by Rachel Ford
“I hate to say this,” Nancy remarked, “but this doesn’t bode well for whatever tech we’re hoping to find.”
It was a sadly accurate prophecy. Time, moisture and vegetation had ravaged the computers beyond the entryway. Power was sporadic throughout the facility, too – which struck Alfred as peculiar, since the entire complex was supposed to be operated on a maintenance free, self-sustaining solar-powered grid.
Still, some rooms had electricity, and some did not. The lobby did not. Its great foyer was dim, lit only by the sunlight that filtered through the curtain of vegetation beyond its windows. Alfred blinked into the darkness, waiting for his eyes to adjust.
The consoles at the reception desk were dark and rested under a film of musty dirt. “These are useless,” Nancy said as she examined them. “There’s no way I could boot them, even if they did have power.”
“Did you check to see if they were plugged in?” he asked.
“No, I didn’t think of that.”
He was about to remark that she should take this obvious step when he caught the threads of sarcasm in her tone. “Just checking.”
They moved deeper into the building, into a maze of conference rooms and dining halls. They found a long lounge, the walls of which were paneled in dark wood and hung with massive television screens. Some of these still remained, but others had rusted from their brackets and lay smashed on the floor below. One screen teetered at an angle, hanging from only a single fastener. The furniture here was – or rather, had been, before the mold had set in – fine and spacious. Between the growing things and the black sheath of decay, Alfred could still see patches of high-grade leather.
Tucked away neatly out sight among all these executive board rooms and meeting spaces were the kitchens and janitorial areas that, at one time, must have kept them in fine form.
And all of them showed the evidence, even so many years later, of a hasty retreat. Rags of forgotten jackets hung on hooks in offices, time-ravaged hand bags remained tucked away under workstations; an open book lay on a coffee table, spine-up, where it had been set. He wondered at that. What had Futureprise been up to that required such a sudden abandonment of the facility?
At the far end of the visitor center, facing the ruins of a grand garden, was a pool. Alfred wrinkled his nose as they pried the dirt-encrusted door open on its rusty hinges, and a wall of odor hit him.
“Ew,” Nancy groaned. “What is that?”
That, it turned out, was the pool. The roof here had partially collapsed – rotted out, he supposed, by the moisture trapped in the room. For in their abandonment of the facility, the staff had not drained the pool.
It sat there now, still partially filled, its waters turned green and putrid. Despite the portions of open roof, the air was still and muggier than elsewhere. “I don’t think we’re going to find anything here,” he decided.
“Except malaria,” Nancy agreed.
They retraced their steps until they came to a staircase, which they ascended. The upper stories seemed more promising. The boardrooms were fewer, the executive offices more common.
He was optimistic that the machines they found here would prove more useful.
But Nancy quickly laid his hopes to rest on that score. “Nope. No way. These things are toast. You can’t leave a computer in this kind of moisture for half a decade and expect it to work.”
The same was true of the papers Alfred found – the rotten remnants of paper, anyway.
The visitor center, then, was a bust. A quick survey of the remaining two wings showed that they were in no better condition and were less likely to be useful anyway. The right wing was lodgings – ranging from swanky executive suites to barebones staff rooms. The other was a touristy kind of area – for the families, the wives and husbands and kids, of Futureprise’s leaders and visitors. There were museums and theaters, and even a gift shop.
Had time been less pressing, Alfred would have lingered at the museum. Whatever his feelings about tax cheats, he had to acknowledge that Futureprise’s boasts weren’t all empty air. This place, this oasis in the Mojave, was evidence of that. He’d have liked to learn more of their story.
But that would wait.
They moved onto the other facilities in the square. The first was a lab, and the second a kind of all-in-one fitness center, hair salon, shopping center and health clinic. The lab was the better preserved of the two, due to the airtight seals on some of the doors.
There were walkways throughout, and digital placards – half of which, now, were dark.
“This wasn’t even a real facility,” Nancy sighed. “It’s just a replica. Look at this: ‘Using patented Futureprise technology, our innovative surgical laser enables incisions as thin as five micrometers across. That’s smaller than the average red blood cell.’ They’re just demoing their products.”
He studied the sign and tool beyond, fixed by a metal arm to a surgical bed. She was right. This was no more a lab than the museum across the road. It was another impressive display to showcase Futureprise’s accomplishments.
He sighed too. “Well, we can still try to get onto their computers. Hopefully they’ve been better preserved here than across the square.”
Like what you’re reading?
T-Rexes & Tax Law is available for purchase on Amazon.com.
Also, look for T-Rexes & Tax Law on audiobook on Audible!
Coming soon: the second novel in the Time Travelling Taxman series, UFOS & Unpaid Taxes, will be available March 15th.
And don’t forget to check out these other titles by Rachel Ford:
Prison Break (available for free to newsletter subscribers)
Tribari Freedom Chronicles
Catalyst (available on Amazon)
Uprising (available for pre-order)
