The Not Yet Read online

  Ariel sat up, looking annoyed and said, “Don’t look at him—I hate him.”

  “That’s a lie,” I said. “He’s an Heir. A good Heir! How can you say hate? Even think it? He takes care of you. He provides for your Trust.”

  Ariel’s round eyes closed in at the outer edges, as if he’d been struck. “Who are you to say? You just do the Sims, prance around — you—you know the story. Everything is explained in advance. You have a script. It doesn’t constantly change.”

  “They always ask for encores. Jeremy says they have no sense of time,” I said. The Sims exhausted me. But I managed to bear it, didn’t collapse. I was tough. I could separate from my hungers, my appetites. That’s what it took. Ariel was older, but I thought myself more mature.

  “Do they make you stay awake for days, laughing at you, giving you orders, making you sit with them, while they are going over and over and over the same—”

  “Same what?” I asked.

  “Boring—” he started. “Taking you—” He looked at me, coldly, then said, shaking his head and sort of winding it up a little, so it rose into the air. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “O pays into your Trust,” I said. I had heard some of this before. I had already decided Ariel was just lazy, weak, as Jeremy had said. “Maybe he tells you stories over and over—and then he sulks or whatever with you, but you know he’s going to do it. It’s nothing. Do you see what I put up with? Twelve, fifteen encores?”

  Ariel turned, attacked. “What do you know? You get to be innocent, little innocent. Lucky, the little lucky one.” He scowled at me, and then looked away, hiding his long face in his hands. I didn’t know what he was doing there for a few minutes. Then I realized he was crying. I felt like crying myself. He had that effect on me, always did. But why? He leaned out the attic window, so O could certainly see him.

  O called up, “Come, I’m so sorry, come, please forgive me, I am nothing, you darling!”

  “Forgive him,” I said.

  Ariel said to me, “You idiot!”

  “What?” I asked. “He’s sorry. Forgive him, whatever it was.” Yet, I saw the fear in Ariel’s face.

  I looked down again, saw O’s large round eyes, blue-black, and all centers, no sides. Big, white-less, the eyes of a fly. Why did he have such hideous sheet lenses? He frightened me. I knew there were better styles. They didn’t have to look like insects.

  Ariel expanded, puffed himself out and yelled down, “Never again! Out with you!” Then he turned to me. “You don’t understand.”

  “What? What do I not understand?” I lost all patience.

  “He called me to his inner rooms—”

  “When? What?”

  “Two nights ago. He told me I was growing up. He told me he had noticed. My voice was cracking. My body was—”

  “So? It’s true.”

  “He said he wanted to see it all.”

  “So?” I said. I was always being peered at by their kind, inspected, by Jeremy’s team, or even Heirs—I wasn’t squeamish.

  “Then he came closer,” Ariel said.

  “And?” I said.

  “He grabbed for me. And he—”

  “He absolutely did not. Heirs don’t touch us. They don’t. He did not!” It was not possible. Ariel might as well have been saying black was white.

  “He grabbed me. He took hold of my—”

  He’d had other lies for me before, but this one took the prize, I thought. How could a righteous, famous Heir, do such a thing, such a forbidden, dirty thing? They didn’t touch us; they loathed us, I never heard the end of it. They despised our food. They said we stank. I had seen hundreds of Heirs in a single afternoon. They’d passed very close to me, stared hard at me, sometimes saw my nakedness, but they had never, never, ever—“You can’t expect me to believe you,” I said.

  Down below, O’s hoarse whining. “Anything you want, my dearest pet.”

  I screwed my mouth into a hard little knot. Ariel wouldn’t look at me. After a long time of staring at O and saying nothing, not a thing, he managed, “Okay. Don’t believe me. It’s a story. Ha. Ha.”

  “You can’t make up these lies. Stop it.” I was relieved. “What do you think you are? You have somebody else to rely on?” Lazarus would have said these things if I didn’t. “Look at me,” I said.

  He continued to look down, and something in his brain burned, I thought. I worried. What was it? I didn’t know. I wouldn’t for years.

  Finally, after forever, my mate turned to me with the widest, oddest smirk. “That was just a test,” he said. “To see what you would believe. Got you—”

  “I know the Heirs,” I said. “Don’t lie. It doesn’t work with me.”

  He wagged his head. “Tsk, tsk. Look at that poor creature down there. They have no timing. They lose their way. They have such long lives, they get lost in them—they need us, they forget—I pity them—”

  “I love you!” O offered from below.

  The statement stung like an attack, aimed at me. Nobody loved me, except Lazarus, possibly, and he never said so.

  “See?” Ariel said.

  Suddenly, I was jealous. Once or twice, Jeremy had called me “lovely.” That was it.

  Ariel arched out of the window, again, and shouted down: “No brosia on my plate—soba, holos. My own Broads.”

  So this was all a show. A way to bribe, connive. He’d been a little faker—drawn us all into his elaborate drama. Lazarus, too. I was about to scold him again. But then, I got another scare. I grabbed Ariel’s legs, because I was sure he would fall, leaning out like that. It was a long way down.

  “Anything,” O called up.

  Ariel had enjoyed the luxuries, seen how they lived. Lived how they lived. Spoiled. He wanted more. “Swimming in a pool!”

  “You could drown!”

  “Lessons!”

  “I agree!”

  “I want a soft cruise!”

  “As soon as you say. I’ll reserve tonight!”

  “Genenfabric clothes!”

  “They are ordered!”

  “Those jewels that change shape and color!”

  “Delivered tomorrow!”

  “Living silk bedding!”

  “You just have to ask! I need you! Just ask! Know I need you!”

  “Sing me that song, Bibbity Bob—”

  The Heir did what Ariel asked.

  Then Ariel joined in. I realized I could let go of his legs. He was fine. That was a false alarm, too. No end to it. I looked out the window for myself. And I saw an Heir in full ensemble, leaning against the high wall of our foundling house, singing the Disney, Bibbity Bobbity Boo.

  Ariel called down, “Let’s do it louder! Louder!”

  O raised his strange voice—one of them, obeying a little smelly one of us. In its way, a terrible thing, I knew, against all the laws of strats. But it had a certain interest, I couldn’t deny—

  *

  As I followed my strange new friend Serpenthead through the Sunken Quarter that October evening, I decided that only Ariel could be behind the problem with my Trust. Last time I’d seen him, Ariel told me he was going to sue our guardian, and then he’d sent me that trinket he’d forced Lazarus to turn over, a pendant found on me when I was tossed out. I had the thing with me, in fact. I was bringing it back to Lazarus. He still kept all my records—the story of my life, and my fate, belonged to him. Lazarus would never do anything to harm me.

  “No, he would not,” I said out loud, maybe so I would believe it.

  III

  6:05 PM October 12, 2121

  Sunken Quarter Quay New Orleans Islands, Northeast Gulf De-Accessioned Territory,

  U.A. Protectorate

  “No he would not what? Who? Come on! Who you talking to?” Serpent asked. I had just caught up with him on the other side of a new group of promenading Altereds. He was waiting, careful not to get too far ahead. He added, “I’ve still got some jancy gum, it works for the pain?” offering the foul stuff
from one of his grimy pockets again—a bark colored rectangle, covered with powder.

  I shook my head, carefully.

  “Well they sell Q here,” he said. “You know it?” He pointed to a structure a bit further down along the Quay. A cloth pavilion. “You can get it for a few crowns.”

  It was something the Sim staff took when they couldn’t stand their headaches anymore. Jeremy used to tell me I was too young for it.

  “Okay.” I shrugged.

  “Anybody here, please,” he called when we got to the tent, which was lit by little weak-flamed copper lamp sitting on the pine board counter. There were medicines on it, colas for sale, masks. No person came. He called again.

  An Outliar in a tight knitted cap emerged from the rear eventually. It was hard, at first, to tell if it was a female or a male, but then something about the eyes showed me. She wore several layers of clothes, as some of them did. She was dirty—hands, even the face. She offered me a small pouch with two yellow buttons inside it, and said, “Water, water only—five crowns,” and I nodded, and gave over some of my Port Gramercy money.

  She put the bill in her mouth. It must have tasted right because she slipped it inside her blouse, and handed me the pack. When I turned it over, it read—“Q: Swipe away the pressures.” I was happy with the hope of relief, told myself it was good to get rid of that money, too. I was ashamed of it. It brought back the whole Port Gramercy detour, and debacle. How was I going to explain to Lazarus the kind of trouble I got into there?

  “Well that will do you, and one better,” Serpenthead said.

  “One better?” I asked.

  “It loosens some people,” he said. “I’m only—you plan to get to Audubon tonight, right?”

  He was trying to shake me up, I thought. I dropped the disks in my hurting mouth and swallowed. Without water.

  As we descended the steps to street level, he said, “People get waylaid in these parts. Pickers a plenty by the docks, all over. You have to keep sharp, keep up with me. Don’t get behind again.” He made his lips disappear, his eyes got bigger. “You okay?” he asked.

  “Fine,” I said. Just then, an aroma demanded my attention. Like the most wonderful things Vee ever steamed up in the kitchen, laden with herbs and pepper—all of us standing in rows in the dining hall back at the Home, little boys, hungry and waiting to grow, our plates shining, held up so to cover our hearts, in wait. I even remembered Vee’s admonishments—to be kind, to share, and to keep our turn—

  “Serp! Serp!” A voice from across the way. My companion froze.

  A slender figure with a long white face and a thin ridged nose approached us through the arcade. His face, all beaks. He wore a little circular cap of checked cloth, and a black zippered shirt. He paused, oddly, when he reached us, nodding, as if he were keeping time with his pointed little chin.

  “What? Peet? Why aren’t you at the Palm Bar?” Serpenthead said. “I’m headed there.”

  This narrow fellow looked hard at me. I didn’t belong. He said, “Bebum.” It was more a mumble than a word, rhythmic. “Who this?” His head jerked.

  “My Malc, we come across from Port Gram, he had a boat he couldn’t operate. Now he needs some compos.”

  Peet looked me up and down again, and nodded twice. “Bebum. What happened to him?”

  “Shot at. I saved him.”

  Peet did not pursue it further. Such anecdotes did not surprise him apparently. “Bebum. Change of plans about the Palm Bar,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Bebum. Cancelling, closing up, on account of a big underground Sim.” He jerked. “Sim Verite.” Then he nodded. “Never fear. Lordy’s got us another gig,” he added. “I’m seeing him right now. He won’t wait. He’ll hire other people we don’t get there now. ”

  Serpent, crestfallen. “Shoot, came all this way and I can’t sing?”

  Peet shrugged.

  “Well I have to see what it is,” Serpent said to me. “You wait here? While I go?”

  “Why don’t we part here?” I asked. “I’ll get the fuel myself. Just tell me where to go.”

  “Can’t,” Serpenthead said.

  “Why not?”

  “You can’t be just anybody,” he said.

  “I am not just anybody,” I said, and I thought, I am a very lucky somebody, always have been.

  IV

  November 1, 2117

  Audubon Island Foundling House

  New Orleans Islands, Northeast Gulf De-Accessioned Territory,

  U.A. Protectorate

  The Sims business had collapsed. The situation was dire. Jeremy had lost his shirt. He had been through his Boundarytime, and all the initiations, his Trust had been in order, but at the last minute, he couldn’t make the payments. Sims were out of style, even despised as old-fashioned. Virtuals, soft cruises, were all the rage. WELLFI had invested in them heavily, and now there were endless advertisements about how exciting and effortless they were. You didn’t have to go anywhere, deal with living creatures, actors. Like me. My career was over. I was done for, in fact. I was sixteen by count, at the time.

  WELLFI absorbed Jeremy’s Trust, or eighty percent of it—they could do that if you didn’t keep up your end. He was too old to join any open enclave. He was on his own, and no better than any Low Nat. Recently, he’d come to say goodbye. He tried to be sanguine, showing up on his little scooter, claiming he was going off to the Western Lands, that he’d be fine. That he found something interesting about the “fast dip in and out of life, so intense, so concentrated.” I was very upset; he ended up comforting me. Days later, though, I got the news he tried to drown himself. Leapt into the Old River. Some Outliar fished him out. A camp run by Gaist do-gooders had given him a bed. I thought I’d never see him again. I also believed I would never have a full Trust, and that my fate was going to be similar.

  Then one morning in the spring when I was out in the yard, giving “acting” lessons to the boys—what use the skills were, I didn’t know—Lazarus called me over.

  “I have a few things to tell you,” he said, leading me to his office.

  He seemed excited. He didn’t sit down. One of his small hands rubbed the other, both hovered over the blotter on his desk. He never changed. It was a joke—he had the same round little nose he’d had when I was five, never had it sculpted, never ordered anything new when he got a Re-job. He was so spartan for an Heir. Abstemious. Jeremy used to make fun of him. Which I didn’t like, though I had to agree my guardian was odd. But my mind was on other troubles. I’d seen Ariel the night before. I was about to bring all that up, when Lazarus announced, “A woman could hire you. She might bother with education. She promises a clean barracks, a room in a dormitory if one comes open. The possibilities.”

  I tried to listen. It was astonishing—my luck. Lazarus explained how I would live, how I would look, how I would comport myself among Heirs all day long. In the middle of reminding me of things I should never say, and never do, he stopped. “What’s wrong? Why aren’t you listening?”

  “Ariel,” I said. “He came in late last night. Did you see him? I just don’t know whether to believe what he says. He seems so unhappy sometimes, then says nothing is wrong.”

  Lazarus shook his head, looked out at the yard, through the open window. A gentle shower was starting. His gaze returned—stricken. “Listen to me, Malcolm. I know you are attached to the fellow, I know he makes that claim you are his brother—but—”

  “But what?”

  “Sometimes you have to—if you are going—you have to cut some off—”

  “Cut him off?”

  “He’s going down the wrong road. I’ve asked him to leave here, not to return.” Lazarus was grinding his blue teeth.

  “Why?”

  “He’s afflicted,” he said, too loudly. Then he waited, composed himself a bit. “There it is. You can’t fix him now. I can’t.” He shrugged. “He will live with O. He says that’s what he wants to do. O is not exactly on my side, you
know, politically, you know—O’s going to take over his Trust—”

  Cut him off, I heard the words, but this didn’t sound like Lazarus. He changed the subject. “You know what happened to Jeremy? And he was doing so well, and was vested—you are a rare case, you are on your way, you at least—” Lazarus was telling me to abandon Ariel. No job, no boss, no Ariel—much trouble as he was, we’d been through everything together.

  “You have to think about yourself, your job. You can be saved. Don’t consider anyone but yourself. I know you have trouble with that, but you have to learn. Listen to me,” Lazarus said. “He’s confused, he’s attacking me.”

  I couldn’t get him to explain.

  “You love me, don’t you?” he said, finally.

  I nodded.

  “Then ignore Ariel.” When he said this his mouth was in a low, strange frown. “Please.”

  “Okay,” I tried.

  “Wonderful.”

  Something broke in my chest, when he said that word, “wonderful.” I ached, after.

  “Remember, you are on your way, don’t think of the sad things! Don’t you dare—this is Prologue—and an incredible opportunity!”

  He handed me semi-translucent pants with a drawstring, and new slippers—it was an echo of the first day I went out with Jeremy. Except I wasn’t coming back, so I was sadder. As I turned to change and pack, he called me over to say, “Malcolm.”

  I knew it on my skin. I believed it. He was going to touch me. They never touched us, of course, yet I still yearned for it. I dreamed of it, I burst for it, and was ashamed of myself for this. Once a boy grabbed Lazarus about the waist after he’d given him some toy, and Lazarus screamed, panicked, and called Vee to “pry this one off.” The scene was awful, embarrassing, yet I wanted to re-enact it. I knew it was wrong, and it was too low, yet I saw myself doing it.

  I turned and walked toward him, that hope in my heart.

  He said, as if to ward me off: “Don’t forget, don’t forget!” In his old sweet rattling voice.

  “What?” I wanted to know. If I could not get closer, to say goodbye, then, I wanted some wisdom from him, more than the rules.