Of Dust and Sand

By Allen Kuzara

Killer bots anyone?

What about an eco-Armageddon?

And what really happened at Roswell anyway?

From ancient mysteries on Earth to far-future conflicts on other worlds, this collection of sixteen sci-fi short stories from the author of The Anti Life Series and the Final Update trilogy promises to take you on an adventure.

Whether it’s human-sized parasites, clone lovers, or intergalactic war—there’s something in this novel-length story collage for every science fiction enthusiast.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Allen Kuzara
• Release date: Mar 25, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463902561

Allen Kuzara

Allen Kuzara writes speculative fiction including The Anti Life Series and the forthcoming Aliens Among Us Series. To date, he has written nine novels and multiple short stories.Sign up to his newsletter and receive a free short story!https://www.subscribepage.com/b7x8r2

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OF DUST AND SAND

a sci-fi short story collection

ALLEN

KUZARA

Copyright © 2019 Allen Kuzara

All rights reserved.

The Gini Coefficient

JOHN PETERSON WAS a man in flux, inside a ruthless, punishing social machine. But he was alright; he was moving up in the world.

You sure you want to go through with this? asked the guard.

John faked repose as if he was really considering not taking his family into Zone Two. Yes, he said, hiding his excitement.

The guard stood from the table where they had seemingly signed their lives away—their old lives, perhaps—and led them to the last door that still had the yellow Zone Three icon on it. Even before passing through it, John felt a rush of relief and optimism as he glimpsed the new green color scheme of Zone Two.

John’s family half ran, half walked toward their brand new car, a silver four-door Franchise 620 GX. Shauna squealed in delight. John, you told me this model wasn’t available in Zone Two.

John didn’t reply, just grinned, basking in his wife’s adoration. This was what it was all about, what all his sacrifice had been for.

The kids were the first to pile in. Let’s go, Dad, shouted twelve-year-old Susie.

Yeah, what are we waiting for? her older brother Danny added.

What were they waiting for? John thought as he got behind the steering wheel. He buckled up and started the ignition.

A knock came from the driver-side window. John rolled it down.

Yes, agent . . . He squinted and found the guard’s nametag. Agent Murphy?

The short, portly Meridian guard stuck his stubby-fingered hand inside the vehicle and onto John’s chest. He patted John’s seatbelt. The whole gesture felt obscene.

Just wanted to be sure you were buckled up. We’d hate for dear-old-dad to work so hard promoting zones, just to lose it all in a little fender bender.

John heard Shauna gasp in disbelief. His blood was starting to boil too, but he kept it together. Thank you, Agent Murphy, for your concern. You’ve been so helpful today. Those words tasted like all lies did, and he had to spit them out of his mouth like so much dirt.

Glad to be of service, the agent said. He gave John one last pat on the chest, then reluctantly removed his arm from the car. Suddenly, as if hearing some distant whistle, he faced forward and vigorously waived the Peterson family on, yelling All clear!

John adjusted his rear-view mirror so he could see Susie and Dan’s faces. They were clearly scared. He accelerated the vehicle out from the concrete darkness and up an incline. Moments later, they exited the station, bursting into blinding daylight. John squinted as he checked his mirror just in time to witness Susie sound a celebratory, Woohoo!

Shauna put her hand on his shoulder. You did it, dear.

John took her hand in his. "We did it, he corrected. The four seemed to recognize the moment, to respect it in silence for a time. Then Susie broke rank. Hey, Dad. Why was that Meridian guard such a jerk?"

And creepy!? Dan added. This was always their pattern; since they were very young, Dan let his little sister lead the charge.

It’s simple, John said. He isn’t mobile.

You mean he’s not a Zone Three citizen? Susie asked.

Most certainly not. Meridian guards usually get picked up around Zone Six or Seven. And remember, we’re not in Zone Three anymore.

Zone Two, baby! Dan shouted, raising two fingers in the air.

That man’s behavior is the whole reason the Meridian grid was built in the first place, sweetie, Shauna instructed her daughter.

John knew Shauna was right, though the truth was easy to forget until you were confronted by it. Invariably, it happened when you visited a Meridian station, the only place in the world where people from different socio-economic classes still mixed. There, the interactions were awkward and uncomfortable but almost never dangerous; the Meridian stations were too heavily guarded, too secure to let interactions get out of hand. They had to be; the stations were the bulwarks of the New Society, the modern age and way of life that emerged after the last global war two generations ago. The survivors had found peace but only after paying a dire toll, a price they all agreed would never be paid again by subsequent generations.

The problem had been realized as far back as the twentieth century, something psychologists called the Gini Coefficient. It was simply a measure of income inequality within a fixed domain, and social scientists agreed it was the greatest predicter of violent crimes, the most highly correlated variable. Still, politicians and social activists argued that crime was a result of poverty, lack of education, or some other social malady. But research was conclusive: populations that were either consistently poor, middle-class, or wealthy had little crime. It was only when people of disparate prosperity levels intermixed that you saw the claws of envy emerge. Allowing homeless people and fat-cat investor types to walk the same streets was a recipe for disaster and had been for all of human history.

But it took billions of deaths before the global community would face facts. Even then, the problem was too great and the solution too harsh to be reached by human reasoning. Only after leaders released the reins and allowed dispassionate computer-aided technocracy to emerge did the Meridian system come to fruition. Until then, mankind seemed to have had only two choices: capitalism with all the inherit inequality it generated, or communism that invariably brought on its two-tiered class structure, violent revolts, and, perhaps most importantly, an incentive to underproduce.

The Meridian grid had fixed all that, providing a third option where people were segregated by income but still economically mobile. The world had its cake and could eat it too.

The rest of the drive was filled with oohs and ahhs as the foursome soaked in the sights of their new life. John felt worn down by the time they pulled up to their new home, but the sight of it and his family’s deluge of happy chatter gave him a new injection of energy.

He stepped out of the car, moving from his new concrete, circle drive and out on to his too-green-to-be-real lawn. Susie and Dan whipped past him on their way to explore the home, a veritable treasure hunt. His senses felt overrun, but he vaguely felt Shauna cozy up beside him. He heard Susie scream from the backyard, We have a swimming pool!

John relaxed and let the wave of happiness that accompanied victory rush over him. This promotion had been hard-fought and had taken longer than any of the previous ones. His triumphant moment, however, was disturbed by the sound of a high-pitched nasal voice coming from next door.

Howdy, neighbor, the voice repeated. John turned to see a tall, thin and partially balding man in his mid-forties walking from another equally too-green-to-be-real lawn onto theirs.

You all must be the Petersons, the man said with a politician’s smile and his hand outstretched.

Shauna took his hand eagerly and began the introductions. And this is my husband, John, she finished. John felt childish for doing it, but he avoided the handshake by swooping down on one knee and retying his shoe. He lifted his head and gave a nod. He noticed Shauna’s displeased expression, but the neighbor seemed unfazed.

I’m Greg Seymour, he said, your next door neighbor and the acting president of our community association.

John stood up, no longer able to feign his excuse.

We have association meetings on the second Tuesday of the month, Greg continued. You’re just in time for tomorrow night’s meeting.

Oh, that sounds fun, doesn’t it, honey? Shauna said more than asked.

John gave the obligatory, Uh-huh.

It would be a great chance to meet all the other neighbors, Greg said. "Just about everyone comes. It’s a real blast. And,—he drew out the word— it will give you a great chance to catch up on our community ordinances and Zone covenants."

That was all John could stomach in one day. He grabbed the man’s hand and forcibly shook it. You’ll understand if we miss this first meeting, won’t you? John insisted.

Greg started to answer, but John put his arm around him and led him back towards his house. Moving is such a big transition, John continued. Movers brought all our stuff earlier this morning, but you know how it is; they never put the furniture where it goes.

I could hel— Greg tried to speak, but John interrupted.

And I’ve got to get up and go to the new office first thing tomorrow. Can you believe it? No rest for the weary, or is it no rest for the wicked? I can’t remember. Anyway, thanks for your hospitality. I’ll see you around. John released Greg back to his lawn, then turned and stepped back to Shauna. She shot daggers at him.

Is he still standing there? John whispered.

Now it was Shauna’s turn to say, Uh-huh. Her arms were crossed in obvious disapproval. What was that about? she mouthed.

John didn’t lower his voice, nor did he hesitate. Shauna, we’re not going to be in Zone Two for long.

Two years later…

John sat at his desk in his home office, down in the basement. It was a place used more often than his official office downtown. He was finishing his favorite part of the day: the end. He worked as an insurance salesman for Barnes, Applegate & Stephens, one of the mobile firms that had field agents in every zone, every zone except Twelve. Nobody was buying insurance at the bottom rung.

He had chosen his career back in Zone Six, shortly after meeting Shauna. It hadn’t been because he was especially good at it, and it certainly wasn’t because he liked it. The job had the two things that exhausted him like no others: paperwork and people—people that weren’t his immediate family, that is.

He chose insurance for important reasons: it was a mobile profession, which meant he could practice it in any zone. And it didn’t have set hours. So, unlike doctors or teachers, he could work as much as he wanted. Working more meant earning more. And earning more meant promoting sooner.

Today was like every other. He woke early before his family was up, ate a huge breakfast, and got a jump on the day. He called on customers during business hours, working straight through lunch, and then started catching up on all the day’s paperwork.

Most agents did paperwork as it rolled in. But John had learned back in Zone Five to put it off until after hours, and the extra time he spent selling gave him a decisive edge. Paperwork, depending on the day, could take two to four additional hours. It was during this time when Shauna would usually bring him dinner. But not tonight, and he was starving.

He filed the day’s last policy and closed down his company’s online portal. He was done. He could quit now. But his ritual wasn’t over. He saved his favorite, sometimes only pleasurable activity until last.

He selected the Meridian Accounts icon. There was nothing flashy, nothing visually stimulating about the portal. But John looked forward to this moment like nothing else. It was his barometer, his map for making it where he was compelled to go. On screen were two large numbers:

ACCOUNT DEPOSIT- 168,320 CREDITS

REQUIRED DEPOSIT FOR PROMOTION- 200,000 CREDITS

Down below were smaller tabs, allowing John to check his deposit history and, most importantly, add today’s surplus income. John knew he was the exception, not the norm. Most people did the minimum to stay in their zone, especially once you got out of the hand-to-mouth impoverished lower zones. Most people showed up to work, logged their time, got their paycheck, and lived the good life. The Meridian system supplied people with medical care and retirement through tax revenue, most of which came from higher zone citizens’ pockets, of course. There was a fixed income level for each household, and most people just didn’t feel motivated to work towards promotion.

Promotion had been a greater motivating factor in the early days after the Meridian system was first put in place. It had been a time of great dislocation and change. But within a single generation, most families in upper zones had found their zone, the point at which careers and income matched up with people’s intelligence levels and aspirations in life. It wasn’t until researchers studied these settling points and observed that subsequent generations (also sharing similar levels of intelligence and aspirations) rarely promoted, or demoted for that matter, that the correlation between IQ and Zone became politically acceptable. Not that anyone was voting or running political campaigns. But before the Meridian system, even alluding to some correlation between intelligence and prosperity was unspeakable. Saying that someone was poor because he or she was dumb or lazy was asking for a tongue-lashing if not an outright beating. Now, things were different.

John’s first promotion had been entirely by surprise, happening long before he knew what a deposit account was. He had been born an orphan into Zone Eleven. Since he was old enough, he’d always wondered if his mother was a Zone Eleven citizen or if he as a baby had been dropped down several zones. In school, he had excelled quickly, quickly enough to catch the system’s attention. He had promoted zones every couple years via test scores alone. It wasn’t until he had graduated high school that he had to start pumping extra credits into the deposit account. He remembered it with fondness now; back in Zone Six it only took 30,000 credits to promote. But, of course, Zone Six citizens earned much less than those in Zone Two, so it was mostly a wash.

He stared at the portal screen, then clicked the daily surplus tab. He hoped the Johnson account had gone through, but it didn’t really matter. Today, tomorrow, next week—it all counted. Still, he craved the good feelings that the deposit would generate.

There it was, 1,600 credits in his daily surplus tab. John fist-pumped the air. The Johnson account was all due to a new product line, one John helped create. He still sold the staples: car, theft, and fire protection—liabilities that were great enough to send someone and their families back to Zone Three if they didn’t have substantial credit reserves in their deposit account. And almost no one did.

The new product was a form of life insurance, buffering a family’s monthly credit liability to the Meridian system. Each household was responsible for their fair share. And in the past, when one spouse died before retirement age, the system pushed the surviving spouse down to a zone that could be supported by one income. It seemed harsh, but like everyone agreed, it wasn’t as harsh as