Slabscape : Reset Read online

  ‘Just got here, Tiger. Speedthrills fucked up again, huh? He’s a waster. Hope you didn’t have too much on him.’

  ‘Not much. I’ll get it back in the fifth. He’ll thrash Jennersson and Crumb for sure. He’s just a slow starter, that’s all. Dielle dear, meet Wendle. He’s the owner of one of the largest SlabWide sume distribution companies and a very old friend of mine.’

  ‘Friend, is it? Friend? Is that how you treat friends? Screw them into the floor and make it impossible to make an honest credit?’ He offered Dielle a short and bloated arm. ‘Pleased to met you Dielle. You’re doing very well, which is more than I can say for myself.’

  ‘Of course we’re friends, Wendle,’ said Kiki defensively. ‘It’s not my fault 9com offered a 105% deal, is it?’

  Wendle floated down on his gravboard. His short, fat legs were clearly not capable of providing much in the way of ambulatory assistance. Dielle tried not to stare.

  ‘Don’t mind me,’ said Wendle, waving Dielle out of his way. ‘Tiger, you are a scheming liar. I happened to bump into Henry last night at an awards negotiation and he promised me he made no such offer.’

  ‘I’ll have Sis deliver you authenticated transcripts if you like. And it wasn’t Henry, it was his sidekick NAH. You know, the slimy one with the Elvis hair.’

  ‘Don’t flush me with transcripts; I’m not some dimwit rocket scientist you know. Transcripts are worth Dice-all. My own flesh and blood, too!’

  ‘Oh Wendle, don’t take it so bad. It’s just a deal. You’ll make plenty on the side-throughs and don’t give me that flesh-and-blood lookadat. There’s none of your flesh or blood in me, just a few of your genes.’

  ‘What?’ said Dielle. ‘Are you two related?’ He couldn’t imagine two people looking less alike.

  ‘Kiki is 4.6% me,’ said Wendle, his porcine features beaming. ‘I’m very proud of her as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Oh Wendle!’ said Kiki. ‘You are the nicest, fattest slob I’ve ever met!’

  ‘Yes I am, aren’t I?’ he said, accepting a big wet kiss from his half-niece twice removed through an electron micro-gene splitter.

  The family reunion was interrupted by a flurry of activity from the back of the room. ‘It’s alright darlings! Don’t panic! I’m here. Oh! The presidential box! Tiger, you are coming up onSlab, aren’t you darling! Why hasn’t anyone given me a drink yet? What has a girl to do to get any attention around here?’

  Dielle stared at the source of the commotion. It didn’t look like a girl, but it didn’t look like a boy either. He had no idea what it looked like.

  ‘Darling! How are you!’ said Kiki, hugging the new arrival. She stood back to look at him/her. ‘Or rather, what are you? You’re in transition again, aren’t you?’

  ‘Oh I know, dear! Back and forth, back and forth. I just can’t make my mind up. I think the truth of it is, I’m a straight man trapped inside a gay man’s body!’

  ‘Let me introduce you to my straight man.’ Kiki took the tween by the hand and led her to Dielle. ‘Darling, I’d like you to meet my oldest friend . . .’ She turned back: ‘What is your doName today, darling?’

  ‘I don’t know, I haven’t decided.’ He/she looked around the room. ‘Anyone?’

  ‘How about Idiot,’ said Wendle.

  ‘I always liked Stephaniel,’ said one of the pretty Wendle attendants.

  ‘Stephaniel! I like it! Could be one or the other, or both at the same time. Call me Stephie . . . or Niel. What’s your name, dear?’

  ‘Pretty Wendle Assistant Number 2, sir,’ she said, prettily.

  ‘Ah! You’re Not Actually Human, aren’t you?

  ‘Yes sir, thank you, sir.’

  Stephie reached out and squeezed Dielle’s hand. ‘You meet all sorts here, don’t you? Hello Dielle, I’m very pleased to meet you. Kiki-chan has told me a lot about you, and I bet none of it’s true! Where’s my drink?’

  The emtiwaiter took advantage of a temporary hiatus in Wendle’s spirited consumption of hi-chol pre-dipped fritter sticks to dash over to deliver Stephie a large glass of cool, black liquid with a creamy, white topping.

  Dielle was intrigued. {[What’s that?]}

  [[Ginis]]

  {[I’ll have one]}

  [[••]]

  ‘We grew up together on the same farm,’ said Kiki, putting her arm around her friend. ‘Of course, she was a little girl then.’ They looked at each other affectionately.

  ‘You grew up on a farm?’

  ‘Yes darling, a kid farm. We all did.’

  Dielle had been meaning to ask about this. He hadn’t seen any children since he had arrived. That must explain it. They all lived on farms. He made a mental note to research that later [[Noted]]. He thought he should try to make conversation.

  He took a mouthful of his new drink, then wondered why anyone would drink cold, bitter liquid. ‘And what do you do, Stephaniel?’

  ‘I love babies.’

  ‘Well, that’s nice, but I meant what do you do for a living?’ He felt strangely compelled to taste his drink again.

  ‘That’s what I do. I love babies. I’m a professional baby rearer.’

  ‘Don’t the parents do that?’

  ‘Hardly. Most gene donors can’t be bothered studying child psychology and sitting all the full-time parenting exams. It’s a very demanding job, you know.’

  This was news to Dielle. ‘You have to train to be a parent?’

  ‘Of course you do. Children are way too important and vulnerable to be parented by amateurs. Look at the complete blocks they made of it all back on Earth. Bad parenting was responsible for virtually all of the problems society suffered from in those days. It was completely unregulated. A total mess. I mean, did your parents know anything about child psychology before they raised you?

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Dielle, a little subdued. ‘I don’t remember my parents.’ {[Another Ginis]}

  [[••]]

  ‘That’s alright darling!’ said Stephie, touching his arm affectionately. ‘I never met any of mine, and there were twenty three of them! But we shared some great rearers.’ Stephie called over to Kiki who had picked up her conversation with Wendle. ‘Do you remember old Mrs Thorpe?’

  ‘Of course I do! I loved Mrs Thorpe! She inspired me to start my own business. She changed my life.’

  ‘Well, she sent me a note the other day on paper – real paper!’

  ‘Amazing! She must be over six hundred cykes by now! What did it say?’

  ‘I don’t know darling, I sent it to a reader but it was in her scrawly handwriting and the est was less than forty points accuracy so I nixed.’

  ‘I should invite her here, she’d be so proud of me! I wonder . . . no, she’s on full privacy.’

  A roar from the crowd signalled the start of the next race. As they turned to the viewpane, a dozen custom-built skimmers dropped out of the sky. Dielle enjoyed a couple of races but his attention was caught by something he had seen near the landing strip.

  ‘Think I might go for a walk around,’ he said.

  ‘No problem darling,’ said Kiki. ‘I’ll let you know when the rest arrive. They said they wouldn’t be here until around the eighth race anyway. Have fun! Take an emtibrella with you’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘By the vex, dear. Those small cylinder things. Hold it upright when there are Uppies about or you’ll get wet.’

  Dielle took one of the devices, asked Sis to take him to the public area and stepped through the transvex.

  He entered an arena filled with the sound of twenty thousand people having an extremely robust time. He could hear, but he couldn’t see half of the crowd because the Uppies above him in the overhead terraces were blanketed by a stadium-wide softAd for a product that made stunningly beautiful women smile a lot without giving Dielle any clue why. This was because most of the spectators wore sponsored adcaps that formed spontaneous network connections with hundreds of others of the same brand in order to project images whic
h could only be seen by the opposing side. Whichever cap-brand was prevailing gained the most exposure so competition was fierce. Rival brand representatives fought to build dominant nodes by bribing the usually half-ratted spectators to swap caps. A significant amount of the shouting and screaming had nothing to do with the races at all and everything to do with the current value and location of the most strategically placed adcap.

  Attending sporting events was a lucrative business onSlab. Not only were the spectators paid to wear advertising technology, they were also paid to consume and rate the free food and drinks dispensed by an army of rapid-cycling emticabs that darted about the crowd like humming birds around wildflowers. This explained why the crowd behaviour was only marginally related to what was happening in the skimmer race. At the back of the stands, the two opposing sides were so close that they could almost reach up and touch each other. Dielle noticed a group of young guys on what he was starting to think of as his side of the interface form a huddle and lift one of their members high enough to grab the outstretched hands of an attractive young lady above them. The Uppies were quick to react and held on to her legs, pulling her back down and bringing several of the Siders along with her. Reinforcements joined in on both sides and a bizarre game of human tug-of-war developed.

  Another popular interface caper was the practice of throwing beer directly above your head in an attempt to breach the interface and drench a member of the opposing side. It required considerable skill to avoid soaking yourself and those around you and was the reason everyone carried emtibrellas at interface sporting events, usually in quick-draw holsters. Dielle got a demonstration when he saw a large guy whip out his emtibrella as a stream of liquid appeared above him. The brella sprang open, forming a funnel to capture the liquid, which then flowed into the handle and disappeared. A jeer and a round of applause came from a section of the crowd above.

  Sponsored chants broke out between the opposing sides and because Dielle was running on average prefs, Sis opened a channel and fed him an instaknow of the next line. Dielle shut it down. He didn't need the extra cash and he wasn't interested in joining in. What he was interested in was the streamlined metallic bulge he had spotted in the platform floor. He'd noticed a steady stream of intriguing looking people walking into it and disappearing. He focussed his gaze on it.

  {[What’s that, Sis?]}

  [[Entrance to an underform live music venue. Session in progress]]

  {[Music style?]}

  [[roots/jazz/improv]] Excellent, thought Dielle. He had no idea what roots/jazz/improv was, but deeper instincts were guiding his feet.

  The vex was an entrance to a wide staircase which led below the landing strip. As he descended, the noise of the crowd was cancelled out, the daylight faded and he heard the sound of a saxophone pushing against a lazy beat. The back of his neck got a thousand tiny hard-ons.

  The club was dimly lit and crowded. The atmosphere was as different from the bright and frantic scenes above as it was possible to imagine. Here, people were sitting in small groups, either concentrating on the performance or partying with their friends behind mono-directional acoustic privacy fields. It was clear that some people were having a very good time, but the only thing Dielle could hear was the music. Sis had called it live music. Dielle could understand why; he felt his skin tingle.

  He thought back to his first day and the fun he’d had dancing in the recovery frame. He tried to dance to the syncopated rhythms and discovered that not only did it make him feel ridiculous but people started pointing at him. He found a seat and asked Sis for a Rat 1 Ginis because he wanted to enjoy the music with a clear head and look cool at the same time. He closed his eyes and concentrated on picking out the complex patterns and textures emanating from the stage. Something inside him found a home.

  Too soon, the keys man announced they would be back later and walked off the stage through the applauding crowd. He was about to pass Dielle’s table when he stopped and looked down at him,

  ‘Cheese es nerry nohang dood encha?’ he said. He was tall and angular with coffee-skin, ropes of black hair and a bespoke beard. Dielle hadn’t seen anyone with hair on their face before. He was impressed and wondered if he could have one just like it. [[Option is valid but specified design is copyright, statutory license fee applies, change defaults to implement]]

  ‘I’m sorry, what?’

  ‘Dielle innit? Tempgal sume loadza u! Skinit!’ he said, enthusiastically sticking out his hand. The words meant nothing to Dielle, but the body language and broad smile signalled friendship.

  He reckoned he should also respond in kind and extended his hand. The musician went through a complex series of finger and wrist movements but stopped, disappointed, when Dielle failed to reciprocate.

  ‘Fee u cherry downam shandri?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t speak your language.’

  ‘My mistake man. Yeah. You haven’t had time to pick up any muso yet. My name is Jesus Aloisius Marley the Eighth but most citz just call me Fingerz Jeez!’ He held up his hands and waved them around. He had long, slender fingers. Dielle, unsure of this elaborate hand-waving protocol, did the same. Thanks to Louie, he had long fingers too. ‘Hey! You should play keys man! You equipped!’

  Dielle looked at his own hands and thought about his future. Fingerz sat down opposite Dielle and nodded his head as if he was agreeing with something profound that Dielle had just said. He pulled a slim pack of shiffs from his pocket, stuck one in his mouth and sucked on it. Vapour spiralled from the tip. He nodded again and exhaled a cloud of light blue smoke which formed an egg-shaped boundary around him before cycling into the emti on the bottom of the pack he’d placed on the table between them. Dielle gorped again.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You not done shiff yet?’ asked Fingerz, offering him one. ‘This is one of those things the disclaimer warn you about, make you feel relaxed an’ kinda focussed. Gets the vibe down cool, though. Deep an’ cool.’

  Dielle stuck it between his lips and sucked. His mouth, throat and lungs filled with acrid smoke. He coughed so hard that he almost threw up. He stared at the smouldering tube, bewildered that anyone would voluntarily do such a patently stupid thing as fill their lungs with pollution. Ten seconds later, he understood. He took another lungful and tried hard not to choke. Then he amused himself by blowing out the smoke and watching it hit the PersonalSpace which had expanded to envelop them both. He felt relaxed. Relaxed and yet strangely focussed.

  ‘Shiff huh? Where do I get some?’

  ‘Same place as everything else. You just ask our ever-lovin’ Sister man, but if you want the best, you gotta have it handmade. I got a man on UpSide makes me a special blend.’

  Dielle looked carefully at Fingerz and knew that he had known him for a long time.

  ‘You know, you’re a great player. I loved what you were doing with those keys. You really think I could learn?’ said Dielle, looking at his hands again. ‘How long does it take?’

  ‘Well sure you can. Anyone can. You try my latest stim, you’d get fluid in NoTime. But it’s more than just being able to play, man. You gotta have what we call the creative differentiator an’ you can’t get that through a stim unit. That’s a natural born thing, man. It’s like an invisible gene or something.’

  ‘Creative differentiator?’

  ‘Talent, man – the stuff that makes the difference.’

  ‘And how do I find out if I’ve got any?’

  ‘You don’t man. Other citz, they, like, feel it in you. You don’t learn it, you just let it.’

  Dielle took another lungful. He was starting to understand. Fingerz had a way of saying things that helped him understand something he wasn't sure he understood but he felt sure that it didn’t matter if he didn’t understand it because if he didn’t it probably wasn’t something that needed to be understood anyway.

  ‘Let it, huh?’

  ‘Yeah, let it and live it. You gotta know who you are, man.’

  �
��Know who I am. Right.’

  Dielle sucked down more smoke and thought for a while. He looked at Fingerz. Fingerz looked at him. Fingerz blew out some smoke and disappeared behind his cloud. Dielle blew out smoke and, eventually, thought of something to say.

  ‘I didn’t get one of those Stim-o-rama-tron things when I had my eye put in. I guess I’ll have to get one if I want to learn to play.’

  ‘That was one shrewd move, man,’ said Fingerz. ‘You don’t want to get those commercial stim units anywhere near your head. You don’t know what they link through. I can take you to a guy who can insin you the latest sub-legal stim, with full-on sensurround, auto-store an’ full recall. You don’t get that with those rama-tron pieces of lookadat crap.’

  ‘You can take me?’

  ‘Yeah sure, but you gotta go with maximum privacy, man, cos you’re a full-on star an’ he ain’t gonna go anywhere near you if you’re recording. You know what I’m sayin’?’

  Dielle knew exactly what he was saying. Or thought he did.

  [[•]]

  {[Deliver]}

  ‘Hey, it seems I’m wanted. You want to come see the presidential box?’

  ‘Man, I ain’t goin’ anywhere near that dumb-eyed cheatin’ wind . . . ’

  ‘It’s OK, the president isn’t there today. We’re just borrowing his place. It’s cool, come over.’

  ‘Listen, you are my new, old friend right? Lemme tell you something you need to know. You come close to that slimeshit an’ you gonna get touched. You better play it very cool with el presidento.’ He stood up. ‘Anyway, I got another set here in fifteen an’ then a gig crosSlab in ToNight UpSide. I gotta go. If you feel like it, come over later. Just ask for me.’

  ‘It’s OK if I bring someone?’

  ‘Who? That Kiki-chan? She is one fine piece of late-night entertainment, an’ I’m not lyin’. Yeah you bring her along, maybe I get myself a new manager too, huh? But she’s gonna be lookadat wanna-know ‘cos I threw a privacy field around me when I left the stage man an’ she is gonna be bustin’ to know what we been talking about.’