April 3: The Middle of Nowhere

by Mackey Chandler

  * * *

  Gunny declared the cafeteria breakfast 'not bad'. April bought him the standard service plan and he got his own card. He could get anything on the menu as often as he wished. Any special orders or catering he had to pay upfront. Air and water fees she'd arrange off her pad.

  April pointed out a number of characters while they ate and told a few stories about them. Nobody mobbed them but five different people stopped and welcomed her back. They walked out down the main business corridor and she pointed out the bank, employment agency, ship's chandler and general store, as well as a new shop opened since she'd left offering bespoke clothing for men and women.

  "Is there a gun shop? I really need to buy something. Is that a problem here?" he added.

  "Nah, you want a laser?" April suggested. "I have to go get one for myself from Jeff and explain why I loaned mine out. I can try to get you a deal if you want."

  "As much as I'd like to try one out, I'd rather go with what I know right now."

  "In that case, Zach sells firearms," she turned back to the Home Chandlery and Provision Company. "I remember seeing them on his special board."

  First thing she did at Zach's however, was buy Gunny spex and sign him up for com service. She figured she'd cover that as he might be on call. Then she let him see to his own pistol.

  There were three pistols laying on the carpeted counter. Gunny wasn't happy with any of them. Two were caseless Sigs and one was a Portio Custom Arms chambered for 10mm Hornady. He'd never carried that caliber before, but it looked like he was going to try it.

  "What kind of ammo you stock in the long 10mm?"

  "Full metal jacket for cheap shooting, frangible copper rounds, special segmented defense rounds, memory metal rounds, armor piercing and special hard core armor piercing."

  "A box of each and three of the cheap plinking stuff. I need a hanging holster and a lefty inside the waistband clip holster. You got a leather holster? I'd rather that than synthetic."

  "I do indeed. And I will throw in a free cleaning kit and a bottle of neatsfoot oil."

  Gunny tried his new card and was relieved it worked. He loaded and holstered the new gun and clipped it inside his pants on the left, cross-draw. The rest was bagged. He reached and touched hands lightly with Zack instead of shaking grounder style.

  "Ah, another little custom thing," April said, embarrassed she hadn't told him.

  "Yeah Mr. Muños taught me that one last night in the cafeteria. I think he's going to be a friend. He impressed me. That feels better," he said, pressing the pistol against his hip with his elbow.

  They walked back home in companionable silence. "What is on the agenda for the day?" he finally asked when they were inside.

  "I need to talk with my Grandpa about Bob's businesses. I suppose Jeff and Heather next and Eddie Persico or the other way around if one is busy," she prioritized. She put a call in to her com and waited. "And I need to get back with my Japanese study group and see if I learned anything visiting the Santos. I'm hoping my instructor thinks my accent is a little less horrible."

  "You're still in school?" The idea seemed to surprise him.

  "I don't ever expect to not be in school. There's too much to learn. I need a ticket for ground landing shuttles too and I bet I'll never get back to Hawaii before my student driver permit expires. I'll have to start all over again," she complained.

  Gunny just horse-snorted through his nose in amusement.

  "Hello little gal," her Grandpa greeted her on the com screen.

  "Gramps, when can we get together and talk?"

  "Right now if want. I'm at home."

  "Yeah, please. Come on around." His apartment was cut out of common cubic, like Bob's room, but it had its own door on the public corridor. It was a seven meter walk. He had the codes so he came right in a minute later. April introduced Gunny who went off to the other side of the room and seemed to get engrossed in his pad. Gramps had a cheap portfolio, well stuffed.

  "I know you're probably wondering if this was something your brother did after your breakup with him. I think you will be happy to know he wrote a will leaving everything to you right after your first business venture together. Remember what that was?" He asked smiling.

  "The meal delivery service? Where we picked up a meal from the cafeteria and delivered it to peoples apartments? I was what? Nine years old?"

  "No, even a little before that. I think you supplied the money again, because he's spent all his and he took care of all the footwork."

  "Oh, the used clothing. He offered to buy clothing from tourists after they wore it. Why clean it or take it back to Earth when he'd give them more than the retail price for dirty and used? That worked out pretty well didn't it? Even though we got maybe two or three tourists a month then."

  "It did," her Gramps agreed. "It's interesting, Bob sold the company off, but retained an interest. He was still getting a small income from it. He did that with almost every venture that succeeded. Individually they aren't much but they add up to a nice little income. Here, there is a folder on each one and notes about any obligations you have." He gave her a short stack of hard copy and a memory chip.

  "Then making me his heir wasn't something he did in guilt. It gives me hope I didn't cause his other – behaviors."

  "We're all responsible for ourselves little gal. You can influence people, but blaming your behavior on others is a lie. Nobody made your brother selfish," he insisted. "If you assign blame for what a person is then who made Eddie generous? See? If a person has good qualities people are happy to allow it is their own volition. In fact I imagine it was just plain inertia that you stayed his heir. It reflected his earlier personality, not lately."

  "I don't understand why that happened. Mom and Dad are not selfish. You certainly aren’t selfish. He wasn't raised that way so where did it come from?"

  Her Gramps shrugged. "People are complicated. I'm not sure it is learned. There are all sorts of things folks do that we just put up with because they are not extreme enough to warrant intervention. Where do you draw the line? Pretty soon you are counseling people for taking the last biscuit."

  April remembered some fellows who rushed to hog all the stuff in the beam dog's cafeteria and saying something to them didn't sound extreme to her at all, but she didn't say it.

  "We gave Bob's clothing and shoes and stuff we were sure you wouldn't want to charity. Fred Folsom who works in station com preaches a Sunday service and keeps a charity locker of household things for folks who need a hand," he explained.

  "We saved this for you though," he said opening the box he'd kept to last and laying the contents out on the couch between them.

  A few memory modules were a mystery she'd have to explore, a food service card he apparently didn't like to carry. A couple certification cards for environmental tech and some IT specialties. A couple hard prints of photos. The one on top was a girl on a beach. That must be her grandparent's neighbor in Australia. Decency dictated she should be notified of his death.

  There was a short stack of business cards with a rubber band. The top one was blank with a hand written blurb, probably a password. It said: SAF)dz$PckXib. Out of curiosity she checked and the other side was blank too. A tiny two bladed pen knife was sharp and apparently unused. It had elaborately embossed and enameled handles with a level of finish that said expensive. There was also a common multi-tool still new in the box.

  Oddly there was a man's tie, something she had never seen Bob wear. It was so different she could see why they saved it out of the clothing for her, besides being a mystery. It was very pretty, with shades of blue and grey in a fine basket weave and subtle dark red edging to the grey parts, rolled to fit in a small clear box that was almost a cube. On the back a little label said, 'Hermes – Paris and underneath that, SILK. She rolled it back up and fit it in the box again.

  "I suspect these things were gifts," her Gramps suggested.

  That left a small decorative box. It had a sliding top in a
dovetail groove, but no notch for your finger like most of that sort had. Fitted so closely it wouldn't slip on its own. The grain was matched to the body so maybe they didn't want to mar that. There was a band of carving around the sides and a very complicated dragon inlaid on each end. She pushed the slide open with her thumbs. The inside was divided with thin wooden partitions.

  There was a substantial rose gold chain. What they call an anchor chain but the links were puffy like they had been made out of dough and allowed to rise. There were some plain gold hoops, an impressive pair of simple diamond studs and the emerald and diamond earrings her grandparents had given Bob. April pulled those out and held them. She couldn't help it, she started quietly sobbing.

  "Those mean something to you," her grandpa said, arm around her shoulders. She couldn't answer, she just nodded yes. She put them back in the box. The chain she put on over her head. Her Gramps held her until she stopped crying. Then they put everything back in the portfolio and closed it up.

  "I'll read the business summaries in the next couple days," April promised.

  "They've been waiting this long, a couple more days isn't going to matter," he assured her. He went in the kitchen and made them tea without asking. He used the big tea pot and carried a cup to Gunny too who nodded his thanks.

  "What are you going to do now?" her Gramps asked gently. He must think her fragile, April realized. He never used that hushed tone of voice. But she had cried.

  "I have to see Heather and Jeff, she still has the Moon thing going on. Eddie deserves to hear what all his money bought. That looks a little better than it did yesterday. At least we know the Patriot party isn't going to be in power next year. What are you doing now?"

  "I'm helping Heather get her expedition ready as I promised you. Jeff and I are still working on some things even though we have the next generation of ship designed. We are saving up ideas for the next level of ship and beyond. I'm getting some treatments from Jelly you were worried I'd skip. He can do everything important for life extension therapy without me going down to Italy. I'll see you soon, dear," her Gramps promised and patted her knee. He got up and made a abbreviated wave of his hand to Gunny who wasn't even looking up and left.

  She took the personal items in her room and returned to the living area. It seemed rude to disappear and leave Gunny alone without a word. It wasn't exactly like having a guest, she thought. But it wasn't like anything else that fit the rules of behavior she'd picked up either. She contacted Jeff and Heather and agreed to see them over supper. Gunny saved her from wondering what to do by announcing he was still not adjusted to Zulu time and he was going to take a nap. That sounded pretty good actually, so she told him she would nap too.

  Chapter 3

  It was too late for lunch and too long until supper when April woke up. She searched in the kitchen and there wasn't much to snack on. Her parents weren't stocking much with just the two of them here. Suddenly April really wanted her own place with whatever she wanted in the frig, not worrying about if somebody would miss that last carton of yogurt if she ate it. Would she ever be able to safely visit the house she bought in Hawaii again? She wasn't even through furnishing it and she'd needed to run for her life. She'd never felt such a strong need to have her own space before. She'd always been content with her room.

  Cubic was so expensive and she was spoiled having her own tiny bath. Was Eddie going to want some money back? That could make buying cubic hard. He seemed happy with her last night in the cafeteria, but he'd hardly shout private business in her ear in that mob.

  Her gramps told her whatever she didn't use was hers to keep when they sent her down, but then she'd rushed back early and still wasn't that sure she'd accomplished as much as everybody seemed to think when she got back. Better not to think ahead on spending what might get clawed back. She decided that, if they wanted it back, to be gracious about it and not complain.

  There was some cheese spread and she checked in the cupboard. A carton of crackers was almost full. She took them in the big room and called up the news with stock quotes in the corner. She added Bob's stocks under hers in the display from the hard copy Gramps gave her. She was only holding a few issues long when she went down to Earth.

  Bob had more equities than her and she had no idea what some of them were. One showed a week long trend down a good 8% and she just sold it rather than start reading a big history and analysis. She'd have to establish she had control of the stocks with the brokerage house, but for now she had his login and password so she could trade them unless somebody had notified them of Bob's death. As she suspected it executed the trade with no problem.

  In the news window she left open the Louisiana State Police conducted a sweep of public land and corporate timber stands eradicating hidden plots of guerrilla gardeners. Unlicensed food gardens were both a way to evade accurate census counts and a source of black market income.

  They vowed to post guards on conventional farming acreage to prevent a repeat of last year when illicit gardeners burned licensed farm fields in retaliation for their losses. The fires spread to timber land and destroyed a number of buildings. Official losses were classified under national security since it was considered terrorist activity.

  California passed a bill requiring bathing costumes to cover the elbows and knees on all public beaches and parks and making the possession and use of still or video cameras on a public beach a misdemeanor.

  Tennessee introduced a bill making it a misdemeanor to sit any object on top of the Holy Bible (King James version) with a thousand dollar fine.

  New York faced a firestorm of public criticism for suggesting an ordinance that would prohibit sending children anywhere unescorted in an automated ground car. Parents protested such a law would leave them unable to work and send their children to school safely.

  Detroit Michigan announced a new initiative to revitalize the city, noting the core population had stabilized at twenty-two thousand now for three years. The pressure to dig up the old underground utility feeds in abandoned areas for the scrap value was running into opposition from those who didn't want lines of clear cut dug up through the state owned wooded zone between New Detroit and the suburbs. The scheme was branded as suburban greed by the city council, claiming the recovered funds would go to the state not the city.

  Little Jocko the Clown died and over a hundred mourners who attended his funeral in New Jersey wearing his face pattern were charged with copyright infringement by his agency.

  The Holistic Open School in London proclaimed reading was an unnecessary skill given universal character recognition and audio reading programs in every pad and com unit and eliminated the requirement from all their base courses of study. It was retained in a select group of courses in the arts program described as 'arcane' skills and as an aid for the few incurable deaf.

  Gold was briefly higher than Platinum in early trading on the New Delhi exchange. Americans could not own the metal unless it was jewelry of 'artistic merit'. April wasn't sure if the piece around her neck qualified. Artistic appreciation seemed to vary from judge to judge.

  The America First Party said they had removed a number of new members on suspicion of being secret Patriot Party members. They cited a loss of ideological purity the new influx would bring and a real danger of proximity to that failed organization either physically or in the taint their programs carried.

  April agreed they should worry. She was going to speak with Heather about watching to make sure the Patriot party did not just reappear under a new name.

  Gunny dragged out of – his room? Bob's room? It wouldn't matter soon if it was merged back into family cubic. He looked stunned and grumpy. April got up and started the coffee maker before he even asked.

  "That bed is way too soft for me to sleep on," Gunny complained. "I woke up feeling like I was being consumed by this giant amoeba," he said with his hands doing an englobement. "I could sleep on the floor easier, I think."

  "Oh, there's a control on the side t
hat lets you set firmness and keep the bed warmer or cooler than the rest of the room. I didn't think to show it to you," she apologized.

  "Everybody knows…" Gunny said smiling. "Won't be the last time that happens."

  "I'm going to meet Heather and Jeff for supper. You want to come meet them and eat with us?" she invited. "They are good people to know on Home."

  "I'd like to, yes. However this brings up an awkward question I should have anticipated. How many hours a day do I owe you? And how can they be staggered out? I don't mind working a shift or a block in the morning and a block in the evening. But I'd rather not work late and then have to get up and start early without sufficient rest. Unless it is an emergency of course. And am I on duty any time I am with you? Or will we socialize too?"

  "Why wouldn't we socialize? We seemed to get along just fine on the boat. I mean, if you found out you don't really care for my company I certainly won't require you to be around me, but didn't you do stuff with the people you worked with on Earth?"

  "No, very rarely. In the military you have a command structure. It's bad for discipline to blur those lines. Officers have a separate mess and don't socialize with someone too far away from their command level. Some units might have a picnic or something occasionally, but it's a special event understood to be outside the usual rules. It's the same as in business. The CEO doesn't have lunch with the janitor normally. And it's always the higher ranked guy who initiates and controls it if they do, not the other way around."

  "I meet with a group Wednesday nights for exercise and we do Tai Chi," April told him. "The head of security is usually there and Jeff, but we have construction crew and radio room guys too. I guess we don't have as big a gap from the best jobs to the worst jobs here. There's some social layering, but it isn't just about who makes the most money."

  Gunny looked a little skeptical. "Yeah, you might belong to a gym, or to a bicycle riding club or something like that and never even know what some of the people do for a living. But the people tend to be from similar social strata. If they are upper class they are going to belong to a country club and play golf or a sportsman's club and shoot skeet, not a bowling league."