Thomas Pynchon - Bleeding Edge

Fiona is in that valley between powerhouse kid and unpredictable adolescent, having found, long may it wave, an equilibrium that nearly has Maxine wiping her nose here, as she considers on what short notice such calm can be disrupted.

“You’re sure,” Otis in full being-a-gent mode, “this won’t be too violent for you.”

Fiona, whose parents actually should consider heartbreaker insurance, bats eyelashes possibly enhanced by a raid on her mom’s makeup supplies. “You can tell me not to look.”

Maxine, recognizing that girlhood technique of pretending anybody can tell you anything, slides a bowl of health-food Cheetos in front of them, along with two cans of sugar-free soda, and waving Enjoy, quits the room.

“’Suckers beginnin to get me upset,” murmurs Disrespect, as armed personnel carriers and helicopters converge on his person.

ZIGGY COMES IN from krav maga in his usual haze of early-adolescent sex angst. He has a big crush on his instructor, Emma Levin, who’s rumored to be ex-Mossad. On the first day of class, his friend Nigel, overinformed and unreflective as always, blurted, “So Ms. Levin, you were what, one of those kidon lady assassins?”

“I could say yes, but then I’d have to kill you,” her voice low, mocking, erogenous. A number of mouths had dropped open. “Nah, guys, sorry to disappoint, just an analyst, worked in an office, when Shabtai Shavit left in ’96, so did I.”

“She’s a looker, huh?” Maxine couldn’t help inquiring.

“Mom, she’s…”

After thirty long seconds, “Words fail you.”

There’s also Naftali, the ex-Mossad b.f., who will kill anybody even looks at her sideways, unless maybe it’s a kid who can’t help having some preadolescent longing.

Vyrva calls to say she won’t be there till after supper. Fortunately, you cannot call Fiona a picky child, in fact there’s nothing she won’t eat.

Maxine finishes up the dishes and puts her head in the boys’ room, where she finds them with Fiona intensely attending to a screen on which is unfolding a first-person shooter, with a generous range of weaponry in a cityscape that looks a lot like New York.

“You guys? What have I been saying about violence?”

“We disabled the splatter options, Mom. It’s all good, watch.” Tapping some keys.

A store something like Fairway, with fresh produce displayed out in front. “OK, now keep an eye on this lady here.” Coming down the sidewalk, middle class, respectably turned out, “Enough money to buy groceries, right?”

“Wrong. Check it out.” The woman pauses in front of the grapes, so far in this dewy morning light unmolested, and without the least sign of guilt begins poking around, picking grapes off stems and eating them. She moves on to the plums and nectarines, fondles a number of these, eats some, stashes a couple more in her purse for later, continues early lunch at the berry section, opening up the packaging and stealing strawberries, blueberries and raspberries, scarfing it all down totally without shame. Reaching for a banana.

“What do you say, Mom, good for a hundred points easy, right?”

“She is quite the fresser. But I don’t think—”

Too late—from the shooter’s edge of the screen now emerges the front end of a Heckler & Koch UMP45, which swivels to point at the human pest, and, accompanied by bass-boosted machine-pistol sound effects, blows her away. Clean. She just disappears, not even a stain on the sidewalk. “See? No blood, virtually nonviolent.”

“But stealing fruit, this isn’t a capital offense. And what if a homeless person—”

“No homeless people on the target list,” Fiona assures her. “No kids, babies, dogs, old people—never. We’re out after yup, basically.”

“What Giuliani would call quality-of-life issues,” adds Ziggy.

“I had no idea grouchy old people designed video games.”

“My dad’s partner Lucas designed it,” sez Fiona. “He calls it his valentine to the Big Apple.”

“We’re beta-testing it for him,” Ziggy explains.

“Bearing eight o’clock,” Otis sez, “dig it.”

Adult male in a suit, carrying a briefcase, standing in the middle of the sidewalk traffic screaming at his kid, who looks to be about four or five. The volume level grows abusive, “And if you don’t—” the grown-up raising his hand ominously, “there’ll be a consequence .”

“Uh-uh, not today.” Out comes the full auto option again, and presently the screamer is no more, the kid is looking around bewildered, tears still on his little face. The point total in the corner of the screen increments by 500.

“So now he’s all alone in the street, big favor you did him.”

“All we have to do—” Fiona clicking on the kid and dragging him to a window labeled Safe Pickup Zone. “Trustworthy family members,” she explains, “come and pick them up and buy them pizza and bring them home, and their lives from then on are worry-free.”

“Come on,” sez Otis, “let’s just cruise around.” Off they go on a tour of the inexhaustible galleries of New York annoyance, zapping loudmouths on cellular phones, morally self-elevated bicycle riders, moms wheeling twins old enough to walk lounging in twin strollers, “One behind the other, we let them off with a warning, but not this one, look, side by side so nobody can get past? forget it.” Pow! Pow! The twins go flying, all smiles, above New York and into the Kiddy Bin. Passersby are largely oblivious to the sudden disappearances except for Christers, who think it’s the Rapture. “Guys,” Maxine astonished, “I had no idea— Wait, what’s this?” She has spotted a line jumper at a bus stop. Nobody paying attention. H&Kwoman to the rescue! “All right, how do I do this?” Otis is happy to instruct, and before you can say “Be more considerate,” the pushy bitch has been despatched and her children dragged to safety.

“Way to go Mom, that’s a thousand points.”

“Actually, sort of fun.” Scanning the screen for her next target. “Wait, I didn’t say that.” Trying later to put a positive spin on it, Maxine figures maybe it’s a virtual and kid-scale way of getting into the antifraud business…

“Hi, Vyrva, come on in.”

“Didn’t think I’d be this late.” Vyrva goes and puts her head in Otis and Ziggy’s room. “Hi, sweetie?” The girl looks up and murmurs hi, Mom, and gets back to yuppicide.

“Oh, look, they’re blowing away New Yorkers, how cute? I mean, nothing personal?”

“You’re good with this—Fiona, virtual murder sort of thing?”

“Oh, it’s bloodless, like Lucas didn’t even write in a splatter option? They think they’re disabling it, but it’s not even there?”

“So,” shrugging away any scold signifiers in face and voice, “a mom-approved first-person shooter.”

“That’s exactly the slogan we’re gonna use in the ads.”

“You’re advertising where, on the Internet?”

“The Deep Web. Down there advertising is like still in its infancy? And the price is what Bob Barker might call ‘right’?” Air quotes, Vyrva’s hair, back in braids, bouncing to and fro.

Maxine reaches a bag of some Fairway coffee blend out of the freezer and pours beans in the grinder. “Watch your ears a minute.” She grinds the coffee, pours it into a filter in the electric drip unit, hits the power switch.

“So Justin and Lucas are branching into games now.”

“It isn’t really business the way I learned it in college,” Vyrva confides, “at this point life should be serious? The guys are still having too much fun for their age.”

“Oh—male anxiety, yes that’s much better.”

“The game is just a promotional freebie,” Vyrva frowning cute-apologetic. “Our product is still totally DeepArcher?”