CRACKERS
by JERRY OLTION

Illustrated by Mark Evans
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History depends on whos describing it... 
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The bottle-return machine was rigged. Daniel knew exactly how many bottles he hadwhen you sift through trashcans for enough returnables to buy dinner, you remember every successbut the automated counter outside the Calway store had shorted him by two.
      He punched the printout button and waited for the flimsy receipt to slide out of the slot. The printer kicked it out hard enough to fall free, but he snatched it before it could drop more than a couple of inches. He was onto that trick, too. The store manager deliberately set the machines to do that, no doubt figuring that a certain percentage of the receipts would flutter away on a breeze, never to be recovered, and never to be paid, either.
      Daniel carefully folded the Tyvek bag he had carried his bottles in and took it inside with him. The bag was worth almost as much as a bottle.
      He took his receipt directly to the express-lane checker, a tall, geeky teenager he hadnt seen in the store before. At least he didnt think he had, but it was hard to tell for sure. The kid had the same sculpted hair and wire-frame glasses as every other kid nowadays. Daniel would never have believed that fad would return, but apparently it was hip to look like a refugee from the seventies. Probably because these kids hadnt had to live through the original.
      The checker gave Daniel the Look when he handed over his bottle ticket. The Oh, hell, not another homeless guy look. Daniel saw it on every respectable face all over town. As if it were some moral failing to run out of money and wind up living under a bridge. He felt like telling the little pimple factory just how close to Daniels condition he really was, but he knew the kid would never understand. Neither had Daniel, before the long string of bad luck and bad government that had conspired to wipe him out. He had long since given up trying to explain to people how hed lost his job because he was putting too much time into developing a force field generator, and how hed lost his house because he couldnt make the payments without his job and how hed then had his invention stolen by a gang of teenagers who didnt even know what theyd stolenwho had probably dumped it in one of the very dumpsters that Daniel now sifted through for returnable bottles, and if that wasnt irony then nothing wasand how every government-sponsored program that was supposed to help people down on their luck had been cut for lack of funds, including the state health plan, which meant that he couldnt even get his antiparanoia medication anymore; but hed learned the hard way that people tuned out after the words force field and just treated him like a loony.
      Besides, this kid was his chance for fifty more cents if Daniel didnt piss him off. So he just said, Your bottle machine shorted me by two bottles again.
      It did? the kid asked.
      It did, Daniel affirmed. It does it every time. Which should be no surprise, because your manager sets it to do that on purpose.
      Usually the checkers just nodded and smiled and gave him his extra money, but this kid said, Im the manager.
      Daniel stared at him. Nineteen, maybe twenty at the oldest. How the hell could he be the manager? When Daniel was that age and working at the I.G.A., hed still been stocking shelves.
      If hed learned anything in his years on the streets, it was not to back down when dinner was on the line. If youre the manager, then youre just the person I want to talk to, he said. The bottle machine fails to credit one in every thirty or so, and it does it consistently. Ive complained every time, but it still happens. Which leads me to believe that youre doing it on purpose.
      The kid said, What, you think theres some kind of dial inside the machine that lets you select how many bottles to skip per hundred?
      There must be. Its too consistent to be an accident.
      The kid looked at the ticket, then back at Daniel. If you think that, then why do you keep coming here?
      Because this is the closest store to my cardboard box, Daniel said. And it costs seven fifty to ride the bus. Thats thirty bottles. Thirty-one if I run em through your machine.
      The kid looked like he might argue some more, but two college girls walked up behind Daniel and set a bottle of wine and a brick of cheese on the conveyor, and suddenly he was all smiles. Okay, he said. Thanks for bringing that to my attention. Ill look at the machine and see if I can figure out why its doing that. He rang up Daniels fifteen dollars and twenty-five cents from the ticket, plus an extra fifty cents for the two bottles the machine hadnt counted. The change machine beside the check-writing stand spit out three quarters, and the kid handed Daniel three fives from the till.
      Daniel took the money without comment. He went around the end of the check stand and back into the store to see what he could buy for fifteen seventy-five.
      It turned out crackers were on sale. Just the store brand, but he could get a two-pound box for nine ninety-five, which was still highway robbery, but it left him with enough to buy five packs of ramen noodles and a couple of apples. Daniel hated noodles, but they were cheap and filling, and five packs would do him for a couple of days. If nobody stole them in the night, he wouldnt have to scrounge for bottles tomorrow.
      He almost didnt get the apples. The price was right, but they were in a stack so improbably high and steep that he was afraid to take one even from the top for fear of bringing down the whole pile. He could wind up kicked out of the store for good over something like that, which would mean having to find a new neighborhood to scrounge and shiver in. Daniel didnt exactly love his cardboard-lined bridge abutment, but it was better than a park bench. He wanted some fresh fruit, though, and all the produce bins were piled up like the apples, so he screwed up his courage and lifted the top two off the pile as gently as his shaking hands would allow. His fear lent him strength; the apples hardly weighed a thing until he got them free of the pile, but as he backed away it felt as if they gained weight until they were heavy as normal. Odd how the body reacts to stress, he thought.
      He took his groceries back to the same checker, who ran them through the scanner while Daniel unfolded his Tyvek bag and packed it himself. Remember the twenty cents for the bag, he said when the checker was done.
      With a theatrical sigh, the checker deducted twenty cents from the total, which left Daniel with exactly fifty cents.
      Guess you didnt need those two bottles after all, the checker said.
      Daniel pocketed the quarters and picked up his bag. Live on the street for a year and then tell me that.
      He left the store without looking back, and walked the block and a half to the vacant lot where he hung out on warm days. Today had never gotten really warm, and it was just an hour or two short of twilight, but at least it wasnt raining, and the thought of food had set Daniels stomach growling hard enough to hurt. He would cook up some noodles when he got back to his camp under the bridge, but he could have an apple and some crackers right now.
      There were a lot of planes in the sky today. His vision wasnt good enough to let him see their wings, and his ears were apparently going south, too, because he couldnt hear any engines, but he could see stuff moving up there that was way too big for birds. He felt a little like a bird himself, settling into the little nest hed made behind the blackberry thicket at the back of the lot. He took one of the apples from his bag and bit into it, being careful to chew on the side of his mouth that could still handle something that crisp. Mmm, that was sweet. He wanted to down the whole thing in three bites, but the crackers would be dry, and he needed that apple to help wash them down.
      The box was glued together like a kids school project, but he pried it open carefully so he could reclose it again. Even when the crackers were gone, the box could prove useful. They were apparently making them out of some kind of plastic these days, and a guy who lived outdoors appreciated plastic.
      He opened one of the four rectangular packages inside with equal care, and reached in for a handful of crackers, but his fingers encountered only powder and crumbs.
      Had he opened the bottom? No, that wasnt the problem. The entire package was crushed. All four of them were. There wasnt a single intact cracker in any of them.
      Son of a bitch, he growled. This just wasnt his day. Was this some new kind of deal for people who wanted to make cracker-crumb piecrusts or something? He looked to see if the box said pre-crushed anywhere on it, but it was just a regular cracker box. He poured a pile of crumbs onto his palm and tipped them into his mouth. They tasted okay. He supposed they would be just as nutritious this way as if they were whole, but damn it, hed been looking forward to actually eating them, not just pouring them down his throat.
      The store wasnt that far away, and he still had his receipt. And that snotty little manager needed to know he couldnt get away with crap like this.
      He wrapped up the rest of his groceries, tucked them under the blackberry bush for safekeeping, and headed back to the store. He ate the rest of his apple on the way back, spitting out the seeds and the stem before he went inside. The boy manager looked surprised to see Daniel again, and wary, but his expression grew hard and cold when Daniel showed him the box of cracker crumbs.
      You got these out of the dumpster, he said.
      I bought them not half an hour ago, Daniel replied. You sold them to me yourself. Heres the receipt.
      The manager didnt even look at it. Oh, yes, you bought a box of crackers half an hour ago, but only after you found the crushed ones in the dumpster. You figured you could return the crushed box for another good one. Maybe multiple times if you went to different cashiers, eh? Very clever. But not quite clever enough.
      Daniel was used to people calling him crazy, but he wouldnt stand for being called a thief. Look here, he said, waving the box in front of the managers nose. The outside of the box isnt even smudged. This has never been near a dumpster. He pulled out one of the unopened packages of crumbs. These are crushed inside the wrapper, and the wrapper isnt even creased. That had to have happened at the factory.
      The kid snorted. Yeah, right. Im sure they go around packaging up crumbs just to get at people like you.
      That was the last straw. People like me? Daniel shouted. What the hell do you mean by that? You got something against physicists? Or is it a political thing? Two teenagers with a cart full of groceries hurried past, carefully avoiding eye contact.
      The manager blinked stupidly for a moment, then said, Im sorry, sir, but Im going to have to ask you to leave the store.
      Daniel felt a chill at those words, but he was well beyond caring. Not until I get a decent box of crackers for my money, he said.
      No, said the kid, and he crossed his arms in a gesture that Daniel knew from long experience. This was the Im done with the crazy person gesture. It usually led to the Im calling the police gesture. And Daniel was all too familiar with the sort of gestures the police used on homeless people.
      So Daniel gave the manager the Up yours gesture, grabbed his cracker crumbs, and left the store.
      He walked straight away from the door until he reached the street, then turned to the right and around the back. The manager thought Daniel had gotten his crushed crackers out of the dumpster, did he? That implied there were boxes of crackers still in the dumpster. Even if they were crushed, they were calories.
      There were no trucks in the loading dock, and the doors were all closed, so he headed straight for the dumpsters. Sure enough, there in the middle one were dozens of boxes of crackers. They were pretty banged up from all the stuff thrown in on top of them, but they were still okay. There were also a couple of oranges that probably werent toxic yet, and a hundred or so bags of yellow powder that had apparently been thrown out merely because they had been packaged wrong. The bags all said tortilla chips, but the stuff inside was fine as flour.
      Or maybe crushed chips. Daniel tore open one of the bags and poured a little of the powder onto his palm, then cautiously dipped his tongue in it. It didnt taste like much of anything at first, but as the moisture in his saliva hydrated the powder, it tasted more and more like salty corn.
      Crushed crackers and powdered tortilla chips. Normally he would be dancing in glee at this much edible food still sealed in airtight bags, but this was too bizarre. Something strange was going on in this store.
      He saw motion off to his right, and raised up to see a semi pulling in off the street. It was too late to hide, but fortunately he had the perfect camouflage. Nobody noticed a homeless guy rooting through a dumpster.
      He watched the truck back up to one of the loading bays. The garage-style door rolled up and two teenagers from the store came out to talk with the driver and open up the back of the truck. Daniel expected them to start hauling pallets of groceries out with a forklift dolly, but one of the kids entered the trailer with a blinking electronic gadget in his hand and a moment later came back out carrying an entire pallet of sugar sacks as if it were no heavier than an economy-sized package of toilet paper. He disappeared into the store with it, then came out with the gadget again.
      Daniels heart began pounding. He recognized that gadget. He couldnt see it all that clearly, but he knew what it had to be. His force field generator!
      The manager suddenly appeared in the doorway, and Daniel turned back to the dumpster, but he clearly heard the manager say, Let me see that thing a second. Uh-huh. Whats this tape for?
      One of the other kids said, I, uh, dropped it, and the case cracked, so
      Oh, I believe the case cracked, said the manager. When you pried it open. You were playing with the field strength again, werent you?
      No, I
      I just had someone return a box of crackers that was crushed to powder without damaging the box. Youre telling me the lifter did that without modification?
      It must have, the kid protested, but it was clear he was lying.
      The manager said, Look, this is not a toy. Use it the way it was designed or find another job.
      Ha, Daniel thought. Use it the way it was designed. The kid had no idea what he had stolen. He thought it was some kind of antigravity generator. And with the typical imagination of a two-bit thug, he had put it to use in the most mundane way possible.
      Daniel edged around the dumpster until its bulk was between him and the loading dock, then when everyone was facing into the trailer he walked away, head down so he wouldnt be recognized. He went around to the front of the store and inside, walked down the long produce aisle, and stuck his head cautiously through the swinging doors into the back. The manager was gone, but the other two kids were still unloading the truck, adding pallets full of goods one at a time to the stack against the wall.
      Daniel slipped into the storage room and ducked behind one of the pallets. There was a gap between the shrink-wrapped bags of sugar and the wall, so he squeezed into it and climbed up the sugar bags until he could see over them and settled in to wait while the kids finished unloading the truck.
      It didnt take long. Using the force field generator as an antigravity device, the kids hauled pallet after pallet out of the trailer as easily as they might have unloaded a shipment of pillows. Daniel kept his eyes on them while they pushed the last pallet into place and switched off the gadget, then put the electronic device on a high shelf between a gallon can of floor wax and a box of Magna-ties, whatever those were. The kids had put it in a fancy box, but he knew it was his force field generator. It was the right size, and what they were using it for couldnt be done any other way. That was Daniels life work, casually dumped there by a couple of teenage goons who probably didnt even realize that antigravity was supposed to be impossible.
      The driver gave the two kids a handful of paperwork, then climbed in his truck and drove away. The kids rolled the door shut, and one of them took the paperwork into the store while the other set to work slicing open the clear film that held the last pallet of stuff together.
      Daniel had hoped they would both go back inside and leave him alone in the storage room, but it didnt look like that was going to happen anytime soon. He could have waited until the store closed except for one small but increasingly important detail: apple juice always made him pee, and he had eaten a big apple not long ago. His need wasnt urgent yet, but it would be in another fifteen minutes or so, and he might need that time for running if things went badly.
      He could handle one teenager. And with the force field, he could handle any number of them. They wouldnt get the drop on him this time. He rehearsed the steps in his mind: jump down, cross the width of the room to the shelf where they had put his device, grab it, flip it on, and head for the door at a dead run. These kids might be using it for lifting, but he knew how it really worked: the outward-pushing force field would protect him from the impact, so he could plow right through the doors flimsy fiberglass panels if he kept his speed up. The kinetic energy of the whole system was still 1/2 mv2, after all.
      He took a deep breath. That first jump was going to be the worst; it was at least seven feet down to the concrete floor.
      He swung around so he would land feet first and slid over the edge. The kid either saw him or heard him, and let out a startled Hey! just as Daniel hit the floor, but Daniel was too busy grunting Oof! to respond. He rolled to his feet and rushed for the device, but knocked over the can of wax instead, which fell off the shelf and landed on his left foot.
      He cursed and leaped back in pain, knocking over the kid, who had rushed toward him. Daniel kicked the can of wax aside and grabbed the device, fumbling for the switch even as he ran for the door. The feeling of his invention in his hands again after all this time was like a drug, better than a drug, better than sex or even a good meal. He held it next to his center of mass while he found the power switch and flipped it on
      and a giant hand grabbed his insides and squeezed. At the same time, his last step sent him flying into the air like an astronaut on the Moon, bounding forward ten feet before coming down again. It was too late to stop, so when his feet touched down again he kicked forward as hard as he could, adding one last step to his momentum toward the door. Trouble was, the kick sent him flying more upward than outward, and he completely missed the door, smashing into the wall above it instead.
      The force field protected him from the impact, but that hardly mattered. The fields effect on his insides was worse than running headlong into a wall would have been. Daniel knew exactly how his crackers had gotten crushed, and how the corn chips had been turned to powder inside their bags; his internal organs felt as if they might do the same ... starting with his bladder. He felt the wetness spread through the crotch of his pants as he fell to the floor.
      What had the damned kids done with his force field generator to make it behave this way? They must have increased the power by an order of magnitude, and tweaked the tuning circuit to push inward as well as outward. Not a bad modification, actually. That would isolate whatever was inside in its own bubble of gravity-immune space. He would have thought of that on his own if hed had more time to test the device before it had been stolen from him.
      But the modified field had one serious drawback: the thing was trying to kill him. Even moving his thumb was a struggle, but he managed to flip the switch before the force field was quite able to squeeze him into his own navel. His full weight pressed him into the concrete floor. He gasped for breath with lungs that were suddenly free to move again.
      The kid knelt down beside him. Dude, that looks like it hurt. Are you okay?
      No, Im not okay, Daniel croaked. Call an ambulance.
      The kid stood up and ran for the double doors into the store, and Daniel tried to get to his own feet and beat a hasty exit while he was gone, but something definitely didnt feel right inside. He managed to stand, but only by leaning against the wall, and every step toward the door was agony. He at least stuffed the device into his pants, figuring nobody would investigate there, not as soaked as he was now. He hoped none of that wetness was blood, but he couldnt tell by feel and he couldnt bring himself to look.
      He heard running footsteps, then the double doors banged open and all three kids rushed in.
      Whats going on here? the manager demanded.
      Did you call an ambulance? Daniel wheezed. He had no insurance, but he knew the hospital had to take him if he was actually injured.
      No, I didnt call an ambulance. The manager took a couple of steps closer, but he stopped when the smell hit him. God, what did you do, piss yourself?
      I tried to retrieve whats mine, Daniel said with as much dignity as he could manage.
      What, the lifter? the manager asked. Then he laughed. Youre nucking futs.
      Hes off his meds, one of the other kids said. And now I think hes really hurt, too. We ought to get him to a hospital.
      Not in an ambulance, said the manager. Not from here. You bring an ambulance to a grocery store and before you know it youve got rumors about food poisoning.
      What do we do, then?
      You take him to the emergency room in your own car if you want to help him so much.
      Even the compassionate kid had his limits. He looked at Daniels face, then at his pants. Hell get my seat wet.
      Ill be even more of a hassle if I die right here in your stock room, Daniel said. His legs couldnt hold him anymore; he slid down the wall and landed hard on his butt.
      Put some plastic bags down before he gets in, the manager said.
      No, said the other kid. Just call the friggin ambulance, and tell em to come around to the back.
      If we call, it goes on our insurance.
      If he dies, that goes on our conscience.
      God damn it, Daniel bellowed, or at least rasped as loudly as he could manage with his bruised lungs, would somebody just make the fucking call?
      The kids backed away from him and continued their argument in loud whispers, as if he couldnt hear them as long as they didnt want him to. He didnt care. They seemed to have forgotten about his device, and that was the important thing.
      He tried to stand again, but a sharp lance of pain shot up his back and he collapsed back onto the concrete with a loud groan.
      All right, all right! the boy manager said. Just make sure he lives until they get here. He stomped off, leaving the other two kids with Daniel.
      Hes, uh, hes calling the ambulance, said one.
      Can we get you anything? said the other.
      Daniel shook his head. He wanted to say, How about my life back, you thieving little punks? How about some compensation for the years of homelessness? How about some justice? But he couldnt remind them of the generator. He couldnt find the breath to say anything anyway. It was all he could do to gasp for enough air to keep the swirling tracers in his vision from expanding to fill his entire field of view.
      It seemed to take weeks for the ambulance to arrive, but eventually the kids rolled up the door and a couple more kids rushed in with a stretcher, which they laid beside him.
      Youre going to be okay, one of the new kids said as they lifted him as gently as they could and laid him on the stretcher.
      Do you even know first aid? Daniel asked.
      Huh?
      You cant be over fifteen, Daniel said. What is this, career day at the high school or something?
      Fifteen? asked the medic. What? Im forty-six.
      Yeah, right, said Daniel.
      Hes kind of messed up, one of the grocery store kids said.
      Well help him get better, the medic said. Ready?
      Ready, the other medic said.
      Daniel heard something click near his head, and the stretcher rose into the air, bobbing gently like a boat on a river. The medics guided it into the ambulance, which floated just at the right height for loading, despite being much smaller than a delivery truck. It dipped a little under their weight, but quickly steadied out, and a moment later it lifted straight up and flew away over the stores roof.
      Daniel strained to hear the rotors, but he knew he wasnt in a helicopter. Somehow, some way, the ambulance was flying in perfect silence, without an engine of any sort. Out the window, several other vehicles swept past at various altitudes. They werent planes. They werent planes.
      One of the medics poked a needle in his wrist, and a screen above the window lit up with numbers. Wow, youve got some weird chemistry goin on, the medic said. It may take a couple minutes to clear it out.
      Clear wasnt the word Daniel would have used for it. His head felt like his abdomen had felt earlier: as if some force were squeezing it, forcing the part of his mind that contained his world into a smaller space, making room for a much bigger world, a world that contained air cars lifted by artificial gravity, which was just one of many spinoffs from the force field.
      I invented this, Daniel said, more to himself than to the two medics in the ambulance with him.
      Invented what? one of them asked.
      What, exactly, had he invented, anyway? His mind was a muddle of memories and paranoid dreams, all shuffled together through the fingers of time. He had invented a force field, that much he remembered clearly. And it had been stolen. But apparently that was long ago, and whoever stole it had known enough to do something with it. Daniel knew he should be angry, knew he would be angry, angry enough to track that person down and regain the credit he deserved if he ever got the chance, but at the moment his mind was too full of wonder to hold any other emotion.
      Hes drifting, someone said.
      Keep him focused.
      Sir? Sir? What did you invent, sir?
      The future, Daniel answered. I invented the future.
      Copyright (c) 2007 Jerry Oltion

