Universe Between Page 9

  “Brad, you didn’t spend that savings of yours did you?”

  “Dot, have a little faith in me, okay? Yeah I thought about it, but in the end I just couldn’t.” Brad sighed before he glanced back over at the split screen, the choice menu waiting for him. “Hey Dot—you ever subscribe to a premium?”

  “Occasionally. I don’t really think they’re all they’re cracked up to be.”

  “Did you get a menu at the end of an episode?”

  “No.” She looked panicked. “Why?”

  “Because I’ve got this screen with six choices.” Brad read out the buttons. “I’m not sure I know what they mean—why are you grinning like that? Oh man. Stop it. It’s creepy.”

  “Brad, don’t you get it? You subscribed to a gold premium.”

  He shook his head, not sure what to say.

  “That’s why you had to spend so much to get it. You not only got the drama, you have access to the full season as well as the previous drama and its advertisements.” She ended the last sentence in an excited whisper.

  Brad looked at the screen on the left. “You mean, I can choose all of these options?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not just one?”

  “Yes! And you have four weeks to do it. You can watch the previous drama and the new stuff. Hey…” she looked around. “Can I come over and watch it too? I’ll split the subscription with you.”

  “You have enough money for half of this?”

  “I’ve been saving—”

  “Dot…no.”

  “I only have one education subscription left, and I have plenty of subsidized allotments. It’s okay.”

  “Why do you have money saved?”

  Her mouth twitched to the side as she looked away. “‘Cause…I was saving up for a gold premium…so I could see the commercials…”

  Brad laughed out loud. “So all that finger pointing at me about wasting my time—”

  “Shut up. Look, don’t you find it really weird they talk about this show’s commercials, but no one will say why? When have you known Tempest to keep a secret like this?”

  She had a point. But I was really too happy to care. I actually had access to what all the excitement was about, and I was going to get at least half cash for the two subscriptions needed.

  Brad pulled the viewing TOS up and scanned it carefully this time, filtering for keywords.

  Gold Premium Subscriptions allowed up to four viewers with permissions clicked. The vision screens for net contained sensors that detected the number of bodies in the room viewing. He couldn’t legally sub-view a Channel for half the price—unless Dot paid him in cash traceable to an object.

  “You still interested in buying that ship in a bottle my dad gave me? Just be here at five, Dot. Oh and bring some beer. I’ve blown through my alcohol subscription.”

  4

  A week later, Brad walked into the office with straighter posture, a pressed suit and a slight smile on his lips. He nodded to Tempest and her crew as they huddled in the break room but didn’t stop to talk to them.

  Kowsiniski met him at his desk and gushed over how much better he looked and that taking the week off had worked wonders. She assured him again she wasn’t going to attach the absence to his perfect record and notated it as a training week.

  Brad noticed she said this with enough volume that others around his desk heard her. Normally this kind of attention would send him into a fit of embarrassment and press him down into his chair. But this time he thanked her for the kindness and the care package. “I especially enjoyed the cookies.”

  “Those were real chocolate chips!”

  He smiled at her and she beamed sunshine before she turned and barked at everyone else to get back to work.

  Putting his plan in motion, Brad set his bag on the desk, removed his jacket and hung it on the provided hook. He sat down at his desk, pulled his seat forward and touched his work screen.

  Three…two…one…

  “Hey Brad.”

  Tempest was at his cubicle opening. He looked at his left at her and gave her a pleasant smile. “Hi Tempest. Sorry for being gone so long. I hope my absence didn’t put anyone else out?”

  She shook her head. “No. We’re all okay. Just wanted to make sure you’re all right.” She lingered there for a second, locking eyes with him. “So…were you really sick?”

  “Really sick? As in, the sickness was really bad or was I faking it?”

  Tempest blushed on cue. “Brad…”

  He turned his chair to face her. “I was sick at the beginning of the week, but felt I needed some time to myself for a while.”

  “Oh…because you missed the commercials?”

  And here is where it begins. Cue one.

  “At first I was upset. But then I started this new season with the same Channel. Did you renew your subscription?”

  Tempest looked a little confused. “No. I knew the next show for the Channel would be different. Season Two for the previous show wouldn’t be for five weeks.”

  “Oh…” Brad put his hands on his knees. “I see. So…you’re not watching the new show?”

  “No.”

  He gave her a sad expression. “See…this new show is what cheered me up. In fact, I went ahead and watched all twenty-two episodes.”

  Her brown eyes widened. “How did you do that?”

  Brad started to answer but Tempest took a step forward. “You subscribed to a gold premium?”

  “Yeah…completely by accident. I didn’t know there was a difference, and you know how the Channels are set up to display their most expensive packages first? How dumb did I feel when I realized I’d used up two subscriptions to join too late. But…Tempest,” he said as he made sure to make his expression as happy as possible. “This new show…I wish I could fast forward past the adverts. The show…I couldn’t wait for the episodes. I barely gave myself ten minutes between each one.”

  “It…this new show is that good?”

  Brad stood up. Cue two. “That good? Do you see what it’s given me?” He knew he looked better than before. And he knew they’d all noticed it. He didn’t look like the college geek anymore. A new haircut, new clothes and new shoes could do wonders, according to Dot.

  A few of Tempest’s little party approached. “Hey Navaro—what’d you do? Win a subscription for a make-over?”

  Brad waved at Shin Yo. “Oh no…I bought a gold premium subscription to that channel you guys were always talking about—only I missed the first season. But this new show—”

  “He already watched the whole thing.” Tempest said as she turned to face Yo. “Can you believe it?”

  Yo pursed his lips. “I didn’t renew my subscription.”

  “Me neither,” another of her friends said. “Tempest said the show wasn’t as good.”

  A few more of the group approached his cubicle just as Dot stepped through the elevator. Brad grinned when he saw her. It was all he could do not to whistle at her.

  For years he’d only seen her in women’s suits—with pants—or jeans. But today she appeared in a mini-skirt, stiletto heels and a low cut shirt. She looked…fantastic. And it was obvious every other male in the room noticed it too.

  “Hey Navaro,” she said as she moved through the growing crowd. “We on to watch it again?”

  Brad nodded. “You bet. I subscribed to Invineto’s so we’re set for a great meal every night.”

  “You…” Tempest said in a slightly loud voice. “Got a dinner subscription for Invineto’s?”

  “Yeah. I’d been saving up for it. Pair it up with some good wine and we’re set.”

  “So you’re eating like that and drinking wine…but you’re not in college right now,” Tempest searched his face. “Right? Because you used up two of those subsidized scripts on this Gold Channel.”

  “Well….about that.” Dot looked at her perfectly buffed nails. “Seems Brad’s boss put in a good word for him at the college, so they’re going to drop the six-week p
enalty. Wrote it up as a work-related pause,” she said as she looked at Tempest. The two were eye to eye. “So he’s only taking five weeks off, then starting back to college with his subscriptions to graduate.” Dot arched her brow. “On time.”

  Tempest lowered her hands. “So all this happened while you were out?”

  “After watching this new show. It’s incredible.” Brad beamed. “It’s given me a whole new outlook.”

  A few of the others spoke in whispers, but Brad could hear them.

  “Now I wish I hadn’t dropped the subscription.”

  “I know. Tempest is so full of it. She was wrong.”

  “I wonder what I can drop so I can re-subscribe.”

  Kowsinski appeared at that moment and yelled at everyone to get back to work. She smiled and waved at Dot and Brad before she returned to her office.

  Dot squeezed his shoulder and whispered. “Good job.” She worked those pumps and that tight skirt back to the elevator.

  With the sudden quiet surrounding him, Brad sat back down and took a deep breath. The first show was finished. The seeds were sewn. All he needed to do now, was wait.

  “You care to tell me what the hell that was all about?”

  Sam’s voice wasn’t a surprise but it still made Brad’s back straighten. He turned and looked up at the old man’s visage staring down at him. “What was about?”

  That gave Sam the opening he wanted as he moved out of his cubicle and into Brad’s. Sam initiated a call field, which would give them privacy for five minutes. Sam started. “Is this new show that good?”

  “No. It sucks as bad as the last show did. I’m still not sure why they’re called gold premium Channels.”

  “What about the commercials—did you see them? The ones you wanted to?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And?”

  Brad lowered his shoulders. “It was all bullshit. The commercials were nothing more than a company sponsored contest to see which office got a full subscribe to that Channel first.”

  Sam rocked back in the chair. “What?”

  “They played everyone. Or at least Tempest did. The prize for the first solid subscription list in an office would win full-year subscriptions to one hundred services.”

  “So…Tempest was trying to win that for us?”

  “Oh hell no. I did research and discovered she’d registered this office for the contest, but she never listed the office list. She only had her script-dress on the form. Which meant if we’d have won the contest, she would have kept the prize to herself.”

  “So…there wasn’t some magical commercial?”

  “No. Dot and I figured out Tempest used her wooing skills to dupe everyone into signing up. But she knew most of us wouldn’t if just asked because it wasn’t cheap. So she used peer pressure.”

  “Why? Seems like a lot of trouble.”

  “Yeah, but peer pressure isn’t a sue-able excuse. As long as she didn’t outright tell them to subscribe or promise them something, she was safe.” Brad leaned forward. “She used that whole outsider game to apply the right kind of pressure so others would sign on. And once signed, they were stuck. But they all wanted to appear to be part of the crowd so they went along with her.”

  “You mean to tell me she put everyone between a rock and a hard place just to win something?”

  “Not just something, Sam. I took a long look at the contest rules. The prize would pay for a full degree from start to finish and leave room for a nice living.”

  “All within a year.”

  “Well, you can date subscriptions. Just pre-register. So that one year could go as far as four.”

  Sam rubbed at his face and toyed with his mustaches. “Please tell me she didn’t win.”

  “No. She didn’t. You were her hold out.” Brad patted his back. “Dot’s office won.”

  “Dot…got a subscription?”

  “Not at first. She and I started watching the Channel and after we figured it out, we discovered she was the only one without it, and the whole list was registered correctly, with everyone’s script-dress added with permissions. So, I discovered I could add her to my subscription by using the student discount and she still qualified.”

  “You got your subscriptions back?”

  “Not exactly. It’s just like I told Tempest. I’m still going to be delayed for five weeks, that’s four for the subscription and then a week between, but they did waive the penalty.”

  Sam studied Brad’s face. “You told Kowsinski.”

  “Damn straight I did. Woman might be crazy, but she hates Tempest. What we’re hoping for is all of those assholes who went along with her, re-subscribe.”

  “To a shit channel for a shit show?”

  “Yeah.” Brad laced his fingers together and cupped them behind his head. “She managed to pressure me into doing it, but it’s not her fault. It’s mine. I did it. But that doesn’t say I can’t put her between that rock and hard place. I’ll graduate on time.”

  “And then?”

  He shrugged. “Who knows? Wherever I end up, I realize I’ll always be between what I have and what I want.”

  Introduction to “The Sun Dial Trail”

  Rebecca S. W. Bates last appeared in our seventh volume, Fantasy Adrift, with a wonderful story about a genie. This time she returns with a science fiction tale about space travel. As you can tell, she writes in a variety of genres. Her most recent novels include The Signal, The Mound Dwellers, and The Jigsaw Window.

  She says this story began with a broken analog clock. “Time standing still led me to thoughts of time distortion and wormholes. The round face of the clock reminded me of other round symbols that measure time, like sun dials and ancient places like Stonehenge and Chaco Canyon and their archeological mysteries.”

  She took all that speculation to space, and gifted us with “The Sun Dial Trail.”

  The Sun Dial Trail

  Rebecca S.W. Bates

  1

  Mila hadn’t screwed up. She would never do that. Even if there were some who thought she might have, and even if that person happened to be sitting next to her in the cockpit of Daddy’s sleek little starhopper—Daddy’s brand new little starhopper—she’d never admit it. Never in a hundred million years. Never ever.

  At least she hadn’t intentionally screwed up. She was two parts human to three parts alien. Her little secret.

  “Oh shit,” Gregor said from the passenger seat beside her.

  What was supposed to have been a day trip today, a quick little lark of a trip, meant only for her to add a personal footnote to her résumé, seemed to be turning into something much larger. She’d struck a deal with PAM, Daddy’s personal AI manager (a computer, really, with a sultry female program), to fly Mila and Gregor down to the surface to check out the remains of Chaco Canyon. A day trip, nothing more, and now, somehow, they’d ended up freefalling into a wormhole.

  PAM? Hello?

  Not that Mila knew what a wormhole was really like. She’d never been in one before. But if she had, this was exactly how she would’ve imagined one to be.

  Mila was on her own, because PAM wasn’t talking.

  The back of her head plastered against the faux leather cushions, which crinkled with each bounce and roll and thunder of the little craft that encased her and Gregor in luxury and style. But luxury was lost when she felt as if her teeth were being shoved down the back of her throat. The floating sensation of weightlessness dropped away beneath her knees, and she was crashing down... Sliding down a bottomless pit...down...

  Wheeeee!

  Even if Mila had wanted to screw up, she couldn’t. Not with PAM running things. But why was Daddy’s computer taking them through a wormhole? And why didn’t she explain to Mila about this little detour?

  Beside her, Gregor dug in. He jiggled, squirming deeper into the cushions. His eyes rolled to the back of his head, exposing the whites. He always reacted overly dramatically, but then again, he was a theater student. A frivolous co
urse of study, unlike Mila’s. She was taking a graduate degree in native Terran cultures, the first degree of many that she expected to do. Hell, why not? Why not take what she could? She could have any education she wanted—all of it for free—on account of one single solitary drop of Native American blood in her.

  And that’s what had brought them into the wormhole in the first place.

  “Relax, we’re fine,” she told Gregor. Well, maybe not fine fine. But she wouldn’t confess to that, either.

  Daddy’s computer would take care of them. Mila had struck a deal with PAM: the computer wouldn’t report back to Daddy the details about Mila’s guests as long as Mila allowed PAM to take instantaneous control in case a life-threatening situation developed. And since PAM hadn’t overridden any of Mila’s wishes yet, to fly around to other ruins in the area, she could only assume that they really were fine.

  Unless you counted the drop into the wormhole as a problem.

  Had PAM screwed up?

  Still, Gregor’s face had gone pasty white, she did admit that. He really didn’t look so good. Especially with the flashing lights of their spinning progress through the wormhole—what else could this place be that they’d entered?—reflecting off the whites of his rolled-up eyes.

  “But we’re going to die,” he said. He added a little moan the way he usually did when seeking sympathy from her.

  “Not today.” Then a worse thought came to her. “Look, if you’re going to throw up, you’ve got to use the vomit sucker.” Daddy would kill her if the smell of new got obliterated by the smell of...you know. Fear.

  She really hadn’t expected this reaction from him, the fun-loving guy who made her laugh. Now he was becoming tiresome. Or maybe he was just play-acting. Whatever he was doing, it was annoying the hell out of her. Maybe Mother and Daddy had been right about him. But she wouldn’t admit that, either.

  Not good enough for you, Mila, said their nagging voices in her head.

  The truth was, no one was good enough for Mila Rae Howard Pescador Pike Bernuy Schmidt. And why did they care so much, anyway? All they really wanted was grandchildren. Anyone with sperm would do for that, right? But she wasn’t ready to settle down yet. And certainly not with Gregor. She had places to go. Things to do. Like, lots of laughing.