Shoo-Fly

"Seventeen years," Ben said, smiling.

"Seventeen years," Owen echoed, exhaling a thin plume of smoke.

"Your life's work!" He patted his arm.

Owen nodded, sighing. "My life's work."

It was no good. Ben had spent half the day trying to shake his father's melancholy. Owen listlessly watched the light of the zapper and the occasional flicker of electricity when it blasted another bug. He looked beyond ancient, worse than a 55 year old man should. Heavy cowls of sagging, wrinkled flesh threatened to bury his rheumy gray eyes. His hair had fully retreated down his pate, leaving only unsightly, spotted skin.

A zip skittered overhead, sending a rush of wind through the trees, scattering a wave of dried autumn leaves across the street. Twenty-year-old memories of when they'd first moved here flooded back, among them sleepless nights caused by the shipyards and ports only a mile or so away. Eventually, Ben became accustomed to slumbering through exploding blasts of freighters taking off, the subsequent quakes and tremors that rattled the windows and shook the walls. In fact, he'd gotten so used to it, he could barely sleep without some background or white noise. Lately, he'd taken to leaving loud music roaring or the television running when he settled in for the night.

"How's Stella?" Owen asked.

Ben shrugged. "You know." He stood. "Want a drink?"

"You don't want to talk about her."

"That's not it."

"Then what is it?" He put out his cigarette and reached for another.

"It's nothing," he answered, exasperated.

"It doesn't sound like nothing," Owen replied, dubious.

"I don't not want to talk about her. All I was going to say was..."

He lit his cigarette. "Was..?"

Ben frowned. "The solar system is in bad enough shape as it is. Why make it worse for yourself by breathing that poison?"

"I like it. Not like I'm hurting anyone by doing it. You were my only brat, and you're out of the house, so now I can breathe all the poison I want. And don't change the subject."

"I'm not."

"All I'm saying is if you want to say something, or if you want to tell me something..."

"You should be thinking of your presentation," he reminded him. "Dad, you should be getting ready! This was your life's work, your passion, your dream. It's a huge breakthrough! And you know they'll pay top dollar. Just think of how it will change... Everything. Travel, exploration..."

"Warfare," Owen added, a grim expression on his gnarled features.

"Warfare, true, I guess it's possible. But that isn't necessarily a bad thing. It might put a stop to all the talk of civil war; make it easier for the SSCP to keep things in line. Things are getting so bad, they need all the help they can get. Better they have what they need to keep the peace than rebels or extremists start blowing things up." Ben smiled. "Besides, just think what you could do with the money. You could donate it or build hospitals or fund exploration projects. You could be the new Alfred Nobel."

He chortled at that. "The Owen Blist award."

Ben sat back down. "Why not? When it's all said and done, buy an island somewhere and retire."

Owen shook his head, inhaled and coughed once. "I couldn't leave your mother."

"Why not a vacation? Take one of those long cruises through the system. See Saturn, go storm watching on Europa."

"Those cruises cost millions," he complained.

"You do know you're going to be a multi-millionaire by tomorrow morning? Dad, you're about to make history. You're going to rewrite science books, engineering books, physics books... It's mind boggling, just to think about it. Not to mention just how..."

"Your mother and I liked Stella," he interrupted. "What happened?"

"It's complicated. Let's talk about something else."

"What happened?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

Owen shrugged and relaxed against his wicker chair. "It wasn't easy with your mother."

"Give me a break. I haven't been home for a day and you're grilling me..."

"No no no no. I'm not scolding you. Come on, talk to me. I won't pretend to be an expert on women, but I want to help."

"Dad, you need to get ready. You need your designs, and you should at least run a diagnostic before you demonstrate..."

"You keep trying to change the subject. I'll keep asking until you answer, so spit it out."

"She wants kids."

Owen smiled. "So?"

"I knew you'd be on her side on this. I knew."

"So?" he repeated.

Ben rolled his eyes. "Can't this wait?"

"No."

Ben exhaled and searched for the adequate words. "Everything you've done. You know, it's amazing. It's more than I'll ever do, more than a million out of a million one will ever do. It's your legacy. It defines you. It'll live on, longer than anyone. You're going to be immortalized for your invention, because of your passion, your genius... And I want that. I want a taste of it, even a gram of what you'll have. I want a career before I can settle down. You know. Kids, a home, a mortgage, a golden retriever. Stella... She says she's ready. And I'm not."

Owen snubbed out his cigarette. "You're 31. You're a man now, she's a woman. If that's what you decide, well, that's what you decide. You don't need me to remind you I did all of my inventing with your mother and you, back at the apartment and when we moved here."

This was exactly the conversation Ben had tried to avoid. His father had always been obsessive. That obsession had created his masterpiece of science, but now, with his work done, his neurosis turned to the next available outlet: Ben. As soon as he'd realized it, Ben had spent as much time away from home as possible, which simultaneously created an inexhaustible supply of guilt as he tried to piece together a career in freelance journalism and a social life. Somewhere along the line, Ben had become a juggler balancing the balls of different aspects of his life. He'd gotten pretty good at it during his college years, but they all seemed to fall at once when Stella's biological clock decided it was time for her to settle down and have children, all before Ben had met any real success in the field.

He'd never really forgiven her for keeping him from Mars a few years back. The volcanic reactivation project was one of the biggest stories in the past few centuries, and was a massive step in colonization. Albor Tholus was scheduled for a massive erruption Stella bought into the negative press surrounding the project, and became convinced if Ben was anywhere near Mars he'd be killed in some horrible accident. She'd remained in a perpetual state of hysterics for a week, until finally Ben cancelled the trip. Instead he stayed home with her and watched as the first broadcasts streamed in. The memory had soured their relationship from the inside out, and things had come to a head only a few months ago when he told her he wasn't ready for kids.

"Is this all because of Albor Tholus?" Owen asked quietly.

"No."

"You're wrong, you know."

"About what?"

"My invention. My legacy. Me. None of it means anything." He touched Ben's shoulder. "You're my legacy. Your mother's too. You look like me, but you have her eyes. Blue. And let me tell you, you only miss something when you'll never have it again."

"Dad, I..."

"Let me finish. Like I said, I only started missing her when she was gone. All that time I wasted on that... thing. Looking back on it, it makes me sick."

"So I should just give up. Forget it all, raise a family, and make minimum shoveling driveways or running freights."

"No. You chase your dreams, Ben. I'll never tell you not to. Just learn from me. Learn from me."

The three scientists chatted quietly together, each of their faces a mix of doubt and mistrust. General Nelson watched with some interest, though the informal setting and the workshop's clutter was undoubtedly testing his patience. Veins bulged against his temples, and his face seemed permanently fixed into a brutish scowl. Ben waited with them, excluded from the scientists' private conversation and unwilling to spark one up with General Nelson.

General Nelson's eyes met Ben's, and then it was too late. "You must be... Ben." He walked over, his black boots plodding noisily.

"That's me. Ben Blist." Ben glanced at the breast of Nelson's deep blue coat, pinned with hundreds of overlapping pins emblazoned with different insignias.

"I came a long way to see your father and his trinkets," he declared, his voice forceful and blunt as a mallet.

"You won't be disappointed," Ben told him.

Nelson smiled, a sight Ben guessed was as rare on his rigid and angry face as a monsoon in a desert. "And what do you do for a living, son? Did you help build... Whatever this is?"

"No. I'm a freelance journalist, taking some time off to be with him."

The smile curled off General Nelson's face. "I don't think I need to say how dangerous it would be if you...."

Ben nodded quickly. He'd always known that reporting the story of his father's invention too soon could be disastrous, and had resigned to allowing the opportunity to pass. Maybe someday he could write a book about it all. Most of the time, Owen would shut himself away in the shop and work for days straight. Ben would come for help with a test or money for movies or a loan for rent and more often than not, Owen would be so busy he would immediately assent in an effort to keep his concentration. Ben would see his father again briefly in the morning when he rushed into the house on his way to the college, grab a cup of coffee and head right out the door to teach his physics courses. He'd be back around noon, eat whatever was left over and head right back into the shop. Sometimes, if Ben timed it correctly, he could even get him to stop long enough to read one of his amateur articles for the school newspaper, to which he would either grunt approvingly or disapprovingly and then return to work.

"Should only be a moment," Ben reassured them. The three scientists were deep in conversation, making skeptical noises at one another as they constantly glanced back at the draping black veil Owen had hung over his invention. Nelson stifled a bored yawn and folded his arms over his chest.

A moment later, Owen stepped out from beneath the veil. He cleared his throat and said without preamble, "Nature is the universe's great inventor. Planet Earth, the Sun, our solar system, the galaxy, and the cosmos: all of these things came to be solely by the forces of nature. And these are only the grandest and largest of nature's building blocks. Populating this planet are billions of species of animals, the cogs and gears in the machine of Earth."

"What our race is trying to perfect and master is nothing that Nature has not already perfected itself. For example, flight. It took humans hundreds of thousands of years to even get off the ground, and even now, as we stand on the threshold of the 23rd century, we have only scraped the surface. There are creatures on Earth that fly as naturally and as simply as we walk on the ground, or as our lungs breathe the air. In my experiments and creations, I have mimicked the genius of natural design and have recreated it as authentically as possible."

"I invite you to consider the common housefly. This creature has survived and spread across the Earth, accompanying mankind on its journey from the cradle of civilization to Egypt, Athens, Rome, England, America. And further, there are naturally occurring flies on Venus and Mars and Europa and Ganymede. Everywhere man has gone, the fly has without any major changes to their basic genetic design or instincts. But I digress. I give you M-1." He grabbed the veil and ripped it away. M-1 stood some four feet from the ground, propelled by six long legs, each studded with ugly hairs. M-1's two crystalline wings glimmered brightly under the shop's light. Its impassive compound eyes watched, red and menacing.

One of the scientists chortled. Owen went on, unperturbed. "M-1 is large enough only for one occupant at a time. The occupant controls M-1 via an intricate interface involving intuitive controls that translate the human body's natural responses to M-1's decoder, which in turn relays it back..."

"Let me make sure I understand you," General Nelson interrupted. "You invented a... fly."

Owen rolled his eyes. "Please Colonel..."

"General," he corrected.

"General, allow me to finish. You've yet to see what M-1 is capable of. Withhold your judgment until then, if you please. Ben, would you be so kind?"

Ben pressed a button and the roof opened, leaving only sky above. Traffic was light, only a few freighters in the air and they were a good few thousand feet up.

Owen peeled away a chunk of the thorax and climbed inside. The faux exoskeleton sealed up tightly. M-1 preened its compound eyes quickly with its forelegs and with a startling speed jolted into the sky. The three scientists and General Nelson ran over to see. M-1 darted through the sky with a supernatural speed, changing speed and direction at whim. From below, M-1 looked as natural flying through the air as the fly it was designed after was. The doubtful murmuring of the scientists was replaced by shocked, excited chatter. General Nelson observed in silence.

"How is that even possible?" one of the scientists asked.

"Look at how lightweight it is. What's it constructed of?"

"Never mind that, what fuel does it run on?"

Ben listened to their exchange, feeling a storm of pride for his father. This was the culminating moment in his father's career, the end result of countless hours labored away in this very workshop. When he landed M-1 back through the shop roof and emerged back from within the thorax, the scientists greeted him with hearty applause. As loud as they cheered, Ben wondered if they were cheering for his father or for M-1. Owen didn't seem at all interested in their acclaim. His rheumy white eyes wandered around the workshop as he waited for them to finish.

"So how does it run?"

"Tell us!"

"What did you construct the wings of?"

"How did you make it so light?"

"You said M-1 is capable of spaceflight," General Nelson said. When he spoke, the scientists all silenced. "In what way?"

Owen regarded Nelson and answered, "It can propel itself as fast as any skiff or freighter in the system, and requires no fuel and minimal upkeep. Supplying the human passenger with enough sustenance is more problematic than interplanetary travel with M-1."

"Its load capacity?"

"Enough for a human passenger," Owen answered sharply.

"Generator output?"

"It doesn't work that way," Owen told him. "You can't just plug an atom launcher or accelerator into M-1, it's a more complex system than that."

M-1 began obsessively rubbing its compound eyes with its forelegs. "What's it doing?" Nelson demanded.

"The common housefly preens when not in flight. The fly's taste receptors lay mostly on the hairs..."

"This thing can taste?"

"Arguably yes, but in the strictest sense of the meaning of taste, then no," Owen answered. "As I said, I recreated the fly as faithfully as possible and only tampered with the natural design when necessary. The preening in and of itself isn't necessarily an adverse instinct. It is more or less the equivalent of windshield wipers. Most of the other behavioral patterns were easy to subdue. You won't see M-1 trying to mate or lay eggs, for instance."

"How did you manage that?" a scientist asked, wonderingly.

"Honestly, most of my work with the fly's natural responses was guesswork, standard trial and error. I'm not certain I fully understand much of what M-1 does, though this behavioral pattern is most suitable."

The scientists began loosing volley after volley of questions. Ben caught a word here or there, but their technical conversations proved to him once more that he hadn't inherited his father's passion. Instead, he allowed himself a daydream.

It'd be a college, maybe on Mars or Venus. The journalism students would stand in line, each to congratulate him on his vast success, each to profess that his work was a driving inspiration for their own. And he could make it happen too.

Most famous journalists forged their careers reporting the most incredible and dangerous occurrences in the solar system. When meteor showers were pelting the Neptune settlements, the reporters lucky enough to survive and broadcast became instant celebrities. One such dangerous and lucrative opportunity had already come and gone when he missed the Albor Tholus eruption. Ben had even tracked the journalists who reported the story, and watched with a grim fascination as each was offered positions on syndicated SSCP broadcasts.

Stella understood why Ben left her. Ben had made all the appropriate noises at her: he needed space, a break, he wasn't ready. But after four years together, Stella undoubtedly knew that he blamed her for preventing his reporting of the volcano. In the months that followed, Ben had regressed to his post-college lifestyle, living off instant foods and the occasional column or article he had published. When his father contacted him from Earth, told him he was going to sell M-1, his hopes were high of being the first to report on the wild new invention. Those dreams rapidly vanished as he realized the SSCP would never allow it as a possible security risk. It felt wrong to try and feed off of his father's success like some vampiric journalist.

Owen answered their questions one by one, occasionally referring to his diagrams and notes. His patience seemed to dwindle as the hours progressed. "I'd say it's about time you made your offer, General," he said suddenly.

General Nelson cleared his throat and spoke, "It isn't that simple. I'm not prepared to do anything but observe, and maybe bring your invention before a military board that can decide..."

"Oh, spare me your bureaucratic backwash. Make me an offer, and you can take M-1 tonight. We both know there's no board waiting to decide. I daresay I've studied the military's policies regarding new inventions longer than you have, General."

General Nelson made an offer. Owen accepted it without haggling. Within a few hours, a military freight landed in the street, and M-1 was packed away in a secure container. Nelson demanded all of Owen's designs and details, to which he agreed. Those Nelson kept with himself. As he and the scientists left, he stopped to speak to Ben. "I hope you'll remember our little talk."

"I will," Ben told him.

"I don't need a reason to put you away for a very long time, Ben." Nelson glanced back at Owen. "Seems to me your father is a lonely man. Wouldn't want to make it worse. Am I making myself clear?"

"Perfectly. Sir."

Nelson nodded and left.

When they were alone, Owen put on a pot of coffee. "So what did you think of M-1?"

"You're a genius."

Owen chortled. "And?"

"And what?"

"What do you think they'll do with it?"

Ben shrugged. "How should I know?"

"Just think about it."

"They'll probably try to build another from your designs. Take M-1 apart and build it again to figure it out. Maybe they'll even apply your engineering principles to some other insects if the design has potential."

"They'll figure it out. But not all of it, I hope."

"What do you mean?"

"Most of the years I spent working on M-1 had nothing to do with its actual construction. Most of it was simply recreating the supraesophageal ganglion." When he saw the look on Ben's face he said, "The brain. An insect's brain is dissimilar from a primate's." He waved his hand. "But what do you think about them? General Lord Nelson and his cronies?"

Ben snorted a laugh. "They didn't know what you had for him. But you showed them. Their eyes went big as saucers when they saw what M-1 could do."

"Ben. They're going to turn M-1 into a weapon."

"You said that. So what?"

"So what? So what?" He shook his head in exasperation. "I didn't build M-1 to hurt people, Ben. It's wrong."

"We talked about this, remember? Nobel didn't make dynamite solely for murder. It didn't matter what he intended. It wasn't his fault for inventing it. Not like he used it himself, right?"

"But he should have known. You know Ben, when I was your age, I wanted to make the solar system a better place. A better place. And now that monster is going to use M-1 to make it worse."

"But you knew that. Didn't you? You knew all that. So why did you sell it to him so quickly?"

Owen wove his fingers together and cracked them. "Ben... I just wanted you to understand..."

"What aren't you saying?" Ben asked him.

"I don't think you should punish Stella for Mars."

Ben cupped his forehead in his palms. "Dad, please. Something else."

"I mean really. You shouldn't blame her for wanting to keep you safe."

"Dad..."

"The volcanic reactivation project isn't exactly stable. Arsia Mons was obliterated last time they tried."

"Dad."

"It was all over the news. Two thousand observers died in the explosion, you know. You were too young to remember, I guess. She had every right to be worried. If I'd known, I would've told you the same thing she did."

"It's so easy for you to say that." Ben set his coffee down.

"It isn't. Ben, listen..."

"No. It's easy for you, for Stella to decide what I should or shouldn't do. You have your success, you finished your work."

"You're being selfish."

"And what were you being all those years you were here, working on M-1? I've only got one life. One chance. I've got one chance to be selfish and to try and make something of myself, before it's gone forever. I just want to try."

"Haven't you been listening to me? There's plenty of time for that later. You're still young, don't waste..."

"Why can't you just forget it? Women come and go."

"Your mother liked Stella," he responded, obstinate.

"Is that what this is about? You're throwing your guilt over Mom at me like a cannonball. Why does it matter so much who I'm with? Just because Mom liked her?"

"Just try to understand how she felt. She loves you. You shouldn't blame her for that."

"I think it's about time I left." Ben stood. "Sun's coming up soon."

"Oh. Well. Oh. I hoped you could stay a few days. Can't you stay?"

"I really should go."

"What about Stella?"

"What about her?"

"Will you do one thing for me?"

"Sure."

"Think about what I told you. And talk to her. Will you talk to her?"

"I will."

Relief washed over his father's face. An earnest smile appeared on his face, the first Ben had seen since he'd arrived. Ben caught the first flight off of Earth.

Ben walked up the driveway and rang the door. The door opened and his father hugged him fiercely. "Ben! I didn't know you'd be here so early."

"I caught an early skiff."

"Look at you. Bearded, and you put on some weight!"

In two years, Owen had changed as well. Only a few patches of wiry white hair were left on his spotted and sagging head. Most troubling was the horrible way his emphysemic breath laboriously rattled out. Ben smiled for his dad and rubbed his chin. "No good?"

"Looks fine. Come on in." They went inside. "Want some coffee? Sit down."

"Sure." He sat.

He poured a pair of cups. "Been busy?"

"Yeah. I read there'd been a few Earthside attacks."

"Not here," his father told him. "There's been a few skirmishes. An occasional swarm, but so far there hasn't been any fighting here."

Ben sighed in relief. Since the onset of the civil war, he'd harbored an intense fear that one side or the other would try to seize his father for their own uses. Whoever first engineered and created M-1 would undoubtedly be an invaluable asset in designing more craft, more weapons. Ben was living on the Ceres colony, brought to orbit around Jupiter, and hadn't seen any of the fighting himself, though he'd made his living over the past year writing columns and reporting the intense violence as it occurred. A year and a half ago, the SSCP had split into two camps, the Right and the Left, descendents and inheritors of ancient political struggles when human society was limited to Earth. Evidence of the war was cropping up everywhere. Two years ago he'd made the flight back to Earth without incident, only having to show an occasional I.D. Now the two sides of the SSCP had resolved to set numerous checkpoints at ports and even in residential areas. Suspicious persons without proper identification were detained and questioned and probed for information. The solar system today reminded Ben of every future-fiction set in a dystopian society. Ben noted with disquiet that all of those novels had been blacklisted.

"How's Stella?"

"Eating like a horse."

His father smiled. "When?

"Two months. She wanted to come."

"Not that late."

"I told her."

"I'm glad."

"Glad?"

"I'm glad you two are together. It seemed a shame to throw all that away. Sugar?"

Ben nodded. "Even when we were apart, we weren't. And you were right. I was wrong to blame her."

Owen shrugged and stirred Ben's cup. "Well, that's all past. Where are you published this month?"

"Solar System Weekly, and Mars Today."

He raised his eyebrows. "Mars Today? Congratulations! That's something, isn't it?"

"It is. What about you?"

"Me? Oh, nothing. Watching the news. Watching them do what I always knew they would with M-1. You know the military calls them locusts? Locusts! And I set out to make a better future. Instead I revived one of the plagues of Egypt. They weld an atom cannon or a railgun to M-1 and they call it an original design." He scoffed.

"I'm sorry."

"There's a battle coming soon. The news says so. Mercury or Venus, they say. It'll be Mercury though. And that'll settle the whole thing."

Ben picked his cup and sipped. "Why Mercury?"

"Mining. Mercury's proximity to the Sun yields crucial resources. M-1 was built from the ore they mine there, you know. Couldn't build one without it, other materials are too heavy. That's why they've built all those battle there, and the battle is going to be..."

"You've been watching the news too much."

"I have to, Ben." He sipped his coffee. "Let's watch." He turned on the small TV in the kitchen, already set to the news.

"...but all agree that there's going to be a full scale battle in the space around Mercury. We've been illegally ordered to leave by the military. If you can see what we're seeing, there's hundreds of thousands of locust fighters surrounding the space around Mercury. There's a lot of confusion, no one really seems to know..."

Ben frowned. "Come on Dad, couldn't we watch later?"

"Do you remember when your mother died?"

"I do."

"It happened, and I didn't even notice. She was sleeping, I was in the shop. When I went to the bedroom, she was dead for hours. I missed it, Ben. I was too busy, even when she died."

Ben felt tears damming up at his eyes. "Dad, I..."

"I was too busy. That was when I got it. Nothing good would come from M-1. Like you said. It didn't matter what Nobel intended. The world was going to make what it wanted of his invention. And it's the same with me."

"A modest estimate appears... Is this right? Appears to be in the millions, over a million locust creatures involved in this singular battle."

"When I realized what I'd create with M-1... I was disgusted. Then I realized what I could do to help the solar system."

"What are you talking about?"

"Someone has to take out the trash Ben. There's too much bad blood in the solar system, too many pointless conflicts. Bad blood has to be purged, Ben."

"...Something's happening, I'm not certain what you're seeing right now, this is very bizarre..."

"I knew they would turn the solar system into a resource war. The only reason it hadn't happened sooner was because it was too costly, the distances between planets too difficult to traverse. If there's a lesson to be learnt in warfare, it is that speed is the deciding factor of most wars. The Huns, the Mongols, the blitzkrieg, each teaches... Well. I digress."

"They seem to be... They're all moving in a single direction, no one's really sure..."

"It's simple to understand, really. Insects are dangerously attracted to light and warmth. A moth to a flame, so to speak, destroys itself."

"...We confirm the locusts are moving out of control, each is flying towards the Sun! The locusts..."

"Maybe I'll go down in history as a mass murderer." He sipped his coffee. "But once I had created M-1, it was too late anyway. So I wanted to give the solar system a fresh start." He looked at Ben's face and asked, "So have you thought of a name?"

THE END