M. M. Buckner - War Surf

Life is addictive. Too much just makes you want morethough it never quite matches your hope. I know. Im 248 years old. And Sheeba? She wasnt even twenty when we met. Perhaps I craved her sparkle, her innocent faith in tomorrow, her playfulness, her spicy thighs. Or perhaps it was simply tuning. We connected at the ragged end of my life and the dewy beginning of hers. And now, because of Sheeba, this is my final war surf. Im waiting here in this battle zone to die.

The gunfire has stopped. Im shivering under a table in a cold, deserted anteroom. Broken benches litter the floor, and a scummy film of mold covers everything. Overhead, one fluorescent light blinks off and on like alien code. Thats the worst, that light. Its unzipping my rationality. I could get out of here. Theres still time. But I stay and wait (calmly?) for the end. I have four hours left. Four hours to tell you about Sheeba.

Sheeba who fixes my pain.

Lets say this began six months ago, on a Tuesday afternoon, early January 2253the afternoon Sheeba first watched me surf a war zone. We were surfing the Copia.Com drug factory in Thule that day, a small feisty worker rebellion, seventeen levels underground.

Our surf crew, we were the best. We held top rank in the northern hemisphere, and the five of us had been surfing wars together for decadesVerinne, Kat, Winston, Grunze and me. All beautiful people, strong and rich and well past our second century, all addicted to war surfing. Wed grown up together during the grisly twenty-first century, and wed grown wealthy during the twenty-second. Id had sex with every one of them. Id lived off and on with Kat. And once Id been in love with Verinne. Maybe we were friends. Maybe rivals. The fact is, I treasured what we were together.

We called our crew the Agonistsin the sense of contenders, pro and antithough we liked the connotations of death struggle, too. Lets say we shared a disdain for the commonplace. Lets say we chose to defy the moribund limits of ordinary life. We were senior execs, semiretired, all taking telomerase treatments and recloning our organs and pumping our cells full of bioNEMs to extend our youth. Pain was easy to kill. Work we delegated to others. Feasting, free sex, flash drugs, everything grows tedious after a while. Except war surfing.

Nasir, youre too bloody slow, Grunze yelled over the crack of exploding concrete. You missed the window.

I counted explosions and smiled at him across a corridor filled with dust. The Copia factory guards were using pulse lasers, and their noisy beams ricocheted down the corridor walls, drilling craters and punishing my eardrums. Across from me, Grunze waited in the opposite doorway, shaking his head. I was supposed to cross the corridor without getting hit. Picture me squatting in the subterranean doorjamb, breathing concrete dust and massaging my inflamed right hip.

Grunze yelled, Whatre you doing? Taking a piss?

Im savoring the moment, I yelled back.

No time-outs. Verinnes dry voice scratched through my helmet earphone, as if she were coughing the words. You have sixty seconds, Nasir. Otherwise, you forfeit.

Her camera buzzed in front of me, a thumb-sized blur of mechanical wings. While Grunze and I raced through this underground factory, Verinne watched everything from her car, parked on the surface. I checked my helmet camera. Grunze and I were documenting, too.

Grunzie smirked at me from the opposite doorway. Hed crossed earlier, before the lasers started firing. His white body armor accentuated his massive shoulders, and the tight-fitting sports helmet outlined his boulder head. Grunze believed I wouldnt do this because, compared to him, Im a small man, thin and wiry, and Grunze equated that with weakness. Hed bet half a million deutsch that I would freeze up and fail to run through the line of fire.

The laser barrage grew sporadic, unpredictable. Zzt-zzl. Bam ! Imagine a razor-sharp reek of sweat and burnt plastic. And lets assume I felt fear. Salty, tight, deep-muscle anguish. The taste of iron dissolving in my mourn. Delectable terror. Lets imagine how I sank into it and let the shivers ride up my neck. Lets suppose I fantasized searing agony.

When and if I ran through the laser beams, Verinne would upload the live video to Kat and Winston back in Nordvik. Through the earphone, I could hear their wisecracks. They were placing bets, how many steps I would take, how many seconds, whether I would make a noise. Later, we would drink tequila and settle our wagers, and that dickhead Grunze would pay me half a million deutsch. Because I would do this. There was no doubt. Moments like this were the reason I stayed alive.

Be here now, I whispered under my breath. And I thought of Sheeba. The clean scent of her soap, the sweet flesh under her chin.

As the lasers hissed, concrete shards flew up and stung my jaw. The floor looked like a map of the moon. But my sleek new quantum dot body armor changed colors when I moved, and the users guide claimed it would deflect laser fire. I was getting ready to test the money-back guarantee.

Cmon. Its almost time for lunch. Grunze gave me that taunting smile, wide blunt jaw and white teeth, and he crooked his index finger, come hither. It was part of his game.

Well, I could play the game, too. I nonchalantly lifted off my helmet, drew out a travel mirror and checked my hair. Handsome young Euro features reflected back at mesurgically standardized. Gene therapy had lightened my complexion. Only the droopy, almond shape of my eyes betrayed Hindu ancestry. Poetic eyes, some women called them. Amorous eyes, the color of smoke. Over the years, my droopy Far-Eastern eyes had served me well.

Kat buzzed through my earphone with her hypertensive whine. Nasir, youre grandstanding.

Katherine, take a pill and settle down. I calmly zipped the mirror back inside my pocket and replaced my helmet.

Nass is doing a Zen dung, Winston said. His words over the phone were so slurred, he seemed to be drowningin tequila, most likely.

Thirty seconds, said Verinne.

A sudden whiff of smoke made me gag. Somewhere, Pharmaceuticals were burning. I would have worn a hazard suit, but Grunze said no, that was a pussy move. Breathe the local air, he said. Be one with the war zone.

I leaned against the doorjamb, coughing on the chemical smoke and recalling with grim humor that my pal Grunze owned those burning medicines. His family held a large stake in this drug company, and for a hundred years, theyd earned solid returnsuntil out of nowhere last month, their employees trashed the production line and sent tons of expensive Pharmaceuticals up in flames. Small labor disputes like this were cropping up everywhere, like a fad on the Net. And the battle cry was always the same: Gimme what you got.