Beggars and Choosers Read Free Page A

of
long-term strategic planning, and the IRS auditor actually allowed it.
Nine fertilized embryos, all with expensive genemods. And then he and
Lisa decide they don’t want kids after all.”
    I gazed at the throwaway pile of pink fur on the sidewalk, and then
out at the wide blue Bay, and I made my decision. In that moment. As
quickly and irrationally as that.
    Like most of the rest of my life.
    “Do you know Colin Kowalski?” I asked Stephanie.
    She thought briefly. She had eidetic recall. “Yes, I think so.
    Sarah Goldman introduced us at some theater a few years ago. Tall,
with wavy brown hair? Minimal genemod, right? I don’t remember him as
handsome. Why? Is he your replacement for David?“
    “No.”
    “Wait a minute—isn’t he with the GSEA?”
    “Yes.”
    “I think I already mentioned,” Stephanie said stiffly, “that
Norman’s company had a special beta-test permit for Katous?”
    “No. You didn’t.”
    Stephanie chewed on her flawless lower lip. Actually, the permit is
pending. Diana—“
    “Don’t worry, Stephanie. I’m not going to report your dead
violation. I just thought you might know Colin. He’s giving an
extravagant Fourth of July party. I could get you an invitation.” I was
enjoying her discomfort.
    “I don’t think I’d be interested in a party hosted by a Purity Squad
agent. They’re always so stuffy. Guys who wrap up genetic rigidity in
the old red-white-and-blue and never see that the result looks like a
national prick. Or a nightstick, beating down innovation in the name of
fake patriotism. No thanks.”
    “You think the idealism is fake?”
    “Most patriotism is. Either that or Liver sentimentality. God, the
only thing bearable about this country comes from genemod technology.
Most Livers look like shit and behave worse—you yourself said you can’t
stand to be around them.”
    I had said that, yes. There were a lot of people I couldn’t stand to
be around.
    Stephanie was on a political roll, the kind that never made it to
campaign holovids. “Without the genemod brains in the security
enclaves, this would be a country of marching morons, incapable of even
basic survival. Personally, I think the best act of’patriotism‘ would
be a lethal genemod virus that wiped out everybody but donkeys. Livers
contribute nothing and drain off everything.”
    I said carefully, “Did I ever tell you that my mother was a Liver?
Who was killed fighting for the United States in the China Conflict?
She was a master sergeant.”
    Actually, my mother had died when I was two; I barely remembered
her. But Stephanie had the grace to look embarrassed. “No. And you
should have, before you let me give that tirade.
    But it doesn’t change anything.
You’re
a donkey. You’re
genemod. You do useful work.“
    This last was either generous or bitchy. I have done a variety of
work, none of it persistently useful. I have a theory about people who
end up with strings of short-term careers. It is, incidentally, the
same theory I have about people who end up with strings of short-term
lovers. With each one you inevitably hit a low point, not only within
the purported “love” affair or fresh occupation, but also within
yourself. This is because each new lover/job reveals fresh internal
inadequacy. With one you discover your capacity to be lazy; with
another, to be shrewish; with a third, to engage in frenzied hungry
ambition that appalls you with its pathetic neediness. The sum of too
many careers or too many lovers, then, is the same: a composite of
personal low points, a performance scattergram sinking inevitably to
the bottom right quadrant. All your weaknesses stand revealed. What one
lover or occupation missed, the next one will draw forth.
    In the last ten years, I have worked in security, in entertainment
holovids, in county politics, in furniture manufacture franchises (more
than one), in ‘bot law, in catering, in education, in applied
syncography, in sanitation. Nothing ventured,