The Story Until Now: A Great Big Book of Stories (32 page)

“When?” I was scared and excited. Less excited than scared.

“Soon, I promise, just as soon as they get all these sick people put away.”

It was a little song she sang to keep us safe.
AS SOON AS THEY GET ALL THESE SICK PEOPLE PUT AWAY
. And every night we had a little party, cookies and ginger ale. We put on costumes and made jokes. Once a month we tested the defenses. Ready. Aim. Everything but fire. If one of Them tries to get in … She made paper hats for us. “Aren’t we having fun,” Mother said. She was laughing and laughing. “Aren’t we having fun!”

So Billy and me, we stayed in, and I can tell you we were damn glad. We saw the ravages on
TV
. “Just as soon as they get all these sick people put away.” Truth? There was a whole world out there that we weren’t using, and I could hardly wait.

But here’s the trick of it. You can’t get people put away when you don’t know which ones they are.

Mother said we wouldn’t be in here long, but she worked on our armaments while we slept. It’s been a while, but at least I’m safe.

So we have Mother to thank. And De-con. We never touch anything any sick person touched.

We order from Web-
TV
, no problem, De-con guarantees that no germs get into your food and none come in on the clothes you ordered off the Web or from the Shopping Channel and what if it’s maybe a little lonely you can count on emailing eBay or
Amazon.com
and they’ll mail you back, you might get a computer virus but at least you are safe. Or, and this is great! With the Shopping Channel, you can phone in and sometimes they put your phone call on
TV
. Imagine. You can tune in and hear yourself talking to the shopping host right there on the air! Plus, you get safe, germ-free delivery of anything you
want, from your Albanian Aardvark to a Jivaro shrunken head. Who needs to go out? Our lives were full!

I guess.

It’s interesting, sitting there in front of the
TV
-puter most of the day. You’re, like,
CONNECTED
to all the billions of others for as long as you stay logged on but you can’t touch them, and this is weird. I was sitting in here protecting all my senses from contamination and all I wanted was to be touched.

I guess Billy did too. He said, “I want to go out and meet some people I’m not related to.”

Mother smacked him. “No way.”

Oh, but we were safe. So safe! See, hear, feel, taste, touch,
HAVE
anything you want. Get excited ordering it and then get excited waiting for it to come. Well, anything that got delivered to the De-con box and made it through the double-sealed de-germified airlock in our front hall. But what’s the point of the perfect dress if nobody sees you in it except your brother and your mom? Billy and I would have had friends, I would have had cute guys to go out with, except Mother wouldn’t let us go to school.

And I will tell you this about it. Mother did it because she loves us but home education is the pits. The whole world going on outside, we saw it on
TV
and on the web, and Billy and me stuck in Father’s den, which she had converted to the schoolroom, us and Mother. Sitting too close and breathing the same stale air.

“What do you think, class?”

“I don’t know. What do you think, Mom?”

It got old. Billy was the first to crack. He got big and started ogling all these women on
TV
.

“Stop that. That’s just
Baywatch
,” Mother said.

“I don’t care what it is, I want to go to the beach!” He meant he wanted to go out in the world and consort with jiggly girls.

“That show’s so old those girls are probably dead.” Mother said, “Girls aren’t like that any more.”

“Prove it.” Oh my gosh he was ogling me.

I started to cry.

Mother smacked him. “You leave your sister alone.”

The next morning he was gone.

It’s amazing how Billy got out. He made it through the airlock and out of the De-con box. I tried but I was growing hips and boobs and they were getting in the way. Every once in a while he would try to phone but Mother wouldn’t let me pick up. “That was your brother,” she’d say. “He wants to come back but
remember, he made his choice when he left us for the germs. Now I’m warning you,
NO MATTER WHAT HE DOES OR SAYS, DON’T LET HIM IN
.”

It’s
OK
, I didn’t miss him too much. I went out on the Internet and met a lot of cool guys. Amazing what people will tell you when they can’t see you. Amazing what you tell them.

Then Mother got sick. Except she didn’t call it sick. How I knew there was something bad the matter was, she started teaching me how to run the world: where the money was, the PIN numbers for all our accounts, how to make e-transfers to keep the De-con service and how to pay for the food and the clothes she ordered for us and how to accessorize. The jewelry she’d gotten from the Shopping Channel, she divided into two heaps.

“This is for you.” She swept one pile my way. The other, she kept. “I’m going to be buried in this.”

“What’s buried?” I said.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s not contagious. And wherever God takes me, I promise, I’ll protect you to the grave.”

I did like she wanted. I took the DigiCam and after I did her makeup and laid her out in all her jewelry and the Melissa Rivers caftan with the solid gold trim, I took lots of pictures and I posted them in the right place on the Web. Then I did like she ordered and put her down the Dispos-Al a little bit at a time. The bones I left in the De-con box and the De-con company took them away. He said through the intercom, “Are you
OK
in there?”

“Never better,” I said.

Except it’s really quiet in here.

After she died everything was pretty much the same. Stuff kept coming—clean and safe. But safe turned out not to be enough. Except for the necessaries, I left off shopping. Nobody to dress up for, nobody to care. It was quiet as hell. One day at delivery time I left the airlock open and when the De-con signal went off to tell me the outside box was opening, I stuck my head in the hole so the delivery guy would hear me direct. “Come on in!”

“Lady, you shouldn’t do this. You could catch something.”

“You’re bonded,” I told him. “It’s
OK
.”

“You got no idea what’s out here.”

“Cute guys,” I said. “I saw them on
TV
.”

“But some of them are carrying terrible diseases. Women too!” He sounded muffled;
OK
he was talking through his De-con filter mask. In the surveill camera, he looked like he was wearing a gigantic rubber glove. Since Mother died I haven’t talked to anyone direct and I was starved for it. Just me and one other, naked face to naked face.

“No problem,” I told him. I was wearing Mother’s Pamela Anderson outfit from
QVC
. “I’ll stay away from them.”

“Precautions,” the delivery man said. “No telling what you might run into out here.”

“At least I’d be running into
SOMETHING
,” I said but I took his word for it and let it go by. Along with the days. Along with a lot of other days.

Until I found the ad on the Web.
SEX AND GLORY
, the header ran.
SAFE AND TOTAL LOVE WITH THE PERFECT PARTNER—GENDER APPROPRIATE
.

I read the disclaimers. I gasped at the down payment. I sold everything I had on eBay and took all the money to do it.

I ordered a guy.

The De-con truck pulled up on the morning appointed. The assistant driver ran a forklift around and unloaded the crate. There were air holes in the crate, it was strapped with warning tape:
DO NOT BEND. THIS SIDE UP
. I saw it on the surveill
TV
.

The driver said through the intercom, “I got a questionable delivery.”

“No questions. I ordered it.”

“It won’t fit in the De-con box.”

“You can set it down out there and leave.” Mother taught us to be cautious. “I’ll bring it in.”

“You shouldn’t come out.”

“
OK, OK
,” I said. “You can just open it and leave.”

“No way! The crate’s been damaged. De-con guarantees protection and no way am I going to be liable. God knows what could have gotten inside.”

“I don’t care.”

“Lady, anything that happens to you comes out of my hide. I can’t leave you alone with this thing. You could sue the company.”

“I’ll take the responsibility.”

“Sorry, Ma’am.” The De-con guy gestured to the assistant and they started to put the thing back on the truck. I armed the defense missiles and blew both of them away.

It took all the tools in the basement to blow the airlock and get the front door open but I finally managed. I pushed it aside and I came tottering out. Me, Dolly Meriwether, alone out in the world. It was weird! The box was sitting right where the delivery men had left it. I thought I heard thumping. It seemed to bulge.

My guy.

There were air holes, all right, and there were plastic kibbles dribbling from one corner where the crate had smashed. There was also a warning label.
MANUFACTURER NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR DAMAGED GOODS OR CONTAGION INCURRED IN TRANSIT
.

I put my mouth up to the hole. “Can you hear me? Are you in there?”

I thought I heard a voice.

Oh Mother, I was so excited! I could almost hear Mother hissing, “Leave it alone, Dolly. That thing is full of germs!”

“I don’t care!” I opened the box with the crowbar. The sides fell away. Plastic kibbles cascaded down. He was standing there smiling in his orange coverall. “Hello.”

Mother hissed from beyond the grave. “Don’t touch that thing, you don’t know where it’s been!”

My guy stepped out of the kibbles. He was nice and apologetic. “I’m here on approval. Truth in advertising, I have to tell you this. If the seal on the box is broken, your product may be contaminated. You can return it and get your money back.”

I looked at the corner of the crate. “No problem,” I said.

“Look,” he said. “I was in a warehouse with a bunch of. Um. I’m sorry, I might of caught something.”

“No problem,” I said. I grabbed his arm and yanked him inside with me. “Kiss me,” I said.

“Even if I’m … ?”

I shut his mouth with my mouth and it was the best thing I ever tasted in this world. Then sirens started blatting and guns I didn’t even know were in the walls around us slipped out of their slots—the automatic firing squad Mother had planted in the middle of some long-dead night. I heard a hundred clicks. The weapons arming. I heard her voice. “
I TOLD YOU I’D PROTECT YOU TO THE GRAVE
.”

“I love you,” I yelled at him as a hundred triggers drew back. “Get out!” But I know it is too late for both of us.

—
F&SF
, 2000

Journey to the Center of the Earth

Jerome is in Nebraska to visit his father.

His dad lives in a model community located in the middle distance, at the point in the road where you think the line of shadows you see ahead is just about to congeal. At this juncture on this particular highway, you think the murky violet ridge along the horizon may be your first sight of the Rocky Mountains, but you can’t be absolutely sure. Stay here and you’ll never know; drive ten miles and the outline becomes clear.

This is where you make the turnoff for Bluemont. Take a sharp right on the two-track road through the foothills and in forty miles you’re there. According to the literature his dad has sent Jerome over the years since he left them, it’s going to be some kind of Jerusalem—
We are the future of the world;
to Jerome it sounds crazy, but … exciting? His dad would never admit this, is firm in his use of the words
model community.

It isn’t much of a model.