Shadow of the Mothaship

by Cory Doctorow

theTyrant's oration.

  Someone's converted what was left of Roy Thompson hall into a big booming danceclub, the kind of place with strobe lights and nekkid dancers.

  It's been so long since I was at a bar. Last summer. When they first ascended tothe mothaship. I feel like an intruder, though I notice about a millionhalf-familiar faces among the dancers, people who I met or shook hands with ordrank with or fought with, some time in another life.

  And then I see Daisy Duke. Six months have been enough for her to grow her hairout a little and do something to it that makes it look *expensive*. She'swearing a catsuit and a bolero jacket, and looks sexy and kind of scary.

  She's at one of the ridiculously small tables, drinking and sparkling at a manin a silver vest and some kind of skirt that looks like the kind of thing Ilaugh at until I catch myself trying one on

  We make eye-contact. I smile and start to stand. I even point at my knee andgrin. Her date says something, and I see, behind the twinkle, a total lack ofrecognition. She turns to him and I see myself in the mirror behind her.

  My hair's longer. I'm not wearing a bathrobe. I've got some meat on my bones.I'm not walking with a cane. Still, I'm *me*. I want to walk over to her andgive her a hug, roll up my pants and show her the gob of scar tissue around myknee, find out where Tony the Tiger's got to.

  But I don't. I don't know why, but I don't. If I had a comm, I might try callingher, so she'd see my name and then I wouldn't have to say it to her. But I don'thave a comm.

  I feel, suddenly, like a ghost.

  I test this out, walk to the bar, circling Daisy's table once on the way andagain on the way back. She sees me but doesn't recognise me, both times. Ioverhear snatches of her conversation, "-- competing next weekend in ablack-belt competition -- oh, man, I can't *believe* what a pain in the ass myboss was today -- want another drink --" and it's her voice, her tones, butsomehow, it doesn't seem like *her*.

  It feels melancholy and strange, being a ghost. I find myself leaving the bar,and walking off towards Yonge Street, to the Eatons-Walmart store where Tony theTiger worked.

  And fuck me if I don't pass him on the street out front, looking burned andbuzzed and broke, panning for pennies. He's looking down, directly addressingpeople's knees as they pass him, "spare-change-spare-change-spare-change."

  I stand in front of him until he looks up. He's got an ugly scar running overhis eyebrow, and he looks right through me. *Where you been, Tony?* I want toask it, can't. I'm a ghost. I give him a quarter. He doesn't notice.

  #

  I run into Stude the Dude and hatch my plan at Tilly the horse's funeral. I readthe obit in the Globe, with a pict of the two of them. They buried her at MountPleasant Cemetery, with McKenzie King and Timothy Eaton and Lester Pearson.Stude can afford it. The squib said that he was going aboard the mothaship theday after the ceremony.

  Lots of people are doing that. Now that we're members of the Confederation,we've got passports that'll take us to *wild* places. The streets get emptierevery day. It's hard to avoid Dad's face.

  Stude scares the shit out of me with his eulogy. *It's all in Process-speak*. Itis positively, fricken eerie.

  "My Life-Companion goes into the ground today."

  There's a long pause while he stares into the big hole and the out-sized coffin.

  "My Daily Road has taken me far from the Points of Excellence, and I feel likemy life has been a Barrier to Joy for myself and for many others. But Tilly wasa Special Someone, a Lightning Rod for Happiness, and her presence graced mewith the Vision of Joy."

  And so on.

  I wait near the back until Stude finishes, then follow at a discreet distance ashe makes his way back to his place. It's not something I ever would haveconsidered doing last Hallowe'en -- the Stude I knew would've spotted a tail inhot second. But now the world has gone to jargon-slinging harmony and I'm brazenas I ride along behind on my bike, down Yonge to Front, and up to a new buildingmade of foam.

  I feel like a ghost as I watch him look straight through me, and I mark theaddress.

  #

  I spend a day kicking at everything foam.

  The foam is hard, and light, and durable, and I imagine the houses of myparent's suburb, the little Process enclave, surviving long past any of us,surviving as museum pieces for arsenic-breathing bugouts, who crawl over themummified furniture and chests of clothes, snapping picts and chattering intheir thrilling contraltos. I want to scream

  Here and there, pieces of the old, pre-Process, pre-foam Toronto stick out, andI rub them as I pass them by, touchstones for luck.

  #

  Spring lasted about ten days. Now we're into a muggy, 32 degrees Toronto summer,and my collar itches and sweat trickles down my neck.

  I'd be wearing something lighter and cooler, except that today I'm meeting myDad, at Aristide. They've got a little wire-flown twin-prop number fuelled upand waiting for me at the miniature airstrip on Toronto Island. Dad was *so*glad when I got in touch with him. A real Milestone on his Personal Road toLasting Happiness. There's even one of the Process-heads from Yonge and Bloorwaiting for me. He doesn't even comment on all my fricken luggage.

  #

  I hit Stude's place about ten minutes after he left for his trip to themothaship. I had the dregs of the solvent that he'd sold me, and I used that todissolve a hole in his door, and reached in and popped the latch.

  I didn't make a mess, just methodically opened crates and boxes until I foundwhat I was looking for. Then I hauled it in batches to the elevator, loaded it,and took it back to my coffin in a cab.

  I had to rent another coffin to store it all.

  #

  The Process-head stays at the airport. Praise the bugouts. If he'd been aboard,it would've queered the whole deal.

  I press my nose against the oval window next to the hatch, checking my comm fromtime to time, squinting at the GPS readout. My stomach is a knot, and my kneeaches. I feel great.

  The transition to Process-land is sharp from this perspective, real buildingsgiving way to foam white on a razor-edged line. I count off streets as we flylow, the autopilot getting ready to touch down at Aristide, only 70 kay away.

  And there's my Chestnut Ave.

  God*damn* the wind's fierce in a plane when you pop the emergency hatch. Itspirals away like a maple key as the plane starts soothing me over its PA.

  I've got a safety strap around my waist and hooked onto the front row of seats,and the knots had better be secure. I use my sore leg to kick the keg of solventoff the deck.

  I grab my strap with both hands and lie on my belly at the hatch's edge andcount three hippopotami, and then the charge on Stude's kegger goes bang, andthe plane kicks up, and now it's not the plane coming over the PA, but the Romantyrant's voice, shouting, but not loud enough to be understood over the wind.

  The superfine mist of solvent settles like an acid bath over my Chestnut Ave,over the perfect smile, and starts to eat the shit out of it.

  I watch until the plane moves me out of range, then keep watching from my comm,renting super-expensive sat time on Dad's account.

  The roofs go first, along with the road surfaces, then the floors below, andthen structural integrity is a thing of past and they fall to pieces likegingerbread, furniture tumbling rolypoly away, everything edged with roughfractal fringe.

  #

  Dad's greyfaced and clueless when I land. All he knows is that something madethe plane very sick. He's worried and wants to hug me.

  I totter down the stairway that a guy in a jumpsuit rolled up, ears stillringing from the wind and my big boom. I'm almost down the step when a littleProcess-troll scurries up and says something in his ear.

  I know what it is, because he's never looked so pissed at me in all my life.

  I'm a fricken *genius*.

  --

 
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