stimulatethem into tremendously accelerated growth. Moreover, I can alter theirelectromagnetic valences, so that, instead of calcium salts, they use otherminerals as their building-blocks."
He grinned hugely, and seemed to want Chet to say something. Chet didn'tunderstand any of it.
"Well, don't you see?"
"Nuh."
"I can use coral to concentrate trace gold and platinum and any otherheavy-metal you care to name out of the seas. I can prospect in the very wateritself!" He killed the switch. The coral stopped their dance abruptly, and thenew appendages they'd grown dropped away, tumbling gracefully to the ocean'sfloor. "You see? Gold, platinum, lead. I dissolved a kilo of each into the waterlast night, microscopic flakes. In five minutes, my coral has concentrated itall."
The stumps where the minerals had dropped away were jagged and sharp, andpainful looking.
"It doesn't even harm the fish!"
#
Chet's playmates seemed as strange as fish to him. They met up on the 87thlevel, where there was an abandoned apt with a faulty lock. Some of them seemedbatty themselves, standing in corners, staring at the walls, tracing patternsthat they alone could see. Others seemed too confident ever to be bats -- theyshouted and boasted to each other, got into shoving matches that escalated intoknock-out brawls and then dissolved into giggles. Chet found himself on thesidelines, an observer.
One boy, whose father hung around the workshops with Chet's father, wasindustriously pulling apart the warp of the carpet, rolling it into a ball. Whenthe ball reached a certain size, he snapped the loose end, tucked it in andstarted another.
A girl whose family had been taken to the bat-house all the way from areservation near Sioux Lookout was telling loud lies about home, abouttremendous gun-battles fought out with the Ontario Provincial Police and huge,glamorous casinos where her mother had dealt blackjack to millionairehigh-rollers, who tucked thousand dollar tips into her palm. About her bow andarrow and her rifle and her horses. Nobody believed her stories, and they madefun of her behind her back, but they listened when she told them, spellbound.
What was her name, anyway?
There were two boys, one followed the other everywhere. The followee wastormenting the follower, as usual, smacking him in the back of the head, thencalling him a baby, goading him into hitting back, dodging easily, andretaliating viciously.
Chet thought that he understood some of what was going on. Maybe he'd be able toexplain it to The Amazing Robotron.
#
I never thought I'd say this, but I miss my exoskeleton. My feet ache, my legsache, my ass aches, and I'm hot and thirsty and my waterbottle is empty. I'm noteven past Bloor Street, not even a tenth of the way to the bat-house.
#
The Amazing Robotron seemed thoughtful as I ratted out my chums. "So, I thinkthey need each other. The big one needs the little one, to feel important. Thelittle one needs the big one, so that he can feel useful. Is that right?"
"It is ve-ry per-cep-tive, Chet. When I was young, I had a sim-i-lar friend-shipwith an-other. It -- no, _she_ -- was the lit-tle one, and I was the big one.Her pa-rent died be-fore we came of age, and she left the Cen-ter, and when shecame back to visit, a long time la-ter, we were re-ver-sed -- I felt smal-lerbut good, and spec-ial be-cause she told me all a-bout the out-side."
Something clicked inside me then. I saw myself inside The Amazing Robotron'sexoskeleton, and he in my skin, our roles reversed. It lasted no longer than alightning flash, but in that flash, I suddenly knew that I could talk to TheAmazing Robotron, and that he would understand.
I felt so smart all of a sudden. I felt like The Amazing Robotron and I werestanding outside the bat-house, _in_ it but not _of_ it, and we shared a secretinsight into the poor, crazy bastards we were cooped up with.
"I don't really like anyone here. I don't like my Dad -- he's always shouting,and I think he's the reason we ended up here. He's batshit -- he gets angry tooeasy. And my Mom is batshit now, even if she wasn't batshit before, because ofhim. I don't feel like their son. I feel like I just share an apt with these twocrazy people I don't like very much. And none of my mates are any good, either.They're all either like my Dad -- loud and crazy, or like my Mom, quiet andcrazy. Everyone's crazy."
"That may be true, Chet. But you can still like cra-zy peo-ple."
"Do _you_ like 'em?"
The Amazing Robotron's idiot lights rippled. _Gotcha_, I thought.
"I do not like them, Chet. They are loud and cra-zy and they on-ly think ofthem-selves."
I laughed. It was so refreshing not to be lied to. My skin was all tight fromthe dried saltwater, and that felt good, too.
"My Dad, the other day? He came home and was all, 'This is a conspiracy to driveus out of our house. It's because we bought a house with damn high ceilings.Some big damn alien wanted to live there, so they put us here. It's because Idid such a good job on the ceilings!' Which is so stupid, 'cause the ceilings inour old house weren't no higher than the ceilings here, and besides, Dad screwedup all the plaster when he was trying to fix it up, and it was always cracking.
"And then he starts talking about what's really bugging him, which is that someguy at the workshop took his favorite drill and he couldn't finish his bigproject without it. So he got into a fight with the guy, and got the drill andthen he finished his big, big project, and brought it home, and you know what itwas? A _pencil-holder_! We don't even _have_ any pencils! He is so screwed up."
And The Amazing Robotron's lights rippled again, and a huge weight lifted frommy shoulders. I didn't feel ashamed of the maniacs that gave me life -- I sawthem as pitiful subjects for my observations. I laughed again, and that musthave been the most I'd laughed since they put us in the bat-house.
#
I'm getting my sea-legs. I hope. My mouth is pasty, and salty, and sweat keepsrunning down into my eyes. I never even began to realize how much support theexoskeleton's jelly-suspension lent me.
But I've made it to Eglinton, and that's nearly a third of the way, and tocelebrate, I stop in at a coffee-shop and drink a whole pitcher of lemonadewhile sitting by the air-conditioner.
I got the word that they were tearing down the bat-house only two weeks ago. Themessage came by priority email from The Amazing Robotron: all the bats weredead, or enough of them anyway that the rest could be relocated to lessexpensive quarters. It was barely enough notice to get my emergency leaveapplication in, to book a ticket back to Earth, and to finally become a murdererall the way.
Damn, I hope I know what I'm doing.
#
The guy who thought he was Nicola Tesla told me all kinds of stories, and I wassure he was lying to me, but when I checked out the parts of his story that Icould, they all turned out to be true.
"I don't actually _need_ to be here. I've come here to get away from all thetreachery, the deceit, the filthy pursuit of the dollar. As though I need moremoney! I invented foam! Oh, sure, the Process likes to take credit for it, butif you look up the patent, guess who owns it?
"Master Affeltranger, you may not realize it to look at me, but I have some_very_ important friends, out there in the Great Beyond. With important friends,you can make a whole block of apts simply disappear from the record-books. Youcan make tremendous energy consumption vanish, likewise."
He spoke as he tinkered with his apparatus, which hummed alarmingly andoccasionally sent a tortured arc of electricity into the guy who thought he wasNicola Tesla's chest.
It happened three times in a row, and he stamped his foot in frustration, andsaid, "Oh, _do_ cut it out," apparently to one of his machines.
I'd been jumping every time he got zapped, but this time, I had to giggle. Hewhirled on me. "I am not trying to be _amusing_. One thing you people neverrealize is that the current has a _will_, it has a _mind_, and you have to keepit in check with a firm hand."
I shook my head a little, not understanding. He waved a hand at me, frustrated,and said, "Oh, go have a swim. I don't have time to argue with a child."
I climbed into the ocean, and the silence embraced me, and the water tingledwith electricity, and my consciousness floated away from my body and soared overan alien world. Like a broken circuit, I disconnected from the world around me.
#
Chet's father came home with a can of beer in his hand and the rest of thesix-pack in his gut. He walked over to the vid, where Chet was researching thelife of Nicola Tesla, which took forever, since he had to keep linking back tosimple tutorials on physics, history, and electrical engineering.
Chet's father stooped and took the remote out of Chet's hands and opened up abookmarked docu-drama about the coming of the bugouts. Chet opened his mouth toprotest, and his father shouted him down before he could speak. "Not one word,you