Hungry (9 page)

“Again I say,
duh
. How else are they going to know how consumers react? I mean take Hedgy there.” She points to yet another projection of the pink beast, this one in flowered bell-bottom pants boogying beneath an ancient disco ball. “If everyone was walking right past, or worse, scared and running away, they’d need to know that.”

“What kind of animal is it supposed to be, anyway?”

“I think it’s called a hedgehog or something. Apparently cats and monkeys are so last year.”

“A giant singing and dancing pink hedgehog?” I ask. “That’s idiotic.”

“Speaking of which, look what I got.” She slips her jacket off her shoulder so I can see a new temp-i-tat of that stupid hedgehog on her arm.

“You have got to be kidding! Why would you put that dumb thing on your skin?”

“It’s a new kind! Nobody else has it yet. Watch this.” She twitches her muscle and the hedgehog begins to dance. “Fiyo, at that little Spalon outside the East Loop, created it.”

“But how did he make it move like that?” I ask, looking more closely at her arm, trying to understand the technology.

“He designed some itty-bitty projection thingie that he slipped right under my skin. It activates when my muscles twitch.” She moves her arm again so the hedgehog boogies. “You should come with me next time. Fiyo mixes all his own serums. You’d love it. Spend some cash, fight the system. Isn’t that what you like to crap on and on about?” She waves her arm, which makes the hedgehog dance wildly.

“My god, you’ve practically gone rogue!” I say.

“Pretty soon I’ll become a Dynasaur,” she teases.

“As if!” I say in mock horror. “But I’d watch your PRC then.”

She laughs. “You and twelve other weirdos.”

We round the corner and step onto the last escalator that will carry us to the fifth floor. Something catches my eye. I see a guy with soft brown hair, dressed in green, looking in the window of a model-building shop. My stomach does a flip-flop and my heart races. “Oh my god! That’s him!”

“Who?” Yaz asks.

I hurry to the escalator and head down, going against the flow of people. “Excuse me. Sorry. Pardon me,” I say pushing past as everyone shoots me dirty looks. I half lean over the railing, trying to get a better look.

“What are you doing?” Yaz calls from up above.

I ignore her because I’m trying to figure out what I’m going to do when I get to Basil. Will he remember me? Of course he will. But what if he doesn’t? That would be mortifying. Just as I’m about to step off the escalator and hurry over to him, he turns and I see that it’s not him at all. In fact, he doesn’t look a thing like Basil. This guy is way younger, probably only fourteen, and he doesn’t have Basil’s dark, beautiful eyes. Embarrassed, I stop and ride the escalator up backward.

Yaz is waiting for me on the fifth floor. “What was that all about?” she asks when I step off.

“I thought I knew that guy, but I didn’t,” I mumble.

“A guy?” Yaz asks. “From where?”

“It was nothing,” I snap, because I feel really silly for getting so worked up.

“But where would you meet a guy? At the PlugIn the other night? Were you holding out on me?” She pesters me as we walk to our classroom.

“Let’s drop it.”

“No way. I want details!”

When we get to our classroom, the door whooshes open, and I say, “I’ll tell you later. Promise,” so that she’ll stop pestering me.

*   *   *

I managed to get Yaz and me assigned to the same class without even hacking. It isn’t hard when you understand the system. No matter what my mother and One World want to call it, most ICMs are just elaborate focus groups. For three months before we got our class assignments, I let Yaz do half of all her purchasing through Astrid, that way our consumer profiles were nearly identical. Then we made sure to put in the right balance of likes and dislikes on our placement questionnaires. And, since we’re both girls, the same age, who live in the same Loop, the algorithm ended up assigning us to the same group. As for the other eight kids in our class, they’re lame.

I slouch down into a seat and prepare to be bored for the next four hours of blatant product placements and faux debates. We all sit in a circle with our Gizmos facedown on the table and our PCAs on mute. We’re not allowed to touch them until break. That way, everyone has to practice making eye contact when they speak. Having their Gizmos so close yet so far away nearly kills most people.

Mika, our instructor, sits in the circle, too, because we’re all just one big human family, as the One World slogan goes. To her left are two OW human resource workers, who’ll be picking our brains then writing up their assessments of our interpersonal communication skills, which go in our reference files along with our test scores to be considered by future employers. Which is why I have to at least play along a little bit, even if it does annoy me.

Mika clears her throat and smiles at everyone. She has the same warm brown skin tone as most people and dark wavy hair. She’s tall and has bright blue eyes that look natural, which makes her appear striking and is probably the reason she got the job. As she welcomes us and models small talk by asking personal questions, I wonder if this is what she wanted out of life or if it’s just the job some optimal employment algorithm assigned her.

“Yaz,” Mika says, “what a wonderful pantsuit. That color is great on you. Is that visquinylon or an acetate-acrylic blend?”

Yaz runs her hand over her sleeve and says perfectly pleasantly, “It’s a new fabric, Mika, called NylonDex, developed at One World Fashion. I love it. Would you like to feel it?”

I see the One World folks jotting notes, surely giving Yaz points for using someone’s name, plugging a product, and offering body contact in a socially appropriate way.

After stroking Yaz’s arm, Mika turns the conversation to Jadari. “I saw on your status bar that last night you played New Vegas Zombie Busters, the latest in the New Vegas series. How’d you like it?”

“Good,” Jadari says, remembering to sit up straight and look at Mika, but he loses points for a one-word answer with no return question.

I know my turn is coming soon, but when Mika gets to me, she fumbles for something to say. “Uh, um, Thalia.” She glances down at her Gizmo desperately searching for some piece of data about me from the last month. But since I haven’t bought anything, played anything, or participated in anything under my own account, she’s dumbstruck. I decide to bail her out and start the conversation, which should win me a few points anyway.

“Mika, last night my grandmother taught me a traditional craft called knitting back from the days when human beings used to create things.” I pull out the Gizmo holder Grandma and I made together and launch into an explanation of how people used to make clothes out of animal by-products like hair and skin. Of course, I know I’m losing points by talking about a socially inappropriate topic and not mentioning any One World products, but watching Mika panic at the thought of me derailing the class to talk about knitting makes it worth it.

Before Mika can figure out how to rein me in, one of the HR reps interrupts me. “Humans still create things,” he says. “Who do you think came up with our latest mascot, Hedgy?” He smiles to himself, as if he’s so very clever.

I blink at him. “Probably a computer program that calculated the optimal animal within recent human memory for selling more products.”

“Well, uh, sure, but,” he sputters, “someone had to write that program.”

“Someone like my dad,” I say, which shuts him up for a moment as he checks his Gizmo to figure out who my father is. “And that’s different. I’m talking about when people used to create things that weren’t meant to be bought and sold. Sometimes they just made gifts with no thought about profit.”

“And what’s wrong with profit?” the other rep, the woman, wants to know.

“‘Profit makes the world go around,’” I quote, using another One World slogan, as if I’m daring them not to give me points. “But what’s wrong with art for art’s sake, too?”

“Art?” the woman rep snorts. “So go create something. Nobody’s stopping you.” She sounds hostile, which makes me nearly laugh and Mika squirm.

“Thank you. I will!” I tell her with a perfectly pleasant smile on my face.

Yaz shakes her head at me, but I can tell she’s trying not to giggle.

“Let’s try to get back on topic, shall we?” Mika manages to say, her voice tight.

“Yes, let’s,” I say, sarcasm dripping.

*   *   *

I tune out for the next hour of new-product vids, which we’re supposed to watch and then debate. I can’t muster any interest in another game or movie or device to make my life more fulfilling unless it were the scent generator Basil invented. I think back to the other night, but I can’t quite remember his face. I try harder to remember how his dark hair curled across his forehead. Was it black or dark brown? I do remember that his eyes lit up when he smiled, but I can’t remember if they were blue or green or maybe hazel. I wish I could see him so I could burn his image into my mind again. I wonder what he’s doing. And why I thought I saw him earlier today. For a moment I imagine that I walked into my ICM today and he was here. What would I do? What would I say? Would he acknowledge that we know each other? I wonder if we both answered our placement questionnaires honestly whether we could be in the same group? Probably not, because the data collected are not the right ones. If someone really wanted to know about me, they’d have to find out more than what three products I most recently purchased using VirtuShop coupons or whether I prefer dance games over war games. Plus, I have no idea if we live in the same Loop.

Silently, I repeat the info from the piece of paper:
Analogs
 …
Friday
 …
6:00 p.m.
…
1601 South Halsted

He said it would be a meeting, but it must be more interesting than this. I wonder if they use his device there? My cheeks grow warm as I think of the tantalizing smell of roasted chicken and the heaven that was chocolate. I wonder if that machine could reproduce the smell of an apple. Grandma says the good ones were sweet and tart. That they crunched in your teeth then filled your mouth with juice. My mouth gets watery when I try to imagine what that might feel like. As I’m considering this, that weird gnawing in the pit of my stomach starts up. I feel empty again, as if someone has hollowed me out.

I’m only half listening when Mika starts in on a discussion of what everyone just watched, but I’m too distracted by the sensation in my belly to add anything to the conversation. Mika glances my way. “Thalia?” she asks.

“Um, yes?” I say.

“What’s your opinion?”

I shift in my seat, trying to sit up straight as if I’ve been paying attention. “About what?”

I notice the edges of Mika’s mouth pull a little tighter. “How could we improve large-platform social games such as the new Big Battle Cyborg Defenders to better serve society?”

“Well…” I say, then just as I’m about to launch into a tirade about how those types of large platforms undermine the very fabric of our society by endlessly invading our personal privacy, it happens. That yawning in my stomach grows. The gnawing gets more intense. I feel it bubbling up, and I clamp my mouth closed to make it stop, but I have no power over it, and suddenly the loudest, most obnoxious, primordial growl escapes from me. Everyone glances around.

“What was that?” one of the One World reps asks. He looks up at the ceiling.

“Was that someone’s Gizmo?” Mika asks. She looks straight at Jadari, who shakes his head furiously.

Under the lip of the table, I clutch my stomach and implore my body to stop. I’ve never been so embarrassed. In front of all these people, including OW HR reps. Such a nightmare! Papa Peter said a little extra Synthamil would quell the groaning inside of me, but he was wrong. I can feel another one creeping up, and I start to panic. Yaz stares at me. She can see that something’s wrong.

“Mika!” she says loudly, jumping in. “Can you tell us about the new Fun-Time Hedgehog Dance Party launch? That giant Hedgy hologram downstairs is just so adorable! I can’t wait to hear more about it!”

“Yes,” says Mika, looking relieved that something has put a cork in me before I could get started. “Great timing, Yaz. We were just about to get to that.”

*   *   *

Somehow I get through the last hour of class without another howl coming from my insides. By the time we leave, I’m sweaty and exhausted from worrying that it would happen again. I’m so relieved that when Yaz asks me to go to the EntertainArena with her, I say yes. She’s shocked that she hasn’t had to cajole me into going, but I’d rather go to the EA with Yaz than go home and have Mom ask me about my stomach.

As usual, the EntertainArena is a madhouse. The second our Smaurtos drop us at the entrance then go in search of parking in the underground garage, Jilly starts yapping, only adding to the chaos.

“Hey Yaz! It’s so awesome to be back here,” she says in an overly perky voice that marketeers must think all girls our age use. “We haven’t been here in, like, forever. There’s so much to do! How are we ever going to decide?”

“Aren’t you sick of her yet?” I ask Yaz as we make our way through hundreds of people milling around the portico with its faux fountains and giant spinning holograms advertising the newest games and latest movies.

“I barely hear her anymore,” Yaz admits as we avoid racers from the hottest simulators zipping past us and hologram soldiers from some historical-war game running around, hiding behind columns and benches. Overhead, a trailer for a 3-D movie tour of
The World’s Lost Treasures Part 45
takes up an entire two-story screen. When that’s over a thirty-second newsfeed starts up just as we enter the building.

All the way down the crowded corridor, Jilly tries to cajole us into the entrance of each different cyberworld. “Oh!” she squeals at a sleek black-and-white facade with tidy awnings covered in retro designer logos like Chanel and Prada. “‘Fashion-Forward Fashion Fun’ is fun for everyone!”

“No way,” I say.

When we pass a faux-stone arch entryway guarded by hologram sentries in togas, Jilly says, “Hey, Yaz, your friend Miyuki Shapiro is inside playing Rugged Racers of Ancient Rome: Chariots on Fire, a fast-paced thriller from a bygone era!”