Complete short fiction, p.68
Complete Short Fiction, page 68
Lita shook her head. “Nope. Can’t help you. If one of the stations passes directly under our feet then yeah, maybe. But it’s like waiting for the moons to line up; I wouldn’t hold your breath.”
“Can you at least get a transmission out?”
“Um, I don’t think so.”
“You don’t have a hardlink?”
“To what? Sabeeta?”
Now Gonzales is exasperated. “To anywhere. It’s a damn network, woman.”
“I don’t think so,” Lita repeats. “You’d probably have to go to the company offices for that.”
“I’m going back out there,” Wyatt says.
“No one asked you to,” Gonzales replies.
They stand around for a few seconds.
“Well, this is awkward,” Lita says.
“Why is it awkward?” Gonzales asks her.
“Because . . . . Well, you know. Because Wyatt and I have a history.”
“Already?” That seems to amuse Gonzales. She takes her gloves off, then her goggles. “Mr. Earp and I are not romantically involved, Ms. Harmon. That would be a conflict of interest and a breach of professional ethics.”
“Ah,” Lita said, knowingly. “Professional ethics. So you want to involve yourself with him, but you can’t. How delicious. Probably want to involve yourself with him ten different ways.”
“Funny, ma’am.”
“Wow, Beth, I forgot how scintillating your company can be. Listen, why don’t I fax up some comfortable chairs? And refreshments. We might all of us be here a while.”
Gonzales is shaking her head. “I have to get back, Ms. Harmon. May I have access to this building’s program interface?”
Lita laughs at that. “Access! Ho! Yes, Beth, you may interface with the building. What are you going to do, shine lasers through the storm? I’m sure the City of Sabeeta can’t function without one of its police captains for a few hours.”
Gonzales answers with a glare. “We could be here for days.”
“Even so. Look, I’ve got a fax machine, a three-eighths civic library, and a fully stocked element buffer. You’ve got two hundred silica particles per cubic centimeter, moving at forty meters per second and rubbing free electrons off on every insulating surface. But you do what you want.”
Lita is right in the end. Like magic, Gonzales brings up glowing typewriter keyboards and number-filled movie screens all over the walls, and fusses with them for over an hour before finally giving up, sinking into one of the armchairs Lita has produced and grumpily accepting a tall glass of whiskey.
“Damn storms. Always come at the worst time.”
“Oh, like there’s a good time for you to miss work.”
Wyatt looks out one of the windows; the light is fading now, not that it had done a lot of good while it lasted. The view is opaque, as though the glass were painted. “Do they always come on this fast?”
“Nearly always,” Lita tells him. “I grew up in this region, about five hundred klicks from here, place called No Acheys. Sometimes you can see the storm front moving in, get a few hours’ warning, but usually it just whips up out of nowhere, and you really never know how bad it’s going to be. It might just spit for twenty minutes, or it might drop half the planet on you. It’s a bit different in the north, but then, they’ve got all the topography. Down here the wind’s got nothing to stop it going where it likes.”
“I grew up on Earth,” Gonzales says.
“Did you really? I never guessed it from your stupid fake accent.”
“I came here for the opportunity. On Mars I can be . . . more. I can exercise something close to my full potential.”
“Same reason I moved west,” Wyatt tells them both. “New country.”
“And now you’re on a whole new world,” Gonzales tells him. “A whole new person. A shareholder in the mine, I hear! Good for you.”
“Not so new,” he says, a bit glumly. “I can’t seem to get away from myself. Not in Hollywood, not on Mars. I was created special, to be exactly the same.”
“So do something different,” Lita suggests.
“You keep saying that. I don’t think you know what you’re saying.”
“Give it time,” Gonzales says. “Faxborn people often feel trapped by their circumstances, especially when they’re newly printed. Goodness, how could they not? Once you’ve built up some authentic experiences all your own, you’ll feel a bit more . . . .”
“Real?”
She colors. “Real people” is a phrase Wyatt has heard a time or two, in reference to anyone other than himself. It seems to be an insult of sorts, or rather a term that casts a shadow on those not under it. He never paid much mind to things like that; who cared what people had to say? Still, here in Dawes Crater City he feels uprooted, or else entirely rootless, and has no other guide.
But even that feeling is familiar! He often felt that way in his old life, after fleeing Missouri, and maybe even before. That restlessness, that falsity, that sense that you haven’t yet arrived in the place you belong. Kansas was entirely populated with men like that.
“You know,” he tells the women, “the west wasn’t everything I hoped it would be. I never did make my fortune. Didn’t have the knack for it, I guess. I found the love of my life, but when you’re young I think you take that for granted anyway. You don’t realize how hard it’s going to be, how life never does give you a chance to rest. Money problems and health problems and housing problems, and problems with the people you love. And finding out day after day that you’re not the man you thought you were, that nobody’s as perfect as the man you thought you were. And then still pushing onward, because what choice do you have? It’s like a raspberry bramble that you just keep pushing through and pushing through, hoping to some day come out the other side. But the thorns keep tearing at you and there is no other side, and so you just keep pushing on through. Even death can’t protect you. Do you suppose the real Wyatt Earp is in heaven right now? Or hell? Or just turned to dust in a grave somewhere? Which one of us do you suppose is luckier?”
“You sound like a man in need of a strong drink,” Lita says, with all the gravity of a doctor delivering bad news.
“You people drink too much,” he tells her. “All of you.”
“Eh? So what if we do? Who’s harmed?”
Wyatt doesn’t have an answer to that.
“You and I are not on duty,” Gonzales tells him. “Not till morning at least. You look so tense, sitting there. Seriously, an occasional intoxicant might help you integrate a little better with your environment.”
“Not just drinking,” he says, “but preaching the drink. Oh, yes. I never met a drunk that didn’t want to drag everyone else down with him. But fine, you win.”
And so they end up spending the night drinking, taking pills, watching old holoplays on the walls, and occasionally breaking out into pointless laughter. And yes, it does feel better; the world swims and judders, flashes and swoons, and there is no way that Wyatt 1.0 would have done a thing like this, and no way that Sadie would have let him, much less done it alongside him. So there! When sleep finally overtakes Wyatt, he feels for perhaps the first time since arriving on Mars that if he dreams tonight, the dreams will be his own.
Morning finds him in an empty office. Sore all over from sleeping in a chair, and with a taste in his mouth like old shoes. His stomach gurgles hello, and not in a good way. Harsh, bright light streams in through the windows, which have been tuned to full transparency. And there’s a note in his lap, handwritten on some stiff, glossy paper, like the cover of a dime novel. He’s rarely seen such terrible penmanship:
Our Dearly Wyatt,
We believed it would show good manners to write you a letter like in old times how are you? Elizabeth has business in Sabeeta of course and Lita that’s I have gone to the Admin building will be there much of the day. There are hygiene facilities in the back and please fax yourself some breakfast change of clothes whatever you need but if my element buffers are low on anything important we will both track you down. Laughter. The door will lock when you leave so be sure you have everything Wyatt last night was enjoyable this is Gonzales it is a pleasure to know a person such as yourself that I look forward to working with. By the way you snore we agree you should see a Dentist! Laughter now get back to work you mangy cowpoke did I say that correctly?
Sincerely,
Elizabeth Gonzales
And
Lita Lei-Harmon
Wyatt snorts at that, then goes back in to wash his face.
It occurs to him that the fax machine—the same one that birthed him, the same one that Captain Gonzales needed to transport her back to Sabeeta—can be used for his own transportation as well. Assuming he can figure out how to make it work.
The machine itself is complex: a central core with many fixtures attached, projecting into different rooms, as in the Martian houses he’s seen. Wyatt knows the equipment well enough now to recognize the household goods orifice, which produces food and clothing, and the trash disposal hatch, which removes the leftovers of same. These could likely be the same hole, he thinks, but who would want that? Then there’s the sanitary aperture in the back room, which is basically a toilet. It’s a little disturbing to think that human waste is stored in the “element buffers” and then converted into food and clothing, but Wyatt has resolved in his mind that this is not so different from fertilizing a field, and then growing cotton or sweet corn on it. More disturbing, yes, but not for any sensible reason. There’s also a specialized aperture the size of a dinner tray that sits next to Lita’s scales and microscopes. Presumably that one is for digesting any minerals the mining company brings by for analysis. And then of course, there is the transit booth.
“Hello?” he says, opening the booth. A lot of the equipment in this age is capable of speaking English, although it rarely seems to do so unless asked a direct question. “Hello? I would like to travel.”
“Please state destination,” says a female voice from nowhere in particular. It’s flat, cool, emotionless but somehow still vaguely supportive. It’s the same voice that first greeted him upon his arrival or birth or whatever you wanted to call it. His mother, in some sense.
“Where can I go?” he asks.
To which the voice says, “Your account holds funds sufficient for multiple round-trip passages to any destination in the solar system. Please state destination.”
“Anywhere? Can I go to China? Bethlehem? Paris? The Moon?” Wyatt has never been to any of those places, and they all sound exciting.
“The political construct known as China has not existed for two hundred eighty-two years. However, the territory remains intact, along with most formerly Chinese municipalities, and the Han language is widely spoken. Greater specificity is required if a destination within the former China is desired.
“By ‘the Moon’ I presume you mean Earth’s moon, otherwise known as Luna. This is a valid destination, although greater specificity is required. Bethlehem and Paris are valid destinations.”
“Well, hell, let’s go to Paris!”
“Acknowledged. Do you wish to state a more specific destination within the city?”
“Down by the river Seine. Someplace with artists and coffee shops and, you know, wine and things. Paris.”
“Acknowledged. Please step into the transit booth.”
Wyatt does this, and the door curls shut behind him.
What is he expecting? A puff of smoke? A flash of light? The sensation is a bit like falling into warm water, or stepping through beaded curtains, or being hit with pillows from all directions. He finds himself on an open metal disc, in a sort of blind alleyway between two buildings. Street noises beckon him forward.
In his mind, he was expecting sunlight dappling through trees, and horse-drawn carriages loaded with ice, and fine gentlemen and ladies in fancy hats. In fact, it’s nighttime, and while there is traffic on the streets it consists of pedestrians and . . . well, some things like bicycles, and some things like delivery trucks, and some other things for which he has no reference point at all. Wheeled platforms, carrying people of every color as though they were kings and queens, despite their less-than-regal attire. There isn’t a fancy hat in sight, and Wyatt is suddenly self-conscious about his own clothing, which looks nothing like what these Parisians are wearing. The fact that he slept in a chair probably limits his handsomeness too.
And yet: Paris! In the blink of an eye! He takes a moment to be grateful for the mere fact of his existence, and another to marvel at the age in which he finds himself. It’s a long way from Dodge, that’s for sure.
The streets are wide enough for his taste, but along the sides the stone buildings are close together, and just tall enough to loom. The streets are made of brick, closely laid without mortar, sloping down toward a stone bridge that spans a perfect little river. It’s not wide and wild like the Mississippi or shallow and rocky like the Colorado. More like a gentler version of the Columbia: deep and authoritative as a dream. It’s absolutely perfect.
There are lights everywhere—candles, lanterns, streetlights, running lights on the sides of vehicles. Apparently, this is still the City of Lights, and they illuminate exactly the sort of bars and coffeehouses he was hoping for. And in the distance he actually does see a horse, pulling an open carriage!
Nobody seems to pay him much attention. It seems Paris is used to outlandish visitors.
“Bonjour!” he says to a knot of passersby. They glance his way but say nothing, just moving along on their own Parisian business.
He laughs to himself, and wanders off down the street. He’s hungry, so his first order of business is to rustle up some food. This turns out to be easier said than done, however; he has no need of local currency (as he understands it, his invisible bankroll will follow him anywhere), but he’s already exhausted his knowledge of the language. He manages, with great difficulty, to negotiate the purchase of some pastries, but when he sits down at a coffeehouse patio to eat them, the proprietors shoo him away, muttering incomprehensible things.
“What did they say?” he asks the wind.
Astonishingly, it’s one of the stone walls that replies: “It is against health code to bring outside food or beverages into any culinary establishment.”
Wyatt is so surprised he actually drops his confections on the sidewalk. The voice is not female, nor quite devoid of emotion. It doesn’t sound like a man, exactly, but it’s warm and kind, like some mechanical uncle.
“You can talk?” he asks, though he wonders why anything should surprise him anymore.
“Indeed, yes, it is the easiest way to aid our city’s visitors without requiring its citizens to know all the languages of the world. Would you like a map?”
Before Wyatt can answer, the wall flattens and smooths, and a glowing screen appears within it, bright with swimming symbols.”
Now the people passing by do notice him, with looks that vary between humor, contempt, pity, and curiosity. Apparently, he has committed a faux pas. There, see, he does know a bit more French.
A man stops before him, clucking sympathetically. “Is this your first time in France?”
Wyatt pulls his eyes away from the screen to look at the man. Like everyone in this era, he’s not exactly formidable. But neither is he thin or obviously weak—in fact, this one seems to have a bit of muscle under his shirt, which is made of some fine, stretchy fabric. And he hasn’t shaved in a day or two, which Wyatt supposes adds a sort of strength or depth to his features. And yet, it isn’t hard to imagine a loud noise sending him cowering under a table, along with everyone else in the world. Yes, all of them, shivering and sniveling under the same table!
Wyatt laughs. “Is it that obvious?”
The stranger laughs with him and says, with the perfect amount of French accent, “Everyone has a first time. But it’s a tradition in our city that when a lost soul washes up on the banks of the Seine, one of us will step forward to assist. Today, apparently, that someone is me. Now do please tell me, strange man, where on Earth have you come from?”
“Not Earth,” Wyatt corrects. “I’m from a mining colony on Mars. Dawes Crater. I’m a policeman there.”
That’s a pale shadow of the truth, but he doesn’t figure this stranger has all day to hear his life’s story. Assuming any of it is even true. He reaches for his tazzer—the only tangible artifact of his status in Dawes—figuring he can show it the way some men might show a badge. But the tazzer is gone, and Wyatt knows somehow that he hasn’t dropped it, that the fax machine has simply deleted it in transit. Because he isn’t a policeman here? Because he isn’t a policeman at all?
But the stranger’s face lights up. “That’s wonderful, sir! That’s exciting! I’ve never met a Martian before. Tell me, were you born there?”
“Uh, sort of.”
“How splendid!” Then, eyeing the pastries on the ground, he says, “You look hungry. Everyone who comes to Paris comes hungry, if they’re smart. And you’re a smart man, ah? Please, come join me for a meal. My name is John.” The way he says it, it sounds like “jhohhghn.”
“I’m Wyatt.” Wisely, he does not offer to shake hands.
They find a little restaurant off the main thoroughfares—the sort of place only a local would know, even though it’s in the heart of the city’s tourist district. Wyatt learns that John is a “community data analyst,” which seems to mean something about sorting names and numbers into different groupings, and looking for patterns. In his case, specifically, identifying fraudulent transactions. Not money transactions, but interpersonal ones involving “reputation derivatives.”
“You think an AI would be better at finding the nonconforms, but it isn’t true. Oh, it finds a lot of them, but its methods are different, you see, and they need to be rechecked by a human. It has no soul; it doesn’t understand what drives a man to lie. Even less so what drives a woman.
The AI sees no difference between a white lie told to spare someone’s feelings, and a fib told to cover misdeeds, nor indeed a fraudulent statement told on a whim, in order to make a man feel briefly better about himself. And no one checks, ah? But the patterns reveal themselves just the same. His movements alter, his spending patterns alter, and then ever so slightly, the derivative score drops.”
