Holy Fire - Bruce Sterling [18]
“They’re very interesting designs,” Mia said. They were very peculiar.
“You like them, really?”
“Of course I do.” Mia pulled a red jacket from its hanger. It was made of a puffy spun plastic with tactile properties somewhere between leather, canvas, and some kind of chewable gelatin candy. Most of the jacket was candy-apple red, but there were large patches of murky blue on the elbows, neck, and hem. It had a lot of fat buttoned pockets, and a waterproof red rain hood crushed down inside a lumpy collar.
“See how well it holds its shape?” Brett boasted. “And it doesn’t even have batteries. It’s all in the cut and the weave. Plus the Young’s modulus of the fiber.”
“What’s it made of?”
“Elastomers and polymers. A little woven ceramic for the high-wear spots. See, it’s durable all-weather street-wear, just right for travel! Try it on!”
Mia slipped her arms through the padded sleeves. Brett busied herself tugging at the shoulders, then zipped it up to Mia’s chin. “It fits great!” Brett declared. It did no such thing. Mia felt as if she’d been stuffed into a monstrous fruitcake.
Mia stepped before a narrow full-length mirror in another corner. There she saw a stranger improbably swaddled in a garish candied jacket. Maya the Gingerbread Girl. She put on her sunglasses. With the glasses, and with sufficiently bad light, she might almost look young—a very tired, puffy, sickly young woman in a kid’s ridiculous jacket. Wearing improbably tidy, adult, and conservative slacks and shoes.
Mia jammed her fingers through her hair, shook her head, and destroyed her coiffure.
“That helps,” she said, peering at the mirror.
Brett was surprised, and laughed.
“What a lovely jacket. What else could I ever need?”
“Better shoes,” Brett told her very seriously. “A skirt. Long earrings. No purse, get a backpack. Real lipstick, not that medicated little-old-lady stuff. Nail polish. Barrettes. Necklaces. No girdle. No brassiere, if you can help it. Especially no watch.” She paused. “And sway some more when you walk. Put some bounce in it.”
“That seems like rather a lot.”
Brett shrugged. “Looking vivid is mostly things you don’t have to get and don’t have to do.”
“I don’t have the cheekbones for that kind of life anymore,” Mia said. “I talk too slowly. I don’t wave my hands enough. I don’t giggle. If I tried to dance, I’d ache for a week.”
“You don’t have to dance. I could make you look really vivid if you wanted me to. I’m pretty good at that. I have a talent. Everyone says so.”
“I’m sure you could do that, Brett. But why would I want you to?”
Brett was bitterly crestfallen. Mia felt a sharp pang of guilt at having disappointed her. It was as if she’d deliberately slapped a small child in the street. “I do want the jacket,” Mia said. “I’m fond of it, I want to buy it from you.”
“You do, really?”
“Yes, really.”
“Could you give me some grown-up money for it?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I mean real money from a long-term investment account,” Brett said. “Certified funds.”
“But certified funds are only for special transactions. Life extension, stock ownership, pensions, that sort of thing.”
“No, they’re not. Certified money is the real money for the real economy. It’s the kind of money that kids like Griff and me can never get our hands on.” Brett’s young-girl eyes—warm amber brown, with sclera so white and clear that they looked almost artificial—narrowed cagily. “You don’t have to give me very much real money at all. I’d feel real happy with just a little bit of certified grown-up money.”
“I’d like to give you some,” Mia said, “but I don’t have any way to do that. Of course I do have certified funds in my own name, but they’re all tied up in long-term capital investments, like they’re supposed to be. Nobody uses that kind of financial instrument for little