“You’ve done enough already, Amichai.” She patted the pony. “You spent hours nagging doctors to testify I was unfit for manual labor. I should be helping you…”
“You’re in trouble. I’m getting you out. That’s what family does for each other.”
“I’m fine. The physical therapy, it’s not fun, but… well, they say the chip factories aren’t heavy work. It’s just quality-testing circuitry.”
She was trying so hard to convince herself that factory work wouldn’t be too bad. Seventy years slaving at unfulfilling work in a body she hated would leave scars that ran deep – too deep. Watch the newsfeeds closely, and you’d find hints of people who’d lived in the Upterlife for three hundred years and still hadn’t recovered from their abusive meat-lives.
And her life would be nothing but abuse, because the dead thought the living were only good for their bodies. If the LifeGuard had found a job for a woman with poor motor control, Izzy would have been fine. But if Izzy couldn’t kick in a door and tackle a NeoChristian, the dead had no need for her. They scorned the living’s suggestions, because the dead had centuries of experience – they didn’t want some wet-behind-the-ears meat-kid to weigh in on tactics, they wanted raw physical force to aim at their enemies.
Izzy was already starting to measure herself by those sad standards. Her dead supervisors at the chip reclamation factories would write her up as incompetent for every clumsy twitch, and Izzy would slowly come to believe she was incompetent because she couldn’t do the things they wanted.
But she was more than that. So much more. She was smart, and clever – she needed to get to the Upterlife where brains were all that mattered…
“I know you think I should just nip off to the Upterlife,” Izzy said. “But… maybe it’s better if I pay the long way there. I was all hot to defend the servers through glorious LifeGuard missions – maybe I’ll find there’s just as much dignity in keeping the Upterlife’s hard drives defect-free…”
“If you really believed that bullshit, then why are you playing Pony Police Action instead of chip-testing games?”
“Because I don’t have a choice, Amichai!”
I stood, stunned; even the pony pranced back a guilty step, daisy petals still on its lips. I stepped forward to hug her, but she batted me away, her blows terrifyingly weak.
“I am not,” she said tautly, “bankrupting this family in some longshot attempt to get into the Upterlife. No, Amichai, this is not my ideal career choice. But I work with what I have. And unlike you, I don’t fight when it’s unfair – I fight when I can win. So maybe it is unfair I have to put in seventy years of hard labor without… without even being able to play Upterlife games – but if it is, well, I guess I’ll have a really sweet reward awaiting me when I finally die. OK?”
She glared at me, daring me to contradict her. I couldn’t. I’d come here to make her feel better, and instead I’d made her feel worse.
“All right.” I held my hands up in surrender. “No more trials. But… I’ll help you with your physical therapy, all right?” And while I helped her, I could remind her that her value to me was not measured by how many steps she could walk that day.
She huffed. “We both know Mr Beldon doesn’t like you visiting. He thinks your attachment to me is influencing you in negative ways.” Her hazel eyes pointedly flicked over to the pony.
“But that pony’s your reward,” I told her. “Maybe you can’t herd virtual ponies. But if you work real hard at your physical therapy, and get better, I’ll take you out for a glorious ride on her back.”
“She’s beautiful, Amichai.” But she hid her disappointment: cool as the meat-pony was, it couldn’t cast spells or fly or evolve into another pony breed.
I wondered, as I always did, whether Izzy would have appreciated the meat-world more if the government hadn’t thrown her in that voiding orphanage. Her supervisors had made sure all the physical labor was dull and all the interesting things came from watching a screen. I’d organized cooking classes at the 82nd Street Orphanage; Frank Beldon had shut it down because food was for nutrition, not pleasure. Not that there’d been a lot of interest; most of the kids were ashamed to have bodies. Focusing on physical, messy eating was so uncool – and physical therapy was the lowliest of punishments…
“That’s her name, then,” I said. “Therapy.”
“…what?”
“Therapy. Therapy the pony. Whenever someone asks, ‘How’s your therapy going?’, you think of this adorable little moppet.” I patted Therapy’s flank. “When they say, ‘You have to go to therapy,’ you don’t think of whatever muscle-stretching hell they put you through – you think of this beautiful microhorse licking your face.”
“That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard,” she said flatly.
She managed to keep a straight face for about twenty seconds, and then we both burst into laughter.
“OK.” She wiped away bloodstreaked tears of laughter. “OK, I will accept your pony, you hardheaded ludicrous eyngeshparter–”
“Good.”
“– if you start thinking about your career.”
“Bad.”
“Career Day is just two months away, Amichai. You want me to relax? Convince me you have a career. After all, it’s the biggest choice in your life!”
“I’d be happy if they gave me choices,” I muttered. Izzy had always been too gung ho about Career Day. All the jobs that involved making interesting decisions – artists and lawyers and scientists and mathematicians – were taken by dead people. We living got the leftovers.
“I was thinking tech services.” I twirled the IceBreaker. “You know, maintaining the Upterlife servers.”
“What you’re doing isn’t tech, Amichai.” She cringed from the IceBreaker just like Dare had, clutching Therapy as if to shield her pony from my toxic technology.
“It isn’t?”
“That’s… close to programming.”
“So? When I get in, they’ll teach me programming.”
“You have to wait until they teach you, Amichai! It’s illegal!”
“Mama Alex teaches me fine.”
She frowned. “Mama Alex Shrives Criminal, Amichai. She smuggles equipment – no, don’t tell me she’s never been caught, I heard the rumors at the LifeGuard academy. I know you want to make your life interesting, but… if you keep spending time with criminals, then you might not get a job at all…”
I didn’t tell her Mama Alex had implied she’d find work for me if I washed out on Career Day.
“They don’t let you Shrive unless you have a job,” she said urgently. “No Shrive, no Upterlife. If I got to the Upterlife and found you did something… stupid…”
She let that silence draw out. Every day, the radio announced the names of the criminals who’d died and not had their brainscans uploaded to the servers.
“…I’d be heartbroken,” Izzy finished. “So please. Put in your applications.”
“Great. I can haul equipment, or I can dig ditches.”
“Three centuries from now, when we’re sipping champagne in our Upterlife mansion, what will it matter what job you had?”
“This life matters, Izzy. It does.”
She reached out her hands to me. It hurt her to move.
The doctors said she was noninfectious, I thought. This aircurtain was so she wouldn’t catch anything from the other patients. Still, I shivered, remembering how my parents had Bubbled away.
Then I suppressed the shiver and stepped through the aircurtain to let Izzy wrap her sore-covered fingers around mine.
“Amichai, I know you’re mad at Mom and Dad–”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know this ‘Mom’ or ‘Dad’ you speak of. When I call them, I don’t seem to get an answer.”
“– but you have to understand: that’s how awesome the Upterlife is. But the servers won’t be any fun for me without my little brother there. So please? Take care of yourself?”
Her earnest eyes were th
e only untouched feature in her lumpen face.
And she was right. I needed a job. If I got a good job, I could take care of her. If I got something that made enough money, I could save up to afford a neural interface connection so she wouldn’t have to rely on her hands for gaming. I could pay the exemption taxes to get her out of working, maybe even hire a better lawyer for a retrial.
I could take care of her, instead of her taking care of me.
“I promise you I’ll get a good job,” I told her.
“OK.” Her trust was heartrending. “I just want what’s best for you, Ami.”
“I never doubt your intentions, sis.” I chucked her on the chin, feeling overwhelmed; my record was spottier than a Dalmatian. Frank Beldon, that gray rag of an orphanage principal, had dutifully catalogued my every transgression. What employer would take me?
“Good,” she said. “I know it’ll be boring for a while–”
“Decades.”
“– but when it’s all done, your reward will be perfect.”
I walked out of the room, lost in thought.
“Uh – Amichai?”
“Yeah?”
“I… I love the pony, but they won’t let me keep her…”
If I got a good job, I could also pay Dare back for the pony. Not that Dare ever worried about money, not with the Khan-Tien Mortuaries backing him, but nobody wants a mooch for a best friend.
I led Therapy back to the elevator, pondering my options. The LifeGuard? Nah. I was weak as a boneless kitten, and the LifeGuard needed muscle – they had dead veterans to handle the tacticals.
Actually, all the interesting careers were taken by dead people. Brain jobs to the brains, meat jobs to the meat. Why train a new engineer when you could find a bored dead dude looking for a challenge?
The irony was that those who craved mental challenges kept returning to the world of the living. Whereas the living were desperate to get into the Upterlife. It was a crazy reversal…
“Mister Damrosch.” The voice was dry and dour.
Therapy whinnied as the lights flickered on. Televisions embedded in the hospital hallways clicked on, revealing a sallow balding man with a bad tie, a graying combover hairdo, and a perpetually peeved expression:
Frank Beldon.
What’s he doing here? I wondered, reflecting for the ten millionth time that he could choose to have any body he liked in the Upterlife, and he still chose that unflatteringly bushy mustache.
Then I realized: if my orphanage’s principal was here at the hospital, I was caught.
Lost in thoughts of my future, I’d forgotten to recheck the once-hacked cameras with the IceBreaker. And with that went my last shot at a good career – and my last chance at helping Izzy.
3: TRAPPED IN A HUNDRED BELDONS
* * *
Frank glared at me from a hundred different monitors. Brawny nurses stepped in front of the freight elevator, blocking our exit. They touched the computers studded in their ear cartilage, listening for orders.
“Congratulations,” said Beldon, chuckling. “In two centuries of managing orphanages, I thought I’d never see anyone top your trick with the paint in the fire sprinklers. Yet here you are!” He gave me a slow clap.
Frank Beldon held seven degrees in adolescent psychology, and yet was perpetually baffled by actual teenagers. Rumor was, he only kept a real-life job because he hoped that some day he could get us to prove his crackpot theories on childhood development.
“You never proved that fire sprinkler trick was me,” I said, planning to make my next trick a disappearing one – but two refrigerator-sized men behind me put the damper on that. Beldon must have called every nurse working the night shift, putting them just where he’d wanted them before getting my attention.
Standard procedure: the dead made the plans, the living carried them out.
“Perhaps.” Beldon licked dry lips. “But you’ve given me such copious physical evidence this time. A clever prank, or a cry for help? Your future depends on how you got past the cameras, Mister Damrosch. If you programmed that device, I can’t stop my brethren from voiding you…”
“These are all canned routines, silly ghost.” I waggled the IceBreaker at him. “Each approved for living usage. Not a scrap of new code.”
“Irregardless,” he said. “These cameras are our eyes to the world. Hand over your device and the pony, and I’ll make a note you were cooperative.”
“What’s cooperating get me?”
“Viewed in the correct manner,” he purred, “this violation could be a beneficial note on your Career Day application. You’re young. Rebellious. But clever. If the right words were dropped in the right ears, and if the inventor explained how to close such security gaps in the future… Why, perhaps, there might even be a career in Maintenance for you.”
“Why do you need the pony?”
Therapy pranced in circles, hoping the nurses were here to play with her. The nurses circled us, arms extended, trying various poses as they doped out how to wrestle a pony into submission.
“You brought an animal into a hot zone, Mister Damrosch. Your sister is infected, after all. Dr Greywoode informs me that as a potential plague carrier, the beast will have to be put down.”
Izzy’s doctor flashed across the screens, nodding solemnly. And I might have believed her…
If the nurses had been wearing protective gear to shield them from plague.
The truth was simpler: I’d pissed off the dead, and crossing them had a price.
Therapy looked at me with trusting brown eyes. Animal deaths weren’t like real deaths. Once their hearts stopped, they were gone forever.
My career could also be gone forever.
“I need a job.” I extended the IceBreaker towards Beldon’s nearest viewscreen, as if he could pluck it from my hands. “You think Maintenance will take me? I Shrive Venal, you know.”
“Well, I can’t promise you anything…”
Of course you can’t, I thought.
But even if he could, I couldn’t condemn a living creature to the void. Not even for Izzy.
I thumbed the selfdestruct button and hurled the IceBreaker into the storage room.
“Get that device!” Beldon shouted. The nurses in front knocked heads, grabbing the IceBreaker just as it burst into smoldering circuit boards.
Two other nurses lurched towards me – so I slapped Therapy on the butt. She galloped forward with a surprised whinny, bowling them over. I whooped in delight at Frank’s outraged expression, then charged after Therapy. No ponies for you, Beldon.
I’m not strong, but years of dodging Gumdrool’s orphanage patrols have lent me the gift of speed. I flailed my arms, trying to spook Therapy into turning down the right hallways, remembering Dare’s words: if you get into trouble, make alternating lefts and rights.
By the time I caught up with her, she was pressed against the door to an exit stairwell. Score one point for Dare.
Therapy hung her head low, terrified. I approached carefully, making eye contact so she wouldn’t pay attention to the nurses running up behind me.
“It’s OK,” I wheezed, trying to catch my breath.
She allowed me to approach, and I pushed open the door. And I swear, Therapy gave me an almost human look as she glanced down the stairwell.
It was a look that asked: is this really necessary?
In response, I pushed her in. She clopped nimbly down the coral stairs. I hopped over guard rails, trying to keep up as Therapy trotted in wide spirals, story after story, until she hit the ground floor.
I shoved open the door. The fire alarm went off. Therapy took off like a shot, sparing a single glance behind before leaping effortlessly over an eight-foot fence and vanishing into Central Farm’s mazelike gardens.
I turned to the angry nurses descending the staircase.
“Sure, you’re mad now,” I said, holding out my wrists to be cuffed. “But you’ll be telling this story for centuries.”
4: N
OWHERE
* * *
The feeling of freedom is an escape artist. You can feel gloriously liberated for a while – but the sensation wriggles away, leaving you with fistfuls of regret.
When I set Therapy loose, it felt like I could do anything. My future was mine – not my sister’s, or Beldon’s, or the dead’s, but a blank canvas for me to paint. Everyone was wrong to tell me how to live, because my way was not just pure, but righteous.
Then the orderlies threw me in a cop cart. The LifeGuard told me how serious this was. The Wickliffe teachers shook their heads with regret. Everyone treated me like I was an unShriven body at a funeral.
I thought about Izzy.
Maybe I had been too crazy. I could have brought flowers. Instead, I’d put an innocent animal in danger, then chosen a pony’s life over my sister’s future.
The line between “rebel” and “screw-up” is a fine one.
By the time they threw me into Wickliffe’s Time-Out Chamber, I was sick, confused, regretful. All that wild freedom felt like a drunken frenzy, and I felt stupid for buying into it.
But not regretful enough to apologize to Gumdrool.
No, never enough for that.
5: THE TORMENTS OF THE TIME-OUT CHAMBER
* * *
Here’s a fun fact: when you’re locked in a room with an endlessly repeated half-hour TV drama, a show you can’t shut off or turn down, waiting for your hearing in a Time-Out Chamber that offers no other distractions aside from peering through the hole in the metal door they shove your lunch tray through, well…
…you go through several stages of regret.
The first stage is watching the show. Fortunately, this Walter Wickliffe biography had a cool title – The Man Who Conquered Death.
It was pure propaganda, of course. But the dead directors had spent centuries blurring the lines between brainwashing and entertainment.
The ghost they got to play Walter Wickliffe did a great job. In the Upterlife you can copy anyone’s body if they authorize the use of their personal image – and this guy had licensed Walter’s slicked-back hair, his kind gray eyes, even the ratty tuxedo. They say Walter was considered old-fashioned back in his day. Yet that outfit was so unmistakably Walter, it might as well have been his superhero uniform.
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