Corpus Chrome, Inc.

Chapter III

Chapter III

The Elasticity of Cat Vertebrae

Champ Sappline, his shadow stuck to his feet, crossed the street and approached a metal door, which was housed within a wooden frame that had been painted over so many times that it looked like molten candle wax. Bolted to the wall with violence was a placard that read:

This Building Has Been Classified Antique (SO-3100L24-54-X), and the Owners are Not Responsible for Any Injuries Sustained Herein, Whether Caused Directly or Indirectly by Antique Conditions.

All Persons are Required to Fingerprint an Agreement of Burden Acceptance Prior to Ingress.

Any Person Who Enters Without Compliance is Trespassing and has Voided His or Her Legal Claim to Remuneration (and Will be Fined).

Champ pressed the tips of his right thumb and index finger to the obsidian-glass ovals beneath the waiver. The door buzzed like an irate hornet and slid into the floor, where something cracked.

The forty-two-year-old man walked into the mail alcove, which smelled like dust, animals and pizza. He looked for an elevator, but instead saw an unclean and narrow stairwell.

Mentally, he cursed Candace.

The blonde man pulled long hair back from his handsome face and began to climb the stairs of the old Nexus Y apartment building.

Mote aquariums, barrage metal, string jazz, bounce, dogs and live human arguments resounded behind closed doors that were equipped with scratched lenses and customized print locks. Champ plucked a Purpureal tube from his blue jeans, raised it to his lips, sucked a trilling B-flat and tasted cardamom. The mist was not powerful enough to impair behavior (the manufacturers took their psychotropics to the exact edge of legality—a little further each year), but it was strong enough to pat him on the back and say, “Well done, sir!” He then replaced the vapor tube in his jeans.

Sweat beaded above his upper lip as he climbed the third flight of stairs, and he grew lightheaded, almost as if the air had thinned during his twenty-two-meter ascent. Champ’s foam-rubber boots squeaked upon something viscid; he looked down and saw the circular stain left by a suicidal pizza that had landed face-down. (The coroner had apparently decided to remove—and eat?—the carcass.)

The blonde man ascended the fourth flight of stairs, crossed a landing covered with broken eggs and silver paint, climbed the fifth and walked into the sixth-floor hallway.

The passage was illuminated by blue sunshine that struggled through a trio of grimy skylights. Upon the nearest of the clear plastic panes lay the splayed corpse of a turkey pigeon, whose head had been splashed with bleach. Champ looked away from the murdered bird and down the long hallway, the green walls of which looked like the icing of a dismal Christmas cake.

The blonde man wiped sweat from his face, double-tapped the lily in his right ear and said, “Play: Memo.” He heard his own voice say, “Seventy-two Gregs Street; apartment six-twelve; owner, R.J. the Third.”

Champ strode down the hall (which, for some reason, was far quieter than the others in the building), stopped in front of the door marked 612 and tapped the chime placard. He wiped the sweat from his brow, breathed and waited. The lens housed in the metal door hissed; its iris narrowed, and glass planes shifted.

“Are you Champ Sappline?” inquired a man with a loud tenor voice that matched the one in the audiad.

“I am. Are you R.J. the Third?”

“You are early.”

Champ triple-tapped the lily in his ear and heard a demure woman’s voice say, “The time is thirteen fifty-eight.” His appointment was at fourteen.

“I’m sorry,” said Champ. “I can wait.”

There was no response.

The blonde man fidgeted, shifted his weight and swallowed spit while he stared at a scratched lens for one hundred and twenty slow seconds.

“Enter!” ordered the tenor voice.

The fleximetal door slid into the ground and revealed an obese gray Persian cat. Although the audiad had mentioned nothing about pets, there it was—haughty and shaped like an abundant bag of garbage.

“Architect,” R.J. the Third called from farther within the apartment, “please escort Mr. Sappline into the common area.” The cat eyed the intruder derisively and strode away, its tail stuck in the air like a middle finger. Champ followed the beast down the copper hall; the animated posters on either side of him exhibited blossoming explosions, bone-crushing karate kicks and burning brassieres in two- to five-second loops, depending upon the thickness of the poster. The blonde man did not know much about collectibles, but he knew that these were valuable pieces.

The cat led him into a square room that was nearly ten meters wide; the walls were painted metallic gold and the floor was covered with thick silver carpeting. Seated upon a fur couch was a tall slender man with protuberant eyes, red cheeks, a large nose (thrice pierced) and messy black hair. He wore silver shorts and a matching shirt, both monogrammed “RJ # 3.” The feline walked before the man’s bare feet and redistributed its tonnage, apparently sitting. The man’s toes disappeared beneath the fat cat.

“Hi. I’m Champ Sappline.”

“I am R.J. the Third,” the seated man said with musical flourish, as if he expected applause. He looked at the cat upon his toes and then up at Champ. “Architect does not appear to hate you.” The twenty-five-year-old pointed to an inflatable chair that rested beside the mote aquarium and said, “You will sit.”

“Danke,” Champ said as he sat.

“It is a very difficult thing—to determine if a person is trustworthy,” said R.J. the Third, shifting his toes beneath the feline. “Why should I rent the room to you, hmmm?”

“I’m reliable. And I can pay four months’ rent in advance.”

“How about friends? This isn’t a place for parties.”

“I don’t have any friends.”

“Why not?”

“My wife got them all. Even the ones who were mine.”

R.J. the Third became uneasy. “Wife?”

Architect, sensing its owner’s displeasure, swiveled its pumpkin to face the interviewee. The beast’s head turned twenty degrees further than cat vertebrae typically allowed, although it was possible that the body had shifted somewhere deep within the blubber.

“You’re married?” pressed R.J. the Third, cat eyes demonically agleam at his feet.

“Not anymore. She left me.”

“Oh.” R.J. the Third relaxed, and Architect’s head swiveled away. The tall skinny man in silver posited, “So you’re depressed, single and friendless?”

“I wouldn’t disagree with that assessment.”

“Terrific. What do you do for a living?”

“I’m a garbage man.”

“That isn’t going to make you popular.”

“Nope.”

“Anything else?” asked R.J. the Third.

“I did some stand-up comedy for a while, but it didn’t work out.”

“You don’t seem humorous.”

“Most people agree with you.”

R.J. the Third leaned over and grabbed Architect; limbs sprouted obliquely from the furry mass; a purr like tires redistributing gravel emanated from deep within the bloated beast. The skinny man in silver stroked the feline between its ears and inquired casually (as if to trick Champ), “What did you think of the mote aquarium experience The First and Final Rocket?”

“I haven’t seen it.”

“What!?!” R.J. the Third cried out in disbelief; Architect did not know what to do with its paws, but there was flapping. “It was a huge hit! Enormous!”

“I haven’t had a mote aquarium in almost a year.”

R.J. the Third’s bulging eyes lit with horror, summarily replaced by something that looked like grief. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said.

Architect looked dolorously at the window, as if the creature had just been diagnosed with cat cancer.

“I don’t miss it all that much,” defended Champ. “I like movie sheaves more. I just flip through those when I’m bored.”

“Movie sheaves,” said R.J. the Third, derisively. “Are you a great supporter of all the dead, two-dimensional arts? Novels? Cave paintings?”

Champ had learned to tolerate rudeness during the latter years of his marriage, and thus replied with well-concealed irritation, “I haven’t read a book since I was in college.”

R.J. the Third nodded, placated by this information. “It is unfortunate that you have not seen The First and Final Rocket.” The wan timbre of his voice caused Architect to lower its head and flatten its ears, disheartened. “Unfortunate.”

The conversation sank into a ponderous silence.

Champ thought of the storage niche that awaited him if he did not find a new place to live, and inquired of his host, “Does this part of our discussion have any bearing on whether or not you’ll rent the room to me?”

“Tremendous bearing.”

Architect haughtily raised its chin.

“I’m just looking for a room—we don’t need to be pals. I work lots of nights and we probably won’t see all that much of each other. I’ll respect the rules.”

R.J. the Third shook his head in refutation. “I will need to know far more than that if you are going to take up residence in my apartment.”

“And this m.a. movie—”

“Experience! Mote aquarium experience.”

“My opinions on it will let you know whether I’m a suitable tenant?”

“They will.”

“Will you show it to me? The First and Final Rocket?”

R.J. the Third’s mouth became slack, and his eyes widened. Architect looked at its master as if the man had just malfunctioned.

“That is a brilliant idea! I will show you this landmark work, this zenith achievement in the history of the arts (including all those dead ones you prefer), and afterwards, continue and conclude the interview. You should know this ahead of time: The First and Final Rocket is a life-altering experience that will change you, thoroughly and irrevocably.”

“How long is it?”

“Six minutes.”

“Great.”

R.J. the Third whistled a C-sharp and said, “Darkness!” The windows became opaque, and the room plunged into night. Another C-sharp pierced the silence and was followed by the command: “Play: My meisterwerk!”