me? “Any more messages from him?”
“No,” said the roombrain.
“Well, delete this one too, and if he calls back tell him I’m too busy unless
he wants to tell me what he’s after.” I stretched out on my bed. “Next?” The
gel mattress shivered as it took my weight.
Happy Lurdane was having a smash party on the twentieth, but Happy was
a boring cush and there was a bill from the pet store for the iguanas that I
paid and a warning from the SPCA that I deleted and a special offer for
preferred customers from my favorite fireworks company that I saved to look
at later and my dad was about to ask for another loan when I paused him and
deleted and last of all there was a message from Stennie, time-stamped ten
minutes ago.
“Hey, Mr. Boy, if you’re feeling better I’ve lined up a VE party for tonight.”
He did not quite fit into the school’s telelink booth; all I could see was his
toothy face and the long yellow curve of his neck. “Bunch of us have reserved
some time on Playroom. Come in disguise. That new kid said she’d link, so
scope her yourself if you’re so hot. I found out her name, but it’s kind of
unpronounceable. Tree-something Joplin. Anyway, it’s at seven, meet on
channel seventeen, password is warhead. Hey, did you send my car back yet?
Later.” He faded.
“Sounds like fun.” Comrade kicked the doorbone open and backed through,
balancing a tray loaded with soup and fresh doboys and a mug of cold beer.
“Are we going?” He set it onto the nightstand next to my bed.
“Maybe.” I yawned. It felt good to be in my own bed. “Flush the damn soup,
would you?” I reached over for a doboy and felt something crinkle in my
jacket pocket. I pulled out the picture of the dead CEO. About the only thing
I did not like about it was that the eyes were shut. You feel dirtier when the
corpse stares back. “This is one sweet hunk of meat, Comrade.” I propped the
picture beside the tray. “How did you get it, anyway? Must have taken some
operating.”
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MR. BOY
“Three days’ worth. Encryption wasn’t all that tough, but there was lots
of it.” Comrade admired the picture with me as he picked up the bowl of
soup. “I ended up buying about ten hours from IBM to crack the file. Kind
of pricey, but since you were getting stunted, I had nothing else to do.”
“You see the messages from that security op?” I bit into a doboy. “Maybe
you were a little sloppy.” The hot cinnamon scent tickled my nose.
“Ya v’rot ego ebal!” He laughed. “So some stiff is cranky? Plug him if he can’t take a joke.”
I said nothing. Comrade could be a pain sometimes. Of course I loved the
picture, but he really should have been more careful. He had made a mess and
left it for me to clean up. Just what I needed. I knew I would only get mad if I thought about it, so I changed the subject. “Well, do you think she’s cute?”
“What’s-her-face Joplin?” Comrade turned abruptly toward the
bathroom. “Sure, for a perdunya,” he said over his shoulder. “Why not?”
Talking about girls made him snippy. I think he was afraid of them.
I brought my army ants back onto the window; they were swarming over
a lump with brown fur. Thinking about him hanging on my elbow when I
met this Tree-something Joplin made me feel weird. I listened as he poured
the soup down the toilet. I was not myself at all. Getting stunted changes
you; no one can predict how. I chugged the beer and rolled over to take a
nap. It was the first time I had ever thought of leaving Comrade behind.
“VE party, Mr. Boy.” Comrade nudged me awake. “Are we going or not?”
“Huh?” My gut still ached from the rejuvenation, and I woke up mean
enough to chew glass. “What do you mean we?”
“Nothing.” Comrade had that blank look he always put on so I would not
know what he was thinking. Still, I could tell he was disappointed. “Are you
going then?” he said.
I stretched— ouch! “Yeah, sure, get my joysuit.” My bones felt brittle as candy. “And stop acting sorry for yourself.” This nasty mood had momentum;
it swept me past any regrets. “No way I’m going to lie here all night watching
you pretend you have feelings to hurt.”
“Tak tochno.” He saluted and went straight to the closet. I got out of bed and hobbled to the bathroom.
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JAMES PATRICK KELLY
“This is a costume party, remember,” Comrade called. “What are you
wearing?”
“Whatever.” Even his efficiency irked me; sometimes he did too much.
“You decide.” I needed to get away from him for a while.
Playroom was a new virtual-environment service on our local net. If you
wanted to throw an electronic party at Versailles or Monticello or San
Simeon, all you had to do was link—if you could get a reservation.
I came back to the bedroom and Comrade stepped up behind me, holding
the joysuit. I shrugged into it, velcroed the front seam, and eyed myself in
the nearest window. He had synthesized some kid-sized armor in the
German Gothic style. My favorite. It was made of polished silver, with great
fluting and scalloping. He had even programmed a little glow into the
image so that on the window I looked like a walking night light. There was
an armet helmet with a red ostrich plume; the visor was tipped up so I
could see my face. I raised my arm, and the joysuit translated the movement
to the window so that my armored image waved back.
“Try a few steps,” he said.
Although I could move easily in the lightweight joysuit, the motion
interpreter made walking in the video armor seem realistically awkward.
Comrade had scored the sound effects, too. Metal hinges rasped, chain mail
rattled softly, and there was a satisfying clunk whenever my foot hit the floor.
“Great.” I clenched my fist in approval. I was awake now and in control of
my temper. I wanted to make up, but Comrade was not taking the hint. I
could never quite figure out whether he was just acting like a machine or
whether he really did not care how I treated him.
“They’re starting.” All the windows in the room lit up with Playroom’s
welcome screen. “You want privacy, so I’m leaving. No one will bother you.”
“Hey, Comrade, you don’t have to go . . .”
But he had already left the room. Playroom prompted me to identify myself.
“Mr. Boy,” I said, “Department of Identification number 203-966-2445. I’m
looking for channel seventeen; the password is warhead.”
A brass band started playing “Hail to the Chief” as the title screen lit the
windows:
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
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MR. BOY
Washington, DC, USA
® 2096, Playroom Presentations
REPRODUCTION OR REUSE STRICTLY PROHIBITED
and then I was looking at a wraparound view of a VE ballroom. A caption
bar opened at the top of the windows and a message scrolled across. This is the famous East Room, the largest room in the main house. It is used for press conferences, public receptions, and entertainments. I lowered my visor and entered the simulation.
> The East Room was decorated in bone white and gold; three chandeliers
hung like cut-glass mushrooms above the huge parquet floor. A band
played skitter at one end of the room, but no one was dancing yet. The
band was Warhead, according to their drum set. I had never heard of them.
Someone’s disguise? I turned, and the joysuit changed the view on the
windows. Just ahead Satan was chatting with a forklift and a rhinoceros.
Beyond, some blue cartoons were teasing Johnny America. There was not
much furniture in the room, a couple of benches, an ugly piano, and some
life-sized paintings of George and Martha. George looked like he had just
been peeled off a cash card. I stared at him too long, and the closed-caption
bar informed me that the painting had been painted by Gilbert Stuart and
was the only White House object dating from the mansion’s first occupancy
in 1800.
“Hey,” I said to a girl who was on fire. “How do I get rid of the plugging
tour guide?”
“Can’t,” she said. “When Playroom found out we were kids, they turned on
all their educational crap and there’s no override. I kind of don’t think they
want us back.”
“Dumbscuts.” I scoped the room for something that might be Stennie. No
luck. “I like the way your hair is burning.” Now that it was too late, I was
sorry I had to make idle party chat.
“Thanks.” When she tossed her head, sparks flared and crackled. “My
mom helped me program it.”
“So, I’ve never been to the White House. Is there more than this?”
“Sure,” she said. “We’re supposed to have pretty much the whole first
floor. Unless they shorted us. You wouldn’t be Stone Kinkaid in there,
would you?”
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JAMES PATRICK KELLY
“No, not really.” Even though the voice was disguised, I could tell this was
Happy Lurdane. I edged away from her. “I’m going to check the other rooms
now. Later.”
“If you run into Stone, tell him I’m looking for him.”
I left the East Room and found myself in a long marble passageway with a
red carpet. A dog skeleton trotted toward me. Or maybe it was supposed to
be a sheep. I waved and went through a door on the other side.
Everyone in the Red Room was standing on the ceiling; I knew I had found
Stennie. Even though what they see is only a simulation, most people lock
into the perceptual field of a VE as if it were real. Stand on your head long
enough—even if only in your imagination—and you get airsick. It took
kilohours of practice to learn to compensate. Upside down was one of
Stennie’s trademark ways of showing off.
The Red Room is an intimate parlor in the American Empire style of 1815–20 . . .
“Hi,” I said. I hopped over the wainscoting and walked up the silk-covered
wall to join the three of them.
“You’re wearing German armor.” When the boy in blue grinned at me, his
cheeks dimpled. He was wearing shorts and white knee socks, a navy sweater
over a white shirt. “Augsburg?” said Little Boy Blue. Fine blond hair drooped
from beneath his tweed cap.
“Try Wolf of Landshut,” I said. Stennie and I had spent a lot of time fighting
VE wars in full armor. “Nice shorts.” Stennie’s costume reminded me of
Christopher Robin. Terminally cute.
“It’s not fair,” said the snowman, who I did not recognize. “He says this is
what he actually looks like.” The snowman was standing in a puddle that was
dripping onto the rug below us. Great effect.
“No,” said Stennie, “what I said was I would look like this if I hadn’t done something about it, okay?”
I had not known Stennie before he was a dinosaur. “No wonder you got
twanked.” I wished I could have saved this image, but Playroom was copy-
protected.
“You’ve been twanked? No joke?” The great horned owl ruffled in alarm.
She had a girl’s voice. “I know it’s none of my business, but I don’t understand why anyone would do it. Especially a kid. I mean, what’s wrong with good
old-fashioned surgery? And you can be whoever you want in a VE.” She
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MR. BOY
paused, waiting for someone to agree with her. No help. “Okay, so I don’t
understand. But when you mess with your genes, you change who you are. I
mean, don’t you like who you are? I do.”
“We’re so happy for you.” Stennie scowled. “What is this, mental health week?”
“We’re rich,” I said. “We can afford to hate ourselves.”
“This may sound rude”—the owl’s big blunt head swiveled from Stennie to
me—“but I think that’s sad.”
“Yeah well, we’ll try to work up some tears for you, birdie,” Stennie said.
Silence. In the East Room, the band turned the volume up.
“Anyway, I’ve got to be going.” The owl shook herself. “Hanging upside
down is fine for bats, but not for me. Later.” She let go of her perch and
swooped out into the hall. The snowman turned to watch her go.
“You’re driving them off, young man.” I patted Stennie on the head. “Come
on now, be nice.”
“Nice makes me puke.”
“You do have a bit of an edge tonight.” I had trouble imagining this dainty little brat as my best friend. “Better watch out you don’t cut someone.”
The dog skeleton came to the doorway and called up to us. “We’re supposed
to dance now.”
“About time.” Stennie fell off the ceiling like a drop of water and splashed
headfirst onto the beige Persian rug. His image went all muddy for a moment
and then he re-formed, upright and unharmed. “Going to skitter, tin man?”
“I need to talk to you for a moment,” the snowman murmured.
“You need to?” I said.
“Dance, dance, dance,” sang Stennie. “Later.” He swerved after the
skeleton out of the room.
The snowman said, “It’s about a possible theft of information.”
Right then was when I should have slammed it into reverse. Caught up
with Stennie or maybe faded from Playroom altogether. But all I did was
raise my hands over my head. “You got me, snowman; I confess. But society
is to blame, too, isn’t it? You will tell the judge to go easy on me? I’ve had a tough life.”
“This is serious.”
“You’re Weldon—what’s your name?” Down the hall, I could hear the thud
of Warhead’s bass line. “Montross.”
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JAMES PATRICK KELLY
“I’ll come to the point, Peter.” The only acknowledgment he made was to
drop the kid voice. “The firm I represent provides information security
services. Last week someone operated on the protected database of one of
our clients. We have reason to believe that a certified photograph was
accessed and copied. What can you tell me about this?”
“Not bad, Mr. Montross, sir. But if you were as good as you think you are,
you’d know my name isn’t Peter. It’s Mr. Boy. And since nobody invited you
to this party, maybe you’d better tell me now why I shouldn’t just go ahead
and have you deleted?”
“I know that you were undergoing genetic therapy at the time of the theft,
so you
could not have been directly responsible. That’s in your favor. However, I also know that you can help me clear this matter up. And you need to do
that, son, just as quickly as you can. Otherwise there’s big trouble coming.”
“What are you going to do, tell my mommy?” My blood started to pump; I
was coming back to life.
“This is my offer. It’s not negotiable. You let me sweep your files for this
image. You turn over any hard copies you’ve made, and you instruct your
wiseguy to let me do a spot reprogramming, during which I will erase his
memory of this incident. After that, we’ll consider the matter closed.”
“Why don’t I just drop my pants and bend over while I’m at it?”
“Look, you can pretend if you want, but you’re not a kid anymore. You’re
twenty-five years old. I don’t believe for a minute that you’re as thick as
your friends out there. If you think about it, you’ll realize that you can’t
fight us. The fact that I’m here and I know what I know means that all your
personal information systems are already tapped. I’m an op, son. I could
wipe your files clean any time and I will, if it comes to that. However, my
orders are to be thorough. The only way I can be sure I have everything is
if you cooperate.”
“You’re not even real, are you, Montross? I’ll bet you’re nothing but cheesy
old code. I’ve talked to elevators with more personality.”
“The offer is on the table.”
“Stick it!”
The owl flew back into the room, braked with outstretched wings, and
caught onto the armrest of the Dolley Madison sofa. “Oh, you’re still here,”
she said, noticing us. “I didn’t mean to interrupt . . .”
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MR. BOY
“Wait there,” I said. “I’m coming right down.”
“I’ll be in touch,” said the snowman. “Let me know just as soon as you
change your mind.” He faded.
I flipped backward off the ceiling and landed in front of her; my video
armor rang from the impact. “Owl, you just saved the evening.” I knew I
was showing off, but just then I was willing to forgive myself. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome, I guess.” She edged away from me, moving with precise
little birdlike steps toward the top of the couch. “But all I was trying to do
was escape the band.”
“Bad?”
“And loud.” Her ear tufts flattened. “Do you think shutting the door would
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