Transhuman (24 page)

Soon the Barrow home's original foundation plantings were strangled out of existence by the hyped-up cuttings of pine and fir, but small loss, easily replaced come springtime. The house sat like a broody Rhode Island Red on its coniferous nest. Margaret's head reverberated with the strains of "O

Tannenbaum," thanks to both the finest MoodzMusyc unit the market could provide and the surgeon's skill in grafting said unit onto her left mastoid. The teensiest portable tune player was yesterday's news next to a device that not only ran its host's favorite melodies but, when activated, best-guessed which tune to play based on whatever activity presently held the Master's attention. All was well. The doorway decorations came next. "Deck the Halls" began as Margaret thumbtacked sprigs of holly and ivy at strategic angles around the door frame. Some women had a green thumb, but under its coating of synthetic, semiautonomous flesh, Margaret's right opposable digit was mostly titanium. It was able to extrude and anchor sharp, precisely hooked bits of itself at the drop of a subvocalized command, though of course within reason. Like most of Margaret's other enhancements, it had limited powers of regeneration, dependent upon her keeping up her mineral supplements and not overtaxing the unit. While she waited for her thumb to regenerate the metallic matter thus expended (in much the same way as her primitive ancestresses would have reloaded their staple guns), Margaret leaned in close and blew a soft, long-drawn-out breath over the isolated clumps of shiny leaves. "Grow! Grow, my pretties!" she murmured, and stepped back to watch the results.

No sooner did the microscopic globules of mitosis accelerant in Margaret's breath touch them than the holly's red berries grew plumper, its leaves turned greener and glossier. The ivy sprouted a Medusa's array of serpentine tendrils that intertwined with the holly to form the perfect arch of seasonal vegetation. Only then did the music in Margaret's head consent to segue into "The Holly and the Ivy." She clapped her hands with childish glee. Even though she'd witnessed the same thing every year for as long as she'd had herself enhanced and retrofitted for the loving labor of providing kick-ass Christmas cheer, the spectacle never failed to make her heart beat faster.

The rest of the afternoon was given over to using her built-ins to lift her high enough to deploy the silver, gold, and Devon Twilight (blue) lights over the house's rooftop, façade, and new foundation plantings. Wreaths of tasteful size adorned every window, all crafted by Margaret's own two hands, said hands possessing enough recombinant miniaturized hardware to cough up any and all tools needed for the job of the moment. She had chosen "Renewal" for her theme this year, thus the preponderance of evergreens in the overall design scheme. Unlike the twinkling dwarf conifers encircling the house, the wreaths were not organic, though you couldn't tell that by looking at them when they were at rest. However, this seldom happened, as Margaret had programmed them to cycle constantly from plain balsam, to red poinsettia, to white Christmas roses, to a fruit-festooned Dellarobbia model. A quick spritz of blue and silver glitter to every tree trunk on the property and it was off to bed for Margaret, duty done. She only paused long enough to cast a self-satisfied glance at how poorly the rest of the Buttermilk Crescent homes in their holiday finery measured up to hers. Once again she'd managed to surf the crest of the Yuletidal wave to victory. Her head played the "Hallelujah Chorus" in agreement. Only those houses completely bereft of any ornamentation escaped her dire judgment. This included the house directly across the street from the Barrow abode. Margaret presumed that the residents must be Jewish. That was all right. She liked Jews. They had their uses. In previous neighborhoods they'd always said the nicest things about her festive displays, and their reluctance to take Christmas to the mat in a full one-on-one decorating smackdown with Chanukah showed they were intelligent as well as polite. She resolved that if her new across-the-way neighbors were in fact Jews—rather than time-delay Christians who had yet to enable their own decorations—she would put off including a crèche as part of her design scheme for at least three more years. Maybe she and her family would move somewhere else by then. Better yet, maybe the Jews would.

The next morning, Margaret learned that she was not facing Jews. Between the time she had gone to bed and the time she'd awakened, the house across the street had changed. That was putting it mildly, and mildly was how Margaret accepted the fact, at first.

It really was quite the sight. The house bloomed with lights and blossomed with sparkles. From the rooftree to the foundations, all was a splendid symphony in the colors of a brave new dawn. Rather than a Nordic winter wonderland, the owner of that property had opted for a rich, jewel-toned, Near Eastern tapestry of towering palms, swaths of golden sand, the silvery green of olive groves, the multicolored extravagance of a richly laden caravan disappearing behind the garage, and at the heart of it all, the humble stable and the shining Star.

Margaret regarded the newly hatched spectacle across the street with condescending admiration. "Now there's a new program," she said to her morning cup of coffee. "I don't recall seeing it in any of the catalogs. Maybe it's from a different company than Ho-Ho-Holograms. Oh well, I should care!" She finished her breakfast, got dressed, and sauntered outside to get a closer look. Common sense and familiarity with her own home security system kept her off the neighbor's transformed lawn. That was rather irritating, for once Margaret approached the display, she noticed that there was something about it not exactly akin to simple projected decorations.

It looked . . . real. Substantial. Disturbingly solid.

Whether or not she was without sin, Margaret bent down, grabbed a stray chunk of driveway gravel, and cast the first stone. It arced over the lawn and right into the manger. It landed with a considerable thud muted just a bit by the straw. The kneeling figure of the Virgin Mary slowly turned her head in Margaret's direction. "Please don't do that again," she said. "My baby could have been in there." Joseph scowled and added, "This is hard enough on me already. Show a little consideration, all right? If you can't remember how the Golden Rule goes, I'll be more than happy to refresh your memory." Margaret let out a shriek fit to boil a figgy pudding and fled back into her own house. A few minutes later, after she'd had the chance to catch her breath and change her slacks, she pounced on her phonelet and was immersed in an emergency override vocal data stream straight to Kerry's earbud. Since the two of them were mutual dear-designates, she got a prime place in the contact queue and was soon demanding to know what the H-E-double-upside-down-and-slightly-warped-candy-canes was going on at the house across the street.

"Oh, you must mean the Pendletons' place, Margaretdear." Kerry spoke with irksome glee. "Dinah puts so much of herself into her decorations every year that no one in the neighborhood feels it's really the holiday season until we see what she's come up with. My goodness, and to think you were the first to see this year's display. You are so lucky. Tell me, is it absolutely magnificent or merely gorgeous? There was one year she wasn't able to come up with anything beyond splendid, but her brother had just died, so we understood. And in spite of that, she still had the best-looking house on Buttermilk Crescent that Christmas, bless her heart."

"Bless her heart," Margaret repeated as best she could between clenched teeth. Bless her heart. . . It is said that abovementioned phrase can be used with dozens of nuances, depending on the speaker, the geographical region, and the custom of the countryside. For some speakers, it conveys a sincere, straightforward wish for the other person's physical and spiritual well-being. For others, it's a communally approved way to get your true, less benevolent feelings off your chest while still preserving the social niceties. Just as everyone understands that
bye
is short for
good-bye
, and in turn even shorter for
God be with you
, so in this context everyone understands that
Bless her heart
is short for
That woman has the brains of a gravy boat, the common sense of a headless tadpole, and the
morals of a congressman, bless her heart.

On Margaret's lips, it was short for something else entirely, the full text of which was unfit for public airing, but which revealed much about Margaret's character, imagination, and education. Who would have guessed she was so well-read on the subject of what the ancient Aztecs used to do to those captives sacrificed to the dread war god, Huitzilopochtli? Bless their hearts. Margaret and Kerry having exchanged cardiac sanctifications on behalf of Dinah Pendleton, the conversation turned to specifics concerning that lady's holiday display. "Kerrydear, I really couldn't begin to tell you how . . . nice Mrs. Pendleton's home might look to some people. These things are really all a matter of taste or lack of it, don't you agree? But really, have I missed something in the Buttermilk Crescent Homeowners' Agreement mandating the temporary suspension of the Thirteenth Amendment?

It really seems to me that enslaving live human beings to take part in such an . . . enchantingly clichéd representation of the Holy Family for even the eensiest amount of time is taking mindless devotion to soulless home decorating on what's obvious a dreadfully stretched budget just a smidgerino too far. I mean, really."

Kerry laughed. It was pure instinct, but that cut no ice with Margaret, who promptly made a mental note to demote her from mutual dear-designate to oh-are-you-still-talking? status just as soon as the holidays ended. "What's so funny, Kerry . . . dear?" she asked.

"Gracious, I'm sorry, Margaretdear, I didn't mean to laugh," said Kerry. "It's just that the very thought of another human being so much as touching her Christmas decorations sends Dinah clear around the twist!

Trust me, no one gets near her presentation, let alone becomes a part of it. Besides, even if you could hire live actors for a holiday display, who could afford them? Silly immigration laws. Life was so much easier before we had to think of those people as people. Real ones, I mean. My hubby says that if you're going to come sneaking into this country in the cargo section of anything, then that's how you see yourself, and it would be impolite of any good American not to honor and respect your chosen self-image."

"So those are robots?" Margaret cut in on Kerry's high-minded musings. "Androids? I know they're not holograms." Margaret didn't bother explaining how she'd come by this knowledge as it was none of Kerry's rancid beeswax.

"I wish I could answer that, Margaretdear. I honestly do," Kerry replied. "If they were animatronics, surely someone in the neighborhood would have seen the delivery being made."

"Maybe she has them delivered and installed in the dead of night," Margaret suggested. "That sounds very suspicious to me, and completely unpatriotic. I've got the Homeland Lockdown Agency's number on speed-click. I do think they should be informed about this. Unless you'd like to do the honors, Kerrydear? The Loyalty Points I'd earn for doing it would give us just enough to redeem for a family vacation to Hawai'i, but I wouldn't mind if you—"

"Oh, I don't want to do that, Margaretdear!" There was genuine distress in Kerry's voice. "And neither do you. Have you ever experienced a Homeland Lockdown courtesy call? A full cavity search of Buttermilk Crescent will completely ruin the holidays for everyone. Besides, you know we run complete security checks on anyone who wants to live here."

"That's right, we do," said a second voice on Margaret's phonelet.

"Hmph! And I suppose your information-gathering techniques are perfect?" Margaret raised one eyebrow in disdain.

"They ought to be," said the second voice. "They're provided by Homeland Lockdown as a favor to one of our highest-ranking employees. Conrad Pendleton has been with the Agency since—" Margaret dropped the connection faster than if it had been a pair of blazing charcoal briquette panties. It took her a while to recover her aplomb. When sufficient time had passed for her to be sure that no one from Homeland Lockdown was going to show up for a harmless little "allegiance interview," she did her best to turn her thoughts as far away from Dinah Pendleton's Christmas extravaganza as possible. But alas, it was anything but possible. In vain did she shift her attention to composing the family's Christmas virus, dispatching the insidious yet informative pop-up program to friends and relatives around the nation. (This year she'd upgraded it to include a darling feature that would not relinquish control of the recipients' computers until they correctly answered a simple questionnaire to prove they'd read, digested, and properly appreciated the achievements of the Barrow clan.) To no avail did she see to the interior decorations of her home. The tinsel had lost its glitter, the bows and baubles were so much dross, the tree's permanently impregnated scent of balsam filled her nostrils with the stench of failure. In short, Margaret Barrow's juggernaut of jollity had hit a wall named Dinah Pendleton. Margaret poured herself a double shot of eggnog and went to bed.

She arose in the wee small hours of the morning and looked out the bedroom window at the Pendleton house. Mary was lying down on a pile of straw beside the still-empty manger. Joseph was asleep sitting up, leaning against an upright beam. The background camels were gone, but the stable had acquired a few equine and bovine residents. They all seemed to be asleep. It was charming enough to choke a moose, and there was no denying that it was even better and more impressive than before.

"She tweaked it," Margaret snarled. "She damn well tweaked it." For some reason, the evidence that Dinah Pendleton had improved upon perfection was more annoying than the initial perfection itself. Margaret had gone to sleep comforting herself with the thought that had sustained pro sports teams since time out of mind. No doubt there have even been defeated gladiators who, on hearing the crowd howl for their deaths and on seeing the Imperial thumb sanction the death blow, nonetheless filled the Colosseum air with the gallant shout, "Just wait 'til next year!" (Which, for the benefit of nitpickers everywhere, might or might not actually have been rendered
Iustus exspecto insquesquo tunc annus
!