The Future Was Now

by J. R. Harber

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Published by River Grove Books

  Austin, TX

  www.rivergrovebooks.com

  Copyright ©2020 Joel Harber

  All rights reserved.

  Thank you for purchasing an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright law. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the copyright holder.

  Distributed by River Grove Books

  Design and composition by Greenleaf Book Group

  Cover design by Greenleaf Book Group

  Cover images used under license from ©Shutterstock.com/Valery

  Brozhinksy, ©Shutterstock.com/pixelparticle, ©Shutterstock.com/Benguhan

  Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data is available.

  Print ISBN: 978-1-63299-276-5

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-63299-277-2

  First Edition

  This book is dedicated to all life on earth. May we learn to better protect our planet before it’s too late.

  PROLOGUE

  The end of the old world surprised few.

  It announced itself violently, year after year, as massive storms ravaged everything that stood, and the oceans rose, swallowing low-lying land that once held the great cities of the earth—one devastation after another.

  The inhabitable zones grew fewer and farther apart, famine bred war, and war bred only more war and destruction. What the world faces now could once have been solved. A pandemic, a wave of human migration, a hurricane, an earthquake—in the past, these were merely logistical problems, tragedies nonetheless, but the whole of civilization could have absorbed them. Now they happen all at once, compounding one another. The world itself has turned on humanity.

  The population knew it would happen—most people understood what was coming. The common people of the earth pleaded for help, demanded the powerful few reckon with them—that those with wealth and influence wield their precious resources to bring about necessary, wholesale change. The world begged them to stand up and fight alongside the people, against the imminent destruction of our species and the world in which they lived.

  It should have been such a logical choice: Do you wish to save the world? Or do you not? But man’s greed is relentless and devoid of logic. They could have made changes to protect us all. Instead the powerful chose to do nothing, to let the world burn.

  Now that is in the past, decisions left out of the hands of those who followed. Humanity must turn to the future—not for itself, but for all who are left to follow when the chaos ends.

  The new plan for humanity must work. The survivors see that now, and yet the plan itself chills many souls to the core. “Everything has a price,” wise confederates say, and some bite their tongues so as not to remind them that the civilization that created this phrase unwittingly choked to death on it. Yet they are not wrong: there is much more than conscience at stake.

  This is the world’s last chance. Ultimately, humanity must choose to save humanity. To save the world … no matter what the price.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “THERE HE IS,” NAOMI SAID IN A LOW VOICE.

  Gabriel nodded. “I see him.”

  “Of course you do.” She smiled, sipping her tea.

  Gabriel took a small device from his pocket and turned it on, holding it under the table as the screen lit up. Quickly, he took control of the cloaked drone already tracking their subject and brought the picture up on his screen. The man they were tracking was a block away from where they sat in the cool shade of an outdoor café. He was walking slowly down the bustling city sidewalk. He seemed to be staring straight ahead, but even from this distance Gabriel could tell he was darting his eyes back and forth, his shoulders hunched forward as if danger might come from any direction.

  Naomi sighed.

  “What went wrong?” she asked softly.

  Gabriel didn’t answer; he knew she wasn’t really expecting him to. John Philip Horizon was a normal man, as far as anyone knew. He had a wife and a three-year-old daughter, and plenty of friends. Yet a few months ago, the drone feeds had been registering anomalous behavior from him: outbursts of temper, retreat from his usual friends, and this quiet paranoia Naomi and Gabriel now observed. Three days before, he had shouted at his wife, Katherine, with such ferocity that the drone outside their home had sent an emergency alert, flagging him as potentially violent. Naomi and Gabriel, Authority Figures of the State—specifically Contract Enforcers for District 7C of the city of Horizon—had been assigned to him, and now they watched as he turned onto a residential street and stopped in front of his home.

  He stayed on the sidewalk, pacing back and forth. Gabriel directed the drone to zoom in, focusing on the man’s face.

  “What is it?” Naomi asked.

  “He’s muttering something,” he whispered.

  Gabriel squinted, trying to make out the words, but it was impossible; John wasn’t talking, just moving his lips along to something in his head, as if he were reading something he’d seen a hundred times. He nodded his head decisively, and Gabriel stiffened.

  “It’s happening,” he said, standing.

  “He’s shown no sign of escalation,” Naomi protested, but she set down her tea.

  “We have to go now,” Gabriel said.

  He took off running toward the townhouse before she could respond.

  By the time they got there, John was no longer on the sidewalk, and the front door to the house was ajar. Naomi pointed to Gabriel, then to the side of the house, and he nodded. He crept toward the back entrance, glancing back to see Naomi climbing the steps to the front door, her hand hovering close to her stunner.

  Gabriel stepped in front of the facial scanner at the back door.

  “Gabriel Ward, Contract Enforcement,” he said tightly, waiting impatiently as the blue light flickered across his face. When it was done, the door popped open, and he slipped inside.

  “John, please talk to me,” he heard Naomi say as he crept through the kitchen toward the front of the house.

  “I don’t have to talk to you, stalker!” John cried, an edge of hysteria in his voice.

  “Of course not,” Naomi said calmly. “But I can’t help if I don’t understand what’s happening.”

  Gabriel peered around the corner. John had Katherine pinned up against a wall, one hand pressed against her neck. In his other hand was a kitchen knife, and he was holding the point up to her throat, just below her jawline. Gabriel didn’t move, assessing: John could not see him from where he stood. Katherine was still breathing heavily. He was terrifying her, but not choking her—not yet. Naomi stood a few feet from John and was addressing him calmly, her hands behind her back in an unthreatening posture.

  “I want to help, John, but I need you to step away from Katherine,” Naomi said, her voice never wavering. She sounded as if they were talking about something mundane. Please pass the salt. Come now, John, please don’t kill your wife.

  “She’s my wife!” John exclaimed, but he stepped back with a flourish, taking his hand off her windpipe. He kept the knife at her throat, his arm stretched out across the distance between them. Katherine darted her eyes around the room and stopped in surprise when she saw Gabriel. Gabriel raised his index finger to his lips, gesturing for her to be silent, and she gave a tiny nod of her head. The knife scraped against her skin, and she gasped.

  “Yes, John, she is y
our wife,” Naomi agreed. She stepped closer, and he stiffened but did not move. “You’re her husband, and when you married, you decided that you would care for one another. That you would be partners in all things, isn’t that right?”

  John didn’t answer, but his hand wavered, and the knife moved minutely away from Katherine’s neck. “That’s right,” he said.

  “Then please, care for Katherine now. Treat her as your partner. Give me the knife.”

  John’s shoulders hunched forward. Gabriel couldn’t see his face, but he heard the man beginning to weep as he lowered the knife; he clutched it in both hands like a talisman.

  “I’m sorry, Katherine,” John said, voice halting.

  Naomi smiled. “Thank you, John,” she said. She took a step forward.

  “I’m so sorry,” he repeated.

  Gabriel froze, hit by a shock of adrenaline.

  John raised the knife again and swung it around, lunging at his wife as Gabriel leapt toward him in a blur. Katherine screamed as the blade grazed her throat, and then Gabriel seized the man, grabbing him in a chokehold and yanking him down and away. He flipped John onto his face and twisted his right arm up straight, planting his knee in the man’s back, then glanced back at the two women. Katherine was slumped back against the wall, her mouth hanging open and her eyes wide. A single bead of blood ran down her neck, a small cut her only wound. Naomi took her arm and gave Gabriel a nod, then started to guide Katherine to the sofa.

  John’s face was red with rage, pressed flat against the carpet. Gabriel looked down at him gravely, reviewing the facts of the incident once more in his mind. He took a deep breath, centering himself, then spoke.

  “John Philip Horizon, by authority of the State, you will be questioned, judged, and sentenced.” He waited a moment, but the subject did not attempt to move or speak. “I, Gabriel Ward, judge you guilty of violence, of violating your Social Contract with the State and all your fellow citizens. I sentence you to be terminated.”

  “No!” Katherine exclaimed, her hands clenched together. “Please, you can’t!”

  John struggled, trying to twist out of Gabriel’s grasp. Gabriel sighed, set his stunner, and hit the man with a moderate voltage. John shuddered, then went limp, unconscious.

  “No!” Katherine screamed.

  “It is done—he has been sentenced,” Naomi said, putting a hand on her arm. Katherine began to cry—gasping, wrenching sobs that wracked her whole body.

  “Please, please, you can’t. It was my fault too. We were fighting …” she managed to say. “I made him angry … you can’t terminate him, please …”

  Naomi took a seat on the couch, her hand still on Katherine’s arm, and Katherine sat down heavily beside her.

  “You can’t,” she repeated, voice softer.

  Naomi took Katherine’s hand between her own. “It is done,” she said gently. “It is not your fault. John’s actions are his responsibility and no one else’s. No one can be judged for the crime of another.”

  “I know,” Katherine whispered.

  “Someone who commits such a violation of law and morality must be removed from the population. It is not cruelty, Katherine. He is too dangerous. This is the only way to be sure he will never harm anyone else ever again.”

  Katherine looked down at her hands in her lap. She had knitted her fingers together so tightly her knuckles were white. “He’s a good man,” she said, voice thin. “He just can’t help it.”

  “I know,” Naomi said.

  Katherine looked up at her in surprise. “You do?”

  “Everyone has good in them,” Naomi said. “But we can’t make our judgements based on who people are deep down inside. We have to judge what they actually do. Not their character, but their actions.”

  Katherine bowed her head, looking unconvinced. Naomi looked back at Gabriel, and he slapped John lightly on the cheek. The man stirred; he was still only semiconscious, but Gabriel dragged him to his feet. His head fell to one side as he stood.

  “We’ve got to get him processed,” Gabriel said. Naomi pressed Katherine’s hand and stood to help Gabriel maneuver the subject.

  “Can’t you … can’t he just be transported to Work?” Katherine asked in a last, half-hearted plea. Gabriel shook his head.

  “No,” he said, voice like stone. “No one gets a second attempt at murder.”

  With that, he prodded the man, who groaned, and shoved him stumbling through the door, Naomi following close behind.

  “I didn’t see it coming.” Naomi shook her head as they walked away from Municipal Building 4, where they had left John to be processed for termination. “I thought it was over, that he was putting the knife down. I was right there in front of him, and if I’d been there alone, that poor woman would be dead.”

  “You weren’t there alone.”

  “I should have seen it coming,” she repeated.

  “Naomi, I’ve been stalking for fifteen years, and that’s only the second time I’ve seen something like that. A weapon? A man trying to murder his wife? The person he ought to love above anyone else? When something unthinkable happens, you just have to do your best.”

  They walked on in silence for a moment, then Naomi looked up questioningly at him. “What was the first?”

  “What?”

  “You said it was the second time you saw something like that.”

  “Right.” Gabriel cleared his throat. “It was almost exactly like what happened today, except I didn’t see it coming. He killed her, and himself, before I could stop him.”

  Naomi nodded, her expression unchanging. She stopped walking and looked up at the sky for a moment, and Gabriel looped back to her.

  “Let’s walk through the park,” she said suddenly. Gabriel’s heart lifted. They were off duty now. She could do anything she liked, go anywhere, with anyone, and here she was, spending her time with him.

  “Anywhere you want,” he said and glanced backward. Municipal 4 was still in sight, but the street was crowded around them. “Maybe we should check in though.”

  Naomi laughed, the clear sound ringing out in the night air like a bell. “It’s not forbidden, Gabriel,” she said and took his arm. “You’re such a stickler,” she added, pulling him close.

  “I’m dedicated,” he retorted, and she laughed again.

  “I’m teasing. You’re the best stalker I’ve ever known.”

  The path into the park branched off, and they took it. Naomi let go of his arm and strode ahead toward the high bridge. Gabriel hurried to catch up. Naomi stopped at the crest of the bridge, where you could look out over half the city or look up and see the stars—the city and the park had been planned so that there would be places like this, where the light pollution was dim enough that the sky was thick with constellations.

  Naomi leaned back against the concrete bridge support, looking up, and Gabriel’s breath caught in his throat. Her hair hung back in dark curls, and her expression was pensive, as if she saw something among the distant stars that he did not understand. She had changed into a loose red dress after their shift ended, and the way she stood now, it clung to her body; she might as well have been wearing nothing at all. Naomi looked at him, and he cast his eyes away hastily, feeling his cheeks flush.

  “Gabriel,” she whispered and held out her hand. He grasped it, letting her pull him close, until the line of her body was almost brushing his.

  “Naomi,” he began, not knowing what he would say next, and she reached up and ran her fingers through his hair.

  “You still look at me like you’re afraid to touch me,” she murmured, and he put his hands on her waist, marveling at her warmth.

  “I’m not afraid,” he said hoarsely. “I just …” He searched for words, and she tugged at his hair, then let it go, tracing her hand down the back of his neck. He shivered.

  “Just what?” She kissed his throat, just above his collarbone, pressing herself close against him, and he swallowed hard.

  “I still can�
��t believe it’s real,” he admitted as she leaned her forehead against his shoulder.

  “Neither can I.” She pushed away a little and looked up to see his face. “I love you, Gabriel,” she whispered, and his heart stopped. He felt as if his body had forgotten how to make it beat.

  He kissed her until he was desperate for air, then cupped her face in his hands, at a loss.

  “Gabriel?” she said, gently prying his hands off her cheeks.

  “I love you,” he said, astonished to hear himself say it out loud, at last. She smiled and swayed against him, making him gasp audibly, then she took his hand.

  “So then come home with me,” she said and led him off the bridge.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ASA LEANED BACK AGAINST THE ANCIENT oak, gazing up through the green canopy of trees. I can’t wait to get out of this place. A shallow stream rippled slowly past a few feet away. As kids this had been the usual meeting spot, where Asa and his best friend Eli took turns crossing the water on a fallen log that served as a perilous bridge. Here they both were, again.

  “Asa?” Eli prompted. “What’s with you today? I just asked what you’re going to do next.”

  Asa had a sudden impulse to tell him. Tomorrow, I am leaving this place to go and live in the city. I’m done with this tiny, repetitious world of yours. From now on, every day will be new: new people, new places—new things I haven’t even imagined yet. Eli was the only one Asa would really miss when he was gone.

  Like Asa, Eli was clever but restless. They were both athletic; their talents lay not in brute strength but in agility, speed, and daring. Asa was notorious by the time Eli came along, the blond daredevil with eyes blue as the Chancellor’s. When he befriended the new doctor’s son, his parents—everyone’s parents—had hoped the small, bookish boy would prove a good influence on Asa.

  They had been wrong.

  “What am I gonna do? I’m gonna move to Horizon and never come back to Rosewood!” Asa said with the dry wit he had cultivated over the years. “Come on, I’ve got to go to my party.”