orielle. “I guess we’re going to go now,” she said.
“Very well. It was nice to meet you. Just remember, Helix,” she leaned forward, her red eyes staring. “If you’re going to be a freak, you might as well be a freak show.”
oOo
Back at the bar Chango sipped at her beer, sullenly watching the conclusion of a transaction at Orielle’s table. Vonda stood up and walked towards the bar, staring at Helix. She walked right up to them, ignoring Chango as usual. “I don’t think you know what you’re doing,” she said to Helix, “so I’m going to tell you. Sports have no business vatdiving, and if you try it, you’re going to find that out.”
Chango felt as if someone had poured ice water over her. “What are you talking about, Vonda?”
Vonda glanced at her. “You don’t know?” She nodded her head at Helix. “She went in and took a physical today, and filled out an application.”
“What? That’s bullshit.” She turned to Helix, “You didn’t.”
Helix looked at her levelly, not smiling, not protesting. She spoke with a calm that reached into Chango and twisted her stomach. “I did. I need a job.”
“Don’t give me that crap,” said Vonda. “I’ve heard all about you. You don’t need a job. Your daddy works at the big office. He can get you a job. A better one than this, believe me. What are you doing down here anyway? Slumming? Go back where you belong.”
“You don’t know where I belong,” said Helix.
“Helix, you can’t dive,” said Chango choking on the words.
“Yes I can, and I will. Watch me.”
“I can’t believe this. We talked about it.” Chango took Helix’s upper hands in hers. “I told you how bad diving would be for you.”
“I know. I know you did, but-”
“But what then? Listen, don’t worry, if they accept your application, just tell them you changed your mind.”
“I’m not going to do that.”
Chango released her hands, staring at her. “Why?” she asked, because it was the only thing she could think to say.
“Because I haven’t changed my mind.”
“You’re going to wish you had,” said Vonda.
“She’s right,” said Chango.
Helix turned from her to Vonda, an odd impassive expression on her face. She looked at them both the same way, like obstacles. “You can say what you want,” said Helix, “but if they want to hire me, I’m taking the job.”
“Okay,” said Vonda. “Okay, but you’ve been warned. Remember that.”
“You can’t stop me from working.” Sudden anger glinted in her eyes.
“No,” said Vonda, stepping closer, “but we can make it hard for you, and we will.”
“Vonda. Vonda don’t worry. She won’t dive,” said Chango, moving to stand beside Helix. Helix turned to her, and put both sets of hands on her shoulders. “Chango, I know you mean well, but this isn’t any of your business.”
“What?”
“Well it’s my business,” said Vonda, “The only business I and the other vatdivers have. And you working means one less job for somebody who needs one, who can really do it. You know they’ll pay you less, and classify you as temporary so they can get out of giving you health benefits. You’re just playing along with them. You’re helping them lower hiring standards. It’s a dangerous job, we depend on each other in there.”
Helix leaned towards her. “Then you’re going to have to depend on me.”
Vonda bared her teeth and stiff armed Helix in the chest. “I’m not depending on you. Not only are you a freak, you’re insane.”
“What she is,” said a voice made of crystal and rain, “is none of your fucking business, you little goon. All you need to know is that she is a far more fabulous creature than you could ever hope to be, even on your deathbed. Now why don’t you go croak off.” It was Orielle. She had materialized beside Helix as if made of vapor.
Vonda looked sullen now, instead of enraged. “This has nothing to do with you.”
“Why? Because you say so? What if I decide it does? What then? Would you like to shove me, too?
Why don’t you just throw a punch? Go ahead, shatter my jaw.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Orielle.”
“No, I didn’t think so,” her mouth pointed in a wicked smile, and she turned to Helix and Chango and Hyper, encompassing them with a sweep of her gauze draped arm. “Shall we, children?” and she guided them through the slowly parting crowd of onlookers.
Outside the bar, Chango turned on Helix. “Vonda’s right, you are insane,” she said.
“Chango-” Helix touched her cheek, her hand was cool. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you I was applying. You would have tried to stop me.”
“Damn straight I would have. Forget all that crap Vonda laid on you. The reason you shouldn’t dive is because it will kill you.”
Helix shook her head. “I just don’t believe that.”
Chango looked up at the sky and laughed, “No, that’s right. I’m just making it all up!”
“Maybe she’ll be okay,” said Hyper.
Chango stared at him. “What? Are you nuts too?”
Hyper shrugged. “It’s her life, you know.”
She nodded. “Yeah, yeah.” She stared at Helix, and there were tears in her eyes. “I guess I’m the fool here. I thought maybe you had something to live for,” she said, and walked away. oOo
They sprawled on blankets and cushions around the artifact: Orielle's 36" television set with laser disk drive.
"These old laser disks are much better in their original format. I can't even stand to watch the holographic ones. The framing is all wrong." she said, sliding a well-preserved disk into the slot with nimble fingers. Helix gnawed at her lower lip with one of her fangs. She'd lived a goodly portion of her life in modest affluence, with pretty close to the latest in entertainment technology, but this, this was evidence of a different type of wealth altogether. A rare and highly specialized piece of equipment. Extremely expensive and of no practical use whatsoever. Just to find disks in playable condition would cost a small fortune. It was a remarkable achievement, this television set, a monument to disposable cash. Orielle folded herself onto a cushion and reached beneath the coffee table for a lacquered box. It was glossy and black, inlaid with mother of pearl in abstract geometric shapes. She drew from it a glittering chrome blast pistol, its fittings and chamber rendered in curving lines like ripples of water. She fitted a white, ceramic capsule into the chamber and twisted it shut. “Would you like to go first?” she asked Helix, the gun resting in her outstretched palm like a pool of liquid metal. Helix hesitated, and then lifted the thing in her lower left hand, cradled it, and slipped her index finger through the trigger guard. She opened her mouth and rested the muzzle gently against the roof of her mouth, squeezed the trigger and jerked her head back at the cold burst of gas against the roof of her mouth.