In the crush to enter the building, the boys seek anonymity
Perfect Timing, Part 2; Sneak into school but don't get caught
| We serialize this novel, set in a world working right for everyone, a chapter a week for 32 weeks. © 2008 Jeffery J. Smith, all rights reserved. |
by Jeffery J. Smith, April 2008
On the university campus, Corey and Kenny get in a queue about a block long that’s leading up to the entrance of the main building. The others in the line consist of both adults and kids, bearing the by-now familiar assortment of features of various species and the apparel from many times and places. The line crawls forward, amiably, with people chatting, telling stories, singing, and dancing.“Man, the line’s long enough, like the opening of some new blockbuster,” Kenny says, “’cept nobody’s impatient. Hey, maybe they are showing movies today.”
Corey sighs deeply. He glances at his buddy then looks away. “Didn’t sleep last night, bro. The triplets got me so hot, damn, but no-go without their forever foreplay. What the fuck, y’know?”
Kenny looks at his buddy, taking it all in. “So they were serious about selfish,” he says.
“Another thing.” He turns to his friend. “You’re wasting your life, jack. You expect Tepper, someone you know, to shut you down like every one you didn’t get to know. A she, yeah, but she knows you, man, she sees something there.” Corey points at his friend. “Don’t be shy, dude, find out what could happen. She might feel the same. She’s only human, entitled to make a mistake, like everybody else.”
An insult, not a joke, and pushy advice all rolled up into one. The guy has changed. He is losing it.
Hopping up and down, a kid with bangs and freckles and scabby knees pulls a reluctant adult toward the end of the queue, behind the two Pastians.
“Daddy, can I go to school today, can I, huh?” the boy pesters.
“Son,” the father says, “you went to school every day this week!”
His words make little impact on the child who keeps tugging his father’s arm. Resigned, the father gets into line with his son behind Corey and Kenny. The kid, who has bleached his hair, examines the visitors in front of him. Another tyke joins the first on in examining the backsides of the travelers. This one wears a playsuit with built-in suspenders.
Pulling down his father’s arm and cupping his hand around his father’s ear, sonny whispers into the orifice, “The Pastians!”
The other child moves in closer behind Corey and with his hands searches the visitor’s butt. Corey yelps and spins around. The tyke turns to the other kid’s father.
“Where's his tail?”
“They’re not from that long ago,” the father says. To soothe Corey, who’s too startled to know whether to be agitated or puzzled, the father adds, “An honest mistake,” smiling.
More kids, likewise white-topped, gather about the first two; the bolder among them circle around the visitors for a better look. The members of the growing knot talk in low tones among themselves. The word “Pastian” pops out repeatedly.
A little person with cornrows on top confronts Corey. “Did adults really force kids to go to school, and make each other go to work, their whole lives?”
Corey and Kenny nod in assent, surveying the growing crowd.
Another kid, one in pigtails, cranks up her courage. “Were you ever sick?”
Shrugging, Corey nods. “Uh. Yee-uh.” He shakes his head.
The growing audience murmurs, one to another, the surprise on their faces turning into disbelief.
Another child waves his hand over his bushy, curly head, like a good student asking to be called on. “Could you really see poison in the air?
“Every day,” Kenny replies then adds thoughtfully, “Couldn’t see it, but poison was in the water and on our food, too.”
The crowd gasps, incredulity turning to shock. The many kids draw closer to the few adults in the crowd. The smallest ones clasp their parents’ hands.
A little weasely guy with a hatchet face and a Mohawk haircut almost growls the next question to Corey. “Did you ever kill anybody?”
The father of the first child pats the kid’s shoulder, trying to restore a sense of normalcy, and in the way adults have to placate kids on the verge of becoming problem kids, says, nodding, smiling, “I’m sure it was just to go along.”
Impressed, the Mohawk kid says, “I want to join your gang.”
“Great,” Kenny says. “You can be in charge of scheduling our return trip back home.”
Corey surveys the crowd, the laggard line of wanna-be students, and the distant university building. “Shit, this is taking way too long.” Ditching the queue, he struts away toward the multi-door entrance. Kenny hurries after him.
On the doorstep of the triplets’ condo, Voltak, wearing his handled ice tongs on his belt, leans against the buzzer built in the bark wall. The cat eyes him suspiciously. Andrei Two answers the door. Voltak bounces on his feet to see past the butler. The pincer-shaped weapon jangles from Voltak’s belt like a big key ring.
Above the school’s entrance is a marquee, like has a theatre, advertising some topics and professors, such as “The Breakthru in Time Travel” by Dr Murky, “Using 110% of Your Brain 110% of the Time” by Dr Pam Hetamine, and “Partnering With Nigerian Bankers” by Dr Mgumbo Jumbo.
At the head of the line, people spread out and shake a mechanical hand, one for each doorway, before entering the university building. Once paying, kids dash inside, leaving parents behind. The next customers are a little boy about ten with his mom who’s bedecked with flowers.
“Hurry, mom,” the kid says. “Ms. Newton promised to teach us trigonometry today!”
“Patience, Billy,” the mom says. “And after this, you promised your father to roughhouse with him, remember.”
Standing nearby, Kenny and Corey watch, surprised; school is not free, but it is popular, and with all ages.
“Look at that,” Kenny says, “some adults are going in even without kids!” He reaches into his pocket.
“Paying to go to school. Unbelievable,” Corey says, stopping his pal’s arm. “We’re not using any more thimbles; let them guess where we’ve gone a little while longer.” He scratches his head. “I wonder if we can go in through a bathroom window?”
Kenny sings, “she came in through the bathroom window.” He looks over the building. “School!” he says out loud, still incredulous. “And kids are paying to get in – willingly!”
Little Billy, happy to show off, tilts his head. “You play, you pay.”
Corey points at himself. “So, you work, you get in for free?”
That gives Billy and his mom pause. Billy points at Corey, too. “Did you already spend all your money?”
“Billy!” the mother says to her son, grabbing his shoulder. “What if they’re not from here?” She turns to the visitors, apology stretching her face into a contrite smile, then reaches for the mechanical hand with a thumb aiming at the sky. “Please, allow me.”
“Mam,” Kenny says, “Corey here is quite curious and might learn everything they teach. Sure it’s not too much?”
The mother chuckles.
Inside the school building’s crowded lobby, Kenny and Corey are circumnavigated by a revolving Billy, bouncing up and down.
“Are you guys poor?” Billy wants to know. “Wow! I’ve never met any poor people before.”
The mom grabs his shoulder again, shushing him. “Billy, please, they’re probably from a place where citizens get only tiny dividends.”
“Where we’re from,” Corey says, “tiny would be a healthy start.”
Billy squats then springs up into the air. “Like that! I’m sort of tiny and that’s my healthy start!”
The mom laughs. She and her son drift off.
“Dividends, dividends.” Kenny grabs his buddy’s shoulder. “Man, that could be the key to the geonomic puzzle.”
Corey turns out from under his pal’s hand. “Forget words, man, we need deeds, like a safe trip back home.”
“But where do you figure the money for this dividend comes from?”
“Don’t know, but if we stay here long enough, I’m getting mine from finding some attorney to sue these bastards.” Corey edges away. “Screw the puzzle.”
Kenny tries to waylay his pal. “This just in, man. Showing we know something might just impress somebody in power when any minute we might need it the most.”
“OK, impress away. I got to go test the plumbing.”
“Well that’s a one-man job,” Kenny says.
Corey strides away to one side of the foyer.
Nodding, Kenny raises his hands alternately, like weighing the air. Hurrying off, he catches up to the mother and child. “If you don’t mind, your dividends are like shares, right? But coming from what? For doing what?”
The bedecked mom takes a flower from her hair and hands it to him. “Air’s free. River’s free. Flowers are free. Your fair share is free.”
Kenny nods, hoping for enlightenment, but draws a blank that his sagging smile reflects.
The mom throws up her hands and shakes her head. She gets out her PP and opens it, letting the homunculus take shape. Blinking, stretching his arms, the littlest man in green stands and scratches himself.
“The word for the day is ‘itchy’.”
“Tell him all about the Citizens Dividend,” Billy hollers.
The mom hands the PP to the visitor.
“This dividend,” Kenny says, “this share that people get – how is it possible? What’s it from?”
“Where are you from?” The homunculus looks over at the mom who shrugs. The leprechaunesque fellow speaks laboriously in his Irish accent. His words appear in the air, spelling out his answer. “Everybody … gets … a share … of Earth’s … worth … duh.” Then the words evaporate like mist in sunlight.
“Everybody?” Kenny asks.
The mother and son nod. The homunculus raises its eyebrows in a plea and throws open his arms, welcoming hoped-for understanding. Still puzzled, Kenny hands the phone back.
Outside in the queue to enter, the triplets get a call on Marissa’s phone. They huddle around her handheld device, Karessa’s pruners swinging as she moves. A holograph of Andrei pops up briefly then collapses to one side.
A holograph of Voltak fills the field. “I’m in your home looking for the Pastians.”
“We’re at the university,” Marissa says, “looking for the Pastians.”
“Especially the wild one,” Larissa says.
“The university.” Holographic Voltak shakes his head. “So they really think they can pick up geonomics fast enough to show some sort of predisposition.” He chuckles at their tilting at windmills. “Well.”
“You can help us catch them,” Karessa says, “and we’ll share them with you.”
“One for you,” Marissa says, “one for us.”
Holographic Voltak shakes his head. “Can’t break up the set.”
Not grasping the niceties of the time rupture quandary or just assuming it’s none of their business, they continue explaining, blithely indifferent to protocol and proud of their track record.
“He’ll go back chastened, matured.” Larissa swings her bag.
“Much better than he ever was when he came,” Karessa says with predictive pride, pursing her lips.
The holograph of Voltak moves away from the scene of the condo’s front door. “We’ll see,” he growls.
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Jeffery J. Smith runs the Forum on Geonomics.
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