365 tomorrows

“The fact remains, ladies and gentlemen, we have to meet the Geert price,” Fawzia Chiranov said. “We ought to do better than the Geert price, but due to the nature of our company, we’ll probably get by merely with meeting them. But I will tell you this, we lose this bid, we lose the planet.”

Naturally, this was scoffed at. Fawzia was used to this. She charged a great deal for her opinions and consultations, and she was paid for them because she was always right.

“You mean, we’ll lose the contract.” Usamah Afifi had a tendency to bob his shriveled bald head when he talked. Fawzia found it difficult to look at him and not to picture a turtle in a Brooks Brothers suit. “We’ll lose the bid. We’ll get ‘em next time.”

“No,” Fawzia said. “We won’t. There won’t be a next time. We lose this bid, we’re finished. The Geert will have control of the Earth.”

“I think you’re being a little too xenophobic, Ms. Chiranov,” said Eugeny Ruzhan from the head of the table. Ruzhan was considered a war hero; he had designed the robot that won the Kasi War. He still wore his medal pinned to the front of his coat, though the Kasi War had been over long before Fawzia was born. “The Geert are shrewd businessmen, but they aren’t out to take over the world!”

The board laughed at this. Fawzia only scowled.

“That is where you are wrong, Mr. Ruzhan. The Geert are a conquering people. We forget what that means, these days. But they are. They have been buying up and sending out of business Earthan companies for the past few years. We’re one of the last ones, and if Aczel Interplanetary falls, the Geert will control the commerce and economy of the people of Earth.”

“How could they have done this?” Jit Shiew Han asked. She had recently had her face redone, and she looked younger than Fawzia, despite being twice her age. It made it difficult for Fawzia to take her seriously.

“By being single-minded on a cultural level. Despite the appearance of multiple Geert industries, they all have the same goal: overrun a planet, absorb its workforce as slaves, move on to the next. They’ve done this on a dozen worlds already.”

“What do you suppose we do?” Afifi asked. “We’re bidding as low as we can. How can we hope to compete?”

“We stop paying our workers,” Fawzia said. “We stop paying them, we work them day and night, and we provided them with only the most basic nutrition.”

“You’re talking slavery,” Afifi huffed.

“I’m talking of the only defense from slavery. We don’t do this, we lose this contract, there will not be another. Which means it will only be a matter of time before this board reports to Geert masters.”

“It can’t just be down to us,” Han said, her voice quavering. “What about Calaerts? Ghenadie Tech? Easwarau?”

“Calaerts is three months away from filing bankruptcy,” Fawzia said. “Ghenadie Tech is being forced into a plan which will downsize them considerably, and it’s only a matter of time before they are absorbed by a larger Geert corporation. And Easwarau—”

Ruzhan cut her off. “Easwarau was bought outright by the Geert. Saw it on the feed this morning.” Fawzia nodded. “Send out a memo to our employees. We’re following Ms. Chiranov’s suggestions to the letter.”

“They’ll never go for it,” Afifi said. “They’ll riot.”

“They’ll go along with the plan,” Fawzia said. “Just remind them their freedom is at stake.”

In the February, 2006 issue of Popular Science Magazine, on page 88, in the midst of the “FYI” section, you will find the question “What’s worth reading on the Web?” The answer is as follows:

Imagine a web site that posts a brand-new, original piece of fiction every day, a story short enough to read without hitting a “next” button. This all-sci-fi site launched last August and has been posting new prose daily. Read stories about humanoid robots, alien love affairs, and time travel back to the 20th century at 365tomorrows.com.

Every one of us here at 365 was floored that the leading periodical of the technology that builds the future we write about gave us their recomendation. Thank you, Popular Science. And welcome, folks from Popular Science. You’ll find a good home here among our intelligent and devoted readership.

The locksmith knelt down to examine the mangled keyhole in Exetor’s office door. He turned his head and raised a brow at the man seated behind the desk, who was typing with twelve fingers and paying little attention to the tradesman. “So uh, how did this happen?”

A grumble came from the broad-shouldered man at the desk, “I was in a hurry, all right? Haven’t you ever broken something while in a hurry?” Exetor said before reading the words ‘Bionic Locksmith’ on the back of the tradesman’s uniform. “Oh… I guess you haven’t.”

Exetor felt weird in his office, talking to thirteen people on the transmitter in his brain and watching his door being fixed. The scene was a bit awkward with silence, so he sat up and decided to be nice for once. “So, are you natural born or implanted?”

“Excuse me?” The locksmith turned his head with a look of surprise on his face and annoyance at being distracted from his job.

“I mean, are you born or implant? Not a hard question… wait, you’re not one of those liberal bionics, are ya?”

Even though Exetor was digging himself into a bigger hole, the man just toyed with the rim of his hat and went back to examining the lock. “Born with it.”

“Ah, that’s cool. I’m an implant myself. Yes, these babies cost me a pretty credit.” He held up his hands, wiggling all twelve fingers. The glint in Exetor’s eyes changed constantly with the numerous moods he was forced into due to the numerous conversations, but he kept a smile for the locksmith. “The transmitter and the language translator were both in-grown after the process.”

“Yeah, well, you do something long enough…” The locksmith started, as his eyes narrowed to better see inside the lock.

Exetor interrupted again, “That’s what they say, isn’t it? Do something long enough and it adjusts for you? I’m surprised the nano-people haven’t made it into an ad campaign.” He rubbed his chin, considering the money one would make from such an endeavor. His guest remained silent. The locksmith was beginning to regret working for the big wigs.

“You know, man… I hear that if a bionic nympho goes at it long enough, her thing starts to-“

“Whoa!” The tradesman had heard enough and set a solid glare with huge pupils towards Exetor as a look of disgust etched itself across his features. “Look, buddy. I’m here to see if I can fix the door and get you a new key. I don’t need to hear your theories about sex and bionics.”

The businessman frowned then shrugged and went back to rapid typing. His eyes already transfixed on the business going by at alarming speeds displayed on the screen.

With a sigh, the man at the door stood back up and started putting away his tools; he put on a pair of shades. “I’ll grow a key for you by tomorrow. It’ll be my ring finger so it’ll cost you a bit more.”

Tomasine Acero folded her hands on her desk, and then opened them in a manner that she hoped would suggest both an understanding on her part and an acceptance of the inevitability of fate. “You have to understand their point of view,” she said. “They are trying to sell a house. You are saying that you want to rent it before you buy, well, that makes them uncomfortable.”

Mr. and Mrs. Smar were not calmed by Acero’s hand motions, Mrs. Smar in particular. “Uncomfortable? We’ve been living in a damn Honvar ever since the Caern came! All our clothes are in plastic bags…there wasn’t any time to pack.”

“I understand,” Acero said.

“I don’t think you do,” Mr. Smar said, gripping his wife’s shoulders tightly. “We just want a house in our old colony. And we need it before our Ellroy starts school. We don’t want to uproot the poor guy, not after the raid.”

“He saw what happened to our neighbors,” Mrs. Smar said, her eyes on the floor. “He saw it before we did. If he hadn’t, we wouldn’t have made it out in time. But my poor boy, having to see…those pieces flying, and all that blood. We need this house, Ms. Acero.”

“And I understand that.” Acero had her fingertips down on the desk, supporting the palms. Hands like sheltering structures. “But you aren’t the only one from your colony looking for houses that survived the raid to come back to. And the seller, he wants proof that you aren’t going to rent for a year and be on your way.”

“You want proof?” Mr. Smar almost leapt out of his chair. “Go by my house. Go by the burned-out crater that used to be where my family lived. Go and see the charred and mutilated body parts that used to be old Mr. Fufferds and his wife. Maybe they can cut those bits down from the trees while they’re at it. We survived a raid, Ms. Acero. My own father couldn’t even say that. I think we’ve suffered enough.”

Acero found herself involuntarily self-hugging. She shook away the image of some kindly retired couple strung about a yard, and the alien mind that considered such a dismemberment amusing. She placed her palms together. It was time to project strength and resolve. “What the seller is asking for is some sort of deposit. Your Honvar, maybe?”

“Can’t do it,” Mr. Smar said. “Our ship’s our livelihood.”

“Well, in that case, how about your boy? You could give the seller him.”

“I’m not selling my son into slavery,” Mrs. Smar said.

“He wouldn’t be a slave,” Acero said. Hands open again, fingers apart, bent out at the wrist. Imply trust. “He would be an indentured servant. Only until the seller is convinced of your intent to buy. He’d still be able to attend his old school, see his old friends, only his time outside of school would belong to the seller.”

“Is there any other option?”

“Not unless you want a colony further out, Mrs. Smar. But I wouldn’t suggest it. The further out you go, the closer you are to Caern worlds…” Acero massaged her temple, looked to the left, and projected pure, unadulterated concern. “..,.I just wouldn’t want anything more to happen to you.”

Mr. and Mrs. Smar looked at each other and then simultaneously turned around in their chairs to watch their six year-old son play through the window to the lobby,

“Where do we sign?”

We know its flimsy façade, we know it’s a broken promise waiting.

They said that if we kept working, someday we could make enough to send our kids to college, never mind the dying, the slaughter in the world. Remember the holocaust, they said, but forget the horror of today. Love the planet, but buy a car that guzzles foul gas. Study hard, get a good job, spend your cash on trinkets and drugs. They want us to live with success and debt, hand in unlovable hand.

The thing that still gets me is that no one noticed. It was a hunch that no matter how obvious we were, the fact that we were middle class, well-dressed white people would keep us safe. It was racist, and oligarchic and it delighted and disgusted me that it worked. We looked like we were doing what we were supposed to. We studied hard, politics, chemistry, biology, psychology, physics, film, sociology, philosophy, and computer science. We studied hard. We learned how the world works, and now we plan to change it.

We can build a hundred different kinds of bombs. We can genetically engineer a bacterium that could give everyone colds for weeks. We can send you a virus in the mail. We could break your servers. You cannot find us by your profiles, we come from different faiths, we are poor and wealthy, we are students, union workers, and businessmen. We could kill billions.

You are lucky. We are not as brainwashed as you wanted us to be. We will use the power we have to recreate the system through the frequency of sound, through the meter of light. We will alter the status quo; we are moving slick and sweet over your mega-conglomerate. We will be the underground and the mass consumer appeal. In every dot of perceivable digital light, we will be sending our message right to the brains of your friends, your children and your pets. You can’t hide, we are the mainstream.

This is the Revolution of the Meek, stay tuned.

Some years ago – never mind how long precisely – having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on Io, I thought I would sail about a little and see the most distant reaches of space.

Despite the limitations of technology, the endlessness that spread before our ship pulled me with a unique gravity. The bounty itself was naught. In retrospect, it was a meaningless and futile obsession, but the captain persisted. I followed, as I was wont to do given the limited quarters of the starship, and it never occurred to me that the quest was impossible. After all, I longed for nothing but the sight of stars through the viewscreen, so I was content to drift along in the wake of his unwavering determination.

TW was regarded as the most feared man in the seemingly endless reaches of the solar system, and despite the minimal reward I was compelled by the captain’s inexplicable, unwavering persistence to pursue the ghost of the pale ship through the asteroid belt, through the orbits of nine planets, and through the gentle and burning licks of solar flares.

“He’s out there,” the captain said. “He’s out there.”

TW had claimed innumerable victims, and even in my green and formless years the myths had flickered across television screens as the magnetic residue of a legend. I must admit that I was infatuated with the concept. When the captain himself raised the bounty my interest was piqued, and the lot of us were incited to impossible action.

“Have you sighted the ship?” he broadcast over all frequencies, but the replies were foreboding or outright prohibitive.

In my quarters, I dreamed of the solar system stretching out before me like an arm that never reached a hand. Doubtless, he dreamed of whiteness streaking the dark of space.

“He’s out there,” he said. “He’s still out there.”

Months passed like days, occupied by the dreariness of daily duty and the shadow of passion that the captain cast upon us. I kept a log of activities, though it was surely tedious by the standards of occupied worlds.

“He’s out there,” the captain said. “He’s still out there.” Despite the protests of the senior staff, he continued. Our transmissions were denied by ships which busied themselves with far more likely prospects.

Behind me, Io was a frozen world. I watched the great shroud of space roll on as it rolled five thousand years ago, and I followed orders and monitored the empty radio broadcasts. Space collapsed into distance and the blackness of the signal screen revealed no blips of existence.

“He’s out there,” the man said. “He’s still out there.”

Turnstyle aimed carefully, took into account the drift from the barely oscillating fan, and hit his brother Alphonse in the back of the head with a cigarette butt.

“Quit that,” Ingram said. Watching this is why she never liked being at Turnstyle’s place, but it beat staying at school.

“Why? He ain’t gonna notice. Fucking walltalker.” Turnstyle lit another cigarette and offered one to Ingram. She shook her head violently. “I think I still got some nanites left from the other night. I know for a fact there’s soy sauce in the kitchen.”

“Not on your life. My stomach still hasn’t recovered from the cooking oil wine you made last time.” Ingram started absent-mindedly picking at the exposed foam that blistered through a hole in the sofa.

“That was good shit,” Turnstyle said. “Good shit. You’re crazy. We could go see if we could find Al’s Roulette stash.”

“Oh, hell no!” Ingram said. “You do know why they call it ‘Roulette’ right? ‘Cause every time you take it there’s a chance your brain’s gonna explode! You wanna be a walltalker?”

“Maybe. Least Al’s never bored.” Turnstyle looked at his brother releasing a steady stream of words toward the wallpaper. Alphonse’s voice was barely above a whisper, and his face was blank. But he never stopped talking.

“I invented Roulette,” Turnstyle said, abruptly.

“Fuck off.”

“No, seriously. Somebody had to turn grandpa’s stroke medicine into a rec drug. Why couldn’t it have been me? You’re saying I don’t see the entertainment value of something that connects your neurons in new ways?”

“First off, you don’t even know what a neuron is–”

“Do too!”

“Secondly, if you had, you could afford some proper alcohol, and you wouldn’t have to reprogram the decontamination nanites.”

“Well, yeah…but…” Turnstyle scrunched down into the sofa. He took what was left of his cigarette and flicked it–still lit–at Alphonse. He missed by a good three feet.

“Was that lit? You’re going to burn the walls down, you are. What would your Pa say, you did that?”

“Same thing he always says: ‘Fuck! Why aren’t you in school?’ ” Tunrstyle stared at his 14-year-old older brother, who was staring at the wall. “Goddamn walltalker.”

“Ah, don’t be like that. Go get your soy sauce.”

“You sure?”

“Why not?” Ingram said. “Nothing else to do.”

“Space-faring monkies with a mirror fetish?”

“Yup. In The Day Ambrosia Paled by Kinstev Ramod, chapter six.”

“Damn. Okay, uhh… how about ice cream that turns your teeth green and carries a rare strand of the bubonic plague? Unleashed on a modern colony?”

“As a government experiment: Fire Warden by Jack Strapley. As a mad scientist’s coup de grace: On Being Trembleton by Emilia d’Oernga. With a time travel sub-plot: Terra Infirma by Marguerite Bloc. Sorry, Glenn. It’s all been done.”

Glenn groaned and leaned back in his chair, running his hand through the long part of his hair and pulling it out over his eyes, staring at the brown strands in frustration. “Damn it all! How am I supposed to write if there aren’t any original ideas?”

“Hey, come on, Glenn.” Neil grimaced at his friend in sympathy. “You’re just not thinking outside the box. Look, I know it’s tough, but there’s got to be something you can do that’s not already in here.” He gestured at the Central Database terminal he’d been using, the letters on the keyboard nearly worn off from the fruitless searches he’d made.

Neil’s words were encouraging, but his tone was not—it’d been months since Glenn had come up with his last viable story idea, and he still remembered the celebration they’d had. Now their fridge was bare, and there wasn’t a drop of alcohol in the house. Neil let out a long sigh. “Look… maybe you need a rest, yeah? Let’s go out for a while. We’ll go to the club, see Jeannie and the guys, and just relax. I bet it’d help. What do you say?”

Glenn made a noise of frustration and sat up straight again. “No. No! We’re almost out of cash. What good is going out going to do? That’ll just make things worse. I have to think of something, and fast!”

Neil sighed and turned back to the terminal. “Glenn, we’ve been at this for hours. You’re gonna make yourself sick.”

“No. No, I’ve got one.” Glenn turned sharply, his face lighting up as his eyes latched onto Neil. He paused dramatically. “How about… a guy with writer’s block trying to figure out what to put in a story?”

Neil groaned loudly and threw a stylus at Glenn. “Do I even have to answer? I think it’d break the database if I tried a search on that. Billions of billions of hits.”

Glenn chuckled. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Geez. I just wish that for once I could write something without caring that someone else already did it.”

“Wouldn’t sell.”

“Yeah, I know. I know.”

The two men stared in silence for a moment, Glenn at the ceiling, Neil at the screen that was nothing more than one massive search field.

“Neil?”

“Yeah?”

“How about a story about a writer who hacks into the Central Database and erases the old records so that editors will think his story is original?”

“You know,” Neil said with a slow grin, “I don’t think that one’s been done yet.”

After a while, you forget that it’s summer. Months and weeks become meaningless numbers on the monitor’s clock, and you don’t bother asking anyone what they are doing on the weekend. You know. They’re typing. You know.

You wait for the end of the shift and walk to the bar, seven blocks of August rain. “Beer,” you say, and the man obeys. Drops a pint on the table in front of you. You drum your fingers upon the wood, imagining text on the wall.

The beer is flat. The room is flat. They’ve left you hanging, like they always do.

Hours later, after you thought you’d fought it off, you surface in the lobby but the receptionist does not smirk. She’s used to this. You know she’s used to this.

“Overtime?” she says, and you nod. Overtime. Undertime. Time. They sit you down in the room lit only by the blue of a monitor, and you unfold into the refresh rate of the digital screen.

It seems like the document is typing itself, but in an accidental glance you see your hands floating over the keyboard. They seem to be plastic. You realize that it’s been days since you slept.

Your bell tolls eight hours and you push yourself up, forcing numb muscles to move to the door. You walk to the bar, seven blocks of August rain. “Beer,” you say, and the man obeys. Drops a pint on the table in front of you. You drum your fingers upon the wood, imagining text on the wall.

Here in the Quiet Dark, a raygun can be your dearest friend. It warms to your touch, responds to your requests, and clears your way. It is the best partner one can expect to have in the Quiet Dark.

I’ve had Lizzette here for longer than most of my friends. Certainly longer than my living friends. It is not a weapon, it is not a tool. It is a partner, a friend. A lover.

That’s not queer, or nothing. But Lizzette’s saved my life far too often to be anything but a lover. And here in the Quiet Dark, love is a rare and flowered thing. You best find it where you can. Some of us up here, some claim to love their crate. But that’s a parasitic relationship, and any crate knows that, from the little cargo rockets to those faster-than-light frigates. They know who runs ‘em to the scrap heap. No, me and Lizzette, here, we’re partners.

I tried giving her, up you know. Lizzette, the crate, the Quiet Dark, all of it. Settled down on a orb, found a woman who didn’t care when last I felt the sun and tried to live a life of noise and brightness.

I was warned. They all warned me, just like I’m warning you now. It never lasts. Not for us. Not after all the time in the Quiet Dark. I saw stars collide, you know? Watched a dark hole form and drag in the cosmos inside it. You think I could explain that to someone used to blue above? You think you’ll be able to?

The whole time, I wanted Lizzette there, at my hip. She’d been with me, she’d seen it all. But my girl didn’t want none of that. Proper men don’t carry guns, she said. But Lizzette wasn’t just a gun. She was my partner.

Don’t go thinking you’re any different. I can read a man’s scars as well as a veiwport. You’ve seen too much, same as me.

I suppose a fight between Lizzette and such a woman was destined to end only one way. I wish I had something to remember her by, like that necklace she always wore. But that went in the blast.

Probably just as well. I have Lizzette, after all. What more do I need, way out here?