Scott Westerfeld - Stupid Perfect World

Teen angst, here I come .

A few other people from Scarcity were already there, needing the engine to switch off immune defenses and organ repair. The machine’s AI was taking forever, checking permission slips and running simulations to make sure no one altered their bioframe in a lethal or illegal way. And, of course, Barefoot Tillman had managed to be first in line.

Kieran wandered over to Mikey’s habitat and looked down at his little quivering form. “Is he asleep right now?”

I stuck a finger through the confining field, and Mikey sniffed it.

“Nope. Just resting. See how his little eyes are open?”

Kieran reached through gingerly and stroked the hamster’s fur. Mikey stirred, then settled back down.

“Hey, his eyes just closed! So he’s asleep now?”

I sighed. “I think it takes longer than two seconds, Kieran. In old stories, sometimes people can’t get to sleep at all, like if they’re worked up about emotional stuff. It’s called ‘tossing and turning.’”

He looked up at me. “How do you know all this stuff, anyway?”

“Just from reading historicals, I guess. It’s awesome how their emotions worked back then. They’d have these little bouts of temporary insanity all the time.” I watched his finger run down Mikey’s back. “Just meeting a cute guy or girl could make them go crazy.”

“That still happens,” he said. “I forgot about this project just because Barefoot Tillman talked to me.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” I snapped. “Barefoot’s just distracting, not epic at all. Back then, it was screaming fights and weeping for hours. Pulling your hair out. Tossing and turning all night.”

He laughed. “Sounds like a pain.”

“Don’t you pay any attention in Scarcity? Pain’s a good thing. That’s why we never cured it.”

“Oh, right. Nature’s way of saying, ‘Get your hand out of the fire, doofus!’” As he spoke, Kieran lifted his fingers gently from the confinement field.

Mikey looked like he might actually be asleep now. I guess Kieran had pretty decent hamster-wrangling skills. I let myself smile, my annoyance on the Barefoot Tillman issue settling.

“Is that why you want to do that hormone thing?” Kieran asked. “To go crazy?”

“Well…not totally crazy. But don’t you ever wonder what it would be like to feel how they did back then? Especially people our age. It was more extreme, more…dramatic. I mean, why do you go down to the South Pole and put up with that freezing cold? Because it’s intense, right?”

Kieran was staring down at the dozing hamster. “Yeah. But cold doesn’t make me lose my mind.”

“Still, it’s something no one else feels. Not these days.”

“I guess.” He shrugged and smiled. “Just don’t get too crazy and drown yourself, Maria. Or write any poetry.”

I had to laugh. “Don’t worry, I’ll try not to go completely Ophelia. As long as I don’t meet any psycho prince guys in the next two weeks.”

The line for the customizing engine was winding down. People headed out for the rest of their afternoon classes, a few laughing nervously. Dan Stratovaria was rubbing his eyes, as if trying to feel the long-extinct worms growing inside them.

I was a little anxious myself, now that my moment of hormonal imbalance was actually at hand. The next two weeks would probably be embarrassing. Though my bioframe wouldn’t let me kill myself, there was a definite danger of poetry….

“Come on, let’s do some research.” I flicked headspace up to full, the Bio room and Mikey’s habitat fading in front of my eyes. “If we don’t figure out how sleep works, you’re going to be tossing and turning all night.”

THE FIRST PROBLEM WAS finding the right furniture.

When I got home, I asked Dad if I could synthesize a bed for my room. He immediately put on his serious face and sat me down.

“Sixteen is too young to have a bed in your room, Kieran. Remember when we talked about this, how a little bioframe tweak can make those feelings less…persistent?”

I groaned. “This isn’t about that, Dad!”

“Who was that girl you were obsessed with last summer? Chrissy?”

“Chris tine ,” I said. “And this has nothing to do with girls. It’s for a school project.”

He laughed too hard in a really embarrassing way, actually slapping his thigh. “Nice try, buddy.”

“No, really. It’s for Scarcity!” I started to explain my project, but as usual Dad’s brain switched off. There hadn’t been any Scarcity classes back in his day, and he never understood how I could get worked up over an ungraded course.

By the time my explanation sputtered out, his serious face was back. “So, Kieran. Is there anyone special you want to tell me about?”

I groaned again. This was useless. At least Mom wasn’t around, which would have been twice as embarrassing. “Just forget I brought it up.”

“Are you sure, son? You know I’m here if you need me.”

I rolled my eyes and headed to my room.

Around midnight I gave it my best shot.

A pile of parkas wasn’t a terrible bed. It was a lot more comfortable than the furniture I’d been making out of snow. I sank into the thermal fibers, closing my eyes and trying to feel for any changes inside me.

It had been about eight hours since Maria had switched off the metabolic nanos that kept my body humming twenty-four hours a day. For the next two weeks, my cells were going to divide their time the old-fashioned way: breaking down complex molecules while I was awake, and building up new ones while I slept. Not as efficient as doing both at once, but nothing I had to consciously control. Even Mikey the hamster could do it.

I darkened the room to make it like outside at night, then I lay there with my eyes closed, waiting for some kind of change.

According to headspace, there were five stages of sleep. Stage 1 was no big deal, like that feeling right after a brainsmoothing session, when everything’s fuzzy for a few minutes. Stage 2 was exactly how sleep looks in old movies: lying around unconscious, like after surgery or getting hit on the head. Basically your average waste of time, except you couldn’t be bored, which was a bonus.

I wasn’t looking forward to Stage 3, which featured these weird interruptions like sleepwalking, sleep- talking , night terrors, and something called “bedwetting.” (Don’t ask.) Luckily, that part usually passed quickly, and then it was on to Stages 4 and 5, but it wasn’t like I’d researched every detail yet. I was just hoping to get to Stage 1 tonight.

So I waited some more.

And waited…

I won’t say that nothing happened. I thought about lots of stuff: my lines for Hamlet , Dad’s lameness, Barefoot Tillman in a swimsuit, Mikey the hamster, the way Maria Borsotti might be cute if she wasn’t such a meeker. But it wasn’t exactly sleep. I had so many thoughts, it was the opposite of unconsciousness; I was suddenly conscious of every sound in my room, every worry in my head, and especially every itch and crick in my motionless body.

I wasn’t supposed to move, but my muscles kept demanding random adjustments. By the end of the first hour, I was tangled in the parkas and ended up throwing half of them across my room. (Is that where “tossing and turning” came from?) I hadn’t noticed any unconsciousness, but then I started wondering how you could even know you were unconscious, because you wouldn’t be conscious to know anything at all, which started my head spinning with thoughts and thoughts and more thoughts.

Finally, I sat up, not caring if I failed Scarcity, anything to escape the crushing, sweaty boredom of not sleeping.