Clade

It's late, almost dusk, when Rigo finally gets off work, grabs a quick bite to eat at Salmon Ella's, and catches the Bay to Bay shuttle from Monterey to visit his ailing mother in San Jose.

The air in the train is full of sniffers, strings of broad-spectrum glycoproteins that are the molecular equivalent of flypaper. Rigo imagines he can feel them infiltrating his clothes, probing his asshole, prying underneath his fingernails for illegal moleculars. As a countermeasure, he's taken precautions. A few minutes before boarding, he dosed himself with antisense blockers, sticky proteins that will attach to the sniffers and cripple them as effectively as two dogs locked in a frenzied coupling.

Rigo finds an empty seat near the back of his pod and hunches against the window, a narrow ribbon of plastic bordered by a retail outlet for Armani bodyware on one side and a display case for Japanese bento meals on the other. The train is carrying commuters, starched suits and students taking classes at UCSC's Fort Ord extension. A few stare out the tinted bubble plastic, mesmerized by the blur of passing scenery, the fiery sunset that has turned the peeling bark of the eucalyptus trees into reddish tinder. Others browse the display case windows of various in-pod stores. But most of the passengers are interfaced with their information agents, sending and receiving e-mail, tuned to music, news, or digital video downloads. For the most part, people keep to themselves, hidden behind the cellophane eyescreens of their wraparounds and shades, talking only to their IAs or to themselves over the soft insect buzz of flitcams.

It makes for a quiet trip.

At Blossom Hill Road, the pod detaches from the train and Rigo's in terra cognita. Stepping from the pod, into the dissonant jungle of scents and sounds where he grew up is like slipping into a pair of ill-fitting clothes he's outgrown. The fabric of his well-being pinches uncomfortably at the seams.

He doesn't belong here. Not like Beto, who never left. But for some reason, he can't seem to break free. Something is always dragging him back. It's as if there's no escape from the place, or who he was.

Rigo checks the time. Six-fifteen.

The neighborhood is just beginning to rouse itself from catlike slumber. T'gueres are beginning to prowl their territories, looking for customers. In another few hours the streets of the barrio will be raging. Rigo can feel the energy building up, like ozone, the air getting ready to crackle, filled with the wild spray of photons.

Sweat breaks out under his arms. His neck feels clammy.

Place hasn't changed much since he was a kid. Sure, new buildings have grown in, like weeds, to replace those that have been torn down--but many of the stores, aps, and residential houses are no different. Some have undergone cosmetic changes, retrofits for solar panels, humidity collectors, photovoltaic windows, and piezoelectric siding, to make them more energy efficient and ecologically sound. Chihuahua Noodles is still on the corner next to OD, the Online Discount store, The Steak Out, and w@ng's tattune parlor. But there are a lot more restaurants and stores that cater only to clade-specific clientele. He passes a dance salon that exudes a floral aroma that makes his eyes water; his skin itches as he approaches the open doorway of a wine-tasting club. The watery eyes and itch warn him to steer clear, advise him in no uncertain terms that he's persona non grata.

Rigo hurries on, rubs his arms through his sprayon shirt. Breathes in the dusty-olive smell of circuitrees, the roasted almond aroma of umbrella palms and other gengineered flora developed after the ecocaust. In addition to preventing total climactic collapse, public-domain ecotecture generates heat and electricity, purifies water, filters air, blocks UV rays, and provides a variety of other civic services, including waste disposal and bioremediation. Of course, a lot of private-domain ecotecture has been added over the years, creating a real laissez-faire biosystem that's nearly as diverse as the one it replaced.

The t'gueres eye him warily, yet keep their distance. They spec he's not one of them but seem to know that he belongs here, is part of the ghetto community. It's as if he's still scented with his past. They can smell it on him, and recognize the odor as their own. Out of habit, his face hardens, his lips press tight, his eyes steel, and his jaw muscles bunch. As long as he keeps to himself, doesn't make direct eye contact, they won't be tempted to challenge him.

"Rigo?" his information agent says. The cochlear whisper is a nagging high-pitched whine marinated in a nondescript Asian accent mined from the mediasphere.

"What is it?" he asks, annoyed. As luck would have it, he ended up with a neurotic older sister for an IA. Varda.

"What are you trying to conceal on your person?" the nosy hyperware asks.