Outland Exile: Book One of Old Men and Infidels
Page 35
By the time Jesse turned around, Moses had gotten his foot out of an overheated boot and was pouring water onto it expectantly.
“I’m a bona fide fool and a half, my friend,” Jesse said after he examined Moses’s bare foot, Moses’s toes curling into the cool earth.
“Not that I’d ever presume to disagree with your professional judgment …” said Moses, wincing with the probing of his foot.
“Why aren’t you dead too? Xavier is sure dead enough.”
“Is he? That’s a loss; I was beginning to like the man, citified and everything … Did he have a family? I guess I never asked him.”
“His wife was killed in a raid a long while ago. His kids are up and grown, but I think he has some kin back in St. Lou. Where are you hit, Mose?”
Moses looked down at his camouflage jacket to discover the small hole surrounded by an area of his jacket that was fused, discolored, and vaguely smoldering. Unzipping his jacket, Moses turned out his shirt pocket. A reflectionless disk of black fell to the ground with a crystalline ring as it hit a rock, rolling a few feet before falling over.
“Is that the fifty-dollar piece …?” Jesse started.
“Yeah, Malila gave it me just a minute before the attack. Whatever you said to her made her mad as spit. She stormed off saying she wasn’t going to see you again. What did you say to her, Jesse?”
The old man ignored the question and examined the fluted black disk.
“Best piece of work she’s ever done, giving that to you. Feel it, Mose; it’s still warm but not really hot. Let me look at your chest.”
The younger man peeled off the shirt, but there was no wound. A point of tenderness, duplicated when Jesse cautiously compressed Moses’s chest, and a growing bruise were all Moses had to show for the encounter. His jacket, on the other hand, had a smoldering patch of fabric in the lining, over a foot across, where the pulse bolt had penetrated.
“Mose, you got at least one broken rib. Nothing to do about it except stop breathing.”
“How ’bout a second opinion?”
“Okay, it could be that you’re dumb as a stump, too.”
Moses laughed and immediately gasped with the pain.
The sight of the dead had begun to collect the curious as Jesse drove up with the borrowed wagon.
A rising tide of people and questions helped and hindered the moving of Delarosa and the bodies of the Uni troopers to the wagon bed. It was almost an hour before they were decently covered for transport.
Jesse swung into the box. Moses moved to accompany him, pulling himself up to the box painfully on the off side.
“Go home, Mose. I mayn’t be coming back for a while.”
“You can’t go to Lexington alone, old man.”
“Sure I can, Mose. I’ve a note from my momma right here.”
Then in a lower and more confidential voice, Jesse added, “Mose, your Sally doesn’t much like my taking you away from her. You’ll be planting soon, and then there’ll be the calving. You need to stay at home and be a husband. Ethan needs a daddy. Xavier deserves an escort home, and I need to talk to the brass hats in St. Louis after we get there.
“But if you want to do me a favor, let Alex and Jacob know where I am; they worry. The wagon and mules, I’ll leave with Judge Wasnicki, and he can bring them back when he comes on circuit. That sound all right to you, Mose?”
“Sure, Jesse. That’s fine. Sally’s prettier than you are, any road.” Moses grinned as he lowered himself to the ground.
Jesse laughed. “I was wondering when you would notice, my friend.”
Sally wiped the tears from her eyes before showing herself at the tree line. She parted the branches and looked for the clusters of people who would be standing over Moses’s corpse. There were none. She made out a wagon in the chaos. They had already picked up his body. She looked to the driver and saw Jesse. She waved, trying to attract his notice.
It was then she saw the man who started up to the box on the off side, only to get down again.
In a daze, a dream, a breathless sprint, Sally pummeled through the churning crowd. Moses looked up only a moment before the impact.
“Easy, Sally, that hurt!” Moses said.
“I saw you die—I thought you were dead,” she said, almost accusingly, tears blinding her as she pulled Moses closer. Ethan struggled in her grasp.
She sensed herself and the baby lifted and spun in the flashing light of the sun and heard Moses’s clear laugh.
“It is not so easy to get rid of me as all that, Sally, my love.”
The kiss they shared lasted long.
By the time Sally looked again, Jesse, unremarked by the hastening crowd, was disappearing from sight at a turning in the green woods of spring.
APPENDIX
Timeline
July 3, 2051
Jesse Aaron Johnstone is born in St. Louis, Missouri.
2052
The Third Iraq War begins. After seven months, it ends when US forces are destroyed by nuclear strikes, devastating the Mideast and the subcontinent of Asia.
2053
The Meltdown begins. World politics fracture, and the East Coast secedes from the United States as the People’s Republic, later the Democratic Unity of America. Year 1, Anno Unitatem (AU).
2053–2057 (AU 1–5)
The Great People’s War of Liberation is fought. The remnant of the United States becomes the Reorganized States of America (RSA).
2056 (AU 4)
The Unity wins a strategic success (the Commendable Victory) in part by indiscriminate herbicide use (the Scorching) but does not have the will to exploit it.
2056–2057 (AU 4–5)
The Battle of Springfield halts the Unity forces during a prolonged winter battle near Springfield, Illinois.
2056–2060 (AU 4–8)
Starving mobs try to immigrate to the Unity and are killed en masse. The Unity begins enforced retirement at age forty, “corrects” geography, and starts construction of the Rampart. The Solons assume ultimate power.
2060 (AU 8)
Plant life begins to recover, and RSA agroscience develops resistant strains of cereal grains for use in the Scorched areas.
2062 (AU 10)
Jesse and his family emerge from hiding and immigrate to St. Louis.
2074 (AU 21)
The Unity declares all children wards of the state.
2080 (AU 27)
The Unity directs all children to be raised in state-owned crèches.
January 31, 2111 (AU 59)
Malila Evanova Chiu is born to Esther Petrovna Williams and Evan Chiu in West Chester, Pennsylvania.
2115 (AU 62)
Malila’s existence is discovered. Her parents are Sapped for child molestation. Malila enters crèche Maddow #213.
2118 (AU 66)
Malila receives Basic implant.
2122(AU 70)
Malila receives O-A implant.
October 11, 2128 (AU 76)
Malila is lauded for her action in an illusory attack on two Movasi whales.
GLOSSARY
Ageplay:
A treatment to prolong life by increasing restorative functions, theoretically extending vigorous life to
170 years. It tends to delay puberty for about twenty-four months and thus leads to somewhat-taller individuals. The vector is a prion.
Basic implant:
Biosensory and synthetic devices, implanted for the benefit of Unity citizens since AU 2. The Basic is implanted in all citizens at age seven as a requirement for Unity citizenship. Among its capabilities, it is used as a locating device, for the adjustment of a citizen’s hormones and medication levels, and for biohousekeeping tasks. See also Outside-Above implant. O. Simpson, ed., Zinn-History of the People (Nyork: PinguiniusPress, AU 69), 190.
breeders:
Sapped women who provide all reproductive services for the Unity. They contribute no genetic material to the fetus. On delivery the newborn is removed to a crèche and the breeder reconditioned for her next pregnancy. On average, breeders tolerate four pregnancies before they are euthanized. G. Thomas et al., “Orientation for New RSA Officers” [Classified] (Monograph RSA-Army District 1: 2065), 53.
CRNA:
“Certified recycled neuroablated individuals are criminals who have been Sapp-treated and rendered loyal troopers.” Excerpt from voter information comm’site for “Yes on Question Number 27,344” campaign, AU 70.
CRNAs are Unity citizens whose only crime is being overage, nonproductive, or excess population. Average life span after Sapping is four years. Thomas et al., “Orientation for New RSA Officers,” 99.
Commendable Victory:
“Immediately after the old republic’s defeat in its ill-advised Islamophobic crusade, progressive forces composed of the youth, Coast Guard, and government workers forced a coup d’état on the East Coast of North America. The reactionary remnants of the old government, refusing to join, started a civil war. The People’s Republic, after being forced to blanket much of the wilderness with herbicide, triumphed over recidivist forces, 17_07_AU04” Simpson, Zinn’s History of the People, 187. Original provided by W. Butler & H. Jones.
crèchie:
(informal) Inmate of a crèche, the care facility for Unity children from birth to age ten.
DUFS:
Defensive Unity Forces for Security. When the Unity repealed posse comitatus, police and military combined. Weapon possession by civilians is illegal and punishable by Sapping. DUFS have become the de facto rulers of the Unity, Solons being selected from among their numbers. Thomas et al., “Orientation for New RSA Officers,” 34.
Democratic Unity of America:
Inaugurated by the Coast Guard’s coup d’état over its revolutionary partners, The Unity claims all the territory of the old republic but holds effective control only inside the Rampart. Ibid., 9.
E-classification:
Erudition class or level, an age classification. Children enter school at seven as E1s with the placement of their first implant. No levels exist in the Unity proper greater than E33.
Kirshing:
A Unity blood sport. Two opponents ride hover boards on the edge of an artificially created avalanche toward each other with edged weapons.
Meltdown:
Collapse of commerce in the mid-twenty-first century, effectively depopulating Europe and Asia. China becomes locked into war with Russia. Japan reenters self-imposed isolation. The Mideast and subcontinent, poisoned by the use of nuclear weapons and deprived of its income from oil and guilt remittances, collapses into tribal conflict. Thomas et al., “Orientation for New RSA Officers,” 2.
metaphract:
(also frak—slang) A nonsentient translator between the Outside-Above implant and the CORE. Metaphracts are supplied to young O-A implantees while they are learning to quest. The programs satisfy the Turing test, i.e., they are programs that appear to think. Ibid., 66.
OAAs:
“Officers as avatars are officers whose personalities have been transmitted into real-world mechanisms called avatars, or ‘bots.’ There is speculation from captured OAAs that full CORE simulations are possible and other forms of avatars are available for use.” Ibid., 36.
Outside-Above (O-A) implant:
O-A implants are placed near the brain inside the cribriform plate for those entering guild schools as E4s. An O-A allows the recipient to quest within the CORE using only the mind to explore CORE space. See also Basic implant. Simpson, Zinn-History of the People, 190.
Restructured States of America:
The RSA is the successor republic to the United States, after the secession of the Demarchy and the Unity. It includes all American land generally east of the Pacific Crest and west of the Appalachian Mountains. The upper Midwest has been rendered uninhabitable by conflicts with Canada and the Unity. With the collapsing world population, greenhouse gas levels have plummeted. Nevertheless, there has been a continuing increase in global warming. With rising water levels, New Orleans is an island.
Sapp:
Drug used to eliminate higher brain functions. A course of three scheduled doses is required, which produces a syndrome of mania, hallucinations, and pain, during which the victims are usually restrained and sedated. All doses of the drug must be given on schedule for stable effect. Thomas et al., “Orientation for New RSA Officers,” 65.
Sisi:
(pronunciation: see-see) A Unity pejorative meaning senior citizen, those over forty. Sisis are confined to their own enclaves and have no rights in the larger society. From thence they are Sapped for use as troopers or breeders. J. A. Johnston, private communication with M. E. Chiu, October 2128.
Solons:
The anonymous ultimate rulers of the Unity. Numerous plebiscites are used to convince the people that the Unity is a democracy, but policy is set by the DUFS in consultation with the other ministries. Solons rule by veto. Individuals are recruited to be Solons at retirement.
S-classification:
Specialist class, a level of Unity rank across all guilds. Thus, an S22 might be a commercial artist, a postgraduate academic, a junior assistant specialist in government, or an ensign in the DUFS.
ThiZ:
A recreational drug that produces dissociative and paradoxical endotactic emotions. Withdrawal occurs if use is terminated abruptly. The Union encourages ThiZ use, monitoring it via the Basic implants and altering the drug as needed to ensure prompt cooperation of its citizens. Thomas et al., “Orientation for New RSA Officers,” 112.
Western Demarchy:
A breakaway republic on the West Coast of North America centering on San Francisco. Hawaii is a de facto possession. Ibid., 24.
ENDNOTES
1 Further discussion of unfamiliar terms may be found in the glossary.
2 Unity convention is hour.minute.second.time convention (e.g., local, Zulu, or time zone)_day_month_Anno Unitatem year.
3 “The proper way to give a command to your new Turing Metaphract (ED v3.94) is always to begin on a new line. Announce to the ED that this is a command by the use of ‘
sonal habits. This comes with time and practice. Don’t be disappointed if your ED finds it too hard at first.” Concepts of Reality Engineering Inc., Beginner’s Guide for the Turing Metaphract (Education Device [ED] v3.94) (Passaic: COREprint, AU 64), 4.
4 Entertainment personalities masquerading as political commentators.
5 Rods bundled around an ax; the emblem flanks the Speaker’s chair in US Congress and is the source of the word fascism.
6 “The Rampart was built just after the Scorching (October AU 3 to February AU 4). Thousands of savages from the final defeat of the outlands (AU 5) attempted to escape disaster by entering the Unity. Wave after wave died under our guns, but not without horrendous losses. It was then that the Solons proposed building the Rampart, and the people heroically responded. Over the years, the Rampart has grown, remaining the boundary marker between chaos and order, famine and plenty, dark and light. The Rampart itself has changed from a few strategic forts into a symbol of the Unity itself, its foundations washed at either end by the sea.” B. Gore, ed., A Young Citizen’s Guide to the History of America, 3rd ed. (Boston: Prometheus Press, AU 71), 210.