“I’m not the karma police, Torin, just the regular police.”
“Hey, what can a simple apology cost ya?” With another squeeze from Torin to signal the next leg of the race, they ran across another lane, again pausing in the gap between lanes. For a second there it looked like the answer to his question might be “my life.” “And forcing yourself to review the interview in your head for all the wrong turns best avoided might do you more good than it does him. Let’s face it, if you can’t take a step back from yourself, you’re not living, you’re flying through life on autopilot. Nothing much different from you then than those robots that make you flinch.”
She grimaced. “Fine.” But she was panting from the adrenaline rush and the sense of excitement of having survived something as simple as crossing the street against traffic, which might have colored her thinking.
“Is that a ‘Fine, you’re making sense?’ or a ‘Fine, whatever will make you shut up faster and make this whole ordeal go away that much sooner?’”
“It’s a ‘Fine, you have a valid point.’ Though I’m not as hopeful as you are that much will come of this.” They crossed the street in the final dash, but stopped suddenly and rubbernecked at the sounds of a car crash behind them. It turned out to be a BMW trying to mate with a semi-truck. “I’m getting why they chose to locate the physical therapy center down here.”
“Does this mean you have to intervene?” Torin asked, checking his watch.
“Nope. The robo-cops handle traffic incidents. They can access the street cams and the city-grid computers, and the cars’ computers, as well, for the low-down in real time. They can also administer lifesaving emergency services long before an ambulance can arrive. Their entire bodies work like Swiss Army knives.”
“Yeah, I read about that. They’re thinking of doing away with ambulances all together now that the traffic cop robots can also morph into self-enclosed gurneys and speed themselves toward the nearest ER.” The scene on the street was playing out as they were prophesizing it would, nearly as fast as they could articulate their thoughts. Two robo cops had already sped away with the accident victims, the one in motorized gurney mode. That robot was even supplying the neck brace for the BMW driver. The other robo cop had just thrown his driver in back of his squad car in handcuffs to take back to the precinct, having already determined his guilt without so much as asking the driver one word. The driver, for his part, hadn’t put up much of a fight. He’d either gone down this road before, pardon the pun, or he was well aware from the tech news broadcasts how these guys operated and what they could and couldn’t do.
Torin and Kendra peeled themselves away from the picture of perdition and proceeded towards their intended destination.
Inside Make-Over, the physical therapists were hard to tell apart from the patients being worked on, being as many of both were sporting exoskeletons. The therapists needed the extra strength to lend a hand while the patients learned to work their apparatuses without tipping over or putting a hole through a supporting wall. Since Carl had clearly expressed not wanting to have anything to do with becoming part machine, it made it easier to scout for him, as they could afford to ignore most of the people on whatever floor they were searching. They could have narrowed their search further by actually asking for help, but that would have gotten in the way of Kendra’s shock and awe and Torin’s childlike fascination of this brave new world taking shape before his eyes.
In truth, this brave new world was always taking shape, and no shortage of breaking tech news headlines could hope to blunt the effect. So much still depended on what road you turned down or what building you walked into if you wanted to glimpse the real world as it was as opposed to your outdated impression of it as of five minutes ago. They clearly both needed to upgrade their memory banks, if for different reasons. Kendra, so she could close the net around her criminals faster with better reality-checks, and Torin because there might be some toys in here he wanted to go home with. “What was that you were saying about sleepwalking through life?” Kendra said. “Clearly not a bad idea. Assuming I could get my conscious brain to process what my sleepwalking brain was taking in. Otherwise, just going to sleep at night can put me so out of touch with the real world come morning that my sense of reality could qualify as a psychotic break.”
“We’re all marooned from the real world anymore. Only an upgraded mind could process it all. Our little island that we’re trapped on gets smaller and smaller with each day as the ocean of change just swallows it up.”
Kendra marveled at how he could say such a thing and manage to sound upbeat at the same time. She doubted he could read her ambiguous grimace for what it was, keeping her thoughts semi-private for now. Especially with psychic extraordinaire Torin absorbed elsewhere.
“I think I see him.” Torin pointed to the man in a wheelchair taking full advantage of the skateboarding tube, meant for doing acrobatics off of. “For a second I forgot Olympic athletes trained at places like this, as well. They have a nasty accident, just reduces the amount of downtime for them.”
“Yeah, well, the special Olympics category has also expanded to include various categories of upgraded humans. So they hardly have to wait to be injured to get themselves tweaked.”
Carl was more clearly identifiable as they got closer as the giggling madman doing aerial somersaults off the top of the skateboarding tube in his wheelchair. Even his wipeouts didn’t seem to deter from his laughter much, just mixed in some agonized groans and screams with the guffaws. They continued walking up to him until they were towering over him. “Hey, help me up, will ya?” he said to the human pillars.
Torin and Kendra complied. “Hey, thanks,” he said. He was wheeling away without even making eye contact with them when Torin grabbed his chair.
“Perhaps you remember us?” Torin said.
“Yeah, yeah, Mr. Socially Inappropriate and the Bitch. What can I do for you?”
Kendra pursed her lips and lowered her eyes at “the bitch” comment. Torin just gave him a rueful smile while managing to maintain eye contact.
“We came to apologize for being socially inappropriate and bitchy,” Torin said.
“Ah, don’t worry about it. You get a thick skin working the top of a skyscraper, no pun or joke intended. Redskins aren’t exactly known for being sensitive to others’ feelings either.”
“I must say, you’re dealing with this much as I would,” Torin said, his eyes going back to the near vertical climbing walls of the tube, and the other acrobats doing full gainers off the top.
“Hey, I’m compensating, asshole, it’s called OCD, at least that’s what the doctor says it’s called. What’s your excuse?”
“The same, OCD. Fake it till you can make it, huh?” Torin said.
“Yeah, I guess. Leastways, so long as I find some activity that fully occupies my attention I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself,” Carl explained. “You mind? Just talking to you is bringing me down.”
“Sorry,” Torin said barring his way and blocking his escape. “You need this intervention and so do we. You may not give a shit about being a better person, but we do. Who knows, maybe together we can teach each other a superior way to deal.”
“Save it, dude. Not even the doctor is inclined to rush it. Something about the different stages of grieving as I die out of my old self. I’m still in the anger stage. He says expect to be there awhile, but rest assured, next comes bargaining, and only then comes grief. Grief! No wonder I’m putting that step off as long as I can.”
“Suck it up, numbskull,” Kendra said, causing both the men to crack their necks craning toward Ms. Inappropriate. “At least you’re a man, who’s only choosing to be a child about this. When life shafted me, I was a child. I didn’t have adult ways of dealing. And it went on for years. No escape from the psychic torment. Not with the tools I had at my disposal. Here you have, what, an entire staff with all the counter-terrorist psychology to the act of terror you’re doing to yourself, and you’re still bitchin
g.” She shook her head.
Carl smiled despite himself. “Yeah, you’re growing on me, lady. Pretty much use the same tough love approach on my kids. Of course, they’re teenagers, about the only thing that works. But let’s face it, not feeling shitty right now wouldn’t be keeping it real, would it? Then when it does erupt down the road I’ll be a real mess, like you two. Better I go through this healing process over a few months than over an entire lifetime.”
“Nice way to put us in our place,” Torin said.
“Anything I can do to help you not be you, huh?” Carl wheeled away, doing an end run around Torin’s feet pressed against his tires. This time Torin just let him go. Strangely, Carl stopped himself before getting too far and wheeled back, using the battery-powered feature. “I guess since you’re trying to better yourselves, which is all any of us can do, I’ll throw you a bone. Maybe the epic generosity will help me to ease up on myself.” He rubbed the back of his head and struggled getting the rest of the words out. Torin could tell it was because he was sure they wouldn’t believe him.
“Try us,” Torin said. “We’ll believe most anything, providing it’s shocking enough. Me because I can use the adrenaline fix, natural highs and all that. She because she can use the adrenalin fix, natural lows and all that.”
“Fine, being as you gave me permission. I’ve been seeing this old man, wiry fella, pretty damn good shape considering he looks like he might be eighty. Haven’t seen anyone look that old in a while, not with all the anti-aging tech out there. I guess that’s what got me looking and paying attention. Plus he was dressed all weird. Like in clothes out of those vintage black and white movies my dad used to love so much. I mean from like the 1930s. When I said, ‘Hey, I bet you’re not even real. I bet it’s the drugs and I’m just hallucinating you,’ he came over and introduced himself. A Mitch somebody. That’s right, Mitch Gainer. Shook my hand with his wrinkly palm. He asked me if I was a betting man. I told him I’d rather not talk about it being as I just lost my house on an ill-advised bet, and now my prospects for working weren’t looking too good.
“He winced and looked back at the girl whose hair he was stroking while she was asleep earlier. ‘Any relation?’ I said. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘She’s my great, great great, great granddaughter.’ Forgive me, I said, ‘but how is it you’re still alive? You’d be like over a hundred. You’re not on one of those life-extension pills, are ya?’ He smiled. ‘No,’ he said, ‘nothing like that.’ So spill, I say.
“He says, ‘I’m from the past.’ Okay, I’ll play along, I say. And how’s that possible, exactly? ‘Invented a time machine back in 1932,’ he says. ‘I wanted people to know about history as it really happened. Hasn’t really worked out that way, though,’ he says. ‘Oh, yeah?’ I say, still playing along. ‘Why not?’ I ask. ‘The machine only takes me here,’ he says. ‘Best way I can figure it,’ he says, ‘is the energy field around the machine is too weak to penetrate anything but this point in time.’ Why is that? I say, because, what the hell, like I have anything better to do from bed in the middle of the night when I don’t even have any feeling in my groin anymore, you know?
“He says, he thinks it’s on account of at certain points in history the timeline breaks down. Becomes more permeable to intruders from other dimensions and timelines. Called this era we’re living in right now highly impressionable, he did. It’s because history, past and future, just collapses into the present, because well, anything goes. All these technological inventions, what’s more, don’t just open one future, ultimately they open them all. So the here and now is just as much of a jumping off point to most anywhere else in the multiverse, his word, by the way, not mine, being as I have no idea what a multiverse is.
“He says if I can tell him who wins the Kentucky Derby in 1932, he’ll go back and place a bet for me, put it in the bank collecting interest. I say I have no idea. He says, not to worry, he’ll be back to check on his little girl.”
“Well?” Torin said impatiently.
“Well, he never came back, that’s what. Man, I hope he does, I could really use that nest egg now.” He wheeled off and started building up his momentum on the tube again, putting them completely out of his mind.
“See!” Torin said. “You make even a small effort to get over yourself and the universe rewards you.”
“Yeah, sure,” Kendra said.
“What? You don’t believe him?”
“And you do?”
Torin held his mouth open wide for a while, speechless on account of he really didn’t know how far he should push this. “Everything I saw in his head is exactly as he told it.”
“He said it himself. They have him so hopped up on painkillers in here, God knows what he’s imagining.”
“I grant you that, and I also grant you I didn’t see into his head well enough to know if it was just a vivid dream or not.”
She turned her back to him already looking for the door. He grabbed her arm. “What if Davenport and I can set up some way of tracking these time bandits? Maybe most are just small fry and won’t end up impacting our world much. But the ones that do, if the crimes are severe enough, surely you want them caught.”
“Assuming they’re real and not just one of Carl’s hallucinations, why these time bandits more so than anyone else?”
“Because they’re affecting all of us without any of us knowing, just like your father did to you. You’re made for this type of case.”
“Didn’t you just get done saying that more and more of the real world is invisible to us, because we just can’t surf the innovation wave for long without falling off the surfboard? If that’s true, we’re all being manipulated by people, places, and things that lie well beyond our ability to fathom or do anything about.”
“Fine, but…”
“But what?”
“But I can’t think of a convenient rationalization right now, but give me time, I will.”
Kendra smirked and took him by the arm. She was being unfairly dismissive and she knew it. Truth was, Torin was right, there was a flipside to an Age of Abundance. Sure, with virtually all human needs met for free or dirt cheap, human suffering was on the wane. So, therefore, was the need for crime, the need to lash out at subjugating, indifferent, and distant oppressors. But wide scale empowerment meant most anyone had resources at their disposal to topple the world. Anyone could get a mindchip for all the smarts he or she needed to start a pandemic right out of their garage with equipment just as readily and as cheaply available. There may have been less of these guys with the motivation to do this than ever, but it also took less to wreak far more havoc.
That’s why city AIs monitored mind chips to see who was going off the reservation. It’s why the chipheads linked minds, not just for projects requiring team efforts, but because a transparent society meant everyone keeps an eye on everyone; it was an act of civic responsibility. No Big Brother, top one percent keeping tabs on everybody, but everybody keeping tabs on everybody; it was considered much safer that way. No chance to usurp and misuse power if this kind of surveillance was shared by everyone.
For the most part, the system worked. The lone wolves who refused to link up with other minds were even more closely watched. More love and attention and caring was channeled their way to make sure it was just uniqueness they were cultivating, something, in their cases, more easily fed by isolation than social interactivity. It wasn’t believed anyone could really slip through the cracks.
But just in case, there were people like Kendra and Torin, and other kinds of “T-Cells” keeping the immune system of the Age of Abundance robust. Kendra and Torin had the right psychologies for the job. They had both suffered parents who did things to them outside of their awareness, owing to a child’s gullibility. And so the idea that there were people out there on the fringes of society working to undo everyone else, working outside of everyone’s conscious awareness, and taking advantage of their gullibility, was the very thing that drove Kendra and Torin to stay
awake nights.
But now, Torin was narrowing the beam for them further. He was suggesting they specialize in time bandits. People who stole time from others to use to their own ends. Just like Kendra’s childhood was stolen from her to put to her father’s ends. Just like Torin was living out his childhood now because someone had stolen his in some way.
If the Clyde Barker case had taught her anything, it was that the time bandits could not be ignored. The various timelines they affected were interconnected; all the parallel universes in the multiverse influenced one another at a distance.
Was that really why they’d quit the Clyde Barker case prematurely, guided by their unconscious minds? So they could recognize the even bigger problem? Not of a sole entrepreneur taking advantage of a highly impressionable age, but the countless many taking advantage of the Age of Abundance?
Maybe there weren’t a countless many, but inside of a week, they’d discovered two time bandits. Were they originating here, for the most part, and was it just a few who were coming from elsewhere in time?
With human suffering out of the way and basic needs met in an Age of Abundance, people were freed at last to dream big and to apply the energy and resources (which they never had before) to realizing their dreams. Most of these yearnings would be as unique as the individual dreamers themselves. But what if there was an undercurrent taking along huge scores of people?
Maybe man’s very nature made him want to open up all of time and space.
Maybe an Age of Abundance only freed people to free themselves. And maybe the next level of freedom meant conquering time and space at an individual level, not just at a species level. Maybe what Kendra and Torin were looking at were the first popcorn kernels to pop in the microwave. Most would pop much later into an Age of Abundance, decades or hundreds of years hence. When the popcorn was ready to harvest.
Why was she so zealous then to get a leg up on a phenomenon that wouldn’t come to a head for some time? Maybe the answer lay in the nature of time bandits themselves.
Time Bandits Page 19
