“She’s fine. The restaurant back there, our waiter was a jerk.”
“Mr. Compton, my son’s a big fan of yours. Would you mind signing something for me?” he asked.
“Make it quick. Like I said, I have a mission.”
The cop disappeared, racing back to his squad car. Mick looked at Karen but she quickly looked away, out into the dead night, her empty future. Each stretch alone had been harder than the last. She knew she could not stop him from going. She also didn’t know if she could last another three years alone, cold, longing. The cop returned with a pad of paper and a pen. A voice crackled on his walkie-talkie:
“Officer Reel, we’re scanning for a 3072 blue Ford Mustang Cobra, suspect assaulted a man at Scalini Fedeli.” The cop stepped back, looked at Mick’s Cobra.
“Excuse me a moment,” said the cop.
“No, come here. Give me it.” The cop handed Mick his walkie-talkie.
“Jim Reynolds?” Mick asked.
“This is sergeant Reynolds,” the voice responded.
“It’s Mick Compton you asshole.”
“Mick?”
“Yea, tell Jake to clean that mess up at Fedeli’s.”
“That was you?”
“Yea. The prick next to us had a mouth on him. Lucky he didn’t catch me on a bad day. He’d be going to the hospital.”
“I’ll tell Jake it was you Mick. No problem.”
“This rookie’s not bad.” Mick eyed the anxious cop standing at his window.
“Alright, let me clear this up right away. Call me before you leave the system next week.”
“Sure.” Mick handed the walkie-talkie back, took the pad of paper from the cop, signed it, and sped off.
“You’re not going to talk to me now?” Mick said after several minutes of silence passed.
“Talking doesn’t work with you anymore Mick. It hasn’t for years,” she replied.
Mick ignored her and turned on the radio, drowning her and all his thoughts out to the sound of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s screaming guitar.
31
Mick’s eyes opened slow. Before him a horrible event unfolded: Sera stood over the once-immaculate face of his rescue. Her fine lines were bruised out of proportion, her lower lip swollen, sweat knotting her hair in clumped strands. Sera was reaching back to slap the defenseless girl again when he mustered the energy to speak:
“Stop,” he said.
“I hope it was worth it Mick, this pretty little thing. You know I could stand getting hit by you, even behind my back. That I can take. But you bring a lying piece of garbage on board, trying to—” her hand collided with the girl’s cheek and left a fat welt, “not only steal my ship, all my money, but tell me Utopia is charging triple? That it’s closing in a month?” Sera readied her fist for another strike.
Mick rose to his feet, rubbing his head and walking toward her. “Let her be.”
“Why should I? You think I don’t kill women? That’s an antiquated notion of civility, something from your time, not mine.” She turned to the girl, “You caught me on a nice day, I was going to leave you to die peacefully in space. But you seduce him into bringing you aboard, and then you start with the,” she grunted, smacking down again, “lies—bullshit lies.”
“I’m not lying,” the beautiful, new-scarred girl whimpered.
“Hey, I said relax for a minute,” Mick said, seeing himself in Sera’s rage.
“Relax? I’ll relax after we shoot her into space and you jump the hell out of M82. Then I’ll relax. How about that?” She turned her head, ice in her eyes, hoping he’d instigate her further.
It’s more than just the ship, the robbery, the lies. She deals with that all the time. It’s got to be something else. The girl’s beauty. It angers her.
“Please,” Mick said, about to restrain Sera as blood flowed freely from the girl’s cheek.
“Oh come on Mick, she’s a cellbot, she can take it.”
So that’s a cellbot. Humanity’s imagination and power all bent upon the execution of aesthetics. My god, who could blame someone for never wanting a human again.
“She’ll help us,” Mick said.
“She’ll tell us lies and try to destroy our—” Sera was cut off by XJ and GR. They had both been staring expressionless at the fray until XJ spoke:
“Sera?” he said.
“What?”
“Carner replied. She’s right: Utopia permits have tripled.”
“What about the deadline?” Sera said, her drawn fist falling to her side in disbelief, her spirit escaping her.
“We’ve got to come up with a new plan, don’t we?” said GR.
“I’m sorry Sera. It seems we have a month to get the money together.”
Sera collapsed alongside the beautiful, broken girl who lay soundless, battered into the hull beam. Red warmth dripped onto her. Neither said a word. Together, they juxtaposed all that aroused and saddened Mick, and from whom he derived sadness and from whom arousal he could not tell. It was all meaningless to him anyhow; their plight was not his. He had enough for his jump, and Sera had retrieved what she’d gone after. All that was left was to return to Melbot’s and let GR learn the jump module. As for the girl, if he hadn’t saved her, he’d tried to. He could live with that. Either way, his acts of charity and lust were over. He had something precious that now required his full attention.
Some people learn over time to restore order and happiness in their lives. They make their mistakes, grow, and are still free to live in their new gratitude and humility. They cherish the now. Others do not, because the cost of their lessons is too great. Freedom is taken away as a result of their mistakes, and so the wisdom, the humility, and the gratitude gained is wasted on a crippled life. It is never put to full use. It may avail itself partially to some circumstance or another, but it will never be true unfettered freedom: A blank slate.
Blank slate. That’s what I’m heading toward. A blank slate, lessons learned, wisdom and humility intact. I can’t continue to pity these drifters. To the green wastes, and I’m gone.
“I’m sorry Mick, but you know what this means, don’t you?” Sera finally spoke, tilting her head up.
Mick eyed her half vacantly, already detaching himself from the world and people he’d come to know in fourteen. He’d made a conscious decision to forget their struggle, stop trying to help, and focus all his thoughts on how he would conduct himself once he returned home. To where and when shall I send you? GR would soon ask him. There’s a ballroom near MIT. My sophomore year of college. A dance. A tight golden waterfall of silk and heat. The taste of new lips. A bright-eyed optimist who believed in the present.
“I’m sorry,” she started. He nodded dismissively, feeling entirely done with her, the beautiful girl, the robots, fourteen, Utopia, all of it.
“Why?” Mick barely said.
“I can’t let you go home.”
32
“It’s not so bad Mick. In fact, you’ll have a lot more time to rematch me,” XJ said as he pinned Mick’s last remaining knight with his queen.
Easy for you to say robot—your AM makes it easy for you to forget everything that matters—that once mattered to you. I’m dying—trapped in a cage—lost in spacetime.
“Oh come on Mick,” XJ tried again, sensing Mick’s waning interest. “Sera will have the money in no time. Then you’ll have your wish and return to your home.”
“I need a drink.”
“I’d be perfectly happy to get you one if you’d make your move.”
“Do you know what I’m thinking about XJ?”
“Whether or not you can kill Sera in her sleep?”
Dead on. Another one bites the dust—the end justifies the means.
“How’d you guess?” Mick laughed, suddenly finding his imprisonment comical.
“Only because you’ve been repeating yourself about it for the past half-hour, in which time we might have started our second match if you’d focused.”
Mick rubbed the bruise on his h
ead where Sera had struck him. He wondered if he had enough strength to take her head on—if she really was a cellbot. He hadn’t tested her on her threat yet, but the thought hadn’t left his head since she’d told him he couldn’t go home.
She can’t tell me what I can’t do, that I can’t go home, see the loves of my life, prevent my sole purpose of existence. Logic replied to him: She wouldn’t make that bluff—she can ruin your chances. She’s the one who told you T-jumping existed in the first place. XJ had no idea. Without her, you’d be drifting, dead by now.
“So what’s she keeping me around for?”
“You’ll have to ask her yourself,” XJ replied. “Now would you please move, Mick? Otherwise I’m going to have to rouse GR to take over.”
Sera poked her head into the room, “You’re smarter than that. Why do I need you around?”
“Because I’m a man—you need my scent aboard the ship.”
His reply gave her pause; she smiled, her eyes sparkling.
“Be smarter than that.”
“No more killing—I told you I’m done with that.”
“You don’t have a plant, there’s nothing to worry about. If we’re going to triple our fund, we’re going to have to sell high end hardware. There’s no other option. I can’t make it in a month without you.”
“More expancapacitor droids?” Mick replied.
“You’ll be killing them for us.”
More nameless lives, strangers artificially stored in a file format. More Emily Hussons. The layer of robot makes it less personal, easier to get the job done, less likely to haunt. The fastest way to make the money, the fastest way to get home. Conscience interrupted: You know better now Mick—a .HUM is a person’s soul. You’re committing murder if you go through with this. You can’t hope to start a new life at the expense of the lives of others. Selfishness replied: And what other choice do I have? Fight her? Kill her in her sleep and try to navigate back to Melbot’s station? Forget it. I’ve tasted her power. She’s not human.
“Are you human?” Mick asked her.
“Of course. But if you think that’s all I am—if you’re getting ideas of taking control again—then you really don’t stand a chance of seeing your family again.”
Mick bit his lip and rocked back in his chair, his hand brushing his pawns, knocking them into XJ’s pieces.
“Mick! That’s no good. Good thing I saved our game,” XJ said. He suddenly twirled his head and flashed, as if restarting his brain, then began to reassemble the pieces in their proper positions.
“Okay.”
“Okay what?” Sera replied.
“I’ll do it. I’ll kill them. Just fly me there, and let’s get this over with.”
“I knew you were a good soldier,” she smiled.
“And what about her?”
“I’m dumping her at our next stop. She might be worth something.”
“Dumping?”
“Good night Mick.”
Sera left them alone with the chess board.
Does she plan to sell her? Is Utopia the closest thing to morality here? A mindless immersion, a void, the only path to ethics being a total absence of the need for them?
“Mick, it’s still your move,” XJ prodded.
“XJ, what’s the newest model cellbot sell for?”
“A non-expancapacitor model cellbot—geez, I don’t know Mick—maybe twenty thousand UCD?”
She is. My irrational act of pity is her windfall. And mine.
“Mick?”
“Sorry XJ. I’m done for the night.”
“You’re not going to—”
“Try to kill your daughter? No.”
“My what?”
“Never mind. Go get GR. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Mick exited toward his new bedroom aboard the Fogstar.
What’s the difference between destroying a .HUM that’s been transferred into a droid and one that’s still in someone’s brain? What’s the difference between a photograph and the file that stores it? Research—I’ve been neglecting to learn—I haven’t wanted to learn.
Mick sat by his bed at a computer terminal. He swiped twice and brought up the Fogstar’s database. He touched a circular knob as XJ had shown him to do, activating thought control, and thought of the word “cellbot.” The screen of green faded and a human appeared. It projected into the room, small, life-like in color. The three dimensional hologram body rotated and text ran next to it:
CELLBOT: a term created in 3744 by GENE MIRACLE Corporation to describe the seamless combination of homo sapiens with nanorobot architecture.
Cellbots are modified human beings whose cellular and genetic structure is aided and advanced by the technology of nanomachines. In the 3800s, cellbot babies became the birth form of choice among the richest populations in the Milky Way Galaxy. By 3900, cellbots became more affordable, entering into most upper-wealth societies.
Cellbots are the first biomechanical life forms capable of brain transplants. Cellbots entering the mainstream populace increased the average human lifespan gradually from 120 years to 180 years. Cellbot brain transplant technology led to developments in brain research, eventually giving rise to the complete brain-mapping program known as NEUROMAP. INTEL corporation bought NEUROMAP and funded the research that resulted in the mapping of the human brain to the file known as a .human file, or .HUM, its file extension. Eventually, cellbots were used as a way to save lives. Brainless cellbots were grown in laboratories awaiting transplants from terminal patients.
With the influx of affordable cellbots, corporations in the private sector began to offer customized cellbots—cellbots built for specific purposes. The most popular varieties were soldier cellbots and sex cellbots. In the late 3900s, the UCA began to regulate cellbot production to curb illicit industries and the use of modified cellbots in fringe world faction wars.
Mick stopped reading; he brought his attention to the .HUM on the screen. It suddenly highlighted, then transferred to its own page. He read on:
.HUM: a file type first patented by INTEL and later found to be nonpatentable by the UCA government. It was found in the landmark ruling of 3913 that “.HUM files represent human beings in their entirety, and as such, they represent and are a person’s essence, identity, and soul. Such property cannot be owned or patented, and so the technology belongs in the public domain.”
A .HUM file houses a complete mapping of a person’s brain, housing a person’s knowledge, memories, associations, and imagination. .HUM transfers cost an exorbitant amount of money despite the length of time the technology has existed, and the costs have been slow to decline. Some speculate that a corporate oligarchy is behind the high costs of .HUM transfers (This sentence has been flagged as insubstantial and opinionated, and should be researched further). Transfers are not entirely useful unless one has the proper hardware with which to “mount” the .HUM file, effectively bringing it to life within a body. Because of the initial piracy of .HUM files, in which multiple copies of the same person were made for illicit purposes, the UCA began to strictly regulate the creation of and transfer of .HUM files, preventing further mass-copying and manipulation. There is a range of architecture that can mount .HUM files, spanning from droids constructed at the turn of the millennia, which can mount roughly 5 percent of a .HUM profile with proper plugins, all the way up to the EXPANCAPACITOR droid system.
Mick instantly focused on EXPANCAPACITOR, revealing a new screen:
EXPANCAPACITOR DROID SYSTEM: a droid system created by NEUROCORP technologies. The EXPANCAPACITOR is the first droid system that makes two claims never before made by a droid production run: The EXPANCAPACITOR is the first droid system that can fully mount a .HUM file, correctly mapping and running a .HUM at %100 without glitches; and, it is the first system that uses a cellbot core: in other words, the droid appears and functions as a human, but lasts forever, such as a machine droid, granted that proper maintenance is carried out. Given the low production run and steep cost of EXPAN
CAPACITOR models, they are reserved for use primarily by the wealthiest citizens of the galaxy. Some contest that a corporate oligarchy has gained control of EXPANCAPACTOR production to a.) ensure the oligarchy outlasts all other populations, and b.) retain singular control of the galaxy and the government (This sentence has been flagged as insubstantial and opinionated, and should be researched further).
Mick thought of Utopia, reading on with tired eyes:
UTOPIA: (This article has an excessive amount of flagged information. Readers should exercise skepticism concerning the content presented). Little is known about the actual environment known as UTOPIA. The UCA has strictly regulated information leaks from UTOPIA, citing galactic security concerns. The common understanding of the once-anomalous signal from M82 is that it is a faux planet constructed as a vessel of virtual reality that synergizes with humans and/or .HUM mounted systems. The rogue planet is rumored to be the perfect simulation of reality, allowing its inhabitants to create reality for each of their five senses by belief alone (This sentence has been flagged as insubstantial and opinionated, and should be researched further). None who have entered within UTOPIA’s orbit have exited, further fueling speculation that UTOPIA is humanity’s manifestation of the ancient religious ideal of heaven (This sentence has been flagged as insubstantial and opinionated, and should be researched further). UTOPIA’s creation dates from 4300, placing its construction several hundred years in the future. The UCA first claimed that UTOPIA was “humanity’s future giving a present to its past"; the statement was soon withdrawn and denied by government leaders (This sentence has been flagged as insubstantial and opinionated, and should be researched further). Critics attacked the initial proclamation of UTOPIA as “a present from the future” as propaganda, citing the UCA’s decision to profit from the moon by selling extremely high-priced entrance tickets.
Black Hull Page 9
