Fast Forward

by Lou Anders

  Anyway, this little islet would serve me well, I figured, as both home and base for my job—assuming I could erect a good solid comfortable structure here. Realizing that such a task was beyond my own capabilities, I called in my wikis.

  The Dark Galactics. The PEP Boyz. The Chindogurus. Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons. The Bishojos. The Glamazons. The Provincetown Pickers. And several more. All of them owed me simoleons for the usual—goods received, or time and expertise invested—and now they'd be eager to balance the accounts.

  The day construction was scheduled to start, I anchored the Gogo Goggins on the western side of my island, facing the mainland. The June air was warm on my bare arms, and freighted with delicious salt scents. Gulls swooped low over my boat, expecting the usual handouts. The sun was a golden English muffin in the sky. (Maybe I should have had some breakfast, but I had been too excited to prepare any that morning.) Visibility was great. I could see drowned church spires and dead cell-phone towers closer to the shore. Through this slalom a small fleet of variegated ships sailed, converging on my island.

  The shadow of one of the high unmanned aerostats that maintained the ubik passed over me, the same moment I used that medium to call up IDs on the fleet. In my vision, translucent tags overlaid each ship, labeling their owners, crew, and contents. I was able to call up real-time magnified images of the ships as well, shot from the aerostats and tiny random entomopter cams. I saw every kind of vessel imaginable: sleek catamarans, old lobster boats, inflatables, decommissioned Coast Guard cutters…And all of them carrying my friends—some of whom I had met face-to-face, some of whom I hadn't—coming to help build my house.

  I hopped out of my boat onto dry land. My island was covered with salt-tolerant scrub plants and the occasional beach rose. No trees to clear. Construction could begin immediately.

  As I awaited my friends, I got several prompts displayed across my left eye, notifying me of four or five immediate ubik developments in areas of interest to me. I had the threshold of my attention-filter set fairly high, so I knew I should attend to whatever had made it over that hurdle. For speed's sake, I kept the messages text-only, suppressing the full audio-video presentations.

  The first development concerned an adjustment to the local property-tax rates. “Glamorous Glynnis” had just amended the current rate structure to penalize any residence over 15,000 square feet that failed to feed power back to the grid. Sixty-five other people had endorsed the change. I added my own vote to theirs, and tacked on a clause to exempt group homes.

  Next came a modification to the rules of the nonvirtual marketplace back on the mainland, where I sold many of my salvaged goods in person. “Jinglehorse” wanted to extend the hours of operation on holidays. Competitively speaking, I'd feel compelled to be there if the booths were open extra. And since I liked my downtime, I voted no.

  Items three and four involved decriminalizing a newly designed recreational drug named “arp,” and increasing our region's freshwater exports. I didn't know enough about arp, so I got a search going for documents on the drug. I'd try to go through them tonight, and vote tomorrow. And even though I felt bad for the drought-sufferers down south, I didn't want to encourage continued habitation in a zone plainly unsuited for its current population densities, so I voted no.

  The last item concerned a Wikitustional Amendment. National stuff. This new clause had been in play for six months now without getting at least provisionally locked down, approaching a record length of revision time. The amendment mandated regular wiki participation as a prerequisite for full enfranchisement in the UWA. “Uncle Sham” had just stuck in a clause exempting people older than sixty-five. I wasn't sure what I thought about that, so I pushed the matter back in the queue.

  By the time I had attended to these issues, the first of my visitors had arrived: a lone man on a small vessel named The Smiling Dictator. The craft crunched onto the beach, and the guy jumped out.

  “Hey, Russ! Nice day for a house-raising.”

  Jack Cortez—“Cortez the Queller” in the ubik—resembled a racing greyhound in slimness and coiled energy. He wore a fisherman's vest over bare chest, a pair of denim cutoffs bleached white, and boat shoes. His SCURF showed as a dark green eagle across a swath of his chest.

  “Ahimsa, Jack! I really appreciate you showing up.”

  “No problem. The Church still owes you for retrieving that Madonna. But you gotta do some work nonetheless! Come on and give me a hand.”

  I went over to the Dictator and helped Jack wrestle some foam-encased objects big as coffee-table-tops out of the boat. When we had the half dozen objects stacked on land, he flaked off some of the protective foam and revealed the corner of a window frame.

  “Six smart windows. Variable opacity, self-cleaning, rated to withstand Category Four storms. Fully spimed, natch. One of our coreligionists is a contractor, and these were left over from a recent job.”

  “Pluricious!”

  By then, the rest of the boats had arrived. A perfect storm of unloading and greeting swept over my little domain. Crates and girders and pre-formed pilings and lumber and shingles and equipment accumulated in heaps, while bottled drinks made the rounds, to fortify and replenish. The wiki known as the Shewookies had brought not materials nor power tools but food. They began to set up a veritable banquet on folding tables, in anticipation of snacking and lunching.

  A guy I didn't recognize came up to me, hand extended. His SCURF formed orange tiger stripes on his cheeks and down his jaws. Before I could bring up his tag, he introduced himself.

  “Hi, Russ. Bob Graubauskas—'Grabass’ to you. Jimmywhale for the Sunflower Slowdrags. So, you got any solid preferences for your house?”

  “No, not really. Just so long as it's strong and spacious and not too ugly.”

  “Can do.”

  Grabass began to issue silent orders to his wiki, a ubik stream he cued me in on. But then a big woman wearing overalls intervened.

  “Margalit Bayless, with the Mollicutes. ‘Large Marge.’ You truly gonna let the Slowdrags design this structure all by themselves?”

  “Well, no….”

  “That's good. Because my people have some neat ideas too—”

  I left Large Marge and Grabass noisily debating the merits of their various plans while I snagged an egg salad sandwich and a coffee. By the time I had swallowed the last bite, both the Mollicutes and the Sunflower Slowdrags had begun construction. The only thing was, the two teams were starting at opposite ends of a staked-off area and working toward the common middle. And their initial scaffolding and foundations looked utterly incompatible. And some of the other wikis seemed ready to add wings to the nascent building regardless of either main team.

  As spimed materials churned under supervision like a nest of snakes or a pit of chunky lava or a scrum of rugby robots in directed self-assembly—boring into the soil and stretching up toward the sky—I watched with growing alarm, wondering if this had been the smartest idea. What kind of miscegenational mansion was I going to end up with?

  That's when Foolty Fontal showed up to save the day.

  He arrived in a one-person sea-kayak, of all things, paddling like a lunatic, face covered with sweat. So typical of the man, I would discover, choosing not to claim primary allegiance with any wiki, so he could belong to all.

  I tried to tag him, but got a privacy denial.

  Having beached his craft and ditched his paddle, Foolty levered himself out with agility. I saw a beanpole well over six feet tall, with glossy skin the color of black-bean dip. Stubby dreadlocks like breakfast sausages capped his head. Ivory SCURF curlicued up his dark bare arms like automobile detailing.

  Foolty, I later learned, claimed mixed Ethiopian, Jamaican, and Gullah heritage, as well as snippets of mestizo. It made for a hybrid genome as unique as his brain.

  Spotting me by the food tables, Foolty lanked over.

  “Russ Reynolds, tagged. Loved your contributions to Naomi Instanton.”

  F
oolty was referring to a crowd-sourced sitcom I had helped to co-script. “Well, thanks, man.”

  “Name's Foolty Fontal—‘FooDog.’”

  “No shit!”

  FooDog was legendary across the ubik. He could have been the jimmywhale of a hundred wikis, but had declined all such positions. His talents were many and magnificent, his ego reputedly restrained, and his presence at any nonvirtual event a legend in the making.

  Now FooDog nodded his head toward the construction site. A small autonomous backhoe was wrestling with a walking tripodal hod full of bricks while members of competing wikis cheered on the opponents.

  “Interesting project. Caught my eye this morning. Lots of challenges. But it looks like you're heading for disaster, unless you get some coordination. Mind if I butt in?”

  “Are you kidding? I'd be honored. Go for it!”

  FooDog ambled over to the workers, both human and cybernetic, streaming ubik instructions with high-priority tags attached faster than I could follow. A galvanic charge seemed to run through people as they realized who walked among them. FooDog accepted the homage with humble grace. And suddenly the whole site was transformed from a chaotic competition to a patterned dance of flesh and materials.

  That's the greatest thing about wikis: they combine the best features of democracy and autocracy. Everybody has an equal say. But some got bigger says than others.

  Over the next dozen hours, I watched in amazement as my house grew almost organically. By the time dusk was settling in, the place was nearly done. Raised high above sea level against any potential flooding, on deep-sunk cement piles, spired, curve-walled, airy yet massive, it still showed hallmarks of rival philosophies of design. But somehow the efforts of the various factions ultimately harmonized instead of bickered, thanks to FooDog's overseeing of the assorted worldviews.

  One of the best features of my new house, a place where I could see myself spending many happy idle hours, was a large wooden deck that projected out well over the water, where it was supported by pressure-treated and tarred wooden pillars, big as antique telephone poles, plunging into the sea.

  Three or four heaps of wooden construction waste and combustible sea-wrack had been arranged as pyres against the dusk, and they were now ignited. Live music flared up with the flames, and more food and drink was laid on. While a few machines and people continued to add some last-minute details to my house, illuminated by electrical lights running off the newly installed power system (combined wave motion and ocean temperature differential), the majority of the folks began to celebrate a job well done.

  I was heading to join them when I noticed a new arrival sailing in out of the dusk: a rather disreputable-looking workhorse of a fishing sloop. I pinged the craft, but got no response. Not a privacy denial, but a dead silence.

  This ship and its owner were running off the ubik, un-SCURFED.

  Intrigued, I advanced toward the boat. I kicked up my night vision. Its bow bore the name Soft Grind. From out of the pilothouse emerged the presumptive captain. In the ancient firelight, I saw one of the most beautiful women I had ever beheld: skin the color of teak, long wavy black hair, a killer figure. She wore a faded hemp shirt tied under her breasts to expose her midriff; baggy men's surfer trunks; and a distressed pair of gumboots.

  She leaped over the gunwales and off the boat with pantherish flair moderated only slightly by her clunky footwear.

  “Hey,” she said. “Looks like a party. Mind if I crash it?”

  “No, sure, of course not.”

  She grinned, exposing perfect teeth.

  “I'm Cherry. One of the Oyster Pirates.”

  And that was how I met Cherimoya Espiritu.

  3. In Love with an Oyster Pirate

  Gaia giveth even as she taketh away.

  The warming of the global climate over the past century had melted permafrost and glaciers, shifted rainfall patterns, altered animal migratory routes, disrupted agriculture, drowned cities, and similarly necessitated a thousand thousand adjustments, recalibrations, and hasty retreats. But humanity's unintentional experiment with the biosphere had also brought some benefits.

  Now we could grow oysters in New England.

  Six hundred years ago, oysters had flourished as far north as the Hudson. Native Americans had accumulated vast middens of shells on the shores of what would become Manhattan. Then, prior to the industrial age, there was a small climate shift, and oysters vanished from those waters.

  Now, however, the tasty bivalves were back, their range extending almost to Maine.

  The commercial beds of the Cape Cod Archipelago produced shellfish as good as any from the heyday of Chesapeake Bay. Several large wikis maintained, regulated, and harvested these beds, constituting a large share of the local economy.

  But as anyone might have predicted, wherever a natural resource existed, sprawling and hard of defense, poachers would be found.

  Cherimoya Espiritu hailed from a long line of fisherfolks operating for generations out of nearby New Bedford. Cape Verdean by remotest ancestry, her family had suffered in the collapse of conventional fisheries off the Georges Bank. They had failed to appreciate the new industry until it was too late for them to join one of the legal oyster wikis. (Membership had been closed at a number determined by complicated sustainability formulae.) Consequently, they turned pirate to survive in the only arena they knew.

  Cherimoya and her extensive kin had divested themselves of their SCURF: no subcutaneous ubik arfids for them, to register their presence minute-to-minute to nosy authorities and jealous oyster owners. The pirates relied instead on the doddering network of GPS satellites for navigation, and primitive cell phones for communication. Operating at night, they boasted gear to interfere with entomopter cams and infrared scans. They were not above discouraging pursuers with pulsed-energy projectile guns (purchased from the PEP Boyz). After escaping with their illicit catches, they sold the fruit of the sea to individual restaurants and unscrupulous wholesalers. They took payment either in goods, or in isk, simoleons and lindens that friends would bank for them in the ubik.

  Most of the oyster pirates lived on their ships, to avoid contact with perhaps overly inquisitive mainland security wikis such as the Boston Badgers and the Stingers. Just like me prior to my island-buying—except that my motivation for a life afloat didn't involve anything illicit.

  Bits and pieces of information about this subculture I knew just from growing up in the Archipelago. And the rest I learned from Cherry over the first few months of our relationship.

  But that night of my house-raising, all I knew was that a gorgeous woman, rough-edged and authentic as one of the oyster shells she daily handled, wanted to hang out on my tiny island and have some fun.

  That her accidental presence here would lead to our becoming long-term lovers, I never dared hope.

  But sure enough, that's what happened.

  Following Cherry's introduction, I shook her hand and gave my own name. Daring to take her by the elbow—and receiving no rebuke—I steered her across the flame-lit, shadowy sands towards the nearest gaggle of revelers around their pyre.

  “So,” I asked, “how come you're not working tonight?”

  “Oh, I don't work every night. Just often enough to keep myself in provisions and fuel. Why should I knock myself out just to earn money and pile up things? I'm more interested in enjoying life. Staying free, not being tied down.”

  “Well, you know, I think that's, um—just great! That's how I feel too!” I silently cursed my new status as a landowner and house-dweller.

  We came out of the darkness and into the sight of my friends. Guitars, drums, and gravicords chanced to fall silent just then, and I got pinged with the planned playlist, and a chance to submit any requests.

  “Hey, Russ, congratulations!” “Great day!” “House looks totally flexy!” “You're gonna really enjoy it!”

  Cherry turned to regard me with a wide grin. “So—gotta stay footloose, huh?”

  T
o cover my chagrin, I fetched drinks for Cherry and myself while I tried to think of something to say in defense of my new householder lifestyle. That damn sexy grin of hers didn't help my concentration.

  Cherry took a beer from me. I said, “Listen, it's not like I'm buying into some paranoid gatecom. This place—totally transient. It's nothing more than a beach shack, somewhere to hang my clothes. I'm on the water most of every day—”

  Waving a hand to dismiss my excuses, Cherry said, “Just funning with you, Russ. Actually, I think this place is pretty hyphy. Much as I love Soft Grind, I get tired of being so cramped all the time. Being able to stretch in your bunk without whacking your knuckles would be a treat. So—do I get a tour?”

  “Yeah, absolutely!”

  We headed toward the staircase leading up to my deck. Her sight unamped, Cherry stumbled over a tussock of grass, and I took her hand to guide her. And even when we got within the house's sphere of radiance, she didn't let go.

  Up on the deck, Foolty was supervising a few machines working atop the roof. Spotting me, he called out, “Hey, nephew! Just tying in the rainwater-collection system to the desalinization plant.”

  “Swell. FooDog, I'd like you to meet—”

  “No, don't tell me the name of this sweet niece. Let me find out on my own.”

  Cherry snorted. “Good luck! Far as the ubik knows, I'm not even part of this brane. And that's how I like it.”

  FooDog's eyes went unfocused, and he began to make strangled yips like a mutt barking in its sleep. After about ninety seconds of this, during which time Cherry and I admired a rising quarter moon, FooDog emerged from his trawl of the ubik.