Veneer (52 page)

Russo strained to hear over his heartbeat monitor, but there was definitely someone else in the room with him. The drugs helped soften the blow as he twisted and lowered himself onto his back. The pain in his shoulder was immediate and overwhelming. Lines danced in front of his eyes, reminding him of the way Jalay used to reconcile expansive murals, driving color in from different angles until they formed the image of Deron fucking a dead goat. He wanted to laugh, but instead concentrated on his breathing.

When his vision cleared, he turned his head to the side.

“Son of a goat-fucking bitch.”

67 - Sebo

Given the position of the sun and the lingering rain on the bleachers, Sebo figured it was somewhere between eight and nine in the morning. The cruisers had come around just after dawn, barking out their orders as if Easton were some kind of military state. He had been standing at the door, waiting for a little bit of light before venturing off to Rosalia’s house. Had his parents not been roused by the uniforms, he might have gotten away. As it stood, his father had forbidden him from leaving their sight, at least until their sight returned.

It appeared that most of the students of Easton Central High School had suffered the same fate, not that Sebo could pick them out as they climbed the bleachers and sought out a dry place to sit. They were all his age, and he had probably sat next to them in classes for years, yet he recognized no one. Only their voices gave them away, like aural fingerprints. He had entertained the idea that maybe Rosalia’s parents had similarly forced her to attend the so-called town hall meeting, but now realized that unless he talked to every girl with a ponytail, he probably wouldn’t know if she sat down beside him.

“Ladies and gentlemen, if we could all quiet down.”

The man from the city was standing on the sideline; someone had brought him a small riser to keep his expensive shoes out of the mud. His bodyguards weren’t afforded the same luxury, not that they seemed to mind. Their attention was outward at the throngs of people shifting nervously on the metal benches. Sebo noticed more uniforms loitering in the end zones. They pretended not to be interested, but there was a pattern to their occasional glances.

“Now, we’ve all had a rough night.”

Sebo yawned and stretched in place. The man from the city was right; last night had not given him the rest he needed. He had felt contentment for only a few seconds after waking as he thought of Jordon starting her day with a quick masturbation session before taking one of her signature forty-five minute showers. He hadn’t needed to look at the wall to know she wasn’t there. The veneer was gone long before he fell asleep, fading with each step as he dragged Rosalia home. The descent into the gray world lasted for what felt like hours, undulating in waves, each time failing to reach the previous brightness. Sebo watched Jordan disappear, unable to give her anything else to do besides sit in her chair and stare into the fourth wall. At the very end, she smiled. It didn’t help much.

“My name is Andrew Greene and I’m a community liaison. The mayor has asked me to come here today so that you will be informed about the current crisis. Unfortunately, we do not have very much information at this time. I am not here to speculate, so I will only tell you what we know for sure.”

Mr. Greene had to shout to be heard by the crowd. Sebo would have made a sarcastic comment had he not been straining to hear the man over the ambient chatter.

“The veneer has suffered a catastrophic failure.”

“No shit,” said Sebo, garnering a stern look from his father.

“At the moment, we do not know what caused this, only that we were dropped from VNet around ten-thirty last night.”

“What’s VNet?” someone whispered.

“Once the uplink was disabled, the veneer began to degrade and became nonfunctional within hours. We’re not exactly sure of the timeline, as no one on the mayor’s staff has a mechanical watch.”

A chorus of snickers went up from the crowd, followed by laughter. No one seemed to understand how serious the situation was. Even Sebo’s father had a grin on his face.

Mr. Greene began to pace the riser, looking from one end of the crowd to the other. “As soon as we noticed the problem, city officials were dispatched to Sonora, Paramel, and Ventura Heights. The Paramel runner returned this morning and we are happy to report that the veneer is fully functional there. We expect to hear the same news from other cities.” He spread his hands. “Whatever has happened, has happened to us alone.”

The atmosphere changed in an instant.

Then the man from the city made it worse. “All indications point to a speedy resolution, but the mayor wants to be ready just in case.”

No one had to ask
in case of what
. Sebo was already imagining the worst scenario possible, that the veneer would never come back. At that point, there’d be no reason to remain in Easton, not with modern life continuing as normal in nearby cities. His father would move them in a heartbeat if he thought for one second that his son might grow up in a primitive world. Sebo wouldn’t be the only one; a lot of families would pack it in. Maybe that was for the best.

Sebo scanned the grass behind Mr. Green, focused on the muddy spot at mid-field. There were too many bad memories in Easton anyway.

“To that end, we are asking for your cooperation during this critical first twenty-four hours. Whether or not we make it safely through to tomorrow will depend on you and every other citizen of Easton. A police officer will be stationed on every major intersection. Should you have any emergency, they will be your primary point of contact. Emergency services are being strained, so we recommend taking extra precautions. Stay in your homes if possible and refrain from dangerous activities. There will be another meeting tonight, here, before sunset. Last night’s curfew will be in effect again tonight, for your safety.”

Mr. Greene paused as if to say something else, but then nodded to his bodyguards. As he stepped off the riser, someone shouted, “Is that it?”

“That’s all I have,” he replied, shouting into a crowd that grew more animated by the second. Questions rained down with sufficient force to make him seek refuge behind the two large uniforms.

A few people in the front row stood up, but when the uniforms drew their guns, they reversed course quickly.

The appearance of weapons silenced the crowd again.

“Please,” said Mr. Greene, touching the uniforms, “put those away.” He stepped forward again. “I understand that everyone has questions. But we all know that people smarter than us have already asked those questions. The top engineers in the city are working towards a solution. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather they focus on fixing it rather than take the time to explain every step to me. The city cannot survive without the veneer. We all know that.”

Sebo nodded his head along with everyone else. He had no doubt the city knew more about the veneer than most of the population. What they didn’t know was what had happened just a few yards from where one of its liaisons now stood. Sebo thought of the trouble he could cause by standing up and telling his story to the crowd. It didn’t look like there were any agents around to stop him.

The man from the city said nothing else, despite the voices trailing after him. A small group of uniforms left the end zone to form a barrier between Mr. Greene and the families on the bleachers. It seemed like a lot of effort for a few moms and dads. What did they really expect?

The assembly ended so abruptly that a majority of the crowd stayed seated for several minutes until all but one of the uniforms had left.

“You can go see your friend now, but check in at lunch,” said his father.

Sebo wondered whether Rosalia would still be at home or somewhere else entirely. She wasn’t the kind of girl to wait around on him.

The crowd dispersed and Sebo was caught up in the flow of people off the bleachers. Unlike everyone else who turned right or left at the bottom, he continued forward, headed towards mid-field, his shoes sloshing in the wet grass. The white line that marked the fifty yard mark was gone, but Sebo didn’t need it to pick out the small circle where the grass had been torn up and replaced with mud.

Footprints. Everywhere.

Most of them were crowded around two thick lines; Sebo imagined Deron’s body being pulled away and cringed. Where would they have taken him?

“I’m sorry,” said Sebo, trying not to think of how things could have ended differently. The proper thing would have been to join the fight, maybe take down Ruiz before his backup had arrived. But that was a fantasy, a type of battle plan only applicable in Destined 4 Death. The cold reality was that he couldn’t get involved with agents, no matter whose life was at stake. His presence probably wouldn’t have made a difference anyway. They would have killed him and Rosalia without hesitation.

He couldn’t believe Deron had really brought down the veneer. It probably wasn’t premeditated or even conceivable in his mind. If it had been part of some master plan, he would have failed miserably. As an accident, it exposed the weak link that none of them had ever considered: the network. Taking down the uplink meant dissolving the shared hallucination. The whole thing just crapped out. Without any feedback from the network telling it that a stop sign was red, it simply gave up trying to render it.

That was the kicker.

All this time, people believed they actually had control over the veneer. They thought that anything in the world could be theirs if they only reconciled it. But they weren’t really telling the veneer how to be; they were asking it. As a magical force, it would defy explanation, but the veneer as a simple technology would be a program that took input from millions of sources. It listened to all of them, but only after checking with the network, with VNet.

Sebo narrowed his eyes as the gears and cogs came tumbling out of the black box. He laughed at himself for not figuring it out sooner.

“Sebo?”

He turned to find an older woman standing next to him. Again, if it hadn’t been for the voice, he wouldn’t have known it was Deron’s mom.

“How are you?” she asked, squinting in the sunlight.

“I’m fine,” he replied, then paused. “Sorry, I didn’t expect to see you here.”

Ania shrugged. Just like Deron. “I had to get out of the house. It’s so empty now.” She looked at the mud but recognition eluded her. “Deron still hasn’t come home.”

Fuck, thought Sebo, looking away.

“I knew you wouldn’t be surprised by that. You don’t seem surprised by anything that’s happened today.”

“What do you mean?” He imagined a blank face, but then remembered there was nothing he could do with the mental image.

“I was watching you, on the bleachers, when that guy was feeding us his bullshit. Everyone had moon eyes except you. And I tell you Deron hasn’t come home and you act like it’s old news.”

“I’m not...” Sebo bit his lip. In his mind, the fuck-fuck-fuck train ran steady.

“You know something, don’t you? About all this?”

He looked down at the mud again. Was it his imagination or was that blood pooling at the bottoms of the little puddles?

“Tell me, Sebo. Please.”

Even with his expansive vocabulary, Sebo could find no combination of words that his mouth could utter. There was simply no way to tell her what had happened. But if he didn’t, when would she find out? The city was in turmoil; it would be days before anyone cared about one little boy gone missing.

“On the way back from Paramel,” he said, looking at the sun. The light burned his eyes, made them water. “Deron said he couldn’t see the veneer.”

Ania nodded. “Is that the last time you saw him?”

“I saw him yesterday.”

“Where?” She stepped in front of Sebo and gripped his arms. “Where is he?”

“He was here at the school. He showed up at lunch and told me he was going to fight Russo.” The terror that flashed across Ania’s eyes made him pause, but it was clear she wanted to hear more. “And then last night, I was here when they fought.” He looked at the mud and Ania followed his gaze.

“Did Russo hurt him?”

Sebo shook his head. “It wasn’t like that. Deron was winning. I actually thought he was going to kill Russo.”

She didn’t try to hide the hopefulness in her eyes.

“So where is? Why doesn’t he come home?”

“I don’t know where he is now. We ran after the shooting started.” Sebo grabbed Ania’s hands as she tried to move away. “They shot him, Mrs. Bishop. Deron is dead.” He braced for the hysterics, but they didn’t come.

Something flashed on Ania’s face, like a resetting of her expression. It wasn’t clear what she was feeling until she spoke.

“Why?” she asked. “Why would you say such a thing?”

“I’m sorry. That’s what happened.”

The slap was as painful as anything Sebo could remember. His eyes threatened to water.

“How dare you! You don’t say those things to a mother!”

Another slap, this one on his shoulder, followed by another. Each word he tried to get out only resulted in another attack. He wanted to tell her about the agents and describe in detail the timeline of her son’s death, but she wouldn’t allow it. Maybe she believed the truth could be beaten out of him; maybe it was the punishment she thought he deserved for allowing it to happen.

Either way, Sebo couldn’t bring himself to stop her. His arms went numb, there was shouting from behind, but no part of him felt wronged. It was the retribution Deron should have paid him after being deserted by his only friend. This was what he got for not helping.

It was nothing in the grand scheme of beatings, but if it provided some measure of comfort to Ania to see him suffer, then so be it.

68 - Rosalia

Rosalia noted the change in the buildings as the cruiser approached downtown. In the neighborhoods, the houses had all been gray, though they still resembled homes. The skyscrapers were a different story. Their materials didn’t come from a lumber mill on the outer rings; engineers had to import from a city that likely didn’t have the veneer. It was the only explanation she could think of for the markings on the paneling: words, serial numbers, and even joint designations. The rough design made it look like she had walked behind a set piece in a play and seen the boards held together with duct tape.