New Wineskins - Science Fiction - English
Description
Vocal Characteristics
Language
EnglishVoice Age
Young Adult (18-35)Accents
North American (General)Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
new wine skins written by Richard A Lovett and Mark Niemann ross narrated by Craig Mckee Valeria. Kwasi gave a last look in the rear view mirror checking her makeup before surrendering her car to the valet. She hated these things, mingling with the posh and self important, pretending to be interested as cocktail conversation yo yoed from gallery openings to gossip all while ordering drinks that didn't even allow her to share the cocktail hour buzz. I'll just take a tonic and guava juice with a twist of lemon or some such silliness. That sounded like a real drink. But wasn't the waiters probably figured she was a recovering alcoholic rather than a reporter needing a clear head for her story. But tonight there would be no cocktails. The valet bore the crisp maroon and gray livery of angels head winery, which was hosting this fundraiser for congressman Blaine's bid for the Senate. The race had opened up a month ago when 89 year old senator Crook had had his long overdue heart attack and it promised to be the most exciting in ages, but not the fundraisers. Their whole purpose was to tell donors what they had wanted to hear, fill them with booze and wait for them to open their checkbooks, barely a story unless Blaine tripped over the carpet or something, which wasn't likely as trim and athletic as crook had been decrepit. He'd started his first congressional campaign by joining thousands of cyclists on a 100 mile tour of his district, raising money for cancer. Then he'd walked a marathon shaking hands and smiling all the way, not the type to trip over his own feet, Valerie's side and got out of the car. The problem with these things wasn't just that they were dull. It was the certain knowledge that no matter what she'd be underdressed, which in her $350 off the rack dress, she definitely was. It didn't help that hers was one of the few non white faces in sight. She'd grown up steeped in her mother's view of american racism, whatever problems there had been in her native Ghana, Blacks weren't second class citizens and she'd raised her daughter to think like an african. Usually it worked if you presumed everyone else saw you as equal often enough they did. But now she looked like a poor relation and felt it, which was silly because reporters always looked like poor relations. It was part of the job. You wanted to be an outsider looking in fly on the wall and all that. The trouble was that the fly wasn't supposed to feel so damn conspicuous. Still. Her mother had taught her the right moves. Her makeup was as perfect as it would ever be. Her long black hair and delicate features assured she'd never be able to hide and accept in events like this. She never wanted to. She'd been top of her class in j school on the fast track to a Pulitzer until a stupid marriage and divorce had stranded her at the bay in times, which was about as backwater as it sounded. Still all she needed was one good story as her ticket up and out. Not that she was going to get it tonight so she might as well drink a bit, especially with angels head hosting even in bad years. Their Cabernet won awards, the good vintages sold for $200 a bottle and the new one to be unveiled tonight was rumored to be the best yet. **** this wasn't just a fundraiser for Congressman. Blaine. Valerie would miss the real story if she didn't sample the wine. The cabernet was everything it was cracked up to be and for the most part Blaine was as bland as expected. The exception was his stand on immigration, which he believed was crippling the country. It had been a popular stand in his working class congressional district, but as a senator, he'd represent the whole state where agriculture was big. The heat he was generating on that one topic was enough to more than make up for everything else. It was a reception, not a sit down dinner, which meant the entire thing was mix and mingle though there was plenty of food at an elegant buffet selected to complement the wine since everyone, but Valerie had made $1000 donation simply to get in the door. Blaine didn't waste time with long speeches rather he gave a five minute address that was mostly highlights of his normal stump speech then set about working the room, making sure he got at least a few moments with everyone. Even Valerie glad to see the times here, he said, surprising her because they'd only met once before when I was a boy. I paid for my first bicycle delivering papers around Morningside. Not many paper boys left, Valerie said in a few years, there probably won't even be a paper will be entirely electronic. Not that this is what Blaine meant. Morningside was a working class neighborhood and he was reminding her of his blue collar roots. But there was another subtext. Valerie's paper was now delivered by car by a gentle old man whose english was limited to gap toothed grins and thank you's. Yes, Blaine said, perfectly aware she couldn't have missed his point. Technology marches on, but it's been years since kids had a chance to really learn the value of work. Then he moved on, leaving her to wonder if he truly believed that illegal immigration was crippling the nation's character by stealing kids jobs. There isn't much difference between an expensive hangover and a cheap one. That was Valerie's verdict the next morning when a shaft of sun from a poorly drawn curtain pierced like an ice pick to the brain. She shifted, trying to dodge the probing ray, but that just set the whole room to throbbing. That left two choices set up and deal with the curtain or give up and pop an aspirin After 10 minutes trying to pretend the problem would go away if she ignored it. She opted for the latter. Plus one of her mother's more exotic remedies which involved coconut milk, Nutmeg, peanut butter and honey. There were a half dozen other ingredients, but there's a limit to how complex a hangover remedy she was willing to concoct during the hangover other than wine. Her chat with Blaine had been the highlight of the evening. Afterwards, she drifted from conversation to conversation where people bent her ear about everything in general and nothing in specific. Then sometime between her 2nd and 3rd glasses, she decided she'd better write her story while she still could. She'd recorded a few notes during Blaine's highlight real speech. Mostly slogans, but there was also a longer bit, probably inspired by the setting. It's been said that you cannot put new wine in old wine skins. He'd said, if you do the wine will expand and burst the wine skins. He'd picked up a decanter and poured into a glass. Rather you must put the wine into new wine skins. So the two may stretch together. He paused. Okay, so wine doesn't stretch. I don't know exactly what the new wine used to do though. Gavin here could probably tell you. He'd smiled at a gray suited man standing beside him who Valerie presumed to be Gavin Anderson, President Ceo and had everything of the angels head empire Anderson wasn't sure whether he was supposed to speak or not. It would probably have continued to ferment, he'd said, But I'm not a historian. He was a big man in his 50s, Lean not fat. Valerie knew almost nothing about him. The business and technology beat belonged to BJ Packard who had asked her out a couple of times but was a touch too geeky for her taste. Or maybe she was still too close to her divorce and looking for excuses luckily her recorder had complains words while her mind was wandering. So there you have it he'd said quickly regaining the floor. It was trying to become champagne. Everyone laughed. But you get the point the future is technology, but it needs to be nurtured, stored if you will in new wine skins of high paying jobs, good education, a skilled workforce and infrastructure is not already stretched to the max. What it does not need are the old wine skins of porous borders, overburdened social services and rampant cheating by those who make it hard for honest businesses to compete. Valerie had shut off the recording and marked the important sections for her voice software to transcribe. Clearly immigration was going to be core to his campaign, which with an evenly divided Congress was going to draw national attention even slightly sloshed. She'd known she should be clamoring to stay on the beat. She was the local insider do it right. And it was what she was looking for a way to undo. The error of being lured off into journalistic nowhere ville while her former husband chased nano chips and skirts with equal vigor. But she had mixed feelings. Her mother had been an immigrant legal to be sure. And nothing about her had stolen jobs from anyone. It had taken years to find work other than as an Opare still Valerie had a story to file. She picked a few of the best lines, including the wine skin bit, which her computer phone informed her was an illusion to the gospel of Matthew. Then she dictated a 20 inch story into the phone, glad to be working remote from the office where only the phone could detect the wine's influence on her diction. Then she'd let the word processor debug her grammar deferring more than usual to it sometimes lackluster choices and hit sin to text her story to the night editor after that. Things got blurry though. She did remember discovering there comes a point when you can no longer distinguish high end wine from table plonk. There's also been something about her car though. It wasn't until she braved the sunlight to step outside that she remembered. She hadn't driven home. The salacious angels had attendance had deemed that unwise. The slush posh had gotten chauffeured rides home, but there were a limited number of drivers available and the best they've been able to give her had been a cab ride. The ride had been courtesy of angels head. But her car was still at the winery and she was going to have to go back and get it herself, not quite how she intended to spend her saturday. The winery was in the back, behind of nowhere, up miles and miles of twisty roads. Valerie had once written about how global warming was forcing wineries onto ever higher ground and how forward thinking ones like Angels Head were buying up land at ever higher elevations, trying to dodge the heat. The aspirin was beginning to do its job or maybe it was just the coconut and nutmeg, but she kept asking the cabbie to slow down last night. She'd not fully appreciated what a nasty road this was clinging to the wall of a narrow gorge until it reached a hidden valley high in the hills. Other wineries had tasting rooms in the Gentler Farmlands closer to the city, but at $30 a taste, angels heads didn't cater to the Hoi Polloi if you didn't have time for the drive, you weren't their type of customer. By the time she finally got there, the cab fare exceeded the cost of several of those tastes a bummer because she didn't exactly put it on her expense account. But as long as she'd spent it, she decided to take the opportunity to tour the winery, luckily she didn't have to wait for a scheduled tour. Instead she tagged along with a group of Germans or maybe they were dutch or austrians, she'd never been able to tell those accents apart wherever they were from. They had very good english. The chateau tasting room was merely the winery's public face. The real facilities were dug into the hillside where nature helped produce perfect wine cellar conditions. As they strolled, the warren of piping vats and bottling machines. Their guide, who might well have been last night's valet, though Valerie had to admit the maroon and gray livery made everyone look alike, told them that great winemaking came from. Two factors. One was that the french called the link between wine and the land in a good wine, you can taste the soil, he said. Some are volcanic yielding wines in which you can feel the fire that produced them. Others are earthly, er mellower richer. Each of our plots has several distinct soils which we've carefully mapped, so we can pick the perfect combinations of grapes in the old days. Wine masters did that by strolling their fields tasting. We still do that, but we back it up with chemical tests these days. Winemaking is as high tech as rocket science. The other factor is plain old fashioned work, even though this year will be producing 45,000 cases. We look at every vine every day, we deliver just the right amounts of water and we don't pick whole rows of grapes like lower class wineries do. Instead we pick each bunch when it's perfect, it's time consuming. But one taste tells you why with the tour ending the Germans spilled into the tasting room, the current vintages eminently drinkable, the guide said, But if you sell her it for a few years, it will only get better. It's also a good investment. Valerie veered for the exit and realized that she hadn't a clue where to find her car, embarrassed. She asked the doorman, who pointed to a flight of stairs up in the employee lot. If you need your keys, nope, I'm all set. Valerie pulled her key ring out of her pocket, luckily someone had given them to her last night or she wouldn't have gotten into her apartment. She wondered if she was supposed to tip the doorman. She's not thought to tip the valet last night. And from the looks of the stairs, he'd gotten a workout heck with it. She was a reporter, not a cash machine. And anyway, the doorman looked as though he might double as a security guard now that she thought about it. So had last night's valet. The trim uniform had snug nicely over what had appeared to be a bodybuilder physique slogging up the stairs. She wondered what they were guarding. Rich donors last night, but those were long gone. Then she multiplied 45,000 cases by $200 a bottle. She did it again, but the result was the same unless she dropped to zero. This place pulled in 100 year. No wonder they could afford to host last night's soiree. The parking lot was divided into two parts by a line of bushes, Valerie's car was in the front with a dozen others probably belonging to the tour guide and other winery staff. The back half was empty, except for a delivery truck from which three men were unloading what appeared to be motorized wheelchairs behind them. The doors of a warehouse like shed gaped widely out of place in the manicured landscaping, what little she could see of. The interior was a jumble of machine shop equipment and scaffolding style shelves crammed with more wheelchairs and other even more exotic equipment, all in disorganized contrast to the immaculate winery she just toured, overseeing the unloading was someone who looked vaguely familiar when Valerie was a child. There'd been a man down the block who had collected junk. He never talked to anybody and spent most of his time moving things around from garage to launch shed to basement to back up his old pickup truck as a kid. She thought he was spooky and refused to go near his house alone. Later in j school, she'd done a story on compulsive collectors and realized he'd been harmless, probably suffering from a type of brain injury that led others to hoard newspapers, junk mail cats or candy wrappers. At first she thought the sense of familiarity was simply because the man fussing over the delivery crew was about the same age as her childhood neighbor and shared his slouching dour expression but pretending to fumble with her keys. She realized he also looked like a flaccid Pontier version of Gavin Anderson. A cousin perhaps or even a brother. The sound of an approaching motor distracted her. She looked up and watched a battered green pickup pull into a nearby slot driven by a dark skinned man and a baseball cap. Hi! She said. Then, sensing an opportunity, Do you work here? Si senorita, are you having problems with your car? Oh no. She smiled and quit fidgeting with her keys. I was just wondering. She tilted her head toward the delivery van. What's that all about? Oh that's mr Galen. The pickup driver was short and wiry with the strong gnarled hands of a lifetime of labor. He likes things with wheels and motors. He fixes the big ones to sell on Ebay, the little ones he uses the parts to make toys. Really? Oh yes. 1.5 years ago, maybe two. He made machines that dueled each other with tiny swords. Not dangerous just for fun. They were only this tall. He held an arm out the window about door handle height, maybe less. Listo very clever. He even had a tournament like in the olympics though I never understood why because all of the machines were the same. So why does it matter which wins but Mr Gavin he was very proud. Thank you, Valerie opened her car door? That sounds very interesting. Oh see the little machines. They were on carts like you remember the rovers on mars but smaller the swords were on arms that went up and down a little pole like he paused looking for an analogy like jumping beans on a stick. Yes very clever. He jumped out of his truck and shut the door, not bothering to lock it. Buenos Dias Valerie watched him walk off across the parking lot heading for a smaller shed that probably contained gardening equipment. Buenos Dias she called climbing into her car. She couldn't help but smile. Another of the lessons she learned from her mother was that of english obviously wasn't your first language people would view you as a child. It wasn't racism, it was human nature her mother said. But her insistence on the importance of language had probably been one of the factors that had helped make Valeria journalist. It was also a lesson she'd used many times as a reporter today. She'd bet one of those bottles of pricey wine that the management had no idea how smart the gardener was. Not that it mattered. The man hadn't exactly been giving away trade secrets. The trouble with being a reporter was that you collect questions the way her neighbor had collected junk but at least she had her answer. Mr Galen and mr Gavin if she had $100 million a year. Business and a harmlessly brain damaged brother. She might give him his own Mr fix it warehouse. Two an hour later, Valerie found herself in a pub, reading the early edition of the sunday paper and nursing a beer. Her story had made page three a with a photo of Blaine at a long ago rally plus some padding from old stories of his congressional career that beefed it up to nearly half a page. It must have been a slow news day. It always amused her to see her byline in the weekend paper. For most of her life, she'd been Valerie Mattson carrying the name of her father, who blonde lee nordic as they come, had been mesmerized by the elegant Ghanaian he'd met one day at church, black as the new Moon Sky Akwasi had been Valerie's middle name, designating an ancient tradition not only the day of the week on which she had been born, but in her case, the day her parents had met, marriage had converted her to Valerie Ryan, but divorce had ended that. And despite her very Americanized cafe Olay complexion, she identified with her immigrant roots when divorce gave her a chance to reinvent herself. Her father had been the first to understand, but it had happened recently enough that it still tickled her when Valerie sunday appeared in the weekend paper. Not that anyone else was likely to get the joke. There weren't many Ghanians in Bay end stopping at the bar had been an impulse decision, It wasn't really what she'd wanted, especially at three p.m. But leaving the winery, she couldn't get the gardener out of her mind weren't wineries supposed to have hundreds of workers like him. Maybe their vehicles were often some other lot. But driving past the field, she could only see a few workers, most of whom didn't seem to be doing much. Maybe the tour guide had been exaggerating and every vine every day was simply hype. She'd pulled to the side, walking to the end of the nearest road to inspect the vines. The grapes were plump and purple if they weren't ripe, they were damn close. She was tempted to sample one but instead used her phone to consult the internet, verifying that premium grape growing was one of the most labor intensive forms of agriculture. There was automated grape harvesters existed, grabbing vines and shaking them until the fruit fell off, but they harvested entire fields all at once. Not what angels had claimed to do, which meant that angels had needed laborers, lots and lots of laborers Back on the road, she started tallying cars, trying to sort them into customers and field workers, but it wasn't the right time of day for workers to be arriving. So she wasn't sure if it meant anything that she saw 10 BMW for each cheaper car. By the time she reached the main highway, she'd been chewing on another question if angels had needed the kind of labor-force typical of premium grape growers, it should have been all in favor of cheap labor and illegal immigrant amnesties. So what was Anderson doing? Supporting someone like Blaine that was when she spotted the pub right at the junction with the winding entrance road. Maybe there were more workers out of sight from the main road. Maybe some would stop in the pub on their way home, even if they didn't, she could grab a window seat and watch the traffic that emerged from the winery road come evening. Unfortunately, this wasn't the type of place where you could blend in by drinking a fancy non cocktail. But making a beer last for hours was another reporting skills she'd long ago mastered. Business was slow at first, but somewhere around 4 30 the bartender turned on a bank of televisions and the place began acquiring a sports pub atmosphere. Valerie hated football. It wasn't that she was anti sports, She'd played soccer in college, but soccer was elegant. Football was just a bunch of guys grunting and bashing into each other. And when she wondered had people started taking it for granted that senate campaigns would start during football season a year in advance. When for that matter, had the wine harvest slipped into early september maybe the grapes weren't as ripe as they looked and she was spinning her wheels on nothing. A non story on which she didn't even have an assignment. She stared at the beer. Nearly gone. And while there had been a few worker looking cars coming out of the winery road there weren't many, maybe it was time to leave so I take it you're not much of a bobcat fan Valerie jumped. She'd been so absorbed in her thought she'd not seen the man standing next to her table. Me neither. He said can I buy you another beer? He had a babyish blue eyed face in sandy hair already beginning to recede blue jeans with dark fresh looking stains, rumpled sports shirt sneakers. He appeared to be in his early thirties. I know he said not much to look at, sorry I just got off work. It's been a tough week. Lots of overtime. We're already gearing up for the harvest. Damn global warming Valerie had been about to tell him thanks but no. Now she perked up. You work at angels head. Yeah, he offered his hand. I'm martin martin Mcrae Valerie didn't want to be picked up nor did she want another hangover. But this was an opportunity. She couldn't pass up. Sure I'm having the bridge house sale as the evening wore on. She felt guilty because Mccrae seemed a nice guy and she was stringing him along to ease her conscience. She bought a picture encouraging a couple of his buddies to join their table. A move. McCray didn't fully appreciate either from her or them, he didn't look like a field laborer and as it turned out he wasn't, I'm an analytical chemist. He said you wouldn't believe how sophisticated wine making has become. George here works in the lab to while Hiroshi over there, he's got a degree in microbiology. He's always tinkering with yeasts, says he loves the little buggers. Aren't there any traditional farm workers? Sure most of them work at night. Oh yeah, it's a climate thing. The french have been doing it for years, but we're the first in America longer growing seasons mean the grapes ripen earlier, but it's not good to pick them in the heat. We've got a few people out during the day. But for the past couple of years, most of the real work's been done at night. I don't think I've ever met one of these guys. Have you George, nope. Think they're illegal. What a story that would be na my supervisor is always complaining that the feds should crack down on wineries that ignore the law. I think he gets it straight from the top. The evening, rambled on from there and when a string band started up, Valerie allowed herself to be danced for a bit before pleading exhaustion and taking her leave saturday night or not In the parking lot. She looked again at the Winery Road, it was nearly 10 and still no traffic the night pickers either lived up there somewhere tucked away out of sight or came in really, really late, 100 yards back from the highway where she could barely see it. A swing gate was now pulled across the road. She thought again about 100 year and decided this made sense. Besides it was a weekend. Maybe nobody worked Saturday nights or maybe they bust the workers in and the bus driver had a key. She could easily have missed the bus is talking to the guys, lots of maybes, but nothing that looked much like a story. Several days later, she bumped into BJ in the Times lunch room. If the refrigerator or microwave and coffee machine equipped alcove could be dignified with that term. It was another slow day and business and technology were his beat, not hers. So she told him about her trip to angels head. He was immediately intrigued. Yeah, night harvesting makes sense. Their leaders in that type of thing. Anderson started the winery on a shoestring 30 years ago, then leveraged it to the cutting edge with a series of moves that always had him a step or two ahead. But all that security sounds fishy to me. They've got a huge investment up there, but it's not exactly portable. Maybe they're hiding a labor camp full of undocumented workers. They've certainly got the room up against the mountains. Let me check into it. If they're bussing folks up there at night, someone will have noticed a couple of days later they spoke again. There's no way they're hiring that much labor locally. He said when Valerie stopped by his desk, he'd been working his way through the afternoons wire service copy, but now he switched to a different web page while I was at it. I also checked out the brother, he's all over Ebay. He buys a lot of broken equipment, then sells back that which he can fix pretty much anything mechanical other than the big industrial stuff. He typed Gavin Anderson megalomaniac into the search box. That's what he calls himself. See motorized wheelchairs, artificial limbs, toy cars, all kinds of stuff. He's even done some custom jobs. He clicked a link. See that one? It's a little hard to tell from the picture, but it's a motorized wheelchair with a toggle switch manipulator arm. There are enough of those around these days that the special olympics. Even as a competition in which people drive them through a maze, picking up tennis balls and flags, things like that. Really cool. What about the other types of competitions? She told him about the dueling machines the gardener had described. Not that I saw the robot competitions are a dime. A dozen. So who knows, he navigated back to the ap feed Gavin probably just gives him a workshop and lets him do what he wants. That's what I thought. Yeah, but the field workers are a different matter, let's say we take a night run up there and catch him in the act. Of course it wasn't quite that easy since the road was locked at night and not just on weekends. Valerie discovered when she swung by to check it out. It was BJ who figured out the solution. All those hills behind the winery are part of the state forest. He said, we can get in from the backside, which also turned out to be only partially true. The map showed a spaghetti bowl of logging roads, but state Forest simply meant. The school's got the money. The land was leased to private companies who had stripped out the good trees years before and we're now waiting for them to grow back. Damn! Valerie said, No wonder nobody knows what they're doing in there at night. You can't even get close to the place. B. J. Shot her not glance. What do you mean? Can't last I noticed we've got two good legs. Valerie was sure he was about to comment on hers, but surprisingly he didn't. Maybe he wasn't quite the geek, she thought. And so it was two days later that they found themselves hiking up what mountain bikers euphemistically called double track overgrown was the word Valerie would have used. Nobody had driven these roads in years. It was slow going, but they had left early to make sure they found a good vantage point. Well before sunset Valerie was carrying binoculars, B. J. Had a short barreled telescope, he said, would not only magnify things, but make them brighter. Your bone ox will get us to the big picture, he said, this puppy will bring us in close happily. The underbrush abated as they climbed and the trees became bigger providing shade. Eventually they crested the ridge line, but they had to descend about a third of the way down the other side before they found an open slope with an unobstructed view below. The vineyard filled the valley with parallel rows arrow straight where the land was flat, contoured where it wasn't far to the left, Valerie could make out the entrance road and the red tile roofs of the Angels Head estate. Nearby. The fields were empty except for a few equipment sheds, but off near the road her binoculars showed several people shaped dots. Maybe they were always there to give the appearance of activity to those who didn't question too deeply. Well, this is it, she said stakeout time. Her clothes were khaki green, but her backpack wasn't. And BJ's T shirt was maroon flattering against his late summer tan, but not in retrospect. The ideal choice maybe we should get out of sight out of sight didn't mean out of the sun. And they spent the next few hours sitting atop an outcrop, gazing across range after range of distant hills. The only thing missing was a good book, But when was the last time she'd spent a whole afternoon doing absolutely nothing what would happen if she and B. J. Had nothing else to show for their day. Not much. She decided nobody knew what they were doing. As far as the newsroom was concerned this was simply a vacation day. The only real risk was that people would notice they were both gone and jump to the wrong conclusion. But at the tail end of summer lots of people look for excuses to get out. So the gossips wouldn't have much to go on still after hiking all the way up here. She hoped she got something more from it than an afternoon in the sun as it turned out she did, but on her own she might have missed it. It had been a long time since she'd been in the wilds and she'd forgotten the so horrific effects of a long walk followed by hours of sun by sunset. She could barely keep her eyes open and an hour later with dinner such as it was behind her. She was beginning to does the chill woke her a couple hours later, but there was still no obvious activity below. Warm again in a jacket, She'd soon have been back asleep if she'd not had someone to talk with to her surprise. B. J. Knew the stars after guiding her through the constellations. Not that she remembered them. Five minutes later, he turned the telescope on the pleiades and Orion revealing starry wonders that Valerie had never known there in the crisp near autumn air, 3000 ft above the city. Eventually they settled back against Iraq moving to where they could gaze across the valley where still nothing was happening. I think we're on a wild goose chase. Valerie said there might have been an answering nod in the darkness. Maybe. Maybe not. It's probably warmer down there so they might still be waiting. A green glow broke the darkness at his wrist surprisingly bright. It's only 10 15. There was a pause. Either way, the company's good. Valerie had gotten very good at deflecting such comments, but this time she surprised herself. Yeah, she was suddenly aware of how a few inches separated them, but it was a gap she wasn't yet prepared to bridge. Maybe someday I'll tell you about my ex if you want to know B. J. Scrunched against the rock but made no move to close the gap. Sure, when you're ready, she shifted topic, But not if I have to call you B. J. What on earth does that stand for? He had a very non geeky laugh. Benjamin James, but don't tell anyone they'd stick me with the stockbrokers forever. It was Valerie's turn to laugh, change it. Reinvent yourself. Was that what tonight was about? Or was she just chasing a story on an all night stakeout in the middle of nowhere with a guy she barely knew, not the way she usually did stories. She'd always been a phone and google girl and a loner, Not a collaborator, Not to mention that she was going to have to walk out of here in the morning fantasizing about. Lattes the whole way. What did she think she was doing? Luckily she was saved from further introspection. Whoa! She said. What's that? A horde of tiny specks of light had appeared fanning out into the vineyard from somewhere almost directly below to the left and right. She could see others like flotillas of christmas lights sailing onto a sea of darkness. She tried looking through the binoculars, but they merely revealed that the lights were moving at what might be a brisk walk, flickering when they were blocked by leaves or branches. If there were people carrying them, there were Children because there were no heads reaching above the vines. B. J. Was trying to track them with his telescope. See anything? She asked. No, they're too bright. If I get an eyeful of one, I can't see anything else. Let's get closer. By the time they got down to the valley floor, Valerie was beginning to wonder if the whole excursion was worth it. They had not thought to check the phase of the moon before leaving town, but luck of the draw had served up a moonless night, good for stealth but poor for picking their way through crackly brush. At first they had a road and B. J. Had produced a tiny red flashlight, Stargazing tool, he said. Doesn't wreck night vision and hard to see from way down there. But eventually the road petered out and in the brush, BJ's little red glow worm of a flashlight proved useless. Valerie was glad they left their packs at the overlook rather than trying to carry them through vegetation that seemed determined to block their every move. They had also left BJ's telescope, which wasn't much use without moonlight and too expensive to risk damaging during their descent. The lights continued to move, but they were still too far away to reveal anything about the dark shapes carrying them. There was no fence row at the edge of the vineyard and for a moment Valerie hesitated. So far they've been on state land, unauthorized, but not truly trespassing. The moment they stepped into the vineyard, it was a different matter still. What was the point of all the sneaking through the brush If they still couldn't see what was going on? B. J. Was already moving forward. Let's go down this row, he said. The closest action appeared to be several rows off to one side where the intervening vines should offer enough screening to allow them to see without being seen. Valerie dithered another moment, then nodded in the dark. Okay, She could feel her heart pounding harder than any time on the long hike across the mountains. If this were the way pulitzers were to be had. Maybe the fundraiser beat. Hadn't been so bad Walking down the mountain had been slow and painstaking. This was easier, but nerve wracking the vines were low enough that she could see right over the tops of them, but even in the dark she was afraid to risk it, except for occasional glances. Most of the time she walked in a partial crouch that threatened to give her a serious crick in the neck while also leaving her legs burning from the strain. It wasn't that she was out of shape, but hill climbing, bushwhacking and crouch walking weren't things that she'd ever seen. The need to train for the vineyard was the better part of a mile wide, but she and B. J. Didn't have to go that far only to the nearest cluster of lights as they drew near, they walked ever more slowly, cautious not to step on a stick or anything else that might alert the workers to their presence luckily, although the ground was lumpy in the center of the rope to each side of her feet found parallel strips of smoother ground, as though someone had driven back and forth in some kind of wheeled vehicle. The tracks were too narrow for comfortable walking, but they were free of sticks. So now she stayed with them moving one ft in front of the other like a gymnast on a balance beam or a pirate victim walking the plank. She'd expected to hear voices, but there was none of the banter. She was anticipating not that heavy accents or rapid fire spanish would have meant anything, but it wasn't until she didn't hear them that she realized how strongly she assumed that this was what she'd find. Eventually there were only a half dozen rows from the nearest light close enough that they could peer between vines, looking for legs illuminated in the backwash of light. This close they could now hear sounds, but they still weren't normal worker sounds. Rather they were clicks and words and an electric motor starting and stopping. Something wheeled, moved across Valerie's line of sight slowly enough that even bent over nearly double, it was easy to keep pace with it. At first she thought it was simply a cart. How embarrassing if angels had secret proved to be a massive hire the handicapped project, but there wasn't anyone sitting on the cart. Instead. Mechanical arms and servo mounted lights worked each side of the row, finding grape clusters, one at a time and examining them with some kind of lens. Most the machines passed up, but sometimes mechanical shears would snip a cluster for deposit in a large basket. She stopped and BJ nearly tripped over her. His breath was feather light in her ear. I'll be damned! He said, old Galen's doing more than just playing around on Ebay. The robot was moving away and Valerie wanted nothing more than to get back into the forest. Yeah, she nudged BJ. Let's get out of here! Still crouch walking. She slipped behind him and started leading the way. It wasn't until she was nearly back. That fear began to give way to excitement. What a story. So that's why Angels Head is supporting Blaine, she said, stopping so she could talk to BJ without raising her voice. It's all about automation. If they shut off their competitors labor supply, they've got a huge advantage. There's no end to what they can charge. She multiplied 45,000 cases by an extra $100 a bottle and got an extra 50 million per year. Not to mention the possibility of expanding into other industries. The others might eventually catch up, but in the interim, Angels Head would reap a huge windfall, wow, that's also one **** of a sophisticated robot. BJ said when I was google stock in Galen's Ebay business, I actually thought about automation so I did a bit of background. It turns out to be really hard to program robots to do such things. Those sword fighters were truly cutting edge. I bet these pickers are even more so it's hard enough to make a robot that can recognize a cluster of grapes but to not only distinguish them from leaves, but tell the difference between right and almost ripe Galen must be some kind of genius. He was almost bubbling with excitement. So how do we get this story legally? With safety looming Valerie was finding BJ's excitement more and more infectious. The old fashioned way Galen's the key. He can't be making all of these things himself and he's obviously got a lot more parts coming into his shop than go out on Ebay. I bet we can document that and find some of his employees. How many folks are there around here who can do this type of stuff? Not many B. J. Stepped out of the vineyard and suddenly a beam of light pierced the darkness freeze. Someone shouted Valerie did. But B. J. Left for the brush. There was a pop and a buzz and he went down twitching. Valerie tried to slip back into the vineyard but a hand came down on her shoulder. Not a good idea. Then a third guard moved into the light carrying hers and BJ's backpacks plus the telescope. He sat them down and pulled out a phone? Got him B. J. Was still twitching so at least he was alive. Not that the guards seemed concerned once said nudging him with his foot, How much voltage did you hit him with the normal he'll come around eventually another guard had materialized on the scene. Sure there were only two. Yeah, we've been watching them all afternoon ever since Louisa spotted the car over by route 27 got franky to run the plates. He turned to Valerie like her. He had binoculars but his looked like military night vision hardware. Did you really think you were going to get away with this? There wasn't anything to say. So she didn't try. She was gradually coming to grips with the fact that she was headed to jail. She wondered if there was a way to strike a deal. It was a great story, but not that good, no corruption, nothing illegal. Just a good example of politics. Making strange bedfellows. Blaine probably wasn't even involved, definitely not worth going to jail over. B. J. Was starting to groan. The guard with the phone turned away and talked quietly on it with someone while another took Valerie's compu phone. He powered it up and started fiddling with it, presumably checking her call log and recent web searches. The cell phone guard seemed to be in charge. He nodded to his companions, two of whom pulled a still wobbly BJ to his feet. Then he picked up BJ's telescope. What's this? What do you think? BJ's voice was shaky but defiant. The guard hit him with the butt of the scope, A short, hard jab straight to the gut BJ wolf doubled over and the other two guards let him drop like a sack of beans. The first guard turned to Valerie. Your turn? We were just curious. She stammered, her heart was racing. There were now five guards, one was watching B. J. But the others were focused on her. We couldn't figure out how you could do it without illegal labor. She tried to sound calmer than she felt. Obviously. You found a way and it's perfectly legal. End of story. He hoisted BJ's telescope. This thing. Got a camera. No, you send any photos on your phone. No, it was too dark. He turned to the guard who was fiddling with her phone that check out so far. Good. Keep checking. He turned back to Valerie. Who else have you told about this? Valerie hesitated and he slapped her hard across the face. What's your editor know? He slapped her again, sending you here. Makes him an accomplice. Her ears rang and she could taste blood, which was the better answer. But her uncertainty had been enough. The guard lowered his hand, nah, you were just on a fishing trip, aren't you? He didn't seem to want an answer and this time he didn't hit her when she didn't give him one a mistake perhaps because it gave her time to think what could be so important about a bunch of robots. Why couldn't they just patent them? Blaine and angels head would still be natural allies since robot building was good. High tech american labor. Just the type Blaine wanted behind the guards. B. J. Was staring at her mouth, working like a fish. No, that wasn't right. There was desperation in his eyes and his lips were repeating the same motions, not something he was trying to say. There are skills that Valerie had once tried to cultivate back in her journalism school days. Reading upside down was one after she'd seen a movie in which a detective solved a case that way from notes on a suspect's desk though sadly most people don't leave incriminating documents in plain sight when you're interviewing them, liberating was more useful. Not row but S. B. J. Was saying then she had it not robots, but there was more something about patterns and shapes. He said it three times, but she still couldn't get it then, very distinctly going to kill us. The cell phone conversation was winding down. Time was running out and there was nothing she could do. She could see the same recognition in BJ's eyes. I wish we he mouthed if only. And then before Valerie could react. He twisted with surprising speed, grabbed the leg of the nearest guard and bit. The guard yelled and staggered and all eyes turned his way as BJ still biting, tried to roll him off his feet. Then the guard with the telescope swung it with a sickening thud and the sound of breaking glass. Valerie wanted to freeze, scream or turn away, but she owed it to B. J. To use the advantage he'd so dearly bought once upon a time. She'd had a roommate who tried to convince her to take self defense lessons. Unfortunately, between academics and soccer, there'd never been time but soccer had taught her a few things. One was how to kick. The guy holding her was at the wrong angle for a need to the groin. So she gave him a roundhouse, desperation fueled kick to the shin If she'd been wearing soccer cleats, he wouldn't have walked for a week as it was, her trail shoes connected solidly enough. The man bellowed and Valerie was twisting free even before his grip loosened. Then she was employing the second lesson from soccer, which was that she was quick, give her enough lead and with adrenaline nipping at her heels. No muscle bound guy was ever going to catch her. All she needed was to make it a few 100 yards and the night was hers. The only way to go was back into the field. So that was the direction she dashed, flashing through an endless alley of grapevines Behind her were shouts and running footsteps, flashlight beams sawing the darkness, but she had a 10 m lead and was lighter on her feet over the uneven clotted dirt, her legs remembering lessons that predated soccer from cross country running in high school when you had to feel your way over terrain whose surface you could never quite trust until you touched it. The guys behind her, if they'd played sport at all look like football players whose only running would have been on surfaces smooth to the fineness of a golf green. By the time she'd gone 100 m, the footsteps were no longer gaining. Valerie still played soccer in a weekend pickup leak if she had to, she could do this for miles. Then the shouting changed out of the way someone ordered and there was a pop like fireworks only louder and something whizzed past her. A gun changed everything somewhere ahead the vineyard hit a hill and the neat lines of grapes shifted to curves, but the guard was going to have a lot of shots at her before she got there. And even if she was just a dim shape in the dark, the damn rose told him which way to shoot. Valerie knew nothing about guns. If he stopped and took aim or simply sprayed bullets at her, what were the chances she'd get hit too high? She decided soccer reflexes kicked in and she cut hard to the left away from the lights of the robot pickers. Intervening vines might not stop a bullet, but they'd make it harder to aim. Unfortunately, the reflexes work faster than her brain. She tried to run between two vines and hit something right across her upper chest. Something firm and springy that through her backward Hard she came down on her button hands, there was no time to stand up, so she scrambled backward out of the line of fire as the guards next shot's scuffed dirt not far from where her feet had been a second before then she rolled the hands and toes and plunged through several more rows low enough to avoid the wires that had caught her before, but the fall had knocked the wind out of her and the inability to stand up without hitting more wires had stolen her advantage. The guards were closing in and even if they no longer had the night vision equipment, they'd used to track her and B. J. It was only moments before they find her. Not robots. BJ had said shapes and patterns. Or had she gotten that right? Maybe it was grapes and patterns. And suddenly she had it. If there was hope it lay with the lights, she scrambled toward them. Even as cries of. There she is. Rose in her wake. She reached the nearest machine and threw herself in front of it. Help. She yelled, hoping it had some kind of acoustic sensor. They're going to kill me. And then her eyes were pierced by a flashlight beam behind which she knew lay a gun from the moment the flashlight hit her, she would have estimated her life in milliseconds but seconds dragged by and nothing happened. Instead. The lead guard was back on the cellphone while another continued to blind her with the light move she realized and she was dead. Don't move. And she wasn't dead yet. This time the cellphone guard didn't try to shield his conversation. Valerie still couldn't catch it all. But she got enough tried to run. No under control. No, you can't just drive her off the road. Yeah, I know. People saw her drunk problem is injuries. Autopsy won't match. There was a long pause then sure. Lots of cliffs. Yeah, hiking accident, Move the car. Good. No one will know where to look. He clicked off you. He said. Our pain in the ***. But you're down to two choices. Die now or dilator. Most people would prefer later if that's you. Get up slowly. He backed up a couple of paces, well clear of kicking range when options have run out, dying later is indeed preferable. She started to rise but was interrupted by another heavily accented voice. No, that is murder. I did not take these jobs to be part of murder. The guards had swiveled but Valerie knew it wasn't one of his crew. The great picking machine had never moved. There had always been the prospect that with her and the guards blocking its way. It was simply idle or that it hadn't been designed to hear or speak. And that instructions were given entirely by other means. But now she knew she'd been right. The voice came again and this time the guard found its source. I have already called 911. Police will come. I am making video for them to see the guards stared. What the ****? You're just a machine. Get back to work. No, I is not a machine. Two of the guards were backing away, but the one with the cellphone snorted. His pistol went off with a series of bangs and the mechanical arm light and electronic. I disintegrated. What video? He turned back to Valerie. I don't know how you got it to do that. But it's dead now. Looks like you prefer to die sooner. Can't say as I'll miss you though. I'd rather not have had to carry your body out of here. He ejected the spent clip and rammed another into place. Can't be helped though. She tried to crawl backward but there wasn't anywhere to go. And then the voice came again. You can kill the machine but you cannot kill me. Great picking machines were closing in from other directions in my country. This is a good job, another said with a very different accent, but there are other good job. I turn you to police. Maybe I get fire, but I sleep night. The two guards who had been retreating had disappeared for one heart stopping moment, Valerie thought the remaining one would kill her anyway. But then she heard sirens in the distance and he must have decided it would only intensify the manhunt if he did. A moment later he melted into the darkness, leaving her with the robots that weren't really robots. B. J. Was alive but unconscious and there wasn't anything Valerie could do but sit beside him and listen to the approaching sirens. When the police arrived, the first thing they wanted to know was why they had gotten a 911 call from India. Then they saw BJ and immediately called for an ambulance. Meanwhile, Valerie was introducing them to her Rescuer who had followed her back just in case his name was Olga Smirnova. And he worked for a company that normally handled fast food drive through orders and provided operator assistance for cell phone subscribers. In his spare time he was studying computers. I am working on my college degree by internet. He said, when I get it, I want to come to America to work in Hollywood. Fat chance. She thought this was going to find himself the front of a new wave of tele immigrants who for a few hours a day could see but never taste the land of opportunity. It made her mother's Opare days seem idyllic by comparison. She felt no hatred for the guards who nearly killed her. Hopefully they'd be caught. But even if they escaped to become mercenaries in some foreign war, their brutality had been no more personal than a lightning bolt or tornado. Anderson was a different matter. Not only was he probably the one to whom the cellphone guard had been reporting, but he was the world's worst hypocrite supporting blame with one hand while running a tele plantation on the other, she doubted that his role in planning her disappearance could ever be proven. He'd simply wring his hands and lament the overzealousness of his guards and he'd point out that the telepresence robots were perfectly legal. But Valerie hadn't been top in her class for no reason. She could make him pay. She might even force blame to moderate his stand and it had nothing to do with winning prizes. B. J. Was unconscious for two days, hospitalized for nearly a month. Even then, he couldn't remember the hours leading up to what he called the incident not to walk in the star watching the huddling in the cold, not his. I wish we or offering up his life to give her. The only chance either could ever have had. The doctors had no idea when or whether his memory would return. It's amazing. He woke up at all. One told her off the record. I wouldn't have given a plug nickel for his chances. She kept hoping he'd ask her to dinner. But days and then weeks passed and it never happened when she wrote the story. She gave him top billing. When he asked why she turned away. It had been a long time since she allowed herself to cry.