by Greg Dragon
Obeying an android flight attendant reminded him of his apartment’s nagging computer. Tim flipped the tray into place and pulled three belts over his shoulder, torso, and waist. Blessed with a gentle touch, the co-pilot connected rubber to tarmac and the plane barely shuddered as it landed.
When they deplaned, Bud wanted them to catch a train to Switzerland, but Tim objected. “I’m almost three times older than you are. Your family has wealth; mine doesn’t. This might be the only time I get to see Rome. I checked and it’s cheaper for us to fly home to SLD from Rome than from Switzerland. You head up there to talk to Patrice by yourself. That way, I’ll have enough for two or three stories.”
* * *
Tim noticed most of the traffic headed in one direction as his bus from the airport pulled to a stop near Rome’s center. “Excuse me, driver. Where is everyone going?”
“To the New Coliseum for the big match today.”
By the time Tim walked into the stadium modeled after the remnants of the Coliseum built during the days of the Caesars, it had reached its capacity of 180,000 fans. The event pitted Team Italy against Team Scotland. He sat in the top row of the top tier. After Tim donned his binocuglasses, the players on the field grew from ant sized proportions.
He patted the present Karen had snuck into his luggage. By looking through them, some of the larger players on the field appeared fiercer than the bull elephant that had charged at them in Kenya, especially the bearded Scots who wore kilts.
At first, the match seemed routine. But after a scoreless first half, the crowd flooded the concessions until they sold out of beer, wine, and other forms of alcohol. The winner would advance to the world quarter finals, national honor was at stake.
Started internationally in 2029, The World Buzzball Federation drew players from soccer, football, and rugby, because the game incorporated elements from each sport. The competitors wore fiberglass helmets to protect skulls and brains, but no other protective pads. Some players wore soft fabric lace up shoes; others ran the 150-meter long field barefoot.
The ball combined features from those used in soccer, rugby, and football. The oval shaped result could be passed, carried, bumped, kicked, or thrown at the goal, a netted area measuring two meters wide by one meter high by four meters deep.
A team’s possession of the ball lasted for six downs. If no one scored during a series of downs, possession of the ball traded teams. Any part of a player’s body could touch the ball or opposing player above the waist. After the center snapped the ball, the offense ran it forward until a defensive player touched the ball with both hands. The next play would begin from that point of contact.
Because the ten referees called fouls when a player grabbed, hit, kicked, or otherwise touched an opponent below the waist, the upper halves of players’ bodies suffered most of the injuries. Penalties were not assessed for taunting those in the stands, so players on the sidelines often spent more time facing the fans than the field.
Rules dictated that scoreless first halves resulted in four more players per team being placed on the field, so thirty players faced off as the last thirty minutes of regulation play began.
Team Scotland’s first possession pushed to within six meters of the goal after five downs. On the sixth down, a halfback drop kicked the ball toward the net. The goalie leapt sideways, but his outstretched hands missed the ball, which caught him full force in his face. Because helmets only covered the crown, back, and sides of players’ heads, the ball shattered the goalie’s nose and loosened three teeth. A medical android diagnosed his injuries and declared the goalie unfit to play.
This caused the hometown fans to erupt in jeers, boos, curses, and obscene gestures. The 40,000 fan contingent from Scotland reacted by dancing and singing their national anthem.
Their song was soon drowned out by the 110,000 Italians who retaliated with their country’s national anthem. Most of the remaining 30,000 fans remained neutral.
The Italians failed to score during their next possession. On the sixth down of the succeeding possession, the Scots scored because Italy’s substitute goalie lacked the injured goalie’s speed and agility.
On and on the Scots rolled until they led 2-0. At first Tim did not discern the changing mood of the crowd as it descended from festive to sullen to angry to vengeful. When an official disallowed an Italian goal because he said a teammate of the scorer had stepped on the foot of a Scottish defender, the angriest and drunkest Italian fans stormed the field.
The ten referees and fifty-player, eight-coach, and three-assistant Scottish team ran for the tunnels and their locker room.
But a Scot lineswoman was tackled during her long dash to safety. The coach who returned for her was beaten senseless. The player whom he tried to rescue was stripped of her clothes and groped and leered at by those who passed her from hand to hand above their heads.
Enraged by the assault on one of their heroines, thousands of Scottish fans leapt over the steel rail separating them from the field. Those who landed in the ten-foot wide moat that surrounded the field swam to its other side. They wore crazed expressions when they emerged from the water.
Soon, most of those on the field started slapping, punching, and kicking opposing fans above and below the belt.
After security guards armed with water cannons and stun guns failed to disperse the rioters, a fleet of mini drones took off from Rome police headquarters. The sound of the incoming drones sent most of those destroying the playing field back into the stands.
The foolhardy stayed to battle the drones with pieces of broken seats used as clubs.
* * *
To take Patrice Oldefarmer’s DNA sample almost a year earlier as the final hurdle for her admittance to The Club, Bud had traveled to Frankfurt, Germany and visited her at a stylish flat. But when he had tried to contact her by email from India, an automated reply told him “she is on holiday in Switzerland.” He then called the phone number given at the end of the email. Patrice’s mother had answered.
She seemed happy because Bud had met her daughter on holiday in South Dakota, America and invited him to visit them at a cabin in the mountains near Bern.
After disembarking the train in a city with buildings 600 or more years old, Bud continued on by solar-powered bus to a rustic village. He hiked the last four kilometers past patches of an early snowfall. The trail wound so deep into mountainous forest he wondered if he had slipped through a portal back in time who knew how many years, a hundred, thousand, or more?
He encountered no human during the last half of his trek.
The cabin sat at the base of a steep, snow covered mountain whose peak appeared to touch the blue sky above it. Out of breath as he knocked on the cabin’s thick pine door, Bud prayed that Patrice would remember The Club.
Patrice’s mother was as gracious as Bud recalled her daughter being.
And as straightforward.
“Patrice is taking a nap.”
Mrs. Oldefarmer seated their guest at a roughhewn table laden with cold cuts of pork and beef, dark breads, and slices of cheese that melted in Bud’s mouth. He washed his meal down with the purest water he had ever tasted.
She waited until he finished eating the main course before placing a small telerecorder on the table and dessert in front of Bud.
“Interview with Bud Lee, who says he spent time with Patrice during her trip to America in June of this year. What exactly went on during her visit there, Mr. Lee?”
Bud gagged on his first morsel of Black Forest cake. He motioned for her to turn off the telerecorder before he spoke.
“Why do you need to record our conversation?”
“I cannot let any detail of what you say escape my memory. Patrice’s doctor said he needs all information you can provide.”
“Doctor? What’s wrong with Patrice?”
She led Bud to an upstairs loft and sat down on the bed where her daughter slept. Patrice’s angelic features and long blonde hair reminded Bud of a princ
ess from the fairy tales he had read as a child.
Her mother caressed her until Patrice’s eyes opened. With pillows propped between her back and bed’s headboard, she sat staring out through the large window at the valley. Drinking two cups of coffee sweetened with large chunks of dark chocolate seemed to rouse her only a little.
Patrice said nothing when her mother told her, “Bud Lee has come from America for a visit, darling.” Her daughter continued to stare at the scene carved by glaciers.
“I really enjoyed meeting you at Dr. and Elani Graves’ house in June at the Cheyenne River Standing Rock Reservation. Now I understand where you learned to make such delicious desserts like the one you served me when I first met you in Frankfurt. Your mother’s cake is wunderbar. Ich liebe dich, Schatz.”
Mrs. Oldefarmer covered Patrice with a large quilt and gestured for Bud to follow her down the stairs. “Just how well do you know my daughter, Mr. Lee? Why did you say, ‘I love you, dear treasure’ in German to Patrice?”
“Forgive me. But because she didn’t remember anything I said to her, I got desperate. I hoped saying something in her native language would make her smile or get mad or something. She was the most outgoing person I met while I worked in South Dakota. Now she’s like a zombie.”
She poured pungent coffee into two mugs and sat next to Bud at the small kitchen table. “Patrice arrived home from her trip to America in a highly agitated condition. Within days she slipped into what the psychiatrist calls a catatonic state. The doctor has tried twenty-eight combinations of medicines and all available therapies. Nothing has helped.” Her voice cracked and head trembled. “Please help us. I want my daughter back.”
Bud remembered a game of checkers with his younger sister, who had maneuvered Bud’s last red checker piece into a corner of the board for a stalemate. Having hoped to capture some information to at last convince Tim about The Club, Bud instead once again felt trapped. He agreed to detail what he knew, if the telerecorder remained off.
Mrs. Oldefarmer did not interrupt his story. When it ended, she touched Bud’s hand. “Will you please scan Patrice for the implant you mentioned? Perhaps it is what is harming her.”
* * *
Tim and Bud flew fourth class on the final leg of their expedition around the world. Their nonstop flight held 931 passengers and forty-two crew members, three-fourths of them androids. At a cruising altitude of 82,000 feet, the jet would take a little over four hours to complete the nonstop flight from Rome to SLD.
Tim relaxed somewhat because flights this size required two human pilots to join the computer in the cockpit. Exhausted after weeks of time zone changes, strange food, and living out of a single carry on piece of luggage, Tim gave what he hoped might be his final analysis of Bud’s growing conspiracy theory.
“Look, kid, every conspiracy I ever heard of or read about turned out to be flaky. So far, you have a whole lot of nothing. Two of your alleged Club members are too whacked out to tell us anything helpful. You’re going to end up like them, if you keep on going like you have been. And the other four who we visited all claim they don’t know any of the other ones. And not one of them had that implant you claim Dr. Graves put into all of them.”
“But four of them did say they were at the Cheyenne River Standing Rock Casino at the same time.” Bud pointed his index finger at Tim.
“Yeah. And LBJ, the CIA, FBI, Secret Service, KGB, mafia, George HW Bush, Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby, and who knows who else were all in Dallas on the day when JFK was shot and killed. Oh, and Richard Nixon was in town the day before. Guilty by association by being in the same location isn’t enough. You know the real reason Kennedy was killed?”
“No.”
“Because he invaded Cuba. That made Castro paranoid enough to have one of his agents meet with Lee Harvey Oswald. Next, JFK had the CIA help get the president of South Vietnam assassinated during a coup. Your crush Minh Pham told me all about it. What goes around comes around. Or like my wife always says, ‘You reap what you sow.’”
“Okay, okay. But why did Dr. Graves have me sign a confidentiality contract before he hired me?”
“Probably so he could win if he ever sues you to kingdom come and back again. He’s no dummy.”
28
Surviving in SLD had been hard, but trying to survive in the wilds of Tennessee was proving even more difficult for Brent Fulsome.
Hungry poachers had been more dangerous than game wardens, avoiding both obsessed him. Brent gutted the deer he had shot with his crossbow because his supply of ammunition was depleted. Then he removed its antlered head. Even without those parts, the carcass weighed more than Brent’s skinny frame could carry home.
Brent dropped the bloody body and cut it in half.
“Looks like all you foxes, panthers, and bears get to have a feast on me.” He stared at the large portion of meat on the ground next to the still warm internal organs. “Be sure to leave some for the vultures, crows, and rats. No sense in being greedy.”
It took six hours to haul his half of the kill back to the cave that served as his shelter. During his long hike, Brent wondered about Tim Beheard and Bud Lee and their quest to expose Dr. Graves.
I bet their wild goose chase is even worse than my living out here. Maybe I shouldn’t have made such an issue about Dr. Graves. Bud Lee made him sound like his only fault is that he loves his privacy, almost as much as I do.
29
Lonely and bored by his hollow relationship with his solidgram of Elani, Dr. Graves stepped outside his cottage. His foul mood rendered the warm sunshine and quiet English countryside into a prison of his own making.
Dr. Graves had talked to the real Elani once since leaving his home and beloved redwood trees in the hands of Chief Red Bear. Her words felt as if a guillotine’s blade had sliced the thin bond between the spouses.
“I might have returned if you didn’t sell our home,” she had said. “At least there I could visit the casino. There is no way I will ever join you there in England. Good-bye.”
Her emphatic “good-bye” had prevented him from calling again. He wandered the estate until his stomach, empty since yesterday, ached. Famished for human contact as well, he walked toward the estate’s manor.
It was smaller than other nearby manors. A contingent of butler, cook, maid, and groundskeeper kept its five bedrooms, six bathrooms, and 100 acres in order. Seven chimneys jutted through a roof pitched so steeply that the attic was larger than most of the modern homes in England.
The butler took Dr. Graves’ hat at the front entrance and announced him to Professor Henry Ulysses Adams, retired dean of literature at Oxford. Old school to the core, he never read an electronic version of any book. Professor Adams set down a black leather-bound book of Shakespeare’s works and motioned for Dr. Graves to sit next to him. “I was hoping you would drop by. Can you stay for supper?”
“Yes.”
“Excellent. Gerald, please inform Abigail of our guest for the evening meal.”
“Yes, my lord.”
The butler bowed and hurried off to the kitchen to deliver the order. There he could enjoy a cup of tea and biscuits and share the latest gossip with the cook. The pair’s tales helped them to endure the rigors of providing nineteenth century service in a twenty-first century setting. Professor Adams was one of a handful of manor owners who still insisted on being called, “my lord.”
After adding six fat logs to the fire, Professor Adams sat back down in his overstuffed chair. Its oversized dimensions gave it the appearances of a throne. His white collar-length hair and embroidered robe transformed the professor into a king from centuries gone by, Dr. Graves thought.
The stone fireplace absorbed the fire’s warmth and radiated it into every corner of the library, which contained almost four thousand volumes sitting on shelves that ran from floor to twelve foot high ceiling. After filling his favorite meerschaum pipe with his finest tobacco and lighting it, Professor Adams brought up what had nagged him f
or a fortnight.
“I hate to pry, but certain parties are making inquiries about you.”
Images of Bud Lee and Tim Beheard surfaced in Dr. Graves’ mind. “Who is it making such inquiries?” His fingernails dug into his chair’s soft velvet colored fabric until the sharpest nail cut it.
“Oh, two colleagues of mine. One of them works with MI-18 so I really cannot afford to ignore him. He claims you exited America and entered England in a most circuitous and therefore, unusual fashion. I’m afraid if your visa is to be extended, you must provide me some details. I really do want you to remain here on the estate, but I must know what went on to bring you here in the first place. Of course, I will pass along just enough information to satisfy those inquiring about you.”
Despondent after months of not having the real Elani to confide in, and anxious to relieve any fears of the only one he trusted, Dr. Graves let the library become a sort of confessional.
“You know how Elani and I failed to produce any offspring?”
“Yes. I never really understood why she refused to have one or more by growing them at a breeding center. All you had to do was let the technicians take your sperm and her eggs and nine months later you could be proud mother and father.”
“I finally decided to take matters into my own hands.”
“How so?”
“First I canvassed worldwide to find the best specimens. After DNA tests eliminated the candidates with inferior genes, my computer chose the final six. I used a ruse that they had been chosen to join The Club, a sort of think tank to solve their continents’ problems. At our first meeting I told them I needed to install implants through which we could communicate to arrange future meetings, because any contact via phone, computer, or even mail was not secure enough.”
“So true. There are far too many snoops running about nowadays.”
