Future We Wish We Had, The, page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Acknowledgements
Introduction
A ROSÉ FOR EMILY
WAITING FOR JULIETTE
BOYS
TRAINER OF WHALES
GOOD OLD DAYS
KICKING AND SCREAMING HER WAY TO THE ALTAR
ALIEN VOICES
INSIDE JOB
A SMALL SKIRMISH IN THE CULTURE WAR
DARK WINGS
MY FATHER, THE POPSICLE
DESTINY
COLD COMFORT
THE STINK OF REALITY
YELLOW SUBMARINE
GOOD GENES
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Alien voices? No, that was madness ...
I bent my knees into a demi-plié, forcing my heels to remain on the floor.
Sharp pains shot from my knees into my brain. It felt as if someone drove daggers directly into my temples, again and again in rhythm with my elevated pulse.
I collapsed onto the floor, pressing the heels of my palms into my eyes. The moment I stretched my body flat on the floor the pain stopped. But the memory remained. I cowered there for many long moments, whimpering.
Alien voices? Nanobots inside my body. Alien voices!
My mind looped around and around the problem. Could it be? Could the mad surgeon with his miracle procedure have done more. Much, much more?
The nanobots repaired damage. The doctor had hinted that they could even recognize new damage as it occurred.
Was the leap to recognizing potential damage too far?
From there might they not need to discourage behavior that could lead to potential damage?
No, I reasoned. That was madness.
Madness. Had the nurse used that word?
—From “Alien Voices” by P.R. Frost
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Copyright © 2007 by Tekno Books and Rebecca Lickiss.
All Rights Reserved.
DAW Book Collectors No. 1426.
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First Printing, December 2007
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Introduction copyright © 2007 by Rebecca Lickiss
“A Rosé for Emily,” copyright © 2007 by Esther M. Friesner
“Waiting For Juliette,” copyright © 2007 by Sarah A. Hoyt
“Boys,” copyright © 2007 by Dave Freer
“Trainer of Whales,” copyright © 2007 by Brenda Cooper
“Good Old Days,” copyright © 2007 by Kevin J. Anderson
“Kicking and Screaming Her Way to the Altar,” copyright © 2007 by Alan L. Lickiss
“Alien Voices,” copyright © 2007 by P. R. Frost
“Inside Job,” copyright © 2007 by Loren L. Coleman
“A Small Skirmish in the Culture War,” copyright © 2007 by Mike Resnick and James Patrick Kelly
“Dark Wings,” copyright © 2007 by Lisanne Norman
“My Father, The Popsicle,” copyright © 2007 by Annie Reed
“Destiny,” copyright © 2007 by Julie Hyzy
“Cold Comfort,” copyright © 2007 by Dean Wesley Smith
“The Stink of Reality,” copyright © 2007 by Phyllis Irene Radford
“Yellow Submarine,” copyright © 2007 by Rebecca Moesta
“Good Genes,” copyright © 2007 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Introduction
Rebecca Lickiss
I remember watching the lunar missions on TV. Men landing and walking on the moon, collecting rocks and dirt, jumping around and having fun in their lunar buggy. It was exciting, thrilling, breathtaking, and inspiring. I remember one night looking up at the moon and thinking someone was up there, looking back at me. Probably they were busy elsewhere, or whatnot, but let’s go with it.
Then and there I promised myself that someday I would live on the moon. It didn’t seem such an impossible dream. All the science fiction that I read clearly implied that the future would hold wonders of technology that would revolutionize our lives, change the way we understood and interacted with each other, and help us to achieve the ideals of freedom and equality and prosperity that would make the world a better place. After all, why would anyone go to the trouble of getting to the moon, and then stop?
Sadly, but I’m sure not surprisingly, I don’t live on the moon, and there’s very little chance I ever will. Someone, somewhere along the line didn’t keep the implied promise of the future.
You know that future: the one where we all have some form of flying transportation, flying cars or jet-packs, and no one has to cook or do any of the boring housework that everyone hates. Everyone is smart; probably, we’re all scientists. Everything is all shiny chrome and sleekly aerodynamic.
Well, here we are in the future. Shiny chrome and sleek aerodynamics come and go as design fashions. We didn’t get our flying cars, but the entertainment possibilities today are staggering. We have music on demand, and we’re able to hear music seemingly minutes after it has been recorded. Also, there are some home theater systems that rival small theaters, without the overpriced snacks. Phones everywhere we go, which is becoming annoying.
It is interesting and exciting in its own way, but not exactly what I was expecting. Probably not what you were expecting either. Everyone had their own expectations—their own idea of what should and shouldn’t be. Which is why we get what we have.
Gathered here are sixteen stories of what this future we have now, and will have tomorrow, might have been. Could have been. Maybe still will be. Or maybe even one we’re glad is not.
I hope you enjoy these stories as much as I did. I hope they make you as nostalgic for the future that could have been as they have made me.
A ROSÉ FOR EMILY
Esther M. Friesner
“ ‘Newfangled’?’ Marjorie Bedford echoed, as if repeating the outlandish word would somehow make it go away. She leaned her forearms on the massive mahogany desk that was hers by right of being Paradise Purchased Properties’ top saleswoman. Behind her, floor-to-ceiling windows framed a glittering panorama of New York City from a very expensive height. “Did I actually hear you call the Carème 6000 Mequizeen ‘newfangled’?”
“Would you like me to call it a ‘contraption’ while I’m at it?” Emily June Newcomb replied tartly. She tossed back her golden hair and added: “I’m willing to throw in a couple of complimentary ‘goldangs’ and maybe a ‘consarn it’ or two, if you insist, but ‘yeehaw’ costs extra.”
“I assure you, Ms. Newcomb, I didn’t mean to insult you,” Marjorie said hastily. “I was simply . . . charmed by your colorful choice of words.”
“Bullshit, ma’am,” Emily said without raising her voice. She didn’t have to: a woman with her celebrity-level good looks was always heard. “How’s that for colorful? I know what you really think of me and my family. I just wish that when you were showing us the house, I wasn’t the only one who noticed the way you kept giving Mama and Daddy those condescending little smirks every time they oohed and aahed over all the fancy tricks that deathtrap could do. It was like you were at the zoo, thinking ‘What clever little monkeys. Why, they’re almost human!’ Instead of the fruit basket and bottle of swill you gave us as a moving-in gift, why didn’t you just buy us a welcome mat that said Hicks With Money?”
Marjorie felt her cheeks heat with the intense blush of an amoral wife caught by hubby ’twixt the sheets with the pool boy. (Which indeed was how Marjorie’s last-marriage-but-one had ended.) Damn this girl, she thought. How dare she? How dare she be so bloody right, the sow?
“Ms. Newcomb, aren’t you being a trifle harsh?” Marjorie’s teeth gritted together only a little when she smiled. “ ‘Monkeys’? ‘Deathtrap’? And calling a bottle of Moët et Chandon ‘swill’? Tsk. I do apologize if you’ve misconstrued any of my words or actions. It was a privilege and a pleasure to deal with your parents.”
“I know,” Emily returned. “I saw the check Daddy handed over at the closing. We know a family or two back home who could live for a year on the commission you earned. And before your mind flashes into Beverly Hillbillies reruns, ‘back home’ for us was neither the backwoods nor the boondocks. Not all small Southern towns are drenched in hot-and-cold running possums.”
Marjorie’s fingers curled, her hands knotted. She wanted to squeeze Emily June’s slim, white neck like a toothpaste tube. “I thought you’d come to see me about the problems your family’s having with the Carème 6000, Ms. Newcomb,” she growled. “But if your sole purpose was to berate me for what you think is my attitude towards your family, congratulations on your fabulous ESP.”
Emily opened the Italian leather briefcase in her lap and yanked out a stack of papers. “You want me to cut to the chase? Here’s the scalpel.” She slapped the rustling pile onto Marjorie’s desk. “The house you sold to my parents is unsatisfactory and the Carème 6000 Mequizeen kitchen unit contained therein is a danger to life and limb. We want it removed and destroyed. We also want payment for acute psychological damage, loss of self-esteem, and being the victims of hate speech. The figure we want is here.” She pointed to a long line of numerals on the top page. “That’s if Paradise Purchased and the Mequizeen Company settle now. If this goes to court, I promise that figure will swell up like . . . like a tick on a hound dog.” She showed her teeth, then very deliberately added: “Hoo-ee.”
Emily June Newcomb was no lawyer, nor had she gone so far as to retain one. Yet. Still, the legalese in the papers she’d dropped in Marjorie’s lap was flawless. Two of the attorneys on payroll with Paradise Purchase Properties read it and wet themselves.
Stupid bitch should’ve gone to law school instead of to work for her daddy, Marjorie thought bitterly as she stood in the throng of reporters gathered on the Newcomb lawn. Then she’d be someone else’s headache.
It was a headache that centered on Marjorie’s wallet. She shuddered, recalling how very opposite-of-pleased her boss had been when she’d brought the Newcombs’ complaint into his office. At thirty-five, well-spoken and dead sexy, CEO Joss Parker was the sort of man the Trump wannabes of the world hated and envied with a white-hot passion. It wasn’t just that his career was an apparently effortless, Fred Astairelike dance across the walls and ceilings of life. What galled his rivals most was that he then sold the apartments containing said walls and ceilings for a pretty penny. (More accurately, for an unsightly seven-figure sum.)
What galled him was the thought of needlessly parting with money. His first reaction to the Newcomb threat was dismissive. “Let them sue. We’ve got better lawyers than any—What sort of business is Newcomb in, anyhow?” He flashed the boyish grin that had caused many a supermodel to drop her La Perla undies at his bidding. “Oil? Black gold? Texas tea?”
Marjorie pursed her lips. “Sir, trust me, you don’t want to mention anything even vaguely connected with that old TV show around the Newcombs, especially their daughter. Boone Newcomb’s money comes from insurance.”
“You mean the little skank is a second generation conman?” Joss turned stern. “If she wants to ride the fake personal injury pony, I’ve got private investigators who’ll yank her out of the saddle before she can even look at a neck brace.”
“Boone Newcomb owns an insurance company, a very profitable one. He specializes in insuring the incredibly wealthy. He and his daughter have contacts with—”
“—our target market.” Joss shaded his eyes wearily. “If we don’t give that bitch satisfaction, she won’t just take us to court, she’ll badmouth us to her daddy’s clients. I might as well cut her that check right now.” He gave Marjorie a hard look. “Your commission from the Newcomb sale won’t quite cover this, but it will be a start, and I’ll take the remainder out of your next sale.”
Marjorie’s jaw dropped. “My commission?” For the first time in her life, she understood Abraham’s feelings when he’d received the initial directive to sacrifice his son Isaac.
“You were the person who sold them the—” Joss’s manicured finger skimmed through the documents before him. “—hostile and unsafe domicile. It’s only fair that you make amends.” He was grinning again, but there was less Charming Little Man-Child behind those pearly whites and much more Big, Bad, Commission-Devouring Wolf.
Marjorie made a stab at fiscal self-preservation: “All right, Mr. Parker,” she said sweetly. “I’ll make the necessary arrangements with Accounting.” She turned to go, then paused and turned at the door. “Do you want me to alert Legal too?”
“Legal?” Joss echoed. “We’re settling this out of court.”
“Yes,” Marjorie purred. “We’re settling with the Newcombs out of court, but I don’t think that Mequizeen, Incorporated, will be willing to do the same when they sue us for defamation.”
“What?”
She framed imaginary headlines with her hands: “ ‘Real Estate Tycoon Affirms Mequizeen’s Carème 6000 Unsafe, Generously Offers Reparations to Victims of Robotic Death-Chef.’ Mequizeen will be so pleased.”
Joss Parker looked stricken. Marjorie had presented a plausible scenario, every syllable laden with grief. In his gilt-swaddled world, grief was for other people. “We’ll make the payment to the Newcombs through a third party,” he suggested, eager to make everything go his way again. “They won’t care, as long as they get their money.”
“You forget, they also want the Carème 6000 removed and destroyed. That is not a common piece of kitchen equipment, sir. Remember when Mequizeen first put it on the market? ‘The Kitchen of the Future Is Yours Today!’ Every Carème 6000 installation was a major publicity splash. Some sites still have their own corps of dedicated paparazzi, watching and waiting.”
“For what?” Joss asked. “Dinner?”
Marjorie laughed dutifully at her employer’s sally. “Waiting for something to go wrong. Horribly, dramatically, photogenically wrong. Sir, do you remember the old cartoons where the main character finds fully automated model house? At first it’s wonderful. Push the big red start button and the house does everything for you, especially the kitchen. Turn the dial, punch the keypad, throw the switch, and robotic mechanisms make you any dish you want, from pizza to pâté de foie gras. But then, this being a cartoon, hijinks ensue. Next thing you know, the main character’s being kneaded, floured, tossed, sprinkled with mozzarella, and shoved into the oven. And that, sir, is what the paparazzi are waiting for and hoping to capture happening in real life.”
