way it cut off part of the snowman.
“What’s your name?” he said.
“Lewis.”
“I’m Mr. Sneeze.” His head and arms moved in all five pictures when he talked. His eyes got big and small. “What’s this place you’re in?”
“It’s no place,” said Mr. Sneeze. “Just a garbage file.”
“Why do you live in a garbage file?”
“Copyright lawyers,” said Mr. Sneeze. “I made them nervous.” He sounded happy no matter what he was saying.
“Nervous about what?”
“I was in a Christmas special for interactive television. But at the last minute somebody from the legal department thought I looked too much like a snowman on a video game called Mud Flinger. It was too late to redesign me so they just cut me out and dumped me in this file.”
“Can’t you go somewhere else?”
“I don’t have too much mobility.” He jumped and twirled upside down and landed in the same place, five times at once. The one without a body spun too. “Do you miss the show?”
“I just hope they’re doing well. Everybody has been working so hard.” I didn’t want to tell him it was probably a long time ago.
“What are you doing here, Lewis?” said Mr. Sneeze.
“I’m in a Scape Athon.”
“What’s that?”
I told him about Gloria and Fearing and Kromer, and about the contest. I think he liked that he was on television again.
There weren’t too many people left in the seats. Fearing was talking to them about what was going to happen tomorrow when they came back. Kromer and Ed got us all in the back. I looked over at Lane’s cot. She was already asleep. Her boyfriend was gone from the chair out front.
I lay down on the cot beside Gloria. “I’m tired now,” I said.
“So sleep a little,” she said, and put her arm over me. But I could hear Fearing outside talking about a “Sexathon” and I asked Gloria what it was.
“That’s tomorrow night,” she said. “Don’t worry about it now.” Gloria wasn’t going to sleep, just looking around.
I found the SmartHouse Showroom. It was a house with a voice inside. At first I was looking around to see who the voice was but then I figured out it was the house.
“Answer the phone!” it said. The phone was ringing.
I picked up the phone, and the lights in the room changed to a desk light on the table with the phone. The music in the room turned off. “How’s that for responsiveness?”
“Fine,” I said. I hung up the phone.
There was a television in the room, and it turned on. It was a picture of food.
“See that?”
“The food, you mean?” I said.
“That’s the contents of your refrigerator!” it said. “The packages with the blue halo will go bad in the next twenty-four hours. The package with the black halo has already expired! Would you like me to dispose of it for you?”
“Sure.”
“Now look out the windows!”
I looked. There were mountains outside.
“Imagine waking up in the Alps every morning!”
“And when you’re ready for work, your car is already warm in the garage!”
The windows switched from the mountains to a picture of a car in a garage.
“And your voicemail tells callers that you’re not home when it senses the car is gone from the garage!”
I wondered if there was somewhere I could get if I went down to drive the car. But they were trying to sell me this house, so probably not.
“And the television notifies you when the book you’re reading is available this week as a movie!”
The television switched to a movie, the window curtains closed, and the light by the phone went off. “I can’t read,” I said.
“All the more important, then, isn’t it?” said the house. “What about the bedroom?” I said. I was thinking about sleep. “Here you go!” A door opened and I went in. The bedroom had another television. But the bed wasn’t right. It had a scribble of electronic stuff over it. “What’s wrong with the bed?”
“Somebody defaced it,” said the house. “Pity.”
I knew it must have been Fearing or Kromer who wrecked the bed because they didn’t want anyone getting that comfortable and falling asleep and out of the contest. At least not yet.
“Sorry!” said the house. “Let me show you the work centre!”
Next rest I got right into Gloria’s cot and curled up and she curled around me. It was real early in the morning and nobody was watching the show now and Fearing wasn’t talking. I think he was off taking a nap of his own.
Kromer woke us up. “He always have to sleep with you, like a baby?”
Gloria said, “Leave him alone. He can sleep where he wants.”
“I can’t figure,” said Kromer. “Is he your boyfriend or your kid brother?”
“Neither,” said Gloria. “What do you care?”
“Okay,” said Kromer. “We’ve got a job for him to do tomorrow, though.”
“What job?” said Gloria. They talked like I wasn’t there.
“We need a hacker boy for a little sideshow we put on.” said Kromer. “He’s it.”
“He’s never been in a scape before,” said Gloria. “He’s no hacker.”
“He’s the nearest we’ve got. We’ll walk him through it.”
“I’ll do it,” I said.
“Okay, but then leave him out of the Sexathon,” said Gloria.
Kromer smiled. “You’re protecting him? Sorry. Everybody plays in the Sexathon, sweetheart. That’s bread and butter. The customers don’t let us break the rules.” He pointed out to the rigs. “You’d better get out there.”
I knew Kromer thought I didn’t know about Gloria and Fearing, or other things. I wanted to tell him I wasn’t so innocent, but I didn’t think Gloria would like it, so I kept quiet.
I went to talk to Mr. Sneeze. I remembered where he was from the first time.
“What’s a Sexathon?” I said.
“I don’t know, Lewis.”
“I’ve never had sex,” I said.
“Me neither,” said Mr. Sneeze.
“Everybody always thinks I do with Gloria just because we go around together. But we’re just friends.”
“That’s fine,” said Mr. Sneeze. “It’s okay to be friends.”
“I’d like to be Lane’s boyfriend,” I said.
Next break Gloria slept while Gilmartin and Kromer told me about the act. A drawer would be marked for me to go into, and there would be a lot of numbers and letters but I just had to keep pressing “1–2-3” no matter what. It was supposed to be a security archive, they said. The people watching would think I was breaking codes but it was just for show. Then something else would happen but they wouldn’t say what, just that I should keep quiet and let Fearing talk. So I knew they were going to pull me out of my mask. I didn’t know if I should tell Gloria.
Fearing was up again welcoming some people back in. I couldn’t believe anybody wanted to start watching first thing in the morning but Fearing was saying “the gritty determination to survive that epitomizes the frontier spirit that once made a country called America great” and “young bodies writhing in agonized congress with the
