Misspent Youth (2 page)

H
AVING A FAMOUS FATHER
is a difficult concept for any child to understand. After all, he is just your father, nothing else, nothing exceptional. Tim was almost ten before he finally grasped that his dad was a little different from everyone else’s dad; that people were interested in the old man, what he was doing, what he said, and most important, what he was thinking about. And not just the villagers in Empingham, where they lived, but people on a lot of sites in the datasphere. In fact, when Tim, age nine, typed
JEFF BAKER
into a findbot, he was rather surprised when it came back listing two hundred and thirty-eight thousand primary references.

According to the first eight entries, all university libraries, Jeff Baker had designed the molecular structure of solid state crystal memories, the ultimate electronic storage mechanism. It was the single most important component around which the entire datasphere now revolved. All human information was stored in the one specific type of lattice that his dad had worked out. His dad. The man who wouldn’t let him have a puppy, and who was hopeless at playing football with him. His dad! The datasphere had to be kidding—like magic, Tim told himself sourly.

But the datasphere didn’t lie. His dad was truly famous. Not that fame was of much practical use in this case. Fame usually came hand in hand with fabulous wealth. The Bakers were very comfortably off, living in a sprawling manor on the edge of the village, with acres and acres of grounds; and Tim went to the nearby Oakham School for a private education; and his grandma was well taken care of in her nursing home. But it wasn’t an own-your-private-Caribbean-island style of wealth.

It could have been, Tim read with growing dismay. That was the bigger part of Jeff Baker’s fame. He could have had a fortune that rivaled that of Bill Gates or Eleanor Pickard. Memory crystals were universal. Without them the entire world would crash to a halt; there would be no information economy—no economy at all, in fact. The tiniest royalty percentage would have given him an income of billions of euros a year from the uncountable numbers of crystals that were grown to feed the voracious global electronics industry.

Instead, in an act of benevolence and philanthropy essentially without parallel, Jeff Baker had refused to patent the crystal structure. Instead he published it on his Web site, and told anyone who was interested to go right ahead and make the crystals. The server crashed for ten days straight due to the millions of attempted hits from across the planet.

Jeff Baker, Tim realized as he read his own family history, didn’t have fame so much as respect. A billion datahead nerds regarded his dad as more important than God. Very nice, but what actual use was it? Tim would have much preferred him to be a cable star. At least that way they would have gotten a constant stream of invitations to glamorous showbiz parties, and he could have mixed with celebrities. That would have done wonders for his kudos at school.

“Is it true?” Tim asked that suppertime. “Did you invent the datasphere?”

“Not really,” Jeff said with a gentle smile. “But my crystal idea certainly helped it to grow up from being the Internet.”

“Why didn’t you make money from it?”

“I did. I’ve got a whole load of nonexecutive directorships. And my consultancy work pays for your schooling, as well as your mother’s clothes. Just.”

Sue Baker narrowed her eyes to give him a cautionary look over the table.

“It said in the sphere you could have been the richest man in the world,” Tim said.

“Trust me on this, Tim, being the richest man in the world isn’t necessarily a good thing.”

“But…you didn’t get anything out of it. I don’t understand.”

“I got peace of mind. And I got you.” His smile became one of admiration. “You’re more important than money.”

“Thanks. I just don’t think it’s fair, that’s all,” Tim protested. “The whole world depends on your idea. You should be rewarded.”

W
HICH IS WHAT DID HAPPEN
, but not until eight years later.

A
S TEENAGE PARTIES WENT
, it was a parent’s standard nightmare. Miranda and David Langley went away for the weekend, leaving their six-bedroom house in the hands of their eighteen-year-old son, Simon, and his elder brother, Derek, who was back from university. As soon as the senior Langleys had left, their sons sent an avtxt to all their friends. Those friends avtxted their friends.

Half of Empingham’s teenagers descended on the quaint stone house for the evening, their numbers bolstered by contingents from surrounding villages and senior boarders from Oakham School, like Zai Reynolds, who managed to get a leave out from their housemaster.

Tim had been going steady with Zai for four weeks, starting a week after his eighteenth birthday party. He was hopeful that tonight, with all the drink available and the hot exuberant party atmosphere, they might be able to move along from groping and heavy kissing to real actual sex. Simon’s house had enough bedrooms; there were bound to be some unused. So he thought before he arrived.

Even his imagination hadn’t projected such a scene. There were people in every room, crammed in so tight that nobody could sit and dancing was near impossible. Three sound systems were blaring out three different tracks in three different rooms, all of them merging together in the hall and landing to make an incoherent wall of sound. Hardly any of the lights were on, leaving the house seriously gloomy. The kitchen floor’s terra-cotta tiles were awash with fluid that was already turning tacky, and it was only half past seven.

They plunged in. Simon saw them and gave Tim a big hug. He was already drunk. The kiss he gave Zai was overeager; she moved her head aside with an annoyed grimace.

“Your parents will kill you,” Tim shouted above the din.

“No way,” Simon shouted. “We put anything breakable in the barn this afternoon. The worst they’ll find is a couple of strange stains. Derek knows what he’s doing. You should hear about the kind of parties he has at uni.”

“Sounds good. Sorry we’re late; I was watching Sir Mitch’s flight.”

“Great. How high did he get?”

“Just under two hundred kilometers; and that was at Mach fourteen. Won’t be long now.” Tim held up the bagful of bottles and cans he’d brought. “For your collection.”

“In there.” Simon pointed to the kitchen. His grin widened as his girlfriend pushed her way toward them through the crowd, drinks held high in both hands.

Tim hoped he wasn’t staring again. Not that he’d ever been able to help it as far as Annabelle Goddard was concerned. He was used to the savvy upper-middle-class girls who attended Oakham School. Given that most of them were attractive, possessed of the kind of impeccable style and extraordinary self-confidence that only family money could achieve, he was as accustomed to hanging with delectable girls as best as any eighteen-year-old boy could be. But Annabelle was something else again. Her face was enchantingly beautiful, fine-boned with a clear complexion and a few clusters of freckles. To make matters worse, she also had an amazing figure, which was the subject of heavy discussion among Tim and his same-gender friends. For the last six weeks, they had all become seriously envious of Simon for managing to pull her. Add to that Simon’s constant boasts of how she was constantly up for it, and how good she was in bed, and his social status was rapidly approaching divinity.

“Hi, Tim,” Annabelle yelled cheerfully. She handed Simon a drink and gave him a forceful kiss.

Tim was sure there were tongues. “Hi,” he said weakly. She was wearing a shimmering purple miniskirt and a small white T-shirt, thin enough to reveal the outline of her bra underneath.

“Great party, huh?”

“Yeah.” Tim grinned oafishly, hotly aware of the way Zai was looking at him. “Let’s get started,” he said to her.

Zai nodded curtly. “Yes, let’s.”

Tim shoved his way into the kitchen. He knew he’d messed up in front of Zai again. Strange how she was so different from Annabelle; petite and intense, always managing to find fault with him. Whereas Annabelle was so upfront and good-hearted he could never imagine her being angry with anybody. So how was it possible for him to be attracted to complete opposites at the same time?

He made up for his earlier lapse by being overwhelmingly attentive to Zai for the next few hours: pouring her a Bacardi and lemon (heavy on the Bacardi), dancing in the conservatory, swaying about as other couples barged into them. It was hard to see in the dark.

They ran into Martin and Colin when they were taking a break in the dining room. Martin greeted Tim with a full arm salute. “
Bonjour
, Unionist Comrade. I’m amazed you were allowed out tonight.”

“Why?” Tim asked automatically, and cursed himself for not thinking first.

“I saw the Eurogestapo around at your house the other day. Installing all the State Security machine guns and Rottweilers, were they?”

“No,” Tim said with a labored sigh. He’d been getting a lot of this kind of joshing lately, not all of it good humored.

“Must be. It’s only, what, a couple of weeks till they uncork your old man, right?”

“Young man,” Colin corrected. His beer bottle waved around as he gestured, foam spilling from the neck.

“About that,” Tim agreed.

“The Commission must be worried. He’ll be a valuable piece of State property. The Separatists are bound to try something.”

“Shut up, Martin,” Zai said. “Nobody’s going to do anything to Jeff Baker. Don’t be so stupid.”

Martin laughed, taking another swig.

Zai pulled Tim away, and they headed back to the kitchen. “You okay?” she asked.

“Sure. I’m used to it.”

“That’s not the point. Martin is such an asshole.”

Derek Langley’s friends from university had brought a load of intubes with them, which they passed around freely. It was a hot synth8, Tim decided as he sucked the atomized vapor down into his lungs. Better than anything he and his friends ever scored from Rutland’s seedy replicators; this one had been engineered to slide straight through his lung membranes direct into the blood with zero resistance. A lot of design work must have gone into its constituent molecules. His head buzzed as the music echoed around inside his skull; and he was so light that every movement was effortless. Zai took a deep draw of her own, and grinned up at him as it flooded her bloodstream.

They talked to more friends. Danced again. Tried to eat cold pizza slices. Made out happily. Drank some more. Laughed as Tony stripped and ran around the garden waving his trousers around his head before falling into the laurel hedge.

Later on—he didn’t know what time—Tim hauled himself upstairs. He’d been guzzling beer all evening, and now badly needed to pee. The downstairs restroom was disgusting—bowl clogged, puke all over the floor. Several people were sprawled around the dimly lit landing, not saying much; two were already asleep. All the bedroom doors were closed. Tim made his way down to the bathroom at the far end of the house. The door was shut, but he could hear someone inside chortling softly. He leaned on the side of it, hearing voices.

“Wait a sec.”

Tim frowned. He was sure that was Annabelle’s voice.

“Oh come on.”

Simon’s voice, definitely, sly and insistent.

A third person laughed. Tim tried to shake off his lethargy. The laugh had been almost malicious. He didn’t know what the heck was going on.

Then Annabelle suddenly went: “There!” Whatever she’d done was greeted by raucous cheers; somebody was loudly applauding her.

Tim knocked on the door. “Hey, you finished in there yet?” He didn’t know what else to say.

Simon barked: “Oh fuck off, Tim. I’m taking a crap.” There was a lot of giggling and shuffling around accompanying the sharp sound of zips being done up. The toilet was flushed, which triggered another round of giggling.

Simon pulled the bolt back and stepped out, grinning inanely. Annabelle was pressed up behind him, her face all flushed, trying hard not to laugh. Tim had never seen her looking so exultant before.

As if that wasn’t disconcerting enough, Derek Langley and his blonde girlfriend, Louise, followed them out. They trooped past Tim sharing exactly the same superior smile, as if he was some mediocre zoo animal standing there for their amusement.

Simon’s hand patted him on the shoulder. “Finished. You take care in there, Tim.”

Derek and Louise were laughing again as Tim’s face screwed up into more confusion. Annabelle flashed him a brief roguish grin before Simon’s arm found its way possessively around her hips, guiding her away. The four of them made their way down the landing without even looking back at him. It was as if he no longer existed to them.

He went into the bathroom and locked the door. The air inside was thick with the scent of synth8. Tim sniffed it despondently as the alcohol elevated his own thoughts to a state of perfect clarity. His problem was that he would never be like Simon or Derek, never be able to grab so much out of life as the moment came. He was always too scared of consequences. Yet that ability was exactly what he wanted. Right then he would have given anything to have been a part of that devilsome group, to have joined in with hearty abandon, to be their equal. His life completely lacked the kind of Bad Fun that everyone else he knew of was having in abundance.

Tim spat into the toilet bowl, suddenly furious. He hated everything about himself. Most of all he hated the fact he was so pathetic that he was helpless to change what he was.