Read Transhuman for Free Online Page B

that the photo on his badge showed had been headed for handsome but never quite made it. The preprinted part of the badge read "Bobby Stevens"; someone had written "Deacon" in magic marker just below the name. Bobby stared at Tom, took a pull from a beer that was barely visible in his large hand, and waited for a reply. Tom stared back.
    Bobby cracked first and tried again. "I knew everybody at Peterson, but I don't know you." Tom wanted to bolt, run home, and hide, but he had known this could happen and had prepared himself. Forcing a smile, he said, "Sorry, there were a lot of us." Seven hundred eight students had graduated from Peterson that year, one of the reasons Tom had felt safe coming. "We must not have taken many of the same classes."
    Lindy and a second person, a short, medium-weight woman with red hair, tried to squeeze past Bobby and failed. The second woman, Angela Wilson according to her badge, playfully punched Bobby in the arm, and Bobby took the hint. He stepped out of the way. "Yeah, I guess that's it," he said. Tom kept smiling, said, "Have a good night," for good measure added, "Go Patriots," and joined the people wandering in the room. He was sure Bobby was staring at him, but he did not turn around. If Bobby was the investigator he had long feared his creators might dispatch to check on him, his best option was to finish the party and go home as he normally would; any damage he could do was already done. Besides, Tom told himself, Bobby was almost certainly no more than a drunk ex-jock looking to cause a little trouble.
    Though he had never been in this hotel before, the banquet hall could have been any of the rooms from the earlier reunions he had attended. A plywood and two-by-four white bandstand filled the center third of the front of the room. Speakers sat in stacks on either side of it, blaring Top 100 fare Tom knew even though he also knew he had never heard the songs before his first reunion. Banners over the stage proclaimed it the temporary home of the Greensboro Party Boys. The bandstand was empty, the Party Boys not yet at work. A portable parquet dance floor covered the carpet in front of the bandstand. Two rows of chairs lined the opposite side of the floor. Round tables filled the rest of the room. On each sat eight place settings and a vase that held a small, obviously plastic bouquet. Two balloons, one pink and one blue, floated above each vase. The air was thick and the room already warming despite the dim lighting, its air conditioners losing the battle with the body heat of the Peterson alumni. Tom went to a small bar in the corner and bought two glasses of ginger ale. He was afraid to drink alcoholic beverages at reunions, unwilling to surrender even a little control. The second glass marked him as someone waiting for a companion and frequently discouraged potential visitors. He looked around until he found the door the wait staff used to enter and leave the room, then sat at the table closest to it. Tables near the kitchen were always the last to fill up. He sipped his drink and watched the crowd. The group had grown since his arrival, and so had the activity level. Almost everyone was checking out someone else. Those few sitting alone scanned the crowd like hungry hunters desperate for game, their chests turned outward to afford standing onlookers the best possible views of their badges. Shrieks of recognition preceded hugs and kisses that never quite touched cheeks. Everywhere Tom saw people recognizing other people, talking, concentrating, focusing hard as they grabbed their pasts, time-traveling, even if only for a moment, to younger years.
    The woman who had been working the front door appeared on the dance floor, a microphone in her hand. "Time for the class picture, everyone. Women on the chairs, front row sitting, back row kneeling. Men in two rows behind them, shorter in the front. Come on, everybody, let's go." For the first time since he began attending reunions, Tom did