Authors: S D Taylor
Tom and Doug both felt an intense sense of disbelief as they looked at the picture of the young family and tried to imagine the beautiful smiling woman and this half-mechanized monster before them as a married couple. Or imagine Jelk as the father of the little girl. Doug just couldn’t quite get there. “This is a ruse. I don’t believe these people exist and I don’t believe they are your family.”
“Then hold out your hand, Doug. Let me show you.” Jelk extended his large, shiny right hand towards Doug.
After a brief hesitation, Doug grasped his hand and felt the same tingle that Erin had felt when she had experienced the thoughtlink. Doug suddenly felt the words “can you hear me?” form in his head. “Yes, I can hear you. Is this a form of telepathy?” Doug said the words out loud.
Jelk thoughts answered. “Yes. But I am not going to ‘speak’ as much as I am going to show you things that have happened to me in the past week. Close your eyes and watch.” It was blackness for a second as Doug closed his eyes, but then he suddenly saw the pretty woman in the picture sitting across a table eating. A young child could be heard in the room but Doug couldn’t see her. The woman was smiling and held out a plate of food. Then the scene changed to the boat as he saw Jelk’s view of Doug approaching in the zodiac. It was as if Jelk could play back selected memories of what the mechanical hybrid had seen in the past week. Finally, there was the image of walking down a hallway and into what appeared to be a hotel room. Then suddenly Erin was there, with her long red hair framing her face and wearing a blue jumpsuit. She was leaning against the wall and looking straight ahead sternly. She looked very beautiful but also scared. Then there was blackness and Doug opened his eyes.
“Was that all real? Is that what you actually saw in the past few days?”
“Yes. I have no ability to alter my brain’s event recording log. I try to suppress things like kissing my wife goodbye, but everything you saw was completely real as it actually happened. I just spoke to Erin less than twenty four hours ago.” Jelk released Doug’s hand and waited for him to recover from this sudden first exposure to the thoughtlink technology. He also didn’t tell Doug that he also suppressed the images of the older Doug. That would have been too much to show him.
Tom was sitting there with his hand out, expecting his own version of the show, but Jelk ignored him. “What did he show you?”
Doug turned towards Tom, overwhelmed by the emotion of seeing Erin but very happy to see how well she looked. “He showed me his family at home, a view from the boat when we tried to rescue Erin and he showed me Erin in what appears to be her hotel room in the future world. She was all cleaned up and wearing some blue jumpsuit. She looked well. And beautiful.”
“I assumed she would look beautiful, but is she ok? What was he doing in her room?” Tom looked at Jelk who was smiling.
“Don’t worry Tom. I will explain everything. I had to contact Erin through thoughtlinking since in the future every conversation is monitored. All verbal communication can be heard by their listening systems but they haven’t found a reliable way to monitor telepathic communication. It is especially difficult for them if the two people are touching like just now when I was touching Doug’s hand.”
Tom wanted desperately to ask how it all worked, but decided it wasn’t the time or place. “So what is your plan? Why do you want Doug to go with you? Why are you here?”
“The Yir-Lak Command sent me and Dara here to kill you, but obviously we have a different plan in mind. I want to take Doug with me because I believe he can go there undetected and make contact with Erin and help put the plan into action. And he can explain everything to her and help make arrangements for everyone to escape.”
“What arrangements for what plan? Tell us what you are thinking?”
“Our society is tightly controlled and monitored. Any kind of conspiracy would be immediately detected and destroyed. But Erin suggested that since we can go to specific places in time and space with the vortex technology, we might be able to find a place to relocate ourselves and our families. Then we would take steps to suppress our location so that people like me and Dara, the ones who take our place that is, would leave us alone. But even discussing such a plan in our world would automatically doom it to failure. By enlisting your assistance, along with Erin and the others, we might have a chance. Do you understand now why I need your help?”
“I am beginning to get it, but why do you think I would be able to go around undetected? Don’t they monitor you by your DNA or some physical characteristic?”
Jelk smiled. “Yes, they do monitor people based on their DNA, but since we have someone with the same DNA as you, it should be possible to fool the system.”
“But how could you have someone with the same DNA as me. . .”
Tom smiled broadly. “Gee, Doug. I wonder. Maybe you don’t die in a fishing accident eighteen years from now.”
Tom and Doug could never have imagined they would hear laughter coming from the evil insect man.
Chapter 34
The first morning in Selenton the older version of Doug and the younger Erin found a street called Plender Way that ran for several miles along the waterfront. It was a pedestrian-only thoroughfare that featured many shops and restaurants. They later found out it was always packed with people after everyone left work in the afternoon. But at mid-morning Erin and Doug saw only a few people around.
The wild and varied architecture was the dominant feature of the mall as they looked south from plaza where the trail from the Yir-Lak compound intersected Plender Way. The buildings to either side of the street averaged three stories tall and the effect was like churning silver waves with a path between. “This looks like the scene where Moses parts the Red Sea.” Doug shook his head at the sight. “I thought I had an idea of what futuristic meant, but this is beyond anything I could imagine.”
Erin was also amazed by the sight. “I sure wish we were here as tourists instead of prisoners. Being kidnapped and constantly reminded of our pending death sentence takes most of the fun out of it.”
“You know, any way you look at it, life is a finite event. We all have a limited time and yet we manage to ignore that fact and find enjoyment in what we do. Let’s just make the most of being here and enjoy ourselves. Maybe we will get lucky and have more time that we expect. Being all depressed about it won’t help.”
Erin realized he was probably right. No amount of hand wringing and tears were going to change anything. “Fine. But you better be ready to go shopping after breakfast.”
Doug laughed. “Fair enough. Living on the island all these years haven’t provided me many chances to endure shopping trips, so I guess a little shopping here won’t kill me.”
The variety of restaurants was impressive with options ranging from traditional ethnic fare, minus meat, to places that served food intended to be healthy, soothing or romantic. Apparently Transarcticans believed that nutrition was the key to health and attitude. Erin had always believed that in her world, but had to laugh at the concept here. “So they are interested in staying healthy and happy, right up until they reach the termination age? This place is a big bucket of contradictions.”
“Maybe not. Once you realize you have only thirty six years to live, you probably try to make the most of the time you have.”
Erin wasn’t so sure human nature worked that way. “You don’t think there are a few people that go for the ‘eat, drink and be merry’ approach?”
Doug laughed. “I think the government is really good at discouraging that behavior.” He stopped in front of a restaurant called “Best Breakfast.”
Erin looked up at the sign and smiled. “I can’t argue with that. I could eat a horse.”
“Pretty sure that won’t be on the menu.” Doug pulled open the door and they went in. It turned out that pancakes and waffles still existed in the future and despite the lack of bacon, they had an excellent breakfast as they explored all the creative fruit and vegetable toppings that were offered.
After breakfast, Erin held Doug to his implied commitment to go shopping. At first it was hard to understand how the sustainment credits worked but the attendant at the first store explained that you just take a shopping bag, select your items and leave. If you have enough credits, the store sensors link your purchases to your personal electronic signal and your account is billed. If you don’t have sufficient credit, a buzzer sounds when you leave the store. Anyone going more than twenty feet from the store with merchandise they can’t afford will induce a mild stunpulse.
“I guess that cuts down on shoplifting or overdrafts.” Doug had issues with a society that could exercise so much invasive control over the populace.
Erin turned to him as they walked down Plender Way. “Don’t you think that is where our culture is going anyway? Everything about our finances and health is already being monitored by somebody. This future world just makes it more efficient.”
“Maybe so, but when they put the chips inside you, it is going too far.”
“Look, up ahead. ‘Value Clothes.’ We have to check that out. I might be nice to have a few different things to wear besides these jumpsuits.” Erin grabbed Doug’s arm and quickened their pace.
Doug shook his head. “I hope we have money left for the trip.”
They spent the next three days trying different restaurants, shopping here and there and checking out Selenton. Doug wasn’t sure why, but he felt compelled to see as much of the city as possible as if he was planning for a future clandestine mission there. Pretending to be tourists served as a good cover, but being much older than nearly everyone else, along with the gray beard, made it hard for him to be inconspicuous. He was most interested in access to transportation, what boats came and went in the harbor and the way the People Movers worked. He didn’t tell Erin what he was doing, but she suspected that their rather thorough approach to touring the city was to prepare for future possibilities.
On the morning of the fourth day, they followed their usual routine of getting up early and heading into town, except this time they carried backpacks that served as their luggage. Doug and Erin moved quickly along the streets of Selenton as they made their way to the people mover station. It was two miles past the fish restaurant, located just a block west of Plender Way. This morning was just like the others and there were few people out and about as they walked through the city. In three full days of exploring Selenton, they had not been able to learn much about the work habits of the population other than the observation that everyone went to work very early and then left work about three in the afternoon.
Doug’s Viewtonc provided a map with the highlights of the city for visitors and it had been their guide during their daily visits to the city. The large blue squares with PM written on them represented the people mover stations. They provided free, if somewhat slow transportation between a variety of city and regional destinations. At a top speed of about forty miles per hour in the city, you didn’t get around quickly but the price was right. And no questions were asked since there were no humans involved in the operation other than the passengers.
The station was really little more than a covered platform with some windbreaks where the waiting passengers could avoid the wind, rain and snow if there was any. On this morning, the sky was its usual bright, slightly gray self and there was no weather of any kind in sight. It was only five minutes after they arrived at the station that the sleek blue and white cars of the people mover began to pass them as they pulled into the station. There were ten cars total in each people mover train. The cars were all identical with slightly rounded fronts and backs, a molded plastic bubble on the top that opened up like a clam shell and a U shaped soft plastic bench seat that extended out from three sides of the car’s interior. Up to eight people could squeeze into the car but they would have to be comfortable sitting squeezed together with each other. Since there were few passengers in the mid-morning, Doug and Erin had a car to themselves.
“These seats are more comfortable than they look. I thought they would be harder.” Erin was rubbing her hand on the seat which looked like hard plastic but felt quite soft when you sat down on it.
“There are a number of technical advancements I would like to take back to our world. I could retire if I could get a couple of them back to our time and patent them. Or just go straight to one of the shopping channels and sell the stuff direct.” Doug was watching the bubble dome close slowly. He was surprised that there was no “Door is closing” message like he expected from a lifetime of airport train and theme park experiences. Maybe in the future people have actually figured out that the doors will close before the train leaves he thought with a smile. No need for all the “don’t try this at home” messages that seemed ubiquitous in first decade of his new century.
Erin thought about his shopping channel comment. She had seen one while flipping around the channels two weeks earlier in Boston but it seemed like a lifetime ago since she had watched TV. So far, in her brief visit to the future she had not seen any TVs, but the Viewtoncs appeared capable of showing video content. Maybe that was all they had in the future. Unless they had sports or movies, having a big screen hanging on the wall was probably not all that critical. She decided she would have to ask someone about it when the time was right.