Gifted

by H. A. Swain

  My mouth falls open and I look up into the darkening sky. It’s become a deep rich blue I’ve never seen beneath the light pollution of the City, but I’m more astounded by the realization that Zimri reminds me of my mother. Not the mother who raised me but Libellule the superstar. And not in the skeevy way Ios tried to flirt with me by imitating my mom in her prime, which was gross. Like my mom, Zimri has a fierce confidence and independent streak even though she doesn’t come from money or power. There’s no good reason for either my mother or Zimri to strut around commandeering so much attention, except for the fact that Zimri, like my mom, is more awesome than everyone around her. But unlike my mother, Zimri has no idea of her effect on people. Which is partly what makes her so charming.

  I walk quickly along the path with thoughts fluttering in my head like all the little chickadees and bluebirds feasting on bright red bushberries. I think of Arabella again. I stop and close my eyes to relive our last kiss in Nahmad Gallery. So quick and fleeting. Every time we fooled around before her surgery, we never got it right. We were always interrupted or one of us just stopped. Then there was that split second in my kitchen when we both slumped over the counter, laughing. I thought that would be our moment but she jumped away. What would have happened if our lips had found one another? Our tongues entangled? In my mind, the kiss is wonderful. We find a rhythm with our mouths and it’s perfect and amazing and when I pull away to look into her face, my eyes pop open because the person I’m picturing in my mind’s eye isn’t Arabella.

  “Oh, hell!” I say out loud, then I’m striding up the path again.

  I can’t deny that I feel something for Zimri. And sometimes, I think she might feel the same way about me. If she had an ExoScreen, I’m certain our carapaces would be a perfect match. But the whole thing is impractical. I start muttering out loud to the birds and bugs buzzing all around.

  I only planned to be gone until my money ran out. Just long enough to make my parents sweat. Then I’d go home. They’d feel guilty and let me have a say in what to do with my life.

  I come to the giant willow tree along the shore and duck beneath the low ropy branches into the cool underbelly where my car is hidden. In the dusky light I can barely make out how messed up it is, but I know the whole passenger side door is scraped and dented where I ran into the rail that stopped me from plunging into the river. The back right tire has gone flat. I have a RoboJack but I don’t know how to use it and I’m not sure it would do much good anyway. The last time I drove it, from the MediPlex to here, it hissed and banged like something inside the engine was messed up, too. Finally, I pulled over and pushed it beneath this tree, sure I’d never make it back to the City.

  Now I don’t know if I want to go back and I’m not even sure why. Guilt, maybe? Guilt that I can leave and Zimri can’t even though she’s smart and hardworking and just as deserving of a good life as I am.

  “The truth is,” I declare aloud to the peepers and crickets who’ve begun to sing their evening song, “if she’d been born in the City, into a different family, or at a different time, she would never stay a Plebe. She’s the kind of person who would rise above the system like my mother did when that was still possible.”

  Maybe that’s the reason I have this strange compunction to help her. I want to do something grand and sweeping to make up for the crappy cards Zimri has been dealt. But what can I do? Take her home with me? That’d go over well. Hey, Dad, look what I got at the Corp X warehouse. A Plebe girl. Can I keep her?

  Then I think about her grandmother in the MediPlex. She must be the woman I almost hit the other night. She didn’t know her name. Didn’t know where she was from. So I looked up the nearest MediPlex and dropped her off, hoping someone there could help. Since the MediPlex is run by the same corporation as Alouette’s, I was able to establish a link with the RoboNurse who did the old woman’s intake but I haven’t been back to see her. I’ve thought about it, but I’m so tired after my shift each night that I can barely make it to the Strip to scrounge up some food, then crawl back to my banged-up Cicada to sleep. Now, though, finding out she’s most likely Zimri’s grandmother feels like a sign. As if everything that’s happened over the past few days is part of a strange confluence of events meant to bring me here to meet Zimri.

  I climb on top of my car then hoist myself onto a sturdy branch and clamber up the tree, scraping shins and palms on rough bark, to get a better look at the sky, as if the answer will be written in the stars. When I come to a fork in the willow, I rest and wonder if this is the kind of place Zimri and her friends played when they were kids. Climbing real trees seems infinitely more fun than the precisely manicured and preplanned Plute playgrounds where everything is designed to maximize childhood development, but none of it is half as interesting as this one tree with its bugs and worms and birds and moss.

  I stare up through the leaves and branches at the stars beginning to peek out beneath the flashing lights of delivery drones. In the City, I always feel big and weighty, as if my existence is the center of everything important. Like when I was little and took for granted that the universe must spin around me. Out here, on the periphery, I see how easy it is to feel small and insignificant. Like I am nothing more than a speck on someone else’s screen. Which is why I like that song so much. Nobody from Nowhere, I’m here, I’m here, I’m here. I’m Nobody from Nowhere, listen to me scream.

  For the first time in my life I realize how convenient it is for Plutes like me to assume we deserve everything we have. My parents both worked hard, right? I did well in SCEWL. We all played the game. As if that entitles us to be rich snots. No way! Over the past few days I’ve seen how hard the warehouse pickers work on their road to nowhere. Then again, my choices are limited, too. Either I stay away, hiding from my parents while working a crappy PONI job, or I go home to have my brain zapped into genius mode and live a Plute life I won’t enjoy because I’ll be too obsessed with making music. Seems like I’d be trading one trapped existence for another.

  For the past few days, I’ve purposefully not checked the Buzz. For one thing the reception is blocked in the warehouse, and at night after work, I’ve kept my ExoScreen glove off in case anyone has been trying to reach me. Instead, I’ve relied on my receiver to catch waves of pirate radio. DJ HiJax has become my solace, playing stolen tunes and talking up Project Calliope, which is still all over the news. I feel a little bad for HiJax if he believes Calliope can beat my father. It’s nice to hear someone dreaming big but they have no idea what they’re up against.

  Tonight, before Zim came along, I’d put my ExoScreen glove on to find out what was happening in the City. I figured if I was heading back, I should be up to speed. Now, I pull it out of my pocket again and slide it over my pale left hand, then click my thumb and forefinger together to activate the digital connection. The carapace slowly warms to a purple glow and the screen on my palm lights up. I slip my EarBug in place (no nasty wires needed) and click together my middle finger and my thumb to access the Buzz.

  DJ Lazy Eye’s rap opera premieres in Shanghai.

  The last great diva of pop stardom, Taylor Swift, died today at a MediPlex outside of Nashville, Tennessee. She was 100 years old.

  Quinby Masterson record sales broken by 14-year-old whiz kid Olivia Ganza’s reproductions of celebrity death masks.

  Elston Tunick exhibition opens at Niarchos Gallery in Athens to lukewarm sales response.

  “Jeez!” I say aloud. I’ve only been gone three days and already so much has happened, but oddly none of it seems important. Because what I really want to know is the story of my disappearance. My heart climbs in my throat. For the first time, I feel guilty for running away. My mother has probably been sick with worry. My dad has probably screamed and pitched a fit at Esther, telling her that she’d better find me. I’m sure Rajesh and Arabella have pinged me a million times and must think I’m mad at them since I haven’t answered, which is true, but I should at least let them know I’m okay. I take a deep breat
h and ask the Buzz for all the headlines about Orpheus Chanson over the past three days, then brace myself for the onslaught of sound bites about my disappearance.

  Only, there are none.

  Sure that I’ve made a mistake, I search again. And again. I search my name, my father’s name, and my mother’s, but the only stories that come up are about Calliope’s lawsuit against my dad, and my mother yammering about a new line of clothing.

  I pull up my ping history. I see the usual batch of group pings from the past few days. My friends all announcing where they’ll be and making plans to meet up for maximum Buzz, but there is nothing out of the ordinary. Nobody asks me directly where I am or if anyone has seen me. Then again, maybe it shouldn’t surprise me. If I’m not helping their Buzz ratings, then I barely warrant any attention. Not even from Arabella.

  Then I see the pings from my parents buried in the history from the first day I was gone:

  From: Libellule

  To: Orpheus

  Where are you? Can’t reach you. Has your father taken you for surgery? I’m FRANTIC!

  * * *

  From: Harold

  To: Orpheus

  Where the hell are you? If you think you can hide behind your mother, you’re mistaken. I WILL find you!

  * * *

  From: Libellule

  To: Harold

  CC: Orpheus

  Where is Orpheus?!?!?! You can’t force him to have surgery against his will! I’ll call every facility, every surgeon, until I find him. I have connections too, you know!

  * * *

  From: Harold

  To: Libellule

  CC: Orpheus

  I don’t have him and you know it! Stop playing your stupid games. I’ll drop the story of you standing in his way straight into the Buzz, Li. You know I will.

  * * *

  From: Libellule

  To: Harold

  CC: Orpheus

  Go right ahead and drop your little lies. They’ll get buried under the avalanche of your other disasters. And I’ll drop my own: Tyrant Patron Forces Only Son to have ASA That Left Daughter Incapacitated. How will that look for Chanson Industries?

  * * *

  From: Libellule

  To: Orpheus

  I don’t think Chanson has him. Harold’s threatening me, but I can tell he’s worried. We might be able to use this to our advantage. Plant a story to advance the cause and gain some public sympathy for the project.

  * * *

  From: Libellule

  To: Orpheus

  Oops! Ignore that last ping. Not meant for you. But Orphie, baby, PLEASE reach out to me. I’m so worried. Let me know you’re okay and that Daddy doesn’t have you locked away somewhere. I’m going out of my mind!!!!!!

  * * *

  From: Harold

  To: Orpheus

  Enough of this nonsense! Come home immediately or you risk losing everything. I WILL find you and when I do …

  I stop reading and sit in the tree, dumbstruck. Even when I’m missing, my parents snipe at one another rather than work together to find me, which couldn’t be too hard now that I think of it. Surely my car has some kind of tracking device. They could release pix of me over the Buzz and offer a reward for information. They could trace my spending and send out private security to track me down. That’s what usually happens when Plute kids disappear. But none of that is going on. Instead, once again, I’m caught in the middle of their protracted battle.

  But the weird thing is, their whole exchange took place several days ago and there’s been nothing since then. Nothing in the Buzz. No planted stories as threatened by both sides. No one trying to reach me again. And what’s with Mom’s ping about using my disappearance to gain traction and sympathy? For what? Her new clothing company?

  As I listen to the soothing night sounds of the river, it slowly dawns on me that no one is looking for me because if they were, they would have found me by now. It makes no sense, though! I’m a Chanson, after all. Something’s not quite right. It’s as if I’ve disappeared off the face of the planet and nobody seems to care. Or maybe the truth is it’s more convenient for me to be gone.

  Then I really get nervous. If I’ve disappeared, does that mean all my money’s gone, too? Quickly, I pull up my spending account on my ExoScreen to check my balance, then fall back against the branch, relieved. I still have quite a bit of money from my last monthly automated entertainment deposit. I guess working all the time while living in my car doesn’t cost much. At this rate, I could stay here at the Complex until autumn living large. Hell, I could go up to the Strip and buy drinks for everybody. Noodles on me! Or shower Zimri with presents to make up for every birthday she’s never celebrated. Assuage my guilt with gifts the way my parents did when I was little and complained they were never around. I shake my head, disgusted with myself. Just another Plute jerk with no regard for money. The kind of cash I have on hand could do some good out here. Change someone’s life. I could easily pay off Zimri’s grandmother’s MediPlex bill.

  I smack myself on the forehead so hard I nearly topple out of the tree. What an idiot I am. “Of course!” I say aloud and begin to climb down. I could pay Zimri’s grandmother’s bill. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. “Probably,” I tell the tree, “because I’m a self-centered Plute brat.” I hit the ground and realize that for once in my life, the choice to do something for someone else feels easy. But first I have to make sure the woman I took to the MediPlex is who I think she is.

  * * *

  It doesn’t take me long to find her. Since this facility is run by the same corporation that runs Alouette’s and I have twenty-four-hour access in the City, I walk in no problem, even though visiting hours are long over. I still have my link to her RoboNurse, so my ExoScreen leads me straight upstairs to a circular room filled with sleeping patients behind flimsy curtains.

  “Hello,” I call gently as I tiptoe to bed number seven.

  The old woman pushes herself up and peers at me. “You my doctor?”

  “I’m a little young to be a doctor, don’t you think?” I tease.

  “Least you’re human,” she says dryly and I laugh.

  “You don’t remember me?”

  She knits her brow.

  “The other night. I was in my car. You were on the road. I almost hit you then I brought you here.” I’m not sure how I coaxed her into my Cicada that night. She’d probably been so exhausted and disoriented that she would have accepted help from an alien who’d just landed on earth, which is probably what I looked like to her.

  She narrows her eyes and shakes her head. “You must be mistaken,” she says. “My daughter brought me here and she’ll be back any time now. I’m going home.”

  “Your daughter?” I ask. I’ve never heard Zimri mention her mom. “Do you have a granddaughter named Zimri who calls you Nonda?”

  “Yes,” she says and smiles big. “Do you know her? Is she okay?”

  “She’s fine. I was with her almost all day. We work together.”

  “Work?” she says. “You must be thinking of someone else. My Zimri is only eleven. And she’s all alone. Her father died. Her mother’s gone. I’m all she has. Oh, now, wait a minute.” She stops and looks perplexed. “Let me think. That’s not right, is it?” Nonda looks at me, a bit frightened and unsure.

  I step up closer and offer her my hand.

  “I’m not sure,” I tell her. “But the Zimri I know is about sixteen and works in the warehouse and sings all the time.”

  “Yes!” She gives my fingers a squeeze. “That’s her. She’s not little anymore. Sometimes I get lost in the past.”

  “That’s okay,” I assure her. “The past is a good place to go, sometimes.”

  “Depends on what you’re remembering,” she tells me.

  I settle into a chair beside her. At that moment, I miss Alouette and wonder if she’ll know when I’m not there for our usual weekly visit. Right now, she’s the only reason I’d go back.

/>   “So you work at the warehouse, too?” Nonda asks me.

  “Yes,” I tell her. “Interesting place.”

  “Hellhole,” she says and I chuckle. Then she spends the next half an hour telling me stories about growing up out here, all the changes that took place when the centralized government imploded and Corp X came in.

  “… and all these anarcho-capitalists had the nerve to tell us folks that things would be better this way. That the free market would solve all our problems. Hmph, like to see those fat cats in the City walk a mile in my shoes!”

  “You’re right,” I tell her, leaning forward, enraptured by her take on a world I’ve never even considered. “It’d be good for every Plute kid to come out here and work in a warehouse for a week. They’d appreciate their lives so much more if they did.”

  “Warehouse work can be tough,” she says. “Wears some folks down. Like my son-in-law, Linus, Zimri’s daddy. He couldn’t take it.”

  “What happened to him?” I ask.

  “He was always … um…” she searches for the word, then settles on, “fragile. And after my daughter left, he got depressed. And the work. It got to him. Not everyone is cut out to be a picker.”

  “Tell me about it,” I mutter.

  “He took the plunge. That’s what we call it when workers throw themselves in the river.”

  I rear back. “Does that happen a lot?”