Poetry's Price

Rain dapples the river’s surface, but only on the east side. On the west, under the Burnside Bridge, the makeshift trading market remains dry. No one believes it will stay that way.

A tall, lean man threads his way between outlying stalls. Fifty years ago, his parents christened him Alan Seager. Folks did that sort of thing back then, in the time before Portland got its new name. Not a single inhabitant of CyPort calls him Alan, much less Seager. In the world of UnderBridge, he is known as Nib.

Nib is one of the oldtimers of UnderBridge. His nickname derives from the tip of an old-fashioned writing device. Very few people know this. No one has seen a fountain pen in decades. GovCorp banned all writing implements three decades ago. Possession of a pen or pencil is a serious crime.

CyPort was once called Portland, the City of Bridges. Now UnderBridge is where hackers, hustlers, rebels, and outlaws inhabit a sub-society lower even than the PlebeLows.

Walking between stalls, Nib realizes once again that he is twenty years older than the hooded PlebeLows or the leering traders. The vendors hawk cheap goods to the punters, their wares in plain view. Nib passes by without a second glance. There is nothing here to hold his interest.

Nib was born before life in CyPort became an official caste system sanctioned by GovCorp. The top caste consists of GovCorp and the Insiders. This highest stratum lives in and beyond the West Hills. Access is tightly controlled. Deliveries pass only through the US 26 corridor.

Insiders are allowed the joys of HighStream, an almost unlimited virtual world of sunny skies, warm days, and all needs fulfilled. In return, Insiders serve GovCorp. The Inclusion Act grants them privileges that may be revoked at any time.

Below the Insiders are the PlebeLows. PlebeLows live on either side of the river in what used to be old Portland. They’re the workers, builders, drivers, cooks, and cleaners who service the Insiders. PlebeLows are allowed into a reduced virtual world, LowCast, a continuous stream of mindless stories, sports, and porn.

Nib steps past the last public stall and into an open gap of trampled grass. No fence or painted line delineates this border, but woe betide the unauthorized vendor who encroaches. They will quickly learn the error of their ways.

The real market lies in the rain shadow of the Burnside Bridge. Huddled beneath the overhead roadway, the stalls form a matrix of blue and olive drab cubes. Entrances are cloaked, tarps drawn tight and dark. Ingress is granted only with approved words of introduction.

Crossing the twenty-foot space, Nib enters the gloom. His destination is a specific stall tucked against the abutments of the bridge. Each stall is marked with cryptic symbols from an arcane geometry. Knowledge of the symbols will lead you to the stall you seek. Once allowed inside, you may find what you desire, or you may be directed to another stall. Either result comes with a price.

If you cannot read the symbols, you’ve got no business being here. Nib finds the symbol he searches for.

The stall is an eight-by-eight cube encased in blue poly tarps. Nib speaks in a loud, clear voice.

“Seeking to do business.”

“Name and who sent you.”

“My name’s Nib. Mos Raj sent me.”

“Works for me. Enter.”

Nib parts the tarps and steps into a narrow vestibule between two layers of polyethylene. He pulls aside a second tarp and finds himself inside the cube.

The interior is lit with LED discs which cast a weird blue glow. A makeshift trestle table splits the width of the stall. The plank table is lined with monitors and keyboards. Cables drop from the table and snake away into the shadows at the back of the cube.

A man sits behind the trestle, peering over the monitors. He is short and squat, black-haired and bearded. Behind the beard is the pale face of a hacker and jacker, a man who never sees the sun. It’s the face of a man twenty years younger than Nib, like all the others.

The man waves to a single empty stool that faces the worktable.

“Good to meet you, Nib. I’m Scriber. Have a seat.”

Scriber does not rise from his chair or extend his hand. Those customs died out long ago. Nib sits atop the stool. Scriber shifts to one side so that he is peering between two monitors. Nib can’t see the man’s hands, but he knows there’s a weapon behind the trestle, something lethal and close.

Scriber wastes no time with pleasantries.

“Mos Raj said you were looking for a text, something obscure.”

Nib settles into himself, ready for the difficult negotiations that are sure to follow.

“That’s correct. I’m trying to obtain a copy of Arthur Rimbaud’s Illuminations.”

Scriber types on an unseen keyboard. The tapping stops. He turns his head to peer at a monitor on his left.

“Looks like you’re in luck. Several editions in the library archives. That’s an easy hack. I could have it on a stick for you in two, maybe three days.”

Nibs nods and raises his right hand in the air so that Scriber can see that it is empty.

“Mind if I smoke?”

Scriber smiles, showing dark gaps between his teeth.

“Smoke away, friend.”

Nib dips his hand into his jacket and comes out with a rough cheroot. Holding the cigar where Scriber can see it, he reaches in again and pulls out a small cutter.

“Half for me, half for you?”

A bigger smile, and more gaps.

“Wouldn’t say no.”

Nib snips the cheroot in two halves and hands one to Scriber. He knows better than to lean forward to offer a light. He waits.

Scriber’s left hand appears from under the table. He strikes a wooden match. The match flares and dies to a steady flame. He holds the flame beneath the cheroot and puffs it to life, then waves the match dead and throws it over his shoulder. Not once during the procedure do his eyes waver from his new client.

Nib lights his cigar, tips his head back and blows a cloud of smoke toward the blue ceiling.

This is where I throw a monkey wrench into the works and things get expensive. Or they get impossible. Mos Raj said this dude was good. Let’s see how good. And how expensive.

“I need to clarify. I know what’s in the archives. That’s not what I’m after. GovCorp has altered almost everything in the archives. I want an original, the real poems I remember. I want a book.”

If Scriber is shocked, he does a good job covering it. Poker-faced, he nods his head and smokes. He rolls the cheroot between his fingers and smiles.

“This is mighty fine tobacco. We do a deal, I’m going to ask for some of these in the barter price.”

“That can be done.”

“Okay. When Mos Raj said you were looking for something obscure, he wasn’t fucking around. Don’t know that I would have agreed to see you if he’d been clearer. But let’s set that aside for now, yeah?”

Nib examines the tip of his cigar. Let the man say what he’s going to say.

“Just for the sake of argument, let’s see where we stand. You come in here, maybe you ask me for a batch of pencils. I say okay. Dangerous, but doable. Such and such a price. Then you say you want a ream of blank paper. I say ouch. Also doable, but the price goes up. Gotta cover the risk. That’s just business. You ask me for a printed book. I say, hold on. I gotta make sure who I’m dealing with. Make double-sure you’re not a GovCorp goon. No offense meant. So now I’m asking you to hold on.”

Nib raises a hand in acknowledgment.

Scriber taps at the hidden keyboard, squinting at the smoke rising from the cheroot clamped between what’s left of his teeth. He stares at the monitor, waits, nods at whatever he’s reading there, then types some more.

“Mos Raj says that you’re legit. That carries much water. But legit or not, I gotta ask. Why do you want this thing?”

I want it because the sacred words of  poetry have been vandalized. The GovCorp versions are impotent bastards of the original, not even close to the same poems I remember. The verses have been sanitized, stripped of their meaning, reduced to nothing more than random words. And in Rimbaud’s case, not even pretty words. But in the original, Arthur Rimbaud’s words were real, hard as stone, yet vibrant and alive.

Nib tries to translate his thoughts into an explanation. To his credit, Scriber listens without interrupting, but he is not convinced.

“What is poetry? And why trouble yourself with it? I’m thinking of the UnderBridge values here. You gotta ask yourself the essential questions. Can you eat it, hack it, fuck it, or steal it? If the answer is no, then why bother?”

“I understand. For me, it’s more important to ask a different question. If GovCorp bothered to change poems that are a century and a half old, what else have they changed? To find the answer, one must begin somewhere. This is where I choose to begin.”

“Whatever, my strange dude. You ask me for literature, and I say easy-peasy. I can have Shakespeare rendered as William Burroughs except plot-driven a’ la Phillip K. Dick. Take me two minutes, tops. You’ve got a digital copy—Boom—and no GovCorp goons gonna give two shits.”

“I don’t want scraped shit mixed with other scraped shit. It’s the pure deal I’m after.”

“Right, which brings us back to words printed on paper. That shit can get you deleted. You know that. What’s more worrisome is that shit might get me deleted right along with your crazy ass.”

“But can you do it?”

“I can do lots of things, my lunatic brother. The question is will I.”