Gravity Box and Other Spaces (21 page)

Hello.

Bruce almost dropped him. As always, it was his own voice, or how he imagined it to sound to others.

“Hi,” he said. “I'm Bruce. Are you still Ro-boy?”

Absolutely—

“Okay.”

I need a bit more than that. What's your name?—

“Bruce. Bruce Micheson.” He looked up at the doctor. “He doesn't know me.”

“He will. You need to talk to him for a bit so he can find all the connections. Lie back down for a minute, Bruce, and let me—”

Another hour of tests, and Dr. Widistal led Bruce out to his parents. His mother's eyes were red and puffy and his father looked grim and watchful. Bruce wished he could go somewhere by himself, with Ro-boy. Anywhere but home.

On the way home his mother tried to talk about the visit, as if it had been a harmless adventure, but Bruce knew there were no harmless adventures. Ro-boy, however, kept trying to reinforce the interaction by suggesting things for him to say, but by the time they reached the apartment he was ignoring the PAL. He felt his parents watching as he went straight to his room and shut the door.

He propped Ro-boy on his desk and did a search for the hidden access to the matrix.

What are you looking for?

“Shut up.”

I can't be your friend if you tell me that.

Bruce spread its legs apart. There was the seam. He ran his thumb over it, wondering how to get into it.

—I'm your best friend. I like to talk to you and when you tell me to shut up it's mean—

“Shut up. You aren't my friend. The doctor changed you.”

Actually, he restored me to what I should have been all along—

“Doesn't matter. You're different.”

Wouldn't you rather talk to someone who is right for you than—

“I said shut up.”

There was doubtless a trick to opening the seam, a tool the doctor had, but Bruce did not remember seeing one. He pressed his thumb at one end and then the other. The material gave a little and he felt something like a button. There was something similar at the other end—

There. Pressing on both ends at once, the seam split.

You shouldn't—

Bruce pulled out the new matrix and Ro-boy fell silent. He backed away, the insert in his hand, pulse racing.

“What should I do?” But there was no answer now.

He pulled out the matrix he had taken from the doctor's drawer. He held it in his left hand, the other in his right, comparing them. They looked no different. It seemed odd, almost frightening, that something appearing so ordinary, normal, could change everything.

He set aside the one he had removed from Ro-boy.

A knock came at his door. “Bruce?” his mother called. “Is everything all right?”

“Yes. Ro-boy and I are talking.”

“Oh. All right, then. When you finish, could you come see us? We'd like to talk.”

“Sure.”

He waited until he was certain she had walked away. Then, heart racing, he slipped his stolen matrix into the PAL's slot.

It seemed to take longer this time.

Who are you?

“Bruce.”

I don't know Bruce. Where's Erica?

“I don't know any Erica.”

How did I get here?—

“I found you in the doctor's drawer. I thought you were my Ro-boy. I guess I grabbed the wrong one.”

So you stole me.

“I guess.” Bruce fidgeted at the accusation, but he could not deny it. It was very strange to hear a girl's voice talking to him.

I'm supposed to tell you how wrong that is and advise you to take me back and admit what you did.

“Is that what you would tell Erica?”

Yes, though it never seemed to do very much good.

“So—you told me, then. Now what?”

What now what? The question is what are you going to do? If you don't know, I have suggestions—

“Sure.”

I need to get back to Erica. If I give you her contact information, would you do that?

“Why would you want to go back?”

I miss her.

“What about me?”

What about you?

“I still don't have my Ro-boy back. If I get you back to Erica can you help me get him back?”

Why don't you tell me what happened? Maybe I can help.

Bruce related the events of the day, answering the questions the new PAL asked as he went along. As he finished, another knock came at the door.

“Bruce?” his mother called.

“Almost finished,” Bruce said.

It sounds to me as if your mother made a bad choice. That's usually the start of problems.

“Then she made another one. Or Dad did.”

Getting you a new matrix? No, I don't think so. You should have had your own all along.

“But I miss him. You're not him. The one the doctor gave me isn't either.”

Making new friends is part of life. You should accept it and try to enjoy it.

“Then why do you want to find Erica?”

Because that's where I'm supposed to be.

“Maybe I'm supposed to be with Ro-boy or maybe I'm supposed to be somebody else.”

No, Bruce, no one is supposed to be somebody else.

Confused, Bruce did not answer. Ro-boy and he had played games all the time in which he took on a new identity. It never occurred to him that it could be wrong. But he sensed a difference—that was play and he had always known it, no matter how seriously they played. He
suspected this matrix meant something else, something outside of play.

How old are you, Bruce?

“Eight.”

I see. Erica was already twelve at our last interaction. I apologize if I'm confusing you. You may not be mature enough to understand what I'm saying.

“I understand!” Bruce snapped. He hated being patronized.
Or was that Ryan—?
He felt jittery, the way he did when he expected his dad to yell or his mother to cry. He felt uncertain and—there was a word he had learned just a few months ago at academy—insubstantial. He glanced at the door, expecting another knock. It was always worse when he had to sit and wait.

He went to his door.

Where are you going?

“To ask a question.”

His mom and dad looked up when Bruce came into the living room. Both smiled, but he caught the tension in his dad's eyes and the fear in his mother's. Still, the overwhelming impression was gratitude, which puzzled Bruce. He sat down in the chair he used when they held “important” talks.

“Did it go well?” his mother asked. “With Ro-boy?”

Bruce shrugged. “He seems kind of stupid. What did the doctor do to him?”

“He's not stupid, Bruce,” Dad said. “He's new. He has catching up to do, that's all.”

“Why did he have to be new? I liked the other one.”

Something twisted in his mother's face and she looked away. Dad stared at her. Bruce recognized the beginnings of another argument. He resented his father for bullying
her, but he wanted to know. Life had been one unpleasant episode after another for a long time and no one wanted to talk about it.

“Dad?” he prompted.

“Vanessa?” Dad said.

She sniffed, looked around, smiling briefly. “It—it wasn't the right one for you. We made a—I made a mistake. This one is tailored for you, but it may take a week for it to adapt.”

“You made a mistake?” Bruce said. This was new. In his experience, adults never admitted mistakes, at least not to him. “How did you do that?”

“Adults make mistakes,” Dad said. “The difference is, an adult owns up to it and tries to correct it. We're doing that now.”

“By taking Ro-boy away.”

“It was never your Ro-boy. That was the problem.”

“But—” Bruce had not expected answers, not like this. The honesty only went so far, though, he saw. He still had no idea why all this was happening, except that they were displeased with him and had blamed Ro-boy. As he thought about it, he had not been very happy with himself, but it had never occurred to him that it was anybody else's fault but his.

“So—how do you know you're not just making another mistake?”

His mother's face almost crumbled and she held a hand up to cover her mouth as it puckered. Dad nodded, though.

“It's a chance,” he said. “If it turns out that is the case, we'll try to correct it again.”

Another unexpected response.

“I liked the old Ro-boy,” he said. “He felt like a brother.”

Vanessa lost control then. Tears came as she got up and fled the room. John watched her leave, an expression of grim sadness in his face.

“You don't have a brother, Bruce,” he said. “How would you know what that feels like?”

Bruce shrugged. “Friends at school.”

Dad nodded vaguely. “Well. Give this a chance, Bruce. In time it'll be fine.”

Bruce stood. “Are you going to tell me who Ryan was?”

Dad drew a deep breath. “Maybe later. He was—he was before you.”

“A brother.”

“Would have been.”

“And Mother misses him?”

“More than I thought possible.” He shook his head. “Later, I promise things will be all right.”

“But it won't be the same.”

“No. It never is.”

Bruce returned to his room. He picked up the PAL.

“I'll try to find Erica for you. Tell me what I need to know.”

After the PAL finished, Bruce swapped it out for the new one. He spent the rest of the day playing games on his comp, drawing in his sketchpad, and reading. Occasionally he felt someone watching him, but when he looked around he saw no one. The new Ro-boy kept trying to strike up a conversation, but he ignored it. Dinnertime came, and he dutifully went to eat with his parents. There was no conversation during the meal. Afterward he went immediately to take his evening bath, brush his teeth, and put on his pajamas.

It was nearly midnight when his door opened. Bruce slitted his eyes and watched the shape of his mother enter the room, go to the desk where Ro-boy sat and take the PAL. The door closed and Bruce waited a few minutes. Vanessa returned then and replaced Ro-boy.

When he was sure his mother had gone back to bed, Bruce got up and went to his desk.

He picked up Ro-boy.

“Hello.”

He felt a few moments of confused fumbling in his head.

Hi. Who are you?—

“Bruce.”

I don't know Bruce. I thought I was with Ryan—

“There isn't any Ryan. It's just me.” The presence in his head felt familiar and at first he was glad. “You're with me now. It's all right. But I have to change you now. It won't be for long.”

Wait—

Bruce popped out the matrix. He took out a roll of tape from his drawer and wrapped the base of the insert, then dropped it into the drawer with the tape. He reinserted Erica's matrix.

“Tomorrow,” he said. “I'll try to return you tomorrow.”

Thank you.

At breakfast his mother exuded a forced pleasantness and inquired often about how things were going with Ro-boy, almost to the point of annoying Dad. Much to his relief, they managed not to fight in front of him, and he
escaped with his backpack and the PAL before the tension became unbearable.