She morphed one of Toybox’s repulsive couches into a park bench and sat. “Promise.”
“Thank you. The first thing to know is that there are a lot of us. Not enough, but more all the time. Did you know that when Jefferson wrote that first declaration, only about a third of the colonists favored independence? A third were loyal to the King and another third were on the fence. The point is that we don’t need to convince everybody, okay?”
Toybox jerked on his throne and opened his eyes. “What did I miss?”
Remeny swallowed her blip of chagrin.
“We just started.” Silk seemed annoyed at the interruption.
“The contact went well?”
“About what we expected. Botão bailed.”
“But these two bit after all.” Toybox rubbed his hands together. “I wanted to be there but the damn overlord… well, you know. Besides, Silk says I’m not quite ready for a contact. I need to work on my issues.” He came off his throne to the coffin. “Absinthe?”
Remeny scooted away from him on her bench. She opened the private channel with Robby. =Does he have to talk?=
=Humor them. They’re taking a risk.= Sturm joined him. “I’ll have some.” He laid a sugar cube on one of the slotted spoons and set it on a glass.
“Could we please get to the point?” said Remeny. It felt good to close her hands into fists, like she had control of something at least. “What are you asking us to do?”
“Recruit,” said Silk. “What we were doing in coop – that’s what we’re doing all across the entire county. You talk to kids. Make friends. Get our point across.”
“I signed on last month,” said Toybox. “Easiest thing I ever did.”
“Okay,” said Sturm. “But we’re graduating.”
“Are we?”
Remeny and Sturm stared at one another. =Oh shit.=
“We flunk coop.” Toybox’s glee was (.7). “On purpose. Isn’t that crush?”
Remeny couldn’t help herself. “Shouldn’t be hard for you.”
Sturm drained his virtual absinthe at a gulp. “So we’re stuck in EOS hell forever.”
“There are only so many times you can repeat coop,” said Silk, “although we can help you extend your time here. We can arrange it so that most of the kids assigned to your teams are sympathetic to the stashed. Changing avatars can buy time. Eventually you will have to graduate. There will be another assignment waiting, if you want.”
Remeny was stunned by the enormity of what Silk was saying. And who was he, really? How old? Did he even live in Jefferson County?
“All of this is voluntary, understand, drop out any time. But you won’t want to. We’re busy everywhere, working in every demographic group. Lots of us are overclocked and can think rings around those who lived the majority of their lives in hardtime. And, Remeny, we’re not all stashed. There are lots of us out and about in the real world. Maybe they have brothers or sisters or mothers or fathers…”
“Wait,” Remeny said. “Aren’t our parents going to get suspicious if we keep flunking coop?”
“Some do.” Silk nodded.
“My parents don’t give a shit,” said Toybox. “They’re stashed too.”
“Sometimes kids convert their parents,” continued Silk.
“Let me guess.” Robby held up a hand to stop him. “And sometimes you try for entire families at once.”
Toybox chuckled.
“Special families get special consideration.”
Remeny thought about Steve Spencer in his house in Vermont and a sixty-million-dollar Vincente Gonsalves flix and Robby’s ultimatum. Which was more important to Dad, the part or his son’s pursuit of happiness? Wondering about it made her head ache.
“So that’s pretty much the deal,” said Silk. “I’m happy to tell you more, but I’d like to hear what’s on your mind now.”
The silence stretched. Remeny couldn’t look at Robby. She closed their private channel. She felt like curling up into a ball. He had to speak first. But she knew. He was her brother. She knew.
“I’m interested.”
“Good man.” Silk came over and sat on the couch beside her. “Remeny?” What had she seen in him? “We definitely want you too.” She thought that if he tried to touch her, she would slap his hand away.
On an impulse, she pulled the Neurosky off her head and Silk, Toybox, and Sturm disappeared. It was almost midnight. She was going to owe her overlord big time for this night. She stood and stretched in the dark of her room. Her home. She didn’t bother with lights or a headset. Mom and Dad were almost certainly asleep but she opened the hall door as if it were made of glass and slunk down to Robby’s room. She was glad now that she hadn’t left ForSquare with Botão. It was important that she understood what Silk was offering Robby. The pursuit of his happiness. As Sturm.
But his happiness wasn’t hers, and that was okay. Silk had given her something, even though she couldn’t accept his offer. She would have life and her liberty from her brother’s pain.
Johanna leaned close to Robby and blew on his face.
Goodbye.
He stirred but did not wake.
ABOUT THE EDITOR
Gardner Dozois has won fifteen Hugo Awards and thirty-two Locus Awards for his editing work, plus two Nebula Awards for his own writing. He was the editor of Asimov’s Science Fiction for twenty years, and is the author or editor of more than a hundred books. He is the founding editor of The Year’s Best Science Fiction anthologies (1984-present), and has co-edited several anthologies with George R.R. Martin. He was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in June 2011.
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