Actuator

by Spinazzola, J.

  we were best friends?

  “I remember we were pretty good friends.”

  “That’s all?”

  “You can call me Emmy.”

  “I heard about that, resisting the regression. Nice touch. This Marco guy is clever, and the name thing is catching on. Kids are copying him. They’re going by all kinds of names. Some with historical significance like Marco’s.”

  “And you?”

  “I’m still Liz. Can’t do much with that.”

  “So how are all these rumors getting out?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ve tried to back-hack the rumors. Trace them to their origin. Hard to make sense of the trail.”

  “What about reading between the lines?”

  “I’ve tried that. Ghost script. Trace code. I’m only finding one pattern.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The letter “D” comes up in capital everywhere.”

  “Dalia?”

  “Could be. Could be anything. Who’s Dalia?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Whatever their origin, the rumors are catching on. Like wildfire. Posts describe the burning of tall grass, the patrol trying to smoke out the youth to prevent them from taking to the transit lifestyle.”

  “The patrol burnt an automobile. Not the tall grass.”

  “Either way, the tone of the rumors is true. Kids are talking about marching; an idea circulated in a cached file from the early digital age. Now they’re trying to figure out what it means to march, how to do it and what to ask for. They’ve heard about parents launching emails and text campaigns requesting subsidies in their allotment, arguing that Privates charge more for product than they pay for productivity. What kids are asking for is something different. They want freedom beyond privacy, the right to enjoy the physicality of the night while they’re young enough to want it.”

  “How can all this be happening if I haven’t heard anything about it? Dalia didn’t even mention

  it?”

  “Who is Dalia?”

  “She’s the one who probably seeded the rumors, but she didn’t mention anything about it to me. Whatever it’s called. If the movement were catching on, she would have mentioned more kids going out. She said the streets were quiet.”

  “That’s because the movement is in its infancy. Relative to the number of college students in City, the number of posts and clicks is small, but recently the following has grown online. While it hasn’t generated enough momentum to compel students to leave their flats for long, to collect, a few kids have stepped out. They don’t stay long before returning to post their fears. For them, Marco is an idea. It takes more than an idea to risk encounters with transits or the patrol or the hazard.”

  “Marco wasn’t the only one. I’m in here with another kid, Skip. He used to go out just to board.”

  “Outside to board?”

  “Not on a digital board. He boarded on wheels. Just for the pleasure of gliding through the night, doing tricks in the air like one of those floating screensaver birds.”

  “Or the real thing. Emmy, kids who go out say birds fill the sky, a sign the planet is healing. There are rumors cutting both ways. One thread describes flocks of birds, night air fresher than coolant and transits no different than your tower neighbors, while other posts warn that the transits are violent and the hazard still real. They say the danger outweighs the initial thrill of open sky.”

  “That last one sounds like the Mod posing as a college student.”

  “That’s what I gathered.”

  “When reading between the lines?”

  “That.”

  “I still don’t get it, Liz. Thought you were a star student, committed to logic and reason.”

  “That hasn’t changed.”

  “Then?”

  “Maybe the Mod isn’t committed. Maybe they’re cutting corners. If they’re making false posts to break up the chatter, maybe they’re not serving the people of City.”

  “Who then?”

  “Themselves, the Privates, I don’t know. Everything has changed since the invention of the actuator. No one remains from the pre-digital days. Whatever they might know, parents are too busy producing and actuating to teach us.”

  “Marco learned from a collector who was nostalgic for the pre-digital age, a forgotten man who left things behind. For some reason, Marco’s parents never got around to throwing the things away or selling them off to join a tower.”

  “Maybe they were nostalgic.”

  “They do operate a grandfathered business.”

  “What kind of business?”

  “Can’t say.”

  “What about the collector of things? What kind of business did he operate?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Of course you do, Emmy.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Grandfathered businesses and brownstones can only be passed down within a nuclear family. The collector must have been Marco’s grandfather. He must have operated the same type of business as Marco’s parents.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Emmy, read between the lines.”

  “Marco would have told me.”

  “Not if his parents hadn’t told him. Marco dropped out of school during college. He wouldn’t have learned all the regulations yet. His parents must have been ashamed of the collection or didn’t want to encourage Marco. They might have been nostalgic themselves but knew how hard it was to live with one foot in and one outside the rationale. The Mod doesn’t make it easy to have it both ways. Look at the transits. They have the worst of both worlds. Sure they are free to be part of or abandon the rationale, but once they make a choice, what does the Mod provide for them? And what if they change their minds?”

  “What does your rhetoric have to do with Marco?

  “Maybe his parents wanted him to consider joining a tower for a simpler life with a more productive tech position and steadier, heartier ships. Maybe they wanted him to choose freely without thinking about the traditions left behind.”

  “So what?”

  “So it’s in his history, familial. That must be why the other kids are struggling to make the choice to go out.”

  “What about me?”

  “You had Marco.”

  “And now I have fear for him and a bottle of paper.”

  “A bottle of what?”

  “Never mind. What about this other thing, the thing you said about the patrol making an example of Marco? Where are you deriving that from?”

  “Reading between the lines.”

  “Enough of that already.”

  “The Mod has to do something. If the Mod’s the one making the counter posts, they must feel threatened. They must not be willing to make more concessions. They’ve already increased tech subsidies and legalized trace for graduate citizens.”

  “So it’s not a rumor?”

  “Not from my intelligence, and if history repeats itself, the Mod will make an example of Marco.”

  “What history?”

  “Cached files: if you want to disperse a crowd, cut off the head of its leader.”

  “Dalia is the one starting all the hysteria. At most, Marco is looking for me. He’s not interested in revolution. We just wanted to enjoy our life together, our way as individuals.”

  “Individuals can’t get far if their way runs counter to the rationale, not when they’re up against the Mod and Privates.”

  “So where’s the hope, Liz?”

  “Collecting, working together: a march of the citizens on the streets of City.”

  “Are you going to organize such a thing?”

  “No, I wish I could. I shouldn’t even be talking to you. I can’t afford to lose my merit awards and honors. I have a chance to make a difference from the inside. Someone has to study the system, know its flaws. Right now those who go out don’t have a goal, just an example in you and Marco.”

  “And Skip.”

  “No one has
heard of him.”

  “And the transits.”

  “No one respects them once they’ve been tracked.”

  “So you’re putting this pressure on me and Marco?”

  “No, I’m putting the pressure on myself. What can you and Marco inspire, in the end, other than a call for banning compatibility tests and a repeal of class year restrictions on courtship and engagement? The problems are bigger than that.”

  “What’s bigger than love?”

  “That’s what I have to decide. Why we can’t write again.”

  “Sure, just now when you have something to say.”

  “I’ve got to learn the system from the inside.”

  “Sounds like the rationale’s getting to you.”

  “No, logic precedes the rationale.”

  “You sound like Ms. Snow.”

  “Ms. Snow?”

  “Don’t ask. I don’t even like to think about her. I just do the nightlies she assigns and hope not to dream. After talking to her, I only have nightmares.”

  “You’ve got to push through, Emmy. Try to understand the rationale from the inside, absorb the pure logic. If you stick with it, you could help us improve City.”

  “What about Marco?”

  “There’s more to life than Marco.”

  “Maybe for you. What about me?”

  “You’ll have to decide that for yourself, Emmy.”

  “Hey, Liz.”

  “Hey, what?”

  “Sorry about the other night.”

  “Don’t mention it. I’ll always remember when we were best friends.”

  “Me 2.”

  Chapter 18

  “Skip, are you there?”

  “Now’s not the time.”

  “Not the time for what?”

  “The time to chat.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m sorry, Emmy.”

  “Sorry about what?”

  “Let’s leave it at that.”

  “Don’t give me that. Say something.”

  “I’ve got to go.”

  Chapter 19

  “Mom?”

  “Yes, dear?”

  “I need you to be my mom tonight.”

  “I’m your mom every night.”

  "Tonight I need you to do a better job of it.”

  “What kind of thing is that to say? Haven’t I always been a good mom? I’ve always strived to be good.”

  “You have been good. You are good.”

  “Then whatever you need from me, I’ll give it to you.”

  “I need a hug.”

  “I’d send you one in all caps if I could.”

  “Mom, I need the real thing.”

  “I meant it figuratively. If I could hug you a right now, don’t you know I would?”

  “I know it. I know it, Mom, but I want to feel it. I want to feel the hug. I don’t want a hug in all caps. I don’t want a video chat where we put our arms out to the side and act as if we’re hugging the flat screen or mini. I want the real thing. I want to feel the warmth of your arms around me.”

  “Are they not providing you sufficient radiant?”

  “Mom, you know what I mean. You must. You must remember what it was like to hold me.”

  “Of course I do. Of course I remember. I’m your mother. Are you trying to make me cry a real tear?”

  “I don’t want you to cry.”

  “Then what do you want, Amelia?”

  “I want you to remember me, the real me, and miss me the way I miss you and dad.”

  “We both already miss you, Amelia.”

  “He doesn’t even chat with me.”

  “I told you. He’s tired in the evenings when you are free from your studies. He works hard all day so that you can enjoy a resolute future. The Private where he works is very competitive, one of the most efficient in the City. You know that. We’ve told you that.”

  “You’ve told me many things that I haven’t experienced.”

  “Then you’ll have to trust us. All you’ve ever had is your studies, that boy, and your brush with the patrol. Life isn’t just about defying the Mod. Your dad’s productivity has gone through the roof since you left us.”

  “I didn’t leave you.”

  “You went out and triggered all this.”

  “What does that have to do with dad’s productivity?”

  “How do you think we are paying for your rehabilitation? You think a Private runs an in-person school for free?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it.”

  “No, you didn’t think about us at all. Your dad has to be extra productive at his job just to pay some other Private to provide an education that the Mod was subsidizing at home.”

  “What does any of that have to do with me wanting a hug?”

  “Nothing, fine, it has nothing to do with you and hugs. We’re just bad parents, and it is our fault you are in an institution and that your dad stresses so much during day that he needs to relax in the evening. It is our fault we can’t just walk into your room and give you a hug.”

  “I didn’t say it was your fault.”

  “Then why are you asking for something we can’t give you? It’s an inefficient request.”

  “You can’t visit before mid-year?”

  “How can we afford an extra visit when we’re paying so much for college? Do you know how few parents have to do that?”

  “No.”

  “Well, we don’t know any. Any. Not for a generation. How do you think that makes us feel?”

  “Bad?”

  “Bad is right. How’s that for tears, Amelia?”

  “How’s that for tears?”

  “That’s right, Amelia. You did it. You made me cry.”

  “You’re crying because you feel bad?”

  “Why else would a person cry?”

  “I mean, you’re crying because you feel bad that the other parents aren’t paying as much for college?”

  “That’s an inverted way to put it.”

  “So you’re crying because you’re the only parents paying for in-person tuition?”

  “Not just that. Not just the money part.”

  “The part where you look bad next to the other parents?”

  “I don’t care how we look. I just don’t like being the only parent I know with a child in an institution. I don’t like feeling like I failed.”

  “What about the part where I’m sad from missing you?”

  “I don’t like that, either.”

  “That is comforting to know.”

  “Amelia, don’t be sarcastic with me.”

  “I’m not being sarcastic.”

  “I can read between the lines, you know.”

  “You’re not the only one.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Liz is very good at it, too.”

  “Oh, that Liz is a special girl.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “This isn’t the time, Amelia. You’re doing the best you can. That boy really tilted you.”

  “He’s not a boy, I’m not a girl, and we’re not tilted. We’re resolute. No less so than you and dad and your productivity bonuses and your steady ship.”

  “We’ve always been the most productive couple in our tower. How do think we afforded to take you for that dress? That was supposed to commemorate a special day, not put irrational ideas in your head.”

  “It was a special day, Mom, one I’ll never forget. You and dad did a good thing for me.”

  “So we’re not bad parents?”

  “No, you’re good. I’m the one who went bad.”

  “Do you mean that, Amelia?”

  “Yes, I do. You are great parents. I’m learning that.”

  “And you know we love you? That we would be there to give you a hug if we could? That we would give you the physical affection you need even if it meant having to think about loss?”