help?”
“Sure. Follow me. We can shut lots of doors.” When she hesitated, I flapped
my arms like silver wings. Actually, Montross had done me a favor; when he
threatened me, some inner clock had begun an adrenaline tick. If this was
trouble, I wanted more. I felt twisted and dangerous and I did not care what
happened next. Maybe that was why the owl flitted after me as I walked into
the next room.
The sumptuous State Dining Room can seat about 130 for formal dinners. The
white-and-gold decor dates from the administration of Theodore Roosevelt.
The owl glided over to the banquet table. I shut the door behind me.
“Better?” Warhead still pounded on the walls.
“A little.” She settled on a huge bronze doré centerpiece with a mirrored
surface. “I’m going soon anyway.”
“Why?”
“The band stinks, I don’t know anyone, and I hate these stupid disguises.”
“I’m Mr. Boy.” I raised my visor and grinned at her. “All right? Now you
know someone.”
She tucked her wings into place and fixed me with her owlish stare. “I don’t
like VEs much.”
“They take some getting used to.”
“Why bother?” she said. “I mean, if anything can happen in a simulation,
nothing matters. And I feel dumb standing in a room all alone jumping up
and down and flapping my arms. Besides, this joysuit is hot and I’m renting it
by the hour.”
299
JAMES PATRICK KELLY
“The trick is not to look at yourself,” I said. “Just watch the screens and use your imagination.”
“Reality is less work. You look like a little kid.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Mr. Boy? What kind of name is that anyway?”
I wished she would blink. “A made-up name. But then all names are made
up, aren’t they?”
“Didn’t I see you at school Wednesday? You were the one who dropped off
the dinosaur.”
“My friend Stennie.” I pulled out a chair and sat facing her. “Who you
probably hate because he’s twanked.”
“That was him on the ceiling, wasn’t it? Listen, I’m sorry about what I said.
I’m new here. I’d never met anyone like him before I came to New Canaan.
I mean, I’d heard of reshaping and all—getting twanked. But where I used to
live, everybody was pretty much the same.”
“Where was that, Squirrel Crossing, Nebraska?”
“Close.” She laughed. “Elkhart; it’s in Indiana.”
The reckless ticking in my head slowed. Talking to her made it easy to
forget about Montross. “You want to leave the party?” I said. “We could go
into discreet.”
“Just us?” She sounded doubtful. “Right now?”
“Why not? You said you weren’t staying. We could get rid of these disguises.
And the music.”
She was silent for a moment. Maybe people in Elkhart, Indiana, did not
ask one another into discreet unless they had met in Sunday school or the
4-H Club.
“Okay,” she said finally, “but I’ll enable. What’s your DI?”
I gave her my number.
“Be back in a minute.”
I cleared Playroom from my screens. The message Enabling Discreet Mode
flashed. I decided not to change out of the joysuit; instead I called up my
wardrobe menu and chose an image of myself wearing black baggies. The
loose folds and padded shoulders helped hide the scrawny little boy’s body.
The message changed. DISCREET MODE ENABLED. DO YOU ACCEPT, YES/NO?
“Sure,” I said.
300
MR. BOY
She was sitting naked in the middle of a room filled with tropical plants.
Her skin was the color of cinnamon. She had freckles on her shoulders and
across her breasts. Her hair tumbled down the curve of her spine; the ends
glowed like embers in a breeze. She clutched her legs close to her and gave
me a curious smile. Teenage still life. We were alone and secure. No one
could tap us while we were in discreet. We could say anything we wanted.
I was too croggled to speak.
“You are a little kid,” she said.
I did not tell her that what she was watching was an enhanced image, a
virtual me. “Uh . . . well, not really.” I was glad Stennie could not see me.
Mr. Boy at a loss—a first. “Sometimes I’m not sure what I am. I guess you’re
not going to like me either. I’ve been stunted a couple of times. I’m really
twenty-five years old.”
She frowned. “You keep deciding I won’t like people. Why?”
“Most people are against genetic surgery. Probably because they haven’t got
the money.”
“Myself, I wouldn’t do it. Still, just because you did doesn’t mean I hate
you.” She gestured for me to sit. “But my parents would probably be horrified.
They’re realists, you know.”
“No fooling?” I could not help but chuckle. “That explains a lot.” Like
why she had an attitude about twanking. And why she thought VEs were
dumb. And why she was naked and did not seem to care. According to
hard-core realists, first came clothes, then jewelry, fashion, makeup, plastic
surgery, skin tints, and hey, jack! here we are up to our eyeballs in the
delusions of 2096. Gene twanking, VE addicts, people downloading
themselves into computers—better never to have started. They wanted to
turn back to worn-out twentieth-century modes. “But you’re no realist,” I
said. “Look at your hair.”
She shook her head and the ends twinkled. “You like it?”
“It’s extreme. But realists don’t decorate!”
“Then maybe I’m not a realist. My parents let me try lots of stuff they
wouldn’t do themselves, like buying hairworks or linking to VEs. They’re
afraid I’d leave otherwise.”
“Would you?”
She shrugged. “So what’s it like to get stunted? I’ve heard it hurts.”
301
JAMES PATRICK KELLY
I told her how sometimes I felt as if there were broken glass in my joints and
how my bones ached and—more showing off—about the blood I would find
on the toilet paper. Then I mentioned something about Mom. She had heard
of Mom, of course. She asked about my dad, and I explained how Mom paid
him to stay away but that he kept running out of money. She wanted to know
if I was working or still going to school, and I made up some stuff about
courses in history I was taking from Yale. Actually I had faded after my first
semester. Couple of years ago. I did not have time to link to some boring
college; I was too busy playing with Comrade and Stennie. But I still had an
account at Yale.
“So that’s who I am.” I was amazed at how little I had lied. “Who are you?”
She told me that her name was Treemonisha but her friends called her
Tree. It was an old family name; her great-great-grandsomething-or-other
had been a composer named Scott Joplin. Treemonisha was the name of his opera.
I had to force myself not to stare at her breasts when she talked. “You like
opera?” I said.
“My dad says I’ll grow into it.” She made a face. “I hope not.”
The Joplins were a franchi
se family; her mom and dad had just been
transferred to the Green Dream, a plant shop in the Elm Street Mall. To hear
her talk, you would think she had ordered them from the Good Fairy. They
had been married for twenty-two years and were still together. She had a
brother, Fidel, who was twelve. They all lived in the greenhouse next to the
shop where they grew most of their food and where flowers were always in
bloom and where everybody loved everyone else. Nice life for a bunch of mall
drones. So why was she thinking of leaving?
“You should stop by sometime,” she said.
“Sometime,” I said. “Sure.”
For hours after we faded, I kept remembering things about her I had not
realized I had noticed. The fine hair on her legs. The curve of her eyebrows.
The way her hands moved when she was excited.
It was Stennie’s fault: after the Playroom party he started going to school
almost every day. Not just linking to E-class with his comm, but actually
302
MR. BOY
showing up. We knew he had more than remedial reading on his mind, but
no matter how much we teased, he would not talk about his mysterious new
cush. Before he fell in love we used to joyride in his Alpha afternoons. Now
Comrade and I had the car all to ourselves. Not as much fun.
We had already dropped Stennie off when I spotted Treemonisha waiting
for the bus. I waved, she came over. The next thing I knew we had another
passenger on the road to nowhere. Comrade stared vacantly out the
window as we pulled onto South Street; he did not seem pleased with the
company.
“Have you been out to the reservoir?” I said. “There are some extreme
houses out there. Or we could drive over to Greenwich and look at yachts.”
“I haven’t been anywhere yet, so I don’t care,” she said. “By the way, you
don’t go to college.” She was not accusing me or even asking—merely stating
a fact.
“Why do you say that?” I said.
“Fidel told me.”
I wondered how her twelve-year-old brother could know anything at all
about me. Rumors maybe, or just guessing. Since she did not seem mad, I
decided to tell the truth.
“He’s right,” I said, “I lied. I have an account at Yale, but I haven’t linked
for months. Hey, you can’t live without telling a few lies. At least I don’t
discriminate. I’ll lie to anyone, even myself.”
“You’re bad.” A smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. “So what do
you do then?”
“I drive around a lot.” I waved at the interior of Stennie’s car. “Let’s see . .
. I go to parties. I buy stuff and use it.”
“Fidel says you’re rich.”
“I’m going to have to meet this Fidel. Does money make a difference?”
When she nodded, her hairworks twinkled. Comrade gave me a knowing
glance, but I paid no attention. I was trying to figure out how she could make
insults sound like compliments when I realized we were flirting. The idea
took me by surprise. Flirting.
“Do you have any music?” Treemonisha said.
The Alpha asked what groups she liked, and so we listened to some mindless
dance hits as we took the circle route around the Laurel Reservoir.
303
JAMES PATRICK KELLY
Treemonisha told me about how she was sick of her parents’ store and rude
customers and especially the dumb Green Dream uniform. “Back in Elkhart,
Daddy used to make me wear it to school. Can you believe that? He said it
was good advertising. When we moved, I told him either the khakis went or
I did.”
She had a yellow-and-orange dashiki over midnight-blue skintights. “I like
your clothes,” I said. “You have taste.”
“Thanks.” She bobbed her head in time to the music. “I can’t afford
much because I can’t get an outside job because I have to work for my
parents. It makes me mad, sometimes. I mean, franchise life is fine for
Mom and Dad; they’re happy being tucked in every night by GD, Inc. But
I want more. Thrills, chills—you know, adventure. No one has adventures
in the mall.”
As we drove, I showed her the log castle, the pyramids, the private train
that pulled sleeping cars endlessly around a two-mile track, and the marble
bunker where Sullivan, the assassinated president, still lived on in computer
memory. Comrade kept busy acting bored.
“Can we go see your mom?” said Treemonisha. “All the kids at school tell
me she’s awesome.”
Suddenly Comrade was interested in the conversation. I was not sure what
the kids at school were talking about. Probably they wished they had seen
Mom, but I had never asked any of them over—except for Stennie.
“Not a good idea.” I shook my head. “She’s more flimsy than she looks, you
know, and she gets real nervous if strangers just drop by. Or even friends.”
“I just want to look. I won’t get out of the car.”
“Well,” said Comrade, “if she doesn’t get out of the car, who could she
hurt?”
I scowled at him. He knew how paranoid Mom was. She was not going to
like Treemonisha anyway, but certainly not if I brought her home without
warning. “Let me work on her, okay?” I said to Treemonisha. “One of these
days. I promise.”
She pouted for about five seconds and then laughed at my expression.
When I saw Comrade’s smirk, I got angry. He was just sitting there watching
us. Looking to cause trouble. Later there would be wisecracks. I had had
about enough of him and his attitude.
304
MR. BOY
By that time the Alpha was heading up High Ridge Road toward Stamford.
“I’m hungry,” I said. “Stop at the 7-Eleven up ahead.” I pulled a cash card out and flipped it at him. “Go buy us some doboys.”
I waited until he disappeared into the store and then ordered Stennie’s car
to drive on.
“Hey!” Treemonisha twisted in her seat and looked back at the store.
“What are you doing?”
“Ditching him.”
“Why? Won’t he be mad?”
“He’s got my card; he’ll call a cab.”
“But that’s mean.”
“So?”
Treemonisha thought about it. “He doesn’t say much, does he?” She did
not seem to know what to make of me—which I suppose was what I wanted.
“At first I thought he was kind of like your teddy bear. Have you seen those
big ones that keep little kids out of trouble?”
“He’s just a wiseguy.”
“Have you had him long?”
“Maybe too long.”
I could not think of anything to say after that, so we sat quietly listening to the music. Even though he was gone, Comrade was still aggravating me.
“Were you really hungry?” Treemonisha said finally. “Because I was. Think
there’s something in the fridge?”
I waited for the Alpha to tell us, but it said nothing. I slid across the seat
and opened the refrigerator door. Inside was a sheet of paper. “Dear Mr. Boy,”
it said. “If this was a bomb, you and Comrade would be dead and the problem
would be solved. Let’s talk soon. Weldon Montross.”
> “What’s that?”
I felt the warm flush that I always got from good corpse porn, and for a
moment I could not speak. “Practical joke,” I said, crumpling the paper. “Too
bad he doesn’t have a sense of humor.”
Push-ups. Ten, eleven.
“Uh-oh. Look at this,” said Comrade.
305
JAMES PATRICK KELLY
“I’m busy!” Twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen . . . sixteen . . . seven . . . Dizzy, I slumped and rested my cheek against the warm floor. I could feel Mom’s pulse
beneath the tough skin. It was no good. I would never get muscles this way.
There was only one fix for my skinny arms and bony shoulders. Grow up, Mr. Boy.
“Ya yebou! You really should scope this,” said Comrade. “Very spooky.”
I pulled myself onto the bed to see why he was bothering me; he had been
pretty tame since I had stranded him at the 7-Eleven. Most of the windows
showed the usual: army ants next to old war movies next to feeding time from
the Bronx Zoo’s reptile house. But Firenet, which provided twenty-four-hour
coverage of killer fires from around the world, had been replaced with a
picture of a morgue. There were three naked bodies, shrouds pulled back for
identification: a fat gray-haired CEO with a purple hole over his left eye,
Comrade, and me.
“You look kind of dead,” said Comrade.
My tongue felt thick. “Where’s it coming from?”
“Viruses all over the system,” he said. “Probably Montross.”
“You know about him?” The image on the window changed back to a
barrida fire in Lima.
“He’s been in touch.” Comrade shrugged. “Made his offer.”
Crying women watched as the straw walls of their huts peeled into flame
and floated away.
“Oh.” I did not know what to say. I wanted to reassure him, but this was
serious. Montross was invading my life, and I had no idea how to fight back.
“Well, don’t talk to him anymore.”
“Okay.” Comrade grinned. “He’s dull as a spoon anyway.”
“I bet he’s a simulation. What else would a company like Datasafe use?
You can’t trust real people.” I was still thinking about what I would look
like dead. “Whatever, he’s kind of scary.” I shivered, worried and aroused
at the same time. “He’s slick enough to operate on Playroom. And now he’s
hijacking windows right here in my own mom.” I should probably have told
Cyberpunk Page 35
