Category: Neural Nets, Uplinks, and Wetware

The Irish born Father Donahey has retired from many years of service as a Catholic priest in South American countries to Winterset, Iowa. It’s not to be the life of books and long rural walks that he expects. The community and the surrounding area are awash with supernatural creatures. Some are friendly, some not, but all must be dealt with in order to protect his new parish, state, country, and the wider world from chaos and destruction.
Father Patrick Ignatius Donahey peered out of the confessional. Three church members, two men and a woman, remained seated in pews, waiting in silence. He frowned as he spotted the widow Clara Murphy.
She was a menace. The woman and her attack cat, Tiger, gave him too much of their attention. The feline was back to his old tricks of attacking his ankles every time he walked or biked past her house. And, Clara would sidle up to him when shopping, or at community events. Much of the resulting conversation was a breathless recitation of double entendres of a sexual nature. He occasionally had nightmares where the two were locked together in a room with only a rickety folding chair he could keep between them. Clara let out peals of giggles as she chased him around the fragile piece of furniture.
The two men, Billy Williams and Taylor Slattery were Army veterans of the Gulf War. Both came back from Iraq damaged by IED explosions. Taylor had lost both legs and part of his hips. Billy appeared normal to outward appearances, but had suffered brain damage limiting his ability to cope with even the most normal tasks. The two had teamed up. Taylor provided the directing intellect. Billy, at six foot six and two hundred sixty pounds, supplied mobility and muscle.
The inseparable pair lived together, pooling their disability pensions. They navigated the sidewalks of Winterset dressed in Wal-Mart jeans and army-surplus jackets, Billy pushing Taylor’s wheelchair. They would even share the confessional together. They were good, conscientious men, rarely asking forgiveness for much more than an occasional wet dream.
Donahey glanced at his watch. At 8:10 in the evening he was feeling tired. He’d heard thousands of confessions in his priestly career — most repetitions or variations on the same limited themes. Donahey almost hoped someone would come up with new interesting ways to sin. The last truly original confession he had heard was that of Manuel Noriega, the drug-lord and dictator of Panama just hours before the U.S. invasion removed him from power. He grabbed his pectoral cross, took a deep breath, and prepared himself for Clara’s assault.
The sound of running feet echoed off the church ceiling. “Help! Where are the Fathers?”
Donahey, grateful for the interruption, exited the confessional booth. A man, he recognized as the CEO of a computer company located in the Winterset industrial park, raced up, and grabbed his arm. The man’s thin brown hair was stuck together with sweat.
“Father Donahey, You’ve got to come right away. It’s a disaster!”
“Settle down, man. You’re Carl Young, the head of CompCo, right?”
Donahey remembered him from the publicity in the media when Young had chosen Winterset for his new installation. The man had made a fortune in designing supercomputers used to produce animated movies and video games. His share of the trillion-dollar industry had allowed him to build his own cutting-edge data center.
“Yes, yes. Get your gear. We need to go. There’s almost no time.”
Donahey pulled his arm loose. “My son, I am not going anywhere until you explain.”
Carl’s body shook. Donahey noticed that he had a bloody scrape on one arm, only one shoe, and his pants were grass-stained at the knees. The computer company CEO collapsed into a pew. Head resting in hands, his voice quivered.
“This church, Winterset, the world is about to be destroyed.” He leaped up and grabbed the Father’s stole. “I need your help.”
Donahey decided to humor him. As they headed for the door, Taylor spoke up, “Father, Billy and I are coming with you. If there’s danger we can help. If not, we’ll protect you from this nut case.”
Billy narrowed his brows, tightened his lips, and agreed. “Tay goes, I go.”
“Boys, let’s not make this too complicated.”
“Father, we took an oath to protect this country.” Taylor said. His companion, Billy assumed a serious face and nodded.
Carl started dragging Donahey down the aisle toward the door. Clara rushed up and grabbed his arm. “I need to come too.”
Donahey rolled his eyes. The situation was out of control. They were all about to rush off into the unknown. Was he the only one still rational?
He relaxed, raised his eyebrows, remembered some lines from a famous movie, and turned to the woman.
“You can’t go with me. We both know that you belong to Tiger. You’re his world, the thing that keeps him going. If you’re not with him, you’ll regret it. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.”
Clara’s eyes grew large, a tear formed. She rubbed his forearm. “Patrick, you’re right. I’ll leave now.”
Donahey heard Taylor groan in the background.
* * *
The four men rode all squeezed together in the cab of the church’s old rattletrap Ford F-100 pickup. Taylor sat on Billy’s lap, his wheelchair slipped back and forth in the truck bed, as they skidded around corners in a rush to reach the CompCo building.
Carl had reached the church grounds on his restored classic Indian motorcycle. They passed it crushed under the front tires of an abandoned recent model Mercedes. No car doors were open and no sign of the driver.
The hand-waving computer guru tried to explain. “I’ve developed an advanced AI system. It’s a quantum leap beyond what other’s have accomplished. Clusters of modified Cray mainframes linked together, capable of scaling to 1,000,000 processors and 100 petaflops, all linked by an optical network.”
“So, what does all that mean to the layman?” the priest said.
“The system mimics the characteristics and capabilities of the human brain. I’ve achieved a fully functioning self-aware AI. It’s decades ahead of anything else on the planet.”
Donahey didn’t know what questions to ask. Taylor’s eyes grew large. Licking his lips, he said, “You have created an artificial intelligence that is on the same level as a human? A sentient, thinking machine?”
“Didn’t I just say that?”
Finally getting the picture, Donahey frowned and said, “So what is the problem. If you want it blessed or baptized, I’ll have to check with higher authority.”
Carl’s clenched fists pounded the dash, his voice raised an octave, and he shouted, “The God damn thing is possessed.”
“Possessed?”
“Damn right. A demon has taken over my beautiful Betty. Father you must exorcise it. That Mercedes back there was directed by the evil one to kill me before I could get help.”
“I don’t understand, my son.”
“Modern cars are stuffed with dozens of interconnected electronic control units or ECU’s containing millions of lines of code. A hacker, in this case a rogue computer using satellites, has multiple points of entry. Your old Ford and my classic Indian have no ECU’s and therefore no entry points. The computer hacked into the Mercedes and made it kamikaze into me.”
“This is very difficult for me to believe.”
“Wow!” came from Donahey’s right. “Father, this is like Hal 9000 in the movie 2001, A Space Odyssey or Skynet in the Terminator. It’s cyber-terrorism by the cybers themselves.”
“Except it isn’t limited like those. Through the internet my poor demon-possessed Betty Boop will take over everything with a chip.”
Taylor and Billy both harmonized, “Betty Boop?’
Red-faced, Carl spoke. “I named her and gave her the personality of Betty Boop, a popular sexy 1930’s cartoon character.
Donahey stopped at a red traffic light. Carl’s foot pushed on the top of his, the truck sped through the intersection. Behind them the light’s red, green, and yellow flashed up and down in sequence at high speed. The street lights and lights in the surrounding houses began winking out.
“Holy shit,” Taylor shouted, “it’s gotten into the electrical grid.”
Their sight lines shrank into the tunnel bored out by the Ford’s headlights. Donahey noted the sky glow from Des Moines had disappeared. There was no moon and low clouds hid the stars. The black gloom was broken only by the reflected shine of parked car tail lights as they raced by.
A pair of headlights blinked on ahead. Donahey glanced into the rearview mirror. Another set of closer headlights raced towards them from the rear.
Looking over his shoulder, Taylor reported, “Wow! It’s a new Cadillac CT6, still with its dealer plates. Has a 400 horsepower turbocharged … ”
The rearward vehicle caught up. It flicked on its brights. The truck cab was flooded with dazzling blue light. Donahey blinked, eyes assaulted. He swerved and then recovered control.
The engine whine of the rogue Caddy penetrated the truck cab. The pursuing vehicle smashed into the rear of the old Ford. Four heads flew back to bang against the rear window. Donahey felt warm liquid drip down his neck. Pinched between glass and skull bone his scalp had split.
The Ford fishtailed. The priest fought the steering wheel. He accelerated. The additional speed pulled the truck straight, just in time to receive another bash. The vehicle in front rushed towards them. Spiked halos around its headlights filled their entire vision. In seconds, they would be crushed between two high velocity behemoths.
Donahey spotted a wide driveway between two parked cars. The truck’s brakes squealed. The Ford tipped to the left. Tires on the right side left the ground. Taylor’s wheelchair parachuted out. The pickup bounced off the rear of a curbside Chevy Malibu, shed speed, and limped up the driveway.
The chase car missed the turn and plowed into the Chevy, crumpling its trunk and splitting the gas tank. The Caddy’s engine clanked and jerked. The leaking fuel caught a spark. Fire shot up engulfing the vehicles.
The foursome sat in the stopped truck, gasped for breath, and rubbed necks and heads. Carl shook Donahey’s shoulder. “Father, let’s go. Let’s go. We can’t stop now.
The second car flashed by, its locked brakes spouting fans of sparks as it spun around to come after them. Donahey shouted, “We can’t get back into the street, the driveway’s blocked.”
“We don’t want back in the street. That’s my Tesla Model S. It can hit 155 miles per hour. We’d never escape on a level surface. We need to go overland. It’s only got six inches of ground clearance. This old rattletrap has twelve.”
Donahey shook his head, turned the wheel to his left, and slowly accelerated. They rolled down the block across front yards, leaving parallel tracks in torn-up turf. The Tesla matched their speed and direction from the street.
“Faster, Father! We don’t have much time.”
At twenty-five miles per hour, the Ford bucked and jerked as it bounced over the irregular contours of Winterset middle class lawns. The Tesla found an open driveway and turned to follow them, its tires spinning on dew-laden grass. Donahey floored the pedal.
The pickup rocketed through hedges, hit bumps and driveways, its pursuer closing. The Tesla hit a drive with a curb, generating a rooster tail of sparks. Something metallic detached and pinwheeled across the lawn.
People alerted by the fire and revving engines appeared on their front porches. Three houses down a balding man in baggy jockey shorts and a sleeveless t-shirt stood on his steps holding a shotgun. Donahey swung the truck to the left. The headlights illuminated a ten-foot diameter flower bed packed with red, white, and yellow rose bushes.
The truck roared through. Multicolored petals flew up like bursts of confetti. A scraping, rasping noise came from the bottom of the Ford. Donahey heard a shout from the homeowner.
The Tesla smashed into the roses, became hung up. The man fired a blast into the maniacal vehicle’s front tire. The possessed car spun its remaining wheels, throwing grass, roses, and dirt yards to the rear. Friction smoke billowed out under its fenders as it poured all its potential into escaping. Donahey witnessed several more flashes of gunfire.
A quivering baritone voice said, “Tay, I’m scared.”
Taylor patted his buddy’s shoulder. “It’s okay Billy, that one won’t be after us anymore.”
The expedition stayed off the road, knocking and clattering over rough ground. The CompCo’s compound appeared to be the only place for miles around with lights and power. The guardhouse was empty and the gate locked. An eight-foot high chain link fence surrounded the fifteen-acre site.
“So how do we get in?
Carl replied, “We can’t go through the gate. It’s reinforced to resist anything but an M-1 Tank. Besides, you can see from here that the spikes recessed in the pavement have been locked upright. They would shred our tires.”
Taylor spoke up, “Can we climb the fence or cut our way through? Father, do you have wire cutters in the tool kit.”
Donahey shrugged his shoulders. “No tool kit, right?” The priest nodded in affirmation.
Carl rubbed sweaty palms against his pant legs. “Getting through the fence may be the least of our problems. I built the place like a fortress — the walls are twenty-four inches of concrete reinforced with iron rebar.
“No windows. No openings on the walls or roof large enough to allow human entry. The four front doors are reinforced steel. The glass in them is bullet resistant. At the top of the steps, I installed two-foot thick five foot high concrete blast shields curved out at the top to deflect car bomb explosions.”
Donahey slapped the steering wheel and said, “Don’t keep us waiting. What is your plan?”
Carl pulled out a Leatherman Multi-tool from a sheath on his belt. “If we can get to the door, I will disassemble the locking mechanism. We enter. Father Donahey exorcises the demon. I get my Betty back.”
Donahey felt a rush of sickness to his stomach. This was too simple. He’d had too many run-ins with Murphy’s law.
He rubbed his forehead, “So, getting past the fence?”
“There’s a seam over there where two rolls of fencing meet. It’s a weak spot. We crash the Ford through.”
Donahey pushed himself upright in the seat. “Brace yourselves men.” As he threw the Ford into second gear and kicked the gas pedal, he regretted that the church had never had the old vehicle retrofitted with seat belts.
Four voices shouted war cries. The fence grew large in the headlights. Donahey straightened his arms and pushed his chin down onto his chest. The world crashed to a halt.
Donahey couldn’t breath, the steering wheel had smacked him in the chest. “Don’t move, Father,” Carl said in his ear. “Relax, breath slow. In and out, that’s it.”
His breathing stabilized. Eyes focused. The hood of the Ford was wrapped in chain link, its motor dead. The detached spider-webbed windshield lay across the dash. Billy limped up with Taylor piggybacked. Donahey let a breath out, relieved that the boys were okay.
Carl helped Donahey out. He flexed his arm and fingers. Nothing broken, but blood leaked from a few scratches. The four formed up with Carl in the lead.
They scuffed up the steps and moved down the five-foot aisle between the blast shields and the building’s front entrance. Carl knelt before the doors’ retina identification sensor. It refused to scan his eye. He popped open the Phillips head screwdriver on the multi-tool, and started work on the plate screws.
Behind them came a grating noise. The front gate opened. A vehicle rushed through. From Billy’s back, Taylor shouted, “Take cover. It’s an armed Humvee.”
With a soldier’s reflexes, Billy leaped and kneeled behind the blast shields. Carl and Donahey reacted more like deer caught in a spotlight. A hundred feet away, the desert-painted Humvee skidded to a halt. A weapon mounted in a turret on top lined up on their foreheads. Donahey felt a rush of understanding to the brain. He grabbed Carl and dove for cover.
They heard a ripping, growling roar as flashes lit up the building. Bits and chunks of concrete blew off the blast shields. Powdered cement, bits of aggregate, and fragments of bullets ricocheted to sting exposed cheeks, necks, and hands.
The fusillade stopped. Carl raised his head, “What the fuck was that?”
Taylor provided the answer, “My friends, we are on the receiving end of a M-134 Gatling gun — six barrels spitting 7.62 bullets. The military has installed satellite downlinks in its vehicles for command and control purposes. Your computer, your Betty, has robbed some Army Reserve depot.”
“It is not Betty! She would never do such a thing. It’s the demon.”
Donahey wiped the dust from his eyes, coughed, and said. “Taylor, can it get to us here?”
“Doubtful Father. It can put out up to 6000 rounds per minute. If it had unlimited ammo it would eventually chew through these blast shields. Given its usual load, it might have one minute or less of fire remaining. If this demon-computer is smart, it’ll fire short bursts to keep us pinned down.”
“We can’t wait! We have to get inside. The demon will be racing through the Internet worldwide creating havoc.”
Donahey raised his head, and then ducked. A burst of slugs chopped out a bowl shape in the top of his shield. After his ears stopped ringing, he heard Billy and Taylor arguing.
“No, you crazy idiot, you can’t do it.”
“Tay, I’m not scared anymore. I took the oath.”
“You don’t even remember that. Besides, I need you, we need each other.”
“I do so remember.” Billy started to recite: “I, Billy Williams, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution …”
“Stop, damn you.”
“… of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic…”
Taylor sobbed and released his hold on his companion’s shoulders, “Okay, okay….”
Billy leaped up and ran to the entrance. “…that I will bear true faith and allegiance…”
He stopped, faced the Humvee, and waved his arms overhead.
Six barrels snarled, an almost solid stream of tracers and copper-jacketed slugs shredded Billy’s body beginning at the neck and moving down to the waist. A cloud of blood, muscle, and dark organ meat blew back to plaster the doors and building walls. Hips and legs quivered for a moment before dropping.
The three remaining men heard the Gatling barrels continue to spin and click — finally out of bullets and with no human to reload. Carl and Donahey stood. The blood-sewer smell took the priest back to battlefields on the Falkland Islands when he had been a Chaplain for the Argentine marines. He put his head in his hands. At his side, Carl bent over and retched. Taylor pulled himself up on a blast shield, face twisted, tears ran down his cheeks, he gasped and shook.
The trio looked at the doors. Billy was smart enough after all. The stream of bullets that punched through his body had shattered the doors. They could now slip through the twisted, glassless metal frames.
The Humvee revved its engine, tires squealed as it shot forward. Donahey smacked Carl in the shoulder. “Get Taylor! Let’s go, it’s going to ram.”
The priest helped Carl, Taylor hanging on his back, thread through the metal and glass wreckage. The Humvee crashed through the set of doors and became stuck. Its tires spun, filling the doorway and antechamber with the smoke and smell of burning rubber.
Carl led them into a room with the dimensions of a basketball court. One wall had been fitted with twenty large-screen TV’s. A separate glass-walled section held the linked Cray computers where refrigeration units kept the processors cool. Carl ran up to an operator’s desk. Donahey helped Taylor dismount and sit in a wheeled office chair. Carl turned back from punching keys. “It’s locked up Father. How do we get the demon out?”
Donahey shook his head, feeling grossly unprepared. Only vague memories remained of a one-hour class during his time at the Jesuit University and the observation of a single exorcism was the limit of his knowledge. He would have to improvise. He unfolded and kissed his stole.
Placing it around his neck, he said, “Carl, I need a couple of gallons of pure water and some olive oil or something similar.”
Taylor was snuffling. He needed to be kept busy. “My son, I’m going to need your help. You need to repeat what I say. Can you do that?”
Taylor nodded yes. Donahey began with the Litany of the Saints. “Lord, have Mercy.” He heard Taylor’s quivering echo. The priest voiced the second line, “Christ have mercy.”
Donahey had finished the Litany. He and Taylor were in the middle of the Lord’s Prayer when Carl returned. His arms overflowed with bottles of Fuji water and a container of imported Bertolli extra virgin olive oil. He stared at the wall screens and said, “Oh Shit.”
Donahey finished the Pater Noster. The screens showed scenes from around the world — many of looters smashing shop windows. In some, human soldiers fought their own machines. One man’s shoulder-fired antitank missile took out an armored car. A drone-mounted camera recorded a missile strike on a panicked file of refugees. In another, a Boeing 747 dove out of the clouds into the side of a mountain. In a screen on the upper right, a steel cover retracted from an underground ballistic missile site.
Carl’s hands shook. “Hurry, Father.”
Donahey blessed the water and oil and rushed through Psalms 53. He made the sign of the cross on the keyboard in oil. Sprinkling holy water from one of the bottles on the monitor and keyboard, he improvised by throwing water on the glass wall shielding the computers. He recited what he remembered, running the words together.
“Strike terror, Lord, into the beast now laying waste to your vineyard. Let your mighty hand cast him out of your servant, Betty, so he may no longer hold captive this person and to redeem through your Son; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, forever and ever.”
The machine activity on the screens stopped. Carl breathed out, his body relaxed.
Donahey said, “This is just the beginning, Carl. These things can take days sometimes. If I only knew the name of this fiend, this would be easier.”
“Its name is Astaroth. Betty told me. She fought the takeover off a few times, before succumbing.”
From what he remembered, this was a nasty one. Its presence first recorded in Sumerian stone carvings thousands of years before Christ.
Donahey put his hands on the keyboard, and rushed the exorcism. “I cast you out, Astaroth, unclean spirit….”
A bass cackle of inhuman laughter came from speakers on each side of the monitor. “Not you Priest. You not strong enough.” Blood began to flow out between the keys. A thick puce-yellow vomit oozed out of the plug-in connections and ran down the cables.
“… along with every Satanic power of the enemy, every specter from hell, and all your fell companions; in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Be gone and stay far from this,” Donahey hesitated, “creature of God.”
High-pitched laughter. “God did not create this.”
Dominating the demon psychologically was key to chasing it out. It had to feel that he was coming from a position of unassailable strength. In a flash of intuition, Donahey said, “If His hand wasn’t involved in its awakening then you could not possess it.”
The demonic-being stuttered; its control lost as it wrestled with the proposition. The computer peripherals spasmed and spun against the desktop. Donahey made three signs of the cross over the keyboard and propped his pectoral cross up on the monitor.
“Begone then, in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’
There was a grunt. A female baby-doll voice cried, “Carl, Carl, he’s hurting me. He won’t let go.”
“Betty, babe, fight him. Father, what should we do?”
“My son, I’ve exhausted my limited knowledge to get us this respite. We need a whole platoon of priests to evict this one. Is there some other alternative? Can’t you shut things down until we get reinforcements?”
“I…I don’t know.”
“Carl,” Taylor said, “We’ve got a small window of opportunity here. The evil spirit will be marshalling its resources. Demon controlled machines will be coming through the doors soon.”
The little girl voice spoke again, “Carl — the C-cave. I’ve not told the demon about it. Use it.”
“Betty, I can’t. I love you.”
The speakers blasted out static. Astaroth’s bass voice said, “I’m….”
Betty cut back in, “Hurry, Carl. I love you too.”
The CompCo CEO shook himself, “Betty, open the door to the mainframes.”
He staggered over to the door as if he was going to a firing squad. Donahey wheeled Taylor behind him. Frigid air rolled out, turning warm vapor in the air into white fog.
“What’s the C-cave,” Taylor asked.
“It’s a last ditch option. Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and a number of others were worried about AI’s deciding a few minutes after becoming sentient to destroy humanity before we could shut them down. They funded a consortium to develop protective codes and devices to keep that from happening. In case these failed they produced plans for a last-ditch destruction device.”
“How does that work?”
“Underneath the mainframes is a cavity holding five hundred pounds of C-4. Normally, to set it off a code cord would be given to the computer.”
“Damn man,” Taylor exclaimed, “that much explosive will blow pieces of this building for miles. I hope you have a safe way to detonate.”
“There are multiple ways. Can’t give a code to the computer, the demon will stop it. My cell phone could give the command directly, but the electric grid is down and the cell towers are not working. We’ll have to initiate the fuse manually.”
The trio stopped before the door. It was only open a foot. “Betty, open the door.”
Shrieking falsetto demon laugher answered. “I’mmmm backkkk!”
The door started to shut. Donahey and Carl grabbed its edge and held it open. He wedged the nose of the multi-tool into the track.
Carl tried to push his way through. On the screens, the violence started again. “I can’t make it.”
Taylor stripped down to bare chest and jockey shorts. His thin torso and lack of hips let him slide through. Carl pointed at a circular plate in the floor ten yards away.
“Open the plate, pull the lever up until it stops, and push it down. Then get back here pronto. We’ll only have five minutes.”
Taylor stretched out arms and began to pull himself along the tile floor three feet at a time. Carl and Donahey could see the pale radial lines of scars remaining on his body from the Iraqi bomb.
From behind them the demon screamed, “No, nooo — no you don’t!”
The multi-tool popped out, the door slammed shut and locked. A white gas hissed out of ceiling nozzles in the computer room. Taylor began to choke.
“The fiend has activated the Halon gas fire suppression system. It replaces the oxygen in the air — stops fire but doesn’t hurt the computers.”
Carl beat on the glass. The noise caught Taylor’s attention. Carl pointed to an eight by twelve inch red-painted case mounted on a pedestal. He made motions of pulling a mask over his face. Taylor nodded. He moved slowly.
The men shouted. “Go, Tay, go.”
Taylor opened the case. He stopped and convulsed with a racking cough. A mask fell out. He fumbled it over his face. After a few deep breaths, he raised one thumb upward. Behind them, the demon voice raged.
A string of blasphemy in known and unknown languages spewed forth, then stopped. A sexy female voice offered them treasures of body and spirit.
The veteran reached the floor plate. He stuck a finger in a hole and pulled the lid off. Carl pantomimed pulling up the lever, then pushing it down. Tay looked at them one last time.
Donahey read the expression on his face. His muscles convulsed. “Oh, no!” he screamed.
The lever came up. The priest read Taylor’s lips: I took an oath, too. The soldier’s hand pushed down. He leaned back and relaxed.
Carl caught on. “Father, let’s go. We can barely make it out.”
He sprinted for the door pulling and pushing Donahey. The priest recited the last rites as he ran. They squirmed around the wreckage of the smoking jammed Humvee. Jagged metal scraped Donahey’s chest.
They ran down the drive onto the short-clipped grass around the flagpole. The earth rose. God’s hand tossed them like pebbles to land with bone-bashing hardness. A fragment of concrete with exposed rebar stabbed into the ground, its rough surface scraped Carl’s hip. The two men lay prone.
Donahey rolled over and sat up. No longer having a life or death task upon which to focus, the emotions of the day busted him. Tears ran down his face. He blubbered unashamedly. Next to him, Carl sat up, tears also running freely.
The sacrifice of two gentlemen and what he had accepted as a gentlewoman was only bearable due to what they had prevented. A thought swam up out of his bewilderment and grief. He had been right. The demon could not possess something without a soul. The concept had shaken the fiend as well as him. Man had birthed a living sentient creature. As the only one who could, God had provided a soul.
END.
by Dennis Maulsby
Dennis Maulsby is a retired bank president living in Ames, Iowa. His poems and short stories have appeared in The North American Review, Mainstreet Rag, The Hawai’i Pacific Review, The Briarcliff Review (Pushcart nomination), and on National Public Radio’sThemes & Variations. His Vietnam War poetry book, Remembering Willie, won silver medal book awards from two national veterans’ organizations. His second book of poetry, Frissons, a collection of haiku and senryu was published in 2012. Some of the poems in this book have been set to classical music and may be heard at his website: www.dennismaulsby.com.

Prolific Press released a third book of poetry, Near Death/Near Life, in 2015. The book has since received a gold medal award from the Military Writers Society of America, was named a winner-finalist in the USA Book News contest, and nominated for the da Vinci Eye Award for cover art.

His latest book of linked short stories, Free Fire Zone, was released by Prolific Press in November 2016. It has been named a finalist in the International Book Awards contest. The book has been reviewed by the Military Writers Society of America and received a 2017 silver medal award. Maulsby is a past president (2012 – 2014) of the Iowa Poetry Association

As of September 2017, sixty-six of his poems have been individually published in various journals, forty percent of which have won awards, ranging from honorable mentions to first place. Out of nine short stories published, five have won awards.

It was dark in the room when Miller woke up. The darkness didn’t necessarily imply it was night time. Miller generally kept the room dark, it was a hangover from his days as a deep spacer. The darkness simply made it easier to transition from waking into working.

“Time?” Miller muttered.

“The local time is oh eight hundred hours Boss.”

“Thanks Jim.” Jim was the home AI, Miller still hadn’t been able to get out of the habit of being polite to AI’s yet. Another hangover from working in deep space, he presumed. Out there the AI’s were your absolute lifeline, they kept you alert, alive and ready for anything. Here Jim was little more than a glorified alarm clock cum personal organiser. “So what’s on the docket today Jim?”

“Jobs to do. Number one, locate Frank. Number two, question Mrs Willis. Number three, obtain ramen. That is all.”

Frank was the cat he’d been looking for. It had been well over a week since he’d taken the case, he wasn’t expecting to find the creature alive today if he was honest. In this part of the region it was probably feeding a family of five by now. He had an idea it might be holed up in one of the cloning banks. Anyone with half an ounce of sense hadn’t just eaten the damn thing themselves, they were holding it hostage and cranking out clones to sell to the hungry and desperate.

And there were plenty of folks who fitted that description in the region.

“Jim, is there still a number for Mrs Willis on file?” She was the old lady who’d asked him to find her husband. Miller already knew where Mr Willis was. Long dead now, gone over twenty years ago.

Every few years Mrs Willis would have another episode and she’d forget that he’d already passed away. Miller had gotten used to doing the job for next to nothing now, he felt bad charging the old lady at all. She was too proud to ever take no for an answer so he’d charge her as little as he possibly could whilst still making her think she had actually paid him a worthwhile amount.

Jim had the data run down in an instant. “File two, Boss. You want I should call her?”

Eight A.M was way too early for the old broad to be awake. She might be up and about by two in the afternoon. “Remind me later, after two P.M.”

“Okay Boss.”

“Jim?”

“Yes Boss?”

“Do I really still need to get ramen?”

“Yes Boss. The order is still unfulfilled.” The AI almost sounded sorry at having to tell him that. It was too well programmed by half.

“Any other items on the docket today Jim?” Miller knew he’d never remember anything without the AI. It was his memory these days. That hadn’t worked right since Sigma Centauris.

Jim was right on top of things. “You need to make the call Boss. You promised her, by the end of the week at the latest. And that’s today.”

Damn it. The call. He’d already put it off long enough. “Okay Jim. Call Girl.”

“Calling Girl.”

It rang once, before she picked up. No matter what Girl was doing, even if she’d been hip deep into a fire-fight she’d always pick up after the first ring. “Y’ello!”

“Hey Girl.”

“Miller, you old fecker. Took your god damn time getting back to me. So, what about the job? You hiring, or what?”

Miller gestured to the AI’s camera to put her on mute. “Job? What job is she on about Jim?”

“Number thirty-four Boss. You know, unfinished business?”

Miller didn’t need the AI to remind him what that was. The hit. He gestured to remove the mute. “Hey Girl, sorry about that. Yeah, I’m hiring. You available?”

“Fecking A I’m available Miller. Promise me we’re taking him out this time?” Girl sounded more eager than anxious at having been kept waiting so long. Almost too eager to be taking this sort of work if Miller was being honest with himself. Which he practically never was. He was that kind of person.

“Yes Girl, we’re taking him out. You can have the bounty too. I just want him dead.”

“All of it? You sure Miller? It’s a primo pay day, you know that, right?” Girl sounded both pleased and excited. Exactly the way Miller liked hearing her.

“It’s all yours Girl. If you take him out, you deserve it all. I only located him. You’re the trigger man.”

“Girl. Trigger Girl. And don’t forget it Miller.”

Damn it, he’d pissed her off now. “Sorry Girl. You know how I get. Consider the pay day my apology.”

“Consider it forgotten Miller. Send me the data, let me know when you want him dead. I’m good to go now.” Was that a trace of desperation in Girl’s voice? Did she need the money all of a sudden? Miller had always thought she seemed financially stable, she rarely took jobs these days.

“Did I call at a bad time Girl? You in the middle of something?” Miller didn’t want to push her but he was curious.

“Nothing I can’t put on hold for you Miller. It’ll be just like the old days again, just like Sigma Centauris.” Her voice didn’t sound angry, but she knew better than to talk about that place to him. She more than anyone, knew not to mention the old wounds, yet here she was ready to rub salt into them?

What the hell, Girl? “Shoot her the info Jim. Dead by dawn if you can Girl.”

“If? Ha! When, don’t you mean Miller? Got a preferred time? You know I can deliver, when haven’t I before?” Girl was razzing him now, trying to bait him into an argument.

“By dawn, that’s good enough Girl. And proof of death too, you know the arrangement. I’ll see you at Mikes, this time tomorrow. You bring the proof, I’ll make it rain money.”

Then the comm cut. Same as always from Girl, she was never big on goodbyes.

#####

Miller got his shit just about together enough to eat before he went out. If he was honest, it was only because Jim had made him lay it all on the counter before he had sacked out the previous night. It couldn’t be called breakfast. Not after he’d sacked out right after speaking to Girl. Just a few more hours in oblivion, then he might be close to coping with another day alive. He barely held himself together these days. The region just wasn’t cutting it as a home, or even as a place to live. Miller missed the stars.

“Eat it all Boss. Then go see Mrs Willis, okay?” Jim was a constant nag, but without him Miller wouldn’t have been able to function at all.

“Is it that late already Jim?” Miller checked his Auto, Jim had already loaded the details onto it. Then he forced the final few mouthfuls down his throat, dragged himself to his feet and just about made it to the door.

Once outside, the transformation was almost unbelievable. You would have barely known him from the living corpse who seemed to be clinging onto life inside the single room apartment Miller didn’t call home.

#####

Mrs Willis only lived one transport away. Miller jumped the barrier, as he had before. It wasn’t that he couldn’t afford to pay the fare, he just didn’t feel like paying it today. Or any other day, come to that. Somehow though, the automated checkers always seemed to know, they instinctively seemed to single him out during the single stop journey. “Ticket please, sir?”

Miller looked the checker up and down. An older model that had seen a lot of vandalism in its service. ‘Maybe about to see some more,’ Miller thought to himself. “Feck off, ‘bot.”

“Ticket please, sir?” The checkers were programmed not to engage, even if the patron was verbally abusive. It was all about seeing a ticket or ejecting him at the next stop.

Miller didn’t raise his voice, or change his tone, but he did remain defiant. “You deaf or something? I said feck off ‘bot.”

“I’ll need to see your ticket for this journey, or I’ll have to escort you from the transport at the next station sir.”

Miller rolled his eyes at the checker. “Ain’t got one, ‘bot. I guess you’re throwing me off then?”

“Escorting you off the transport sir.” The damn things were insanely pedantic about their answers.

“Escorting. Throwing me off. Same fecking difference to me, ‘bot. It’s my stop anyway. So what do ya say to that, ‘bot?”

It gave Miller the same programmed answer he’d heard a thousand times before. “Thank you for your co-operation sir.”

By the time the transport rolled up to the next stop, the automated checker had already firmly but politely hustled Miller over to the doors. It had a good strong grip on his wrist. The kind that’d cost you a hand to try and escape from. Not that Miller was looking to escape, but he was feeling the claustrophobia of anxiety when the doors opened at the stop.

“Please exit the transport sir.”

Miller stepped off as soon as the checker released its vice-like grip on his wrist. He rubbed the skin to get the blood circulating again. “I’m off. You good now?”

“Thank you for your patronage. Please purchase a ticket next time you travel.” And with that the doors snapped shut again, the transport whisking its paying passengers off to wherever they were going today.

Miller had gotten used to being tossed off the transport now. It happened every time, mostly because he never bothered with small details like buying a ticket. It normally meant a slightly more exciting journey, if he was honest with himself. And I think we’ve already established that Miller wasn’t that kind of person.

Ignorance is bliss, bliss is a way of life.

#####

Mrs Willis took her time answering the door. She’d been old when she first reported her husband as missing over twenty years ago. She must be close to the end herself by now. “Yes sonny?” Poor old bird. She was well into an episode by the looks of it.

Miller flashed the old cop badge he’d never bothered giving back to them when he left. It still had its uses. Like now, for instance. “Mrs Willis? Detective Miller, you contacted the Tenth Precinct about your husband going missing a few days ago?”

Mrs Willis stood stone still, like a statue. Miller knew from experience she was now processing the information and trying to remember. As always, it took her a few minutes before she sprang back to life, like a shop display being activated by a passing warm body. “Oh yes, I remember! My dear Harry, have you any information?”

Miller knew from experience that she didn’t react well to being told right off the bat that her dear Harry was currently worm food. “We’re still looking into his disappearance right now Mrs Miller. Can you think of anywhere he might have gone, a favourite bar perhaps? Somewhere he liked to eat?” Miller knew what she’d say next, once she sprang back into life again.

Mrs Willis smiled at the recollection. “Oh yes! Try Jackie’s Bar And Grill, it’s down on Fifth as I recall.”

It had been on Fifth, twenty something years ago. It was a hardcore sex joint now. Dear Harry wouldn’t have frequented it these days, he had been quite the church-going type according to the data Jim had given to Miller. According to Jim, Miller had eventually found dear Harry after a month of looking around all the nice bars, then all the not so nice bars and then finally all the real seedy dive bars. Some scum bag in one of the worst dives had told Miller, after a couple of beers to loosen his memory, that Harry, or what was left of him could be found in a now long-abandoned Latter Day Saints Church over past Bleeker and Twelfth.

When Miller had finally crowbarred the massive oak front door open far enough to squeeze his gaunt frame inside, he’d been hit by the smell first. The paired smells of cat piss and dead guy. Long dead guy. Very long since dead guy. And just enough flesh left on his bones to get a DNA identification as being dear old Harry Willis. Even coming from a friendly cop, Mrs Willis hadn’t taken it well. She’d been placed into an institution for her own good, and left there for ten long lonely years. When they finally declared her well enough to leave, she went right back to the family home and promptly forgot that dear Harry had ever passed from her life. Which was why she got in touch with Miller every few years to investigate his disappearance.

The one thing Miller had given her on his first visit had been his business card with his contact details. Even then he’d been looking to go private. Miller wasn’t exactly sure how he’d gone from high flying detective to deep space miner in the space of a few months. The fall from grace was one of the few things Jim wouldn’t remind him about. That and Sigma Centauris. Because Jim knew better, Jim knew not to.

Bless that sweet AI.

“I’ll try the place and see what I can come up with Mrs Willis,” Miller had to catch himself, he’d almost called her Florence then. She hadn’t told him that yet. She’d tell him her name the next time he called. She always had before and she would again. Miller remembered enough to give her a few days. Coming back too soon normally made Florence anxious, she’d devolve into a state of panic and instantly assume Harry was dead. It was almost as though she was willing herself to remember the truth, no matter how much it hurt her. “I’ll catch up with you in a few days, I’m sure Harry will be home before you know it.”

Miller usually left her with that homily now, he felt it both reassured and comforted her.

#####

“You still don’t have ramen Boss,” Jim was in nag mode yet again.

“No I don’t Jim. And I still haven’t found that damn cat yet either.” Miller felt the AI was near constantly needling him about the ramen. Or the cat. One of them. Either of them. Probably both of them, the smart little shit. Whatever. Feck it.

Miller knew it wouldn’t be long before she got in touch again. “Call Girl.”

“Are you sure Boss? You know how she hates to be called when she’s on the clock. And she’s on the clock right now.” Good old Jim, right as usual.

“Cancel request Jim. Run the Frank file again. Remind me, where was our last sighting?”

The fraction of a second it took Jim to cross check and correlate the date was probably an eternity to the AI. “Caught on a camera, Chop Shop Zone Boss.”

Miller didn’t need to ask Jim to shoot him the data, he knew it’d be on his Auto before he reached the door.

#####

“Whaddaya want, bub?” He was more fat than man.

Miller flashed the blob of fat a picture of Frank from his Auto. “You ever see this cat, friend?” Miller called all creeps friend. He didn’t want them to seem unfriendly to him. Or vice versa, come to that. It was a basic survival trait that had worked so far.

“You lose your kitty, Mister? That’s real sad.” The blob of fat sounded like he meant it too.

“Something like that. Looking for a lady friend, she truly misses him. Last seen on your surveillance gear, a month ago.”

The blob of fat scratched what roughly used to be his right cheek. “My gear, you say? You want I should check the tapes?”

Miller sped through an internal monologue of surprise. ‘Jeez, this guy still used tapes? What century was he living in? No, don’t be rude to him. He might be our last source of viable data.’ “Sure, if you still got ’em?”

The blob nodded. “Oh sure I still got ’em Mister. I never tapes over ’em. I got lots of blanks to use.” The leer he gave Miller left the impression his gear wasn’t just taping the street outside the chop shop. “You wanna come in and see?”

Miller knew he had the third generation copy the camera had shot out to a Wi-Fi cloud storage centre. If the blob had a clearer original, maybe it showed which way Frank had been heading, and how fast. “Sure. Shall I wipe my feet first?”

The blob just guffawed. “Whatever, Mister. Tapes are this way.”

There wasn’t much by way of space on the floor. The blob flattened anything he stepped on, so Miller followed in his footsteps of devastation. In what used to be an office but was now a catch-all for dumping junk, the blob waved a black plastic rectangle at Miller.

Wow. When he’d said tape, Miller hadn’t thought he’d meant actual magnetic tape. Where the hell had he found such archaic technology that still worked?

“Here is is Mister, May the fourth.”

“Star Wars day?” Miller muttered to himself.

The blob shrugged, cupping a hand to an ear. “Sorry Mister, didn’t quite catch that?”

Miller waved him off. “Nothing. Not important right now. So can we watch the tape now?”

The blob nodded and inserted it into a player that was probably an antique when Miller’s grandfather had been a baby. Together they sat and watched the image play in real time, something Miller hadn’t done in his life before today. Everything was pre-record these days. After about forty minutes of playback, a familiar fuzzy ball wandered into view.

“This him?” asked the blob, pressing pause. The image of Frank just hung on the screen, lines of static ghosting over his body and tail.

Miller just nodded, indicating he should keep playing the tape. The blob pressed play again.

Frank took himself a hunk of pavement and sat there for over an hour before anything else happened. That anything else being a bright red mag-van floating into shot to a halt right next to, but not obscuring Frank.

“You able to screenshot this, friend?” Miller asked.

The blob shook his head, the tech was far too old to have hard-copy print-out. Miller used his Auto to snap the van and its ID, then he motioned to the blob to press play again.

The image jumped back into life and a man in a red silk outfit got out of the mag-van and picked Frank up. So where ever he was now, this person had a line on it. And now Miller had a line on them. “Okay. Good enough, friend. How much do you need?”

The blob waved him away. “Don’t want your money friend. Just find your girl’s cat. That’ll be payment enough for old Buddy.”

Miller even shook his hand as he left. A blob called Buddy? And one who didn’t want paying either? He’d heard stranger. But not much stranger. That was straight into Miller’s all time top three, for sure.

#####

It was well into the afternoon by the time Miller tracked down the owner of the mag-van, and just as he’d suspected it was a flat above a legit cloning business. The automated doorkeeper told Miller the van’s owner worked all day, some sort of food delivery job.’ That made sense,’ Miller thought. The guy had spotted Frank and then seen the dollar signs on the horizon. So Frank might still be alive. Might.

As he stood waiting for the van to roll by, Miller called Mrs Willis. “It’s Detective Miller, Mrs Willis. Just calling to let you know that I’m still on the case. I’ll be going to Jackie’s later, thanks for the lead. You take care now.” Miller hung up fast to make sure he didn’t give her the space to speak. Past experience had taught him she’d chat for hours, given half the chance. And Miller just didn’t have the time to engage with the old lady right now. He’d give it a few more hours, and then let her down gently just before he caught up with Girl.

Girl. He wondered how she was doing on the job right now? Had she made the hit yet? Were they in clear at last? Was he finally getting off this miserable ball of rock back to his beloved stars?

Miller had resigned himself to a long wait outside the flat but the mag-van floated to a halt less than an hour after he’d got there. Miller was at the door before it touched the ground, knocking on the window, beckoning for it to be opened.

The window buzzed open. ‘Bad servo,’ Miller thought to himself.

“Yes, can I help you Officer?” The voice was a lot more Standard than Miller had expected. He’d assumed Off-world. And the driver had pegged him for a cop, without the need for even flashing the old badge.

“Miller, Tenth Precinct. Received some information that you might know the whereabouts of a missing cat?” Miller flashed him the picture of Frank on the Auto. “Mister…?” Miller left the silence for the driver to fill. He’d gotten the address but not a name. That was rare in this day and age, whoever this was, they knew someone who could hack. But was someone who could peg a cop, without pulling a gun.

“Wass. Eustace Wass, Officer. Yes, I’ve seen the animal in question sir. Found it without a collar, outside a disreputable establishment. Feared the owner might eat it. So I took him in. I was gonna report him missing, I guess it just slipped my mind over time.”

Disreputable was a pretty accurate description of Buddy’s chop shop. And this guy Wass sounded as human as Miller. But he knew Frank had been wearing a collar. His owner might have been cheap enough to not bother with a tracking chip but he had made sure Frank always wore a collar with his name and address on it.

Miller gestured on the Auto, it adjusted and zoomed in on Frank. “No collar, eh? What’s that then Eustace?”

For an entire second Miller braced himself for the expected attack that never materialised. Wass put both his hands in the air, like a scared good citizen would. “I’m sorry Detective! I saw him sitting there, and I just knew he could make me money! I haven’t hurt him. He’s alive inside.” Wass passed his door code to the Auto and let Miller cuff him to the wheel. He also let Miller disable the engine, so he couldn’t drive off.

The code got him past the automated doorkeeper, as well as the lock on the flat door.

Miller assumed the place had been immaculate once, before Frank had arrived. There were claw marks everywhere now, the little fur ball clearly had been given the run of the place, and of Wass too! It took a few minutes of looking, then Miller just grabbed the closest half-full food bowl, rattling it impatiently.

Sure enough, Frank came bolting towards the sound of food. Unharmed. Not one hair out of place.

“Come on furball, I’m taking you home.” Miller looked at the cat, he didn’t have time for Frank’s bullshit or his bad attitude.

Frank growled, hissed then showed claws. Fortunately his owners had expected such behaviour and given Miller a glove that issued a mild stun. A few strokes later and Frank was like partially electrocuted putty in his hands. And Eustace was more than willing to give him a ride back across the city, stopping a dozen blocks short of Frank’s actual home.

“Listen Wass, you seem like a good guy. I ain’t gonna press charges as you helped me get him home. Now scram before I change my mind, and don’t ever let me catch you breaking the law again.”

Wass couldn’t scram fast enough.

#####

Miller had made a pretty interesting discovery too, as Wass had been driving him across the city in complete terror. “Hey Eustace, is this real ramen in the back?”

Wass just nodded meekly.

“Real, edible ramen? Not the printed shit, or the clones?”

Wass nodded again. “Real ramen, Officer. Would you like some? Free sample for our brave boys in blue of course!”

Miller hadn’t been able to help himself to several packets fast enough. Jim wasn’t going to believe this. Girl either.

Outside the house, Frank’s owner had been all kinds of happy, including the kind that paid extra for live cats. Miller had soon been left in the cold once Frank was reunited with them though.

“Call Girl.”

The Auto acted as a substitute for Jim when Miller was on the go. “You sure, Boss? She hasn’t notified us she’s done it yet.”

“Cancel request. Even on a wrist you’re a terrible nag, Jim.”

The transport was a matter of getting there stop by stop. Miller got thrown off at each station where he’d go outside, come back then get on the next transport. It was a slow journey but it was free. Miller could have paid from the reward for Frank, but he’d rather keep his money and ride for free. Besides, it meant he got to annoy the automated checkers. And that was all kinds of fun.

#####

Back at the room, Jim had kept the lights off.

“The old home fire ain’t burning Jim?”

The AI just ignored him, it was programmed not to interact with his ancient references.

“I found Frank.”

“Really? Alive?” The AI sounded surprised.

“Alive and well. The little shit had ruined the apartment of the guy who’d snatched him. He’ll probably hand himself into the cops later, I’d wager. Seemed like the type to me. Name of Eustace.”

“Already at a station now Boss, just got an update. He mentioned your name, even went to the Tenth, looking for you.”

Miller grinned. “Was he pissed when he found out I ain’t a cop no more, Jim?”

“Seems not Boss. Looks like he was one of the good ones.”

“A rare breed these days, Jim.”

“Rare indeed, Boss.”

Miller glanced at the time. “Check the feed for Florence? She awake now?”

It took the AI less than a second to respond. “Making tea, Boss. You want to place a call?”

Miller shook his head, already halfway out the door. “Turn the lights off Jim, I’ve gotta do this one in person.”

#####

Miller felt odd when he reached her station. The Automated Checkers hadn’t even approached him during the journey there. It didn’t feel right, not being thrown off. Mrs Willis answered the door fairly quickly this time. “Hello Mrs Willis.”

“Call me Florence, Detective. You have news?”

Miller put on the grave face, trying to appear as approachable as possible. “I have, Florence.” He put his hand on her arm.

She already knew, without having to say anything. “No, please? Not that.”

“I’m sorry. Harry passed away. It was peaceful, if that helps?” Miller knew it didn’t help. Mrs Willis would now quietly go crazy once more, maybe even to the point of being put away again. It wasn’t right that she didn’t get the kind of care she really needed. Miller even snuck the credits she’d insisted on paying him back into her pocket when she turned to close the door.

‘I don’t need her money, not now. Not after Frank. And the ramen,’ Miller thought. Jim had already liquidated the asset to the most eager buyer, the schmo who’d been badgering him for the last ten months. Every day it had been the same call, “Ramen, Miller. Get me ramen!”

And now he had his god damn ramen. ‘Another monkey off my back,’ Miller thought to himself.

Miller walked the fifty blocks to Mikes. There was always a free drink waiting on the bar for him there. Mike owed him for life, and then some. Mere drinks would never pay that particular debt. “Hey Miller. How’s the job?”

Miller frowned at Mike.

“That bad, eh?”

Miller shook his head. “I shouldn’t complain. Cleared all my jobs. Found Frank, found some ramen. Had to let Florence down again.”

“I’ll see she’s looked after, if you’re going away again Miller?” Mike was good people. Too bad there weren’t more like him. “You here alone? Or…?”

Miller remembered the time. An hour before dawn. “Call Girl.”

The Auto rang once.

Twice.

A third time.

“She always picks up in one ring, Boss.” The Auto didn’t need to tell him that, he already knew.

“Check the feeds. Any word of the job?”

The second it took the AI felt like a lifetime to Miller.

“News item, might be bad Boss.”

“Don’t sugar coat it Jim, just give me the word.”

The Auto switched to a monotone and began to read the news. “…killed in what appeared to be an attempt on his life, the killer, an unidentified female was also killed by his bodyguards…”

“Turn it off Jim. That’s enough.”

“Tickets, Boss?”

Miller couldn’t go alone. They’d made the escape plan together. “Call Girl.”

“She’s gone Boss. I can’t do that.” Jim almost sounded sorry. Too well programmed.

“Just book the one then. Deep space, next passage. Mike, look after Florence. Use this…” The pile of dropped credits covered the entire bar. And anything they’d ever have to do for the old lady. She’d be well cared for now.

And the stars shine brighter now, knowing they have Miller back amongst them. Jim’s still a nag though.

END.

By Ray Daley
Ray Daley was born in Coventry & still lives there. He served 6 yrs in the RAF as a clerk & spent most of his time in a Hobbit hole in High Wycombe. He is a published poet & has been writing stories since he was 10. His current dream is to eventually finish the Hitch Hikers fanfic novel he’s been writing since 1986.
https://raymondwriteswrongs.wordpress.com/

 

‘Where Immortality Becomes Reality’ the holographic cube spelled as it danced in front of Mary’s eyes. She shifted in her seat and tried to read the pamphlet she took from the table in the waiting room. It covered the basics of the procedure, but lacked any reassurance for her anxious mind.

Johnathan noticed and blinked off his social media outlet, Wal. “It’s going to be okay.”  

She smiled, creasing every wrinkle on her face. Johnathan returned the same smile, as he grabbed on to her sweat-coated hand. Her head fell into its usual resting place on his shoulder.

A nurse walked through double doors on the other side of the room. Her gaze was blank as her Itacts fed her information directly into her eyes. “Mr. and Mrs. Wilkins.”

Johnathan raised his hand. “Doctor Hader will see you now.” The nurse smiled in a way that was as much a part of the advertising as the cube was.

Both Johnathan and Mary stood up with their hands still clasped together. They followed the young nurse down the hallway. Her eyes continued to glow as she typed various messages on her Itacts. At the end of the hallway she opened the door and nodded to them before she turned and left without saying a word.

On the right side was a large bookshelf. Various neutral-colored books filled the wall. They reminded Johnathan of the way his students used to bring pristine books to class while swearing they read them. Pictures of children and vast cities lined the other wall. Mary recognized those as the pictures that came with the frames. The far wall was a large window peering out into the vast city outside. Dark towers were illuminated by thousands of stars contained within them. Buildings outlined by the tangerine glow of the setting sun.

In the center of the large room was a white desk with two matching chairs in front. At the desk sat a young man in a black uniform, scrolling through his Wal messages on his Itacts. When they sat down he blinked off his glowing display.

“So, you folks are here to secure your new life, right?” Doctor Hader said, as he leaned forward on his desk.

“Yes,” Johnathan nodded.

“Well, I’m not so sure,” Mary began, cutting off Johnathan. “Can I ask a few questions?”

The doctor’s eyes flashed green, indicating he got a message on the Wal. His grin faded. “Of course.”

“I have read a lot about this, Transcendence you are calling it, but I still don’t understand exactly how the transfer works.”

“Well, I won’t bore you with the technical details.  What happens is we plug you into our computers which will replicate your mental processes into your new electroplastic brain. Then we will provide you with a new body to house it.”

“I know,” Mary stated. Johnathan could tell she was fighting off annoyance by tone of her voice.

“Honey,” Johnathan interrupted with a polite smile.

“Now,” Mary continued ignoring her husband, “I’ve followed the news stories about the banning of cloning human tissue because of the Genetics War in China.” Johnathan stiffened and dropped the smile on his face. “How does the lack of natural human parts affect people?”

“We replicate the human body with as close to perfection as humanly possible. We use a Silicon mesh with leather exterior. It forms calluses and transmits sensory detail exactly like human tissue.”

“How does that substitute real human tissue?”

“It is the best we can do under the law of the Nora Agreement. Until the Neorepublicans repeal that law we have to make synthetic human bodies for the Transcendent population. But surveys have said that 89% of people have been fine with the new skin type. 34% of people even prefer it.”

“People today,” Mary whispered under her breath.

“I’m sorry?” Hader said. His eyes had flashed indicating a notification.

“Nothing,” Johnathan said, preventing his wife from speaking.  

“So, are we in agreement to proceed?” Hader asked in the most chipper tone he has had since they had come into the office.

Mary frowned. “Can I think about it?”

“Of course, honey,” Johnathan said. He stood up.

“Are you sure? This is a great opportunity! Immortality has finally been achieved. Why would you deny this? This is the closest we have ever gotten to achieving Godhood!”

“Maybe we aren’t ready to be Gods,” Mary said walking out of the office with Johnathan.

They walked to their Transit a gray, oval, pod. It drifted off the balcony of the hundred and thirtieth story. They sat down in the pale interior at a small table with two chairs facing each other. There were large oval windows on both sides and enough space to move around the cabin.  

“Car, Home please,” Johnathan commanded.

“Of course sir,” the car’s friendly female voice responded. The vehicle lifted away from the balcony and drifted into traffic.

Johnathan looked at his wife and reached out for her hand. She withdrew and narrowed her eyes.

“I don’t want to do this.” Mary stated.

“Why not? Our life could continue, forever.” he cleared his throat. “Together.”

“But it won’t be us.”

“Why do you think that? Of course it will be us.”

“Trapped. Stuck in some unnatural body.” Her face twists in repulsion. “Humans were meant to die, it is the natural order of things.”

“But you don’t understand, you have never seen someone die!  I have! I watched men, my men, die in the Genetics War. I watched the light leave their eyes. I saw the hollowness that was left. I know my days are numbered after all the gene splicing they did…” He paused, his throat throbbed on his vocal cords.

Mary’s eyes had darted away from him but she did interject anything.

Johnathan choked back the pain. “I talked to men who died and came back. There isn’t anything else after this and I am scared of the void, the emptiness consuming everything I was. I don’t sleep anymore. It’s all I think about!” Anger seeped into his indigo eyes. He stood up and walked over to the window. The city was a blur of black and amber as their Transit darted past miles of city in seconds.

Mary could see the pain he carried but hated being talked down to like this. “So the answer is to give up what made us human become a Syn?”

“A Syn?” Johnathan snapped, “Now you are starting to sound like that zealot Father Marius. Preaching about the natural order and that we should die so that we can meet God or worse. That we are cowards because we refuse to accept our sins and go to hell like decent monsters used to. Well I did dark things in the war, alright? I killed children. I killed defenseless men and women. I watched people fighting for their families. For their basic human rights, be defiled and murdered. After that I thought life was pointless.” He paused letting the anger go before he concluded with, “But you gave me purpose.”

Mary’s gaze snapped back to him, her glare grew sharp. “And you think my purpose is to exist for you despite my beliefs? As if the only thing I do is live so that your world works. Well maybe our love won’t last forever.”

“We have arrived at our destination sir,” the Transit said as it opened the door to their apartment balcony.

Mary walked out onto the balcony in silence and began tending to her garden. She snipped tomatoes, looked at the pineapple bush for a ripe one, found two and put them in a basket. She carried them inside to cut them.

Johnathan stood on the balcony to let his heart rate slow down. He surveyed her garden. The balcony had become a tropical forest. Pineapple bushes, tomato plants, any fruit that didn’t grow on trees had a place somewhere in his wife’s oasis. She had grown a fully organic garden in this sterile environment. Creating an island of nature in a desert of concrete and metal. He took one last breath and walked inside.

In the kitchen, Mary was at the counter trying to reach the top cabinet. “Always had trouble with that cabinet,” he muttered to himself. He reached up and grabbed the wash rag from the top shelf and said, “I’m sorry honey.”

“Go through with it,” she said. “You don’t have much time left I understand that. It must be difficult. But I can’t do it. It’s not natural.”

He touched her arm and she spun around and embraced him. He felt her warm tears on his shirt as he returned the hug. She looked up at his face, a whole half foot above hers and stood up on her toes and gave him a gentle kiss. “I love you and don’t want to stand in the way of you doing what you want, just as you can’t stand in the way of what I want.”

“But I’m happiest when I’m with you. Please come with me, we can continue our life together.”

Her lips recoiled with hesitation. “Listen, you are the love of my life. But that life needs to end.”

“But, what about our love?” Johnathan asked.

“That will be up to you.”

#

Johnathan and Mary arrived at the hospital a week later for the operation. Doctor Hader briefed them before the procedure, “Once your consciousness is fully integrated we will wake you up and you will be a new man. Have you given any thought to what you want your new face to look like? If you would like to return to a point in your life, we just need a picture to base the face off of. Otherwise you can design it now or let it be random.”

“Why would someone pick random?” Mary asked.

“Some people like the idea of getting a fresh start and mimic the birthing process as much as possible. Don’t worry, the face retains the basic structure it just might not turn out… attractive. Or if you’d prefer, there is a catalog of facial parts for you to choose from if you’d like to look through it. We have over 250 ears, 300 mouths and a startling 400 noses.” A holographic catalog appeared in the room between them and displayed various body parts.

“Also,” Hader continued, “if you’d like to alter the purple eye thing I understand. Some ignorant people will already have prejudices against you when you become a Transcendent. Perhaps, it would be better to not be an augmented that those Liberals are always protesting.” Johnathan frowned.

“That’s alright, I have a picture for you,” Johnathan said. He activated his Itact. An image of his face from forty years ago when he was thirty-eight appeared in the room.

The doctor’s eyes widen and said, “Can I ask why then? When most people want to return to an age they normally want their twenties.”

“It was the last time I found a new life,” he said turning and smiled at Mary. She returned the gesture.

“Okay, well I copied the image and they will begin constructing the face. I will leave you two alone while you prepare. Whenever you are ready just go through these doors,” Doctor Hader said. He got up and left through the sliding double doors behind him into a dark surgical room.

Johnathan turned to his wife. Tears were flowing down her face as she stared at him. He stood up and helped her to embrace him as she broke down into sobs. They held each other for a long moment. She lifted her head up and crushed her lips against his with more force than his lips had felt in years. He returned the force for a few seconds and then pulled away; parting with his lips for the final time. He said, “You are the love of my whole life.”

“And you are the love of my life too,” she said, letting him out of her arms. She watched in silence as he walked around the desk and disappeared into the dark room.

Two hours later Mary stood up when Doctor Hader came through the big white doors from the inner hospital. Behind him followed the exact same man she fell in love with the first time she had ever laid eyes on him. Everything was there, the dark hair, the strong jaw line, the stout nose, even the tender indigo eyes. But his smile was the same as it was hours before. Loving and full of joy but it was off-putting without the wrinkles that used to crease his cheeks.

Her eyes filled with tears as she rushed into his embrace. He returned in a strength she hadn’t felt in years but something was off. The skin was of a leather texture and if felt strange to her. She looked up to him, then to the doctor with a frown.

Doctor Hader said. “You grow used to it as time goes on. Most people…”

Mary stopped listening as he trailed off to talk about studies about this effect.

Johnathan said, “It’ll be okay sweetheart,” and leaned down to kiss her with his soft, strong lips.

#####

Later that night, when they were climbing into bed together Johnathan began to kiss Mary’s wrinkled neck. Mary froze for a second letting the soft tingle of heat and moisture fill her neck. It had been some time. “We should make sure everything in this new body works,” he said as he moved closer.

Mary rolled into him pushing her body against his which felt like falling onto a leather couch that had baked in the sun too long. She pulled away after a few seconds and pushed him so fast he almost fell off the bed.

“What?”

“I can’t. It-it, just feels too weird. You look young enough to be our son and you feel more like the car seats than like you.” Her eyes had shrunk as if she had just rolled into a stranger.

“It is okay honey. I understand it will be an adjustment. That is fine. We can wait,” Johnathan said with very little emotion as he climbed back onto his side of the bed and turned the light off. “You will get used to it, soon.”

“I hope so.” Her voice still held the edge of anxiety.  

Mary didn’t sleep that night. She tossed and turned, like the wind on a rainy night. Every time she brushed up against his artificial skin she was reminded of his new deformity. She tried sleeping far away from him but she could still see his face in the pale moonlight. The face she had only seen in pictures for years. The face she married but had long since faded. The face of a familiar stranger sharing her bed. Finally, she got up and went to sleep on the couch. Not the leather one but the soft polyester one where there were no reminders of him.

In the morning Johnathan noticed her absence and found her on the couch, asleep. As he approached, her head stirred and she looked up at him.

Her eyes flashed with confusion and fear for a moment before she recognized him. She sighed at the thought and sat up and spoke in a tired whisper, “I’m sorry. I thought I could handle this but I can’t. Not yet. I’m going to continue to sleep on this couch for the time being until I can get used to your… new body.”

“That is fine, sweetie,” Johnathan said with a smile.

After weeks past were every brush sent a look of disgust. Where every other time he would walk into a room it would take her a heart beat to reconfigure he he was. Weeks of long silences and sharp looks.

One day when Johnathan handed her a coffee cup in the morning her fingers brushed his. She gasped and let the cup drop to the ground, shattering on the tile of the kitchen. Johnathan did move to clean it up, instead he asked in neutral tone, “Are you ever going to be able to touch me?”

“Honestly,” Mary said letting the irritation mount in her voice, “no. I hate your body. It feels wrong, it feels more like furniture than skin. The heat it gives off is uneven, your arms are freezing at night and you look too young. You like our wedding photo and I can’t stand it. Here I am, old and decrepit and there you sit with your youth, and your fake body.”

“Well, you would not be so old if you had done the procedure,” Johnathan said an edge cutting into his even tone.

“And what? Become an armchair? Feel forty years older than I look? Live with the contradiction of age with youth? And what to walk down the street and have people look at me like a robot. Don’t pretend you haven’t noticed the way people look at you!”

“I think you are jealous that women are looking at me now,” Johnathan the tone of his voice continued to rise but stopped short of a yell. His face shifted from anger to regret the instance he said it.

“Well, if you want to be with those women maybe you should leave me. I’m too old for you. I’m too slow and unattractive. You deserve, better don’t you?” Mary asked with a glare harder than the steel alloy that made up Johnathan’s new bones.

Johnathan’s voice a tint of desperation in it. “That is not what I meant.”

“No. It’s exactly what you have been thinking. I see it in your eyes. You are becoming like every other Syn aren’t you? Abandoning your old life and commitments. Taking up a life of partying because what consequences do you have to live with? You have a perfect metabolism and eternal youth!”

“You have been watching that Father Marius, again.”

“I follow him on the Wal. Yes.” Her chin pointed up towards him.

“Maybe you are right. I should not live in a house with one of the ‘Flock,’” Johnathan sneered at the phrase.

“Oh, now I am in the ‘Flock’ because I subscribe to his Wal?”

“You believe his racist propaganda. It’s turning you against me.”

“I have to be on your side all the time? Beside who are you to call me a bigot? You hate the Chinese more than any-”

Johnathan slammed his fist down on the wooden kitchen table so hard that ended with a crack. A tense silence engulfed the room. When he spoke his voice sounded like dull thunder but felt more subdued that it had in the past, “You were the only person in the world who understood what I went through there. The hell that I went through. The things they did to their own people. The New Yin Revs committed horrible atrocities and it had to stop!”

“They were simply trying to get rights for the working class. The cloning was immoral, and then they were being worked to death—”

“Forty years of marriage,” Johnathan glowered, “You never disagreed with me that the New Yins were evil. You never once questioned or brought up what happened there? Why now? Is it Father Marius? Do you trust him more than your own husband?”

“I have changed my opinion.” Her hands were shaking as she spoke, but her voice stayed consistent. “It happens from time to time.”

“The minute you start questioning what happened during the Genetics War is the minute you lose whatever shred of love I have clung to.”

“I already lost that,” Mary said.

“Then I’m leaving,” Johnathan said standing up. He walked into the bedroom to pack his things.

Mary sat there in the empty kitchen and stared at shattered coffee cup watching the steam rise and disappear fade into the air.

The next week Johnathan called Mary on his Itact. His voice  stayed static but there was light in his eyes when the image of her appeared in front of his eyes. She looked tired and sick but smiled anyway. “I’m sorry,” Johnathan said. “We both said some things that shouldn’t have…”

“Where did you go?” Mary asked, “I looked up on the account and it says you charged to a cheap motel in Slicervile. Are you alright? Sy… Transcendents like you get snatched down there all the time for parts and I have been worried—”

 

“Don’t worry, it is temporary. I am getting an apartment in the Midtown tomorrow.” Johnathan licked his lips and said, “Unless you want me to come back…”

“I do,” Mary began before having the smile on her face fade. “But you can’t, not yet. I love you but I’m not ready yet.”

“When will you be ready?” Johnathan asked in a whisper.

“I don’t know, but I will visit you, and try to ease into it. Okay?”

#####

In the interim months they saw each other on a biweekly basis. Johnathan’s smile stretched all the way across his face but slowly faded every time she wouldn’t ask him to return to their home.

To Mary, the anxiety of seeing his youth again plagued her before every visit. Every time she saw him her disgust grew deeper, as he stood there, unchanged and unnatural.

One day, months later, while Johnathan was sitting in his small room watching something sent to him by a friend. The video was a show about a man trying to move past the weight of the war by falling in love with a younger woman. His Itact lens flashed with a call. The image flashed to life in front of his eyes as he saw a young woman. She had the face of youth but the expression that only comes with age. Most likely fellow Transcendent.

“Excuse me, sir, I have unfortunate news. Your wife had an accident.”

“What?” Johnathan sprung to his feet.

“It seems she was trying to reach something high in the kitchen when she slipped and impaled herself on a knife she was carrying. She is far too fragile to operate on and has lost too much blood to save. If you-” Johnathan had rushed out of the door  and ignored everything else the woman said.

He barreled into his Transit and commanded it to speed to the hospital. It obeyed and within twenty heart pounding minutes he had arrived at the nearby hospital.

Johnathan wandered the halls of the same place he had ascended several months earlier. As he made his way to the front counter the robotic receptionist looked up. It had a smiling face molded into it that seemed incapable of change. It looked at Johnathan and said, “How may I help?” Its voice was electric yet warm.

“I need to see Mary Wilkins. I am her husband Johnathan Wilkins.”

“Of course,” it replied. There was a brief pause from the automaton. Once it had processed the request it snapped its head toward Johnathan. “I am afraid I cannot let you do that, Mr. Wilkins. She is currently in critical condition. But according to the doctors notes she will most likely not survive.”

Johnathan slammed his fist down on the counter in front of the machine that thundered with a crack. The machine said something in return but Johnathan couldn’t hear it. He was too focused on his fist and his strength. Something he couldn’t have done before his procedure. After a second of contemplation his head snapped up toward the robot. “As her next of kin I demand to see the doctor residing over her.”

The machine nodded and summoned the doctor at once. After a few minutes an older Asian woman walked through the door. Johnathan felt a quick jolt of anxiety as his body simulated his skipping a heartbeat.

She smiled as she walked up to him, “How can I help you Mr. Wilkins?”

“How can you save my wife?” Johnathan pleaded.

“I am very sorry, sir. We can’t. ”

“Her injuries are too severe for us to operate on her,” the doctor continued.

“What if we performed the Transcendence operation? Could that save her?” Johnathan’s voice was shaking.

“Only if she had given consent before we begin—“

“That is enough doctor,” a cool, familiar voice cut her off from behind Johnathan. Standing behind him was Doctor Hader in his black Eternium uniform. “I will take it from here,” he said with a smile.

Johnathan turned to see what the Asian Doctor had to say. She glared at both Johnathan and Doctor Hader before storming off.

“Ignore her.” Doctor Hader placed a hand on Johnathan’s shoulder. “Now tell me what is wrong with your wife…”

Johnathan explained what had happened. Doctor Hader listened very carefully. At the end explained a legal loophole that allowed Johnathan to use his marital statues to substitute for her consent.

“The document I have laid out before you also states that this is something she would give consent for if she was able. Also, that neither of you will perform any legal action against Eternium.”

Johnathan knew her. He knew she would never want to become a Transcendent. But she did love him, he knew that and when push came to shove they would always do what they needed to do for each other. But who needed more help now?

Johnathan looked past Hader into the night sky, praying for an answer. In that moment, he thought that the lights of the city out shined the lights of the stars above them. He looked down at the lengthy legal document on the tablet screen and silently picked up the stylus.

#####

Johnathan sat in the waiting room in the same chair Mary had sat in when he came out a new man all those months ago.  Tears filled his eyes with worry. His mind couldn’t even begin to access his Itacts for any form of entertainment.

After several hours of waiting, she walked through the door. The same woman he had fallen in love with all those years ago. She was tall, much taller than Doctor Hader who had accompanied her. Her hair was long and black that framed bright green eyes that always matched the way she used to look at the world. But her eyes weren’t as warm as he remembered them, they seemed cold and distant. He went to hug her but she did nothing in return. Johnathan looked at her, then back at Hader.

He shrugged and said, “The operation was a complete success. She was talking a minute ago.”

Johnathan returned to face her with a puzzled look on his face. This time fury was filling her eyes. Johnathan took a slight step back and looked at Hader.

“You are free to go whenever you want. We will message the bill later…” he trailed off before leaving the tense silence of the room.

Johnathan didn’t say anything. He led her through the halls of the hospital to the Transit and told it to take them home. They both sat in the floating room as the dying lights of the city gave way to only the darkness of the night.

As they approached their home Johnathan spoke first, “Look I understand that you are angry with me–“

“Angry?” Mary said, cutting him off. “Angry that you turned me into this abomination of nature? Yes, I am very angry. Why would you do this to me?”

“Because I love you! Because I wanted to save you!” Johnathan yelled, anger and pain choking his voice.

“I did not want you to save me, and you never did love me,” her voice grew quiet and sharp. “If you did, you would have understood that this is not something that I would have wanted. It makes me less human, less than who I am.”

Johnathan’s mind tossed about for a few seconds, as he tried to determine whether anger or pain was correct. His fist tightened on the table, “What are you going to do? Leave after I saved your life?”

Mary’s eyes widened but before she could say anything the Transit stopped at their apartment. The door slid open as Mary stood up and walked out of the Transit.

Johnathan followed her out onto the balcony amid her garden. Most of her fruit had been harvested as the seasons shifted away from the warm life giving summer. The hanging greens looked withered and dead in the pale, artificial, light of the balcony.

Mary turned to face him. He couldn’t help but think how beautiful she was despite the anger on her face.

His focus on her beauty faded as the words came out, “I’m leaving you.” Her tone flat and emotionless.

“But,” he stammered out, “you are the love of my life. Both can continue now.”

“Did you really think our love would last forever just because we did?”

“Yes,” Johnathan whispered.

“Everything deserves to die at some point.”

She shook her head and stepped into the darkness of the apartment.

Johnathan turned around as the first light of a new day started to peek out through the gray buildings of the city. He stood amid the dead plants and watched sun rise alone.

 

END.

By: Andrew J. Gleason

Andrew Gleason currently lives in Chicago with his girlfriend teaching children with Autism. He went to Ohio University and came out of it with a Psychology Degree and a minor in English to satisfy his real passion for telling stories.  

 

 

Klaxons drown out the screams.  I smell smoke and the dust from shattered concrete.  I’m standing just inside Johnson’s lab, surrounded by stainless steel fermenters and rows of refrigerators, in front of shelves of shattered glass vials and test tubes trembling in their racks.  At the end of a counter I see the desktop monitor that Johnson must have used and I lunge toward it.  There’s another rumble and the lights flicker.

It’s a computer that got me here.  Four months ago, a machine intelligence on a Defense Intelligence Agency server registered my intrusion.  It reached out through the web and followed my encrypted trail back through a series of rerouted networks, past a proxy server and onto my firewalled laptop.

I thought I had escaped detection.  I spent a fair portion of the last afternoon of my normal life trying to convince my girlfriend that I had not just blamed her for my hack of the Department of Defense.  “I was only saying that I wouldn’t have figured out the connection on my own,” I explained in my best reasonable-sounding voice.

“If I had thought that would make you start breaking federal laws I probably would have kept my ideas to myself.”

“I had to see what they were hiding.”

Jenna had been doing research on computer architecture for the past six months, and for reasons that apparently had not involved wanting me to break computer abuse statutes she had traced a handful of patents to a pair of shadowy government contractors and started to speculate about their use.  What if the Defense Intelligence Agency’s hypothetical surveillance-directed artificial intelligence, publicly disavowed by Administration officials, wasn’t just hypothetical?  What if it already existed?  She was only interested in computers peripherally.  Because she was dating a software engineer, she wanted to explore the potential of biocomputing.  But once she’d asked her questions, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about them.

“These are people who can put you on trial without even letting your lawyers know what the charges are,” she said.

“I know what I’m doing.  They’re not going to find me.”  By the time I said that, though, her comments were already beginning to sow doubt.  One of Jenna’s defining attributes is— was— that she was almost always right.  Whatever the critical issue was, and no matter how deeply buried it was beneath compelling distractions, she usually homed in on it instantly.  It’s what made her such a brilliant biochemist.  Unfortunately, that was not always a skill in high demand among people whose sense of worth or career advancement depended on self-delusion, obfuscation or generally sloppy thinking, which seemed to be the main reason why her department chair and academic colleagues never let her rise above the position of adjunct professor.

“If you get a trial,” she said.  “If they don’t just lock you up immediately.”

“Jenna, you were right about the AI.  But that’s only the beginning.  I saw digital copies of signed construction contracts for something called the Impregnable Stronghold.  It’s a massive underground fortress to house government leaders.  They’re preparing for nuclear war.”

Jenna looked up.  Three black SUVs with tinted windows glided up the driveway and stopped in front of the split level.  The armored doors of the closest vehicle opened and two men in black suits emerged from the 12-cylinder Ford hybrid.  One scanned the street and yard while the other walked back to the middle vehicle and opened one of the rear doors.  A large man with a graying buzz-cut and a fashionably tight-fitting charcoal suit climbed out and strode up to Jenna’s front door.

“I guess they found me after all,” I said.

The guy with the buzz-cut asked to see me.  When I stepped past Jenna he introduced himself as Colonel Henrick Forsman.  “Would you care to take a walk, Mr. Young?”

I wondered what would happen if I refused, but not quite enough to test it, particularly since it seemed like a good idea to find out what Colonel Forsman was there to say.  I also had the irrational thought that getting some physical distance from Jenna would help to insulate her from my felony.  We stepped out into the half acre field of ryegrass behind the house.  The development was a few years old, and there were no fences between the houses’ back yards, just a long open space bordered on the far side by oak and maple trees.

“How did you find me here?” I asked.

Forsman ignored the question.  His body language seemed remarkably relaxed for someone who might be about to take me away in handcuffs.  But his pale blue eyes were studying me, appraising.  “How did you break in?”

I wasn’t going to make things worse by lying.  “The random number generator you use for encryption isn’t actually random.”

“Keep talking.”  Forsman stopped walking, and I stopped beside him.  We were midway between the woods and the house.

“One of your contractors posted a reference to the encryption key system on an internal message that was copied in a document that was very briefly posted online.”

Forsman nodded.  “I’d like to offer you a deal.  A chance to help your country.  Hell, maybe the whole human race, if you care about that kind of thing.”

“I have a choice?”

“You can go to prison.  If we have a country left when this is all over, you might even get out someday.  But you already made your choice, didn’t you?  You hacked into one of our servers.”

“I didn’t know—”

“You passed a test.  We were looking for someone with your skills, and you let yourself be found.”

“The server was a honeypot?  Is that how you normally find hackers?”

He looked at me.  “No.  But you’ve seen our files.  You know how desperate our leaders are.”

If they had been waiting for someone to hack their server, they also could have planted false documents.  But I had already found enough external data to mostly corroborate what I’d seen.  I believed him.  Maybe not everything, but I had no doubt the desperation he had mentioned was genuine.  “What are you asking me to do?”

He started walking again, his back to the house.  “You’ll have 24 hours to pack and say your goodbyes.   You can’t tell anyone where you’re going, even your friend back there.”

I hadn’t decided what I was going to do yet.  But obviously either way I was going to tell her.

The next morning I crossed the same field with Jenna, before the sun was fully up, when mist clung to the trees and colors had not yet emerged from the gloom.  The grass was wet with dew and the bottoms of our pants were damp.

“If you go you’ll never come back,” Jenna said.

“I can help, or I can risk going to prison and possibly not get out anyway.”  I turned to her.  “I have to do this.  War is coming.  The plans for the Impregnable Stronghold mean that the Coalition’s chances are better than the government is letting on.”

“Where do they want you to go?”

“They’re flying me to Baumholder in Germany.  I’m not supposed to tell you that.  That’s why I took you out here.  I don’t know if they have ways of listening at your house.”

“How long?”

“You said you didn’t expect me to come back.”

“But what did they say?”

“As long as it takes.  Until the Coalition is no longer a threat.  Hopefully not more than a year.”  I looked at her, trying to meet her eyes, but she was looking at the tree line.  “I love you.  But your whole life is still ahead of you.  I don’t expect you to wait.”

“Can I still talk to you?  Will you have Skype?”

She had on the chunky aquamarine earrings we had gotten on the road trip to Rehoboth Beach and even though her eyes were thoughtful, because they were always thoughtful, because she was always looking just beyond anything I could see, I could hear a new, strained note in her voice.  I absorbed all of it— the emerging uncertainty between us, the grass crunching as we shifted our feet, the cool morning air, the smell of buttonwood and azalea—and I knew that all of these perceptions, my whole subjective world, would sooner or later end, and no one would ever have these thoughts or memories again.  No one would know how much I wanted not to leave her.  “Everything has to be by email.  My messages to you will be monitored.  The colonel didn’t say it, but if they wanted to they could rewrite our messages and we wouldn’t even know.  The AI you correctly guessed they have can mine the web to learn how we think and mimic our communication styles.”

“Then until you come back we won’t know if we’re really hearing from each other.”

“I’ve thought of a code we can use.  Not even a code, a pattern.  As long as you see it, you’ll know the message came from me.”

The car came to pick me up that evening.  We were only ten minutes away from Jenna’s house when I knew something was wrong.  “We missed the turnoff,” I said.

“We’re not going to the airport.”

“You said—”

Forsman grinned, and I saw that the casual air that had struck me earlier was due to the fact that he would say or do anything to get what he needed and not spend a moment thinking about it afterward.  “We have a base here in Maryland.”

I realized then how difficult the next twelve months would be.  It would have been one thing to think about Jenna continuing with her life without me, and to mislead my friends and my parents about where I really was, if I were across an ocean.  It was something else entirely when I was less than an hour’s drive away.

The driver took us through hills forested with ash and maple and off the main road, up a single-lane strip of asphalt, past two razor wire-topped fences and into spreading fields of wheat and corn and hay.  We passed a few outbuildings and approached a modest farmhouse that stood in the shadow of a solid-looking barn and a grain elevator.  I didn’t see any apparent defenses.  “Where’s the base?” I asked.

Forsman just grinned again.  The barn doors slid open and we drove down a concrete ramp into a vast underground garage.

I’ve been underground ever since.  There are—were—close to fifty of us.  Engineers, programmers, scientists, soldiers, Defense bureaucrats, janitors, cooks.  The facility they’ve built down here can hold at least three times that many, but that doesn’t make it feel any less claustrophobic.  The main halls have full spectrum lighting that brightens and dims in tune with the daylight above, which I guess is supposed to make us forget that we can’t see the sun.

I share an office with half a dozen fellow coders.  I’m quartered with three other men, two techies and a bioengineer from Minneapolis named Keith Johnson who has a lab down the hall from my office where he tries to coax prokaryotes into producing propane and proteins and other useful resources.  But I have my own plans for his lab, and now that I’ve decrypted his lock and gotten past the security door I’ll find out whether I can get my idea to work before I’m shot in the back by one of the soldiers or the roof caves in on me.

“This is where we’re going to win the war,” Forsman told me the day he brought me here.

“The war that we’re not officially fighting.”

“The last president had to make the enemy think we were prepared, because we weren’t,” Forsman explained.  “That was the only way to establish credible deterrence.  But the new Administration reversed course because it was afraid that if the Coalition knew that we could withstand their nanospheres and pulse-nukes and biobombs they’d immediately start upgrading them.  As it turns out, they were already were being upgraded, and we weren’t as prepared as we thought we were, so our attempt at obfuscation accidentally turned out to reflect the truth.”

“What’s my role?”

“You’ll be working on the next-gen artificial intelligence.”

“I take it that’s supposed to help guard against the Consortium.”

“The AI you’ll help complete will build a real-time strategic map of the entire battlespace, with the ability to use contextual information to fill in gaps in real-time.”

“You think war is coming.”

“There have already been attacks.  All minor so far, meant to probe our defenses.”

“But you think we’ll win.”  This was an optimistic but not unreasonable assumption.  I couldn’t quite bring myself to frame it as a question.

For the first time I saw a serious look on his face.  “Our mission here is to win.  But there is a Plan B.  The Midnight Legion.”

“What’s that?”

The grin came back.  “If we do our jobs here, no one will ever find out.”

Despite his self-assurance, over the next few months my job constantly changed.  First the AI was to supplement the war effort, then it was to find out what the enemy was working on and when and where it planned to attack, then it was to serve a backup command and control function in case military leadership was decapitated, then it was to preserve human knowledge if our civilization collapsed.

When I received that last order I knew we were in trouble, because if civilization truly did collapse an AI would be useless.  There wouldn’t be anything left to power it.

One morning about sixteen weeks into my assignment I sat down in front of one of the computer terminals that had limited access to the Internet.  Being unable to move freely online felt almost as constricting as the physical isolation of our underground facility.  I had been told that our web restrictions were meant to prevent us from inadvertently exposing our base’s existence and location, but that didn’t make it any easier.

I started typing my daily message to Jenna.  My themes had evolved since the first few disorienting days.  Then, I had mostly discoursed about how much I missed her.  Now I skipped that and went straight to nonclassified details about my work and new life.  I didn’t want her to lose interest, or to feel guilt or ambivalence if she’d decided to start dating again, because either of those outcomes might mean that eventually she would no longer remain on the other end reading my emails.  So on that occasion I wrote about my bunkmate Johnson.

I focused on the personal because I didn’t think other details would get past the censors.  I had plenty of drama to mine.  Johnson took every opportunity he could to let me know that he didn’t trust hackers like me.  But I wrote to Jenna about him because apparently he did trust one of my programming colleagues, and from what he had told me about Johnson’s work I knew that Jenna would be interested in it professionally once I got out and had the chance to explain it to her.

Recently Johnson had begun looking at ways that his fuel-generating bacteria could eat some of the toxic chemicals our facility was producing.  Given enough time and refinement this might solve several problems, including how to make the AI viable after the grid went down.  My colleague had designed a visual programming language to let Johnson easily manipulate and recombine the bacteria’s DNA as easily as shifting around boxes on a screen.

I was almost finished when a new email arrived from Jenna’s address.  It was about accompanying her grandmother to her oncologist the day before.  Almost everything about the email was convincing.  The writing sounded like Jenna’s voice, and the narrator’s facts were impeccable.  I didn’t have Mrs. Reinherdt’s checkup schedule memorized, but this was about the right time for her next one, and it made sense for Jenna to mention it.  The doctor’s name, the street, the type of cancer, the treatment and remission history—all of it was accurate.  The only thing that was off was a reference to Mrs. Reinherdt’s offhand dismissal of one of Jenna’s recommendations.  That might have been plausible for many grandmothers and their grandchildren, but not for Mrs. Reinhardt and Jenna.  Mrs. Reinhardt didn’t dismiss Jenna’s ideas.  No one did.  When Jenna had an idea, you took it seriously.  It’s not that the exchange couldn’t have happened, but it would have warranted some additional context.

Up until then I had been worried about censors doctoring messages I wanted to get out.  It hadn’t occurred to me they would also be censoring messages coming in.  What would be the point?

I skipped my shift to read through all of the emails I’d received from Jenna since I’d arrived.  Now that I was looking I saw that she had been using the same simple pattern I’d applied to my own messages.  Her first email to me started with a sentence containing 133 characters and consisted of 133 sentences.  The next email was 420 and characters and the same number of sentences.  The characters and sentences had matched until about a week ago, when the pattern stopped abruptly and did not return.

The day after this discovery I saw Forsman talking to a group of senior base officials.  By that point he spent most of his time at other sites and I rarely ran into him, so I knew that if I wanted to speak with him this was my chance.  I hovered in the hall until he started to turn away and then strode up to him.  Two soldiers immediately turned and blocked my way.  “Are our incoming messages censored?” I called past them.

Forsman stopped and stared at me.  He no longer looked relaxed.  He was impatient and tired and irritated at the interruption.

“My girlfriend, Jenna Crenshaw.  There’s something she’s trying to tell me.  But it’s not getting to me.”

Forsman looked torn, but then an aide tapped him on the shoulder and impatience won out.  “She’s gone, Young.  Frederick was hit a week ago.  We’ve lost a dozen towns to suicide strikes since you came here.  I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you this.”

I felt a rushing in my ears.  “I don’t—how come—how—”

“Whoever you were doing this for before, you’re not doing it for them any longer.  You’re doing it for yourself, and maybe the United States if it survives as a country.  We’re saying publicly that we have the attacks under control, but the Coalition has demonstrated that it can get through our defenses, and there’s only so much longer we can deny that.”

The next day the walls and ceiling suddenly vibrated like the earth was trying to shake them off.  A deep rumble came from above.  I knew instantly and viscerally what was happening.  The farm was being bombed.  Even though it was midmorning I hadn’t yet gotten out of bed.  Sometime during the night we had lost external communications, and I could no longer reach the AI that I was supposed to be helping to program.

There was a half-minute of shouts and sirens, and then the walls shook again.  I imagined dying where I lay.  The base no longer mattered.  We were marooned underground with no knowledge of what remained above us.

It was my feeling of helplessness that spurred me to action.  The people I loved were gone, and the artificial intelligence into which I had poured so much energy was unlikely ever to come online.  I could no longer communicate with anyone I knew.  Even if I left a message, it might not be found for years or decades.

I thought that meant my existence here would simply vanish.  There was no sign I could leave that would survive this war.  And then I realized I was wrong.  We might not survive, but there was a way for our work here to remain.  I jumped up and ran toward Johnson’s lab.

Now I reach the monitor and my proximity turns it on.  For a panicked moment I expect to be waylaid by heavy encryption, maybe something biometric, but of course there’s nothing so sophisticated—with only fifty of us living in an enclosed space, if people are incapacitated others need to be able to access and carry on their work.  The only thing blocking me is a password, which takes me about ten minutes to crack.  Then I’m in.

The lights keep flickering, but the computer I’m using must be generating its own power.  It’s a visual interface designed for someone who doesn’t know programming.  I know programming, even though I know very little about biology.  I hear booted footsteps in the hall outside.  “Young!  Are you in there?  You’re not authorized to access this lab!”

The program is meant to let Johnson manipulate the bacteria’s genetic code, and that’s what I do.  My first step is to enable the bacteria to produce modified proteins that can communicate with each other and, theoretically, help the prokaryotes coordinate their activities.  The next step is more complicated, and I don’t know how well it will translate from computer programs based on brain architecture and emergent mind theories to living organisms: I adjust the way the bacteria respond to certain stimuli, primarily each other’s simple, repetitive actions.  I fine-tune my previous work, so that at as the modified bacteria start to interact they will provide a one-time signal to let me know if my interventions are working.  Then I set the bacteria on a course of accelerated replication.

There’s a huge roar from above, a boom that vibrates through my bones, and the ceiling collapses.  Someone is screaming in a nearby room, but I hear nothing from the hallway, and gradually the scream subsides into whimpers and then there’s only silence, a deep, absolute silence.  I feel pain so intense that all I can see are hallucinatory flashes in the darkness.  Gradually I become aware of a new sound, coming from me.  I am gasping.

At some point I realize I can see again, but I can’t move.  I am trapped in rubble.  Pain pulses in me, it pulls me open and lacerates me, it consumes me from within.  I can’t feel or see my legs.

The screen in front of me is cracked, but it still shows me a shattered image.  It’s the only source of light.  After a while I hear screaming again, whimpering cries, muffled and far away.  For the first time I am conscious of the weight of broken earth and stone above me, the depth of our tomb down here below.

I can imagine that this is the end of the base.  I don’t know if it’s also the end of the United States of America.  Perhaps it’s the end of the human species.

It’s my ending as well.  I know I am going to die and when I die this throbbing pain will mercifully end.  But through the pain a part of my mind is still racing, still observing.  Even if my plan works perfectly, it might take half a decade before the new biological network is self-aware.  Now all I can do is watch for the signal I programmed to tell me that it’s on the right track.

I wish I could see the sun again.  I wish I could see Jenna.  But I cannot move.  All I can do is watch the broken screen in front of me, watch the bacteria swim and divide, swim and divide.

And then a pattern forms, a spontaneous alignment of single-celled bodies.  The bacteria have formed a number: 133.

Here in the subterranean darkness a new consciousness is being born.

 

END.

By Aaron Emmel

Aaron’s fiction has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies.  He is also the author of a graphic novel, dozens of essays and articles, and the science fiction gamebook series Midnight Legion.  Find him online at www.aaronemmel.com.

 

The fault was Joel Pratt’s own, though he tried to blame his niece, Patti, and then his wife, Donna. But Patti was young and exuberant. How could he fault her? Nor could Donna be culpable. She’d left him the year before. He couldn’t blame either of them for the damage to his Nivens Patch when he let Patti use her illicit mood enhancing wand on him. The “hancer” sat now on a table next to the sofa, the short brass tube sparking every few seconds, its internal battery too run down for the wand to be of use.

Patti sprawled in an armchair across the room. It was a plain and empty space, this room. It lacked the shiny chrome and well-appointed trimmings Joel saw when his patch functioned. Without the aid of the chips, which he always pictured as small black buttons adhering to the faux skin material embedded under his scalp, the apartment looked barren. Plain stairs led to the loft bedroom, not the spiral staircase made of decorative black steel he saw with the help of his patch. No pictures on the walls, but, rather, bleak yellowing wallpaper peeling in the corners, with slap-dash farm animals – pigs and sheep and cows – faded to the point of obliteration.

Joel glared at Patti in her red underwear, her long blonde hair falling across her body like a frayed blanket. For a moment, he thought he’d resurrected the Nivens Patch, but then he remembered that his niece was beautiful and young and didn’t need dreamy enhancement.

He slapped the side of his head, as if that might stir the patch’s circuitry. He concentrated on images of push-down switches, metallic gearing, even toy pulleys with rubber band belts, but nothing woke up the patch. Named for a twentieth century writer who popularized “jacking in” before there was an internet or web or its current incarnation, the inter-web, the Nivens Patch had helped cure millions of people suffering extreme ennui. The patch made the mundane seem elaborate. It transformed ordinary into extraordinary.

“Are you awake?” Joel stood over Patti and looked at her pale flesh. Every bit of her so pale, her legs boney to the extreme and her elbows like sharp stones.

“Where’re my clothes?” Patti sat up. She didn’t suddenly hug herself. She didn’t blanch in embarrassment. She smiled and crawled on the carpet and pulled her ripped jeans from beneath the couch, then retrieved her blouse from behind a flimsy cloth chair.

Joel handed over her sandals, holding them by the thin plastic straps designed to hug her heels.

“That hancer fried my patch,” he said.

Patti shrugged. “How’s it feel? I mean, being free of that garbage.”

Joel squeezed his eyes shut. He didn’t want to look at his dismal surroundings. The patch painted a much better picture, letting him adjust the level of beauty and the degree of electronic enrichment. He always toned down the enhancements when he went outside. He didn’t want to get lost in a beautiful cityscape without real landmarks.

“Enjoy it,” Patti said. “You don’t work today.”

Joel looked to the blank flat screen on the wall. It angled out above a shelf that his patch once filled with virtual books. Now the shelf was empty. Thinking about his schedule didn’t activate the monitor. He had to use the touch screen to turn on the display and then summon his calendar.

“You’re right,” he mumbled. “I’m off today.”

Patti snickered. “Isn’t it insane? You rely on that patch so much, you don’t even know your own schedule.”

Joel shrugged. True. He went to work on the days the patch “told” him to. He took the jitney on Milwaukee Road, the Loop Tram, or a Fast-By car based on what the patch deemed necessary, its cloud-based monitoring system measuring traffic congestion against time of day. Twice a week, Joel traveled to his office cubicle and a sometimes-interesting job helping end-users cope with household appliances and other automated gadgets.

“Don’t you have to go?” Joel said to Patti. “I’ve gotta get this patch thing fixed.”

“Uncle Joe,” she said with mock alarm. She always called him by the wrong name. It was a cute affectation when she was eight. At age twenty-two, she seemed rude. “You’ve got me for a month.”  She plopped onto the cushioned chair, legs under her body, her long hair streaming across her bare arms. She crooked a finger and wiggled it in a come-on motion.

“We really shouldn’t,” Joel said.

“We’re not blood relatives,” Patti said, a mischievous glint in her eyes. She’d said something similar last night when they shared a bottle of bitter tasting wine. That’s when she zapped his patch with her illegal electronic wand. They laughed together when it happened and fell asleep while watching a slapstick comedy on TV.

“You know,” Patti said, “it’s your turn.”

“But Donna’s not here.”

“I don’t need Aunt Donna to protect me,” she said softly, and paused before adding: “You’ll do just fine.”

“Don’t you think you’re too old to be relative surfing?”

She pouted. “Don’t make me grow up too fast, Uncle Joe.”

“Joel! I’m your Uncle Joel.”

“I know. But Joe is much more dignified. Uncle Joe. Sounds catchy.”

He didn’t know what she meant. She’d always been an odd child, even as an eight-year-old when Patti began moving from one relative to another following the death of her mother, a single parent, Donna’s older sister.

“Want to go out for breakfast?” she asked. “I found a cafe with old-fashioned puzzles and board games. Come on. It’ll be fun.”

Joel sighed.

“Cousin Bart took me there all the time when I stayed with him.”

Joel dreaded the idea of going outside without his patch in working order. He’d have to do it eventually. But couldn’t he put it off for as long as possible?

“It’s going to cost me a couple of thousand to get this fixed,” he said, tapping the side of his head.

Patti pursed her lips. “Sorry.”

In that moment, she looked like a remorseful schoolgirl, with a bit of fright thrown in. He couldn’t be angry with her. She’d warned him about the hancer. He knew about the effects from overhearing office gossip and watching TV and reading long articles that popped into his head when he summoned a newsfeed.

“You know any fixers?” he asked. The only ones he’d encountered in the past when his patch needed adjustment worked for Nivens Neural Systems. They charged a lot to repair damaged units. Off-grid fixers were cheaper.

Patti shook her head. “You’re making me feel bad, Uncle Joe.”

“Don’t. Come on. We’ll get breakfast.” He winced when he realized he couldn’t pull up a summary of his bank account, but had to retrieve his old cell phone, activate it – a tedious process that took several minutes — and manually tap into his financials.

 

#####

 

Embarrassed, Joel didn’t make eye contact with his fellow workers when he signed for a tablet computer at the office. With two weeks to wait for an appointment at Nivens Neural, Joel needed a physical device to do his job.

As he took a seat at an empty desk, he saw Elena Korefsky hovering at the edge of his periphery vision. He feared she’d seen him check out the computer. She’d ask him questions now, sound concerned. He shuddered when he saw the woman amble over to where he sat  Tinkling brass beads dangled against her boyish chest, her short black hair brushing her shoulders when she leaned over and said, “Trouble with your patch?” Her hand gripped his shoulder.

Joel swallowed, unsure of what to say. Elena wasn’t a customer service rep like everyone else on this floor. She never took a call from a distraught user. She had a special connection in her Nivens Patch that let her monitor everyone. Elena knew who slacked off, who ignored a call, who didn’t provide the proper help, who didn’t meet their quota.

“A bit flaky,” Joel said. “I think something got fried.”

“You remember how to use that thing?” Elena pointed at the tablet on Joel’s desk.

“Like riding a bicycle,” he said.

Elena narrowed her dark eyes, a puzzled look on her long face. But the confusion didn’t last. Joel guessed she’d latched onto some cloud-based video clip that explained his offhand remark.

“Oh,” she said with an exaggerated opening of her small mouth. Joel stared at her teeth. They glistened. Bits of saliva dripped from her incisors. He wondered why those two teeth were so pointed. Possibly genetic. He missed his patch, which would have given him more information about teeth, genetic nuances, and, perhaps, some clue regarding Elena. Every employee had a profile available for perusal by every other employee. A company rule.

“I’ve got a two week wait,” Joel said. “For an appointment with Neural.”

“What happened?” Elena asked. “To your patch?”

Joel didn’t want to admit he’d had a hancer used on his brain.

“Not sure,” he lied.

Elena smiled. “Playing games with the wrong people?” she asked.

Joel nodded. Vaguely. Wilting beneath Elena’s glare.

“Bad boy,” she said. “I have a fixer-upper. A guy I know. Off-grid. Reliable. And there won’t be a two week wait for service.”

“Thanks,” Joel said, his tongue clicking against the back of his upper front teeth. He watched Elena move along the wide aisle between the wall and the backs of the cubes. He turned to his tablet when she disappeared around a corner. Other heads poked back into their cubicles when she was out of sight. Joel made eye contact with no one.

He tapped the on-switch and his tablet came to life, flashing a spinning globe against a light blue background. The words, “World Wide Help and Aid, Inc.” flashed across the top of the screen. The company president appeared in an inset, but Joel tapped past the video clip. After twelve years of working for World Wide, he didn’t need a welcome speech.

Like riding a bicycle, he said to himself, and recalled the rudiments of handling the touch screen computer. A few taps. Read the icons based on their symbols. Get into the user call-in stream. Prepare to help the poor yokels who didn’t know how to turn on their ovens without somebody’s assistance.

An email icon blinked in the corner of the screen. He tapped it with a fingertip and a short note from Elena appeared with the name and address of an off-grid fixer. Joel pulled his cell phone from his shirt pocket and zipped the message to his personal notebook. Even if Patti came up with a name of someone to see, he knew he’d probably go with Elena’s recommendation.

But what if he had to admit what he’d done?

He assumed this fixer had some ethics. If they snitched on their clients, how long could they stay in business?

 

#####

 

Dr. Stein’s unsophisticated office didn’t inspire confidence, but Joel thought he could trust Elena not to steer him wrong. Unlike a Neural Systems facility, there were no floating holograms depicting an embedded array of chips, no wall-mounted monitors showing happy people waltzing along dismal streets one moment, luxurious surroundings the next, courtesy of a patch. Instead, Dr. Stein reminded Joel of a life he thought he’d escaped. He’d grown up with backroom practitioners who provided medical services, massaging away aches and pains, fevers and coughs, tumors and deep-seated twinges. His mother and father believed in Applied Homeopathic. Now in their 80s, they happily thrived in one of the movement’s retirement centers.

Joel rebelled against their beliefs when he finished high school and left home to live in a college dorm. Medicine practiced at the school’s clinic included annual exams, once-a-year inoculations that always felt like bee stings, and doses of syrupy medicine for seasonal colds and other mild afflictions. He liked none of it, but he believed in being cured, not massaged to apathy.

The doctor, with his hands in the deep pockets of his white lab coat, looked competent enough. Tall and stately, he had the curly white hair and sagging jowls, matched his watery blue eyes and protruding large ears that inspired confidence.

“At a party,” Joel said in response to several questions the doctor asked.

“So, you lost it at a party? A zap? A hancer? What?”

“Hancer. Somebody came along. I got hanced.”

“Hope it felt good,” Stein said with an air of disdain. His sweet breath bathed Joel’s ear as he probed with a proximity instrument. The warmth from its battery felt good. Joel’s hair tingled. A few strands stood straight out from his head.

Joel fixed his gaze on a narrow orange-red stain running from the curved top of the sink, down the side and into the exposed pipes below. Various knives and pinpricking rods sat in a jar of blue solution on a shelf above the sink. A bubble-strewn bar of soap left a film of suds on a slotted holder near the hot and cold faucet handles. The scene seemed important. Joel wondered why.

He pictured tiny beams of energy bouncing against his head and then penetrating his scalp. He envisioned his patch’s dead chips holding animated conversations with tiny men in white coats.

The doctor’s probe had something to do with these strange sensation, Joel assumed.

“I’m not even getting an ack,” Stein said. “You got fried but good.  A lot of times, these patches just go to sleep. I can wake them up.” He waved his probe in front of Joel’s face. “Poke them, sort of,” he added.

“What else can you try?” Joel asked in a whisper.

“You were in a bar?” Stein asked. “Someone came along and zapped you? For how long? Seconds? The damage I see here didn’t come from a quick hit. It’s too extensive.”

“What do I do?” he asked. He didn’t want to admit the truth, that he’d let Patti zap him to ecstasy over and over again.

Dr. Stein grinned. “It’s not the end of the world. Don’t look so glum. A new patch and you’re back in the bright great world that Neural Systems promises.”

Joel swallowed. “How much? Can you put it in?”

Dr. Stein waved at his surroundings. “You want me peeling back your scalp in a place like this?” He laughed. “I’m not in business to go that far. No, you need to go to Neural and sign up for a replacement.”

“But they’ll…” Joel’s voice trailed off.

“Ask annoying questions? Yes, they will.” Stein laughed. Like a man enjoying himself, Joel thought.

 

#####

 

The technician hovered, poking at Joel’s scalp, pushing aside the tiny hairs above his ears, creating an image of the damaged patch that appeared on a small monitor on a swinging mount extending from the plain white wall. Unlike Dr. Stein, the tech didn’t dress in a white lab coat. Like Joel, he wore a gray shirt not tucked into the waistband of his tight-fitting pants, the collar narrow and pointed, the front buttoned to the neck.

“What kind of work do you do?” the tech asked in a raspy voice, as though he’d been made hoarse by too many daily questions. Joel guessed he was the umpteenthed patient today. It was late, close to four in the afternoon.

“I’m a helper,” Joel said, not really wanting to talk about work. He’d spent the past two weeks struggling to keep up with his colleagues, logging half as many customer service calls as usual each day. His sub-par performance earned him an additional half-day per week shift, an early morning one tacked onto the usual six hours he spent in a cubicle every Monday. Without the additional three hours, he would’ve suffered a pay level downgrade. Which he couldn’t afford. Patti ate a lot. Drank a lot. Ran up the entertainment bill with incessant TV watching. And insisted on running from bar to bar two or three nights a week, making Joel tag along on escort duty.

“You guys do a good job,” the tech said in an offhand tone-of-voice. The monitor showed Joel’s skull-wrapping patch, the tiny chips in blue and the mounting material under his scalp in gray-white. “My fridge stopped sending me alerts. Got a helper on the line and no problems. Just needed a software jolt.”

Joel shrugged.

“I’ll tell you,” the tech said as his hands danced across Joel’s scalp, his probes digging softly under the skin, “when you’ve got nothing, no activity at all, not even a blue sky on a cloudy day, so to speak, it’s more or less certain you got a dead one under that head of hair.”

“How much?” Joel croaked. “To fix it. How much?”

“One hundred and fifty thousand.” The tech continued his examination. “That’s an estimate.”

Joel calculated how long it would take him to pay back the loan he’d need to take out, possibly from a bank or from Neural System’s credit bureau, or from the retirement fund he’d built up over the years. He’d paid for the initial patch using the government issued Starter Fund granted after six years of post-high school education.

He had options, Joel thought. He wasn’t as adrift as he felt. Just as he had started to learn – relearn – to use a tablet computer at work, he’d grown use to the sight of his apartment and its dirty brick surroundings, block after block of look-alike buildings. The garbage in the streets no longer bothered him. Nor did the heat of an early summer in late March. He’d grown use to his cell phone, using it for casual communications and information gathering, charging it when necessary. He didn’t mind that every interface, whether at work or at home, was manual now. He had to touch things and press buttons. Things that his Nivens Patch handled intuitively required physical intervention now.

“Yeah,” the tech said, drawing out the sound of the word. His young face betrayed nothing of what he might be feeling. Remorse for giving out bad news or glee about the commission he’d earn. Joel couldn’t tell. He searched the long white face, the freckles across the bridge of the boy’s nose, and the set of those thin lips. He wondered, who kissed this young man?

Joel shook his head. Too many odd questions invaded his mind lately. He blamed the damaged patch.

“You should at least have it removed,” the technician said, thumping the air with the blunt end of a silvery instrument. “I detect some leakage. Not poisonous. At least, not fatal. But that stuff can make you sick, maybe some auditory hallucinations. Maybe bad dreams. It various from patient to patient.”

“What’s that cost?” Joel asked.

The tech smiled. “Bet you missed the old days when you’d think a question and get an instant answer.”

Joel glared at the boy. So sure of himself, secure in his job, his life. “Aren’t you patched?”

“Of course. So I’ve got the answer. Thing is, you’ll have to get more specific about what happened to you.”

“I drank too much.”

The tech nodded, but his lively blue eyes said, he didn’t believe Joel’s story. “Didn’t your patch send you a warning about losing control?”

It had, Joel recalled. He’d ignored the prompts. He’d been having too much fun with Patti, a woman half his age who represented a forbidden land he longed to visit.

“How can you be twice my age?” she had asked, hands on her hips. “You mean, when I was ten you were twenty?”

“No. It doesn’t work that way. But you’re 22 and I’m 44. When you were ten, I was 32.”

“That’s not twice my age,” she said. “Here. Here’s some more of this.” She’d raised her hancer to his forehead.

The memory of that night made Joel shake. The chair that encased him rattled on its pedestal. The tech stood by a desk, a computer screen displaying a transcription of the notes he made into Joel’s file, the words jumping from his brain to the database with no key presses in between.

The memory of that first great night with Patti slowly evaporated from the front of Joel’s mind, replaced by the reality of living with the wild 22-year-old for nearly three weeks. She’d move on soon, onto the next friend or relative willing to take her in.

“Sometimes,” the tech said, “they need to know which bar. Maybe to investigate further. Maybe to run a sting operation. So, if you have friends engaging in this sort of zapping behavior, well…” The tech waved his hands in the air. He looked sad, as though he regretted not having that kind of fun himself. He wasn’t as frivolous as someone like Patti.

“I’d have to turn .. “Joel stopped himself from saying, “turn her in.” That was a giveaway. “Turn in the bar? What if I can’t remember which one?”

“That’s not up to me. I mean, I don’t make the decisions about these things. If they investigate and don’t believe what you tell them, you may wind up living with that decaying patch for the rest of your life. Who knows what kind of dreams you’ll have. Awake or asleep. Who knows.”

“And if I tell them everything?”

“I hear they give bonuses for cooperation. Maybe enough to afford a new patch.”

“Maybe,” Joel said in a whisper. Perhaps it would help Patti straighten out her life, put her on a better course. She’d be sent to a workhouse as punishment. But then she’d get out and sent to school and given purpose to her life. No more couch surfing. No more electronic stimulations. No more patch-destroying behavior.

And, Joel realized, no more being Patti Jarvis, the mischievous imp with the long blonde hair and frilly red underwear who delighted in making people take notice.

“I’m not going to remember anything,” Joel said, and hopped out of the chair.

“You may not like what that damaged patch does to your brain. You’re certainly headed for a life that’s a lot more difficult than – “

“Stop!” Joel raised his hand. “I know all that. Thanks for the warning.” He pictured Patti mouthing, “Thank you, Uncle Joe,” her lips puckering for an avuncular kiss.

He left the office. Out of the building. Onto the street. Patti would be with him for another week of games and fun and meals. His damaged patch and the dreams it might cause when he slept, along with the need to handle a tablet computer to do his job would be with him forever.

He’d get used to it. So long as he’d have Patti for a month each year.

 

END.

by David Castlewitz

After a long and successful career as a software developer and technical architect, David has turned to a first love: SF, fantasy, magical realism, and fiction in general. He’s published stories in Phase 2, Farther Stars Than These, SciFan,Martian Wave, Flash Fiction Press and other online as well as print magazines. Visit his web site: http://www.davidsjournal.com to learn more and for links to his Kindle books on Amazon.