Brigits flame week 2, August

[riotheclown]

Title: Everything Old is New

Author: Urb-banal
Word Count: 2013

Prompt: Britain, 2067
Genre: Sci-fi
Warnings: Language, sexual references

Okay, this is entirely new but drawn on an old story from years ago.  This is better.  If you want the insiders scoop, this is Lazarus mom.  He was a character from my Trek thing future end of the world, bla bla bla...   I'm feeling fried.  Writing is too hard!

This probably sucks. 
Everything Old is New

Lady leaned into the mirror and squinted. Her eyes were bright, no redness, no puffiness.   She pursed her lips in a fake kiss and then winked.

She pulled her boots all the way up to her thighs, and wiggled a bit to make sure her skirt was covering her bottom. Her poke-a-dot halter exposed a large area of midriff; she threw on a puffy hot-pink fake-fur jacket.

“Where are you going all tarted up?” Her father said from the cot in the kitchen. He rolled over and grabbed the bottle from under it, propped up on one elbow and took a swig. “Off to the disco? You make sure you get me some more whiskey. This one’s almost empty.”

“Sure thing, dad!” Lady didn’t tell him she wasn’t going to the disco tonight. She had a proper date with a company executive, the Plant Manager in fact. He was picking her up, not at the house, the pavement was too broken up to get a car down the street; it would be at the turn-off for the main highway.

It was quite a walk but she never wanted any of her dates to see where she lived. They all could find out easily enough just by looking up the address on a company file but it was not the same as witnessing what her home life was really about. She needed to seem carefree. Nobody wanted to spend time with a drag.

“You conduct yourself proper. No sex without a condom and a gift of either money or booze before…” her father yelled after her.

“I wasn’t born yesterday dad. I’m 15; I know what I’m doing!” Lady said with her hand on her hip. She was getting into character, Sassy Lady, circa 2010. She loved that era.

It was hard walking over all the rubble. She passed the chain link fences of her neighbours’, the vacant lots of burned out buildings, the circles of useless cars that had been turned into family homes with their central “parks” of  burning barrels and the glowing faces gathered around them for warmth. Sometimes someone would call out her name.

“Hey Lady! You’re looking good! You got a date?”

“Fucking right I do! Big shot too!”

“Good on you! Be safe now! God bless!”

As she got close to what was once a strip mall her senses went on high alert. Armies of little kids would sometimes rush the unsuspecting pedestrian and strip her of all her valuables in the blink of an eye.

“I got mace you motherfuckers! If you think of rushing me you’ll be sorry. My date’s coming and he’s got a big fucking flame thrower too so just stay in your hide-dee-holes and we  will be good, alright?” She yelled as much to calm herself as to frighten anyone else.

A man with money for a car and gasoline was something special. Mr. Lawd, the Plant Manager was easily in his 60’s but that meant he was already a grown man before the in-vetro influenza epidemic of 2025 that caused half of the babies that survived in the womb to be born hermaphrodites. Lady had no problem with them, but she loved vintage porn and it was easier to imagine that she was in a movie if her partner had just one sexual organ. Executives were never hermaphrodites it seemed. There was no policy against it but no one Lady knew had a clue how executives even got to be executives. So who could say? Perhaps they were all born executives.

She was shocked when he asked her if she would go away with him for the weekend. She didn’t think their first conversation had gone well at all. She had in fact argued with him. She was holding one of the test chimps in the lab, just a baby, cooing to it and rocking it like it was her baby; the animals that were normally freaked out all calmed down when she held them. It was a talent she didn’t know she had until she was promoted from the floor of the plant to the lab.

When she was with one she was in a completely altered state of mind, as if she was disolving into a warm bath, disappearing into the a moment of complete and utter contentment.

So when he said something about them all being better off dead, instead of turning on the charm and batting her eyes she said, “This little baby is happy right now, with me, it doesn’t want to die!”

That got his attention. He asked her name and made a slightly rude comment about it being the name for a dog but then he made up for it by saying he had never met a real lady before.

She liked that. She liked the sliver of his hair and his perfect teeth. He was super tall, maybe 7 feet and he looked fit for his age She also liked that she would get to go to his executive apartment in the high rise with electric lights and hot water Jacuzzis and cold soda pop and telephones!   

 She thought he looked sad. She wanted to make him happy. She hoped they would have fun together at least.

Instead of a company car a brown pickup truck slowed to the side of the road where she waited. Her heart started pounding and she wished she had the mace as she claimed. She looked around, feeling a little desperate until she saw him leaning across the seat.

“What the hell are you wearing?” he yelled at her.

“This, oh… What the fuck are you driving?”

“It’s my truck, four wheel drive, we need it. Climb in!”

“How can you afford your own truck?” Lady asked as she fastened her seat belt. “This thing looks ancient!”

“I know!” Mr. Lawd was smiling.  Lady had never seen him smile before. It made him look a bit stupid.

“Well aren’t we going to your apartment?”

“No. This will be much more fun. It’s a surprise!”

“Mr. Lawd, please, I …”

“Call me Steven. I don’t want anything to remind me of work for two days!”

“I can do that.” Lady said, more uncertain than she usually was.

“It’s got a ‘CD player’ circa turn of the century!” he said pleased. He popped in a “CD”. Do you like old music? I’ve got vintage originals!”

“Umm, I like the last century pornography, some of that has music.”

“This is way better than anything you will have heard then! They are called, “Broken Social Scene, oh and I will play you some Owen Pallet, Earth, Wind and Fire…you are going to love it. Vivaldi, you ever hear of him, completely old… We’ve got a long drive but I have plenty music!”

Things were not shaping up the way she imagined at all. She was worried he didn’t drink and she’d have nothing to take home to her dad. She also worried she was going to die of boredom.

She fell asleep. None of the roads had been particularly good but they were consistently bad to the point of lulling her to sleep. Now the truck was pitching back and forth, occasionally revving loudly as the wheels spun in mud before lurching the truck forward. It was still dark but she had a feeling it was approaching morning.

“We’re here!” Steven shouted.

“Where are we?” Lady asked no one. Steven had already gotten out of the truck and was heading towards a dim light down the hill.

“Wait!” Lady was having trouble in her high heeled boots.

Steven stopped. “Oh sorry, here take my hand. This place is totally isolated. Nobody except my closest friends know about it. You’ll meet them. ..”

Lady was starting to feel frightened. She had been lucky so far. She had never run into a real freak before. She supposed no one would miss her much. Her father would eventually sober up and wonder but there wasn’t much he could do… Steven gripped her arm firmly, “Watch your step, this is slippery … I wouldn’t want you to get your party dress dirty!” He laughed. “But we’ll get you out of it soon enough. First I want to show you something. It’s in the barn.”

“I want to go home!” Lady said pulling away from him.

“Don’t worry! I get you home, but first you have to see this!”

“I don’t want to see anything. I want to go home!”

Steven was laughing and pulling her along behind him. “Stop making such a fuss!” He opened the barn door and shoved her inside.

Two people in overalls were bent over something lying down in the straw. 

Steven turned around and beamed an enormous goofy smile at her. “Piglets!”

Martha and Henry, a very old and very happy couple greeted Steven. 

“This is a great day in the Green Valley Steven. Our first 16^th century cloned hogs have given birth to their very own piglets!” Henry mopped his teary eyes with a cloth. “I wish you had been here to see it. I was scared to death something would go wrong, we’ve been up all night and all the day before.” He shook his head with the wonder of it.

Martha was eyeing Lady up and down, one large bottom lip jutting out further than her nose in a total lack of effort to hide her disapproval. “Ummmhummm.”

“This is Lady. She works at the plant. She has a way with animals it seems.”

“Snakes most likely.” Martha said squinting at her.

Steven didn’t get it but Lady did. She laughed out loud. “That’s right, and I tell you, for a minute I thought I was going to get trust up and served at some freaked out sex banquet.” Looking at the piglets she said, “Oh can I hold one? Please!”

“Not yet. They are like human babies, very vulnerable to germs the first few hours. Once they are nursing for a bit and we know they are okay maybe…” Henry told her.

Steven asked Martha gently, aware now that he had somehow crossed a line by bringing Lady, “Martha, I am afraid it is my fault that you and Lady got off to a bad start. I wanted to surprise her and frankly I hadn’t thought to bring her until two days ago…”

Martha seemed to physically shake off her previous temper. “That’s alright Steven. You know this is your place as much as ours. You are welcome to bring anyone here you like, no explanations. Now maybe she would like to come with me and I’ll try to find some clothes more suitable for her to wear.

Inside a small stone house Martha rummaged in a trunk and handed a bundle to Lady.

Lady was sure Martha picked out the ugliest shirt and baggiest pants she could find. She walked out still wearing her ridiculous boots. Martha handed her some ratty old cotton shoes. “Don’t have extra boots, sorry” was all she said to Lady.

Steven gave her a tour, “This is a refurbished 16^th Century working farm, completely isolated and TOP SECRET. We’ve been fixing it for fifteen years, we’ve got an orchard, a wheat field, a hay field, a kitchen garden and a vegetable garden. We don’t use any gasoline powered equipment. We mill the flour with a grinder that runs on methane. We make our own methane.

We’ve got a horse and an ox and a cow and a goat. We’re going to artificially inseminate them all and start breeding heirloom chattel from pre-engineered era DNA. I have a kiln and an outdoor bread oven and a bellows!

 Oh and we’ve got chickens. I hate the dirty birds but I like omelets. Let me make you one!” He looked like he was going to start skipping. He headed off towards a small stone cabin.

“Fuck!” Lady said to no one.

“Not likely!” Martha said with a laugh. “More like ‘Muck!’ as in 'mucking out the stalls', you can start right after breakfast!”

Lady suspected rightly that she wasn’t going to get a hot bath without a lot of chopping wood and hauling water. “I don’t suppose you’ve got an indoor toilet?”

Martha and Henry both started to laugh.

 

There really is a Green Valley. youtu.be/RxtbCufq58U