“I think that it’s hard to claim to have more than one first name, because first has a specificity that middle lacks. Notwithstanding your Mary Anns and Jean Marcs and such, which are hyphenated by convention.”
“Fair point,” she said. “Though, come on, if Mary Ann is a first name, why isn’t Mary Ann Tanya Jessie Banana Pants Monkey Vomit etc?”
“My parents would agree. They were making a statement about names, after Anonymous brought in its Real Name Policy. They’d both been active, worked to make it a political party, so they were really fucked off. Thought it was obvious that if you were ‘Anonymous’ you couldn’t have a ‘Real Name Policy.’ They decided to give their kid a unique name that never fit into any database and would give him the right to legally use a whole bunch of sub-names.
“By the time I got all this, I was used to ‘Hubert,’ and I stuck to it.”
Seth took Hubert’s beer cup, swilled from it, burped. “I’ve always called you Hubert, Etc, though. It’s cool, and it’s easier to say.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Do it, though, okay?”
“What?” Hubert, Etc knew the answer.
“The names. You’ve got to hear this.”
“You don’t have to,” she said.
“I do, probably, or you’ll wonder.” He’d made peace with it. It was part of growing up. “Hubert Vernon Rudolph Clayton Irving Wilson Alva Anton Jeff Harley Timothy Curtis Cleveland Cecil Ollie Edmund Eli Wiley Marvin Ellis Espinoza.”
She cocked her head, nodded. “Needs more Banana Pants.”
“Bet you got teased like hell at school though, right?” Seth said.
This pissed Hubert, Etc off. It was stupid, and it was a recurring stupidity. “Come on, really? You think that names are why kids get teased? The causal arrow points the other way. If the kids are making fun of your name, it’s because you’re unpopular—you’re not unpopular because of your name. If the coolest kid in school was called ‘Harry Balls’ they’d call him Harold. If the school goat was called ‘Lisa Brown,’ they’d call her ‘Shitstain.’” He nearly said, Seriously, don’t be an asshole, but didn’t. He was invested in being an adult. Seth paid no attention to the possibility that he was being an asshole.
“What’s your name?” Seth said to the girl.
“Lisa Brown,” she replied.
Hubert, Etc snickered.
“Seriously?”
“No.”
He waited to see if she’d offer her name, shrugged. “I’m Seth.” He went to her friends, who’d inched closer. One of them did a fancy handshake, which he faked with totally unselfconscious enthusiasm that Hubert, Etc envied and was embarrassed by.
The dance music got louder. Seth refilled Hubert, Etc’s cup and took it to the dance floor. Hubert was the only one without a cup. The girl refilled hers and passed it.
“Good stuff,” she shouted, her breath tickling his cheek. The music was really loud, an automated mix, tied into DJ stuff that used lidar and heat-mapping to characterize crowd-responses to musical mixes and optimized them to get everyone on the floor. They’d had it back when Hubert, Etc was young enough to go clubbing, called it Rule 34 for all the different mixes, but it had been cheesy then. Now it was the business.
“Kinda hoppy, though.”
“Not the taste. The enzymes. Stuff in it helps you break it down, stops it from turning into formaldehyde in your blood. Good for reducing hangovers. It’s Turkish.”
“Turkish?”
“Well, Turkish-ish. Came out of refus in Syria. They’ve got a lab. It’s called Gezi. If you’re interested, I can send you stuff about it.”
Was she hitting on him? Eight years ago, giving someone your contact details was an invitation. Maybe they’d swung into a time of more promiscuous name-space management and less promiscuous socio-sexual norms. Hubert, Etc wished he’d skimmed a précis of current sociology of twenty-year-olds. He rubbed the interface strip on his ring finger and muttered “contact details,” held out his hand. Her hand was warm, rough, and small. She touched a strip she wore as a choker and whispered, and he felt a confirming buzz from his system, then a double-buzz that meant that she’d reciprocated.
“So you can white-list me.”
Hubert, Etc wondered if she was used to sharing contacts so widely that she had to worry about spam or—
“You’ve never been to one of these,” she said, her face right up to his ear again.
“No,” he shouted. Her hair smelled like burning tires and licorice.
“You’ll love this, come on, let’s get in close, they’re going to start soon.”
She took his hand again, and as her calluses rasped over his skin, he felt another buzz. It was endogenous and hadn’t originated with his interface stuff.
*
They skirted the dancers, kicking through leaves and puffs of dust that swirled in the lights. There were glittering motes in the dust that made the air seem laden with fairy-glitter. Hubert, Etc caught sight of Seth. Seth looked back and clocked the scene—the girl, the hands, the scramble through dark spaces for private vantage, and his face creased with passing envy before turning into a fratty leer to which he added a thumbs-up. The automatic music thudded, Cantopop and rumba that Rule 34 tumbled out of its directed random-walk through music-space.
“Here’s good,” she said, as they yanked themselves onto a catwalk. The gritty service-ladder left rust streaks on Hubert, Etc’s palms. Out of the music’s blast, they could hear each other, and Hubert, Etc was aware of his breath and pulse.
“Keep your eye on that.” She pointed at a machine to one side. Hubert, Etc squinted and saw her friends from before moving around it. “They do furniture, mostly shelving. There was a ton of feedstock in the storeroom.”
“Did you help put this”—a sweep of his arm to take in the factory, the dancers—“together?”
She laid one finger alongside the rubber nose, winked slowly. “Supreme Soviet,” she said. She tapped the temple of her glasses, and he caught a shimmer as their magnification kicked in with false color and stabilization. “They’ve got it.” The music cut off mid-note.