by G M Steenrod
“It seems you are real, too. I thought perhaps you were a vision.”
Cassie sighed. In the back of her head, she had been tracking the minutes. If Alfie was going to wake her with an alarm, he would have done it some time ago. Even in the distorted time of dreaming, too much time had passed in sleep for the alarm to not have been activated. She had to accept that it was now much more likely that this event was occurring than merely unfolding in her head.
“Do you mind if I sit, Gramps?”
“No, please do. It's quite hot today, isn't it?”
Cassie sat on the bench near him. She felt oddly at home with him. She pressed her back against the wrought iron trim to confirm the sensation of it. It was hard and slightly painful.
Mike looked at his young granddaughter. The two shared a wry smile.
“I imagine you live an interesting life. This type of thing probably doesn't happen to folks living an everyday life.”
“No, Gramps, I don't think it does. Until today, it didn't happen to me either.” They both laughed. There was a pause. The two stared out across the verdant park.
“It's so green, isn't it, Cass?” he asked.
She nodded.
Cassie hated the additional shortening of her name. Normally. From her grandfather. Her grandfather that had magically emerged from a screen. It was...acceptable. She even liked it. It was a day for impossible things.
“Where were you, Gramps?”
“I don't have a clear memory of it. I'm not even certain that the idea of memory fits where I've been or what I've experienced. I remember being with Mary before being here...your grandmother?”
Mike wasn't uncertain about his relationship to Mary, but the family relationships had been uncertain to him until he spoke it. He was quickly putting together an accurate picture of the circumstance that he was in. Cassie could almost see the thoughts and the mind of her Gramps process his situation. He was growing very solid, very quickly.
“Have I been here before? Have you met me, like this?” he asked.
“No,” she answered. As she did so, she suspected that she was only partly speaking the truth. It was true that this one moment had not occurred before.
“Cass, when I last knew you, you were...4. I remember your 4th birthday party. It feels like that was a long time ago.”
Cassie nodded. She had seen the party when reviewing her mother's log,
“You feel more familiar than that to me. I have little memories of seeing you here and there. I know who you are, as a full grown woman, but I should only know you as a child.”
Cassie could see Gramp's point. The day was odd enough that she had simply overlooked Mike's knowledge of her, but if she examined it rationally, there would be no reason for her magical grandfather to know anything about her.
“Where are we, Cass? This place seems familiar. Of course, I likely knew it in a state of disrepair.”
Mike continued assembling a picture of the world. He knew the world during the Troubles and as it was starting to transition out of it. Parks, like many public works, had fallen into a state of disrepair due to budget issues and rampant vandalism. He could remember basic labor robots, resisted as a force that would antiquate the human labor force, had just been introduced to fill the gaps in what seemed like a dying world economy.
Small maintenance bots strode about the park. More sophisticated than the ones he had known. Simple in function--picking up bits of trash, cleaning fixtures and furniture, painting small scratches on the facilities—but elegant in design.
Maybe Gramps had been to this park. It was not large or remarkable in any way that would compel a person to visit it from a distance. It was a collection point for the residents in the area.
“Gramps, we're in upstate New York, about 30 minutes away from your house in the Catskills.”
Mike raised an eyebrow at her. “It doesn't seem like New York.” The heat was wrong for the Catskills. The vegetation was off too.
Cassie felt a intense fondness for this man that she had only just met, as an adult, and as a result she felt she needed to soften the blow. Maybe, at some basic level, she felt that he might respond as she likely would if their circumstances were exchanged. While she had seen her resilience increase substantially across the last few months, she knew she wouldn't be able to tolerate the situation her grandfather was in. She was still suppressing an impulse to grab Samuel and run.
“I'm 24,” she said, a simple, roundabout means of pointing out the passage of time.
“Twenty years? Twenty years.” The climate disruptions had continued. By now, the glaciers would be gone and the thermal sinks they provided for the planet would have disappeared. This was New York now—a subtropical environment. It was as he had anticipated decades ago.
It was a surprise to hear it, but not a shock. The information seemed familiar, like the script of a remembered movie that he had wandered into.
“Are you alright, Gramps?” she asked cautiously.
“Strangely, I am. I am not sure what happened. I've been entertaining the possibility of time travel, but I don't remember leaving. Everything is hazy. All my memories. It's getting better but mostly I just have a feeling of difference.”
He looked at his granddaughter—taking a measure of her person. She had a depth to her that supported the idea that she was real.
“Gramps?” she asked.
Mike unbuttoned his suit jacket and rummaged his pockets. He had been cold earlier, he realized, but was now growing hot in the sweltering afternoon heat. He reached into his jetted pocket and pulled out a pair of textured coins, something of a hybrid of the silver dollars and casino chips of his generation.
“You know what I am feeling, Little One. I'm feeling hungry,” he said grinning.
“I am, too!” she responded.
Samuel's ears perked in the direction of Mike. He had had some casual courtiers visit as he sat—just enough to satisfy him on this hot day. A snack would hit the spot.
“So,” Mike asked, “Is this money?” He held the coins up to Cassie. Cassie brought her wristband into contact with the coins. A number flashed onto her screen. She inhaled in surprise. Cassie had only seen credit coins a few times before, and these two were sufficient to buy a nice property.
“Yes, they are. That's a lot, Gramps.”
“Great! Let's get some hot dogs. Do you have hot dogs in the future? Maybe space dogs?” he kidded, raising one eyebrow comically high. She giggled, startling herself with the response.
“Sure, Gramps, but we call them Mars Tubes.”
“Mars Tubes? Well, 3 Mars Tubes then. 2 with the works and 1 plain for his Lordship.” Mike rose with great and sudden agility from the bench.
“I'm buying,” he said, tossing a coin in the air. Samuel sprang from his bench and went over to sniff his new benefactor. Mike gave him a pleasant scratch on the head.
“You should let me pay, though,” Cassie said, “ I'm sure the vendor won't be able to make change for your coins, and they don't function as a debit.”
Mike nodded.
Cassie stood and thumbed her wristband.
“Cassie?”
“Yup?”
“Where are we going? I don't see a stand anywhere. Is the vendor a robot?” he asked, his eyes widening at the thought.
“That, Gramps,” she answered as she intertwined her arm with his, “is partly true. The vendor is in an autocar that patrols the park. But the vendor is human.” Human vendors always had a higher per transaction value. Automated vending certainly existed, but humans preferred dealing with humans. As basic labor robots became ubiquitous, it became a matter of status to interact with other humans in service.
“I signaled the car, but we can walk to meet it if you'd like.”
“I'd like that. I'm still not sure if any of this is real, but it's very pleasant,” said Mike.
“I was just thinking that! What if we are both just figments of Samuel's mind?” Cassie speculated.
&nbs
p; “As long it leads to a full belly, who cares?”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Coming Down
Kumar laid prostrate on his bed, naked, face up. He watched the ceiling screen. It had an Earth scene of a lightly clouded sky. The atmosphere controls were set to simulate a light breeze on summer day.
He had taken the day off from work. It took awhile to come down from the effect of the premium supps. While they left the body on a precise timetable, the psychological after effect of being on them lingered.
His penis ached and it was covered with a fine, white layer of dead skin cells. It was too tempting under the influence of supps to experience the almost euphoric sex, characteristic of a well-built scene. While yesterday's scene didn't require sexual activity, sexual dominance and trade emerged to be used as a group unifying force almost immediately.
Combined with the non-stop physical combat in the scene, his physical body was fatigued.
It had been fun..thrilling..no one had been hurt. It was edge though.
There was a brief after party following the affair. It was an I-am-okay-and-no-one-was-killed-event. The immersion under the premiums was great enough where simulated, high trauma events, could be easily mis-remembered as having been real. Seeing the other participants unharmed after the event was an important part of shaking the misinterpretations. It was also a time to swap tales of the glories.
A few were sullen as they ended up on the receiving, losing, end of the scenario unexpectedly. That was, however, one of the possibilities of such a scenario. Across his time in different scenes, he had played all the roles—the victor and the defeated; the dominant and the submissive; the beguiler and the beguiled. There were other types of scenarios, but Kumar didn't run in events that didn't have a victory.
He loved having the after glow of victory. Time seemed to swim about him slowly, as he lay there, in an almost palpable series of eddies and streams.
Kumar had had a streak of victories lately. Of course, it was a matter of chance to have victories cluster together in the way that they had. It was the overall trend that was important. That trend was positive. Small, individual failures were inevitable. He cautioned himself mentally about such ephemeral streaks whenever they occurred. It could too easily lead to overconfidence. Overconfidence was a trapdoor to rapid failure.
He flexed his body slightly, cat-like. It was almost time to move. Time to eat. Time to try to stomach some food.
The action on Earth was unfolding swiftly. Leera was doing unexpectedly well. Kumar found himself having to manage a far hotter career than expected. It would take more time than planned for.
In almost perfect serendipity, Cassie was declining new projects. She was working on new scene features. While he might normally be concerned about the slowing of the revenue from her work, it was occurring at the moment when Leera needed the extra attention. Cassie had also been driving some of her extra energy into their sex scenes. The new scenes tapped into his kinks in deep ways—hitting unexpected primalities. It provided him with an additional bonus that was well worth the credits lost.
Besides, she was a creative—a two planet genius at that. Like any creative, she needed her outlets and variations. Managing her had to be done as one would conduct a jazz orchestra. It was all about pushing at the right time and in the right way. Otherwise, she flew into a hysterical delusion. Kumar was in many ways responsible for her current stability—a point that he took pride in. When she had been unrepresented, she was continually on the verge of institutionalization. With him, her production was stable. She had become more stable too.
He was the center. They were bright, shining stars. Leera. Cassie. The many others not quite as bright as those two. Their lights would shine without him. To be clear, he had to acknowledge that. As bright? Not likely. Obscured by the churn of competition? Likely. Lost in a cycle of addiction, self-hatred, and despair? Many, yes.
***
There is a limit to the number of hot dogs one should eat in polite company. In the face of the organic, gourmet hot dogs, presented NY style, by an Italian vendor from the back of an automated food truck, Mike, Cassie, and Samuel established that they were solidly in the domain of family by their gluttony.
Mike, curious as to why an Italian national would be serving hot dogs in upstate New York, had asked him his name and how he came to be there.
“It is Mario,” he had responded. His English was perfect, but heavily accented. “You are not from here, sir? Many Italians have moved here. This state has welcomed us with open arms.”
“No, I'm not from here,” Mike had responded. “I must admit with all the troubles, I'm not familiar with the status of Italy.”
“Well, after the great inundation during the time of the Troubles--the land became too hot. I did not care for the Alps, so I came here with my family.”
“That is horrible, Mario,” Mike had said. The sympathy in his voice was real, and Mario had felt an instant resonance with him.
“Hopefully, they will at least dome Rome, so we can return.”
It was another bit of information for him. He processed it as he lounged about in the living room with the other two, bellies overstuffed.
“Gramps, I don't usually eat that much,” Cassie said. She was part sitting and part lying on a sofa with her hands clasped about her belly. The sofa was new. Her common area furniture rotated every three months, based on a curated theme. It was red, and filled with a dense, form fitting foam. Samuel rested with his eyes three quarters closed beside her.
Mike sat in a red lounge chair with one leg draped over the arm-- a curved, clear structure reminiscent of the shapes of the 1960s.
“I hear you, Cass. I ate way too much.”
“Delicious, right, Gramps?” she asked.
“Delicious,” he agreed and pointed at her, acknowledging her insightful judgment.
Cass sat up. There were pressing questions that needed to be answered. She didn't want to interrupt the moment, but the opportunity of the current situation was starting to occur to her.
She looked at her grandfather intently.
“Do you know what happened to Mom? To Ada?”
“I have a memory of her being gone.”
“She disappeared years after you. I think 12 or 13 years. How could you remember that?”
“I don't know. It's not a memory of an event. It's more a certainty.”
“Do you know where she is?”
“Cass,” Mike said and smiled at her. It was a smile in recognizing the trait of inquisition that ran among the female members of the family. He had been subject to this brand of questioning from the prior two generations. It produced a nostalgic feeling in him.
“Do you think there is a special place that all disappeared people hang out together?” he asked.
“No, but today it seems like anything is possible. I mean what is likely about you being here? I'm afraid to even mention it to anyone else, it's so outlandish.” Cassie stretched the last word out...”ooouutlandish,” making the sound of the word fit its meaning.
“Fair enough. It is ooouutlandish,” he said. Cassie's questions would give him a chance to work out what he knew. He continued, “There was no place that I remember. I recall sensations. I have a sense that time has passed. Not much though. It does seem like I time traveled, but I'm not really surprised by what I am hearing and seeing. I think if it were a radical shift in time, I would be more shocked. Things of this time seem familiar to me.” He looked about the room. A small cleaning bot patrolled the floor quickly, periodically brushing up an errant dog hair.
“Ada feels distant to me. As if she passed away sometime ago.” The statement caused a small pang of pain to cross Cassie's face.
“I feel,” he continued, “ as if I have grieved her loss. Grieved for my daughter and accepted it.” At his age, at the time of the Troubles, Mike had grieved the loss of many friends. It was an efficient and familiar process.
“I feel Mary...but I've always fel
t her. Since our first day.” Cassie remembered that her mother had told her many stories of the love between her grandparents. It was convoluted, twisted and enviable. Cassie smiled, recognizing the love that she had heard of in the stories.
“What's the last thing you remember before you got here?” she asked.
“Hmmm. I've been trying to piece it together. It was hot, so I guess it was the summer. The solstice seems familiar to me. I question whether my brain picked that up from today's events.”
“I think...it's time for some wine,” said Cassie, “And, I think it's time to talk to Mom.”
Mike raised an eyebrow. “I will take some of that wine. Tell me about your mother.”
