by Pete Gustin
Annie and I mostly kept to ourselves, only interacting with the wait staff when they came by holding up their silver platters and offering up tiny foods with French names that my mouth wouldn’t be able to pronounce even if you gave me the French language skill for free. They were tasty, though. But it made me realize that rich people were weird. If they could afford to have such incredible food cooked for them, why did they only want to have tiny little portions of it at a time?
Eventually, the dinner in the main ballroom came to a conclusion, and one of those trendy bands that I knew from the radio but never bothered to learn the name of took to the stage. People danced and people drank, and Annie and I did our best to keep to the edges of the party. We spent a lot of time examining the auction items that were up for sale. Most of them were set up on ornate displays littered near the outer perimeter of the party. Examining these displays helped us to both look occupied, while also avoiding too much human contact.
Two more bands played short sets of their most popular music. In between each, an emcee came to the stage to thank everyone for their generosity and encourage them to spend wildly on all of the items that were up for auction or sale. Eventually, after the final song from the third band finished, a large swath of the ballroom floor was cleared, and I saw two men rolling a large frame with what looked to me to be an archery target toward one end of the room. People cheered, and I began to sweat.
41
Honestly, I’d never thought very much about archery. I remembered it being part of our high school Phys Ed curriculum, where, for some reason, someone on the board of education had thought it would be a good idea to give a bunch of kids ranging from about thirteen to seventeen years of age a bunch of bows and arrows and hope that they would do their best to try to hit some targets as opposed to each other. I guess the safety issue was mitigated by the fact that the bows had about as much tension to them as you might hold on a piece of floss while cleaning out your two front teeth, but still, it seems a little crazy in retrospect.
This, however, was a whole different story. The lights in the entire ballroom had dimmed, and the elegant curtains hung upon the thirty-foot brass-trimmed windows had been drawn to further soak the ballroom in darkness. At first, the only light in the room came from the screens of so many PCDs of all the onlookers. Then, in an instant, the target that had been wheeled out onto the ballroom floor lit up almost on its own. It was impressive. The target was definitely being lit from somewhere, but the way they were doing it, you couldn’t actually see the source of the light. A moment later, some music began to play, and a voice came over the loudspeakers.
“Mr. Arthur Jade.”
“Wow, that was surprisingly short and sweet,” I said to Annie, realizing that was all the announcer was going to say. I had been fully expecting some long-winded sort of—
“Winner of four Olympic gold medals and two silver medals.”
“Oh, there it is,” I said in surrender to the announcer.
A spotlight had come on from the ceiling and was illuminating Mr. Jade as he entered the ballroom from a doorway next to the stage. As he made his way out into the center of the ballroom, where space had been cleared, the announcer went on and on about all of Mr. Jade’s accomplishments; how much he’d done for the Blue Crystal Foundation, and what an amazing philanthropist and human being he was. I kind of tuned it all out except for the part about the instructions on how we’d be able to bid on the archery skill.
“If you’d like to help out the Foundation and bid on this Olympic level skill being so generously donated by Mr. Arthur Jade on behalf of the Ribbon Corporation, simply log into the secure website displayed on the screen above the stage and make your offer at the end of the demonstration. Bidding will be silent, one bid per guest, and the winner will be revealed as soon as the bidding is closed.”
“Crap,” I said out loud.
“What?” Annie asked.
“I guess I was kind of hoping for one of those auction-type things you see on TV, where people are shouting out numbers and flipping up paddles. All I can do here is just throw out everything I’ve got and hope it does the trick.”
Annie gave me a bit of a grimace, maybe just now realizing how much of an all-or-nothing proposition this was going to be. If all I had in my account wasn’t enough, that was going to be a problem.
As Mr. Jade took up his position on the ballroom floor, little pen-sized lights appeared on the ground, running a path between him and the target. Again, I couldn’t tell where the lights were coming from, so the effect was pretty spectacular. The music died down, and everyone in the room got very quiet. The only thing you could hear was the softly spoken commentary of the television host, who was standing in front of a camera about ten feet behind and off to the side of Mr. Jade. Even she stopped talking for just an instant, and in the moment when you could hear a pin drop, the speakers burst back to life, playing some startlingly upbeat rock music.
As my heart started beating again, my eye was drawn to the target set up some fifty yards away from Mr. Jade’s position on the floor. A red laser light had appeared at the top middle of the target board, and no sooner was it there than its space was simultaneously being occupied by an arrow that had been shot by Mr. Jade. In astonishingly rapid succession, laser dots appeared on the target, and they were stabbed by arrow after arrow, so fast it was almost simultaneous. The accuracy was incredible and only made that much more impressive by the speed at which they were arriving on target. The rock song ended, the lights in the entire room went dark for a moment, and when one single light came back on, it was illuminating only the target board, which now showed a large letter “B” made completely out of arrows. The lasers sprouted back to life and danced across the target board for a moment until resolving into the letters l-u-e next to the B made out of arrows, and the word “Crystal” appeared beneath that. The crowd erupted with cheers and applause as the lights came back on and Mr. Jade took a bow.
The bidding URL popped back up on the screen above the stage, and a five-minute timer started counting down.
“How much are you going to bid?” Annie asked.
“All of it,” I replied quietly. “This is our one shot, and I can’t miss.” I immediately felt like some sort of a pun was in there with regards to the archery, but I could barely think straight, let alone make an intentional pun.
Not fifteen seconds had gone by, and I had logged onto the site and pledged one million one hundred eighty thousand dollars. It was everything I had left from the money Dr. K had given me, plus the money Frank had transferred to me, along with everything else I’d originally had in my own account. It was either going to be enough, or I was going to have to get creative. I was really hoping it would be enough.
Waiters and waitresses appeared on the ballroom floor as if from nowhere, and one of them offered us a drink.
“No, thank you,” I said.
“Bidding on the archery?” the man asked.
I nodded, and he wished me good luck, then walked off toward a denser part of the crowd.
I was a tense wreck. My palms were sweaty, I felt like I had a fever, and the only thing I could hear was the thumping of my own heart.
“I love you, Alden,” Annie said. It took a moment for me to understand that she was speaking and when I looked up to
return the sentiment, I saw that the edges of her eyes were starting to fill with tears.
“Oh no, no,” I said, trying to will her tears back into her eyes. “It’s gonna be okay. I’ll win the bid, I’ll get on TV, I’ll explain everything, and it’ll all be okay.”
Right about now, I barely even believed that myself, but Annie, being Annie, made one hell of a show of pretending she did. She nodded, wiped the edges of her eyes with the back of her left hand, gave me a huge smile, and said in a cracked whisper, “I love you.”
“I love you too,” I replied.
The clock on the big screen hit one minute, and the emcee announced there were sixty sec
onds remaining.
The lights started to dim again as two men dressed like wait staff entered from a side door, rolling a portable STU on a very ornate little table with wheels on it out to the center of the ballroom.
“We are about to witness the very first STU transfer ever performed live on TV,” I heard the woman in front of the camera saying into her microphone.
The lights grew dimmer and dimmer as the clock counted down to zero, and eventually, just before the entire room went dark, a spotlight from above illuminated the little table with the portable STU on it as everything else went completely dark. Mr Jade made his way into the light, and the clock hit zero.
“Everyone, please give us one more round of applause for Mr. Arthur Jade,” the emcee said as the crowd obliged his request.
The applause died out, and the man on the stage said something else about the charity and the generosity of Mr. Jade, and honestly, I couldn’t hear two words of it over the pounding of my own heart. Then, all of a sudden, my hearing returned almost completely to normal as I heard the emcee say, “And by a rather wide margin, showing some true generosity, and apparently a very strong desire to acquire some skills with the bow, the winner of the bidding is . . .”
There was a pause as some drummer somewhere in the room performed a roll.
“Mr. Gerry Callahan!”
The crowd burst into applause, and I nearly threw up in my mouth.
“It’s you,” Annie whispered just loud enough for me to hear.
Oh my God, it was. It was me. I was Gerry Callahan.
As if not in control of my own limbs, I felt my legs start to take me across the ballroom floor, bumping into at least half a dozen people in the darkness along the way.
“Excuse me. Pardon me. I’m so sorry.”
“Hey, congratulations,” people said as they made room for me to approach the STU under the way-too-bright giant spotlight.
I stood at the edge of the light, almost too afraid to step into it, when someone from behind me gave me a friendly nudge, saying something like “go get it,” and I stumbled from the dark and into the light.
It was hot. The damn spotlight felt insanely hot. At least, it did to me. As another layer of sweat bubbled to the surface of my skin, I heard the woman in front of the camera say, “This is going to be exciting.”
The waiters who had rolled the STU out onto the floor had somehow disappeared, and in their place was a rather large man in a very well-fitted suit standing with an exaggeratedly wide stance next to the portable STU and looking unabashedly like the high-end security guard he most certainly was. Mr. Jade was also there, and he extended his hand in my direction.
“Congratulations, young man,” he said. “Nearly one point two million dollars. That was very generous of you. Thank you.”
“Thank you,” I said back, dumbly.
“Why don’t you come around this side, so you can face the camera,” he said.
I walked around to the other side of the little table and was further blinded by the light on the camera that was pointed at us.
“You ever done this before?” Mr Jade asked me.
I didn’t respond.
“I mean, have you ever had a skill transfer before?” he asked, hoping more specificity would elicit a response.
I nodded.
“Well then,” he said, “this should be old hat for you.” As he said the word “hat,” he held up one of the STU Hats to an overly generous smattering of laughter from the crowd.
“So, how are you with a bow and arrow right now?” Mr. Jade asked me.
“Uh, not very good,” I replied in a much quieter tone of voice than he was using.
“Well, after this, it might be you representing our country in the next Olympics,” he proclaimed.
More applause and cheering from the crowd ensued.
He handed me a STU Hat and I mechanically reached up and put it on my head.
“So you know how this all works, right?” he asked.
“Yeah, but . . .” was all I could mutter.
“All I need to do is—” he started to say, but I cut him off.
“Wait.”
“Oh, let’s not keep the audience at home waiting, Mr. Callahan,” he said with a mock tone of disapproval as he looked right into the camera.
“You don’t need to lose your skill during a transfer,” I stammered out, but far too inarticulately, and much too quietly.
“What was that?” he asked, not quite sure of what I’d just said.
“You can preserve your skill during a transfer if I just change,” as I was saying this, I reached over toward the STU and was about to access the touchscreen.
Before I could get any further in my efforts, the large security guard said in a very stern voice, “Please don’t touch the equipment.”
“Yeah, but, I can show you that—”
He stepped quickly between me and the table with the STU on it and grabbed my wrist. Instinctively, I rolled my arm in the opposite direction and reversed the grip so that I was holding his wrist. A collective gasp came from the crowd, and as I reached with my off hand for the STU again, the much larger man broke my hold on his arm. It looked to me like he was about to reach inside his jacket for what I could only assume was a weapon he was wearing in a shoulder holster.
I kicked him in the nuts. I hadn’t really meant to do it. It just kind of happened. It was his own damn fault, though; standing there with that big, dumb over-exaggerated wide stance.
The entire crowd groaned all at once.
A part of my brain wanted to blame the combat skills I’d acquired from Frank for my having done that, but honestly, I think it was probably my own move. I’m not sure the good old schoolyard nut kick was part of the military’s repertoire.
If the guard hadn’t been going for his gun before I’d kicked him, he was now. I watched as he reached inside his left lapel, and just as soon as he had the gun in his hand, I stepped into him, reversing my stance and put an elbow into his gut as I reached up over my own shoulder, using one hand to bend his wrist the wrong way and the other hand to relieve him of his weapon.
That was most definitely Frank’s move.
The crowd screamed, the security man doubled over in pain, and for some reason, I found myself pointing the gun at Mr. Jade.
“I’m just trying to help,” I said at full volume, my voice finally deciding to work.
42
The crowd was literally tripping over itself trying to get away from us. Mr. Jade looked like he was about to run, so I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back to stand in front of me.
“What are you doing?” he shouted.
“I’m trying to help,” I said for the second time.
“Put the gun down!” the large security guard shouted at me.
Oh my God, I was still holding his gun. I tried to look out beyond the spotlight that was on me and could faintly make out a number of men in the crowd pointing guns at me. I didn’t know what else to do, so I pulled Mr. Jade closer and made a show of keeping my gun pointed at him.“I just! I just need to show you something!” I said to the air.
I noticed then that the TV cameraman was still there. His host had apparently dropped her microphone and run away with the rest of the crowd, but the intrepid cameraman was still here.
Thank God for that.
I looked into the camera and tried to explain.
“I found out that I know there’s a way to do a skill transfer without erasing the skill of the, uh, the Donor,” I said, not very competently.
“Drop the gun!” the security guard shouted at me.
“Here,” I said. “I’ll show you.”
I pushed Mr. Jade a little closer to the portable STU so that I could reach the touchscreen with the hand that wasn’t holding the gun.
“What are you doing, man?” Mr. Jade shouted at me.
“I just need to show you that, how, uh—” My mouth stopped working. Everyone was yelling at me, and I just didn’t h
ave the words to explain it. I kept the gun to Mr. Jade’s back, knowing that if I somehow let him slip away that one of the armed men in the crowd would shoot me on the spot. I didn’t want to hurt him, but I couldn’t let him go until I showed everyone what this device could really do. I tapped on the screen of the STU, went into the root menu, and . . . wait. This thing was already set up for a non-destructive transfer.
The room was spinning. Well, it was actually my mind that was spinning, but it made it feel like everything else had gone completely off-kilter. How was this thing already set up for a non-destructive transfer? Wait.
“You knew?” I asked Mr. Jade, as it all started to come together in my mind.
“This man is crazy!” he shouted. “Someone shoot him!”
“All this . . . this, show . . . and you weren’t even gonna give up your skill?” I asked, almost not believing what was happening. “You knew?”
“Shoot him!” Mr. Jade yelled, ignoring my accusations.
They were all in on it. The Corporation, the Union, the government, and of course, of course the rich people were in on it too. Of course. I should have known.
I looked back into the camera and tried to find some words, but before I could even open my mouth, a voice from somewhere in the ballroom yelled, “It’s him! It’s the Heath guy from New York!”
Oh my God. This couldn’t get any worse.
It was tough to see beyond the spotlight, but people were definitely still in the room. I squinted to see what I could, but it was tough to make anything out.
“I-I . . . I just—” I literally could not make my mouth work.
People were yelling, and I felt like everything was moving too fast. It was all out of control, and I didn’t know what to say. I was looking out into the veil of darkness, hoping to see . . . I don’t know, something. No, wait, someone. Annie. I could see Annie. It looked like she’d been pushed back with the majority of the crowd to a very far end of the ballroom. I could see she was trying to call to me, but I couldn’t hear her over the rest of the noise.