SF in The City Anthology (20 page)

The surfer looked up another one of his favorite mlogs, which displayed its content like a traditional blog on old fashioned computers, called “Captain Conspiracy.” While Arkady certainly didn’t buy into everything written in that blog, he followed stories about weather manipulation rather closely. “Any fool can see that the seasons appropriate to certain prefectures do not follow the same patterns they used to,” he’d oft
en tell his skeptical friends.

             
With the expansion of the nanosphere – a network of airborne and water based nanomachines operated by private companies and Central Authority – more and more suspicious weather patterns developed. Captain Conspiracy had a theory that the CA could even control fronts in the sky with nanotechnology, and Arkady tended to lean towards this belief. During nighttime surfing, he had often seen shadowy figures releasing mists of luminescent material into the sky, where they swarmed ever upwards. Much to Arkady’s chagrin, Captain Conspiracy hadn’t posted for over a week. 

             
Within fifteen minutes, Florian replied to the surfboarder’s request and told him he could stay for three days – more than enough time to catch some waves. Arkady closed the tabs where he had been checking out the most recent deals on funboards. He wanted to find a good one for his niece Diamantina. While this hadn’t put him on the best of terms with his brother Lachlan, Arkady still tried to convert her into a surfer.

Picking up his heavily dog-eared copy of
Walden
, the surfer threw it into his readymade travel pack and walked out into the street. He had already texted, through his archaic phone rather than mentally, the number he picked up from carpooler.com to contact a ride to the hoverport.

             
Callum Bingsley was a manager at a mental call center for Nascentron Synthetic Bodies, Inc. His daily route to work passed right by Arkady’s house, and the two of them had “carpooled” once before. In actuality, the term carpooling was an archaic one, as most rides where shared with smaller two-seater vehicles. Callum, or Mr. Bingsley as he demanded to be called, owned a Drovonov 8000 biofuel bike, which Arkady found “totally gnarly.”

             
“Are you not packed yet?” Callum asked over the low hum of his motorcycle when he had arrived.

             
“Oh this is all I need,” Arkady pointed at the backpack he wore proudly.

             
“And how long is this trip?” Callum asked disbelievingly as he handed the surfer a helmet.

             
“Just a short two weeks.”

             
“There’s no way you can survive for two weeks with just the contents of that backpack,” Callum shook his head as the carpooler sat down in the posh motorcycle seat.

             
“Believe me,” Arkady laughed and pulled his long blonde locks into a ponytail before putting on his headgear, “I’ve been gone for far greater stretches of time than a couple of weeks.”

***

              All in all, the trip to Greenback Avenue was rather uneventful. Callum was a hardcore materialist, the kind of mindset Arkady despised, so the men engaged in small talk and little else. While the hoverport was still two miles from Nascentron’s building, the surfer had walked much farther than this on some of his trips. He paid Callum upon arrival at their destination and set off for the hoverport. Arkady had enjoyed the sights of this part of The City often, yet it still held wonders and opportunities for him.

During his walk, he met an old homeless man who sold hand carved flutes. The surfer couldn’t pay him with ECUs since the man did not have an electric currency reader of any sort or nanotubes in his brain. Instead he paid for the little wooden object with a rain jacket he had brought along for the sake of being prepared. Once he was out of the elderly fellow’s sight, Arkady gave the flute to a young homeless
boy and told him to enjoy it.

Because he had paid a small fee to join a particular frequent flyer club, Arkady did not have to pass through the numerous body scanning devices and strip searches at the hoverport. NeoVolitant Airlines had a 15% discount when flights were purchased through AeroNausicaä Airways, and a free-spirited Arkady did not mind taking advantage of this loophole. Few people would have pegged him for a first class flyer, but he had earned his luxurious accommodations through s
avvy consumer decisions. 

Relaxing into his Brumann comfort pod at the window seat, Arkady read only thirty pages of
Walden
before the alacritous hovercraft landed at Prefecture 78’s hoverport. Dropping by the PeregriNation bike sharing station, the surfer picked up one of the hundreds of identical bicycles, courtesy of his subscription card, and took off riding in the direction of Florian’s house.

It had been nearly two years since the surfboarder found himself in Prefecture 78, and he had visited Stygian Fjords then. Taking in the sights, and especially smells, of the Banquette Bazaar, with its endless rows of spices and exotic fruits, Arkady had a 25 minute ride before he arrived at his host’s home. Pulling up in front of the old man’s apartment building, he shut off his antique Walkman, cutting Shostakovich’s
Tahiti Trot
, Op. 16, short. Wrapping the headphones around his neck, he pushed the apartment’s door bell and bowed graciously, but not elegantly, when Florian opened the door. Arkady had forgotten that he had his backpack hanging from only one shoulder, causing him to nearly drop it during his awkward bow.

“How are you doing young man,” Florian gave the surfer a firm handshake. “Hopefully your flight was comfortable?”

“Very,” Arkady smiled and reached into his backpack, pulling out a bottle of wine. “Here’s for a kind host.”

“Why thank you,” Florian eagerly eyed the bottle and its o
rnate label. “Come on in kid.”

Arkady quickly took off his slides an
d laid them down in the genkan
[32]
of Florian’s home. Putting on slippers he walked into the man’s abode and gasped at what he saw. Mr. Okoro had always had an obsession with Buddhism, and he had a sizable collection of figurines depicting “the enlightened one.” A waist high, bronze statue of Gautama rested near Florian’s doorway, its Abhaya mudrā
[33]
extending benevolence to visitors. 

“Wow, what a…large statue,” Arkady tried not to stare. He personally found it quite ironic that someone who followed this religion, or philosophy as many adherents referred to it, would spend so much money on material depictions of a man who preached self-denial. It was Florian’s money to do with as he ple
ased however one looked at it.

“I’m glad you like it my friend,” Florian admired the statue himself. “I had it specially made at a shop in Prefecture 79. Come sit down an
d tell me of your adventures.”

The truth was that Arkady had enough tales for a City-trotter to keep Florian’s ears busy for days, but he managed to condense his descriptions to a few hours’ worth of conversation. Of course Arkady also had a policy learned from years of travel – a true wise man never spoke more than he listened. Florian had been nicknamed the Lakeside Lothario by some of his closer friends. What Arkady had to share in surfing stories and details of his excursions, the older man more than made up for with reports on his
exploits
.

“You need to settle down and find yourself a good wife,” the surfer laughed as his host p
oured him a cup of Biluochun
[34]
.

“Look who’s talking,” F
lorian formed a crooked smile.

“So tell me,” Arkady made a slight bow when Florian handed him a small plate with a black bean burrito on it, “do you still help your brother sell art forgeries?”

“No, no,” a dark cloud seemed to have descended on the host, “I gave up on that foolishness.”

“Sorry,” Arkady looked at his tea and tried to hide how self-consciously he felt at that moment. “I didn’t mean to touch on a sensitive subject. Looking at the work of Bakst and Rembrandt, not to mention that depiction of the now nonexistent Mt. Fuji by Gensou, I enjoyed it all very m
uch, even if they were fakes.”

“Yes, and remember what I taught you is the hardes
t part of a painting to fake?”

“T
he back,” Arkady said proudly.

“Good memory,” Florian poured his guest another cup of tea. “Unfortunately my idiot
brother got himself arrested.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” the surfer l
ooked at the floor dejectedly.

“You know, what I always admired about him was his confidence in the line distinguishing the real and the fake. He created the perfect simulacra, so perfect it made you wonder if it really was the original all along, but he never pretended to have the same ingenuity as an original artist. For him, copying a man who copied nature made him neither better nor worse than the artist.
He accepted himself as he was.”

And now he’s in prison
. Arkady thought to himself. “Don’t worry about it buddy. I’m sure he’ll be out soon.”

“Oh I’m sure he will,” Florian scratched his balding head, “bu
t he will be a different man.”

“Well, we’re all new people, each and every day we wake,” the surfer said. “Even if we have absolute core principles to which we cling, we’ll still continue to evolve throughout our lives. Maybe that’s why you are so muc
h better with women than I am?”

Florian let out a hardy laugh and patted his guest on the shoulder, “I should host you more often, friend. You bring
comfort to a rickety old man.”

***

After an excellent night’s sleep, Arkady awoke to a hearty breakfast with his host. Promising to listen to Florian’s rendition of Caravelli’s “Laisse moi le temps” on the biwa when he got back from a day at Industrial Lake, the refreshed guest picked up the shortboard he had shipped to the old man’s house, it was cheaper than taking it as luggage at the hoverport, and set off for the day’s adventure.

Industrial Lake had garnered its name from the three factories (they formed a triangle when seen from the air) which dumped their waste products into its foul brown waters. Since much of what people used to call “oceans” had vast cityscapes built over them, only a few waterways remained for surfers. Nuclear runoff in some areas made the water too hazardous to abide, and the more pristine public inlets usually lacked wave activity, by intent, or had security too tight for a simple stopover. Industrial Lake would probably take only a couple of years off of Arkady’s lifespan. He had been through worse.

The outdated chain link fence, with razor wire chaotically spiraling on top of it, did not impress the surfer much. Any fool could see that the three companies who owned the property had spent chump change on security, since no one but a surfer would realistically desire to enter the lake area. They probably had dealings with the Environmental Salvation Corps (ESC), meaning that this water zone’s toxicity probably hadn’t been examined in a century, give or take a few decades.

Arkady already knew the pathetic security measures awaiting him, another surfer had told him what to expect, so he had purchased a simple device to get him over the fence without damaging property. A “putty popper” was an apparatus good for one time use. Originally intended for sealing holes quickly and temporarily, the Roman candle like device had a charge in its base. When the string on the backside of the popper was pulled, thick mucilage would burst out the other end. Now sold in joke shops, people wanting to get past razor
wire found the invention handy.

Firing a plume of slime over the wire, the surfer only had to wait a minute before it solidified into a rock hard resin. Throwing his surfboard and backpack over the fence, Arkady slid over the putty covered portion of the fence, like poetry off of a tramp’s tongue. The resin would only stay hardened for three hours, and then it would evaporate. Unlike the big corporations, the surfboarder played
with biodegradable materials. 

In Prefecture 43 a swarm of autonomous piranha drones guarded Lake Veneno. Using a cheap and simple “ping stick,” Arkady determined that no such devices haunted these waters. Looking over the sepia colored lake, he could see much physical debris, most of it metallic. He didn’t like using an obstacle detecting sensor because it made him less aerodynamic, but in such perilous waters, a quarter sized device attached to the head of the board would be worth its weight in silver.

A pipe near at the base of the closest factory spewed a large plume of brown water into the lake. Judging by the smell, Arkady knew that it wasn’t sewage, but rather waste products from primitive 3D printers. Not that he would have refused to go if it had been fecal matter.

Looking at the way the waves spread throughout Industrial Lake, it was obvious to the surfer that he would catch the best ride by riding the water emanating from the pipe. A massive whirlpool turned at one corner of the reservoir, which indicated the area where solid waste would be destroyed. If Arkady fell in there, he was a dead man. That’s what
made the endeavor so exciting!

Adjusting the emergency tow belt that surrounded his waste, the surfer knew that he had an escape if the maelstrom got ahold of him. He also activated the small camera strapped to his arm. Videos were the best way to keep someone’s attention when he or she perused his blog.
Pushing off a small depression in the lake’s south bank, Arkady put his lanky arms into the adulterated drink. Fortunately, he wore an ultrathin NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) suit to keep the accumulated filth of generations off of his skin.