Simple

by Dena Nicotra

  There was no time to celebrate the victory, as three more simps raced toward me. I spied my gun in the dirt and lunged for it, but they were so fast. A female with scraggly red hair was on my back before I could get it, and she knocked me flat to the ground. The air whooshed out of my lungs on impact. My knee hit something hard, and I would have screamed out if I could have, as something drove deep into my upper thigh. Before I could recover, the two other two joined her to assist. I’d be split three ways in the next minute if I didn’t think fast. The irony was that my gun was just out of my reach. I contemplated my options, but there were none. The red-headed cyber-bitch grabbed a handful of my hair and slammed my face into the dirt. I thought about Mic as the world around me went black.

  When I came to, someone was talking in a high-pitched whine. I tasted dirt and blood, and my leg was on fire. It took me a minute to realize where I was. The large flag on the wall brought me to my senses. I was back in the old jail, only this time, I was the one behind the bars. I tried to force my legs to move, but the pain was excruciating. Dust particles swirled above me and drifted down through the sunlight streaming through the dirty window. The wind outside carried the muffled sounds of gunshots and distant screams. I could only imagine what was going on out there. Sonya was sitting on the desk, her plump bottom taking the majority of the space. Why didn’t I kill her when I had the chance?

  “I don’t know how many of them there are, Aaron! They have a town full of people here, but how could I know their numbers when they threw me in this jail cell? I’ve done all that I could to help you, and I’ve done it without food and without sleep! You left me there, and I’m lucky that they didn’t kill me!” I’d expected to see the grotesquely tall creation I’d seen back at the hotel, but instead my eyes landed on an average-sized man with short blonde hair and wire-rimmed glasses. His button down shirt and slacks gave him the appearance of an accountant. Aaron Metchler apparently fashioned his double after a distorted self-image. His beady eyes narrowed.

  “You’re lucky that I have not killed you, Sonya!” bellowed Aaron. His voice rumbled through the small space like a cannon. There were several other simps in the room that stood expressionless, as if waiting for the next command. It was a trivial observation, but I noticed a large fly on the wall. My eyes followed it as it flitted to land on Sonya’s knee. She brushed it away and then noticed that I was awake.

  “Aaron, she’s awake,” she said hastily.

  “Well, look who’s decided to join the festivity.”

  I rose up on my elbows and spat through the bars. “I know who you are, you greedy son-of-a-bitch.”

  Aaron removed his glasses and wiped them on the bottom of his shirt. A tight smile curled on his narrow face.

  “Miracle of miracles, Mic finally picked a woman with a backbone.” He paused. “I like that.” He moved closer to the bars and wrinkled his brow. “Pity he didn’t pick a wife with one, but then that’s a moot point, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t think Mic would give two shits about your opinion.”

  “That’s very true, but do you realize how much you look like her?” He put his glasses back on and nodded. “It’s uncanny, actually. You look exactly like her.

  Sonya smiled broadly, as if she was taking great pleasure in this little exchange. I’d definitely kill her if I got the chance. I’d seen the picture in Mic’s office and knew that wasn’t true. He obviously wanted to goad me into something. I thought about this for a moment before I spoke. If he wanted to use me to get to Mic, I could use that to my advantage. Just by the sheer fact that he’d said something that I knew to be a lie told me that he wanted to use me to get to Mic. That could only mean that Mic was still alive, and that gave me some added encouragement.

  I focused on all of the people that I had lost. Every emotion that I had carefully stuffed down I now allowed to the surface. Hot tears slid down my cheeks, and I bit my lip for added effect. “Please don’t say that!” I whispered. Sonya actually rose to her feet and moved closer. The bitch probably would have gone for popcorn if it were available. How could a person thrive on the pain of others like that? Yeah. I would kill her all right. “It’s true, unfortunately. What was your name again?”

  “It’s Lee,” I said, brushing the tears from my face.

  “Is that short for something?”

  “Hailey,” I said.

  “Well, Lee. I am sure you’ve been lied to by him as so many of us have. He’s a manipulative man, I can assure you of that. As his business partner, I know firsthand how ruthlessly cruel he can actually be.”

  “What don’t I know?” I croaked. It was easy to turn on the waterworks, and a good cry was probably long overdue, but seeing how easily it worked to my advantage made it even sweeter.

  “He stole my ideas, he undermined my goals, and at the end of the day he brought all of this on humanity,” he said, spreading his arms wide to gesture the severity of the situation. I told him that the SIMS were weapons, and that he should never have allowed a sellout to the corporate world. Did you know that the government was actually the first to implement simulated employees?” I shook my head.

  “No, how could you know that? I’m sure like everyone else you thought it was Burger World. In truth, you can’t blame me for infecting the creation that wasn’t perfect.

  “You? I thought it was Yen?” I said.

  “Yen was my business partner and I paid him handsomely, but he was not the brain behind the coding that brought down the wrath of God. No, he was just the face on that little deal.”

  “Well that little deal cost us all, didn’t it?” I said, looking away.

  “It didn’t have to be that way. Again, it was Mic’s fault. I told him that we should sell our work to the highest bidder and create invincible soldiers. If we’d have done that, we could have then focused on my biogenetics and collected on every disease, and every injury! Instead, he chose to work directly with our weak government and let the Far East create their own designs. Cheap imitations that impacted our bottom line severely. We lost money because of him! If we’d stayed the course, his wife and his brother would both still be alive today. I tried to talk sense into him. I even tried to speak to his beloved bride and brother, but Miles and Susan were dependent on the lifestyles Mic gave them. Neither of them had the backbone to challenge him.”

  “You mean you tried to talk his wife and brother into getting Mic to agree to your plans?” I asked.

  “That’s right. I gave them the same chance that I am now giving you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I’m offering you a chance to save your own life, and his. All you have to do is go to him and convince him to see things my way.”

  “What good would seeing things your way do now? In case you haven’t noticed, society collapsed a long time ago. Money doesn’t matter now. Nothing you built matters now! Besides, how could I convince him of anything? You said yourself that he’s ruthless and cruel and manipulative.”

  “Yes, but he cares about you, and this time he’ll listen, or I’ll kill you right in front of him.” He said this matter-of-factly, as if he were describing how to make a sandwich.

  “Oh, well, that makes perfect sense. Just open the door and I’ll trot out there and tell him to see things your way. He’ll agree, and we’ll all live happily ever after.” I said, dropping back to the thin mattress. This guy was off-the-meds crazy.

  “I know it can be done! I was the Director of Regenerative Medicine. My work made all of this possible! I can create new tissues. Actual skin and blood! If I can do that, I can do anything. Mic and I could use the simps to rebuild society into a true utopia. Life can and will go on! Sonya actually applauded this speech. Meanwhile, I was doing the mental comparison to historical dictators. Aaron may have been a brilliant minded man, but somewhere along the path he went too far around the crazy bend.

  “So what now?” I asked.

  “Start by telling me what you have developed to shut down my creat
ions. That isn’t helping me so I need you to tell me what he’s using to do that.” I shook my head.

  “No can do.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I can’t tell you because I don’t know. I’m not a programmer.”

  “You’re not the one who has been helping him?”

  “No. I’m not.”

  “Then who is?” He can’t be doing this alone. There is too much progressive change in the code structures, and he’s hacking into my systems. Who is helping him if it isn’t you?” His face was ghostly pale, and I feared he would change his mind and kill me, now that he knew I wasn’t as valuable to him as he’d initially thought. I couldn’t imagine him thinking my powers of persuasion were valuable enough to spare my life.

  “WHO IS HELPING HIM?” he shouted.

  “Leonard O’Malley.”

  “Giz?” His face contorted.

  “Yes, that’s the guy,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. What did it matter if he knew who was helping Mic? At this point, I was as good as dead, and I could only hope that Mic and Giz did something miraculous to stop this mad man. I wanted him to know who was responsible for the takedown, when and if it happened. Aaron balled up his fists and actually began punching the sides of his legs like a child having a bad tantrum. He was so exacerbated that he began shouting orders at his simps. A numbing sensation pierced my chest at that point, because he was speaking too fast. Way too fast. Aaron…wasn’t…human. As the slouching simps came to life in an effort to carry out his orders, Aaron turned around slowly to face me. His head did a quick twitch to the side and then he smiled.

  I hadn’t thought that I could move with the board and nail still firmly planted in my thigh, but I managed to move pretty quickly. Not that it did me any good, there was no place to go. “You should see the look on your face!” Sonya cackled. “That is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen!” She was having a good cackle over my predicament, but it was short lived. Apparently Aaron didn’t find it amusing, either. His hands were around her neck with a blurring speed my eyes couldn’t follow. Then, as if he was contemplating his next move, he pulled the keys from the desk, opened the lock, and shoved that fat wad of flesh in with me. “Now, that is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. You should see the look on your face, Sonya!” Aaron’s eyes blinked in rapid succession and then he began to laugh. It was an eerie sound. Not quite human, not quite machine. It sounded almost electronically forced.

  “Oh! No, Aaron, sweetheart! You don’t understand! I wasn’t laughing at you! I was laughing at her! Her replacement of Y’s with J’s had been annoying from the beginning. I felt raw anger replacing my fear. This may be the last act I did before I died, but if I was going to meet my maker, I’d send her to hell first. She moved to avoid me and pleaded with the machine she’d sold her soul to. She should have known he wouldn’t find mercy in his icy synthetic heart for her. I didn’t care how bad it hurt to put weight on my leg. I didn’t care how much she screamed either. I pulled the board from my leg. With the long nail facing outward and a driving force, I rammed that thing into her back. Sonya made a gasping, gurgling sound and slid to the floor. Her hands were still on the bars when I kicked her skull. By the third kick, it cracked like a walnut. That was the end of Sonya.

  Panting, I staggered backward and collapsed on the cement bed with the wafer-thin cushion. Let him kill me now, I thought. I could die as happy as I was going to get to. Aaron started to clap. “Now, that was funny.” He drew the keys out again and quietly unlocked the door to the cell. I stayed on the bench. If he was going to come in and finish me off, I wasn’t going to fight. I didn’t really have the energy at that point, and I’d accepted my fate with a sort of detached numbness. “Get up, Lee.”

  “No. I’m not moving. If you’re going to kill me, just do it fast and get it over with.”

  “Kill you? I am not going to kill you. You are going to take me to Mic.” He said, yanking me to my feet. I stepped over the mess on the floor that had been Sonya and walked out into the wind with Aaron’s hand in mine. His grip felt surprisingly human. It was even warm to the touch. I don’t think I’d ever felt so disconnected from my own mind. He marched me down the planked sidewalk, oblivious to the destruction of life around us. Body parts littered the street, and those who were still able to fight stood little chance against the numbers. It was hard to tell human from machine, with the exception of the screams. Numb and defeated, I soldiered on, with Aaron matching every painful stride. The church seemed closer this time, perhaps because I didn’t want to go there now. I didn’t want to witness the slaughtering of my friends, and I was certain that was what awaited me.

  When we reached the small white church, I was crying again. The strength I’d once carried fell away like the frail facade that it was. I wanted to scream out and warn those inside, but Aaron’s warm hand was now clamped tightly over my mouth. Instead it was him who screamed. “Mic Keenan! Come out and face me, or I will remove your woman’s head from her shoulders and throw it through the window before I come in there and kill you and all those who are accompanying you!”

  The door creaked open and Mic appeared. I couldn’t read his facial expression, but I could tell from his posture that he wasn’t afraid. He stood tall and jutted out his square chin. I felt an odd sense of appreciation for his courage. We’d done our best. All of us had. Nothing else mattered now. If he killed us all, we’d die knowing that we’d fought a good fight.

  “What do you want, Aaron?” asked Mic.

  “You know what I want, Mic. I want my life back!”

  “I cannot give you that.”

  “Yes you can! It’s not too late. We can start over. We can rebuild! I told you I could regenerate Miles and Susan. I can start with that, and you will see that there is still hope.”

  “No, Aaron. You will not regenerate my wife or my brother. They are dead, and they cannot be brought back. I will never assist with that again. The biggest regret I have was doing it for you.” Mic’s voice quavered, but his resolve was clear. Whatever Aaron proposed, Mic wasn’t going to accept it.

  “Their deaths were preventable! I told you that!”

  “No. You went too far, Aaron! You crossed a line, and that can never be taken back.”

  “I didn’t make your brother impregnate your wife! I didn’t make her die trying to carry that child in her diseased body, and I didn’t make your brother commit suicide! These were your mistakes, not mine! All that I did was for you and still you showed me no gratitude.

  “The science wasn’t perfected! You spliced pig bladder into her womb and convinced my brother to donate his sperm to your experiment!”

  “It was what she wanted!”

  No, Aaron. It was what YOU wanted! You have always served yourself at the expense of others, and in the process you took everything from me.”

  “Your brother was a fool. There was no reason for him to blame himself for an outcome that was unexpected.

  “Unexpected? You knew how emotionally unstable Miles was. You knew if you pressed him hard enough and played your little manipulative bullshit with him that he’d cave in to your incessant demands. You also knew that your research was not conclusive and that there were unacceptable risks! Plain and simple, you’re a murderer, Aaron!”

  Aaron’s grip tightened around my wrist, and I pleaded with my eyes for Mic to calm down. He seemed to connect with my plea, because his tone shifted.

  “You were always on the cutting edge, Aaron. Right up until your body gave out completely. Tell me, is your brain still in a protected location?”

  “The mainframe is intact, yes.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Giz said, appearing from behind Mic. His hands clutching the tablet.

  “Well, if it isn’t the first little fisherman,” said Aaron, pushing his glasses up on his smug face.

  “Indeed Aaron, I can string a line. I learned from the best.”

  Two and Deraline emerged from the dark double
doorway and took a place on either side of him. Aaron’s grip loosened slightly, and from the rapid blinking he was doing, I was sure he was trying as hard as I was to process what was happening. Then, as if he had come up with a new plan, he dropped his jaw and began to emit the same high pitched clicking sound that spider simp had made. After a few moments of this, I began to break out in a cold sweat. Why wasn’t anyone trying to help me? Did they know it was useless to try? He was calling for reinforcements and I felt like an animal with my foot caught in a trap. I tried to jerk out of his grip but he clamped down on my wrist so tightly I dropped to my knees.

  My eyes traveled up to the hill that was now crowded with bodies moving forward at a pace only a simp could manage. This was it — the showdown was going to be right here, right now. I knew that there were probably people inside the church. From the body parts strewn along the path and the screaming I had heard, I wondered what sort of manpower we had to fight with. Surely it wouldn’t be enough to stand against what was coming at us. Not even our two convert simps could help us against these numbers. Hell, they couldn’t even help me against one. I raised my face upward. The wind had stopped now, and there were long amber clouds streaking out across the sky. The clicking noises grew in mass and volume until I couldn’t stand it. I squeezed my eyes shut, lowered my head and braced for the worst.