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Andrews UK - Glenn Searfoss

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115 pages

English

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The year is 2041 - and the gods are angry. While Carissa scours the city garbage for food and pretty things to show her grandfather, Tom and April strive to prove themselves genetically suitable to conceive a child. Luis fights to protect his unborn son from the gangs. Nora sits alone in her dark apartment, old, tired, and waiting to die. And Izzy, how did he end up on the street? In the backroom of his appliance repair shop, Harl Babouc putters at his workbench unaware the Gods have chosen him to appraise the people of CynCity. Harl's world turns upside-down as his mind explodes with the everyday lives of strangers. Struggling to remain sane, he must somehow prove the city's population deserves to survive.

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Science fiction

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Publié par	Andrews UK
Date de parution	23 novembre 2021
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781789828405
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0150€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Babouc’s Vision
Glenn Seafross

Published in 2021 by
AG Books
www.agbooks.co.uk
Digital edition converted and distributed by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
Copyright © 2021 Glenn Seafross
The right of Glenn Seafross to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without express prior written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted except with express prior written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damage.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

For my wife, Cynthia, without whose support I would never have finished this book. And for my parents, Bill and Polly, who never lived to see its completion

Prologue: Customer Service
‘Babouc’s Appliance Repair ’
The neon words glowed faintly through the shop window; their brightness dimmed to a lavender haze by the glare of a brutal, late-summer sun.
Murial Caffree wedged her face between the window bars. Even with her hands blocking the glare, she could discern little of the shop’s interior save for the shimmer of overhead lights and dark mountains of indefinable objects stacked around the floor.
With a muffled, “Humph,” she rocked back on her heels. A worn, podgy face with double chins and a cap of tangled, mousy hair frowned back at her from the window.
“My gawd,” Murial snorted and tossed her hair. “Wouldja lookit that.” The reflection flashed a snaggle-toothed grin.
Still grinning, Murial squatted and snatched up the strap of her lumpy canvas carryall. Lopsided with the weight, she wrestled the bag along the sidewalk to the shop’s narrow doorway. Deftly, she flicked the door wide and propped it open with her left foot. A warning buzzer sounded as she wrenched her carryall sideways over the sill. With an awkward lunge, she tumbled after the bag. The door swung closed behind her, and the buzzing stopped.
Immediately, the odor of scorched circuitry prickled her nostrils. Murial inhaled deeply. “A-h-h,” she smacked her lips, savoring the tangy air as it flowed over her tongue. “Filtered air. Such a treat.”
With a contented sigh, she dragged a rumpled square of damp, yellow cloth from her brassiere and gently blotted sweat from her face. Each pat of the rough weave brought a stinging ache from the red, sun-chafed skin. A final, careful dab at her nose saw the cloth refolded and tucked back into its berth beneath her left cup.
“There,” she patted her breast. “Now let’s see…” Eagerly, she scanned the room.
The shop looked much the same as it had the week before. Racks of steel shelving crammed with tagged appliances hunched against the walls. Whipsaw benches mounded with electronic bric-a-brac occupied every foot of available floor space. Beneath the benches, coils of fiber optic cable fought for space with stacks of dusty, pink storage bins.
Everything appeared as she expected, except… Murial gnawed the raw insides of her cheeks. “Where is that man?”
An irregular passage zigzagged through the benches. Its winding path led to a glass service counter at the far end of the room. He might be in back doing busy work or he might be… someone might have…
She peered anxiously along the corridor, craning her neck to see around the jagged turns, examining the shadows for a moving… or still form.
“Yoo hoo,” she called softly, “Mr. Babouc?”
There was no response.
Behind the counter, an archway trimmed with blue and white striped curtains screened the shop’s work area and private living quarters. A faint clink of metal against metal sounded behind the striped folds.
Murial’s eyes flashed at the sound. “Mr. Babouc!” Her voice detonated through the shop. “Mr. Babouc are you there?”
A loud thump sounded from the backroom and was immediately followed by a string of muffled profanity. Grinning delightedly, Murial hoisted the carryall to her left hip, and waddled to the counter.
“Sonofa…” Harl Babouc rubbed his knee where he had cracked it against the workbench. Acrid, white smoke curled from a thin gash in the Sump casing clamped to his workbench. Startled by Murial’s shout, he had twitched the beam of his hand-held laser welder and sliced a three-centimeter furrow across the casing’s metal surface.
Muttering a soft string of profanity, he dragged a hand along the back of his neck, smoothing the bristle of greasy black hair. There was nothing to do but repair it before carbon residuals obscured the gash.
“Just a minute!” He swiped his nose and eyes with a grimy coverall sleeve. “I’ll be right there!”
Hands flying, Harl daubed metal flux into the fresh incision. Adjusting the torch optics to broadband FL, he swiveled the bench-mounted welding shield before his face and played the torch’s crimson beam back and forth across the slit. An oily, smudge dulled the metal surface as he prodded melting flux through the crevice.
With a practiced flick of his wrist, he snapped the torch off and returned it to its wall-mount bracket. Twisting the shield aside, he rapped the casing with a dun hammer. Black slag chipped away, revealing a smooth, shiny blue surface. Grunting in satisfaction, Harl tossed the hammer onto the bench and hurried to the front counter.
Murial had just inflated her lungs for another bellow when he burst through the curtains. “Mr. Ba— Oh there you are!” She dimpled and extended a limp hand.
“Why Mrs. Caffree.” Harl took her fingers and squeezed. Moist, putty-soft skin oozed in his grasp, and he fought to keep his smile intact. He liked his customers, he really did, but he never enjoyed shaking their hands. It always left him feeling queasy and needing to wash.
Oblivious, Murial Caffree grinned back, sunburned cheeks bulging, her eyes twinkling with delight. Harl released her hand and nonchalantly dragged his palm across his chest. “It’s wonderful to see you again. I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, but as you can see,” he swept a lanky arm at the banks of gutted appliances stacked around the room, “business is piling up.”
She nodded enthusiastically. “I can tell.”
“Now,” Harl smiled, “what can I do for you?”
“What’s that smell?” Murial leaned over the counter, her nostrils twitching at the prickling odor of scorched metal wafting from the back room. “You know,” she strained to see around Harl’s shoulders, “I was saying just the other day to Earl…”
“I see you’ve been out collecting?” Harl clumped a hand against the carryall, interrupting what he knew would be a long tirade on safety in the workplace and shouldn’t he be more careful—God knows the place could burn down—if only he would apply a little common sense— you hear about it all the time what happens when people don’t use common sense—why just the other day-
“Oh yes indeed!” Murial chuckled and shook the bag. There was a rustle of fabric and the muffled clank of metal against metal. “Had terrific luck too. Found a stash behind Mallows and another down the alley at Third and Pierce. Had to beat off a couple rummage rats for that one.” She brandished a deceptively flabby arm that, Harl knew, could heave his own thin frame across the room.
“Seems everywhere I turned there was something.” Murial opened the bag and poked her nose over the lip. “Got some aluminum and steel cans, a few copper and brass fittings, a couple bundles of plasti-film that’re still in one piece. Even,” she jerked a wad of crumpled, yellow pages from the bag and waved them beneath Harl’s nose, “real paper.”
The lingering scent of urine invaded Harl’s sinuses and stung his eyes. He eased back, careful to keep his distaste from showing.
“Eh? Eh?” Her eyes glittered with excitement. “Nice?” The recycle center don’t give nuthin for static sheets, but these…,” she cradled the soiled sheets lovingly against her cheek before tucking them back into the bag and re-rolling the top shut, “these should bring a couple few credits, don’t you think?”
“At least.” Harl laughed, pleased his evasion had worked. Getting Mrs. Caffree to talk of her exploits was the easiest way to sidetrack her. “It’s a nice haul that’s for sure.” He hefted the bag, his eyes widening in surprise at the weight. It was a good haul, and he nodded respectfully.
Mrs. Caffree was an inveterate scavenger and rightly proud of her triumphs. Like most of the neighborhood, it was how she stretched her family’s means—successful foraging often being the difference between eating today or going hungry until tomorrow.
“I even got something for you.” Grinning broadly, she dragged a fistful of spaghetti wire from her dress pocket. Lint and plastic fragments sprayed across the counter as she shoved the wadded mass into his hands.
“Why that’s awfully nice of you.” Harl turned the clump over in his hands. “Industrial grade.” Holding it to the light, he noted the frayed ends. It was obvious the wire had been ripped from its moorings. He stretched it across the counter. A good two and a half feet. Stooping close, he examined the insulation. No obvious breaks. I’ll run a conductivity test later. Without a word, he wrapped and tagged the bundle.
“Where’s the Mr.?” he asked, stuffing the wire beneath the counter. “Thought he’d be with you.”
Murial’s hands fluttered nervously to her nest of bristling hair. After a flurry of needless primps, they dropped to her worn collar, tugging it first one way, then back