Hopscotch (9 page)

16

When joining the Sharetakers,
Teresa was asked to donate all her worldly possessions—which, in her case, were little enough. Happy with her new sensation of total belonging, she presented Rhys with the credits remaining from her Falling Leaves stipend, plus a little of the money Eduard had given her from one of his body-trade jobs.

Each month Rhys leveraged the Sharetakers' assets to purchase larger and larger sections of their building. Under his guidance, the size of their “togetherment” increased. From talking with him in private, Teresa knew the (usually) redheaded man had dreams of eventually commanding the whole building as his fortress. He was very goal-oriented, a good thing for the leader of so many people.

Today Teresa knelt on the floor using a pointed sledgehammer to pound out the separating wallboard. Her arms ached from the constant effort. Rhys would probably ask her to hopscotch into a fresh, rested body so she could finish the job. She didn't mind. It made her happy to feel so useful.

Finally, she broke through into the adjacent two-room condominium newly annexed to the togetherment. After ripping out the walls, the Sharetakers would add firepoles for fun sliding down to other levels and new lifters to take them up through the ceilings. They installed new light tiles to eliminate any concealing shadows. Rhys insisted that there be no private places, because “hiding” ran contrary to the Sharetaker philosophy of openness.

Oddly, the enclave held no COM terminals at all, unlike most dwellings Teresa had ever seen. When she asked him about it, Rhys had glared. “Sharetakers want no interference from a Big Brother network. We create our own universe.”

Teresa went through a dizzying succession of bodies. At times it gave her a disjointed feeling to see her familiar body doing tasks that she was not aware of, while she was stuck in a different form on a manual-labor assignment. It was like a shell game with human forms, and she never knew at any given time who was wearing a specific body. She often had to be reminded to synch her ID patch immediately after a swap.

But she had also heard about the dangers of too much hopscotching, the minuscule but not nonexistent danger each time a person detached herself and relocated into a new brain. Finally she asked one of her coworkers, “Aren't you worried about slippage? I mean, with all the hopscotching we do, there's always a chance one of us will get . . .
lost,
don't you think? I've read COM reports—”

“Rhys says we shouldn't be concerned about it,” the coworker said, and that ended the discussion.

More than any other assignment, Teresa enjoyed working in the rooftop gardens, growing fresh food in the high-density agricultural area. She could smell the plants, listen to breezes rustling leaves together. It reminded her of the most peaceful times in the monastery, and she felt content.

Teresa carried heavy bags of chemical fertilizers and mulch; she bent over for hours, straining among bean plants to pluck the camouflaged pods. Her body's shoulders ached, her back hurt. After picking a basket of beans and selecting two perfect zucchinis, she went over to study the ornamental zinnias and asters, grown without genetic modification.

She took a deep breath, sniffing their mingled perfumes. She had been working constantly since dawn, and it was now late afternoon. Her borrowed body was bone weary, her skin was raw from dried salty sweat and sunburn.

After smelling the flowers, Teresa turned around to see Rhys standing there, regarding her. In a low, husky voice he said, “You've been very productive today, Teresa. It's time for your reward. Let's find you another body so that we can make love.” His eyes sparkled with an animal intensity.

But Teresa was so tired that she didn't want to do anything but shower and sleep. “Oh, can't you find someone else, Rhys? It's been a long time since I had even an hour to myself.”

“I thought you'd be pleased that I've gone out of my way to choose you for sex.” He frowned at her, and she could feel his disappointment like a crushing weight. “It's all about
sharing,
Teresa. I don't ask too much, do I? Just get a fresh body. You'll feel better.” He turned away, expecting her to follow.

She bit her lip, thinking it wasn't really fair for her to trade out of this exhausted form into someone else. Weighed down by the scorn in his voice, Teresa did as she was told.

Back inside the building, Rhys selected the body that most interested him and commanded Teresa to hopscotch with her. The other woman willingly did as she was told, no questions asked. It seemed important to him that he knew it was
Teresa,
regardless of what body she brought to him.

Teresa swapped without thinking, a completely natural process now, though she remembered how difficult it had been the first time. Following Rhys, knowing something was wrong, Teresa focused on more pleasant memories.

After Soft Stone had uploaded herself into COM, the Splinter monks who took over Teresa's mental instruction were clumsy and unimaginative, repeating rote lessons without engaging her intellect. Garth and Eduard did no better.

Alone, Teresa found the most peace and concentration out in the monastery's garden. She worked there even when she wasn't assigned the duties; dour old Hickory seemed perfectly glad to leave her to it. She stared at the plants, but her mind drifted far away, as if she could let it detach itself and travel elsewhere.

Once she, Garth, and Eduard proved themselves capable of swapping bodies, the Splinter monks would consider them adults, and the three of them would be sent out into the world. Daragon was already gone, as was Garth's friend Pashnak, who had loved to read stories aloud. Of the three remaining companions, Teresa was best at introspection. She knew she could figure out the technique of hopscotching, then she could show Garth and Eduard, since they already had a rapport so close it seemed to border on telepathy.

Working in the monastery garden, Teresa felt the warm sun on her back and tried to imagine what it would be like if she could work in another, stronger body. External appearances wouldn't matter—male or female, old or young, large or small, weak or strong—because it would still be
her
inside, her essence, her spirit.

She parted the velvety leaves and plucked a ripe tomato, feeling the stem snap free along an invisible but natural line. She focused on the tomato as it came loose—and felt a similar snap in her mind, as if something inside her were also ready to separate. Her vision reeled, and she blinked several times. She picked up the tomato. The stem was broken on top, severed cleanly. Teresa let her mind open, let her thoughts flow and wander . . . and
separate.

No one else was with her in the garden, so she couldn't test her attempt to hopscotch, but she felt the change, the realization. She
knew
she could swap her mind. Leaving the rest of the tomatoes behind, unpicked, Teresa ran back to find Garth and Eduard. . . .

Taking them by the arms, she led them into the basement to the forgotten storeroom where Garth had once painted his mural. The soft glowplates shone on the brick walls, illuminating ghosts of Garth's painstakingly drawn scene, barely visible behind the beige mask. Here they would be left alone for as many hours as it might take.

“If we all learn this at the same time, then we can leave the monastery together.” Her face was happy, her eyes warm with excitement. Teresa gave a sad smile. “I don't want to lose you two, like Daragon.” She closed her eyes and reached out with both hands, one touching blond Garth, the other touching dark-haired Eduard.

“This is going to be strange, at first, I think.” Her voice was husky with fear and uncertainty. “Here, let me teach you.”

Later, Garth stood naked in Eduard's body, staring at himself, at his two friends who appeared the same to him, but different behind their eyes. The three of them had spent their lives leaning on each other; they had learned to depend on their mutual skills. Teresa loved Garth and Eduard wholeheartedly and equally.

And this was so much more. Now they were thrust together in an entirely different way. They
were
each other.

Garth flexed Eduard's wiry arms, blinked his eyes. “This feels weird, familiar but . . . not. I'm stronger in some ways, unsteady in others. I—”

Standing inside Teresa's female body, Eduard kept touching his skin, running his palms over his new breasts, tweaking his nipples. “Wait until you try this, Garth. She's got nerve clusters all over her body!” He stroked the patch of hair between his legs, startling himself. “It feels tingly in places that were never sensitive before. And empty in others.”

Teresa wore Garth's home-body like a baggy uniform. “It's like I'm in a big suit of armor.” She touched her rough face, fondled her new penis, which seemed to have a mind of its own and defied conscious muscle control. “And this—it's like an appendage, but I can't do anything with it.”

“Yes you can,” Eduard said with a sly grin on her face. “I think you'll figure it out.”

A look of consternation filled Garth's face, a puzzled expression that was very much like Teresa. “But it doesn't move like any of my other body parts. I can't control the reactions—oh!” Garth and Eduard both laughed.

“I never thought it'd be this strange,” Teresa said, listening to the deeper voice in her head, touching the male muscles, the fine curly hair on her chest. “So many things are the same, fundamentally equal, whether I'm in my own body, or Garth's. But it's different, too.”

“Not so different,” Eduard said. “It's what you do with the body that matters.” He looked at Garth through Teresa's eyes, while Teresa looked down at her own hands, at Garth's hands.

“Then let's . . .
do
something,” Garth said, using Eduard's vocal cords.

They began to explore each other in new ways. Three people, three different bodies. The Splinters had been frank with their sexual explanations. Their young wards, Teresa included, had experimented, more out of curiosity than passion. But never like this.

The boundaries between friendship and sexual love and physical differences blurred, then vanished. Their shadows merged on the walls, becoming indistinguishable. It was a strange and wondrous sacrament, the three of them
being
in their friends' bodies, looking at each other through new eyes.

Eduard made love to Garth, who was in Teresa's home-body, while Teresa herself stood by, wearing the blond-haired male form she had known as Garth all her life. Suddenly, they were inexperienced again, embarrassingly so. But they experimented without shame.

They swapped again. And again.

Teresa coached Garth and Eduard, instructing them in techniques and responses she had learned by exploring her own body. She helped, she touched, she participated.

In a woman's body now, Garth was uncertain, but curious, trying to cope with a radically altered perspective. Making love to a man, he had to be aroused by a man, though he had never thought in such a way before. The mind had to adjust to a new reality, while the body's hormones and natural responses remained the same, assisting.

This was
Eduard,
his friend, his comrade . . . but when Teresa (in what had been his own body) helped him to touch the ultrasensitive areas on his breasts, his skin, his clitoris—a vastly new sensation—he began to understand what he needed to do. The sensations became overwhelming. The physical body knew what to do, and did it well. . . .

When Eduard was finished, Garth came forward in Teresa's body, sweating and drained but tingling all over. He gracefully touched what had once been his own buttocks, the backs of his thighs. “Here, Teresa, let me show you something. I know you'll like this. . . .”

The monks had no idea where to find them, and the three had hours to talk with each other, touch each other, swap again and again. They described and demonstrated the way their own bodies worked.

The lovemaking was satisfying, and erotic, and exhausting—but in the end they realized that for such deep friends, the very act of hopscotching into each other's bodies was vastly more intimate than sex. . . .

Now, among the Sharetakers, Rhys made love to her in an open room with others watching. He seemed even more anxious than usual, and Teresa held him and tried to respond.

But it was very different.

17

Garth decided that
sitting in a street market with other amateurs and hobbyists would never bring serious attention to his paintings. It was time to make sacrifices for his art, and only a serious investment would kick him up to the next level.

He had sold a few sketches (as had everyone else in the market) when buyers for a new office complex came by in search of inexpensive decorations for a massive number of rooms. Using the money, as well as a generous gift Eduard had given him after surviving Madame Ruxton's surgery, he paid three days' rent for a small place at street level—his own personal “gallery”—then he quit his dead-end job as an industrial painter.

All or nothing.

In a spectacular “coming out” for himself, he would display the paintings and sketches he had done, just like a genuine, dedicated artist. It was the only way to broaden his audience. He had to take a chance.

In preparation, Garth spent four days working furiously in the bazaar. He had drunk great pots of the portly vendor's strongest gourmet coffee just to keep himself awake, to focus his intensity. Some artists watched his verve with a mixture of amazement and jealousy as he produced work after work to fill out his planned exhibition.

Now, inside his makeshift gallery he arranged everything with loving care, from the smallest pieces to the largest rolled film-murals. He posted invitations, sent mailings over COM, and talked to everyone who would listen. They had to come and see.

As the hour for the evening event finally arrived, Garth lit candles, set up light tiles, and burned incense. He put everything into this free exhibition. Even exhausted, Garth remained eager and exuberant about the possibilities. He flung open the door in his rented shop space and waited for the crowds to come.

Garth had promoted his exhibition at Club Masquerade, talking to the cybernetic bartender, Bernard Rovin. But even with elaborate notices for the discriminating patrons of the Club, Garth had no idea what to expect.

Apparently nothing.

Multicolored product advertisements glowed from skyscraper walls. People moved on the streets, some going home after a long workday, others coming out for the night. An endless jeweled necklace of hovercars floated overhead.

Garth glanced at his watch and stood smiling in the entryway. He greeted the passersby. He looked up and down the street, but saw no crowds, no people coming to his show. Not the slightest glimmer of interest. He waited and watched, trying to keep a pleading expression from his face. His art remained on display inside, though no one came to see it.

After an hour, when even Garth's enthusiasm had begun to flag, a woman came inside, smiling shyly. She had drooping shoulders and sad eyes, but he greeted her warmly. “Welcome! I hope you'll see something you'll like.”

“I already do, Garth.” She came forward and hugged him. “It's me—Teresa. I wouldn't miss this for the world.”

“What's this body?” Surprised, he ran his fingers through her short, mousy-brown hair. “I didn't recognize you.”

“Oh, it's just the person I'm wearing today. What does it matter, anyway? We're all human, right?”

“Now I'm going to have to add another portrait to my
Spectrum of Teresa.
”

“Take a good look at my face, because I probably won't be wearing it for long.” She walked in toward the art on display. “Show me what you've done.”

“Is there room for one more?” Garth turned, recognizing Eduard instantly. For once, his friend wasn't wearing a sickly or damaged body, but remained in his own healthy dark-haired form. He clapped Garth on the back.

“Eduard! It's good to see you looking like yourself again,” Garth said.

Teresa gave him a warm kiss on the cheek, and Eduard kissed her back on the mouth. He was surprised when she didn't giggle, but drew away instead. Garth wondered what was wrong, what she was hiding.

Enthusiastic just to have his friends there, Garth took them by the arms and led them into the small shop. “Let me show you around the exhibit. It's a new concept, I think. I'm calling it a ‘panorama surround' of my impressions. You'll be the first ones to see it.” Garth seemed ready to burst with pleasure. “My intention is to capture the real experience of being at the market . . . the gestalt of the bazaar. You have to see it with all your senses, not just your eyes.”

On the walls his sketches and watercolors hung askew, a disarray to convey the energy and color of the marketplace. He displayed caricatures of different vendors, interesting personalities he saw every day: the portly man selling coffee, the woman fashioning her clay wind chimes, the beignet maker with his pans of hot oil and a comical dusting of powdered sugar on his nose.

Various customers were preserved, as well: an old couple wearing young bodies, a frowning critic, young children playing by food kiosks, curious businessmen who looked but did not buy.

In the rear of the display, and very understated, he even depicted a news-screen that showed the execution of the anti-COM terrorist, though he had been reluctant and uneasy about including the image. The decrepit old man hooked up to electrodes, unwillingly having his mind uploaded . . . Garth found the image very powerful and didn't want it to dominate the show.

Snippets of sound flooded the air, the buzzing chaos of the market, people laughing, arguing, discussing artwork for sale. Garth had surreptitiously recorded one interminable haggle at a nearby stand, and it played now, over and over, never ending. He had also captured the smells of hot pavement, frying meat, paint, even sun-warmed canvas awnings.

Eduard startled him by laughing as he turned around. “Garth, this is amazing. It gives the impression that you're really there!”

In other alcoves he displayed nostalgic paintings like the one he had done on the basement wall in the monastery, Dickensian scenes peopled with characters from his imagination, a mishmash of historical settings with anachronistic details he didn't even realize were wrong. He also displayed the three faces of Teresa he had drawn, showing her in different bodies but with the same inner beauty. Now, seeing her again, he would add another.

“Oh, I love it, Garth,” Teresa said. “I'm so proud of you.”

“I'd be happier if there were some other people to see it.”

Over the course of the next three hours, a few other people trickled in, mostly curiosity seekers, spectators rather than customers. But he was just glad they had come at all. They poked around, talked to each other; a few shook his hand and uttered compliments.

Garth's energy did not flag. With Teresa and Eduard beside him, he felt as if he could go on for hours. He showed everyone around, spoke with great delight about what he had done, pointing out separate items of interest.

At last, near the closing hour, a gaunt young man came in, the first one who looked as if he had come there specifically to see what Garth had to offer, rather than a bored curiosity-seeker. He offered frequent, brief smiles, so that his lips curved upward with a flickering motion. His hair was blond with brownish highlights, making it look prematurely gray.

The stranger came toward Garth and shook his hand. While other visitors had shown polite interest, this young man pulled him along, eager to see one thing and then the next. “Don't you remember me, Garth? I'm Pashnak Swan.”

Garth exclaimed and grabbed the man's hand again, remembering how he had read to Pashnak and Daragon from Charles Dickens back at the monastery. “I'm so glad you could come! How have you been? Did you ever finish reading
Copperfield
?
”

Sitting in a window alcove in the Falling Leaves, Garth would open his heavy antique tome and read aloud one deliciously detailed chapter after another. Both Pashnak and Daragon sat cross-legged on their own floor cushions, enraptured with the story and with the company. Garth would change his voice to imitate the various characters. Pashnak and Daragon watched him, savoring Dickens's descriptions, the ironies, the exotic people. But Pashnak had reached his maturity, learned how to hopscotch, and left the Splinters before Garth had finished reading the massive and complex novel.

“No . . . I never got around to it, Garth. It just never seemed the same.” Pashnak smiled, changing the subject. “I've seen your work in the bazaar, and I'm glad you finally had this opportunity to have it displayed for the general public. Quite a step up.”

Garth flushed. “Well, it's not a real gallery, but still better than a blanket in the marketplace, I think.”

They talked about some of the sketches, charcoal drawings of people in their artists' stalls, pencil renderings of children flying kites in the parks. Garth's exuberance grew with every breath. Pashnak seemed to understand, seemed to see what Garth intended.

The nostalgic paintings caught Pashnak's attention. “These look like something Charles Dickens might have written about.” Garth felt warm inside.

The gaunt young man stopped in front of a detailed study of a smiling young rogue in nineteenth-century clothing; he wore an infectious smile, extending his hand in a gesture of trust, while hiding the other, ready to snatch an unwatched apple from a vendor's cart. The rogue looked vaguely like Eduard. . . .

Garth had worked for many hours on that simple, unframed item—and Pashnak had spotted it right away among all the other art on display. “The Artful Dodger, of course?” Pashnak's eyes were wide and pleading. “I'd love to own it . . . but I was reluctant even to come here. I don't have much money, you see. The Splinters didn't really prepare me for a high-paying job.”

Eduard laughed and draped his arm over Teresa's bowed shoulders. “Don't we all know that!”

Desperate to make a sale, Garth very much wanted Pashnak to own the Artful Dodger drawing. He quoted a price that even Pashnak knew was far too low, and not quite as much as the gaunt young man could afford. Pashnak paid him a little more, and once the deal was consummated, the two men pumped each other's hands so hard their lower arms seemed likely to fall off.

Pashnak left the exhibition, cradling the drawing as if it were his most prized possession in the world. It was the only sale Garth had made all night.

“We can stay to help you clean up, Garth,” Teresa offered, as if reluctant to go back to the Sharetakers' enclave.

“Sure, why not?” Eduard said. He had plenty of free time between jobs.

They worked with Garth to sweep the floors and polish the shelves, but he wanted to take the art down himself. Garth had to be out immediately, because he couldn't afford another day's rent.

As they stood at the door and Garth prepared to lock up, they said awkward goodbyes. “Oh, I'm glad we had a chance to talk, the three of us together,” Teresa said. “A consolation for not having big crowds.”

“That's one way of looking at it,” Garth said with a wan smile. Teresa and Eduard went off together down the sidewalk, and he stayed behind in the hollow remains of his exhibition.

Before he closed the doors, though, two other men appeared, startling him. “Daragon!” Garth's instinctive uneasiness at seeing the BTL uniform changed to delight. “Oh, look at you, so professional. I'm glad you could come! You, uh, missed the big crowd.”

Daragon smiled knowingly at him. “There were no crowds, Garth—but I did bring my boss, Bureau Chief Ob. He wanted to see your exhibition.”

He introduced the well-muscled man beside him, who wore a precisely tailored business suit; his chestnut hair was neatly combed, his olive-brown eyes intense with interest. “You won't remember me, Garth, but I saw your work in the bazaar.”

Garth nodded, shaking the Bureau Chief's hand. “I remember. But you were wearing a different body then, weren't you?” He recalled a smaller, dark-haired man with sunken eyes and a bushy mustache.

“Ah, that was my personal trainer's body.”

Ob looked troubled for a moment, but Garth didn't notice, saying quickly, “You told me I had the right amount of enthusiasm, but that I needed more practice. You even knew who I was.”

“I was curious about Daragon's friends.” Ob began to stroll through the artwork on display. “As I said, when I was younger I dreamed of becoming an artist, but I never had the nerve to slog through all the pitfalls. In a way, you've got the balls to do what I couldn't.”

Garth hovered beside the Bureau Chief as he bent close to the three aligned portraits of Teresa's various faces. “And what is that?”

“You were willing to make sacrifices for your dream, young man. I never had the heart to suffer through the ‘starving artist' uncertainty.” Ob's voice sounded somewhat wistful. “I can see a great deal of improvement here, Garth. Hmmm, very interesting. Now you're making me regret my decision.”

Daragon interrupted him. “Sir, I think you made the right choice. Look at how much you've done with the Bureau, all the important work.”

“Not a valid comparison, Daragon,” Ob said. “I'm talking about
heart,
not logic.”

Garth led them to some of his other works, feeling oddly inadequate. “I'm not exactly starving. . . .”

“Yet.”
The Bureau Chief pursed his lips appreciatively at a crystal-sharp pen-and-ink drawing of the coffee vendor surrounded by rough charcoal blurs of customers. “I've had Daragon investigate a bit. I know you quit your job as an industrial painter, and according to COM records as of five minutes ago, you made only one very small sale all night.”

Garth flushed. “I'll get by, somehow. I get help from my friends.”

Ob placed his hands on Garth's shoulders in a magnanimous gesture. “I think we can do better than that. In my position, as you might guess, I am in possession of considerable wealth—but my BTL duties give me little chance to enjoy it. That seems . . . offensively worthless, in a way. I've been thinking that perhaps I can do some small amount of cultural good if I make it possible for an artist to do better work.”

Daragon's face glowed with pleasure. Garth looked from the Bureau Chief to the artworks on display. “Are you going to buy one of my paintings?”

“I am going to offer you a personal grant, young man. Call it a stipend, enough to let you pursue your dreams for a year, if you live frugally.”