“Why did you need such a big palace?”
“That’s a long story.”
Mia nodded a permission, and waited.
“It’s a long story because I had a long life, I suppose. They caught me out back in the sixties, you see. The big net investigations, the financial fraud scandals.” He was enjoying this chance at confession. He was swimming in mnemonic. “I was out of the directing game by that time, but I was very involved in production. I lost a lot of good investments in the legal mess, certain things I’d put aside. I didn’t ever want to get stung again, so I took some serious measures after the sixties. Built myself a serious, genuine palace, the kind the taxmen couldn’t reach. Kept my palace up ever since. A very useful space. But it can’t help me now. The government won’t cut me any exemptions for my liver and my thymus. And the amyloid thing, that’s a syndrome with just one prognosis.”
He frowned. “I hate when people play too fair, don’t you? There’s something nasty happening when there’s so much justice in the world…. They won’t outlaw alcohol, they won’t even outlaw narcotics, but when you go in for a checkup they take your blood and hair and DNA, and they map every trace of every little thing you’ve done to yourself. It all goes right on your medical records and gets splashed all over the net. If you live like a little tin saint, then they’ll bend heaven and earth for you. But if you act the way I’ve acted for ninety-six years … Ever see my medical records, Mia? I used to drink a lot.” He laughed. “What’s life without a drink?”
It was, thought Mia, life without cirrhosis, ulcers, and cumulative neural damage.
“The polity. The global polity, it’s like a government run by your grandmother. A wise and kindly little old lady with a plateful of cookies and a headsman’s ax.”
Mia said nothing. She herself had a treatment rating in the ninety-eighth percentile. She was sure that Martin must know this stark and all-important fact about her life. The polity was a government run by, and for the benefit of, people just like herself.
“Martin, tell me about this palace. How can I access it?”
He took her hand, turned it palm up, and steadied it. He traced a touchscreen gesture with a trailing fingertip against her palm. Mia was awash in mnemonic now, and in his withered grip around her wrist she felt an ashen remnant of what had once been, many decades ago, a powerful eroticism. A lover’s touch, rich with youth and heat.
He released her. “Can you remember that passtouch?”
“I’ll remember it. The mnemonic will help me.” She was determined not to nervously rub the wrist that he had gripped. “I like those old gestural systems, I used to use them all the time.”
He handed her his slate. “Here. Set the palace to your thumbprint. No, Mia, the left hand. That one’s better, not on so many records.”
She hesitated. “Why should that bother me?”
“I’ve just given you the key to a fortress. You and I deserve our privacy, don’t we? We both know what life is like nowadays. People like you and me, we’re a lot older than the government is. We can even remember when governments weren’t honest.”
She pressed her left thumb to the slate. “Thank you, Martin. I’m sure your palace is a very great gift.”
“Greater than you know. It can help you with another matter, too.”
“What’s that?”
“My dog.”
She was silent.
“You don’t want poor Plato,” he said, downcast.
She said nothing.
He sighed. “I suppose I should have sold him,” he said. “But that thought was so awful. Like selling a child. I never had a child…. He suffered so much on my behalf, and he’s been through so many changes…. I thought of everyone I knew, but there was no one … among those very few people still alive that I call my friends…. No one I could really trust to take proper care of him.”
“Why me, though? You scarcely know me, these days.”
“Of course I know you,” he muttered. “I know that you’re very careful…. You were the biggest mistake I ever made. Or the biggest mistake that I never made. The regret’s much the same, either way.” He looked up, cajoling her. “Plato never asks for much. He’d be grateful for whatever you gave him. He needs someone. I don’t know what he’ll do, once I’m dead. I don’t know how he’ll take it. He’s so smart, and it costs him so much pain to think.”
“Martin, I’m very flattered that you should choose me, but that’s too much to ask. You just can’t ask that of me.”
“I know that it’s a great deal to ask. But the palace will help you, there are useful resources in there. Can’t you try him for a while? He’s no longer a mere animal. I haven’t allowed him that luxury. You could try for just a while, couldn’t you?” He paused. “Mia, I do know you. I’ve seen your records, and I know more about you than you might imagine. I never forgot you, never. Now, I think that Plato might help you.”
She said nothing. Her heart was beating quickly and oddly and there was a faint whining ring of tinnitus in her left ear. At moments like this she knew with terrible certainty that she was truly old.
“He’s not a monster. He’s just very different, very advanced. He’s worth a lot of money. If you couldn’t bear having him around, you could sell him.”
“I can’t! I won’t!”
“I see. That’s your final word?” A long judgmental moment passed between them, full of intimacy and bitterness. “You can see what I’m like, then, can’t you? Seventy years between the two of us—they’re like one day. I haven’t changed at all. Not me—and not you, either.”
“Martin, I have to be honest with you. It’s just …” She glanced at the dog, lying peacefully in the corner with his narrow canine head on his crossed paws. Then, horrifyingly against her will, the truth began pouring out of her, in jerks. “I don’t have any kind of pets. Never. My life’s not like that anymore. I live alone. I had a family once, I had a husband and a daughter, but they’re gone from my life now and I don’t talk to them. I have a career, Martin, I have a good job in medical research administration. That’s my responsibility, and that’s what I do. I look at screens and I work in economic spaces and I study grant procedures and I weigh results from research programs. I’m a functionary.”
She drew a ragged breath. “I walk in the parks, and I study the news every night, and I always vote. Sometimes I look at old films. But that’s it, that’s everything, that’s how I live. I’m the kind of person you can’t stand, and that you couldn’t ever stand.” She was weeping openly now.
He looked at her with pity. “An animal companion could help you, though. I know that he’s helped me. We owe something to animals, you know. We’ve jumped over the walls of the human condition by climbing on the backs of animals. We’re obliged to our animals.”
“An animal can’t help me. I don’t need any attachments.”
“Take the chance. Change your life a little. People have to take some chances, Mia. You’re not living, if you don’t take some chances.”