On ‘Plainview 9’ When I was young, I used to wonder what life would be like in 2001. Would we have flying cars and robot servants – just like the SF novels written in the Fifties and Sixties predicted? It turned out that the future was like the past, only different. I turned thirty-five in 2001. From back in the Seventies, that seemed really old. And, taking three score years and ten as my allotted life span, I’m half way through. Marty is almost there. In 2021 he’ll be thirty-one, and yes, finally, he can get a flying car. Woohoo!   Plainview 9 – November 2021   I was back in Plainview. The roads still followed the same well-worn paths: that way towards Pierce, this along the highway which ended up in Sioux City, the other towards the distant Rockies. It was still as flat as it ever was. The lawns were still green, and I knew that had taken some doing. The houses looked pretty much the same from the outside. But it had changed subtly since I’d been away. There were new faces, people I didn’t recognise. Back when Plainview had been the whole world, I had known everyone by sight, and they knew me in return. Some of the street signs had changed, renamed to reflect what was important now. The street furniture was different, too. The lights were a different design, and there were electronics at every corner to give drivers’ computers the mapping information they needed. Back yards were taken over with environmental domes that shaded according to the sunlight, fitted with humidifiers to recreate the climate of a kinder, gentler past. The last super-storm had scattered some of these; they looked like crashed dirigibles, twisted frames unrecognisable from what they once were. There were new buildings: a big hydrogen fuel plant, all shiny cylinders and red warning signs; a new town hall in neo-classical style which looked totally out of place; a new statue in the park, erected to commemorate three centuries of war dead from Plainview. I’d narrowly avoided adding my own name to the plinth on three separate occasions. Coming home was like a waking dream. Charlie had been before, and as a consequence felt less of the distance than I did. As I pointed out of the windshield at each novelty, she’d say something like: "Went up five years ago," or "That was a while back now." The car knew its way to my parents’ house better than I did, and I let it drive. It wasn’t going to forget to stop at stop signs or indicate before turning, and I was busy rubbernecking anyhow. The trees along the street front had grown. Of course they had; last time I’d seen them was eleven years past, and they seemed venerable now. They had afforded welcome shade in summer, but in late fall they were dark and spare, the scars of missing branches and crowns obvious for all to see. The car pulled into the drive way. The turbines whined, the suspensors cut out, and we shushed on to concrete pan with a creak of carbon fibre. "Well," I said, "stating the obvious: we’re here." Charlie thumbed her door open. "Don’t worry. But try and be polite." Eleven years since I’d last seen my father in the flesh. I saw him on webcasts from the Unicameral on occasion, when curiosity got too great and no-one else was around. But I’d not exchanged so much as a Christmas card with him since the day I went to war. Charlie got out of the car. She could walk pretty well now, fifty yards or so without having to stop and rest. She could make it to the front door by herself, and for longer distances her walker unit was in the trunk. I followed her discretely in case she fell, but she didn’t need my help. The doorcam must have scanned her and announced her inside long before she got to the intercom. I was used to city ways now; I supposed out in the boondocks it was still the done thing to press the bell to let folks know you were waiting. Mom opened the door. I saw here more often, two weeks every year since Charlie moved in with me. She hugged her daughter gently, making sure she didn’t set her off balance. Looking over Charlie’s shoulder at me, she said: "Welcome home, Marty." "Hi, Mom." There didn’t seem much else to say. We both knew what we were waiting for. "Your father’s in the den. Do you want to go through?" "I’ll get the bags from the car first," I said, stalling. "There’s no hurry, hon. It’s not like anyone’s going to steal them." She was right, and I’d run out of excuses. Mom and Charlie stood to one side as I wiped my feet on the mat, kicked off my shoes and put them on the rack in the hallway. They’d decorated since. It felt like going into a strangers’ house. They hadn’t moved any of the walls, which was the latest craze, so I found myself walking slowly through the house to the den. I knocked on the door, then opened it up. My father was standing at the window, looking out at the driveway. Then he turned and looked at me. "Dad." "Martin." He took a couple of short steps forward and extended his hand. I shook it, and it felt brittle, like glass. "How’s business?" he asked. "Good. Turnover is up, new products in development, taken on more staff." "Profitable?" "We take our wages, much like everybody else." He grunted and nodded. Charlie must have told him that we were the nearest thing to a workers’ co-operative Reconstruction would allow. I thought it only fair at the time when I incorporated Sorenson Cybernetics that my lab-rat of a sister should have a full share. "How’s politics?" "Well now," he said, and stopped. "You sure you want to hear about this?" "It’s important to you," I said, knowing that it could be taken two ways. He shrugged. "Your mother has given me strict instructions not to say or do anything that might keep you away for another decade. Perhaps we should at least wait until we’ve eaten. I don’t rightly much like rowing on an empty stomach." "I’ll agree with that. Keeping well?" "Not quite out to graze yet. Every so often some bit stops working and they clone a replacement. I don’t have problems with Altzheimers or Parkinsons or even arthritis. I rattle out the pills and potions every morning, but I can still run five miles in a good time." "That’s good. Fit and healthy. Good." "Aw, who are we trying to kid? I can’t see as I’ll ever need any of that fancy hardware you and your sister make, and I can’t see anyone I know will either. You picked the wrong revolution, son. It’s all biology these days." "I got Charlie walking again," I said quietly. "No amount of cloning would have helped her." "Moot point, now. They can grow nerves in the gene tanks..." "And they don’t connect properly. I can get it right every time." "It’s only a matter of a few years. If I were you, I’d sell up: take your profit and invest in something else." "Yeah." I could hear Mom in the kitchen, banging serving dishes around. "But it was never about the money. To start with, it was about Charlie, then it was about all the other Charlies. There’s plenty out there. Over half my orders come from Europe." "Backwards." "Just different." But I too paid attention to my belly, and didn’t press the point. Maybe we could fling the left-over creamed potatoes at each other. "You going to carve the turkey, or would you like me to do it?" He acted like I’d just incurred a twenty dollar fine. "I do it every year, whether you’re here or not." "Just offering. We’d better go through." He harrumphed, and waited for me to get through the door before he moved. Charlie was already sitting at the table. She was fine at carrying things, but her gait was awkward; not so good if you wanted a tray to remain level. I offered to help Mom, but she shooed me away. I took my place – what had always been my place, opposite Charlie and facing the patio doors – and waited. Charlie raised her eyebrows at me. I made a face, and she copied it. Just like when we were kids. Mom scurried backwards and forwards with self-heating dishes and platters that groaned with food. I began to lose sight of my sister. Finally, Dad came in with the most enormous turkey imaginable. It had to have been vat-grown, because its legs would have snapped in two under the weight of its artificially enhanced body. It could have fed a small African nation for a week. "Good sized bird, Mom," I said. "Just fitted in the new oven, hon." "You say grace in your household, Martin?" asked Dad. There was a barb in his voice that made Charlie look up sharply. "Sometimes. We don’t sit down for mealtimes that often." "Well, we do here, so quit your yakking." He stood poised, carving knife and fork raised like he was about to make a sacrifice on the altar. "Dear Lord, we thank you that we live in a land of plenty, where we can raise our families in peace and prosperity. We thank you for making us strong so we can help the weak, for making us wise so we can help the foolish, for blessing us with abundant wealth so we can help the poor and needy. Thank you, God. Amen." We echoed the ‘amen’ with more or less conviction. I suddenly remembered the ‘What would Jesus do?’ craze of the early naughts. It was the question you were supposed to ask yourself before you did something you knew to be wrong. They had T-shirts and bracelets, bumper stickers and buttons, all with the slogan WWJD. The same Jesus who hadn’t owned a home or a mule, or even a purse, and died a criminal’s death. I guess the contrast between what he said and what Dad prayed for was too great. Both of them couldn’t be right, but I felt the man from Galilee had the edge. Dad started carving, great slices of thick, juicy meat that fell away onto a platter. When it was piled high, the turkey didn’t look any smaller. He passed it to Charlie, who took the smallest portion she could get away with, and handed it across to me. I took a couple of slices, then started to laden my plate with a little bit of everything. Mom looked pleased, relieved almost. I smiled at her, and she started to cry. "Mom, what’s wrong?" "I’ve got everyone I love under one roof again. I’m so happy." She dabbed at cheeks with her napkin. "Sorry. I don’t mean to make a scene. But this is the best Thanksgiving ever." I stared at my plate for a moment. "That’s okay, Mom." "Eat up now." Somehow, I managed to make it through to the end of the meal without snapping back at my father. His jibes were many and varied: neither of his children were married, which struck him as mighty suspicious; he had no grandchildren, which was a source of shame to him; I didn’t want to follow him into politics, and he regarded that as less than patriotic. My – our – company was about to go belly-up, squeezed out by the gene splicers and recombinant technicians. We ran the firm in a less than all-American way. We hung around with those he considered Fifth Columnists and liberals. He even knew some of their names, which made me wonder if he hadn’t had some P.I. check us over, or even access to our F.B.I. files. By the time the last slice of pumpkin pie had been forced on me, I so badly wanted to tell him that Charlie hadn’t had an auto accident, and that it had been on purpose. That she had grabbed the wheel – back when it actually did something – and deliberately rammed the car into a fifty-year old pine. That the Governor’s nephew had died simply because she’d had enough, and that losing the use of her legs and her womb had been a price she’d been more than prepared to pay. I didn’t, because every time I started, I saw my mom. She looked like she was in heaven, having the perfect family day, a realisation of all her hopes and dreams over ten years. She’d nearly lost both of us; Charlie on the operating table, and me to a sniper, a mine and runaway truck. I figured I owed her at least this meal. I held my tongue, and on the drive back, vowed I’d never put myself through such an ordeal again.