Chimpanzee (21 page)

“A watchman?” I say.

“Another resident,” she says. “We have lots of lookouts.”

I look at her.

“They have nothing better to do,” she says. “We pay them in
SHARES
.”

I wonder if she truly understands the concept of limited currency. I give her back the binoculars.

“That's good.”

On the couch, she offers me the joint. Often as I've tried, I don't enjoy marijuana. And I don't want to smell like some other woman's pot when I get home. I have plenty of time. I only held class for about fifteen minutes.

I pour another glass of moonshine instead.

“I think it's time you answered some questions,” I say. “You've taken over my class.”

“I have questions, too,” she says.

“I don't work for you,” I say.

“Okay.”

“You understand me?”

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to happen. It wasn't my idea.”

“Start talking.”

She looks for something, over her shoulder. Looks back. “Do you mind if I chimp while we talk?”

“What?”

“There's a sim I need to try out. It's in progress.”

“You keep chimping goggles here?”

She looks suddenly like a student. Someone young, toting computers and portable electronics from class to class across the lawns of a springtime campus. She trades messages with her friends and waits until her instructors aren't listening before she
shares invitations to Friday-night parties. She is old enough to buy alcohol, so she can host them.

But campuses don't behave that way—not anymore. She looks older than she should be, at this age.

She owns chimping goggles.

I try to remember the timeline. Could she be the one from the bar? The network?

“Do you mind?” she says.

“No, go ahead.”

“Will you join me?”

There's no reason to be a dick.

“Sure—if it makes you feel better.”

Zoe's goggles are smaller than the ones at the bar. Than Cynthia's. They look like old aviator sunglasses. There are tiny LEDs along the earpieces. The pair she's given me look normal. Like those at the bar. The tinted lenses make this dark room darker, which has an immediate effect.

The potential for action in context. Chimping is going to
mean
something right now.

“What's the sim?” I say.

“It's restricted.”

If I could see her eyes behind the lenses, I'd know what her smirk means.

“But what is it?”

“It's just two people. You'll see.”

I take the goggles off and turn them over in my hand, to be doing something. I can't tell which LEDs indicate what.

“Where did you get these?” I say.

She plugs my goggles into an adapter at the end of her line—the adapter into her mobile phone, which is barely the size of a credit card.

“They were a gift,” she says. “Custom made.”

A rich boyfriend, or her father. Someone.

I look at her phone. “Are we going to network this sim? Is that wise?”

She punches commands into her phone. “No, we're streaming it. The author won't let me download it.”

“Won't the police be able to find you? Through your phone?”

“No.”

I put the goggles back on. Lean back on the couch. It's old—the seams are worn and the batting is flattened. Like something from a community theater shop. Something donated, or stolen.

“Ready?” Zoe says.

I nod. She taps her phone a final time and grabs her joint from the coffee table. She leans back with her lighter for a long drag.

The room is as dark as it was before.

I don't feel anything. Zoe is humming softly—a steady tone, like something mechanical. Like Cynthia's sofa.

I pull the goggles off and check the LEDs along the earpiece. They're definitely on. The electrodes tug at the skin on my forehead

“Don't do that!” Zoe says.

I put the goggles back on. I can feel warmth now—it's radiating from the metal frames, pulsing in undetectable waves through my cheekbones, along my brow. Stimulating things near my brainstem and across the surfaces of my frontal lobes.

That's weird.

“Jesus. Are you okay?” she says.

“Yes.”

“You shouldn't take the goggles off like that, not in the middle of a sim.”

“Okay.”

She touches my forehead with a dark finger, as if I am wounded. “You don't feel dizzy?”

“No.”

“Sick?”

“No.”

She drops her hand into her lap. “Okay. Tell me if you start to feel weird.”

“I don't feel anything,” I say. “At all. I was checking the goggles.”

She uses the opportunity to lean in for a closer look. I can no longer tell if I sourced these actions on purpose. People are responsible for encounters of all kinds—conversational, martial, sexual. Someone is always to blame.

I'm not supposed to remember about behavioral subjectivity. And thinking about sourcing didn't nauseate me like it did downstairs. I don't understand.

“They're working,” Zoe says. “It's working. You don't feel . . .
it
?”

She smells like tea. Like steeping leaves. Green things.

“No. What's it supposed to be?”

She tucks her feet under her legs and leans over the table. I see her dial up the intensity via the interface on her phone. I see the magenta polish on her toenails. It looks like blood in the goggled light.

She leans back. “That should do it.”

Whatever.

“So, someone else is teaching, too,” I say.

She stares at the ceiling, breathing heavily. It's getting to her— the new difficulty. “Yes.”

“By coincidence?”

“No,” she says, barely. “We reached out to some others. Trying to round things out.”

I wait.

“We can't just study writing,” she says. “You don't even grade our papers.”

“I hear you have study groups for that now,” I say.

She shrugs.

“Where did you find the others?”

It takes her a while. “A few of us knew some people.”

“And you're paying them, too? With
SHARES
?”

“Yes.”

“And you control who may attend class?”

She tucks her hands into her armpits. I can tell she is trying to get a grip. But I'm in control now. I still can't tell what this sim is supposed to be. My face feels warm, behind the goggles. Whatever it's trying to stimulate, in my brain, isn't there. Or it already is.

“We have to,” she says.

“Why?”

“Not everyone can be trusted with the secret,” she says.

“But you all can.”

Her neck has become flushed. “What does it matter? The classes are still free, and everyone gets paid.”

“The police won't like this,” I say.

“They don't. We're hiding it.”

“Which is why you use a fake name,” I say.

She exhales, deflating. “Wouldn't you?”

“But they know the real one.”

That makes her smile. “It's not fake—it's just my middle name.”

“How many other instructors?” I say.

“Right now, ten. I don't know them all. Others do.”

Now it smells like fruit in here. Like oranges and rose water. I look around for some candle or potpourri or whatever. I remember that people used to suffer something like this. These random smells, before we learned to condition it away. I wonder if this sim has conditioned it back in. Some side effect.

“You're starting a whole university,” I say.

“Dr. Cade.” She alters her position to recline against the armrest. This sofa is not as long as Cynthia's, but this is how we sit, there. “It's starting itself.”

I drink my moonshine.

“You started it,” she says.

I watch her curl and uncurl her toes. Her fists at her sides. “You're still not feeling it,” she says.

I can't tell.

“Just remember,” I say, “I don't work for you.”

“We know,” she says. “It's the other way around.”

“What?”

“She feels . . . wonderful,” she says.

“What?”

“This sim. Her index.”

“Who is it?”

She rolls her head toward me and smiles. “Figure it out.”

“Do you all know what's happening to me?” I say.

“What's happening to you,” she says.

“Repossession therapy. Renewal.”

“We know. It's okay. It'll be okay.”