Three Days in April (3 page)

“House,” I say. “Vids. Sports. Lacrosse.”

“Sorry,” it says, in Gary's voice. “You are not authorized.”

I scowl again, but it apparently doesn't have the same effect on Gary's avatar.

“Not authorized?” I ask. “To turn on vids?”

“You're not authorized for jack in this house, sister.”

A sassy avatar. Great. Gary comes back with a glass in each hand.

“So,” I say. “You lock out your entertainment?”

“I use the system for work.” He hands me my drink and flops onto the sofa. “I keep everything locked.”

“Kinda paranoid?”

“Not really.” He takes a long drink, and I can actually see his pupils dilate. I'm pretty sure his is not water. “You'd be surprised how easy it is to hack from one function to another once you get basic access to a house system. One minute you're watching lacrosse, and the next you're emptying my bank account, and replacing my avatars with goats or naked old ladies or something.”

“Huh.” I drain my water in one pull, hold up the glass and rattle the cubes. Gary stares at me blankly. I rattle them again. He raises one eyebrow. I smile. He rolls his eyes, climbs back to his feet, takes my glass and heads back into the kitchen.

“You know,” I say. “If you were less paranoid and more sociable, poor Anders might not have to resort to banging prostitutes.”

“Not true,” he says as he comes back with my water. “Anders is ugly. He will always have to resort to banging prostitutes.”

He sits back down and takes another long drink.

“You're not really a prostitute, are you?”

I smile.

“You're gonna feel pretty bad if I am, aren't you?”

“Yes,” he says. “I am.”

“I'm not.”

“And Anders didn't really bang you, did he?”

“No,” I say. “He did not.”

He grins again.

“Good. If I found out that Anders was getting laid for free, I'd have to rethink my entire worldview.”

I take a drink, and wipe the cold glass across my forehead. I'm cooling down now, sweat drying on my face and arms. I'm not entirely sure what to make of Gary. I'd like to know what kind of work he does that requires the level of security he's apparently put in place here, but given that he won't even let me watch lacrosse on his wallscreen, I'm guessing he's not going to tell me.

I wonder what Dimitri would think of this setup.

“So,” Gary says after a long, awkward silence. “Who are you really?”

I finish my water and wipe the last of the sweat from my face with my sleeve.

“I'm really the girl Anders spent the night with,” I say. “We met at the Green Goose last night. I'm pretty sure he tried to drink me under the table. It didn't work out for him.”

Gary nods.

“Got it. As big as he is, you'd think he'd be able to hold his liquor.”

I smile.

“But you'd be wrong.”

“Right,” he says. “So, what happened? You carried him home slung over your shoulder?”

“No,” I say. “He was still walking when we got back to my apartment. I actually thought I might get lucky, until he fell over my coffee table and couldn't get back up.”

He shakes his head.

“I don't think you're using the word ‘lucky' correctly.”

I laugh.

“I think you're wrong. Have you seen him naked?”

He finishes his drink.

“This conversation is making me uncomfortable. Can we talk about something else?”

“Sure,” I say. “Let's talk about why two apparently well-­educated and possibly employable young men are living next door to a crack house.”

“No,” Gary says. “That also makes me uncomfortable. Let's talk about why you're here. Did Anders steal your wallet or something? Because he does that, you know. You should probably stay away from him.”

“Huh,” I say. “You're the second person who's told me that today.”

He looks genuinely surprised.

“Really? Who was the first?”

“My friend Dimitri. He said Anders was going to be in trouble soon, and that I should stay out of it.”

Gary leans back. His eyes narrow, and he folds his arms across his chest.

“Oh, I got it now. Dimitri's your boyfriend? Is that what he was so wound up about this morning?”

“No,” I say. “Dimitri is not my boyfriend. He's just someone I know.”

“And he told you Anders is big, big trouble.”

“He did.”

Gary raises one eyebrow.

“Anders, the broke former Eagle Scout who has never had so much as a parking ticket. Mostly because he's never owned a car, but still.”

“Broke, huh?”

“Totally. Seeming like less of a catch now?”

“Lots of nice stuff here.”

“I didn't say
I
was broke.”

I take another look around. His gear is actually better than I'd thought. The recliners are real leather, and on closer inspection, so is the sofa. The floor looks to be some kind of hardwood under the raggedy throw rugs, and the climate control is first rate.

“So what did you say you do for a living?”

He shrugs.

“You know. Stuff. Data entry and whatnot.”

“Right. And you let Anders live here because . . .”

“He pays rent. Most of the time, anyway. And sometimes he helps out with . . . stuff.”

“Data entry and whatnot.”

“Right.”

Another long silence follows. Finally, Gary says “House. Vids. General.
SpaceLab
.”

The wallscreen comes alive. I've never heard of
SpaceLab
, but apparently it's an animation that takes place on an orbital platform. The characters all seem to be either drunk or mentally defective, which right from the jump doesn't make a ton of sense. I've met a few actual orbital jocks, and you really couldn't imagine a more sober and un-­defective bunch.

Gary starts snickering about thirty seconds in, so I guess it's supposed to be a comedy, but I'm having a hard time figuring out the joke. On top of that, the animation is terrible. The characters' faces have a rubbery look to them that's just off enough to make you realize they're not real ­people, which in a weird way is more disturbing than if they were completely stylized. I tolerate about five minutes, then close my eyes and say “Is this really the best we can do?”

“Pause,” he says. He looks profoundly hurt. “Don't tell me you're not a fan of
SpaceLab
?”

I turn to look at him.

“I've never seen this before, but based on the last five minutes, yeah, I think I can say with some confidence that I am not a fan of
SpaceLab
.”

“How can you not appreciate
SpaceLab
?” He leans forward and chops the air with one hand. “
SpaceLab
is classic social satire. It reflects modern society back to us through a funhouse mirror, and forces us to confront the absurdities in our everyday lives.”

I shake my head.

“First, I'm pretty sure you just repeated back something that you read on somebody's vid-­critic feed. Second, I just watched the science officer of a space station get into a feces-­flinging fight with his captain, whose brain had apparently been switched with a chimpanzee's. Which parts of my everyday life is this reflecting back at me?”

“Well . . . it's not meant to be taken literally. It's a metaphor.”

“A metaphor?”

“Or a simile. Maybe it's a simile? Which one has ‘like' in it?”

“That's a simile.”

“Then it's definitely a metaphor.”

“You don't look like an idiot,” I say after a long pause, “but you are one, aren't you?”

He slumps, and his voice drops an octave.

“Yes.”

I sigh and run my fingers back through my hair.

“Fine. Satirize the crap out of me. Play.”

“Gary?” says the House.

He perks up immediately.

“Yeah, play.”

So I sit through the last seven minutes of the episode. It does not get noticeably better. We learn that the captain switched bodies with the chimp in order to negotiate with a band of space-­faring monkeys who were threatening to destroy the station. He eventually returns from his mission and restores order by swapping back into his own body and placing the chimp under arrest for mutiny and insurrection. The chimp elects to act as his own lawyer. He is convicted and condemned to be ejected into the icy vacuum of space. The sentence is carried out in a slightly amusing sendup of
Billy Budd
. Seeing their fellow primate being chucked out of the airlock, the space monkeys blow up the station. Fade to theme music.

I sit in silence for a moment, while Gary looks at me expectantly.

“Well?” he says finally. “Pretty great, right?”

I'm not sure what to say to that.

“Was that the last episode?”

He looks at me like I've just grown an extra head.

“What? No. No, why would you think that?
SpaceLab
has been running since I was in high school. This is actually one of the older episodes.”

“Didn't they just blow up the space station? That's a tough one to recover from, isn't it?”

He smiles.

“Oh, that? No, they do that every episode.”

I stare at him. He just keeps smiling.

“Space monkeys blow up the station every episode?”

“Well, no,” he says. “It's not always space monkeys. Sometimes it's terrorists or aliens or God. Usually it's one of the crew, though.”

“Uh-­huh. Tell me again what that was satirizing?”

“Well, this episode was a parody of a nineteenth-­century novel called
Billy Budd
.”

I roll my eyes.

“Only the last ninety seconds of that mess we just watched have any relationship whatsoever to
Billy Budd
.”

The arms are crossed again, and now he's the one scowling. It's a lot less impressive on his flat little face, but still. Time to backtrack.

“Look,” I say. “Maybe
SpaceLab
is an acquired taste. You said yourself that you've been watching this since you were in school. This was my first time. I might appreciate it better after I have a little more exposure.”

That perks him up again.

“So you want to watch another clip?”

“Baby steps, Gary. Baby steps.”

“Right,” he says. “Sorry.”

There's another long pause. Gary starts fidgeting, and I realize that if I don't say something soon, I'm liable to wind up watching something even more asinine than
SpaceLab
.

“So,” I say. “How long have you known Anders?”

He shrugs.

“I dunno. Five years? I sat in on a class he was teaching at Hopkins. I needed a lot of help getting through the course, and he needed a lot of help with not being a starving hobo. So, here we are.”

“What was the class?”

He drains the last of his drink.

“Intro to nanotech. That's why I had so much trouble. Not really my thing. I'm more of a virtual systems guy. Having to deal with actual physical laws is a gigantic pain in the ass.”

“Nano, huh? Is that what Anders does?”

Gary laughs.

“Well,” he says. “
does
is a very strong word. He showed me his thesis once, and ‘nano' was definitely in the title, so I guess he knows something about it. But if he actually
did
nanotech, I'd be getting rent out of him a little more regularly. What he does is
talk
about nanotech to classes full of bored rich kids. Not the same thing, and very much less rewarding.”

“Yeah,” I say. “He told me he's a professor.”

Gary laughs again, harder.

“A professor? Oh honey, no. No, no, no. Anders wishes he was a professor. Anders has gooey wet dreams about becoming a professor, but Anders is definitely not a professor. Anders is an instructor. A part-­time instructor. Professor is to instructor as burger crew chief is to nugget fryer, and instructor is to part-­time instructor as nugget fryer is to the guy the nugget fryer gets to cover for him while he goes out and takes a hit behind the Dumpster. That's Anders—­the substitute nugget fryer of the academic world.”

Apparently Gary has just amused the shit out of himself, because it takes him a solid two minutes to get his giggling under control. Definitely not water in his drink, and probably not alcohol, either. I wonder if maybe I should ask for one of whatever he's having, and then try watching another episode of
SpaceLab
.

“So look,” I say finally. “This has been fun, but I actually did come here for a reason. Any chance you could go check in on Anders? Maybe see if he's ready to come down and say hello?”

He shakes his head.

“Sorry, Terry. No can do. Waking Anders up is a dicey prospect on a good day, and after he's been drinking, it's worse. If you really need to talk to him, you're gonna have to wait.”

I get to my feet.

“So let me go get him. I don't really care if he gets pissy with me.”

He shakes his head.

“No, you misunderstand. If you wake him up from a sound sleep, Anders has a tendency to startle.”

“And?”

“Did he not mention the mouse thing?”

Oh. Right.

“Don't worry,” he continues. “He never hurts anybody else. It's not like you were in mortal danger while you were not-­banging him last night. He's put himself in the hospital a ­couple of times, though. Anyway, it's pretty much standard procedure around here to let him wake up on his own.”

“Ah,” I say. “Got it. So how long do his siestas usually last? I really would like to talk to him, but I can't wait around here all afternoon.”

Which reminds me that I was supposed to be talking shrimp puffs and white lace bustiers a ­couple of hours ago. I pull out my phone. There's a voice-­only from Elise. I must have missed the notification when it came through.