Pinball Read online

  Steven nodded, and Randolph led the way to a small building near the center of town. Inside there was a single large room, lined floor to ceiling with bookshelves filled with hundreds of books and magazines which appeared to be from every era since the invention of movable type.

  Much to Steven’s amazement, there was also a small desk, upon which sat a small device that distinctly resembled a laptop computer, although it was definitely in the category of “concept design.” It looked like a translucent grey clamshell standing open, the lower half housing a keyboard that he was relieved to see bore the usual QWERTY layout. The upper half, however, didn’t seem to have a screen as such, which puzzled him.

  Randolph saw the confusion on his face. “I’m sure this unit is probably somewhat more advanced than what you are familiar with, although the concept will be much the same,” Randolph said. “The typewriter, for example, was an entirely new invention in my time, but over the years I have seen a number of people come through Centra with various types of portable computing devices. This particular one was left to us by a gentleman who was here but six months ago, and who happened to hail from nearly the same timestream that we are in. This device was manufactured on Earth, I believe in the year 2764.” He pressed a recessed button on the side of the device, and a halo of rainbow-colored light appeared in midair in front of the upper half of the clamshell. It swirled like a tiny globe spinning for two or three seconds, and then resolved to a rainbow-shaded cascade of text that made Steven smile.

  Welcome to

  SkyLight

  ©2755-2764 Microsoft, Inc.

  So Microsoft is still around after 700 years, Steven thought, and they’ve moved on from Windows to SkyLights. He laughed softly to himself.

  The introductory text disappeared and a circle of spheres appeared, circling slowly like the hands of a clock. They were each tinted a different color. He looked for a pointing device — a mouse or touchpad — but there was none. He hesitated, uncertain as to what to do next. “Simply point at the one you want,” Randolph said. Steven looked at him, uncertain as to what he meant, and saw that he had extended his index finger toward the spheres. Steven realized that he meant precisely that and did the same, pointing toward the blue sphere. As his fingertip seemed to touch it, text appeared in the center of the circle of spheres: Word. He moved his finger from sphere to sphere, noting the title of each one; the red one was PowerPoint, the green one Excel. Pointing at the silver one displayed Web. Curious, he let his fingertip linger there and the entire display was replaced by what seemed to be a 26 century web browser; after a moment, it disappeared to be replaced by a text display reading Web connection not found. Steven grinned wryly. The 26 century web browser had given a 26 century 404 error.

  “Of course, we don’t have access to the information network that we would have back on Earth,” Randolph said, “but the unit is useful in many other ways.” He reached out and tapped the red X floating at the upper right — Some things never change, thought Steven — and when the sphere menu came back up, stabbed his wrinkled finger at the sphere of gold.

  A series of moving images came up, displaying brief clips of all sorts of scenes, and then the title Omnipedia. That was replaced by a seven-pointed display which included illustrated choices for Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Persons, Places, Dictionary, and Search. Steven was intrigued. He chose Search and was rewarded with a familiar text box. He typed history and watched, enthralled, as the computer displayed an animated panorama that began with the dawn of recorded history in the Bronze Age and led all the way to the year that the computer, and evidently the software, was manufactured, 2764.

  “Stay as long as you like,” Randolph said. “I must return to my duties repairing a piece of our equipment outside.” He left the room, and Steven turned back to the computer, hungry to see what he might learn.

  He scrolled to the point in the timeline which contained information about his own era, the 21 century, and skimmed forward from there. War and the world economy, unsurprisingly, were the dominant topics mentioned. He sighed. It was true, then, what they say: nothing ever really changes.

  He read that beginning in the mid-21 century, about fifty years after his time, mankind began to colonize the planets. First the United States established a permanent base on the Moon, then in 2071, after several exploratory visits, built a colony on Mars. In 2077, Komuso Tokugawa, President of the United States of AmerAsia, delivered a speech that said in part, “First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before the next decade is out, of establishing a permanent foothold in the outer Solar System. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.” Steven smiled at that, for he recognized that Tokugawa had stolen the bulk of his speech from the famous proposal made by President Kennedy in 1961 that the U.S. land a man on the Moon and return him to Earth.

  He read on to discover that Tokugawa’s proposal had been taken to heart. A base had been established on the Jovian moon Europa in 2085, and from there, mankind had explored as far out as Pluto, which had been restored to full planetary status, in 2096, and reached the inner sector of the Kuiper Belt in 2115. Mining of the minor planets there had revolutionized the raw materials market on Earth as well as in the colonies.

  Steven sat back in the chair, his mind spinning in amazement.

  Chapter 16

  Steven went back to the reference to AmerAsia and took a side link that brought up information on the governments of Earth; he found that the U.S. economy had rallied for a few years after the crisis of 2008-2010, but that in 2017, after the Republican presidential nominee, a near-unknown independent candidate named Richard Fannin, had succeeded Barack Obama in his bid for re-election, a near-total financial collapse shook the industrialized nations of the West. After several years of struggle and negotiation, during which the Communist government of the People’s Republic of China fell apart, the governments of the U.S., Japan, the newly reunified Korea and the Republic of Free China entered into an agreement in 2023 to form the United States of AmerAsia, a massive union with a population of over two billion people, dwarfing Europe’s estimated 750 million.

  During the same period of time, the European Union drafted a new constitution which made the member nations states in a European federation which was officially christened Europa Nova, but universally referred to simply as Europa, which produced more than a little confusion in many people’s minds when discussing the topic of colonizing the Jovian moon of the same name.

  He learned that many residents of the former United States of America had emigrated to South America, mainly Brazil, after the founding of AmerAsia. This was due in part to an increased amount of saber rattling by the Europeans, notably the European Prime Minister, Ricoletto Gianinni, who denounced the AmerAsian union as “an effort to undermine the security of the planet” and “a marriage born in Hell.” Rio de Janeiro had become a Mecca for expatriate Americans. Some had fled there out of dislike of the AmerAsian government, while others emigrated out of fear of a possible AmerAsian-European conflict, so much so that it was relatively rare to hear Portuguese spoken in the streets of Rio after 2025.

  Steven returned to the section on interstellar exploration and discovered that, in part, the vision set forth by the Star Trek TV series and films had come true; a sort of warp drive had indeed been invented, though by a corporate thinktank at General Electric Mitsubishi (GEM), not Trek’s fictional Zefram Cochrane. Ironically, however, the first flight of a ship equipped with the revolutionary drive system took place on April 5, 2062, one year to the day prior to the date given for the first warp driven space flight in the fictional Trek universe.

  Unlike Trek’s first contact story, however, humans did not make contact with an extraterrestrial civilization on that maiden voyage, nor, in fact, had they at all as of the publishing of the softpedia he was reading. He thou
ght of blue-skinned Vraath, whom Randolph had pointed out to him as they walked down the main road, and smiled to himself. They’ll need to revise that one of these days, he thought. Space is a big place.

  Steven looked up and realized it was growing dark outside. He had mixed emotions about what to do next; he knew that the longer he stayed, the greater the possibility that an inordinate amount of time might have passed at home, but he was also incredibly enthralled by the adventure he was experiencing.

  He gathered his things and left the library, hoping he could return at some point. He walked through the gathering darkness, noting the presence of several crescent moons of various sizes in the dimming sky, and found Randolph tinkering with what appeared to be some kind of vehicle, a three wheeled wooden wagon that looked like a cross between a horse drawn carriage and a tricycle.

  “I need to go home,” Steven said. Randolph nodded and stood slowly to his feet, and the two men walked down the road toward the Gate.

  They said their goodbyes and Steven, feeling like an old hand now at this Gatespace stuff, walked into the vortex.

  The return home was easier than he’d anticipated; he was worried that he wouldn’t be able to find what he now thought of as his “home” Gate; did the Gates drift about in Gatespace the way that the people and other objects floating in it did? But much to his relief, he found the Gate without much trouble, seeing the familiar landscape when he looked into it, and propelled himself through.

  Chapter 17

  Steven expected to feel the familiar chill of December on his face, but instead he realized that the sun was high in the sky and the heat was blistering. It had to be July, maybe August. He was also surprised to see that what appeared to be a camouflage tarpaulin had been erected over the Gate. Steven shed his coat and began to walk toward home, realizing that at least six months must have passed while he’d been gone.

  When he ducked under the edge of the tarp, he was stunned to see that an eight-foot wire mesh fence had been erected around the portal site. Within the fence, he noticed several weathered wooden posts that had been driven into the ground. There were tattered remnants of yellow police tape still tied to a couple of them, weathered and bleached by the sun.

  Steven stood staring at one of them as it flapped in the wind like a tiny pennant. He looked around and saw that there were several buildings of various sizes surrounding the fenced area. The nearest appeared to be nothing more than a guard shack, just large enough for a single stool. It was open to the air on the side facing the Gate, but was empty.

  He walked to the fence and saw that there was a gate which evidently had been kept locked at one time, but the padlock hung open on the fork latch. Either something had happened here to cause security to lapse, or someone was falling down on the job.

  Steven slipped the padlock off the latch and pocketed it. Opening the gate, careful not to make any unnecessary noise, he edged out of the fenced area, noticing a metal sign on the fence outside which read NO ADMISSION – AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. He walked quietly toward the guard shack, uncertain of what to expect.

  Something was very wrong indeed. Jesus, Steven thought, how long was I gone this time? He began to panic as he walked in the direction of the house. It dawned on him that there was no sign whatsoever of the wound in the earth that the Mini-Guardian had inflicted; as far as he was concerned, that had been only a few hours ago, but clearly, that wasn’t the case.

  He passed several structures that seemed to be storage buildings, and a large building with several overhead doors on one side that he assumed was a vehicle garage. They all bore signs by their doors identifying them as UAA Army facilities. Holy shit, thought Steven.

  He walked toward the southwest, watching carefully for troops. He saw a couple of soldiers in ACUs that appeared to be working on the engine of a truck parked behind the garage, but they were too busy to notice him. He passed a couple of buildings that seemed to be offices that were occupied but managed to pass without drawing anyone’s attention. They certainly didn’t seem to be on any sort of high alert; Steven was beginning to suspect that much more than six months had passed since he’d been gone.

  As he neared the vicinity of the house, he became even more aware that things were radically different. The house, a weathered white when he had last seen it, now bore gleaming white siding with hunter green trim and had shutters next to the windows that hadn’t been there before. The yard, usually cluttered with the kids’ toys and other miscellaneous items, was now neatly groomed. A neat white picket fence surrounded its perimeter. There was a sign on a post by the front walk that read DENVER RESIDENCE. He saw that about a hundred yards past the house, there appeared to be a primary boundary fence, ten feet in height with razor wire on top. An entrance gate with another guard station stood across the gravel road that used to be the dirt road that they lived on.

  Oh, god, he thought. What the hell have I done?

  He walked up to the front door of the house and knocked tentatively. After a moment, a slender blonde woman in her mid-20s answered. She looked at Steven with a puzzled expression. “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “Uh… yes,” he responded. “I’m looking for Lynne Denver?”

  “Oh, she’s my mother-in-law, but she doesn’t live here,” replied the woman. “I’m Erica Denver. Who are you?”

  “Your mother-in-law?” Steven asked, more than a little taken aback. His head spun. “Are you married to Samuel Denver?”

  “Why, yes. Dr. Denver is my husband. Do you know him?” she said.

  Dr. Denver? Steven swallowed and took a deep breath. “Yes… I’m his father.”

  Her eyes grew large. “His father? B-but… that’s impossible. Sam’s father has been missing for about fifteen years!”

  Fifteen years? The phrase echoed in his mind. Fifteen years he’d been gone. Fifteen years had passed while he’d spent four hours on a distant planet. What about Lynne? Had she waited all these years?

  He took her hands. “It’s urgent that I see Samuel. Where is he now?”

  Erica looked a little frightened. “He’s in his office, on the other side of the base. I can take you to him.” She closed the door behind her and led Steven across the base to the southeast. As they walked, Steven found himself wondering what year it was now back in Centra.

  Erica led Steven to one of the offices that he had passed earlier and they went inside. Sitting at a desk was a muscular young man with a full head of curly black hair, wearing a pair of wire rimmed glasses. His focus was on the computer terminal that sat on his desk.

  “Sam?” said Erica, knocking lightly on the doorjamb, “There’s someone here for you.”

  Samuel looked up at Steven and a look of bewilderment came over his face.

  “Hello, Samuel,” Steven said.

  “Dad?” Sam replied hesitantly, getting up and approaching his father. “Oh, my God, Dad, is it really you?”

  “It’s me, son,” Steven said. “It’s me.”

  Samuel lashed out suddenly in a rage, grabbing Steven by the shoulders. “Where have you been? God damn you, where have you been? You’ve been gone for fifteen years! Fifteen goddam years! We waited for you, we watched that damned portal for months, but you never came back! Why didn’t you come back?” His voice was hoarse with emotion.

  “Son…” Steven began, “You don’t understand…”

  “I don’t understand? What is it that I don’t understand? You went off on an adventure and left your family behind — for fifteen years!”

  “But… where I was, on the other side of the portal…” Steven tried to explain, “I was only gone for four hours.”

  Samuel stared at him with glassy eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “I found another gate, like the one up the hill… that led out of the void, to another place. There are dozens of them, maybe hundreds, even thousands, I don’t know how many there are. I was on another world, another planet, one where there was a small town. I met a man…” He stopped, gasping
for breath, realizing just how farfetched the whole thing sounded.

  There was a pause. Samuel looked at him, his eyes still cold. “Well?”

  Steven hesitated, then realized his son was still willing to listen. “This man I met also went through one of the Gates — that’s what they call the vortexes — he went through, just like I did, in 1872, and he never went home. There were about fifty people there, whole families. There was at least one person from some other world, as well, not just humans.” He saw interest in Samuel’s eyes now.

  “The man I met there — his name was Randolph. He had been in the Gatespace — the void — for centuries before he came out, and he’d been in this town, on this planet, for forty years. There was a little library of books that they had collected over the years, and even a computer, a…” He felt as if he were rambling, and suddenly fell silent, feeling as if he were about to burst into tears.

  Samuel looked at him with something that resembled affection, if not yet love. “I’m sorry, Dad. I’ve spent the last two years studying that damned green swirl, sometimes sixty, seventy hours a week, hoping to find out whatever had become of you, and when you finally show up, I blow up at you like a pissed off old lady.”

  Steven smiled at him. “I understand, son. It’s all right.”

  “You should go see Mom,” Samuel said.

  Steven choked on his words. “Where is she? Is she all right? I — I don’t know what I’ll say to her…”

  “Calm down, Dad. I’ll take you to her. She lives over on the other side of town now.”

  They went out to the parking area and got in Samuel’s car, a sporty black sedan. Steven didn’t recognize the logo on the steering wheel, a stylized S. “This is a beautiful car, son. What make is it?”

  “It’s a Samsung. They’re made in Korea.” He gave a little laugh. “There aren’t any American carmakers anymore, Dad,” he said. “Oh, and by the way, it’s not the USA any more, it’s the—“