by Anthology
“Gee, Mendoza, why would Dr. Zeus worry about something like exclusive patent rights on the most valuable bioremediant substance imaginable?” I said.
She was silent a moment, but I could feel the slow burn building.
“You mean,” she said, “that the Company plans to destroy the original source of the lichen?”
“Did I say that, honey?”
“Just so nobody else will discover it before Dr. Zeus puts it on the market, in the twenty-fourth century?”
“Do you see Mr. Stuckey up there anyplace?” I rose in the saddle to study the sheer incline of Pacific Street.
Mendoza said something amazingly profane in sixteenth-century Galician, but at least she didn’t push me off the horse. When she had run out of breath, she gulped air and said: “Just once in my eternal life I’d like to know I was actually helping to save the world, like we were all promised, instead of making a lot of technocrats up in the future obscenely rich.”
“I’d like it too, honest,” I said.
“Don’t you honest me! You’re a damned Facilitator, aren’t you? You’ve got no more moral sense than a jackal!”
“I resent that!” I edged back from her sharp shoulder blades, and the glow-in-the-dark mutant Lupinus squelched unpleasantly under my behind. “And anyway, what’s so great about being a Preserver? You could have been a Facilitator like me, you know that, kid? You had what it took. Instead, you’ve spent your whole immortal life running around after freaking bushes!”
“A Facilitator like you? Better I should have died in that dungeon in Santiago!”
“I saved your life, and this is the thanks I get?”
“And as for freaking bushes, Mr. Big Shot Facilitator, it might interest you to know that certain rare porphyrins have serious commercial value in the data storage industry—”
“So, who’s making the technocrats rich now, huh?” I demanded. “And have you ever stopped to consider that maybe the damn plants wouldn’t be so rare if Botanist drones like you weren’t digging them up all the time?”
“For your information, that specimen was growing on land that’ll be paved over in ten years,” Mendoza said coldly. “And if you call me a drone again, you’re going to go bouncing all the way down this hill with the print of my boot on your backside.”
The horse kept walking, and San Francisco Bay fell ever farther below us. Finally, stupidly, I said:
“Okay, we’ve covered all the other bases on mutual recrimination. Aren’t you going to accuse me of killing the only man you ever loved?”
She jerked as though I’d shot her, and turned around to regard me with blazing eyes.
“You didn’t kill him,” she said, in a very quiet voice. “You just let him die.”
She turned away, and of course then I wanted to put my arms around her and tell her I was sorry. If I did that, though, I’d probably spend the next few months in a regeneration tank, growing back my arms.
So I just looked up at the neighborhood we had entered without noticing, and that was when I really felt my blood run cold.
“Uh—we’re in Sydney-Town,” I said.
Mendoza looked up. “Oh-oh.”
There weren’t any flags or bunting here. There weren’t any torches. And you would never, ever see a place like this in any Hollywood western. Neither John Wayne nor Gabby Hayes ever went anywhere near the likes of Sydney-Town.
It perched on its ledge at the top of Pacific Street and rotted. On the left side was one long row of leaning shacks; on the right side was another. I could glimpse dim lights through windows and doorways, and heard fiddle music scraping away, a half-dozen folk tunes from the British Isles, played in an eerie discord. The smell of the place was unbelievable, breathing out foul through dark doorways where darker figures leaned. Above the various dives, names were chalked that would have been quaint and reassuring anywhere else: The Noggin of Ale. The Tam O’Shanter. The Jolly Waterman. The Bird in Hand.
Some of the dark figures leaned out and bid us “G’deevnin’,” and without raising their voices too much let us know about the house specialties. At the Boar’s Head, a woman was making love to a pig in the back room; did we want to see? At the Goat and Compass, there was a man who’d eat or drink anything, absolutely anything, mate, for a few cents, and he hadn’t had a bath in ten years. Did we want to give him a go? At the Magpie, a girl was lying in the back on a mattress, so drunk she’d never wake before morning, no matter what anyone did to her. Were we interested? And other dark figures were moving along in the shadows, watching us.
Portsmouth Square satisfied simple appetites like hunger and thirst, greed, the need to get laid or to shoot at total strangers. Sydney-Town, on the other hand, catered to specialized tastes.
It was nothing I hadn’t seen before, but I’d worked in Old Rome at her worst, and Byzantium too. Mendoza, though, shrank back against me as we rode.
She had a white, stunned look I’d seen only a couple of times before. The first was when she was four years old, and the Inquisitors had held her up to the barred window to see what could happen if she didn’t confess she was a Jew. More than fear or horror, it was astonishment that life was like this.
The other time she’d looked like that was when I let her mortal lover die.
I leaned close and spoke close to her ear. “Baby, I’m going to get down and follow the trail on foot. You ride on, okay? I’ll meet you at the hotel.”
I slid down from the saddle fast, smacked the horse hard on its rump, and watched as the luminous mutant whatever-it-was bobbed away through the dark, shining feebly. Then I marched forward, looking as dangerous as I could in the damn friar’s habit, following Isaiah Stuckey’s scent line.
He was sweating heavily, now, easy to track even here. Sooner or later, the mortal was going to have to stop, to set down that sack of gold dust and wipe his face and breathe. He surely wasn’t dumb enough to venture into one of these places. . .
His trail took an abrupt turn, straight across the threshold of the very next dive. I sighed, looking up at the sign. This establishment was The Fierce Grizzly. Behind me, the five guys who were lurking paused, too. I shrugged and went in.
Inside the place was small, dark, and smelled like a zoo. I scanned the room. Bingo! There was Isaiah Stuckey, a gin punch in his hand and a smile on his flushed face, just settling down to a friendly crap game with a couple of serial rapists and an axe murderer. I could reach him in five steps. I had taken two when a hand descended on my shoulder.
“Naow, mate, you ain’t saving no souls in ’ere,” said a big thug. “You clear off, or sit down and watch the exhibition, eh?”
I wondered how hard I’d have to swing to knock him cold, but then a couple of torches flared alight at one end of the room. The stage curtain, nothing more than a dirty blanket swaying and jerking in the torchlight, was flung aside.
I saw a grizzly bear, muzzled and chained. Behind her, a guy I assumed to be her trainer grinned at the audience. The act started.
In twenty thousand years I thought I’d seen everything, but I guess I hadn’t.
My jaw dropped, as did the jaws of most of the other patrons who weren’t regulars there. They couldn’t take their eyes off what was happening on the stage, which made things pretty easy for the pickpockets working the room.
But only for a moment.
Maybe that night the bear decided she’d finally had enough, and summoned some self-esteem. Maybe the chains had reached the last stages of metal fatigue. Anyway, there was a sudden ping, like a bell cracking, and the bear got her front paws free.
About twenty guys, including me, tried to get out through the front door at the same moment. When I picked myself out of the gutter, I looked up to see Isaiah Stuckey running like mad again, farther up Pacific Street.
“Hey! Wait!” I shouted; but no Californian slows down when a grizzly is loose. Cursing, I rose and scrambled after him, yanking up my robe to clear my legs. I could hear him gasping like a steam engine a
s I began to close the gap between us. Suddenly, he went down.
I skidded to a halt beside him and fell to my knees. Stuckey was flat on his face, not moving. I turned him over and he flopped like a side of meat, staring sightless up at the clear cold stars. Massive aortic aneurysm. Dead as a doornail.
“No!” I howled, ripping his shirt open and pounding on his chest, though I knew nothing was going to bring him back. “Don’t you go and die on me, you mortal son of a bitch! Stupid jackass—”
Black shadows had begun to slip from the nearest doorways, eager to begin corpse-robbing; but they halted, taken aback, I guess, by the sight of a priest screaming abuse at the deceased. I glared at them, remembered who I was supposed to be, and made a grudging sign of the Cross over the late Isaiah Stuckey.
There was a clatter of hoofbeats. Mendoza’s horse came galloping back downhill.
“Are you okay?” Mendoza leaned from the saddle. “Oh, hell, is that him?”
“The late Isaiah Stuckey,” I said bitterly. “He had a heart attack.”
“I’m not surprised, with all that running uphill,” said Mendoza. “This place really needs those cable cars, doesn’t it?”
“You said it, kiddo.” I got to my feet. “Let’s get out of here.”
Mendoza frowned, gazing at the dead man. “Wait a minute. That’s Catskill Ike!”
“Cute name,” I said, clambering up into the saddle behind her. “You knew the guy?”
“No, I just monitored him in case he started any fires. He’s been prospecting on Villa Creek for the last six months.”
“Well, so what?”
“So I know where he found your quartz deposit,” said Mendoza. “It wasn’t mined up the Sacramento at all, Joseph.”
“It’s in Big Sur?” I demanded. She just nodded.
At that moment, the grizzly shoved her way out into the street, and it seemed like a good idea to leave fast.
“Don’t take it too badly,” said Mendoza a little while later, when we were riding back toward our hotel. “You got what the Company sent you after, didn’t you? I’ll bet there’ll be Security Techs blasting away at Villa Creek before I get home.”
“I guess so,” I said glumly. She snickered.
“And look at the wonderful quality time we got to spend together! And the Pope will get his fancy crucifix. Or was that part just a scam?”
“No, the Company really is bribing the Pope to do something,” I said, “But you don’t—”
“— Need to know what, of course. That’s okay. I got a great meal out of this trip, at least.”
“Hey, are you hungry? We can still take in some of the restaurants, kid,” I said.
Mendoza thought about that. The night wind came gusting up from the city below us, where somebody at the Poulet d’Or was mincing onions for a sauce piperade, and somebody else was grilling steaks. We heard the pop of a wine cork all the way up where we were on Powell Street . . .
“Sounds like a great idea,” she said. She briefly accessed her chronometer. “As long as you can swear we’ll be out of here by 1906,” she added.
“Trust me,” I said happily. “No problem!”
“Trust you?” she exclaimed, and spat. I could tell she didn’t mean it, though.
We rode on down the hill.
A NIGHT TO FORGET
C.A. Verstraete
The building’s faded brick and dirty windows made Jessica Adams question whether she’d found the right place.
She eyed the ad once more before exiting the car. Matt should’ve come and checked the place like he promised. Would’ve saved her a trip, and a ton of aggravation, she muttered.
Her mood sour, Jess inched closer and tried to peer beyond the layer of dirt in the front window. The inside of the store was dim, its secrets well hidden. She rubbed the dirt from a section of a pane of glass, her effort providing a slightly improved view of the items piled haphazardly on the window ledge. The collection included a faded cruise program, a black-and-white image of a woman in an elegant, ankle-length dress, and a pair of lady’s gloves, the tiny pearl buttons dull with age, the cloth’s once pristine white a memory.
The quaint scene seemed better suited to an antique shop than a place offering the kind of vacation she had in mind. She’d envisioned a private beach in the Caymans or a secluded cabin in the woods, just the two of them. Instead, Matt had begged off, telling her he was too busy for vacations. So, a little peeved, she went alone to investigate the new agency he’d seen advertised in the paper. She had half the mind to book a vacation for herself.
Her bravado faded now that she was here. She read the small, hand-lettered sign tucked into the bottom window pane and scoffed: TIMESHARES—ADVENTURE FOR THE AGES. The place was as likely to book her dream vacation as she was to win a million dollars. It sounded, well, kind of odd and a bit too good to be true.
“Good old Matt,” she groused. “He did it again.”
Disappointed, Jess refolded the newspaper page and shoved it in her bag. She needed a good strong cup of coffee. Maybe someone at the coffee shop could recommend another travel agency so the trip wouldn’t be a total waste.
She was about to leave when a flicker behind the glass caught her eye. Had the owner arrived? Guess she could at least see what the place offered and hope that the pickings weren’t as slim as she expected.
Finding the door open, she stepped inside. “Hello? Anyone here?”
She blinked several times, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dimness. The view was staggering—row upon row of shelves stuffed with old books; faded manuscripts covering the walls and stuffed in baskets. Then there was the art: paintings, the varnish brown and cracked, hung in every available open space.
What a mess.
Still, the more she looked around, the more her curiosity grew. Each painting had a note tucked into the frame with the title, name, date: The Battle of the Bulge, Napoleon, Cleopatra.
Annoyance gave way to fascination as she wandered around. Was the owner branching out? Probably a good idea from the look of the place, she thought, as her finger rubbed a layer of dust off a painting.
Her questions about the missing travel agent faded at sight of the next painting. She studied the majestic ocean liner streaking through the mist: Maiden Voyage, The Titanic, the paper said. Not that she needed a note. She’d know the image anywhere.
The tragedy of the Titanic had captured her imagination since she was a child, thanks to her mother. Besides classic children’s stories like Jack and the Beanstalk or Mother Goose, her mother’s favorite, often-told tale had been about how her great-aunt had boarded the Titanic as a child. She had perished with many of the other immigrants traveling in the bare-bones quarters in the ship’s bowels.
Jess had repeatedly studied the faded photo of a young, unsmiling Polish girl dressed in a matronly long dress, babushka on her head, and clunky, old lady shoes on her feet. The patched, battered carpetbag she held accented the girl’s poverty.
She’d always suspected that the story of how the poor girl made it to England and onto the Titanic was just that—a fable. Family legend said the girl’s uncle won the third-class ticket playing dice (her mother said others insisted he stole it) and gave it to her in hopes of giving her a better life. So the story went.
Jess had begun her search for answers when her sixth grade teacher made everyone research and write an essay on a historical topic. To her surprise, she not only discovered that her mother’s story was true, but a helpful librarian led her to a list of Titanic passengers—which included her great-aunt.
Despite her continued research, she never learned more about the girl. Not that it mattered. That someone she “knew”—at least through stories—had been involved in such a tragedy made the event more personal. Ever since, she’d felt a strong emotional bond to the vessel.
An unexpected voice broke Jess’s musing, making her jump. “What’re you doing sneaking up on people!” she cried. Her outburst trailed off as she eyed
the stooped little man behind her. He barely reached five feet and stood wringing his hands, his face sheepish.
“I’m sorry, miss, I didn’t mean to frighten you.” He gave her a timid smile and pointed at the painting. “That’s always been my favorite,” he said, his voice soft.
She returned his smile and turned back to the painting. “Mine, too. Someone in my family died on the Titanic.”
“You don’t say?” The man stroked the silvery mustache that draped the outer edges of his lips like antique lace. “I’m assumin’ you’ve seen the documentaries on the raisin’ of the ship. Been to the exhibit?”
“Yes, I watched it on TV, but I haven’t been to the exhibit yet.”
“No? Well, it’s somethin’ you should see, especially with your connection. Hmm, I’ve just the thing if you’re interested, something no Titanic fan would want to miss, I’m sure.”
His smile and oily tone made Jess pause, but the bad feeling passed just as quickly as it appeared. She pondered the idea. Maybe she could take a trip and see the exhibit at the same time, something Matt would hate. That made it even more attractive.
“Well . . . maybe it’s a possibility. I’d like to go someplace different, and if I can see the exhibit, that’d be great.”
He clapped his hands in delight. “Excellent, excellent! Any particular place you would like to visit?” He leaned toward her, his face anxious. The tip of his tongue licked his lips.
The image of a snake unfolded in her mind. Jess recoiled slightly, surprised at the thought. She’d better finish and take a break. Maybe she wouldn’t be so jumpy once she ate. Blood sugar must be low.
“I’ve thought of going overseas or renting a cottage on Martha’s Vineyard. I’ve never been there.”
He scurried around the table, grabbed a giant black book from the shelf, and blew off the dust. She sneezed and tried to see the book’s title but failed as he flipped it open. He began to scan the pages of small writing.
“Hmm, no, there’s nothing Titanic-related going on out east right now. Wait, yes, here we are. A new exhibition is opening at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry.”
