Shuteye for the Timebroker (27 page)

Cedric winced at Caresse’s genuine concern. Her first thought had been for his health. What a selfish jerk he had been—still was! Telling her the truth would not be easy. Might as well just plow painfully ahead.

Sitting on the couch with Caresse, Cedric revealed everything, from his final unwise wager on the Giants—damn their shitty playing!— through the surrender of his a-som coverage to Bobo, down to his firing and black-flagging.

When he had finished, Caresse said nothing for an excruciating period of time. Then she said, “The therapy didn’t take then. I just threw my money away on quacks. I’m lodging a complaint—!”

Cedric hung his head. “No, Caresse, don’t. I was on trope-agonists the whole time I was at the clinic. I smuggled them in. Caresse—I just couldn’t bring myself to give up gambling! But I’ve hit bottom now. Really, I have! I’m lower than coffee futures. Honest!”

Silence. Cedric focused on his palms folded in his lap, waiting for Caresse to render judgment on him, experiencing each second as a hellish eternity. He stole a glance at her face, and saw that she was silently crying. He felt like shit.

At last she said, “I was right. You
were
sick. Really sick. Your addiction was totally stronger than you could deal with. But if you think you’ve changed now—”

“I am, I am! Totally changed!”

“Well, then, I guess I can forgive you.”

Now they were both crying. Through the tears, they kissed, and the kissing soon passed into more frenetic activity, with the substantial couch as platform. There was no bedroom to retreat to. People didn’t have bedrooms any longer. They had a variety of couches and recliners used for relaxing. This furniture supported sex as well. If someone was a real hedonist, they might have a room devoted just to screwing, but such an excess was generally thought to be declasse. Most people happily used their ex-bedrooms for media centers or home offices or rec rooms, gaining extra functional apartment space at no additional cost.

At one point early on in the lovemaking, Caresse kicked off her Gooey Gumshoes and the footwear obediently humped themselves across the floor and out of the way beneath the couch, moving like certain ambulatory mycotic ancestors.

The make-up sex was spectacular. But Cedric emerged depressed anyhow. The full consequences of his fall now weighed heavily on him. Cuddling Caresse, he generously shared his anxiety with her.

“I’m going to have to give up this place. I’ll lose all my equity. Not that it’s much. And I’ve only got a little more than a week’s worth of a-som on hand. I would have to get fired right near the end of the month! So I’ll have to find a job right away. But I can’t work as a timebroker. Fintzy’s fucking black flag sees to that! But I don’t have any experience that would bag me a job that pays as much. And with the garnishment on any future salary, how am I going to make ends meet? It looks like I’m going to have to choose between becoming homeless, or becoming a—a sleeper!”

Cedric waited for Caresse to offer him an invitation to live with her. But he waited in vain. Had he pushed her affection and charity too far? When she finally spoke, her comment was noncommittal and only vaguely comforting.

“Don’t worry, Cedric, it’ll all work out.”

Cedric tried to be macho about his plight. But his fear leaked out.

“Right, sure, it all will. But I’m just a little scared, is all.”

* * *

Like most of the developed, a-som world, the United States of America now boasted a birthrate that fell well below replacement levels, the culmination of long-term historical trends that had begun a century ago, and that a-som tech had only accelerated. Had immigration not kept the melting pot full, the country would have become radically depopulated in a few generations.

Children could not take anti-somnolence drugs until puberty, a condition that nowadays statistically occurred on average at around age twelve. Their juvenile neurological development required sleep, periods in which the maturing brain bootstrapped itself into its final state. This process had proven to be one of the few vital, irreplaceable functions of sleep. (And even if infants and toddlers had been able to take a-som drugs, no sane parent would have wanted them awake 24/7.)

Consequently, parenting had acquired another massive disincentive. The hours when children had to sleep had formerly been shared by their parents in the same unconscious state. No particular sacrifice had been required on the part of the adults. But now, staying home with archaically dormant children constituted cruel and unusual punishment, robbing adults of all the possibilities that a-som opened up. More than ever, adults concerned with careers or intent on socializing and indulging their interests regarded child-raising as a jail term.

The child-care industry had adapted and boomed in response. Battalions of nannies specializing in the guardianship of sleeping children now circulated throughout the country, supporting the flexible lifestyles of absent mothers and fathers. Amateur babysitters had gone the way of paperboys. But the job, while essential, was still regarded as unskilled labor. The low pay for babysitting reflected this classification.

Sinking down through the vocation sphere, the black flag on his UCV denying him employment everywhere he turned, Cedric Swann had finally found employment as one of these rugrat guardians.

Ironically, the intermediary between Cedric and his employer, Tot-Watch, Inc., were the timebrokers Fintzy Beech and Bunshaft. Cedric had reluctantly continued his registration with his ex-employer, acknowledging that FB&B did offer the best deals. And apparently, the firms ire at Cedric did not impede its greed for another warm body to meet the quotas of its clients—if any client would have him.

Desperate for money, Cedric had specified an open-ended availability as a nanny. Children were asleep at all bells of all watches. Their schooling was just as freeform as their parents’ lives. Class time—a small fraction of total learning hours disbursed across various modalities of instruction—was brokered out to public and private schools that operated around the clock.

Today, Cedric had a gig over in his old neighborhood. The contrast with his own new residence couldn’t have been greater, and the irony was not lost on him.

After selling his condo and most of his furniture and possessions, Cedric had found a cheap apartment in Chinatown, above a dank, smelly business that biocultured shark fins for the restaurant trade. Now all his clothes smelled of brine and exotic nutrient feedstuffs, and his view was not of the Golden Gate Bridge, but rather of the facade of a martial-arts academy, where a giant hardlight sign endlessly illustrated deadly drunken-master moves.

As for his a-som doses, Cedric had managed to stay supplied. But only by abandoning the brand-name sixth-generation pills he had been taking and switching to a generic fifth-generation prescription. The lesser drugs maintained his awareness fairly well. At least, he couldn’t detect any changes in his diurnal/nocturnal consciousness; but then again, that was like trying to measure a potentially warped ruler with itself. Occasionally, however, his limbs did feel as if they were wrapped in cotton batting, and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.

Leaving his apartment at the first bell of the first watch, Cedric used his Palimpsest to find the location of the nearest Yellow Car. One of the ubiquitous miniature rental buggies was parked just a block away, and Cedric was grateful for small miracles. He could have taken a crosstown bus, or even have walked to save money, but he felt that his spirits would benefit from a small indulgence.

Cedric missed so many things that had vanished from his life. Naturally he missed his luxurious home and lifestyle. The sensations engendered by those material losses had been expected. But more surprisingly, Cedric missed being a timebroker, the buzz he had gotten from collating supply and demand, from filling a San Diego trope-fab with eager workers or making the San Jose Burning Man a success. Now he felt powerless, isolated, unproductive. Watching sleeping
larvae
! How had he fallen so far?

If it hadn’t been for Caresses continued affection and support, Cedric would have felt a lot worse. Having her as his girlfriend had been his mainstay. Caresse continually reminded him that the black flag on his UCV would expire at the end of five years or upon the repayment of all his debts, whichever came first, and that all he had to do was stick it out that long. Her optimistic outlook was invaluable. And the free body rubs and sex didn’t hurt, either. They were supposed to hook up after Cedric’s gig later, in fact, and Cedric was counting the minutes till then.

Climbing into the Yellow Car, Cedric started it with his Palimpsest. He noticed with irritation the low-fuel reading on the car’s tank, due to an inconsiderate prior driver, and swore at having to stop at a refueling station. But then again, he could top off his Palimpsest with butane as well.

The dusk-tinged streets of San Francisco on this lovely late-spring evening were moderately thronged with busy citizens. There were no such phenomena as “rush hours” or “off-hours” any longer. The unsynchronized mass impulses of the citizenry, mediated by the time- brokers, resulted in a statistically even distribution of activity across all watches. No longer did one find long queues at restaurants at “dinnertime” or lines at the DMV. With every hour interchangeable, and everything functioning continuously, humanity had finally been freed from the tyranny of the clock.

After hitting the pumps, Cedric made good time to his destination. The large glass-walled house where Cedric was to babysit commanded a fine view of the bay, and Cedric felt a flare of jealousy and regret.

Alex and Brian Holland-Nancarrow greeted Cedric pleasantly. Both of the slim, modishly accoutred men had an expensively groomed appearance that bespoke plenty of surplus cash—as if the house weren’t proof enough of that.

“We’re in a bit of a hurry, Cedric. But let us show you a few things you’ll need while you’re here. As you know from Tot Watch, we have two children, Xiomara and Tupac. They’re both asleep already. Here’s their bedroom.”

Reverently, the fathers opened the bedroom door a crack to allow Cedric to peer within. The unnaturally darkened chamber, the smell of children’s breath and farts, the sound of comalike breathing—these all induced in Cedric a faint but distinct nausea. It was like looking into a morgue or zombie nest, or a monkey cage at the midnight zoo. He could barely recall his own youthful sleeping habits, and the prospect of ever sleeping again himself made him want to vomit.

“We have a security kibe, and you’ll have to give it a cell sample. Just put your finger there—perfect! We’re heading up to a wine-tasting in Sonoma, and we should be back by four bells of the mid-watch. Feel free to have nocturne with whatever you find in the fridge. There’s some really superior pesto we just whipped up, and baby red potatoes already boiled.”

“Fine, thanks, have a great time.”

The Holland-Nancarrows departed in a crimson Wuhan Peony, and Cedric thumbed his nose at them once they were safely out of sight.

Back inside, he looked for ways to amuse himself. He watched a few minutes of a Giants game on his Palimpsest, but the experience was boring when he didn’t have any money riding on the contest. He prolonged the meditative drinking of a single boutique beer from the house’s copious stock, but eventually the bottle gurgled its last. He made a dutiful trip to the bedroom and witnessed the children—shadowy lumps-—sleeping as monotonously as before. Cedric shuddered.

Eventually, Cedric found himself poking around the family flatscreen. The display device occupied a whole wall, and somehow even vapid entertainment was more entrancing at that size.

And that’s when he found that the Holland-Nancarrows had departed so hurriedly that they had left their system wide open. They had never logged off.

After hesitating a moment, Cedric decided to go exploring. He paged through their mail, but discovered only bland trivia about people he didn’t know. He discovered what Alex and Brian did for a living: they designed facials for freethinkers. In effect, they were cyber-beauticians.

Then Cedric stumbled across a bookmark for a Cuban casino. Apparently, his hosts had recently placed a few amateur bets.

Cedric hesitated. In the pit of his stomach and down to his loins, a familiar beast was awakening and growling and stretching its limbs.

Just a small visit, to taste the excitement. He could lurk without playing.

Yeah. And the Mars colony would find life someday.

Under Cedric’s touch, the screen filled with a first-person-shooter image of the casino floor. Cedric was telefactoring a kibe whose manipulators would emerge into his field of vision when he reached for something. Cedric wheeled the kibe toward the blackjack tables, his favorite game.

Cedric started betting small at first. The wagers came, of course, from the cyber-purse of the Holland-Nancarrows. If he drained the purse of too much money, they’d spot the loss and track down the bets to a time when they weren’t home. But if he won, he’d leave the purse at its original value and transfer the excess to his own pockets. They’d never have occasion to check.

And of course, he
would
win. And win
big
!

The hours sped by as Cedric played with feverish intensity. His skills had not left him, and he was really in the zone. The cards favored him as well. Lady Luck had her hands down his pants. Pretty soon, he had racked up ten thousand dollars of the casino’s money. Only a drop toward lifting his debts, but certainly the best-paying babysitting gig he had ever had.