Futureland. Part 39

"Every minute of every day."

His aunt's name was Martha. And not only could he remember the fifty states, but he could also recall all of the state capitals. The girl he had a crush on in prod-ed was Lana, and he loved her because she smelled like soap. He loved the smell of the soapy water his mother made him wash in after playing in the gra.s.s in Central Park. He remembered a gra.s.shopper his uncle caught for him. It was a green creature with long waving antenae that was kept in a plastic cage made to look like bamboo. The creature ate bits of lettuce that Neil pressed between the bars. If he looked close he could see his uncle's face in the many facets of the bug's green eye. Bob.

"You shouldn't argue with your mother, Neil," Bob had said many long years before. Neil remembered the words and the voice and even the smell of strawberry jam in Martha's kitchen. "She's worked very hard not to get recycled so that you can have a mother and stay aboveground."

"But Uncle Bob, other kids got foot gliders, why can't I have a pair?"

"You shouldn't argue with your mother . . ." Bob repeated his admonition in exactly the same words, tones, smells, and time.

Neil asked Bob couldn't he buy the x-element gliders.

"You shouldn't argue with your mother . . ."

"Neil."

"Huh. Who is it?"

"Un Fitt. You were entering a loop, Neil."

"A what?"

"You got stuck questioning a memory. That happens sometimes when human minds are connected to a computer system."

"I can remember everything I ever knew," Neil said.

"Yes. There are neuronal connectors to every memory center in your brain. The problem is that you cannot change these memories."

"Why not?"

"Because the part of you that is consciousness resides in my matrix. It is a limbo of sorts. You can read the data of your life but you cannot alter it."

"Then how can I live?"

"You can talk to me, Neil."

"So that's it? It's you and me forever?" The hysterical shudder of claustrophobia went through the ex-prod's mind.

"No, Neil," Un Fitt said. "When we have the proper tools, Nina will be able to join you from time to time. And until then . . ."

What had been a void was suddenly a vast panorama of the sea, the Pacific Ocean, Neil knew instinctively. It was the prehistoric coastline that he'd yearned for since childhood. The waves crashed and huge birds wheeled in the sky.

"Here you may roam until there is a body for you to inhabit again," Un Fitt whispered between the thundering waves. "And a world worth living in."

The Nig in Me.

1.

"You look like s.h.i.t, Jamey," Harold Bottoms said to his cubicle mate. It was Thirdday.

"I feel bad. Sick. It's that striped flu going around. I got the rash on my chest."

"Dog, why didn't you stay home?" And keep your germs there, Harold thought.

"I can't. One more sick day and I go on rotation. You know I can't take another three months underground."

"Whoever thought up'a some s.h.i.t like that anyway? I only got four points to go my own self."

"If I go off the force one more time Sheila says she'll pull the plug. Three times more and I'm White Noise."

White Noise, Backgrounder, Muzak Jack--words that defined the poor souls who lost their labor rights permanently.

"That's okay, J," Harold told his friend. "Lotsa people got that flu. It don't seem so bad."

"You know anybody black who got it?" Jamey asked.

"Sure. Almost everybody comin' down. They said on the news that everybody and his uncle got the striped flu."

"You don't have it."

Nor could Harold think of any of his black friends who did. He'd seen Asians and a few Mexicans, India Indians and lots of white people with the red or brown striations on their upper arms. But he'd never seen any Negro-looking people with them. Neither had he heard any black people with the wheezy cough or complaining about the nagging headache a.s.sociated with the minor flu. They hadn't said a thing about a racial aspect of the disease on ITV, but that was to be expected. Racial image profiling had been a broadcast offense for more than two decades.

"It's just a little virus, man," Harold said. "Lotsa people got it and lots don't. Wagner down in print don't. Neither Jane Flynn, Nestor whatshisname over in vids, or your bud Fat Phil. They're all white."

"I guess," Jamey said. "I guess you're right."

"Sure I am," Harold said. "Now let's. .h.i.t the files before M Shirley gets out her marker."

"M Halloway, M Bottoms," M Shirley Bride said by way of greeting later that morning.

"Morning, M Bride," Harold said to the boss.

"Morning--" Jamey Halloway got out, and then he coughed.

"You got that flu?" the Unit Controller asked.

"No, M, not me. Went to the tobacco den to meet a friend. We talked too long in the smoke and, well, I kinda lost my voice."

Shirley Bride sniffed the air with her delicate nostrils and frowned.

"You don't smell like smoke." she said.

"Scrubbed off in the tanks last night."

Public bathing in recycled waters was the new rage since the water laws. FastBath of NYC was the largest franchise in North America.

"Oh," she said. "Because if you were sick I could send you home."

"Then you might as well kick me out of my house and annul my marriage license, too."

"That doesn't cut it with a controller," Shirley Bride said. "If I thought the office would be better off I'd have to send you home even if it did put you over seventeen. If I didn't I'd get a permanent mark. You know they're harder on management than they are on cyclers."

Harold and Jamey both hid the derision they felt. Upper management got the Life Plan. They were covered for anything short of a neutron bomb, as the outlawed Wildcat Union claimed on ghostnet.

"But I can send you home without a mark if that's a real cough," Bride continued. "It's an epidemic now, and the uppers have decided that I can give out nonpunitive sick leave."

A cough came unbidden to Harold Bottoms's lips.

"Not you, M," Bride said.

It was from that moment Harold could trace the beginning of his suspicions.

2.

That night Harold decided to stay in--or out of the viral cl.u.s.ter--and watch the IT curve. The curve was the latest innovation of Internet presentation. A thin sheet of plastic nine feet wide, stretched out to its full length, and four and a half feet high. The screen rolled out on a stand so that it curved around, forming an inner s.p.a.ce that was two feet deep at the center and six feet across. Using the chip technology in the stand, the laser optics woven into the plastic could create three-dimensional images.

". . . and h.e.l.lo New York," onetime rapper Chantel was saying. "Well, it's finally happened--Claw-Cybertech Angola has annexed Luxembourg, making that business-state the first Afro-European nation. The Luxembourgers, as you will remember, have been opposing this deal for the past seven years. A general strike led to violence in that tiny nation's capital today, where some three hundred thousand turned out to protest the merger. When CEO Moto of Claw-Cybertech ordered out security forces, the crowd threw flaming b.a.l.l.s of waste tar. The protesters made no attempt to hide the racial nature of their political unrest."

An image of thousands of angry protesters appeared in the curve. Many were hurling flaming b.a.l.l.s of waste tar, a by-product of modern recycling dumps, at the security forces, which advanced in wheeled plexiplas bubbles, debilitating rioters with dozens of stun whips flailing out from all sides.

"Lars McDermott," Chantel said, reappearing on the screen, "corporate amba.s.sador to the UN, had this to say about today's protest and annexation."

The image of the middle-aged black woman shifted to the full image of a young white man in a rather close-fitting black andro-blouse.

"I applaud the annexation," the man said in an indistinct European accent. "And, no, I do not feel that the Luxembourgers have any reason to fear this move. International Law expressly prohibits migrant labor from overwhelming a new territory beyond prescribed limits within the first twenty-five years."

"But hasn't Claw-Cybertech asked for a relaxation of the migratory clause?" a bodiless, masculine voice asked.

"That is only for them to be able to iron out a few labor problems in their Angolan holdings." Lars McDermott's smile belied his answer.

"Isn't the unemployment cycle in Angola now up to thirty-five percent?" the voice inquired.

That smile again, and, "Merely a transitional phase. Claw-C has to retool for a more advanced chip market. That has nothing to do with Europe."

Harold was astonished at how the extra chip he'd bought for the curve cleared up his digital reception. He said, "My fav," and the station changed to a scene where three beautiful black women in military uniform were adjusting weapons holsters on their b.r.e.a.s.t.s before jumping out of an aircraft hovering over a moonlit island.

The winking lunar light between the ripples of the sea seemed so real that Harold moved closer to the IT curve, which took up fully half of his Tribeca loft subdivide. Enchanted by the ocean, he stuck his hand in and it disappeared momentarily under the waves. Chesty Love dived into his palm and swam out through his fingers.

"Hey hey hey." Jamey Halloway's blond head replaced the hovercraft. He had a maniacal look on his face. Harold leaped backward, shocked by the ITV buddy break-in call.

"Hey, man, you scared me," Harold said.

"Turn on the two-way," Jamey commanded.

"Two-way on," Harold intoned.

Immediately the curve became Jamey's room in the Bubble, a condominium that floated off the eastern sh.o.r.e of Staten Island. A small patch in the lower left-hand corner continued the Devil Girls show.

"How you feelin'?" Harold asked.

"Flu's gone," Jamey replied. "Just like the med-heads said, three days and it clears up. You wanna go out?"

"Naw, man. I might pick up somethin' out there."

"Aw, com' on, bro. You know the nigs don't get it."

"Hey, man. Why you wanna use that kinda language?"

"Sorry, bro. I didn't know you were sensitive."

"I'm not sensitive," Harold said. "It's just that it's not respectful."

"I said I'm sorry, okay? Can we go out now?"

"I don't know."

"I found Yasmine," Jamey said in a tantalizing tone. "Where?"

"Blanklands."

"No s.h.i.t?"

"Not even an address. Down in an alley off of Gore near Yclef Terrace. You need a chip to get in and a hundred dollars cover to get out--and that doesn't include Yas."

"I'll meet you there," Harold said. Then he clapped his hands together three times, hard. The screen went blank and the curve rolled itself up into a scroll.

3.