The Future People Read online

three or four hours a night. As a result, she found herself growling at Unquill's exclamation, who, when he turned about to give her his good news, looked abashed.

  "What's going on?" Savannah asked.

  "This man, this is Hinjo," Unquill said.

  Kenneth stood up. "Really? He doesn't look that dangerous to me."

  Unquill smiled.

  To Savannah, the smile looked rather sad.

  "This is an image taken at the end of his life. No other images of him exist because he had not come to be known among us before he made his choice. We tried locating him before this, but with no success."

  They all studied the image for a while. Savannah couldn't shake the feeling that she'd seen the man somewhere before.

  Though his hair lay in tufts about his head, his chin and forehead retained a certain something to it.

  At that moment, Savannah happened to look at Unquill.

  She saw that, where he hadn't bothered brushing his hair in the back, Unquill had the same pattern of tufts that Hinjo did.

  Savannah swallowed.

  She took a deep breath before speaking. "Unquill, that man-it's you."

  Unquill's mouth hung open in shock.

  He approached Savannah until he stood in front of her.

  Then he knelt before her.

  Their eyes met.

  Unquill's eyes retained the animation of life whereas Hinjo's did not.

  Yet, they were the same color.

  Up close, so close that Savannah could feel the heat of his breath on her face, she became ever more sure of herself.

  Unquill backed off.

  He pulled a weapon from his belt. "You believe what you say. I don't see any deception in you. Then, if you are right, I will kill myself here and now. That will end all the problems once and for all."

  Kenneth spoke up. "No, it won't."

  Savannah turned to look at him. "What do you mean?"

  "Do we know how old Hinjo was when the photograph was taken?"

  "Surely, all you need to do is calculate how old I am now, together with how many years will pass between now and then," Unquill said.

  Savannah picked up Kenneth's train of thought. "Unless you factor in how many years you'd been alive while traveling to some other time. That might explain why you can't find, well, yourself. It's because you popped back in right at the moment when everything got started. You've been expecting Hinjo to live a normal life in obscurity like everyone else, right? What if that's not how it is? What if Hinjo travels-traveled-from a point in the past or future to the critical point you've been worried about?"

  Unquill said, "Such things are forbidden. One must always return to the precise point from which one has left. To do otherwise would lead to a banishment from the Constabulary for all time. Some have tried it, believe me. All have failed."

  Kenneth scratched his nose, then his chin, deep in thought. "If you went forward to study a future in which people don't exist anymore, you could just use their thingies whenever you wanted, couldn't you? No one would stop you."

  Unquill's eyes widened for a moment. "I had not considered that. Perhaps it's time we put this matter before the Council of Thirds. If indeed it is I, then-"

  The more Savannah looked at Unquill, standing before her and Hinjo on the screen, the more she felt certain that Unquill and Hinjo were the same person.

  SIX

  SCHEDULING A MEETING with the Council of Thirds proved to be less of a problem than Unquill had said it would be.

  Kenneth wondered if the Council, like Unquill, had knowledge of events that hadn't happened yet.

  Had they set aside some time in their schedule just for a meeting they foresaw?

  Kenneth could not say for certain.

  The notion made him curious about the world he'd been transported into.

  If one saw the future, then prepared for it, all the surprise of life would be gone-provided, of course, that people looked into their own futures.

  Kenneth thought these people did.

  He'd been so busy talking with Savannah about her idea-that Unquill and Hinjo were the same person-that he hadn't noticed himself exiting the computer room, or boarding a lift.

  Nor had he even observed Unquill strapping him against a wall.

  Looking about, he realized that while he hadn't paid attention to his surroundings, the world had gone mad for a moment.

  He struggled against the yellow straps that held him tight against the cold steel wall even as he observed Unquill strapping himself in place. Kenneth noticed Savannah, pinned against the wall as he was, counting up to one hundred with her eyes closed.

  The door of the lift closed with a loud thrum. The pungent scent of motor oil wafted through the tight, confined space.

  The overhead light switched off, replaced by a red emergency light.

  A countdown sounded from somewhere.

  Kenneth counted up to five when the floor vanished underneath his feet.

  He yelped, kicking his feet about.

  Then, he fell.

  The wall itself conveyed him downward, together with Unquill and Savannah. Kenneth felt himself hurtling forth at a speed he never would have guessed he could endure. He felt his stomach rising while various floors whizzed past him, numbers flashing by so quickly that he missed them when he blinked.

  After ten seconds of falling, he squinted his eyes shut. His whole body felt heavier, as though it mocked him for even thinking he could be thin.

  Just as soon as it had started, the ride ceased.

  The wall slowed his descent gradually so that, by the time he reached the bottom, he felt the mechanisms slide home when the wall locked into place.

  Everyone's restraints let go at once.

  A white bag inflated around Kenneth's feet.

  He picked it up and retched into it, leaving the bag on the floor.

  While Unquill looked no worse for wear, Savannah looked pale. All the color had drained out of her face. "What was...that?"

  "Instant gravity transport," Unquill said. He then saw her expression and added, "It's the fastest way to transport oneself from one level of the Constabulary to another. We are now at the topmost level, 126-A."

  "Top?" Kenneth said in between ragged breaths.

  "Yes, the Constabulary maintains a system of artificial gravity so that, for lack of a better way to put it, one stands on the ceiling and reaches up to the floor. This system was constructed to accommodate our mode of transit from one area to another. You will see, you will see," he said, beckoning them both to follow him.

  Savannah grabbed her unused inflatable bag, carrying it with her. Kenneth didn't want to carry his along with him. He held his stomach, trying not to think about the method of transit Unquill wanted them both to use.

  At the top level, Kenneth noticed that the air felt somewhat thinner than it had before. He grew tired easily. Neither he nor Savannah could keep up with Unquill's long, flowing strides.

  Unquill soon left them behind in an enclosed hallway. Kenneth sat down on the floor. Savannah followed his example.

  They struggled to catch their breath.

  Before long, Unquill came to fetch them. He didn't say a word as he pulled Kenneth up by his arm.

  Kenneth didn't know where he found the strength to complete the journey down the long hallway, yet he found it, for after some time had passed, he found himself standing at the end.

  The end, to Kenneth's surprise, was a bullet-shaped craft, painted red with a thick purple stripe along the middle. Unquill touched a part of the craft and a door disconnected, tipping over until it served as an entrance ramp. Savannah boarded first, walking with slow steps, fearing some mishap. She sat down in a leather seat, strapping herself in at once.

  Unquill prodded Kenneth along, who found a seat next to Savannah. He worked at the restraints for a time until he managed to secure his neck, legs and upper body. His arms hung loose at his sides.

  Unquill did not strap himself in. He stood at the forward sec
tion of the ship, only short strides away from Kenneth, while the door retracted. It latched shut with a hiss of air.

  A visual display materialized in front of him. He moved various objects around until he found the configuration he wanted. Then he pressed his palm in the middle. The display turned green, then faded from view.

  Unquill lay face-down on the floor.

  Before the craft had moved more than a few inches, the gravity normalized. Unquill fell upwards into what Kenneth saw was a padded ceiling.

  Savannah's hair stood straight up, as though attracted by magnetism.

  Kenneth felt blood rushing to his head.

  For him, nothing had changed. He still thought of the floor as the floor and the ceiling as the ceiling.

  His sight told him otherwise, for Unquill stood up, having suffered no ill effects from the change.

  He pushed a button on Kenneth's chair, and then Savannah's chair. The chairs rotated in place 180 degrees. Kenneth's head stopped pounding once the motion completed.

  Unquill said, "You may unstrap now."

  SEVEN

  THE CITY APPEARED as nothing Kenneth had ever seen before.

  Looking down, he couldn't make out much of the surface. He saw metal polygons, shapes whose function he could not discern. Around him rose all manner of buildings, some extending so high he could not see their summit.

  Vehicles moved about in every direction across the bottom of a system of beams that reminded Kenneth of train tracks. The beams never intersected, nor crossed one another. Instead, they existed in layers, a great number of layers.

  Kenneth could not see where the system began or where it ended.

  He expected the craft to leap out of its starting position to race along its beam. Instead, the craft lurched its way forward before establishing a slow, easy pace. Kenneth then saw all the