Paradise Tales (14 page)

“His own ass,” corrects Mandy.

The Kid can’t help but smile. But he sticks to the point. “You do right thing, Mr. Brewster.”

Isn’t it great how people can still care about each other? Isn’t it some kind of miracle sometimes?

This time the cops show up in a plain car, and this time it’s IT specialists not Armament. They start going through Jazza’s station. Jazza starts to sing to himself, some dumb old toon about everybody being free, it’s all love, let’s just party down. Did we really think that was all it took?

He lets them take away his machine, and he just curls up on the bed, back to us all. I say something corny like “Sleep well, old friend.”

And the Kid says, “I watch him for you, Mr. Brewster.”

Mandy and I slump off to the bar and the Neurobics are all there but before we can say anything Gus jumps us and says, “You guys gotta see this!”

Mandy says, “Do we?”

The whole crew are leaning over the newspaper. “I’ll rerun it,” says Gus.

“Fasten your seat belt,” says Mandy, and she gives me a long look like: I’m tired of these bozos.

On the newspaper is a wall of people, and the label says:

Latest VAO attack SHU TZE STADIUM 8:35 p.m. last night
.

The whole thing looks like diamonds, huge overhead lights, flashing cameras, halfway through a night game. Gus has plugged in his speakers, so we get the TV announcer too and the sound of the crowd. The camera moves to a big guy on the mound chewing gum, thumping the ball into his mitt, and looking pissed off.

Over the stands a kind of rectangle just hangs in midair. It looks like it should be there, just part of the stadium, you have to blink to realize it’s hovering. It’s a rescue platform, designed for getting people out of tall buildings in midair. It looks as small as a postage stamp, only it’s crowded with exoskeletons.

On all the tall cathedral lights, red lights start flashing and sirens rouse themselves.

One announcer says, “That’s the fire alarm, John.”

“Yup, and those are firemen. Though I have to say right now, I can’t see any sign of a fire.”

“If there is, John, official figures estimate that it takes fifteen to twenty minutes to clear the stands here at Shu Tze Stadium.”

On the field the players stand morose and still, hands on hips. Their show is over.

Firemen stumble off the platform. It bobs. Close up, the platform is more unstable than a rowboat. The suits hop down, straighten up and start to jog up the steps through the stands. You can see it now that there’s a lot of them together: the suits move in unison.

On the field one of the fat little umpires is running as fast as he can.

A police car comes driving straight onto the diamond.

“Certainly something is happening here at Shu Tze, Marie, but it may not be a fire. That’s Lee van Hook, manager of the Cincinnati Reds getting out of the police vehicle. And he’s waving his hands, yes, he’s waving the players off the field!”

You hear a crunching. It’s a nasty goose-stepping sound, and the camera blurs back to the stands. All the suits have raised automatic weapons at once. And they’re jammed straight at the crowd.

Speakers crackle and feedback whine shoots round the stadium.

And a voice like Neptune bubbling out of the sea says, “This is a public service announcement.”

Announcer cuts in. “John, reports are saying this is a VAO attack.”

“You are going to help the aged. You will pass all valuables, watches, wallets, and jewellry to the men and women with the guns.”

“Just to repeat that, we are witnessing a VAO attack here live at Shu Tze Stadium.”

The digital gurgle goes on. “For your own safety please remember that some of the people with the guns will die soon and have nothing to lose. Many of them cannot think for themselves and so will shoot anyone who resists.”

A kind of roar is spreading all through the crowd.

“You won’t pay taxes. You won’t let us into your houses. We save and plan and invest and insure and in the end that still is NOT enough. What you should do is love us. It’s too late for love, now. Now is the time for money. What you are doing to do now is give us your wallets.”

Some fat guy in a baseball cap is shouting. An exo arm is raised. The suit is like a metal cage around some ancient old dear, and you can see that she’s blinking and confused. I realize all the CCTV is on, and they’ve edited it later. That’s entertainment.

The gun goes off. The fat man ducks and yelps, but his hat has already spun off his head. Those suits can aim to within a fraction of millimeter.

“That’s one move he won’t pull again in a hurry,” says announcer John. He chuckles, like it’s a wrestling match. This stuff, you react to it like a movie. It performs the same function.

All along the rows, a gentle sideways motion flows toward the suits, like a rippling river. It all looks so gentle and calm. On the field police cars pull up and rub noses like it’s a BBQ on a bank by a river on a summer day.

The announcers can only tell us what we can see for ourselves. But you know, it becomes more real when they say it. “John, it looks like the police on the field are conferring with both the team heads and stadium security managers.”

“It’s a real problem for them, Marie. How can they apprehend the VAO without injuring any of the fans?”

The great burbling voice begins again. “What do you think of, when you see us? Do you think getting old is something we did to ourselves? Do you think it won’t happen to you? Do you think you won’t get ugly, sick, and weak? Do you think health foods, gyms, and surgery are going to stop that? We’re going to go now. But just remember. Your kids are watching you. And learning. What you do to us, your kids will do to you.”

The crowd is kind of silent, no motion, just a kind of hush, as if the sea had decided to be still. The siren goes round and round, but you have the feeling no one’s listening. The suits march the old guys inside them back down from the stands toward the rescue platform.

The weirdest thing: some kid in a foilsuit helps one of the VAOs up. And I realize that they understand. They’re halfway there, all these people in this stadium, with their soyaburgers and beer and team shirts. They’re halfway there to being on our side.

You got to them, Jazza.

And the platform snores itself awake and coughs and whirs, and sort of tilts a bit getting up, like all of us old stereotypes. But once it’s steady, it soars straight up.

And Jazza stands. Just stands still. The program has given him nothing to do, but i’s also like he’s finished. He looks up to the sky, like he always does now, up at nothing. He stands like a king on the prow of his ship praying to heaven, and sails away.

And oh god I’m leaking again. Mandy can’t look at me. Her mouth does a bitter little twist and she says, “Silhouette was Jazza.”

Gus says, “What?”

I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want explain or talk or do anything at all, but I can’t sit still, either. I feel sick. I feel messed up. I feel angry. I stand up and lurch out of there. Gus calls after me. “Hey, Brewst, what is this? Brewst?”

I’m walking, and I don’t know where or why. I walk into the Solarium and walk into the gym, and walk into the garden, and I go to the library but that only has books, and in the end, there’s only one place to go.

I go back to Jazza’s room. The Kid is still there, like he said he would be. “Scram,” I tell him.

I really look at Jazza. I think that maybe he was going back to Maryland for one last time. Maybe he was going to climb a tree and just stay there.

I’m thinking how we lose everything. Everything we were, everything we made ourselves into. If you were strong, that goes; if you were smart, that goes; if you were cool, that goes.

Jazza’s face is brown and blue like a map. He’s sitting up, but his head has dropped backward, so he’s staring up at the ceiling with his mouth pulled open. His blue eyes go straight through me to nowhere, like he’s looking for an answer but forgot the question.

And that’s when I finally say to myself. He’s gone. Jazza leaked away a long, long time ago. There’s been nothing left of Jazza for months. So I let him go.

I’m not too clear about the whole show after that.

Armament comes back and tries to sound like they’re going to be tough on my ass. Secret Squirrel keeps asking the same questions over and over. The message is: if we find you had anything to do with this, we’ll still get you.

The Armament looks at me. “We know about your hacks. That’ll have to stop.”

Curtis stands there watching, and he starts to squirm a bit and look in my direction.

“Given that you cooperated, we may take a tolerant view of that. But only if you continue to cooperate, only if the attacks stop.”

What I do next is deliberate. I turn to Curtis and shrug and apologise with my eyes. That’s all it takes. Secret Squirrel snaps his head round at Curtis and narrows his eyes.

“24 by 7 by 365, huh?” Armament says in a quiet little voice.

He’s got it. I shrug an apology to Curtis again, just to drive my point home.

Curtis goes edgy, jumpy, mean. “Well. Well, if that means what I think it does, you cannot continue to be a guest here, Mr. Brewster.”

After that things moved quick.

I told Bill about the hack and the police and it was decided. I would go and live with my boy. It’s just a beaten-up old bungalow on the Jersey side. Like the kind of house I grew up in, when computers were new and cool, and everything was new and cool from shoes to playing cards and you had takeaway pizza for dinner. Even Mom was cool with headphones. Hot in summer with screen doors for the flies, and dry and warm in winter.

I’m on the phone to Bill and I say, “At least I’ll get out of this god-damned dump.”

There’s a minute silence, and then Bill says, “Dad. They’ve worked miracles for you.”

And I think about the neurobics and how my legs are learning to walk, and I have to acknowledge that. So I guess I can lose being mad at the Farm. I guess I can feel I got a pretty good deal.

I go see Mandy. I fill her in. She says, “You’re the only man here with any cool whatsoever.” She’s got a face like the badlands of Arizona. And I don’t know why, but right now that’s as sexy as fuck.

Remember that transcoder jammed into my dick? Found a new use for it.

So I’m lying there with all the teddy bears and the scent of Miss Dior and I say to Mandy. “Come to Jersey with me.”

She looks down and says, “Oh boy.” Then she says, “I gotta think.”

I ask her, “What’s to think?”

“Baby. If I wanted a bungalow in Jersey, I could have had it. Here, I got a Solarium, I got quiet, I got my own room.”

“You dumb cluck. You’ll be alone.”

I see her looking at different futures. I see her get the fear. It makes all the skin of her face sag like old chamois leather. I hold her and hug her and kiss the top of her dyed conditioned perfumed hair. I try to open up things for her. “Come and be part of my family, babe. Bill’s a great kid. He’ll let us stay up late drinking whiskey. We’ll watch old DVDs. They’ll be people round at Thanksgiving.”

And her head is shaking no. “I’ll be stuck in one tiny bedroom, with someone else’s family. That’s where I started out.”

She grunts and slaps my thigh. “I can’t do it.” She sits up and lights a cigarette and then she lets me have it straight.

“I danced for fat old men. I’d get into a bath with other women, and they’d look at our cunts through a pane of glass. I was that far from being a whore. I took the money and I got smart with it, and I kept it. Even though asshole after asshole man tried to take it away from me. This, here, fancy-pants Happy Farm, is my reward.”

She takes a breath and says. “I’m too scared to go to Jersey.”

“I’ll come and see you,” I say. She doesn’t believe me, and I’m not entirely sure I do, either.

So suddenly I’m standing outside the Happy Farm and thank God they’re not currently microwaving anybody, and I’m saying goodbye to the place and, you know, I think I’ll miss it. Mandy isn’t there. Gus is there, which is big of him, and he shakes my hand like maybe he thinks he’ll get Mandy back. But I can see. His arms are thin like sucked-on pens, and his tummy is big like a boil. Gus isn’t going to be with us long.

The Kid comes, and he brings his sweet tiny little wife with him. She’s rehearsed something to say in English. She says it with her eyes closed and giggles afterward. “Thank you very much, Mr. Brewster, you have been so good to my Joao.” And then she holds up her beautiful new baby daughter for me to see.

Life goes on. And then it doesn’t. It doesn’t mean anything. Which means that death doesn’t mean anything, either. It means that while you’re here you can do what the hell you want.

I took off the calipers. I wanted to show them that I could do it. I walked for all of us old farts with no money, all the way to the bus. Bill caught me and helped me up the steps.

I looked around for Jazzanova, but he wasn’t there, and never will be.

One thing those bastards don’t know about is the hack that pays Jazza’s bills. It’s a one-off on the bank’s system. It’s not on my machine or on Jazza’s. Curtis doesn’t know that, and the Armament doesn’t know that. We’re gonna keep Jazza cared for.

And all I’m feeling is one solid lump of love. I give the Farm one last wave goodbye and go home.

Total buzz.