by John Shirley
Whenever Lo He “Larry” Chan worked late
in the high energy physics lab, the janitor seemed to make it a point to come
in and harangue him. Glancing up from his work, Chan heard the floor polishing
machine outside the lab and glimpsed Randy Porris passing the little window in
the door.
Porris would
soon be in here, yapping away about how western civilization was going down the
tubes just as Spengler said it would and how applying Ayn Rand and paleolibertarian
Austrians like Hans-Herman Hoppe would get us back on track. Then Porris would wind
up with the Barack Obama was an enemy of the United States rant and true conservativism
recognized that survival of the fittest was synonymous with liberty; he’d end
with “liberals are eating at the root of western culture.” And then he’d
start over.
Chan was raised
in Singapore to be polite and culturally tolerant, but it was getting difficult
to bear. Porris would pretend to clean
the lab as he ranted, so theoretically he had a right to be there. Chan thought
about working elsewhere. But everything was intricately set up here. He
preferred to put in a couple hours after everyone else had left the high-energy
physics lab, because he had more access to more equipment. And he was close to
the next-level tachyon breakthrough. Plus, Richard had left him, had gone on
without him, and it was hard to be alone in the evenings…when he and Richard used
to sit on the couch and talk about work and life and…
Chan
didn’t want to think about Richard Arnold Samsen. He just wanted to use the
tokomak field to confirm his capture of the tachyons he needed for the next
excursion. Another issue with Porris is that he was a janitor with an
engineering degree—he’d been fired from a couple of firms for ranting and demeaning
the women there, and he’d ended up a janitor. But his engineering degree and a
little knowledge of science might make him dangerous, looking over Chan’s
shoulder. Suppose he realized what Chan was working on here? None of the other
PhDs working at the University knew the whole story—Chan pretended to be far
behind where he really was. He was worried about how his discovery might be misused.
He had begun to think that perhaps it should never be revealed.
As he bent over
the displacer—his own design, a flattish silvery octagonal piece of equipment inscrutable
to the other researchers—Chan winced hearing the click of the key in the lab door.
Porris backed
through the door, starting to drag the floor polisher in after him.
“Randy, please—I
really can’t have anything as noisy and vibrational as a floor polisher going
this evening,” Chan pleaded. “Just—dust or sweep or something. Carefully, I beg of you. And do close
the door behind you.”
Porris shrugged,
and replaced the polisher with a broom. He forgot to close the door.
“The door,
Randy. If you please.”
“Okay, whatever. It’s not like
it’s top secret.”
“How do you
know?” Chan said mildly. He checked the tokomak feed to the displacer as Porris
made fitful efforts at sweeping.
After a few
minutes, Chan glanced at him, distrustful of the way Porris seemed to be
staring at the linkage connecting the tokomak to the displacer plate on the floor.
Porris was a pudgy man, with wide hips and
narrow shoulders; pale, with little splashes of rosiness on his cheeks, and
jet-black hair that contrasted dramatically with his very white skin. He had
black mutton chops—he’d said once something about Gilbert and Sullivan—and his
hair was parted in the middle. He peered at Chan’s equipment with black eyes
and said, at last, “Whatever that is, you’re really making progress. You look
like a guy who’s making the final touches.”
Chan shrugged.
“Final touches are never final.”
“So, you’re from
what, Singapore?”
Chan sighed.
“Yes.”
“You are kind of
young to be a professor.”
He’s wondering
if strings were pulled, thought Chan. “Am I? Would you mind getting the dust
bunnies from the corners please? They’ve piled up atrociously.”
“I shouldn’t be
doing this menial stuff,” Porris grumbled. He took a little hand-held vacuum
cleaner from his belt and stalked angrily to the corner nearest to Chan. “I am
a systems engineer.” He vacuumed for a moment, and then fiddled with the
device. “But, you know, they had to find some excuse to get me out of there to
give my job to…” The rest was a mutter.
“There’s an odd
contradiction in what you libertarians say you believe and what you call for,”
Chan said, in a carefully friendly voice, as he removed the transfer cable from
the displacer. Chan had decided to get the rant over with so Porris would
eventually leave.
“Paleolibertarians,” Porris said. “What
contradictions?”
Chan
straightened up from using the vibrational attuner on the displacement platform—the
attuner probably looked like a tuning fork to Porris, though between the tines
of the fork was a small translucent screen flickering with data. “I mean,
Randy, you insist on extremes of firmness at the borders, an end to asylum
refugees, troops everywhere to enforce this…But you speak darkly of ‘statists,’ people who insist on having a state, a nation defined by something other than
culture—statists are a bad thing, you
say. But what are you doing but firming up a state, when you reinforce the borders and call for troops?”
Porris sniffed.
“Special exception. Emergency situation.”
“Another thing
that confuses me is how you can be as concerned as you are with fluoride in the
water—and also you say you like fishing—and yet you’re unwilling to regulate industries
that pollute water. Pollution which has been shown to cause cancer in people
and damage fish populations…”
“The free market
will sort all that out! It works like this—as Hoppe says…”
And then Porris
was off on a long, convoluted series of flimsily linked rationales that would take
him at least twenty minutes to unspool. When he was done, Porris seemed angry.
“Roy Flenner said you could be a spy for the Chinese communists. I mean, I’m
not jumping to that conclusion but…”
Chan smiled and
shook his head. “Am I! I wish someone had told me! But maybe I should send them
an invoice, if I’m owned a paycheck from them…”
“Go on and
laugh. What is it you’re hiding here? I’ve been taking notes.”
“Notes you say! That’s intrusive. Not sure the university would like
that.” Well, this was alarming. His secret could be ferreted out into the open
if Porris was noisy enough. It was nothing to do with China but it certainly
was explosive. “I’m from Singapore, not China, I’m not a communist, and it’s
sounds like you’re the spy around here.”
“So
you say.”
“Anyway,
look—it’s pretty obvious you have this suspicious attitude toward me because
I’m an Asian immigrant. If I were from Norway and doing the same work it
wouldn’t seem suspicious to you.”
“Now
it’s the old ‘you’re biased’ baloney they used to push me out of the job
because people can’t handle the truth—!”
“You
have a distorted view on the world, for sure, Randy. And I can prove it to
you.”
“Oh
yeah?”
“You
want to see what my work is about, yes?”
“Sure.
But…”
Chan
took the risk. He had to find a way to deter Porris from crying up his secret
work—most of it secret even from the university. “I’m working on time travel.
And not only have I succeeded—I’ve used
it. I’ve traveled to the future, several times. Can’t do the past except, won’t
work, it’s essentially set in stone—except
you can travel back to the starting point from the future, to a split second
after you left.”
Porris
gaped at him. He had very yellow teeth. “You’ve traveled to the future?” He
laughed a sneer at Chan. “You’re a liar.”
“Don’t
blame you for thinking that. Just loan me your watch. You’ll get it back
unharmed in ten minutes.”
“What?
It’s the most valuable thing I own! My uncle gave it to me. It’s got an inscription
on the back!”
“I
promise it’ll be returned to you intact. If you want proof of time travel,
bring it here, set it on the displacement plate.”
“Which
is what?”
Chan
waved a hand toward the inch-thick silvery octagon on the floor; it was just
big enough for a man to stand on. “Right there. I give you my word I won’t hurt
the watch.”
Tugged
along by curiosity, but ever so reluctantly, Porris set it his watch on the
displacer.
“What
time does it say on the watch?”
“Eight-seventeen
p.m.”
“Very
good.” Chan took out the attuner from his lab coat, adjusted the data on the
little touch-sensitive screen, and pointed it at the displacer. A green spot
appeared on the attuner’s little screen. He then took the controller from his other
pocket.
“What’s
that? A TV controller?”
“Adapted
for my use. Now, step back, several steps.”
Porris
took a few steps back, bumbling into a steel work table. He scowled at Chan.
“Why do we have to step back?”
“Keep
your eyes on the watch.”
Porris
looked but shook his head. “I think I want it back right now—”
Chan
pressed the button, and the air grew thick; it seemed misty for a moment, with
the only clarity just above the displacer. There was a soft hum and an
indefinable sense of discomfort…
And
then the watch and displacer vanished, a pop
sounding as the space the two devices had occupied suddenly emptied and the air
rushed in to fill the vacuum.
Porris
stepped forward, goggling at the empty spot as the mist vanished. “You’ve
disintegrated it!”
“No.
It’ll be back. What time does it say on the wall clock?”
“Looks like eight-eighteen. So
what? Where’s my watch?”
“Give
me ten minutes.”
“There
must be a trap door of some kind.”
“Feel
free to look for one. Now, let me
explained to you why Keynesian economic works, though it has to be modified to
include taxing the wealthy pretty vigorously. Government investment in small
businesses, government loans to help start-ups, money to state programs…”
“Keynesian!
Why it…what?” Porris was triggered by that, as Chan had hoped.
He was practically apoplectic.
“Not
only that, but there’s good reason to believe that giving anyone underfunded a
base income has a far more beneficial effect on the economy than negative.”
“You
think you’re going to convert me to communism?”
Chan
couldn’t help but chuckle. “It’s capitalism. I don’t even like the term
‘Democratic socialism.’ I prefer to call it regulated
capitalism. And I’m a capitalist! I hope to be rich from a couple of
inventions I’ve patented. But we need regulated
capitalism, as a football game needs rules—”
He kept talking
for a little over nine minutes, sometimes over Porris’s protestations, giving
examples of modified capitalism and socialized medicine that worked well in
other countries, offering to show him charts, challenging his sources.
“Now
let me explain to you—” Porris began.
Then
Chan interrupted sharply, “Quick! Look at the floor where your watch was!”
Porris
looked. “What? It’s not…”
The
mist, the blur, the odd discomfort in the air—and then the displacer materialized,
Porris’s watch lying on it.
Porris’s
mouth hung open. “That’s…it’s…a duplicate…”
Chan
said, “Pick it up and look at the time. It’s safe. The process is completed.”
Porris bent over and snatched up
the watch and looked at it. “It says eight-seventeen—now eight-eighteen…”
“Look
at the wall clock.”
“Eight-twenty-seven!”
“Is
that your watch and is it running properly?”
“Yes,
yes, it’s running, has the same nicks and the inscription—but I’ve seen stage
magic before, Chan. Mirrors, whatever. A gimmicked wall clock.”
“Face
it, time passed for us but not for the watch. It travelled ahead through time,
ten minutes in an instant. Do you really think we haven’t been arguing for ten
minutes? Really? Think back.”
Porris opened and closed his
mouth several times.
“Now…I’ll
show you something else. I’m going to
vanish—try to touch the spot where I was, the instant I go, so you can see it’s
not mirrors or whatever. Then wait two minutes. Count to a hundred-sixty.”
Chan
stepped onto the displacer, adjusted the attuner…
And
hesitated. Suddenly he found himself thinking of Richard. If he sent Porris
into the future, would he be doing the very thing Richard disapproved of? “Some technology should be banned,” Richard
had said. “Suppose they find a way to use
it to go back before their own time? Or suppose they go forward and attack
people there, or bring a disease with them—or the sick ideas of our own time?
Humanity isn’t ready for it, Larry. We need to use it for one more trip—and
then destroy the displacers…”
They
had argued bitterly over that. Chan had worked on the time displacers for
years. And then there was Richard’s desire to abandon the 21st
century entirely. They’d broken up over it. Richard could be so judgmental…
And he left me
alone, Chan thought. With a little flare of anger, Chan pressed the button on
the controller—
And
for a moment the lab, the room, Porris—the whole universe vanished. He
experienced the familiar but still quite horrible sense of infinite nothingness
looming over him; about to destroy him.
Then
the lab snapped into place around him. Chan gasped, feeling sick, as usual,
though he’d only gone a couple minutes ahead in time. He was, as usual, a bit
dizzy. There was the usual vinegary
smell that followed a time trip, and the dispersing mistiness.
“Did
you…count?” Chan asked hoarsely.
“Yes.
I did.”
“So—you
see the process does me no harm. Just a little dizziness—a moment’s
disorientation. It passes quickly. I can prove to you that you’re wrong about
economics and social forces, Randy. It so happens that people who think like you
are going to take over. Utterly free
markets, no taxation on the rich because their trickle down is ‘so very
vital’…Immigration squelched…Your racial and cultural values in place…Complete
privatization, no regulation of industry, no concern for greenhouse gases…You
can see it all in person! The displacer follows the time current closely so
you’re carried in space too—I can send you to another place on Earth as well.
And there is a professor in San Francisco, in the early 22nd century—he
knows all about the machine. He’s sworn to silence, of course. He’ll guide you around. Tell him I said not to lecture you. You can see for yourself if it
works or doesn’t…Think of it! Your people—vindicated! And you’ll come back
here after a short time, no worse for wear.”
Porris
shook his head, putting on his watch. “I don’t believe you. For all I know
you’ll adjust that thing to electrocute me.”
“Nonsense.
There isn’t room for both of us or I’d go with you.” There were several displacers
but he thought it better if Porris went alone. “You just saw me travel in time.
Look—you could share in the Nobel Prize for this as a fellow experimenter!”
That
got Porris’s attention. “Would you put that in contract form?”
“If
we can write it up quickly. The energy vectors won’t be suitable forever…”
They
went to the PC, tapped out a quick contract, just one page. Porris made some
changes, then they printed the contract out and signed it. Porris photographed
it with his phone and then sent the contract to his cousin Will’s email. “Will’s
a lawyer. I hope he’s sober…”
“Very
good.” Chan was pretty sure the contract would end up meaning nothing at all.
“Step onto the displacer, please, while I adjust the time setting…”
Porris
went to the displacement plate but stopped short of stepping onto it. He licked
his lips. “This is insane…”
“It’s
your big chance, Randy,” Chan said, making the adjustments. “Be honest with
yourself. You’ll never be more than a janitor if you don’t go through with
this.”
Porris
grimaced. “I don’t know…” But he stepped on the displacement plate. “I guess…wait!
You know what, this is too dangerous. Let’s take it to the university board
first and—”
But
Chan pressed the button on the controller.
⚙
A
horrid vast emptiness. Infinite nothingness. Porris was unable to scream—there was no air—
And
then a room snapped into being around him.
Feeling
ill and depressed, as if everyone he’d ever known had died, he looked around as
the mist that wasn’t really mist cleared away…
A
man was staring at him in surprise. “Cabra, fonta m’po eyes, yahno!” the man
exclaimed. He was a tall middle-aged man with a long face, receding hair, a
lantern jaw, pouches under his reddened eyes. He wore one-piece clothing with a
pattern on it resembling a suit, and not in an ironic way.
“What?”
Porris’s voice was hoarse. “What’d you
say? Are you the…?”
“Sorry.
Took me a second to recall the American dialect of your time…Ah, I am Professor
Scarnek. And you?”
Porris was looking around at the
shabby basement room. It smelled of mold. There were various jerry-rigged devices
cobbled together here and there against the concrete walls. A naked bulb
flickered in the ceiling.
“Me? I’m Randy Porris.” He stepped off the
displacer. “Where the fuck am I?”
“The
basement of my house in San Francisco, California. I assume that Chan sent you,
yahno?”
“Yes.
Uh—yah. Not no. Said I was to tell you not to lecture me, just show me how, uh…He
claims…God my stomach hurts…he claims that the current society here…wait, when
am I again?”
“It
is now June 7 in the year 2145 A.D.” He sighed and muttered, “I’d say ‘C.E.’
instead but you might report me.”
“2145?
I’m not going to believe it until I see the flying cars and the…I don’t
know. But I need to see it.”
“Flying
cars? There are some small luxury helicopters in use but only the Wunperz have
those. If you want a good view of the area you and I will have to see if
there’s a roller working. I do have some transportation left on my U-card. I’ll
show you around if you give me your word you won’t say anything about this lab.
I have some contraband material.”
“Yeah,
see, already—there wouldn’t be any contraband material in a true libertarian
society.”
“Oh,
I suppose that’s right,” said Scarnek, giving a morbid chuckle. “This way.”
They
climbed the rickety plastic basement stairs and emerged in a house that seemed
smaller than the basement. Somewhere a rattletrap air filter hiccupped. The
walls appeared to be vinyl. There were stacks of old books along the walls, and
soiled old art prints, looking like they’d been cadged from a dumpster. “People
still read physical books now?” Porris asked. “I’d a thought it’d be all on a
screen.”
“Some
do. I collect physical books. There aren’t very many left. Most of these will
come apart if you try to read them. The percentage of people who can read
anything to any real degree is very small now.”
They
squeezed past stacks of books and magazines and a door, recognizing Scarnek,
hummed and sputtered and finally decided to open for them.
“Good.
It’s working today,” Scarnek muttered, leading the way onto the street.
“Otherwise we’d have to go through the side door. More dangerous.”
Scarnek
paused on the grubby plastic sidewalk and glanced at the gray-brown sky.
“Doesn’t look like it’s going to rain.” He coughed. “Good thing. When the
wind’s blowing from a hundred square miles of refineries, Porris—there’s a
toxic rain. You don’t want to be out in it. They haul the bodies of a number of
homeless off next morning. Ah, there’s a roller at the corner…”
It
was murky, humid, and itchily hot outside. A sheen of sweat instantly covered
Porris’s face. His eyes stung as he puzzled over the crooked, slightly bowed
buildings around them. They looked almost cartoonish. “People design buildings
crooked now?”
“Oh, they started out looking
more or less straight. But construction regulations were dropped, after the
Free Market Act and they eventually sag. These buildings are plastic amalgam.
Stuff mined from old landfills and culled from the sea.”
“You
sure as hell live in a grotty neighborhood, Scarnek,” Porris said, stepping
over a moraine of sludgy trash.
“This
is one of the better neighborhoods
outside the Wunper bottles. But there’s no street cleaning anymore. The company
that’s supposed to do it just—doesn’t. It has a twenty-year contract.
Everything is privatized, you see. Fire department—very expensive to get them
to come. Water. It’s undrinkable without a heavy-duty filter. Gas-lines, all
hospitalization, electricity, all privatized…Most people can only afford part-time
electricity…”
“Oh,
come on, if it’s privatized other companies will offer better services to
compete.”
“Except
it doesn’t work out that way. They’re influential, connected companies, so no
other companies are offered a chance to compete and even if they did it would
take years before the first contract ran out so it never happens and the
company privatizing a public service cuts corners or barely does the job at all
and acts with incredible arrogance toward consumers and…I could go on.”
“You’re
not supposed to lecture me.”
“Your
remark contained an implied question—which I merely answered. Some answers are
a bit complex, you know.”
Porris was
feeling dazed, unable to accept that he had travelled in time, yet unable to deny
it.
“There’s the
roller. Only a two-seater. All I can afford…”
The small self-driving
vehicle, a dull oblong of plastic with three wheels, was sitting at the curb, a
wing-door invitingly open, the car murmuring something about remembering to
renew U-cards. “We are now accepting a quart of blood for two days renewal.”
“Did
it say a quart of blood?” Porris
asked.
“Yes,
for people who can’t afford to pay for their transportation cards. The blood is
sold overseas somehow. TransportCo has a special rolling clinic. I don’t give
them blood. I have some money wired to me from overseas, just enough to get
by…”
Scarnek climbed
into the roller, and Porris squeezed in opposite, so close their knees touched.
“No seat belts…”
“They claim
there’s no need, as the rollers supposedly can’t crash into anything but of course
that’s not true. It’s a corner cutting feature.”
“So, you get
money from overseas?” Porris asked, unable to keep the suspicion out of his
voice.
“Finland,
actually. They value me as a historian.” Scarnek drew a card from a pocket and
held it up for a scanner. “We are going to Fisherman’s Wharf,” he told the
machine, and with a few stomach-wrenching false starts it jolted into motion.
“Yes, without that money I’d be on the street. Pensions were privatized and
then faded away when no new ones were given. And with universities eradicated—”
“What? Eradicated?”
“Yes, public
universities—all gone. There are only private schools now. Not many of those.
Hard to get a job there if you’re not a wunper, even if you have enough money
to pay for it.”
“What’s this wunper
thing?”
“It’s from ‘the One Percent’.”
He pointed up a steep hillside as they trundled past a side street. “See those
houses, up top?”
“They look like
they’re in bottles.” Big curvy glass enclosures shaped to follow the outline of
a row of houses.
“Yes,
the ship in a bottle effect—they’re all in the same ‘bottle’ of transparent
metal. Well, that’s where some of the wunpers live. Our hermetically sealed
elite.” He chuckled. “They have much bigger bottles, in other places—Bel Aire,
much of Manhattan, the Vegas Holy-Hive, large parts of San Jose. Only the soopa-reech
live in the bottles—the moneyed
elite. Except, there are some lower management
types who inhabit a servants’ hall—in pretty good conditions, relative to the
average person outside the bottles. That’s what passes for the middle class
now. And service people…rather poor, but safer than those of us outside the
bottles. About fifty-five per cent of working people live in the factories they
work in, robot-repairers being the lucky ones with private rooms. Most of them
are actually replacements for broken automation…The ability to understand the
machines has badly deteriorated along with the available education…”
“Factory
dormitories? Like those Foxconn factories in China?”
“Just
like that, yes. China now uses automation, much more successfully than we do,
for all such things.” They rolled by a group of ragged teenaged boys who seemed
to be trying to strip a broken roller half up on the curb. Other people—white,
brown, Asian, mixed race—were hurrying along past boarded over shops; they all
wore painted close-fitting clothes, with personalized gas masks dangling around
their necks, just in case; they tended to keep squinting worriedly up at the
sky. Other rollers passed by, the riders looking grim. Something juddered
overhead and Porris looked up through the sun roof; a small helicopter of some
kind whooshed not far above, following the street. Its underside seemed to be
made of ornately intaglioed silver.
Scarnek
made a tsk sound and muttered, “Oh
sepsis-fuck, now what…”
The
roller was slowing to avoid something piled in the street—an awkward, soft
looking pile of…
“What
the hell! Those are bodies!”
“Yes,”
Scarnek sighed. “Apparently there was a hypoxia cell sweeping through here. We
haven’t had any for months. They’re sort of like the dead zones you had in the
oceans in your time, but they’re in the air. They’re a consequence of climate
change oceanic acidification—the ocean produces a lot of our oxygen—and too
many rainforests gone, too much plant habitat paved over—not enough oxygen
produced. That’s one reason for the wunper bottles. We’re lucky the cell has
passed on…”
“How
long have these bodies been there?” Porris asked, as the roller zigged and
zagged to avoid bodies.
“You
notice the flies? Several hours, probably. The companies tasked to remove them
are always dilatory. By the time they get here it’s too late to harvest
organs.”
The roller
bumped over something. Porris looked back. “Did we just run over someone’s arm?”
“Oh yes, the rollers
are supposed to know better but they’re not very well made, really…Ah, and
speaking of the glorious results of privatization—look!”
They
were passing a burning tenement building. Flames gushed out windows, and black
smoke huffed; the outer walls of the plastic amalgam building bubbled from the
heat. Someone was screaming. The building collapsed inward on itself…
“That
thing’s totally out of control!” Porris blurted.
“No public fire department—and
whoever owns the building couldn’t afford to pay the fire control company.
Let’s hope someone adjacent did, or the fire could spread from one building to
another. They take out whole blocks that way. Even if fire control came, it’s purely robotic, and only about a third of their robots function.”
They
left the burning building behind, and Porris turned back for a final look. The
ornate helicopter was hovering near the building, it’s copter-blades fanning
the fire. Porris turned away, an odd, sick feeling inside.
Twenty
minutes more, and the roller pulled up at Fisherman’s Wharf…
⚙
“The
bay looks…wrong.” Porris shook his head. “Like…”
“Sluggish?
Glutinous?”
“Yeah.”
They
were leaning on a metal rail overlooking the bay. The dingy light showed waves
that never quite reached peaks. There was no foam at all. The jellied waves
were low, slick, and silent; seeming to rise and fall in slow-motion. Porris
saw no seabirds, not even gulls.
“It’s
mostly close in, a littoral phenomenon,” Scarnek said. “Apparently when global
warming and pollutants changed the ocean’s chemistry, it became extra acidic,
more in some places than others, and that killed off most species of fish and
sea mammals—but boosted a type of small jellyfish. They multiply hugely, and
then they die for lack of food, and some enzyme in them combines their bodies
into a mat a couple of meters thick.”
The
sea glopped, and there was noise from a crowd behind them, but mostly it was
eerily quiet. “There used to be sea lions at the Wharf.”
“There—you
can see the last traces of one.”
The
clouds had parted enough so a shaft of sunlight hit the sea, lighting up the
contents of the translucent jellyfish layer. The skeleton of a sealion was trapped
there, slowly undulating with the dullard waves.
Sickened,
Porris turned away and shaded his eyes to look toward the piers. Two of them
were covered with shantytowns of tents and plastic wall-sections. Dark figures
shuffled about.
“Ah—you’ve
spotted one of our local ‘retirement communities’,” Scarnek said, his voice
bitter. “In your time there was Social Security—not anymore. Most elderly end
up on the street, and those who aren’t killed for their few belongings manage a
sort of life in places like that. You can eat that muck on the sea. The old ones know where the wunper-dumpsters
are hidden, too…”
Porris
turned to look at the shuttered restaurants—one of them had smoke coming from
it. He glimpsed a squatter’s cooking fire through the windows. There was a
limousine pulled up on the street, passenger doors open, and there stood a handful
of sleek, blond, tanned people in old fashioned, finely tailored clothing,
watching three street performers. Above them protective drones stood guard and
recorded the event. Porris could make out both guns and cameras on the larger
drones.
The gaunt performers,
two ragged men and a woman with long matted hair, and much torn two-piece
tights, were doing something like line dancing while singing a song that went,
“Here’s
the dreeble where the feeble etta-by
Here’s the gripple where the pipple multiply…”
After several
more verses the song rose to a loud high pitch, with the words,
“Herezer
azzes, hopey pazzes!”
And at that they
all dropped their pants, showing grimy genitals and toothpick legs.
“Huzzah hobahz!”
shouted one of the wunpers and they began to throw bits of food, bread and
cheese and synthetic meat. The performers lunged at the food—without bothering
to pull up their pants—and stuffed as much as they each could in their mouths,
cramming some into pockets for later.
“It’s like when
people fed bread to seagulls here,” Porris said dazedly.
There was a
chorus of squealing off to one side, and Porris turned to see five grubby
children chasing an emaciated raccoon. As he watched they cornered it between a
rusty dumpster and the wall of a disused restaurant. And commenced beating it
to death with broken pieces of concrete.
“Oh god that’s
cruel,” Porris murmured.
“Would Ayn Rand
think so?” Scarnek asked. “They’re only fighting to survive. They’ll saw that
thing up between them and either roast it themselves or take it home to family.
Protein is hard to come by.”
Porris turned a
glare on Scarnek. “Drop the Ayn Rand cracks. You know nothing about her.”
“As a matter of
fact, since she was so influential, I wrote a critical biography of her—”
There was a yell
of pain from one of the kids. Another kid had hit him with a stone. They were
fighting over the dead raccoon…
Just as a large van
with flashing lights pulled up, and two uniformed men in darkly visored helmets
got out, guns in hand. A chyron ticker impregnated in the media-paint of the
vehicle’s doors said, “SFSecurityCo…rioters disperse…SFSecurityCo…”
“Most people
around here can’t read that warning on the door,” Scarnek remarked dryly.
“Rioters,
cease!” the men shouted.
The children
didn’t hear them. The cops opened fire, their smart-guns squirming in their
hands to aim precisely—and neatly shooting two children through the back of their
heads.
The other kids
screamed and ran. The wunpers clapped and cheered. “Bravo!”
“Good Lord,”
Porris burst out. “They shot those kids down! They weren’t dangerous.”
“Keep your voice down or you'll be arrested, at best,” Scarnek whispered. “They are encouraged to shoot rioters--that is, the people they choose to call rioters--and they do the headshots because it's really all about harvesting the children's organs. FSecurity sells them overseas. A refrigerator truck will be pulling up in a minute.” Grimacing, Scarnek rubbed his eyes. “You know, what you just saw is just the 'magic of the free market', Porris--”
“Okay,” Porris said, through clenched teeth. “I've had enough of this bullshit. Obviously, you're showing me the worst things around--I haven't seen the best of it.”
“The best of it?
Like the people throwing bits of food to the performers?”
“And—maybe you
made up the antecedents of this, maybe it was liberals—”
Scarnek sighed. “Come
on, let’s get the roller before someone else does. It’s not healthy to hang
around during a harvesting.” They hurried toward the parked roller. “Look,
Porris, you don’t have to believe me. I can’t offer you a library. There are
none. But there’s a place where you can use my card to access anything you
want. The history is all there. All this traces back to trickle-down theory,
Ayn Rand’s deification of selfishness, libertarianism in a perverse
collaboration with the Christian right, corporate control, the failure to deal
with greenhouse gases, and—maybe most of all—a takeover of the internet and
most other media right-wingers.”
“Then somebody
didn’t actualize market theory the
way they should’ve, goddammit!”
“It’s just that an
unregulated society can sound like a good
idea but no one is equipped for the real repercussions when things get worse
and worse.”
“Just get me back
to the displacer and send me home. You can do that, right?”
“He would’ve set
it for you to go back next time you stepped on it. Perhaps it’s for the best.
Don’t bother trying to warn people about all this—historical time has momentum
and it’s almost impossible to divert. The old ‘Sound of Thunder’ idea doesn’t
really work out…”
⚙
On the verge of
exhaustion—wrung out by emotion—Porris stalked back and forth in the lab. He’d
returned seconds after he’d departed, to find Chan standing just exactly as he’d
left him. Chan was not surprised to find Porris in this state.
“You can take
wipe that smug smile off your face, Chan!” Porris growled. “The world the
libertarian right envisioned was interfered with, sabotaged! But it has to
right itself! A hundred years past Scarnek’s time free markets will have it
worked out!”
“What a man of
faith you are!” Chan said mildly.
“Okay, maybe two
hundred years,” Porris said, shrugging.
Chan patted him
on the arm. “You look tired. Let me offer you an energy bar and some juice…and
an alternative travel plan.”
They sat at a worktable,
and Porris sullenly ate part of an energy bar and drank some cranberry juice.
“Who the hell
likes just cranberry juice,” Porris muttered, making a face after he drank
some.
“It’s apple-cranberry,
actually. Richard got me into drinking it.”
“Who’s Richard?”
“My partner.
We…” The words my partner did it;
triggered a stunning flash of realization. He
would never find another Richard Samsen. Richard was the love of his life.
Trying not to think of him, day after day, just wasn’t working. He made up his
mind. Whatever he had to do to go back to him…he would do it.
“Doesn’t matter
just now,” Chan said. “Here’s what I suggest. We both go two-hundred-seventy
years in the future, together, and see how it all worked out. If your social
theory worked out in the end or not. Do you want the truth, or not? Seeing is
believing.”
⚙
Chan and Porris snapped
into the year 2289—and found themselves in what appeared to be a loft converted
into an art studio. Drones fluttered, swooped, glittered—many of them had wings—and
formed abstract shapes in the air, directed by a tall, broad-shouldered man
using a control glove. He had let his hair grow out, Chan saw—his glossy brown
hair fell past his shoulders. His work outfit was a 20th century
mechanic’s blue overalls he’d brought with him to this time. Chan felt his
heart leap, watching him at work. Then the man seemed to notice the odd
atmosphere the displacer had brought; the fading mist that wasn’t mist. He
turned as Porris, hunched over, groaned and shook his head.
“I hate these
goddamn time trips…”
“You won’t have
to do it again, Randy,” Chan said, taking in the wide smile on the sculptor’s face—it
was a relief to see that Richard was pleased to see him. Sunshine glowing through
side windows seemed to make a nimbus around him.
I’m a dippy
romantic, Chan thought.
Richard opened
his arms and Chan rushed into them. A wave of shuddery release went through
him, both pleasure and pain.
“You’re here to stay?” Richard asked, whispering
in his ear. “Last time we talked, you said…if you came to this time…”
“Yes. I’m here
to stay.”
“That’s good.
But if you want to be with me you know the one condition…”
“I’ve changed my
mind—I’m ready now.”
“It can wait.
Who’s your friend?”
“Hardly that. This
is Randy Porris…” Chan stepped back from Richard, keeping hold of his hand. “I
told you about him. Trickle-down theory, libertarianism mixed with Trump’s
anti-immigrant thing, white nationalism—the whole shebang. I promised him a
chance to see the alternative…” Chan gave Richard a significant look. “I think
he’ll…stay.”
Richard raised
his eyebrows. “Really! Well, wonderful!”
“Randy,” Chan
said, “this is my fiancé—if he still feels that way. Richard Samsen.”
“You met your boyfriend in the future?” Porris
walked over to a pitcher of water on an elegantly restored Victorian table.
“Can I have some water?”
“Water?
Certainly!” said Richard. “Tu casa mi casa.”
“We met in 2015, in Berkeley,” Chan said.
“September sixth.”
“This water safe
to drink?” Porris asked, looking doubtfully into the glass.
“Randy here just
came from Scarnek’s era,” Chan said.
“It’s a whole
new world, Randy,” Richard said. “Drinking water is clean, the air has finally
cleaned up—they just got that done about fifty years ago. We’re feeding and
employing whoever needs it. Education is free. Healthcare if free.”
“Oh god. A
liberal fascism!” Porris shook his head and drank some water. “That’s…good
water.”
“It’s not
fascism, it’s a global democracy. The
USA has sovereignty the way, say, California did in the USA in our time. But
it’s one worldwide Republic. We do have some firm global laws—and as a result,
women are completely equal with men everywhere. Of course, progressives were
able to take advantage of the tragic fact that the world your people created
ended up creating a giant petri dish for a half dozen new plagues. People died
by the billions. That led to revolution. And those with the cures were the more
progressive countries, Randy. The European Union, principally—and South Africa,
Australia, Japan, other parts of Asia. And India after the big revolution there.
The survivors listened to the people who saved them. The wunperz are quite
gone—but there are still people who can be wealthy to a reasonable degree, if
they work hard.”
“This is all your story, man,” Porris said, clacking
the glass down on the table.
“Come out with
us and see—we’re in San Francisco, and it’s rebuilt, green with parks. Everyone
has work but no one has to have
it—but you see, we have capitalism! It’s just carefully regulated. There’s
still some extreme weather but we’re moving into a new climate system now—greenhouse
gases are under control. Energy is clean—we finally figured out fusion, we use
solar extensively.”
“Yeah, right. You’ve
been brainwashed.”
Richard smiled
with an empathy that had always moved Chan. Richard Samsen had been a sociology
researcher as well as a sculptor in the 21st century…
“You keep
talking about ‘we’,” Porris said. “But how long have you been here?”
“Oh, by we, I
mean—decent people. Empathetic, environmentally aware people for whom social
justice is as natural as going to a party or taking a swim.”
Porris snorted. “I
think I’m gonna be nauseous here.”
“We’re still
cleaning up the mess left by your society—still cleaning the oceans, still
using DNA to reconstitute key animal life, still trying to re-educate pockets
of lunatic religious fanatics.”
“Yeah, I knew
it. Forced re-education camps!”
“No, no—we give them food and water and other
resources in exchange for voluntary education time in their own homes. We’re
gradually winning them over. We’re not without spirituality, after all.”
“And this
society is tolerant,” Chan said. “They have an archipelago of islands where
everyone is some variety of anarchist! Long as they don’t pollute or tyrannize
women, they can do as they please!”
“So, you made
the free thinkers move to remote islands!”
Richard shook
his head. “It’s a free choice. We do arrange the air travel if they want to go.
But look—let’s go out and look at the world—see it as it is now! We’ll start
locally and go wherever you want. It’s not a utopia—we have all kinds of
issues. Population control is one. Then there are people who are born
psychopathically predatory—what’s the right thing to do with them? There are
still murderers about! And some people go off and form small autocratic
societies, and cults. We don’t let them develop dangerous weapons, and we don’t
let them abuse women. But should we intervene in other ways? And what about
space travel? Some want to go, some don’t. There are arguments about all these
things and more. But first—how about some lunch?”
“Richard’s a
great cook,” Chan said.
“Oh, naturally,” Porris muttered.
But Porris enjoyed
the World Cuisine lunch.
Later, when they
returned from a long day of touring and talking to random people, Porris was
quiet, taking it all in. He was awestruck by the transformation San Francisco
had gone through since Scarnek’s time. He was stunned by holographic coverage
of the world government’s council meeting—the black woman world president; the
argumentative representative from the People’s Democracy of China; the
consensus that carried the day.
Back at
Richard’s house that evening, seated around the Victorian table drinking wine,
and enjoying exquisite lab-grown meat—slaughterhouses were quite
forbidden—Porris stared into his wine, scowling.
“Flying cars,”
Porris said wonderingly. “I saw real
flying cars…”
Richard nodded.
“There was an influx of scientists from India and Pakistan to the New USA,
about forty years ago, and one of them figured out how to control Casimir force
for levitation. I’ve almost saved enough money for one…”
Chan and Richard
sat across from Porris, holding hands. “Larry, we can be married in New York
and do a honeymoon tours of the canals of Manhattan,” Richard was saying. “And—I
just want to say I was wrong to leave without you. You had a career, big plans
in 2019 and I wanted you to abandon them and just go to a better world with
me…And it was selfish. When you let me go—when you sent me to the world I
wanted…the look on your face broke my heart.”
Chan smiled
wanly. “You thought I’d follow you, eventually. And you were right.”
Richard laughed
softly. “I hoped! But you know, to seal the deal—we should finish up here.”
Chan nodded
gravely.
Richard got up,
went into a tool nook off the studio, and returned with two ten-pound
sledgehammers.
Porris looked at
them nervously. “So that’s how you weed out people like me?”
“What? This is
for the time machines,” Richard said, handing a hammer to Chan. “I don’t think
mankind is ready for time machines. And Larry doesn’t feel you should go back—you
might dig up his research, I take it and—who knows? Trust me, Randy. You’ll be better off here…”
Porris watched
open-mouthed as they went to the displacers—and smashed the octagons into small
pieces.
Then they tossed
the hammers aside—and kissed.
Porris groaned.
He pounded down the rest of his wine and poured some more. “Trapped in a liberal
paradise!” he sobbed. “Christ almighty help me—I’m in Hell!”
Porris put his
face in his folded arms. Richard came over and put a hand on his shoulder. “Randy—we’re
going to a party. Lots of people there—many different points of view. Do you
want to come?”
Porris sighed, sat
up, and wiped his eyes. He felt strangely…better.
“Yeah, okay,” he
said. “Why not?”
The End
⚙
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The Bellows in the BB-Heads
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