Read Online Generation A by Douglas Coupland - Free Book Online Page B

a nice bed with perfect air was a treat I’d never known, not even as a child. I tried to focus on recent memories but to no avail. Rick’s narcotic spray—and the brutalizing effects of travelling from the other side of the planet inside a plastic bag—had eroded my thoughts, making them fuzzy and hard to descramble, sort of like the satellite signals that come into Trincomalee from the feeds out of Perth. (Oh, those Australian accents! With a single vowel from a female Aussie, you could cut glass.)
    In any event, my incarceration differed little from those of Zack, Samantha, Julien and Diana. When the music stopped, we all ended up in these strange and clean rooms, alone with our shock and confusion and sense of wonder.
    I thought about the bee and what it must have done to me. Had it infused me with a virus or bug or some other form of non-Harj information—information that was going to multiply within me to produce possibly horrific consequences? I did not want this. Instead, I hoped the bee had put something safe and kind and healing into my system, something better than me, something that would grow and make the world a place where idiots like Hemesh are not shot to death in parking lots and where outlet malls are always beautiful and are kept at a temperature just cool enough to require wearing a sweater.
    I fell asleep.

ZACK
    “What’s your name, then?”
    “Call me Lisa.”
    “Hello, Lisa. I’m assuming that right now I’m being watched by a hundred different cameras?”
    “You are correct in assuming something like that.”
    “Then I think I’ll make myself more . . . comfortable .” I’d noticed I’d been garbed in a pair of white cotton underwear that I thought unusual because it had absolutely no logos or branding or any other indication of where it was from. Regardless, I decided to smoulder for the scrumptious Lisa. Nobody can resist Zack in his smouldering mode.
    “Zack, I think you need to know that I am actually a composite personality generated by fifteen different scientists feeding text, data and voice information into the system’s central character generator. I’m not actually a woman.”
    Fuck . How embarrassing. “Very funny.”
    “We’re not very funny people. We’re all work and no play.”
    “Then could you maybe change your voice? I don’t want to lie here thinking, even for one second, that there’s a possibility of you being hot.”
    “How does this sound?” Lisa’s voice morphed into that of Ronald Reagan.
    “Better.”
    “Well then, Zack, I’d like you to think of me as a friend.”
    How can you argue with Ronald Reagan? It’s like crushing baby chicks with gumboots; no wonder he ruled the planet for eight years. “Thanks.”
    “No problem.”
    “The food here blows.”
    “Yes, it’s unfortunate-looking, but take solace in knowing that you’re helping science. You’re a hero , Zack.”
    “I’m no hero. What happens next?”
    “Oh, we’ll need more blood, but you’re young and healthy.”
    “What do you mean more blood?” I searched my arms and legs, looking for needle evidence.
    “Don’t worry, Zack. Our new blood-removal techniques are invisible and painless.”
    “How comforting.” I stood up and walked over to the table to poke the green gel rhomboid on my plate. I took a small taste: a broccoli smoothie. “How long am I here for?”
    “A few weeks, maybe.”
    “I’ll go nuts.”
    Ronald Reagan said, “You’ll be helping your country, Zack. I know we can all count on you.”
    “At least get me a TV.”
    “No TV, Zack, sorry.”
    “Some games, then. Magazines . . . a Mac . . . maybe even some books.”
    “I’m afraid we can’t let you have any information in your room that might skew your mood.”
    “Not even logos on the furniture and toilet, I noticed.”
    Silence.
    “So I sit in a room and do nothing for a month?”
    “Let’s speak again soon, Zack. I enjoyed meeting you.”
    “Thanks ever so much,