The Mammoth Book of Best Short SF Novels

by Gardner R. Dozois

  “You’ve been twanked? No joke?” The great horned owl ruffled in alarm. She had a girl’s voice. “I know it’s none of my business, but I don’t understand why anyone would do it. Especially a kid. I mean, what’s wrong with good old-fashioned surgery? And you can be whoever you want in a VE.” She paused, waiting for someone to agree with her. No help. “Okay, so I don’t understand. But when you mess with your genes, you change who you are. I mean, don’t you like who you are? I do.”

  “We’re so happy for you.” Stennie scowled. “What is this, mental health week?”

  “We’re rich,” I said. “We can afford to hate ourselves.”

  “This may sound rude” – the owl’s big blunt head swiveled from Stennie to me – “but I think that’s sad.”

  “Yeah well, we’ll try to work up some tears for you, birdie,” Stennie said.

  Silence. In the East Room, the band turned the volume up.

  “Anyway, I’ve got to be going.” The owl shook herself. “Hanging upside down is fine for bats, but not for me. Later.” She let go of her perch and swooped out into the hall. The snowman turned to watch her go.

  “You’re driving them off, young man.” I patted Stennie on the head. “Come on now, be nice.”

  “Nice makes me puke.”

  “You do have a bit of an edge tonight.” I had trouble imagining this dainty little brat as my best friend. “Better watch out you don’t cut someone.”

  The dog skeleton came to the doorway and called up to us. “We’re supposed to dance now.”

  “About time.” Stennie fell off the ceiling like a drop of water and splashed headfirst onto the beige Persian rug. His image went all muddy for a moment and then he re-formed, upright and unharmed. “Going to skitter, tin man?”

  “I need to talk to you for a moment,” the snowman murmured.

  “You need to?” I said.

  “Dance, dance, dance,” sang Stennie. “Later.” He swerved after the skeleton out of the room.

  The snowman said, “It’s about a possible theft of information.”

  Right then was when I should have slammed it into reverse. Caught up with Stennie or maybe faded from Playroom altogether. But all I did was raise my hands over my head. “You got me, snowman; I confess. But society is to blame, too, isn’t it? You will tell the judge to go easy on me? I’ve had a tough life.”

  “This is serious.”

  “You’re Weldon – what’s your name?” Down the hall, I could hear the thud of Warhead’s bass line. “Montross.”

  “I’ll come to the point, Peter.” The only acknowledgment he made was to drop the kid voice. “The firm I represent provides information security services. Last week someone operated on the protected database of one of our clients. We have reason to believe that a certified photograph was accessed and copied. What can you tell me about this?”

  “Not bad, Mr. Montross, sir. But if you were as good as you think you are, you’d know my name isn’t Peter. It’s Mr. Boy. And since nobody invited you to this party, maybe you’d better tell me now why I shouldn’t just go ahead and have you deleted?”

  “I know that you were undergoing genetic therapy at the time of the theft, so you could not have been directly responsible. That’s in your favor. However, I also know that you can help me clear this matter up. And you need to do that, son, just as quickly as you can. Otherwise there’s big trouble coming.”

  “What are you going to do, tell my mommy?” My blood started to pump; I was coming back to life.

  “This is my offer. It’s not negotiable. You let me sweep your files for this image. You turn over any hardcopies you’ve made and you instruct your wiseguy to let me do a spot reprogramming, during which I will erase his memory of this incident. After that, we’ll consider the matter losed.”

  “Why don’t I just drop my pants and bend over while I’m at it?”

  “Look, you can pretend if you want, but you’re not a kid anymore. You’re twenty-five years old. I don’t believe for a minute that you’re as thick as your friends out there. If you think about it, you’ll realize that you can’t fight us. The fact that I’m here and I know what I know means that all your personal information systems are already tapped. I’m an op, son. I could wipe your files clean any time and I will, if it comes to that. However, my orders are to be thorough. The only way I can be sure I have everything is if you cooperate.”

  “You’re not even real, are you, Montross? I’ll bet you’re nothing but cheesy old code. I’ve talked to elevators with more personality.”

  “The offer is on the table.”

  “Stick it!”

  The owl flew back into the room, braked with outstretched wings, and caught onto the armrest of the Dolley Madison sofa. “Oh, you’re still here,” she said, noticing us. “I didn’t mean to interrupt . . .”

  “Wait there,” I said. “I’m coming right down.”

  “I’ll be in touch,” said the snowman. “Let me know just as soon as you change your mind.” He faded.

  I flipped backward off the ceiling and landed in front of her; my video armor rang from the impact. “Owl, you just saved the evening.” I knew I was showing off, but just then I was willing to forgive myself. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome, I guess.” She edged away from me, moving with precise little birdlike steps toward the top of the couch. “But all I was trying to do was escape the band.”

  “Bad?”

  “And loud.” Her ear tufts flattened. “Do you think shutting the door would help?”

  “Sure. Follow me. We can shut lots of doors.” When she hesitated, I flapped my arms like silver wings. Actually, Montross had done me a favor; when he threatened me, some inner clock had begun an adrenaline tick. If this was trouble, I wanted more. I felt twisted and dangerous and I did not care what happened next. Maybe that was why the owl flitted after me as I walked into the next room.

  The sumptuous State Dining Room can seat about 130 for formal dinners. The white-and-gold decor dates from the administration of Theodore Roosevelt.

  The owl glided over to the banquet table. I shut the door behind me. “Better?” Warhead still pounded on the walls.

  “A little.” She settled on a huge bronze doré centerpiece with a mirrored surface. “I’m going soon anyway.”

  “Why?”

  “The band stinks, I don’t know anyone, and I hate these stupid disguises.”

  “I’m Mr. Boy.” I raised my visor and grinned at her. “All right? Now you know someone.”

  She tucked her wings into place and fixed me with her owlish stare. “I don’t like VEs much.”

  “They take some getting used to.”

  “Why bother?” she said. “I mean, if anything can happen in a simulation, nothing matters. And I feel dumb standing in a room all alone jumping up and down and flapping my arms. Besides, this joysuit is hot and I’m renting it by the hour.”

  “The trick is not to look at yourself,” I said. “Just watch the screens and use your imagination.”

  “Reality is less work. You look like a little kid.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “Mr. Boy? What kind of name is that anyway?”

  I wished she would blink. “A made-up name. But then all names are made up, aren’t they?”

  “Didn’t I see you at school Wednesday? You were the one who dropped off the dinosaur.”

  “My friend Stennie.” I pulled out a chair and sat facing her. “Who you probably hate because he’s twanked.”

  “That was him on the ceiling, wasn’t it? Listen, I’m sorry about what I said. I’m new here. I’d never met anyone like him before I came to New Canaan. I mean, I’d heard of reshaping and all – getting twanked. But where I used to live, everybody was pretty much the same.”

  “Where was that, Squirrel Crossing, Nebraska?”

  “Close.” She laughed. “Elkhart; it’s in Indiana.”

  The reckless ticking in my head slowed. Talking to her made it easy
to forget about Montross. “You want to leave the party?” I said. “We could go into discreet.”

  “Just us?” She sounded doubtful. “Right now?”

  “Why not? You said you weren’t staying. We could get rid of these disguises. And the music.”

  She was silent for a moment. Maybe people in Elkhart, Indiana, did not ask one another into discreet unless they had met in Sunday school or the 4-H Club.

  “Okay,” she said finally, “but I’ll enable. What’s your DI?”

  I gave her my number.

  “Be back in a minute.”

  I cleared Playroom from my screens. The message Enabling discreet mode flashed. I decided not to change out of the joysuit; instead I called up my wardrobe menu and chose an image of myself wearing black baggies. The loose folds and padded shoulders helped hide the scrawny little boy’s body.

  The message changed. Discreet mode enabled. Do you accept, yes/no?

  “Sure,” I said.

  She was sitting naked in the middle of a room filled with tropical plants. Her skin was the color of cinnamon. She had freckles on her shoulders and across her breasts. Her hair tumbled down the curve of her spine; the ends glowed like embers in a breeze. She clutched her legs close to her and gave me a curious smile. Teenage still life. We were alone and secure. No one could tap us while we were in discreet. We could say anything we wanted. I was too croggled to speak.

  “You are a little kid,” she said.

  I did not tell her that what she was watching was an enhanced image, a virtual me. “Uh . . . well, not really.” I was glad Stennie could not see me. Mr. Boy at a loss – a first. “Sometimes I’m not sure what I am. I guess you’re not going to like me either. I’ve been stunted a couple of times. I’m really twenty-five years old.”

  She frowned. “You keep deciding I won’t like people. Why?”

  “Most people are against genetic surgery. Probably because they haven’t got the money.”

  “Myself, I wouldn’t do it. Still, just because you did doesn’t mean I hate you.” She gestured for me to sit. “But my parents would probably be horrified. They’re realists, you know.”

  “No fooling?” I could not help but chuckle. “That explains a lot.” Like why she had an attitude about twanking. And why she thought VEs were dumb. And why she was naked and did not seem to care. According to hard-core realists, first came clothes, then jewelry, fashion, makeup, plastic surgery, skin tints, and hey jack! here we are up to our eyeballs in the delusions of 2096. Gene twanking, VE addicts, people downloading themselves into computers – better never to have started. They wanted to turn back to worn-out twentieth-century modes. “But you’re no realist,” I said. “Look at your hair.”

  She shook her head and the ends twinkled. “You like it?”

  “It’s extreme. But realists don’t decorate!”

  “Then maybe I’m not a realist. My parents let me try lots of stuff they wouldn’t do themselves, like buying hairworks or linking to VEs. They’re afraid I’d leave otherwise.”

  “Would you?”

  She shrugged. “So what’s it like to get stunted? I’ve heard it hurts.”

  I told her how sometimes I felt as if there were broken glass in my joints and how my bones ached and – more showing off – about the blood I would find on the toilet paper. Then I mentioned something about Mom. She had heard of Mom, of course. She asked about my dad, and I explained how Mom paid him to stay away but that he kept running out of money. She wanted to know if I was working or still going to school, and I made up some stuff about courses in history I was taking from Yale. Actually I had faded after my first semester. Couple of years ago. I did not have time to link to some boring college; I was too busy playing with Comrade and Stennie. But I still had an account at Yale.

  “So that’s who I am.” I was amazed at how little I had lied. “Who are you?”

  She told me that her name was Treemonisha but her friends called her Tree. It was an old family name; her great-great-grandsomething-or-other had been a composer named Scott Joplin. Treemonisha was the name of his opera.

  I had to force myself not to stare at her breasts when she talked. “You like opera?” I said.

  “My dad says I’ll grow into it.” She made a face. “I hope not.”

  The Joplins were a franchise family; her mom and dad had just been transferred to the Green Dream, a plant shop in the Elm Street Mall. To hear her talk, you would think she had ordered them from the Good Fairy. They had been married for twenty-two years and were still together. She had a brother, Fidel, who was twelve. They all lived in the greenhouse next to the shop where they grew most of their food and where flowers were always in bloom and where everybody loved everyone else. Nice life for a bunch of mall drones. So why was she thinking of leaving?

  “You should stop by sometime,” she said.

  “Sometime,” I said. “Sure.”

  For hours after we faded, I kept remembering things about her I had not realized I had noticed. The fine hair on her legs. The curve of her eyebrows. The way her hands moved when she was excited.

  It was Stennie’s fault: after the Playroom party he started going to school almost every day. Not just linking to E-class with his comm, but actually showing up. We knew he had more than remedial reading on his mind, but no matter how much we teased, he would not talk about his mysterious new cush. Before he fell in love we used to joyride in his Alpha afternoons. Now Comrade and I had the car all to ourselves. Not as much fun.

  We had already dropped Stennie off when I spotted Treemonisha waiting for the bus. I waved, she came over. The next thing I knew we had another passenger on the road to nowhere. Comrade stared vacantly out the window as we pulled onto South Street; he did not seem pleased with the company.

  “Have you been out to the reservoir?” I said. “There are some extreme houses out there. Or we could drive over to Greenwich and look at yachts.”

  “I haven’t been anywhere yet, so I don’t care,” she said. “By the way, you don’t go to college.” She was not accusing me or even asking – merely stating a fact.

  “Why do you say that?” I said.

  “Fidel told me.”

  I wondered how her twelve-year-old brother could know anything at all about me. Rumors maybe, or just guessing. Since she did not seem mad, I decided to tell the truth.

  “He’s right,” I said, “I lied. I have an account at Yale, but I haven’t linked for months. Hey, you can’t live without telling a few lies. At least I don’t discriminate. I’ll lie to anyone, even myself.”

  “You’re bad.” A smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. “So what do you do then?”

  “I drive around a lot.” I waved at the interior of Stennie’s car. “Let’s see . . . I go to parties. I buy stuff and use it.”

  “Fidel says you’re rich.”

  “I’m going to have to meet this Fidel. Does money make a difference?”

  When she nodded, her hairworks twinkled. Comrade gave me a knowing glance, but I paid no attention. I was trying to figure out how she could make insults sound like compliments when I realized we were flirting. The idea took me by surprise. Flirting.

  “Do you have any music?” Treemonisha said.

  The Alpha asked what groups she liked, and so we listened to some mindless dance hits as we took the circle route around the Laurel Reservoir. Treemonisha told me about how she was sick of her parents’ store and rude customers and especially the dumb Green Dream uniform. “Back in Elkhart, Daddy used to make me wear it to school. Can you believe that? He said it was good advertising. When we moved, I told him either the khakis went or I did.”

  She had a yellow-and-orange dashiki over midnight-blue skin-tights. “I like your clothes,” I said. “You have taste.”

  “Thanks.” She bobbed her head in time to the music. “I can’t afford much because I can’t get an outside job because I have to work for my parents. It makes me mad, sometimes. I mean, franchise life is fine for Mom and Dad
; they’re happy being tucked in every night by GD, Inc. But I want more. Thrills, chills – you know, adventure. No one has adventures in the mall.”

  As we drove, I showed her the log castle, the pyramids, the private train that pulled sleeping cars endlessly around a two-mile track, and the marble bunker where Sullivan, the assassinated president, still lived on in computer memory. Comrade kept busy acting bored.

  “Can we go see your mom?” said Treemonisha. “All the kids at school tell me she’s awesome.”

  Suddenly Comrade was interested in the conversation. I was not sure what the kids at school were talking about. Probably they wished they had seen Mom, but I had never asked any of them over – except for Stennie.

  “Not a good idea.” I shook my head. “She’s more flimsy than she looks, you know, and she gets real nervous if strangers just drop by. Or even friends.”

  “I just want to look. I won’t get out of the car.”

  “Well,” said Comrade, “if she doesn’t get out of the car, who could she hurt?”

  I scowled at him. He knew how paranoid Mom was. She was not going to like Treemonisha anyway, but certainly not if I brought her home without warning. “Let me work on her, okay?” I said to Treemonisha. “One of these days. I promise.”

  She pouted for about five seconds and then laughed at my expression. When I saw Comrade’s smirk, I got angry. He was just sitting there watching us. Looking to cause trouble. Later there would be wisecracks. I had had about enough of him and his attitude.

  By that time the Alpha was heading up High Ridge Road toward Stamford. “I’m hungry,” I said. “Stop at the 7-Eleven up ahead.” I pulled a cash card out and flipped it at him. “Go buy us some doboys.”

  I waited until he disappeared into the store and then ordered Stennie’s car to drive on.

  “Hey!” Treemonisha twisted in her seat and looked back at the store. “What are you doing?”

  “Ditching him.”

  “Why? Won’t he be mad?”

  “He’s got my card; he’ll call a cab.”

  “But that’s mean.”

  “So?”

  Treemonisha thought about it. “He doesn’t say much, does he?” She did not seem to know what to make of me – which I suppose was what I wanted. “At first I thought he was kind of like your teddy bear. Have you seen those big ones that keep little kids out of trouble?”