Harry Turtledove - The Gladiator

Other than the dialectics class, she made a clean sweep. Even with a B+ there, her grades were plenty good enough for first honors again. She wondered how Gianfranco was doing. She hoped he'd held on to second honors. His folks would be on him something fierce if he didn't. She would be disappointed herself if he didn't, too. One corner of her mouth quirked up. That probably mattered more to him than all the yelling in the world from his parents would.

And what he thought about the things she did mattered to her, too. A year earlier, it wouldn't have. They'd just been a couple of people kind of stuck with each other because of their living arrangements. / didn't think I'd have a boyfriend a year younger than I am went through her mind.

She wondered how long he would stay her boyfriend. Till they stopped getting along, she supposed. Right now, everything seemed fine. Why borrow trouble?

Here he came. He was grinning, which was a good sign. Annarita thought it was safe to ask, "Did you?"

"You'd better believe it!" he answered, and waved his report card like a flag. "I should have started busting my hump sooner. I might have got firsts like you… You did, right?"

"Si." She felt better about admitting it than she would have if he hadn't made seconds. It was easy this way. "Maybe you will be up there too next year."

"Hope so," Gianfranco said. "I think I can do it. Now the question is whether I'll kick myself in the rear and make myself do it."

"You did it over the last couple of grading periods this time," Annarita said. "You'll start fresh next year, so if you push hard right from the start…"

"If," he agreed. "Well, I'll give it my best shot and see what happens, that's all." He waved the report card again, and almost hit somebody in the face with it. "Now I want to go home and show this off."

"I don't blame you." Annarita was proud of him, but she didn't want to come right out and say so. It would make him feel he was listening to his mother.

When they got back to the apartment building, a truck was parked in front of it, two wheels on the street, the other two on the sidewalk. That was illegal, of course, but people did it all the time. What was more surprising was the word painted in big green letters on the truck's door: REPAIRS.

Annarita and Gianfranco looked at each other. "You don't suppose-?" Gianfranco sounded like someone in whom hope had just flowered against all odds.

"Let's go look!" Annarita said. They hurried into the lobby together.

Sure enough, the elevator door was open. Annarita couldn't remember the last time she'd seen that. A man in coveralls and a cap and wearing a fat belt full of tools came out of the elevator car. Another man in the same getup stayed in there working.

"Are you really going to fix it?" Gianfranco might have been an acolyte in church witnessing a miracle.

"Better believe it, kid." The man who'd come out of the elevator paused to light a cigar and puff smoke towards Annarita and Gianfranco. She coughed-the cigar was vile. The repairman went on, "Nothing real big wrong with it. Somebody could've got it working a long time ago."

"How come nobody did, then?" Annarita asked.

He shrugged. "Beats me. Probably on account of nobody bothered to look and see how hard it'd be. Probably on account of nobody figured he'd make any money fixing it."

"But you will?" Annarita said.

"I… sure will." Plainly, the repairman almost said something more pungent. "I wouldn't be here if there wasn't some loot in it for me and Giulio. Isn't that right, Giulio?" This time, he blew a noxious cloud toward the other workman.

"Isn't what right?" Giulio asked, looking up from whatever he was doing inside the elevator car.

"We wouldn't be doing this if they weren't paying us good money."

"What? You think I'm dumb or something? Of course not," Giulio said.

"You guys sound like capitalists," Gianfranco said.

He meant it as a compliment. Annarita knew that. She wasn't sure the repairman would. The cigar twitched in the man's mouth. But all he said was, "Never yet been anybody born who was allergic to cash." He turned again. "Isn't that right, Giulio?"

"I dunno, Rocco," Giulio said. "I know I'm not."

"I wouldn't be allergic to riding the elevator instead of climbing stairs every time I need to go to the apartment," Annarita said.

"Won't be long," said the man with the cigar-Rocco.

She and Gianfranco still had to climb the stairs now. The trudge seemed twice as long as usual because soon she wouldn't have to make it any more. Halfway up, Gianfranco said, "They really did sound like capitalists. They only seemed to care about making a profit for their work."

"Even if that is all they care about, you don't expect them to come right out and admit it, do you?" Annarita was surprised they'd come so close. "It would be like admitting you eat with your fingers or pick your nose or something."

"I suppose." Gianfranco climbed a few more steps. Then he turned to her and said, "It shouldn't be like that, you know? It's not like that in the game. You want to make as much money as you can there."

"That's a game," Annarita said gently. "This is life. It's not the same thing, and you'll get in trouble-you'll get everybody in trouble-if you think it is." The game could suck you in. Even she knew that, and she played much more casually than Gianfranco did. But he had to remember what was real and what wasn't.

With an impatient gesture, he showed he did. "I know, 1 know. Those guys down there didn't exactly deny they were doing it for the money."

"No, they didn't." Annarita didn't say that showed what a crude pair they were. To her, it was obvious. It should have been obvious to Gianfranco, too. No doubt it would have been if the game didn't make it hard for him to think straight.

The game. The game from another world. The game from a world where capitalism worked-by the things Eduardo said and by the things he had, it worked better than Communism did. The game from a world where Communism lay on-what was Marx's phrase?-the ash-heap of history, that was it. The game from a world with no Security Police. No wonder it made Gianfranco think dangerous thoughts. No wonder it made him think political thoughts, economic thoughts.

Annarita laughed at herself. As if political and economic thoughts weren't dangerous by definition!

"What's funny?" Gianfranco asked, so she must have snorted out loud. She told him. He thought about it for two or three steps. Then he said, "Ideas like that shouldn't be dangerous. That's the point, right?-to make it so they aren't dangerous any more."

"Si, that's the point," Annarita said. "The other point is, it hasn't happened yet, and it won't happen any time soon."

"I know," he said again, and gave her a crooked grin. "I won't slip up, Annarita. Honest, I won't."

"I didn't think you would," Annarita answered, which was… close enough to true that she didn't feel too much like a liar saying it.

Mechanical noises came from the elevator shaft when she and Gianfranco walked past it. They looked at it. Annarita saw something close to awe on Gianfranco's face. Her own probably held the same expression. "Wow!" he said. "They really are fixing it."

"I don't remember the last time it worked," Annarita said. "Do you?"

He shook his head. "Not really. I was a lot smaller than I am now-I know that. 1 remember how hard climbing all those stairs seemed then. Now I'm used to it. But I could get used to riding the elevator real quick, I bet."

"Me, too." Annarita stopped at the door to her apartment. "See you at dinner. And congratulations again!"

"Grazie!" Gianfranco grinned at her. "I only get second-class congratulations. You get first."

"Next year," she said. She'd got first honors plenty of times before, too. They didn't seem such a big deal to her. For Gianfranco to earn second honors-especially on year-end grades-was further out of the ordinary.