Metaphysical Science Fiction by Dr. A. R. Davis

Lburg

As you enter Lburg, from the bridge over the river, the white tower of the college library on the hill dominates the scene. The town is hidden behind the big old trees on the riverbank, until you cross onto the main street. Most buildings are white wood shingled houses, sprinkled with a few more modern buildings with storefront windows. You pass a bank on the corner, with its old name engraved in the stone above the doorway. A church, whose steeple still rises above the town sits a block off to your left, towards the college. One block has been lost to a small strip mall with a laundromat, a pharmacy, and a convenience store. You turn at the movie theater whose marquee, in the school colors, displays an upcoming film festival.

Down the street to the college, the sidewalks are paved with large slates. The trees and streetlamps intermingle in front of the old houses. The tree leaves are turning color for the fall, but flowers still fill the gardens. The cemetery on the hill to your right is full of pre-war gravestones; WWII, WWI, Civil War, Revolutionary War. The houses have given way to the modern brick dormitory buildings, and when you come to the bottom of the hill, the academic heart of the college stands before you.

At this hour of the morning, the town streets were beginning to fill with people. You could tell by the clothing that they were a mixture of students, faculty, and locals. Here on campus, the students were mostly following the paths up the hill from the dorms to the classrooms.

Gerry's loft

Gerry rented the garage of an ancient Victorian house on the north side of town. It had once been a stable housing the horse on one side and the carriage on the other. The shrubbery was overgrown around it, and a large bittersweet vine had consumed the south wall. The garage sat on the alley that split the center of the block. A “Beware of the Dogs” sign was nailed to the clapboards next to the doorway that stood between the large stable doors. All the windows had been painted over except for those in the two dormers that pierced the slanted roof.

Inside lay the accumulation of many years of dust and cobwebs, tarps and rusted tools. No carriage remained, and no automobile hid under the tarps. A coal furnace still stood in a corner next its replacement, the oil furnace that now heated the loft space on the second floor. The chains and pulleys of a hay lift hung down, and wooden stairs led up.

But the door had a new electronic lock, and upstairs was no longer a hay loft. Inside the doorway Gerry’s two battlebots, Shishi and Foo, guarded his domain. The loft had no closets, so his clothes hung on a rack by the stairs. Steam radiators stood on the floor beneath the dormer windows. The loft was furnished with an assortment of second hand desks and chairs and tables and lamps. A metal army cot was the bed, placed against the wall on the living side of the loft. All the necessities of a typical college student were scattered about; his computers, techno-junk and tools, a Schroedinger’s cat poster on the wall at the working end. Sometime during his second semester a sign appeared above the garage door, Tarot Readings, and Gerry got a roommate, Madame Flora.

The dry cleaner's

The trolleys roll by, all electric now, separated from the two lanes of Darby Street by protective fencing. The overhead electric wires are gone, but the rail tracks remain. So does the row of brick stores on the east side of the street. One of them is Wong’s Dry Cleaners, the business Gerry’s mother and aunt run, and the apartments above in which he grew up. The houses on the far side have still not turned commercial and probably will be restored if the neighborhood gentrifies soon enough. Some of the old oak trees are still alive.

A low cement step in the doorway sits between windows full of community advertisements and announcements. An open/closed sign dangles in the front door. Through the windows, partitioned from the rest of the establishment is a counter, a register, and an overhead hook for the clothes being returned. The walls are almost as covered with notices as the windows, but some things are more personal; the golden Buddha statue sitting on the shelf, the lucky cat clock, the beware of the dog sign. The dog, Chewie, is a feisty Yorkshire terrier who greets customers depending on his mood.

At night, when the closed sign looks out the front door, entry is through the back door which opens onto the alley. The clothes hang in their plastic bags blocking most of the light through the front window, but light comes down the stairs from the kitchen. Buddha sleeps in the shadows on the wall. The chemical smell from the first floor is replaced by the aroma of the dinner in the kitchen above. Chewie sleeps in his chair, his guard duties over. But the axe still hangs on the wall, and the pistol is under the cash register.

Gerry's office at VIA Inc.

The campus of VIA, Versatile Intelligent Appliances, Inc. is replacing the parking lots and buildings of an old shopping mall across from the train station. The main building is ultra-modern glass and stone, but only four stories high so as not to overwhelm the nearby suburban neighborhood. Most of it is underground, and that is where Gerry’s office is.

Below the lobby with its leather furniture and frosted glass partition walls are the labs, some large and full of scientists and employees in lab coats, or jeans, some much smaller. One of these is Gerry’s. Shishi and Foo have been restored and guard the door. The opposite wall is covered with four flatscreens. They display the view from the front of the dry cleaners’, almost like a window. Among cabinets and tables with the VIA logo, some things from Gerry’s loft are scattered about, an armchair, the Schroedinger poster, his collection of Tarot cards, an old desk, and the minifridge. Madame Flora sits in her fortune telling chair at the table where she performs her readings. Along the other wall is a workbench covered with computers, 3D printers, mindcaps, circuit boards, and body parts much more technologically sophisticated than those in Gerry’s loft.

The center of the lab, before the flatscreens, is empty. The floor is scuffed as if someone had been dancing there.

Wayne's house

Wayne’s home is a typical old Pennsylvania farmhouse. It sits outside town, far off the small side road, slightly raised on a hill in the middle of fields of dead corn stalks. It is large enough for the big families that grew up in it over the generations, with a covered porch across the entire front, four dormers on the roof, and a chimney at either end. A huge elm tree peeks over the roof, but with its leaves fallen it no longer hides the faded red paint of a large barn out back. Two rows of arbor vitae line part of the driveway leading to the house. An empty trailer for hauling ATVs sits off to one side of the house. Only the big black Ram pickup moves the setting into the current day.

The large front door opens onto a hallway with a dining room on one side and a living room on the other. A large braided rug covers the floor of the living room, its style matching the couch and the tables and the standing lamps with their bowl-like glass shades. Earth tones are the motif. White curtains cover the windows. Picture frames line the mantel of the fireplace, beneath the large painting of a forest in summer. An ashtray sits on the table next to the big chair. It is doubtful that Wayne’s room could look like this.

Past the stairs to the second floor lies the kitchen. Modern appliances have been fitted into the walls and cabinets as best possible, leaving many remnants of the past untouched. Out the back door, its window covered with the same white lace curtains as the front window, is the farmyard. A boat on a trailer sits beneath the bare branches of the elm tree, its outboard motor securely wrapped in blue plastic sheets. The high side of the barn is fenced in, with two cows standing like statues in the cold. Through the partially open barn doors the nose of a rusted tractor peeks out from below a tarp. Behind the tractor is the stable area, smelling strongly of cow dung.

Off to the left, on the low side of the barn, are several doors. Through one of them is the space Wayne uses for his other life. Several padlocked boxes are on the floor, next to a shelf and an array of storage drawers. Three bare bulbs hang from the rafters, evenly spaced. A shadow scurries for cover overhead. A wooden feed bin lines the far wall, one of its three well worn lids open, revealing body parts.

Lucinda's village

On a summer day from the middle of the dirt road, about half a mile outside of Petit Ruisseau, a meadow full of wildflowers covers the slight slope down to the stream. On the other side of the road is the forest, the wilderness. It goes on forever, disappearing over the first ridge of the mountain chain. The trees gnaw at the far side of the stream as well. The bright yellow of a goldfinch flashes through the meadow. A raptor screeches in the forest as it makes a kill. God calls in the pealing of the chapel bell. A swarm of gnats is tossed up from the side of the road by the breeze.

Lucinda lives farther out, on her grandfather’s farm. It was here before the village. Walk but a bit farther and the dirt road turns away from the creek and climbs slightly. From here, the black robed priest can be seen crossing the town square. The hoof prints of three horses have dug up the otherwise lightly traveled road.

The trees grow thicker, disappearing in darkness despite the early morning sun. The road turns north, but a path leads off and a patch of sunlight lays at the far end. This is her grandfather’s farm. A small place hacked out of the wilderness, but enough to support a simple life. A garden surrounded by a low stone wall. A goat bleating at its tether. Chickens pecked at the ground at the opposite side of the log structure. A cock strutted toward her on the path.

The horses have come this way. The blue silk uniforms of French soldiers are seen through the open door of her grandfather’s house. The English army is marching elsewhere. The Indian tribes are picking sides.

VIA - Versatile Intelligent Assistants, Inc. Auditorium

VIA - Versatile Intelligent Assistants, Inc. Wonderball factory near Mexico City

Wayne's house ... outside Lburg ... farmhouse and barn

Lueder's family apartment ... Frankfurt, Germany

"The city buildings were decorated for Christmas. The ding-ding-ding of the streetcars, the strassenbahns, reminded him of the trolleys passing his mother’s dry cleaners."

Bang Shen factory ... China

Bucharest, Romania ... Mother Iolanda's apartment

Mosque and cafe

Karakorum Highway

"While still daylight, Gerry watched the line of campers, busses, and Pakistani jingle trucks behind them. Every inch of the trucks was decorated in red, gold, blue, and green symbols amid lights, mirrors, balls, and bells. Even the hubs of their three axles were painted. They all snaked their way up and up and up, around the switchbacks, below the overhanging rocks, slowing whenever two larger vehicles needed to pass each other on the narrower parts of the roadway. The only level stretches were the Chinese-Pakistani friendship tunnels, the occasional bridges crossing the rocky river bed, and the main streets of the scattered villages."

Jihadi's mountain training camp

Buddhist monastery

"The family woke early and climbed up to a monastery carrying the Wonderball like a religious relic. Strings of prayer flags fluttered above their path along the way. The upper half of the trail was snow covered and it took all morning to reach the half dozen buildings clinging to the side of a cliff. The wood panels of the door were painted dark red and were trimmed with a golden pattern. Several scarves hung from the door handles, their colors matching the prayer flags: red, yellow, white, blue and green."

Hotan farmer's market

The Silkroad between Hotan and Golmud

Apartment garage in Golmud ... where the Little Comrades are sold

VIA factory in Hong Kong ... where Gerry controls the factory robot

Gamers' lounge in Hong Kong

Aboard the sloop Rescue ... across the South China sea

Manilla ... where the Wonderballs are paraded to their deaths

San Diego convention center ... where Diego Robitz sets up his display

They lifted out a small robot that looked like a Little Comrade with wheels instead of legs. “It has lots of uses, but if you are handicapped or bedridden, this little guy can bring you a bowl of soup or a beer. I call him Yori. The visitors can try it out either with the remote touch screen or the brainwave reader headset.

The Sunset Raven ... Pacific Beach, San Diego

The Farm ... cartel run Wonderball growfarm

Denver suburbs ... where the cartel's Wonderballs are delivered

Tonganoxie, Kansas ... its jail, and the twister wrecked town

Truck stop ... where the hijacking takes place

Memphis, Tennessee ... Granny Lebeuf's house

The Cave

Wayne's house ... outside Lburg ... farmhouse and barn