Welcome to the Future
Harry exited the OUSS office and walked fast up 44th street toward 8th avenue. At 8th he would make a left, moving north away from Hell’s Kitchen and the Theatre District and toward Central Park. He had a bad habit of looking up when he walked around the city, a trait he was always afraid made him look like a tourist. He loved architecture, both old and new, and while he really didn’t know a Gehry from a Lloyd Wright, he loved watching buildings created all across the centuries as they marched across the Manhattan skyline; crumbling filthy yellow stone standing staunch and unmovable next to swooping metal and gleaming glass. The city itself was the greatest of anachronisms, and in monument to that, on every street corner there stood paste and paper signboards sharing space with gaudy flickering neon which buzzed noisily away next to sleek 3-D multiverts which hung upon nothing more than agitated air molecules. Harry stopped in front of a multivert, this particular one was displaying a 20-second repeating loop of a man ordering two steaks, parking one autohov next to its twin in his driveway, and entering his house to be greeted by two beautiful women. The man in the multivert; a balding, paunchy and all around unhealthy looking man, smiled out into the aether while a staccato voice-over delivered something about two being better than one. Harry didn’t really get it, but he tried his best not to pay attention to this kind of thing. He also passed advertisements for various other practical and non-practical things; full ocular implants, a free week of gene-therapy if you act now, mini-relay drives that can be used to power anything from replacement limbs to full-sized personal automates. Everything was for sale here; sex, lifestyle, entertainment, escape; but this was nothing new. This was the way of the city, now and forever, filled to the brim with the pulse of life, and even that was for sale. It struck Harry that the truest anachronism here was hanging over the primal wilderness of Central Park, and as he headed north along 8th avenue he once again found himself looking up, almost unconsciously, absorbing the skyline. The clutter of skyscrapers tapered gradually off the closer he got to the park, and one thing dominated the view: the North Eastern Rylian bigship. The bigship, once covered by cosmic dust and bathed in the raw light of the stars, hung over the city, a fat weightless lozenge created light years away. Overbearing and alien, Harry didn’t think he’d ever get used to its presence. It had been years since the Rylians planted a dozen bigships around Earth, and Harry wondered if even the children of children born today would ever look up at that alien float and think it normal. It was almost dark now, but on a sunny day the bigship covered acres of parkland, enshrouding a large portion of the park in a false darkness. Sometimes the Rylians would throw up something Harry heard was called a light winder, which apparently redirected light around their ship. At certain angles the entire ship vanished from sight, but it was really just a hollow illusion. The sunlight that filtered through the winder was paler, an obvious projection. The Rylians, inscrutable as they were, seemed to try as best they understood to make their presence as invisible as possible. No mean feat considering how much things have changed since they’ve arrived. Even so, it was difficult to overlook the 300 yard long bigship floating over Central Park.
Harry bought a small coffee from a corner bodega and the closer he got to the park the more he noticed the slight subsonic hum. Some people were more sensitive to it than others; Harry read that the hum was from the ships gravity drive. He knew people whose fillings cracked when they got a few yards from it. Coming up on Central Park, and right up under the shadow of the Manhattan bigship is always an eerie experience. Harry had only done it twice; once a few weeks after the Rylians first arrived, and once a few years ago during his worst bought of drunkenness. He just wanted to experience that odd feeling of insignificance, that lifting in your gut, the faint hum, and the chlorine smell of cooking ozone. For some he supposed it could be a religious experience. The government had cordoned off the area recently, and had installed checkpoints around the park. Too many flakes, armed with conspiracy theories and homemade RPGs had snuck in to take potshots at the ship. Harry remembered watching a newsfeed that showed a rocket bouncing off of a hull that had withstood the rigors of interstellar travel. People could be geniuses at times, but mostly they acted like confused sheep. Finishing up his coffee Harry made his way through the various checkpoints that led through the park and up to the landing pad of the taxi-lift station, which had been built specifically to take people to and from the bigship. It was a large concrete platform with stairs leading up to it and little shack off to one corner. Sitting quietly in the center of the pad was a modified taxi-lift. The shack was presumably for the operator of the lift, and it occurred to Harry that this was probably a fairly decent job, seeing as how the lift wasn’t really ever used more than a few times a year. The Olympian departures being the most notable, but Harry assumed that random diplomats were brought up there as well and, before today, he would have thought that OUSS agents were sent up there. What a joke. He shook his head as he mounted the concrete steps that led to the shack, and when he was about halfway up a smallish, portly, dark-haired man in well-pressed slacks and shirt stepped out of the booth. He looked as if he had just been woken up.
“Help you, chief?”
Harry began nervously digging into his coat pockets, suddenly feeling completely ill-prepared. As if one could ever sufficiently prepare to talk business with an alien species.
“Yeah. I need to…uh…go up.”
“That a fact?”
“Yeah. Yes, it is.”
The operator pursed his lips and just stared at Harry expectantly. Harry fiddled nervously with his jacket and kept looking from the operator to the lift and up to the spacecraft, as if the repetitive line-of-sight glances would make things happen. After a long and uncomfortable period of silence, Harry cleared his throat,
“I…”
“Can I see some I.D.?”
Harry’s cheeks flushed in embarrassment as he reached for his wallet. Of course, ID! What did I think they’d just let me ride the lift up and down because I asked to? Wheeee!
“Oh. Of course. One second, I’m with the…”
“I mean, I’m standing here waiting. What’d you think, I’m just gonna let you waltz up onto the bigship?”
“No. Of course not, I don’t even know how to waltz.”
“Cute. You need government clearance to even get this far.”
“Yeah, look, I have it here…”
Harry pulled out his wallet and a special OUSS passport that Stant told him he needed to get on board the lift. The operator took the documents, held them at arms length and glanced quickly back and forth at Harry and his photograph. Harry sighed and smiled, trying to replicate the face he made on the photo. The operator pursed his lips again and screwed up his eyes, perhaps trying his hardest to find something, anything, that would invalidate Harry’s claim.
“Aw’right, fine,” The operator handed the documents back to Harry and strolled into the shack, “Just lemme get my cap an’ I’ll take you right up.”
Harry followed and stopped at the door of the shack, rubbing his clammy hands on his trousers. He glanced inside and watched as the operator grabbed an old-style vinyl billed cap and a short, dull yellow jacket. There was a control panel with a monitor array, and Harry saw the four checkpoints being recorded. He also saw a few angles of the launchpad and a room that he didn’t recognize. It looked like a sterile little prison cube, with a table, a chair and a mirrored window set into one of the walls.
“Hey, peeping Tom. The lift is this way.” The operator pointed out of the shack and pushed past Harry. Harry followed without looking back. His mind had become strangely quiet. He didn’t feel that primal pull for alcohol anymore, he didn’t feel nervous about the task ahead, or about having been basically taken for a ride by the U.S. government. He felt calm as he stared there waiting for the operator to warm up the lift. Calm, staring straight up at that dull metallic lozenge in the sky. That inscrutable mystery that was about to smack him in the face. He wondered if this is what dying felt like, this peace. He heard a slight buzzing in the back of his skull and it took him a few seconds to realize that it was the lift operator calling to him from the rolled down window of the lift.
“Hey, space invader! Get your ass in here, train’s leaving!”
Harry shook the cobwebs from his brain and stepped toward the taxi-lift. As soon as his hand touched the handle of the passenger side door, that feeling of otherworldly peace and calm came crashing down around him, and as the lift drifted slowly up into the sky he couldn’t stop himself from muttering,
“Oh...what am I getting myself into?”
As alway, critiques are welcome and accepted.
Part III to come soon, once I finish up part IV.
Harry bought a small coffee from a corner bodega and the closer he got to the park the more he noticed the slight subsonic hum. Some people were more sensitive to it than others; Harry read that the hum was from the ships gravity drive. He knew people whose fillings cracked when they got a few yards from it. Coming up on Central Park, and right up under the shadow of the Manhattan bigship is always an eerie experience. Harry had only done it twice; once a few weeks after the Rylians first arrived, and once a few years ago during his worst bought of drunkenness. He just wanted to experience that odd feeling of insignificance, that lifting in your gut, the faint hum, and the chlorine smell of cooking ozone. For some he supposed it could be a religious experience. The government had cordoned off the area recently, and had installed checkpoints around the park. Too many flakes, armed with conspiracy theories and homemade RPGs had snuck in to take potshots at the ship. Harry remembered watching a newsfeed that showed a rocket bouncing off of a hull that had withstood the rigors of interstellar travel. People could be geniuses at times, but mostly they acted like confused sheep. Finishing up his coffee Harry made his way through the various checkpoints that led through the park and up to the landing pad of the taxi-lift station, which had been built specifically to take people to and from the bigship. It was a large concrete platform with stairs leading up to it and little shack off to one corner. Sitting quietly in the center of the pad was a modified taxi-lift. The shack was presumably for the operator of the lift, and it occurred to Harry that this was probably a fairly decent job, seeing as how the lift wasn’t really ever used more than a few times a year. The Olympian departures being the most notable, but Harry assumed that random diplomats were brought up there as well and, before today, he would have thought that OUSS agents were sent up there. What a joke. He shook his head as he mounted the concrete steps that led to the shack, and when he was about halfway up a smallish, portly, dark-haired man in well-pressed slacks and shirt stepped out of the booth. He looked as if he had just been woken up.
“Help you, chief?”
Harry began nervously digging into his coat pockets, suddenly feeling completely ill-prepared. As if one could ever sufficiently prepare to talk business with an alien species.
“Yeah. I need to…uh…go up.”
“That a fact?”
“Yeah. Yes, it is.”
The operator pursed his lips and just stared at Harry expectantly. Harry fiddled nervously with his jacket and kept looking from the operator to the lift and up to the spacecraft, as if the repetitive line-of-sight glances would make things happen. After a long and uncomfortable period of silence, Harry cleared his throat,
“I…”
“Can I see some I.D.?”
Harry’s cheeks flushed in embarrassment as he reached for his wallet. Of course, ID! What did I think they’d just let me ride the lift up and down because I asked to? Wheeee!
“Oh. Of course. One second, I’m with the…”
“I mean, I’m standing here waiting. What’d you think, I’m just gonna let you waltz up onto the bigship?”
“No. Of course not, I don’t even know how to waltz.”
“Cute. You need government clearance to even get this far.”
“Yeah, look, I have it here…”
Harry pulled out his wallet and a special OUSS passport that Stant told him he needed to get on board the lift. The operator took the documents, held them at arms length and glanced quickly back and forth at Harry and his photograph. Harry sighed and smiled, trying to replicate the face he made on the photo. The operator pursed his lips again and screwed up his eyes, perhaps trying his hardest to find something, anything, that would invalidate Harry’s claim.
“Aw’right, fine,” The operator handed the documents back to Harry and strolled into the shack, “Just lemme get my cap an’ I’ll take you right up.”
Harry followed and stopped at the door of the shack, rubbing his clammy hands on his trousers. He glanced inside and watched as the operator grabbed an old-style vinyl billed cap and a short, dull yellow jacket. There was a control panel with a monitor array, and Harry saw the four checkpoints being recorded. He also saw a few angles of the launchpad and a room that he didn’t recognize. It looked like a sterile little prison cube, with a table, a chair and a mirrored window set into one of the walls.
“Hey, peeping Tom. The lift is this way.” The operator pointed out of the shack and pushed past Harry. Harry followed without looking back. His mind had become strangely quiet. He didn’t feel that primal pull for alcohol anymore, he didn’t feel nervous about the task ahead, or about having been basically taken for a ride by the U.S. government. He felt calm as he stared there waiting for the operator to warm up the lift. Calm, staring straight up at that dull metallic lozenge in the sky. That inscrutable mystery that was about to smack him in the face. He wondered if this is what dying felt like, this peace. He heard a slight buzzing in the back of his skull and it took him a few seconds to realize that it was the lift operator calling to him from the rolled down window of the lift.
“Hey, space invader! Get your ass in here, train’s leaving!”
Harry shook the cobwebs from his brain and stepped toward the taxi-lift. As soon as his hand touched the handle of the passenger side door, that feeling of otherworldly peace and calm came crashing down around him, and as the lift drifted slowly up into the sky he couldn’t stop himself from muttering,
“Oh...what am I getting myself into?”
As alway, critiques are welcome and accepted.
Part III to come soon, once I finish up part IV.