The Mammoth Book of Futuristic Romance (Mammoth Books)

by Trisha Telep

  “We’re not dating,” he answered. He sat down cross-legged on the floor and pretended she wasn’t there.

  “Oh, yes we are.” She sat down in front of him and thrust her wrist under his nose. “You know you want it.”

  He looked at her with deep, dark hunger in his eyes. They held each other’s gaze for a long time. He finally shrugged. “You have a name?”

  She was hopeful at the sign of softening. “Francine. You?”

  “Rakesh.” He stroked the skin around her implant. “I’m on my way to New York anyway. You can plug in and download when we get there.”

  Yes, she could. The jacks from this era were the prototype that every generation of data-transfer tech had been built on.

  “And until then?” she asked, because she wasn’t silly enough to think there wouldn’t have to be a down payment on his help.

  He pulled a worn brown leather bag to him, flipped it open and took out a painted wooden box. He took out a shallow bowl, a container of dark liquid and a short stick with what looked like a row of viciously sharp teeth attached to one end.

  “Are those needles?” Frannie asked, trying to hide any sign of dread.

  “Yes.”

  Just what sort of payment did this mailman have in mind?

  Rakesh peeled off his leather coat, then rolled up his left sleeve. Rows of numbers and letters in various colors marched up the skin of his arm. Tattoos.

  She gestured toward the markings. “What’s that all about?”

  “Mnemonic,” he said. “It’s how I remember and retrieve data.” He dipped the tattoo needles into the ink, and poised the device over a bare space on his skin. “You’ve got a head full of information, Elect. Give me some of it.”

  He was certainly correct about the vast amount of info stored on microscopic chips connected to her brain. Some of that information was fictional. Fiction from this time from the vast library her ancestors had saved and hidden away in underground lifeboats along with themselves. There was no harm to the future in sharing a story that was already part of this time. Maybe it even existed somewhere out there in a library that had escaped burning.

  She called up a book from her cache, and started to read it out loud. “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times . . .”

  She kept her eyes averted from the mailman’s gruesome aid to memorization while she continued to talk.

  The first part of the journey turned out to be in the back of a coyote’s truck after all. They boarded the truck in an alley behind the shell of an abandoned cafe. Who had time for a baguette and cup of coffee anyway?

  “He’s a friend,” Rakesh said when she protested about dealing with a human trafficker. Which meant Rakesh got to sit up in the cab with the driver.

  Of course it wasn’t pleasant in the back. She hated being packed in body to body with more people and their raggedy belongings than the back of the trunk could hold. It wasn’t so much that she minded the stench of fear, desperation and outright dirt of the gaunt refugees piled in closely around her. She’d spent time in a walled city besieged by Mongols. She hated the sense of futility and frustration that memory called up. Not to mention guilt. Guilt because that had been the first time she’d broken the rules of observation. Guilt because her nursing and feeding those people hadn’t stopped them all from being massacred when the Mongols had broken through the city walls.

  She’d gone uptime, safe and sound, and that was that. Frannie hadn’t even gotten much satisfaction out of killing a half dozen of the invaders to get safely to her up point. It was when she was offered self-editing software by her controller to keep certain details out of her reports – for a price – that she began to understand that the system wasn’t perfect, it certainly wasn’t pure, and those who didn’t bend rules became broken and washed up. She liked her job too much to leave, but she still lived by the rules ninety-nine per cent of the time.

  She couldn’t do anything to help the people squashed in around her now, and she hated the reminder so much it made her stomach roil and her head hurt like hell.

  She didn’t bother observing her fellow passengers. She kept her head raised toward the tarpaulin roof and didn’t listen to anything that was said. Not that the refugees did much more than try to hide their fear and conceal what little hope they had to cling to. Never admitting to having anything that could be exploited or snatched away was the best way to survive this time and place.

  Frannie could only thank the All-Seeing that the descendants of these people would have an easier life. Not that it would come for free. And not at all if the Starshine fanatics’ attempts at good deeds got in the way of how the future needed to roll.

  At least the trip in the back of the truck didn’t last more than a few hours.

  It was very dark outside when the truck stopped its slow, swaying, bumping gear-grinding progress. A shiver of worry went through the occupants, replaced by indifference when Rakesh lifted the tarpaulin over the back and called, “Francine.”

  She squeezed her way through the crowd to the exit, and got no help from Rakesh jumping to the ground. She landed in a puddle and stumbled. Without night-vision implants she wouldn’t have been able to see the figure of Rakesh already walking briskly off into the darkness. She hurried to catch up with him, and then got her bearings. She checked GPS to find out where they were. The answer came as no surprise.

  “Please tell me we aren’t heading for Sangatte,” she said when they were striding side by side.

  Sangatte had started as a refugee camp a century earlier. It was so much worse than a wretched place for displaced people in this time; it was more like the first circle of hell. Over the decades it had been closed, closed again, burned, and there had been at least one massacre trying to drive everyone out. The place simply wouldn’t go away. It couldn’t go away. It was a final resting place just one step out of the grave for thousands with nowhere else to go.

  “We’re not going in,” he answered. “We’ll stay at the supply station two kilometers out.”

  “You have deliveries,” she guessed. “To and from?”

  “That’s right.”

  She could also guess what he was carrying. “Forged visa chips for countries that still let people in?”

  He gave her a hostile look. “You going to report me, Elect?”

  “Elite,” she reminded. “Hell, no. There’s few enough spots on this planet that are safe. I don’t begrudge anyone getting to them who can.”

  “Good to know your opinion,” he said. “Because I was going to kill you if you went all righteous on me.”

  She was fully aware that he’d started life as a super-soldier. She gave him a smile without a hint of bravado in it. “I would so love to see you try,” she told him.

  As far as she could tell, Rakesh took no part in the buying and selling of false IDs; he was a courier. He delivered a package to a tent on the outskirts of the camp outside Sangatte, then settled down at a table in what could best be described as a den of iniquity and waited with a glass of dark liquid by his hand while word went out that the mailman had arrived.

  Frannie received an annoyed look when she sat down beside him. “My presence will keep the hookers off you,” she told him.

  “Who says I want to keep them away?” He gestured. “Not that the stable roams around freely in here.”

  She glanced under her lashes at a row of skinny girls and boys lined up along a side wall, waiting. They each stood beneath a crudely painted number. Every now and then one of the pimps conducting business at a nearby table would call out a number, and one of the sex-workers would leave with a buyer. Everyone involved seemed more bored with the transaction than anything else, even the customers.

  Of course there was no prostitution in her time. Not that people didn’t pay for sex, they just didn’t have it with each other. It was all very virtual and virtuous and nobody died from STDs. People still made a profit on it, of course.

  What was the matter with her? She shook he
r head, trying to clear out at least a little of the cynical mood that had descended on her since her arrival downtime. She lived in a Utopia. Almost a Utopia. As close as humans could get to a Utopia. The population was stable, everyone had food, clothing, shelter, employment, education, leisure time, medical care. Not everybody was equal, but everybody was fine. The planet wasn’t completely healed from the dark times yet, but it was being made greener every year. All right, there was a stratified social order in place, but from her spot at the top she couldn’t see all the way down to where the dissatisfaction with things as they were bubbled and brewed.

  “There’s no way the world can be perfect,” she murmured. “But it’s sure as hell better than this.”

  “What the hell are you doing out here, then? Slumming outside the CERN hole when the whole world’s a slum?”

  She wished she hadn’t spoken. For a man who didn’t invite conversation Rakesh was fired up for one now. Confrontation, more like. “I’m not from the CERN Enclave.”

  In fact, she was a Hillbilly. Her ancestors resided underground at the Appalachian Enclave. CERN was where her profession originated, as the place had been home to scientists who fiddled around with physics while waiting for the apocalypse to calm down.

  “Why are you here? Why do you need to get to New York?”

  “I was under the impression you didn’t ask questions about your delivery jobs. Why do you roam the world?”

  “Because I can.”

  “See, that’s the kind of bullshit answer I’d expect from a macho war-fighter type. I thought mailmen were trying to save the world, doing what they could to keep civilization going.”

  Apparently she was up for a confrontation too.

  He said, “I do what I can. Don’t lay that macho military shit on me. I walked away from war, but I didn’t leave the world. What do the Elect do to help anyone but themselves?”

  “Elite.We saved the knowledge.”

  “Let it free. That’s what we need.”

  She leaned in close to him to keep the conversation private. Not that anybody in this place would pay attention to anything less than a gun battle breaking out, and then only to duck, or to scavenge the bodies. He smelled of dust, sweat and ink, and she found the combination rather intriguing. Their gazes met and held, and she saw how deeply he cared about everything burning deeply in his eyes. And his gaze burned deep into her soul. She was goddamned stripped naked all the way through, with no interest in trying to hide anything from this man. He knew her insatiable curiosity, her doubts, her regrets and hopes.

  Well, she learned about him, too. But before either of them could pounce on the other’s vulnerabilities a couple of clients showed up with business for the mailman.

  Frannie settled back in her chair. She finished drinking Rakesh’s whisky. Alcohol wouldn’t affect her, but she appreciated the burn of the stuff going down her throat. She watched the way he dealt with people, and was surprised to discover he had a ready smile and a charming manner toward someone who needed him. Interesting fellow, this Rakesh.

  For the shy, arthritic elderly woman who was his last client he wrote a paper letter, and coaxed specific directions on where in London to deliver it. Frannie observed his behavior with all her sensors. She didn’t know if the scholar who had commissioned her research would be interested in the routine of a mailman, but she wanted a record of this. She wanted a memory of Rakesh, she supposed.

  When the old woman was gone he put away the letter then set out his tattoo equipment and rolled up his sleeve. His attitude had returned to grudging neutrality. “Continue,” he said when he was ready.

  She returned to Charles Dickens.

  It didn’t take long for a group of English speakers to gather around to listen to the story. Frannie felt the pressure of their attention on her. She felt hunger deeper than any physical hunger trying to eat her up.

  The pimps and the bartender were the only ones who didn’t look completely enthralled with the storytelling. Why should they when it interfered with the entertainment they provided? She was certain the only thing that kept them from pulling weapons was fear of crossing a mailman, but it was coming soon. Restraint was not a common virtue of this era. An itch between her shoulder blades warned her that this could get bad.

  “I’m done.” She stood. “Let’s go.”

  There was a collective disappointed sigh from the crowd, but they instantly turned away. Rakesh looked up in irritation, but he took her hint when she gestured her head slightly toward the pimps’ table.

  He put away his gear and they went on their way. Their path led along a torn-up railroad track.

  Frannie looked toward the refugee camp when a wisp of smoke drifted around them. A portion of the night sky was flame-lit and the roar of angry, frightened voices came across several miles’ distance. Frannie just shook her head and kept on. Something as common as a riot wasn’t worth observing.

  Frannie had hoped they’d be meeting a boat when they reached the coast at Pas-de-Calais, but of course it wasn’t going to be that easy. Oddly enough she recognized the ruins of the town because they reminded her of similar destruction she’d seen wrought on the French coast during a trip back to June 1944. She’d enjoyed that trip, even if it had been into the middle of a combat zone during a world war. At least it had been a war where right and wrong had had some real meaning. Good guys and bad guys were much harder to define most of the time.

  Never mind nostalgia for the Allies storming the Normandy beaches, she guessed why Rakesh had brought her here and she didn’t like it. “You are not seriously going under the English Channel?”

  “We are,” he answered. “Pirates have been busy in the Channel lately. So many boats have been captured or sunk, the Chunnel is the safest route at the moment.”

  She knew very well that the partially flooded remains of the Channel Tunnel, while a gaping abandoned hole on the French side, were cordoned off and tightly guarded where the tunnel ended in Folkestone on the English side.

  “It’s a two-hundred-and-fifty-foot-deep, thirty-mile-long dead end. A leaking one, at that. How can you possibly— ?”

  “Are you coming?” He turned his back and walked toward a screaming mouth of a hole in the ground.

  Frannie settled her pack more comfortably on her shoulders. “Yeah. Sure,” she grumbled, and followed Rakesh into the Chunnel entrance.

  Frannie gazed into the heart of the tiny campfire, feeling wonder at the place she and Rakesh had ended up to get some rest. They were dry and warm, surrounded by other groups and other small fires. Several of the travelers seemed to be Rakesh’s friends. There had been smiles and nods and a few invites to join groups. Rakesh returned the greetings, but settled down at an empty firepit with her.

  They’d traveled for many miles in the main tunnel. Frannie had been grateful that they both had genetically enhanced night vision. The way was dark and wet, vermin-infested, and crazies and cut-throats lurked in the shadows. They’d had to swim in freezing, filthy salt water a couple of times. They’d fought off a trio of robbers, leaving bodies floating face down in streaming water and their own blood. She’d appreciated Rakesh’s deadly speed and skill, and had considered it a compliment when he’d conceded she was damned good with a knife. Neither of them had commented on how good it had felt to be standing body to body, back to back. But the awareness had continued to sing through her long after they had continued on their way.

  After a long, hard slog they had come to a blank spot in the wall that had seemed like every other blank spot in the wall. “This is the entrance to the Dry Way,” he had told her, and clicked the latch to a hidden door. After another long walk, feeling their way in darkness that was nearly complete even with enhanced vision, faint light had appeared ahead of them. Rakesh had led her into the side tunnel that held this encampment. There were working air vents near the roof, taking out smoke, bringing in salty air. She’d love to see a schematic of just how those worked.

  “I guess there�
�s a lot about this world I don’t know,” she said now, still not quite over the surprise of the secret path and this protected place.

  “Well, if you came out of your hole more often . . .”

  She glanced up across the fire at Rakesh. He was toasting chunks of bread on skewers for them. “Give it a rest,” she advised.

  “Am I just supposed to appreciate that you’re trying to find out about the world? Are you going to take the knowledge and use it against us, Elect?”

  “Elite. And who exactly is us?” she asked. “I’m one of us. Besides, neutrality is one of the things that keeps the enclaves safe from warlords and crusaders. And their mercenaries,” she added, giving him a significant look. She reached out a hand. “Stop throwing stones and give me some food.”

  He accepted her point and passed over some toast. “Ex-mercenary,” he said as their fingers briefly touched. A smile didn’t touch his lips, but she saw it in his eyes.

  Frannie was considering moving closer to Rakesh when one of the other mailmen, a woman, actually, came over and took a seat in the area between them. The woman slapped Rakesh on the shoulder, so hard that he almost dropped his bread into the fire. He gave the newcomer a glare.

  Which she ignored. “You’re on your way to the meet, aren’t you?” the woman asked. “I know you said you weren’t interested when the general’s call went out, but I knew you’d change your mind.”

  And so it was that Frannie found out who she was going to New York to watch die. “General Dehn, the man who led the super-soldier mutiny. I thought he was dead.” Frannie just barely caught herself from saying already dead.

  “He led our fight for freedom,” Rakesh said.

  “Now he’s asking more from us,” the woman said.

  “I already know his speech by heart, Salome,” Rakesh said.