Bruce Sterling: Holy Fire

“Responsibility.”

“That doesn’t sound very exciting.”

“It’s not exciting, but if you’re not responsible, you can’t take proper care of yourself. You get sick and fall apart.” This truism sounded rather fatuous, pointless, and morbid, especially for a young person. “When you live a really long time,” Mia offered carefully, “it changes everything. The whole structure of the world, politics, money, religion, culture, everything that used to be human. All those changes are your responsibility, they benefited you, they happened because of you. You have to work hard so that the polity can manage. Good citizenship is a lot of work. It needs a lot of self-sacrifice.”

“Sure,” said Brett, and laughed. “I forgot about those parts.”

Brett led her into a mall—a nexus of junk shops near the Haight. There was a good crowd in the place, warming the benches, window-shopping, sipping tinctures in a café. A couple of cops in pink jackets sat on their bicycles, people-watching. For the first time in many years, Mia found herself catching a suspicious glance from a police officer. Because of the company she kept.

“Do you know this part of town?” Brett said.

“Sure. See that collectors’ shop? They sell old media bric-a-brac, I buy paper-show things from them sometimes.”

“Wow,” Brett marveled, “I always wondered what kind of people went into that weird old place.… ”

Brett ducked into a dark, tiny store, a redwood-fronted hole in the wall. It sold rugs, blankets, and cheap jewelry. Mia had never been inside the place in her life. It smelled strongly, almost chokingly, of air-sprayed vanilla. The walls were densely overgrown with deep green moss.

A tabby cat was asleep on the shop counter, sprawled lazily across the glass top. There were no human beings in sight. Brett made a beeline for a dress rack crammed in the corner. “Come see … see, this is all my stuff.”

“All of this?”

“No, not everything on this rack,” Brett said, sorting nimbly through the garment rack, “but this one is my design, and this one, and this one here.… I mean, I concepted these, it was Griff who instantiated them.” Mia perceived from the sudden angry crease on Brett’s smooth brow that Griff was the erring boyfriend. “This older guy, Mr. Quiroga, he’s the owner. We kind of cut a deal with him to carry our stuff.”

“They’re very interesting designs,” Mia said. They were very peculiar.

“You like them, really?”

“Of course I do.” Mia pulled a red jacket from its hanger. It was made of a puffy spun plastic with tactile properties somewhere between leather, canvas, and some kind of chewable gelatin candy. Most of the jacket was candy-apple red, but there were large patches of murky blue on the elbows, neck, and hem. It had a lot of fat buttoned pockets, and a waterproof red rain hood crushed down inside a lumpy collar.

“See how well it holds its shape?” Brett boasted. “And it doesn’t even have batteries. It’s all in the cut and the weave. Plus the Young’s modulus of the fiber.”

“What’s it made of?”

“Elastomers and polymers. A little woven ceramic for the high-wear spots. See, it’s durable all-weather street-wear, just right for travel! Try it on!”

Mia slipped her arms through the padded sleeves. Brett busied herself tugging at the shoulders, then zipped it up to Mia’s chin. “It fits great!” Brett declared. It did no such thing. Mia felt as if she’d been stuffed into a monstrous fruitcake.

Mia stepped before a narrow full-length mirror in another corner. There she saw a stranger improbably swaddled in a garish candied jacket. Maya the Gingerbread Girl. She put on her sunglasses. With the glasses, and with sufficiently bad light, she might almost look young—a very tired, puffy, sickly young woman in a kid’s ridiculous jacket. Wearing improbably tidy, adult, and conservative slacks and shoes.

Mia jammed her fingers through her hair, shook her head, and destroyed her coiffure.

“That helps,” she said, peering at the mirror.

Brett was surprised, and laughed.

“What a lovely jacket. What else could I ever need?”

“Better shoes,” Brett told her very seriously. “A skirt. Long earrings. No purse, get a backpack. Real lipstick, not that medicated little-old-lady stuff. Nail polish. Barrettes. Necklaces. No girdle. No brassiere, if you can help it. Especially no watch .” She paused. “And sway some more when you walk. Put some bounce in it.”

“That seems like rather a lot.”

Brett shrugged. “Looking vivid is mostly things you don’t have to get and don’t have to do.”

“I don’t have the cheekbones for that kind of life anymore,” Mia said. “I talk too slowly. I don’t wave my hands enough. I don’t giggle. If I tried to dance, I’d ache for a week.”

“You don’t have to dance. I could make you look really vivid if you wanted me to. I’m pretty good at that. I have a talent. Everyone says so.”

“I’m sure you could do that, Brett. But why would I want you to?”

Brett was bitterly crestfallen. Mia felt a sharp pang of guilt at having disappointed her. It was as if she’d deliberately slapped a small child in the street. “I do want the jacket,” Mia said. “I’m fond of it, I want to buy it from you.”

“You do, really?”

“Yes, really.”

“Could you give me some grown-up money for it?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I mean real money from a long-term investment account,” Brett said. “Certified funds.”

“But certified funds are only for special transactions. Life extension, stock ownership, pensions, that sort of thing.”

“No, they’re not. Certified money is the real money for the real economy. It’s the kind of money that kids like Griff and me can never get our hands on.” Brett’s young-girl eyes—warm amber brown, with sclera so white and clear that they looked almost artificial—narrowed cagily. “You don’t have to give me very much real money at all. I’d feel real happy with just a little bit of certified grown-up money.”

“I’d like to give you some,” Mia said, “but I don’t have any way to do that. Of course I do have certified funds in my own name, but they’re all tied up in long-term capital investments, like they’re supposed to be. Nobody uses that kind of financial instrument for little everyday transactions like clothes or food. What’s wrong with a nice cashcard?”

“You can’t start a real business without certified funds,” Brett said. “There’s all kinds of awful tax problems and insurance problems and liability problems. It’s all just part of the big conspiracy to hold young people back.”

“No, it isn’t,” Mia said, “it’s how we ensure financial stability and reduce liquidity in the capital markets. This is truly a dull and stuffy topic, Brett, but as it happens, I’m a medical economist, and I know quite a bit about this. If you could have seen what markets were like in the twenties, or the forties, or even the sixties, then you’d appreciate modern time-based restrictions on the movement of capital. They’ve helped a lot, life’s a lot more predictable now. The whole structure of the medical-industrial complex is dependent on stable grant procedures and graduated reductions in liquidity.”

Brett shrugged. “Oh, never mind, never mind.… I knew you’d never give me any, but I had to ask anyway. I hope you’re not mad at me.”

“No, it’s all right. I’m not mad.”

Brett gazed around the shop, her lips tightening in a glossy smirk. “Mr. Quiroga’s not around. Probably doing civil support. He’s supposed to run this place, but he’s never in here when you want him.… Probably makes more treatment points from the government when he’s out spying on us kids.… Can you give me fifteen marks for it? Cash?”