The Future, Imperfect: Short Stories Read online

  She shrugged. "Vancouver is a pretty place. It does look like a postcard, even with most of what used to be Sunset Beach Park flooded."

  "And what of the way things have gone for you since you arrived? Don't they have a certain resemblance to books you've read?"

  No. She hadn't read those books until Bonnie left them on the counter for her.

  Had she?

  The door of her room opened. "Ms. Turgay?" the nurse said who stepped into the room.

  "Run, get help!" Mercedes screamed. "These men are not doctors!"

  But before the nurse could take in the situation and react, one bodyguard grabbed the young woman and clapped a hand over her mouth. Then in one swift move, he jerked her head back, snapping her neck.

  Mercedes watched in horror as the lifeless body slid to the floor. It was enough to make her wish this really were a hallucination.

  Then it occurred to her that the nurse had used her real name. Had Bonnie discovered it and checked her in as herself? That would explain how Rasmussen had found her. But Bonnie was surely smarter than that. Her DNA, that was how they knew.

  "All right," Rasmussen said. "It's time to end this. Put her out."

  The guard she had brained in Seattle pulled a syringe out of his hospital coat and came forward. Just then, the door flew open again, and half-a-dozen security guards entered, led by the substantial figure of Bonnie, all of them brandishing automatic rifles and wearing bullet-proof vests. "Make sure we take the blond alive!" Bonnie commanded. "That's Rasmussen — we need him to lead us to the girl!"

  But Rasmussen already held a pistol to Mercedes's head. "You're letting us leave, now."

  "No!" Mercedes said. "If he were going to kill me, he would have done it long ago!"

  The bodyguard with the syringe took another step toward her bed, but the man next to Bonnie shot him in the knee. Mercedes used the distraction to push the control button for the bed to drop the back — and Mercedes with it. At the same time, she rolled off head first, aiming for Rasmussen's groin. As her skull connected with his crotch, he let out a loud grunt of pain and doubled over, bringing Mercedes down with him. Several shots rang out, but she could no longer see what was happening.

  And then Bonnie was next to them, her own gun pointed at Rasmussen's face. "You lost this one, buddy." Two of the security guards pulled Rasmussen up by his elbows and led him away. Behind them, a member of the hospital staff who was helping bring out the dead nurse was crying quietly.

  Bonnie reached a hand down to Mercedes and helped her up. "Sorry we had to use you as a lure after you had your breakdown. Mercedes, is it?"

  "Yes." Feeling shaky, Mercedes sat down on the edge of the hospital bed.

  Bonnie nodded. "Rasmussen has provided kids for clients and corrupt politicians before. It had to end."

  Mercedes couldn't agree more. "What about Amy?"

  Bonnie sat down on the bed next to her and put an arm around her shoulders. "We're still looking for her, but we're confident she's alive. They needed her to get to you."

  Mercedes let out a sigh of relief. It was almost a happy ending. Only — was it real? At least she knew she wouldn't have dreamed the death of the nurse into her own illusion.

  But what if someone else had?

  END

  The Other Side of Silence

  If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity.

  George Eliot, Middlemarch

  Judith went through the pile of data cubes one more time, hoping she had just overlooked the game somehow. It was uncanny the way children always seemed to know instinctively when interruptions would be most inconvenient for their parents. She had a deadline in less than a week, an environment for Chrysalis Biotechnics, the biggest, most powerful company in their corporate zone in Portland. It could make or break her career as environmental artist.

  So of course the kids wouldn't give her any peace. Luther was pestering her to find his game Goblin Market, Miriam was in a Mood because she couldn't have a genmod as a pet like all her friends, and Judith was frazzled.

  "Is it there, Mommie?" Luther whined on a rising note.

  She pushed the cubes aside, sighing. "I can't find it."

  The whine became dangerously high-pitched, and Judith rose and went across the hall to her daughter's room, Luther trailing behind her. She rapped her knuckles against the door.

  "Miriam, would you come out please? I need some help."

  Miriam pulled the door open and stood there sullenly, her attitude more like thirteen than eleven. "I'm busy, Mom."

  Judith closed her eyes briefly, gathering herself, and then opened them again to gaze sternly at her eldest. "I have a deadline on Friday. I need you to help me find a game for your brother."

  "And if I do, can I finally have a genmod or an exspec?"

  She had a brief image of a tuskless miniature mammoth or a glow-in-the-dark giant rabbit cavorting in the backyard. Why didn't kids these days just want cats or dogs? "You're not blackmailing me, young lady. We will discuss it with your father."

  Mother and daughter stared each other down for five seconds, and then Miriam stepped out into the hall and took her brother's hand. "Come on, Luther, let's check the system in the living room."

  Judith smiled and stroked her daughter's dark hair. "Thanks. I'll check on your father's desk."

  She didn't have much hope of finding the game in Vance's office, but it was possible. He liked playing games in his spare time, and his organizational skills remained at the office whenever he left the luxury goods import business he'd inherited from his father.

  Methodically, she began to sort out the data cubes from the clutter on his desk; hard-copy letters not yet filed, notes in pencil on new exotic imports, creative doodles in fantastic geometric shapes. From the living-room, she could still hear Luther whining.

  Summer vacations should be outlawed.

  To the back behind Vance's favorite simulation game, Repopulation, she found an unmarked cube. She hardly dared hope it could be a copy of Luther's game. She commanded the system on and inserted the cube. Instead of humorous goblin antics appearing on the flat screen, the projector kicked in and a sexy female figure appeared in the small holo well, hips thrust forward suggestively. She gazed at Judith and asked, "Do you have a problem making dreams come true?"

  Judith stared at the tiny blond, scared and sick and speechless. When she didn't answer, the projection continued, "If you do, we can help make your fantasies reality." The blonde faded and a list appeared on the flat screen. The first column consisted of a combination of letters and numbers, the second a short description ("Buxom, blue-eyed brunette"), and the third a price in corporate units. A very high price. It looked like the kind of catalog Vance distributed to his customers, except that Vance's catalogs didn't have holo support.

  A catalog. Of women. On her husband's desk. Judith clenched her fist to keep it from trembling and read off one of the number combinations in a shaky voice. The sparsely-clad image of a small-breasted Asian beauty appeared in the holo well, rotating slowly, while the sexy voice enumerated her special qualities.

  She stared at the projection, feeling like her brain had vanished, leaving her head light and empty.

  The voices of the children coming down the hall drifted through her shock. "Shut down," she told the system. The rotating image disappeared from the holo well and the offending list from the screen. Judith leaned back in the swivel chair, hands shaking and face hot. She clenched her eyes shut. She couldn't let the children see that anything was wrong. And on Friday she had a deadline. She didn't have time for turmoil.

  "Found it!" Miriam announced triumphantly. "It was under a pillow on the easy chair next to the living room system."

  Judith opened her eyes and smiled. "Thank you, sweetheart."

&
nbsp; "I'll play it with Luther for a while so you can work. Do you think I might be able to have a genmod then?"

  "Yes." Suddenly, a fluorescent rabbit didn't seem quite as horrible as it had minutes before. Judith had always been against them; no one knew what would happen if an extinct or genetically modified animal ever escaped into the wild. But the environment was practically dead already, so what did it matter? Anything that was still alive — or alive again — had biotech firms like Chrysalis to thank for it.

  "Yes?" Her daughter stared at her, and Judith tried to focus, brain-dead and heart-sore. Obviously, Miriam hadn't expected the battle to be won so easily. She looked as shocked as Judith felt.

  She nodded, and Miriam whooped, rushed up, and gave her a big hug.

  "Thanks, Mom! This is so ultra!"

  "Just take care of your brother this afternoon, all right?"

  "Sure! Wow, I can't believe it!" Practically dancing, she dragged Luther out of the room to do as ordered.

  Judith continued to stare at the door after her children had disappeared, still unable to move, despite a deadline, despite children to feed and a husband soon home.

  A husband soon home. What was she going to say to Vance? Was she going to say anything to Vance?

  She shifted in the chair, rotating to gaze again at the empty holo well. Fifteen years together, and she would never have guessed he would order women from a catalog. If he had. But it was here.

  She leaned her head on the headrest, fighting tears, her face still hot. What in the world was she going to say to him?

  She took the data cube out of the workstation and got up, feeling dizzy. Maybe Vance would level with her if it turned up missing, and she wouldn't have to confront him. Judith hated conflict. She didn't want to make any accusations, she didn't even know what to accuse him of. She could examine the cube again later, after she got more work done on the project. He was off on a business trip to Seattle tomorrow, she would find time then. Maybe it wasn't as bad as it looked at first sight.

  She would put it away, and maybe her world wouldn't end quite so quickly.

  * * * *

  "Are you going to be able to make your deadline?" Vance asked the next morning as she poured herself a cup of coffee.

  Judith turned and stared at him, her mind a blank. He sat at the kitchen table, his eyes on the morning paper he had called up on the screen in front of him. Sunlight streamed through the window, lighting up the blond highlights in his curly brown hair. He looked just like he looked every morning, skinny and hyperactive, hunched over and ready to dash off as soon as he was done with his breakfast. Nowhere in this vision could she find a man who ordered women from a catalog.

  Her silence went on too long and he looked up. "There a problem, Judith?"

  Is there ever.

  Usually when he left on a business trip, she worried; worried about him traveling through the world outside the city walls, worried about the violence and lawlessness beyond the gates of the corporate zones.

  But today she was relieved. Perhaps with him away in Seattle for a few days, she could figure out what to do.

  She leaned against the counter and took a sip of her coffee. "I'm pretty far along on the environment. It shouldn't be a problem. Maybe I'm just burned out."

  Vance got up and gave her a gentle kiss on her forehead. "You were up late last night. After the Chrysalis gala on Saturday, you should give yourself a break."

  I was up so late partly to avoid you.

  Judith nodded. He hadn't reacted to the missing cube, maybe it was just something a business acquaintance had urged on him. Or maybe he just hadn't noticed yet.

  Perhaps she should confront him with it right now, get it over with. But no, she didn't have any time for distractions. She had to turn the environment in first.

  Vance shut off the morning paper, gulped down the rest of his coffee, and picked up his briefcase. "I'll see you Friday. Hope your week goes well," he said, planting a quick kiss on her dry lips.

  She doubted it.

  She was a complete and utter coward. She hadn't confronted him last night, she hadn't confronted him this morning — so when would she? When she knew what she had to confront him with, that was when.

  Normally, she was a person who didn't like to jump into things, who made decisions after weighing all the aspects of a situation, but this was ridiculous.

  She heard the front door close behind him and wandered down the hall to her studio at the back of the house. The room ran almost the complete length of the house, and half of it was devoted to a large holo system. Until yesterday, Judith had loved it. It was the material sign of creative independence. Now it meant dependence on a man she no longer knew, perhaps had never known.

  The projection filling the studio was an artfully created jungle landscape, the kind that had been typical to South America before the Great Drought. Populating her extinct landscape were extinct species, one of the things Chrysalis Biotechnics specialized in. A long-nosed tapir protected her strangely spotted young, which looked like a watermelon with legs, while a bird of paradise perched above them. Next, Judith needed to add the integral element, the butterfly. Hers would be one called Queen Alexandra's Birdwing, an enormous, poisonous butterfly once native to Papua, New Guinea, with a wingspan of up to eleven inches. She intended to have it emerge from its cocoon and transform into a series of exspecs Chrysalis offered as pets. If she could only concentrate.

  She didn't see how. And she didn't see how she couldn't.

  A butterfly. She had to create a butterfly. That should be easy enough. Queen Alexandra, male. The males were much more colorful than the females, black with blue and green markings and a yellow body. She already had sketches in hard copy and a first draft in the program. If only she weren't so light-headed, so fuzzy.

  She picked up the data cube she'd been avoiding, and with a sinking feeling, put it in the slot. The jungle disappeared, and in its place was the blonde bimbo again, only much larger this time. Her mouth dry, Judith searched for an address.

  Nothing. Whoever had this kind of catalog knew who to contact.

  She turned away from the holo projectors and back to her personal system. "Computer, call Helen."

  * * * *

  Judith hardly knew how she got from her house to Helen's apartment in the North Portland corporate zone — how she had stayed superficially rational enough to go through the motions of the rest of the day, get the Queen Alexandra's Birdwing from paper to holo environment, fix dinner for the kids, set up the house for babysitter mode, and take their second armored car to leave the safety and security of the West Hills, leave the gates of the Chrysalis zone and drive north through the summer rain, between the walls protecting her from the unincorporated areas. The whole day was a blur.

  Except for the mirrors. Every mirror she chanced to glance into made her want to gag. The unconventional appearance she had always been so proud of, the minimal amount of fixing she had done to her features — was that the reason for the catalog? Her mouth was wider than fashionable, her lips not as pouty, her nose longer, an original face, right for an artist, more effective than some perfect configuration of cheekbones and lips and baby doll eyes, authentic and arresting.

  Or so she had thought.

  She parked the car in front of Helen's apartment house, and caught a glimpse of her long face in the rear view mirror. Dark hair, pale skin, ugly — she looked away with a shudder.

  Helen's expression when she opened the door was worried. That was novel enough that it penetrated the fog in Judith's head. Her friend's normal mode was bossy and brassy and confident, not concerned.

  "You look like hell," Helen said.

  Judith tucked a strand of wet hair behind her ear. "Tell me something I don't already know."

  "I thought you came here to tell me something."

  "True enough." Judith pulled the data cube out of her bag. "First I want to show you something."

  Officially, Helen pushed paper and data for a sm
all shipping firm which managed trading deals between some of the west coast zones; unofficially, she had connections to underground movements trying to weaken the power of the corporations. They had been best friends since high school, even though Judith had once tried to persuade Helen to drop her unofficial activities — that had almost been the end of their friendship. Now Helen no longer told her what she was up to and Judith didn't ask.

  But Helen had connections and she had hardware. Judith handed her friend the data cube, and together they went into the study.

  Helen inserted the cube, and the catalog appeared in the holo well. "Uh oh. Where did you get this?"

  Judith swallowed. "I found it on Vance's desk."

  "Damn," Helen muttered beneath her breath.

  "Can you find out where it's from?"

  "So now you suddenly approve of my illicit activities?"

  Judith nodded, silent.

  Helen folded her in her arms. "I'll see what I can do."

  * * * *

  "What kind of genmod are you children interested in?" the Chrysalis saleswoman asked as she ushered them down the hall to one of the viewing rooms. She had introduced herself as Nabuko in a perky salesperson voice which Judith found immediately grating. It didn't help that her Asian good looks were reminiscent of one of the women in Vance's catalog.

  "A dog," Luther said stoutly.

  "Lu-ther, that's not a genmod," Miriam said with all the wisdom and impatience of an older sister. "That's just a normal animal."

  Nabuko chuckled in an obliging way. "Actually, transgenic dogs are among our most popular items."

  "Why get a dog when you can get a ocelot?"

  Luther was not about to be tricked. "That's a cat. I know that's a cat. I want a dog."

  "We have some very interesting items in the genetically modified dog line," Nabuko said, addressing Miriam. "There are even modified exspec clones, including the direwolf. Would you like to take a look?"