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The Automatic Marlboro
A novelette by Cheeseburger Brown
SECTION 1 a|b|c
SECTION 2 a|b|c|d
SECTION 3 a|b|c|d|e
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The Automatic Marlboro, a novelette by Cheeseburger Brown; illustration by Matthew Hemming

SECTION II.

d)


Professor Logos Cuthbertson lectures to his left on symmetry breaking cascades and to his right on Green-Kubo relations in the context of active number gauge implosions. Between pronouncements he briefly faces forward and lets his data-dancing eyes fall on us. "Marlboro Siemens," he says. "Pulse Debugger-Smith. Yes?"

"Marrowman is a monster," hisses Pulse. "She's officious, arrogant and politically hysterical."

"We might have a personality conflict on our hands, sir," I interpret.

Pulse crosses his arms. He says, "It would probably be best for everyone involved if she were put on immediate academic suspension, barbecued, poisoned, then fed to herself."

I kick him under the desk.

The professor takes a question from the left-hand audience -- some undergrad's shy squeak in his earpiece. The professor scowls, shakes his head, colourfully laments the shortcomings of youth, recasts the equations and then snaps his head to the right to assign a series of readings. He faces front to say, "Has the optimization programme yielded results, boys?"

"Yessir," I say quickly, throwing a pie chart into the air. "Significant savings."

The professor shakes his head curtly and scratches at his nose. "That's a poor way to shrink your staff allocation. Have you tried skewing the budget by inflating costs?"

Pulse gapes. "Is he saying we should be more wasteful so we don't qualify for a staff of three anymore?"

"I'm not sure that would be fair, sir."

"It's a perfectly academic solution, Siemens. Devastate your expenses and you'll be in a position to jettison the woman. Have your years in this institution taught you nothing about getting things done?"

"That's brilliant," says Pulse, standing up and gathering his jacket. "Problem solved."

I remain in my chair. "It just seems kind of mercenary, professor."

Professor Cuthbertson seems faintly amused. "This is a question of human resources not morality. Seldom do the two align, Siemens. You're Terran -- you should understand that better than most."

I drop my eyes. "Yeah I guess that's true."

"Dismissed."

I've worked all my life to achieve the indignity of being an immigrant. My parents were sterilized in exchange for the right to accompany me to here, to watch me prosper in a new and better society, to dote over grandchildren more genetically excellent than themselves. Voyeurs, they were meant to be, as I galloped into a glittering future among the select.

But for the most part the select are a bunch of sphincters.

It may well be that only the best human beings are allowed here, but knowing this has worsened them. It's too easy to rationalize contempt for people whose pedigree is spotty, too easy to feel vindicated in being small inside.

Wanting Ares for so many years made me blind to the fact that Ares wouldn't want me back. Nobody ever prepared me for that.

It's harder than you might think to go through every day feeling like a heel.

Pulse thinks he can relate but he can't. He's been marginalized for his brains but not for his skin or his skeleton or his surname. If he washed his hair and never opened his mouth nobody would ever think he wasn't normal, but that's a luxury I can only dream about.

Why is Air so different?

She's an obnoxious scarecrow. Her voice is shrill and her tone patronizing. She's clumsy and spotted and smells like cheap soap. By all rights she should be wilting under the condemning or dismissive stares of her peers, too beaten to stand straight and too nervous to smile. The fact that she's so broadly unappealing as a person should make an impression on her. How could it not?

But it doesn't. Air Marrowman shines on, heedless. Indifferent and constant.

It is with a sick lurch that I allow myself to fall into the conclusion that I love her. I panic inside but I can't deny it. She's awful but I'm obsessed.

A light snow is falling. Clouds ride low over Huo Hsing, their bellies bathed in bronze cityglow. Hands in my pockets, skulking between buildings, I'm allowing myself to admit that I'm not just out for a breath of fresh air. This isn't an evening promenade. I am not taking a brisk constitutional.

No, I'm standing under her window. Air Marrowman's window.

She's in a pair of big ugly pajamas, feeding her cats. Her pajamas have stupid penguins on them. She's humming a piece of fairly complex fin de siècle sandsong/jazz fusion -- butchering the melody, blithely off-key. She pauses to blow her nose.

I sigh. She's pitiable. She's adorable. She's the most singular and wonderful terrible force I have ever known. I feel like I'm drunk even though I'm not. I almost laugh aloud.

I hear a noise.

Pressing back deeper into the shadows I hold my breath and listen. Across the alley the snow crunches as weight shifts once, then again. I freeze, eyes narrowed at the source.

A figure crouches half-hidden behind a stack of recycling barrels. It sidles for a better view, head craned up toward Air's balcony.

The face slides briefly out of shadow. It's Pulse.

He slinks out from behind the barrels and hops up on the fence next to Air's apartment building. He's wearing his football shoes, and he uses the cleats to gain purchase against the concrete-fabric superstructure. As usual I'm impressed by how fluidly the natives move in this weak gravity, but I have room to be suddenly critically concerned about what cruel prank Pulse is about to pull.

What's that he's carrying?

I'm about to step forward and call up to him when he pauses poised on the rail of her balcony, left hand slowly extending to leave something on Air Marrowman's sill. My eyes widen. It isn't a bag of burning faecal matter. It isn't a profane banner. It's much, much worse than that.

It's a rose.



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