Up and Coming: Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

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Up and Coming: Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors Page 282

by Anthology


  The home stretch beckons beyond the moguls. Ari shudders into view as we slingshot around a curve. It’ll be just like old times, us battling it out for the finish line. We’ll—

  No. The angle’s all wrong as his hover bike pushes off the last rise. Ari flubs the jump, and his bike careens into me.

  That’s when the screen goes dark. Fin.

  ***

  A year ago, Ari followed me back to my apartment after a race where I missed the podium by a few tenths of a second. I wasn’t really in the mood to talk, but Ari was his incorrigible self—all fired up and unwilling to take no for an answer.

  “You know the first time the Lumière brothers showed their moving pictures to people, members of the audience panicked and tried to escape? They thought it was real, man. They literally thought a train was going to barrel into that theater and smash them flat.”

  I shook my head. “That’s stupid.”

  “No, man, you don’t get it. They believed what they were seeing. They believed it, and it terrified them. That’s the power of moving pictures. That’s the power we gotta harness if we’re gonna go anywhere.”

  He was right. The Asian kids on the tour had better reflexes, better acrobatics…Hell, they were fearless. There’d been a probe into seeing if countries like Japan, China, and Korea brainwashed them into these shredding monsters. Me, Ari, and a couple of guys from the old guard were trotted out, told to testify on what outcomes were possible in the sport. Didn’t matter though. The probe’s findings were inconclusive. That, or enough money exchanged hands it didn’t matter anymore. All we knew is that we were getting our asses handed to us in every race.

  Fuck that.

  Ari paced across my apartment’s living room, his fingers raking his curls. “If they’re not gonna kick these little shits off the tour, then we gotta figure out a way to stay on top.”

  I let out a sigh. “To race on my own terms. That’s all I ever wanted.” We earned our experience logging hours on the hover cross course, not in a chair hooked up to a mind-scrambling computer.

  “The committee might look the other way, but we can’t afford to. Maybe we can use their techniques to our advantage.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He pulled a well-worn book out of his back pocket and snapped the cover with the nail of his index finger. “I’ve been doing some thinking. This French dude Virilio says moving pictures have a velocity all their own. What if we found a way to use that in competition?”

  “But—”

  “No chems, Jack, and no cheating. I promise. This’ll be completely legal.” He paused and gave me a wink. “Well, if only because it’s so cutting edge.”

  Ari was genius. He did the research, came across old propaganda films, studied up on the techniques of Eisenstein, Goebbels, and all the scientists that came after, researching visual stimuli’s effect on the brain. Learned about cinematic illusions from watching the oeuvres of Méliès through Gondry. Read enough film theory to seduce every MFA coed in the country.

  By superimposing film sequences over our field of vision via the implants—not enough to hinder our sight—we could distract the active parts of our minds with the chains and let instinct and muscle memory do the rest during races. No more over-thinking the jumps and turns. No more letting nerves get in the way. We’d find the zone faster than ever before and be able to stay in it as we rode the boost until the very end.

  That’s when Marek became our sponsor and hooked us up with his montage technician Lucio, who stopped creating hallucinogenic and mood-altering chains for a discerning clientele and started splicing solely for us.

  When we started vid-boosting in competition, we were unstoppable. Me and Ari, one and two. Silver and gold every damn time. Then Keigo Atori started interrupting the flow. So we had to keep pushing the vid-chains further and further to stay on top of the field.

  Until the links broke, taking Ari with them.

  ***

  When the curtain rises, I nearly lose it, right there in the hospital. I have three bruised ribs and a gash running down low over my forehead like a goddamn pirate. But Ari…Ari is gone. Spinal cord severed on impact, gone in a fiery blaze of his hover trail.

  My implant’s filled with messages and newsfeeds that have captured the race in razor-sharp detail. When the shock wears off, when I can finally watch the race playback without vomiting, I wonder what the last image he saw was, whether it was beautiful enough to justify—

  The doctors finally discharge me once they’re sure I’m not showing any more symptoms from my concussion. As I’m being wheeled through the corridors, I queue up a chain. With my digital blinders to the rest of the world firmly in place, the tension in my body leaks out like a deflated balloon.

  Marek’s car is waiting for me in front of the hospital. Along with a glimmering wall of paparazzi. One of the drone cam’s stuck in the revolving doors, flashing every time it hits the glass.

  But I’m riding the boost, my body disconnected from my mind as I lever myself out of the wheelchair, take the handful of steps to the passenger door held open by one of Marek’s goons. I am untouchable today. It’s the only way I can manage.

  “Jackie boy, tell us how you’re feeling.”

  “Mr. Deseronto! When are you cleared to ride again?”

  “What’s going to be your game plan for your comeback?”

  In the womb-dark of Marek’s car, I almost don’t see the man himself until he clears his throat. “Deseronto. How are you doing?”

  My voice rasps out, “You already know the answer to that.”

  He inclines his head deferentially. “Careless of me, of course. Ari will be missed.” He watches me, his lips pressed into a thin line. “Where can we take you? The gym, the track…your apartment?”

  “Yeah, my place.”

  Marek snaps his fingers, and the car flows into traffic.

  I sink back into the seat. “Thanks.” My mind eddies as the roaring of a waterfall fills my ears and leaves frothy swirls in the periphery of my vision. A strange sense of peace steals through my veins.

  “We should stage your next public appearance carefully after…” Marek’s discordant voice claws me back to reality.

  I shake my head. “I don’t…”

  “Ari would have wanted…”

  “No. I need t—”

  “Time,” Marek says smoothly. “Of course. But you have to understand my position, Mr. Deseronto. If you aren’t racing, you need to be earning your keep somehow. Lucio’ll get you set up at the film archives so you can supply us with fresh footage.”

  I consider saying no, but really what else is there for someone like me? I’d probably stay holed up in my apartment, waiting until the media found a new story, another tragedy to distract the insatiable masses. It doesn’t take long these days.

  “I’ll do it.” Although both of us already knew that.

  “Excellent. Once you get over this episode, we can discuss your return to racing and—”

  The limo stops at a light. I throw open the door and lurch out of the car, into the welcoming arms of the vid-chain.

  ***

  A week after my release from the hospital, a constipated-looking old man leads me to the elevator upon my arrival at the archives. “The basement’s where we keep all the original prints, leaving the upper floors for viewing and exhibit spaces,” he tells me as the doors open. “Jenny will get you started.”

  “Uh, thanks.”

  A fresh-faced girl my age or a year, maybe two, older leaves her desk and holds out her hand. “Jack Deseronto? When I saw your application, I could hardly believe it.”

  That makes me wince. I don’t know what strings Marek had to pull or what papers had to be forged to get me a position here. But the vid-chains need links. I know he has operatives installed at other places to curate sequences from movies, documentaries, b-roll from local news outlets, even commercials. And now he has me.

  I shrug. “Are you saying I can’t ha
ve other interests?”

  Her brown eyes widen behind her rectangular-rimmed glasses. “No, no, not at all.” Her hand falls to her side. “I meant no offense. I was just surprised is all. You came highly recommended.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  “Yes, well…” Jenny turns on a megawatt smile. She’d be attractive if she didn’t hide herself in basements, wearing shapeless black clothes. “Let me show you where you’ll be working.” Past aisles and aisles of DVDs, film cans, and reels of magnetic tape, we come to a back wall with six booths along it. “Number three, that’s you.”

  I stick my head inside. A projector, tape deck, monitors, mixing station, and a computer console. Enough gear Lucio’d piss himself. A small grunt of approval escapes me, and Jenny beams.

  “I look forward to working with you.” Another smile, and she turns to go.

  “Wait. One more thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t want to be disturbed, or have my working here cause anyone trouble. If the paparazzi—”

  “Don’t worry, Mr. Deseronto. You’ll have all the peace and quiet you can stand after…The basement’s a restricted area. Only employees can get down here.”

  I relax slightly, and she takes that as invitation to linger. She licks her lips. “I’d love the chance to talk to you about your application essay.”

  “Oh, right.” Just one more thing I owe to Ari.

  “Your explication of the shot sequences in Eisenstein’s Strike were really quite…” She inhales sharply. “I mean, everyone always talks about Battleship Potemkin, but you can see the foundational work for his theories of montage in that earlier film.”

  Eisenstein defined montage as the psychological effect that results from the collision of two or more shots. That’s what Ari was after with the chains. A sustained emotional effect—fearlessness, euphoria, grim determination, sometimes all of it at once—to heighten our perception during races as our brains try to resolve conflicting visual information. And when it works, nothing else in this world can compare.

  Jenny ducks her head when I don’t respond. “Listen to me go on. I’ll let you get settled in.”

  Ari would be laughing his ass off right about now. I’m sure of it.

  ***

  When I emerge from the maglev station, my body shuts down as strangers swarm around me. Some point and stare, others shove past, stopping for no one. My busted mug’s been everywhere in the weeks since the accident. Vid-boosting helps me forget that, but it can only do so much.

  Sweat slicks my forehead. My implant’s a pulsing weight on the back of my neck, but I resist the urge to queue up a chain. Instead, I shove my hands in my pockets and find the storage drive. Right. The whole reason I came here in the first place. I glance around and get my bearings. Lucio’s is just a few blocks north. I dislodge myself from where I’ve become mired in pedestrians, and start walking, shedding people as I enter the industrial district.

  I duck inside the salvage shop. The door chimes upset the disconnecteds like a flock of birds as they tear their gazes away from the display cases filled with models of used implants.

  Lucio looks up from behind the counter where he’s dismantling an old touch screen for parts. The dilated pupils behind the optizoom specs suggest he’s vid-boosted recently. He hasn’t though—that’s what makes Lucio so amazing. He can make the vid-chains but he’s not beholden to them.

  Lucio sets down the dissected screen and slams his hand on the counter. The disconnecteds, mostly poor street kids, flinch back. “You going to buy anything this time?” The kid in the middle shakes his head. “Then get out. We’re closed for the rest of the day.”

  “But we can come back tomorrow, right?”

  Lucio tries and fails to look tough. “We’ll see.”

  The kids nudge each other. He’s too much a softie, teasing them with 3D vids he puts together himself if he’s not too busy splicing. Most of them will never be connected, but he tries to help them forget that.

  After Lucio locks the door and rolls down the blinds, he turns around and sees me watching. “You better have something for me today. Marek’s getting antsy.”

  “I do.”

  Lucio snorts and leads me past metal aisles full of dusty components.

  “I’m still new at this, you know,” I call after him.

  “All the more reason for you to do well,” he says without turning around.

  The back room is crammed full of screens, with a small computer terminal on a cart wedged into the corner. Lucio flops down into the desk chair while I take the only other seat—a rickety wooden stool. I hand over the storage drive.

  I try to avoid looking at the screens. With all the random images scrolling past, I feel like ants are crawling around in my brain. I just need to get through the meeting, then—

  “Your job at the archive holding up?” Lucio asks as he loads up the sequences.

  “So far so good.” Curated some great sequences for Marek’s organization. Jenny caught me vid-boosting once, but I convinced her I was just having a vivid dream after falling asleep logging footage. She’s made sure to knock on the door to my booth since then. Which I guess is a good thing, but it’s not like she caught me jerking off.

  Lucio plays the first sequence and pulls up the associated metadata on another monitor. He grunts. “The contextual parameters look okay but I’ll have to check them all to be sure.”

  “Of course.” Context’s the hardest thing to get right. You can spot an amateur vid hack straight off based on how well they manage contextual transitions between sequences.

  That’s not to say montage vids don’t have their place. Lucio made good money creating increasingly incomprehensible shot combos to get his clients high. But it’s risky since it’s essentially voluntary brainwashing. I heard about a guy mind-hacked on montage. Not pretty.

  I sigh and rub my face as Lucio brings up the next sequence: A general giving a speech to his troops before battle. The sound’s muted but my mouth moves along with the actor’s words. Lucio pulls up another sequence, then another. I close my eyes, but I can feel the images pressing in. Demanding to be looked at.

  “Jack…Hey, you there?”

  “Huh?” My eyes snap open. “Yeah. I must have drifted…”

  He tut-tuts to himself. “My friend, you need to take care of yourself. Vid-chains aren’t everything.”

  “No, but they make things…manageable.”

  He doesn’t disagree. “You racing in the charity exhibition this weekend?”

  I shake my head. I’m not officially retired, not yet. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to trot myself out, no matter how many kids with incurable diseases it benefits. Ari’s been gone for just over a month. Don’t they know that?

  Lucio arches a brow but says nothing as he pulls up a different sequence.

  I lean forward. “A new one?”

  He nods. “This one’s special.” His hands skate over the keyboard, and the music starts.

  The accompanying soundtrack can make or break a vid-chain. It provides subconscious signals for how your brain interprets the visual stimuli and walks you back to reality when the boost is over. Lucio is a great editor, but his musical ear is what sets him apart.

  “Hear that?” he asks.

  I concentrate on the music. The swells sound tinny, and it’s not Lucio’s speakers. “It’s lacking…I don’t know…richness.”

  Lucio beams. “I stripped out the stereo layers. When you boost, it will add a bit of artificiality to the experience so you don’t lose yourself completely.”

  Usually fidelity is the goal for vid-boosters. It’s why people like me go straight to the source for the sequences. Authenticity, provenance…These things matter so that somewhere in the back of your mind as you ride out the boost, you know the light particles that comprise the moving images are minimal degrees of separation from the original—that you are almost there too, experiencing everything firsthand.

  Even th
e music has to be pitch perfect. Lucio often performs the different instruments himself, layering them on top of each other with his mixer. But to deliberately add a layer of artificiality? A self-consciousness to the act of vid-boosting?

  “I don’t know.”

  “Try it.” I shake my head, but Lucio grabs my wrist. “I insist, Jack. If it doesn’t work, no big deal. But if you’re better able to control the boosts…”

  I pull away from him. “All right. All right. But I’m not paying for it.”

  “Of course not. This one’s on the house.”

  ***

  When I step out of Lucio’s shop, Marek’s car is waiting for me, along with a pair of drone cams. I wonder if Lucio told him I was here, then dismiss the thought. Lucio’s always dealt straight with me. He was just as torn up over Ari as I was, in his way.

  The chauffeur stands at attention like this is merely a social call, not a summons. I could decline, but I’d be dodging the cams all the way back to my place. “Good to see you again, Mr. Deseronto,” the chauffer says as I slide into the backseat. But we both know there’s nothing good about it, so I stay quiet.

  The car pulls into traffic, smoothly negotiating the crush of vehicles. The buildings thin out, and then smog rolls back a bit as we take the twisty roads into the hills.

  I wipe my palms on my pantsleg. The car ride means only one thing—Marek wants me to race again.

  The archive job’s not so bad. Thanks to Ari, I know enough jargon to get by, and there are enough hot girls like Jenny hiding behind glasses and shapeless black clothes to keep things interesting. The ones too afraid to be in the vids they’re cataloguing.

  It’s not a forever thing—I know I’m expected to go back to racing once I get over this “episode.” I won’t. But Marek doesn’t know that yet.

  The car pulls up to his mansion in one of those walled rich people neighborhoods in the hills. Sentries with dogs patrol the yard, and security guards are stationed at each entrance.

 

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