“The kids were working on their coop today,” said Mom.
“They’re on the same team?” Dad liked to sit at these meals with a knife in one hand and a fork in the other, even though all they did was stare at the virtual food. The kids could have made their avatars appear to eat, but their parents, Mom especially, had yet to master the tricks of full immersion. “How does that happen?”
“Just lucky, I guess.” Remeny’s dinner was the leftover smoothie and snap peas out of the bag. She ate in her room.
“So what’s it about?”
“It’s kind of boring actually.” After talking to Robby that afternoon, Remeny had been hoping coop wouldn’t come up.
“No, it isn’t.” Her brother opened their private channel with a (.4) impatience blip. =We should have this conversation now.=
=They’ll want to talk about it all night. I’m going out later.=
“Something to do with the Declaration of Independence?” Apparently Mom had been paying attention after all.
=With Silk?=
=None of your business.=
“Oh, right,” said Dad. “We the people blah blah in order to form a more perfect union of whatever.” Remeny had been hoping that Dad would take the conversation over, as he usually did. “I’ve always wondered how you get to be more perfect. I played James Madison once, you know; he was a shrimp, five feet four – what’s that in meters?”
“A hundred and sixty-two centimeters.” Even though Robby was using his parent-friendly version of Sturm – no scars, no iridescence – she could tell he was mad.
“Just about Johanna’s size.” Dad’s avatar was wearing a Hawaiian shirt with a sailboat motif. As usual, he looked like his hardtime self, handsome as surgery and juv treatments could make an eighty-three-year old, but then his image was part of his actor’s brand. “No, wait. That’s not right.” He pointed his knife at Remeny, as if she were thinking of correcting him. “More perfect union is the Constitution. The Declaration was Jefferson. He was a tall one, him and Washington. Never played Washington. Wanted to, never did, even though we’re about the same size.”
“We’re declaring our independence,” said Robby.
=Sturm, no.=
That stopped Dad. “Who?” He frowned. “Teenagers?”
“Everybody who’s stashed. We’re giving up on hardtime – reality. We want to live as avatars.”
“Cool.” It was exactly the wrong thing to say. Remeny wondered if he’d been biting into a slice of pizza wherever he was and hadn’t been paying attention to the conversation.
“And how do you propose to do this?” Mom’s avatar looked like she had swallowed a brick.
“Just do it. Stay stashed.” Robby gave them a (.6) impatience blip. “Never log off.”
“No blips at the table, please.” Mom had strange ideas about manners. “Never come back – ever?”
Remeny started to say, “Only when we want…” but Robby talked over her. “Never.” He pushed back his chair and stood up, which seemed to Remeny more disrespectful than a blip. “And we want to be able to overclock as much as we want. Live double time. Triple. Whatever.”
“Now you’re talking nonsense,” said Mom. “Your brain is not a computer, Robert. Overclocking causes seizures. And being stashed is hard on the body. The mortality rate for—”
“That’s why we overclock,” he shouted. “We can burn through subjective years while the meat rots.”
Mom looked shocked that he would use the m-word at the table. Remeny couldn’t believe it herself.
“Sit down, Robby.” Dad didn’t seem angry. He just scratched his chin with the fork while he waited for Robby to subside. Robby obeyed but sulked. “Funny this should come up. So I’m in Vermont with Spencer this morning…”
“Jeff.” Mom sounded betrayed.
“Pirates in Vermont?” said Remeny.
=Don’t encourage him.= Robby was on Mom’s side in this one. =Let’s finish this.=
“I was done early at the Treasure Ship shoot.” Dad shook his head. “Bastards cut half of my part. So, there I am at Steve Spencer’s summer place in Vermont and he pitches me an idea about how people want to do exactly what Robby is talking about. He’s got a script ready to go and everything. Financing no problem, sixty mill starter money he says. Sixty million dollars kind of gets my attention. The idea is that there are people who want to live in virtual reality…”
Remeny raised her hand to correct him. “Softtime.”
“Sure. And they never want to come out. It’s wild stuff. They’re cutting off arms and legs and whatever, body parts they claim they don’t need, and I say it sounds like horror, which isn’t what I do, but Steve says no. The script plays it straight. It’s a damned issue piece! Apparently there are people who believe this is a good thing. People who can raise sixty million no problem. Do you know about this, Rachel?”
She shook her head.
“How do we not know about this?”
“Because we’re still only some people,” said Robby. “Not enough people yet.”
“And you’re going to do it,” said Mom. Remeny wondered who she was talking to. Dad? Robby? Both of them? It almost looked as if she had calmed down except that just then her avatar went completely still. Remeny searched the house cams and found her at the real dining-room table with a plate of tortellini in front of her. She had pushed her Deveau back onto her head. She was crying.
“Sweet part for me.” Dad hadn’t noticed that Mom had logged off. “I’m a senator and I’m against it. I’ve never actually played a senator before. President, yes. Mayor. It’s only a supporting, but still Frederick Nooney is attached, Gonsalves to direct. I told Steve I’d give him an answer tomorrow, but this… is this some coincidence or what?”
“You should do it,” said Robby. “Absolutely. What’s it called?”
“Title on the script is Declaration, but that will never fly.”
Remeny almost choked on a snap pea. Robby started to laugh.
Then Dad did something that Remeny didn’t think that an oldschool eighty-three-year-old could. He opened a private channel to Robby in softtime.
=You there, son?=
=Maybe.=
Unfortunately he didn’t know how to close Remeny’s private channel with her brother, so she was able to eavesdrop. =Look, Robby, if this is what you want, I’m for it. I know you’re in pain and miserable.=
=Only when I’m stuck in hardtime.=
=I get that. Ever since that day, all we’ve wanted is to help.= His sympathy blip was (.8). =I know it’s hard for you but it’s hard for us, too. Your mother blames herself because she sent you…=
=Dad, stop. I love you but stop. You want to help me then take the damn part. It’ll be good for the cause. My cause, Dad. But what I really want is for you to come home and help me with Mom. Because reality sucks and I’m giving up on it. We need to make Mom understand. All of us, face to face. Oldschool.=
* * *
“Stop saying you’re sorry.” Sturm was trying for stern but his blippage read embarrassed.
“I just didn’t want Mom to freak,” said Remeny.
“Well, she did and nobody was killed. I call that a win for our side.”
“Think Dad can convince her?”
“He’s an actor.” Sturm scanned the crowd around the dance floor for Silk. “He’ll give a performance.”
The music twanged and couples began to take their places.
“Nine minutes after,” said Sturm. “He’s not coming.”
“There’s no schedule.” Remeny’s irritation climbed to (.3). “He’s not a train.”
“Bow to the partner, now bow to the corner, all join hands and circle to the left, please don’t step on her, now circle to the right, and we go round and round.”
Now that she was old enough to know better, Remeny was sick of square dancing. When she was twelve, ForSquare had been one of her favorite EOS playgrounds. She had loved the movement, the color and the concentration
it took to remember and execute all of the calls. When she was sixteen, she had come in second in the Jefferson County Challenge. There had been more than twenty calls that day that involved changing avatars on the fly, on top of two hundred more traditional calls. A hell of a lot of remembering, but what was the point? It was all about teaching kids how to use their interfaces while they pretended to have fun.
“Promenade now, full promenade.” Crystal stalactites rose at random from the dance floor and the dancers weaved around them.
Another thing: the music was so loud that you had to shout to be heard. Okay for these kids, so young that they had nothing to say. But now that she was eighteen, Remeny preferred a quiet place like Sanctuary. It was better for flirting.
Remeny spotted Botão and waved. She skirted the dancers to join them.
“I’m here but I can’t stay. I’m babysitting my sisters.” Her avatar was wearing a Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness tee shirt.
“I like this.” Remeny brushed a hand down the sleeve.
“Yeah.” She tugged at the hem, stretching the front of the tee so she could admire it too. “My mom and I designed them and then I printed out ten on our home fab, sizes six and seven. I’ll bring them to the Gates Center tomorrow and have the teachers send them home with the kids. Cost less than ten bucks.”
“I was just there today myself.”
“Oh my God, what if we had met?” She clutched her throat in mock horror. “You ask me, I say the whole secret identity thing is dumb. The oldschool is just trying to keep us from ganging up on them.” She brushed up against Sturm. “What do you think, Sturm, or are you ignoring me on purpose?”
“You forgot the commas,” he said, “and I wasn’t ignoring you. I was looking for Silk.”
“Asshole.” She was stunned. “Be that way then.” She pushed away from him.
“What do you know about Silk?” he said.
=What are you doing?= Remeny sent Robby a private message.
=I think she’s in on it.=
=In on what?=
“Why should I tell you?” said Botão.
“Because Silk isn’t who we think he is.”
Botão’s anger blip had a sarcastic edge. “Nobody here is who I think they are.”
“Did he tell you to come up with that slogan?”
“Oh, I get it. I’m not smart enough to come up with an idea on my own. Let’s see now, is it because I’m a girl? Because I am uma Brasileira?”
“There.” Remeny pointed. Silk had entered with a couple of avatars new to her.
“All roll now, and spin those wheels, easy now and boys form a star…” Some of the avatars on the dance floor morphed their shoes into roller blades; the others grew casters in their legs. “Now be our stars, and keep it rolling.” One of the boys in the star formation slipped and toppled into the boy next to him. The girl dancers clapped and giggled, but the caller didn’t pause. “That’s all right, no time for regrets, head back home and into your sets.”
Silk appeared beside Remeny. “Our meeting isn’t until Tuesday,” he said, “but as long as we’re here… I don’t see Toybox.”
“Leave him out of this,” said Sturm.
“Oh, and are you giving the orders now?” His amusement blip barely registered.
“I think there is some kind of conspiracy going on and you’re part of it. You’re manipulating me. Us.”
“Speak for yourself,” said Botão.
“How can it be manipulation…” Silk spread his hands. “…if you’re doing what you wanted to do anyway? You believe, Sturm. I know you do.”
“But I don’t,” said Botão, “and you can take your conspiracy or revolution or whatever the hell it is and shove it.” As Botão tore her tee shirt off and hurled it at Silk, she generated a replacement Seleção Brasileira soccer jersey. “I’ll find another coop. Remeny? You with me?”
With a shock, Remeny realized that she wanted to say yes, that she was actually afraid of what Silk and Sturm were trying to do to themselves. She liked being an avatar, sure, but this wasn’t how she wanted to live the rest of her life. Not if it meant getting stashed. She started toward Botão.
=Wait.= Sturm was desperate.
Silk didn’t wait. “You can’t quit,” he said. “Don’t you want to live your life in softtime? You’re the one who wanted to make your own domain and never get real again.”
“No.” Botão glared at the three of them, and Remeny was ashamed to be lumped with the boys. “I was just saying that I like the real world and VR.” She had to raise her voice to be heard over the music and now people were eavesdropping. That only made her talk louder. “I don’t know about you jerkoffs, but I like sex, oldschool sex, the kind you probably can’t get; you know with touching and kissing and… and sweetness.” Her anger blip soared. “And I’m going to have my own kids someday.”
In her room, Remeny felt tears come. She agreed with everything Botão was saying – except maybe the part about having kids. But it would hurt Robby if she spoke up and he had been hurt so much already. Not fair, not fair, but then nothing in her life was fair. She had been so busy being Robby’s sister that she had forgotten how to be herself.
“But we’re doing your kids a favor,” said Silk. “And your grandchildren.”
The caller had stopped and the music shut down. Now the entire playground was listening to them. Remeny was pretty sure they were about to be kicked out. Or worse.
“We’ve got nine billion people crowded onto this planet,” he continued. “Most of us stashed aren’t ever going to have kids. We say that’s a good thing. And the stashed don’t burn through scarce resources like you and your kids. We’re saving the planet. All we ask is that we get to live the life we want.”
“Avatars Silk and Botão, you are disrupting this playground.” The caller’s warning pierced the argument like a fire alarm. “Stop now or there will be consequences.”
“Okay.” Botão raised her hands in surrender. “So you have some ideas. But a revolution? No. You haven’t seen what evil a revolution does. I have.” Then she brought her hands together with a sharp clap and her avatar popped.
Everyone but Silk seemed to be holding their breath. He knelt, picked up her discarded tee shirt and held it up. “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” he said. “Someday. That’s all. In the meantime, I apologize.”
The music started again. The crowd in the playground buzzed.
“Please.” A kid in a foolish wizard’s hat touched Sturm’s elbow. “What was that all about?”
Sturm waved him off and snatched the tee shirt out of Silk’s hands. “You and I still have something to settle.”
“We do. But what about your sister?”
Sturm froze. “What did you say?” A blip shimmered but he suppressed it.
“We don’t play by the rules, remember? That’s how revolutions work.” Was Silk smirking? “But we should really take this elsewhere. I have a place.”
“You smug bastard. Why should we trust you?”
“Because you’re smart? Because you need us?” He was ignoring Remeny. “We can leave her behind if you want.”
“I’m right here,” said Remeny, although she felt like she was in someone else’s dream. “Don’t pretend I’m not.” She poked Sturm. “Either of you.”
“Fine,” said Silk. “Now, we should go.”
* * *
Remeny was surprised that Toybox could afford a domain, although his taste in decoration was about what she would have imagined. The floor of his space was bone, the walls fire, the ceiling smoke. His temporarily abandoned avatar, dressed in garish vestments, perched at the edge of a gilt Baroque throne, obviously a copy of something. Remeny queried and it turned out to be the Chair of Saint Peter from St. Peter’s Basilica, part of some altar designed by Bernini. It didn’t seem like Toybox’s taste until she found the sublink: some people called it Satan’s Throne. In front of the throne were couches and chairs that seemed to have been m
ade from writhing bodies. These gathered around a glass coffin, on top of which were an open bottle of absinthe, a crystal decanter of water, four matching goblets with slotted absinthe spoons, and a dish of sugar cubes. Inside the coffin was the stashed body of Jason Day, or at least what she assumed was a fairly accurate copy. It wasn’t too hard to look at: the breathing mask and feeding tube hid most of the face and the body had not degenerated as much as some of the stashed she had seen images of. He still had all his arms and legs, but then Jason Day was underage and would have to log off and leave his coffin for several hours a week. This meant he wasn’t yet eligible for an intercranial interface like Sturm’s. His Deveau had a larger array of sensors than her Neurosky 3100 and it was connected to the body sock which monitored his vital signs.
“Where is he?” Sturm flicked a finger against Toybox’s idle avatar.
“Don’t know,” said Silk. “Wobbling around hardtime? I’m sure he’ll show up before long. Meanwhile, you need to promise that you won’t rat us out.”
“Rules?” said Remeny. “Wasn’t there something about revolutions not having any?”
“Sorry, but either you promise or we’re done.”
“Sure, sure. We promise.” Sturm bent and pretended to examine the Chair of Saint Peter. “Just get on with it.”
“Johanna?”
“Remeny to you. How do you know I’ll keep my word?”
“We’ve done our homework.” He tried a smile on her. “Which means I trust you more than you trust me.” She was embarrassed that, just a few hours ago, it would have worked.
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