It's Later Than You Think, Part One

Early evening is beautiful here, though; the skin becomes infused with the sunset and looks opaque at the periphery of your vision, but looking straight up or across the city it's still completely transparent, and you can imagine that there is only the air above and around you. But the best bit is the quiet.

It isn't a muffled quiet, either, which is what I would have expected from an enclosed space no matter how big. I like to look across the hydropon-gardens on the rooftops, and watch the birds fly and imagine they are free.

The last uplog of the day happens at 5:00pm for children seven to twelve years old (the under-sevens get a minimum dose once or twice a day; I haven't figured that one out yet). It's later for everyone else; however, as I'm still regarded as being in kiddy daycare here, I get to shut out the noise with the youngsters. I'm coping much better with the aud-logs, can even hold conversations now while they're streaming, but still can't manage the vids unless I'm sitting still somewhere with a blank wall in front of me.

I can't help thinking that they would have planned this better if they were going to pull someone through. They say they had to get me through in a hurry; but I've pretty much decided it wasn't them at all. It had to be the Farmers. I think my being on the train was a complete accident; a miscalculation, whatever: something got messed up and I was pulled through onto the train instead of outside or wherever they were doing it, and when the Pons unloaded at the depot they didn't even know I was on board.

I saw the medic's face when he realized I'd been in there during wash-down. "You don't subject people to that strength wash, even if they are Farmers," he'd said, although I had no idea what he meant at the time.

Oh, and they've changed their tactics. The question sessions only last three hours each, now. I guess they finally believe me when I say I can't cope with the constant barrage from the auds and vids.

They don't get any of my jokes. When they ask me to explain, I tell them to Google it. Then there's a pause, followed by a confab among them, as they access data on Google -- the "search engines" as we called them are all integrated and intuitive now.

See, this is the part I don't understand. Why would they keep grilling me if they have access to all the information they need, already? Unless they are simply trying to find out how I was pulled through, who did it, and why.

I have no idea. We start again.

"What information do you carry that we can best use?"

"Well, I dunno. What is it you need?"

"How best can you inform us?"

"How best? I could try singing, if you like."

"Tell us about where you're from."

"It's a fucked-up situation. You know more about it than I do. Access it on the logs."

"Tell us, anyway. There must be a lot of information that isn't available to us."

"OK: once upon a time, long ago but not very far away, there --"

"This expression, 'once upon a time,' is common parlance?"

"Do you want me to tell you this or not?"

"Continue."

"The American economy has finally crashed, which affected the world economy. China is poised to inherit the earth -- they just didn't know it, or what to do with it. We are on the edge of anarchy in the US. It looks bad -- homesteaders trying to live off the land, cattle rustlers back in operation, brink of disaster stuff: we don't know what's coming next. Mayhem. Civil unrest. Cats and dogs living together."

We all take a moment, while they try to figure out why my vid show is showing them an image of Bill Murray. I offer no explanation. Like I can control this stuff? It just reads my mind.

"Continue."

"I don't know what you want to hear! Why did you bring me through?"

"We need to know some of the circumstances that led up to the Incursions."

"What are the Incursions? When do they happen?"

"Please, we've told you already: we'll have to confer on the matter of what to reveal to you. We'll tell you as much as we can, as soon as we can."

"You keep saying that. Can I speak to the boss?"

Pause,

"Do you mean the Emperatrix?"

"I guess -- is she the boss?"

"We cannot allow that at the moment. Please continue. Tell us about life before the Incursions -- life as you knew it in the early 2000's."

"God, I don't know what you want to hear! Gasoline prices are a big issue -- there is a lot of hassle with different countries trying to control the world market, control the supply of gasoline. I mean, we know we need to stop using it, but the whole infrastructure of all First World and even many Third World countries is built on the existence of the road grids, the automobiles, everyone's right to burn un-renewable fuels. Sure, there is a movement to turn to greener power sources, but --"

"-- Greener? What is green about them?"

"Not literally green. I mean environmentally non-toxic and non-threatening forms of power production -- wind power, solar power, that kind of thing. We call it green."

"Could you phrase your explanations without using such terminology?"

"Could you bite me?"

Pause.

"Please continue. Why was there such a delay in switching from fossil fuels to these. . . green sources of power?"

"Money. While there is still gasoline to be pumped out of the ground, people want to pump it and sell it. And we're dependent on it to get to work, to get to the store, to heat and cool our homes -- we don't live in giant transparent domes where 'all power needs are integrated into a flexible distribution pattern and no waste is produced'" -- this last bit was the audio-feed I was simultaneously getting, so I just repeated it, and there was a picture of a Pons home with the power supply highlighted in pink, against a backdrop of the skin rendered slightly opaque by a beautiful sunset.

"Why did you let this situation occur? The climate changes were already raising ocean levels."

"How the hell can we stop it?"

Pause.

"Continue."

I thought for a moment. "That's what the Incursions are? Enough pissed-off people trying to overthrow big oil?"

"We cannot discuss past events in your future."

"Say what?"

"You understand us perfectly. Please continue."

"Scientists are predicting a rise in the sea level of 20 feet in the next one hundred years, although. . . that may be partly offset -- by the vast regions of peat bogs, in the northern hemisphere; they can literally soak up the water like a sponge. I dunno. I guess we do something right, though -- or you guys wouldn't be here, would you?"

Pause.

From the rooftops, in the hydro-pons (the gardens with no dirt in them, 'cause we wouldn't want dirt upsetting the eco-system, now would we?), I like to look out through the skin, at the other towns that don't have domes, tensile skins keeping them free from contaminants. The Farmers must be tough enough, that's for sure, to have survived whatever it was that took place (they won't even tell me what year it is, for crying out loud -- but I think we must be at least several hundred years into the future. I mean, I don't recognize any landmarks).

They still farm soil. Keep animals, too, although I've never seen any.

I wonder if they still brew beer out there. Distill liquor. I could sure use a drink. Here, they have "O-J," "T-J," and "C-J" to drink, but none of them taste like anything I'm remotely familiar with (well, the O-J has a kind of peachy aftertaste, but it isn't exactly pleasant). They are colorless and odorless, and I can't help thinking it's just recycled piss, but the Pons assure me it's gray water, not black.

These clothes are very comfortable, though. It's a soft fiber -- maybe bamboo? They grow a lot of bamboo in here. A lot of the furniture must be bamboo, although it looks like wood. Not much metal anywhere. No foundries? No factories? The auds won't let me access that kind of information, and the vids just show images of verdant bamboo groves waving in an imaginary breeze.

"Tell us about North Korea."

"I don't really know anything. If you look at the country on a satellite image at night -- the whole place is dark. They're in the dark ages. But they just tested a nuclear device of some sort."

"Continue."

"Are the Incursions related to North Korea? China? Is there a nuclear war?"

"That was your main worry -- a nuclear attack?"

"I guess. I mean, with countries like Pakistan and North Korea having nuclear capabilities -- who knows what the fuck could happen. Did it?"

Pause.

"You really know very little about the situation that was developing? -- Or are you still reluctant to talk to us?"

"I wouldn't mind some answers. But what can an ordinary person like me tell you? I just read the news online. All I know comes from what the news sources release. But it's not like the news media are withholding information -- they just tell us the news that sells."

Pause. "Sells?"

"Yeah -- sells papers, sells magazines, makes us watch their TV channels. Information is a commodity, a product, like anything else. It's market-driven."

"And what do you want to know?"

That was a good question. Now I know how Lemuel Gulliver felt when he was being grilled about England by his Houyhnhnm master. "Apparently, if you survey the news feeds, we want to know about reality shows and celebrities who adopt children from other countries. I guess we are in denial."

Pause, while we all contemplate an image of Madonna with big breasts.

"Tell us about food production."

"Do I have to? Can't we all go watch a movie or something? Chill a while?"

"We brought you through so you could tell us about the early 2000's."

"You didn't bring me through at all! Admit it! It was the Farmers, wasn't it? And I don't think you have the first clue how I got here or how I'm ever going to get home!"

"You still want to go home?"

"Hell yes, I do! Ya think I want to live here in a plastic bag?"

Pause. Images of plastic, then latex, then condoms, for some reason. Who is thinking that?

I'm riled, now. "Why can't you talk to me face-to-face? Why do we have to talk through the logs? Scared you'll catch cooties?"

These questions they ask.  What DO I know?  We could be on the brink -- must be on the brink -- of something global, otherwise they wouldn't be asking me about the 2000's.  Jeez.  I need to get out of this dome; I need to get to the Farmers and find out why -- and how -- they brought me here.

And if I can ever go home.