Vista

"It truly is a lovely place."

With a loud, refreshing swoosh, the daily package of air burst through the vents and rushed into the room.

Heinrich Handke opened his eyes.

The lights flashed.

"Good morning," said the digitally-synthesized voice.

Heinrich didn't budge from bed.

"Time to get up."

Heinrich pulled the covers over his head.

"Rise and shine."

Heinrich yawned, instead.

"Greet the morning."

Heinrich threw one leg over the mattress.

"Carpe diem."

"Alright, already. I'm up," whined Heinrich, as he slid off the bed and felt the floor under his feet. He stretched out his arms.

The room was still dark, and the clocks were still frozen at six o'clock. The virtual-blinds still covered up the window-vista above the writing desk. The day had not yet begun.

"Are you ready to proceed?" asked the computer, after Heinrich had finished dressing.

"Yes."

The alarm clock -- and all other clocks in the apartment -- suddenly flashed into motion, and the seconds began pouring in: tick-tock, tick-tock...

"Marsha, switch clocks to electronic. Analogue hurts my head this morning."

The tick-tocks stopped.

"Marsha, open all window-vistas."

"Do you wish to keep yesterday's sky setting?"

Heinrich mulled this over.

"No. Price a new sky setting."

"Proceed with query."

"How much for a sunny day, less than ten percent pollution-haze, with base Rouen?"

"Fifty-one points."

"What about a looped Sahara, mid-day?"

"Seventy-nine points."

Heinrich weighed his options.

"And a Vienna, overcast, but no rain, and a five percent chance of sunshine?"

"Twenty-four points."

"I'll take the Vienna," he said, after a little deliberation.

There was a soft rumble, then a wall compartment slid open. A metallic arm unfurled. Where it should have had a hand, however, there was only a small box.

"Please swipe."

A slit appeared in the box.

Heinrich reached into his pocket, fished out his points-card, and ran it through the card-reader, which promptly closed, re-furled, and disappeared into the wall.

"Thank you. Twenty-four points have been subtracted from your point total. Would you like to view point balance?"

"No, thanks."

Moments later, the virtual-blinds covering the window-vista in Heinrich's bedroom flipped open.

The sky was grey, drab, cloudy.

The base colour of the walls was white. Each apartment, however, was also equipped with an elementary mood sensor that added a drop of colour to that white. At the moment, for example, the walls in Heinrich's living room were slightly blue -- a pale blue that went well with the sky currently being projected in the room's large window-vista.

Heinrich broke his eyes away from it.

"Marsha, what's the time?"

Heinrich knew the time, and looking at a clock was the simpler option, but he enjoyed the interaction with his personal computer.

"It is now six thirty-two," it responded, politely.

"I think I'll have a bite of breakfast before it's time for work, then," he said, already making his way into the kitchen.

Food came in the form of two tablets: a larger blue one that held nutrition, and a smaller yellow that held taste. In theory, this meant that a person could get the benefits of eating vegetable salad with the taste of chocolate-covered cherries; but, in practice, the taste-tablets were so expensive (because taste-synthesis was a much more complicated process than nutrition-extraction and nutrition-cloning) that everyone but the wealthiest citizens sufficed on nutrition-tablets alone.

"Please place your order."

"One banana. Nutrition only. One cup of green tea. Nutrition only. Three slices Italian salami, with black pepper. Nutrition only. Two slices Edam cheese. Nutrition only. One half French baguette. Nutrition only."

"Six points," informed Marsha, "Please swipe."

Heinrich took out his points-card, and ran it through the card-reader.

"Thank you. Six points have been subtracted from your point total. Would you like to view point balance?"

"No, thanks."

The card-reader re-entered the wall, and a small opening near the sink promptly spit out a big, blue pill: breakfast.

Heinrich picked up the food-tablet and swallowed it. He didn't feel any less hungry, but within the next ten minutes the tablet would begin to dissolve and start feeding his body. The sensation would be awkward, akin to bloating, but the bonus was that it would kick in at about the same time he finished work.

The Machine resembled a bulky blood-pressure monitor. It was white, dust-resistant and made of a plastic that constantly ate and vomited itself -- meaning that it would never fade or wear out. Designed for quickly extracting the maximum amount of energy from prisoners-of-war during the Just Conflict, it had now been revamped with a sleek new design and had become a staple of everyday life during the Eternal Peace. And, indeed, it looked crisp.

Like any schoolboy could tell you, The Machine worked on the simple principle of the transfiguration of energy into dynamic binary. This meant that although energy could still not be created from scratch, it could be read, mapped and translated into an ever-changing sequence of flickering ones and zeroes. These numbers could then be bounced through a series of fiber-optic tubes to their destinations, re-read by a decoder (government-patented and available only to groups or people deemed socially-beneficial) and re-assembled into workable energy. Because the process was digital, no energy was lost in the process.

Advocates claimed that The Machine would save the working-person eight hours of leisure time a day. Others (whose names and writings are now lost) claimed, with typical destructive sarcasm, that it would let the working-man: "feel like shit for eight more hours." Despite a ferocious argument, both were right.

Heinrich sat down in the special chair attached to The Machine, and slipped his arm through the designated sleeve. When he was ready, he took a deep breath -- the sensation of having one's energy sucked out of one's body, though not unpleasant and by now quite normal, was nevertheless never quite pleasant, or normal -- and pressed the only button on the machine's control panel: the big, green one (red had gone out of fashion years earlier, when workforce theorists found the colour to be agitational).

The Machine whirred to life. The sleeve inflated and put a choke-hold just above Heinrich's elbow.

Several seconds later, the sleeve deflated and The Machine uttered a robotic: "Thank you for working for Fukuyama Industries. Mr. Fukuyama wishes you a happy evening."

Heinrich slid down his chair until the lumbar support jabbed into his neck. He felt more drained than usual. Although he had lately been forming the idea that his employers were taking more and more of his energy -- disguised in tiny increments -- without increasing his pay, he forbid himself from thinking the thought.

Instead, he looked at the window-vista: sun rays were beginning to penetrate the clouds.

"You have a virtual visitor."

"Who is it?"

"Mrs. Sarah Handke."

Heinrich made fists of his hands. Try as he might, he could come to no other conclusion than that he hated his mother.

" -- Heinrich, let me in, for Good's sake. I've got wonderful news! And I've brought gifts."

"Keep the virtual-door locked, Marsha. Put her on the two-way mirror."

The figure of a sexy, twenty-three year-old, female socialite appeared in Heinrich's living-room.

"Oh, Heinrich. Why do you always insist I never see you? I daresay I have the right to see my son whenever I please. I'm your mother, for Good's sake. I've run the simulations ad infinitum, but seeing a mock-up is one thing, and seeing you in digital flesh-and-blood is quite another."

Despite being nearly one-hundred fifty-four years old, Sarah Handke looked thirty years younger than her son. Heinrich dreaded seeing exactly how much younger, every time he saw her.

"What do you want, mother?"

"What do I want? Why, nothing, my dear. Nothing, but to see my only son and share with him some very special news."

Special news, Heinrich knew, came in only two types: virtual-cosmetic-surgery and marriage.

"When is the wedding?"

"Always so dour, putting a damper on things. Such a pessimist. Such a pouty one, you are." Her tone brightened, "And, it's in August. I just think you'll absolutely love the mate I've chosen. I think you two will just get along so well. I just can't wait to listen to you two talk about something fabulous over tea!"

Heinrich didn't say a word.

"Spoilsport. Aren't you even going to play along for my sake -- ask me about him? What name the name generator picked for him? What his energy is used for?"

"What's his name?"

"Richard Archibald. Dr. Richard Archibald. Isn't that Grande? Doesn't that name sound so lovely, so sophisticated? Just like one of those Old World aristocrats."

"I'm happy for you," Heinrich forced out.

"Oh, I know, dear, I know. But, do you really not remember that name? Think hard, my little Heinrich. Richard Archibald. Ritchie Archibald. Oh, and I can't wait any longer. I just must tell you!"

For a split second, the picture fluttered.

"Will it be much longer?"

"Richard Archibald attended Academy with you, at the elementary wing of Hesen Education Complex! I'm sure you must remember now. He was on the rowing cadre, even though he was two years the junior to the youngest boy there, and he won the singles championship twice in a row -- before he transferred to Susex. Do you remember now? I remember very well that you told me once you thought him very mature for his age in conversation."

Heinrich did remember. He remembered the small, fair-haired boy with sharp hazel eyes who had once offered, with a sincere smile, to pay twelve points of compensation for taking Heinrich's distinguished place on the five-man rowboat.

"Why do you torture me like this, mother?"

"Torture you? Does my happiness torture you, my dear?"

"Marsha, shut off picture."

The image of Sarah Handke fizzled out of existence. Only her voice remained.

"No, not much longer now."

" -- Mother, what did you say?"

"I said that I've brought you such splendid gifts, and you won't even allow me the chance to give them to you. Why are you so rude to me, Heinrich? What have I ever done to deserve such rudeness?"

"I don't want your God damn gifts, mother."

"Very well, then. I will expect your virtual-presence at the wedding. I've sent points to the usual place. Goodbye, Heinrich."

The usual place was a private account in the Bank of Freedom, to which Heinrich had ages ago forgotten the identification number and access codes. He had forced himself to forget, in hopes that if his mother saw that the points weren't being spent she would stop sending them. That hadn't happened, and Heinrich could only guess that the account now housed a small fortune.

"Your virtual visitor has ended the visit," said Marsha, causing Heinrich's shoulders to spontaneously relax.

The window-vista had teased with sunlight, but had now become dominated by clouds again. Heinrich broke his gaze away from it, and slid out of the living-room.

"Marsha, produce a memory for me," he sighed, as he slumped into a chair by the kitchen table.

"Shall I use the template?"

Heinrich hesitated. After a few seconds indecision, he cleared his throat.

"No. Price these modifications."

"Please enter character descriptions."

"One character. Female. Aged twenty-one. Usual physiognomy. Usual physique. But darker hair and slightly taller than last time."

"Personality keywords, please."

"Flirtatious. Shy."

"Thank you. Do you wish to attach a name?"

"Marsha."

"Character saved. Please proceed with setting."

"Austria. Vienna. The Kirche am Steinhof. Date. December twenty-second two-thousand thirty-four. Time. Eighteen O'clock. Weather. Overcast, no rain."

The details flowed out of him automatically, naturally.

"Setting saved. Please specify tone."

"Thirty percent melancholy, thirty percent romantic. Normalize the remainder, and add fifteen percent tone-noise."

"Tone saved. Please adjust accuracy."

"Slide historical up to sixty percent, and lower random to forty percent."

"Thank you. Await processing."

Computers no longer hummed; they worked in complete and eerie silence.

"Cost of desired memory is three-hundred eighty-one points," Marsha pronounced suddenly. "Proceed or reset?"

"Proceed."

"Please swipe."

Heinrich swiped his points-card through the card-reader, and, almost instantaneously, the food dispenser coughed out three, oblong tablets.

"Thank you. Three-hundred eighty-one points have been subtracted from your point total. Would you like to view point balance?"

"No, thanks."

Memories were delivered through the same mechanism as food -- and were manufactured by the same company (E.A.P. Artifinutriation) -- but were colour-coded white to avoid confusion. And, unlike food-tablets, they were also numbered: Memory-tablet-1 blocked a handful of key brain functions in order to allow memory-tablet-2 to dissolve into and alter the brain's memory cells, which memory-tablet-3 then shielded from immediate forgetting. Together, the pills allowed a user to experience a memory for up to twenty-four hours in exponentially diminishing clarity. Special memory-tablets that produced permanent memories existed, but were restricted to government use.

As was his custom, Heinrich dropped the tablets into his palm and retreated with them to his bedroom. There, he swallowed all three at once -- like any hardcore user -- and stared at the window-vista until they started to take effect.

"We can act now."

"No, it must seem natural. We will follow the plan."

Heinrich gazed up at the metallic dome of the Church of St. Stephen, and then reverted his eyes back to the crowd mulling along its steps. He searched through every face, trying to get a glimpse of her, but, just like it had been all those years ago, there were too many faces to search. Eventually, he sat down on the steps leading up to the entrance and waited. It was, after all, she who had found him that evening.

Time passed slowly, and Heinrich spent much of it admiring the sky: an actual sky, which he still vaguely remembered, and which his memory had spread above all of Vienna for him. Although he knew that what he saw was as much a fabrication, an illusion, as the window-vista in his room, it seemed somehow more majestic, more real.

"Excuse me," said a soft voice from somewhere behind, "but do you happen to know the time? I'm playing a concert tonight, and I'd rather not be late."

Heinrich turned his face slowly, cherishing the moment that hers -- with its expression of polite restlessness -- came into his peripheral vision, then expended to fill his entire field.

"It's twenty-two past seven," he replied, without even bothering to check his wristwatch.

Her hair was coal black, and not the thick, dark brown that it had been, but the resemblance was otherwise uncanny. From her cheeks, through her slim figure, and down to the fuzzy shoes on her feet and the clarinet case slung across her back, she was Marsha.

"Thank you," she said.

The explosion sent a large chunk of the dome crashing into the crowd.

Heinrich smiled, and asked one of the most redundant questions he had ever asked: "And when is your concert?"

"Not until nine," he whispered to himself.

Millions are screaming. Millions die.

"Not until nine," she answered, "And it's right here on the steps of St. Stephen's, if you'd like to stick around for it."

"I would like that, thank you."

She fidgeted, unsure of whether to say goodbye or pursue the conversation. Heinrich enjoyed watching her struggle with the decision he already knew she'd make.

"What do you do here in Vienna?" she asked, after a while.

She will bleed until there is no more blood.

"I'm a student, walking in Mozart's footsteps, I hope. Tonight, however, I was waiting for someone, here, on the steps."

"And they haven't come?"

"Mr. Fukuyama wishes you a very happy holiday season," said The Machine.

"They left much earlier than I anticipated," said Heinrich.

"Why did you stay?"

"I was fascinated by the sky."

Marsha looked up and giggled. "What's so special about this sky? It's the same sky you see anywhere, any time."

"They said the earth was flat, until it was round."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

A bright reflection shot off the window-vista and forced Heinrich to squint. The memory-tablets were starting to wear off.

Heinrich concentrated.

The orchestra played.

Spotlights glanced off the metallic panels on the church dome.

Heinrich studied his watch feverishly, dreading the moment that he knew was coming. Sweat dripped down his face, while all around him people were calm, cool, enjoying themselves. The feeling was of paranoia descending into madness. He knew he couldn't stop it, that it wasn't real, that it had already happened, that it was dangerous to deviate too much from the natural path. Yet, as the small hand worked its painless way around the clock face on his wrist, all of those things were all irrelevant. Existence was only ever in the now.

Two minutes. That was all the time that was left. Two minutes, and the magnificent rendition of Dvorak's New World Symphony that was flowing into his ears would be cut off, forever.

It had to happen. He couldn't let it happen. He couldn't stop it. He had to try.

One and a half minutes.

He stood up, and then sat down again. He had done it before. He had to sit through it. He had to force himself to let it be.

One minute.

Marsha peeked at him, from behind her clarinet. Did she always give that look? No, it was this look, one look, right now and only now. This look had never existed, and would never exist again.

He stood up.

He started to ease his way out of his row of chairs.

He made it to the aisle.

He started to jog.

He started to run.

Thirty seconds.

"Marsha."

Eyes were on him.

"Marsha. Run!"

He sensed the shadow descend onto the dome, but didn't look up.

The orchestra had stopped playing.

Ten seconds.

She put down her clarinet.

"Heinrich?"

Five seconds.

"Run!"

She was half-translucent. He could see the grey sky in the window-vista through her face. He reached out to touch her. She started to sob. His finger brushed against her cheek -- she was still solid.

"What's happening?" she whimpered.

The dust from the first explosion -- the one that had ripped apart the dome of the Church of St. Stephen -- still hung in the air. Around them was a dumb, deaf chaos.

"What's happening?"

Heinrich stared into her eyes as best he could, and wrapped his arms around her. She felt fragile, light. He pressed his arms harder. It was all he could do. He didn't know what to say. This had never happened. He had never deviated like this. Twice, in small, insignificant ways -- to test limits -- but never like this. This was a crime.

"Please, say something to me."

Another explosion, far away.

"It's the New World Symphony," he said, "Listen to it. Just be quiet, and listen."

He felt her tremble, and leaned closer. She was warm. He could feel the heat from her body on his. He could feel her shoulder pulse in tune with her heart beat. Improvising on instinct, he slid off his coat and pulled it around both of them.

She closed her eyes, and he followed. Together, they listened.

With no image, no projection to disorient and deceive his senses, Heinrich concentrated on the sounds, the smells, the tastes, the textures of the present: he heard Marsha's breathing, and quickened his own to match it; he felt the smoothness of the rocks beneath his legs, and imagined their shape; he smelled the melted metal of the dome and the burning wood of the church, and didn't flinch; he felt the dust from the explosions cling to the inside of his mouth, and finally tasted something again.

As an anguished wail pierced suddenly through the foggy dust, Heinrich felt an unexpected surge of vitality. While all around him was death -- death that he had seen and felt and experienced and remembered -- he could muster no other emotion than an exuberant joy for life. He felt like laughing.

The paradoxes and contradictions were endless: This had never happened; but it was happening now. It was happening now; although tomorrow it will never have happened. Marsha was dead; yet Marsha's head was on his shoulder, underneath his coat, on the steps to the Kirche am Steinhof at nine fifty-seven on December twenty-second of the year two-thousand thirty-four!

Rain began to pitter-patter.

"We're ready."

Heinrich woke up seated on the floor, his back against his bed, sweat on his face, soaked through his clothes, and his eyes open, dry, and fixed on the window-vista.

He felt weak. He was hungry and dehydrated. But he was happy. He could still remember what had happened.

"Marsha, what's the time?"

"It is now twenty-three forty-one."

The memory had lasted five or six times longer than its own events. While time often passed differently in a memory, the difference was seldom this extreme.

"Marsha, I'd like to place a food order."

"Please proceed."

"Two cups milk. Nutrition only. Two slices rye bread. Nutrition only. Four square centimeters butter. Nutrition only."

"Please swipe."

Heinrich took out his points-card, and ran it through the card-reader.

"Thank you. Three points have been subtracted from your point total. Would you like to view point balance?"

"No, thanks."

In the kitchen, he downed the blue food-tablet, then moved into the bathroom, washed up, and changed into dry clothes back in the bedroom.

As he reclined on his bed, he felt tired.

"Marsha, I want to purchase a nighttime air package."

"Duration?"

"Ten hours."

"Please specify a brand and model number."

"Fukuyama. Number three."

Fukuyama No. 3 was the latest and cheapest air package available. It was scentless, warm, and not entirely refreshing, but it did the job.

"Please swipe."

Heinrich ran his points-card through the card-reader.

"Insufficient points to complete transaction. Transaction cancelled."

Heinrich blinked.

"Marsha, display point balance."

A screen quickly materialized, showing the desired information. The number eleven flashed ominously in the bottom-right corner. For some reason, Heinrich's daily wages from Fukuyama Industries had not yet been paid.

"Marsha, show yesterday's points transactions."

The screen cooperated. A print-out of yesterday's expenses appeared. Heinrich ran a finger down the list, until he hit FukuyamaNo3 x 9.

"Marsha, the points-per-unit cost of Fukuyama Number Three is half a point per hour. I think you made a mistake."

"Sorry, query not understood."

"Marsha, what's the per-unit cost of Fukuyama Number Three?"

"Per-unit cost of Fukuyama Number Three is twenty-one poi -- please stand by for incoming messages."

Before Heinrich could as much as open his mouth, a cloned virtual-visitor materialized in his bedroom. It was the well-known face and figure of Mr. Fukuyama.

"Hello, valued worker. I, Mr. Fukuyama, am sorry to inform you that due to a mistake in accounting, worker wages will not be paid until tomorrow. On behalf of Fukuyama Industries, I am truly sorry for any inconvenience."

The virtual-visitor rewound itself.

"Hello, valued customer. I, Mr. Fukuyama, am sorry to inform you that due to a worker wage increase, the price of all air packages has increased. On behalf of Fukuyama Industries, I am truly sorry for any inconvenience."

The virtual-visitor disappeared.

Heinrich fell back on his bed. This was it. The end. Death. It felt unreal. He had, of course, heard of death before, but he never imagined it could happen to him; or, if at all, at such a young age. He had always been so careful with his points, too -- managed them well. This was a cruel shock. He was dumbfounded, flabbergasted, and, strangely, completely unmoved.

In fact, he couldn't really concentrate on his predicament at all. Whenever he tried to do so, he kept imagining the exact weight of Marsha's head on his shoulder.

"Death," he thought, "is the past."

The lights were the first to go. Then the clocks -- their eerie green glow suddenly absent.

On the bed, Heinrich grasped at the remnants of the dry, clean air still hovering in his room.

"Marsha," he wheezed, "what's the time?"

No answer.

He hadn't slept, but had spent the last hours on his back, trying to piece together thoughts and impressions from the synthetic memory. It was fruitless, but it made him happy that he still remembered Marsha's face.

"Marsha, what's the time?"

Nothing.

"Marsha, turn on the light."

The room remained dark and silent.

It was hard to breathe. There was too little oxygen in Heinrich's body. Even if he had wanted to, he could not have gotten out of bed now.

"Just a few minutes more. Be patient."

"Is someone there?" Heinrich mumbled.

The last traces of colour seeped out of the walls. Then, out of the floor, the ceiling.

The room became a darkness, populated only by the bed and the window-vista, which still radiated a dull glow. Its sky was somber, cloudy, uneventful.

Heinrich stared at it. He liked to look at it, to observe the well-crafted details. He knew it was merely a projection, an animation, a falsehood; but he preferred the falsehood to the truth. He knew what lay beyond the window-vista. He had seen it -- every citizen was allowed to see it -- and he had chosen never to see it again. A lie was no longer a lie if it was self-imposed; self-deception was the key to survival.

Heinrich struggled immovably against the absence of air. For reasons he didn't understand, he was clinging to one extra minute, one extra second, of life.

"He must be finished by now. Let's cut it."

"Alright. Cut number one."

Right before Heinrich's staring eyes, the sky in window-vista began to fizzle, to fade away. He tried to shield his eyes with his fingers, but the effort was beyond him. He wanted to look away, to not see what he had already once seen, but he couldn't as much as will his eyes to move. He wanted to shut them, to block the image out, but he couldn't even blink. He could do nothing. His final breath had been taken, and he would live as long as the oxygen already in his body continued to supply his cells, in a state of near-complete paralysis. For the remaining moments of his life, he would be forced to look at what he had spent years forcing himself to forget.

The image of the sky on the window-vista faded. It dripped, like paint off a canvas. And, underneath, another painting revealed itself:

Jagged, rusted edges of what were once skyscrapers jutted out of the earth like knives. The riverbed that had once fed the city was now dry, pocked with disease. There was no motion, no life. The buildings that still stood were like black towers.

The sky was a deep, dark red.

Heinrich wanted to die.

"Cut number two."

Then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, the second image began to fade. The towers, the debris and the riverbed grew dimmer, and dimmer and dimmer. And then they were gone.

All that remained now was a sheet of clear glass -- a window.

Yet, there was still light beyond the window. A bright, natural light. It entered the room quietly, peacefully. And, with one final burst, burned itself forever on Heinrich's dying retinas:

A thick, deciduous forest, behind a large, green oak, growing at the edge of a clear, blue stream, running from a massive, distant peak, to a freshly-painted, wooden windmill, turning water into electricity, powering the lights of a long, low house lined with large windows, in the frame of one of which stands a woman in a red dress next to a man in a dark grey suit.

"That's the last one. Building's all clear."

"It's a real shame."

"It truly is a lovely place."