Repetition
By Alan Gallauresi
Copyright ©2011 by Alan Gallauresi.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
Chapter 1
Airtransit A319 | A Silver Age | Escape
Chapter 2
True Security | Patent Reform | Wake and Shave
Chapter 3
Cilantro | Trans | A Social Occasion
Chapter 4
The Fake People | The Fake Heist | The Fake Art Appreciators
Chapter 5
Plane Crasher | Audiophilia | Boots of Steel
Chapter 6
Nerves | We're All Dying | Nothing to Do
Chapter 7
Carnival | CARLOS | Ticking Machines
Chapter 8
The Thread | The Corridor | The Past
Chapter 9
Breakdown | Disambiguation | A Radio Song
Chapter 10
Intemperate | Cold | Chilled
Chapter 11
Perfect | Walk About
Chapter 12
Quiet Interlude | Silenced Machine Gun | A Roundabout Silence
Chapter 13
Anatomy of the Brain | Physical Response | Fight and Flight
Chapter 14
Sphere of Influence | A Managed Attack | The Coming of the Beast-Things
Chapter 15
No Smoking | Fresh Air | Oxygen
Chapter 16
Life is What Happens | Seed | A Free Idea
Chapter 17
Statistics | We Gotta | Cosmic Wheels
Epilogue
Chapter 1
Airtransit A319 | A Silver Age | Escape
6.
9.
11.
Seat 11B on an Airtransit A319 (seating revision 4) is situated in the emergency exit row, directly over the middle of the wing, and is statistically one of the most frequently booked in the economy class for this craft in a 3x3 seat configuration. It maintains several advantages over other seats in that arrangement. First, there is no seat 11A, because regulations require open space for the crushing mass of humanity trying to leave a plane in the event of a crash. In practical terms this means that the left armrest is guaranteed to be the sole property of Seat 11B’s passenger. This improves favorably upon the aisle seats where elbows are bumped by snack carts and active bladder holders, and window seats where the passenger’s shoulder abuts the fuselage uncomfortably.
Second advantage for Seat 11B: extra legroom. There’s enough room for an average size person to cross their legs without hitting the back of 10B or for a tall person to sit without having to get up and pace methodically to restore circulation every 20 minutes. Seat 11E in the A319 (seating revision 4) configuration does not have this benefit due to the asymmetrical placement of an obstructive control box below the seat in front.
Third advantage for Seat 11B: urinal theory. Sane, socially-conscious men go into a bathroom and pick end urinals to provide maximum distance from other exposed penises. As long as you leave a one urinal buffer, there's no problem. Two men can share three urinals and still be comfortable, but you'd only choose to go side-by-side as a last resort. Same thing on a plane. No one wants to sit next to someone unless they have to.
Fourth advantage for Seat 11B: closest to the emergency exit.
Disadvantage for Seat 11B: you are morally responsible for the lives of everyone aboard in any type of emergency which can be solved by opening a door. The cabin crew will firmly impress this upon any passengers in row 11. Madam, are you willing and capable of opening the door in the event of emergency? Say yes or get out now. Sir, how about you? This is what they are really asking: Sir, are you, in fact, a Man of Action?
17.
Stephen Wald is a Man of Action, wrongly seated in seat 17-B of an A319 aircraft preparing for take-off. Four months ago, when he’d booked this flight, he had knowledgably picked seat 11B based on his desire for comfort and a pathological drive to research the minutiae of his travel options. This morning, he had woken feeling as carefree as he had ever been. A few hours ago, holding his incorrect ticket at the booking counter, he had been calm and procedural. There’s no point in getting angry with these people. Yet, polite as he had been, there was no satisfaction forthcoming from customer service. No admission of fault, no seat reassignment. The original flight had switched planes; the original seat assignments were no longer valid. So, the flight was on a different type of plane. No, the flight was on the same type of plane, but the seating was no longer valid. Because the seating configuration was different? No, the configuration was the same. So, the seat should be the same, then?
The seat’s already booked, sir – in fact, the flight is overbooked and has a waitlist, so... She had offered him a meal voucher and requested that he hold onto his ticket stub to see what they could do on the return flight -- effectively telling him to beat it while she dealt with the next angry passenger. Wald had walked away with the voucher and a resolve to put the incident behind him. I’m free, he thinks. It’s fine. I have a plan.
But now, in the pre-time before the clock starts on a 7 hour and 23 minute flight, he is still annoyed without wanting to be. Numbers and letters pop into his head, agitating his mind – he tries to concentrate on something else and they rearrange themselves into a seat assignment. He is reminded when his young neighbor in 17-A stretches out his arms and jostles him, and again when Wald’s feet bump into his carry-on bag. He concentrates for a while on the half-obscured profile of the gorgeous woman seated one row forward on the right aisle – 16-D. Do beautiful women know how often people look at them? Do they think it’s normal, that the world has that much eye contact in it for everyone? The woman to his right in 17-C rummages through her pockets for hand lotion, applies it thoroughly and then turns her attention back to her book.
The plane slowly taxis into position. I’m already uncomfortable. He shifts his weight and resettles, but he keeps thinking it. This is a problem that goes away in 7 hours and 23 minutes and there is nothing to do but think about it until then. Wald suffers from motion-sickness when reading or watching a screen. He hasn’t tried to watch a movie on a plane since the last time when he had realized that vomit bags are no longer distributed in the seat pockets. Why the change? he thought, as he usually did when remembering that occasion. Cost of new vomit bags? Maybe the rest of the race has just adapted by now and the quotient of remaining vomiters couldn’t support the bag industry anymore. They probably just changed the design and sold them to popcorn vendors.
Wald pulls his earphones from his pocket and untangles the cord. He considers surreptitiously turning on his music player until a flight attendant glances suspiciously at him. He leaves the plug of the cord situated obviously on his lap and turns on noise cancelling. The change in hearing is imperfect and slightly uncomfortable – more like being underwater in a crowded fish barrel than being alone.
He hears a muffled ding. Flight crew, secure the cabin for take-off. The engines rev under the floor. Wald arches his shoulders back and closes his eyes, trying to steer his thoughts toward something -- anything -- other than being trapped in a cramped metal box. His mind runs over a thousand notions, a muddle of reality and reverie.
###
The VIG Silver Age had little in common with traditional aircraft of its day; little in common with the entire lineage of aviation, from the feather-covered absurdities of brave and naive men to the mini-van mundanity of reusable Space Shuttles. The plans for its construction, developed in 2036, described it as a single, flexible building balanced on an unstable foundation. Its builders employed techniques adapted from areas prone to natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes. The pressurized outer shell was ad
ded over the internal frames after the majority of internal construction was complete. It showed. From the outside, the ship was a massive and ungainly hulk, eschewing aerodynamics and drag reduction for the sake of lofty interior space. Ark-like was one of the more charitable descriptors. There was nothing reminiscent of the history of aviation in its form – no wings, no tail, no propellers – nothing at all to suggest it could fly. The Age wasn’t built to fly – it was built to float.
In contrast to the exterior, the interior was a magnificent structure of clean metal, rich fabric and clear treated glass stretched over three stories. The first impression is one of a grand hotel’s opulent lobby set adrift, described one contemporary account. The first floor of the ship was dominated by an expansive sunken seating area, laid out like a narrow oval with sharpened points. The pattern was visually repeated in smaller concentric ovals cut through the floors above, allowing passengers on every level to see through to the elaborately detailed coffered ceiling. Along the length of the ship, substantial metal struts bowed up through the levels like ribs – the only visible support structure. They were for effect only – gravplates supported the weight of the vessel on the inside just as they did on the outside.
By 2038, the Silver Age was functionally complete but still years away from completing the first commercial flight of a variably induced gravity airship. That it did three years later, a mere 10 years after the invention of the technology that made it possible is a reflection of two things: the unmitigated influence of D. Anders’ VIG Company and the pitiable state of the nearly bankrupt air service at the time. From historical notes, it appears that flight regulatory agencies did their best to get out of the way, an unusual circumstance no doubt fostered by Anders’ clout. A special exemption to the entrenched red-tape of aviation testing was provided to “study and determine the practical reliability of commercial VIG travel in pilot markets”, applying to the first ship’s flight. The exemption never expired, and it only took a few years before the waiver was extended to allow VIG flights nationally.
Tickets for the first flight from New York’s JFK to LAX were priced at $100 each – a promotional price which proved so profitable that it remained the fixed rate for the next 18 years when it finally had to lower the price due to plummeting costs across carriers. The first thousand tickets were parceled out by lottery; the remaining 3200 sold out almost immediately. When the day of the first flight came, expediency demanded the ship board simultaneously via four airport gates. The hushed excitement prevailing amongst the crowd, engendered by the historic moment, was not quite universal: three frightened passengers refused to embark at the last moment, turning their unused tickets into expensive collectibles.
Passengers arriving on board had no assigned seats. Unfamiliar with the experience and gawking as they came on board, people crowded inside the entrances, resulting in long lines and a twenty minute delay in take-off. There were no class distinctions in the ship. Staff instructed passengers to sit wherever they desired on any of the floors. The Silver Age had accommodations for well above the stated capacity of 4200, spread out along a wide concourse in restaurants, shops and small lounges. Those desiring privacy could rent small cabins for the flight’s duration. There were no sleeping berths – the hour and 24 minute flight time to cross the country would have made them superfluous. Unsurprisingly, many on that first flight spent their time standing, gazing through the expansive walls of windows on the ship’s second floor as the craft lifted up. Those sitting in the first floor lobby or eating in a third floor restaurant may not even have realized they were off the ground. The control over gradual acceleration and deceleration provided by the computer guided gravplates was so complete that the effect on the body was subtler than being in an elevator. Passengers were as insulated from wind and turbulence as in a cozy house.
The flight itself was uneventful. The Age reached maximum speed ten minutes before the mid-point of its trip – ten minutes after the mid-point it began to reduce speed. Few passengers noticed the transition. In a conventional jet-engine craft, the flight plan would have the plane reaching top speed as soon as comfortably possible to conserve fuel. The Silver Age had no fuel to conserve.
After touch-down in Los Angeles, passengers were asked to fill out a survey describing the experience. Comments were almost exclusively positive – airline officials were not sure exactly how to take some complaints that the flight had been disappointingly short. One woman protested that although her children had enjoyed it, the clear sky-gallery set in the aft quarter of the first floor should be covered over as it had been “nauseating” and caused her internal distress. It was frightening to be in chairs without seatbelts, protested a male passenger. Another man had happily summed up the experience of himself and his fellow travelers with one word: “civilized.”
Amongst those less happy with the flight were the airlines who had not thrown their lot in with VIG. In the coming years they would lose market share at an alarming rate. Not only was the nature of aircraft changing, the nature of air travel was as well. Gravships could take off absolutely vertically – they only needed as much space as they took up. Passengers could get on and off easier and arrive at their destination in less time than on a bus. The need for huge terminals with miles of landing strip was receding, and the cramped fuel-guzzling jets of the past hundred years were confined to them. Traditional aircrafts couldn’t adapt. Just like the heady early days of manned flight, the world was changing, and quickly.
###
Chandrasekhar paused, took a deep breath and counted. It took a concentrated effort to do it – his instincts were to act immediately, not wasting a second, but the technique was an effective one. For several moments he concentrated on regulating the amount of air flowing in and out of his lungs, thinking of a white dot on a black background. In and out. He counted three inhales, three exhales, then freed his mind to think on the task at hand.
He glanced forward through the cockpit window, barely registering the dull glare of parked gravcars above as his own flew by. He was already over six kilometers away from the museum site, past the Fourth Ring, on the underside of New Atlantis. An immense metal cylinder blocked the scenery behind: a marvel that shot down to the water and brought desalinated water to the central reservoir surrounding the Spire. That obstacle naturally relegated underside traffic within the radius of the city to a circular pattern. Cutting across couldn't fail to attract notice.
In the moments after committing the crime, he had been careful not to attract unwanted attention. Registering a flight-plan from the scene would have been too dangerous, but now he was concerned that time was drawing out. How much longer? Maybe I can hurry the response along. He held both hands in front of him, fingers dancing in mid-air. The ship responded by taking a sharply angular turn, the kind of maneuver a computer controlled car should never make. Flight Control dealt with unregistered flight plans frequently enough to recognize they are usually just mistakes – update delays or common forgetfulness. A human controlling a gravcar was dangerous and illegal, and the response was automated.
Hit. An indicator overlaid the lower corner of the window – as the flight control attempted a remote shut-down. The car continued to race. Chandrasekhar registered the looming shape of New Atlantis’ massive water elevator in the peripheral of his vision. Point made. A trembling movement of his hand returned the car to the computer. He checked, then rechecked the status indicators. For a moment he had nothing to do and his mind crawled back to the dream. He shut it out and counted his breaths. A few moments later, Chandrasekhar recognized the impassive face superimposed on the windshield. The face belonged to a tired man with whom he had a long acquaintance, and Chandrasekhar betrayed surprise at seeing him. Put the gravcar in hover mode or we will… A quick manual swipe cut off the transmission.
He was familiar with what they would do. In the event of a gravcar with a tampered remote shut-down, the next step in enforcement technique is to put the car’s interconnected gravpl
ates into failsafe mode. It wouldn’t take them long to apprehend that the plates on his car were a closed system, an expensive and highly illicit construction. Enforcement would need to get physical. But not too physical, they can’t risk that. They couldn’t have failed to make the connection by now between the museum and his car.
There was a stirring in the secondary berth. Not now. Chandrasekhar twitched his jaw and heard a whooshing sound of multiple doors shutting. Grayscale grids flashed past his eyes. They were made by the partial deconstruction of New Atlantis, miles long strips of redundant gravplates removed and repurposed by a world too desperate for caution. In the distance, Chandrasekhar began to discern a thicker band of color lining the edge of the New Atlantis underside. The rim – better make this quick.
Chasing vehicles, said the computer, simultaneously displaying their relative positions inside the window. Chandrasekhar knew the chase wouldn’t last long. A runaway induced gravity car isn’t a simple object to stop – its gravplates are integrated into the hull, making it impossible to target the propulsion system. Enforcement had plenty of lethal measures at their disposal, but even the non-lethal measures were too much of a gamble for Chandrasekhar to take – a puncture would be fatal to his plan.
Time. He gestured. Computer – verbally state planned course of action. This was too tricky for him to trust himself on. The computer read off several commands in a pleasant monotone. Ready.
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