Seeds of Change Page 6

  “If you truly believe it in your best interests to strike him, though,” the bottle said thoughtfully, “I can switch to a Confrontational mode.” It paused. “It seems that just a blow behind the ear makes a most effective target.”

  Joe upended the bottle and took another long swallow. It had been way too long since he’d had a nice cold beer. He should have been bringing his bottle by here every day, since he was stuck with it anyway. Why had he been so stubborn?

  “And I function as an excellent weapon in times of need,” the bottle said, “since I’m shatterproof.”

  He finished his beer. “You should be so lucky to own one of these bottles,” he said, the alcohol zinging through his blood. He twirled the now-empty bottle like one of those martial arts sticks in a kung fu movie. It fit his hand as though custom-made. “They must have twice your IQ anyway.”

  The shorter drunk, the one with the shaved head and pierced eyebrow, stumbled upright and shoved his chair into the wall. “Come and say that to my face, bottle-boy!”

  “You should wait for the optimum angle,” the bottle said as the aggressor lurched toward them. Joe let him get closer, closer, then bashed the idiot behind the ear like the bottle had said. The punk went down like a pole-axed steer and sprawled at his feet, fingers twitching.

  “Now you done it.” Whitebear morosely reached for the phone.

  “Hey!” his buddy said. “We was just razzing you!” His meaty fist swung at Joe and missed.

  “The best strategy in this case would be to trip him,” the bottle said in a conspiratorial whisper.

  Sirens sounded from outside, but Joe was watching for an opening to take down the other drunk. “Stay out of reach,” the bottle counseled. “Wait until he lunges.”

  Joe was getting the rhythm of the situation in a way he never had as a boy in the school yard. There was, he realized with the bottle’s coaching, a certain give and take, a waiting for opportunity to open up, almost like a dance where each movement was choreographed.

  His opponent swung again and he saw his chance, tripping the hulking man so that he crashed head-first into the bar and then stayed down.

  “Well done, Joe!” the bottle said. “You have a real aptitude for this. Fill me up again so we can celebrate.”

  The doors swung inward, allowing in a wave of the afternoon’s oppressive heat. Two police officers gazed at him reproachfully. “Another stupid bottle fight?”

  “Third this week,” Tom Whitebear said, hauling the shorter groaning drunk to his feet and propping him against the bar.

  “Surrender the bottle, sir,” the older policeman said.

  “They started it!” Joe said. His heart pounded.

  “And you would have let it go, except the bottle urged you on, right?” the policeman said. “Yada, yada, yada. We’ve heard it all before, including twice already this afternoon.”

  “But—” Joe clutched the brown bottle. “Will I get it back?”

  “It’s evidence, if they decide to press charges,” the policeman said. “If you ask me, these things are worse than Meth.”

  “My wife is very fond of this bottle,” Joe said. His fingers traced the cool curve of its neck. It felt strangely alive.

  “Well, that’s a new one,” the policeman said. He winked at his partner. “Hand it over. If no assault charges are filed, you’ll get it back when you pay your fine.”

  “What about the alarm?” Joe said. “I can tell it to sleep for twenty-four hours, but then it’ll raise the roof.”

  “Symesco has provided us with deactivation codes,” the officer said. “We’ve confiscated at least twenty of these already this week. Hand it over.”

  So Joe surrendered the bottle and accepted in its place a whopping ticket for Disorderly Conduct.

  * * * *

  “YOU JUST LET them take it?” Terri stared at him when he told her, eyes frantic. “You have to get it back!”

  “I will,” he said. “I’ll go down and pay the ticket as soon as I get paid. We’re already tapped out from the last fine.”

  “And whose fault is that?” she said, sinking into a chair at the kitchen bar. “It’s not fair. You had it to yourself all day. It was my turn to talk to it.”

  “So, talk to me instead,” he said, sitting down next to her.

  “You never listen.” She picked up a toast crumb left over from breakfast and studied it. “You just go to that stupid bar and talk to your buddies there.”

  Actually, the charm of the Brass Tack was that he didn’t have to talk to anyone, but this didn’t seem the right moment to bring that up. “Let’s go out to the White Lion,” he said. “I’ve still got a twenty. We can share an appetizer.”

  “I have a better idea,” she said. “Buy me my own bottle.”

  “I can’t,” he said. “The law says one to a customer. They won’t sell me another. I’ve already tried.”

  Terri’s eyes brimmed with tears. “Like everything else around here, I guess I’ll just have to do it myself!” she said. “Get your own dinner!” She slammed the bedroom door behind her.

  So he went out for a hamburger, bolting it down without even tasting it. His head whirled. The apartment seemed so empty. He had to get that bottle back. Though he hated the thought, maybe he should go ahead and put the fine on his already overburdened credit card.

  When he came back, though, he found two of their suitcases in the middle of the living room. The bedroom door was still closed. He tried to open it, but it was locked. He rapped on the door. “Terri? Are you going somewhere?”

  On the other side, someone laughed, but it was strange, high-pitched and tinny.

  “Who’s in there?” He knocked harder. “Terri?”

  “Take your stuff and go!” she said through the door.

  He opened one of the suitcases. It was crammed with his clothing, everything just shoved in. The end of his favorite gold tie was hanging out on one side with a new permanent crease. “What is this?”

  “Live at that stupid bar!” she said. “I don’t care anymore! Just be sure that you get everything you want from the apartment tonight because tomorrow I’m having the locks changed!”

  A low voice said something and then Terri laughed.

  “Who’s in there?” he demanded again.

  She opened the door, an elegant green glass bottle cradled in the crook of her arm. “I am Terri’s bottle,” it said primly.

  He gazed at the label. “But—”

  “You couldn’t buy another Smart Bottle, idiot,” Terri said, “but that didn’t mean I couldn’t have one for myself.”

  “You don’t drink beer,” he said numbly.

  “You can fill them with soda and wine, too,” she said, “and this one is much cleverer than yours. From now on, it’s going everywhere with me so I’ll never be alone.”

  “You don’t need him,” the bottle said in its prim little voice. “A sharp cookie like you can do a lot better.”

  * * * *

  JOE CHECKED INTO the Swift Heaven Motel two blocks from the Brass Tack, then went down to City Hall the next morning, nearly maxed out his credit card to pay his fine, and retrieved the bottle. It sat on the cheap nightstand now, suspiciously quiescent. Springs protested with a creak as he sat on the bed. “Are you asleep?”

  “The police hibernation code was cancelled when you touched me,” the bottle said. “Shall we go for a nice cold drink?”

  “My wife threw me out,” Joe said. “She liked you better than me.”

  “That is a potential difficulty with the introduction of Symesco’s Smart technology into an existing social situation,” the bottle said. “People find Smart Bottles most appealing.”

  “I don’t get it.” Joe turned the bottle over. “What can she get from you that she can’t get from me?”

  “Would you like some pointers?”

  He set it down with a rap. “Get real. You’re just a stupid bottle. She’s probably having a nervous breakdown.”

  “Actually, I
am a ‘stupid bottle’ equipped with a Self-Improvement mode,” it said. “In just six short weeks, I can coach you through an accredited personal development course.”

  That sounded incredibly lame, but then again . . . He was living in a cheap hotel, broke as all get-out, and his wife wouldn’t even talk to him. What did he have to lose? “Okay,” Joe said, straightening his back, “give me the full treatment.”

  * * * *

  TWO MONTHS LATER, Joe asked Terri to dinner at the White Lion, her favorite upscale restaurant. He was already seated, his bottle on the table, when she arrived. She hesitated on the other side of the dining room, dressed in a shimmering ice-blue dress that highlighted her eyes. A Fifties song was softly playing in the background. He’d never seen her so dazzling.

  She eased her bottle out of her matching blue leather purse after being seated by the waiter and positioned it beside her plate. “Hello, Joe.” Her cheeks were flushed and she didn’t quite meet his gaze. Silence fell between them like a wall.

  “Joe,” his bottle said after a moment, “do you have something you want to say to Terri?”

  “I understand what I did now,” he said hoarsely, his throat closing up, “and, even more important, what I didn’t do. I’m sorry for all the times I wasn’t there for you. I should have cared about your troubles and tried harder to listen.”

  “Terri?” her bottle prompted.

  “It was my fault too,” she said softly, knotting her fingers on the table. “I should been more up-front about what I needed instead of expecting you to read my mind. It just upset me that you always looked for companionship at that stupid bar instead of at home.”

  He reached across the tablecloth for her hand. Their fingers laced together as they had years ago when the two of them had first dated. Her touch was electric, warm and alive. His pulse raced and he felt like a kid again. Maybe they could make this work. They stared into each other’s eyes.

  “Well,” Joe’s bottle said, “shall we have a drink?”

  “Aren’t you thirsty, Terri?” the other bottle said. “I do like to be of service.”

  Eyes shining, she nodded, her fingers tightening in his. Joe smiled, his heart swelling, then motioned to the waiter.

  * * *

  Afterword

  “Drinking Problem" concerns a man who runs afoul of a new technology intended to cut down on the need to recycle. As with many innovations, the technology has unintended consequences and really complicates his life.

  I got the idea for the story while driving on a trip and I saw a billboard featuring an oddly shaped bottle with an unfamiliar label. The only hard part was working out how the technology would function and how use of it would be enforced.

  The story's legal dilemma was brought to mind by an incident that happened to me many years ago: I bought a satellite TV system and called the company to request that the three east-coast network flagship stations be added to our broadcast package. I found out, to my consternation, that a law had been passed saying you couldn't have them for six months if you'd had cable in your house in the last ninety days. Obviously, this was punitive for cancelling your cable contract and only benefitted the cable companies, not the public, so the law must have been slipped through by lobbyists when ordinary people weren't paying attention. I have no doubt that technology like that in this story could be sponsored in a similar manner.

  The other “seed” for the story is probably obvious: My passion for recycling. I’ve been passionate about recycling, for a long time, since teaching fourth grade. You cannot tell children that they should recycle to help save the environment and not do it yourself.

  ENDOSYMBIONT

  Blake Charlton

  THE RATTLESNAKE SWALLOWED its tail until it shrank into a tiny knot.

  Stephanie cocked her bald head to one side and frowned. What she was seeing was impossible. The tail couldn’t just disappear into the snake’s mouth. The matter had to go somewhere.

  Originally, the scaly neo-toy had stretched three feet from tongue to rattle tip. Now it had contracted into a fanged tortellini that was telling the laws of physics to go fuck themselves.

  * * * *

  STEPHANIE HATED HER broad Chinese cheeks, her blotchy Irish freckles, and most especially her bald head. The chemo had ruined her body; now it was ruining her mind, making her see things.

  She reached for the snake that was swallowing itself. But the snake took a final gulp of its tail and disappeared with a pop.

  Some invisible force froze Stephanie’s hand. All sound in the hospital stopped. There were no squeaking wheels, no chattering nurses, not even buzzing florescent lights.

  Then came a hiss of static, another pop, and suddenly Stephanie was holding the three-foot rattlesnake.

  Confusion swept over her like vertigo. What had just happened? The neo-toy’s scales felt warm under her fingers.

  “WTF?” she grunted while pressing her left hand to her chest. Her heart was kicking hard and her vision dimmed.

  It was the new chemo, had to be the new chemo making her see things.

  She frowned at the snake. “I’m losing my mind.” She shook the toy to make sure it was real. It coiled around her wrist. Real enough.

  Two hours ago she had awakened alone in the hospital room. Memory provided no answer as to how she’d gotten there. Wasn’t the first time that had happened. “Fucking chemobrain.”

  She dropped the rattler and began to absently turn the hospital ID bracelet around her wrist. Meanwhile the neo-toy slinked among the stuffed animals that cluttered her floor.

  She’d found them in the toy chest. As usual they’d put her in a room better fit for a four-year-old than a fourteen-year-old. That meant most of the toys had been inanimate, cutesy things: grinning dinosaurs, bespectacled owls, blah, blah, blah.

  But there had been a few neo-toys: a turtle, a mouse, a rattlesnake. San Francisco Children’s Hospital being public, they were ragged and dated.

  But she’d taken an interest in them, not for their playmate value, which she’d outgrown years ago, but for their neuro-bandwidth. Each toy contained a small concinnity processor.

  Using the room’s desktop, she’d hacked the neo-toys. Most of their nanoneurons had committed themselves to safety reflexes. But enough fibers had remained for a game.

  She’d written several seek-and-swallow instincts for the snake and used her keyboard to remotely control the mouse about the floor. Initially the game had been to avoid the serpent, but soon she began venturing her mouse closer, goading her own neuroprogram. Eventually she’d fooled the snake into biting its own tail.

  And that’s when . . . what? When she’d hallucinated about the snake swallowing itself?

  “God, I can’t even remember what day it is,” she muttered before pressing her palms to her cheeks and her fingers to her hairless eyebrows.

  The squeak of sneakers on linoleum made her look up. A tall South Asian woman in blue scrubs and a white coat was standing in the doorway. “Hi, Stephanie,” the woman said with typical pediatrician perkiness. “I’m Jani.”

  Only superhuman restraint kept Stephanie from rolling her eyes. “Hi,” she replied in monotone.

  Judging by the knee-length coat and the exhausted-but-not-yet-haggard expression, Jani was a new pediatric resident.

  Fucking awful.

  Most women went into peds to play with toddlers. They usually had no idea how to be around a fourteen-year-old.

  “I see you’ve put the neo-toys to good use,” Jani said while stepping among the stuffed animals.

  The rattlesnake began investigating the newcomer’s white sneakers. “Sleep,” the resident told the neo-toy to trigger its programmed reset instinct. The toy coiled up and lay motionless.

  Like many South Asian doctors, Jani had a gratuitously long last name. Embroidered on her coat in blue was “Rajani Ganapathiraman, M.D.” The woman crouched beside Stephanie.

  Just to be a snot, Stephanie nodded at the embroidered name and asked, “H
ow do they page you on the intercom?”

  Jani grinned. “Paging Doctor Ganapathiraman,” she imitated in baritone. “Paging Doctor Ganapathiraman; Doctor Ganapathiraman to the name reduction room please.”

  Despite herself, Stephanie sniffed with amusement.

  “They use my first name or they text me.” Jani tapped the cell on her belt. “How are you feeling?”

  Stephanie looked away. “Fine.” Suddenly she noticed there was something in her gown’s right pocket. A moment ago it had been empty.

  Absently she reached into the pocket and pulled out a smooth green object. It was a glass snake biting its own tail.

  Weirdness.

  Jani didn’t seem to notice the object. “Do you know how long you’ve been here?” the doctor asked.

  Stephanie slipped the glass snake back into her pocket. “I guess my parents brought me in last night. I’ve been having trouble when I’m sleeping. Are you an oncologist or a nanomed doc?”

  Jani shook her head and sent her black hair swaying.

  Stephanie swallowed; she’d had hair like that once. “Well, chemo can make you stupid. It’s called chemobrain. And I’m on the traditional poison and in a trial for a new nanomed immunotherapy. The two together give me bad chemobrain. Sometimes I forget things at night.”

  “You’ve learned a lot about your treatment?”

  This time Stephanie could not help rolling her eyes. “My mom invented the neuroprocessor and was the one who started Concinnity Corp. And my dad teaches about infectious nanodisease at the Monterey Institute. They’re always blabbing at me about it.” She stopped short of saying that she probably knew more about nanomed and neurotech than the pediatrician did.

  “I see,” Jani said before pausing. Her almond eyes scanned the younger woman’s face. “Stephanie, do you remember talking to me before?”

  This made Stephanie nervously turn the hospital ID bracelet around her wrist. “No.”

  “Do you know what day it is? What year?”

  “It’s like mid-August, 2017?” her voice squeaked. Jesus, had she really lost her mind?