Misspent Youth (commonwealth saga)

by Peter F. Hamilton

  “There’s nothing to talk about. Dad’s got my girlfriend. What can you possibly say about that?”

  “We could start with how you feel about it.”

  “Feel? Feel! Alison, she was my girlfriend!”

  “I thought it was all over.”

  He let his head fall into his hands. “Yeah, well. It was over because he moved in on her. I found that out today.”

  “Are you surprised?”

  “Was that a joke?”

  “Let me put it this way. If it had been anyone else—anyone—other than Jeff, would you be surprised that Annabelle had found herself a new boyfriend?”

  “No. Suppose not. She’s so beautiful. Why, are you taking his side?”

  “No. I think what he’s done is despicable. It’s not something I’ll ever forgive him for, either. But knowing my big brother, I have to say I’m not surprised. And if you can withstand one more observation: I always thought Annabelle was sort of flighty.”

  “What do you mean, flighty?”

  “Let me put it this way, I don’t think the two of you were ever scheduled to get married and live happily ever after. I know she was the prettiest girlfriend you’ve had so far; and I know this is what I said last time, but you’ll find someone else just as nice. No, scratch that, nicer. Let’s face it, Tim, it takes two to tango. She’s not exactly innocent in all this, now, is she?”

  “No.” It came out as a hugely sullen grunt. “Suppose not.” He really didn’t want to examine that part of it. Simon was right about her. And she did to me exactly what she did to him.

  “You want a drink?” Alison asked.

  He was tempted. Just wash her out of his mind, his life, with a huge flush of drinks or synth8. The one thing he’d promised himself he would never do again.

  Because Annabelle didn’t like it.

  There were synth8s that would make this a whole lot easier to handle. Taking them would be so simple, making his life a pleasurable thing once more. He just had to stop being true to himself.

  With every cell in his body screaming to say the opposite, he said: “No thanks, Alison, my head’s in a big enough mess as it is.”

  “Tough it out, eh? Good for you.” She took another big sip of her gin and tonic. “Have you told your mother yet?”

  “No.” He shifted around as if the sofa was suddenly crawling with ants. “I was sort of wondering if you might do that.”

  Alison cocked one eyebrow at him. “How long till you leave for university?”

  40. GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS

  “YOUR SISTER IS CALLING,” the domestic computer said.

  “Put her on.”

  Alison’s face filled the big living room screen. At the best of times that scale was intimidating. With a scowl on her face she appeared more than a little frightening.

  “You stupid, stupid shit,” she said. The image vanished.

  The Official Jeff Baker Lifesite/News

  Following the amicable separation from my wife, I am fortunate to be able to announce that I have found someone new to share my life with. Ms. Annabelle Goddard and I have known each other for several weeks, and have grown close during this time. We are now making plans for a long and happy future together.

  “Call from your wife.”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t believe even you could do that. You thoughtless bastard. Have you got any idea what you’ve done to that poor boy?”

  “Oh come on, Sue, it was hardly deliberate. You were the one who let him come home early.”

  “Jesus wept, don’t you dare try and shift the blame on this. You and that juvenile tart should never have happened. Not ever, Jeff! Click, end call.”

  International Sun Leader

  >hyperlinks<

  International Sun/people & politics site

  International Sun/it’s your taxmoney site

  International Sun/topless topten site

  International Sun/shirt off for the girls site

  Rejuve grandpa bonks schoolgirl.

  Jeff Baker, the planet’s oldest teenager, has scored with an eighteen-year-old babe (bikini picture >hyperlink<). The superstud pensioner brazenly announced on his own lifesite that he was bedding the gorgeous Annabella Goddard. What he didn’t mention was that sensational Bella was just a schoolgirl when they met (pictured in her uniform >hyperlink<). The incredible reason why they got together, your International Sun has discovered, was all thanks to Jeff’s son, Tim, who was Bella’s long-time and devoted boyfriend. Innocent Tim introduced the pair when his old man came back from his fabulously expensive Euro Rejuvenation Treatment. Now the besotted dad’s gone and elbowed his pining lad aside so he can grapple with big boobed Bella (bikini picture2 >hyperlink<).

  Heartbroken Tim has wound up moving in with his aunty while the couple enjoy nightly romps in the playboy’s palatial home where poor Tim grew up. “I can’t stand living there anymore,” said the desperate boy, adding: “They’ve ruined my life.”

  What’s more, Bella isn’t the first girl the frisky Jeff has bedded since he finished his treatment. Sad Martina Lewis (picture >hyperlink<) had a very public fling with the insatiable Jeff several weeks ago. “He was all a girl could dream of between the sheets,” the rejected Martina said yesterday. But she doesn’t hold any grudges. “I wish Bella well. He’s a great catch.”

  The brainy hunk (picture >hyperlink<) has also featured heavily in Rob Lacey’s campaign for the European presidency. Last night, a spokesperson for the hopeful candidate’s office said: “Jeff Baker is an excellent example of rejuvenation. This latest development only proves how successful the treatment which Prime Minister Lacey endorsed can be.” Asked if Jeff would be taking any further part in the campaign, the spokesperson replied: “I think he’s got his hands full right now.”

  The International Sun says: You lucky bastard, Jeff, we’re right behind you, mate.

  Are you one of the girls Jeff has slept with? If you are and have a story to tell, contact our newsdesk >txtlink<. We pay the best for the best.

  English Independence Council Official Site

  Commentary

  Nice for Some.

  Jeff Baker cost trillions of our taxeuros to rejuvenate, and for what exactly? This is not a treatment that will ever be made available to everyone. It is the province of the elite. And that of course means the unelected Eurocrats that rule our lives, and their cronies in the Federal Parliament. They knew that before they funded the treatment, and they know it for certain now. Yet all they do is spit in our faces when we complain. They sold the project to their sheeplike followers because Baker would deliver some new gizmo for continental companies to manufacture and sell to us at exorbitant prices. Now, he can’t even be asked to do that, instead he’s shacked up with some teenage bimbo, screwing himself into a heart attack. Nice for you, Baker. We’d like you to remember who paid for you each time you wake up in the morning. Out here in the real world people are dying, people are oppressed, people are being slung in prison under foreign laws, and people are being robbed of their income so bastards like Lacey can further their own selfish ideology and lives. Why don’t you try and remember that, Baker? We’ll certainly remember you after the referendum, and before, too.

  Remember to use a scatterwall program after accessing this site. Don’t let Europol know you’re reading free speech, they don’t like it.

  It was the only call in a whole week that Tim roused himself to answer.

  The scuffed screen in his bedroom showed him Vanessa’s heart-shaped face creased with anxiety. She was regarding her own screen’s picture with almost maternal concern. “I should have called earlier,” she said. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t sure if you’d want to speak to anybody. How’s it been?”

  “Pretty shitty. The residents are furious with Alison for taking me in. There are reporters camped outside the estate gates, and there’s already been a couple of fights between them and the security company people.”

  “That’s awful. They’re so
much animals. Can’t the police do something?”

  “They say not. I just can’t escape, you know? The pair of them are all over the news streams. It’s like they’re a celebrity couple, or something; they’re getting the same kind of coverage that Sir Mitch and Stephanie do. God, even the DataMail interviewed Annabelle. Everything she said was just crap, how much she loves him, how much they’ve got in common. And I saw pictures of them going to the Summer Serpentine party together down in London. Then there was a thing about them at a nightclub in Mayfair.”

  “Filter it out, Tim, for heaven’s sake. You’re the best programmer out of all of us.”

  “Yeah, right. Did you know she was seeing him?”

  “No!” She shook her head in regret. “No, Tim, I didn’t. None of us did. Look, I’m majorly sorry it happened, but you’re too good for her. Really.”

  He knew he should smile at that, but couldn’t quite manage it. “Thanks.”

  “That’s what she’s like, Tim. Just a body, there’s no character there, no substance. If I’d been dating you, I would never have done that.”

  “But we weren’t dating.”

  “That’s just a timing thing. Hey look, are you still coming to the protest march?”

  “Dunno. Hadn’t thought about it much.”

  “Figures. But you know, you’re really due a break. Why don’t you come up here to Nottingham for a couple of days before? There’s room; and this house has a big walled garden, nobody would know you’re here. We could travel down to meet with the others afterward.”

  It took him a moment to realize what she was saying. How come she’d never given off signals when they were at school? Five years they’d known each other—and nothing. “That’s, er, really kind. But you so much don’t want me to visit right now. They’ve doubled the size of my bodyguard team, which is a huge pain. The Duke cow said the EIC were showing an interest.”

  “God, that is so much scary.”

  “I don’t suppose they’ll be interested in me. Christ, I hate him more than they do.”

  “It’ll all die down. These things do. The bodyguards will go away.”

  “I hope so. Call you back in a couple of days?”

  “I’ll be here.”

  41. SEMIBALLISTIC

  AFTER A COUPLE OF DAYS of dutiful attendance at the Houston physics conference they caught the daily American International flight to Antigua out of Miami. Despite the collapse of the Caribbean mass tourism industry, each flight was always full. Ever stricter industrial and bioethic regulations in the developed nations made the relocation of certain specialist core activities to the Windies an attractive proposition for a lot of companies and researchers. The most prominent was of course the private spaceflight operators, even though they were among the smallest financial contributors to the economy of the Caribbean islands.

  “I can’t see any spaceplanes,” Annabelle complained as they were on their approach to St. John’s. She was pressed up against the cabin window.

  Jeff looked over her shoulder. There was a row of large hangars at one end of the airport, made of geodesic solar panels. “Don’t worry, we’ll see them before we leave.”

  “Do you think we’ll meet Stephanie and Sir Mitch as well?”

  “It’s a small island.”

  THEY WERE BOOKED in at the Hawksbill Bay resort, thirty minutes from the capital across the island’s dilapidated roads. Their Mercedes taxi was ten years old, but thankfully the air conditioning was working well as it slowly negotiated the potholes and crumbling tarmac.

  Even before the rising ultraviolet radiation started bleaching tropical vegetation, the island had little land under cultivation since the sugarcane industry collapsed in the late twentieth century. Despite the revenue from the corporate laboratories and restricted heavily automated industrial plants that was paid into government coffers, the locals still lived much the same life as they always had. They fished and tended to their new GM banana trees provided by the UN Tropics Regeneration Office and nurtured small vegetable gardens and harvested natural-growing ganja, activities that left them almost completely disconnected from the global economy.

  When they finally started down the last steep slope toward the four coves that formed the resort, Jeff stared in mild astonishment at the clean deep-turquoise water of the Caribbean Sea. It was the kind of landscape he thought couldn’t possibly exist in the real world, belonging instead to some mocked-up tourist brochure. The beaches were composed of pristine white sand that gleamed brighter than snow under the dangerous midday sun. Behind them, a thick swath of GM royal palms and coconut trees marked the boundary between sand and the manky scrub bushes that covered the rest of the island. There was an old dark stone mill tower on one of the promontories, fronting the resort’s main building, a white pavilion-style structure that could have been transplanted from the heart of the British Raj. It contained the reception, restaurant, and bar. Three bellboys in scarlet polo shirts emerged and hurried out to the taxi to collect their luggage.

  Brightly colored parrots squawked excitedly from the foliage surrounding the reception-area fountain as Jeff booked in.

  “You’re Jeff Baker, aren’t you?”

  He turned to see a very pretty girl in a purple bikini and a white sarong skirt standing outside the entrance to the bar, a cocktail glass in one hand. She was in her early twenties, with implausibly long tousled blonde hair that reached below her hips. It must have been extensions, or the result of an exceptionally powerful genoprotein treatment.

  “And you must be Annabelle,” she continued. “We heard you were coming.”

  Annabelle gave her a slightly flustered smile. “Yes.”

  “Hi,” the girl squealed. “I’m Karenza.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Jeff said.

  Karenza gave a diffident shrug. “You don’t recognize me. I’m Jewel. From Sunset Marina.”

  “Oh, right,” Annabelle said. “Sorry, it’s been a long trip.”

  Jeff frowned. He was sure he’d heard the soap’s name before. Couldn’t think where. Surely he hadn’t started watching that kind of crap before rejuvenation?

  “There’s a whole bunch of us here,” Karenza said. She waved her glass toward the bar, slopping some of the liquid onto the floor. She was seriously drunk, Jeff realized.

  “Bunch of who?” Annabelle asked.

  “The cast. We’re doing a photo shoot for Pantherlux, their new catalog.”

  “Right.”

  “Are you coming to the bar tonight? I’d love to talk to you. We all would. I’ve never met anyone as important as you before.”

  “That’s a date,” Jeff said.

  The resort manager himself, Mr. Sam, led them along the second beach. Behind the sands, a long line of white-painted wooden chalets were tucked away under the palms, almost invisible amid the shadows and lush foliage. Jeff had booked the last one, right atop the promontory opposite the mill.

  As they walked along the gentle bluff above the beach, sweating from the tremendous heat, Annabelle got an impression of their fellow residents. Most of them were American, though she could hear several European languages being spoken. Men lazed around in hammocks, bellies hanging over floral swimming trunks, their eyes hidden away behind PCglasses as they muttered constantly to their interfaces. Their womenfolk lay on loungers, tanning themselves under white gauze UV-stopper parasols, or swam through the transparent water.

  Out to sea, beyond the angular pillar of black rock just offshore from which the resort took its name, seven big pleasure yachts were anchored in the lee of the distant western cliff, looking like a flotilla of miniature ocean liners. White hulls reflected sunlight across the water, while in complete contrast the long black windows of the upper decks appeared like rifts torn into deep space. All of them had swept-back triangular solar fins sprouting from the top deck, looking like bizarre mechanical flower petals.

  “Oh wow!” Annabelle exclaimed. “They are fabulous. This whole place is utterly fantasti
c.” She cuddled into him, her arms going around his shoulders. “Thank you so much for bringing me here.”

  “Hey, this is just as big a kick for me.” He kissed her.

  She gave him a beaming smile again, then turned back to the yachts. “Do you think Stephanie and Sir Mitch own one of those?”

  “I don’t know. I expect we’ll see the owners in the bar tonight.”

  “Along with Jewel,” Annabelle said coquettishly.

  “Oh yes. Her.”

  She poked him in the ribs, which turned into a tickling match.

  “Maybe the owners never come ashore,” he said after he’d caught her, hugging her to his side. “I wouldn’t. There’s no need.” He regarded the nearest yacht with low-level envy. A diving platform had been lowered down the stern. Two children were splashing about in the water beside it, overseen by a young man standing on the platform. Up at the bow, a couple of crewmen were washing the superstructure with long brushes.

  “Yes, you would.” Annabelle smiled knowingly. “You’d be bored out of your skull in a week.”

  He grinned back at her.

  From the outside their chalet looked as if it was nothing more than an elaborate version of the local Caribbean huts, with a broad palm-thatch veranda extending around three sides. Private stairs zigzagged down the small cliff to the beach. Inside, its Western heritage was more prominent. The walls and floor were polished hardwood. Air conditioning hummed efficiently. Big modern sofas were lined up on either side of the central table. There was a flat five-meter screen on the wall in the main room, with a full datasphere interface via the resort’s own satellite uplink. The master bedroom had a huge four-poster bed with broad mosquito drapes drawn up to the ceiling in an intricate rosette. Even the second bedroom had a double bed.

  “So much decadent,” Annabelle murmured as she went on into the marble-tiled bathroom. A huge spa bath occupied one corner, while broad patio windows led to an open-air shower. “Unreal in here, too,” she called out.