by B C Woodruff
The turnout wasn’t surprising, really. It wasn’t a Friday or the weekend and given the hands on the clock, well, most people had better things to do than spend lunchtime hidden in a dive like this.
Maxime didn’t. Who was to say what the real time was, anyway? Could a clock really be trusted in a bar without a name? Maxime wasn’t sure – and her watch was set to the last place she’d been visiting, far and away.
Frankly speaking, she wasn’t even certain what day it was. “Well?” The bartender was growing impatient. Maxime was still looking around, following the logic behind the vintage decor that was all the rage when the bar had probably been built. This low-tech motif didn’t fly with the younger generation then, and that was still part of its appeal. Locations like this presented an opportunity for the surviving thirty somethings to get away from the craziness and immerse themselves in the nostalgia of wood paneling and frayed posters depicting movies and movements from when the world was very different – and less weird.
Simplicity was the key – the perfect pitch for someone trying to forget what the world had become.
Someone like Maxime. She looked towards the bartender, who was not giving up. “Fine. Let’s see. Well, I’m not bad with computers. I can put together a real mean Excel spreadsheet if the pressure is on. I got pretty good at juggling, but that was back in my high school days, you know, before.” She laughed in spite of herself as she remembered pelting friends and family with dubiously coordinated beanbags. “I’m pretty sure I could still do it if the situation called for it.” She paused. “I’m not a bad cook, either.”
“That’s two! Do you have three talents?” Humored at last, the bartender’s eyes were pools of delight.
“Not talents, no. More like hobbies. Well, not Excel, that’s for work. I mean, who the hell would call working on spreadsheets a hobby? They’d have to be crazy. Right?”
“Could be. So you’re not a... Technoton?” She pretended to type. “Nope.” “An Acroton?” She mimed a tiny backflip. “No.” “How about a–” “Nothing. Like I said before. Not a talented person, I guess. I really don’t know what to tell you... What was your name?”
“Trrrrrisssta.” She practically purred it out. Maxime nodded, glad to have introductions out of the way. “Alright. So, Trista, I’m getting the feeling there might be a bit of a miscommunication here. I’m not really into... uh... women?”
This didn’t faze Trista half as much as Maxime had hoped it would. “Me either, but there’s something about you. I felt it the second you walked in the door.” She flashed a crooked but impeccably white smile. “Hold on.” Without looking down, Trista reached behind the bar and pulled out a fresh, frothy pint that swayed from side to side as it came to rest near its half-finished, abandoned predecessor.
“There. All better, no?”
“I guess so. Still, I don’t have anything to show you.” Trista winked. “Not with that attitude! But maybe with a little push, we’ll figure something out. Could be that it just hasn’t manifested yet. Or you might just not know what you can do. I’ve heard of that before.”
“Doubt it.” “I knew this one guy who was living in Washington State someplace where the Ni-Fi network wasn’t very strong. Back before they set up the global metropolitan grid. He was like you, thought he didn’t have anything special about him, then poof!” Her hands went up and as wide as her expression. “Suddenly he came into his talent. Bet you can’t guess what he could do.”
Maxime nodded and returned the bartender’s smile, wondering whether this was a conversational technique or Trista actually expected her to guess. “I bet you’d be right!”
“Oh, come on. Don’t be boring. Just humour me for a while, and the beer’s on the house.”
Maxime rolled her eyes. “Fine. Give me a clue at least?” “Nope. Just name off the weirdest talents you’d ever heard, and if you get close I’ll give you a little nudge in the right direction.” She flashed that blinding smile again.
“Okay. Pyroton? Like, controls fire or whatever?” She watched Trista smirk. “What?”
“Oh, come on. You can think of weird stuff, can’t you? Here, let me give you one example.” She reached under the bar and placed it on the counter, cupping her hand over whatever it was so that Maxime couldn’t see.
“So, I once had a guy who used to come in here. He would sit just over there.” She pointed to a booth near the back of the bar where the lights were left on their dimmest settings. “Same order every time. Beer and peanuts. Then, without saying much of anything, he’d go back there and watch the tube. Rugby matches, mostly. So the first time he did it, I almost lost my shit. I’d be over here, serving a customer and out-of-nowhere you’d hear this odd clunk sound. Like... uh... a golf club hitting the side of his favorite Mercedes when you find out there’s another woman.” She held herself for a second. “Kidding. Still. Metal on metal. I thought something broke, so I walked over to investigate and, as I walked up, I saw him bite down on a peanut. Then, right there and then, poof – the peanut wasn’t a peanut. It’d turned into this itsy-bitsy, teeny- weeny, little no-entry sign.”
She lifted her hand to reveal exactly that. “Now, that was weird. Thing was, he didn’t stop chewing on the peanuts. Apparently he could still taste and chew them, but he didn’t dare swallow... I think you can imagine why. They might be no-entry, but they’d make a terrible exit, if you know what I mean.” She ducked below the bar and promptly came back up. “Here.” She held out another one and handed it to Maxime.
It was a two-centimetre large hexagonal sign with white contour, red background, and black lettering. Even the back had little bolt holes where you could have attached it to a signpost. The edges shined a brilliant chrome in the dull light.
They looked, by all accounts, like they had been made by tiny people to guard tiny doors or private Matchbox roads. Memories of reading Gulliver’s Travels swarmed in Maxime’s head. A well placed ad here or there, and a Lilliputian merchant might make a decent living off these oddities. Before the thought could be committed to long-term memory it was gone, stolen away as Trista leaned in only inches from her face.
“Go ahead, give it a smell.” Trista smiled. Hesitant at first, Maxime obliged. “Oh, weird – it still smells like peanuts.” “Right! I thought it was pretty cute, actually. So I kept them around, you know, a souvenir or a – whatchacallit? – objet de memoire. I don’t get out much, as you can imagine. Most of the people that come here are pretty much regulars.” She paused. “Until they aren’t. So, I have a few things – trinkets, videos, photographs, tiny no-entry signs, and all that. It’s sort of like my own museum of oddities. A way to remember them. Things that you won’t see again in a million years because those people don’t come around anymore or were just passing through. I could show you later. It’s in the back.”
“You were asking me about the weirdest thing and I have to admit, this might well be it.” She continued examining the sign.
“Right! Shoot. Okay, okay. I want you to guess what Tedd – that’s the guy’s name – could do.” She smiled. “Think weird. Like. Really weird.”
“Look, I really don’t know. I’m not even a full beer in yet.” “Come onnnnn. Guess!” “Fine. Whatever. Uh, could he make, uh, bath bubbles turn into seahorses?”
“Have you really met someone who can do that? Nooo waayy!” The way she said ‘no’ made it roll into the W sound at the end. “Though that does sound adorable.”
“No. Just sounds weird.” “It does...” Her eyes considered it. “Could he... levitate if he was listening to Radiohead’s song ‘Creep’?” She did, in fact, know someone who had this talent. But during one flight, the CD skipped when it should have started over – a grim testament to the hazards of off-brand consumer electronics. He fell from a height of sixty-three feet onto Highway 132 after getting off a bus and trying to swoop over a particularly congested morning traffic jam.
“Nope.” Trista said, missing out on one of Maxime’s favorite storie
s. “Well, could he talk to plants? Play music with cats? Turn himself turquoise? Did disco music come out of his ass when he farted? Walk through glass? Turn his voice into graffiti? Did he molt like a lizard or molt into lizards? I don’t know, Trrrrrista! I give up!” Clearly, this game of throwing out random, half-imagined examples was exhausting Maxime beyond her capacity for afternoon whimsy.
Trista, on the other hand, was having the time of her life. “That’s alright. At least you were trying this time! So, this guy–”
“Tedd.” Maxime let out an exasperated sigh. “Yes, Tedd. He was in Washington State when all of a sudden he was standing naked next to his brother in Wisconsin.” “That’s... yeah... you got me there. That’s weird.” “No-no-no. It’s not about that. It’s about how he got there... Or why. Whatever – let me finish! So, he appeared next to his brother while he was mid-thrust and giving it to some bottled redhead in a motel room near their parent’s place.” She laughed. “The two of them were just a few years apart, but – well, you can imagine how they would have reacted. And that poor girl! They hadn’t seen each other since GenCell announced Ni-Fi’s secondary effects.”
She thought for a second. “I can’t really remember his brother's name... Anyway, for whatever reason, whenever Tedd or his brother were being intimate with someone, blammo! The other brother would appear right there in the same room not five feet from where the other, uh, finished. Now, the first few times it was pretty awkward, as you’d imagine, but the two of them made it work. Saved a lot on traveling costs.”
Maxime hesitated. “When he was intimate or... any time?” “You know the expression ‘it takes two to tango’? Well, as it turns out, it takes two to teleport. Anyway, so I met Tedd one night and he explained that his brother needed a lift here and asked if I could lend him a hand, so to speak. Weirdest pickup line I’ve ever heard, but, well, I thought – this is just what I want to add to my little museum back there.” She pointed again. “I got the whole thing on tape. I can show you later if you want. Tedd turned out to be a really polite guy. Proper gentleman and such. I miss him.” She winked, through her eyes darkened for a moment. “But not his brother, ya know? He ended up being damn rude.” She sighed, a little teary-eyed or just plain tired – Maxime didn’t honestly care at that point.
“No. I think I’m good. Your description was... thorough.” “Oh, it’s not pornographic or anything. More like an art piece. Like the peanut-signs.”
“I’m sure it’s great, but if you ask me to smell it, we’re going to have a problem.” She sighed and went back to her beer.
Trista was having enough of this. “Sheesh, I’m just trying to be friendly. This place gets quieter every day. If you’re going to be coming around we might as well get to know each other, right?”
“Mmhmm. I guess.” And then, realizing how she was acting, added. “No, I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. I appreciate the beer and the stories, but I’m just... having a bit of a rough time recently.”
“Want to talk about it?” “Not really.”
There was a nice silence for a while, even though Trista was staring at her with the intensity of a star moments away from supernova; finally, incapable of containing herself, she broke it.
“That Ni-Fi, eh? Who’da thought it would fuck this place up so badly?”
“I don’t know. It’s always been pretty fucked. Now we just have some extra distractions and a little more mystery. I sorta like it.”
“That’s a good attitude.” She poured her another glass, as Maxime had finished sometime during the Tedd story. “I don’t know if I could keep myself positive if I turned out to be one of the only people that–” She stopped. “I don’t mean... never mind.”
“It’s okay. Say it.” She considered her next words. “I wonder what it is that makes you immune to the Ni-Fi... If you even are. I heard from this guy Bill Lambert, he worked at GenCell, that it’s impossible for people to be completely immune. No one can resist forever. Eventually everyone exposed to the signal is changed by it.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. I literally just drove here from –” Trista clapped her hands suddenly. “Ever think that that’s what your talent is?”
“What? Being a sim–” Trista cut her off with an abrupt “Don’t use that word!” She shook her head and chuckled. “Sorry. Old habit. I forget that it’s not really a bad word these days. I remember when people who weren’t able to develop talents were shunned and mocked. Even a stupid one like mine got me... well, a lot of awkward propositions at work. But maybe that’s why I’ve lived so much longer than the others. The cooler the feat, the less time you get to use it.”
“It’s a silly word, anyway.” Maxime added. “Look at it this way. All of the rest of the people here, they get all these strange things that they can do, right? “Some of them are pretty nifty, like that man who predicts earthquakes or that girl who can cure diseases. You know, Saint What’s-Her-Face. Then you... Then you have people like me – I can make beer spin, and even that’s not guaranteed to please some people. I know it’s at least kinda neat, but it’s not like I can do it to a full bathtub or a swimming pool. Just a cup of beer. And only beer. Don’t know why, but it gets me attention and tips, right?”
Maxime nodded. “Now, if we leave the Ni-Fi, what happens?” “Withdrawal.” She smiled. “That’s a sweet way of calling it. Can we just call it what it is?”
Maxime sulked a little and said nothing. “Leaving the Ni-Fi... Well... We die.” Trista’s playfulness was gone. “Now, people like you, well, you’re different, ain’tcha? You can leave the Ni-Fi grid anytime. You don’t need the signal. You can go anywhere. You can go out to nature. You can just... go. We have to stay. We’re...we’re trapped, ain’t we? Trapped in these fields, however long they bother to keep them up. How many people you reckon are like you? One in a million? Ten million? A hundred? Billions? Well, doesn’t that make you special, too?”
Maxime smiled a little and shrugged. Their game was over, and there wasn’t much left for her to say.
“And we... Well, the Ni-Fi doesn’t let us live forever, does it? No. We’re all dying. Some say only a few more years, couple decades at tops. Then we’re all gone and the world is left to people like you. To clean up the mess we’re all making.” She waved goodbye to the twilit bar, now empty except for Trista.
“When Ni-Fi happened... this place was always full. We had to extend our hours to accommodate everyone. We had five bartenders behind here. Seven servers. Five cooks and a few busboys with a part-time runner for when we were really packed.” Her waving hand stayed high and alert. “Now it’s just me. Cooking, cleaning, and taking out the garbage. Now, it’s just–” The thought was interrupted.
A couple walked in through the door at the back. The man raised his left hand and a chair moved across the floor. He sat down and it moved him back to the table. The woman behind him laughed and laughed.
“We’re the ones that got the shaft, so we might as well have some fun in the meantime. Don’t take that away from us. You already have the rest.”
It seemed clear that long after the rest of the world – from mountaintop settlements, to rural enclaves, to permanent seafaring colonies, to the corporate-owned orbital habitats – had moved on, those that remained would still be fighting shadows at noon. They were making the most of what had been forced upon them. Everyone had people they had already lost. People they had loved from the time before.
Trista lifted the warm pint she’d demonstrated her power on to her lips. “Cheers.”
Maxime raised her own glass, at a loss for what to toast. “Cheers.” There was a kinship between the two, something earned, yes, but something that existed beyond the circumstances of their meeting. They carried complementary spirits and seemed to recognize that within one another as their empty glasses found their ways back to the bartop.
Maxime reached out and hugged the woman on the other side. “You know, we’re more alike than I was ready to admit... Tell you wh
at. You take this.”
Maxime handed over a slip of skin-coloured paper and placed it on the tabletop between them. It immediately drew in the colour around it, like a chameleon.
“Wow,” Trista said. “I got it from a friend who, well... I... I’m sure you’ll keep this safe. It means a lot to me. There won’t be any more of these, you know?”
Maxime grinned and Trista smiled back, as bubbly as the moment they first met, taking the card and placing next to the no-entry sign, whose unmistakable coloration it mimicked perfectly.
Trista had a flash from the time before. Family. Friends. Things from an age long past. But as quickly as they had arrived, they were gone, replaced by the cold fact that time had little meaning here. Her people didn’t live in the time before, and had no part to play in what came next. Theirs was a world that only existed now, and in many ways, that made it alright.
OUT OF SOURCES
“I don’t really see why you’re laughing about this. It’s pretty damn serious. If they find out I helped you...” The caller was sour-voiced with a tone that reminded the man on the other end that while he wasn’t in much hot water at work, he wouldn’t hear the end of it after he got home.
“Look. It’s fine. Really. I just told Margot that it was all a misunderstanding and that I would take care in the future. I hate lying to people. And after I read the stuff, well, I didn’t want her to think it was mine. No sense in justifying bad work, right? Anyways, she seemed fine with the whole situation.”
“Uh-hnh. It’s not about being lazy, Bill – it’s the fact that you were caught. Now they’ll have the interns sift through all your work and we’ll have to deal with delayed payments. We have bills to pay. We have a kid on the way. You can’t just do these things and expect to get off with a warning.”
“My dear, lovely, wonderful, beautiful wife. It seems you’re laboring under the delusion that they even care about what I write. You know how the programs work! I could spew lorem ipsum to my heart’s content and I wouldn’t hear so much as a murmur about it.” He was smug, confident, and completely ready for this. Everything she hated when the two came to a tête-à-tête.