The Apex Book of World SF 2 (24 page)

"Never mind that; you
don't want to set it that high for the first go. We'll go for "karaoke". Your
VR stuff is a bit old-fashioned, but—there. It's mining the web and creating
your profile now—done!" Norie visibly enjoyed her big-sister role, affecting a
firm motherly tone.

"What do I do now?"

"Now? Silly girl,
now you go and find a boy you like, and enjoy the show."

"Just a random guy?
But what will I say to him?"

"You don't have to
say anything, that's the point! Off you go now—just wander around and pretend
that you're looking for the ladies' room. I'll call Shinichi, and we'll go for
dinner with him after he gets off work—it'll be fun!"

Riina swallowed the
last of her coffee and got up, feeling awkward. She took her purse, pocketed
the lovegety and walked towards the signs pointing to the ladies' room, trying
to look innocent and casting passing glances at the men sitting at the tables
she passed. There were a couple of businessmen, a glazed look in their eyes as
they imbibed caffeine seasoned with the latest stock fluctuations; a couple of
rare daylight otaku wearing ill-fitting jeans, anime T-shirts and subterranean
mutant complexions; and trendy neo-
jinrui
oozing illusory wealth,
talking loudly and dressed in pin-striped gangster suits. She felt silly and
focused her eyes on the white skirt-wearing pictogram ahead, shaking her head.

The lovegety beeped.
A female voice chattered something in her ear like an exotic bird. Flashing
icons guided her eyes towards a lone figure sitting by one of the large
windows. Riina stopped, felt blood rising to her cheeks and tried to think
about lying face down in a snowdrift, cold and dead. Usually, it worked.

Not this time. He
had good cheekbones, short-cropped black hair and large brown eyes behind
rimless AR glasses; he was scribbling something furiously with a stylus on the
screen of an old-fashioned palmtop, forehead furrowed in concentration.
Suddenly he stopped and looked up, straight at Riina, a surprised expression on
his face. His name was Hiroaki, she suddenly knew: twenty-three, studying
communications technology at Keio University, single, four previous
relationships, likes old Takeshi Kitano films and Japanese jazz, owns a cat.

The lovegety buzzed
again. Riina caught a glimpse of a brief animation: clunky cartoonish figures
of a boy and a girl holding lovegetys. The devices sent out little arrows that
shook hands in the air. "Karaoke Mode Initiated!" chirped the shrill voice of
the gadget through her jawbone.

 

Riina was suddenly
overwhelmed by a nauseatingly powerful sense of deja vu mixed with vertigo. It
was as if she were falling, only sideways, weightless. She closed her eyes, and
the feeling subsided. When she opened them again, she was looking straight into
Hiroaki's eyes, and she felt his hand touching her cheek gently. A confused
tangle of new memories unfolded in her head: a seafood dinner, games at the
arcade, strolling through 109's boutiques of the bizarre, joking about the
latest fashionable trinkets. Tension, hands and limbs brushing against another
ever so lightly, Hiroaki missing his train to walk Riina home. And then— "The
First Kiss!!!" piped the female demon in her ear, and her mouth was suddenly
full of Hiroaki's tongue and taste, his lips moving a bit clumsily,
uncertainly. But there was no clanging of teeth, no awkwardness.

 

It was perfect.

And then it was
over.

"To Experience Adult
Situations, Upgrade To Get2 Mode!!!" sang the lovegety and plunged Riina into a
warm sea of afterglow, into soft jazz tunes sung by a Japanese voice. They lay
on Hiroaki's futon, Riina listening to his heartbeat, her cheek against his
smooth chest, as he leant on one elbow and toyed with her hair.

"Pillow Talk!!!"
crooned lovegety.

"I'm going back home
this fall," she said, not knowing where the words had come from, head heavy
with newly discovered plans and dreams. And the butterflies in her stomach, the
fear of losing all this perfection—where did that come from? She looked up at
Hiroaki, touching his cheek. "Would you like to come with me?"

"Yes," he said and
smiled, and the lovegety carried them away again.

Finland. Snow.
Perfect weekends by the lake in her family's summer house. Hiroaki learning to
ski, nose peeling from mild frostbite. Hiroaki making her tea. A big warm water
balloon swelling in her chest as she thought about him. Staccato images
punctuated by the voice of the lovegety. Arguments. Hiroaki's inferiority
complex. Her endless need to overanalyse her problems, the desire for a safe
male figure to replace her father. The usual things, the pitfalls of pillow
psychology. And, finally, Hiroaki's back receding into the distance on one of
the moving walkways at Helsinki Airport, Riina holding back her tears and
squeezing the little ivory cat in her pocket that he had given her.

 

"Karaoke Mode Ends!!!"

 

The voice was like a
guillotine, sharp-edged and unstoppable, cutting through the illusion. She fell
back to the mutter of Starbucks, felt her knees buckling under her. Strong warm
hands grabbed her by the shoulders and supported her. She took a deep breath
and opened her eyes. It took only seconds for her head to clear a bit, and she
found herself looking into Hiroaki's eyes again. She almost cried from relief
and covered his face with kisses, but the lovegety world was already fading
away, the memories attaining a dreamlike quality.

"Are you all right?"
asked Hiroaki, a concerned look on his face.

"Yes, fine," she
stammered. "I was just—"

"Oh dear. That was
your first time, wasn't it? Come, sit down and we'll get you some coffee."

"No…no, I'm all
right now."

"No, really, it's no
bother. I owe you that much at least." He winked. "Although I did hope that you'd
have set it all the way up to get2." He saw Riina's expression and laughed. "Only
joking. C'mon. It's safe, I promise."

Riina felt a bit
better after a steaming cup of mocha. Hiroaki watched her intently as she
sipped the frothy liquid. She heard a short buzz from somewhere far away, and
jumped in her seat, but nothing happened.

"Look, I'm sorry you
got so shaken up," Hiroaki said finally. "Your friend should have explained to
you how it works. Are you sure you're okay?"

He touched Riina's
arm gently, his fingertips little points of electricity on her skin.

"Yeah…yeah, I'm
fine. Thanks for the coffee, by the way."

"Anytime."

Norie waved at them
from the other side of the room and walked over, her pink Hello Kitty handbag
swinging in the air. Riina glared at her angrily, but her irritation turned to
astonishment as her friend bent over Hiroaki and kissed him on the lips, full
and hard. He smiled sheepishly. "Sorry. While you were drinking your mocha, we
went to Get2. Kind of accidentally."

Norie pursed her
lips. "Well, it didn't seem to work out between you two, and he is cute! You
don't mind, right?"

"What about
Shinichi?"

"What about him? He's
not really a boyfriend anyway; it's more of an
enjo-kosai
thing, you
know. We do stuff, and he buys me things. Very practical. He doesn't mind,
really—and we're still meeting him for dinner! Hiroaki can come along."

Riina stood up.

"No, you guys go
ahead. I …I think I need some fresh air."

"Really? Are you
sure? Look, I'm sorry; these things happen quickly. Try some other setting
sometime, it's really fun!" Norie gave her a tight little hug. "I'll see you
soon, Okay? Call me."

As Riina started
walking away, Hiroaki called after her. "Riina! You are invited to our wedding,
of course! Next week! Try to make it!"

She ran then, tears
in her eyes, towards the endless heavy beat of Shibuya, trying to find an ivory
cat in her pocket, and her heart jumped when her fingers closed around
something small and warm. But it was only the lovegety.

She threw it into
the fountain by the statue of Hachiko the dog, and watched it sink. The statue
seemed to be looking at her sadly with its bronze dog-eyes, and she knew that
it, too, was still waiting, waiting for love in Shibuya.

 

Maquech
Silvia Moreno-Garcia
 
Silvia Moreno-Garcia was born
and raised in Mexico, and currently lives in Canada. Her short stories have
appeared in
Fantasy Magazine
and
Futurismic
, amongst others, and
she publishes the online zine
The Innsmouth Free Press.

 

The jewel encrusted beetle
walked slowly across the table, dragging its golden chain behind. It was bigger
than any other maquech he'd ever seen before and more richly decorated.

 

Gerardo put down the
eyeglass.

"It's not my usual
purchase," he said.

"It's rare," Mario
replied. "This is the last one my grandfather made before he passed away."

"Monkeys are the
thing now. Everyone wants a monkey."

"But it doesn't need
a lot of food or water," Mario protested. "That's a benefit."

"Do you think my
clients worry about things like food or water? Listen, I sold five ostriches
two months ago. People want large animals now."

It was a lie. He
sold fish and birds and maybe a reptile or two. He could not afford extravagant
purchases like ostriches.

"I need the money,"
Mario confessed. "I want to go to Canada."

"What for?"

"I want to see the
polar bears before they disappear. Before all the ice melts away."

Gerardo stared at
Mario. Who the hell cared about polar bears? Unless Gerardo was importing them,
he didn't give a damn about them or the ice. Canada was far away and there were
more pressing problems right now such as how he was going to afford that month's
water bill. Up went the bill, and for a small trader of exotic pets there was
always competition, taxes and bribes to pay, food to buy for the animals. If he
didn't sell them quickly, he'd have to keep the beasts for months on end and
spend tons of money on their care.

And then Mario came
and talked about looking at polar bears? Christ on the cross. They were
probably better off without so many of them anyway. He tried to calculate the
amount of food one of those things must devour each month and shook his head.

"Look, I can't give
you much," Gerardo said.

 

Gerardo put the
maquech in the terrarium together with the bits of wood Mario had given him.
The maquech fed on the bacteria of decomposing wood, so at least it wouldn't
cost too much to maintain. He recalled the piranhas he'd bought last May.
Hungry, ugly little things. He wouldn't make that mistake again.

 

Gerardo looked at
the maquech and wondered who might buy this one. He'd seen people wearing a
maquech on their lapel or their dress, but usually they had tacky plastic
faux-jewels on their backs. This little insect had been painted and decorated
with semi-precious stones. It was not a cheap bug and he needed to make a good
sale.

He went through his
list of regular clients, discarded all of them and kept coming back to a single
name: Arturo de la Vega.

He'd never sold
anything to Arturo but, if there was a buyer in Mexico City, it was Arturo. He
was disgustingly rich. While everyone else worried about getting running water
that week, how to purchase a kilo of tortillas, the eternally high levels of
pollution and the assholes trying to express-kidnap you, Arturo spent insane
amounts of money on exotic pets. Arturo de la Vega had a roof garden with a
pool and palm trees in a city where people ran behind the water trucks, filling
barrels and
tinajas
twice a week. Arturo de la Vega drove a car when everyone
else had to walk or, at best, be carried on a litter down Reforma.

If you managed to
sell an animal to Arturo de la Vega, you were in the big leagues.

But Gerardo had
never sold a thing to him. He was too small, too unknown, too much of a
provincial newcomer.

He drummed his
fingers against the table.

He took out the
camera and snapped a few pictures of the maquech.

 

He normally did not
dream. There was no space for dreams in the cramped apartment, filled with the
stench of the birds and fish.

 

That night he dreamt
of rivers and quiet, dark places where the sunlight turns green with the colour
of the trees.

 

Three days later,
the monthly offering period for Arturo de la Vega opened up. It was only a
one-day window and Gerardo had to queue outside the reception office for many
hours prior to that. He stood, baking under the furious sun, and watched a man
walk by with cages strapped behind his back. Mechanical owls blinked their
multi-coloured eyes at Gerardo and shook their metal wings. There was a water-seller
across the street yelling the same litany over and over again.

 

"Water. Fresh, pure
water."

He closed his eyes
and he thought of the murmur of a stream.

Somebody shoved him
forwards and Gerardo snapped his eyes open and walked forwards, one more step
towards the building's entrance. A long time later, he stepped into the lobby
and placed his submission package, nothing more than a few snapshots and an
introduction letter, on the narrow cedar table.

Then it was back to
his apartment, down three flights of stairs. He couldn't afford a floor above
ground with a glass window; not even a window with metal shutters. Sunlight was
costly.

Gerardo fed the fish
and the birds first. Then he turned to the maquech.

The insect walked
from one end of its terrarium to the other.

"What are you
thinking?" he asked the maquech.

The maquech stood
very still.

Gerardo stood still,
too.

He didn't talk to
the animals. It was not his thing to coo and smile and babble over an animal as
if it were a baby. He fed them. He housed them. He sold them. That was it.