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, 2000/2007
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.
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