Meewee lifted his arm and peeked inside his robe. Won’t it clash with the visola in my system?
Relax, Meewee. You’re such a worrier. It’s not a NASTIE. The bee says it injected you with a fast-growing but benign cancer tumor that will grow into a little dab of ectopic brain tissue. Some hypothalamus and neocortex cells, that’s all. It’ll be nestled in your armpit where it’ll be protected by your arm, and you’ll hardly notice it.
Tentatively, Meewee squeezed the little knot in his armpit, saw stars, the floor, and blackness.
2.15
Before leaving the roof, Bogdan tore a sleeve from his jumpsuit and used it to blow his nose. He dropped it in Samson’s bowl of congealed fruitish and carried the tray down the stairs. When he passed his room, his door greeted him with a cheery good evening. Boy, he liked that door. The charter had installed it as part of a strategic plan to check Tobbler expansion above the seventh floor by hijacking control of their elevator. Bogdan’s occupation of the room was a happy afterthought. He’d been campaigning for his own room for years. The charter gave the door codes to him, and now nothing, not even a tank could get through it without his permission. Since losing Lisa, that door and that room were the only cool things he could lay claim to.
The nearest Kodiak bathroom was on the sixth floor. Bogdan stopped there to clean up and change his clothes. He removed the lunchtime cookies from his pockets, grasped the rip tab under his collar, and neatly tore his jumpsuit from throat to ankle. His clothes fell to his feet. He bundled them up and dropped them, along with Samson’s leftover food, utensils, and tray, down the digester chute.
With the bathroom lights all the way up, Bogdan inspected himself in the mirror. His cracking voice in the Oship simulation was an early warning of impending pubescence. He examined himself with a practiced eye. Was he a little taller? Leaner? He zoomed in and brushed his fingertips across his upper lip. No mustache, but maybe a little peach fuzz? He pulled a shave cloth from the dispenser and scrubbed his chin and cheeks with it until his skin was baby smooth. There were smudges of downy brown stubble left on the cloth. He took a quick glance at his crotch. Everything looked satisfactorily prepubescent down there. He raised both arms—and froze. Was that pit hair? He looked again at his crotch, really looked, and God yes, curly hair was sprouting down there too! This was no small disaster. This was an emergency of the first order. He needed an endocrinological adjustment, and he needed a juve treatment, and he needed them yesterday. Good thing the Allowance meeting was tonight.
Kale spoke to him through the houseputer, “Bogdan, what’s taking you so long up there?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Bogdan replied.
A moment later, Kale said, “Boggy, can you hear me? Hello?”
“I can hear you.”
“Bogdan, answer if you can hear me. We’re all hungry down here, and we’re waiting on you.”
“Amazing,” Bogdan said. “Everything is so feckin’ amazing.”
WEARING FRESH HOUSE togs, Bogdan picked his way down the cluttered stairwell to Green Hall on the fourth floor. The walls of Green Hall were burdened with shelves, eight tiers of them from floor to ceiling, and every shelf was heavy with household appliances, archives, and junk. With the shelving and the giant leaves of the lungplant, there was only enough free space left in Green Hall for the three tables where the charter took its meals.
Kale was sitting at the head table between Gerald and April. April had her portable assayer in front of her, and Gerald the ritual “soup pot.” The soup pot was just that, an aluminum stock pot with a pay badge affixed to its side. It had been in the charter since its founding.
“Okay, here he is,” Kale said. “We can begin.”
“Not yet,” Gerald said. “We haven’t decided on the Tobbler thing yet.”
“Yes, we have,” April said. “There’s no reason why a few of them can’t join us for a little while. We have a perfect view of the Skytel.”
Gerald crossed his arms. “So you say. But I say we don’t owe them any favors. Let them watch from the street. They’re so fond of the street, let them watch from there. Besides, I thought we were going to start the thing with Sam tonight.”
“We are,” April declared, “and I intend to invite the Tobblers to that too. They’re our neighbors, for crying out loud.” She crossed her arms in parody of him.
“Neighbors?” Gerald said. “You call them neighbors?”
“Now, now,” said Kale, who sat between them, “let’s not get started down that road.”
Bogdan slipped between the tables. He saw two empty chairs, one next to Kitty at one table, and one next to Rusty at the other. He pretended to choose the chair next to Kitty, just to aggravate her, then hopped into the other chair. He turned to Rusty and said, “Is this about the bricks?”
“No, the bricks are a different headache.”
BJ leaned across the table and said, “The Tobbs want to come up and watch the canopy show with us on our roof tonight. They asked April if they could, and we’re discussing it.”
From the other table, Megan spoke up, “Houseer Kale, couldn’t we sort this out later? I vote we do the soup pot and get on with dinner.”
A dozen voices chanted, “Soup pot. Soup pot.”
Megan went on, “All in favor of eating say, ‘Aye.’”
“Aye!” boomed the chartists.
Megan gaveled her water glass with her knife and said, “The motion carries. Let the eating begin.”
Kale sighed and stood up. April and Gerald, cross-armed and angry, bracketed him. “Beloved housemeets,” he intoned, “draw nigh and hear my blessing.” He picked up the soup pot and held it over his head with both hands like a trophy. “Behold this shiny vessel of our subsistence. ’Tis a mighty boat upon a careless sea. ’Tis the cradle of our life and hope. Approach, dear housemeets, and fill it to the brim with the fruits of your labor.” He put the soup pot on the table and sat back down.
Sarah went first. As this year’s cook and housekeeper, the house credited her with a daily payfer of 0.0035 UDC, what amounted to minimum wage in the outside world. She approached the head table and pantomimed dropping something into the soup pot, then turned to her housemeets and made a quick, perfunctory bow. There was a patter of polite applause. She mumbled her thanks and hurried out to the kitchen to attend the extruder.
Barry and Francis had waiter duty that evening, so they went next. They jogged past the pot, brushing its rim with their fingers, not dropping anything in, and were out the door before anyone had a chance to applaud, assuming anyone would.
Gerald, this year’s controller and all-around handyperson, went next, followed by Kale, their houseer. Without bothering to stand up, both reached over to “drop” their minimum wage chit into the pot, and each received polite applause. April, on the other hand, made an actual swipe, which the pay badge registered as 0.1720 credits, that day’s net take from her NanoJiffy franchise. The housemeets clapped heartily; hers was usually the first hard credit in the communal pot each night.
Next came June and Paula, whose online day labor with an insurance adjuster had yielded 0.0095 yoodies between them. They took turns swiping the pot and blushing at the applause.
After them, Louis came up to drop a handful of tokens and taxi caps into the pot (by now the housemeets had ceased trying to discourage his public begging and only asked him to remove his charter colors when he did so)—0.0025. Solid, if restrained applause.