Gently Down the Stream

By J. Timothy Bagwell

A drug that induces lucid dreaming has revolutionized remote robotics. Operators can now bond completely with their artificial bodies, working better, harder, and longer in harsh environments like those of the moons of Saturn. However, the drug, in combination with another that dilates subjective time, has also created the worst addiction-related crime wave in U.S. history. More than five million "zoners" now live their lives almost entirely in a utopian dream, emerging only long enough to get more drug—and doing whatever it takes to get it. To combat this trend, a creative penal system comes up with the idea of curing addicts by replacing their dream worlds with nightmares from which they will be only too glad to awaken. Under the guise of this program, an unscrupulous general begins hooking addicts up to remote, specially-designed artificial bodies to create an army of super-soldiers. One of his victims has a plan to defeat him. But will it succeed? Bagwell's previous work has appeared in the print publications Analog and Leading Edge.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Harp Seal Press
• Release date: May 5, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311457332

J. Timothy Bagwell

J. Timothy Bagwell is the author of two science-fiction novelettes previously published in print: "Tangible Light" (Analog: Science Fiction and Fact: Jan/Feb 2008) and "The Oneiric Telefactor" (Leading Edge 56). He is also the publisher of Thwendlulla Tlatnet-Tholfth, Consul General of the Consortium of Human Worlds Earth Consulate (Virtual). Bagwell holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop and a PhD in aesthetic philosophy. He has taught at Grinnell College, the University of California, and Vanderbilt and worked as an editor and editorial manager for Houghton-Mifflin and McGraw-Hill. In April of 2014 he won second place in the Jo-Anne Hirschfield Memorial Poetry Award competition. Bagwell grew up on the island of Aruba and currently lives in Evanston, Illinois.

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GENTLY DOWN THE STREAM

Gently Down The Stream

By J. Timothy Bagwell

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2014 J. Timothy Bagwell

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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1

The courtroom was packed. Cases like Danny’s had begun to elicit a lot of public interest—most of it hostile. In fairness, though, not everyone there hoped to see him dropped into the atmosphere from the Tether Shuttle to die like a bug on a barbecue. Some felt perfectly content to wait the days or weeks it would take for him to expire in agony after swallowing Tethyan thorntree seeds.

Mr. Ellimov?

Your honor?

Do you or your client wish to say anything before I pronounce sentence?

Jake looked sadly at the pitiful figure in the rumpled burgundy suit sitting beside him—his friend, his client, the bane of his existence. The tie had come off long ago—confiscated no doubt by a prudent jail-keep—but Danny had kept the white shirt. Even smudged around the collar, it drew the eye like a target. Danny managed a weak smile and a gentle shake of his head.

Getting no answer, the judge looked up irritably from the papers lying in front of him and peered into the courtroom over the twin half-moons of his frameless reading spectacles. Despite the crowd, such quiet held sway in the courtroom that one could hear the judge’s robes rustle as he moved. The pungent tang of the expensive cigar he had enjoyed moments before in his chambers hovered about him and stole down the aisle to titillate the noses of the onlookers.

He found Danny’s face and locked his gaze on it. Danny smiled. The judge met Danny’s smile with a crinkly-eyed facial contortion of his own somewhere between a grin and a leer, then turned back to Jake.

Mr. Ellimov? Feel free to decline, but please answer the question—for the record, if not for the sake of common courtesy.

Jake looked somewhat nervously around the crowded courtroom and rose slowly to his feet.

Your honor, maybe I could just say a word about character. Boos and catcalls followed this remark. The judge appeared to bring his gavel down on its mattock, but oddly no sound ensued. Daniel J. Truebread makes his living as an industrial psychologist. You all know what that means. He could have specialized in telefactory, gone to work for one of the big offshore mining companies . . . That comment drew a laugh or two. ‘Offshore’ had become a popular comic term for anything from the moons of Saturn to the next arm over of the galactic pinwheel. He’d be a rich man, and you wouldn’t be seeing him sitting here facing charges on a technicality.

The judge connected with the mattock that time, and loudly, even though no one other than Jake had uttered a sound. Jake looked at him quizzically, and the judge glared at an innocent person in the front row as if he had been thinking of making trouble.

Go on, said the judge, as if daring Jake to do just that.

No, Danny Truebread didn’t choose the easy way—or the safe way.

Who cares where he shops? quipped someone from the back of the room. The judge smiled to himself but otherwise ignored the remark.

Jake ploughed doggedly on.

He specialized in worker advocacy, personal counseling, helping people with problems in the job place like burn-out, family issues, and substance abuse.

People began whispering among themselves, and Jake couldn’t tell if they were with him, against him, or just ignoring him. He went on.

Perhaps I’ll just mention once again the extraordinary circumstances in which my client finds himself. He borrowed funds in an irregular way, true. He bought and distributed a drug he was not licensed to dispense.

Royerbote, murmured the judge, as if to himself. The murmur spread through the crowd like rings from a stone flung into a pond. Jake went on quickly.

But he did not do these things, Your Honor, for personal gain. Jake had to raise his voice over the growing kafuffle. The judge did nothing to repress it. "He did not do them for money. He did not do them for