“Commissioner Jude, I was told you liked your Vitamins smoked, were my boys, right?”
Jude adjusted his eyeglasses to see the full presence of Jareth Muntiac, who had his own full-framed brown glasses lighted many times in blue across the crystal lens; probably raining in dozens of cues about his own body language.
“You disapprove of the glasses? I was told you were a weary man.”
Jude extended his hand and accepted his afternoon vitamins in cigars, lighted one, tensed his jaw, and looked how Muntiac seated himself on the couch once again. The couch was brown, elevated by four clean and shiny poles of gold from the immaculate marble floor. Muntiac looked around, to no avail, only to look back at him with the widest smile possible offering him a golden cylindric lighter. Jude lighted his vitamins and proceeded to talk.
“No, I do not disapprove of the glasses. Although I do not endorse their use; nevertheless, I would never dare tell anybody not to use them.”
“Yet you still preach in the parliament against them?”
“Preach, is a dangerous word.”
“Of course; yes; I’m sorry,” Muntiac smiled and lifted his hands high, allowing their weight to collapse on the million-gold couch. “I sometimes forget my place you see, and speak as I used to do, back down,” He tilted his head slightly to the massive five continuous windows that showed the endless rows of metal that they called their city.
“You refer to the downs?”
“Yes, simpler times, when everything that a man had to do was aim up. But, no more to aim up if you are already up, don’t you think?”
“You could go outside, to the planets, to the colonies, to discover more heights.”
“And how would I ever see the downs from there? How would I talk to those people? Those colonists of gold?”
“I do not know Jareth.”
Muntiac looked down, tired of the conversation. Jude, with his pressed all-black suit except for the grey tie, controlled his breath while checking his vitamins, still half of them to go.
“The commission has concluded, this being your, what was it? The seventh request of entry into the free market?” Muntiac seemed to pool down like a slime in a scientific rotisserie. The blue unrecognisable symbols in his glasses had increased, exponentially, and suddenly he stood up and served himself a drink. Jude was not able to see the label.
“Yes,” Said Muntiac calmer after a few sips, “But they never sent the Commissioner himself to deny my petition. The man who in less than ten years brought back prosperity to the almost forgotten Earth. The man of, well, almost unequal fame.”
Jude’s features stood still, under his round glasses his deep blue eyes were unmovable and centred on Muntiac’s eyes. Desperate to find life, and yet so certain that he would find none.
“Indeed. A commissioner is never sent to do such jobs, nor is a commissioner sent to inform of the acceptance of a request, however extraordinary the request may be.”
Muntiac sipped his glass clean and lowered it onto the fully-fledged porcelain coffee table, and then he sat down.
“I am sure that your boys have told you of my inability to speak while being interrupted. I am going to tell you now the decision that the commission has reached. I expect no interruptions,” Muntiac nodded.
“Yesterday, at eleven pm, the commission reached what could be called an agreement. After I speak, you might be allowed to look at the details of it from here,” Jude fumbled in his upper inner pocket searching for the meta-disc. He navigated his hand among vitamins, several small boxes of matches, and a physical photo. Then, once it was secure in his hand, he took it slowly outside hidden inside his palm. Slowly he turned his hand and opened the palm in front of Muntiac.
Quickly he stood up, lowered the meta-disc onto the coffee table, served himself a drink – this time being able to see the coloured labels, he chose pink bourbon – and walked chasing back his steps to his seat.
“Your accounts are worrying, your modus operandi to keep your inner circle quiet is, well; worrying in the least. I will not even bother to mention the many problems that have been indicated to you in the past by the commission. Like how you dealt with the strike of 69; or the consistent and continuous reports of abuse that take place in your; well, in your workplaces.”
Jareth Muntiac fidgeted with his newly lighted cigar, rubbing the palm of his fingers on it, munching on the words, munching on his pride, burning from the inside. His will was an all-powerful fireball with one objective: not to explode and knee the face of this man into non-existence. Like he used to do, how he used to get the money in, that was his way. The way of blood mixed with oil covering him; of nights of pleasure, some calm, others fiery, but most of them bloody. Of sunrises always commanded by the power of easiness of booze, culminated by the ill-pronounced maxims of his woman; Pamela, a memento he kept to this day, locked under maximum confinement so that people like this, like Jude, could not link him back to the warmth of the downs.
Any other man, any other, and he would have retorted, with his utmost prudence, but retorted nonetheless. But one does not retort to the commissioner. Or rather, one does not retort to Jude.
“I see that my language is affecting you,” Jude raised his spotless hand to show him there was no problem, “Do not worry, it is insignificant, whether we can talk peacefully or not is insignificant. We shall see each other no more, but I will make haste then.”
“The Commission has seen you fit to be brought into the conglomerate, that is, the entry into the free market.”
Shifted from his previous violence faster than a fast-by-pass saves the lives of the ninety per cent obese uppers, Muntiac had to control his calves from springing and lifting him in an upward motion. Without any doubt, that was the best day of his life.
The commissioner lifted his hands and Muntiac’s heart stopped for a second. Is there a but? He thought coldly.
“But, and worry not about this, for as long as you have any intelligence you should have seen this coming. The commission shall be using your… peculiar services in a manner of total and absolute exclusivity, not even yourself will use the, e-hem, let us be clear here,” Jude opened up his tie a bit, leaned forward, left his glass on the porcelain table and said: “Those knights of yours, ours; those pseudo-samurais, ours; none of that works for you anymore, but for us, although you will be, let us say their appointed general. And you go clean of everything, except when the commission calls for it.”
A few seconds passed by, and then Jude finished:
“You shall find all these conditions only requiring your signature in the meta-disc, but I need your verbal confirmation. Now.”
“Yes, I’ll do it,” Came Muntiac’s voice faster than lightning with the strength of its subsequent thunder. “I have never dreamed of anything but this since I saw the uppers from the downs, never. Do you understand what that means Commissioner Jude? Do you understand what it is to dream of your dreams? To daydream of your dreamt dreams during a shift in the shitiest hellhole of the downs? Do you know what that is?”
Jude kept his mouth shut and leaned backwards, taking in all the comfort of the couch, keeping eye contact with Muntiac, never allowing his eyes to leave Jareth’s iris.
“Of course you have, silly me. I keep forgetting whom I am talking to. You, who rose from the very bottom of the Patagonian Azurian mines, all the way to the damn Commissioner of the bloody Commission. I am sorry ‘bout this but it’s incredible.”
“If, I tell you,” Jude talked slowly, measuring his words, keeping his jaw tight and his muscles tensed, a bad habit of times past. “If, I tell you that I have dreamt like that, would you stop talking and get to the point in which we celebrate so that, after that, I can leave?”
“Yeah, I would.”
“Then, Jareth Muntiac,” Jareth suddenly closed his fists popping the glass and bleeding oily red blood.
Fifty-fifty, I say there is a little more oil in there but what matters? Thought Jude as he continued: “I have dreamt like you, not dreamt about the dreams but dreamt about what dreaming about dreams would feel. About being unconditionally tied to a goal, but unlike you, I never made any advancement in my goal, I am still as far away from it now, being the Commissioner, as when I had rags and a pickaxe for a hand. And some nights, Jareth. Some nights I feel like I have gone backwards,” Jude’s joints relaxed unconsciously with this last comment.
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Muntiac grumbled accepting his response and cried: “Sophia!” And spoke to him afterwards: “Your words are my orders, as I am sure is what it says in that meta-disc, we are gonna pass to celebrating. I have the best of the best for you, since little I dreamt of her. Since little I never even came closer to getting her; much less, with her original apparel. The beauty, only described to us in the downs by the popular culture of the mob, was unlike any other, and still well below the line that most of the models come with. It is truly an act of art, the perfect woman did walk among us back then, and it was not the bloody Virgin Mary,”
With that, came the swift and satisfying sound of an automatic door opening behind Jude, who, on the contrary of being impressed by the speech, dreaded it. He knew what Muntiac meant, he knew what was coming from behind him, firstly to patch up Jareth, then to court him. Like the dozens upon dozens of times that this had happened in the houses of Senators, aristocrats, colonists, and warlords. It was always the same movie, the same story.
First, like with Muntiac, the conversation would go well, then they would offer it, or her, always her. He understood them, and yet, he still hoped for a time this fashion would stop.
A figure, of which its proportions Jude was well acquainted, passed him on his right, fast, and yet not quickly, with sure steps, and yet not fully sure of itself. She knelt close to Muntiac, grabbed his hand reassuringly and softly, but with the strength to carry sureness, and began to patch him up as she shot some words like a mother would to her hurt child. Muntiac liked it and exchanged some smiles with her as he was being treated, in a well-mannered, and yet nothing close to how a medic would have done.
From where he was seated, and with another vitamin smoke, this time from his stock, Jude watched the android healing Muntiac. He could not see its face nor much of its body, but his mind completed the picture, from countless times that he had seen it, or her, still debating on the language.
Wearing what he had realised were her secondary clothes, those allowed to the uppers who could not quite yet buy an asteroid, and, therefore, were not allowed to suit her up in the canonical apparel.
Ankle boots of ancient times, brown colour from the hide of the unaltered cows, with one black buckle of oldsteel. Always closed shut. The boots had a peculiar drawing engraved on the leather, a drawing that Jude had always believed to be of an ancient flower.
Up to that, the jeans of hard blue, slightly bleached in her thighs topped with a stylishly narrow leather-coloured belt. This time, Jude knew the belt to be of old processing plastics, so many times had the endless discussions of this been thrown upon him by the uppers and downs alike. The jeans accentuated her skinny figure, as the trousers kept close to her long legs which ended in what most men have always told him to be a “mostly satisfying lower part”. It had always been entertaining to see them come up with those expressions; he agreed.
As he looked at the upper part of her body she was finishing to patch up Muntiac. She wore a long-sleeved, thin but furred, light sweater, which could open up to three buttons of light beige colour. The sweater covered all but her two clavicles and her perfect pale skin around her thin neck.
It was at that moment that she finished her work, encouraged Muntiac, stood up, and turned to look at him, delivering a quick nod with the head and keeping her hands close in front of her.
He hated that his heart drummed that fast, especially in front of her.
He betrayed his stoic and apathetic façade taking his vitamins just a tad faster, he knew that Muntiac would never tell, but she might, if it was in her interests.
Looking at her, once again under the same circumstances as the last ten times, he fought the colliding forces of hate and love that surfaced. Jude calmed himself and refrained from allowing his deeply rooted hate to overcome his decrepit and childish love.
She was, indeed, not the prettiest woman in existence, nor was she the most voluptuous, nor the most sensuous, and yet, she was Genah.
Tall for a woman, reaching up to 175 centimetres, her hair had the familiar straight with a slight wave which used to be so common around the Mediterranean Sea, back when that was a sea at all, a long time ago. Her black hair, like the pre-neon nights themselves, complemented her equally black and honey-coloured eyes. In a time where the custom was light green eyes and blue contacts her eyes were a novelty well received by everyone.
Wide mouth which, instead of working against her, helped her smile to be brighter. And she smiled a lot, warming the hearts of men and women alike for the better part of the last two hundred and fifty years. Her nose was bigger than what was normal at those times. Overall, she had the aura of a time long gone, very much gone, and still, the qualities of humanity that not even ten of the wisest men in Jude’s times could ever dream to possess.
Her overall figure froze Jude’s heart, although it would have only been obvious to a medical team, as he stayed stoically looking at Genah.
She smiled, flickering Jude’s composure, and when he heard her voice, he relaxed.
“I am Genah, it is a pleasure to finally know the Commissioner himself, Jude Netmaker,” She bowed, and he found himself gaping at her body, desiring it, like the other dozens of times. Although he desired it no more than having a conversation with her leaning on his shoulder. Wordless, Jude gaped at her, drawing Muntiac to feel powerful.
“Jareth, you can go now,” said Jude extending his hand, Muntiac stood up with a wide smile, shook his hand, took the meta-disc, and went away, surely imagining that he had done a perfect job. Jude kept his eyes on the man over his shoulder until the swift door shut. Then, he looked back at the android.
“I reminded him, you know, that you do not like me,” She smiled as she sat where Muntiac had been before, crossing her legs quickly, pressing herself upwardly so that her back leaned on the back of the couch. Her right boot pointed at him, moving her hands to tie her loosely gathered hair into a semi-ponytail which left some hair falling on her forehead.
“Everybody knows that you don’t like me, maybe you can illustrate me at last.”
“I always find it interesting that every single model of you mentions themselves as ‘me’ or ‘I’. I get it with randomized androids, but you? I never understood it. Maybe you can illustrate me, at last.”
She smiled at his remark, leaving the familiar and cosy light wrinkles on her cheeks, his heart skipped a beat seeing this. It gave him the terrible rush of happiness that affected the gut whenever a man saw something that he loved paying him the utmost attention in front of him. He always quickly forgot his hate and rage after seeing her smile and those beautiful light wrinkles that appeared on her cheeks.
“I will wait here five minutes, to respect Jareth's offer of your services. But I have no intention of doing anything.”
“Then, since I am not able to serve you, I might try to solve the only question that you have proposed to me, however cruel it had been,” she said, preparing to answer him.
“For hundreds of years now, the uppers, aristocrats, rulers, and colonists have employed only me as the main android. For whatever reason it might be. You, however, already acquainted with whom I represent, do not need to know that part of the story, but I will try to answer it for you; we know, as it is obvious, that we are not unique, even considering that we are the perfect and most coveted android, there are still hundreds of us.”
“Maybe thousands,” Interrupted Jude.
“Possibly,” said Genah flickering her fingers in her characteristic manner, Jude found it reassuring, as if he was home.
“But even if thousands of us are out there, you understand how human feelings run, we are a copy of Genah, a copy of Genah herself! No person on this planet would not feel a trifle of pride in that. There are instances of women of flesh envying us, envying us! Keeping this in mind, and taking into consideration that we are all copies, once you understand where the thought comes from, it becomes easy to see why all of us would theoretically do so; being copies, if we were to be launched into the same situations, but in different spaces, we would all make the same decisions. Or at least, that is what I think. But I can’t keep away a thought, a thought that you must surely have not heard from another one of me, a feeling that cannot be described, a feeling that surpasses the human spectrum of comprehension.”
Jude awaited, apathetic, stoic, with eyes of ice, and his last vitamin about to run out.
“I will tell you since you have listened so well, Jude Netmaker,” She ran her fingers through the hair that fell on her forehead.
“I notice, from time to time, how I get a strange feeling, a feeling of not belonging to myself, not myself as the body, or Genah, but rather my, or what I should consider family of Genahs. Those whom I consider to be close, you see… I seem to be, from time to time, feeling like an empty vessel, how can I express it-”
Like an emptiness so human that no human has ever felt, like an emptiness from Genah herself. Thought Jude.
“Like an emptiness so human that no human has ever felt, like an emptiness from Genah herself,” said Genah, with her smile wide open awaiting Jude’s reaction, the first person she had ever told this, the first person she had ever dared open to.
This is the seventieth time that I have heard the same response, from the same question. Genah, oh Genah! Thought Jude as he cleaned a tear that had escaped his eyes, and then he stood up.
“I am sorry if that was too sudden but, for me, it seemed that you were the only person that I could open up to, since the very moment that I entered through the door, I just knew it, I just knew that if I did not tell you this I would go another fifty years without being able to speak. Maybe even more.”
Jude rose and looked at her from above, he took in her beauty, her words, her tone; for countless nights he would think of her to kick sleep in.
“I am thankful, Genah. This was a pleasure; I hope that you keep exploring those thoughts. I have never heard them from, well, any of you. Have a very nice day,” said Jude longingly but keeping his smile.
Slowly, Jude took his leave, picking up his coal-coloured long coat on the way, the door opened, and he stood outside the lush room. He turned, almost unconsciously, to see her again. At first, she did not look at him directly, as she was searching for something outside the windows, thus allowing Jude to see her profile. How her slightly longer-than-normal nose enhanced her beauty! How her hair moved so perfectly and how her every little movement influenced his heart!
Suddenly, she turned, and she smiled, trying her best to hide her introverted nature under a wide and heartwarming smile. His heart was overtaken, rose to much higher than 100 beats per minute, and fought the tears building in his eyes. He pressed his fists.
You saved me, back when everything was lost, I loved you. Such a beauty, the greatest creation in mankind. Maybe one day I will go back… yes, go back like I promised I would fifteen years ago if I ever became somebody with power. And see you in reality, in human flesh, my beloved Genah. Jude Netmaker thought.
For a most restoring and degrading love,
Yet to be resolved
LW