Friday, May 19, 2045
Funeral for Our Friends
Rene woke me up yesterday morning shouting “¡Mama! Papa!” and something in Spanish I didn’t catch. By the time I threw on a robe and came down the hall, he was on the phone. He was obviously stressed, switching back and forth between English and Spanish, and I caught a word of the latter: muerté — that explained why. Guillermo and Maria had “checked out” overnight.
“The ambulance will be here in half an hour,” he told me. “I have to call Christina.” Serena joined us, then went to get Daughter Dearest after embracing Rene as he made the call. He went back upstairs as they came back in.
“I let Dean know,” Daughter Dearest said. “The Smiths and Joneses, too.”
“I’ll call the priest,” I told them. “They would want last rites.” Serena nodded, and I told my gadget to find and call the local Catholic mission. Guillermo and Maria had never wavered from their old faith, even attending Mass online most Sundays and holding confessions over the phone. Father Alvarado, their confessor and pastor, agreed to come immediately and arrived on a Commuter Scooter shortly behind the ambulance. In the meantime, Rene had come back downstairs and told us Christina (and the rest of their family) would be here early tomorrow.
The doctor stepped out and nodded to us. “Natural causes,” he said, “and within an hour of each other. I’ve heard of things like that, but never saw it for myself. You’ll want a couple of minutes with the deceased, I assume?”
We nodded, Rene went in, then stopped; I had just enough time to duck around him, then saw and stopped too. Father Alvarado bumped into us from behind, and Serena ran into him. “What is it?” she asked.
We stepped aside to let them see. The doctor had pulled the covers back, and Guillermo and Maria had died holding hands. Maria had the quiet smile she often had when the day had gone well. Guillermo’s free hand rested on his stilled corazón; he, too, looked quite content.
Father Alvarado nodded, lifted his crucifix, and performed the last rites. “They were good people, faithful,” he said afterward. “They deserved to be taken to Heaven together like this. I appreciate you calling me.” He opened a box he’d kept in an inner pocket; it contained wafers, a small bottle of wine, and another of holy water. “Now, if you are willing, kneel and receive the Body of Christ.”
“Um, Father,” I said as Rene knelt and crossed himself, “I’m not Catholic.”
“Have you received Christ and His baptism?” I nodded, as did Serena and Daughter Dearest. “Then you are invited to His table.”
I knelt with the girlies and smiled. “That’s different.”
“This century has brought many changes — and not even the Church is immune to change,” he chuckled as he prepared the Host. “These matters are now left to the conscience of His servants. There are many places now where there would be no congregations if we insisted on some of the old certainties — and we would be poor servants indeed if we shut the door of grace to all.” He served Rene first, so the rest of us could take our cue from him. Dean slipped in as he served us, and he joined us in the ritual.
Finally, we filed out of the bedroom and let the doctor and EMT carry our friends out to the ambulance (a Heehaw with what looked like a fat aero-cap). I know they still have a few diesel ones around; they probably use those when it’s not too late. They drove away, and left us with a huge void.
The funeral was this afternoon at the mission, with all of us in attendance. I found an old photo I’d taken of Guillermo and Maria — with their kids — shortly after they came to FAR Manor to live with us, found a frame, and sat it on an easel they had for the purpose. When the priest asked if anyone had anything to say, Rene and Christina nudged me forward. I gave them the they were your parents look, with a smile, and stepped forward trying to collect my thoughts.
“Guillermo and Maria came to us so many years ago,” I began, “I can’t think of how long. Sometimes, it seems like they — and their children, now my children-in-law — were always a part of our lives. They never asked for much, not even taking a few days off when I offered them. Some people considered them our servants, or even slaves, but to me they were equals, a brother- and sister-in-law. They sat at our dinner table and helped to run the farm. They always gave their all to any task. And I fear that I’ll be serving them in Heaven.” That got a chuckle or two, as I had hoped.
Last night, I imagined them in their own resting place: a Mexico that never was, where campesinos sing as they bring in the harvest and join the eternal fiesta. Or perhaps it’s a Dia de Los Muertes that never ends?
continued…
Showing posts with label peak oil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label peak oil. Show all posts
Monday, August 03, 2009 No comments
Monday, July 27, 2009 3 comments
FAR Future, Episode 98: The Rat Race, continued
Some things never change… and some, they change and pretend not to.
Sunday, April 23, 2045
The Rat Race, Continued
Coffee’s a luxury item these days — kind of like beef — and not always easy to get. But we got some yesterday, and I decided to make a half-pot rather than to lay in bed a little longer.
As I stumped through the living room, Rene was looking through the nightly media download. “I made some already,” he said. “Grab a cup and come sit. You might enjoy this.”
I poured my cup, added a dab of cream, and sat in the other chair. The screen showed what looked like a collection of electric cars, lined up in something like a starting grid for a race. “What’cha got here, Rene?”
“NASCAR, 2045-style,” he grinned.
“What? I thought those guys were long gone!”
“I guess they changed with the times. There’s an overview of the rules…” He poked at the remote and a text overlay came up:
“Interesting,” I said. “I’m guessing the fuel cells are standard sizes… which means, they have more efficient motors or have to limit their speed to make 300 kilometers?”
“Yeah. They still get points for laps led, more in the early running, so there’s an incentive to not sandbag. There’s a lot of strategy involved: do you try to lap the field then throttle back and coast across the finish line? Do you maintain a steady pace that will get you the distance and hope the guys running faster drop out? Or just go for the lead lap points and drop out early?”
“I guess it’s better than a matter of raw power. But I’m surprised they still run races these days.”
“Why not? It’s a test bed for new motors, fuel cells, and instrumentation. The best stuff eventually works its way into production vehicles.” Good point… we had the Heehaw rebuilt a couple years ago, and it now has a better range and cargo capacity than it did when new. They must have upgraded a lot of components in the last 10–15 years.
The race itself was interesting in that there were three drivers who wanted to go for the lead lap points. One dropped back immediately, probably executing Plan B, while the other two battled it out for a few laps, weaving through the slower traffic like Planet Georgia commuters in the 1980s. Eventually, the second driver fell back and left the last guy to rack up the lead lap points.
“Seems like a waste for Odum,” I said. “He burned a lot of juice.”
“Yeah, but he made Ramirez burn even more juice. Meanwhile, he can fall back and pace the field, a lap ahead of them. If he can finish the race — and I doubt Ramirez is even gonna try — he’ll be the guy to beat.”
Things settled into a routine, and Rene fast-forwarded until we saw a wreck on lap 34. At the relatively low speeds they were running, compared to the days of yore, this wasn’t anything like spectacular. But there was a fair amount of smoke and mixing of paint before most of the pack got straightened out and either kept rolling or headed for the pits for patch-ups.
Toward the end, the stats showed how the average lap speeds creeped up: about 100 kph in the first third of the race, working up toward 120 kph with 20 laps to go. (Ramirez dropped out about 2/3 of the way through, after pushing about 150 kph in the early going.) Odum had eased off his earlier pace after a close call in that lap 34 wreck; he was no longer the sole occupant of the lead lap, but continued to rack up points. “The question is,” the announcer informed us, “whether he can turn it up if he needs to. Teammate Brian Smith was knocked out in that wreck on lap 34, so he doesn’t have anyone he can easily hook up with for a draft. Meanwhile, Shadduck and Lopez continue to gain ground quick enough to make this a three-way race by the end — or a two-way race if Odum doesn’t kick it up a notch.”
As it turned out, Odum had to pit on lap 95 with a flat tire — the announcers speculated that he’d picked up a piece of debris from the wreck and got a slow leak from it. As luck would have it, Shadduck and Lopez wrecked each other on lap 97; they replayed the wreck and concluded it was inattention on the part of one or both drivers — an amateur move equal to an All-Star shortstop letting a grounder go through his legs. With three laps to go, the remaining eight drivers (out of a starting field of 30) let it all hang out and treated the crowd (and those of us who saw it a day later) to a barnburner. Some guy named Pachulo took the checkered, by maybe half a car-length; Odum finished sixth. The seventh and eighth place finishers literally coasted across, fuel cells completely depleted.
I think I like this version of racing better than the old. Like with most everything else in life, brute force is no longer the answer.
continued…
Sunday, April 23, 2045
The Rat Race, Continued
Coffee’s a luxury item these days — kind of like beef — and not always easy to get. But we got some yesterday, and I decided to make a half-pot rather than to lay in bed a little longer.
As I stumped through the living room, Rene was looking through the nightly media download. “I made some already,” he said. “Grab a cup and come sit. You might enjoy this.”
I poured my cup, added a dab of cream, and sat in the other chair. The screen showed what looked like a collection of electric cars, lined up in something like a starting grid for a race. “What’cha got here, Rene?”
“NASCAR, 2045-style,” he grinned.
“What? I thought those guys were long gone!”
“I guess they changed with the times. There’s an overview of the rules…” He poked at the remote and a text overlay came up:
NASCAR Full-Electric Division
Troy Fuel Cell 300 - Charlotte, NC
April 22, 2045
Standing start race
Fuel cells are sealed
DNFs: laps completed
count toward standings
“Interesting,” I said. “I’m guessing the fuel cells are standard sizes… which means, they have more efficient motors or have to limit their speed to make 300 kilometers?”
“Yeah. They still get points for laps led, more in the early running, so there’s an incentive to not sandbag. There’s a lot of strategy involved: do you try to lap the field then throttle back and coast across the finish line? Do you maintain a steady pace that will get you the distance and hope the guys running faster drop out? Or just go for the lead lap points and drop out early?”
“I guess it’s better than a matter of raw power. But I’m surprised they still run races these days.”
“Why not? It’s a test bed for new motors, fuel cells, and instrumentation. The best stuff eventually works its way into production vehicles.” Good point… we had the Heehaw rebuilt a couple years ago, and it now has a better range and cargo capacity than it did when new. They must have upgraded a lot of components in the last 10–15 years.
The race itself was interesting in that there were three drivers who wanted to go for the lead lap points. One dropped back immediately, probably executing Plan B, while the other two battled it out for a few laps, weaving through the slower traffic like Planet Georgia commuters in the 1980s. Eventually, the second driver fell back and left the last guy to rack up the lead lap points.
“Seems like a waste for Odum,” I said. “He burned a lot of juice.”
“Yeah, but he made Ramirez burn even more juice. Meanwhile, he can fall back and pace the field, a lap ahead of them. If he can finish the race — and I doubt Ramirez is even gonna try — he’ll be the guy to beat.”
Things settled into a routine, and Rene fast-forwarded until we saw a wreck on lap 34. At the relatively low speeds they were running, compared to the days of yore, this wasn’t anything like spectacular. But there was a fair amount of smoke and mixing of paint before most of the pack got straightened out and either kept rolling or headed for the pits for patch-ups.
Toward the end, the stats showed how the average lap speeds creeped up: about 100 kph in the first third of the race, working up toward 120 kph with 20 laps to go. (Ramirez dropped out about 2/3 of the way through, after pushing about 150 kph in the early going.) Odum had eased off his earlier pace after a close call in that lap 34 wreck; he was no longer the sole occupant of the lead lap, but continued to rack up points. “The question is,” the announcer informed us, “whether he can turn it up if he needs to. Teammate Brian Smith was knocked out in that wreck on lap 34, so he doesn’t have anyone he can easily hook up with for a draft. Meanwhile, Shadduck and Lopez continue to gain ground quick enough to make this a three-way race by the end — or a two-way race if Odum doesn’t kick it up a notch.”
As it turned out, Odum had to pit on lap 95 with a flat tire — the announcers speculated that he’d picked up a piece of debris from the wreck and got a slow leak from it. As luck would have it, Shadduck and Lopez wrecked each other on lap 97; they replayed the wreck and concluded it was inattention on the part of one or both drivers — an amateur move equal to an All-Star shortstop letting a grounder go through his legs. With three laps to go, the remaining eight drivers (out of a starting field of 30) let it all hang out and treated the crowd (and those of us who saw it a day later) to a barnburner. Some guy named Pachulo took the checkered, by maybe half a car-length; Odum finished sixth. The seventh and eighth place finishers literally coasted across, fuel cells completely depleted.
I think I like this version of racing better than the old. Like with most everything else in life, brute force is no longer the answer.
continued…
Monday, July 20, 2009 5 comments
FAR Future, Episode 97: Traffic Jam
Note: any resemblance to The Last Drop is purely intentional. (Thanks to Andi, Lisa, and Beth for helping me beat on an extended version for hoped-for publication.)
Friday February 10, 2045
Traffic Jam
I enjoy a good warm living room this time of year, even if Februarys now are a lot milder than they used to be. I can look out the window and see the kids playing their bean-bag game… I can’t ever remember what they call it, but it’s a lot like hacky-sack from when I was in college. When I call it hacky-sack, though, they look at me like I’m senile. Whatever they call it, at least I don’t have to worry about a ball coming through the window.
But I’m stalling. I had another one of those dreams last night. You know what I mean by one of those dreams: the kind that tell me what I really didn’t want to know.
In the dream, I was alone on a one-way city street that was packed with empty cars. And when I say “packed,” I mean there was barely enough room to put a stick in between them, let alone walk between them. The buildings seemed to be watching me, weighing me and finding me lacking. The sky was overcast, the clouds roiled but never rained, and it was still and hot. I had to jump from car to car to get anywhere, and I remember how they were caked with dust with a few streaks like maybe there had been a little rain at one time. This must be a dream, I thought — then, but would I see this much detail in a dream?
Time compressed itself, as it does in those kinds of dreams, and I found myself approaching a gas station. But the cars were packed in it and all around it, and I thought it would have been futile… anyone managing to get gas would never get back out.
“Mortal!” someone shouted. “Could this ever be put right?”
I looked around for the voice, thinking, sure, if you started moving cars from the back of the pack… but I realized that wasn’t the answer. There wasn’t enough gasoline left in the world, let alone this one station, to back them all out. I hadn’t found my questioner yet, but called back, “I don’t know. But only God Himself could fix this.”
He stepped out from behind a fallen overhang. “But if this is humanity’s folly,” he said, “can humanity’s wisdom not solve it?”
“If humanity was that wise, this wouldn’t have happened in the first place. What the hell is it, anyway?”
“Your question contains its answer,” he said. “This is the Hell that humanity would have created for itself, had it not chosen a different path. This is the last gas station, where the last gasoline would have been sold. Had all insisted on the easy path, instead of changing their ways, this would very likely have been the fate of mankind.”
“So people would have just abandoned their cars and gone home?”
“Some would have. Others… look around you.”
I looked again, and now I saw the signs of a struggle: broken windows, the little doors over gas caps torn away, the gas caps themselves strewn about… and bullet holes. “They killed each other? For gasoline? We barely think about the stuff these days.”
“In your prime, men fought at the pumps when the lines were long. They killed each other to claim the oil beneath a barren desert. So why would they not kill for some of the last gasoline?”
For a moment, I could see it: drivers desperately trying to leave; those behind them pressing forward… and then people swarming over the cars with fuel cans in hand. When the pumps ran dry, they turned on those who had been first in line. As they tried to leave the way they came, they were set on by those coming behind them. And those were set on by people coming behind them. Gas cans were punctured by gunfire, dropped and spilled, or deliberately poured out or set afire by those who would not give up their prizes. Not a drop was carried away safely.
I shook my head. “Why am I being shown this?”
“Humanity is foolish, but there is yet a little wisdom,” he said. “Write down this vision, mortal, and let it be known that all mortals live in one of the better possible worlds that they could have made for themselves. For there is a possibility even worse than this.”
He opened a cooler that I’d not noticed before, one of those pull-along coolers with wheels. He brought out a bottle of water and gave it to me. “The Living Water,” he said, as I opened and drank.
I almost choked. “You’re The Prophet!” I said.
“Go, mortal,” The Prophet said (for now I saw it really was him again) and smiled. “You will see me once more before you are mortal no longer.” Then he was gone, and the dream again dissolved into either chaos or something beyond my comprehension.
When I wake up, I usually have to pee first thing. Not this morning… I woke up with my heart pounding and feeling like I’d spent an entire summer in one of the dehydrator racks. I slugged down a liter of water and almost hurt my throat drinking so fast. It was like I’d been at that gas station all night, sweating in the heat. But the sheets on my bed weren’t wet.
I’ve spent all morning and half the afternoon trying to figure out whether I’d really been there or was just dreaming the whole thing. I don’t suppose it matters in the end. I do know that Daughter Dearest and Martina noticed something was amiss, and asked me about it. I told them half the truth, that I’d had a dream… forgetting that DD knows about the first one I had. She waited for Martina to go outside, then demanded the details. I told her the whole thing, especially the part about having one more vision. She has to know I’m not going to live forever, but she’s pretty much running FAR Manor these days and doesn’t need to worry about me right now.
I’m looking forward to getting out and helping with the spring planting. The veggies are all sprouting in their starter pots, and it looks like I’ll get at least one more shot at starting the garden, anyway.
continued…
Friday February 10, 2045
Traffic Jam
I enjoy a good warm living room this time of year, even if Februarys now are a lot milder than they used to be. I can look out the window and see the kids playing their bean-bag game… I can’t ever remember what they call it, but it’s a lot like hacky-sack from when I was in college. When I call it hacky-sack, though, they look at me like I’m senile. Whatever they call it, at least I don’t have to worry about a ball coming through the window.
But I’m stalling. I had another one of those dreams last night. You know what I mean by one of those dreams: the kind that tell me what I really didn’t want to know.
In the dream, I was alone on a one-way city street that was packed with empty cars. And when I say “packed,” I mean there was barely enough room to put a stick in between them, let alone walk between them. The buildings seemed to be watching me, weighing me and finding me lacking. The sky was overcast, the clouds roiled but never rained, and it was still and hot. I had to jump from car to car to get anywhere, and I remember how they were caked with dust with a few streaks like maybe there had been a little rain at one time. This must be a dream, I thought — then, but would I see this much detail in a dream?
Time compressed itself, as it does in those kinds of dreams, and I found myself approaching a gas station. But the cars were packed in it and all around it, and I thought it would have been futile… anyone managing to get gas would never get back out.
“Mortal!” someone shouted. “Could this ever be put right?”
I looked around for the voice, thinking, sure, if you started moving cars from the back of the pack… but I realized that wasn’t the answer. There wasn’t enough gasoline left in the world, let alone this one station, to back them all out. I hadn’t found my questioner yet, but called back, “I don’t know. But only God Himself could fix this.”
He stepped out from behind a fallen overhang. “But if this is humanity’s folly,” he said, “can humanity’s wisdom not solve it?”
“If humanity was that wise, this wouldn’t have happened in the first place. What the hell is it, anyway?”
“Your question contains its answer,” he said. “This is the Hell that humanity would have created for itself, had it not chosen a different path. This is the last gas station, where the last gasoline would have been sold. Had all insisted on the easy path, instead of changing their ways, this would very likely have been the fate of mankind.”
“So people would have just abandoned their cars and gone home?”
“Some would have. Others… look around you.”
I looked again, and now I saw the signs of a struggle: broken windows, the little doors over gas caps torn away, the gas caps themselves strewn about… and bullet holes. “They killed each other? For gasoline? We barely think about the stuff these days.”
“In your prime, men fought at the pumps when the lines were long. They killed each other to claim the oil beneath a barren desert. So why would they not kill for some of the last gasoline?”
For a moment, I could see it: drivers desperately trying to leave; those behind them pressing forward… and then people swarming over the cars with fuel cans in hand. When the pumps ran dry, they turned on those who had been first in line. As they tried to leave the way they came, they were set on by those coming behind them. And those were set on by people coming behind them. Gas cans were punctured by gunfire, dropped and spilled, or deliberately poured out or set afire by those who would not give up their prizes. Not a drop was carried away safely.
I shook my head. “Why am I being shown this?”
“Humanity is foolish, but there is yet a little wisdom,” he said. “Write down this vision, mortal, and let it be known that all mortals live in one of the better possible worlds that they could have made for themselves. For there is a possibility even worse than this.”
He opened a cooler that I’d not noticed before, one of those pull-along coolers with wheels. He brought out a bottle of water and gave it to me. “The Living Water,” he said, as I opened and drank.
I almost choked. “You’re The Prophet!” I said.
“Go, mortal,” The Prophet said (for now I saw it really was him again) and smiled. “You will see me once more before you are mortal no longer.” Then he was gone, and the dream again dissolved into either chaos or something beyond my comprehension.
When I wake up, I usually have to pee first thing. Not this morning… I woke up with my heart pounding and feeling like I’d spent an entire summer in one of the dehydrator racks. I slugged down a liter of water and almost hurt my throat drinking so fast. It was like I’d been at that gas station all night, sweating in the heat. But the sheets on my bed weren’t wet.
I’ve spent all morning and half the afternoon trying to figure out whether I’d really been there or was just dreaming the whole thing. I don’t suppose it matters in the end. I do know that Daughter Dearest and Martina noticed something was amiss, and asked me about it. I told them half the truth, that I’d had a dream… forgetting that DD knows about the first one I had. She waited for Martina to go outside, then demanded the details. I told her the whole thing, especially the part about having one more vision. She has to know I’m not going to live forever, but she’s pretty much running FAR Manor these days and doesn’t need to worry about me right now.
I’m looking forward to getting out and helping with the spring planting. The veggies are all sprouting in their starter pots, and it looks like I’ll get at least one more shot at starting the garden, anyway.
continued…
Monday, July 13, 2009 4 comments
FAR Future, Episode 96: I’m History
Tuesday, November 22, 2044
I’m History
A history student followed Pat down from the college to interview me for a paper he’s writing. I was kind of flattered, and told him he was welcome to stay at FAR Manor with us as long as he needed — there’s always plenty of food — and even for my 86th birthday if he was inclined.
“Sure,” he said, “We’re on break until Monday. And I’m really not looking forward to riding back to campus alone.”
“Hey, it’s only 25 kims,” I said. “I biked twice that when I was twice your age.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, but did you have a pack of clothes, books, and a recorder with you?”
“You got me there. But we didn’t have aerogel fairings or those hub motors for the hills, either.”
“You win some, you lose some, right?”
“Right. Do you mind sharing a room with some kids?”
“I guess not.” The kids in question were already checking out the visitor, whispering among themselves — probably about who would have to give up his bed — then Bobby walked up. “You can have my bed,” he said. “I’ll take care of the fire tonight.”
“Isn’t it your night anyway?” I asked.
Bobby blushed, and the visitor laughed. “Busted!” he said, and Bobby shrugged and walked away. It’s easy enough to embarrass a teenager, but flustering one is another thing.
“Well, c’mon in,” I said. “We can sit on the porch and talk. It’s still warm enough, and it’ll be quiet.”
Daughter Dearest, whom the kids call “Mama” these days, brought drinks and something to snack on. We sat and watched the kids through the screen, goofing around outside on one of those warm days of late fall, a jar of Luke’s hooch and a couple of glasses on the table.
“Good kids,” I said. “Kids are always happy to help out if they know they’re contributing… and that it’s appreciated.”
“It’s like that at my place, too,” the student — Darrell is his name, I think — told me. “At least you have a lot of room to move around, in these old houses. Didn’t you just have your own family in here, back when?”
“Occasionally,” I said. “We had other kids staying with us a lot of the time, and after the Powerout started we ended up with two foster kids and a Hispanic family. That was one way we knew things were changing a lot. But I think we were kind of unusual in that regard… most people wouldn’t have anyone but a relative living with them, back before.”
“Well, it’s the ‘back before’ stuff I came to talk about, before the Powerout got started — I guess you figured that out. I found a copy of that footage you took at Nickajack, back when things were just getting started, in our archives. But you aren’t listed as a militia or junta member. I got kind of excited when I found out you lived so nearby, and are still around to talk about it.”
“I had a strange, and rather uncomfortable, relationship with the junta,” I said, knocking back a gulp of hooch then replenishing my cup. “Even if I didn’t agree with their aims, I felt like what they were doing at Nickajack needed to be recorded. None of what we used to call the mainstream media wanted to associate with them, so I volunteered. I nearly got killed… by my wife when I got home!”
“Yeah. We have copies of old blogs in the archives, yours and lots of others, and they’re a big help for seeing what things were really like for everyday people. But it’s always good to get a first-hand report. Not all reports were created equal, you know.”
I laughed. “Not all lives are created equal. May you live in interesting times is truly a curse, but it makes for interesting reading.”
“So what do you remember about the junta people?”
“In a word: misled. I ran into one of the Nickajack folks shortly after the Flood, and he told me about the Restoration from his side of things. He spent some time in a prison camp, and learned that the televangelists he thought were running the show were being run by the ultra-wealthy—”
“Televangelists?”
“Yeah. Preachers with TV shows.”
He chewed on that for a moment. “Some stuff you can read about, but you just can’t internalize. They had their own TV shows?”
“Yeah. Some owned entire channels. Mostly on satellite and cable.”
He shook his head, as if it were too much to comprehend. “Were you a believer, back then?”
“Still am. Penitent, though. I never had much respect for those guys in expensive suits, always begging for more money. It’s important to remember, the junta rank-and-file thought they were obeying the will of God. Some of them killed themselves rather than admit they’d been duped so completely. Some just opted-out… which can be a slower form of suicide. Col. Mustard made it, and found something useful to do with himself afterwards. He’s still alive, down in John’s Creek — if you want an account of the junta from someone who was inside it, I could ask him if he’d be willing to tell you about it.”
“Yeah, maybe. But it was something else I was wondering about. I keep hearing stories of how things were like 40 years ago — burning up oil like it would never run out, cities bright as day by night, using delivery trucks for family vehicles — it sounds incredible. This must be a letdown.”
“Not at all,” I said. He gave me a curious look. “We used to call it the Rat Race. We were so consumed by it that very few ever stopped to see what it did to us or the world around us. We had so much energy and material wealth, it stunted our imagination. We knew there had to be a better way to live than burning up all the oil and ignoring the warning signs, but we just couldn’t — as a people — think of one.”
Darrell looked lost in thought for a few minutes. “I never heard anyone put it like that,” he said. “You really think people are better off now, even after all the disasters we’ve seen this century?”
“Well, now that things look like they’re finally starting to settle down… yes, I think so. I always hated that ‘it builds character’ crap; it was always someone not suffering who said it. But the struggles we’ve been through? They’ve given us a purpose. They showed us that we could be more than what we had let ourselves become. I saw plenty of suffering, and helped out where I could. I saw petty evil, and fought it. I suppose you could say the survivors are better off, but you — and those kids out there — are better off, too.”
“You wouldn’t go back, then?”
“Not if you gave me a tanker full of gasoline. We were tested in the fire, and barely passed through it. But we made it, and ended up a wiser people. We learned some hard lessons, and the biggest one might be this: unlimited energy doesn’t mean unlimited happiness — maybe it’s the opposite.”
“It's like the old joke about being rich: it has its own problems, but I ’d be willing to try.”
We laughed and chatted until suppertime.
continued…
I’m History
A history student followed Pat down from the college to interview me for a paper he’s writing. I was kind of flattered, and told him he was welcome to stay at FAR Manor with us as long as he needed — there’s always plenty of food — and even for my 86th birthday if he was inclined.
“Sure,” he said, “We’re on break until Monday. And I’m really not looking forward to riding back to campus alone.”
“Hey, it’s only 25 kims,” I said. “I biked twice that when I was twice your age.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, but did you have a pack of clothes, books, and a recorder with you?”
“You got me there. But we didn’t have aerogel fairings or those hub motors for the hills, either.”
“You win some, you lose some, right?”
“Right. Do you mind sharing a room with some kids?”
“I guess not.” The kids in question were already checking out the visitor, whispering among themselves — probably about who would have to give up his bed — then Bobby walked up. “You can have my bed,” he said. “I’ll take care of the fire tonight.”
“Isn’t it your night anyway?” I asked.
Bobby blushed, and the visitor laughed. “Busted!” he said, and Bobby shrugged and walked away. It’s easy enough to embarrass a teenager, but flustering one is another thing.
“Well, c’mon in,” I said. “We can sit on the porch and talk. It’s still warm enough, and it’ll be quiet.”
Daughter Dearest, whom the kids call “Mama” these days, brought drinks and something to snack on. We sat and watched the kids through the screen, goofing around outside on one of those warm days of late fall, a jar of Luke’s hooch and a couple of glasses on the table.
“Good kids,” I said. “Kids are always happy to help out if they know they’re contributing… and that it’s appreciated.”
“It’s like that at my place, too,” the student — Darrell is his name, I think — told me. “At least you have a lot of room to move around, in these old houses. Didn’t you just have your own family in here, back when?”
“Occasionally,” I said. “We had other kids staying with us a lot of the time, and after the Powerout started we ended up with two foster kids and a Hispanic family. That was one way we knew things were changing a lot. But I think we were kind of unusual in that regard… most people wouldn’t have anyone but a relative living with them, back before.”
“Well, it’s the ‘back before’ stuff I came to talk about, before the Powerout got started — I guess you figured that out. I found a copy of that footage you took at Nickajack, back when things were just getting started, in our archives. But you aren’t listed as a militia or junta member. I got kind of excited when I found out you lived so nearby, and are still around to talk about it.”
“I had a strange, and rather uncomfortable, relationship with the junta,” I said, knocking back a gulp of hooch then replenishing my cup. “Even if I didn’t agree with their aims, I felt like what they were doing at Nickajack needed to be recorded. None of what we used to call the mainstream media wanted to associate with them, so I volunteered. I nearly got killed… by my wife when I got home!”
“Yeah. We have copies of old blogs in the archives, yours and lots of others, and they’re a big help for seeing what things were really like for everyday people. But it’s always good to get a first-hand report. Not all reports were created equal, you know.”
I laughed. “Not all lives are created equal. May you live in interesting times is truly a curse, but it makes for interesting reading.”
“So what do you remember about the junta people?”
“In a word: misled. I ran into one of the Nickajack folks shortly after the Flood, and he told me about the Restoration from his side of things. He spent some time in a prison camp, and learned that the televangelists he thought were running the show were being run by the ultra-wealthy—”
“Televangelists?”
“Yeah. Preachers with TV shows.”
He chewed on that for a moment. “Some stuff you can read about, but you just can’t internalize. They had their own TV shows?”
“Yeah. Some owned entire channels. Mostly on satellite and cable.”
He shook his head, as if it were too much to comprehend. “Were you a believer, back then?”
“Still am. Penitent, though. I never had much respect for those guys in expensive suits, always begging for more money. It’s important to remember, the junta rank-and-file thought they were obeying the will of God. Some of them killed themselves rather than admit they’d been duped so completely. Some just opted-out… which can be a slower form of suicide. Col. Mustard made it, and found something useful to do with himself afterwards. He’s still alive, down in John’s Creek — if you want an account of the junta from someone who was inside it, I could ask him if he’d be willing to tell you about it.”
“Yeah, maybe. But it was something else I was wondering about. I keep hearing stories of how things were like 40 years ago — burning up oil like it would never run out, cities bright as day by night, using delivery trucks for family vehicles — it sounds incredible. This must be a letdown.”
“Not at all,” I said. He gave me a curious look. “We used to call it the Rat Race. We were so consumed by it that very few ever stopped to see what it did to us or the world around us. We had so much energy and material wealth, it stunted our imagination. We knew there had to be a better way to live than burning up all the oil and ignoring the warning signs, but we just couldn’t — as a people — think of one.”
Darrell looked lost in thought for a few minutes. “I never heard anyone put it like that,” he said. “You really think people are better off now, even after all the disasters we’ve seen this century?”
“Well, now that things look like they’re finally starting to settle down… yes, I think so. I always hated that ‘it builds character’ crap; it was always someone not suffering who said it. But the struggles we’ve been through? They’ve given us a purpose. They showed us that we could be more than what we had let ourselves become. I saw plenty of suffering, and helped out where I could. I saw petty evil, and fought it. I suppose you could say the survivors are better off, but you — and those kids out there — are better off, too.”
“You wouldn’t go back, then?”
“Not if you gave me a tanker full of gasoline. We were tested in the fire, and barely passed through it. But we made it, and ended up a wiser people. We learned some hard lessons, and the biggest one might be this: unlimited energy doesn’t mean unlimited happiness — maybe it’s the opposite.”
“It's like the old joke about being rich: it has its own problems, but I ’d be willing to try.”
We laughed and chatted until suppertime.
continued…
Monday, July 06, 2009 4 comments
FAR Future, Episode 95: Dreams
Tuesday, October 25, 2044
Dreams
I’ve been having odd dreams lately. In one, The Boy was an old man with no feet, riding in a cart while younger men clear a tangle of brush off the road ahead. In another, Mrs. Fetched attended my funeral, accompanied by a band of odd-looking hunter-gatherers. I guess it’s true:
Your old men will dream dreams.
It’s been a long time since I’d even thought of the Prophet of Atlanta. But perhaps he’d thought of me in his mansion up above. This is last night’s dream, as best as I can remember:
We were walking along a beach, young and healthy as two men could be. I never saw The Prophet as a young man, but I knew him as well as I knew this dream-body that never was. There were other people scattered here and there along this endless beach, some lying in the sun, others chatting, a few sailing away from shore. Patches of dune grass sprouted here and there, away from the surf, and thatched shelters dotted the beach… not that they were needed; the sun was warm and a breeze made it perfect. The sand reminded me of Lake Michigan’s, blonde with little specks of black. Steel drum music played from… somewhere. It was everywhere, but only noticed when you listened for it.
“This is heaven. I could stay here forever,” I said.
The old black man, now a young black man, shook his head and smiled. “No. You’ll come alright, but you’ll only stay a little while. Then you’ll move on to Heaven.”
“Then what is this?”
“One of the resting places. Those who have labored on Earth, those who were heavy-laden, are given rest before entering Heaven. It is also a place where they remember what they have not forgiven, that they may forgive, that they in turn may be forgiven. And thus it is Purgatory as well.”
“So how long am I staying?”
“Only a few minutes, this night. You will awaken in the morning and live on yet a little longer. The Lord has sent me to you, to prepare you for your final journey.”
We walked on while I digested this bit of news. Finally I asked, “So everyone gets some time at the beach?”
The Prophet shook his head. “Only those who see Heaven in the beach. Others see Heaven in other places. Your wife wandered far through the mountains where she saw Heaven, until she was ready to turn aside from the reflection and see the true vision.”
“So… when I get here, how do I know when it’s time to move on?”
The Prophet turned into a shelter we were about to pass, and I followed. The back was cool and dark; several kegs with taps stood in a row behind a bar. He ducked behind the bar and poured me a beer, the best I ever tasted. “The Living Water,” he said, reminding me of something I saw once, and poured himself a cup as well. We emerged into the sunlight, not needing to squint, and continued our walk.
“You will hear the call when it’s time,” he said, and nodded toward the shoreline. There, a young woman pushed a small sailboat into the water, laughing. She jumped in, hoisted the sail, and it carried her out to sea. We stopped and watched for a while as she receded. It seemed that as she approached the horizon, her boat lifted instead of dropping below the horizon, rising out of the water and into the sky. She had to be miles away by now, but we could see her clearly for a long time until she… simply vanished. “When you hear the call, do not tarry. Some go by water, others walk over the dunes, some simply continue down the shore. All paths from here lead to Heaven.”
I finished my cup, and we walked along. Somewhere along the way, I realized I wasn’t holding the cup anymore. I spun around, looking back the way we came — littering on this of all beaches would certainly be blasphemy — and started a step before The Prophet stopped me with a gentle hand on my shoulder.
“The cup had served its purpose, so it was taken,” he said. “As I was. As you will be.”
“That reminds me of something I wondered about for a long time: it seemed like after the Restoration, you just disappeared,” I said. “Whatever happened to you?”
“Does it matter? The servants of God rarely retire. Some are martyred, others simply die. A very few are taken to Heaven — no, I was no Elijah, even if that was my middle name.” He grinned. “After Jerusalem was freed, I laid my burden down and went to my resting place, and then to Heaven itself.”
I wanted to ask him what his resting place was, but he stopped me. “It’s time for you to go back. You yet have a little work to do. Nothing very difficult, but the time for knowing all answers is not yet come. Go in peace. God willing, I will speak to you again.” And the beach dissolved into chaos, or perhaps something I’m not equipped to comprehend right now, then I woke up with the old familiar aches and throbs.
I think I would have rather it had been a surprise, but I suppose you don’t get to make those kind of choices at my age.
continued…
Dreams
I’ve been having odd dreams lately. In one, The Boy was an old man with no feet, riding in a cart while younger men clear a tangle of brush off the road ahead. In another, Mrs. Fetched attended my funeral, accompanied by a band of odd-looking hunter-gatherers. I guess it’s true:
Your old men will dream dreams.
It’s been a long time since I’d even thought of the Prophet of Atlanta. But perhaps he’d thought of me in his mansion up above. This is last night’s dream, as best as I can remember:
We were walking along a beach, young and healthy as two men could be. I never saw The Prophet as a young man, but I knew him as well as I knew this dream-body that never was. There were other people scattered here and there along this endless beach, some lying in the sun, others chatting, a few sailing away from shore. Patches of dune grass sprouted here and there, away from the surf, and thatched shelters dotted the beach… not that they were needed; the sun was warm and a breeze made it perfect. The sand reminded me of Lake Michigan’s, blonde with little specks of black. Steel drum music played from… somewhere. It was everywhere, but only noticed when you listened for it.
“This is heaven. I could stay here forever,” I said.
The old black man, now a young black man, shook his head and smiled. “No. You’ll come alright, but you’ll only stay a little while. Then you’ll move on to Heaven.”
“Then what is this?”
“One of the resting places. Those who have labored on Earth, those who were heavy-laden, are given rest before entering Heaven. It is also a place where they remember what they have not forgiven, that they may forgive, that they in turn may be forgiven. And thus it is Purgatory as well.”
“So how long am I staying?”
“Only a few minutes, this night. You will awaken in the morning and live on yet a little longer. The Lord has sent me to you, to prepare you for your final journey.”
We walked on while I digested this bit of news. Finally I asked, “So everyone gets some time at the beach?”
The Prophet shook his head. “Only those who see Heaven in the beach. Others see Heaven in other places. Your wife wandered far through the mountains where she saw Heaven, until she was ready to turn aside from the reflection and see the true vision.”
“So… when I get here, how do I know when it’s time to move on?”
The Prophet turned into a shelter we were about to pass, and I followed. The back was cool and dark; several kegs with taps stood in a row behind a bar. He ducked behind the bar and poured me a beer, the best I ever tasted. “The Living Water,” he said, reminding me of something I saw once, and poured himself a cup as well. We emerged into the sunlight, not needing to squint, and continued our walk.
“You will hear the call when it’s time,” he said, and nodded toward the shoreline. There, a young woman pushed a small sailboat into the water, laughing. She jumped in, hoisted the sail, and it carried her out to sea. We stopped and watched for a while as she receded. It seemed that as she approached the horizon, her boat lifted instead of dropping below the horizon, rising out of the water and into the sky. She had to be miles away by now, but we could see her clearly for a long time until she… simply vanished. “When you hear the call, do not tarry. Some go by water, others walk over the dunes, some simply continue down the shore. All paths from here lead to Heaven.”
I finished my cup, and we walked along. Somewhere along the way, I realized I wasn’t holding the cup anymore. I spun around, looking back the way we came — littering on this of all beaches would certainly be blasphemy — and started a step before The Prophet stopped me with a gentle hand on my shoulder.
“The cup had served its purpose, so it was taken,” he said. “As I was. As you will be.”
“That reminds me of something I wondered about for a long time: it seemed like after the Restoration, you just disappeared,” I said. “Whatever happened to you?”
“Does it matter? The servants of God rarely retire. Some are martyred, others simply die. A very few are taken to Heaven — no, I was no Elijah, even if that was my middle name.” He grinned. “After Jerusalem was freed, I laid my burden down and went to my resting place, and then to Heaven itself.”
I wanted to ask him what his resting place was, but he stopped me. “It’s time for you to go back. You yet have a little work to do. Nothing very difficult, but the time for knowing all answers is not yet come. Go in peace. God willing, I will speak to you again.” And the beach dissolved into chaos, or perhaps something I’m not equipped to comprehend right now, then I woke up with the old familiar aches and throbs.
I think I would have rather it had been a surprise, but I suppose you don’t get to make those kind of choices at my age.
continued…
Monday, June 29, 2009 2 comments
FAR Future, Episode 94: Interlude
So begins the final sub-series.
2037–2044
To Sleep, Perchance to Dream
After disruption, a new equilibrium.
The new sea level worked its way around the edges of continents, swamping low-lying islands and erasing entire nations, in less than two years. The changes it wrought on humanity were no less profound than the changes to the coastlines and the weather — there were attempts to count the dead and displaced, but even the best estimates are only estimates. Very few casualties were the direct result of the incoming tide, of course — but the wars, riots, and accidents it triggered are another story.
Few countries, even landlocked countries, escape the effects of the “Little Great Flood,” but some nations are better able to react than others. The Netherlands simply raise their dikes. Cuba and Japan use their time wisely, conducting orderly evacuations and salvaging what they can from their coasts. Bangladesh and Somalia collapse under the weight of their own refugees and the ensuing civil wars. The Maldives and Vanuatu are inundated completely, becoming the first nations in exile. Wars, ethnic cleansing, famine, and starvation rock the globe, overwhelming even the augmented charities and NGOs that step in to alleviate the suffering. But every nation has stories to tell: tragic and heroic; venal and honorable; avaricious and selfless.
Rumors spread about the Greenland ice slide, that it was no act of nature. Depending on who’s telling the story, the culprits include terrorist bands of every religion and ideology, the Great Zionist Conspiracy, the Bilderbergers (or other vehicles of the wealthiest of the wealthy), communists, fascists, China, Japan, Russia, the USA, and even Greenlanders (often described as an attempt to clear some land for farming that went horribly wrong). Some of the stories contradict themselves — for example, one eco-terrorist story claims that the culprits were trying to both kill all humans and save the biosphere — and few are even plausible. But all are investigated, and come to nothing.
Weather patterns continue to change around the world. In some places, deserts bloom; in others, wetlands dry up. Most places change little. But with more water evaporating from an enlarged ocean, more rain falls overall. Temperatures drop, recover, level off, begin to creep up again. The moving averages show a small blip down, then perhaps the beginning of a plateau.
As human populations continue to decline in most places, and those left pour less pollutants into the atmosphere, some say the earth is enjoying a healing rest. To sleep, perchance to dream… what dreams may come?
continued…
2037–2044
To Sleep, Perchance to Dream
After disruption, a new equilibrium.
The new sea level worked its way around the edges of continents, swamping low-lying islands and erasing entire nations, in less than two years. The changes it wrought on humanity were no less profound than the changes to the coastlines and the weather — there were attempts to count the dead and displaced, but even the best estimates are only estimates. Very few casualties were the direct result of the incoming tide, of course — but the wars, riots, and accidents it triggered are another story.
Few countries, even landlocked countries, escape the effects of the “Little Great Flood,” but some nations are better able to react than others. The Netherlands simply raise their dikes. Cuba and Japan use their time wisely, conducting orderly evacuations and salvaging what they can from their coasts. Bangladesh and Somalia collapse under the weight of their own refugees and the ensuing civil wars. The Maldives and Vanuatu are inundated completely, becoming the first nations in exile. Wars, ethnic cleansing, famine, and starvation rock the globe, overwhelming even the augmented charities and NGOs that step in to alleviate the suffering. But every nation has stories to tell: tragic and heroic; venal and honorable; avaricious and selfless.
Rumors spread about the Greenland ice slide, that it was no act of nature. Depending on who’s telling the story, the culprits include terrorist bands of every religion and ideology, the Great Zionist Conspiracy, the Bilderbergers (or other vehicles of the wealthiest of the wealthy), communists, fascists, China, Japan, Russia, the USA, and even Greenlanders (often described as an attempt to clear some land for farming that went horribly wrong). Some of the stories contradict themselves — for example, one eco-terrorist story claims that the culprits were trying to both kill all humans and save the biosphere — and few are even plausible. But all are investigated, and come to nothing.
Weather patterns continue to change around the world. In some places, deserts bloom; in others, wetlands dry up. Most places change little. But with more water evaporating from an enlarged ocean, more rain falls overall. Temperatures drop, recover, level off, begin to creep up again. The moving averages show a small blip down, then perhaps the beginning of a plateau.
As human populations continue to decline in most places, and those left pour less pollutants into the atmosphere, some say the earth is enjoying a healing rest. To sleep, perchance to dream… what dreams may come?
continued…
Monday, June 22, 2009 2 comments
FAR Future, Episode 93: Homecoming
The last first episode of summer… we’re about to start the home stretch.
Thursday, November 20, 2036
Homecoming
And almost exactly a year after he left, The Boy has returned. He says, this time, to stay (although “stay” might mean in town or in Atlanta, rather than at the manor). He’s said that so many times in the past that I gave up trying to keep count a long time ago, but there’s a new look in his eyes. His side trip to the shale pits might have done him some good… given him some closure, exorcised his demons, put his ghosts to rest, however you like to say it. Just being out on the road, playing his music to crowds, did the rest… even if most of the venues were makeshift or pressed into service on the spur of the moment.
He took more time than strictly needed to get from Washington to LA and then back here, of course… he put on a couple of concerts in each major city, and spent a few more days in a couple of places. He admitted to being tempted by the offer to join the Chicago Corporation, but decided in the end that they probably wouldn’t have been interested in him if not for his celebrity status. He did spend a week in Chicago though, playing various venues and seeing what there was to see before moving on.
A month in California is still quite an experience, according to The Boy, even if the beaches are getting eaten away by the permanently risen tide. During the junta years, when the west coast was first known as Pacifica and then became part of the Rebel Alliance, there was a lot of development aimed at coping without oil. Drive motors, batteries, and aerogel were all improved; then a company called LSO (Los Santos Occidental, but some people say it really means Life Sans Oil) put them all together on a bicycle. The sucker’s not cheap, but it does make life easier for people who need to get around. He brought one home with him; Rene tried it out and said it was an easy half-hour ride to town. Good thing we have the Heehaw, because I expect The Boy will be using the LSO himself to get around before long.
I asked him when he realized he’d put the past behind him finally. “I guess it was an evening in Santa Monica,” he said. “I was sitting there, watching the sun set, picking out a tune, and it was like… like everything just drained out of me. I’m glad I was alone, because I started crying. Everything I’d hoped for when I was younger — going on tour, people lining up to hear my music — it finally happened, after I’d given up hope on even having a normal life.” He paused for a long moment. “And going back to the shale pits. When I was there before, I dreamed about getting even with the assholes who put me there. When I got there, I didn’t know what I was going to do. They make you go with a guard, and they tell you the guard is there to keep you from going after them, just as much as them going after you. But you can go in there and tell them whatever you have to say.”
“So what happened? You never told us.”
He chugged down what was left of his homebrew. “Damn. You gotta go to a bar to get cold beer now, and sometimes that’s a crap shoot. ’Least this is good warm.
“Anyway. I was in Denver, and I was going back and forth about it: gonna go, not gonna go, that kind of crap. I already had the ticket though, so I figured I might as well go. I figured I didn’t have to say anything, I could just have a look and get back on the train. But I checked out of the hotel, so I had to carry all my gear. They said that wasn’t a problem, so I went ahead. I had to take it all with me off the train, because I’d have to take a different train back to Denver and Cal was doing his own sightseeing tour. No big deal, I had a bag of clothes, my guitar, and amp is all, and I carried that around pretty well before.
“So I got there and looked. All it was, was a bunch of old crooks shuffling around the work site. A couple other people came, and yelled a few things at them. Me, I just stood there a long time, just watching. Some of them looked at me and then turned around.” He grinned. “So I plugged in the guitar, turned on the amp, and played them some songs. I Opted Out Today, and that one from the 60s that Bob Dylan did…”
“How Does It Feel?”
“Yeah, that one. Then I made up one on the spot, just for them. I called it What You Deserve, and it was about all the shit they deserved to get, a lot worse than pretending to mine shale. They didn’t like it too much, a couple of them started throwing rocks and pieces of shale at me. I was too far away, but it got the guards down there by the time I finished. Then my guard said no more, it’s time to go, so I turned off the amp and left. I guess he liked it though, because he carried the amp back; I had to carry everything there myself. He told me ‘Good one’ when we got back to the station.”
“Heh. You remember the words?”
He did, and said to post them here:
He cut his album in California, at one of the old studios out there, and put that song on there too. It’s been a roaring success, as such things are measured nowadays — a good 10,000 downloads (and that’s just the paid version), topping the Retro Rage charts. Enough for him to live comfortably on for a good while, even if he’s paying rent. He’s not sure what he’ll do, but I suspect that he’ll try to find a place in Atlanta. I’ve already asked Kim to keep an eye out for something halfway decent.
The important thing is, he’s healed.
continued…
Thursday, November 20, 2036
Homecoming
And almost exactly a year after he left, The Boy has returned. He says, this time, to stay (although “stay” might mean in town or in Atlanta, rather than at the manor). He’s said that so many times in the past that I gave up trying to keep count a long time ago, but there’s a new look in his eyes. His side trip to the shale pits might have done him some good… given him some closure, exorcised his demons, put his ghosts to rest, however you like to say it. Just being out on the road, playing his music to crowds, did the rest… even if most of the venues were makeshift or pressed into service on the spur of the moment.
He took more time than strictly needed to get from Washington to LA and then back here, of course… he put on a couple of concerts in each major city, and spent a few more days in a couple of places. He admitted to being tempted by the offer to join the Chicago Corporation, but decided in the end that they probably wouldn’t have been interested in him if not for his celebrity status. He did spend a week in Chicago though, playing various venues and seeing what there was to see before moving on.
A month in California is still quite an experience, according to The Boy, even if the beaches are getting eaten away by the permanently risen tide. During the junta years, when the west coast was first known as Pacifica and then became part of the Rebel Alliance, there was a lot of development aimed at coping without oil. Drive motors, batteries, and aerogel were all improved; then a company called LSO (Los Santos Occidental, but some people say it really means Life Sans Oil) put them all together on a bicycle. The sucker’s not cheap, but it does make life easier for people who need to get around. He brought one home with him; Rene tried it out and said it was an easy half-hour ride to town. Good thing we have the Heehaw, because I expect The Boy will be using the LSO himself to get around before long.
I asked him when he realized he’d put the past behind him finally. “I guess it was an evening in Santa Monica,” he said. “I was sitting there, watching the sun set, picking out a tune, and it was like… like everything just drained out of me. I’m glad I was alone, because I started crying. Everything I’d hoped for when I was younger — going on tour, people lining up to hear my music — it finally happened, after I’d given up hope on even having a normal life.” He paused for a long moment. “And going back to the shale pits. When I was there before, I dreamed about getting even with the assholes who put me there. When I got there, I didn’t know what I was going to do. They make you go with a guard, and they tell you the guard is there to keep you from going after them, just as much as them going after you. But you can go in there and tell them whatever you have to say.”
“So what happened? You never told us.”
He chugged down what was left of his homebrew. “Damn. You gotta go to a bar to get cold beer now, and sometimes that’s a crap shoot. ’Least this is good warm.
“Anyway. I was in Denver, and I was going back and forth about it: gonna go, not gonna go, that kind of crap. I already had the ticket though, so I figured I might as well go. I figured I didn’t have to say anything, I could just have a look and get back on the train. But I checked out of the hotel, so I had to carry all my gear. They said that wasn’t a problem, so I went ahead. I had to take it all with me off the train, because I’d have to take a different train back to Denver and Cal was doing his own sightseeing tour. No big deal, I had a bag of clothes, my guitar, and amp is all, and I carried that around pretty well before.
“So I got there and looked. All it was, was a bunch of old crooks shuffling around the work site. A couple other people came, and yelled a few things at them. Me, I just stood there a long time, just watching. Some of them looked at me and then turned around.” He grinned. “So I plugged in the guitar, turned on the amp, and played them some songs. I Opted Out Today, and that one from the 60s that Bob Dylan did…”
“How Does It Feel?”
“Yeah, that one. Then I made up one on the spot, just for them. I called it What You Deserve, and it was about all the shit they deserved to get, a lot worse than pretending to mine shale. They didn’t like it too much, a couple of them started throwing rocks and pieces of shale at me. I was too far away, but it got the guards down there by the time I finished. Then my guard said no more, it’s time to go, so I turned off the amp and left. I guess he liked it though, because he carried the amp back; I had to carry everything there myself. He told me ‘Good one’ when we got back to the station.”
“Heh. You remember the words?”
He did, and said to post them here:
You treated me and America like shit,
And now you’re here, stuck in your own pit.
Life has thrown us all a curve,
But you didn't get what you deserve.
You look down on me as I look down at you,
I was always something to scrape off your shoe.
You wanted to rule, and us to serve,
So you haven’t got what you deserve.
You should be a display at the county fair,
For us to laugh at, and spit in your hair!
Slapped and punched when we get the nerve —
That’s only the start of what you deserve!
You thought General K was so very brave.
But he’s long gone, and I pissed on his grave.
Throw you in a hole, deep down in the turf,
Buried alive — it’s what you deserve.
Buried alive — it’s what you deserve!
He cut his album in California, at one of the old studios out there, and put that song on there too. It’s been a roaring success, as such things are measured nowadays — a good 10,000 downloads (and that’s just the paid version), topping the Retro Rage charts. Enough for him to live comfortably on for a good while, even if he’s paying rent. He’s not sure what he’ll do, but I suspect that he’ll try to find a place in Atlanta. I’ve already asked Kim to keep an eye out for something halfway decent.
The important thing is, he’s healed.
continued…
Monday, June 15, 2009 4 comments
FAR Future, Episode 92: The Boy Goes to Washington
Wednesday, September 3, 2036
The Boy Goes to Washington (and Beyond)
Anybody who watched the President’s special address last night probably saw The Boy in the gallery. It’s up on the video sites, the tag is [media.video.gov.DCSpecAddr20360902] if you’re like us and have to get media overnight.
I wish Mrs. Fetched would have been here with me to see it… “two musicians not only defused a potential riot Sunday night, but they may have uncovered a plot to divide the American people — and the word that often follows ‘divide’ is ‘conquer.’” The Boy nodded and waved at the camera as Congress began applauding; Cal just grinned. They were both wearing dress shirts (what I used to call polo shirts) and jeans… dressed up pretty well by today’s standards, especially for musicians. I’m sure Mrs. Fetched tuned in from heaven, just as proud as possible up there, but like I said I wish she could have been here physically.
A couple of things stand out… one was how the President vowed to have this “incident” investigated and follow the trail all the way to the end. That’s something I remember just wasn’t done back before the blackouts or even during the Restoration, no matter how many of us wanted it to happen. At least they found Palmer “Swamp Thing” Lanois in a house outside Baton Rouge, along with a handful of co-conspirators, so I suppose that’s a start. It might have been a different world now if we had really gone after the junta’s ultimate backers… or not. We may not have had the junta, but historians are saying that was just a detour. Things now might have been pretty much the same had the putsch never happened.
But I think this was the central part of the speech: “About 250 years ago, Thomas Jefferson wrote, ‘the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.’ It has always been true, but perhaps we have only this week learned just how true it is. 22 years ago, we allowed a coalition of extremist militias and Dominionists to seize the levers of power in this country. As Fate would have it, they were not capable of governance, but the people were not vigilant and the junta clung to power for nine long years — years that we will never recover as a nation. The phrase coup d’etat literally means ‘a blow against the state,’ and America suffered a tremendous blow, one whose echoes still reverberate around us, because we were not vigilant.
“The junta was eventually pushed out, first from Washington and then from Dallas, but many people thought the job was done with the success of the Reunification. The opposition was largely transformed to a loyal opposition, something required for a healthy democracy. We followed the trail from the militias to religious extremists, to at least some of the shadowy figures behind it all… but then we declared the work to be finished, the breach sealed, the Great American Experiment back on track.
“We were wrong. The work half-done was nearly undone again. The breach half-sealed began to open anew. Those who desire power, but can never find it in the ballot box, made their plans and waited for an opportunity. While we slumbered, they prepared. Late last summer, the opportunity they awaited finally came. A new division — refugees and those living near the camps — started perhaps with a small tear, but they meant to rip it open as wide as they possibly could. And only by chance, or what an earlier generation called Providence, were they thwarted at the very beginning. If our friends here tonight had not been in the right place at the right time, their plans may well have succeeded.”
She went on to a series of initiatives that should get refugees out of camps and settled into new homes — setting a really ambitious goal of closing the last camp on the East Coast by March of next year. But I was kind of surprised at even the hint of a mention of faith in her speech. I know the Association of Penitent Churches has been trying to ramp up a program to get people re-settled; I don’t know if we’ll get help or be absorbed into a more official effort, but as long as the work gets done I really don’t care.
But The Boy and Cal are now on the westbound train. Given the usual delays with waiting for a train to fill up, it might be a while before he gets to California — which is fine with him; he’s already planning to fill layover time playing at whatever venues seem convenient. He told me he drew a pretty decent crowd just sitting on the steps on the Lincoln Memorial and playing some tunes, and wound up with a hat full of cash. He says he plans to just find a likely place and start playing, maybe it will buy him better accommodations and chow as he works his way cross-country. In a post-powerout, left-handed kind of way, he’s finally going on tour. Cal is coming with him to provide percussion, and they’ll watch each other’s backs when necessary. Their temporary celebrity and National Hero status should help with drawing crowds.
He might be back around New Year’s. What happens after that… I guess we’ll find out.
continued…
The Boy Goes to Washington (and Beyond)
Anybody who watched the President’s special address last night probably saw The Boy in the gallery. It’s up on the video sites, the tag is [media.video.gov.DCSpecAddr20360902] if you’re like us and have to get media overnight.
I wish Mrs. Fetched would have been here with me to see it… “two musicians not only defused a potential riot Sunday night, but they may have uncovered a plot to divide the American people — and the word that often follows ‘divide’ is ‘conquer.’” The Boy nodded and waved at the camera as Congress began applauding; Cal just grinned. They were both wearing dress shirts (what I used to call polo shirts) and jeans… dressed up pretty well by today’s standards, especially for musicians. I’m sure Mrs. Fetched tuned in from heaven, just as proud as possible up there, but like I said I wish she could have been here physically.
A couple of things stand out… one was how the President vowed to have this “incident” investigated and follow the trail all the way to the end. That’s something I remember just wasn’t done back before the blackouts or even during the Restoration, no matter how many of us wanted it to happen. At least they found Palmer “Swamp Thing” Lanois in a house outside Baton Rouge, along with a handful of co-conspirators, so I suppose that’s a start. It might have been a different world now if we had really gone after the junta’s ultimate backers… or not. We may not have had the junta, but historians are saying that was just a detour. Things now might have been pretty much the same had the putsch never happened.
But I think this was the central part of the speech: “About 250 years ago, Thomas Jefferson wrote, ‘the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.’ It has always been true, but perhaps we have only this week learned just how true it is. 22 years ago, we allowed a coalition of extremist militias and Dominionists to seize the levers of power in this country. As Fate would have it, they were not capable of governance, but the people were not vigilant and the junta clung to power for nine long years — years that we will never recover as a nation. The phrase coup d’etat literally means ‘a blow against the state,’ and America suffered a tremendous blow, one whose echoes still reverberate around us, because we were not vigilant.
“The junta was eventually pushed out, first from Washington and then from Dallas, but many people thought the job was done with the success of the Reunification. The opposition was largely transformed to a loyal opposition, something required for a healthy democracy. We followed the trail from the militias to religious extremists, to at least some of the shadowy figures behind it all… but then we declared the work to be finished, the breach sealed, the Great American Experiment back on track.
“We were wrong. The work half-done was nearly undone again. The breach half-sealed began to open anew. Those who desire power, but can never find it in the ballot box, made their plans and waited for an opportunity. While we slumbered, they prepared. Late last summer, the opportunity they awaited finally came. A new division — refugees and those living near the camps — started perhaps with a small tear, but they meant to rip it open as wide as they possibly could. And only by chance, or what an earlier generation called Providence, were they thwarted at the very beginning. If our friends here tonight had not been in the right place at the right time, their plans may well have succeeded.”
She went on to a series of initiatives that should get refugees out of camps and settled into new homes — setting a really ambitious goal of closing the last camp on the East Coast by March of next year. But I was kind of surprised at even the hint of a mention of faith in her speech. I know the Association of Penitent Churches has been trying to ramp up a program to get people re-settled; I don’t know if we’ll get help or be absorbed into a more official effort, but as long as the work gets done I really don’t care.
But The Boy and Cal are now on the westbound train. Given the usual delays with waiting for a train to fill up, it might be a while before he gets to California — which is fine with him; he’s already planning to fill layover time playing at whatever venues seem convenient. He told me he drew a pretty decent crowd just sitting on the steps on the Lincoln Memorial and playing some tunes, and wound up with a hat full of cash. He says he plans to just find a likely place and start playing, maybe it will buy him better accommodations and chow as he works his way cross-country. In a post-powerout, left-handed kind of way, he’s finally going on tour. Cal is coming with him to provide percussion, and they’ll watch each other’s backs when necessary. Their temporary celebrity and National Hero status should help with drawing crowds.
He might be back around New Year’s. What happens after that… I guess we’ll find out.
continued…
Monday, June 08, 2009 4 comments
FAR Future, Episode 91: The Boy Saves the Day
Monday, September 1, 2036
The Boy Saves the Day
The power went down right on schedule. It wasn’t long before people began streaming into the assembly area, lighting the way with wind-up flashlights, grumbling among themselves. As most of the people streamed in, Slim slipped up onto the stage. He flipped on a bullhorn and started haranguing the crowd:
“Fellow citizens! I stand before you tonight to speak of injustice!
“Through no fault of your own, you were forced out of your homes. Sure, the government told you that they would resettle you — but is this what you were promised? Life cramped in a tiny trailer, pathways that turn to mud in the rain — and the unearned hatred of those who still have their homes?
“This is no regular power outage, my friends: it was cut off! And who do you think cut it off? The so-called ‘good citizens’ of Suffolk! They have resented your presence outside their comfortable little town, reminding them that there are American people out here, even if they have no intent to welcome you onto their streets, let alone their homes!” He paused to let the crowd murmur and growl a little.
“You’ve heard the stories. Some of you have lived them. If you walk into town — the glares, the stares, the rudeness from people who are supposed to be serving you?” More growling.
“So why do you think they cut off the power? It’s likely that their little citizens’ militia is on the way right now to sow terror and blood, when all any of us ever wanted was a home!
“Are you going to stand for this?”
The crowd bellowed No! — and that’s when The Boy stood up on the stage overhang, flipped the switch on his amp, cranked the volume to 11, and hit a power chord — “just to get their attention,” he laughed. “You shoulda seen Slim jump; I thought he was gonna land up on the roof with us!”
He followed the attention-getter with an old familiar riff and a primal scream — the opening bars to the Beatles’ “Revolution.” Cal, one of the chautauqua drummers and The Boy’s best friend in the troupe, came in right on cue, and they started singing the old classic. Slim tried to recover, shouting into his bullhorn, but the old amp was more than adequate to drown him out. Then The Boy hit the break chord, pointed straight at Slim, and sang: But when you talk about destruction / Don’t you know that you can count me out! The crowd laughed and cheered — at this point, it was obvious to them that Slim was just the warm-up act for the real performance. “On the last verse,” he said, “I changed ‘Chairman Mao’ to ‘General K’ just so they could relate.” General Kimbrell, of course, was the front guy for the junta. Probably a good choice on The Boy’s part.
As for Slim, he threw the bullhorn at The Boy — it never reached the roof — and bolted off the back of the stage. Cops from town and the camp security people were waiting for him on the ground and grabbed him. One of them said they almost caught him out of the air.
The lights came back on just as he finished the opening number, and the cheers redoubled. But The Boy was just getting started — there was no way he was going to pass up this chance. He played for two hours straight, stopping only to drain a water bottle from time to time, working his way forward from the 1960s up to Minima Metal from the 2020s. Fans of each genre took to the stage and danced until he moved on to the next decade. At last, he finished up with a few tracks from “Optout Beach,” which is somewhat popular in the camp (and I suspect will be more popular now).
The interesting part this morning was the dueling headlines on the news sites, things like: “Riot in Suffolk Camp Spotlights Refugee Program Flaws” followed by “Chautauqua Performers Defuse Tense Situation with Music” and “Bomb Squad Saves Power Station.” Dozens — maybe hundreds — of op-ed pieces about a riot that never happened flooded the news sites, written ahead of time, targeted toward townie and refugee alike. Most of them have been pulled, but the Fibbies are already investigating the posters. It seems that Slim was part of a coordinated plan (the word “plot” or even “conspiracy” isn’t too strong here either) to provoke a riot then exploit it to further divide townie from refugee. It might not even be paranoid to consider the possibility that the rumors from both sides were part of this. But the West Coast is starting to have problems now, and there are a few million people just in the US who will be displaced before it’s over — the chaos abroad is at least as bad, and don’t even talk about the Charlie Foxtrot that Bangladesh is becoming even before the flooding starts. Like I’ve said before, it’s really a shame that more people aren’t opening their homes. John’s Creek was a welcome exception, but they took all they could and it was just a drop in the bucket.
Too bad The Boy never got into Crosby Stills and Nash. They did a great song back when, “It Won’t Go Away,” that spoke exactly to this situation: Somebody wants us divided / Someone of evil intent. But he got the job done. At least I was able to talk to him today; he took a little time in between newshound interviews to let me know what was going on.
continued…
The Boy Saves the Day
The power went down right on schedule. It wasn’t long before people began streaming into the assembly area, lighting the way with wind-up flashlights, grumbling among themselves. As most of the people streamed in, Slim slipped up onto the stage. He flipped on a bullhorn and started haranguing the crowd:
“Fellow citizens! I stand before you tonight to speak of injustice!
“Through no fault of your own, you were forced out of your homes. Sure, the government told you that they would resettle you — but is this what you were promised? Life cramped in a tiny trailer, pathways that turn to mud in the rain — and the unearned hatred of those who still have their homes?
“This is no regular power outage, my friends: it was cut off! And who do you think cut it off? The so-called ‘good citizens’ of Suffolk! They have resented your presence outside their comfortable little town, reminding them that there are American people out here, even if they have no intent to welcome you onto their streets, let alone their homes!” He paused to let the crowd murmur and growl a little.
“You’ve heard the stories. Some of you have lived them. If you walk into town — the glares, the stares, the rudeness from people who are supposed to be serving you?” More growling.
“So why do you think they cut off the power? It’s likely that their little citizens’ militia is on the way right now to sow terror and blood, when all any of us ever wanted was a home!
“Are you going to stand for this?”
The crowd bellowed No! — and that’s when The Boy stood up on the stage overhang, flipped the switch on his amp, cranked the volume to 11, and hit a power chord — “just to get their attention,” he laughed. “You shoulda seen Slim jump; I thought he was gonna land up on the roof with us!”
He followed the attention-getter with an old familiar riff and a primal scream — the opening bars to the Beatles’ “Revolution.” Cal, one of the chautauqua drummers and The Boy’s best friend in the troupe, came in right on cue, and they started singing the old classic. Slim tried to recover, shouting into his bullhorn, but the old amp was more than adequate to drown him out. Then The Boy hit the break chord, pointed straight at Slim, and sang: But when you talk about destruction / Don’t you know that you can count me out! The crowd laughed and cheered — at this point, it was obvious to them that Slim was just the warm-up act for the real performance. “On the last verse,” he said, “I changed ‘Chairman Mao’ to ‘General K’ just so they could relate.” General Kimbrell, of course, was the front guy for the junta. Probably a good choice on The Boy’s part.
As for Slim, he threw the bullhorn at The Boy — it never reached the roof — and bolted off the back of the stage. Cops from town and the camp security people were waiting for him on the ground and grabbed him. One of them said they almost caught him out of the air.
The lights came back on just as he finished the opening number, and the cheers redoubled. But The Boy was just getting started — there was no way he was going to pass up this chance. He played for two hours straight, stopping only to drain a water bottle from time to time, working his way forward from the 1960s up to Minima Metal from the 2020s. Fans of each genre took to the stage and danced until he moved on to the next decade. At last, he finished up with a few tracks from “Optout Beach,” which is somewhat popular in the camp (and I suspect will be more popular now).
The interesting part this morning was the dueling headlines on the news sites, things like: “Riot in Suffolk Camp Spotlights Refugee Program Flaws” followed by “Chautauqua Performers Defuse Tense Situation with Music” and “Bomb Squad Saves Power Station.” Dozens — maybe hundreds — of op-ed pieces about a riot that never happened flooded the news sites, written ahead of time, targeted toward townie and refugee alike. Most of them have been pulled, but the Fibbies are already investigating the posters. It seems that Slim was part of a coordinated plan (the word “plot” or even “conspiracy” isn’t too strong here either) to provoke a riot then exploit it to further divide townie from refugee. It might not even be paranoid to consider the possibility that the rumors from both sides were part of this. But the West Coast is starting to have problems now, and there are a few million people just in the US who will be displaced before it’s over — the chaos abroad is at least as bad, and don’t even talk about the Charlie Foxtrot that Bangladesh is becoming even before the flooding starts. Like I’ve said before, it’s really a shame that more people aren’t opening their homes. John’s Creek was a welcome exception, but they took all they could and it was just a drop in the bucket.
Too bad The Boy never got into Crosby Stills and Nash. They did a great song back when, “It Won’t Go Away,” that spoke exactly to this situation: Somebody wants us divided / Someone of evil intent. But he got the job done. At least I was able to talk to him today; he took a little time in between newshound interviews to let me know what was going on.
continued…
Monday, June 01, 2009 10 comments
FAR Future, Episode 90: Dropbox
Things are supposed to be cooling off by September. No such luck for The Boy. Actually, in real life, things are fairly cool. We changed the brake pads on (my) Civic yesterday.
Monday, September 1, 2036
Dropbox
Dueling headlines this morning… and The Boy was right in the middle of it. I think I’ve managed to piece everything together, from what he told me and from what was on the news sites.
The chautauqua charter is to bring art to the community — and the opt-outs are definitely a community. They have accepted The Boy, partly because he was close to joining them a few times and partly because he smokes too — they understand each other. He’ll take his acoustic guitar with him, play them some music, smoke with them, maybe play a few more tunes. The chautauqua approves of this, because he seems to have better luck reaching them than do their plays and on-stage concerts. He brings it to them, after all.
Yesterday afternoon, he was playing them a few tunes out behind a power distribution station when they heard gravel crunching. “Those guys can just melt into the brush, I’ve never figured it out,” he said. “They’re with you one minute, the next they’re just gone.” He put down the guitar and ducked down as best as he could, which turned out to be enough to stay hidden. He could see them, though: a Heehaw, electric-quiet, entering the station. Four men in coveralls dragged a large metal box off the back of the Heehaw and lugged it into the guts of the station. A fifth man, slim and dressed in denim, directed them and selected a spot for the box.
“Careful!” Slim hissed at the others. “Make sure you get it lined up.”
“What’s the big deal?” one of the carriers griped. “You said nobody was gonna find this anyway.”
“Yeah,” said another. “Easy enough to give the orders when you ain’t doing the work.”
“You’re getting paid for your work — the better lined up it is, the less likely anyone is to think it doesn’t belong. Besides, I do my part tonight. Now let me set the timer.” He knelt, lifted a hatch, and fiddled inside for a few seconds before closing the hatch. “And that’s that.” He stood and took a folded envelope from a back pocket, then counted out money to each of the big guys. “You won’t have any trouble getting back to Smithfield tonight?”
“Nah,” one of them said. “It’s only 20 kims, and I got a gallon of diesel if the cell goes out.”
“Good. I’d advise staying home tonight and keeping an eye on things. You shouldn’t have any trouble, but sometimes these things get away from you.”
“Yeah.” Slim climbed into the Heehaw’s shotgun seat; one of the big guys took the wheel and the other three raised the sides before climbing into the bed. They spun away, and The Boy waited for them to whirr up the road before climbing out and taking a look at what they’d left behind.
“It was like those boxes you see on street corners—”
“Pedestals,” I suggested.
“Yeah. Just like that. Brown, rounded corners, the only difference was this one had handles for the guys to donkey it in there.” He lifted the lid, and saw 4:37:53… 52… 51. He carefully closed the lid, tiptoed away, and grabbed his guitar. By then, some of the opt-outs had come back.
“What’s going on there?”
“I don’t know,” The Boy said, “but it sure as hell looks like they just left a bomb in the power station. If it is, you don’t want to be here around…” he pulled out his gadget, checked the time, and did some figuring: “20 after 9 tonight. You guys are camped a ways back from this thing, right?”
“Yeah,” one said. “Hey, wasn’t Gib in demolitions during the Oil War? Maybe he could defuse the thing.”
“Or he could set it off early,” another said. “I don’t think Gib would try it… and if he did, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near.”
“You guys move your stuff,” The Boy said. “I’ll call the sheriff and let the cops blow themselves up. I won’t bring you up so you don’t get involved.”
The opt-outs were amenable to that idea, and got right on it. The Boy shouldered his guitar and headed back to the camp, already punching up 911. Now you have to remember, The Boy has been highly suspicious of cops since he was a teenager — and the incident that sent him to Colorado did nothing to improve his attitude — so he obviously thought this was bad enough that he needed to interact with them. Not that he has much to worry about these days: his teen vice of choice (weed) is still technically illegal, but nobody ever enforces it. His appearance is pretty normal for a traveler, too. But old habits and attitudes are the hardest to shake.
The cops arrived in a two-seater Zap, modified for police use, and The Boy led them to the box. Seeing the timer was enough to convince them, and they called for a bomb squad (which comes out of Richmond in an emergency vehicle, burning fuel by the bucketful). They gave The Boy a lift to the camp, and consulted with the camp director about the situation — the power station served both the camp and Suffolk.
“Yeah,” The Boy told them, “the skinny guy said ‘my part is tonight.’ They’ve already planted a bomb that’ll knock out the power to the camp and town. So what else is he gonna do?”
“Good question,” the camp director said. “With these people spreading rumors and discord, perhaps he’ll incite a riot.”
“Here?” the cop said.
“Here or in town.”
“If he tries startin’ anything in town, we’ll be on him like grease on bacon.”
The Boy snorted.
“We’ll leave a couple of guys out here too, just in case he tries startin’ it here,” the cop continued. “You think you guys can handle things?”
“We might,” The Boy said. “I got an idea.”
continued…
Monday, September 1, 2036
Dropbox
Dueling headlines this morning… and The Boy was right in the middle of it. I think I’ve managed to piece everything together, from what he told me and from what was on the news sites.
The chautauqua charter is to bring art to the community — and the opt-outs are definitely a community. They have accepted The Boy, partly because he was close to joining them a few times and partly because he smokes too — they understand each other. He’ll take his acoustic guitar with him, play them some music, smoke with them, maybe play a few more tunes. The chautauqua approves of this, because he seems to have better luck reaching them than do their plays and on-stage concerts. He brings it to them, after all.
Yesterday afternoon, he was playing them a few tunes out behind a power distribution station when they heard gravel crunching. “Those guys can just melt into the brush, I’ve never figured it out,” he said. “They’re with you one minute, the next they’re just gone.” He put down the guitar and ducked down as best as he could, which turned out to be enough to stay hidden. He could see them, though: a Heehaw, electric-quiet, entering the station. Four men in coveralls dragged a large metal box off the back of the Heehaw and lugged it into the guts of the station. A fifth man, slim and dressed in denim, directed them and selected a spot for the box.
“Careful!” Slim hissed at the others. “Make sure you get it lined up.”
“What’s the big deal?” one of the carriers griped. “You said nobody was gonna find this anyway.”
“Yeah,” said another. “Easy enough to give the orders when you ain’t doing the work.”
“You’re getting paid for your work — the better lined up it is, the less likely anyone is to think it doesn’t belong. Besides, I do my part tonight. Now let me set the timer.” He knelt, lifted a hatch, and fiddled inside for a few seconds before closing the hatch. “And that’s that.” He stood and took a folded envelope from a back pocket, then counted out money to each of the big guys. “You won’t have any trouble getting back to Smithfield tonight?”
“Nah,” one of them said. “It’s only 20 kims, and I got a gallon of diesel if the cell goes out.”
“Good. I’d advise staying home tonight and keeping an eye on things. You shouldn’t have any trouble, but sometimes these things get away from you.”
“Yeah.” Slim climbed into the Heehaw’s shotgun seat; one of the big guys took the wheel and the other three raised the sides before climbing into the bed. They spun away, and The Boy waited for them to whirr up the road before climbing out and taking a look at what they’d left behind.
“It was like those boxes you see on street corners—”
“Pedestals,” I suggested.
“Yeah. Just like that. Brown, rounded corners, the only difference was this one had handles for the guys to donkey it in there.” He lifted the lid, and saw 4:37:53… 52… 51. He carefully closed the lid, tiptoed away, and grabbed his guitar. By then, some of the opt-outs had come back.
“What’s going on there?”
“I don’t know,” The Boy said, “but it sure as hell looks like they just left a bomb in the power station. If it is, you don’t want to be here around…” he pulled out his gadget, checked the time, and did some figuring: “20 after 9 tonight. You guys are camped a ways back from this thing, right?”
“Yeah,” one said. “Hey, wasn’t Gib in demolitions during the Oil War? Maybe he could defuse the thing.”
“Or he could set it off early,” another said. “I don’t think Gib would try it… and if he did, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near.”
“You guys move your stuff,” The Boy said. “I’ll call the sheriff and let the cops blow themselves up. I won’t bring you up so you don’t get involved.”
The opt-outs were amenable to that idea, and got right on it. The Boy shouldered his guitar and headed back to the camp, already punching up 911. Now you have to remember, The Boy has been highly suspicious of cops since he was a teenager — and the incident that sent him to Colorado did nothing to improve his attitude — so he obviously thought this was bad enough that he needed to interact with them. Not that he has much to worry about these days: his teen vice of choice (weed) is still technically illegal, but nobody ever enforces it. His appearance is pretty normal for a traveler, too. But old habits and attitudes are the hardest to shake.
The cops arrived in a two-seater Zap, modified for police use, and The Boy led them to the box. Seeing the timer was enough to convince them, and they called for a bomb squad (which comes out of Richmond in an emergency vehicle, burning fuel by the bucketful). They gave The Boy a lift to the camp, and consulted with the camp director about the situation — the power station served both the camp and Suffolk.
“Yeah,” The Boy told them, “the skinny guy said ‘my part is tonight.’ They’ve already planted a bomb that’ll knock out the power to the camp and town. So what else is he gonna do?”
“Good question,” the camp director said. “With these people spreading rumors and discord, perhaps he’ll incite a riot.”
“Here?” the cop said.
“Here or in town.”
“If he tries startin’ anything in town, we’ll be on him like grease on bacon.”
The Boy snorted.
“We’ll leave a couple of guys out here too, just in case he tries startin’ it here,” the cop continued. “You think you guys can handle things?”
“We might,” The Boy said. “I got an idea.”
continued…
Tuesday, May 26, 2009 6 comments
FAR Future, Episode 89: Making the Call
And here’s this week’s bonus episode…
Wednesday, August 20, 2036
Making the Call
“Right.” I filled Rene in on what Col. Mustard told me. “Do you think you can dig up anything on Palmer Lanois, or any of his assistants? One of them might be who’s behind this Talon thing, and all the other stuff.”
“Probably.” He sat down at poked at his gadget for a few minutes. “I can get started now. The evening drop should give me something to work with tonight. Ready to go?”
“Yup. The pipes are clear and everything’s in place.” I wish I was that sure about everything besides the pipes.
We hiked up to the house, and Rene started banging away at the computer. “Anything turn up?” I asked after a few minutes.
“Yeah,” he said. “Lanois walked away from a mental hospital in Baton Rouge on September 1st last year, and just vanished.”
“The puzzle coming together?”
“This was definitely a missing piece. I think it’s time we share what we know.”
I rummaged around in my old contacts, and found the phone number from the Fibbies who interviewed me after the junta fell. I’ll refer to them as Mulder and Scully (and you probably have to be over 50 to catch that reference). I had no idea whether they were still with the Feds or not; they could have retired or moved on to some other department or section. But this was the number I had, and they told me to call if I ever learned any information.
“Director Mulder’s office,” the receptionist said. “Can I help you?”
I identified myself. “Mr. Mulder visited me some time ago, back when he was an agent, about a tenuous connection I had to the junta, and said to call me if I thought of anything. Something, maybe important, has fallen into my lap, and I think you guys need to take it from here. Oh… he wrote on the back of his card, ‘E317,’ does that mean anything?”
“Hang on a second, Mr. Fetched,” he said, and I heard taptappytappitytaptap. “Yes sir. Hold, please, I’m going to transfer you.”
I had the speaker on, and Rene and I looked at each other. “You think —”
“Director Mulder. You say you’ve learned something?”
“I may have. One of the people living with me, Rene Cardenas, he was in EDID in the war and —”
“Is he with you now?”
“Yes,” Rene said. “Is that all right?”
“Certainly,” said Mulder, and I heard tappity tap once again. “Oh… that Rene Cardenas?”
Rene sighed. “That’s him,” I laughed. “He’s a little modest about the war, but he does know how to go digging for info. You’re aware of the flood of flamebait coming down the newsfeeds, right? We might have connected it to Palmer Lanois, somehow.” I nudged Rene, and let him fill in Mulder on the visit from the Talon people, my relationship with Col. Mustard, and some connections that I hadn’t even been aware of.
“We’ve been watching these people too,” Mulder said. “But I have to admit, there are a couple of things we weren’t aware of. Mr. Cardenas: do you think they have some way to communicate off-net? We haven’t seen anything that looks coordinated on the net — or actionable.”
“Encrypted radio transmissions,” Rene said. “Send small packets, maybe over shortwave. You get a low bitrate, but for text that isn’t a huge problem and you don’t have to worry about routers. I don’t know if that’s what they’re doing, but that’s one way to do it. Sunspots are pretty high right now, so the higher end of the band is open a lot.”
“Right. I really appreciate this information. We’ll see if we can find anything suspicious on the air. If we’re lucky, it’ll lead us to Lanois. Thanks for your time.” He hung up.
“That was a little rude,” Rene said.
“He’s probably excited. I suspect getting Lanois back on the reservation is their Number One priority at the moment.”
“Probably —” Serena and Pat walking in broke that train of thought.
“I was starting to get worried,” Serena said. “It would have been nice if you’d let us know what was going on.” Pat gave me his what’s going on anyway? look.
I looked at the clock on the computer. “An hour and a half? I’m sorry, Serena. I got a call from Col. Mustard and he gave me a name. Rene found out the guy — Palmer Lanois, the one we called Swamp Thing back in the junta days — has been loose since last September, and —” Too late, I realized Pat was still there, taking it all in.
“Pat, why don’t you head on back?” Serena suggested. “Let the others know everything’s OK.”
“What’s going on?” Pat said. “I want to know.”
“Rene could tell you,” I said, “but then he’d have to kill you.” Serena snorted and Rene gave me a puzzled look. Pat just shook his head and left, poking at his gadget as he went. I waved at Rene and Serena to carry on, and caught up to Pat as he was going out the door.
“There’s some stuff going on,” I told him, “and we might have figured out where it’s coming from.”
“You mean with the refugees? I hear stuff all the time, but they’re not like that. We have two families here, and it’s been fine.”
“I know. But somebody’s making a bunch of noise, trying to get people stirred up, and we’re trying to find out why.”
“So who is it?”
“Some people, at least one of them anyway, who were associated with the junta back when.”
“Gas. I wasn’t even born when they got thrown out. They ’re still around?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “It might be some other group using one old junta guy.”
“Yeah.”
I took advantage of the pause: “You making any headway on your new clatter track?”
He pulled it up on his gadget. Knowing how to change the subject is most of the battle.
continued…
Wednesday, August 20, 2036
Making the Call
“Right.” I filled Rene in on what Col. Mustard told me. “Do you think you can dig up anything on Palmer Lanois, or any of his assistants? One of them might be who’s behind this Talon thing, and all the other stuff.”
“Probably.” He sat down at poked at his gadget for a few minutes. “I can get started now. The evening drop should give me something to work with tonight. Ready to go?”
“Yup. The pipes are clear and everything’s in place.” I wish I was that sure about everything besides the pipes.
We hiked up to the house, and Rene started banging away at the computer. “Anything turn up?” I asked after a few minutes.
“Yeah,” he said. “Lanois walked away from a mental hospital in Baton Rouge on September 1st last year, and just vanished.”
“The puzzle coming together?”
“This was definitely a missing piece. I think it’s time we share what we know.”
I rummaged around in my old contacts, and found the phone number from the Fibbies who interviewed me after the junta fell. I’ll refer to them as Mulder and Scully (and you probably have to be over 50 to catch that reference). I had no idea whether they were still with the Feds or not; they could have retired or moved on to some other department or section. But this was the number I had, and they told me to call if I ever learned any information.
“Director Mulder’s office,” the receptionist said. “Can I help you?”
I identified myself. “Mr. Mulder visited me some time ago, back when he was an agent, about a tenuous connection I had to the junta, and said to call me if I thought of anything. Something, maybe important, has fallen into my lap, and I think you guys need to take it from here. Oh… he wrote on the back of his card, ‘E317,’ does that mean anything?”
“Hang on a second, Mr. Fetched,” he said, and I heard taptappytappitytaptap. “Yes sir. Hold, please, I’m going to transfer you.”
I had the speaker on, and Rene and I looked at each other. “You think —”
“Director Mulder. You say you’ve learned something?”
“I may have. One of the people living with me, Rene Cardenas, he was in EDID in the war and —”
“Is he with you now?”
“Yes,” Rene said. “Is that all right?”
“Certainly,” said Mulder, and I heard tappity tap once again. “Oh… that Rene Cardenas?”
Rene sighed. “That’s him,” I laughed. “He’s a little modest about the war, but he does know how to go digging for info. You’re aware of the flood of flamebait coming down the newsfeeds, right? We might have connected it to Palmer Lanois, somehow.” I nudged Rene, and let him fill in Mulder on the visit from the Talon people, my relationship with Col. Mustard, and some connections that I hadn’t even been aware of.
“We’ve been watching these people too,” Mulder said. “But I have to admit, there are a couple of things we weren’t aware of. Mr. Cardenas: do you think they have some way to communicate off-net? We haven’t seen anything that looks coordinated on the net — or actionable.”
“Encrypted radio transmissions,” Rene said. “Send small packets, maybe over shortwave. You get a low bitrate, but for text that isn’t a huge problem and you don’t have to worry about routers. I don’t know if that’s what they’re doing, but that’s one way to do it. Sunspots are pretty high right now, so the higher end of the band is open a lot.”
“Right. I really appreciate this information. We’ll see if we can find anything suspicious on the air. If we’re lucky, it’ll lead us to Lanois. Thanks for your time.” He hung up.
“That was a little rude,” Rene said.
“He’s probably excited. I suspect getting Lanois back on the reservation is their Number One priority at the moment.”
“Probably —” Serena and Pat walking in broke that train of thought.
“I was starting to get worried,” Serena said. “It would have been nice if you’d let us know what was going on.” Pat gave me his what’s going on anyway? look.
I looked at the clock on the computer. “An hour and a half? I’m sorry, Serena. I got a call from Col. Mustard and he gave me a name. Rene found out the guy — Palmer Lanois, the one we called Swamp Thing back in the junta days — has been loose since last September, and —” Too late, I realized Pat was still there, taking it all in.
“Pat, why don’t you head on back?” Serena suggested. “Let the others know everything’s OK.”
“What’s going on?” Pat said. “I want to know.”
“Rene could tell you,” I said, “but then he’d have to kill you.” Serena snorted and Rene gave me a puzzled look. Pat just shook his head and left, poking at his gadget as he went. I waved at Rene and Serena to carry on, and caught up to Pat as he was going out the door.
“There’s some stuff going on,” I told him, “and we might have figured out where it’s coming from.”
“You mean with the refugees? I hear stuff all the time, but they’re not like that. We have two families here, and it’s been fine.”
“I know. But somebody’s making a bunch of noise, trying to get people stirred up, and we’re trying to find out why.”
“So who is it?”
“Some people, at least one of them anyway, who were associated with the junta back when.”
“Gas. I wasn’t even born when they got thrown out. They ’re still around?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “It might be some other group using one old junta guy.”
“Yeah.”
I took advantage of the pause: “You making any headway on your new clatter track?”
He pulled it up on his gadget. Knowing how to change the subject is most of the battle.
continued…
Monday, May 25, 2009 2 comments
FAR Future, Episode 88: Heat Wave
Sorry folks, vacation and the following three-day weekend threw me off. Let me make up for it with a two-fer. Come back tomorrow for the next one…
Wednesday, August 20, 2036
Heat Wave
The Boy sent me a track of his raunchy new song, “On the Centerline.” It’s about a chance encounter with a woman on the road, which he says an opt-out told him about (saying “an opt-out told me about it” is like “the dog ate my homework”). The third verse, which gives you an idea without being completely offensive: Her skin was tough and wrinkled / weathered by the road / But her eyes still twinkled / with stories she had told / Despite her rough appearance / she still looked sorta fine / 'Cause woman are few and far between / Out on the centerline. The storyteller ends up with an itchy souvenir of his encounter…
It’s getting hot, in more ways than one. It’s been really pleasant this summer — temps around 30 most of the time, breezy (not enough to turn the windmills, but still feels good), humidity reasonable. That all changed Monday… it jumped to 35+ and that good ol’ Planet Georgia humidity has returned. We handle it like we did last summer: get the things done that need to get done as early as possible, and spend the rest of the day at the creek. Bobby and Martina have been a huge help in that regard, since they’re up even before the chickens and get a lot of things done before breakfast. We have a screen tent, picnic table, cooler, all the conveniences of modern life down at the creek (the cooler has a small refrigeration unit that runs off a solar panel). Since it runs alongside the pasture, we can send someone to check on the cows every so often and it’s actually more convenient than doing it from the house. Mini-vacation for a baker’s dozen.
If it’s hot outside, it’s getting even hotter on the newsfeeds. The New Talon bunch surfaced again, this time online, newsbombing refugee-oriented sites with fakeumentaries, opinion pieces, and breathless snippets of supposed news. The theme seems to be how the refugees are mostly being neglected by the feds and treated as second-class citizens (if that) by the surrounding populace. There are three or four different “organizations” flogging this goop, but it all sounds like the same stuff written by different people. On “local news” sites, it’s just the opposite: wild-eyed reports of refugees inflicting illegal drugs, crime, and general disorder on everyone around them, while getting lavish handouts from the feds. Both sides carry horror stories about adopted refugee families… the Talon video featured two people who were obviously Sean and Mary, although their faces were blurred out, the names were assumed, and the voices were completely different even accounting for the deliberate distortion “to protect our sources.” Sean shook his head, but Mary was incensed about having words literally put into her mouth and wanted to recruit Serena and Daughter Dearest to help her wreak some mayhem on their offices.
Serena got Rene to spill one bean. “That address is a dropbox,” he told Mary. “I really didn’t want to say anything until I finished working this puzzle, and I’m missing a couple of pieces. But it won’t hurt to tell you that much.” Knowing Rene and what he’s capable of, he probably has the home addresses for Fred and Barney, but would consider that need to know. The government is a lot less intrusive than it used to be, thanks to a reduced energy supply, but can still get very intrusive on an individual basis if provoked.
While we were eating lunch, I got a ping from Col. Mustard down in John’s Creek. Call me. Ears only. I made up an excuse — it was my day to check the greywater irrigation and I’d forgotten to do it — and hiked away, calling once I was sure I was out of earshot.
“Thanks for getting back to me,” he said. “Did you see the stuff popping up on the newsfeeds today?”
“Yeah. One of the videos had Sean and Mary, but they dubbed in what they wanted them to say and blurred their faces.”
“Right. Did you get the idea that it all looked… coordinated?”
“Seems like things blew up overnight. I was seeing occasional rumor-mongering before, but it’s like… I don’t know.”
“Turning up a leaky faucet,” Col. Mustard said, getting a laugh out of me.
“Coordinated. Any ideas who’s doing the coordinating?”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say it looks a lot like the kind of job Palmer Lanois would’ve done.”
I’d not heard that name in a decade, and it still made me shiver. “Swamp Thing? Wouldn’t he have gotten a life sentence?” Lanois was an Evil Genius with propaganda, perhaps the Goebbels of the 21st century; he made Karl Rove look like an amateur. Whatever harebrained idea the junta came up with, Lanois put frosting on the crap and served it up to the people as cupcakes. “Please don’t tell me he talked his way out of prison.”
“Not necessarily. It was pretty well-known even in the outer circles that he was a nutter. He wouldn’t have been safe in general population, and they wouldn’t have put him with junta symps because he’d have organized them into a riot squad. I think he ended up in a mental hospital.”
“And probably walked away not long ago,” I suggested. He wasn’t violent himself, so he wouldn’t be watched carefully… after a while, even famous inmates don’t engender much fascination, especially when they aren’t doing anything eye-catching. He could have simply stood up one day and checked himself out sans paperwork.
“Could be. It could be someone else, someone who studied under him. Or someone who came along later, who studied his methods.” He paused. “Damn. They caught somebody poaching our garden. I gotta process him. Call me later, if you need to.”
“Sure. Thanks much!” I hung up and called Rene. “Hey, could you come up here and — ahem — give me a hand? I think we can do it ourselves, no need to bring anyone else.”
“Um… sure,” he said. About five minutes later, he came jogging up the path. “What’s up? It ain’t the pipes, is it?”
continued…!
Wednesday, August 20, 2036
Heat Wave
The Boy sent me a track of his raunchy new song, “On the Centerline.” It’s about a chance encounter with a woman on the road, which he says an opt-out told him about (saying “an opt-out told me about it” is like “the dog ate my homework”). The third verse, which gives you an idea without being completely offensive: Her skin was tough and wrinkled / weathered by the road / But her eyes still twinkled / with stories she had told / Despite her rough appearance / she still looked sorta fine / 'Cause woman are few and far between / Out on the centerline. The storyteller ends up with an itchy souvenir of his encounter…
It’s getting hot, in more ways than one. It’s been really pleasant this summer — temps around 30 most of the time, breezy (not enough to turn the windmills, but still feels good), humidity reasonable. That all changed Monday… it jumped to 35+ and that good ol’ Planet Georgia humidity has returned. We handle it like we did last summer: get the things done that need to get done as early as possible, and spend the rest of the day at the creek. Bobby and Martina have been a huge help in that regard, since they’re up even before the chickens and get a lot of things done before breakfast. We have a screen tent, picnic table, cooler, all the conveniences of modern life down at the creek (the cooler has a small refrigeration unit that runs off a solar panel). Since it runs alongside the pasture, we can send someone to check on the cows every so often and it’s actually more convenient than doing it from the house. Mini-vacation for a baker’s dozen.
If it’s hot outside, it’s getting even hotter on the newsfeeds. The New Talon bunch surfaced again, this time online, newsbombing refugee-oriented sites with fakeumentaries, opinion pieces, and breathless snippets of supposed news. The theme seems to be how the refugees are mostly being neglected by the feds and treated as second-class citizens (if that) by the surrounding populace. There are three or four different “organizations” flogging this goop, but it all sounds like the same stuff written by different people. On “local news” sites, it’s just the opposite: wild-eyed reports of refugees inflicting illegal drugs, crime, and general disorder on everyone around them, while getting lavish handouts from the feds. Both sides carry horror stories about adopted refugee families… the Talon video featured two people who were obviously Sean and Mary, although their faces were blurred out, the names were assumed, and the voices were completely different even accounting for the deliberate distortion “to protect our sources.” Sean shook his head, but Mary was incensed about having words literally put into her mouth and wanted to recruit Serena and Daughter Dearest to help her wreak some mayhem on their offices.
Serena got Rene to spill one bean. “That address is a dropbox,” he told Mary. “I really didn’t want to say anything until I finished working this puzzle, and I’m missing a couple of pieces. But it won’t hurt to tell you that much.” Knowing Rene and what he’s capable of, he probably has the home addresses for Fred and Barney, but would consider that need to know. The government is a lot less intrusive than it used to be, thanks to a reduced energy supply, but can still get very intrusive on an individual basis if provoked.
While we were eating lunch, I got a ping from Col. Mustard down in John’s Creek. Call me. Ears only. I made up an excuse — it was my day to check the greywater irrigation and I’d forgotten to do it — and hiked away, calling once I was sure I was out of earshot.
“Thanks for getting back to me,” he said. “Did you see the stuff popping up on the newsfeeds today?”
“Yeah. One of the videos had Sean and Mary, but they dubbed in what they wanted them to say and blurred their faces.”
“Right. Did you get the idea that it all looked… coordinated?”
“Seems like things blew up overnight. I was seeing occasional rumor-mongering before, but it’s like… I don’t know.”
“Turning up a leaky faucet,” Col. Mustard said, getting a laugh out of me.
“Coordinated. Any ideas who’s doing the coordinating?”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say it looks a lot like the kind of job Palmer Lanois would’ve done.”
I’d not heard that name in a decade, and it still made me shiver. “Swamp Thing? Wouldn’t he have gotten a life sentence?” Lanois was an Evil Genius with propaganda, perhaps the Goebbels of the 21st century; he made Karl Rove look like an amateur. Whatever harebrained idea the junta came up with, Lanois put frosting on the crap and served it up to the people as cupcakes. “Please don’t tell me he talked his way out of prison.”
“Not necessarily. It was pretty well-known even in the outer circles that he was a nutter. He wouldn’t have been safe in general population, and they wouldn’t have put him with junta symps because he’d have organized them into a riot squad. I think he ended up in a mental hospital.”
“And probably walked away not long ago,” I suggested. He wasn’t violent himself, so he wouldn’t be watched carefully… after a while, even famous inmates don’t engender much fascination, especially when they aren’t doing anything eye-catching. He could have simply stood up one day and checked himself out sans paperwork.
“Could be. It could be someone else, someone who studied under him. Or someone who came along later, who studied his methods.” He paused. “Damn. They caught somebody poaching our garden. I gotta process him. Call me later, if you need to.”
“Sure. Thanks much!” I hung up and called Rene. “Hey, could you come up here and — ahem — give me a hand? I think we can do it ourselves, no need to bring anyone else.”
“Um… sure,” he said. About five minutes later, he came jogging up the path. “What’s up? It ain’t the pipes, is it?”
continued…!
Monday, May 18, 2009 5 comments
FAR Future, Episode 87: Virginia Slam
With the story itself finished, I’m busying myself with filling in some of the background stuff. Song lyrics, one of Serena’s plays, maybe a few “ePedia” entries later on. Now that the main job is done, some of this is clamoring to get out too.
Thursday, July 24, 2036
Virginia Slam
The Boy gave us a call today from the camp outside of Suffolk VA, between Richmond and Norfolk.
“Hey! Guess what?”
“Um… you got married?” I laughed.
“Ha. I was at a salvage shop in Suffolk today, and I found a Les Paul and an amp — 80 bucks!”
“Why so cheap?”
“Everyone’s going acoustic these days. Don’t have to worry about the power going out, and some bars don’t even have electric except to keep the beer cold. I’m chopping the amp, converting it to run on a fuel cell.”
“Does it all work?”
“Yeah, the guy let me try it out. He even threw in some strings he had laying in a whatever bin.”
“So what are you going to do with it?”
“Play some old stuff. I figure with a full fuel cell, I can play all night if I want.”
“As long as you can recharge it.”
“Yeah, there’s that. But they got genbikes everywhere here in the camp, and I can pay a kid to pedal for me. It’ll go about the same amount of time you charge it — pedal an hour, play an hour.”
“Good luck with that, then. How is everything else going?”
“It’s a job. But people are getting real weird. I keep hearing stuff that’s just bullshit.”
“People are always gonna give you a line if you let them,” I said.
“Yeah. But some of this — it’s just whacked. Townies are sayin’ the refugees are running whee and zone labs and sellin’ the shit to kids —”
“Both? And no turf wars?”
“Yeah. Like I said, whoever’s startin’ this stuff don’t know jack. And the refugees are sayin’ the townies are raisin’ a militia to come shoot up the camp and get ’em all to leave.”
“And you’re hearing both sides? How?”
“Yeah. I go into town and eat sometimes. Some of the townies are real assholes, they thought I was an opt-out because I smoke, then they think I’m a refugee, but then they apologize when I tell ’em I’m with the chautauqua. Then they start sayin’ that crap. I try to tell ’em different and it’s like they don’t want to hear it.”
“I’m surprised you bought that guitar, then.” The Boy has never been one to laugh off an affront — which is how he ran afoul of the junta and won a trip to Colorado.
“That guy at the shop, he was cool,” The Boy said. “He deals with refugees and opt-outs all the time. He hears the stories too, but he knows they’re crap.”
“So how long are you going to be there?”
“About a month. We’ll run out of material before then, so we’ll do a few shows in town before we move on. The townies don’t go out to the camp, so they won’t know we’re playing the same stuff we did in the camp.”
“I guess. Have you seen any of those news crews like the ones that came by here in March?”
“Everyone hears about ’em. But nobody ever sees ’em. What’s with that?”
“I wish I knew.”
He asked me how things were going at the manor, and said to thank Serena for the script. She still has a certain cachet in the chautauqua movement. Things here go as they often do in the summer… just not as hot as usual. We still sleep on the porch or in screen tents, except when there’s heavy rain, which we’ve had more often than usual this summer. The kids love sleeping outside, as they always have, and they have a tent of their own so the couples can have a little privacy. Bobby and Martina continue to show no signs of early romance — and believe me, everyone has been watching carefully! — so it hasn’t been a problem. Then again, they have to share the tent with Pat and Ray, and Pat’s more or less in charge. He put them on opposite sides, Ray next to Martina.
Speaking of Pat, he submitted a clatter track to a music sharing site, and get reasonably positive feedback. The criticism has all been along the lines of “too derivative, sounds like Klappernwerk” or some other group. Then again, anyone not into clatter says it all sounds the same, so Pat (like any clatter artist) is trying to come up with something sufficiently different to be his own but still be clatter. Samples of non-metallic instruments are cropping up in some tracks these days… purists frown on anything that isn’t an improvised percussion instrument, but new genres always go through a phase of defining themselves (or expanding their audiences). Lyrics, or at least vocals, are the newest frontier — “Bang Out the Beat” (track, album, and artist all share the name) was #5 on the clatter download charts last week, and looks to be around a while.
Ray’s into everything, now that he’s gotten familiar with the various routines around here. The dogs absolutely love him, and will do anything for him in the pasture… it’s really amazing. He can point to a calf, tell the dogs to put it up, and they’ll cut it out of the herd and chase it into the holding pen. We talked about entering him in the next stock dog trials, but his parents nixed it. Not sure what the deal is there; maybe they don’t want to be too tied to this place.
There was a time I could relate.
continued…
Thursday, July 24, 2036
Virginia Slam
The Boy gave us a call today from the camp outside of Suffolk VA, between Richmond and Norfolk.
“Hey! Guess what?”
“Um… you got married?” I laughed.
“Ha. I was at a salvage shop in Suffolk today, and I found a Les Paul and an amp — 80 bucks!”
“Why so cheap?”
“Everyone’s going acoustic these days. Don’t have to worry about the power going out, and some bars don’t even have electric except to keep the beer cold. I’m chopping the amp, converting it to run on a fuel cell.”
“Does it all work?”
“Yeah, the guy let me try it out. He even threw in some strings he had laying in a whatever bin.”
“So what are you going to do with it?”
“Play some old stuff. I figure with a full fuel cell, I can play all night if I want.”
“As long as you can recharge it.”
“Yeah, there’s that. But they got genbikes everywhere here in the camp, and I can pay a kid to pedal for me. It’ll go about the same amount of time you charge it — pedal an hour, play an hour.”
“Good luck with that, then. How is everything else going?”
“It’s a job. But people are getting real weird. I keep hearing stuff that’s just bullshit.”
“People are always gonna give you a line if you let them,” I said.
“Yeah. But some of this — it’s just whacked. Townies are sayin’ the refugees are running whee and zone labs and sellin’ the shit to kids —”
“Both? And no turf wars?”
“Yeah. Like I said, whoever’s startin’ this stuff don’t know jack. And the refugees are sayin’ the townies are raisin’ a militia to come shoot up the camp and get ’em all to leave.”
“And you’re hearing both sides? How?”
“Yeah. I go into town and eat sometimes. Some of the townies are real assholes, they thought I was an opt-out because I smoke, then they think I’m a refugee, but then they apologize when I tell ’em I’m with the chautauqua. Then they start sayin’ that crap. I try to tell ’em different and it’s like they don’t want to hear it.”
“I’m surprised you bought that guitar, then.” The Boy has never been one to laugh off an affront — which is how he ran afoul of the junta and won a trip to Colorado.
“That guy at the shop, he was cool,” The Boy said. “He deals with refugees and opt-outs all the time. He hears the stories too, but he knows they’re crap.”
“So how long are you going to be there?”
“About a month. We’ll run out of material before then, so we’ll do a few shows in town before we move on. The townies don’t go out to the camp, so they won’t know we’re playing the same stuff we did in the camp.”
“I guess. Have you seen any of those news crews like the ones that came by here in March?”
“Everyone hears about ’em. But nobody ever sees ’em. What’s with that?”
“I wish I knew.”
He asked me how things were going at the manor, and said to thank Serena for the script. She still has a certain cachet in the chautauqua movement. Things here go as they often do in the summer… just not as hot as usual. We still sleep on the porch or in screen tents, except when there’s heavy rain, which we’ve had more often than usual this summer. The kids love sleeping outside, as they always have, and they have a tent of their own so the couples can have a little privacy. Bobby and Martina continue to show no signs of early romance — and believe me, everyone has been watching carefully! — so it hasn’t been a problem. Then again, they have to share the tent with Pat and Ray, and Pat’s more or less in charge. He put them on opposite sides, Ray next to Martina.
Speaking of Pat, he submitted a clatter track to a music sharing site, and get reasonably positive feedback. The criticism has all been along the lines of “too derivative, sounds like Klappernwerk” or some other group. Then again, anyone not into clatter says it all sounds the same, so Pat (like any clatter artist) is trying to come up with something sufficiently different to be his own but still be clatter. Samples of non-metallic instruments are cropping up in some tracks these days… purists frown on anything that isn’t an improvised percussion instrument, but new genres always go through a phase of defining themselves (or expanding their audiences). Lyrics, or at least vocals, are the newest frontier — “Bang Out the Beat” (track, album, and artist all share the name) was #5 on the clatter download charts last week, and looks to be around a while.
Ray’s into everything, now that he’s gotten familiar with the various routines around here. The dogs absolutely love him, and will do anything for him in the pasture… it’s really amazing. He can point to a calf, tell the dogs to put it up, and they’ll cut it out of the herd and chase it into the holding pen. We talked about entering him in the next stock dog trials, but his parents nixed it. Not sure what the deal is there; maybe they don’t want to be too tied to this place.
There was a time I could relate.
continued…
Monday, May 11, 2009 13 comments
FAR Future, Episode 86: Generation 3
I’ve finished up the first draft in real life, but even at two posts a week it will still be a while… and I’m not going to put up two posts every week…
Saturday, June 28, 2036
Generation 3
The tradition continues…
I’ll have to say, he has good penmanship. Mine was never that good, even before I learned to type.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen two earlier-rising kids than Bobby and Martina… ever. But when you’re a kid, the greatest treasure of all is having a friend who’s completely simpatico. Rene and Serena and I had a little powwow one evening about them. “So how’s it gonna go down?” I asked them. “Like you two, or the Kim/Christina extreme? Or something in between?”
“More like us than them, I think,” Serena said. “Even when we were that age, the dynamics of the relationships got established pretty quickly. You just had to be looking for it.”
“I saw it,” Rene said, “but I didn’t realize what it was at first. I wasn’t thinking of my little sister being in love with Kim… I just thought she was acting weird.”
I laughed. “So we have like ten years before we need to start worrying?”
Sean and Mary, Martina’s parents, are less sanguine about the situation… which is normal for the parents of daughters. But it should be at least a couple of years before the hormones start flowing, and even they have to admit that the two of them act like a normal pair of kids. Serena told them about Kim and Christina, and the ways that Bobby and Martina are not like them, and that seemed to help.
“And when they get to be teenagers, they’ll probably start sleeping in,” Sean suggested. “Early morning’s the only time I know of that they’re not being supervised.”
“That and when they’re hunting up firewood,” I added. “But we can always put them on a different job if we have to.”
The kids will be getting The Talk in a couple of years, I think, whether they need it or not. At least I won’t have to be the one to do it this time. God willing, if it comes down to it, I’ll be around to perform the initial wedding service though.
continued…
Saturday, June 28, 2036
Generation 3
The tradition continues…
Hi everyone. I'm Bobby. I found Granddad's printed blog, I guess that makes it a diary. Mom and Dad both said he would probably let me write something for it. I said I couldn't think of anything, and Dad laughed and said that happened to him the first time too. Granddad said that it happens to everyone, just not all the time. Mom said to just talk about what we do during the day, because people like to hear about that. She said not everybody lives like us, I guess she meant Uncle Kim and Aunt Christina and Little Mo and Robin, down in Atlanta. So this is what our days are like.
Me and Martina get up before everyone, most mornings. I don't know why, but we both wake up around 5:30 or 6 and we're just not tired anymore. So I go downstairs, and Martina comes in from her place, and we talk or read or do our homework until someone else comes in. Sometimes we play checkers. As long as we're quiet, nobody minds. We only woke everyone up once, in February when we got 10 whole cm of snow! Martina had to walk through it to get in the house, and she told me about it, so we ran outside and got a little noisy. When it was still cold out, we also brought in firewood to keep the heater going. Mom said we should fix breakfast for everyone, but she was just kidding. She doesn't want us getting cut or burned or something.
Sometimes, Martina wants us to make a story, so we have to go outside. That's OK in the summer anyway, because we can see and it's warm out. If it's our turn to weed the garden, we do that while we make the story. The grownups don't like when we go to the garden ourselves, but we take the dogs and there's never been a problem.
Whatever we do, when the grownups get up we have breakfast. Martina's place, and Ray's, have kitchens but mostly everyone eats together in the big house. Granddad gets out what he calls the duty roster, which is what everyone's supposed to do that day, and sometimes the grownups trade jobs if they want. If we got a head start on our job, they tell us if we have to help someone else. But most of the time, we go looking for fell-down trees for firewood. We mark the big ones on a GPS and drag smaller ones out if we can. Robin and Little Mo get to come with us sometimes, but they’re not used to how we do things so sometimes they’re just in the way. But they’re a lot of help when we drag trees out of the woods.
In the afternoons, everyone goes down to the creek. It's not as hot as last summer, but that's OK. We just take our clothes off and jump in. Sometimes the grownups jump in too, but they don't always take off their clothes. That's so weird, they have to walk back with their clothes all wet! Ours get a little wet, but we mostly dry off first so we don't squish in our shoes. Martina says the grownups are embarrassed, but that's silly. What do they have to be embarrassed about? Clothes are to keep warm or keep from getting scratched up when you're outside.
The other weird thing grownups do is spend a lot of time on computers or watching TV when it comes on. Granddad thought I was going to type this into his computer, but that's what old people do. I can use a computer, but I don't do it for fun.
I’ll have to say, he has good penmanship. Mine was never that good, even before I learned to type.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen two earlier-rising kids than Bobby and Martina… ever. But when you’re a kid, the greatest treasure of all is having a friend who’s completely simpatico. Rene and Serena and I had a little powwow one evening about them. “So how’s it gonna go down?” I asked them. “Like you two, or the Kim/Christina extreme? Or something in between?”
“More like us than them, I think,” Serena said. “Even when we were that age, the dynamics of the relationships got established pretty quickly. You just had to be looking for it.”
“I saw it,” Rene said, “but I didn’t realize what it was at first. I wasn’t thinking of my little sister being in love with Kim… I just thought she was acting weird.”
I laughed. “So we have like ten years before we need to start worrying?”
Sean and Mary, Martina’s parents, are less sanguine about the situation… which is normal for the parents of daughters. But it should be at least a couple of years before the hormones start flowing, and even they have to admit that the two of them act like a normal pair of kids. Serena told them about Kim and Christina, and the ways that Bobby and Martina are not like them, and that seemed to help.
“And when they get to be teenagers, they’ll probably start sleeping in,” Sean suggested. “Early morning’s the only time I know of that they’re not being supervised.”
“That and when they’re hunting up firewood,” I added. “But we can always put them on a different job if we have to.”
The kids will be getting The Talk in a couple of years, I think, whether they need it or not. At least I won’t have to be the one to do it this time. God willing, if it comes down to it, I’ll be around to perform the initial wedding service though.
continued…
Tuesday, May 05, 2009 6 comments
FAR Future, Episode 85: An Old Friend
Friday, May 30, 2036
An Old Friend
“I thought I recognized you!” he grinned. “It’s been a long time since Nickajack, hasn’t it?” He steered me out the door and up to the street.
“I got your message when you were in Dallas. And I checked on you afterward, but I never heard from you and pretty much lost track.”
“So you know about General Mayhem and Sgt. Pepper.”
I nodded. “They didn’t make it.”
“Yeah.”
We walked in silence for a while, passing a once-empty lot that was now one of many thriving gardens. “What about you?” I asked. “You took the amnesty — what happened after that?”
“Not much. The interesting stuff happened while I was doing my jail time. All that time, we thought the televangelists were the ones behind the junta, the RoT, all that. I guess they were… but nobody I know of thought to ask who was behind them. We weren’t much for questioning our leadership, you know, at least the kind we liked.
“So those FEMA camps. The junta sent a few people to those, mostly the D1 people — non-violent agitators. After we redeployed, the old government let those guys go. But that’s where they sent us. Justice.”
“Symmetrical, anyway.”
“I guess. One of the people in there with me was an assistant to one of the big shots there in Dallas, and he wasn’t taking prison camp too well — he’d had access to a lot of power, and now he was in a cage. He spent pretty much all day walking a rut around the fence line for most of the first month.”
“So what happened?”
“Sooner or later, everyone in the program got ‘counseling.’ I guess they kept an eye on everyone and waited until they were ready. They might have waited a little too long in Kenneth’s case.
“Anyway, it was probably obvious that what this guy wanted, more than anything, was to give advice to the powerful. They told him he’d have the ear of the very top if he had something interesting to say… and by God, did he ever.
“Turns out the televangelists were taking orders from the one-percenters — the richest of the rich. God didn ’t have much to do with the junta, unless His name is Mammon.”
We got quiet for a while… two old men lost in their own thoughts. He stopped in front of the building in the cul-de-sac we were walking through; I remembered a name, or part of one: “Something Science. I have no idea what they made.” The next building was where the office park maintenance people worked from. After a while, we picked up where Col. Mustard had left off. “So your eyes were opened, or something?”
“It was pretty hard to take,” he said. “Have you ever built your entire life — your entire outlook — on something, then found you’d been used?” I shook my head, but I don’t think he noticed. “I tried not to believe it. I know some of the guys there refused to believe it. Some of them tried to kill themselves, and one or two did it. I know a lot of guys opted-out. I thought about it.”
“You’d think the counselors would have known what kind of bombshell that would be.”
“They didn’t do it. When Kenneth started talking, it was like a dam broke. He went around and told us all. A couple of guys beat the hell out of him, and they moved him after that.
“Soon after, I got my own turn at counseling. They helped me accept what I’d let happen to me, then they gave me a train ticket to Atlanta and a voucher for three months of lodging. They were having a bandit problem up here at the time, so I offered to help with security. Been here ever since.”
“You got any idea whether they got the people who bankrolled the junta?”
“I’m sure they went after them. Maybe they put a dent in their operation. But I doubt that it was more than a dent. Those guys had assets offshore, sure as sunrise.”
“Lay low for a while, wait for something to happen, maybe make something happen, take advantage,” I said. “That’s how they played it with the New Deal, right? You know some of those guys were backing the Nazis in World War Two. That didn’t quite work out as planned, so they got the Cold War going with the Soviets and made out like bandits selling arms to just about everyone. Eventually, they co-opted the southerners and the religious authoritarians… and you know the rest. At least up to now.” I told him about the visit from the newsies. “You think those guys might be a new tentacle?”
“Maybe. But it doesn’t make sense. At least by itself. There must be more to this than we’ve seen so far.”
The rest of the walk (and the entire trip) was uneventful. Col. Mustard was intrigued that one building used to be a firearms training site, but it didn’t matter much to the task at hand (which was to identify potentially toxic areas for the farm crew). The trip home was pretty much like the trip down — shuttle, RoadTrain, get a ride home — except that there were three of us to keep each other company. Robin and Little Mo barely noticed that their parents (and granddad) were home; they were busy with all the other kids. Some things never change.
continued…
An Old Friend
“I thought I recognized you!” he grinned. “It’s been a long time since Nickajack, hasn’t it?” He steered me out the door and up to the street.
“I got your message when you were in Dallas. And I checked on you afterward, but I never heard from you and pretty much lost track.”
“So you know about General Mayhem and Sgt. Pepper.”
I nodded. “They didn’t make it.”
“Yeah.”
We walked in silence for a while, passing a once-empty lot that was now one of many thriving gardens. “What about you?” I asked. “You took the amnesty — what happened after that?”
“Not much. The interesting stuff happened while I was doing my jail time. All that time, we thought the televangelists were the ones behind the junta, the RoT, all that. I guess they were… but nobody I know of thought to ask who was behind them. We weren’t much for questioning our leadership, you know, at least the kind we liked.
“So those FEMA camps. The junta sent a few people to those, mostly the D1 people — non-violent agitators. After we redeployed, the old government let those guys go. But that’s where they sent us. Justice.”
“Symmetrical, anyway.”
“I guess. One of the people in there with me was an assistant to one of the big shots there in Dallas, and he wasn’t taking prison camp too well — he’d had access to a lot of power, and now he was in a cage. He spent pretty much all day walking a rut around the fence line for most of the first month.”
“So what happened?”
“Sooner or later, everyone in the program got ‘counseling.’ I guess they kept an eye on everyone and waited until they were ready. They might have waited a little too long in Kenneth’s case.
“Anyway, it was probably obvious that what this guy wanted, more than anything, was to give advice to the powerful. They told him he’d have the ear of the very top if he had something interesting to say… and by God, did he ever.
“Turns out the televangelists were taking orders from the one-percenters — the richest of the rich. God didn ’t have much to do with the junta, unless His name is Mammon.”
We got quiet for a while… two old men lost in their own thoughts. He stopped in front of the building in the cul-de-sac we were walking through; I remembered a name, or part of one: “Something Science. I have no idea what they made.” The next building was where the office park maintenance people worked from. After a while, we picked up where Col. Mustard had left off. “So your eyes were opened, or something?”
“It was pretty hard to take,” he said. “Have you ever built your entire life — your entire outlook — on something, then found you’d been used?” I shook my head, but I don’t think he noticed. “I tried not to believe it. I know some of the guys there refused to believe it. Some of them tried to kill themselves, and one or two did it. I know a lot of guys opted-out. I thought about it.”
“You’d think the counselors would have known what kind of bombshell that would be.”
“They didn’t do it. When Kenneth started talking, it was like a dam broke. He went around and told us all. A couple of guys beat the hell out of him, and they moved him after that.
“Soon after, I got my own turn at counseling. They helped me accept what I’d let happen to me, then they gave me a train ticket to Atlanta and a voucher for three months of lodging. They were having a bandit problem up here at the time, so I offered to help with security. Been here ever since.”
“You got any idea whether they got the people who bankrolled the junta?”
“I’m sure they went after them. Maybe they put a dent in their operation. But I doubt that it was more than a dent. Those guys had assets offshore, sure as sunrise.”
“Lay low for a while, wait for something to happen, maybe make something happen, take advantage,” I said. “That’s how they played it with the New Deal, right? You know some of those guys were backing the Nazis in World War Two. That didn’t quite work out as planned, so they got the Cold War going with the Soviets and made out like bandits selling arms to just about everyone. Eventually, they co-opted the southerners and the religious authoritarians… and you know the rest. At least up to now.” I told him about the visit from the newsies. “You think those guys might be a new tentacle?”
“Maybe. But it doesn’t make sense. At least by itself. There must be more to this than we’ve seen so far.”
The rest of the walk (and the entire trip) was uneventful. Col. Mustard was intrigued that one building used to be a firearms training site, but it didn’t matter much to the task at hand (which was to identify potentially toxic areas for the farm crew). The trip home was pretty much like the trip down — shuttle, RoadTrain, get a ride home — except that there were three of us to keep each other company. Robin and Little Mo barely noticed that their parents (and granddad) were home; they were busy with all the other kids. Some things never change.
continued…
Monday, May 04, 2009 6 comments
FAR Future, Episode 84: Office Revisited
This and the next episode are two parts of the same day, so (for the first time in quite a while), I’m going to post them back-to-back. Come back tomorrow morning for Episode 85!
Friday, May 30, 2036
Office Revisited
Kim and Christina scheduled a consulting job for Tuesday, the first day after college closed for the summer. A community in the John’s Creek area was taking in a big group of refugees from the coast and asked Christina for some advice for upgrading and expanding their digester and composting facility. Methane from sewage is a big source of cooking fuel these days, of course, and people depend heavily on these systems now. Kim knew I used to work down that way, and invited me to join them. Being gone for a few days wouldn’t hurt anything, since Serena doesn’t let me do much anyway, so why not?
A 60km trip to John’s Creek (and back) used to be something I did five times a week without thinking much about it — I ought to bring up the word “commute” in history class this fall — but these days it takes a little planning. I could have grabbed the Heehaw and been there in an hour and a half, maybe two hours, but the farm needs it for all sorts of things and it would be horribly selfish of me anyway. (Which isn’t to say I didn’t think about it for a minute.) But doing it the right way, this trip is done in three parts: 1) Rene and Maria take me up to the old retail district; 2) RoadTrain down to the stop at the old exit; 3) Norcross shuttle to John’s Creek. Thanks to good old gadgets, I could keep Kim and Christina apprised of my location and they were at the stop to meet me. Including layovers, it only took half the day to arrive. Part of trip preparation involves packing some chow and reading materials, of course.
Kim and Christina were pretty tolerant of me rattling off names they’d long forgotten — “that was a Kroger’s, that was a Wendy’s,” etc. What they cared about was if there was a Fry Guy franchise in the area. “20th Century Comfort Food,” they tag themselves, “cooked on the spot.” All of it horribly unhealthy, but it’s probably OK for the occasional celebration or whatever. It’s no surprise that all those chains were long gone and the buildings repurposed; but there were a few surprises waiting for me.
The first one was when they took us to where we were staying — which happened to be the building I worked in back in the early part of the century! All the cube walls and furniture were long gone, of course — taken off to be recycled or repurposed — but the old cabinet with the mail slots by my old cube was still there, so I could show them where I worked. As often as I joked about living in that office, this was the first time I’d actually spent the night in the building. We were given an old conference room that was now the guest quarters. Back when, they named all the conference rooms after elements (in the periodic table), and they had left the old sign up by the door: “Lithium Conference Room.”
“It's a good room for a guest quarters,” I told Kim and Christina. “The meetings I went to in here could knock a caffeinated insomniac out cold. There’s probably enough residual boredom here for me to sleep really good tonight.”
They laughed, but I wasn’t joking. I yawned and dropped my bag on one of the beds.
“Hey,” I said, “who has Little Mo and Robin?”
“They’re on the RoadTrain,” Kim said. “Or were. Rene and Maria were going to do some business and wait for the kids after they dropped you off.” Like I said, the Heehaw doesn’t sit idle much. I drew a complete blank on the plans though, and I should have known. I don’t worry much about memory lapses; I’ve had them all my life. As long as it’s nothing truly important, like if I were supposed to have waited for the kids, I’m fine.
Next morning, they invited us to breakfast… which was combined with a meeting to discuss the agenda, who would be escorting whom and where. Here was the next surprise: I was included in the agenda, as someone who knew the area from before the blackouts. Breakfast in the burbs isn’t as “meaty” as a country breakfast — they have a few pigs, but hadn’t slaughtered any lately. No matter: pancakes and eggs are always good enough, even if I take just a little egg. Cholesterol, high blood pressure, and diabetes all are much less common than they used to be; the sedentary lifestyle and over-processed food have mostly gone away in the last 25 years and took most of those problems with them. But I still try to keep a rein on things, especially since I’m not as active now.
The third — and biggest — surprise was after breakfast. I was assigned to an “inspection tour” and my escort looked to be about as old as me, but he looked familiar. Then he introduced himself, and I remembered.
“Col. Mustard?” I gaped.
continued…
Friday, May 30, 2036
Office Revisited
Kim and Christina scheduled a consulting job for Tuesday, the first day after college closed for the summer. A community in the John’s Creek area was taking in a big group of refugees from the coast and asked Christina for some advice for upgrading and expanding their digester and composting facility. Methane from sewage is a big source of cooking fuel these days, of course, and people depend heavily on these systems now. Kim knew I used to work down that way, and invited me to join them. Being gone for a few days wouldn’t hurt anything, since Serena doesn’t let me do much anyway, so why not?
A 60km trip to John’s Creek (and back) used to be something I did five times a week without thinking much about it — I ought to bring up the word “commute” in history class this fall — but these days it takes a little planning. I could have grabbed the Heehaw and been there in an hour and a half, maybe two hours, but the farm needs it for all sorts of things and it would be horribly selfish of me anyway. (Which isn’t to say I didn’t think about it for a minute.) But doing it the right way, this trip is done in three parts: 1) Rene and Maria take me up to the old retail district; 2) RoadTrain down to the stop at the old exit; 3) Norcross shuttle to John’s Creek. Thanks to good old gadgets, I could keep Kim and Christina apprised of my location and they were at the stop to meet me. Including layovers, it only took half the day to arrive. Part of trip preparation involves packing some chow and reading materials, of course.
Kim and Christina were pretty tolerant of me rattling off names they’d long forgotten — “that was a Kroger’s, that was a Wendy’s,” etc. What they cared about was if there was a Fry Guy franchise in the area. “20th Century Comfort Food,” they tag themselves, “cooked on the spot.” All of it horribly unhealthy, but it’s probably OK for the occasional celebration or whatever. It’s no surprise that all those chains were long gone and the buildings repurposed; but there were a few surprises waiting for me.
The first one was when they took us to where we were staying — which happened to be the building I worked in back in the early part of the century! All the cube walls and furniture were long gone, of course — taken off to be recycled or repurposed — but the old cabinet with the mail slots by my old cube was still there, so I could show them where I worked. As often as I joked about living in that office, this was the first time I’d actually spent the night in the building. We were given an old conference room that was now the guest quarters. Back when, they named all the conference rooms after elements (in the periodic table), and they had left the old sign up by the door: “Lithium Conference Room.”
“It's a good room for a guest quarters,” I told Kim and Christina. “The meetings I went to in here could knock a caffeinated insomniac out cold. There’s probably enough residual boredom here for me to sleep really good tonight.”
They laughed, but I wasn’t joking. I yawned and dropped my bag on one of the beds.
“Hey,” I said, “who has Little Mo and Robin?”
“They’re on the RoadTrain,” Kim said. “Or were. Rene and Maria were going to do some business and wait for the kids after they dropped you off.” Like I said, the Heehaw doesn’t sit idle much. I drew a complete blank on the plans though, and I should have known. I don’t worry much about memory lapses; I’ve had them all my life. As long as it’s nothing truly important, like if I were supposed to have waited for the kids, I’m fine.
Next morning, they invited us to breakfast… which was combined with a meeting to discuss the agenda, who would be escorting whom and where. Here was the next surprise: I was included in the agenda, as someone who knew the area from before the blackouts. Breakfast in the burbs isn’t as “meaty” as a country breakfast — they have a few pigs, but hadn’t slaughtered any lately. No matter: pancakes and eggs are always good enough, even if I take just a little egg. Cholesterol, high blood pressure, and diabetes all are much less common than they used to be; the sedentary lifestyle and over-processed food have mostly gone away in the last 25 years and took most of those problems with them. But I still try to keep a rein on things, especially since I’m not as active now.
The third — and biggest — surprise was after breakfast. I was assigned to an “inspection tour” and my escort looked to be about as old as me, but he looked familiar. Then he introduced himself, and I remembered.
“Col. Mustard?” I gaped.
continued…
Monday, April 27, 2009 8 comments
FAR Future, Episode 83: The Boy on Tour
Meanwhile, in real life, The Boy informs me that Ether (the punk rock band he was in) is re-grouping.
Saturday, April 11, 2036
The Boy on Tour
Got another letter from The Boy. Sounds like good news:
Dreams long deferred… I’m glad he’s finally getting to try out the life of a professional musician, even if it’s not quite what he’d envisioned 30 years ago. I ought to bring up the “rock star” concept in history class… and connect it to the “Great American Novelist” concept of the generation before mine. Maybe Steinbeck isn’t all that widely read nowadays, but you’d probably find more people who at least recognize his name than Bono or Alice Cooper (even if they’d heard the music but not read the books).
I told The Boy about our visit from the “news” people, and told him to keep an eye out for anything like that. He told me that a lot of refugees were telling the chautauqua troupe that they had heard they wouldn’t be welcome in the nearby towns already, but hadn’t seen news crews or anything like that. He also said some of the refugees are giving him ideas for songs about life in the camps… he sent me some lyrics, and I thought some of them could work as death country. It sounds like there’s some serious undercurrent of discontent. Disappointing, but not surprising, really… I guess maybe 20% (if that) of refugees got settled into new homes like ours, maybe another 10-20% got government housing, so easily half (and maybe 2/3) of the refugees are living in camps. I might have to have a powwow with the community soon, to see if there’s any way we can make room for some more people here — I guess even a straw-bale house might be preferable to a FEMA trailer, when it comes right down to it, as long as they know what to expect. Around the turn of the century, the county population was about what it was in 1900… and I know we lost a lot of people in the exurban subdivisions since then.
With the technology (sustainable!!!) we have now, we should be able to support a few more people in the county than we have at the moment. Or if they know how to farm, maybe a land grant out in the granary states might be the thing to do. We propped up the big agribusiness concerns long after they became a drag on the nation… now that they’re breaking up, maybe we should just give the plots to people who are interested in living with the land instead of on it. There’s really no reason why so many displaced coastal residents are still living in camps, especially when the West Coast exodus hasn’t even started yet. One analyst figures 3–4 million people might be affected before this is over… but that’s not even 2% of the total population. If one home in 50 would open their doors, and that’s not counting unoccupied houses, there wouldn’t be any camps. It’s ridiculous.
continued…
Saturday, April 11, 2036
The Boy on Tour
Got another letter from The Boy. Sounds like good news:
Hey. I got a new job now. We were about finished digging up this [stuff] anyway.
I was playing in the bar last week, and some people came in that nobody knew. One of them talked to me after I finished my gig, and he said they were part of a traveling chautauqua troop that's supposed to go around the refugee camps and cheer them up or something. He wanted to know if I was interested in going with them, playing music some nights and helping with their plays, and I said sure. It's a little money, but I get to play my own music once a week, and backup the other acts twice a week, then do stagehand work the rest of the time. I guess Serena knows how those things work, if I don't hook up with the manager I should be OK, hahaha. (Don't tell her I said that.) So I'm moving around a lot, I'll try to keep in touch. We're at the camp between Florence and Darlington this week, then we're going up to Fayetteville NC and I guess we'll keep working north as it gets closer to summer. They wouldn’t believe Serena’s my adopted sister, but they hope she’ll send them something new if she has anything.
Damn but it was cold this winter. I'm glad the warm weather is finally getting here.
But anyway, I got to play my first concert last night and people liked it I guess. I played I Opted Out Today and a lot of people laughed, but one of the other musicians said that song was risky and be careful next time. Whatever. I guess death country would be a bad idea, no BFE songs hahaha. We did some play this evening, I helped backstage. I'll be playing backup tomorrow.
I'm working on a set of songs for the Optout Beach album. Cal (the drummer) told me that a lot of people who play in the chautauquas put up albums for download, and it's a good way to make a little extra money. People who like your music will buy the album, I guess that makes sense. I remember you guys buying a couple of CDs from bands who played in a restaurant when I was a kid, so this is like that.
I think I'll tour with the chautauqua through the summer, and maybe buy that train ticket to California when it starts getting cold again. I heard they're not getting the cold weather there like we did here too. Maybe if I get people to download my CD, I'll have a concert on the beach in LA. That would be cool.
Dreams long deferred… I’m glad he’s finally getting to try out the life of a professional musician, even if it’s not quite what he’d envisioned 30 years ago. I ought to bring up the “rock star” concept in history class… and connect it to the “Great American Novelist” concept of the generation before mine. Maybe Steinbeck isn’t all that widely read nowadays, but you’d probably find more people who at least recognize his name than Bono or Alice Cooper (even if they’d heard the music but not read the books).
I told The Boy about our visit from the “news” people, and told him to keep an eye out for anything like that. He told me that a lot of refugees were telling the chautauqua troupe that they had heard they wouldn’t be welcome in the nearby towns already, but hadn’t seen news crews or anything like that. He also said some of the refugees are giving him ideas for songs about life in the camps… he sent me some lyrics, and I thought some of them could work as death country. It sounds like there’s some serious undercurrent of discontent. Disappointing, but not surprising, really… I guess maybe 20% (if that) of refugees got settled into new homes like ours, maybe another 10-20% got government housing, so easily half (and maybe 2/3) of the refugees are living in camps. I might have to have a powwow with the community soon, to see if there’s any way we can make room for some more people here — I guess even a straw-bale house might be preferable to a FEMA trailer, when it comes right down to it, as long as they know what to expect. Around the turn of the century, the county population was about what it was in 1900… and I know we lost a lot of people in the exurban subdivisions since then.
With the technology (sustainable!!!) we have now, we should be able to support a few more people in the county than we have at the moment. Or if they know how to farm, maybe a land grant out in the granary states might be the thing to do. We propped up the big agribusiness concerns long after they became a drag on the nation… now that they’re breaking up, maybe we should just give the plots to people who are interested in living with the land instead of on it. There’s really no reason why so many displaced coastal residents are still living in camps, especially when the West Coast exodus hasn’t even started yet. One analyst figures 3–4 million people might be affected before this is over… but that’s not even 2% of the total population. If one home in 50 would open their doors, and that’s not counting unoccupied houses, there wouldn’t be any camps. It’s ridiculous.
continued…
Monday, April 20, 2009 4 comments
FAR Future, Episode 82: Search and Research
(New poll up if you haven’t seen it yet.)
Friday, March 7, 2036
Search and Research
I scratched my head. “That is a Heehaw… if they’re up from Atlanta, they’re burning a lot of fuel.” We have the real Heehaw on Planet Georgia — the Harlow-Easton Hauler — the rest of you call any truck built on the Ford RE100D design a Heehaw. Here, some drivers snap the last three letters off the “HE Hauler” badges, just for laughs, but these guys had removed them entirely. We have one for our trips to the markets at the old freeway. It’s a great truck for local trips; it goes 80 km running full-electric on a full charge with a moderate load and a top speed of 50kph, but the newsies had to be traveling 3–4 times that today and using the diesel to get around quicker. Even with a light load, that meant they were burning 15–20 liters of diesel, easy: two or three weeks’ ration for us, minimum, and we get extra because we’re a farm. They had the aero-cap up to protect their equipment and help with the mileage, but it wouldn’t help that much. These guys had connections.
Fortunately, the newsies soon emerged from the apartment and walked right by us without saying a word. They looked more than a little unsatisfied with their interview, although I’m sure they would find something to take out of context. They didn’t even pay attention to the camera in Serena’s hand.
“Hey,” I said as they climbed into their van. “Maybe you could give me some contact info? In case I run across someone who isn’t treating their guests right?”
They brightened. “Good idea. Thanks,” the mike guy said, and passed a couple cards out the window.
“Peachtree Road?” I said, looking at the address. “Where at?”
“Uh… Midtown,” he said before backing out and driving away. The cards were the same as what Serena had filched earlier. Peachtree Road, or at least parts of it, are a prestigious address. But they could just as easily be using one of several maildrop outfits; “#301” could be a corner suite or a 15x15cm mailbox.
Sean and Mary joined us out front. “That was weird,” Sean opined. “They looked around, and turned off the camera. Then they kept asking us if we really lived there, and if you were treating us well, and it would all be confidential. It was like they wanted to hear we were being mistreated.”
“Something’s going on here,” Serena said. “I’m gonna have to get EDID involved, I think.” EDID was Rene’s old Army unit; they intercepted and decoded enemy data streams during the Final Oil War. Rene never felt like he could go into detail about what he did back then with us, but maybe his wife the former MP was a different story. Maybe Rene still has some connections that outperform a basic search-by-email engine.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said to Sean. “They’ll probably dub in whatever words they want, but they’ll pixellate your faces so nobody knows it’s you.”
“I’m sorry we got you involved in this.”
“Don’t be. There probably are some guest families who are being mistreated — I’ve heard about a few myself — but I doubt they’re a even a large minority. I figure these guys are looking for some sensational story they can sell.”
“Either that, or they could be a government outfit,” Daughter Dearest suggested. “You know, checking on things.”
“You think so?” Serena cocked an eyebrow at her.
“Not really. But I guess it’s possible.”
Guillermo and Maria came out. “They are gone?” Maria asked. “Good. Those were not good people. I feel it.” She patted her corazón.
I made some phone calls, and managed to warn two people I knew that had refugees living comfortably with them. The others already had their visit, and were a bit riled about the intrusion, and we talked a little. But thanks to Serena, we had more information than anyone else. She’d also jotted down the tag number, although I suspected that it would lead to another blind alley. It’s technically illegal to register a vehicle with an address that wasn’t a physical residence or office, but that’s primarily aimed at people dodging high ad valorem taxes. The tag had a Fulton county sticker, which has the highest county tax rate in the state, so no government would bother investigating. Still, Serena pulled some cop strings she still has and asked them to run the tag when they got a chance.
The search turned up nothing useful. We were just giving up for the day when Rene came home, with the kids in tow. “This must be something,” he said. “You guys blew off the last hour of school.”
“We’ll make it up,” Serena said. “Did you get ahead with the biochem lessons?”
“Nah, I just declared study hall and let them get their homework done. They’ll catch up.”
Something’s catching up to us here, too. I guess it’s been too peaceful too long at FAR Manor. Serena filled him in, and Rene was up late last night (when we get more bandwidth and some interactivity) poking around. He plays his EDID cards really close to the vest, though, and I suspect he won’t show his hand until he has a winner.
continued…
Friday, March 7, 2036
Search and Research
I scratched my head. “That is a Heehaw… if they’re up from Atlanta, they’re burning a lot of fuel.” We have the real Heehaw on Planet Georgia — the Harlow-Easton Hauler — the rest of you call any truck built on the Ford RE100D design a Heehaw. Here, some drivers snap the last three letters off the “HE Hauler” badges, just for laughs, but these guys had removed them entirely. We have one for our trips to the markets at the old freeway. It’s a great truck for local trips; it goes 80 km running full-electric on a full charge with a moderate load and a top speed of 50kph, but the newsies had to be traveling 3–4 times that today and using the diesel to get around quicker. Even with a light load, that meant they were burning 15–20 liters of diesel, easy: two or three weeks’ ration for us, minimum, and we get extra because we’re a farm. They had the aero-cap up to protect their equipment and help with the mileage, but it wouldn’t help that much. These guys had connections.
Fortunately, the newsies soon emerged from the apartment and walked right by us without saying a word. They looked more than a little unsatisfied with their interview, although I’m sure they would find something to take out of context. They didn’t even pay attention to the camera in Serena’s hand.
“Hey,” I said as they climbed into their van. “Maybe you could give me some contact info? In case I run across someone who isn’t treating their guests right?”
They brightened. “Good idea. Thanks,” the mike guy said, and passed a couple cards out the window.
“Peachtree Road?” I said, looking at the address. “Where at?”
“Uh… Midtown,” he said before backing out and driving away. The cards were the same as what Serena had filched earlier. Peachtree Road, or at least parts of it, are a prestigious address. But they could just as easily be using one of several maildrop outfits; “#301” could be a corner suite or a 15x15cm mailbox.
Sean and Mary joined us out front. “That was weird,” Sean opined. “They looked around, and turned off the camera. Then they kept asking us if we really lived there, and if you were treating us well, and it would all be confidential. It was like they wanted to hear we were being mistreated.”
“Something’s going on here,” Serena said. “I’m gonna have to get EDID involved, I think.” EDID was Rene’s old Army unit; they intercepted and decoded enemy data streams during the Final Oil War. Rene never felt like he could go into detail about what he did back then with us, but maybe his wife the former MP was a different story. Maybe Rene still has some connections that outperform a basic search-by-email engine.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said to Sean. “They’ll probably dub in whatever words they want, but they’ll pixellate your faces so nobody knows it’s you.”
“I’m sorry we got you involved in this.”
“Don’t be. There probably are some guest families who are being mistreated — I’ve heard about a few myself — but I doubt they’re a even a large minority. I figure these guys are looking for some sensational story they can sell.”
“Either that, or they could be a government outfit,” Daughter Dearest suggested. “You know, checking on things.”
“You think so?” Serena cocked an eyebrow at her.
“Not really. But I guess it’s possible.”
Guillermo and Maria came out. “They are gone?” Maria asked. “Good. Those were not good people. I feel it.” She patted her corazón.
I made some phone calls, and managed to warn two people I knew that had refugees living comfortably with them. The others already had their visit, and were a bit riled about the intrusion, and we talked a little. But thanks to Serena, we had more information than anyone else. She’d also jotted down the tag number, although I suspected that it would lead to another blind alley. It’s technically illegal to register a vehicle with an address that wasn’t a physical residence or office, but that’s primarily aimed at people dodging high ad valorem taxes. The tag had a Fulton county sticker, which has the highest county tax rate in the state, so no government would bother investigating. Still, Serena pulled some cop strings she still has and asked them to run the tag when they got a chance.
The search turned up nothing useful. We were just giving up for the day when Rene came home, with the kids in tow. “This must be something,” he said. “You guys blew off the last hour of school.”
“We’ll make it up,” Serena said. “Did you get ahead with the biochem lessons?”
“Nah, I just declared study hall and let them get their homework done. They’ll catch up.”
Something’s catching up to us here, too. I guess it’s been too peaceful too long at FAR Manor. Serena filled him in, and Rene was up late last night (when we get more bandwidth and some interactivity) poking around. He plays his EDID cards really close to the vest, though, and I suspect he won’t show his hand until he has a winner.
continued…
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