“C’mon, Chango,” Benny said, “This is Vattown, everyone stares, and everyone talks about everyone else.”

“Yeah, but she doesn’t know that.”

“Then she’ll have a chance to find out.”

“C’mon Benny, at least let her get her bearings. Be cool when I bring her around. No sport jokes, okay?

And see if you can’t get Vonda and Coral to be a little less their usual selves.”

“Oh, you don’t ask for much.”

“You know you can influence them, if you want to.”

Benny raked his hands through his thick hair. “But at what cost?” he cried, looking beseachingly at the ceiling.

“Benny,” a young woman with straight brown hair falling to her shoulders walked up to him. Her eyes darted over to Chango for an instant, and then flickered away with a dismissive toss of her head.

“Orielle’s coming later tonight, want to go in on a liter?”

“Sure, Vonda,” he said, “Mind if I pay you Monday?”

“Yeah, I can cover it until then. Hey, did you see next month’s production run? They had it posted this afternoon. They must be crazy if they think we’re gonna get all that fiber grown with just the people we have now.”

“Overtime,” said Benny.

Vonda made a face, “How much overtime do they expect us to work?”

“Hey, it’s time and a half.”

“Yeah, it’s also prolonged exposure.” During the course of the conversation, she had slowly turned so that her back was to Chango, who still sat there, staring at her. “Hey, there’s Val, c’mon, he’ll buy us drafts,” she took Benny by the arm and they drifted away. Chango watched them disappear into the crowd and then she turned around, resting her elbows on the bar.

“Shit,” said Hyper, “I can’t believe you guys still aren’t talking, after all this time.”

“What do we have to talk about?” asked Chango, and she drank her beer.

“You used to be best friends.”

“Yeah, well, things change, don’t they?”

“You don’t still seriously believe she falsified Ada’s tests, do you?”

Chango shrugged and shook her head, “Not really. I don’t know. I know Ada didn’t dive blasted, that’s all.” She drank her glass empty, set it back down on the bar, and left. oOo

For three days Helix sat in “the pink room”, as Mavi and Chango called it. She would have been bored out of her mind if it weren’t for Chango, who remained at her bedside most of the time, playing cards with her and regaling her with stories of the comings and goings of Vattown.

“I saw Hugo today,” Chango said, shuffling the cards. “He lives with Benny, an old friend of my sister’s. She and Benny and Hugo were in a dive team together years ago. Now Hugo has vatsickness. He’s been off work for months. Benny and Hugo are lovers, or at least they were. I don’t think Hugo is up for much but lying in bed nowadays. Mavi sent me over there with some morphine for him. That’s about all he consumes now, morphine and water, maybe a little soup. But today he was having a good day. He was sitting up, and we watched soap operas on the holonet, the interactive ones. I asked him if he’d like to play a character, but he just wanted to watch.”

Helix looked up at the mention of soaps. “Did you see ‘We Are the World?’”

Chango wrinkled her brow. “Is that the one where the two power bitches are fighting it out over this woman whose husband died?”

“That’s it. My character — I mean Natasha, that’s the one I like to play — she’s going on trial for murdering the husband. Did you see her? What happened? Have they set the date for the trial yet?”

Chango shook her head. “Wow, you’re really a freak for that show, aren’t you? We only caught the end of it. Something about a couple stranded on an island in the South Pacific.”

“Carmen and Peter. They’re boring.”

Hugo likes Tears of Joy.”

Helix made a face.

“Hey, I think they’re all stupid. I mean they may have all those fancy settings and stuff, but as far as pure drama goes, they can’t hold a candle to what goes on around here. Why just last week Coral found out that her boyfriend Val was sleeping with her best friend Yolanda. She caught them at it when she went to Yolanda’s house to drop off some blast for her. She was mad at first — she kept the blast - but now they’re thinking of making it a threesome.”

Helix raised her eyebrows. “I guess you have a point.”

“You bet. Don’t worry, pretty soon Mavi will let you out of bed, and you can meet some of these people. It must be really boring for you, stuck in here all day and night.”

“Yes.” Helix admitted. “But maybe its just as well. I’m not sure I want to meet anyone.”

“Oh come on. You can’t stay in here forever.”

That was true. She hadn’t really thought about what would happen when Mavi let her out of here. She thought of Night Hag, who had said almost the same thing to her the day she left Hector’s. “Do you think you could borrow a transceiver from somebody? I have a friend on the holonet. I’d like to contact her.”

“Oh,” Chango said, surprised. “Well, the only people I know who have a transceiver are Benny and Hyper. Benny would lend you his, but Hugo uses it, and I wouldn’t want to ask. Hyper... well he uses his constantly, but I’ll make a strong case for you. Maybe if it’s just for an hour or so.”

“She always takes my calls. It wouldn’t take long.”

“I’ll try.”

oOo

The following afternoon, Chango came into the pink room with a self-satisfied smile and something hidden behind her back. “Catch,” she said, tossing a headset transceiver at her. It landed on the bed, and Helix picked it up. “Thanks. Did you have trouble getting it?”

“No, but he made me promise that when you get out of bed, he’d be the first person to meet you.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t worry. You’ll like Hyper. He’s a sport, like us, and he makes a lot of cool things.” Chango handed her the wrist keypad that went with the headset and stood with her arms at her sides, seemingly at a loss. “I guess I’d better leave you alone, so you can call your friend.”

“Thanks.”

“I promised Hyper I’d have it back to him tonight.”

“That’s okay.”

Chango left, and Helix placed the transceiver on her head, pulled the imaging lens down over her right eye and dialed Night Hag’s number.

“Helix! Where have you been? You haven’t been answering my messages,” said Night Hag, still using the construct she’d had the last time they talked. Hyper had the transceiver set to visuals, and in her haste, Helix had forgotten to check it. She was sitting up in bed, and had made no attempt to cover up her arms. It was just as well, she thought, she was going to have to start letting people see her. But Night Hag didn’t pay much mind to her appearance. Instead she peered at the peeling walls behind her. “Where are you?”

“That’s why I called. After the last time we talked, I left Hector’s apartment. I’m in Vattown now.”

“Where they make the biopoly. Good. That’s good. Have you found a job yet?”

“Not yet. I — I ran into some trouble. Some men tried to rob me. There was a fight. I got injured.”

Suddenly Night Hag’s eyes focused on her. “Are you alright? How badly were you hurt?”

“I’m okay, still pretty sore, but okay. I had a concussion, some cracked ribs, and a knife wound.”

“Who did that to you?” she asked sharply, as if she would kill whoever it was, as if she could.

“I don’t know. Just some guys, I guess.”

Night Hag stared at her. “You don’t know them?”

“No! I was just walking and...”

She took a deep breath and nodded. “You’re alright now.”

“Yes. I-someone found me. Her name is Chango. She’s a sport like me. she saved my life. She brought me here to her friend’s house. They’re taking care of me.”

“That’s good.” She paused, and then added, “Those men that attacked you? Did you fight them?”

“Oh yeah. There were three of them, but one I bit pretty bad, in the neck,” she said, and pointed at her teeth, still surprised that Night Hag had made no mention of her appearance.