by Rik Thompson
"Well, it's the least I can do; try to keep things going ‘round here."
"And you're doing a good job of it too," she said as she gave her husband a good morning kiss on the forehead.
They sat around the table, ate their breakfast and discussed how her first day at work would probably go.
She would work on one of the automated sewing tools in the garment district of Los Angeles. And although she had never done the work, her boss assured her she would be running the sewing tool in no time. Most of the work would be done at a standard typewriter keyboard; she would send commands to the central processor on the machine, and the sewing tool would handle most of the work. Oh, she would have to pick out the material for the type of pattern, but that would be a breeze for her also. All that entailed was going into a database and pulling up the order number.
"You think you'll like the job?" Harvey asked.
"It will be okay. I'd rather stay home with Sylvie. This is where I belong."
Harvey promised it wouldn't be long until she was home.
· * * *
"Daddy, when is mommy coming home?"
"Don't bother me now Sylvie!" Harvey shouted, as he rubbed his prominent, pointed nose and wrung his hands. He strolled into the kitchen, opened one of the cabinets and drew out a bottle of cheap port. He unscrewed the cap and took a deep draught right from the bottle, and regarded the little girl with a look of annoyance.
"Your mom will be home when she gets home."
Sylvie sidled up to her stepfather standing at the kitchen counter, "What's wrong?" she asked looking up at him with pretty brown eyes.
"Just go into your room and play, and quit asking so many damned questions."
Harvey was getting drunk; it had become the natural thing to do around mid-morning these days. No job, no calls for a job. He gave up looking two weeks ago. He was sick and tired of the obnoxious job of looking for a job.
Besides, he thought in his ongoing stupor, Katherine was doing well with the family affairs now that she had her job. Why should he worry about it anymore? He wasn't going to worry about it. He would drown it out, right out of his mind. Fuck the world. He had cultivated a taste for this cheap wine, and it numbed him good. Besides, it was good for the digestive tract. As long as he could keep Sylvie out of his hair and Katherine at work and liking her job, he would be all right. Fuck it! Fuck a shit eating job.
"Daddy," Sylvie said walking into the front room from her little world of the bedroom, "can we have a tea party?" she asked as she cast her tiny brown eyes up at her stepfather lying drunk on the couch.
"WHAT DID I TELL YOU TO DO, SYLVIE?"
The mean scowl on his face scared her. Why, he didn’t even look like her father now. His brown hair sticking up in places all over his head; she thought she might wet her pants in her horror. He looked at her so mean: like he would kill her for being in the same room with him.
"You told me to go play in my room," she whimpered.
"Well get in there then! You hard headed little cunt!"
Sylvie turned and dashed for the security of her room, as she ran a steady stream of excitement and fear ran down her print dress.
Try as she may she could not figure out what had gone wrong with her Daddy. She was dumbfounded, and sat on the side of her bed in a confused state.
Maybe Mommy might know what's wrong.
A good hour passed by before she decided she could no longer stay confined to her room. She concluded she would go toward the kitchen for a glass of water and make sure her father was all right. She eased the door to her room open, and peered into the hallway. Seeing her parent's door open she ventured out into the hallway and crept toward the living room. Her father lay sprawled out on the couch. She crept into the kitchen and went to the refrigerator. Seizing the cold-water bottle in her hand she tilted the jar with the narrow opening to her mouth.
"OH FUCK!" Harvey screamed, waking all of a sudden from a reoccurring drunken nightmare. Sylvie jumped, and as she did the bottle of water struck her in her front tooth. She fumbled the glass jar, lost her grip and the bottle crashed to the tiled kitchen floor. Harvey came full awake.
"SYLVIE!" he screamed running into the kitchen. "What in the fuck did I tell you to do a while ago?" he asked as spittle flew from his mouth.
"Daddy, please ... I needed a drink of water," Sylvie pleaded, "I just wanted to get..."
"I don't care what you wanted to get," Harvey replied as he snatched her up by her arm. He lost his balance and as he fell his momentum caused him to swing Sylvie and letting go the child was thrown across the kitchen. She smashed into the sink left shoulder first and fell to the floor hard. The blow almost knocked her out. She regained her feet quickly. A sharp pain raced through her shoulder and she screamed. Harvey got up, composed himself as best he could and staggered toward her.
"Don't you scream at me you little slut!" He grabbed her again by her right arm and swung her around. Her left shoulder burned fiery hot, and she began to wail.
"Daddy let go of me pleeeease! Please Daddy! You are hurting me!"
Harvey slapped her across the face hard. A red swollen whelp began to form on her face.
Just then Katherine came in the front door from work. She heard her little girl screaming. She raced into the kitchen. She saw the broken water bottle, glass scattered all over the wet floor. She saw Harvey, knew he was intoxicated. She saw Sylvie standing there crying. She gasped when she saw that all along her daughter's cheek a bruise was forming.
"What are you ... What have you done?" she shouted.
Harvey regarded her in a half drunken grin, "Daddy's little girl has been bad." His smile broadened. He left Sylvie and staggered toward Katherine.
"Get away from me you bastard. Sylvie, honey, run to your room. Mommy will be there in a minute."
Sylvie ran past Harvey. He sneered at her as she passed. Harvey walked up to Katherine and tried to put his arms around her.
"I'm sorry baby," he apologized, "but Sylvie has been a pain in the ass all day long. And look, look what she did. She busted the ..."
"Shut up and get away from me!"
Harvey came closer. He was determined to make Katherine see the light of his actions.
Katherine flung herself into him throwing him back into the sink. As he smashed into the sink, he let out a yell. Katherine reached for the silverware drawer.
“You fucking bitch!” Harvey screamed trying to pull himself together.
With one eye on Harvey, Katherine fished around the drawer. And just as Harvey lunged at her a second time, she yanked the foot-long roast beef carving knife out.
She held the knife close to her side, and as Harvey charged, she raised the knife waist level. Harvey raced forward and impaled himself onto the hilt on the knife. Katherine screamed.
Blood spurted; Harvey pirouetted and crashed to the kitchen floor.
Katherine stood frozen looking down at Harvey as the blood dripped down her dress. Tears streamed down her cheeks in a torrential downpour. She quit breathing and felt ill in the stomach. Sylvie came into the kitchen.
Katherine came to her senses and escorted Sylvie from the room. She clutched her daughter tightly as she began to cry.
“What’s wrong with Daddy?”
“Nothing, baby, he’s just sleeping.”
Katherine tried as best she could to waylay Sylvie’s questions as to why Harvey was asleep. She picked up the phone and dialed nine, one, one.
Sylvie was intrigued with the multicolored lights of the police cars, “Mommy, who are those people?”
Sylvie Robers would grow up with sordid remembrances of her life as a child and the struggles she would have with her father and then in her school years after which she would more and more withdraw from the male almost completely. Her first homosexual experience would be pre-high school, and after that she would never look back on the life of heterosexuality.
She was a smart, stern faced woman. Those under her would describe, if asked,
that she was above you, automatically. When she spoke, and you were looking into her very serious, very stern face, especially just below the wooly brows, and into the eyes you would know that what she said was law. She pursued work in social services just out of high school and onto college and after working for three years in social work she found herself on the ground and inside the World Population Control Board shortly after its inception. Two years later she was appointed head of the Los Angeles Board.
And when it came to her position, she was quite adamant concerning the rules and regulations that she was appointed to uphold. Her sector was very well maintained. She would rule this roost in a most absolute manner. The department had been assembled by Robers, and they were just like her. They demanded, they attacked, and they carried out their plots as one might say, ‘Godlike function’ without any respect or feeling for those under their boot.
FIVE
MARCH, 2039
Shirley McAllister hurried along the sidewalk. In a rush she remembered that she had not even applied her makeup this morning. She walked rapidly up to the World Health Organization, housed in the same building as the World Population Control Board building and rushed in. She took a detour through the ladies’ room.
“No makeup, that’s really great. Well girl, I guess you have too much on your mind these days.”
And somehow, she knew she was right. It was three months past spending the night at Timothy’s apartment. She was feeling ill in the morning now, and had been for the past few weeks. She spoke with Timothy about it. It was right after the press conference was held to display the brand new, and vastly improved humanoid robot protégé he had just delivered to Electro-Tech.
“Looks like we did well,” he said as he left the reporters behind in the conference room, rejoining Shirley in an outer assembly room.
She was nauseated and disregarded his comment.
“Shirley, are you okay?”
“No, I’m not, not really.”
“What’s wrong?”
She didn’t want to tell him how she felt right here, right now. She knew she would have to tell him sooner or later.
“I think that I am pregnant. I’ve been getting ...”
“What do you mean, you think you are pregnant? How could that be? We haven’t done ...”
“Yes, we have.”
“But, babe ... it was just that one time a couple of months ago.”
“I know that. Unfortunately, it only takes one time.”
He asked if she had told anyone. She said she hadn’t. He seemed distant to the whole ordeal, keeping intact the thought that the pregnancy issue was too soon to consider.
She went home feeling lost, and with no hope of support from Timothy on what actions, if any, that could be taken to relieve the mess she was in. And in the following week, and after one final attempt to confer with Timothy, she went to the World Health Organization building.
· * * *
On the first floor, she paused in the lobby. She wasn’t too sure who to see, or where to go now that she was there. She did not know if she really had to take this chance to be here whatsoever.
She looked around and walked toward the information desk. A young, black woman manned the information desk.
“Excuse me Miss, do you know who I could see to ask ...?”
The woman at the desk could tell by looking directly at Shirley that she was disorientated.
“Would you like to apply for a birth grant?”
“Uh ... Yes. Where would I do that at?”
She took the elevator up to the third floor, to Sylvie’s office and as she left the elevator and turned into the corridor, she noticed two panels set into either wall. She judged the panels to be six feet up from the floor. She guessed they were made of acrylic as she walked past. She stopped, and took one more look at the panels. For some reason that she could not understand those two panels frightened her, made her apprehensive as she opened the door to Sylvie’s office.
“You must be Mrs. Jones,” Sylvie said as she greeted Shirley.
“Yes,” she lied, “and I believe I’m a few minutes early and, well, I was ...”
“That’s perfectly all right, Mrs. Jones. Won’t you take a seat so we can chat?” as she lowered her left arm down and gave up the feeling of right this way.
Sylvie liked, and was attracted to the woman right off; like a man would feel as if she, were a man.
Shirley talked to the woman. She had to get an understanding on what steps would be needed, what outlet she had if she let the pregnancy run its course. And on her way out she realized that if Timothy would not assume his responsibility, she knew she would have to change her life in drastic measures.
Sylvie wanted to confide in Shirley, something else, other than answering the woman’s questions. She started by asking Shirley’s phone number. But she would not give it out. See, it was something Shirley did not know. She thought about those panels, did not know what their purpose was. They were fetal scans. She could not know that, and she also could not know that when she spoke to Sylvie Robers, she talked directly into the World Population Control Board’s microphone which recorded her every word.
· * * *
After Shirley was gone, Sylvie made her way into a room off to the side of her office to consult with a technician there.
“Have you got the results of the scan?” Sylvie asked the tech.
“Yes, and it is positive. The Jones' woman is definitely carrying a fetus. Take a look at the scan of the Jones' woman.”
Sylvie studied the scan results of the two acrylic panels in the hallway, and in that scan, she saw life, minute as it was growing in the woman's womb.
· * * *
Maybe there was a way into Shirley’s life? she thought.
Sylvie dispatched a shadow on Shirley which was the standard procedure for matters like this one. She knew that Shirley was hiding something, and she also knew it had to be an illegitimate pregnancy. She had been doing this job far too long not to suspect the smoke screen that she had placed on the board with her inquiry into the pregnancy guidelines. She would find out what was going on, and let the court decide.
“We need to find the counterpart, the male part of this, “she explained to the shadow. “We need to lie back in the distance until then, and then, and only then do we apprehend. Now, let’s go and get them.”
· * * *
Mining of asteroids was the brainchild of NASA engineer, Nils O'Banion. The Irish, red haired lad, Nils first came up with the idea of mining asteroids just before the turn of the century. Then, as well as now the signs were everywhere that the earth's resources would eventually deplete. Back then it would have been improbable to impossible to conjure up the correct technology to put his plan into action. Now it was doable with the technological advances in the second decade of the new century. First, he tried to get his idea up and running through a discussion with NASA, which in turn launched a study into feasibility of the project. It fell short of the resources and material, as well as the current budget at NASA, and was discarded.
Determined to make his idea work, Nils took his idea to independent space companies. Completing his research on companies that could help him, he decided he would start at the top of his list and work his way down.
Nils O'Banion pulled into the parking lot of Electro-Tech. All his running around the LA, and surrounding areas convinced him that this may be a harder sell than he anticipated, and as he wheeled his car into yet another parking space of another aerospace lot, he hoped the end result would not be one of rejection as the others had been. All the past companies liked his idea, thought it quite lucrative financially; they just could not meet the requirements a project like this would need to be, to be successful up front.
Timothy Wade shuffled papers around on his desk. He stood up, stretched, and checked his watch and sauntered off to the door of his office when the intercom went off.
"There is a Mr. Nils O'Banion, to see you Timothy," his s
ecretary announced.
"Please, send him on in."
The meeting went well - so well that a stipulation that was impossible to get around on the past negotiations, concerning the high cost of insuring human miners was done away with altogether.
"We will use our auto-bots," Timothy said, "and that will reduce the cost of the surface operations significantly."
"Yes, exactly," Nils agreed, "with your auto-bots performing the mining operations, all we will need is an engineer to direct them."
"That won't be an issue at all," Timothy replied, "I'll go with you."
"Yes, that would be good, but what about the funding?"
“I can work on that as well. I can say though, right up front, as Electro-Tech will be a major player in this, all we will need is the craft to get us up to the asteroid, and I have a real good idea how that will happen."
· * * *
Timothy stepped into an auditorium filled with reporters, folks from NASA, and some interested private firms, and took a seat in the first row of chairs. His company was selected for their great advancements in the auto-bot technological field. Deep Space, a private firm of scientists and engineers have already designed and built the first craft known as Rove-One to implement asteroid mining. The key note speaker for this meeting is Will Bo Decker. He enters the auditorium, and walks to the podium, turns on the microphone and begins to speak.
"Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. This most assuredly is an exciting time in our further employment of the heavens to the continuing benefit of mankind. I am pleased to bring the news to you that in the very near future we will once again reach out in space not only to learn of its wonders, but to also farm its resources. With us today we are pleased to have in the audience Timothy Wade, who will now fill us in on a brand-new technology that will be launched real soon to explore and mine our neighboring asteroids. So, without further ado, let's welcome Timothy Wade to the stage."