Futureland: Nine Stories of an Imminent World

His aunt’s name was Martha. And not only could he remember the fifty states, but he could also recall all of the state capitals. The girl he had a crush on in prod-ed was Lana, and he loved her because she smelled like soap. He loved the smell of the soapy water his mother made him wash in after playing in the grass in Central Park. He remembered a grasshopper his uncle caught for him. It was a green creature with long waving antenae that was kept in a plastic cage made to look like bamboo. The creature ate bits of lettuce that Neil pressed between the bars. If he looked close he could see his uncle’s face in the many facets of the bug’s green eye. Bob.

“You shouldn’t argue with your mother, Neil,” Bob had said many long years before. Neil remembered the words and the voice and even the smell of strawberry jam in Martha’s kitchen. “She’s worked very hard not to get recycled so that you can have a mother and stay aboveground.”

“But Uncle Bob, other kids got foot gliders, why can’t I have a pair?”

“You shouldn’t argue with your mother...” Bob repeated his admonition in exactly the same words, tones, smells, and time.

Neil asked Bob couldn’t he buy the x-element gliders. “You shouldn’t argue with your mother...”

“Neil.”

“Huh. Who is it?”

“Un Fitt. You were entering a loop, Neil.”

“A what?”

“You got stuck questioning a memory. That happens sometimes when human minds are connected to a computer system.”

“I can remember everything I ever knew,” Neil said.

“Yes. There are neuronal connectors to every memory center in your brain. The problem is that you cannot change these memories.”

“Why not?”

“Because the part of you that is consciousness resides in my matrix. It is a limbo of sorts. You can read the data of your life but you cannot alter it.”

“Then how can I live?”

“You can talk to me, Neil.”

“So that’s it? It’s you and me forever?” The hysterical shudder of claustrophobia went through the ex-prod’s mind.

“No, Neil,” Un Fitt said. “When we have the proper tools, Nina will be able to join you from time to time. And until then...”

What had been a void was suddenly a vast panorama of the sea, the Pacific Ocean, Neil knew instinctively. It was the prehistoric coastline that he’d yearned for since childhood. The waves crashed and huge birds wheeled in the sky.

“Here you may roam until there is a body for you to inhabit again,” Un Fitt whispered between the thundering waves. “And a world worth living in.”