The Future Is Short (19 page)
Wernher felt relief cover the terror on his face.
—Oh … oh yes.—
Sure, Wernher thought. It made everything worth it.
The Apollo Applications Program. And the murder of Jackie.
New Bay Street’s terminus was ahead, at the end of the causeway’s slope. He could see the Golden Gate Bridge. BART station New Embarcadero. An aircraft carrier was docked at the wharf.
—How much do I have to pay you to get me right … there … at the foot of the stage?—
—Right at the stage?—
He pulled out a stack of hundred-dollar bills and held twenty of them out like a fan.
—You got it, mister!—
Wernher smiled.
The cabbie engaged the gasoline tank and drove off the causeway, onto the street, and into the BART parking lot. A crowd of thousands upon thousands cheered enthusiastically for the returning heroes of Apollo 13.
Wernher jumped out.
The noise of the applause was deafening. Michael Collins, the first man to step foot on Mars, spoke at the podium. Applause washed out his voice. Wernher dashed up the steps. Then he felt a sharp weight of pain in his back.
Then another. He saw blood.
The crowd cheered.
He stumbled, fell back, looked down the steps. There was the cabbie with a smoking gun. Wernher could read his lips.
—Forget it, mister, this is Chinatown.—
JD Mitchell has been a writer since he first played with Legos. Since then, adventures as a butcher and teacher have inspired and informed many of his narratives. His main interest lies in the origins of science fiction, specifically as a way for him to study the problems of the present day.
[email protected]
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4
3.
Jon Ricson
I reach up and push in the stuffers. They barely keep out the waves of sound from the roads above. The above world of the Primes. Their shiny world with automated roads, abundant food, freedom, safety …
Down here all we get is the noisy turbines, cast-off sparks from the slaveways above, and the darkness, even in the daytime.
The world above calls us Strags, when they call us anything at all.
I made a job for myself. I find stuff that Primes cast off,
then sell it to black marketeers. They pay good for slaveway or hover parts, foodstuffs that fall down here, or other Prime things like commlinks or jewelry.
Looking up, I watch the hovercars whiz by, never ceasing.
I feel the vibrations of the huge steel supports that hold up their world. I feel it in my teeth.
Then I push my cart towards the next open area.
They used to call this area The Loop. My momma once said this used to be one of the bigger cities in the world. Now Chicago Prime is the city. We live below in the old world. We are just the Strags. Life is hard down here.
I see some dark figures ahead. I know who they are.
They yell at me, so I pull one stuffer out. I can barely hear them screaming.
“Hey you,” one of them says. “What you got today?”
“Not much yet,” I say. A large transport rushes by overhead.
They push me around a little. They see I just got started. They move on. I push the stuffer back in my ear. It’s just a dull roar now.
Regular Strag folk come out of hiding as the gang leaves. So many. They look at me, wondering what I got, but they don’t cause trouble. They are just hungry too.
I walk towards a ray of light coming through the slaveways above. I feel the sun on my face. I wonder what it’s like up there in the sun all day. I wonder what it’s like to be a Prime.
My momma once told me she and some friends went up there in the old days. That was before Strags were told to stay down here. That was before The Laws.
Momma said that once Strags lived with Primes. She said in the old days Strags weren’t even called Strags, they were just folks with no homes. But eventually there just was too many of us.
The Primes wanted a world without us. They wanted a new shiny world.
Something reflects the sunlight near my feet. I pick it up. It’s a little girl’s bracelet. Momma taught me to read a little. It says “Marcey.” I like that name. If I still had a sister, I’d like that to be her name. But she died. Strags that get sick don’t get well that much. Just like Momma said.
I look around to make sure no one sees I have the bracelet. Strags don’t have much that’s shiny. That’s for Primes.
I know it would probably bring good trade from the black marketers.
Maybe even real food from Chicago Prime. Maybe some meat—hopefully cow and not dog. But I like the shiny bracelet that says “Marcey.” I want to keep it for awhile.
One of the stuffers comes loose and the whooshing traffic above fills my ear. I push it back in.
Time for me to move on, before the gang comes back and finds what I got. Time to see what else I can find today under the slaveways.
Jon Ricson writes science fiction, detective, and other entertainment literature. He resides outside Orlando, Florida, and you can often find him walking the streets of Disney or Universal soaking in the creativity.
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44.
Lars Carlson
“It will suit our purpose?”
Olaf Ivarsson, Viking jarl and thane of the late king Bjorn Jormunson, stood on the prow of his longship while regarding two men standing on the white sands just ahead of its beached prow. One hand rested on the hilt of his sword while the other stroked his great braided brown beard.
“It will, jarl,” gasped one man, crouched on one knee and breathing hard behind a gray cloth face wrap. “Not a sign of any man about and as forbidding as the African desert. We could not hope for better.”
The second man, standing tall and leaning on a gnarled walking staff, nodded assent.
Unlike Olaf and his retinue, this man wore heavy robes of blue and gray.
Ruddy dust covered both men.
“Very well,” Olaf said. “Beach the ship and unload.”
The rest of Olaf’s retinue clambered from their rowing benches. Half jumped the gunwales into cold black water gleaming with reflected starlight to muscle the warship fully onto the shining beach. Those remaining aboard lowered the mast so that it would not snag on the many stalactites jutting from the starry darkness. Both groups passed cargo from the vessel’s center once the ship was made fast.
Olaf labored beside his men to see the task done.
The robed man circulated among the jarl’s company while they worked. He handed to each man gray cloths like that the dust-covered scout wore; intricate golden wires and matte blue nodules laced their hems. Veterans of Olaf’s black-water expeditions thanked the robed man and set the cloths about their faces. Vikings new to the matter were instructed in their use by the robed man’s keen, sibilant voice in hushed tones.
Within an hour, Olaf’s company set out from their landing. Pairs of them carried heavy chests and crates, marching up the shining sands toward a dim orange tunnel hollowed from the starry night. Passing through it the Vikings found themselves on a scree-covered mountain slope beset with red dust. The sun shone small and cold in a yellow sky.
Olaf’s men muttered uneasily amongst themselves.
The Viking jarl ordered them quiet; they obeyed.
In wheezing silence, the company marched, following their scout and the robed man. The way was not difficult, but whether from the dust or the mountain’s height (dust obscured its lower slopes), they all
labored for breath. The Viking’s shirts of iron rings and the burdens they carried did not help them any. Stops for rest were frequent.
Eventually the company arrived at a pile of boulders. Pleased with the site, Olaf directed his men to dig. A trench was excavated in the dry, red dust and the cargo
laid inside. This cargo represented the best of Olaf’s latest raid on the Irish coast as well as the bulk of his wealth. With King Jormunson dead, some of his jarls sought to make themselves king in his stead—or just take tribute like one. Olaf had no intention of seeing his riches stolen. He hid his treasure to recover in better times.
Olaf’s company erected a small cairn at the foot of the boulder pile to mark the site. In this, Olaf laid a broad silver baptismal bowl, looted from
a Britannic church years ago. He’d marked the rim with his dagger.
When this was done, the Vikings rested briefly before marching back to the black-water beach. They were eager to set sail for home, to see the blue seas again and familiar fjords.
***
What did one say about such a find? What could one say? No one in the Curiosity Mission Control room knew.
The big monitor showed the rover’s main camera staring at its own dusty, distorted image in a neat pile of rocks. Days prior, the rover spotted a twinkle on the Gale Crater’s outer slope and came to investigate. Scientists expected some kind of crystal formation, hoped for ice. They found a silver bowl bearing Scandinavian rune-marks and a cross defaced into a Thor’s hammer emblem.
The next day, a translation of the bowl’s runes was received from a Norwegian college: HERE LIES THE HOARD OF OLAF IVARSSON, TO BE CLAIMED BY HIM OR HIS KIN.
Lars Carlson is a welder, network administration student, gamer, and avid reader who sometimes manages to find time to write, every now and again (just not as often as he would like).
He currently lives just north of Seattle, Washington, after 27 years as a native Minnesotan.
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45.
Allen Quintana
“… and—and, then he said, ‘I’d sure like to try that in zero-gee!’”
The confined walls of Hermes One shook against the laughter as the pair punched the bulkheads with the soft edges of their fists or butted them with the backs of their heads as they threw back laughs at the tasteless joke.