Kaleidocide by Dave Swavely

was only a few times a year at most.
    â€œYou’re calling Oakland ‘American soil’? You’re the ones who gave up on the East Bay after the quake.”
    â€œNow that’s not fair. We can’t help it if no one wants to live there, and we can’t throw money at a place where no one wants to live.”
    â€œOnly since the money ran out,” I said with a smile he couldn’t see. “Before that you were throwing it left and right at places like Oakland.”
    â€œI don’t know about that—it was before my time. But I know we could make it a nice place again if we had more money, like the kind we could make if we become your business partners.” He was referring to the Sabon antigravity technology, of course, which he and the rest of the world wanted BASS to share with them.
    â€œI heard Oakland streets aren’t even on your satnav maps anymore,” I said, ignoring his plea.
    â€œWe call it GPS in America.” Was he trying to remind me I wasn’t from this country? “And that’s because for the first few years after the quake, people were following their GPS—most direct route—to Frisco or Napa Valley, and they were getting robbed, killed, or at least badly lost.”
    â€œYeah, not good.” I laughed. “I was just there.”
    â€œOh, you were there?”
    â€œWell not really. Virtually.”
    â€œSo your people were.”
    â€œWhat happens if I say yes?”
    â€œIt could be bad, unless…”
    â€œUnless what?”
    â€œWe make some kind of deal, like for some kind of cutting edge technology?” He couldn’t see my smile, but I could see his. “Maybe a flying car that would save me from the DC traffic?”
    â€œI think you’re bluffing. No one wants an incident. I’m guessing the Queen suggested, or even pressured you, to make an attempt with me.” “The Queen” was our way of referring to the president.
    â€œYou’re a quick study, Michael. Only one year under your belt, and you’ve already figured out how these things work. But you can’t blame a guy for trying.”
    â€œI won’t be surprised if it happens before long, Stan,” I said, returning his familiar address, then turned more serious. “Saul’s open to it, but he doesn’t want it going to any governments with a penchant for warmongering or violence. That’s why you shouldn’t pick a fight about anything we do in Oakland.”
    â€œYou’re using present tense, for a man who’s been dead a year.”
    â€œHe being dead yet speaketh.”
    â€œSounds like a ghost story.”
    â€œIt is,” I said, “and I actually have to talk to him now about some problems we’re having.”
    â€œOkay,” he said. “You’ve heard from me.”
    â€œThat I have.”
    I hung up, imagining his next conversation, with the woman we called the Queen. “Yes, ma’am, I talked to him personally for about five minutes. Yes, ma’am, I gave him a piece of my mind about Oakland and negotiated for the Sabon technology. No, ma’am, but I’m hopeful.”
    It was interesting that when I mentioned my “problems,” Glenn didn’t bother to ask what they were. I wondered if he might possibly know about the kaleidocide, but I didn’t have time to worry about that now. I was about to summon the dead man we’d been talking about, with a brand-new kind of séance.

 
    10
    NEW YORK
    During the day, Lower Manhattan was a colorful place, visually and demographically. But late at night it became almost monochromatic in both.
    An eye looking down upon this part of the city would see, for the most part, varying shades of gray—from the concrete and metal of the buildings on the dark end, to the soft whites of the evening lights and the new snow falling through the air. In between were all the other colors that had been