Grey

He rolled his eyes and said, “Just shut up.

All right?”

I could only guess how ridiculous they must have been. Could Ken dance Bang? Did he like Father’s newest favorite band, like the Palladium Pinheads or whatever? Or maybe the tests were whether Ken would wear the company colors, and agree with everything and anything Father said.

“They’re still waiting,” prompted Xavid.

“Go ahead,” muttered Father.

Opening the door, Xavid poked his head out, and said, “Listen for your name, then come on in.” Returning to our side, he held a hand beside his mouth as if shouting to a crowd of a hundred.

“Introducing a new friend and brother to the RiverGroup way of life.

A fantastic human being with billions of healthy red blood cells…”

As he continued his useless introduction, I glanced toward the bathroom door. Was Joelene in there? Usually, she took no more than a minute. I hoped she wasn’t sick.

“… So,” concluded Xavid, “let’s bloody our shorts for one of RiverGroup’s new friends. That’s right! It’s our new pal, the stylish and very intelligent Walter Kez!”

A second later, a young man peered in. His baby-fat cheeks were as pale as cake flour. His watery, blue, manga eyes were ringed with red as if he hadn’t slept for three days. He wore a long, slender, dust-grey suit that was short in sleeve and trouser as if he had grown or it shrunk. It looked like one of the lesser tailors—Me-Yaki, Seem, or Mix-a-Fibre. On his head he wore a wide-brim straw hat with a blue ribbon. The hat made him look like a CubeEye reader, albeit a pudgy, somewhat malformed one. He stood for a moment, adjusting the Windsor of his matching blue tie, and smiled a fidgety, nervous smile. Even from ten feet away, I could smell baby power.

“Welcome!” said Father, now trying to crank up the enthusiasm. “Come in! Meet my son, the famous and amazing Michael Rivers. He’s going to marry your sister at the big product show. That’s really exciting!”

Chesterfield Kez, his uncle, the skull-faced man whose hand I had not shaken last night at the club, strode in past his nephew. Chesterfield wore the same sort of iridescent suit and a pile of mahogany-and-teak-beaded necklaces that covered his neck, chin, and half his lower lip.

“Hold on, Ches,” cried Father, “Xavid will give you a big, fun intro!”

“Is that a camera?” whined Walter.

“They’re filming my big, dopy, butt-tastic life!” said Father, shooting a quick evil eye my way.

“’Seven hundred hours!

You’re welcome to start watching anytime.”

“Thank you!” said Walter, his eyes tearing. “I just can’t be around cameras.”

“Kid’s got allergies,” explained Chesterfield. “Polyester, iron, dairy, trees, plastic, vegetables, chicken, cardboard, and…” Chesterfield nodded toward the documentary crew, “…cameras.”

“Butt rockets!” yelped Father. “Go on!” he told his crew. “Get out!” As they ran out the back door, Father said, “Xavid, grab the two security cameras!”

Xavid yanked the little cameras from the walls, but even so Walter was scratching feverishly at his neck, making the skin red and raw.

For the next hour—although it felt like a dozen—I sat polite prisoner before pale, powdery, straw-hat-wearing Walter Kez, as he showed me his magazine collection. His voice was whiny, nasal, and he had a habit of inflecting the end of his sentences.

“This is a rare CubeEye issue twenty-three?” He opened it and flipped through all the pages—past dozens of photos of men in felt and straw hats. “This,” he said, picking up another, “is the first issue of 118 Tones? It’s very, very valuable? Oh, and this is Blot issue forty. There’s a printing error on page five? So, it’s worth billions?”

Blot was actually not bad. It dealt with reproduction fibers. I asked for it and browsed while he continued to show copies of skd, Re-Ax, Salon 17, Ecole, Inhab, and Turncoat. Meanwhile, I kept looking for Joelene. I worried that I upset her before. I shouldn’t have stormed off to my dressing room like I had. She was probably mad at me.

“I really, really like 118 Tones, don’t you?” asked Walter, holding another issue.

It was a cheap imitation of Pure H, but I said, “Sure.”

Walter narrowed his eyes at me and I felt defenseless, as though he could see how isolated and unhappy I was. Leaning toward me, he whispered, “My sister’s mad at you ’cause you saw Nora.”

The strange thing was

,

I had forgotten they were related. “Oh,” I said, “I’m sorry to hear that.”

He burst out laughing. “Don’t worry! I don’t like my sister.” Bending farther toward me, he added, “I’ve seen her eat her own snot balls.”

Unfortunately, I could easily conjure the image of Elle, dressed as a cat-beaver-bunny gnawing on a dark, waxy little bit stuck under a fingernail.

“I like Nora better,” he said. “She’s very alluring and enchanting.”

“Thank you,” I said, not sure I appreciated his admiration.

Reaching into an inside pocket of his jacket, he held out his hand. In his sweaty palm were two black cockroaches. “Want one?”

“No!” I said, recoiling.

“They’re pills!” he said with a giggle. “They’re ARU!” His eyes were glowing. “They’re illegal, but so soothing! I get them in the slubs!”

The bug-shaped pills were hideously realistic with little eyes and painted-on legs. They were the ones Joelene had mentioned. Mother took them, and

the freeboot

who shot me had had something to do with them.

“They make all bad feelings go away,” he said, as he first glanced toward his nannies, then placed one of the things onto his pink tongue, reared his head back, and swallowed. “Go on,” he said, holding the other toward me.

“No,” I said, “thank you.”

After he pouted for a second, he returned the pill to his pocket.

“You go to the slubs?” I asked, since it was not just illegal and frowned upon but dangerous.

“Some places are very fascinating.” He stuck out his lower lip. “Not the bad place where you were.”

I was still shocked he went, let alone survived. “Doesn’t your uncle watch you?”

“He can’t,” he whispered, with a sly smile. “I have such a bad camera allergy.”

A beeping little alarm sounded in his jacket. I watched him check inside his left lapel. “Oh, gosh!” he said, all excited. “Nora is on the channels!” Turning to his nannies, he said, “Nora is on! May my friend Michael and I watch, please?”

We had not been left alone. Before Father, Xavid, and Chesterfield headed to one of the meeting theaters, two of Walter’s nannies had come in to watch us. They were older, matronly woman who wore black suits and straw hats that matched his.

“I suppose that would be all right,” said one, as she fiddled with the control Father had given her. Finally, she switched on the main screen. Against a raging forest fire were the words Heavy Profit Camp in black outlined with glittering gold.

The titles faded and sitting before a faux campfire was Nora’s father, Mr. Gonzalez-Matsu. She had inherited his fierce eyes, but little else. While her features had an uplifting feel, his were the opposite. His mouth resembled the beak of a flesh-eating bird. The bottom edge of his nose was tilted upward so that his nostrils formed a curvy lowercase m. But his two most distinctive features were the puffy bags under his eyes, which made him look like he hadn’t slept in five years, and his oily, black hair, with its shiny, pointed locks that resembled crow feathers.

As for clothes, he wore a striped green jacket over a patterned gold shirt. The top four buttons were undone to expose a green and gold undershirt. His pants looked like a combination of woven yellow leather and maybe some sort of green vines with leaves and odd little persimmon flowers here and there. His shoes were thick soled and the leather was as so dull it looked more like pressed dryer-lint.

As he held a stick before him where a burnt wiener dangled on the end, he said, “Our product offers a dramatic choice and much less operating costs. Super non-symmetry takes a lot of power. We don’t.” He tried to