Luminarium by Alex Shakar Page B

have to sit with him until he came around to the fact that each new demand wasn’t impossible. Sam had improved over time, but the fluid condition of the project, the ever-evolving design and ever-shifting delegation of tasks, continued to bring out the worst of his anxiety. Life in their office was perhaps, for Sam, a kind of extended flashback to the chaos and uncertainty of their hand-to-mouth, bohemian childhood. It wasn’t until the partnership with Armation, with their feudal hierarchies and deadlines etched in stone, that Sam really began to thrive. Fred wondered if Sam had that much pull over there now, had ingratiated himself with the overlords to that considerable extent, and if so, to what extent he, Fred, should be feeling grateful for this.
    “Can I get it back?” he asked.
    “I sent out some feelers. There’s definitely damage that needs to be controlled. But there’s also sympathy out there. I think we could get you a meeting.”
    Sam waited.
    Fred waited.
    Which way?
    Maybe the millionth time he’d asked Inner George this question over the last few months. Dad and Sam must have talked this possibility over. On the van ride, Vartan had kept assuring Fred that George wouldn’t be alone, that their mother and he would be there every day, that no one knew how much longer this would go on, that Fred could still fly in on weekends. Perhaps—it wasn’t impossible—he might even be able to work out some kind of part-time arrangement and be here more. And maybe, too (though his guilt shut him down as soon as the notion arose), if he had to live down there part-time, if he couldn’t just get up and walk over to the hospital whenever he wanted, it might force him to start living his life again, at least a little.
    He tried to imagine it, moving down there, leaving George in that guardrailed bed, going back to work with his other brother and his coworkers and friends on building the world they’d all sunk their lives into, for the men who’d stolen it from them. He couldn’t imagine it. But he couldn’t imagine the alternatives, either. His imagination simply hit a wall.
    “Our first big playtest for the Empire State Building is next week,” Sam went on. “Half the Military-Entertainment Complex will be there, taking the tour. It would help to show up to that, put on your best face, smooth things over. Meanwhile, you could get back up to speed here.”
    Fred couldn’t make himself say yes. George was inside him, somewhere, freezing his muscles.
    How else will I pay your bills?
    I don’t know , said Inner George. Sell a kidney or two?
    Fred gave the slightest of nods. Sam responded with the same, his features tense from the negotiation. Fred couldn’t tell whether Sam was pleased or disturbed by the result. He seemed both.
    “Sam,” said Fred, “do you remember George ever using the word ‘avatara’?”
    Fred gauged the blankness of Sam’s stare. Fairly blank.
    “Like ‘avatar’ with an ‘a’?” Sam asked.
    “Never mind.”
    Sam’s eyes slicked again. “He didn’t speak, did he?”
    “No,” Fred said softly. “He didn’t speak.”
    Sam blinked a few times, mouth set in a line, then turned to his screen and clicked the buttons, a first to right the skyscraper, a second to bring it tumbling back down.
    The last time Fred had managed to drag himself in here to the office, he’d been unable to bring himself to log onto Urth and contemplate the latest transformations. Instead, he’d spent the afternoon reading an article on the Web about self-organized complexity, how Chemical As and Chemical Bs would naturally, on occasion, combine to produce Chemical ABs and Chemical BAs; how Chemical A and Chemical AB would then combine into AAB and ABA, and AAB would split into B and AA, leading in turn to Chemicals AAAA, BBBB, ABAB, BBAABBBABABABBBBA; how one in a billion of these chemical combinations would be the perfect catalyst for combining A and AB, or for breaking up ABA into B and AA, and