Sci-fi fantasy
Date Published: 01-19-2022
Publisher: Indies United
In 2045 America is ruled by ‘The Brain’. It’s a country of dried-up rivers, computer project educations, holographs, and robots. Most species have died off and even fresh air is scarce. Children don’t form bonds and therefore can’t love. They become drones – dangerous killers. The answer lies on a road in Pindar Corners but to find it is to risk the loss of your soul.
In need of a hero, Harry Erin Cooper steps up to the plate and, along with his wife, Adina, they restore what should have been.
EXCERPT
I applied for my wife in 2045. Since upper-class heterosexual women were a scarcity, I was lucky to have this option. I had graduated from Penn State Virtual five years earlier, and my parents had been requesting my marriage for years. The Brain finally gave permission for us to receive a file on potential wives for me. “Act fast, Harry,” Mother said. “Before all the good ones in your file get deleted.” I knew that details of many of the women in my file would also go to other men who had recently received permission to marry. As the women were selected, the file would be transferred back to The Brain and held on drives called “Appropriated Females.” If I didn’t act fast enough, I might not be able to fatten my file for another five years. I had always been close to my parents and didn’t object when they offered to help me find a wife. I lived at home because the only housing afforded single people were small three hundred square foot studios. I didn’t feel I needed to exert my independence. My parents had two floors right off Central Park West and my bedroom was on the second floor, all nine hundred square feet of it. I could easily escape to the privacy of my nine-hundred-square-foot apartment and play my ratkill music loud; my parents never heard it. We worked on the file together, well, at least, Mother and I did. My father was indifferent, just said he’d give me his blessing, which was a joke. There were no blessings in our world. Mother and I argued about the physical appearance of this one or that one, temperament and IQ, of course, which was far more important to Mother than to me. It was probably a mistake to allow my mother the liberty of helping me choose my bride. Undoubtedly, I should have kept her out of something so personal, but we didn’t have many friends in our society and I valued my parents. I had to stand my ground though, before Mother paired me off with one of the old ones. Old women had been in huge supply, ever since the popularity of female babies in the 2030s – when choosing the sex of one’s children was in vogue. “I want a brunette, tall, smart and extroverted,” I insisted. Mother disagreed. “I know redheads are rare, and therefore expensive, darling. But think how nice it would be to have children with candy-colored hair.” “I don’t want children with candy-colored hair,” I said and went back to my search. I heard Dad chuckle. Marriages cost the pairing couples huge donations to The Brain, and women with red hair, large breasts and little DNA potential for physical abnormalities were worth donations of several hundred thousand. The Brain had filled my file with fifty possibilities. Unfortunately, whatever taste in women The Brain had did not coincide with my own. I had already exhausted half the choices sent me, a bunch of ordinary-looking women behind the wheels of their Zippies, our popular sport cars powered by high-speed batteries. Or they looked like perfectly bored bimbos who had spent too much time with their plastic surgeons. Then I brought up an image that intrigued me. “Here, look at this one,” I shouted. I maximized the image and double-clicked on the digital features of Adina Cordova. Her face filled the sixty-inch screen while my heart pounded in overtime. Her smile was so captivating, as if she knew secrets I’d never be privy to. Her wavy dark hair ended at her chin. Her eyes were large, dark ovals, at once both sad and lively. “Beautiful,” I whispered. I refused to look at my mother. Instinctively, I knew she’d disapprove. I’d pulled up an esthetical angel, much too captivating for my mother’s idea of good wife material. I quickly brought up her résumé despite the argument that would follow. “Adina Cordova graduated from the Computer Project top of her class,” I said. “Adina Cordova?” Her name seemed to be of interest to my father. He jumped out of his chair and came to stand beside me. “She’s a knockout, Dad.” He didn’t answer me, his expression distressed. “Not really,” he finally said. Mother was immediately suspicious, or at least that’s what I thought at the time. “Smart women can be something of a bore,” Mother said. “Her degree was in journalism, Mother, not in the history and characteristics of the African Bat Bug.” My parents eyed one another, one of those looks between them I was always unable to interpret. “Uh-oh,” I thought I heard my mother utter. But I found Adina’s background extremely interesting. She had lived abroad during her teenage years while her father worked as a chef in Milan. It seems Europe treated Mr. Cordova like a king, extensively praised for his excellence in the culinary arts. Mrs. Cordova had been a dancer but had recently suffered a breakdown after The Brain’s subversion and erasure of the Arts in Europe. When the Cordovas protested the infiltration and dismissal of the arts by Britain and America’s Computer Educational system, they were deported and returned to the States in 2038. Admitted into Columbia, Adina had graduated with honors. As a child, she’d grown up not far from me, but she was three years younger, which might explain why we hadn’t come across each other on those rare occasions that The Brain allowed social integration. “Where is she from again, Harry?” Mother asked. “She’s American born. But her father lived and worked in Europe for a while. They were kicked out of Italy. She was raised not far from us, practically down the block.” “Sounds iffy to me, Harry. Her expectations might be extremely high, and the whole family are rabble-rousers. I know that for a fact.” It appeared to me that Dad was making a real pitch to keep me away from Adina. “Your father’s right,” Mother added quickly. “Don’t think with your penis, dear.” I heard Dad chuckle again as he returned to his chair on the other side of the room. Despite his chuckle, I sensed uneasiness. “But I like her,” I said to them. “She’s different. Something about her I just like.” “You don’t know her yet,” Mother said. “Look at her eyes,” I responded. “But are you compatible, darling?” Mother stared at the digital image before her. “I like the other one, with that engaging smile.” I shrugged. Mother liked the mousey one – heart surgeon, high IQ, and a face I’d seen in an old comic strip about cave people. I clicked back on Adina. “This one is more petite.” Drooling by now, I wiped my mouth inconspicuously. This gal was a knockout and Mother feared I wouldn’t attract her. I was Harry all right, but no handsome Harry, that was for sure. “Well, she is nice, maybe a bit too pretty though. Pretty women can be a bother.” Dad winked. “You can say that again.” I hadn’t expected my mother to get it. I threw up my hands. “Mother, do you want me to search the homely file? I mean, I know the dogs are cheaper, but I really don’t want an arf arf, if you don’t mind.” “No, of course not, darling. If you like this woman, ping her … get your compatibility tested … see if she likes you.” Mother’s eyes traveled back to my father. I couldn’t tell what they were thinking, but each seemed to be able to read the other’s thoughts. “You bet,” I said as I brought up her address file and sent out a quick imail to The Brain, requesting a date with her. Much to my surprise, my father knocked on my door later that evening. I was nearly asleep. “Son?” I sat up in bed and switched on the lamp. He sat on the edge of my bed and stared at me. “You know that I never want to see you hurt …” My father is a large man and I felt myself tipping from his weight. When I was a child, I fell out of bed a few times when he came to say goodnight, but that was before I learned to scurry to the middle before he sat. As if he sensed my discomfort, he rose to his feet and paced back and forth. I wondered what he had to say. “Father, I have a right to pick a woman of my choosing, not one that you and Mother prefer. We agreed to that. I said I’d ask for feedback, not ultimatums.” “It isn’t that, Harry. It’s this girl … she will be different.” I shook my head in disbelief. “What are you saying?” I heard him sigh and return to the edge of my bed. I tipped up again and slid to the middle of the mattress before he tossed me to the carpet. “She will corrupt you, son.” Unable to believe what I’d just heard, I jumped out of bed and paced around the room. My father stared at me wearily. “Just what the hell are you talking about, Father?” “She was raised believing in the absurd and the ridiculous. Her father is a real nut case. The whole family is trouble.” “What are the absurd and the ridiculous?” I asked, standing before him in defiance. My father leapt to his feet and the mattress nearly flew to the ceiling. He banged his hands together and the lamp on my nightstand rattled. “You can’t survive being a rebel, Harry. Not in this world anyway, not here.” “What?” I looked at him in disbelief. “I’m not a rebel.” “That girl is.” “What are you talking about, you don’t even know her.” It was at that point that my father went to the computer and turned it on. He typed in several logins and bypassed several codes before he arrived at a webpage. I almost fell asleep waiting for him to find what he wanted. “Listen to this,” he finally said, snapping me awake. He read aloud from what he had pulled, which appeared to be a newsletter: “‘One in five now is killing. The Brain is responsible. The Brain spreads a disease that must be eradicated. Our children are dying from that disease. What maggots will walk the earth tomorrow? What horror walks the earth today? Be strong and educate your children. Be strong and educate yourself. Conquer this malignancy. Our minds have atrophied, our philosophers are silenced, and machines that have no humanity murder our souls.’” My mouth fell open as I stared at him. “What the hell was that?” “It was written by Adina Cordova.” “So what?” I said. “She’s entitled to her opinion, though I’m not sure what it is.” “Harry, Harry,” My father grabbed me in his arms. “There isn’t room for truth. There is only room for self-preservation.” I broke from my father’s grasp. “Look, let’s just see if we like each other. You’re jumping the gun.” “Your mother is crying in her room,” my father said. “I’m sorry about that, but I don’t understand the great drama you two are embroiled in just because I have a physical attraction to Adina Cordova. Mother is overreacting, as are you.” “Perhaps.” “You want to marry me off to an arf, don’t you?” “No, no, no. It isn’t that at all, son. We want you to be safe.” “Look, I’ve requested a date with her. Let’s see how it goes. Maybe we won’t like each other. Perhaps it won’t be anything more than a rough fuck,” I said. He nodded quietly, kissed me on the cheek and left the room, but not before adding that he hoped we’d recoil from each other. Recoil? I wondered. Who would recoil from that face? I didn’t understand either of my parents’ reactions, and I was furious. But one thing for sure, it wouldn’t stop me from pursuing the only woman, out of a file of fifty, who didn’t look as though she’d just finished a foul lunch
About the Author
Vera Jane Cook was born in New York City and has been a city girl ever since. As an only child, she turned to reading novels at an early age and was deeply influenced by an eclectic group of authors. Before Jane became a writer, she worked in the professional theatre and appeared on television, in regional theatre, film and off Broadway.
At the age of fifty Jane began to write novels. Some of her titles include Dancing Backward in Paradise, winner of an Eric Hoffer Award for publishing excellence and an Indie Excellence Award for notable new fiction, 2007. The Story of Sassy Sweetwater and Dancing Backward in Paradise received 5 Star ForeWord Clarion Reviews and The Story of Sassy Sweetwater was named a finalist for the ForeWord Book of the Year Awards. She has published in ESL Magazine, Christopher Street Magazine and has written early childhood curriculum for Weekly Reader and McGraw Hill.
Jane still lives on the upper west side of Manhattan right near Riverside Park where she takes her delightful dogs for a jog, Peanut and Carly. She comes home to her spouse of thirty years and her two cats, Sassy and Sweetie Pie.
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