The Digital Plague (40 page)

Never going drinking below Twenty-third Street again. I don’t know why Gerry likes slumming it down in those places, playing tough and drinking that paint. None of the animals around us is fooled, I am sure—I can see their looks as Gerry plays his little game. I am so tired of Gerry. I may have to give him the slip, try on someone new for a while. I felt frail and dried up when I finally got home and had to take four e-tabs to get to sleep, and this morning I feel even more dried up and need four a-tabs to even get out of bed. Thank goodness for tabs.

Wednesday, 3:33 a.m.:
Only because the universe hates me, my shell is acting strangely. Quoting fucking poetry at random moments. Like ten minutes after I go to bed. I’ve reset and restored the damn thing a hundred times, and it behaves for a few days and then starts quoting again. Today I got a gem about an endless trail of sunsets. I put it into shutdown mode for my sanity—I can make my own Vid calls and order my own meals for a while, I suppose. Like Daddy used to say, I’m full of pluck.

Wednesday, 1:33 p.m.:
Really, Gerry is simply disgusting. I think I might hate him.

Wednesday, 8:22 p.m.:
Old pal Vincent asked me out to drinks tonight at Umano, the new place in the Forties. Supposedly they don’t use Droids or mechanicals at all, just people. Though what kind of people would be willing to serve food I’m sure I don’t know, and I don’t want to. Why are all the men I know so interested in thrill seeking and slumming?

Today I’m supposed to meet with Carol whatshername about the finances. I don’t feel up to it. I’ve been a little hot and achy all day long. There’s always more money. Hearing about it piled up here and there just makes me sleepy.

Then again, I can’t just sit in this apartment all night, watching the story Vids and making my own cocktails. I’m going to take a few x-tabs to perk up a bit and put on this divine new coat I acquired—bright red and cut to order, six hundred thousand yen. It’s almost time for another visit to the loathsome Dr. Killicks, but I think I look all right for at least a few more weeks, and the coat fits so well it won’t matter.

Thursday, 12:34 p.m.:
Oh baby, there aren’t enough a-tabs in the world to wake me up today. Vincent—who knew he was such a lush? I feel terrible today, worse than yesterday. Maybe it’s too many tabs. They say there’s no harm in them, but I have been pushing it lately. I’m just so bored. When I’m not out I want to sleep, and when I wake up I want to get going! But it might not do a girl any harm to lay off for a while, eat healthy. Nothing but nutrition tablets and that nice imported water for yours truly, starting today. The moment I can get Vincent out of my bathroom, and have it cleaned. Or perhaps just bulldozed and completely replaced. On top of everything else, I’m coughing up a lung.

Thursday, 11:00 p.m.:
Unstoppable Vincent dragged me out again. He can be pretty persuasive when he wants to have some drinks, and I was feeling a little better, and a few a-tabs took care of the rest. I wasn’t looking for a long exhausting night, though, and we went to a little bar on Fifth, one of those unmarked places all the plebs and strivers are always trying to get into. There were barely any people there, but Vinnie tells me this is the way it always is, that’s it’s pull—you don’t have to be crowded in like everywhere else in fucking Manhattan. It was nice, I have to admit, except for this ridiculous girl staggering around on these lengthened legs telling everyone that she was just in from Tokyo on the long-haul and the new rage out there is bald. Bald! Of course,
she
was bald. Telling us that next year every woman worth her salt would be decorating her head with paint and sparkles, diamonds. Of course, she may be right. I’ve made a note to talk to Dr. Killicks about it.

Considering I had no stamina, I made Vinnie take me home early. He’s out again, of course, and I probably won’t see him for some time. Once you let little Vinnie out of your sight he tends to get lost. I thought about calling Gerry but didn’t really feel like it. I’m tired, and I’ve got a cough that hurts every time. I might have to see Killicks tomorrow anyway, just to get something for this tickle in my chest. What a bore!

Friday, 4:30 p.m.:
Hell, what a strange day. I am feeling sick,
really
sick. Coughing and spewing up the most disgusting things. I woke up feeling like I’d had another rib removed, and when I looked at myself in the mirror, I almost screamed. Killicks guarantees his treatments last a minimum of three years, but I looked almost my age in the mirror and I decided I had to get down to his office and let him know what I thought of his fucking “procedures” and get him to give me something for whatever’s taken up residence inside me.

Exasperated, I called for my hover but the hover guy wasn’t answering, so I had to fire him, which is a huge pain in the ass. You’d think these people would be glad for a job, but they treat it like an inconvenience. I end up firing everyone eventually and I am starting to think I should just replace everyone with Droids where I can. Monique went all-Droid a few years ago and says she’s never been happier with the service.

So I had to go down to the fucking street and catch a pedicab. Horrible. The streets weren’t as crowded as usual, at least, but nothing beats sitting upwind from a man whose diet is no doubt on a par with cockroaches and rats—it may, based on the smell,
be
cockroaches and rats—but who also seems to like the scent so much he refuses to bathe. Ever. While my smelly driver huffed and puffed in front of me, coughing almost as hard as I was, I was barely able to keep my new red coat out of the slush in the streets. Killicks’s is almost seven blocks away—it was an eternity. Then, not only do I have to walk in through the ground lobby like some piece of trash from downtown, I have to
pay
my fat friend for the privilege of smelling him for seven blocks.

My goodness, Killicks’s office was crowded, everyone coughing. Something must be going around. One man in an absolutely gorgeous Silvio Martini suit—million yen if it was custom-cut, which of course it had to be—actually passed out and slumped onto the floor. This was after I’d been there for some time, and people whispered that he’d been there for almost an hour! An hour! Whatever Killicks is thinking, he’d better stop thinking it. I don’t care how popular you are, you have to treat your customers with respect. An hour! I’d be passing out, too. Though the poor gentleman looked pretty badly off as I left, and I think I saw blood.

Friday, 9:33 p.m.:
Exasperated again. Someone is shouting in the streets down below. I popped the police up on my Vid screen but there’s a static graphic there instead of an interface, complaining about the volume of complaints. Complaints about the service, no doubt. I have been in bed for hours, sweating, coughing. Every breath feels like someone put a knife inside my chest. The last thing I need is some wretched subhuman from downtown—and no one in
my
buildng would wander the streets, screaming—keeping me up all night when I need rest most. I look twenty years older, dark circles under my eyes and on my throat.

Now, I may have to swallow my pride and go wait in Killicks’s office no matter how rude success has made the man. And I might have a little tightening done here and there while I’m in there. The skin under my chin seems a little loose these days.

Saturday, 2:09 a.m.:
Okay, the man has finally stopped shouting. The last hour or so he was almost unintelligible, as if he were gargling thick oil when he spoke. I haven’t been able to sleep. I can’t breathe through all this phlegm and I feel hot, so hot. I can’t believe the police let him shout like that all night. They must have their hands full. I wonder if those animals downtown have set the city on fire again.

Saturday, 11:03 a.m.:
Really, I didn’t feel too bad this morning, and I thought maybe I’d gotten past it, slept through it. I felt okay until I got to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. I almost screamed. My throat is bruised and looks kind of swollen. The moment I saw it, it was like all of a sudden I felt awful.

Determined, I called around for a hover, but no one answered. I think most everyone got out of the city last night, but no one thought to tell
me.
Feeling weak I went out onto the street for the second time in two days. Big mistake. No pedicabs. Not a single fucking pedicab
anywhere.
I would have paid one of those sweaty slobs a million yen to drive me seven blocks, but there were none to be had, so I had to walk. In my sixty-thousand-yen Pierre Olivier stilettos, which fell apart about three blocks along, one heel just snapping like a twig. By this point I was sweating and gasping, coughing, but no one would help me. In fact, everyone kept away from me, crossing to the other side of the street. Some had these ridiculous masks on, white pieces of cloth strapped to their faces.

Oh, the punch line? Killicks’s office was closed. Fucking closed.

Saturday, 7:33 p.m.:
Even getting home was hell. The city feels empty—there are people everywhere, but for some reason it feels light and thin. And every third person has on one of those masks, like that’s going to do anything. I finally got around to watching the Vids, and according to them this is just the flu, the regular old flu. And I’m late to take my position down on the street to hold hands with everyone else in New York and start singing. The flu. I know the Vids aren’t worth much, but do they really think we’re that stupid?

Sunday, 12:45 p.m.:
Shit, I think it’s time to get the hell out of the city for a while, go travel a bit. I’m worse than ever and it’s got to be this rotten city air, poisoned by all the lowlifes I have to rub shoulders with. Besides, I can’t raise anybody—it’s like the whole town has skipped. I’m wheezing my way down to the street again, because of course again there are no hovers to be had, and

Sunday, 12:53 p.m.:
Right here in front of me, there is a dead man in the street.

Sunday, 1:09 p.m.:
Unbelievable. A Department of Public Health hover has arrived. They’re scooping him up using Droids, and they’re all wearing protective clothing—rubbery suits, masks, gloves. They won’t talk to any of us, though most people are just avoiding them, crossing the street. He’s … disgusting. His neck is like a balloon, and crusted blood is all over his front. It looks like his whole jaw is just … gone.

Shit, I’m not feeling well at all. I think it might be time to get out of the city. A little vacation. I’m heading home to make a few Vid calls. Vinnie has a small shore house somewhere in the Caribbean, he’s told me. If Manhattan is about to go all redline again, with another riot and police everywhere, it’ll be nice to ride it out somewhere far away.

Sunday, 2:35 p.m.:
Total washout—no one is in. I thought Vinnie answered—the Vid screen jiggled and I thought I saw a flash of his apartment, but it might have been just a dropped connection, and he didn’t pick up when I retried. I even tried Father, which tells you how desperate I am, but the old bastard wasn’t picking up, either. Probably out in the fields whipping the Droids. I think Daddy wishes he still had people working for him instead of robots, just so he could go out there in those fucking boots and inspire them a little.

Well, looks like we’re dipping into the trust fund. I’m going to see if there aren’t a few cops willing to stick me on an SSF manifest heading somewhere better. Oh, but I look like hell. My neck is all black and blue and I’m red and shiny. My hair! Oh, my hair is a fright. Thousands of yen and it looks like a wig. I’m going to have to spend some time getting myself into shape, and then my new red coat and we’ll see if we can’t charm some lieutenant or captain into slipping me onto a police ride.

Sunday, 5:46 p.m.:
Insane, fucking brutes. Just as I step outside, wearing flats for a change since apparently we’ll all have to spend the rest of our lives
walking
everywhere, all the Vids go fritzy and there’s a goddamn lockdown. We’re all ordered into our homes. I’ve been through this bullshit plenty of times—every time those assholes set downtown on fire again, they lock the city down and order us into our homes and no one pays any attention.

Toddling on my sore feet, I made my way over to The Rock, where all the cops hang around looking tough. All I needed was a friendly young man with a gold badge and clearance to sign me onto a hover. I saw a likely-looking group—three men and a woman, one of them looking a little beat-up and weathered, but I’m used to my police looking worse for the wear—and hurried over. It had started that scum-yellow snow again, bad for the skin, and I guess I lost my footing and ended up stumbling into one of them, a nasty-looking giant with red hair. I went down on my ass, feeling dizzy, feverish, my chest seizing up into a painful fist. And then there was a team of those hover monkeys they toss out, the ones that never speak to you. I was dazed, and they just plucked me up, called me
ma’am,
and took me away.

No way—
ma’am!
I felt a hundred goddamn years old. By the time I got my lungs working again, I started coughing until I almost blacked out while they loaded me into a big, smelly hover that fucking
ruined
my new coat. By the time I had the strength to protest, they were all gone with a vague promise that an officer would be around to check our IDs and decide what to do with us. Half an hour later some fat asshole in a leather overcoat, hacking and wheezing like there was a smaller, much sicker man inside him, showed up and did brain scans on each of us, grunting your fate. He told us he could arrest us for violating an emergency instruction, but he’d just send us home and expect us to stay there. Fucking assholes.