Two hours later the most popular television series, a forensics drama, brought the reality of violent death and detection into everyone’s living rooms. The actors investigated the death of a homeless man dead three days, his corpse ravaged by desert scavengers and insects.
Six minutes into the script, the network went black for nearly two minutes. When they came back on they played a repeat of an innocuous sitcom filmed long before Sensaroma became a part of everyday life.
Wallace called the government. “Want a major lawsuit on your hands from every television and movie studio in the country?” he asked, using a flippant tone to mask his own panic.
Much grumbling and mumbling on the other end.
“Then release the lock on my patent for a filter. Now.” He didn’t tell the Pentagon he’d already bought a factory and manufactured the thing and warehoused a million units with another million in production.
“No one wants to live through their noses,” Wallace explained patiently to the Joint Chief of Staff. “All they want is sanitized niceness. Niceness doesn’t inform. It masks, it deceives, it betrays our sensibilities. But it still leaves it open to manipulation.”
“Like you are manipulating me,” groaned the JCS.
“No more than you do to the public every day. Niceness makes life comfortable.”
“Comfortable. Reality isn’t comfortable. It never has been.”
“That’s why we need to pretend it is.”
“OK. OK. I’ll have the papers in your hands by noon.”
“Make that ten. I have a world to save from the stink of reality.”
YELLOW SUBMARINE by Rebecca Moesta
Life with a sixteen-year-old is never short on melodrama.
“But Mom,” Andre groaned, rolling his eyes, “you can’t expect me to drive that. It’s positively prehistoric. That’s what moms drive. I’d be laughed out of school.”
“I’ve had that SPig for eight years now. It’s reliable and I haven’t noticed anybody laughing at me,” I said, crossing my arms defensively over my chest.
“Maybe you just haven’t noticed, period.”
“I may be your mother, but that hardly makes me old and senile,” I said, uncrossing my arms. I wiped my sweaty palms on the silvery material of the form-fitting jumpsuit I had worn to work that day. The idea of André actually having his own vehicle filled me with maternal trepidation. “You certainly don’t need anything flashy. You just have to find something to get you to and from school, and to work and back.”
“Maybe you don’t care what you drive anymore, but this is important to me.” André stopped and tried a new approach. “Please? Dad says I’ve earned the right to choose my own. I work hard.” That was true enough. At his habitat-construction job, my son had probably logged more work hours than any other kid at Marianas High. But something inside me still resisted.
I sighed. “That’s the only reason we’re discussing this. Your work schedule makes it impossible for your father and me to ferry you and your sister everywhere you have to go.”
“So you’ll take me shopping for a minisub?” he said.
I glanced up through the clear, domed ceiling of our home, my eyes unconsciously searching the ocean for any sign of Howard’s submarine returning, though I knew he wasn’t due back from his fishing expedition for another day yet. In any case, I knew that my husband wouldn’t thank me for putting off the inevitable.
“All right,” I said, giving in. “But we’ll get something used, not showy, and I’m going to insist on certain safety features. Just give me a minute to change out of my work clothes.”
By the time we reached the dealership on the outskirts of Marianasville, I was much calmer. On our way past the colorful glow of habitat domes, around the kelp fields, and past the fish processing plant, André and I had discussed the budget and ground rules, and he was grinning with anticipation. I zoomed my faithful SPig right into the center of the lot and parked in the first available space. André had already donned his NEMM-nose-eye-mouth mask-and waited impatiently for me to put my gear on.
Since I didn’t want to get my hair wet, I chose a full transparahelm. I popped the lower hatch and allowed André to drop smoothly into the water. I followed a moment later. The hatch closed behind us as we swam toward the first submarine that caught André’s eye, a sports model Nuke Mini, a muscle sub powered by a miniature nuclear generator. The vidsticker on its window proclaimed that it could do zero to a hundred twenty in under ten seconds.
Naturally, I was appalled. The I saw the price. I gasped and quickly had to adjust the flow on my air condenser rebreather unit.
“You can’t fully appreciate its features without a test drive.” The voice came from behind us.
We whirled to look at the salesman in his garish plaid wetsuit. He wore a vidbadge that said, WELCOME TO SUBMARINE WORLD. I’M RON.
I activated my helmet mic. “No, thank you. I think it’s out of our range, er… Ron.”
‘But Mom, why not take a test drive? It would be fun,’ André said with a reproachful look as if I were trying to suck all of the joy out of his afternoon.
I kept my voice calm and reasonable. I could do this. I was his mother. “There’s no point in driving the ones you can’t afford. Why don’t we try that one?” I pointed toward a compact Waterbug.
The salesman’s face fell at this much more sensible choice. The vehicle had once been red, but had now faded to a sort of rusty pink color. “It looks very fuel-efficient, and it’s in our price range.” I tried to sound as enthusiastic as possible. “Can you show it to us?” The vehicle was definitely ugly. Even a SPig would be a step up from it.
“You realize, of course, that the Waterbug is an older trade-in,” Ron replied, forcing a smile. “It can’t compare favorably to the Nuke Mini.”
“My son is buying his first sub,” I told him in no uncertain terms. “He doesn’t need all of the features on the Nuke mini. Once he shows us that he’s responsible-maybe in a couple of years-we can come back to look at a Nuke Mini, and you can help André set up a reasonable payment plan to help him establish a good credit rating.”
“Very well, then,” Ron replied as the smile dissolved from his face and was replaced by a look of resignation. He led the way toward the other sub.
‘Mom,’ André said to me over the private microphone, ‘I need to do this myself. It’s my first time, and you’re doing all the talking. It’s embarrassing.”
“Okay.” I raised my hands in mock surrender. “I’ll keep quiet. But don’t forget this is for transportation, not to impress your friends.”
He nodded as if he had heard the lecture a thousand times before, not just once on our way to the dealership. “I know, and it has to be safe enough to withstand a nuclear blast. I’ve got the whole list of your requirements right up here,” he said, tapping his forehead just above the NEMM rebreather.
André was exaggerating for effect, of course. But not by much. Agreeing to let him take the lead from here on out, I made a motion across my mouth as if applying emergency water sealant.
Keeping my vow of silence, I watched as Ron of the plaid wetsuit gathered himself to launch into a full-fledged sales speech, even though I could tell he was not impressed by the Waterbug. “This minisub’s a beauty, all right. She’s got low usage, sturdy crash webbing, an economical smooth-spurt engine, dual rudder controls, and not a speck of wasted space.” He gave me a conspiratorial grin, grown-up to grown-up, that was as false as his phosphor-glow hairpiece. ‘Very sensible.”
I didn’t answer. André peered into the vessel through its front viewbubble, then turned toward Ron and gave him an okay-just-try-to-impress-me look, and rattled off a series of questions. For once, apparently, my son had done his homework.