The Unincorporated Woman (13 page)

*   *   *

As Sandra leaned on the windowsill staring out, panic and excitement waged a furious battle for control of her emotions. In short order, the panic abated. She took in the cool mountainous air and once again marveled at the inverse landscape. The gentleman she’d spied from the window would have to suffice as first contact. He was, she could see, wearing slightly mottled board shorts, and had on a light blue faded T-shirt with the words
READ, EAT, SLEEP
plastered across the back. He appeared to be in his late thirties, and his unkempt sandy brown hair whipped to and fro with the gentle breeze expelled by the dappling waves at the water’s edge. There was a small cooler to the right of him, and on top of the cooler were two bottles with indiscernible markings. Thirst welled up in her parched throat just seeing them.

It was all Sandra needed to head out. She skipped across the room, then made quick work of the few steps leading down to the soft pliable sand. He looked over his shoulder at the sound of her approaching footsteps and peeled off a short, reassuring smile before returning to the book he’d been reading. When Sandra got close enough, she saw that one of the bottles on the cooler was of her favorite guilty pleasure: Dr Pepper. The bottle’s shape was odd but not too odd, and the lettering was in a font unrecognizable from the one she’d grown used to. Odder still, the bottle did not seem to have an opening. Its appearance was more of a bottle-shaped sculpture.

“Provided I can figure out how to open it,” she observed, plopping down onto the large blanket that formed a periphery around Thaddeus’s chair, “I sincerely hope that one of those is for me.”

The man closed his book and nodded pleasantly. “Dr. O’Toole,”—there was no feigning of surprise—“you may have as many as you wish, and may I say I’m delighted to make your acquaintance.”

“As I am yours,” she crooned, impressed at the effort that must have gone into their “chance” encounter. “Though,” she added, “it would certainly help if I knew what to call you.”

“Of course. My name is Dr. Thaddeus Gillette—though, please,” he said, teeth flashing brightly, “call me Thaddeus.”

“Very well.” Sandra took in her immediate surroundings then looked squarely at the doctor. “Where exactly am I, Thaddeus?”

He laughed. “Far from Earth, if that’s what you mean.”

“How far exactly?”

They exchanged a knowing look in which it was understood questions were to be answered in a straightforward manner.

“On the planetoid of Ceres, or rather ‘in’ it, to be exact.”

Sandra nodded. “Explains the horizon line. So that puts us in the same orbit as the asteroid belt, about one-point-five AU from the sun, yes?”

“Correct!” beamed Thaddeus.

“Year?”

Thaddeus told her; down to the month, day, hour, and minute.

“So,” she said, in a whisper, “that means I’ve been down for over three hundred years.”

Thaddeus nodded.

“Well, I’ll be.” Sandra turned her head toward the shoreline. “The damned thing worked.”

The doctor guffawed. “Quite well, I’d say.”

Sandra clasped her hands around her bent knees and shook her head in disbelief. The impish smile had returned. She remained that way for a full minute before turning her attention once again to the man at her side.

“There was someone…” Her voice was more restrained. “A man. Name of Justin. Justin Cord. He … he came before me. Did he—” She hesitated a moment, unsure if she really wanted the answer. “—did he make it?”

She saw Thaddeus’s pained expression and felt a pit well up in her stomach.

“Dr. O’Toole—”

“Sandra,” she insisted.

“Sandra,” he repeated softly. “He did but is … is no longer with us.”

She nodded solemnly, setting her gaze once again on the shoreline. After a few deep, measured breaths Sandra regained her composure.

“Might I suggest,” proposed Thaddeus, “that you take this all in at a reasonable pace?”

Sandra nodded once again, bringing her chin up to her knees, and stared out at the waterline. The man she owed her life to, the man whose confidence, persistence, and money had built the suspension unit she’d used to transport herself into a new life, would not be there to greet her. She chided herself for the girlish fantasy.

“And what exactly is it you do, Thaddeus?”

Thaddeus’s face came alive. “Why, my dear, I have the honor of helping you reintegrate.”

“Very well. Perhaps we can start with your telling me how to open that rather odd bottle. I’m parched.”

Thaddeus displayed the impatient delight of a child wishing to show off a neat card trick. “Thought you’d never ask. Tell you what. I can pretty much produce what you’d like in a few seconds or show you how to do it yourself. The latter will of course require delayed gratification.”

Sandra’s eyes twinkled with curiosity. “Exactly how much delayed gratification are we talking?”

“Three, four minutes tops.”

Sandra thought for a moment. “What the heck, I’ve waited three hundred years, I suppose a few more minutes won’t kill me. Sure, Thaddeus,” she encouraged, “enlighten me.”

“Wonderful!” he exclaimed, picking up one of the bottles and handing it to her. He then picked up the other. “You see, Sandra, it’s not simply a matter of opening the bottle; it’s a matter of directing it!”

Sandra’s head tilted, curious.

“This drink is actually what you’d consider a miniature bottling plant.”

“How odd,” observed Sandra, staring at her bottle. “So does this ‘plant’ belong to Dr Pepper?”

Thaddeus shook his head. “Not exactly. Once you’ve chosen which beverage you want, the bottle … um—” He scratched his chin, searching for the proper phrase. “—applies the appropriate labeling.”

“Presumably money changes hands at some point in this transaction.”

“Indeed. For now, that money would be mine.”

Sandra nodded, staring at the label once again. “I see you already know my tastes, Thaddeus.”

He smiled with a slight nod. “It was in your personal file. As to how it got there, well, I suppose it could have come from any number of places.”

Sandra picked up a small pebble and flung it sidelong towards the water. “Probably from the can I stashed away. I figured they might not have my acquired tastes in the future, so there seemed no harm in bringing them along. Hell, Justin had me pack a box of Cap’n Crunch in his.” She giggled.

“Well, you’ll probably be happy to know that your drink is still quite popular today, though I’ll be curious to see if it’s what you remembered.”

“In that case,” Sandra turned the bottle in her hands, “let’s proceed with getting it open.”

“Easy enough. You’ll need to pick both the temperature and level of carbonation. Once that’s complete, the bottle will open. Follow my lead.” He then picked up his bottle and spoke to it. “Moxie, temp five. Carbo, seven.”

Sandra watched in amazement as the bottle first changed color and styling then began forming an opening at the top of the neck. In seconds, it had folded over into a perfectly ringed lip.

“I’ll presume that temperature is given in Celsius,” Sandra said, still staring at Thaddeus’s wonder drink.

“What else is there?” His question was earnest.

Sandra’s lips parted in a bemused grin. She then held her bottle up and began speaking to it as if it might actually talk back. “Um … temp five. Carbo…” She was about mimic Thaddeus’s seven but then thought the drink always tended to be a little over carbonated. “Carbo six,” she finished triumphantly. Her bottle instantly cooled in her hand as the neck rolled back on itself, emitting the familiar soft cherry aromas and effervescent sound.

Thaddeus held up his bottle and she raised hers to his. “To your new life,” he toasted as they clinked bottles.

Sandra took a swig, pulled the bottle back and looked at it as another smile formed at the corners of her mouth. Damned if didn’t taste great.

*   *   *

Over the next couple of hours, Sandra and Dr. Gillette remained in place, deep in conversation as they watched the waves peel across the rocky shoreline. Their discussion ebbed and flowed with the clacking sounds of the tidal water retreating through the rocks back into the great lake. Gillette told her of Justin, the war, and the intricacies of the incorporated system. He was frequently interrupted by Sandra’s insatiable curiosity about the sociological and technological minutiae of her new world. At one point, she noted the presence of the tide and, knowing there was no moon to drive it, easily guessed as to the technology used to create it. More fascinating to her was the fact that generations far removed from an actual moon-induced tide would still demand its presence. Gillette’s answer of “it’s calming” did not suffice. There had to be a more pragmatic reason. But, she’d come to realize in her first few hours with the doctor, he couldn’t possibly answer everything with authority.

Had Sandra asked, Thaddeus would have freely informed her that their conversation was being recorded and analyzed not only by a handpicked team of reintegrationists, but by the entire Cabinet of the Outer Alliance as well. Both groups watched and listened from separate locales a short distance away. And although no one in the Cabinet said a word, they would turn toward each other from time to time with a raised eyebrow or tilted head as the conversation between the doctor and the patient progressed. The viewers’ initial looks of worry were soon replaced by merely curious expressions and finally by mostly hopeful ones. Whoever this woman was, the group seemed to have decided
qui tacet consentit,
she was no idiot or at a minimum in no way catatonic. The group watched in hushed awe as Dr. Gillette, some few hours later, finally returned Sandra O’Toole to her room and bade her adieu. As the session came to an end, the group broke out in applause, congratulating one another. Most were smiling, even Mosh McKenzie, who was now optimistic about the plans to introduce Sandra O’Toole as the new
First Free
who would lead the Outer Alliance in this, their most desperate hour. The only one who did not look pleased was J. D. Black. Though her eyes remained fixed on Sandra, following her movements as intently as a cat hunting a mouse, no one in the Cabinet took it as a bad omen. The Blessed One’s fairly permanent scowl was by that time almost legendary.

*   *   *

Now alone, Sandra pondered her first day’s encounter. Thaddeus had been quite agreeable and more than willing to answer all her questions, but he’d cautioned against delving too deeply into social or political issues. That suited Sandra just fine, given that her true love lay in the applied sciences and there had been more than enough technological advancement in the centuries she’d lain dormant to keep her inquisitive mind well occupied. She was delighted to learn about the DijAssist, a malleable unit with a holographic interface that connected to the future’s version of the Net, called the Neuro. In short order, she discovered that Ceres was being spun to a centrifugal gravity of two thirds that of Earth’s and had been prevented from breaking apart due to a nanoconstructed artifice known as the Shell. And that within the miraculous structure there was something called the Via Cereana, a two-mile-wide and over five-hundred-mile-long tunnel that went from one end of the asteroid to the other. She was also tickled to learn that she’d been retrofitted with a whole-body nanocommunications grid that affected her internal physical states, including spatial orientation, hormone levels, and neural firing patterns. It also meant that in a spaceship or similarly constructed environment, her body could turn itself into a large walking magnet.

All the tremendous strides her newfound civilization had taken made her itch with desire to learn even more. But try as she might, enhanced as her new body was, her eyes would no longer stay open. To the fading light and susurrus of the windswept beach Sandra O’Toole drifted off to sleep—only this time without fear, satisfied in the knowledge that a new day would dawn and she would be a part of it. From the monitoring stations, the curious watched in quiet satisfaction as, under a projected mobile of dancing holographic equations, the Unincorporated Woman slept, a DijAssist folded neatly into her arms and pulled close to her chest like a child’s favorite teddy bear.

*   *   *

At the far end of a large conference table, mostly separated from the Alliance Cabinet members, Dr. Thaddeus Gillette stared blithely at his competition. Were it not for the person sitting across from him, Thaddeus might not have had the success he’d so far achieved. Against the better judgment of Ceres’s finest, Dr. Ayon Nesor had backed Thaddeus’s unorthodox approach and had used her pull and influence to rule the day. Thaddeus noticed how her jet-black flapper-style haircut and square-set jaw acted in perfect unison to highlight a pair of focused, vivid blue eyes. The look she’d chosen for herself was early thirties; however, a cursory glance at his DijAssist informed him that she was actually seventy-eight.

Though Thaddeus allowed himself to bask in his and Nesor’s combined success, those feelings had been fleeting at best. Haunted by images of Neela, he had begun an insidious slide into self-condemnation. How could he have been so blind … so selfish as not to see what had been happening right under his nose? Neela had loved Justin with all her being. He had known that, had watched it happen, and against a lifetime of training and tradition, had even come to approve of it. Not very good at the love game himself, Thaddeus had developed a keen appreciation of it in others. He should have known that Neela would never have given up a love like that—at least not willingly. And from what he’d read and been told, the same held true for Justin.

“She’s the best case we could’ve hoped for,” said Padamir Singh, interrupting Thaddeus’s malaise. “Just look at her.” The Information Secretary pointed to the holo-tank image of Sandra nestled comfortably in her bed. “So curious and confident. Can you imagine waking up in a future as different from hers as ours is and not show any signs of fear or confusion?”

The room remained silent, all transfixed by the slumbering three-dimensional image of hope. “If Sandra O’Toole and Justin Cord are representative of the past,” concluded Padamir, “it makes you wonder why the Grand Collapse ever happened in the first place.”