Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach

by Kelly Robson

  Minh hadn’t skipped in years. She’d forgotten how much she enjoyed the weightlessness, the delight of escaping gravity. She let her limbs float, and strain bubbled out of her hips and spine.

  Kiki had only seen habs she could visit by bike—Edmonton, Jasper, Calgary, Moberly, Tsay Keh Dene. She’d never seen a hive or hell. Skip travel was all new to her—from the elongated egg-like skip hull nestled into its cushioned pad, to its soft, spongy, noise-absorbing interior, to the bioresponsive seats lining the bulkheads. When they hit apogee, Kiki squealed like a toddler crechie. Her excitement was infectious. Minh and most of the other passengers grinned.

  Hamid slept through it all. In Iceland, he yawned as he crawled out of the skip.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Kiki asked. “How could you sleep through the flight?”

  “If I had to guess,” said Minh, “I’d say Hamid spent last night reconciling with Byron.”

  Hamid draped an arm across Kiki’s shoulders. “Don’t listen to gossip. It’s beneath you,” he said in a stage whisper, and then added in a loud voice, as if announcing it to the whole hab, “I heard most fat babies have never had fish.”

  Minh grimaced. “Calgary won’t fund fresh food in Iceland. Our trade deficit is too wide.”

  “My treat,” he said, and then amended, “Byron’s treat. Just enough time if we hurry.”

  The moment they crossed the hab’s diamond-faceted skip-pad doors and stepped onto the speeding slideway, the lower third of Minh’s eye began scrolling with dashboards. Health, mortality, conflict resolution, operating budget, hab component life cycle, emergency response, nutrition, trade development, training and education—two hundred dashes in total.

  When the ecological restoration dash floated by, Minh drilled down into it. Sure enough, her latest adaptive management review was posted. More than two hundred people had already accessed it.

  Hamid led them into an atrium so crowded with people, the floor pulsed like a heartbeat.

  “Am I doing something wrong?” Kiki waved her hand in front of her eyes. “I can’t dismiss this info stream.”

  “It’s not optional in Iceland. Here, they demand complete information transparency,” Hamid said. “That’s how Iceland hooks you. Once you get used to having every bit of data at your fingertips, you can’t go without. Icelanders want to know everything.”

  They rode an elevator to the apex of the hab and claimed a table in a glass spire overlooking the slate-gray ocean. Waves stippled the water’s surface. White gulls whirled and spun in the buffeting wind, each bird marked with a glowing green datapoint.

  Kiki pressed her nose to the glass.

  “The Open Ocean dashboard says Iceland hasn’t experienced an algae-mat bloom in over a year. Is that good or bad? I can’t tell.”

  “I’d say it’s so-so,” Hamid answered.

  Minh shrugged. “I’m a freshwater specialist. Oceans are a foreign discipline.”

  A bot brought their order—three baskets of crispy fried smelts, crusted with salt and accompanied by tubs of garlic sauce.

  Kiki crunched a finger-sized fish, her eyes half-closed with pleasure.

  “I think I could put up with Iceland’s info stream if I could eat these anytime I wanted.”

  “It’s tempting,” Minh agreed.

  “Don’t talk. Eat,” said Hamid.

  They wolfed the meal and ran to catch the next stage of their trip.

  On the downskip into Surgut, Minh glanced at the skip’s live feed. More than half the landscape was obscured with billowing smoke. Only one reach of the Ob River was visible, a slender braid of green and silver threads in the dry Siberian taiga.

  Kiki was glued to the feed.

  I have friends down there, she whispered. They left to join the Siberian hives as soon as we got out of the crèche.

  Minh flicked on the underground overlay. Surgut appeared as a glowing network of tiny beads along the course of the river, with slender tendrils spreading out in every direction to meet the fires.

  Are they going to come see you? Minh asked.

  A shadow passed over Kiki’s face.

  No. I asked. They all said they’re too busy.

  The hives discourage contact with outsiders.

  Kiki forced a smile. People in the habs don’t talk about Surgut much.

  The banks hate the hives because they don’t participate in the economy. And the plague babies don’t talk about them because they put us all to shame. We like to think we’re the most virtuous people on the planet, but the hives sacrifice everything fighting those underground fires.

  After landing in Surgut, they climbed down into a long cell with open bunks, hard benches, and a grimy extruder station. The other passengers pulled bikes off a rack and dispersed out the guideway port. The three of them waited for the next leg alone.

  Kiki wandered over to the port and looked up and down the guideway.

  “It’s a ghost town. Worse than Edmonton. Where are all the people?”

  Hamid settled back on a bench and closed his eyes.

  “Wait for Bangladesh,” he said. “Then you’ll be impressed.”

  They landed in Bangladesh Hell hundreds of feet belowground, on a multipad platform teeming with activity—elevators and guideways, tunnels and chutes, bots and fakes, passengers and gawkers, and above it all, the silent skips gently rising and falling.

  Bangladesh dominated more economic sectors than any other hell. Two hundred years earlier, when faced with rising sea levels, they had been the first to tunnel deep into the earth’s crust and carve new frontiers out of rock. When the fires, storms, and floods hit, Bangladesh’s tunneling tech was already in place, along with the expertise to make humanity’s retreat underground successful. When the plagues began spreading, Bangladesh’s experience managing public health in highly concentrated populations provided the systems and expertise to deal most effectively with the outbreaks. They shared their expertise in that crisis, too.

  It hadn’t been charity. It was a long-term investment in leadership and human capital that paid off globally.

  A beautiful fake led Minh, Hamid, and Kiki through a series of vaulted, intricately carved, dramatically lit atria. Minh knew Bangladesh. She’d guest lectured at U-Bang twice and had attended several of their academic conferences, but still, she felt assaulted by the unrelenting sensory input—noise, unfamiliar scents of food, spices, and perfumes circulated by the breath of millions. Hamid still looked droopy-eyed and sleepy. In stark contrast, Kiki looked worried, almost scared. Her left hand plucked at the join of her stumpy prosthesis.

  Kiki clutched the slideway rail.

  “I’m not used to being so short. I feel like someone’s going to step on me.”

  The fake flashed a dazzling smile. “When you’re ready to upgrade your training prostheses, I can recommend several custom design studios. The Bank of Bangladesh would be happy to negotiate terms with the Bank of Calgary on your behalf.”

  “Hah, no, thanks. I’d never pay it off.” Kiki dismissed the fake. “The Mesopotamian Development Bank did this on purpose, didn’t they? They don’t need to interview us face-to-face. Making us come here is part of their strategy. They want us to feel small.”

  Hamid’s eyes snapped wide, suddenly alert. “I don’t feel small,” he said. “I’m exactly the right size, and everyone else is sadly stretched.”

  “Clients like to display their economic power,” Minh said. “Make sure we know they’re rich and important. And if they lease an office in Bangladesh, they are rich. I bet Byron doesn’t have an office here.”

  “No,” Hamid said. “He prefers Calgary. The views are nicer.”

  “Byron can’t afford Bangladesh. But apparently this client can.”

  Hamid led them to a tiny café overlooking a saltwater cascade. Below, kayakers shot rapids and sieves, spun and flipped through boils and whirlpools. The rocks forming the artificial river were topped with thick shells of white salt, like gleaming mushrooms. Minh sat wi
th her back to the river so she wouldn’t get distracted critiquing the flow design. They drank coffee and nibbled biscotti as they reviewed their interview plan, and then arrived at the client’s office with a few minutes to spare.

  The bank’s platter-faced fake pinged their IDs. Acoustic shielding closed behind them, replacing the crowd noise with a velvet silence. It invited them to sit in a high-ceilinged, thick-carpeted boardroom filled with antiquities, and offered them beverages.

  Load your interview prompts, Minh whispered.

  Over the previous three days, the three of them had crafted thoughtful answers to the standard and expected interview questions, plus a few dozen trick questions concocted by Minh’s partners. They’d trapped the responses and sent the doc to a client-relations consultant who edited the responses complete with tone, intonation, and pauses optimized to achieve maximum effect. They’d even thrown in regional dialect mitigation as a value-add.

  Each response was indexed with an adaptive keyword scheme to supply the optimal answer to any question the client could ask. The tactic turned interviews into orchestrated live performances—concocted and completely artificial. Minh hated it, but she couldn’t deny the results. The simple fact was, she won more jobs parroting optimal answers than honestly extemporizing an interview.

  If Minh had to jump through hoops to win contracts, she was resigned to it. A necessary evil.

  Three cameras flew into place, hovering overhead, and the admin fake began asking questions. After a few minutes, the door opened and a pointy-nosed man entered the room, silent and anonymous, his ID under veil except for his name—Fabian. When Minh paused and offered him a professional half-smile, he motioned for her to continue. He padded across the carpet and sat in a leather chair between two antiquities, a lion statue in painted terra-cotta, its colors faded and subdued, and the golden head of a bull, its forelock, beard, and the tips of its horns carved in violet stone.

  Is he the client? whispered Kiki.

  Looks like a junior admin, replied Hamid. Probably a procurement consultant overseeing the interview feed.

  At least we have a real person to talk to now, whispered Minh.

  But when Minh answered the next question, she found herself playing to the lion and the bull instead of Fabian. Their expressions were warmer, more alive.

  After the interruption, the interview proceeded as planned. Minh’s role was professional gravitas, making the most of her age and senior consultant experience. Kiki bubbled with enthusiasm and energy, while Hamid played hard to get. His part of the performance was key, adding the intrigue and mystery that implied the client would get much more than they bargained for. It was irresistible—should have been irresistible, anyway, to any human.

  Fabian watched them perform, his eyes expressionless, insectile. After an hour of fake-fed questions, Minh’s professional detachment began to fray. She half-hated him while he remained silent and judgmental, but her dislike was confirmed the instant he opened his mouth.

  “That’s enough questions.” Fabian dismissed the fake and fired a logic puzzle onto the table. “Could you complete this teamwork task, please?”

  Hamid laughed. Minh ignored the prompt that supplied her with a diplomatic refusal.

  “This is basic-level testing,” she said. “It’s demeaning. Our team is backed by a reputable ecological sciences firm. Our references and recommendations were included with our proposal.”

  Fabian slapped down the test.

  “Fine,” he said. “Your team can qualify for the job. It doesn’t mean you should get it. What do you know about time travel?”

  Minh recognized his clipped accent. Five years back, when Calgary abandoned the University of Tuktoyaktuk and let CEERD lease the entire hab, the incoming population had sounded like Fabian.

  He’s not a procurement consultant, Minh whispered. He’s from TERN.

  Time to take a gamble. Minh ignored her prompt and went off script.

  “How could we know anything about time travel? TERN never tells anyone anything. But I know one thing for certain. You’ve never taken a restoration ecology team into the past.”

  Fabian’s look of surprise told Minh she’d guessed right. Her courage soared.

  “If TERN already had a relationship with an experienced team,” she said, “the bank would be working with them instead of putting this RFP out to public call.”

  He smiled. His teeth were small, evenly spaced implants, bright white and gleaming.

  “This project will require your team to spend three weeks in isolation. Have you ever been completely alone before?” he asked.

  “I was born during the plagues,” Minh said. “Of course I’ve been alone.”

  He turned to Hamid, who looked disdainful and declined to answer. Fabian turned to Kiki.

  “What do the habs call your generation—fat babies? Crèches are highly problematic by the standards of most hells. In Bangladesh, they believe family is everything.”

  Kiki’s smile was genuine, as if she hadn’t even thought of taking offense.

  “Maybe there’s a better way to grow up, but I liked it. My upbringing makes me a good team member. I know how to contribute to a project without going diva and turning everything into a fight. A crèche teaches you how to cooperate.”

  “The fat babies are going to save the habs, are they?” Fabian smirked.

  He was going out of his way to be obnoxious. Minh had seen it before; some clients liked to test a team’s professionalism.

  Easy, Minh whispered. He’s baiting you.

  “It’s true, I’ve never really been alone,” Kiki said. “But if you choose our team for this project, I’ll have Minh and Hamid with me. The three of us work well together.”

  “I’ll be working with you, too,” he said. “Whichever consultant team the bank chooses, I’ll be part of it. Any objections?”

  Minh’s vision swam as her blood pressure plunged. Hamid, take the question.

  She locked her gaze on the lion’s faded eye, faking calm as she wrestled her body back under control with a few slow, deep breaths.

  “That’s the client’s prerogative,” Hamid said. “But we can’t answer your question until we know more about you.”

  “I’m a TERN historian. My specialty is ancient history to classical antiquity. The client’s target falls within that catchment.”

  He’s a time traveler, Kiki whispered. Imagine the stories he can tell.

  Fabian turned to Minh. “We’ll be on-site for only three weeks. The rivers might not flood. How complete will your data be without a flood event?”

  Minh parroted her canned response. “We can extrapolate information about flood seasons from the geophysical evidence on the floodplain, and even more from core sample analysis. We can model flood events using the data we collect.”

  “What if a flood started an hour before retrieval?” Fabian asked. “Wouldn’t it bother you to leave that event behind unobserved and unrecorded?”

  She didn’t have a canned response prepared for that one, but it was easy enough to answer.

  “Firsthand observation of a flood event would be interesting, but we’re not traveling to the past for a tourist experience.”

  “I think that’s the end of the bank’s questions.” Fabian’s eyes glazed for a moment. “Yes, they say they’re done. But I’d like to ask a few of my own questions, under a privacy veil, if you’re willing.”

  Fabian fired a veil request onto the table.

  As Minh’s stream dropped behind the veil, she realized she was slouching. She rearranged her legs, sat a little taller. It had been a long day. She was stiff. Her back ached with tension and her blood pressure was spiraling. Her biom was compensating with increased heart rate, but the pressor response was sluggish. Not good. She had to stay sharp. Alert.

  Minh reached into her biom, brought up the hormonal balance dash, and dialed a little adrenaline. Her vision snapped into focus and her fingers tingled with the urge to fidget.

&nbs
p; Fabian rose from the leather chair and joined them on their side of the conference table, sitting with his elbows on his knees, hands open.

  “You guessed right, Minh,” he said. “TERN’s never considered ecological restoration projects. We’ve never seen the point. I mean—the resurfacing movement is dead, isn’t it?”

  Minh bit off a pointed reply. “Not at all. Studies show the habs are in a temporary lull. Economic recovery is projected within the next decade. Humanity will reclaim our ancestral habitats. Your client obviously believes that, too, or they wouldn’t be initiating this project.”

  Fabian shrugged. “TERN doesn’t care whether our clients’ projects make sense. If they want us to do a job, we find a way to get it done. But now I’m wondering if environmental studies could open a new area of business for us. Do you think this project is a viable use of time travel?”

  “Ecological baseline studies and current-state assessments are a fundamental part of ecological restoration. I can’t tell you if it’s cost-effective, because it’s never been done before. But if you want to know what kind of return on investment it could provide, I could give TERN a quote for a study.”

  At a very high hourly rate, she thought.

  “Perhaps after this project.” Fabian dropped the privacy veil. “We’re at the end of our time. Any last questions?”

  Minh jumped in with a scripted question David had concocted to underline the team’s strengths.

  Fabian interrupted her mid-script. “Any real questions?”

  “What do you think of our work plan?” Minh asked. “Is it realistic?”

  He applied the veil again before answering.

  “You’ll have to revise it. We can’t stay on the ground in Mesopotamia the whole three weeks. It’s not safe.”

  “What can you tell us about TERN’s mortality rates?” Hamid asked.

  “Health and safety is TERN’s first priority. We do everything possible to protect our people in the past. Experienced time travelers have the rarest skill set on the planet. Protecting that resource base is in our best interest.”

  “TERN will guarantee our safety?” Minh asked.