Sunspot Jungle

by Bill Campbell

  “Sure … sure …” said the body in a tone balanced somewhere between sadness and rage.

  “Now we are like different species,” I said, desperately looking for an excuse to continue our dialogue, but each word had the opposite effect from what was intended.

  “This is the price we pay for progress. In the old days people would die, and that was it. Now the laws of nature are violated, we’re playing with fire.”

  “I was never a believer,” I said. “Is it the proximity of death that makes you wish for eternal life?”

  “The imminence of death forced me to transfer, nothing else,” his words were acrid. “Or it forced you … or it forced us. As you can see, it no longer matters.”

  A sound of pained voices engulfed the words my ex-body spoke and finally drowned them. The doors to the depository opened, the aides entered, disconnected the tubes from a dozen corpses, loaded them onto a ridiculous looking electrical car with a minimum of effort, and left the place impregnated by their lack of interest. Minutes later, they returned with another dozen bodies discarded in recent transfers.

  “They didn’t see me,” I said.

  “They’re not interested.”

  “I could have been a thief, a maniac …”

  “Our organs are not good enough to feed the dogs. And as far as biological experiments, they use fresh meat cultivated in tanks; sick bodies are no good for anything.” He stirred on the cot. I was afraid he would die just then. He noticed my discomfort. “Calm yourself,” he said. “It isn’t time yet.”

  “How long?” The question, unexpected even by me, affected him.

  “How long? I don’t know. Hours, two days, one week, six months. Who can predict how hard a body will cling onto life … even one without a soul? “

  I didn’t feel I was anybody’s soul, much less one belonging to such an obstinate body, although I had to admit, its judgment was sound. The doctors’ conclusions concerning longevity of the old body had been final. But doctors don’t have an obligation to accuracy in their prognoses. Does anyone know of a doctor punished for a wrongful prediction? The aides left the depository carrying their macabre shipment; the doors closed behind them, and I went back to reality.

  My first body gazed with disinterest at the dust particles suspended in the stream of light. Darkness drifted through the depository. It was impossible for me to determine how long I’d been there.

  “I must go,” I said.

  “That’s true,” he affirmed.

  “Before it’s too late.”

  “The door is unlocked.”

  “I can come back.”

  “It depends. And not on me. Unless … you’re interested in coming back.”

  “I mean: it only makes sense if you were to be here when I return.”

  My old body shrugged his shoulders, almost with indifference. “Yes—no … who knows? Am I God? How should I know the exact moment? If my reasons to stay alive are finished, I’m not angry enough to carry out that which began in my head when I decided to transfer myself. Perhaps I cling to life because the bodies are separate entities and act independently of each other.”

  “The bodies act independently of each other,” I repeated like an idiot. “You could take advantage of your last hours writing an essay on the theory of vegetative reason.”

  “The bodies act independently of each other,” he repeated. “Your body is doing it right this moment. Why don’t you go away once and for all?” He spit out his words as if provoking me.

  “I am not a beast; I can wait until you calm down.”

  “Excuses, pretexts,” he said. “Your reasons for remaining in this place next to me, waiting for my death, don’t have any value whatsoever. You transferred yourself to another body to be free of me, not to carry me as your load. I’m not your old, invalid father. Do you see anyone else doing what you’re doing? The bodies die alone; it is right for it to be that way.”

  My ex-body’s voice raised its pitch as his words became more passionate. That created a clear contrast with the last sigh from the body that had perished just a short distance from us.

  “I do not know how else to proceed,” I said, lacking conviction in my tone. “I can wait a few minutes. I have come to understand that we are part of a whole; that it is my obligation to cry for you, to feel pain.”

  “How pretentious! But I value your gesture although we both know that it serves no purpose.”

  I bowed my head. The floor of the depository was covered with dust and excrement except where the discarded bodies impatiently moved their feet. There, the floor was polished, and the darkness fought to overcome the stealthy brightness that descended from invisible sources.

  I began to anxiously expect the next round of aides. I made a mental note of those who had died and tried to figure out the timing between each death based on those who were moaning, but I immediately abandoned the idea. I felt pessimistic about it. The reasons for my presence in that place or my inability to leave, simply leave, became more and more difficult to determine. I myself had laid out a trap. The body caught my mood and tried to be constructive.

  “I don’t believe I’ll die today.”

  “I could come back tomorrow,” I said stupidly.

  “It is a good idea. But I don’t know if it will be tomorrow either. Perhaps it’s not worth the trouble.”

  The light faded, and darkness overtook the depository. The points of reference had disappeared. For all I knew, I could have been inside the depository or in the heart of a nightmare. I took strength thinking that it is possible to wake up even from the worse nightmare, but my first body’s broken voice brought me back me to reality.

  “… keep walking in the same direction your nose is pointed …”

  It had to be now or never. I started on my way out, but before taking even three steps, the rage of a body that had fallen in front of me told me it wouldn’t be a simple task.

  “Stupid idiot! Pay attention to where you’re going and show a little respect for those who are dying.”

  “Sorry. I want to leave this place.”

  “To leave?” the body asked, laughing offensively. “Only after you’re dead can you leave this place.”

  That confirmed what I had begun to suspect: the trap, working successfully, had left me standing on the wrong side of things.

  “I’ve just been transferred,” I said. “I came to say goodbye.” I tried to grasp the dying body, but he got away from me, mocking me. When he spoke again, I realized that he wasn’t the same one; another one occupied its place. The game began to awaken an interest in those condemned.

  “The one who transferred out of my body didn’t come to say goodbye. The idiot left me alone in these painful circumstances …”

  “The one who transferred from me,” said another one, “signed an authorization for them to inject me with something to accelerate the process.”

  A harsh scream brought a new degree of complaints. Groans and moans were being heard now out of every corner of the depository; the old bodies around me were dying or pretending to die, just to mortify me.

  “What good is it?” wailed a female’s voice. “Would it make us different, improve us in any way? If that dog were to come to say goodbye …”

  “… she will regret it,” a ghastly choir finished her sentence. The discarded bodies rocked in their canvas cots, producing rough textured sounds, rattling wood and dust; the sounds scattered throughout the depository, fleshing images of death, the true and absolute death; the one we cannot dodge like skillful acrobats.

  “Where?” I asked. “I don’t see the exit.”

  “Push on with all your might,” insisted my first body. “Push on without reservation; we are going to die anyway.”

  I plunged toward the exit with all my strength, but the bodies were quick to react. They rose from their cots in what seemed like a fit of madness and surrounded me, blocking my way. I felt the pressure of something hard, metallic, searching for my flesh and the fer
ocious bite on my arm from a set of broken dentures. I lost all sense of moderation and began throwing punches in all directions. But trying for the exit was useless. I was in the dark and surrounded by bodies that had no future and had closed in on me.

  What followed was a trail of puzzling memories. Perhaps I fell and was crushed by the infuriated bodies, or I received a blow to the head. Perhaps not. It is impossible to reconstruct the facts that lead to my present situation. I am only certain of waking up in the dark, in the silence of the depository. Some of the plastic tubes carrying nutrients are connected to me, and hundreds of discarded bodies surround me.

  “It was the only way out,” said a familiar voice coming from the darkness near me. “It was a sure shot. You suffered no mortal wounds …”

  “I do not want you to feel sorry for me,” I interrupted. “I want you out of here before it’s too late.”

  “I need some things to be clear,” said the voice.

  “There’s nothing to clarify,” I answered. “It is dangerous. I can see that for the first time: we are identical, of course, the same model of body. Just one question: did my first body … die?”

  “I am here,” my first body’s frail voice comes from somewhere near to my right.

  “All is in order then.”

  I sit up for the new body to know I am addressing him. “Now I am going to count to ten, and when I’m finished, you will be outside of this damned place, living your life, our life.”

  He moves his head, not yielding to persuasion. I understand that the trap has been set, and who knows how many more of us will fall before learning the trick that allowed us to outwit it?

  “It seems,” says the first body raising his voice above the putrid atmosphere, “that he who wrote our ending refuses to modify a single line of it.”

  “Perhaps he is a Greek,” I reply ironically, “an amateur, imagining Destiny with a capital D.”

  “What are you talking about?” My new body seems disturbed. “Are you making fun of me? Is that how you repay my affection? Anyway, I am staying until I get some answers. I don’t necessarily have to explain …”

  I stop listening to his words although I continue to hear them as they blend in with the humming sound of machinery and the heartbeat of the bodies. It’s hard for me to imagine what wounds had influenced the decision to make a second transfer in such a short time, and for that reason I begin to inspect the body carefully and meticulously. I notice an ugly gash across my chest, and when I press on it, I feel a sharp pain on the left side.

  “Have the almost dead caused this much damage?” Korps, in defense of its reputation, has rendered a service, and the new body validates the procedure as it wakes up. Perfect closure, though nothing comes free.

  The door opens, and the aides come in. Strangely, there are no dead bodies. They seem bewildered for a few minutes, vacillating between two worlds, but soon they return to their routine. They bring newly discarded bodies, which they place on canvas cots, and connect plastic tubes to the veins of the unfortunate ones.

  “Take him away!” I force a command. “He has no business here.” The pain intensifies, I lose strength; my voice is dull, incapable of reaching its objective.

  “They don’t register the discarded ones,” says my first body.

  “Save your breath,” says the new body. “I am going to get you out of this filthy pigpen. My ex-bodies are not garbage.”

  “We are garbage,” says the first body. “I beg of you: get out before it’s too late. Out! It sounds melodramatic, but I can’t think of another way to make you react. You are going to be trapped, imprisoned like us …”

  The new body is startled. The aides close the door behind them, the depository returns to darkness, and as gloom overtakes the space, our moans, those of the discarded bodies, and the protests of the ones just transferred are mixed until they become indistinguishable from one another.

  A Good Home

  Karin Lowachee

  I brought him home from the VA shelter and sat him in front of the window because the doctors said he liked that. The shelter had set him in safe mode for transport until I could voice activate him again and recalibrate, but safe mode still allowed for base functions like walking, observation, and primary speech. He seemed to like the window because he blinked once. Their kind didn’t blink ordinarily, and they never wept, so I always wondered where the sadness went. If you couldn’t cry, then it all turned inward.

  The VA staff said he didn’t talk and that was from the war. His model didn’t allow for complete resetting or nonconsensual dismantling; he was only five years old, so fell under the Autonomy legislation. The head engineer at the VA said the diagnostics didn’t show any physical impairment, so his silence was self-imposed. The android psychologist worked with him for six months and deemed him nonviolent and in need of a good home.

  So here he was, at my home.

  My mother thought the adoption was crazy. We spoke over comm. I was in my kitchen, she in her home office where she sold data bolts to underdeveloped countries. “You don’t know where they’ve been, Tawn,” she said. “And he’s a war model? Don’t they get flashbacks, go berserk, and kill you in your sleep?”

  “You watch too much double-vee.”

  “He must be in the shelter for a reason. If the government doesn’t want him and he’s not fit for industry, why would you want to take him on?”

  I knew this would be futile, arguing against prejudice, but I said it anyway. “The VA needs people to adopt them, or they have nowhere to go. We made them, they’re sentient, we have to be responsible for them. Just because he can’t fight anymore doesn’t mean he’s not worth something. Besides, it’s not like I just sign a contract and they hand him over. The doctors and engineers and everybody have to agree that I’d be a good owner. I went through dozens of interviews, and so did he.”

  “Didn’t you say he doesn’t talk? How did they interview him? How can you be sure he’s not violent?”

  “They downloaded his experience files. They observed him, and I trust them. The VA takes care of these models.”

  “Then let them take care of him.”

  She knew less about the war than she did about me, her son, except that the war got in the way of her sales sometimes. Just like I’d gotten in the way of her potential as a lifestyle designer, and instead of living some perceived, deserved celebrity, she’d had to raise me. Sometimes I wondered if I harbored that thought more than she did, but then she kicked my rivets on things like this and not even the distance of a comm could hide her general disapproval at my existence.

  Still, she was worried about the android killing me in my sleep. That might’ve been sincere. “The VA’s overcrowded. That’s why they allow for adoptions.”

  Because she was losing the reasonable argument, she targeted something else. The fallback: my self-esteem. “Why would they think you’re a good owner? You can’t even afford to get your spine fixed. How are you going to support a traumatized war model?”

  That was how she saw me—in need of fixing. “He can help me. I can help him.”

  Even through a double-vee relay I felt her pity. And I saw it in her eyes. That seemed to be the only way she knew how to care about me.

  I wasn’t going to do that to him.

  “Mark.” Saying his name in my voice brought him out of safe mode. He blinked but didn’t turn away from the window. He didn’t move. They’d said it would take a while. Maybe a long while. He’d been at An Loöc, Rally 9, and Pir Hul. The three deepest points of the war. Five years old but he’d seen the worst action. I wondered why none of the creators had anticipated trauma in them. So maybe they weren’t as fully developed as humans could be; they were built to task. But they were also built with intelligence and some capacity for emotional judgment because purely analytical and efficient judgment had made the first models into sociopaths. All of those had been put down (that they’d caught, anyway).

  “Mark,” I said, “my name’s Tawn Al
tamirano.” He knew that, they put it in his programming, but you introduced yourself to strangers. To people. “You feel free to look around my home. This is your home, too. There’s a power board in the office when you need it. You can come to me at any time if you need anything.”

  He didn’t move or look at me. His eyes were black irises, and they stared through the glass of the window as if it could look back. Maybe he saw his own reflection, faint as it was. Maybe he wanted to wait until night when it would become clearer. Or maybe he just wanted to watch the maple tree sway and the children walking by on the sidewalk on their way home from school.

  I had my routines pretty well established by now. Since my own discharge two years ago and once the bulk of the physio was under my belt, I’d acclimated back home, got a job through the veterans program working net security for the local university. Despite what my mother said, I took care of myself. My war benefits allowed for some renovation of the bungalow—ramps and wide doorways and the like. When it was time for bed, I left the chair beside it and levered myself onto the mattress. Some shifting later and I lay beneath the covers on my back, staring up at the ceiling. I didn’t hear him in the living room at all. Eventually, I called off the lights, and darkness led me to sleep.

  I didn’t know what woke me—maybe instinct. But I opened my eyes, and a shadow stood in the doorway of my bedroom. For a second my heart stopped, then started up again at twice the pace until I saw that he didn’t move, he wasn’t going berserk, he wasn’t preparing to kill me. Of course, he wasn’t. My mother didn’t know the reality. Going to war didn’t make you a murderer—it made you afraid.

  His shape stood black against the moonlight behind him, what came through the living room window on the other end of the hall.

  “Mark?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Mark, what’s wrong?”

  A foolish question, maybe, but he could parse that I meant right this second. Not the generality of what was wrong. Not the implication of what was wrong with him. What had drawn him from the window and to the threshold of my room?