Futures Near and Far Read Online Free PDF Page A

day
twenty-nine. When a person’s got so few hours to live, what’s wrong with
raising a little hell?” She rocked the hammock chair until the ropes creaked in
the hook.
    “Give me a break, Cheryl. If you had any intention of
following through with this suicide petition, you’d be off somewhere all alone,
and you’d stop bothering those of us who have lives to conduct.”
    “Who have you been talking to? Dr. Branson? That sounds like
her.”
    “Ellen has helped me
realize what I should have done with you a long time ago. I’ve decided to take
her advice.”
    I squinted at her, and finally pinned down what seemed
strange about her looks. She wasn’t wearing the morph she’d favored lately.
She’d gone back to the one I had most often given her during childhood, the one
which I suppose qualified most as her own. She hadn’t used it much over the
years.
    “Dammit, Monica,” she said, practically spitting out the
comment. “I mean it this time.”
    “What is so bad about life, Cheryl? Why do you want to die?”
    She stared as if I were crazy. “What’s not wrong? The planet’s overpopulated. The rules have all
been around for hundreds of years. A
nobody like me can’t make a place in
the world.”
    “You were eight years into an apprenticeship. You were
making headway.”
    “C’mon, Mom. It was interior decorating. The only reason I
got as far as I did was that no one could tell when I did a bad job. Sort of
like therapy.”
    “It was something you stuck to. It was a sign of maturity.
You can’t expect to get to master if you don’t stick with something.”
    “Right. Get to master. What are the averages now? Thirty years of apprenticeship, fifty years as a
journeyman, and then being a master doesn’t mean jackshit unless you’re so outstanding and kiss so much ass that
your peers declare you an adept or a maestro. What the hell do eight
years matter?”
    “It’s the longest you have ever lasted,” I snapped.
    Tears began to swim in the corners of her eyes. “You act
like I mean as much to you as a turd you grunted out in the woods a hundred
years ago. You don’t care if I do it, do you? You brought me into this
fucked-up world and now you won’t even help me
slide out. I’m glad I killed you!”
    All I wanted was to stop here, and take her in my arms. But
I forced the words out, though I was so cotton-mouthed they ripped my throat.
“You’re right. I don’t care. I’ve given up, Cheryl. I hope you do it. I’ve made
arrangements with the Reproduction Review Board. They qualified me for a new
baby.”
    Cheryl blinked through her tears. The hammock chair ceased
swaying and quivered to a stop. She stared at me open-mouthed. “You can’t do
that. Nobody gets more than one kid these days.” The sarcasm and stridency had
left her voice.
    “Sure I can,” I said. “Now that my request is on file, if you’re archived any time before you turn a
hundred years of age, I can get reproductive dispensation. You’ll be
categorized as an abortion.”
    I waited for her reaction. I hadn’t raised my voice, and now I stood calmly, maintaining my stern
glare, holding back the shuddering in
my bones much like the crew of the Enola
Gay must have poised while their bomb plummeted toward Hiroshima.
    She didn’t speak. She sat there wide-eyed, gulping air, tears streaming down her cheeks. Finally she
whispered a single word, so softly I couldn’t hear her.
    I thought nothing was happening, until I noticed a faint,
bitter-almond undertone to the aroma of sea salt and hibiscus wafting from the
window. “What’s that odor?” I asked. Suddenly my limbs sprouted lead weights.
    “Cyanide,” Cheryl said in an utter monotone. “I’ve got my
filters set for it. How about you?”
    Of course I didn’t, because setting one’s filters to that
degree removes all scents from the air. I hadn’t worried about poisons, since
the nanodocs can usually render them harmless before they cause any suffering.
But