Hungry (4 page)

Then twelve years ago, there was a rumor that One World destroyed the vault and all its contents, which sparked a rebellion. Of course, that ended badly when One World retaliated against the protesters, which drove the movement underground. My dad says lots of people who took part in the rebellion have a tattoo of the symbol somewhere on their bodies. Since lots of older members in the chat rooms use the symbol in their signatures, I assume the old-time Dynasaurs are a legacy of that rebellion.

Then there are the newbies like me and AnonyGal. No tattoos and sign-off symbols for us. Just some girls looking for a place to hack in peace. I bet AnonyGal never worries about what she wears, either. I finish cruising the chats, and since there’s nothing else of interest going on, I log off for now and get ready to meet Yaz.

*   *   *

Before I leave the house, I pop into the basement to say good-bye to Grandma.

“Heading out?” she asks.

“Yaz talked me into going to a PlugIn,” I tell her, feeling a little bad for abandoning her.

But Grandma smiles brightly and says, “Good! You should spend more time with people your age.”

“I have no idea why people go to those things,” I admit. “Anything you can do there, you can do at home.”

“They’re like restaurants or coffee shops were for my generation,” Grandma says. “You could make the same stuff at home, but sometimes it was nice to go out and be around other people.”

“If you say so.”

“I made you something.” She holds out my red pot holder transformed into a Gizmo-sized pouch with a long gray strap.

“This is great!” I grab it and slip it diagonally across my body. “Look, it’s perfect!” I tuck my sleeping Gizmo inside.

“One of a kind, just like you, my dear.”

I rub the soft fibers between my fingers. “People used to make stuff all the time, didn’t they?”

Grandma nods. “Mostly because they had to, but sometimes just for the sake of art.”

“Art,” I say, relishing the word. “Sounds fun.”

“It was,” she says. “But your generation finds their own ways to have fun, don’t you?”

“According to Yaz, we do.” My stomach makes the weird yodelly sound again. I look at my grandma, who’s trying not to laugh as I clutch my belly. “Do you miss it?” I ask her.

“Miss what, honey?”

“You know, eating, cooking. Food, I guess.” The rumbling in my stomach threatens like the first rolls of distant thunder.

“Well, as your mother says, foodless nutrition is for the greater good.” Grandma gives a little shrug. “So it’s silly to pine away for something we can’t all have. But between me and you?” She holds my gaze for a moment, then she whispers, “Yes, I do.”

I hesitate by the door, my stomach gnawing at itself as if groping for something it can’t quite reach. “If you could eat anything at all,” I ask my grandmother, “what would it be?”

She thinks for a moment. “That’s a hard question,” she says. “Sort of like asking a mother to pick a favorite child, but…” She nibbles on the side of her lip. “I suppose if I had to choose, I would say an apple.”

“An apple?” I ask with a laugh. “Like us?”

“No,” she says. “The real thing. A perfect, red, round, crisp, tart apple.”

I lean down and hug my grandmother good-bye. I know that kind of interpersonal touch is weird and anachronistic, but it’s something that she and I like to do. She says it reminds her of the past, and being held by her makes me feel good in a way I can’t quite explain. Almost like I’m a little kid again and nothing in the world can hurt me.

“Thank you, honey,” she says, patting me on the back. “Have fun and be careful.”

*   *   *

“West Loop, PlugIn 42,” I tell Astrid when I climb into my Smaurto.

“Got it,” she says perkily then connects herself to the Smaurto navigator. My seat belt fastens, the doors lock, and the garage opens. “PlugIn 42, here we come!” she announces as the car pulls out of the driveway. “So, what do you wanna do?” she asks.

“Nothing,” I mutter, which of course doesn’t compute with a nano brain.

“Music?” she asks. “Movie? Game? Networking?”

“Open the window,” I say, and my window goes down, letting in the cool evening air. Since it’s nearly spring, the hologram trees on our block have been programmed to bud. Dad wants to change them to cherry trees this year, but Mom is voting for magnolias. The last time magnolias were programmed, Grandma wrinkled her nose and said,
Too cloying
.
Nothing like the real thing.

“Music?” Astrid asks again. “Movie? Game? Networking?”

“No,” I tell her. “Be quiet.”

In the silence, I gaze at the half-moon perched above the rooftops with their whirling Whisson Windmills pulling water out of the skies. A few stars send their fuzzy light across the continuum. What was Earth like when that light was being generated? Lush and green and teeming with life-forms Grandma talks about. The furry, the feathered. Some armored like small tanks crawling over moss and rocks and fallen logs. Minuscule carbon-based helicopters buzzing flower to flower. Every creature on a genetically encoded mission to propagate. Now all that remains is the light of stars snuffed before the animals and plants died out. And the moon, a sterile rock. Just the kind of place my mother would love.

The Smaurto rounds the corner toward the highway and takes the entry ramp. The stars begin to fade from view, pushed out by the giant glaring screens along the road. Newsfeeds and ads flash by. Then Astrid pings awake, which I’ve programmed her to do when certain people call. “Your dad is calling!” she cries. I have to find a way to de-perkify her.

“Accept,” I say.

Dad’s face fills the onboard screen. I can see that he’s in his Smaurto, too. He’s got the seat reclined, so mostly I see his chin, which is covered with graying stubble. “I was just heading home,” he tells me. “I saw that you were in transit.”

“I’m going out with Yaz,” I tell him. “How was your day?”

He sits up a bit and smiles at me. “Good. Busy.” Lines, like sunbursts permanently etched in stone, crinkle at the edges of his eyes. Grandma Apple calls these crow’s-feet and says my grandfather Hector had them, too. Hector died trying to protect their family farm so I never met him, but she’s told me so much—how he could coax green shoots from the earth and cultivate crops when others had given up—that I feel as if I know him.

“We’re in the final phase of our new product,” Dad says proudly.

“What is it?” I ask, feigning interest because if I don’t, our conversation will be very short.

“Can’t talk about it over the waves,” he says. “But I’ll bring it home soon. We’ll be a test family.”

“Mom will like that.”

“You might, too.”

“Maybe.”

“What did you and Grandma do for family night?”

“She taught me to knit. We made this.” I lift up the Gizmo holder. “See, now I won’t lose Astrid.”

Dad laughs. “That’s perfect for you. Old-school meets nanotech.”

“Exactly,” I say, happy that he gets it.

“All right, then,” he says through a yawn. “Have a good time.”

We both sign off just as my car takes the ramp toward the old West Loop.

*   *   *

Astrid finds a parking space on a street full of abandoned buildings with dark windows staring like the vacant eyes of starving masses I’ve seen in historic pix at the Relics. I look up and down the street, wondering if Astrid got it wrong this time, but then I spot Yaz, her newly blonde locks twinkling like starlight amid the stark surroundings.

She waves at me and hurries over, her HoverCam close behind. “Thank god you’re here!”

“I don’t want that thing on me.” I point at the camera.

She grabs it and shoves it in her bag. “This place gives me the creeps!”

“Looks kind of interesting to me.”

“You
would
like this.” Her eyes roam up and down my outfit. “I thought you were going to change.”

I hold out my arms so she can get a good look. “Same ol’ me.”

“Someday I’m dragging you to Fiyo’s Spalon for a makeover,” she threatens as we walk toward a flashing green 42, which is the only light nearby. “God, there’s nobody around for miles.”

“We should go explore.”

Yaz pulls her Gizmo out of her bag and asks, “Jilly, what’s around here?”

Jilly, Yaz’s cyber assistant, is quiet for a rare moment, then she says, “PlugIn 42 looks interesting.” Yaz raises both eyebrows at me.

“Jilly only knows what someone programmed her to know. She has no idea what’s waiting to be discovered. Out there.” I point down an empty street. “In the real world.”

“This is plenty real for me,” Yaz says and yanks on the manual door under the flashing 42.

As soon as we’re inside a dimly lit hall, Jilly starts yapping about everyone Yaz knows who’s inside and everyone who she might like to know based on some Venn diagram of interests.

“Why don’t you let me crack your OS and reprogram that thing for you,” I propose for the millionth time so I don’t have to compete with Jilly while I’m with Yaz.

“No way. I like her,” Yaz says for the million-and-first time, but she turns down Jilly’s volume to appease me.

“Don’t you think it would be fun to do what our grandparents used to do?” I ask as we walk down the hall. “Like when they’d go someplace and meet random new people they knew nothing about?”

“Why would you want to slog through intros and small talk just to see if you might—what are the odds, something like five thousand to one—that you’d even like a real person you meet at random?” Yaz asks. “If you’d turn on your locator, Astrid could narrow down your options before you put any real effort in. Think of it as efficiency.”

“But all that gets you is more of the same. If you take a chance on that one person in five thousand, you might meet someone totally unexpected who’s had entirely different experiences than you. They could open you up to a whole new world and convince you to try something you’ve never done before. Or something you think you hate but that you end up loving!”

Yaz grins at me.

“What?” I ask.

“You just described you and me,” she says. “We like totally different things, and I’m constantly begging you to try something new.”

I start to argue with her, but I can’t because she’s right. The funny thing is, every time I think Yaz and I are growing apart, she surprises me. Like when she decided we should join a retro-team to play real-time hide-and-seek in abandoned schools or when she organized a scavenger hunt for dragons in an area once called Chinatown. When she comes up with stuff like that, I wonder if she’s got a secret side lurking beneath her every-girl exterior.

“Wow,” says Yaz when we turn the corner and enter a huge cavernous room. Even I’m impressed. “I’ve got to turn on for this.” She digs the HoverCam out of her bag and launches it. I stay well behind her so I’m not in the frame as we walk inside.

The ceilings are at least fifty feet high with a maze of old exposed duct work around the perimeter. Along the walls and in the center of the ceiling are large screens running ads for new games and chat rooms and movies. At least thirty escalators are scattered around the room, each leading to landings where people sit on plush, multicolored settees, jabbering away at their screens.

“Vertical. Layered. Integrated,” I say, nodding at the clever design.

“Where should we sit?” Yaz wonders aloud.

We walk around, our necks craned upward, looking for a spot to park ourselves, but the place is packed. “Up there,” I say, pointing. “Fourth level on the right.”

“Good thing I’m wearing my One World Rugged Life MicroFiber Boots.” Yaz kicks up a heel as she steps onto the escalator. “They’re perfect for a long flight of stairs,” she says directly to her camera.

“You’re not walking,” I say loud enough for the HoverCam mic to pick up.

She gives a fake laugh and tosses her hair then runs up a few steps. Her dumbed-down Personal Reality Channel persona grates on me. She’s smarter and more interesting than she appears from all the useless fashion chatter. But I get it. More viewers equal more products equal a better shot at a good corporate gig. It’s a game, one that I’m hopeless at playing.

We pass each landing where people interact with their screens, sometimes laughing out loud or rearing back when an avatar bites it in a virtual battle. They only glance up at us if their cyber assistants ping them when we walk by. On the fourth landing, we wind our way through six back-to-back seats to a spot near the rail. I motion at the HoverCam.

Yaz bags it and grouches, “Why do you have such a thing about PRCs? You’re my friend. You’re part of my life. You should be on my channel.”

I give her my standard retort. “I value personal privacy.”

“So antiquated,” she mumbles. “Which way do you want to face?”

“Out,” I tell her, pointing to the side of the empty S-shaped couch that faces the railing, not the wall. “I like to look down on everyone.”

Yaz snorts.

“Not like
that,
” I say. “I mean I like to watch people.”

“That’s called lurking,” she says. I don’t argue the difference between real-time people watching and virtual lurking, because to Yaz, those boundaries are blurry. She plunks down on her side of the seat and docks her Gizmo next to the big screen then blinks into the Eye to log on. “Want to play a new game called Master of Minions: Death Date with Hellfire.”

“Sounds horrible.”

“Don’t know until you try.” She slips on bright pink Earz that have been molded to the exact shape of her real ears.

“Are those new?” I ask.

“They’re made from Just-Like-Skin and are so comfortable!” She mugs for her camera then remembers that she stashed it and she relaxes. “What do you think?”

“Cute,” I have to admit. “The color looks good with your hair.”

“I heard they’re coming out with a line that looks like the ears of extinct animals, with fur and everything.”

“Creepy,” I say with a little shiver.

“Speaking of creepy, did I tell you that Miyuki Shapiro’s parents are applying to have a second? Can you believe that?”

“So?”

“So? They’re old. I mean Miyuki is our age. Well, sixteen, but still. Isn’t that weird to want another baby when you already have one kid?”