Phreak

Contents

Astrochimp

Moon

Phreaking

Skrod

Overpass

Layla

Hell

Vampire

Torchbearer

World

Hack

Acknowledgements

for my father

Astrochimp

THERE IS A PLACE on the Map of My Life, situated in The Past, that is my Childhood. At Childhood there are tall fences; there’s the old grey tenement House. Around back there’s a wild, tangled Garden and on the edge of that, out behind The Shed, there’s a web of complicated paths. The paths lead into The Darkness and if you go down the wrong one you wind up in a Sink Hole. At the very edge of Childhood, on the threshold of the Teenage Pain Belt, there’s a high wall of empty cages. I visit these places on the Map often, enhancing the details, adding new elements, and searching for clues.

Dad is a Trivia Master and he has the awards to prove it. Rising up through the ranks of the mainstream trivia world is no small feat either. There are only twenty-two Trivia Masters on the whole Island and less than a thousand worldwide.

Dad’s hunger for trivia is insatiable. He dedicates all of his spare time to collecting and memorizing facts and statistics and spends his weekends studying online. He prints his research on paper and pores over the documents, scanning for any errors. Then he encases each page using his home lamination machine.

Always have a good, clean hard copy. If I manage to teach you one thing in life, let it be that.

His collected trivia is housed in thick multicoloured binders, indexed and alphabetized on a set of shelves in the shed. The collection covers a range of topics—world records, capital cities, historical events, and dozens of binders filled with music trivia.

Dad has a set of special black binders that document statistics and facts concerning the different animals scientists use in research laboratories. He can tell you how many rats have died in scientific experiments every year, by country.

He often describes, in searing detail, the experiments scientists have developed for the rats—how they take their tongs, pick the rats up by their tails, and drop them into tanks of cold water. How they stare at their stopwatches, timing the rats to see how long it takes them to drown. And then how they stand around the tanks inputting the resulting data on their tablets.

In other experiments they inject the rats’ blood with chemicals to study the effects of different products and poisons. Or they infect the rats with diseases and hang them upside down while opening up their brains. In the latest breakthrough they’ve been growing human parts on the rats’ living bodies.

There are thousands of people walking around very grateful to have new ears and fingers. Isn’t science amazing, kids!

One of Dad’s favourite areas of study is the wide array of animals the world’s space programs have been sending into orbit. It’s his most recent obsession and we hear all about it again tonight, at the dinner table. Dad sharpens the carving knife with his usual dramatic flair, dragging the whetting wand across the blade until it’s razor sharp, and then he sets in cutting up the roasted Cluck.

Many of our space animals didn’t make it out alive. Some were suffocated—there’s no air in space, kids. Most of them exploded on impact or burned up coming back through the atmosphere. Who wants a wing?

It’s just a regular Cluck, so today there are only four wings. Sometimes we get the Cluck Deluxe, which has twelve wings, but that’s for special occasions. Prue wants a wing and so does my mother. I pull a wing off for myself as Dad goes straight for the breast meat. That leaves one wing for Prue and me to fight over later.

Now, one of the first animals launched into space was a little white mouse. Imagine that, kids, a little white mouse in an itty-bitty spaceship. It didn’t survive the journey, though. Suffocated when its capsule ran out of air. Poor mouse. They didn’t think too far ahead in those days. Because they lacked … Prue, what did they lack?

Foresight.

Correct!

I reach across the table to snatch the last wing from the Cluck. There’s a flash of silver and a sharp pain as my mother cracks me across the knuckles with the butt end of her knife. A fraction of a second later she’s cutting up a piece of food on her plate. She doesn’t bat an eyelash and as the welt rises across the back of my hand, I can’t help but marvel at her skill.

I rub my bruising knuckles and Dad continues carving up the breast, ignoring the commotion.

Then came the first chimpanzee in space.

We know this of course, having been told the story many, many times. Nonetheless, Dad lowers his voice and begins the tale, as if letting us in on a grim secret.

Far across the ocean, kids, on the other side of the world, a young chimpanzee was playing in the trees with his brothers and sisters when he was caught up in a net—a net laid by a gang of trappers. The chimp cried and thrashed about but it was no use. The trappers came along by and by and they put the chimp in a crate and sold him to a research lab down south. The Special Forces recruited him a year later. He spent five and a half years in training before being launched into orbit in his very own space capsule.

Dad’s always saying that one day he’s going to take us to see the Astrochimp for ourselves, at the Wunderland Exhibit in the Capital. All the chimps who go into space wind up in zoos or museums. The Astrochimp, Dad told us, had a female counterpart who trained for space alongside him. She didn’t make it into orbit though. She lived most of her life as a breeder for the Special Forces. She was busy producing and rearing baby chimps for the military until she was forty-one. She’s on exhibit now at the Aerospace Museum.

Dad sharpens his carving knife again and slices off two slabs of Cluck.

It’s the babies they send into space and put in the movies. An adult chimp has big fangs and is four times stronger than any human.

A grown chimp would tear the face off you, so they need to use them when they’re still babies.

My mother speaks very matter of factly as she cuts her food. Dad pauses, resenting her interruption. After holding the moment extra long, he continues with his lecture.

The Astrochimp was the first ape in space but, as you know, the very first animal sent into orbit was a dog. A stray dog.

I’d always pictured a miniature spaceship and a dog in a spacesuit with a round glass helmet. The reality, as Dad was about to act out in grisly detail, was different.

The dog didn’t have a spacesuit, kids. She was strapped into a harness inside the capsule and she suffocated in a few hours because the capsule ran out of oxygen.

He stops, bringing a hand to his throat, and feigns choking. Then he undoes his shirt buttons and starts pretend wheezing. And it was very hot. So hot, kids. The poor dog, she didn’t know what to do, there was no way out!

Here he smiles at Prue and me, and then resumes piling meat onto his fork. She went around and around in orbit as a dead body and her capsule burned up on the way back through the atmosphere. She was turned into cinders. Either way, the poor dog was doomed.

I look up from the pile of little bones and the stringy Green Beanz left on my plate.

Doomed?

Don’t you remember the policy? I told you about it last week.

He’s tucked a wad of half-chewed food into his cheek and talks out of one side of his mouth.

Back in the day the scientists would poison their space animals when they got back.

But why?

They had good reasons. Scientific reasons. Classified information, kids.

Through Dad’s dinnertime stories I know that the different world governments have sent multitudes of critters up into space—mice, guinea pigs, frogs. Some have sent rats, tortoises, fruit flies; others, Cluck embryos, lemurs, ant colonies. The superpowers, it seems, have been endlessly competing to see who can send the most diverse array of wildlife into orbit. On one of the space stations they’re experimenting with the effects of gravity on giraffes.

Get your paws off the fuckin’ bird! Mom swipes me across the jaw with the back of her hand. It makes my ears ring. Prue tries to suppress a gleeful laugh but she can’t. Now Dad will try to give Mom some space and insist on extra-long trivia drills after supper. Tonight, like every night, Dad will force Prue and me to stand at attention on the back lot and compete in trivia rounds.

What is the capital of Zania? Prue?

Mira City.

The capital of Zania is Mira City.

Good, Prue.

Prue always wins the trivia rounds. I know the answers just as often but I don’t have the competitive spirit. Also, I resent being put into high-pressure situations against my will. Prue loves to win and she thinks she’s better and faster than me at everything. She was born first, just eleven months before me, and is always lording that over my head. As if that means a thing.

We came late in life for our parents. They met when they were older and then it took them years to get all their documents approved. By the time Prue was born Mom said she was already worn out. She said she cried and cried when she found out she was pregnant with me. According to family lore, Prue was not happy either. She threw a week-long tantrum when they brought me home. And later, when she learned to walk, she climbed into my crib and tried to smother me with her blankie.

Things aren’t that much better now. She delights in my misfortunes and trips me up whenever she can get away with it, which is most of the time. Even though Prue is half vicious, people still ooh and aah over her delicate bone structure and her pretty face.

She’s just exquisite!

Look at those eyes!

Mom is forever gloating about Prue’s beautiful colouring, her dark hair and big eyes, her smooth complexion. She also likes to boast about Prue’s aptitude with numbers and that Prue just knows how to make things.

She gets that from my side of the family.

Exceptional genes are one of Mom’s favourite bragging points and she equates all of our good qualities with her bloodline. My unfortunate features come from Dad’s side. Mom says my colouring is just blah—boring eyes and hair so thin and nondescript she says it doesn’t even qualify as a colour. Mom can be pretty mean, too. Probably where Prue gets it. Meanness runs through genes as well.

When angered Mom curses like a drunken longshoreman. I’ve learned to tell how pissed she is by how elaborately the curses come out. So if it’s something gentle like sweet buggeration it’s okay, but if it’s sheezly, flip-flopping, motherfucking cocksucker it’s time for everyone to scatter to the four corners as she comes barrelling through the house, a hairbrush or wooden spoon poised to swat at someone.

Sometimes it’s harder to gauge. She can go off on a twenty-minute tirade—Shit me, fuck me, cock me, cunt me—because she can’t find her wallet. I’ve learned to steel myself against the sharp edges of her words but still, there are times when the curses run through me like a buzzsaw.

When she’s happy with you she’ll say, You are so gorgeous, I could squash the frigging life right out of you! Or she’ll tell us she wants to eat our faces off. This is her way of saying she loves us. I’m repelled, but part of me longs for this approval. It’s a strange, disquieting comfort that I find in her arms.

Dad has never missed a Trivia Club meeting and every spring and fall we go to watch him in the regional competitions. After his tenth straight win he qualified to compete in the national Trivia Warz championships for the title of Trivia Master.

On the day of the taping we arrived early at the stadium. Mom and Prue and I sat in our seats in the second-to-last row while Dad went backstage to get into makeup. The stadium had a capacity of fifty thousand, and soon it was filled to the rafters with animated mobs of people. When they were all seated, talking and taking videos, the crowd morphed into one being—a creature with a multitude of mouths and thousands of eyes of light. The voices thrummed together with a sound that yawned like a bottomless pit.

The lights lowered and the announcer, Phatty Knight, dressed in a shiny silver suit, came bounding onto the stage. He stepped into the spotlight.

Welcome to Trivia Warzzzzzz!

Phatty lifted his fist into the air and the crowd, now a seething shadow in the dark, cheered with one voice.

Welcome, studio audience, are you ready for some trivia?!

The shadow erupted into cheers.

I can’t hear you!

The crowd rose to its feet and the sound it made was deafening.

Keep it going, my friends, and give it up for the host of tonight’s show, Danni Damson!

Musical fanfare filled the room and the stage came to life with glitter and lights. Danni Damson sailed out in a glistening ivory pantsuit, cool and composed, a mane of silver-white curls flowing behind her. Dad had always called her a class act.

Danni purred and welcomed the audience and then introduced the players. Dad’s eyes were two saucers as he strode out onto the stage and took his place on the lighted platform. The other contestants—Jako, a middle-aged man, and Yasmin, a college student—stood on either side of Dad, and the game started with a zinging round of snappers. Dad did not let another competitor get to the buzzer.

What chemical element begins with the letter Q?

Quantium.

Correct. What famous engineer invented the Hydro Compressor?

Winnie Darl.

Correct. How many orbiting satellites control the Integrated Grid Network?

Three.

Correct. What is the nearest star to our planet?

The Sun.

Well done, that was a trick question!

Danni winked at Dad.

Dad stayed on top throughout the whole game but towards the end Yasmin was catching up. When they got to the last round and Danni announced the final category—World Capitals—we knew it was a done deal. Dad swept the round.

Congratulations, you are the Island’s newest Trivia Master!

Danni Damson kissed both of Dad’s cheeks. Confetti and balloons fell from the ceiling and little rockets went off on either side of the stage. Dad bounded from his platform to the Winner’s Circle where he jumped up and down and slapped his thighs. As the crowd thundered, Mom held onto her arm rest with one hand and wiped the tears from her eyes with the other.

Dad’s Trivia Warz win gives Mom plenty of fodder for her afternoon tea sessions with Aunt Frankie. Aunt Frankie isn’t really our aunt but Mom says that’s what we have to call her. Aunt Frankie has gotten Mom into smoking and has been taking her out to gallery openings and poetry readings. Whenever Aunt Frankie visits she leaves half a pack of cigarettes on top of the fridge and a pile of glossy magazines on the kitchen table.

I’m dragging you into modern society, my dear, whether you like it or not!

Mom skims the magazines and then throws them into the garbage bin. She rants about them to her sisters during their weekly three-way calls.

These rags are all ads. What a pile of bullshit.

Oh yes, yuh.

Shockin’ waste of paper.

Right? And that poet missus. So damned precious. A twenty-five minute poem about an icicle! An icicle! My dear, I could hardly keep a straight face!

Their raucous crowing fills all the rooms of the house. Mom talks and laughs, blowing the smoke from her cigarettes towards the kitchen window. The smoke bounces off the screen and floats back into the room and down the hallways. When the haze gets thick, Prue and I head out to the yard to wait for the call to end.

Go on, girl, that’s not true!

Yes!

An icicle?

Yes, my dear, a fuckin’ icicle.

Who does she think she is?

Today Aunt Frankie and her four humourless daughters pull up to the house in a rusted two-door bug car. Prue and I squeeze in across the pile of kids to find a place to sit. With four kids on the back seat we have to press through the crush of legs and crouch on the floor among assorted pop cans and takeout wrappers. Some of the pop cans still have liquid in them and as the summer heat floats in through the gaps of the door frames, I can feel that liquid transforming.

I close my eyes and try to stop myself from pulling each awful thing out of the air, but it’s impossible. My mind’s eye tears them apart and separates them into colours. Scents travel in feathery trails, winding along the surfaces of the world, crawling around corners, intertwining, sometimes getting stuck in the grooves, where they thicken and concentrate.

The Grapey Grape soda at