Point B (a teleportation love story)

by Drew Magary

“What are they?”

  Lara took Anna’s hand. Gentle. Feeling a touch bold, she fiddled with the signet ring on Lara’s freckly white finger, then she squeezed her hand and felt a tender squeeze back. Lara playfully returned the favor and fiddled with the rose pink bracelet hanging off Anna’s wrist. Anna’s hand, normally so hyperactive, was happy now. It was home.

  She slipped Lara a printout:

  8/9/29

  Rockville, MD

  “What is this?” Lara asked.

  “Can you see where other VIPs port?”

  “Only if I’m friends with them, and I keep all that on lockdown.”

  “Are you friends with Jason on WorldGram?”

  “No.”

  “I need to know if he was in Rockville on that date, and I need to know what time he was there if he was.”

  “Why?”

  Don’t lie. “I just need to know. It’s important.”

  Lara prodded. “What happened on this date? You can’t just almost tell me things.”

  “Oh God.”

  “Your sister,” Lara guessed.

  Anna burst out weeping. Lara followed suit. Between them, they could have flooded the Hobscott with tears.

  “My sister,” Anna confirmed. She braced herself for Lara to become defensive, to show her family blood. But instead, Lara straightened her spine and tucked the Post-it into her inside pocket.

  “All right,” Lara said. “I’ll find out for you. I can friend Jason and then unfriend him again quickly. He won’t think anything of it. He hates me.”

  “I can’t believe anyone hates you.”

  “Oh, Roomie.” Lara scooted closer and leaned into Anna to feel warm and safe. There they were: two girls huddled together, rootless and cold and bone tired from being so frightened. How Anna wished they could run away together. Oh, and the places they could run. Run away with me, Lara. Let’s run away together. To Cleveland.

  A hard wind blew in behind them. In the lights of the boathouse, all that Anna and Lara could make out was a tall figure with tight coiled hair and long bony fingers.

  “Oh, am I interrupting?” Emilia Kirsch asked them. The two girls sprang up from the edge of the dock, keeping their hands locked tight.

  “What are you doing here?” Anna asked her.

  “Well, I do own the place,” Kirsch said. “The question is: what are you doing here, Anna Huff?”

  “I’m not doing anything illegal, Emilia.” Something about Kirsch made Anna Huff bolder and ruder, which was gratifying for a solid half a second before the inevitable return volley came roaring back at her.

  “Oh but you were,” Kirsch told Anna. “Lara, what did she tell you? Did she tell you she was porting?”

  Lara took a step back. “I don’t remember.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes. Not your best work, Lara, although I don’t know why I would expect good work from you regardless.”

  “What are you talking about?” Anna asked. “Did you put Lara up to seeing me tonight?”

  “What, did you think she just wanted to hang?”

  Anna spun to face Lara. Spun so fast that her hair got caught in her mouth. “Lara?”

  “You don’t understand,” Lara told Anna. “She made me. I swear I wasn’t trying—”

  “Here’s a story for you, Anna Huff,” the elder Kirsch began, her bloodhound eyes tearing away at every stitch of Anna’s clothing. “Two sloppy and rude teenagers walk into a MyClub in San Francisco, flashing photos of a dead girl to the hostess, who, being a professional, alerts a manager, who then sees one of those teens play ace detective and make jayvee small talk with a soon-to-be-extremely-fired bartender. Then they port to Ho Chi Minh City, where the bartender tells them a completely farcical story about the Chief Creative Officer of PortSys being a bad little boy. Feel free to fill in any holes in my narrative.”

  “You pile of shit,” Anna said.

  “Save your anger and put it to a more constructive use.”

  “How could you do this to me?” Anna asked Lara. “You ratted me out?”

  “I swear I didn’t mean to hurt you,” Lara told her. “Mom just told me to come talk to you, that’s it. I don’t know anything about a dead girl. I don’t know anything about San Francisco. I don’t know anything about Jason.”

  “She’s mostly right about all that,” Kirsch said. “Little Lara, always carefree, always blissfully above it all. But you, Anna Huff: you’re more clever than I gave you credit for. How did get past my wall?”

  “I attained the privilege, dear,” Anna cracked.

  “Again, clever. You’re not quite smart yet, though. Once you’re both things, you’ll be quite the prospect.”

  “Screw you.”

  “Oh please, I’m too old and tired for that sort of business. Now, your friend Bamert is in dire straits, but I think we can see to it that you are not put up alongside him, so long as you know your place and get back to your studies.”

  “I’m gonna burn this place to the ground and make sure you’re in the center of it.”

  “No, you won’t. Think about dear Sandy, Anna. Think about how disappointed she’d be to find out her little girl blew her best chance at becoming somebody. It would crush her to see you not only expelled, but potentially prosecuted. Oh my! That would be dreadful, wouldn’t it? And what if your mother’s work dried up? All her income? What if she couldn’t even afford to stay in a ShareSpace, behind a decent portwall, hmm? What if it were just the two of you, alone in the free zones, where anyone could come get you?”

  Anna was never gonna get high again. That was the first thing. She was never gonna be this messed up when messed up things happened. Nope. She would remain stone sober for eternity if it meant avoiding this sort of bad trip. She was violent inside now, ready to spew out thick, venomous blood at Lara’s mother.

  “I’m doing you a favor tonight,” Emilia Kirsch told her. “I’m wiping your slate clean. You’ll never have to see the inside of Vick’s office again. You’ll never have to worry about any of the things that worried you before. Now you can get down to the business of being a happy and productive student. You could even meet a cute boy!”

  “I’ll kill you.” Dude, don’t say that in front of Lara.

  “Get in line, dear. Okay, this is as much time with children as I can usually handle in a day. Lara, please be on your way.”

  “No.”

  Emilia tapped her foot impatiently. “Lara.”

  Lara burst into tears and screamed at her mother, “I hate you!”

  “Leave.”

  Lara stepped back and took out here PortPhone. “Anna, I’m so sorry. Anna, I—”

  “GO,” her mother ordered.

  Lara hit PORT and a deathly chill swept over the dock. Anna was alone with Kirsch. With Lara gone now, she had no interest in being patient. She charged. Emilia sidestepped her and ported to the edge of the dock, leaving Anna to sprint directly into her shrill portclap.

  There was a stray oarlock resting among the frosted weeds. Anna grabbed it and hucked it at Kirsch, but missed her wide right by two feet. It went splashing harmlessly into the Hobscott, breaking the pristine reflection and settling on the bottom, never to resurface.

  “How’d you do it?” Kirsch asked Anna. “How’d you port out of here?”

  “By putting my foot in your ass and seeing where it took me.”

  “Curious, I don’t remember that. But you know what? I’ll let you keep your methods to yourself. Only fair that we agree to keep each other’s secrets.”

  “I agree to nothing.”

  “You already have. You made a fine test subject for our R&D lab, but your dealings with the Kirsch family are now over. And never call me Emilia, not if you ever want see what’s left of your worthless family again.” She took out her PortPhone. “Oh, and if you should ever decide to port away from Druskin in the future, just remember what’s out there waiting for you. Your sister found that out the hard way. We always know where you are, Anna Huff.”
>
  Emilia pushed a button and was gone, leaving Anna alone on the dock, stung red and raw by the whole Kirsch family, who were now little more than traces of bare wind.

  ASSEMBLY HALL

  Bamert’s parents hired a white shoe lawyer to present his case to the disciplinary committee and defend him on accusations of porting, stealing, drinking, having a loaded handgun in his room, and six additional official charges of Un-Druskinlike Conduct. For the hearing, Bamert wore a charcoal gray suit. No loud colors. No patterns. No funny little animals. All the color had been bled out of him. He may as well have been wearing a prison jumpsuit. Anna wilted at the sight of him as he and the lawyer walked up the endless Academy Building stairs and ducked into The Latin Room.

  She waited in Assembly Hall while Burton testified on Bamert’s behalf as a character witness. Anna tried to hear what was going on behind the Latin Room doors but the proctor shooed her away, leaving her to spread out on the front row of the orchestra section and stare at the bare stage. Everything in the Assembly Hall was old and dry as tinder. This could all burn so fast and hot. And so easily.

  Burton shambled out of the Latin Room and took a seat next to her. His testimony lasted thirty-five minutes and included a brief history of the Arthur Ashe monument in Richmond for some reason. Purest Burton. But he was flustered from his session and could only initially recap it in a stream of harrumphs and pffts so authentic that he deserved to be made an honorary father-in-law.

  “How’d it go?” Anna asked.

  “Hmph! Well, the format was ridiculous. I laid out an ironclad case. Afterward, they just asked me a bunch of questions off a form, like I was giving out information to a dentist. An entire Keynote presentation, completely wasted. Do you know how long it took me to convert the video files for it?”

  “Burton, is he gonna stay?”

  “You’re not hearing me, Anna. I’m already telling you: I made my case for him, and they didn’t care.”

  “Oh.”

  “He’ll be lucky if they don’t actively prosecute him for anything.”

  “Yeah well, this school has a nasty track record for keeping things in house.”

  “How are you holding up?” Burton asked her.

  “I’m not.”

  “You should go sleep.”

  “Everyone keeps telling me to sleep. Maybe I’m not sleeping for a reason.”

  “How’d your meeting with Lara go? Are you friends again?”

  “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

  “All right.” He looked away from Anna and quietly clicked his tongue, rapid-fire. He pointed to the stage and asked her, “Did you know the man who designed this hall also designed a series of Polish concentration camps?”

  “I did not,” Anna said.

  “Ah, but the story gets even better,” Burton promised.

  “How could it not?”

  “The architect, a nasty little bastard named Klaus Horst, demanded to design and build a Roman Catholic Cathedral on Druskin school grounds. The administration said yes, even though they had NO intention of making it a chapel. What they needed was this hall. So when the contractors finished construction of Horst’s blueprint and he came to visit, they brought in a pulpit and had one of the drama teachers dress as an ordained priest, like McDuff, to trick the man into thinking this assembly hall really was a church. Then Horst went back to Europe and made war prisons, never realizing he’d been duped.”

  “Was every building at this school designed by a complete asshole?”

  “Pretty much.” Anna laughed and Burton gently patted her hand. “It’ll be okay.”

  “Will you promise me something?” Anna asked him.

  “I can try.”

  “Promise me you’ll never work for PortSys.”

  “Why would I ever do that?”

  “Because money.”

  “I’ve come this far without money, so I think can deal. I came here to be a professor of wildlife ecology, not some drone with a black card.”

  “Christ, what if Bamert gets kicked out? I can’t stay here if Bamert gets the boot. What will we do?”

  “We could start a band.”

  “What?”

  “You play piano. I play the tambourine. We could start a band!”

  “No. No, we couldn’t.”

  The two of them played intense rounds of gin rummy against one another on the stage as they waited an hour for the kangaroo court next door to recess. Burton was one of the few people Anna couldn’t beat routinely. She would occasionally shuffle the cards for too long, rapping the split deck against the desiccated hardwood until Burton shouted at her to just deal. Finally, the door to The Latin Room cracked open and they stopped playing to hear the verdict.

  Bamert came out and hugged his lawyer. He walked into the Assembly Hall with a broad smile on his face. For a moment, Anna thought he had gotten off, but then Bamert drew his finger across his throat and her heart dropped.

  “Oh no,” she said.

  “It appears,” Bamert told them, “That Edgar really did want me to enjoy the gift of failure.”

  The three of them hugged as the committee of high-achieving suckups and taciturn school officials paraded out of the room and down the stairs. Vick caught Anna’s eye and gave her one of his repulsive, crooked half grins. She nearly pushed him down the stairs, but then again she nearly did a lot of things. Nearly ready to kill someone. Nearly ready to tell people she loved them right before they betrayed her. Nearly ready to take down PortSys. Now her best friend was cast out and she was there in Assembly Hall, fully aware that she was just another helpless teenager, nearly doing vital things but never doing enough.

  “What are you gonna do?” she asked Bamert.

  “I don’t know,” said Bamert. “Probably get more of that pho.”

  “I can’t be here without you. We can’t be here without you.”

  “Actually, I’ll be just fine,” Burton told them. They both glared. Burton got defensive. “Well, I didn’t want him to worry!”

  “I know you two’ll do fine,” Bamert told them. “You both have strong ethics. And Anna Huff, you have the heart of an ox.”

  She wrapped her arms around Bamert, her hands barely meeting behind his hulking back. He gave her a loving slap on the shoulder.

  “I should go,” he told Anna and Burton. “They want me gone tonight.”

  He broke away and strolled toward the exit. Then, Bamert paused and looked up at the balcony. He pointed at their spot in the first row overlooking the orchestra section.

  “Don’t let anyone take my seat, all right?”

  “I won’t,” Anna said.

  “Y’all take care of yourselves. I’ll be around.”

  Then J. Paul Bamert walked down the stairs, out the Academy Building door, and away from his Druskin career forever.

  The Man Who Invented Porting Has Nowhere to Go

  By Sean Grann

  Q Daily

  Published: 11/27/2030

  (UNDISCLOSED) — Dr. Ciaran Stokes won’t be able to port when this article publishes, and he has taken all the precautions necessary for his future once it does. He purchased a quarter-acre of land in a remote area, if any area can be labeled as such anymore, that he has asked me to not disclose. He also asked me not to divulge any qualities of the terrain, lest it give him away. He deliberately kept his new parcel of land small, despite the fact that he could afford something much bigger. The house he plans to live in is also relatively miniscule—just a single room—but uncommonly bright, with plate-glass windows taking up a majority of the exterior.

  “I need to be able to see people coming,” he tells me.

  He has guns. Several guns. To cover his tracks, he set up a shell company in Western Sahara to buy the guns and then set up a second shell company to buy the guns from the first shell company. Then he had the second shell company send the guns to a set location pinned within thirty miles of here so that Stokes could pick the guns up himself and drive them to his new
abode.

  Because even though he has done everything in his power to keep this location a secret—including never actually porting to this exact pin and leaving his PortPhone in a locker any time he visits—he suspects it’s only a matter of time before he is found. When I speak to him, he sounds as if he wants it to happen.

  “They know everything,” he says.

  The “they” in question is PortSys: the trillion-dollar megalith that, until seven years ago, was Stokes’ employer. It was a good job. PortSys is famous for its employee benefits (at least, at the executive level), and Stokes was afforded every luxury that came from working in the company’s R&D lab: a free private health system, a hospital devoted solely to PortSys employees, free food made by chefs imported from all over the world, and a salary well into seven figures.

  “You also got a free company car to use any time you wanted one,” says Stokes, “Which Jason (Kirsch) offered to everyone as a joke.”

  Ciaran Stokes, on the other hand, is not a joking man. He is an extremely grave and, frankly, humorless fellow. If you’re wondering what he’s been up to since he left PortSys, it’s been this: securing his new home, outfitting it, carefully wiping away the few remaining traces of his existence, and preparing to be under siege.

  “It hasn’t been easy,” he tells me, “All the houses I found were flawed. One house I looked at, the lighting setup was horrible. You couldn’t intuit which light switch turned on which light.”

  My parents say the same thing about hotels.

  “I know you think I’m being funny but it’s a serious issue. Whoever conceived the house put no care into how it would be used. I couldn’t function in that sort of place.”

  Even if you remodeled it the way you wanted it?

  “No. I would not want the lingering atmospherics of whatever that person did to that house. It would bother me.”

  A lot of things bother Dr. Ciaran Stokes. He dropped out of MIT after two years to work at a Silicon Valley incubator because he thought the professors at the college were too deferential to classmates whom he felt were of inferior intellect. He divorced his first wife because, as he tells me matter-of-factly, “I realized that she wasn’t my equal, in terms of intellect. Our conversations always devolved into meaningless pleasantries. It was like being married to a neighbor.” He doesn’t have kids because he finds children to be “embarrassingly incomplete.” He eats all of his food with chop sticks, even breakfast cereal, because he believes that Western flatware promotes binge-eating and sloth. If people are even a minute late to meet with him (as I was for our second appointment, due to a family matter), he will refuse the meeting even if he has nothing else to do.