Futur Antérieur
an excerpt

Futur Antérieur
By
Logan M. Giannini

10.1.h Future perfect tense

The future perfect tense (or futur antérieur) describes what will have happened (he will have arrived) or what will have been the case (it will not have been easy).

Formation: = Future tense of avoir or être + Past Participle.

Examples:
J’aurai fini = I will have finished
Nous aurons venu la voiture = we will have sold the car
Nous serons descendus = we will have gone down

■ As with the perfect tense, past participles after être function like adjectives. They qualify the subject of the verb and reflect its gender and number.

Part 1

Lieutenant Detective Martin Semble stopped at the door to the subterran, pausing to extinguish his cigarette and to take a breath. He wasn’t claustrophobic by nature, but the subterrans unsettled him. Once inside they looked and felt exactly the same as the housing developments that choked the earth above; even the faux sunlight had finally been perfected to the point that if you sat next to an open window long enough on those days programmed to be ‘sunny’ you’d get a tan. Most people couldn’t tell if they were underground or above, and the housing market bloomed again. But Martin could tell; he could feel it. But part of the job was working around these things and, crushing the cigarette beneath his heel and bowing under the yellow police tape, he began his descent.
All the other occupants of the subterran block had been removed and Martin’s footsteps echoed hollowly he walked down the hall towards room S813. A young officer stepped aside, punched a code into the door allowing it to swing open, and Martin entered the room, stopping just short of the body which lay only a few feet from the door. Most of the wall to Martin’s right was covered with blood, brains, and bits of bone. What was most eerie about the corpse, which lay rigid, hands still clutching the gun, was that despite the gaping hole in one side of the head the face was left intact, staring mournfully at the ceiling.
“He hasn’t been identified yet and no one’s touched the body,” the officer at the door said, trying hard to make eye-contact with Martin without looking at the body. He failed and, blanching, turned quickly away.
“Right,” Martin sighed, it was procedural, but now came the long, dull cataloguing of what even the novice fighting to hold down his lunch could tell was a suicide with one glance—for starters, the blood was on the side wall, not the back wall, so if he was murdered, it was by someone who was already in the apartments: himself. Open; closed. End of story. There was more important work to be done. “Why don’t you get some fresh air and leave me to it; this is going to take a while.”
The officer in the hallway nodded, mumbled his thanks, and vanished.
Martin knelt a moment by the body, closing his eyes and offering up a quick prayer to the Holy Virgin for the dead man. Not that it mattered at this point, he’d sealed his own fate, but it never hurt to say a word or two on their behalf. Martin made it as quick as possible. Religion on the force was rarely tolerated, only those with extreme talent or those with friends higher up in the chain of command could be openly spiritual without reprisal. Fortunately for Martin, he had both, and crossing himself he drew a camera from his coat and clipped it just above his left ear.
Rotating his head slowly for the best possible resolution, Martin took in the whole room, making a second pass for the ceiling and floor. Two doors, he noted, and a window, or at least what passed for one, but try opening it and you find yourself facing a row of hissing, forbidding circuits. This particular window seemed to be having a little trouble with a sunrise at the moment—no problem, one report to the subterran super and a janitor would be along soon enough, stooping through the low, cramped access hallways that twisted their way around the underground complex in order to reach each and every window.
Martin returned his attentions to the body, starting with the feet and panning slowly towards the mangled head. He was wearing a large pair of shorts, the kind many men sleep in, and Martin noted the slightly disfigured skin on his legs; lots of scar tissue, old, though.
Finishing his sweep Martin checked the body, searching for a driver’s license, an income card, anything that would identify the body. Martin pulled a wallet, still new and stiff, from the man’s pocket and sat back on his haunches to inspect it.
“Sir?”
Martin looked up at the officer in the door. It wasn’t the queasy one, although this one looked just as young.
“Yes.”
“The apartment is in the name of Pierre Bullion, he worked as a janitor over at the Cosmic Research Institute.”
“Worked?”
“Right up until two days ago.”
Martin grunted, but articulated nothing. It still looked simple. Pierre Bullion, assuming this was he, was a lowly janitor with little to live for who lost his job and, in the wake took his own life.
The wallet confirmed the cadaver’s identity as Pierre Bullion, aged 52, but was otherwise sparse. There were a few crumpled dollars, a shiny new-looking driver’s license, and little else. No family photos, no income card, nothing. Martin pried it open farther; there wasn’t even any lint. It was a very new wallet.
The first door led to the kitchen, which was about as empty and untouched as the wallet. Martin gave it two passes, checked the cupboards, and went to the other door.
An automated voice spoke in Martin’s ear and he paused, cupping one hand around the side of his head. “Head of research at the Cosmic Research Institute online for Lieutenant Detective Martin Semble.”
“Accept.”
There was a sliding click followed by the voice of a man who sounded groggy and in some way put upon, “This is director Michael Rubrik.”
“Hello, director, my name’s Martin and I just need to ask you a few questions about Pierre Bullion. He was a janitor at your facility and--”
“Yes, yes, I know who he was. What do you want?”
Martin closed his eyes for a moment, counting a few numbers before responding. “Mr. Bullion is dead. I just need to know a few basic things for the moment. Firstly, can you confirm that Pierre Bullion was a janitor at your institution.”
“Yes, yes,” said the director impatiently.
“For how long?”
There was silence for a moment. “About five years I think. Maybe six.”
“Did you have any personal contact with him?”
“Of course not. He was a janitor. I do all my work during the day; he did his at night. Thieving bastard.”
“Pardon?”
“Pierre, not you. I’m sure you know he was fired recently.”
“No,” Martin unconsciously shook his head, “all we knew was that he ceased his employment two days ago.”
“Yes, he was fired. Pierre was a thief. A night guard happened to catch him in the act and he was summarily terminated.”
Martin said nothing, taking it in.
“The guard said he was making something in one of the labs; they found all sorts of things that they’d thought had been lost for good. Some very expensive equipment. But he was fired, a lot was recovered, and all is well with the world. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve some very important business to finish.”
“Thank you for your time,” said Martin automatically. “Wait, what was he building?”
“I’m sorry,” it was the feminine voice of a computer again, “but contact has been ended.”
Martin touched the piece in his ear and the voice was silent. It wouldn’t do any good calling him back now; he’d given what he felt, no doubt, to be his help. A janitor with aspirations of something more, perhaps, Martin mused, his hand resting on the doorknob to the second room. But that just complicated the suicide. Mental instability? Well, who didn’t have a little of that these days? But maybe, maybe that was all. A desire to be something more, to build something important. The dream crushed he returned home despondent and, unable to find other employment that would enable his mind, he spread it on the wall with a 45. caliber snub. Maybe it was so simple.
Martin turned the knob, adjusted the camera on his head, and stepped into the second room. It was clearly built to be a bedroom, and in fact there was a bed in the corned that looked as though it folded into the wall, but the room had clearly not been used for sleeping. Tools littered the floor and the bed had been converted into some sort of workbench with a board laid across it and varied tools and papers strewn over it. Paper! Martin registered this oddity and filed it among the rest that were now coming hard and fast.
In spite of his own growing curiosity Martin willed himself to move his head slowly, allowing the camera to pick everything up in the greatest detail. Slowly his gaze fell upon the janitor’s handiwork, the end result of the tools, the papers, and the thieving. It looked a slight bit like pictures Martin had seen of electric chairs, for there was a chair in it, but there was far more to it that that, although it was the restraining straps that caused Martin’s mind to make the eerie connection. The chair was encased in some sort of clear dome, and built around the base was such a mass of electronics and mechanics that Martin wondered that the old janitor hadn’t been caught sooner. Surely so many materials would be missed straight off by the institution.
Martin touched his ear, waited a second for the communicator to activate, then said, “Get me census archives.” There was a pause while the computer made the connection, then someone picked up. “This is Lieutenant Detective Semble, I want you to pull anything you can find regarding a Pierre Bullion, current residence Apartment S813, Henderson Sub-Complex, 1342nd Avenue, NE.”
“Shall I transmit those files to you immediately, sir?”
“WHEN THE WEATHER IS HOT AND YOU’VE PUT IN A HARD DAY’S WORK, IS THERE ANYTHING MORE REFRESHING THAN A KIMBLE’S FORTIFIED NATURAL FRUIT BLEND? AND WHEN YOU’VE BEEN--”
“Get that CAB shit off my line!” Martin bellowed, livid.
The computer obliged, apologetic. There was no such thing as a secure line anymore. The department did its best but even so there was no escape from the hordes of Channeling Access Billboards that skimmed the waves looking for active signals.
“Sorry,” said Martin, dithering a moment, “Ah, no, don’t send them just yet. Go ahead and pull the files, but sit on them for now.”
He touched his ear and then hurriedly finished his scan of the room. The machine would be up to tech crew to determine the nature of the machine, but Martin’s curiosity burned. Gathering up the papers on the table he put in the call for the tech crew.
“Is it an emergency?”
Martin looked around him, almost amused. “No. Everyone’s already dead here.”
“Then you’re gonna have to wait indefinitely on that tech team, all available units are engaged and there are more pressing calls.”
“Fine,” Martin knew there was no point pressing that matter, he’d learned that years ago.
Placing the papers and Pierre’s wallet into a plastic case Martin headed for the surface. Leaving strict instructions with the officer standing watch on the site that he be called as soon as the tech team was in transit, Martin slid into his patrol car and pulled slowly off the ground. There was no crisis, but Martin infinitely preferred the skies to the streets.
Gliding along several hundred feet above the highest building in the city was serene in a way that had all but vanished for Martin. There was a tranquility there that didn’t exist down below and, as he did every day, Martin offered up a short prayer that the great firmament would remain a police-only access zone. The technology was not lacking, but opening the skies to everyone was a logistical nightmare and the legislation to allow it had not yet garnered enough support.
Reaching to the dash Martin turned off the car’s communicator and, reaching to his ear, made doubly sure his own was off. Then it was completely silent and, allowing the car to slide to a stop, it was still as well.
Martin breathed in, deeply, and he swore. He cursed as loudly as he could, screaming to the clouds around him with all he could muster. He bellowed, not even articulating words, just releasing that emotion that was pent up inside him. It took less than a minute—breathing a little quickly Martin turned the communicator back on and continued back to the station.
Archives was his first stop, but as he was entering the elevator a voice hailed him.
“Semble, a minute.”
Martin stepped away from the elevator and turned to face his captain, Ajak Prose, a short, corpulent man who had been with the force nearly 30 years but had never advanced past the rank of captain.
“How’s the suicide racket treating you?” This was not a question, but rather an attempt to draw Martin out, and it was accompanied by a smug, malicious grin.
“Captain,” said Martin levelly, as he’d done hundreds of times before, “I’d like to be reassigned to something a little more top-priority. There are plenty of officers qualified to handle a suicide case.”
Ajak clucked sympathetically and shook his head. “No, we can’t do that, we have to keep our special, unique officers safe. Perhaps if you were a little more commonplace, but no…” He turned and the conversation ended. Martin returned to the elevator.
A young, deathly pale man looked up as Martin entered archives. There was always someone new down there; they never did seem to be able to keep anyone there longer than a few months. Despite all the subterran technology that was now available, archives had always been, and still remained, a pit. No natural light, no faux light, in fact, there was precious little light save for the glow of the several dozen computers which populated the room.
“Can I help you?”
“Yes, I’m here to pick up the files on Pierre Bullion.”
The man looked profoundly puzzled. “Sir, you could have just called to have me send them to you.” His fingers began to dance across the touch-pads before him.
“Except that I don’t want the audio files, I want the original text encryptions.”
Taken aback, the man stopped working and said, “That’s… a little unorthodox.”
Martin sighed, this was part of the reason he wished someone could stick it out in archives. Each time he wanted to pull files like this he had to go through the same thing. “I don’t like listening to all the information, it gives me a headache and I can’t concentrate properly.”
“Oh,” said the man simply, “well, the original encodings will be a little difficult to read. They contain the--”
“Verbal inflection as text, I know. I know. It’s all right.”
Nothing was said after that, and the man’s fingers flickered around for a few moments before nodded and handed an EC the Martin. He pocketed it, thanked the man curtly, and departed.
In the elevator he touched a finger to his ear, said “Hold my calls unless it’s about the tech team, I’m going home for the day,” and turned his communicator off.
Home, for Martin, was an above-ground residence several miles from the station. He and his wife owned floor 12 of the Oceanna building. It was spacious, more than enough for the two of them and at times almost too much. But they’d bought it shortly after their marriage when it seemed ideal. Plans change, and by the time it became too large for them it would have been impossible to find comparable housing above-ground.
He walked the few miles to Oceanna; he owned a car but on most days didn’t drive it. The walk to the station allowed him the reflection that he so often needed, and from there he would take a police vehicle into the sky.
At his floor the door opened while Martin was still a few feet away and Allison, his wife of eight years, rushed to him, embracing him and burying her face in his.
He kissed her fiercely back and, lips still united, he caught her easily into his arms and bore her into their apartment.
“You’re in a good mood,” he observed merrily as he set her down inside. “Is there a reason?”
“Could be,” she smiled coyly back. Martin had heard of beauty fading, of men growing bored with their wives, more than half his companions in the force were divorced; but it struck him, as it did every night, that Allison was still as beautiful and remarkable as she’d been the day they’d met.
“Well?” he demanded, playing along as he began to unpack his things. He laid his guns, one electric police-issue weapon and an older, mechanical sidearm, to one side—he never liked to carry it in the house—and then placed on the table the bag containing Pierre’s papers.
“Well…” she trailed off demurely, her lips poised, “You remember that screenplay I really liked, picked up, and was trying to place with Atom Studios?”
“Yeah,” said Martin slowly, trying to remember. “New writer, right? You sold it?”
“Better than that. I gave them the razzle dazzle, told them there was growing interest from competing studios and that I couldn’t hold it for them much longer. And,” she paused again, not to torture Martin this time, but because she was busting with sheer excitement. Finally she composed herself and exclaimed, “They bought not only that but also signed a 600 million dollar contract for the other three he’s written, which they haven’t even read yet.”
Martin said nothing and made no move save to pull the EC out of his pocket and set it carefully next to Pierre’s papers. He looked at it for a moment, his brow furrowed, as though his thoughts were miles away.
Allison hesitated, her face falling a degree, “Martin?” she said with some trepidation.
Martin held for a second longer, then snapped, unable to keep himself in check any longer and caught Allison to him. He held her just long enough to say “That’s incredible, Allie” before pulling her face to his and putting an end to all dialogue.
“600 million,” he marveled after releasing her, “that’s great.”
“That’s 150 million for us. And it could just be the start…” Allison launched into what could be now that she’d secured such a lucrative deal for the writer.
Martin watched and listened, captivated by his wife if not entirely by what she what she was saying. But it amounted to the same thing. It wasn’t until after dinner when his wife sat down to read a few screenplays from writers seeking representation that Martin’s thoughts drifted back to Pierre Bullion.
In his office (a sparse room containing little more than a desk, computer, and Martin’s aquarium, which contained one enormous goldfish and several smaller ones) Martin settled in and carefully unsealed the plastic bag of papers he’d taken from the janitor’s flat.
Papers. Martin marveled again at the oddity of it. No one used paper anymore. At least, almost no one. Martin’s grandfather Terrence, born and raised during the literae revolution, had clung to the old ways and, in turn, passed on to Martin a certain attachment to the physical presence of literature. It was Terrence who, while Martin visited once at the age of ten, put an ancient, delicate copy of Old Yeller into his hands. It was he who had taught Martin the extinct terminology of books, the difference between a hardback and a paperback.
Even Allison didn’t quite understand it. She’d tried to read a book once, but had given up quickly and laid it aside saying, “It’s just hard to concentrate when you’re taking it in visually.” So Martin was as unobtrusive as possible. He made his reports otologically and paid a freelance technician a lot of money for a custom job on his computer which allowed him to print text files. The printer alone cost him several thousand dollars.
So while he allowed his computer to print out the files from the EC he began to page through the papers from the bag. Many were blueprint style drawings, some of the machine as a whole and others of smaller, more intricate parts that were no doubt concealed within the hulking device. Everything had been done by hand, yet another testament to the abnormal nature of Pierre Bullion. Also, beginning to end, every word was written in curving, spidery French.
Martin squinted at the page, touched his ear lightly, and haltingly read the first sentence aloud. “Translate,” he ordered at the end, holding his breath.
“The sin had overcome all in the land of warning,” came back the airy voice.
Martin rolled his eyes and called his wife.
“Allison, can you read this for me?”
She looked at the papers for a moment. “It’s been a long time. I only recognize a word here and there.”
“I just need you to pronounce it.”
“Oh, sure.” Allison lifted a page from the stack, peered at it for a moment, and read, “Beaucoup que j’ai besoin n’est pas ici. Mais, je pense que peut-être peux je prendre tout les matérielles nécessaires de l’institut ou j’ai pris un travail. Première, il faut que je répare l’accélérateur des particules. ”
Martin held up his hand and Allison stopped. “Translate.”
A moment and the computer said, “Much of what I need isn’t here. But, I think that maybe I can get all the necessary materials from the institute where I got a job. First, it is essential that I repair the particle accelerator.”
There was silence for a moment then Martin asked, “What’s next?”
Allison looked back to the sheet for a moment. “It looks like a list, parts and tools and things.”
“Thanks,” Martin leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, “I think that’s good for now.”
“No problem. I’m going to go to bed soon. It’s been a long day.”
“All right, I won’t be too long.”
It wasn’t that Martin didn’t want to read the rest of Pierre’s notes, but given the gist of the first sentence and the format in which the rest of the documents were in he was certain that it would be as unintelligible in English as it was in French. Instead he laid the papers aside and picked up the files on Pierre which had by now finished printing. There weren’t many, in fact, Martin noted with rising fascination, there were really only a small fraction of the records that existed on any average citizen. Perhaps 10 percent of the normal amount, perhaps less.
He scanned the papers for dates. The earliest record was only for five years ago, dated just a month before he started work at the research institute. There were work authorization forms. Financial information. A copy of Pierre’s application for an apartment. Finally, the last sheet, a request for political asylum.
Martin leaned back in his chair. A French refugee. Five years ago France was in the middle of one of the bloodiest revolutions it had ever faced, but to the best of his knowledge none of the imperial family or leading politicians had escaped a violent death at the hands of the proletariat. But if so… was it really suicide?
This new possibility wedged its way into Martin’s mind, pulling together threads of information to weave the tapestry of a new theory. If he had escaped he would undoubtedly take a low-profile job, like a janitor. The machine? A weapon of some sort. But someone knew he’d lived, someone tracked him down and made sure that the job was done.
It was shaky and Martin knew it. He looked again at the application for asylum. There was a place for signatures at the bottom, for anyone who could vouch for the applicant. There was one name: Samuel Elder.
“Computer, search ‘Samuel Elder’ in conjunction with Pierre Bullion.”
“One match; sending files” said the computer almost instantly as Martin’s monitor lit up. There was a picture of a man in his mid-forties followed by a brief biography. He was a famous and extremely successful scientist in the field of alternative power supplies and also, more recently, something of a businessman, but what caught Martin’s attention immediately was that, until three years ago he’d worked for the very same Cosmic Research Institute where Pierre had been janitor.
“Time?” asked Martin aloud.
“10:47 P.M.” replied the computer unerringly.
Martin exhaled heavily; it was too late to call Samuel Elder unless it was an emergency or he was under suspicion of some sort and, any way Martin could parse it, he wasn’t.
“Computer, leave a message for Samuel Elder to call me first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Confirmed… Message left.”
“Lights.”
The room went black and Martin felt his way to the bedroom. He slid into the bed next to Allison and draped an arm around her chest, brushing his nose along the back of her neck. He planted a kiss between her shoulder blades then, hesitating only a moment, another, lower. She rolled over to look at him, her face a mask in the dark of the room.
“No,” she said softly, simply, firmly. “No.”
Martin withdrew his arm and looked at her for a moment. She leaned in, kissed him resolutely, and rolled over.
“Love you,” Martin breathed, as he did each and every time, and closed his eyes. In his mind’s eye he could see the first years of their marriage, their bliss. He forced such thoughts and images from his mind and thought about the increasingly peculiar Bullion case until he slipped into sleep which brought with it dreams: dreams of flying and of making love (which some would say are one and the same); dreams of raging anger and of a throne in the stratosphere where he would sit and look upon the world, seeing its beauty from a distance and hearing none of the deafening noise which shattered all illusion of placidity.