Tense Caste

As Alejandro Auchardae rode the elevator down to the bank, he wondered how he could save his family from being evicted. Over the past few weeks, he had already mortgaged off a lung, a kidney and part of his liver. And it still wasn't enough. If he defaulted on this month's payments, then he would lose his job, his apartment and his present tense speech ability.

He thought about his father, bedridden and suffering from cataracts. His two younger sisters and brother tried to help out by selling vat grown fruit in the upper levels of Crevasse City, but it wasn't enough. And it would be four more years before they could get work permits and leave school to work part time.

I have to get the bank to lend me future tense, Alejandro thought. It's the only way I'll get a better job at the top of the city.

He looked up at the top of the crevasse and saw the twinkling lights of the city. Humanity was slowly terraforming the world, but it would take centuries to complete the project and right now Crevasse City was the only habitable spot on the planet.

The elevator cab came to a stop at the bank level. Alejandro paid the driver with a swipe of his credit band. He could have taken a pull line up here, but it would have looked cheap. And the last thing he wanted to look like was cheap in front of all these bankers. Even though he couldn't afford future tense, he had to act like he could. All government functionaries owned future tense linguatech as a matter of course.

Alejandro walked out of the elevator, down the ramp and inside the bank. The interior was made of translucent emerald walls and topaz crystal on the ceiling. All the bankers wore saris and credit rating pigment, their skin color based on their wealth, ranging from red for borderline poverty to purple for ultra rich.

Metal security spiders and hover drones floated around people, protecting their interests — although people wore their normal skin tones in high crime areas. Here, though, there was no sense in having wealth if you couldn't flaunt it.

A nearby ticker flashed on the wall, giving stock prices.

Alejandro trembled with fear and tried to hide his nervousness in his orange skin. He walked up to the nearby counter and said to the green-skinned woman, "I'm here to see Mr. Rakes."

She frowned at him. "And who will you be?"

Alejandro bit his lip, hating the bitch for flaunting her future tense speech. "Alejandro Auchardae."

The woman checked the computer grafted into her skin. "Yes, Mr. Auchardae. Right this way."

She came around the counter and he followed her down a long topaz hallway to another opulent room. The door slid opened and revealed Ed Rakes. His purple skin looked black in the harsh lighting. He looked at Alejandro and scowled. Alejandro held his head up high, refusing the rich man's intimidation. He had to act powerful but polite, for his family's sake.

"Hello, Mr. Auchardae," Rakes said.

"Hello, sir."

"Will you come in and have a seat?"

"Thank you."

The woman left and closed the door after her. Alejandro sat in the ancient wood and leather chair in front of Rakes' desk and Rakes looked Alejandro over, then took his place behind the desk. He typed into the old style computer on his desk, looked it over and then faced Alejandro.

"I looked over the application that you submitted for a loan," Rakes said. "And at first glance, it seems all right."

Alejandro leaned closer, feeling hope swell inside him. "So you're approving my loan."

Rakes frowned and shifted in his seat. "I'm normally not one who likes slamming doors in people's faces. But in your case, I'm making an exception."

Alejandro clenched his hands in anger. "So you're not approving it?"

"The bottom line is that you have no collateral. That, plus the fact that you don't own future tense makes you an unwarranted risk, one that neither I nor the bank feel is worth taking."

"Please reconsider me, Mr. Rakes. I've paid off all my other debts. If I can't mortgage off my blood, maybe there's something else I could give you. My spleen, maybe? My muscle fiber? One of my eyes? Something?"

"You could offer me your brain and your heart and I wouldn't take the risk — not that they'd be worth very much in the long term."

Alejandro stood up, angered at the insult. "Well, at least I still have my balls, which is more than I can say for you."

Rakes' face tightened. "You can leave now."

"What kind of man are you? If you were going to deny me the loan, why not just call me and get it over with? Why make me run all the way up here?"

"As a matter of fact, I was going to call you. But my boss insisted that perhaps we could come to some arrangement. Given your current attitude, however, I can see that's out of the question."

Alejandro trembled. Part of him wanted to leap over the table and strangle Rakes. He could see the glee in the man's eyes. He had made him get all dressed up and come all this way just to ruin him. Hell, he probably got off on seeing people's hopes crushed.

"Go fuck yourself, you rotten bastard!"

"Leave now or else I will call security." Rakes reached under the table.

Alejandro rushed up to the desk. Rakes cried out and pressed a button on the table. Alejandro wanted to punch him out, but he stopped. The man was quivering under the table. He stepped back.

The door behind him slid open and two security guards in plex armor rushed in and grabbed him.

Rakes stood up and said, "Get him out of here!"

The guards dragged him out of the office. "Fuck you, you fucking asshole! Let go of me, you fucking asswipes!"

Once they were outside, they did so. Alejandro bolted up, lunged at one of them and shoved him back, hating them and everything they represented. He raised his fists to punch one of them, but the other guard struck him with a stun baton across the chin. He staggered back and collapsed.

They dragged him to one of the bungee lines and clipped it onto his back.

"Come back on our property again and we'll zap your fucking brains out, asshole."

They tossed him off the platform. Alejandro screamed and thrashed as he fell for several seconds.

At the bottom of the city, the bungee line stopped him. He detached himself and dropped into a pile of trash. A moment later, he tumbled out and looked around. Cheap tents and people with red and orange skins surrounded him.

"Were you all right?" a young woman with no teeth, several scars and sores on her face and a missing right eye said.

Alejandro nodded. "I was fine. Thanked you."

He stumbled back towards home.

When he arrived, he found that he couldn't go in and face his family. He had failed them. Worse, he had let his temper get the best of him.

What could he say to them?

A year before his mother died of cancer, Alejandro had promised her that he would make life better for his family. He wouldn't settle for nothing wages and past tense. He wouldn't mortgage off pieces of himself. He would rise to the top of Crevasse City. He would make it for all of them.

And now he had failed.

He walked inside the apartment. Like most housing for the poor, it was burrowed in the rock. They had two rooms, one living room and a bathroom with a hole in the floor for a toilet. His father sat in a foam chair, his eyes milky with cataracts, wearing dull brown pants with holes and a shirt from the local hand me down store. He was stirring a pot of broth over a portable stove.

"Hello, son," his father said. "How had it gone?"

Alejandro swallowed hard. He couldn't bear to tell them the truth. "It went good."

His brother, Felipe, and his two sisters, Jacinta and Lucinda, emerged from the kitchen and looked at him. They were wearing black pants with duct tape over them. It broke his heart to see them like this. He wished he never wasted his money on the nice suit.

"You had not gotten it," Felipe said.

Alejandro bowed his head.

"Fuck those assholes up there! Fuck ‘em to hell! Someday they gotten theirs. I promised you. Came in, had a drink."

"No, I can't. Look, I've...I've got to go out. I've got to do something."

"Yes, you could, but first, ate some soup."

Defeated, Alejandro walked over, sat next to his father and ate some soup. It was thin reconstituted chicken broth with some chunks of tofu floating in it.

About an hour later, Luis came tumbling in the door. He had always been fat yet light on his feet. He wore his skin tinted indigo. Even though he had gone up in the world, he still came back to the neighborhood. They had always been friends, although he had been working for the Moracis lately, smuggling illegal tenses to the lower caste.

"What's cooking? Smells good."

"Nothing for you, lardass," Alejandro's father said.

"Hey, if you can't see, then how do you know I'm fat?"

"Because I heard your footsteps a mile away."

Alejandro laughed. "Come in and have a seat, Luis. I need to talk to you anyway."

Luis waddled over and helped himself to some soup. They chatted. After a few minutes, Alejandro led his friend outside into the nearby alley.

"I'm desperate, man," Alejandro said. "I need some money. Can you give me a loan of five thousand, so I can buy future tense and get a better job?"

"I'm sorry, man, I can't help you."

"Can't help me?" Alejandro couldn't believe it. "How the fuck can't you help me? You come waddling in here, like a fat, fucking purple hippo, with all that cred on your skin. And you tell me you can't lend me five fucking thousand?"

"Look, I'm a little light this moment. If I had it, it'd be yours. You know that, amigo." He turned out his lint-covered pockets. "See? I'm mucho pobrecito."

"Goddamn it."

"Why are you so down?"

"Why the fuck do you think I'm down? Because the goddamned government's charging me through the roof on fucking present tense tax, and if I don't pay by the end of this month, I'm going to lose everything. And they'll be out on the streets." He grabbed Luis and shook him, angered at his indifference.

"Easy, amigo." He pushed back Alejandro. "I might not have any money right this second, but I can still help you."

"Oh, yeah? How?"

"You looking for a job?"

"Of course. What is it?"

"Well, I think I can get you some cred working for the Moracis."

Alejandro's stomach tightened. "Work for them?"

"They're not that bad," Luis said.

"Yeah? Tell that to everybody they put under the rock."

"You make it sound like they're killers."

"Well that's what they are, aren't they?"

"Shhh, keep your voice down." Luis put a finger to his lips. "Come on, they're not bad. They treat people like us right, so long as we do them a favor."

"Look, I don't want to do anything illegal and get in trouble with the police."

"You won't. I'm sure Mr. Moraci will get you something nice and legal."

"I don't know."

Luis tapped him on the shoulder. "Hey, you said you're desperate, I'm trying to help you."

Alejandro looked down the street at the other poor families, people sleeping on the streets, dying of starvation, whoring themselves out for a little cred. If he didn't do something soon, that's where his family was going to end up.

"All right, I'll go talk to him," Alejandro said. "But I don't want anything illegal. You understand? Nothing."

"Relax. I promise I won't get you into trouble." Luis gestured down the street. "Come on, if we hurry we can catch him while he's still at lunch. That's when he's most generous."

Reluctantly Alejandro walked down the street with Luis to the nearest bungee line.

Fernando Moraci's mansion had been dug into the rock near the top of Crevasse City. As Alejandro walked inside, he looked up in awe at the transparent dome that revealed the two moons of the planet. One blue, one yellow. He looked down at the bright gold and chrome walls surrounding him and felt insignificant. The air smelled sweetly of lemon and jasmine and robot butlers patrolled the halls, keeping everything spotless.

One of them escorted Alejandro and Luis to the dining room. Inside the opulent blue crystal room, Moraci sat at the head of a polished oak table full of food. Shrimp, lobster, linguine with clams, oysters. Real oysters, from the smell of them. What shocked Alejandro the most was how thin the man looked. With an appetite like that, he was surprised the man wasn't as fat as Luis. Moraci had violet skin and a mane of silver hair.

"Come in, sit down, eat something," Moraci said.

Alejandro smiled and took a seat. A robot butler served him some gazpacho. He sipped it with a gold spoon. It was the best he'd ever tasted.

"I was glad to see you come," Moraci said. He cracked open an oyster with a knife and ate it. "Luis told me that you were good people."

"Thank you, sir," Alejandro said.

"I heard about your problem." Moraci put down the empty oyster shell. "And I'm personally shocked. But then what could you expect? Banks like that, run by the government. They don't give a shit about us."

Alejandro shifted in his seat. Although the gazpacho was delicious, he found that he was quickly losing his appetite. The way Moraci always spoke in the past tense, it was like he was trying to make himself seem like one of the downtrodden, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Yet at the same time, Alejandro also felt strangely comforted, despite his fears.

"No, they don't."

"You knew, if you came to me in the first place, I could have given you everything and you wouldn't have had to mortgage off pieces of yourself." He leaned back. "As long as you took care of me, I took care of you. I always took care of my people. Was I right, Luis?"

"Yes, Mr. Moraci," Luis said, and smiled.

"And now I took care of you." Moraci ate another oyster and dropped the shell on the floor. A robot butler picked it up and deposited in its trash belly. "I gave you five thousand up front plus a future tense permit."

Alejandro blinked in shock. "Really?"

"Of course. Like I said, I took care of those who took care of me." He gestured to the table. "As a kid, I grew up hungry, always wondering where the next meal would come from, if at all. And I swore that one day, when I'd grown up, I'd never sit down to an empty table again. I would always have a full table and a full stomach. And the same would go for anyone who'd help me. So you do want to sit at a full table for the rest of your life or an empty one?"

"A full one."

"Then all you need to do is grant me a little favor, and it's all yours." Moraci opened another oyster, devoured it, belched and dropped the shell on the floor.

Alejandro swallowed hard. "I don't want to do anything illegal. I mean, I know you're trying to help me and I know you wouldn't..."

Moraci laughed. Luis did too.

"Illegal?" Moraci said. "You really think I'll have you smuggling tenses in from downside or take someone out?"

Alejandro laughed for a moment, but then grew silent.

"Many people cast aspersions on me. Unfairly so, I might add. I'm no more corrupt then any other businessman. Less so than the police or the government, to be sure." He shifted in his seat and picked his teeth. "You're not a professional. And I am not going to ask you to do anything professional." He leaned back in his chair. "All I want is a simple favor. If you don't like it, then there's the door. It's your choice."

Alejandro shifted in his chair. "All right."

"I want you to go to El Ashakti Restaurant down in the fifth row with this package of shirts." Moraci snapped his fingers. A robot butler came in carrying a silver-wrapped package.

"What's in it?"

Moraci laughed and said, "A bomb!"

Alejandro blinked. He wondered if he was telling the truth. Moraci was resuming his present and future tense speech.

"I was kidding. It's just some new designer silk shirts for a friend of mine." He opened the box and revealed three elegant green silk shirts folded up and a strange looking gray hat. He riffled through them. Alejandro couldn't see anything in them.

"O.K."

"All I wanted you to do was sit at a table, ordered a mint tea or a coffee or whatever you liked. Then you waited for twenty minutes."

"Twenty minutes?"

"That's right. Not a minute more, not a minute less. An associate of mine will come along, one whom I can't be seen with in public. You're going to wear a hat that will identify you. When he arrives, he's going to say, 'I've come for the shirts.' Exactly that. If he says anything else, don't give him the shirts. Just walk away with them."

"What if he doesn't show up in twenty minutes?"

"Then pay the waiter, get up and leave the shirts there. Don't take them with you, don't talk to anybody. Just leave. Whether he comes or not, you will get paid so long as you do exactly what you're told. Can you do what you're told?"

Alejandro scratched his chin, thinking about the situation, wondering what Moraci was planning. Did he want something? Or was it just a simple exchange? Alejandro doubted it. There had to be something more. Every instinct told him to get up and walk away, but what else could he do? Where else could he go? No one else could help him.

"I don't know, Mr. Moraci," Alejandro said.

"I understand your hesitation, and I don't blame you," Moraci said. "If you don't want to go through with this, then fine. There's the door. Just remember, though. This is a one time deal. You walk away now, and I won't be able to offer you anything else."

Alejandro frowned and stood up. Luis looked across the table, his eyes pleading. Sweat tingled on the back of Alejandro's neck. He looked from the dining room exit, back to Moraci. He could turn back. But what if he failed to get the money by the end of the month? He had to take the risk now and not risk waiting. Still, he felt like he was diving into a well without a lantern.

"All right, I'll do it," Alejandro said.

"You're making the right decision," Moraci said. He clapped his right hand on Alejandro's and tapped it. "Here's the shirts and hat." He took them from the robot and handed them to Alejandro.

Alejandro's hands shook as he took them and put on the hat.

"Now you better hurry," Moraci said. "You don't want to be late for your meeting."

"Yes, sir," Alejandro said. "Thank you."

Alejandro turned and rushed out the door. Luis walked over and clapped him on the shoulder.

"Don't worry," Luis said. "Everything's going to be fine. Mr. Moraci always takes care of his people."

"I hope so."

Alejandro shrugged his friend's hand off his shoulder and rushed to the door.

On the elevator trip down to El Ashakti, Alejandro wanted to walk away a hundred times over. Two times he even started to drop the packages, but he grew worried. What if Moraci went after his family for not doing the job? No, he had to go through this all the way.

When he arrived outside the restaurant, he walked in. The restaurant had beige walls and scenes of holographic sandstorms blowing across a virtual desert. Patrons drank mint tea and the air smelled of hookas full of marijuana and tobacco.

Alejandro trembled as he sat on one of the cushions. A robot waiter came over and Alejandro ordered mint tea in a small glass. His hands shook as he looked around. He tapped the table with his fingers. When the tea arrived, he couldn't drink it. He just kept stirring the sugary concoction till he thought the glass would break. Twice he got up to go to the bathroom, but he stopped, worrying that somebody might steal the shirts. He thought about taking them with him, but what if the other person arrived and he wasn't there.

His hands shook and his bladder felt pressed to the breaking point.

Just get up and go, Alejandro thought.

He sipped some tea and grimaced. It was far too sweet. He coughed and pushed it aside. He blinked. The smoke was making him dizzy and nauseous.

Ten minutes passed, but to Alejandro it felt like ten hours. Finally he decided fuck it. He ran to the bathroom, took a fast piss and came back.

A minute after he arrived, a stooped old man entered the restaurant. He was only about four foot ten and walked with a pronounced limp. He wore a conservative tan business suit and fedora and had short white hair and a face so wrinkled it looked like it had been left out in the sun for a couple of decades.

He limped over to the table and smiled, revealing tobacco stained teeth.

"I came for the shirts," he said.

Alejandro sighed with relief and slid the package over to him. The man took the package, opened it and looked inside. A moment later, he closed it back up, smiled and tipped his fedora at him.

Then he turned and started towards the exit. Alejandro collapsed in his seat, his heart hammering. He gestured for the robot waiter to come over, so he could pay for his tea and get the hell out of there.

But before the robot arrived, two groups of armored policemen rushed in from the front and back of the restaurant. They grabbed the old man, tore the package from him and slammed him down to the floor.

Alejandro stood up to protest, but three cops grabbed him at once and dragged him from the table. They kicked his feet out from under him and dropped him too. Alejandro tried to protest, but they slapped a pair of hardgel cuffs on him and carried him out of the restaurant.

They put Alejandro in a eleven by ten interrogation room. It had pale green walls and no windows.

For the next few hours, two teams of detectives interrogated him non-stop, asking him every question from whether he worked for Moraci to what the shirts contained. Alejandro kept his mouth shut, afraid that saying anything would get him killed. Besides, in his neighborhood, nobody talked to the police. Some people called it omerta, others just called it good sense.

They kept at him for an interminable length of time, refusing him water, bathroom breaks, yelling at him. At one point they slammed his head into the table. Alejandro cried out in pain and pissed his pants. Afterwards, they wouldn't let him change them.

In Crevasse City, the police could interrogate a suspect for up to a day without legal counsel present.

Sometime later, one of the detectives came in.

"Mr. Moraci confessed," the detective said.

"What?" Alejandro said, his voice creaking from lack of water.

"Your old friend. He's Moraci's father. He told us about the message."

"What message? I don't..."

"Don't play stupid."

"Then have him come in here and tell me that."

The detectives frowned. "Later. First, tell us what's in the shirts. Save yourself from prison."

"I don't know."

"And who gave them to you."

"I don't know. I just found them."

"You don't know much, do you?"

"No, I don't."

"Tell me something. Do you like speaking in present tense?"

Alejandro blinked. "Yeah."

"And you want future tense?"

"Yeah."

"Then tell us everything."

"But I don't know anything. I swear."

The cop kicked the chair out from under him and pressed his foot on Alejandro's chest. Alejandro cried out in pain.

"If you don't tell me what was going on, then I'll take away your past and present tense," the detective said.

"You can't do that!" Alejandro said.

"I can and I will. We can repossess it under the law."

"No," Alejandro said. "You can't do that. I need it to support my family!"

"Then tell us."

"I don't know anything."

"Fine then." The cop slapped his thighs and smiled. "You want future tense so bad, then you can have it. But that's all you're going to get."

Twenty-four hours later, they released Alejandro. Without evidence, they couldn't hold him. But the law did allow them to hold onto tenses as potential evidence. So the police took his past and present tense and gave him future tense alone. Having only one tense, though, was as bad as having only two. No job would hire him if he could only speak one tense.

In despair, he trudged out of the police station. He walked down the street, wanting to weep. Nothing had gone right. He had kept his mouth shut, but it had done no good. He was lost.

As he walked down the street, Alejandro cursed the police. In many ways, they were even worse than the crooks.

Down the next corner, an elevator pulled up and the doors opened. Alejandro blinked. It was Moraci. He was smiling.

Will he kill me? Good.

"Come inside," Moraci said.

Resigned to his fate, Alejandro walked inside.

"You did good, kid."

"What will you mean? They will arrest me and take my tense. I will only be able to speak in future tense."

"My friends told me you kept your mouth shut and said nothing."

"But the shirts...what will they be?"

"What does it matter? It could have been a secret message to my network or just a gift on my father's birthday or a bomb? It's not important."

Alejandro blinked. "It will be a test?"

"That's right. I wanted to see if you'd crack, but you didn't. You stayed quiet and didn't crack."

"But my tenses..."

"Fuck the police. I can get them back for you tomorrow, plus the money I owe you. You want a good job, I can give it to you. Hey, maybe if we work hard enough, maybe someday we can make it like the old days, when everybody had a right to speak all tenses?"

The elevator dinged at the bottom floor.

Alejandro started to walk out.

"So what do you say?"

He smiled. "I'll think about it."

Fredrick Obermeyer lives in Cooperstown, NY. He enjoys writing science-fiction, horror, crime and fantasy and has had stories published in the Dead Inn, Alternate Realities, NFG, Fedora, Electric Spec, the Fifth Di, Newmyths.com and Golden Visions Magazine.