Originally published in The Quarantales by Impulsive Walrus Books, August 202
Can a guy get a drink around here?
In the middle of pandemic lockdowns in a biotech surveillance state, an older man gets one last chance at freedom when a beautiful colleague recruits him to join a hidden resistance.
Socially Distant Drinking
by Angelique Fawns
Frank hunched over the black walnut bar in the speakeasy, sipping whiskey. A relic in his own time, this was one place he felt at home. The sour smell of a dish rag permeated the air, and old country crooned off an mp3 player hidden somewhere in the cobwebbed ceiling. The club tried to adhere to the Gathering Laws of “no more than ten” but sometimes a few extra bodies slipped in. It would be just a matter of time before they were shut down.
Frank was focusing on his last swallow when she walked in. Anywhere from fifty to sixty, she was dressed in a red party dress that hung in frills and lace off her shoulders. With long grey hair flowing to her waist, her eccentric outfit hugged every curve. All eyes in the place were watching her.
“Hey Frank, fancy meeting you here,” she said with a grin as she summoned the bartender with a twitch of her baby finger. Shocked, he realized he knew her. It was Carol, one of the women who processed surveillance reports at the monitoring center where he worked security. In the office, she wore navy power suits, with her hair in a tight bun. Because she dealt with confidential files she was required to be in the office, even though most people worked from home. He watched her order a tequila with a confident twirl of her finger.
She’d never even given him the time of day before, walking by his post as though he was invisible. Surprising that she knew his name. Frank could recognize everyone, being required to carefully monitor who came and left the building. The facial recognition software could probably do most of his job, but old farts like him had to be employed somehow.
She gave him a seductive smile, tossing back her tequila shot. He always thought her pretty, but never realized the true extent of her gorgeousness. Sadly, his ability to flirt had long since fled, so he tried casually getting off his stool and sauntering out. He tripped over his cowboy boots and left the basement bar with a red face.
He was berating himself for not even saying hello, when he saw the slip of paper under the windshield wiper of his rusty Ford pickup truck. Frank felt a tinge of fear, limping to his obsolete vehicle. Was it a notice to appear for testing at the quarantine center? He’d coughed a couple of times in the bar, and even sneezed at work today. He checked his biometric wrist implant. There were no alerts on it. But he did notice the time, 8:30 p.m. Half an hour to get home.
It was easy to lose track of hours in the speakeasy. He worried briefly about Carol. Would she make it home before curfew? He thought of going back in and offering her an escort, but lost his nerve. Instead, he yanked the little piece of yellow parchment out and squinted at the words scrawled in cursive pencil.
Live Free or Die. Go to where the last rays of the sun cast a golden shower. Leave no tracks. The ski!s of the old are needed to rebuild anew.
Shoving the note in his pocket, Frank quickly got into his truck, heart pounding. This was an odd note, he’d heard of golden showers, but they weren’t his kink. Was it a trap? The government was always trying to ferret out dissident thinkers.
Was there a place where people still lived with freedom and choice? Though the coronavirus population purges that tore through the world were contained and vaccines found, the strict emergency regulations were never fully relaxed. Once the government had complete control of their populations, a new era of autocracy and “security first” became the new norm.
A peculiar feeling percolated in his stomach. Something he hadn’t felt in a while. Hope perhaps? Or more likely fear mixing with that last shot of Wild Turkey 101.
First Carol, and now the note. This was turning out to be an interesting day.
He was a bit of an oddity in Colony 12, his fellow drinkers at the bar notwithstanding. Not only was he one of the few Baby Boomers still alive in the post-pandemic population of 2030, but he looked his age. An unexpected side benefit of all the world’s money flooding into biotech research was amazing advances in plastic surgery and stem cell therapy. The old man steadfastly refused to let anyone touch his skin, or to take any sort of rejuvenation product.
“I’ve earned every damn line on this face, and no fake charlatan of a doctor is gonna steal them from me,” he’d mutter if someone suggested a bit of Juve-afirm.
He was feeling every one of his eighty years as the adrenaline left his system. Driving home, his hands trembled on the steering wheel. Silly to think that a young gorgeous lady like Carol would be interested in him. He left the big truck in his barely adequate parking space and shuffled through the metal corridors quickly. He opened the alloy door to his 500-square foot studio just in time. At 9:00 p.m. daily, the halls were sprayed with a decontaminant to thwart the lurking of any new virus. The lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic changed life forever.
Frank laid in bed thinking of the note balled tightly in his hand under the covers. He couldn’t fall asleep, heartbeat thrumming in his ears, neurons firing in excitement. Live Free or Die? Connected Colony 66 used to be called New Hampshire and boasted the motto. One of the few places you could ride a motorcycle without a helmet and pay no income tax before the “event.”
In remote and mountainous regions, the internet still couldn’t penetrate. Without wifi, intense public monitoring wasn’t possible. Was a counterculture thriving in the old New England mountain range? The ski!s of the old are needed to rebuild anew. Frank had farmed heirloom vegetables for the local market before the global food shortages of 2021. He never did get married; he put all his energy into working the soil. Or maybe he had just never met a woman who made him feel the way Carol did.
Food growing was definitely a skill of the old. His land had been commandeered by the big agricultural corporations, and he had been forced to relocate to the city. He tried to put up a fight, but a few weeks in a non-compliant adjustment center had taken the wind out of him. He took his job assignment as a security guard at the monitoring center and couldn’t remember the last time he had been happy.
Go to where the last rays of the sun cast a golden shower. That seemed a little more obscure. He was an avid skier in his youth, and remembered some of his favorite slopes in New Hampshire. Mount Attitash, Loon Mountain, Mount Sunapee… Mount Sunapee! That could be it. Sun and a golden shower. A/K/A Pee (Now he understood the note.)
Leave no tracks might be the hardest part. The feel of the mandatory wrist tracker imbedded in his left arm was a constant irritant. The damn thing tracked his every move, and every facet of his health. A change in temperature, or an excess of white blood cells and the health officers would be at his door in hazmat suits to haul him off to an assessment center. Any new virus, or resurgence of old, would be identified and stopped before it could spread.
He finally managed to catch a few hours sleep, and then left for his day job. He was a little nervous. The big glass headquarters on the waterfront was only a ten-minute walk from his condo, but his heart was beating like he had been running a marathon. Would Carol give him that heart-stopping smile again, or would she ignore him, like in the past? What should he do about that little cursive note? Passing through the first retinal scanner at the outside door, he made his way into the Surveillance Room and took up his post.
Catching his breath, he saw Carol walking towards him.
Gone is the red dress, she is back in her navy-blue suit, the swinging glossy hair caught in a bun.
“Morning Frank, what a gorgeous sunny day, not a shower in sight,” she said softly.
Once again, his vocal cords fail, but this time it was her words that have frozen him. Sun, Shower? Could Carol have left the note on his windshield? She goes to her desk and starts working like any other day. Perhaps it’s his imagination on overdrive. He’s too old to be involved in some crazy conspiracy.
His eyes keep drifting over to Carol’s work station. She seems to be working intently on something – her fingers flying over the keyboard. Then she got up and walked rapidly over to him.
“Frank come with me.”
She grabbed his arm and pulled him up, guiding him towards the exit.
“Carol, have you gone crazy?”
“Just move. We don’t have much time.”
His old legs protest, but he lets her hustle him outside. Luckily, he is the security on the floor, and no one else seems to notice their abrupt exit. He hasn’t felt this alive in over twenty years.
“Did you leave me that note on my truck?”
Walking quickly towards the parking lot, Frank noticed his wrist implant vibrating. Sending an alert that he is not where he should be.
“Look, we have to get to your truck. It is one of the few untraceable vehicles left on the road. E-cars have GPS. That old pickup truck is pre-2000 isn’t it?”
Frank saw a red light flashing on Carol’s wrist as well. “Yes, it’s an old single-cab pickup, good for an old single guy like me. We are going to be stopped soon, lady. Look at your tracker flashing!”
Arriving beside the old blue Ford, Carol turned to him and pulled a knife out of her purse.
“What the hell!” Frank gave a started yelp as she yanked his hand and took a quick swipe at his wrist. The blood poured onto the pavement. She pulled out a handkerchief and quickly bound his arm with it. He’s got to get his reaction time up around this woman.
“I removed your tracker. It’s right beside the wrist bone and away from the big artery thank goodness. Now you do me.” She handed him the bloody knife. Frank took it and looked into her clear blue eyes (What a lovely blue. He hadn’t noticed before.) They looked sane, which was not quite how he was feeling. No use telling her he couldn’t do it; during his farm days, he’d handled a scalpel more than once castrating pigs. With a quick swipe, he removed her flashing tracker. She gave him another handkerchief to bind around the oozing wound.
They piled in and Frank started the truck.
“So, we are going to Mount Sunapee, is that the idea?” he asked.
“Yes, I stumbled on a confidential video with security officials discussing the settlement. Apparently, they found slips of paper in old survivalist manuals in the library. I copied the message down and put it on your windshield,” Carol said as she fiddled with the vintage CD player.
Pressing play, honkytonk fiddle music filled the cab. Frank drove his truck quickly towards the highway. No one was chasing them. Perhaps the alert had been cancelled after leaving the trackers in the parking lot. He imagined the Connected Corp management laughing about two old fogies having an affair in the parking lot.
“Why me?”
“I’ve been watching you for a while. Your vintage truck, that speakeasy with old-timers, plus I like your cowboy boots. I figured you were a good bet.”
She put a hand on his thigh and smiled at him. Frank felt his leg burning under her fingers, and a warmth in his heart. “A good bet for what?” He’d finally found his voice.
“As someone who’d risk everything to live free, of course.” Frank reached across her lap and opened up the glove box. He took out the bottle of whiskey sitting in there and handed it to her.
“Crack open the bottle, Carol. We are going to live free or die. And enjoy every minute of it.” A grin spilt his wrinkled face as the miles of concrete disappeared under the pickup truck’s old tires.
