Stokey - somewhere in the Midwest. After the war and the flood had changed everything, it was decided that President Azcroft should become the supreme allied commander of the world. He had pressed for power over the whole universe but Congressman Shabazz of Detroit balked at this, and with an impassioned speech, convinced enough of his fellow left-wingers not to go along with it. After that, Azcroft abolished Congress for good.
Then he came after me. Azcroft wasn’t all that bright or anything but his handlers got him to appoint young Lenny Lassiter as chief of the cyber detection agency (the CDA). And since we all lived on the internet, nobody was safe. But it wasn’t even my fault, in fact it was all just an accident. I’d sent Bill Eccentric an email about stuff I was working on. You know, asking for advice, input, maybe some encouragement, the usual. And no answer of course. So I waited, waited, waited. No answer. What could I do? Sent another email; nothing.
Later we found out that Bill’s ‘puter had crashed and the emails instead of going to him were bouncing off Mt. Everest and heading out into space. No problem, except that Igor Kartoffsky, long lost Russian cosmonaut was intercepting those emails on the far side of Andromeda. Now Kartoffsky had been lost for a long time but at the speed he was going, time didn’t mean much. He’d have said its all relative; we’d say he had a lot of time on his hands. Sure, he’d already made himself a cosmonette, first thing. And wired his bodily functions to the Soyuz so he didn’t need much food or anything.
But now…he’s discovered the Net. Right off he gets ahold of Putin’s credit card number, so he gots Serious radio, dish TV, the Cowboys and Yankees on demand. And he’s thinking “yeah, REM’s cool... How’d Brooke Shields age so quickly And who’s this guy Stokey sendin me these emails?” But then he starts to insert his own code into our web traffic, starts to make us do things…
Bill - in northeast Florida. Monday morning back at the office; that sucks. Holiday season, desk piled to the ceiling with paperwork. You don’t know what it’s like trying to sell vacuum cleaners on the internet. It’s tough, hard on a fellow, damn. Can’t even call in sick. After that incident with the Scotch and the baboon, they… Well, that’s another story. Heck, lemme check my emails, get to work later.
Hmm…message from Stokey “hey Bill, never got that book you we’re gonna email me.” Crap, AOL, what the heck…
Message from Kartoffsky “Bill, love the book, thanks.” Jeez, what’s goin on here?
Message from Lenny Lassiter, CDA “Dear Mr. Eccentric, aka Electric, aka Burroughs; have detected ‘cookie’ at Chase Manhattan Bank, International Transfers, with your address. Suggest you sit tight. We’ll contact you.”
Oh crap…this aint good; not good, not good. Quickly check my account with the downtown bank. Jayz! A hundred million deposited in my name. Then withdrawn soon after and cashed someplace in…Brooklyn. Oh man…
I been siphoning a grand a week, for years now. You know; just enough to keep me in spending money. Hell, they’d never miss it, never even bother to check. But this! Oh God…
Quickly reach into the bottom drawer and grab the Jim Beam. Well, now what…might as well check the snail mail. Special delivery letter on top the stack. “Congratulations, your dreams have come true! You have been chosen to participate in our civilians in space program.”
Hey, that’s alright. Never thought that contest would amount to anything. After all, I cut it off the back of a cereal box, but you never know. The letter includes a first class ticket to Cape Canaveral, leaving…in a couple of hours. Damn. What should I do. Sit and wait for Lassiter and the Treasury guys, or…
The heck with it, I’m outta here. Call home, leave a message saying I’ll be out of town for a few days. Then run down to the parking garage and hop in the old beat-up Honda hatchback.
Doesn’t seem right, not even my car. Feels like…I’m being pulled along, on a string or something. Ah heck, first class ticket, might as well see if it’s for real. Get to the airport, but there’s no flight. Instead they direct me to a small private charter. Well, maybe this is better. After all, I’m goin up in space…
Inside the little jet I meet my fellow travelers, a bit of a surprise. Sasha Cohen, Rachel Ray, and…Stephen Hawking. Jeez, seems like an odd group. Maybe we all eat the same cereal.
There’re only four seats in the little jet, the rest is taken up with cargo. Boxes and boxes of frozen steaks, cases of Smirnoff vodka and a big box of Russian caviar. Well, at least we’re gonna eat well. The jet takes off, then levels out. A stewardess comes by handing out drinks. I gulp mine down and look around at the other passengers.
“Hi” says a beaming little brunette “I’m Sasha, I’m a skater.” “Hi” I respond, shaking her hand “I’m Bill, I’m…a writer.” “Really?" she says, "me too.”
Seems I recall we exchanged books a while back, but I never bothered to read hers. Damn.
“Hey, I’ve written some books too” says Rachel “but…don’t know if I’ve read yours.”
“I read it” says Hawking “damn good book. Used your idea for my space-time continuum theory.” He laughs, then takes a big drink.
Seems like they been at it for a while, maybe waitin for me to get to the plane. I grab another one and slosh it down, a little miffed by that crack by Hawking. Used my idea to win the Nobel Prize? Gee thanks Steve. Plus the fact that everbody’s gotta be a goddamned writer. Just because you’re a skater girl, or some cook, or a son of bitchin astro-physicist. I write literature, damnit! Art…not all this other bunk. Jeez.
Cohen gets up to look around, then stumbles and falls on top of me. “Thorry. I don’ uthully drink thith much.” “Ah well, it’s good for you. Steadies the nerves.” “Wha’s that thupposed to mean!” she fires back. “Nothin” I tell her “nothin at all.” (Shit…did I miss something at the Olympics?)
She just smiles and gives me a big slap on the back “is okay Billy boy…I like you. Even if I didn’t read yer damn book.”
Well, at least Hawking read it, son of a bitch. I’m about to ask him, but looks likes he’s gettin pretty droopy-eyed from the whiskey. Rachel and Sasha are prattling away about recipes. How you can put Bourbon in custards and tarts and stuff. I lean back, close my eyes. Seems like no time that we’re at the Cape and they’re suiting us up and walking up to the shuttle.
Then it’s all too much. The jet lag, the booze, man...the liftoff! Last thing I remember is something Vonnegut said about your testicles retracting up. Goddamn right up to your eyeballs, Kurt!
Wake up sometime later with Cohen whacking me upside the helmet. “Wake up Billy! Yer missin the show.”
“What the fuh..” Look around and see that we’re zipping like mad into outer space. Earth, my home and all that, is retreating rapidly behind us. Rachel’s cooking up a breakfast. At this hour? Well, I suppose time doesn’t mean anything. All black outside anyway.
Hawking’s busy with the instruments on the control panel. Looks over at me. “We’re way off course. Never gonna intersect with the space station...the way we’re going.”
“Is that bad?” asks Cohen. “Well, we’ll run out of fuel. Gradually drift back to Earth. Then burn up in the atmosphere like a falling satellite.”
“Lemme see.” I look down at Hawking’s projections. He’s got our course marked out in heavy dotted lines dropping downward on a chart. Then a colorful red fireball and the word ‘blazoomey’ underscored twice.
“Hmm...” doesn’t look good. Maybe I shoulda stayed home. “What’s NASA think?”
“No contact” says Hawking “nothing since liftoff.”
“Well...what if we, turn around. Head straight for Earth’s atmosphere, at full speed. Try to...bounce off, ricochet out to a higher orbit?”
“Ah yes” says Hawking. “Chapter seven of your book, The Doomsday Gambit.” He looks up at me, like an old school teacher I once had. “You really don’t know a damned thing about space flight, do you Bill?”
Then a voice comes over the intercom “fellow Airth Min.” The voice pauses...then starts again. “And Airth girlz... Thees is Starship Command. No worry, hokey dokey?”
The shuttles makes a wide loop, turning around and heading directly toward Earth at a maddening speed. We all brace for the impact, then hit the atmosphere and bounce off, like a high speed rubber ball.
“Well I’ll be damned” says Hawking. Apparently he didn’t read my footnotes. But it’s mostly dry technical stuff. So...
Rachel’s got breakfast ready. “Scrambled eggs okay?”
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