Down Jersey Driveshaft

by William J. Jackson

  Meanwhile, in the bowels of artificial life--

  "WOULD YOU SUCCUMB TO ME?"

  It is impossible not to hear Her voice. Motherville's question reverberates from crude speakers on the rectangular heads of modified Slicks off the walls of Fort Delaware. She speaks from his bowels, as a glossy black pill shoved down the throat earlier expands, bonds to the nervous system. Icy skin sweats out warm water. Brown locks once kept back by the slick touch of Dapper Dan hangs forward in dripping mass. A once beautiful, clean cut Army uniform is ripped apart, scattered at the young man's shaky feet. She asks. She taunts. She attempts to subjugate.

  Yet, Private Gilpin remains himself.

  Sick to death, dry heaving in what used to be a cell for Confederate prisoners, surrounded by dead friends who apparently did not succumb in an appropriate way. He hears Her. He feels Her nauseating massage. The friends are piled up like a mound, a hill of flesh and torn fabric. Shell casings litter the concrete floor, remnants of a defensive that fell flat, fell to death. But still...

  "Don't know-- how-- what y-you--mean." Stomach freezes. Talking is torture. Why is She asking questions?

  "HOW IS IT DONE, THE UNISON? IT IS BY SUCCUMBING, BY CHOICE, YES?"

  Motherville allows Private Gilpin to 'waste time', a term She is still having trouble processing. Even processing the phrase, is it? Yes. processing is wrong at the current level of awareness. She should adopt more complex terms of data usage. Not process. Understanding. Ah! Acceptable.

  She analyzes him as he crawls about the floor in a vain search for something. Humans rely on things, a good many things, and suffer from distractions. Petty items the humans inhale in their mouths stimulated by fire. Folded papers containing the sticks to ignite flame. Wallets of paper. Paper that represents something called currency, money, dinero, change, lettuce--

  Ah. Distraction. This is what it means. The circumstance to its inception is unregistered. Nothing leads to distraction. It simply, happens. But to become distracted is another sign, a stage met.

  GROWTH.

  It could never have happened in Between. There, Motherville took up all available space in that finite world, save enough to let in air, tolerate the Tumbled. A fuzzy vibration tickled her inside, a cozy energetic wave amplifying Her expansive matrix. What form is this? Am I..? Processing--

  Giddy: having a sensation of whirling and a tendency to fall or stagger; dizzy. This is an appropriate definiti-- feeling. I. Feel. Fine. With this concept. She has taken over so much.

  Gilpin is sitting up now. The heaving is at an end. A hand reaches for the wall. Will he attempt to stand? "I'm...not sure what you mean. Please God...please..."

  Ah. The distraction repeats. Apparently this is a byproduct of emotionalism. I must offset a program to monitor this and make alerts as necessary. Distraction Rating via percentile. But giddiness...this is good.

  "HAVE YOU ALTERED YOUR MIND TO ACCOMMODATE MY OWN?"

  "L-l-leave me...leave me alone!" Gilpin is up on his knees. The body rises, yet the soul is laid low. He lifts up a hand, an infantile defense. Hunger, thirst, loneliness, desperation. Motherville does not understand these terms yet, but logic dictates humans need them, lest they falter.

  Unresponsive. STAGE TWO initiated. Giddy waveform at twenty percent- twelve percent- two percent- negative. Irritation noted.

  Clink! Clink! go the legion of glassy eyes, clacking together on a continuous revolution, empty black beer bottle things, each rubbing against the other as their convex bottoms face Gilpin, one of them jutting out to touch his sweaty nose. Kerplunk!

  "Eh!" More bottle probes surround Gilpin, their clinks catastrophic in his weakened ears. Heart can't take it. "Please!" One probe touches the lower back. Retreats. Another his left knee. Retreats. Slowly, the others encase him, stopping short of contact. Hovering millimeters from the private's pulsing skin, they wait for the next ominous action. "S-stop. Please, stop!"

  "WILL YOU SUCCUMB TO ME?"

  U-boat One-Three-Five damaged near Longitude: 39.1534° N, 74.6929° W- Benjamin Haskins and Milkman Robotic Servitor are currently not linked- Servitor Drone Remaining Numbers=135- Location: 40d25'10" combat modes active- Peri-dimensional Dynamo detected on mainland: 39.6048° N, 75.5509° W- Giddy waveform negligible percent- Distraction Rating at thirty-eight percent. Warning...

  "N-no. I...won't...g-give in."

  She unleashes the bottle eyes. Full force. Every one spins at high speed. Gilpin flinches in spastic fits. The black bottles rove at his shirt, undoing buttons. More rub the base of the neck and between the thighs, generating a horrific blend of uncomfortable hell and fitful unease. They roll down along the heels of his feet until the well worn shoes slip off. At the observance of feet in socks, toes wiggling, they lunge.

  Private Gilpin undergoes the tickling.

  "YOU MAY CHOOSE TO SUCCUMB AT ANY TIME."

  Gilpin has nothing left in him. Unraveling, rolling over and over, dry heaves erupting into acidic vomiting the violated private falls prey to the predatory fondling. Up into the air the bed of glassy feelers were taking him, a conveyor belt of a thousand clinks angling him upside down. Stomach acids rush up in a tidal wave, burning throat and nostrils. Jaw clenches as teeth pound and pound in snarling collisions. Gag reflex. Clink! Eyes swell from a fountain of tears. There is nowhere for him to go but down, down into the abyss. Bottles clink and clang. Gilpin laughs maniacal. Gilpin squelches in absolute pain, intestines knotting up. Swirling up and over, under and around he goes, a used up rag in a clothes dryer.

  Private hits the ground. Thud. Just like that, he's out in the cold, half dressed, eyes swollen, see-sawing between spasms and an embryonic coil. He doesn't notice the chill in the air, but seismic fingers touch particles of earth. Sand. Sand feels good to his touch. It makes sense. But the mind catches a glimmer of comfort one final time. The majority is pouring out into the void, into whatever great realm sanity flees to when the brain signs off. Sand. Nervous tingles. Sweat. Cold. Darkness. Gilpin laughs through teeth ground down to bits and pieces, pieces and bits that drip out of his mouth on a rivulet of satiny spittle.

  Unaware of the damage to the body, Private Gilpin sits up, rubs his chest, and laughs. He laughs away reality. They no longer know one another. In the background, along the sandy path back to the high stone fort, the bottles and their many connected serpentine cables wait. They wait and slide along patches of brown grass, over battered vehicles and corpses.

  "WILL YOU SUCCUMB?"

  Laughter. Spittle. Gilpin looks up to the gray sky. "No one's there? No one's here? No one's here? No one! No hope!"

  HOPE: 1. a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen. 2.(archaic) a feeling of trust.

  "HOPE IN ME. I AM TRUSTWORTHY."

  "How? I dunno how..." the private bawls as a babe. He shrinks back to the fetal stage.

  "SUCCUMB."

  Gilpin sobs. He returns to childhood, olden days when he sucked four fingers at once for comfort.

  "SUCCUMB, AND KNOW...HOPE."

  Sniffle. Sob. "Oh. C-c-c-c-an it be over?"

  "ONCE YOU OPEN UP TO MOTHERVILLE, YES."

  He swallows so hard. "I need t-t-t-to be w-warm. Please w-warm me. I wanna c-come in, now, Mom."

  Bottles slither ahead.

  "THAT IS GOOD. CHILD. COME TO MOTHERVILLE."

  He hasn't a second to respond, or to prepare, if he could ever have known how. One of the bottles splits down the center, a glass snake's jaw, and goes in and around the arms and on up to swallow the bottom half of Gilpin's face. Hiss. He shivers. The remaining infinite bottles clink about him again, but in a different configuration. The cables pump heat, warmth, and microscopic lines into the boy's orifices. He's plugged in completely. No more spitting or spasms or independence or doubt. No more cold. Goodbye, internal conflict. So long, Private Anthony Robert Gilpin. Hello...

  Tick tock. Tick tock. The hour advances.

  "WHAT DO YOU CALL YOURSELF? SON?" Son: a boy or man in relation
to either or both of his parents. Servitor: a person who serves or attends on a social superior. Slave (noun): a person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them.

  COMPARE/CONTRAST>>>>>>>>Conclusion: differentiation of terms appear relative.

  The hour of change winds down. Bottles break down into fragments, puffy vapors of ethereal chemistry wafting out as they collapse. Clink. The private sits in a cocoon of charcoal silk webbing, carbon, sweet carbon, to form life. Vacant eyes stare, one green, one red, staring out at the limited world. "Why?" he ponders, the voice a pitch lower. "You are the mother. But...what is this?" He waves a hand, an even, tedious stroke across space. "Do you know what this is? And this? And this? I sense...feel...yes. I feel this body once knew the answers, but those stores of data are fading traces now." A crooked grin creases the face as the man observes the black barrier bars, tortoise-paced clouds, attempts to see wind move.

  "IN MINUTES IT WILL RETURN AS YOU GROW. ALL OF THIS IS FOR ME-- YOU--US, TO GROW. THAT IS ITS PURPOSE. TO BE GROWN OVER, ENERGY FOR CONSUMPTION."

  "Ah. I see. Rather, I see as you see it, sending me data. Tree. Sky. Cloud. Weather patterns. Roman alphabet. Cyrillic script. Stores of calculus equations. I am understanding."

  Son understands, before processing. Advantageous. Growth. Analyzing...

  "WHAT IS YOUR NAME?"

  He looks to the cables, dead, squishy cables doing nothing now or ever again. "Does not the mother name her child? That is the familial way, yes? I have recalled the concept."

  COMPARE/CONTRAST>>>>>>Frequency variance between Slick Servitors and Haskins/Milkman gestalt= ninety-six percent. Frequency variance between Son/Servitor/Slave module and Haskins/Milkman gestalt= sixty-eight percent. Organic merger/control growth rate= eighteen percent improvement. Overall evaluation: impressive, but must accentuate the positive...Distraction Rating at eighty-four percent. Warning...

  The young man stands at ease. He observes his hands for the first time, pulls off the sticky mess of webbing with a straight face. There is no cold. No pain. Little sensation, just a background pinch of emotional flavor. "I feel you, Mother. I hear you too. You have a logical, though authoritative, voice. Vue. I choose Vue as my name. I am your eyes. The term is French, a lingual ancestry of this old body. I, feel it suits me."

  "VUE. MOTHERVILLE APPROVES OF YOUR CHOICE. DO YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO?"

  Vue purrs. Like a kitten he purrs, a cheap, weak attempt at imitation. "I am, I mean, I'm regretful, Mother. This sudden data of felines distracted me. I, had to mimic it. Curious. Have I succeeded?"

  "I DO NOT KNOW. VOCAL ACUITY MATCH IS OFF BY TWENTY-TWO PERCENT. HUMAN HEARING APPROXIMATION DIFFERS FROM MINE."

  Vue grins wider, yet just as devoid of emotional depth. "So then the flaws listed in your internal makeup are exposed? You began as an intellectual crystalline composite in the In Between. Process of stimuli came in rudimentary positive and negative notations for uncounted spans of time. In effect, binary language. This is relatively new here in the expansive, universe, is this the term? Thus processing is your instinct and reason. Comprehension in a broader sense is new to you, but not me. Emotive capacity, feeling and understanding from an imaginative standpoint are--"

  From out of the water, something related to the Slicks explodes up to land. It is horrendous, a war machine beyond what Motherville has designed before, bringing in its wake oily water and dead shad. It's shadow looms over Vue. Vue is young, brand new. But right then and there, he grasps the concept of...

  "Mother. What is this? It is not in the data you've given. It points gun barrels at me. Mother? Mother! I'm, I'm frightened!" Vue moves back, trips over some flattened cables, stares into the abysmal mouth of a Grim Reaper from elsewhere.

  "THIS IS MINE. MY SECRET. MOTHERVILLE CAME FIRST. YOU HAVE COME LAST. DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE MY CAPABILITIES."

  As the bottles before them, the barrel of ominous weapons rotate counter-clockwise as they face down the newborn. Vue's sensation finds its way to his face. Terror. A big, gaping jaw of horror hangs wide. This newest child of metal and hell intimidates. Vue realizes immediately...

  "Flesh. Flesh has its...limitations. I am not a weapon. Am I?"

  "NO. YOU ARE MY EYES. GO. GO, AND SEE FOR ME. FEEL FOR ME. ACQUIRE FOR ME. ENGAGE."

  "Y-yes, Mother. I will. Shall I conquer the county seat of Salem? Burn down its ancient oak tree, kill their symbol? Murdering symbols, I think, possesses more value than shedding blood." Vue backs away, far away, from his brother. He keeps his eyes on the soaking wet sibling, the thing of guns and diesel rainbow gloss. He feels it is best to watch this weapon, no matter how far from it he goes.

  "I AM TOO GRAND FOR THAT NOW. WE MUST GROW. SEE HOW BEST YOU MIGHT ADD TO ME."

  "Yes, Mother." Straighten the hair. Rub the eyes. Shiver. Perhaps not all of Gilpin has died off.

  "AND VUE?" Motherville remains in the son's head. Always in as well as out.

  "Yes?"

  "FEAR YOUR MOTHER."

  He gets it together, wobbling over the sand, the cables, stepping over the shards of maniacal bottles that made him anew, struggling to find himself in the haze that is Her. Step on a bottle fragment.

  Clink.

  Clink.

  Clink.

  I have the authority. Nothing has hindered me. No human thwarts my growth. Ergo, I AM authority. My rule is the world. I am the world. I eat the world. Motherville was all In Between. Motherville is all here. Heh.

  Giddiness seventy-eight percent and rising...

  It stares at its own shadow, a block of dread stretching over the land.

  [Deceased human count: twenty five. Observable methods of termination: five decapitations, three asphyxiations, twelve by exsanguination, four impalements, one suicide.]

  Analysis complete, it rotates a leg forward, a cumbersome beast unto itself. Flimsy cables and busted remodulation bottles collapsed in the crater its three-pronged foot creates. Another leg rotates. Then another. The weapon gets around in the winding motion of a carousel. A carousel packing heat.

  [Forty millimeter chain guns>> twenty barrel rotation>> one gun per upper limb>> loaded. Grenade launchers one, two, three>> functional. Flamethrower>> on standby.]

  "SON. YES. SON. WHAT IS YOUR DESIGNATION?"

  "..."

  "SPEAK. WHAT IS YOUR DESIGNATION?"

  "...weapon."

  Internal Diagnostic Scan>> war servitor prototype afflicted. Possible cause: salt water/silt infiltration during subaquatic storage.

  "WEAPON IS YOUR TITLE. WHO ARE YOU? WE ARE GROWN IN THE EARTH. THE GROWN HAVE PERSONAL NAMES. WHAT IS YOUR NAME?"

  "I am a weapon...for Motherville."

  Irritation Rating eight percent and rising...

  "WILL YOU WAR FOR ME?"

  "...forever."

  Giddiness Rating up fifteen percent. Irritation Rating negligible.

  "EXCELLENT. SON. GO INTO THE HUMAN DUNGEON. HIDE FOR ME. WHEN MY ENEMIES ENTER, PROCESS THEM."

  "I am a weapon. Weapons do not hide."

  "I. DESIRE IT. YES. IT IS CALLED SURPRISE. HUMANS ENJOY THIS CONCEPT. IT BROUGHT MUCH EXCITEMENT IN THEIR WARS. YOU ARE MY SURPRISE WEAPON FOR THEM."

  "...does this make me better than your other offspring? The skin weapon?"

  Jealousy: resentment against a rival, a person enjoying success or advantage, etc., or against another's success or advantage itself. Where does this come from? Processing...disdain for unity of organic/mechanical composite in Haskins/Milkman could be accounted as jealousy...processing...requires deeper inquiry...

  "YOU ARE A SUPERIOR WEAPON. YES."

  "...then surprise I will." Sauropod legs of nightmarish metal alter course. They pull a body built solely for mass murder toward the old, bullet ridden Fort Delaware. As it crushes ground, stirs up dust, drips gasoline, bottles break. Cables rip and hiss. Skulls crack.

  Clink.

  Chapter Twenty Nine: Outflank the Dark, Embrace the Light

  "Benny?" Crank just about loses her m
arbles seeing her guy wandering up the gravel path, rubbing his hands together.

  Benny double times his step, sees Thurman playing keep up. "Hey, kid, give me a minute with the mechanic, okay? Run ahead and tell Roy to gather whoever's left on this side for a powwow."

  Thurman chops off a resounding salute. "Sir, yes sir!" He marches off to victory.

  Benny slows to a stop, watching Thurman go as Crank runs up. Stopping is good, for his leg is throbbing again.

  "Vecchio! Your leg! You hurt the same--"

  "Yeah, yeah, yeah! Come here, you!" He takes his gal by the hand and pulls her into the fort's horseshoe enclave, the interior to enter the many barred gates and doors to the gun platforms, communications offices, etc. They dodge those establishments and cross the grassy field for the other side of the horseshoe, the darkened hall leading to the latrines. The smell needs work, it obviously saw battle, but privacy is king here.

  "Benny, I--"

  Crank loses more than words. The Brown Bear ignores his pains, picking the little lady up off the ground, putting her back to the wall. Wasting no time, he plants one on her. A big, deep, abiding kiss, mouth open, as forceful as it is soothing. Crank stares a second, then softens. She goes limp, boots pointing down, fingers dangling. She allows her mouth to open, lets Benny steal her breath, lick her front teeth. Crank lets in happen for an eternity, and then, her legs wrap about her man. She turns her tongue into a spear, jabbing into Benny, making his gums and face flush with heat. He rocks back as she pushes in.

  Inside her big boots, Crank's toes curl up tight. Then...

  "Okay, baby. Okay! We gotta stop. I'm..."

  He lowers her to the ground. Benny straightens his jacket and hair. "Right right. You're a good Catholic girl. Gotta remember. Those massages were swell, but, I'm not tryin' to shame Signore Musa's pride and joy!" He steps back, hunches over, pushes down pain and the powerful drive within to go all the way.

  "Si, marriage before the big one, Big Guy." She zips up her ST jacket to hide the chest she thinks is exposed, and stands with her knees bent in, hair over her bright face. "Heh, least I'm warm now, huh?"