Hard, Soft and Wet. Melanie McGrath

      ‘I dunno,’ I say by way of reply. ‘Ask me later.’

      

      We decide to stop off for dinner at ‘the place everyone in new tech is talking about’, the Icon Byte Grill in the SoMa district of San Francisco, or Multimedia Gulch as it’s becoming known. Nancy, multimedia glamour puss that she is, was invited to the opening party, but it was so full of movie types cooking up white lines and special-effects deals that she couldn’t get inside the door. She had no choice but to turn around, go home and eat a tub of Ben & Jerry’s instead.

      ‘We’re going to have to go, Nance,’ I say, spotting the themed menu. ‘I refuse to ask for circuitboard chips, or whatever.’

      ‘Aw, c’mon,’ says Nancy, looking peevish. ‘It’s no big deal.’

      ‘I hate themes. They’re so, oh I don’t know, undignified.’

      I hear myself whining to go to McDonald’s, like some sullen teen.

      ‘McDonald’s? Like McDonald’s is dignified?’

      ‘No.’ I’m stuck in some impenetrable psychological groove. ‘McDonald’s apple pie is though.’

      This is the final straw for Nancy. Some weird, dark corner of her psyche launches into a white-hot diatribe about how little right I have to complain, and what a conservative little snob I am, and so on. Blah blah blah.

      ‘I can’t believe it,’ she says finally, calming down. ‘You’re in complete denial of the wave of change going on here. In any case, a touch of theming is like, so what? Big deal.’

      To save the peace I cave in and adopt a humbled air. We agree to stay and Nancy orders for me, but the evening isn’t exactly what anyone might call a pile of fun. And I still think themed menus are ridiculous and humiliating. But one thing is for sure and that is whatever is awry between Nancy and me, a themed menu is the least of it.

      SATURDAY

       Completely pointless detail

      Walnut Creek, California. No walnut trees and no creeks, only row after row of Contemporary Mediterraneans with yard pools and mulberry trees backed up along the suburban streets.

      Nancy refused to come. Says she hates the suburbs. Strawberry Point, where Nancy lives, is not a suburb, despite looking suspiciously like one, but rather a spread of coastal brush with occasional urban fill-in. Personally, I don’t care what she calls home. I’ve nothing much against suburbs anyway. They appear bland, but that’s just surface skim. Underneath, they’re the same heaving mess of calamities and cock-ups as everywhere else. Besides, I have a little mission these days. To explore new worlds and seek out new civilizations. To boldly face the future, as it were.

      And to that end I’m sitting in the Virtual World Entertainment Center on the main street in suburban Walnut Creek, waiting my turn to be entertained, and making conversation of sorts with my two new friends, Todd and Jim, to pass the time. Todd, a boy of about seventeen, thin and angular, with the jawline of SS officers in war movies, is doing his damnedest to impress.

      ‘C’mon, Todd,’ I say, faintly wishing I were somewhere else, ‘you’re too young to have been in the marines when they stormed Grenada.’

      Todd appeals to the boy next to him.

      Jim, six inches shorter and still ablaze with shyness, shrugs in a noncommittal way. ‘Whatever.’ And with that he dunks himself back in the Virtual Geographic League Battletech Manual lying on his lap.

      Todd throws back his Coke, addresses himself to me:

      ‘So you’re a rookie, huh? First time?’

      ‘Uh huh.’

      ‘Ha,’ laughs Todd, shaking his head. ‘Rookie!’

      I smile back.

      ‘Yeah, ha,’ I say.

      We sit in silence. A perky little grin spreads over Todd’s face, indicating a fresh idea for conversation.

      ‘Hey.’ He grabs my wrist, registers its small size then drops it, embarrassed. ‘Hey, see this flight suit?’ He smoothes an outsized palm across his chest. ‘Genuine Foreign Legion it is, I swear.’

      I smile back and nod indulgently, thinking that if Nancy were in my place right now, she’d be having one of her fits about suburban militia enclaves full of inbred NRA types stashing away semi-automatics fast as Imelda M clocks up kitten heels.

      ‘I sent off for it in the Survivalist,’ continues Todd. ‘I wear it for luck.’

      The Survivalist?

      ‘Listen,’ I scan the bar, trying to find an excuse to escape, ‘I think I’ll just take a look around.’

      ‘Yeah,’ says Todd, ignoring me. ‘This’ll be my fifty-fifth mission.’

      ‘No kidding?’ The Americanism tumbles from my tongue without anyone else noticing. It feels awkward and sly, like using a lover’s nickname for the first time, but good all the same. No kidding. Neat.

      ‘Hey,’ says Todd, pointing to his circle of bar snacks. ‘Want one of my Tesla Coil fries and some Solarian salsa?’

      

      I’m not sure Virtual World Entertainment Centers exist as yet in Britain. But they will. In Britain and all over. Give it a year or two and there’ll be Virtual World Entertainment Centers in every major city from Uzbekistan to Angola. Since Tim Disney, nephew of Walt, and his partners took over the Virtual World Entertainment company a couple of years ago, centres exactly like this one have spread out over suburban America as fast as prickly heat, ‘and now constitute one of the peaks of the suburban entertainment landscape,’ according to Nancy’s memory of some article in Marketing America.

      A strange sort of nostalgia pervades the room, running alongside the futurism. The walls are clad in fake wood panelling with brass wall lights; grim Victorian-style armchairs dominate a space presided over by yawing prints of Howard Hughes, Amelia Earhart, Sir Richard Burton and Charles Lindbergh. Old-time heroes.

      

      Back at the bar, Todd has turned his attentions to Jim. ‘I still say that the T6 is the übermech. People go out in Loki5s because they can’t handle the idea of hand-to-hand combat is all. The Loki5 is a chicken’s machine.’

      I take up my stool again, feeling slightly foolish since it’s perfectly obvious that Todd and Jim are just two lonesome Joes looking for a life, like a zillion other teenage boys, and really not the crazed splatter-brats I’d momentarily imagined them to be.

      ‘What is a T6? And what’s a Loki5?’

      Jim looks up from his manual, puzzled and faintly disgusted. Todd just gives me the eye and says:

      ‘Like, hello …?’ in a tone hinting at disbelief.

      ‘Well?’

      ‘Mechs, robots, you know, the things you fight in.’ He slaps his forehead with the palm of his hand. ‘Man. Rookies! Listen, all you need to know at this stage is to select a Loki5. They’re easiest to handle. Then remember to keep your crosshairs on the black spots and don’t go up the ramps.’

      ‘Why not?’ I ask, returning the gaze.

      ‘It’s dangerous, man,’ says Todd, raising his eyes to the heavens. ‘Read the manual.’

      The year is 3050. Man has colonized the universe. The one great Star League has degenerated into a corrupt feudal society riven by petty rivalries. Life is cheap. War is constant. Mercenaries equipped with futuristic two-legged tanks called BattleMechs drift from planet to planet fighting for whoever offers the most cash.

      Like the jousting tournaments of old,