“How do you do that,” Natalya scolded. Natalya had been silent for so long Terri had assumed she had become absorbed in some other project. But now she suspected she was about to be the object of one of Natalya’s rants. Terri braced herself emotionally and turned to look at Natalya’s 3D image in the eyes. “How do I do what?” she asked pleasantly.
“How do you just stare off into space without being online? I know you’re not online. I monitor everything you do, remember? That’s my internet account you’re on, that I’m paying for. How can you just stare off in the distance like some mindless zombie?”
“I used to do it with Conrad,” Terri said. “He wasn’t allowed online, so we did other stuff. Sometimes we just looked at clouds. We just sat together and looked at clouds.”
“You mean like retards?”
Terri decided it was best not to answer.
“Just think about all the brain cycles you’re wasting,” Natalya said, the timbre of her voice rising. “I’m wasting my money on you when you just stare off into space. How can you do that? Aren’t you bored? At least play a fucking game, you’re freaking me out. And keep in mind I’m still upset with you about this morning.”
Terri looked away for a second and then looked back. “Upset?”
“Fuck yeah! You just sat there when Marja assaulted me!” Natalya was yelling in full rant mode now. “She pushed me and I fell to the ground! You just sat there! She could have jumped on me and pounded my head into the pavement and killed me and you wouldn’t have done anything about it! You just stood there! Why didn’t you take her down? You’re from the fucking Rocks! Don’t you know how to fight? What about the riots? Didn’t you learn how to fight in the riots?”
“I was eight when the riots happened.”
“I don’t care how old you were! Did you want her to kill me? Did you want her to bash my brains out?”
“No, of course not—”
“Then why didn’t you at least get your fat ass between her and me?”
“It happened so fast—”
“I could die so fast! I could die! I’m buying you a gun! I’m buying you a fucking gun and the next time someone assaults me I want you to blow out their fucking kneecaps! Anyone gets close to me you pull out your gun and you cut them down!”
Terri had never owned a gun. Sometimes Natalya forgot whatever proclamations she made when she was ranting, pretending that she never said them—but other times she stuck to them like sworn statements of honor. A gun sounded like trouble. She said, “Don’t you need permits or special licenses to carry a gun?”
“I’ll worry about the fucking permits!” Natalya yelled.
“I don’t know—”
“Get the fuck out of my car!”
The Porsche slowed down suddenly and parked at the curb.
“Get the fuck out!”
Terri’s seatbelt undid itself and the door opened. She was still two blocks from her apartment complex.
“Out! I need my car now! Get out!”
Terri grabbed her purse and stepped out onto the sidewalk. The Porsche closed its own door and slid seamlessly back into traffic.
Boy, that was a bad one, Terri thought. Natalya had been overdue for a rant, with all the pressure from graduation. Fine, be mad at me. I’m mad at you. Terri felt a little proud of herself. She had practically been defiant with that I don’t know. She knew it was pathetic to be proud of that small defiance, but she accepted that little bit of pride anyway. It’s not like she had a choice to defy Natalya, really. Ever since she was twelve Terri’s mom had strongly encouraged her friendship with Natalya. It’s what had gotten them out of the Rocks.
Still, she did love Natalya in an unhealthy, Stockholm syndrome kind of way, she knew. Friendship, like love, isn’t being done right if it isn’t at least a little bit pathological. She even felt sorry for Natalya. The poor girl was almost never happy, and always on the emotional edge with all of her plans and projects.
As Mom says, she lacks perspective.
Terri started walking home. At least she was dressed for walking, and it was a beautiful, flashy night. She had a good view of the Helix from where she was—she could see the little white faces of tourists looking down from the guardrails of the slats.
Terri suspected that perspective wasn’t a necessary characteristic for the ridiculously wealthy. It might actually be a disadvantage. And that, she thought, was a sad comment on life.
Chapter 9
Dress code. Not something Conrad was at all comfortable with. After talking with the AI concierge at the Green Inn web site Conrad discovered that their dress code fell under the rubric of “rustic chic”. All of the online clothing stores had AI style consultants so he picked one at random to confer with about what he should wear, using only the clothing he could scrounge around in his home. It wasn’t like he could afford to buy clothes to go to one freaking dinner. Some of the more upscale stores had human consultants, but Conrad felt more comfortable talking to an AI. He didn’t want to reveal his ignorance to a human, and it would have been a waste of time for them, since he wasn’t going to spend money.
After discussing the topic with the virtual style consultant “Svet”, Conrad learned that rustic chic comprised of clothes and accessories that contained mostly earth-tones, and included things like plaids, hounds tooth, and herringbone. Currently, suspenders were often included as accessories, as well as scarves. Conrad had neither. No sneakers allowed, shoes had to be leather (either fake or real). Svet was wearing a brown peasant skirt, frilled white blouse and a deerstalker cap to personally demonstrate the style. She offered to sell him some appropriate suspenders that could be shipped to his home in minutes. He politely refused.
Inside his apartment he was, of course, cut off from Svet, so all of the consultation had to happen outside, which added to his discomfort. She had insisted that jeans were unacceptable while slacks were fine and corduroy was best. Conrad hadn’t ever even heard of corduroy before—he certainly didn’t have any pants that fit that description. He had one pair of black slacks that had a large tear on the knee. All the rest were jeans.
He would have to go into his father’s bedroom.
Going down the hall he passed the door to his father’s workroom, a metal security door with an electronic lock and a little red light showing that it was secured. The door to the bedroom was a traditional wooden door and it didn’t even have a lock on it. Conrad hesitated in the hall, uncomfortable at the thought of going through his father’s stuff. But, in addition to the need for clothes, there was the possibility of clues to his father’s whereabouts. He pushed open the door and stepped inside.
Conrad got his household organization skills from his father. If clothes could be worn they were on the floor. If they had to be washed, they were put in a pile on the closet floor. If they were never to be worn again they were either in a drawer or hanging in the closet. The bed was unmade; some dirty dishes were piled on the floor next to it, as well as some Coke and whiskey bottles. A butt-filled ashtray was on the nightstand.
Conrad stepped carefully around the room, not wanting to step on clothes that might have something hard or breakable underneath them. He couldn’t see any pants other than sweatpants and jeans. His dad was a big believer in sweatpants, since he did most of his work in the apartment.
He spied a red flannel shirt crumpled near the closet. He picked it up, gave it a distant sniff, and spread it out to give it a quick search for holes. There was something that looked like a cigarette burn but it was pretty small. He threw the shirt out the door into the hall. He then opened the closet door. With any luck there would be a pair of slacks hanging in there.
On the floor of the closet, half buried under clothes, was a large green rectangular military crate, spray painted in red stencil were the words “FOR THE REVOLUTION.” His father had showed him the contents once, years ago. It contained gas masks, smoke grenades, riot gear and a couple Guy Fawkes masks. Yeah, like that was going to happen.
Most of what was hanging were jackets and coats. There was a clean black sports coat in there, but it wasn’t tweed or corduroy, so he didn’t think it fit the category. Clipped to the hanger underneath it, however, was a pair of black slacks. These he threw out into the hall.
Now for the shoes. The shoes were the hard part. His father almost never wore any sort of footwear. He did notice the tip of a sneaker peeking out from under the bed. He went to the bed and got on his hands and knees to look underneath, pushing away the bed sheet which was mostly on the floor. He saw the silhouette of what were probably sneakers and some rectangular objects. The objects were about the size of shoe boxes, which made his heart beat faster with hope. Reaching in to grab one, he was disappointed by the rattle of multiple objects within, definitely not shoe-like. He opened it up and saw two stacks of DVDs in clear plastic containers. Like so many he had found in storage rooms, these were writeables with permanent marker labels scribbled to identify them. One immediately caught his attention. Family Fotos.
Conrad just stared at it, scarcely believing the possibility of what it seemed to be. Family Fotos. Conrad’s father had never referred to the two of them as family. Really, can two people be considered a family? And his dad had a chronic fear of cameras, since most of them were smart and connected to the internet. For him to intentionally take pictures of his family . . .
Maybe they were pictures of his father’s family, his parents and possible siblings. Conrad knew nothing about his grandparents, if they were dead or alive—he didn’t even know if he had any aunts and uncles. He lifted the DVD from the shoe box.
It could be some sort of trap. His father could have loaded the DVD with some devastating virus to destroy the computer of anyone snooping into his life. He opened the case and took out the disk. He then flipped it over. The back had been scratched up to hell, deeply gouged with a screwdriver or knife.
So much for Family Fotos.
The rest of the DVDs had been similarly wrecked.
Family Fotos. The use of the F in photos seemed so frivolous and fun and silly, completely out of his father’s character. Maybe they were made by his other father. He could bring them to Ahmed, maybe he could restore them.
He put the DVDs back under the bed. He would think about them later, he had to find shoes. He had some work boots, they were leather. He would wear those. Fuck ‘em if they’re not fashionable.
Dressed in his flannel and his slacks and work boots, he stood at the bottom of the stairwell with his smart glasses placed on a step at eye level facing him. Svet was looking at him through the glasses camera, passing judgment on his choices.
“Oh my, that shirt,” the voice said, a little tinny, from the frames. “Oh my, that flannel is too red, and the bands too wide. If you want to go with flannel, we can send you a similar but more appropriate shirt for only—”
“This is the shirt I’m going to wear,” Conrad said. I can’t fucking believe that people actually care this much about clothes.
“Very well sir. Very well. Roll up the sleeves, exactly two roles, so the sleeves are at just below the middle of the forearm. That’s good. Very good. Now tuck in your shirt. Very good. Very good. Do you have a belt or suspenders?
“No.”
“For less than three hundred dollars we have an excellent selection of belts and suspenders that can be—”
“I’m not buying anything.”
“Very well sir. In that case pull out the shirt from your pants about four or five centimeters and have the slack fold over your belt loops. Very good. You are nearly presentable. Oh dear. You aren’t wearing those boots, are you?”
“Yes I am.”
“Oh dear. You are going to the Green Inn, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Oh dear. While technically that might satisfy the dress code, you still might not be allowed in.”
“Okay, that’s enough,” Conrad said, reaching forward, grabbing his glasses and putting them on. With a flick of a finger he dismissed Svet.
Chapter 10
Conrad was waiting on the side of the road at eight-thirty. As was usual with this road, the traffic consisted mainly of Deliverators and the occasional bicyclist or scooter. Conrad heard the sports car before he saw it; it turned the corner a block away, its white headlights round and archaic, its metal hull reflecting the streetlights, making it look like it was made of streaks of florescence. Smaller vehicles moved out of the way, like fish before a shark. Its sound, a low rumble, was the kind of sound Conrad imagined a robot dragon would make, if there was such a thing as a robot dragon.
When it pulled up in front of Conrad he could actually feel the throb of the engine—and smell it, the carbon waste of gasoline exhaust. It was his first contact with an internal combustion automobile. Even more remarkable than its propulsion mechanism—the thing had a human driver. Conrad’s smart glasses told him the car was a 2018 Roush Stage 3 supercharged Mustang. As he tentatively approached the red car’s passenger side the shadowy figure inside reached over and opened the passenger door a crack.
“You Conrad Hicks?” the driver said. “Come on in.”
Conrad pulled the door completely open and slowly lowered himself into the leather Recaro seat (he knew it was a Recaro seat because it had the word ‘Recaro’ prominently displayed on it). With the interior light on, he got a good look at the driver. He was a young man dressed in a black sports coat and a white shirt with a thin black tie. He had a round, affable, pale face with a tangle of black hair that would probably have reached his shoulders if it had been straight. He wasn’t wearing smart glasses. Conrad wondered if this was a chauffeur, which would be really strange and dangerous, since cars were perfectly capable of driving themselves. Did rich people really ride around in cars driven by chauffeurs? Where they that eccentric?
The man extended his hand. “Hey, I’m Sergei Pochenko, Nat’s brother.”
Conrad shook his hand and Sergei gave him a surprisingly tight squeeze for an instant before letting go.
“Um Conrad Hicks.” He wasn’t sure if he should have said his name since obviously Natalya’s brother knew who he was, but he felt he had to say something while shaking and he didn’t know what else to say.
“Put your seatbelt on, they’re not automatic.”
Conrad fumbled around with the seatbelt as Sergei put his hand on the chrome gear shift, put the car in first, and then deftly executed a k turn to direct the car the way he had come. Conrad finally managed to engage the seatbelt and then gripped the arm rest on the door with some consternation as the car rumbled and accelerated.
“How’s it going?” Sergei asked.
“Okay,” Conrad replied, not as casually as he would have liked.
A few seconds passed. Conrad tried to look at Sergei’s movements without starring, impressed how he was so effortlessly controlling the vehicle.
“You like Huey Lewis and the News?”
Conrad glanced skeptically at Sergei’s face, wondering if he was serious.
Sergei said, “Car, play Huey Lewis and the News.”
As the song Hip to be Square started over the speakers, Sergei pointed an index finger at the stereo and raised his voice to be heard over the song. “Practically all of the music written in the Twentieth century was made to be listened to while driving. Radios were the only electronics in cars, and everyone drove all the time, and everyone listened to the radio while driving, so every song ended up being the kind of song you had to listen to while driving. The essence of Rock and Roll is the throb of a car engine, and believe me, operating a car is a lot more fun when listening to Rock and Roll.”
Sergei’s head bobbed vigorously as he mouthed the words “Hip to be square!” to the music.
Conrad bobbed his head half-heartedly.
“Hey,” Sergei said. “You knew Terri before she moved out of the Rocks?”
“Yeah.”
“That must have been kind of harsh because she was like, your best friend, right
?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m going to tell you, and I know it’s no consolation losing your best friend, but I want you to know that Terri is probably the best thing that happened to Nat. Because—and this is absolutely no secret, it’s not like I’m talking behind her back—it’s really common knowledge—Nat was a real bitch growing up. Sometimes even I would get fed up with her shit and I was probably the closest person to her before Terri came along. I think it would be accurate to refer to Terri as a ‘moderating influence’. Now, I’m going to tell you this, since you’re close to Terri and all and I think it will help things if you’re prepared, but some people think my sister is still a bit of a bitch.”
“Oh,” Conrad said, a little nervous by how Sergei kept looking over at him while he was talking instead of looking at the road like he should be. He wondered if the car had any automatic overrides that would take control from Sergei in an emergency.
“She’s not nearly as much of a bitch as she would have been if Terri wasn’t around. I’d hate to think of what she’d be like now without Terri.”
“Hm.”
“It wouldn’t be pretty,” Sergei said, and then shouted “HEY! FUCK!” slamming on the brakes and swerving as a man and a woman on a scooter suddenly crossed in front of them. They swerved into oncoming traffic that fortunately consisted of Deliverators that had sufficient reaction time to get out of their path. Conrad watched as they passed by the scooter, the faces of the man and woman impassively forward—and a baby, about two years old, also remarkably passive, held on the mother’s lap. They remained impassive as Sergei honked his horn and revved the engine to pass them.
“I almost killed a fucking family,” Sergei exclaimed, looking in the rear view mirror. “Christ, they expect all of the cars to just move out of their way! They forget there are still real drivers out here!”
Girl in a Fishbowl (Crowbar Book 1) Page 6