Free The Life of the World to Come by Kage Baker Page B

slunk out of here? Now, that’s what I call power. Face it: in what other era would the likes of us have the authority to shape history? Or tell a municipal official to go to the devil, for that matter. This is our time, chaps, and we’re making it count!”
    He picked up Rutherford’s tankard and handed it back to him, and lifted his own so the firelight shone on it. “Let’s drink that toast, shall we? To the New Man.”
    “‘A father for the Superman,’” quoted Rutherford, smiling through his tears.
    Ellsworth-Howard noticed belatedly what they were doing and grabbed up his tankard. Racking his brains for an impressive-sounding thing to say, he misremembered something from one of the few films he’d seen.
    “To a new world of monsters and gods,” he said, and drank deep.

THE YEAR 2324:
    Smart Alec
    For the first four years of his life, Alec Checkerfield wore a life vest.
    This was so that if he accidentally went over the side of his parents’ yacht, he would be guaranteed a rescue. It was state of the art, as life vests went in the twenty-fourth century: not only would it have enabled him to bob along like a little cork in the wake of the Foxy Lady , it would have reassured him in a soothing voice, broadcast a frequency that repelled sharks, and sounded an immediate alarm on the paging devices worn by every one of the servants on board.
    His parents themselves wore no pagers, which was just as well because if Mummy had noticed Alec was in the water she’d probably have simply waved her handkerchief after him until he was well over the horizon. Daddy would probably have made an effort to rescue Alec, if he weren’t too stoned to notice the emergency; but most of the time he was, which was why the servants had been appointed to save Alec, should the child ever fall overboard. They were all madly fond of Alec, anyway, because he was really a very good little boy, so they were sure to have done a great job, if the need for rescue at sea should ever have arisen.
    It never did arise, however, because Alec was a rather well coordinated child too and generally did what he was told, such as obeying safety rules.
    And he was a happy child, despite the fact that his mother never set her ice-blue eyes on him if she could help it and his father was as likely to trip over him as speak to him. It didn’t matter that they were terrible at being parents; they were also very rich, which meant they could pay other people to love Alec.
    In a later time Alec would look back on the years aboard the Foxy Lady as the happiest in his life, and sometimes he’d come across the old group holo and wonder why it had all ended. The picture had been taken in Jamaica, by somebody standing on a mooring catwalk and shooting down on deck.
    There he was, three years old, in his bright red life vest and sailor hat, smiling brightly up at the camera. Assembled around him were all the servants: fabulous Sarah, his Jamaican nurse, arrogantly naked except for blue bathing shorts; Lewin and Mrs. Lewin, the butler and cook; Reggie, Bob, and Cat, the deckhands; and Mr. Trefusis, the first mate. They formed a loving and protective wall between Alec and his mummy and daddy, or Roger and Cecelia, as they preferred to be called.
    Roger and Cecelia were visible up on the quarterdeck: Cecelia ignoring them all from her deck chair, a cold presence in a sun hat and dark glasses, reading a novel. Roger was less visible, leaning slouched against the rail, one nerveless hand about to spill a rum highball all over his yachting shoes. He’d turned his face away to look at something just as the image had been recorded, so all you could see was a glimpse of aristocratic profile, blurred and enigmatic.
    It hadn’t mattered. Alec had a wonderful life, full of adventures. Sarah would tell him stories about Sir Henry Morgan and all the pirates who used to roam the sea, living on their ships just like Alec did, and how they formed the Free Brotherhood of the Coast,