« Stuart G. Talbert, where are you? | Main | A Mirror's Shard »
July 19, 2004
From a Fountain 2
7:12 AM, Tuesday, May 26, 2096
Davis hopped on a Transit that quickly conveyed him to his new offices, several miles west of his apartment, in Sunrise. The Broward Forensic Labs were housed in the Sheriff Mirabella K. Ruiz-Hoffman Building. Built in the last decade, the structure took into account the coming climate change by building its first floor some ten meters off the ground, held up by nine huge columns. Vehicles were parked in orderly fashion, beneath and around, showing no fear at the millions of tons of material above. The greater portion of the edifice was like a solid block, sixty meters tall and forty wide. Dark oversized rococo lattice worked from a volcanic alloy camouflaged the windows, so that it was difficult to determine how many floors the building contained.
The roads were still in the process of being raised in the vicinity, so the Transit had to drop Davis off at ground level. A temporary, open lift was in place to bring the building's occupants to the main entrance, at the first floor. No sooner had Davis called the lift than it arrived bearing a short, dark-featured, heavyset man with a beard. The man glanced at Davis briefly then his eyes lit up.
“Davis Okah-novik?”
“O-KAN-ovic,” Davis corrected without ceremony, “Yeah, that's me.”
“Ferdinand Agoberto,” the little man said. “Call me Fuzzy. I'm gonna be your assistant.”
Davis shook the man's hand, “Good to meet you, were you coming down to show me up?”
“No, actually, and I'm glad I caught you. I left a message for you with Pansy. We've got a call already. We can go in the Yuri.” He gestured for Davis to follow and walked beneath the building.
“You own a Yuri?” Davis said with a hint of apprehension. Yuris were cheap imported Malaysian imports with a reputation for regular malfunction. If Agoberto couldn't afford better than that, Davis had to wonder about how honest they were being with his own standard.
“Department vehicle,” Fuzzy said. “The wife has our Multima today—I took the Transit.”
Davis breathed an inaudible sigh. “So what's the call?”
“Head-on collision, real early this morning. At the beach. On Upper-A1A, believe it or not.”
“That's the beach highway. Head-on collision? There's not enough traffic to merit that sort of malfunction.”
Fuzzy nodded his head, and they reached the Yuri. “Right. That makes it immediately suspicious. So we got a call. That's all the details I have right now. Hopefully someone is reporting things on Sharecom. Our EMT's are terrible at that, so most likely we'll find out everything at the scene.”
Posted by Bastique at July 19, 2004 12:07 PM
Comments
Cary
This is really very good stuff. As a native of South Florida, I am totally getting off on the use of well-known, familiar locations set in the future. The writing is so fluid and matter-of-fact that I, as the reader, feel like I am actually there - envisioning what it must look like, and understanding that - "yes, this could well be how it will come to pass." One of the very special things about it is your use of detail and minutia to bring the moments to life. Like the names of vehicles and buildings. It's so "off-the-cuff" that the reader wonders, "Is he a time-traveller? Has he been there and is coming back and toying with our heads? Is he creating reality and then racing ahead to see how it pans out?" Excellent stuff. Classic!
Posted by: trooper at October 1, 2005 09:45 PM
David, you're just too good to me...
But it's all real fun when I really get into it, you know?
Posted by: Cary at October 1, 2005 09:46 PM