“When did you come out of the light and become human again?”
Ripple opens his mouth and just leaves it open while he tries to figure out how to respond. Fortunately, he doesn’t have to. With an obtrusive metallic trill, a LookyChat opens at the lower left-hand corner of the projection screen, containing a real-time capture of his friend Kelvin, waving his arms.
“Maximize me, urgent, urgent! We need to parlay!”
“Kelvin, fuck yeah! So good to make contact!”
Ripple met Kelvin Tang the first day of underschool, more than twelve years ago now. At Chokely Bradford, you got to know the other kids’ last names before their first ones, on account of the family crests embroidered on the Kevlar vests they wore as part of their uniforms. At six years old, Ripple still didn’t read too good, or at all, but he knew to keep an eye out for the phoenix and pandas. According to his dad, the Tangs were the only family in the city richer than the Ripples, and he wanted to size up the competition. It was during the first season of his show, and the videographers edited it like he was spoiling for a fight. “Will Duncan finally…meet his match?” the voiceover intoned during the teaser for the next week’s episode.
Their first encounter was during recess in the courtyard, a square of lush photosynthetic green that the classrooms and dormitories surrounded like a fortress. Kelvin sat alone on the swing set, urgently mashing the buttons of his Boy Toy handheld, sonically sequestered in a pair of headphones as big as earmuffs. Ripple had to smack him on the shoulder to make him look up.
“I challenge you,” Ripple said, like he’d practiced, “to a battle of laser blades.” As the camera crew encircled them, he offered Kelvin one of the two light-up fencing swords he’d brought from home.
Much to Ripple’s surprise, Kelvin was awesome. He kicked Ripple’s ass at laser blades (the motion-sensor hilts kept score) but by the end of the duel both boys were laughing too hard to care. After that, they were best friends. They ate each other’s paste during art class, snuck to each other’s suites after lights out, and shared all the passwords to their gaming platforms. They were the most popular guys in underschool, hands down, but although the other students clustered around them at mealtimes or Holosnapped their antics for posterity, at heart they were blood brothers and that shit was exclusive. Ripple had met his match, and it ruled.
He made Kelvin famous; Kelvin helped him understand stuff the night before exams. Ripple thought that was a fair deal. But that all changed in season twelve, when the showrunner, tiring of the endless pranks and unfilmable stroke-off sessions, determined it was high time to inject the series with a note of romance. Humphrey, sensing the probable necessity of an arranged marriage for his son in the near future, nixed this as far as Ripple was concerned. So it was Kelvin who chastely dated an “intern” hired by the videographers—really a twenty-nine-year-old YA impersonator named Cheryl—for fourteen weeks, almost a whole season, during which time Ripple had the unpleasant experience of feeling like a subplot in his own episodes. The ratings eventually tapered off and they fired Cheryl, but he and Kelvin weren’t quite as solid after that.
Now Kelvin is all like, “I do not need an eyeful of your unsheathed katana, pro.” Trying not to seem too interested: “Who’s she?”
“You said they couldn’t see us,” Abby cries, diving under the blanket.
“A lot of things have changed around here.” Ripple wriggles into his boxers, trying to keep the triumph out of his voice. “I have a scar now too.” He flashes the wound wrap like a badge.
“Right. Tell me straight, was this a brand-building exercise? Because a lot of us seriously thought…”
“I wouldn’t fake my death without warning you.”
“Whatever.”
“No, I’d make you the prime suspect or something.” Ripple feels magnanimous. He’s got nothing left to prove. “You’re a main character in my life, Tang. You’re my best supporting actor.”
“Maybe not for too much longer.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Not everybody got the man-child stamp of incompetence on graduation day.”
“My diploma says ‘For Entertainment Purposes Only.’ There’s nothing on there about incompetence.”
“What I’m saying is, my dad wants me to work for him back East. Overseas.”
Ripple blinks. He knows Kelvin’s been taking Wunderkind-level classes for a while now to proficiency out of overschool. But entering the workforce? What, like adults? “That makes no sense. You live here. Your stuff’s here. You went to school here.”
“I have dual citizenship. I’ve got family over there, the company’s based there. And business works the same everyplace. Except here, where it doesn’t.”
“Just tell your dad you’ll ruin everything.”
“He won’t believe me.” Kelvin looks off-camera sheepishly. “He said I make him proud.”
Not acceptable: “Uh, Late Capitalism’s Royalty, remember? Our families own half the city. We’re supposed to party on like kings.”
“Half of nothing is still nothing.”
“No, it’s infinity. ∞”—Ripple draws the shape in the air with his finger—“isn’t that what you get when you twist a zero around its middle?”
Kelvin isn’t buying it: “Nope, Rip, it’s nothing.”
Ripple doesn’t care to take this lying down, but he doesn’t feel like getting up either. All of a sudden, he’s drained. “It’s like you want to go.”
“There’s no future here, Ripple. Empire Island is over. Maybe you forgot, they shut down the fire department six months ago. Water and power are probably next. If you knew what was good for you, you’d be bailing too.”
As if Ripple could pass an immigration test. Or hold a job. Getting stranded on the Island was one thing, but he can’t imagine a life outside his parents’ mansion, where he would have to meet anyone else’s minimum standards. “No fucking way. I’m sticking around to protect my assets.”
“And I want to live somewhere that isn’t a total wasteland. No offense.”
Ripple asks it nonchalantly: “When do you leave?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?!”
“Pro, I sought your input. You were unreachable.”
“But you would’ve gone no matter what.”
“Well, yeah.”
Ripple doesn’t feel like talking anymore. “Clobber Mechs or Skyscreamers?”
“Skyscreamers.”
“Team or battle?”
“C’mon. You know I’m always on your team.”
* * *