by Kirk Dougal
“How do you know so much about it, Mr. Keisler? Were you and Harry scientists?”
Keisler rolled his head back and laughed.
“Oh, God no!” he finally said, wiping away tears from the corners of his eyes. “I barely passed my high school science classes. Scientist, huh. No, I worked for the Mercury News.”
“The what?”
“Bah, I feel sorry for your generation sometimes, Tar. The Mercury News was a newspaper. I started as a street reporter and worked my way up to the city hall beat. That was way back when we were still printing a newspaper every day, big as life, on a 48-inch web.” Keisler held his hands apart to show Tar how wide a newspaper was at the time. “But when we switched to all-electronic delivery I moved over and began writing a column. ‘Pat’s Points.’ Some humor, some pop culture, a little bit serious sometimes. Won some awards from the California Journalism Association.”
“Harry worked there, too?”
“Yeah, Harry and I started within two weeks of each other. I teased him all the time about having seniority on him. But he stayed hard news, never left the state and local politics scene. Wrote one of the best editorials I’ve ever read just a week before The Crash.”
“What was it about?”
“The U.S. government wanted to tax usage of the Mind but people had been using it for years without paying for it and the voters were really pushing back. At the same time there was a growing ground swell against technology attached to people. A lot of people didn’t like it and there were lots of rallies…wait, let me see if…”
Keisler took the small box and punched some buttons. The list of shows on the DVR appeared on the television screen and he scanned down.
“April, August, August, September, ah! I knew I saw some from October.” Keisler leaned forward in his chair and gestured toward the television. “Remember when you brought me this DVR and I said there were some newscasts on it? I noticed the other day that most of them were recorded in the last few months leading up to The Crash. This one is from October 26, only three days before it happened.” He pointed the small box at the screen and hit another button.
“…seen today in an undisclosed location near the White House, the President kept up her push for new revenues to curb the growing government deficit…”
“It is just a fact that we need more money to fund all of the programs that American citizens are demanding,” said a woman standing behind a lectern with a high glass shield in front of her. Flanking her on each side were soldiers in full body armor. Their heads were encased in helmets with no noticeable way to see through. “Nearly two decades ago when the people were given the right to vote online on every piece of legislation in Congress no one realized how much expenditures would explode. Now guaranteed pension plans and free health care for every person in the country are threatening to overwhelm our federal government. We need more money and we need the wealthy, the people who are better off than others, to step up to the plate and pay more. With nearly seventy percent of all adults in the country using MentConn technology this tax is the fastest way to raise revenues before the country is forced to file for bankruptcy by the end of the year.”
The screen switched back to a man and a woman seated behind a desk.
“Complaints about the proposed tax are being voiced by everyone from business owners to tax freedom advocates,” said the woman. “There have even been calls from some state leaders around the country to secede from America, saying that the burden being placed on American business owners and the workers with full-time jobs is crushing any incentive to work. But that may not be the biggest challenge to President Bellart’s plan.”
“That’s right, Clarise,” said the man. “What started as a whisper a few years ago about the ethical dangers of MentConn, or Mental Connection technology, has grown into a shout. Now tens of thousands of people are demanding this technology be outlawed. Entire new religions have sprung up around the country around the idea that man and machine should not be connected. Let’s go now to Hector Gonzalez who is standing by from our affiliate in San Francisco. Hector, that looks like a pretty big crowd behind you.”
“You’re correct, Kevan. Officials estimate there are about 50,000 people gathered here today to hear the leader of one of those new religions speak to a crowd of enthusiasts…”
The screen switched again, this time to show an older man with salt-and-pepper hair and beard waving his hands as he spoke. Under him appeared the words, “Rev. Elisha Lambert, Man’s Salvation Church.”
“It is mankind’s arrogance that is leading us down the path to destruction. When did we begin to think that we could improve upon the Creator’s design of human beings by adding a computer chip here and a CPU there? When did we think it was the Creator’s design to put millions of little robots into our blood to make us skinny or add muscle to our arms? If we aren’t careful, one day the unfaithful are going to wake up and discover that they are more machine than man and the Creator is going to pull the plug…”
Tar turned to Keisler.
“Is that Father Eli? He doesn’t look like that now.”
“None of us do,” the man said with a laugh. “That was almost fifteen years ago. We all have a little more snow on top of the roof.” He rubbed a hand over his gray hair.
Tar turned back to the television. Behind Father Eli a line of men all stood ramrod straight in their black and blue-colored uniforms. They sported the same style beard, cut in a straight line about three inches below their chins. A bald man directly behind Father Eli stared at the camera and Tar moved back without thinking. There was something about the man’s eyes that frightened him but he was too old to admit anything like that to Mr. Keisler. He scanned the others and stopped on the third guy to the bald man’s left. There was something familiar about him, the way he tilted his head when he peered to the left and rocked back on his heels when he looked straight ahead. Tar could not place the man before the screen switched back to the reporter.
“It was pretty bad back then, Tar.” Keisler turned off the DVR. “The country didn’t have enough money to do anything. It looked like we might have another Civil War and we had people like Father Eli jumping into the mix, saying we should go back a hundred years to the days of horses and plows. The Crash came three days later and damn near put us there.”
“Is that how Father Eli became leader?”
“More or less. There was a lot of confusion in the first few months after it all fell apart. A lot of people, key people in leadership positions, went hard boot. All the military had standard issue MentConn implants so they all died, along with the National Guard, police, and firefighters. Entire cities were nearly wiped out. San Francisco lost ninety-five percent of its population. Sunnyvale was so devastated it’s still deserted.
“But there was Father Eli with his Man’s Salvation Church. They had one of the few organizations still intact. They didn’t lose anyone because they didn’t use tech. With the Mind gone and no way for the people to vote Eli stepped in and took over for the government. They supplied food and set up hospitals so people went along because he was doing a lot of good things. But then, before we knew it, Father Eli was in charge of what used to be California, western Nevada, and southern Oregon. And his Black Shirts were everywhere.”
The lights dimmed, and then went back up to full strength.
“I’d better go,” Tar said as he rose to his feet. He walked to the doorway behind the bookcase and turned. “Good night, Mr. Keisler. See you tomorrow night?”
“That is okay with me as long as your uncle doesn’t mind.”
Tar smiled.
“Good. I want to find out why Jayne is wearing that stupid orange and yellow hat on the show.”
Chapter 9
Tar whistled as he walked down the sidewalk. He had traded a couple low-tech apps to a neighborhood shop owner for a couple bricks he knew he could fix later. He had also repaired a washing machine for his apartment building
by rewiring the switch. It hadn’t required anything special, just the use of his hands like any regular person. It felt good to do that, plus everyone on the bottom floors who shared the machines would be grateful, and grateful meant he and his uncle ate better than usual for a little while.
Lost in his good mood as he headed toward the school he almost missed the whisper.
“Get down!” it hissed. “Black Shirts!”
Tar ducked into the dark of an alley as he heard the clop-clop of horses trotting down the street. He scurried behind an overflowing trash can and peered around its edge.
A group of six men on horses went by the alley opening, their black and blue uniforms showing the signs of a long, hard ride. Even so, their alert eyes scanned the area while they held rifles balanced on a leg so they could aim on a breath’s notice. One of them stared long and hard down the alley as he passed. Tar never stopped watching, never moved from where he crouched, hoping he was nearly impossible to spot among the shadows. A few seconds later the Black Shirts rode out of sight and he leaned against the wall behind him, feeling the cool bricks against his neck.
The sound of running feet on the sidewalk snapped his attention back to the alley opening and he moved his feet underneath him so he could leap into a sprint if needed. Toby ran into sight and Tar relaxed.
Tar stood and Toby hopped sideways away from him.
“Damn, Tar!” he said between gasps for air. “I thought you’d gone zom, walking down the street, not paying attention to anything around you. Are you fragged?”
Tar shook his head.
“No, I’m okay thanks to you. Where were you at?”
“Across the street in a broken doorway. I saw you comin’ but I knew I couldn’t make it across before they turned the corner. It’s a good thing you can hear those horses on the street for a long ways.”
“Yeah.” Tar moved to the front of the alley and peeked down the street where the Black Shirts had gone. “What’re you doing way down here? They figure out that you’re 404 from school and your dad will be mad as hell.”
“Forget that. I was looking for you.”
“For me?” Tar said with a frown. “Why did you come looking for me? You knew I was coming back to the school today.”
Toby leaned against the brick wall and let out a sigh like some moan of despair.
“I fell back asleep after Pop left for work and woke up late. By the time I got to school, the Black Shirts were already there. They had the whole building surrounded, Tar.” The boy opened his eyes and looked at his friend. “I was scared.”
Tar blinked but said nothing. He had never known Toby or Shovel to be scared of anything.
“They were bringing the other kids out of the school and lining them up,” Toby continued. “I came to find you so you didn’t wander in there without seeing them. I was only about half a block away when a bunch of them hopped on their horses and took off in every direction.”
“What do they want?”
“I don’t know.”
Tar walked back into the full dark of the alley. Black Shirts were around all the time but never like this. Usually it was just two or three in a group and they never went far from the government offices downtown. In fact, most locals barely paid attention to them since Black Shirts were lazy and didn’t care about anything.
But these men were a long way from downtown, and evidently they did care about something. Tar would have bet a piece of fixed tech against three bricks that these Black Shirts were from the capital. They looked hard and ready for a fight and he wanted nothing to do with them.
But what he wanted did not matter.
“Come on,” he said. “We’ve got to see what they’re doing at the school.”
“Are you crazy?” Toby’s voice echoed off the walls and both boys crouched down. When he spoke again, he dropped to a whisper. “What? Are you going to automagically just walk into the schoolyard and back out again? I figured you wouldn’t want anything to do with those guys.”
Tar shook his head.
“I don’t. I want to run but I can’t. I’ve got to know what they are doing, what they are looking for.” Tar took a deep breath. “You don’t have to come.”
Toby screwed his face into a look of disbelief.
“And when you’re 404 I’m going to tell people that I let my best book go back to the school by himself. No chance.” Toby stood up. “I’ll go with you.”
Tar smiled.
“Thanks. Let’s cut through the back of this alley and down the next block. I’ve got an idea how we can get close.”
The two boys trotted into the dark with Tar in the lead. He led them on a twisting course, first left, then right, but always southwest. After a few minutes they reached the end of another alley and stood just out of the sunlight. Across the street was a massive building, the gray of the sky reflected off the dirty white and rust walls.
“The old mall? We’ll never get in there,” said Toby. “It’s been boarded up for years.”
“Yes, we can. Down that side street are the places where the trucks used to bring in stuff. We can get in those doors. Just follow me.”
Tar led the way under an overcast sky with Toby just a step behind. He was scared. Only Toby being there kept him going forward because he did not want to look like a wimp. Tar kept thinking every step could be his last. He would have much rather ran all the way back home, pulled the covers over his head, and cried himself to sleep.
They made it across the street and hurried down the side of the building until they came to a point where it swung away from the street. The sidewalk angled down into shallow pits, while over-sized metal doors looked out from the walls like the bug eyes of a monster.
“See, I told you,” hissed Toby. “There’s no way in.”
Tar only motioned for his friend to follow as he jogged past the four doors to the far side of the setback. There, a set of metal stairs snaked up against the concrete wall. At the top was a black door.
“There,” said Tar.
The two boys walked carefully up the steps but, even so, the metal rattled on each riser and sounded against the bare walls.
“We gotta hurry, Tar. Somebody’s going to hear that.”
Tar nodded. In fact, he thought he heard hooves on the street already but he was not sure. His heart pounded so hard in his ears he was having trouble hearing anything. He put his hand against the metal box next to the door. A second later the latch clicked.
“Chilly,” said Toby.
They stepped into the dark building and Tar shut the door behind them. He waited until it locked before he took off his backpack and rummaged in one of the side pockets. He brought out two little boxes, barely wider than his hand, and felt in the dark for the switch. One of the flashlights lit up and he used it to turn on the other one and hand it to Toby.
“I’m not sure how long we have with these batteries but there’s too much stuff in here to trip over,” he said.
“You’ve been in here before?” Toby asked.
“Yeah.”
That was his only answer. Tar was not ready to admit that when he was younger he would sneak down here and watch the school kids through the mall windows on the south side. When Uncle Jahn had found out about his trips he had beat Tar’s butt until he had trouble sitting still during supper but he had come back again and again. Tar needed to see other kids, even if he could not sit with them in some boring class or run yelling through the schoolyard during playtime. When Jahn realized the beatings would not stop him his uncle gave up trying to keep him away from the others and preached instead about knowing who Tar could and could not trust.
The pair walked through the loading dock, the area clear except for a half-dozen tow motors and piles of wood skids. It had been a couple of years since the last time Tar had been in the building and it took him three tries before he finally found the door he was looking for. When he did he and Toby stepped through into a wide open
area with tables and chairs spread all over. Along the far wall were a long line of places where food was served at one time—he had described it to Jahn and his uncle had told him the place had been called a Food Court—but in the middle of the area was the thing that made Toby suck in his breath and stumble on the dusty tile.
A large circular machine rose from the floor and traveled up the height of two flights of stairs. Gold and silver shined back from the flashlights’ glare, as did the painted eyes of all kinds of animals. Tar had seen picture books of zoos in Mr. Keisler’s apartment so he knew what some of the animals were called; birds and lions and elephants were there, mixed in with others he did not know. One looked like a long-necked lizard with wings, another was a horse with a large horn sticking out of its head. There were also little cars and two-wheeled vehicles that had seats on the inside, along with benches like the ones that sat in the old park.
“What is that?” asked Toby.
“Uncle Jahn called it a Mary Round,” answered Tar. “But he never told me who Mary was. He said it would play loud music and go in circles while little kids rode on the animals. It sounded like a big deal.”
“I’ll bet it was pretty chilly,” Toby breathed. “You know, if you were a little kid.”
“Come on. Let’s go see what the Black Shirts want.”
Tar led them across the open area and into a wide hallway on the far side. This quickly opened up into an even bigger area that carried a little echo no matter how quiet the two of them tried to be. Tar shined his flashlight straight up and the glow barely reached the glass and metal roof over their heads, three floors above them.
“Why doesn’t the sky shine through?” asked Toby.