2020: Future Past Delivery

By Michael A. Peluso

October 2020, it's been 14 years since the Frontier Freedom Act transformed the United States into 38 states and 9 militarized zones; the employment rate is 23.4%; and Harold Priest is about to make a phone call that will disconnect him from his reality sending him on a desperate journey to save his father and his sanity. 2020: Future Past Delivery asks the question what do you do when everyone tells you you're insane, but your senses tell you otherwise?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 25, 2013
• ISBN: 9781479797639

Michael A. Peluso

Michael A. Peluso is the author of the underground hit 2020:Future Past Delivery

Book preview

Copyright © 2013 by Michael A. Peluso.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Rev. date: 02/18/2013

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Contents

Preface

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

To my Father,

For standing up for me when I was down.

Preface

T his book was written between 2009 and 2010 as a work of science fiction. I wrote it using the most extreme exaggeration and satire I could think of. It is fiction. All of the characters, places, and events are fictional and are not based on real events. Since finishing the book, some events have occurred that are similar to this book. This is both frightening and encouraging to me, but as I’ve said the book was written first and is not based on real life. Please enjoy the book and keep an eye out for any strange looking payphones.

-Michael A. Peluso

Chapter 1

H arold stood at the foot of the bridge beneath the flickering, fluorescent streetlight. He squinted through the steady downpour at the results of his pocket search: two dimes, three nickels, a quarter, a silver coin he could not recognize, and a shitload of pennies. Sixty cents. Not much, he thought, but enough for a phone call and a ride home. There were four payphones a few feet away from him. Harold approached the phones and tried to shield his head from the rain. He opened his eyes and was hit by a wave of confusion.

The phones were like none he had ever seen before. Harold took a step forward to examine the first phone on his left. It was silver with only one button, a large red rectangle that was located on the bottom left of the phone’s face. Harold slowly moved to his right and stared at the second phone. It had three buttons: a red square, a yellow triangle, and a blue circle. The square was above the triangle on the left with the blue circle facing them from the right. Harold started to reach for the receiver, but thought better of it and pulled his hand back. With his eyes fixated on the phones, he slide stepped to the right to inspect the third phone. It had all the normal buttons and numbers, but they were all in a vertical row on the left of the silver face. Definitely a possibility, Harold thought. He moved to his right. Shit, Harold said having stepped into a large puddle in front of the fourth phone. He shook off the water and focused on the last phone. It looked like it had been vandalized. It had the appearance of a normal phone, but the only buttons that remained were the 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9. This made the shape of an x and it did not contain some of the numbers Harold needed make his phone call.

Harold decided to try the third phone. He dialed his home number, hoping that his roommate was there and could give him a ride home. Ring… ring… hello a voice answered.

Dad? Harold asked. in a surprised tone of voice.

Hey what’s up Harry? Harold’s father responded, sounding like he was in a good mood.

Yeah, well um, I’m at the bottom of the bridge, and it’s raining really hard, Harold stressed hoping his dad would get the hint.

Well Harry I’ll see what I can do, I don’t have a-, suddenly background voices burst in, We’ve got to get you out of here Mr. Vice President we’ve learned there’s a hit out on your son! Then silence.

Hello, dad, hello, what the fuck? Harold yelled but there was no longer any voice on the other end of the phone. What the hell was that all about? Why did they call my dad ‘Mr. Vice President’, how did my dad answer my phone, why would they move him out if there is a hit out on me, and why would anyone want to put a hit on me?

Harold stood in the rain in a stunned silence, 5 miles away from the dryness of his home. Slowly, he turned away from the phones, slung his backpack over his shoulder, and started to walk across the bridge over the traffic toward any possible answers that might lie back at his home.

This can’t be real, this can’t be real he repeated to himself as he replayed the call over and over in his head on an endless loop. I must be dreaming, that’s gotta be it, he thought as he trekked through the rain toward his home. He decided to use some of the lucid dreaming knowledge that he had learned in school, and test his new theory/hope. Look at the next digital sign, he thought, if I’m dreaming the numbers will be blurry. He neared the local bank. He looked at the digital ad crawl in the window,  . . . apply for a 123 Everyman Bank Credit Card with an incredibly low interest rate of 55.9%!!! Remember with 123 Everyman Bank Credit it’s as easy as 1 2 3!!! . . . Time: 11:27 p.m… . Temp: 37* . . . .

Harold was now depressed in more ways than one. Well that shoots that theory to shit. You don’t get much clearer than that. Friggin’ thieves, it should be more like Everyman’s Biggest Crooks, 55.9% my ass. As Harold continued home, his problems rose almost as quickly as his blood pressure, My dad has been moved or kidnapped or god knows what, I’m walking five miles in the rain, I’m carrying a backpack that feels like it weighs 200 freakin’ pounds and the rain is really helping that out, the only thing I can feel is pain from my feet to head, I’m broke, I have no job, I turn fifty tomorrow and oh yeah, apparently there’s a hit out on me. Jeezus, I hope they kill me with the first shot. Harold was not a happy camper.

Harold trudged through the streets feeling the desperation of the community. The rows and rows of rundown buildings seemed even more depressing in this weather. The residents were so busy struggling to scrape out a living that they rarely spoke with each other. Along the streets everything was an advertisement. Digital wall boards and sky high digital billboards were incessantly rotating sales pitches: Come to Al’s Air and get fresh air in a tank, if it ain’t fresh it ain’t Al’s; . . . 2020 Connections, see the world like you’ve never seen it before, call… ; U.S. Dirt, great for planting, fresh from America supplies are limited so hurry today… . The desperation in the air had made Harold feel guilty about his earlier rant. He was normally not like that, he was a realist, but he also tried to see the best in things. He could even find positive qualities in the droning advertisements, at least they add a little color to this miserable town, he thought.

Harold continued along his way and soon the memory of the phone call trumped whatever anger, guilt, or depression that had seeped into his mind. Who was that in the background? Maybe I heard it wrong, maybe I’m not remembering it right, he thought. I don’t seem to know anything for sure anymore. Harold had been steadily losing his confidence for the past four years. It all started with the loss of his job, then his money, then his car, and then his house. It finally got to the point where he was second and third guessing basic daily decisions, everything was turning out wrong for him. Yet, through all those four years he was certain he was making the correct choices and the ironic thing is – he was.

*

Five years earlier, in 2015, Harold was working for PM Inc. The PM stood for Perfect Machinery, and he was one of their best engineers/machinists. He had been employed there since 1992, after he graduated from NYU. Perfect Machinery was a big company and Harold had steadily climbed his way up the company ladder, cutting through endless red tape and bureaucracy. Often he felt that he was the only one in the company who knew what they were doing. On the rare projects when he did work with others who had talent and cared about their work as much as he did, he would usually form a mutual admiration and friendship with them and keep in contact with them. This networking over 23 years had led to a circle of friends that he knew he could trust on and off the job. PM Inc. was not an easy place to work, especially in 2015. Rumors were constantly swirling about an oncoming shake up of the company, and the center of that storm of uncertainty was the owner, Brent Pirfeck II.

Brent Pirfeck II started in business under his father, Brent Pirfeck, in 1972. In 1975 he decided to start out on his own. He changed his name to Perfect and started Perfect Machinery Inc., a combination electronics/appliance company. He spent top dollar to hire the best engineers, designers, and machinists of the time. In their labs they were working on digital technology before any other companies had heard of it. PM’s engineers were creating the first prototypes of remote controls, affordable microwaves, digital sound systems, home computers, you name it. By the beginning of 1977 Perfect Machinery Inc. had become the place to work. In 1977, one of Mr. Perfect’s (yes, he insisted on being called that) pet projects was to send a TV signal through a cable that went through a receiving box, plugged into your television and then charging you to watch it. People said it would never work. Why would people pay to watch television when they can already watch it for free? It would be like trying to sell them drinking water, his critics would scoff.

Within ten years his net worth was over a billion dollars. His famous line that he told everyone repeatedly was, I started with nothing and built an empire, and this was true if by nothing he meant the ten million dollars that his father gave him to start out, but Mr. Perfect did not worry about small details like this. Details are for the engineers to worry about, he would always say. Business was great in the eighties and nineties. The public had a craving for electronic toys to entertain them and make things easier for them and PM Inc. was always there to provide them with their fix. Perfect Machinery Inc. expanded into a variety of fields in the nineties until it seemed like they were everywhere. Even the government sublet contracts for electronic security from PM Inc.

After 1999 things had started to change. Mr. Perfect was rarely seen in public. In 2004, rumors of Mr. Perfect’s ailing health had begun to spread throughout the market. In 2007, he appeared at his oldest daughter Brenda’s wedding which was carried live on Perfect Media Television. This quelled rumors that he was very ill and stocks in PM Inc shot up to new highs. In 2011 Mr. Perfect hired his son, Brent Pirfeck III (or Brent Perfect II depending on how you look at it) as a CEO of the Perfect Machinery empire. Mr. Perfect II, a thirty-two year old who had never worked a day in his life, was now making all of the decisions.

Mr. Perfect was, for all intents and purposes, invisible from 2011 to 2014. The only time an employee saw him was when they retired or when they were fired. So when Harold was called into Mr. Perfect’s office in early 2015, he could only think of one thing: why is he going to fire me? On Tuesday January 13, 2015 Harold entered Mr. Perfect’s penthouse office. It’s huge he thought.

Come, sit, Mr. Perfect said. Mr. Perfect sat behind a large desk. He had silver hair and a thin white moustache. He looks like he is in pretty good shape for a man who has supposedly been dying for the past fifteen years, Harold thought. Mr. Perfect banged on the desk, Mahogany, real wood, it’s quite a rare thing these days.

Very nice, Harold said waiting for the axe to fall.

How many years have you worked here Mr. Priest? Mr. Perfect called everyone by their last name. It annoyed some employees but not Harold.

I’ve been here 23 years sir, Harold replied nervously.

Well I’ve been here since 1975. I started with nothing and built an empire, Perfect proclaimed. Harold bit the inside of his bottom lip to keep himself from laughing. Mr. Perfect stared an intense stare at Harold, Mr. Priest have you heard the rumors?

Rumors? What rumors sir?

Well some of them are true, Mr. Perfect said sternly, ignoring Harold’s answer. I am going to retire at the end of the year. Now you realize I have to cut out your tongue and chop off your hands to prevent you from spreading this information. Ha! I’m just kidding. Harold wasn’t so sure about that. But before I leave I want to have one last hit, one last hit that will make the public’s jaw drop. I have a challenge for you Mr. Priest. The first item this company ever sold was a refrigerator. Now, everybody has one. I want you to reinvent the refrigerator Mr. Priest. If you can do that I’ll make you an executive officer and I’ll have my final F.U. to my critics. Do you think you can do it Mr. Priest?

Do I get to choose my own staff?

Anyone you want, Perfect said.

Then yes, yes I can do it, Harold said confidently.

Great, start Monday, Mr. Perfect firmly shook Harold’s hand and escorted him out of the office. Harold did not actually believe he could do it, in fact he thought it was one of the craziest ideas he’d ever heard, but it beat getting fired. So yes, he could do it and yes, he would do it.

Harold stood in the elevator as it went back down to the lobby. He thought about what possible coworkers he could use for the staff. By the time he reached the lobby he had the staff he wanted in mind. Three of them were people he had worked with in the past and the fourth was a new guy who had developed a reputation as the next big thing. The more Harold thought about the project the more confident he became. He didn’t know how he was going to do it or even what it was going to be but he knew he was going to do it.

That night he called the people that he wanted for his staff. First on the list was Ken Wachicski. Harold and Ken went all the way back to Harold’s first project 23 years earlier. It was an awful project that was low on funding, short on time, and completely void of any management leadership. Ken was the only other person on the project who had any clue how to get the job done. He also had the cynicism to know that his talent would be unappreciated and unrewarded. Ken’s level of cynic flavored talent was almost as high as Harold’s. Harold and Ken saved the project, basically by themselves. Culminating in a mad scramble to meet the deadline that had them pulling 21 hour shifts during the final two weeks. Such a level of insanity was hard to find.

Harold called Ken, Ring… Ring… Ri-, what do you want? Ken grumbled.

Ah, hello Mr. Sunshine, I see you’re in a good mood, Harold responded sarcastically.

Fuck you I’m not here, Ken moaned.

Would you be there if I were going to offer the chance to make a load of cash?

How big is the job?

Put it this way if we pull it off you’ll be rich and if we don’t you’ll probably be fired.

So it’s a win-win situation, Ken said only half joking. What is the job?

I’ll tell you the details when we get together at the diner later.

Is it going to be the usual cast?

Pretty much, I’m going to add a new guy who’s supposed to be some kind of big shot. I still have to make the rest of the calls. I’ll call you back later and give you the details for the meeting, Harold said.

Alright, let’s hope everything- Ken hung up.

Let’s hope everything clicks, that’s a new one Harold thought. If he ever just said good-bye I think I would pass out.

The new crew met at the diner later that night. They sat in a booth waiting for Ken to show up. Ken was late but this was normal, Ken was always late, he liked to blame it on the trains but everyone on the crew knew better. The rest of the crew sat there. Sarah Freed had the most experience of the rest of the crew. Harold had known Sarah for the last 17 years. She was very professional. Sarah was probably the smartest member of this crew, but more importantly, she had the one quality that no one else had, she could deal with upper management without losing her mind.

Next to Sarah was Darius James. Darius had worked with Harold on the PM superchip project in 1999. His technological knowledge and skills were vast and he was definitely one of the most dependable engineers Harold had ever worked with. Across the table was Rick Vojos, the new guy. Rick was one of the few bright spots at PM Inc. the last three years. He had started at PM Inc. in late 2011. Since then, he had worked on the three few projects that had had positive results: the TV Guy which allowed hosts of live television shows to view the people watching at home; the InnerHear which was a phone chip that was implanted in the ear; and Time Saver, which read and erased e-mails you didn’t want before you read them. He was on a roll and had a reputation as a determined employee who had the skills and was a good guy to be around.

Fifteen minutes later Ken showed up, Sorry, you know the train system.

Yeah right, Harold said.

So what’s the big deal big shot? How are we going to get rich? Ken asked.

I have a project directly from Mr. Perfect, Harold began. He wants us to design the PM16 refrigerator.

That’s it? Design a refrigerator, what’s the big deal? Rick said.

No, Harold answered, "He wants us to redesign the refrigerator. He wants it to be something that no one thought was possible. He wants it to be something that everybody has to have. He wants this to be the biggest, smartest, most popular project ever. He told me he wants this to be a ‘technological masterpiece’ and that he wants this to be ‘THE’ refrigerator."

He’s lost it, Ken said.

Maybe so, but if we don’t get this done we won’t have to worry about our next project, ’cause there won’t be a next project, Harold said, So – any ideas?

Well what do people want, what do they like? Sarah said thinking aloud.

Toys, said Rick A lot of shiny toys and gadgets that they’ve never seen before.

Yeah, Darius said, Something they can show off to their neighbors and make them jealous.

But they have to be able to afford it and it has to save them money. Times are getting rough and saving money is a big thing now, Sarah stated.

No shit, and I’ve heard talk that the energy companies are going to institute rolling blackouts, Ken said.

Yeah, I heard that too. Just think of all the food that is going to go bad in the summer. Wait – that’s it, Harold said excitedly.

Where are you going with this Harry? Sarah asked.

It could work, if you’re thinking what I’m thinking, Ken said.

The 8x10s, Harold said with his mind in high gear. Last year Ken was on a project that used 8x10 solar panels. What we can do is attach the panels to an energy bank on the back of the refrigerator with a chord. The people can click on the saved energy during the blackouts and save their food. They’ll save a lot of time and money on getting food and they can just put the panel in a window or near a lamp, Harold excitedly explained.

You put in some new gauges, design some more convenient shelves, and a lot of chrome, and we’ll have the newest ‘must have’ for the public, Darius added.

And with the money you could make by making adapters and different length cords you would make enough money to satisfy the big shots upstairs, Rick added.

Sarah corrected Rick, You can never make enough money to satisfy the big shots upstairs. They went to work on the PM16 that week.

Within four and a half months they had a workable prototype. It’s beautiful Mr. Perfect proclaimed. My masterpiece, start the ad campaign on July 4th and we’ll put it on sale in November for the Thanksgiving Day rush. We’re taking this on the road. I want interviews, personal appearances, the works.

By the middle of October, Mr. Perfect had done numerous interviews and appearances and it was starting to take a toll on him physically. He was not as young as he used to be, but he was still in high spirits. On the last week in October the energy companies began the rolling blackouts. Perfect timing. By Christmas Mr. Perfect was on the cover of every magazine and celebrity blog again. The PM16 was a smash hit with 5 million sold in November and 10 million sold in December. They were sold out. One in every five households had a PM16.

The PM16 was a smash hit getting rave reviews from the customers as well as the critics. Harold and his crew were due their promotions and raises on January 18th of 2016. You’ve done a damn fine job Priest, damn fine job. You will never have to worry about money again as long as I’m alive, Mr. Perfect assured Harold at the Christmas party.

On January 5, 2016 Perfect Media reported that Mr. Brent Perfect, founder and owner of Perfect Machinery Incorporated, had died in his sleep. No specifics were ever given about the actual cause of death. All pending management decisions were suspended, with the exception of majority ownership being transferred to Mr. Perfect II. This meant no promotions or raises for the crew. This sucks, Ken said to Harold one night at the diner.

Yeah, I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Harold agreed. It was about to get worse than either of them could have ever imagined.

In February, lobbyists of the energy, food, and supermarket industries launched an attack campaign against the PM16 in the media. The food and supermarket lobbyists claimed that because people no longer had to throw away their food, they were  . . . losing billions of dollars which had caused them  . . . to have to lay off thousands of workers.

The energy lobbyists made the baseless claim that people were using the solar panel system all of the time and costing the energy industry  . . . trillions of dollars which if continued would cause them have to  . . . lay off tens of thousands of workers… and would lead to  . . . an increase in the number of rolling blackouts.

The lobbying was fierce and on the last week in February Harold was called into Mr. Perfect II’s office. Your crew has made this company look very bad. You have put us in a very bad spot, Mr. Priest, Mr. Perfect II said, sounding as if he had been practicing it for the past two months.

You know those claims are not true, Harold said. We can go on the air and refute their statements, the numbers that they are putting out there don’t even add up. Besides, don’t you think the public will support us since we are the ones who are making it possible for them to save money?

That’s not good enough snapped Perfect II. You are going to fire your crew and I am going to cease production of the PM16 and announce that the situation has been taken care of.

If you fire my crew, you fire me.

Fine, you’re fired, now go tell your crew.

It’s not my job, I don’t work here anymore, go fire them yourself, screamed Harold in a rage of anger that had been building for 23 years.

That night Mr. Perfect II went on Perfect Media and announced that  . . . the situation had been taken care of… and he apologized for the actions of the crew who  . . . acted in an incompetent, unprofessional manner, and  . . . showed a lack of compassion for the common working man on the street. Harold’s friends at PM Inc. watched the news in disbelief. Harold had been fired for accomplishing the rare trifecta of: saving the customers money, saving energy in a time where rolling blackouts were a regular occurrence, and staying loyal to his coworkers when they were under heavy criticism from paid lobbyists, for innovating the refrigerator. All this and his product made tons of money for the employer who was now firing him.

*

Thoughts collided in Harold’s mind as he continued his way home from the phone stalls. The thought that something bad might have had happened to his father had sent him into an alternating state of panic and denial. He needed information but couldn’t figure out how or where to get it. Even after he got home it was going to be difficult. Everything on the internet was monitored by the government and that meant you could only see what they wanted you to see. Try to think, he said to himself, What do you know for sure? That question was harder to answer than he had thought it would be, other than the facts that it was dark and it was raining, he wasn’t 100% certain about much else. He tried to reset his thought pattern, Who is the President of the United States? he asked himself as a softball question. He thought for a moment and could feel his body tense up as a wave of panic set in. He had drawn a complete blank. I’m overloading he thought. I have to get home before I blow a fuse. His mind was racing, sending him so much information that he could no longer process any of it.

With about a mile and a half still left to go before he reached his home, Harold saw a man. The man was smoking a cigarette outside of a bar on the other side of the street. Why not? He crossed the street and approached the man. The man was staring blankly into space, as Harold neared the man he could smell the alcohol on the man’s breath from three feet away. The man was about 6'4 and built like a truck. He was probably in his late 30’s or early 40’s and had a mullet haircut. Jesus, I haven’t seen one of those in thirty years, Harold thought. Excuse me, I was wondering if you could answer a question for me?" Harold asked. breaking the man’s stare.

Hey, is this one those game shows? Where’s the camera, the man excitedly asked.

Could you tell me who the President of the United States is? Harold asked. ignoring the man’s questions.

Oh, that’s an easy one, the man said straightening up as he put his arm around a woman who had just come out of the bar, I’m the President.

"Yeah?" asked Harold sarcastically.

Yup, the President confirmed.

So is she the Vice President?

I can be anything you want me to be, the woman said in a slow, deep, voice.

I bet you could, I bet you could, Harold said as he turned to walk away.

Hey, hey, what’d I win, where’s my prize? the President yelled as Harold walked away.

It’s in the mail, Harold shouted back, not bothering to turn around. Well what did you expect, Harold thought to himself, and hey, if she really is the Vice President I don’t have anything to worry about. Harold began to smile to himself when B-BOOM a loud shot echoed forcefully down the street. Harold reflexively ducked behind a parked car as a truck sped by. What the fuck was that? Harold said. He looked back to the front of the bar. There was nobody there. Had the ‘President’ gotten mad and taken a shot at him, had the truck just backfired, or – was it possible that their actually was a hit out on him Harold thought with his pulse racing.

The questions kept mounting the longer the night lasted. Harold was now 100% sure of one thing, he had to get home immediately. He got up from behind the car and turned around the corner. He walked a double time pace with his head now on a swivel. He was taking mental notes of everything he saw or he thought he saw. He was on autopilot. No thinking, no aching, just finish the project: get home in one piece. Harold had become so numb to any pain that he was unaware that he had bitten into his bottom lip and blood was now slowly dripping down the side of his chin. Every few blocks a car would pass and Harold would flinch. He reached the train tracks and knew he only had about a mile more to go.

Fifteen minutes later Harold had reached the eight story high PM Inc. digiboard. A sudden wave of joy and disgust set in simultaneously. Joy in the fact that he knew he was only about six blocks away from the house, he could almost see it from here. Repulsion in the fact that anything having to do with Perfect Machinery Incorporated gave Harold the strong urge to find Brent Perfect II and choke every last breath out of him with his bare hands. No time for fantasies, Harold thought. He adjusted his backpack and made a left onto Mountainview Road hoping for no further surprises as he neared his home.

Chapter 2

H arold crossed the street, navigating his way through the potholes and puddles, onto his block. Harold was now keeping a sharper eye out for any secret servicemen or government agents near his house. He called it his house but in reality it was neither, not since the Great Eminent Domain Act in 2017. What he was now approaching was actually a ten story tenement that had been the result of nearly a decade of government decay.

*

In 2012, the United States had been at war with several Arabian nations for 15 years. Some of these wars were official, some were not. The wars all had three things in common: they were all in Arabian counties, all of the countries were oil producing nations, and all of the wars were sold as necessities to protect the freedom of the United States. During the summer of 2012 the