Hello Dear Readers! I hope your New Year is splendid thus far!
For the next month I'll be spotlighting some of my lesser-known works with sample chapters and information. Today is all about
The World of Tomorrow Is Sadly Outdated, a novella that is available in digital across all digital platforms! It is a parallel narrative between 1888 and 2088 where the past saves the future...
Here are the first three chapters!
THE WORLD OF TOMORROW IS SADLY OUTDATED
By
Leanna Renee Hieber
One
New York City
1889
“Shall
we?” Evan Halford grabbed one brass
wheel with both hands. His partner,
Samuel, grabbed the other.
Together they turned the wheels to open the
Receptor’s valves. It woke with a
pumping hiss. Evan stepped back, grabbed the gloved hand of his wife, and
murmured a prayer. At his “amen” there came a tiny flicker of light.
Grace
Halford stared at the Receptor’s vast screen and her breath seized in a tightening
squeeze, as if someone had drawn her corset strings too tight. The Receptor
took up half the attic wall of their brownstone townhouse, surrounded by metal
tubes that hissed like a nest of snakes; a glass-headed gorgon with a body of
whirring belts, cogs, pistons and levers.
A point of light on the screen grew
into a sepia square, expanding until the whole panel was a rectangle of
amber. Text flashed before their
eyes. It was tomorrow’s headline from
the Eagle. The screen flickered. All three held their breath. The image stilled and remained.
They stared at tomorrow.
Evan scooped Grace up in his arms,
her skirts rustling as he twirled her around. She’d worked so hard for this
moment, she wanted to feel joy. And yet…
“Oh, my
darling Grace, we did it!” He gave her a
smacking kiss before turning to Samuel, who stood tall and austere in his
modest suit. “Samuel Stein, by God, you
genius you,” Evan cried, clapping him on the back.
Samuel’s
cheeks reddened. He nodded, peering
closely at the screen to divert further attention.
The
information on the screen continued to hold Grace’s breath captive. In hoping
to see tomorrow, she’d hoped she’d see a better day. But faced with it, she
realized that looking into the future meant you might not like what you see.
“But
darling, Evan, please look…” Grace
asked. “There will be a tornado in Brooklyn tomorrow.”
“Let a
hurricane come! We located the current!” Evan cried. “There’s Tesla’s Alternating, Edison’s Direct, and yes, by God, there is our Temporal
Current!” He danced off to open champagne.
The rolled cuffs of his dress-shirt loosened as he flailed.
Grace
pursed her lips. “We should alert
someone-”
“No force
of ours could stop a tornado,” Samuel murmured, glancing at Grace before
looking away.
“True,
but-”
Samuel’s
raised hand stopped her. “The pact,
Grace. We cannot stop, or alter time,
only watch it.”
Grace
folded her arms, knowing full well the hours they had labored over the moral
quandary of undoing time, and the hard-fought decision to let it ‘be as it
would’. They were innovators alone,
seeking glorious answers to improbable questions, questing to tap into the
Current, not to see if the Current could make them God. Shoulders tensed with
worry, the capped sleeves of her blouse neared her ears. She didn’t want to
regret their miracle the moment it lived. But it had been such a dream until
now.
The Receptor flickered again then
guttered.
Samuel
frowned. Moving to the behemoth, he tightened gaskets around the screen before
dropping to his knees. His head disappeared behind the massive wiring that
surreptitiously leeched off the new 14th
street electric lamps, drawing stolen current into
their townhouse, up to their attic, to light the screen and extend up the
tallest lightning rod in Manhattan. At least, that’s how Evan had explained the
spire to neighbors staring horrified at their rooftop when he installed it:
“You must understand, my dear Grace has a simply absurd fear of
lightning…”
Samuel put a vise on a fray of
copper wire and pressed a sequence of valves like a trumpet. Puffs of steam jetted from the corner vents,
tiny brass lids lifting and settling. The screen flickered to life again. More headlines. Grace squinted at the text, compelled to look
even though she was torn between dread and fascination.
“There’s a seal in the corner. New
York Public Library.
There will be a public library?
How splendid!” She leaned closer,
her coiled muscles easing. “And a word I don’t recognize. Inter-net.”
“Inter-net!” Evan said the foreign
word with relish. “I set the Temporal
dial to pick up the earliest dates, closest to our time. It must be picking up our location too!”
There was a loud pop, a flying cork
and Evan busied himself with delicate champagne flutes. He tried to pass the
bubbling flutes to Samuel and Grace, who both stood rapt in future newspaper
stories, time clicking forward day by day as the Temporal Current fed into the
Receptor.
“Come,”
Evan insisted. “There will be plenty of
time to examine the history of the future.
We’ve worked too hard not to have a moment of triumph. We’d best celebrate since no one else will do
so.” He forced the drinks into their hands.
“A shame, that. Tesla and Edison
get to have their little war over their
currents, and here we are with something infinitely more exciting with ours-”
“Not again,
Evan. We’ve discussed the dangers if the
world knew,” Samuel said sharply. What few words Samuel said, he meant, and
what he meant was generally sensible. He
and Grace, from the start, had lobbied Evan to secrecy and drove home the
necessity of their laissez faire actions towards future knowledge.
Staring at her husband, Grace
melted, finally accepting the champagne and toasted his glass. A hard-featured, thin man, Evan’s rarely
absent smile kept his sharp face something engaging and elegant. His hair mussed, a sheen of anticipation
glistened on his broad brow and his blue-grey eyes were lit. Grace wondered for
a moment if the electricity they were siphoning mightn’t be wired right into
her husband. His energy, smile and his mind were the reasons she’d fallen in
love with him, and all of these qualities were on full display. She didn’t want
to embarrass Samuel by kissing her husband deeply and so she decided to move to
Samuel instead, toasting his glass with a polite nod, her doubled taffeta
skirts swishing as she walked.
Evan bounced to Samuel’s other
side, his enthusiasm contagious. “Quite a long way from sewing machines,
eh?” Evan grinned.
Grace recalled the first time she’d
ever heard Samuel’s name. It was years ago when Halford Garments hadn’t a
single malfunction on its machines for an unprecedented year. When Evan finally asked if anyone knew why
his Singers managed such uninterrupted perfection, a young German seamstress
pointed to the then fourteen year old Samuel and said simply, “Why, he fixes
them all, Mr. Halford, and has done since he started working here. You haven’t noticed?” Evan made Samuel a partner in the company
that very day. Evan was a fair owner, unopposed to the unions so many of his
competitors rejected, and he made Grace proud. She too took pride in the
company, as many decisions had been made off her own advice.
“Machines.
I trust sewing machines,” Samuel murmured, wincing when he saw news
flicker across the screen that there would be yet another Garment District fire
before the decade was through. An even worse one in 1911. Grace put her hand to
her mouth at the death toll.
“Evan,
you’ve got to help the unions with safety protocols-”
“I hope you’ve a way to hold this
information, Evan,” Samuel interrupted, blinking back tears that had come to
his eyes, “lest the future flicker away before we’ve examined it.”
Blocks of text and occasional
illustrations ticked by like seconds on a clock face.
“Of
course!” Evan exclaimed, beaming like a child. “Look here, I installed this
yesterday.” Evan pointed to a round
glass ball where a bright bulb flicked on and off in rhythm. “A print of each will be stored.” He pointed
to a wooden tray below the screen where, one by one, papers fluttered to their
rest. “An amalgamated history of the
future, here, provided she keeps humming.” Evan carefully patted the corner of
the Receptor’s thick screen.
Samuel
grimaced. “A book of Revelations.”
Evan batted
his hand. “You’re a Jew. You don’t believe in that book.”
“But he’s
right about its power,” Grace said, understanding some of her own dread. “This
cannot become some Nostradamus prophecy-”
“I pledged
that nothing would leave this room. Do you not trust me? Truly?” Evan’s eyes flashed.
Grace moved to him, wanting to
reassure his earnest, too-easily-hurt feelings. “Your excitement, my dear, is
all that worries us, since it’s a difficult commodity to contain. Not lack of trust.”
She kissed his warm temple, wanting
to set unease aside for joy and camaraderie.
But the room was no longer ruled by a loving husband, wife
and a dear friend.
The room was now ruled by the
Temporal Current, and it would not be denied.
An uncomfortable silence passed as
they stared back at the screen, frozen.
The only movement in the room became the tick of falling, revelatory
pages and the rising bubbles of their champagne.
Two
The Borough of Brooklyn
2081…
New York City still smoldered. Swaths of smoke and wisps of steam hung
suspended in the stagnant air, hovering ghosts breathing shallowly. So many ghosts. Nearly all that was new fell away in the
Meltdown, and only the old remained.
The skyline looked as it might have
in the distant past, when the gothic Woolworth tower was the tallest in the world;
looming mighty over downtown Manhattan.
Except in that glittering past there wouldn’t have been rubble, hanging
wires, corroded plastics or broken glass.
Woolworth stood defiant against a
modern world that had never replicated its sumptuous terra-cotta exterior. A world that had left it, and everything like
it, for dead. How ironic that it was now
one of the few survivors.
None of the Brooklynites said a
word as they rowed closer, gliding over the empty East
River.
Thirteen year-old Jack Barton stared
up at the jagged Manhattan skyline and thought about the pages and pictures
he’d seen of old New York when he was training as an Innovator. It used to be so beautiful; churning with
manufacturing and alive with industry.
He salivated to think of those times, and how useful they would be to
his people now.
Many glass and steel buildings
stood; but only those that had immense metal around their windows to deter the
destruction of the Formula. Downtown was
now a foreign land, a well-resourced and unpredictable foe. The once bustling financial district was now
filled with impromptu orchards, cultivated within those towers of glass and
steel to produce uncontaminated food, protected by shelter.
A man in
metal armor, helmet and goggles came into view at the top of the haphazard,
makeshift barricade along the crumbling Manhattan
shore. Anything that was protruding,
sharp and unwelcoming, whether it was glass, pikes or beams, had been
positioned out like poised weapons. “Halt or we’ll shoot!”
The group
of rowboats bobbing on the East River bank bumped the edge of the rusting ferry
terminal at the tip of the island. Their
passengers looked up into the barrels of shotguns trained on them.
The Brooklyn battalion raised their hands. Jack watched as Borough President Frank
Taylor, a blue and orange baseball cap slung haphazardly on his metal helmet,
clambered from the front of the rowboat onto the jagged shore, keeping his arms
raised. Jack’s father, John, was close
beside.
“We don’t
want violence, we just need help, our resources are strained to the limit.”
Frank’s bass, authoritative voice echoed in the tense quiet. “Let’s join forces. We’re all
struggling for survival-”
“Nothing
joins or takes from Manhattan. Boss’ orders.”
Jack
watched as his father took his turn and clambered up onto the bank beside
Frank. “And who’s boss in Manhattan?” John Barton
asked.
“Steven
Nevin. Husband to Jeanette Halford of the Manhattan
Halfords.”
“Then I
would like to meet with Mr. Nevin,” John said.
He began to climb further up the vicious barricade spilling from Manhattan’s edges into
the river.
A shot rang
out. John screamed, falling back, blood pouring from his leg.
“Dad!” Jack
screamed, rushing out towards his father.
Frank dragged John back into the
boat and was pressing down upon the wound, pulling thongs from his armor to
fashion a tourniquet. Dimly, Jack
recognized the dreadful clicking sound of more readied ammunition above them.
“Hold your
fire!” A firm, young female voice declared.
Jack looked up.
“Says who?”
the guard demanded.
“Says me,”
she replied, undaunted. She strode towards the guard, ripping off her
helmet. A stream of blond curls spilled
down her shoulders. She was a striking
young beauty in contrast to the ugly destruction surrounding her. Piercing blue eyes flashed with defiance. “I
am Ellen Halford Nevin.” She lifted her
arm, emblazoned with a red and white Halford crest.
“Miss, put
your helmet back on or you’ll get Formulaburn!” another guard chided.
“I was
making my point. I want you to listen to me.” She replaced her helmet, goggles
and metal facemask.
“I’m not
the one with a problem listening.” The guard gestured with the barrel of his
gun at the Brooklynites below.
Jack tore
his eyes away from Ellen, likely his same age, and again tended to his father
who hissed in pain. The wound was
shallow, the bullet having grazed the flesh. But a small cut could kill a man
these days.
Ellen
looked down. She was a small, metal
covered body against a backdrop of useless, goliath skyscrapers. She could’ve looked insignificant. But she didn’t.
“Here,
you’ll need this.” She threw a canvas bag down between the pikes. Jack caught it. Inside were a few emergency medical supplies;
rare, lifesaving treasures.
Jack
removed his helmet and facemask and stared up at her. His hands shook but he masked apprehension
with a clear voice that had just dropped within the year. “Thank you, Ellen. I’m Jack Barton. I hope someday
we can all be family.”
A curt nod
was her only reply. Jack put his protective gear back on.
“Miss,
please, tell your father it doesn’t have to be this way,” Frank Taylor growled
as he pressed John’s leg. “We can’t survive separately forever.”
“I’m afraid
we’re going to try,” Ellen said sadly, and turned away. Her armored form disappeared through the
ranks of other metal-covered bodies that parted as she passed.
Three
Manhattan 1889
Evan stared
at the Receptor, an amazed laugh tickling his throat.
Grace
looked up from her sewing.
“There will
be a World’s Fair,” he gurgled. “In Queens
County, of all places! Queens!”
Putting down her embroidery hoop,
she came closer. It would appear that in just nine years, the rural Queens County
would become a part of Metropolitan New York City. And forty one years after that, what was
currently a ragged string of small towns would host a fair. A World’s Fair, in Flushing. Who would have ever thought...
“Goodness,
what is all this?” Evan exclaimed, tracing the screen with a
fingertip. “The World of Tomorrow
they call it. Fascinating! Automobiles. Oh, Grace, just look at what this
company, General Motors, has in store for us in forty years!”
Staring at
the pictures of the exhibition models; tiny vehicles on long stretches of
roadway, like insects gliding endlessly along angled veins of leaves, Grace
felt immeasurably sad. She frowned.
“How
dreadful. People going their lonely way in those… pods… Isolated. Sterile. Where has our city gone? Just these
cement tracts?”
Evan’s face
twisted. “Darling, must you be so
damned sour about this? Perhaps we
should have tapped into the past’s Temporal Current since you don’t like what
you’re learning about the future.”
Grace
sighed. “True, I don’t. I’m sorry love,
I don’t meant to dampen your excitement, but sometimes you don’t understand
what you have wished for, or the consequences of those wishes, until they stare
back at you.”
Not to be
dissuaded, her husband gazed at the screen in wonder. “I think it’s fantastic.”
Grace
pursed her lips. “I wonder what will
come of it.”
(End of Excerpt)
Praise for World of Tomorrow:
"I finished this novella at exactly the correct time, because I needed this. I needed to grasp that silver thread and hold it fiercely in my hand, to cup it gently in my palm and whisper, "See? This is our future. Our present. Our past. These are the kinds of heroines who really lived, who are living, who will rise in days to come. These are the women we need so desperately. These are the women WE ARE. Imagine a world where not only *can* women save the world, but that they MUST. Buy this. Get it. Read it. Absorb it. And then go out and create that world. That is what Leanna is giving us here: a gentle pride of the past, a small hope for the future. It's a precious gift. Don't waste it." -- Kiaras at Waiting for Fairies waitingforfairies.com
See you next week for more free fiction material!
Cheers and happy haunting...
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