Рич Ларсон - Tomorrow Factory - Collected Fiction

“ Cielo , are you alright?” her mother called. “Ignore the mess. There’s bifanas we picked up in the kitchen, cielo , you should eat, you…”

Marisol went to her room without answering. Her hands trembled at her sides. Her Razzibot floated behind her, but too close, now, and for the first time the tiny whine of its rotor set her teeth on edge. When she closed her door, she stuck it into its charging station and threw her Versace jacket overtop to cover its eye.

She knew Razzibots had crude AI, that their algorithm was always seeking ways to draw followers, that they liked growing the Stream audience almost as much as their owners did. They always knew what people wanted to see. But some things Marisol did not want to share, not even for a hundred new followers.

For a few days afterward, things seemed to be better. Her mother went to a spa and had her nails done sharp and shiny, arterial red. Her father played scratchy fado music and strummed at invisible guitar wires. But then it turned bad again, worse than ever, and so Marisol did her best to not be in the house.

She was still afraid her Razzibot might stream something without her knowing, so afraid she considered leaving it turned off.

But then her follow count would stall, and slowly shrink, and soon there would be nobody admiring her perfectly-sculpted eyebrows or envying her beautiful Porto summer. So she kept it on. She went to more parties with Xandra’s sister, and kissed another boy who was better at it. She went to a concert, where her Razzibot skimmed all the way over the crowd and somehow made it look as though she was in the dead center of it, as if everyone else was revolving around her.

She planned a daytrip to Sintra, because 38% of her followers voted it, but Aline’s grandfather was sick and Xandra was busy and Paloma had hated her for weeks now, so in the end she went with only her Razzi. They wandered through the red-and-yellow palace, underneath the great dome and the notched parapets. Marisol smiled until her teeth ached, relaying little facts about crenellations and love scandals her Razzibot sent to her phone, skipping through archways and spinning and laughing. Her shadow slowly stretched thin as a wasp on the ancient cobblestone.

It was late when the Luxcar dropped her at home, but her Stream was thrumming with fifty new followers and everyone saying how beautiful Sintra was, how beautiful she was, how beautiful her gathered Rilla-Cruz skirt was. She let herself inside, and for a moment forgot all about the Stream.

In the living room, the autocleaner was trying to digest chunks of shattered vase on the floor. Her father was sitting very still on the couch, his hand wrapped around a Superbock, the previous five bottles lined up in front of him on the table like a firing squad. Little red cuts were scabbing over on his cheek and Marisol could nearly make out the imprint of her mother’s hand.

“Where’s mama?” she asked, and hated how it came out so weak and trembly.

Her father was silent for a long moment, swilling beer in his mouth. “She left,” he finally said. His voice was thick and dark as tar. “What did you tell her?” He looked up at her, his mouth twisted. “What did you tell her, you stupid little bitch?”

Marisol heard the whine of her Razzibot over her shoulder as she fled, but she was too flayed open to think about it. Her pulse was crashing in her ears. Her vision swam black at the edges as she stumbled into her room and shoved the door shut behind her.

It was only when her Razzi slipped through the closing crack that she realized it was streaming again.

“Stop!” she shrieked. “Stop!”

The Razzibot bobbed hesitantly in the air, algorithms warring. Its indicator flickered off. Back on. Behind it, Marisol saw her reflection in her smart glass window, saw the inky tears spilling down her face and her skin gone pale. Her eyes were wide and terrified and everyone could see. A panicky whine rose in the back of her throat; her breath came fast and faster.

“Stop streaming!” she choked.

The Razzibot drifted to the right, changing angles. Something came dislodged inside her. Her gaze raked around the room, landed on a heavy baroque lamp beside her bed. She seized it with both hands and smashed the Razzibot out of the air, then smashed it again on the floor, swinging over and over.

“You little bitch,” she chanted. “You little bitch, you stupid little bitch!”

Glass and polyplastic crunched; sparks showered the carpet, scorching small holes. Her back muscles seared but she didn’t stop until the Razzibot was nothing but a dead lump of shattered shell and circuitry. Then Marisol dropped the lamp. She climbed into her bed and pulled the covers over her head, and tried to disappear.

She woke up to the soft chime of her phone and reached for it on instinct, snapping it flat and peering at the soft glowing screen. An avalanche of messages. Her mother, trying to explain. Aline, asking if she was alright. Paloma, asking if she was alright but in a bitchy way. Some sort of offer from Luminos Cosmetics.

The night came back to her. Marisol peeled the covers back and saw the husk of her Razzibot on the floor. There was still a faint smell of burnt circuits in the air. She remembered her father knocking on the door, pleading with her, weeping. It made her feel like she might need to vomit.

Then she looked down at her phone again and saw her follow count.

Half a million.

Half a million, and growing in spurts as she watched, climbing by thousands instead of tens. Her fingers shook and she nearly dropped her phone. She flicked back to her messages and realized the offer from Luminos Cosmetics wasn’t for a deal, it was for a sponsorship. And there were others, too, from a burgeoning clothing line in Barcelona, from a wearable start-up in Oslo.

By the time she was through them all, her follow count was nearing a million. So raw, they were all saying, so raw and so real. Marisol watched the number rise and it filled her like morphine. She opened her door and walked tall to the kitchen, where her father was waiting with bags beneath his eyes, with fresh orange juice in a carafe and apologies in his mouth.

“I didn’t tell her anything,” Marisol said, cutting him off.

“I know,” he said hoarsely, rubbing his gray temple.

“But I could have,” Marisol continued. “And I might, still. I need a new Razzibot, please.”

She poured a glass of orange juice, licked a splash off her thumb. Then she went back to her room and sat cross-legged by her old Razzi’s wreckage, phone in her lap, silently watching her Stream swell and swell.

Rumors webbed down the peninsula through pirate shortwaves and whispered conversations. The Cloud was approaching. The Cloud was going to make a pass near the village.

Old solar laptops were taken out of hiding to charge in the watery morning sunlight. Rootkits were dug up from cellars and refurbished. Men and women pored over manuals with their cheeks brushing, and Old Derozan surprised everyone when he pulled eight thumb drives from his hollow cane, one by one, and laid them glinting on the floor.

His grandson, Solomon, was tasked with watching for the black government trucks that sometimes fought their way over the moor. Solomon had never seen the Cloud, but the anticipation was like a hantavirus. He grew to love the idea so much that his father agreed to take him out on the night, up to the knoll where they would have a good view. Old Derozan snorted at this and said they would do just as well to stay indoors. The signal would reach and there would be less chance of attracting unwanted attention.

Solomon’s father was closer to childhood, and so he kept awake with mate and caffeine sprays until midnight dropped cold over the village. Then he put the precious tablet and its rubber casing into a nylon bag, the straps of which he tightened on Solomon’s narrow shoulders, and they climbed the knoll.