New America (2 page)

“Stop that!”

The big man glanced over his
shoulder at Maureen and I. “Halleluiah, more white folks,” he said, turning and
sticking out his hand. “I’m John. This is Wendy.”

We introduced ourselves as
well.

“Ready for the brave new
world?” he said.

“Think so,” I said.

“Think so? You got about two
minutes to decide, pal.”

“No, we’re ready.”

He hooked a thumb at the
check-in counter. “You would think these guys could shrink my gut while they
shrink the rest of me, wouldn’t you? But they say it can’t be done. All their
technology and they can’t get rid of belly fat.”

“Huh,” I said, shuffling
forward with the line.

“So where you guys gonna be
living?” John asked.

“Dwiggins Street in East LA,”
I told him. “Or East New LA, I guess.”

“What do you know. We’re in
East NLA too.”

“We’re temporary,” Maureen
said. “We’d like to move to NY2 in the future.”

“John and Wendy Sexton,” John
reminded us as he and Wendy reached the front of the line. “Look us up when you
get there. You play cards, Bob?”

“I don’t gamble,” I said, and
Maureen stiffened a bit.

“Well, look us up anyway.
Dinner or something.”

They proceeded to the check-in
counter.

Under her breath Maureen
said, “You don’t gamble except with our life savings.”

“Not now, Maureen.”

She stared stonily ahead.

John and Wendy continued past
the check-in counter and through one of many identical doorways.

The attendant waved for us forward.

☼

She
was of Asian descent and dressed in a ruby-red uniform with white piping and a
matching hat. She told us to look straight ahead while an array of biometric
sensors scanned our body temperatures, heartbeats, retinas, and so forth, the
results of which were displayed on an augmented reality HUD.

“Thank you, Mr. and Mrs.
Smith,” she said a moment later. “Please continue past me.” She indicated one
of the doors behind her.

☼

The
room was small and featureless except for what looked like a hotel laundry
chute in the wall to our left. The floor was a series of interconnecting white
hexagonal tiles. The center one was red.

“Please deposit your clothing
and footwear in the shoot to your left and step onto the red hexagon, Mr. Smith,”
a voice instructed me over hidden speakers. “There are no cameras. Your privacy
is assured.”

I took a deep breath and
kissed Maureen on the lips. “See you soon,” I told her, then went to the left
wall and stripped off my clothes and shoes. I dumped them into the chute. They
fell away into the darkness without a sound.

Trying not to think about
what was about to happen to me, the dimensional shift of my atoms, I stood on
the center hexagon. This triggered a kind of force field to surround me. It
hummed softly.

I raised my hand to Maureen
in farewell. She watched me with terror on her face and tears in her eyes.

She’ll get used to it, I told
myself. She’ll just need time to adjust.

“Please remain still, Mr.
Smith,” the voice said.

There was a loud clank, then
the hexagonal tile I stood on lowered noiselessly into the floor. It stopped a
dozen feet down, and I found myself encircled by three gold rings. They were at
head, chest, and shin level respectively, each tube-like and thick as a water
main. The air was warm and had the smell of new electronics.

“Please take a deep breath
and don’t exhale, Mr. Smith,” the voice said.

White light glowed from
behind the tubes, bright enough I closed my eyes. Breath held, heart hammering,
I waited. I felt a tickling inside me, beneath my skin. Then a different
sensation. Thinning, or stretching.

I snapped open my eyes.

Nothing had changed. I was
still—

No, the gold tubing
encircling me was nearly twice the width it had been. It had expanded, or I
had—

I looked up. The ceiling
seemed much farther away. The rings that had been at head and chest level were
now above me. The one before me, I realized, had originally been at shin level.

I had shrunken.

“Please take another deep
breath, Mr. Smith.”

I did so and closed my eyes.
That tickling again, that thinning, only this time it continued for much
longer. In fact, it didn’t end. I tried opening my eyes but couldn’t. My entire
body, every nerve, seemed frozen.

Panic built inside me,
shucking up my lungs.

This was wrong. This
shouldn’t be happening.

Then I was spinning, falling
into nothingness.

I was
in a large, black, cold space. I lay on my back. I couldn’t see a ceiling or
walls. For a moment I thought I must be outside, below the night sky. But there
were no stars, no moon. And the blackness was too black, perfect in its
uniformity. So I had to be inside, the lights off, in total darkness—only this
wasn’t right either. Because I could see. If something appeared before me, I
would be able to see it. I don’t know how I knew this, but I was confident it
was the case. I simply couldn’t see anything because there was nothing to see.
I was in some kind of…what?

I had no bloody idea.

I tried to stand—and yes!
There were my legs, my arms. I was right, I could see them as if it were day,
pale appendages against a black background.

I was naked. Why was I naked—?

Oh Jesus Mary Christ. We did
it, Maureen and I, we miniaturized. Yet where was I now? I had read all the
literature regarding miniaturizing, read all the reviews, and I never heard of
waking in an endless void. Had something gone wrong then? Instead of miniaturizing
to the size of a cricket, had I shrunken much more? Was this blackness the
space between subatomic particles?

Fear drummed in my chest. I
began to walk, though it wasn’t really walking. My legs were moving, but there
was nothing beneath my feet, no reference points to judge the passing of
distance.

Where was everybody? Where
was Maureen? Why was I here?

How was I going to leave?

Were scientists studying me
right now? Was I on a petri dish beneath an ultra high-resolution electron microscope,
so tiny not even light could reach me?

The fear was no longer only
in my chest. It coursed through my body, from the tips of my fingers to my
toes.

No, not fear exactly. Dread.
Despair. Because something had gone horribly wrong, I was sure of that now, and
I was going to be trapped like this for the rest of my life. Trapped in space.
No food, no water. Which meant the rest of my life would not be very long. A
few days at most.

I waved my hands over my
head, hoping to catch the attention of whomever was watching. Yet this was
silly. They either knew what happened to me or they didn’t. They were either
watching me or they weren’t.

I lowered my arms and looked
around.

Blackness.

Nothingness.

I was alone, utterly alone—

☼

I woke in a hospital bed. My
first thought was, “They did it! They restored me to my original size!” Then
the dream reality faded, and I realized I had never been one pictometer tall.
It had been a dream, just a dream.

A holographic doctor
materialized next to the bed. “Good morning, Mr. Smith,” he said pleasantly. He
had almond eyes, a short nose, a freshly shaven jaw, and neatly combed hair. He
wore a white coat but no stethoscope around his neck. His hands were at his sides,
empty. “My name is Dr. Matsui. How are you feeling?”

“Morning?” I said, scratching
my head. But that would be right, wouldn’t it? After the last of the
miniaturizations for the day, the two thousand or so of us would have been put
on a plane and transferred to the Arizona desert, where New America had been
constructed. We would have then been distributed to different hospitals throughout
NLA to be checked over. This would all have taken a number of hours. “Fine,” I
added. “Tired.”

The doctor nodded
understandingly. “Nothing a good rest at home won’t cure.”

“Where’s my wife?”

“She didn’t make the trip,
I’m afraid.”

I blinked. “Didn’t make the
trip? What the hell does that mean?”

“She decided not to proceed
with the miniaturization.”

“Why not?” I demanded.

“I don’t have the answer to
that. You will have to ask her yourself.”

Holy hell! Maureen didn’t
come?
She didn’t come?
I lifted the sheet covering me and saw I was
still naked. “Where are my clothes?”

The doctor gestured to the
wall opposite the bed. A section of it opened to reveal a closet full of
garments and shoes. “Take what you need,” he said. “You can shop for more
personalized attire whenever you feel up to it.”

I stalked across the room.
Despite knowing the doctor was a hologram, I nevertheless felt self-conscious
in front of him. “Do you mind?” I snapped.

“Goodbye, Mr. Smith,” he
said. “I hope you find New America to be everything you hoped it would be.”

When I glanced back, he was
gone.

☼

I stepped
out the hospital’s front doors onto a boulevard lined with trees and parked
cars. Despite knowing that New Cities were exact replicas of their bigger
brothers and sisters, only on a much smaller scale, I was nevertheless blown
away by the reality of the sight before me. Everything was…real…and I took a
moment to absorb it all.

A silver car hummed past me.
Someone inside stuck their head out the window and shouted, “Newbie!”

I was so surprised all I
could do was stare dumbly after the vehicle. I was wondering how the person
knew I had just arrived—but it was obvious, wasn’t it? A guy standing outside a
hospital, looking around as if he were from a different planet.

I started walking, wanting to
get away from the hospital, wanting to blend in. I became acutely aware of the
air on my skin. It felt…thick…I guess you would say. This was nothing to worry
about. It was due to my small size, and people said you stopped noticing after
a few days.

I crossed an intersection,
passed a large pharmacy, and came to a bus stop. There were two benches, one
blue, one green. The green one sported a weathered advertisement for the
hospital I’d just exited. The microsensors embedded in it misinterpreted my
mood and changed the advertisement to a virtual dating service.

A trashcan stood next to the
bench. Curious, I pushed open the flap and peered inside. The bin was about
half full with rubbish that smelled like spoiled food left in the sun.

No flies buzzed around it.

I turned the way I’d come, to
see if any buses were approaching. I spotted a taxicab instead, which I
flagged. It eased smoothly next to the curb, the front door slid open, and I
got in.

“Destination, please,” the
synthesized voice said.

“3900 Dwiggins Street,” I
said.

☼

New
America was a classless and moneyless society advocating the values of
universal liberty, equality, justice, peace, and cooperation. The only social
distinction among New People was one’s housing, which functioned on a first
come first serve basis. Basically, when you miniaturized and moved to a New
City you had to take whatever tier one housing was available. However, the
longer you were a New Person, the more seniority you accumulated, which you
could use to move into more upscale homes in tier two or tier three neighborhoods,
or even different cities depending on what vacancies became available. The
average waiting time for a first move was somewhere around eighteen months.

Maureen and I hadn’t cared
much about which house we chose. We were both from Boston, Yankees at heart,
and like she told John and Wendy Sexton, we were planning on moving to NY2 at
the first opportunity. We settled on the house on Dwiggins, which was located
high in the hills of East NLA, because it was within walking distance to a Shoplex
and had a decent-sized backyard. Maureen had a green thumb, and now that she
didn’t have to work, she planned on spending her days gardening to her heart’s
content.

The doctor’s words returned
to me then:
She decided not to proceed with the miniaturization.
Gritting
my teeth, I tried not to dwell on this. There was an explanation why she backed
out. Had to be. She would never simply abandon me.

The taxi pulled into the
driveway of my new home, stopping before the two-door garage. The house was two
stories, light gray, with fat white trim around the large windows. Tidy or
bland, take your pick. The front lawn could use a drink as the grass had turned
brown in places.

“You have arrived at your
destination,” the synthesized voice said.

I turned to thank the driver,
but of course there was no driver.

I got out and watched the
taxi reverse from the driveway and tool away down the street. Then something on
the front lawn caught my eye. Insects. Several dozen hovered above a variety of
flowers. This should be impossible as the only animal life in New America was
human. Frowning, I went closer. The swarm immediately lifted into the air and
sped away—and I realized they weren’t insects; they were nanobots functioning
as artificial pollinators due to the lack of honey bees.

I climbed the three steps to
the front stoop and waited. I was scanned, and the door slid open. I entered a
narrow hallway. The overhead lights turned on, cool air hissed through the
ventilation system, and “What a Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong began to
play over hidden speakers. While setting up my home profile, I had configured
the song to play when I entered—a surprise for Maureen.

“End music,” I said.

The music ceased. Silence
reigned, deep and somehow foreign.

The dark gray walls and black
slate floor changed to white and yellow respectively, though this did little to
cheer me up. I wandered aimlessly from room to room, registering each with
little more than idle curiosity, before stepping into the backyard. The view
over NLA was impressive, though I barely noticed. I couldn’t get my mind off
Maureen. She wouldn’t have anything but the clothes on her back and whatever
money she had in her purse. Whatever we had left after the bankruptcy, which
wasn’t much, we had either donated to charity or tossed out in the days leading
up to yesterday’s scheduled miniaturization. This meant there was only one
place Maureen could have gone: her parents. They lived twenty minutes from
where we used to, or little more than a half hour drive to Boston’s New World Complex.

Nevertheless, I debated
whether to call her there or not. Because why should it fall upon me to get in
touch? She was responsible for this mess. She should be the one calling here.

Also, deep down, I wasn’t
sure I was ready to speak to her yet. I felt not only angry but humiliated,
like I was the butt of the cruelest “you go first and I’ll be right behind you”
gag ever. There would be no way she could tell I was only half an inch tall on
her holographic wall screen, but I would know, she would know, her
eavesdropping parents would know. How could they see me as an equal? Take me
seriously?

Deciding to let Maureen stew
for a while, I was about to return inside, maybe head out to the Shoplex, when
someone said, “Hey, there!”

I shaded my eyes with my
hand. A man wearing sunglasses stood on the other side of the wooden property
fence to my left.

“Didn’t mean to startle you.”
He stuck out his hand. “I’m Steve.”

I went over and shook. “Bob,”
I said.

Steve appeared to be in his mid-forties.
He sported a buzz cut and a graying beard. His skin was brown from the sun,
almost leathery. “Guess you’re the new neighbor, huh?”

“Just arrived today,” I said.

“Was wondering when someone
was going to move into your place.”

“Was one of the last ones
available in this area code.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“It’s what they told me.”

Steve waved dismissively. “Government’s
full of it. They say we’re at, what, eighty percent occupancy now? Bullshit.
More like sixty.”

“How do you know that?”

“I don’t got no proof or
nothing, but all you gotta do is take a spin around town. You’ll see all the
empty houses.”

“Why would the government
make up numbers?”

“Marketing, I s’pose. Nobody
wants to eat in an empty restaurant, you know what I’m saying? Besides, it’s
not like it’s not going to fill up. I got here five years ago. City only a few
months old then. You could walk downtown naked and not see a soul. Same time
the following year, different story. Now—hell, now it almost feels like the
real place. Most people would never notice the empty houses. But I spent half
my life in the army. I see things other folks miss. I’m not bragging or
nothing, just telling it how it is.”

“I’ll keep my eyes open,” I
said.

He glanced past me, to the
house. “Say—you come by yourself?”

“I, no, well, yes.”

“You come with someone or
not, man?”

“My wife was supposed to come
with me. Apparently she decided not to at the last moment.”

Steve’s eyebrows lifted.
“Decided not to?”

I shrugged. “All I know is I
miniaturized, and when I woke up the doctor told me she decided not to come. I haven’t
spoken with her yet so I really don’t know what happened.”

“Sheesh.” He scratched his
head. “Never heard of that happening before. Bet you feel a bit stupid now, huh?”