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- Herausgeber: Jovian Press
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
Well, they finally got rid of war. For the first time there was peace on Earth - since the only possible victims were the killers themselves! An incredibly awesome futuristic tale of science fiction epicness, woven by a master of the genre, Jim Harmon!
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THE PLACE WHERE CHICAGO WAS
Jim Harmon
JOVIAN PRESS
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All rights reserved. Aside from brief quotations for media coverage and reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the author’s permission. Thank you for supporting authors and a diverse, creative culture by purchasing this book and complying with copyright laws.
Copyright © 2017 by Jim Harmon
Interior design by Pronoun
Distribution by Pronoun
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I
II
III
IV
I
IT WAS LATE DECEMBER OF 1983. Abe Danniels knew that the streets and sidewalks of Jersey City moved under their own power and that half the families in America owned their own helicopters. He was pleased with these signs of progress. But he was sweating. He thought he was getting athlete’s foot instead of athletic legs from walking from the New Jersey coast to just outside of Marshall, Illinois.
The heat was unbearable.
The road shimmered before him in rows of sticky black ribbon, on which nothing moved. Nothing but him.
He passed a signal post that said “Caution—Slow” in a gentle but commanding voice. He staggered on toward a reddish metallic square set on a thin column of bluish concrete. It was what they called a sign, he decided.
Danniels drooped against the sign and fanned his face with his sweat-ringed straw cowboy hat. The thing seemed to have something to say about the mid-century novelist, James Jones, in short, terse words.
The rim of the hat crumpled in his fist. He stood still and listened.
There was a car coming.
It would almost have to stop, he reasoned. A man couldn’t stand much of this Illinois winter heat. The driver might leave him to die on the road if he didn’t stop. Therefore he would stop.
He jerked out the small pouch from the sash of his jeans. Inside the special plastic the powder was dry. He rubbed some between his hands briskly, to build up the static electricity, and massaged it into his hair.
The metal of the Jones plaque was fairly shiny. Under the beating noon sun it cast a pale reflection back at Danniels. His hair looked a reasonably uniform white now.
He started to draw the string on the pouch, then dipped his hand in and scooped his palm up to his mouth. He chewed on the stuff while he was securing the nearly flat bag in his sash. He swallowed the dough; the powder had been flour.
Danniels took the hat from beneath his arm, set it to his head and at last faced the direction of the engine whine.
The roof, hood and wheels moved over the curve of the horizon and Danniels saw that the car was a brandless classic which probably still had some of the original, indestructible Model A left in it.
He pondered a moment on whether to thumb or not to thumb.
He thumbed.
The rod squealed to a stop exactly even with him. A door unfolded and a voice like a stop signal said flatly, “Get in.”
Danniels got in. The driver was a teen-ager in a loose scarlet tunic and a spangled W.P.A. cap. The youth wouldn’t have been bad-looking except for a sullen expression and a rather girlish turn of cheek, completely devoid of beard line. Danniels wrote him off as a prospective member of the Wolf Pack in a year or two.
But not just yet, he fervently hoped.
“Going far? I’m not,” said the driver.
Danniels adjusted the knees of his trousers. “I’m going to—near where Chicago used to be.”
“Huh?”
Danniels had forgotten the youth of his companion. “I mean I’m going to where you can’t go any further.”
The driver nodded smugly, relieved that the threat to the vastness of his knowledge had been dismissed. “I get you, Pop. I guess I can take you close to where you’re headed.”
They rode on in silence, both relieved that they didn’t have to try to span the void between age and position with words.
“You aren’t anywhere near starvation, are you?” the driver said suddenly, uneasy.
“No,” Danniels said. “Anyway I’ve got money.”
“Woodrow Wilson! I’ll pull in at the next joint.”
The next joint was carved out of the flat cross-section of hill that looked unmistakably like a strip ridge of a Colorado copper mine, but wasn’t ... even barring the fact that this was Illinois. The rectangle of visible dinner was color-fused aluminum from between No. Two and Korea.
Danniels was glad to get into the shockingly cold air-conditioning. It was constant, if unhealthy. The chugging unit in the car failed a heartbeat every now and then for a sickening wave of heat.
The two of them pulled up wire chairs to a linoleum-top table in a mirrored corner. A faint purple hectographed menu was stuck between appropriately colored plastic squeeze bottles labeled MUSTARD and BLOOD.
Danniels knew what the menu would say but he unfolded it and checked.
Steaks
Plankton .90
Juicy, rich-red tantalizing hamburger .17
Accessories
Mashed potatoes .40
Delectable oysters, all you can eat .09
Peas .35
Rich, fragrant cheese, large slice .02
Drinks
Coke .50
Milk, the forbidden wine of nature .01
Coffee (without) .50
Coffee (with) .02
A fat girl in white came to the table.
Danniels tossed the menu on the table. “I’ll take the meat dinner,” he said.
The teen-ager stared hard at the table top. “So will I.”
“Good citizens,” the waitress said, but the revulsion crept into her voice over the professional hardness.
Danniels looked carefully at his companion. “You aren’t used to ordering meat.”
“Pop,” the youth began. Danniels waited to be told that being short of cash was none of his business. “Pop, on my leg. Kill it, kill it!”
Danniels leaned over the table startled and curious. A cockroach was feeling its way along a thin meridian of vari-colored jeans. Danniels pinched it up without injuring it and deposited it on the floor. It scurried away.
