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Chapter Two

    TODAY/YES

    Bodies and parts of bodies flare and die in laserlight, here the translucent sheen of eyes rimmed in kohl or turned up to a heaven masked by the starry-glitter ceiling, here electric hair flaring with fashionable static discharges, here a blue-white glow of teeth rimmed in darkglow fire and pierced by mute extended tongue. It is zonedance. Though the band is loud and sweat-hot, many of the zoned are tuned to their own music through crystal wired delicately to the auditory nerves, or dancing to the headsets through which they can pick up any of the bar’s twelve channels... They seethe in arrhythmic patterns, heedless of one another. Perfect control is sought, but there are accidents–– impacts, a flurry of fists and elbows–– and someone crawls out of the zone, whimpering through a bloodstreaked hand, unnoticed by the pack. To Sarah the dancers at the Aujourd’Oui seem a twitching mass of dying flesh, bloody, insensate, mortal. Bound by the mud of earth. They are meat. She is hunting, and Weasel is the name of her friend.

    MODERNBODYMODERNBODYMODERNBODYMODER
    Need a Modern Body?
    All Electric-Replaceable-In the Mode!
    Get One Now!
    NBODYMODERNBODYMODERNBODYMODERNBODY

    The body designer had eyes of glittering violet above cheekbones of sculptured ivory. Her hair was a streaky blond that swept to an architecturally perfect dorsal fin behind her nape. Her muscles were catlike and her mouth was a cruel flower.
    “Hair shorter, yes,” she said. “One doesn’t wear it long in freefall. ” Her fingers lashed out and seized Sarah by the chin, tilting her head to the cold north light. Her fingernails were violet, to match her eyes, and sharp. Sarah glared at her, sullen. The body designer smiled. “A little pad in the chin, yes,” she says. “You need a stronger chin. The tip of the nose can be altered; you’re a bit too retrousse. The curve of the jawbone needs a little flattening– I’ll bring my paring knife tomorrow. And, of course, we’ll remove the scars. Those scars have got to go.” Sarah curled her lip under the pressure of the violet-tipped fingers.
    The designer dropped Sarah’s chin and whirled. “Must we use this girl, Cunningham?” she asked. “She has no style at all. She can’t walk gracefully. Her body’s too big, too awkward. She’s nothing. She’s dirt. Common.”
    Cunningham sat silently in his brown suit, his neutral, unmemorable face giving away nothing. His voice was whispery, calm, yet still authoritative. Sarah thought it could be a computer voice, so devoid was it of highlights. “Our Sarah has style, Firebud,” he said. “Style and discipline. You are to give it form, to fashion it. Her style must be a weapon, a shaped charge. You will make it, I will point it. And Sarah will punch a hole right where we intend she should.” He looked at Sarah with his steady brown eyes. “Won’t you, Sarah?” he asked. Sarah did not reply. Instead, she looked up at the body designer, drawing back her lips, showing teeth. “Let me hunt you some night, Firebud,” she said. “I’ll show you style.”
    The designer rolled her eyes. “Dirtgirl stuff,” she snorted, but she took a step back. Sarah grinned.
    “And, Firebud,” Cunningham said, “leave the scars alone. They will speak to our Princess. Of this cruel terrestrial reality that she helped create. That she dominates. With which she is already half in love.
    “Yes,” he said, “leave the scars alone.” For the first time he smiled, a brief tightening of the cheek muscles, cold as liquid nitrogen. “Our Princess will love the scars,” he said. “Love them till the very last.”

    WINNERS/YES LOSERS/YES

    The Aujourd’Oui is a jockey bar, and they are all here, moonjocks and rigjocks, holdjocks and powerjocks and rockjocks– the jocks condescending to share the floor with the mudboys and dirtgirls who surround them, those who hope to become them or love them or want simply to be near