The Machine's Child (Company)

by Kage Baker

THE FOLLOWING MORNING

  The first day of July 1996 fell on a Monday, so there were few people loitering on Marina Green to remark on the whaleboat that appeared out of the fog, working its slow way across the water and in among the yachts, tying up at the boat dock.

  The couple who came ashore drew even less attention, though some passersby noticed the man’s remarkable height, and the way the couple stood staring in disbelief at the traffic roaring by on Marina Boulevard. But nobody heard the girl saying uncertainly:

  “I think those lights are a signal, aren’t they? The colors mean something, surely.”

  She started toward the intersection, and the man seized her and pulled her back.

  “Christ Jesu, love!” he shouted. She turned to stare at him, and he stammered: “Er . . . we have to be really careful of the automobiles, okay? They used to kill a lot of people.”

  “I’m sorry.” She took his hand. “But, see how that light over there just changed? I think this one’s about to go, too, and—there! They’re all stopping for us.”

  So they crossed the street, the girl smiling a bright artificial smile at the zombie drivers of the sleek cars and pulling along the man, who regarded them with the wild-eyed stare of a thoroughly alarmed horse, especially as they passed a vehicle broadcasting music loudly enough to hurt his ears, a thudding beat counterpointed by a staccato recitative. He seemed to compose himself, however, when they reached the comparative safety of the corner of Marina and Buchanan, and looked around with hard determined eyes.

  “Very well,” he said. “No worse than London, really. That’s the market, is it? Rather small for our purposes.”

  “That’s just a flower stall,” the girl said. “I think the market’s inside that big dome. See through the glass?”

  “Oh,” said the man. “I believe you’re correct. And, according to that sign, there’s a banking agent on the premises. How very convenient.”

  So they advanced across the parking lot toward it, located a door, and leaped back in astonishment when it opened automatically for them. The man recovered first.

  “Come on. All doors do that nowadays, okay?” he muttered to himself, and grabbing the girl by the hand he hurried in with her.

  Once inside, they stopped, staring.

  “Oohhh,” murmured the girl. “This will be . . .”

  “This was the last big . . .” the man attempted.

  “. . . era of mass consumer goods before the General Prohibition laws will be enacted,” the girl finished. She turned to look at the man. He turned to look at her. There was a moment of sizzling silence before he whooped:

  “We can get anything here!” A couple of aproned clerks and customers turned to stare at them, and he lowered his voice immediately. “We’ll just, er, pretend we buy groceries like this every day. Come on. See those carts? You’re supposed to take one and push it around in front of you. You just go up and down the aisles, putting things you want in it. Okay?”

  Which is what they did, as soon as they’d figured out how to get through the turnstile. Each took a cart and the man turned immediately to the right, into the meat department, and the girl followed. Here they prowled along the open butcher’s bin, exclaiming to each other in hushed tones at how tidily it was all presented, every cut individually packaged in its own little white tray and wrapped in transparent film. The man seemed surprised that there was no mutton or goose to be had, and precious little veal; but he loaded huge bleeding clods of beef roast into his cart with both hands, and the girl concentrated on the beautifully plucked and dressed chickens. Neither of them touched the ground meats.

  Reining themselves in with visible effort, they pushed on. The man was astonished by the selection of cheeses, took whole wheels. The nonedible items fascinated them, too; they stared and whispered, or giggled together until they were red-faced. They seemed greatly impressed by the canned goods, and selected the ones with the brightest labels. The jars of preserves and jellies captivated them; they took at least one of every color, and several jars of honey. They loaded up on coffees and teas.

  They didn’t quite seem to know what to make of the frozen foods aisle, until the girl gave a stifled shriek and made straight for the ice cream. The man remained staring at the frozen dinners in perplexity; opened a freezer case door at last, and stood gazing in a long while, as frosty air rolled around him in clouds. At last he took out a Salisbury steak dinner and opened it, and held the compartmented tray and the printed box side by side and looked from one to the other, knitting his brows, until a clerk advanced on him like an annoyed wasp.

  They took several sacks of refined sugar. The cookie and cracker aisle delighted them, as did the gourmet foods. Into the cart were swept all the tins of paté and sardines, and all the jars of chutney and pickled gherkins. The girl went nearly mad in the candy aisle, dumping into her cart Toblerones, Lindt and Hershey bars, to say nothing of every Ghirardelli product available. They came around the corner into the aisle featuring alcoholic beverages and stood dumbstruck for a moment before deciding that they needed another cart, so the girl waited while the man went to fetch another. Thereafter he steered them along expertly, one hand to each, and the few other customers in the store at that hour began to stare at them.

  They didn’t notice. They filled the third cart entirely with liquors and microbrewery ales. The man pulled down a bottle of Captain Morgan Spiced Rum and stood smiling at it, misty-eyed, while the girl loaded in José Cuervo. At the baked goods section their carts began to be difficult to manage; and when they turned the very last corner and saw the fresh produce section opening out before them, there was a moment of stunned silence before the girl, without a word, went running back to get a fourth cart.

  At last, trundling two carts each, they conferred briefly and then wheeled their purchases up to the nearest checkout counter. The clerk stared at the tower-piled carts in disbelief and said at last, “So . . . you’re having a party?”

  “That is correct,” said the tall man. He smiled nastily and added: “In fact, my good man, we are celebrating your Independence Day.”

  The girl cleared her throat and said, “And, ah, we will be paying for this with electronic transfer of funds, okay, señor?”

  “You mean your ATM card?”

  “Of course!” The girl smacked her forehead with the palm of her hand. “You’ll have to excuse us. We’re new here.”

  “So these are all together,” the clerk said, leaning forward to look at all four carts. “O-kay. He’s buying all the liquor, right?” He looked sternly at the girl. “Because I know you’re not twenty-one yet, honey.”

  She looked guilty. “He’s buying,” she said.

  The clerk sighed and pulled out a microphone. “Mikhail, I need a box boy at station six, please, station six.” He shut it off, then thumbed the button again and added: “Make that two box boys please, repeat, two.” He began the exhaustive task of ringing up the contents of the first cart. The man and the girl watched in fascination, and whispered to each other as he pulled items across the bar-code scanner.

  “So, you folks are new to San Francisco?” the clerk said. “Where are you from?”

  “The sea,” said the man automatically, and then grimaced.

  “Spain,” said the girl, at the same moment the man said: “London.”

  They looked furtively at each other.

  “Originally,” the girl explained. “But . . . actually we’re from Jamaica. Now.”

  “Yes,” said the man.

  “Okay,” the clerk said stolidly, plowing ahead through the groceries. “I sort of guessed you were from England, sweetie.”

  “Well, yes, yes he is,” the girl said, wringing her hands. “He’s . . . um . . .” She looked at the man, who was dressed in a very loud tropical-print shirt, blue jeans, and red canvas boating shoes. A late-twentieth-century concept popped into her head. “He’s a British rock and roll star!”

  “Really?” The clerk looked up, staring at the man.
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br />   “And I’m his groupie,” she added desperately.

  “Okay,” sighed the clerk, and went on checking out their purchases.

  The amount due was astronomical, and there was an extremely tense moment for all parties involved when the man, after seeming to listen to an interior voice, clumsily ran a new-looking ATM card through the little push-button device and keyed in a code. What sighs of relief when it went through without a hitch!

  They had a moment or two to wait, however, as the two box boys, now assisted by the checkout clerk, were still laboring away at bagging their groceries. The man ventured over to the automated teller and studied it bemusedly, before withdrawing a certain amount in cash. The girl picked up a copy of the Weekly World News and flipped through it, raising her eyebrows now and then.

  “You’d like some help out with this, huh?” said Mikhail the box boy, as the man came strolling back, tucking away his wallet.

  “No, thank you, I believe we can manage quite nicely,” he said. “Shall we, my dear?”

  “Okay,” said the girl, putting back the News. She gripped a cart handle with either hand, pushed, and her two carts rolled easily if ponderously out through the nearest self-opening exit. The man followed her. He was saying “Really quite an ingenious device, when one is laden with parcels—” when in an entirely different tone of voice he interrupted himself to exclaim: “Oh, my God, that guy’s selling cappuccino.” And then, in an undertone: “Right out in public, too!”

  Mikhail went to the door and watched their uneven progress through the parking lot and across the street.

  “Americans buy so many groceries,” he said in awe.

  The clerk just shrugged and said, “Takes all kinds to make a world, sugar.”

  Another commemorative holo, on the deck of the Captain Morgan, and in the background the immense dirty vivid pulsing sharp-towered City. The young man, with his wild hair and loud shirt, is holding up two gallon jugs of Captain Morgan Spiced Rum like trophies. The girl, in simple Levis and a Giants T-shirt, is brandishing a box of Rice-a-Roni in one hand and a box of gloriously Technicolor breakfast cereal in the other. They are both, the boy and the girl, grinning like loons.

  LATER THAT AFTERNOON

  “Wow, we’re going to be purging preservatives and toxins out of our systems for weeks,” said Mendoza happily, tossing the last of the canned peaches to Alec, who stacked them neatly away. They had already filled the bar to capacity. “I can make tamales at last. And all that Theobromos! Though I’d really like to go to Ghirardelli’s. We can buy more cloth at the woolen mill.”

  The mill ain’t there in this time period, begging yer pardon, but no matter. There’s plenty of other wholesalers here.

  “Good,” said Edward, taking control and dusting Alec’s hands. “We’ll need at least as much as we got from that poor fellow in 1855. And I believe ready-mades are rather more available in this era?”

  Indeed they are, sir. I diddled the automated tellers; you can withdraw all you need by this afternoon, so you’ll be well provided for. Bit of shopping, eh, Mrs. Checkerfield, dearie, what d’y’say? And a lovely romantic supper for two someplace, aye.

  “Of course, we’ve the raw materials to see to, as well,” said Edward, buttoning the top button of Alec’s shirt. Alec promptly took control back and unbuttoned it again.

  I already done the deals. There’s consignments awaiting us at the warehouses south of Market. Nothing to do tomorrow but go ashore to a place on Lombard Street, pick up the internal combustion wagon I rented for you, and go collect the merchandise. Neat, eh? Three boatloads and we’ll be set up nicely. So just relax this afternoon, me dears. Old Captain Morgan’s got things well in hand.

  They did go ashore and have the romantic afternoon he’d encouraged them to have. They moored the whaleboat at the municipal pier and walked up to Ghirardelli Square, where Alec took Mendoza into some of the finer shops. Three hours later she had a completely new wardrobe, pearls and peach satin, soft things in summer sherbet colors. Edward, moreover, had taken control long enough to select some dignified new clothes for Alec.

  So they were unlikely to draw mortal attention, when, laden with shopping bags, they strolled hand in hand into Ghirardelli’s. Nevertheless, the counter girl seemed in a distinctly agitated condition as she greeted them.

  “I’m sorry, I’ll have to ask you to wait a moment before we can seat you,” she said. “We’ve got a little cleanup going on.” And in fact they could see a couple of busboys, mopping and moving tables around beyond the frosted glass partition.

  “Has there been a disturbance of some kind?” Edward inquired, frowning.

  “We just had to pour two drunks into a taxi.” The girl shook her head. “It takes all kinds, I guess. Would you like to see a menu?”

  After a shared hot fudge sundae Mendoza got a little giggly, so they left Ghirardelli’s and wandered down to the bottom of Hyde Street, where they stood looking out at the bay and the green hills beyond. Alec put his arm around Mendoza. She put her arm around him. After a while he leaned down to kiss her.

  “Hey! You people want some music? Serenade or something?” yelled a black man with a trumpet. “Support the artists, you know?”

  Alec raised his eyes, without lifting his mouth from Mendoza’s, and groped in his pocket. He thrust a bill at the man, who ran forward and caught it, and examined it briefly.

  “Holy cow! I’ll play you twenty serenades, for that kind of money. What you want to hear? You want some jazz? No! I know what you want,” he said, and lifting his trumpet to his lips he began to play La Paloma. He stopped after a few bars to ask: “You like that one? That okay?”

  Alec signed okay and made a come-on gesture, as Mendoza sighed and leaned into the kiss. Unnoticed, green blades of grass began to emerge from the edges of the pavement, waving up toward the sun. The man began again, La Paloma strong and slow and passionate. It echoed across the quiet water, and all along the waterfront.

  You could hear it on the Captain Morgan where she lay at anchor in her obscuring fog bank, and the Captain was in fact listening, monitoring Alec and Mendoza’s progress through the dolphins’ telemetry system. You could almost hear it out at Alcatraz, where a young British conspirator named Alfred Rubery had been interrogated about a plot to invade California, and let slip the name of Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax. You could hear it up at Ghirardelli Square, where Joseph and his friend Lewis had gotten so stoned that very afternoon, never knowing that Alec, and Edward, and Nicholas, were draping a strand of pearls about Mendoza’s throat within shouting distance of them.

  They stayed a few days in 1996, because the business of loading on raw materials took longer than they had anticipated. Mendoza was the only one who knew how to operate a truck, and that only in theory: and even the limitless ability of an immortal being is insufficient for the experience of driving in San Francisco.

  But after a few minor misadventures, they had successfully loaded the Captain Morgan’s cargo holds with the contents of several chemical supply, metal, and fabric warehouses, most of a lumber yard, and $417 worth of assorted seed packets from a garden center. By the evening of the Fourth of July they had wrapped up their affairs and were able to cruise out beyond the Golden Gate Bridge, where they dined on deck while watching the fireworks celebrating American Independence. Then they sailed away, bound for other places, other times.

  ANOTHER MORNING IN

  500,000 BCE

  “So what are you getting Leslie?” Sylvya said, lingering just at the edge of the yellow track.

  “Some bath things and a towel,” David said. “And a card. All in blue. It’s been ordered and it’ll come to your house.”

  “Great!” Sylvya looked excited. “And now the Third Floor isn’t being so selfish, we’ll all have a lovely time.”

  “We will, won’t we?” David looked smug. “Anyway, there’s lots of room on this floor.”

  Actually he had done more than force the Third Floor to agree to change the
location of the shower: they had to admit Sylvya into the planning committee, and she promptly found a less expensive place to get decorations. There had been some bitter grumbles that the more expensive decorations were nicer, but thrift was after all morally correct. Sylvya arrived that morning in triumph with a mysterious package she sent down to the Third Floor for safekeeping.

  “Do you know what the others are getting her?” David asked.

  “Darla’s getting her nappy service and Mirlene got her a pram,” Sylvya said. “Jenna got clothes and Cyntia found a TotMinder that has over six hundred songs in its memory.”

  “Well, that’s Cyntia, isn’t it?” David threw up his hands in exasperation. “Spending more to make the rest of us look bad.”

  “Oh, no, she took up a collection in her subdepartment,” Sylvya said. “So they all shared the expense.”

  “Ah.” David nodded, satisfied. Cooperation within a group was much more morally correct. “What about the party treats?”

  “Sharona’s committee’s doing them,” Sylvya said. “Sandwiches, I expect, and fruit punch. And Aerocrisps.”

  “Well, good,” said David. “Everybody can eat those.”

  Sylvya shuddered, remembering the disaster two years ago when there’d been a potluck luncheon and somebody had brought in lentil cakes, forgetting that one of the girls in Brandi’s department had a legume allergy. She’d had a reaction. There’d been tears and recriminations that had gone on for weeks.

  “So it’s all planned, then,” said David. He glanced over at Leslie’s desk and it occurred to him that she’d been away at the lavatory for a strangely long time. “Er—I wonder if Leslie’s all right in there. Do you think you should go see?”

  “No!” said Leslie, from a completely unexpected direction. David turned in astonishment to see her standing there, smiling, bearing in her arms a big bouquet of flowers, and behind her Mr. Chandra the Departmental Manager stood smiling, too.

  “SURPRISE,” they all said. There was a little tootling fanfare from his console and David turned back to see the words HAPPY BIRTHDAY shimmering on his screen, behind a scatter of bright electronic confetti.