The Last Book in the Universe Read Free

They say every stall was piled high with jewelry and fancy clothes and mysterious gizmos and lots of shiny things nobody really remembers anymore. They say there were stalls with ten thousand different kinds of choxbars instead of just the one. Probably that’s a lie about the choxbars, but I’d like to believe it. There are still a few traders at the Maxi, but they’re protected by bristlebars and cutwire, and the teks will beat you with stunstiks if you haven’t got anything worth trading.
    I’m keeping my distance when a takvee pulls up to one of the stalls. “Takvee” is slang for Tactical Urban Vehicle, the heavily armored, cyber-driven vans that proovs use to get around the Urb. If you’re paying attention, you already know a proov is a genetically improved human being. They’re the people who own the world, or at least the part of it they call Eden.
    You can always tell a proov because they’re all tall and beautiful and healthy-looking. The other way to tell a proov is how they look at you if you’re a normal. A proov can’t help shuddering inside when he sees a normal. We give them the creeps. We’re a reminder of what human beings are like when they’re not born perfect, and I guess if you’re a proov, the very idea of imperfection makes you want to throw up.
    Anyhow, a bunch of teks — that’s short for Technical Security Guards — get out of the takvee. Six of them, all talking to each other in their implanted headsets. When they take up positions and give the all-clear, the takvee doors fold down, and out comes this proov. A female dressed in a shimmering white gown that you can almost see through but not quite. She’s got beautiful gray sky–colored eyes, and perfect skin, and short hair that sort of glows, like the sun is always shining on her.
    I’m staring at her. You can’t help it with a proov. It makes me ache inside and feel scummy on the outside, like I should hide myself from her perfect eyes. But I don’t hide — there’s no place to go — and for some reason she notices me. Her hand goes up to her face and she touches her perfect ear. Communicating to the teks on her implant.
    I’m thinking, run, boy, they’re going to jolt you into a coma just for looking. But suddenly there’s a tek close behind and I can’t get away.
    â€œHalt!” he goes, and I do. Like most teks, he’s wearing a protective face mask, so I can’t see his expression. Is he going to jolt me with his stunstik or what? I’m bracing myself for the buzz and hoping it won’t set off spasms when he goes, “Follow me.”
    What he does is, he takes me to the proov. Which is like unheard of, a proov allowing a normal to approach. But that’s what happens. And I can see the proov girl is young, maybe my age. Proovs don’t wrinkle much, because of their genetically improved skin, but you can still tell whether they’re young or old, if you get close enough. And this one is definitely young, maybe fourteen or fifteen. And her teeth are white, not yellow like normal teeth. I wonder if all proovs have white teeth. So perfectly white.
    â€œDo you have a name?” she asks me.
    I want to say, What do you think, just because we’re not perfect, we don’t have names? But all I can manage to get out of my choked-up throat is, “Spaz.”
    â€œSpaz,” she says. Like she’s tasting it on her tongue, and isn’t sure if she likes it. “How odd. All of you seem to have such strange and interesting names down here in the latches.” Then she points to one of the teks and goes, “Provide for him,” and just like that she turns away and strides into the trade stall as if she’s already forgotten that I exist.
    Another tek pokes me in the back with a stunstik. The charge is set low so it doesn’t knock me down or anything. “Stop staring,