Veneer

by Daniel Verastiqui

  “The police think he left Easton.”

  “How do they know?” asked Rosalia.

  “I don’t know,” replied Ania, shaking her head. “Nothing they said makes sense. Why would he leave the city?”

  The question went unanswered and a pall followed. Feeling the conversation slipping away, Rosalia stopped actively reconciling camouflage for her true emotions. She focused on thoughts of Deron, things that wouldn’t normally make her cry but in that instance seemed to evoke powerful emotions. Streaks appeared on her cheeks and droplets formed under her chin. Wiping them away wasn’t an option; she wanted them to drop one by one onto the table. Staring into the untouched cup of tea, Rosalia wondered if her display had made any kind of dent in Ania’s armor.

  At long last, Ania spoke. “Every mother believes her child will listen to her. If I could only talk to him, tell him to come home, I know he would. I believe he would.” She sniffled, her nose barely registering the movement. “As a son grows up, he loses touch with his mother, stops relying on me. Now he relies on you.” A bitter but restrained sob. “He’s mine, Rosalia. My child. But he looks to you for guidance. Because he loves you. I can see it in him. If anyone is going to bring him back, it’ll be you.”

  Rosalia looked up to make sure the words had come from Ania.

  “He’ll come back for you.”

  “I don’t understand...”

  “He’ll contact you when he’s ready. And when he does, you need to do everything you can to get him to come home. You tell him how much you miss him, how much I miss him, and you make him come back.”

  Ania got up and retrieved a box of tissues from the other room. She slid it onto the table and said, “Fix your veneer, honey.” Then she gasped and turned away again. “You and Deron are a lot alike.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Yesterday,” she began, sounding as if she were smiling, “his veneer was all over the place. And out there.” She pointed to the hallway. “There were smudges all over the wall, handprints and footprints reconciled here and there.”

  “Sometimes he reconciles without realizing it,” offered Rosalia.

  “I know. But not like this. This was too random, like he was reconciling blind.”

  Rosalia cringed at the sudden pain in her stomach, feeling as if Ania had just delivered a crushing body blow. Two synapses snapped together; it was more than just a concussion, but how much more?

  No, thought Rosalia, as she stood up. Her legs felt numb, but it was clear she had to get out of there before she spilled her idea to Ania. His mom would laugh her out of the house, right past the smug uniform, and out of the neighborhood. The only people she could tell, the only people who would believe her, were Ilya and Sebo.

  “I have to go now,” she blurted out, her voice loud in her ears.

  Ania didn’t protest, as if she had been waiting for the opportunity to resume her solitude. She escorted Rosalia to the door, but said nothing as she closed it behind her.

  Although Rosalia wanted nothing more than to break down, she resolved to hold it together. The uniform was still there, but she brushed by him without a word, keeping her eyes open for a private surface to reconcile. It didn’t have to be big, just enough to load a portal and send a message to Ilya and Sebo. Finally, she found a van parked on the street and pressed her hand to it.

  Her portal blossomed and when she brought up her instant messenger, she was surprised to find a message from Sebo.

  “You missed it,” he had written. “Russo came by the school and slammed the shit out of Jalay’s face!”

  She knew she should be happy about that and a smirk did try to worm its way onto her veneer, but her lips wouldn’t follow the direction. Not even the suffering of her enemy could cheer her up.

  39 - Sebo

  After the final bell, Sebo stepped into the harsh light of the outside world, happy that school was over but confused by the lingering mood of the day. It occurred to Sebo as he collected his personal effects from his locker that he had barely spoken to anyone and most of his interaction had been through instant messages that went unanswered. That his closed social network could be so easily shattered didn’t really surprise him, but it didn’t make it easier to bear. It consisted of so few people that when one fell out, the others tumbled with them.

  From the plaza in front of the school, he glimpsed Ilya getting onto a bus. She was wearing a long-sleeved t-shirt that was just white enough to discern the pink bra underneath. Even in cold weather, she found a way to show off her body. Not that Sebo didn’t appreciate it, but that kind of behavior seemed better suited to pre-programmed Roommates than a junior with understated tits. For a moment, he debated going over to talk to her, but she had been scarce all day. At least she could have sought him out between classes, explained why Rosa wasn’t in school. For that matter, Rosa could have sent a message or two.

  He laughed to himself, thinking there was no one left in Easton who was amenable to talking to him.

  Jalay would have at least made for interesting conversation, but even he had abandoned the school at the first sign of face-smashing. Recalling the details of the story, Sebo basked in the justice of it all. It served Jalay right. He couldn’t just spend all of junior high and most of high school being the scrotum to the boy who in the Encyclopedia of Cock held both the first and second listings. That the punishment had come from said cock just made it all the more satisfying.

  Sebo began the long walk home, during which he perused his mental list of Destined 4 Death friends and wondered if any of them were worth hanging out with in real life. There were all types among them: the fighters, the bosses, the inept, and even the slightly retarded. But few played with the simultaneous indifference and intensity that Deron brought to the game. People who could have fun but still win were rare.

  It was then he realized it would never be the same. He could make new friends at school, find people to hang out with, but in the gaming world where it mattered, he was destined for desolation. All he had to look forward to were unsatisfying sessions with random players, most of whom couldn’t aim a reticle to save their lives. And nowhere else was that skill more important than when the Nazis were raining down their Stielhandgranates and filling the trenches with fear and guts.

  Smiling at a distant memory, Sebo thought of World War II, of an era when men sometimes fought with their bare hands, where death meant death and not simply launching another drone. He had the sudden urge to go back there.

  The most likely place to find a new WWII shooter was at Entertainments by Pilar, a small boutique in an ill-placed micro-mall one street over from Parker Avenue. Some time ago, an enterprising homeowner had razed his own creation and decided to rent the land out to small businesses. And when he said small, he meant it. Every shop in the barely five-thousand square foot mall could only accommodate three or four people at a time. As a result, the vendors were often those who had little to no physical inventory.

  Pilar’s was a monument to stimulus overload and stepping into it was like experiencing the revelation that all in the universe was good and nothing would ever get in the way of a righteous frag. She had beads hanging in the entryway; beyond them was a room lit only by the scintillating graphics on the three walls. There were usually a variety of trailers playing, depending on the crowd and the time of day. On alternate Tuesdays, she used a whole wall to show off in-game footage of the latest mindfuck murder simulator to hit the market.

  “Haven’t seen you in a while,” said Pilar, greeting him from behind her half-counter, one of only two pieces of furniture in the room. She had the friendliest and darkest veneer of anyone Sebo knew, with black being a central color and glints of silver at various locations around her lips and eyes. Tall but not towering, she had an elongated frame that looked somewhat alien. While the trailers might have done eighty percent of the selling, it was clear that her themed veneer and ample cleavage did the rest. “I was beginning to think you’d stopped gaming.”

/>   Sebo smirked, tried to imagine what immense tragedy would have to befall him to make him ever give up the game. “I’ve been... preoccupied,” he began, the words tingling as they rolled off his tongue. “There have been, let’s say, certain events outside of my control that have prevented me from visiting as often as I would like.”

  Pilar snickered a little. “Is that so? Then why did I see your handle pop up on the Swarm Survivor board the other day?”

  “That,” he replied, approaching the far wall to examine a breakout of an enemy model, “was my attempt to reacquaint my friend with the gaming world.”

  “Going by your score, you didn’t have much luck.”

  “Not. Much.” He heard her slip off the stool and turned in time to glimpse her skirt as it slid back into place. Biting his lip, he waited.

  She joined him at the wall and folded her hands. “One Man Army,” she said, nodding towards the video. Reaching out and touching it, she reconciled the in-game footage away and brought up the polished trailer.

  Sebo basked in Pilar’s perfume as he watched the gold text float in the darkness. After a quick cut, a ruined city came into view and then the camera zoomed in on a lone soldier running through the rubble. He ducked the incoming fire, the blue beams that streaked across the gray landscape. Gentle fades displayed the many arenas, including jungles and underwater science labs. It all seemed like a retread until the hero took a critical shot to the abdomen and collapsed to the ground. As the enemy soldiers emerged from their hiding places, the hero reached for a device on his belt. A flash of light filled the screen and suddenly he was somewhere else, blinking away the brightness. Above him, several figures came into view and after a few seconds, Sebo realized they were all the same person.

  “Looks like we need a partner,” said one of the men.

  “Fuck it, why not two?” asked another in the same voice.

  “One will be fine for now.”

  Out of the shadows, another copy of the hero stepped forward and touched his belt. After a brilliant flash, he appeared a few feet away from himself, back at the start of the mission.

  “I guess I don’t make it very far?” asked the hero.

  “This time you will,” assured his counterpart.

  “Now it gets interesting,” said Pilar, the smile on her veneer sparkling.

  Sebo watched as the sequence repeated, this time with two protagonists, then again with three, four, and so on. After a while, there were twenty instances on the screen.

  “It doesn’t really play out like that,” Pilar explained. “You play one series, through the venues, but at any given time you’re either alone or with a random number of yourself. The Director decides how much backup you should get, depending on how well you’re playing. So, if you are twenty minutes in and find yourself with an army of ten, then you should probably go back to Scrabble.”

  “How’s the veneer integration?” he asked, chuckling.

  “Standard. You can reconcile the hero to look like you and the game will replicate it with its damage engine. It’s all procedural textures anyway. You want to try it out?”

  He shrugged in response, put out his hand, and reconciled a portal on top of the trailer. Inside, he brought up the shop that Rosa had done of Russo and Jalay with the naughty bits blacked out. He ignored Pilar’s raised eyebrow and stepped back. “I want these two as enemies.”

  Pilar reconciled the trailer away and brought the game up on the wall. She moved deftly through the configuration screens. When the game asked her for the enemy models, she studied Sebo’s source material and then recreated it flawlessly on the blank avatars. “Someone’s messaging you.”

  Sebo looked back and saw a flashing icon on his portal. He brought it to the front, a message from Rosa. It read simply, “Great.” It took a moment to recall his earlier message about Jalay. As he was pondering her curt response, another came in.

  “Are you going to ride the trams today?” it inquired.

  “As opposed to walking?” asked Pilar.

  “To look for our friend,” explained Sebo. He thought of another evening wasted on the uncomfortable plastic seats of the tram.

  “If you left a portal running at home, I can have this pre-loaded by the time you get there.”

  Sebo nodded, not really paying attention.

  “Unless you have to get going,” she teased.

  “Demo first,” he announced. “I don’t try until I buy.”

  “You got that backwards,” replied Pilar. She had moved to another screen and was carefully reconciling Sebo’s veneer. For realism, she added some pre-existing battle scars.

  “I’m riding now,” he reconciled into the instant message window. “I’ll keep looking. Why weren’t you in school today?”

  “Checking something out,” Rosa replied, ending her sentence with a string of frustrating ellipses. He started to ask for more details, but she wrote, “Got to go. Message me if you find him.”

  The little indicator in the corner of the window changed from green to gray; she had gone offline.

  “This is ready to go,” said Pilar. “If you buy before you leave today, I’ll give you a Preferred Customer discount.”

  “And what’s that worth?”

  “Ten percent off,” she replied, a thin smile on her face.

  “You drive a hard bargain.”

  “I just want to get this done before you run off and look for your friend.” She looked around the otherwise empty store. “Business has been a little tight this month.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I am a man beset by free time and I demand something to fill it! And since girls evidently find me repulsive, I will just have to make do with this game.”

  Pilar crossed her arms under her breasts. Nodding to the door, she asked, “What about your friend?”

  Sebo shrugged and look at the pretty pictures on the wall. An avatar wearing his veneer was slowly spinning on a pedestal. It had a slightly urgent look on its face, as if it were ready for action.

  Clearing his throat, Sebo replied, “Don’t worry about him.” Then, to himself, “He’ll still be lost tomorrow.”

  40 - Deron

  As the sun began to set, Deron wondered how much of the trip back he would spend in total darkness. Maybe they did it that way for a reason, set out towards Easton under the cover of night to hide from something or someone. He hadn’t noticed anyone following them on the way to Dos Presas, no drones patrolling the skies or hovering ominously overhead like any Friday or Saturday night in Easton. Their fear seemed to be misplaced; nobody really cared that they had escaped. They had left and only a handful of people had even noticed.

  Deron kicked at the dirt under his shoes and thought about the people who would have cared about his departure. He hadn’t even been outside the city more than twenty-four hours, but already he could feel the impassible chasm opening between himself and the friends he’d left behind. What he had learned, what he had seen, was more than the sum of a night’s steps. There was a world outside of Easton’s rules where people didn’t focus on the appearance of things but rather on their content. Not once during his many introductions did anyone comment on his scars. And though no one in Dos Presas could have passed for a supermodel, he had found a few of the girls attractive. It was the difference between Destined 4 Death and a real fight with Russo. It wasn’t just violence that could be more visceral.

  The more the sun dipped, the more restless he became until finally he walked out onto the wide bridge. In the center, he stopped in front of a small gap and saw that the two sides were barely connected. The rails butted up against each other, but the planks operated independently. At the very edge, he noticed that his side dipped slightly. Poor construction, he thought, or a way to break down the bridge quickly should the worst happen. That would be unfortunate for anyone on it as the river looked treacherous. Timo had mentioned that it flowed through a large pipe at the bottom of the dam, making the surface seem calm but the depths an
inescapable death.

  Deron was leaning over the side of the bridge and looking at his wavering reflection in the water when Valentin arrived, his face scrunched in confusion.

  “That’s it then,” he said, forgoing a greeting.

  “Sorry?” asked Deron.

  “You should be.” He flashed disappointment, but it receded. “You know I don’t get credit for you unless you stay? Dad was going to take me on my first raid because I got you but now...” He scoffed. “Why would you even want to go back to that place? They don’t want people like us there.”

  Deron looked at the water again, at the shadowy forms of fish swimming deep below the surface. “A few people want me there. More than want me here, for sure.”

  “We all want you here,” said Valentin, his voice pitchy. “New people keep this place going. Didn’t you see all those girls at lunch?” He moved closer so he could speak softer. “They’re always excited when a new guy shows up. I mean, they really don’t have many options.”

  “I have a girlfriend. And family and friends.” He let out a sharp breath. “I have to at least let them know I’m okay.”

  Valentin shook his head dismissively. “They won’t let you anywhere near them. The second you step a toe inside those walls, they’ll pick you up. You think you’re the first person to try to go back? My dad says there’s been dozens, people like you who didn’t accept their fate and ran back home to mommy.”

  The rail of the bridge was smooth; someone had put a lot of time into sanding it down. Deron traced his finger along the darkened veins, unknowingly drawing a small portal. Its edges sizzled in their attempt to be black and wood-colored at the same time. Inside, his start page appeared, but only the colors and shapes. All the text was missing; in its place was just black noise. With a little effort, he could reconcile anything into those boxes. He could make an instant message window pop up, make it from Rosalia about how much she missed him.