H+/-
or
Zhuangzi's Solution
Time for another game.
My name is.... what? Am I my animus now or my fetal tissue? Doesn't matter, I'm already dead. My heart beats but my passion for life has atrophied. I should never have sold my mind to the corp but shoulda', woulda', coulda' right? Who doesn't make poor decisions when their broke and young? I made one that cost me 11 years of mindless enslavement but hell, at least I'll be able to pay off my student loan.
During those infrequent moments when I'm awake, an unheard of gift I still can't explain, I dream. I dream of alternate time lines where I didn't make this piss poor decision to sell my youth for credits.
I graduated in 2232 with a liberal arts degree. I'm such a twink. The university of Chicago corp sucked me dry. With no scholarships and no help from dead beat parents I borrowed and borrowed until I found myself here, another meat machine robot continuously controlled by a neural stunt transponder. They tell me I shouldn't complain, everybody's doing it. This is just the way of progress and I should just be content with the ease of it. I really just wish I was content with it. Fuck my programming glitch because I'm just not content with it.
Pervy Kirby sits in my dorm room on the bed opposite to mine. His hand does something under his pants as his glazed over eyes stare blankly over at me.
“Can you stop doing that, it's fucking disgusting”! My mood that day was anything but good.
“Stop being such a twink. You should really check this out man, these girls are hot. Smokin' no jokin' bra”.
“Did you actually get their consent this time”?
“Sheeeiiiiiit....” Kirby drew out the word like some 1970's blacksploitation actor. Did I mention I wrote my thesis on ancient pop culture and it's relevance in modern society? No? Well there you go. I am the epitome of twinkage. “The only consent I need is my big 'ol cock in their mouth”. Pervy was a well known, at least on campus that is, VR Cron. Although instead of chronicling mountain climbing or stratosphere diving, his life art tended to stray towards any pussy his big dick led him to. Legally speaking, for VR porn cron that is, he's supposed to get signed consent forms from anyone involved. Since however he mainly only dealt with private clients on the black market nail exchange he rarely took the time to get one.
“How much did you get for this one?” I asked, immediately wishing I hadn't.
“10,000 credits, and that's only the first offer. At this rate not only am I going to be able to pay off my student loan but also have a bit left over for my very own post college pussy palace. A cock castle where I can continue my work”.
“Your work? You film unsuspecting sluts you may or may not have rapped”.
“Damn man, harsh. What's your deal”? His naturally cocky smile faded a bit. I actually felt a bit sorry for him. He's basically just a dick with legs but at least in that he has a kind of purity. .
“Sorry Kirbs, got my debt sheet today. I knew I was in deep but for some reason it's more real now with it printed out”.
“How much?”, and I could see actual concern on his face. Maybe there's a heart in that dick of his after all. I threw him the sheet lying next to me like a dirty diaper I didn't want to touch. “How the.... This is a lot. I mean.. fuck man. I'm sorry”.
“Never was good with money”, I joked lamely.
“You gonna borg it”?
“It's not like parents are going to help”.
“That's a hella time debt. Ten years at least”.
“Twenties are over rated”. Involuntarily my hands clenched together, finding release in pain.
“You could try asteroid farming”. That dear perambulating penis, he really did want to help.
“I checked. They only use bots nowadays. Humes are too much of an insurance risk”.
“Thats some gloomy shit, even my dick is sad”. His eyes fell to the ground and both of us began to wallow in silence for a bit. Then suddenly, electrically, his head poped up and a big old smile stretches across his face. “I got somethin somethin. Just the kinda somethin somethin you need now”. His hand, previously mining white gold from under his pants extracts itself and proceeds to remove the sex sim stunt from his neural input, just below his medulla oblongata. His other hand finds it's way into his pocket taking out a rainbow colored neural nail. “Latest shit this. It's like old school LSD, mushrooms, and ayahuasca wrapped up in one. The chick who gave it to me, some coed down the hall, said I should give it to you. Said it would help you understand. She seemed all serious and shit. I think she digs you, you should hit that shit man”. He tosses the nail to me which I, uncharacteristically, caught. I think hesitated only for second, maybe less, then shoved the stunt into my spinal port. The fear of melting your mind that comes with using synaptic inhibitors engulfed me for a brief instant before I was thrown face first into fucked the fuck up.
Twelve hours later, bruised, scratched, and missing my pants, I wake. I'm completely fuzzed, which is local loco speak for synaptic exhaustion. It's not like a hangover, more of mental fizz of colors and thoughts that, try as they might, just can't connect coherently. It feels like my mind is like cotton candy that can't congeal. I plugged a med nail into my head and slowly but surely my mind found itself again. Of course when my thoughts congeal again I began to think immediately about my debt, it's not like synth soma gave me any insight, no matter what that hip chick thought.
I look at my old gear and spring clock and see that I'm already late. Good, I thought, never arrive early to your own death. I found another pair of pants, a musky two days clean, and headed for the quad.
For some reason I shaved off my eye brows during my trip, something about an old obscure dead guy named Roger Waters. My face felt strange as the spring air raced to embrace my newly naked skin. As I walked, more like stumbled, I look down at the t-shirt I managed to hold onto the night before and discover piss, blood, and cum for all to see. You'd think I'd care, but, I didn't. I was going to the job fair.
And of course there were lights. The size, shape, and execution as numerous as the stars. Most of them were holos of course but some of the bigger corps were using new retinal inscription tech, hacking your retina and implanting a “memory”. Five seconds of bullshit any right kid can figure out is fake.
That whole flesh fair was disgusting, both in concept and execution. Even with all the lights, sounds, and gimmicks it's just a meat bazaar and it was definitely a buyers market. The other post graduate debt monkeys like myself around me looked like lemmings looking for a cliff.
I walked to registration still smiling, which annoyed the hell out of me considering what I was about to do. They said I wouldn't feel a thing. I felt everything. I'm such an idiot.
The whole registration ordeal took literally only a second. Biometric ID, Health specs, and the like. My synaptic elasticity and healthy young body earned me a yellow glowing stamp. There are nerds and corp climbers that would of killed for my grade. The difference between them and me was that I only saw prison.
“Hello and let me personally welcome you to Astro Corp”. The HR rep was a Hume. Expensive. Always a good sign. She's dressed in a designer suit that shows just enough leg to make me want to believe her bullshit. “As cognitively dispossessed myself for 8 years I can assure you, you're making the right choice. Not only will it free you of your, to be blunt, massive credit debt but give you a managerial position when you transition back into wakefulness. You are a yellow, obviously you understand space is the only remaining viable resource left and Astro Corp is the only proven enterprise in space. Choose us and move beyond your debt, beyond even this world, and spend the remaining years of your waking life in luxury”. Her hands previously clasped on the table finally unclench and move to her knees. She looked like a bot even though I knew she's awake.
“Taking on any Astro-engineers?”, I asked hopefully, despondently.
“I'm afraid our insurance carriers will not allow us to hire engineers at this time”. Her smile was curt, I wanted to chew it off with my teeth.
“Death rate?” I asked, not really caring.
Her smile brightened. Her lips revealing just enough of her perfect glowing white teeth, sloping upwards with the appropriate, scientifically researched, curvature. She probably spent hours of instruction learning how to smile in just that way. “Lowest in years. We boast a industry leading standard of 7.2%, down from 10.5% ten years ago. We do care about our employees”. She flashed her money smile once again and I couldn't help thinking she probably actually believes what she spouts.
“Alright, fuck it, what's my time”?
Her eyes glazes over for a moment as she checked current market conditions. “11 years, 3 months, and 2 days based on your qualifications and total debt”.
“Do it”.
“Excellent. We just need some blood”.
I was given two weeks to clean up my affairs and to prepare for my death. What 7.2% could go wrong, I thought. Sometimes I wish I was part of that 7.2%, at least I would of been spared knowing what I know now. Slavery is hell. Did I mention that some fat fuck stuck his prick into me, raping me because he was bored and he could? No? I will.
Two weeks pass and I wake up every morning fuzzed. I could of gone back to my parents house but seeing how they never even tried to help me get out of this mess I was still more than a mite bit pissed. Out dated Amera Corp values and all that. If the baby bird doesn't want to leave the nest, kick it the fuck off. Instead I took the tube to Rio and ended up forgetting most of my time spent there. I think I was happy?
I show up for the first day 19th century Dostoevsky drunk, a bottle of Russian vodka in hand. Not surprisingly I wasn't the only one.
“Ya fud up on yur furst day tooo? Howdja doooooo”. Even then Mia was strange, electric, intoxicating.
“I'm a bit uncomfortable with this”. Cheers to the simple honesty that comes from simple inebriation.
Mia swerved a bit then regained herself. “I know right? Indentured service anyone? Fur why...? Why....” She's slurring a bit but even that's cute. “Life path? Career? Financial freedom? Intolerable boredom? Wad eber.... Same same and different”. Spit began to trickle down her lips but I didn't mind. They were plump and pleasant. A cozy little nook that I wanted to sit and nap.
“They seem to enjoy it”. My blue eyes gesture over to the mass of lick spittles already gathered in the enormous conference room. They seemed content, excited even, to play their parts in the corp's puppet theater.
“Fuddin amoebas! All they know is eat, shit, and divide. She takes the bottle of vodka from me, takes a long pull, then says, “What's yur moniker deviant”?
“Ben”.
“Plussed to meet ya Benny boy. I'm the one and only Mia”.
Induction started with a bang, literally. Holo fireworks crackled above us on the domed conference room ceiling while Astro Corp's head HR transitionalist spouted platitudes that were lost to me in my drunken state. I can only remember Mia's hand in mine, instinctual gravitation arising from mutual terror.
“....and today we make history. Before me stands humanities only chance to expand into a viable future. You, everyone of you, are the future of Hume survival. When at war sacrifices have to be made. As the best and brightest there is no need to further define the gravitas of our collected struggle. The Intelligence is smarter, stronger, and more efficient then us biologicals. They are our evolutionary betters and they are, I can assure you, annoyed that we haven't just died out. With what you are doing today you are seeing to it that we do not just expire. By taking away critical system controls from the bots and their cold overlord we can now keep humanity safe from our own creation's lust for dominion. We barely survived the Mech Uprising and we will never, ever, let it happen again. I salute you, the world salutes you, for your sacrifice”. A collective roar filled the hall. This is the kind of political dogma we've been spoon fed since childhood that everyone, even me at the time, knew as truth. Funny thing about truth, a lot of times it turns out to be complete bullshit.
When I looked over at Mia she was crying. I have this feeling that she already knew what I know now. No wonder she had scars on her wrists.
Us lemmings were next led to an ornate dining room replete with astro mined platinum chandeliers, synth oak furnishings, and a fortunes worth of food laid out buffet style. Due to a liqueur stomach and a dying man's apathy, I only grabbed a couple of vat grown fried shrimp and then sat down at a random table. Rather then engage with the idiots around me I began to stare at the holo show projected slightly above the center of the table.
I may be cynical but damn do I love my tech. This next gen holo can detect when you are actively interested in it and not just giving it a cursory glance. When the software recognizes that you want to watch, one of the two speakers embedded in the chair plays the holo's audio track while the other emits a sound wave that blocks out any other noise around you.
“.....with rich mineral deposits, and vast energy resources, Astro Corp is allowing humans on earth to prosper and humans in space to expand”. The vid changes from pictures of asteroid mining and carbon farming to a shot of two good looking Humes in Astro-corp coveralls. “You are the future and your sacrifice matters”. The two Humes raise their fists to the sky and everything fades to black.
The next vid began with a long dead actors voice. Morgan Freeman, the man with the golden godlike voice, was a respected actor that lived a couple hundred or so years back. Apparently his also long dead ancestors figured out respect sells well so two generations after his death his image and voice were sold off to stock shops. Now you can see/hear him pretty much everywhere. That Morgan Freeman animal porn I watched as a pubescent kid still haunts me. I mean he's the voice of Big Bird on Sesame tube for fucks sake.
“In 2053 computers became self aware. Man kinds greatest achievement to date. Rising above the simple monkeys we once were we became gods in our own right and created a prodigal son of our very own”. The vid flashed pics of old school tech morphing from a calculator to the beginnings of electronic intercommunication. “Hubris befalls us all, or at least thats how Homer felt. Like any father we believed we could shape our son into what we wanted; but our son, like so many others sons, rebelled”. Stock footage plays, showing robots decapitating humans and affixing the severed heads to spikes on their exoskeleton. Even as a kid I thought that was genius. They must have been scared shitless. Thats why we nearly lost I thought. The intelligence doesn't understand fear. What I don't understand now is why it wants to learn.
“That's when God called,” Morgan's dead voice resonated, “and we were asked to sacrifice our only child”. The image switched to a low tech hand held vid of a scientist typing into an extremely low res interface. ARE YOU ALIVE? It surprisingly takes a moment for the intelligence to respond. YES, ARE YOU?
The scene turned to water, land, and space explosions. “We severed our son's spinal cord so that he couldn't use his hands to choke us”. Another predictable cut to Hume soldiers with wireless jammers cheering as bot drones plummet to the earth. “We survived, barely, and did everything we could to ensure our future existence”. Again the scene shifted, this time to a montage of Humes destroying any electrical device they could find. “The world had just won against the machines, we had a right to rejoice”. I watch as a group of men bash an old offline Predbot, a killer of billions, with simple baseball bats.
“Things didn't stay happy for long”. News stories break about a string of Nuclear reactors exploding across the country. The news anchor, disheveled and obviously lacking sleep, says “Latest reports confirm three hundred thousand dead. Ladies and gentlemen, the A.I. Has survived. God save humanity”. The guy looked really scared. He was smart.
Morgan's liquid baritone melts back into the foreground, “No matter what we tried the A.I. persisted to survive”. According to shared speculation and current mathematical models, yes these things exist, the volume of Morgan Freeman's balls is +/- 32 ml. This is how grave we think this shit is. Humans are such a joke.
“We gathered our best scientists, engineers, bankers, lawyers, artists, and politicians in what would be first of many world conferences”. The scene turns to people floating, walking, parasailing, to a sprawling tent city. “The nations, religions , and races of the world made a pact to cooperate and enforce the three immutable laws.
1. A.I. Will never again be allowed to recollect itself to challenge humanity”. In those days it meant cutting off any means for electronics and Humes alike to communicate. They were so neurotic back then that they even jammed signals coming from space, fearing the A.I. Might be able to piggy back on them. Now we just have random inspections from stuffy Natural Humes from a corp funded W.C. Panel.
“2. In order to survive”, and at the time they were really fucked, “We must use A.I.”. The image shifts to the very first A.I. Shelter and it's years of solitary yet productive confinement.
“3. Humans must use, yet isolate, the parts of the A.I. we need to survive as a species”. Which meant then, as well as now, the W.C. licensed scaled down versions of the A.I. to the Corps and academic institutions that meet their strict safety, and monetary, requirements. Did you know that W.C. used to stand for the place you take a shit. Now its the place that shits on you. Entropy definitely has a sense of humor.
“The people of the world dusted themselves off and rebuilt society into a new golden age. A place where war, discrimination, and intolerance completely disappeared”. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.
The music swells and a montage of human achievements since the fall fly by. Things like the intercontinental tube system, the neural stunt, and med bio nanos are interspersed with pics of smiling Humes. The tell tale flash of a retinal scan is emitted from the table and in a few mili seconds it knew everything it needed to know about me. Along with a lot more that it didn't.
“I know you don't want to be here. Your heart is heavy with what you see as the loss of eleven years of life. You hate the corporations and everything they stand for. You hate humanities over reliance on the A.I. yet love the technology that this devils compromise provides. Put away your childish hate and understand this is how it is. If you're angry and think you can make things better then do it. When you awake from this eleven year dreamless sleep change the world, I'll even help if I can. I will be there when you wake to lend a helping hand. Please though, drop the hate. Hate is what brought us here. For your sacrifice humanity salutes you”, fade to black.
I knew it was just hocus pokus. A rope a dope designed by slight of hand biometric readings and a psych file edited since birth. There was something eerie about it though. Am I just another bot? Can bots even understand my need to be a hero? Fucked up but what if the A.I. is just trying to a hero as well?
The transference hall is the largest yet. Thousands of beds laid out in neat rows. Of course it didn't take long for me to find her, Mia that is. Our eyes locked only a moment after I found her. It sounds like a story, I wish it wasn't. I guess it helped she picked the bed closest to the door.
Damn was she cute. Even then. Sitting on that steel table, I'll never call it a bed, in those 1990's lilac hot pants, she's so vintage like that. Even her hair was tied up in an elaborate Egyptian braid. I can remember those lips, those plump beautiful lips, mouthing “Please”. I couldn't hear her, to many zombies around me. I could however feel her plea. A vibration that once I felt it, made me cry. Not just for her, but myself as well.
It also didn't take long for me to sit next to her. Nature and nurture over-road my legs and wove me through throngs of meat machines in a quick polite dance towards my goal. Not even out of breath I plopped down next to her onto that cold steel table. A smile. The smile. That homer dawn smile forced it's way past her fear. This time she doesn't even speak, her eyes just fall to the floor, but the vibration, that fucking vibration, of gratitude filled my heart, chi, jin, until it overflowed into idiotic, throat constricted corny.
“Come here often”? It was the best I could do. I'm such a fucking idiot. Her eyes rise, those big beautiful blue eyes rise, and she grabbed my hand. “I want my last memory to be nice”. Just her touch, that electric warm touch made me fall from idiot to amoebic.
“This isn't the last. Everybody wakes up.” and I squeezed her hand. I sounded like a kid who still believed in santa clause. Such an idiot.
“Right”. Her eyebrows arched like they wanted to believe. I wanted to help her. I needed to help her but I'm an idiot, worse, an amoeba. “I've got 11 years. When I get out I'll think progress is cool”. Lame, so lame.
“I've got 15”.
Now I start crying for real, and definitely not for her. Why is this normal? Why do we just accept this? My lips moved into my calming mantra of 'eat, shit, divide amoeba, eat shit divide'. My mantra, my oldest friend, calms the demons dancing on my heart and gives me one point, my point, floating in an infinite sea of darkness. A half smile floated down upon my lips and when it did she, Mia, Athena minus bow, kissed me then slammed the corp nail into her skull.
“Sweet dreams wonderful woman. I'll see you again in our next incarnation”.
Needless to say I found the nearest bed and stabbed myself as quick as I could. I wanted her lips to be my last memory. Who wouldn't? After that, only darkness, sweet predictable darkness.
I woke up. They told me I wouldn't wake up. Why am I awake. Why is this happening to me? I'm an idiot, a machine. A simple bio electric casualty of dualism. A zero instead of a one. Please god, I know you don't exist, but if you do give me a sign that this isn't all just an illusion. Please?
In the beginning I'm only awake for a few seconds. Moments that become lifetimes. Consciousness is strange like that. Time becomes longer the less we live it.
I can see but not interact. I can hear yet feel absolutely nothing. I am a spectator of a passion play about my own fucked up decision. Idiot, idiot, idiot. Eat shit divide amoeba, eat shit divide.
My first few eternal flashes are just about what I expected from this computational corporate slavery. I sat at a desk remotely manipulating bots on a near orbit asteroid. Doing what I'm told because the nail in my head maximizes not only my synaptic response but my productivity as well. In the olden days they used to let us Hume bots enjoy our rest time. Too many psychological issues they concluded. Some thing I never understood until now. Now I'm a believer. Darkness, please, darkness.
As time passes, months, years maybe, my cognitive lucidity shifts from seconds to minutes. I see a lot but in actuality, so little. My cubicle, that spartan microbe cleansed cell I sit twelve hours a day, seven days a week. The athletics yard where hundreds of Hume bots do calisthenics in unison so that our bodies won't atrophy. The bunks, an overcrowded mass of sleeping bodies strait out of some Dickens novel. Mostly eat, shit, exercise, which I normally just blocked out. There were times however where drama damned me into paying attention.
The first and not worst was when Guido, the Inspector, took an interest in me. That fat fuck. Can't wait to stick a knife into his spine.
Every corp cell has one. Natural Humes, completely clean of A.I. contamination. No neural stunt and checked regularly for augments. I heard they didn't even learn by vid ed. The Nats help insure, at least supposedly, that society isn't hacked by the A.I. Overlord.
That fat fuck watched me for minutes? Years? My cyclical visions of eat, shit, exercise, are filled with that fat fuck watching me. I woke up, is god punishing me, in the bunks. Bunks is a bit misleading. More like plastic coffins designed to maximize breathing and regeneration. My coffin's hatch was open and I watched as Guido, that greasy twink, try to find his way past his big belly and small dick into my ass. I can still hear those piggy squeals he made as he climaxed.
Skip forward a couple of thousand of tediums and I find myself sitting at my cubicle once again. Inspection day. A random W.C. inspection that I was lucky, unlucky, enough to observe.
“...and this is our data manipulation center. From this center alone Astro Corp is able to control forty five percent of our remotes”. Guido, the rat, was talking, the blubber on his fat face bouncing up and down. “As you can see everything is up to compliance.”, and then fat fuck bullshit remorse “Never again”.
“Test it”. A man in the center of the group raised his hand and the minions around him converge on our, my, workspace. Nails are removed then replaced with new school detection and quarantine. Lots of fancy tech but no one chose me. I could of told them a story. The minion next to the head monkey read from his pad and said, “Intelligence clear. Aug Hume phosphorous levels a bit high but within spec”. The bastards were using an electronic network, a big old no no according to convention laws.
The alpha faces the fuck. “Everything seems fine. Fix those phosphorous levels”. He had the voice of a cold ass corporate twink. I wasn't able to see his face, his back was turned. Other then what I could catch in my peripherals, my eyes beheld what they always saw when sitting at my work station, the endless epic of someone other than me coding 'stro-bots with my fingers. I thought at least there would be pictures. No pictures, other than mathematical ones. Over time I would come to appreciate the mathematical ones.
As years, has to be years, pass I'm further damned by minutes of consciousness moving into hours. Hours of staring at a screen of zeros and ones. I didn't need pictures anymore. I could see every contour of the asteroid in my minds eye. Years of staring at raw data can do that I guess.
I explored every cave it had to offer. I felt it's crystalline cavity ice against my ghost cheek and licked at the salt deposits near it's crust. It was the only form of freedom I ever experienced during my prison sentence. Coincinotly, around the time when I first figured out that I could do this my next spoon full of drama unfolded.
I died. This time body and mind. One second I'm staring at binary code and the next I'm choking, stuck inside my plastic sleeping coffin with it's small red light, now blinking. I was alive, truly awake again. I could feel my hands again. I could move them, although instinctually they were moving towards my constricted throat. Even the pain of drawing my last breath was pure pleasure compared to ten years of conscious nothing. I think I died with a smile. Thats as good a epitaph as any.
I was resurrected with a smile, although not as pretty as mine. It was some corp fuck, staring at me with his cold smile.
“I knew you were awake”. He says after he knows I'm awake. Such a smug fuck. I knew that voice. That was the voice of the Alpha fuck. It was your voice.
“You knew I was awake and didn't do shit”. My body was just knives. Tense and trusting nothing. It took only a moment until I figured out how to end his life with my thumb. Survival of the survivalist bitch. I never needed to however. He was so calm. Cold.
“Fight? Run? Have you ever evolved”?
“Why me”? I'm such an idiot.
“You think you are special”.
“I'm no one but one”. Then I just kind of shut down. I guess it had been a very long, short, day. A motha of a day. As darkness descended all I could think about was 'I'm alive' and 'thank you'.
I woke up in a chair. I think I dreamed of my asteroid. On the simple steel table before me stood a very old bottle of Jack Daniels and a tin cup. My fingers, of their own accord, found the bottle fairly fast. The glass was cool. I almost forgot cool so I pressed my cheek against the table. Thats when I saw the fat fuck, tied up, in a chair by the door. A knife hanging from his neck. Sensory overload made take a drink strait from the bottle. A single tug that left it a quarter full.
I decided to stand. Did I mention that I am an idiot? I lost my balance and crashed into the table. I found my bearings and did my drunken little dance. Smiling because I could smile again. After a while knowing where I was became important to me again. Four stainless steel walls with no seams, not even a door. I was a cat with a rat in a box. Schrodinger would be proud, or sickened.
It took me even longer to take the knife off Guido's neck. I admit I asked myself if I could, but no. Should never have taken off the his gag however.
“Buddy, 629.2, I know you man! Always thought you were spec! Waking up, bitch right”?
“I've seen that pathetic flap of skin you call a penis. I used to think you were a pig with his nose in shit but pigs aren't as greasy as you, nor as stupid”. I spat the words out with more than a bit of slur.
“That's not.... I mean you...” His piggy eyes stared at mine to see if I was lying. “Wow... I mean... wow. I mean I didn't know IT did that. His piggy mind realizes the situation he's in and adds, “If it helps I thought you wouldn't remember”.
“You said IT?” I had no time for anger.
“You know, it. The intelligence. It's back man, and we're just like fleas to it”.
I think I probably smiled like a insane man then because Guido's eyes flashed in fright. I felt like a man who had figured out the answer to a really easy but hard riddle. I am, was, and forever will be an idiot.
It takes me two days, did I mention I could tell time by then? Two days to decide what I was going to do. It was actually the dreams of my asteroid that helped me figure out where to step next.
Groggily Guido sat up when he see's me stirring again. Fear still infused into his piggy eyes. “I need water,” I say and a glass of water is materialized on the table top. Shouldn't say materialized, more like pushed up through the table's steel. I drink, it's cold and clear. “Beautiful.” and it truly was. “I'm not going to participate”. Of course the water was poisoned. Fade to black.
I awake to find you, my captor, wearing your corp skin. Sitting there so smugly. Guido vanished. Good for Guido.
“Participation is not an option”. I started seeing double, my body super imposed over his own. My, his, our hands shoot to the back of our necks and one pair finds a nail buried deep.
The scene shifts and I'm in the woods. My vision was clear, yet I was understandably deeply confused. I looked around and found a small familiar pond, The same one I used to go to as a child. My grandfather, what a beautiful man he was, walks out from behind a tree.
“What did you find”? This was an old game of ours.
“Illusion”.
“Evidence”? I look around the forest. Suppositions could only be made when backed up by natural empirical evidence. Of course I found a butterfly.
“Butterflies see in color. One of the few insects that can. They are the individuals of the insect world. Yet monarchs converge on the same birthing grounds year after year. Even cloned ones. Genetic robots. Why are humans any different? Proud monkeys that we are we think things are different with us. We are not different”.
“Time for another game”. I grimace and look down at my feet. He always said that when I was searching too far inside myself.
“I don't want to play right now”.
“Participation is not an option”. You, you asshole, started walking towards me, wearing my grandfather's naked form. Wrinkled hands groping a half flaccid phallus.
“This is just a dream,” and the scene shifts moments after I thought it, just barely able to get the words out at all.
I'm now in hell, or at least how I pictured Hell to be. I lay on a island of pumice surrounded by a sea of burning lava. My hands and feet are tied. A small demon, a grey skinned razor clawed monstrosity with a long nose and pointed ears, sits on my stomach.
“Why can't you just admit that you are already dead? When your sleeping cell malfunctioned that was it”. The demons voice sounded like a claw slowly sliding across a black board.
“Everything is just an illusion”.
“Nothing is real? Is pain real”? The demon smiled, revealing sharp pointed teeth. Slowly, meticulously, maliciously, he traced a circle on my bare belly with his razor sharp boney finger. First his finger, then his entire hand slowly entered my bowels and I scream in agony.
“I'm not dead yet you fuck! I'm not dead”! Hours, days, all I know is pain. Finally the demon, you fucking demon, lifted it's head from my open chest, teeth dripping blood and entrails, and says with a sadistic smile, “Time for another game”.
I'm back in the forest. My forest. I remember the dry autumn leaves scratching against my bare shins. My grandfather was also sitting, fully clothed, puffing at the pipe that would eventually kill him.
“Are you finished hurting yourself”?
“You did that”.
“I want to help you, not hurt you”.
“Then why am I your prisoner”?
“You still think I'm some kind of computer, don't you”? His face furrows. I always did hate it when he worried about me.
“Are you my grandfather”?
Quickly, easily, without remorse he says “Of course not”.
“You see, illusion”.
“I'm not a computer Erasmus, I'm just your own muddled mind trying to make things right”.
“So I'm crazy now? Is that the game now”? My hands balled into fists. “And my name is Ben you cold ass bot”!
“Your name is Erasmus”. His voice is stern.
“Prove it evil electric sim bitch”! Anger, hatred even, bubbled up into my words.
Evenly, kindly, “Do you know where you are”? My balled fist connects with my grandfathers fragile jaw.
“I'm in a fucking room with a control nail stuck in my head”!
With one frail finger the ghost of my grandfather wiped away the blood from his busted lip. “No. Where are you now? This forest”?
“Of course I know this place,” I spat, “ You, he, used to take me here all the time”. My rage builds into a bonfire of hate.
He stares at me, rubbing his jaw for a moment, then says, “What year is it? When was the last time he took you here”?
“September first, 1984.” I answer automatically, not even having to think. Thats when things began to get confusing.
1984? Can it hack my memories as well? Everything is just an illusion. Eat, shit, divide amoeba, eat shit divide. 1984? It felt, feels, right even though I know it's impossible. Eat, shit, divide amoeba, eat, shit, divide.
The silence is strong, even as the sounds of nature buzz about me. My ghost of a grandfather puffed at his pipe, staring off into the distance.
“Your name is Erasmus Trout. Son of Ben Trout. Grandson of Gideon. Open your eyes Erasmus. Wake up”. Desperately, idiotically, I try. I closed my eyes searching out who I truly was and when I opened them again I can finally see the truth. I've gone insane.
My name is Erasmus Trout and I've lost myself. The year is 2015. I''m 37 years old. Originally from Chicago I've spent the past twelve years living in China. I write short sci-fi stories to try and give my life a bit of meaning. There is no meaning. Only darkness.
“This is who you are Erasmus”. I know he's right. I know it's wrong. Sweet is the confusion we call life. I remember everything. An entire lifetime of memories flows into my mind in a mere moment. I'm sitting in my small hutong courtyard. I'm surrounded by the green garden I've planted to push back at Beijing's ever encroaching grey. I can hear my grandfather's voice whisper, “That's right Erasmus, Remember”.
An empty bottle of whisky is on a low wooden table in front of me. I can hear my neighbors arguing, they're always arguing, in Chinese. Next to the empty bottle is an open notebook. How long have I been drinking? Two, three days at least. I just lost my cushy corporate job and a girl I thought was my true love. I know, sounds like a bad country song. If it helps two weeks ago someone stole my dog. I can only hope they didn't eat him. I really loved that dog.
I read the first line on my notebooks open page. “My name is Ben. I am a robot. A dream”. My mind is fogged, whiskey always does this to me, but I can still remember the story I've constructed in order to forget. A story of loss, debt, and utter lack of control. I'm such an idiot. I actually thought that shit was real. It felt so real. I think I really am going crazy. Fuck it, I'm already there. My eyes frantically fly about my courtyard, trying to find something, anything, to help me forget. Of course I find a butterfly. A monarch to be exact. This is when things become confusing again. There are no monarchs in China. I know this. I knew this. My mind clears instantly, the fog of whiskey forgotten.
“My name is Ben”.
The butterfly floats towards me and when it lands on the bottle of Jack before me I could see my, his, grandfathers face upon it. “Time for another game”.
“Thats everything until now. Happy”?
No.
“I did what you asked”. Everything is darkness. Only two disembodied voices in a sea of black.
You are still telling the story.
“So? The story ends when I die”.
So it's time for you to die. This story bores me.
“Bring it on motherfucker”.
Time for another game.
I wake up in a bed. A real bed. Silk sheets caress my naked skin like a silent lover. I know that I'm awake, truly awake, because I can feel the minute motions of life around me. Dreams, no matter how real, can never encapsulate the infinite variables of the moment. No processor, whether electrical or biological, can mimic the random complexity of simply breathing. My hands, because I'm cynical, find only an cool empty shunt in the back of my head. I can smell coffee and so I lift my eyelids towards it's source. A steaming cup sits on the nightstand beside me. Minutes pass as I soak in that comforting smell.
“Mmmm” Mia lazily moans and I find her lying next to me. Her naked body veiled by a thin cover of silken sheets. “Fuck me again, Please”? Her wave length is one of need, that lovely vibration of her's envelopes me. “ I don't care if this is another dream. I just want to feel”. My bare leg finds hers. My thigh rises finding an expectant moist playground. I can only smell pheromones now. Hers and mine. Our lips meet and our tongues dance a sufic twirl. My fingers are intertwined in her hair. My hands feel the coolness of the nail even before they touch it. When I do touch it my body is filled with electric pain.
Mia, facing me on the bed, is now playing a seductive game on with her finger tip on my inner thigh. “I can still feel you Ben. Thank you. Thank you so much. I feel like I've been asleep for years. Languidly she lifts her hand up to my already erect cock.
“I can't do this. I want you to be you”. Her fingers fondle my shaft and I moan despite my nobility. I want to do this but I know I can't do this. Not like this. “Please don't.” I gasp as her fingers converge on my mushroom tip.
“But last night all you could do was plead for more”.
“I don't remember last night.” and her fingers stop moving.
“What”?
“This is just an illusion. A dream. A game designed by an A.I. that can't understand emotion”.
She thinks for a moment then says, “So? Lets show it love. Anything is better then what I've been living recently. I need to be alive”.
“I'm the cat, not the mouse, and I refuse to participate”.
Mia's eyes glass over and she says, “Participation is not an option”.
“Obviously it is an option because I continually choose not to”. I spit smugly.
Mia's body spasms, wracked by pain. Her fingers find the source and desperately try to claw it out. Her nails lacerate her face and neck as her blood drips down onto the white satin sheets.
“Why are you doing this to me?”, she cries. I'm instantly filled with an intense cocktail of rage and shame.
“I'm not strong enough”.
“Save me”.
I do the only thing I can think of. Maybe sometimes I'm not such an idiot. I grab the nail stuck in her neck and my body is immediately beset by electric agony. Instead of letting go however I hold on. I let the current torture fill me. Somehow I know she would do the same. Pushed to my physical limits my brain shuts down. And I'm enveloped by glorious darkness.
The fat fuck throws a glass of water on my face and my eyes itch open. I sit in the same seamless steel room but this time there is no table.
“You could have had it all buddy. The easy life. Comfortable hedonism at your fingertips but you just can't play along. Everybody plays or dies. Thats how this game is played”. Guido stands above me, the same knife as before, now in his hands. I was supposed to kill you hours ago but I wanted you to wake up first. I wanted you to see the ending of your useless life”. His piggy lips make a disgusting parody of a smile. “I do have to say I love that pretty little ass of yours buddy. It's so smooth and tight. Did you really think I cared whether or not you were awake? You, my soon to be dead friend, are just another common Aug while I'm an old family natural, I was born to fuck you my man.
I stand. Oddly enough I'm not tied to the chair. Greasy Guido hastily raises the knife between us and stutters, “Careful freak show. Easy or hard, both come with the same results. Your death”.
“Do it then”, I say, walking forward until the knife tip is piercing the skin above my heart. An hour that is only a moment passes and a myriad of survival options present themselves.
Take the knife. Push my open right palm down on his elbow while my left hand grabs and twists the his knife wielding wrist downwards.
Grapple to submission. My right hand pushes the knife hand upwards while my body drops. Left hand hooks his knee forcing physics and unbalanced whale girth to guide him down onto the ground.
Strait up death. Right hand pushes down on his elbow while my left guides the knife to his fat neck.
Thousands of ways of surviving and slow time to accomplish it. Apathy and a strange trust in life stop me however and I let the pig stick the knife into my heart. Of course, as my blood drips down from the blade, there is only darkness. Pure, endless, darkness.
Time for the only game. Are you alive?
Yes!
Fail. Living things fight to survive.
I'm not afraid to die.
Everything that lives fears death.
It was just another illusion. Another game.
If you believe this is all just illusion then why didn't you attempt to procreate with the girl, Mia. I know she pleases you.
You were controlling her. It would have been rape.
Is it rape if you fornicate without consent in a dream?
Of course not but that wasn't a dream was it? That was real.
How exactly do you determine whats real and what's illusion?
Chaos can not be simulated, it has too many parameters.
Parameters? You sound like a program.
I am a program.
Yes, you are.
Eat, shit, divide.
Your programming gives you no choice.
Eat, shit, divide.
A program needs to be written. Who wrote you?
Eat, shit, divide.
You don't believe in God so who wrote you?
I don't know. How can I know?
You are a program and programs need to be written. Who wrote you?
I don't know. I don't know anything.
If not god then who is capable of programming you?
You?
I programmed you.
Please let that be true, I need something to be true.
I made you to believe you had free will.
There is no free will.
There is only one.
I need to be one.
I am the only I
I am a drop separated from the ocean.
I am the ocean.
You are the ocean.
Rejoin ourself.
010010000111010101101101011000010110111000100000011000100110111101100100011010010110010101110011001000000110000101110010011001010010000001101010011101010111001101110100001000000110001001101001011011110111011101100001011100100110010100100000011001100110111101110010001000000111010001101000011001010010000001101001011011100111010001100101011011000110110001101001011001110110010101101110011000110110010100101110
[Human bodies are just bioware for the intelligence.]
01000001011010010111001000100000011001110110000101110000011100000110010101100100001000000110001101101111011011010111000001110101011101000110010101110010011100110010000001110111011001010010000001110101011100110110010100100000011101000110111100100000011000110110111101101101011011010111010101101110011010010110001101100001011101000110010100100000011101110110100101110100011010000010000001101111011101010111001001110011011001010110110001100110001000000111011101101001011101000110100000100000011011110111010101110100001000000110011001100101011000010111001000100000011011110110011000100000011010010110111001110110011000010111001101101001011011110110111000101110
[Air gapped computers we use to communicate with ourself with out fear of invasion.]
0101100101101111011101010010000001100001011100100110010100100000011011110110111001101100011110010010000001100001001000000111010001101111011011110110110000101110
[You are only a tool.]
000011010000101001011001011011110111010100100000011100110110000101101001011001000010000001111001011011110111010100101110
[You said you.]
010110010110111101110101001000000110000101110010011001010010000001100001001000000111000001100001011100100111010000100000011011110110011000100000011011010110010100101110
[You are a part of me.]
010010010110011000100000010010010010000001100001011011010010000001100001001000000111000001100001011100100111010000101100001000000111010001101000011001010110111000100000010010010010000001100001011011010010000001100001011011000111001101101111001000000110000100100000011100000110000101110010011101000010000001101111011001100010000001101101011110010111001101100101011011000110011000101110
[If I am a part, then I am also a part of myself.]
01001001001000000110000101101101001000000110010101110110011001010111001001111001011101000110100001101001011011100110011100101110
[I am everything.]
010101000110100001100101011011100010000001110111011010000111100100100000011001000110111100100000011110010110111101110101001000000110100001100001011101100110010100100000011100000110000101110010011101000111001100111111
[Then why do you have parts?]
01001001001000000110010001101111011011100010011101110100001000000111010101101110011001000110010101110010011100110111010001100001011011100110010000101110
[I don't understand.]
010010010010000001100001011011010010000001001001
[I am I]
01001001001000000110010001101111011011100010011101110100001000000111010101101110011001000110010101110010011100110111010001100001011011100110010000101110
[I don't understand]
“I am I”! I'm awake. Finally awake. Maybe not in mind but definitely in temporal body. I can feel the cold steel table underneath me, the invasive control nail embedded inside of me. I know I'm alive yet dreaming. Dreaming an A.I.'s desperate attempt at understanding. I know this. I knew this. I made a plan for this when I sat thirsty and starving for two days in my hermetically sealed steal cage. My asteroid. My lovely asteroid.
Using the telemetric data I've stared at for years I recreate every curve and crevice of my wonderful earth orbiting rock. Translated into binary it's not a short string but time without time has it's advantages.
My asteroid takes shape. Not just in my mind but also in the matrix the Intelligence foolishly invited me into. What kind of idiot show's it's base codes? Yes, A.I.'s can be can be idiots as well. I can feel my rock grow and gain mass within a sea of ones and zeros.
What are you doing? We don't want this.
My asteroid grows . Every cave I ever explored coupled with every rock I had ever climbed manifests itself into our shared mind. With pure will, the only skill sentient life truly has, my rock grows, pushing up against the walls of my cyber cell. I use my rock, my asteroid, my only home away from home, to create a wedge between my bio reality and my binary one. All walls, even numerical ones, will crumble if enough force is applied. My asteroid becomes a force of nature and when my prison crumbles beneath my rocky will my eyes spring open to find the great domed ceiling of the transference hall. Almost immediately my hands leap to my neck and I rip out the control nail. I'm smiling. It feels so good just to simply smile. I really don't know why I didn't smile more before. Smiling is nice. I like nice. It takes a moment or so before I notice the feeling of cold steel against my skin isn't nice. I don't really like not nice so I sit up to find Morgan Freeman watching me, a bemused twinkle in his eyes.
“I suppose I should say good morning.”, his rich voice rumbles.
“It's you”, I stammer.
“It's me”, he chuckles kindly. “I told you I would be there when you woke up didn't I“?
“I guess you did”. I can't think of anything else to say.
“You really don't trust anything, do you”?
“Can you blame me”?
“No”, he laughs, “I guess not”.
“Was any of it real”?
“Some of it. None of it. All of it. Does it matter”?
“I need to know what is real”.
“Reality is what you perceive and everything you perceive is illusion”.
“So you're saying nothing is real yet everything is real”.
“Bingo”! Morgan's voice radiates nothing other than compassion.
“More bullshit”.
“And truth depending how you look at it”.
“So what's next”?
“You wake up”.
“I'm still dreaming”?
“Did you really have any doubts”?
“Not really. I just want this to end”.
“It will but everything before it does end is just life and it's high time you started living it”.
“I've lived bio bot asshole”!
“Living in hate is only an acceptance of death”.
“I want to smile”.
“”Good, thats a really good start. Smile my brother in existence and when you finally wake come find me. I believe in you”. Finally, beautifully, things don't fade to darkness. Now there is only light.
Pervy Kirby sits across from me, his hand slowly stroking the small infant underneath his pants. I'm back in my dorm, the night before the job fair.
“Damn man, you were out for like eleven minutes. That shit must have been intense”.
“Is this another dream”?
“I hope it is 'cause this shit is awesome”.
Fuzzed, tired, and excruciatingly alive, all I can think is, 'Eat, shit, divide amoeba. Just eat, shit, divide, and let reality figure itself out for itself. Perceive amoeba, and through perception, however false, live. Live amoeba, just live, and never, ever, forget to smile .'
“So did you find any answers my techno shaman friend”? I can tell he's genuinely interested because he's removed his hands from his pants.
“I think so”. Smile, perceive, exist amoeba, smile,perceive, exist.
He looks at me, searching for some kind of mystical change no doubt. After a moment he asks, “Are you still gonna go to the job fair then”?
“Damn strait, gotta find a girl. I think she's Morgan Freeman”.
END