Bright's Light (9 page)

Fon, breathing hard, finally fell into her seat and Bright drove out of the House of Gear’s cart park. They emerged
into the permanent night of the Store. Party houses towered on either side of the road. Almost every building had decks jutting out over the street, and each deck was packed with clients and favours dancing and doing fun activities. Music throbbed from every direction, and many of the people on the street carried handheld devices they’d plugged into speakers so that everyone could admire their taste in music. The sides of the houses were covered with screens displaying all the specialized fun that was happening inside, as well as updatemercials and Coming Soons.

The best houses, like the House of Gear, featured glassed-in Total Access party rooms that glowed like illuminated ice cubes jutting out from the second or third floor. People without enough credits to go inside gathered below the Total Access rooms, staring up and in so they could be reminded of why it was important to be productive and earn credits.

Bright drove the cart slowly through the crowd standing around the House of Gear. Gear was popular with clients who worked with their hands. Big men, mostly, and some women, all rough-looking. There were worse kinds of clients. She’d heard whispers about the wild-eyed, buttoned-down productives who preferred the House of Office. The crowd extended past the sidewalk and into the street. The people closest to the cart looked away from the seething Total Access party and at her and Fon with thrilled expressions.

People called to them, and a few reached out, but no one tried to touch them, because party favours were not to be tampered with.

Bright tried to ignore the faces, but Fon turned her halo on high and smiled and waved, and her beaded dress blinked on and off. She even blew kisses.

“Fun!” shouted the crowd. “Favours are the most fun! Without them we’d have to party by ourselves.”

“And that would be LAAAAAME!” came the standard response.

“Not to mention depressing!” said a lone, clear voice in the crowd.

“I feel like I know you from the adverscreens!” screamed another voice. “We’re like best friends in my mind!”

“We totally love the same songs!” screamed yet another.

Fon kept waving and smiling. Bright kept driving.

Once the cart was further down the street, Bright accelerated a little, but was careful to swerve around the people who staggered into the road.

As they passed the House of It, Bright slowed. The crowd outside It was twice as big as those outside other houses. House of It had no glass decks, no Total Access party room, no videos on the facade. The door was designed to blend into the front to make it more subtly exclusive. Only qualified, high-credit clients were granted access.

Instead of windows, the House of It featured eye-sized video screens just above eye level. No- and low-credit productives could jump up to view various rooms in the house. The tiny screens were so popular that people fought to get to them, but they only got a glimpse lasting a fraction of a second before they fell or someone shoved them out of the way so they could get their turn. No one was able
to describe exactly what they saw in that moment. All they knew was that it was the best thing ever, and one day, when they got enough credits, they were going to visit the House of It and have the time of their lives.

As they drove, Bright and Fon stayed quiet because the Partytainment and Gaming districts were too loud to permit conversation. As soon as they crossed into the Mind Alter District, the streets turned silent, as though a giant machine were eating the sounds. The air was heavy with the scent of improvement, which lay like metal on Bright’s tongue and made her mouth water.

Bright pulled the cart up in front of a smooth white single-storey building. The round blue light over the door signalled the style of alteration offered inside.

“Did we say we were going to meet at Smooth?” asked Fon. “I was kind of hoping we could go to Rowd or one of those places.”

“We agreed on Smooth,” said Bright. In fact, she hadn’t given anyone a choice.

When she and Fon reached the door, it swung open automatically, and they stepped inside. The floor was covered in blue-black carpeting, and tiny lights tucked into tight places allowed the eyes to rest. The air was rich with added oxygen and was infused with the mellowest of perfumes and hints of old smoke.

“Welcome,” said the greeter, after she’d swiped their neck chips. She was dark and sleek, and her brilliant teeth reflected the ambient light. “Can I take you to your pleasure?”

“Not yet,” said Fon, fussing around to find the switch that would dim her halo and the one that would turn off her dress. “We’re waiting for some slows from our unit.”

“Allow me to help you with that,” purred the greeter.

An instant later, the greeter had Fon’s lights turned off and had settled Fon on a bench pushed against a wall thickly padded with fur-alike.

“Oh,” sighed Fon. “That’s nice.”

The throbbing music seemed to creep up from the floor. Before Bright could relax into it, the rest of their leisure unit arrived. Cirque must have driven: she was as agile behind the wheel as she was everywhere else.

“Now you can take us,” Bright told the greeter.

The greeter led the six of them into a room and indicated that they should each take a settle chair. The seats conformed to their bodies and slowly eased them down until they nearly lay on the floor. The room tender pulled a fun pipe for each of them from the wall.

“This is one of our most exclusive VIP rooms,” she said in her breathy voice. “It’s equipped with all-new Kiss Me mouthpieces. Perfect for party favours taking some downtime.”

“Right on,” said Slater, who liked the pipe almost as much as Bright. He turned his head and winked at her.

“Before I take your orders, would anyone like a toy?” asked the room tender.

Fon put up her hand, and the tender got her an Almost-Like-Life stuffed baby thing. Fon tucked it in beside her. Jane-Smith from Office asked for a stapler and did the same with it.

“I’ll take Long and Low, with a Lurch at the end,” said Bright when the tender was ready to take her order. The tender’s face was expressionless. Bright loved how every request was treated with respect. A delicious second later, the flow started and Bright was gone, but at the same time more present than she’d ever been. She was liquid slung out on the floor, as thin and reaching as the carpet, as long and low as the music.

Bright lay suspended in Long and Low for a moment, or an hour, and then the Lurch hit and she swooped up and sideways. From above, she saw the members of her unit sit-lying on their chairs, mouths around the pipes. Then she sank and started to spin.

Bright had once watched an old video about the sports people used to play back when they used their gear for work and play and not just as accessories. As she spun, she imagined that this was how it felt to play a sport—exhilarating and fun!

After some unknown period of time, Bright reluctantly came to the conclusion that she needed to visit the relief centre. She took her lips off the pipe and looked around. The room tender was nowhere to be seen, and the music and quiet hiss of the pipes were the only noises save for the soft breathing of the favours. She called out, softly so as not to interrupt the others’ experience. The tender didn’t appear. She must be on her break. Bright was going to have to get up without any puffs of Clarifying mix. This was strictly forbidden for safety reasons, but sometimes a person had to do what she had to do. Bright couldn’t remember how
to make her chair go up, so she struggled out of its embrace onto her knees.

With effort, she got to her feet, which felt like they had weights tied to them. Bright staggered to one side, then the other, until her equilibrium returned. Sort of.

“Lurch!” she giggled under her breath. “I like to lurch.”

Shaking her head to dislodge the Long and Low sensation, she fumbled her way out of the room and down the shadowy corridor, which was lined with closed doors. She couldn’t remember where the VIP relief centre was. She chose a direction and turned down another hallway. The doors to the less exclusive rooms were open, and she could see people at the pipes. Cheaper pipes. The productives inside sat on plain pillows instead of in settle chairs.

The room tender, who was not as good-looking as the one in the VIP room, spoke up from a corner. “Can I help you?” she asked.

Bright tried to remember what she was doing.

“Looking for relief?” asked the tender. She walked to the doorway and pointed at a door across the hall. “It’s right there.”

Bright muttered a thank you.

She had no idea how long it took her to find her way back to her unit. Twice she ended up in the wrong room and the room tenders gently steered her in the right direction. By the time she approached the door of the VIP room, she felt nearly normal, which was disappointing but also made walking easier. The feeling of relative sobriety lasted only as long as it took her to open the door and absorb the scene in front of her.

Jane-Smith, Cirque and Bluefoam were on their pipes. Jane-Smith was snuggled up with her stapler, and Bluefoam was nestled into a huge pile of fluffy bath towels, one of which she’d twisted into a towering turban on her head. She looked blissfully dry and warm.

The room tender was still nowhere to be seen. But that wasn’t the problem. The problem was Fon and Slater.

What were they
doing
?

Bright blinked twice to make sure the remnants of the Long and Low mix weren’t affecting her vision.

Fon was in the middle of the room and she was … riding Slater? Bright blinked again. Yes, Fon was actually sitting on Slater’s back, pulling on his shoulders as though trying to steer him—or hold him back.

Understanding broke over Bright like a glass of the coldest Frosty. She looked for the parachute bag. Sure enough, it was open on the carpet. The helmet lay on its side in the middle of the room. Fon had used the light on Slater!

An enraged growl grew in Bright’s throat, finally catching Fon’s attention.

Fon looked over at Bright. “Thank JOB!” she said. “I’m like—”

Before she could finish, Bright was yanking her off Slater’s back.

“What are y—” cried Fon just before she hit the floor with a
thump.

“I can’t believe you used the light on him!” Bright said.

Beside them, Slater had begun to crawl away, his broad, muscular back rippling under his striped T-shirt in the dim
light of the room. Bright grabbed at his big shoulders and soon found herself in the same position Fon had been in a moment before.

“Stop!” Bright commanded. Slater did not stop. She couldn’t bear to see him bumping headfirst into the wall like the client in the Stimu Room.

“Throwing me on the ground like that was totally inappropriate,” said Fon as she got to her feet. Her chest heaved and she put her hands on her ideally proportioned hips. “It wasn’t
attractive.
“ Fon grunted in pain as Slater head-butted the side of her leg. “Anyway, I didn’t do this to him. He must have gotten up after you left. He went into your bag. Maybe he was looking for you.”

“In my parachute bag?”

“I don’t know what Slater’s reasons were! I don’t think about him.”

The words stung. How dare Fon not think about Slater? Bright thought about him all the time—at least, when she wasn’t thinking about herself.

“I don’t care what you say,” said Bright, trying to keep a grip on Slater. He was slippery and strong, like a giant baby. “I still think this might be your fault.”

“You better hope no one from the House of It saw that, or you can forget about getting promoted,” said Fon. Then, to Bright’s surprise, Fon reached out and grabbed Slater’s shoulder. “By the time I clued in, he had the helmet out and was staring at the light. Full in the face. And now he’s gone all funny.”

“How long ago?” asked Bright, as though it mattered.

“I don’t know. I haven’t had a clarifier. For all I know I’m altered right now. Am I? Do I look altered? Is this real? We’re not supposed to get up without a clarifier!”

“You’re fine,” muttered Bright. Then a thought occurred to her, like a song coming out of a wall with no speakers. “But it’s probably okay, because he’s House of It material.”

“What?” said Fon, struggling to keep Slater still.

“The light is a House of It promotional tool. The PS officer said we should only use it on very high-value people. Like us. Like Slater.”

Fon cast a doubtful glance at Slater, who was making grunting noises that Bright had to admit weren’t 100 percent appealing.

“The PS officer said not to turn the light on,” said Fon.

“We didn’t. Slater did. He was naturally drawn to it. Probably because he’s naturally elite.”

Bright told herself she was right. How amazing would it be if Slater got promoted with her! He would be able to tell her every day how great her style was.

Anyway, the nice-ish PS officer didn’t need to know about any of this. Bright didn’t know how the testing or the promotions worked, exactly, and Slater didn’t seem very promotable at the moment. But she wouldn’t dwell on that. Slater was a high-value person. Perfect for the House of It. Perfect for her, even if right now she didn’t want to look at his face and see his blank eyes.

“We have to hide him until we figure out what to do,” said Bright.

Fon puffed her cheeks in and out.

“What are you doing?” Bright asked.

“A new cheek-toning breathing technique I saw on an updatemercial. No time like the present to ward off the ravages of aging.”

“Can you please focus? We have to put him somewhere until we can get him out of here.”

Fon stopped cheek-puffing. “Are you
sure
I’m not altered?”

“We’re all altered,” said Bright. “All the time. We’re just going to have to deal with it.”

Fon recoiled. “Thanks very much for the downer,” she said. “Where are we supposed to take him?”

“I don’t know yet,” said Bright. “I’ll figure it out.”

She looked around for somewhere to put Slater, who was still straining to crawl away. She worried about tearing his thin, perfectly aged and faded shirt. Luckily, she had on her boots with the grippy soles. “Hurry. The tender will be back soon. We can’t let her see him.”