Home Again, Home Again by Cory Doctorow (if you give a mouse a cookie read aloud .txt) 📖
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took the remote out of Chet's hands and opened up a
bookmarked docu-drama about the coming of the bugouts. Chet opened his mouth to
protest, and his father shouted him down before he could speak. "Not one word,
you hear me? Not! One! Word! I've had a shithole day and I wanna relax."
Chet's mother dropped a plastic tumbler, which bounced twice, and rolled to
Chet's toe. He stepped over it, walked out the door, and took the elevator to
the 125th floor.
Chet burst into the guy who thought he was Nicola Tesla's apt and screamed.
Nicola Tesla was strapped into a heavy wooden chair, with a metal hood over his
head. Arcs of electricity danced over his body, and he jerked and thrashed
against the leather straps that bound his limbs. Unthinking, Chet ran forward
and grabbed the buckle that bound his wrist, and a giant's fist smashed into
him, hurling him across the room.
When he came to, the electric arcs were gone, but the guy who thought he was
Nicola Tesla was motionless in his straps, under his hood.
Carefully, Chet came to his feet, and saw that the toe of his right sneaker had
been blown out, leaving behind charred canvas. His foot hurt -- burned.
He hobbled to the chair and gingerly prodded it, then jerked his hand back,
though he hadn't been shocked. He bit his lip and stared. The wood was quite
weathered and elderly, though it had been oiled and had a rich, well-cared-for
finish. The leather straps were nightmarishly thick, gripping the guy who
thought he was Nicola Tesla at the bicep and wrist, at the thigh and calf and
ankle. Livid bruises were already spreading at their edges.
Chet was struck by a sudden urge to climb into the ocean and _stay_ there. Just
_stay_ there.
Under the hood, the guy who thought he was Nicola Tesla groaned. Chet gave an
involuntary squeak and jumped a little. The guy who thought he was Nicola
Tesla's body snapped tense. "Who's there?" he said, his voice muffled by the
hood.
"It's me, Chet."
"Chet? Damn. Damn, damn, damn." His right hand bent nearly double at the wrist
and teased the buckle of the strap free. With one hand free, the guy who thought
he was Nicola Tesla quickly undid the straps on his upper body, then lifted away
the hood. He pointedly did not look at Chet as he doubled over and undid the
straps on his legs and ankles.
Gingerly, he stood and stretched, then sighed tremendously.
"Chet, Chet, Chet. I hope I didn't frighten you too badly. This is Old Sparky,
an exact replica of the electric chair at Sing-Sing Prison in New York. Edison,
thief and charlatan that he was, insisted that his DC current was safer than my
AC, and they built a chair that used my beautiful current to execute criminals,
by the hundreds.
"Nicola Tesla and I became one when I was eight years old, and I received a
tremendous shock from an electrified fence. I was stuck to it, glued by the
current, and after a few moments, I just relaxed into the current -- befriended
it, if you will. That's when the spirit of Nicola Tesla, a-wandering through the
wires for all the years since his death, infused my body.
"So now I use Old Sparky here to recharge -- please forgive the expression -- my
connection with the current. I once spent eight years in the chair, when I
needed to disappear for a while. When I woke, I hadn't aged at all -- I didn't
even need to shave! What do you think of that?"
Chet was staring in horror at him. "You electrocute yourself? On purpose?"
"Why, yes! Think of it as a trick I do, if it makes you feel better. I could
show you how to do it. . ." he trailed off, but a look of hunger had passed over
his face.
#
I get all kinds of access to bat-house records from the vid in my apt on my new
world. No one named Gaylord Ballozos ever lived in any bat-house. Apt 12525, and
the five above it, were never occupied. The records say that the locks have
never been used, the doors never opened. It won't be searched when they evacuate
the bat-house.
That's what the records say, anyway.
Electricity gives me the willies. The zaps of static from the dry air of the FTL
I took home to Earth made me scream, little-boy squeaks that made the other
passengers jump.
I don't remember that it was ever this hot in Toronto, even in the summer. The
sky is all overcast, so maybe it's a temperature inversion. Up here at Steeles
Avenue, I'm so dehydrated that I spend a whole dime on a magnum of still water
and power-chug it, though you're not supposed to drink that way. Almost there.
#
The other kids in the abandoned apt on the 87th floor ignored me. They'd been
paying less and less attention to me, ever since I started spending my
afternoons up on 125, and I was getting a reputation as a keener for all the
time I spent with The Amazing Robotron.
That suited me fine; the corner of the gutted kitchen was as private a space as
I was going to find in the bat-house. I had the apparatus that Nicola Tesla had
given me plugged into the AC outlet under the sink. I closed my eyes and
breathed deeply, concentrating on the moments after my breath left my chest,
that calm like the ocean's silence. Smoothly, I reached out and grasped the
handle of the apparatus and squeezed.
The first time I tried this, under Nicola Tesla's supervision, I'd jerked my
hand away and squeezed it between my legs as soon as the current shot through
me. Now, though, I could keep squeezing, slowly increasing the voltage and
amperage, relaxing into the involuntary tension in my muscles.
I'd gotten so good at it that I'd started using the timer -- I could lean into
the current forever without it. I had it set for three hours, but when the
current died, it felt like no time at all had passed. I probed around my
consciousness for any revelation, but no spirit had come into my body during the
exercise. The guy who thought he was Nicola Tesla didn't know if there were any
other spirits in the wire, but it stood to reason that if there was one, there
had to be more.
I stood, and felt incredibly calm and balanced and centered and I floated past
the other kids. It was time for my session with The Amazing Robotron.
"Chet, how are you fee-ling?"
"I'm well, thank you." Nicola Tesla spoke well and carefully, and I'd started to
ape him.
"And what would you like to dis-cuss to-day?"
"I don't really have anything to talk about, honestly. Everything is fine."
"That is good. Do you have any new ob-ser-va-tions about your friends?"
"I'm sorry, no. I haven't been paying much attention lately."
"Why hav-en't you?"
"It just doesn't interest me, sorry."
"Why does-n't it in-ter-est you?"
"I just don't care about them, to be frank."
The Amazing Robotron was absolutely still for a moment. "Are things well with
your par-ents, too?"
"The same as always. I think they've found their niches." _Find your niche_ was
an expression I'd pirated from the guy who thought he was Nicola Tesla. I was
very proud of it.
"In that case, why don't we end this mee-ting?"
I was surprised. The Amazing Robotron always demanded his full hour. "I'll see
you on Wednesday, then?"
"I'm af-raid not, Chet. I will be gone for a few months -- I have to re-turn
home. There will be a sub-sti-tute coun-sel-or arri-ving next Monday."
My calm center shattered. Sweat sprang out on my palms. "What? You're leaving?
How can you be leaving?"
"I'm so-rry, Chet. There is an em-er-gen-cy at home. I'll be back as soon as I
can."
"Frick that! How can you go? What'll I do if you don't come back? You're the
only one I can talk to!"
"I'm so-rry, Chet. I have to go."
"If you gave a shit, you'd stay. You can't just leave me here!" I knew as I said
it that it didn't make any sense, but a picture sprang into my mind, one that
I'd been carrying without knowing it for a long time: The Amazing Robotron and
me as an adult, walking away from the bat-house, with suitcases, leaving
together, forever. I felt a sob hiccough in my throat.
"I will re-turn, Chet. I did-n't wish to up-set you."
"Frick that! I don't give a shit if you come back, asshole."
#
Chet went straight to 87 and plugged in to the apparatus. He didn't set the
timer, and he stayed plugged in for nearly two days, when two fighting boys
tumbled into him and knocked his hand away. He was centered and numb again, and
didn't have any sense of the intervening time. He didn't even have to pee. He
wondered if he was trying to commit suicide.
He checked his comm and got the date, noticed with distant surprise that it was
two days later, and wandered up to 125.
The guy who thought he was Nicola Tesla shouted a distant "Come in" when Chet
tapped on the door. He was playing with his ocean again. Chet felt his hair
float up off his shoulders. He stopped and watched the coral squirm and dance.
"I spent nearly two days on the apparatus," Chet said.
"Eh? Very good, very good. You're progressing nicely."
"My counselor has left. He had to go home."
"Yes? Well, there you are."
"What were your parents like?"
"Nicola Tesla's father was a bishop, and his mother was an illiterate, though
she was a gifted memnist and taught me much about visualization."
"No, I mean _your_ parents. Mister and Missus Ballozos. What were _they_ like?"
The guy who thought he was Nicola Tesla shut down the ocean and watched the
lumps of ore tumble to the sand. "Why do you want to know about _them_? Are you
having some sort of trouble at home?" he asked impatiently, not looking away
from the ocean.
"No reason," Chet said. "I have to go home now."
"Yes, fine."
#
"The hell have you been, boy?" Chet's father said, when he came through door.
His father was in front of the vid, wearing shorts and a filthy t-shirt, holding
the remote in one hand. Chet's mother was sitting at the window, staring out
into the clouds.
"Out. Around. I'm okay, okay?"
"It's not okay. You can't just run around like some kind of animal. Sit the hell
down and tell me where you've been. Your counselor was here looking for you."
"Robotron? He was here?"
"Yes he was here! And I had to tell him I didn't know where my damn kid was! How
do you think that makes me look? You know how worried your mother was?"
Chet's mother didn't stir from her post by the window, but she flinched when
Chet's father spoke. Chet swallowed hard.
"What did he want?"
"Never mind that! Sit the hell down and tell me where you've been and what the
hell you thought you were doing!"
Chet sat beside his father and stared at his hands. He knew he could outwait his
father. After half an hour, Chet's father
bookmarked docu-drama about the coming of the bugouts. Chet opened his mouth to
protest, and his father shouted him down before he could speak. "Not one word,
you hear me? Not! One! Word! I've had a shithole day and I wanna relax."
Chet's mother dropped a plastic tumbler, which bounced twice, and rolled to
Chet's toe. He stepped over it, walked out the door, and took the elevator to
the 125th floor.
Chet burst into the guy who thought he was Nicola Tesla's apt and screamed.
Nicola Tesla was strapped into a heavy wooden chair, with a metal hood over his
head. Arcs of electricity danced over his body, and he jerked and thrashed
against the leather straps that bound his limbs. Unthinking, Chet ran forward
and grabbed the buckle that bound his wrist, and a giant's fist smashed into
him, hurling him across the room.
When he came to, the electric arcs were gone, but the guy who thought he was
Nicola Tesla was motionless in his straps, under his hood.
Carefully, Chet came to his feet, and saw that the toe of his right sneaker had
been blown out, leaving behind charred canvas. His foot hurt -- burned.
He hobbled to the chair and gingerly prodded it, then jerked his hand back,
though he hadn't been shocked. He bit his lip and stared. The wood was quite
weathered and elderly, though it had been oiled and had a rich, well-cared-for
finish. The leather straps were nightmarishly thick, gripping the guy who
thought he was Nicola Tesla at the bicep and wrist, at the thigh and calf and
ankle. Livid bruises were already spreading at their edges.
Chet was struck by a sudden urge to climb into the ocean and _stay_ there. Just
_stay_ there.
Under the hood, the guy who thought he was Nicola Tesla groaned. Chet gave an
involuntary squeak and jumped a little. The guy who thought he was Nicola
Tesla's body snapped tense. "Who's there?" he said, his voice muffled by the
hood.
"It's me, Chet."
"Chet? Damn. Damn, damn, damn." His right hand bent nearly double at the wrist
and teased the buckle of the strap free. With one hand free, the guy who thought
he was Nicola Tesla quickly undid the straps on his upper body, then lifted away
the hood. He pointedly did not look at Chet as he doubled over and undid the
straps on his legs and ankles.
Gingerly, he stood and stretched, then sighed tremendously.
"Chet, Chet, Chet. I hope I didn't frighten you too badly. This is Old Sparky,
an exact replica of the electric chair at Sing-Sing Prison in New York. Edison,
thief and charlatan that he was, insisted that his DC current was safer than my
AC, and they built a chair that used my beautiful current to execute criminals,
by the hundreds.
"Nicola Tesla and I became one when I was eight years old, and I received a
tremendous shock from an electrified fence. I was stuck to it, glued by the
current, and after a few moments, I just relaxed into the current -- befriended
it, if you will. That's when the spirit of Nicola Tesla, a-wandering through the
wires for all the years since his death, infused my body.
"So now I use Old Sparky here to recharge -- please forgive the expression -- my
connection with the current. I once spent eight years in the chair, when I
needed to disappear for a while. When I woke, I hadn't aged at all -- I didn't
even need to shave! What do you think of that?"
Chet was staring in horror at him. "You electrocute yourself? On purpose?"
"Why, yes! Think of it as a trick I do, if it makes you feel better. I could
show you how to do it. . ." he trailed off, but a look of hunger had passed over
his face.
#
I get all kinds of access to bat-house records from the vid in my apt on my new
world. No one named Gaylord Ballozos ever lived in any bat-house. Apt 12525, and
the five above it, were never occupied. The records say that the locks have
never been used, the doors never opened. It won't be searched when they evacuate
the bat-house.
That's what the records say, anyway.
Electricity gives me the willies. The zaps of static from the dry air of the FTL
I took home to Earth made me scream, little-boy squeaks that made the other
passengers jump.
I don't remember that it was ever this hot in Toronto, even in the summer. The
sky is all overcast, so maybe it's a temperature inversion. Up here at Steeles
Avenue, I'm so dehydrated that I spend a whole dime on a magnum of still water
and power-chug it, though you're not supposed to drink that way. Almost there.
#
The other kids in the abandoned apt on the 87th floor ignored me. They'd been
paying less and less attention to me, ever since I started spending my
afternoons up on 125, and I was getting a reputation as a keener for all the
time I spent with The Amazing Robotron.
That suited me fine; the corner of the gutted kitchen was as private a space as
I was going to find in the bat-house. I had the apparatus that Nicola Tesla had
given me plugged into the AC outlet under the sink. I closed my eyes and
breathed deeply, concentrating on the moments after my breath left my chest,
that calm like the ocean's silence. Smoothly, I reached out and grasped the
handle of the apparatus and squeezed.
The first time I tried this, under Nicola Tesla's supervision, I'd jerked my
hand away and squeezed it between my legs as soon as the current shot through
me. Now, though, I could keep squeezing, slowly increasing the voltage and
amperage, relaxing into the involuntary tension in my muscles.
I'd gotten so good at it that I'd started using the timer -- I could lean into
the current forever without it. I had it set for three hours, but when the
current died, it felt like no time at all had passed. I probed around my
consciousness for any revelation, but no spirit had come into my body during the
exercise. The guy who thought he was Nicola Tesla didn't know if there were any
other spirits in the wire, but it stood to reason that if there was one, there
had to be more.
I stood, and felt incredibly calm and balanced and centered and I floated past
the other kids. It was time for my session with The Amazing Robotron.
"Chet, how are you fee-ling?"
"I'm well, thank you." Nicola Tesla spoke well and carefully, and I'd started to
ape him.
"And what would you like to dis-cuss to-day?"
"I don't really have anything to talk about, honestly. Everything is fine."
"That is good. Do you have any new ob-ser-va-tions about your friends?"
"I'm sorry, no. I haven't been paying much attention lately."
"Why hav-en't you?"
"It just doesn't interest me, sorry."
"Why does-n't it in-ter-est you?"
"I just don't care about them, to be frank."
The Amazing Robotron was absolutely still for a moment. "Are things well with
your par-ents, too?"
"The same as always. I think they've found their niches." _Find your niche_ was
an expression I'd pirated from the guy who thought he was Nicola Tesla. I was
very proud of it.
"In that case, why don't we end this mee-ting?"
I was surprised. The Amazing Robotron always demanded his full hour. "I'll see
you on Wednesday, then?"
"I'm af-raid not, Chet. I will be gone for a few months -- I have to re-turn
home. There will be a sub-sti-tute coun-sel-or arri-ving next Monday."
My calm center shattered. Sweat sprang out on my palms. "What? You're leaving?
How can you be leaving?"
"I'm so-rry, Chet. There is an em-er-gen-cy at home. I'll be back as soon as I
can."
"Frick that! How can you go? What'll I do if you don't come back? You're the
only one I can talk to!"
"I'm so-rry, Chet. I have to go."
"If you gave a shit, you'd stay. You can't just leave me here!" I knew as I said
it that it didn't make any sense, but a picture sprang into my mind, one that
I'd been carrying without knowing it for a long time: The Amazing Robotron and
me as an adult, walking away from the bat-house, with suitcases, leaving
together, forever. I felt a sob hiccough in my throat.
"I will re-turn, Chet. I did-n't wish to up-set you."
"Frick that! I don't give a shit if you come back, asshole."
#
Chet went straight to 87 and plugged in to the apparatus. He didn't set the
timer, and he stayed plugged in for nearly two days, when two fighting boys
tumbled into him and knocked his hand away. He was centered and numb again, and
didn't have any sense of the intervening time. He didn't even have to pee. He
wondered if he was trying to commit suicide.
He checked his comm and got the date, noticed with distant surprise that it was
two days later, and wandered up to 125.
The guy who thought he was Nicola Tesla shouted a distant "Come in" when Chet
tapped on the door. He was playing with his ocean again. Chet felt his hair
float up off his shoulders. He stopped and watched the coral squirm and dance.
"I spent nearly two days on the apparatus," Chet said.
"Eh? Very good, very good. You're progressing nicely."
"My counselor has left. He had to go home."
"Yes? Well, there you are."
"What were your parents like?"
"Nicola Tesla's father was a bishop, and his mother was an illiterate, though
she was a gifted memnist and taught me much about visualization."
"No, I mean _your_ parents. Mister and Missus Ballozos. What were _they_ like?"
The guy who thought he was Nicola Tesla shut down the ocean and watched the
lumps of ore tumble to the sand. "Why do you want to know about _them_? Are you
having some sort of trouble at home?" he asked impatiently, not looking away
from the ocean.
"No reason," Chet said. "I have to go home now."
"Yes, fine."
#
"The hell have you been, boy?" Chet's father said, when he came through door.
His father was in front of the vid, wearing shorts and a filthy t-shirt, holding
the remote in one hand. Chet's mother was sitting at the window, staring out
into the clouds.
"Out. Around. I'm okay, okay?"
"It's not okay. You can't just run around like some kind of animal. Sit the hell
down and tell me where you've been. Your counselor was here looking for you."
"Robotron? He was here?"
"Yes he was here! And I had to tell him I didn't know where my damn kid was! How
do you think that makes me look? You know how worried your mother was?"
Chet's mother didn't stir from her post by the window, but she flinched when
Chet's father spoke. Chet swallowed hard.
"What did he want?"
"Never mind that! Sit the hell down and tell me where you've been and what the
hell you thought you were doing!"
Chet sat beside his father and stared at his hands. He knew he could outwait his
father. After half an hour, Chet's father
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