Next morning, the three girls went to Mass at the chapel. Of course it was the watered-down 1967 Mass, already something of a relic itself. Phila wished it could have been the Tridentine Mass from before the Second Vatican Council, but what else could she expect in this sort of city? At least the Mass was offered decently, except the priest's vestments were somewhat garish: the colors were too fluorescent and the material a little too shiny. Because they arrived slightly late, Bernie hadn't got a chance to go to confession, so she refrained from receiving the Eucharist; better safe than sorry.
After Mass, Cecie brought them back to the hotel suite, where she cooked breakfast for them in her closet-sized kitchen.
"We won't be beholding to you," Phila promised.
"We'll do the dishes and any extra laundry and shopping you need to do," Bernie piped up.
Cecie grinned away from the eggs she scrambled. "Don't give me any ideas or I might really put you through your paces. One thing some of us writers hate doing is the mundane."
"Can I ask a question?" Bernie asked.
"Fire away," Cecie said.
"You sure this hotel isn't a prostitute house?"
"Bernieeee!" Phila hissed.
Cecie clearly tried to keep her face from twisting into a bemused smirk. "I wouldn't use that phrase: it makes you sound naïve. Say 'bordello', or even 'house of ill repute' if you can't get yourself to say anything else. They wouldn't take notice, except the uppity ones, but the other half of the species would look at you cock-eyed. No, it isn't, but there's a lot of stuff that goes on here. Best just to look the other way."
Bernie studied the contents of her cereal bowl for a long minute and looked up. "Whatever made you choose to live in a place like this?"
"You're really pushing it, Bernadette Connelly."
Cecie shrugged and emptied the skillet into two plates. "I was waiting for one of you to ask that. I guess the short answer is: for the same reason that the Vatican is built in what used to be the red light district of ancient Rome."
Phila splatted out a mouthful of orange juice. "What?!"
"It's true. The real morality isn't really found among the pious saints; it's really found out in the trenches and the holes in the ground. Sure, I've seen lots of sinners here, but I've met quite a few decent folk and even some saints."
"Are you counting this Joe among them?" Phila asked, mopping the tabletop.
"You really know this…guy that well?" added Bernie.
"I don't know him in the biblical sense, if you'll excuse the pun. But I count him as one of my closest friends. He helped me learn to navigate the terrain when I first got here. We have this agreement: he tells me the latest news on the streets, I answer his queries about human nature, and neither one of us tries to excite the other too much."
"But isn't that leading yourself into one of the near occasions of sin?" Bernie asked.
"I know my limits; he's programmed to respect them." She set one of the plates of eggs in front of Phila. "But enough about this dump: how're things back in Westhillston?"
Phila told Cecie about the most recent weddings and funerals and births, who had moved away and who had moved into the town they called home, where Cecie had grown up. Bernie kept eyeing the pitcher of orange juice on the table.
"You made the juice from concentrate, right?" Bernie asked.
"Yes, why?" Cecie replied.
Bernie warily eyed first the pitcher, then her glass. "There's no…stuff in the water to make you lustful?"
Cecie laughed. "That has got to be the most notorious urban legend about this town. Half the human population doesn't need anything to make them any hotter, otherwise they'd spontaneously combust. And the other half are the ordinary folk like myself who just happen to live here, though most of them live in the lower deck, where it isn't half as hypey as up here topside."
"So why don't you live down there too?" Phila asked.
Cecie made a wry face. "For starters, the sun doesn't filter down there much; I don't know how anyone can stand living down there. Besides, I wouldn't get half as many moral quandaries to write about than I do living up here."
"I would think the climate up here would rot your morals in no time at all," Phila said.
Cecie looked at them both over the top of her glasses with narrowed eyes. "If that happens, were your morals that solid to start with?"
"What on earth do you mean?" Phila asked.
"Centuries ago there was a craft called blacksmithing; it was how people shaped metal by hand. They heated a piece of metal in a fire until it was red hot, then they'd beat it into the shape they needed, with a hammer. The harder you pounded the metal, the stronger it got. I'm just a scrap of metal the All Mighty is beating into shape using Rouge City as a hammer."
They couldn't argue her metaphor.
After breakfast, after Phila and Bernie had washed the dishes, Cecie lead them out for a grand tour of the lower deck: the B&N bookstore, the e-post office, the massive Wal-Meg in the heart of it all, the Public Library crouched modestly amidst all the garish lighting, the 2-D film theatre she frequented, the combination laundromat and seafood joint she frequented called Fishious Cycle.
"They sometimes do that: knock out a wall between two storefronts and make one bigger storefront with two different businesses. Easier on the rent," she explained. "That's another reason I live topside: rents are better because everything's cheaper."
"Why would that be?" Bernie asked, confused.
"Simple reason: sixty-four percent of the intransient population topside doesn't need anything besides a new titanium battery every ten to fifteen years and a few minor repairs and upgrades now and then."
There were still some places Phila would rather not walk by, but they weren't so numerous as they were "topside". It wasn't really much worse than anything you'd see in New Boston (formerly called "Worcester"), except for…those.
"It's not the worst place to live, really," Cecie explained as they rode the escalator back. "I read in a write-up somewhere online that Rouge was found to be the one city where a woman is the least likely to get assaulted."
"Really? How could that be?" Phila asked, incredulous.
"It's quite simple: we've got way too much competition. Granted, most assaults have more to do with power than sex, but most guys who come here are interested in something that won't file rape charges. When you think about it, we should be pitying the Mechas and what their builders programmed them for." She looked around. "It's really a pitiful place more than a horrid place, built specific, just like them."
The two outsiders didn't dare follow her gaze, which would have taken in the animated 2-D billboards on the sides of the escalator shaft. But Bernie let herself look at Cecie. In her black leather trench coat (a small notebook and a pocket datascriber sticking out of the pockets), black fedora and mirrorshades over black Dockers tucked into ankle-high black boots, her cousin's college friend looked like she'd been built specific for this life she'd chosen in this strange setting. Bernie saw herself and Phila reflected in the chrome plating on the sides of the escalator: pale, stumpy figures in washed-out pastel blouses and flower-print jumpers that hung on them like shapeless sacks. She tried not to envy Cecie's more stylish looks; that would be vanity. She decided Cecie didn't dress that immodestly. But she sure looked like she fit in better. Bernie tried to steel her soul; she had to live up to the standards Phila's father had raised them in.
Cecie led them back to the hotel, where she treated them to lunch in the dining room.
"So, what exactly do you do all day normally?" Phila asked, over their soup and salad.
"Well, you see, writing is a process and a discipline," Cecie said. "Early mornings are the best time for me to get my walk in, so I go out around seven, when the crowds have thinned and things have calmed down for a respite. The nighthawks have gone back to their hotel rooms, and the day-trippers haven't got up yet. Go to Mass, come home, have breakfast. It's usually 8:30 by the time I get down to the heavy work of writing till about 13:00. I break for lunch then, check my mail, read the news, or get it from my informer as the case may be. And then I'm back to work around 14:30, 15:00, revising yesterdays work until 18:30, and then I knock off for the evening, go out for a walk, watch the herd out there, maybe go to a 2-D. Sometimes the herd is more interesting than the 2-Ds; they're the only 3-D worth watching sometimes."
"Is that how you met what's his name?" Bernie asked.
"Actually I met him pretty much the same way you did. I was walking out of the chapel one night a few weeks after I'd relocated here when I suddenly realized someone was walking behind me. I turned around and there he was, smiling at me with those irresistible green eyes of his. I think he asked me if I was new in town and did I need someone to see me safely home. He was so charming about it, I couldn't say no; I didn't find out what he was until we were standing under the white lights out front, and that's when I realized what exactly he was, before I sent him on his way."
"You didn't let him go any further, I hope," Phila said.
"Not literally, not figuratively," Cecie said.
After lunch, Phila and Bernie offered to go back to the lower level to pick up a few much-needed groceries. "I think we can find our way around," Phila said. Under her breath she added to Bernie, "Just keep your eyes to yourself until we get to the lower level."
Once her guests had gone, Cecie picked up her datascriber to get some writing done. But her train of thought had left without her, so set the pad aside and reached for her cellphone. His processors would be scurrying, "wondering" why her summons for him were so delayed. She hit the speed dial and pressed a certain number.
When the answering service picked up, she said simply "Cecie Martin, Hotel Graceley, Suite 503."
Fifteen minutes later, someone rapped on the door three times, the knocks precise and neatly spaced.
She keyed the door and swung it open to him.
"Hey, Joe, whaddya know?" she said, stepping back, letting a tall, slender figure clad in silver and black enter.
"I've counted more seconds than usual since our last encounter; what prevented you from summoning me?"
She closed the door, then gave him her hand and let him raise it to his lips. "More than the usual distractions: I've got a couple friends staying with me for a few days.
"So, you got anything for me besides the usual 'in-out, in-out'?"
"Alas, not much of interest to you; last night was a slow night. But one incident occurred perhaps worthy of your notice."
"Which was?" She took up her datascriber and sat down on the windowseat. He followed her to the window and leaned one shoulder into the window enclosure, hands in pockets, looking down at her.
"An Orga man tried to pose as a Mecha, but he was quickly found out. His imperfections betrayed his nature."
"Trying to cut in on your business, eh?" Cecie said, jotting it down. "Anything else?"
"As I have said, there is little to tell of that is worth your bother retelling. But perhaps I could recount the incident involving the unfriendly girls in the shapeless dresses."
Cecie's ears pricked up. "Tell me about them."
"It is soon told out. I merely approached them to introduce myself."
"What did they look like?" she asked astutely.
The Mecha fell silent with recall. "One, the taller of the two, seemed not much older than you, though she looked younger, perhaps because she was shorter. The other, the prettier of the pair, was even shorter. And, oh yes, they both wore dresses cut so loose you could barely see that they had bodies underneath."
"They're those friends of mine who came up to visit for a few days. The tall one's Philomena, and the shorter, prettier one is Bernadette. If you see them again, try another approach."
"That may tax even my versatile capabilities, since, I'm afraid, your friends do not make themselves very friendly."
"I know what you're processing, as if your head was made of glass instead of titanium." In a pale mockery of his voice, she added, 'They may be your friends, but they are no friends of mine.'
He put his head on one side. "Would I say such ungenial words?" he asked with a note of innocence. "But why then do they dislike me? I have done nothing to harm them, and yet they behave as if I have. Are they any different from any other women in Rouge?"
"I'm afraid they're different, a LOT different. And they dislike you for the same reason that most women want you: for what you do."
His dark face took on a puzzled look; the space between his brows furrowed for a moment.
"It's got nothing to do with what you are: they'd act the same way toward any man, even an Orga if he acted the way you did," she added, hoping to clarify the details. His logic processors were really built for one purpose, though he was programmed to display an unusual volubility. He remained silent so long, she had turned back to her datascriber when suddenly he knelt before her and put his hand on her wrist, stopping it.
"Why should they dislike me? What reason do they have when they barely know me? Am I so disagreeable to them? If they would treat even men of their own kind in the same manner, what then?"
She had to phrase it in a way he'd understand. "The problem is they're afraid of the kind of happiness a man's company can give them, even innocently."
"Why should they fear this happiness when they were given the means and the wherewithal to enjoy?"
"Their father taught them to be afraid."
"To fear pleasure?"
"I'm afraid so. It's not because they know they wouldn't like you, it's because they're afraid they would like you. They're afraid to feel pleasure."
His face went utterly blank for a moment. "Is this what you Orga call a headache?"
"God forbid you should ever feel that, you green-eyed beauty!" she said, patting his shoulder. He smiled and his eyes resumed their default look of gently smoldering seduction. He took her hand in his and kissed it tenderly before holding it to his soft cheek.
Cecie glanced out the window. "You'd better be off: here come the girls who are afraid to like you; better take the back entrance."
"Must I depart so soon?" He said this with an almost sulkily sultry reluctance. He released her hand and rose. "We would not want them to grow too frightened of me." With that he swaggered to the door, paused at it, then smiled and winked at her over his shoulder before he opened it and went out.
A couple minutes later, Phila and Bernie bonked on the door. Cecie saved her jottings, set aside her pad and let them in.
To be continued…