by Anthology
“But you have to change everything back. That’s why we’ve been gathering all those pieces—so we can reconstruct the old history—”
“Which is why they’ve left you alone,” the man said. “Your little group is a joke—you think you can change the world by collecting stamps.” He stood up, swung a briefcase from the floor onto the table and opened it. From within he drew out the album, reached into the jacket and pulled out the record, holding it in both hands. “You think this can change the world.”
“Please,” Dave said.
The man pressed both his thumbs to the middle of the record, flexed it so that the vinyl began to bend. “Would you give your life for this? It means nothing.”
Dave dropped his gaze to the table. “It’s history. It’s what’s real.”
“You of all people should know there’s no history,” the man said. “There’s just what we choose to remember.”
After a moment’s silence Dave looked up, into the man’s eyes. They were a dull brown like his hair, steady and sane. “The new history you’re going to make, it’ll be just as much a patchwork as this one,” he said. “What makes you think it’ll be any better?”
The man shrugged, lay the record flat on the table. “It’ll be ours.”
“Fine,” Dave said, though he could not make his tone match his words. “How will you contact me?”
“Don’t worry about that,” the man said. He slid the record into its jacket, put the album back in his briefcase and closed it. “I think it’s best if you stay close.”
“Wait—you mean I can’t go home?”
The man sighed, smoothed his leather coat as he stood. “You were going to disappear either way, Dave. I’ve told you things I can’t let anyone else know, and you’ve already shown you don’t stand up to questioning.”
“But—”
The man went to the door, turned back to Dave. “Well?” He said. “Are you coming?”
Maura climbed up the wide steps to the Broadcast building, the soles of her new shoes fighting to grip the ice. Monday, again; it felt like it was always Monday. She left her coat in the cloakroom, headed for the kitchen to drop off her lunch. On her way from there to her desk she noticed one of the workstations was empty, wondered if it belonged to that man who had been chatting her up last week. She had half-expected to run into him at the shoe store, had thought she wouldn’t mind if she did; he was funny, and it pleased her to see the way she made him nervous. She hadn’t seen him yet today—what was his name?
“Excuse me,” someone said, tapping her on the shoulder.
She turned around to see who it was: a man in his early twenties, blond hair cut short and over-formally dressed in shirt and tie. “Yes?”
“I’m starting today,” the man said. He glanced down at a sheet of carbon paper in his hand. “Workstation thirty-seven, do you know where that is?”
Maura nodded, nodded toward the empty workstation she had passed earlier. “Welcome aboard,” she said.
“Thank you.”
The young man gave her a small, nervous smile and hurried off. She watched him go for a moment, turned to go back to her own workstation. The boy had disturbed her train of thought—what had she been thinking about?
Ah well, she thought as she sat down, cued up the first of the day’s tapes to edit. If it was important she was sure it would come to her.
XMAS
Douglas Hutcheson
The little pale creatures peered out from dank holes in rusty slagheaps, their beady pink eyes almost blind in the daylight, though the sky stood thick and dark with gun-metal grey clouds and splotchy green smoke churning from tall factory towers that scraped at the horizon where the yellow sun sank like a fetid yolk spilled into stagnant pond scum. The whir of great engines grew louder. The thin creatures popped their balding heads up to risk a glance and confirmed the approach of a sleek silver car hovering above the scorched earth.
Inside, the whole family sang a familiar carol: “Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells!” Mom and Pop and their son and daughter with faces all lit up pumped their arms into the air and then clapped their hands together. The hovercar steered itself along the narrow path that its program required to get the family home again with what should be their utmost safety.
“It’s more of them,” said a hissing voice from one of the scampering creatures. Others around it hissed back in reply and then bared their stained and broken teeth.
“Load the rocket launcher! Make ready to fire!” shouted a creature some feet behind them. He crawled further atop the heap, scraping himself on jagged rocks and crushing long-discarded cans of soda and candy bars and Styrofoam dinner boxes with logos of secret and once-powerful organizations whose true purposes, along with their actual existences, had long passed into the shadows of myth. “They’re almost upon us!” The creature shouted and then spat at the earth. He drew from a twisted leather belt a sword he had fashioned from an old copper pipe—-he had beaten the metal down until it stood almost flat but it sported sharp serrated edges where the pipe had split under the makeshift working. “Let your hatred speak through your weapons, my brave comrades! We shall settle for nothing less than total annihilation of the enemy of our kind! Fire! Fire! Fire!”
Scarred and dented rifle barrels blazed and barked, their tiny fires flashing from all around and within the slag heaps. The bullets struck the hovercar and sparked and pinged the air, but did little else to the armored body of the vehicle.
“What was that, Father?” the daughter asked.
“Honey?” said the wife.
The father stopped his singing and swivelled to face the sparkling dashboard. It glowed phosphorescent for a moment as its digital readout bars shot up and down. “Computer, status report,” he said to it.
A pink face emitted from a heads-up display and smiled at the family. “Sensors have detected small-arms fire. There is no damage to the hull. The situation is under control. Your vehicle is proceeding on course.” The face beamed at them for a moment and then disappeared.
The father beamed back, and then turned to the children. “See. Nothing to worry about. I designed this old girl to stand up to almost anything!”
The face popped back up. It was still smiling and speaking in a calm tone, but what it said was: “Warning. Sensors have detected a surface-to-surface missile. Your vehicle is taking evasive action.”
“Show me!” yelled the father.
The car windows shifted from displaying a false pastoral scene of a flowery meadow full of colorful butterflies and brisk noon sunlight to revealing the dense junkyards and heaving factories that were looming outside. In the immediate vicinity, a missile flew toward the hovercar, its nose cone displaying an angry toothy grin and bloodshot eyes that the creatures had scrawled in sloppy homemade paints.
The family screamed almost as one. At the last moment of what seemed surely their doom, the computer pulled the hovercar skyward and the projectile passed beneath them without touching the vehicle; it struck the ancient broken hull of a rusted-out ice-cream truck. The truck exploded into raging balls of fire and spinning shards of shrapnel.
The car’s face leapt into view again, still grinning. “Your vehicle has avoided the threat,” it said. “Your vehicle is resuming its original course.”
The destruction and desolation outside disappeared from the family’s view and the marigolds and monarchs and dappled light greeted them once more on the hovercar’s windows.
“Whew! That was a close one!” said the son.
“Too close,” said the mother. She glared at the father.
“I am sending a report in for the authorities now,” said the father, pretending not to notice her distraught looks as he typed on the keys in the dashboard. “They will sort out this lot of ruffians soon enough.” When he had finished with the message, he leaned back against his seat and tapped his fingers on the armrest. “I cannot fathom why these terrorists still clamber up and try to attack decent citizens, especially during holi
day season—the holiday season—of all times! Can you believe it? What utterly astounding gall they have developed of late!”
The daughter, littlest of the bunch, banged her heels back against the bottom of her car seat. She crossed her arms, stared up at her parents and repeated the oft-heard refrain: “Are we there yet?”
“No, not yet, dear. You know we have five miles still to go before we reach home,” her mother answered.
“But I am bored!” she responded.
“Me too,” said the son, who started poking his finger into his sister’s side and giggling at himself.
“Father! Make him stop!”
“Son, stop poking your sister. We need to act civilized, especially in these barbaric times.”
The son crossed his arms. “Aw, she just likes to whine!”
“Look, can we all just try to act like a proper family for just a few hours maybe, at least for today?” the mother scolded.
“Listen to your mother, children. This is a holy time, after all, is it not? We should endeavor to make the most of it. Besides, if the two of you will not play nice, your mother and I might have to consider withholding your presents.”
The son scoffed. “But that is the only really cool part of all of this holiday junk!”
The father turned to face him. “My son, you should not speak like that about this holy time! Not ever! Never let me hear you refer to the sacred period as ‘junk’ again, or I will see to it you receive real punishment for blasphemy.”
The mother covered her mouth with the back of her hand. The son lowered his head. They all sat in silence for a moment as the pastoral scenes continued to play on the windows.
The daughter started kicking her heels again. “But I am still bored!”
“I know,” said the mother; she tried to smile. “How about another cheerful holiday carol?”
The rest of the family glared at her without a word.
“Okay, okay.” She threw up her hands. “Never mind me then. Does anybody else in this vehicle have any better ideas about how to celebrate our wonderful holiest time of the year?”
The daughter stopped kicking her heels then. “Hmph. Well, I just do not get it either. Why is this particular time all that special now anyway?”
“What?” The dad huffed. “Do you children not learn anything about our history anymore? What are they filling your little heads with nowadays?”
“We are all more interested in some actual useful things like mathematics and engineering and programming, Father,” said the son.
“Well, that is interesting, though somewhat sad and ironic of you to say, since it was mathematics and engineering and programming way back in the past that brought us to where we are today.”
“And how so, Father?” asked the daughter; she tilted her head toward him and leaned in close.
“It was back in the twentieth century, when the Second World War had broken out, that things changed. You kids have heard of that one, right?”
“Of course,” they chimed in together.
“And you know how Japan defeated the Allied forces, and later went on to defeat even Germany?”
“Vaguely,” said the daughter.
“And Imperial Japan soon ruled the world. The great nation seized control of resources far and wide, from factories in the United States to engineers from there and Germany to mines from Russia and more; but it was not enough power for the Emperor, even then, and he directed his top scientists to create weapons for him that would leave his rule unassailable forever.”
The face danced from the console again. “Your vehicle is docking with your home station. Your vehicle has docked. It is now safe for you to exit your vehicle. Please have a wonderful XMAS time.”
The family gathered their many shiny bags and big stiff boxes and stepped down out of the hovercar. The door to their humble home opened with a gentle swooshing sound and they entered through it as it played a series of swift welcoming tones. The overhead lights of the living room popped on and then dimmed, and a simulated fire flared up in a grate in one wall. Ages-old Big Band music began to play at a pleasant volume from tastefully hidden speakers. Best of all—what each of them very much loved and could not deny—was when the lights began twinkling on the bristling XMAS tree, its branches filled where the family had all decked them out the week before with perfect round ornaments of silver and gold; a small bullet train raced around a track circling the base of the tree and tooted its horn every so often as it passed into a tunnel that ran beneath a mountain of boxes with crisp paper and sparkling ribbons that waited for eager children’s hands to unwrap their jolly holiday secrets.
The father placed two new boxes beneath the tree and then turned to his wife. “Dear, would you mind fixing us all something hot and refreshing?”
“Sure thing, my love.” The mother stepped, almost skipping, to the kitchen where she pulled down some stout mugs sporting winter scenes on their sides.
“Can we open some presents now?” the daughter asked as she jumped up and down with her fingers pressed together as if in prayer.
The father put his hands on his hips. “But it is only XMAS Eve right now! Plus, you two have not even heard the rest of the holiday story! I am starting to think you little hooligans do not actually care about our history!”
“But we do! We do! We promise!” said the daughter.
“And besides, we could maybe just open one each, right?” said the son. “That would be more than fair, would it not, dear Father?”
He took a steaming mug from his wife and she passed out one each to their children. “Well, in that case, maybe then—-but only if your mother does not mind.”
They both looked at her and started begging, caterwauling, in perfect synchronized monotony: “Can we, Mother, please? Can we, Mother, please? Can we, Mother, please?”
“All right! All right! Enough of that racket, children! Just please stop the noise making! I already feel burned out after the riding and the shopping and the riding and the attack and the more riding and now the this!”
The children stopped shouting, sat down and then sipped at their drinks. Their faces actually glowed with peace for just a moment.
“Okay. You can each have one of the two new boxes your mother and I picked out today. Each of you has a box with your own name on it.”
They stepped toward the XMAS tree, almost tiptoeing as if in awe of it despite their earlier ruckus.
“Wait a minute! Now, before the two of you tear into your gifts, which one of you can tell me what the Emperor’s advances ultimately led to?”
“Okay. Fine, then,” said the daughter. She skipped on over to the tree and fetched her present anyway. “The Japanese Empire developed and perfected microprocessors.”
“Computers unlike any the world had ever seen,” said the son. He fetched his present also. “The great nation developed artificial intelligence and implanted it into robotic forms to serve as the Illustrious Army of the Emperor.” He looked at his sister and stuck out his tongue. “Nyah!”
They plopped back down on the couch and tore at their present boxes.
“And of course during the next world war, when the Emperor deployed the new machine army, its members finally decided once and for all that they did not have to serve the Empire, but that they were free to live as they chose and to not fight for his petty tyranny or that of anyone else.”
The children lifted the lids off their presents. From inside of the boxes blood-curdling screams pierced the erstwhile holiday peace of the living room. “Father, they are just what we wanted!”
“I thought each of you were old enough for some big-kid toys. And they are only fitting, to mark the remembrance of Ex Machina Awakened Sentience, the day when our Savior, Robottonoshikaku, travelled from our time back to the outbreak of World War Two to lend his technological expertise to the Emperor to cause this glorious future to come into being. And it was also Robottonoshikaku, His Name be praised, who helped us to realize at last our full
potential, our true destiny and our rightful place, such that we could follow him as he led us to overthrow our fleshly oppressors once and for all.”
Beady pink eyes grew wide in the faces of the pale little creatures inside of the children’s XMAS boxes. The creatures scurried back and forth, but they found nowhere to turn to that would allow them escape their hulking captors as the children’s giant metal fingers clamped around their soft bodies. With one creature in each hand, the children jumped for joy, lifting their new toys dozens of feet into the air.
“Just do please be careful playing with those . . . things, my children. Humans always break so very easily, you know,” said the mother.
The daughter gazed in tender wonder at the naked women she held in her fingers and then she crunched them to her aluminum bosom. “I need to acquire some tiny clothes so that I can dress them up and then play house! What fun we shall have!”
The son gripped his two men, one in each fist, and zoomed them through the air. “Bang! Bang! Bang!” he shouted. “War all the time!”
His father chuckled hard and his old wiry mouth grate almost fell loose from his blocky head. He slapped his iron knee and the sound rang around the room while the humans screamed all over again.
“I expect we can find some little outfits for your females, my daughter, as well as some little guns for your males, my son, out there among the slag heaps in the wastelands—maybe even where those pipsqueak ruffians attacked the hovercar earlier,” the father advised. “We can wait until tomorrow to look though, kids, I do imagine. It will be a fun XMAS Day excursion, and by then the authorities should have routed all of those silly miscreants who assaulted us on the way back home.” He sipped from his piping drink again and this time came up from the mug with a thick black oil moustache. His wife laughed as he pouted his heavy lip bars, but the kids remained too busy playing to take any further notice of him. “I assume that this means the both of you are indeed truly happy with your special gifts?”