by Susan Juby
“They probably want to make sure I’m okay,” said Fon.
At Bright’s look, she corrected herself.
“Sorry. I was being how I am. Correcting course now. Check! Ten-four!” At points of high excitement, Fon tended to lapse into antique trucker talk, which she’d learned while playing Big Rig, a transport truck stop game in which the player drove for hours along a virtual highway while talking to other gamers.
Bright ran around to the driver’s side, squeezed herself under Slater’s head and started the engine. She waited impatiently for Fon to get in, which took an agonizingly long time because, once again, Fon’s dress and halo got caught. Slater’s legs and feet extended far out the open passenger door.
“Hurry!” Bright urged.
Fon wrenched her beaded dress free and heaved herself on top of Slater’s prone body. Beads skittered all over the road and clattered onto the floor of the cart as Bright peeled away from the curb.
Bright was too frightened to look into the rear-view mirror, but panting and rapid footfalls told her the PS officers were nearly on them. And to think she used to want more PS staff around her!
She heard yelling and thudding as the officers stepped on the beads and went down like an old joke. Bright ground the pedal into the floor, and the cart shook with effort and accelerated slightly until they were doing fifteen miles an hour, which was the top speed of a mid-credit cart. The sounds faded away.
They’d made it two blocks when Bright noticed a low groaning noise.
Slater.
She looked down. His clear blue eyes stared directly up at her from her lap.
“Bright,” he said.
“I’m here.” Her relief reminded her of the way she felt when she woke from surgery, all empty and new.
“Bright,” he repeated.
Splitting her focus between him and the road ahead, Bright repeated her assurances. Then she realized he wasn’t really looking at her. He was staring at something only he could see. Whatever that light did must feel so good. Why did she have to be immune? She would love to be as high as Slater. Maybe once she was promoted to It, the light would start to work on her. Maybe they would adjust it so she’d get some crawling-around time.
Her foot eased off the pedal at the thought.
“Hey, we’ve got one of the top Surf look guys in the cart, and it would be so cool if we could drive into the Natural Experience with a board or two,” said Fon. “Maybe we could borrow bikinis from the community bin at Slater’s house. That would totally blow everyone away.”
Slater’s head was very heavy. Bright worried about his neck. The edge of the steering wheel kept grazing his cheekbone.
“No,” protested Bright. “It’s not safe.”
“There are probably other favours being tested by It. There are probably other favours with lights and light-altered people heading to the Natural Experience right now,” said Fon. “We need the edge that only a fully developed look can give. If there’s one thing I know, and I know a lot of things, it’s success and competitive edges and stuff.”
They were only a few blocks from the Natural Experience, which lay at the edge of Mind Alter at the far western edge of the Store. The streets around the Natural Experience ran through a maze of empty lots that butted up against the membrane that divided the Experience from the rest of the Store. The low Mind Alter buildings lay behind them. No one wanted to build anything too close to the least fun area in the Entertainment Zone.
“Slater isn’t even all the way in the cart,” said Bright. “Don’t you think getting his feet inside matters more than trying to make our outfits match him?”
“No. I don’t think that. The best look would be Sun-Stroked Surf Kids. It would help explain why he’s lying down. But to pull it off, we need the boards.”
They were almost at the gates. The Natural Experience was the only gated area in the Entertainment Zone. A rubbery black membrane—the same material as the skin that covered the Store, but thinner—separated the Experience from the rest of the Store. It rose high into the air, almost to the roof. A thin strip of strange light glowed unhealthily at the top of the barrier. Bright felt sickness rise in her stomach and up her throat. The Natural Experience was like a living thing behind that barrier, with its strange light and unsettling naturalness everywhere. No wonder no one ever willingly spent their credits there.
She pulled the cart up close behind four buses packed with children, heading into the Natural Experience for educational tours. The buses hid the cart from the view of anyone standing at the gate.
Bright edged the little cart around the side of a bus so she could get a look at the gate. At least four PS officers stood at the entrance. Several more surrounded the first bus in the lineup.
What had the strange PS officer said? They shouldn’t let anyone know they were from the House of Gear? Her sand cart’s adverpanels clearly said “House of Gear.” And she carried a parachute bag, which everyone knew was a popular accessory at the House of Gear right now.
She gritted her teeth, then put the cart in reverse, turned it around, and drove away as unobtrusively as possible considering the long pair of legs jutting out the open door.
“You’re making the right decision,” said Fon. “Better to have no look than a half-finished one.”
Fon couldn’t have been comfortable sitting on Slater’s thighs with her legs pinned against the dash, but she appeared perfectly satisfied. “Don’t worry about being late,” she said. “We’ll make up for the lost time with cute accessories.”
14.00
When Grassly’s Mother had realized the extent of his interest in the ancestors, she’d told him that, yes, they were fine dancers and that, at one time, they were powerfully motivated by love, just like 51s. Unfortunately, their drive for material and emotional security and short-term gains had eradicated their compassion for one another. That, she said, was their great tragedy and the lesson for 51s, who’d been lucky enough to be given a second chance. The only words Grassly had heard were “second chance” and “dancers.”
Looking around the body-strewn VIP mind alter room after the three favours left, Grassly had started to second-guess himself. Perhaps, instead of focusing on light-induced migration, he should have learned how to trigger the ancestors’ love instincts. But once he’d begun the unpleasant chore of dragging the bodies into the supply closet, he quickly revised that opinion. Considering how easily they killed each other, it seemed impossible that the ancestors could be deeply influenced by anything so reasonable as love or compassion.
Now he stood in the midst of another gathering of PS staff, awaiting yet another update from the commander. This time, the commander had summoned the PS staff from the entire Partytainment District.
The assembled officers had begun to radiate thoughtless aggression. So many turtlenecks. Part of Grassly wished he’d gone undercover among the gamers. They got to wear those shiny shirts and fetching vests. Unfortunately, he was too tall and broad across the shoulders to pass as a gamer.
When the commander strode to the front of the room, he appeared even more puffed up than he had during the first meeting. Grassly read in the man’s posture, voice, and heart rate a deep agitation. He also noticed that the man’s left hand twitched spasmodically and that he kept it tucked behind his back, a gesture that made him look much older than his twenty or so years. He was trying to hide signs of biological degradation.
Grassly didn’t want to get caught studying the commander too closely, so he perused the room instead. They were in the Deep Sea Dance Bar in the House of Splash. The top half of the room was painted sky blue, and lights embedded in the ceiling directed wavy beams toward the floor, like sun penetrating water. The lower part of the room shaded toward darkest blue, and small projectors embedded in the walls sent images of deep-water creatures of the kind that used to inhabit Earth’s oceans (and that still swam in H51's clear, deep waters) swimming through the air so that they seemed to brush the dancers. It was
a marvellous effect. Grassly had spent many invigorating hours watching dancers in the Deep Sea Dance Bar. That was how he’d learned the riptide and injured a hamstring trying to do the bottom feeder scuttle.
Of course, there were no dancers in the Deep Sea Dance Bar right now. All House of Splash personnel had been confined to quarters while the PS staff met.
The commander’s voice was a croak, but none among the assembled seemed to notice.
“Two of the favours who worked the third shift at the House of Gear have disappeared. They have taken with them all the other favours in their leisure unit. We now consider all favours from the House of Gear, the House of Boards, the House of Splash, the House of Office, and the House of Bends potentially compromised. It is likely that favours in those houses have become carriers of the infection that has begun to spread across the Entertainment Zone.”
The PS officers, row upon row of them, stood in perfect silence.
Grassly could only imagine how stressful it was for the commander to stand in front of so many mirrored dataglasses, so many releasers, while displaying obvious signs of degeneration. No wonder the man’s heart raced.
“The Board of Deciders has asked me to use my discretion in this matter.”
Grassly had to stop himself from protesting. He had programmed the feed to alert him to any information issued from the Headquarters, and the Board had done no such thing. “I have decided—”
Grassly noted the choice of verb. Subtle, but effective. The commander was making a power play.
“—on the Board’s behalf that, since the House of Splash appears to have been the scene of more anomalous events than any other location, we will release all the favours in this house to be sure we’ve contained the problem.”
Grassly’s mind raced. He’d tried to spread his experiments around. Only one House of Splash favour had … reacted badly. The commander was lying again. Or his ability to add properly was profoundly impaired. There was no reason to kill everyone in this house!
The commander’s voice grew stronger. “We will also change the parameters of the search for the missing leisure unit to include the directive to release members of the unit on sight. This is to prevent the infection from spreading outside the favour population.”
Grassly hoped Bright and Fon had made it safely to the Natural Experience and were now hiding out there. The only good news was that PS officers were so unused to independent observation and analysis that they were probably poor detectives and would have a hard time tracking their quarry.
He reviewed his plan: he had to enlighten all the ancestors as soon as possible. To do that, he had to hack into the source code that ran all the systems inside the Store. He could handle the programming. After all, his people were immeasurably more advanced than the ancestors in all conceivable ways, but especially in terms of technology. The trouble was, in order to reprogram all the lights to the range and frequency that would cause widespread enlightenment, he would have to reboot the entire light system. If anything went wrong during the reprogramming, the life support system inside the Store might crash. The ancestors would die. He would die. That would be a major blow to his future plans and self-esteem.
Furthermore, he had to figure out how to turn the lights back on. He felt quite sure the Deciders wouldn’t do it. As far as he could tell, they hadn’t executed an action of any kind in over a generation. He could go to the Headquarters and flip the master switch himself, but how would he protect his skin from the altered light that would blaze down and fry him? It would be much safer for him to already be in the Natural Experience when the lights in the rest of the Store came on.
If he cleared those hurdles, he had to figure out how to usher several thousand light-altered ancestors to the ship. Now he was going to have to do all this while stopping the PS staff from killing every favour in the five targeted houses.
He felt overwhelmed for a moment, but there was no time to take an attitude adjustment. His Mother would have told him that he would know what to do when the time came. She would remind him that he was never alone. But now, in this place, he felt very much alone.
When the PS officers began to file out of the room, Grassly slipped into a corridor and headed for a privator that would take him up to the House of Splash living quarters.
15.00
Getting Slater out of the cart and into the House of Boards was just about the hardest thing Bright had ever done, and she’d done a lot of hard things lately. But he seemed more alert and kept looking from her to Fon as though they knew answers to questions he couldn’t remember. As they walked, supporting him between them, he stared at the top of Fon’s head.
“So pretty,” he said. “You totally remind me of …” Then his voice trailed off. A few second later, with great effort, he twisted around to gaze at Bright’s head. “So blond,” he said. “I have this urge to …”
“What are we supposed to say to the PS officers at the front door?” whispered Fon as they approached the House of Boards. “They’ll release him from his contract if they see him like this!”
“We’re transporting a fellow leisure unit member who’s had a late-breaking reaction to a personal maintenance procedure. Just look hot and let me do the talking.”
Bright could see that everything in Fon wanted to protest, but she didn’t because she knew that talking wasn’t her best thing. Was it her imagination or was Fon getting slightly less annoying?
As they got close to the entrance, Bright’s throat went dry. All of her felt dry. And empty. She should probably get some nutri soon. Too skinny was not a good look.
To her surprise, there were no PS officers stationed outside. No support staff inside, either. Immediately, it seemed like a less important and less valuable place. Then she remembered that she was supposed to avoid all PS staff, and her knees felt like they’d been replaced by a personal maintainer with competence issues.
Inside, the House of Boards looked much like the House of Gear, only most of the favours were peroxiders, no matter what their natural tint.
Bright and Fon walk-carried Slater to a privator that took them to the fourth floor, where Slater’s dressing room was. A favour dressed like a snowboarder waved as they stepped off the lift. She wore an unbuttoned white slicksuit and a full neck brace complete with wires and prongs that pinned her head and neck into position. The brace made Fon’s halo seem like the picture of easy mobility.
“Whoa,” said Fon. “How’d that happen?”
“Cosmetic,” said the snowboarder. “Broken Neck look is super-hot right now.” She winked awkwardly, as though her eye had been strained along with the rest of her.
Fon nodded, or rather semi-curtseyed to make her haloed head bob. She’d managed to put her halo up when they got out of the cart, but Slater had knocked it sideways so that the frame was smushed up against her ear.
“Looks good,” said the snowboarder, pointing to Fon’s battered halo. “Keeping it real with the OSA.” Fon looked confused.
“Old-style accessories,” explained the snowboarder.
At this Fon smiled and automatically turned on the halo’s flashers. The few bulbs left in the twisted frame blinked wretchedly.
“What about him?” asked the snowboarder. “Is that a look or is he …?” She didn’t finish her question.
“He’s awesome,” said Bright. “It’s Concussion look. Easy but effective. Very in right now.”
“Rad,” said the girl in the neck brace.
Bright and Fon helped Slater down a hallway lined with dressing rooms. Harsh music pulsed from the party rooms below. They passed water skiers in wetsuits half peeled off to reveal bare or bikini-topped torsos, carrying skis and dragging pull ropes attached to nothing. Bright and Fon edged Slater out of the way so a water ski jumper stumping along on crutches could get by. He wore a form-fitting, bright red unitard and two snap-on casts on his legs.
“So hot,” breathed Fon as he passed. He grinned at them, showing perfect gleaming, block-shap
ed teeth in So White It’s Almost Blue, shade #56.
When the crutch-assisted water ski jumper had at long last gone by them and into his dressing room, Fon said, “I wish we could incorporate injuries with our gear. I would kill in a cast.”
Bright stopped outside Slater’s dressing room.
“Remember,” she told him, though she didn’t think he was able to understand. “If anyone asks, you had a minor accident in Mind Alter. It’s nothing a quick trip to maintenance won’t fix. You are fine.“
Bright waved a hand in front of the door and it opened to reveal a favour in Old-Time Skinny Skier look sitting in front of a ready station mirror. She had on a fur-alike hat, and her skis, long and old and pretend-wood, were crisscrossed and strapped to her back. She didn’t get up or turn around when the door opened.
“Slater? Is that you? It’s about time! I’m totally stuck, dude!” said the girl.
When Bright’s image appeared in the mirror, the girl screamed.
“Oh my JOB!” she squeaked. “Scaredies! I was expecting Slater!”
Her hair was braided into two long yellow pigtails that hung down to her elbows. Red-faced from the heat of the dressing room, she wore old-fashioned ski boots, crinkly purple gaiters, and thick, obviously itchy short shorts. An unattractive vest completed the outfit.
“Can you help me?” she said. “I sat down for a minute before hitting the 360, but I forgot to take my skis off first, and I got stuck.”
Bright looked around the room. It was empty. She sighed with relief and dropped the parachute bag.
The girl finally noticed Slater’s reflection in the mirror. “Oh, hey, Slater! There you are,” she said.
Slater didn’t answer.
“He says hi,” said Fon, who was holding him upright.
Bright tried to pull the girl up by her shoulders, but the skis strapped to her back were caught on the chair.
“I never take the skis off until right before I get in the 360. The look is ruined without the skis. Without them, I just look like I’m wearing ugly shorts.”
