At first I thought nobody'd even noticed. But I couldn't resist going back to the hardware store.
I pretended that in the excitement I'd forgotten to get my sheetrock whatever-they-are's. But I needn't have bothered. The same geezer was at the cash register and he recognized me. I don't know whether that made him super-good at customer service or simply in one of those dying businesses where you get almost no customers, so of course you recognize everyone. I mean, who fixes things anymore? I'd only been looking for the screws because Dinah was moving in with a whole wall full of pics of her family, and the damn things were antiques that wouldn't upload to my SmartFrames. You had to actually hang them, and you can't buy the hangers on the web if you don't know what they're called. You have to go somewhere where there's someone who understands when you say, I'm looking for those things you use to . . .
Anyway, this guy—who seemed about twice the age of Methuselah—recognized me right off the bat.
“You were in here when Bart got arrested, weren't you? Sorry about that. I've known him since his father used to bring him in as a tyke. If he's a terrorist, so am I.”
I wasn't sure what to make of that, but he was plenty ready to elaborate.
“What he is is a farmer. An old-fashioned dirt farmer. The type who actually works with his hands. Pesticides. Axle grease. Rutabagas, corn, peas, cow manure: Whatever he's working on, he's going to have it on his hands.”
Not to mention plenty of reasons to buy diesel fuel and fertilizer. Or PVC pipe, angle-widgets, or just about anything else. Crap.
But the proprietor wasn't thinking about me.
“If I told him once, I told him a thousand times, ‘Wash your hands before coming to town. If you smell like a bomber, you're going to get treated like one.'” He sighed. “Well, they'll figure it out eventually. Last time, it took a month. Guess it takes ‘em that long to figure out their damn high-tech ain't really so high. It's like that personal-assistant my son-in-law wears. It's supposed to be his house key, thermostat, garage-door opener, medical screamer, calendar, and heaven knows what. But it's always doing somethin’ weird, at least when it's not too busy cloning ads onto anyone he gets close to. Like to drive poor Audrey—that's my daughter—nuts.”
For the first time, he seemed to notice me as something other than another witness to farmer Bart's downfall. “You're a nice clean-looking guy. Mind telling me what you use for spam remover? Poor Audrey, she's tried everything. Even went to the personal-assistant gizmo's manufacturer for spam-blocker. Pure extortion, I tell ya. And even that didn't work. So long as Charlie won't get rid of that thing, the damn ads keep coming back.”
He sighed again. “Anyway, what can I do for you?”
Whatever ultimately happened to farmer Bart, I got a raise. Fifteen hundred a month became two thousand.
The false alarms vanished. No more paper mills, perfume, or farmers for me. I'd not bothered to tell the hardware guy, but young Charlie's problem was that he'd been a cheapskate buying his silly personal-assistant. The aggressive spam proved it. The cheaper the product . . .
Apparently, even at fifteen hundred a month, I'd been a bargain for H.S. No longer; I was now classy, like my mother's vanishing watch.
Meanwhile, I told Dinah the extra money was from the office-drone job and took her to the fanciest restaurant in the Pearl District.
I was already wondering how to turn two thousand into twenty-five hundred.
* * * *
Where do you find terrorists? Where they congregate, of course. Far right politics? Far left? They differ only in ends. Same for religious groups. Hyper-fundamentalists of any stripe have more in common than they would admit.
And if the hardware-store geezer was right, and old Bart really did go free every time they caught him . . . well, who'd been hurt, really? Inconvenienced a bit, but it served him right for messing around with things any idiot knows would draw attention.
So I joined a mosque. Three, actually. And a temple. And two churches. Not to mention several political parties most people never heard of. Plus Alcoholics Anonymous, though those were the folks who most wanted me to get in touch with my higher power. “Hi. My name's Alfie, and I'm an H.S. ‘wearer seeking a promotion . . .” Yeah, right. And who do recovering alcoholics want to bomb, anyway?
For a year, none of this generated anything useful. My income stayed at thirty thousand, plus the drone job.
Then, one day, my phone-tat rang.
Nobody's supposed to know the number. Hell, I didn't even know anyone could call it.
Luckily, I was alone. I stroked my forearm to pull the tat to the surface, then raised my wrist.
“Hello . . . ?”
“We like your initiative.” Male? Female? For all I could tell, the voice was computer generated. Androgynous. “But the folks you're trying to find aren't into chemicals or biologics. And if they were, they'd know how to mask them. But there are other ways. Do you want the undercover upgrade?”
“The what?”
“I can't tell you the details.” There was a pause. “But I can tell you this; it can do psych profiles, just from voice and proximity sensors. And call the cavalry if you're in danger. It's another implant, but quick. Ten-day recovery. Think of it as a vacation from your day job. We'll up you to three thousand a month.”
Thirty-six grand a year, just for an implant. Tax-free under the Homeland Priority Act. With a day job on top of it. What would you say? Me, I said yes.
* * * *
The first time I got arrested was at an AA meeting.
“We figured it was a good way to get you used to it,” my tat-phone said, after I was mysteriously released.
“What do you mean?”
“If you hang out with perps, we've got to arrest you too. Otherwise it's suspicious. Then we kick you and a few others on technicalities.”
“What did these guys do?”
“Nothing. They're already home. But for each real bad guy you find, we'll give you an extra five hundred a month.”
* * * *
My mother didn't like the new car. Or Dinah's shoes and purse. Or the City Grill dinner we'd taken her to on her birthday.
“The view's nice,” she said, glancing at the city lights spread below our thirty-ninth floor window-side table. “But I don't need all this.”
“You're worth it.”
“I didn't say I wasn't.”
Dinah had slipped away to take a powder or whatever today's women call it, but my mother still felt the need to lean in, conspiratorially. “And I don't want you bankrupting yourself for me. Or her. Purses like that don't grow on trees.”
“She has her own job—”
I was spared by the waiter, who chose that moment to refill my glass from the estate-bottled pinot Dinah and I were sharing. I'd not actually spent a lot of money on her while we'd been together. More like proving I could keep up with her.
“I'm doing okay,” I said when the waiter left.
My mother shrugged. “I don't need stuff.”
On the table in front of her was a jeweler's box, wrapped in green paper and secured with a white bow. “Just ‘cause you can afford something doesn't mean you should.” She pushed the box across the table, toward me. Momentarily her sleeve rode up, revealing the wrist tattoo. Still classy. Simple. Not cheaply so, but in a way that asserted she was her own person. “I'm sure this is nice, but whatever it is, you're worth a thousand of them.”
Then Dinah was back. I pocketed the box, trying to distract her by refilling her glass before the waiter had a chance. But there were questions in her eyes.
I stared out the window, toward the bay and the headlights streaming alongside it, shoving aside memories of taking the blame, again and again for messing up that same freeway.
I'd come a long way since then. Rather than crisscrossing Harborside, waiting to see if I'd be poisoned, I was looking down on it from one of the finest restaurants in town.
“You know,” I said, “we nearly lost our re
servation when you weren't ready on time.” I forced my gaze back to my mother. “We're lucky we're not eating at McDonalds.”
It had taken the promise of an extra hundred dollar tip to hold the table, and even then I'd been given only forty-five minutes. If there'd been traffic, we'd not have made it.
“Sorry.” She didn't sound contrite. “I was at a meeting.”
“What kind of meeting is more important than your forty-ninth birthday?”
“My one thousandth.”
* * * *
Bad guys were hard to find. AA wasn't the place. Nor were the mosques, churches, or temples. I got arrested a couple more times, but mainly so my handlers could see how everyone else reacted. Pretty much like ordinary citizens, as far as I could tell, with a bit of extra outrage at being singled out. Like me and the Eye Team. Mostly they were folks like my mother, doing the equivalent of keeping sober, meeting after meeting. Seeking a higher power to ease the path.
If such a power existed, what would it think of me? Was I doing anything useful or merely chasing shadows within phantoms? I knew terrorists existed—every few months something somewhere blew up to prove it—but now that my ‘wear was better tuned to identify them, it wasn't finding any. Had I lost my initiative . . . or were the people I was looking for simply too good at hiding?
As time passed I found myself looking for a test.
There are no false alarms, one of the H.S. drones had told the Eye Team, the second or third time I got blamed for Harborside. The sensors are always right. But that didn't mean they always sensed the right things. Fertilizer bombs or farmers? On the surface they smelled the same.
What gave off the same signals as someone living the lie of a sleeper terrorist?
I tried theater, in community playhouses so small you practically had the actors in your lap. Nothing. I joined a fiction writer's group. Same result. My ‘wear was smart enough to ignore people who knew their lies carried no risks.
I tried piano and violin recitals, but it also knew stage fright for what it was.
Then I hit on circuit court. Divorces or child-support cases would have been fun, but criminal was better. After all, everyone knows that ninety-five percent of those guys are guilty. They were going to jail anyway, so it wouldn't be a big deal if H.S. got a shot at them first.
The first trial, nothing happened. But the defendant was acquitted, so maybe he was one of the five percent.
The next time, five minutes into the defense's case, my arm started to itch. I pulled up the sleeve and was presented with blue freckles.
There was only one problem. The defendant hadn't said a word. Only his defense attorney had spoken.
A couple of minutes later, my other arm buzzed. Not quite audibly—more a sensation than a sound. Pulling up that sleeve, I saw the outline of my satphone emerging into view.
I raised my forearm to my mouth, as discreetly as possible. “Yeah?”
“What the hell do you think you're doing?” The voice was loud enough to make discretion impossible. The defense attorney broke off. The judge's head swiveled. In the sudden silence, my caller might as well have had a bullhorn. “What the hell is this about? I'm listening to the playback—”
The judge was glaring like someone's grandmother. Not the good kind. “Shut that off.” It wasn't a bellow, but was all the more frightening for its calmness. “Now.”
My caller either didn't hear or didn't care. “—he's talking about a damned burglary!” No calm authority here; this was the royal chew-out.
The judge banged her gavel, but hanging up on your handler isn't good for the career, and my caller hadn't finished with me. “We're not paying you to catch burglars for God's sake! Even if that guy is lying through his teeth—”
* * * *
Judges like mistrials even less than people disturbing their court. If she could have jailed me, I'm sure she would have. Luckily my H.S. emblem slowed her down, though she wasn't happy I wouldn't tell her what the hell I'd been doing. “Classified,” I said when we were alone in chambers, though it probably wasn't. H.S. would love the baddies to believe it had an army of folks like me, awaiting their tiniest slip. “And wasn't the lawyer breaking some kind of rule?”
That's when I knew for sure she wasn't going to jail me. “That's not totally clear. It was an opening statement, not testimony.” She actually gave a tight smile. “Defense attorneys don't have to believe in their clients’ innocence.” She leaned back in her chair. “Just how good is that lie detector of yours?”
I started to speak, but she shook her head.
“No, don't tell me. Unless they change my job, it's better not to know.”
Which was too bad, because my answer would have been, “I don't know.” Good enough to catch an attorney who thought his client was one of the ninety-five percent—that was all I knew.
* * * *
I found myself remembering old Bart. Had he gotten out? Gone back in because he couldn't figure out how to avoid smelling like a terrorist? My new sensors were supposed to peer deeper. They were certainly more selective. But was it simply another level of illusion?
Meanwhile, I was trying to forget my mother's birthday. Why had I thought she'd be impressed by my car, Dinah's shoes, the gift? That was my spy movie “Momma.” And why on Earth had I picked that name when my mother and my quest for H.S.—money? power? conformity?—had so little to do with each other?
The box had contained a pair of diamond earrings. A month's pay. A statement of my mother's worth. Which she'd bounced back at me in another impossible assertion. A thousand meetings; a thousand months’ pay. Twenty years’ living for each of us, rolled into a single number.
* * * *
Eventually, I could stand it no longer.
In the months after my mother's dinner, Dinah and I had graduated to a new type of relationship. I wasn't sure what to call it, but it was as though by pushing back the unopened jewelry box, my mother had opened something between Dinah and me. Something that connected us in new, unexpected ways.
I still drove the car. Dinah still liked nice clothes. Our apartment was Pearl District chic. But I'd finally figured out my mother's “better way.” It wasn't just a declaration of sobriety. Stuff was fun. People were what mattered.
* * * *
Why is it that crises always come to a head at two a.m.?
Dinah was asleep. I wasn't, and wasn't going to be. Along with the new relationship had come a sense of incompleteness if, at night, she wasn't within easy touch. Awake, staring into the dimness, my hand was already on her shoulder.
I gave a gentle squeeze. “You awake?”
Of course she hadn't been, but she managed to reach up and squeeze my hand, then squirm back until we were spooned. “Thasss nice . . .”
She was drifting off again, but I didn't let her. “Is what I'm doing really worth it?”
“Urp?”
“I'm serious.”
She rolled toward me, forcing herself awake.
We'd lived together for eighteen months but suddenly I loved her like I didn't know was possible. “If you don't like your job, quit,” she said. “We can live on what I make.” Her head pulled back, suddenly intent. “Or adjust. Money's nice, but it's you I want.” I wished I could see her face, but it was just a blur. “I've not told you much about my childhood. But we were always broke. I was determined never to let it happen to me.”
“I—”
“Shhh. If you really dislike that job so much, find something else. Go back to school. Do something fun. Find yourself. I'll still be here.” She tapped my chest. “It's you I love.”
“I . . . There are things you don't know. The money doesn't come—”
But suddenly, she wasn't paying attention. “No!” she screamed. “No, no, no!” She was sitting up now, arms out from beneath the covers. “No!”
Even in what little light made its way through the curtains, I could see freckles on her arm. Freckles that had never been there before. Freckles that seemed
to be glowing, ever so slightly.
“No!” A panicked look my way. “Ohmygod! No!” She grabbed me, hugged me fiercely. “I told you we were always broke. I was always afraid there wouldn't be enough. But that was before . . . I'm sorry. Ohmygod! No!”
Suddenly, my right arm itched. No dots for me. Mine were tiger stripes, harder to see in the dimness, but visible enough.
I showed them to her. Couldn't find anything to say. She'd produced a panicked torrent of words, but I felt as though my world had suddenly come to a halt.
There were sirens in the distance. Probably a whole SWAT team, like the one that swooped down on poor farmer Bart.
Somehow, that gave me the words. “We've done nothing wrong! Just tendered our resignations in a rather . . . unusual . . . way.” I looked at my tiger-striped forearm. Knew it was listening. “There are indeed false alarms!” I shouted at it. “The sensors may be right, but what are they sensing?"
There were boots on the stairs.
If you're about to be arrested in the arms of the love of your life, do you spend those precious seconds holding her, or grab for clothing? I pulled her to me, kissed her, then whispered in her ear, hoping our ‘wear couldn't catch it. “Farmer Bart got out.” It was more a declaration of faith than certainty. But nothing meant anything if he hadn't. Not that she had any idea what I was talking about.
I gave her the name of the hardware store. “I have no idea how long they're going to keep us, or what's going to happen while we're gone. But if you can't find me any other way, tell the proprietor where I can find you.”
“Why not your mother?”
“Because she's the one who always knew there was a better way.” Because she really was, after all, political. The worst kind: the kind who didn't give a rip about politics.
Then the door burst in and I held her again, even as hands were pulling us apart. “Not political!” I shouted. “We just want to quit.”
And then, absurdly, “My mother makes the best snickerdoodles. . . .”
Copyright © 2011 by Richard A. Lovett
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