Read Online Virtually True by Adam L. Penenberg - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Adam L. Penenberg
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created isn’t just as beautiful as what he remembers. It’s more beautiful.
The program compliments him on his taste, asks if he’d like to save the figure he’s created, store it in the database for convenience. When he indicates yes, it asks for his secret code.
“As I said, unless you purchase the program I cannot tell you the code.” The Rajput’s voice from outside True’s world and inside his head at the same time. “But keep going, there is more of interest, I think, to you.”
It’s uncanny how perfect it is, how memories of love can be relived with just the sight of her. True moves to attribute a personality to the blank expression ( choose one or more of the following: soft, angelic, happy, perky, flirtatious, masochistic, sultry, nymphomanic, intellectual, bimbo, distant, cold, tough, angry, sadistic, evil—press this space for more options ).
But before he can choose, a whirring noise emanates from his wrist-top; the program locks, lightning bolts of pastel colors frozen vertically in space.
Turning his head, True sees the Rajput through the jagged beams. “What did you do? You broke it.”
True hits the escape option. Is returned to the damp hallway.
She steps toward him. “Now you must buy it.”
“It’s software. It can’t break. There must be a program glitch.”
Sighing, she yanks the card out of the computer. “Yes. You are correct. I have worked on this many times, but I cannot seem to overcome certain one-offs.”
A one-off: that one in a million chance combination that can cause a system to stall, break, crash—like hitting a lottery jackpot, True thinks, or ending up a serial killer’s victim.
True rises, produces the stash of dollars he uses to get things done in a country that doesn’t have sufficient numbers of automatic debit machines. He hands her a crumpled handful of notes.
She holds out the program card, but he waves it away.
“You’re from America?” She tucks away the money and card.
True cocks his head, eyes her thoughtfully, says nothing.
She insists. “You are. I know because American tourists believe in charity.”
“You’re wrong about one thing.”
“You are not an American?”
“I’m not a tourist.”
The Rajput’s laughs slip into parched coughs that fade as True skips out the door.
CHAPTER 6
True’s tired and the weather’s all sideways, ocean wind pinning rain clouds against Nerula’s surrounding hills. He flags down the first taxi he sees—an old diesel job, more rust than paint. There’s a bullet-proof partition separating the driver from the passenger. The taxi looks like True feels. He gets in.
After telling the driver his address, True leans back, rubs bits of foam padding from his pant leg, and watches the city stream by through the window. The driver, a squat woman squeezing a pistol between pudgy thighs, takes the expressway along the river, and True sees the crispy shells of buildings painted with pictures of cartoon-like windows with drawn shades, families sitting around dinner tables, flower pots and plants, ivy winding up the sides, a lone man reclining in an easy chair, reading a book. Swedish foreign aid, a plan to raise commercial property values, accomplished by literally painting over Luzonia’s problems.
Packs of shanty children, skin spray-painted over skeletons, are wilding; police chase them with tasers, clubs, and water cannons. The war left a generation of street orphans to fend for themselves, and this they do by forming gangs, stealing and murdering together. Wolf packs, except wolves never prey on their own.
The driver looks back, spitting out her window carefully so as not to spray her passenger. Just that’s worth a tip. Past the national broadcast corporation where the day’s major stories are neoned as headlines. Today: Muslim Insurgents Murder 472 Luzonians in Terrorist Attack. Tomorrow only the number will change. True checks the time, realizes he has to call New York before the lab
The program compliments him on his taste, asks if he’d like to save the figure he’s created, store it in the database for convenience. When he indicates yes, it asks for his secret code.
“As I said, unless you purchase the program I cannot tell you the code.” The Rajput’s voice from outside True’s world and inside his head at the same time. “But keep going, there is more of interest, I think, to you.”
It’s uncanny how perfect it is, how memories of love can be relived with just the sight of her. True moves to attribute a personality to the blank expression ( choose one or more of the following: soft, angelic, happy, perky, flirtatious, masochistic, sultry, nymphomanic, intellectual, bimbo, distant, cold, tough, angry, sadistic, evil—press this space for more options ).
But before he can choose, a whirring noise emanates from his wrist-top; the program locks, lightning bolts of pastel colors frozen vertically in space.
Turning his head, True sees the Rajput through the jagged beams. “What did you do? You broke it.”
True hits the escape option. Is returned to the damp hallway.
She steps toward him. “Now you must buy it.”
“It’s software. It can’t break. There must be a program glitch.”
Sighing, she yanks the card out of the computer. “Yes. You are correct. I have worked on this many times, but I cannot seem to overcome certain one-offs.”
A one-off: that one in a million chance combination that can cause a system to stall, break, crash—like hitting a lottery jackpot, True thinks, or ending up a serial killer’s victim.
True rises, produces the stash of dollars he uses to get things done in a country that doesn’t have sufficient numbers of automatic debit machines. He hands her a crumpled handful of notes.
She holds out the program card, but he waves it away.
“You’re from America?” She tucks away the money and card.
True cocks his head, eyes her thoughtfully, says nothing.
She insists. “You are. I know because American tourists believe in charity.”
“You’re wrong about one thing.”
“You are not an American?”
“I’m not a tourist.”
The Rajput’s laughs slip into parched coughs that fade as True skips out the door.
CHAPTER 6
True’s tired and the weather’s all sideways, ocean wind pinning rain clouds against Nerula’s surrounding hills. He flags down the first taxi he sees—an old diesel job, more rust than paint. There’s a bullet-proof partition separating the driver from the passenger. The taxi looks like True feels. He gets in.
After telling the driver his address, True leans back, rubs bits of foam padding from his pant leg, and watches the city stream by through the window. The driver, a squat woman squeezing a pistol between pudgy thighs, takes the expressway along the river, and True sees the crispy shells of buildings painted with pictures of cartoon-like windows with drawn shades, families sitting around dinner tables, flower pots and plants, ivy winding up the sides, a lone man reclining in an easy chair, reading a book. Swedish foreign aid, a plan to raise commercial property values, accomplished by literally painting over Luzonia’s problems.
Packs of shanty children, skin spray-painted over skeletons, are wilding; police chase them with tasers, clubs, and water cannons. The war left a generation of street orphans to fend for themselves, and this they do by forming gangs, stealing and murdering together. Wolf packs, except wolves never prey on their own.
The driver looks back, spitting out her window carefully so as not to spray her passenger. Just that’s worth a tip. Past the national broadcast corporation where the day’s major stories are neoned as headlines. Today: Muslim Insurgents Murder 472 Luzonians in Terrorist Attack. Tomorrow only the number will change. True checks the time, realizes he has to call New York before the lab
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