Cyberpunk

disguises. And the music.”
    She was silent for a moment. Maybe people in Elkhart, Indiana, did not ask one another into discreet unless they had met in Sunday school or the 4-H Club.
    “Okay,” she said finally, “but I’ll enable. What’s your DI?”
    I gave her my number.
    “Be back in a minute.”
    I cleared Playroom from my screens. The message Enabling Discreet Mode flashed. I decided not to change out of the joysuit; instead I called up my wardrobe menu and chose an image of myself wearing black baggies. The loose folds and padded shoulders helped hide the scrawny little boy’s body.
    The message changed. D ISCREET MODE ENABLED . D O YOU ACCEPT, YES/NO ?
    “Sure,” I said.
    She was sitting naked in the middle of a room filled with tropical plants. Her skin was the color of cinnamon. She had freckles on her shoulders and across her breasts. Her hair tumbled down the curve of her spine; the ends glowed like embers in a breeze. She clutched her legs close to her and gave me a curious smile. Teenage still life. We were alone and secure. No one could tap us while we were in discreet. We could say anything we wanted. I was too croggled to speak.
    “You are a little kid,” she said.
    I did not tell her that what she was watching was an enhanced image, a virtual me. “Uh . . . well, not really.” I was glad Stennie could not see me. Mr. Boy at a loss—a first. “Sometimes I’m not sure what I am. I guess you’re not going to like me either. I’ve been stunted a couple of times. I’m really twenty-five years old.”
    She frowned. “You keep deciding I won’t like people. Why?”
    “Most people are against genetic surgery. Probably because they haven’t got the money.”
    “Myself, I wouldn’t do it. Still, just because you did doesn’t mean I hate you.” She gestured for me to sit. “But my parents would probably be horrified. They’re realists, you know.”
    “No fooling?” I could not help but chuckle. “That explains a lot.” Like why she had an attitude about twanking. And why she thought VEs were dumb. And why she was naked and did not seem to care. According to hard-core realists, first came clothes, then jewelry, fashion, makeup, plastic surgery, skin tints, and hey, jack! here we are up to our eyeballs in the delusions of 2096. Gene twanking, VE addicts, people downloading themselves into computers—better never to have started. They wanted to turn back to worn-out twentieth-century modes. “But you’re no realist,” I said. “Look at your hair.”
    She shook her head and the ends twinkled. “You like it?”
    “It’s extreme. But realists don’t decorate!”
    “Then maybe I’m not a realist. My parents let me try lots of stuff they wouldn’t do themselves, like buying hairworks or linking to VEs. They’re afraid I’d leave otherwise.”
    “Would you?”
    She shrugged. “So what’s it like to get stunted? I’ve heard it hurts.”
    I told her how sometimes I felt as if there were broken glass in my joints and how my bones ached and—more showing off—about the blood I would find on the toilet paper. Then I mentioned something about Mom. She had heard of Mom, of course. She asked about my dad, and I explained how Mom paid him to stay away but that he kept running out of money. She wanted to know if I was working or still going to school, and I made up some stuff about courses in history I was taking from Yale. Actually I had faded after my first semester. Couple of years ago. I did not have time to link to some boring college; I was too busy playing with Comrade and Stennie. But I still had an account at Yale.
    “So that’s who I am.” I was amazed at how little I had lied. “Who are you?”
    She told me that her name was Treemonisha but her friends called her Tree. It was an old family name; her great-great-grandsomething-or-other had been a composer named Scott Joplin. Treemonisha was the name of his opera.
    I had to force myself not to stare at her breasts when she talked. “You like opera?” I said.
    “My dad says I’ll grow into it.” She made a face. “I hope not.”
    The Joplins were a franchise family; her mom and dad had just been transferred to the Green Dream, a plant shop in the Elm Street Mall. To hear her talk, you would think she had ordered them from the Good Fairy. They had been married for twenty-two years and were still together. She had a brother, Fidel, who was twelve. They all lived in the greenhouse next to the shop where they