The Future of Another Timeline

^SIXTEEN TESS

Flin Flon, Manitoba-Saskatchewan border (1893 C.E.)

The Flin Flon camp was waking up. Smoke rose from a fire pit at the center of a small plaza created by half a dozen cabins arranged in a loose horseshoe pattern outside the Machine shack. Two carefully smoothed logs served as benches on either side of the hearth.

Morehshin took in the scene, hands in the pockets of her coveralls. “Smells like coffee.”

I peered more closely at the fire, and indeed there was a sooty, bell-shaped kettle dangling over the low flames.

“You again. The singer with rational clothing.” It was Seacake, speaking behind us. He ambled to the fire, looked into the kettle, and then glanced back at us. “Well, do you want some?” He was still wearing his Levi’s, now fully faded into grainy hipster contours.

Morehshin looked at me in horror. “I can’t… it isn’t…”

“Sure you can. I have two extra cups.” Seacake sat on one log, and gestured at the other. I noticed that his sarcasm lost its edge when he spoke to Morehshin. “You a traveler too?”

She nodded mutely, sitting down with me and reaching out to warm her hands over the glowing coals.

“You’re not from her time, though. Further upstream, eh?” He handed Morehshin a cup, half-filled with brown liquid and steam. Then he handed me one, and his tone regained its usual ironic distance. “You probably want a ride down to Winnipeg again, don’t you?”

Morehshin shuddered visibly and put her cup down on the dusty ground between her feet. “This drink isn’t for me.”

Seacake looked startled. “Who doesn’t like coffee in the morning?”

I scooped up Morehshin’s cup and dumped its contents back into the kettle. “More for everybody else.” She shot me a grateful look, and I wondered about her highly divergent timeline. Was there some taboo against coffee drinking?

I turned back to Seacake. “You got me. What do you say to another trip down to Winnipeg? Did you get the money I left for you at the general store when I came up a few weeks ago?” In the bush, the best way to pay somebody was usually to start an account at the general store. Seacake would convert my deposit into supplies and food.

He nodded acknowledgment, and gestured at Morehshin. “She can cook too?”

“Cook? You mean make food? That’s built in!” I thought Morehshin had used another one of her oddly translated idioms until she pulled the invisible blob thing from the sleeve of her jumper. She squeezed it over her lap, like wringing out a transparent sponge. A bento box rained into existence on her knees, as if it were being 3-D printed from an ultra-fast nozzle. Each compartment contained colorful shapes and lightly browned cubes. I leaned over to look closely, caught the scent, and realized it was some kind of tofu-like protein, sliced vegetables, and a bit of cooked grain.

“What is that thing?” I pointed at the blob, still in her hand.

“A multi-tool.”

Not a bad translation, probably. Seacake nodded approvingly. “Okay, good. That will make cooking very easy.”

“That’s amazing… I mean, people in my present have speculated that we could alter matter like that, but that is…” I paused, trepidatious. “Can you make anything with it?”

Now both Morehshin and Seacake were looking at me like I was an idiot. “No.” Morehshin pocketed it again.

“Obviously.” Seacake rolled his eyes at Morehshin, and she laughed for the first time since I’d met her. Then he hooked a thumb at me. “Her people can only travel into the past.”

Morehshin’s eyebrows jumped. “You can travel to the future?”

He sighed. “I am not having this conversation again. Let’s pack up.” He poured himself another cup of coffee, pulled the kettle off the fire, and walked toward the river.

We were about halfway down to Winnipeg when Seacake told us to stay in camp for a day while he checked traps he’d left deep in the woods. There was nothing for us to do but wait and fish for dinner. Morehshin could make vegetarian food, but I’d grown up with meat. Nothing could replace the taste of roast fish, especially combined with fresh herbs provided by the multi-tool.

I had a trout turning on the spit when Morehshin squatted down beside me. She’d wrung basil, chile, and olive oil from the multi-tool into one of our pans, and was crushing it up with a spoon before swishing it around gently.

“Is everyone in your time a vegetarian?”

“No. But some food is not for me.”

“Do you mean like the coffee?”

She nodded. “Yes. Meat and coffee are queen food.”

I thought about the ancient and medieval civilizations where I’d traveled. Sometimes elites ate very different food than ordinary people. Kings who gorged on corn and deer with every meal ruled over settlements where everyone else ate squirrel and cabbage with humble grains.

“Well, I hope you don’t mind eating fish.”

Morehshin made a gesture with her finger like she was drawing a question mark in the air. “I’m getting used to it.”

Now that she was talking, maybe I could get some answers about the divergent timeline. “Who are the queens? Are they rulers?”

“It’s not like your idea of a queen in a castle. They aren’t in charge.”

“Why do you call them queens, then?”

“I shouldn’t tell you more, but I’m never going back there anyway.” Her body straightened, as if she’d put down a heavy sack. “It comes from the idea of a queen bee. Do you see what I mean?”

I felt a chill. Queen bees were a reproductive class, often heavily guarded and unable to move. C4L crazies talked in their forums about creating a queen class among human women, locked into camps. The rest of us would be sterile workers, unable to produce offspring with inappropriate ideas.

Was that what had happened in Morehshin’s time? I couldn’t believe it. “Do you mean women who can reproduce?”

She nodded and swished the olive oil around again.

“So reproductive women are dying out?”

“Not all of them. Only the ones like me.”

“Like you in what way?”

“Genetically related. But also… on our side. In the edit war.”

No matter how much I pushed, she wouldn’t tell me anything more. I was left imagining a world of bioengineered sisters, their mothers trapped in baby-making prisons by Comstocker drones. When I served Morehshin the fish, she didn’t flinch. “Thank you, Tess. I believe we are going to win. There will be no more queens. We will be people again.”

I hunkered down next to her to eat. “I hope you are right.”