A Cup of Normal (16 page)

One day, I found myself standing at the foot of the Astoria Bridge in Astoria, Oregon, staring up at the metal rungs notched all the way to the wide blue sky above me. I wondered about the people whom those rungs were made for, people who put their lives at risk to do their jobs. I wondered if it would only be our lives we would put at risk to do the jobs of the future.

STRINGING TOMORROW

It felt as if we had begun each of our days here
, caught by the violet light of the new rising sun: she, wrapped in a solar blanket against the cold I could not feel, I buckling the last latch on my safety belt.

“Don’t go,” said Celia, my lovely, childless wife.

“I won’t be long. Home tonight. The string break doesn’t look too severe.” No sound from her. I looked up from the all-go green on my wrist pack. Her eyes were dark, mouth tugged down in a frown.

“I promise, Celia.” I extended my hand and gently pushed the dark strands of hair away from her temple. Her skin was warm against the fingertip sensors in my gloves. “I’ll be home tonight.”

“It will need to be tonight,” she said. “The appointment to choose a child is tomorrow. With or without you, Allen.”

“Can it wait?”

“It has waited. I’ve waited,” she said. The wind tugged at the edge of her blanket, and I knew it was true. Ten years of hoping. There was no denying I could never father a child of my own blood. My modified body, made to walk the strings, had ensured I would never reproduce.

“I’ll be home soon.” I’d hoped it sounded positive, but she shook her head. She knew me too well. Knew I hated the idea of picking a baby off a shelf, out of a file, a jar.

I put both hands out and gently squeezed her arms. She drew into my embrace, blanket and all, and I inhaled the sweet copper scent of her. Flesh and bone, so warm and alive in my coldwire and bio-composite arms. Fifteen years we’d been married. Fifteen years I’d watched her go from hope to despair of ever conceiving a child.

The green on my wrist flashed. My shift was on. “Ce, I need to go.”

She nodded against my chest. When she stepped back, I was surprised to see her tears. I hadn’t felt her crying.

“I promise I’ll be home.”

She looked up at me, held my gaze, searched for a guarantee in my words.

“I won’t wait past tomorrow,” she said. She turned back into the house and shut the door behind her.

The wind stirred the lines above my head and I glanced up. Strings a meter thick zigged from horizon to horizon between jutting, jointed metal frames, netting the dawn sky, catching the last light of stars. It was for the song of the strings that I endured the training and the modifications it took to walk the strings, mend the strings, sort and route every possible word and dream into Archives before they were lost.

I slipped my index finger into the slot on my wrist pack. “Allen Bourne. Locate to site.”

“Allen Bourne,” a soft alto of Archives said in my left ear. “Site Baud 15, Cross at 45. Break approximately one point one mill. Transport requested?”

The upper window of the house flickered with yellow light. Celia at her computer station, activating the lines, digging into Archive’s knowledge, browsing for babies.

“Transport requested?” Archives asked again.

“Yes.” I walked to the flatpad a few meters — safe distance — away from the house. The sun, deep-lit as an orchid, pulled free from the horizon and scattered maroon light across the sloping hills that surrounded our property. Our house, painted white and modeled after the old farm houses of Earth, glowed pink in the new day. I checked my gear one last time, the familiar ritual — belt, wrist, eyes and ears. All go. All green.

“Transport.”

I pulled a quick breath. The world snapped.

“Transport completed,” Archives said.

My chest uncollapsed and I waited for inertia to stabilize. Transport is one of the first tests a Lineman takes — an efficient way to discover who recovers quickly from relocated mass, and who doesn’t. Constructs can take the snap once a day. It had given me the edge when I first applied to work the Lines. It was, I believed, the main reason I had risen to head position of the quadrant.

The disorientation passed. I looked up.

Archives had gone organic over fifty thousand years ago, yet great juts of jointed metal still thrust up out of the grass and hills, connected by dark strings. The metal bones of Archives skewered the land and jabbed at the sky like the skeleton of a ship that had washed ashore before the sea grasses grew up to claim it.

Metal girders rose to dizzying heights. Data lines stretched from one horizon to the other. All the information from hundreds of inhabited planets, millions of civilizations was sieved through the spindled girders, channeled down the strings — every scrap, every whisper, every plan, every desire, every dream stored deep in the internal honeycomb of Archives.

It was my job to repair the physical breaks in the lines, my job to keep Archives from missing a single word from the stars above.

I looked back to the ground and saw the blocky form of Don Jango coming toward me. Heavy mag blocks swung over the shoulder of his bulky insulated suit, counter-rhythm to his steps. At the sight of another line walker, my hands fell into the familiar routine, pausing over belt, wrist, eyes and ears. Don drew close enough I could see his smile.

“Weren’t you just on duty?” he asked.

I paused. No, it had been two days ago, and a day before that, and another before that. I tried to think of when I last spent a full day at home, and was chilled to discover I could not.

“A while ago,” I answered.

Don sniffed, his brown eyes violet in the morning light, his cheeks already red. “Cold as a grave today,” he said. “Let’s hope the lines aren’t frozen.” He rubbed his gloved hands together and tipped his head back and up. “No luck,” he said. “Solid ice up there.”

I followed his glance up the spires. They glinted silver, even in shadow.

“I’ll lead.”

He chuckled. “You’re welcome to it.” He took the remaining steps between us, and latched his safety line onto my belt.

I latched my line onto his belt hook and gave it a short tug.

“Think we’ll get home early?” He was smiling, but worry drew his eyebrows together. “It’s just that Vera has a trip planned. We’re going to see her folks.” His voice trailed off as people’s tend to do when I hold eye contact for too long.

I nodded like I understood, though I had no parents to visit. “I told Celia I’d be home tonight.”

“Good.” He smiled again, but did not look me in the eyes. I rechecked my belt.

He keyed the code into his wrist pack and signaled our ready. All lights blinked blue.

“Team accepted, string mapped, break identified,” Archives said in my ear. “Proceed one point one mill.”

We walked to the nearest tower, step in step with each other. At the base of the tower, metal steps — snug indentations that scooped up the center of the tower — could be seen. It was a simple, if long, climb to the strings above, this part of the towers not yet having been fitted with a lift.

I took a deep breath and caught the sweet odor of dew and pollen rising from bent grass, then put both hands on the grips. I pulled myself up, boots finding the toeholds with practiced ease.

After a hundred steps, I glanced over my shoulder to make sure Don had taken position. He was below me, setting the safety mags that would support my weight, and his, if I fell. The mags interfered with the dataflow on the strings too much to take them all the way to the top, but a linemen never climbed alone.

Don tugged my belt line, twice, short. All go.

I climbed.

Mind set, eyes upward, one hand, one step, one push up, again, again, again. I breathed harder, and listened to the snick and shush of my boots in and out of the cups, punctuated by the slight vibration of the mags being placed, lifted, and placed again.

The world fell behind me, the strings above grew. Strings that looked fragile from below became thicker the closer I came to them. I lost myself to the simple rhythm of the climb. Don signaled the halfway with a single tug on my belt. I stopped and shifted my weight from the balls of my feet to back along the sides. I shrugged my shoulders to loosen them, and turned my hip into the tower.

The view was stunning.

Endless organic green stained by the violet sun rolled out to the edge of the sky. The great dark data strings pulled between jointed metal. It didn’t matter how many times I made the climb, it still stirred something deep within me. The data towers were harps, bones, looms crossed with thread heavy enough to bind the stars and all the worlds of humanity together.

Archives heard every cry of the human race. I wondered if it heard the dreams of artificial men, of constructs like me. If, perhaps, the strings could hear my hopes, my dreams.

The wind picked up, pressing my harness closer to my insulated shirt and drawing tears to the edge of my eyes. Above me, the strings thrummed. I sensed voices, sounds, signals, tones and rhythm, all the worlds living, being, doing, far above my head.

Almost, I could make out my name drifting on the winds. I closed my eyes for a moment and concentrated. A sharp double tug at my belt broke the moment. Time to be moving.

Up.

Hands and feet found the familiar pace, pushing the tower a step at a time beneath me.

The voices above were louder. I tried to control my breathing to better hear them, but I was too far away to catch anything but snatched words.

“. . . Promise . . .”

“. . . too late . . . baby . . .”

“. . . Override . . . Allen . . .”

I climbed. The tower swayed in fitful winds, and vibrated with each lift and set of the mags.

All the world seemed in rhythm. But my heart beat too fast. I wanted to hear the voices. I knew they were talking about me. I climbed faster.

“. . . options . . .”

“. . . alternate reality . . .”

“. . . baby . . .”

Oxygen deprivation. The thought was suddenly clear. I was suffering auditory hallucinations. There were no voices. I paused my upward climb. One hand automatically fell to the safety line, giving two short tugs so Don would keep the correct distance below me.

I pulled the oxygen tube from my collar and took a few deep breaths. Nothing seemed to change, other than my breathing slowed slightly. I could still hear the voices calling.

“. . . Allen . . .”

“. . . choose . . . promise . . .”

“. . . waiting . . .”

I pressed my forehead against the metal pole, wanting the cold to shock me, wanting the buzz of voices to fade. The voices kept on, ghostly snatches just above my head, at the edge of my hearing.

“. . . without you . . .”

“. . . without . . .”

“. . . without . . .”

I couldn’t sense the cold metal against my skin at all.

There were reasons to abort a job, times when weather, illness, equipment failure and other troubles indicate a lineman should call it quits and try again the next day.

This was one of those times. But it would keep me out at this site at least another day. I’d told Celia I’d be home. If I were late, she’d think I didn’t want children, didn’t want her, didn’t want our life together.

“Transport requested?” I jerked at the soft voice of Archives and open my eyes. Don was tugging, three short tugs with a pause. Weather warning. I squinted at the rolling clouds building to the East — a storm rising to catch the sun. We had two or three hours before the storm reached us, but once it did, it would stop our repairs.

Mending a break takes more than an hour. Then there was the slow climb down.

“Transport requested?” Archives asked again.

“No.” I tugged my safety line once. “Estimate storm front arrival.”

“Two point six hours,” Archives replied.

Just enough time if I stayed focused. I climbed.

“Map the break,” I said.

Archives flashed a map of thin blue lines — the strings above me — over my eyepiece. The break showed as a red oval, thirty yards out from the metal tower. That meant I’d have to bypass, maybe crawl out and deal with the fusion on the line, patching by hand, swinging with nothing but the fractured wire and the far far below beneath me.

If I were lucky, I could ratchet the line taut from the platform and send a bond-line out to self patch. If I wasn’t lucky, the storm would hit while I was dangling by a wire.

I pushed that thought out of my mind.

“. . . promise . . .”

“. . . Allen choose . . .”

“. . . good-bye . . .”

The top was only a few steps away. I glanced down, saw Don swing over to the catch platform and anchor the mags into permanent latch-joints. He got busy rerouting the power on the information pull, down the broken line.

He had family to visit.

I promised Ce I’d be there tonight.

The storm drew closer.

I climbed to the top, slipped up through the hole in the upmost railed platform and stood.

Voices, song, a broken, overwhelming sound churned around me. I covered my ears and searched for the source. The break in the line shone with yellow light toward the dark sky, the same yellow in the window of our house, but this light hurt my eyes to look at it.

I lowered eye shields and knelt. My fingers knew what to do — link, wrap, ratchet. Activate the bond-line, feed it out, guide it like a wire snake twisting out to cover the break. I did these things, trying not to think of the storm I could feel pushing at my back, trying not to think of the voices, Celia, dreams. The bond-line snaked out around and around the line. Once the bond-line reached the break, I triggered the fusion. My wrist pack blinked red. Patch failure.

I’d told her I’d come home. I glanced up, and wished I hadn’t. The storm covered the sky, tendrils reaching out to wrap the sun.

The wind hit.

I held on as the tower swayed, flexible enough to withstand the last thousand years of storms. But it wasn’t the tower I was worried about. It was the lines. They whipped in the gusts, snapping, thrumming, throwing the voices louder around me, the split in the line like a yellow eye, glancing off to search the storm.