Imago

Amy Sterling Casil

Chapter Two

On a discreet palm screen, DisLex chairman Harman Jacques watched his new assistant Julie Curtez checking her makeup in the mirrored surface of the outer doors to his office. It was amazing what people would do when they thought no one was watching. Someone told him once that character was what people did when they thought they were alone.

“No one’s ever alone,” he whispered.

He liked the thought that Julie thought she was alone, though. After a moment, he released the doors and let her in.

“I suppose I picked a great day to start,” she said, standing in front of his desk, her arms folded at her waist. She meant the PerfectTown mess.

Harmon swiveled in his chair to face her, and as always, he smiled inside at her polished good looks. Like a good girl, she wore her gloves. He wore none, of course, but unlike most others, he had no fear of the Human Mutational Virus, or any other nasty bug that might be festering out in the mire beyond his air-scrubbed office and his clean, perfect world.

“Somebody told me once that you might as well learn to firefight in a maelstrom as a bonfire,” he said as he stood. Harmon wasn’t about to entrust the PerfectTown public relations disaster to the good people down at the Magic Kingdom.

“We’ll take my Lear down there,” he said. “We’ll pay a personal call on Max Prinn and his family. I assume the packages have been shipped?” Julie nodded. The first order of her day had been to gather gifts for the Prinns: a peace offering after their visit to the PerfectTown had gone so horribly wrong.

“You’ve watched Prinn on the newslinks,” Harmon said as he started from his office, waiting for her to pass in front of him as one of the tall doors silently opened. By her smile, he could tell that she appreciated his consideration. Amazing, how women thought about these things. Letting the lady go first meant that he was able to enjoy the view.

“Yes,” she said, looking over her shoulder.

That hair, halfway down her back, and so black and soft and smooth.

“What do you think of the man?”

“I think he’s like the guy who said he found a rat in his Coke,” Julie said.

Harmon laughed. “Exactly.”

“So,” she said, “we have a new hometertainment system for the family, a complete set of the original character dolls for the little girl, and the home décor choice kit for mother.” She paused in the hall. He came close enough to her to catch the bare scent of her perfume: something of spice, and perhaps gardenias.

“Very good,” he said. “I’ve got this.” He slipped the DisLex Platinum card from his pocket and flashed it at her.

“I don’t even have one,” she said, her brow furrowing.

He smiled. “You will.” Then he added, “This one is charged for a year. They’ll have everything free.”

“I think that should win them over. It was all an unfortunate error — imagine those bugs in the program,” she said in her light, soft voice. How hard she had worked to eliminate her Chicana accent; to speak as well as anyone on the newslinks.

Imagine that, Harmon thought. Bombs away. What a bad boy I am. Then, imagine you in my arms and us inside of each other.

“There’s the other matter,” he said.

“Yes?” She raised one fine dark brow.

“The freak,” he said, hardening his voice. The worst part of the whole mess was that the two families had been “saved” by the mutant pig man, who should never have been in the Magic Kingdom at all. It was too late to pass him off as some type of aberration; the independent newslinks were featuring story after story of people who’d also seen mutants at the Magic Kingdom. Been accosted by them, hit up for money — or worse.

Not that Harmon believed any of it, but the truth didn’t count on the news; not even DisLex news. The Board insisted that there be “controlled chaos,” which meant “let the reporters do what they want.” Tradition. Journalistic privilege. Whatever. Right now, it was a worse problem for the company than even the PerfectTown mess. Freaks, in the Magic Kingdom. People wouldn’t want to expose their children to that type of thing on a thousand-dollar family trip. But Harmon had a plan. He’d coopt the Prinns. Maybe they’d even have a friendly reunion with the pig man, a deformed, infected vagrant named Tommy Lee Tucker, now safe and sound at Harmon’s other PerfectTown: Camp Roberts. Which wasn’t exactly a camp.

“Him,” she said. Her gloved hand went to her neck.

“Give me your glove,” he said, suddenly. He didn’t know why he said that. Suddenly he thought about his other assistant, his best man Dick. And Dick was turning his back. Go away, he commanded. Dick obeyed.

“You don’t need the gloves when you’re with me,” Harmon said. “I’m safe. You’re safe.”

He watched her lower lip tremble. Kiss it, he thought. He heard himself saying more things, comforting things. Things of confidence and safety.

She would not give him her glove. He could hardly continue to insist. Later, he thought. A little later.

And he changed once more. “I’ve had the pig man interviewed,” he said. “He’s been taken to Camp Roberts, and he’ll be perfectly safe. Perhaps he’ll even be cured.”

“What?” she said, starting to laugh nervously. “Camp Roberts? Is this a new resort?”

“It’s another project,” Harmon said. “Out of your area. Camp Roberts is just the start.”

Julie’s dark eyes narrowed. “Maybe we shouldn’t fly down so quickly,” she said. “How can I know what to say if there’s this much that I haven’t been briefed on?”

“I’ll tell you on the way,” Harmon said. “In one way, it’s a whole world for you to discover. In another way, I can tell you in a few minutes.”

They had been walking slowly, and between one step and the next, she stopped, crossing her arms.

She took a deep breath. An expression came over her delicate face, one that he couldn’t quite decipher. Then, she spoke.

“I... I’m not comfortable with this. What if they have questions? I might say something wrong. There’s so much I don’t know — the pig man being taken to this camp? Why? How?”

Harmon smiled, holding her eyes with his for a long moment. He read many things there: apprehension, uncertainty, and quite a bit of fear. Also fascination.

Just kiss her, he thought.

Inside his head, Dick the imago spoke a single word. “Animal.”

Harmon forced Dick’s imago away once again, but he did not kiss Julie. Instead, he put his bare hand on her arm and gripped, not too hard, feeling the warmth of her skin through her sleeve.

“We’re changing things, Julie. The world as you know it is no longer there. All that you see,” he said, continuing to look steadily in her eyes, then breaking the contact when he thought the moment was right, “is veneer. Like a layer of mahogany on a cheap pine table. Tissue-thin, covering something very different that lies beneath.”

“Sir,” she said, her voice cracking. She looked at his hand on her arm, but she did not pull away.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said.

Her eyes went wide.

“Take off your gloves,” he said.

He felt electric. Trust me, he thought. Let me tell you. Let me love you. Be inside my body. I want to be inside yours. The scent of her perfume hit him. He stood in the moment, and caught a bare tendril of her skin and the fear on her. And the excitement.

I don’t have to say I’m a God for you to believe it, he thought.

She pulled her arm away, but gently. Then, she slipped one glove from her hand, her fingers slender and the color of pale creamed coffee beneath. He took the glove, then he took her bare hand in his, and he kissed it, smiling up into her eyes. He let his lips linger on her warm skin.

“You’re safe,” he said. “There is no virus here, nor anywhere I go.”

She gasped.

“You will always be safe with me.”

“Mister...” she said.

“Harmon,” he told her.

She was silent. She began to speak, but he lifted her hand and pressed her fingers to her lips.

“I’ll tell you everything,” he said. “And you’ll meet my other assistant, Dick. You and he are the two halves,” he said.

“Halves?” she whispered.

“Body and soul,” he said.

“I don’t know,” she said, and other things of astonishment, and backing away.

But Harmon had already taken her bare hand. And he had kissed it. The sense of it still burned on his lips.

In the Learjet, she busied herself with the list of gifts for the Prinn family. Harmon sat silently watching her, making no pretense of work.

“I do trust you,” he said at last. “You’ll make a marvelous impression on the family. Remember,” he said, smiling slightly at her. “They should believe that you and I are the best of friends.”

She looked up from her computer with an expression he could not decipher. “My husband might not care for that,” she said. The words hung in the air-conditioned cabin. Harmon preferred never to think of her husband Frank, that wetback beaner in a thousand-dollar suit. He said nothing. After a moment, she continued. “There’s a new item here.”

“Yes?” Harmon said in a mild voice.

“A house. In Palos Verdes.”

Harmon nodded. “Corporate property.”

“Mister...”

“Harmon,” he said. “That’s one of our model homes. Safe, gated and virus-free.”

She nodded. “I’m familiar with that program. This is a very generous gift. With the other items, we are now up to about half a million dollars in —”

“Money’s not the issue,” he said. “Confidence is.”

“Our customers.”

“And you. Look down there.” He indicated one of the jet’s windows with his finger. Julie rose and went to the window. “Do you see?”

“I see something down there. Buildings. Looks like a lot of wilderness. A lake. Are we south of Monterey and Carmel?”

“Yes,” Harmon said. “Just north of San Luis Obispo. That’s Camp Roberts.”

“That’s where you mentioned — where the pig man who rescued the Prinns is,” she said. “It doesn’t look like a camp. It looks like some kind of —”

“It was an old military base. We’ve taken it over. Exclusively for victims of the Human Mutational Virus. They’re safe there, and they’re being helped.” He grinned at her.

“I had no idea,” she said. “They have places to live there? Work?”

He nodded. “We’re working on a cure,” he said. “We can rewrite their genetic structure, given enough time and enough research on the proper models. That’s where the PerfectTown comes in.”

“Harmon,” she said. He liked that she was trying his name out in her mouth, even if she sounded very uncomfortable. “I had no idea. But how can the computer do —”

“Later,” he said. “If you look down there, you’ll see what an ideal environment it is. Natural beauty, great weather, even their own water supply.”

“An old military base,” she said. “I think maybe I have heard of it.”

“Possibly,” he said. “I’m sure you’ve driven past it.”

“Yes,” she said. “I believe that I have. You say they work down there, get exercise and so-on?” Then she smiled at him, and Harmon felt warmth in his chest, and in other places.

“Oh yes,” Harmon said. “They’re running all the time. Things like that.”

The jet flew south, and Camp Roberts faded into the distance.