Annie LXXXII: Skittish

(Chronological index: New World Order #18)

Alabama ratified the Provisions of Rationality Amendment before Massachusetts did.

I know! The country went all snakeshit, excuse my French.

On the night of Dorre's speech, my daughter and I made a bet. We listed the ten states we thought would ratify it first and the ten we thought would go last.

I mentioned that on my tapas discussion board and it became a topic all its own.

NO ONE got it right. How could they? People tried to use the pattern of black civil rights to gage the state responses to the Amendment. Others the gay rights movement. Women's suffrage. Religious conservative strongholds took an early lead on the 'holdouts' list. Liberal states were expected to be early.

Others went by population density, in either direction, or flat population and the raw tonnage of garbage created.

They were all wrong. I found it deliciously exciting. Glad I hung around this long.

Cruiser even looked at me and said I had to let him youth me up a bit. "You have to stay until you see how it all works out!" he insisted.

His wife knew better. "She's still half convinced she has to die for Millie," Angel said. She was nursing my great granddaughter in my lap, on the special chair welded to the arm.

"I just don't want either of you at the wrong scale while Millie's a baby," I told them. I'm sure they'll be terribly good parents, no matter what scale the gods make them.

In reality, I do worry that my health would come at Millie's cost. I prefer it to be the other way around.

I've been told it's a silly worry. But Blaster never corrected me, and I figured he just might be in a position to know. His silence may only be silence, but why should I, we, risk it?

Anyway, the nation. Absolutely snakeshit. I mean, you'd expect the South to continue to be suspicious of the sylphs. And some of them are. Carolina's grassroots campaign to defeat the Amendment constantly points out that the only devas are black. Shouldn't that be a clue?

Fuzzbuckers.

And yes, Cruiser, that's a real word and if you don't stop laughing I'm not going to let you read my memoirs as I type them.

But the states on the Gulf, once they heard that efreets could swim through water and make it pure, de-gunk shore plants and wildlife at a touch? They raced each other to pass sylph-protecting laws and get the Amendment on the ballots.

And they're currently competing to get the devas to set up shop in their state.

The states one associates with strong environmentalist lobbies are dragging their feet. They'll approve the measure, clearly. But they're trying to use ratification as a bribe to get the devas to set up there.

I thnk that sort of manipulation probably angers Amelia and Samantha more than it seduces them. It angers me.

More than a few states seem to resist the Amendment for no apparent reason. Michigan is a fortress of resistance, which is odd as even a union sylph workforce can't compete with the industry there.

Ohio's another inexplicable hold out.

Alaska's inertia makes a certain amount of sense. There are few sylphs and fewer sylph owners. There's just nothing 'in it' for them.

New York's pounding the pavement for a deva headquarters, Jersey has passed a bill to prevent any efreet-based business from operating in the state. I understand their TV's are full of ads asking if anyone's ever really seen an alchemist.

Some people are stupid, sure, but even for scum sucking bastards like my fellow apes, there are some boneheaded decisions being made.

Cruiser wonders if the alchemists have positions of power in all the wrong places.

Angel points out that there are many possibilities that don't involve secret societies. As a sylph that has been bought and sold, she is sure that assholes with large wads of cash just want to stay in business.

Considering that one girl? The movie star that's been in Playboy and three reality shows? And sylphed? She sold for $56,300. It was a record. And I remember that because it was my lucky number.

You think I don't know you're reading over my shoulder, Cruiser? That used to be my street address. Now come burp your daughter and get out of my bedroom.

Anyway, she was caught just after the Day. You gotta figure, the profit margin of a $3.95 butterfly net to $56K, that's a motive for lots of people to vote against the end of their business case.

---------

So there we were, waiting for Tammy to get back from work, taking turns trying to get Millie to say 'Grandma.' She bubbles and stamps her feet in the air and loves being the center of attention.

Oh, she's got great grandma wrapped around her little finger. And grandma. And Dad. And Mom, though Angel tries hard to be responsible and mature. Someone in the house has to be.

Then Ray called. I ran up to the table, up the phone cord, and had the speaker on before Cruiser could do more than say, "I'll get it!"

My third cousin twice removed through my husband's father's side of the family was calling to talk to me.

He has...a clever plan. Actually, he has two or twenty. Lots of plans. He told me about putting together a trash hauling company with Mia's family.

He doesn't know, yet, where the devas are going to set up shop. One place, three, or a roving rotation of smaller facilities. He's betting on a large block of federal lands in Montana though he wouldn't say why.

But he wants the fleet ready to go as soon as he knows where to send them, taking their trash to treasure...

Then he asked me direct. "What are you doing with the rest of your life, old lady?"

Behind and below me, Angel laughed, Cruiser gasped and Millie burbled.

"Mighty brave for a man who's less than three time zones away from my wrath," I told him.

"Yeah, yeah. Got too many things in the fire to worry about getting burned. Here's the deal."

Wherever the devas set up, there's going to be a work force of efreets.

If there's a large work force, they're going to have families. Some efreets, mostly sylphs, at least at first.

That'll lead to a small township of sylphs. Sylph homes. And a few small sylph services. Diners and supermarkets. Electronics stores and clothing stores and... He talked for a while.

I could see it in my mind. Really. They'd flock in, looking for work. Looking to help. Looking to belong. A place they could call their own, and legally hold against the forces of biggie stupidity.

I'd like to see that. I'd hope to see that. But that's a long way in the future.

"Which is why I'm getting ready now," Ray the manipulative bastard dreamer told me. "I figure they need some basic skills like reading, writing and building houses and factories and shit."

"I can teach them manners," I said with a laugh.

"And I want someone I can trust to run the first school. We can get experts to teach individual classes. I want... I need, Aunt Millie, someone to dedicate time to the school, to the students, to the dream."

He was silent for a moment. "I want to give you something to live for. And, maybe, something to get healthy for."

"Tammy could..." I started.

"She could. I'm sure she'll want to help. But... I figured I'd offer it to you, first."

"I dunno," I said slowly. "How long can I think about it?"

"How long do you have?" he fired back. Intemperate, disrespectful, thoughtless bastard. I'd have to hunt down his mother and tell on him.

Just then Cruiser started to climb up on the table, probably to look me in the screen and beg me to consider letting him and his wife risk becoming undines.

Risk their relationship for a silly old woman whose tears were starting to make her helmet soggy.

Could I do that? Could I live with myself if they became estranged so I became...young?

Cruiser's climb shook the table. A magic 8-ball rolled out from a stack of bills and newspaper and advertisements. It stopped at my feet, leaning on my little robot legs. The murk parted and the message floated into view.

"So, what do you say?" he asked.

"Signs point to yes," I read. Out loud.

"Great!" he said. "I've got Nigel putting things together. He'll have his people contact your people and we'll go on from there! Thanks, Aunt Mildred! You... You won't regret it."

"Yeah, sure," I said. We talked about the baby for a bit. Cruiser was up there by then and he bragged on his perfect little gnome baby.

I sat and stared at the cheap plastic fortune telling device until my timer went off and I had to go back to the wheelchair body. And came out into the living room and stared at it some more.

I mean, I know there are 20 answers on the damned thing. Tammy took one apart when she was 9.

We counted them together. Ten good, five benign (I made her look up the word), and five negative. So on the whole it was better than a 50-50 chance of it coming up encouragement.

But see, I had just sorted through the bills in that stack an hour before climbing into the rig. There was no 8-ball in there at the time.

I'm pretty sure we didn't even own one.

---------

I swore the gnomes to secrecy. They were excited about not having to call the next baby Emerson, and not at all worried about them maybe becoming different scales.

"The Fosters don't care about shit like that!" Cruiser said. Again. I looked down at his wonderful, clear, sincere face and wondered if he understood just how different he and Annie and Pet really were.

How fragile he was, in the ways that really matter. How could I possibly subject him to more stress in his life? Angel might be able to keep him together by sheer willpower, but could she raise a child if she had to spend that much energy on her mate?

But instead of discussing that, I lied. For their sake, of course.

"Okay, but you know Tammy. If she finds out we're going through with this, no matter how positive she's been before, she'll start to worry now."

"Worry about what?" Tammy called from the door.

"Worry that Millie will say my name before yours. That I'll win."

"That only counts if you live long enough to cross the finish line," she said absently, moving to kneel down and say hi to the baby. Her and her third cousin three times removed! Spoiled brats!

Making a fragile old lady regret years of tolerance and indulging her whims and mistakes and tilting at sylph-sized windmills.

I feel faint, I really do. Something else is about to fall off, I swear it. Something important.

---------

Okay. Okay, I thought, so if I'm agonna live, I've gotta get healthy. These days, that's either thirty doctors or six sylphs.

I waited for one of little Millie's healthy baby checkups. Begged off on going on the visit because of my leg pains. Tammy looked worried. Angel looked suspicious. Yes you did, you sneak. Stop gasping at me like I didn't catch you. Get down. I hear a baby about to wake up hungry.

Tammy finally shook her head and wondered if she should take my sylphing helmet. "You're going to overdo it some day."

"Like she's going to waste remote hours when her great granddaughter is NOT in the house?" Cruiser asked.

Tammy looked shocked. Then she nodded. "I guess that's a point," she admitted. Then they were gone.

I didn't even pull myself out of the wheelchair when I put on the helmet.

I took the gnome-remote. Scampered out the door and across the field. The sylphs were playing a game of Tuffball. Pet taught it to a few and they taught all the others. I snuck up to the fence and called for attention.

They came over happily enough. "I need six volunteers to clean up the park," I said.

"You want an undine ceremony?" one asked. Matter of fact, no guile. Sometimes I can really see why Tammy devotes so much time to these little people.

"Yes," I admitted. "Anyone want to risk being an undine? Sought after for helping people, loved by all?" Ten hands went up. Some of the others backed away. Well, it's not for everyone.

I helped all ten sneak through the fence, using my artificial strength without hesitation.

Then I led them all through the grass to a little park down the road. We collected trash and piled it next to the trash can, with a half-brick holding it all down.

"Okay," I said. "Now we go back to the house." I led them off like ducklings.

"Don't we need to, I dunno, drain a swamp for this to work?" one of my helpers asked.

"No," I assured her. "It's not about the gross tonnage, it's about the care. If you clean Earth like you care about Earth, she knows it and feels it."

"Doesn't it have to be during a full moon?"

"The first one was at night," I admitted. "And Mia traditionally does her ceremonies in the dark, but I think that's for the showiness of the light."

I got them all the way into the house and to my bedroom. They were skittish around the wheelchair and my apparently dead body.

I probably should have said something more than, "Wait here," before I turned off the remote.

When the big still body on the wheelchair sat up and shouted, to their sensitive ears, "Let's go!"...

Well, there were a few little accidents. They hung their heads in shame, which further shamed me, so we all apologized to each other for a few minutes. Then I asked them to forgive me, which stunned them. Giants tell little sylphs what to do, at least in their world. And then it was all over.

I gathered them together on the little gnome side car and off we went.

As I got back to the park, it struck me that I shouldn't be in a wheelchair for this. All this metal was mined, all the electronics had been powered, the battery charged...I had a pretty big footprint under my derriere.

So I lowered my little charges to the ground, then eased myself out and down into the grass. I wrapped my arms in a circle around those intense, bright faces. And we all hugged grass. And we told Mother Earth we were proud of her and glad to know her. And we'd cleaned her park so people would always be able to come and see the beautiful beauty of her natural beauty.

Hey, it was a prayer, not literature. I thought it was pretty good for an ad lib.

My little friends all looked startled for a second, then they smiled. Tammy stepped across from me and lay in the grass, her arms over mine.

Angel and Cruiser stepped over our arms and sat, one at each elbow. Angel took one of the sylphs into her lap. Cruiser was holding Millie.

I just about protested. Then the baby turned, looked right at me, and winked.

She did, Cruiser, she did. You weren't looking. Well, you were looking lovingly at the top of her little blonde head. The wink was pointed at me. Angel believes me so I don't care that you don't.

So now, among other things, we know that the 8-ball belongs to Millie.

ANYWAY, there we were, my family and my extended family and the Earth; humans and sylphs and gnomes and whatever wondrous thing that baby is going to turn into when she's good and ready. And the ground shook. And water burst forth from the center of our circle. Which made it a fountain six inches from my forehead.

I missed a few moments trying to blink my eyes clear. When I looked up I saw the Face everyone talks about.

Old, but youthful, it was clearly a mother's face. One with difficult children. But they had such potential. I felt her warm regard. And her gratitude. And her love.

In an instant it was gone. Tammy's grip tightened then, and Millie wailed about being all wet.

There was laughter and giggling. Tammy let go of me and scooted back. I rose to my knees and wiped mud off my clothing.

And saw the wonders. Yes, Cruiser, you were right, no one was in any danger, Millie and Angel and You were all the same size you started.

Just because it all worked out, that doesn't mean that the worries were never justified. Now shut up.

But the sylphs were gone. All ten of my volunteers were undines. They played in the water, one waving a hand through a tiny rainbow, watching it duck and flinch.

They'd doubled in size. I've done something similar, going from the sylph remote to the gnome remote. It's...a shock. You never really realize how much of your self-image comes from how you sit in your setting.

Sure, standing by the Grand Canyon or at the bottom of a cliff... Next to a sumo wrestler. All that makes a big impression.

These guys... They were victims. Tiny people marginalized in their every relationship. Even now, even being pampered by Tammy and the staff, the fact that they lived at the whim of giants was always in their mind.

Now all those giants and the grass and the trees, threats and friends and gnomes and babies. Everything in their world loomed half as large. Giants were smaller, they were bigger.

I could see it on their faces. The extra doubling of their mass, it was like 90% pure confidence.

Like finding out the T-Rex's only a komodo dragon. Still a ball-busting bitch, but now it looks like something you could handle.

Nothing we'd ever done before or would ever do since has improved a person's outlook quite like I saw there in the muddy grass of the park.

If nothing else good ever comes out of my undine ceremony, those ten happy faces will be with me forever.

Then we all went and got a pizza. I dunno, it seemed appropriate for the party mood.

I thought Tammy had come home mighty early from a critical well-baby visit. Over the pizza she said the staff had called her. They were terrified and frantic. Ten of the sylphs had escaped and none of the others knew where they'd gone...

Oops. I felt....reeeeeeeeeeeeally bad. I had some apologies to make.

------

So anyway, right now, I'm in charge of an expanded sylph care facility and three shipping containers.

Big truck-sized boxes, they're fairly cheap if you rent them from your distant cousin's wife's BFF's family's trucking company.

One's being converted to a university for tiny students to learn reading, writing, arithmetic and financing.

The other's going to be low-income housing for people until they figure out the rest of their lives.

Not sure what the other one's going to be. One of my new assistants will tell me, I'm sure.

My most helpful one is Willy, a friend of the Fosters. He's a critical, suspicious bastard, but he knows everyone he's ever met on sight. I can't get anything done without him.

Part of the cost of doing business is letting him rant about everyone on the planet except me, Tammy and the rest of Project Trace.

"That Ray," he'll grumble. "Everyone thinks he's a hero? He's in it for the cash, you bet. That trucking company? They'll make people pay them to haul it away, then make a profit off of the recycled metals."

Near as I can tell, Ray's shipping fees will barely cover his costs. His profit will be tiny. Of course, he's planning on some major volume, so a tiny profit margin is still going to be enough real money to bury an elephant.

Willy's daughter, Cherry went on a chartered flight to Africa. Many of the younger sylphs from Willy's group did. They grew up as sylphs, they'll have no real job skills for the post-Rationality market. They'll be getting in on the ground floor as efreets, though.

"Think that's heroic?" the man snarls as we go through the reciprocity agreement with the local university to borrow some instructors.

"Yes," I say absently.

"Well, more profit. He's charging money for every sylph that flies!"

"You don't have any money," I point out, part of the ritual.

"He's made them sign contracts. Once they get a job, they have to pay him back!"

He's trusting the sylphs so much they're signing contracts before they have legal responsibility to keep them. One court case and all these loans default. These contracts are not enforceable. But I'm damned sure they'll be paid back. Partly because of the trust he's showing.

Partly to show the rest of the world you can trust sylphs, or any of the offsized.

One thing that never comes up is how Willy got here. Shipping to the Trace School or any other education facility Ray's making is free for any sylph that asks to go.

I'm waiting for my right hand man to figure out it's for the advertising or the column inches in People or some such nonsense.

Well, it keeps him happy.

The Anthonys are keeping us in mind, connecting us to other sylph groups, sylph businesses.

Everyone's on the starter's block. Watching and waiting.

And, I'll admit, now while the gnomes are giving Millie a bath... worrying.

There was a riot in Utah the other day. Well. Not a riot by Chicago standards, maybe. But a lot of Mormons are upset about the government recognizing actual 'magic.'

"Only because it's not their magic," I can imagine Willy snarling.

So they waved signs and marched down streets and the cops had to ask them twice, loudly, to disperse. City leaders are shocked at the unpleasantness, but are using it as an excuse to drag their feet on the Amendment.

Fuzzbuckers.



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