MARK W. TIEDEMANN

Scabbing

MS. HELLER ALWAYS CALLED me "Richard" when I did particularly well, which meant I walked home quickly and alone after classes, before the teasing and other scrap started. Todd, Keith, and Pete tried to catch up, but I ducked them through an overgrown yard behind an abandoned four-family. Todd was never a problem, but Keith and Pete came from old union families and didn't know when to let up sometimes. I sprinted down Lennox to the next alley and came out on Sutter, which made it a long walk home, but better than listening to all the scrap about "bucking the line" and "management trainee."

An EMS van stood in front of our house. I could see the flashing lights from the end of the block and I started running.

They had just gotten Dad onto the gurney when I opened the screen door. Mom looked at me and immediately reached out. Her face was pale and her eyes intense, but she held it together the way she always did in emergencies.

"What?" I started asking. "What is it? What happened?"

"A stroke," Mom said, pulling me out of the techs' way as they wheeled Dad out the front door.

Neighbors stood on their porches, watching.

The doors of the van slid shut and the ambulance shot off up the street.

The emergency room staff took Dad away before we arrived and tried to get Mom to sign waivers. She pushed the paperwork back at the admitting nurse and said she'd wait till Dad's rep got there.

Howard, the shift supervisor from the plant, came through the doors first. I don't know why I was relieved to see him, but it didn't matter just then. Any relief was good. He hugged Mom, whose hands began to tremble.

"He was just lying on the floor by the refrigerator," she said, "he wouldn't move, wouldn't answer me, but he had a pulse, I checked for that, and called -- "

"Take it easy, Ginny," Howard said, his deep voice oddly quiet. "Go slow. You did all right."

She shook her head. "He just got home from the plant. You were there, did he act funny?"

"He complained of a headache, that's about it." Howard shrugged.

"He was just in to run a diagnostic on his surrogate, but it was in the middle of a run, so I told him to come back later, second shift."

Mom nodded absently. She was beginning to shake, little tremors that rippled her shoulders every minute or so. I'd only seen her do that once before, when I was small and the union went out on a wildcat strike. I don't remember much except late night calls and graffiti and arguments. Everyone was scared. It only lasted a couple of weeks, and by then Mom and Dad had lapsed into silence around each other.

Howard kept talking, drawing Mom out till the union rep arrived. Then they went to the admittance desk and started haggling over insurance and doctors and what to do.

Twenty minutes went by and Mom suddenly waved to me. An orderly took us to Dad's room, where he lay in a white bed, tubes running into him. A doctor came in right after us and took Mom, Howard, and the rep aside, leaving me alone again.

Dad was only forty-two. I stared at him, pale and unconscious, hooked up to all those med monitors, and it scared me. I heard the doctor say he'd had a major rupture in the left hemisphere. Any more delay getting him to the clinic and he'd have been dead.

I was sixteen and my dad was suddenly an invalid.

A lot of stuff goes through your head -- not thoughts, nothing that mass, just stuff, like neutrinos raining past -- a lot of it really self-centered. What would this do to my schooling? What would this do to my list of chores? What would this do to my vacations? What would this do to -- fill in the blank. Along with this, though, parallel to it is this enormous wrestling match with reality. That's Dad in there, gone, half his brain scrapped, personality probably scrambled. But he'll get better, medical science is wonderful, in fact the doctors have exaggerated the problem, he's really just suffering from a mass headache and as soon as they finished IVing acetaminophen through him he'll open his eyes, rub his temples, and crack a bad joke. That's Dad in there, mostly dead, and you can't let go. Mom can't handle everything by herself and you're just sixteen, you can't handle anything and what will you do when Mom needs to shift the load -- and back and forth like that. There are no priorities; this is a new world and you just don't have a map and there's no good way to describe this mix of stressed love, fear, concern, self-pity, and terror. No standards. So I just stood there, expressionless from what Mom told me later, and watched the machines try to save Dad's life and do what they could to repair the damage, and looking solid mass way beyond my years. A lot of heroism is just popular misinterpretation after the event.

And added to all this spin, I had school the next day.

We stayed at the hospital for the next several hours. A few of Dad's friends showed up, offering support -- Cliff especially, my friend Todd's father. They had their own troubles -- surrogate problems that had been stuck in committee for weeks -- but he showed up. My dad and Cliff had been buddies since school, saw the last of the labor draft before the new reforms came in, managed all their lives to stick together. I don't even know if my dad knew Cliff was there.

Late that night, Howard took me home while Mom stayed at the hospital.

I was surprised when I got a three-day absence approved. Usually nothing short of death is acceptable, but maybe the union rep talked to them. They sent me home with a syllabus so I wouldn't fall behind. Todd and Keith told me to link up if I needed help with anything -- which was their way of saying that they needed help -- and I told them I'd let them know how things went.

On the third day a truck rolled up to the house and a team came in to install a home monitor unit for Dad. I watched, fascinated, and noticed immediately that there were added attachments. I asked some questions, but the workers ignored me. Mom came home before they left, so I didn't have to worry about signing anything and having it declared invalid later because of my age. She insisted they take her through the machinery. They were put out, but Mom can be very insistent, so in a tired-but superior voice the crew foreman explained it all.

"Blood pressure, EKG, EEG, choline-dopamine balance, platelet, white and red corpuscle count, blood sugars, renal, protein absorption, metabolic -- "

He tapped the gauges and the controls in turn. Mom nodded at each one and he went faster with each nod. She kept up, asked a couple of questions, then pointed to one section he hadn't mentioned.

"Uh, that's the augment download," he said. "There's a diagnostic for you to run through with that one. I'm not really sure how it works."

"Let's go over it together then, shall we?"

He didn't look happy. I leaned against the door to the spare bedroom, where all this machinery had been set up, and listened intently. Pretty soon I realized that Mom had squeezed a DNA out of the insurance company. A direct neural augment. The moment I understood that, I blanked on the rest of the tutorial.

When the crew left, I stopped Mom in the hall.

"They're wiring Dad up?"

"Don't start. You know as well as I do that he'd go crazy if he couldn't function."

"Sure, but --"

"It doesn't have to be general knowledge. You want me to go over the whys and wherefores ?"

"No, no, you're taking me wrong. I think it's great. It's just -- well, how's the local going to take it?"

She gave me a funny look, then shook her head. "I already went over it with the union rep. As long as he doesn't run workshare with it there's no problem. It's a medical augment, just like a prosthetic limb." She patted my arm. "Are you caught up? You have to go back to class tomorrow."

I nodded. "When's Dad coming home?"

"Tomorrow night. The augment's being installed today. I have to get back to the hospital, but I wanted to be here for this." She looked a little afraid just then. "It's going to be fine."

TODD AND KEITH waited outside school the first morning I returned.

"Hey," Todd said. "How's your dad? I heard what happened."

"They're bringing him home today," I said. "I don't know. He had a hemorrhage."

"Is he gonna be all right?" Todd asked.

Keith gave him a look. "Sure he is, he just has to learn to function on half a brain."

Todd blushed, embarrassed.

"Real sensitive," I said.

Keith frowned. "I didn't -- sorry."

"Did you keep up?" Todd asked.

I held up my laptop. "Somehow."

"Good. Olan's going through standings this morning," Todd said. "You know where Local 255 ranked this quarter?"

I looked at him and shrugged.

"Fifth in the city."

"Anything in the top twenty-five is mass," Keith said.

"Solid mass," Todd agreed. "We're kicking butt."

"Did he post individual rankings?" I asked.

"No," Keith said, cocking an eyebrow, "but I heard you did number two in overall. Have to start calling you Sir, Mr. Management."

I felt my ears warm. "Don't even start."

Keith laughed. "What, you're thinking maybe Harvard? Berkeley? Cornell?"

"Hey," Todd said.

"Hey what? I'm just spinning him!"

"Spin someone else," I said, pushing past.

"Hey, I didn't mean anything-"

I went into the polytech. I was in no mood for that massless scrap.

I turned in my work at each class, thanking each instructor for their concern and for the time off. Ms. Heller asked if I had a few minutes after classes. I had to postpone since Dad was supposed to come home that night, and she said fine, later would be all right. Then she handed out an essay assignment which made several people groan.

"I want an essay on the 29th Amendment which designated labor as a property and the Jarelman Court's decision abolishing the labor draft."

I thought, again? It seemed like every year somebody wanted us to do something on that subject. I think I had a gigabyte of material stored in my home computer, everything I'd ever learned about it since second grade.

But it was a union school and it was traditional to bitch, but none of us would fail to turn in the report. Especially not on that topic.

"There goes the weekend," Todd muttered in the hall after. "Hey, you want to work this together?"

I shook my head. "Gotta be home. Dad's going to need me and I don't think Mom would be too happy about company just yet."

"Maybe online?"

I looked at Todd. He did really mass in the technical subjects, but his weakness was in history and politics. It was funny -- he understood the wildest stuff about electrical engineering and data compilers and robotics, but when it came to court actions and legislative procedures he was massless.

"Maybe," I said. "Might not be a bad idea."

He brightened then. Keith waited outside. Todd broke off, waving at me, and went to join him and Pete. I watched them go off together, heading for the handball courts, and wished I could join them.

Dad sat up in the bed in the middle of all the equipment. Cables hung from the left side of his head, down below the level of the mattress, and then disappeared into the tangle of wiring in the base of the monitors. He wore a light robe that fell open over his broad, hair-covered chest. He hadn't shaved in a couple of days and he grinned lopsidedly at me, teeth bright against gray-black stubble.

Mom sat in a chair beside him, holding his right hand. She smiled at me nervously.

"S-ss-thon...," he said. He shook his head. "It get better ...."

"Hi, Dad."

Dad winked -- sort of, since both eyelids fluttered down, then the right one stayed down while the other jerked upward. He patted Mom's hand lightly.

"How do you feel?" I asked.

"Half-athed -- assed -- shit, I'll get this right." His left hand sort of waved at the monitors. "Whaddya think?"

"Mass."

"And a lot of it. My new mind."

"Sam," Mom said, half-critically.

Dad laughed. "Well? It ith -- is...hm."

"Are you guys hungry? I can cook tonight."

"No' me," Dad said. "But make your mother eat."

"I'm not really --"

"Ginny ...."

Mom nodded, then looked up at me and smiled. Things were settling down for her, I guess, because she had that look right before she just lets everything slide.

"Spaghetti," I said. "You eat some, too, Dad."

"Right. I can handle spaghetti like this."

Mom had to feed him, but he ate a lot, which made both of us feel better. Mom went over the various service requirements of the set-up -for the time being he had a dedicated waste disposal unit that needed new cartridges every four or five days or the house would start smelling -- and gave me a pager slaved to the monitor. In case she was out and Dad needed help or had a medical-emergency, the pager would signal me. I wondered how they'd feel about that at school, but I didn't say anything.

"Thon -- son -- shit -- Rich --"

"Yeah, Dad?" Mom was in the bathroom.

"Need a favor. Call Howard at the plant. Want you to go check Dirty. Didn't finish the diagnoth-tic."

"Howard said you did."

He frowned at that and seemed to look around, as if trying to locate something. He shook his head. "Don't remember. I feel better if -- would you talk to Howard and see if he'll let you run it again?"

"Can't one of the other guys do that for you?"

He shook his head. "I'd rather they di'n't. Pleath -- please."

I shrugged and said sure, then Mom came back and told me to do my homework. All in all it didn't look too bad; in about three weeks he was supposed to start getting the curve on how to function with the augment and our duties would slack off. Two months, the doctors and engineers said, and he'd be practically normal, except for his sleep cycle. The DNA was "on" all the time, no way internally to shut it off, so Dad had to plug himself into the monitor to sleep. A timer rebooted him after a certain period, but we found out pretty quickly that sleep came almost instantly. Dad was on the switch as much as the augment. Eventually, when the medical monitors could be removed, a smaller augment box could be installed in the master bedroom and they could sleep together again, but now -- and for the first time in their marriage, so Mom told me -- separate beds. Separate bedrooms. Still, it didn't look bad.

HOWARD DIDN'T like it, but he agreed to let me do the diagnostic on Dirty. He let me onto the floor Saturday morning. "Shop steward doesn't come in on the weekend, so there shouldn't be any problem. Just be quick, okay?" He took me over to Difty's station and looked around for monitors. He nodded and told me he'd be back in ten.

Difty continued making spot welds on the line of conduit that conveyor-belted past while I ran the diagnostic. The surrogate was old, the cover plates discolored, a few bent out of shape. It was large and cumbersome and unlovely, especially when compared to some of the newer, sleeker models that were almost sensual in the smoothness of their parts. Dad had talked occasionally about buying a new one, but it just never seemed the right time. Dirty did its job well and that was good enough.

The small screen flickered unevenly as the data scrolled up. When Dirty finished this shift it had to go to the parks and recreation motor pool to draw its assignment for landscaping duty. The instructions were already spooled in its standby memory. Meanwhile there was part of an engineering problem crunching in its analytics. That surprised me; ! didn't think Dirty handled brainshare jobs anymore. The company logo appeared -- CDR Limited -- then a problem flag on that section, so I keyed for more data.

PROGRAM ERROR, KEY Fl, RECONFIGURE

Great. Maybe Dirty shouldn't be handling brainshare. If it lost the program before completion the contractor could deduct a penalty. I pressed F1.

The screen went blank.

I stared at it for several seconds. Then the spotwelder sputtered to silence and Difty's arms stopped. The assembly line halted.

"Oh, shit."

I stabbed the reboot and waited anxiously for some response. "What the hell is going on?"

Howard was coming toward me down the catwalk.

"I don't know," I said, waving at the screen. "I was running Difty's diagnostics and suddenly -- crash!"

He glanced at the screen, then tapped in a series of commands. Still nothing. Up and down the line other surrogates stood at attention, their manipulators ready and waiting.

"Damnit," Howard spat. "Looks like -- wait."

The control icon winked on. Howard lunged a hand at the keypad, typed in Difty's reboot. The screen came on with a program query: INSTRUCTIONS?

"Great," Howard said. "You cleared her memory."

"Oh, no.... "

He turned away and worked at the station monitor keyboard for a moment.

"No problem, simple install. There."

The screen flickered with the instructions, then Difty restarted. The line moved again.

"What happened?"

"I don't know. I found a brainshare program running and it flagged a problem. When I tried to reconfigure, she crashed."

"I'd get on the line to that contractor and find out what was in that program. Who is it?"

"CDR Limited."

He pulled his memopad and made a note, then tapped for data. After a few seconds, he nodded. "I've got notes here of other problems with CDR brainshare routines. You're not the only one to have had trouble. You want me to file a grievance?"

"Sure, I guess. I have to call parks and recreation now," I said. "I think their routine was crashed as well."

"How many leases have you got her running?"

"Just three."

Howard pursed his lips. "Maybe Sam oughta consider getting a new surrogate. Or getting this one overhauled at least. I'll get this in the circuit for you."

WHEN I GOT HOME I found two union reps in the living room with Mom.

"Richard," she said, "would you mind looking in on your father? And I took some chicken out of the freezer for tonight. Maybe you could get it started?"

"Sure."

I nodded to the visitors, who watched me cross the living room and leave. I heard talk start as soon as I was out of their sight, which annoyed me. But Mom only calls me Richard when she's worrying over something, so I didn't make an issue of it. I knocked on Dad's door -- less than a week and already it was "Dad's Door" -- and entered.

"Hey," I said.

He grinned at me. "Hey." He nodded in the direction of the living room. "They thtill out there?"

"Yeah. Who are they?"

"Can't you tell? Inveth -- investigators."

"Why?"

He tapped his skull. "My new mind. Questions of status."

"How'd they know?"

"Insurance."

"Oh."

"Don't worry about it. Formality. They're worried if I might use this thing to make money. I told your mother, hey, I don't have time for that. We got vacation plans this year, all I want is to be back on my feet."

I nodded. I didn't know what to say. I believed him, sure, it would be stupid to violate union rules and risk his brotherhood, but I'd heard stories -- everyone hears stories -- and some of them, it seems, it doesn't matter what everybody intends, it just works out that way. But he was right, we had vacation plans and the doctors said two months before he could reasonably navigate with this new stuff, so what was there to worry about? I had two more quarters before performance reports to sweat for third stage entry. If I passed those high enough I could opt out of the union schools if I wanted and get admission to a college outside the brotherhood status. Then —

"I gotta get supper ready, Dad. You need anything?"

"No. Thanks, Rich." As I opened the door he said, "Everything's gonna be fine. You know that, don't you?"

"Sure. Solid mass."

Pete, Jack, Toby, Larry, and Kyle met me out in front of school the next morning. They blocked my way. Pete and Kyle were both bigger than me.

"We heard your dad's gone management," Pete said.

"What? My dad's had a stroke."

"Sure, but he's been wired up. He's a chiphead."

"So he can walk and eat without help. What's the problem?"

"Chiphead."

I pushed through them, my heart pounding. None of them followed and by the time I got to homeroom I started feeling stupid for being afraid.

Todd and Keith usually sat next me, one on either side, but today they sat three rows back. Todd waved at me, looking apologetic, but Keith wouldn't even acknowledge my presence. Pete and the others came in together and sat in the back row where they usually sat, but I could feel them staring at me.

I fixed my attention forward and told myself it would pass. They'd get over it. All I had to do was be patient.

After orientation I applied for an appointment with my counselor. By fourth period he verified it for study hall that day. I was relieved but surprised. Usually there was a two- or three-day wait.

Sixth period was my study hall, last period for the day for me. I excused myself and hurried down to the front offices. Mr. Jay was out for a few minutes, so I sat outside his door and waited.

"Rich?"

I looked up and saw Ms. Heller standing in the hallway, looking at me. I nodded and said hello and she came closer.

"Is everything all right?" she asked.

"Sure. I'm waiting for Mr. Jay."

Her expression shifted through degrees of uncertainty and finally settled on concern.

"If you need any help, talk to me, okay?"

"Sure."

I watched her walk away.

"Hey, Rich," Mr. Jay said, coming from the other end of the hallway. "Sorry. Paperwork. Come on in."

I sat clown in his little office.

"So," he said, "what can I do for you?"

"I'm not sure. I'd like to know what my options are for early graduation. I mean, if there are any options. And -- " I didn't intend to say this just then, but it came out anyway. "And what are my options for third stage if I have to leave school now."

He looked startled and laughed. "Whoa, what do you mean, have to leave?" He started typing on his keyboard. "Last time we talked there weren't any problems --"

"No, last time we talked there weren't."

He nodded, half-listening, and studied his screen. "No, your scores are still upper twenty. No ranking problems there."

"That's not the trouble. I mean --"

He pushed a button and his door slid shut. "Okay, we're private. Tell me what's wrong."

I told him about Dad's stroke and his new wiring. Mr. Jay listened expressionlessly. I didn't know how much he wanted to hear, so I added what had happened that morning and my worries about exactly that kind of thing affecting my schooling. He frowned briefly, but nodded.

"I don't really see a problem, Rich," he said finally. "What you're telling me is that your father has had a prosthesis implanted. That doesn't constitute a violation of union rules."

"Unless he uses it for work."

He shrugged. "What does that mean? He has to supervise his surrogate and to do that he uses his brain. I mean, he has to think about it, right? Is that a violation of union rules?"

"No, but that's not what I mean."

"You mean if he starts taking on brainshare work. Well, he understands the restrictions, right?"

"Well, sure. He's been IAMS for -- god, forever."

"So what's the problem? Beyond a couple of bullies who think they can harass you, life goes on. This won't change anything."

I wished I felt so certain. It must have shown in my face, because Mr. Jay waved his hand in the air the way he does when he wants to cut to the bottom line.

"This is a change in your home structure. Some morons are going to be threatened by the possible abuse, but that passes. These kids are your friends, right? They won't shut you out forever. And so what if they do? If they were really your friends they wouldn't act like that. You can always transfer to another local if it gets bad, but at this stage I'd recommend you stick to your course selections and your instructors and to hell with the rest of the world."

I was a little shocked to hear him talk this way, but it made sense and I felt better. He talked to me like an adult. My doubts weren't gone, but they seemed a lot less important.

Howard was there when I got home that night. He sat beside Dad. Mom was there, too, and none of them looked very happy. I stared at them for a time until Dad said hello, then Howard nodded, and Mom excused herself to get dinner started.

"What's wrong?" I asked, and because of the way Mr. Jay had treated me I felt that I deserved to get the same from them.

"Oh, just detail crap," Dad said. "No big thing."

Howard raised his eyebrows at him, but didn't add anything.

"Are you staying for dinner, Howard?" I asked.

"No, Rich, I gotta get home. I just came by to give your father some updates." He stood, gave Dad another look, then said good night to everyone.

Mom didn't say anything through dinner, just stared into her plate. Later I heard her and Dad fighting again. I buried myself in overtime and did my best to ignore them.

THE SAME BUNCH met me outside school in the morning, but they didn't say anything, just watched me. Someone had drawn on my flatscreen in homeroom in marker -- MANAGEMENT! -- and the rest of the day no one but instructors talked to me. I caught Todd looking very guilty a couple of times, but all he'd do was wave at me when he thought no one else noticed.

The rest of the week went on this way. By Friday I believed Mr. Jay hadn't known what he was talking about. Nothing was passing. It wasn't getting any worse, but this was bad enough. Fine, I thought, if you massless morons are going to be this scab, hell with you. It gives me more time to get through second stage and out of here. It felt like a plan and I went home relieved.

The picture window had been smashed. A pair of surrogates were putting up a new one. A third was scrubbing black graffiti off our walk.

Mom wasn't there. Dad's door was open a crack, but all I did was knock and tell him I was home. I thought maybe I should ask what had happened, but I knew and I didn't feel like listening to any more massless reassurance, especially not from Dad.

In my room I accessed the web and started looking for recruiters' sites. But I realized pretty quickly that I couldn't tell the legitimate ones from the traps. The last thing I needed was to bring more trouble on by admitting on the web that I wanted to leave the union school.

There's always someone who doesn't want to stay with the union. You hear stories about them; once in a while they appear on the web. It's massless. At least, I'd always thought so. I wondered then when it had changed. Dad's stroke triggered a lot, but I knew better than to accept that as the sole cause. How long had I been thinking this way?

Mom came home then. She looked in and said hi, then went to the kitchen. I didn't pay attention for a time until I heard shouting. She and Dad were at it again. I closed my door and tried to find Todd on the web.

I found him in a chat room, but he wouldn't respond. He dropped out and I tried to follow, but it looked like he had just left the web completely.

Ten minutes later my phone chirped.

"Hey, Rich."

"Todd."

"Sorry for ignoring you."

"Yeah, well."

"Look, right now -- "

"Right now some scab is saying my father has gone management and you, you massless idiot, you believe it."

"No, I don't!"

"Then -- "

"What do you want me to do? Scab Keith and Pete and Kyle?"

"You're scabbing me."

"Rich!"

"It's okay. Loyalty's cheaper in bunches, I understand. I just thought it'd be solid mass for someone to stand up for me."

He was quiet for a time. Then: "What are you going to do?"

"Wait for it to pass I guess."

"Rich -- it won't."

I wanted to argue with him, but it sounded right. I really didn't think it would pass, either.

"What'd I do?" I asked. "It's my dad, not me. Can't you morons cope with that."

"Don't you think it's the same with us?"

"What? What do you mean?"

"Look, I have to go. What are you going to do?"

"Try to find another school, I guess. I won't tolerate this shit."

"You know how hard that'd be?"

"What do you suggest?"

"I don't know. File a grievance maybe."

"Against my parents?"

"It could get you into a different union, take the pressure off."

"Shit, they're my parents, Todd! They aren't the ones scabbing me!"

"But -- " There was a pause, then: "I have to go. Sorry."

After he broke off, I sat there more confused than ever. Dad always said it was worthless to try to negotiate from adrenaline, that the minute your emotions started dictating the conversation it was all over. I guess he was right. I hadn't said one thing I'd wanted to say.

I could still hear my parents arguing, a muffled rumble off in the distance.

I left early the next morning. Todd was coming out of his house when I got there. He saw me and froze on the steps. Then he glanced back at his front door and hurried toward me.

"I'm supposed to meet Keith in a few minutes," he said.

"Is that a request for me to leave?"

He blushed and looked at his feet. "Rich -- "

"We've been friends a long time."

"Yeah, well."

"You said something last night. You said it was the same for all of you. What did you mean?'

He looked back toward his house nervously, then nodded for us to walk. At the end of the block he said, "Our parents. They don't want us around you."

"What? Why?"

"Because of your dad."

"But -- Cliff and Sam have been friends all their lives. You're telling me -- "

"Come on, Rich, don't be the same massless idiot you think the rest Of US are!"

I rounded on him, put my hand against his chest. "You're telling me you're all listening to your parents? Half the time you make it a joke not to. Now -- when it comes to something important -- you do?"

"What do you want? Yeah, when it comes to something important we do. So do you. The trouble is what you think is important isn't the same as what they think is."

"Friendship -- "

He stepped back. "Don't do that, Rich! What do you want from me? I can't be your friend! Not now, not anymore!"

"Why not?" Then: "Is your dad beating you again?"

Todd looked about to cry. He shook his head and sniffed loudly. "We just can't! It costs too much! Now leave me alone!"

He pushed past me. As I turned I saw Keith and Pete standing a few meters away, hands on hips, glaring at me. Todd went by them and said something, but neither Keith or Pete moved.

"Why don't you leave him alone.,'" Keith asked.

"Why don't you stay out of other peoples' business?"

"Hey, scab, I don't need to listen to your massless waste."

"Then don't."

Todd stopped. "Keith, come on. Let's get to school."

Keith pointed a finger at me. "Stay away from Todd. You upset him."

"I upset him! His only problem is you morons."

Keith stepped toward me. Todd hurried up behind him and grabbed his arm.

"Don't," he said.

Keith looked at him. "Make up your mind. Whose side are you on?"

"Whose side do you think I'm on?" I shouted. "My dad had a stroke! He would've been bedridden, hooked up to a machine for the rest of his life!"

"And now he's management!" Keith snapped back. "He made a choice! My dad said if he had any loyalty in him at all he'd have opted for the machine."

"Your dad's got room to talk! He didn't have a stroke! He's not an invalid!"

"Loyalty's not always convenient!"

"No, I guess it isn't. But the way you're acting you sure wish it were. " Keith broke free of Todd's grip and swung on me. I ducked it and backpedaled. He tried to hit me twice more before Todd and Pete got hold of his arms.

"Get away from us!" Keith screamed.

"I got one more question."

Pete looked at me. "Can't you hear, scab?"

"I can hear. You can't. Even if what your parents are saying is true about my dad, what does that have to do with me? You're scabbing me!"

"Disloyalty runs in families!" Keith said. "Like father, like son! Blood tells! You can't choose your family!" Tears were running down his face now and saliva sprayed with each phrase.

Everyone was crying except Pete, but he looked like it wouldn't take much to get him started. I wanted to run. Hard as it was, I made myself walk away.

Mom didn't eat in the morning. She sat staring at me, her forehead creased.

"Mom -- "

"Dirty broke down," she said.

"What?"

"The brainshare your father was running crashed it."

"I know that. Howard said it was the company's fault."

She shook her head. "They're fighting it. Meantime, there's something wrong with Dirty we can't fix until the grievance is settled.'

"But -- "

She stood. "I have to go. Make sure your father eats something, will you ?"

I tried to get more out of her, but she hustled around the house gathering her things and hurried out the door. It sounded like the same massless crap Todd's family was stuck in. I went to Dad's door and knocked on it, half hoping he was asleep and wouldn't hear. But he called to come in.

He looked a lot better. His color was nearly back to normal and his hair was starting to grow in over the surgery. He grinned at me and waved at a chair.

"Sit, sit," he said. His speech came out sharp and precise.

"I guess it's working, huh?"

"Oh, you mean the hardware? Yeah, it is. I feel pretty good. Might be this was the best thing that ever happened to me."

"I heard Dirty crashed."

Dad shrugged. "That brainshare messed up more than we thought. I tried to install a new brainshare and the whole system just broke down. Howard's fighting with the local over maintenance. They won't allow the new claim until the previous one's been settled, and CDR is fighting the claim."

"Why? I mean, if they've been having trouble all along like Howard said -- "

"That's exactly why. If they don't fight it they stand to lose a lot. They have to win or risk bankruptcy. At least that's what Howard's been telling me."

"But -- the local should know that. Why would they leave you without a surrogate because some corporate is jamming the process?"

Dad shook his head but he wouldn't look at me. I felt myself getting anxious.

"I have to get to school," I said, standing.

Dad looked up at me, surprised. "Oh. Yeah. Well, come talk to me some more when you get home. I'm not a scrambled mess anymore, I can manage." He laughed.

"No, you're mass. Solid mass."

"One of these days you're going to have to explain to me just what that means."

I left as quickly as I could.

Todd didn't show up for classes the next day. Or the day after. Keith and Pete and the others wouldn't even look at me, so I didn't bother to ask them anything. By the third day I started getting worried. I asked Mr. Olan if Todd had called in sick.

"You didn't hear?" he asked.

"Hear what? No, I --"

"Todd won't be coming back here. He filed a grievance against his parents. He's being sequestered in committee till his case is reviewed."

"Grievance...."

Mr. Olan looked uncomfortable. For a moment I thought he'd drop it. He'd answered my question. But he lowered his voice and added, "I heard his father beat him up pretty badly. It's my understanding the man has a history of violent temper. They must have had an argument."

"Is he all right?"

"I don't know, Rich. That's all I heard. He must be, if he filed. At least physically."

I let the cut pass and thanked him. By the end of the day I'd convinced myself that it was my fault. The argument must have been over me, Dad, this crazy situation. If I hadn't pushed Todd, made him feel guilty about what he and the others were doing -- but even as I took all this blame onto myself I knew it was massless. It didn't seem like Todd to do something this drastic over one incident. Maybe it had been building for a long time, years maybe. Maybe his dad never had stopped the abuse.

Howard was at our house again. He and Dad sat at the kitchen table talking. They both stopped when I walked in and looked at me.

"Sorry to interrupt," I said.

"No, hey, Rich!" Dad called.

"I gotta get, Sam," Howard said, standing.

Dad blinked at him as if caught by a practical joke. Howard smiled at me briefly. I nodded back and went to my room to drop off my backpack. When I came out, Dad was just closing the front door. I watched him shuffle back to the kitchen. He looked distracted. Then, as he walked by me, completely oblivious to my presence, I saw the chip in his interface jack.

"You're doing brainshare," I said.

He looked up startled. "Uh .... "

"Howard set this up, didn't he?"

"Rich, listen. I -- "

"He crashed Difty, too, I'll bet. Not the first time but afterward."

Dad shook his head and walked away. I went back to my room. I hate it when people tell you they don't know how they feel. How can they not know? But I sat there in the dimming light and couldn't understand what I felt. Maybe because I felt everything -- anger, resentment, frustration, pity, fear, betrayal, despair -- and there wasn't room for them all, so they turned over, queuing up to have a second here, a minute there, never giving me a chance to settle on one and really feel it. I stared out the window at the neighbor's wall as the Sun went down and just spun along with it all.

I decided I didn't have any right to judge Dad. None of my choices seemed worth the cost, what made me think his were any better?

Because I'm the child, he's the adult.

Whatever that has to do with anything.

Dad sat in the living room with the lights out, near the bay windows I could only see half his face. I wanted to apologize, give him something to make up for the hurt I might have caused. I wanted to tell him it was all right, that he was solid mass by me, and it didn't matter what he had to do to make the bills, he was my father and that mattered more than the rest.

But before I could say a single word he said, "Your mother left."

I understood so fast that I didn't have time to pretend not to. "Why?"

"Hm? Oh. Nobody stopped talking to her if that's what you mean. She wasn't in trouble at work, nothing like that. She -- " He swallowed loudly and I knew he was fighting to keep calm. It didn't work, his voice shook a little, his eyes glittered. "She just couldn't accept this. Her family -- they -- well, they're real traditional."

After a while I knew he had forgotten I was there. I left him alone.

I WOKE TO SHOUTING. It came through the door muffled and faint, but I wasn't sleeping soundly anyway. I lay there for a couple of minutes trying to ignore it, but it persisted, so I climbed out of bed and pulled on my pants and a T-shirt.

The front door stood open. The voices grew louder as I came up to it, until I could make out Dad's voice. A flashing red and white light pulsed against the screen door. I stepped onto the porch.

Two police cruisers blocked the street in front of our house, both with their lights going. Neighbors stood across the street in a huddle. On our lawn Dad stood face to face with three cops and two other men dressed in dark clothes. One of the cops held a baseball bat at his side and I recognized it as my old little league slugger.

" -- fuckers spray painting my house, damnit!" I heard Dad say. One of the cops spoke quietly and Dad made a sharp slicing gesture. "Bullshit! I been putting up with this now for weeks and I've had about enough! They come around here again I'm taking steps!"

I came down the porch stairs and started across the lawn. One of the men looked at me and I recognized Todd's father, Cliff. His face was tight and angry, one solid mass pissed expression. I didn't know the other man.

"You can't be swinging on people, sir,' another cop said. "If there's a problem, you call us."

"I called you assholes when they busted my window and spray painted 'scab bastard' on my sidewalk! All I got was a bored file clerk who took my statement and no action! You can't protect me, damnit, I'll do it myself!"

"Sir -- "

"What do you expect?" Cliff said. "Half his brain is meatless. Fucking chiphead."

I stopped. Everyone stopped, even the cops, who glared at Cliff. The first one to move was my Dad. He growled deep in his throat, hunched down, and swung his left fist. I heard the biting snap as he connected, saw Cliff stagger backward. I shouted something. Two of the cops moved to intercept Dad, but he twisted around and slipped their grip and hit Cliff again. This time he went down. The other man bolted and ran. Dad dropped onto Cliff's chest and began driving punches.

I ran forward and tried to pull him off. He didn't look around, just whipped out his arm and threw me back. Then the cop with my bat stepped up and rammed it into Dad's back, between his shoulder blades. He arched backward and almost fell over. He threw one more punch and the cop hit him again. Dad toppled sideways off of Cliff, who scrambled backward.

"Jesus, the man's crazy!" Cliff yelled. His face was dark with blood running from his nose and mouth. He got to his feet.

The other two cops moved to secure Dad, but he managed to get to his feet first. One of the cops snagged his shirt, but Dad whirled around and the sleeve ripped. His eyes were large, scary in the flashing lights, and he dodged the cops one more time and went after Cliff.

I jumped up and tried to stop him. I got my arms around him, but he just walked with me. I screamed at him to stop, calling his name over and over. He turned then and tried to pry me off. My grip broke and I fell away. He started for Cliff again.

I ran forward and wrapped my arms around his shoulders —

-- and sparks danced over my eyes, all my muscles seized up. I couldn't let go, I could only watch his face contort, eyes bulging, tongue pressing out between his teeth, and I could smell a faint odor of burning plastic.

We jerked in place together until finally the current from the police taser cut off and we fell in a heap on the grass. I couldn't see clearly and my entire body felt bruised. I rolled back and forth, right on the verge of passing out. Something sharp bit into my left side and I reached down to find the prong of the taser jabbing me. I pulled it out and sat up.

Dad was down jerking like an epileptic.

"Dad!" I crawled toward him.

He wouldn't stop twitching. I grabbed his shoulders to try to stop him. His convulsions were tremendous. That close I could smell burning and I could hear a faint buzzing.

"Call an ambulance!" I screamed. "Call an ambulance! You hit him in the head! Call an ambulance!"

I kept screaming it until the EMS unit arrived.

It was just a taser, but the EMS people said that the voltage was enough to scramble the implants. The cop had fired right when I grabbed Dad and the current passed through me into him and fried his skull. The bolt disrupted everything, heated the hardware up, burned a hole in the rest of his brain.

Todd finally dropped a line on the net. "Hey, I made it out. Are you going to file a grievance? After that, we can be friends again."

But it didn't work that way. Mom came home, handled all the funeral arrangements with the competence I had always found comforting, and the insurance was enough to get us a brand new surrogate. Dad, it turned out, hadn't lost his status with the brotherhood and the IAMS even transferred his pension to my account for the day I registered and acquired my own robot. We were provided for. Mr. Jay had been right. I didn't have to leave school after all. The problem solved itself and everything passed. In a way it had always been solved. Dad's stroke had pretty much killed him from the first, he just hadn't finished dying. There was some money from the brainshare Howard had set him up with and nobody said anything about it. In time we expect a settlement for Dirty from CDR -they've lost most of their appeals. That meant I could go to almost any school I chose.

I talked to Mom a couple of times about opting out of the local and going for a non-union school. At first she was uncomfortable, but I think she's coming around to it. It's become pretty obvious that I just don't have the right attitude to stay with a local. Belonging seems to mean having the proper set of prejudices.

Cliff only called once to say he was sorry.

Keith and Pete and Kyle and the others keep asking me if I want to get together with them again. They honestly don't seem to understand why I always say no.