Angry Young Spaceman (29 page)

9/3 seemed to think that over. “It must be nice not to care,” he said.

I looked at 9/3 and wondered about this queer roboman who took so readily to a human body. “You bent out of shape over some Montavian?” I guessed.

“No,” he said, not elaborating.

I looked at a girl dancing nearby, ringlets framing her face, and couldn’t help myself. “Call me xenophobic, but I just can’t imagine having sex with a Montavian. They look like ugly Earth children. It’s wrong on so many levels.”

“Ha ha. That is mean, Sam.” 9/3 looked at me. “Sex with Montavians varies from sex with humans in a negligible way — in terms of physical stimulation.”

“Well, how the fuck did you get to be such an expert, Randy Andy?!”

He shrugged. “I have been experimenting.”

I felt betrayed. “And? Your results?”

He paused. “The physical stimulation plays a minor role in comparison to other variables —” 9/3 started laughing. Then he pointed.

Matthew was dancing. Fast. Unnaturally fast. He looked like he was on fast-forward. Even the expressions on his face came and went with impossible swiftness. I started to get scared.

“He has taken too much,” 9/3 said. “He has taken a Montavian chrono drug. Do not worry, it will be over soon.”

Before I could do anything, a Montavian came up to 9/3 and started yelling at him. I looked over at the group where he had come from and saw a girl wave at 9/3. One of the men in her group pulled her hand down roughly and yelled at her, holding her wrist in his knot of a fist. She argued with him.

“What’s he saying?” I asked 9/3.

“Do not worry. Do not interfere.” I looked at the girl who had waved and wondered if this was an unexpected result of a previous experiment.

The Montavian took a swing at 9/3’s balls and connected solidly.

“Ooof,” said 9/3 calmly as he doubled over and fell to the ground.

The adrenaline hit my veins and I took two steps before 9/3’s outstretched palm stopped me.

“Don’t move, Sam. My pain receptors are off. This is a ritual.”

I stood there, my fists hanging like useless weights off of my arms, as the munchkin kicked the hell out of 9/3.

Matthew materialized beside me. He was screaming. “What the fuck why aren’t you doing anything fuck I knew you were a fucking fraud just like your whole fake pug crap —”

I swung at Matthew but he dodged easily, all hopped up. Then he was in my face screaming again and my second punch knocked him flat. His body was suddenly still, his frenetic speed paused.

Meanwhile, the Montavian was standing on 9/3’s chest and rearing his foot back. He booted 9/3’s head off and it slid to where I was standing.

9/3’s eyes flashed. “I am fine, Sam. If he was serious, he would have used his tools.”

I realized he was right. But the little bastard was serious enough, staring back at me with hate-filled eyes as he walked back to his group. His tool box, slung low, glinted a promise of nastier times.

***

We moved on the belt towards the rocketship. 9/3 carried Matthew, whose chrono trip was now slowing time considerably for him. His face was a freeze frame of shocked misery.

“I...” he said.

I was upset myself. I had let the rush get the best of me and hit a friend.

“...thought...”

9/3’s eyes flicked at me. “That place was a little too interesting.”

I tried to smile.

“...we...”

“Maybe you should retire the andy body for a while,” I said, watching the fuel cars leave the launching pad.

“...would...”

“Yes,” 9/3 said. “Again, I am sorry.”

“...get...”

“It’s OK,” I said. “It was just a little disturbing, all at once.”

“...married.”

9/3 and I looked at Matthew. Tears were dripping off his face.

I looked at the silver ship and looked forward to entering the velvet blackness of space.

seventeen

On the long trip home, I kept falling asleep. But now I was home I stared at the ceiling begging it for unconsciousness. I kept running the scene though my head, kept punching Matthew, getting upset with myself.

I got up, poured myself a shot of ujos from an absurdly large bottle Mr. Kung had given me. The liquid spiralled out of the bottle but I had no appreciation for it. I wished my little friend the wallen was around and walked out to the living room, thinking about going to find the little guy. If he was still breathing...

The pug moviedisk was still sitting on the floor. I tapped it with the pad of my foot and it came on. The sudden light made me squint, but I stared at the fight anyway. It was the same clip that Jinya had seen — I hadn’t looked at it since. I wondered what else Skaggs had put on it.

I sat on the floor with my monster bottle of ujos and decided I’d watch them all. As a kind of punishment.

As it turned out, there weren’t any more fights, but I got my punishment. Next up was the newsclip. Rather, The Newsclip.

The visuals showed a pug fight. “These are the pugs,” a world-weary voice intoned. The fighting froze and the perspective panned around to frame Jason, clenched teeth grinning with both fists in action. “They’re a group of youths who don’t bother with the vengeance vendors. They take a more direct route to settle the score.” They zoomed in on Jason’s face, the crazy intensity about the eyes that he got. “Parents all over the planet are asking: Where is it coming from?”

A young man sitting in a high-backed chair appeared. “Anger,” he said, looking up and then away from the camera, as if on a topic that fascinated and yet troubled him. “Youth should be angry. There’s nothing more socially healthy than youthful rebellion. My company just meets the demand.” He looked back at the camera. “Pug’s been one of our most successful subcultures, and the reason why is because the early participants believed they started it. That it was theirs — that’s pride of ownership for you — and it was theirs, in a sense.” He shrugged.

The fight started up again and the camera panned around for another subject. I saw myself get a glancing blow to the head that made my smile grow bigger. The scene froze. “Some of these young boys come from good families, and have bright prospects in life.” It panned in on me, my clean cut hair and swollen lip, and my mother’s net worth was indicated. “Why are they playing these dangerous games?”

Back to the expert, who shrugged his shoulder. “They don’t think they’re games.” The expert, in comparison to the world-weary narrator, was downright likeable. “Pug was started out of a real inequality.” He put his feet up on an unseen desk and settled his hands over his stomach. “I’d been demographing for a vengeance vendor, and there was a big chunk of pie that couldn’t afford even the smallest slander package. And this chunk was teenaged. The client wasn’t interested in thinking creatively so a friend and I went solo. We looked at the tension points and the soft spots and put the money in the right places — launched a cheaper priced medvac and got a few plants working full time, that kind of thing. But that was just the beginning. Then we had to wait. It was the waiting that was the hard part. Waiting and keeping it quiet. Damn, that was hard.” The young guy rubbed his eyes as he said this, and looked tired.

“Some parents were disturbed most by this quiet,” the narrator said as the young guy was replaced by three people.

“It was fine,” an older woman said, “that he wanted to be in a subculture.”

“We weren’t against that,” said a full-lipped woman.

The older woman looked agonized. “But what’s wrong with the one we got him for his birthday? We were bacchanalians, so we thought...”

“He didn’t want to be the same as his parents, we understand that,” said a man, his droopy moustache rising and falling.

“Well, he could have exchanged it, then!” the older woman said, running her hand through her hair. “The kit’s just sitting there! And the oils will go bad, I’m sure...”

The fight came back on and the perspective buzzed around, the camera loving us even as the world-weary voice dripped disapproval. “Whatever the cause, pug has captured the imagination of Earth’s teenagers. When other subcultures have had to struggle to even stay on the market, pug has grown steadily with absolutely no support.” This was indicated by a line graph superimposed over the fight, with the noise from the scene rising as the line did.

“It was imperative that there be no support.” Again the young man, swivelling in his chair. “Which is not to say that there was no cash outlay. Coolhunters, media outlets had to be generously compensated to prevent it going public. We needed at least two years of simulated authenticity for it to grow to a harvestable size. It was a harrowing period of time — most subcultures are seeded and harvested in the space of a week, because the fashion and entertainment spin-offs alone make it profitable. But we wanted to do something different. Something edgy.”

The next shot showed pugs lined up for the medvacs, chatting in the post-rumble camaraderie. Bathing their hands and faces in the machine’s glow. The voiceover was still the young company man: “There hasn’t been a spontaneous youth subculture on Earth for almost a thousand years. They were hunted to extinction long ago. But we did the next best thing.”

The next few seconds showed a few pugs pulling on jetpacks, heading home. It followed one of them up, and froze, and an offer for home delivery of a pug DIY kit appeared. Then the music swelled.

Free to fight

Young boy’s right

Punch your way through the night

Hard as it was to intellectually absorb the rest of the segment, it was the final one-two punch that put me out: the kit and the song. It was always a running joke among pugs, what would be in a “pug kit” — because pug would never be lame enough to have a starter kit, like ready-made subcultures did. Yet here it was.

And the song, the fucking song that I had raged through so many fights on, that song that I knew was cheesy but for some reason got me choked up... it wasn’t mine after all, it was theirs from the start.

Question their right

Challenge their might

Fight, young pug, fight!

I wanted to, more than anything. But it was their idea. They wanted me to fight, so I had to fight fighting. Punching Matthew for telling the truth — for calling pug fake — was playing right into their hands. And when I crossed the line with him, why not Mr. Zik? Why not Jinya?

The moviedisk blinked out and left me in the dark. I reached for the bottle and knocked it over, then righted it. I wondered if the spill would damage the moviedisk.

I hoped so.

When I got up to go to bed, I heard the droid bustle into the room, sensing a mess.

***

The next day I was waiting for Jinya at Hello Tea Time! It had Victorian touches — a welcome relief from the ubiquitous cowboy flavour that half the Earth-style establishments on Octavia chose.

Trying to ignore a hole in my sweater, I focused on the newsfeed — flip-flopping with different meanings until I found ones that made sense, and having to do it before it scrolled away, was quite a challenge.

I pressed the lever for a stream of Earl Grey — they had gotten that right, at least, down to the stainless steel piping — and took a sip. A group of girls came in as I blew on the surface of the tea, a bit harder than I would have on Earth, and to less effect — no steam to wisp and tear at my breath.

But then, girls never looked at me on Earth the way they did here. The three girls had chosen a nearby table and were watching me like the exotic animal I was. I studied the patterned rim of the cup as I sipped, giving them a serious profile to review.

“
He is extremely handsome,
” said one in hushed tones, even though the tea room was almost empty. I pretended not to understand.

“
Eh, you’re crazy. His nose looks like a cucumber
.”

“
Plangyo nose!”
said the third.

I tried not to smirk at this joke at my expense. I didn’t take it seriously — my stately Earthling nose was naturally going to appear big next to the Octavian bump that passed for a nostril-holder.

I glanced at them as part of a survey of the room. They stared back — two really pretty girls and one chubby, less pretty one. They could be university age. I focused my attention on the table and waited to see what they’d see next.

The pattern on the table was the same as the tea cup. I had initially registered it as floral, but when I looked back something slightly unbalanced in it caught my eye. It looked like a fish or a... dolphin. That was it. A dolphin. And now the thing I had taken for a daisy looked more like an Octavian.

“
He looks like Pan Venrugie
,” said the love-struck one, and my lip curled involuntarily. That mediawhore? That baby faced bimbo? I clenched my teeth and waited for the other girl to laugh her out of the room, to give me my dignity back.

“
He does look a little like him
,” she said.

I couldn’t believe it. “
That’s crazy!
” I blustered. They looked at me like I’d pulled out a zap gun. “
I didn’t look anything like that, that...
” I didn’t have the words. “
Are you blind?
”

“
I told you he could speak
,” said the chubby girl.

“
Not very well
,” said the other girl.

The one who liked me was stunned, her full lips slightly parted. “
So you heard—
” she dissolved into a shame wail, and she put her head on the table and piled her tentacles on top. Evidently it was not a habit all girls lost after middle school.

“
It’s OK,
” I said. “
You are beautiful, too.
”

Her big eyes blinked at me through the tentacle forest, and the wail paused.

“
Are you Mr. Sam?
” said the chubby girl.

I nodded, feeling like a celebrity. Yes, ’tis I. You have found me.

The chubby girl smiled. “
I used to go to Plangyo Middle School.
”

“
Was Laz Cha Zik your English teacher?
”