Forever Magazine Issue 12 by Neil Clarke

Author:Neil Clarke [Nick Wolven, Neil Clarke, Mary Rosenblum, Mike Resnick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: magazine, novelette, novella, science fiction, science fiction magazine, short stories, short story
Publisher: Wyrm Publishing
Published: 2015-12-31T00:00:00+00:00

7: Asleep

In the uptown dawn, at the top of the townhouse’s sandstone steps, Gabriel stood with his phone to his ear. Popovski’s good morning lilted tinnily.

“Ga-bri-el!”

“Don’t Gabriel me, Pop.” Gabriel shielded his eyes against the dawn sun. “You delivered me into the arms of a madman.”

From the curb below, Marisol looked up, eyebrows raised. Popovski’s voice in the phone made a put-put sound.

“Mad? I wouldn’t call Ribbeck mad. Eccentric, maybe. A tad peculiar. A trifle homicidal, if my sources are to be believed. But forget about all that. What did he tell you? Did he puzzle out what the AIs are doing? Did he put his finger on Penrose’s big prediction? Did he pin the proverbial tail on the market donkey?”

Gabriel looked down the steps. Marisol waited at the curb. He could tell by her blinky eyes that she hadn’t yet taken her wake-up pill. As a city employee, she got Sundays off, a luxury Gabriel rarely enjoyed.

“Did he say what we should do, here? Hello? Gabe? We’ve got to move fast. Give me the game plan. Are we short or long this thing? Are we buying in?”

Halfway down the steps, Gabriel watched his wife yawn, Marisol’s head going back and back to gulp down morning’s honey light.

“Gabriel? You there? What do you think? Did you get any answers? Do you know what’s going on? Can Ribbeck be trusted? Can Penrose? What do we do?”

“You know what I’d like to do?” Gabriel was already lowering the phone. “I’d like to sleep on it.”

“Sleep?” Popovski’s voice rose in a crow of surprise. “Gabriel, wait, I think I heard you wrong. Did you say sleep? We’re in a crisis, we can’t sleep. Dayshift’s starting, we’ve got to move, jump, get ahead of this thing—”

But Gabriel had shut off his phone, pocketed it, and trotted down the last few steps. Marisol already had her wake-up pill in her palm.

“So what’s the story, babe? Back to the office?”

Gabriel plucked the crinkle-wrapped package from her hand.

“Gabe? What’s up?” Marisol patted a yawn. “You need a ride downtown?”

Gabriel took out his own pill, setting it in his palm beside hers. He contemplated the loudly colored packages, the tiny egg-like nubs inside. What was the slogan he’d thought of? Murdering sleep.

He tossed the two bright packages to the curb. “You know, I thought we could spend the morning in.”

Marisol interrupted another yawn, showing him her surprised, pleased eyes. “But don’t you have to—aren’t you supposed to—?”

Smiling, Gabriel slipped an arm around her waist. Holding her close to his hip, he walked her to the curb. Marisol mounted the bike and aimed it east, toward the park, the road home, the morning sun.

As Gabriel climbed on behind her, another snippet of poetry tugged at his mind. A tune, a lyric, a text from school. Something that seemed to sum up his life of the last ten years. A little life, really, rounded with a . . .

A what? He’d lost it. No matter. Marisol twisted the starter. Gabriel, holding her from behind, rested his head on her shoulder.

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