Chapter
13
A Serialized Story of the
Not So Distant Future
April 1, 2005
Part Eleven
Punk Girl got off at the Broadway Lafayette Station, and walked up the stairs and over to the downtown side of the tracks. Sam floated behind her, and noticed that another man did the same. As she disappeared down the steps, the man stopped to unlock a security phone, and put in a call.
"This is Davis, 4022MT. I was called out on a 401, from Brooklyn. I'm at Broadway Lafayette, and she's just crossed over to the Downtown side. She might've made me."
"Yeah, I'll wait."
Sam left Davis waiting on the phone as he flew through the floor to catch up to Punk girl. He thought that he had lost her at first, but she had moved down to the far end of the platform. She was talking to a musician who had a guitar in his hands and a case sprinkled with change at his feet.
He looked to be in his twenties, and Sam wondered how he had avoided the draft. He stood about six feet tall, with dark brown hair, and was almost as thin as Sam. His most noticeable feature was his sideburns, which were almost comical in their length.
"I got a Hoser on my tail," Punk girl said, "so we should do this
quick."
"Yeah, alright." The musician pulled device out of his pocket, it looked like a tiny PDA. Punk girl pulled over a much more conventional looking PDA and he beamed a file over to her via the infrared ports.
"Thanks, Johnny. So when's your band playing again."
"Ah, we need a new drummer, Bobo was hosed. He's on his way to Syria now."
"Oh shit! Poor Bobo! He should have fled to Canada!"
"Yeah, I hear the draft dodgers get tossed right up to the frontlines."
"How about you, are you cold?" Punk Girl asked.
"Nah, I'm 4H on the account of my diabetes."
"Lucky, I guess." Punk Girl said.
"Yeah, kind of. You better go, that's a 7:00 call."
"Oh yeah, thanks. See ya Johnnie."
"See ya Dawn."
Sam watched as Dawn made her way back to the Uptown side of the platform. Agent Davis had disappeared, and Sam hadn't yet spotted his replacement.
Dawn moved defiantly through a crowd of well groomed high school kids. Several of them snickered as she went by and one of them called her a freaking Pinkie. She flipped them the bird with a black nail polished middle finger.
She headed over to the Uptown 6 platform, and caught a train that was waiting on the platform. The conductor's voice came over the loudspeaker announcing that there would be a slight delay in service.
Dawn took out her PDA and opened the file she had gotten. It was just a series of numbers that read: 11 23 W.
Sam wanted to follow her longer, but he was suddenly feeling weird. The scene around him was fading quickly and he heard that rushing sound again as he popped back to his body in an instant. He realized that his bladder was sending him urgent messages and he headed into the bathroom.
He marveled at what had just happened. Was it real? Was that whole freaky scene real? There's no way he had imagined all of that, would he be able to do it again? He was too wired right now to lay down again, but he was curious to see where Punk girl - Dawn was going to with her secret messages.
He went into his desk and pulled out his old PDA. It was an 8 megabyte Handspring, years out of date even before his accident. It had an infrared port though, not that Sam had anyone to share files with. Even if he were to travel to the city right now, he doubted Johnnie would just pass him the file, nor would Sam know what to do with it.
Naturally, the batteries in his PDA were dead. Sam had no idea if they would still recharge, but he had nothing to lose by trying. He made a mental note to get some new batteries.
In the meantime, he started reassembling his computer again. His lower back ached, and getting on his knees was an exercise in pain, but he was determined to have his computer online again. Fortunately, all the wires were here, so it was only a short amount of time to connect everything and switch on the power.
Just as he started to boot it up, his mother came up the stairs to check on him. "Sam, are you hungry? I can make you a hamburger or we can order out."
"Um, sure Mom, a burger would be great. I'll be down in a few
minutes."
"You got your computer running." She noted as the monitor displayed
the Windows logo.
"Yeah, Robbie packed it away pretty good, I just hope he didn't
erase any files."
"No. I don't think so dear, he was just worried about it being
'unsecured.' He even paid for an expensive alarm system to be put in
the house."
"Wow," said Sam. "He's really taking this stuff seriously."
"Mm, hmm."
"Say Mom, how do I get an internet connection these days?"
"I'm not really sure Sam, they've got some deal where you can get it through the power company. There's a phone number on the bill you can call to order it."
"Huh, ok, so I guess our DSL is gone."
"I don't think they make it anymore."
Sam logged into to his computer, and was happy to see that after ten years, everything seemed to be running normally.
"I'm going to print out a few things, and then I'll be right down Mom."
"Ok Sam." Martha went back downstairs to make some hamburgers.
Sam went to his emails first and started printing out everything he had from Gaby. He was disappointed to learn that his cartridges no longer worked. More than likely, he would need a whole new printer.
Sam went downstairs and joined his mother in the kitchen. "Mom, I'm going to need some new computer stuff." He hated to ask her to buy things for him, but he was a long way from being able to get a job.
"Sam, I'll do what I can, but money is pretty tight around here. Even with insurance, I still owe thousands on your hospital care. If I miss a payment, they'll put a lien on the house."
"Oh shit Mom, I'm sorry." Sam said. "What about all my savings?"
"I'm sorry Sam, but I had to use them a few years back. We had a legal battle with the insurance company, they stopped payments for a while and I needed a lawyer to make them continue."
"What about my stocks?" Sam asked.
"What stocks?"
"Don't you remember, I had used some of my college money to buy 100
shares of Google."
"I have no idea Sam, I didn't know anything about that."
"I'll look into it after dinner." Sam said.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
--
The Department of Homeland Security would like to remind you that
referring to it's agents and employees as "Hosers" is a misdemeanor
and punishable by a 1000.00 fine or up to a year in prison.
posted by John at 6:34 PM | link |
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