Between the Lanterns (23 page)

It was a few weeks later when the first Samantha’s Place opened its doors. In thanks to the little old woman, he had started his idea in the very same small village where she lived. August had taken her idea and evolved it into a way to help people everywhere. Samantha’s Place was a school, café, and farm. People could come in and learn how to farm real food, cook real food, and eat for free at the restaurant. Using the Credit just sitting in his bank account to fund these all over the world was going to be August and Samantha’s legacy.
 

There was buzz all over social media about what he was doing here, and also what he was planning on doing after he left this village. And this was only the first location! On opening day, there were hundreds of people waiting, which was a lot in this remote location, but August knew it would grow. This place would help create a new and better life for these people, and everyone on Earth if he worked hard enough.

Six years after he opened the first Samantha’s Place in rural China, August was proven right. Since the first location, August had spread out. There were hundreds of Samantha’s Place locations in China now. And more importantly, they were all self-sufficient after the initial start -up costs he funded with the money he had made from selling the SameSoul to Montek.
 

August would choose a place with a local population that needed help and also had enough arable land nearby to make it a viable candidate. He then funded the projects and even oversaw the first dozen or so locations all the way from breaking ground until each site was no longer in need of his funding. After the first dozen Samantha’s Places, he started hiring and training people to set them up for him, so that August was free to scout future sites.

Samantha’s Place was famous the world over now, and other areas were begging for August’s help. They all wanted to be a part of his vision.

August was splitting his time between Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Over 30 sites were being set up all over Southeast Asia as he spoke on his same old cellphone to Bobby Li while walking through a field in rural Thailand.

“But why Southeast Asia only, man?” Bobby asked. “Why not head west? Help Old Europe out! They need an intervention, dude. Just last week I saw a vid clip on the news from Vatican City where they had the world’s largest Nutricator continually making food for the poor. They should be eating your real food, man, not that slop.”

August laughed at the thought of Bobby’s transformation since over the past six years. When August had left Alabama, the poor musician Bobby was a Nutricator advocate, his diet consisting solely of Nutricator sweet tea and Nutricator fried chicken. Once August had made a large enough impact on the world with his Samantha’s Place idea, he had flown Bobby out and trained him to run a location. After that, Bobby had a new life.
 

He returned to New Dothan and set up a site in Headland Town. The farmers there were very welcoming of the help and combined all of their farms together, and it was now one of the world’s largest Samantha’s Places.

“We’ll get there, Bobbo. I promise, buddy,” August told his old friend. “So, is everythin’ goin’ ok with the house?”

Bobby exhaled loudly, probably blowing an enormous cloud of cigarette smoke.

“Great, dude. Holly is still keeping the place clean once a month. She’s amazing. I’ve got her cleaning my place, too. Though the other day she tried to clean Woodrow and it… uh… powered on and told her to MOVE A WAY or something like that. Scared the shit out of her, dude.”

They both laughed at that. August hadn’t thought of Woodrow in a couple of years. He was busy with his new life and had forgotten about the old hunk of wood. Now that Bobby had mentioned Woodrow, though, August felt an empty hole in his heart. He missed the automaton, as weird as that was. Of course, it all had to do with how much August still missed Sam. Suddenly, he felt the need to cook something, and very soon.

They chatted about how the Headland Town location was doing, but August didn’t pay much attention. He trusted his old friend to run things, and August couldn’t show too much interest in one location or he’d stop for too long and never get moving again. The constant movement… even six years later… helped him stay focused and not fall into depression.

As he walked along the roadside heading back to the small village, August added a few noises of agreement in response to Bobby once in a while. He walked by a little shop near the edge of town that had all kinds of different lamps, lights, and maglev lanterns in the shop window. There was no signage to indicate what they sold, or why, but it was obvious this was your go-to place for lighting in this small, rural town. Looking in the window, August noticed something. Right there, on the top shelf at eye level, were two of his LifeLanterns.

With no idea whatsoever how they could have possibly made it all the way to Thailand, he abruptly ended the call with Bobby and promised to call him back later. August quickly entered the shop and took the two lanterns off of the shelf.

“Excuse me, do you know where these came from?” he asked the shop owner.

The young man was a very tall and skinny Thai hipster, part of the retro movement that somehow still held sway in this part of the world. Retro these days, though, was considered of things only slightly out of date. The new stuff hit the shelves, and all the sheep rushed out to buy, buy, buy. The hipsters then swooped in and got the older models for reasonably cheap.

The shop owner eyed the Life Lanterns and nodded his head, saying, “Yeah, kap. I think this guy sold them to me about a year ago, kap. He said it was a pair from somewhere in North America…Alabama, maybe… Yeah, it was Alabama, kap.”

“Unbelievable,” August said under his breath. “I mean…to come all this way…”

“Hey, man, you got Credit?” the man asked brusquely. “If not, put it back and leave.”

August didn’t even ask how much. He just pulled out his cellphone and accessed the Montek.Credit app. He still refused to have a SmartChip implanted. As usual, he was met with a shocked look, quickly followed by an uncaring shrug.
 

The purchase finalized, August headed back out the street and called Bobby back to ask for a favor. Seeing these lanterns had reminded August of his and Samantha’s lanterns back in their house… and everything that had happened between them.

“Damn, August. That was fast,” Bobby said, only half -kidding. “You never call back so soon. I wasn’t expecting to hear from you for another month or two.”

“Yeah, well. Shut it, man,” August said, admitting to himself that Bobby was right, and making a mental note to call his old friend more often. “Listen, Bobby, I need your help again. You know the lanterns from mine and Sam’s weddin’? The ones you helped out with before? Are they still in the house?”

Bobby blew some smoke, and cleared his throat, replying, “Yeah, man. They’re still floating around waiting for orders.”

August did a victory fist pump in the middle of the street. A few people looked at him as if he were insane, but he ignored their stares. The lanterns still worked, which was fantastic news, as he had something in mind for them.

“I need you to take them somewhere for me,” August said. “They need a new life… or to revisit an old one, I guess.”

Chapter 27

WENT OUT

“It was 30 years ago today,” he whispered to himself. An entire lifetime, it seemed to August. He had traveled the entire globe and started farming communities and cooking schools. He had provided free food to anyone in those communities who contributed in any way. He started a global movement towards real food. Earth still only had one government, but all of the old countries still existed, their borders were just a little blurrier now. But the customs and cultural differences mostly remained. August had visited all of these countries, and almost every single one had, at least, a few Samantha’s Places, and most countries had many of them. Everywhere you found good farmland and people to feed, Samantha’s Place was there, too.

August had made the world a better place. He had made a difference. He had lived his dream of traveling the world. Montek, unfortunately, still held sway with the government, but ten years back they had changed the laws concerning Nutricators, finally. They were no longer mandatory the world over, and, in fact, had become so unpopular, Montek now marketed them as a cheap way to feed livestock.

Now the NewLife, on the other hand – Montek’s version of the SameSoul – had blown up… but in a way that August honestly felt was positive. At first, everyone bought them. They were afraid to die because they were scared there would be nothing after this life. So in the first ten years after the NewLife entered the market, the population of the Earth went to about 70% human and 30% automatons. Realizing that this was going to be a problem soon, the “good” people at Montek contacted August and asked him to help them come up with a solution. He only said three words before disconnecting the call.

“Stop selling them.”

That didn’t seem to suit Montek, as they enjoyed making money way too much. So instead, their solution was to raise the price. Make it affordable only to the extremely wealthy. This plan worked somewhat, reducing the number of new units hitting the streets by over half.

It wasn’t until five years later – 15 years after their introduction to the market – that the oldest NewLife inhabitants began to experience something strange. A tugging at their souls was what they described experiencing; a feeling of not being where they were supposed to be. This sensation seemed to point to a great beyond in many people’s opinions, and many of the Montek.Automatons housing NewLife clients took their data module out and crushed it, sending their consciousness onward to whatever was next.

Now, 30 years later, Montek didn’t even sell NewLife modules or Montek.Automatons anymore, because most people were now certain there was an afterlife. Citizens of the United States of Earth weren’t scared of death anymore, and so they stopped buying the automatons and NewLife modules. And once they stopped buying, Montek stopped selling. It didn’t matter that the feeling described by the NewLife automaton inhabitants was by no means irrefutable proof of Heaven or Hell. People only needed a tiny bit of reassurance that there might be something else beyond this life. It was enough.

There were a few very famous “people” still holding on and living forever in their automatons, but in the whole world, there were only 23 units still functioning.

August felt proud of all that he had done in his life and all that he had accomplished. He was even proud that the SameSoul had led to the NewLife, because that eventually led people to accept death instead of being afraid and trying to stop it from ever happening.
 

 
It was all because of Samantha. He had done everything in her memory.
 

August hadn’t gone around saying it was all for her or that she was his inspiration. She wouldn’t have liked to be in the limelight like that. No, when asked who the Samantha of Samantha’s Place was, August said it was his wife who had passed away from the Countdown, and that she had taught him about the importance of real food.
 

Despite not singing her praises to the whole world every waking moment, the way he wanted to, everything he had ever done over the past 30 years was because of Samantha, whom he still missed every day… whom he still loved with every single ounce of his heart and soul. And today, on the 30th anniversary of her death, August stood on their front lawn.
 

He had not been back in Alabama since he left all those years ago. The last time he had seen this house was the day that Samantha had passed away; the day he had woken in the Granger Clinic after being hit by an AutoCar. His arm still twinged from time to time where it had been broken, especially now that he was in his sixties.

August still had his keys. He had kept them in his pocket every day since he locked the door for the last time… in case August ever decided to come back all of a sudden. And he had thought about it a few times.
 

When the laws changed about Nutricators, knowing that he had made it happen, and knowing that Sam had also had a hand in it through him… August had thought to come here. But he never did. August had come to believe in God over the years. He wasn’t religious or anything; August never went to church. But he felt that something was connecting him with Samantha.
 

Every time he cooked and felt that electrical buzzing inside his chest, he knew she was with him. It wasn’t just being happy or remembering the exultant feeling of being wildly in love. It was Sam. He knew it. He didn’t need to ask her to find out the truth… but he might, anyway.

August stepped through the front door and received a wave of emotion upon looking at all of their worldly possessions in the same places where he left them. It wasn’t sadness that swept over him at that moment, but rather elation at finally coming home, and a tremendous sense of relief that everything was as it should be. What had Sam said to him when they discussed whether or not to keep the house?

“When you need to feel comforted, where do you go? If you ever feel completely out of sorts and lost, the best place to go is always home.”

And so, all these years later, when he felt out of sorts and in need of comforting… when he felt lost… August had come home to Alabama.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out something else he had been carrying in there for 30 years, and it was almost empty. There was only a pinch of Sam’s ashes left. He took half of the bag and sprinkled it on the couch, exactly where she had been the last time they had lain there, reading together with their legs intertwined.

He smiled, but also let a tear fall down his cheek. It was the first time he had cried in years. It wasn’t a tear of sorrow, but one that acknowledged the hole he still felt in his heart without Samantha beside him.

Next, August went to his workshop. He grabbed a few tools, which he put into the bag he had brought with him, which already contained a few containers of liquid. The tools and fluids all had one thing in common. They were used specifically for the upkeep, maintenance, and repair of wood.