Nancy Kress - Beggars and Choosers

“There is no need to be alarmed. This is a temporary malfunction. Please return to the comfort and safety of your car, and in a few moments complimentary food and drinks will be served. A repair technician is on the way from the railroad franchise. There is no need to be alarmed—”

Desdemona kicked the holo. Her foot passed through him and she smirked, a pointless saucy smile of triumph. The holo looked down at her. “Don’t do that again, kid — you hear me, you?” Des-demona’s eyes widened and she flew behind her mother’s legs.

“Don’t be so scaredy, you — it’s just interactive,” Mommy Liver snapped. “Let go, you, of my legs!”

I winked at Desdemona, who stared at me sullenly and then grinned, rattling our bracelet.

“—to the comfort and safety of your car, and in a few moments complimentary food—”

More people approached the engine, all but two complaining loudly. The first was an older woman: tall, plain-faced, and angled as a tesseract. She wore not jacks but a long tunic knitted of yarn in subtle, muted shades of green, too uneven to be machine-made. Her earrings were simple polished green stones. I had never before seen a Liver with taste.

The other anomaly was a short young man with silky red hair, pale skin, and a head slightly too large for his body.

The back of my neck tingled.

Inside the cars, server ’bots emerged from their storage compartments and offered trays of freshly synthesized soy snacks, various drinks, and sunshine in mild doses. “Compliments of State Senator Cecilia Elizabeth Dawes,” it said over and over. “So nice to have you aboard.” This diversion took half an hour. Then everyone went back outside and resumed complaining.

“The kind of service you get these days—”

“—vote next time, me, for somebody else — anybody else—”

“—a temporary malfunction. Please return to the comfort and safety of—”

I walked over the scrub grass to the edge of the closest field. The Sleepless-in-inadequate-disguise stood watching the crowd, observing as pseudocasually as I was. So far he had taken no special notice of me. The field was bounded by a low energy fence, presumably to keep the agrobots inside. They ambled slowly between the rows of golden wheat, doing whatever it was they did. I stepped over the fence and picked one up. It hummed softly, a dark sphere with flexible tentacles. On the bottom a label said CANCO ROBOTS/ LOS ANGELES. CanCo had been in the Wall Street Journal On-Line last week; they were in trouble. Their agrobots had suddenly begun to break down all over the country. The franchise was going under.

The warm wind whispered seductively through the sweet-scented wheat.

I sat on the ground, cross-legged, my back to the energy fence. Around me adults settled into games of cards or dice. Children raced around, screaming. A young couple brushed past me and disappeared into the wheat, sex in their eyes. The older woman sat by herself reading a book, an actual book. I couldn’t imagine where she’d gotten it. And the big-headed Sleepless, if that’s what he/she was, stretched out on the ground, closed his eyes, and pretended to sleep. I grimaced. I’ve never liked self-serving irony. Not in other people.

After two hours, the server ’bots again brought out food and drinks. “Compliments of State Senator Cecilia Elizabeth Dawes.

So nice to have you aboard.” How much soysynth did a Liver gravrail carry? I had no idea.

The sun threw long shadows. I sauntered to the woman reading. “Good book?”

She looked up at me, measuring. If Colin had sent me to the Science Court in Washington, he probably had sent some legitimate agents as well. And if Big Head was a Sleepless, he might have his own personal tail. However, something in the reading woman’s face convinced me it wasn’t her. She wasn’t genemod, but it wasn’t that. You can find donkey families who refuse even permitted genemods, and then go on existing very solidly corporate but on the fringe socially. She wasn’t that, either. She was something else.

“It’s a novel,” the woman said neutrally. “Jane Austen. Are you surprised there are still Livers who can read? Or want to?”

“Yes.” I smiled conspiratorally, but she only gave me a level stare and went back to her book. A renegade donkey didn’t arouse her contempt, or indignation, or fawning. I genuinely didn’t interest her. I felt unwitting respect.

Apparently I didn’t know as much about the variety of Livers as I’d thought.

The sunset ravished me. The sky turned lucid and vulnerable, then streaked with subtle colors. The colors grew aggressive, followed by wan and valedictory pastels. Then it grew cold and dark. An entire love affair, empyrean, in thirty minutes. Claude-Eugene-Rex-Paul-Anthony-Russell-David.

No repair technician appeared. The prairie cooled rapidly; we all climbed back onto the train, which turned on its lights and heat. I wondered what would have happened if those systems — or the server ’bots — had failed as well.

Someone said, not loudly and to no one in particular, “My meal chip, it came late from the capital last quarter.”

Pause. I sat up straighter; this was a new tone. Not complaint. Something else.

“My town got no more jacks. The warehouse donkey says, him, that there’s a national shortage.”

Pause.

“We’re going, us, on this train to get my old mother from Missouri. Heat blower in her building broke and nobody else took her in. She got no heat, her.”

Pause.

Someone said, “Does anybody know, them, how far it is to the next town? Maybe we could walk, us.”

“We ain’t supposed to walk, us! They supposed to fix our fucking train!” Mommy Liver, exploding in rage and saliva.

The quiet tone was over. “That’s right! We’re voters, us!”

“My kids can’t walk to no next town—”

“What are you, a fucking donkey?”

I saw the big-headed man gazing from face to face.

The holo of the tall swarthy engineer appeared suddenly inside the car, standing in the center aisle. “Ladies and Gentlemen, Morrison Gravrail apologizes once more for the delay in service. To make your wait more enjoyable, we are privileged to present a new entertainment production, one not yet released to the holo-grids, compliments of Congressman Wade Keith Finley. Drew Arlen, the Lucid Dreamer, in his brand-new concert ‘The Warrior.’ Please watch from the windows on the left side of the gravrail.”

Livers looked at one another; instantly happy babble replaced rage. Evidently this was something new in breakdown diversions. I calculated the cost of a portable holoprojector capable of holos big enough to be seen from windows the length of a train, plus the cost of an unreleased vid from the country’s hottest Liver entertainer. I compared the total to the cost of a competent repair team. Something was very wrong here. I knew nothing about Hollywood, but an unreleased concert from Drew Arlen must be worth millions. Why was a gravrail carrying it around as emergency diversion to keep the natives from getting too restless?

The big-headed man quietly watched his fellow travelers press their faces to the left windows.

A long rod snaked from the roof of the car behind ours, which sat in the center of the train. The rod rose at an obtuse angle to the ground and extended almost to the wheat field. Light fanned from the end of the rod downward, forming a pyramid. Everyone went “Ooooohhhhh!” Portable projectors never deliver the clarity of a good stationary unit, but I didn’t think this audience would care. The holo of Drew Arlen appeared in the center of the pyramid, and everyone went “Oooooohhhhhh” again.

I slipped out of the train.

In the dark and up close, the holo looked even stranger: a fifteen-foot-high, fuzzy-edged man sitting in a powerchair, backed by miles of unlit prairie. Above, cold stars glittered, immensely high. I unfolded a plasticloth jacket from the pocket of my jacks.