Near the shore he can stand waist deep on the sandy lake bottom. He bends over, holds his head under water, and softly massages his temples, and then his scalp. Get all the dirt out of his hair, he thinks.
He'd like to stay here, maybe lie in the sun for a while. But Inspector M is expecting him. That has to be Inspector McCord. Russ McCord. Bobby's dad. Funny, but he'd never thought to ask Russ his last name.
How exactly did it happen? It doesn't matter. Kyle admits, those last few days he was weird and getting weirder. Bobby must have said something to his dad. Maybe Randy said something to Bobby. And if one day Randy realizes how his dad got arrested, he hopes the boy won't feel guilty. It wasn't your fault, Randy. This is bigger than all of us.
Kyle will come back here later today, he thinks. Back to the attic, back to this lake. Soon this is where he'll live.
But right now he has an appointment to keep.
Copyright © 2007 John Phillip Olsen
[Back to Table of Contents]
THE BEST OF YOUR LIFE—Jason Stoddard
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Illustrated by Warwick Fraser-Coombe
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Jason's fiction has appeared in Interzone, Sci Fiction, Strange Horizons, Futurismic and many other places. He is a finalist for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award and Sidewise Award for Alternate History, and his day job is in metaverse development. More information is available at xcentric.com.
* * * *
VerV's reality fetish stretched to real live meetings with real live people in a real live physical office. Frank Deppo supposed it made sense. It was, as their brags whispered, The first day of the best of your life. But braving the surly automated buses of the San Fernando Valley, Inc, wasn't anything he wanted to do again. The deep-fried stink of biodiesel didn't cover the odor of the dirty mallsteaders and blank-eyed brainhive-members. Frank ignored their envious looks as he stepped off the bus outside VerV's retro-cubilinear tower.
Sorry, guys, he thought. Burn ten years of your life, and maybe you can do the same.
Inside, VerV was decorated with carefully-faded reproductions of 100-year-old movie and television stills—It's a Wonderful Life, Leave it to Beaver, Father Knows Best—all broadcasting contextuals to Frank's whisperpod and monocle about how they represented the VerV corporate spirit. Underneath the stills, the activewalls glowed with scenes from VerV's newest communities, randomly selected by the deli-sliced editor that created VerV's advertising: sunrise over the San Gabriel Enclave, painting the sleek neo-midcentury homes in shades of fire; a young father pushing his freckle-faced, golden-haired daughter higher and higher on a cheerful pastel-colored swingset; a lazy family stretched out in the greenbelt, reaching hands to point at slow meteors of spacejunk dropping from orbit; a beautiful woman in an open-collared business suit, reading to her son who lay wrapped in whipped-cream covers; a sharp-dressed man driving a shiny red DCX Dart through windswept gengineered weeping willows.
Below the displays, a young woman with purple-tinted hair scrolled through a bragscreen, her face puckered into a dramatic frown. Three LifeStylists stood behind her, shrugging and exchanging eyes-rolled glances. One held crumpled sketches on real paper. Frank caught glimpses of a huge Tudor overlooking a lake, with a husband and a servant and a small purple-haired child playing with a dog. His whisperpod and monocle spilled data on the three LifeStylists, none on the purple-haired girl.
She can't be out of her teens, Frank thought. An IP kid. Or one of those freak brains, grown on the sly.
Suddenly Frank's ten-year indenture seemed like a gigantic weight, pulling him towards the undiscovered spaces of middle age. Still, he was going to get a life before 30. That was something.
"Mr Deppo?” a voice said, behind him.
Frank whirled. The voice belonged to a tall blonde woman, wrapped in a hermetically tailored maroon suit. She smiled and held out a hand. Green eyes, brilliant, fixed him.
Janit Peres, his whisperpods said. Frank's monocle scrolled public data, but Frank blinked it away.
"I'm Frank,” Frank said, taking her hand.
She held his hand a little too long, smiled a little too widely. “Welcome to VerV, Mr Deppo. I'm Janit Peres. I'll be your LifeStylist."
Frank shivered. This is it. This is the first day of the best of your life. Visions of lazy afternoons spent under a shade-tree, holding a glass of sipping tequila, came unbidden. Images of his beautiful dark-haired wife, wrapped in silk sheets...
"Mr Deppo?” Janit said.
"Oh! Sorry. It's just. Um. Well, it's real exciting to be here. To be getting a life."
Janit offered him a warm smile. “I understand."
Frank smiled back at her, feeling a surge of overwhelming gratitude. She understood. It was OK. He normally didn't like tall, aggressive blondes, but this one was OK.
"What now?” Frank said.
"We find an office, run through the preliminary lifesketch I've done, make some tweaks. Then, maybe head over to the Valley Overview Villas, and take a look at where you might live."
This was it. This was what he'd been working for.
Still, he couldn't help looking back at the purple-haired girl and asking, “What's her problem?"
Janit pursed her lips. “She's a difficult client."
"IP kid?"
Janit just smiled. “Shall we find an office?"
Frank lingered a moment more. He saw himself walking up to the purple-haired girl, pushing aside the LifeStylists, and asking her to run off and build a natural life together with him, just like they did in the old days.
The vision passed, leaving him with only one nagging question. Why does she get three LifeStylists and I get only one?
He shook his head. It didn't matter. He had a good LifeStylist. He could feel it.
* * * *
Janit's office was an efficient little cubicle set up against a massive glass wall that overlooked the sprawling farms of the reclaimed San Fernando Valley. Green-yellow hotplants cooked under layers of translucent polymer, near-boiling in solar heat from Fresnel concentrators. Farther-off, the heat bred mirages, making it look as if the entire south end of the Valley was submerged beneath a brilliant lake.
On Janit's desk was a inexpensive tea service, brewing what smelled like a credible Darjeeling.
Tea, not coffee. Of course. Janit knew him. It was her job.
"What do you know about VerV?” Janit said, pouring the tea.
"Anyone can have a life, but only a select few can have a life with VerV."
Janit groaned. “That's so old."
"Lives without Vs are lies."
"That's worse! Where did you find that one?"
"It's from the twenties. Before you switched to reality advertising."
"Ug. That's one that I wish we could purge off the global net. We've come a long way. Do you know why you're here, Mr Deppo?"
"I think so."
"Because there's no better life,” Janit said, waving a hand. Frank's monocle lit with data and charts, complex 3-d and 4-d diagrams like the topography of a dream-world. “We've combined the best loyalty discounts from homebuilders, companion tuners, appliance manufacturers, luxury food providers, land-leaseholders, blank and refurb providers, minerals-rights-groups, automakers, intelligence providers, comm groups, pet remediators, and a dozen or two that I can't remember off the top of my head. Then we factor in reduced taxes from the USG and local corps, and dramatically lower environmental impact fees to create the base. Then leverage out your projected lifetime value, forward-dated to the probable end of your career. By investing in VerV, you're investing in a life you literally could not buy any other way. Any questions?"
"It seems complicated."
"It takes a class-two hivemind to manage our financial arrangements. It takes a class-one to do the projections of future value."
"What if I get laid off?"
"That's been factored in. You have time to find another job or another career."
"What if I don't before the time limit's up?"
Janit gave him another dazzling smile. Frank relaxed. Nothing could be wrong. Nothing could possibly be wrong.
Frank's monocle changed to imagery of a business-suited woman, sitting at a breakfast nook with a husband and wife. They talked in lighthearted tones, just below the level of his hearing.
"And of course, with every VerV life, you are assigned a LifeStylist. Like me. Every three months, we come in and make little adjustments. Different vacations. Different tune on your wife or husband. Little upgrades, if your career trajectory exceeds our projections. Changes to keep things always interesting, always real."
"What if I don't want a wife?” Frank asked.
Janit frowned. “Don't tell me you're sold on the Space-Age Bachelor Pad idea. That almost never works out."
"Why not?"
"Higher fees. You're not bringing a tuned person back into the greater society. This wipes out a lot of discounts. Sure, you could have a flashier car, but you'll be living in a condo at the edge of the development, maybe even above one of the shopping centers. And it's not like your other bachelors or bachelorettes are going to be interested in you. They're seriously antisocial, typically. And about 90% male. And it's not like any of the tuned are going to have affairs. So you're limited to fishing the skanks from outside the enclave. Which won't make you very popular."
"I heard there was this one programmer who changed the tunes on all the wives and husbands and had himself a bit of a bisexual spree."
Janit frowned. “Urban legend. Probably started by independents living outside the system."
"There are really good docs on the net."
The frown deepened. Janit's fingers plucked at her earrings. “If it happened, it wasn't VerV."
Frank nodded. It didn't matter. Let it go, he thought. You don't want to antagonize your LifeStylist. She cares about you.
Frank picked up his tea and sipped it, knowing that it was true, knowing that it was VerV. It was a reasonably good Darjeeling, nothing knockout but not crap either.
"Good choice,” Frank said, nodding at the cup.
"It's my job to make good choices,” Janit said. “Though I understand you work more with wines."
Frank felt a warm flush of pride. “Associate lifestyle beverage designer, Seagrams grape products division."
"I would have thought that designing wine is a pretty sewn-up field. You take the great vintages, make molecular maps, and run tankloads with biomachine processes."
Frank nodded. “Yes, but there are secondary and tertiary effects. Where was the molecular map taken? At the center of the barrel? Near the surface? How efficient is the scavenging of the biomachine waste? There are still people who can tell the difference. But the real opportunity isn't in copying vintages. The real opportunity is using our knowledgebase of what constitutes ‘great’ to create synthetics that are better than anything that could ever be grown in Napa or Bordeaux. We can do it. I just need to fine-tune the knowledgebase a bit, make some extrapolations ... but I'm probably boring you."
Janit laughed. “Not really. But I understand you're a tequila man yourself."
"Mexico won't let us touch it. I'm sure there are some illicit copies, but they're damn proud of their tequila."
"But you could do better."
"Of course! Just like you do with lives, I can do with booze."
Janit laughed, and Frank joined her. For a moment he wondered if he could share his life with a woman like this, so tall, so bright, so aggressive. He shook his head.
"So, why don't we see some more of my choices?” Janit said.
"Yes, please."
Janit used the activewall to show Frank what seemed to be a very basic life. Small house near the wall of Valley Overlook Villas. Maybe a couple of hundred square feet of backyard. A small white Chevy, sensible and boring. Smiling simulated neighbors dressed in sensible clothes, driving sensible cars.
"Wait, wait,” Frank said, his stomach suddenly churning. “This seems pretty, uh, well, plain."
"You didn't expect the mansion, the Mercedes and the friendship with the governor to start, did you?"
"Well, no, uh..."
A brittle smile. “Those may come later."
But there are no guarantees, Frank thought, shivering.
"What if I want a better car?"
Janit pursed her lips and adjusted some figures. Frank's house changed into a townhome, his car morphed into a new Mustang.
"Can't I spend a little more?"
"Frank, I thought I explained that."
"What?"
"VerV takes in all the interlocking discounts and your entire lifetime value. You can't spend more."
"Oh.” Frank felt his stomach sink, like a lead weight in his gut. But this was the first day of the best of his life, and she was really trying to help...
"Can I keep going?” Janit said. “It gets a lot better."
Frank nodded, and the activewall changed again. This time, he was sitting on his front porch, sharing a glass of wine with a slender, dark-haired woman who looked up at him with quivering eyes full of love and admiration.
"Is that my wife?"
"Yes."
"Is that what she'd really look like?"
Janit glanced at her monocle. “If we act fast. She joined the to-be-tuned queue just yesterday, but there's already been several hundred views."
The scene zoomed in on her silky dark hair, her big amber eyes. Frank swallowed.
"Will she really love me?"
"One hundred percent certified, based on the best simulations and millions of uploads. She'll be tuned to you."
"Where did she come from?” Frank asked, still looking at the screen.
A shrug. “I don't know. Peoria or Mojave, who knows? Just another independent coming back into society. You're doing her a favor by taking her in."
Frank shivered, wondering what it took to put yourself up for tuning, what nightmares she must have suffered, what price she had paid.
Like ten years of your life, working hundred-hour weeks, living in the company dorms, not seeing sunlight for months at a time.
"I ... I don't know,” Frank said. Yes, this woman is great, she has my best interests in mind, his monocle told him she was top LifeStylist, four months in a row. But.
"I just wish I could afford a better life,” he said. “Like you. I can only imagine what your life is like—"
Janit barked harsh laughter. She rolled her eyes. “Me? I'm an indenture. Just like you were. Six years to go. But I work with one of the top Senior LifeStylists, and my trajectory is near-vertical. I'll take care of you. That's the only thing you need to know."
And she was right. Why worry? He couldn't buy this life.
"What next?"
"Why don't we head out to Valley Overlook?” Janit said. “It's so hard to see what your life will be like when it's projected on a wall. Why don't we go and meet your new neighbors?"
Frank smiled and stood up. That was something he could wrap his mind around. Maybe it would be a lot better in the real.
"I'd like that,” he said.
* * * *
The little DCX Micro pounded its way across the rutted boulevards of the reclaimed Valley, pulling envious glances at every bus stop. At a big crop processing center, the silver-suited plant-wranglers hung from the fractionating towers and chased them with high-pitched catcalls. Frank remembered yelling out the window of his parents’ disintegrating RV, as they braved the roads from free campground to free campground. He remembered one time, the blonde girl who looked at him in serene indifference as their polished silver Mercedes glided through traffic and disappeared. As if asking, Why are you jealous? As if challenging, Why can't you do this?
Frank wondered where his parents were. Probably in some independent community, waiting for their radical biotech to be defoliated by the corporates they stole it from. Probably still yelling out of the windows of that very same RV, just a little dirtier
and rustier than he'd last seen it.
They climbed out of the San Fernando Valley and into the hills. Frank could see the far side of the Valley, where neat rows of homes and bright white walls marked some of VerV's other communities.
Soon they were at their own wall. Blinding white stucco rose fifteen feet above their heads, punctuated by faux stone showthroughs for texture. Cut into the stucco was the name of the development, Valley Overlook Villas, and a discrete VerV logo. A massive riveted sheet-iron gate blocked the road.
"We're going with a more Spanish theme on this development,” Janit said, as the gate swung slowly inward. It revealed a sharp-cut new road and endless lots of golden earth, sprouting concrete and wood and aluminum.
"It's not built yet,” Frank said.
"Not entirely. We're heading over to the developed side, though."
Frank frowned. He'd expected to see the entire sweep of his new community, from the quaint shopping centers to the mansions on the hill. But there had to be some advantage to starting early; maybe he could move up.
"This will be a great enclave,” Janit said. “And it's only a few minutes commute to the design center you'll be working at."
"Where does everyone shop?” Frank said, as they passed raw foundations and stacks of cinderblock.
"We have a General Outlet set up, and a mid-tier shopping center almost complete."
"What if I don't like Spanish style?"
A momentary frown soured Janit's face. “Look. We could place you elsewhere, but your value works best in a newborhood."
"Yeah, but—"
"Plus, I really don't think you want to commute all the way across the Valley six days a week. We'd have to factor that into your car choice, too."
Frank shook his head. Work with her. She knows best.
But as they drove through the newborhood, he wondered. The streets were new, but long streaks of tan earth striped them dirty. Dust lay everywhere. And, as they got deeper into the development, the finished houses were tiny and plain, rough stucco shacks that looked even smaller than they had on the activewall.
They stopped near the towering wall. Little houses hugged the road on curving, claustrophobic streets. Some had grass and young new trees; some still had dirt. Landscapers worked quickly on one of the houses, unrolling bolts of lawn and placing faux boulders in strategically artistic locations. Frank squinted and tried to imagine what the neighborhood would look like when the trees had grown to overarch the road and block out some of the wall and sky, when it had lost some of its rawness. It could look good, he thought. But it would still be small.
Interzone Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine #213 Page 10
