Moonliner: No Stone Unturned (13 page)

He sees the room as he saw it just days earlier, when he was here with Nikki.  From the bar’s sound system he can hear the beat of the over-played DP tune; the same song they discussed over dinner last time they were here.  Now it’s playing in the background as everyone is dining, drinking, conversing, and laughing.  To Cedric, this moment is as close to deja-vu as a moment can be without actually being deja-vu, too close in proximity.  It’s the recurring peak of a wave.  Only this wave has a nasty, deep, dark trough that Cedric would sooner skip over.  If only he could skip backward, he thinks to himself, back to that precious night, and back to that table right there in the corner or the room.  

The waitress, a young Japanese lady with her hair held above her head in a bun with chopsticks and wearing a bright, colorful yukata asks if he’d like another drink.  With a half-numbed face, he signals yes with the number one to indicate that he only wants one more.  It’s his fourth drink on the night and his third
one more
.  Within a few minutes the drink somehow magically appears in front of him as he continues to stare at the table where he sat with Nikki days prior.

He ponders his proximity to the point in time and space where he and Nikki sat at that table.  He thinks about his own experiments and the day he heard events play out over his receiver moments before actually occurring around him in real life; how he heard the future in a transmission.  Maybe he’s closer to that table than he knows?  For a moment he feels a sense of hope, like she’s there, here, somewhere locked in another dimension.

“We’re here,” Cedric thinks to himself; “we’re
here
it’s just that we’re not
now
.”  There is no
now
anyway, or no present point in time.  Everything’s in the past, presenting itself as immediate. The further from the viewpoint, the further in the past.  Cedric’s hand in front of his face and the clock on the wall are both in the past, with the hand being the more recent of the two events.  Of neither can you accurately say look at what it
is
, only what it
was
.  It’s all an elaborate illusion, or
was
one I should say.
[8]

“She’s right there at that table,” Cedric says angrily but vocally to himself, slightly startling the Korean couple and everybody else within an earshot.  “She’s fading too far into the past for me to see,” he mumbles.

The husband of Korean couple now realize Cedric is three sheets into the wind, so he strategically positions himself to box Cedric out of the conversation he’s having with his wife.  You could say he set a pick for her.  They impatiently ask the bar staff about the status of their table and roll their eyes toward Cedric to let the bartender know they’d rather not be situated next to him.  The bartender gives them a sympathetic look and tells them they’re next on the waiting list.

Cedric sits staring at the table, pleasantly oblivious to his surroundings.  The bar staff hasn’t eighty-sixed him yet but they’ve cut him off.  He just doesn’t know it yet, and won’t until he orders another one.  You might say he’s on thin ice with them.

Several minutes pass before he decides to order that drink.

              “Excuse me,” he says; “can I get some edamame and another drink?”

              “Sure,” the new server says; “I’ll be right back with that.”

Five minutes later, she returns with the edamame but not the beverage.

              “Here’s your edamame,” she says.  “Unfortunately, I can’t serve you a drink at this time.  I’ve been told that I can’t serve you.”

              “What do you mean?” Cedric asks.

              “My manager instructed me not to serve you anymore.  She says you’ve had your limit.  I’m sorry,” the young server says.

              “I’m too drunk?” Cedric asks before getting up to leave, now looking ashamed.  “I’m sorry, this isn’t me.” 

              He pays his bill with a generous gratuity to show his good intentions, then walks out with as much dignity as he can still muster, into the night.

The night gets blurry from there, murky and unclear.  At one point there is a taxi ride, but it doesn’t take Cedric home.  He buys a new pint of Crown Royal too somewhere along the way.  A dog barks in the distance as he makes his way into an empty park.

Not wanting to go home, Cedric sits at the base of a concrete full-pipe in a hoverboard park, under the moon.  The concrete is tagged with graffiti everywhere, mostly street-gang nonsense.  He lays back on the curved cement and looks up at the stars light years away, sitting there years ago.   

The moon is bright and crystal clear.  Cedric doesn’t look at it though.  He hasn’t been able to.  It’s his albatross, or his eternal curse.  It’s now waning, enshrouding Tycho and the highlands where Nikki went down.  He looks away, then positions himself directly beneath the roof of the pipe where he no longer has a line on it, only the stars.   

Sirens sound, then fade.  The night is otherwise quiet.  Various aircraft fly above, both at high and low altitudes, but are seldom heard at all.  The air within the hollow structure of the concrete pipe doesn’t seem to flow.  City noise is non-existent and the acoustics are tight.  The slightest sounds cause echoes within the inner wall, as if you were in a deep cavern.

The long day, the drinks, and gravity have all taken their toll.  Cedric is completely exhausted.  He pulls the pint out of a pocket on the side of his pants, unscrews the lid and takes a little swig of whiskey.  The shot burns, hitting the palate a little harder than usual.  His eyes water.  He takes a good look up at the stars, and a quick glance at the moon, then lays back against the concrete. 

              “Everyone’s gone, to the moon,” he softly sings, his deep voice reverberating throughout the pipe; “everyone’s gone, to the moon.”

Moonliner
3:04

Light has been gathering in the hover park for an hour or so, but hasn’t woken Cedric, who now sleeps with his face pressed against the curved inner wall of the pipe.  Finally, direct sunlight cracks the dawn and makes its way into the park, heating the cooled concrete and Cedric’s trashed face.  The way he’s lying and how pale his face is, you could easily mistake him for dead. 

The dawning sunlight slowly awakens him.  He sits up in and starts rubbing the back of his seriously kinked neck.  He takes a good long look at the sun as it rolls behind a few cirrus clouds on the horizon.  There’s no sign of the heat letting up.

Cedric gets up off the concrete and slowly walks away from the park, looking like hell.

At home, he sits on the sofa pouring himself a drink from the pint of Crown that he just rediscovered this morning in the side pocket of his pants.

              “I don’t remember buying this at all,” he tells Phaedra, holding the bottle up in the air; “I don’t know where I got it.  Can you tell me?”

              “I can check your accounts for matching activity if you would like me to,” Phaedra asks.

              “Yes, would you?” Cedric requests in response.

              “I’m showing fifty-five point five dollars deducted at eight twenty-seven from your personal savings, going to Marketime Foods.  Does that ring a bell?” Phaedra asks.

              “Oh yes, Marketime,” Cedric replies; “how could I forget that?”

              “An increase in alcohol consumption,” Phaedra suggests.

              “It’s just a phase,” Cedric tells her; “and stop taking me so literally.”

He goes into his bathroom and starts drawing a bath.  He takes a long look at himself in his mirror and wonders why he’s still alive; why Nikki had to die so young, at such an enthusiastic time in her life and he is left to carry on.  The universe now seems completely devoid of any underlying balancing agent, any rational order, or any meaning for that matter.  It’s chaotically controlled and Cedric feels stuck on outpost Earth with a depleted supply of enthusiasm.  His crow’s feet, which really show up when he’s drinking, are stark indicators that he’s been on the planet a while.  He is, nevertheless, not an old man.  He just feels like one.  The booze doesn’t really help either.

He leaves the bathroom with the bath water running.  All bath tubs in 2069, even ones in apartments as simple as Cedric’s, have automated water level control and temperature regulation.  There is no longer a need to worry about a tub overflowing.

Cedric opens the door to a closet just outside of his bathroom.  Hanging inside, he finds Nikki’s sweater; a light, lavender, cashmere cardigan.  An instant chill runs down his spine.  He stares at it, not really knowing what to do with it.  He finally moves the garment to the end of closet, out of sight behind a bathrobe that he never wears. 

He sits down on an office chair behind his desk looking out of his balcony window at the busy world, which now seems to be going on around him, leaving him to wallow in the pain of his misfortune. 

“Can I hear my voice messages?” he asks Phaedra.

• “Cedric, some guy from Cygnus was here today,” Pender’s voice is heard saying in the first message.  “You missed your outline deadline and nobody has heard from you.  People are starting to get a little worried about you.  Give me a call.”
  
• “Cedric, Lennox here.  What do you say we get out, dust off and chase a little white ball around the course?” a familiar voice says.  “I think a game of golf would do us both some good.  I’ve gotta fly out again soon and I’d really like to get 18 holes in before I go.”  Another pong is heard.
  
• “Hi Cedric.  My name’s Jonathan Archer.  I’m with Cygnus, Inc., the company which sponsors the laser-com department at your university.  I’ve been hearing a lot about your thesis work and I’d really like to talk with you a little more about it when you get a moment.  When you have the chance, could you give me a beam at Archer39JN?  Thanks.”  Then a pong.
  
• (squelch sound)
  received the message
  (barely audible)
  

“Who was that from?” Cedric asks Phaedra.

“Source unknown,” Phaedra answers.  Another pong is heard.

• “Cedric, it’s Pender again.  The deadline’s Friday.  I’m just wondering where you are.  Also, do you have the school’s micron repeater?  I need it.  Beam me!” Pender orders.
  

“Incoming call from Lennox,” Phaedra tells Cedric as the lamps in his apartment subtly, momentarily dim to signal the call.  Phaedra doesn’t usually announce callers, unless programed to as an option.  Lennox’s and Nikki’s lines are the only two designated for her to announce.

              “I guess I’ll take it,” Cedric responds.  “What’s going on?” he then asks Lennox.

              “Not much,” Lennox replies.  “How are you holding up?” he asks Cedric, checking up on his old friend.

              “I’m good,” Cedric answers with a tone of confidence.