Galway

by Matthew Thayer

  “Back to the population boom. The mantra for women became ‘One in the pram, one on the arm and one in the belly.’ Even my own Pope foolishly ordered his flock to procreate, to create good little Catholics. The religions seemed so quaint and charming when they were held under glass by the machines. Once released, to my mind at least, chaos ensued–this from a card-carrying Catholic.

  “As I’m sure you are all aware, the machines’ grip on humanity was dealt a series of fatal blows in 2118. Ten nuclear bombs, nine vanished cities, nine major hubs of the UberMind destroyed. Close to 3 billion people were vaporized and another 3 billion perished in the aftermath. Despite what you may have read and heard, those people were not killed by machines. The UberMind had laid down arms and was ready to negotiate. Those humans were sacrificed by fellow humans. Sacrificed for what? So mankind’s elite could once again be free to continue a headlong rush to exploit every usable plant and mineral resource on earth for personal and clan gain? I imagine, considering my background, it sounds a bit like the kettle calling the pot black. Trust me, the profiteers will not be satisfied until the planet looks like that pig tonight, nothing but a lump of coal.”

  He poured himself another glass.

  “Well, in 2109, we didn’t know the end of the Machine Age was coming. At least, I didn’t. Judging by some of his actions at the time, my father may have had an inkling. Population was stable around the world, there was food for lower classes, and water wars were a thing of the past. The Bolzano family company’s grand plan was to tap into rich people’s fear of death. We had a contract with the machines to develop ways to extend human life to 300 years. After three years of negotiations, that was the limit the machines set, 300 years.

  “The concept of using nanos to extend life wasn’t new, but our company was the first to perfect the technique. Until then, the little buggers had a nasty habit of driving their hosts whack-a-doodle–much like your maddening jumpsuits. The effects of the failed nano implants were really quite sordid, so much so, the technology was abandoned by the world market. That was until an engineering team of which I was a member, solved the riddle. When it came time for the final trials, just before release, my favorite sister, Petra, and I volunteered to serve as the penultimate test subjects.

  “We not only survived, our ‘improvements’ ended up paying great dividends. Though we were the youngest children in the family, we both outlived our siblings to inherit every bit of Father’s wealth. Our gamble with the nanos was considered a great risk. It would not be the last time I rolled the dice and won big.

  “It is important to pause here and note that prior to the nanos being released inside our bodies, Father negotiated ironclad contracts for Petra and me with the UberMind, the Catholic Church, and with the impotent, but still in place, Italian government. That saved our lives. Father held up the release of his company’s nano treatments until he had the contracts in place. Considering how expensive the treatments were, you can imagine the names on the waiting list–powerful people who were able to bring great pressure to bear in helping Father protect his children. Too bad those powerful men and women were in such a hurry to gain semi-eternal life they didn’t bother to get the same ironclad contracts for themselves. As far as I know, nearly every single one of those nanobots was hunted down and exterminated following mankind’s victory in the Great Singularity War.”

  The Hunter said he and his sister escaped the purges, but in order to honor their contracts their lives had to be carefully monitored and restricted. He said the two of them were the best of friends, talked all the time, until she died at the age of 221.”

  Sal popped his head up from the stone table.

  “Aunt Petra passed?”

  “Yes, about one year after you jumped.”

  The Hunter said he and his sister did not get the same nano treatments. Hers were designed to slow aging down so it was spread out over 300 years. When she hit 299 and 11 months, she was supposed to be in old age and ready to let go. She ended up going young when she bumped her head and drowned in the family pool. The Hunter said his nanos are different. They have kill switches set to flip when he reaches 300.

  “I’ll make a beautiful corpse,” he chuckled.

  “How many years do you have left?” Maria asked with genuine concern in her voice.

  “Enough to outlive you. But not much more. Time waits for no man, or woman, for that matter. What do you say, Doctor Duarte, shall we have another drink?”

  Maria said “sure,” then started in with follow-up questions. When my wife gets excited about something, she wants to learn everything there is to know about the subject. The Hunter was trying to be a good sport, but you could tell he was tired of letting his secrets out. My mind drifted for a spell, I was listening to the drummers do their thing, when all of a sudden Maria’s in the middle of a shot-drinking contest.

  He issued the challenge. For every snail shell she’d match him, he would answer one of her questions. She thought about it a while, then agreed with one stipulation. She was in if she could drink wine while he guzzled Sal’s rocket fuel. The Hunter nodded his head up and down, then came back with a stipulation of his own. “No comment means ‘no comment.’ When I say those two words, you move on to a new question without complaint.” It was Maria’s turn to nod.

  While the Hunter made a big deal of measuring the first cups to make sure they were even, Maria leaned to me and whispered, “Honey, fetch me a skin of water, would you please?” They could have been 16-year-olds or professional poker players when I got back from the creek, staring into each other’s eyes, downing their snail shell shots and trying not to cough. The smell of gin hit me where I was sitting a good 10 feet away.

  Maria slammed her shell down on the flat granite boulder table so hard it shattered. “Tell us how you really came to be aboard the Einstein IV when it jumped.”

  He used the back of his hand to try to hide his coughing fit, and had to wipe tears from his eyes before he could answer. When the words finally came, they were worth the wait.

  “Why, I stole the Einstein IV and hijacked her crew,” he said, clearing his throat and taking a big breath. “I planned the theft for more than a year, even arranged the catering for our bon voyage party. Somehow, I was able to talk top brass into letting me hold a reunion for washed-out members of The Team. The party was held in the new ship’s hanger.

  “You see, Doctor Duarte, the discovery of your computer had put everyone in The Team headquarters in such a jolly mood, their guards were down around their ankles. There had been parties for this, that and every other thing, so I suggested we hold one for the poor sots who trained their brains out, sacrificed their abilities to reproduce, but didn’t get to jump.

  “I couldn’t jump alone and I couldn’t very well train my own crew. That would draw too much attention. I settled on shanghaiing the ‘Next-Best’ of the Best.

  “One moment the washouts were boozing it up, eating fresh canapés in Buffalo, and the next they were waking aboard a storm-rocked ship in the southern Atlantic, 32,000 years before they were born. Shock, surprise, anger, we had many emotions to work through before becoming a cohesive unit.”

  He claimed he used his belt to knock everybody at the party out cold before dragging the personnel he wanted aboard ship and loading them into traveling pods. Once the decks were cleared of those not making the trip, he uploaded the same jump coordinates The Team used to send us back, started the sequence and scrambled into his pod. Maria said it was no surprise the coordinates did not deliver them to the same time and place as us. The world and time keep turning. He said they splashed down off the coast of South America about 60 years before we arrived off Europe.

  “There were other complications I could tell you about,” he said, “but I grow thirsty. Shall we do another shot?”

  “I thought you would never ask.” Maria didn’t even blink

  His hands weren’t as steady, and he didn’t fill the shells up to the rims this time. “To your he
alth,” said Maria as she lifted her wine and chugged it. The Hunter tried to keep a straight face after downing his gin, but couldn’t pull it off. His eyes were watering and he had to take several deep breaths, in and out, to keep from falling over. “J-J-J-Jesus C-C-C-Christ, Salvatore,” he finally stuttered. “Is this bloody spirits or paint thinner? Waaoooo!”

  The duel had cheered Sal up a little. He shook his aching head and said, “Specialist Kaikane and I both tested the gin. It will not kill you. Although, if you insist on pouring such large portions, nanos or no nanos, I suggest you make no major plans for tomorrow.”

  The booze had put a spark in Maria’s eye, a feistiness I don’t often see. She spread her arms wide and playfully mocked her opponent. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Blah, blah, blah. Come on, Mitch! Are you going to answer questions and drink, or are you going to cry to your little boy?”

  “Oh brother.”

  “Like you said, Mitch, this isn’t the first time we’ve gotten drunk together. Right? You don’t mean to tell me you were faking during those staff weekends in the castle, do you?”

  “My answers to your questions are ‘no, no and yes,’ shall we drink another?”

  “Not so fast! Let your nanos do their work before this gin does kill you! You’ve gone googly as it is.”

  She wasn’t the only one to notice how his eyes were squirrelly. Each one was traveling in its own, out-of-focus direction as he leaned on the table and slurred, “Go ahead, asksch your schtupid question. I already know what it’sch going to be.”

  Maria took a long slug of water from the skin I had filled in the creek, studied the Hunter for a while then handed it over to him.

  “You better drink some of this.”

  “S’not gin is it?”

  “Water, drink it. And then please tell me about my computer. The one you claim The Team discovered before you jumped. Where was it found and what was on it? Why were people so happy?”

  The Hunter rambled for a while and then starting pulling his thoughts together. By the end of his answer, he barely sounded drunk. It was like his injuries healing after the lion attack, only this was his brain being restored.

  “Greece, Greecy, Greece Greece. Knew you’d ask. People like it. They like it to hear stories about themselves. Your computer was found. It was found in the sea near Athens, Greece.”

  He took another pull of water, stood up and walked off to take a leak, making sure to pick a spot, he told us, where we could see he didn’t cheat by poking a finger down his throat to make himself ralph. The Hunter was wobbling while he took that long piss, but when he got back, his eyes were on the same page and he’d stopped slurring.

  “I don’t think you are going to like this part, Duarte. It’s one of the reasons I have been so reti...reti...what is that damn word?”

  “Reticent,” Sal helped.

  “Yes, reticent! Why I have been so bloody reticent to.... What were we talking about?”

  “My computer.”

  “That’s right, your bloody computer! Well, for one thing, there was no mention of these two gentlemen,” he said, pointing at Jones and me. “Not one word! Did they die? Were they so far beneath your rank you paid them no mind? I’ve yet to puzzle that out. And there were other significant discrepancies! For instance, rather than being shipwrecked along the coast of France, the previous Maria reported in mesmerizing detail how her ship was swamped by a storm off the coast of Egypt. While most of the crew was lost, Doctor Duarte made it to shore with a rag-tag group of survivors.

  “I’m sorry, Specialist Kamikaze, but in that accounting, your wife marries another man. Perhaps the jump of the Einstein IV, the impacts my crew and I made on this world, somehow altered history. That is what I believe happened. While most details and characters in the two stories are vastly different, there are several, key constants. One is the loss of the ship and crew. Though wrecked in far different locations and under disparate circumstances, in both tellings the timeship Einstein III goes down within a year. Another connection is a reccurring link between Doctor Maria Duarte and Sergeant Lorenzo Martinelli. You will no doubt be surprised to learn that in her earlier version, the one which was reshaping the world when I jumped, she marries Emperor Martinelli and serves as his lifelong queen and biographer.

  “Yes, it is true! I swear it. Take a seat, doctor, or do you grow thirsty?”

  “Gotta pee.”

  Turning back to me, he continued.

  “Despite Maria’s role in Martinelli’s atrocities over the decades, your ever-diligent wife compiled copious and meticulous notes about the flora and fauna of 30,000 B.C.. Sound familiar? The Team scientists were tickled pink. Edited versions of her work were leaked. She became a hero. But then, as other, less flattering stories came to light, the good Sergeant Martinelli eclipsed her status the way a rocket overtakes a kite. We in the Ethics Department were aghast.

  “Ah, you’re back. Did you hear all that? Good. Once your computer was located, and its contents revealed, I knew I had to come back to see if I could put things to rights. I have spent more than six decades roaming the coasts from Galway to Athens, all the places you wrote about, waiting for you and Martinelli to arrive. And then, when I finally do catch up with you, I find you have slaughtered Lorenzo and nipped his crusade in the bud. I suppose it seemed like the proper thing to do at the time, jolly good job and all that. How were you to know the religious and political movement started in his name may well have offered Earth its last, best chance to survive mankind?”

  I couldn’t tell whether that last part made him happy or sad. Or if it was a lie. He paused, fiddled with his shell cup, started to say something then stopped. Looking up, he caught us all staring, waiting for the next bombshell.

  “A bit of housekeeping, I wouldn’t put much stock in your recorded reports or notes. The technicians spent several years downloading Duarte’s computer, trying to decipher distorted audio files, and still only salvaged perhaps five percent of what she recorded. Scent, video, holographic, none of those made it through. Perhaps things will turn out differently this time, but I doubt it.”

  “Our cameras died within days of landing,” Maria said in a flat, distracted voice. “This is a bitter pill you have served me.”

  “And right in the middle of a fun party,” the Hunter leaned forward to make his own pouty face. “Why don’t we drink more shots? And then you may ask more questions. That ought to cheer you up.”

  TRANSMISSION:

  Hunter: “I’d love to show you the Crystal Cave of Doggerland.”

  Bolzano: What, pray tell, is that?”

  Hunter: “Come now, Salvatore, the name is quite self-explanatory. Are you dim?”

  Bolzano: “I feel far from bright.”

  Hunter: “The Crystal Cave is one of the greatest wonders of this world, a dazzling cavern that will be swallowed up by the North Sea, never to be explored again.”

  Bolzano: “Sounds lovely.”

  Hunter: “Too bad the cave is so far out of our way, more than 300 kilometers. Do you think we could persuade Duarte to veer off on a tangent?”

  Bolzano: “We can try.”

  Hunter: “Bollocks. Don’t bother.”

  From the log of The Hunter

  (aka – Giovanni Bolzano, Dr. Mitchell Simmons)

  Ethics Specialist

  What in the hell have I done? What happened to the foolproof plan? The one where I kept my damn mouth shut! Dear God, I’m going to have to confiscate those bloody computers and burn them. Drastic? Off-putting? If there is another solution, it escapes me.

  Christ! Seduced by a stupid party, addled by Salvatore’s damn booze, but sunk by my own fat trap. Why didn’t I chew the apple and shut up? It had been ages since I enjoyed dinner, drinks and enlightened conversation. I became captivated. Whom do I blame? Duarte? Because of her questions? Because she arrived looking so damn attractive, and was so alive during our silly competition I could not stop showing off for her? She’s always been a pretty girl. That is not he
r fault. Salvatore? My son fermented the alcohol that collapsed my defenses, but he did not pour it down my throat. It is I who bear the blame. Though I accept this, it does not lessen the sting, or make me less irritated.

  Obviously, I overestimated the ability of the nanos to rid my system of alcohol. Back in the old days, the future, it was never a problem. If a host was pouring good wine, I could drink all night. To keep my cover intact, I became quite adept at feigning tipsiness. Of course, I never tried drinking two quarts of grain alcohol in one sitting. I take some consolation in knowing I didn’t divulge my first time jump, or admit how I maintained my double life in Scotland and Italy. I had enough sense of self-preservation to mutter “no comment” to questions that may have revealed those secrets.

  What to do, what to do? One consolation is the nearest place to cache a computer for long storage is at least several hundred kilometers from here in the wrong direction. Duarte knows nothing she buries in this part of the world will have a chance in hell of surviving the next great ice age and cataclysmic reshaping of Europe. I do not need to act abruptly. At some point, however, before this situation gets away from me, those stories must be eliminated.

  TRANSMISSION:

  Hunter: “Let’s leave here in the morning, just you and me. We’ll travel together for a while, see if we can get to know each other better.”

  Bolzano: “I would enjoy that.”

  From the log of Salvatore Bolzano

  Firefighter II

  (English translation)

  Marco and I set the hook on the terrace of an ancient teahouse in sun-drenched Moscow. It was a city like none other. No community in the world had so boldly embraced the skyscraper farm model as Moscow. Tens of thousands of glass and polymer community-farm buildings dominated the city and surrounding plains. Leave it to the Russians to find a way to keep their people well fed and firmly in check at the same time.