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"Not my idea of a bright side," said Zeb. "For argument: we're hunter-gatherers, we evolved to eat meat."
"And to develop lethal allergies to tick saliva," said Glenn.
"Only in those slated to be eliminated from the gene pool," said Zeb. "Which is why it's rare."
Glenn grinned, not something he did often. "Point," he said.
While Zeb and Glenn were playing onscreen games at the Thursday events, Glenn's mother, Rhoda, would sometimes drift over to watch, leaning a little too close to Zeb's shoulder, sometimes even touching it with - what? The business end of her tit? Felt like it: that nubbin shape. Certainly not a finger. Her breath, scented with beer, would riffle the fine hairs near his ear. She never touched Glenn, however. In fact, nobody ever touched Glenn. He somehow arranged it that way: he'd erected an invisible no-fly zone around himself.
"You guys," Rhoda would say. "You should get out there and run around. Play some croquet." Glenn didn't acknowledge these motherly interventions, nor did Zeb: Glenn's mother, although not wizened, was past the optimum freshness date as far as he was concerned, though if he'd been marooned on a liferaft with her.... But he wasn't, so he ignored the nipple nudges and the breath-to-ear signals and concentrated on the Blood part of Blood and Roses: eradicating the population of ancient Carthage and sowing the land with salt, enslaving the Belgian Congo, and murdering firstborn Egyptian babies.
Though why stop at firstborns? Some atrocities turned up by the virtual Blood and Roses dictated that the babies be tossed into the air and skewered on swords; others, that they be thrown into furnaces; yet others, that their brains be dashed out against stone walls. "Trade you a thousand babies for the Palace of Versailles and the Lincoln Memorial," he said to Glenn.
"No deal," said Glenn. "Unless you throw in Hiroshima."
"That's outrageous! You want these babies to die in agony?"
"They aren't real babies. It's a game. So they die, and the Inca Empire gets preserved. With all that cool gold art."
"Then kiss the babies goodbye," said Zeb. "Heartless little bugger, aren't you? Splat. There. Gone. And by the way, I'm cashing in my Wildcard Joker points to blow up the Lincoln Memorial."
"Who cares?" said Glenn. "I've still got the Palace of Versailles, plus the Incas. Anyway, there's too many babies. They make a huge carbon footprint."
"You guys are awful," said Rhoda, scratching herself. Zeb could hear the fingernails going behind his back, a sound like cat claws on felt. He wondered which part of herself she was scratching, then made an effort to stop wondering. Glenn had enough troubles without his one reliable friend making the double-backed beast with his unreliable mother.
Before he knew it, Zeb was giving young Glenn some extracurricular lessons in coding, which meant - practically speaking - in hacking as well. The kid was a natural, and he was finally impressed by some of the things Zeb knew and he didn't, and he caught on like magic. How tempting was it to take that talent and hone it and polish it and pass on the keys to the kingdom - the Open Sesames, the back doors, the shortcuts? Very tempting. So that is what Zeb did. It was a lot of fun watching the kid soak it all up, and who was to foresee the consequences? Which is usually the way with fun.
In return for Zeb's coding and hacking secrets, Glenn shared a few secrets of his own. For instance, he'd bugged his mother's room with an audio earlet concealed in her bedside lamp, by which means it became known to Zeb that Rhoda was having it off with an upper-middle-management type called Pete, usually right before lunchtime.
"My dad doesn't know," said Glenn. He considered for a moment, fixing Zeb with his uncanny green eyes. "Think I should tell him?"
"Maybe you shoudn't listen in on that shit," said Zeb.
Glenn gave him a cool stare. "Why not?"
"Because those things are for grown-ups," Zeb said, sounding prissy even to himself.
"You would, when you were my age," Glenn said, and Zeb couldn't deny that it was a thing he'd have done in a millisecond, given the opportunity and the tech. Avidly, gloatingly, without thinking twice.
On the other hand, maybe he wouldn't have done it if it involved his own parents. Even now he can't think about the Rev making umphing sounds while bobbing up and down on top of Trudy - who'd be slippery with perfumed lotion and lubricant, and would resemble an overstuffed pink satin pillow - without feeling queasy.
Grob's Attack
"Here comes the part where I meet Pilar," says Zeb.
"What on earth was Pilar doing at HelthWyzer West?" says Toby. "Working for a Corp, inside a Compound?"
But she knew the answer. A lot of the Gardeners had started out inside a Corp Compound, and a lot of the MaddAddamites had as well. Where else was a bioscience-trained person to work? If you wanted a job in research, you had to work for a Corp because that was where the money was. But you'd naturally be focused on projects that interested them, not on ones that interested you. And the ones that interested them had to have a profitable commercial application.
Zeb first met Pilar at one of the Thursday barbecues. He hadn't seen her there before. Some of the more senior people didn't attend the weekly ribfests: they were for younger people who might or might not be angling for a casual pickup or looking to exchange gossip and glean info, and Pilar was beyond that stage. As Zeb learned later, she was well up the seniority ladder.
But she was there that Thursday. All Zeb saw at first was a small, black-and-grey-haired older woman playing chess with Glenn, over on the sidelines. It was an odd combo - almost-old lady, uppity young kid - and odd combos intrigued him.
He sauntered up casually and loomed over Glenn's shoulder. He watched the game for a while, trying not to kibbitz. Neither side had an obvious advantage. The old dame played relatively quickly, though without fluster, while Glenn pondered. She was making him work.
"Queen to h5," Zeb said at last. Glenn was playing Black this time. Zeb wondered if he'd chosen it out of bravado or whether they'd flipped for White.
"Don't think so," said Glenn without looking up while moving his knight to block - Zeb now saw - a possible check. The older woman smiled at Zeb, one of those wrinkly-eyed brown-skinned gnome-in-the-woods smiles that could mean anything from I like you to Watch out.
