by H. A. Swain
She touches a pix of a cat in a tux to pull up info on a retrospective called U Must B Kitten Me.
“Do you remember that girl Lynna Orkowski from SCEWL? I heard her ASA didn’t fully take and now she’s totally obsessed with cats. She draws cats, paints cats, makes tiny outfits just for cats.” Suddenly Ara looks horrified. “Oh, god!” she says. “What if that happens to me?”
“Can we just get the hell out of here?” I ask, then tell my car’s V2V NaviSystem to take us home. “I can’t handle any more sosh tonight.” I reach across Ara and open the glove box for my own silver flask.
“Is that a receiver?” She points at a black device tucked behind the flask.
I nod. “I got it from the Plebe Rajesh knows who sells the Juse.” I take a swig. I need another hit after that conversation with Calliope. I know it’s dumb to let her spook me. She’s just a brain activist with a vendetta against my father. But none of them have ever targeted me. Plus she knew so much about the situation—my parents’ divorce that’s lingered in the courts for years and my doubts about having an ASA. I can’t help but wonder where she’s getting her information and it’s freaking me out.
“Wouldn’t your dad kill you if he finds out you listen to pirate radio?” Ara asks and takes the flask from me.
“Market research,” I joke and feel myself begin to relax as the Juse seeps into my bloodstream.
Since the traffic is slow on the ground, the Cicada prepares to lift off and bypass the congestion. “Windows,” I command. The screens become transparent so we can see outside. I don’t like the SkyPath, yet. It’s still too new. Of course, my father insisted he be one of the first to have access to that space when it opened six months earlier, but the whole thing feels clunky to me. The car rumbles as the wings unfold, the air pressure in the vehicle changes too abruptly when we rise up, and there’s a screechy sound as the wheels retract. I look out at the four other new-model Cicadas that form our self-navigating platoon.
“What do you listen to on it?” Ara asks, still poking at the receiver.
“You can find all kinds of interesting stuff on the waves.” I take it out and turn it on. “Sometimes it’s religious fanatics from their bunkers in the wastelands predicting the end of the world as we know it. Or oddballs spouting anticorporate philosophy and saying they want a revolution.”
“Why?” she asks.
I shrug. “Well, you know, they all want to change the world, I guess.”
“As if,” she says, then she leans in close and whispers, “Do you ever hear illegal music?”
“Sometimes you can find a station,” I say, not mentioning that most nights I spend hours surfing the waves, listening to tunes, imagining how I would rearrange the melodies and instruments to give songs a whole different feel. “But my dad’s people catch on pretty quick and jam the signal. Not that it matters. The pirates are smart. They move around and find other waves.”
Tonight the stations are crackly and hollow-sounding with all the interference from the Distract, but we catch a few snippets here and there from the handful of audio news streams that cover everything substantive the Buzz would never run.
Factory workers riot over unsanitary conditions.
A warehouse fire in India kills four pickers and destroys three million dollars worth of merchandise.
Corporation Xian Jai says it’s considering automating all facilities by 2093.
The Kardashian SCEWL for Future CelebuTantes posted record-high earnings today.
“That’s where we went, right?” Ara asks, smiling at the memories coming back.
“‘Give ’em to us and they’ll be smart enough to know better when they graduate,’” I quote the SCEWL’s motto, and we both laugh until the next headline hits.
Bad day for Chanson Industries. Calliope Bontempi filed suit against Harold Chanson for personal and property damages following the sale of her music contract and a reversal ASA.…
“That’s the crazy girl who cornered me in the gallery,” I tell Ara.
… And an unidentified group momentarily hijacked the LiveStream of the Geoff Joffrey concert.…
“Oh god,” I groan. “My dad’s going to be in a foul mood tonight!” I reach to change the channel, but Ara stops me.
“No wait, I want to hear this,” she says.
I take another long drink from the flask.
Harold Chanson is widely credited with changing the music industry by patenting the first Acquired Savant Ability surgery, known as an ASA, that rewires the auditory cortical region of the brain to induce musical genius. Since then, other companies have patented similar procedures for savant abilities in different regions of the brain.
Chanson went on to become one of the most successful music patrons in the world by introducing pay-for-play streaming technology in 2065 that prohibits consumers from downloading and owning individual songs.
In her complaint, Ms. Bontempi claims she underwent a reversal ASA (a procedure for which Chanson Industries also holds the patent) that left her with acquired amusia. “I can no longer sing, hum, or whistle. I cannot read or write music, recognize songs I once knew, or play any of the instruments I so dearly loved. My ability to make a living as a musician was stolen by Harold Chanson when he did not honor my contract, and now my ability to derive any pleasure from music has been erased from my mind by him as well.”
“Enough!” I turn off the receiver. “I can’t stand to hear about another person whose life was ruined by my father.”
“That’s cold.” Ara leans away.
“Oh, come on! You know how this goes,” I grumble at her. “Art is a cutthroat business and not everybody makes it. Calliope’s career failed and now she’s bitter. Next she’ll say my father is evil and that art should belong to everybody.”
The Juse must have hit Ara hard because this makes her laugh and since she’s laughing, I start laughing, too. We howl and slap our knees.
Finally, Ara calms down enough to say, “What a stupid idea. Everybody knows art belongs to the elite.”
ZIMRI
When Marley, Dorian, and I get to my POD, the lights are off and the blinds are down.
“Nonda?” I call. “You here? We have visitors.” When she doesn’t answer, I tiptoe in. My shoulder brushes against one of my father’s paintings of the river, knocking it askew.
“Could she be asleep?” Dorian asks, clearly hoping for a way out of the awkward situation.
“It’s not that late,” Marley assures us.
I command the lights on low and see two pots on the stove. No freeze-dried, premade dinners in our house. Nonda always cooks. The smoky scent of beans and greens still hangs in the air. But the main living space is empty and her sleeping unit is retracted into the wall.
“Maybe she went out?” Dorian says. “We could come back another time.”
Marley, Dorian, and I are all startled, then we laugh nervously when we hear the whoosh of the toilet before the bathroom door slides open and there’s Nonda squinting into the bright light. “Rainey?” she calls. “That you?”
I glance over my shoulder at Marley. He knits his eyebrows, same as me. It’s weird hearing Nonda call for my mom. “It’s me, Nonda. It’s Zim.”
Nonda looks sleepy and confused. “Oh,” she says and shuffles by. I notice her clothes are wrinkled and disheveled. Her pants are dirty at the knees.
“Sorry to barge in on you like this, Layla.” Marley steps forward with his arms open for a hug. “It’s late and—”
“You hungry, Linus?” she says and Marley visibly blanches. His eyes cut to the artwork hung all over our walls. It’s been years since anyone mistook him for my father. “I went to the river today and picked some greens,” she says.
“Is that why your pants are dirty?” I ask, following Nonda closely like a bloodhound sniffing for the trail of her day. “Because you were out picking? Or did you fall?”
Nonda looks down at herself. “Oh my,” she says. “I am a mess!” She rubs at the smud
ges on her clothes. “Picking is messy business, but you know how your daddy loves them greens. Don’t you? I got some watercress for your supper.”
“I know it’s been a while.” Marley puts his hand on her shoulder and looks her squarely in the face. “But I’m not Linus. I’m Marley. Remember me?”
Nonda studies him then blinks as if she’s concentrating. “Goodness me, so silly. I’m a tired old woman.” She laughs and pats his arm then moves on. “Of course you’re not Linus. He’s long gone. You all hungry?” she says and opens one of the pots on the stove.
Marley starts to say no but Dorian and I jump in with a resounding, “Yes!”
“Good!” says Nonda and gets a spoon. “And who’s this?” she asks, pointing at Dorian.
“That’s my boy,” Marley says.
“Nice to meet you … again, ma’am.” Dorian offers his hand.
“I remember you and Zimri running around in diapers,” says Nonda, which makes both of us blush.
“The reason I wanted to talk with you,” Marley says, but Nonda isn’t listening.
She ladles out great heaps of beans and greens into two bowls while talking nonstop. “Your parents were a heap of trouble when they were young,” she tells us. I press my lips together so I won’t laugh. “Always into mischief down by the river. That was before Corp X started that sham of a so-called education system. Zimri, set the table.”
I push the button so the table unfolds from the wall. “You mean SQEWL?”
“Hmph,” says Nonda, hands on hips. “Special Quality Education for Workforce Life, my butt! Brought in a bunch of RoboNannies to keep you kids on lockdown while we worked. Took the cost right out of our COYN. No art. No music. A travesty, if you ask me!”
Nonda’s rant about SQEWL is a familiar one, so I’m glad when Dorian interrupts. “What kind of things did you do down by the river?” he asks his dad as we slide onto the benches across from one another, but Marley doesn’t answer.
“Oh, I can tell you stories!” Nonda grins as she sets down steaming bowls in front of us. “Once Marley and Rainey made a boat. Decided they were going to leave.”
Dorian and I snicker. “Where were you going to go, Dad?”
“I don’t remember,” Marley mumbles.
“I do,” Nonda says haughtily. “Going to the City to become famous.”
“Famous doing what?” I ask between bites, even though I already know.
Nonda looks at Marley but he stares at the floor and mutters, “Music.” Then he adds, “That was before those genius surgeries and pay-for-play laws and patrons owning musicians.…”
“I never did understand how one person could own all the music.” Nonda settles on the bench beside me. “Seems like a bunch of crap to me.”
Dorian and I giggle. Nonda’s always a straight shooter.
“That’s not how it works.” Marley slides in next to Dorian. “Artists are like professional athletes and patrons are like team owners. They sign contracts with artists then own the copyright to all their work. In music they make money off of concerts, LiveStream vids, and audio streaming, which is why you can’t own any music like you could back in the day. Just download a song and it was yours to keep and play anytime you wanted. Nowadays, the more money a song makes, the higher it moves up the Stream, the more you hear it. Ugh. Same thing over and over. Whatever the masses like best. You try to pull up an old song and they stick it to you big-time with a premium!” He shakes his head, disgusted.
“That didn’t stop your mama, did it, Zimri?” says Nonda. “No, sir. Oh, Rainey would say, I don’t believe in none of that copyright malarkey. Nobody can own ideas or art. I told her, ‘You better stop messing around with that music. Mixing it all up and saying that it’s your own. Putting on shows and expecting people to pay you.’”
“Tati had a hand in that, too,” Marley says and sniffs. “She figured out how to hack the HandHelds so folks could download Rainey’s songs, which was dumb since she sampled lots of tunes for remixes.”
“The fat cats in the City didn’t like that, did they?” Nonda asks. Marley shakes his head. “And you know what happened to your mama when she got caught.”
Beans stick in my throat. The audio and video recorders feel heavy in my pocket.
“They said she owed money for all the music she stole and if she couldn’t pay it back, she’d go off to jail and earn them their money.” Nonda shakes her head. “Mm-mm-mm. She always was a stubborn one. She said, ‘I’d just be trading one prison life at the warehouse for another in the jail.’”
“Like the old song said,” Marley adds, “one chain makes a prison.”
Nonda laughs. “I think you got that wrong. It’s the other way around—one chain don’t make no prison,” Nonda sings. “And Rainey had more than one chain.”
I swallow hard, forcing the mush down. We haven’t heard from my mother in years. Truth is, we don’t even know if she’s still alive.
“But you.” Nonda turns to Marley. “You had a good woman. She kept you on track, didn’t she?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Marley whispers. He keeps his eyes on his hands, which are folded tightly between his knees.
“After Rainey was arrested, you stopped.”
I watch Marley carefully, but he won’t meet my eyes.
“I promised my wife,” he says.
“Whatever happened to her?” Nonda asks. “You two split up?”
“No, she passed a few years ago,” Marley says. “Cancer.”
Nonda sighs. “So many losses.” She reaches across the table and pats his hand. “I’m sorry. She was a nice gal, your wife.”
Marley nods while Dorian and I lock eyes. We’ve never talked about the fact that neither of us have mothers anymore. I suppose because his mom had no choice when it was her time to go, but mine chose to leave me behind, and those are two very different things.
“You raised up this fine boy.” Nonda pokes Dorian’s arm. “Good thing these young ones aren’t so foolish nowadays.” She looks straight at me. “You saw what problems your mother caused. That rat Medgers coming around, harassing me. So let me ask you this, Zimri Robinson.” She folds her hands and leans in close to me. “You’d never do such a thing as make music, would you?”
Dorian and I stare at our bowls, not daring to make eye contact anymore.
“Would you?” she presses and leans in closer. “Because you know what happens if you do and you get caught?”
I’m silent, sweating, afraid she’ll put her hand on my leg and ask me what’s inside my pocket.
“They’ll zap your brain,” Nonda says. “Turn you into a blathering idiot. So I’ll ask you one more time.” She pauses, just long enough to really make us sweat. “You making music?”
Without looking at her I mumble, “No, ma’am.”
“Good!” She slaps the table, which makes us jump. Slowly she rises from the bench, her knees creaking. “Now what did you want to discuss?” she asks Marley.
He’s been kowtowed and it’s no surprise. Nonda has that effect on people. “Your mother…” he starts to say to me and then trails off.
“What about her?” I stare at Marley, daring him to look at me but he won’t.
Most of my memories of my mother are caught up in song. I remember singing together while she gave me a bath, her showing me how to play the ukulele, both of us humming while she made us breakfast. I have a few murky memories of playing with Dorian at Nowhere while Mom and Marley jammed. When I uncovered recordings of her old music, both what she listened to and the music that she made, I felt like I knew her better. Heavy, thumping beats that hit you in the gut and songs that sounded happy but with lyrics that were raw. Sometimes, I think my music sounds like hers—as if there could be a genetic link for music like the ones for the texture of my hair and the gap between my teeth that came directly from Nonda to my mother then to me. But there’s a major difference between us. I make up my own songs and don’t sell them. My mother appropriated other people’s music
to make a profit.
I continue staring at Marley. I don’t see him very often anymore, but when I do, I’m always shocked at how old he’s become. Something about how his face is shrinking in on itself and his hair is thinning and his eyes are losing some of their brightness. My mother would be pushing fifty now as well. “She wouldn’t want you to…” Marley says and again he can’t finish.
I shake my head. “She left,” I tell him. “She doesn’t get a say about what I do.”
ORPHEUS
By the time Ara and I hit our Community, it’s that in-between time of night when everyone who’s anyone is still out trying to get in the Buzz and all the has-beens are holed up inside wondering why the public no longer cares. Even the RoboMestics have taken the kids and dogs in for the night, leaving our Community well-ordered and quiet with its smooth streets, wide sidewalks, and tall fences. Beyond big blank yards, every hulking house is a monument to success. And they just keep getting more elaborate: A replica of the Duoma, one of Mount Vernon. The woman who invented the HoverCam recently completed a scaled-down Versailles.
At neighborhood cocktail parties the adults talk about square footage, everyone complaining that they’re growing out of their space and need yet another house on yet another coast somewhere else in the world. For a while salt therapy rooms were all the rage, then pet spas. I know at least ten families who expanded their foyers to accommodate walk-through microbe zappers. And hardly anyone uses their sensory deprivation chambers anymore. Quinby’s family turned theirs into an antigravity tank. Good for the skin, her mother told mine.
At my father’s house (a reconstructed Parthenon—modesty is not in his vocabulary), the MajorDoormo announces our arrival, but this time, instead of stepping confidently into a spotlight, Arabella and I stumble, hanging on to one another, and spill into the living room, laughing our butts off. We stop short when we see my father.
He spins around and barks, “Orpheus! What the hell!”