Three Days in April (11 page)

 

10. ANDERS

F
or the second time in three days, I wake up hungover. On the plus side, this time I'm in my own bed, and there's nobody in it with me. On the minus side, my head hurts worse than it did on Sunday, and there's a weird, gnawing discomfort in the pit of my stomach that I suspect doesn't have much to do with how much I had to drink.

Also, I'm pretty sure I watched a NatSec agent kill a guy last night—­a NatSec agent who was apparently at my house on Sunday morning looking for me. I make a mental note to have a chat with Terry about that.

I start to sit up, but a knife-­twist in my side drops me back with a gasp. I must have horked something doing my Speedy McGreedy routine at the bar. Hopefully it's just a pull. Tears hurt twice as bad, and they take forever to heal. I roll over slowly onto my side, drop my feet to the floor, and lever myself up into a sitting position. This is exactly why I quit playing ball. I can still remember waking up feeling like this on the mornings after games, and thinking that this must be what it's like to be really, really old.

I check my phone. It's a little after nine. No alerts, so at least the world hasn't fallen apart any more than it already had while I was sleeping. Also on the plus side, my room is cooler than it has been in a week or so. Looks like the heat has finally broken. The sky outside the window is low and gray, with darker black streaks and swirls off to the south. The weather matches my mood.

I stand slowly. The pain is centered on my right side, between my pelvis and my ribs, but I think I might have done something to my chest as well. I try to stretch it out a little, but the muscles give me just enough of a warning jolt to convince me to leave them alone. I pick up the pants I left on the floor last night and pull them on, then take a shirt from the top of my dresser and carefully pull it over my head. This definitely reminds me of my playing days. I shuffle out into the hallway, and pull the door closed behind me.

I
'm a little surprised to find Gary already awake, leaning back with his fingers knitted behind his head in one of the recliners in the living room. He's got one eye open, while the other twitches its way through a download.

“Morning,” he says. “Coffee and doughnuts are in the kitchen. I meant to grab something for the chlamydia you probably picked up yesterday afternoon, but I forgot. Sorry.”

“Thanks for the doughnuts. Also, bite me. Also, What's got you up so early? I didn't expect to see you before noon.”

He opens both eyes now, sits up and stretches.

“Big doings,” he says. “I'm monitoring the early stages of the RAHOWA.”

“The what?”

He rolls his head around in a slow circle. I can hear his vertebrae cracking.

“RAHOWA,” he says. “Racial holy war. The term was popularized by white supremacist groups at the end of the twentieth century. They used it to refer to the coming apocalyptic clash between the genetically pure and morally upright Aryans and the mixed-­blood degenerates. Those guys were butt-­munches, obviously, but as an acronym it's got a nice ring to it, so I thought I'd revive it to describe the current foofaraw.”

Now I'm confused.

“The Aryans?” I ask. “Weren't they from India?”

He grins, and levers himself to his feet.

“We're talking about white supremacists, Anders. They didn't make it through tenth-­grade social studies. Don't try to apply too much critical thinking to their worldview.”

“Right,” I say. “Speaking of genetic purity, where's Charity? Did she end up heading home after all?”

He shakes his head.

“I figured she would, once she realized that you're obviously sexually confused,” he says. “But she wound up sleeping on the couch.”

“Great. And now she's . . .”

“In the bathroom, I think.”

“Uh-­huh. So how are things going, RAHOWA-­wise?”

He shrugs.

“Pretty much all show, no go at the moment. There are a lot of threatening feeds floating around on both sides, but actual violence at this point is still small-­scale and sporadic. Pretties look to be taking the worst of it on the Engineered side, probably because they're easy to spot and easy to beat up. There's also some indication that NatSec did some housecleaning last night. The UnAltered feed distribution network seems to be pretty heavily compromised.”

“Housecleaning?”

“Oh yeah. I've seen eleven dead-­man-­switch messages from UnAltered network repeaters. They all claim to have been whacked by NatSec, and the two locals I followed up on definitely had bad things happen to them last night. One was a high-­school girl who died of a heroin overdose—­a drug that she had no history of ever using, by the way—­and the other one was a middle-­aged chino-­wearing guy named Christopher Cai, who supposedly died in the street of an aneurism after he got his head smashed in by some jerk with a beer glass at the Green Goose.”

“Again, bite me, Gary.”

“No,” he says. “I'm serious. The guy you busted up last night was apparently a big name with the UnAltered. He put out a daily feed with over a million paid subscribers. Kind of explains why he was such a douche-­nozzle, doesn't it? He's definitely dead, so I doubt he'll be coming after you anytime soon, but you might want to keep an eye out for his fans. Your name showed up in the feeds, and it seems like a lot of them are pretty mad.”

Fantastic. This week just gets better and better.

S
o Charity spent the night on our couch. Her and Gary? No, I'm not gonna think about that before breakfast. She comes out of the downstairs bathroom when I'm halfway through my third Jolly Pirate. Gary follows her into the kitchen, and they join me at the breakfast table. Charity lifts the lid on the box and pulls out a doughnut, holding it between her thumb and forefinger like a dead mouse. She looks it over, wrinkles her nose, and takes a nibble.

“Let me guess,” I say. “You're a doughnut hater?”

“Honestly,” she says, “I don't think I've ever eaten one.” She takes another, slightly bigger bite. “It's not bad. Just a big wad of fat and sugar, right? Is this really how you guys eat?”

“Pretty much,” says Gary. He reaches into the cupboard against the wall and pulls out three coffee mugs, fills them from the box on the table, and hands them around.

“So,” Charity says. “How in the world are you still alive?”

“An excellent question.” Gary pulls a doughnut from the box and tears half of it off in one bite. “Anders here has a very high metabolism. He needs about five thousand calories a day just to keep from wasting away.” He chases the doughnut with coffee, then jams the rest into his mouth. “I, on the other hand, don't actually eat very much. It's a life of constant discipline, which I maintain by making sure that everything I do eat is as disgusting as possible.”

Charity sets her half-­eaten donut down on the table and takes a sip of coffee.

“Lovely,” she says. “I think I've had enough.”

“See? It's working on you, too. Soon you'll be as thin and pretty as I am.”

Charity giggles.

“I think we've actually got some fruit in the fridge,” I say. “Help yourself. We're probably not going to eat it.”

She shakes her head.

“I'm good. I don't usually eat breakfast anyway.”

I finish my coffee. Gary thoughtfully chews his second doughnut, while staring at Charity's boobs.

“So,” I say finally. “Charity. What are your plans for the day?”

She grimaces.

“I have to be at the diner by eleven for the lunch shift, and I have to get home and get cleaned up before that. Speaking of which, I don't suppose either of you owns a car?”

I shake my head. Gary's not listening. He might as well have her nipples crammed into his ears. Charity sighs.

“I didn't think so. It's okay. I'll get a cab.”

She pulls out a phone, and taps at the screen.

“Huh,” she says. “I guess I don't need a cab after all.”

“You sure?” I say. “Don't know where you live, but it's a solid two miles from here to the diner.”

“I'm sure,” she says. “Apparently, I just got fired.”

“I got fired once,” says Gary. “That's why I became an entrepreneur.”

Charity taps at her phone some more. “Thanks. I'll get right on that. Is applying for government credit entrepreneurial?”

“Not really,” I say. “But suing the diner for unlawful dismissal might be. Did they give you a reason?”

“Nope. Just said not to show up today.”

“Just out of curiosity,” says Gary. “Is your boss Engineered?”

“No,” she says. “No mods, no implants.”

“RAHOWA,” says Gary.

“I haven't looked into this RAHOWA thing,” I say. “But I'm pretty sure that firing waitresses is not part of it.”

Charity looks at Gary, then at me.

“RAHOWA?”

“Racial holy war,” I say. “It's Gary's new thing.”

“Cataclysmic battle to the death between the Engineered and the UnAltered,” Gary says. “First they came for the cave ladies, and I said nothing, because I was not a cave lady. Then they came for the hot waitresses, and I said nothing, because I was not a hot waitress. Then they came for the bastard offspring of Mickey Mouse and a seven-­foot-­tall transvestite prostitute, and I said nothing, because I was not Anders. Then they came for me, and there was nobody left to speak.”

Charity looks at me and raises one eyebrow. I shrug.

“Martin Niemöller,” says Gary. “You did go to college, didn't you?”

Charity gives Gary a long, blank look.

“So you're saying I got fired because I'm a Pretty?”

“Yes,” I say. “That's what he's saying.”

“Except I'm not,” she says.

“Not what?” I ask.

“Not a Pretty. I know I look like one, but I'm not.”

I try to give Gary a warning look, but his eyes are fixed on the point where her shirt snugs against the tops of her breasts.

“Come on,” he says. “There's no way that this”—­he gives a vague wave that encompasses everything from her ass to the top of her head—­“just happens.”

She smiles.

“I didn't say I'm not Engineered. You've got more in common with a bonobo than you do with me. I'm just not a Pretty.”

C
harity is upstairs using our shower when Doug pings me.

“Connect,” I say. “Vid to the wallscreen.”

I walk into the living room and drop onto the couch. My side is still pretty sore, but my chest feels better, and I'm starting to think I got away with some minor strains. Doug's face pops up on the screen. He does not look happy.

“Anders,” he says. “What's the word?”

“RAHOWA, apparently. Have you been following the feeds?”

He grimaces.

“I have. That's why I'm here. We really need your feedback on those documents. Have you opened them?”

I shake my head.

“I have not. Been kinda busy. Today, though, I will definitely get to them. In fact, I'll start digging into them as soon as we disconnect.”

“This is important,” he says. “I may not have emphasized this before, but I really, really need you to get back to me on this as soon as possible.”

I roll my eyes.

“I've got it, Doug. I told you—­no promises about what I'll find, but I'll have something to give you by this afternoon.”

“Good.”

The screen goes blank.

“Great,” I say. “Good to talk to you too, Doug. Have a lovely afternoon. Bye.”

There's no real reason for me to work on this in my bedroom—­I'm pretty sure Gary can monitor everything I do there just as easily as what I do in the kitchen—­but I decide to do it anyway. I guess the illusion of privacy is better than nothing at all. I'm just settling into my work chair and pulling up the files when Charity comes into the room. She's carrying her clothes over one arm, and wearing a towel wrapped around her torso.

“Hey,” she says. “Whatcha up to?”

I make a conscious effort to drag my eyes away from her.

“Something I should have been doing a ­couple of days ago, apparently,” I say.

She sits down on the edge of the bed, crosses her legs and looks up at the wallscreen. It shows a schematic diagram, rotating slowly in three dimensions.

“Seriously,” she says. “What is that?”

I shrug.

“That's what I'm trying to figure out.”

I wave my hand and the schematic disappears, replaced by scrolling columns of numbers and symbols. When Doug told me that he wanted me to review some documents for him, I assumed that he meant . . . well . . . documents. These are not documents. There is nothing here that was meant to be parsed by a human.

Charity scoots a bit closer. I've never seen a Pretty this up-­close before, and although she claims not to be one, she definitely has those mods on top of whatever else she's got. Her breasts have absolutely no sag to them. Gene cuts or no, it's not clear to me how that's physically possible.

“So,” I say. “Do you think you might want to put some clothes on?”

She smiles.

“I think that may be the first time anyone's ever said that to me. Am I distracting you?”

“A bit, yeah.”

She leans back on her elbows.

“Are you sure you don't want to be distracted?”

My eyes slide up to her face, then back down again.

“You know,” I say. “I'm starting to think you might be a succubus.”

I wave again, and another schematic comes up. It shows what looks like a molecular diagram. Charity scowls, picks up her clothes and starts pulling them on. I point and push, and the view moves to a three-­dimensional representation of what I'm pretty sure is a protein. Another wave, and a third diagram appears.