So Yesterday - By Scott Westerfeld Page 0,8

guy walking past was wearing a shirt five sizes too big (innovated by gangbangers to hide guns in their waistbands), shorts down below his knees (innovated by surfers to keep their thighs from getting sunburned), and oversized shoes (innovated by skaters to save their feet from injury). Together all of these once-practical ideas made the guy look like he'd been hit by a shrink ray and was about to disappear into his clothes screaming, "Help me!" in an ever-tinier voice.

Jen had to grin. Saved again.

"That guy needs our help," I said softly.

"That guy will never be cool. But a lot of people are getting rich off

him trying. That's his money we made yesterday."j

I sighed, looking up at the thin slice of sky, and noticed the weathered, faded American flags that hung from the fire escapes, rippling slowly in the breeze. They'd all been hung on the same day, without any ads telling people they had to.

Jen was silent, probably thinking I was mad at her.

But I wasn't. I was contemplating 1918.

Because of my dad I know all about 1918, the year there was a really nasty flu. It swept across every country in the world. It killed more people j than World War I. A billion people got it, almost a third of everyone alive back then.

And you know what's really amazing? The virus didn't spread over the radio, and you didn't get it from watching TV or reading the side of a bus. No one was hired to spread it. Everyone who contracted the disease got it from shaking hands with, or getting sneezed on by, someone else who had it, right? So in one year just about everyone in the world had shaken hands with someone who had shaken hands with someone who had shaken hands with Patient Zero (which is what they call Innovators in the crazy world of epidemiology).

So imagine that instead of sneezing germs, all those people had been saying to each other, "Wow, this new breath mint is great! Want one?" In just a year about a billion people would be using that new breath mint without anyone ever spending a dime on advertising.

Kind of makes you think.

The uncomfortable silence stretched out for a while, and I found myself annoyed at my parents. If they hadn't been bugging me about work this morning, I wouldn't have lost my cool with Jen. She had a perfectly valid point about cool hunting - it's just that I get tired of having the same argument with my parents every day, and with other people, and with myself.

I tried to think of something to say, but all I could think about was the 1918 flu, which didn't seem like a scintillating topic of conversation. Sometimes I hate my brain.

Jen finally broke the silence.

"Maybe she's not coming."

I checked the time on my phone. Mandy was ten minutes late, which was not like Mandy. We're talking about someone who carries a clipboard.

Jen was looking down the street toward the nearest subway stop, and I got the unpleasant idea that she was thinking about leaving.

"Yeah, sorry. I'll call her." I scrolled up shugrrl and pressed send. Six rings later I got Mandy's voice mail.

"Must be on the subway," I said, about to leave a message, but Jen reached out one hand, touching me on the wrist.

"Hang up and call her again."

"What?"

"Wait a second." She watched a truck pass, then nodded at the phone. "Hang up and call again."

"Okay." I shrugged - that's Innovators for you - and pressed send.

Jen cocked her head, then took a few steps toward the wall of plywood that surrounded a derelict building next to us. She put her hands on the wood and leaned close to it, like she was doing a psychic reading of the layers of graffiti and posters.

Again six rings.

"Uh, Mandy," I said to the voice mail, "you said this morning, right? We're here; let us know where you are."

Jen turned around, a strange look on her face.

"So, let me guess," she said. "Despite all her cool hunting, Mandy has really Top 40 taste in music."

"Uh, yeah," I said. Maybe Jen was psychic. "Mandy pretty much only listens to..." I named a certain 1970s Swedish mega-group whose name is a four-letter word, definitely both band and brand and therefore banned from this book.

"I thought so," Jen said. "Come here. And redial."

I stood next to her and pressed send yet again.

And through the shaky plywood wall we heard tinny cell-phone tones playing a certain