“Indeed! But I must get back to my duties.” The father patted his own chest with rough good humor. “The foreman must set a good example for his people. You remember that, Kenneth!”
“I will, sir.”
“Oh.” The father paused, hesitated for barely two seconds. “I’ve shown you my new career—my chosen contribution to national and worldwide—even species-wide ujamaa, if you will. But concerning yours? Again, I make no demand—you understand? But—if you wished—I would like to hear more of your work before you return to orbit. Those new Dynamic Generators interest me, in particular.”
The son gaped in wonder. “Uh, they’re called Solar Dynamic Generators. SDGs for short.”
“SDGs, then. I understand they’re quite complex, requiring many trained operators and maintenance/repair people. Most challenging, I’m sure. But I thought an expert might make their properties clearer to me? It is, obviously, an important part of the new world we are all building together—yes?”
“Yes.” The son beamed pride. “Yes, sir! It most certainly is! As is this fine place, Father.”
“We must discuss it all this evening,” the older man said, backing away reluctantly and grinning. “For now, I must report to Section 5—they’re having some difficulty with a new order. We’re growing some quite huge pipes over there—our biggest yet, to upgrade inadequate urban sewer systems. We already have contracts to supply Nairobi, Maputo and Kinshasa!”
Kenneth Tanu put up a hand and watched his father trot away. He knew now that they would never be truly, completely parted—no matter what sort of future the complex forces of fate and ujamaa caused to grow for them.
THE END
IT LOOKS LIKE IT’S GOING TO BE SUNNY by Tom Borthwick
The sky seemed limitless and the most brilliant and perfect blue Jane had ever seen. Of course it was. That’s exactly how she had crafted it to be. She loved taking in all of the scenery right after uplinking, especially the sky.
This place was a reconstructed vision from her childhood, as solid and accurate as such things can go. Memories fade with time and are reconstructed and altered ever so slightly upon recollection. So maybe this had not been the perfect neighborhood, but in this Virtual Reality Simulation, it was perfect. And it reminded her of a happier time.
This world was methodically made after months of hard work. To create or alter something was easy, but to make it so vast was not. Most people used the VR to create a bedroom and sleep with their favorite celebrities. This was a whole neighborhood of a whole town. The necessary technique didn’t take much time – it required concentrating on a mental image for an extended period with eyes closed. A brief mental jolt, like tiny fingers tickling the folds of gray matter in the brain, signaled that the change occurred. After opening her eyes, there it was.
There weren’t many more changes to make, only minor cosmetic ones. The street – wide enough for kids to play in – was devoid of cars and seemed to go on endlessly in either direction. Kids would come one day, but for now Jane was satisfied with the relative quiet of the neighborhood. Each home had perfectly manicured grass and identical landscaping out front – bright white, freshly-poured concrete sidewalks were lined with marigolds right up to the front steps. On either side of the steps, purple hyacinths and blue butterfly pincushions and tall orange tiger lilies rose from fresh brown mulch. She didn’t know if the flowers were out of season and she didn’t care because it didn’t matter here.
The half dozen men and women outside didn’t pay her any mind. She made sure of that when she constructed them: they would only acknowledge her if she acknowledged them first – the ultimate kind of custom neighbors. The wives watered potted flowers which hung from baskets lining porches. She didn’t know the names of these particular flowers, since all she had to do was picture them to make them appear. They were tall and white and yellow and looked like cupcakes covered in icing. The husbands either had their cars in the driveway or were pulling them out of the garage to give them their daily wash and wax.
It was the perfect neighborhood.
She didn’t even need the white picket fences.
She had thought about adding them, though. Maybe she would put them in the backyards, when she got that far. For now, only hers was done. It had a huge garden and a grill and an in-ground pool with a diving board and a big blue slide. Lounge chairs littered the sides and there was even a beautiful oak bar back there, complete with stools. That was in case she planned on entertaining. She would have the neighbors over, one day – after she gave them more distinctive features and personalities.
Right now, the women looked like housewives from the fifties: bouncing polka dotted skirts covered by aprons, blue and red blouses, bobbed hair and long, pale arms and legs. Some were blonds, some brunettes.
The men wore white t-shirts and khaki shorts with tall black or brown socks that went halfway up to their knees. Their hair, slicked to the side, looked black, the gel giving it a dark sheen in the artificial sun. Soapy water dripped down cars and onto brilliantly white driveways, trickling to the street and into the drains she’d mentally installed at regular intervals. She was proud of that touch.
Jane had given a cigarette to one of the men to puff on while he worked. He lived across the street with his wife. She’d named them Betty and Joe. She thought she heard the two talking-- something about waking and sleeping, and a delivery. But she waved it off. Everything she did here was programmed the way she meant it to be. Usually she waved at them, and they would wave back and ask her how her day was or how her husband, Bruce, was. But she wasn’t interested in that today. Today, she was making dinner for Bruce for the first time. Right now, he was inside, sitting on the couch, enjoying some television.
Before she turned to go in and get started on dinner, she regarded the sky again. It had not a cloud, and never would. She felt no heat from the Sun. There was no heat, nor cold, in this place. That wouldn’t stop her from one day sunbathing at the pool. She planned to make sure Bruce would see her in a swimsuit. In here, her figure was exactly what it had been when they’d gotten married. “Perfect hourglass, perfect shape,” he used to always say. So that’s how she made sure to imagine herself.
And Bruce was exactly as she remembered him, before he began wasting away. Her love was tall and lean, but with enough muscle tone to show he worked out. She made a workout room for him in the basement, complete with weights and a bench, just like he used to have. She loved his short, cropped black hair, always parted on the left. His full jaw accentuated the air of masculinity he always gave off – something else Jane loved about him. It had been hard to make him, at first. Her last images of him were on a hospital bed, a gaunt remainder of his former self, without even the ability to speak at the end. The VR kept creating him in that image, so she had to stare at old photos around the trailer where she and their teenage daughter, Mandy, lived, in order to make him the way he was meant to be made. The program she was using was also rather intuitive and tapped her memories to make her husband into as much of her husband as it could. Everything she loved, like the way he always called her “my dearest” or “honey” or “baby” to everything she hated, like when he would leave his dirty clothes next to the laundry basket, but not in it, was recreated here.
It was strange that after Bruce died, Jane found herself missing even the things she didn’t like about him. But that’s how she knew he was the love of her life, and that’s what led her here to remake him. At least they would spend time together in some form.
“What’s for dinner, my dearest?” Bruce asked as if on cue, appearing in the doorway behind Jane. She didn’t know if the VR read her thoughts and accommodated her desires or if it was coincidence, but she didn’t have time to reflect because her love enveloped her in his arms and she instinctively buried her face in his chest. She tried to breathe in his musky scent, but there was no scent here. She feared it would affect the meal she had planned, but there was also neither real hunger nor taste. The lat
est VR models had begun introducing those features, but she had squandered her savings on the one she owned now. She’d even sold Bruce’s truck. It helped her afford the VR and some enhancement chips that helped make this world seem more real. Another chip would be arriving soon. That would suffice. Getting a new VR would mean remaking this world she’d created from scratch. It was emotionally trying enough to build it once, dredging up the loss and grief, the sense of hopelessness.
The pendulum swung wildly in the opposite direction at this moment, though, as she savored being wrapped in his arms. His voice was the same. His touch was the same. It was as close to the real thing as she could get and that would do just fine. Tonight, after dinner, they would make love. The VR interface made it as close to real as possible, stimulating the brain regions that needed stimulation.
Jane longed for his touch each moment she spent outside this world.
“Your favorite, my love,” she replied.
“Spaghetti with your famous sauce?” he asked, pulling away and smiling his broad, almost oafish smile.
“Of course,” she replied. “Go in and watch some TV. I’ll pick the ingredients fresh from the garden and make it all from scratch.”
“You’re the best,” Bruce said, kissing her cheek before going inside.
Jane followed him in and watched him sit on the couch and flip through the stations. Each was the same – she hadn’t yet invented new channels. It was hard to envision entire episodes or movies for the VR. So the one station she had envisioned was devoted to weather. The anchor, who looked much like Joe across the street, minus the cigarette, plus a suit, stood in front of a gigantic, digital sun and said, over and over, “It looks like it’s going to be sunny!”
Bruce didn’t complain about the monotony because she programmed it out of him, but every time she was in here, she tried to create something he’d always wanted to make the place more unique for the both of them. They’d always talked of their hopes and dreams and desires and did what couples did – imagined all the wonderful things they’d have when they won the lottery. The other day when she was working on the world, she dreamed up a 67 Camaro for Bruce. He always said that was his dream car – metallic blue with two, thick white stripes going down the hood, white leather interior. When she showed it to him, he reacted as she knew he would’ve in real life: with utter joy and grace and thankfulness. She hadn’t made it ready to drive, so he washed and waxed it in the beautiful sun under that beautiful sky, along with all the other men in the neighborhood.
Her next gift would be a new plug-in that she had bought which allows actual television stations to play inside the VR. She’d asked her real-life neighbor, Ernie, if he could get it for her. It was expensive and so she’d sold her jewelry to pay for it. She wore her jewelry here, in the VR. What use was it to her in the waking world?
She left Bruce to the television and cut through the kitchen and into the backyard, where her magnificent garden was. She plucked huge, ripe tomatoes, clipped basil and parsley, pulled fresh garlic bulbs, and got sprigs of thyme and oregano.
Inside, she pulled each leaf of each herb off individually, losing herself in the task. She peeled the garlic and minced it, sautéing it on very low heat in a pan lightly covered in olive oil. She broiled the tomatoes and removed the skins and crushed them, being sure to pull out the seeds and set them aside. She could certainly make the VR allow for planting and growing.
After the tomatoes were crushed, she put them in the pan with the garlic, slowly adding the spices she’d picked bit by bit.
Just as she finished adding the last of them, the vision in front of her began to shake, startling her. The sauce didn’t do anything more than the bubbling it was already doing, but she put the lid on anyway and removed it from the stove. She ran to check on Bruce to make she he was okay. All the while the house shook. Nothing, not the lamps, not the knick-knacks or decorations that littered the house, nothing moved from its place despite the world seeming like it would crumble if this kept on.
“It looks like it’s going to be sunny!”
There he was, sitting and watching television as if this earthquake wasn’t happening. She imagined no random natural disasters hitting the VR. What was going on? At least Bruce was fine. He turned, concern in his eyes –
“Mom! Mom, wake up!” she heard as she was drawn out of the VR. He turned, concern in his eyes– She had to get back to him. She pressed the restart button on the side of the unit, near her temple.
“Finally, you’re up,” Mandy said, still shaking her.
“Stop it, I’m up, I’m up,” Jane replied.
“I’ll stop when you get your hand away from the restart.”
She lowered her hands to her side, but made no move to sit up. “What is it, Mandy? What have I said about interrupting my sessions? I was in the middle of something important and I’m going back.”
“Go back after you deal with Ernie,” her daughter replied, snapping each word in a way that seemed both annoyed and disinterested at the same time. Her arms were crossed and she wore that dreadful mesh long-sleeved shirt with frayed ends that extended past her fingers. Her jeans had holes. Jane would never understand the fashion of teenagers. If she put any teens in the VR, or any children of any age for any of the families she created, they would dress well, in their Sunday best.
“While you talk to him, how about giving me a chance at the VR? I know you’re in there with dad.”
Jane regretted once having said in a fit of rage after being pulled out of the VR that she was going to see Bruce. Now Mandy wanted in, too, but it wouldn’t work. “You know VRs are custom to the individual.”
“You never know. I’m your daughter, maybe it would work.”
“It won’t.”
Mandy let out a forceful sigh and said, “Ernie, in case you forgot.”
Jane ignored her daughter’s tone and lifted her head from the pillow, removing the VR interface by carefully pulling the connecting pins out of the back of her skull. She’d heard of more than a few cases of people damaging their units and having to pay massive repair bills. She hadn’t been able to afford insurance on it, so there was no way she would let this break.
With the unit off and settled at the small table alongside the bed, she felt yet another sense of loss. Bruce was waiting for dinner. Her world was locked in a piece of equipment that she was apart from. It was gone. She knew she could go back later, but something was missing from her life right here, right now.
She patted her hair to make sure the uplink plate wasn’t visible.
“You need to wash your hair, mom,” Mandy said.
“Thank you, Miss Critic. I can take care of myself.”
“I don’t think so,” her daughter replied. “When was the last time you’ve eaten, let alone showered?”
“Last night,” Jane said, sitting up from her bed and stretching. She felt sore from laying down so much. Her forearms were thinner than they’d been inside the VR. Her hips, too. The faded flannel shirt she wore, once Bruce’s, hung off of her even more than usual.
“Try three days. It’s like you go into a coma when you’re in that thing,” Mandy said, one hand on her hip. “I went out and got some food. We have extra cereal and I’m sure the milk hasn’t gone bad yet. You need to eat.”
Jane was flattered by her daughter’s softer tone, so different from what she usually got from her. Mandy was sixteen and at that age where teens get rebellious and disrespectful. It was all part of growing up, so she tried to be understanding.
“You know, Mom, it’s supposed to be the other way around. You, the adult, taking care of me, the kid.”
“You don’t have to take care of me, I’ll be fine,” Jane said, unwilling to take the bait. “How’s school, honey?”
“Holy shit, Mom. It’s been summer break for a week now!”
“Watch your language. Your father would never approve.”
Before her daughter responded, Jane exclaimed, “I bet Ernie has the exp
ansion chip!” She tried to rise quickly, realizing that she would be able to install a receiver for real television for Bruce – how wonderful it would be! – but she slipped back to the bed.
Mandy reached out a hand to help. “I told you,” she said, acid back in her voice, punctuating each word, “you are a mess.”
Mandy’s attitude was that of a typical brooding teenager, Jane thought to herself. Sometimes it was hard to deal with. Bruce would’ve had no trouble. He always knew how to handle everything. Whenever Jane didn’t feel well, Bruce took care of her. Any scrape Mandy ever got, Bruce ran to the medicine cabinet, got what was needed, and patched her up, right as rain.
Jane took her daughter’s hand and regarded her features. She had her father’s eyes. And the high cheekbones. And his joy about life. He turned, concern in his eyes—
With Mandy’s help, she stood and walked to the door.
The trailer was small – not nearly the size of their old home in the suburbs that she and Bruce had worked so hard to build. She’d sold it when he died to pay off debts and tried not to think of it any longer.
The trailer’s bedroom melded into the kitchen, which melded into a sitting area – not quite a living room. It was where Mandy and Jane would eat when they tried to have a family meal. Her daughter was more interested in going out with her friends than seeing her mother. Jane was okay with it. It gave Mandy more time to grow and, for Jane, it meant more time with Bruce.
Unwashed dishes littered the kitchen counter, the stove, and the sink. Jane stopped herself from criticizing Mandy, knowing full well that her daughter would simply turn it around on her.
When they opened the door, Ernie wasn’t visible immediately. Instead, Jane saw his trailer, which sat across a small, maybe thirty-foot expanse of dirt and trampled grass. Its dirtied, once-white siding probably mirrored her own— lost in a sea of mud and muck and dirt and grime. In the expanse between trailers, his son, Carter, ate at the picnic table he’d put there a few weeks before. He’d often let Jane know that her and Mandy could use it. He surely thought it a kindness, given what Jane had gone through. Besides, he and Bruce were old friends, from before Jane had even met her husband. Mandy had taken advantage of the offer, especially since Carter was only two years older and seemed very interested in her.
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