by David Garnet
“Even Day Zero isn’t history,” said Diana. “Memories are short, and most of the population doesn’t know it happened.”
“Vegas must have been quite a place,” said Travis.
Norton shrugged. Had he worked on an assembly line in Chicago or as a pen-pusher in Washington, he’d probably have thought Las Vegas was wonderful. Everyone believed the grass was greener elsewhere, and he’d always wanted to see the sea—even though there was no grass at all.
“Yeah,” he said. “I guess Vegas had almost everything. Except the sea.”
“It should have been located by the sea, you think?” said Travis.
“Er… yeah,” Norton agreed, although moving the city to the Californian coast wasn’t something he’d previously considered. “Vegas by the sea.” He nodded, liking the idea. “Sea and sand as well the sunshine. Casinos on the beach, with all the croupiers in bikinis.”
“What’s a croupier?” asked Travis.
“The person who runs a gambling table.”
“What’s a bikini?” asked Diana.
Norton looked at her elaborate metallic outfit, and he wondered how to describe a bikini.
“A two-piece swimming costume,” he said, “made of very little’material. Just enough to cover the essentials.”
“What essentials?” Diana asked.
“You know. Across here.” Norton drew his hand in front of his chest. “And…” He gestured down to his crotch.
“The penis?” said Diana.
“No!”
“The testicles?” said Diana.
“No!” Norton shook his head. He could feel himself starting to blush. “Bikinis are only for girls. Women. Females. Not men.”
“So what would the male croupiers wear?” asked Diana.
“When?”
“In the beach casinos.”
“Forget it.” Norton shook his head. “It wouldn’t work. You can’t have casinos out of doors. The sun goes down. The sky gets dark. People think it’s time for bed. In Las Vegas, it’s all inside, where there’s no day, no night. There are no clocks, and no one notices how much time passes by.”
From his vantage point, high in the sky on top of a golden glass pyramid, Norton looked around and thought about how much time had passed by. He wondered, if it wasn’t for the clouds below, whether he’d be able to see the ocean for the first time—and, if he could, which ocean it might be.
Almost everything he’d seen had been strange; but the strangest of all was how quickly he had grown used to his new circumstances. He gazed around the restaurant, at the weird people in their crazy clothes, and it almost seemed normal.
At first, the most noticeable thing about Diana was that she was bald. By now, Norton hardly noticed at all. What he was most aware of was how attractive she was.
“The largest city in the country,” she said, “it must have had something special.”
“This is the largest city?” said Norton. He didn’t doubt it. “What country?”
“Your country. Your century. Lost Vegas was the largest city in Yuessay.”
“The largest city!” Norton laughed. “You’ve got that wrong.” Like most of history, he thought.
“No,” said Travis. “Lost Las Vegas was the largest city in your country, although that must have been after your era.”
“It must have been,” said Norton doubtfully.
“Is it true the city expanded so fast because it was a refuge for criminals?” asked Diana.
“A refuge? You think everyone in Vegas was a gangster, that it was some kind of hideout? That they’d rob a bank in Arizona, then head to Vegas where they’d be safe because the cops couldn’t cross the State line?”
“Did they?” she asked.
“No,” said Norton.
“Prohibition,” said Travis.
“Before my time,” said Norton.
“That was when selling alcohol was illegal in your country, yes?”
“People who wanted to drink alcohol had to buy it from an illegal source, yes?”
“Yeah. But it was only illegal for a short while.”
“Fourteen years,” said Travis. “Gambling was illegal in your country, yes?”
“Yeah. Mostly. Except at racetracks. And in Nevada.”
“Prostitution, yes?”
“Yeah. You’re right. Except in Nevada.”
“The majority of narcotics, yes?”
“Drugs? Yeah, drugs are illegal. Were illegal. Of course they were.”
“Even in Nevada?”
“Yeah. In my time, anyway.”
“You couldn’t buy drugs at a drugstore?”
“You could buy legal drugs, medical drugs.”
“If we’ve got this right,” said Diana, “during Prohibition, alcohol was only sold by criminal organisations. They made a fortune doing this, and the money was invested in businesses such as property development and health care.”
“Health care?”
“Certainly,” she said. “But we have a simple question: If people from your era wanted to drink alcohol, to gamble on games of chance and sporting events, to pay for various sexual activities, to enjoy narcotic relaxation, why were these things illegal?”
Norton tried to think of an answer. He knew there must have been one—mustn’t there?
“How do you know all this?” he asked. “Fourteen years of Prohibition. Organised crime. Gambling. Las Vegas. I thought most history had been lost and forgotten.”
“Not by us,” said Travis, glancing at Diana.
“Police records, you mean?” said Norton.
“Something like that,” said Diana, glancing at Travis.
“How’s your meal?” asked Travis.
“It’s good,” said Norton, which it was.
“Good?” said Travis. “No, it’s very good. But you’re not aware of it because you’ve never eaten food of this type and quality, yes?”
“You’re right, I’ve never eaten food like this before. As for quality, isn’t that a matter of… er… taste?”
“Taste has to be nurtured, developed, matured. Like so many other experiences, appreciation of good food increases with time.”
Norton wondered how much time he had. What did Travis want with him? He guessed he was about to find out.
“How old are you, John Wayne?” asked Travis.
“Three hundred and… er…”
Travis looked at him.
“I’m twenty-one,” said Norton.
“Had you bought a commission?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Were you an officer?”
“Yeah, sure. A police officer.”
“What rank? Lieutenant? Captain?”
“Were you a police chief?” asked Diana, with a laugh.
“This is serious,” said Travis, but he also laughed.
Norton wondered what was so funny.
“Whatever you were,” said Travis, “this is a new beginning for you, Corporal.”
“Corporal?” said Norton.
“Sergeant, then. You want to be a sergeant?”
“Yes, sir!” said Norton.
“Congratulations on your promotion,” said Diana. “Twenty-one. That must have been very young to be a secret agent, Sergeant.”
Norton looked at her—and he knew that she knew that he’d never been an agent.
“It would have been,” he said, “but I wasn’t.”
“You are now,” said Travis.
“Oh,” said Norton.
“You’re a complete unknown. You have no identity. No one knows you exist. Which makes you an ideal secret agent.”
“I am known; Mandy made a programme about me.”
“Yes, but transmission was restricted,” said Travis, “to a single screen and an audience of two. Any questions?”
It seemed he’d gone to a lot of trouble. Norton had plenty of questions, but he didn’t want to ask them.
“How did Las Vegas,” he asked instead, “get lost?”
/>
“It was abandoned, reclaimed by the desert,” said Diana.
“The biggest city in America, you said, and it was abandoned?”
“That’s why it was abandoned. It was too big. It ran out of water.”
“Where did the water go?”
“World warming. Global pollution. Change of climate. You missed all that.”
“Yeah. Last I heard, there was another ice age on the way.” Norton shivered. He’d had his own personal ice age.
“You also missed the Reds taking over,” said Travis.
“The Reds!” said Norton. “The Reds took over America?”
“They started in Las Vegas.”
“What! The Commies invaded Vegas?”
“Commies?”
“Communists. The Russians, the Chinese, the Viet Cong.” Norton glanced at his drink. “Was it the Cubans?”
“It was the Redskins,” said Travis, “who took control of Las Vegas.”
“Red Indians?”
“They ran all the gambling in your country,” said Diana.
“The Indians? Operating casinos? Never.” Norton shook his head. “You’ve got that wrong.”
They had seen too many clips of old movies—disjointed and jumbled up, backward and at the wrong speed.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Kiru had imagined that the convicts of Clink survived in primitive conditions, eking out a miserable existence in ragged tents or mud huts. But the old man, whatever his name was, and whoever he was, lived in an imposing villa with spectacular views. To the north lay the dense forest, to the west a jagged range of ice-capped mountains, to the south a vast lake.
As Kiru and her host sat on the east verandah, her rescuer brought a tray with two glasses of iced tea and a selection of cream cakes.
“He seems to like you, son,” said the old man, watching him go back inside the house. “How odd.”
“I’m not your son,” said Kiru. “I’m not anyone’s son. I’m a girl. Haven’t you realised?”
“You think I care what sex you are? You think I care anything about you?”
If he did, it would be a first.
“Who is he?” asked Kiru. “Or don’t you care?”
“That’s Grawl. He’s from Earth. We Terrans have to stick together.”
“Help each other out, you mean? So when you stole my clothes and supplies, you were helping me? I should have realised. I thought you were just helping yourself.”
“Shouldn’t jump to conclusions, son.”
“My name is Kiru.”
“You think I care about your name? You know how many people I’ve met in my life?”
“No. And I don’t care.”
“Neither do I. You’ll be dead within a few weeks, like most of the others.” The old man paused. “Or maybe not. Why does Grawl like you, I wonder? I’m sure it’s not because you’re a—what’s the word?—a girl.”
“He doesn’t have much to say for himself,” said Kiru.
“Not much. What has he said to you?”
“Nothing. Not a word.”
“Exactly. Not a word. Grawl can’t speak. That’s one reason for having him around. Silence is a great social asset. It’s a pity there aren’t more like him.” The old man stared at her.
“Is that why you killed twenty-three people? To silence them?”
“I was tried for twenty-three murders, which isn’t the same as killing twenty-three people.”
“It isn’t?”
“No. I’ve killed far more than twenty-three. Plus aliens, of course.”
“Who are you?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“I do.”
“You don’t. Everyone who knows who I am is dead. And if you ever find out, it means you’re about to join them.”
Kiru stared into the man’s eyes. They were cold and empty. He’d warned her not to believe what she was told, but she knew every word was true.
“More tea?” he asked, as the alien sun slowly set in the east, sinking behind the huge pile of discarded technotrash.
CHAPTER NINE
Wayne Norton used to think driving through Nevada was boring, but even in the desert there was always something to look at. And whenever he wanted, he could stop and get out.
It wasn’t like that on a spaceship.
He’d never even been in an airplane, but now he was on his second space flight. At first he was very nervous, and the journey to the Moon wasn’t long enough for him to get bored. He’d also been nervous at the start of his second voyage, but that anxiety was soon replaced by tedium.
Because he was travelling on a cheap ticket, he was denied access to the time-passing pastimes of those in the more expensive berths. Those who had paid the most, however, needed no such entertainment. The premier-class passengers spent the entire voyage in deep sleep.
Even if the budget allowed, Norton wouldn’t have risked it. He had a tendency to oversleep, and the last thing he wanted was to wake up and find another three hundred years had slipped by and he was in the far future. Or an even further future. The first time, he’d woken up on his own planet. This time, he was heading out across space, his destination an alien world.
The far future.
Across space.
An alien world.
It was funny how life worked out.
He’d never imagined he would become a policeman, for example, but that was about the only thing which hadn’t changed. Norton was still in the police.
A member of GalactiCop.
He didn’t feel like a police officer, however. Maybe because of the uniform. There wasn’t one.
It just wasn’t the same being in plain clothes. Not that his clothes were very plain. It had been difficult to find an outfit which wasn’t some weird combination of colours, a pair of pants which weren’t cut off at the calf, a jacket with cuffs which didn’t cover his fingers. His clothing was relatively restrained, which probably made him appear conspicuous. It was either that or feeling very self-conscious. Why did everyone on Earth wear a clown suit?
He brushed his crew-cut with his palm, then stroked his chin. At the first opportunity, he’d shaved off three centuries’ worth of fuzz. Where did that word come from? It was hippies, not cops, who had beards.
One of the things he’d liked most about being in the LVPD was the uniform. It had been a sign of his individuality. He wasn’t just another guy in a T-shirt and jeans. He had a uniform. He was important.
Some of the other rookies had hoped to become detectives, but that wasn’t for him. If he was the heat, he wanted to look like the heat.
In his new job, he couldn’t wear a uniform because he was on a secret mission, a mission so secret even he didn’t know what it was or where he was going.
Norton didn’t even know whether GalactiCop existed.
Faced with overwhelming evidence, he knew he was in the future, but the jury was still out on a galactic police force.
Because he’d been given no training or information, Norton wondered if being in GalactiCop was the interstellar equivalent of helping old ladies across the road and rounding up stray dogs.
But Travis wouldn’t have sent him across space for that—would he?
Although Norton had been asked if he would accept the assignment, refusal was never an option. Whatever his role, he felt very uneasy. He remembered what Travis had said about using outsiders for certain jobs. History professors, or a cop from three hundred years ago, he probably believed they were equally disposable.
While being given a medical examination, something happened to Norton’s right index finger. When they promised he wouldn’t feel a thing during the physcan, he didn’t know they were talking about his finger.
No one would tell him what had been done, but his finger was different. It looked exactly the same, responded precisely as it should; but it felt completely numb. His forefinger would move, point, bend; but there was no sensation in it.
He inspected his index finger again, sli
d it between his teeth up to the first knuckle, bit down, hard, hard, hard. Felt nothing. When he withdrew his finger, he could see the teethmarks for a few seconds before they quickly faded.
It was as if the finger had been removed and replaced with an exact replica. The bones had gone, and imitation skin covered—something.
Was this his mission? He was a courier, but what he carried was hidden within his body. It was a part of him. His finger was a coded message, a futuristic equivalent of microfilm. And when he reached his destination, his index finger would be ripped off as casually as an envelope was torn open…
An icy shiver made Norton’s whole body shudder. Although the medic had assured him his temperature was normal, he’d never felt warm since waking from his long slumber. The only part of him that wasn’t cold was his right index finger.
He wished he had something else to do other than wonder and worry and watch television.
It was known as SeeV, but it was just a big television screen—or, like the one in his cabin, a small screen—showing two-dimensional images. Many of the programmes were from other worlds. Alien worlds. He watched television shows made for aliens, by aliens and featuring aliens. And he couldn’t understand them.
There was no problem with translation, because he was now equipped with his own slate. The simultaneous linguistic and tonal equaliser had been developed so people from different planets could communicate. He could understand every word, but as soon as the words were joined up to make sentences, he became lost.
Things sometimes made more sense without sound, although he seldom had any idea whether he was watching an alien comedy, soap opera, news bulletin or quiz show. As for alien monster movies… at first, everything was full of monsters.
Norton soon became used to aliens, however. The majority had the same general physiognomy as humans: head, torso, two upper limbs, two lower limbs. The variations came in size and shape and proportion, and whether they had skin or shell or scales, fingers or claws or tendrils. The variety of aliens was countless, because that was the number of planets on which life had evolved.