Visions of the Future (67 page)

Warplanes roared overhead, androids blown apart, drones fought drones, then gaps in her memory.

Further back she delved, flicking through the years, to the early drones, the first drones, the first prototype. The birth of the dragonfly swarm.
How did we get here? Why must you watch me? Why do you exist?

But the swarm did not think. It only watched, and remembered. Thousands—millions—billions of conversations recorded, people fucking, people living, people dying. Withering and turning to stone whenever a drone appeared. Faces masked, expressions molded into neutral nothingness.
And then we created the androids.

Androids were built to be weapons. As natural resources shrank and shrank, androids were weapons on the battlefields. Who would control the energy? And then, when the energy was gone, the androids turned on their masters.

She was suddenly very tired. She leaned her head back against the tree. Just for a minute, she told herself. It’s been a long and exhausting day.
But Metal Man’ll find you!
Maybe. Maybe not. You have to rest sometime. Where else are you going to go to be safe?

The City?

There she could hide. But what would she eat? What did the other people there eat? They must cultivate food in the grassy areas she saw, the parks, the stadiums. Would they have food for her?

And would they want to share it with a ten-foot tall red monster?

Kaybe fingered her gills. Only twenty miles to the beach. She’d been there, once, on horseback. Try out her new body, see if it worked. They’d never find her in the ocean, and there was plenty of fish in the sea. Stocks had rebounded after the android war. What, 90% of humanity wiped out? 95%?

Mankind had evolved from the ocean. Maybe the sick fucks at the Department of Austerity were right. Maybe it was time to evolve back into the ocean. Before the race went extinct. The air was poisonous, and getting worse. Hundreds of years of human industry had ensured that, and even the abrupt end of emissions after the android war was not enough to cure the atmosphere. Kaybe’s eyes stung, her lungs rasped on the tart air. She’d never noticed it before. Things had always been that way, as long as she’d been alive.

She had no place left on dry land to call home. Nowhere they would not try to kill her. Nowhere she could say, “Here are my family and friends. This is my place in the world.” All that was dust and ashes.

The ocean, then. She sighed wearily and clambered to her feet. And it seemed to her, in that moment, that part of her died. She’d given them her proof. She’d given them all that she had. She could save them, but they would not let her. They would not let her tell the truth.

She could stay and fight. Fight to make them see, fight to save them against their will… and get killed in the process, and accomplish nothing.

Again the sea. Kaybe remembered the tang of the ocean on her face that day on the beach, the cool wind, the bones in the sand crunching beneath her horse’s hooves. She would go to the beach. Step into the waves. Dive into the waters and never look back. Her gills would work, or they would not work. She would live, or she would die.

And the others? She no longer cared. They had taken from her everything that mattered to her. And one day they would come to the ocean as well.

She would be waiting for them.

Jake drove, one hand on the old leather-wrapped steering wheel, the other on the shifter. He downshifted into the corner, slowing to a walking pace, the engine making popping noises, built solely for speed. He turned and gave me an expectant grin as we came out of the bend.

“Woah,” I said, looking up through the windshield. “I mean I was expecting that, but they’re just unworldly.”

“Aren’t they?” he said, and then chuckled. “That’s why I always drive people up here the first time.”

The noodle forest poked up over the ridge of hill, each strand a couple of meters thick and several hundred tall, all of them swaying gently in the wind.

“You ever think of throwing a concert up here?” I asked.

“Done that,” Jake said. “They light up in the dark so that aircraft can see them. We had ten thousand kids up here, and a sea of strobe lights.”

“I’d like to have seen that,” I said. There was almost certainly video of the show online, but like many people, I had come to value the actual physical experience more than the widely available but ersatz virtual.

He shifted again, the engine almost silent for a fleeting moment, then making a feral noise as we accelerated. I grabbed at my seat, unused to a human driver. I wondered what sort of strings he must have pulled to keep the old muscle car licensed and insured.

“So how do they work?” I asked, still hanging onto my seat and simultaneously craning my neck to look up at the brightly colored noodles.

“Three different kinds of generation, right?” he said. He spread three fingers over the gear shift.

“Okay,” I said.

“One,” he said, tapping a finger. “Piezoelectric effect. You know what that is?”

“Electricity from pressure,” I said. At one point in time, I could probably have worked out the equations from basic principles.

“Yes,” Jake said. “The movement from the noodles swaying in the wind triggers it. The exact mechanism is a trade secret though.”

I nodded.

“Two,” he said, continuing. “The movement also draws water up through capillaries.”

“Like in trees?” I asked.

“Exactly. You see the small bulbs at the top?”

“Yes,” I said. The noodles thickened slightly right at the end, although they were so tall and so thin that it was hard to spot.

“Water goes up to the top, and then it falls down a pipe in the middle, which powers a generator.”

“What about the bright colors?” I asked. Each of the noodle strands were colored differently.

“That makes three,” he said. “Direct solar generation. The colors are tuned to specific frequencies from the sun.”

“How much electricity does the forest produce?” I asked.

“Enough to run a small city, or a large manufacturing plant,” Jake said. “Look at the power lines.” Large pylons, heavily laden with electrical cables, snaked their way up the ridge.

“It doesn’t scale up like fusion,” he added. “You can’t put a noodle forest just anywhere. It’s a whole lot cheaper though.”

Jake’s office was in a portable hut on a small hill overlooking the noodle forest. I could hear the metallic tick-ticking sound from the internal cables that held the noodle strands upright, while allowing them to sway with the wind. The noise must have been unbearable in a storm, but I supposed he wouldn’t want to be up here in that case anyhow.

We sat on cheap folding chairs, with a battered metal desk between us.

“I think you have a fetish for old stuff,” I said. The truth is, so many people do. Decades of rapid change have left many people grasping for an element of stability.

“You should talk,” Jake said, indicating my battered trench coat and fedora hat.

“So what are we doing here?” I said, changing the topic. “It’s been at least ten years since we’ve spoken.” Jake and I had been friends during college, but had drifted apart over time. Obviously, I’d followed his rather public career. Everyone had.

“Carl Julius Hasenkamp,” Jake said, leaning forward, suddenly intent.

“Who is that?” I asked.

“He’s a scientist, working for me,” he said. “He is somewhat missing.”

“Call the police,” I said. “I’m a journalist—”

“Investigative journalist,” he said. “The cops aren’t interested, because he isn’t actually missing. He sent me a message about a week ago that he’d made a breakthrough on a project he and his team have been working on, and that he needed some time to confirm his findings. He’s been online intermittently since then, but he hasn’t been in contact, and he isn’t answering my messages.”

“And you want me to find him?” I said. “I’m sure you’ve got other people who can do that.”

“No,” Jake said. “It probably isn’t too hard to find him. It’s more a matter of persuading him to talk to me, and maybe also to report on what he’s found. Eventually.”

“Honestly, I think you need to do this yourself,” I said.

He shook his head. “He’s stubborn. He probably won’t talk to me until he’s sure of himself. I think he could benefit from an outside perspective though.”

“From a journalist?” I asked.

“With a technical background—” he said.

“An extremely out-of-date technical background,” I said. I wasn’t kidding. Fifteen years is more than sufficient time for skills to atrophy to extinction. I can do background research and dig up a story as well as anyone in my profession, but my math isn’t what it once was. “Why do you want me to do this anyhow? There’s many better qualified people.”

“I don’t know them,” he said, simply.

Something clicked. Sometimes I’m slow that way. “You want editorial control over what I write,” I said.

Jake stood up, and started pacing the floor of the hut. “Yes,” he said, after a pause.

“I can’t work that way,” I said. “You’re talking about my integrity as a journalist.”

He sighed. “Can you at least show me what you write first, before you publish?”

“You’re saying you want to censor my work?” I said. “What happens if you don’t want it released in the end?”

“I’m not sure,” he said, not exactly answering my question. “I’m paying though.”

“Well there’s always that,” I said.

Indeed, there always is. Journalism has always been a tough profession, and the digitization of news and the subsequent financial race to zero of the first two decades of the century hadn’t helped. Some in my profession survive through patronage, becoming little more than PR agents as a result. Although I cherished my independence and professional integrity, money was always tight.

The Director of Operations lived in an older building that looked like it had originally been a single, large dwelling. Jake had recommended that I talk to her first, without explaining why.

The car pulled over to the curb, and made a pinging noise to indicate that I’d arrived. I swiped the payment notification on my phone, and exited, with a quick look at the sky, which threatened rain. The car drove away quietly as I entered the lobby.

“So you’re the sucker that Jake has drawn into his newest melodrama?” She said. She’d been waiting in the doorway as I walked out of the elevator. “I beg your pardon,” she said, and stuck out her hand. “Katherine Fitzgerald.”

I shook her proffered hand. It’s often tricky to figure out people’s age these days, but I guessed she was a decade or more older than me.

I followed her into the apartment. It was more modern on the inside than the building’s facade had indicated. The room was reconfiguring itself, a set of comfortable chairs and a coffee table unfolding from the floor, as office furniture slowly moved aside. That was probably one reason Katherine had been standing in the hallway. Despite the assurances of the manufacturers of such intelligent furniture systems, there had been several high profile lawsuits in recent years, resulting from injuries caused by moving furniture that didn’t detect people in the way.

I hadn’t seen a smart furniture system in action before, so I watched with some interest. The office furniture collapsed into a compact cube, and a hole in the parquet floor opened up to draw it down into a temporary storage space between the floors of the building. The chairs appeared from a similar hole relatively intact, and the coffee table’s legs unfolded as it was moved into position.

One wall of the apartment was occupied from floor to ceiling with a sleek-looking food wall. Each of the dozens of growing chambers had a small screen indicating the crops within and their ripeness. I’d considered installing one myself, and hoped that the price would eventually come down. The manufacturers claimed that some families could grow more than fifty percent of their food using their system, with everything completely automated, including cleaning.

“I appreciate your seeing me at home, after hours,” I said, sitting down on one of the newly blossomed chairs. “If I understand correctly, the whole thing is a little—”

“Sensitive?” she asked. “Oh please. Don’t get pulled in. This is one of his little theatrical—”

“Does he do that often?” I asked. I couldn’t tell if she was annoyed, or just naturally abrupt.

“I thought you knew Jake well?” she asked me, instead of answering.

“Not recently,” I said. “What about your missing scientist though?”

“Carl?” she asked. “The poor old dear probably just needed a vacation. He’s horribly overworked. That’s something he should take up with human resources, not some sort of enigma. Why Jake has to involve the police and the press is quite beyond me. No offense to you, of course,” she added.

I made a small non-committal gesture with my hand. “I don’t suppose you know where he is though?” I asked.

“I think he has a cabin somewhere or other,” she said. “But really, he could be anywhere. Just send him a message and ask.”

“I think Jake actually just wanted me to go talk to him about his team’s recent work,” I said. I pulled myself to my feet, and looked around for my coat and hat.

“You must be hungry,” she said, changing the topic. She examined her food wall, checking for green indicator lights. “I think I have some basmati rice, some fresh herbs, a bunch of peppers. I can throw in some protein and make a quick stir-fry dinner for two.”

“I already ate,” I said, not sure what to make of the change in her manner. “I appreciate the offer though.”

“Well, what about a drink before you go?” she asked. “I feel like an awful host.”

“I really do have to go,” I said. “Duty calls.”

The rain was pelting down when I left. The car’s windows were hydrophobic, so they remained clear, but the car still occasionally swept its wipers across the windshield, probably more to improve my view than for its own safe operation.

“Please use my preferences,” I said. My voice was sufficient permission for the car to access my contact list and the list of preferences that I had set for how I liked to interact with my environment.

“Yo,” the car said.

“Can you call Jacob Wexler for me?” I asked.

“On it, dude.” Fortunes have been made by marketers and psychologists who have analyzed why people set their preferences the way that they do.

“He’s apparently in a meeting,” said the car, “But he left specific instructions to patch calls from you through to him directly.” The car made a ringing sound, to indicate that it was calling. Jake picked up after the second ring.

“Your COO thinks you’re making a fuss over nothing,” I said.

“I need to remind her not to air our laundry in front of the press,” he said. “Nothing personal, of course.”

“Why did you send me to meet her?” I asked. It felt like I was being thrown into the middle of something political, with little explanation.

“We don’t agree about the direction of the company,” he said. “You know about how the business model for utilities has changed over the years, right?”

“Yeah, I’m mostly on solar,” I said, apologetically.

He chuckled. “We largely sell energy to manufacturing companies these days. The noodle forest hits peak power during the same hours that they operate, and we’re really cheap. The problem is that even that is slowly declining over time. I’m trying to diversify the company—”

“Hence Carl and his team,” I said.

“Right,” Jake said. “Katherine and I don’t completely see eye to eye on this direction. This is just normal internal stuff though. Every company has similar discussions at the top.”