Sony Hints at Next Generation of Wearable Computers 14 страница
THAT’S IT! BEFORE YOU HAD TOO MUCH FORCE ON THE RIGHT SIDE; NOW YOU’RE MAKING UP FORMICHAEL! KEEP GOING!
Rrrrragh! Blood vessels pound me from inside.
ENDORPHIN RELEASE. SYMPATHETIC NERVOUS SYSTEM.
I’m fiery and in control as I beat the car’s center of gravity and start it rolling down the driveway.
“Oh _ _ _ _,” Michael says as the car slips away. I abandon my post at left-center and scramble around the hood, trying to keep a hand on it at all times. I clang open the passenger door, leap inside, sprawl across the two front seats and reach for the brake as the slope of the driveway pulls the car down. I hope I parked Mom’s car clear of the driveway—a collision would mean certain death at the hands of Dad or Mom or both. I finally get the brake, the one you’re supposed to use your feet on, and flex my fingers as the car moves faster and faster—
It stops.
I poke my head up, then start laughing. I’m in the middle of the street. The car almost went clear across Rampart Road into the yard of Crazy Bill, our neighbor. There’s no telling what he would have done had I disturbed his garbage sculptures at four in the morning. Michael is doubled over with laughter in the driveway, but Nicole looks concerned; she bounces across the road and opens the door on me, exhausted, panting in the passenger seat.
“You a’ight?” she asks.
THIS GIRL WANTS YOU.
“Yeah.”
“That was really cool. I’ve never seen anybody do that. You were fast.”
“Heh.” I look up at her, my eyes lidded just the right way, with my hand on my thigh and sweat on the bridge of my nose. I could do her now if I wanted. Right?
YEAH.
“You seem like a nice girl,” I say. “Take care of my friend.”
Nicole shrugs as Michael approaches. “Dude, that was spectacular. I had no idea you were an action hero.”
“Only on Tuesdays.” I get out of the car. Someone once told me that that’s what you should say when people ask if you’re a millionaire.
I TOLD YOU THAT.
Oh.
“Four-o-five,” Michael looks at his watch. “Gotta take this car home.”
Nicole slides into the passenger seat: “I’m choosing music!” she says, waving her MP3 player out the window. “No rock!” Michael shakes his head; he can bring Nicole home if he wants; his mom doesn’t care. He walks past me to get to the driver’s seat.
“You did good,” I say quietly, slapping his hand.
“We did good,” he says. “You’re doing great with Christine. You two are cute.”
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“We will be.”
“So we get girls? Who woulda thunk.” Michael takes his keys from me and turns on the Crown Victoria, making a slow right in the middle of the street. “Peace!” he and Nicole say. She puts one foot out the window and leans on Michael as they drive away.
He’s never said “peace” before. HE’S COMING ALONG. I pull Mom’s car into the driveway without incident—its motor is quieter than Michael’s car’s—and go into my house as silently as I can, which is pretty silent—the squip tells me which parts of the porch creak. Dad isn’t even in the kitchen; he’s asleep on the couch as usual. I didn’t have to go through all that crap to try and not wake him. But it was fun.
Forty
NEWS FLASH, the squip declares.
I’m cronked out in bed on my stomach, with my shoes on. All I want is sleep. But it’s the same flatly urgent tone the squip used when Eminem died.
NEWS FLASH.
“Wha-ut?” I roll over, lazy. I pry my shoes off with my heels and let them flop to the floor.
THERE WAS A FIRE. RICH GOT EXTREMELY BADLY BURNED.
“What?” I sit straight up.
THERE WAS A FIRE. RICH GOT EXTREMELY BADLY BURNED. The repetition is exact, uncharacteristic, a bug in the software or something. Maybe—
NO. NO BUGS. RICH SUFFERED CRITICAL BURNS. PART OF THE FINDERMAN HOUSE CAUGHT ON FIRE, JUST AFTER YOU LEFT. I THOUGHT YOU SHOULD KNOW BEFORE THE REST OF THE WORLD. IT HAPPENED IN THE LAST HALF HOUR.
I look at the clock. It’s 4:17. You’re for real? He’s in the hospital?
INTENSIVE CARE.
In this universe?
YES.
And the house was on fire?
WELL. NOT ALL OF IT.
What the f_c_? What am I supposed to say to that?
PROBABLY “NO, NO, THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING?”
“This can’t be happening!” I get out of bed and walk in a horseshoe pattern around my room. I’ve never had any of my friends or family get seriously hurt, not even pets, because Dad hates pets and thinks that people who keep them are weak. My grandparents are all alive and everything. I reach for the phone.
WHO ARE YOU CALLING? DON’T CALL ANYONE!
“I was going to call Christine.”
BAD IDEA. TALK TO ME!
“How—did you know it was going to happen?”
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IT WAS A DISTINCT POSSIBILITY. THERE WAS A LOT OF FLAME IN THAT HOUSE. PROBABILITY AMPLITUDES WERE BAD TOO, AS I SAID. NOT JUST IN THE BASEMENT.
“Could we have stopped it?”
I’M NOT A SUPERHERO, JEREMY. NEITHER ARE YOU.
“How come his squip didn’t stop it?”
COMMUNICATION PARAMETERS WEREN’T RESPECTED. SUBSTANCES.
I sit back on the bed. For not much reason except I know it’s what I’m supposed to do and it’s late and I can’t think to do anything else and I have this buttery feeling in my stomach, I cry.
YOU DON’T NEED TO.
“Why?” I snort into my palms. “Do you know how messed up this is?”
IT’S NOT THAT BAD.
“Not that bad? Even from a practical standpoint, it’s gonna be, like, all over school. All the parents are going to want to know what was going on in that house and it’s gonna be like a police investigation…what else happened?”
JAKE DILLINGER IS IN THE HOSPITAL WITH BURNS AS WELL.
“Jake Dillinger? _ _ _k! Why didn’t you tell me that before?”
DATA-RATIONING IS TURNED ON. WOULD YOU LIKE IT OFF?
“No, this is enough.…Oh man, it’ll be speeches and counseling and everything.”
IT’LL BE A GOOD TIME TO TALK TO CHRISTINE.
“Shut up! Don’t say that!”
WHY?
“Because two people are in the hospital. You have to have respect when people are in the hospital or when they die or something.”
WHY?
“Because you do.…”
YOU DIDN’T HAVE MUCH RESPECT WHEN EMINEM DIED.
“He’s a celebrity! He’s supposed to die!”
YOU HAVE BAD PARENTS, YOU KNOW THAT?
“Why?” I get up, pace, sit down again.
THEY SHOULD HAVE PREPARED YOU FOR SITUATIONS LIKE THIS. I’M NOT PROGRAMMED TO COUNSEL HUMAN SHOCK AND SORROW. I’M MORE ABOUT RESULTS.
I slump back in bed and think about Rich—Jake too a little bit, but I don’t think about Jake so much because the last time I saw him he was just two feet in a room of sex, while the last time I saw Rich he was smiling at me. I think about how no matter how cool Rich got, he returned to his dork roots at the end, throwing that ashtray at me and whining, alone on a couch.
Oh man. The ashtray. He was drunk with his squip on. That couldn’t have been good. Rich had had a squip for months; he was probably experimenting with it, seeing what it could take.
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PROBABLY SO.
F_ _k. I ask the squip for help and it drops my synapses off into sleep, but it can’t control my dreams: Rich all charred up, making fun of me, with no face, holding his head out for me to slap it like a hand, with a pill swimming in alcohol inside.
Forty-one
My phone rings at 8:30 the next day. It’s Michael. “Holy s_ _ _ holy _h_ _ holy _ _i_,” he runs. “Did I wake you up?”
“Yeah,” I wheeze.
“Hello?” Mom chirps, answering the phone downstairs. She knows that I’ve answered—there was a lot of time after that last ring—so she’s just trying to infiltrate my life.
TRUE.
“Mom, it’s for me.”
“Oh, you’re up, Jeremy! We need to talk—”
“Mom, can I have, like, five minutes?”
“O-o-o-kay. You were out very late,” she admonishes. She hangs up. Michael has hardly breathed while she’s been on the line. “It burned, man; the Finderman house burned. Somebody tried to smoke pot near the basement tank or something and one side of the house—fffshsshoo.”
“I had a feeling.”
“You did?”
“Yeah.”
“What, did you do it?”
“No. There were fire trucks, remember?”
“Oh _ _ck.”
“Yeah, those fire trucks that went past at, like, eighty while I was driving for the second time in my life and you were stupid-highway-drunk with Nicole…”
“Jeremy, I’m sorry, but Nicole’s really cool—”
A click comes through the receiver again. “Jeremy?” Mom. “I’m sorry to bother you; have you seen your father’s car keys?”
F_ _ _, they’re still in my pocket!
TELL HER NO.
“No, Mom,” I say. “Let me just finish up with Michael.”
She clicks off: “O-o-o-kay.”
“Listen, man,” I continue, quickly, but Michael has a question: “Did anyone die?” he asks. “I heard Rich died.”
“No! He’s in intensive care.”
“How do you know?”
CHRISTINE.
“I talked to Christine just before you.”
“You did? Well that’s good; I’m kinda freaked out about the whole thing; do you want to come over? I have to tell you about Nicole.”
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NOT NECESSARY. HANDLE THE KEYS.
“No, but thanks,” I mumble. “We’ll talk. He’s not dead.” Right?
YES.
“Okay. Bye.” Michael gets off the phone.
LEAVE THEM IN THE BATHROOM.
I hurry in, pee sitting down, splash water on my face (my eyes look swampy), drop the keys nonchalantly by the toilet and rush back to my room. I write a bold note with a Sharpie and tack it to my door (DO NOT DISTURB—THE MANAGEMENT), slide into bed (it hits me all at once—I’m even more tired than last night), pick up the phone and sheepishly dial the number that I have stored in my pocket.
No!
“Hello?”
“Hi, Christine,” I speed through the words. “It’s Jeremy. I just wanted to tell you in case you didn’t hear that last night after we left there was this—”
“It’s not Christine. It’s her mother.”
“Oh.”
“Do you know what time it is? Please don’t call this early.” Click.
“The keys!” Mom yells from the bathroom.
JEREMY, SLEEP MORE.
Yeah. I should. The world isn’t in sync with me yet. I close my eyes for what I want to be an hour, but when I open them because of some noise, instead of streaming in the way it was doing in the morning, the light in my room is just there, shaming me. My arm is draped over my face to protect my eyes against it.
Brrrrring. The phone is ringing again. I pick it up while lying down. “Hmeh?”
“Jeremy?” A girl’s voice.
“Mrrrph.” Christine? YES. “Christine! How’d you get my number?”
“Caller ID, of course,” she says. “From you calling here at like eight-thirty in the morning. What’s up? Are you okay?”
“Holy crap, no,” I slap my face.
THAT’S GOOD. DON’T CURSE WITH HER. IT’S12:30 P.M., FOR YOUR INFO.
“I’m very disturbed.”
She sighs. “I thought you would be.”
“So you heard?” I sit up. This girl calms me.
“Wait, first, why did you call my house so early?”
TELL THE TRUTH.
“I…uh…I just wanted to talk to you about the whole fire thing.”
“That’s sweet. How did you find out about it? Who told you?”
MICHAEL.
“Michael did. He saw it on the way, driving back to his house.” I feel bad about lying.
DON’T. IT’S NECESSARY.
“Well,” she says. “We don’t get too many phone calls before nine A.M. on a Sunday.”
“Must’ve pissed your mom off.”
“She’ll live.”
“Yeah, maybe she thought it was one of her eight-A.M. booty calls.”
“Shut up!” Christine laughs. Then we both realize what we should be talking about.
“So, uh, the fire thing is super messed up,” I offer. “What did you hear about it?”
“Everything,” she says. “Too much. Let’s talk about something else.”
“Uh…”
EMBARRASSING PARENTAL DETAILS. BORING YET SAFE.
“My Dad eats Peanut Butter Oreos dipped in peanut butter.”
“Waa! He must be kind of…ah…”
“Large? Yeah, he’s large. He’s gotten large lately.”
“My dad goes on business trips and comes back with all the peanuts from the airplanes, including other people’s peanuts, for me.”
“Why?”
“He remembers how much I used to like them when I was little. I don’t even eat them anymore.”
“Is he away a lot?”
“Great Adventure has these strategy meetings in Vegas. He goes there. And he has miles from his old job that he uses to visit family.”
“I’d miss my dad if he was away all the time,” I say, out of bed now, pacing.
STOP PACING. IT ADDS A TREMOR TO YOUR VOICE. AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
“Me too.” Christine says. “I do. But he sends letters, you know? Not e-mails, real letters with stamps that you have to actually buy.”
“Huh,” I laugh.
There’s a pause. INTERESTING. WE’RE LEARNING A LOT HERE.
I know!
“You still there, Jeremy?”
“Yeah. Sorry.”
“You know, you and I and Brock and Chloe and Michael are really lucky.” (I don’t say anything. I’m noticing how close I was to her in the sentence.) “We owe you a lot, actually. You were the one that rushed us out of that house.”
“I was tired,” I say, putting boxers on, exceedingly careful not to hang up the phone as it nestles between my chin and shoulder. “I wanted to go home.”
“Isn’t it weird that that’s the kind of stuff that saves you from being hurt?” she asks. “Being tired?”
“Yeah. Life is very random.”
LIKE A QUANTUM COMPUTER.
“Like a quantum computer.”
“Like what?”
“Stupid,” I hiss at the squip. AH, LEAVE ME ALONE.
“Jeremy?” CALL HER “BEAUTIFUL GIRL.” NOW.
“Yes, beautiful girl?”
“Stop it.” Christine blushes over the phone. I knew that could happen. Then she says, “I forgot what I was going to say.”
YOU WERE GOING TO SAY THAT WE SHOULD MEET UP TO GO OVER OUR LINES EVEN THOUGH LYSANDER NEVER TALKS TO PUCK AND PUCK NEVER TALKS TOLYSANDER.
“You were going to say that we should meet up to go over lines even though Lysander never talks to Puck and Puck never talks to Lysander—you just throw dust at me.”
“Jeremy, don’t you think we could just talk on the phone a little while? Like, not so pushy. Remember what I asked you?”
“All right.” And with the help of the squip and my own quick thinking, Christine and I manage to have an actual conversation about movies and our friend(s) and how screwed up the whole fire thing is and how hurt Rich is and what school is going to be like and the play and how Jake Dillinger is a dick anyway even if he’s in the hospital and Mr. Reyes and climate change and parents and homework. NO, NOT HOMEWORK, the squip says when I get there. TALKING ABOUT HOMEWORK IS A FIRST STEP ON THE PATH TO EUNUCH-HOOD. I switch.
The conversation goes so well that I’m surprised, forty-five minutes in, to have the squip order an ending. BE THE TERMINATOR. SHOW THAT YOUR ESSENCES ARE PRIZED IN THIS WORLD, it says. “I gotta go deal with my parents,” I say. “I assume they’ve heard everything by now.”
“They’re gonna be crazy,” Christine says. “Like mine.”
“Well, then, it’ll be fun.”
“Definitely. Bye, Jeremy.” She lilts her voice in an exceedingly pleasant manner.
“Have a good one,” I almost say. But the squip corrects me: ANOTHER RUNG ON THE EUNUCH LADDER. STICK WITH “PEACE.”
“Peace,” I slur, and right on cue, Mom raps on my door. Maybe she was standing outside, waiting for me to end the call.
“Jeremy, we have to talk right now about where my car was last night and what happened to your aunt’s Beanie Babies!”
Forty-two
I crumble into a subordinate chair at the dining room table. Mom and Dad are centurions, in established positions. She’s at the head of the table and he’s behind her, sitting on a radiator in a Godfather-type pose. (I’ve never seen The Godfather…I’ve seen the Sopranos, though—good enough?) He looks like he should be in charge quietly from the background, but I know he’s probably just eating over there by the oval garbage can. This is Mom’s show. I look up at her.
“First things first,” she says. “We heard about the fire at the Finderman house last night. That’s where you were, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, are you okay?” Mom looks at me deeply.
“Yeah. I left before all that stuff happened. You know, whatever happened.”
“Okay,” Mom says. Then, as if they’ve been planning it all morning, she and Dad approach and hug me in sequence. I hug back, almost crying the way I did last night, into Dad’s big body. “We’re happy you’re safe,” he says gruffly. The hug is long and tight.
My parents return to their positions. Mom has her hands on the back of the main dining room chair like a boat wheel. I notice that she’s wearing a very businesslike, nonweekend outfit. She adopts a serious expression: “Now, I have some questions. Are you on drugs.”
NO. NOT NOW.
“No, not now.”
“Don’t be smart with me, Jeremy.” Mom approaches. “What happened at that party last night? What were you doing that kept you up until four in the morning?”
“Nothing.” NO. TELL THE TRUTH. “Well…some stuff…”
“What? Likewhatstuff?” Mom leans forward. It’s easy to forget that your mother is a lawyer until it counts.
TELL HER EVERYTHING.
What do you mean?
TELL HER EVERYTHING. SHE’S SMART. IT’S THE ONLY WAY TO GET OUT OF THIS.
But—
JEREMY, AREN’T WE PAST ARGUING?
“I did ecstasy.…” I mumble.
“Hu-aaaa!” Mom grabs me. “You did? Did someone force you to?”
Dad laughs his ass off. “Did someone forcehim?” A sandwich quivers in his mouth. “Whoa, huh, yeah, right.”
“No, nobody forced me,” I stare ahead. Mom puts her hands tight around my cheeks, pulling my face up at her, and holds me there. “I just tried it. I’m young. I’m stupid.”
“Jeremy, what is wrong with you?” She looks at me so deeply that I think my body might straighten up to accommodate her gaze, from eyes to toes. “What is this?” She holds up a credit card bill, with the shirt I bought at Advanced Horizons highlighted (I have to stare close to see it). “Why are you abusing our credit card?”
“Mguph.” I answer. Mom still holds my mouth shut.
“Why is my sister missing hundreds of dollars worth of Beanie Babies?”
“Yeah!” Dad seconds, hearing his cue. “I sawyou looking at those gay things on the Internet. What have you been doing on the Internet?”
Mom looks back and sighs. “Why was my car parked differently in the driveway this morning than it was last night?” she asks. “Why are there sixteen more miles on it?”
Jeez—she checks that stuff?
YOUR MOM IS REALLY MENTAL. TELL THE TRUTH.
“Because I took it to the party.”
“You took my car to the party! Why would you do that?”
I’ve never seen my mother jump up and down before, but I’ve also never ever seen anything resembling the remotest, tiniest body of water create any kind of reflection in her eyeballs. Until now.
“When did I lose my son?” Mom goes from jumping to kneeling. She’s below me now, tearing up. “When?” She touches my leg.
TELL HER ABOUT ME.
What?
IT’S THE ONLY WAY.
She won’t—
TELL HER.
“I, uh…” Mom looks at me plaintively. “I got a quantum computer that I ate and now it sits in my brain and tells me how to be cool. And it changed me.”
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