The Pedestal (6 page)

Keith plaintively shows me his palms. “I didn’t know what else to do, all right? If someone doesn’t step up to the plate, we’re all gonna go down in flames. And I thought I knew you well enough to know you wouldn’t let that happen. Guess that was my mistake, huh?”

“Let me tell you something, Keisha—”

“It’s
Keith
.”
Ding!
Score one to Wilson Abby.

“Whatever! You don’t know anything about me. You think I’m just gonna pretend nothing’s happening? Jeez, how’d you think this was gonna play out? If Arthur went along with this, it’s because you or some other scumbag had something on him. Good luck finding anything on me.”

Oh my God, that felt good.

Yeah, I know I’m seriously burning my bridges with Keith; any chance I had of walking out of here with a better understanding of what’s going on poofed out of existence the moment I opened my stupid mouth. Keith’s face twitches, his cheeks darkening a few notches right through his makeup, and it occurs to me that I’ve probably just torched my job. Watching that painted troll rise slowly from his chair, I realize that losing my job may be the very least of my concerns—because man or woman, this crank can take me, hands down.

I don’t give him the chance; in one fluid motion, I swivel in place and yank the door open, bolting for freedom with a surge of adrenaline. Keith stomps after me. “You’re making a mistake, Wil!” he bellows. “You’re gonna wish you could take this all back, but it’ll be too late.”

Fat chance, Keisha.

I find a hole-in-the-wall pub and seat myself near the back, where the lights are low and the air is stale with the humidity of electronic cigarettes. I run my finger along the table menu and swipe my finger twice next to some kind of Scotch, ordering a double on ice. Six credits. I’m not exactly an expert on the subject—this may be my fifth bar excursion ever, actually—but six credits seems close to giving it away. A soft drink costs twice that, in fact. I can’t imagine how these guys manage to stay in business.

Minutes later, a filthy bot delivers my drink tableside. I take a careless sip and it all makes sense. Never before have I wondered what a mixture of spoiled butterscotch and pig urine might taste like. Now I know. I’m beginning to question the sanity of whatever urge brought me here when something extraordinary happens.

The most stunning woman I’ve ever seen sits at a nearby table and, looking directly at me, smiles.

I honestly can’t explain just how things progress from there. One minute I’m grimacing at the tang of bad Scotch, the next I’m dropping bad lines—the sort that might normally buy a man a kick to the diodes—on this spectacular lady, and somehow they’re working. It’s like I can’t say anything wrong. I buy her drinks, she laughs at my stupid jokes. She spouts wit like old faithful, and I laugh with genuine abandon. Deep down, I know she’s just looking for a few free drinks, though a woman of her caliber really ought to set her sights on a classier place than this.

The thing is, though—the way she looks at me? I’ve seen that look before, just never trained at me. As bizarre as it sounds, there’s little doubt that she has an interest in me. There’s a connection happening here, and despite all logic, it isn’t completely one-sided.

Her name’s Adrian Stone. Pretty, huh? She’s exceptionally beautiful—way too hot to be wasting her time on a loser like me, but I’m too enamored by her presence—and more than a little inebriated—to question my luck. As we walk outside and a tram pivots against the curb to envelop us—where we’re headed isn’t even a concern, just that we’re headed somewhere together—the sports store next door begins to spam my NanoPrint, causing it to spew a barrage of Nike signage. I laugh. Long and hard, like I’m trying to dislodge something within, and I don’t stop until Adrian kisses me.

I’m really not sure what to expect from work today—my belongings waiting unceremoniously in a box at the lobby desk, perhaps? A lengthy, unpaid suspension? As it turns out, it’s neither. Rather, it’s like nothing ever happened. Keith stops by my office and, to my shock and relief, trades Arthur’s project drive for a set of unrelated project specs. It’s as if yesterday was a figment of my imagination, except that as Keith walks off, he gives me this weird conspiratorial wink—like we’re sharing an inside joke now.

Fantastic.

Around noon, I eat some kind of health wrap in the cafeteria and watch the news on the Viseon wall. I’m feeling warm and fuzzy, ruminating over last night and wondering if Adrian is really just a dream—I guess I’ll know if she ever calls like she promised. At some point, the news begins to compete for my attention. Vice President Leah Carlisle is onscreen. With a quick adjustment to my NanoPrint, Carlisle’s voice is streaming directly to my auditory nerves. She’s proudly tooting her own horn in a way that only pandering presidential candidates can do without blushing.

“My company, Miritech, spends billions every year toward the development of new medical advances. As well, we’re active participants in the War On Drugs. We fund the operation of multiple rehabilitation centers and law enforcement task forces to put a stop to illegal drug use. Why do we do this? We do it because we care about the people of this great nation. With my help, we can—” she blathers on and on. It makes me a little sick to hear her voice, especially knowing what I’ve learned. I mute her with a scowl. I can’t help but notice she’s wearing huge olivine earrings. Somehow—however irrational—I feel certain they’re the real thing, carved from the core of some fantastic chondrite meteor. And there’s little doubt in my mind that these superfluities were paid for with credits scraped from IDS pockets. And, of course, she’s bolstering her stupid campaign at the expense of my company.

Yeah, I’m probably being a little unreasonable. She was bleeding blue long before IDS came along to fatten her credit accounts, after all. Acknowledging this doesn’t help, though; in a way, it actually makes things worse. She doesn’t even need our money—she just saw a wounded victim and thought she’d get her pound of flesh along with everybody else.

In disgust, I toss the rest of my lunch into the nearest bin, ignoring its shrill beep of protest that my plastic fork hasn’t been separated from the biodegradables. As I storm out, my NanoPrint tingles, alerting me that I’ve just been fined for this indiscretion.

Dang it.

It’s very late and pleasantly dark with just a sliver of moonlight seeping between my drapes. Despite two glasses of Merlot and a rather slow mystery on my retinal display, I can’t sleep. I could remedy this easily, if I really wanted to. I have several sleep-aid add-ons at my disposal, any of which could have me sawing logs almost instantly. The truth is, I think I’m enjoying the struggle, dwelling on Adrian like a teenage boy who’s just seen his first bra.

Did I mention she called this evening? I guess she isn’t just a dream after all.

Arthur was a master storyteller, when the mood struck him—a cool glass of wine on a warm night generally got him going, in the right company. The man could conjure fiction from thin air like some sort of magician. Most of his tales stemmed from life before he was even born, the era he affectionately called
the good old days
—when a man carried his fortune in a billfold and anyone of sound mind could manually operate a motorized vehicle. These nostalgic accounts, while wildly entertaining, were too terrific to believe. Even more fascinating than the stories themselves was the excitement with which Arthur talked about life before the nexus—his mannerisms, the way his eyes would lose focus as he lapsed into a state of pure longing—it’s as if he had fallen in love with a time he never knew. Though he never spoke the words, I sometimes got the impression he believed the nexus has ultimately caused more harm than good, which is ridiculous, of course—downright blasphemous.

Nevertheless, Arthur’s stories have foddered my daydreams since I was a kid. I don’t fantasize about a futuristic society where my every whim is catered to, where a NanoPrint add-on can flavor the blandest gruel, or perhaps make me irresistible to women—well, that last one comes and goes. I dream of a land where vegetation still grows according to nature’s design, where people still know how to cook and engineer contraptions in their workshops. Where being a neighbor meant more than physically residing next door to a stranger. I dream of a world in which people are prized in part for their roots. Surely there’s really nothing wrong with having cultural differences; dismissing our ethnicity doesn’t make it any less a part of us, even if our entire global society is ostensibly devoted to quashing the concept of heritage—in the name of peace, of course.

Anyway, dreams are just dreams. Thanks to the nexus, though, I have access to an endless supply of old movies in which these fantasies are repeatedly lived out vicariously across the backs of my retinas—or on my Viseon walls, when I have company.

Incidentally, I know I’ve finally found my soul mate when Adrian one day confesses that her guiltiest pleasure also happens to be old movies. I mean, seriously—what are the odds? I can count on one hand the number of people I’ve met in my life that have seen a single movie released before 2050. I feel like I’ve just won the lottery or something!

Together, Adrian and I admire the antiques of cinema, enjoying the palpability of real people on film, projecting from a single wall—long before 4D processing dragged us into a movie when the movie was too weak to pull itself off on its own, even before film stardom made the shift from live personalities to digital avatars—until I fall asleep in her arms.