Stupid Perfect World

Two

IT’S NOT LIKE KIERAN Black was cute or anything.

His outdoorsy mania had a certain charm, the way he teleported to classes straight from Antarctica, icicles clinging to his hair, lips freshly chapped by freezing winds. And he’d been attractively clueless that day, not realizing that hanging out at the South Pole was pretty much a Scarcity project already. I mean, who went outside in the cold these days?

So when class ended, I decided to take pity on him.

“Need some help?” I offered. “In my Bio unit, we have this hamster who sleeps.”

Kieran looked at me like he thought I was teasing him again, but then gave a tiny nod. Our projects were supposed to start right away, and he probably didn’t know the first thing about getting to sleep.

Sho Walters strolled past us and whacked Kieran’s shoulder. “Sweet project, bud. Lying there doing nothing.”

“Pretty good one, huh?” Kieran said, punching back. “But it isn’t like forgetting to eat is so hard.”

“Hey, I enjoy eating!” Sho called, then gave me a funny look as he slipped out into the hall.

I rolled my eyes, wondering if this outreach program was pointless. Sho lived by the rules that schoolwork was stupid, understanding was overrated, and effort was for meekers. If Kieran was the same way, I didn’t have time for posturing.

But then he muttered, “And I enjoy not lying around. I’ve got a snow habitat to build.”

I smiled. A snow habitat? Maybe this boy was worth my effort.

As the last few students slipped out of the classroom, a bemused look settled on Kieran’s face. “So is that all you do when you sleep? Lie there doing nothing?”

“That’s what Mikey the hamster does,” I said. “He breathes, but that’s about it.”

“Yeah, but he’s a hamster. Didn’t people back then get really bored?”

“You can’t be bored when you’re unconscious, silly.”

“Oh, right, unconscious. So like when you get major surgery.”

“No, it’s like…” I shook my head. “Kieran, you didn’t do any research on this, did you?”

“Not really. I was busy all weekend.”

“How did you even manage to come up with sleep?”

“Well, it’s in this play we’re doing. This psycho prince guy is thinking about suicide, and saying how death might not be so bad, because he figures it’s like sleep.” He shrugged. “So I figured it couldn’t totally suck.”

“You’ve read Hamlet?” I said, perplexed. Could Kieran Black possess hidden depths? Sure, he’d just called the greatest character in literature “this psycho prince guy,” but still.

“Yeah, I can read,” he said. “Didn’t mean to shock you. Maybe you thought I ran around in a little wheel all day?”

“Oh, that would be so cute.”

He rolled his eyes at me, then glanced into headspace and sighed. “We should get going. For the next two weeks, I’m wasting three hours a day.”

I took Kieran straight to my Bio classroom, which had both a hamster and a customizing engine for bioframes. I already had the program that would shut down my hormone balancers—those little widgets that keep us calm and collected and boring all the time.

Teen angst, here I come.

A few other people from Scarcity were already there, needing the engine to switch off immune defenses and organ repair. The machine’s AI was taking forever, checking permission slips and running simulations to make sure no one altered their bioframe in a lethal or illegal way. And, of course, Barefoot Tillman had managed to be first in line.

Kieran wandered over to Mikey’s habitat and looked down at his little quivering form. “Is he asleep right now?”

I stuck a finger through the confining field, and Mikey sniffed it.

“Nope. Just resting. See how his little eyes are open?”

Kieran reached through gingerly and stroked the hamster’s fur. Mikey stirred, then settled back down.

“Hey, his eyes just closed! So he’s asleep now?”

I sighed. “I think it takes longer than two seconds, Kieran. In old stories, sometimes people can’t get to sleep at all, like if they’re worked up about emotional stuff. It’s called ‘tossing and turning.’”

He looked up at me. “How do you know all this stuff, anyway?”

“Just from reading historicals, I guess. It’s awesome how their emotions worked back then. They’d have these little bouts of temporary insanity all the time.” I watched his finger run down Mikey’s back. “Just meeting a cute guy or girl could make them go crazy.”

“That still happens,” he said. “I forgot about this project just because Barefoot Tillman talked to me.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” I snapped. “Barefoot’s just distracting, not epic at all. Back then, it was screaming fights and weeping for hours. Pulling your hair out. Tossing and turning all night.”

He laughed. “Sounds like a pain.”

“Don’t you pay any attention in Scarcity? Pain’s a good thing. That’s why we never cured it.”

“Oh, right. Nature’s way of saying, ‘Get your hand out of the fire, doofus!’” As he spoke, Kieran lifted his fingers gently from the confinement field.

Mikey looked like he might actually be asleep now. I guess Kieran had pretty decent hamster-wrangling skills. I let myself smile, my annoyance on the Barefoot Tillman issue settling.

“Is that why you want to do that hormone thing?” Kieran asked. “To go crazy?”

“Well…not totally crazy. But don’t you ever wonder what it would be like to feel how they did back then? Especially people our age. It was more extreme, more…dramatic. I mean, why do you go down to the South Pole and put up with that freezing cold? Because it’s intense, right?”

Kieran was staring down at the dozing hamster. “Yeah. But cold doesn’t make me lose my mind.”

“Still, it’s something no one else feels. Not these days.”

“I guess.” He shrugged and smiled. “Just don’t get too crazy and drown yourself, Maria. Or write any poetry.”

I had to laugh. “Don’t worry, I’ll try not to go completely Ophelia. As long as I don’t meet any psycho prince guys in the next two weeks.”

The line for the customizing engine was winding down. People headed out for the rest of their afternoon classes, a few laughing nervously. Dan Stratovaria was rubbing his eyes, as if trying to feel the long-extinct worms growing inside them.

I was a little anxious myself, now that my moment of hormonal imbalance was actually at hand. The next two weeks would probably be embarrassing. Though my bioframe wouldn’t let me kill myself, there was a definite danger of poetry….

“Come on, let’s do some research.” I flicked headspace up to full, the Bio room and Mikey’s habitat fading in front of my eyes. “If we don’t figure out how sleep works, you’re going to be tossing and turning all night.”