Dont wait too long. One day we really will run out of venues.
Xandra winked as the door shut on her, leaving Clair and Zep alone in the restless crowd.
Now what? he asked her.
Now what what?
The night doesnt have to end here. I have some scotch back at my dorm, and we could both use some warming up Hey!
She had kicked him. Dont do that, Zep.
Yeah, sorry. He retreated into himself a little. I guess I should talk to her.
Clair hated pushing him away, but she knew it was the right thing to do.
We were buzzing on adrenaline and too much beer. Thats all.
The booth opened in front of them. Neither of them made a move.
If I say after you, will you kick me again?
No, because Im tired and want to get home.
She stretched up to kiss him on the cheek and quickly slipped away.
The door slid shut. Clair was surrounded by reflections of herself. She looked completely washed out, something the bright, white light coming at her from all corners didnt help at all. She closed her eyes and wondered what she was feeling underneath that shades pallid facade.
Zep liked her. What did that say about him? What did it say about her that she had really kissed him now, even if it was in a moment of weakness, just once? Where did that leave Libby? He clearly wasnt over her if he only guessed he should talk to her. Clair was an idiot for getting involved.
She felt as though her insides were being torn apart by invisible hands, which was a thousand times worse than how she had felt before.
It cant happen again, she told herself. Clair Larhonda Hill doesnt do things like this.
It would best for everyone, she decided, if Zep just got over whatever it was he felt for her and made things good with Libby. Clair could live with rejection if it meant keeping her best friend. There would be other boys. There would never be another Libby.
When she woke the next morning, there were over five hundred bumps in her infield. It was like on her birthday, only that was months ago, and there were no important holidays listed that she might have forgotten. She rolled onto her back with a groan, thinking, Who died?
The bumps appeared to float in the darkness above her, names in a soft Helvetica font against a minimalist, blocky background in burned oranges and yellows. The colors of sunrise, automatically selected by her lenses, probably by some algorithm that thought this would ease her into wakefulness rather than dump it on her like a bucket of cold water. If so, it wasnt working.
The alarm that had woken her came again. It was time to get ready for school. Why was she so tired? The party, right. The crashlanders. The kiss . . .
Her eyes flickered open. She felt faintly sick, and not just from the beers she had drunk. The list of bumps remained in her field of vision, as though demons had scribbled across the ceiling while she slept. The text slid from ceiling to drapes as she sat up with a jerk.
Zeps name was on the list of bumpsnot as a recipient, but as a subject.
People were talking about him in the Air. And she was part of the conversation. Anxiously, she winked on one of the bumps and skimmed through a short vlog covering what had happened the previous night.
At first she was relieved. It was just a brief account of the ball, with emphasis on the incident of the boy who had almost died. There were interviews with people either praising Zep for his bravery or damning the entire clique. Xandra Nantakarn was unflustered in a brief clip doing the rounds. The Lucky Jump wasnt to blame, said a representative of VIA, the Virtual-transport Infrastructure Authority, whose job it was to make the rules about how d-mat was used. A peacekeeper spokesperson wasnt so sure.
It was news of a fairly minor sort. Clair supposed that she must have been mentioned somewhere in one of the posts, leading to the general topics prominence in her infield. And it was pleasing in a way. Popularity in social media wasnt something she went out of her way to seek, like Libby did. She had never popped this way before.
Then she saw the phrase, Zeppelin Barker and his girlfriend, crashlander Clair Hill . . .
Oh no, she said, skipping to the next bump and following its link.
This one came with a snapshot of her pulling on the rope, taken through the lenses of someone at the top of the dome. This time, they got the name of Zeps girlfriend right, but they had attached it to the wrong face. The caption on the picture of Clair read, Liberty Zeist, discoverer of the latest crashlander ball that almost cost her boyfriends life . . .
No, no, no!
The mixed-up name wasnt going to save her. Clairs face was still there, recognized by the Air and sent to her as it would be to anyone interested in Clair Hill, crashlanders, or Zeppelin Barker. Among a multitude of correctly labeled pictures of Libby were enough of Clair to be certain that Libby would see them and ask the question: What had Clair done last night to make people think she was Zeps girlfriend?
Maybe Libby had already seen them.
Clair scrolled through the long list of bumps, looking for Libbys name. It wasnt there, but Tash and Ronnies were.
Thought you went home with Libby, Tash had sent earlier that morning. Didnt know you were still there, being a hero!
Ronnies was more guarded. Anything to this, or is it just another Airhead false positive?
Clair didnt know how to respond. She hugged her knees and wished she could erase the bumps not just from her infield but from the Air itself. But the vast web of wireless connectivity covering the Earth tangled everyone in information. There was no escaping it or the myriad algorithms that guided data to its destination. It didnt matter if two or two hundred thousand people were following the story, Libby was absolutely, positively certain to notice.
How much worse would it look if Clair didnt say something to her right away?
When Clair checked Libbys public profile, she found a caption of an old woman on a swing with a shotgun on her lap and the words Disturb at own risk. Not encouraging.
Clair got out of bed, threw her clothes in the fabber for recycling, and dialed a set for school. While she was in the shower, she sent a message to Libby.
Its not what it seems. Really truly honestly. Can we talk?
She deleted everything from her infield so thered be no mistaking a reply when it came.
Libby hadnt said anything by the time Clair got out of the shower and dressed in her freshly made clothes. The apartment was empty and tomb quiet around her. Clairs mother regularly started work in the middle of the night. Her stepfather lived in Munich most weekdays. Clair was an only child and heartily glad of it.
For breakfast she had perfectly scrambled eggs with freshly toasted bread, low-salt butter at room temperature, and the best black coffee a fabber could find. The coffee was the only thing she truly tasted.
Libby, she sent, and was unable to stop once she had started this time, did you get my message? Are you up yet? Are you feeling all right? Please call me back as soon as you can.
She desperately wished she could stay home with her head under the covers, but skipping school wouldnt solve anything. Being smart had gotten her parents parents through the Water Wars, Allison Hill, Clairs mother, liked to say. That and never giving up. Allison claimed that Clair had inherited her maternal grandmothers stubbornness, and that even when they argued, it was something to be grateful for.
5
WOODWARD AND MAIN, Manteca, she told the booth, avoiding the accusing stare of the reflection directly in front of her.
My nose is too big, she thought for the thousandth time.
A sneaky new voice internally riposted, You could fix that.
She scowled. That wasnt cool. Improvement couldnt be real, no matter what Libby thought, and even if it was, beauty was only skin-deep.
sssssss-pop
The door opened onto bright morning sunlight shining through dappled leaves, fresh sea air, and the sound of people arguing. Her booth was one of twenty in a line under the familiar d-mat sign of two overlapping circles
in a chunky Venn diagram. There was a man in a green suit directly in front of her. She stepped out, and he stepped inside without acknowledging her. Woodward and Main was one of several hub stations servicing not just the Manteca New Campus High School but downtown tourism as well. Sacramento Bay was busy with amateur sailors day-tripping north to Yuba City or east to Rio Vista and the Joice Islands. The fishing was good, and so were the mangroves.
Clair hugged the strap of her backpack and pressed through the crowd. The station was even more congested than usual. Two UFO-like eye-in-the-sky (EITS) drones buzzed softly over the discontented crowd.
D-mat jumps took about two minutes, give or take thirty seconds, and this one had taken her just over two. Something other than unreasonable lag time was responsible for the disturbance, then. A blue peacekeepers helmet stood out above a small knot of people three booths along. Clair rubbernecked to see what was going on but couldnt make out anything untoward, and couldnt justify standing where she was for long. People were pressing forward into the booths, anxious to be on their way, as she was.
School was crowded. A multilingual sea of kids navigated channels that curved organically between buildings four, five, and six stories high. Juniors, like Clair and Libby, were on the other side of the campus, near the gym. Clair leaned toward the practical artswriting, music composition, and editingwith a smattering of history and soft sciences that most of her friends found boring. She didnt know what she would do with the combination, but she figured she had time to decide. It wasnt like money was an issue as it had been in her grandfathers day, when fabbers hadnt existed to make anything anyone wanted, and people had had to have jobs just to eat.
You kids are getting smarter, younger every year, he liked to complain, but you never actually do anything with those smarts of yours.
Thats not true, Clairs mother had responded the last time. What about that kid who solved the Riemann hypothesis a month ago?
There you go, Clair, he had grumbled. Why cant you be more like him?
Her, Grandpa, Clair had corrected him. Anyway, I dont like math.
Finding the right vocation is like finding the right spouse, Allison had said with a smile. Better to have none than the wrong one.
Like friends, Clair thought now. And boyfriends.
Libby wasnt at the classroom when Clair arrived, didnt turn up with everyone else, and remained silent as they took their seats and the teacher started talking about survivor narratives of the Water Wars. When Clair checked Libbys public profile, it listed her location as school, but that was likely to be a fake for her parents sake, the same as it was when she went out partying.
She sent me something last night. Ronnie bumped Clair. It was weird. Hang onIll show you.
A forwarded message appeared in Clairs infield, which had changed to greens and grays to match the New Manteca campus. Bumps kept coming in about the crashlander ball. Another time she might have been pleased by her newfound notoriety, but not today.
Clair fixed on the message from Ronnie and blinked her left eyelid.
It worked was all Libby had said, about two hours after the party. Now Im beautiful!
I think she was talking about Improvement, Ronnie said. Check her transit data.
Like Ronnie and Tash, Clair had close-friend privileges to Libbys profile, which told her where Libby went and who with. Useful when Libby was running late, now it told Clair exactly where she had been the day before. There was a string of seventeen rapid jumps in the evening, when Clair and Libby had been looking for the crashlander ball, but there was also a long series of Lucky Jumps in the afternoon and another after Libby had said good night. Clair quickly tallied them up. Ninety jumps in one day. At two minutes a jump, that totaled around three hours lag.
Tash whistled. No wonder she had a migraine!
What did she mean about being beautiful? Clair asked Ronnie. It cant have worked, right?
Impossible, said Ronnie. Thats why she bumped me, I think.
She wants you to believe because she really wants to believe . . . ?
Maybe she convinced herself the birthmark was actually fading, said Tash. She must have been ultralagged.
So then she crashes, said Clair. And what does she wake up to . . . ?
Bumps about you and Zep, said Ronnie with characteristic bluntness.
And of course the birthmarks still there, which makes her embarrassed as well as angry.
Clair was satisfied that they had her best friends mood mapped out but decidedly unsatisfied by what that left her with. She was unable to do anything until Libby responded, and she found it impossible to concentrate as a result. Her right foot hooked around her left ankle and jiggled restlessly. Not turning up for school wasnt especially unusual; everyone skipped now and again, even Clair. But not like this, without an explanation, a single word . . . that wasnt Libbys style. She was a broadcaster, not a brooder.
Clair? Clair, are you paying attention?
She blinked and refocused. The teacher was talking to her, and the entire class was staring.
Im sorry, she said, gathering up her backpack and avoiding the eyes of her friends. Im not feeling well.
That was a lie, but staying would be a waste of time. There was no faking out a live teacher. That was the whole point of school, Clairs mom said. Anyone could cheat by copying answers from the Air; school was for learning how to cheat people.