Future.Con
A Speculative Novel of the Near Future
by Nowick Gray
What
is Future.Con? A psychological mystery; a literate techno-thriller;
a spiritual quest embedded in a hacker's coy game. Welcome
to every computer programmer's nightmare: the virus that
shows up on the user side of the interface. In this stylish
parable of the near future, Joe Norton falls prey to a force
that threatens to tear his Philadelphia life apart--from
the inside out.
Prologue: The Dream
Car
Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.
--Carl Jung
I go to my car in the parking lot, stumbling
against the worn asphalt and scattered gravel underfoot. The
street is deserted; garish signs leer at me. Overhead the
wires moan against a dirty-sheet sky, murky and full of warm
October air so foul you could spit it out.
Ah, there's Myrtle, her sleek lines of molded steel a lovely
polished green. But what's this? A square of white notepaper
flaps from the driver's side vent; propped against the door
are two pieces of a disassembled scope rifle; and a compact
leather carrying case lies mute on the asphalt. Quickly
I look around: still no one but me. I ignore the note for
the moment, fascinated by the gun. When I pick it up, I
get grease on my fingers, and discern from the blue-metal
sheen that it's new. Then from the half-opened case on the
ground, specially packaged in shrink-wrap, one silvery bullet
winks up at me.
A bullet--for whom?
I'm a stranger to guns, but this question pops crystal
clear into my dreaming head. The note hangs idly against
the window. I really should read it: but now I'm afraid
to. I want to hold onto my ignorance.
The question keeps knocking on the back of my brain. In
a slow funk I get into the car, putting the gun and case
in the back seat casually yet deliberately, as if they were
a small hydraulic jack, an evening newspaper. I'm mesmerized
by a vague sense of purpose, but can't identify its source
or destination. There is only the next action ahead of me,
what I know to do. Pulling the key out of my pocket, I insert
it into the ignition, and give it a twist . . .
In my waking sweat I thought I might have chosen a way
out of it--an alternate future, enticing as a carrot to
my donkey mind. But no; it was all part of some previous
choice. I'd already committed, somehow, to this strange
fork in the road, and it was too late to go back. Like saying
to Moira, "I'm sorry," after sleeping with her sister Sheila.
Or telling my boss Gerald, "I told you so," after our company
was dissolved in the great merger. Or at any point along
the way, finding that the heaven I'd been promised (even
if it was only a promise I'd made to myself) turned out
to be just another version of hell.
The covers were off and I could see my fairly long, medium-fat,
moderately hairy middle-aged body shivering in my shorts
in Moira's big circular bed. I grabbed some of the covers
back from Moira. My bed-mate lay breathing heavily beside
me, her flank in a pink nightgown rising and falling with
the rhythm of sleep. I'd come partly awake, but the dream
was not over. I had the distinct feeling I was stuck in
that green dream-car for the duration of the ride. My eyes
drifted shut again.
Dead oak leaves swirl silently in the rear-view along Tourney
Crescent. I lean back in my driver's seat, strangely satisfied
with the automatic motions of steering, my two-forefinger
method. Everything in the drab outside world seems normal.
I crank the window down for a breath of the familiar, dank
breeze. The unread note ripples harmlessly outside the window.
Maybe I should read it--when I get home to Moira's. For
now, I'm content to watch the brown and gray buildings file
past.
Time-beaten love songs filter down from upstairs apartment
windows. There is life in Philadelphia, contrary to media
reputation: men in pastel sweatshirts and windbreakers,
women in perm jobs and plastic boots, dogs pissing on mutant
trees.
And now I'm afraid: it's all too easy. Something in my
brain rebels. My inner ears prick up. My instincts call
me back to waking light--but getting back from there is
like learning to crawl on hot tar.
Then I hear an eerily mechanical voice, crackling like
a drive-in movie speaker: "Wanna see a new film, chum? Come
on in. Just step through the revolving door."
What?
There's no window speaker at this drive-in. No revolving
door I can see. No one in the back seat, with the gun.
But there was a voice: of this I'm certain. With an indefinable
accent comprising something of London, Chicago, Tijuana.
My eyes are focused ahead, seeing nothing different. I
want no part of this scenario that's developing. But my
foot remains on the accelerator; my fingers continue steering;
the "dream" continues. I begin to realize that I'm effectively
accepting this grimly pleasant voice's invitation, still
without knowing exactly what's in it for me.
Underneath my anxiety is a kind of grace that accompanies
the inevitable. A peace that settles in beyond the moment
of choice: though in this case, I can't see where there
was a choice to be made. Unless--well, I did pick up the
gun.
I glance behind me again to check that it's still there.
Okay, I consider, but I didn't deliver this artifact to
my car in the first place. I just took the next logical
step. When the drink is mixed by another's hand, it can
go down oh, so easy.
The voice chimes back in: "Oh, by the way, did I tell you?
It's a horror movie. Hmm--what's the mattah? You prefer
romantic comedies? Ah, too bad! There are, sad to say, no
refunds. No exit doors in this here show." Then, hollow,
metallic laughter.
I want to panic. Instead, I drive on, an automaton in my
own flesh. The voice consoles me: "Cheer up, chum! There's
a perfect place for you just over the horizon. In fact,
my friend, that's where we're headed right now."
Friend? My skin puckers like used aluminum foil.
"Why me?" I want to protest. "I didn't ask for any damned
horror movie or romantic fantasy. I just want to get on
with my life. I'm happy enough right where I am …"
And in nearly saying so, I momentarily regain the comforting
sense that I'm merely lying in Moira's bed, and not driving
that hellish car I thought was mine. I want to explain to
my unseen hitchhiker: "It's basically a queen-sized bed,
y'see, which is good because Moira's a large woman. That
bed is her pride and joy. The circle shape takes some getting
used to; you sometimes wonder where you are, half-asleep
in the middle of the night. And I still haven't figured
out if it's really big enough for both of us. Moira likes
to lie smack in the middle of the bed, sprawled with her
heavy arms way out. She likes, I think, the fact that she
bought this bed originally; that she owns it. But half the
time, I'm not there, so we figure it doesn't pay to put
a lot of cash into a bigger one. One of these days, we might
finally get 'serious,' and I can move in with her on a more
permanent basis, instead of this kind of semi-commitment
we have going at the moment--or should I say, the past four
years. We haven't even bothered to invest in furniture yet.
Other than that bed, we just make do with the bare necessities
that came with the apartment that Moira still insists on
paying for…"
The voice, which by now been reduced to a passive ear,
indulges me in my unspoken chatter only so far; then interrupts
with its own shrill, unwelcome pitch:
"We're selecting a few of the most deserving . . . call
them souls if you wish. And introducing them, one by one,
to old Uncle River: the river of time, that is. Remember,
no deposit, no return…"
"Yeah, I get it," I bark back. "No purchase necessary."
To hell with his would-be chumminess, I decide. I'm determined
to offer nothing gracious of myself to this faceless huckster.
The voice keeps on talking, now taking on a resentful edge:
"Look. Every experience, even on your blessed earth, is
a doomed adventure which will, likely as not, scar you for
life. The slice of time's cutlass is marked on every face."
Yeah maybe. But what does he mean, "on your earth?" Myrtle,
what have they done to you, and where are they taking us?
Shivering, I grip the wheel and force the green beast right,
merging with traffic on Haliburton Boulevard. The voice
goes silent. I breathe a little easier.
This is my earth, my ancient earth, I console myself. Downtown
Philly, in fact. This is without a doubt my own and only
green 1978 Oldsmobile, with full-sized retractable and reclining
seats, medium chrome trim, power to burn. I know I walked
up to it as I do every working afternoon, in the parking
lot outside the computer consulting office where I work,
in the same tacky part of town: bits of newspaper blowing
around, stray mutts roaming, homeless beggars huddled against
the walls of abandoned warehouses…
Christ, now I've circled the block. We're back at the parking
lot ringed with scraggly young oaks wrapped in anti-dog
cages. I pull over and stop, taking stock. The voice remains
silent, but my own head rattles in its cage.
How and why have I ended up back here? Have I forgotten
something at the office, something I was supposed to bring
home? Did I neglect to turn off my computer before I left?
Strange, I can't remember. There's a light on up there--Gerald's
office. He's working overtime again.
Me, I just do my job, and then punch out.
Is that why I haven't got farther ahead in this once-promising
career?
Is that what this voice is telling me, to get back to work?
I'm forty-eight. So yeah, it's crunch time, as they say.
Now or never. Maybe it is time to pay some extra dues.
But…about this car…going somewhere, for someone…?
This gun out of nowhere: to do something, to someone…
(Going . . .) But no: I'm going home.
Home . . . now where the hell is that?
I
feel the cold sweat again, even as I tell you that I came,
much further downstream in that dusky river, to discover
that you can go home for only a while. You think you are
waking up with a chilly memory, and your body and the body
beside you rousing from an actual sleep pure and innocent.
But meanwhile the jealous other, the nightmare you call
it, this certain other affair tugs at your soul in the unending
dark, telling you that you can't cancel your return reservations,
not any more. Because you've already chosen--or been chosen.
(It comes to the same thing in the end.)
And the choice will beckon again. Only tonight, the next
night and the next, it's not really the same time or place,
because you're farther along, deeper in.
You tell them, you tell yourself, you're just doing a job.
Forget, for now, whether it's your job or their job. The
problem is, the imagined target always eludes the little
roving window of your scope, their scope. The bullet never
gets fired, not just yet. Because you're looking for the
sure way in, the way back home.
You go to see, for instance, the object of your desire.
Her eyes are vibrant and alive. But those eyes are also
windows to a farther shore, twin discs headed out in the
one-way night. To enter her, those eyes, is to enter it,
the spiraling path, with no backspacing, no escaping the
hungry parasite in the computer mind:
Future.Con
Only later could I give it this name: the name it was given.
When I first came awake, which is to say, more or less but
not yet truly awake, I had only the echo of its voice as
warning:
"Coming Soon to a Workstation Near You."
Yeah, right, I said to myself, shaking off a poor night's
sleep. But it had already happened.
© Nowick Gray, 2000
With
instructions to kill and a baffling menu of choices, Norton
faces a rocky ride through a series of alternate realities,
at the whim of an invisible adversary.
Norton
has to suspect Gerald, his boss at the consulting firm.
Harry, his savvy sidekick on the technical end, tries to
be helpful, but appears to be stymied. His shrink, Dr. Evans,
is intrigued but says it's all in Norton's head. Is the
only way out, to go further in?
Chapter
2: Moira's Bed
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About
the author: Nowick Gray, born in 1950 within dreaming
distance of Joe Norton's Philadelphia, encountered his first
computer at Dartmouth College in 1968. The dream car appeared
some twenty years later, a haunting now put to rest. Future.Con
is his first published novel.
To read more about the
author, click here.
