Tomorrow Factory

by Rich Larson

  Once her mother had pushed her puffy lips together for a goodbye kiss and dissolved off the wall, Marisol ran to her room to change clothes and curl her eyelashes a little. Her Razzibot followed, circling the faux-stucco ceiling, familiarizing itself, she imagined, with light sources and angles. It dipped in closer to watch as she wriggled into a new pair of carbon black tights with shifting rips.

  She did her lashes, then it was back to the main room, where she arranged her other presents more artfully on the floor and draped a few favorites over the spindly mobile furniture. When it all looked perfect, she looked at her Razzibot.

  “Stream to . . .” she said, and considered only streaming to Paloma and Aline and Xandra at first, because they were her best friends and also because maybe there would be a few glitches the first time she used it. But the whole point of a Razzibot was sharing with everyone. That was how Anathema Knolls used hers.

  “Stream to all,” she said, the three little words sending little packets of electricity down her spine. Her Razzibot’s blue eye winked once in response and a little holo underneath showed she was live.

  Marisol stepped lightly through the landmine of presents, giving a piece of biowrap a playful kick so it fluttered up in the air, approaching the smart mirror. Her Razzibot moved backward in perfect synch with her. She stopped in front of her reflection, put her hands on her hips but actually her waist in a way that made it look tiny. She pushed her pink lips together.

  “Guess who got a Razzi?” she sang.

  On cue, her Razzibot circled behind her and joined her in the mirror, drifting over her shoulder, both of them framed so perfectly. Marisol looked down at the phone wrapped around her tanned wrist. Seventeen people on her Stream. Nineteen. A jittering jump all the way to thirty-one.

  “And a few other things, too,” she said. “Here, let’s look. Maybe you can help me decide what to try on first, okay?”

  She realized her Razzibot’s little holo now displayed the Stream numbers, swelling and swelling. She smiled with all of her gleaming white teeth.

  In her first week with a Razzibot, her Stream following quintupled. It was silly, Marisol thought, that people were still shuffling around with gocams or iClops. And the people still snapping with their phones, that was archaic.

  The Razzibot knew her bone structure better than a surgeon and shopped her in realtime, making her skin a little smoother, hair a little glossier, ass a little rounder. Its crude AI was always shepherding her toward a wall with interesting graffiti, or a storefront with colors that matched her outfit. When she took it with her and Aline to Miramar beach, it found them the most beautiful outcrop of rock to pose on and then circled above them like a seagull while they splashed in the surf.

  She wore an Hervé swimsuit and pulled nearly a hundred new followers that day. While the setting sun smelted the sky orange and red, shot through with plumes of purple, she sat in the sand and scrolled up and down them all. Her Razzibot streamed the sunset with a chopped-screwed summer song from last year that everyone was nostalgic for now.

  At the end of the week her mother came back from Seville, and both her parents slid around the house like pieces in a digital quicklock, never occupying the same square of space.

  Marisol’s mother took her shopping in the downtown, and to the Leitaria da Quinta do Paço for natas afterward. She cooed and laughed as Marisol showed off the Razzibot’s more acrobatic camera angles on the walk home. Marisol’s father took to kissing her on the top of the head how he used to when she was younger, but sometimes when he did it his eyes were pewter cold and pointed towards her mother.

  Marisol kept herself busy with the Stream. She had to make the most of her Razzibot while it was still summer; they weren’t permitted in schools. Xandra’s older sister invited her to a party one weekend, because the Razzi was as good as having a professional photographer.

  Marisol drank two glasses of cheap red wine mixed with Coke and danced with her hips and tried to laugh carelessly how her mother did. Someone’s cousin was visiting from London, and later on the rooftop, because her Razzibot was already zoomed and waiting, she let him kiss her. His tongue in her mouth mostly felt wet and cramped, but she saw a dozen new followers ticking onto her Stream to watch. The Razzibot always knew what people wanted to see.

  She hung around with the boy for a few days, walking hand-in-hand over the Dom Luis bridge, watching autobarges cut through the blue muscle of the river, but he was always looking at her Razzi and smoothing his hair like it was all some sort of audition, and a few days later he left. At least he started following her Stream, and so did his friends in London.

  Marisol had followers everywhere, now; at night she liked to scroll through their names and faces and GPS tags until it was all a beautiful blur. Mostly she liked looking at her total follow count. Over three thousand, which was still nothing compared to Holly Rexroat-Carrow, who was diving in New Orleans, or Anathema Knolls, who was having a total rederm but saving her old skin with its tattoos to tack up on her penthouse wall.

  But the number made her feel happy, and when she finally blacked her phone it was nice to still have the muted blue light of her Razzibot in its armoire-side charging station. It reminded her of when she was little and her father would sit on the end of the bed to watch for bogeymen until she fell asleep.

  One evening she let herself into the house and found the low glass coffee table ambling a little circle on the rug, borne down with several empty wine bottles and a vapor pipe and a half-swept spill of dull white powder. The sight put a familiar fear in her gut, but then from upstairs she heard her parents giggling to each other, shush-shushing, which was better than the alternative.

  She realized her Razzibot was drifting over the table, peering down at the contents, its streaming indicator switched on. Marisol’s face turned hot and red. She hadn’t told it to start streaming. Had she? The Razzibot started to move towards the wrought-iron staircase, towards her mother’s drunken laugh.

  “Stop,” Marisol hissed. Too quietly, maybe, because her Razzibot ignored it. “Stop.”

  Its holo blinked out and it sank in the air like a scolded pet. Marisol realized her heart was pounding against her ribs like percussion, so hard she could hear it. How many people had been looking down at the filthy table and listening to her parents’ muffled voices? How many people had heard her panicked stop?

  “Cielo, are you alright?” her mother called. “Ignore the mess. There’s bifanas we picked up in the kitchen, cielo, you should eat, you . . .”

  Marisol went to her room without answering. Her hands trembled at her sides. Her Razzibot floated behind her, but too close, now, and for the first time the tiny whine of its rotor set her teeth on edge. When she closed her door, she stuck it into its charging station and threw her Versace jacket overtop to cover its eye.

  She knew Razzibots had crude AI, that their algorithm was always seeking ways to draw followers, that they liked growing the Stream audience almost as much as their owners did. They always knew what people wanted to see. But some things Marisol did not want to share, not even for a hundred new followers.

  For a few days afterward, things seemed to be better. Her mother went to a spa and had her nails done sharp and shiny, arterial red. Her father played scratchy fado music and strummed at invisible guitar wires. But then it turned bad again, worse than ever, and so Marisol did her best to not be in the house.

  She was still afraid her Razzibot might stream something without her knowing, so afraid she considered leaving it turned off.

  But then her follow count would stall, and slowly shrink, and soon there would be nobody admiring her perfectly-sculpted eyebrows or envying her beautiful Porto summer. So she kept it on. She went to more parties with Xandra’s sister, and kissed another boy who was better at it. She went to a concert, where her Razzibot skimmed all the way over the crowd and somehow made it look as though she was in the dead center of it, as if everyone else was revolving around her.

  She p
lanned a daytrip to Sintra, because 38% of her followers voted it, but Aline’s grandfather was sick and Xandra was busy and Paloma had hated her for weeks now, so in the end she went with only her Razzi. They wandered through the red-and-yellow palace, underneath the great dome and the notched parapets. Marisol smiled until her teeth ached, relaying little facts about crenellations and love scandals her Razzibot sent to her phone, skipping through archways and spinning and laughing. Her shadow slowly stretched thin as a wasp on the ancient cobblestone.

  It was late when the Luxcar dropped her at home, but her Stream was thrumming with fifty new followers and everyone saying how beautiful Sintra was, how beautiful she was, how beautiful her gathered Rilla-Cruz skirt was. She let herself inside, and for a moment forgot all about the Stream.

  In the living room, the autocleaner was trying to digest chunks of shattered vase on the floor. Her father was sitting very still on the couch, his hand wrapped around a Superbock, the previous five bottles lined up in front of him on the table like a firing squad. Little red cuts were scabbing over on his cheek and Marisol could nearly make out the imprint of her mother’s hand.

  “Where’s mama?” she asked, and hated how it came out so weak and trembly.

  Her father was silent for a long moment, swilling beer in his mouth. “She left,” he finally said. His voice was thick and dark as tar. “What did you tell her?” He looked up at her, his mouth twisted. “What did you tell her, you stupid little bitch?”

  Marisol heard the whine of her Razzibot over her shoulder as she fled, but she was too flayed open to think about it. Her pulse was crashing in her ears. Her vision swam black at the edges as she stumbled into her room and shoved the door shut behind her.

  It was only when her Razzi slipped through the closing crack that she realized it was streaming again.

  “Stop!” she shrieked. “Stop!”

  The Razzibot bobbed hesitantly in the air, algorithms warring. Its indicator flickered off. Back on. Behind it, Marisol saw her reflection in her smart glass window, saw the inky tears spilling down her face and her skin gone pale. Her eyes were wide and terrified and everyone could see. A panicky whine rose in the back of her throat; her breath came fast and faster.

  “Stop streaming!” she choked.

  The Razzibot drifted to the right, changing angles. Something came dislodged inside her. Her gaze raked around the room, landed on a heavy baroque lamp beside her bed. She seized it with both hands and smashed the Razzibot out of the air, then smashed it again on the floor, swinging over and over.

  “You little bitch,” she chanted. “You little bitch, you stupid little bitch!”

  Glass and polyplastic crunched; sparks showered the carpet, scorching small holes. Her back muscles seared but she didn’t stop until the Razzibot was nothing but a dead lump of shattered shell and circuitry. Then Marisol dropped the lamp. She climbed into her bed and pulled the covers over her head, and tried to disappear.

  She woke up to the soft chime of her phone and reached for it on instinct, snapping it flat and peering at the soft glowing screen. An avalanche of messages. Her mother, trying to explain. Aline, asking if she was alright. Paloma, asking if she was alright but in a bitchy way. Some sort of offer from Luminos Cosmetics.

  The night came back to her. Marisol peeled the covers back and saw the husk of her Razzibot on the floor. There was still a faint smell of burnt circuits in the air. She remembered her father knocking on the door, pleading with her, weeping. It made her feel like she might need to vomit.

  Then she looked down at her phone again and saw her follow count.

  Half a million.

  Half a million, and growing in spurts as she watched, climbing by thousands instead of tens. Her fingers shook and she nearly dropped her phone. She flicked back to her messages and realized the offer from Luminos Cosmetics wasn’t for a deal, it was for a sponsorship. And there were others, too, from a burgeoning clothing line in Barcelona, from a wearable start-up in Oslo.

  By the time she was through them all, her follow count was nearing a million. So raw, they were all saying, so raw and so real. Marisol watched the number rise and it filled her like morphine. She opened her door and walked tall to the kitchen, where her father was waiting with bags beneath his eyes, with fresh orange juice in a carafe and apologies in his mouth.

  “I didn’t tell her anything,” Marisol said, cutting him off.

  “I know,” he said hoarsely, rubbing his gray temple.

  “But I could have,” Marisol continued. “And I might, still. I need a new Razzibot, please.”

  She poured a glass of orange juice, licked a splash off her thumb. Then she went back to her room and sat cross-legged by her old Razzi’s wreckage, phone in her lap, silently watching her Stream swell and swell.

  DATAFALL

  Rumors webbed down the peninsula through pirate shortwaves and whispered conversations. The Cloud was approaching. The Cloud was going to make a pass near the village.

  Old solar laptops were taken out of hiding to charge in the watery morning sunlight. Rootkits were dug up from cellars and refurbished. Men and women pored over manuals with their cheeks brushing, and Old Derozan surprised everyone when he pulled eight thumb drives from his hollow cane, one by one, and laid them glinting on the floor.

  His grandson, Solomon, was tasked with watching for the black government trucks that sometimes fought their way over the moor. Solomon had never seen the Cloud, but the anticipation was like a hantavirus. He grew to love the idea so much that his father agreed to take him out on the night, up to the knoll where they would have a good view. Old Derozan snorted at this and said they would do just as well to stay indoors. The signal would reach and there would be less chance of attracting unwanted attention.

  Solomon’s father was closer to childhood, and so he kept awake with mate and caffeine sprays until midnight dropped cold over the village. Then he put the precious tablet and its rubber casing into a nylon bag, the straps of which he tightened on Solomon’s narrow shoulders, and they climbed the knoll.

  The moon was a shard of scoured bone. Solomon’s small chest was hollowed out with night. He let the sea breezes slap his face while his father booted up the tablet. His young ears picked up the hum first, and he tried not to shout when the Cloud crested over their heads.

  The flock of machines dipped and slid like quicksilver, aloft on synchronized rotors. Some were caked in birdshit and others scarred black by the deaths of their comrades to LAMS, but the Cloud had slipped border successfully once more. As Solomon watched, carmine eyes began to blink in the blue-black sky and the tablet on his father’s knees came awash with light.

  Solomon tried to listen as his father explained the link-up, the web, but he couldn’t. He was mesmerized by the torrent of sounds and images pouring across the screen. Flesh slapping flesh, crowds of foreigners burning cars, bristles sliding across bright white teeth. Music and voices came in clipped spurts through a disused speaker.

  The screen said it was downloading, downloading, downloading. Solomon’s father said there was a message from his uncle, the one who had faked his papers and shipped out on a rusty schooner.

  The deluge went on and on, and Solomon could see badly-concealed lights down in the village, shadows rushing from door to door to share the invisible rain as they caught, collected. But slowly, inexorably, the red pinpricks began to blink out. The machines drifted east.

  Solomon watched the tablet until it froze and his father swore, but not so angrily. Then both of them sat and rubbed their eyes and watched the Cloud disperse, until the moor sky was empty but tinged rawpink with dawn.

  MOTHERFUCKING RETROPARTY FREESTYLE

  So the semester’s wickest wildest party, bar none, is happening at the straight-up palatial house of Hamza Hamidi, AKA Spitt4style, whose way-too-trusting parents are currently scuba-diving in Venice. And I’m not only going to be there, I’m going to Be There, as in, running shit, because I just dropped all my savings pirating the b
addest Socialight personality module on the market: the freshly-leaked Maestro 2.0.

  This thing is like, borderline AI, the kind of mod billionaires and celebrities are going to be running. I never would have found it by myself, but my uncle is a huge data-criminal sparkhead who caught the leak and agreed to ship me a stick copy in exchange for every last bit of my blood-sweat-and-shears summer landscaping income, and also me not telling my mom.

  Not that I would. She would want to know why I was wasting my savings on digital charisma, because she read on ZenFeed that those new mods are way too invasive, and besides, she didn’t have a Socialight or a personality module in high school, everybody ran freestyle 24/7, and they all turned out just deadly. I love her and all, but Christ.

  She’s got a late one at the hospital, so she’s not around when the little yellow Amazombie careens off the backyard trampoline and scares the piss out of our cat. I’m picking the package out of the dandelions when Dyl shows up all sweaty from a skate sesh.

  He always forgets to ping when he’s coming over; I think maybe because he got his Socialight so late. Before fifth grade he actually hung with the freestylers, the religious wackos or kids too poor to get even the basic-basic. He’s still my best friend since forever, so whatever.

  “What’s good, Shad?” Dyl says, snatching up his board with one lanky hand and raking through his orange hair with the other. He spots the data stick in my fist. “Yo, you ordered the Buttafly trial on stick? I thought we were going to download it on the way to the party.”

  “This is no Buttafly,” I say. “Something heaps better, bru.”

  Dyl shrugs. “Raw, raw. Can I use your bathroom?”

  I lead the way down to my basement and flop on the couch, rolling the two Maestro sticks over and over in my fingers, while Dyl takes his sweet fucking time in the shower. After fifteen minutes I start pinging him, but sometimes the old ways are best, right, so finally I haul off the couch, bang my hand on the door and politely shout: