Paul Di Filippo - After the Collapse

These stories have been previously published as follows:

“Life in the Anthropocene” was originally published in The Mammoth Book of Apocalypse Science Fiction , ed. by Mike Ashley, Robinson Publishing, 2010. Copyright © 2010, 2011 by Paul Di Filippo.

“Clouds and Cold Fires” was originally published in Live Without a Net , ed. by Lou Anders, Roc Books, 2003. Copyright © 2003, 2011 by Paul Di Filippo.

“Waves and Smart Magma” was originally published in The Mammoth Book of Mindblowing Science Fiction , ed. by Mike Ashley, Robinson Publishing, 2009. Copyright © 2009, 2011 by Paul Di Filippo.

“FarmEarth” was originally published in Welcome to the Greenhouse , ed. by Gordon Van Gelder, OR Books, 2011. Copyright © 2011 by Paul Di Filippo.

“Escape from New Austin” was originally published in Jigsaw Nation: Science Fiction Stories of Secession , ed. by Edward J. McFadden III and E. Sedia, Wilder Publications, 2006. Copyright © 2006, 2011 by Paul Di Filippo.

“Femaville 29” was originally published in Salon Fantastique: Fifteen Original Tales of Fantasy , ed. by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, Running Press, 2006. Copyright © 2006, 2011 by Paul Di Filippo.

Life goes on.

Along with the sentence “This too shall pass,” the line above is simultaneously the most pessimistic formulation of the way the universe works, and the most optimistic one. On the one hand, “Life goes on” indicates that we are capable of picking ourselves up after any tragedy and continuing with some kind of meaningful and useful existence, no matter how damaged we might be from our experiences. There’s always tomorrow for dreams to come true. On the other hand, “Life goes on” does seem in our blackest hours to imply one dreary, torturous day after another, with no surcease till death, and an uncaring response from a heartless creation.

I tend, in my writings and personal life, to favor the upbeat interpretation of the motto. We can recover from anything short of death, finding hope and victory and love in the ruins. That’s the message these stories are meant to convey, beneath what I hope are some surface thrills and excitement and neat ideas.

As the Buddhists tell us, life is continuously collapsing from one millisecond to the next. That’s just the nature of creation. Stability and consistency are illusions. All is a froth of chaotic activity below the Planck level. The universe is like a human being walking: managing to move forward through a series of barely averted falls.

So please take heart by also recalling the words of some western sages, Steely Dan: “Any major dude with half a heart surely will tell you my friend/Any minor world that breaks apart falls together again/When the demon is at your door/In the morning it won’t be there no more/Any major dude will tell you.”

—Paul Di Filippo

Providence, Rhode Island

11 July 2011

Solar Girdle Emergency

Aurobindo Bandjalang got the emergency twing through his vib on the morning of August 8, 2121, while still at home in his expansive bachelor’s digs. At 1LDK, his living space was three times larger than most unmarried individuals enjoyed, but his high-status job as a Power Jockey for New Perthpatna earned him extra perks.

While a short-lived infinitesimal flock of beard clippers grazed his face, A.B. had been showering and vibbing the weather feed for Reboot City Twelve: the more formal name for New Perthpatna.

Sharing his shower stall but untouched by the water, beautiful weather idol Midori Mimosa delivered the feed.

“Sunrise occurred this morning at three-oh-two AM. Max temp projected to be a comfortable, shirtsleeves thirty degrees by noon. Sunset at ten-twenty-nine PM this evening. Cee-oh-two at four-hundred-and-fifty parts per million, a significant drop from levels at this time last year. Good work, Rebooters!”

The new tweet/twinge/ping interrupted both the weather and A.B.’s ablutions. His vision grayed out for a few milliseconds as if a sheet of smoked glass had been slid in front of his MEMS contacts, and both his left palm and the sole of his left foot itched: Attention Demand 5.

A.B.’s boss, Jeetu Kissoon, replaced Midori Mimosa under the sparsely downfalling water: a dismaying and disinvigorating substitution. But A.B.’s virt-in-body operating system allowed for no squelching of twings tagged AD4 and up. Departmental policy.

Kissoon grinned and said, “Scrub faster, A.B. We need you here yesterday. I’ve got news of face-to-face magnitude.”

“What’s the basic quench?”

“Power transmission from the French farms is down by one percent. Sat photos show some kind of strange dust accumulation on a portion of the collectors. The on-site kybes can’t respond to the stuff with any positive remediation. Where’s it from, why now, and how do we stop it? We’ve got to send a human team down there, and you’re heading it.”

Busy listening intently to the bad news, A.B. had neglected to rinse properly. Now the water from the low-flow showerhead ceased, its legally mandated interval over. He’d get no more from that particular spigot till the evening. Kissoon disappeared from A.B.’s augmented reality, chuckling.

A.B. cursed with mild vehemence and stepped out of the stall. He had to use a sponge at the sink to finish rinsing, and then he had no sink water left for brushing his teeth. Such a hygienic practice was extremely old-fashioned, given self-replenishing colonies of germ-policing mouth microbes, but A.B. relished the fresh taste of toothpaste and the sense of righteous manual self-improvement. Something of a twentieth-century recreationist, Aurobindo. But not this morning.

Outside A.B.’s 1LDK: his home corridor, part of a well-planned, spacious, senses-delighting labyrinth featuring several public spaces, constituting the one-hundred-and-fiftieth floor of his urbmon.

His urbmon, affectionately dubbed “The Big Stink”: one of over a hundred colossal, densely situated high-rise habitats that amalgamated into New Perthpatna.

New Perthpatna: one of over a hundred such Reboot Cities sited across the habitable zone of Earth, about twenty-five percent of the planet’s landmass, collectively home to nine billion souls.

A.B. immediately ran into one of those half-million souls of The Big Stink: Zulqamain Safranski.

Zulqamain Safranski was the last person A.B. wanted to see.

Six months ago, A.B. had logged an ASBO against the man.

Safranski was a parkour. Harmless hobby—if conducted in the approved sports areas of the urbmon. But Safranski blithely parkour’d his ass all over the common spaces, often bumping into or startling people as he ricocheted from ledge to bench. After a bruising encounter with the aggressive urban bounder, A.B. had filed his protest, attaching AD tags to already filed but overlooked video footage of the offenses. Not altogether improbably, A.B.’s complaint had been the one to tip the scales against Safranski, sending him via police trundlebug to the nearest Sin Bin, for a punitively educational stay.

But now, all too undeniably, Safranski was back in New Perthpatna, and instantly in A.B.’s chance-met (?) face.

The buff, choleric, but laughably diminutive fellow glared at A.B., then said, spraying spittle upward, “You just better watch your ass night and day, Bang-a-gong, or you might find yourself doing a lâché from the roof without really meaning to.”