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This was what Zeb thought about while watching daytime TV in his dank Starburst lair, or tossing on his lumpy, stained mattress while listening to the shouting and screaming going on outside his flimsily locked door. Animal spirits, drug-induced hilarity, hatred, fear, craziness. There were gradations to screams. It was the ones that stopped in the middle that you had to worry about.
Finally Adam came through. A meetup address, a time, and some instructions about what to wear. No red, no orange, a plain brown T-shirt if possible. No green: it was a politically charged colour, what with the vendetta against ecofreaks.
The address was a nondescript Happicuppa in New Astoria, not too near the semi-submerged and dangerously unstable buildings of the waterfront. Zeb sat crammed in behind one of the chi-chi little Happicuppa tables, on one of the teensy chairs that reminded him of kindergarten - he hadn't fitted into those chairs either - nursing his Happicappuccino and fortifying himself with half a Joltbar, and wondering what sort of spitball Adam was about to toss his way. He'd have a job lined up for Zeb - otherwise he wouldn't be calling for a meet - but what sort of job? Worm picker? Nightwatchman at a puppy mill? What order of contacts might Adam have been cultivating, wherever he had been?
Adam had hinted that he'd use an intermediary as the meetup courier, and Zeb worried about safety: the two of them had always been wary about trusting anyone except each other. True, Adam would be cautious. But he was methodical, and methodology could give you away. The only sure camouflage was unpredictability.
From his cramped chair Zeb eyed the entering customers, hoping to spot the courier. Was it this blond hermaphrodite in the halter top and sequined three-horned headdress? He hoped not. This plump, gum-chewing woman with the cream-coloured shorts and the wedgie and the retro cinch belt? She looked too vacuous, though vacuousness was a nearly foolproof disguise, at least for girls. Was it this mild, geeky-looking boy of the type that would some day machine-gun an auditorium full of his pimply fellow classmates? Nope, not him either.
But suddenly, surprise: there was Adam himself. It startled Zeb to see him materialize in the chair opposite, which had been empty just the moment before. Ectoplasmic, you could say.
Adam looked like a passport photo of himself, one that was already fading to light and shadow. It was as if he'd returned from the dead: he had that glowing-eyeball thing about him. His T-shirt was beige, his baseball cap sloganless. He'd bought himself a Happimocha to make it seem as if this was just two oddfellow buddies taking a break from their nerdwork, or else doing a meeting about some startup doomed to implode like a drowning blimp. Happimocha and Adam didn't go together: Zeb was curious to see if he'd actually drink any of the stuff - something so impure.
"Don't raise your voice," were the first words Adam spoke. Not two seconds back in Zeb's life and already he was giving orders.
"I was thinking of fucking yelling," said Zeb. He waited to be told not to use profanity, but Adam didn't take the bait. Zeb stared at him: there was something different. His eyes were just as round and blue, but his hair was paler. Could it be turning white? There was a new beard too, also pale. "Nice to see you too," he added.
Adam smiled: a flicker of a smile. "You'll be going into HelthWyzer West near San Francisco," he said. "As a data inputter. I've fixed it up. When you leave here, pick up the shopping bag beside your left knee. Everything you'll need is in there. You'll have to get the scans and prints inserted in the ID - I've put the address for that. And you'll need to scrap the old ID: delete anything
online. But I don't have to tell you that."
"Where've you been, anyway?" said Zeb.
Adam smiled in that maddening, saintly way he had. Butter wouldn't melt; it never had melted. "Classified," he said. "Other lives involved." That was the kind of thing that made Zeb long to put a toad in his bed.
"Right, slap my wrist. Okay, what's this HelthWyzer West, and what'm I supposed to be doing in there?"
"It's a Compound," said Adam. "Research and innovation. Drugs, the medical kind; enriched vitamin supplements; materials for transgenic splices and gene enhancement, specifically the hormone blends and simulators. It's a powerful Corp. There are a lot of top brains there."
"How'd you get me in?" said Zeb.
"I have some new acquaintances," said Adam, continuing his nonstop I-know-more-than-you smile. "They'll watch out for you. You'll be safe." He looked past Zeb's shoulder, then at his watch. Or he appeared to look at his watch. Zeb knew a good piece of misdirection when he saw it: Adam was scanning the room, checking for shadows.
"Cut the bullshit," said Zeb. "You want me to do something for you."
Adam held his smile. "You'll be a blacklight headlamp," he said. "Be extra careful checking in online, once you're there. Oh, and there's a new dropbox, and a new gateway into it. Don't return to that zephyr site, it may have been compromised."
"What's a blacklight headlamp?" said Zeb. But Adam had already stood up and straightened his beige tee and was halfway to the door. He hadn't drunk any of his Happimocha, so Zeb obligingly drank it for him. An unconsumed Happimocha might raise eyebrows in a pleeb like this, where only pimps had money to burn.
Zeb took his time getting back to Starburst. The back of his neck prickled all the way there, he was so sure he was being watched. But nobody tried to mug him. Once inside his door he looked up "blacklight headlamp" on his most recent cheap toss-at-will cellphone. "Blacklight" was a novelty item from the first decades of the century, he was told: it let you see in the dark, or it let you see some things in the dark. Eyeballs. Teeth. White bedsheets. Glo in the Dark Hair Gel. Fog. As for "headlamp," it was what it said. Bicycle shops sold them, and camping suppliers. Not that anyone really went camping any more except inside derelict buildings.
Thanks a pile, Adam, thought Zeb. That is so fucking instructive.
Then he opened Adam's shopping bag. There was his new skin, all neatly laid out for him. What he had to do now was Truck-A-Pillar over to San Francisco, and then crawl into it.
Intestinal Parasites, the Game
Adam's preparations had been thorough. There was a burn-this to-do list, and a big envelope stuffed with cash because Zeb would need some to pay off the grey marketeer designated to fake his passes. There was plastic as well, so Zeb could get himself the kind of wardrobe Adam thought he should have. He'd supplied descriptions: casual geekwear, with brown cord pants and neutral Ts and plaid shirts - brown and grey - and a pair of round-eyed glasses that didn't magnify anything. As for the footgear, the recommendation was trainers with so much rubber cross-strapping Zeb would look like a gay Morris dancer or some fugitive from a session of Robin Hood cosplay. Hat, a steampunk bowler from the 2010s: those were back in style. Though how would Adam know that? He'd never appeared to take any interest in vestments, but no interest was of course an interest. He must've been noting what other people wore so he could not wear it himself.
Zeb's assigned name was Seth. A little biblical joke of Adam's: Seth meant "appointed," as they were both aware, since they'd had the main biblical names and stories drilled into their skulls with a figurative screwdriver. Seth was the third son of Adam and Eve, deputized to take the place of the murdered Abel, who wasn't entirely dead, however, because he still had talking blood that cried out from the ground. So "Seth" was replacing the departed and presumed dead Zeb. By appointment, courtesy of Adam. Very funny.
Adam requested that Zeb/Seth test the new chatroom before entering HelthWyzer, and then check in once a week to signal he was still walking the planet. So the next day, while making his circuitous way to the grey marketeer to get his prints and iris scans inserted into his fake docs, he chose a net cafe at random and followed the lilypad trail laid out for him by Adam. (Memorize, then destroy, said the note, as if Zeb was a fucking idiot.)
The main gateway was a biogeek challenge game called Extinctathon. Monitored by MaddAddam, it said: Adam named the living animals, MaddAddam names the dead ones. Do you want to play? Zeb entered the codename supplied to him by Adam - Spirit Bear - and the password, which was shoelaces, and found himself inside the game.
It seemed to be a variant of Animal, Vegetable, Mineral. Using obscure clues provided by your opponent, you had to guess the identities of various extirpated beetles, fish, plants, skinks, and so forth. A roll call of the already erased. It was a certified yawner: even the CorpSeCorps would be put to sleep by this one, plus they'd have no clue as to most of the answers. As - to be fair - Zeb himself did not, despite his time spent with the Bearlifters and their obscure forms of one-upmanship. You haven't heard of Steller's sea cow? Really? Tiny, self-satisfied smirk.
Five minutes inside Extinctathon and any self-respecting Corps-Man would run screaming in search of alcoholic beverages. A terminally boring game was almost as effective as a vacuous stare, disguise-wise; plus they'd never think there was anything hidden inside a location that was right out in the open and so obviously ecofreakish. Instead, they'd be combing through bimplant ads and sites where you could shoot exotic animals online without leaving your office chair. Full Points to Adam, thought Zeb.
