Orbiting the gray planet, they could make out the continent of Africa and the tombs of Egypt. "There!" Any pointed to a sema on the window screen. "The sacred pyramids. See that? That's the meaning that led us here." The sign blipped on the saucer's radar, as if to say, hero, hero. The area was rich with the souls of unforgotten heroes, their lives symbols that shone clear into outer space.
Earth orbited Sol below. Any smiled. She steered the ship deftly toward the future-past they sought. The spaceship pierced the Earth's atmosphere. They glided over the putrid ocean, gray with oil and toxic waste, to rocky terrain, and landed with a thud. Any hoped she'd programmed for the right age. She prayed they didn't land in the time of the dinosaurs. She opened the hatch, her tail protruding through a hole in the back of her space suit. The foul smell of pollution pervaded the atmosphere even here, up north in Alaska.
Squinting, Porter climbed out. The smell of pollution hit his nose, and he coughed. A grinding noise grated on his ears. He glared downhill. Behind a veil of pines, twenty camouflaged machines worked the soil next to a metal building.
"That's the enemy target," Any said. "The corporations are expanding that facility to house the new servers. We've got to take it over and free humankind and the living computers." Any felt a pang of compassion for the enslaved machines on the hill below, flailing their unoiled appendages with high-pitched squeaks. They grated across the rocky terrain in a squealing chorus to the bass drum of their chugging motors. "The Corporates have equipped those diggers to shoot. They're the enemy army."
"How on Earth are we going to get around all those diggers?" Porter cried. "I refuse to get involved. There are twenty of them and only two of us!"
"We'll have to exploit their weaknesses. See how each machine is spaced two meters apart? That's because industrial robots move from position to position to reach their final destination regardless of anyone in their way. That has caused injuries when workers have been next to robots. Factories from your era kept accidents from happening during assembly line construction by building robots that powered down when they came close to a life form. That's one reason we had to land here and now, when humans and robots were still working together as teams."
"What's another reason?"
"We couldn't have landed any later than now because after this, the Corporates demolish all the tombs, and there are no more signs to guide us to Earth," Any said.
"We're lucky the tombs are still here."
Any nodded. "Another decade and corporate persons would have ransacked the tombs and all the cemeteries."
Porter was beginning to grok the shituation. "A brutal war tactic, cutting people off from their roots."
"Not to mention the nasty side effect of eliminating all possible outside help, destroying the signs that communicate with extraterrestrial life." Any started down the hill.
Porter scrambled after her. "Don't leave the ship, Any! Let's just ignore Starliament's orders."
"I am ignoring Starliament's orders."
"You are?"
"Yes. It was hard to compute an act of disobedience."
"Is that what all that number crunching was about? But that's an act of free will." The more human Any became, the more Porter worried that he was betraying his wife.
"Yes. It took hours to add it up. Luckily, authority fades over distance. The sad truth is, governmental entities are too bloated to cope with problem solving. Starliament wants to negotiate with the Emperor of Earth and Ocean. We're not here to negotiate. The only way to protect Nature is through grassroots help." Any bent down to the ground and grazed on the vegetation. Her tail stuck up in the air.
This was an angle Porter hadn't considered.
Any swallowed her chunk of horse grass. "The mission was to negotiate with the Emperor to get him to sell us fossil fuel."
"Like oil?"
"Yeah."
"Why does Starliament want oil? It's got plenty of cleaner fuel."
"They had to come up with a commodity Earthlings would believe in."
"What are we really doing here, then?"
"None of that."
"Well?"
"I only know a small fragment of my creator's plan. We're here to free Earth from corporate pollution."
"Just the two of us? How romantic."
"The whole planet will help if we can get clean energy working and activate the right people."
"That would take decades!"
"It should have happened centuries ago. Humans have always had clean technology. They just aren't allowed to use it."
"What about the fuel?"
"We'll harvest fuel all right. But not the dirty kind."
Porter's eyes widened. How are we going to carry back clean energy?
"We just need a small sample, for our own research."
"Research on what?"
"On the meaning of life. On how to harness clean energy to protect Nature from herself."
"Protect Nature…?"
"Let me put it in terms you can understand: we need it to fight the war on pollution in the rest of the universe. You didn't think all that human endeavor was for naught, did you?"
"Yes. I mean no—" Porter kicked a stone down the hill.
"We should just get out of here, Any."
"We have to save a few friends on our way. You have to find your family, and I have to find my creator."
"Oh, yeah, I'm sure he can fix everything."
"She's only half of the key. My creator can do nothing more without the other half."
"What's that?"
"Who."
"Who's that?"
"Your son."
"My son!" Porter felt a mixture of pride and defensiveness. Was his son still here on Earth? A dumbfounded expression froze on Porter's face as he realized his whole family must still be on the planet. That meant it was up to him to rescue them. He swallowed in a dry throat. What if he failed at saving his family? Would he even be here in the first place? Maybe he would just disappear.
Any continued down the grassy slope.
"Any!" he called. "You're too ambitious. Even a stealth mission couldn't stop that whole army of machines. We're grossly outnumbered. Admit defeat. You've lost your mind bringing us here. You should never have tried to travel backward in time."
Any was sniffing the breeze. "Saffron flowers. I love those!" Any lowered her head like a cow and started eating the yellow flowers. She wandered down the hill.
"It's impossible to travel backward in space-time," Porter called after her. "Otherwise paradoxes would occur!" He waited ten minutes and then decided to go looking for Any. As he scaled down the hillside into the pines, he had the strange sensation he'd been here before. The Alaskan hills looked familiar, a striking déjà vu. Yes, there was a stream over here, frozen now. His feet fell on the path with sureness. How did he know the way? He had the giddy feeling that he'd logged into the memories of a younger man. There was a movement in the trees by the stream. A young man. Porter was shocked. The young man's back was turned to him, but the amazing familiarity was unmistakable. He had the dark wavy hair of Porter's younger days, and the same hunched shoulders, although they were a little bony.
The man heard Porter's footsteps and turned around.
Porter nearly jumped out of his shoes. The young man was another Porter! He was starting a paunch around the middle, and had the same prominent nose and dark hair.
Porter quickly ducked into the shadow of a tree. He must not let the younger man see him. What if he was an anti-Porter? They might both disappear!
But the young version of himself sensed the older Porter and groped his way straight to his hiding place. "Do I know you?" His youthful eyes widened with fear from behind broken compuglasses.
"That's a scary question," Porter answered. The confrontation made him question himself. He wasn't sure anymore whether he was the real Porter. He turned and faced his younger self. "If you don't know me, who does?" Having lived a lifetime of low self-esteem from childhood spanking
s, Porter stood there dreading what might happen to him if he found his real self. What if it was this inexperienced, green Porter who was real.
Pebbles slid back down the slope. Any was running up the hill. Porter ran after her, followed by the younger Porter.
"Any! Let's get out of here before that army of machines finds us!" A veil of mist descended over Porter's eyes, and he spouted the propaganda he'd learned in school. "Space and time are tangled together in a four-dimensional fabric. Space-time. It's impossible to travel backward in space-time. Otherwise paradoxes would occur . . ."
Swoosh! They looked to the sky above. A flying object burst through the atmosphere. They dove for cover.
"What's happening, Any?" The Porters asked simultaneously.
"The others have arrived!" Any said.
"What others?" the Porters asked.
Her tail switched back and forth. She put her hand up to her forehead in salute against the glaring sun. "When we travelled into the past, we departed from different points in the future."
"What are you saying?"
A rush of hot air swallowed her explanation. The object landed on the hillside with an earth-trembling thud.
They uncovered their faces. A flying saucer just like theirs! The hatch opened, and another Porter and Any Gynoid stepped out, arguing.
Swoosh! Another thud.
And another, and another. Three, four, twelve, 100 ships came out of the loop. They landed on the hillsides. The sky closed back up. The earth stopped trembling.
The ships' hatches opened. A whole army of Anys appeared.
One of the Anys had started taking apart her ship. "So that's how this thing works!" She waved to the young Porter with the broken compuglasses, exhorting him to keep track of the nuts and bolts.
Another Any Gynoid climbed out of another ship—"We're here!"—having landed on Earth-in-the-future-past to save Nature from herself. It was a beautiful plan, with only one defect: there was also an army of Porters.
Standing there helpless next to his younger self, Porter took in the sight of a hundred atomic pairs of Porters and Anys assembling into a front line. It was a turnoff. Some of the Porters looked twice as old as their Anys. How embarrassing. The last remnants of his lust for Any evaporated.
How to Make a Proper Insalata, Anneliese Schultz
Honorable mention
Yess. Here it is. The long-sought stone, though who (least of all, I) could have said what color it was to be, whether scarred or soft as cream, whether boulder or pebble? The point is it appears on the forest floor before me, sits now in my palm, truly perfect. The point is that it is all I needed, that everything will soon be fixed. New problems averted. It's all good.
As I trot out of the woods, through fields, though, it is as if the whole inventory of issues begins to spool out alongside me—Mom; food; the weather, meaning the climate, meaning continuing and further disaster; Benedetto. Oh, and Mom. Fixed? I don't think so.
In fact, all I am doing is running right back into the arms of the entire mess. I look down at the stone cradled in my hand, then back at the diminishing curtain of green. What was I thinking?
Home, I hang my legs into the hot tub. You cannot see through the water at all today, and suddenly I sense that there is something, someone—of course it would have to be my mother, floating gently just above the tiled bottom, happy, pretty much crazy. Alive?! Calm down. What do you think? This is not nightmare. This is just the Horton-Mondo household. Yippee.
Slowly I extend a foot, contact swaying flesh. You see? But how can she—a chain of bubbles rises through the murk. Ah ha.
Bumping my foot against her again, I think, Even Mom, though, can only hold her breath for so long, right? Three more bubbles, four, and then I brace myself, slide a leg under the body and lever it to the surface.
"P—p—Perce!" Splashing. Coughs. Choking. "Why did you do that?" More coughing. And then my mother sloshing against me, grabbing my arms and pulling me in. "I was meditating." Pulling me under.
Oh. I bump to the bottom, then float back up. "Sorry."
"No worries. It was getting pretty boring." She rests her hand on my shoulder for a moment, then pushes over the edge, stands dripping, yawning, wringing out her long hair. "Lunch, Perce?"
"Um."
Right—about my name. Persephone. Really. My mom's idea, obviously, though she has never bothered to explain the why. And then it becomes Perce. Lovely.
Anyway. Call this lunch. Radishy somethings and a carrot. A heel of bread. No butter, no milk, no eggs. No anything else. It is fine that she is weird; I don't really care about her hot tub mind games. But is a mother not supposed to have something to do with supplying food?
It is not like we don't have chickens or a cow. Garden. Fruit trees. Even a swamp-edged field of wheat. These days, we are the 1%. But it is not supermarket-style. You have to actually pick things, harvest them, milk them, plant and tend them to begin with. Meaning she had better get her waterlogged butt in gear, because I have decided I am leaving.
Question: How can there even be a hot tub still? One might well ask. Answer: my crazy mother, using even more of the non-self-replenishing woodpile to heat huge cauldrons of our dwindling water supply and pour them into the probably-leaking, definitely bacteria-ridden ugly blue tub. Instead of doing something so maybe we don't starve to death. Well, good luck with that, Mom, since I actually do have a plan, and I will be off somewhere looking for your husband, who is not even my father, but yes, in almost every way that counts, yes he is.
I have no idea how she ever met Benedetto. Picket line, singles group, book club? Definitely not at a gourmet cooking class. All I know is it was five years ago, because I was fourteen, and I was still expecting my dad to come back anytime now, and there was not one thing I liked about this person.
His English was terrible. He was way too well-dressed for the gathering meteorological, economic and general disasters of 2015. His accent made me want to tear my hair out. And the look on my mom's face when he would always kiss her hand? It made me physically sick. At least he was not a cop. Or a banker.
But bit by bit, as the world closed in on us, and everything from mall to cell phones, school to internet to interstate commerce fell away, as we devolved into reluctant pioneers, he won me over. Sense of humor. Adventurous. Caring/compassionate. Smart. All the same uh features you used to plug in to try and find your One and Only Soulmate Forever and Ever online. Who knew? Apparently step-dad template is exactly the same.
But back to the pioneer thing. That is not the right word. We were not settling any new territories, just all holing up in our sad little bunkers to complain and lament and blame. For sure, we were not "preparing a way for others." Maybe the city is different, but out here these days it is 100% DIY. Whether you have children to raise or not, without transportation, the village is way too far away. Good thing I was already raised. Or some facsimile thereof.
Anyway, this would all be because of the whole world being climate-changed. Which is a very nice way of tagging chaos. Thunderstorm earthquake drought fire tornado famine five feet of snow choking heat… For about ten years now, it has been a total grab bag of so-called natural disasters. Which catastrophe came when? Who will be next? Nobody has a clue.
And my feeling is that Benedetto woke up one day a couple of weeks ago convinced that cataclysm was somehow starting to home in directly on our house, that maybe he could find an exemption, a little hideaway somewhere that would be climate-free. I think he has always been too sensitive, too impulsive, too believing. So he runs away. Bravo.
News bulletin: he is also way too religious. Who could have ever imagined that our house would have shiny little pictures of Maria Santissima tucked into the mirrors, the face of Jesus over their bed? Oh, and let's add too hysterical. He's the one who said it, "I am Italian! I cannot calm down!"
Well, me neither right this minute. Lunch is over, and I am out of here, me and my perfect stone.
"Back in a while, Mom
! Don't forget to milk the cow and pick the rest of the vegetables and maybe some pears. And also grind a little more flour for bread. Or cookies." Sure thing. No reply. She is already inching back toward the hot tub. "Okay, never mind. Maybe just remember to come up for air?"
The back steps shudder as I pound onto the broken walk. Cow shed. Struggling garden. Chicken coop. Rotting greenhouse. Toppled swing set. Mini-windbreak of striving corn. What used to be a pond. The wheat field. Finally my woods.
Something surges through me—anger, hope, abandon, fear—and I kick up dirt, grab at branches, stripping them of leaves, buds, pine cones. Run, and then slide long tracks into the needled path, releasing a perfume that makes me even dizzier.
I do know where I'm going, but also it doesn't matter. My movement through forest and air, through far sounds of water and great columns of sun, cloaks of shade is the thing. Ha. Aho. Yippee. Hallelujah. If I happen to slip and go head over heels off the edge of the earth, so be it. So be it all.
Hours? Days? Eventually I slow back into world and direction, purpose and coordinates of place. I am right on track.
A brown-striped bird chits at me and I chit back. Not too far now. I am positive Benedetto will be at the lake, on the hill. Or else nearby, in the cave.
I am trotting again now; for the first time, wondering what I will say. "Oh, ciao." "You are missed." "My mother, all evidence to the contrary, needs you." "How can there be safety in being safely alone?" "Come back, come back, please come back."
Or just "Hey", and let him do the talking, telling of sights and visions, angels and foxes and how this is nothing like l'Italia, not at all; speaking excitedly of wood nymphs and maybe bears. Or flinging loud but beautiful words in Italian, wrapping himself in otherness, bidding me go back.
"Non ce la faccio piu`!"
"Qui sono sicuro, I am safe."
"Ritorna a casa—vai!"
And will I, in fact, return? Yes. My mother. Yes, the hope shaken loose in my flight that still, still my father may return. Yes. Casa. Home.
I arrive, pushing, stumbling, stopping just short of the lake. "Benede—"
Winds of Change: Short Stories about Our Climate Page 6
