The Mocking Program Read online

  In soche, a child learned about the psychology of male-female relationships, dating, the institution of marriage, sex, how to open and manage a bank account, how to perform simple household repairs, deal with credit, purchase a residence, handle lawyers, consult with doctors, plan a vacation, shop for goods and services, buy and cook food—all the critical components of everyday life that bumbling previous generations had somehow expected children to learn on their own, usually by utterly inadequate variations of social osmosis. In other words, all the really important things. Science and math, geography and language, history and literature, art and civics—all these were better studied at home, via a household box.

  From eight in the morning until noon, four days a week, children gathered in their local soche to learn what the tribe of mankind expected of them: how to be decent human beings and survive in a world that grew more complex not by the year, but by the day. Into this bubbling preadolescent brew had been enrolled one twelve-year-old named Katla Anderson, whom Angel Cardenas badly wanted to interview. The elderly neighborhood resident he had spoken with outside the devastated Anderson dwelling had told him that the girl's mother always took her to soche and brought her home again. With that in mind, he found himself flashing his ident to the armed guard at the entrance.

  "Como se happening?" he offered conversationally.

  Automatic pistol protruding prominently from his hip holster, stun spray dangling from a chain attached to a vest pocket, the bored sentry strummed his beard and shrugged. "Nada much, homber. Who you here to arrest? Teacher or nin?" He perked up a little. "Hope it's a teacher. This is a quiet soche and I like most of the nins."

  The Inspector stepped through the deactivated gate. As soon as he was through, the guard reactivated it. A soft, ominous hum indicated that a microwave barrier powerful enough to crisp an intruder had been reenergized in the visitor's wake.

  "Neither nada," Cardenas explained. "I just need to talk to one of the students."

  Swiveling in his seat, the guard scanned the security bib. "This ain't about the detonation of that ice cream truck last month, is it? That's been resolved. Our nins had nothing to do with it." He snorted disapprovingly. "Was a bunch of antisocs from Miranos urb."

  "I just need to ask a few quick questions." Cardenas's tone was as patient as it was intentionally unenlightening.

  The guard gave up trying to mine information from the visitor. "Identity of student?" he asked officiously.

  "Anderson, Katla." Peering past the guard, the Inspector studied the security bib.

  The sentry nodded to himself. "Yeah, I know the name. Got the attendance roster pretty well memorized. Don't recall actually talking to the girl, though." The brisk movements of his fingers on the keyboard belied his age. As a safety measure, the security bib was not designed to be operated by vorec.

  More finger flicking. There were two hundred and sixty-three LEDs on the bib. Eighteen flashed red, the rest green. The guard tapped one of the red indicators. "She's not here today." He leaned back in his seat. "Out sick, maybe. But she's not here."

  Cardenas was far less surprised by the news than the guard. "Could her monitor be defective? Or masked?"

  The guard pushed out his lower lip. "Could have gone dead. Or if she's working in lab, the signal could be masked, although we try not to put the nins in a situation where that's possible. Sometimes happens en masse in cooking class, though. Radiation interference. It can get real bad when they're doing holiday poultry." He worked the board. "Go see Alicia Tavares; room eleven. She's Anderson's matriculator for the month." Swiveling in the chair, he pointed. "Down the entry hall, second door on your left, other side of the wildlife preserve. She's teaching Advanced Commuting right now."

  The Inspector gave his thanks and strode off in the indicated direction, passing rooms in which children were learning the social skills necessary to survive in a society more multifarious than most. Exiting the main building, he found himself wandering through a miniature version of the celebrated New Mexican Jornada del Muerto, complete to desert landscaping, waterhole, and reproductions of historic artifacts—all replicated in the middle of the urban, industrialized Strip to show its youngest citizens what life once was, and in places still was, beyond the induction tubes and malls and playwhirls.

  Entering a subsidiary structure, he found his way to room eleven. His ident bracelet ran through several thousand municipal code combinations before settling in a few seconds on one that operated the classroom door, granting him entrance.

  Inside, he found two dozen pairs of eyes regarding him intently.

  The walls that were not windowed with shatterproof, polarized glass alloy were covered with drawings and motilites and artscapes depicting various modes of contemporary transportation. At the moment, the class was dissecting the interior of an intercontinental hypersonic transport, but not to study the aerodynamics of its design or the physics of its hydrogen-driven engines. For those who were interested, such technical details could be better analyzed at home. Instead, they were learning travel etiquette: how to order food, how to eat while onboard, how to use the bathroom, how to deal with troublesome other passengers—in brief, how to survive and get along in the world of modern air travel.

  Their instructor was a slim young woman with dark hair and a narrow face whose work attire was presently masked by the uniform of a United Varig flight attendant. United Varig, of course, paid for the privilege of having its corporate logo so prominently displayed in an institute of learning. The nins didn't seem to mind. They were too busy trying out recommended travel phrases on one another.

  "Keep practicing those short conversational routines," Alicia Tavares ordered them. "There'll be an oral quiz tomorrow." Groans rose from the well-dressed junior citizens. This was not a poor school district, Cardenas reflected. In the urb where he grew up, schools had no money for such frivolities as clothing masks.

  "Can I help you?" She caught the flash of his ident. "Oh dear, I hope no one's in trouble. That business with the ice cream truck—"

  "Has nothing to do with my visit here today," he finished for her. When he smiled, the tips of his drooping mustache rose half a centimeter. The action invariably brought a grin to the lips of anyone near enough to note the phenomenon, and Tavares was no exception.

  "I'm relieved to hear it. What can I do for you"—she eyed the ident one more time—"Inspector?"

  "This month you're supervising a student named Katla Anderson."

  Tavares nodded, and her expression changed to one of concern.

  "She's not in any trouble, is she?"

  "We don't know yet. If she is, it's not of her doing." He looked past the teacher, to the busy class of well-fed children. "She's not here today."

  "No."

  "You don't seem surprised."

  She eyed him inquisitively. "You're very perceptive, Inspector. Katla's quite a bright girl. In some respects, brilliant. But she has a real problem keeping up her attendance. It's not her parents' fault, as near as I can tell. But there are days when she just doesn't show up. Her parents protest, and claim to have spoken to her about the problem, but it persists. Really a shame. Such a clever girl."

  "Her parents didn't call in to say she'd be held out today?"

  Tavares shook her head. "As far as I know, there's been no communication. These unexcused absences are random, so I don't think Katla's skipping to partake of some scheduled outside activity."

  Cardenas nodded. "How does she get along with her fellow nins?"

  "Well enough." Having replied reflexively, the teacher proceeded to qualify her response. "Although when not engaged in programmed activities, I have noticed that she does tend to keep to herself. Why don't you ask some of her sochemates?" Turning, she addressed two girls who were exploring trays of simulated food. "Malaga, Rose— could you come here a minute, please?"

  Cardenas found himself looking down at two twelve-year-olds, one the color of coffee, the other of sand. He smiled, and his mustache d
anced. Eyeing him curiously, the lighter-colored of the pair glanced up at her teacher. "This isn't something that's going to be on the quiz, is it?"

  "No," Cardenas assured her. "I just want to ask you about a friend of yours—Katla Anderson."

  The other girl replied first. "You mean the goofac?" She giggled.

  "That's what we call her. Because she sucks up everything around her, but when you ask her a question, half the time all you get back is this weird smile, like she knows the answer but isn't sure how to tell it to you."

  "That's right," added the first girl quickly, her words threatening to stumble over one another in the style of speaking common to twelve-year-olds. "Katla, si, she's muy cerebro, but she's still a weird. Cabeza vareza, you verdad?"

  Tavares made a face. "Malaga, mind your manners."

  The girl looked up petulantly. "Hoy, the fedoco asked!"

  "I don't care." The sandy-skinned girl was nearly as tall as he. "Katla's not here today."

  "Noho," her friend agreed indifferently. "Shunted, you sabe?"

  "You know where she might be?" Cardenas asked easily.

  The girls glanced at one another before the taller one responded. "Nobody knows where the west wind goes. That's Katla."

  He smiled softly, his words gentle. "You're lying to me, Malaga."

  She looked at him sharply. "No I'm not. Some days, Katla just doesn't image-in."

  "That's not what I asked." He leaned a little closer, his eyes boring into hers. "You know what I asked. And you know that I know that you're lying. Por favor, don't lie to me again, Malaga."

  The girl looked to her friend for help. They were silent for a long minute. Then the one called Rose spoke up, though with obvious reluctance. She did not meet the visitor's gaze. "Katla's hard to talk to, sometimes. It's not like she's rude: just quiet. But sometimes— sometimes she'll tell us where she's been when she's not here." The not-quite-woman's voice had fallen to a whisper, as if she was afraid someone not present might somehow overhear the conversation.

  "She likes to focus with the crazyboys."

  Cardenas exhaled softly. "Katla Anderson is twelve. That's too young to be focusing with the ninlocos. They would laugh her off. She'd slow their pulse."

  Malaga was shaking her head. "Not the subgrubs. They'll take you if you're eleven." Aware that she might have divulged too much forbidden knowledge, she added hastily, "That's what I induct, anyway."

  The Inspector straightened. Subgrubs were loose, casual groupings of antisocs not yet old enough to be initiated into a real gang. Despite what the girl had told him, he had never encountered or heard of one as young as eleven being admitted to the clique. But twelve—at twelve you would be tolerated. Thirteen to fourteen was the average age of a subgrub, after which you moved on up to a real ninloco gang, went cleanie—or ended up solo on the Strip. Or dead.

  Subgrubings were fluid bands of mature children and immature teens with no real structure or organization. Unlike the ninloco gangs, members owed allegiance only to one another. Bonds were formed through friendship and dissolved as casually as they were begun. Serious crimes were rarely perpetrated by the kids involved. Most turned to antisoc activities out of boredom, not conviction. They were delinquents rather than felons.

  It was a good time to catch them out, before their lives started spiraling down the toilet. Especially a bright, apparently promising kid like the Anderson girl.

  Drawing his spinner, Cardenas requested the names of all the known subgrub factions reported to swirl within a ten-kim radius of the school. Beyond that, a twelve-year-old would start to find herself in alien territory. "Gobreski," he recited aloud as the names appeared on the screen. "Narulas. Pinks, Habaneros, Terravillas. The Lost Perros. Vetevenga. Socratease. Convirgil."

  "Vetevenga," murmured Rose. "That's the one. I don't know where they focus."

  "There's something else." Cardenas shifted his attention to the taller girl.

  "She—Katla mentioned the name of one antisoc a lot. A boy." Rose shot her friend a warning look that was ignored. "Como's himself 'Wild Whoh.' I—we—met him once or twice. He was never enrolled here, but they let him audit a few classes. Whenever he was here, he and Katla would hub." Raising one hand above her head, she held it out, palm facing down. "About this tall, kind of skinny. Short green hair, usually. Crossoed querymark shaved into the right side. One time I remember him saying he was fifteen—but I think he was boasting. Afranglo skin and features." She touched her left ear. "Always wearing a muse when he wasn't in session. Passing out nodes like some bigtime Noburu-san."

  "They were a good match," a still-hesitant Rose added. "He was even weirder than Katla."

  The Inspector recorded the info. "You've both been very helpful. Thank you." He turned to go.

  A hand clutched tentatively at his sleeve. It was Malaga, for the first time looking very childlike. "Katla—she's okay, isn't she?"

  "I hope so. I like to think so. If she should happen to focus anywhere around here, would you let me know? My name is Inspector Cardenas." He did not have to provide a number. How to deal with and make use of the authorities was one of the first things children learned in soche.

  It was clouding up when he left the school. More monsoon weather, he reflected. More rain. It would untidy his day, but he didn't mind. Only a mental objected to rain in the desert, irrespective of how much purified desal they extracted and pumped north from the shallows of the Golfo.

  Antisocs tended to lead largely nocturnal lives. Subgrubs were no exception. Calling in his intentions via vorec, he headed not for the office but for home. If he was going to chase grubs all night, it would behoove him to take a nap.

  FOUR

  ZAP-ATA AVENUE NEVER SLEPT. IT WAS WHERE the resident seeds of this particular pie-slice of the Strip came to play when they were in the mood to get a little spizzed and spazzed. Cleanies and antisocs, citizens and ninlocos, admins and techies and eeLancers mixed freely, their social differences temporarily set aside, bound together by a mutual desire to saturate themselves in a scintillating sea of tempormorality.

  In search of a little illicit entertainment? Try a Texmexsexhex. Stimulating, but safe. UL-approved (though maybe not by Good Housekeeping). Feel the need for speed? Pilot a Disony mickeyed personal induction capsule around a 100% safe obstacle course at velocities designed to slap your lip flaps right back over your cheeks. In the mood to vitalize a little agro? Don a Karash stimsuit and take a run through any of hundreds of artificial environments, obliterating bad aliens, bad lifeforms, bad carnivores, and for a quick under-the-table, over-the-card supplemental fee, your spouse (scan-suitable 4X6 required; holos preferred) along the way.

  Sample the cuisine of all seven continents, from Triobriand trochus tortellini to St. George krilliabase, Mamiraua cupurucu ice cream sundaes to a Blue Hyacinth mochanocha shake (twice the plateau caffeine, three times the lowlands sugar, and you can't taste the guarana until you start to come down). Choose your Samerican rodent barbecue: cui to capybara. Food, food, food, some of it crude, some of it lewd, a little of it even brewed.

  Speaking of drink, the irritatingly persistent motile advert whispered knowingly in the Inspector's ear as he wandered down an open off the main boulevard, half-liter blended brews are only a triplet apiece during happy hora at Robusto's Cafe, third court on your right, you can't miss it. Flailing one arm, he waved the hovering electronic hawker away. Had he chosen to do so, he could have grammed his bracelet to broadcast a frequency that would have warned such nuisances away by identifying him as an on-duty officer of the NFP. Doing so, however, would allow certain elements of the population to pick up the specified carrier wave and thereby take note of his presence. Federales like himself who preferred to operate beneath the cloak of comparative anonymity were thus compelled to suffer the same glut of omnipresent advertising as any ordinary citizen.

  Like any popular nighttime lair, Open No. 64 was saturated with adverts. Music filled the still-superheated air, not all of it comm
ercial jangles. He found himself humming along with a popular contemporary enchanto. Emerging from a notably sediddy bistro that boasted proudly of its favorably reviewed Burmese-Cajun cuisine, a laughing young couple nearly ran into him, drunk on the wine of young love. He smiled tolerantly and stepped out of their way. Giggling, they tried not to stare too long at the bright-eyed older man with the imposing whiskers as they continued on past him, staggering up the street arm in arm. He hoped their happy condition would not leave them with a hangover.

  As he had always done, as he did better than nearly anyone else in the department, he melted into the crowd, one more unremarkable presence among many that cried out for attention. With his bracelet hidden beneath the cuff of his shirt and in the absence of blue cap or blazer, he was one of the last nightcrawlers on the street that any of his fellow pedestrians would have identified as a federale—much less a senior Inspector. Blending in had always been one of his abilities. It was not one readily measured on the Department aptitude or skill tests. Superiors and colleagues alike valued it highly nonetheless. A great deal of what Cardenas could do was not quantifiable. This sometimes bothered the bean-counters, but not his fellow cops.

  Four kids were loitering outside a Wanrow parlor, hoping to see someone thrown out so they could help him up and, in the process of rendering assistance, maybe pick the disoriented Wans pockets. To anyone else on the street they appeared to be doing nothing more than standing and chatting. "Anyone else" did not see them as Cardenas did. Their attitudes, their posture, even their body odor told him they were intent on doing some moderate mayhem.

  The oldest of the group was a boy of fourteen. A black pigtail curled down each side of his head, and the skullcap he wore was decorated with ancient symbols that ripped defiance in Hebrew. Likewise the tattooed Aramaic obscenities that covered most of his exposed right arm. It wasn't much of an arm—not at fourteen. But the promise of burgeoning nastiness was there. A Yesvit, Cardenas decided. A wannabe aiming to join one of the two or three organized orthodox ninloco gangs that roamed the western half of the Strip.