The Future Was Now

by J. R. Harber

  He nearly shouted in pain but clamped his jaw shut, forcing himself to breathe through his nose until the sting faded. He checked the mirror again. The disinfectant had cleared the blood, and he could see that his earlobe was gone, the edges of his skin ragged.

  I’ve still got the important parts—that’s all that matters.

  He took a strip of gauze and patted the area dry as best he could, then squeezed out the glue along what was left of his ear. The bleeding stopped, the glue sucking the skin together and drying instantly. Gabriel closed the tube and wet some gauze with disinfectant to wipe away the rest of the blood.

  A flash of light in the distance caught his eye, and he stopped what he was doing to peer across the desert. The light bobbed up and down; something was reflecting sunlight as it moved away from the concrete building.

  It’s them. They’ve got a car.

  Gabriel tossed the first aid kit onto the passenger seat and got in. His skin was still sticky with blood, but he ignored the itchy sensation and started the car, speeding up as he drove toward the gleam ahead.

  I will bring them back to justice.

  When he drew close enough to see the car, Gabriel tracked their course for a moment, then dropped back and veered away. He would have to take another route, circling away before coming back to check that he was still on their trail—otherwise, in this wide-open space, they would see him easily. Still, his disadvantage would be theirs as well: while he fell behind, there was nowhere for them to hide. Eventually, inevitably, Gabriel would find his prey.

  But where?

  He had assumed their flight into the Waste had been driven by panic, their only aim to evade capture and judgement. It was a stupid choice, for the punishments of the Waste were known to be far worse than the measured justice of the State, but people did it now and then nonetheless.

  Gabriel hung back, circled around, came close enough to spot their tracks, then turned away, each time marking their direction and location in the small notepad he always carried. After the third cycle, he was certain: Asa and Eve were heading in a straight line.

  They’re not just running; they know where they’re going. He turned the car toward a cliff in the distance and set it to autopilot for a moment to write down the fugitives’ trajectory. Where are they going? Where is there to go?

  They had contacts among the wasters, that much was clear—maybe Eve’s brother, Saul, had been in communication with her before he died; maybe she still had a contact. Perhaps there were other groups like that, scattered across the Waste.

  How big is the Waste?

  It was not a question that had ever interested him, not because he was incurious but because it did not matter. The Waste had never been his domain—his mandate was justice for the people of the State, and the Waste was out of his jurisdiction.

  Until now …

  He thought briefly of Joan; it felt like days since their argument. Our allegiance is not to justice—it’s to the State, she had said with such perfect assurance that she sounded as if she were quoting something.

  Gabriel searched his memory perfunctorily. It sounded familiar, but if she was quoting, he hadn’t read the book. Our allegiance is to the State. That was the quote he knew, the words he’d learned to say before he could write his own name.

  “Our allegiance is to the State,” Gabriel echoed to the empty car, feeling for the first time in decades as if he had somehow been naive. It had never occurred to him that allegiance to the State and allegiance to justice could be different things.

  What does she know? Barely out of training. Quoting textbooks because she has no experience of her own to draw on.

  Checking his direction and mileage, Gabriel turned back toward the path his runners were on. As they’d journeyed, the desert had slowly receded, and now they crossed fields of tall grasses and lengths of forests. There were worn-down places, almost roads, that Asa and Eve were following—more evidence that the Waste held more than Gabriel had realized.

  Our allegiance is not to justice but to the State. He remembered where he had heard the words: there had been a crime.

  A little boy in Clearview was killed by a man from another community. There had been something wrong with the man—he was defective and should have been found sooner, his behavior flagged by the drones as potentially dangerous so that he could be removed, sent to Work or terminated, depending on the severity of his problems.

  But he had been missed.

  He killed a boy, strangled him with bare hands in his own backyard, and the boy’s mother had arrived on the scene before the local Contract Enforcers. She had taken a kitchen knife and stabbed her son’s killer to death.

  Gabriel and Naomi had been sent to sort it out. The local Contract Enforcers were holding the mother—her name was Caroline. They were keeping Caroline under guard in her home, and every hour someone from the community came to the door to sit with her, to offer comfort, to bring food for her and her husband, Abe.

  When Gabriel and Naomi arrived from Horizon, there were a dozen neighbors at the family’s house: a few were tending the garden, two men were repairing a broken railing on the porch, and others were gathered in groups of two and three, talking quietly. Everyone watched them closely as they landed the passenger drone and walked up to the door, but there was more curiosity than worry on their faces. Gabriel saw that the community assumed their presence was only a formality and that, of course, nothing would be done to Caroline.

  When Gabriel and Naomi walked into the house, they were greeted by the local Contract Enforcers, a man and woman in their mid-forties who had been looking after the community for the better part of their careers. In hushed tones, they explained what had happened.

  From the corner of his eye, Gabriel saw Naomi’s eyes brighten with unshed tears, and he knew she was picturing the scene, feeling the mother’s devastation as a physical pain in her chest. He wanted to comfort her, take her hand, stroke her hair, and whisper sweet lies about the future, but it was the wrong impulse, and he shoved it away.

  Empathizing the way she did was part of her job—her specialization—and besides, that was back before she loved him.

  Naomi and Gabriel listened to Caroline. They spoke to her husband—they watched and listened as the parents choked on their grief. They had already seen the drone feeds; there was no uncertainty as to what had happened, no question that Caroline was telling the truth. Several hours went by as they listened to witness after witness tell their stories. Then Naomi met Gabriel’s eyes. There was no need for them to confer—they had known what they would do since before they left Horizon. Naomi gave him a tiny, sad smile, encouraging him to do what neither of them wanted to. He nodded, an imperceptible movement to everyone but her, and then stood.

  The whole room drew back, even Naomi, though a split second later she was on her feet beside him.

  “Caroline, please stand,” Naomi said quietly, and Caroline did, her face a mask of confusion and grief.

  “Caroline Anne Clearview,” Gabriel said grimly, “by authority of the State, you will be questioned, judged, and sentenced.”

  “What?” Caroline’s husband was on his feet, his fists clenched, his face red. “What are you talking about? Don’t you see what she’s been through? What we’ve all been through?”

  Gabriel ignored him. His eyes were on Caroline, who was staring off into the distance as if her mind were elsewhere.

  “Caroline Anne Clearview, please come with me,” Gabriel said.

  She nodded absently and followed him to the door.

  “You can’t do this!” her husband shouted as they all walked out the front door.

  It looked as if half the town had gathered outside the house, and probably they had. Gabriel had not attempted to restrain Caroline, and now he was glad of that decision—if she had come out with her hands tied, a riot might have broken out.

  “Caroline, what’s happening?” a woman cried from somewhere in the crowd.

  “They’re takin
g her away!” Abe snarled. “Our little boy is gone and they’re taking her away!”

  The local Contract Enforcers looked nervously at one another. Gabriel marched the woman toward the drone without response and then felt Naomi’s hand on his arm. He stopped and looked at her.

  Tell them something, she mouthed, and he turned to face the unsettled crowd.

  “Violence is a severe violation of the Social Contract that grants us all safety and community. No matter how much we may empathize with Caroline’s distress, her actions were unspeakable. A man is dead.”

  “Our child is dead,” Abe said brokenly, and Gabriel nodded.

  “I know,” he said.

  Naomi stepped forward and put a hand on Abe’s shoulder. She whispered something to him, and he began to weep. Two men stepped forward, gently pulling the grief-stricken father back into the fold of the crowd, where others crowded around to comfort him. Abe was quiet for a moment, then surged forward again as the crowd parted to let him through.

  “This is wrong!” he shouted, striding toward them, and Gabriel caught the man’s eyes and gave him a deadening stare.

  “This is for everyone’s protection,” he said with quiet intensity.

  Abe stopped moving, but he did not break away from Gabriel’s gaze. When he spoke again, his voice had an eerie calm.

  “This is not justice,” he said, and Gabriel thought for a moment before answering. He didn’t look at the crowd, but he could feel the tension all around them, ready to break at the wrong word. He glanced at Naomi; she was looking expectantly at him.

  “You’re right,” Gabriel said slowly. “But our allegiance is not to justice. Our allegiance is to the State. Our allegiance is to the safety and security of all our communities. Another word for the justice you want is vengeance, and our allegiance can never be to that.”

  There was a hush, and before it could break, they walked Caroline the rest of the way to the drone, careful to keep a steady pace. He settled her in the back seat and sat beside her, respectfully, as if she were not a prisoner. The crowd watched quietly as the doors closed. The drone rose into the air, and then to the onlookers, it seemed to disappear. Naomi was sitting in front, and as she bent forward to enter their destination, Gabriel could see that she was crying. Caroline stared out the window, her eyes still fixed on a point no one else could see.

  “You’re right, you know,” she said an hour later.

  Naomi turned in her seat, her eyes wide. “What do you mean, Caroline?” she asked in a whisper, and Caroline gave her a faint smile.

  “I wanted vengeance,” she said. She sounded as if she were saying “I wanted breakfast,” and Gabriel felt something wrench inside him.

  Naomi nodded. “I think I would too,” she said.

  She reached out, offering Caroline her hand, and the other woman took it. She held on to Naomi’s hand all the way back to Horizon.

  Eventually, Caroline was sent home; Naomi insisted that she was unlikely to commit violence again, and Gabriel reluctantly agreed. She was sterilized even though she was only twenty-nine, her trauma rendering her unfit to be a parent again. She faced no other consequences.

  Gabriel’s brief address to the Clearview community was probably misquoted in a training text. Our allegiance is not to justice but to the State. Joan had read it in a book, after all.

  Gabriel came back to reality as he circled around again to the runners’ trail, and began to hear a steady, rushing sound.

  A river, he thought, recalling the rapidly flowing water that separated their world from the Waste.

  He crested a hill surrounded by tall, thin trees with lush, draping branches, and both the river and the other car came into view in the distance. Gabriel stopped, forgetting momentarily to pull out of sight. Lying below him was a river wider than any road. Its water flowed quietly, unlike the churning rapids before entering the Waste, but it was moving fast; he spotted a stick bobbing at the surface and watched as it sped downstream.

  Gabriel slowly backed the car down the hill, out of sight, and got out. He grabbed his jacket, leaving behind the blood-encrusted shirt, and rummaged in the trunk’s emergency kit, coming up with a flashlight, a pair of binoculars, and more of the wound glue. Those he tucked in his jacket pockets, and the stolen weapon he secured with his belt at the small of his back, wishing he could be sure he was not about to strike himself accidentally with one of its projectiles. He crept back to the top of the hill, concealed himself among the odd verdant trees, and focused the binoculars on the car below him.

  They were driving alongside the river, and as he tracked them, they slowed, then came to a stop. They got out of the car, and he saw that they were beside a small stone building, not big enough to be a house of any kind. It was built so close to the river that it looked almost ready to fall in. There was a single tiny window on one side, and on the roof was a lone old-fashioned solar panel.

  Gabriel moved carefully down the hill. He could make it almost to where they were under the cover of trees, but he would have to cross an open field to make it to the building. When he reached the foot of the hill, he crouched behind a tree trunk, watching as Asa came out of the building and retrieved something from the car. Gabriel waited, and when Asa did not emerge again, he made a run for it, sprinting across the grass with one eye on the half-closed door. He ducked behind the structure, and through the open door he could hear them speak in low voices.

  Eve muttered something indistinct, but Gabriel clearly heard her say, “Do you even understand any of this?”

  “Yes,” Asa said firmly, then sighed. “Well, I think I can figure it out.”

  Gabriel crept around the far side of the building, to the filthy window. He peered through it, careful not to smudge the dirt, and was just barely able to make out what was inside: A boat. They’re going to try to cross the river. Eve glanced back toward him, and Gabriel ducked out of sight. I could stop them right here; there’s only the two of them. But something kept him where he was, crouching in the dirt instead of making the arrest. Why are they crossing the river? He smiled briefly, reminded of an old joke. To get to the other side.

  “What’s on the other side?” he whispered, barely hearing his own voice above the rushing river.

  He had told Hiram and Omar that Eve could be the key to bringing down the underground banks. Whatever was on the other side, it was important enough to cross moving water, putting both of their lives at risk. All it would take was a single misstep for the boat to capsize, for one of them to fall overboard and become infected. Whatever they were heading for, Gabriel wanted to see for himself.

  Gabriel crept around to the front of the building, which opened directly onto the water, revealing the boat. It looked familiar, like something out of a history book, from the time before water travel became too dangerous. It was white and brown, though the paint was faded and cracking, and it was a little larger than a car, with a deep base that came to a point at the front. There was a short deck at the back and a small square cabin in the middle. Craning his neck, Gabriel could see controls through one of the large side windows. The boathouse floor was cut out in the middle, and the boat was suspended slightly above the water, held aloft on two rusty beams that connected to the ceiling with hefty chains. At the top, he could see some kind of pulley system, though how it worked was not clear.

  Asa and Eve were on the other side of the boat, conferring with their heads together, and Gabriel crouched and crept in a little farther. The walls of the small building were lined with shelves of neatly stacked labeled containers of varying sizes, though Gabriel could only read a few of the labels from his position: “H2O 5GL,” “RICE,” “CORN SYRUP,” “MRTE.” Only the second of these made sense to Gabriel.

  The back wall was lined with plastic tanks labeled “DIESEL FUEL,” and in a corner he could see the square black battery that connected to the solar panel on the roof. Whoever lived here was preparing for something, anyway.

  Asa turned, coming around the side
of the boat, and Gabriel pulled back into the dark corner of the building, concealing himself behind an enormous black plastic crate marked “5 AR-15 10,000 RDS.”

  Asa stepped onto one of the beams supporting the boat and crossed it with his eyes on the water below. The door to the cabin was unlocked, and he ducked his head to enter it, settling into the captain’s seat to examine the control panel; everything was clearly labeled, but only half the words made sense to him. The steering wheel seemed straightforward enough, though it was straight upright and had spokes sticking out in every direction. The array of dials was a mystery. He pressed buttons and raised levers as Eve watched anxiously from the side.

  “Can you figure it out?” she called, as if he were farther away than he was.

  “I think so. Everything is labeled,” he said. “The thing is, it has a fuel gauge—it’s not even electric.”

  “Do you know how to do it?” Eve asked.

  He smiled at her. “Well, no, I mean who does? But I know you have to put fuel in the boat somehow. There should be somewhere to do that, like a tank or something. I don’t see anything in here, so maybe it’s where the engine is.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Eve!” Asa said with mock exasperation. “I know exactly as much as you do. I’ll check the boat for somewhere to put fuel, and you see if you can find any.”

  “All the tanks back here say, ‘Diesel Fuel.’ Is that what you need?”

  “Let’s hope so. See if you can figure out how we get this thing into the water.” He gestured to the beams and pulleys. “There’s got to be a lever or a crank or something.”

  Eve nodded, and Asa went to the back of the cabin, where a door led out onto a small deck. It was empty, but on the floor, right behind the cabin, was a small trapdoor. Asa pulled it up and grinned. A tank filled the space, with a cap labeled “DIESEL ONLY” in the center.

  “Found it!” he called. He climbed off the boat and crossed the support beam to where Eve stood examining a large lever.