Скотт Вестерфельд - Extras

"I came to see you," he said, bowing. "And when you weren't home, I thought I'd watch the battle. I haven't seen any mech combat since I turned sixteen. Which is very Prettytime of me—I used to love mechs."

Aya returned his bow, trying to imagine Frizz doing anything as face-missing as wearing a warbody Sometimes it was hard to remember he was only a year older than she was.

"Plus, I was hoping you'd come home," he said. "It's rather mysterious, turning off your locator. It makes you hard to find."

"Oh, I didn't turn off my locator. I was just sort of… underground."

He frowned. "You don't feel stalked, do you? I'd go away if you did."

"Um, no. I don't feel stalked. Just sort of…" "Damp?" Frizz asked. "And covered with muck?"

Her arms wrapped around her shoulders, as if that would hide her wet, bedraggled uniform.

"Um, yes. Muck-covered."

"As looks go, it's even more mysterious than your Reputation Bomber robe."

She stood there, trying to think of something to say, but it seemed as though the cold of the reservoir had leaked into her brain and frozen it. It didn't help that Frizz's eye-kicking gaze was raining down on her, tangling her tongue in her mouth. The bigness of her nose suddenly loomed in the bottom of her vision.

"I was doing some…underwater rescue."

"Underwater and underground?" He nodded again. "That would explain wetness. And yet I'm still mystified."

Another shiver went through her; her head felt hot now. "Me too. I didn't tell you my last name.

How did you find me?"

Frizz smiled. "Now that's an interesting story. But I think you should change."

"Change?" Her hand went to her nose.

"Into dry clothes—you keep shivering. Maybe some meds?"

Moggle's night-lights flashed.

He waited outside, watching the battle while Aya went upstairs.

She stood under a hot shower for a solid minute, dizzy from watching twigs and slime swirl down the drain, wondering how he'd found her. This was all so shaming. Frizz had figured out her last name, which meant he knew she was an ugly and a party-crashing extra.

And yet he'd come to see her anyway What was wrong with him? Had the honesty surge broken his brain? His face rank had been steadily climbing—it was under three thousand now—and Aya was practically invisible!

Clean and dry, she faced the hole in the wall. Nothing but dorm uniforms, and no merits to waste on disposable clothing. Of course, Frizz had already seen her covered with slime—a clean uniform wouldn't be that much worse.

She dressed quickly and turned toward the door.

Moggle barred her way, flashing its lights once.

"Oh, right," she said, and told the room, "Meds, please. I was underwater and I'm all shivery and hot."

The wall's hand-plate flashed, wanting to feel her temperature and taste her sweat. Aya lay her palm on it, and soon the hole was coughing up something murky into her favorite teacup. Drinking down its orangey sourness, she stared at her standard-requisition furniture and face-missing clothes, the smallness of the room, the obscurity of everything about her.

At least medicine didn't cost any merits. And there must have been nanos in the drink—by the time the elevator reached the ground floor, her dizziness had mostly gone.

"Finding you was easy," Frizz said. "I knew your first name, after all."

She frowned. "But the city must have a thousand girls named Aya."

"More like twelve hundred." Frizz chuckled as another warbody exploded into death throes. The battle was gathering intensity, littering the soccer field with casualties. Moggle was flitting along the edges, practicing tracking shots on rubber missiles and looking completely recovered from being submerged in ice-cold water.

Aya couldn't say as much. Sitting next to Frizz in the dappled shade, she still felt tremors playing on the surface of her skin, as if the medicine had transformed her fever into reputation shivers. At least his tongue-tying manga gaze was focused on the battle instead of her.

"But I knew you'd been reputation bombing," he continued. "So I checked the face rankings for that night. Someone named Yoshio Nara became Yoshio-sensei out of nowhere."

Aya flinched. Even hearing Yoshio's name again sent a sharp little ping through her brain. "But how did you get from him to me?"

"I went through his meme-lines, looking for the name Aya."

"You can do that? I thought conversations were private! Not that it was a real conversation, just me saying the same name for an hour. But still!"

"No, you're right. The city interface won't reveal what you say." He shrugged. "But our city isn't designed for privacy; it's designed for publicity, to spawn connections and debates and buzz. So you're allowed to trace face-hits back to the source, especially if it's a lot of hits. And you were the only Aya to mention Yoshio Nara three thousand times that night."

"Ouch. Quit saying that name," Aya said, then sighed. "I guess I didn't know that. My brother studies his meme-lines for hours, but my stories never get enough feedback to bother with."

"He's famous, isn't he?"

Aya nodded. "Very. That's probably why he's such a snob. He thinks my stories are stupid."

"They're not. That underground graffiti you kicked was beautiful."

"Oh, um, thanks." Aya felt a blush spill across her cheeks, astonished that Frizz had actually looked at her feed. "But that's just kid stuff. I'm working on something much bigger. Totally famous-making! It's about this secret clique, and they—" Frizz held up his hand. "If it's a secret, you'd better not tell me. I'm not very good at keeping secrets."

"Right, because of your…" She resisted the urge to point at his head. It was strange—bubbleheads were the only brain surgers Aya had ever known, and Frizz didn't seem like a bubblehead at all. "But what does honesty have to do with keeping secrets?"

"Radical Honesty gets rid of all deception," Frizz recited, like he'd explained this a million times before. "I can't lie, truth-slant, or pretend not to know something. You can't even invite me to surprise parties, or I'll give it all away."

A laugh bubbled up in Aya. "But doesn't that make everything less…surprising?"

"You'd be surprised how often it makes things more surprising."

"Huh." She stared at the battle, wondering how many things she kept secret every day. "You can't hide yourself at all. That must be scary-making."

He turned to her. "Scary-making for me? Or everyone else?"

His gaze sent Aya's shivers scattering across her skin, and she felt a flush returning to her cheeks and a tingle in her spine. His honesty was scary-making! Her head spun with all the questions she was dying to ask, but wasn't sure she could stand the answers to. About why he was here, and what he thought of their difference in ambition.

"You like me, don't you?" she said.

He laughed. "Was I being too subtle?"

"No, I guess not. But it doesn't make sense…because you're so famous and I'm an extra! Plus I'm an ugly and you keep seeing me wearing stupid robes or covered in slime and when we met I lied about my nose!"

Aya sputtered to a halt, wondering where all those words had come from. They'd just gushed out of her, like bubbly from a shaken bottle, fizzing and undrinkable.

"Wow," she said. "Is Radical Honesty contagious or something?"

"Sometimes." Frizz was grinning. "It's an unexpected benefit."

Aya felt herself blushing and tore her eyes from him, staring out at the soccer fields. Only a handful of warbodies remained standing, battering each other with plastic swords and battle-axes. "But why do you like me?"

He reached out and took her hand, and the reputation shivers became a tightness in Aya's chest, as if she were underwater again, holding her breath.