King's County (7 page)

I really hope you give it your best,
you know? It's actually really important that you do."

"Why are there so many plants and trees
here now? It's too much. Whenever I go outside it stinks like a
fragrant dump." I said.

“Ugh.”

“You know?”

“What are you talking about? God,
again, it’s always something. You’re just so moody. Honestly, I
don't see the point in it."

She walked ahead of me after that,
quickly, only once giving me the courtesy of a look backward. Her
eyes were blank. When we arrived at the gathering, she mumbled
something and slipped away into the crowd.

This thing, whatever they called it,
was held in a corner of the park hidden from view of the sidewalk
by tall, well groomed hedges. It was an outdoor theater. Wide steps
sloped downward to a little stage made in a style similar to those
of Ancient Greece. But there weren't more than about 150 people
here and it was nearly full. The real ones were a lot
bigger.

On the stage was an assortment of
serious looking, torch-lit faces. One of them moved his hands
around in the harmless red fire of a nearby torch pole. He was
captivated by it, ignoring the others trying to get him to come
over from the edge of the stage and join them. The show was about
to begin. The sunken floor lights in the aisles went out leaving
the white, red flickering stage in sharp relief.

Good evening, pilgrims. We’re so GLAD
to have you here - to SEE this -

Chorus: Our death, our final act. The
end of the end of the waking dream.

-We will not miss you, dear audience.
We will not mourn you. We will live only as a dream -

Chorus: To become a dream. In life, in
death. Only a dream to some. To others, only a
nightmare.

They went on like this. Some guys in
the group in front of me were having a good laugh.

These guys were dressed differently and
acted differently than the artist crowd. They wore new, finely
tailored suits, or blazers with patterned slacks. One of them
removed a flask from his cashmere jacket, took a swig, then passed
it. He pulled up his sleeve to check a large and complex square
wristwatch on a gray alligator band.

"Obnoxious, innit?" said a man standing
beside me. He also wore a sort of suit but it was worn out at the
joints, rumpled and black with thin white pinstripes. His accent
was English. He was not young. He had a bunch of tall, wavy black
hair and held a cigarette in his thin fingers.

"Who? Those guys or the act down
there?" I said.

"Hahh, I don't even notice them
anymore. No, the morbid bunch on stage. You know what they’re
after?"

"Attention of some kind, obviously. Are
they really going to kill themselves?”

"No, well, it’s a symbolic thing, you
see. They're going to stop taking their longevity pills. They did
the same thing last year. Nobody remembers. They don't think
they're getting enough resources at the colony."

"They're going to kill themselves if
they don't get more resources?"

"Yes, something like that, rather
slowly. But there's nothing in particular that they want. They just
think the New York colony has it better. I guess they just want
what New York has, but I promise you nobody here has any idea what
that actually is...or what to do with it if they got
it."

The main speaker onstage held his hand
out in front of him and turned his palm downward. Two small white
pills skittered onto the hard stage floor. Tears streamed down his
red cheeks.

"Uh huh, so what happens when they
start getting older?"

"Oh, they'll chicken out or probably
lose interest and forget to not take them after a few days. It
doesn't matter. I'm pretty sure we don't even need the pills
anymore."

We left with the first act still in
progress to go for a walk. The drunk guys in suits followed and
passed, ignoring us, laughing and arguing with each
other.

"Market traders." My new friend
explained and stopped to light a fresh smoke. "They’re always very
happy with themselves."

"Traders? What could they possibly be
trading? I thought that sort of thing was obsolete."

He looked sideways at me like I might
be putting him on,

"Part of the game, fellow artist. They
don't win or lose."

*

Space 2070

Hektor 624 was shaped like a peanut. It
was one of the bigger asteroids in orbit around the sun but was
much smaller than our moon. We were there to witness its demise and
much of the aftermath.

Seven years earlier, three years in
advance of our launch, the computers on Earth had predicted the
collision. Hektor would collide with a small extra-solar asteroid
and then, with its orbit modified, it was projected to crash into
Jupiter.

With a pill, we came out of our slowed
down state to watch. Ahead of schedule again, we could see nothing
of either of the asteroids yet.

"Let's go back under the influence,
what do you say, Captain?" Ed said bringing out his southern
accent.

"You don't think we’ll get in trouble?"
I said joking but still half serious.

"Possibly, I suppose. Now, right now,
we’re in a stationery coupling. Over around that bend there it’ll
be coming but not for 30 hours and I'm about too talked and chessed
out to wait that long."

He had pointed to Jupiter which hung in
the display as a multi-hued red circle, the size of a golf ball to
us, oddly contrasted against the flat blackness around it. Our
craft was locked onto Jupiter’s orbit at a constant distance which
would begin to decrease as the event approached. Hektor 624 was
coming toward us. 3731127MP was the smaller asteroid which we would
see coming from overhead.

I convinced Ed the event would be
better experienced at normal speed and we could easily miss it by
slowing ourselves down.

We waited quietly, not talking or
gaming. I remembered Moby Dick and got back into it.

I tried to read, but could feel tension
building. Ed was pouting to himself. With no perceived motion, the
cramped cabin started for the first time to feel small. Bad
thoughts intruded my mind; I getting claustrophobic.

"Alright, I see your point. No sense
delaying it if we don't have to." I said closing the
HUD.

Ed looked straight ahead. He was
unresponsive. I checked his vital stats.

"You’re an asshole, you know that?" I
said putting one of the purple pills in my mouth to dissolve under
my tongue.

"Hooolllyyy ssshhhiiiit!" Hektor hurled
into view as Jupiter swelled to the size of a pizza. 3731127MP hit
Hektor like a bullet - dead center causing a flash of yellow light.
This all happened in what to us seemed like only a couple of
seconds.

One lobe of Hektor was supposed to be
pulverized by the impact while the other was knocked into Jupiter
but that's not what happened. The asteroid split cleanly into two
pieces. One tumbled toward Jupiter. The other passed close to our
craft, close enough to see the detail in its pockmarked brown
surface.

Jupiter loomed, getting larger in the
window. We followed one half of Hektor and watched it get swallowed
up into the dense atmosphere. A aura of white light enveloped the
asteroid. Its last moment ended with the whole mass glowing as it
disintegrated and was absorbed.

"Oh, man, look at that. Goddamn, son."
Southern Ed said. The creamy red and orange surface took up the
entire display. It churned in a thousand eddies and pools of
swirling, melting and freezing ammonia and simple hydrocarbons,
vortexes forming and dissolving below us at 80x normal
speed.

"Nauseating. I mean, almost." I said.
We sank inward, downward into the churning.

*

WA 2092

He called himself Clarke. We stayed out
late that night after the play drinking and telling stories. He
told me about the colony. How he was a freelance writer originally
from London. And how after living in Seattle for years, not selling
much, and having taken part in all the earlier projects, he was
eventually installed here as dean of the department of the spoken
and written word. There were 5 other deans in this department. Two
dimensional visual arts, or paintings, had 21 deans.

Tonight, Clarke was supposed to
introduce me to Braulio, the head of the whole colony. He said
Braulio was one of the few people around here worth
knowing.

In the meantime, I lounged by myself in
the square, enjoying a brief moment of sunshine. Everyone else at
the colony was either still asleep or still going from the night
before and in too bad of shape to be out in the
daylight.

I'd gotten up at eleven after only a
few hours sleep. Maybe it was an after effect of the semi
hibernation in space, but I found I didn't need as much sleep as
before. More likely it was the AMP.

Since the nightclub in Ruth, I had
developed a taste for drinking the wine and beer with the red tag
on the side. AMP was in them, an option added to all of the normal
brands. It was a mild but long lasting stimulant. Among the colony
people, I got the impression drinking AMP was looked down upon
though everyone here was on at least one thing or
another.

The colony building was not a normal
high rise though it would appear to be one from a distance. The
interior plan was not organized in a normal layout of separate
floors, hallways and rooms. I didn't notice this at first as my
room on K was on what looked to be approximately 11th floor and it
was near the elevator.

K was sort of a region in the building,
not a true floor level. After leaving the cafe that morning, I went
upstairs and noticed that the hallway connecting my room with the
elevator only connected to one other room.

There was a plain redwood door, like
mine, with a nameplate on the side: Middlesex.

I knocked and waited, then tried the
knob. It turned easily. The lights inside came on automatically.
The room was bare with polished blonde wood floors and similarly
paneled walls. There was a door at the opposite end.

The door opened to another short
hallway. The ceiling was low and arched, seamless with the walls
which were coated with a textured, gray, fake concrete paint. The
place smelled of that paint. Sputtering thick glass fluorescent
lights and layers of crude graffiti, all obviously done by the same
hand, completed the attempt at replicating an old subway
tunnel.

Some more convincingly stained steps
led down to another door. It was rusted and chipped, salvaged from
some derelict structure, but it also opened easily. Braulio was
there behind it.

The room was octagonal with 5m high
rectangular windows on one side displaying the downtown buildings
and waterfront. The pale wood paneled walls opposite the windows
were lined with odd, irregularly shaped sofas. On them lounged a
half dozen women. Their faces were caked in starkly white makeup
with big frowns painted on in brownish red. They wore flimsy ballet
outfits with tights and looked drugged. Braulio stood at an easel
wearing lavender striped cream pajamas and looking bored. He didn't
bother to look up when I walked in.

"Hola, Chao, Hello, or what-have-you."
He said.

I think one of the ballet girls rolled
her eyes at him but it was hard to tell.

"So, you’re the CO around here, am I
right?" I said.

"Yes, I am." He didn't take the bait.
He stood in place, irritatingly calm, and continued making little
dis-amused motions with the paint brush.

I pitched myself on a sofa between two
girls and put my arms around them.

"Are you an artist, too?" I asked the
one to my left. She drew her chin into her chest and glared at me.
Both of them squirmed, contracting under my arms. I squeezed them
in closer.

She hissed like a cat and swiped at my
face scratching my forehead. The other girl fled the
room.

Braulio sprayed his muse with a bottle
of water, chiding her to be nice. She calmed down immediately,
bowed her head, and sat primly on the sofa with her hands clasped
on top of her legs crossed at the knees.

I was impressed. Braulio and I went
over to a recess in the wall that housed a small bar. Without
offering or my asking he handed me a cold can of a sour fruity
beer.

"It's good. I've been drinking that red
tagged stuff since I got here." I said.

"Ahh. Be advised: It may stunt your
growth as an artist." He said.

"I'm no artist. Maybe you should know,
I don't belong here and I didn't ask to be here. I got kicked out
of the army just a few days ago, actually."

"Well, there's time for you. There's no
higher calling. Let me tell you about Gauguin."

"Yes, I know. He started painting
seriously later in life - in his thirties, I think. And he was in
the navy as a young man, as well."

Braulio was incredulous,

"How would you know that? The erstwhile
astronaut surprises."