I’d spent the time alternately moping, drinking, and plotting terrible,irrational vengeance2 on Debra for killing3 me, destroying my relationship,taking away my beloved (in hindsight, anyway) Hall of Presidents andthreatening the Mansion4. Even in my addled5 state, I knew that this waspretty unproductive, and I kept promising6 that I would cut it out, take ashower and some sober-ups, and get to work at the Mansion.
I was working up the energy to do just that when Dan came in.
“Jesus,” he said, shocked. I guess I was a bit of a mess, sprawled7 on thesofa in my underwear, all gamy and baggy8 and bloodshot.
“Hey, Dan. How’s it goin’?”
He gave me one of his patented wry9 looks and I felt the same weird10 reversalof roles that we’d undergone at the U of T, when he had becomethe native, and I had become the interloper. He was the together onewith the wry looks and I was the pathetic seeker who’d burned all hisreputation capital. Out of habit, I checked my Whuffie, and a momentlater I stopped being startled by its low score and was instead shockedby the fact that I could check it at all. I was back online!
“Now, what do you know about that?” I said, staring at my dismalWhuffie.
“What?” he said.
I called his cochlea. “My systems are back online,” I subvocalized.
He started. “You were offline?”
I jumped up from the couch and did a little happy underwear dance.
“I was, but I’m not now.” I felt better than I had in days, ready to beatthe world—or at least Debra.
58“Let me take a shower, then let’s get to the Imagineering labs. I’ve gota pretty kickass idea.”
The idea, as I explained it in the runabout, was a preemptive rehab ofthe Mansion. Sabotaging12 the Hall had been a nasty, stupid idea, and I’dgotten what I deserved for it. The whole point of the Bitchun Society wasto be more reputable than the next ad-hoc, to succeed on merit, not trickery,despite assassinations13 and the like.
So a rehab it would be.
“Back in the early days of the Disneyland Mansion, in California,” I explained,“Walt had a guy in a suit of armor just past the first DoomBuggy curve, he’d leap out and scare the hell out of the guests as theywent by. It didn’t last long, of course. The poor bastard15 kept gettingpunched out by startled guests, and besides, the armor wasn’t too comfortablefor long shifts.”
Dan chuckled16 appreciatively. The Bitchun Society had all but doneaway with any sort of dull, repetitious labor17, and what remained—tending bar, mopping toilets—commanded Whuffie aplentyand a life of leisure in your off-hours.
“But that guy in the suit of armor, he could improvise18. You’d get aslightly different show every time. It’s like the castmembers who spiel onthe Jungleboat Cruise. They’ve each got their own patter, their ownjokes, and even though the animatronics aren’t so hot, it makes the showworth seeing.”
“You’re going to fill the Mansion with castmembers in armor?” Danasked, shaking his head.
I waved away his objections, causing the runabout to swerve19, terrifyinga pack of guests who were taking a ride on rented bikes around theproperty. “No,” I said, flapping a hand apologetically at the white-facedguests. “Not at all. But what if all of the animatronics had human operators—telecontrollers, working with waldoes? We’ll let them interact withthe guests, talk with them, scare them … We’ll get rid of the existing animatronics,replace ’em with full-mobility robots, then cast the parts overthe Net. Think of the Whuffie! You could put, say, a thousand operatorsonline at once, ten shifts per day, each of them caught up in our Mansion… We’ll give out awards for outstanding performances, the shifts’ll bebased on popular vote. In effect, we’ll be adding another ten thousand59guests to the Mansion’s throughput every day, only these guests will behonorary castmembers.”
“That’s pretty good,” Dan said. “Very Bitchun. Debra may have AIand flash-baking, but you’ll have human interaction, courtesy of thebiggest Mansion-fans in the world—”
“And those are the very fans Debra’ll have to win over to make a playfor the Mansion. Very elegant, huh?”
The first order of business was to call Lil, patch things up, and pitchthe idea to her. The only problem was, my cochlea was offline again. Mymood started to sour, and I had Dan call her instead.
We met her up at Imagineering, a massive complex of prefab aluminumbuildings painted Go-Away Green that had thronged22 with mad inventorssince the Bitchun Society had come to Walt Disney World. Thead-hocs who had built an Imagineering department in Florida and nowran the thing were the least political in the Park, classic labcoat-and-clipboardtypes who would work for anyone so long as the ideas were cool.
Not caring about Whuffie meant that they accumulated it in plenty onboth the left and right hands.
Lil was working with Suneep, AKA the Merch Miracle. He coulddesign, prototype and produce a souvenir faster than anyone—shirts,sculptures, pens, toys, housewares, he was the king. They were collaboratingon their HUDs, facing each other across a lab-bench in the middleof a lab as big as a basketball court, cluttered23 with logomarked tchotchkesand gabbling away while their eyes danced over invisible screens.
Dan reflexively joined the collaborative space as he entered the lab,leaving me the only one out on the joke. Dan was clearly delighted bywhat he saw.
I nudged him with an elbow. “Make a hardcopy,” I hissed24.
Instead of pitying me, he just airtyped a few commands and pagesstarted to roll out of a printer in the lab’s corner. Anyone else wouldhave made a big deal out of it, but he just brought me into thediscussion.
If I needed proof that Lil and I were meant for each other, the designsshe and Suneep had come up with were more than enough. She’d beenthinking just the way I had—souvenirs that stressed the human scale ofthe Mansion. There were miniature animatronics of the HitchhikingGhosts in a black-light box, their skeletal robotics visible through their60layers of plastic clothing; action figures that communicated by IR, so thatplacing one in proximity25 with another would unlock its Mansion-inspiredbehaviors—the raven26 cawed, Mme. Leota’s head incanted, thesinging busts27 sang. She’d worked up some formal attire28 based on thecastmember costume, cut in this year’s stylish29 lines.
It was good merch, is what I’m trying to say. In my mind’s eye, I wasseeing the relaunch of the Mansion in six months, filled with roboticavatars of Mansion-nuts the world ’round, Mme. Leota’s gift cart piledhigh with brilliant swag, strolling human players ad-libbing with theguests in the queue area …Lil looked up from her mediated30 state and glared at me as I pored overthe hardcopy, nodding enthusiastically.
“Passionate31 enough for you?” she snapped.
I felt a flush creeping into face, my ears. It was somewhere betweenanger and shame, and I reminded myself that I was more than a centuryolder than her, and it was my responsibility to be mature. Also, I’d startedthe fight.
“This is fucking fantastic, Lil,” I said. Her look didn’t soften32. “Reallychoice stuff. I had a great idea—” I ran it down for her, the avatars, therobots, the rehab. She stopped glaring, started taking notes, smiling,showing me her dimples, her slanted33 eyes crinkling at the corners.
“This isn’t easy,” she said, finally. Suneep, who’d been politely pretendingnot to listen in, nodded involuntarily. Dan, too.
“I know that,” I said. The flush burned hotter. “But that’s thepoint—what Debra does isn’t easy either. It’s risky34, dangerous. It madeher and her ad-hoc better—it made them sharper.” Sharper than us,that’s for sure. “They can make decisions like this fast, and execute themjust as quickly. We need to be able to do that, too.”
Was I really advocating being more like Debra? The words’d justpopped out, but I saw that I’d been right—we’d have to beat Debra ather own game, out-evolve her ad-hocs.
“I understand what you’re saying,” Lil said. I could tell she was upset—she’d reverted35 to castmemberspeak. “It’s a very good idea. I thinkthat we stand a good chance of making it happen if we approach thegroup and put it to them, after doing the research, building the plans,laying out the critical path, and privately36 soliciting37 feedback from someof them.”
61I felt like I was swimming in molasses. At the rate that the LibertySquare ad-hoc moved, we’d be holding formal requirements reviewswhile Debra’s people tore down the Mansion around us. So I tried a differenttactic.
“Suneep, you’ve been involved in some rehabs, right?”
Suneep nodded slowly, with a cautious expression, a nonpolitical animalbeing drawn39 into a political discussion.
“Okay, so tell me, if we came to you with this plan and asked you topull together a production schedule—one that didn’t have any review,just take the idea and run with it—and then pull it off, how long would ittake you to execute it?”
Lil smiled primly40. She’d dealt with Imagineering before.
“About five years,” he said, almost instantly.
“Five years?” I squawked. “Why five years? Debra’s people overhauledthe Hall in a month!”
“Oh, wait,” he said. “No review at all?”
“No review. Just come up with the best way you can to do this, and doit. And we can provide you with unlimited41, skilled labor, three shiftsaround the clock.”
He rolled his eyes back and ticked off days on his fingers while mutteringunder his breath. He was a tall, thin man with a shock of curlydark hair that he smoothed unconsciously with surprisingly stubby fingerswhile he thought.
“About eight weeks,” he said. “Barring accidents, assuming off-theshelfparts, unlimited labor, capable management, material availability…” He trailed off again, and his short fingers waggled as he pulled up aHUD and started making a list.
“Wait,” Lil said, alarmed. “How do you get from five years to eightweeks?”
Now it was my turn to smirk43. I’d seen how Imagineering workedwhen they were on their own, building prototypes and conceptualmockups—I knew that the real bottleneck44 was the constant review andrevisions, the ever-fluctuating groupmind consensus45 of the ad-hoc thatcommissioned their work.
Suneep looked sheepish. “Well, if all I have to do is satisfy myself thatmy plans are good and my buildings won’t fall down, I can make it happenvery fast. Of course, my plans aren’t perfect. Sometimes, I’ll be62halfway through a project when someone suggests a new flourish or approachthat makes the whole thing immeasurably better. Then it’s backto the drawing board … So I stay at the drawing board for a long time atthe start, get feedback from other Imagineers, from the ad-hocs, from focusgroups and the Net. Then we do reviews at every stage of construction,check to see if anyone has had a great idea we haven’t thought ofand incorporate it, sometimes rolling back the work.
“It’s slow, but it works.”
Lil was flustered46. “But if you can do a complete revision in eightweeks, why not just finish it, then plan another revision, do that one ineight weeks, and so on? Why take five years before anyone can ride thething?”
“Because that’s how it’s done,” I said to Lil. “But that’s not how it hasto be done. That’s how we’ll save the Mansion.”
I felt the surety inside of me, the certain knowledge that I was right.
Ad-hocracy was a great thing, a Bitchun thing, but the organizationneeded to turn on a dime—that would be even more Bitchun.
“Lil,” I said, looking into her eyes, trying to burn my POV into her.
“We have to do this. It’s our only chance. We’ll recruit hundreds to cometo Florida and work on the rehab. We’ll give every Mansion nut on theplanet a shot at joining up, then we’ll recruit them again to work at it, torun the telepresence rigs. We’ll get buy-in from the biggest super-recommendersin the world, and we’ll build something better and faster thanany ad-hoc ever has, without abandoning the original Imagineers’ vision.
It will be unspeakably Bitchun.”
Lil dropped her eyes and it was her turn to flush. She paced the floor,hands swinging at her sides. I could tell that she was still angry with me,but excited and scared and yes, passionate.
“It’s not up to me, you know,” she said at length, still pacing. Dan andI exchanged wicked grins. She was in.
“I know,” I said. But it was, almost—she was a real opinion-leader inthe Liberty Square ad-hoc, someone who knew the systems back andforth, someone who made good, reasonable decisions and kept her headin a crisis. Not a hothead. Not prone47 to taking radical48 switchbacks. Thisplan would burn up that reputation and the Whuffie that accompaniedit, in short order, but by the time that happened, she’d have plenty ofWhuffie with the new, thousands-strong ad-hoc.
63“I mean, I can’t guarantee anything. I’d like to study the plans thatImagineering comes through with, do some walk-throughs—”
I started to object, to remind her that speed was of the essence, but shebeat me to it.
“But I won’t. We have to move fast. I’m in.”
She didn’t come into my arms, didn’t kiss me and tell me everythingwas forgiven, but she bought in, and that was enough.
My systems came back online sometime that day, and I hardly noticed,I was so preoccupied49 with the new Mansion. Holy shit, was it ever audacious:
since the first Mansion opened in California in 1969, no one hadever had the guts50 to seriously fuxor with it. Oh, sure, the Paris version,Phantom Manor51, had a slightly different storyline, but it was just a minorbit of tweakage to satisfy the European market at the time. No onewanted to screw up the legend.
What the hell made the Mansion so cool, anyway? I’d been to DisneyWorld any number of times as a guest before I settled in, and truth betold, it had never been my absolute favorite.
But when I returned to Disney World, live and in person, freshlybored stupid by the three-hour liveheaded flight from Toronto, I’d foundmyself crowd-driven to it.
I’m a terrible, terrible person to visit theme-parks with. Since I was apunk kid snaking my way through crowded subway platforms, eelinginto the only seat on a packed car, I’d been obsessed52 with Beating TheCrowd.
In the early days of the Bitchun Society, I’d known a blackjack player,a compulsive counter of cards, an idiot savant of odds53. He was a pudgy,unassuming engineer, the moderately successful founder54 of a moderatelysuccessful high-tech55 startup that had done something arcane56 withsoftware agents. While he was only moderately successful, he was fabulouslywealthy: he’d never raised a cent of financing for his company,and had owned it outright57 when he finally sold it for a bathtub full ofmoney. His secret was the green felt tables of Vegas, where he’d pilgrimoff to every time his bank balance dropped, there to count the monkeycardsand calculate the odds and Beat The House.
Long after his software company was sold, long after he’d made hisnut, he was dressing58 up in silly disguises and hitting the tables, grindingout hand after hand of twenty-one, for the sheer satisfaction of Beating64The House. For him, it was pure brain-reward, a jolt59 of happy-juice everytime the dealer60 busted61 and every time he doubled down on a deckfull offace cards.
Though I’d never bought so much as a lottery62 ticket, I immediately gothis compulsion: for me, it was Beating The Crowd, finding the path ofleast resistance, filling the gaps, guessing the short queue, dodging63 thetraffic, changing lanes with a whisper to spare—moving with precisionand grace and, above all, expedience64.
On that fateful return, I checked into the Fort Wilderness65 Campground,pitched my tent, and fairly ran to the ferry docks to catch abarge over to the Main Gate.
Crowds were light until I got right up to Main Gate and the ticketingqueues. Suppressing an initial instinct to dash for the farthest one, beatingmy ferrymates to what rule-of-thumb said would have the shortestwait, I stepped back and did a quick visual survey of the twenty kiosksand evaluated the queued-up huddle66 in front of each. Pre-Bitchun, I’dhave been primarily interested in their ages, but that is less and less ameasure of anything other than outlook, so instead I carefully examinedtheir queuing styles, their dress, and more than anything, their burdens.
You can tell more about someone’s ability to efficiently67 negotiate thecomplexities of a queue through what they carry than through any othermeans—if only more people realized it. The classic, of course, is the unladencitizen, a person naked of even a modest shoulderbag or marsupialpocket. To the layperson, such a specimen68 might be thought of as a surebet for a fast transaction, but I’d done an informal study and come to theconclusion that these brave iconoclasts69 are often the flightiest of the lot,left smiling with bovine70 mystification, patting down their pockets in afruitless search for a writing implement71, a piece of ID, a keycard, a rabbit’sfoot, a rosary, a tuna sandwich.
No, for my money, I’ll take what I call the Road Worrier anytime. Sucha person is apt to be carefully slung72 with four or five carriers of one descriptionor another, from bulging73 cargo74 pockets to clever military-gradestrap-on pouches75 with biometrically keyed closures. The thing to watchfor is the ergonomic consideration given to these conveyances76: do theybalance, are they slung for minimum interference and maximum ease ofaccess? Someone who’s given that much consideration to their gear islikely spending their time in line determining which bits and piecesthey’ll need when they reach its headwaters and is holding them atready for fastest-possible processing.
65This is a tricky77 call, since there are lookalike pretenders, gear-pigs whopack everything because they lack the organizational smarts to figure outwhat they should pack—they’re just as apt to be burdened with bags andpockets and pouches, but the telltale is the efficiency of that slinging78.
These pack mules79 will sag80 beneath their loads, juggling81 this and thatwhile pushing overloose straps82 up on their shoulders.
I spied a queue that was made up of a group of Road Worriers, aqueue that was slightly longer than the others, but I joined it and ticcednervously as I watched my progress relative to the other spots I could’vechosen. I was borne out, a positive omen11 for a wait-free World, and I wassauntering down Main Street, USA long before my ferrymates.
Returning to Walt Disney World was a homecoming for me. My parentshad brought me the first time when I was all of ten, just as the firstinklings of the Bitchun society were trickling83 into everyone’s consciousness:
the death of scarcity84, the death of death, the struggle to rejig an economythat had grown up focused on nothing but scarcity and death. Mymemories of the trip are dim but warm, the balmy Florida climate and asea of smiling faces punctuated85 by magical, darkened moments riding inOmniMover cars, past diorama after diorama.
I went again when I graduated high school and was amazed by therichness of detail, the grandiosity86 and grandeur87 of it all. I spent a weekthere stunned88 bovine, grinning and wandering from corner to corner.
Someday, I knew, I’d come to live there.
The Park became a touchstone for me, a constant in a world whereeverything changed. Again and again, I came back to the Park, groundingmyself, communing with all the people I’d been.
That day I bopped from land to land, ride to ride, seeking out the shortlines, the eye of the hurricane that crowded the Park to capacity. I’d takehigh ground, standing20 on a bench or hopping89 up on a fence, and do avisual reccy of all the queues in sight, try to spot prevailing90 currents inthe flow of the crowd, generally having a high old obsessive91 time. Truthbe told, I probably spent as much time looking for walk-ins as I would’vespent lining92 up like a good little sheep, but I had more fun and got moreexercise.
The Haunted Mansion was experiencing a major empty spell: theSnow Crash Spectacular parade had just swept through Liberty Squareen route to Fantasyland, dragging hordes93 of guests along with it, dancingto the JapRap sounds of the comical Sushi-K and aping the movementsof the brave Hiro Protagonist94. When they blew out, Liberty Square66was a ghost town, and I grabbed the opportunity to ride the Mansionfive times in a row, walking on every time.
The way I tell it to Lil, I noticed her and then I noticed the Mansion,but to tell the truth it was the other way around.
The first couple rides through, I was just glad of the aggressive air conditioningand the delicious sensation of sweat drying on my skin. But onthe third pass, I started to notice just how goddamn cool the thing was.
There wasn’t a single bit of tech more advanced than a film-loop projectorin the whole place, but it was all so cunningly contrived95 that the illusionof a haunted house was perfect: the ghosts that whirled through theballroom were ghosts, three-dimensional and ethereal and phantasmic.
The ghosts that sang in comical tableaux97 through the graveyard98 wereequally convincing, genuinely witty99 and simultaneously100 creepy.
My fourth pass through, I noticed the detail, the hostile eyes workedinto the wallpaper’s pattern, the motif101 repeated in the molding, the chandeliers,the photo gallery. I began to pick out the words to “Grim GrinningGhosts,” the song that is repeated throughout the ride, whether insinister organ-tones repeating the main theme troppo troppo or thespritely singing of the four musical busts in the graveyard.
It’s a catchy102 tune103, one that I hummed on my fifth pass through, thistime noticing that the overaggressive AC was, actually, mysterious chillsthat blew through the rooms as wandering spirits made their presencefelt. By the time I debarked for the fifth time, I was whistling the tunewith jazzy improvisations in a mixed-up tempo104.
That’s when Lil and I ran into each other. She was picking up adiscarded ice-cream wrapper—I’d seen a dozen castmembers picking uptrash that day, seen it so frequently that I’d started doing it myself. Shegrinned slyly at me as I debarked into the fried-food-and-disinfectantperfume of the Park, hands in pockets, thoroughly105 pleased with myselffor having so completely experienced a really fine hunk of art.
I smiled back at her, because it was only natural that one of theWhuffie-kings who were privileged to tend this bit of heavenly entertainmentshould notice how thoroughly I was enjoying her work.
“That’s really, really Bitchun,” I said to her, admiring the titanic106 mountainsof Whuffie my HUD attributed to her.
She was in character, and not supposed to be cheerful, but castmembersof her generation can’t help but be friendly. She compromisedbetween ghastly demeanor107 and her natural sweet spirit, and leered a67grin at me, thumped108 through a zombie’s curtsey, and moaned “Thankyou—we do try to keep it spirited.”
I groaned109 appreciatively, and started to notice just how very cute shewas, this little button of a girl with her rotting maid’s uniform and herfeather-shedding duster. She was just so clean and scrubbed and happyabout everything, she radiated it and made me want to pinch hercheeks—either set.
The moment was on me, and so I said, “When do they let you ghoulsoff? I’d love to take you out for a Zombie or a Bloody110 Mary.”
Which led to more horrifying111 banter112, and to my taking her out for acouple at the Adventurer’s Club, learning her age in the process and losingmy nerve, telling myself that there was nothing we could possiblyhave to say to each other across a century-wide gap.
While I tell Lil that I noticed her first and the Mansion second, the reverseis indeed true. But it’s also true—and I never told her this—that thething I love best about the Mansion is:
It’s where I met her.
Dan and I spent the day riding the Mansion, drafting scripts for thetelepresence players who we hoped to bring on-board. We were in atotally creative zone, the dialog running as fast as he could transcribe113 it.
Jamming on ideas with Dan was just about as terrific as a pass-timecould be.
I was all for leaking the plan to the Net right away, getting hearts-andmindsaction with our core audience, but Lil turned it down.
She was going to spend the next couple days quietly politickingamong the rest of the ad-hoc, getting some support for the idea, and shedidn’t want the appearance of impropriety that would come from havingoutsiders being brought in before the ad-hoc.
Talking to the ad-hocs, bringing them around—it was a skill I’d neverreally mastered. Dan was good at it, Lil was good at it, but me, I thinkthat I was too self-centered to ever develop good skills as a peacemaker.
In my younger days, I assumed that it was because I was smarter thaneveryone else, with no patience for explaining things in short words formouth-breathers who just didn’t get it.
The truth of the matter is, I’m a bright enough guy, but I’m hardly agenius. Especially when it comes to people. Probably comes from68Beating The Crowd, never seeing individuals, just the mass—the enemyof expedience.
I never would have made it into the Liberty Square ad-hoc on my own.
Lil made it happen for me, long before we started sleeping together. I’dassumed that her folks would be my best allies in the process of joiningup, but they were too jaded114, too ready to take the long sleep to pay muchattention to a newcomer like me.
Lil took me under her wing, inviting115 me to after-work parties, talkingme up to her cronies, quietly passing around copies of my thesis-work.
And she did the same in reverse, sincerely extolling116 the virtues117 of theothers I met, so that I knew what there was to respect about them andcouldn’t help but treat them as individuals.
In the years since, I’d lost that respect. Mostly, I palled118 around withLil, and once he arrived, Dan, and with net-friends around the world.
The ad-hocs that I worked with all day treated me with basic courtesybut not much friendliness119.
I guess I treated them the same. When I pictured them in my mind,they were a faceless, passive-aggressive mass, too caught up in thestarchy world of consensus-building to ever do much of anything.
Dan and I threw ourselves into it headlong, trolling the Net for addresslists of Mansion-otakus from the four corners of the globe, spreadsheetingthem against their timezones, temperaments120, and, of course,their Whuffie.
“That’s weird,” I said, looking up from the old-fashioned terminal Iwas using—my systems were back offline. They’d been sputtering121 upand down for a couple days now, and I kept meaning to go to the doctor,but I’d never gotten ’round to it. Periodically, I’d get a jolt of urgencywhen I remembered that this meant my backup was stale-dating, but theMansion always took precedence.
“Huh?” he said.
I tapped the display. “See these?” It was a fan-site, displaying a collectionof animated122 3-D meshes123 of various elements of the Mansion, part ofa giant collaborative project that had been ongoing124 for decades, to buildan accurate 3-D walkthrough of every inch of the Park. I’d used thosemeshes to build my own testing fly-throughs.
“Those are terrific,” Dan said. “That guy must be a total fiend.” Themeshes’ author had painstakingly125 modeled, chained and animated everyghost in the ballroom96 scene, complete with the kinematics necessary for69full motion. Where a “normal” fan-artist might’ve used a standard humankinematics library for the figures, this one had actually written hisown from the ground up, so that the ghosts moved with a spectral126 fluiditythat was utterly127 unhuman.
“Who’s the author?” Dan asked. “Do we have him on our list yet?”
I scrolled128 down to display the credits. “I’ll be damned,” Dan breathed.
The author was Tim, Debra’s elfin crony. He’d submitted the designs aweek before my assassination14.
“What do you think it means?” I asked Dan, though I had a coupleideas on the subject myself.
“Tim’s a Mansion nut,” Dan said. “I knew that.”
“You knew?”
He looked a little defensive129. “Sure. I told you, back when you had mehanging out with Debra’s gang.”
Had I asked him to hang out with Debra? As I remembered it, it hadbeen his suggestion. Too much to think about.
“But what does it mean, Dan? Is he an ally? Should we try to recruithim? Or is he the one that’d convinced Debra she needs to take over theMansion?”
Dan shook his head. “I’m not even sure that she wants to take over theMansion. I know Debra, all she wants to do is turn ideas into things, asfast and as copiously130 as possible. She picks her projects carefully. She’sacquisitive, sure, but she’s cautious. She had a great idea for Presidents,and so she took over. I never heard her talk about the Mansion.”
“Of course you didn’t. She’s cagey. Did you hear her talk about theHall of Presidents?”
Dan fumbled131. “Not really. … mean, not in so many words, but—”
“But nothing,” I said. “She’s after the Mansion, she’s after the MagicKingdom, she’s after the Park. She’s taking over, goddamn it, and I’mthe only one who seems to have noticed.”
I came clean to Lil about my systems that night, as we were fighting.
Fighting had become our regular evening pastime, and Dan had taken tosleeping at one of the hotels on-site rather than endure it.
I’d started it, of course. “We’re going to get killed if we don’t get offour asses38 and start the rehab,” I said, slamming myself down on the sofa70and kicking at the scratched coffee table. I heard the hysteria and unreasonin my voice and it just made me madder. I was frustrated132 by not beingable to check in on Suneep and Dan, and, as usual, it was too late atnight to call anyone and do anything about it. By the morning, I’d haveforgotten again.
From the kitchen, Lil barked back, “I’m doing what I can, Jules. Ifyou’ve got a better way, I’d love to hear about it.”
“Oh, bullshit. I’m doing what I can, planning the thing out. I’m readyto go. It was your job to get the ad-hocs ready for it, but you keep tellingme they’re not. When will they be?”
“Jesus, you’re a nag42.”
“I wouldn’t nag if you’d only fucking make it happen. What are youdoing all day, anyway? Working shifts at the Mansion? Rearrangingdeck chairs on the Great Titanic Adventure?”
“I’m working my fucking ass1 off. I’ve spoken to every goddamn one ofthem at least twice this week about it.”
“Sure,” I hollered at the kitchen. “Sure you have.”
“Don’t take my word for it, then. Check my fucking phone logs.”
She waited.
“Well? Check them!”
“I’ll check them later,” I said, dreading133 where this was going.
“Oh, no you don’t,” she said, stalking into the room, fuming134. “Youcan’t call me a liar135 and then refuse to look at the evidence.” She plantedher hands on her slim little hips136 and glared at me. She’d gone pale and Icould count every freckle137 on her face, her throat, her collarbones, theswell of her cleavage in the old vee-neck shirt I’d given her on a day-tripto Nassau.
“Well?” she asked. She looked ready to wring138 my neck.
“I can’t,” I admitted, not meeting her eyes.
“Yes you can—here, I’ll dump it to your public directory.”
Her expression shifted to one of puzzlement when she failed to locateme on her network. “What’s going on?”
So I told her. Offline, outcast, malfunctioning139.
“Well, why haven’t you gone to the doctor? I mean, it’s been weeks.
I’ll call him right now.”
71“Forget it,” I said. “I’ll see him tomorrow. No sense in getting him outof bed.”
But I didn’t see him the day after, or the day after that. Too much todo, and the only times I remembered to call someone, I was too far froma public terminal or it was too late or too early. My systems came onlinea couple times, and I was too busy with the plans for the Mansion. Lilgrew accustomed to the drifts of hard copy that littered the house, toprinting out her annotations140 to my designs and leaving them on my favoritechair—to living like the cavemen of the information age had, surroundedby dead trees and ticking clocks.
Being offline helped me focus. Focus is hardly the word for it—I obsessed.
I sat in front of the terminal I’d brought home all day, every day,crunching plans, dictating141 voicemail. People who wanted to reach mehad to haul ass out to the house, and speak to me.
I grew too obsessed to fight, and Dan moved back, and then it was myturn to take hotel rooms so that the rattle142 of my keyboard wouldn’t keephim up nights. He and Lil were working a full-time143 campaign to recruitthe ad-hoc to our cause, and I started to feel like we were finally in harmony,about to reach our goal.
I went home one afternoon clutching a sheaf of hardcopy and burst intothe living room, gabbling a mile-a-minute about a wrinkle on my originalplan that would add a third walk-through segment to the ride, increasingthe number of telepresence rigs we could use without decreasingthroughput.
I was mid-babble when my systems came back online. The public chatterin the room sprang up on my HUD.
And then I’m going to tear off every stitch of clothing and jump you.
And then what?
I’m going to bang you till you limp.
Jesus, Lil, you are one rangy cowgirl.
My eyes closed, shutting out everything except for the glowing letters.
Quickly, they vanished. I opened my eyes again, looking at Lil, who wasflushed and distracted. Dan looked scared.
“What’s going on, Dan?” I asked quietly. My heart hammered in mychest, but I felt calm and detached.
“Jules,” he began, then gave up and looked at Lil.
72Lil had, by that time, figured out that I was back online, that theirsecret messaging had been discovered.
“Having fun, Lil?” I asked.
Lil shook her head and glared at me. “Just go, Julius. I’ll send yourstuff to the hotel.”
“You want me to go, huh? So you can bang him till he limps?”
“This is my house, Julius. I’m asking you to get out of it. I’ll see you atwork tomorrow—we’re having a general ad-hoc meeting to vote on therehab.”
It was her house.
“Lil, Julius—” Dan began.
“This is between me and him,” Lil said. “Stay out of it.”
I dropped my papers—I wanted to throw them, but I dropped them,flump, and I turned on my heel and walked out, not bothering to closethe door behind me.
Dan showed up at the hotel ten minutes after I did and rapped on mydoor. I was all-over numb21 as I opened the door. He had a bottle oftequila—my tequila, brought over from the house that I’d shared withLil.
He sat down on the bed and stared at the logo-marked wallpaper. Itook the bottle from him, got a couple glasses from the bathroom andpoured.
“It’s my fault,” he said.
“I’m sure it is,” I said.
“We got to drinking a couple nights ago. She was really upset. Hadn’tseen you in days, and when she did see you, you freaked her out. Snappingat her. Arguing. Insulting her.”
“So you made her,” I said.
He shook his head, then nodded, took a drink. “I did. It’s been a longtime since I …”
“You had sex with my girlfriend, in my house, while I was away,working.”
“Jules, I’m sorry. I did it, and I kept on doing it. I’m not much of afriend to either of you.
73“She’s pretty broken up. She wanted me to come out here and tell youit was all a mistake, that you were just being paranoid.”
We sat in silence for a long time. I refilled his glass, then my own.
“I couldn’t do that,” he said. “I’m worried about you. You haven’tbeen right, not for months. I don’t know what it is, but you should get toa doctor.”
“I don’t need a doctor,” I snapped. The liquor had melted the numbnessand left burning anger and bile, my constant companions. “I need afriend who doesn’t fuck my girlfriend when my back is turned.”
I threw my glass at the wall. It bounced off, leaving tequila-stains onthe wallpaper, and rolled under the bed. Dan started, but stayed seated.
If he’d stood up, I would’ve hit him. Dan’s good at crises.
“If it’s any consolation144, I expect to be dead pretty soon,” he said. Hegave me a wry grin. “My Whuffie’s doing good. This rehab should takeit up over the top. I’ll be ready to go.”
That stopped me. I’d somehow managed to forget that Dan, my goodfriend Dan, was going to kill himself.
“You’re going to do it,” I said, sitting down next to him. It hurt tothink about it. I really liked the bastard. He might’ve been my bestfriend.
There was a knock at the door. I opened it without checking the peephole.
It was Lil.
She looked younger than ever. Young and small and miserable145. Asnide remark died in my throat. I wanted to hold her.
She brushed past me and went to Dan, who squirmed out of herembrace.
“No,” he said, and stood up and sat on the windowsill, staring downat the Seven Seas Lagoon146.
“Dan’s just been explaining to me that he plans on being dead in acouple months,” I said. “Puts a damper on the long-term plans, doesn’tit, Lil?”
Tears streamed down her face and she seemed to fold in on herself.
“I’ll take what I can get,” she said.
I choked on a knob of misery147, and I realized that it was Dan, not Lil,whose loss upset me the most.
Lil took Dan’s hand and led him out of the room.
74I guess I’ll take what I can get, too, I thought.
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1
ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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vengeance
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| n.报复，报仇，复仇 | |
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killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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addled
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| adj.（头脑）糊涂的，愚蠢的；（指蛋类）变坏v.使糊涂( addle的过去式和过去分词 )；使混乱；使腐臭；使变质 | |
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promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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sprawled
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| v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的过去式和过去分词)；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着） | |
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baggy
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| adj.膨胀如袋的，宽松下垂的 | |
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wry
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| adj.讽刺的；扭曲的 | |
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weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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omen
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| n.征兆，预兆；vt.预示 | |
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sabotaging
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| 阴谋破坏（某事物）( sabotage的现在分词 ) | |
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assassinations
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| n.暗杀( assassination的名词复数 ) | |
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14
assassination
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| n.暗杀；暗杀事件 | |
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15
bastard
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| n.坏蛋，混蛋；私生子 | |
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chuckled
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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improvise
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| v.即兴创作；临时准备，临时凑成 | |
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swerve
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| v.突然转向，背离；n．转向，弯曲，背离 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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21
numb
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| adj.麻木的，失去感觉的；v.使麻木 | |
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thronged
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| v.成群，挤满( throng的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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23
cluttered
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| v.杂物，零乱的东西零乱vt.( clutter的过去式和过去分词 )；乱糟糟地堆满，把…弄得很乱；（以…） 塞满… | |
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hissed
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| 发嘶嘶声( hiss的过去式和过去分词 )； 发嘘声表示反对 | |
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proximity
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| n.接近，邻近 | |
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raven
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| n.渡鸟，乌鸦；adj.乌亮的 | |
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27
busts
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| 半身雕塑像( bust的名词复数 )； 妇女的胸部； 胸围； 突击搜捕 | |
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28
attire
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| v.穿衣，装扮[同]array；n.衣着；盛装 | |
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29
stylish
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| adj.流行的，时髦的；漂亮的，气派的 | |
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mediated
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| 调停，调解，斡旋( mediate的过去式和过去分词 )； 居间促成； 影响…的发生； 使…可能发生 | |
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31
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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32
soften
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| v.(使)变柔软；(使)变柔和 | |
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slanted
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| 有偏见的； 倾斜的 | |
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risky
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| adj.有风险的，冒险的 | |
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reverted
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| 恢复( revert的过去式和过去分词 )； 重提； 回到…上； 归还 | |
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privately
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| adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地 | |
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37
soliciting
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| v.恳求( solicit的现在分词 )；（指娼妇）拉客；索求；征求 | |
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38
asses
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| n. 驴，愚蠢的人，臀部 adv. (常用作后置)用于贬损或骂人 | |
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39
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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primly
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| adv.循规蹈矩地，整洁地 | |
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41
unlimited
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| adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的 | |
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42
nag
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| v.(对…)不停地唠叨；n.爱唠叨的人 | |
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43
smirk
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| n.得意地笑；v.傻笑；假笑着说 | |
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44
bottleneck
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| n.瓶颈口，交通易阻的狭口；妨生产流程的一环 | |
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45
consensus
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| n.(意见等的)一致，一致同意，共识 | |
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46
flustered
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| adj.慌张的；激动不安的v.使慌乱，使不安( fluster的过去式和过去分词) | |
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47
prone
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| adj.(to)易于…的，很可能…的；俯卧的 | |
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48
radical
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| n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的 | |
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49
preoccupied
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| adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式) | |
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50
guts
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| v.狼吞虎咽，贪婪地吃，飞碟游戏（比赛双方每组5人，相距15码，互相掷接飞碟）；毁坏（建筑物等）的内部( gut的第三人称单数 )；取出…的内脏n.勇气( gut的名词复数 )；内脏；消化道的下段；肠 | |
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51
manor
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| n.庄园，领地 | |
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52
obsessed
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| adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的 | |
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53
odds
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| n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别 | |
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54
Founder
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| n.创始者，缔造者 | |
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55
high-tech
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| adj.高科技的 | |
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56
arcane
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| adj.神秘的，秘密的 | |
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57
outright
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| adv.坦率地；彻底地；立即；adj.无疑的；彻底的 | |
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58
dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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59
jolt
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| v.（使）摇动，（使）震动，（使）颠簸 | |
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60
dealer
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| n.商人，贩子 | |
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61
busted
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| adj. 破产了的，失败了的，被降级的，被逮捕的，被抓到的 动词bust的过去式和过去分词 | |
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62
lottery
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| n.抽彩；碰运气的事，难于算计的事 | |
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63
dodging
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| n.避开，闪过，音调改变v.闪躲( dodge的现在分词 )；回避 | |
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64
expedience
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| n.方便，私利，权宜 | |
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65
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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66
huddle
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| vi.挤作一团；蜷缩；vt.聚集；n.挤在一起的人 | |
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67
efficiently
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| adv.高效率地，有能力地 | |
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68
specimen
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| n.样本，标本 | |
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69
iconoclasts
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| n.攻击传统观念的人( iconoclast的名词复数 )；反对崇拜圣像者 | |
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70
bovine
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| adj.牛的；n.牛 | |
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71
implement
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| n.(pl.)工具，器具；vt.实行，实施，执行 | |
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72
slung
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| 抛( sling的过去式和过去分词 )； 吊挂； 遣送； 押往 | |
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bulging
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| 膨胀； 凸出（部）； 打气； 折皱 | |
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74
cargo
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| n.(一只船或一架飞机运载的)货物 | |
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75
pouches
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| n.（放在衣袋里或连在腰带上的）小袋( pouch的名词复数 )；（袋鼠等的）育儿袋；邮袋；（某些动物贮存食物的）颊袋 | |
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76
conveyances
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| n.传送( conveyance的名词复数 )；运送；表达；运输工具 | |
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77
tricky
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| adj.狡猾的，奸诈的；(工作等)棘手的，微妙的 | |
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78
slinging
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| 抛( sling的现在分词 )； 吊挂； 遣送； 押往 | |
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79
mules
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| 骡( mule的名词复数 )； 拖鞋； 顽固的人； 越境运毒者 | |
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80
sag
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| v.下垂，下跌，消沉；n.下垂，下跌，凹陷，[航海]随风漂流 | |
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81
juggling
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| n. 欺骗, 杂耍(=jugglery) adj. 欺骗的, 欺诈的 动词juggle的现在分词 | |
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82
straps
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| n.带子( strap的名词复数 )；挎带；肩带；背带v.用皮带捆扎( strap的第三人称单数 )；用皮带抽打；包扎；给…打绷带 | |
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83
trickling
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| n.油画底色含油太多而成泡沫状突起v.滴( trickle的现在分词 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动 | |
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84
scarcity
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| n.缺乏，不足，萧条 | |
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85
punctuated
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| v.（在文字中）加标点符号，加标点( punctuate的过去式和过去分词 )；不时打断某事物 | |
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86
grandiosity
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| n. 宏伟, 堂皇, 铺张 | |
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87
grandeur
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| n.伟大，崇高，宏伟，庄严，豪华 | |
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88
stunned
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| adj. 震惊的，惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词 | |
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89
hopping
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| n. 跳跃 动词hop的现在分词形式 | |
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90
prevailing
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| adj.盛行的；占优势的；主要的 | |
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91
obsessive
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| adj. 着迷的, 强迫性的, 分神的 | |
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92
lining
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| n.衬里，衬料 | |
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hordes
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| n.移动着的一大群( horde的名词复数 )；部落 | |
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protagonist
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| n.(思想观念的)倡导者；主角，主人公 | |
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contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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ballroom
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| n.舞厅 | |
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tableaux
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| n.舞台造型，（由活人扮演的）静态画面、场面；人构成的画面或场景( tableau的名词复数 )；舞台造型；戏剧性的场面；绚丽的场景 | |
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graveyard
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| n.坟场 | |
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witty
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| adj.机智的，风趣的 | |
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100
simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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motif
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| n.(图案的)基本花纹，(衣服的)花边；主题 | |
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102
catchy
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| adj.易记住的，诡诈的，易使人上当的 | |
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103
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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104
tempo
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| n.(音乐的)速度；节奏，行进速度 | |
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105
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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106
titanic
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| adj.巨人的，庞大的，强大的 | |
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demeanor
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| n.行为；风度 | |
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108
thumped
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| v.重击， （指心脏）急速跳动( thump的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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109
groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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111
horrifying
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| a.令人震惊的，使人毛骨悚然的 | |
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112
banter
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| n.嘲弄，戏谑；v.取笑，逗弄，开玩笑 | |
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113
transcribe
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| v.抄写，誉写；改编(乐曲)；复制，转录 | |
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114
jaded
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| adj.精疲力竭的；厌倦的；（因过饱或过多而）腻烦的；迟钝的 | |
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inviting
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| adj.诱人的，引人注目的 | |
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116
extolling
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| v.赞美( extoll的现在分词 )；赞颂，赞扬，赞美( extol的现在分词 ) | |
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117
virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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118
palled
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| v.（因过多或过久而）生厌，感到乏味，厌烦( pall的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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119
friendliness
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| n.友谊，亲切，亲密 | |
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120
temperaments
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| 性格( temperament的名词复数 )； （人或动物的）气质； 易冲动； （性情）暴躁 | |
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121
sputtering
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| n.反应溅射法；飞溅；阴极真空喷镀；喷射v.唾沫飞溅( sputter的现在分词 )；发劈啪声；喷出；飞溅出 | |
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122
animated
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| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
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meshes
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| 网孔( mesh的名词复数 )； 网状物； 陷阱； 困境 | |
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124
ongoing
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| adj.进行中的，前进的 | |
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painstakingly
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| adv. 费力地 苦心地 | |
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spectral
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| adj.幽灵的，鬼魂的 | |
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127
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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128
scrolled
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| adj.具有涡卷装饰的v.（电脑屏幕上）从上到下移动（资料等），卷页( scroll的过去式和过去分词 )；（似卷轴般）卷起；（像展开卷轴般地）将文字显示于屏幕 | |
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defensive
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| adj.防御的；防卫的；防守的 | |
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copiously
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| adv.丰富地，充裕地 | |
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131
fumbled
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| （笨拙地）摸索或处理（某事物）( fumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 乱摸，笨拙地弄； 使落下 | |
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132
frustrated
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| adj.挫败的，失意的，泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的过去式和过去分词 )；挫败；使受挫折；令人沮丧 | |
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133
dreading
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| v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的现在分词 ) | |
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134
fuming
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| 愤怒( fume的现在分词 )； 大怒； 发怒； 冒烟 | |
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135
liar
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| n.说谎的人 | |
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136
hips
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| abbr.high impact polystyrene 高冲击强度聚苯乙烯，耐冲性聚苯乙烯n.臀部( hip的名词复数 )；[建筑学]屋脊；臀围（尺寸）；臀部…的 | |
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137
freckle
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| n.雀簧；晒斑 | |
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138
wring
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| n.扭绞；v.拧，绞出，扭 | |
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139
malfunctioning
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| 出故障 | |
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140
annotations
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| n.注释( annotation的名词复数 )；附注 | |
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141
dictating
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| v.大声讲或读( dictate的现在分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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142
rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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143
full-time
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| adj.满工作日的或工作周的，全时间的 | |
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144
consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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145
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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146
lagoon
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| n.泻湖，咸水湖 | |
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147
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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