Hungry

by H. A. Swain

  “That was before the wars.”

  “Yes, but even during the wars, we did the best we could from what little we were able to grow, even if it was just bitter greens and a few chicken eggs.”

  “And you had lots of people who came to eat with you, right?”

  “At first,” she says. “But when things got scarce, like everyone, we hid what we had.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t want to hear that part. Tell me about when dinner was good.”

  Grandma grins. “Alright.” She lays her knitting in her lap and thinks for a moment with her eyes closed. “I’ll tell you how to make a roasted chicken.”

  Grandma takes her time, as if she’s back in a kitchen, preparing each ingredient. She tells me about melting butter in the microwave and pouring it over the chicken. Then sprinkling on salt and pepper and fresh herbs that grew right outside her back door in a little pot filled with rich dark dirt. She explains how her mother put the chicken in a pan with onions and carrots and potatoes dug from her garden, and then stuck it all in the oven for hours, only opening the door to brush the juices over the chicken’s skin every once in a while. I close my eyes when she talks about food, and I try to imagine how it was. My mind drifts and blurs through vague images, but it all fades into words because I have no idea what she’s really talking about. And, to be honest, some of it sounds gross. Like the part about eating something dead.

  “The fragrance of that roasting chicken would permeate the whole house, and you knew when it was done the skin would be brown and crispy and the meat would be tender and juicy.”

  As she says this, a sound, like a yowling animal trapped beneath my rib cage, roils up from deep inside of me. “Oh my god!” I say, sitting up straight.

  Grandma blinks at me.

  “That keeps happening,” I tell her. “It’s so embarrassing! It happened the last time I was at a PlugIn with Yaz. Luckily most people had on their Earz so not too many heard. And the ones who did thought it was a weird ringtone.”

  Grandma laughs.

  “It’s not funny!” I clutch myself around the middle as if that will stop the noise from coming out again. “This doesn’t happen to anyone else I know. Something’s wrong with me. I’m a freak.”

  “I don’t know about that,” she says calmly. “It sounds like your stomach is growling.”

  I must look horrified as I picture some rampant parasites in my guts, shrieking for blood.

  Grandma lays her hand on my leg. “It’s just what used to happen when people were hungry. Our stomachs would growl like that.”

  “For god’s sake, don’t tell Mom!” I almost shout. “She would never forgive me.”

  Grandma snorts. “Even the best inoculations can’t fight the power of a good roasted chicken!”

  “That makes no sense,” I tell her. “I don’t even know what a roasted chicken is.”

  “But someplace deep inside, your brain does,” says Grandma. “And my description was so powerful that it woke up the eater in you for a moment. I mean, come on, human beings ate food for hundreds of thousands of years before the inoculations. It’s a normal, natural response, Thalia. Nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “Easy for you to say. It’s not happening to you.”

  “Oh, you’d be appalled by what noises we used to make when we ate. Burps and gurgles and farts!” she laughs. “Your grandfather Hector could belch his full name after a few beers.”

  “Disgusting,” I say.

  “Actually, a well-timed, rip-roaring fart could be quite funny, if you ask me.”

  I shake my head. “Oh, Grandma.”

  “Anyway, Thal, I wouldn’t worry too much about that noise from your tummy,” she says with a wink. “I’m sure it will go away.” She looks down at the square of material I’ve knit. “In the olden days, this would have been called a pot holder.”

  “What’d you do with it?” I ask, trying to figure out any use for something so small.

  “You used it to pick up hot pots so you didn’t burn your hand.”

  “I always forget that food was warm.” I size up the thing in my palm then laugh at how absurd the world must seem to Grandma. “Now it’d have to be a Gizmo holder.”

  “What a good idea!” My grandma, ever the resourceful one, takes it from me and folds it in half. “Add a strap and it would be perfect.”

  From upstairs, I hear pinging on the main screen. “Ugh,” I groan. “Probably Mom sending more VirtuShops. She thinks I need new pants.”

  Grandma frowns. “I love your little skirts and jeans.”

  “Of course you do—they were yours.”

  “When I wore them, they were just farm-girl clothes, but you have such a wonderful independent sense of style.” The screen pings again. “Could be a message from your dad or a friend,” Grandma says. “You know it’s okay if you bring your Gizmo down here.”

  “I like having one place with nothing yapping at me.”

  Grandma nods, because more than anyone else, she gets me. Mom says that’s because I’m an old lady at heart, which I take as a compliment.

  “I should probably go check it,” I tell her with a sigh.

  “That’s fine, sweetie,” says Grandma. “Thanks for doing family time with me.”

  “I’ll be back,” I say, but she just smiles down at the long chain of stitches gathering on her lap.

  * * *

  Upstairs, I see Yaz’s network photo blinking on the main screen, so I slide across the slick tile and accept the call. “Hey, what’s going on?”

  “Where have you been?” she gripes. “I pinged you, like, a million times.”

  “I was downstairs with my grandma. Are you on your PRC right now?” I point to her new HoverCam, which floats above her left shoulder.

  “Not live,” she says. “Just recording. I’ll edit you out later.” She flicks the camera, which sends it on a lap around the room where half the contents of her closet are scattered on the floor.

  “Did you change your eyes?” I ask, studying her face, trying to pinpoint what’s different today.

  “Yes,” she says, blinking bright blues at me. “You likey likey?”

  “It’s okay. I can’t remember your natural color anymore.”

  “And my hair.” She fluffs the platinum blonde streaks that used to be two-tone blue and purple. “Hey.” She squints at me. “Are you on your family’s main screen?”

  “Yeah, so what?”

  “Why can’t you use your Gizmo like everybody else, so we can have a private conversation?”

  “I’m not incapable,” I tell her, quoting my grandmother. “Just uninterested.”

  “But that means I’m being broadcast into your family’s living room for everyone to see.” She spins and strikes a pose in black bra and panties then shouts, “Hello, Apples!” I see a new temp-i-tat of a multicolored double helix stenciled around her midriff.

  “First of all, I’m alone. And second, you’re the one who now streams every moment of your life onto your Personal Reality Channel,” I point out.

  “Leave my PRC out of it,” says Yaz. “Besides, that’s different. I choose when to expose myself based on what it’ll get me. Right now, I’m just exposed.” She dramatically wraps her arms across her body, feigning modesty.

  “Like you care,” I say with a laugh.

  “That’s actually why I’m calling,” she says as she goes back to picking through clothes. “I got a new product placement—if I can find it—and I want to wear it while I broadcast from a PlugIn. Come with me?”

  “Not a PlugIn again.” I slouch down and sigh.

  She stands, feet wide, hands on hips, eyes boring twin holes in my forehead. “You won’t go to the Spalon.…”

  “Boring.”

  “You don’t like EntertainArenas.…”

  “Too crowded.”

  “You can’t stand TopiClubs.…”

  “Old hat.”

  She snickers. “The only thing old hat is your impossibly outdated li
ngo, Miss Apple.”

  “Got it from my grandma,” I brag.

  “No!” She widens her eyes in mock surprise.

  “Fo’ shizzle,” I tell her, which reduces her to a fit of giggles.

  “You did not just say that.”

  “Straight from the Relics,” I admit. “We could go there and watch old 2-D movies.”

  “Those things give me a headache. Anyway, can’t we do something relevant to our own demographic?”

  “You only think those things are relevant because your algorithm says you’ll like them.”

  “No, Thalia,” Yaz says slowly, like I’m an idiot. “My algorithm says I’ll like Spalons and EntertainArenas and PlugIns because I do. Most people our age do.”

  “Well, there’s the problem,” I tell her. “I don’t like most people our age, so…”

  “You don’t give them a chance.”

  I slump down further on the stool. “They think I’m weird.”

  “That’s because you are weird,” she says.

  I ignore her and lean close to the Eye. “Have you ever thought you might like something the algorithm doesn’t even know about?”

  “Like what?” she asks with a snort. “Reading books?”

  That cracks me up.

  “Come on, Thal,” Yaz whines. “I’m sick of being home. My mom is driving me bonkers, and I want to get this product placement going, and there’s a new game that just launched and…”

  I cross my arms and stare at her. “Give me one good reason I won’t be bored off my ass there.”

  “It’s new! Jilly, send Thalia info about PlugIn 42,” she tells her cyber assistant. A live video feed from the PlugIn pops up on the corner of my screen. I glance at it, see nothing of interest, and command it to close.

  Sensing my lack of enthusiasm, Yaz says, “It’s in the West Loop. You’ll like that.”

  I sit up a bit because she’s piqued my interest. “I thought it was just a bunch of abandoned buildings around there.”

  Yaz plucks items of clothing from her pile and tosses them over her shoulder as she says, “Isn’t that what you like? Old abandoned crap that nobody cares about anymore?”

  “You make it sound like a bad thing.”

  “I heard it was a retail area. Restaurant equipment and textiles or something. You could probably find lots of weird stuff. Oh, here it is!” She slides her legs into a black jumpsuit then stands and zips it from ankle to neck. “It’s made from recycled inner tubes.” She steps back and models her outfit for the camera. “How do I look?”

  “Tired.” I snort. “Get it? Tired? Like you’re made from tires!”

  “Really?” she says, but I can see that she’s trying not to grin.

  “Okay, not my best material,” I admit.

  “Just come with me, would you? Maybe you’ll like this one.”

  “Fat chance.”

  Yaz siddles up to the HoverCam and cradles it in her palm. “Thalia, my little kilobyte, if you never leave the confines of your home, how can we have any fun?”

  “I have fun,” I say.

  She swats her camera away. “By text chatting with a bunch of cyber ninja freakazoids? You guys don’t even use video.”

  “That’s to protect our privacy, and anyway the Dynasaurs are not freakazoids,” I say, but then I reconsider. “Okay, so a lot of them are pretty strange. But they’re my friends.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Friends are supposed to be fun, Thal. Look it up. It’s part of the definition. Which is why I…” Yaz does a goofy dance in the middle of her room. “Am the best friend there ever was!”

  I can’t help but laugh. Yaz has always been amusing if nothing else. “That may be true, but we have a different kind of fun in our little cyber group.”

  She drops her arms. “No you don’t. All the Dynasaurs do is talk about how great things used to be and how everything sucks now, then they try to figure out how to break stuff so the rest of us can’t have fun either.”

  “There’s more to it than that,” I argue, but only halfheartedly because basically she’s right.

  Yaz shoves some stuff in her bag and says, “Anyway, would you just come with me? Hack the PlugIn security if it makes you happy.” Then she looks at me, forlorn. “Please? I don’t want to go alone.”

  “Okay, alright, save it.” Our friendship has been the same since we met in toddler social time, where she constantly dragged me away from dismantling toys in a corner so she would have someone beside her. Plus, at heart, I think she believes she’s doing me a favor. That someday I’ll actually like something she drags me to. And sometimes I have to begrudgingly admit that I do enjoy myself, which is probably why I eventually give in. “Fine,” I say, acting way more annoyed than I am. “I’ll go with you. But it better be interesting.”

  “Oh goody!” she squeals and dances. Then she stops and stares at me for a moment. “And try to wear something less embarrassing.”

  “Hey!” I protest but she disconnects, leaving me yelling at a blank screen.

  * * *

  In my bedroom, I command the screen into a mirror and study my reflection, wondering if Yaz and my mom could be right about my clothes. They think I should be embarrassed by the way I dress because it’s different, but the truth is, I don’t want to look like everybody else. Especially when the rest of me is totally ordinary. My skin isn’t dark or light, just plain warm brown. My hair isn’t straight or curly, just long dark-brown waves over my shoulders. I have Grandma Grace’s narrow eyes, but mine are green like Grandma Apple’s. And when I’m happy, I have Papa Peter’s big smile just like my mom. But my chin with its little cleft and the dimple on my left cheek come from my dad, which Grandma Apple says is a carbon copy of my other grandfather, Hector, the only one in my family who didn’t make it through the wars.

  I could cut my hair into some asymmetrical chop like other girls my age. Change my eyes or my skin or get some body art. But I’m sick of the holes and implants and ever-fading temp-i-tats everyone is obsessed with. My body’s not a screen. Beside, the inocs are bad enough. I don’t want anybody else poking me to rearrange my genetic makeup. Plus, the ways kids my age try to distinguish themselves just makes them look more alike to me.

  Another tiny yawp burbles up from my stomach. I wrap my arms around my belly and press my lips closed to try to stop it, but I can’t. It’s like a speedboat motoring up my alimentary canal with noise from the engine echoing off my inner organs. My skirt isn’t the thing that’s going to embarrass me, so why should I bother changing clothes?

  I turn off the mirror and figure I better find my Gizmo if I’m going to leave the house. “Astrid, wake up,” I command since I know it’s buried somewhere in my room. Within two seconds, the muffled voice of my PCA is begging for attention. I yank at the tangles of my comforter and clothes piled on my bed until my Gizmo drops to the floor and Astrid declares, “Sixteen new items!” while persistently flashing her screen. I don’t totally get the draw of a twenty-four-hour personal cyber assistant. To me they’re just nanotech with personalities more artificial than most humans. Which is why I reprogrammed mine to speak only when spoken to.

  “Show messages,” I command. Astrid pulls up my message center and runs through new assignments for biochem, lit, and recent history (which I tell her to save for later) and a bunch of crap, especially Mom’s VirtuShops, which I run through so I can get rid of them.

  “Lame,” I mutter when Astrid chirps, “You’d look great in these!” and flashes pix of me digitally modeling a pair of navy blue PolyVisq pants. “Did you lose weight?” she coos over my virtual self in slick red ElastiVinyl leggings. As if I would be caught dead in those. And the gaggiest of all: “Girl, those make your butt look scrumptious!” she says about my pixilated rear end in purple Teflon trousers. “Delete! Delete! Delete!” I command. When that’s done, I tell Astrid to go to sleep.

  It’s not that I hate technology, just the kind that never leaves you alone. Like Yaz’s new HoverCam. So, as so
on as Astrid’s happily snoozing wavy gray lines across my Gizmo screen, I switch to a stealth server so I can log on to the Dynasaurs network, using my hacker name, HectorProtector.

  My dad is the one who showed me how to access these private, hidden channels without being traced. When I was twelve, he took me to an electronics graveyard, where I stood in disbelief at the mountain of motherboards, cascade of keyboards, and sea of screens. We picked through the surprisingly well-organized piles of digital detritus until we had everything we needed to build an old-fashioned homemade tablet from scratch, which dad called a jalopy because it reminded him of the beat-up old cars that guys like his great-grandfather built and raced way back in the 1950s. Next, Dad showed me how to access the Dynasaurs chat room so I could take my jalopy out for a spin without being traced. When I asked him why he was showing me how to talk to the enemies of One World, he said he wanted me to understand that One World’s appearance of total market domination was only as good as everyone’s acceptance.

  These are the skeptics, he told me. The ones who will question the system and keep it honest if it becomes corrupt.

  If One World wants complete freedom on the Web so they can dominate the global marketplace, then they have to let everyone else have access, too. Which is why it’s legal for the Dynasaurs to exist, even if what they do sometimes is against the law. Their existence is a prime example of why Libertarianism works, Dad told me. If there were no outlets for the skeptics One World would be perceived as a corporate dictator and more people might rebel. It just so happens, One World is very good at distracting most people from questioning the system by keeping everyone’s belly full and brain entertained. Except for the Dynasaurs. Their greatest source of entertainment is throwing wrenches in One World systems. And that means people like my dad are continually trying to outsmart the Dynasaurs by creating better cyber security. Honestly, I think my dad likes the elaborate chess game he’s playing with these guys more than he likes making new products.