Coming Soon Enough: Six Tales of Technology’s Future Read online

  The truck began rolling as soon as she popped it into neutral. She hopped back out and pushed with her left arm while keeping a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel. The track drew the beast like a magnet. It was all she could do to lend Gage some muscle while fighting with the wheel.

  By the time he called a halt, the sun had dropped a few degrees and Dani was too tired to do more than hit the brakes. If this was all part of a nefarious plan, more power to him.

  Instead, she grabbed a couple of bottles from the floorboard. “Water?”

  He took one, splashed a little onto his face, and then downed the rest. “Do you have anything stronger?”

  She mopped her forehead. “I honestly don’t know. Let me check.”

  “You don’t know what you packed?” He leaned against the tailgate.

  “Illume made the list,” she said as she dug through the cooler. “No booze or energy drinks.” Half-kidding, she asked, “Coffee?”

  “Hell, yeah,” he said, so enthusiastically, that she laughed.

  But the coffeepot didn’t turn on. “Crap.”

  He took it from her and turned it over to see the strip of solar batteries. “Dead. Most of your toys will be dead. Set everything out in the morning. Shouldn’t take long to recharge.”

  First the truck, then Illume, now this. Maybe he wasn’t completely crazy.

  “Well,” she asked, “do you want to chew on the grounds?”

  “You griddies are all alike.” He snorted and pulled the carafe free of the coffeemaker. “Let’s build a fire, princess.”

  “Dani. Danika,” she said, following him to a dead-looking tree. “Are you allowed to build a fire in the Gray Zone?”

  He chuckled and, instead of answering, repeated her name, rolling it until she could hear its Slavic roots as he pulled some of the brush free. “Pretty.”

  “Thanks,” she said, watching as he created a small pyramid of twigs. “It means ‘morning star.’”

  “Good name for an astronomer.”

  “Except that I’m not. I’m just a code monkey.”

  His eyes narrowed at her for a heartbeat, but then his face relaxed and he struck a match. Catching her eye, he let it dance in the light breeze for several seconds, before he held it under the tinder.

  “So, Danika, I thought only astronomers were issued Zone passes this summer.”

  “My astronomer friend got two. At the last minute, she couldn’t make it, but I decided to come anyway.”

  He added a few more sticks to the pile. “Not much here for a griddie.”

  “My Gran…” Dani swallowed hard. “My Gran died last year. She really wanted to see Halley’s comet this time around. But…well, I decided I’d see it for her.”

  “Not a better place on earth to see the show.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Just wait until you see the night without light pollution,” he said, settling the carafe beside the flames.

  She glanced up at the swirl of blues, pinks, and yellows above them.

  “Stars’ll be out soon.” He grinned at her, his teeth gleaming in the setting sun. “Coming here was the best decision I ever made.”

  “You came for the stars?” she asked, skeptical.

  “No.” He snorted. “My grandparents lived just south of Tucson when the feds gobbled up their land. They packed everything into a camper and stayed anyway. As long as you keep moving—and don’t touch the panels—no one says anything. I came to make sure they were okay.”

  The water hissed, interrupting him. He poured it over grounds, then handed a steaming cup to Dani.

  After taking a sip, Gage sighed. “My only regret is that I can’t leave. There’re so few passes that I wouldn’t get back in. Not right away.”

  Dani inhaled the aroma coming from her cup and for the first time in hours, wasn’t afraid. “I couldn’t do it. I’m too much of a city girl, I guess.” She tasted the coffee and then spat grounds back into her cup. “And I like my coffee filtered.”

  He chuckled. “I do miss coffee.”

  “Aren’t the Zone’s tarantulas and scorpions a fair trade?” she asked, teasing him.

  His smile faded and he gestured toward the solar array. The panels now glinted gold in the sunset. “There aren’t any around here anymore.”

  “Really?” She relaxed even more, stretching out her legs.

  “That’s not a good thing, princess.” He drained his cup. “This place is dying. Most of the critters have migrated away from the panels, but the feds own the whole Zone.”

  She nibbled on her bottom lip. “I bet the blackouts last winter didn’t help.”

  “No, now they want to expand the farms.” He rose, dusting off his pant legs. “Make sure the fire is out before you move.”

  “You’re leaving?” She stood too.

  “‘Miles to go before I sleep.’” He hesitated, then casually added, “You should probably delete my card before you cross back to the Grid.”

  Dani frowned.

  “It’s evidence that you met one of the Zone’s vagabonds.” His smile was self-deprecating, but something pinged her warning bells.

  “And that would be bad?” she asked.

  He shrugged, still acting too casual. “Probably would get the border patrol a little too interested in your gear.”

  She studied him, waiting for more, but instead, he said, “Enjoy the sunset before you move on. Your truck should be good to go about then.”

  Sudden gratitude replaced her wary curiosity. She scooped up the bag of coffee and handed it to him. “Thanks for your help today.”

  “Hope you find your comet, Danika.” Gage tipped his hat and then he was gone, disappearing from sight behind the mesquite trees. After a few minutes, even the crunch of his footsteps on the rough road faded away.

  Dani settled back down beside her dying fire, watching as the orange sky faded to black. Just as the first stars winked to life, Illume booted back up.

  “Found some power?” she asked it, feeling whimsical.

  Illume: Malware detected: /contacts/cards/Gage_McKell. System clean?

  After a moment’s thought, she tongued a “No.”

  Very carefully, she extracted the worm, dissecting it until she could see it in all its cobbled-together glory. It was nothing more than a message in a bottle, coded to go out as soon as she hit a network.

  To whom it may concern, the desert is dying.

  The Grid is killing it…

  Dani tweaked the package and bundled it back up. She’d make sure it got to the right people. It was the least she could do.

  And then she noticed the sky. It had fully turned to night while she worked. The Milky Way spread out above her, a velvet blanket of glittering stars. For the first time since she’d crossed into the Zone, she felt like she was exactly where she was supposed to be. She turned off Illume’s “no connection” warning.

  “Illume,” she said, rising slowly, “find Halley’s comet.”

  As it pointed her in the right direction, she whispered, “Thanks, Gran.”

  Water Over the Dam

  By Mary Robinette Kowal

  The late afternoon sun cut across the boardroom table, and Aniyah’s tablet took advantage of the available solar to boost the contrast. She stared at the numbers it had projected to the wall screen, took a slow careful breath, and tried hard not to actually shout at Lennox Hillam. “But computer modeling supports my projections about the efficiency of microturbines.”

  Hillam flicked something off the screen of his phone with a meaty thumb. Of all the Pacific Northwest Authority board members, he was the one she least wanted to deal with. If it had been Pinkham or Casillas, then she’d have stood a chance. But Hillam owned a resort on the shores of a lake made by on
e of the dams built on the Klamath River. The artificial tanned orange of his skin crinkled as he squinted at the phone. “I would need to see evidence that your microturbines can provide enough power to merit the enormous cost of decommissioning PNWA’s Klamath River dams.”

  What had she been talking about for the last half hour? Aniyah swallowed the bile and set her smile to charming. “At the moment, all I’m asking for is an opportunity to address the board.” Which was actually what she thought this meeting was supposed to be. She’d straightened her goddamned hair for this so she’d look more “professional,” and instead of talking to the board, she’d spent time explaining power coefficients to this man, who seemed to be playing Gerbil Hop on his phone.

  “That’s not necessary.” He tapped the screen again and grunted. Pushing his chair back from the table, Hillam stood. “The Klamath River dams are fully functional and, as my granddaddy always said, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ ”

  “And yet, the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement is due to expire in two years. If we don’t have new power supplies in place when a dam is decommissioned, then—”

  Hillam held up a finger. “Point of order. The agreement says that we will discuss decommissioning, it does not say that we will decommission. There would need to be a viable power source.”

  “Which microturbines provide, without the environmental impact of—”

  “Miss, I admire your enthusiasm for nature, but we’re talking science, not bunny hugs.”

  “Yes. We are.” Her hands were shaking with anger. Aniyah clenched them below the table. “That is why I brought the computer modeling of the Klamath River basin, so you could see a direct comparison between the two power sources. Even though there is empirical evidence from the use of microturbines in countries such as Iceland—”

  “I hardly think that comparing a tiny island to the power needs of our customers is appropriate.”

  “All right…What can I do to convince you?”

  “Maybe if you had an actual engineer run a practical trial.”

  Aniyah’s mouth hung open for a second, skin heating. An actual engineer? An actual— As much as she wanted to slap him with her two Ph.D.s, she kept the brittle smile on her face. “I think you may be laboring under a misapprehension. I have an engineering Ph.D., specializing in hydropower.”

  He laughed and shook his head. “Thank you for your time. I’m sorry this didn’t work the way you wanted.” He turned toward the door, attention focused on his phone again.

  Shoving to her feet, Aniyah called after him, not quite willing to give up and let him win. “Will you at least give me a permit to do a practical trial?”

  “Why not?” He stopped with the door open, and made an ostentatious display of toggling his phone on. “Sarah. Will you see that Miss Ramsey is issued a permit to install a microturbine? Thanks. That’s a dear.” He toggled the phone off but continued staring at the screen, tapping out some message.

  Aniyah said, “Thank you.”

  “Doesn’t cost me anything.” He gave her a toothy grin, making eye contact for the first time in half an hour. “The results will be the same. The dams stay. We aren’t draining the lakes.”

  Getting the permit ought to be a victory. If she could just show the full board the numbers then they’d see how much economic sense it made to install the microturbines. But she was damn sure that when she came back to Hillam with a successful practical trial, he would put her off or bury the findings to avoid spending money on the decommissioning.

  Aniyah slammed her open palm against the table. “Goddamn him.” She leaned against it, taking a deep breath to try to ease the flood of adrenaline coursing through her system. She could try, somehow, to get a meeting with another board member.

  Or she could force his hand with a little publicity.

  Aniyah toggled her phone on and spoke to the intelligent system installed in it. “Toto: Call Dudel Bachman.”

  He answered on the second ring. “Dudel Bachman, News and Observer.”

  “Dude. Hey…would the paper be interested in shots of a pretty woman rappelling down the side of a waterfall to install a microturbine?”

  He laughed, snorting in the middle the way he did when she caught him off guard. “You speak the language of my people. Now explain the hook so I can get it cleared with the boss.”

  Aniyah nodded, staring at the door that Hillam had exited. “What do you know about the Klamath River Basin Agreement?”

  The spray of the narrow waterfall chilled Aniyah’s face even with the sun approaching noon. Her raincoat was doing a decent job of compensating for the temperature difference for her upper body, but she was regretting the decision not to wear rain pants. She spun in her climbing harness a little so that Dude was getting shots of more than just her ass.

  As Aniyah leaned into the spray, the water sheeted off her tight-fitting hydrophobic cap. She double-checked the bolts holding the turbine to the rock wall of the gorge. The last thing she needed was for it to come loose and fall on a tourist.

  God, she loved these things. Small enough that you couldn’t really see them from below. Easy to install. Pretty much zero environmental impact because they went into waterfalls that no fish could possibly swim up. It was such an elegant design.

  Pushing back, Aniyah tucked her drill back into her tool belt and kicked across the waterfall to grab the power cable. She glanced over her shoulder at Dude, who stood behind his ridiculously large camera, limp blonde hair given life by the breeze. He looked over the top of the lens and grinned at her.

  “Goofball.” He’d tried to suggest that maybe she didn’t need the raingear, but a wet T-shirt-contest look would not make for convincing science. Showing leg, on the other hand…well, she’d spent most of grad school working out how to walk that line. Aniyah figured if that was how the game was played, she’d use the tools she had.

  She leaned into the roar of the narrow waterfall again. The cascade caught the edge of her cap just wrong and broke the seal, sending cold water across her scalp. Aniyah jerked back, spinning in her harness, and then shook the water from her face. So much for having straight hair. Dammit. Gritting her teeth, she reached back in and plugged the cable into the housing. Once it was seated, she released the safety and let the turbine spin up to speed. The hum was barely audible over the roar of water, but damn if it wasn’t one of the most beautiful sounds she’d ever heard. Such a gorgeous design.

  Dude met her at the base, camera slung over his wiry shoulder. He tossed her a towel. “Coffee? Packed a therm of Starbucks.”

  “You speak the language of my people.” She squeezed the worst of the water out of her hair, trying to ignore the persistent clicking of Dude’s camera. Her hair was soaked and stuck in that awkward space between straight and frizz. She lowered the towel and stared with dread at the camera. “What else do you need for photos?”

  He pointed to a thermal pack of coffee sitting on the hood of the car. “You tell me. What would you do if I weren’t here?”

  “Check readings. Consume coffee. But in the opposite order.” She raked her hands over her hair, trying to tame it into a ponytail until she could get home and restore it to its natural state.

  “Then do it.” He peered through the lens. “But—do you still need the raincoat?”

  “And I suppose you want me to bend over the display?”

  “Language of my people.” He lowered the camera and hesitated. “Hey…thanks for being a good sport about it. I mean—I wish I could just sell them on the science, but—”

  “I know.” Aniyah turned toward the coffee, not wanting to have to reassure him that it wasn’t his fault sex sold.

  She cracked the seal on the therm, and a redolent steam wafted upward. Aniyah took a sip and got all of the dark, buttery goodness that had been there when it was fresh-bre
wed. It went a long way to removing the chill from the waterfall.

  Aniyah slipped the rain gear off and draped it over a fence post. Her shirt was dry, at least. She reached into the car and pulled her tablet out of the back. Unrolling the screen to full size, she set it on the hood of the car. It had tapped in to the car’s solar while she was dangling from the side of the mountain and had topped up its charge, so the screen spun up to full brightness.

  The intelligent system anticipated her and already had the energy app at the top of the menu. She toggled it with a swipe of her gaze, and the program shimmered onto the screen.

  Fully aware of Dude’s camera pointed at her, Aniyah resisted the urge to cross her fingers as the tablet made the connection with the microturbine. She resorted to clutching the therm of coffee.

  It took only a moment for the app to start returning numbers. Aniyah watched as the small graph of the past ten minutes constructed itself on the screen. She let out a small whoop and lifted her arms in the air in victory. “Ha! Tell me to get an actual engineer? Well, suck it, Hillam. My science. Let me show it to you.”

  She picked up the tablet and spun to Dude to show him the beautiful readings. He had the camera leveled at her, staring through the viewfinder. She waited for him to snap a photo and then realized that he wasn’t going to move.

  He was taking video. Dammit.

  Sliding into presentation mode, Aniyah turned on her professional voice and showed the screen to the camera. “As you can see, this graph demonstrates that the power output of the microturbine is at the high end of the numbers I predicted. The chief advantage of something like this is that you can have multiple microturbines in very narrow waterfalls, like this one, without disrupting the ecology. With careful placement, it should be possible to have a higher combined energy output across the basin than we currently do from the antiquated Klamath River dams. I can only hope that the PNWA board recognizes the potential and takes advantage of it.”