Negative Energy

Museum of Memorabilia

Still not having found a gift for Ina, Matt made his way over to the line of shops. With their brick frames and glossy window displays, they managed to look both rustic and posh. He was already picturing himself sipping a cappuccino under the awning of a café when he noticed a shop called the Museum of Memorabilia.

A bell over the door jingled as he entered. Behind a counter, a man with a bushy beard was poring over a jigsaw puzzle. Looking up, he scrutinized Matt like an irregularly shaped piece. His pupils were mottled silver like some of the others from the park. Unnerved, Matt moved deeper into the shop to avoid his gaze.

From Matt's limited experience with antique shops, the place seemed typical enough. There was an eclectic mix of vintage items, including handmade board games, vinyl records, and yellowing storybooks, including one about Lassie. There were toy trains, planes, and a battleship in a bottle. There were areas devoted to every season and holiday along with a large collection of Cowboy and native American artifacts. This was Texas, after all.

While wandering through an area devoted to barbecue paraphernalia and novelty aprons, he was approached by a young Chinese woman. She wore a traditional red qipao with a golden dragon embroidered along one side and a matching golden hairpin. "Howdy, mister. You scoutin' for somethun' in perticular?" She inelegantly picked at her teeth with the nail of her pinky finger.

"Aw shee-it," she said, noting his confusion. "Ah dun forgot to change outer mah hifalutin clothes." A ripple ran over her from top to bottom. In the next moment, Matt was staring at a straw-haired, blue-eyed cowgirl. When he prexed his annoyance, she dropped the accent. "Would you prefer a fucking barmaid?"

Brushing it off, Matt said, "Do you have anything early twenty-first century? Wouldn't that be considered antique by now?"

"You mean like screen-tech? Smartphones, VR headsets, that sort of shit? We don't pull them out of storage much. They're boring as hell and child's play to simulate. Now, if you're looking for something more turn of the century..."

She led him to an nook devoted to blockbuster movies. There were cardboard stand-ups of Indiana Jones with his signature whip and fedora and Michael J Fox as a werewolf. Lots of Alien and Star Wars action figures.

The moment he set eyes on the popcorn popper shaped like a Mickey Mouse head, Matt knew he had found his gift.

"Popcorn was the snack of choice for movie-goers," the attendant said, noting his interest. "So I hear anyway. I tried it once and nearly broke my fucking tooth on a kernel."

As a child, whenever his dad took him to the movies, Matt would strategize how to convince him to splurge for the large bucket of popcorn. Despite it being only a dollar more than the medium size, his arguments fell on deaf ears. Until one lucky time the concession manager overheard him pleading his case. While his dad was looking the other way, the manager stashed all the medium buckets beneath the counter. Then he told his dad he had sold out of the smaller sizes and would have to use the large one but wouldn't charge him any extra. Not only did the generous manager fill the bucket to the brim, but he doused it with extra butter. Matt didn't remember what the movie was, but that was the best bucket of popcorn he ever had and worth every minute of the queasy stomach he got afterward. He came to a decision. "I'll take the popcorn popper."

"Take it where?"

"Home, of course. I want to buy it."

The attendant made a wry face. "I'm sorry, did I hear you right? You want to buy the popper?"

"Is anything wrong with that?"

"Not really, I suppose. You can afford the atom tax? It's fourteen credits a week. That adds up."

"Atom tax?" When the attendant failed to elaborate, he said. "Could you explain that for me? I'm kind of new here."

"What, is your Nex not working?"

Matt flushed and almost said something about the quality of the customer service. But on second thought, maybe she had a point. Perhaps it was kind of rude to use a human as a query machine. The answer hardly needed questing anyway. In this age, just about everything was made of polymat. When it was done being used, it got recycled into something else. Fixed-form objects took up space and eventually wore out, creating waste. To discourage this, they were taxed like luxury goods.

"You've got a store full of antiques here, unless they're all replicas," Matt pointed out. "How do you afford the atom tax?"

"We get a special exemption because we're chartered as a museum. Most folks just come to browse, except for a few rich collectors and eccentrics. Oh, and sometimes we get a new-bod that still thinks there's something sacred about owning atoms and doesn't give a fuck about sustainability."

Matt quelled his annoyance. "Can't you just sell me the popper?"

"Sure thing, cowboy."

The popcorn popper wasn't heavy, but it's bulky shape made it awkward to carry under one arm. As he left the shop with it, Matt felt like the object of attention, as if he had just raided a museum and was making off with a mummy. The cappuccino would have to wait.

He was following the cobbled road to his pod when an old man in a dingy, gray overcoat came shambling toward him, clutching a device like a Geiger counter in one hand. Matt instantly recognized him as the grungy figure he had seen upon his arrival. The man didn't seem to be in full control of his body; his arms and torso jerked so erratically that he risked toppling over with each lurching step forward. Matt froze, clutching the popper to his chest. From this close, he could smell the man's body odor, which reeked of overripe peaches. He had mottled, silver pupils, just like the puzzle solver in the antique shop. The sense of wrongness was amplified tenfold.

"Beware the rapture!" the man bellowed as he closed the distance. "It's a trick! They stick their needles in your eyes and suck out your soul! Then they lock it away forever in a cage of dreams and—" His voice choked off into a strangled gargle as he collapsed to the ground only a few feet away. Angry red lights flashed on his temples. Grimacing, he struggled to drag himself forward, but every inch of forward progress served to intensify his agony. The flashes on his temples came faster and faster. With a last desperate lunge, he reached out for Matt with the Geiger-like object but fell short by barely a foot. Unable to endure the pain any longer, he howled in anguish and scrambled backward, clutching at the sides of his head. In the process, the device slipped from his hand and clattered to the ground where, in the blink of an eye, it disappeared.

"They promise you a life without pain," the man gasped, "but they don't tell you the cost. Only through striving and suffering can the soul hope to endure."