Freenet (17 page)

“I’m staying here,” he said with dogged weariness.

“Come home with me and get some rest. I have a huge apartment with all the comforts. I’ll bring you back in the morning to interview Simara. Let her sleep for now. Fermi and his kin will keep an eye on the room.” Roni put on his best camera smile, guaranteed to please and toothy with enthusiasm. “Your girl’s safe here.”

Zen hesitated and glanced at Fermi. “Okay. I guess if Simara speaks well of you.”

“Great. We’ll grab a bite, get the details nailed down. C’mon.” He almost slapped the boy on the shoulder with masculine exuberance, but stopped himself just in time. No touching on Bali, no fraternization. What a weird culture! And no sex, a whole planet of people afraid to share chromosomes mangled by solar rads, humanity’s children flying too close to the sun and forced into sterility. Too bad.

Zen bent over Simara’s prone form and closed his eyes in a moment of reverence, lost in some inner vision of solace. Was he trying to contact her? Praying for her? Roni felt a catch in his throat at the wonderful scene. Better and better.

On the walk to the transit station, the Bali boy slunk along with the shadows whenever he could and glanced periodically at the sun as though it was a public enemy. On the tram, he fidgeted nervously, rubbing at the base of his throat and wincing as he swallowed.

Roni leaned in close to him without drawing attention. “You okay?”

“Are you sure it’s safe out in the open like this?”

“Yes, it’s safe. We have heavy atmosphere on Cromeus, good protection. Don’t worry.”

The boy nodded and seemed satisfied, but his hands never stopped moving. He rubbed his knuckles and picked at his cuticles as he surveyed fellow passengers with furtive interest as though they might be zoo animals on display. Long sleeves were in vogue with high boots and hats, so there was not a lot of stray skin to upset any obscure Bali sensibilities. Perhaps the facial tattoos were weirding him out.

“I see you’ve got a brand new earbug there. Must be top art, huh? Set you back?”

Zen reached to touch his ear as though reminded of something foreign. “No, it was free. They pay me to login, but I can’t really get the hang of it. I struggle just to tune it out. All that fragmented data is so distracting. I don’t know how Simara does it day after day, the rush of virtual experience, the madness and chaos.”

Roni nodded sagaciously. “I know what you mean. The V-net never sleeps.”

“You keep the noise on all the time?”

“No, I hold high filters. Only my editor can get through to me, and a few close friends. I use it a lot for research. I’m always working, you know, in the news business. How long have you been with Simara?”

“Just a few weeks, but I know she’s innocent.”

“Sure.” Faith shone in the kid’s face like an epiphany, lovely stuff. “I’m a firm believer in the burden of proof. Do you think it’s true what they say about omnidroids, that they can see the future?”

Zen looked down at his fidgeting hands as though peering for clues or pondering rarefied possibilities. “No, it can’t be true. She gets herself in too much trouble.”

“Oh?”

“She stumbles in the dark. She hits people without reason. She’s the most frustrating woman I have ever met.”

Roni chuckled. “Sounds like a peach. But how did she know the troopship would crash?”

The Bali boy shrugged. “From detective analysis, not magic. She has a lot of data going through her brain, but she doesn’t use it very well. She gets surprised by simple things just like everyone else. She’s no hypnotist or anything like that.”

“Telepathist, I think is the term.”

Zen shook his head at the impossibility. “Why would someone who can see the future spend her life running the hard trade route to Bali? Why live with daily danger and crash into rocks?”

“That, my friend,” Roni said with a beatific smile, “is the real story.”

He pieced together the panorama of his opening gambit over food cubes and squirts of allkool back at his apartment—the son of a politician, follower of the desert god Kiva, an expert in salvage and recycling technology. There was even a love angle and crude mismanagement of feminine wiles, a complicated string of ex-girlfriends and casual sex with an older woman—amazing what strangers would tell a newsman as they tilted on the edge of exhaustion. People had always opened up to Roni, even as a precocious school reporter. He had a friendly face and could boast a genuine smile at will. He knew how to prod with gentle interest while appearing suave and sincere. The rest was just human nature at work, a cathartic need to unburden and cleanse the soul.

Roni tucked Zen into a comfy couch and left him to dreamland as he began transcribing the evidence for his editor. Gladyz would love this one. She was a sucker for interpersonal conundrums and mismatched sexuality, much like their own tangled relationship twisting back through the years. She had slept with him only once, during his early apprenticeship as an upstart anchorman. He had charmed her and she had wooed him—it was difficult to tell in retrospect who had instigated that elusive moment of discovery. But it never led to a call-back, and the awkward stage had long since passed. Now they were working too hard to notice the possibility of a rematch still lurking in limbo, hiding behind a smokescreen of coarse jesting and crude innuendo. Just as well.

“I think we’ve got a wild one,” he told her when he got to work the next morning. “A conspiracy against omnidroids, an attempt at genocide on the orders of Transolar Corporation.”

Gladyz ducked her forehead. “Are you kidding me? They’ll crucify us!”

“What if it’s true?”

“Then we’d be dead already.”

“They can’t touch this smile. I have a degree in delusions of grandeur.”

“You got that right.”

“This is the big one, baby. They’ll remember us forever.” He batted eyelashes with dramatic flair. “And it will look great on your resumé.”

Gladyz smirked. “That’s good. ’Cause I’ll probably be out of a job.”

“I’ve got enough to make solid accusations. Two dead, one in the hospital, and twenty-two with stories to tell. But no hard evidence yet—these guys are pros. I say we go public and see what climbs out of the sewer. Take a look at my synopsis and tell me what we can do for vidi. How’s the orangutan story playing out?”

“Back in the box, dead end on the newsfeed. They lured him out of hiding with some orange pussy and a banana cube.”

Roni chuckled. “How the mighty biogen are fallen.”

“All men are the same.”

“Not me, hon. I’m different. I’m better.”

She smiled. “I’ll look at your outline and take it upstairs. Give me half an hour.”

Roni ambled through the cafeteria line for a quick omelette and took a cream latte to the makeup salon, where Derryn fussed over a pimple on his chin while he tried to sip his drink.

Gladyz barged in with enthusiasm after only a few minutes. “They love it upstairs! I’m scrambling the crew and summoning Ngazi for a full-spectrum netcast. Derryn, you’re in for makeup on the girl. We’ll start with a bedside scene to rouse public sympathy. No names, no slander. I’m thinking a bouquet of flowers to get funerary undertones. Then we’ll swing to a close-up of the cute Bali boy sitting in vigil like a sad puppy by the casket. Ngazi will have the feelie crowd weeping at his devotion.”

Roni tipped his cup in acknowledgement to her exuberance as Derryn stroked his skin with a soft brush. He loved his job.

“They want to do a series,” Gladyz said. “A complete exposé—good foreplay, strong prodding, followed by lingering doubt. They want in-depth coverage on this one, not the usual wham-slam-thank-you-ma’am. They believe in you, Roni.” She fanned a faxslip with exultation. “We have a budget!”

“I’ll grab Zen from my apartment and get him cleaned up.” Roni checked the calendar on his eyescreen. “Meet you and the crew at the hospital in four hours?”

“Fine,” Gladyz said, “but we need authentic clothing for the shoot, animal skins or tiger fur. What size is he?”

“He’s large.” Roni hunched up his shoulders. “Bigger than me. The Balians have increased lung capacity to breathe the thin air. He’s built like an iron statue up top with a compact waist and muscular legs.”

Derryn whistled with admiration. “Sounds like a hunk in a Tarzan outfit.”

“This is going to be great,” Gladyz said as she turned to the door. “I’m going shopping.”

Roni packed a box with breakfast for his protégé and hurried back to his apartment. Zen woke bleary-eyed and cranky, poor kid, and Roni clucked with sympathy as he roused him to action. The Bali boy might not have slept for days, or fitfully at best, trapped in a doomed transport all the way from Trade Station in a wall-slot no bigger than a toilet stall. He seemed disoriented and confused, but improved gradually after a shot of caffeine and a few sugar pastries. What the heck did Balians cook on their wilderness world? Lizard meat and cactus? He’d heard stories of psychedelic mushrooms from the deep caves where miners toiled on excavation machines to harvest silver and gold from cold volcanoes. And wild, fermented drinks full of uncontrolled organisms, a sure recipe for trouble on any planet.

Zen picked up an orange from the box and sniffed it. “Is this right from the tree?”

“Yeah. There are groves all around the city.”

Zen nodded his approval and bit into the skin. He looked off into the imaginary distance as he chewed through the fibrous cover to find succulence below, tasting to the fullest as he slowly devoured the entire fruit bite by bite in sure ecstasy.

Roni winced as Zen crunched seeds between his teeth. “More coffee?”

Zen held up his mug for a refill. “So we’re going to see Simara today?”

“Yep, with a full crew. Don’t be nervous about the cameras. Imagine friends or robots, whatever works best for you.”

Zen puzzled on that for a moment, but shrugged it off. “Let’s take her some food for when she wakes up.”

“No, the hospital is very strict about what goes in and out the door. It’s like a quarantine zone. Everyone’s concerned about biospheres these days. Don’t worry, they have lots of good food with all the necessary vitamins and minerals. This is all for you. Just eat whatever you want. There’ll be plenty more later.”

Again the Bali boy paused with query on his brow, probably a victim of scarcity at home and that pasty goop they rationed on spaceships. “Where does it come from?”

“We have a cafeteria at work for the staff. You know, like a restaurant.” Still no response from Zen. “A banquet table?”

“A festival?”

“Sure, that works. We have a celebration every day with all the food we can eat. It’s in our contract.”

“And you can share freely?”

Roni smiled at the opportunity to cement a solid relationship with the boy. “Just with our friends. You’re special to us. You’re a hero. My editor is off buying new clothes for you as we speak.”

Zen picked another pastry from the box. He seemed to like the sweet stuff—probably go spastic into a hyper-sugar fit any minute. Did they even have sugar on Bali? What about allergens? What about inoculations? Oh, well, one day at a time.

Zen’s paper clothes had pretty much shredded by now, so they found a jacket that was big enough to drape over his muscular shoulders and a pair of baggy sweatpants with an elasticized waistband. The kid had skin like tanned leather, roughened beyond his years, but he had bumps in all the right places for the camera and a sensitive voice for the microphone—the perfect media package.

They took a tram to the hospital and hooked up with Gladyz and Derryn to doll Zen up in a public change room. Fake leopard skin, really? As if there had ever been a leopard born this side of the Macpherson Doorway! Fashion sense was nonsense half the time, but what could you do? They put pants on him at least, plain khaki dungarees, and gelled his auburn hair into soft, sexy curls. Zen looked fantastic by the time they were done, and Derryn was practically drooling as he fawned over the kid.

The roadies crammed the wardroom with equipment as two little elf girls looked on in blank-faced wonder. Simara was sleeping soundly and snoring like a kitten in her coma. Derryn gave her cheeks a quick touch-up with his magic brush and painted her lips like an artist. Wow, the dark-haired pixie was beautiful in the right light!

Gladyz escorted Ngazi through the crowd and set him up like a lightning rod in the centre of the room, where he stood stiff and freakish, oblivious to his surroundings as he stared off at distant digital shores. His autistic talents were arcane, but in effect he amplified the emotional signals of the participants and sent them out over the V-net in a biofeedback loop with the wirehead audience to give dimensional depth and spiritual meaning to the show. He added scent and temperature for connoisseur users, along with other tweaks below the threshold of consciousness—full-spectrum awareness was an art form in itself. Ngazi never spoke, of course, but his black skin shone with flop sweat in proximity to humans and he tended to hum when he got excited, so he had to be carefully positioned off-camera and clear of the boom mikes.

Gladyz wheeled in an intravenous bag on a stand to use as a prop behind Simara’s bed, and taped a data tablet to the headboard to add a clinical air to the scene. She positioned Zen in a bedside chair in half profile with a leopard shoulder to the camera, and placed Simara’s limp hand between his palms. A bouquet of fresh flowers bloomed with burgeoning romance on a table in the background as Gladyz primped the scene for detail, pulling folds out of blankets and tucking in loose corners, adjusting lamps to banish facial shadows. When everything was perfect to her meticulous editorial eye, she counted down five on her fingers and pointed to Roni with authority. He smiled on cue, and Ngazi poked his nose up as though sniffing promise on the ether.

“Welcome to the
Daily Buzz
and thanks for tuning in. Turn off your peripherals for this one, folks, because we are breaking big news! This is Roni Hendrik reporting live from New Jerusalem West Hospital where Zen Valda from Bali is sitting in vigil on his honeymoon with his young wife, Simara Ying. How is she doing today, Zen?”