Thomas A. Easton’s GMO Future MEGAPACK®

by Easton, Thomas A.

  “It may become one yet,” he said. They had months to go before the school year and their contracts ended. But they had still not found new jobs. No one wanted to hire greenskins. No one wanted to draw the attention of the Engineers and their friends. The forces of reaction were strong. He thought they would grow stronger yet.

  He was a teacher of history, historian enough. He knew there was nothing unprecedented about the situation, nothing abnormal, nothing strange. It had happened before, many, many, many times throughout humanity’s span of time.

  What he felt as he contemplated the future had been felt before, he was sure. By pre-21st-century American Blacks, 1940 Japanese-Americans, Bulgarian Turks in the 1990s, Jews in the England of the 2060s or in 19th-century Russia or 1930s Germany or medieval Spain… The minority, ethnic or racial or religious, called less than human, feared, demeaned, mistreated, persecuted. He felt sure the killing had only begun.

  And there was not a thing he could do about it. He could not even tell the killers how much they depended on the bots, who worked at jobs and for pay scales no human would accept, or on the gengineers, who had appeared just before the vaunted Machine Age must have used up the resources it required.

  He stepped sideways, closer to his wife, and wrapped an arm about her. He felt bleakly reassured when her own arm put an answering pressure on his lower ribs. Together then, supporting each other, comforting, praying to whatever gods they sheltered within their hearts while the lower edge of Sheila’s cloak flapped against their ankles, they stared over that piece of the world that had once been a peaceful, happy dormitory for the bots. The lower ones. The menials. He imagined that in due time the upper bots, the ones Alice Belle had said owned their own building and had apartments and worked by day, would join them there. And then…

  Humanity was too sweet to waste on the lower orders.

  They watched as armed guards yelled and gestured the bots into a long line before the gate. Some distance off, near the park’s main entrance, someone laughed and yelled, “Line ’em up!” The source was a group of young Engineers in blue coveralls; they were hurriedly forming a double line on either side of the drive.

  The dorm gate swung open, and the column of bots began walking toward the city’s streets and their jobs. Guards walked at the head of the column and along its flanks, peeling off at the park entrance to press the Engineers gently, courteously back. That gentleness seemed oddly diffident, as if the guards were not sure whether the Engineers were friends or foes, or the bots were wards or prisoners. It did nothing to stop the heckling, the pokes and prods and grabs at blossoms that—Sam could see, even from his distance—left scalps red with blood.

  The bots speeded up their pace as they approached the park entrance, rushing to escape the gauntlet. Yet their faces grew ever bleaker. The gauntlet, they knew, did not end there.

  Sam could feel Sheila shivering at his side.

  * * * *

  It was warmer behind the walls of an apartment building whose windows glowed strangely bright, as if the lights that dispelled dusk from the rooms within were miniature suns.

  In a way, they were. This was Alice Belle’s home, a building owned by bots and adapted to their comforts, of which the bright lighting was only one. The floors had been waterproofed and covered with garden loam, just deep enough in most areas to ease the barefoot souls of strolling bots, a little deeper under the brightest lights, where the sentient plants would root and rest at night. Overhead, pipes served a sprinkler system that could mimic mists, showers, and driving rainstorms. The honeysuckle vines that arched over the windowsills and rooted in the soil were so thick that it was obvious they were welcome visitors. No one had ever trimmed them back. No one ever would.

  The room’s single occupant did not seem to be a bot. It stood in the room’s best bed, where the soil was deepest and the light the brightest. It was as tall as any bot, and its leaves were as green. But its head and face seemed to be sculpted from a single massive flower, its color the deep red of an amaryllis, and its trunk was a simple, slender cylinder. There was the merest trace of human curves. There were no arms, nor a division of the lower trunk into legs. A single massive bulb swelled from the surface of the soil.

  The room’s door opened. Through the portal stepped a number of conventional bots. One by one, they paced barefooted across the soil and bowed their heads to the room’s strange occupant, almost as if it were their king or queen. Then they found positions in a ring around the object of their deference, scuffed their feet, let down their roots, and anchored themselves in the thin layer of loam. A smaller bot then entered the room, moving stiffly, and took up a position within the ring, close to the rim but facing the center. Her head was small, and the bulb between her legs was nearly twice as large as those of the others, as if it held a greater proportion of her brains; certainly, it was large enough to account for the awkwardness of her movements.

  Finally, Alice Belle appeared, one hand holding tightly a crumpled sheet of paper. She did not join the ring, but instead rooted herself a little to one side, not far from a window.

  The bots in the ring were what the papers they had filed with the city’s bureaus and the Internal Revenue Service called a “management committee.” Yet they were not quite that in truth. Yes, they managed the building, its maintenance and financing and tenanting. But they also managed the residents themselves, acting as a sort of governing council, and in this function their influence actually extended well beyond the building’s walls, largely because of what occupied the center of their circle.

  Membership on the committee was a function of intelligence, ability, and energy. The members therefore tended to have in the world outside the building positions as high as society would allow a bot. They were executives and researchers. One was an artist. Others were gengineers. Many had surpassed the ten-year life-expectancy of the average bot.

  The gengineer’s name was Cindy Blue, and her scalp blossoms were a pure and snowy white. She turned toward Alice Belle. “You have asked us to let humans move into this building with us. Why should we, even if we do have a vacancy?”

  Alice Belle glanced out the window, turned, and eyed the members of the management committee. Her gaze lingered longest on the strange figure in the middle of the ring. “We’re bots,” she said at last. “Plants the gengineers have moved toward being human. They—the Nickers—are humans who have moved toward being plants. At least, they have chloroplasts in their skin, they photosynthesize, they love bright light.”

  “But that doesn’t really make them very much plant,” said the bot named Shasta Lou. Her blossoms were pale blue with yellow centers. “Skin them, and they’re still just meat.”

  “Our blood is just as red,” said another.

  “They love the future. They’re like us that way,” said Alice Belle. “Change and difference.”

  “They’re neophiles,” said Cindy Blue. “Technophiles. Not conservatives.”

  “Not Engineers,” said someone, and there was a rustling of antipathy, as if a gathering of Catholics had crossed themselves in unison at mention of the devil.

  “And they’re my friends,” said Alice Belle. “I like them. And…” She smoothed the paper she had been holding against her thigh. “I’ve shown you this.”

  “They are hated,” said Cindy Blue, nodding. “And feared. Discriminated against. Even persecuted. That is plain.”

  “But they are not bots,” said Shasta Lou. “No one threatens them with axes and torches. No one promises to destroy them for the crime of what they are.”

  “Yet,” said Alice Belle, but before she could either go on or indicate that she was done, a gust of odor struck the ring of bots. All turned toward the figure at the center. “Eldest,” they said in unison, for that was who they faced, the last of their ancestors still alive, a relict from so many generations before their own t
ime that she had only a few human genes, just enough for size and brain and thought. Their answer was a flexing of the Eldest bot’s trunk, a bending of her leaves, and a flow of perfumed pheromones, an ever-changing mixture of floral and other odors.

  The small bot just within the ring finally spoke: “We too are human now. Just as smart as they. But we are different too. We cannot save them. We should not try.”

  Alice Belle stared at the Eldest, for she knew whence the words had really come. Once her kind had been able to sense and interpret the communicative pheromones directly. But the continuing admixture of human genes to their genome had canceled the ability, distancing them from their roots almost as completely as would shaving their calves. Fortunately, there still remained a few survivors of those generations that had been able to communicate in both ways and could therefore translate from scent to speech. This one bore the title of Eldest’s Speaker.

  “But they are friends!”

  “Too different,” said the Eldest through her Speaker. “This building, others too in other cities. They are our refuges, refuges for us, our kind. Not humans.”

  “But they are our kind!” cried Alice Belle. “They have more human genes. They have added plant to human, not human to plant. But they too are part plant, part human.”

  Shasta Lou jerked one hand dismissively. “They are human base,” she said. “They are therefore evil.”

  “They are not Engineers!”

  “But they are apt to be converted,” said another bot. “And then we would have enemies, spies and saboteurs, among us.”

  “No!” cried Alice Belle. “That’s how their troubles started, when they said no.” Briefly, she then related what the Nickers had told her of the Engineer recruiters at the door with their pamphlets. “That’s when they lost their jobs as teachers, and…”

  “Teachers?” said Cindy Blue.

  Alice Belle nodded. “They’re human base,” she said. “But not all humans are as deranged as the Engineers and their sympathizers. The Nickers aren’t, I know. Sam and Sheila are good people.”

  “And so are we,” said the Eldest, the words coming on the heels of the gust of pheromones. “We try. We do. But we must also live. Survive. Protect and shield and isolate us from our enemies.”

  “Could they help us as we help them?” asked Cindy Blue.

  Alice Belle was silent for a long moment. Perhaps good deeds should not be traded like goods in a marketplace, but they were. She had seen it often in the world outside this brightly lit enclave, and this was hardly the first time she had seen it within. But what could the Nickers offer in exchange for a place to live?

  Finally, she recognized the interest Cindy Blue had shown once already for what it truly was. “They’re teachers,” she said again. “And we cannot send our children to the local schools.” Quite aside from the question of whether the kids would survive the inevitable persecution, their lives were simply too short. If they were forced to learn at the human pace, they would be dead of old age before they finished high school. If they were forced as well to abide by human notions of age and readiness, they would never make it out of the elementary grades.

  “We have our own ways of learning,” she added. “But they could help, I’m sure.”

  “So.” Shasta Lou constricted her leaves tightly around her trunk, a gesture of rejection. “We give them a home, and jobs as well. And then they will put our blossoms in vases, and our leaves in salad, and…”

  “No!” sent the Eldest. “They need. We need. That is truth, it is. It is also true that we can help each other. But should we? Dare we? Dare we trust the strangers?”

  “They are kin!” cried Alice Belle, and the others stared at her, their mouths open in shock. The Eldest was never interrupted.

  Yet the Eldest did not seem to mind. “No,” her Speaker said. “They are greenskins. Not kin. Not enough. They are too human, closer kin to Engineers.”

  Again a collective shudder ran through the group. “We should be thankful,” said Cindy Blue. “That humans are not that unified. There are those who oppose the Engineers, those who could help.” She fell silent for a long moment before adding, “And we may need all the help we can find in the days to come.”

  “The situation is not that bad,” said Shasta Lou.

  “Perhaps it is,” said the Eldest. “Listen to the honeysuckle…”

  Obediently, the others let the tendrils of their roots find those of the honeysuckle that wove throughout the soil beneath them. The same gengineer who had taken the first step toward the bots had designed the honeysuckle as a way for sentient plants like the Eldest to communicate over larger distances than scent could carry. It had soon become something more for, equipped with sensors for vision and sound and other senses, it could gather information from any place where its vines grew and pass that information to any bot who wished to receive it. Now the sensory data gathered by the honeysuckle flowed to the Eldest, to Alice Belle, and to the members of the management committee.

  It was a collage of bits and pieces drawn from a thousand viewpoints, in this city and others, in other nations, in other continents, all labeled “NOW” despite the differing times of travel:

  —A parkland dormitory, a horde of Engineers, these equipped with cans and bottles of flammable liquids; the police stood idly by.

  —A dozen city sidewalks, a dozen isolated bots being stripped of leaves and blossoms, being chopped to pieces with heavy blades.

  —A Roachster bake, with several burly Engineers laughing uproariously as they watched the vehicle sputter on the coals.

  —Bioform houses, an orange pumpkin, a purple eggplant, a stucco-coated squash, set afire, while sharp blades and sticks kept the residents from escaping through the windows.

  —More traditional homes torched as well, apparently because their residents, their bodies visible on their lawns, bore too many genetic modifications.

  —A zoo, all those exhibits bearing “Endangered Species Replacement Program” signs destroyed.

  As one, the younger bots shivered in reaction to the horrors they had seen and withdrew their roots from the honeysuckle. Only the Eldest did not seem to react.

  “We must,” said Cindy Blue. “We must do something.”

  “There is nothing we can do,” said Shasta Lou. “Nothing. Nothing at all. The enemy is at the gates, and we are doomed.”

  “We can try,” said Alice Belle. “We can help others, and thus deserve whatever help may come our way.”

  Shasta Lou snorted, but there were nods of agreement. The scenes the honeysuckle had shown them had impressed them all with the danger that surrounded them, the danger that threatened even non-bots if they had been gengineered. Yes, the axes did await the Nickers.

  “Listen,” said the Eldest. “I have stayed with the vines. Not all the news is bad. One of ours has found a promise. A hint of refuge. She will travel soon. Learn of possibility and potential. And if and if and if, then just perhaps…” Her scent and the Speaker’s voice trailed off together.

  “Yes,” said Alice Belle, sighing. “We can hope. But in the meantime, we should also help.”

  Even Shasta Lou nodded in agreement now, though her movements were stiff, clearly reluctant. Cindy Blue said, “The enemy is those who kill, those who hate change, those who crave the stasis of the past. There are people who share our form and minds, who favor life and novelty and the changes of the future. And to them we really should offer what protection we may hold.”

  The debate was over. Alice Belle had won her point. The Nickers would be invited to move into the building.

  Chapter Seven

  Frederick Suida stared at the tub of dirt by the window. It was empty except for the branch of honeysuckle vine that had crossed the windowsill to invade it. The bare surface of the dirt seemed freshly tilled around
two slender footprints, broken and churned where Donna Rose had withdrawn her roots that morning. He supposed he should call maintenance and have the tub removed.

  He turned in his seat to stare at the Fat Bag commercial on the veedo. The gengineers had modified the virus that caused skin tags so that the once tiny tabs of flesh now grew larger, filled with fat preempted from the body’s normal depots. To lose weight, one now needed no more than a pair of scissors, a dab of antiseptic, and a bandaid. No more diets! No liposuction!

  He snorted and blinked and sighed. The patch of carpet by his desk where Renny had liked to sprawl was bare. He sighed again. The dog too was gone. He looked at his watch. In just a few more hours, the genimal would be beyond the reach of PETA, safe from Engineers, safe from persecution, legal or otherwise.

  He glanced toward the leaves of his bioform computer screen. The requisition was still displayed there. A window showed that he had approved it and arranged the necessary spaceplane tickets, one for a cargo crate containing one experimental animal, dog, invoice number 98-2377742, one for an animal handler, non-federal, ID number B-701-33-2047. The B prefix marked the ID numbers of all bots.

  He hadn’t had to lie very much at all. In fact, Donna Rose had already had all the identification she needed to support his claims on her behalf. For tax purposes, the cleaning service pretended it was a broker for a horde of subcontractors, and each individual cleaning bot was suitably defined in the government’s computers. He had just had to ask the Civil Service computers to change her assignment. Fortunately, he had enough authority for that.