Subterraneans
Chapter 4
Tara slurped the prick of blood off the tip of her index finger. If you didn’t have a skincode, scanning yourself into the RedEye was a three-part process, and the blood sample was the last. She handed the needle and sampler to John. She went through this so much she carried a needle and sampler around with her.
“Thanks,” he said.
They’d gone up to his second-floor office to call her data in to security. A sliding door led out to the balcony, so Tara could look out at the girls on the back porch as she and John went through the rigamarole of calling in. They didn’t make it easy. But at least the view was nice.
“I’m sorry this is such a hassle. You’re probably wondering why I haven’t just given in and gotten a tatt.”
John took the vial to the blood sample analyzer next to his office fax machine. “Not at all.” He popped it in. “Getting skincoded’s bullshit.”
“Mr. Morris. I didn’t know you used that kind of language.”
John gave her a grin over his shoulder. “You’ve graduated. Around my students I keep it clean but with my friends I talk freely.”
“Ah.” Tara thought, then smiled back. “Okay,” she said. “Friends.”
“I wouldn’t tell any of my students what I really think about tatts, either. Not because I shouldn’t but because probably I’d lose my job. Skincoding, it’s,” he halted. “It’s like enslavement.”
The fax whirred. Her processed C-40 form came back.
“Not that this isn’t a pain in the ass, either,” Tara said.
“No, that’s true.” John ripped the printout off and skimmed it. “Authorized,” he read aloud. He and Tara glanced at the RedEye in the high corner of the office’s inside wall—every room in every house had to have a RedEye now—just in time to watch the blinking light go to a steady glow, cool to blue and flick off. They sighed relief in tandem. “Well, that’s that.” John retrieved the sampler and returned it to Tara along with the form.
“Thanks.”
“Guess you’ll want to go back to the party, huh?”
Tara looked out the glass door past the balcony. “Oh, I guess. Only girl down there I really know is Sasha and she’s kinda flush right now. She’s got a skill with those whisky shooters I’ll never understand.”
“Well, you’re welcome to relax in the living room a while if you want. We’ll catch up.” John gestured at his pajamas and slippers. “Just give me a second to change.”
With a nod, Tara went down the stairs and did as Mr. Morris asked, studying the living room décor once she’d sat. Prints of Escher: going up and down the stairs forever; the mirrored ball reflecting the bearded man painting it.
In a few John came in, done up well enough to go in public but nothing fancy—kakhi shorts and a touristy Baltimore Reads tee-shirt. Tara’d hoped he would dress up, for some reason. And he sat at the easychair even though she’d taken one end of the three-cushion sofa.
At least he’d brought a couple drinks.
“Ginger ale,” he said. “Seems like it’s the virgin stuff, not the hard, that’s tough to get around here tonight.”
“Thanks. No,” she sipped and licked her lips. “That hits the spot.”
John joined her in a drink. She heard a sax. A smoky song had started playing on the stereo, one she’d never heard before. It put a tap in her toe.
“How are you liking your first taste of freedom?”
Tara snorked out a laugh and ginger ale stung her nose.
“Freedom? Yeah, that’s a good one.”
John looked at her slanted. But he smiled. “I mean from high school.”
Tara snorked at him again. “Oh. Yeah. It’s great. I mean, I’m in an orphanage and I don’t go to Vassar until the fall and everything’s a pain because I’m not tatted but other than that it’s great, I guess. “
“I told you about the summer program. The Graduate Gateway. They could use someone like you, someone smart. Did you ask about that?”
She softened. She could be such a whiner sometimes, she scolded herself.
“Actually, yeah. I put in the application, I’m waiting to hear. I looked at their homepattern on the cubenet. Seems interesting.”
“I just figured you like a good mystery. They talk a lot about tough scientific problems there, and do it so regular people can follow. I went myself, quite a while ago. I got a good eye and I think you’d get it.”
“Yeah, I wanna. But I’m not thinking about it ‘til I hear about that application. Parentless, you know. We get used to our applications coming back unread.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that.” John tossed her a wink. “I had a talk with a friend in admissions. I think you’ll get in fine. If not, I’ve got a couple other ideas you might like.”
“Oh.” Tara was taken aback. “You did that for me? Thank you, Mr. Morr—“ she caught herself. “John. Thank you, John.” She swallowed.
“Anyway, you have to realize you’re going to college. Not one in ten gets that nowadays.”
“I know. It’s just this summer can’t end soon enough.” They sat a moment. “And then,” Tara stared at her lap. She sighed. She shouldn’t say. But who else could she tell?
“What is it?”
“It’s—“ she started again, then stopped. Then started. “It’s Trina.”
“Yeah, your younger sister. I remember. I had her when I was teaching sophomore year. Smart egg. Lot like you.”
One last sigh. “Well, she’s vanished, Mr. Morris.”
John learned forward and set his drink on the coffee table. He studied Tara urgently. He repeated the word, as though trying to get the pronunciation right. “Vanished.”
She cleared her throat. “Well, yes.” How to explain. “But, um, thing is, she does it a lot lately.”
“Vanishes?”
“Just, whoosh,” Tara did a vapor with her hand, “yeah. For a day or two. I mean, it’s like you said. The invite thing’s got her buzzing. It’s been almost a month since her birthday already and she’s anxious to put it behind her, I guess. So she keeps getting leads on invites, or hearing rumors, and going off chasing them.” It was how Tara knew they were truly related. Trina had this thing for solving mysteries, too, but she’d gone a different way with it. “We’re in an orphanage so they don’t really chase after her when she goes, and it’s happened so many times now I just got too wore out to keep doing it myself. So I stopped. But this one worries me, for some reason.”
“Why’s that?”
“Um, I asked around who might have seen Trina last, and the most recent”—she thumbed at the balcony door—“Sasha told me, actually. Just now. Thing is.” John was studying her unbreakingly, she saw as she turned to him. He was trying to hold his ginger ale as if it were liquored, two fingers extended. But then she felt in her hand that she was, too. In a jump she set her drink down and then stared at her fingers as she twined them between her thighs. Suddenly she was aswim in memories. “Sasha said Trina went to this store in the mall, where we used to go a lot when we were kids. It’s changed a lot lately. It’s just gotten to be a strange place. That’s all. That’s why I’m worried.”
“Strange? Strange how?”
She thought about it. “I’m really not sure. Everyone just always seems more aware of you now. It used to be fun. Now, all the time, you feel like you’re being watched.”
“It’s like that everywhere. Always watched, always scanned.” John patted his inside right wrist over his own skincode, his barcode tattoo. Then he indicated the RedEye, giving it a sly look. For further illustration? Or to monitor it as it monitored them? Tara couldn’t tell. “Isn’t it just like that now?”
“Yeah, I mean it is, but,” Tara searched. “You brought up scientific problems. All this surveillance comes out of tech, science, right? Technology. When we’re getting scanned, when we’re tripping the RedEye,” now it was her turn to glance at it, either for emphasis or out of caution, “it’s this tech that’s gotten out of hand.”
John sat up, resting his depleted ginger ale on the coffee table, which for whatever reason clicked the RedEye’s survey light to yellow. Fuck. It was just a cumulation of the last few things they’d said and did. Tara got a ton of yellow lights lately. As always, the instinct to whisper got them both, but they always suppressed it now. Instead, they giggled. Sometimes that would placate it, but the RedEye kept beaming that steady yellow. At least it didn’t get brighter.
“At the mall, nowadays,” Tara continued, though her fake grin, “there’s still all the old tech, but there feels like—“
John palmed her forearm and darted a look at the RedEye. “I think we’re fine. It’s tuned a little rich. If it trips I’ll just have a whitesuit look at it.”
“There feels like a new tech there. Like there’s a new tech.” She shook her head. “I don’t know, that’s the best I can explain it.”
The RedEye’s signal light went back to green.
“Like there’s new eyes watching?” John hazarded.
“Yeah.” She crossed her arms and shivered. “Yeah, like that.”