Houston, 2030

by Mike McKay

  “Back then, in 2012, the whole world was ready to use the natural gas, but America – no way! We wasted it! Wasted! Began building gas liquefaction plants, fill tankers and send our gas to China, India, and Japan. And now – our gas comes to the end. Full stop. Exactly as the geologists predicted: twenty years, maximum absolutum. Have you heard about the ‘gas slums’?”

  “People living in shacks around the abandoned gas wells? It was on TV last year. Big fire in one of these.”

  “Exactly. The shale gas well works fine for three or four years, and – the end! Finito! Granted, some little residual gas is still bubbling from the ground for many years. In the gas slums, they use what's left. And around their shacks – grow some veggies. The only problem, these areas haven't got any good water. All the water was spent doing these stupid hydraulic fracs.”

  “So you say, the US Energy Independence and Security program had totally blooped?”

  “Nearly so. And so any other such ‘programs.’ The ‘tar sands’ in Canada. Entire Alberta – wasted! Even worse than in our gas slums, man. The ethanol! Do you remember how Bush-junior approved the bloody ethanol in 2007?”

  “To mix it with the gas? Sorry: ‘gasoline’?”

  “Right! So we ended up planting millions of acres of corn and converting it all into the bloody ethanol. Wasted a lot of good land. As if the scientists and engineers did not tell everybody that the tar sands and the corn ethanol are not natural fuels. They're a mere amplifier!”

  “An amplifier? In what sense?”

  “Simple. You take a barrel of natural oil and convert it into gasoline. Or diesel, does not matter. Plow the land, plant the seeds, and so on. Then, you take six thousand feet of the natural gas, and turn them into a fertilizer. You need the fertilizer, right? Collect the corn. Produce two point three barrels of ethanol. What have you done?”

  “What?”

  “You have amplified one barrel of oil and six thousand feet of gas, – which is the same as another barrel of oil, if you consider the energy. From two barrels of oil you made two point three barrels of ethanol. Your gain – fifteen percent! Not counting your hard labor and all the environmental damage you created by your tractor. Fifteen percent, Mark! And in exchange for these fifteen percent, you are slowly wasting the land. With the tar sands – the same story. You invest one barrel of the real natural oil and one barrel-equivalent of the natural gas, and get out about three and a half barrels of the nasty, heavy, alkaline shite. You can call it ‘oil’ all you want, but it's not what we used to call ‘oil’ here in Texas. For a bonus, you also get a moon landscape instead of the forest.”

  “So, if I got it right, you need to put the oil in before little more stuff comes out?”

  “Exactly! Like in the basic Chemistry. You can't defeat the Mass Preservation Law! By the way, after the Meltdown, some farmers tried to skip on the chemical fertilizers. And started wasting the land much, much faster. You know what happened.”

  “The Wasted Patch of Iowa?”

  “Yep. And few, smaller ones, in the other states.”

  “OK, I got it. But you wanted to tell me about the government strategy.”

  “It's exactly my point, man! There is no ‘strategy,’ man, just a busywork.”

  “Hey, the economy is recovering.”

  “Recovering? Recovering? Tell me, what thing of our life has improved in the last seven or ten years?”

  “The inflation!”

  “OK, presumably, this year twenty-two percent don't look as bad for you as the seventy-eight percent per year right after the Meltdown. But remember, Mark: the inflation is not a ‘thing.’ It's a mere mathematical function. A rate, or derivative, is a product of some accounting genius. The real ‘thing,’ the US Dollar, is getting worse. Lighter and lighter, every month, every day. The inflation rate just says that the current decline is not as fast as it used to be. It's like you do skydiving, and your parachute doesn't open. Thus, you tell yourself: excellent! My speed has stabilized! But in reality, you keep falling. Does it matter, if you hit the ground at one hundred and ten miles per hour or at one hundred and eleven?”

  “The TV surely got better, Mister Stolz,” Mike inserted his valued opinion, as usual, without asking any permission: “I remember, there were one hundred and something channels, and nothing to watch. And now in Houston we have only three channels, and all three – awesome! The GalvesTube is for the music clips. The inter-state and international news – switch to the CNN. And the SRTV – I personally like the most. They have all the best movie re-runs, with zero commercials! You can watch the entire movie like from a DVD, – without being interrupted every five minutes.”

  “OK, I take it, Mike,” Frederick smiled. “There has been an improvement. Lucky you don't remember how the TV was before the Meltdown! Back then, the American TV was so idiotic, anything could be an improvement.”

  “Talking of which,” Mark said: “On the SRTV news yesterday, they said sixty more physicians will be added to the Harris County area this year. Which is twice as many as in 2027. You are too bloody pessimistic, Fred. Something is improving!”

  “And again, you miss the point, Mark. They tell you how many physicians are added. However, did they tell you how many will be retiring this year?”

  “No.”

  “Three hundred and sixty! I am telling you again, Mark, you should start doing your reality check. They are telling you, more physicians are added. Well. You open the window and look around. We had a GP office at the corner, right? Two doctors, three nurses.”

  “Right. Now it's closed.”

  “See? It used to be two point four active physicians per every thousand population in Texas. Now it's zero point four-oh-five. The reality check! I keep doing it myself, all the time.”

  “Really? I thought, the situation with the doctor is still OK.”

  “Still! ‘Still’ is a key word here! What I find out, we are using word ‘still’ way more often nowadays. Such and such motor-bus is ‘still’ running, we say. Or: at the 'Fill there are ‘still’ recyclable materials. Or: our neighborhood well ‘still’ has clean water. Something along these lines… The hard reality is: everything is in permanent, permanent decline.”

  “Everything? Is it so?”

  “Yessir! Everything! Fifteen years ago, our kids were walking in Nikes and design clothes. Ten years ago, – in no-brand jeans from the flea market. Five years ago, – in second-hand military uniforms and old tire sandals. Now – in whatever remains from the second-hand uniforms. With all the holes! And barefoot! Just continue the line and see how it will look like five years, ten years from now!”

  “It depends on the neighborhood, Fred,” Mark disagreed. What the neighbor was saying was probably applicable to the northern slums, but not in here. “Our kids are not barefoot…”

  With the corner of his eye, he mentioned how Mike quietly moved his unshod feet under the chair. “Well, I admit, they do go with no sandals. Infrequently…” OK, obviously, Mark's kids walked barefoot not ‘infrequently,’ but ‘quite so often.’ Talking about the post-Meltdown generation: Samantha, Pamela, and Patrick, even ‘quite so often’ was an understatement; ‘practically always’ would be much better definition. Well, they did it by choice, not because they were poor! For some strange reason, the younger kids liked going without shoes. With Patrick, it was not too bad, but the girls simply rejected the idea of being shod in public. Crazy fashion, or peer pressure, or ‘No show-offs’ rile, whatever. But all his kids had a pair of sandals, and hey, Mary and Mark kept telling the kids to put the bloody sandals on before going out!

  “OK, Fred,” Mark said. “Let say, everything is declining. But nothing is forever. The process will have to slow-down and stop at some point, no?”

  “Yep, it will, my friend. The Year Zero? Remember that book I gave you?” Frederick added more beer into his mug and moved to pour some more into Mark's. Mark waved his hand refusing the offer.

  Sure, Mark remembered. It was a book
about the Cambodian revolution. Not a best-seller by any rank. An average American would never touch such a book before the Meltdown. Too gruesome, and no Hollywood happy-end. As for the few documentary-reading intellectuals, such stories would surely raise your hair and make you so happy the Marxism was dead. There was this Comrade Pol Pot, a lunatic communist; if Mark remembered it right, – educated in the Sorbonne as a radio engineer. He gave his revolution a catchy name: the Year Zero. No more cities, shops, roads, no more money, no more electricity, computers or telephones. Even shoes and eyeglasses were declared capitalists' inventions and were banned. The middle-class was to be destroyed. ‘To keep you is no gain, to destroy you is no loss,’ that was how Pol Pot put it… Right! For a Cambodian doctor (or a policeman, a teacher, or an engineer) the Year Zero would be exactly what the Meltdown became to an average American middle-class person. The end of Civilization. You still remembered the good life, but could not live it anymore.

  Fred had a point, Mark concluded. “OK, let say, I agree. The ecological and economic initiatives are failing, the Dollar is going down like a brick, and the poor kids in the slums have to go in rags and with no shoes. However, all this shite doesn't mean the government has no strategy. Maybe, they have, but it doesn't work?” He gulped the rest of the beer from his mug.

  “Another beer, Mark?” Fred offered again, lifting the jug.

  “No, no, thanks. We got to go. Just explain me why, do you think, the Washington has no strategy.”

  “They have no strategy, Mark. But they have very good tactics. That Pol Pot, in Cambodia. As every political radical, he was a fool. He wanted to change everything at once. What the Washington is doing – no-o-o. They are way smarter. They want to land America into the Year Zero slowly. Gently. Without fuss and unrest. Do you want an example closer to home? Only, don't get mad at me for this one: it's a bit personal.”

  “OK, fire away. I have enough beer in me not to be mad at anything.”

  “Let say, in Venezuela, there is still some oil left. The US President finds an excuse and sends there your Billy…”

  “William.”

  “Sorry: William. To defend the freedom and democracy. Your son honestly exchanges both his arms and both his eyes for few hundred barrels of oil, that's all. By the way, before the Army, he wanted to study medicine, right?”

  “He did,” Mark confirmed, shaking his head. It was the subject he and Mary preferred to avoid in conversations. “Not everything in life can come out as planned…”

  “That is why we have plenty of Salvation Way collectors, but fewer and fewer physicians… OK, back to our oil barrels… Alas, we have to face the reality: William has paid with his injury for mere few hundred barrels of oil. We bring this oil to the United States and make some gasoline. Well, few percent of it will go to your Police, Fire Departments, and so on. And – the President's Air Force One needs to refuel once in a while, right? What about the rest of these barrels? That's right: your Mike and my Arne will fill the tank of their armored vehicle and go fight for the freedom and democracy in some other place that has some oil left. A merry-go-round of sorts: a war for the ability to make war for the ability to make war. Ad infinitum… But do we have an alternative?”

  “Do we?”

  “The alternative is: we can bring all the soldiers home. Stop the wars. Lock the borders. No damn good! In such case, the Year Zero in the USA will happen not slowly and gently, but rather quickly. Instead of killing people in far-away lands, and bringing their resources into the US, we will start killing each other. We will be at each others' throat. For the last barrel of oil that remains…”

  “This is surely some bleak picture, Fred,” Mark nodded, “but you seem to be right. Well, we got to go. Shall we throw a party for the boys tomorrow?”

  “You bet. And thanks again for Samantha…”

  As they returned home, Mike stack his head into the stairs and yelled: “Sammy, what a hell are you up to?”

  “Shut up, Mickey,” Samantha shouted back from upstairs, “we're trying to study in here.” With the old David and Clarice moving in, both Mark's daughters shared the same bedroom, while Mike and Patrick were in the other. On Saturdays before dinner, the three younger kids had the time officially allocated for their homework.

  “Come here, Sammy, we have some news for you,” Mike continued shouting.

  “Later, Mickey. I have an assignment for the SnE. Due on Monday!”

  “An assignment? For the Science and Engineering? Then, you surely must hear this! No jokes, get down at once!”

  There was a thump of bare feet on the stairs, and Samantha appeared in the living room. “What is it?” She still half-suspected it was some kind of prank Mike loved to play on her and the others once in a while.

  “Your assignment for the SnE has been upgraded to a practical! We've sold you to the 'Fill!”

  ‘Sold you to the 'Fill,’ Mark thought. How did Mike guess I was so desperate to send Samantha to work?

  “What?” Samantha responded.

  “You will be coming with me tomorrow. I will show you how to run our bombs. Today after dinner, – I will give you some of my notes to read. They have plenty of Science and Engineering, don't worry.” No, it was just paranoia. Mike could not possibly suspect anything.

  “Don't tell me you have decided without me!” Mary screamed from the kitchen, “as I said: over my cold, dead body!”

  “Calm down, honey,” Mark tried to discharge the situation, “we have talked it over. This is the only reasonable thing to do, under circumstances.” Under circumstances. Some goddamn brass in Pentagon and some goddamn FBI bosses in Washington made these circumstances happen, not him!

  “Nothing has been decided yet,” he said aloud, “Samantha will work at the 'Fill only for a week or two. Will see how it goes.”

  Yes, will see how it goes, he thought. Perhaps, in a week or two the Butcher would kill again, Mark would leave the FBI, and Samantha would be the only bread-winner in the family, not counting William and Mary with their freaking ‘Social Optimum’ and their endless wait for the first compensation payment.

  “I will write an excuse to the school office, – Pamela can drop it off on the Monday morning,” Mark concluded.

  “I still don't like the idea,” Mary said.

  “Nobody likes. This is life, honey. Let's better talk, what we do for Mike's going-away party tomorrow.”

  Mary suddenly appeared at the kitchen door: silent and with tears in her eyes. Preoccupied with the draft orders and the subsequent discussion about Samantha's employment, she did not have time to realize her son would be going to a battlefield for three long years, and she may lose him forever. Now the message sank through…

  Chapter 13

  The going-away party was set on the next day, at Stolz’es residence. Frederick, Arnold, and Mike left for the 'Fill at around six in the morning, – for the synthetic gasoline plant, Sunday was a normal operating day. As agreed yesterday, Samantha joined the boys, and Pamela and Patrick also went there, curious to have a look at the bombs. As for Martin, Frederick's second son, helping around the family business on Saturdays and Sundays was a usual thing for him. William, Clarice, and little Davy went to do the Loop. In the Salvation Way program, the vets could take days-off as they pleased, but the donations on the weekends were often more generous, so William preferred not to skip the walk. Besides, the days-off notwithstanding, the ‘collectors’ had to meet their targets every day, so missing one Sunday would mean walking few extra miles every day for the rest of the week. The preparations for the party were thus on Elvira Stolz, Mary, and Mark. Mark had decided to take this Sunday off no matter what. Investigations or not, some rest was needed.

  Elvira and Mary supplied Mark with a shopping list, and he walked to the local market, about two miles away. He did not take his bike this time. The shopping list was quite long, so he would have to hire a delivery boy to get the goods home. The large supermarket chains were all gone, so the food and other sup
plies were available, as one hundred years ago, – from small private shoppes. One would have to buy bread at a bakery, meats and sausages at a butcher, beer at a brewer, charcoal at a fuel depot, and so on.