Tucker Out Theory
© AJ Zane

Edward Smart looked through the glass window and saw, as always, expansion of sky and felt, as lately, like a fleck of dandruff on a long stretch of asphalt. He pulled back his fingers. Massaged his knuckles. They had started tuckering out.

The man was ninety-five years old next Tuesday and looked forward to taking a day off work. His hair was not yet gray but a fading red with strands of silver getting thicker with each month along with his girth that somehow continues to bloat in the void of a youthful metabolism. The skin at his wrists was beginning to show brown spots and the area above his eyebrows had started to wrinkle noticeably. He had no wrinkles at the corners of his mouth. There was stubble that refused to stay uncut. This man lived alone,? ?never married. He came to accept very early in life that the more space he has to roll around in bed the better he sleeps. His left leg was prosthetic and his lower back would often strike him with piercing bouts of pain which he refused to inform his doctors for fear of having to go through (and pay for) another surgery.

Edward sighed and went back to the suit laid out on his desk. His job was a tedious one he would gladly give to an autonomous machine that was not aware of the great pleasure in rest. As a member of SpaComf’s quality control department it was Edward’s duty to make sure the fibers on sheets of the company’s“Skin Fabric” ran parallel with each other and would not tear open during use. To do this, Edward operated a high-powered microscope and reviewed each nanometer of a square meter sheet. If he found a part where the fibers overlap, the sheet would be placed into a bin at the right side of his desk. When the fabric passed his inspection it was placed in a pile at the left side of his desk to be silently withdrawn up by some other unfortunate human (who would also rather give their job to a robot) and taken to somewhere else in the station to be sewn into a full-body suit.

These suits were the pinnacle product of SpaComf and the defining icon of this era. Their extreme durability in the vacuum was not hindered by the wearer's tri-axis moveability nor did it constrict the wearer's perception of self because the material felt like skin.“As a baby feels not the woe of danger inside the womb, so do SpaComf space suits realize the potential of the free human.” Said the box packaging.

Each day time passed horribly slow on the inspection floor. Although there were one hundred employees not one talked. The only sounds heard were intermittent swish-swish’s of fabric being dropped into bins. Through working at SpaComf for 15 years, Edward Smart advanced to a window seat. The limitless black sky gave his tired eyes needed chance to loose focus and wander aimlessly.

End-of-day alarm broke through the ceiling and echoed against the walls. It brought closure to a six-hour workday. It was a lazy tune lacking as much motivation as Edward Smart.

When Edward stood to leave his windowed desk his prosthetic left leg went stiff. His upper lip curled, showing laser-whitened teeth for a split second. His body automatically repositioned for the dance of standing up. Still sitting, Edward swung his right leg out, away from the inspection desk. With his right hand on the back of his chair, and his left hand on the desk, he pushed himself up. Not slowly, he tipped his body to the right, seemingly falling to the floor. Just as his body came off the chair he leaned back onto the prosthetic leg, straightening his back, shifted his weight onto his right leg and hopped twice to increase blood circulation and reboot the leg. Just as the inspection hall emptied of the last workers Edward Smart was able to walk again and slowly left.



Rapidball was no longer“the deft game.” When it was recent, a player's reactions were the win-decider. But in this bar, as Edward Smart watched, it had become a muscled sport for gladiators who enjoyed defying gravity and mach speeds. He blamed thirty years of new rules.

Edward Smart hunched even more. Rested his head on his arms. Finished his beer through a straw. Ordered another on the menu screen with his chin.

Jack's hand slapped his back.“Who's leading Our favorite Barcelona Calamaris or those blasted Boston Featherpens”

Because Jack could not devote himself to saving money towards retirement Edward was working. Because Jack hurled homemade explosives at automatron factories Edward was working. Because Jack supported President Piker and his 200 Years policies Edward not only works but has a dance he must do every time he stands from his desk. For that, Edward did not like Jack. But Jack was the only other person on this station who remembered cellular phones, fast food beef, old rapidball. Edward was not foolish enough to throw friendship away.

“Haven't really been attending.” A robotic claw descended from the ceiling and placed a beer (poured and cooled according to Edward's data file) in front of his face. He grabbed it and sipped.

While selecting his own drink from the menu screen Jack said,“But this is such a great game! I mean, look!” Pointed with his starting-to-wrinkle arm,“They're almost even and there's only ten minutes to go!” A cheer for the Calamaris began at the back of the bar. Jack joined briefly, submitting to coughs and phlegm.

He noticed Edward's eyes focused on the counter. His own flashed with knowledge from over eighty years of living mixed with the youth their surgery was meant to exhibit.

“Well, you aren't. Why so Rough day at the office” He held out his hands. There was a golden wedding band, slightly scratched, held tight by fat on his wide fingers. Jack's wife died decades ago. Before President Piker. She died a human and now lives forever as a statistic from a long-forgotten world that had opened its wrists and slowly bled out millions of ounces each year. Before Piker's reforms when people were killed by the products they used.“Let me tell you about a rough day . . .”

Edward stopped listening. Jack, like Edward, like everyone on any station, is a hander. Forced to touch things. Things that could carry germs. Things that could give cancer. Things that could cut or scar or burn if there were not precautions against. But by agreeing to use their hands they have been assigned life in a building where it is never too hot, never too cold, never dangerous, never hospitable. Always a utopia. Said the brochure.

Earth was the real Utopia for Edward and four billion elites. Those people did not use their hands for anything. Their“needs” would be answered almost upon thought. While Jack sat on a stool typing code those people devised new forms of automation for the code to be inserted. New shapes that operated with efficiency of physics and eye. New new new things which no one ever touched.

“. . . Then the boss makes an announcement about productivity figures and all the work President Piker did before he died and-”

“I'm going to bed.” Edward tapped the CHECKOUT button and the menuscreen imploded, leaving only clear plastic counter.

“So soon?The game's not over!”

“Yah. Rough workday.”

Edward walked the well-lit hallways displaying news stories. Passed people who tipped their heads or smiled. Rode elevators and ramps with people who read page-books or talked in Quick or hurried. Finally he stood in front of his cube's door which opened at the sight of his face.

It was coming up in five minutes. Every 2,036 hours the D-Block of the station, the one in which Edward lived, would face the bright side of the Earth. Edward had only missed it once. When he was 73 and had been on the station for three months. Since that time he had never missed this chance. He would cancel appointments, alter his sleep schedule, do anything just to look out of his room hatch and sit in silence as it filled with warm memories. Not only the flash space-born children talk about after viewing an oldie video from the 2020's. Beaches with real seawater. Fear of being stung by bumblebees. Scraping knees when falling. Winter coats. City smog.

He saw it all as the hatched filled with greens and blues and whites and blocks of gray. The asphalt covered by flowerbed and multi-colored bugs crawling.

The Earth passed too quickly. It was there and it was gone for another too many weeks. He sat looking at his aching hands for a very long time.

Television offended him but Edward felt so needy to see something abnormal he let it fill him. An unlimted number of channels all packed with garbage. Even the payed ones made no sense. Four minute shows so deficit of plot he could not determine the commercials.

“Care to trip”

Edward Smart took his finger off the channel-scroll button and watched. Trip implied only one action: Visit Earth.

“The United Stations World Tour Trip Contest begins now?!” Words jumped and morphed and videoclips of land played. Real dirt. Unprocessed water. Tree-air.

“Click this link and enter now!” In red,“TRIP!” flashed in the middle of the screen.“Only one lucky spacer gets to trip,” Edward's eyes were blinking red,“So click NOW!” Edward pushed his screen. Instantly the dancing words vanished, replaced by an application form.

But why bother ?He knew there was no way to win. The Trip Contest repeated each month with over four hundred million contestants each time. Edward knew statistics. Edward was familiar with luck.

President Piker's shiny, smiling, sick face appeared in Edward's mind. Jack's words wrapped themselves around it.“All the hard work President Piker did before he died.” The riots his anti-AI laws halted. Delaying of retirement by ninety years. The replacement of automatrons with human workers. His four consecutive terms. When Edward moved into the station. The same day the United American Nations economy passed the People's Republic of New China's. All his work that directed him straight through the doors of death. His sicker face on the screens, always smiling and telling,“Humans all around. Work in the face of failure. Work when there is no solution. Work wherever there can be work to do. Work! ?Work! ?Work!”

The President tuckered out but his? ?work? ?pumped blood through Edward's synthetic heart. Work cleaned Jack's lungs of fluid. Work had taken away all natural causes of death to leave only doctors visits, drugs, and surgery.

Edward Smart verified his information and pressed? “TRIP!”

What a stupid decision, he thought, examining fibers of“Skin Fabric.” I won't win this contest. No one you ever know wins a contest. Only in videos. Only in fake dreams.

He looked at the sky.

Stupid.

A beep and a small vibration in his pocket. Edward shrugged. So what if he were caught reading mail There was always work for the fired.

As soon as the Digital Panel opened Edward was greeted by one dancing, morphing word: TRIP!, and a short melody.

He had won the contest but could not exit the state of shock. A few colleague's glanced.

Edward shook his head and stood. At this, colleague's watched. He limped toward the door because he would not wait for the leg to reboot. He tapped the checkout button and went to his cube. He had plenty of saved hours to take a vacation.


Edward Smart could not tell his ten doctors apart. He tried very hard once, but he could only remember his dietician because the man told Edward to not eat or drink anything he liked which enraged him. The doctors all wore long white jackets, fitted to their curves and angels, thin gloves, and safety masks that covered their faces, only revealing the eyes and the tops of their noses. The dietician was tall (space-born) and had a fat nose.

Edward sat on a small plastic chair, dressed only in a thin clinic robe. They stood in a half circle reading documents and murmuring. The room was white and uncomfortable sterile.

“We don't know if the fall will be worth the trip.” Said one with particularly silver hair.“The turbulence will be . . . welllll” The doctor searched for polite words. Another (with thick eyes and tiny black pricks for hair) interjected,“It will be hard on your system.”

“You may not remember the harder gravity.”

“Try not to eat any fruits.”

“The turbulence coming back will be greater.”

“There are the anti-bacterial medications, allergens...”

“Restrict your diet to natural sugars. You know, fruits and things.”

“You will have to keep a close eye on your prosthetics.?”

“You live in the D-Block so gravitational forces should not be too uncomfortable.”

Edward squeezed his right thigh and bit his cheek to distract himself. He wondered how he ended up in this situation. What did he do with his life to have ten people tell him directly opposing facts.

He went to school like his parents wanted. He took the standard tests and wrote essays and learned equations that he never used after graduation. He found work in product presentation and ambiance, a robot-proof industry where an employee's most important asset is the ability to be composed of flesh. And he went to work five days a week and drudged through the mindlessness and sat through the meetings and ate his lunch while watching the riots on television and watching Piker's election campaign on the television until the day his boss called him into the main office and said something along the lines of, these kids coming out of upper-grad school are more suited for the modern consumer than he. Edward Smart assumed his employer was merely and idiot until the next company he applied to said the same thing again and again.

He could have moved to the spacestations then but he was an Earthling. Meant to stand on dirt and watch the sun set behind a sky full of beautiful copper pollution. He sold his luxury goods and moved into a small apartment. He stopped eating snacks and he started drinking six-packs at home instead of going to the bar so that he could make his savings last for thirty years when he would die of cancer. But then Piker's initiatives became tangible. Cheap prosthetic implants that granted immortality. Edward Smart received inescapable forever life.

When he got the eviction letter he threw it away along with his pride and stood in line at the Department of Spacestation Emigration for his visa.

Finally one doctor stepped forward. She cupped her hands in front of her stomach and said,“We all agree, Mr.Smart, that you require a bump-suit.”


Part ?2) Earthside

The interviews (really the newscasters speaking) always mentioned his birthday was soon. A member of the first generation to live the rewards of President Piker's initiatives. How do you feel Old. But he had a near century of wisdom enough to say,“Excited.”

He flowed along with tour groups in his grav-chair and struggled to position himself in the bump-suit to take photographs, eat, and otherwise have an enjoyable vacation.

He landed in Neo York, visited the landing sight of the Mayflower, rollercoasted into the grand canyon, spoke with dolphins trained in polite etiquette at the San Diego Zoo. This was just the Old Forty Eight.

The air was not smog as he remembered, but there was dust. He inhaled the dust (ignoring his doctors) and drank water directly from the tap. He had forgotten about taps.

Before taking the sub-speeder to Tokyo Edward Smart decided to have a drink. A local bar was randomly selected and Edward got righteously drunk. He began talking to a young couple about the space stations and what is different. He told them how there is no“local” because everything is contained in what functions as one city. He said,“Yes, the people are very nice, but also very. . .” ?he wanted to say sheltered but could not remember the word. He spoke of the radiation shielding, debris turrets, crime rate, nutritious alcohols that were invented to make spacers who refused to take their vitamin tablets healthy enough to sanely function.

Edward Smart eventually exhausted things to say about space and decided to look at it. He put his grav-chair into reverse but collided with a large man who sat in a stool. Edward tried to turn but being now sloppily drunk moved straight into the bar counter. The bartender approached Edward and asked if he could help.

He stopped hitting buttons on his chair and sat with head extended, jaw dropped, almost drooling. The bartender laughed nervously. Looked at the yoouple.

“The bartenders are ?human!” Edward realized it then. He realized it very obviously and was delighted. He spun his chair and accelerated toward the door,bursting through it and tipping. Edward landed hard but was luckily spared shattered bones by the bump-suit. He stayed on his back, arms and legs out, laughed. Looked up at the sky but could not see space. Citylights were too bright for that. This made him smile even more so that tears covered his face. He laughed.

The couple ran from the bar and grabbed Edward Smart. They picked up his chair and (with struggle) placed him. The girl put her hand on his, asking if he was all right, maybe not used to Earth beers.

He did not notice that the thing on his hand was hers. He looked down to see what new substance was wrapped around his palm.

When he realized it was skin he closed his mouth and released a very long sigh. It felt nothing like SpaComf's“Skin Fabric.”