Renegade World: Future Past (31 page)

Jake asked, “Any damage reports?”

The sheriff pulled some Kleenex out of his pocket and
handed it to Naami. “The news reports are saying that there was just minor
damage. They also reported that someone calling himself El Gato Renegado tipped
the feds just in time.”

T
hat was quick!
He accepted Samael’s connection
request.

Leandro, update me.

“My initial read is very positive.”

Your plan didn’t work out the way you expected.

Leandro laughed
.
“A plan rarely does. The outcomes
with one exception are everything we needed. John and Simon are dead. No one
can tie the cartel to the True Disciples. Thaddeus’ project is still safe. The
cartel got their revenge on Carlos Garcia. What do we care if their losses were
heavy? Arbustor’s rating jumped ten points. Several Tea Party extremists are
even calling for him to nuke Iran and Syria.”

“We didn’t kill Naamah Schmidt, but no one even knows we
tried. Give me six months or a year, and I’ll try again.”

Don’t wait too long. It’s not luck that she’s survived
twice. I hear that she took out six of the cartel herself, and she’ll get
harder to kill with every year. Three times you’re out.
Samael
disconnected.

T
hor sat down on the weight bench and stretched his neck.
“I’m wiped. You’re a slave driver.”

Naami slapped him lightly on the back of the head. “Don’t
be such a wimp.”

“Wimp? I did three set of squats at 655 pounds.”

“Your personal best. That’s great. You should be fired up.”

“I’m on my third set of bench presses. I think I’m allowed
to feel tired.”

 “No. You need get psyched that you’re going to blow away
your record. You can do it.”

Thor set himself under the bar. “Here goes nothing.”

“You mean here goes everything! You’ve got to believe.” She
moved her hands under the bar and stabilized it as Thor lifted it off.”

Naami yelled encouragement with each rep. On the tenth rep,
she yelled, “You can do it! You’ve got it. One last push!”  As Thor locked his
arms, she grabbed the bar and guided it into the rack.

“Hey, Aaron.” She walked over to him and gave him a hug.

“Wow, you’re getting tall. You must be about five two.”

“Just about.”

He picked her up. “And you must weigh about one twenty.”

“You’re low by two pounds.”

He put her down. “Thor. You’re looking buff.” He shook
hands and bumped shoulders with him. “I saw your last set. 495. That’s impressive.
Don’t let me interrupt your training.”

Thor looked at Naami. “We’re done, right?”

“You’re done. I want to do one more set of platform jumps.”

“She has endurance like you, Aaron.”

Naami winked at Thor as she set the platform at thirty-five
inches. She and Thor hadn’t told Aaron what their vertical leaps were since
last summer.

Aaron looked at the height. “That’s not for you!”

“Just watch.” Naami jumped up and down ten times.

“Wow. I couldn’t jump that high until I was fifteen. I’m
almost afraid to ask how much weight you’re using.”

Thor laughed. “She’s years ahead of where we were. She’s
doing her sets of squats at 370 and benches at 245.”

“Really?”

Naami nodded. “I’m limiting myself to three times my
bodyweight for squats and twice my bodyweight for bench presses.”

Thor rolled his eyes.

Aaron smiled briefly. “Naami?”

“I know. I’m not supposed to let on about how strong or
fast I am. It’s a constant struggle between my desire to be the best I can be and hiding how good I am. Only you, Thor, Rebeka Lee, and Raul know.”
And no one besides me knows my full mental, sensory, and other enhanced abilities.

Aaron nodded. “I understand completely.” He hugged Naami.
“I’ll see you tomorrow at your party. I’ve got to go.”

He shook hands and bumped shoulders with Thor. “If I don’t
see you before, I’ll see you there.”

N
aami came home and headed straight for the refrigerator.
I’m starved.

“Hi, Naami.”

“Hi, Bertha. Dinner smells delicious.”

“I made bison stew and cornbread. Don’t worry; there are no
potatoes in the stew.”

“Dinner’s still at seven?”

“Yes. Your dad’s going to be late, so he said to start
without him. Oh, and your mom invited Raul.”

“Thanks, Bertha.”

Another change.
Camila had given notice after the
Tower City shootout to stay with Carlos. He had only gained consciousness twice
for less than a minute before the doctors pronounced him brain-dead two weeks
after the explosion. After a week-long struggle between the hospital, which
sought to remove Carlos from the ventilator after a judge had concurred he was
brain-dead, and Camila, who fought to keep him on the ventilator,
Naami’s mom got him into a care facility and paid the bills. Six weeks later,
Camila gave in.

Her dad had hired Bertha, but she only worked four days a
week for four hours a day.
Bertha’s OK, but I really miss Camila.

She took a half-f carton of yogurt and a spoon. “I’ll be
in my room.”

She ate her yogurt while she looked at the available courses
for Bismarck State College. Without her parents’ knowledge, she had taken the
ACT and sent her application to BSC. At some point, she’d get the error on
her birth year corrected from 2146 to 2156.  

All of the science degrees required her to be on campus, so
she had decided to get a math degree. After looking at the suggested math curriculum
again, she signed up for: Calculus I, Elementary Statistics, United States
History to 1877, College Composition I, and Fantasy & Science Fiction.
It’s
too bad that so many of the math courses have a prerequisite of Calculus II or
Calculus III, but this gets some of the other required and elective courses out
of the way.
When she tried to finish the last step of the registration, the
software warned her that she had selected a heavy course load.
I don’t think
so!
She told it to continue.

After her registration was confirmed, she downloaded all of
the course materials and skimmed through each course document.
Piece of
cake. Abraham, get the book Dune by Frank Herbert. I’ll read it before I go to
sleep tonight.

N
aami watched Raul push around the last few bites of his
stew.
Raul is unusually quiet tonight, and he’s not eating as much as usual.
She
had wolfed down three bowls of stew and two pieces of cornbread.

This is weird. Mom’s leading the conversation, not
distracted and distant, and Raul’s hardly talking; usually, it’s the reverse.
Raul
had been eating dinner with them two or three times a week since his father’s
funeral. Until the last two weeks, Naami and Raul did most of the talking with
her dad asking questions. Lately, her dad had been talking more than Raul.

Raul pushed away his bowl. “The stew is very good, but I
guess I wasn’t that hungry.”

Naami’s mom pursed her lips and studied Raul through her
darkened lenses. “Raul, I’ve heard you say that you’d really like an implant.”

Raul nodded but didn’t look up.

“Do you know that my team and I do implant surgeries?”

Raul nodded. “I knew you did Naami’s implant.”

Naami’s mom leaned forward, lowering her head, trying to see
Raul’s face. “If you want a state-of-the-art implant, I’d do it for free. Call
it a birthday present.”

Raul’s head snapped up, his eyes bright for the first time
since coming over, but then his shoulders sagged. “The implant would still cost
too much.”

“Your mom really wants you to have one, so we worked out a
deal. She’ll use part of the proceeds from the life insurance, and she’ll come
back to work for us to pay off the balance.” She glanced at Naami with a
half-smile.  “If you get one, Naami won’t have such an unfair advantage on long-range
shots.”

Naami shook her head. “You still won’t beat me.”

“What’s your unfair advantage?”

“My implant can calculate a firing solution and superimpose
it in my field of vision.”

Raul’s eyes opened wide as he turned to Naami’s mom. “That would
require a visual splice. Those aren’t approved.”

“Naami was part of an early trial. We just got approval to increase
our number of test subjects again.”

“So I’d be a test subject?”

“Yes.”

“Cool!”

Abraham, open connection to Mom.

Yes, kiddo?

Are you going to give Raul an AI like Abraham?

Note quite. His implant will be AI capable, but the AI
software will be enabled in passive mode.

How passive?

Let’s discuss this later.

N
aami, it’s eleven. You should stop reading for the
night and get some sleep.

I’m not tired yet, Abraham. I’m going to keep reading.
Let me know when it’s midnight.

N
aami, it’s midnight.

Still not tired. Warn me in another hour.

N
aami, it’s one. You need to get some sleep.

I’ll be done very soon.

I estimate ten to fifteen minutes.

OK. Kind of soon.

T
welve minutes later, Naami finished Dune.
I’m glad I signed up for that course. That was the
best book I’ve read yet. I liked Paul, but Lady Jessica appealed to me even more.
She was as disciplined as any Bene Gesserit,
but not afraid to go against the establishment when she felt she was right.

I think I have a much different vision of the future
than the future that Frank Herbert painted in his book. His future doesn’t seem
very enlightened to me. Why would people of the future put up with an emperor
and the great houses that are hereditary monarchies?

I don’t know why people ever believed in divine rights.
That’s just nuts. Why do people want a ruler just because he, or sometimes she,
was born to someone? When countries’ rulers died without an heir, why would people
seek out close relatives to take their place? Why did who your parents were
matter when they were incompetent? And the inbreeding… Ferdinand I of Austria and
Charles II of Spain were downright creepy.

Is it all about power? Do those who were born to it
somehow know better how to keep power or increase it than those born without
it?

 And the Bene Gesserit, who choose to work anonymously to
further their goals, rather than taking power themselves, manipulating the social
and political order with multi-generation plans, without appearing powerful,
they manipulated the rise and fall of governments and empires without fear of backlash.
Are there groups that do the same in this country?

Why the phobias about technology? Manipulating genetics
scientifically is bad, but recruiting and subverting wives and concubines for a
long-term breeding program is somehow OK? And eating mélange which seems like
nothing more than a powerful drug is OK too? And the guild navigators, they
were even creepier than Charles II.

Naami, relax. You don’t need to think about this
tonight. Get some sleep.

N
aami opened the front door and smiled broadly. “Come in,
Thor.”

“Happy birthday, Naami.” He gave her a hug. “Sorry, I’m
late. Am I the last one here?”

“Just about. Aaron’s here. Dr. Lieber, Rebeka Lee, Gran,
Raul, Joe, Miguel, Karl, and Charlie are all here too. I don’t know where
Camila is. Raul says she’ll be here soon. Geoffry is still on the moon.”

“My mom and Erica are still hoping to get here before the
party ends. I hope their plane won’t be delayed any further.” He sniffed. “It
smells great in here.”

“It’s the Thai wings. I’ve been salivating for the last ten
minutes. I hope they bring them out soon.”

“Do you know Karl Hunter?”

Thor looked around. “That’s him talking to your mom and
dad, right? I’ve seen him, but I’ve never met him.”

“I’ll introduce you to him and to Joe and Charlie too.”

She took him by the hand and led him over to Karl and his
parents.
I really like Thor. He’s such a nice guy. I’m going to really miss
him when he goes to the University of Minnesota next fall. At least, he won’t be
as far away as Aaron. Maybe I can see him when I visit Gran.

She smiled at her parents and then at Karl. “Karl, I’d like
to introduce you to Thor Carlson. Thor, Karl Hunter.” As they shook hands and
made small talk, she thought,
Who am I trying to kid? Even if I visit
Minneapolis a couple of times a year, it won’t be the same. Aaron’s still very
nice to me, but I don’t have a connection with him like I used to when he lived
here. Why should it be any different with Thor?

She smiled at Thor, and as she took his took his hand, she
said, “I’m going to steal him away so I can introduce him to Joe and Charlie.”

As they walked across the room toward Joe, Raul, and
Charlie, Thor said, “I know Joe is Raul’s uncle. Who is Charlie?”

“Raul and I compete against Charlie in Rimfire Challenges,
and sometimes he works for Karl Hunter.”

Raul saw them coming and grinned at Thor. “Hey, Thor.” They
shook hands. “Thor, I think you’ve met my uncle Joe.” Thor shook his uncle’s
hand. “And this is Charlie Means. Charlie, this is Thor Carlson.”

Charlie looked up at Thor, and they shook hands. “I’ve seen
you play.”

Naami listened to Thor and Raul talking with the two men.
Raul
and Thor are my closest friends, but I’ll lose Thor like I lost Aaron.

She saw Charlie wink at her, and she gave him a small smile.
I like Charlie a lot. He’s so laid back, and he treats me like an adult even
though he has a daughter older than me. I enjoy the competitions at Rhett’s
range between Rhett, Joe, Raul, Charlie, and me. Rhett talks to me like I’m an
adult too. Too bad he had to work.

Charlie took a step toward her and held out something small
wrapped in tissue paper. “I know you said no gifts, but my daughter made this
for you.”

She took it from him and unwrapped it.
It was a
bracelet, most of which was pink. The rest of it had bands of yellow, orange,
red, and black.
In the center of the black band was an abstract depiction
of a white buffalo. “It’s beautiful.”

“It’s made from porcupine quills that Feather dyed
herself.”

“Your daughter’s name is Feather?”

“Christine is her first name, but she likes to go by her
middle name.”

“Thank her for me. Tell her I think it’s beautiful, and
pink is my favorite color.”

Raul smirked. “Really?”  Over half of her shirts were
dominated by pink.

N
aami peeked into the recovery room. Raul lay in the
room’s only bed, his eyes shut, and Camila sat close to her son in one of the
room’s two chairs.
Camila looks in rough shape.
“Hi, Camila. Is Raul
awake?”

Raul’s eyes fluttered and then closed. “I’m…awake.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Really…tired.”

“I can come back later, or if you want to take a break,
Camila, I’d be happy to sit here with Raul.”