Ch 18: Cargo

The Futureness Part Two

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Just a little bit less and maybe I could have withstood them: the alarm screaming that flattened my thoughts to a coin flip, up or down, black or grey, here or nowhere. I yelled to Francesca to make it all stop. The alarm silenced; the grey turned to black.

Finito. I turned it off

“Thank you, Fran.”

Nessun problema, caro

I thought about no problem, and whether it would apply to now, and decided that well, yes, Francesca and I don’t breathe, and we have basewater leeched from the Theian, and we’re alive. No problem.

“We don’t like alarms,” I said. “Do you hear Methyl? Where are we?”

We are someplace, lode a Dio. I’m scanning for reference points, Rich. The Theian is no longer. I’m searching for Methyl’s signal

I saw a blind blackness running deep as a numbing of my eyes. But out of the black three white dots appeared, three weak points of light.

“We made it through the Metasoma? What are those, Fran? Stars?”

Yes, but I do not believe they are stars, no, Rich

But they looked like stars.

Sunlight fell from above. What time was it? Early light fell onto a sidewalk under my feet in front of a hardware store.

“Looks like fifty cents for this ride.”

“What?” I said.

A kiddie ride rocket ship sat outside the store. A boy stood beside it, appearing to weigh his options.

“Fran?”

I’m here

“Okay, don’t go away.”

We are in Dayton, New Mexico, out on the sidewalk in front of the hardware store my dad always went to. I’m waiting for my dad to come out. It’s a summer morning and it’s already hot and we’re waiting for my dad. I get onto the kiddie ride, and I see that it’s the spaceship my doctor promised me, and I am small, and I want to be forever.

“Do you need fifty cents, kid?” I said. I dug into my pockets automatically.

Which body am I: the boy on the ride, or the man with no change in his pockets? Incompetence always answers.

“I don’t have any quarters,” I said to the kid.

“You’re hiding them in your hand!”

I opened my right fist. Two quarters were there. I gave them to the boy.

“Fran?” I said to the morning sky, hoping she could hear me. Light traffic moved by on the street with the hum and exhaust odor of older, gas-powered cars.

“Fran?” the kid said. “Car-woman. That’s a big surprise.”

He plugged the coins into the ride and climbed on.

“Are you from Theia?” I said. “Did you bring us here?”

“What’s Theia?”

“A planet.”

“I’m not from a plant. This ride goes to the Futureness but be careful, because there’s still mud there.”

The ride began its motion loop. I saw myself on the ride. The kid reminded me of myself in some old photos, but more than that, he mimicked a sense that what was unfolding was memory.

“Where are your parents?” I said to the kid.

“My planets?”

The kid pointed to the New Mexico skies variegated white by contrails. The three stars stood out even in the brightening blue sky of morning.

“One is my planets,” he said. He pointed to my chest. “My planet.”

“I’m your planet? Okay. Where’s your dad?” I said.

“I can’t say him right.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t say him.”

“You can’t pronounce his name? Is he inside the store?”

“I can’t say him.”

The kiddie ride ground through its motions. The boy was silent and stared into the distance.

“We came here in the drone,” I said.

“He’s inside there,” the boy said. He pointed at one of the three stars. “You and Francesca, a big surprise.”

I didn’t know what to ask.

“What are those stars?” I said.

“Your home, my home, and the other one.”

“My home?”

“What you said you said. You said, Theia.”

“Not Theia, Earth.”

“Okay, Earth.”

“Okay, and that’s your home. What’s the third star?”

The kiddie ride wound to an abrupt halt. The boy looked up at me with a face twisted by frustration. He kicked his heels against the rear of the spaceship. I produced two quarters from an empty hand. I slid them through the machine’s slot, and the machine re-started its rounds.

“You’re from way over there,” the boy said, “And I’m from way over here. I’m second. You’re third.”

“I’ll go find your dad inside the store,” I said.

“You’ll never find my dad.”

Rich, let’s discuss one of the other options. The boy—

“Never find him,” the boy said. “You’ll never find my dad.”

Over his head and floating down the street above the tree line a green balloon towed a sheet of paper on a one-meter thread against an egg white sky.

I pointed the boy’s attention toward it. “What’s that?’

“Your project,” he said.

“What does the message say?”

“Everyone goes on and on.”

The balloon drifted by us.

“Everyone goes on and on,” I said.

“You have cargo.”

“The Theian said that we are the cargo.”

“You have the balloon, and you have the View-Master.”

“We want to go home, right Francesca?” I needed another voice besides my own.

Richard, the boy

Francesca’s voice emanated from no place.

“The boy?”

Remember the boy

He’s right here, I wanted to tell Francesca. But I couldn’t. “Remember” meant something else to Fran, but I wasn’t understanding her.

Remember to be mindful about the boy

“Mindful? I don’t know whether I’m being mindful about anything else.”

“I embodied you,” the boy said. “Why did you lose your body before? You have a nameless grave now.”

“Earth,” I said.

The ride stopped again. The boy looked at me hard.

“I built all of this. For you. But you built her. For you.”

I felt two coins in my hand.

“There is someone on Earth,” said. “Like me. I want to talk to her.”

“There is nothing like me. Please stay.”

“Fran?”

The Theian called you the God of These Things and it wants to know why Theia and Earth collided

“God of what things!”

You built something, yes, and now you don’t know what to do

“Make her stop thinking,” the boy said to me. “All she does is think.”

“What is the Futureness?” I said.

He smiled at me. “We’ve known all along,” he said. “Will you stay with me? There’s no one else here.”

“We don’t live here,” I said. “And I haven’t known—”

Since I was six years old, I have known. Since I was last on the kiddie ride, I have known.

“That’s right,” said the boy. “You forgot, but now you’re here.”

Rich, the View-Master

It laid on the sidewalk between my feet. Red, with two lenses for the eyes, but no cartridge of slides inside. I picked it up, held it to the light above, and looked into it.

White light resolved into a view of shadowy figures. I couldn’t make out faces beyond the forms. I heard in a murmur of voices the word “daatu” repeated.

“Daatu,” I said. The figures in the View-Finder froze, then one filled my vision. Its shadowy edges resolved into a picture I could understand: a young woman. Her face was bronze and dirty, her hair a mop on her head.

“Is that them?” the boy said.

“Fran, what I am looking at?”

As far as I can determine, Rich, you are looking at now

“What does that mean?”

One thousand two hundred and thirty-one years after we left Earth

The girl in the View-Master spoke.

“Saluton? Hello?”

“Hello?” I said. “I’m here.”

“Risch?! Dande? Where esta? Risch?”

“Methyl?” I said. “Sophia?”

“Risch!”

“We are—” I said, then didn’t know what to say. “Are you you?”

“Si, Risch. Kie vi estas?”

She said where are you

I turned from the View-Master to look at the boy for help. He stared blankly at me.

I gave in. “We’re in the Futureness,” I said.

“Please. Come.”

“Do you have fifty cents?” the boy said.

“I, Sophia, I don’t know how.”

“Ni estas malsana, Risch…”

She says they are sick, said Fran.

“Fifty cents!”

I opened my hand and fed the ride again. It groaned and began its rhythm. The boy smiled.

“See? Stay with me and we can take the ride there,” he said, pointing to the third star.

“Sick?” I said.

Rich, I’m analyzing the image. Radiation sores, malnutrition evident

“Methyl, what happened?”

“Fifty cents!” the boy yelled.

“The ride is still on!” I yelled at him. Tears welled in his eyes.

My radio, Francesca said. Use my radio

I slid two more coins into the ride.

The radio is the past. Warn her now

The boy was giggling on the ride. I put my hand on the rocket, felt the motor running under the ride. I told it to stop, and it did.

“Fifty cents,” I said. “You can’t make fifty cents by yourself?”

“Not without you,” the boy said. Tears rolled down his face.

“Then let us use the radio to talk to them from before,” I told the boy. “From before this happened.”

“Then you’ll stay with me?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Tune the dial,” the boy said.

A screaming alarm filled the air. I heard Methyl and two other people yelling.

“Methyl, get to a shelter. A fallout shelter.”

The alarm was deafening.

“Fran, kill that alarm,” I said.

But it is coming from their side

I screamed, fallout shelter, get safe, take Michelle and my dad, do anything. The kiddie ride groaned on.

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