Three

Joelene and I rode back around the globe to the RiverGroup family compound in the speeding silver teardrop that was my limousine. For the first few minutes, I reviewed the post-date interviews, but soon, I switched off the screen and stared out the window at the scenery rushing by. But that motion reminded me of the Bee Train and of my last date with Nora, so I closed my eyes.

"Nora is at Slate Gardens," said Joelene. "For cold baths, mud, and mourning."

I refused to look at the photos or her family's publicity release. Joelene read part of it aloud, and it sounded like something a phalanx of lawyers had produced. I counted the word regrettably five times.

As the car exited the Loop, the super highway that only the upper echelon of the families could use, and we wound our way through the baking desert southwest, my feelings shifted from despair to anger. Of course it wasn't Mr. Gonzalez-Matsu, nor was it as Joelene had said, a terrible and inopportune breach. It was Father! It was his ineptitude, his incompetence, and his dreadful strategies. Like so much of what had gone wrong in my nineteen years, it was all his fault.

The access road began to rise above the garish city of Ros Begas, into the Rockies where a valley had been dug in a mountain and the RiverGroup compound had been built. Just as the car came to the top of the lip and started down, a ray of sunlight glinted off the huge glass dome that protected the buildings from the sun, the insects, and the carbon dioxide. Beneath stood the dozen mismatched buildings that made up our little city. Some were windowless warehouses with flat roofs. Several were covered with wooden shingles as if they were trying to be old-fashioned ski lodges. Around the edge were smaller office buildings. Most were glass; a few had metal skins, one was stone. Dead center, sat the black and gold, now abandoned, PartyHaus, with its wide stairs, Ionic columns, and crumbling friezes.

As the car slowed before the garage, I could see attendants, cooks, maids, and workers running toward us. Some were wailing and crying as if I were a coffin containing myself. They clustered around the car, and as I exited, I said, "Thank you. I'm fine. I'm fine, everyone."

Joelene jumped in front to shield me as a tall orange family satin with a golden visor subdued a maid who was tearing off her clothes to expose a complicated set of sharp-looking bands and wires across her chest and crotch. "I'm the one, Michael. It's me. I'm the one who really loves you!"

Years ago, when I danced, I told myself I enjoyed these hopeless displays, like the time an army of teenage girls, dressed in lanolin wools, marched up from the valley, surrounded the compound and demanded all my dancing outfits, toiletries, shaven hairs, and a week's worth of excretions. Now, all of it embarrassed me. As the woman was taken away, Joelene and I hurried in the other direction to my building.

Before my heart attack, my house had been rather like an enormous egg carton inside, with a dozen different rooms. The floors of each room were speaker heads and the place reverberated day and night with heavy bone-jarring thuds and squealing highs. Besides the music, each room was decorated with a theme, like the blinding red light room and the dead lamb room. When I demanded to be taken from the PartyHaus to somewhere quiet and dim, the place had been gutted. Over time, I had decorated and now it had polished muslin walls, black iron floor tiles, and just a few upholstered pieces sat here and there. Two surveillance cameras, little more than black bugs, were mounted on the walls. And while they were there for my safety, I had positioned my bed, desk, and couch out of their range.

Once we were inside and Joelene had shut the cast-iron front door, I felt like I wanted to get in bed and bury myself beneath a hundred layers of wool. I started toward my bed only to jump back in surprise. My mother lay there.

She was a few years younger than father and had at least as much surgery, but seemed older. Her skin was dark and had a leathery quality. Last time I saw her, a year ago, her hair had been long, straight, and hung to her waist. This time it was frizzed like a giant tumble weed and dyed a hundred different colors. Her robe of a dress looked like something a cavewoman would wear. Made of a patchwork of small tanned pelts, I could see tiny rat claws here and there. The bones in her face were beautiful and proud, but now she looked like a former beauty queen who had been forced to fend for herself in the wilderness.

While I felt bad for her, and I had tried not to let Father's poisoned opinion influence me, I distrusted her. Every time I saw her, she wanted something. And not just that, but she always got shrill and hysterical like her generation.

"Thank goodness you're ok!" she said, as she leaped up and came toward me with open arms. "You have to leave," she said, as she hugged me. She smelled of barbecue smoke and soap. "Leave before it's too late."

"Mrs. Rivers-Zssne," said Joelene, pulling Mother's arms from me. "I don't believe you're authorized to be here today."

Mother stepped back and glared at my advisor with her wide, fearsome sage-colored eyes. "I am!"

"May I see your pass, please?"

"A mother needs a pass to come and hug her son! And to think that we were supposed to be the perfect family. What a lie it all was!"

"Regardless," said Joelene, smiling stiffly, "I must see your pass."

As embarrassed as I felt for my mother, my advisor was right—especially after a terrible security breach.

While glaring at me as if this were my doing, Mother pulled a card from her pouch. Somehow she'd been able to bend the hard plastic. After straightening the crease, Joelene checked her screens. "It was valid," she said. "It expired one hour ago."

"I spoke to his father," said Mother, trilling her fingers dismissively. "He said I could have a word with my poor, injured son."

Joelene handed back the pass. "No disrespect, but you did not speak directly to his father, and we are extremely busy. Additionally, I would advise you to hurry if you want to, wisely, avoid Mr. Rivers senior."

"If you don't mind!" bristled Mother. "A moment, please."

Joelene didn't blink. "If you're asking to be alone with Michael, I'm afraid that won't be possible."

I wanted to tell Joelene that it wasn't necessary, that I'd be fine, but I knew she wasn't going to budge. She probably felt responsible for the freeboot's bullets.

"It's okay," I told Mother, "we can talk. She's family."

Mother's face paled; her mouth shrunk to a dot. "Don't confuse family. She is not your family. She never will be. Your real family loves you. And they desperately need you," she said, her tone shifting into her familiar pleading. "They're waiting to meet you. They've been waiting for so long. It just breaks my heart." Mother covered her face and began to sob. "I'm so sorry for everything! I'm so sorry!"

"I feel fine." I held out my hands with their tiny scars for her to see. "I'm healthy." I thought that was the answer to the question she hadn't asked.

Mother wiped her face, glared at Joelene, and hugged me again. I put my arms around her and, up close, I could see that a multitude of tiny metal and glass charms had been woven into her rainbow hair: birds, hearts, aphids, cars, sunglasses, phalluses, and what looked like a tiny caribou stared back at me.

"You really must leave," she said, sniffing. "It's not good here. It's all about the wrong things, and your father uses everyone and anyone he can. Look what's happened to you." She took my left hand in hers and rubbed my palm with her thumbs.

"It was a random breach. I'm perfectly fine." The words came off my tongue too easily and I regretted that I was, after two minutes, trying to appease her so she'd leave.

"Come with me," she whispered. "Come be part of Tanoshi No Wah."

"Ma'am," said Joelene, stiffly, "please."

"We live honestly, and we're not ashamed," continued Mother. "We show ourselves. And I'd love for you to see who you really are."

"Please," said Joelene, raising her voice.

"The families and their laws are pollution to the human spirit. They're all hypocrites! We're trying to do what's right."

"Mrs. Rivers, we're late for an appointment!"

"Think about it, Michael. You're not part of this anymore. You've changed from the beast you were. Change a little more, and you'll see what I mean. Come with me."

I couldn't imagine her life in the slubs, eating grilled rats, living in tents. In the shows, she sang, stripped nude, and ate fire, I'd heard. "I found someone." I said, not sure if she knew of Nora. "I'm in love."

She shook her head frantically, but one of the charms in her hair spun around and hit her on the nose. "Trust me," she said, grimacing and rubbing the spot. "There's nothing to love in the families. They're evil and ruthless. They're all dead lumps of stolen flesh! Come with me. You need to find your real family."

By now, Joelene's face turned red. "Mrs. Rivers, I'm warning you!"

"Please, Michael!" She put her hands on my shoulders. "It's time you came home. They're waiting. They adore you. And you'd make such a lovely addition. You could dance with us."

That was the worse thing she could have suggested. "Mother," I said, squirming away. "You know I don't dance anymore."

"Fine!" she said, angrily. "Don't dance!"

"It's time for you to go," said Joelene.

Mother combed her hair from her face and regained her composure. "I always thought you would be a poet. A lovely poet. But you don't have to do anything in the show. You could be my assistant. Wouldn't that be nice? You could hold my clothes while I strip."

"Mother!" I said, flummoxed. "I don't want to perform. I don't want you doing it either!"

"Mrs. Rivers," said Joelene, wedging herself between us. "Leave now, or I'll be forced to call security."

"Michael, come and find out who you are."

"That's it!" Joelene pushed mother backward. "You must go now."

"How dare you touch me! You're just like all of them. You're sucking his blood. You're just using his talent and fame!" Mother had that crazy look in her eyes. A second later she clenched her fists and lunged at Joelene as if to pummel her. Joelene was stronger and knew the fighting arts. In one second, she had Mother in a headlock and called the satins.

"Let go of me, you bitch!" screamed Mother. "Let Michael come with me and find out the truth!"

"Mother!" I said, wishing she wouldn't be like this. "I know the truth."

"Let go!" she said, thrashing in Joelene's grip. "Let go or I'll bite."

Two especially tall, satin beasts, with angular but impassive faces, rushed in and grabbed her. One held her arms; the other, her legs, and they carried her out as if they were dealing with so much meat.

"Get these things off of me!" she shrieked.

"Joelene's only trying to protect me," I said, as they came to the door.

"Your father is a mutation!" she screamed. "Ask him what that means! Ask him!"

The door slammed shut.

Plopping onto my grey wool couch, I slumped forward and told myself that I hated her. Every time I saw her, she wound up screaming and ranting. I had the worst parents. They were loud, obnoxious, selfish, and awful.

Joelene sat beside me and stroked my shoulder. "Eventually," she said, "we will talk with her. She is a good person. It's circumstance."

"I don't want to see her ever again."

Joelene's hand slid off my back. "Judith Rivers-Zssne," she pronounced Mother's name slowly as if she were going to define the words, "has led a difficult life. As have all the women who have been with your father. I know she loves you, but she expected too much from her marriage and . . . " After she glanced at me gently, she said, "She probably thought you would save her."

"Me?" I asked, as if it were absurd. "From what?"

"Unhappiness," she said, staring into space. Her eyes found mine. With a shrug, she added, "Years ago, your mother tried to fight the system. She petitioned the families to let her change her identity. Of course, they refused, as that's wholly illegal—tantamount to treason. Since then, she's done the best she can."

I didn't want to think about Mother and her problems. I didn't want her in my bed when I came home, and I certainly didn't want her asking me to hold her clothes while she stripped. I said, "She scares me."

Joelene folded her hands in her lap and tilted her head in just that way she had when regurgitating her facts. "Reports indicate that she's taking a combination of self-administered color therapy and an illegal and powerful painkiller, strengthener, and mood shaper: aru."

"aru?"

"Actually, it's an amazing and useful drug." She frowned. "The families have exaggerated the dangers of everything the 'Ceutical Warlords make. Whatever else they are, the slub rulers are masters of biochemistry." I thought she was going to continue in that vein, but she shrugged. "In any case, your mother's group, Tanoshi No Wah, is losing money. You would be a huge draw, of course."

"Everyone just wants to use me," I complained.

She pursed her lips as if she were going to speak, but stood abruptly. "We have a meeting."

 

Instead of being driven to the business building across the compound, Joelene suggested we walk along the oxygen gardens and the reflecting pool. It sounded like a good idea, but the temperature-regulated air and the filtered sunlight didn't lift my spirits. Instead, I felt crushed under the vast, ashen sky. While nothing that had happened was Mother's fault, her tantrum made me feel doomed. I would never escape my family. I would never escape their wishes and their desires for me. As we approached the wood-shingled office building, I asked Joelene, "Why?" knowing she would understand.

She stopped before the door and spoke quietly as if telling a secret. "I have diverted some of your discretionary funds to Tanoshi No Wah to try and help your mother and her friends. They have a lot of medical needs, and I believe they're poorly managed. It's the best we can do now."

I didn't even know I had discretionary funds. "But why is she with a carnival in the slubs? Why did she leave us for that?" I felt she did it to embarrass me, like everything else she did.

Joelene glanced to her right as if she were trying to think what to say, but then she stood there, as if momentarily transfixed.

I turned to see that she was staring at the PartyHaus. At one time it had been the crown jewel of the compound, but now its black and gold Rococo façade was matted with dirt and dust. From the roof were long, pale green lines of oxidation. And at the top of the stairs, the enormous front doors were splattered with droppings as thousands of birds had made nests in the intricately carved fornicating animals. It was a combination disco, hotel, brothel, and amusement park where I had spent the nights of my youth at one hundred and fifty beats per minute.

When Joelene's eyes met mine, I felt that we both had the same mood: a nebulous sense of defeat, under-painted with the caustic dread of seeing Father.

Finally, she nodded toward the door. We entered the building, and found meeting theater five. The three-hundred-seat auditorium was empty, dark, and cold. Joelene located the controls, and as she turned on house lights, I sat in one of the orange, over-stuffed chairs toward the front. Above the stage hung an enormous, glowing estimator clock—a family antique. Across the top it read: Hiro Bruce Rivers Arrival Time. Below were the stylized, red numbers.

"Joelene," I said, at once relieved and annoyed to see that it read: one hour and thirty-three minutes. "I'm not waiting."

"That can't be right," she muttered as she opened a screen and checked with his people. "They say five or ten."

As if the estimator clock had heard, the glowing numbers on the clock's face flickered then read fourteen minutes eighty-one seconds and began counting down.

"The freeboot who shot you," said Joelene, reading from her screen, "is suspected to have been from Antarctica. The family council reports that the medicated bullets were prototypes stolen in Europa two weeks ago. They suspected he was a lone gunman. What little has been discovered suggests that he trafficked contraband including aru and other pain caustics."

The details of my shooting bored me. They changed nothing. They brought Nora no closer. "What does Father want?" I asked, not sure I wanted to know.

"We'll cover your health, debrief your date and the aftermath. He may want to strategize. And it's possible he might apologize." Joelene shrugged as if to say the last was unlikely.

"It's his fault!" I said.

"It's no one's."

"He ruined the company."

"That," she said, stretching the word, "is a different issue."

"So, it is his fault. RiverGroup should have protected me! That's failure. It was the most important day of my life! The most important moment in history! Just when everything was so perfect!" I put my head in my hands. As much as I detested everything that had happened, I hated to whine like a spoiled child. The clock's numbers twinkled, and now it read fourteen days, five hours, and sixty-three seconds. "Look at that," I said, standing, "he's not coming."

"Wait," said Joelene as the lights sputtered and blinked. Then it said five seconds. Four seconds. Three seconds. I flopped backward into the chair. An instant later, though, the clock read five minutes and was counting up.

"This is impossible!"

The clock numbers flashed, then spun backward again to four seconds. Three seconds. It skipped two and stayed on one for half a minute.

Just as I gave up and started to stand again, the house lights went black. An announcer's voice boomed, "Straight from the highest profit quarter on record, President, ceo, cfo, coo, cio, cpo, Chief Programmer, and all-around Super Code Bastard, give it up for Hiro Bruce Rivers!"

As a catastrophically loud drumbeat kicked in, and we covered our ears, orange and blue fireworks exploded across the front of the stage. At the back, a figure rose from the floor before a giant vibrating blue RiverGroup logo. For several beats, he stood there, his head down, his arms flexed, as if posing like a monster wrestler.

When a throbbing, super-deep bass and a whining singer, who sounded like he was either in a state of ecstasy or dreadful constipation, started, Father came to life. He jogged forward and pumped his fists victoriously. A spotlight came on as a cast-iron phallus-shaped podium rose to meet him at the front of the stage. Horns and guitars blasted, the voices wailed, and I thought I heard the words cunt spaceship.

Now Father sashayed back and forth with exactly the same moves he'd been doing for years—a combination of pelvis thrusts, head bobs, and a lot of sliding to and fro on his foot-tall, green-glass platform shoes.

"Slap me! Slap me hard!" he cried as the music—apparently his latest anthem—ebbed away. "That's You're My Cunt Spaceship by TastyLüng," he announced, beaming his smile toward the back of the amphitheater as though the house were full. His grin slowly waned in the silence. Leaning forward, he peered into the darkness. "Hello?" he asked, as if afraid he was alone. "What the hell? Anyone out there?"

I was tempted to say nothing, hope he would decide the place was empty, and go away. Instead, I said, "You ruined everything!"

His eyes darted toward me. "I'd like to fire the whole fucked-up piece of fucking shit company!" First he threw a stack of papers into the air, then hugged the podium and thrust his hips into it. "We're fucked! What do you want me to tell you? It was the weirdest and worst possible thing at the worst possible moment." Papers rained down on his head as he implored, "How we gave a fucking freeboot an identity and let him right in the middle of our fucking press conference, I have no fucking idea!"

"It's your fault!"

"Me?" He laughed. "We had everything nailed down—everything completely checked, then out of nowhere—wham! A fucking freeboot with a fashion rifle. And I thought you were dead when you fell over! That was fucking scary. That was shit-in-thong time! And why he shoots your hands and feet, I don't know. Nothing makes any fucking sense! We've been checking everything, but I can't find any answers." As if he were shouting at the world, he tilted his head back and cried, "Fucking freeboots!"

My father was an inch shorter than I, but he still worked the machines so his arms where bulky, his legs, sculpted, and his neck, thick. His clothes were as putrid as his taste in music. Today, he wore a long, tailed, green-plaid jacket over a vibrating orange and black shirt, long blue pants with little video screens all over, and the aforementioned platforms. As for his hair, he dyed it dark brown and had it permed into a tight Afro. It looked exactly like moist chocolate cake.

His hairdresser, Xavid, with his snow-capped hairdo and huge square glasses, came running onto the stage, and began to gather up the fallen papers and hand them to Father. Xavid then quickly patted Father's Afro here and there and headed off.

"Anyway, I feel for you, son! I do. I was watching that date—and holy fucking shit was it boring—but whatever! I was there with my girls, my snacks, and we were all cheering and going on, and then I couldn't fucking believe a freeboot! They should all be rounded up and fried in oil! Motherfuckers."

"They're off the system," said Joelene, with surprising annoyance. "That's why they can't be located and rounded up, as you say."

Father leaned far forward and squinted. "You're here, too? Jesus fuckercakes, Michael! Can't you fart without her anymore?" He smacked his face with one of his thick hands. "God, son, what do you have in your ball sack? Muffins?"

"I want Nora back," I said.

He shook his head. "You know what I think of mkg, Mr. Gonzalez-Matsu, and that Nora—who, I have to say, seems like the biggest priss hole in the universe? They can suck one of my anal enchiladas!"

"Don't say that. I love her!"

"I don't know why. She's as dull as skim milk!"

I hated his relentless verbal attacks. "You never understand."

"Thankfully!" he muttered. "Anyway, glad to see you're better. That color-therapy blasts, doesn't it?" He paused, as if waiting for me to agree, then shrugged. "Anyway, believe me, someone was behind that shooting. There are too many things that don't make sense. Like where are the bullets and how in the hell he could shoot the top of your feet?"

"The freeboots," said Joelene, "despite the families' miserable view on them, do have some highly advanced weaponry."

Thrusting his pelvis, Father said, "My highly advanced weapon can't pee around a corner!"

"The commission is looking into the possibility of guided and disintegrating munitions."

Father threw his hands into the air. "Anyway! It was a total disaster. Especially for us, because we're the idiots who are supposed to keep track of those maggots. But forget all that crap for a second. We have to act before the company goes down the toilet, and I've got something lard." Stepping to the edge of the stage, he turned to the wings and hollered, "Watch this dismount!" Until then, I hadn't noticed his film crew, but there, in the shadows at the edge of the stage, stood his silvery-haired director and the cameraman. Father had everything recorded for an auto-documentary that he was always reediting. Last time he screened it, it was five hundred hours long. Next to the crew stood his hairdresser and his assistant, Ken Goh, who wore his usual loyalty-proving orange and blue face paint.

Then Father jumped from the stage, landed on his green glass platforms, and proclaimed, "Still got it!" Snapping his fingers, he bellowed, "House lights!" He swiveled one of the other chairs around, and plopped down. "First, a few announcements." Nodding toward his hairdresser he said, "I just promoted Ken to Financial Distribution Officer and Chief of Positives. And Xavid, who shows lots of ambition, will be our new Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operations Officer, and Chief of Brains. Take a bow, guys!"

Ken gave two thumbs up and winked at father. His hairdresser bent at the waist. When he straightened he smiled, rolled his eyes up in his amber lenses, and said, "I'm just so fucking smart, aren't I!"

Father laughed. "Oh yeah, tell the world! Got to let them know. So, they're working hard to sell our stupid assets just so we can keep going."

"My extreme pleasure!" said Xavid.

"Meanwhile," continued Father, turning back to Joelene and me, "we look like the world's biggest idiots—like we can't even wipe our own asses—and instead of mkg and your dumb-ass Nora schmora from bitchora for the product show, we got tons of empty dick."

"Stop talking about her!" I told him.

"It was categorically not her fault," added Joelene. "Nor has mkg been implicated in any way. The family commission has exonerated them."

Because it was poignant, fitting, and guaranteed to annoy Father, I quoted copy from Pure H. "Her sadness replenished."

Father slowly turned toward Joelene. "The day he started worshiping that stupid Pure Ham magazine, was the worse ever!"

"Pure H," I corrected.

"No," he said, with a laugh, "the H has to stand for something. So maybe it's Pure Hell or Pure Halitosis!" Turning to Ken and Xavid, he asked, "You hear that? Pure Halitosis!"

"Funny!" exclaimed Ken.

"Witty," agreed Xavid.

I thought about getting up and leaving since this was pointless.

"Whatever one's fashion tastes," began Joelene, "Pure H is a remarkable fusion of influences with a brilliant and elegant sense of individuality."

"Holy fuck!" he bellowed. "Shut up and hold onto your dicks!" Eying Joelene, he added, "Hold 'em real tight!" She stared back coldly, and it occurred to me that she had come to loathe him just as much as me. "We've got someone else." He winked at me. "Someone scorching hot!"

I sat there and stared at him. It was like my brain couldn't make sense of the light and sound emanating from him. And even when he handed me a screen, I couldn't interpret the image.

"Her name is Elle Kez," he said. "She's the granddaughter of Konrad Kez, the real estate gazillionaire. He died in that stupid blimp accident and his company went under, but she's all blue blood and all. Anyway, Xavid knows Chesterfield, her uncle and he's go experimental security-code model. It uses some micro-organic rrna chip thingy that is supposed to be super-stable and . . . then . . . it . . . um . . . " He threw his hands into the air and turned to his men. "It's real complicated and shit, right guys!"

"Experimental!" called Xavid.

"That's it! Anyway," he continued, "we can demo it at the product show and keep our biggest customers, like BrainBrain, slt, iip-2, and lettt from leaving. They're all calling me and freaked out because they're afraid a freeboot is going to jump out of their closet and shoot their balls." Father laughed sadly. "It's not easy to talk them off the ledge, but this will help. We need something new. You with me?"

"Sir," said Joelene, "this seems quite rash. Are you sure?"

With his upper lip curled, he asked, "Am I sure? I don't know! But we can't show any weakness now because we're just about dead." He turned to his crew to scoff at Joelene. "The guy who runs Ribo-Kool is Chesterfield Kez, and he's lard." He let out a breath. "Look," he began again, "even if Ribo-Kool's thing is a big ol' green turd, it's going to save us for the product show."

The photo he had handed me finally turned into a discernable image. It was a girl who looked about my age. She might have been pretty, except that she was terribly over-done. She had fake, gold hair, green eyes with heavy pink mascara, and lips covered with thick, violet paint. Her nose was pointy and pinched, as if she were wearing an invisible clothespin on the end. Worse, she was laughing and had her mouth so wide open you could see a half-inch of gum above her white teeth, a glistening, golden, made-up tongue, and a uvula hanging in back. Dressed in a fluttering mass of polka dots, and what looked like a white furry, little ear-bot hanging from her left lobe, she looked like one of those flighty, imperceptive, and giggly girls who read CuteKill, Ball Description, or Petunia Tune.

"Don't worry if she looks like more than you can handle," said Father to me with a sly grin, "I've got some fully charged sex-pods you can borrow."

I scowled at him.

After a laugh, he said, "Anyway, you're going to go on a big publicity date with her to get a buzz going, then we'll have you two French or something at the product show. They'll love it!"

My jaw went soft. He was serious. This was his solution. I wanted to laugh at him, or somehow cut his notion in half with one perfect word. But all I could do was imagine Nora floating farther and farther away.

"Michael is devoted to the family and the business," said Joelene. "But he is still suffering from both the trauma of the attack and a broken heart."

"Trauma?" shouted Father as he stood and climbed back onto the stage. "You want trauma? I'll give you a trauma." Toward the back of the auditorium, he shouted, "Crank up Massive Bladder Tumor!" An instant later, the sounds of drums began firing and some male singer wailed in pain. Father treated us to his same dance moves he had just five minutes before.

Holding my hands over my ears, I closed my eyes and waited for the cacophony to stop. When it did, and I opened them, Father was standing before me. Dumping the rest of the papers in my lap he said, "Tomorrow. Eight o'clock. That's the whole deal."

I saw logos of what looked like more sponsors, blueprints of what was probably the meeting place, pie charts, diagrams, bullet points, and pages of contracts. I let the papers slide off my legs as I stood. "I can't do this."

"Bullshit!" He bared his teeth like an angry dog. "We don't have a choice! Everyone's laughing at us. Our stock is worth half a bug fuck." Waving a hand toward Xavid, he added, "We're selling everything just so we have electricity."

With a shrug, I said, "I won't do it."

"You will!"

"I refuse."

"I'll make you," he said, stepping forward. "I'll make you do it, you little shit!"

"You will not."

"Sir," said Joelene. "This operation of yours is a surprise. Can't we have time to recuperate and figure out our next step?"

"It should be a surprise! It's a genius surprise. I thought of it in my own head! And if we don't we're dead. Right guys?"

Ken pumped a fist. "Otherwise, we're dead!"

"Expired!" chimed Xavid, as he tickled his hands over his oily shirt.

"Just today," continued Father, "we lost seven thousand customers. Seven fucking thousand! I've been on the phone begging the buggers not to leave, but they're so fucking stupid, it's real hard." As Ken echoed the words fucking stupid, father got in Joelene's face. "And you! I'm tired of your worthless input. I want to see you working for RiverGroup."

She stiffened. "I am Michael's tutor."

"Yeah? Well, tutor him this: He's going to fuck Elle's stinkin' hole at the product show or you're finally out of here. You got that?"

I wanted to tear his head off. "I'm not doing it!" As I spoke, tears ran down my face. "I'm out of this horrible family." I could barely see as I stumbled past him, around the stage, past Ken Goh, and past Father's idiot film crew and back outside.

I ran to the garage, got in my car, and said, "Europa-1," to my driver. We started moving, and as I strapped myself into the seat, I added, "To the mkg complex . . . to Nora."