“Never thought I’d see you with that haircut,” says Epstein.
“The meds are helping.” Jackie smiles. The coffeehouse is warm and yellow.
“They really did a nummm.” Epstein tries to take back the half-word. “Fixed you up in there, huh?”
“I maintain that everything’s data,” Jackie says quietly. “But I’m better at prioritizing some over others.”
“Not still trying to decode your heartbeat?” Epstein asks. “You’re not doing that thing where somebody says where’s that siren, and you take two steps and–”
“I told you,” says Jackie, “the meds are helping,” and reads the barcode of a passing bicycle’s spokes.
Halfway through her sandwich, Liddy opens her mouth and starts to sing. Her mouth is full; Martha gets sprayed with chicken salad. She wipes her t-shirt and realizes that Liddy’s not singing a song, just holding out one note.
Somebody takes it up behind her. Martha stumbles up and the note populates the lunchyard. It’s starting to hurt her ears, and just then they find whatever note resonates inside cinderblocks, because the wall of the school collapses.
“Holy shit,” whispers Martha. All the singers have stopped. They’re looking the same direction. Their eyes are enormous, and black as piano keys.
“They can’t withstand escape or re-entry, obviously,” says Hitomi, striding the catwalk. “We rent a skyhook for that, or a recyclable rocket. But once in the vacuum, they’re excellent for interstation transport, lunar trips…”
Cherise leans over the rail. “I just can’t believe origami’s come this far. Or that the astronauts don’t get papercuts!” She laughs; Hitomi doesn’t.
“Would you joke about missing thumbs in a sausage plant?” she asks coldly.
“No–” sputters Cherise. “Of course not–”
“And we don’t joke about papercuts.” Hitomi points down at the factory floor, where a one-armed foreman is directing a complicated fold.
Tuesday, November 8, 2005
The unobtrusive ads in Besnik’s peripheral vision suddenly pop 404s. He blinks twice, trying for a reboot, but then the whole GRail maglev whines down and chunks to a stop. The lights flicker out; battery backups flood the car with red light.
“Someone ping support,” he says. The woman next to him thumps her WiPod and shakes her head.
“Can’t get a signal,” she says. “No connectivity just when the train dies? It’s almost like Google cras–”
“Don’t say it!” hisses Besnik. It’s not real if nobody says it, he thinks, swallowing panic. The impossible can’t be true until it’s named.
Wednesday, November 9, 2005
Bari pours the flat gray discs shyly into Armin’s hands. “I want you to have these,” she says.
Armin picks one up and turns it over. It says COMISSUM on one side, and TRUST on the other.
“Thank you,” he says. “Do you have a dollar?”
Later, as Armin’s new biker friends set her couch on fire, Bari struggles through the party crowd into her kitchen. “This isn’t fair!” she screams over the music. “I want it back now!”
“Ah no, sweetie,” says Armin, crushing another disc to powder and rolling the dollar into a tube. “It doesn’t work like that.”
Friday, November 11, 2005
“We were brothers, Worm,” snarls Smithfield. “Do you remember? The hazing, the drinking, the house, the nights–God, the nights–”
“We were rented friends.” Walmsley sighs. “Not that I’d choose this, but you and the rest of IT are in the way.” He smashes a glass paperweight into Smithfield’s hand. “Development will have those rack servers.”
“Never!”
“Give it up, Smithfield!” Walmsley roars. “You’ve lost! We’ve taken Shipping, Receivable, HR–there’s no rescue coming! Now tell! Me! The password!”
Smithfield opens his mouth, and Northwood bursts into the meeting, silk tie around his bleeding head, battlemouse whirling so fast it keens.
Thursday, November 17, 2005
The clouds aren’t like in cartoons, with spring and bounce; they’re just clouds, but there’s a surface underneath them, as hard as glass. Brea’s heels go click on it.
The clouds are low tonight, and up above them are the tops of buildings: square office blocks, blinking radio wireframes, the tip of a steeple. When she sweeps aside the mist to look down, though, the bottoms of those buildings aren’t where they should be. She thinks of aquariums. Refraction.
All the windows up here are dark, but the clock tower is lit from within. She walks toward it, click click click.
Friday, November 18, 2005
Mauri painted her toenails the other day on a dare from herself: one foot blue, the other black. Afterwards she wore slides, then sandals, then no shoes at all. Nobody noticed her toes.
Mauri sits with her toes in her hands on her bed. On the wall, between two windows, is a print of a Cornell box, which flattens it out but who cares. Outside the window in the Cornell box it’s blue. Her son is throwing his father’s clothes out the window into the white sky, shouting. Mauri squeezes her toes in time to blue skies, wet sand, green bottles.
Tuesday, November 22, 2005