Attribution

by Christine Horner

  Ignoring him, Dean tossed the box from reception into a nearby garbage bin.

  Studebaker tsked before digging it back out. “Newbie move, junior. I got some of my best tips anonymously.”

  “I tell you what. It’s all yours, Stu.”

  That limit was coming hard and fast, thought Studebaker as he tried to open the package. It had an ID lock meaning only the intended beneficiary could access its contents.

  Dean waved his BioID by the box Stu held in front of his face instead of grabbing it and chucking it across the room like he preferred.

  Studebaker was now even more curious. Suspended inside was an oversized fortune cookie. He broke open the cookie and took a bite, quickly spitting it back out. “Yuck! It’s not real.”

  “What if it’s poisonous?” asked Dean glancing up from his computer, the first glimmer of hope Studebaker had seen in the boy’s eyes.

  “You heard the fembot. Safe for humans.”

  Inside the cookie was a paper fortune that read, NOT MADE IN CHINA with 8 2 3 in fine red print. Also, inside, a small glossy charcoal gray rock.

  “What do you suppose this is?” asked Studebaker.

  “Once again, we don’t care,” replied Dean glibly this time.

  “Wrong answer!” retorted Studebaker. He knew Dean was purposely trying to get under his skin. “Do you have the faintest idea what real journalism is?”

  “Trouble,” Dean said, grabbing a computer tablet off his desk. He left Stu behind engrossed in the note and artifact. Let the old man figure things out, he thought. As far Dean was concerned, he was on his own from here on out.

  Studebaker watched the kid abandon him. Keeping his promise had gotten harder, like having a rebellious teenager in the house, though he’d never had children of his own. A chip off the old block, he mused.

  Studebaker slipped the fortune and the rock into his pocket before chasing after Dean like a puppy wanting to be found.

  CHAPTER 22

  Dean inserted his earpiece, glancing nervously around the media tower. PNN producers and personal assistants flitted around like worker bees performing system checks, fulfilling last minute demands from the small to the ridiculous. In his ear, he could now hear Loren Studebaker sincerely apologizing to GSC Secretary-General Arya for being late. Stu followed the apology with skillful foreplay—light compliments parsed between gentle, probing questions. He was priming the usually reserved woman for her live interview. He was good, Dean thought to himself, though he’d never admit it to Stu.

  The second day into the DupliCity global rollout, the previous forty-eight hours had been nothing short of disappointing. Dean’s expectations of being part of the live on-air talent had been hijacked by the man he was forced to babysit. He’d certainly seen it happen to others before him while moving from market to market. But, something about this whole setup felt odd.

  A producer began to count backward starting at five causing Dean to leave his disappointment behind hastily. Studebaker stood like a professional on the slightly elevated studio stage next to a poised Arya. The floor-to-ceiling two-way glass had morphed, making it appear as if Arya and Studebaker were at ground level having a conversation in tropical surroundings outdoors in public greenspace.

  “Good morning, global community! It’s another gorgeous day at DupliCity Family Fun Amusement Complex. It’s ten o’clock in the morning in New Las Vegas. I thought you might enjoy getting to know the Global Security Council’s very own Secretary-General, Punam Arya. Her job is to make sure each and every one of you has clean water to drink, not to mention, clean underwear!”

  ___

  Piloting Tina over new Las Vegas at an altitude reserved only for top level military clearances, Lt. General Terrance Young rubbed his burning eyes before reopening them. It had been a long night celebrating and was about to become a longer day. In the center console media screen, Studebaker was interviewing Arya on the PNN global feed. Next to him, General Goddard Frohm’s face was as red as his eyes felt, even with sunglasses on.

  “Didn’t I tell you to can him?” yapped Frohm.

  Young was too wired to be bothered with one of Frohm’s innumerable egocentric rants. No matter the situation, it was always about him. Young quickly mulled over a few responses ranging from sardonic to outright insubordinate that he’d learned from Captain Kovac, who should have been driving this vehicle, but for a recent promotion. Before he could make up his mind—

  “Terrance, I asked you a direct question.”

  Audio alerts sounded over BioIDs interrupting Frohm. Both men looked at their wrists.

  “General, it’s time.”

  Young set a new speed on the flying vehicle allowing it to surge ahead. Another vehicle flying at the same altitude blinked on his radar screen. Curious. When he’d checked this morning before takeoff, no other high-level vehicle was listed on the flight manifest.

  Young tracked the vehicle on radar before making visual contact. He glanced at Frohm. If the bully pulpit noticed they had company, he didn’t say anything. As the gap closed, Young saw the vehicle’s color and markings, a standard issue GSC vehicle. Tina wasn’t detecting a threat from the unarmed vehicle, so Young took it upon himself to pull alongside, matching its speed.

  In the front passenger seat, General Chen slowly turned toward his rival sitting in the passenger seat in the transport next to him. His face contorted with raw contempt before reaching over toward his console.

  A light on Tina’s dash blinked with the incoming private call. When Young turned toward Frohm with raised eyebrows, Frohm had taken off his sunglasses, replacing them with a wide condescending smile for the inferior General.

  Frohm then pushed the incoming call button, facing the glass innocently, palms in the air. “Your trade problems are not my trade problems, Wang. Go find new number one customer.”

  Chen seethed. How dare Frohm humiliate him after what his country had done for the U.S. after the orange ape took their country off a cliff like the little shrub before him. He knew the U.S. had been behind a sudden drop in mineral exports.

  Chen’s fist hit the glass before he looked at his hand to locate and manually raise the American flag of disrespect—his middle finger. The Chinese man seemed quite proud of his accomplishment, smiling broadly at his finger first, then Frohm.

  Young hated less the unpredictability of his boss than the fact he sat between the two Generals with no escape. Frohm would simply order him to keep pace if he or Chen’s driver attempted to speed up or slow down.

  “Give me my mints,” ordered Frohm.

  Young complied, wondering if he needed one for a wireless conversation or was going to shove it up General Chen’s tailpipe.

  Young saw Chen become even angrier before he saw Frohm holding open his silver Fabergé cigarette case as if offering a mint to Chen. It was considered a great insult to be offered a breath mint, implying one was needed.

  Wiggling in his seat briefly, Chen lowered his window an inch. His clenched hand pushed an object with a chain through the crack, sending it spiraling down a thousand feet to its death.

  General Frohm realized it was the pocket watch he’d personally shopped online for, wrapped, and had delivered to Chen. His smile instantly disappeared.

  Slamming the mint case closed, “Bury it, Terrance.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Truby felt nearly instant relief. The jackhammer pounding in her head dulled as soon as she pushed on the base of a syringe atomizing plant-based nutrients and cannabinoids into her nasal mucous membranes. She’d complained to the government that she shouldn’t still be having these types of headaches after three years to no avail. Young’s standard reply to her request: “I’m trying to cut back on government waste.”

  Moments earlier, a shock had triggered her latest migraine. Truby had stumbled to the bathroom in the twilight of the dawn of a new day to empty her screaming bladder. In the mirror, she’d been confronted with the accusing face of a man from her past.

  S
he’d yelped at the wet hot urine flowing unimpeded down long limbs onto the small oval braided rug, looking down ashamed. Her lack of self-control, the reoccurring vision, and its physical evidence served to remind Truby of her growing list of failings as a human being.

  It was why she didn’t drink—usually. An evening laced with four grey geese, the devil’s music, and an impromptu celebratory threesome she’d been invited to join to make a foursome, but declined, had left her disoriented and dazed. The last thing Truby needed now was a setback after all the years she’d worked to reorient herself to her new “normal.”

  The rising sun brought light to the dimly lit Inn room despite heavy curtains. Peering closely into the mirror, she recognized the face that stared back at her, albeit with hesitation. Blue eyes watered with the urge to cry. Never a crier before, tears had also become part of her new normal. She found them to be healing and cleansing, allowing them more frequently in the past few years.

  Truby slowly leaned in until her nose almost touched the glass. She pulled at facial skin as if to confirm it wasn’t the face of reproach she’d seen earlier. Just then, her computer pinged causing an overheated forehead to thump against its reflection.

  On her desk, a red and orange hologram rotated above her computer keyboard with the message, “1 Missed Video Conference.” Only a couple of people outside her crew at Old Faithful knew she even existed. She wondered who would be attempting to video conference.

  Young. Cancel out the notification, block the sender, or allow the bio-signature contained in her index fingerprint to activate the video message?

  It was the wrong question to ask someone like her. She reached out, apprehensively accepting and activating the message. Truby’s vagaries usually landed her in trouble. Why turn over a new leaf today?

  The video was so pixilated, she could only see a dark shadow moving on the screen. Its bulk looked male. The voice was modified, masking its identity. “Hi, there, blast from my past. Yeah, okay, there’s something you need to know.”

  Truby was taken aback.

  “No matter what happens, just keep cool like a, like a mango. Don’t. Freak. Out.” A second figure rushed in from the side behind the first. There was a garbled, unintelligible yell. “Little $H&!. Okay, I’ve got to go.”

  The government computer profanity setting bleeped out part of the last bit, but Truby got its meaning which indicated familiarity between the two figures. She replayed the message. It was the way “he” talked. She picked up the scuffed little league baseball off her desk to roll it back and forth in her hands as she paced.

  Truby paused the video, sitting down quickly to launch one of her editing software suites. The program’s auto-settings were unable to clarify the video beyond the light and shadow of a human form. Not a quitter, she began the painstaking process of enhancing a single frame one process at a time outside the auto-settings. This allowed her to compensate for what even a government issued supercomputer still couldn’t seem to understand—authentic human expression.

  Truby worked on just the face pixel by pixel. She scrolled out, then back in like an art historian working to restore a Michelangelo. One final enhancement and a scroll to normalize the image from a magnification of five thousand to one hundred percent should do it. Finished with her masterpiece, Truby clicked to render the image to the requested file format and size. She waited as the computer arranged the pixels into a coherent, readable image.

  As the status bar moved across the screen indicating fifty, eighty, and then one hundred percent complete, she tensed. The enlarged image slowly rolled down top to bottom.

  Truby drew back, her stomach knotting and filling with acid. He knew better than to contact her. It not only put her in violation of her plea agreement, but it also exposed him. Truby stood to pace. She kicked her waste receptacle which hit the wall directly behind it, leaving a dent in the beautifully preserved wood.

  Truby hadn’t seen him since before the operation. They’d agreed it was best if he was to carry out his promise to her. What had he tried to tell her, to not freak out? Was it something from their shared past or the near future? Was that all or was he prevented from saying more?

  If there was more, then he hadn’t been able to speak freely in front of the other person he’d called a “little—.” Truby boiled over, hurling the little league ball she snatched off the desk into the wall above her computer. Only half paneled this side of the room, the orb partially sunk into the small span of wallpapered sheetrock and stuck. She’d have preferred to have thrown it at her computer.

  Pondering what to do next, the flooring beneath her bounced once sending her upward and into the air just an inch as a ripple of energy moved underneath the Inn.

  “What the?” She crouched slightly, bracing herself for the unknown. She didn’t have to wait long.

  Less than thirty seconds later, Truby was struggling to turn the deadbolts of her locks as the ground rumbled from a place very dense and very dark. The powerful force had a voice of its own. Its high-pitched yawns and cascading baritone growls filled her room. She didn’t know the Earth could speak. Out came the occasional cracking jolt that tried to send her legs in a different direction from her body.

  Outside her room, Truby yelled, her neon rainbow GPS sweatshirt, a gift from Zedd, caught in the door. She ripped it free, leaving a gash in the hem.

  Moments later, Truby had managed to half bounce, half run around the building looking for a small crowd that should have been gathering away from the creaking Old Faithful Inn.

  Instead, she found Pete waving his hands in front of Old Faithful like an orchestra conductor as his gal belched intermittent fits of steam.

  “Pete!”

  “Something’s happening!” called Pete as he continued waving his hands encouragingly.

  From the sidewalk near the Inn, Zedd yelled above the din, “Hurry!”

  CHAPTER 24

  The Inn was in a state of disarray, but there was no structural damage that could be detected by visual inspection. As the earthquake settled into minor fits of aftershocks, Hector and Zedd kept assuring Truby the building was earthquake proof with the added improvements a few decades ago. Resisting the urge to flee, Truby checked her immediate surroundings. No windows were broken, but shattered glass from fallen 20th-century white service dishware and glassware littered the floor.

  Hector and Zedd worked together to thumbtack the edges of a large rolled up 1960’s era global map to the pine wall in the dining room. The map had fallen out of a hidden panel closet pried loose during the initial strength of the quake.

  Cadence opted to contribute by sitting half-lotus on her yoga mat in meditation to calm the energy around Old Faithful.

  “Quakes all over,” said Zedd as he inserted multiple pushpins concentrating around the Grand Canyon, extending northward. He then scattered more pins around the United States, a few further out into Canada and Mexico.

  “Do we have internet?” asked Truby. Zedd wore another blinking light shirt she thought would trigger vertigo and topple her over.

  Hector was already on his computer. “I think we’re coming back online now. Surge protectors got tripped.”

  “Get the latest update from Geo as soon as you can,” requested Truby as she rubbed her eyes. She turned to get a drink of water from the bar when this time, nerves already raw, Pete’s undetected presence made her jump out of her skin.

  “This one is something special,” he said dryly.

  Pete’s feet were casually propped up on a second chair as he puffed at the fattest cigar Truby had ever seen. Another tremor rolled through.

  “It’s older than you. Was saving it for my funeral.”

  “Buki, man! More quakes! Something’s screwy at the Grand Canyon—Reservoir, I mean. We’ve been tracking small swarms there like the one I told you about the other day for months. I told you we should have taken that road trip!”

  As if any of them could take a road trip. Maybe Pete could, but Truby doubte
d he’d care to even though he sometimes pretended to complain about the isolation at the Inn for more attention. Of course, she was only speculating at this point. Everything was speculation. Hector interrupted her line of thought.

  “The Grand Can—Reservoir, Seattle, L.A., Chicago, the Great Lakes, New York, Charleston . . .”

  “Peace, OM...” chanted Cadence in a long exhale, eyes still closed.

  Truby had grown quiet while entertaining another line of speculative thought she didn’t care to take very far. It disturbed her too much. A five-second tremor that felt like forever shook her mind loose.

  Subdued, Truby offered, “Alright, next priority, find out what garbage PNN is peddling. Go to a regular screen.”

  Above the smaller dining room fireplace, a faux stone panel had been constructed over the original stone to hide a media screen. The panel split in the middle before retracting. Onscreen, Loren Studebaker interviewed Punam Arya.

  The bottom news ticker scrolled: Minor earthquakes strike several North American sectors. U.S. hit hardest. Stand by for breaking news.

  “Hello blast from my past,” she muttered under her breath. “Turn up the volume,” she commanded forcefully this time.

  “You know, a ‘please’ now and again is still appropriate,” Zedd bristled because no one had jumped on his road trip bandwagon.

  Truby was mesmerized by the man on the screen who had attempted to video conference with her earlier that morning. She was sure it was him. He looked great, fit and trim. He must be working again. Silver now but it suited him. Why was he in New Las Vegas? Was that why he’d called her, to let her know he was nearby?

  A young producer accidentally stepped into the camera shot to tell Studebaker to wrap up. Truby leaped up as if stung by a bee. “Who’s that?”

  Gone as fast as he appeared, she rubbed her eyes again. No more Grey Goose for her.