Gift-Wrapped & Toe-Tagged: A Melee of Misc. Holiday Anthology

by Dr. Freud Funkenstein, ed.

  Janice helped, and in a minute, held up the result for all to admire. The family Christmas tree filled the majority of the frame, but beneath its branches lay baby Chris, wrapped in a blanket, hands clenched in tiny fists. Scattered throughout the tree were four ornaments, but they weren’t just globes. Etched upon their round surfaces were the tranquil, sleeping faces of Mom, Dad, Janice and Will. The angel atop the tree’s crown bore an unmistakable resemblance to a certain hazy aunt.

  “Understand now?” Ertie asked quietly, so only he could hear.

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  Janice pulled down an old picture from the living room wall to hang the new one. Will stifled a yawn with his fist, and stared at the tree. A rainbow of colors glittered softly against the blue-green boughs, while snow flew past the window outside.

  After some consideration, Will decided the Christmas tree lights were bright enough after all.

  Scott C. Carr

  THE SANTA OF SECTOR 24-G

  (Lower Level-Designation UNDERCLASS, LndFil #862b)

  Neural Log: 23:62-14-

  --Digging and scratching with my bare hands in the petrified crust of Landfill 862b, also known as The Floor, The Bath, The South Pole, The Refuservoir-a mineralized shell of a millennia's worth of sewage, soot, spit, grime, carbo-hydro-peroxol exhaust, petrified bird and rat shit, decomposing food containers, acid rain and sludge, all baked to a crust and hardened in the cold ultraviolet gloom and the dank, mildewed shadow of the lower abyss. I never thought I could fall so low.

  Fall so low-both metaphorically and literally. Last thing I remember before hitting the bottom and blacking out was the fall. Slipping and tripping, pushed over the broken guardrail in ghetto-town. Hitting the slime-sloped wall and sliding backwards a thousand feet down into the waste and sewage of Crack City's Refuservoir. Cast down among the bottom-dwellers and the sludge-eaters, the wildlife and vermin.

  Never imagined I could fall so low.--

  Neural Log: 23:62-18-

  --How did it ever come to this? Just four clicks and a handful of rotations ago I was clocking in at the data factory-DF #3674e-my own small cubicle in Block 6780923, factory level 16, on the Inner Ring. The Inner Ring! From the cafeteria, through the window, I could even see the bottommost patios of 24-G.

  24-G!-the Sector of the Rich and Famous, the Top Dogs, the Elite.

  Those luxurious habitat rings at the uppermost levels of Crack City seemed almost to be within arms' reach from the factory's cafeteria window. Though I might never walk those gold-crusted, credit strewn sidewalks in this life-never bask in the Sun, filtered down through the Crack and through UV-shaded, tinted street visors-though I might never stand with my eyes turned crackwards up towards that crimson slash of unbroken sky-though I might never know the pleasures of the sluggish life, the luxurious way, the Aristocrat's world, I could at least see the underside of the life I was struggling towards from the factory's cafeteria window. And that is better than most.

  And I could hope.

  And I could dream.

  And I could wonder.

  And I could pray, and wish, and work my fingers to paper-cut nubs and my eyes to myopic, monitor-burned orbs. I could pray that if I gave hard enough, and worked long enough, that-if not in my next life, or the next, or the next after that-that eventually I might be reborn just a level closer, a level higher, a level nearer to the Blessed Ones up on 24-G.

  And in this life I could take comfort in my very proximity to 24-G. Unlike the millions of struggling souls in the levels below me, I could actually see what I was striving toward, who I was working for. Sector 24-G was within sight!-infinitely beyond the reach of my undeserving hands, perhaps, but within sight nevertheless.

  It even seemed (though I would never voice it externally-or even internally within the nosey earshot of my mandatory neural implant) to be within reach of the grasping, yearning fingers of my soul. Not this incarnation or the next, maybe, but some not-too-distant iteration down the conveyor belt of promised lives. Distant, no doubt. Far off, certainly. But within reach, oh god yes…--

  Neural Log: 23:62-20-

  --Ain't life grand? Without the struggle, without the strife-without want and need and desire and desperation, I ask you, what else is there?

  At times (in the secret part of my brain, cloistered away from those probing electronic fingers and eavesdropping sensors of the greedy neural log) I even pitied the elite of Sector 24-G. Can you believe it? Well, I did! They who had it all: everything, every need, every desire, every whim on a string…

  Yes, even if I didn't realize it consciously, wouldn't admit it subconsciously, I pitied them, in a way. For at that high a level, what more could came after?

  But then, my conditioning kicks in and I rethink my unthunk thoughts. Their Way was not mine to question-for surely, the knowledge to be known at such a level would so far transcend the minds of we the lower level masses that it was foolish to even ponder. The spiritual struggles of Aristocrats on 24-G… One might as wonder how many holo-angels could swing on the tip of a pleasure-needle.

  You could never seek to understand them, those angelic denizens of 24-G. You could only want to be them. And that is how it should be. No questions, only answers. Wait and work. Work and wait. Life in Crack City goes on, the obedient ascend, the lazy drift downward. Sink or swim. Work and fly. Think and fall. All is as it should be. Knowledge is a gift. Amen.

  This is how I used to think. Until I fell, that is…--

  Neural Log: 23:62-60-

  --I keep blacking out. I'd hit my head in the fall. Or maybe the toxins and the fumes here at the bottom of the lower abyss have overwhelmed me. My muscles and bones ache from the impact. My skin tingles and itches and burns. My lungs are heavy and my lips and nostrils are coated with thick, mucousey carbo-soot. Sick and nauseous, my empty stomach keeps trying to heave out food that isn't there.

  And, despite it all, I'm starving.—

  Neural Log: 23:63-12-

  --My neural implant is not working right.

  I can feel it not working. Painful clicks deep in the meat in my brain. Intermittent, inconsistent. It doesn't feel like it's broadcasting-the familiar hum of the advertisements and orders, the policies and prayers, is now only static. I feel emptier than I've ever felt, more isolated than I could imagine ever being in this or any other life.

  Cold and alone.

  The bad news is, that without my neural log functioning, no one will be able to find me down here. The good news is, that with out my neural log functioning, no one will be able to find me down here.--

  Neural Log: 23:63-35-

  --I try again to climb the slick, sheer walls of the Refuservoir, but the chemical slime burns my fingers and seeps under my nails and I can't get a grip. I only get so far before the slope becomes too steep and I slide back down into the muck.

  Even if one of the eyes of god (placed on every street corner, always watching, recording, reporting) had seen me fall, they wouldn't know who I was, or where I had landed-not with my neural net broken. I can hide and they can't find me.

  I know this is true-I am alone and lost, unfindable and free, out of sight and out of mind…--

  Neural Log: 23:63-50-

  --But as the neural net goes quiet and the voices fall silent, the paranoia settles in. The eyes of god, on every corner of every street on every level, look always downward on us. And even though I know that they can't see down this far, don't look in this direction, and don't care about the vermin down in the Bath, I can imagine their metal necks twisting and turning, creaking and groaning, stretching to peer over the lip of the Refuservoir-blinking, scanning, scoping, searching-hunting for me.

  In the deafening silence of my broken neural implant I can still hear the echoes of the man who pushed me, the geek who'd made me fall.

  "You's a gonna be down there awhile!" he'd called after me as I accelerated down the steepening slope. "See how the other half lives…!" Damn Dexter! Damn him to-well, damn him to the lo
west rings!-Damn him to the Pit, the Bath…

  Damn him to the Refuservoir.--

  Neural Log: 23:63-87-

  --I'd made an error in checking and rechecking my lists. A typo, a slip of the finger, a hiccough of the eye, a lapse of the mind. An 8 instead of a 3 while punching my data, crunching my numbers. Repetition is god's own grace and Knowledge is a gift, the Net scholars tell me, voices in the neural foam, whispering in my brain's ear. And Fatigue is the devil's breath, a ticket south. I'd made a mistake and I deserved my demotion, those inarguable voices decreed.

  Demoted to next level down. In life one can only go down, never up. Only in death, in the next life, might a soul ascend, and then never more than a level.

  These are the rules.--

  Neural Log: 23:63-98-

  --The pinheads are one of those things that everyone knows about and no one talks about-not in public, not in private, never mentioned on the neural news-but everyone pays to the Pinhead Prevention Fund, listed in fine-print with the multitudes of other taxes and required donations deducted from every citizen's pay.

  Few but me have ever even seen one, or would've known what one even was. I was just lucky, I guess. I'd seen Dexter from time to time-sleeping in an alley, or begging on a corner. Always carefully positioned just out of sight of the eyes of god. Knowledge is a gift, they say, but no one wants to see that.--

  Neural Log: 23:64-56-

  --Dexter was a pinhead. He was taller than me, and broader of shoulder-despite his tendency to slouch and skulk. And he was also one of the most intelligent people I've ever known-despite the fact that his pointed head was not much larger than a soda can. Yes, he was one of the smartest, sneakiest, and most cunning men I've ever had the misfortune to meet. Full of wisdom, he was, full of knowledge. Always pushing advice, dispensing anecdotal tidbits between begging for credits and scraps of food.

  "Crack City, as the historian's tell it, wasn't named for the fact that it was constructed within the walls of a gigantic, volcanic fissure in the Earth-one of many such fissures scarring the surface of what's left of our once blue (if you believe the historians) rock of a planet," Dexter's endless monologue rose from the depths of the disposal bin he was rummaging through, immersed to his waist so that only his filthy legs protruded from the thing's mouth. I assumed that Dexter knew the recycling schedules and routines-he would have to, living the way he did-and that the energy dislocater ring in the disposer's belly wouldn't activate while he was in it.

  My fears proved unfounded when Dex emerged triumphantly with the uneaten half of a discarded spiced-meat tube. He grinned, "But rather, the city was named for the perceived crack in the soul of its citizenry, cemented bugs that they were, addicted to a mythical drug that firmly placed the physical bodies of the undeserved in their lower-class status, but freed their minds and souls to the concept of ascension," Dexter poked the meat tube into his tiny mouth and licked his filthy lips. "Sound familiar?"

  He would ramble on like this for as long as I would let him. A lot of what he said made sense, but a lot of it seemed little more than the delusional raving of a madman. Genius, lunatic, or both? While his history (I had no way of checking it) seemed sound, if somewhat blasphemous, this was also the same homeless mutant who spread rumors of a great, red, pot-bellied dragon living at the floor of the city.--

  Neural Log: 23:64-84-

  --When I told him I'd been demoted, Dex insisted on a tour of the lowest levels. I tried to refuse. I tried to fight him. "It's illegal," I complained, "How will we get back up?" But he would not be deterred. His strong fist clamped upon my arm, he tugged and pulled and laughed and implored me to go with him.

  "It should be mandatory upon any demotion to go down and see just how bad it can get, how much worse it could be," he explained, dragging me into the nearest downward flux-shaft.

  I was despondent and vulnerable. I should have struggled harder, I should have refused. I should never have let him take me down. I should have walked away.

  But I'd already been demoted, and I would be sent down a level anyway. Better sooner than later, I rationalized, and of my own volition than at the hands of armed soul-guards. "All right," I told him. "Just one level."

  Dexter just winked.--

  Neural Log: 23:64-98-

  --Crack City raced upwards past us, as we descended. The inertio-grav inhibitors tingled my feet and the wind mussed my hair. My ears popped. The walls of the city grew darker, more stained with age and rust and soot the deeper we plummeted, caked with slime and filth. It was noisier down there, cacophonic music and hov-cars honking, people screaming and cursing in a language that seemed like a bastardized version of my own familiar tongue.

  Despite my protestations, we didn't stop until we'd reached the Red Ring. I'd heard about this ring, down just a stone's throw from the city-floor. It's decrepitude is infamous, it's crimes fill the neural news-tales of the violence of the impoverished, cannibalistic masses are whispered into our brains along the neural net feed, horror stories to keep us working hard, looking crackwards, focused on the rings above and fearing those below.

  The Red Ring is Hell, it's Babel, it's Damnation Alley. Throngs of degenerate stragglers, the damned and the wretched and the cursed, the sick and the poor, the vile and the undeserving all mill about in criminal mobs. I'd been here before in a past life-everyone had-but I don't remember it, and I don't fear it any less for having risen above it.

  Dexter saw the fear in my eyes as the flux-ramp slowed to a halt. "Here's to you, kid," he smirked, clapping me hard on the back. "And here's to life lessons learned the hard way."

  "What-?" was all I could stammer as the pinhead turned and disappeared into the crowd, laughing as he went, leaving me alone, terrified, confused.--

  Neural Log: 23:66-14-

  --Three weeks after Dexter abandoned me, I lay huddled on the sidewalk sleeping and begging for food with the rest of them-lost in my own nightmare of despondent depression. Lost and alone among the bile and acid and garbage of the city. The Red Ring was slowly digesting me, melting me, eating me alive. I could barely remember the view of the bottom of 24-G from my cafeteria window. I longed for my cubicle, my numbers, my data, my job, my life…

  The chatter of the neural net chided me, mocked me, laughed in my brain and told me that it was a long climb back up-ages long. Lifetimes long. My soul felt as empty and mechanical as the pair of decrepit junk-bots that had taken over the corner of the sidewalk, next to me. One of the 'bots dragged itself slowly, deliberately across the filthy grime-walk towards the grid locked traffic, filthy rag in hand-a vain attempt to smudge-wash windows for a credit. The other hadn't moved in days. There was nothing to indicate that it wasn't dead, broken, dysfunctional. Leaning against the slick facing of the lower level fuel-storage aquariums, it's empty, soulless eyes turned crackwards. Looking at it I was overcome with remorse and sorrow. Tears welled up in my eyes, and I lowered my head into my hands and slumped to the sidewalk.

  Cyber-sluts ho-ho-hoing and whore-whore-whoring down the track sidestepped me. Coal-black plastic legs poured into ratty fishnet stockings stepped over me. The cyber-sluts goggled me, ooohing and aaahing, but I ignored them, my body wracked with sobs. Vacu-pump hoses and other various accoutrements of pleasure, degradation, and release were barely concealed on their plasti-flesh torsos, in open and obvious display. The cyber-sluts are the horrid vermin of the lower levels-loud and overbearing, relentless in their pursuit of credits, offering unspeakable depravities in loud mechanical voices-but the human whores are the worst. And human is too kind a word-misshapen half-lives falling out of their rags and crawling and dragging themselves along, desperately grabbing and clawing at the pant legs of drug-addled passers by. Begging for credits and food and sex and drugs, offering dirty sucky-suck access to every natural or augmented festering opening in their ransacked bodies. I'd never seen anything so depraved up on level 12, never heard of such atrocities in the neural news, never knew that such ugliness could exist.

/>   And that's when I decided that I'd had enough. I peeled myself up off of the ground and walked over to the guardrail marking the edge of the central city-shaft. Looking down, I took a deep breath and-

  "So tell me, how's it feel to see how the other half lives?" Dexter clapped me roughly on the shoulder and I spun around, startled and unbalanced.

  And that's how I came to slip, to fall, to jump, to be pushed out of the Red Ring and down into the Bath.--

  Neural Log: 23:66-78-

  --And I'd landed in a toxic puddle, which itched and burned my skin. I'd broken my neural link when my skull smacked against the slime-coated cement of the Refuservoir floor. And in the choking, smothering quiet that followed I almost didn't notice as my clothes began to disintegrate, soaked in the chemical filth of the Bath.

  I was naked, alone.

  And now, with the neural net gone quiet, the paranoia settles in. An ad-barge floats by, far overhead, almost lost in the mist and gloom of the city, selling trinkets to the uppers and motivation to the lowers. Though I know that I'm too far away to be seen, and that it's eyes are turned towards the waving customers on the various rings and not the Refuservoir floor, I cower behind a hill of cluttered garbage and wait for it to pass.

  Tatters of my melted clothes drip and hang from my shoulders and arms, and the chemical slick stings. My skin erupts in swollen, rosy patches. My nose begins to run and when I make the mistake of wiping it with my forearm I can smell the toxic fumes as the ooze burns my cheeks and nostrils.

  Then the ad-barge passes and I begin a desperate search for something to wipe my skin. There are several large puddles of water about, but they are sticky and green with the same chemical ooze. Everything is. The itching, burning is becoming unbearable, and in a futile attempt I chase after a clean-looking food wrapper that has been caught in the wind. BEEF-STUFFFF! MMMMM! it reads, and it looks, if not clean, then at least not covered in the stinging chemicals. But it proves too small and too non-absorbent to be of any use.