Cyberpunk

by Victoria Blake

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  MR. BOY

  cramped, but we would have lived in Stennie’s car if our parents had let us.

  “You okay there, Mr. Boy?” said Stennie.

  “Mmm.” As I watched the trees whoosh past in the rain, I pretended that

  the car was standing still and the world was passing me by.

  “Think of something to do, okay?” Stennie had the car and all and he was

  fun to play with, but ideas were not his specialty. He was probably smart for

  a dinosaur. “I’m bored.”

  “Leave him alone, will you?” Comrade said.

  “He hasn’t said anything yet.” Stennie stretched and nudged me with his

  foot. “Say something.” He had legs like a horse: yellow skin stretched tight

  over long bones and stringy muscle.

  “Prosrees! He just had his genes twanked, you jack.” Comrade always took good care of me. Or tried to. “Remember what that’s like? He’s in damage

  control.”

  “Maybe I should go to socialization,” Stennie said. “Aren’t they having a

  dance this afternoon?”

  “You’re talking to me?” said the Alpha. “You haven’t earned enough

  learning credits to socialize. You’re a quiz behind and forty-five minutes short of E-class. You haven’t linked since—”

  “Just shut up and drive me over.” Stennie and the Alpha did not get along.

  He thought the car was too strict. “I’ll make up the plugging quiz, okay?” He

  probed a mess of empty juice boxes and snack wrappers with his foot. “Anyone

  see my comm anywhere?”

  Stennie’s schoolcomm was wedged behind my cushion. “You know,” I said,

  “I can’t take much more of this.” I leaned forward, wriggled it free, and

  handed it over.

  “Of what, poputchik?” said Comrade. “Joyriding? Listening to the lizard here?”

  “Being stunted.”

  Stennie flipped up the screen of his comm and went online with the school’s

  computer. “You guys help me, okay?” He retracted his claws and tapped at

  the oversized keyboard.

  “It’s extreme while you’re on the table,” I said, “but now I feel empty. Like

  I’ve lost myself.”

  “You’ll get over it,” said Stennie. “First question: Brand name of the first

  wiseguys sold for home use?”

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  “NEC-Bots, of course,” said Comrade.

  “Geneva? It got nuked, right?”

  “Da.”

  “Haile Selassie was that king of Ethiopia who the Marleys claim is god,

  right? Name the Cold Wars: Nicaragua, Angola . . . Korea was the first.”

  Typing was hard work for Stennie; he did not have enough fingers for it.

  “One was something like Venezuela. Or something.”

  “Sure it wasn’t Venice?”

  “Or Venus?” I said, but Stennie was not paying attention.

  “All right, I know that one. And that. The Sovs built the first space station.

  Ronald Reagan—he was the president who dropped the bomb?”

  Comrade reached inside of his coat and pulled out an envelope. “I got you

  something, Mr. Boy. A get-well present for your collection.”

  I opened it and scoped a picture of a naked dead fat man on a stainless-

  steel table. The print had a DI verification grid on it, which meant this was

  the real thing, not a composite. Just above the corpse’s left eye there was a

  neat hole. It was rimmed with purple that had faded to bruise blue. He had

  curly gray hair on his head and chest, skin the color of dried mayonnaise, and

  a wonderfully complicated penis graft. He looked relieved to be dead. “Who

  was he?” I liked Comrade’s present. It was extreme.

  “CEO of Infoline. He had the wife, you know, the one who stole all the

  money so she could download herself into a computer.”

  I shivered as I stared at the dead man. I could hear myself breathing and

  feel the blood squirting through my arteries. “Didn’t they turn her off?” I

  said. This was the kind of stuff we were not even supposed to imagine,

  much less look at. Too bad they had cleaned him up. “How much did this

  cost me?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Hey!” Stennie thumped his tail against the side of the car. “I’m taking a

  quiz here, and you guys are drooling over porn. When was the First World

  Depression?”

  “Who cares?” I slipped the picture back into the envelope and grinned at

  Comrade.

  “Well, let me see then.” Stennie snatched the envelope. “You know what I

  think, Mr. Boy? I think this corpse jag you’re on is kind of sick. Besides, you’re 286

  MR. BOY

  going to get in trouble if you let Comrade keep breaking laws. Isn’t this

  picture private?”

  “Privacy is twentieth-century thinking. It’s all information, Stennie, and

  information should be accessible.” I held out my hand. “But if glasnost bothers you, give it up.” I wiggled my fingers.

  Comrade snickered. Stennie pulled out the picture, glanced at it, and

  hissed. “You’re scaring me, Mr. Boy.”

  His schoolcomm beeped as it posted his score on the quiz, and he sailed the

  envelope back across the car at me. “Not Venezuela, Vietnam. Hey, Truman

  dropped the plugging bomb. Reagan was the one who spent all the money.

  What’s wrong with you dumbscuts? Now I owe school another fifteen minutes.”

  “Hey, if you don’t make it look good, they’ll know you had help.” Comrade

  laughed.

  “What’s with this dance anyway? You don’t dance.” I picked Comrade’s

  present up and tucked it into my shirt pocket. “You find yourself a cush or

  something, lizard boy?”

  “Maybe.” Stennie could not blush, but sometimes when he was embarrassed

  the loose skin under his jaw quivered. Even though he had been reshaped

  into a dinosaur, he was still growing up. “Maybe I am getting a little. What’s

  it to you?”

  “If you’re getting it,” I said, “it’s got to be microscopic.” This was a bad

  sign. I was losing him to his dick, just like all the other pals. No way I

  wanted to start over with someone new. I had been alive for twenty-five

  years now. I was running out of things to say to thirteen-year-olds.

  As the Alpha pulled up to the school, I scoped the crowd waiting for the

  doors to open for third shift. Although there was a handful of stunted kids,

  a pair of gorilla brothers who were football stars, and Freddy the Teddy—a

  bear who had furry hands instead of real paws—the majority of students at

  New Canaan High looked more or less normal. Most working stiffs thought

  that people who had their genes twanked were freaks.

  “Come get me at five-fifteen,” Stennie told the Alpha. “In the meantime,

  take these guys wherever they want to go.” He opened the door. “You rest up,

  Mr. Boy, okay?”

  “What?” I was not paying attention. “Sure.” I had just seen the most

  beautiful girl in the world.

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  She leaned against one of the concrete columns of the portico, chatting

  with a couple other kids. Her hair was long and nut-colored and the ends

  twinkled. She was wearing a loose black robe over mirror skintights. Her

  schoolcomm dangled from a strap arou
nd her wrist. She appeared to be

  seventeen, maybe eighteen. But of course, appearances could be deceiving.

  Girls had never interested me much, but I could not help but admire this

  one. “Wait, Stennie! Who’s that?” She saw me point at her. “With the

  hair?”

  “She’s new—has one of those names you can’t pronounce.” He showed me

  his teeth as he got out. “Hey, Mr. Boy, you’re stunted. You haven’t got what she wants.”

  He kicked the door shut, lowered his head, and crossed in front of the car.

  When he walked, he looked like he was trying to squash a bug with each step.

  His snaky tail curled high behind him for balance, his twiggy little arms

  dangled. When the new girl saw him, she pointed and smiled. Or maybe she

  was pointing at me.

  “Where to?” said the car.

  “I don’t know.” I sank low into my seat and pulled out Comrade’s present

  again. “Home, I guess.”

  I was not the only one in my family with twanked genes. My mom was a

  three-quarter-scale replica of the Statue of Liberty. Originally she wanted to

  be full-sized, but then she would have been the tallest thing in New Canaan,

  Connecticut. The town turned her down when she applied for a zoning

  variance. Her lawyers and their lawyers sued and countersued for almost two

  years. Mom’s claim was that since she was born human, her freedom of form

  was protected by the Thirtieth Amendment. However, the form she wanted

  was a curtain of reshaped cells that would hang on a forty-two-meter-high

  ferroplastic skeleton. Her structure, said the planning board, was clearly

  subject to building codes and zoning laws. Eventually they reached an out-of-

  court settlement, which was why Mom was only as tall as an eleven-story

  building.

  She complied with the town’s request for a setback of five hundred meters

  from Route 123. As Stennie’s Alpha drove us down the long driveway,

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  MR. BOY

  Comrade broadcast the recognition code that told the robot sentries that we

  were okay. One thing Mom and the town agreed on from the start: no tourists.

  Sure, she loved publicity, but she was also very fragile. In some places her

  skin was only a centimeter thick. Chunks of ice falling from her crown could

  punch holes in her.

  The end of our driveway cut straight across the lawn to Mom’s granite-

  paved foundation pad. To the west of the plaza, directly behind her, was a

  utility building faced in ashlar that housed her support systems. Mom had

  been bioengineered to be pretty much self-sufficient. She was green not only

  to match the real Statue of Liberty but also because she was photosynthetic.

  All she needed was a yearly truckload of fertilizer, water from the well, and

  150 kilowatts of electricity a day. Except for emergency surgery, the only time she required maintenance was in the fall, when her outer cells tended to flake

  off and had to be swept up and carted away.

  Stennie’s Alpha dropped us off by the doorbone in the right heel and then

  drove off to do whatever cars do when nobody is using them. Mom’s greeter

  was waiting in the reception area inside the foot.

  “Peter.” She tried to hug me, but I dodged out of her grasp. “How are you,

  Peter?”

  “Tired.” Even though Mom knew I did not like to be called that, I kissed

  the air near her cheek. Peter Cage was her name for me; I had given it up

  years ago.

  “You poor boy. Here, let me see you.” She held me at arm’s length and

  brushed her fingers against my cheek. “You don’t look a day over twelve. Oh,

  they do such good work—don’t you think?” She squeezed my shoulder. “Are

  you happy with it?”

  I think my mom meant well, but she never did understand me. Especially

  when she talked to me with her greeter remote. I wormed out of her grip and

  fell back onto one of the couches. “What’s to eat?”

  “Doboys, noodles, fries—whatever you want.” She beamed at me and then

  bent over impulsively and gave me a kiss that I did not want. I never paid

  much attention to the greeter; she was lighter than air. She was always smiling and asking five questions in a row without waiting for an answer and flitting

  around the room. It wore me out just watching her. Naturally, everything I

  said or did was cute, even if I was trying to be obnoxious. It was no fun being 289

  JAMES PATRICK KELLY

  cute. Today Mom had her greeter wearing a dark blue dress and a very dumb

  white apron. The greeter’s umbilical was too short to stretch up to the

  kitchen. So why was she wearing an apron?

  “I’m really, really glad you’re home,” she said.

  “I’ll take some cinnamon doboys.” I kicked off my shoes and rubbed my

  bare feet through the dense black hair on the floor. “And a beer.”

  All of Mom’s remotes had different personalities. I liked Nanny all right;

  she was simple, but at least she listened. The lovers were a challenge because

  they were usually too busy looking into mirrors to notice me. Cook was as

  pretentious as a four-star menu; the housekeeper had all the charm of a

  vacuum cleaner. I had always wondered what it would be like to talk directly

  to Mom’s main brain up in the head, because then she would not be filtered

  through a remote. She would be herself.

  “Cook is making you some nice broth to go with your doboys,” said the

  greeter. “Nanny says you shouldn’t be eating dessert all the time.”

  “Hey, did I ask for broth?”

  At first Comrade had hung back while the greeter was fussing over me. Then

  he slid along the wrinkled pink walls of the reception room toward the plug

  where the greeter’s umbilical was attached. When she started in about the

  broth, I saw him lean against the plug. Carelessly, you know? At the same time

  he stepped on the greeter’s umbilical, crimping the furry black cord. She gasped and the smile flattened horribly on her face, as if her lips were two ropes someone had suddenly yanked taut. Her head jerked toward the umbilical plug.

  “E-Excuse me.” She was twitching.

  “What?” Comrade glanced down at his foot as if it belonged to a stranger.

  “Oh, sorry.” He pushed away from the wall and strolled across the room

  toward us. Although he seemed apologetic, about half the heads on his

  window coat were laughing.

  The greeter flexed her cheek muscles. “You’d better watch out for your toy,

  Peter,” she said. “It’s going to get you in trouble someday.”

  Mom did not like Comrade much, even though she had given him to me

  when I was first stunted. She got mad when I snuck him down to

  Manhattan a couple of years ago to have a chop job done on his behavioral

  regulators. For a while after the operation, he used to ask me before he

  broke the law. Now he was on his own. He got caught once, and she

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  warned me he was out of control. But she still threw money at the people

  until they went away.

  “Trouble?” I said. “Sounds like fun.” I thought we were too rich for trouble.

  I was the trust baby of a trust baby; we had vintage money and lots of it. I

  stood and Comrade picked up my shoes for me. “And he’s not a toy; he’s my


  best friend.” I put my arms around his shoulder. “Tell Cook I’ll eat in my

  rooms.”

  I was tired after the long climb up the circular stairs to Mom’s chest. When

  the roombrain sensed I had come in, it turned on all the electronic windows

  and blinked my message indicator. One reason I still lived in my mom was

  that she kept out of my rooms. She had promised me total security, and I

  believed her. Actually I doubted that she cared enough to pry, although she

  could easily have tapped my windows. I was safe from her remotes up here,

  even the housekeeper. Comrade did everything for me.

  I sent him for supper, perched on the edge of the bed, and cleared the

  nearest window of army ants foraging for meat through some Angolan jungle.

  The first message in the queue was from a gray-haired stiff wearing a navy

  blue corporate uniform. “Hello, Mr. Cage. My name is Weldon Montross and

  I’m with Datasafe. I’d like to arrange a meeting with you at your convenience.

  Call my DI number, 408-966-3286. I hope to hear from you soon.”

  “What the hell is Datasafe?”

  The roombrain ran a search. “Datasafe offers services in encryption and

  information security. It was incorporated in the state of Delaware in 2013.

  Estimated billings last year were three hundred and forty million dollars.

  Headquarters are in San Jose, California, with branch offices in White Plains,

  New York, and Chevy Chase, Maryland. Foreign offices—”

  “Are they trying to sell me something or what?”

  The room did not offer an answer. “Delete,” I said. “Next?”

  Weldon Montross was back again, looking exactly as he had before. I

  wondered if he were using a virtual image. “Hello, Mr. Cage. I’ve just

  discovered that you’ve been admitted to the Thayer Clinic for rejuvenation

  therapy. Believe me when I say that I very much regret having to bother you

  during your convalescence, and I would not do so if this were not a matter of

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  importance. Would you please contact the Department of Identification

  number 408-966-3286 as soon as you’re able?”

  “You’re a pro, Weldon, I’ll say that for you.” Prying client information out

  of the Thayer Clinic was not easy, but then the guy was no doubt some kind

  of op. He was way too polite to be a salesman. What did Datasafe want with