Lenders

by Johnson, John

  The sun warmed Amy’s ecstatic cheeks which had been cooled in the tunnel. The others followed emerging one by one, squinting at the bright sunlight. Jim came out last then Rico secured the door.

  Abell had carried Lia in one arm and her wheelchair in the other. He unfolded it and placed her in it. Although her face couldn’t completely convey her happiness because of the burn scars and skin grafts, her deep brown Asian eyes sparkled with delight. Today was to be her day off, but she would gladly trade a day in the park for the rare chance to be atop the wall!

  Lia casually spent days off with her caretaker, a white-haired woman named Betty, and the only non-lender allowed to live in lender housing. Betty was ninety-one years old and helped with many needs at home. She spent her time reading and when Lia had her one day off they’d read stories together in the park; likewise Abell enjoyed story day and many others would gather round to hear Betty speak. She was once a lender but couldn’t handle the killing and was the only lender to be fired without getting the chair.

  Like a buzz-cut pro-wrestler, his uniform fit tight as did many of his clothes. Abell had no neck, muscle like a Belgian Blue, and fully arched eyebrows above a friendly and relaxed face—most of the time. The limited amount of fat on his body filled his jolly-red cheeks (a contrast to his white Russian skin) and layered his belly, with just enough spread around elsewhere to make him look passive. Effortlessly he carried Lia wherever she needed to go: the gym, park, bathroom, along on a jog or out to eat; they were an inseparable pair.

  Amy ran to the edge. She could see the encircling ships miles away. Rico watched her contentedly. She saw the outside world for the first time in nearly ten years and couldn’t speak, but her elated expression spoke worlds. Surely, she was the liveliest on the team.

  The mega structure continued upward with four foot tall thinly-slotted ramparts adorning each side; for defense reasons—also to prevent over-exited teenagers from going off the edge.

  31. Changes

  The morning sun baked the arid quarantine zone that surrounded the only thing for miles—like a dot from afar—the wall and the small town within. Desert terrain, flat and scorched under a clear weather-less sky was all that existed for hundreds of miles. Like silent streamers, ships patrolled in the distance some fifty-odd miles away, weaving up and down in unpredictable patterns. The ships efficiently keep the quarantine zone barren and flat: clear of debris, even rocks, sheared of plants and weeds, but especially, swept of any invader that was feeling lucky. A clear line of sight was always maintained. Lasers on the wall work in conjunction with the ships, occasionally firing on anything moving including distant coordinated targets. The wall encases the heart, the lending facility. Its life energy supports the ships just as the ships support the town and keep people safe.

  Amy stood looking out, awing; all others eagerly surrounded her. Rico allowed a few minutes and did the same; there was time—and everyone was silent. It was desolate but beautiful, and liberating to feel boundless for a change, but unsettling just the same. Like a prisoner finally free from decades of entrapment, denuded of the towering bounds that were always there; no one could help but feel a slight uneasiness. The grandness of it all, being able to see such distance, the horizon; it left everyone, even Jim who’d longed for the outside world, with a feeling of insignificance; a sole electron in a sea of atomic empty space. The town behind and below them—the only green left on the planet?

  A wall laser fired: target exceeded visual range. The rapid event broke their quiescent silence, and Rico spoke, “Everyone over here if you would.” He walked toward the broadcast needle and gestured for everyone to take a place. “We have some very interesting things to talk about today. I know the years have been long and our efforts at times might not seem important, but, they are—and of the utmost. You see it, out there, the vastness of it, those ships far away. As some of you know—and we don’t know much—we hypothesize that there are other towns, like ours. We have years of data and have concluded that our broadcast feed is also used by, something else, perhaps something out there; our systems generate, magnify, and send out more than what is utilized by the ships out there and all of our automation combined. By quite a substantial amount, more than we’d previously calculated—the broadcast feed is very special. We surmise something out there needs us—it siphons a part of our feed. And as long as we keep that feed up—we are safe. Those ships in the distance—they keep us safe, our community alive. They’re not manned by humans yet highly intelligent, and the consciousness you lend makes it all possible. I wanted to bring you all here today to get things out into the open, reestablish our perspectives, but mostly, to talk about some of our new discoveries. Also to welcome Amy, she is now officially a member of our team—and so quickly, a top lender. As you know she’s been partnering with Jim for over a week now. She has proven herself worthy and passed all tests with flying colors. Most of you took a full week to initiate, but Amy—as impatient as she can be—jumped right in full charge on her second day—with some outstanding results I might add.” Rico started to clap and the others followed. “Congratulations Amy, welcome aboard.” Everyone took turns. They welcomed her personally. Jim was last, but his welcome was the most sincere.

  Rico continued, “Okay, now, Ted has some interesting news, much of it concerning Amy and Jim, yet it will soon affect us all. Feel free to sit on the forcefield generators, or continue to stand if you want. Ted, ready?”

  Ted stepped forward and Rico moved aside and sat facing the group. The meeting began between two parallel rows of three foot diameter forcefield generators that encircled the broadcast spike. A ten foot gap separated each of the circular rows. Another row with larger five-foot diameter generators about forty feet apart from one another lined the top of the wall surrounding the town. Each forcefield generator was housed by superior metals, a cylindrical housing protruding two feet up from the floor. When defense is needed the casing separates and the shield generators are exposed. After a brief charge-up period they energize creating a translucent barrier that can disable and destroy most artificial systems upon passing through. The shield also provides limited protection from harmful toxins, rays, radiation, gas, harmful nanoparticles, and grey goo. Behind Rico Jim and Ted, the team leaders who sat facing the group, was the gleaming broadcast spike, currently in full extended mode. It stood over fifty feet high and stabbed the sky like a platinum sword. It was surrounded closely by additional protection within the bounds of its forcefield generators: dozens of specialized wall lasers that could rotate to target close attackers or form an additional and impenetrable high-output laser forcefield if needed.

  “Hello everyone,” Ted spoke, fluffing his special tie as if to show it off. “I’ll be talking about Amy specifically and the affect she has on our systems, and—” He looked over to Jim who sat to his left. “—her affect on something else. As many of you have known for some time now, Amy demonstrated a very high creative intelligence score during our initial tests and we were anxious to see how she would perform. What you don’t know is why she performed so well. Amy is not genetically modified in any way, nor were her parents at the time of her birth. This is extremely rare today and there is no other like her in our town. We believe that during the years before the war that every human on the planet was affected, that is, had their genes cleansed in order to cure diseases. This soon led to frivolous gene editing and DNA altering. We are now learning that these modifications led to a large decrease in creativity, and, the ability to dream, although we don’t understand why. Virtually the entire human race was affected. And—most of us haven’t had a dream since, at least nothing more than choppy flashes anyway. Amy on the other hand has many natural dreams every night.”

  The group looked around at each other. They knew of Amy’s high creative intelligence score—rumors had spread quickly amongst the team—but besides Ted, only Rico, Devon, and Ron, and more recently Jim, knew the true reasoning behind it. “Really interesting Ted, but what do
es this mean for us?” Jessie said sitting on George’s leg.

  “I’m getting to that Jessie. But I think things will only get more unusual as we move forward. Jim, could you please come over here for a minute. I hate to put you on the spot but we have detected changes in you and it is something that will soon involve everyone.”

  Jim’s curiosity was overflowing. He wanted to know what was wrong with him. I’m infected, logging in with Amy has damaged me, I’ll be kicked from the program, what’ll I do, I’m going to die. His thoughts intertwined and he went to the front of the group. He thought of Lion, pulling weeds, and thought of himself in a green uniform. His imagination was strong, and he could picture even the dirt under his fingernails; he could smell the moist sweet smell of the weeds. He felt sick to his stomach thinking about it. He stood next to Ted facing the group.

  “Jim, I want to let you know—” Ted said, pausing, smiling gently. “There is nothing wrong with you. I know you’ve been going through some changes over the past few days. Your DNA is—being repaired Jim. We don’t know why or how. Data shows your C-IQ, your creative intelligence quotient, has risen dramatically during your week logged in with Amy. As far as the requirements of our systems, this is the most important value. Also your E-IQ, emotional intelligence quotient, is elevated substantially. Your standard IQ score has not changed, but the C-IQ and the E-IQ are like—well, a turbo-boost for the mind. Strong imaginative and emotional abilities lead to gains in overall intelligence and creative thinking on a dynamic level. It’s this special power that made our species the dominant one on the planet.”

  “But what about this,” Jim said abruptly. He grabbed a section of hair. A hand-sized tuft came out easily, almost the entire front patch above his forehead. The lenders gasped, especially Jessie. She placed her delicate hand over her mouth and turned away.

  “Unfortunately this has some, side-effects Jim,” Ted continued. “But they are only inherent to how you would be, would have been all these years—naturally—having had no genetic or DNA modifications in the past. Jim, your DNA, your entire genetic makeup is being reverted, back to its natural state.”

  The lenders were astounded, many glad the issue had been caught in time, or sorry for Jim. Only Rico and Ted knew the full gist of it. Jim couldn’t believe it himself and just turned his patchy head and sat in dismay. Amy thought about being special as she had been told in the past. She remembered her recent flashbacks, her daddy Jon’s last words. You are special, remember that always. I love you Amy.

  “Is everything okay Amy?” Rico asked hushing the group with his arms. She looked disappointed, her liveliness crumbled. Everyone went silent.

  “My Daddy told me I was special before he died in my arms. I keep recalling those memories I had shut out. I am special alright, in a bad way.”

  “I’m so sorry Amy,” Ted consoled, “but I don’t think this is what he meant.”

  “You’re right Ted. But what does this mean? I—hurt Jim?” She was getting more upset with each word. She looked at Jim, he was melancholy, had been all morning. Now he was sitting there and had almost no hair above his forehead.

  “Amy,” Ted said. “We believe you fixed him actually, but the modifications that were made: such as disease prevention, cosmetic changes, all others, will be reverted and there’s no stopping it now. Since he first logged in with you his creative intelligence score has skyrocketed. It’s now closer to yours.” Ted returned to face the group. “As we move forward—and Rico and I have already discussed this—well, we’ve come to a decision. Each one of you will work with Amy for one week. These sessions will start with the newer and lower level lenders, eventually involving everyone here.”

  Those that had been sitting stood up. Those that were standing sat down, flummoxed and dismayed. The group was clearly apprehensive about the decision. Rico calmed them once again letting it be known that more answers were coming.

  “But my hair is—” Jim stood up. “—my skin, I have pores now, big ones, my eyes are dull? Why would we do this Ted?”

  “Jim, I’m sorry but those are some of the changes that will affect you and the others as we move forward. You will lose your hair because you were likely predisposed to baldness, your eyes will be their natural color, and—”

  “I don’t think I like this,” George said thrusting his ideally sculpted chin. “Why is this necessary?” A few others rallied with agreeing commotion. George was handsome in every way, the masculine counterweight to his dazzling partner, the beautiful Jessie. He was taller than Jim, six foot two with flawless bronze skin and flowing dark mahogany hair. He was athletically muscular and thin with incongruous but gorgeous crystal blue eyes under a thick determined brow.

  Rico interrupted the disagreement once again, “I specifically invited each of you here today because you are the best we have and this is how we will be moving forward. There will be no exceptions.”

  The group continued with disagreement then Jim spoke again, with a different tone, loud enough to catch their attention. “I have to admit. This morning it hit me, scared me to be honest. I was seriously worried because I didn’t know why my hair was falling out, my eyes appeared less bright, and there were other minor physical changes, but I must admit—I actually feel more alive now, more so than, well, ever. I feel, human, like I should be. And this morning, for the first time I wanted to create something. I feel a new passion to be somebody, something more. I have hope for the future. I—”

  “What is it Jim?” Jessie asked. George lowered his brow, not wanting to hear it.

  “I dream—and, I fuckin’ like it,” Jim replied. “And I think it is worth it, if humanity needs this in order to survive, well, I’m in.”

  “You can’t change it anyway, so why should you even have a say?” George fumed. “Look at us, we’re perfect. Why fuck us up just because—” He turned to Amy with a brief look of hatred. “Why do we need more output? Things are fine, we’re in the green almost all of the time!”

  “The purple status!” Amy answered ignoring his hateful glare.

  Rico rose to his feet. “Ahem—we haven’t discussed this due to some very old orders but I think now is the time. The orders simply stated, that we will know when the time is ready, and until then—not to mention it. It also said once disclosure was made our orders were to reach the goal at all costs. Yes, Amy. We believe, although it was very vague, almost cryptic, that this is what it meant. This status was added to the system shortly after you arrived, almost ten years ago. The system had some updates, and the hardware for it arrived with you. And that was the last time we heard from the outside.”

  “What is it?” Amy interrupted impatiently. She rebounded from the idea that she’d damaged Jim—and George’s malicious look which she continued to fight off. She was again passionately curious about having anything to do with the opportunity.

  Rico began explaining, “Let me put it this way, although we cannot be certain. If everyone in the town was to log in we would still be far from that status. And the lender’s capabilities as a whole have been decreasing over time. Amy and Jim pulled off an extraordinary week, yet still—combined with the rest of the team—it’s nothing near what it would take to reach this, I’ll say, mysterious status. And, we don’t know what will happen when we reach it. We do expect something special, as the message said, but it didn’t explain further. Our cypher was crude but it’s typical, the messages we’ve received have always provided very limited information. We do know, and not via any provable data—just good old intuition and commons sense—that we are, have always been, kept in the dark about many things. Now, Ted and I, with expert advice from Ron and Devon, stayed up late last night discussing our new goals. We think that Amy is the key. After each lender is restored to their natural state, this achievement might just be possible.”

  “Well I don’t like it. We’re happy like we are now,” George said with his arms crossed. Nodding, Jessie followed in agreement. They knew each other well (typical for lende
rs that spent years together) and knew details about each other's parents and possible predisposed conditions. Jessie was absolutely stunning: long silky blond hair, with soft baby skin and eyes as green as spring grass. Everyone in the town had beneficial modifications but George and Jessie loved themselves as a couple and enjoyed every moment of their very sexual lives together, both in the physical world and while logged in. There was no way in hell George was going to go bald, and Jessie wasn’t about to gain weight or give up her flawless skin. They both firmly knew their answer.

  “They expect us to log in and work with her for a week,” Jessie retorted glancing toward Amy with brand-new animosity. “Then we simply revert to having any number of unknown conditions we might be predisposed to. I mean—look at Jim, he’s ugly now. Not me, I am out!” She’d been with George for over ten years, and nothing about the situation felt like a battle for humanity, or a war. The primary reason for lending had lost its meaning for them, undoubtedly for others as well.

  “I thought some of you wouldn’t agree, but this isn’t a vote,” Rico said. “The orders stand and we will follow them. Those that choose not too will be out of the program. Feel free to take up a job in the community down there. Now as Jim noted he does feel more alive, more human as he put it. Perhaps he is getting a chance to experience just what we as humans have lost. This is more important than superficiality. I believe this is important to the survival of the human race. And we must remember, although we have been safe inside these walls for many years there is still a war out there and anything can happen. I only hope that one day these walls will come down and we can exist in peace. Now, a show of hands, who agrees? And who wants to continue with the program?”

  Jim raised his hand first, followed by Amy. Everyone except Jessie and George—but after a long tense moment, even they raised and arm. They agreed slowly and defiantly. Jessie, and her never-ending happiness which illuminated all such a short time ago, possessed a look of sheer disenchantment. She was visibly upset, her bubble had burst. But George had nudged her. He couldn’t bear a regular job in the town, not even obliviously. Even after the chair, he’d still know; that he didn’t want to sweep or tend the gardens, or make pizzas, or help the town chemist. He loved lending, he loved Jessie, but mostly he loved himself and his life. His countenance displayed anger with squinted mischievous eyes. Amy was elated, as usual, and hugged Jim. George lowered his chin and brow, and exhaled slowly but forcefully while holding Jessie who began to sob. While everyone else agreed and moved forward, his eyes execrated Amy, he directed to her and Jim alike a look of steel condemnation.