by Eric Warren
“Judy?”
“Arista. Welcome. Please follow me.”
The older woman stood and gracefully moved past her, close enough so Arista caught a hint of her perfume, a mix of vanilla and lilacs. The Device identified it as a vintage brand.
“Your perfume is very nice,” Arista said, making sure to keep her voice measured.
“Thank you. Are you familiar with it?” Judy asked.
The Device went to work. “Chanel Number 17, vintage 2041, correct?”
“Very good. I wear it every day, it is my favorite scent. I currently own two-hundred and twelve bottles; enough to last me the next twenty-three years.” Judy was still young, only a few years old. All machines had a limited lifespan of exactly twenty-five years before they shut down and were recycled; their experiences added to the Collective Consciousness. It was maddening how accepting they were of their own mortality. It didn’t bother them at all. But that’s why she was here. To prevent her parents from suffering the same fate. And, she supposed, Jonn.
Instead of allowing her feelings to betray her, Arista smiled at the woman. This was too easy. Dad had made it sound like infiltrating the system would be difficult. She reminded herself to give him some grief when she called home this evening.
“Here we are,” said Judy. They’d come around a low wall to a bank of cubicles running perpendicular to the back windows. Four small, gray cubes faced the shared walkway, with an empty station up front. The window beyond the bank showcased the beautiful city of Chicago from fifty-one stories up.
“We keep paper records in the storage unit on thirty-nine if the computer doesn’t have something,” Judy said. “Everything else you need will be right here.”
Arista walked around and stood by her chair, just like she’d practiced. She’d seen her future co-workers upon rounding the corner and sitting too soon then getting back up might give her away. She had to think like them; she had to be efficient in her movements. She waited for Judy to recite the next lines.
“And these are your co-workers.” Judy motioned to the two cubicles behind her. “Melanie and Drew.”
Perfect. Arista turned, keeping a steady pace, to face them. The Device in her head ran their faces through a recognition program. First, Melanie Jackson, Junior Underwriter. Melanie’s profile came up on the company’s website, she had worked at the office for three years. Next was Drew Richards, Senior Underwriter. Drew, was a transfer from New York, his personnel file said he’d only been with the company one year. All the data points made sense within their context, despite Arista’s irritation that Drew had a higher position than Melanie regardless of being with the company less time. They were both of acceptable “age” for her to fraternize, not that there would be much. They would be spending enough time together at work, it would be unwise to see them outside as well. Increased exposure meant increased risk. She beamed at them, but within acceptable standards.
“Pleasure to meet you,” she said, shaking both of their hands in turn.
A big smile from Drew came as reward. “Welcome to Manheim.”
***
Two hours later Arista had retreated to the thirty-ninth floor, inspecting the filing cabinets and storage rooms. With her new access—via her thumbprint—it had been a breeze getting in. Not only was it a good idea to familiarize herself with the items down here, but it might come in handy at some point in the near future. She wasn’t about to leave any avenue unexplored. She was willing to do whatever she needed to in order to speed up the process, because there was no guarantee the company would send her to the home office before her parents ran out of time. She would have applied directly there, moved all the way to Philadelphia if she’d had to, but this company only promoted from the inside. There was no way to get a job with sufficient access at the home office quickly enough. Her best bet was to get in via the Chicago satellite office, then work her way up. And since the primary production facility for new husks was just outside downtown Chicago, it made sense to set her parents up here too. That way, when replacements were ordered, her parents would be there to intercept them.
“Let’s see,” Arista said to herself, flipping through the filing cabinets. “Claims, older claims.” She screwed up her face. Had they kept all the claims from before the war too? The dates seemed to indicate so. She read claims made by actual humans and not machines pretending to be human. Immediately she was hit with a sense of longing, causing the Device to flash a warning in her vision. She didn’t have the luxury of getting emotional, not at work. Not unless she wanted a lot of undue attention. And on her first day, undue attention was the last thing she needed.
Arista shoved the files back into the cabinet, closing it. She hadn’t expected to find anything so personal, rather she’d hoped to find performance evaluations. Anything to give her an edge into building a series of predictable actions to get her to the home office faster. If she could figure out what the sequence was, because it was most assuredly identical for each employee, she could adjust her behavior enough to get her moving.
“This is the best way,” she muttered, closing her eyes and trying to convince herself of something she already knew. “The best way.” The backup plan—if things didn’t happen on time—involved breaking into Manheim’s home office. Not only would it be dangerous but it would alert the Cadre to Arista and her parents’ presence. So far they’d managed to stay under the radar; it wasn’t hard if you knew where the loopholes were, but a direct assault would paint huge targets on them that might never come off. They had agreed to try this plan first.
“Arista?”
Her eyes fluttered open and she jumped, cursing herself for not being prepared. She only hoped it would be logged as an anomaly and not as something worth investigating. “Hello,” she said, keeping her voice from fluctuating while at the same time trying to calm her hammering heart.
“Hello.” Drew appeared out of the darkness with Melanie close behind him. “We were looking for you. For lunch. The computer indicated you were down here.”
An empty feeling opened in her stomach. “Oh.” Damn. She’d forgotten to notify her supervisor she’d be down here. Then they probably wouldn’t have come asking. They would have interacted with the supervisor, then gone back to their normal routine. Instead, her carelessness had resulted in a line of action sending them off their normal route.
“Would you like to join us?” Melanie asked. “We are having tacos.”
“Tacos,” Arista repeated. While they sounded good, she had to remember her primary rule: no unnecessary socialization. Besides, she still hadn’t quite mastered eating in front of others yet. That’s what brunch yesterday had been about. She was practicing eating the food in a normal setting with Jonn while he kept a lookout for anything that might give her away.
Normally she took vitamin shots in the morning for all her nutrients. For actual sustenance Mom had developed a powder she could sprinkle on the food the machines made, making it edible for her. Without the powder, the food wasn’t really food at all. More like a mish-mash of lubricants and putty. The machines only ate because humans had and not for their own needs. Thus, their food quality was subpar to her needs.
“Thank you, but I need to continue to familiarize myself with the workings of Manheim,” she recited. Better to stick to the script and hope they resumed their normal, predictable activities.
Drew smiled but didn’t turn to leave. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, thank you,” she said, willing him to leave already.
They still weren’t moving. Every second they stood here was another second where they were not where they were supposed to be, whether at lunch or back at their desks. Deviations were not tolerated. If Arista wasn’t careful the Cadre would take notice. Too many variations were like a big, red flashing light.
“I’ll just head back to my desk,” she said, moving past them. The corridor was narrow and she had to squeeze to get by. She didn’t see the bottle on the shelf beside her until it was too la
te.
“Oops!” Her reflexes engaged and she reached out her right hand, trying to juggle the bottle before it hit the ground. As it hit her hand the top came loose and the liquid splashed all over her skin. The Device blaring warnings into her cortex. “Oh sh…”
And as the flesh bubbled and began to melt away, panic revealed itself from deep within Arista. There was no way she could keep this quiet.
Three
ARISTA STARED, HORRIFIED AT THE DISFIGUREMENT UNFOLDING BEFORE HER. The upper layers of her hand peeled back like burnt paper and fluttered away. Whatever had been in the bottle ate through her skin, consuming everything in its path. She screamed once, her vision blurred and she had to blink away the Device’s flashing before she passed out. She moved forward, her hand outstretched, looking for something, anything to rinse it off. If she could contain the damage somehow, get back to her mother, it might not be so bad. But she was in the middle of a storage room, the nearest bathroom with running water was on the other side of the hallway. She took a few more steps before she collapsed to her knees from the pain. She had to bite her tongue to keep from crying out.
“Arista, what happened? Do you need help?” Drew. Melanie. They were still here.
“I…get…water…” Arista gurgled as she watched her skin fizzle and pop like oil in a hot pan. It turned white, revealing the musculature underneath before charring black, dripping on the tile beneath their feet.
The pain was almost unbearable. Like a deep, volcanic heat that began at the tips of her fingers and traveled all the way up her arm, lighting up all of her nerve endings one by one and pushing them past their limits. She would go into shock soon, the human body could only handle so much pain before it shut down, as a protection mechanism. She’d read that somewhere. One of Mom’s biology lessons when she was younger. Never did she think it would apply to her.
How could she have been so careless? She should have seen the bottle on the counter. But her haste in proving herself, proving this was an easy job must have clouded her thoughts because though The Device had picked it up, she hadn’t paid attention. It had already identified the liquid: hydrodysprosic acid. The machines used it as a cleaning agent.
“I don’t understand,” Drew said, bending over and picking up the bottle, the contents still coating the plastic container. “This is just cleaning fluid. It shouldn’t have this effect…” he trailed off, his eyes glazing over. He was right, the fluid wasn’t doing anything to his tissue, because his tissue wasn’t organic.
Drew dropped the bottle again and fell back against the wall, crumpling to the floor. A deep, guttural scream erupted from his mouth.
Oh no.
“Drew?” Melanie asked, bending towards him.
Oh, get away. Please get away. Arista thought, even as the pain intensified. She gripped her wrist with her remaining hand, doing whatever she could to truncate the pain, but nothing worked. Her hand continued to melt. Pieces of bone poked out from the dissolving musculature. If Arista didn’t do something quick this might end up killing her. Fear pulsed through her system in time with her heart rate.
Arista pushed up on her legs, only for white spots to appear at the corner of her vision and she noticed new warnings flashing. Her heart rate was much too high, as well as her adrenaline levels. She needed to breathe otherwise she would hyperventilate. She drew in three solid breaths as Melanie tried to comfort Drew, who shook on the ground, twitching back and forth as if he’d been electrocuted.
Just like Jonn.
She needed to get away, there was no other choice. Mustering all her strength, Arista got back up and stumbled toward the door. A high-pitched scream pierced the air.
She turned to see Melanie holding the sides of her head as she collapsed beside Drew. Her eyes were wide with panic and fear, a fear she’d not seen on any machine’s face, except for her own parents. The machines didn’t show strong emotions, only the weaker, smaller ones. Fear, sadness, happiness, none of these existed for them. Or if they did they were in such small amounts it was difficult to discern. But Melanie was terrified. They were changing, both of them. Even from her limited vantage point, she saw their eyes had already turned orange. That was the first sign. Soon enough they would have the full range of emotion, they would figure out they didn’t have to follow their prescribed roles. The Cadre would come and find them, searching for the root cause. It was exactly what she had needed to avoid.
A fresh wave of pain hit her and Arista stumbled against the door. All she had to do was make it to the bathroom, stem the destruction then call her parents for an extraction. They would find a way in here, or maybe they’d send Jonn to help. This still might be salvageable. If Drew and Melanie were the only two casualties and they remained down here where no one would find them for a while, she might be able to get away. There was nothing she could do for them. Once the Cadre found out they would be wiped and recycled. And Arista would have to change her appearance if she ever hoped to stay off their scanners. Everything was destroyed.
Still holding her dripping hand, she pushed against the bar on the door, spilling out into the white hallway, the black liquid on her hand splattering on the floor as her shoulder hit the ground. She looked up only to see the hall full of workers, most of them staring at her. What was going on? Why was everyone out…
It was lunchtime.
Everyone in her field of vision was in danger. She tried to push herself up again, only to find her legs wouldn’t work. It was as if they’d gone numb. She reached out with her remaining hand and grabbed for anything she could hold, finding some man’s pant leg. Using it, she pulled herself up into a sitting position, her arm having gone completely limp. It was happening. Shock settled in. She wouldn’t be conscious much longer. But she had to get away from all these people. They were all in danger. She had to call her parents, to find some way out of this mess.
As her vision blurred out of focus another scream erupted from somewhere behind her. Followed by another.
And another.
Darkness took over as the pain faded away.
Four
AS UNCONSCIOUSNESS FADED, Arista gradually became aware of the light on her eyelids, like a dawn sneaking up on the darkness; slowly taking over. It was bright, white, clean light. A whiff of newly-manufactured plastic and antiseptic reached her nose. An unforgiving mattress supported her from underneath. For a brief moment, she had a vision of waking up in her own bed, in her apartment, and starting the day all over again.
She squeezed her eyes tighter before cracking them open to inspect her surroundings. The room was completely white, she’d been in darkness too long. She shut her eyes again, willing them to adjust to her environment. A throbbing sensation emanated from her right arm and she prayed she’d imagined the whole thing. When she managed to discern the world around her she kept her eyes from traveling to the end of her arm. She didn’t want to know. She wasn’t sure she could face the reality. Maybe the acid had killed her and this was the afterlife. What humans referred to as heaven. She’d never been to church, but she’d watched the machines filing in and out, particularly on Sundays, from afar.
Arista shifted on the hard bed and found her left arm sore at the movement. Had she spilled acid on both arms? She couldn’t remember, the whole thing was a haze. The Device flashed two warnings in her vision but she blinked them away without even reading them. When she looked at her arm a long, red scar running the length of her forearm greeted at her. They had removed her phone; her communication equipment. Was this the Cadre? Why was she even still alive? The decree was any and all humans were to be terminated on sight. Someone had saved her, but why?
It must have been her parents. Somehow, they had found out about what happened and reached her before anyone else could. Maybe they sent Jonn in to find her, to help her escape and she’d lost consciousness. She remembered falling out into the hallway, and then what? Nothing. There was nothing else…except. Her eyes slid to the right.
Arista pushed ba
ck tears, trying not to let it get the best of her. It was gone. Her entire right hand was gone. Her arm ended at the wrist. She choked back the sensation to cry out; she had to maintain control until she was sure she was safe. Then she could cry all she wanted. But how was she supposed to operate without a hand? Her entire persona had been built on remaining anonymous and missing an entire appendage didn’t exactly help her blend into the overall population.
She couldn’t keep some tears from breaking their barriers and streaming down her cheeks. Instead of bandages her arm had been encased in some kind of pliable silver sleeve that ran from her wrist to her elbow. But she could still feel fingers that were no longer there. Even wiggle them if she concentrated, though nothing happened other than an ache in her wrist. The rest of her arm moved like it was supposed to, the sleeve doing nothing to hinder her movement. She didn’t feel different at all. Maybe a little more pressure and soreness on that side than normal. Someone had repaired her…or at least stemmed the flow of destruction so it hadn’t killed her. It had to have been her parents. There was no other explanation.
Scanning the rest of the room it became immediately apparent she was in a hospital. Equipment she didn’t recognize stood against the walls behind her, and her bed was in the center of the room underneath three large lights that were currently off. And on the far wall was a cabinet with transparent doors. Inside looked to be medical supplies and bandages. Though she’d never had the opportunity to visit places like this she’d seen them on the entertainment programs and in books. Because all accidents and illnesses were scheduled, most machines didn’t have a need for hospitals. Dad said they were always to stay very far away from them because if by some miracle there were any other remaining humans, they would most likely visit a hospital at some point in their lives. The Cadre used to trap humans in places like this, back when the war was still raging. Survivors with injuries would come scavenging, and just like a Venus Fly Trap, the Cadre would have them. Fortunately, Mom had been smart enough to heal Arista’s smaller injuries and she’d never been sick, so they hadn’t had to infiltrate anywhere like this.
