Рич Ларсон - Tomorrow Factory - Collected Fiction

“Form looks solid,” I say, because I don’t think his pa would understand if I told him watching his son shoot jumpers is like freebasing liquid poetry.

“He works hard,” Diallo senior allows. “Many shots. Every day.” His retinal blinks ice blue. “Excuse me, Victor.” He picks a small plastic case off the bleacher and heads for the lockers. Normally I’d think it’s some kind of bit, leaving me alone to contemplate in silence, but he’s been doing it like clockwork since I picked him and his son up from the terminal at SeaTac. Some kind of lung condition. It’s not hereditary, so I didn’t bother remembering the name of it.

I’m already sold, I’ve been sold for the past half hour, but Oxford starts to slam anyways. He launches the ball high for an alley-oop, hunts down the bounce and plucks it out of the air, lofting up, hanging hard like gravity’s got the day off. He swipes it right-to-left behind his back and flushes it with his offhand in one mercury-slick motion.

“Fuck,” I breathe. “We have got to get this kid meshed.”

I mean, seeing it is one thing. Being able to feel it via nervecast, feel that impossible airtime and liquid power, have the rim float towards you in first person while your muscles twitch and flex, is going to be something else entirely.

After a few more goes at the rack, Oxford sees me waving and jaunts over, looping the ball between his lanky legs on repeat. He takes after his pa facially but his eyes aren’t as sharp yet, and when the antioxygen mask peels free with a sweat-suction pop, he’s got a big white Cheshire grin that would never be able to fit into Diallo senior’s mouth.

“Oxford, my man,” I say. “How do you like the shoes?”

He curls his toes in the factory-fresh Nikes, flexing the porous canvas. The new thing is the impact gel, which is supposed to tell when you’re coming down hard and cradle the ankle, mitigate sprains and all that. But they also happen to look bomb as fuck, lime green with DayGlo orange slashes. I told my girlfriend Wendee I’m getting her a pair for her birthday; she told me she’d rather get herpes.

“I like them well,” Oxford says reverently, but I can tell his vocabulary is letting him down. The look in his eyes says bomb as fuck.

“Better make some room in your closet,” I say. “Because we’re going to get you geared up to here. All the merch you can handle. Anything you want.”

“You want to sign me,” Oxford grins.

“Oxford, I want you to eat, breathe, and shit Nike for the foreseeable future,” I tell him, straight up. “I would say you’re going to be a star, but stars are too small. You are going to be the goddamn sun about which the league revolves in a few years.”

Oxford pounds the ball thoughtfully behind his back, under his shinbones. “The sun is a star. Also.”

“And a smartass, too,” I say. “Fanfeeds are going to love you.” I start tugging the contract together in my retinal, putting the bank request through. Sometimes the number of zeroes my company trusts me to wield still floors me. “We’ll want your mesh done for Summit, which might take some doing. Technically nerve mesh shouldn’t go in until eighteen, but technically it also has health-monitoring functionality, so with parental consent we should be able to bully in early. I’ll do up a list of clinics for your pa—”

I stop short when I realize the grin has dropped off Oxford’s face and down some chasm where it might be irretrievable.

“No,” he says, shaking his head.

“No what?”

His eyes go hard and sharp. “No mesh.”

W hat do you mean he’s not getting meshed? my boss pings me, plus a not-unusual torrent of anger / confusion emotes that makes my teeth ache.

“I mean he doesn’t want it,” I say, sticking my hands under the tap. “He says he won’t get the mesh, period.”

I’m in the bathroom, because I couldn’t think up a better excuse. The mirror is scrolling me an advertisement for skin rejuvenation, dicing up my face and projecting a version sans stress lines. The water gushes out hot.

Do they even know what it is? Did you explain?

“They know what a nerve mesh is,” I say indignantly. “They’re from Senegal, not the moon.” I slap some water on my cheeks, because that always helps in the movies, then muss and unmuss my hair. The mirror suggests I try a new Lock’n’Load Old Spice sculpting gel. “But yeah,” I mutter. “I, uh, I did explain.”

Once Oxford’s pa got back to the bleachers, I gave both of them the whole wiki, you know, subcutaneous nodes designed to capture and transmit biofeedback, used to monitor injuries and fatigue and muscle movement, and also nervecast physical sensation and first-person visual to spectators. If we get our way, with a little swoosh in the bottom left corner.

It’s not something I usually have to sell people on. Most kids, even ones from the most urban of situations, have saved up enough for at least one classic nervecast of Maker sinking the game-winner for Seattle in the ‘33 Finals, or Dray Cardeno dunking all over three defenders back when he was still with the Phoenix Phantoms. Most kids dream about getting their mesh how they dream about getting their face on billboards and releasing their own signature shoes.

The Diallos listened real intent, real polite, and when I was finished Oxford just shook his head, and his pa put a hand on his shoulder and told me that his son’s decision was final, and if Nike wasn’t willing to flex on the nerve mesh, another sponsor would. At which point I spilled some damage control, got both of them to agree to dinner, and bailed to the bathroom for a check-in with my boss.

It’s a zero-risk procedure now, for fuck’s sakes. You can do it with an autosurgeon. Change his mind. A procession of eye-rolling and then glaring emotes, all puffing and red-cheeked.

“What if we just put a pin in the mesh thing and sign him anyways?” I say. “We can’t let this one get away. You saw the workout feed. We sign him unmeshed, let things simmer, work it into the contract later on as an amendment.”

If he’s playing at HoopSumm, he needs a mesh. That’s the coming out party. How the fuck are we supposed to market him without a mesh? Skeptical emote, one eyebrow sky-high. I thought you could handle this one solo, Vic. Thought you wanted that recommendation for promo. Am I wrong?

“No,” I say quick. “I mean, you’re not wrong.” I yank a paper towel off the dispenser and work it into a big wad with my wet hands. I never elect biofeedback when chatting someone with the power to get me fired; if I did there would be some serious middle-finger emotes mobbing his way.

Figure out if it’s him or the dad who’s the problem. Then use the one to get to the other. It’s not brain surgery. There’s a chortling emote for the pun, then he axes the chat.

I’m left there shredding the damp paper towel into little bits, thinking about the promotion that I do want, that I absolutely do want. I’d finally be making more than my old man, and Wendee would be happy for me for at least a week, and maybe during that blissed out week I would get up the balls to ask her to move in.

But first, I have to get the Diallos to sign off on a nerve mesh. I’m not exactly bursting with ideas. That is, not until I go to toss the towel in the recycler and see a rumpled napkin inked with bright red blood sitting on top. Then I remember Oxford’s pa and his little plastic case. I shove it all down into the recycler and head back to the gym, only pausing to order a tube of that new hair gel.

Itake them to a slick new brick-and-glass AI-owned bar, because taking them up the Space Needle would be too obvious. A little holohost springs up at the entry, flashes my retinal for available funds, and takes us straight to private dining. We pass a huge transparent pillar full of chilled wine, which I notice Oxford’s pa look at sideways. More important is Oxford himself staring at the shiny black immersion pods set into the back of the bar. I send them a subtle ping to start scrolling ad banners for some fresh League nervecasts while we settle in around the table.