Once Amon put down his embyrbrycks in front of the men tending the pile at the nearest corner of the stage, he stood a few paces away, unsure what to do next. With many beginning to crouch in conversation around each warm pile, the bulk of the work seemed to be done. Realizing that his duties for the day were over, Amon felt the tension begin to drain from his body, his eyes drifting upwards.
He had been looking forward to a full view of the cosmos instead of the patches and slivers of stars visible between obstructions below. Sadly, the tattered blanket of clouds and haze overhead was denying him that pleasure. Yet after gazing upwards for a few minutes, he discovered a certain beauty in its pattern, like a gray fruit peel interspersed with pockets of darkening indigo, his mind drawn in and consoled by the sheer immensity of the sky reaching from horizon to horizon.
“Kenzaki-kun! Kenzaki-kun!”
Bringing his gaze down towards the voice, Amon saw a man waving at him from the opposite side of the stage. His focus resolved on a head in a seated crowd: it was Hippo. Sitting around him were Book, Little Book, Vertical, Ty, Rick, and a few councilors he recognized from the day of his hearing.
Amon stepped carefully through several huddled circles to round the stage and found Hippo beckoning to the spot beside him. “Come take a seat,” he said, as everyone stared up at Amon expectantly, their faces yellow-gray under the warm glow.
Over the last few weeks, Amon had seen some of those present regularly: the Books continued their evening lessons, now with Rick in attendance; Ty sometimes enlisted them in brute tasks like righting tilting disposcrapers, or filling in liquefying craters in the island ground with debris; and Vertical still showed up occasionally to provide meticulous but impatient instructions for some seemingly sadistic reason, even though they could work independently with their crews now. But this was his first time seeing Hippo and the councilors since the day of his hearing.
It was strange to him that these elite denizens, the brains and brawn of the community, were paying him such special regard. Though Amon thought he had been just another insignificant case for the council, it had made an exception so that he could receive a secret education and had arranged specifically to reunite him with Rick. Now their special advisor had singled him out to join them and Amon couldn’t imagine why. So he approached the company with trepidation, doubting his worthiness to join them as he sat down beside Hippo.
“Welcome,” said Hippo. “Quite a long day, wasn’t it?”
When Amon had settled cross-legged on the ground—Hippo to his right, Ty to his left, and Vertical, Rick, and the two Books on the other side of the circle—Hippo patted him on the back, and Amon felt the muscles along his spine flinch slightly. He still wasn’t used to all the touching people did here—holding hands, giving massages—as the high price back in the Free World had discouraged it, and the contact of the man’s hand filled him with an awkward, tender feeling.
Amon nodded. “Yes. Long and surprisingly chilly. But the breeze feels great with the embyrbrycks around and those clouds are wonderful.”
At these words, Ty, Little Book, Vertical, and a couple others turned their heads to gaze upwards.
“Look what’s happened to Kenzaki-kun here,” said Hippo. “Just a few weeks ago he was in convulsions for his lost info. Now here he is, just another stargazer like the rest of us.”
Everyone except Amon and Rick laughed at this, and Hippo proffered the open tip of a clear bottle filled with a liquid that looked golden-brown in the faint light. “Care to imbibe?”
Amon looked into Hippo’s gleeful but somehow serious eyes and then down at the bottle. Although Hippo was not the first old person Amon had seen—there had been others in naked Tokyo before he crossed—he had never talked to one before and it felt strange to have his wrinkled face up close. He could smell alcohol wafting from the bottle and guessed it contained suposhu, a special moonshine made primarily of sports drinks that was much vaunted by the residents. The Charity Brigade seemed to have cut off all drugs, but they could do nothing to stifle secret brewers. Now Amon could explain Hippo’s sudden friendliness. Partially at least.
“Ye—”
“Do you think it’s safe to be offering him intoxicants?” Vertical cut Amon’s yes please in half. “Don’t forget, he hasn’t been to Er like him.” Vertical turned her head to indicate Rick, who was sitting beside her.
“Definitely best to be cautious,” said the young man with the gray-streaked beard who had spoken against Amon being admitted. He glared at Hippo with a skeptical frown from the other side of the circle. “His mind is fragile. Maybe for good.”
“Oh, he seems alright to me,” said Hippo, looking Amon up and down. “What’s your professional opinion, Books?”
Taptaptap, ta-tap … “From what we have hitherto observed and gathered from the reports of his supervisors, Amon Kenzaki’s recovery from digital deprivation has been rapid and robust. Due to his inability to enter the Er program, he has not had the luxury of promowean or digidetox. Nonetheless, he has largely overcome perceptual fracture as far as we can determine from rudimentary sight and hearing tests, though his visual cortex is still adapting to naked inputs and it is yet to be seen whether he will regain the ability to read. His capacity to answer questions about the past demonstrates that he has made significant progress with naked oblivion and that his memory retrieval, at least, is functioning appropriately, though we have been unable to determine the state of his memory production. The severity of his affliction with other forms of cogwither is difficult to assess as the task set we assigned him was limited. Although his fasciculations appear to have gone into remission, he still shows other signs of focusburn, crowdcrave, marketitch, and promohunger. However, until he is able to obtain doses of deep stim from books, we believe the best remedy for him is to spend time outdoors, stay busy, and socialize as much as possible, speaking of course as non-specialists in infowithdrawal treatment.”
While he was listening, Amon remembered the trivial questions Book had asked him repeatedly during the interviews and realized that they must have been cognitive tests.
“So it sounds as though he’s in passable shape then, both physically and psychologically, eh?” said Hippo, eliciting a nod from Book before glancing at Vertical and the still-frowning councilor as if to check they were convinced, and proffering the bottle to Amon again. “A little sip then?”
Amon accepted the bottle and took a big swig. The taste was awful, like some combination of molasses, cumin, and bastard wine, and he coughed several times. Still, it did the trick, as a brain-numbing warmth floated up from his stomach almost immediately.
“How’s my potion?” asked Ty.
“Foul,” replied Amon between coughs. “But just what I needed.”
The group laughed.
“Honesty isn’t always the safest policy,” said Ty with a playful sneer.
“Are you sure you didn’t use to work in marketing, Amon?” said Hippo. “That would make a great motto for Ty’s suposhu. ‘Foul, but just what I need right now.’”
Everyone laughed again.
“That’s a compliment, right?” asked Ty, reaching around to his tricycle.
“Of course, of course,” said Hippo, smiling and raising his palms towards Ty in a gesture of mollification.
While several bottles of suposhu made the rounds, Amon listened quietly as they all traded stories about the events of the day, interspersed with plenty of silly banter. To his surprise and relief, they spoke in the standard dialect. Though Ty, Book, and a few others had accents, he could have mistaken Vertical and Hippo for bankliving, and everyone present was fluent enough that he could at least catch the gist of what they were saying. It was the first time he’d ever joined a group of people for no other purpose than to fool around and he had trouble getting involved, as though his mind was not quite tuned to their frequency. He began to feel anxious that he was failing to contribute in the way others expected, but soon noticed that Vertical behaved similarly,
looking towards whoever was speaking and occasionally nodding or shaking her head, though rarely adding anything of her own. And Little Book just kept scrawling on his tablet, silently recording the happenings around him. The booze also seemed to melt Amon’s inhibitions and after a few more swigs he was laughing at the jokes along with everyone else.
“So Amon, Rick. Book has told me that you two are learning quite quickly here,” said Hippo in a low voice while the group was focused on a heated though not so serious debate surrounding Ty about the relative merits of different suposhu batches. It was clear to Amon that Hippo was referring to their orientations.
“I have no idea if we’re learning quickly,” said Amon. “There’s so much we still don’t understand, but we’re doing our best.”
Rick nodded in agreement.
“Well, do you have any questions for us now?” Hippo asked. “As I’m sure you’ve noticed, the Books are very knowledgeable, but they may not have answers for everything. Of course it would have to be something that’s appropriate to talk about here.”
By “here,” Amon knew that Hippo meant “outside the digital quarantine.” While Amon was knitting his brow with the effort of sifting his many questions for an appropriate one, Rick said, “There is one thing.”
“Yes,” said Hippo.
“So, um, I’ve been wondering about your names. I guess every place must have its own customs. But I can tell from your accents that some of you aren’t from here originally. And I don’t mean this in a rude way, but from the perspective of someone who grew up in Free Tokyo, your names seem pretty, well … creative.”
When several people laughed at this, Amon realized that the group’s attention was shifting to their conversation, the debate fizzling out.
“Very diplomatic way of saying ‘weird,’” said Ty with a grin.
“I guess they think we should have boring names like Free Citizens,” said the young man with the gray-streaked beard, giving Rick and then Amon a sharp glance.
“Perhaps now is a good time to tell them our name stories,” said Hippo, preempting further quips.
A moment of silence filled by the chatter of the other groups around them followed. Amon could feel tension in the air as the councilor shot Hippo another skeptical stare, though Hippo seemed unperturbed.
“The council gives a new name to everyone on the day they’re granted membership,” he explained to Amon and Rick. “They’re chosen on the basis of the tale each person tells at their hearing.”
Then, addressing the group again, “So what do you think? They had to relate the events of their lives in detail at the council. It’s only fair that we at least give them our name stories in return, even if they’re ultimately to fail their trial periods.”
Another silence came as Amon’s festive calm was disturbed by the cold teeth of fear in his gut. Fail our trial periods? Just as we’re starting to adjust? Only one week remained until the council was scheduled to consider their membership, and he couldn’t imagine what they’d do if they were ejected. Throw up a shelter on a precarious mound in one of the other enclaves? Convert to Opportunity Science?
“I can go first if you like,” said Ty eventually, drawing all eyes present.
“I was born in the District of Dreams from crashborn parents. A couple of bike nosties. And the collective we lived with hoarded all kinds of parts and tools.
“We kept trying to build a disposcraper, one big enough for all of us to live together. But we were all giftless, so some of our roombuds were defective or incompatible. They just wouldn’t stick. The venture charities, they make them like this on purpose, to break us up. They know there’s power in numbers. But all this does is play us and our gear right into the hands of the OpScis.” Ty frowned with his roughly hewn forehead, starlight glimmering on his fierce eyes.
“I don’t remember how old I was then—no more than six for sure—when they swept in at night. Toppled our building. By the time I crawled out of the rubble my father was a mess on the ground and they were dragging my mother away by the hair. I was the only one that got away.” He patted the frame of the tricycle on his back affectionately as if it were his beloved steed. “I rolled into a tunnel too small for them to follow. Hid deep inside until they were gone.
“After that, I was on my own. I was just tall enough to reach the vending machines, so I could stay fed and watered. So long as I avoided the robbers and the orphan shepherds. But I was too little to find my way to Delivery for a room and clothes and all the rest. Doubt I would have survived the winter if Xenocyst hadn’t taken me in.”
Ty cast his gaze about to make a quick round of eye contact with the group and looked down to take a sip of suposhu.
“Anyways, about my name, I don’t remember the incident myself. How the adoption scouts tell it, I was curled up in a deep, dark corner all alone when they found me. Almost naked with just the tiniest scraps of clothing still on me. They say I was so weak from hunger I was talking to things that weren’t there and could barely keep my eyes open. But when someone tried to touch my tricycle, I snarled and attacked them like a wild beast. People grow up, but some things don’t change, I guess.”
As Ty explained, everyone at Xenocyst called him “Tricycle” in the beginning, which was pronounced toraishikuru in Japanese and eventually shortened to just “Tora.” Since Tora sounded the same as the Japanese word for “tiger” and this matched the stories about how he reacted to his rescuers, the nickname stuck for years. Eventually people started to call him by the English “Tiger” for variation, and this in turn was shortened to just the first syllable, hence “Ty,” which was the name the council settled on when he reached adolescence and was accepted as a full member.
Amon watched Ty intently while he was speaking, finding himself surprisingly rapt by mere words, the images they conjured paler than those of the ImmaNet but somehow rich in meaning. Beside Ty, Book had kept his ear tilted towards him, nodding thoughtfully. Not long after Ty was finished, he began to speak.
“I am a second-generation descendent of book nosties who refused to take part in the action-transaction system and were consequently driven to reside here, in the District of Dreams. My clan administered an analog academy in a condominium that we had secured, where my parents were the resident experts on our psychology and criminology literature. We expanded for a number of years as we received a steady influx of new books and scholars. At its peak, when I was approximately twenty years of age, our library had nearly ten times the inventory currently housed in the Cyst. Moreover, although our stacks were primarily for specialized research, we offered reading instruction and primary education to local youths in addition to advanced programs for individuals who demonstrated academic talent.
“However, we were informed one winter day that the condominium was substandard housing and would therefore be demolished as one component of an ‘End Slums Forever’ campaign. When our petitions to the Charity Brigade to cancel the initiative were rejected or stalled indefinitely, our only remaining option was to take up residence in disposable skyscrapers. However, constantly relocating our academy on a bi-weekly to monthly basis rapidly became a significant strain on the community. An increasing percentage of our members began to vacate with their books, resulting in the gradual depletion of our library. It was at this crucial juncture that I received news of Xenocyst, which had only recently been established, and learned also of the council’s desire to provide educational services. With a stable condominium still under their administration—not to mention a variety of equipment, supplies, and expertise—they seemed far better qualified to archive our books than we were. Therefore, after conferring with the council, I persuaded my clan for permission to transfer a large selection. Initially, I designed the curriculum for Xenocyst’s various classes. Ever since we became unable to conduct them, I have served as librarian and inquisitor. I do not believe it is necessary to explain how the council chose my name.”
After a pause of only about one second, tap
-ta-taptaptap, ta-tap … “I have received a personal request to relate Little Book’s story on his behalf as he has no memories prior to his living in Xenocyst.” The tapping stopped and Book continued.
“I was serving as inquisitor on the day that an undertaker crew carried into the council chamber a hearse. Prone atop it were five injured individuals dressed in the unbranded patchwork uniform of lower caste Opportunity Scientists. According to the head undertaker’s report, her crew had been called to a rooftop on the border between one of our proxy enclaves and the outer foothills of Opportunity Peaks to assist the locals with disposal of an unauthorized sky burial. However, when they arrived, they observed several of the alleged corpses in the heap tossing and turning. Rather than ruthlessly disposing of living people in the local charnel grounds as duty recommended, they decided to transport the survivors to the council chamber for official consideration.
“I recall the discussion in detail. The council inferred, firstly, that these were victims of a ritual lynching and excommunication by the Quantitative Priesthood, most likely because they had been downgraded suddenly by plutogenic algorithms from holy brandclan member to giftless and were now believed to have DNA that could infect the marketability of others. Some councilors argued that Xenocyst should not be responsible for any superstitious brutality the religion inflicted on its own believers. However, others responded that it would be unconscionable to simply allow the injured to perish, and the council judged that those who convalesced might provide insider facts concerning their esoteric cult.
The Naked World Page 25
