Fountane Of by Doranna Durgin

Fountane Of
    Copyright © 2010 by Doranna Durgin
    ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
     
     
    This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously--and any resemblance to actual persons, business establishments, events, or locales is purely coincidental.
     
     
     
     
     
     
    License Notes:
    This efiction is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This efiction may not be re-sold or given to others. If you would like to share, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this efiction and it was not purchased for your use, then you should purchase your own copy. Thank you for helping the e-reading community to grow!
     
     
    The Author Note:
    This story was first published in
HelixSF
, edited by William Sanders. It's not typical of my work in either length or subject matter, but is one of those ideas that struck hard way back when--I can still remember the moment!--so all in all I was doubly glad to find a home for it. This is a slightly different version--I do love to fiddle!--but only with regard to a bit of buff and polish.
     
     
    I hope you enjoy!
    ~Doranna
     
     
    http://doranna.net
    Finding the Other ~ Facing the Other
    Loving the Other
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Fountane Of

     
     
    I'm not dead!
    Augie laughed. Right out loud, breaking the silence of the gleaming black walls and their deep nighttime shadows. Loud and long and just possibly tinged with both hysteria and relief.
I'm not dead!
    All those years of propaganda and rules, turned to lies in a single bold moment.
    The sudden voice of caution startled him to silence. It wasn't safe to hang around, not here in the deep night of the future. Only a couple of hours, but still...
    Here in the forbidden Forward.
    Boldness struck again. It didn't matter if anyone saw him here--they'd get no more than a glimpse before he hit his recall switch, and then they'd assume he'd come from their future, that he'd come
Back
.
    For no one ever went Forward. To go Forward was supposedly fatal; to
try
to go Forward merited swift, severe punishment. The asswipe Historians were sworn and trained and--Augie suspected--brainwashed against it. So were those brown-nosing Techs. And of course the Supervisors. But...
    Augie looked around the clean, dark lines of the pedestal-studded Ops room until his gaze landed on the battered suction mop against the wall, the autosweeper and its portable control panel. His mop. His sweeper.
    The janitor who'd gone Forward.
    #
    He went Forward not just once, but repeatedly.
    Still not dead.
    First those few bold hours...then days. He wandered away from the travel pedestal, creeping around the closed Historical Research Center Ops with impunity. He came to realize that the person most likely to spot him was...him.
    Weeks into his adventure, he looked forward to the nightly trip. Early evening found him smiling to himself as he prodded the simple interface of the autosweeper.
    "Augie, will you come to my office?"
    Shit. Supervisor Tolan. And she looked grim. Surely she didn't--
    No. If she knew, he'd have been snatched up by security and marched off to a sterile, isolated cell for rough questioning--and a brain-wipe. If they did know Forward travel wasn't fatal, they damn sure didn't want anyone doing it--or they wouldn't have spread all those lies about it.
    But even if she just suspected...
    Augie pasted a subservient smile on his face, made sure the autosweeper was tucked out everyone's way, and rued those two hours where Tolan's shift overlapped his. "Ma'am?" he said, following her to her office on the second floor, hesitating in the doorway there.
    "Come in, Augie," she said, gesturing absently while she studied her hand pad, directing it through several pages of text. She didn't bother to tip the screen for privacy. When she looked up at him, he couldn't read her expression. Sadness? Resignation? From that scowling up-tight