Analog SFF, June 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  I couldn't bear it. Was one old man's weakness going to kill dozens, maybe hundreds of people? But every day for months now I'd proved how feeble I'd become, hardly able to drag myself to the toilet. Two years ago, I could've carried the damn bed. Stupid old man tears kept merging with the sweat on my cheeks....

  I can't explain what happened next, but I swear it happened. Clear as though he was standing right next to me, I heard Lopez repeating one of his little platitudes.

  "The past is a sea anchor, amigo. In a storm terrible, it can hold your ship steady and preserve your life. At other times it is only a drag."

  For the first time, I understood what he was getting at. It wasn't just the bed resisting me, but the accumulated weight of everything I'd learned about my cancer and chemo-induced physical limitations. It didn't matter how weak I'd been last week or yesterday, or even a second ago. What counted was right now, and right now I had to move the bed. No matter what. Which meant I had to believe I could do it.

  After the thing really started rolling, it was easier to keep it moving. Then it banged against the TV with a loud crash, and I was terrified something had broken. But when I grabbed the TV remote and pressed the button, the unit came on instantly, the menu appearing much too bright but UHD-sharp. I flipped to the test channel and boosted the brightness all the way, forcing me to squint to find my x-change lens, which I turned to face the blazing screen.

  I preset the luminance control on my x-change remote to the max, pulled the mic near my mouth, and spoke quietly.

  "Amanda, how you coming with the tape?"

  "It's cut, but I don't know what good it will do me now that Blunt's back. How is Evie?"

  "Still sleeping and still breathing. Listen carefully. When I say ‘now’ I want you to close your eyes as tight as you can and cover ‘em. I'm going to make one hell of a flash. If it bursts the balloon, and it probably will, get that tape off your ankles, then stand up facing exactly the way you are now. Take maybe thirteen or fourteen short steps straight forward keeping your arms just a bit ahead of you, but very low. With me so far?"

  "Yes."

  "Good. When you get near the shelf, you'll feel a rubber pad under your feet. At that point move to your right about three feet, which should put you safely past the laptop. We don't want you touching that laptop! Reach straight ahead slowly and feel around, about your shoulder level, until you find the shelf. Then slowly work your way to the left until you locate your purse. Pull out the paint can and just spray it anywhere on the shelf. That way I can make a light for you. Got it?"

  "Got it."

  "Evie's going to be fine and so are you. I love you. NOW."

  I disengaged my auto-contrast function and barely remembered to shut my own eyes as I punched the display button. Even then, the light in the shed stabbed like a dagger, turning the inside of my right eyelid sun-bright yellow until my filters kicked in. My left eyelid merely turned a blazing scarlet. Stupid of me not to have taken my glasses completely off. I'm sure I made some kind of noise, but it was drowned out by three truly horrific screams. With the x-change projection multiplying the TV's brightness, God knows how many times, I can't imagine how much candlepower hit that room. But somehow it didn't burst my bubble.

  I turned the TV off, dialed the x-change luminance way down but still bright enough to illuminate the room, and repositioned the lens toward my face. Blunt and company were flat on the floor. Jimmy was groaning and thrashing as if his clothes were on fire, but the other two were lying still as death. Then, mercifully, Jimmy went limp and silent.

  Amanda rubbed her eyes and gave her former captors one long cold stare. “What knocked them out, Fred? Sheer pain?"

  "Could be.” Their night-sight gear wasn't anywhere near them, sign of how desperately they'd clawed the devices off. Maybe their “state-of-the-art” gear hadn't had auto-filters after all....

  I spotted one pair of goggles in a corner and I knew. “More than pain, I think. Blunt bragged about how his equipment uses direct nerve stimulation, right? Look just left of the generator. See the goggles and that smoke coming off the battery module? Even with a low-voltage power supply, the overload must've given these boys one hell of a shock."

  My wonderful daughter-in-law shook her head, unwrapped her ankles, and leaped to the shelf, dragging me along. She grabbed her gun and pulled her cell phone from her purse, then hurried back to Evie, laying the weapon down within easy reach. Since she was directly beneath me I couldn't see Amanda's face, but after too long a moment, I heard her sigh. She pulled me down and close.

  "Her heartbeat's strong, Fred. And her color, far as I can tell by your light, doesn't look so bad. But we've got to get her to a hospital.” She flipped her phone open.

  "Wait, Amanda! I want Evie checked out as much as you do, but we've still got a situation."

  "I know it. If all private security and maintenance here is on Blunt's payroll—"

  "There's worse. See that laptop? What you can't see with naked eyes is what's on the screen. While my vision was boosted, it displayed a diagram of the park and an army of red dots."

  She frowned. “Dots representing perps?"

  "They never moved, so I doubt it. Remember what Blunt said about not controlling the crowd with guns? I'm afraid each dot means some kind of explosive. Amanda, I counted more than twenty outside the front gates."

  "That's ... oh. Oh my God..."

  "Exactly. I figure Blunt was using this fairground stunt as a—a stepping stone. He would've had you make that ransom demand and then waited until every cop within a fifty-mile radius was on the way. Then he'd get the gates shut, patch that crappy microphone into the local PA system, and warn all paying customers to keep still or else. Maybe set off a bomb or two to underline his point."

  She glanced at the unconscious men and I wouldn't have cared to be on the receiving end of that look. “I'm not sure you got the order straight, Fred, but I'm buying your list of events. And when the cavalry showed up, Blunt would've blasted them to shreds. And you heard him mention some ... associates downtown? Enough ‘associates’ and they would've had an easy shot at the banks and jewelry stores and—but you don't think the bombs are still a problem?"

  "They might be. I'd assume the laptop is set up as a remote detonator. But I can't believe anyone who planned something this elaborate would put all his eggs in a—a wireless basket. So I'm thinking there's a hardwired backup, and I'm just praying it's in here. Another thing: a man like Blunt would've wanted individual control over each explosive, which rules out radio-triggered detonation from one central transmitter—too many bombs involved."

  "Don't you—"

  "Now I'm just speculating, but see all those little boxes juryrigged to wires on the wall behind you?"

  She turned briefly. “So?"

  "My hunch is that each wire goes to a specific string of lights and can be used to carry specific signals. Also, I read an article last month about these new induction triggers. Maybe some of the lights themselves have built-in—"

  "Fred! Theorize later. What should we do about this?"

  "Sorry. You're right. Hey, could we barricade the door somehow, maybe jam a chair under the knob?"

  She gave the folding chairs a speculative look, then sighed. “Might work, might not. We'd better not take the time to experiment."

  "Then get me close to that laptop, but not close enough to bump it by accident. And do not touch it yourself, not until I say when and how. Particularly avoid the keyboard."

  "We are going to shut it off?"

  "Better to go an extra step and disable it completely. Which I suppose could mean losing some evidence, but at least I already took a picture of everything on the screen. So we'll know exactly where to dig up the bombs."

  "That's good to hear."

  "All right. After I get a good look at that machine and see what kind of peripherals or memory cards are plugged in, we'll turn this place upside-down if we have to—I mean you will—until we find another controll
er or we're positive it's not here. Meanwhile, maybe you could dream up a plan for handling Blunt's people outside? They must be getting antsy by now."

  "No dreaming needed ... Dad.” She'd never called me that before, although I'd often asked her to. “There's only one sensible way to deal with this kind of situation. Isn't it obvious?"

  Not to me it wasn't.

  * * * *

  If it hadn't been such a relief, finding the backup controller would've been almost anticlimactic. An old-fashioned breadboard festooned with a jungle of wires and hundreds of micro-switches was right there on the shelf, lying flat behind the laptop, not even hidden when you were close enough to that wall. Amanda also spotted a small toolbox containing the usual soldering equipment, including wire-cutters. I studied the homebaked circuit, cramming for the most important test of my life before having Amanda shut down the laptop and pull out its battery. Then I issued step-by-step instructions for gelding the breadboard. Amanda's hands were steady and precise as she cut the primary hot leads. But that wasn't the only reason I was even prouder of her by the time we finished. From my own feelings, I could guess how urgently she wanted to get her daughter medical attention, but she'd only glanced at Evie twice while we were working.

  And she didn't give the curtain of strips even a single look, although she was probably as scared as me about one of Blunt's men coming in to check on the sudden lack of communications. But with possible dirty cops infesting the LAPD—or moles or whatever you're supposed to call such vermin—we didn't dare cry for help without first defusing the explosives. No saying what kind of help would've showed up.

  But the instant I told Amanda the bombs had been neutralized, she began making calls to her fellow officers on fairground duty, contacting cops she trusted the most first. Apparently she didn't care to risk any general announcement over official frequencies, so she punched in cellphone numbers, briefly described the situation, and commanded the surprised individual on the other end of the line to reach the power shed ASAP to stand guard. After six such conversations, she called for two ambulances and only then contacted her watch commander.

  * * * *

  August 18, 2028

  Got a heap of news to report so I'll put it in three columns: good news, news I'm not sure how to feel about, and the bad.

  For me, the best part was when Evie woke up in the ambulance, outraged we weren't headed toward the petting zoo. She seems to have forgotten everything that happened in the shed—maybe for the best. The doctors kept her overnight for observation, and Don, my middle son, joined Amanda and me at the USC medical center, keeping Evie company all night in her hospital room. Well, to be honest, Grandpa was napping half the time, but I never took off my x-change glasses. In the morning, the doctors released Eve but cautioned us to keep alert for any odd behaviors, slurred speech, and the like. Of course, I'd already planned to keep a remote, although close, eye on her. The human brain is about as tough as a ripe avocado and the long-term effects of concussion are unpredictable.

  More good news: Amanda's plan for handling the fairground crisis worked perfectly. No one was hurt or taken hostage or even bothered. Her basic idea, based on SOP in similar situations, was to do nothing but observe. And, I imagine, do some fancy tracking by satellite. The police had cordoned off the power shed but hadn't immediately arrested anyone outside the shed. I wasn't around to see it, but apparently after an ambulance had taken Eve, Amanda, and me away, and a more military kind of ambulance had removed Blunt and the two Things, every member of Manny's Maintenance and Confidence Security, one by one, drifted casually through the front gate and drove off. I understand about thirty of the conspirators have already been captured and are awaiting trial. And there's a former police dispatcher in the same jail.

  In column two, Blunt and his buddies are blind. Permanently. I'm sure Lopez would feel great regret if he'd been the one who'd ruined three pairs of eyes, but while I'm trying to be more like Lopez, I'm not there yet. Not saying I'm overjoyed at this result, but I sure as hell would do the same thing again in the same circumstances.

  Also in the gray column: I've been deluged with a storm of publicity, and I hear more and heavier is coming my way. Newswebs, newspapers, and TV news programs are already full of inflated descriptions of our little ordeal. Apparently, I'm something called a “hero,” a word that evidently means a person with no right to any privacy. Supposedly, offers are about to flood in for everything from exclusive interviews to movie rights. I'll probably milk it for all it's worth—my children could use the money. And rumor has it the governor is coming all the way from Sacramento to shake my arthritic hand. I can't wait.

  Then there's the bad news. No, not Lopez. I forgot to put him in the good column. He's good; in fact his doctor's are scratching their balding heads about his condition. The surgery showed that while he hadn't exactly gone into remission, his cancer's rate of growth has slowed to a crawl. Figures. I'm going to ask him to teach me some of that Qigong.

  The bad news is that we're not leaving this hospice alive, Lopez or me. Maybe we'll hang around for longer than anyone expects, as Juan already has, but we're still dying, however slow the process. But then, aren't we all?

  Copyright ©2007 Rajnar Vajra

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  A ZOO IN THE JUNGLE by CARL FREDERICK

  * * * *

  Illustration by Vincent DiFate

  * * * *

  The real purpose of a tool is not always its most obvious application...

  As Yevgeny drove the moon buggy toward the distant wall of the crater, Arthur Davidson, sitting beside him, stared away at the Earth looming large just above the rim. Had he been home in New York, Arthur would be celebrating his twenty-eighth birthday about now. Not that it would be much of a celebration; as a loner, he had few friends, and, a half year earlier, his mother had died. Yet her passing had supplied him the emotional freedom to follow in his father's footsteps—but hopefully, not too closely in them.

  Arthur lowered his gaze to the crater wall, its unrelenting blackness a silhouette against the star-pricked blackness of the sky. Somewhere near that wall some nineteen years ago, on the last lunar mission, his father had disappeared. As soon as he was old enough, Arthur applied to the space program and, probably out of respect for his father, they'd accepted him.

  Now, despite his youth, here he was on the Moon, a part of the joint U.S./Russia expedition. He knew he had his father's reputation to thank for that. Of course, it helped that he was proficient in Russian.

  With its lights off to conserve power, the buggy's large wheels rolled over the lunar landscape. The white-gray interior of the crater reflected a soft bluish tint from the bright Earth above, while basketball-sized rocks cast black shadows with fuzzy borders.

  "You are as quiet as Moon,” said Yevgeny in English.

  They conversed in English both because, as Yevgeny said, “You not need practice Russian. I need practice English,” and also because Commander Drummond said, “It makes me nervous when people speak in languages I don't understand,” which meant any language other than English.

  "You concerned about what we find?” Yevgeny added after a few seconds.

  "No, Zhenya,” said Arthur, using the Russian's nickname. “My father died as he would have wanted—for the sake of science and exploration.” He wondered if he was just idealizing his father. When Arthur was six, his parents had divorced and, despite his protestations, his mother had been awarded sole custody. He loved his mother, of course, but he always felt the loss of his dad.

  Yevgeny nodded toward the disk of the Earth. “I not think Mission Control considers this science mission.” He threw up a hand. “For nineteen years, nobody care about Moon, but now..."

  Arthur blew out a breath in his helmet. He appreciated that it would sound like a gale when transmitted to Yevgeny's transceiver. “I know. As long as we set up a base before the New Arabia mission arrives, they'll be happy. But I really wish we had a more substantial missi
on."

  Yevgeny shrugged. “How many people you need to plant flag?"

  "Claiming the Moon.” Arthur balled a fist. “It's stupid. It'll lead to war.” He let out another breath, this time through his nose. “But as for exploration, space is the only game in town."

  "Only game in town?” said Yevgeny, turning his helmet and giving Arthur a quizzical expression. “Not understand."

  "Sorry.” Arthur explained the idiom, then looked off at the blue-green disk. “Earth is like a jungle these days."

  "Worse,” said Yevgeny.

  "Oh, humanity will grow up."

  "Or go extinct."

  "I have faith in the future,” said Arthur, his words sounding to himself more like a wish than a belief.

  "I have faith in future also"—Yevgeny switched on the buggy's lights—"just not in near future.” As the buggy pressed forward, the crater wall rose to cut off the view of the Earth. Except for where the buggy's lights pointed, they could barely see the shadowed ground.

  "There!” Arthur pointed to where, in the distance, a glint of metal reflected the buggy's lights.

  Yevgeny adjusted his course by a few degrees and, gradually, the far glint resolved into another moon buggy sitting near the crater wall.

  "Amazing,” said Yevgeny, halting his vehicle near the lifeless buggy. “Twenty years old and it look identical to this one, and just as new."

  Arthur jumped out of the vehicle. “I imagine it is identical,” he said, “except that it couldn't be controlled remotely.” He shook his head, all but imperceptibly even without a spacesuit. “If it had been remote-controllable,” he said softly, “maybe my dad could have been saved, or at least we might have found out what happened to him."