The Future of Another Timeline

by Annalee Newitz

  By the time I arrived with dancer twelve, Mademoiselle Asenath, the ballroom had come undone like a man’s tie after a night of bar hopping. People yelled and demanded lap dances. Staff cracked open another whiskey cask. Archy invited Mademoiselle Asenath to sit in his lap as part of the contest. “It’s to be your weigh-in!” he yelped. “Like at the racetrack! You’re a beautiful racehorse, honey, aren’t you?” His friends roared with laughter.

  I gripped the dancer’s arm. She was one of the women in a mostly traditional costume, and the smooth, dark skin of her neck gleamed with necklaces. I spoke loudly enough for Archy to hear. “You don’t have to do that. It’s not in the rules.”

  The dancer was completely unruffled. “Oh no, it’s okay, honey. These gentlemen are good tippers.” Slightly taken aback, I let her go.

  Archy loved that. “That’s right! I pay top dollar for my fillies!” He bounced her on his knees and she pinched his cheek as if he were a naughty boy.

  “You’ve never saddled one as wild as me, love.”

  Fingering one of her spangled sleeves, he stroked her arm and winked at the judge next to him. “Not a purebred, I think. But I’d ride her!” Though the dancer kept a smile carved into her face, I could tell she was no longer enjoying the banter. Archy and his friends speculated about her “breeding,” and I felt something that I’d suppressed for a long time. I wondered where Sherry’s kept its steak knives. Ever since Beth survived, it had gotten harder for me to banish those kind of thoughts.

  These men were supposed to be our allies, but they treated us like animals. Was this really going to work? Had we made a terrible miscalculation? I surveyed the ballroom of glittering hypocrites, their eyes glued to the stage, delight on their faces. They didn’t respect us, but they loved us. We’d ripped a giant transgressive hole in their expensive petticoats, and given them a chance to revel in a sweet, chaotic moment of freedom.

  “It’s time for the dance,” I said, holding out my arm to Mademoiselle Asenath. She escaped Archy’s lap and snatched a tip out of his fingers, perhaps a bit more violently than was strictly necessary. As the music started, her hips swayed and shivered, expressing a perfect hybrid of burlesque and hoochie coochie. Whirling in front of the thrones, skirts frothy with bells, she ripped off her modest bodice and scarves to reveal nothing but a lacy bra over her curved, naked belly. The room went wild.

  “Take it off!”

  “That’s my doll!”

  “Show us everything!”

  “Yes, yes, yes!”

  “That’s a ten! A ten right there!”

  Her stomach muscles rippled as she clashed finger cymbals and commanded the room to watch. It made me think of al-Lat’s statue at Raqmu, or a Grape Ape concert. She was erotic and brilliant and something ineffable that none of these men would ever truly comprehend. I let out a laugh. Aseel really had created a show for the women of the Midway. Maybe the Four Hundred thought it was for them, but that was only because they assumed everything was for them and could comprehend no other possibility.

  As the cacophony in the room reached a fever pitch, the noises moved from appreciation to anger. From my perch near the stage, I spotted a singular figure making his way from the back of the room, red face trembling with moral outrage and unfashionable facial hair. Our honeypot had lured in the drone to lead all drones. The revelers parted to reveal Anthony Comstock, flanked by Elliot and boys from the Society for the Suppression of Vice in their Puritanical plain suits. Two officers from the NYPD pushed members of the Four Hundred out of the way. Our moment had come.

  Comstock stood on a chair. “THIS IMMORAL FILTH WILL STOP RIGHT NOW. YOU ARE INSTRUCTED TO LEAVE OR RISK ARREST.”

  Outrage came from every quarter, delivered in high-toned accents. Archy marched on Comstock and threatened to kick the chair out from under him until the man stepped down.

  “What is the meaning of this? It’s a private party! You can’t barge in here…”

  “But that’s where you’re wrong, sir. This is an obscene performance, and I have brought the police with me to enforce the law. No one, no matter how rich, is above the law.”

  “I beg to differ. Do you know who we are?” Archy made a large, drunken gesture at the room. It had gotten very quiet, and I had no idea what would happen next. I jumped onstage to bundle the dancer into a silk robe, hoping to lead her away unobtrusively.

  But Elliot had his eyes on us. Raising his voice for everyone to hear, he declared, “HALT, MADAME. THIS WHORE IS VIOLATING THE LAWS OF GOD AND NEW YORK CITY. SHE IS COMING WITH US.”

  Now Archy was pissed. He folded his arms and put on his best entitled-rich-guy expression. I had to admit it was pretty impressive. “No one is going with you, little man. The police commissioner had dinner with us last week. I believe he will have something to say about this ridiculous trespass on our private party!”

  There were a few muffled noises of assent from the crowd. Some of the dancers crept down from the dressing room to watch. They hovered next to the stage, a glittering bonfire of bright fabric in the suddenly somber space. Comstock seemed to realize he was losing ground, but he stood firm.

  “I have no beef with you, sir, as long as you clear off. But I must insist that you produce Lady Asenath, who authored this abominable performance. I have a warrant for her arrest!” Next to him, Elliot waved a piece of paper and sneered at me. I wondered how much he remembered of the night he eavesdropped on us. Comstock raised his voice again. “WHERE IS LADY ASENATH?”

  My heart was pounding. What should we do?

  That’s when Aseel stepped forward. She’d changed into a ball gown of pale yellow silk with puffed sleeves and a wide sash. Her skin glowed a rich brown in the chandeliers’ candlelight. “I AM LADY ASENATH.”

  What the hell was she doing? Sending Aseel to jail wasn’t part of our plan. Then something unexpected happened. Mademoiselle Asenath broke away from me onstage to stand next to Aseel. “NO. I AM LADY ASENATH.”

  And then more came forward, all the various Lady Asenaths raising their arms and yelling her name. “I AM LADY ASENATH! I AM!”

  Suddenly, a society lady in the audience jumped on her chair and joined in. “I AM LADY ASENATH! ARREST ME!” Another lurched tipsily onto her chair, aided by a gentleman friend. “I AM LADY ASENATH!”

  That’s when I noticed Sol at the edge of the room, smoking his cigar, looking straight at me. He winked and tapped his temple with a finger, reminding me of what he’d said last year during the Expo: You change a man’s mind by showing him a good time. Maybe he’d hit upon an odd, unknown corollary to the Collective Action hypothesis. The people in this room had come here looking for fun or for titillation or for justice, and maybe it was all right that we didn’t see the same truth when we looked at the stage. So what if these soused men on their thrones didn’t notice the connection between hoochie coochie dancers and women’s reproductive freedom? It didn’t matter. Because we all agreed on one thing. We were in this together.

  “I AM LADY ASENATH!” I yelled from the stage. A reckless, strange solidarity gripped the ballroom, and more voices spoke her name. One of the judges scrambled up next to me and howled in a practiced falsetto, “I AM LADY ASENATH AND I’M A PERFECT TEN!”

  Archy couldn’t have been more thrilled. This would be all over the gossip pages tomorrow. Like a twenty-first-century reality TV star, he thirsted for the fame and party invites that came with his scandalous reputation. “I guess you’ll have to arrest all of us, then,” he said loudly. “I’m sure the police commissioner will be happy to hear about that.”

  Comstock looked at Elliot, and then at the police officers. “This isn’t over. I’m going to bring charges.”

  “I welcome your charges.” Archy glowered. “I can’t wait to bankrupt you in court.”

  My headache was gone and I felt intoxicated in every part of my body. Archy was doing far more than we’d ever hoped he would—and so were his glitter trash uptown friends. For a triumphant second, I allowed mys
elf to imagine history emerging from this moment in a perfect, uncomplicated arc. The Four Hundred’s appetite for sexy entertainment would challenge the obscenity laws that bore Comstock’s name. As he lost his grip on the mail, information about birth control and abortion would circulate freely again. The hoochie coochie dancers’ edit was what we’d needed all along.

  I looked at Morehshin, who was grinning fiercely. Maybe, centuries from now, her queens were becoming people.

  * * *

  Sunday morning’s society pages were full of salacious drawings and exaggerated accounts of the evening. Archy’s “bash” was duly condemned as racy and decadent, but Comstock emerged as the evening’s biggest gossip target. The papers satirized everything about him, from his threadbare suit to his accent. His morals were absurd; they belonged to an era before the invention of electricity. George Bernard Shaw, a snarky British theater critic, made oblique reference to the scandal in a widely republished essay about how “Comstockery” was ruining American culture. Morehshin was excited to see the true slaughter of Comstock’s reputation was under way. Sol and Archy gave everybody big tips, including to the dancers who hadn’t won the prize.

  In the light of day, I still felt sure we’d reached a transition point. This wasn’t an “angry mob” protesting Comstock’s moral cleansing campaign. It was New York’s best and richest, simply trying to have a good time. We’d driven a wedge between the Four Hundred and the moralist who depended on them.

  Of course, I might never know if I was right about the eventual outcome of last night’s blowup. That would require me to get back to 2022. And I couldn’t do that until Morehshin and I tapped back millions of years to deal with the men who were still trying to rob us of our history.

  I realized this might be the last time we would see Aseel, and I was sorry to say goodbye. Hungover but happy, we met in the hotel dining room for a late breakfast of eggs, rolls, and various gelatinous meats beloved in this era. Morehshin poured a small amount of coffee into her cup from the carafe on our table and stared at it.

  “You going to drink that?” Aseel was amused.

  I tried to explain. “People don’t drink coffee in her time.”

  “Some people do.” Morehshin frowned. Then sipped. “Ugh, this is bad. Maybe some rules don’t need breaking.”

  We laughed and I noticed that Aseel didn’t seem as angry as she used to. Running a shop suited her, and she was publishing a lot of music that came from traditions outside the usual European oompa crap. “What are your plans for the Independent Music Company?” I asked.

  “Sol and I talked last night, after everybody left. We’re making a tidy profit with our sheet music, and he wants me to start organizing more events like this one back in Chicago.” She got a faraway look on her face. “We could bring back some of the Midway dancers, like Salina, and put on shows in the dance hall next door. A bunch of venues are opening up on Wabash.”

  “That sounds fantastic! The Algerian Village lives on!”

  She nodded. “I got a big raise, too. I can buy a house.”

  Morehshin talked around the bacon in her mouth. “That’s good. A house is important. My sisters have a saying: If you have property, you can’t be property.”

  Aseel gave us both a quizzical look. “I’m not sure that’s true, but I definitely feel more secure.”

  We talked about where she might move, and how Sol was going to let her take charge of hiring, and then finally it was time for us to go. Aseel took the train back to Chicago while we headed to the pier. We had a long trip ahead.

  * * *

  When we arrived at Raqmu, the news was waiting for us in tidy piles at the inn in the scholars’ neighborhood. Literati and society types had taken up the “Comstockery” meme with zeal. It came to mean anything unfashionable, addle-brained, or dull. Comstock’s raid had also cost him some very rich patrons, who quietly distanced themselves from his crusade. When he was harassing abortionists, smutty postcard peddlers, and low-class theaters, they considered it their duty to support him. But not when he tried to smear the reputations of Archy and the other lads, who were only having a bit of fun. Comstock’s operation had always been on a shoestring budget, and now he had fewer resources than ever. If he wanted to continue his legal battles over obscene materials, he couldn’t afford to sustain his regular busts in the street.

  One of Soph’s friends wrote to say that Comstock’s boys from the Society for the Suppression of Vice had stopped harassing abortionists right after the party. For now, the women of New York and Chicago had precarious access to birth control—as long as they ordered the right euphemisms from the right catalogues, or called on a sympathetic midwife.

  Comstock, who once boasted of driving sex educators to suicide and had attracted followers from across the timeline, was losing his grip on America’s britches. His “special agent” position with the Postal Service was only as powerful as the elites allowed it to be. Without help from the Four Hundred and their politicians, he would be relegated to the status of a religious nuisance shouting in the halls outside Congress.

  I imagined what Beth’s life would be like if the Comstock Laws really were crumbling. What if getting an abortion was an unremarkable aspect of healthcare for anyone with a uterus? What if she didn’t have to risk arrest for wanting a normal teenage life without the burden of early motherhood? Maybe she wouldn’t need me to help her, but neither would all those other girls who hadn’t been born to a mother like mine.

  Of course, the reality would be more complicated than that golden arc I’d imagined when we invoked Lady Asenath’s name. Clever moralists of the future might come up with new legal tricks to invade people’s private lives and control reproduction. As long as we had Machines, no edit was permanent. We would have to stay one step ahead, adding loopholes and footnotes and exemptions to their power.

  TWENTY-NINE

  BETH

  Los Angeles, Alta California (1994 C.E.)

  I logged into my account from the dorm internet kiosk and opened Pine to read my e-mail. There were two messages: one from the campus lawyer, and one from Hamid. Looking around to make sure nobody could see the terminal, I opened Hamid’s right away:

  Hi Beth. First e-mail!!! I’m trying to decide whether to see Short Cuts or Cyborg Cop this weekend. If you come along, you can cast the deciding vote! What do you think?—Hamid

  My heart surged like a regular organ instead of an alien invader. I replied:

  Hi Hamid. Good job flinging electrons. I vote for Cyborg Cop.—Beth

  Then I read the e-mail from the lawyer, who said she’d done some research and I could make an appointment any time to discuss it. I tried to focus on my midterm for Anita’s class, but managed little more than a few paragraphs before falling asleep in a tight ball on my bunk.

  I saw the lawyer the next day after class.

  She patted a folder of papers on her desk. “This is a pretty unusual situation, but we do have something called a dependency override that allows a student under twenty-four to become eligible for financial aid without parental information.”

  I nodded. “That sounds good.”

  “I’m not going to soft-pedal this, Beth. It’s a difficult process, and it’s reserved for pretty dire circumstances. But I got the feeling, based on our previous conversation, that you are … estranged from your parents?”

  It felt like somebody had punched me in the throat. “I don’t … I mean, I don’t know what that means.”

  “Are your parents paying for your college now?”

  “Yes, but I want them to stop.”

  The lawyer gave me a hard look. “I need you to be honest with me, Beth. You told me before that your father is mentally ill. Your words. Is there some reason your parents can’t take care of you?”

  I didn’t know what to say and I stared at my hands, digging into the wooden chair.

  “Is your father abusing you?”

  My ears burned as I thought about how my father acted at the La
Brea Tar Pits. And then his rage over the shoes. Was it really abuse? The word sounded so extreme, like something that would leave scars all over my body.

  The lawyer tried again, more gently. “Has he hit you? Or molested you?”

  Feeling nauseated, I remembered that night—the one that Tess didn’t actually know about. Maybe it hadn’t been real. I shifted in my seat and watched an ant walk across the floor. My voice sounded very far away when I spoke again. “I don’t know.”

  She pushed the folder toward me. “If your father is abusing you, I think we can make a case for dependency override. Especially if you get a job and show you are already working to support yourself. Why don’t you look over some of this paperwork and think about it, okay?” I hazarded a glance at her and she leaned forward. “I don’t know what your home situation is, but if you need help, I’ll do what I can. Don’t be afraid to stick up for yourself.”

  “Okay, I’ll look at this and e-mail you.” I jammed the folder into my backpack and walked out into the impossibly beautiful afternoon, where wind attenuated clouds in the sky and eroded the surface of the planet the same way it had for millions of years.

  * * *

  Cyborg Cop was a good choice. It was terrible by any number of measures, and we had plenty of joke material afterward. We sat on a bench near the library and watched students strolling through cones of light from the streetlamps. I lit a cigarette and tried to count the number of times the movie ripped off RoboCop and Terminator.

  “Also it’s set in the Caribbean, but there are no black people? Did they turn all the black people into white cyborgs?” I shook my head and Hamid laughed.

  But then he turned somber. “I really thought you didn’t ever want to talk to me again after what happened last year.”

  I exhaled a long stream of smoke and tried to put words together that I’d imagined saying to him for months. “I know. I shouldn’t have blown you off like that. I mean—you didn’t do anything bad.” Stubbing out my cigarette, I looked up at the moon rather than face him. “But you were about to go off to college, and I barely knew you, and I thought it made sense for us to make a clean break, you know?”