So it had been through his adolescence; but long before then he had set himself a goal of financial success, and had pursued it doggedly. By the time he was an adult, he had made a place for himself in his business field, and he could afford professional Friends, which allowed him to feel content and confident. That in turn had stimulated his productivity at the firm.
Still, there had been a time before all that, before he received his socweb ‘plant. Daric Dandry had, inevitably, once been a boy. And friendships had been different back then.
* * * *
Incredibly, you could still hitchhike. It seemed an activity from another era, one that should have been erased by advancing technologies and modern cultural strictures. But no. You could still stick out your thumb on rural roads, and the occasional person would give you a ride.
One of these halted a ten-year-old Spark and popped the door. Daric, who had already crossed some distance in this fashion—walking when he couldn't get a ride—gratefully climbed inside. He didn't have the credit for any other means of transportation. For days now he had been sleeping in a pup tent, and he smelled like it.
“I'm going ten klicks,” said the older man, lifting a finger from the old-fashioned spoked steering wheel to point ahead, “that way.”
Daric, settling in the seat, said, “I'm . . . that way . . . uh, going.” It was typically fumble-tongued of him. Suave replies never made it out of his mouth, leaving behind only their echoes, unspoken, in his head. Why couldn't he have said: Ten klicks is a lot better than none? That would have shown a mastery of the language, even a hint of wit. This older man would have immediately taken him more seriously. But it was already too late. It was a lifetime too late for Daric.
In his private misery, he sat with his bag on his lap. Every interaction he'd had so far on the road, had necessitated a social negotiation. So it was with every human engagement. Some people made their livings as Friends. But the socweb served to regulate how people interfaced with each other. With ‘plants, everyone was aware of the score. Daric already knew that this interaction was lost to him.
“So, where you headed?”
What caught Daric most off-guard was the older man's forthright tone, how he seemed to demand a response to his question. Some drivers liked to talk; it was why they picked up hitchhikers. So far, though, the ones Daric had met had been content to carry on monologues, not even using him as a sounding board. Daric normally only interacted with people on the most basic, least impactful level. He'd never learned how to do anything else.
Daric answered with the name of the town, carefully enunciated. Was this going to become a . . . Conversation? Fear and excitement prickled his flesh.
The driver grunted. “I've never been down there.” That comment seemed to indicate that, indeed, a Conversation was afoot.
Turning shyly, Daric took deliberate note of the older man for the first time. He had an average socweb score, maybe a few points below the national median. But it was categorically better than Daric's dismal number.
He also perceived the subtle gold glow ringing the driver's neck and knuckles, the telltales of a failing restorative treatment. Nothing unusual there. Everybody who underwent a Ricca-Hixon Rejuve or a SkinCorp Feenix had failure to look forward to, eventually. But this meant that the older man might be much older, perhaps old enough to have been an adult before the socialweb's sweeping implementation. What had started as a voluntary socializing movement had become institutionalized, a means of identifying people. The outdated analogy said that it was like the Social Security number, which had evolved beyond its initial purpose to become an identity check.
For some reason the thought of this man being from that antiquated time unnerved Daric, adding to the stress of their burgeoning Conversation.
The driver talked sports for a few minutes, until it was clear that Daric had nothing to contribute. He switched gruffly to politics. Daric, heart thumping against his breastbone, lunged at the first political name he could think of when the older man asked him who he favored in the approaching electoral cycle.
The older man, who turned out to be a diehard Re:green supporter, savaged Daric's candidate, who apparently was the Patriot Party's current pick. Daric had never voted in his life; he didn't plan to start. Evidently the driver really did come from a bygone era, when people had had definable and vehement political views. Most everyone these days understood that politicians got into office on the strength of their socweb scores.
When they came to a halt, Daric thought he'd blurted something unforgivably gauche and the man was kicking him out of the vehicle. But the stalwart Re:greener merely indicated the winding rutted track that was his turnoff.
Daric got out, muddling his thanks.
As the Spark drove off and he began walking, Daric was shocked to discover that the tense interaction had ironically moved his socweb score up a few inconsequential increments. He tried to hold on to the strange sense of victory this gave him, but couldn't sustain it. That night he made camp in a field off the road and wept in the tight sleeve of his tent over the loss of Maddox, with whom he'd never had a tense Conversation . . . aside from their last.
* * * *
The beach town was a reimagining of itself; or that was how it appeared to Daric as he advanced through it. Its dimensions hadn't changed. There had been nowhere for it to sprawl, notched as it was into the crags of the coastline.
But the row of fast food franchises was gone. That was typical; they were hard to find anywhere these days. Daric recognized businesses and buildings, parks and residences, from better than a third of his life ago. Other structures, however, were totally unfamiliar. Memories reverberated, and like echoes, he knew, they were distorted and not entirely trustworthy.
Still, the scenery fascinated him. He'd never visited after he'd departed, and he understood why. He'd left no family here. This sleepy little burg had had no credible connection to the mature and lucrative life he had fashioned for himself. This place was merely his starting point.
The town was still a functional entity. It didn't look economically depressed—or no more so than he remembered it being. It was a modest place to live. It smelled of the ocean. Whorls of sand stirred at the intersections. Sandals slapped the pavements. The diners and cafes were un-ironic. No retro chic here.
Daric Dandry, unshaven, humid with his own smells, walked with his one bag through the streets and spoke to no one. It was much as it had been for him as a lonesome, awkward schoolboy who wasn't terribly versed in matters of hygiene. He'd had long, flat hair that dropped in oily fronds across his eyes. He'd picked up the habit of gnawing his thumbnails, he suddenly recalled. The image of those ragged raw crescents was a fact of personal history he had somehow misplaced years ago. The town was prompting these remembrances.
Again he was leery of trusting the memories. Had he, for instance, shoplifted an expensive, poseable superhero action figure from Myerling's Toys? Or had he only planned the crime in ardent detail, playing out the fantasy with its thrill of theft and delirious reward? He didn't know. If he'd ever actually owned the doll, he had no clue what had happened to it.
Had he ever climbed to the highest level of the playground castle in the park nearest his home? He vividly remembered being afraid to scale high enough to crawl out onto the parapet like the braver kids did. But had he ever done it? He might have. Or he might simply have imagined it often enough that the event had gelled into a memory.
Had he ever kissed Kimberly Chin on the mouth . . . ? No. He sure hadn't done that, and no need to wonder about it. His first kiss he remembered, and it hadn't been with the girl he'd had such a horrible adolescent crush on. Romance—or sex, anyway—was far less demanding than sociability, he'd discovered. His first everything of that nature he recalled with exacting specificity.
Just as he distinctly recalled the hollowing ache of being friendless back then.
Or, almost friendless.
Certainly he'd been Friendless. You couldn't ge
t ‘planted before you were sixteen. This town brought back the earliest portions of his life.
He engaged with no one as he made his way through the hamlet. Socweb scores registered within the standard broadcast radius, mostly, it seemed, from young adults wanting to flaunt their numbers. Among them were a few whose scores were so polished and commanding that they must be professional Friends. Daric didn't employ his Privacy. Let them see; let them all see what a miserable score he had.
He headed to the beach.
It was pebbly and gobbed with foam, peppered with bits of shell and roped with kelp. The sea sloshed gray and black. Its immensity was tireless. The wind had a chill, but it didn't seem to be singling him out.
Daric stood and stared outward from the shore.
What happened then happened in stages that he wasn't immediately conscious of. He had no memory of setting down his bag. He merely found himself unburdened, the bag flopped over on the sand beside him. Then his feet were bare. Then his toes were awash. The sky had changed, and a deep green had come to the waves. Then his pant legs were cuffed high, with no memory in his fingers of rolling them up, and the muscular water was dragging on his calves.
“It's a big ocean, friend. If you're going to do that, I'd appreciate if you did it on some other beach.”
Daric turned. It was the first fully conscious movement he'd made in what, he realized abruptly, might well have been hours. Twilight was approaching. He was stiff with the cold.
He squinted at the uniformed figure. A man's voice, cowboy-laconic, casually sarcastic; but there was a tension there. This man was concerned about Daric, because it was his job to be so.
Daric saw where he'd left his bag, his shoes, his socks. The tide hadn't come in toward him; rather, he had moved out into the water. Now, uncertain how he had gotten here, he trudged back onto the shore.
A light, open-air vehicle was parked behind the man in the vaguely forest ranger-type uniform. He wore sunglasses and had a fringe of beard. And Daric recognized him. Here, then, was the ultimate memory prompt. Emotions wheeled in Daric. He hadn't felt anything this keenly since that final scene with Maddox at the coffeehouse.
Daric suddenly realized that Maddox Colburn hadn't entered his thoughts since he'd arrived in town. And while he had been here on the beach, virtually no thoughts had stirred in his head.
The uniformed man slowly removed his sunglasses. He gazed intently at Daric. “You,” he said softly, the sarcasm gone, “can't possibly be who I think you just might be. Can you? Are you . . . ?”
He was right. Billy Scorza was entirely correct. This wasn't possible, and it could not be. Until, after a moment's consideration, it was and it could. Billy too had been born here. So he hadn't ever left. So what? People didn't automatically relocate themselves upon adulthood. Maybe Billy had found the beach town a good fit for his grown-up self.
The uniform, though. That gave Daric a little difficulty. He looked for some past clue, some forecasting from their youth. Billy had been a school crossing guard. The faculty assigned the task to the students. But was that enough of a precursor to—to this? The badge, the green nylon jacket, the Environmental Watch shoulder patch.
“Oh, Christ, Daric . . . it is you.” Billy sagged and actually staggered back a step toward his dune buggy.
“Yes, it's me. And you're you.”
“I'm me,” Billy agreed, even as he shook his head. “Goddamnit, Daric, I was watching you for forty minutes.”
Gulls cried behind Daric. He asked with sincere curiosity, “Forty minutes? What was I doing?”
Billy's jaw tightened under the beard. “You don't know?”
“I'm . . . not sure.”
“If you don't know, I'll tell you. If you do know and you're bullshitting me, you don't need to. There isn't a whole lot I can do. I'm not exactly a cop.”
This was, Daric realized belatedly, a Conversation. He hadn't yet thought of this as a social interaction, but of course it was. Therefore, he should apprise himself of the score. Only Billy Scorza didn't have one.
But Daric said, “Well, tell me, then.”
So Billy described the stages of Daric's progress toward and into the water, filling in the actual movements for him. Daric still felt stunned by the appearance of this—of all people, this—individual, but he was nearly as astounded by the absence of a field from Billy. No socialweb score. No emission of any kind, not even the discernable blank that was a Privacy.
Daric said, “I don't know why I was standing out in the water.” His calves were goosefleshed.
“Okay,” Billy said, neutrally. The professional concern remained. But perhaps there was something beneath that. He coughed a laugh and added, “I can't believe you're here.”
“I decided to come back.” Not quite true; he couldn't remember at any point during his journey when he had made the explicit decision to come here. It was more like the destination had simply risen into his mind as a default.
“Well, I'm . . . glad.” The bearded jaw shifted, and teeth appeared in an uncertain grin.
Daric shared that uncertainty, yet he, too, was moved to smile. The two of them were alone on the beach, in the assembling dusk.
They had been friends. Billy Scorza had, in fact, been Daric Dandry's only friend. They had shared youthful familiarities, traded secrets, hatched plans, gossiped, lied, bragged. Billy had seen through Daric's debilitating awkwardness, a social ineptitude that had kept him from forming relationships with any of their other, less patient schoolmates. Billy had perceived something worthy in Daric.
The friendship had lasted through much of their youth. Then the girl had come between them and it had ended with ugly emotional pyrotechnics. Daric had never spoken to Billy again.
But he spoke now.
“I lost everything, Billy. My whole life just collapsed. I'm destitute. I've got nowhere to live. Maybe I do know why I was out in the water.”
They were standing a few strides apart. Behind was the gargle of the waves. Billy's eyes moistened. He swiped at a tear with a quick neat movement.
“Christ, Daric. If things're that bad, well, you're here. Right? I mean, you're back. And I could, that is, I can . . . “ Billy had always been the polished one, suave even as a boy. Why he had taken pity on Daric, who inhabited a dank and bleak world quite apart from Billy's, Daric had never known. But now, here on this beach, it was Billy who was stammering and clumsy.
Daric ended it. He stepped forward and laid his hand on Billy's shoulder. “Thanks,” he said. Billy had offered to help; the details could wait. Right now a couch to sleep on would cover all Daric's needs.
The grin came again, showing through the beard, bearing the memories of all the good and precious times that they had shared; that they had eventually squandered; and now might get back again, in some distinct but familiar adult form.
They started together toward Billy's official beach-combing vehicle.
As he was gathering his bag and shoes, Daric found himself asking, “What ever happened to Kimberly Chin?” And he was stunned again, this time by how the old pain came back, that childish hurt, that terrible sense of betrayal; and yet he immediately recognized the pain's obsolescence, knew that the hurt didn't matter anymore. He added, “You didn't marry her, did you?”
Billy stopped, his boot crunching in the sand. For an awful instant Daric thought he'd committed his worst error, an ultimate inept blurting that proved he had no business interacting with people.
But Billy said with a note of incredulity, “Marry Kimmy? Oh, come on. Don't be an idiot. Marry my junior high girlfriend? No.” He stepped toward the buggy again, adding, “She's still living here, though. She's an attorney now. You should go say hello after we get you settled in.”
In the vehicle Billy waited while Daric brushed sand off his feet and began rolling on his socks. He wondered why his subconscious had insisted he remove his footwear first if he really had meant to just keep going further and further out into the water.
Daric paused and looked at Billy, really seeing him now. “Can I ask you something?” Daric's voice sounded timid to his own ears, as of one broaching a delicate matter.
With a note of that sarcasm from earlier, Billy said, “Why you can't read me?”
“Why can't I read you?” It wasn't, Daric knew, unheard of for someone over sixteen not to have a ‘plant. They weren't mandatory, after all, though the innate cultural pressure to get ‘planted was enormous. But you were just as likely to find someone who didn't own a phone. The absence was highly unusual, even bizarre.
Billy said, “I had a motorcycle. Maybe a year after you'd left for college. I flipped it over on Hingle Drive, banged up my skull but good. It scrambled my ‘plant, and the doctors removed it. Told me I could be replanted in six months. When that time came around, though, I'd gotten used to being without it.”
Daric pulled on his shoes and settled back into his seat. It occurred to him how unlike Maddox Billy was. Maddox, who had been Daric's best Friend for so long, had never missed an opportunity to bolster Daric's ego, to agree wholeheartedly with him about any and every issue, to praise Daric's “profound” insights, which were really just sophistries. None of Daric's Friends had ever tempered his views or convictions. He had never been allowed to grow.
Billy was also different from the older man Daric had met while hitchhiking, who, though he had engaged with him, had been confrontational and disagreeable. This, with Billy, was different. It didn't yet feel like that old friendship the two of them had once shared. But it might, one day. Or it might evolve into something better, now that Daric could participate in the relationship as an adult who could be challenged, contradicted, even teased.
“Then,” Daric said at last, “I'll have to get used to you being without a ‘plant, too.”
Billy hit the ignition and the buggy hummed, and they left the ocean behind.
Copyright © 2011 Eric Del Carlo
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Asimov's SF, January 2012 Page 12