Alt.History 102 (The Future Chronicles)

by Samuel Peralta

  Set it off.

  As Red and his new best friends close in on the bomb, I reach up and rearrange a few of the wires, rerouting the vital systems around the piece of damaged wiring that stopped it from blowing up all those years ago. Using my ViFi-displayed schematics as a guide, I rearm the missile, hijacking a small, internal timer built into the missile’s systems to give it a way to detonate without being launched. Then, I carefully remove the display screen for that timer, leaving behind what appears to be nothing but another tangle of random wiring. Finally, I stick the access panel back on and use my laser rod to seal it in place, covering the screw holes with deep, intentional-looking groves to make it appear as it if the panel was never removable.

  With that done, I call out to Zane, I need another distraction. In the office building this time.

  After a short delay, Zane replies, You want me to bring it down?

  No. I scoot back toward the gap between the missile platform and the boxes. But make it loud and dusty. I need some cover to get out of here.

  Did you get Red?

  I lean my head against the cool metal siding of the missile and think about that question for a minute…

  Oh, yeah. I got Red.

  * * *

  THE NEW YORK TRIBUNE

  Web Archive

  Top Headlines — July 9, 2015

  1) Anti-Tech Movement Demands Abolishment of Juvenile Cybernetics by Allison Carpathian

  2) Cybernetics Committee Chairman Arnold Zuckerman Assassinated in Brutal Attack on Capitol Hill by Rex Leonid

  3) Senator Ace Michelson Introduces Bill to Abolish Mandatory Cybernetics by Nicole Rhys

  4) Capitol Hill Attack Sets Off City-Wide Manhunt for Anti-Tech Extremist by Mary Cambridge

  5) Cybernetics Pioneer Jane Bates Calls Anti-Tech Movement a Terrorist Group in Training by Colin Marks

  * * *

  4

  Former State of Nevada

  August 16, 2015

  We’re at the top of the world when it finally happens. Or at least the top of Nevada.

  Zane and I spend two hours climbing a tall, sheer peak that rises well over two hundred feet above the desert terrain beneath. The day is clear, not a cloud in the sky, and the only sound around for miles is the wind singing across the earth far below. The silence, the beaming sun, the warmth, the empty world, the utter quiet in my head beyond Zane’s nervous presence—these things encourage me to sing as well. Sing short songs I learned in choir class years ago, in elementary school, songs about rebirth and togetherness, a way to move on with life after tragedy. The things kids needed to learn in the aftermath of the war that broke our world.

  A world that will not be broken again.

  Zane is silent for a while, as I sing high, smooth notes, but then he starts to hum along with me. Because even though he’s younger than me by quite a few years, he learned these songs too. All kids do. Even today. They teach lessons we can’t afford to forget, if we want to avoid repeating past events.

  As we’re heading toward the last verse of the last song I remember from my childhood, Zane’s voice filters into my head. Do you really think he didn’t notice what you tampered with?

  I continue singing—and he continues humming—and I reply with, How could he? He removed all his tech. To get the bomb working again, he’d have to consult an expert. Because he made himself incapable of knowing what he needs to know to terrorize the world the way he wants.

  Zane stops humming and stares off into the vast desert, in the direction where Red has been heading since he left LA with the bomb secured to the bed of a piece of junk that might have been a truck once upon a time. He says to me, That kind of irony…

  I start to sing the final notes of my final song and finish his thought with, …is the best kind of irony.

  Zane says, You think?

  I say, You’ll learn.

  Then a soft wind blows across my face, and I let the last note fly away, high and full of hope.

  In the distance, there is a flash, and a mushroom cloud blooms into the sky.

  * * *

  THE NEW YORK TRIBUNE

  Web Archive

  Top Headlines — August 20, 2015

  1) “Dud Nuke” Explodes in Ash Lands, Creating Radioactive Cloud by Caitlyn Morse

  2) Experts Say Radiation from Long-Dormant Nuke Will Spread Over the Fence by Allison Carpathian

  3) Anti-Tech Bills Scrapped in Congress after Dormant Nuke Explodes Unexpectedly by Nicole Rhys

  4) CDC Issues Mandatory Cybernetics Updates to Ensure Radiation Preparedness by Colin Marks

  5) Anti-Tech Movement Collapses in the Wake of Dormant Nuke Explosion by Rex Leonid

  A Word from Therin Knite

  I’ve always found What If? stories to be incredibly fascinating. The fact that turning left instead of right could change the course of a life. The fact that saying yes instead of no could change the course of the world. Every day, we make all these little decisions that add up to the grand total of our lives, and if we were to alter any of those decisions, even slightly, we could profoundly change ourselves and the world around us.

  Which is why I find the concept of the Cold War becoming a hot war such a great idea to explore. Because it’s well known that that were a terrifyingly high number of incidents where the only thing that stopped the US and the USSR from acting on mutually assured destruction was the decision of a single person. Had that person chosen to react differently, it’s possible the world would be a radioactive wasteland today.

  The premise of “The Blackbird Sings” revolves around the infamous incident in September of 1983 where Lt. Colonel Stanislav Petrov was on duty at Serpukhov-15 bunker near Moscow, the command center of the USSR’s early warning satellite system. Shortly after midnight, the fault-prone satellites misinterpreted sunlight glinting off clouds at a Montana launch site as five ICBMs being launched by the US at the Soviet Union. Petrov rationalized that the satellite warning was a false alarm, because five was an oddly small number of missiles for the US to launch. And so, thanks to his quick thinking, the USSR did not retaliate against the imaginary US missiles, and the US and USSR did not destroy each other in a nuclear war.

  “The Blackbird Sings” explores the concept of Petrov not being there that night. That whoever was there instead was not so rational. That the Soviets launched their nukes and destroyed our largest Pacific cities before they recognized the satellite error. And that, as a result, the United States was transformed into something very different from what we know today.

  Therin Knite is a recent college graduate who occasionally writes sci-fi thrillers and has the odd delusion of literary stardom.

  Knite lives in a humble little place known as the Middle of Nowhere, Virginia and spends every possible second of free time reading books and writing what may possibly qualify as books.

  For more information about Therin Knite, please check out Knite’s home base, http://www.tknitewrites.com

  To receive updates on Therin’s new releases (plus free stuff!) sign up for The Knite Life newsletter: http://eepurl.com/N3IvP

  The Locked Web

  by Alex Roddie

  What if the Cold War never ended, and control of the Internet was seized by ever more authoritarian governments to power their machines of war? Eric Critchley, housebound and lonely, attracts the attention of the secret police when he starts building a computer to help himself get online—a dangerous activity in the Britain of 2015.

  Cambridge, England

  ERIC COULD NOT LOOK AWAY from the TV. He’d been lifted out of his wheelchair and left sitting on the sofa, but Mandy had gone outside for a fag so there was nobody to move him. Even if she were here, she would tell him to be quiet, to stop bothering her.

  So he watched. What else could he do?

  The BBC newsreader shuffled his pages and looked back at the camera, tilting his head up slightly and tapping his left hand on the desk.

  “This is the news at ten, and today is the
tenth of December, 2015.” The newsreader lifted a page and studied it with a raised eyebrow, then returned to the camera with a carefully neutral expression. “Soviet tanks have resumed their advance into Yugoslavia. Although most of Belgrade remains under rebel control, how long will it be before Soviet leader Anosov orders the complete—”

  “Eric!”

  He started and tore his eyes away from the scenes of horror and battle playing like a video game on the television screen. Although it was painful for him to move his neck too far, he could see into the dark interior of the kitchen where his sister Mandy now hovered at the back door. She scowled at him, her small dark eyes pinched and mean.

  “It’s almost lunchtime. What do you want?”

  “To go out.”

  He knew it would anger her, but he was tired of being shouted at and treated like a child. Most of all he was tired of doing nothing all day, waiting for Dad to get home from work.

  “We can’t go out. What if I get a call? It’s a week since the interview.” She shook her head slightly. “You never think of anyone but yourself.”

  It isn’t my fault, he wanted to scream at her, but didn’t. He felt an overwhelming numbness, a tiredness. They had argued about this so many times before. Nothing ever changed. He thought she would let it go like she usually did, retreat into her sullen silence, but instead she strode towards him and roughly lifted him up into his wheelchair, then rolled him even closer to the television.

  “What are you doing?” he said. “I can’t stand this stuff, Mandy. It’s driving me insane. Turn it off or I’ll—”

  “Shut up and stop complaining,” she snapped. “You should think yourself lucky, little brother. You’re twenty-three years old and you’ve got constant care, someone to cook for you.”

  If his legs weren’t paralysed by the stroke that had crippled him as a child, he would have leapt up and attacked his sister for saying such a thing. She had always been selfish, but things had deteriorated these last few years. Since Mum died. The resentment had bubbled to the surface.

  “You think I want this life,” he whispered.

  She must have seen the reflection of his face in the glass of the television screen, because suddenly she looked unsure of herself—but like a freight train picking up speed, she was unable to stop once she’d started.

  “Don’t you? While Dad works himself to the bone, you get everything you could ever need. How many people in this country do you think get the luxury of sitting around all day doing nothing?”

  The luxury? His fury boiled, but he tried to stay calm. He had faced accusations like this every day at school, and always his response had been the same: I didn’t choose to be the way I am. There was no help in Britain for people like him. With the country billions of pounds in debt to pay for the war, the old system of a financial help for the disabled had been dismantled years ago. The disabled who could not work had to be looked after by their families, friends or neighbours.

  And the thing that really upset Eric, that kept him awake at night? He could work. There was work he could gladly do, and was capable of doing, if only the opportunities existed. But they didn’t, not in the Britain of 2015, and no matter what he did to try and improve his life others found a way of shooting him down again.

  He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

  “I want to go to the library.”

  “But what if—”

  “Nobody is going to call, Mandy,” Eric snapped, yielding to the urge to be cruel in return. “I saw someone new working at the shop yesterday when I went past. They hired someone else.”

  She slapped a palm against the wall and stood there for a moment, breathing heavily, fighting for control. “Jesus Christ. You little bastard, Eric.”

  Eric waited.

  “Fine. We’ll go to the fucking library.”

  * * *

  Eric had a lot of time to think. He thought about what the world was like, and what the world should be like.

  He dreamed of a world where people like him would not be isolated, with only television or video games or books to keep themselves occupied. A world where people could communicate and collaborate over vast distances as easily as if they were sitting in the same room. Telephones and radiophones could only do so much; what if every home had its own computer with full Acanet access? People would not need to physically travel to offices to do their work, or to libraries to perform research. And those who found themselves housebound, like him, would have a voice.

  The technology had existed for decades, but somehow the dots never quite got joined up. Only the most prestigious universities and libraries had access to the Acanet—the Academic Subnet—which remained the only section of the Internetwork open for public use. Of course, a computer would be needed to access the Acanet, and computers were huge, hulking and expensive. Eric had read about the exciting early days of the Internetwork, when for a while it seemed that advances in miniaturisation would lead to a microcomputer boom, but the technology died a sudden death in the marketplace. People in the western world had more important things to worry about in the eighties than whether or not their Apple II could dial up a bulletin board.

  Mandy wheeled him through the open doorway of the library. The original Central Library of Cambridge had been bombed during the terrorist attacks of 1996—Eric remembered it well, when the horror of war and revolution had come so close to home—but had been rebuilt thanks to a public subscription. The new building was a drab concrete affair, modelled in the style of countless other post-war buildings in the UK: cheap, quick to build, utilitarian, and completely devoid of character. The library squatted amongst the mishmash of architectural styles that jostled for space in central Cambridge. Claustrophobic alleyways threaded between rows of Victorian terraced houses, all yellow brick and soot; and some of the surviving college buildings rose above it all, decorated with grandiose flourishes and tall spires. Eric knew these streets well. He’d lived in this town all his life.

  A familiar sense of peace washed over him as he entered this special place. Books by the thousands surrounded him—a wealth of human experience he could sample, but never truly feel for himself. What was it like to sail a boat, to hike up a mountain, to fly a fighter jet? He would never know, but he could read about all these things and more in this cathedral of knowledge. It didn’t matter that the paintwork inside was peeling, or some of the floors smelled of damp; when he read, everything around him faded and he entered strange and wonderful worlds.

  The library may be run-down but it cost money to be a member. His dad gave him an allowance, whatever he could afford, and Eric saved up for his one pleasure, which was to visit the library and use the computer room.

  He saw a few familiar faces—students, mostly, moving between the shelves like ghosts—and smiled at them, but most didn’t acknowledge him in return. It was okay; he didn’t really expect them to smile back.

  The librarian watched him over the rims of her glasses. He looked away, but could feel her gaze following him as Mandy pushed his wheelchair between the rows of bookshelves.

  “I suppose you want the computer room?” Mandy said loudly.

  Heads turned, and Eric cringed. “You’re supposed to be quiet in here.”

  She laughed. “One hour. No more, ok?”

  * * *

  The computer room was not large. Situated in the basement, it held a mismatched collection of desks groaning under the weight of twenty-five terminals and their associated equipment. Eric spotted two people using the terminals, surrounded by piles of books; in the corner of the room, the printer chugged and spooled out reams of paper.

  Mandy left before the sysadmin had a chance to notice their arrival. She shut the door behind her and one of the students looked up in irritation.

  The sysadmin looked up from his own terminal and smiled stiffly at Eric. He was a small man with a straggly little beard and eyes locked in a permanent squint, as if he had lost the ability to focus beyond arm’s length.
<
br />   “Morning, Eric. An hour as usual, is it?”

  “Yes please, Terry.”

  Terry reached up and lifted a numbered memdisk from its hook on the wall. “Terminal four.” He hesitated before handing it over. “You’ve been here a lot lately, lad.”

  “I want to learn, that’s all.”

  “Well, this is a library.” Terry’s smile seemed more genuine now. He accepted Eric’s ten-pound note and moved back to his chair.

  Terminal four was the oldest unit in the room and was so massive the desk bowed in the middle. Its screen glowed cathode-ray blue—no Inkpaper display on this baby—and the keyboard was so old that the keycaps had been worn to a fine sheen from years of heavy use. Eric ran his hands over the row of function keys beneath the space bar and knew them each by touch, even though the glyphs had long since been worn away.

  He plugged the memdisk into the reader at the side of the screen, and the computer itself—a vast machine somewhere deep in the basement, cooled by water pipes—whirred and clunked, feeding data back to this dumb terminal.

  His hands floated over the keyboard. The screen presented the library’s access portal in crisp blue print against a black background. Eric skipped over the reference sections, Acornsoft Penmaestro book processor and matrix modules, heading straight for Acanet access.

  / LOADING. PLEASE WAIT.