The New Voices of Science Fiction

by Hannu Rajaniemi

  “I can look it up,” said Jacky.

  “Nope,” I said. “Leave it to fate.”

  After two-thirds of the moo shu, I gave up and closed the container. I hated wasting food, but it was too big for me to finish. I wiped my chopsticks on my jeans and put them back in their case.

  Two miles down the road from the restaurant, we came to Starker’s, which I hoped from the apostrophe was only a bar, not a strip club. Their expansive parking lot was empty except for eight Chauffeurs, all lined up like pigs at a trough. At least that meant we didn’t have to worry about some drunk crashing into our van on his way out.

  I backed into the closest spot to the door. It was the best lit, so I could worry less about our gear getting lifted. Close was also good if the locals decided they didn’t like our looks.

  We got the long stare as we walked in, the one from old Westerns, where all the heads swivel our way and the piano player stops playing. Except, of course, these days the piano player didn’t stop, because the piano player had no idea we’d arrived. The part of the pianist in this scenario was played by Roy Bittan, alongside the whole E Street Band, loud as a stadium and projected in StageHolo 3D.

  “Do you want to leave?” Jacky whispered to me.

  “No, it’s okay. We’re here now. Might as well have a drink.”

  “At least it’s Bruce. I can get behind Bruce.” Silva edged past me toward the bar.

  A few at leasts: at least it was Bruce, not some cut-rate imitation. Bruce breathed punk as far as I was concerned, insisting on recording new music and legit live shows all the way into his eighties. At least it was StageHolo and not StageHoloLive, in which case there’d be a cover charge. I was willing to stand in the same room as the technology that was trying to make me obsolete, but I’d be damned if I paid them for the privilege. Of course, it wouldn’t be Bruce on StageHoloLive, either; he’d been gone a couple of years now, and this Bruce looked to be only in his sixties, anyway. A little flat, too, which suggested this was a retrofitted older show, not one recorded using StageHolo’s tech.

  Silva pressed a cold can into my hand, and I took a sip, not even bothering to look at what I was drinking. Knowing him, knowing us, he’d snagged whatever had been cheapest. Pisswater, but cold pisswater. Perfect for washing down the greasy takeout food aftertaste.

  I slipped into a booth, hoping the guys had followed me. Jacky did, carrying an identical can to mine in one hand, and something the color of windshield wiper fluid in a plastic shot glass in the other.

  “You want one?” he asked me, nudging the windshield wiper fluid. “Bartender said it was the house special.”

  I pushed it back in his direction. “I don’t drink anything blue. It never ends well.”

  “Suit yourself.” He tossed it back, then grinned.

  “Your teeth are blue now. You look like you ate a Smurf.”

  “What’s a Smurf ?”

  Sometimes I forgot how young he was. Half my age. A lifetime in this business. “Little blue characters? A village with one chick, one old man, and a bunch of young guys?”

  “Like our band?” He shook his head. “Sorry. Bad joke. Anyway, I have no idea what was in that food, but it might have been Smurf, if they’re blue and taste like pork butt. How’s your dinner sitting?”

  I swatted him lightly, backhand. “Fine, as long as I don’t drink anything blue.”

  He downed his beer in one long chug, then got up to get another. He looked at mine and raised his eyebrows.

  “No thanks,” I said. “I’ll stick with one. I get the feeling this is a zero-tolerance town.”

  If twenty-odd years of this had taught me one thing, it was to stay clear of local police. Every car in the parking lot was self-driving, which suggested there was somebody out on the roads ready to come down hard on us. Having spent a lot of time in my youth leaving clubs at closing time and dodging drunk drivers, I approved this effort. One of the few aspects of our brave new world I could fully endorse.

  I looked around. Silva sat on a stool at the bar. Jacky stood behind him, a hand on Silva’s shoulder, tapping his foot to the Bo Diddley beat of “She’s the One.” The rest of the barstools were filled with people who looked too comfortable to be anything but regulars. A couple of them had the cocked-head posture of cheap neural overlays. The others played games on the slick touchscreen bar, or tapped on the Bracertabs strapped to their arms, the latest tech fad. Nobody talking to anybody.

  Down at the other end, two blond women stood facing the Bruce holo, singing along and swaying. He pointed in their general direction, and one giggled and clutched her friend’s arm as if he had singled her out personally. Two guys sat on stools near the stage, one playing air drums, the other watching the women. The women only had eyes for Bruce.

  I got where they were coming from. I knew people who didn’t like his voice or his songs, but I didn’t know anybody, especially any musician, who couldn’t appreciate his stage presence. Even here, even now, knowing decades separated me from the night this had been recorded, and decades separated the young man who had first written the song from the older man who sang it, even from across a scuzzy too-bright barroom, drinking pisswater beer with strangers and my own smelly band, I believed him when he sang that she was the one. I hated the StageHolo company even more for the fact I was enjoying it.

  Somebody slid into the booth next to me. I turned, expecting one of my bandmates, but a stranger had sat down, closer than I cared for.

  “Passing through?” he asked, looking at me with intense, bloodshot eyes. He brushed a thick sweep of hair from his forehead, a style I could only assume he had stuck with through the decades since it had been popular. He had dimples and a smile that had clearly been his greatest asset in his youth. He probably hadn’t quite realized drinking had caught up with him, that he was puffy and red-nosed. Or that he slurred a bit, even on those two words.

  “Passing through.” I gave him a brief “not interested” smile and turned my whole body back toward the stage.

  “Kind of unusual for somebody to pass through here, let alone bother to stop. What attracted you?” His use of the word “attracted” was pointed.

  If he put an arm around me, I’d have to slug him. I shifted a few inches, trying to put distance between us, and emphasized my next word. “We wanted a drink. We’ve been driving a while.”

  His disappointment was evident. “Boyfriend? Husband?”

  I nodded at the bar, letting him pick whichever he thought looked more like he might be with me, and whichever label he wanted to apply. It amused me either way, since I couldn’t imagine being with either of them. Not at the beginning, and especially not after having spent all this time in the van with them.

  Then I wondered why I was playing games at all. I turned to look at him. “We’re a band.”

  “No kidding! I used to have a band.” A reassessment of the situation flashed across his face. A new smile, more collegial. The change in his whole demeanor prompted me to give him a little more attention.

  “No kidding?”

  “Yeah. Mostly we played here. Before the insurance rates rose and StageHolo convinced Maggie she’d save money with holos of famous bands.”

  “Did she? Save money?”

  He sighed. “Probably. Holos don’t drink, and holos don’t dent the mics or spill beers into the PA. And people will stay and imbibe for hours if the right bands are playing.”

  “Do you still play for fun? Your band?”

  He shrugged. “We did for a while. We even got a spot at the very last State Fair. And after that, every once in a while we’d play a barbecue in somebody’s backyard. But it’s hard to keep it up when you’ve got nothing to aim for. Playing here once a week was a decent enough goal, but who would want to hear me sing covers when you can have the real thing?”

  He pointed his beer at one of the women by the stage. “That’s my ex-wife, by the way.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “It’s okay.” He took a
swig of beer. “That’s when Polly left me. Said it wasn’t ’cause the band was done, but I think it was related. She said I didn’t seem interested in anything at all after that.”

  He had turned his attention down to his drink, but now he looked at me again. “How about you? I guess there are still places out there to play?”

  “A few,” I said. “Mostly in the cities. There’s a lot of turnover, too. So we can have a great relationship with a place and then we’ll call back and they’ll be gone without a trace.”

  “And there’s enough money in it to live on?”

  There are people who ask that question in an obnoxious, disbelieving way, and I tend to tell them, “We’re here, aren’t we?” but this guy was nostalgic enough that I answered him honestly. Maybe I could help him see there was no glamour left for people like us.

  “I used to get some royalty checks from an old song, which covered insurance and repairs for the van, but they’ve gotten smaller and smaller since BMI v. StageHolo. We make enough to stay on the road, eat really terribly, have a beer now and again. Not enough to save. Not enough to stop, ever. Not that we want to stop, so it’s okay.”

  “You never come off the road? Do you live somewhere?”

  “The van’s registered at my parents’ place in Maryland, and I crash there when I need a break. But that isn’t often.”

  “And your band?”

  “My bassist and I have been playing together for a long time, and he’s got places he stays. We replace a drummer occasionally. This one’s been with us for a year, and the two of them are into each other, so if they don’t fall out it might last a while.”

  He nodded. The wolfishness was gone, replaced by something more wistful. He held out his beer. “To music.”

  “To live music.” My can clinked his.

  Somebody shouted over by the bar, and we both twisted round to see what had happened. The air-drum player had wandered over—Max Weinberg was on break, too—and he and Jacky were squaring off over something. Jacky’s blue lips glowed from twenty feet away.

  “Nothing good ever comes of blue drinks,” I said to my new friend.

  He nodded. “You’re gonna want to get your friend out of here. That’s the owner behind the bar. If your guy breaks anything, she’ll have the cops here in two seconds flat.”

  “Crap. Thanks.”

  Blue liquid pooled around and on Jacky, a tray of overturned plastic shot glasses behind him. At least they weren’t glass, and at least he hadn’t damaged the fancy bar top. I dug a twenty from the thin wad in my pocket, hoping it was enough.

  “You’re fake-drumming to a fake band,” Jacky was saying. “And you’re not even good at it. If you went to your crash cymbal that much with the real Bruce, he’d fire you in two seconds.”

  “Who the hell cares? Did I ask you to critique my drumming?”

  “No, but if you did, I’d tell you you’re behind on the kick, too. My two-year-old niece keeps a better beat than you do.”

  The other guy’s face reddened, and I saw him clench a fist. Silva had an arm across Jacky’s chest by then, propelling him toward the door. We made eye contact, and he nodded.

  I tossed my twenty on a dry spot on the bar, still hoping for a quick getaway.

  “We don’t take cash,” said the owner, holding my bill by the corner like it was a dead rat.

  Dammit. I squared my shoulders. “You’re legally required to accept U.S. currency.”

  “Maybe true in the U.S. of A, but this is the U.S. of Starker’s, and I only accept Superwally credit. And your blue buddy there owes a lot more than this anyway for those spilled drinks.” She had her hand below the bar. I had no clue whether she was going for a phone or a baseball bat or a gun; nothing good could come of any of those options.

  I snatched the bill back, mind racing. Silva kept a credit transfer account; that wouldn’t be any help, since he was already out the door. I avoided credit and devices in general, which usually held me in good stead, but I didn’t think the label “Non-comm” would win me any friends here. Jacky rarely paid for anything, so I had no clue whether he had been paying cash or credit up until then.

  “I’ve got them, Maggie.” My new friend from the booth stepped up beside me, waving his phone.

  He turned to me. “Go on. I’ve got this.”

  Maggie’s hand came out from under the bar. She pulled a phone from behind the cash register to do the credit transfer, which meant whatever she had reached for down below probably wouldn’t have been good for my health.

  “Keep playing,” he called after me.

  Jacky was unremorseful. “He started it. Called us disease vectors. I told him to stay right where he was and the whole world would go on turning ’cause it doesn’t even know he exists. Besides, if he can’t air drum, he should just air guitar like everybody else.”

  Silva laughed. “You should have pretended to cough. He probably would have pissed himself.”

  He and Silva sprawled in the back together as I peeled out of the parking lot.

  “Not funny. I don’t care who started it. No fights. I mean it. Do you think I can afford to bail you out? How are we supposed to play tomorrow if our drummer’s in jail? And what if they skip the jail part and shoot you? It’s happened before.”

  “Sorry, Mom,” Jacky said.

  “Not funny,” I repeated. “If you ever call me ‘Mom’ again I’m leaving you on the side of the road. And I’m not a Chauffeur. Somebody come up here to keep me company.”

  Silva climbed across the bed and bags and up to the passenger seat. He flipped on the police scanner, then turned it off after a few minutes of silence; nobody had put out any APBs on a van full of bill-ducking freaks. I drove speed limit plus five, same as the occasional Chauffeurs we passed ferrying their passengers home. Shortcutting onto the highway to leave the area entirely would’ve been my preference, but Daisy would have triggered the ramp sensors in two seconds flat; we hadn’t been allowed on an interstate in five years.

  After about twenty miles, my fear that we were going to get chased down finally dissipated and my heartbeat returned to acceptable rhythms. We pulled into an office park that didn’t look patrolled.

  “Your turn for the bed, Luce?” Jacky asked. Trying to make amends, maybe.

  “You guys can have it if I can find my sleeping bag. It’s actually pretty nice out, and then I don’t have to smell whatever that blue crap is on your clothes.”

  “You have a sleeping bag?”

  “Of course I do. I just used it in . . .” Actually, I couldn’t think of when I had used it last. It took a few minutes of rummaging to find it in the storage space under the bed, behind Silva’s garage sale box of pulp novels. I spread it on the ground just in front of the van. The temperature was perfect and the sky was full of stars. Hopefully there weren’t any coyotes around.

  I slept three or four hours before my body started to remind me why I didn’t sleep outside more often. I got up to pee and stretch. When I opened the door, I was hit by an even deeper grease smell than usual. It almost drowned out the funk of two guys farting, four days unwashed. Also the chemical-alcohol-blue scent Jacky wore all over his clothes.

  Leaning over the driver’s seat, I dug in the center console for my silver pen and the bound atlas I used as a road bible. The stars were bright enough to let me see the pages without a flashlight. The atlas was about fifteen years out of date, but my notes kept it useable. The town we had called Nowhere was actually named Rackwood, which sounded more like a tree disease than a town to me. A glittery asterisk went next to Rackwood, and in the margin “China Grove—Mike Sun—grease AND food.” I drew an X over the location of Starker’s, which wouldn’t get our repeat business.

  I crawled inside around dawn, feeling every bone in my body, and reclined the passenger seat. Nobody knocked on the van to tell us to move on, so we slept until the sun started baking us. Jacky reached forward to offer up his last leftovers from the night before. I sniffed the container and h
anded it back to him. He shrugged and dove in with his fingers, chopsticks having disappeared into the detritus surrounding him. After a little fishing around, I found my dinner and sent that his way as well.

  Silva climbed into the driver’s seat. I didn’t usually relinquish the wheel; I genuinely loved doing all the driving myself. I liked the control, liked to listen to Daisy’s steady engine and the thrum of the road. He knew that, and didn’t ask except when he really felt the urge, which meant that when he did ask, I moved over. Jacky had never offered once, content to read and listen to music in his back seat cocoon. Another reason he fit in well.

  Silva driving meant I got a chance to look around; it wasn’t often that we took a road I hadn’t been down before. I couldn’t even remember how we had wound up choosing this route the previous day. We passed shuttered diners and liquor stores, the ghost town that might have been a main street at one time.

  “Where is everybody?” Jacky asked.

  I twisted around to see if he was joking. “Have you looked out the window once this whole year? Is this the first time you’re noticing?”

  “I usually sleep through this part of the country. It’s boring.”

  “There is no everybody,” Silva said. “A few farmers, a Superwally that employs everyone else within an hour’s drive.”

  I peered at my atlas. “I’ve got a distribution center drawn in about forty miles back and ten miles north, on the road we usually take. That probably employs anybody not working for the company store.” There wasn’t really any reason for me to draw that kind of place onto my maps, but I liked making them more complete. They had layers in some places, stores and factories that had come and gone and come and gone again.

  Most backroad towns looked like this, these days. At best a fast food place, a feed store, maybe a run-down-looking grocery or a health clinic, and not much else. There’d be a Superwally somewhere between towns, as Silva had said, luring everyone even farther from center or anything resembling community. Town after town, we saw the same thing. And of course most people didn’t see anything at all, puttering along on the self-driving highways, watching movies instead of looking out the windows, getting from point A to point B without stopping in between.