Always Remember
by David J. Strumfels
Illustration by Broeck Steadman
Dear Ms. Jiang:
It is with regret that we must inform you that your services as Coordinator for Developmental Methods are no longer required. The termination of your employment is effective immediately. As per terms of your contractual agreement, we are transmitting a lump sum payment of 50 percent of the value of the time remaining on said agreement.
We would like, at this time, to express our gratitude and appreciation for your many years of service…
Lisa flicked the letter into the trash icon. Oh, how polite they could be as they finally tripped the lever and the blade fell! You wouldn’t have known it was the same men and women who had presided over her hearing. Oh no, there things had been quite different. Fredrickson had practically drooled at the taste of her blood. Even the others had chimed in with the rancor this time—no doubt, having seen a bit too much of themselves to feel comfortable. Idiots!
Excuse me, who’s the idiot?
She shook her head at the answer to that question even as she called up the schedule of Earth-bound shuttles. She chose the earliest one that still gave her time to pack and pay off her lease. And say good-bye to what few friends she had left here. At least it was over.
“Good morning folks, Reed Ready here, the Voice of Reason, the Nemesis of All Things Nutty and Nonsensical. Take a deep breath, you’re about to hear some good old fashioned common sense. Ready? Good, ’cause here we go…
“OK, let’s talk about it. The bugs are walkin’, the groundhogs are squawkin’, and the diplomats are talkin’. And the loonies and the grangers? Well, they’re hawkin’, even if we don’t know what yet. We will, soon as our jock straps are on tight enough, you can believe that.
“Of course, we won’t even mention the trillions we groundhogs spent to build all those colonies and stations. Or the blood, sweat, and tears. And God forbid we even breathe the fact that, if it weren’t for us, there’d be no bugs to strike. The World Court might whack our knuckles for thinking we had a right to a return on our investment. You got none, brothers and sisters, you better remember that. None at all. Take your maintenance and be happy.
“Speaking of the brothers and sisters, it’s time I turned things over to the real voice of reason. The net is officially open for your input, as of now. Woa, come down. One at a time, folks. The word’ll get through…”
The images and natter faded into background as Lisa stepped onto the platform and looked about. She sighed. New York hadn’t changed. It was still noisy, smelly, gaudy, rude, and, more than anything else, crowded. You couldn’t even walk the boulevards without continuously having to avoid bumping into people. As for getting around—the attitude of the natives seemed to be, if you didn’t already know the tubes, you had no right to be there anyway.
Fortunately, this time the stop was only several blocks from her destination. She emerged into bright sunshine, between Washington Square and the area her grandmother had always called Greenwich Village but had been Ecology Park as long as Lisa could remember: enormous domes covering the vast zoological and botanical gardens. The domes gleamed gold and silver in the morning Sun, like huge mosques.
History sluiced from Lisa’s mind as she walked. It was hard to imagine that there had once been ten times as many people in this city as there were now. Not to mention fossil fuels, crumbling sewers, bankrupt government and a staggering crime rate. Now that must have been hell. Hell on Earth. No wonder they had so many wars and other types of violence; it was a major miracle they ever had any peace at all, in any place, for any length of time.
“How we ever got this far…”
“I beg your pardon, Ms. Jiang?”
Lisa popped back to reality. The soft, simian brown eyes of the shimp receptionist were upon her, that mixture of curiosity and trepidation that shimps seemed perpetually to hold for their officially equal cospecies. It made her think instantly of Allison, though this particular shimp was male.
She sat up, brushed off the slacks of her best dress suit and put on her best smile. “Nothing. Er—” much as she hated being pushy, she couldn’t resist the opening—“do you think Ms. L’uboleng will be free soon?”
The shimp—Ben, according to the name plate on his desk—batted his long eyelashes painfully. It’s not easy to say no to one of your betters, is it? Lisa reflected sourly. The automatic assumption angered her, and then angered her more by her realization that castigating him for it would only reinforce it.
“As a matter of fact, I’ll see you now, Ms. Jiang.”
She twisted, toward a short but authoritative looking woman, with clipped strawberry hair, standing in the shadows at the end of a hallway. The woman emerged into full room light, glanced at Ben—who smiled back timidly—then looked at Lisa with narrow, inlaid eyes. She thinks I was trying to intimidate Ben, Lisa concluded. Great. The worse thing was, any attempt to deny, apologize or explain would only implicate her.
It was always encouraging to start an interview on the right note!
But if there were any rancor on L’uboleng’s part, professionalism overpowered it quickly enough. The two were quickly on opposite sides of an impressively equipped desk, and questions were arriving briskly. “I saw from your resume that you’ve spent the last few years on Lagrange,” L’uboleng opened. “In fact, that you got a position there right out of college. That’s not an easy thing to do; most of us have to begin our career Earth-side, and work our way up. If we can.”
There was no resentment in L’uboleng’s voice as she recited the standard groundhog attitude; it was a flat statement, delivered flatly. Which did not make it any less remarkable. Lisa herself had been shocked when the position on Lagrange was offered her. Only later had she discovered her reputation for creativity and ingenuity, a reputation she had never learned to feel worthy of however many successes she enjoyed.
Now was not the time to savor that irony. “Yes, I was surprised by the opportunity,” she said, “especially as there were so many others more qualified than myself.”
“But you left the colony,” L’uboleng cut in. “Not only did you leave, you left a fairly imposing research position—not,” she smiled, “that a classroom full of children isn’t challenge enough for anybody. But frankly, Ms. Jiang, it’s not exactly what I would call a career move.”
Lisa felt herself growing suddenly hot and sticky in all the wrong places. “I suppose that depends on what you mean by career.” It was her prepared line. “Personally, although I found research exciting, I missed the challenge of dealing with young minds directly. Unfortunately, by the time I discovered this, my old position had already been filled and there were no new teaching spots available. By then I was also coming to realize how much I missed home—I’m a native, you know—” You’re laying it on too thick.
L’uboleng frowned skeptically. “Really? Very interesting. You were born here?”
“I grew up in what used to be Chinatown. Five generations, if you go back to a great grandfather who came from Hong Kong after the Revolution—” The glaze in L’uboleng’s eyes dashed Lisa’s hopes that they would both be history buffs. “Of course, things have changed since I left. But all the things I love are still here. It’s still—New York.”