THE LONG RUN A TALE OF THE CONTINUING TIME DANIEL KEYS MORAN This is a work of fiction. None of the characters in it are real people and any resemblance to anybody, living or dead, is a coin- cidence. It is the author’s intention that this work should be freely downloadable, copyable, and shareable in electronic format. It may not be reproduced, shared, or transmitted for a fee by any party to whom the author has not contractually granted permis- sion. The author retains all other rights. Copyright © 1989 by Daniel Keys Moran Dedicated to Jodi Jodi, Kathy, Kevin and Richard. Yeah, yeah, I know. The dedications change with each passing edition. There’s no law I’m aware of on the subject. And Jodi, Kathy, Kevin and Richard? They rock. And Richard? He’s two years old now. While I was proofing this manuscript I told him there was a scene where someone was Floating In Space While Awaiting Rescue, just like in Winnie the Pooh ... and he said wisely, “Christopher Robin saves him.” Not a question; he was telling me how it would go. Christopher Robin doesn’t appear in this book, actually, but it was awfully cool that Richard thought he should, some twenty years after I first wrote the scene where Pooh was mentioned. (Richard’s eight now. His baby brother, Connor, is five. Time passes. DKM, 2007.) THE LONG RUN A TALE OF THE CONTINUING TIME The Last Summer of His Youth 2069 Gregorian I killed my love to set him free For fear I’d cause him pain I killed him—we were very young And now I’m old again We lived a life together once And I was so afraid For every life I’ve lived, I’ve died For every life I’ve made I killed my love to set him free He wasn’t hard to kill He ran into another life I guess he’s running still Mahliya Kutura, Many Lives “Street Songs,” 2078 Gregorian 1. “Y OU ’RE TRENT .” “I am?” The young man was conservatively dressed: a gray jacket and black pants, and a white silk shirt that shone brilliantly even in the dim light from L’Express’ s outdoor glowfloats. He wore immaculately clean white running shoes; a single flat ruby stud shone in the lobe of his left ear. Trent’s temples, where an inskin InfoNet link might have been implanted, were merely smooth skin. His hair was sandy blond, cut short, and he either wore no makeup or had turned it off. He wore flat black sunglasses though they were hardly nec- essary. It was ten minutes after six o’clock. “You’re younger than I’d expected,” said the middle-aged man who had said his name was Jerry Jackson. On the phone Trent had not noticed it, but in person his voice held the faint but definite traces of a Southern accent. “Am I?” “And you’re late,” the man said. Despite the air, heavy with ozone as though a thunderstorm were about to strike, Jackson had taken a table outside beneath the gray-black skies, on the balcony level overlooking the eternally crowded streets. “Ten minutes late ...” Trent shrugged. “Ten minutes older.” He seated himself across the table from Jerry Jackson. To the waitbot that had led him to the table he said, “A pot of cof- fee. With cream, no sugar.” The waitbot paused, then said mildly, in the rich baritone characteristic of opera singers, newsdancers and politicians, “Monsieur, that item is not on the menu.” “Waiter, please,” said Trent. They both waited while the waitbot rolled away out of listening range. L’Express sat on the western edge of what had once been the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and was now one of the most expensive residential areas in all the Patrol Sectors. From where he sat 2 Tales Trent could see to the northwest, on the other side of the East River, the scarlet sparks of spacecraft rising and descending at Unification Spaceport in lower Manhattan. The dull, distant boom of craft breaking through the sound barrier touched him every twenty seconds or so. Eight spacescrapers reared high above the skyline, eight three- to five-kilometer tall buildings; two of them did nothing but house Peaceforcers and the babychasers from the Ministry of Population Control; the Left and Right Hands of the Devil Him- self, Secretary General Charles Eddore. Trent said, “How did you get referred to me?” “You’re in the Directory.” “That wasn’t the question.” Jerry Jackson was drinking something cold and green with crushed ice. He wore an exquisitely tailored blue pinstripe suit. A brushed aluminum attaché case stood upright beside his chair. The cuffs of his sleeves were fastened European style, folded back upon themselves. “Actually, Booker Jamethon gave me your name.” “Booker’s a great guy,” said Trent. “He said I shouldn’t hire you, that you’re not dependable.” “Of course, all those years on the juice, they weren’t good for him.” Jerry Jackson smiled for the first time. “’Sieur Jamethon wanted the job himself. He only gave me your name—for a fee— after I turned him down.” “Tell me about the job.” “You know CalleyTronics?” Trent paused. “It’s located on the eighth floor of the Down Plaza. They sell inskins and image co-processors, MPUs, like that. Half the webdancers I know buy from them.” “Frank Calley,” said Jerry Jackson with a convincing enough display of anger, “is a thief. He lifted fifteen terabytes of hot RAM, a hundred and five thousand Credit Units worth of room- temperature superconductor memory, from mah warehouse in Georgia.” Under the stress of anger, the accent became more au- dible. Moran 3 A single drop of rain touched down on the transparent table- top in front of Trent. “Let me guess,” Trent said. “Guess?” “You want me to get your RTS back.” “Yes.” “What do you think you know about me?” A touch of the anger was back in his voice. “You’re supposed to be a thief yourself.” The word ‘thief’ was laced with astonish- ing disdain. “You hire out to steal things for people. You—” A second drop of rain joined the first. Jerry Jackson cut him- self off as a waiter, after an anxious glance at the sky, hurried out to where they were seated. “Monsieur,” said the waiter hurriedly, with a French accent that might have been real, “you wished to order a cup of coffee?” “A pot,” Trent corrected him. “A whole big pot of coffee.” “Monsieur, we do not sell coffee by the pot, only by the cup.” “May I speak to your manager?” The waiter’s features stiffened visibly. “Oui. One moment, monsieur.” Trent waited until the waiter had gone back inside. “So you want me to boost fifteen terabytes of RTS from CalleyTronics?” “Yes.” Trent counted five drops of rain on the cut crystal surface of the table. Six. “It probably can’t be done—straight boost, I mean. Calley’s real tight with the power structure in the Patrol Sec- tors, and his security’s pretty good. You’d be better off with a con, something that would leave him wondering if he’d been hit—not sure—and feeling so stupid he wouldn’t go to the Peace- forcers with it for fear of being laughed at.” Jerry Jackson leaned forward with what seemed to Trent to be honest curiosity. “What do you have in mind?” “I don’t know. What’s good here?” “Regarding Calley,” Jerry Jackson said with great control, “what do you have in mind?” 4 Tales Trent looked at the man blankly. “Nothing. I’m not going to boost Frank Calley for you, and I’m not going to con him either. Look, have you ever eaten here before?” “Never.” “Oh. Too bad. Usually when I go to a new restaurant I like to go with somebody who’s been there before, so I know what’s good. You may not know this,” said Trent, “but two years ago a Player scored some image co-processor hardware off CalleyTron- ics, chanted Calley’s accounting computer to believe the hard- ware had been properly paid for and had it shipped to a drop box. It took Calley half a year to find out who’d done it, but that summer they fished a corpse out of the East River. His teeth had been pulled with pliers, his eyes were poked out, his fingers had been chopped off, and his features defaced with acid. They iden- tified him by his inskin.” “You won’t take the job?” “Am I being asked?” “Yes.” “No.” Jackson took a deep breath. “Why not?” Trent shrugged. “No percentage. If I was going to, I’d do a con to get Calley coming after me, get him to believe I had some- thing he wanted. But I’m not going to. The guy’s mean, but he’s also pretty straight; guys like him always go to the Peace- forcers.” A gorgeous, mature woman in a black evening gown came out to their table, with the waiter a few steps behind her. “Mon- sieur?” “Yes?” said Trent politely. For some reason his response seemed to throw her. Her ac- cent was considerably better than the waiter’s; Trent would have bet she was actually French. “You wished to order ...” “Coffee.” “An entire pot?” “Please.” “We do not sell coffee by the pot, monsieur. We do not even have a pot to put the coffee in; the coffee is brewed in a single Moran 5 large—” She hesitated, searching for a word.