The Boost

by Stephen Baker

  “Not sex again.”

  “I’m just saying…” Simon goes on to describe the generation gap that he still feels with his little brother. He and his friends grew up with their experiences grounded in the wild brain. Each one, whether it was the taste of strawberries or the feeling of diving into a cold pool, was highly nuanced—a staggering combination of colors, sensations, thoughts, and memories, all of them processed by a brain that had evolved over billions of years. “Then they come along and give us virtual apps that were just the crudest version of reality,” he says. “When we were disappointed, they called us Luddites.” He stops to shovel more Sabritas into his mouth, and washes them down with a gulp of the soda. “But your generation was different,” he says. “You accepted the virtual as real.”

  “Not really,” Ralf objects.

  “Well, close to it. It was part of your life. Here’s what really bugged me. Everybody started accepting the virtual as real, just because enough of you believed it. It was as if you had a quorum.”

  Ralf rolls his eyes. He reaches for the soda, lifts the bottle, and puts it down. “I’ll tell you one thing: I’d take an ice-cold virtual soda over this warm crap,” he says.

  “But would the app have all the same tastes?”

  “It’d probably have some better ones, if anybody bothered making it.”

  “Okay,” Simon says. “Maybe artificially flavored grapefruit soda wasn’t the best starting point. How about this. When I was a kid, they had this cherry flavor. They put it into sodas and candy and gum. It really didn’t taste like cherries at all. Not at all! But people began to accept it as cherry. That’s what happens with apps.”

  “Only in the beginning,” Ralf says. “Let’s say that in the beginning they had a crude cherry app. It tasted like sugar and it was red. That was it. But then in the next round of research, they began to dig deeper in the realm of sweet, and they began to find different combinations that gave the experience of cherries versus peaches and mangoes. They got better. At the same time, they did research on haptic technology, re-creating the physical sensation, like how far the teeth sink into the skin of a cherry before it breaks, and then creating that physical sensation in your brain. It’s still not anywhere close to perfect. But for a lot of people it’s close enough—especially if they haven’t experienced the real thing.”

  “That’s the way it is for me with sex,” Simon says.

  “Oh, come on!”

  “No, I just want to make this point,” Simon says. “I’ll try not to embarrass you.”

  Ralf, now resigned, sighs and waits.

  “Look, I won’t go into details.” Simon glances toward the counter, to see if the woman is eavesdropping. Then he leans forward and whispers, “My whole sex life is in these worlds, like I told you. In one of them, I’m a woman. I meet people, or people’s avatars, and we talk and what not, and we have sex. Now in the beginning, the avatars weren’t really much like people. They were more like cartoons. The sex didn’t feel real, or what I imagine to be real. But it was good enough, like the fruit you’re talking about. But now it’s getting more real. There are all kinds of physical complications I won’t go into, things that happen to you when you have a real body. It’s stuff I don’t want. I think that when it comes to certain things, I want a simulation that feels like a simulation.”

  “It sounds like you’re scared of reality.”

  “No, reality’s fine,” Simon says. “But I don’t like confusing it with the virtual stuff. If I do, I might lose track of who I am.” He leans across the table, lowers his whisper by a notch, and adds: “Or even what I am.”

  “But you’re acting like that virtual world isn’t real,” Ralf says. “It is. Those are real people. You’re talking to them, interacting with them. You’re part of their lives, and they’re part of yours, even if you don’t know who they are.”

  Simon appears to have lost interest in the conversation. He is looking toward the door opening, which is covered by a curtain of dangling strips of green plastic.

  “In any case,” Ralf says, yawning, “these questions about virtual worlds aren’t something I have to worry about, at least for now. Nobody does around here.”

  Simon pays no attention. “Hear that?” he says. A buzzing noise comes from outside. It grows louder as they listen, second by second, turning into a low roar. Children who were playing in the street hurry into the store. They huddle behind the counter. No one says a word. Then come a series of explosions that shake the ground, knocking Ralf’s bottle of soda to the floor, where it shatters.

  “A drone,” Simon says darkly. “It’s probably after us.”

  Eighteen

  3/7/72 8:41 p.m. Juárez Standard Time

  Oscar Espinoza leaned against the rounded wall in the darkness of the tunnel for fifteen minutes or so, enjoying the pain-free head he no longer shared with George Smedley. He saw the two figures ahead of him scurrying toward Mexico. He couldn’t catch them, he thought, even if he wanted to. So which way should he crawl? It was a thorny question. By following the brothers into Juárez, he could escape his boss and the excruciating headaches. But crawling to Juárez would land him in a dangerous city of the wild. What’s more, Espinoza, despite his name, had only a school boy’s knowledge of Spanish in his wet brain. He would be a foreigner. He would be without his KIFF.

  Espinoza lay back on the dirt floor of the tunnel and considered the options. His stomach growled. He hadn’t had a bite since those churros in South El Paso, almost seven hours earlier. Pressed by hunger and fear, he came up with a solution. He would escape into Juárez, get something to eat there, maybe drink a few beers. Then he would return to the tunnel, crawl back to Santa Teresa, and reclaim his KIFF and the rest of his life, hopefully without further Smedley intrusions. With that, he set off on his knees.

  An hour later, as the sun sets, Oscar Espinoza basks in the sensual pleasures of old Mexico. After finding a tiny restaurant, El Mezcal, he convinced the owner, an old man wearing a black Colorado Rockies baseball cap, to buy Espinoza’s Bowie High School ring, a big chunk of silver and copper, encrusted with low-grade gems, for a pocketful of plastic currency. He learned, to his delight, that one single red chip would underwrite a feast, including a plate of fire-roasted goat, a mountain of refried beans, a basket of corn tortillas, and an avocado salad. An entire family gathers around his solitary table and watches him eat. The children whisper to each other and laugh, probably joking about his nose. But they seem friendly. When Espinoza fishes into his pocket, pulls out a yellow chip, and asks for “cerveza,” one of the children grabs it, races into the kitchen, and returns with a full six-pack of Bohemia. Espinoza downs one of the beers in a single gulp. It’s warm. Only slightly disappointed, he opens a second and wonders how much of this plastic currency it might cost to rent a bed for the night, preferably with a woman. He figures he might as well spend every chip before he returns to the tunnel. Plastic Juárez money won’t buy anything back home.

  He’s into his fourth beer and second plate of goat when he hears a buzzing noise outside. The family hears it, too, and the mother quickly gathers the children into the kitchen. She says something to Espinoza. He doesn’t understand a word. She looks worried and motions for him to follow her. He picks up his plate of food with one hand and the two remaining beers with the other and walks into the kitchen. The buzz grows louder, turning into a roar. The family moves out through the back door of the kitchen. Espinoza follows them, still holding goat and beer. He finds himself in a warren of hovels, and among a stream of Mexicans hurrying away from the street.

  He hears a deafening bang, and then another and a third. His ears ring, but within seconds he can hear babies crying and mothers calling out their children’s names. He has lost sight of the family from the restaurant. The goat meat has fallen off his plate, which he drops to the ground. With the two beers dangling from his hand, he walks back toward El Mezcal and finds only its smoldering husk. The drone has disappeared. He hears its dist
ant buzz to the east.

  Either they sent the drone to kill him, he knows, or someone mistook him for Ralf Alvare. In either case, he’ll likely bring death and destruction to anyone foolish enough to offer him shelter this evening in Juárez. Espinoza spots a wooden roof beam in the wreckage of El Mezcal. He sits on it, opens a beer, and mulls his options.

  3/7/72 10:41 p.m. Juárez Standard Time

  I’m a prisoner, Ellen thinks. Not an uncomfortable one, by any stretch. She had a long and delicious dinner with Don Paquito, and afterward he poured her a tiny glass of premium tequila, which tasted like nectar. When she said that he laughed, and promptly refilled her glass. It occurred to her that he might be trying to seduce her. Warmed by the tequila, she wasn’t certain how fiercely she would resist. But he kept his distance, shook her hand chastely at the end of the evening, and directed one of his assistants to show the señorita her bedroom.

  Now Ellen is stretched out in a colonial-style bed with a checked blue canopy and overstuffed pillows. The paintings on the wall feature action portraits of Dallas Cowboys painted on black velvet. Initially, she decided to find some entertainment stored in her boost, maybe music. But instead she lies back and thinks about her three hours with Don Paquito, and all of the questions left unanswered. What was this news business he kept referring to? After an evening with him, she had no idea. And how did he know about Ralf and Simon? He gave her only the vaguest of responses, but he indicated that she probably would be seeing them tomorrow.

  “We’ll go back to El Paso together?” Ellen asked.

  Don Paquito shrugged and downed a full glass of tequila, his fourth or fifth by Ellen’s count. “If it seems safe,” he said. “The decision will be yours.”

  Ellen thinks about the man with the flattened nose who followed her through Juárez, who sat next to her in the shoe store and begged her to accompany him to the mall, and then hobbled after her while putting on his shoe. She thinks about the lunch with that family, and the friendly boy, Alfredo. Will she ever see them again?

  In the distance, she hears explosions, three in a row. Was it thunder? That brings to mind the summer storms over Paterson that kept her awake as a child. This time, though, she sleeps.

  3/7/72 11:06 p.m. Juárez Standard Time

  “You knew we were coming over here, didn’t you?” Ralf’s voice wakes up Simon, who was already asleep.

  “Huh?” They’re lying side by side on thin folding cots jammed into a windowless pantry.

  “You knew we were coming over here. You put money into your pocket. You led us to the tunnel. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because you wouldn’t have come.”

  “I might have.”

  “Well, I didn’t think so. Sorry if I was wrong.”

  “Why don’t you tell me about what you do over here, and how it fits in with your tavern? All you’ve told me is about ‘alternative revenue streams.’ While you’re at it, maybe you could tell me what we’re going to be doing over here. You must have some kind of plan.”

  “We’re safer over here.”

  “With those drones after us?”

  “Yes, even with the drones. They’re fairly primitive, and you can hear them coming. Over in El Paso, you’ll have people hunting you. The next wave is sure to be smarter than that first guy they sent.”

  “The guy with the nose?”

  “Yeah, him. We were lucky.”

  “So tell me about what you do over here.”

  “Tomorrow. I’m sleepy.”

  “What do we do tomorrow?”

  “There’s this guy I want you to meet.”

  Ralf, feeling sleepy too, halts the questioning. “Okay,” he says. He turns over and wraps his arms around the pillow. Then he thinks of one more thing to tell his brother. “You know,” he whispers, “I go on those sex sites, too—or at least I used to.” Simon doesn’t respond. Ralf listens to his brother’s shallow breathing and concludes that he’s still awake. “Just didn’t want you to think you’re the only one,” he adds.

  Nineteen

  TUESDAY, MARCH 8, 2072:

  EIGHT DAYS BEFORE THE NATIONAL COGNITIVE UPDATE

  3/8/72 8:12 a.m. Eastern Standard Time

  Early on a crisp Tuesday morning, a young man wearing a green backpack leans his bike against a tree on Christopher Street in Montclair, New Jersey. He slips to the back of the white colonial house and knocks on the kitchen door.

  Suzy Claiborne opens the door for him. She’s dressed in her running clothes and has the crown of her bald head covered with a tiny red knit cap. She has in mind once again to sidestep Stella’s restrictions and take a trot around Brookdale Park.

  “Just the usual supplies and one message,” the courier says, shrugging out of the backpack. He unzips it and unloads three packages of commodity food, carbohydrates, greens, and protein. “Does the Chinese guy eat any of this stuff?” he asks, gesturing with his face toward Bao-Zhi’s third-floor quarters.

  “He’s wild,” Suzy says. “It would taste like animal feed to him. He cooks his own stuff up in his room.”

  “Then there’s this,” the courier says. He draws a tiny rolled-up piece of paper from the bottom of his backpack and lays it carefully on the kitchen table. “Arrived this morning on a pigeon.”

  They hear footsteps coming down the hall, and Stella appears in the kitchen. She’s wearing her housecoat, a black Japanese kimono, and has her hair tied up in a plaid handkerchief.

  “You just lean your bike against a tree in the front yard?” she says to the courier. “The instructions were to leave the bike in the park, walk up Montclair Avenue, and cut through Hinck’s Alley to the backyard.”

  “Sorry. Forgot about that,” the courier says.

  “We’re under surveillance here,” she says.

  Suzy, defending the courier, says, “Bao-Zhi just walks out all the time.”

  “He is going out too much,” Stella admits. “But at least he uses the back door and cuts through the alley. I’ve watched him. And he doesn’t leave a bike leaning against a tree.” Stella pauses and studies Suzy, dressed in her track gear. “Planning to take another run this morning?”

  “Just doing some sit-ups and things in the basement,” Suzy says.

  “With that hat on?”

  “Yeah, well…”

  Stella, muttering to herself, picks up the tiny message from the table. “This just came in?” She unfolds it, reads the message, and gasps.

  “What is it?” Suzy asks.

  Stella shakes her head, refusing to answer, and sits down on a kitchen stool. With the hand holding the message, she waves toward the courier, telling him to leave. Once he’s gone, she says to Suzy: “The paper says that Ralf’s in El Paso, and that he’s wild.”

  “What paper?”

  “Long story. It’s one with special information. Some of our people get it, and they send around bits of it by couriers and pigeons.”

  “It says that Ralf is out in El Paso?”

  Stella nods.

  “That’s just across the river from Juárez.”

  “I know.” A shadow of a smile crosses Stella’s face. Ralf got in trouble, she’s thinking, and he went to Simon. It gratifies her that her sons, who seem so different and barely saw each other after they moved to Montclair, are now finally together. At least she assumes they’re together. It doesn’t bother her much that Ralf is said to be wild. They must have pulled out his boost in that Alexandria clinic, she thinks. It has to be hard on him, she knows. But in her years with the DM, Stella has grown ever angrier about the boost, and what she views as its political and economic mind control. She is often tempted to have her own removed, as several DM members have done. The trouble is that wild people, for all their courage and sacrifice, are virtually useless in the movement. Their thoughts are hazy and they can’t communicate them with the others, except for occasional paper scribblings. Going wild is like retiring. Still, Ralf lived too much in the boost, she thinks.

  By nature,
Stella’s mind searches for things to worry about. She’s always been a worrier, even back in college. But now, in the Democracy Movement, worrying is central to her job description. To worry is to be on the lookout for potential danger. It’s omnipresent. Every week, it seems, another cell is uncovered and destroyed. Her worrying, Stella is convinced, has saved lives, including her own. With this new tidbit of news about Ralf, new worries bubble up. If word of Ralf’s arrival in El Paso has spread all the way to her house on Christopher Street, his enemies must also be in the know. They might kill him. If he’s with his brother, they might kill them both. She wonders if she should travel to El Paso herself. It’s where her grandparents met and her mother was born. Is there anything she could accomplish there?

  * * *

  Later in the morning, Suzy has her long legs stretched out on the living-room couch. She’s still in her running clothes, but without the hat. A small plate of protein sits on her stomach, and she savors it in small bites as eggs with chorizo, one of her favorite apps. The fire burns slowly. The drum upstairs seems to pound in time with the winter rain beating against the windows. “Ugly out there,” she says as Stella walks in.

  Stella nods absently and sits in a rocking chair by the fireplace. The weather is the furthest thing from her mind.

  Suzy proceeds to describe, in great detail, a scheme she has to mobilize opposition to the coming update. “Everyone hates the boost,” she says.

  Stella tries to be diplomatic. “I think you might not be circulating with a broad enough range of people,” she says.

  Suzy takes another bite of her breakfast. “No offense,” she says. “But I’m kind of stuck here.”

  Stella nods and goes on. “The biggest concern most people have with the chip isn’t that it’s too powerful, but that it might not…” She hunts for the right word. “Might not be powerful enough.”

  “Huh?”

  Stella explains that if Americans fail to keep their chips up to the Chinese level, the population will grow relatively dumber, and the Chinese will place their investments elsewhere, costing jobs. What’s more, smarter and faster chips, along with a host of new apps, promise to make life more fun. With updated boosts, games will be more captivating. Food will taste better. The virtual worlds will work better, with richer colors and faster action—zero latency. Sex will be fabulous.