Shine (34 page)

MV was not averse to skinny dipping, but this was something else. She was expecting him to take his clothes off and dive in. Just like that. In such a natural, innocent way. He thought ruefully of the skin fungus that had spread over his back.

"Come on MV--it is wonderful in here." Her pearly teeth shone in the glints of the water. It did look inviting and he was sweltering.

As she disappeared under again, he took his clothes off and dived in, catching his breath as the cold hit. But within a few seconds he was up and paddling. Divine. Very different to the pools in LA. No chemicals--just pure water. Rada was splashing about and laughing with infectious delight, her hair plastered in a thick wodge over her forehead. He thought of all the LA girls who never wet their sleek hairdos, preferring to preen in gaggles on edges of swimming pools, showing off their latest designer swimsuits.

Rada splashed him. He had such an urge to splash her back.

She playfully splashed again. This time he did splash back and they had a glorious orgy of splashing. He felt exhilarated. Like a kid.

She then jumped out and spread-eagled herself on the grass, offering her body to the sun. He climbed out slowly, mesmerised by the bush of gold curling hair, bejewelled with droplets of water, that sprouted over her pubis. It looked unruly, untidy, wild. Every girl he had ever seen naked was either shaved or clipped. He had an immense desire to run his hands through it. Or film it with his Zi-Lens and put it on YouTube. He envisioned the title with a chuckle.
Wild beaver on the loose.

Now dude,
enticed the inner seducer.
Now is the time to tease apart that bushy fuzz and jump her. Look, she's just lying there asking for it.

Yes, jump her!
responded his inner gallery of observers, including Jeezbob with his rakish grin.

But instead he collapsed next to her, enjoying the warmth of the sun on his body.

Rada had picked up his T-Shirt and was examining the school logo glowing from it.

"Groovy, eh?" said MV proudly. "Silica nanoparticles blended into a light-emitting gel, then printed onto the cotton to form pixels. The gel consists of a ruthenium compound that emits a bright light when a voltage is applied to it, along with an electrolyte and..."

Rada looked away and dropped the shirt. He was taken aback, just when he was in full flow. He had been instrumental in getting these logos embedded in schoolwear. The girls back at school had been impressed. And had shown him how much.

"Ruthenium!" said Rada "That is a rare trace element! I thought you Americans had learnt your lesson, plundering the planet for your endless vanity!"

"But this technology's from Japan. You must admit it's amazing? The way the letters sparkle?"

She shrugged. "It is not interesting to me. I prefer the sparkle on the water, the blue-green glow on a blowfly, the glinting of dew in the grass. And it is certainly not as interesting as the sparkle that comes from your eyes." She looked deeply into them. Such a pure look. Again she reminded him of someone. Who the hell was it? Then he felt a strange emotion--like prickles of tears at the back of his eyes. Was he going to cry?

"What do the initials MV stand for?"

"Hey dudika, no-one, but no-one knows that!" He drew back, welcoming the anger that squashed unfamiliar feelings.

"Really? But surely your mother must know."

Was this girl dumb, or just silly?

"Of course she knows. She gave me the stupid name."

"But what name is it?" She was persistent.

"It is such a dumb, embarrassing name--it truly sucks."

Rada screwed up her nose quizzically. "But she must have given it to you for a reason."

"Well yes, it was my great-grandfather's name. He was from Ukraine."

She sat up with alacrity.

"Ukraine? So your family comes from this part of the world?"

"Yeah but a long time ago." He was distracted by the bounce of her breasts as she became more animated. The pink nipples bobbed enticingly.

"So what was your great-grandfather's name?"

"Miroslav." He spat out the word with disgust. "Can you imagine such a name in sophisticated LA? Horrible."

"Miroslav." The name rolled off her tongue like a bubble of poetic syrup. So different to his pronunciation. She jumped up and started cartwheeling in glee. Naked. God he wished he had his Zi-Lens!

"That is such a beautiful name. Do you know what it means?"

"Fuck no. I don't want to know."

"It means 'peace.' Do you mind if I call you Miroslav?"

"Only in private. Not in front of my classmates."

She looked slightly dejected but agreed.

"What about your name, Rada? What does that mean?"

"Happiness."

They dressed and walked back. MV felt strangely refreshed and peaceful. Perhaps there was something in the meaning of a name after all. Rada did radiate happiness like he had never seen before.

Rada skipped ahead, cartwheeling occasionally. She was so wholesome--like a kid but also a woman--he couldn't take his eyes off her. Back in LA he would have fucked this chick by now. But Rada aroused him in a whole different way. He felt warm and his skin tingled all over.

Back at the school, the afternoon sun was settling over the cedars. He saw his mates sitting outside the Tech building absorbed within their Zi worlds. He felt a strange revulsion. His own ZiSleeve sat on the trestle table, lonely and winking furiously. He moved towards it leadenly. He zi-croed it on. It felt like a shackle.

Vassily watched Rachel's ZiScreen over her shoulder, as her avatar, resplendent in a gold bikini, was about to be seduced by Demoloron on his black steed. "Rachel," he interrupted. "Did you know that the futures you keep dreaming up in Second Life, you can dream up in real life."

"And did you know Vassily, you are annoying me intensely," replied Rachel, her cheeks wobbling exasperatedly. "Why don't you go and dance or whatever the fuck you do in this stupid place." Vassily immediately leapt up and did a Cossack dance right there in the courtyard, in front of her. An old man with silver hair took up an accordion and played it in accompaniment. Rachel turned away scornfully.

"Who's that old geezer?" Wingnut asked Colleen.

"That's Mikhail Shchetinin, the guy who started this school over 25 years ago. He's about to give a talk."

"Jeez. Spare me," said Wingnut, getting up to go.

"Wait," commanded Colleen. "I think you should stay and listen." Separating Wingnut from his zyberworld was like dislodging a prehistoric mammoth from permafrost. But she had promised Wingnut's father she would try. It was he who had invented the ZiSleeve, so he felt responsible that his only child had disappeared up it, so to speak. He had arranged the plane for the school trip, as a reward for Wingnut's class finishing school. The only way he could entice Wingnut to visit Tekos, was the promise of the Moscow Expo first. Colleen sighed. How was she going to prise Wingnut away from the Web by even a millimetre? Tania came to her aid by announcing in front of the gathering, that she would be translating. Wingnut decided that Gorko the Viking having his way with Saxon slave girls would have to wait. Instead he feasted his eyes upon Tania as she began to translate for the benevolent-looking old man.

"The present is not something that has just happened to us, we have all participated in its creation..."

Yeah
, thought Wingnut, admiring her blonde, blue-eyed beauty,
I could create a perfect sex slave out of you darling.

Next morning MV was woken by singing. Cursing, he went to the window. He'd been up half the night catching up with pips and downloads. Just a few hours away from his ZiSleeve was lethal. It mustn't happen again.

Out of the window the garden looked resplendent in the morning sunshine. Tripping through it barefoot was his nemesis, that temptress Rada. It looked like she was singing to the flowers. Bloody hell--what a kook! Colleen had made such a mistake bringing them to this Godforsaken place.

Well it must be near midnight in New York--time for a game before Jeezbob hit the sack. He closed the curtain. Jeezbob had manoeuvred him into a cave full of unexploded mines, and the sound of whizzing, banging and explosions drowned out that wretched singing.

A shaft of sunlight slipped through a crack in the curtain and caught his face. Dammit. It reminded him of the sparkle on Rada's pearly teeth. He went to the window. Oh God she was cartwheeling again. As she came up, she spied him.

"Come, come outside! It is so wonderful out here." He was torn. Then he saw the quote above his door.

If we don't change our direction, we'll wind up where we are headed.

Boy, was this place trying to brainwash him? He decided to take his ZiSleeve with him. As protection.

"Oh okay, but I'm not doing any more cartwheels."

"Of course not--I want to show you the gardens."

"Just for a short while." Out he went, armoured with his ZiSleeve.

The garden was bursting with vegetables and flowers. Cabbages the size of footballs swelled out among a riot of nasturtiums.

"You grow all your own vegetables?"

"Yes, and fruits, and healing herbs. We use permaculture techniques."

"Do you guard your gardens?"

"No."

"Why not?" In LA, gardens had sprouted everywhere--disused lots, sides of roads where guerrilla gardeners had to become more guerrilla-like to protect their produce. MV earned extra money by patrolling gardens at night, entertained by his ZiSleeve of course.

"Well Miroslav." She lowered her voice as she said his name. Despite himself he thrilled at the way she pronounced it. "We have plenty of gardens in Russia. And land. You must remember the Soviet Union collapsed twenty years before the world financial crash of 2009. Fortunately most people, even those in the cities, still had access to a dacha and garden. In the early 1990s while Russia boiled out of control in a soup of intrigue, power and greed, these gardens saved Russia from starvation and possibly another revolution."

"Revolution may have been a good thing."

"No Miroslav--our country was worse than a battered, bloody dog after seventy years of revolution. In 1995 there emerged from the Siberian Taiga my heroine, the eco-mystic Anastasia, who persuaded hundreds of thousands of people to turn away from the transient attraction of luxury consumer goods, and delight in the simple pleasures of planting seeds and creating gardens. By the time Capitalism cracked apart, President Medvedev was passing legislation for people to acquire land cheaply, so they could be self-sufficient. What was great was that these people were well educated and technically literate and brought their new knowledge to the land. My parents were successful city people who became quickly disillusioned with a Western copycat lifestyle; they traded their concrete coop in Moscow for an eco-house in the countryside, at first commuting while they built it."

Her eyes sparkled as she spoke of her parents. "Oh Miroslav I wish I could take you to visit them, so you could eat one of the apples from the tree they planted when I was born. It would help your skin condition."

MV looked at the rosy flush of her skin and longed to touch it--to somehow infuse it into his own.

"So what is so special about this school?" He had avoided going to Shchetinin' s talk, pleading Zi overload.

"We learn how to create a positive future."

"How?"

"In many ways, but basically by relating to each other and thinking."

"Thinking?"

"Yes, most people only use a fraction of their thinking capabilities."

"Well I don't. I think all the time."

"Miroslav, you never have time to think--a slave to your ZiSleeve."

"I'm thinking the whole time--responding to hundreds of pieces of info every day, through my live-Stream."

"Just Nowism; downloading data. Reacting. Not retaining it."

"Yes I am."

"I doubt that. When do you contemplate deeply, sharpen your understanding--ponder whether something optimal in the present may not be optimal in the future? Do you observe nature for example? Work out the true laws that govern everything?"

"Well--er..." MV thought of his mother who commented sadly that old-fashioned daydreaming had disappeared?

"Well Miroslav--the deep, quiet thinking process is alien to many today because of the influence of the technocratic world. People spend their entire life marshalling their thoughts towards using and creating better widgets and gadgets. You are seduced by these substitutes for real life."

MV's Wii injury throbbed. His ZiSleeve winked and beeped.

"Substitutes! You're unbelievably arrogant! You should have seen the amazing devices at the Expo. Technology that will save our planet."

"Miroslav, the planet needs greater consciousness, reflective awareness, not just technical fixes."

But MV was back at Moscow's Crystal Island. His eyes glazed over. "You should have seen the robots."

"Just clever inventions, nothing more."

"Inventions? Robots will take over."

"Only the brains behind them will take over. Our brains. Technology is created by us; by our thoughts. It is us humans who are amazing. Robots, at best, are useful servants.

"Look at this ZiSleeve! I can get any piece of information I want at any time. I'm being better educated than anyone in mankind's history." MV's Zi bleeped obligingly in emphasis. "I'm proud to be part of a cross-fertilisation that's driving a generation of new scientific knowledge and technological innovation at an unprecedented rate."

"Yes that is good--it makes you flip from topic to topic easily and you learn a lot quickly, but it also makes you lazy. Your mind is continually searching for input--the latest disaster, the latest news, the latest--what do you call it? Thrill." She pronounced it 'T'rill.'

MV had to acknowledge that point. Each day brought an exciting breaking news story on ZiNet--plenty of them--cyclones, fires, riots, floods, sieges. There was even a special part of YouTube called SiegeTube where people could tune into their own reality siege. It felt dull if a day went by without a disaster to tune into.