SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

Over the weeks though, I’d grown suspicious. Miell v-linked in everyday to check up on us, but she wouldn’t tell me where she was or when she’d be back. Plus, she looked bad. Overly thin, with deep circles under her eyes.

She was mostly full of instructions.

“Make sure he gets exercise.” This meant exercise videos—cartoon characters running him through a little cardio. If it was so important, why wasn’t he allowed to walk on the city streets with me?

“Are you putting on his finger clip every night?” The clip monitored his vital signs even though she said he had no history of illness.

Techno-chicanery promising to keep children safe from harm. As if…

Earlier today, she said, “Don’t forget to change his memory chip. It fills up every three to four weeks depending on how much he sleeps. Put the full one in sequence in the chip reader in his bedside drawer. It makes a back-up.”

This was the first time I’d heard about this.

Maybe because she didn’t expect to be gone so long?

“When are you coming back? Hayes misses you.”

“He obviously loves having you there. I saw that his reading’s improved. That’s your doing. Thanks.”

Avoidance.

“Talk to me. I don’t even know where you are. Yes, I was thrilled to be let into your lives. I would’ve done anything you asked—and I have. But…“

She glanced over her shoulder, then turned to face me again. “I’m right here. You can always get in touch. I’m working. You’ve nagged me forever to get to know Hayes. Enjoy it. Don’t forget, regular school will be out soon. The info on the summer school is on your comppad. Gotta go.”

Since Miell wouldn’t tell me anything, I decided to look at Hayes’ recorded memories. I never expected to see her writhing on the floor in agony.

I fell asleep worrying about Miell, but woke up with the idea of throwing a replacement party to make a happy memory for Hayes.

But how? I’d never been to his school, didn’t know the parents or the other kids. None had been to the apartment since I’d been here. They v-linked in for play dates.

“Want to walk with me on the way to the station this morning?” I suggested as he pulled on his sneakers. His big brown eyes stayed neutral, but I had the feeling he liked this idea. “I want to have a conversation which is hard when you’re in front of me in the wheelie. Plus, it’s more grown-up, don’t you think?”

“I’m six.”

“I know. Six-year-olds can walk, right?”

“Right.”

I’d forgotten that a crowded, noisy city street isn’t the best place for a conversation. Even walking side-by-side we had to shout. “Is your mom sick?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are there times when she can’t work? Stays in bed?”

“Oh. Yes. Well, she does work—” He looked up at me and said proudly, “in the movies! But sometimes she seems kind of, like, sick.”

“She hasn’t told you what’s wrong?”

He didn’t answer. I looked down and he just shook his head.

It hit me. Hayes was so careful with words, with his reactions to things because of ReMemory. His mother could, would, see whatever he did or said. The only private thing he had were his thoughts.

We walked in silence.

When we got to the station, I strapped him in the wheelie.

“Can I walk home this afternoon?” he asked.

“You bet.”

Negotiating knots of heedless teenagers and self-absorbed business types, I wheeled him through the throng until we arrived at his private berth on the Peditrain.

I pushed him up the shallow ramp, smiling at the functionary who wore puke green and acted as if she’d never seen us before. She held the scanner in front of Hayes’ eye. It beeped cheerily, one of hundreds of others going off in the terminal. She nodded and we boarded the train.

Hefty metal hooks locked the wheelie into place. I had twenty seconds to kiss Hayes good-bye for the day before a belt with eight inches of bright blue and orange padding lowered around him and the whole wheelie. I gave him a quick hug and we touched noses. I exited and the door closed behind me. The windows were one-way. I could no longer see my boy, but I always waved at him anyway.

“I can’t stay indefinitely,” I said to Miell when she showed up on the vid later that day.

“You wanted to get to know your grandson.”

“True, but I know something’s seriously wrong. I watched Hayes’ memory of his last birthday.”

She drew back in a long slow motion that reminded me of a snake considering whether or not to strike. Her shaky hand floated up and grabbed onto the back of her skull, her fingertips digging in.

“You’re sick, or addicted, or both.”

“I’m working.”

“I’ve seen you on the floor. Moaning. What’s the drug?”

“I’ll hire a nanny so you can go home. Don’t know why I let you into my life again. Big mistake.”

“Let me help.”

Her hand now lay on the desk in a tight fist. She wore heavy make-up, but it didn’t cover up anything.

“I…I am not addicted to any drug. I just can’t come home right now. We’re…trying to cobble a complicated, time-sensitive deal on a film. Sorry this didn’t work out. I’ll find a nanny for Hayes.”

“No!”

She disconnected.

I fussed with Hayes’ bed covers as he snuggled on one side, settling in for the night. As soon as I’d tucked in his arm, it wiggled out again. He turned his head to look at me, splayed his fingers and said, “Gama, you forgot the monitor.”

I sighed. “So I did.” I fished the bright red finger clip out of a dish on his bedside table and sat down on the bed. Pinching the plastic device to open its tiny padded jaws, I slipped it over his middle finger and let go. He had reassured me that he didn’t even feel it.

“Nice that it’s red,” I said.

“Red’s my favorite color.”

“It is ?” I feigned shock and surprise.

He grinned, only then remembering that he’d told me this dozens of times. “Yeah, like IncrediBlaster’s cape. Don’t forget to turn the monitor on.” He rolled over again, pulling both hands together and under his head in the classic child-sleeping pose. I tucked thick strands of light brown hair behind his ear.

“Tell me again why you need monitoring.”

“I dunno,” he said, his voice muffled. Then, remembering that it was his duty to educate his clueless grandmother, he added, “So you’ll get an alert if something happens to me in the middle of the night.”

Parroted words. What if it isn’t about Hayes, but Miell?

What if he had to wear a monitor because she was often so indisposed that she wouldn’t hear a normal kid’s cry in the night?

While Hayes was at school, I zipped through hundreds of his memories. Most of the chip held ordinary, mundane scenes.

A series of women looked after Hayes. I took Miell’s threat to replace me with a nanny even more seriously after seeing them all. But I also took heart that she had called me this time. First time in six years. There had to be a reason.

The vids showed that Hayes had friends at school. He was a bit of a hanger-on, never the center of attention, but I saw no evidence of bullying or being actively disliked.

At home, he often went into his mother’s empty room, lay on her bed and put on her head phones. Then, the vid would pause, indicating that he’d gone to sleep.

I also witnessed him and his mother together in the bed. Once they watched a funny movie while eating popcorn. I giggled out loud at a wrestling/tickle fight they had another night. It wasn’t all bad.