FUTURE PERFECT
A Vision of a Possible Future
By Richard A. Davis 
 
     I wrote  FUTURE PERFECT  to illustrate in a concrete way what the future could be like if  the Free Labor Market were adopted. My model is, of course, Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward.  I set it 130 years in the future because I thought that was the minimum time it would take for all the social changes that I thought would arise from the new economic policy to work themselves out.  Because I wanted it well understood that the abolition of poverty was a result of a change in economic policy and not advances in technology, I invented a world as much like our own as possible, with little change in technology.  Little did I realize when I first wrote it in the 1980's what an enormous change in communicatins technology was just around the corner.  I have updated my story to take some of them into account, but there are probably anomalies I haven't caught.  Likewise profound changes have taken place in world politics and sociology since then.  I don't want to predict what sort of world it will be in the light of those changes so it has been better not to advance my story too far and leave Jack with questions I can't possibly answer.
 
     Some of the sociological phenomena I believe can be predicted by the conditions of the economic policy.  Others are arbitrary and depend upon the sdoption of policies which might well not be adopted.  For instance, my depiction of motherhood.  It depends upon the government enacting a subsidy for non-working mothers on the theory that motherhood is an important social function not compensated in the capitalistic system.  Whether the government  would adopt such a subsidy is out of my control.   I don't mean to advocate any particular social trend I depict in the course of the novel.  I wanted to portray a complete civilization, and I tried to imagine trends as different 130 years from now as ours are from 1875. 
 
     I make no apologies for the fact that my world seems absurdly ethnically undiverse.  Genealogy is my hobby, and I gave everyone in the novel  the family name of one of my own ancestors.  Pretend to insert your own patronymic if you wish.
 
Chapter 4       Chapter 7       Chapter 10           Chapter 16        Chapter 19        Chapter 22 
      Chapter 25       Chapter 28      Chapter 31      Chapter 34      Chapter 37     
 
CHAPTER 1
 
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     The first thing I remember was total panic.  Total panic and total confusion.  Where was I?  Who was I?  I couldn't think.  What was worse I couldn't move.  But I could scream. At least somebody was screaming, and it must have been me.
     "He's awake!" came from somewhere, and I heard footsteps running echo-y, then flat. Then the most beautiful pair of violet eyes were looking down into mine. I felt calmer just looking into them.
     "It's all right, Jeff," she said. "Everything's all right. Just relax. It's all right." Somebody stopped screaming. It must have been me.
     "Where am I?"
     "You're in the hospital."
     "Was I in an accident?" 
     "Yes, but you're all right. No broken bones or anything."
     "Then why can't I move?" 
     "You've been out quite a while." The voice was as soothing as those violet eyes. "It's probably just a temporary thing. But Doctor Fleming will explain it. He's on his way."
     "But why can't I remember anything? Who am I?"
     "What do you mean you can't remember anything? You remember how to talk, don't you? Some people who got hit over the head can't even remember that."
     "Did I get hit over the head?"
     "I was speaking generally. Actually the doctor will have to tell you the rest. We've paged him, and he'll be right along."
     "You won't leave me, will you?"  
     She smiled and the smile went with the eyes. And I knew one thing about myself. Whoever I was, wherever I was, I was in love.
     "Here's the doctor," she said and disappeared from my view, to be replaced by the round face of a man about fifty.
     "Well, so you're awake," he said cheerfully.
     "I don't know if I am or not," I said. "Why can't I move?"
     "We'll have to see," he said. "Can you feel this?"
     He disappeared, and I felt something and told him so.
     "Where?"
     "On my foot, I think."
     "Now?"
     "Twice. Other foot."
     "Which foot?"
     "I don't remember."
     "You don't remember which foot?"
     "I don't remember the name of it."
     I could feel that he was holding a foot.
     "Can you move it?" he asked. I tried, but I couldn't remember how.
     "Can you feel this?" He started to bend my foot but I let out a yell.
     "Does that hurt?"
     "Like hell," I gasped.   
     He straightened up. "I don't think you're paralyzed. You have feeling, and there's nothing we can find wrong with your spinal cord."
     "Then why can't I move?"
     "You are moving. You're breathing. You're talking. You've been frozen. It's probably just going to take a little time for your muscles and joints to get used to working again."
     "Frozen? What happened to me?"
     "What do you remember?"
     "Nothing at all."
     "Well, you remember how to talk. Tell me everything that happened to you from the point where you begin to remember." 
     "I was suddenly lying here in a panic. I couldn't move and couldn't think. I think I screamed because somebody screamed."
     "What then?"
     "This beautiful pair of violet eyes was looking down at me."
     He grinned and looked away, I suppose at the same eyes.
     "Nothing wrong with those reflexes."
     "But who am I? What am I doing here? Was I in an accident?"
     "Don't you remember your name?"
     "No."
     "Is it Henry McMannus?"
     "It doesn't sound like any name I was ever familiar with."
     "Is it Abraham Lincoln?"
     I thought a minute, because it rang a bell. "It sounds familiar, but I don't think it's me."
     "Is it Jeffrey Weimer?
     Why did that sound familiar? "I-I'm not sure. Try it on me."
     "How are you feeling, Jeff?"
     That was it. She had called me Jeff. But it didn't feel right.
     "No, that's not it," I told him. He looked nonplused. "It's on your driver's license."
     "My driver's license! Don't you know? Hasn't anybody been to see me?"
     "Who should be here?"
     "I don't know. There must be somebody."
     "We'll talk about them in a minute. First let's see if we can call up any memory. When did Columbus discover America?"
     "1492. America discovered Columbus."
     What?"
     "America discovered Columbus. That's my hometown, Columbus."
     "That's where you are, Columbus, Ohio. In University Hospital. Do you remember your address?"
     "No, I might if I heard the street. Or if I had a map."
     "We'll get one. When was the Declaration of Independence?"
     "1776."
     "What happened in 1865?"
     "I--I can't think."
     "And if I say Abraham Lincoln?"
     "Oh, yeah, he was shot."
     "What happened in 1974?"
     "I don't remember."
     "May 11, 1978?"
     "No idea."
     "It's not a historical date."
     "No--sorry."
     Again he looked disappointed. "It's on your driver's license. And it does say Columbus. Do you remember Norwich Avenue?"
     "No."
     "It's the address on your driver's license."
     "Oh." Why didn't it sound right?
     "Does Mount Rainier ring a bell?"
     "Should it?"
     "It's where you were found."
     "What do you mean, 'found'?"
     "Are you a mountain climber, Jeff?"
     When he said it, I had a vision of me high on the face of a rock.
     "I think so, but I'm not Jeff."
     "Can you remember climbing on Mount Rainier?"
     "I remember being interested in Mt. Rainier, but not climbing on it. Do you mean I fell? Is that why I can't move?"
     "You didn't break anything as far as your x-rays show."
     "So what am I doing here?"
     "Well, when they found you, your driver's license said you were from here, and besides, University Hospital has a reputation for experience with people in your condition. I called Washington and asked to work with you."
     "What's my condition?"
     "You were frozen. Solid. You fell into a glacier."\
     "Am I going to be all right?"
     "Every sign points to it, now that you're awake. Of course we couldn't know until you actually did wake up."
     "Well, when was this? How long have I been unconscious?"
     "They brought you here about three months ago."
     "What day is it now?"
     "November 17th. You were found in August."
     "When did I fall?"
     "We don't know. It had to be sometime after May of 1994, because that's the date your license was renewed, and before 1997, unless you were careless about renewing it."
     "Don't you know? Wasn't I reported missing?"
     "You probably were, but we can't find any record of it."
     "Don't my folks know? Haven't they been here?"
     "Your folks? Do you remember them?"
     I stopped. No, I couldn't quite. But I must have had folks. I had a vague sense of being hardly more than a kid, maybe a college student. "I don't remember, but there must be somebody. Didn't you say people had been here?"
     "Actually, I didn't. There have been people who think they might be your relatives, but nobody with definite information about you."
     "I don't understand. How long have I been unconscious?"
     "It has been a long time. If you were going to remember people, I didn't want it to be a shock. But since you don't, I might as well tell you, because you are going to find out soon enough, anyway. This is the year 2128. You've been unconscious about 130 years."
 
 
CHAPTER 2
 
     Well, you could have knocked me over with a sledge hammer, which it felt like somebody had. "A hundred and thirty years?"
     "That's right," Dr. Fleming said. "I wish there were some way to break it to you easy, but I can't think of one."
     "You're joking, aren't you? Ha-ha!" I was starting to sweat. "You want to see how I take kidding, don't you?"
     He looked at me with a comforting smile mixed with sympathetic sadness. "I wish for your sake I could say I was. I can guess it's going to be quite a shock for you, suddenly finding yourself a total stranger in a strange land. All I can do is assure you that we'll do everything in our power to make the transition as easy as possible for you."
     "But what's going to happen to me? I can't move, I can't remember anything, and you tell me it's 130 years later."
     "As for your physical condition, you don't need to worry. I don't know just why you can't move, but it's probably because you've been frozen solid and need a chance to teach your body how to function again. After all, you're breathing and talking, which is moving. As for your memory, you've already shown it's in there and just needs to be coaxed out. We'll try to help you regain it step by step, maybe from childhood up. After all, everybody you're going to remember has been dead a long time. We don't want you to go into a deep depression just because the people you remember and love are lost to you."
     "But what can I do? Even if I get my memory back, what do I know about this new time I'm in?"
     "What do you mean, 'do'?"
     "How will I live?" I couldn't remember anything specific, but I had a vague image of the future from movies I'd seen and books I'd read as a place where everything that was going wrong in the world I was familiar with just got worse.
     "Oh, that's no problem," he said, waving his hand as if to shoo away a fly. "You're young and I'll bet adaptable. You'll live like everybody else lives. Of course we'll take care of you till you don't need us any more. After all, we didn't spend all that effort bringing you back to life just to abandon you. When you're ready, you'll go to work like everybody else."
     "Doing what?"
     "Whatever you want. I don't know what you imagine, but times aren't so different that you won't recognize most of the jobs. But there's plenty of time to plan your future. Right now we want to concentrate on getting you functioning again.
     "Whatever I wanted to do! He could be confident. It wasn't his future he was brushing aside."Edith, come here," he said, and Violet Eyes materialized beside him. "This is Nurse Edith Boynton. She's been looking after you whileyou were unconscious,and she'll continue to be your nurse."
     I don't know what came over me, but just looking at her made me all silly. "Are you married?" I asked.
     That got her. "Of course not," she said, blinking those gorgeous eyes with their long dark lashes. "I wouldn't be working here if I were married."
     "Going steady?" 
     "Why do you ask?"
     "Because if you are, I want another nurse. I can't look at those eyes every day and know they belong to somebody else."
     She blushed, actually blushed! What sort of a world had I woke up in?
     Dr. Fleming laughed. "You'd better humor him, Edith."
     "I think I'd better check on Mrs. Robinson," she stammered, and disappeared. I could hear footsteps tap-tapping away.
     "Did I say something wrong?" I asked.
     Dr. Fleming laughed. "Well--young women nowadays aren't used to being courted quite so openly by men they just met."
     "I wasn't exactly courting--" I started to say.
     "Well, no, but you have to remember she's been working quite closely with you for quite a while. Even when we didn't have any idea whether you would ever regain consciousness or not I encouraged my team to think of you as a person, not just a laboratory experiment. So for her it's not like a stranger on the street flirting."
     "Maybe that's what I feel--something communicated when I was unconscious. You won't take her off my case, will you?"
     "Not if you behave yourself," he said. "I'll remind her that you are from a different culture, and different isn't necessarily cruder. You do have a code of behavior, don't you?"
     "I suppose so. I'll try to be good. I can't be much else."
     "Fair enough. Now, are you tired? Do you want to rest?"
     "I don't know," I said. "It's going to be pretty hard for me to do anything else."
     He looked at his watch. "I have to warn you that you are an object of a lot of curiosity, ever since we thawed you out and got your heart started. The news people have been clamoring to know the minute you woke up. They've been camping out in the lobby in relays. I can't hold them off for long. Could I let them come in and look at you after you've had a nap?"
     "I guess so. I don't know how intelligent I'll be."
     "You're doing fine. We'll let you rest, and if you don't feel like sleeping, and want to watch television or something, give a call." 
     I don't know how I could have been tired, since I hadn't been doing anything for 130 years, but as I lay there in the semi-dark, sorting out my confused feelings and chaotic bits of memory, I found I could only concentrate on one thing. I drifted off, thinking of violet eyes.

 

Chapter 3
      I woke up to Violet Eyes.  "Are you awake?"
     "I don't know.  I think it's still the same dream."
     "What were you dreaming about?" 
     "Violet eyes."
     She blushed. "I'm sorry if I woke you.
     "Don't be. Waking is so much nicer." When she didn't answer that, I decided it was my cue to say   something more. "Listen, I'm sorry if I offended you before. I'm getting the notion that times are a lot different from what I'm used to."
     "Oh, that's all right," she said in a low voice that made me decide not to say anything more about it.
     "At least your brain's working if you remember what happened earlier," she said after a pause.
     "You know, it's as if I'm a computer processing information in my sleep. I feel if somebody told me my name, I might remember everything."
     "Ok, you're Jeff Weimer."
     "I'm not! I just know that's wrong."
     "Well anyway, the news are here. Do you feel up to seeing them?"
     "I guess so, though there's nothing much I can tell them, and I'm not up to performing much, either.
"     "Oh, they've seen you a lot more uninteresting than you are now. They'll be very impressed."
     "With my wit and charm, like you obviously are?"
     For once, she laughed. "Well, after they're through, Archie will come around and change your sheets. By the way, do you object to having a nigger orderly?"
     "A what?!"
     "A nigger orderly."
     "That's what I thought I heard."
     "Didn't you call them orderlies in your day?"
     "We didn't call them niggers!"
     "Oh, yes. I remember reading that that used to be an impolite word." 
     "It isn't now?"
     "No. It's just what you call somebody like Archie with his complexion and background. What would you have said?"
     "I'd have said black."
     "I don't suppose Archie would like to be called black, since he's kind of a chocolate brown."
     "African-American?"
     "I don't think he's ever been to Africa."
     "OK, but why would you ask me if I object?"
     "Well, I remember from history that some people didn't like niggers back in your time, and we'd never ask anyone to be taken care of by anybody they didn't want to be taken care of by."
     "In that case, how do you ever teach tolerance?"
     "Not by forcing people to be taken care of by people they don't like."
     "Do you always ask?"
     "If it seems appropriate. But people know their rights, so they tell us without our asking."
     "And do people object?"
     "Once in a while. Mostly to foreigners. Some people figure if they can't get their countries working right, they shouldn't be coming here."
     "Well, tell Archie I don't have any objections. That is, if he asked."
     "Good. He'll be glad, because he's taken care of you since you came in."
     "I thought you took care of me."
     "You don't think you've just been lying here, do you? I’ve been your nurse. He's hauled you around to x-ray and to electric therapy and given you your baths. He's been almost like a mother to you."
     "But what happens if I change my mind and don't want him?"
     "Oh, it's my experience that once people commit themselves to a yes, they make themselves believe it. After all, nobody wants to get a reputation for having careless judgment."
     So she went to let in the press. They crowded around, but I couldn't focus on the whole lot of them, so they elected one of their number, a woman named Edna, as spokesman.
     "So how are you feeling, Mr. Weimer?" she asked.
     "Pretty confused," I said. "But not so confused that I know my name's not Weimer."
     "But that's the name on your driver's license."
     "So I'm told, but there's something wrong. It just isn't my name.
     "What's your name then?"
     "It's on the tip of my tongue. I'll know it when I hear it."
     "We'll pass on that," she said. "Dr. Fleming says you can't move and you don't remember anything."
"I can't move, anyway. Doc feels sure I'll get movement back eventually. It's just a matter of teaching myself to move again. I do remember a lot I can't put words to. Like I know I'm from Columbus, and what Columbus looks like. At least the Columbus I was last out in."
     "If you can't move, can you feel anything?"
     "Yes, and that's why the doctor is hopeful about my moving."
     "You were frozen a long time. Did you suffer any frostbite?"
     "I don't think so. But funny you should mention it. I remember a family story about an ancestor who died of frostbite. Miles Frost. He died on Pikes Peak."
     Suddenly I was aware I had remembered something. "And that's my name."
     "Miles Frost?"
     "No, Jack Frost. My father has an awful sense of humor. It runs in the family." And I realized I had a definite image of my father. How about my mother? I knew I had one, but I couldn't make an image of her appear.
     "Your name is Jack Frost?"
     "Yes. Dad's name was Ernest. He had an ancestor named Winter Frost."
     Dr. Fleming came into my line of vision. "That certainly could explain why we never could find out anything about Jeff Weimer. That is, if you're remembering right."
"I know I am. I call myself John, because it's more dignified, even though on my birth certificate I'm Jack. I can't remember how it is on my college records."
     "Well, at least that gives you guys concrete information to go on. I don't know why we should be doing all the research."
     Dr. Fleming decided I shouldn't be quizzed to remember any more just then, but he promised to let them visit me again soon. So I said good-bye, and they filed out. Then I thought I was too excited to sleep. I had a name! But I drifted right off.