Beneath the Gated Sky

by Robert Reed

  Inside her human brain, carefully embossed into the tangled neurons, were the basic instructions for surviving here. But she needed coaching and practice, and more practice. At the end of one hallway were two doors wearing mysterious words and simple portraits of humans, one portrait triangular and the other tall and straight. Because she was more straight than triangular, and since the air around the first door smelled like shit—an odor she would recognize with any nose—she made the wrong guess.

  Her cousin and a stranger were standing before white urinals, one trying to mimic the other’s stance, their feet set apart and both gripping themselves in front, with one hand.

  Glancing over his shoulder, her cousin looked at Po-lee-een, closing one eye with a slow, exaggerated motion.

  She slipped back into the hallway.

  The ladies’ room was empty. She went straight to the toilet, giving it an experimental flush, then she used it successfully, astonished by the water lost with her urine. There was some gruesome trash in a white can. She flushed and stepped out of the stall, startled to see someone walking with her. Turning fast, she found herself staring at a very tall, very mature twelve-year-old girl trapped inside the mirror, and with an embarrassing slowness, Po-lee-een realized that she was looking at her own face, her unruly and uncombed hair, and an expression that she realized was a little surprised and very amused.

  She resembled her cousin, and someone else, too.

  Someone who didn’t belong to her family.

  Po-lee-een stood where she could see the booth, watching the nameless woman. Larger than most human women, and strong, her features and thick hair were much like those that Po-lee-een had seen in the mirror. A sudden chill took hold of the girl. Obviously, the intrusion had used that woman as a model, as the inspiration, when it was fashioning her new body out of nothingness.

  Po-lee-een turned away.

  Her cousin was off exploring another portion of the wonderful building. There was a market, brilliantly lit, racks and shelves filled with countless products, vivid colors, and tall words fighting for their attention. The air itself vibrated with the smells of food, causing her mouth to water. How did human beings survive this endless loss of moisture?

  Customers selected items, then bartered with a woman near the door.

  Po-lee-een watched the transactions, trying to learn. Then her cousin sneaked up behind her, tugging on an arm, saying, “Come here. Let me show you something.”

  Magazines filled a long wooden rack. The new humans stood before them, almost gawking, unable to count the titles or name half the colors. It was as if the entire planet lay in easy reach; Jarrtee had nothing to compare with this marriage of commerce and knowledge. Was it all right to touch? Others did, so Po-lee-een mimicked them, selecting the closest magazines, flipping through the cheap pages, her tiny new eyes absorbing images of plants and animals and foreign scenes populated with humans of every shade, the sheer banal pageantry of it all making her heart beat faster, her breath almost galloping now.

  Leaning against the far end of the rack, her cousin paged his way through a fat travel magazine.

  She pulled a slick magazine from the highest shelf, opened it and found a naked man smiling up at her, his organ lying outside his body, something about it extremely inviting. Smiling, she held up the photograph and called out, “Hey! Look familiar?”

  Her cousin glanced up, giggled.

  She replaced the magazine and took the one next to it. Naked women posed for the unseen camera, proud of their organs and youth and apparent beauty. Po-lee-een was examining their enormous breasts when a man’s voice came over her shoulder, a nebulous question posed.

  “What do you think?”

  The man was nearly as old as Father, his face half-furred, eyes reddened. She tried to avoid his eyes, as instructed, flipping through the pages and admitting, “To me, they look fat.”

  “I agree,” he replied, his voice smiling.

  She triggered a speaking advertisement. Simple circuits, a battery and speaker were woven into the paper, and a woman’s voice said, “Porsche,” every few moments. The photograph showed a sleek vehicle and an even sleeker woman—a tall and obviously strong human woman—and under her breath, to herself, the girl repeated the word.

  “Porsche.”

  “She looks like you,” said the older man.

  Did she?

  “Are you with anyone? That boy, maybe?”

  “No,” she lied.

  “Are you traveling through?” She nodded. Yes.

  Again, the sultry voice called to her. “Porsche.”

  “What’s a Porsche?” she inquired.

  “You’re kidding? It’s the car.”

  She was disappointed. She’d hoped it was the woman.

  “You know,” said the man, “I’ve got a better car than that. I can give you a ride, if there’s somewhere you need to be.”

  She closed the magazine, then set it back where she had found it—a good principle on any world.

  “How about a ride?” he kept asking.

  Turning, she finally stared at those red eyes. Sure enough, humans didn’t like a hard stare.

  He blinked, muttering, “Hey, I want to help.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Fuck you,” he said, then retreated.

  Her cousin approached, closing and opening one of his eyes.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Winking,” he said. “It’s friendly. My guide showed me how.”

  Po-lee-een glanced at his magazine, at the big glossy photographs. It looked as if vast portions of the earth were white beaches and blue water, the sky as smooth and thin as the best jarrtee silk.

  “I’m buying it,” her cousin warned her.

  “Our money’s for emergencies.”

  “Our money is our money,” was his response. Then he walked up to the cashier—another tired woman, the only kind of person hired by the truck stop—and with a jarrtee’s two-handed formality, he gave her one of the paper rectangles.

  She counted his change, then halfheartedly wished him a pleasant night.

  But he didn’t want to leave. Opening his magazine, he touched one of the advertisements. “What’s a Trinidad?” he asked the cashier.

  The woman squinted at the photograph, then said, “An island. I think.”

  “Trinidad.” He smiled and told his cousin, “I like that name.”

  “Is it ordinary?” she had to ask.

  “I hope not.”

  Whispering, she reminded him, “It’s best to pick normal, simple names.”

  “It’s our business. We can pick what we want,” Trinidad replied, half-laughing.

  “Hey, kids,” said the cashier. “Back away from my counter, would you?”

  They moved, but not far.

  “Choose your name,” urged Trinidad. “Now. Then we’ll be the first to know each other’s new name.”

  She said, “Porsche.”

  “I like its sound,” he assured her.

  Louder, she said, “My name is Porsche.”

  “Hey, Porsche,” said the cashier, “tell your brother to get out of the way.”

  Porsche winked at the cashier, saying, “He’s not my brother. I don’t even know him.”

  The lined, careworn face examined both of them, the barest suggestion of a smile showing.

  “Yeah,” the cashier replied, “I’ve got that kind of brother, too.”

  The story wasn’t finished. But dawn had reached the western sky, and Porsche was sick of talking, and she was starving, remembering that truck stop breakfast from years ago and her mouth suddenly wet. Sitting up in bed, she scratched her right breast, then her belly, saying, “And that’s how we got here, and that’s how I got my name.”

  Cornell was awake if not quite alert. Lying on his back, an arm thrown over his forehead, he stared up at the fading stars on the ceiling, and after a long thoughtful pause, said, “Now I know another one of your secrets.”

>   “You do,” she agreed amiably.

  “Is that your last secret?”

  She glanced at him, saying nothing.

  “I thought not.” Then he rolled onto his side, preparing to sleep, finally. “So what about your cousin? Trinidad, is it?”

  “What about him?”

  “What’s he up to? Do I ever get to meet him?”

  “He’s around, and I hope you do.”

  Cornell closed his eyes, and smiled. “We’ve got a lot of nights left for stories, don’t we?”

  “We have,” she promised.

  “Time enough to hear all of your secrets,” he muttered.

  Under her breath, more to herself than Cornell, she said, “As long as they’re mine to give.”

  7

  On the first of November, the farmer came to collect the rent, and within the limits of politeness, to snoop.

  “How’s the house?” he inquired. “Holding up for you?”

  “It’s holding just fine,” Cornell told him. “Thanks for asking.”

  “The roof staying tight?”

  “So far.”

  “Good.” He was almost exactly Cornell’s age—an anonymous, weathered face and durable clothes with the requisite seed cap that farmers had worn for decades, the holo image of a golden corncob riding above the long brim. “Good,” he said a second time, letting his eyes track sideways. “Can’t help noticing. You do some more work on the old shed?”

  “We installed some new equipment,” Cornell conceded, always smiling. “And some insulation and space heaters, too.”

  “You said you might,” the farmer replied, entirely amiable.

  The utility building was south of the farmhouse. It looked like a giant steel worm cut in half lengthwise, then tucked into the overgrown shelterbelt. Its garage door was closed, and so was the smaller human door beside it. Tiny windows lined the worm’s sides, each covered with a simple black curtain. Timothy Kleck had brought those curtains; interwoven with sophisticated electronics, they were meant to disrupt any attempt at surveillance.

  Hidden, Few-made devices were doing the same job, but Porsche hadn’t mentioned them to Timothy. It was better that he and the world believed it was his cleverness that was protecting them.

  After a long thoughtful stare at the black curtains, the farmer looked back at Cornell, folding the envelope roughly and shoving it into his back pocket, never so much as glancing at its contents.

  “Glad to see this place taken care of,” he declared.

  It was Cornell’s turn to say, “Good.”

  Porsche stood nearby, watching the laconic performance. The two men had met as boys—on this ground, on the Change Day. Their shared history helped smooth things between them. Cornell had never mentioned their project to the farmer, not even to offer the cover story about making money through electronic wizardry. And to his credit, the farmer had never asked for any explanations. Yet he was too shrewd and curious to ignore the clues. He looked between the farmhouse and the metal shed, gazing out at his field, the mysterious glass disk waiting in easy reach.

  “Remember my dog? The one with pups?”

  “Sure,” said Cornell.

  A German shepherd-wolf mix, Porsche recalled. Plus a sprinkling of artificial genes, intelligence married to a sweet obedience.

  “My offer stands,” said the farmer. “You can have a couple of her pups.”

  Cornell glanced at Porsche.

  “They’ll make fine guard dogs.”

  Porsche said, “I’m sure they would,” and took several steps, approaching the two men. “It’s just that we don’t have a lot of time to care for puppies.”

  “Besides,” Cornell added, “by the time they’re full grown, we’ll be gone.”

  The plain, weathered face nodded, eyes asking, “Where will you be going?”

  But the farmer didn’t ask the question out loud. Instead, he opened his pickup’s door and started to climb into the cab, hesitating at the last moment and climbing down again, saying quietly, “I almost forgot. The other day, I had some visitors…”

  He had “almost forgot” nothing. He had saved the most important topic for last.

  “Visitors?” Cornell asked.

  “Three hunters. From the city. They wanted to hunt my land.” Again, he looked at the utility building, questions framed by the eyes, and left unasked. Instead, he said simply, “Two of them did the talking. A lot of talking. The third man was older, and he didn’t make a sound. He was in charge, I’m guessing.”

  “Did they mention us?” Cornell asked.

  “Not in so many words.”

  Porsche stepped closer. “What did they talk about?”

  “Where to find birds. The cold wet weather. And could they hunt close to your place…if nobody was going to be around, of course.”

  No one spoke for a moment.

  “I told them to stay clear of here.”

  “Thank you,” Porsche replied.

  The farmer adjusted the long brim, pulling it closer to his eyes. “All of a sudden, one of the men started talking about my neighbors. Naming names. Telling me how they were using black market pesticides, and risking jail time because of it. And then he asked about me. He said to me, ‘It’s hard to plant crops from inside a federal penitentiary.’”

  Cornell said, “Shit.”

  Porsche remained silent.

  The farmer seem nonplussed, giving a half-shrug and climbing back into the cab. “I told them to forget hunting my birds, and get the hell off my land.”

  Silence.

  “If you don’t want guard dogs,” he continued, “that’s your business. But my advice: Get whatever help you can. And if you can get your work done and get out of here soon, do it.” He slammed his door, then dropped the window. “Not that I want you people gone,” he added, pushing back his cap. “Even if we don’t talk enough, I like the idea of having neighbors.”

  It was the most trusted face in the world, and Timothy Kleck had stolen it.

  And he had stolen the body and name, the mannerisms and the deep bass voice, too. Then he dressed the man in a conservative gray suit and sat him behind the famous kidney-shaped desk, the trademark chords of CNN fading, and the stolen man smiled at his tiny audience, sober optimism mixed with grand-fatherly wisdom. “Good evening to you,” said the famous voice. “I am Hawthorne Klay, and this is a special CNN report.”

  He paused for a half-moment, giving the smile time to fade.

  “It has been a quarter of a century since the Change, and it’s been nearly as long since the United States government formed and funded the Cosmic Event Agency. The CEA was entrusted then with a simple mission: To study the Change for the benefit of the entire human species.” The wide screen split in two, video clips of mammoth telescopes and scientists in white coats shown on the commentator’s left. “For twenty-five years, the CEA has funded observatories on the moon, laboratories dedicated to exotic mathematics and physics, as well as projects decidedly less scientific in their scope. Every possible lead has been pursued at one time or another, and as a result, much has been learned.”

  The commentator vanished, replaced with a sloppy gray moonscape. But instead of blackness above, and stars, the moon itself looked down on the moon, a soft gray illusion hovering over ancient stone and dust.

  “Perhaps the agency’s greatest feat,” said the deep voice, “was its role in causing the lunar sky to Change. And having done that, its researchers—some of the best on either world—were able to decipher why skies Change. It is a simple matter of too many telescopes peering into the unknown.”

  The video dissolved, returning the viewer to Hawthorne.

  He had stopped smiling, a bleak sense of concern seeping from the trusted face, and his voice sounded pained, as if announcing the death of a president.

  “There is, however, a dark and secret side to the CEA. In the next hour, we will show you the results of several years of investigation, including video from a secret base and intervie
ws with former employees.” The image paused for a moment, then said, “Please, remain open-minded. Much of what you see and hear will seem incredible. But remember that the Change seemed like madness at first, then simply unthinkable, yet today, everyone almost takes our new sky for granted.

  “The ordinary always begins as something incredible.

  “I am Hawthorne Klay, and this program is entitled: ‘Death Under Alien Skies.’”

  The image froze, its digital substance more rigid than any flesh.

  It was still the first day in November. Four people were sitting together in the utility building, near the space heaters, coffee cups in hand.

  Wearing a big smile, Porsche told Timothy, “Very, very impressive.”

  The tall man normally feasted on praise. But he saw too many hurdles in front of them, and he couldn’t help but leak pessimistic sounds. “What comes after is what counts, and it takes time to create something people will believe—”

  “I find it very believable,” Nathan interjected.

  “This is the easy part,” Timothy growled. “I’ve got one more segment in the can. At this rate, it’s going to take a few more months to get a finished product. And meanwhile, CNN is upgrading its security systems. Which makes it a kind of race.” He paused, then added, “Frankly, I wish we were running a little bit faster.”

  Their original plan, discarded weeks ago, was to collect everything they could on the CEA, including Cornell’s and Porsche’s own testimony, then simply give it away on the Net. Millions would eventually see it, and some of those millions would believe the charges, and with luck, the truth would snowball from there.

  But the Net was strewn with digital fictions. Some were elaborate and sophisticated, and most important, some of the fictions were as bizarre as anything they intended to show. Borderline religions liked to portray miracles and various paradises. Radical politicians invented conspiracies and rewrote history. It was Cornell who had pointed out that the public would have doubts about invisible intrusions leading to alien worlds, and portraying a noble collection of deep thinkers as being villains…well, that would shred the last of their credibility, and what good would come of it?