Veneer

by Daniel Verastiqui

  “Have a seat, Deron,” said Timo, indicating one of the tables. He sat down on the opposite bench, put his elbows on the table, and folded his hands. For a moment, he said nothing, just let his eyes drift off as he tried to think of how to begin the speech that Deron felt coming.

  “Easton,” he said at last. “I hear that place is becoming more and more like Sonora every day. But I guess that’s what they do. Gotta keep that iron fist tight, right?”

  Deron shrugged, unsure what Timo was referring to.

  “You’re lucky you got away when you did. I left Sonora after the lockdown. You don’t even want to know how I got out of there.”

  “Did you lose your magic too?”

  Timo chuckled, eyed Deron playfully. “Yeah, I lost my magic. I stopped reconciling when I was twenty-three, some kind of ocular chip failure.”

  “Did you walk from Sonora?”

  “Yeah. One hundred and fifty miles. Now that sucked.”

  Deron laughed and felt the ache in his abs and stomach. He caught sight of Valentin coming out of the cafeteria carrying a plate in one hand and shooing the flies away with the other. He had a grin on his face as if he could sense Deron’s hunger at a distance. With a flourish, he set the plate on the table.

  “Bacon, eggs, and diced potatoes. Carrie says hi too.”

  “Thanks,” he replied, picking up the fork. The first bite tasted a little off, but as he chewed, he sensed the familiar flavors. “It’s good,” he concluded.

  “Go tell Carrie he says it’s good. That woman feeds on praise.”

  Again, Valentin nodded without saying anything. It was a father-son dynamic that Deron was unfamiliar with. He had always questioned his dad, always talked back and disobeyed at random. Even after he left to chase after other women, the problems didn’t cease. The only reason they didn’t fight as much now was because he travelled all the time.

  “So how did it happen?” asked Timo. He tapped the back of his neck. “For you, I mean.”

  Deron thought of the scars on his face and neck, the lingering reminders of Russo’s anger that the veneer had been hiding.

  “I got in a fight,” he replied. “I was in the hospital for a while.”

  “Is that what did it?”

  “Did what?”

  Timo gestured to the world around them. “Is that what opened your eyes to all this?”

  “Oh,” said Deron, thinking back. “I don’t remember being able to see after that. It was only...” An alien blob flashed in his mind. “I hit my head a couple days ago and haven’t been able to reconcile since.”

  “Hmm. It must have been a controller failure. I’m guessing you didn’t tell anyone?”

  Deron shook his head.

  Timo’s face went solemn, a transition smoother than anything reconciliation could provide. “I understand the fear. We all share a common experience here, Deron. All that uncertainty, thinking the world’s come to an end. But it’s not the end. People do live without the veneer.”

  “But not in the cities?”

  “No,” said Timo. “People like us are dangerous there, not only to ourselves but to the system. When you’ve been around people long enough, you begin to see just how much you were missing before.”

  Deron stared at his food. He thought of his mom, of Rosalia and Sebo. Timo was right; he hadn’t realized how much he missed them.

  “You’ve had a rough go,” said Timo, folding his hands on the table. “Dos Presas is a safe place. We’re surrounded on three sides by a river that forks around us. East of us, the two dams create another border. The only way in or out is by one of two bridges or by boat. You could try to swim across, but I’d be surprised if you made it. Point is, we’ve been living here for decades without any trouble and we intend to keep it that way. We have laws just like anywhere else. Kill another man, damage property, or put the town at risk, and we’ll drop you on the road back to Easton faster than you can say reconciliation.”

  The word made Deron think about home. “Do you guys have any tech?”

  Timo flashed a smile. “That’s Abernathy’s department. He gets all the electronics we salvage, though they’re not much use to us out here. Lot of it requires reconciliation and as you know, that skill’s in short supply in this town.”

  Deron nodded in agreement even as the soft blue color crept out from under his hand. It followed his gaze and settled under his plate, making the stained tin suddenly pearly white. Surprised by the sudden change, he looked up to see if Timo had noticed.

  “Good eats, huh?” he asked.

  “Just like mom makes,” replied Deron.

  Timo looked away. “I left my parents and a sister in Sonora. You?”

  “My mom. And dad, but he’s never there anyway.”

  “I can’t tell you how to decide, but I can say it’ll be difficult. Leaving your mother...”

  “Have you ever gone back to see them?”

  “No.” His eyes became stern. “The veneer is no friend of ours anymore.”

  “But what if our magic comes back?” Deron looked at the fork in his hand as it sparkled gold for half a second.

  Again, a hearty laugh from Timo. “Maybe we should save the tour for later. I think you need to meet Abernathy.”

  “Why?” asked Deron, biting a piece of bacon.

  “Because there’s no such thing as magic.”

  34 - Rosalia

  It wasn’t possible to reconcile a fever, but Rosalia had no trouble changing the hue of her skin to appear flush. After that, all she needed was a reddening of the eyes to convince her dad that she was too sick to attend school. There was something in the way he looked at her when he agreed, some hint that he knew she was lying but that it was okay.

  After he and Lynn left for work, Rosalia reconciled herself a pink t-shirt and blue jeans and left the house to catch the tram. It was waiting for her at the end of the street and she managed to step on before it took off towards Parker Avenue. There, rush hour was clogging the streets with pedestrians. They were all older than her, but in their distraction, took no notice of the sullen-faced girl sitting alone in the back row of the tram. They all had their own lives to lead with their own problems and excuses. She almost wanted one of them to ask her why she wasn’t in school. It would have been just the thing to set her off, make her yell and scream and wave her hands around like a lunatic.

  It was no business of theirs whether she went to school or not. They didn’t know what was going on in the world; they just kept getting on and off the tram like the little lemmings they were.

  As the tram moved further southwest, the number of passengers and stops began to dwindle, until finally it was just Rosalia and a frail man with a vintage veneer but a body that had been ravaged by too many years on Earth. He was hunched over, making Rosalia wonder if she too would reach a point where her body would be on the verge of collapsing like a termite-ridden house with a fresh coat of paint. Before she could worry too much about it, the tram came to a stop at Walsh Street. Rosalia disembarked and waved to the waiting Ilya.

  She was seated at a table outside a faux French restaurant, looking quite trendy in her tight ponytail and oversized sunglasses. If it hadn’t been for her signature half-smile, Rosalia might not have recognized her at all. To everyone else, she probably looked like one of those trophy-wife sophisticates out for a morning latte before heading uptown to do some shopping. The way she sat, the way she held herself with impeccable posture and one leg crossed over the other, sold the illusion even more. Rosalia wanted to comment about trying too hard to look like an adult but the widening smile on Ilya’s face distracted her.

  “Look at you,” said Ilya, her eyes hidden behind veneered lenses. “Cutting school like a rebel.”

  Rosalia nodded and pulled the opposite chair around so she could sit closer. “Thanks for coming,” she said. It felt as if she had been thanking her constantly; the words were starting to lose their meaning.

  “Beautiful day.” Ilya tilted her hea
d back, exposing her smooth neck. “When I die and go to heaven, I’m going to spend half of eternity in their best French café.” A chuckle rippled through her neck. “My grandmother says there is not one coffee shop left in all of Ukraine.”

  “That’s sounds a little—”

  “Well, Babushka also says laughing on Sunday was punishable by firing squad.” Her face scrunched up in thought. “Her mind is starting to go.”

  Another thing to look forward to, thought Rosalia. “How did,” she said, before stalling out, embarrassed to be changing the subject so selfishly.

  “No luck,” replied Ilya, looking away to a passing group of young businessmen. “I rode until ten, but nothing. Sorry.”

  Rosalia dismissed the apology with a wave of her hand. “It was one night. Thanks for doing that.”

  “I’m happy to help,” she said, smiling again. In the pause that followed, Ilya offered her drink, but the slight breeze had already brought the pungent smell of cappuccino to Rosalia’s nose.

  “I was thinking of going to see Deron’s mom today,” she announced.

  Ilya replied with a weak shrug. “Do you think she’ll even let you in the door?”

  “I don’t care. I have to know if she knows something. I’m tired of being out of the loop. I’m tired of being alone.” Rosalia hesitated, surprised by her own admission. The words had come out of nowhere, had not existed in any intelligible form until the moment they were spoken. If they were true, then her problems were just little islands in a sea of solitude. Without those, she would have nothing.

  It was easy to see the emotion cycle onto Ilya’s face. She took her sunglasses off before saying, “You’re not alone.”

  Rosalia nodded. “I found something interesting last night, in Canvas.”

  “I’m still waiting for one of my veneers to match up with yours, but so far, all I get are young girls.”

  “There seem to be a lot of people who like to reconcile Guardian chips.”

  Ilya shuddered. “Don’t remind me about that thing. One day when I’m drunk enough, I’m going to cut it out.” She paused. “Or maybe I’ll just hire someone to do it.”

  “I bet you could find instructions on the network. Warning, may result in death.”

  “But there’s no way I’m living with a little computer inside me. I don’t care if it’s for my own good.” She blew the steam from her cup. “So who are these chip people?”

  “No clue. But it’s like there’s this whole group trying to figure this out.”

  “Where?” asked Ilya. “Here in Easton?”

  Rosalia nodded. “You’re right. It has to be bigger than just us. How could one city come up with technology like this?”

  “Then it’s whether it’s the whole country or the whole world.”

  “No,” she countered, “it probably costs a ton to implant a chip in a baby.” She visualized herself as an infant, watched as the needle pushed into her skin. Without realizing it, she began to reconcile the image on the table.

  Ilya gasped. “That’s horrible!” She slapped the table and wiped the offending picture away.

  “You think that’s gross? Check these out.” Color spread from Rosalia’s fingers in a quick swirl of grays and reds, filling up the pock marks in the plastic.

  The chip took form first, then the metal tendrils that rose and fell to encase the brain and strengthen the spinal cord. Somehow having it out in the open, out where someone else could witness the horror, made it that much more visceral. Looking up, she saw shock on Ilya’s face, a kind of restrained terror that made her regret reconciling the picture. Rosalia moved to clear the image away, but a sudden hand on her wrist stopped her.

  “Is that real?” asked Ilya, shaking.

  “Real as in someone reconciled it. But whether that’s in our body or not, I don’t know. I didn’t see anything in the picture Nurse Hendricks gave me.”

  “This can’t be right.”

  “I’m sure it isn’t,” said Rosalia, feeling unnatural in the role of comforter. “Probably just someone imagining what life might be like in a few decades. Technology is always getting better...”

  Ilya slipped her sunglasses on and looked away.

  “What‘s wrong?” asked Rosalia.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I just hate these points of no return, these little moments in our lives that we can’t come back from. Not like skipping school or shoplifting, but like you and Deron. One day when this is all behind us, you’ll get all hot and bothered and end up going to bed with him. And that will be it. Innocence gone forever.” She paused, sniffled. “And now we find out there are chips in our necks and maybe more?”

  “It’s not that bad,” she offered. “It’s not like the chips are controlling us or something.”

  A quiet scoff. “This is the one thing you and I disagree on.”

  Rosalia realized that Ilya was sharing one of her worries. She, the unflappable Ukrainian, was scared to death about a little circuitry in her body.

  “Do you really want it out?” Rosalia asked.

  “Yes, but I know that’s not possible. The point of no return was before I could even comprehend. I didn’t have a choice. I don’t know any life except one with a chip.”

  Nodding, Rosalia leaned over the table and began reconciling a cityscape. She remembered the Vinestead building well, had encountered it several times while moving through the walls in Canvas. Though, she did note that it was always the same angle, same distance from the subject, as if one person’s memory had been reproduced several times. It made her giddy to think how people would react to seeing it from a different viewpoint.

  Close up. Even inside.

  “I’ve seen that before,” said Ilya, noticing the new picture. She touched her sunglasses briefly and reconciled clear lenses. “It’s,” she said, then looked up at Rosalia. “Why do I know that building?”

  Rosalia gestured with her head, “Because it’s right across the street.”

  35 - Russo

  Russo tried to think of a word to describe Easton Central as he stood observing it from behind the bleachers. He had never given it much thought before, but now with the idea raised, he couldn’t think of a simple definition. Something about the school’s veneer had changed. Or had it?

  Maybe it was just that he was questioning it now.

  He realized he had been doing it all day, looking at things, seeing their reconciled façades, but not really accepting what his eyes were telling him. Just having the knowledge that something else was under there, waiting to be discovered, had changed his whole perspective. Looking over the school, he noticed how small it had become, noticed that when he stripped away all the fancy colors, it was just a building.

  At least, that was the theory. To confirm it, he would have to see under the veneer. The desire that had been percolating since his first encounter with Eric had come to a full boil; every moment that he spent just standing around only made him more anxious. Russo tried to calm himself, tried to explain to the impatient child inside that he had to wait for the right moment, that from the bleachers he would be able to hear the bell ring and then he could slip into the school unnoticed and find Jalay at his locker. He would win back his partner in crime.

  It’d be easy.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, testing his sincere voice. Trying again, he softened his delivery and accented different syllables.

  When his eyes drifted, he noticed students on the far field, running around and screaming in their shrill voices. The girls were playing lacrosse, and from the look of it, not too successfully. Most of them seemed timid, afraid to get in the way of the ball even with their protective gear in place, those massive helmets that obscured gender except for the tell-tale hair flowing out from behind them. The strange dance continued until the whistle blew and the uncoordinated gaggle of bitches came running back to the main building.

  Pushing off from the bleachers, Russo shook his head at their feeble attempts at sports and started
towards the back doors of the school.

  The bell rang just as the doors closed behind him and the hall filled with students. The things they talked about were so inconsequential, yet within the banality was a discernable difference between freshmen and sophomores, juniors and seniors. That there would be so much change from year to year surprised Russo, made him wonder who his new peer group was now that he had elevated himself to a new level.

  Turning the corner into the main ring of the building, he grinned at the confused faces of the juniors he passed. Conversations came to a halt, changed to whispers about the return of Russo. He could have masked his appearance before coming in, made himself out to be a generic student, but that was for the old Russo, the one that cared about rules.

  He found Jalay with his face buried in his locker. Russo nudged another student out of the way and moved close enough to make his voice heard over the crowd.

  “Hello, my friend,” he said, reconciling a smile onto his face.

  Jalay paused, betrayed recognition. “I thought you didn’t know me.”

  “Why wouldn’t I know my oldest comrade?”

  “Because that’s what you said, remember? What are you even doing here?”

  “I go to school here,” explained Russo.

  Jalay scoffed. “Like shit you do. If Ficcone sees you he’ll expel you.”

  “Well, until then...” The fingers on Russo’s right hand twitched, while the others failed to respond.

  “Yeah, until then. So what do you want?”

  Interesting question, thought Russo. If Jalay knew what he truly wanted, would he even agree to help? “To apologize,” he said, turning away slightly to see if anyone had heard him. “I...” One, two, he counted, giving it the right amount of hesitation. “I thought about what you said, about Deron. I overreacted.”

  “No kidding.”

  “Wait,” said Russo, putting up his hand, “I get it, alright? I was just so angry. He insulted us.”