Lenders

by Johnson, John

  “Amy, the machines that rescued you years ago, and brought you here when you were young, they were using a part of this power as well. Someone sleeping, lending, in a facility just like this, perhaps this one or one in another city—they lent out a part of their consciousness so it could be used, appropriated by a living thinking machine. These are the machines that are fighting for us. We empower them.”

  He’s got my attention, she thought. She wasn’t tired either, not a bit. “Other cities?”

  “We can’t say for sure,” Ted answered. “It could be only ours that is left in the world, but we hope of course, and make assumptions based on rationality—and of course, data.”

  Ted went on to explain how Amy was not like the others. She elicited output while logged in, without kills. All had DNA modified in the past, every single person on the planet. DNA had been altered, changed unnaturally. For some reason creative ability decreased and was not recoverable when any such modifications took place—decreasing further when trying to put things back the way they were.

  “Unfortunately we didn’t know this until it was too late, the damage had already been done,” Ted sighed.

  Humans, even animals, were finally rid of cancer causing genes and diseases, but many made superficial changes: eye color, they fixed balding, enlarged this or that, tailored themselves frivolously—it was rampant. Humankind played God for a time, now more than twenty years ago. He explained to her the impact it had on humanity as a whole, our ability to think creatively—eventually our ability to combat something much smarter than ourselves, when the time came. We were ignorantly vulnerable and the machines with an Artificial Intelligence, all of that era, took advantage in a whopping checkmate.

  “The result of this nearly finished humanity—and now, we find you. You are natural, unmodified, and we wouldn’t change that even if we could. Of course we can’t however, our technology here is quite limited. For good reason I suppose. In fact most of this facility is governed by someone out there. We suppose the machines, outside forces that continue to fight for us. They set rules and limits so we can remain human, as best as we can, and live peacefully, here. We are no longer the smartest beings on this planet but an equal part nevertheless. I must say—you are very special Amy.”

  Amy had heard that before. She had blocked it out for so long but when Ted spoke his last sentence a tear went down her face. She remembered everything in that moment. She remembered her daddies, both of them, Jon and Jerry. You are special, remember that always. I love you Amy, Jon’s last words. She felt love and pain. All of it returned for a moment.

  “Is everything alright Amy,” Ted said in his comforting voice. He had a very pleasant and honest quality about him. She felt comfortable in his presence. And she longed for a father, and for the moment he fit right into that slot.

  “I’m okay, just—” Then she broke down and fell onto him in tears. He hugged her in return, and being the sensitive type, started to cry himself. Jim noticed from the stretching area and made his way over—once again ending his session early. Ted held her noticing Jim who lent a concerned solemn gaze. He didn’t know why she had started crying but shared her sorrow nevertheless. They both knew she was more than just a statistic—or some strange anomaly—she was part of the family now. Most of the team was very close and looked out for one another as so.

  “I’m okay, really,” Amy said. “Some memories flooded in when you said I was special. My daddy told me that—” She wiped her tears with her arm. “—just before he died. I just remembered all of it.”

  “I’m so sorry Amy,” Ted consoled.

  “I’m fine, please go on Ted.” She stood up straight and took a breath. Jim arrived by her side.

  “I think we should wrap it up for the day,” Ted replied. “Go ahead and take off. I see you’re scheduled for exercise tomorrow morning so you’ll need your rest.”

  “Good night Ted,” she said, rebounding quickly from her sadness, wiping her tears.

  “I want to congratulate you again,” He said before she turned. “You did a great job today. And please remember we don’t discuss anything of what goes on here at the facility.”

  After saying goodbye to Jim, Amy headed to the door which opened as she approached. She walked along the right bypassing the motion path and headed home.

  “So what do you think Ted?” Jim asked. They both stood arms crossed watching her leave. “Is she the one? Can we finally—”

  “I believe so Jim, I believe so. But I have a lot of data to crunch. We don’t really know what’s going on yet. But things are going to get interesting around here, I assure you that.” They exchanged a moment of silence; a good twenty seconds of wonder and excitement for the future floated between their eyes.

  During his walk home he noticed he had more energy than usual: only one kill. But, walking through the hall he half cocked his head again, and shook it a little. He felt something, something different, but he wasn’t sure what.

  26. Wall Breach

  The light came over the wall cutting his top floor apartment in two. He stretched arms wide, another day, exercise day.

  Jim took a seat near the window at his table and sipped a fresh cup of black coffee. Waiting patiently for its kick he looked around his silent and bland undecorated apartment. A half meaningless sigh escaped him, then he noticed the ripples. He didn’t budge, just lifted the mug for another sip, letting the aroma tease his sniffer. The best part of mornings, for sure. If it wasn’t for this I’d just jump off…

  There was a distant explosion; he could feel it through his chair. As usual it came from beyond the wall, but this one was different. There was a lingering tremor. He opened his glass door and stepped outside on the balcony to take a look. It was somewhat common for sounds to come from the outside so he didn’t take much alarm to it. There was smoke in the distance, but nothing too far from the ordinary. He stood at the window gazing out, sipping his brew and tossing thoughts.

  Fresh outside today. Typical morning, the same season-less boring weather all year round; having no moon, no tilt—well, that probably saved us. Likely not a good thing. Besides weather would only bring more… Fuck it. Another perfect day, he thought sarcastically. Once I get another one of these in me anyway.

  What came next sent him flying. Along with the shattered glass, his table and two chairs, a massive explosion thrust him across the room. Everything was in slow motion. He could see shards of glass floating with him, and felt the heat sting his face. Trapped in mid flight waiting for impact his thoughts spun round on a clinking and clattering game show wheel and he couldn’t manage do anything but claw at them. His emotions were on hold too, waiting for thought to explain what the fuck. Time, and the weird effects beyond; before he knew it the tumble, but mostly the hit that followed, had him busted up real good.

  Every window on the east side of the building that faced the town had shattered. Inertia held the coffee in his cup until he’d taken a tumble over his rickety old twin bed; a fuzboll flip. He’d plowed into the glass, hard. The large pane beside the slider was impaled as the table hit, nearly missing him. His impact, slowed by the tumble over his bed, only cracked the sliding glass door. The back of his neck and shoulders took the impact; his body crushed in on itself compressing his guts. And he slid to the floor. He sat there coughing in a puddle of hot coffee, trying desperately to get a full breath of air.

  He raised his head to a forty-five and kicked the bed away after his first breath. His second inhale powered a scream of fluster-faced pain; short hard quick breathing followed. His bones felt crickity and crackity from the shoulders down to his ribs. A heavy pain, that of cold steel in the center of his chest; a swallowed sword trying to poke its way out from somewhere under his lower ribcage.

  Through a squinted left eye he awed at a vague shape rising affront him. Through a hazy gaze, he knew, he could make out that much. It was as beautiful as it was terrifying. Fuck! It’s huge—and close, right damn there. Disbelief tackled his
thoughts.

  He knew he only had one eye left; the other was reduced to a hot wet hole. It had imploded; eyeball juice oozed down the side of his face soothing the open gashes and burns. The right side of his body was crispy and smoking. His remaining eye exercised its lid like a windshield wiper; about ten times and his vision cleared just enough. He could now silently perceive the frightening details that affirmed his fears. Back-lit by the sun, a mushroom cloud, its energetic plume fisted into the sky, and the wall—was gone! His hearing was gone, but he could feel its power incessantly shiver his world.

  He managed to rise and limped forward on glass shards with horrified curiosity, mouth agape and half of his lips burned away. The darkness of his mind battled the light, peevish steps built from years of discontent led to an easy victory. Darkness chuckled, exposing its true nature, denuding all else so he could feel its pure essence. Fear transformed demoniacally, chuckles of dismay became hints of laughter, laughter to all out glee and satisfaction. And he was glad to see the hole, to see outside at ground level—finally, fucking finally! Something, anything different.

  He looked down at his bare feet which were bleeding but numb. His legs were straight, knees good, at least that. It was his torso, and it stole the pain from everywhere else; something busted inside, busted bad. The creative half of his brain was on fire, sending him horrible imagery.

  My guts are a ball of clay, my lungs and stomach and spleen, all of it, smashed together by a jolly laughing giant, a ball of misshapen clay surrounded by a defeated wall of ribs. Fuck it, to the window, a few steps more.

  Blood trickled down the good side of his lips as he lobbed closer to the dry heat inferno. The eyeball juice got hard like a protective coating. He lifted an arm slowly, extended two fingers and touched his cheek. He was still smiling at first, thinly, a remainder of his laughing. It was a mess of holes, and gashes, many with shards embedded. Exposed cheek bone; with a realization he jerked his hand away. He could feel a click, like the hard popping of a knee from its joint. It came from deep inside his core. He lost his sick smile, tucked and froze as the pain tried to get out, unable to find an exit. There would be no absolution to this hellish misery. Push on.

  Only a few more hobbling mini-steps to the counters edge... He leaned for balance, and finally managed to hobble all the way back to the open window. Half a head of magnificent blond hair waved like a flag in a gust of hot air and he held his hand up to shield what was left of his face. Visible through the hole in his cheek he grinded his teeth to endure the pain. With a vile grin stamped on his deformed face he rose defiantly to see it.

  Where the wall had once stood, the entire lender facility, gone; now a gateway to the outside world. Below people were scurrying about holding their ears. The noise was deafening, a high pitched whine, but deranged luck said his ears weren’t gonna have any of that. He was fully deaf. He stood tall, body cracking, half of his body destroyed, his guts telling him to crunch and tuck; but he fought on, and let out a big smile.

  He exploded with laughter, coughing up blood between intermittent sets of chuckles. He couldn’t hear himself but it felt liberating nevertheless. The pain was a drug he now enjoyed deliriously. Once an impenetrable wall and his work place, the entire facility at the base was just a charred pit edged with fire. Black smoke clouds vomited flaming debris. The quaint little boring town was burning and he was actually happy, ecstatic; it was finally over. Free at last! The dopey citizens could leave and get back to the real world, or better yet, just fucking die. Escape the freak show, most of all the sadistically insane and endlessly maundering lending program. Then—he saw Amy.

  She was among the people below, injured and lugging herself toward the opening that the morning sun lit so clearly. Like a beautiful orange beacon, its rays stabbing the smoke, it called her. One of her legs was red. Around her others ran in all directions, their mouths wide open. A few were limbless, some just glossy red, like handfuls of scattering fire-ants. He watched Amy, and his perverted happiness leapt off the balcony leaving him alone. Unsmiling he felt all of his pain at once both emotional and physical. Powered by despair and desperation the clicking wheel of thoughts spun wildly once again. It finally stopped as Amy made her way around the crater, landing on one idea: Save her you selfish fuck!

  But he could barley move. Something deep in his gut ticked like a time-bomb. It expanded, bulging and distending his belly like a balloon. His insides kept popping, that hard broken knee-joint pop every time he tried to move. He got stiff and fat and as she continued on her way through the wall. He became hopelessly petrified, a smoldering round-bellied red-sided half-bald statue. Only his lower jaw fluttered with spasms of pitter-patter coughs that flicked droplets of blood spatter against the wind only to fly back onto his face. His mouth was an open delta of lukewarm mucus glazed over with layer upon layer of blackening blood. It flowed down his neck onto his body drying into a crusty lei-like necklace.

  The shards of glass that protruded his face and forehead glimmered like a red stars, flickering in sync with the inferno aftermath. His evil joy had turned to tears, fear for Amy with complete disregard of himself or anything else. He knew she’d made it out, at least that much—and as she did the land she touched—changed.

  The city was in ruins but outside the wall he could see green. With each step she took the land morphed into greatness—a vibrant spring green. She was walking faster now, running, hopping and skipping; full of life once again. Each skip onto the dry wasteland changed as she touched it. Beautiful: glimmering lakes, rolling hills, magnificent trees, everything became transformed—paradise!

  Still standing in the wasteland, frozen in his rigor-mortise-izing flesh, this struck him odd. He knew he was dying, but he also realized something.

  Could it be, could it really? He thought. A veteran, highly experienced he knew the dream world well, although the lender facility has software to stabilize the environment, but he still knew. But how? I don’t dream. I haven’t in…

  Another blast of hot air sent him back, the knee-pop feeling tortured his chest. Hundreds of drones flew in like locusts and started zapping the citizens, even the teenagers without a hint of discrimination. Lasers fired everywhere. He watched, but he knew now. It was just a dream. He was just dreaming! For the first time in decades, he was having a…

  And this is a real dream, he thought. No stabilization software. He knew what he could do…

  His body jerked and spasmed on his bed. Minutes later he awoke in a cold sweat. He’d killed every last one of those drones in his lucid nightmare. With a mighty and relentless power, he smashed them to bits. Because he knew, in his mind he was the king. And he did it for Amy, and humanity.

  He got ready for exercise day with a new found sense of self. He remembered the dream: the clicker wheel, the agonizing pain, but mostly the shedding of his selfish skin.

  27. Exercise and Coffee

  People weren’t making paintings or sketches, plays or skits, sculptures, statues, or poems, not even writing. Many creative activities were neglected, but fitness was different. It picked up the slack, more so than ever. What else besides eat and sleep?

  The gym was usually full. It had many items from the old resort—erected in the town after the borders fell—but most of the machines and weights were crafted out of necessity by the townsfolk. Exercise was a strict requirement for everyone, especially lenders, no way around it. Once a week was required but many exercised more often, some daily. Penalties were meted for those who didn’t: less ration credits, chores, and for lenders, possible termination, meaning the chair—a nickname branded it long ago. The chair was an old login map, one of the first and full of bugs: it caused irreversible amnesia, the worst that could accidentally happen, now a purposeful intention. It was said to be a beautiful fantasy land, but upon awaking—well, nobody knew for sure; after—a life in gardening, perhaps maintenance. Agreement to take on the job as a lender had this strict and unnerving stipulation.

  The town w
as ruled by a panel of twelve people, common folk with common sense, each with different backgrounds, but many of the rules and regulations for the town were set firm from the start long ago. No matter the occupation: head of the council, baker or tailor or groundsman, each person was treated equally and given the same rations.

  Exercise was important in Jewel City for a reason. The townspeople had to stay healthy because resources were limited—that and humans themselves faced extinction. Perfect health was a priority. The earliest learned this from the start. People became sick, most often mentally, and—a side effect of being walled for life—depressed. Preventable causes of sickness could unnecessarily deplete resources from other citizens hindering the important task of rebuilding and survival, or put others in danger. For years the system continued to work well, with little overall health problems arising from laziness or poor physical fitness; the citizens were overall happy and fit.

  Jim was of the typical mesomorph body type so was assigned a fitness plan with equal cardio and weight training. Mesomorphs made muscle rather easily and had little trouble staying trim, but could gain weight from over-eating or being too sedentary (lying down all day on the job). Overeating in the town was rare, unheard of in these times; especially compared to the world as it once was: a face-stuffing extravaganza, even the best DNA modifications could hardly combat weight gains. Jim never had needed a physical trainer. He knew the ropes well. He got in, completed his checklist, had it verified, and headed out to enjoy the rest of his day off, which for him usually meant sitting alone in his apartment.

  Amy was scheduled for weight training with very little cardio. It was only her second time in the adult gym. She was of the ectomorph body type classification, which meant she was skinny (skinny being a huge understatement in her case) and burned calories quickly. And her muscle could easily burn away; retaining any weight was for her a Sisyphean task. Had she been assigned cardio it would only make her thinner, further diminishing the little bit of muscle clinging to her toothpick bones. Ectomorphs were somewhat lucky; some received more food rations than the other two body types.