by Susan Juby
For the first time in her life, it occurred to Bright that a look could be carried too far.
She found a strap with a buckle and unhooked it. Slater’s dressing-mate remained pinned in her chair. Bright unbuckled a second leather strap. Nothing. The skis didn’t budge and neither did the girl.
“You’ve really got them on there good,” said Bright.
How did this girl party? She must be deadly on the dance floor.
Bright loosened a third, fourth, and fifth strap. She unknotted a sixth and untied a long lace. Finally, one of the skis clattered to the floor. Bright picked it up and slid the other one out from behind the favour.
It felt good to be in a dressing room, tending to gear, even if it wasn’t her dressing room or her gear.
The girl leaned back and wiggled to and fro in her chair to ease her stiffness.
“How long have you been stuck?” asked Bright.
“Three hours and twenty-four minutes,” said the favour, rubbing her neck with her fingers.
“Why didn’t you call for a bot? Or yell or something?”
“Slater said he’d be back. The call buttons aren’t really working right now. A lot of stuff around here isn’t working, actually. Even our bots are out of commish. Plus, yelling’s not rad.”
The girl looked toward a corner of the room, and Bright saw a white bot facing into the corner as though it was being punished.
“Yeah, Tracks—that’s my bot’s name—has been lights-out since my shift started.” The girl shoved herself off the chair. “Thanks,” she said.
She did look incomplete in just her little woolen short shorts and vest, which she quickly stripped off before stepping into her robe. As she headed toward the 360, she stopped in front of Slater, who sat beside Fon on a small red sofa. Fon had him propped more or less upright, but he appeared dazed and kept opening and closing his mouth, as though trying to form words or breathe underwater.
“Slater, dude,” said his dressing-mate. “Your whole look. It’s kind of …”
She couldn’t find the words to continue, so she didn’t. She just stared at her dressing-mate.
“Earlier, he was telling us how motivating you are,” said Bright. It wasn’t true, of course. Slater rarely talked about anyone but himself.
The girl gave an uncertain smile. “Okay,” she said. Her top lip rose higher than standards allowed. “That’s nice, I guess.”
“We’re just here to, uh, hang out with Slater before he goes in for some scheduled maintenance,” said Bright. “Enjoy your 360!” said Fon.
The girl dropped her robe and stepped into the glass box. The vapour barrier rose between the panes and water started to churn inside. Bright immediately began to look around the room for a surfboard for Slater. They’d left his usual board behind in their eagerness to flee the scene at the House of Smooth. His spare board, which featured bold red and white stripes, hung on the wall. It seemed extra-huge. How was she supposed to get it in her cart?
“I’m going to borrow some clothes,” said Fon.
Bright’s head whipped around. “You’re going to touch someone else’s stuff?” She was aware that she was no role model in that department, but she couldn’t resist the desire to make Fon feel like a degenerate stuff-toucher.
Fon’s face was fierce. “I can’t find the community wardrobe box, so I’ll just ask permission. I’m not going to the Natural Experience looking like this!” She ran her hands down the length of her perfectly adequate outfit. “You need to change too. What will the House of It people think when we get there if we don’t even match!”
“They will think, ‘Why are they so late when they were told they were being timed?'”
“Better late than ugly,” said Fon.
Bright realized that Fon was settling in for a full get-ready session. “We have to be gone before she gets out of the 360,” she said.
“Fine,” said Fon. She looked over at the shower box. “Hey!” she said. “Can I borrow this bikini?” She pretended to listen for an answer. “Cool. Thanks!”
A minute later she was in the bikini and rubbing gleamer all over her arms and legs. “I’m going to take this boogie board over here too. It totally matches this outfit!
Okay? Okay!”
The board was brilliant green. So was the bikini. Fon was a full-fledged, stuff-touching criminal, and, for some reason, Bright was starting to actually like her.
“Now you,” said Fon.
Bright dug around among the racks pressed against the far wall. She pulled a polka-dot bikini out of a clear delivery bag.
“Oooh, I didn’t see that one,” said Fon. “The pink dots totally go with your helmet.”
Bright cast a glance at the 360. Slater’s dressing-mate was still facing away from the room, her form obscured by the low-vis barrier and the frothing jets of water.
“Can I borrow this?” Bright muttered in a voice so low even she could barely hear it. “Okay. Thanks.” Then she quickly got dressed, went to the sofa, and pulled Slater to his feet.
“I have this feeling,” he muttered. “This feeling that we have to go find the light.”
Sure, thought Bright. Right after we go back to school to learn about the sanctity of stuff. Bright swung his arm around her neck and began to move him.
Fon stepped out the door first, pausing when she saw the water ski jumper standing outside, leaning against the railing. He’d taken off his casts and now radiated able-bodiedness. Two tiers below, a favour strapped to a wind kite and board was being lowered to the Choosing Room floor by lurching pulleys. The crowd roared. Order wands glittered. Bright allowed herself to feel the rush of being wanted, of descending into a galaxy of credits.
Fon waved at the half-dressed ski jumper as they passed, and he grinned back. A minute later, Bright, Fon, and Slater were in a privator, on their way to the cart.
16.00
The House of Splash party favours shivered in spite of the muggy warmth. They were dressed in a variety of swim-wear: bathing costumes, snorkels, swim fins, scuba gear, surf shorts, synchronized swimming ensembles, mermaid and merman outfits. Everyone was attractive, in an overdesigned way, but they all seemed to have colds and sniffled constantly.
“Okay,” said Grassly, for the tenth time. “Let’s see you try the move again.” He pointed at a favour wearing a black-and-white-striped bathing suit with a small skirt.
She looked side to side, produced a tube of lipstick from somewhere on her person, and stealthily applied it. Then she smiled, her head cocked to the left. She gave a tiny cough. “I didn’t totally get it.”
Grassly sighed. “Do you need me to show you again?”
They all nodded.
He’d chosen the windowless filtration room so that they wouldn’t catch a glimpse down at the dozens of PS officers on the Choosing Room floor, armed with releasers, trying to get to them. As soon as he’d gotten away from the commander and out of sight of the other officers, he’d hooked into the sound system and interrupted the music to announce, “All favours report immediately to the filtration room for a mandatory edutainment session!”
The favours, exquisitely obedient, had run for the privators and lifts and converged on the tenth floor just as the PS staff burst onto the Choosing Room floor, only to find it abandoned. Grassly then disabled the privators and lifts so the PS staff couldn’t use them. He’d already locked every door in the House of Splash.
The PS officers had responded by trying to shimmy up the descent poles and scramble up the waterslide that twisted its way down to the Choosing floor. The few favours who were still out on the walkway watched, goggle-eyed, as the officers worked their way up, only to be washed back down by violent bursts of water that Grassly had programmed the pumps to release every fourteen seconds.
Grassly had ushered the shocked favours into the filtration room, assuring them that the scene outside was all part of the training module on emergency edutainment. Once inside, the assembled favours milled about the large, bar
ren room that housed the water filtration equipment. The walls sweated with condensation, and the floor, a dull green-tinged concrete, was covered with half an inch of tepid water.
“This is a drill,” Grassly told the group. “A disaster dance drill.”
“Oh,” said a male favour in a small Speedo. “Right.”
“Yes. We are testing your ability to learn new dance moves while … under stress.”
The favours looked vaguely reassured. Grassly gave silent thanks for the breeding and training that made them so cooperative.
“That’s right. You’re going to learn some new moves.”
“In here?” asked one.
“From you?” asked another in a doubt-filled voice.
Outside there was a shout. It sounded uncomfortably close.
“That’s right. Sometimes a party can break out where and when you least expect it.”
A few of them nodded in agreement. “I’ve had that,” said a favour whose face was mostly obscured by a snorkelling mask.
There was nothing Grassly could teach these people about dancing. But he was going to have to try. His first few attempts at demonstrating steps failed miserably. The favours, talented dancers though they were, couldn’t seem to wrap their heads around how to imitate his awkward movements. He decided to keep it simple.
“Okay,” said Grassly. He was beginning to experience a sense of parental affection for the sniffling figures in front of him.
They looked at him with expressions of fierce but unintelligent concentration.
“Here’s how it goes,” said Grassly. He shook his head like a badak about to charge. “Do that,” he instructed.
All the favours shook their heads from side to side.
Grassly flapped his hands. “Do that,” he said.
They obeyed.
“Walk around in a circle!”
They began to walk around in uncertain circles, flapping their hands and shaking their heads.
“Faster,” Grassly commanded.
The favours sped up. Some began to jump, while others grabbed hands and started to twirl each other.
“Good,” said Grassly. “That’s what I like to see!”
A giggle sounded from one of the favours as she and her partner turned faster and faster.
Satisfied that they were busy, Grassly opened the door and saw, to his dismay, a PS officer clinging to a drenched slide pole outside. The officer was almost level with the platform that would allow him access to the walkway.
“Keep it up! Looking good!” cried Grassly, before he darted out of the filtration room and onto the walkway. He shoved the officer, and the man slid helplessly back down the pole like a soaked black lump.
Grassly checked the pump program and increased both the volume of water and the propulsion with which it was released.
He looked down. Ten floors below, dozens of PS staff swarmed like two-legged skudrins. For each one who was knocked down, four more waited to begin climbing. Grassly didn’t see the commander.
The roaring pumps, working far harder than they were designed to, drowned out the noise of the onslaught. At this rate, the mechanical systems wouldn’t be able to cope. Grassly hadn’t allowed enough time for the water to circulate back up to the higher floor to keep the bursts of water coming. He could smell something burning. A motor.
He longed for his Mother.
He lifted his hand to his temple and began desperately scrolling through the water system controls.
“Twirl,” he yelled, hoping the favours in the filtration room behind him could hear. “Everyone twirl!”
On his left, a pump gave an exhausted gasp and released a trickle of water instead of a violent burst. The PS officer at the bottom of the slide, who had been bracing himself against the impact, realized the wave of water was barely enough to dampen his hair and began to climb faster.
17.00
Like every Citizen United Inside the Store, Bright had been to the Natural Experience on school trips to look at what used to be. But she’d never gone on her own. The only people who willingly visited the Natural Experience were sensitives: the productives who made advertisements and picked colours and decided how things should look and sound and feel. They seemed to crave exposure to natural things and were unable to do their jobs effectively if they didn’t get it. Normal productives and those who worked in the Entertainment Zone treated the place like the waste of credits it was.
During the school trips, Training Centre buses doing the full tour, known to the kids as the Most Boring and Long Option, ground slowly along the curved road so the teachers could point out dangers and give warnings. The skin over the top of the Natural Experience was tinted from black to a bilious yellow. Beyond the translucent ceiling, the real sky outside was visible and, everyone agreed, extremely disturbing and dangerous looking.
There were a few trees in the Natural Experience, and some grass, but mostly it was dirt and dunes and rock and boringness, as well as vast sections no one ever visited because they were just too pointless and ugly and illustrative of how awful things used to be when nature was allowed to get in the way of fun and productivity.
The PS staff at the entrance to the Natural Experience looked out of place against the brown-on-brown background that could be glimpsed behind them. It was widely known that only the worst PS officers got stuck working the gates of the Natural Experience. After all, they were essentially looking after dirt, which had to be about the worst thing ever, from a support perspective.
Bright pulled the cart in behind a tour bus full of small productives. The kids were dressed in brown. Even though they were young, they looked capable and ready to make some things and fix some other things.
“Cute!” cried Fon. They waved at her, laughing with excitement. They had probably never seen a live favour, just the advermercials on the sides of the houses.
Slater muttered things that Bright couldn’t understand. He was becoming more verbal and was now able to sit up by himself. She hoped he would stay quiet when they had to pass the officers.
As they neared the entrance, Bright noticed that Fon’s skin looked surprisingly pale. Bright wondered if she was pale too. Even Slater looked less tanned in the unpleasant semi-real light.
“Don’t talk,” Bright whispered to Slater.
She couldn’t tell if he was listening.
“The light in here,” he said. “It’s so beautiful. It reminds me of something.”
Fon rolled her eyes. “Hello?” she said. “Skin damage much?”
They were up next. The six PS officers around the gate kept referring to printouts in their hands. That was odd. Personal support staff used the data feed for everything. Bright had never seen one handle a document, which looked like a prop from the House of Office.
Bright pulled the cart up beside the PS officers, and one of them held up a sheet as though checking it against her face. Three officers surrounded the cart.
Bright felt her hair shrink up against her scalp. She told herself not to freeze. Brave and fun. That was her. She put on her most entertaining smile. “Well, hello!” she said to the closest officer.
His mirrored glasses reflected her face, distorting it.
“Purpose of your visit?” he demanded.
Bright didn’t allow her smile to falter. “We’re here as part of our leisure unit’s motivation program. We’re reminding ourselves what’s fun and what’s just a waste of credits!” She laughed, making a sound like a pretty bell, and Fon joined in. Slater stared up at the sky, faintly visible overhead.
The officer questioning her whispered something to the officer beside him. They both stared more carefully at the document. Bright tensed. There would be no getting away this time. A school bus idled behind them, the hideous Natural Experience stretched in front of them, and suspicious PS staff stood all around.
“It says the ones we want are from the House of Gear,” she heard one of them whisper.
“I think we’re also looking for so
me favours from the House of Boards. Check the feed.”
“We’re not supposed to use the feed. The commander says to use discretion.”
“None of these people look like the one on my sheet. Different noses. Different lips.”
“They’re favours,” said a third officer. “They change all the time.”
“Yeah, but they’re from the wrong house. I’m telling you, they have boards. Which makes them from Boards, not Gear. And we’re looking for favours from the House of Gear.”
The third officer muttered, “Same difference,” but Bright could see he wasn’t going to argue. She was glad Fon had convinced her to go back for the boards. She was even happier that she and Fon had attached them in such an attention-getting manner. They’d strapped one to each side of the cart. A third was tied on behind. Bright had also tied towels over the flashing side panels, surprising herself with the smartness of the idea.
The first PS officer swiped each of their neck chips. “Credits sufficient,” he said. He waved them through.
Bright wanted to accelerate to the cart’s top speed, but she felt the officers’ gazes following them as they putted away from the gate at what she hoped was an unremarkable pace.
A hundred feet inside the entrance to the Natural Experience, a gamer’s body hung suspended from a tree as though he’d tried to climb it and failed. Badly.
The Natural Experience was full of such displays. There were bodies crumpled at the bases of hills, victims of twisted ankles. There were bodies sprawled out from heat exhaustion. In the cold chamber, with its ice and snow, there were bodies frozen in caves and one body frozen half in and half out of a pond.
None of the little ones minded the displays much at first. They just looked at the scraggy trees and lined up to touch the sparse grass. But after an hour in the Natural Experience, bathed in its uncanny yellow light and real smells, and surrounded by the unpleasant accidental death dioramas, they just wanted to go somewhere else. Anywhere else. And they never wanted to come back.
A hundred feet beyond the suspended gamer’s body was another tree with a cart smashed against it. A body hung half out of the cart, and another had been thrown clear. A tour or two of the Natural Experience drilled home the lesson that releasing was right and proper, while accidental death was humiliating and shameful.