Neurolink Page 17

  “They taught you that old scam?” Massoud fished something out of his pocket and stuck it between his teeth. He kept talking with the object in his mouth, and a gleam of spit appeared at the corner of his lip. “That’s the old way. We’re in a revolution, Nick.”

  Dominic studied the curious object between Massoud’s teeth. “Some of the old ways make sense,” he said. “Standard valuations. A medium of exchange. You can’t just toss out—”

  “Whoa. Hold up, Nick. You’re getting way too serious.” Massoud took out a small pouch and opened the zipper. The pouch was stuffed with matted gray-green fibers. He took a pinch between his fingers and rubbed the twiggy bits together. “You were trained to dispense coins. Naturally, that’s what you believe in. I bet they taught you the money game.”

  Dominic frowned. “I studied economic game theory, if that’s what you mean.”

  Massoud took the object out of his mouth, and Dominic finally recognized it—an old-fashioned clay pipe. The bowl was charred from use, and the stem had been chewed to splinters. Massoud grinned. “The money game, yeah. Basically, it’s a fight between two guys, each trying to take the most coins for himself and leave the least behind for the other guy. Is that about right?”

  “Competitors try to maximize earnings. It’s a primary game rule.”

  “My point is, we don’t do that anymore. We let the pattern develop organically.”

  Pinwheels of light flared on Dominic’s retina as the NP said, “Why are you talking to this imbecile? You can’t possibly expect a literate discussion.”

  When Massoud finished stuffing the bowl with matted fibers, he clicked a plastic lighter, and Dominic watched the flame dive into the pipe bowl as Massoud sucked at the stem.

  “Granted, your matching hall works now,” Dominic said, “but eventually, you’ll need a formal management structure to maintain balance. You’ll have to start a bank.”

  Massoud’s eyes darted up at him. The fibers in the pipe caught fire, and blue smoke leaked from Massoud’s nostrils. He spoke tensely, as if trying not to exhale. “Maybe ZahlenBank’ll locate a branch office here—if we ask nice.”

  Dominic recognized the odor. Ersatz marijuana. This man was getting high on pot. When he offered the pipe, Dominic took it in reflex and studied the chewed mouthpiece.

  The NP gasped. “Don’t put that in your mouth!”

  Dominic sniffed it, then took a drag and exhaled with a cough. The weed burned his throat. It wasn’t the silky blend he’d sometimes sampled at exec dinner parties. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse. “Do you have any water?”

  Massoud leaned to his left and searched through a pile of objects, knocking some aside. He found a half-full water sack and bounced it in his hand like a flaccid ball. Dominic eyed it.

  Massoud said, “What if I tell you this water costs five million deutschdollars? And the only way you can earn that much is by working for me your whole miserable life?”

  “I’d say that’s disproportionate.”

  “You mean outta whack, right? But look, I got the water.”

  “I’ll find water elsewhere.”

  Massoud smiled and jerked at his mustache. “What if I cut a deal with the waterworks so I own it all?”

  Dominic handed the pipe back to Massoud. “I understand. You mink the markets victimized you. But still, the concept of money…”

  Just then, Dominic noticed a bright, beautiful droplet of color to his right, and he turned to see what it was. A small faceted crystal hung on a string in Massoud’s tent, and as it twirled slowly in the air current, its glassy faces shimmered blue-green, crimson and amber. Dominic stared.

  “Fine weed, huh?” Massoud laughed and sucked another drag of the ersatz pot. Blue smoke eddied out of his mouth when he said, “Somebody found a bale of this stuff last night in the dump. It’s got a salty aftertaste, but it’s mellow.”

  Massoud tossed the water sack, and Dominic turned just in time to catch it between his knees. “See? No coins. The water’s free,” Massoud said. He leaned back against a stack of what looked like microwave ovens and crossed his wiry arms over his chest.

  Dominic lost his train of thought. He felt light-headed. When he squeezed a stream of water into his mouth, it tasted like sweet wine. He drank for a long time, then laid the water sack on the floor and vaguely noticed Massoud jerking it up to close the nozzle. He saw a wet spill, dark gray on pale gray, spreading like an organic form across the floor. All the objects in the tent flared with luminous auras, like holographic halos. Perhaps he was dreaming all of this. He touched something that looked like a stuffed black mouse with big ears and white, gloves. He sensed that he and this mouse were exactly where they belonged. A place for everything, everything in its place. He fell off the crate.

  “Ow!” His forehead smacked against the corner of a metal strongbox. The left side again, directly above his swelling black eye.

  “You did that on purpose!” the NP said.

  When Dominic rubbed the wound, it felt like a metal spike driving through his temporal lobe. “I was going to say something vital,” he wheezed.

  Massoud slapped his knee. “Coin guy, you need to relax.”

  CHAPTER 13

  * * *

  USURY

  A moment later—or so it seemed—Dominic came awake sputtering and choking. Benito was squirting a stream of droplets in his face from the water sack. He sat up in alarm, and his brain wobbled in his skull like a wet sponge.

  His voice made a croaking sound. “What’s my status?”

  “Now you’re asking,” said the NP. “You ignored me before, but after you poison your brain with that toxic marijuana, you ask me for help.”

  “I took one experimental toke.”

  “You were out nearly an hour!”

  Benito watched with big brown eyes as Dominic touched the new gash on his temple. His legs were tangled in a thin blanket on the floor of Massoud’s tent, but the wiry little bursar was gone. He accepted the water sack from Benito and rinsed out his mouth. “Just tell me how much time is left,” he said.

  “Nine hours, eleven minutes, forget the seconds. You were hallucinating about a monster coin machine. That reefer had to be tainted. I can’t believe you inhaled it.”

  Dominic kicked off the blanket and pushed himself up to his knees. The left side of his head throbbed, and he fought down the urge to wretch. “Benito, stick close,” he said.

  Blue smoke hung in layers over the crowd in the matching hall, and the aroma seemed sweeter man before. Dominic saw a lot of people smiling. “That bale of marijuana must be in play,” he said aloud.

  Edging through the clumps of traders, he and the boy made their way to the tunnel which, according to the NP’s best guess, led to the Dominic Jedes. Near its mouth stood a caffie-colored boy with a pushcart full of water sacks glistening like hazy diamonds. Dominic felt in his waistband for Penderowski’s torch.

  “How many sacks for this torch?” he asked.

  The boy fingered the torch, then shook his dark head. “Keep it. The water’s free.”

  Dominic grabbed a sack and handed it to Benito, then stuffed two more into his waistband.

  The NP whined like a repeating loop, “Enough delays. We have to find that link.”

  We have to get out of here, or we’ll die, Dominic thought. When he looked back over his shoulder, a fresh group of protes was climbing up on the center stage, donning the colorful coats and hauling up a load of new slates covered with chalk marks. Their movements were quick and purposeful. Were the Orgs really cynical enough to play these people like pawns? How serious they looked, with their rosters of job postings and their urgent mission to accomplish great deeds. He actually admired them.

  Silence fell around the platform as someone on stage shouted an employment opportunity. Then a throng of hands shot up, waving white cards, offering their families to work. These laborers had run away from good safe jobs. They gave up secure air supplies, crossed a poisonous ocean, gambled the
lives of their children on nothing more than a promise, and now all they wanted was to find work again. The desire to work must run in their veins. Dominic shook his head and smiled as he absorbed the wild tangled vitality of the matching hall. And he couldn’t help thinking again, what they really needed was a bank.

  The water sacks he’d stuffed into his waistband kept slipping down because his shorts had gotten looser. He’d lost weight. When he slapped his belly, it pleased him to feel hard flesh. He tightened the drawstring around his waist, adjusted the sacks and lodged Penderowski’s torch between them. Then he herded Benito into the tunnel.

  Pedestrian traffic was dense, and not far along, they met an oncoming cart loaded with a rickety unbalanced stack of crates. A woman walked beside the cart, holding them in place while her partner jerked the entire load along the uneven stone floor. Dominic immediately scooped Benito up and stepped into a side passage to avoid a mishap.

  “What do you want?” someone said behind his back.

  Dominic turned to see who had addressed him. “I’m in a hurry. Urgent business,” he said. He intended to wait there only long enough to let the cart pass, but the sights in the small stone room derailed him. He had entered a science lab. At least mat’s what it looked like at first He saw old-fashioned crucibles and gas jets and specimen jars—and children. The lab was full of children! Three work counters divided the space into sections, and the youngsters sat squashed together on the countertops, with straight backs and hands clasped in their laps, as grim as soldiers. Older adolescents stood against the walls, and toddlers sat cross-legged on the stone floor.

  “Students, I mean to have order in this classroom!”

  The teacher stood in front of an improvised blackboard at the far end of the room. She was short and chubby, with plump arms and a double chin, and she wore a billowing smock over her prote uniform. Her hand still held a chunk of white chalk, poised to write.

  “Damn me. It’s a school.” The NP snickered.

  “You’ve brought your boy to the right place.” The teacher stuck out her chin and pointed her chalk at Benito. “Your son’ll learn the truth here.”

  What good luck, thought Dominic. A school. He’d been looking for the right place to settle Benito. Yes, he could leave the boy here with good conscience. He set Benito on his feet, brushed the dirt from his striped shorts and smoothed his hair.

  “His name’s Benito. He’s very bright, although he doesn’t say much. I think he experienced some trauma.”

  “Humph! And I’d like to know who hasn’t!” The teacher arched her eyebrows and wrote “Beeno” on the board.

  “Wonderful. He’s enrolled. Let’s get going,” the NP said.

  “Your son can sit on the floor,” said the teacher.

  “You don’t mind that, do you, Benito?”

  The teacher shrugged and began strutting in front of the blackboard, gripping her chalk and continuing her interrupted lecture. Her round shoulders were drawn up in a permanent hunch, and her eyes protruded in an unhealthy way. He thought it must be the strain of trying to see in the darkness. Why didn’t she arrange a better light source?

  As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he looked closer at the lab equipment. The gas jets weren’t connected to anything, and most of the test tubes and beakers were cracked. The equipment must have been salvaged from the Benthica’s assay lab. What a pathetic classroom, he thought. Still, he tugged the boy’s arms loose from around his neck and gave him a gentle push toward the other children. Benito sucked his pencil and wouldn’t budge.

  “Go on, Benito. The more you learn, the greater your worth.” Dominic bit his lip. Those were his father’s words. How spontaneously he repeated them. But of course, he had never doubted the value of knowledge. He knelt beside the boy, and while the teacher continued her lesson, he whispered, “You’ll learn chemistry, Benito. Molecules. Bonded pairs. That’s how the world is put together.”

  He squinted at the dim classroom walls, hoping to find a Periodic Table of Elements that he could explain, to help Benito get a head start in class. But all he saw was a slogan scrawled on the blackboard. The chalky handwriting was hard to read, but he finally made it out: “Exectives eet ther yung.”

  “What’s this?” Dominic stood and pointed at the slogan.

  “How many times are you gonna disrupt my class?” The teacher jammed one fist against her paunchy hip. “Executives eat their young. It’s why they live so long.”

  “That’s nonsense,” said Dominic.

  “Who cares?” said the NP. “Let’s go.”

  The pudgy teacher bent forward at the waist. “They grow fetuses in tanks and eat ’em to stay young. And they have white blood, like milk. And their brains pick up radioactive waves from the moon. Yes, it’s all documented facts.”

  Dominic raised his voice. “That’s crazy!”

  “You call me a liar? In front of my class?” White blotches mottled the teacher’s cheeks, and her bulging eyes radiated passion. She gripped her chalk like a weapon. “This school teaches the truth. If you can deny any of my points, I’d like to hear it.”

  Lightning burst across Dominic’s retina as the NP said, “Are you gonna waste time debating a prote?”

  “Let me tell you a story,” the teacher said in a commanding tone. “Students, listen up. You’ll be tested on this.”

  “Who cares what a prote writes on a chalkboard?” the NP said, but Dominic was too angry to answer.

  The teacher walked slowly among the children, and they followed her with their eyes. “Once upon a time, I had a daughter. She was about your son’s age. That’s right, just as sweet and innocent as your own child.”

  Dominic didn’t want to hear what happened to this woman’s daughter. Some horrific industrial accident, no doubt, which this bereft woman chose to blame on the hapless exec in charge. The mean glint in her eye told Dominic the whole story.

  “I’m sorry your daughter died, but—”

  “She didn’t die!” The teacher gripped her chalk so hard, it broke in two pieces and fell to the floor. “They took my daughter and trained her in triage! She’s alive, working in a Copenhagen clinic.” The woman raised her chalky fist as if she wanted to split the world in two. Children scattered out of her way as she took another step forward. “My daughter does triage!”

  “Triage?” Dominic was nonplussed. He couldn’t remember what that word meant.

  The NP supplied a definition. “It’s our criteria for rationing medical care. We allocate resources to patients who get the most benefit.”

  Dominic asked the teacher, “What’s your problem with triage? It’s a necessary skill.”

  “It’s perverted.” The teacher stomped her foot.

  “We can’t provide unlimited medical care to billions of people. We need criteria for rationing.” Dominic crossed his arms. He knew this line of reasoning well.

  The teacher’s eyes seemed to swell even larger. She lowered her head like a charging animal. “Med care goes to execs first, workers last, dependents never. That’s the triage they taught my daughter.”

  “But—”

  “They taught you, too. I can tell.” The teacher’s nostrils curled, and her voice deepened to an ominous undertone. “My daughter learned their values. Do you know how execs define values?”

  “Cost versus benefit,” Dominic answered automatically. Then for the first time, he faltered backward.

  But the teacher had stopped moving toward him. Her plump body sagged against the countertop. “The execs perverted my daughter. That’s why I teach the truth. Whether the damned council likes it or not!”

  Dominic read the words on the blackboard and ground his teeth. This wasn’t what children should learn. They should study atoms and molecules. This teacher wanted to indoctrinate them in malice. He tried to recalled his own early education. What had he studied? Market systems. Return on capital. Cost-benefit analysis.

  Values, yes. How slippery that word could be. He’d been trained to th
ink of values as logical numbers based on the calculus of supply and demand. Over long evenings at his desk, his father had taught him how to compute their shifting relativities, given any set of variables. He knew that in his father’s system, medical triage was as clear as quantum mechanics. But here among the runaways, values became hazy and laden with intangibles. Protes resented the clear-cut definitions of price, and they assigned worth on an entirely different plan, call it sentiment or subjectivity, some insubstantial system without edges. Yet he sensed that, in a manner he failed to grasp, these people defined value as a constant.

  Benito’s fingernails cut into his kneecap and jolted him back to the present. The boy had hidden behind Dominic’s legs, and some of the other children were shouting insults and pelting the boy with rock chips.

  “Stop this foolishness.” The teacher marched over, gripped Benito’s forearm and yanked him free. When his yellow pencil clattered across the floor, the teacher pounced on it “Excellent. I can use this.”

  Benito struggled in the teacher’s grip and let out a strangled cry. “Hn!”

  “That pencil belongs to Benito,” Dominic said.

  The woman nodded. “Your son’ll be fine with us. You said you had urgent business.”

  “Urgent’s the word,” the NP said.

  “Give back the pencil,” Dominic said aloud.

  “Forget the damn brat!” As the NP’s fireworks exploded, Dominic pressed the heel of his hand into his eye socket.

  “Something in your eye?” The teacher sneered.

  Dominic blinked, and one big salty tear rolled down his cheek. “Give Benito his pencil, or I’ll take it by force.”

  “Is that so?” The woman stuck out her jaw, and her flabby chin wobbled. “This pencil is a resource, and I need it. I teach a roomful of young minds, whereas this child, what does he do? You talk about rationing criteria. Okay, use it.”

  Dominic pictured grabbing the woman and shaking her upside down until the pencil fell from her pocket. But that seemed vulgar, and besides, the children were watching. He didn’t want to set an example of violence. Their “young minds” were already imbibing enough crackpot ideas.