Hard to believe I posted a version of this up more than a year ago. This is different but the same. Another edit. The story of a writer's life. It's a free read.
1: Sard
Sard strode
through the pastel yellow arch out of the Nest. He needed the roiling colours
of his envy and disappointment and anger. Because how come Srese won the
contest when he was always the better producer? He wanted reds and blues and
greens storming along the corridor walls alongside him. Where were they?
He
stopped.
The Nest
doors soughed shut behind him.
The
walls, what he could see of them, were grey. And all the holos, one on every
block-end, were extinguished.
Some kind
of power cut? I don’t think so, he said. He stepped back seeking the comforting
painted story on the Nest’s doors
with his fingertips. A fill layered into the dark green paint made the bas relief trees. A rectangular brown
roughened area signified a door into a tree trunk. Zoya, the kiddy-carer
regularly pasted the profile of a different one of the infants half over the
door like they pushed it open. She’d painted a tremble of golden light as if it
came through the aperture. The doors slid open behind him because he still
stood on the sensory-mat. He breathed relief. Phew. They still worked for him.
A chatter
of voices neared from the Wingham direction, the group still out of sight
around the bulging-out curve of the Nest. Dorms and family apartments fronted
First Circle on that side. This late in the morning it was probably Tye and his
girls. Sard almost bolted back into his hole. What good, though? He had to eat.
“Bad
luck, mate,” Tye said as he passed Sard. “Not winning, I mean.”
Sard was
slightly comforted. If that was all Tye knew, he could probably brazen it out
and go to breakfast at least.
Tye
hugged Relda to him. Both had dressed gypsy-style. She swirled a shin-length
red and yellow skirt. Tye’s pants were about the same length, with the cuffs
artfully folded up and he wore a neckerchief the color of Relda’s headscarf.
Gold coins sewn over both. Caro arm-in-armed Viva, twirling so each could add
her play to the hotspots in the holos.
So far
they’d conjured a carved gypsy caravan pulled by a horse plodding along a sandy
track in a high summer scene of green and gold. The ceilings round about were
now blue and they seemed to walk on the same gold sand track.
“What do
you think?” Caro said.
“I like
it.”
Sard
touched the opposite wall, near where he walked, where flowers burgeoned in a
field of green. His touch killed off a swatch of flowers. He jerked back. Hope
no one saw that.
“You want
to input your alterity?” Viva said. “Since you’re not costumed?”
“No. Go
ahead. You two are doing a great job.” They were all represented in the mural.
The couple strolled in the meadow and Viva drove the horse. The Caro alterity
did cartwheels alongside.
The gypsy
caravan followed them across Second Circle and pulled into a meadow forming on
the Dining Hall’s long wall between Second and Third Circles. The horse began
to graze and the alterities followed them around the corner toward the Dining
Hall entry where they pixilated into the scenery.
Sard
walked into the Dining hall among them. His heart hammered when for the five or
six seconds that he was the only one on the sensory-mat, the doors started to
slide across. He pressed back the near one. Should he suspect that the door
utility suddenly didn’t know him anymore?
Youk and
Phin were already in there, shoveling scrambled eggs down their respective
gullets. How he hated them. Obviously he was late, along with every other
trouble this morning.
“Don’t
let them get to you,” Tye said.
“Thanks.”
How, was the question. He fetched his porridge, white pap, and his eggs, yellow
pap on baked and toasted pap. If he was slow about it maybe his tormentors
would leave. But they were still at the table and so he couldn’t go sit with
Tye and his gang.
As usual Youk across the table from him watched
everything he did. Didn’t the guy ever have anything better for his yellow eyes
to do than make sure the avatars didn’t get ahead of him?
Youk said, “Shoveling it in rather, aren’t we?”
“What?” He could’ve kicked himself. When would he learn not
to react?
“Shoveling the food in like the farmers didn’t
grow it to your taste.”
“Ha ha,” Sard said around the egg. “Since
I’m one of the farmers.”
Phin, diagonally across from Sard, smiled
benignly. He kicked Sard’s feet out of his way under the table and hooked his
own under Sard’s chair.
“Finished?” Youk said. “Good. You and I have
business.” Loud enough for everyone to hear, he said, “Fare thee well, oh
golden avatar! Do you wend to your Herculean labors?”
Of course everyone remaining at the other
tables looked up and laughed and commented.
“Do you join him, Youk, to be dusted by his
benison?” Tye said. He winked. At Sard when of course both Youk and Phin could
not miss seeing.
Thanks Tye, for nothing. Sard thrust back
his chair, hopefully doing damage to Phin’s hooked-up toes. Sard stood in a
hurry to catch the chair before it fell. All he needed was a whip, to tame his
lions. He put the chair down and shoved it hard against Phin’s outstretched
legs. He didn’t say sorry because he would pay, whatever he did.
Youk followed him close enough that he looked
like he hustled Sard from the Dining Hall.
“Master and slave. Youk in his favorite
role,” Tye shouted after them.
The doors closed when Sard and Youk stepped
from the sensory matting, shutting them off from any further ribaldry. Because
he had Youk breathing down his neck, Sard made for the dorm he supposedly
shared with him and Phin. He dived into the lane beside the Dining Hall, and
took a left into the corridor between Second and Third Circles. Walls, where
available, were grey.
The dorms fronted onto the lane with doors
and windows, and backed windowless onto the Circles allowing a lot of wall to
be given over to holos.
“Surely the walls should’ve been flaming red
on black?” Youk said. “Gammy-the-damned-AI loves strong emotions all said and
done.”
Youk was of course commenting on Sard’s lack
of nanobots. Yesterday Sard hadn’t had any nanobots either, but he’d been a
whizz at programming holos. The same as Caro. Today, because he didn’t win the
programming competition he suddenly was nobody? It still didn’t make sense. He
stood back for Youk to unlock.
Youk stood back too.
It looked like it would be a stand-off.
“Well?” Youk said. “You’re the
golden-bloody-avatar!”
But how much of an avatar could Sard ever
have been to be so instantly excised? “No nanobots, remember?” he said. “You’ll
be missing lunch along with me if we stand here all morning.” As if Youk will
miss lunch, he thought. “Funny how the corridor walls don’t reflect your mood. Shouldn’t they be a dirty
green? The colour of envy?” Youk had envied Sard and Srese all their lives.
“The stupid AI wouldn’t dare try,” Youk
said. “He knows I’d hack into him with no respect.”
“Yeah right. Full of gas as usual.” Sard
pushed past Youk who punched him of course.
The main room was a disaster. Any clothes
that he hadn’t taken to the Nest were trodden into the rest of the mess. He
started picking them up. “That’s what we’re here for? For you to tell me that
the walls aren’t reacting to me?”
“And the rest. But why would I help you?
You’re so stupid.”
“Oh, you mean you’re now not going to tell
me the walls aren’t reacting to me today?” He sprang aside to escape Youk’s
kick.
“The Pit would’ve been the better place.”
“Why would I have gone in there with you,
with every man of your friends joking and laughing at my expense.”
Youk slung his arm over Sard’s shoulders and
sidestepped him into the bathroom. Dirty clothes underfoot wherever they stood.
Phin refused them the use of a laundry basket.
“See what I just did?”
“What you just did?” Being thickheaded was
often his best defense against Youk.
Youk shook him. “Stop that. I was
demonstrating how friendly I can be.”
Sard laughed. “You hate me. I’m the golden
bloody avatar, remember?”
“You’re an insufferable know-it-all clone.
Just like my father. Just like Gammy. You and your sister both are just a pair
of damned Gammy-clones.”
“Srese would remind you that we are twins,
same DNA, womb tanks side by side.”
“Trust me, Srese is half Yon Kerr doubled,
and you’re Yon Kerr.”
“What would you know?” Sard said. “Though why would you know is probably more to
the point.”
“Ferd is my father. He’s the Yon Kerr clone
of his generation. I’m his natural-born son.”
Youk stood up straighter. Even puffed his
chest out. “They say that about you,” Sard said. “So what?”
“I wasn’t made in a test tube or decanted
out of a womb tank. My mother was the desert woman Yon Kerr got in for my
father to romance. He won a contest to star in a cave-wide entertainment.”
Like Srese just did. Sard swallowed.
“Ring a bell does it, that phrasing?” Youk
said. “I was going to show you what happens to remaindered avatars. It’s why we
should’ve gone to the Pit. Walked through a holo there into the next disused
complex.”
Youk punched Sard’s disbelief back into him.
“You didn’t know that there are more habitats than this one, did you?”
Punch. “Too bad, I could’ve shown you my
hide. I have a standalone there with all the info you would’ve been likely to
want.” He shook his head. “There’s history there you wouldn’t believe. You’re
so superior that you don’t even want to know? When Srese has so obviously won
and you’re suddenly remaindered?”
Youk let Sard go as if he was suddenly
poisonous. He flung himself onto the couch.
Sard bent and picked up a pair of pants.
“I’m not worried. Srese and I have an agreement,” he said.
Whichever of them
was picked for the role would hoist the other twin up with them. He’d been so
green with envy himself, he’d forgotten. People said they were the best CAVE actor producer team ever. Not that
he’d swirl that cape in front of Youk.
And anyway, Srese and he knew the habitat
inside out. Spent years finding all the nooks and crannies. No unused complexes
that he knew. As for the other thing, he’d have to believe she’d remember their
pact.
“So what will you be doing about it?” Youk
said, almost friendly.
How stupid did Youk think he was? Sard
shrugged. He wished Youk would go. He went round the room picking up his
clothes. “My laundry.”
“You could do some of mine.”
“You wish.”
“You know what Phin will say.”
“What will
Phin say?” said Phin, coming in.
“About Sard doing just his own laundry,”
Youk said.
“Phin will say that that isn’t right,” Phin
said. He gripped Sard by his arm. “Wait right here. Youk!”
Youk piled the rest of the clothes from the
floor, overalls, towels, the lot, on Sard’s armful. “Go at it, young fellow.”
He opened the door into the corridor.
Phin put his foot on Sard’s butt and shoved
him out.
The walls should’ve been incandescent but
they stayed obdurately grey as Sard hadn’t his nanobots as Youk so kindly
pointed out. The corridor’s laundry was centrally situated. No one else was in
there to witness his fury was one good thing, and very convenient for his plan
was the other. But would he even be able to program the damned ionisers?
He seethed as he sorted clothes and stuffed
them in three separate machines. Right, yes. Probably the laundry was on a
slave circuit, not yet changed. He grinned wolfishly changing the settings for
Youk’s and Phin’s clothes.
His own clothes tumbled about for the
regular two minutes. He took them out clean and creaseless. Folded them and
packed them flat in his washing bag. The twelve-minute cycles finished. Folding
those clothes would be pretty well impossible, storing them like having a set
of minions falling out of the cupboard every time you opened it. He walked
away.
Not back to the dorm. The Nest was where he
seemed to spend every second night these days. Thank Gammy his care-mother had
kept his room in her apartment. Thank Gammy his care-mother had been allowed to
keep her apartment in the Nest after Sard had been assigned his dorm. Thank you
Gammy, ha ha.
He let himself in through the apartment’s
street door. Another slave circuit. Not everyone need know Sard was sleeping at
Ghulia’s again this week and he’d rather not meet Zoya, the kiddy-carer and
Srese’s ditzy care-mother. Or even Srese and her tears and dramatics.
He dumped his clothes in his drawers and
switched on the mini-mon above the bed. Might as well watch a movie. He
wouldn’t go to work at all.
The same words again appeared on the screen.
He closed his eyes.
Words still there when he opened his eyes
the second time.
His gut churned. There had to be worse
things in life than not being picked to be the primary avatar. There had to be
worse things in life … It was no good. He didn’t know anything worse right now.
He wanted to yell and scream. Not fair! Not
fair! Not fair! Srese was so young
still! He ground his teeth. He’d never
believed they were identical, or twins. He wished now he’d let Youk be
victorious. What did being remaindered mean?
“Oy,” Ghulia tweaked his toe.
He hadn’t even heard her come in? Sard sat
up, feet over the side of the bed.
Ghulia sat beside him.