Cheat, page 19
Then he remembered that Carry wasn’t actually there to be his date. It had been convenient at the time, and might make her look good, if anyone in the press thought he was important enough to get a picture of, but that was all. On top of that, it was really just possible that she was a bit cranky and had expected something else to happen. Like being picked up, or a driver being sent to her house.
It wasn’t comfortable inside however, since the woman, turned to him and waved him away.
“Take that to my room, please? I should mingle.”
“Sure. No problem. I have no clue where that is though.” It would be the same as his, but Mason had gone straight to work. Luckily Adam heard what he was saying, from his perch on the sofa, watching the news. It looked a bit like a miniature woman was behind a tiny desk there, talking to him.
When he turned, Adam waved at Carry, but spoke to him.
“Third floor, first room on the right. I put your things in there earlier for you, M.” He nodded, but as he walked away, he heard Carry talking to Adam.
“I have to share a room? And with him? I don’t even know him. What if he’s a freak? I could die and no one here would care.”
Mason felt his stomach drop, but kept going. It was all about making the best of the situation, at that point. It didn’t take him long to find the room, and while there was only one bed, there was enough floor space that he could crash there, if it was needed. Or down in the basement. After what everyone else had said, it hadn’t even occurred to him that this would be the problem.
That he might be put on the spot with a woman that wanted him to do things he wasn’t all that comfortable with had been mentioned, but no one had said anything about her suddenly turning into a werewolf and trying to destroy him utterly. That was a bit of an oversight, on their part.
Honestly, the implied rejection made him feel glad that he didn’t get into women like that in real life. She was hot, and looked like the kind of woman he should want, but he could go home and have twenty that were as good. Any man could. For that matter, he could have had her, if he wanted.
Now he really didn’t want to for some reason.
Her bag wasn’t all that heavy, so he set it inside the room, by the dresser. It was a nice space, and clearly not one of the little ones. Sam at least, was looking out for him. That way. The girl could have told him that Carry was insane. Then, maybe he was supposed to know that already?
Mason let it go and moved back to the stairs. He was probably reading too much into her poor mood. Hopefully that would lift.
Adam was still on the sofa, but Carry was gone. Probably getting the new imbed he was providing everyone. That might make her happier. If security, or sunburn, were a concern for her. Moving in next to him, the boy didn’t say anything about what Carry had been going on about.
Instead he had plans, which were being formed by the visions on the screen, which he pointed to with a slightly professional air.
“We should have a bonfire on the beach. I looked it up, and there’s a place not too far down with a pit for it, where it’s legal. I’ll bring my guitar. You in?”
He’d never been to a bonfire before, but nodded.
“Yep. I’ll get with Ben and see if we can produce some decent marshmallows and hotdogs. Where is he anyway?”
Adam looked at him like he was on drugs, “really? Where do you think? He’s in playing with your food printer. I think he’s planning to steal it when he leaves, so be aware of that.”
Mason could see that being possible if he was reacting the same way that he had the other day. For all the man went on about ‘real food’ he seemed to realize that the future was in the fake stuff, or would be if it could ever be done well.
He headed that way, to find Lexi standing next to Ben, near the open door to the basement.
His friend looked panicked.
“Mason!” She nearly shouted the word, and moved toward him suddenly enough that he winced.
“What’s wrong?” It didn’t take a genius to get it, since he heard a voice, Carry, whining from the basement. Where she was getting her free stuff.
“Can you believe that I have to share with some sketchy tech asshole? I know I added him as a plus, but I didn’t think he’d actually show up. How did he get here anyway? How did he even know how to find it? Is he some kind of stalker or something?”
Mason looked at the door, which was open wide and then at the other two. Ben looked away, annoyed seeming, and Lexi looked scared.
He just walked over and shut the door.
“No big, I’ll set up down there for the night, if that’s not a problem? Anyway, Adam wants to have a bonfire later? I told him that we’d try to make up some things for it. Marshmallows and hotdogs. No one will be hungry, if we go to dinner first, but it’s still a good thing to practice.”
Ben blinked several times, and then started to nod, a slow smile coming to his face.
“Yes. We can do that. Let’s see…”
Behind him, Lexi just glared at the door to her own basement.
“Sorry Mason. I’ll make sure not to invite her next time we do anything.”
Then, seeming more than a tiny bit upset herself, she stomped off.
He just got to work, since they were slated to leave at any time, after the last people got there.
Chapter thirteen
It was a tempting idea, skipping the meal out with the others. That was, he’d been assured by Ben, as they worked, the first real attempt the whole group would be making to attract attention.
“Our lives, as you’ve probably worked out by now, are a never ending ploy to garner more publicity. We live, and die, by the amount of time we spend on various screens. Most of the time it doesn’t matter how we do it, either, as long as people see us, and keep thinking about our antics.” There was a bit of resigned humor to the words, as the man absently stood with his eyes closed, sending information to the food printer on the counter.
The device was high end, and designed to be capable of a lot more than was being done with it. Seeing that, tracking what the other man was doing by closing his own eyes, Mason decided to get his float screen out of his luggage when he could.
He was being a bit quiet, but that was about not being used to having people around all the time. It wasn’t his way, really. These people seemed to live in a sea of bodies, rarely left alone to notice their own thoughts for even a second. He lived in a silent cave, if one of his own creation. More than most did even. He worked, most of the time, in silence.
Even average people lived submersed in constant noise. In VR or some other reality, where music played constantly and other people chattered at them without reason.
Mason sighed and nodded, trying not to be a prick about the situation that he’d found himself in.
“That has to be hard. The most I have to do is a good job. I wouldn’t have a clue how to get people to notice me like that.”
Ben sent over a modified marshmallow recipe, which Mason started changing instantly. The trick, if you had the capability to do it, was to try and mimic the chemical and physical properties of the material being used, as taken from direct scans of the real thing. The other man kept making the standard amateur mistakes, like copying what others had already done at a lower level than his machine could handle.
When the first one printed out, the other guy opened the hopper, looked at the white cylinder of fluff and sugar, and bit it in half, his eyes shutting again.
“Fuck. Just… Do you know how much money we could make selling these things? This, plus the coffee, and we’ll be rich. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to cut me in on it? I can sell the recipes, do commercials and that?”
Blinking, Mason nearly shook his head.
“Sounds good? There are some other things we should work on too. I was thinking that if we did it right, we could work out how to improve the standard working materials, so that people with lower end machines could get in on things. Then, um, sell things like coffee, directly? That will need a nano assembler to get right. Chocolate too, probably.”
The other man started nodding and moved forward, suddenly hugging the device in front of him.
“You can make chocolate, my little friend? Do you know how expensive the real stuff is?”
Mason didn’t eat it, so didn’t know. He’d had the fake kind, like everyone else, but almost no one even tried to make the real kind anymore. The weather was all wrong for it, where it used to grow, or something. That didn’t mean he couldn’t pull an analysis of it offline and work from there.
It was nearly enough to get him out of going to the restaurant, since Ben really wanted to stay there and play with the new ideas. His desire to try new things was infectious, and a good enough reason for him.
Adam however, wouldn’t hear of it.
“Nope. You’re both coming with us. We didn’t come here for half the people to stay indoors the whole time. Besides, we need to come up with something that will be noticed.” There was a grin, and the man looked over at Ben. “I know, we can start making out at the table. That should get us a few seconds at least.”
The other man shook his head, his dark hair tidy, and unmoving. He was thin, and a little pale, but not any more so than Adam was.
“Brought a date, thanks. Besides, I doubt that being seen with me will help with your fan base, right now. Wrong demographic.”
The blue haired man sighed and looked away, then looked back up when Tara came into the room. She was dressed up nicely, and looked about ten years older than she really was. It was the makeup that did it, Mason was almost certain.
The girl grinned, first at Adam, and then him.
“I wouldn’t worry about it yet. We’ll think of something. Lexi told me that we were going to leave in a few minutes, so everyone should come now.” Almost as an afterthought she looked at Ben, who was making a large bowl of marshmallows appear, taking them six at a time out of the assembler unit. “What are those?”
That got a conversation going, as Adam shook his head.
“I need to change. You too, M.” There was a pulling on his arm, and since they were both on the third floor, as far as rooms went, the other guy didn’t give him a lot of choice. That meant being shoved into his room with a bit more force than was needed, to find something in his case that wouldn’t be too bland for everyone else.
Unless he needed to be that way. He didn’t know, but publicity wasn’t going to help him a lot in life, so his plan should be in not making himself too apparent. Leaving another half second for the others to be on screen later, on the networks or in virt.
To that end he went with the nicest thing he had anyway. It wasn’t flashy, being a simple black shirt that had old fashioned buttons for decoration, instead of a soft fastener on it. That was how most pieces of clothing closed now. Jackets and pants at any rate. The idea was a good one, using van der Waals adhesion to do the work. It could be washed without breaking down, and opened and closed silently. His pants had a tab of it to keep them shut. They were loose, and black, and he wore the shirt tucked in, just because he’d seen that on some show or another.
Most wore theirs out, but if you were thin enough, you could get away with doing the other thing. Basically it was about showing off how in shape you were.
So, deciding that his best outfit was probably not going to cause any waves, he headed down the stairs, to find that everyone else was nearly ready, except Adam, who jogged behind him, jumping at the last step into the living room, slapping him on the shoulder as he did.
His clothing was so bright as to almost be painful. It was a pink that could induce headaches, paired with a bright blue that Mason felt might be well used as a weapon in certain circumstances. The rest of them looked different, he noticed. Each having their own personal style.
Sam was in a loose, and fairly small, white dress. It hit just above her thighs, and had thin straps to hold it up at the top. She wasn’t wearing anything under it, which he could tell, when she moved. Things flashed interestingly.
George was in a suit that was gaudy enough it seemed like a joke, being purple and black stripes. He had a very old style top hat, in the same theme, and matching shoes with high socks that showed to the knees. His pants were very short as well, though he was totally covered. His makeup, rather than being done to make him pretty, was arranged to make his skin pale, with a swirling sigil of some sort over his right eye. He still looked like himself though, so it wasn’t a disguise, just a decoration.
It was however, the same thing that he’d seen on both Sam and Lisa before.
The large woman was dressed in slacks and a pull over shirt. That was all in dark blue, and seemed nearly like a uniform. In fact, all the assistants had on something similar. Not matching, but close enough that it made it look like they were a single team of hardened soldiers, rather than the people assigned to get beverages and possibly keep the underage boys and girls from having any fun with their friends.
Carry was dressed in a totally different style, wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Both were shiny however, and clearly dressy. It showed enough skin that it was clear she was using a very high end system to control her coloration. Everything on her was a deep, nearly sparkling gold. It worked, and she looked pretty fantastic.
Right until she opened her mouth. That happened while staring at him.
“Mason… I don’t think they meant for you to come with us.” She whispered it, but from across the room, loudly. “This is just for the… You know, to get publicity?” Her words were nearly polite sounding, actually, and her face was nervous when she spoke.
It was very different than what she’d sounded like before when speaking of him. That was part of her job though, acting, so that would probably explain it. Her gaze went to Lexi however, and she swallowed. Almost like she expected to be attacked over him walking into the room.
Everyone in the place looked at her like she was taking drugs.
It was Lexi who spoke though.
“I…Carry? Is that why you’ve been acting like that?”
If there was meaning to the words, Mason didn’t understand it. Everyone else seemed to though, and Tara, the fifteen-year-old, started to nod her head.
Adam shook his, and stepped forward.
“Carry, did I ever tell you about the first time I met Mason?”
The woman seemed surprised by the words, but turned to look at the eye shatteringly dressed man. Again she seemed nervous, but didn’t speak just watching the more famous guy closely.
The singer smiled and shook his head.
“I was stoned out of my head, and my assistants didn’t know what to do. The drug, well, it wasn’t one, and I won’t go into that part, to protect someone else, but we ended up going to the wrong door, pounding on it like we belonged there, really early in the day. It wasn’t even the right building, things were so messed up.” It wasn’t exactly the truth, but that didn’t seem to matter, since almost everyone there was riveted by the story telling skills. “Then this guy, wearing pajamas like he lived halfway through the last century, comes to the door, and instead of screaming at us for bugging him, which would have been totally fair at that time of day, let me tell you, he got us inside.”
Carry looked nervous still, “oh?”
There was a big smile on the man’s face then.
“He didn’t know who I was. Who any of us were. But he opened his door, and then saved my life. Again, I can’t say how, but there are like a thousand people in the country that could have done what he did. I looked it up. Pure luck that we were there. Fate maybe? Odds are if that scene had gone one bit different I’d be dead right now. For real. So, I can’t speak for anyone else here, but I know that I’m good with him coming along. Anyplace, I go. Anytime.”
Lexi shook her head then.
“God, Carry. Do you really think any of us are that shallow? Mason is…” She stopped and shrugged, which seemed artless, but did flash her nipples a bit. “Expected to come. If you hadn’t invited him, he’d still be here. You saw, what he did for me?”
That got a slow nod, and then an embarrassed look at Mason.
He was still a bit clueless, but tried to not seem like it. Adam moved in next to him, and slapped him on the back.
“No shit. Honestly Carry, I figured that’s why you wanted him here. So that you could be seen with him. I don’t know if Warburg will have him killed or not, but for a few weeks, maybe longer, that story is going to make the rounds. And here I just figured you for being freaking brilliant, grabbing him up before anyone else could.”
George moved toward the door, his horrible outfit catching a lot of attention.
“Settled then? Come on, everyone. Women and children’s show hosts first!” He was in the front, but everyone else lined up, more or less. Though several of the big people moved past him, going out before he could, to check on things. They were obviously children’s show hosts, since no one was going to confuse them for women.
The rest were behind them all, and Adam slapped him on the back again.
“I need to move forward a bit. It basically goes by how famous you are, more or less. So, George, Lexi and I in the front, Ben and Deidre next, Tara and Sylph, then Ken, Carry and the rest of you can hang out. Unless you want to dump Carry for me? Then you can be way up there, with the important people?” He was playing, but he glared at Carry when he said it.
She rolled her eyes.
“I didn’t know that you liked him. I only invited him because he seemed nice, but we didn’t make plans for him to get here. It was just a gesture, and then… I freaked. I know that you aren’t really supposed to bring anyone to things like this, and there he was, before I got here even.”
She still seemed nervous about the whole thing.
Lexi stuck her tongue out a bit then.
