Netopia: A Thrilling Dystopian Novel (Science Fiction & Action)

by Y. G. Levimor

  Christoph had predicted this would be the outcome of the civil lawsuit.

  The jury in the criminal lawsuit decided that all the defendants had good intentions. “The fact remains that millions of babies born from this application are healthy, beautiful, talented and smart. Someday, not long from now, these children will be our finest minds. Let us keep things in proportion: millions of perfectly healthy babies are weighed against tens of thousands afflicted. In times like these, we, as a society, must stop and look at the bigger picture.”

  The affair was behind him; nevertheless, Christoph sank into depression. His plan to improve humanity had been brutally severed. He decided to take a vacation on an uninhabited island, far away from all the drama and controversy. He wanted to find his little piece of heaven. He wanted to hear as much quiet as he could get.

  And he wanted, mostly, to plan his next step.

  ***

  The frozen island he landed on was a life away from his toy empire and from any kind of industry in general. Unusually for him, he spent hours sitting in his room, thinking. He also dreamed about the affair sometimes, and in those dreams all he saw were the digital signs carried in demonstration all over the world, calling him to resign and cursing him. Hovering cameras broadcast these planned demonstrations everywhere and hounded him anywhere he went. Wherever he looked, he would see and hear angry parents riding in flying strollers, and run away from them in dread. In another dream, he looked behind him and saw streets covered with small patches of blood. The Baby Gaga nightmare followed him everywhere.

  Christoph hated babies more than ever.

  Contrary to a promise that he'd be the only living thing on the island, one day Christoph bumped into a baby boy and his parents, resting in the sunshine that had broken through the clouds for a moment. It took him seconds to lose his temper. The baby cried to high heaven, wailed and sobbed for no obvious reason, and Christoph stood in front of the family and shouted, “Shut him up! Shut him up now! Silence him already!”

  “What’s wrong with you? Have you no shame?” the father scolded him.

  “You have shame! Giving birth to another mental aberration, bringing the useless thing to suck oxygen out of an otherwise peaceful island! Look at me, do I look like someone who needs this bawling as background to my thoughts? You think I had him in mind when I planned to come here? Why do people come to a peaceful island? Care to guess? For some peace and goddamn quiet!” he said and left them stunned. Their baby went on squealing as they escaped the spot. Christoph breathed in relief and sat back down. In silence.

  Time lost meaning. What was intended to be a short vacation for a few days had become a way of life. Christoph never removed his suit, never shaved or combed his hair. He was obsessed with only one thing: getting rid of the inefficient idiots who were suffocating his space. A feeling of failure enveloped him, and he also thought about the disappointment he caused his parents when he brought their empire to its lowest point. It was only a matter of time before sales would go back up, but the resounding failure was all his own.

  Christoph became a recluse. He maintained a gourmet diet and reread his paper, Netopia, clinging to his own words like someone whose life depended on it.

  One night on the island, he decided a change of mood was due. He laboriously put on a festive suit, shaved and perfumed, and cooked up a delicate tomato quantum dots dinner. He put the hot plate on the table, and sat down to eat opposite Orcuin.

  “So, how are you, my dear?” he asked the plump creature who only stared at him and made noises.

  “I see what you mean, what is there to say? It's all empty thought bubbles. Speech is useless,” he said and sent his plate crashing to the floor. He lay on his bed and stared at them. “Hey, don't fall asleep on me now! I dressed up all nice for you, and you're going to sleep?” he arranged his bow tie, pretending to be insulted. He was gripped by a sudden vertigo, and the walls started spinning at 200 miles an hour. The ivory painted walls changed colors and filled with small fish chasing their own tails.

  Whatever he did, Christoph could still hear crying babies drilling holes into his head as soon as he closed his eyes. Sometimes he would feel them climbing on him, getting between his sheets, rolling on him. He would wake from these visions gasping for breath, bathed in cold sweat, and try forever to fall back asleep. On such nights he would get up to walk the empty corridors or out for a stroll on the deserted island, even with the weather unbearably cold. These night walks gave him a lot of time to think about his life. He believed he was a messenger, someone who was put on Earth to change it and paid for it dearly. Baby Gaga was the beginning of something wonderful, but it was cut short. His ideology died a crib death.

  When he regained his senses, he found his room littered with strawberry gum wrappers, the kind that reduced the chances of cardiac arrest. He hated strawberry and could not figure out why he had chosen such a repulsive flavor. They were scattered everywhere, balled up on top of his bed canopy. He lay on his back, stared at the ceiling for an hour and chewed twenty sticks of gum together. His heart pounded forcefully, like thudding on a wall. His eyes closed and opened every few minutes. The room was filled with a white light, bright, blinding. Operatic voices emanated from the walls, which assumed human faces and cried. The confined space shrunk and expanded intermittently. Christoph tried hiding his face and turned in his bed, to stop from seeing babies flying over him, and when one baby girl prepared to crash into the aquarium and smash it to pieces he cried, “Noooooo!”

  ***

  Years had passed, and Christoph still harked back to that moment, on the Re-Minds, when he opened his eyes and saw Fabian, shaved and wrapped in an expensive white suit, wearing white gloves and a matching white hat, standing over him and telling him about Solly Grey's Minds idea, a concept that would eventually change the world, and Christoph had the privilege of making it a reality.

  Christoph played that moment on Re-Minds again and again.

  “Say, have you lost it?” said Fabian. “You didn't answer any of my messages, so I came. What's going on with you? So Gaga flopped… what are you? A baby? Get up.”

  Christoph stared at him, surprised at Fabian's confidence. “You don't understand.”

  Fabian interrupted him, “Of course I understand. It's terrible what happened to those babies. I feel the same. They’re miserable creatures, but life goes on.”

  Christoph clutched his head in annoyance, frustrated with Fabian.

  “Drop the clichés… 'life goes on.' I lost an entire world! And that's exactly the problem, it's THIS life that's going on.”

  Orcuin leaned heavily on her back in one corner of the room, knowing when to give Christoph his space.

  “What's hurting you? That their lives have been ruined?” Fabian asked gently.

  Their lives did not concern him. In fact, their health was the last thing on his mind. Fabian had not expected this reaction from Christoph. He looked like someone who had lost the most precious thing.

  “I'm just... thinking about my future. I'm not sure you understand what's at stake here. It's much bigger than you imagine. A great deal went down the drain, an entire plan for something that's bigger than me, you, and all the Gaga defects suffered a terrible blow.

  “What do you mean?” Fabian asked with a look of surprise. Christoph seemed impatient, and he was already worried that he shouldn't have asked.

  “To make it short, I just hope they don't haunt me forever,” Christoph said to close the subject.

  “Look,” said Fabian, “forget about Baby Gaga. I have something you're going to like. I obtained an intriguing piece of information. There’s an entrepreneur by the name of Solly Grey, who founded and ran a brilliant business before becoming ill with a mysterious virus that forced him to sell everything. Sick and deep in debt, he had this idea. When I first heard it, it sounded farfetched, but it turns out the man was building a thought network.”

  “A thought network?” Christoph asked.

  “Y
es. He’s already contacted some of the best developers, researchers, programmers and designers, managed to get them on board, but also ended up deeper in debt. The thing is, no one wants to invest in it. Everyone turned him down… all the usual suspects told him it was preposterous, when the thing is actually possible.”

  “Go on,” said Christoph, suddenly alert.

  “I asked if I could look at the proposal, after one of my clients turned it down, and found myself mesmerized. I won't get into all the details, also because I still don't know it all, but I felt it was important enough to share with you. It sounds to me like it could be a scientific, social, economic and mental breakthrough for humanity. Nothing less.”

  “A thought network...” Christoph mumbled.

  “From what I hear,” Fabian continued, “the entrepreneur needs an epic investment in order to set it in motion. I consider it a marvelous financial opportunity. The first thing I thought about was you and Netopia.”

  “Technically, is this really possible?” Christoph wondered.

  “Yes, the science is already there. Weird, isn't it? Nobody thought about a thought network. I mean, obviously they did, but never got around to making one. That Solly Grey is one smart guy.”

  Christoph was eager for more information, and Fabian got up and paced around the room. When he glanced at Christoph, he obviously caught what he was feeling: a spark. Hope. A small light that lit up his pupils sparked and brightened the room.

  In that moment, Christoph got up and came close to Fabian, breathing his air. He grabbed his head with both hands and put his lips against Fabian's. Fabian was not just going to stand there, and kissed him back without restraint, hardly stopping for air. They undressed, flung off every piece of clothing and stood naked. Fabian grabbed Christoph's penis, and Christoph moaned. He held Fabian's penis, which was erect and ready to go in. They felt each other up wildly, took turns kissing and touching, until Christoph threw Fabian on the bed and turned him around. He passed his hand over his hard buttocks and slapped his pinkish skin. Fabian held on to the pillow, moaning into the blanket.

  They did not talk, just made the occasional sounds.

  Christoph penetrated Fabian, sliding in, and started riding him back and forth. He grabbed Fabian's ass hard, pouring sweat and groaning. Fabian's fingers clutched the edge of the pillow, and he came. Christoph, who turned to look sideways over his back toward the window with the beginning of a smile on his face said, “So, will you arrange for a discreet meeting with this Solly?”

  “Yes, as soon as possible,” Fabian answered without moving.

  “We have to get on it fast,” said Christoph.

  “My thoughts exactly,” Fabian answered, quickly wiping away the tear that was running down his cheek.

  5

  Into the Fire

  “Go on!” he told himself. “Jump into that fire! You have to! You can! Do the brave thing!”

  Alexander Cage, a young admasador

  [14] , and as dull as they got, gathered courage he never knew he had and dove into the smoke filled summer house of Solly Grey, the highly esteemed brilliant young entrepreneur from the Minds Network, to save Grey's fat old red-panda-cat.

  He groped through the smoke and made his way, sure footed, to the bedroom, disregarding the flames all around. With one hand holding a handkerchief to his nose, he extended the other in an attempt to fish the frightened Pandy out of a corner of the room. Alexander was struggling for air and coughing nonstop as he drew near the furry creature curled up in the corner. Thick smoke filled the room. What a sad sight - such a grand tuxedo ruined in seconds, he lamented his blue smoked suit. Pandy saw her chance to escape the nervous man, leaped straight at him, dug her nails into Alexander's face and slipped from his hands and through the open door which slammed behind her. Alexander staggered and fell back, his face lacerated and bleeding. Fire caught his suit and started to scorch his skin. He tried holding on to the searing door knob, shouting in pain as the fire grazed his skin and began roasting his soft tissues.

  This was not how he hoped to go down in history, death by stupid fire. He had never really fallen in love, and his promising political career had only begun. He was running a likely eulogy in his mind, his eyes tearing from intense emotion and smoke. All the admasadors would gather round and say, “What a shame, such a promising fellow… a good man, he was going places… he was always there for us.”

  And then, flesh on fire, enlightenment etched into him. History? What a sad joke. He had not done enough to be missed by anyone. He did not know what was worse - the accursed smell of his burning flesh or the stinging feeling of nothingness seeping into his roasting soul. In those fragments of a second, he understood that he could not rely on anyone but himself. Alexander roared through the wall of smoke and the window, thirty feet in the air, and down into a square bush of painful twigs.

  ***

  “We never saw a person, just a giant fireball rolling at us… it was crazy!” witnesses later said of the fiery spectacle. A rescue team found Alexander Cage lying on the ground, a roasted squirming lump drifting in and out of consciousness. A young man, now a boiling, bubbling, burned ruin. Out of the corner of his eye, through the blinding agonizing pain that clouded his consciousness, Alexander could still see Pandy lumbering across the garden and jumping heavily into the waiting hands of Solly Grey, who was crying tears of joy, reunited with his neopet.

  “Pandy, Pandy!” Solly cried out, petting the neopet's long, full tail. “I can't believe it! I thought it was over, that I'd never see you again. I can't believe you're alive, you little rascal!” Solly was radiant, like someone who just got his life back.

  Several meters away, Solly Grey's distinguished guests were standing over Alexander. They all stood silently, amazed at the new liquid state of the man who, not more than half an hour ago, sat with them enjoying a blended martinette.

  “Life can be so fleeting.” They talked of him as someone who was already gone. “Such a hero, the poor guy. It's incredible, just incredible,” they mumbled, looking down at him with infinite pity.

  As his being sank down into a black hole, Alexander wondered how, in his terminal state, he could still be feeling cheated. He did not see a white light through a long tunnel, or a beautiful disrobed angel guiding him to his place of rest. He was floating in space next to a giant shining star, trying to climb up, but sliding back down again and again. He suddenly saw himself rising up and flying, cutting through the heavens with calls of “Pandy, Pandy,” in the background, before everything faded out.

  ***

  For hours, the machines cut, removed, transplanted, resuscitated, and did everything possible to save the dying hero. It was a rare case that attracted all the top experts who watched the surgery performed and broadcast live. The Cage dynasty did not lack means, but the outcome was bleak. Alexander Cage had his life back for a terrible price: the machines had to amputate all of his limbs, and worse – his penis was completely incinerated.

  He woke from the induced coma, still groggy from the complex operation, with a dull but intense pain penetrating the sedatives, reminding him of what happened. All around, he could see instruments, and Requiem to Success, his favorite piece, was playing in the background. He slipped back into darkness.

  The prognosis gave the pulsating meat kebab a life expectancy of thirty-one days, five hours, and twenty-two minutes in his present condition – but he beat the odds, somehow.

  When the man, or what was left of him, woke up again and saw that half of him was gone, he screamed for hours on end. In the end he withdrew into himself.

  “Leave me alone!” he screamed at the caregiving machines. “Why are you trying to save me? Dying is better than living like this! Kill me already!”

  With the little strength he had left, he tried killing himself by falling from the bed directly on his head, but the nurses caught him in time.

  “Don't look at me like that!”

  “How, Sir?” the nurse asked defensively.


  “With pity. That's exactly why I demand that you kill me now!”

  “Don't talk like that, Mr. Cage. You'll get better… it's only temporary.”

  “Get better? This isn't influenza, it's my life! Look what's left of it!” He turned onto his side and forced himself to fall asleep, sobbing in tears.

  For long, agonizing days, the man without hands or legs did almost nothing but lie motionless on his bed. Re-Minds was a sweet escape: he could see his best moments before the horror - how, as a little boy, he beat all his classmates in the high jump, how he left everyone in his dust racing cars, how he came first in a particularly hard marathon. The few good moments he had were repeated over and over. In his memories, he was excited, his heart pounded and he broke a sweat. Endorphins coursed through his body by the time he returned from the magical past into an unbearable present.

  “Wonderful news, Mr. Cage!” The medical consultant in charge jubilantly entered his room one day, accompanied by his aides, and woke him from his memories.

  “You decided to kill me?” he brightly answered from his bed.

  “Ah, no. The recommendation we received from the algorithms is to implant advanced digital flexible prosthetics. It will improve your life,” he said enthusiastically. “You'll be compensated for the loss of sensation by extraordinary physical strength that will allow you to run and carry heavy loads many years after people your age will grow tired. A long distance runner like you should be delighted.”

  “Fantastic. So let me know, please, when you decide I can die.”

  The good news did not comfort Alexander. He already concluded that he had been a disappointing progeny for a famous line of public servants, who failed to make a lasting mark, to equal his father or better. In the days before Minds, his father was the Minister of Justice, and many legislative landmarks came from his office, including the fundamental Turing Amendment