Gifted

by H. A. Swain

  While I wait for her reply, I turn on my receiver and scan the waves for pirate radio on my way into the Distract. But then my dad calls. Not even a ping, but a real live video connection, which can’t be good. Quickly I stash the receiver as he appears on my WindScreen.

  “Orpheus! What the hell have you done?” he demands. “Who the hell have you been talking to?”

  “Hello to you, too,” I say.

  “It’s all over the Buzz!” he yells as he paces his office, drink in one hand and the lights of the Distract behind him.

  “What is?” I ask.

  “That you’re refusing to have an ASA!” He gesticulates wildly, sloshing bourbon on his shoes.

  “I never said that.”

  “It must have been your mother then.”

  “Couldn’t be,” I tell him. “I was just with her at Alouette’s.”

  “Well someone said it,” he snarls. “The media is having a field day.” He points to his giant wall screen where the Buzz is chaotic with images of our family.

  I scroll through the headlines on my ExoScreen. Sure enough, he’s right. It’s everywhere.

  “How do you think this makes me look?” he rages. “My own son, a freeloader, never worked a day in his life, now refuses the very thing that’s made our family fortune.”

  “For the fiftieth time, I’d gladly work if you’d let me! There are lots of jobs at Chanson I could do.”

  “Is that so?” Spit flies from his mouth, leaving droplets on the camera eye. “What can you do besides be charming and appeal to a broad range of people? You’re no genius yet!”

  My face stings like he slapped me. “If I don’t know how to do anything, that’s your fault. You’re the one who sent me to SCEWL. Which was a joke! All they do is groom CelebuTantes for fame.”

  “Which is exactly what I need from you. The heir apparent to my empire. You’re supposed to look good and not screw it up. Now all you need is an ASA and this family stays in business.”

  “No, you stay in business, Dad! But what about me? What if that’s not what I want?”

  “You selfish little…” Now Dad is so mad, he’s muttering. “I worked for everything this family has. I found your mother in the gutter and resurrected her career. I saw the writing on the wall for the entire music industry before anybody else did and I saved it. I bought the dead copyrights to huge catalogs of music then solved the digital distribution problem. You play a song, you pay. End of story. Before that, music had become a useless commodity aimed at the lowest common denominator of society. Anybody could shake their ass, auto-tune their voice, and give away a song for free on the Internet until I fundamentally changed the industry. And I did it all for you. But you’d throw it all away!”

  “That’s exactly what Calliope said you’d say!”

  For a moment, my father looks startled. Then he recovers and slowly walks toward his camera so he looms large on my screen. “What are you doing talking to Calliope Bontempi? Are you on her side?”

  “No, of course not,” I say. “She cornered me. I told Esther.”

  He marches away, screaming, “If you or your mother or Calliope Bontempi think you can take me down, you’re all sadly mistaken! I’m smarter than all of you combined.”

  “Or just greedier,” I call after him.

  He spins around and opens his arms wide as if to absorb my insult. “That’s right! I’m a greedy man! But I’m doing the best I can for this family. So just you remember this, Orpheus.” He skulks toward the screen, poking at the air. “You are nothing without me. Do you understand?” He shoves his finger in the camera lens. “Nothing but a piece of crap on the bottom of my shoe. And I’m tired of you mooching off of me. You come to my office right now. I don’t want you seen in public until we fix this Buzz debacle.”

  “No way,” I tell him. “I’m not coming there. I have plans with Arabella.”

  “Cancel them,” he growls. “Cancel everything. I made you an appointment. You’re going in for an ASA tomorrow.”

  For a moment, I’m speechless. I sit and stare at him, trying to process what he just said. Finally, I blurt out, “No. I won’t do it. It’s my body. My brain. I have a say in my future.”

  “As long as you’re under my roof and I’m footing the bills, your body, your brain, and your future belong to me!” Dad declares.

  “Fine,” I tell him. “Then I won’t be under your roof anymore!” I disconnect.

  Since I can’t go home and I don’t dare show up in the Distract with this much Buzz going on, I tell the Cicada to land while I figure out what to do. The car leaves our flight platoon and swirls off the SkyPath, looking for an empty space among the blanket of lights sprawling from the Distract center all the way out here on the edges of the City. On the WindScreen map I see that we’re approaching the Alibaba E-Gaming Arena parking lot, a vast expanse of blacktop surrounding a 100,000-person dome. When we touch down, I call Mom.

  Her beautiful face fills my WindScreen. The camera is still kind to her. “Calm down, Orpheus,” she says when I tell her what Dad did. “Just take a deep breath.” She inhales long and loud then closes her eyes and lets the air go slowly like a leaking tire.

  “Mom!” I yell so her eyes pop open. “Breathing is not going to help me right now. What am I going to do?”

  “You’re overreacting!” She smiles sweetly. “Your whole life is in front of you. What I would give to be your age again! So much to experience…”

  “Mom! Are you even listening to me? He scheduled me for an ASA.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me,” she says with a snort that disrupts her calm composure.

  “And who’s talking to the media?” I ask, bewildered. “I never told anyone I didn’t want an ASA. I hadn’t even made up my mind yet.”

  “Yes, you had, darling,” Mom says. “I could tell. You didn’t want that life.”

  “You only hear what you want to hear,” I tell her and look out the window while I sulk for a few seconds. Cars are beginning to enter the lot. I check my WindScreen feed and see the Dota 26 Playoffs start in an hour. Soon this place will be crawling with humanity like everyplace nearby. I sigh and turn back to my mom. “Anyway, I need a place to stay. If I show up at home, he’ll drag me off to surgery tomorrow.”

  Just then, Chester struts past behind Mom’s sofa. He’s bare-chested, as usual. Sometimes I wonder if the man owns any shirts. When he sees me on Mom’s screen, he stops and leans over her shoulder so his stupid face takes up half my WindScreen. “What’s this, a Plute pity party?”

  “Shush, Chester,” says Mom. “Harold has upset Orpheus.”

  “Boo-hoo,” he whines. “Daddy won’t buy you the latest flying car?”

  “Shove it, Chester,” I say. “This doesn’t concern you.”

  “I think it does concern me if you’re looking to crash here,” he says. “Didn’t your mother tell you the news yet?” He backs up a bit so I can see a fresh tattoo of a dragonfly with my mother’s name, Libellule, in script across his heart.

  “Mom?” I say. She looks everywhere but at me.

  “You want me to tell him?” Chester asks, smiling slowly.

  “Oh, now…” Mom’s flustered. She fluffs the pillows all around her and readjusts her dress. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

  “Hey, whoa, that hurts!” Chester frowns.

  She turns and pats his arm. “I didn’t mean it that way. I meant it in terms of Orpheus. I mean it won’t affect him much.”

  “It will if he wants to stay here!” says Chester.

  Mom turns back to me. “You are always welcome in my home,” she says.

  “But it’s not just your home now,” Chester says.

  I clench my jaw. “Mom?”

  She crosses one arm over her stomach and puts her other hand to her mouth. “Well now, you see, the thing is … Chester has moved in with me.”

  “Great,” I say. “I’ll be sure to send a housewarming gift.” Then I disconnect and refuse to answer when she tries
to ping me back.

  Furious and frustrated, I get out of my car to walk off some steam. More cars stream in from the SkyPath overhead and the terrestrial SwarmPath circling the Distract a few miles away. I can’t believe my mother has allowed that cretin to move in. Now I have no place to go.

  Desperate for advice, I call Arabella. Not a ping but an actual video call. I need to see her face on my ExoScreen. But she doesn’t pick up. Instead, she pings me back.

  Still at the party. Geoff Joffrey just walked in.

  Piper says I MUST get pix with him. Do you

  know him? Can you help?

  Can’t that wait? I need to talk to you. Something big came up.

  Bigger than Geoff Joffrey?

  Yes! My father’s forcing me to have an ASA.

  Good for you! Exciting.

  No! That’s not what I want.

  Come here. Intro me to Geoff then we can talk.

  I don’t know him. Can’t intro you.

  Why not? You’re a Chanson!

  “Damnit!” I yell out loud.

  Is that all I’m good for? My last name?

  Forget it! I’ll find someone else to help.

  Gotta go. I’m supposed to be working!!!!

  She disconnects, leaving me abandoned in the midst of gamers dressed in hero garb, flooding out of their vehicles into AutoTrams that will carry them to the dome. As a last-ditch effort, I reach out to Rajesh who, by some miracle, answers. He’s in his house, his stylists flitting around him, pomping up his hair.

  “Orph, my man! What’s up? Your girl is getting mad Buzz at the scholar party. Are you headed that way?”

  “No, I’ve got a problem.” I spill the whole story. My dad. My mom. Arabella.

  “Orpheus, come on, man,” Rajesh says, as if he’s bored. He stands up from his salon chair and tries on different bowties as we talk. “Get in the game, would you? Just get the dumb surgery and start your life already. You’re getting left in the dust. Another year as a PONI and the Buzz will abandon you altogether as the dilettante son of a patron.”

  “But what if I don’t want a life in the limelight?”

  Rajesh screws up his face and shakes his head. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I don’t know!” I throw my hands into the air and look up into the sky. Somewhere far away the stars shine, but you can never see them this close to the Distract. “Sometimes I just think I want something quieter, behind the scenes, you know?”

  “No,” says Rajesh with a snort. “If that’s the way you feel, then I don’t know what to tell you.” He disconnects. I stand there speechless. My best friend hung up on me.

  Overhead, a large platoon of tricked-out flying cars circles the center of the Dome as it opens like a flower for them to land. Must be the superstar gamers come to play. Trailing them is a comet tail of ’razzi drones, swooping down upon the parking lot, making a beeline for the entrance along with all the fans.

  I pace around my car muttering to myself, “My father is a tyrant. My mother has moved in with a jerk. And my two best friends don’t care.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see one of the ’razzi leave its swarm and swoop around toward me, then it hovers just behind my Cicada, green eyes blinking. No doubt it has built-in recognition software and now I’ve been found. Sure enough, within seconds, more drones peel off from the swarm and head in my direction. I need to get away. Away from the Distract, from the City, far away from my father and nowhere near my mom and Chester.

  I climb back in the Cicada and take off, uncertain where I’m going, but sure that I can outrun the ’razzi that are trailing me. Inside, I turn off the WindScreen, rip off my glove so I don’t have to talk to anyone. Then I grab my flask of Juse and chug as I turn on my receiver, scanning the waves for a friendly voice to carry me away as my car lifts up to the SkyPath leading away from the chaos of the City.

  ZIMRI

  “Sorry,” I tell Dorian when he meets me outside the security office. “I didn’t know who else to call with Brie working nights and Tati all the way in Old Town and…”

  “Don’t apologize!” Dorian says. He opens his arms and pulls me into a huge hug. I feel so safe that I don’t want to let go.

  “Maybe we should look for Nonda first.” I eye the security office warily. I have no interest in tangling with Medgers again today.

  “If she doesn’t have her HandHeld…” Dorian says, and I know he’s right. She could be wandering around anywhere and we’ll never find her. “The best thing to do is file a report and let security do its job.” Dorian takes my hand. “Come on,” he says and pulls me toward the entrance.

  I hate the Complex security office. Ever since my mother’s cyber hearing, it’s given me the heebie-jeebies. I remember holding my father’s hand as we walked into the room where Mom sat at a table with some schlubby guy who’d been sent by the Justice Consortium that repped all the Corp X warehouse workers whenever they got into trouble. A screen, divided into two panels, took up half the wall, dwarfing the rest of us. In the first panel was the Arbiter, an older woman with dark skin and hair set off against the bright red of her robe. She was stern and imposing, like the giant head of God sitting in judgment. And in the other panel was a young woman with bright blue eyes, shiny blond hair, and skin so light it was nearly iridescent. She looked like a picture from an old book. I’d never seen someone so white.

  My mother glanced over and motioned for me to join her at the table. I was no slouch. I got the picture right away and sidled up alongside her, leaning against her as cute as I could be.

  Her justice broker glanced at me and frowned, but the Arbiter asked, “Is this your daughter?”

  My mother nodded then put her arm around my waist to hug me tight against her body. The Arbiter twisted her face, like she was seeing my mother in a different light. I smiled sweetly and laid my head on Mom’s shoulder. The blue-eyed woman on the other screen said, “Hi, honey,” to me and I waved, thinking she might be on our side, too.

  “Do you have a song for them?” my mother whispered.

  I lifted my head and broke into “You Are My Sunshine” and the Arbiter’s face relaxed into a smile. But the blue-eyed woman said, “As we own the copyright to that song, I’d like to request that she cease and desist with her performance.”

  “The child?” the Arbiter asked.

  “Yes,” the woman said. That’s when I realized she was the justice broker for the other side—the people charging Mom with stealing music.

  The Arbiter sighed and straightened her red robe. “Request granted,” she said and the trial began.

  Inside the security office I groan out loud and turn around to leave when I see Medgers at the desk, but she catches sight of me before I can get out the door. “Well, well, well,” she says. “If it isn’t Little Miss Above-the-Law.”

  I steel myself against her snide remark. “I’m here about Nonda, my grandmother.”

  Medgers stands up and pushes her Taser belt down around her hips. “And here I thought you had come to turn yourself in.”

  Dorian glances at me. “For what?”

  Medgers leans over the counter and looks hard at me. “Maybe you could fool those two idiot investigators, Zimri Robinson, but I’m on to you.”

  Dorian takes a step back.

  “Look, Medgers, my grandmother is missing…” I tell her.

  She looks down her nose at me. “She been gone longer than twenty-four hours?”

  “No, but—”

  “Then we can’t do anything.”

  “This isn’t the first time she’s been missing.”

  Dorian jerks his head toward me. “Really?”

  I look at my shoes. “Yes, it’s true. This has been happening more and more but she’s never been gone this long or this late.”

  “Maybe she went looking for your concert and got lost,” Medgers says with a snort.

  Dorian’s eyes go wide.

  “Medgers!” barks someone from behind us. “Are you
helping these young people?” I feel a hand on my shoulder and turn to see another officer at my side. She looks about Marley’s age. Her hair is pulled back in a thousand tiny braids tucked neatly in a bun at the base of her neck.

  “My grandmother’s missing,” I tell her and my eyes well up. Embarrassed, I brush away the tears.

  “And the officer on duty refuses to help us,” Dorian says.

  The other officer narrows her eyes at Medgers. “Is this true?”

  “Just following protocol,” Medgers mumbles.

  The officer shakes her head, disgusted. “I’ll deal with you later,” she says to Medgers, then motions for Dorian and me to follow her. “Come on. I’ll help you.”

  When we get settled inside her cubicle, the officer smiles at me. “You’re Zimri, right?”

  I nod, not sure if it’s good or bad that she knows my name.

  “I’m Billingsley,” she tells me. “I grew up with your parents. I knew your family well.”

  “Oh,” I say, surprised. “I don’t remember you.”

  “My family left when I was a teenager. I just got a promotion and transferred here.” She shows me the stripes on the shoulder of her uniform. “Now, then…” She leans forward on her elbows. “Tell me what happened.”

  Once I start talking, everything spills out. I tell Billingsley more than I’ve even admitted to myself about how confused Nonda has seemed lately, how many times she’s wandered off, how truly bad things have gotten with her. When I’m finished, I’m exhausted and embarrassed. “I should have taken better care of her,” I say, fighting back tears.

  Dorian lays his hand on my arm. “You can’t blame yourself.”

  “He’s right,” Billingsley says. “You’re sixteen and working full-time. You’ve got a lot on your plate.”

  I don’t say it aloud but I know they’re wrong. If I’d been home, not out making music, none of this would have happened.