Velvet Dogma About 3300 wds by Weston Ochse Read Free Book Online

"She's in a D-Pens. I don't know where it is exactly, but we can figure it out."
    "D-Pens?"
    "A death pending facility," he explained slowly, understanding the volatility of the words. "There aren't any nursing homes to speak of anymore. Now there are places for those with levied organs to be cared for until they die."
    "How horrible!"
    "I know, I know. Some of the things that have happened in the last twenty years in the name of advancement have left our humanity behind."
    "How is she? Is she dying? Is she okay?"   Rebecca wanted to know everything.
    "I don't know."   Seeing her reaction, he amended, "David didn't tell me she was dying, so I think she's stable. She's just old, and with no place to go, D-Pens are the most likely place to prepare for the end these days."
    "Prepare for the end? This is my grandmother you're talking about!"
    "I'd be lying if I said she was healthy enough to get around. David begged her not to go to the place, but she insisted. She didn't want to burden David. She wanted him to live."
    Her grandmother had always been one to take the hard road over the easy. When Rebecca's grandpa had died in 1997, the old woman hadn't lost a beat. Where some of her friends' grandmothers in the same circumstance had ended up blue-haired shells of themselves whose daily highlights were petting the dog and flipping between Oprah and Jerry Springer, her grandmother had seemed to grow stronger. She'd become a bigger part of her and David's lives, especially when their parents died in 1995. She'd become the mother, father and grandparents, wearing the mantle of responsibility with what Rebecca now remembered as enviable ease.
    And now she was waiting to die. The image of cattle in a stockyard came to Rebecca, like the ones she'd seen in Stockton, California. It wasn't right. She deserved better.
    "Where is she?"
    "I don't know."
    Rebecca scowled. "I thought you said you'd been there."
    "We shared an inDrama together, she, David and I. It was the perfect way for her to deal with the pain of age and her situation. I've never seen her in person."   Seeing her reaction he added, "Not everyone inDramas are inVid iDicts."
    She shook her head slowly. "How are we going to find out where she lives?"
    "Easy. I just need to find a boarder."
    "One of those—oh. Why them?"
    "When you want to get on the ID without any snooping eyes, boarders give you the best chance. Right now we're about as hot as they come. You aren't even allowed near PODs, and I don't dare link anytime soon. I'm sure that they know I'm with you. If not the government, then whoever hired the Black Hearts."
    "The gravBoarders will help you?"   She watched one zip through traffic, using the side of a taxi to bank in an impossible turn. Skateboarders of her era would have killed for a gravBoard. "They don't seem very social."
    "Time to use some of the clout we have. Our friend Panchet is revered by them."
    "Revered? That's a pretty strong word."
    "Not strong enough."   They rounded a corner and found themselves beside an inDrama kiosk. "We'll wait here. One should be along in a minute."
    She had good views of Hollywood Boulevard and the side street. Now that night had fallen, foot traffic had picked up giving her the opportunity to see clothes combinations she'd never anticipated.
    Before she was imprisoned, the celebrity look-alikes in front of Grauman's Chinese Theater and along the Walk of Fame had been pastiches, easily identifiable as pretenders to fame. But she'd seen four Marilyn Monroes in as many minutes, each one more perfect than the last—and they all were perfect, somehow capturing Marilyn's patented naive vixen stare. Michael Jackson, Sly Stallone, John Wayne, Pee Wee Herman and Dolly Parton were but a few of the celebrities people had transformed themselves into. It was uncanny to see them striding down the street, locked in conversation or eating noodles from one of the kiosks. But most prevalent were the freaks, those who'd combined celebrity