Virtually True (9 page)

Not as empty as life would have been if she’d never known them, True thinks. Or maybe having and losing is worse than never having. For some reason, images of Crick and Watson wind through his mind. But the Rajput’s words unsnag him from these thoughts.

“My brother was a parliamentarian. I wonder what he is now. Perhaps a goat. After all, he must bear some responsibility for the war. Or a bull. He
was
a stubborn man.” She stops. “At least sample some technology.”

An opening. “Answer some questions, then I’ll look at what you have.”

The Rajput studies him. True waits patiently but feels impatient inside.

“Come.” She motions for True to follow. Leads him down the street, her sandals sticking to mud.

“Did you see a little girl, squattering outside night before last?”

The Rajput doesn’t look back, calls over her shoulder. “She is now dead, is that correct?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Why do you care?”

They pass People Protectors, and True peeks in the window to see lightweight armor plating on hangers, laser and bullet pistols lined up in a wall display, genetic-coded bombs that lock onto a target’s DNA, force fields, torture devices, an assassination’s hotline, souvenir t-shirts, sneakers. The store, like the bar whose patrons it serves, never closes: grudges, vendettas, and contracts to kill don’t always jibe with normal business hours.

True tries again. “Did you talk with her?”

“Yes.”

“Was she a regular around here?”

“No. Of that I am sure. I hadn’t seen her around this club before. She did so at perilous risk to herself. This area is protected.”

“Protected?”

“She was interfering with legitimate beggars who pay to work this territory.”

“Like you?”

“Like I.”

“Do you think she was killed because of this?”

She walks on, past the crumbling shell of the church. “No.” She lowers her voice when an in-line skater, grappled to an electric limo, rolls by. “But I warned her about bizzing here.”

“What else did you talk about?”

“I said if she continued to vex these beggars she’d soon be dead. But she wouldn’t  listen. I heard later she died begging from a filthy Muslim. I would not wish to die in that manner.”

“She mention her name?”

“No.”

“Where she came from?”

“No.”

“Who she was waiting for?”

She shakes her head.

“Where she was staying?”

“No. It didn’t come up.”

“You don’t have any idea how I could reach her family, do you?”

She slips into an open doorway and part way up a set of steps, many of them broken or missing, the wood decayed and decaying, names and curses carved, painted, and penned in myriad tongues, no space untouched.

“No. And if you search the shanties, you may not get out alive.” The Rajput stoops to brush away crumbs, mud, dirt, packets of disposable air syringes and empty vials, then sits. True joins her on the stairs.

“Now, it’s your turn.” She hands True a program card to insert into his wrist-top.

She types in initial commands. In response to the computer’s query,
Is this game program in English?
She taps
y
, yes. The computer analyzes the card, and then the screen carries another question:
This program takes up a great amount of memory. Shall I compress your other files to make room?
She pecks another
y
. When the computer requests a password to prevent illicit copying, the woman shields True’s eyes with her free hand and punches it in. Five taps.

“I will tell you the code after you buy it.” She unblocks True’s sight.

“I’m not going to buy it.”

“What is your name?”

“True.”

“What kind of name is that?”

“The name I was given.”

She types it in. “Only someone who could live up to such a name would possess it, or someone who flaunts his dishonesty.”

“What’s your name?”

“I do not have one anymore.”

“What was it before?”

“It does not matter.”

“Well, where in India did you come from? Rajasthan?”

“Yes. I was born in Rajasthan and am directly related to Rajput kings. We were known for our courage. If my ancestors lost a battle and all the men were killed, the women and children would march into a funeral pyre to their death. That is called
jauhar
.”

True notices cancer acne on her forehead masked with mud. She’ll need money for treatment, a simple technique, but probably prohibitively expensive for her. Without treatment, she has five months to live, seven tops.

“Why did you come to this country, baba? It’s laden with miscreants.”

“Why did you?”

“I was here on business when the war with Pakistan started.” She flicks at one of her sandals with a toe. “Where else could I go? And anyway, this capital city—Nerula—reminds me of a great leader, Nehru. This offers some comfort.”

With a flourish she taps a key and moves aside. Immediately, tie-dye mists—orange, purple, turquoise, pink, gold—swirl. Then the opening credits, a list of software researchers, writers, producers, composers, the caterer, copyright date, and a warning that unauthorized copying of the enclosed program is expressly forbidden. Even the pirates are trying to cut down on piracy. A menu appears in front of True under the program name
Building Love
. The first options have to do with historical settings. The categories are
Primitive Womyn/Man
,
Romyn
,
Greek
,
the Middle Ages
,
the Renaissance
,
17th c
.,
18th c
.,
19th c
.,
20th c
.,
21st c
., and
the Future
. True points a finger, locks onto the 21st c. Then new listings appear: Ethnicity (
choose 1 or more of the following
, it says). Subheadings are
European extraction, Asian extraction, African extraction.
True chooses Asian and European. Further listings narrow his choices to the relatively simple mix of Japanese and English.

He navigates through the program easily, knowing what he’s looking for. For height (in both metric and American measurements), he chooses 5’6”, for weight (in kilograms, pounds, or stones), 125 lbs. The waist size he opts for is 26”, the chest size 38”, probably a little on the big side; but this is, he tells himself,
virtual
reality.

Hair color? Dark brown bordering on black, hair length medium, ending at the shoulders. Eyes more green than brown. Skin tone:
Sticky Olive Oil Fashion
, which he loved in contrast to his own whole wheat toast hue.

A woman’s naked figure appears, slowly rotating so he’s able to get a full circular view. Slightly slanted eyes of green and brown, shoulder-length brown hair, rounded breasts, a taut abdomen. True checks the further options catalog, widens the space between the breasts two, three, four percent, shrinks the nipples, lightens them from brown to brick red. He further tightens the figure’s abs, darkens its skin tone. Also widens the shoulders, rounds the rear. The hair is wrong—too shiny and straight—so he adds flaws, some split ends, a matte finish, an almost invisible streak of red in each strand.

Satisfied thus, True goes to work on the face, first adding some strategically placed freckles and choosing a nice aristocratic nose with the touch of a flare. Next come eyebrows, ears, the strong hands and slender fingers, wide feet, angular toes.

He stops to rest. It’s her. Or just about. Goes back and waves his finger at the pubic hair category, chooses to make it fuller; and for the naval he digs an innie. Admires his handiwork, realizes what he’s created isn’t just as beautiful as what he remembers. It’s more beautiful.

The program compliments him on his taste, asks if he’d like to save the figure he’s created, store it in the database for convenience. When he indicates yes, it asks for his secret code.

“As I said, unless you purchase the program I cannot tell you the code.” The Rajput’s voice from outside True’s world and inside his head at the same time. “But keep going, there is more of interest, I think, to you.”

It’s uncanny how perfect it is, how memories of love can be relived with just the sight of her. True moves to attribute a personality to the blank expression (
choose one or more of the following: soft, angelic, happy, perky, flirtatious, masochistic, sultry, nymphomanic, intellectual, bimbo, distant, cold, tough, angry, sadistic, evil—press this space for more options
).

But before he can choose, a whirring noise emanates from his wrist-top; the program locks, lightning bolts of pastel colors frozen vertically in space.

Turning his head, True sees the Rajput through the jagged beams. “What did you do? You broke it.”

True hits the escape option. Is returned to the damp hallway.

She steps toward him. “Now you
must
buy it.”

“It’s software. It can’t break. There must be a program glitch.”

Sighing, she yanks the card out of the computer. “Yes. You are correct. I have worked on this many times, but I cannot seem to overcome certain one-offs.”

A one-off: that one in a million chance combination that can cause a system to stall, break, crash—like hitting a lottery jackpot, True thinks, or ending up a serial killer’s victim.

True rises, produces the stash of dollars he uses to get things done in a country that doesn’t have sufficient numbers of automatic debit machines. He hands her a crumpled handful of notes.

She holds out the program card, but he waves it away.

“You’re from America?” She tucks away the money and card.

True cocks his head, eyes her thoughtfully, says nothing.

She insists. “You are. I know because American tourists believe in charity.”

“You’re wrong about one thing.”

“You are not an American?”

“I’m not a tourist.”

The Rajput’s laughs slip into parched coughs that fade as True skips out the door.

CHAPTER 6

True’s tired and the weather’s all sideways, ocean wind pinning rain clouds against Nerula’s surrounding hills. He flags down the first taxi he sees—an old diesel job, more rust than paint. There’s a bullet-proof partition separating the driver from the passenger. The taxi looks like True feels. He gets in.

After telling the driver his address, True leans back, rubs bits of foam padding from his pant leg, and watches the city stream by through the window. The driver, a squat woman squeezing a pistol between pudgy thighs, takes the expressway along the river, and True sees the crispy shells of buildings painted with pictures of cartoon-like windows with drawn shades, families sitting around dinner tables, flower pots and plants, ivy winding up the sides, a lone man reclining in an easy chair, reading a book. Swedish foreign aid, a plan to raise commercial property values, accomplished by literally painting over Luzonia’s problems.

Packs of shanty children, skin spray-painted over skeletons, are wilding; police chase them with tasers, clubs, and water cannons. The war left a generation of street orphans to fend for themselves, and this they do by forming gangs, stealing and murdering together. Wolf packs, except wolves never prey on their own.