Part 26 (2/2)
Their dates were two brunettes with deep tans and whole-eye cosmetic contacts that hid their pupils in favor of featureless expanses of white, so they looked like their eyes had rolled back into their heads, or maybe like they were wearing cue-b.a.l.l.s for gla.s.s eyes. Like most of the fatkins girls Perry had met, they dressed to the nines, ate like pigs, drank like fishes, and talked about nothing but biotech.
”So I'm thinking, sure, mitochrondrial lengthening *sounds* like it should work, but if that's so, why have we been s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around with it for thirty years without accomplis.h.i.+ng anything?” His date, Moira, worked at a law office, and she came up to his chest, and it was hard to tell with those eyes, but it seemed like she was totally oblivious to his complete indifference to mitochondria.
He nodded and tried not to look bored. South Beach wasn't what it had once been, or maybe Perry had changed. He used to love to come here to people-watch, but the weirdos of South Beach seemed too precious when compared with the denizens of his own little settlement out on the Hollywood freeway.
”Let's go for a walk on the beach,” Lester said, digging out his wallet and rubbing his card over the pay-patch on the table.
”Good idea,” Perry said. Anything to get off this patio and away from the insufferable club music thundering out of the speakers pole-mounted directly over their table.
The beach was gorgeous, so there was that. The sunset behind them stained the ocean b.l.o.o.d.y and the sand was fine and clean. Around their feet, Dade County beachcombers wormed endlessly through the sand, filtering out all the gunk, cig b.u.t.ts, condoms, needles, wrappers, loose change, wedding rings, and forgotten sungla.s.ses. Perry nudged one with his toe and it roombaed away, following its instinct to avoid human contact.
”How do you figure they keep the vags from busting those open for whatever they've got in their bellies?” Perry said, looking over his date's head at Lester, who was holding hands with his girl, carrying her shoes in his free hand.
”Huh? Oh, those things are built like tanks. Have to be to keep the sand out. You need about four hours with an air-hammer to bust one open.”
”You tried it?”
Lester laughed. ”Who, me?”
Now it was Perry's date's turn to be bored. She wandered away toward the boardwalk, with its strip of novelty sellers. Perry followed, because he had a professional interest in the kind of wares they carried. Most of them originated on one of his printers, after all. Plus, it was the gentlemanly thing to do.
”What have we here?” he said as he pulled up alongside her. She was trying on a bracelet of odd, bony beads.
”Ectopic fetuses,” she said. ”You know, like the Christian fundies use for stem-cell research? You quicken an unfertilized egg in vitro and you get a little ball of fur and bone and skin and stem-cells. It can never be a human, so it has no soul, so it's not murder to harvest them.”
The vendor, a Turkish teenager with a luxurious mustache, nodded. ”Every bead made from naturally occurring foetus-bones.” He handed one to Perry.
It was dry and fragile in his hand. The bones were warm and porous, and in tortured Elephant Man shapes that he recoiled from atavistically.
”Good price,” the Turkish kid said. He had practically no accent at all, and was wearing a j.a.panese baseball-team uniform and spray-on foot-coverings. Thoroughly Americanized. ”Look here,” he said, and gestured at a little corner of his table.
It was covered in roses made from fabric -- small and crude, with pin-backs. Perry picked one up. It had a certain naive charm. The fabric was some kind of very delicate leather --
”It's skin,” his date said. ”Foetal skin.”
He dropped it. His fingers tingled with the echo of the feeling of the leather. *Jesus I hate biotech*. The rose fluttered past the table to the sandy boardwalk, and the Turkish kid picked it up and blew it clean.
”Sorry,” Perry said, sticking his hands in his pockets. His date bought a bracelet and a matching choker made of tiny bones and teeth, and the Turkish kid, leering, helped her fasten the necklace. When they returned to Lester and his date, Perry knew the evening was at a close. The girls played a couple rounds of eye-hockey, unreadable behind their lenses, and Perry shrugged apologetically at Lester.
”Well then,” Lester said, ”it sure has been a nice night.” Lester got smooched when they saw the girls off in a pedicab. In the buzz and hum of its flywheel, Perry got a damp and unenthusiastic handshake.
”Win some, lose some,” Lester said as the girls rolled away in a flash of muscular calves from the pair of beach-perfect cabbies pedaling the thing.
”You're not angry?” Perry said.
”Nah,” Lester said. ”I get laid too much as it is. Saps me of my precious bodily fluids. Gotta keep some chi inside, you know?”
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