by Ned Vizzini
“Stop,” Rack says, removing a totally nondescript Reebok box off the particular nondescript shelf we’re at. The back of this Payless is really big; it stretches to an indoor horizon like the hallway of my school.
“Take a look.” Rack opens the box; inside, padded with tissue paper, are half a dozen gray pills.
“Nice, aren’t they?” Rack shakes his head. Then he adopts a more serious pose. “Okay, just so you know: squip is untested technology and obviously it’s not exactly legal, which is why you’re paying for it with cash in the back of a shoe store. I take no responsibility—neither does my cousin or Payless or anybody else—for what it will do to you. Even if you could spit it out and get a refund, there wouldn’t be one.”
“Understood.”
“Let’s see the money.”
I try my bargaining skills a little. Rack never mentioned a price, so instead of pulling $600 out of my pocket, I select $500 with the sweaty tips of my fingers, pushing seven of the twenties aside. Maybe that’ll be enough. I give it to him—so thick.
“Wow, man, you don’t need to give me this much.” He smiles.
“Really?”
“No, actually, you do.” Rack clenches with laughter, pinches a squip from the box and holds it in one hand with my cash in the other.
“Gimme!” I grab. Rack holds it above his head, grins—a return to grade school, a game of keep away.
“Calm down, dude, calm down. What do you want to take your pill with? I’ve heard people say that if you drink Mountain Dew, it works best.”
“Fine!” I hold my hand out. “Whatever.”
The pill plops in my hand with a gorgeous little pat. “Here,” Rack says, “I just happen to keep some Dew behind the Tevas.” He reaches back and pulls out a bottle of incredibly flat, green quasi-soda. I put it to my mouth and swig it—it coats my teeth in a thick sugar film. Ugh. Nasty. But…dun da da dunh da dunn dunn…
The pill goes down.
“What now?” I lean against a Payless shelf. “What’s happening?”
“I dunno.” Rack lounges on a step ladder and lights up a cigarette. “You hear anything yet?”
I shake my head.
“Well, it’s warming up. It’ll start soon.”
I picture the pill in my stomach, opening like a cocoon, allowing the tiny (invisible?) computer inside to pass through the pinched gate of my duodenum into my intestines and mush its way through my intestinal walls into my bloodstream and shoot its way up to my brain to my neurons (bio class) to start talking to me. What kind of computer is it? How does it work, exactly?
“Do you have one?” I ask Rack.
“Of course.” He drags his cigarette lazily.
“Is it on right now?”
“Sure is. It just said you were a chump, but I don’t think so.”
“Wow. Did yours get you a girlfriend?”
“Man, that’s the first thing it does, is get you a girlfriend. I bet yours is working on that right now.”
“That’s what I want.”
Rack nods, rolls his eyes.
TING.
Whoa. Here we go.
WELCOME TO SQUIP 2.5.
It’s a voice, in my head, but it isn’t all that strange. It’s like my own voice, but deeper, older, more authoritative. It sounds like—
“Keanu Reeves?”
“Yeah! You’re hearing it?” Rack stands up.
“It’s Keanu Reeves’s voice?”
“Sure, but that’s just the default.” Rack swishes his cigarette, explains. “You can set it for Sean Connery, Jack Nicholson, Tyrese; you can even give it a sexy female voice if you want, but I find that distracting.”
SQUIP 2.5 CALIBRATION AND ACCESS PROCEDURE IN PROGRESS.
“Aaaaaagh!” Pain like a motorcycle races through my head. “Jesus! Agh!”
“It’s okay!” Rack puts an arm around me. “It only happens once. It’s picking out information from your brain.”
“Oh my God…” It’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced, transcendent pain, from temple to temple, death, fear, agony, like a spike bent through my ear…and then it’s over.
HELLO, JEREMY.
“Hey. Ugh.”
PLEASE. DO NOT TALK TO ME OUT LOUD.
“It’s working!” I tell Rack.
YES, IT IS WORKING. “IT” HAS A LOT OF WORK TO DO, BY THE LOOK OF THINGS.
“It’s working!” I grin.
“Welcome to the world,” Rack says. I expect a hug from him or something, but all he does is get up, crush his cigarette underfoot and lead me back, past monoliths of shoes, to the Payless retail area. A girl is waiting by the cash register.
“Excuse me, is there a reason nobody’s attending to customers in here?” she asks, hair bouncing against her cheek, indignant.
TARGET FEMALE INACCESIBLE DUE TO INTEREST IN OTHER PARTY, the squip declares.
“I’m really sorry, miss,” Rack says. He smiles like he can’t help it. “But I don’t know why you’re here. You have nicer shoes than we stock anywhere in this place.”
“Well,” the girl says. “I’m not looking for me; I’m looking for my boyfriend. He refuses to get new shoes—”
“Would you like a cigarette?” Rack asks.
“You can’t smoke in the mall!” she whispers.
“Well, you can’t, but you can, sort of, in Payless. I won’t get you in trouble, I promise.”
“Okay,” she says, suddenly in on something. Rack makes eye contact and I understand: I got this girl. Thanks for your money and get out. I open the gate in the sales counter unnoticed, leave Payless, and walk into the Menlo Park Mall alone—well, sort of alone.
YOU NEED A NEW SHIRT. BUY A NEW SHIRT.
“But I—”
DO NOT TALK TO ME OUT LOUD, JEREMY! THAT IS RULE NUMBER ONE.
Right. I stand stock-still by an Annie’s Pretzel cart. This is weird.
NO, IT IS NOT. THIS IS WHAT YOU HAVE ALWAYS WANTED. JUST WALK AND THINK TO ME AT THE SAME TIME, OKAY? LIKE TELEPATHY.
I always thought telepathy was cool. Like X-Men.
RIGHT. IT IS COOL. AND NOW YOU GET IT.
Rockin’.
ROCKIN’? IT IS GOING TO BE DIFFICULT TO GET YOU UP TO SPEED, JEREMY.
Why?
BECAUSE YOU ARE A SERIOUS DORK, JEREMY. SOME SQUIPS HAVE IT EASY. THEY HAVE TO MEMORIZE INFORMATION FOR TESTS OR SMOOTH OUT OCCUPATIONAL CHALLENGES OR HELP PEOPLE WITH STUTTERING PROBLEMS. YOU, HOWEVER, DESIRE A COMPLETE BEHAVIORAL OVERHAUL. CORRECT? YOU HAVE TO BE MORE CHILL—
You mean, I have to chill out.
NO, I DO NOT MEAN “CHILL OUT.” WE ONLY USE SQUIP-APPROVED DATA FOR THE VERNACULAR, JEREMY. YOU HAVE TO TALK AS PER RAP-SLASH-HIP-HOP, THE DOMINANT MUSIC OF YOUTH CULTURE.
Okay.
NOW, THERE ARE MANY ASPECTS TO THE CHANGES YOU DESIRE AND IMPLEMENTING THEM WILL BE COMPLEX.
Uh-huh. I’m walking back and forth between two indoor trees, not caring how crazy I look.
STEP ONE IS THAT YOU STOP PACING AND GET A NEW SHIRT, JEREMY.
Okay. Okay. I put both hands in my pockets and walk toward Advanced Horizons, one of Menlo Park’s Cool clothing places.
HOW COME YOU USE CAPITAL C FOR COOL?
Well—I’m starting to get a little bit comfortable with this—because there are different kinds of cool. There are your friends who are just cool people, you know, like laid-back, and then there are the certified popular, dominating, aristocratic Cool People. And then there’s the temperature and the jazz period—
NO.
No what?
NO, DON’T USE CAPITAL C. YOU’RE MAKING IT TOO DIFFICULT, JEREMY, PUTTING IT ON TOO MUCH OF A PEDESTAL.
Really?
YES. THE PROCESS THAT WE ARE EMBARKING ON IS COMPLICATED BUT IT IS ALSO…SIMPLE. WITH CERTAIN MODIFICATIONS TO YOUR DAILY BEHAVIOR YOU WILL BE COOLER THAN YOU EVER IMAGINED AND YOU WILL NOT THINK TWICE ABOUT IT. HUMAN SOCIAL ACTIVITY IS GOVERNED BY RULES AND I HAVE THE PROCESSING CAPACITY TO UNDERSTAND, OBEY, AND UTILIZE THOSE RULE
S.
All right. Advanced Horizons appears on the horizon to the right.
DO NOT PUT YOUR HANDS IN YOUR POCKETS. TAKE THEM OUT. ARCH YOUR BACK SO THAT YOUR SHOULDER BLADES ARE ALMOST TOUCHING. WALK LIKE THAT.
I do as I’m told. It feels gay.
THE GAYER IT FEELS, THE BETTER YOUR POSTURE. YOU MUST ALWAYS WALK THIS WAY, JEREMY. I WILL STIMULATE YOUR SPINE TO REMIND YOU. YOU ARE TALL; IF YOU DON’T USE YOUR HEIGHT TO THE FULLEST, TARGET FEMALES WILL ASSUME YOU ARE A LOSER AND MASTURBATOR.
But I am a masturbator.
WE’LL FIX THAT.
I have $140—you don’t want me to spend it all in this store, do you? I push open the doors to Advanced Horizons.
NO, YOU’LL NEED $100 OF IT LATER. LET’S SPEND $40 ON AT LEAST ONE SHIRT AND IF YOU NEED MORE, YOU CAN USE YOUR MOTHER’S CREDIT CARD.
How do you know about that?
YOUR BRAIN. I STARTED UP WITH A PARTIAL DATA DUMP FROM MEMORY TO MEMORY. I KNOW SOME THINGS.
Well, that card is only for emergencies.
YOU ARE AN EMERGENCY, JEREMY.
Inside the store, I walk with a back as straight as I can from aisle to aisle. Each shirt I see, I pull out and inspect, but of course I’m not really inspecting it. The squip is.
NO. NO. NO. NO.
You’re tough.
NO. NO.
In the end, the squip approves of two items: a navy-with-gold-trim Shago sweatshirt and an Eminem T-shirt that says I LIKE THE POPE/THE POPE SMOKES DOPE. (BUY THAT NOW; YOU’RE GOING TO WANT EMINEM MERCHANDISE.) The last of the $40 is obliterated by the sweatshirt and Mom’s credit card has to be called in for the T-shirt. I’ll need to explain that to her later. Damn.
THAT IS SOMETHING ELSE WE HAVE TO WORK ON. HOW COME YOU DON’T CURSE?
I don’t know, really. I do sometimes. I guess I don’t need to all the time. (I try to interact with the cashier and squip at the same time.)
YES, YOU DO. FIFTY TIMES A DAY YOU HAVE TO SAY ANY COMBINATION OF THESE WORDS: FUCK, ASS, BITCH, SHIT, DICK, PUSSY, DILL-LICKER, HAIRY NECESSARIES—
Whoa whoa whoa. I do not.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU DO NOT? DO YOU WANT TO ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS WITH FEMALES OR DO YOU WANT TO KEEP JERKING YOUR SKINNY SELF OFF ALL THE TIME? I KNOW THE RULES, JEREMY.
Yeah, but if I talk like that, Christine’ll be pissed.
TRUE.
She doesn’t want to see me cursing all the time.
GOOD POINT. LET’S USE BLANKED-OUT WORDS, THEN. LIKE EVERY TIME YOU SAY FUCK I’LL PUT IN A _ _C_, AND ASSHOLE BECOMES _ _S_ _L_.
Deal. F_ _ _ p_ _ .
I kind of hate Keanu Reeves’s voice. Can you switch to, ah, Brad Pitt?
WE COULDN’T GET HIS RIGHTS. YOU SURE YOU DON’T LIKE KEANU?
Uh…
C’MON, JUST LISTEN. ISN’T IT SOOTHING?
I guess.
ALL RIGHT THEN, the squip concludes as Keanu. We head through the mall to meet up with Michael. I could see how—
JEREMY, STOP. GET A FROZEN YOGURT.
“I’m sorry?”
GRRRRR.
I mean, I’m sorry?
FIRST CHANGE SHIRTS; THEN GET A FROZEN YOGURT.
But I need to meet my friend…what time is it anyway?
16:20 HOURS.
Huh? What?
I DEFAULT TO MILITARY TIME. WOULD YOU LIKE STANDARD TIME?
Sure.
4:20 P.M.
Then I definitely have to meet Michael. I told him—
JEREMY, YOU DO NOT NEED TO MEET MICHAEL RIGHT NOW. IN FACT, I HAVE TO EXPLAIN SOMETHING TO YOU RIGHT NOW. SIT DOWN.
Um—I park my butt on a metal bench by a garbage droid and concentrate. It’s unnerving communicating with a disembodied Keanu Reeves. Especially when he’s stern.
YOUR PERFORMANCE IN THAT STORE WAS ADMIRABLE, BUT TOO QUESTIONING. YOUR PERFORMANCE NOW IS WORSE. YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND: I AM AN ADVISER. YES?
Okay.
YOU PAID QUITE A BIT OF MONEY FOR ME. TRUE?
True.
MY ADVICE IS NOT BASED ON THIS WORLD ALONE. DUE TO MY QUANTUM STRUCTURE I AM ABLE TO INTERACT AT A LOW LEVEL WITH PHOTONS IN PARALLEL UNIVERSES AND EXTRAPOLATE FORWARD, KNOWING THEIR ENTANGLED STATES, TO SEE WHAT THOSE UNIVERSES HAVE TO OFFER.
Uh—
RIGHT NOW I AM ENVISIONING A UNIVERSE IN WHICH YOU GET SOME FROZEN YOGURT WITH YOUR SHAGO SWEATSHIRT ON AND THINGS TURN OUT WELL FOR YOU.
Okay.
I HAVE YOUR BEST INTERESTS IN MIND, JEREMY. ALWAYS. WHY DON’T YOU EXPLORE THEM?
Okay. I’ll give this a shot. I drop into the nearest bathroom. Hoping to look beefier, I stuff the new T-shirt over my current model and put the sweatshirt on over that. Then I head to the combination Mrs. Field’s/TCBY facility for yogurt.
EXCELLENT. SEE?
Whoa! Anne is here, from my math class, looking, um, marginally cute. She has little breasts, so she doesn’t wear a bra as she snacks on the pointy end of a used cone at her own tall, circular table.
NOW YOU’VE GOT TO APPROACH HER, WITH THAT GOOD POSTURE WE TALKED ABOUT.
Wait, though! I don’t like Anne.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN?
I don’t like her. I don’t want to talk to her.
JEREMY, HOW DO YOU KNOW WHOM YOU LIKE AND DON’T LIKE?
That’s actually something I’ve never had a problem with—
LIKING SOMEONE IS A QUANTUM CONCEPT. DID YOU KNOW THAT?
Really.
YES. EVEN BY THINKING THAT YOU MIGHT LIKE A TARGET FEMALE, YOU CREATE AN INFINITUDE OF WORLDS WHERE THAT FEMALE IS MET, COPULATED WITH, AND GIVEN COMPANION STATUS.
Really?
“Jeremy!” Anne pushes a drop of frozen yogurt over her lower lip, into her mouth.
HELLO.
“Hello,” I say.
“Well, okay, ‘hello,’” Anne responds. She smiles, drapes her hands over the table. It’s nice to hear a voice that comes from the outside world, but still, she isn’t attractive.
“Do you know Chloe?” Anne continues, and I turn to see the Chloe—Hot Girl Chloe, the Chloe with the tail from the dance—sitting in the seat next to Anne’s! How the _ _ _k did I not see her? I stare, dumbfounded.
“Hello,” Chloe says comfortably. She has on a necklace with “Fun Size” Snickers and Milky Ways hanging off it, just in case I didn’t know she was hot.
“I didn’t see you,” I say.
YEAH, YOU DIDN’T. FUNNY, HUH, HOW YOUR OPTIC NERVES CAN BE BLOCKED TO YOUR ADVANTAGE?
“Do you want a Snickers?” Chloe asks, jutting her breasts and necklace out at me.
“Guh…yes.” I pull one off her soft neckline. The space between the tops of her breasts and chin looks like a whole continent.
“Chloe and I are taking a break from that crap Mr. Gretch assigned, you know?” Anne uptalks. “Did you do it?”
WE’LL DO IT LATER. IT WILL TAKE SECONDS. IGNORE HER. LET THE FEMALES INTERACT.
“It’s not a study break,” Chloe turns to Anne, putting her body back in neutral. “You make it sound like a study break.”
“Oh, yeah. My bad?” Anne covers her mouth with four fingers. Then she turns to me: “So, Shago?” She stifles a laugh. “Isn’t that, uh, Lil’ Bow Wow’s clothing line?”
LIL’ BOW WOW IS ACTUALLY CALLED BOW WOW NOW, WITH A SUCCESSFUL MOVIE AND FASHION DESIGN CAREER. THE SHAGO LINE STANDS FOR HIS REAL NAME, SHAD GREGORY MOSS.
“Um, Lil’ Bow Wow is Bow Wow now, and Shago is Shagregory Moss,” I repeat.
“No way,” Chloe slurs from her spot at the table. “How do you know that?”
She waits for me to answer, turning down to the pink yogurt shake that occupies her. She looks at my eyes, I think, but I can’t be sure—
OF COURSE SHE’S LOOKING AT YOUR EYES. WHO ELSE IS HERE? WE HAVE TO MOVE THIS ALONG, JEREMY. PUT YOUR KNUCKLES ON THE TABLE LIKE A BRUTE OF SOME KIND.
I do. It’s a lot easier to do this stuff when you’re told to.
NOW LOOK TOWARD CHLOE, BUT OPEN YOUR MOUTH A BIT, SO YOUR LIPS SHOW FULL W
ITHOUT REVEALING YOUR TEETH. YOU NEED TO APPEAR UNCARING AND VERY INTENSE, YET MEEK.
I part my lips.
NOW SAY, “YOU’RE A REALLY PRETTY GIRL, CHLOE. YOU LOOKED GREAT AT THAT DANCE.”
“You know you’re really pretty, Chloe. You looked great at the dance.” I can’t believe I’m saying it.
“Um…” Chloe raises her eyes to mine.
“MAYBE WE CAN HANG OUT SOMETIME.” SAY IT LIKE YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT YOUR OWN DEATH.
“Maybe we can hang out sometime.”
Chloe…Jesus, Chloe is looking right at me!
DON’T SMILE. STAY INTENSE. AND DON’T THINK JESUS. THINK F_ _ _.
F_ _ _.
“Whatever,” Chloe finally says.
WHATEVER? AN EXCELLENT START. NOW SAY THAT YOU’RE A GRAFFITI ARTIST—
“Jeremy!” Michael yells, rushing into Mrs. Field’s/TCBY, exasperated, with his headphones. He doesn’t ever look exasperated. Guess I’m popular today. He gasps at my shirt. “Where have you been?”
“Mom’s home,” Chloe says under her breath. I notice that Michael has bad posture and bad dandruff; it didn’t use to be so much worse than mine, but you can see it from across the room now.
BRUSH HIM OFF; WE HAVE BUSINESS HERE.
“Um…I’m talking to these girls; what do you want from me?” I ask Michael. And what does he want? A girl, same as me. If he had run into one over by the HMV music kiosks, he’d still be there.
“O-kay,” he says, his lips squirming. “Well, um, I’m going now, so if you want that ride home you’ve got to—”
TAKE A RIDE WITH THE GIRLS.
“Actually, Anne?” I turn, ignoring Michael. Anne looks weirded out by what I just said to Chloe, but she still looks admiring. “You’ve got a ride outta here, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Could I maybe go with you?” My speech is coming out more and more in tune with the squip’s suggestions. “My house is right by school.”
“Oh yeah,” she says. “This girl Jill? She’ll totally drive you.”
“Okay.” I look back for Michael, but he’s gone. That was quick. Guess I’ll sort things out with him later.
REMEMBER THE TARGET FEMALE.
Chloe is sucking loud air out of the bottom of her yogurt shake. She doesn’t look at me, but she says, “Guess we’re going to be hanging out sooner instead of later, huh?”