difference for the good that no true believer ever can.
“Before we meet again on Friday, access the biographies of these mortals and review their lives. Read the complete works of Charles Dickens and be able to explain them in their historical context. Accessing on your own, see if you can add more names to this list and be ready to explain your choices. All clear? Class dismissed.”
We drifted out of the classroom, we wonder children.
“Isn’t he the most handsome man?” breathed Nancy, twisting at a lock of her wig. She’d never stopped trying to get her hair to grow. We’d both vowed to let it grow down to our ankles once the lab techs stopped tinkering with our brains.
“Double-plus wowie,” I agreed.
“I’ve heard he went to the Crusades to rescue Moslem babies. I’ll bet he looked divine in armor.” She pressed the elevator button. The door opened, and we stepped in, our hoop skirts crowding the other passengers.
“You couldn’t get me to work in the Holy Land for absolutely anything,” I stated.
She clicked her tongue derisively. “As if you had a choice!”
“I do,” I said, smug. “I’m fixing it. I’m making my specialty New World flora, so they’ll have to send me there. Hardly any mortals out there at all. No bloodthirsty zealot fanatic murderers.”
“What about the Aztecs?”
“They’re just in one part of the New World, aren’t they? It’s two big continents and there’s miles and miles where mortals have never even set foot. You can keep your Europe.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re fooling yourself. There are mortals everywhere. You’ll have to work with them sometime, you know.”
“Not me. Not Mendoza. The only fieldwork I’m doing is in empty fields. No totally disgusting killer apes for me, thank you very much.”
“My, I can see why they didn’t make you an anthropologist. You’re headed for trouble with an attitude like that, you know.” She shook her finger at me. She was right, too. And far wiser than I: she became an art preservation specialist and didn’t even have to set foot in the field until the seventeenth century. And then she got to pose as a wealthy art patron’s Algerian mistress. In Italy. Some people have all the luck. I wouldn’t mind lying around in a gondola in some nice civilized country but oh, no, I had it all figured out, hadn’t I?
The elevator slowed to my floor.
“Oh, um, can I borrow your holo with the footage of Quin Shi? Something happened to mine in the machine and I’ve got an assignment on him.”
“I’ll leave it in your cube.” The doors clanked open. “Bye, Mendy.”
“Bye, Nancy.”
Ah, the life of a teenage cyborg.
I have an old holostat online somewhere, more crackly and pointy with every passing year, of my graduation class at their Commencement Picnic and Swim Party.
There we are, a double row lined up on a beach in what will one day be Queensland, squinting happily into the imager. Our bathing costumes look particularly ugly and old-fashioned. We don’t care, apparently: every one of us is smiling, even Akira who has just had his box lunch dive-bombed by a seagull. Why shouldn’t we be happy? Twenty seventeen-year-olds and not one of us has acne.
And there I am, between Nancy and Roxtli. I have won the hair contest: mine waves down my back as far as my hips, while Nancy’s only stands out around her head like a dark cloud. But she has grown into a petite beauty and I am plain, plain, plain. And freckled. And unbecomingly tall. Smile on, Mendoza, in the sun and sky and seaweed of that faraway day. If only you had a clue.
As soon as they brought us back and showered the sand off us and handed us our degrees, they gave us our individual appointments with the career guidance counselor.
Bright and early on the appointed day, I rode the elevator down to his office level and put my card in his wall. Moments later, I was bade enter.
The counselor was one of the older ones. He looked no
“Before we meet again on Friday, access the biographies of these mortals and review their lives. Read the complete works of Charles Dickens and be able to explain them in their historical context. Accessing on your own, see if you can add more names to this list and be ready to explain your choices. All clear? Class dismissed.”
We drifted out of the classroom, we wonder children.
“Isn’t he the most handsome man?” breathed Nancy, twisting at a lock of her wig. She’d never stopped trying to get her hair to grow. We’d both vowed to let it grow down to our ankles once the lab techs stopped tinkering with our brains.
“Double-plus wowie,” I agreed.
“I’ve heard he went to the Crusades to rescue Moslem babies. I’ll bet he looked divine in armor.” She pressed the elevator button. The door opened, and we stepped in, our hoop skirts crowding the other passengers.
“You couldn’t get me to work in the Holy Land for absolutely anything,” I stated.
She clicked her tongue derisively. “As if you had a choice!”
“I do,” I said, smug. “I’m fixing it. I’m making my specialty New World flora, so they’ll have to send me there. Hardly any mortals out there at all. No bloodthirsty zealot fanatic murderers.”
“What about the Aztecs?”
“They’re just in one part of the New World, aren’t they? It’s two big continents and there’s miles and miles where mortals have never even set foot. You can keep your Europe.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re fooling yourself. There are mortals everywhere. You’ll have to work with them sometime, you know.”
“Not me. Not Mendoza. The only fieldwork I’m doing is in empty fields. No totally disgusting killer apes for me, thank you very much.”
“My, I can see why they didn’t make you an anthropologist. You’re headed for trouble with an attitude like that, you know.” She shook her finger at me. She was right, too. And far wiser than I: she became an art preservation specialist and didn’t even have to set foot in the field until the seventeenth century. And then she got to pose as a wealthy art patron’s Algerian mistress. In Italy. Some people have all the luck. I wouldn’t mind lying around in a gondola in some nice civilized country but oh, no, I had it all figured out, hadn’t I?
The elevator slowed to my floor.
“Oh, um, can I borrow your holo with the footage of Quin Shi? Something happened to mine in the machine and I’ve got an assignment on him.”
“I’ll leave it in your cube.” The doors clanked open. “Bye, Mendy.”
“Bye, Nancy.”
Ah, the life of a teenage cyborg.
I have an old holostat online somewhere, more crackly and pointy with every passing year, of my graduation class at their Commencement Picnic and Swim Party.
There we are, a double row lined up on a beach in what will one day be Queensland, squinting happily into the imager. Our bathing costumes look particularly ugly and old-fashioned. We don’t care, apparently: every one of us is smiling, even Akira who has just had his box lunch dive-bombed by a seagull. Why shouldn’t we be happy? Twenty seventeen-year-olds and not one of us has acne.
And there I am, between Nancy and Roxtli. I have won the hair contest: mine waves down my back as far as my hips, while Nancy’s only stands out around her head like a dark cloud. But she has grown into a petite beauty and I am plain, plain, plain. And freckled. And unbecomingly tall. Smile on, Mendoza, in the sun and sky and seaweed of that faraway day. If only you had a clue.
As soon as they brought us back and showered the sand off us and handed us our degrees, they gave us our individual appointments with the career guidance counselor.
Bright and early on the appointed day, I rode the elevator down to his office level and put my card in his wall. Moments later, I was bade enter.
The counselor was one of the older ones. He looked no
Similar Books
