Veneer (38 page)

“What are you talking about?”

The words spilled out, every detail Abernathy had dropped on him. And with each word, Rosalia’s face shifted as he had never witnessed before. There were lines around her eyes that only appeared when she narrowed them. Her lips trembled minutely, a subtlety that the veneer had always masked. She stopped him a few times, told him about the pictures she had seen in a game called Canvas. Then about Nurse Hendricks and how she said the Guardian chip was there to protect us. She couldn’t believe that someone she respected so much would lie to her.

When Deron stopped talking, Rosalia remained quiet for a long time. Around them, the wind picked up, bringing aromas from the now distant Parker Avenue, mostly restaurants spinning up for the evening rush.

Rosalia touched the side of her face. “You can see what I really look like?”

That was a nice way of putting a positive spin on a handicap. It wasn’t that he couldn’t see the veneer; it was that he could see past it.

“Yes,” he answered, “and you’re... You’re real.”

“Of course I’m real.” A sniffle. “Does that mean you can’t see anything?” Gesturing to the convenience store on the corner, she asked, “You don’t see those signs?”

“Everything’s blank,” he admitted. “It was scary at first, but I’m used to it now.” He pointed up. “Those I can see though.” He slowed at the sight of the lightning jumping from cloud to cloud. “It won’t be easy.”

“What won’t?”

“Living like this.”

“What do you mean? You need to see a doctor.”

“Ha! If anyone found out...” He trailed off, unsure of what they would really do to him, if anything.

“So what, you’re gonna spend the rest of your life not being able to see? How will you go to school? Everything is reconciled, Deron.”

“Not everything.” He turned and put his arm around her shoulder. “You’re not reconciled. You have to see what I see.” He touched her cheek. “This is unreal.”

Rosalia’s determination cracked under the compliment. “I thought you said I was real?”

“You’re both,” he whispered.

The rain began to fall as they kissed.

49 - Sebo

“So, there’s like this magic moment between installation and first run that we need to apply the patch. You have to interrupt it right then or no happy juice.”

Sebo nodded absently at Jalay’s explanations. He understood what the portly hacker was telling him, but the conversation was excruciatingly vapid. Instead, he focused more on the improbability of having Jalay in his room, in his most protected sanctum. He was there, sitting on Sebo’s chair next to Sebo’s wall installing software on Sebo’s portal. How inconceivable it was that a series of events would lead to this moment. Was the universe really so fragile that long-standing rivalries and allegiances could be broken by the absence of one person? Sebo thought back, tried to put the pieces together, but found their simplicity unfulfilling.

“Events of importance are the result of trivial causes,” declared Sebo, crossing his arms.

“It’s not trivial,” replied Jalay, pointing at the scrolling text. “There’s timing involved, especially in these virtual environments. It’s not just going to sit around waiting for you to break it. If you don’t time it just right, you have to uninstall and start over again.” He chuckled at himself. “It took me six tries to install Jordan. Felicity I got on the first try. Popped her cherry like it was nothing.”

What do you know about popping cherries, Sebo wondered. Did there actually exist a woman who would find his bulk attractive or his lame witticisms clever? Like so many other hopeless humans, Jalay was destined to spend his life married to pornography. He’d nominate one woman out of the menagerie of smut and put all of his attention on her. He’d waste away searching for pictures of her, movies, and full interactives. In his mind, a relationship would form, one that he would come to believe in with all the intensity of a man in love. After a while, real girls wouldn’t even interest him anymore.

Then, death. Alone and pathetic.

“I heard they’re coming out with a new girl next month. Marketa, I think. She’s Yugoslavian, like that Ilya chick.”

“She’s Ukrainian,” said Sebo, fidgeting on the bed. Every time Jalay touched the wall, a little shiver of unclean went up his spine.

“Oh.” He paused, lost in moronic thought. “Man, how would you like having that girl on your wall? She’s got the hottest b-cups I’ve ever seen.”

“Have you ever even seen tits in real life? I mean, do you have any interest whatsoever in flesh and blood women?”

A defeated shrug. “I do like this one girl, but it’s complicated.”

She not into the one-ton-bag-o-fun, mused Sebo. “What’s her name?”

“Yeah, that’s all I need,” he replied, shaking his head. “There, it’s done.” He placed his hand outside the portal and pushed the veneer away.

Sebo watched in awe as the portal filled the void, expanding to the corners and then shimmering into a bedroom about the size of his. For what the software cost, he had been expecting a high level of realism, but the three-dimensional effects were years beyond the cutting edge. He tested the focal point adjustments by stepping to the side. The far wall seemed to shift accordingly, keeping the illusion solid.

Jalay stood and took a few proud steps back, finding his place next to Sebo before folding his arms triumphantly. Together, they watched the lights come on, then the door open. And as lifelike and real as any woman, in walked the demure Jordan, pigtails bouncing behind her.

“She’ll run by herself,” explained Jalay. “If you want her to do something specific, you just reconcile the idea, kinda push her along.”

“Sure,” said Sebo, dumbfounded. He walked forward, sat down in the chair, and stared intently at the girl sitting on the bed just a few virtual feet away from him. She was dressed in green boy-short panties and a tight undershirt, cut deep enough to show cleavage. The bright white fabric clashed with her tan skin, but Sebo didn’t care. The wrapping was inconsequential.

Jordan’s body held more detail than any veneer he had ever reconciled, from the tips of her cherry-blonde hair to the reflective gleam of her teeth. Look up, he commanded mentally. Look up and gaze into the eyes of your master. He laughed at himself.

“Mind if I erase this wall?” asked Jalay, from behind.

Sebo waved his hand dismissively, barely listening.

“You’ve got a lot of pictures of Rosalia. You have a crush on her or something?”

“I hang out with Deron a lot. Deron hangs out with Rosa. Ipso fatso.” He glanced back to see Jalay nodding his head.

“She’s not bad, is she?”

“The very definition of hot,” admitted Sebo, admiring Jordan’s long legs as she reached down them to stretch.

“Too bad she’s with Deron,” continued Jalay.

“What?” He turned in his chair again. “Who are we talking about?”

“Rosalia, she’s...”

Sebo scoffed loudly. “She’s beyond your skill level.”

“I don’t know,” mumbled Jalay. “If she got to know me... I mean, you and I didn’t become friends until we’d talked a couple times.”

“Who said we’re friends? I don’t know what your angle is, Jalay, but I’ll figure it out soon enough.” It was a thing to do, something on the horizon, but the immediate distraction held his gaze. He spoke absently, rambling, “I haven’t really figured out what you want. If you’re looking for protection from Russo, you’ve come to the wrong place. There’s just no debt in that direction, if you know what I mean. And if Deron were around, he wouldn’t help either. We already saw how his confrontations with Russo work out.”

“It wasn’t right,” said Jalay. “I don’t like what Russo did to your friend. You know that...”

“If you say so.”

“You should tell Rosalia that too. I had nothing to do with anything. I just wanted to make pictures, like she does.”

“What’s Rosa got to do with any of this?”

Reaching out, Sebo touched the wall and imagined Jordan doing jumping jacks. She responded by moving to the center of the room and starting her exercises. The smile on her face never wavered and Sebo got the idea that there was nothing he could ask of her that would ever diminish it. Well, maybe a few, but nothing he wanted to reconcile with Jalay still in the room. The fantasies swelled and Sebo had to adjust himself.

“I have the feeling she doesn’t like me much,” replied Jalay.

It was enough to make Sebo turn away from the show. “Are you serious? I’m not certain she will
ever
stop hating you. You, Russo, you’re basically the same person as far as she’s concerned. You and I might become acquaintances, but you’ll always be an enemy to her.”

Jalay stared back with a piteous look on his veneer. Somewhere behind that façade, a lingering hope took its last breath.

“Don’t take it so hard. That’s been years in the making. Just because you’re not with Russo anymore doesn’t change what you did, or helped do, to her and Deron. Those were
your
shops,
your
insults.”

“Russo came up with most of the ideas—”

“None of that matters.” Sebo chuckled at the increasing desperation on Jalay’s face. Then, in a flicker of understanding, it all made sense. “Son of a bitch! You like her!”

Jalay turned red, but he must have felt the warmth in his face because his veneer covered it up quickly. Without another word, he abandoned the wall and scurried out of the room. Sebo listened to the footsteps as they echoed in the stairwell. A moment later, the front door opened and from the window, Sebo watched a surprisingly nimble Jalay hurry along the sidewalk. He didn’t look back.

“Alright,” said Sebo.

It was carelessness that had doomed Jalay. If he didn’t want Sebo to know that he had a crush on Rosa, then he should have just laughed it off. But to go running home like a moody schoolgirl was basically an admission of guilt. That was the Jalay he knew, the bumbling simpleton who was too dense to reason through even the simplest of social situations.

Shrugging the awkward moment away, Sebo shut his bedroom door and with an athletic leap, launched himself onto the bed, flipping on his back as he rebounded. With one hand, he started unbuttoning his pants. The other, he placed on the wall, happy to discover he could control Jordon from across the room.

The jumping jacks had taken their toll on the poor girl. Her arms didn’t reach as high as before and the frequency had dwindled to a slow tempo. Sweat glistened on every inch of visible skin. Beneath her damp undershirt, Sebo could make out her nipples and he desired to see them fully. He concentrated and sent the instructions down the line. Jordan came to a stop, breathed heavily for a moment, and then peeled her shirt off over her head. It fell with a soundless splat on the floor.

Sebo pawed at the wall and brought up the configuration window. Ambient sounds filled the room as the Roommate software gained access to the audio subsystem. Then, remembering himself, Sebo rolled off the bed and shuffled to his door with his pants around his ankles. He engaged both the doorknob lock and the deadbolt before kicking off his pants and returning to the bed.

He was finally ready for the show.

“Workouts are good for the body,” said Jordan in a voice dripping with teenage whimsy. She turned to the side and approached a mirror by her desk. Striking various poses, she admired her reconciled form.

Sebo thought for a moment about the physics involved in having a mirror inside a simulation inside a portal, but was too distracted to follow it to conclusion.

“I could use a shower.” Jordan reached for her underwear and slid them down her legs, not reacting in the slightest to Sebo’s encouraging whistle.

“My sweet Jesus,” he added.

Jordan walked to a door on the back wall of her room and when she passed its threshold, the portal shifted to the interior of a bathroom. A freestanding shower occupied the left side of the space; it had no door or curtain, just pink tile growing out from the corner.

“What a strange shower,” she remarked, her tone childlike.

She reached for the dial and when the water began to flow, Sebo thought he could smell it on the air. Stepping into the already steaming deluge, Jordan ran her fingers through her hair and turned her back to the tile to offer anyone who might be watching a better view.

That fuck-monkey Jalay.

For all of his faults, he had given Sebo a marvelous gift. Porn was one thing, but this level of interactivity went beyond the bounds of reason. It was quicksand with a veneer of nudity, a trap that would suck down any horny teenager who dared venture too close. That Jalay was obsessed with pornography was no surprise, but how he endured with this on his wall at home only gave rise to more questions. With Jordan as a roommate, who would ever want to leave their room?

Sebo felt the ache in his cheeks; he had been smiling non-stop for several minutes.

“I love how this shampoo smells.”

Jordan’s words brought him back to the task in hand. She was lathering up her hair and the suds were sliding down her neck, pooling in the small indentations in her shoulder blades, and then overflowing onto her chest. Sebo followed the bubbles down her smooth stomach to her legs.

“I should probably rinse off,” said Jordan, reaching for the removable showerhead. She brought it down and sprayed her chest, sending a sheet of water down her body.

“No, fucking, way,” said Sebo.

The showerhead descended and the eyes of his virtual roommate began to sparkle. She leaned against the tile wall, slid down a little to spread her legs.

“I love you,” whispered Sebo between breaths.

50 - Ilya

There was shouting coming from the practice field behind the school. The boys were scrimmaging the girls in preparation for the weekend’s lacrosse matches. Only a few members of the female team were as tall as the shortest guys, but their speed and agility kept the match close. There appeared to be a no-contact arrangement in effect, but it didn’t stop the occasional collision, which then led to verbal arguments, and then to the coaches blowing their whistles, trying to get their teams of hormone-crazed teenagers in line. By all appearances they were playing a game, but Ilya could sense the tension in the air, the desire to shed their protective gear and start a mass orgy right there on the damp grass.