Analog SFF, June 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Not being fond of either agony or embarrassment, I didn't enjoy flailing my arms and legs. But it was fun and dignified compared to what was coming up. Mary was a big fan of “resistance stretching,” a somewhat counterintuitive technique developed by one Bob Cooley, God knows how many decades ago. The idea was to stretch muscles that were simultaneously contracting and fighting the stretch. The technique supposedly reduced the pain of stretching and reduced the chance of injuries, and I freely admit it didn't hurt nearly as much as the Yoga stretches inflicted on me by my previous therapist. But it was absurdly hard work and uncomfortable even on days I was pumped to the gills with analgesics.

  Naturally, Davis Preston, the hospice's handyman, arrived to install the new TV screen while I was performing the most humiliating stretch of the lot: a kind of leg press against a padded board, which Mary pushed toward me with no apparent effort.

  "If'n you don't shove harder than that, Freddy Horton, you'll be bound to suffer decalficication.” I'm sure she deliberately mispronounced the word, just to add aggravation to insult.

  Dave, pretending not to hear my grunts, or see the way my leg trembled, or notice my involuntary bursts of high-decibel flatulence, peeled the old forty-five-inch screen off the wall with a thin-bladed scraper. Flakes of paint behind the screen came off as well, but not enough to create a problematic texture. He measured and taped off the perimeter of a much larger rectangle, gave the area a light sanding, and sprayed on a new screen in several light coats, perfuming the room with the plastic sweetness of some water based solvent—improving the usual reek. He squirted a blobette of gel at one edge, stuck one end of a power cord into it, and the cord's far end into a ceiling socket.

  "This baby should be much easier to see, Fred,” he said between my latest gasps. “Seventy-five inches! And not only bigger, it's an updated model. Just let it set for a good half hour before you turn it on and everything should be fine. I'll come back to pull off the tape around suppertime. You remember how to do the adjustments? This one'll be way too bright just out of the can."

  "I—damn it, Mary, stop that for just one damn moment!—of course I remember. Thanks, Dave."

  "No problem."

  When and why did people replace “you're welcome” with “no problem"?

  "How you doin’ with those ankle weights, Juan?” Mary asked, placing the padded board on my upper thighs and gesturing for me to lift my legs.

  "They get heavier every week, Maria."

  "Well, maybe it's time I get you some lighter ones. Hey, c'mon Freddy, lift. You want total decalficication?"

  * * * *

  After the blessed moment of Mary's departure, I gave my new and improved TV screen a nice glower before retrieving the x-change specs. So often in our glorious world of competing businesses and mutual lawsuits, everyone wins. Except for the public. The x-change system, once invented, should've put ordinary TV screens on the endangered technologies list. The glasses, streaming visual data directly into human optic nerves, provide better clarity and control than even scientific-grade Light Emitting Plastic because they surpass limitations inherent in even the best human eye. But the entertainment networks were already in bed with TV and microprocessor manufacturers and wouldn't grant X-change Incorporated the relevant licenses....

  I propped myself up on my pillows and pulled the video lens and microphone toward my face. “Headed back to the granddaughter, Juan."

  From the corner of my eye, I saw him get out of bed and resume his exercises. “Have fun, amigo."

  "Thanks."

  * * * *

  I winced as the system came online, leaving me floating above and to the right of Eve's head, facing directly into the sun. The automatic filters reacted fast, but left me in a detail-obscuring sepia murk. So I had to override the filters. Eyes tearing, lids at quarter mast, I pressed the attention button and this time not even Amanda noticed. The sun had to be washing out the balloon's flashes. I fumbled around for the camera control and rotated the brightness dial to full.

  That did it. Both my loved ones gawked up at me and joined me in squinting.

  "Grandpa!” Evie shouted.

  Amanda blinked and shook her head. “You might want to turn that down a shade, Fred. You're blazing like an archangel on a mission. You'll scare someone."

  I adjusted the setting without bothering to reply; floating as high as I was, she couldn't have heard me over the crowd noise.

  "Much better. You missed fried dough and the petting zoo.” She grabbed my string and pulled me within easy hailing range. “And some c-u-t-e things somebody said.” Amanda glanced at her daughter, who was paying too much attention. “Tell you later.” Her words sounded cheerful enough, but I thought her tone was a bit distracted.

  "I would've loved to see her at the petting zoo,” I yelled. She pulled me even closer. “But it turned out lucky I had that appointment.” All that anti-decalficication had left my muscles shaky, but my voice, if nothing else, was stronger. “My PT showed up hours ahead of time. So the good news is that all my afternoon business is out of the way. Where are we going? Out of the sun, I hope?"

  "Glassblowing demonstration dead ahead. We're going to watch someone making paperweights or vases, but I've been instructed to ask if a unicorn might be in the offing."

  "Oh? Well, speaking as a balloon, let's not get too intimate with any open furnace."

  "Don't worry, we won't let you pop, Pop. But if you do, I brought along whatever's left in the can. We can always buy a new balloon."

  I shook my head. “It's not that easy, Amanda, with us this far away. The system has to set up phase-lock-loops that—Amanda, are you listening?"

  "Sure, Fred. Phase-lock-loops. You're forgetting something. The equipment you've got at Saint Teresa's and the paint I'm carrying aren't the kind you can buy at Sears. This is police issue, military-grade equipment, with all sorts of bells and whistles. Believe me, if we have to spray some more on, it'll hook up just fine."

  She hadn't fooled me; I could tell her attention was elsewhere. I was accustomed to her eyes constantly roaming while she was on duty, and they were roaming now, but kept returning to a spot somewhere behind me. Since she'd only sprayed one side of the balloon with the paint, I couldn't dial around to see what she kept peering at. Then a lucky gust of wind turned me just far enough. And I still couldn't pick out anything unusual....

  "Something wrong?” I asked.

  "No. I don't think so."

  "Talk to me, Amanda."

  "Really, it's nothing.” She turned me around to face her. “I just keep noticing the fairground crew."

  "Manny's Maintenance? What about them?"

  She shrugged. “Never seen so many around. And I don't recognize most of them. But they have to be legit, because the ones I do recognize have no problems with the others."

  "I suppose. Still ... they don't work directly for the city, do they, but for a private company. Whichever put in the low bid. Just like the security guards."

  "C'mon, Fred! You're not suggesting the entire company could be up to something shady? Feeling a bit paranoid, are we? That's an occupational hazard of mine, and I try to keep it under control. Anyway, right from here you can see a reason why there might be some extra maintenance personnel around. Let me turn you again. See all that activity near the power shed? They're probably fixing or upgrading something."

  "Amanda, I think you and Evie should go home. Now."

  She frowned and glanced down at her daughter who seemed to be ignoring the adult conversation. “Why?"

  "Those men leaving the shed aren't carrying any tools."

  "So? They probably left them inside and plan to come back and finish whatever job they're doing. You're overreacting. I'm sorry I brought up the whole thing."

  I tried to keep my voice calm and my expletives deleted. “You're a good cop, Amanda, and I'll bet you've grown some good instincts. Here's a secret: I've got some decent instincts myself from parts of my life I've never told you about."
>
  Her expression turned thoughtful. “Donny mentioned a few things. The army paid your way through college, didn't it?"

  "My son talks. A lot. Did he mention they had me on a bomb squad in the Mideast? And right now, on the back of my neck, I feel something I haven't felt since a real close call in Syria: a cold spot smaller than a fingernail. Get out of here. Call in sick if you have to."

  "I can't do that. Look, if it makes you feel better, we'll stroll past the shed and we'll see if my, um, cop-sense tingles."

  "Don't do that! If you won't leave, for God's sake, at least send one of the uniforms to ask questions. Or ordinary park security."

  She shook her head and her long dark curls, so like her daughter's, followed her head movement like an afterthought. “And let the doers know they've attracted official interest? I mean, just on the very farfetched chance something illegal is happening?"

  I knew it was time to shut up and I did. But I had plenty of time to worry because we weren't going anywhere at record speed. Evie was fascinated by everything from the art-glass demo, to a hideous squeakfest surrounding a perpetrator of balloon animals outside the glassblowing tent, to an unfortunate individual boiling to death in a Big Bird costume, et very much cetera.

  So we were still twenty or thirty yards from the power shed when I felt a tug on my arm.

  "I deeply regret bothering you, amigo," Lopez said from either two feet or twenty miles away, depending on viewpoint. “But my surgery awaits, and the nurse will be here pronto. No, you needn't leave your loved ones."

  I disabled the x-change system and pulled off the glasses anyway to see my friend.

  He was beaming at me. “Since anesthesia general,” he continued, “has risks we both know well, I wished to say good-bye and give you my blessings and love beforehand."

  "Juan, you're going to be fine. You have to be, for both our sakes. Honestly, you're the only thing that's made this place bearable this last year."

  "My life is not entirely in my hands, Fred, but I will survive if offered a choice. You have been a great joy to me as well. So I have one more foolish maxim to offer you if you will permit. You needn't make a face so sour! Your Horton's Laws were the inspiration for my maxims."

  "Ha. The difference is that my rules are practical."

  "The difference is my maxims are true.” He smiled to take the sting out of it, but I was a bit stung anyway.

  "Name one that's false."

  "Your first Law, por ejemplo. Conservation of Misery you call it, no?"

  "Right. Misery never actually vanishes; if one part of your life improves, some other part—"

  "I understand your concept, amigo, but it does not fit my experience."

  "All right. Every rule has its exceptions and I admit you're exceptional. So what new truth were you going to lay on me?"

  "One to explain why you will do beautifully even without me. Perhaps you remember that I once earned my pay as a carpintero?" Despite minimal formal education, he'd uplifted his career from subsistence fishing to rough framing to being one of LA's most popular private contractors. “So it is natural for me to see the human spirit as a building, a special house that becomes más—more strong through the years, even as the body weakens."

  "Nice image, Juan, but what's your point?"

  "A wise person comes to know which walls are load bearing and which can be torn away without harm. At our age, amigo, we need very few walls."

  After Lopez had been wheeled away by Nurse Bob, heading toward the surgical end of the hospital, which most of us inmates call the “wrecking yard,” it dawned on me I hadn't warned Evie or Amanda about my latest departure. So I hurriedly pushed the glasses back in place and returned to my family. Apparently no one had missed me, which might've been a trifle ego-denting, except we were back in the sunlight, which made my face or its absence easy to overlook. Besides, I was too concerned about Lopez to brood about anything petty. This was the third time he'd gone under the knife in the last five months, both for adhesions and to drain some fluid build-up, but he'd never supplied such a formal farewell. I'd learned to respect the man's intuition, maybe a little too much, and had the miserable feeling I'd never see him again.

  So between heartsickness and checking on my granddaughter, it took me a few moments to realize we were only a few yards from the chainlink fence surrounding the big shed.

  "What do you suppose is going on in there, sweetheart?” Amanda prompted Evie. “You could ask those two guys if you want to."

  "I will, Mommy."

  Two heavyset men in gray coveralls were smoking cigarettes in front of the fence's closed gate, its massive padlock open and dangling from the highest link. As we moved past the first DANGER: HIGH VOLTAGE sign, I could see how hard these boys were puffing, perhaps trying to suck tar past the anti-cancer filters. They eyed us warily, and I could almost smell the nervous sweat.

  My daughter-in-law was no fool. “We'll ask them later, sweetheart,” she said, taking a sharp left turn and dragging along her little girl who was too surprised to protest. “First, let's go back to the petting zoo! I think you missed one of the lambs."

  X-change paint uses any surface it's sprayed on as both a loudspeaker and a piezoelectric audio pickup. It makes a much better pickup than a speaker, but the stereo imaging is limited. So I was only sure the husky, polite male voice was coming from behind us because I couldn't see who was talking.

  "Officer Horton, I have a hidden gun with a quite remarkable silencer pointed at your child's head. Don't turn around.” The phrasing almost sounded British but without the accent. Instinctively, at the first few words, I'd punched the display button on my remote, erasing my face from the balloon but maintaining my sensory contact with the fairground. One of the maintenance men pulled the gate open.

  "Walk through,” said the un-Brit, “then fast through the shack's door if you want her to live."

  Someone opened the door ahead of us, just barely wide enough to accommodate my balloon, and I got the briefest glimpse of a curtain ahead made of layers of hanging black plastic strips and the trailing arm of a person just disappearing through it. Then the door slammed behind us, and I couldn't see a thing. “Now push through the screen and I'll tell you when to stop walking,” the voice commanded with an unpleasant gentleness.

  A moment later, “That's far enough."

  The shed's interior was cave-dark and for one long moment of pure stupidity, I waited for my eyes to adjust. I heard several voices talking at once, rustling noises, and the unmistakable sizzle of ripping duct tape—also a continual ambient sound, part hum and part buzz. Finally I got smart enough to push the auto-contrast control on my remote, triggering the photomultiplier function. Suddenly, the plywood sheets blocking off the shed's two windows were oozing light like thin porcelain, and I could see. Three men wearing compact night-vision goggles were with us, not counting whoever had forced us in here.

  A huge goon with obscenely long arms was holding the silver brooch Amanda had been wearing all day. Another goon had stolen her purse and had pulled her .38 from its concealed compartment. He casually placed weapon and purse on a nearby shelf as the third forced Amanda's wrists behind her back and wrapped them in layers of tape. Her ankles were already bound. Evie's eyes were huge, and she remained unnaturally silent, even when the tape man bound her wrists in front of her.

  When they'd finished making my family helpless, the trio of creeps strolled over to a folding table near one wall, sat down in folding chairs, clapped on headset phones, hoisted small control boxes of some sort, and started up low-voiced conversations, presumably not with each other. I boosted my audio feed momentarily, but the only thing I learned was that the three weren't telemarketing. Their talk was incomprehensible, filled with grid this and grid that, and familiar street names in downtown L.A. and Beverly Hills.

  From inside, the shed was roomier than I'd expected, despite holding so much equipment. The fairground evidently had dual power systems. A low voltage setup involved c
hargers, voltage-regulators, and an extended bank of deep-cycle batteries hung in two tiers—probably for the miles of strung lights outside. Hundreds of thin color-coded insulated cables running in neat lines were stapled to the wall, and dozens of small metal boxes were spliced into this highway of wires. The boxes seemed as appropriate to the system as leeches on a human leg, and the many bright splashes of solder hinted they'd been added recently and in haste. On the high-voltage end, a massive bus fed two major-league Toshiba transformers isolated behind steel meshwork, output cables vanishing beneath the concrete floor but surely leading to the amusement park area with its Ferris wheel and rides. For backup, a heavy-duty gas-powered generator squatted near the rear wall, escorted by a gang of truck batteries. Lawsuit avoidance, I guessed. Wouldn't do to have a ride freeze up should city power brown out or fail completely.

  Here and there, little pieces of black electrical tape were stuck to surfaces. Covering the ready lights? The goons wanted the place dark, and the possible implications chilled me to the core. Had they been planning all along to kidnap Amanda and were making sure she couldn't see their faces? But if so, wouldn't masks or disguises have been far easier and cheaper?

  A laptop resting on the shelf with Amanda's possessions had a widescreen displaying a large green outline, rectangular except for its pointed top, and a host of scattered red dots with a few blue ones; the display must've been dimmed to the limit, it was a bit bleary even to my augmented vision, and the dots flickered as though about to gutter out. A box with a large hole in one side sat between laptop and purse, probably how our host had kept his weapon inconspicuous. A cheap condenser microphone was half hidden behind the laptop.

  All this attention to detail wasn't just an old engineer's habit. It was my only way to keep panic at arm's length. Even so, my heart was racing fit to burst, and my hands were colder than ice.

  "Mommy, I'm scared."

  Eve's little chin was trembling, and the sight broke though all my defenses. Without removing my glasses, I fumbled around until I'd grabbed my bedside phone. My fingers were twitching to press 911, but something between fear and intuition made me hesitate.