Cyberpunk

popcorn.
    “I’m hot.” Janet stuck the inhaler into her face and pressed. “Anybody want to swim? Tree?”
    “Okay.” Tree breathed in a polite dose and breathed out a giggle. “You?” she asked me.
    “I don’t think so.” I was too nervous: I kept expecting someone to jump out and throw a net over me. “I’ll watch.”
    “I’d swim with you,” said Stennie, “but I promised Happy I’d bring her these party favors as soon as I arrived.” He nudged the box with his foot. “Can you wait a few minutes?”
    “Comrade and I will take them over.” I grabbed the box and headed for the door, glad for the excuse to leave Tree behind while I went to find Montross. “Meet you at the pool.”
    The golf cart was gone, so we walked through the tube toward the sculpture gallery. “You have the picture?” I said.
    Comrade patted the pocket of his window coat.
    The tube was not air-conditioned, and the afternoon sun pounded us through the optical plastic. There was no sound inside; even our footsteps were swallowed by the AstroTurf. The box got heavier. We passed the entrance to the old painting gallery, which looked like a bomb shelter. Finally I had to break the silence. “I feel strange, being here,” I said. “Not just because of the thing with Montross. I really think I lost myself last time I got stunted. Not sure who I am anymore, but I don’t think I belong with these kids.”
    “People change, tovarisch ,” said Comrade. “Even you.”
    “Have I changed?”
    He smiled. “Now that you’ve got a cush, your own mother wouldn’t recognize you.”
    “You know what your problem is?” I grinned and bumped up against him on purpose. “You’re jealous of Tree.”
    “Shouldn’t I be?”
    “Oh, I don’t know. I can’t tell if Tree likes who I was or who I might be. She’s changing, too. She’s so hot to break away from her parents, become part of this town. Except that what she’s headed for probably isn’t worth the trip. I feel like I should protect her, but that means guarding her from people like me, except I don’t think I’m Mom’s Mr. Boy anymore. Does that make sense?”
    “Sure.” He gazed straight ahead, but all the heads on his window coat were scoping me. “Maybe when you’re finished changing, you won’t need me.”
    The thought had occurred to me. For years he had been the only one I could talk to, but as we closed on the gallery, I did not know what to say. I shook my head. “I just feel strange.”
    And then we arrived. The sculpture gallery was designed for show-offs: short flights of steps and a series of stagy balconies descended around the white-brick exterior walls to the central exhibition area. The space was open so you could chat with your little knot of friends and, at the same time, spy on everyone else. About thirty kids were eating pizza and Crispix off paper plates. At the bottom of the stairs, as advertised, was a black upright piano. Piled beside it was the rest of the swag. A Boston rocker, a case of green Coke bottles, a Virgin Mary in half a blue bathtub, a huge conch shell, china and crystal and assorted smaller treasures, including a four-thousand-year-old ceramic hippo. There were real animals too, in cages near the gun rack: a turkey, some stray dogs and cats, turtles, frogs, assorted rodents.
    I was threading my way across the first balcony when I was stopped by the Japanese reporter, who was wearing microcam eyes.
    “Excuse me, please,” he said, “I am Matsuo Shikibu, and I will be recording this event today for Nippon Hoso Kyokai. Public telelink of Japan.” He smiled and bowed. When his head came up, the red light between his lenses was on. “You are . . . ?”
    “Raskolnikov,” said Comrade, edging between me and the camera. “Rodeo Raskolnikov.” He took Shikibu’s hand and pumped it. “And my associate here, Mr. Peter Pan.” He turned as if to introduce me, but we had long since choreographed this dodge. As I sidestepped past, he kept shielding me from the reporter with his body. “We’re friends of the bride,” Comrade said, “and we’re really excited to be making new friends in your country. Banzai, Nippon!”
    I slipped by them and scooted downstairs. Happy was basking by the piano; she spotted me as I reached the middle landing.
    “Mr. Boy!” It was not so much a greeting as an announcement. She was wearing a body mike, and her voice boomed over the sound system. “You made it.”
    The stream of conversation