"This was squat, these rooms. Famous, in eighties. A party here. Seven years. Not once did party end. People come, make the party, more come, some go, make the party, always. Talking of freedom, art, things of the spirit. Nora and I were schoolgirls, first coming here. Our father would be very angry, seeing us here. He did not know." This room is larger, but filled with a makeshift cube farm, workstations walled off with sheets of unpainted composite board. The screens are dark now, the chairs empty. There's a plastic Garfield atop one monitor, other signs of workplace personalization. She picks up a square of clear acrylic: laser-etched in its core are the Coca-Cola logo, a crude representation of the Twin Towers, and the words "WE REMEMBER." She quickly puts it down.
"You see it now, you cannot imagine. Once Victor Tsoi sang here, in this room. People had time, in those days. The system was collapsing under its own weight, but everyone had a job, often a pointless one, very badly paid, but one could eat. People valued friendships, talked endlessly, ate and drank. For many people it was like the life of a student. A life of the spirit. Now we say that everything Lenin taught us of communism was false, and everything he taught us of capitalism, true."
"What do you do now, in this room?"
"My sister's work is transferred to production facility."
"Is she here, now?"
"She is working. Now you will see her."
"But I couldn't interrupt her—"
"No. She is here, when she is working. You must understand. When she is not working, she is not here."
The fourth room is at the end of a narrow hallway, its ceiling as high as those in the other rooms, its plaster darkened with the dirt of years of hands, lightening above shoulder-level. The door at its end is smooth and white, insubstantial-looking against the scabrous plaster.
Stella opens it, steps back, softly gestures for Cayce to enter.
At first she thinks this room is windowless, its sole illumination the largest LCD display Cayce has ever seen, but as her eyes adjust she sees that three tall narrow windows, behind the screen, have been painted black. But the part of her that notes this is some basic mammalian module tracking whereabouts and potential exits: All higher attention is locked on the screen, on which is frozen an image from a segment of footage that she knows she has never seen.
He is reaching out, perhaps from the girl's POV, as if to touch her in parting.
A cursor like a bombsight whips across the image, locking on the corner of his mouth. Mouse-click. Zoom. Into image-grain. Some quick adjustment. Clicks. Out of zoom.
The meaning of his expression, and the feeling of the frame, have changed.
So much for Completism, Cayce thinks. The footage is a work in progress.
"This is Nora," Stella says, stepping softly past Cayce to lay her hands on the shawl-draped shoulders of the figure in the chair before the screen. Nora's right hand pauses. Still resting on the mouse, though Cayce senses this has nothing to do with her sister's touch, or the presence of a stranger.
Cayce still cannot see her face. Her hair, like her sister's, is long and dark, center-parted, its gloss reflecting the glow of the screen.
Now Stella speaks to her sister in Russian, and slowly Nora turns from the screen, the manipulated image illuminating her face in three-quarter profile.
It is Stella's face, but some fault bisects it vertically, not quite evenly. There are no scars, only this skewing of the bone beneath. Nora's skin is smooth as Stella's, and as white.
Cayce looks into the dark eyes. Nora sees her. Then doesn't. Turns back to the screen.
Stella rolls a workstation chair into position. "Sit. Watch her work." Cayce shakes her head, her eyes stinging with tears.
"Sit," says Stella, very gently. "You will not disturb her. You have come a long way. You must watch her work."
HER watch tells her that over three hours have passed, when she leaves Nora's room.
