Analog SFF, March 2012 by Dell Magazine Authors Page A

Sometimes artfully, sometimes not.
    There were never any other men. My father was either the one true love she'd lost or such a jerk she'd sworn off men forever.
    Whatever his flaws, I chose to believe the former. But what, then, to make of her assertions about me? How could anyone live up? It was better not to try.
    * * * *
    The next alarm was the most inconvenient yet. Let's just say Allison wasn't amused when flickering yellow starbursts appeared on the back of my hands and I told her I had to call Momma.
    That was when I realized my secret-agent charade was too arcane. There are phrases which, even if uttered with a good, prefatory damn are first-class mood killers. From then on, I vowed, I was referring to H.S. simply as that.
    It turned out to be something in Allison's perfume. Nobody told me what, but it was the last I saw of Allison. Which was a real loss. Things between us had just been getting interesting when her apartment was invaded by lab techs and the evening degenerated into tears. Hers, not mine or the techs'. Though by the end I was ready to join in. Allison was the most beautiful woman I'd ever dated. Then suddenly she was gone, just because of a bunch of stupid yellow stars.
    By then, I was wondering if everything was a false alarm. Maybe false alarms were what kept the economy running. Just how many people like me were there? Every time something happened, we called Momma, who summoned a legion of techs.
    Someone once defined economic stimulus as pouring money down a rat hole. Any rat hole will do. Mars exploration? Low-income housing? Analytical-chem ‘wear? As far as the economy's concerned, it really didn't matter, so long as it can snarf up endless cash.
    But of course, I wasn't about to voice that. I still needed the job and Momma might be listening. Terrorists or not, there are always subversives.
    * * * *
    My mother wasn't a subversive. She was barely political. Just as I never knew my father, I never knew which way she voted.
    What I do know is that she respected people, not political slogans. Not just me, but the neighbors, even when their dog barked. The guy who lived in the decrepit motor home in the church lot next door and made his living Dumpster diving? My mother made him snickerdoodles. She with the watch that once was always three-quarters past happy.
    I also know she abhorred the early nanospam. It wasn't adwear as we know it today; it was mostly pranks. Things that could make your forehead break out with weird slogans: anything from “I want to believe” to “Check out this man's manhood,” the latter triggered by the heat and humidity of a high school locker room. Believe me, I know. I was on the receiving end of both.
    That stuff was illegal, for all the good it did. There's only one real way to rid the world of spam, and that's for folks with big bucks to want a share. Or the government. You and me? We can't do much about the hacker-jacks. Billionaires? They'll clear the amateurs out of the way every time, then tell you you've consented to their ‘wear when you buy the products that made them rich.
    At least the government pays . Apparently there's something in the Bill of Rights about it, though I'll be damned how George Washington and all those guys managed to envision nanowear. Maybe those Supreme Court justices everyone loves to hate made it up. “Due process?” “Private property?” It's not like I'm uneducated. It's just that, like my mother, I'm not political. All I know is it's better to be paid.
    * * * *
    Allison was followed by Dinah. She wasn't as pretty, but she had a better body. And she was classy. As in year-in-England classy, with a sort of mid-Atlantic accent that made you think maybe she was Canadian. Or upper-crust Manhattan. House in the Hamptons, sailboats, tennis pros, that type of thing.
    Actually she was from D.C. and the class had come by hard work. Kind of like three-quarters-past-happy turning digital. And yeah, I know about Oedipus and all that. I