by Greg Dragon
* * *
Dr. Graves surveyed his sleeping wife and guests. “Let’s start off with Porky.” He pointed and the hoverbot moved to the largest of the group and lifted him. “How much does he weigh?”
“Including his clothing and sandals, 346 pounds, well under my 500-pound carrying capacity.”
“Bring him down to the lab for his implant.”
* * *
Bud took off his shirt and kept the shield down while he rode back to the Graves’ ranch. Somehow the rain pelting him seemed to be a cleansing agent.
Who am I? Employee following orders or accomplice? Such reflections brought turmoil because they reminded him of why he had taken this job.
As the thunderheads rolled off to the southeast, the rain stopped drenching him. No longer bound by his vehicle’s Foul Weather Speed Regulator, Bud cranked up the engine to his favorite speed of 120 mph.
The hoverbot met him at the garage. “I’ll recharge the hovercycle while you deliver Porky. Your excessive speeds rapidly drain its batteries. Dr. Graves will not be pleased.”
“Porky?”
“Porky is what Dr. Graves has renamed him. I agree. He is the heaviest object I have ever carried in my existence.”
Bud climbed into the jeep. “Be right back.”
“I’ll be waiting with the next one for you to deliver. Dr. Graves said to stay on schedule.”
“I know.” Bud waved goodbye and enjoyed his freedom from the crowded house, the dirty kitchen, and the foul smelling bathrooms, all because of The Club’s inaugural meeting.
Over the next two and a half hours, Bud transported The Club’s other five members to shuttles bound for airports in Pierre, Aberdeen, and Rapid City. With precision, Dr. Graves had scheduled the meeting, surgeries, and six deliveries of his wife’s sleeping “children.”
Only Patrice Oldefarmer missed her connecting flight.
Her jet from Bismarck, North Dakota to Minneapolis/St. Paul became delayed because of mechanical problems. She remembered her vacation to America’s high prairies to see the wonders of Yellowstone, the Black Hills, and the Badlands. But for some reason, the last eight hours seemed to be missing. She decided to nap while she waited for her plane to be repaired, thinking rest might restore her memory.
As she dozed off, the nightmares that had begun on the shuttle bus returned, scenes of something metallic probing her, violating her, stealing her God-given destiny.
2
“Someone named Bud Lee called.”
Tim Beheard rolled over, away from the voice. “Who?”
“A potential customer for you.”
No such call had come his way in weeks. “Tell him to meet me at Barney’s at eight.”
Tim swung his six-foot frame from the bed and stepped into his slippers. Groggy, he stumbled through the darkness to the soft glow of the night light in the bathroom. The voice from the other room invaded his privacy as he urinated.
“Your credits are at a dangerously low level again. You have two energy credits, five water credits, and no remaining food credits for the month.”
Tim groaned. “Is there enough to still take a shower?” He lifted his right arm and sniffed its pit. “I have to smell nice for Bud whatever his name is, you know.”
“Bud Lee. I contacted his computer to relay your appointment with him. A shower of two minutes will completely deplete your remaining water credits. Because it is five days until the replenishment of all of your credits, you or Moose or both of you may perish without water to consume. The latest reports show water on the black market is selling for two credits per liter. But if you barter your remaining two energy credits for water, we will have no electricity for our apartment and I will be unable to take care of you.”
Tim sighed. “Okay.”
To save water by not having to wash his hands, Tim lifted his foot to hit the button to flush the toilet. As his slipper tapped the button it jiggled loose from his foot and plopped into the toilet’s metal bowl. The toilet’s sensors detected what it identified as a large chunk of very dry feces. A laser embedded in the bowl attacked the object, which triggered another warning.
“The contents of your bowel movement indicate you are not consuming enough roughage.”
The rubber slipper’s toe melted as the low intensity laser beam consumed the part submerged in urine. When Tim grabbed the heel of the slipper, several globules of molten rubber burned his hand, causing him to toss it upward. Its gooey end stuck to the ceiling, which left the slipper dangling above his head.
“Extracting waste material from toilets, sinks, or pipes is forbidden by Health Code 93886; unless you are a licensed plumber wearing the code’s required protective gear.”
Tim cursed. Little respite came from the computer that had awakened him and ruled his 225-square foot apartment.
“Please hold still while I take your morning readings. Your doctor’s computer has already requested them twice.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He sat on the bed.
“My readings indicate higher than normal blood pressure, pulse rate, and respiration rate. But all internal systems appear to be functioning within acceptable limits. However, your weight is 197 pounds; lifestyle and occupation are both extremely sedentary. Thus, you will require 1,936 calories today to maintain current weight. To reduce to your optimum body mass, cut your calorie intake by 297 calories for 124 days and increase physical activity by 104 minutes daily.”
“Place everything into power-saving mode.”
“Now 1.82346 energy credits remain. According to my scan of your brain activity, your serotonin and dopamine levels are out of balance. Shall I order a prescription for you?”
“Let me rest a minute instead.”
His head plopped back onto his pillow as the hum of the refrigerator and overhead light faded until he could only see outlines of his apartment’s few objects: a dresser, small table and single chair where he ate and worked, and unwashed plates, glasses, and silverware.
He returned to the bathroom, dampened a wash cloth and worked the slivers of remaining soap into suds to remove the odor from his armpits and crotch. Returning to the kitchen, he found Moose on its counter, ready for breakfast. The five kernels of dry cat food that fell from the bag into her dish turned her expression from expectation to pleading.
Tim sighed as he opened his two-cubic foot refrigerator and pulled out remnants of last night’s late supper, a breast piece of chicken he had saved for breakfast. While he tore it into shreds and dropped them into his pet’s dish, he talked to the only one he believed understood him.
“Moose, you can have it.” He licked the chicken flavor from his fingers and bit down on the bones. They required six minutes of grinding before he could swallow them by using his saliva.
“Wonder how many calories that was?” He scratched the purring cat’s head, which bobbed above her bowl of chicken.
After dressing in the pants and shirt needing the fewest repairs, Tim grabbed a large plastic bag of recycles and stepped into the hallway. Every twenty feet a sign posted on the walls read 15-U.
He picked up his pace.
Fifteen Underground, fifteenth floor buried in the earth, serving as part of the foundation for a total of twenty-nine floors above it.
Who put the requirement into the building code that for every floor above ground, each structure had to have at least as many floors below ground? The earthquake back in 2035 that levelled most of Los Angeles and the resulting tsunami that sent part of the Pacific Ocean inland as far as Riverside was to blame; at least according to the old timers.
The most dependent became the Mole People, living and working underground. Those who maintained their independence by exempting themselves from the laws they imposed on the Mole People lived aboveground, rulers of a society defined not by race, class, or religion, but by where one lived. Tim wondered how he had slipped from “the thirty percent” of elites into the underground status of “the seventy percent.”
He stopp
ed at a neighbor’s and left carrying her bag of recycles. Those waiting at the elevator groaned when he joined the line.
“Do you have to haul those recycles in the ‘vator? They stink,” said the youngest one, a girl.
Because the elevator car’s computer sensors detected a load thirty-seven pounds under maximum allowable weight, it shot to the First Floor Above Ground nonstop in 3.8 seconds.
Tim merged into the groups exiting the forty-two elevator cars in the lobby. Those who had come down on an elevator turned toward a parking garage or the escalator to carry them to the subway. The Mole People shuffled outside onto the dirty, narrow sidewalks.
Most of them squinted or shielded their eyes from the bright sunlight after spending eight or more hours in dwellings lit by 30-watt light bulbs, the maximum allowed by law. Whenever the curfew was in effect, they either hid at home from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. or wound up jailed.
At the first park Tim passed, scroungers loitered surrounded by their bags, boxes, and carts of recycles, anxious for the downtown reclamation factory to open. One of them bartered for Tim’s two bags by lifting her skirt above her thighs. She was the kind of California girl made famous by the Beach Boys 129 years earlier: blond, tanned, and with curves that promised pleasure. Estranged from his wife to the point of making love to her at most twice a year, Tim paused.
Then he slapped his cheek with his free hand. Better use the head on my shoulders instead of the one in my pants, he thought.
Tim hurried to a second park where a twelve-year-old girl waited for the treasure he carried because it could be converted to credits to feed her family. Only the artificial turf remained in the park. Scroungers had once again dismantled the playground equipment and hauled it off to the reclamation factory. Trees and shrubs held little color, their leaves stripped by those whose food credits had expired.
“Hello, June Bug,” Tim said.
June pouted as she pulled her dirty brown hair away from her green eyes and tried to smooth some of the wrinkles from her tattered blue dress, a hand-me-down two sizes too large for her. “I am not a bug. You are.”
He grinned as he handed the bags to her. “Just teasing.”
“Anything I can get for you?”
“Yeah. Moose needs some food.”
She dropped the bags and clutched her hips. “Are you out of food credits again?”
Tim shrugged. “Yeah, afraid so.”
“Okay, I’ll find her something. At least you still look healthy enough.” She pinched his belly, grabbed the bags, and ran. “I was checking if you need some food, too. But it looks like there’s enough fat left in your tummy to get you by.”
“Fat?” He remembered the computer’s advice on losing weight as he stared down at the belly hiding his shoes.
“Just teasing.”
“Thanks.” He tapped a code into his smart watch as he continued his nineteen-block stroll to Barney’s. It updated him.
“Current temperature in the greater San Los Diego area is 79 degrees. You should slow your pace so as not to strain your hamstring again.”
San Los Diego, SLD, short for San Bernardino, Los Angeles, and San Diego counties, the three most populated of the basin consisting of thousands of square miles.
When survivors had rebuilt after the Mother of All Earthquakes, the designations L.A. and Southern California faded, replaced by SLD. Some said it should be LSD, to place Los Angeles first. But after migrating Angelinos fled to the perceived safety of higher ground and the fewer fault lines in San Bernardino County, it overtook the surrounding counties in population. Reclaiming the deserts to the east had doubled the region’s inhabitants to almost forty-one million.
The population would be even greater if not for the earthquake and tsunami and resulting plague.
Some said the government released microorganisms to reduce the population; others pointed at terrorists. Those in the health industry talked among themselves about the isolation wards with patients infected by strains of super viruses and bacteria being breached by the damage from the 8.3 quake and floodwaters. As the patients died, some of their pathogens survived by finding new hosts to destroy. The quake and tsunami killed 72,005; the plague about a million.
Born two years after those events, Tim thought all of it to be ancient history. Only the cars from that era appealed to him, few of which remained because buying, insuring, maintaining, and registering the gas burners cost twice what the government subsidized electric cars did. He paused to admire a 2039 Ford Model Z rolling by him. He did not see any more fossil fuel or ethanol burners for another three blocks.
Tim was a footer, one of those who walked to most destinations, who ignored the stairways every block leading to the tube trains running for hundreds of miles in every direction under SLD. Intent on landing his first job in a month, Tim focused on his smart watch.
“Give me data on Bud Lee. I have to know how much he can afford to pay me.”
“Mr. Lee is a California native; last employed at a private residence in South Dakota, and now resides at his parents’ home in Pasadena. For more detailed information, you require either a security authorization clearance or payment of 52 credits. My records indicate you have neither of those.”
“Pasadena? What’s the household income up there these days?”
“On average, 384,091 credits per year.”
“All right. That means Bud can pay well. Can you show me his picture?”
“Searching for any image of him recorded in the public domain files. One moment, please.”
Tim focused on the 1 and 1/2-inch screen and read the day’s headlines as he walked on. Another pedestrian bumped into him, but Tim did not notice how the encounter turned him onto a side street until a faint rumble raised his stare from a story about food riots in Atlanta, Dallas, New York, Denver, and Chicago. A half block ahead, a robot sweeper lumbered toward him. Turning around, Tim saw a robot depositor blocked any retreat.
Each machine’s width spanned the edge of the buildings’ fronts to twelve feet past the curb. The robot sweeper’s powerful vacuum pulled objects into its many chambered belly. Sensors sent recyclable material into one chamber. Dead organisms, whether plant, human, or animal, landed in a second chamber, and living organisms in a third.
The dead matter would be transferred to the waiting robot depositor for transport to be either recycled, burned to generate steam to make electricity, or turn into mulch, depending on each day’s demands. City dwellers complained of not having adequate electricity and water, while farmers pointed out their need for fertilizer and water to grow the food the urban ingrates needed to survive.
Tim might survive being sucked into the robot sweeper with only bruises. But sometimes a live rat, dog, cat, reptile, insect, or human ended up in the chamber for the deceased. Because the contents of that chamber were rendered into pet food, allowing oneself to be vacuumed into a sweeper was a game of Russian roulette.
Even if he did get deposited into the chamber reserved for the living, Tim would miss his appointment by the time he was released from the detainment center, the destination for vacuumed up people.
For the first time in thirty-seven years, Tim jaywalked.
He dodged the vehicles in the first two lanes of traffic, suffering drivers’ glares. But the last two lanes were jammed with cars headed to San Bernardino County, home of most of SLD’s factories, schools, and office buildings. Five times as many vehicles traveled that direction in the morning than any other. The two electric cars bearing down on Tim both skidded to a stop after their radar sent his presence back to the cars’ navigation systems.
When Tim mouthed his apologies after his feet landed on the sidewalk, the first passing driver shrugged. Most of the rest greeted him by extending their middle fingers, shaking fists, or yelling obscenities.
A drone the size of a hummingbird dropped in front of him.
“Halt.” The machine hovered six inches from his sweating face. Tim wondered what the human attached to
the voice looked like.
“Me?” Tim conjured up his most innocent expression, learned long ago to deflect his parents’ and teachers’ expectations of him.
“Yeah, you. What’s the big idea of jaywalking?”
“I got in between the robot sweeper and robot depositor across the street.”
The drone turned the direction Tim pointed, where the former was dumping its cargo into the latter. Two rats’ legs clawed the air as they tried to swim to safety. A cat’s puffed out fur and screech did not free it. A drunk’s limbs flopped about as her sleeping body somersaulted into the trio’s metal prison.
The drone turned toward its detainee. “You get stoned last night or this morning? How else could you end up in between a sweeper and a depositor like you claim? You’re a footer, aren’t you?”
“Guilty as charged.”
“Footers comprise ninety-two percent of all living humans who get themselves sucked into robot sweepers. Drunks, the homeless, and other bums account for seven percent. Smart citizens who use the tube trains only account for less than one percent. Why weren’t you riding the tube trains?”
If Tim admitted he had traded his transportation credits for rent credits on the black market, what began as a minor pedestrian violation might escalate into a misdemeanor or felony. He hoped a half-truth would slip by the drone’s truth sensor. “I needed the exercise. My control computer told me I’m overweight.” He grabbed his midsection and wiggled it.
“Okay. Give me your Federal Social Identification Number.”
“B4T-02-X3L9.”
“It says here your name is Tim Douglas Beheard. Confirm that name with your birth date.”
“It’s March 10th, 2037.”
The police officer commanding the drone from his office fifty miles to the east groaned. “You’re not that same dumb reporter who used to bug me to death for stories when I worked out of the Western Precinct are you?”
Tim stopped fidgeting and smiled. “Is that you, Hal? Long time no see.”
