A Glitch in the World

by Alex Drozd

  “Oh, very.”

  “It’s been good.”

  “Really, Stu. That’s not even something we worry about here. We’re more worried about the weather on Earth actually. I know that probably sounds funny to someone from Janus.”

  “Those terraformed climates are smooth,” Brian said. He leaned forward in his seat to get a better look out of the front window of the hover car, taking in the view of the sky. “What’chu got here? Are hurricanes still a problem?”

  “Yep,” Cliff said. “We’ve had over six thousand deaths from them this decade.”

  “Oh my goodness,” Brenda said.

  “Hey, still the highest quality of life in the galaxy,” Cliff said. “But tell me, how’s Janus? I heard the Equity Measure passed. That’s been in the news a lot.”

  “You’re damn right it did,” Brian said. “It’ll turn things around.”

  “But what will you do, Brenda?” Cliff asked. “I mean, will you still be covered?”

  “No,” she said, but with a smile. “They’ve made a program I can join. I’ve been meaning to tell you about it.”

  Stuart didn’t say anything, but he dreaded the next few minutes. All his mother had talked about lately was her new job.

  “I’ll still be a home-carer primarily, but the colony is starting an arts program to boost its culture center. They want entertainers and artists from Janus to produce products to distribute. I showed them my paintings and they were approved! I’ll receive the standard stipend for that and my old job—they made a deal with me. Turns out they respected that I was there on incentive.”

  “Thank goodness,” Brian said. “I thought we were going to get cheated out of our deal.”

  “Well, that’s great!” Cliff exclaimed. “That’s really something. We should all celebrate tonight!”

  “That’d be nice,” Brenda giggled.

  “So, you all think the Equity Measure is a good thing?” Cliff went on. Their hover car bustled down the highway. The traffic was heavy at the moment. It was delaying them slightly.

  “Sure do, well, I don’t know about Stuart,” Brian said, eyeing his son.

  Stuart shrugged. “I guess it’s a good idea.”

  “You guess? Stu, it’s great.”

  “How’s it great?” Cliff asked. “They’ve been calling you communists in the news.”

  Brian shook his head. “This is exactly how it should operate. Galactic collectivism calls for centralized outskirts and decentralized centers. What we’re doing is in accordance with galactic advice.”

  “Well, they sure don’t like the galactic assembly on Earth,” Cliff chuckled. “They’re not considered a good thing here. They’re saying you’ll kill your economy.”

  “You’d kill your economy if you did it, yeah, but Janus is a small world. Look, we can’t have people like Stuart’s friend Dwayne’s parents—“ Brian hesitated, realizing he had said the wrong thing, but he continued. “They sit on the surface, spending hardly any of their wealth, literally killing our economy. They don’t participate in it in any other way than to exploit it. Once you force them to dig into their wealth and be part of our damn planet, then things will work. Of course you can’t have that here. Too many people. But on those small worlds, we have to keep the tycoons from raping the system.”

  “Oh they aren’t tycoons,” Brenda said sardonically. “Dwayne was Stuart’s friend who passed away over half a year ago, by the way.”

  “Yes. I’m so sorry to hear that, Stu,” Cliff said. He looked at his nephew. “That couldn’t have been fun, Emma and your friend, so close together.”

  “Nope,” Stuart groaned. “What were the chances of that?”

  Ignoring him, they went on.

  “I bet all that stress didn’t help the PSFA. I bet that’s what it is,” Cliff said. “Well, anyways. What do you have against that poor kid’s parents?”

  “They were a rich family from Earth, no offense,” Brian chuckled at his in-law. “And they didn’t participate in Janus society.”

  “Monetarily,” Brenda added in.

  Brian smiled at her, “Don’t pretend you don’t agree with me.”

  “Someone has to play devil’s advocate.”

  “Isn’t that what he’s doing?” Brian asked, pointing at Cliff.

  “Sure am. So, what’s so bad about that?”

  “They collected a huge stipend from Janus, just because of the father’s status, and they housed themselves on the surface, yes, they paid property and utility fees, but that’s it! They do all their business off-world, paying those exorbitant prices by collecting that stipend and saving on their cost of living by living on a poor world. They’re not even that rich, that’s the thing. Well, the Equity Measure is going to make that stipend fair, but the thing is, they’ll still be richer than us, they’ll still be better off—and the private sector still exists. It’s not communism.”

  “Equal paychecks sounds like it to me.”

  “Stipends, not paychecks,” Brian corrected. “Communism means everyone gets paid according to their needs, but we’re all getting paid identical incomes regardless, so it’s actually the opposite of communism. This’ll keeping people from recklessly expanding their needs by having too many kids or something. You’re getting the same whether you have one, two, or three. It’ll work as population control, too.”

  “You’re a developing world—don’t you need to grow your population?”

  “Not at a faster rate than we have resources for. They’re scarce—we’re a small world, remember.”

  The car pulled off the highway, entering the residential district. Rows of skyscraper apartments towered overhead. They were only a couple of minutes away from the Novak’s.

  “Well, good for Janus,” Cliff said. “You sound happy about it.”

  “Mhmm,” Brian said.

  They rode the rest of the way mostly in silence, until Cliff remembered the cookies he’d bought earlier.

  “Oh, shoot. Hey, guys, have some of these,” he said, handing them the bags.

  “Oh, all right,” Brenda said.

  Brian leaned forward and grabbed two.

  “You want one, Stu?” Cliff asked.

  “No thanks.”

  After the car parked itself, they all walked inside Cliff’s apartment. The room was a wide one, its white walls spanning out into a circle, a common Earth design. Cliff called Jody to greet them as he shut the door behind himself.

  “Jody!” he called again.

  “Coming.”

  “How’s Jody been doing in school?” Brenda asked.

  “He’s been doing well. We had a couple of bad grades last year, but we’re doing better.”

  “You like sending him to a big-world school? They educate them in a bubble here, you know,” Brian said.

  Jody walked into the room. He was a short boy, and he had grown his hair out since they had last seen him. He greeted them all.

  “Hi.”

  “Hey, Jody,” Brenda beamed. She reached forward to hug him.

  “Jody,” Brian said, reaching out to shake the boy’s hand. He said it with a boom like he always did, especially with names.

  They all watched when it was time for Stuart and Jody to acknowledge each other. Eagerly, they waited for their youth to interact, to build a world before them, what would remain behind when they were dead. It was how they glimpsed into the future—have the children show it to you by prophecy.

  Unfortunately, Jody didn’t say anything. Stuart knew that he would have to start the conversation. He hated Jody for that.

  “Hey, Jody,” Stuart said.

  “Hi,” Jody replied.

  They were silent. The adults continued to watch with shit eating grins, their eyes recording all that they saw. Memories for a nostalgia-bank.

  “Oh, isn’t it so great see each other?” Brenda asked. She clutched Brian’s arm.

  “Yeah,” Jody said. He looked at his father. “When’s dinner?”

  “How about we a
ll go out?” Cliff asked.

  Brenda was thrilled by the idea, but Brian put up a protest. “No more sitting in a chair waiting. We just got off the ship and then the car.”

  “How about you put up all your things, and I order something?”

  “Okay.”

  “Good.”

  Everyone went to relax themselves or unpack. Stuart headed for the guest room, one he thankfully didn’t have to share with his parents. He laid out all his things on the bed in front of him. Why did they have to harp on subjects like his anxiety attack and Dwayne? Why did they discuss such things so openly? Was he so socially out of tune, such a sociopath, that he couldn’t recognize whether that was appropriate or not? Surely how he felt wasn’t actually the case, surely they hadn’t been mocking him with every word, setting him as the standard model in their minds for the type of person they would say, “hey, at least I’m not them,” about.

  Stuart shuddered.

  He went to plug in his computer. As he was doing so, Jody walked in.

  “Hey,” Stuart said. A feeling of dread flooded over him. He didn’t know how to talk to this kid. Who was he even? Jody and I, he thought, cousins and therefore friends by circumstance.

  “Hi,” Jody said. “This is your room.”

  “I know.”

  “Now that mom’s dead does that mean you’re coming to visit more?”

  Stuart looked away from his cousin. What kind of question was that?

  “Uh, w-w-what?” Stuart stuttered.

  “Now that mom’s dead, and you have to feel sorry for me, are you going to come to see me more?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Last time I saw you was after mom’s funeral.”

  “I remember.”

  “Remember the last time I saw you before that?”

  “Three years,” Stuart muttered.

  “I wonder why you’re here,” Jody said.

  “You don’t have to like me,” Stuart said. “Just pretend to in front of them.”

  “That’s what I was going to say to you.”

  “Okay, then.” Stuart turned his back to his cousin. Jody walked off.

  Stuart went back to unpacking, happy that he wasn’t the only bitter and brooding adolescent. Jody had grown up to be a little asshole, but maybe they’d see that. They’d see how terrible their kids were when put together, and hopefully, that’d be the end of these visits. No sense in going out of your way to look at an ugly picture.

  He was glad to see his cousin again.

  12

  Two days later, the entire family was on their way to the MemoryBank. It was an enormous building, one spanning eighty stories tall. Inside, thousands and thousands of memorials sat for those families who paid for the service. Each one came with about three square feet of space on the surface of the wall, where a family could place decorations next to a screen which displayed the deceased loved one’s picture. At the bottom, a small bag of their ashes hung.

  This was all the service provided.

  Stuart rode in the back of the hover car with Jody while the family talked. The boys weren’t listening to the conversation, nor did they speak with each other. Jody stared at his feet while Stuart, as always, stared out the window.

  He was deep in thought about his little episode the day before the trip here. He hadn’t seen Alissa since then. Was she just a part of his anxiety about space flight? He didn’t know because he hadn’t spoken to the psychiatrists or doctors about her. He suspected that schizophrenic episodes like seeing a girl who wasn’t there—and having memories of her that were over a year old—weren’t one of the symptoms of PSFA.

  There was something wrong with his mental health, which he was sure of—and it wasn’t just from the depression and anxiety. Something was wrong. He was seeing things, talking to them, too. The glitch? It had been awhile since she had last showed up, sure, but it had been awhile before then, too. And think of how much damage she caused the last time.

  Or was it truly just PSFA that caused the hallucinations?

  It was a lot to think about, and he kept going over it in his mind until they got to the MemoryBank.

  “Here it is,” Brenda said.

  “Wow,” Brian said. He looked up at the building. “We don’t have one even a quarter of this height on Janus.”

  “You’d see taller if we were in one of the bigger cities,” Cliff said. He locked the car behind him, and they all set off towards the entry of the MemoryBank.

  “The bigger cities,” Brian said with a smile. He elbowed his wife, “The bigger.”

  She grinned at him.

  “The average building here is thirty floors high,” Brian went on. “Earth is practically one big city.”

  “Half the land surface is preserved naturally. That’s a myth.”

  “We need to go to a preservation eventually,” Brenda said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a forest.”

  The lobby of the MemoryBank was practically empty. A receptionist greeted them and directed them to their floor. Other than the receptionist, there were only a couple of people in the room. They were standing in a corner, watching an advertisement on one of the two VidScreens in the lobby. It was telling them about the only service the MemoryBank offered.

  They all followed Brian. He seemed to take the lead. It was an emotional moment for his wife and brother-in-law. Why put the burden of leadership on them? Brenda walked uncomfortably close to Stuart. He wondered why she couldn’t put some distance between them. Cliff wasn’t almost walking into Jody. He wished she would pick up on his parenting habits.

  The family shuffled into an elevator, each one inching in closer in to make room for Brian. “Floor fifty-seven,” he boomed.

  “Please wait while we lift you to your proper floor,” the elevator said. “We’re sorry for your loss.”

  Stuart felt his feet press into the ground as the elevator began its ascent. It was the longest elevator ride of his life. Then again, it might have been the largest building he’d ever been in. It would take some time to climb eighty stories, after all.

  “Thank you for coming, guys,” Brenda said. Her voice sounded heavier. Stuart begged to whoever could hear his thoughts for her not to cry. I don’t break down in front of her, he thought. Make it so that she holds it together. I don’t want to have to listen to her sobs, feel her awareness that I’ve heard, that I’ve been made aware of her suffering, and in turn, feel some sort of obligation to respond.

  “Yes, thanks everybody,” Cliff said. He looked at Brian and Stuart and smiled.

  “It’s what family’s for,” Brian said.

  “Why are you two so quiet?” Brenda asked. She turned around to face Stuart and Jody.

  “I’m sad right now,” Jody said.

  “Oh, honey,” Brenda whimpered. She went to hug the boy. He took it, aware that they were all watching him. He embraced her back with enthusiasm; it looked very sentimental. Damn, Stuart thought. The kid was good.

  “Stuart?” Brenda asked as she turned back around. The elevator doors opened. They got out.

  “I’m sad, too,” Stuart said.

  Brenda put her hand on his arm. “I know. It’s all right,” she said.

  Stuart nodded at her and looked down. It was something he always wanted to do, but now was the only appropriate time to do so. On second thought, maybe being around the reminder of death was something he should do more often. It gave him the chance to shy away from people, and instead of them thinking he was antisocial, they would just think he was sad.

  A guide stood at the corner. A hundred or so hallways began on this side of the building. It would be a long walk.

  “Do you think they’ll have something for us to ride in?” Brenda asked.

  “I don’t think Stuart would like that,” Cliff said, grinning at his nephew.

  Stuart smiled back. He received the joke in good nature for some reason. It wasn’t one that made him wish he could have faded from existence.

  “How can
I help you?” the guide asked. He was a broad shouldered man standing at a computer terminal. He wore a uniform displaying the MemoryBank’s logo, a light green jumpsuit with a smiling insignia above the left breast.

  “Hello,” Brian said to him. “We would like to visit Emma Novak. We’re her family.”

  “All right, if I could just get the signature of the policy holder.”

  Cliff stepped forward to sign his name on the terminal.

  “Thank you,” the guide said. His smile brightened after the terminal had approved the account. He pointed his finger. “If you go down that aisle, she’ll be on the right side, number 57-4111.”

  Brian muttered the numbers to himself. “All right, thank you,” he boomed. He beckoned the family towards him.

  “You’re welcome. And we’re sorry for your loss,” the guide smiled.

  They all nodded at him and turned to follow Brian, not saying much. Rows of people’s pictures passed by them on both sides as they walked down the aisle. No one else was visiting a memorial; the Fergessons and the remaining Novaks were the only ones present.

  After a few minutes, they arrived. Emma Novak’s memorial lay in the middle of the aisle, with hundreds of others next to it on each side. A picture of her was on the screen. It displayed her name and birthdate as well, with the words, “Beloved wife and mother,” beneath. Stuart looked at the little bag of her ashes, jealous.

  The family made a semicircle around the memorial. Brenda sniffled. She and Cliff hugged. Brian rubbed his hand over his wife’s back. Stuart and Jody just stared.

  “I want to put up the picture I drew for her,” Brenda said.

  “All right,” Cliff said.

  She stepped forward and plugged her PortScreen into the panel on the far side of the memorial. She cycled through its settings.

  “Is there not a way to split the screen?” Brenda asked.

  “What’s wrong?” Brian said, stepping forward.

  “I want one half of the screen to have her picture, and the other half to have the one that I made.”

  Brian fiddled with the keys for a few moments. He frowned. “I think you’ll have to replace it.”