by Nancy Kress
“Quiet, please, da Vinci,” Dr. Cee said. “Jason, I’m fine. Thank you for asking. I am glad you’re not frightened by what must seem a very strange situation, a trait that—by the way—is partly responsible for your being here-and-now.”
He blinked. “Um...“ He didn’t know what to say to any of that, so he kept his mouth shut, especially since she seemed eager to talk, anyway.
“Only now, Jason, you need to prepare yourself for a great shock. You are not in New York, nor in the year 2019. As far as you are concerned, this is the future.”
“Yeah, right,” Jason said.
“Yes, it is. But before we convince you of that, or tell you any more, I want to say immediately that you will be going home eventually. In fact, you can go home after just one hour, if you like. But for that one hour, you must listen to us explain why we brought you here.”
“Explain away,” Jason said. He felt light-headed. None of this was happening. It was a hallucination of some kind. From a drug? He didn’t do drugs, but could someone have slipped him something? He didn’t feel high or dazed, so maybe it was a sports concussion… or some sort of weird dream. Over in a minute. Might as well go with the flow until it ended.
“We brought you here to help save the future,” the woman said.
Jason laughed. Save the future! Man, how cheesy could you get? So it wasn’t a dream. It was a practical joke, a really good practical joke. His buds must have spent days dreaming up this one. In a minute, Tyrone would walk through the door, and Wayne, and even Brian.
What walked through the door was a robot, another transparent person you could see right through, and another doctor. This one was a man, although he wore the same long white shirt and short pants as the woman. Unlike the woman, he wasn’t smiling.
“Hello, Jason,” he said. “Welcome to the year 2336.”
Sharon could hear her mother shouting even before she opened the front door to her house. And her mother wasn’t sober.
“...think you can just barge in here like some kind of queen and―”
Sharon went inside. The tiny living room was a mess. Dirty glasses, newspapers, clothing, and in the middle were her mother and her older sister, Johnna, yelling at each other.
“—dump your responsibilities on me like―”
“I don’t care what you say! I’m going, and you and nobody else can’t―”
“—the irresponsible brat you always were, you got another think―”
“―stop me! I’m not going to turn out like you, another wasted drunk who―”
The baby, Sharon thought. If Johnna was here, so was her baby. Little Tara would be scared and upset, listening to her mother and grandmother shout at each other.
“―coming! I did my time with kids, and I’m not―”
“―let one mistake wreck her life! If you’d been any kind of mother―”
But where was the baby? There was no diaper bag in the living room, no squeeze toys, no Tara.
“―going to raise yours too!”
“―in the first place, I wouldn’t be in this position!”
Sharon hurried into the kitchen. No Tara. The bathroom. No Tara. There were only the two tiny bedrooms above, hers and her mother’s. Then she heard a soft babble.
Tara was on the little glassed-in porch that connected to the kitchen, still dressed in her snowsuit. The porch was jammed full because Johnna had brought all Tara’s stuff: Pampers and a porta-crib and a cardboard box spilling out baby clothes. In the middle of it all, Tara sat in an infant seat she’d really outgrown, smiling and cooing to herself.
Sharon knelt on the porch floor beside the baby. “Hello, little one.”
Tara babbled and held up her arms to be picked up.
At nine months, she was the most beautiful baby Sharon had ever seen, and she didn’t say that just because Tara was her niece. The blonde hair that on Sharon hung in flat, lank clumps and on Johnna frizzed up, on Tara curled into shining ringlets. Tara had big green eyes and perfect baby-smelling skin. Sharon adored her.
Now she gathered up Tara in her arms and carried her from the cold porch into the house.
Johnna had left. Sharon’s mother stood pouring herself a huge whiskey. “Rose-of-Sharon, do you know what that bitch your sister did? Do you know?”
“No, Mom.”
“She ran off with that crummy new boyfriend of hers and left Tara with me! For me to raise! Says the only reason she has a baby is because I was such a horrible mother. I was a perfect mother! Wasn’t I?”
“Mom―”
“Wasn’t I? Say it!”
“You were a great mother,” Sharon said because if she didn’t, this would go on all night.
“Damn right, I was! And I will be to Tara, too! I know my responsibilities, even if your sister doesn’t! Now, sweetie, go get the baby something to eat, will you? We must have something in the pantry. I’ll take over right after I finish this drink.”
After she finished the drink, Sharon’s mother had another drink. Then she fell asleep on the sofa.
Sharon fed Tara some toast, banana, and scrambled eggs. She gave the baby a bath, dressed her in warm pajamas, and rocked her to sleep. Tara’s porta-crib just barely fit into Sharon’s own room, jammed in between her bed and the battered old dresser.
What was she going to do about the baby?
Because it was up to her. She was the one who would have to do something. Her mother would kiss Tara and cry and say how Tara was at home now with her granny, and then her mother would drink too much and pass out. That wasn’t safe for a baby. That’s why Sharon knew it was up to her.
But how could she go to school and watch Tara, too? For one thing, she had to do more research at the library on her Technology & Communication project. More long-term, she had to finish school. And then find a way to go to college.
But she also had to take care of Tara. It had been bad enough for Johnna and Sharon, growing up in this house. But at least then her father had been here, and her mother hadn’t been as bad as she was now. So how was Sharon going to go to school and watch Tara? Nobody could be in two places at once. Maybe Johnna would come back.
Maybe she wouldn’t.
Sharon fell asleep planning and worrying.
The next morning Sharon went straight to the hallway outside her principal’s office. It was a while before Mr. Ruhl noticed she was there.
“Rose-of-Sharon! I didn’t see you. Come in, come in.”
Sharon sat in a chair across from Mr. Ruhl’s desk. She’d read in magazines in the library that principals in big-city schools had to deal with gang fights, drug raids, arson, death threats. But Spencerville was different. Mr. Ruhl’s desk was covered with flyers for the Thanksgiving PTA bake sale. What would it be like, Sharon wondered, to have a mother you could go to and say, I need something for the bake sale, could we make that great chocolate cake again? Sharon pushed that out of her mind. Concentrate on what had to get done.
“What can I do for you?” Mr. Ruhl said.
“You can let me bring―”
“Speak up, Rose-of-Sharon, I can’t hear you.”
“You can let me bring my nine-month-old niece to school with me. My sister left her with my mother, who drinks too much to take care of the baby. So I have to.”
Mr. Ruhl stared at her. Sharon wondered what she’d said wrong. She’d only spoken the truth. Maybe the words had rushed out a little fast, but they were still the truth.
“Tara can come with me to class in her infant seat. In lunch and study halls, I’ll go home with her. I live just a few blocks away.”
Mr. Ruhl went on staring.
“Well, okay?” Sharon said. She couldn’t think what else to say.
“No, I’m sorry, it’s not okay,” Mr. Ruhl finally said. “This school isn’t... I know in some big cities they have special programs for unwed mothers to bring their babies to school, not that you’re an unwed mother, of course, but we’re just not set up for it here. You must see that, Rose-of-Sh
aron. And as for going home between classes, there are insurance reasons why no student may leave the premises during school hours. And anyway, your sister’s baby is not your problem. Your education must come first.”
“I can still get my education,” Sharon said quietly. “I can do it.”
“I don’t think you realize how we... It’s out of the question, my dear. There are other alternatives.”
“Like what?”
“Well, like, for instance, foster care for the child―”
Instantly Sharon stood up. He didn’t understand. Tara was her niece...family. You didn’t send family to be cared for by strangers. At least she didn’t. The Myerses took care of their own.
“Thank you, Mr. Ruhl.” She turned to go.
“Rose-of-Sharon, wait, you must see―”
Sharon didn’t see. She didn’t have time to see. She had to find daycare for Tara.
Chapter Three
Jason had been listening to Dr. Cee and Dr. Orgel for twenty minutes. He sat on the edge of his hospital-bed-only-it-wasn’t, his long legs braced on the floor, and tried to get a handle on what was happening. A handle? He’d settle for a tiny touch.
“Okay,” Jason said finally, “let me see if I got this all straight. This is the future.”
“Yes,” Dr. Cee said.
“And I got ‘yanked’ into it by your time machine, right? You were looking for me specific-like, by name, and you got me?”
“Yes. We yanked you into our present,” Dr. Cee said.
Jason suppressed a smirk. These people appeared to only use that word in its “proper” meaning. Not the vulgar slang that had been added, in Jason’s time. Well, no point in acting like a child about it.
“But the...the ‘yank’ didn’t cause this cut on my head that knocked me out?”
“Certainly not,” Dr. Orgel said impatiently. “Yanking does not cause injury. Well, it wouldn’t have injured you, except for a headache. You hit your head on something in your own time.”
Dr. Orgel had introduced himself as the head of Operation Hourglass, and he hadn’t smiled yet. Not that it mattered if these dudes smiled or not, Jason thought, because they weren’t real. No way. Jason was back at his first theory. This wasn’t a practical joke―no chance Brian and Tyrone and Clayton could set up something like this. Way too complicated. It was a hallucination. Jason had fallen on his head or got hit by a fastball playing pick-up baseball, or maybe got attacked, and now he was lying in a hospital in a coma somewhere and hallucinating all this. And what a hallucination! He’d had no idea his brain was smart enough to imagine all this stuff. To tell the truth, he was pretty impressed with himself. So might as well hang with it and go along for the fun.
“So I got yanked, Dr. Orgel,” always good to use people’s names, people liked that, “and you put some little thing in my brain so I can understand your future English.”
“Yes,” said Dr. Cee eagerly. “And not only English. There’s a temporary artificial speech center implanted over your Broca area that works by neural induction. We’ll remove it before we return you to your own time.”
“Fine, sure, whatever,” Jason said. “And the reason you brought me here is to go on a mission only gritty kids can do.”
“Kids with grit,” Dr. Orgel said, frowning. “To tell the truth, Jason, you don’t seem to believe us.”
Jason laughed. His hallucinations were telling him he didn’t believe in them! God, he was good at dreaming up stuff. And his English teacher had the nerve to say his essays were “wooden.” If she could see him now!
“Jason,” Dr. Cee said, “this is serious. You see, our time―which to you is ‘the future’― is peaceful and happy. Mankind has finally learned how to make a society that works. We’ve solved nearly all the problems of your day: war, pollution, disease, crime. But everything has a price. And after centuries of the good life for everybody, we’ve lost one human quality: a kind of tough stoicism and tenacity that for short, we call grit.”
Okay, Jason thought. Hallucinations don’t use vocabulary I can barely remember, do they? I’ve heard those words, I think, but I couldn’t define ‘em right now if my life depended on it.
In a level voice, Jason said, “Tell me again just what ‘grit’ is.”
“It’s hard to define but easy to spot,” Dr. Cee replied. “A person with grit doesn’t give up. He gets things done. He isn’t stopped by hardship. He just keeps going.”
“Like the Energizer Bunny.” Jason grinned.
“The what?”
“Never mind. How do you know I got this stuff?”
“We can’t tell you that yet,” Dr. Orgel said. “We’ll tell you that after the mission is over.”
The robot had been silent this whole time. Suddenly it said, quite loudly, “Difficulty with Yank 47.” At the same moment, another transparent person appeared beside Dr. Cee and said, “Serena! A complication on the Myers yank!”
Jason demanded, “What is that transparent stuff? Is that alive?”
“It’s a PP―a ‘personal projection.’ No, it’s not alive. It’s like a...a picture you can send places that you aren’t. To give and send messages.”
“Way cool…kind of like a thinking hologram,” Jason said and had the satisfaction of seeing Orgel’s eyes widen a bit in surprise. “What’s that noise?”
In the next room, someone was screaming. Dr. Orgel vanished through the non-door. Jason looked hard, but he still didn’t see it open or close. Dr. Cee said worriedly, “Let’s just concentrate on you for the moment. Stay focused, Jason.”
She sounded like Coach Patterson, Jason thought. No matter how far into the future you hallucinated yourself, some things didn’t change. Somebody was always on your case.
“You got it,” Jason said. “I’m focused. I’m on task. You yank kids from the past to do this mission gig. Why kids? Why not yank adults?”
“We can’t,” Dr. Cee said. “Only kids can teleport, and yanking is one kind of teleporting. You see―”
The noise in the next room suddenly increased. Yelling, crying...Jason would swear he was hearing a baby in there. Well, maybe there was a daycare center for the teleport workers.
“Excuse me,” Dr. Cee said, and she vanished through the wall as well, leaving Jason alone.
He got out of bed. Maybe he’d just try that wall gig for himself. But when he walked into the place the two doctors had gone through, all that happened was he smacked his head against the wall.
“Your current action may injure your body. Please desist.”
Jason spun around. It was the robot―yet another person telling him what to do!
But was a robot really a “person?” Jason decided to find out.
Mrs. Northrup opened her front door and smiled. “Why, Sharon, come in, honey. It’s a little chaotic, but you won’t mind that, will you?” Sharon didn’t mind. Mrs. Northrup, who lived four doors down Sycamore Street from the Myerses, had a great house. It always smelled of cookies or bread or stew. The big shabby living room was filled with cheerful furniture, bright toys, and small kids. Mrs. Northrup ran a daycare in her house. At the moment, two toddlers watched Sesame Street, two preschoolers played with trucks, and an infant clung to Mrs. Northrup’s shoulder.
“Would you like a cookie, Sharon? And if you don’t mind my asking, why aren’t you in school?”
“I want to know if―”
“I’m sorry, child, I can’t hear you over Big Bird. You’re such a quiet little thing. What did you say?”
“I want to know if you can watch Tara every day while I’m at school.”
Mrs. Northrup looked sad. “Tara? What about Johnna?”
“Gone,” Sharon said. “Left Tara with my mother. And my mother―”
“Never mind. I know. Oh, dear.”
Mrs. Northrup sat down in one of the comfortable flowered chairs. Sharon sat in another. A little boy crawled up to her and held out a toy truck, which Sharon took, smiling at him. Tara would like it here.
> “The thing is…” Mrs. Northrup began. “Oh, dear, this is embarrassing. Tim just got laid off.”
Tim was Mrs. Northrup’s husband. Sharon waited.
“I would love to watch Tara for you; she’s a wonderful baby. But money is really tight right now, Sharon. You’re old enough to understand that. The state only allows me to watch six children in my in-home business here. It’s true I only have five just now, but I have to take a sixth that is from a paying family, or I just can’t make ends meet for Tim and me.”
Sharon nodded slowly. It made sense. She’d been thinking only about Tara, but of course the Northrups would have their own bills to pay. Everybody did.
“How much do you charge, Mrs. Northrup?”
“For a child under one year old, seventy-five dollars a week. I’m sorry, but―”
“No, that’s okay,” Sharon said. After a minute, she stood up. “I have to go now.”
“Sharon, I’m so sorry. I really wish I could do it, if only to ease the burden on you. You’re so quiet, but you take responsibility for everything, don’t you? Even―”
“Don’t accept a sixth kid yet, okay, Mrs. Northrup? I’ll be back.”
“I’m sorry,” said the strange young man behind the library counter, “but Mrs. Staines left on vacation last night. I’m the temporary librarian.”
He was young, in his twenties, and had a beard. Not from around here. Sharon said, “When will Mrs. Staines be back?”
“Two weeks. She’s taking her vacation through Thanksgiving.”
Two weeks! Sharon couldn’t wait even one day. Already it was ten-thirty in the morning, and she’d left Tara alone in the house since seven. Well, not alone, her mother was there. For all the good that would do.
She said, “Then maybe you can help. I’d like―”
“Please speak up.”
“I’d like to apply for a job in the library. I can―”
“Oh, I have nothing to do with hiring.”
“Just a temporary job until Mrs. Staines can make it permanent.”