The Wikkeling (19 page)

It was empty. There was no layer of smog curling on the ground. No horns blared. No engines rumbled. Henrietta stepped onto the sidewalk, looking up and down the street. Several blocks distant, she saw some cross-traffic out past the R
OAD
C
LOSED
signs. She scratched her head and turned to Gary. “How are you feeling?” she asked. She hadn't talked to him since his headache.

Instead of answering, Gary took a few comical steps out into the road and did a little dance. He waved his arms, jiggling them like rubber bands. “I just ran across to your house!” he said.

“Don't stand out there,” said Henrietta. “The cars could come back.” She looked up the street nervously.

“Oh, right,” said Gary.

As they walked to the bus stop, Gary's levity diminished. He grabbed Henrietta's hand when they arrived. “I'm scared,” he said. “I hope the bus doesn't come.”

“Me, too,” said Henrietta.

They hoped in vain. The crowded bus arrived, and they reluctantly boarded.
No cars honked in annoyance, and no targeted advertisements were deployed.

“Let's sit somewhere different,” said Gary quietly.

They buckled into a pair of seats a few rows further back than usual. Gary closed his eyes.

Not long after Henrietta departed for school, her mother Aline sat at the living room computer and checked her mail.

The first thing she saw was an advertisement for a Halloween trick-or-treating event at a nearby mall. Aline didn't like Halloween. It was dangerous, and she was perturbed that it endured year after year. Henrietta would insist on going out, she knew. Was it the ads? Something they were learning at school? Aline couldn't understand why kids liked Halloween. (She'd forgotten that she liked it herself when she was young.)

The next mail item was from the city. It read:

“DEAR HOMEOWNER,”

YOUR HOUSEHOLD HAS BECOME NONCOMPLIANT WITH THE MINIMUM STREETSIDE OFFSET ALLOWANCE (MSOA) SUBSEQUENT TO AN EMINENT DOMAIN APPROPRIATION BY THE CITY. NONCOMPLIANT STRUCTURES ARE DEMOLISHED IN ACCORDANCE TO THE DEMOLITION AND RESTRUCTURE ACT (DRA). MITIGATION FEES ARE EQUIVALENT MARKET VALUE (EMV) PLUS EXPENSES. THE EMV OF YOUR DRA AWARD IS:
$1,000,000

THE DATE OF IMPLEMENTATION OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE DRA PURSUANT TO BRINGING THE STRUCTURE(S) ON THIS PROPERTY INTO COMPLIANCE WITH THE MSOA IS:
OCTOBER 30

AND THE PROPERTY HAS BEEN SCHEDULED FOR DEMOLITION ON:
OCTOBER 31

PLEASE MAKE NECESSARY ARRANGEMENTS, AND RELOCATE OR LIQUIDATE PERSONAL POSSESSIONS IN ADVANCE OF THE FORMER DATE.

SIGNED,
THE DEPARTMENT OF INSTA-STRUCTURE AND HOUSING AFFAIRS (DIHA)
ADDITION DISTRICT 002

The letter didn't make much sense to Aline. Minimum street-side offset? Eminent domain appropriation? Her eyes fell again on the figure in the middle of the screen:

$1,000,000

Aline and Tom had tried to sell the place several times. It was the topic of many of their fights. For Aline, living in her rickety childhood home was a chronic aggravation, and she felt sure it was the cause of Henrietta's House Sickness. But it was valued at $900,000, and the cheapest new houses were a million dollars.

This letter changed everything. The city would pay them more to tear down the crumbling place than they could have gotten from a buyer.

Tom entered the living room with his work clothes on, his cereal bowl in one hand, chewing. Aline gestured to the screen, and he peered at it over her shoulder. She watched his eyes.

“Can you believe it?” she said.

Tom took a bite of cereal. “Barely,” he said, as he chewed. “They don't give us a ton of time. Is today September 30th?”

“A month,” said Aline.

“We'll have to talk more about it,” said Tom, “but it seems like good news.”

“It seems like great news,” said Aline.

They were silent then, and both of them had the same secret thought: they imagined, for a moment, moving out on their own. Not being together anymore. If they split the money, they could each get a nice condominium.

Tom was running a little late, and he walked into the master bedroom and grabbed his coat, noticing as he did that Henrietta's BedCam seemed to be working again. He approached the viewing screen. It showed Henrietta's empty, rumpled bed.

“Finally,” he muttered, not giving the matter further thought. He certainly did not speculate about whether the departure of a wild housecat from the attic had anything to do with it. Back in Henrietta's room, the counting program on her computer switched from 36,565 to 36,566.

Outside Tom was surprised to see the empty, silent street. Several blocks had been closed off, and he concluded that some road work would occur later. He entered his car, a compact red two-door, started the engine, and backed onto the vacant asphalt.

“HELLO, AND THANK YOU FOR DRIVING,” said the onboard computer.

“Work,” said Tom.

“TURN LEFT,” said the car. “WOULD YOU LIKE TO HEAR SOME ADVERTISEMENTS FOR PRODUCTS THAT MAY INTEREST YOU WHILE YOU DRIVE?”

“Yes,” said Tom, and then, “sixty percent volume, double speed. Dial work, full volume, priority.”

“THANK YOU FOR USING THE ADVANCED FEATURES,” said the car. A stream of advertisements issued from the car's speakers, sped up and smashed together, at sixty percent of normal volume. It formed a linguistic wallpaper against which Tom's phone dialed his work.

HAS SOMEONE YOU HAVE KNOWN DIED RECENTLY? WITH PERFUME CREMATION, ASHES ARE TRANSFORMED INTO PERFUME—THE SCENT OF LOVE. IF YOU ARE PLAGUED BY RATS TRY RAT-B-GON! RATS EAT IT, DIE, AND BECOME PENCIL ERASERS. WERE YOU RECENTLY FINISHED FROM SCHOOL? WONDERING WHAT'S NEXT? ATTEND THE GARBAGE ELIMINATION INSTITUTE—WHEN SCHOOL ENDS, THIS BEGINS.

“Hello, Tom,” said a voice exactly forty percent louder than the advertisements.

“Elton,” said Tom. “What's the Intermediary Technology Report?”

“Are you inbound?”

“I'll be there in—” Tom stopped to allow the car's computer to answer for him. The computer monitored his conversations and automatically filled in information that seemed appropriate. “THIRTY-THREE MINUTES.”

“The report is rendering in the System Manager now.”

“Stats?” said Tom.

“They're—” said Elton, and he paused to allow his own auto-complete program to fill in:

“INTEROPERABILITY 75 PERCENT, SCALABILITY 78 PERCENT, PREDICTED POTENTIAL SATURATION 35 PERCENT, MODULAR COMPONENT CROSS-MARKET INDEX 7.5, EARLY ADOPTION INDEX 5.7, PERCEIVED OBSOLESCENCE VELOCITY 85 PERCENT.”

“TURN RIGHT,” said the car. Tom turned right.

—CONSIDER BUYING A RING FOR THAT SPECIAL SOMEONE! THE CHERISHMENT RING IS MADE OF SPECIAL PLASTIC—PLASTIC, LIKE LOVE, LASTS FOREVER. SEASIDE HOSPITAL'S TEAM OF SURGICAL PRACTITIONERS CAN HELP YOU LOOK VIRTUALLY YOUNGER! I NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD BE OUT OF MONEY, BUT FOR THE PRICE OF ONE PAYCHECK I GOT AN ADVANCE FROM GAME OVER PAYDAY LOANS. BEEFCRAFT: LOOKS LIKE BEEF, TASTES LIKE—

“Those ratings sound good,” said Tom.

“Potential saturation is a little low,” said Elton.

“It doesn't matter. When the render reaches upgrade potential, we should see high numbers. Anything else?” said Tom, as if it were Elton who had called him, and not he who had called Elton.

“The DBAs have been troubleshooting inflated valuations in the System Manager. It's not a huge deal, but you may want to interface with the Virtual Operator when you get here.”

“Inflated valuations?” said Tom.

“So far it's in accounts payable and interest.”

“Oh,
well
,” said Tom, laughing—if customers were footing the bill for a mistake, that wasn't so bad.

“TURN RIGHT,” said the car. Tom turned right, merging with the flow of traffic on a cross street, which angered someone behind him, and they honked.

“BUY THE NEW SKIPPING-STONE PHONE
FROM TINCAN TELE -COMM!”
said the ad. Tom honked back, and his horn also said,
“BUY THE NEW SKIPPING-STONE PHONE
FROM TINCAN TELECOMM!”

“See you shortly, Elton,” said Tom, and disconnected.

—FOR THE MAN IN CHARGE, PROFORMA PANTS SHOW EVERYONE YOU APPRECIATE THE GOOD THINGS IN LIFE. PARENTS, WHEN THE KIDS ARE GROWN, MOVE TO ADDEDGE AND ENJOY A VIEW OF THE OPEN OCEAN, BREEZES, AND THE LEISURE THAT EVERY PARENT DESERVES—

“Computer,” said Tom. “Purchase two pairs ProForma pants, color gray, waist thirty-four, inseam thirty-three. Also, solicit information from AddEdge—buyin price, resalability, location.”

AUTODEDUCTION OF FOUR HUNDRED THIRTY-THREE DOLLARS FOR TWO PAIRS OF PROFORMA PANTS. INFORMATION ON ADDEDGE REQUESTED. THANK YOU FOR USING AUTODEDUCT. YOUR CONVENIENCE IS OUR REWARD.

“Computer,” he said, “send information about the Garbage Elimination Institute to the following phones: me, Aline Gad-Fly, and Henrietta Gad-Fly.”

“DISTRIBUTED. MERGE ONTO THE HIGHWAY.” Tom merged.

“BUY THE NEW SKIPPING-STONE PHONE
FROM TINCAN TELE -COMM!” honked someone behind him. Tom smiled and slowed down a little, to get them to honk again.

When he reached work, things were not in the same good state they'd been in
minutes before. As he exited his car in the underground parking lot, his cell rang, and he saw Elton standing a hundred feet away next to the elevators, a tall, skinny man about Tom's age with short brown hair, wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt with an artificially faded slogan on it. Elton was holding his own phone to his ear. Tom answered. “Elton,” he said.

“Tom, we have a situation. I need you to interface with the Virtual Operator ASAP.”

“The accounts receivable glitch?” said Tom.

“It's spreading.”

Tom approached Elton as they spoke, and they stepped into the elevator together. Though they were right next to each other, they continued to communicate via their phones, because the sound quality was better than face-to-face.

“Floor sixty,” said Elton. A subtle lurch followed as the room rocketed skyward.