The Machine's Child (Company) (27 page)

There was a quiet, though dreadfully audible CLICK—

There was a blue flash—

SOME OTHER MORNING

And then there was a roaring darkness as they plunged into deep water and rose upward again, turning as they came, bobbing out into sunlight.

The yellow gas vented, the storm canopy opened, the dolphin servos shot out into a new sea. Alec clutched Mendoza close and kissed her, hard, as tears of relief streamed down his face. The eerie silence was broken by the Captain’s thundering laughter, and by Mendoza saying worriedly:

“Alec, darling?”

“I’m fine,” he said, rocking her in his arms. “And you’re fine, and—and everything’s all right.”

Aye, son, to be sure!
gloated the Captain.
Thirty leagues due west of San Francisco and it’s 30 June 1996. All artifacts from 1855 present and accounted for. Zeus’s brass arse be damned! How’s that for a neat bit of navigation?

They sailed for the City that night, through seas liberally strewn with floating trash and oil slicks. As they came slowly in through the Golden Gate under power, sails reefed, Alec and Mendoza went up on deck and leaned on the rail, staring in fascination at the lights. So did Nicholas and Edward, who were rendered nearly speechless by the size of the Golden Gate Bridge alone. Not so Mendoza, however.

“Oh, this is so changed from 1855,” she said. “Look, look, Ghirardelli Square!” She fairly jumped up and down, pointing at the luminous sign.

“Can we go there? I’ve never been here in this time, I can’t have been, I’d remember this! I always had the impression that the earthquake destroyed everything but it can’t have, can it? Oh, isn’t it beautiful?” She paused for breath and coughed, making a face. “Phew! What a smell, though. Is that internal combustion engines?”

“Old-style automobiles,” said Alec, pointing at the hundreds of tiny lights moving on the bridge and along the steep streets. “Serious pollution.”

“And look at the twentieth-century ships.” She leaned forward, peering through the night. “And that must be Fisherman’s Wharf . . . look, there are people sitting in the restaurants having cocktails. Oh, how civilized!”

Where?
Edward stared vainly. Alec and Nicholas looked, too, but could see no more than minuscule rows of lit windows along the pierside.

“. . . Though I can’t say I care for the clothes,” Mendoza added with a judicious frown.

“We’ll find something you like,” Alec promised, putting his arms around her. “Go shopping, yeah?”

She leaned back and looked up at him, a little sadly.

“We haven’t . . . had this kind of thing a lot, have we? The things that mortals take for granted. Shopping, and sightseeing, and picnics and . . . just being man and wife?”

“No,” Alec said, burying his face in her hair. She looked out at the lights.

“I can almost remember,” she said quietly, “talking with you about the things we’d do, if we could ever have lives of our own. That must have been before the accident, yes?”

Edward took control, shoving Alec aside.

“Yes, my dear,” he said. “We had that conversation a long, long while ago.”

She sighed.

“Do you think they’ll ever leave us alone?”

Edward smiled. His eyes had a disconcertingly icy sparkle; though it might simply have been the reflection of the lights on Telegraph Hill.

“Why, my dear, that’s a dead issue,” he said. “We’ve taken the offensive, now. And we’ll see if that god they’ve made has any power to help them, when we run them down at last.”

And Mendoza smiled, too, and settled back in his arms, and they regarded the glowing City spread out before them.

THE FOLLOWING MORNING

The first day of July 1996 fell on a Monday, so there were few people loitering on Marina Green to remark on the whaleboat that appeared out of the fog, working its slow way across the water and in among the yachts, tying up at the boat dock.

The couple who came ashore drew even less attention, though some passersby noticed the man’s remarkable height, and the way the couple stood staring in disbelief at the traffic roaring by on Marina Boulevard. But nobody heard the girl saying uncertainly:

“I think those lights are a signal, aren’t they? The colors mean something, surely.”

She started toward the intersection, and the man seized her and pulled her back.

“Christ Jesu, love!” he shouted. She turned to stare at him, and he stammered: “Er . . . we have to be really careful of the automobiles, okay? They used to kill a lot of people.”

“I’m sorry.” She took his hand. “But, see how that light over there just changed? I think this one’s about to go, too, and—there! They’re all stopping for us.”

So they crossed the street, the girl smiling a bright artificial smile at the zombie drivers of the sleek cars and pulling along the man, who regarded them with the wild-eyed stare of a thoroughly alarmed horse, especially as they passed a vehicle broadcasting music loudly enough to hurt his ears, a thudding beat counterpointed by a staccato recitative. He seemed to compose himself, however, when they reached the comparative safety of the corner of Marina and Buchanan, and looked around with hard determined eyes.

“Very well,” he said. “No worse than London, really. That’s the market, is it? Rather small for our purposes.”

“That’s just a flower stall,” the girl said. “I think the market’s inside that big dome. See through the glass?”

“Oh,” said the man. “I believe you’re correct. And, according to that sign, there’s a banking agent on the premises. How very convenient.”

So they advanced across the parking lot toward it, located a door, and leaped back in astonishment when it opened automatically for them. The man recovered first.

“Come on. All doors do that nowadays, okay?” he muttered to himself, and grabbing the girl by the hand he hurried in with her.

Once inside, they stopped, staring.

“Oohhh,” murmured the girl. “This will be . . .”

“This was the last big . . .” the man attempted.

“. . . era of mass consumer goods before the General Prohibition laws will be enacted,” the girl finished. She turned to look at the man. He turned to look at her. There was a moment of sizzling silence before he whooped:

“We can get
anything
here!” A couple of aproned clerks and customers turned to stare at them, and he lowered his voice immediately. “We’ll just, er, pretend we buy groceries like this every day. Come on. See those carts? You’re supposed to take one and push it around in front of you. You just go up and down the aisles, putting things you want in it. Okay?”

Which is what they did, as soon as they’d figured out how to get through the turnstile. Each took a cart and the man turned immediately to the right, into the meat department, and the girl followed. Here they prowled along the open butcher’s bin, exclaiming to each other in hushed tones at how tidily it was all presented, every cut individually packaged in its own little white tray and wrapped in transparent film. The man seemed surprised that there was no mutton or goose to be had, and precious little veal; but he loaded huge bleeding clods of beef roast into his cart with both hands, and the girl concentrated on the beautifully plucked and dressed chickens. Neither of them touched the ground meats.

Reining themselves in with visible effort, they pushed on. The man was astonished by the selection of cheeses, took whole wheels. The nonedible items fascinated them, too; they stared and whispered, or giggled together until they were red-faced. They seemed greatly impressed by the canned goods, and selected the ones with the brightest labels. The jars of preserves and jellies captivated them; they took at least one of every color, and several jars of honey. They loaded up on coffees and teas.

They didn’t quite seem to know what to make of the frozen foods aisle, until the girl gave a stifled shriek and made straight for the ice cream. The man remained staring at the frozen dinners in perplexity; opened a freezer case door at last, and stood gazing in a long while, as frosty air rolled around him in clouds. At last he took out a Salisbury steak dinner and opened it, and held the compartmented tray and the printed box side by side and looked from one to the other, knitting his brows, until a clerk advanced on him like an annoyed wasp.

They took several sacks of refined sugar. The cookie and cracker aisle delighted them, as did the gourmet foods. Into the cart were swept all the tins of paté and sardines, and all the jars of chutney and pickled gherkins. The girl went nearly mad in the candy aisle, dumping into her cart Toblerones, Lindt and Hershey bars, to say nothing of every Ghirardelli product available. They came around the corner into the aisle featuring alcoholic beverages and stood dumbstruck for a moment before deciding that they needed another cart, so the girl waited while the man went to fetch another. Thereafter he steered them along expertly, one hand to each, and the few other customers in the store at that hour began to stare at them.

They didn’t notice. They filled the third cart entirely with liquors and microbrewery ales. The man pulled down a bottle of Captain Morgan Spiced Rum and stood smiling at it, misty-eyed, while the girl loaded in José Cuervo. At the baked goods section their carts began to be difficult to manage; and when they turned the very last corner and saw the fresh produce section opening out before them, there was a moment of stunned silence before the girl, without a word, went running back to get a fourth cart.

At last, trundling two carts each, they conferred briefly and then wheeled their purchases up to the nearest checkout counter. The clerk stared at the tower-piled carts in disbelief and said at last, “So . . . you’re having a party?”

“That is correct,” said the tall man. He smiled nastily and added: “In fact, my good man, we are celebrating your Independence Day.”

The girl cleared her throat and said, “And, ah, we will be paying for this with electronic transfer of funds, okay, señor?”

“You mean your ATM card?”

“Of course!” The girl smacked her forehead with the palm of her hand. “You’ll have to excuse us. We’re new here.”

“So these are all together,” the clerk said, leaning forward to look at all four carts. “O-kay. He’s buying all the liquor, right?” He looked sternly at the girl. “Because I know you’re not twenty-one yet, honey.”

She looked guilty. “He’s buying,” she said.

The clerk sighed and pulled out a microphone. “Mikhail, I need a box boy at station six, please, station six.” He shut it off, then thumbed the button again and added: “Make that two box boys please, repeat, two.” He began the exhaustive task of ringing up the contents of the first cart. The man and the girl watched in fascination, and whispered to each other as he pulled items across the bar-code scanner.

“So, you folks are new to San Francisco?” the clerk said. “Where are you from?”

“The sea,” said the man automatically, and then grimaced.

“Spain,” said the girl, at the same moment the man said: “London.”

They looked furtively at each other.

“Originally,” the girl explained. “But . . . actually we’re from Jamaica. Now.”

“Yes,” said the man.

“Okay,” the clerk said stolidly, plowing ahead through the groceries. “I sort of guessed
you
were from England, sweetie.”

“Well, yes, yes he is,” the girl said, wringing her hands. “He’s . . . um . . .” She looked at the man, who was dressed in a very loud tropical-print shirt, blue jeans, and red canvas boating shoes. A late-twentieth-century concept popped into her head. “He’s a British rock and roll star!”

“Really?” The clerk looked up, staring at the man.

“And I’m his groupie,” she added desperately.

“Okay,” sighed the clerk, and went on checking out their purchases.

The amount due was astronomical, and there was an extremely tense moment for all parties involved when the man, after seeming to listen to an interior voice, clumsily ran a new-looking ATM card through the little push-button device and keyed in a code. What sighs of relief when it went through without a hitch!

They had a moment or two to wait, however, as the two box boys, now assisted by the checkout clerk, were still laboring away at bagging their groceries. The man ventured over to the automated teller and studied it bemusedly, before withdrawing a certain amount in cash. The girl picked up a copy of the
Weekly World News
and flipped through it, raising her eyebrows now and then.

“You’d like some help out with this, huh?” said Mikhail the box boy, as the man came strolling back, tucking away his wallet.

“No, thank you, I believe we can manage quite nicely,” he said. “Shall we, my dear?”

“Okay,” said the girl, putting back the
News.
She gripped a cart handle with either hand, pushed, and her two carts rolled easily if ponderously out through the nearest self-opening exit. The man followed her. He was saying “Really quite an ingenious device, when one is laden with parcels—” when in an entirely different tone of voice he interrupted himself to exclaim: “Oh, my God, that guy’s selling cappuccino.” And then, in an undertone: “Right out in public, too!”

Mikhail went to the door and watched their uneven progress through the parking lot and across the street.

“Americans buy so many groceries,” he said in awe.

The clerk just shrugged and said, “Takes all kinds to make a world, sugar.”

Another commemorative holo, on the deck of the
Captain Morgan,
and in the background the immense dirty vivid pulsing sharp-towered City. The young man, with his wild hair and loud shirt, is holding up two gallon jugs of Captain Morgan Spiced Rum like trophies. The girl, in simple Levis and a Giants T-shirt, is brandishing a box of Rice-a-Roni in one hand and a box of gloriously Technicolor breakfast cereal in the other. They are both, the boy and the girl, grinning like loons.

LATER THAT AFTERNOON

“Wow, we’re going to be purging preservatives and toxins out of our systems for weeks,” said Mendoza happily, tossing the last of the canned peaches to Alec, who stacked them neatly away. They had already filled the bar to capacity. “I can make tamales at last. And all that Theobromos! Though I’d really like to go to Ghirardelli’s. We can buy more cloth at the woolen mill.”