14

SSSSSSS-POP

After her seventieth jump, a new message appeared in her infield. Thinking it might be Ronnie or Tash saying good morning, she opened it without thinking.

It said: “‘Woman, I behold thee, flippant, vain, and full of fancies.’”

The words hung in bold sans serif over her on the reflecting surfaces of the booth. The message was unsigned, but there was a winking reply patch associated with the text. The address was hidden by some kind of anonymizing protocol. The name was simply a long string of lowercase q’s with an ellipsis in the middle, which indicated that the full text exceeded the field’s maximum character length.

qqqqq . . . qqqqq

If someone she knew had sent the message, they were going out of their way to keep their identity a secret. But the text resonated with her. It was something she had read recently in school. The lines were from a poem, but they had been misquoted.

Clair could have ignored it and taken the next jump, back to Manteca for what felt like the thousandth time.

Instead she sent a reply. She was bored and restless and wondering if she had done enough to prove that Libby was right yet. What did it hurt to send a few words through the Air?

“If you’re going to quote Keats,” she bumped back, “at least do it properly.”

Nothing happened for a while, and she began to wonder if it ever would.

Then a new bump appeared from the same address.

“I Improved it.”

Clair felt gooseflesh rise up on her forearms. She folded her arms tightly across her chest.

There was no way anyone could see her in the booth, but she knew, suddenly, that she was being watched.

“Who are you?” she sent. “What do you want?”

The reply came in the form of another misquote.

“‘Your eyes are drunk with beauty your heart will never see.’”

Clair searched the Air for the source. It was from someone called George W. Russell. She didn’t know him from her writing class, but someone remembered him—or misremembered him, rather. The original line ran, “Our hearts are drunk with a beauty our eyes could never see.”

Whatever was going on, Clair decided to fight fire with fire.

“‘No object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly,’” she sent. “That’s Oscar Wilde, and I didn’t need to twist his words to make my point. It’s all about beholding, right, so why does anything need to be changed at all?”

Another bump arrived.

“‘That which does not change is not alive.’” Clair didn’t realize it was another quote until the source of the words added, “Sturgeon, exactly. The irony is mine.”

Clair was determined not to let her uneasiness show, whether she was talking to some random troll who had spotted her movements or a creep connected to Improvement somehow. If he wanted to chat, why not let him? Words couldn’t hurt anyone.

“Are we going to talk properly,” she bumped back, “or just sit here all day slinging quotes at each other?”

An incoming call patch began to flash.

She took a deep breath. This was it.

“Who are you, and what do you want?”

But the voice at the other end of the call was a familiar one.

“Clair?” said Zep. “Quit screwing around. I need you.”

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