by Rick K. Reut
Being a proponent of a more peaceful strategy, Controller Globe wished to convert all the inhabitants of the Isolated Islands into the transsexual way of life via various gene-engineering and propaganda techniques, thus making them share the she-male society of the New World State. It was precisely the part devoted to these techniques that the Controller was currently working on and wanted to show Adam in order to illustrate what It wanted him to become.
The second part of the article included a set of pictures portraying the process of physical transition from the male to the she-male state. The transition was shown stage by stage, starting with the state of a full-grown male body and gradually proceeding towards the final outcome – a full-grown female body equipped with first-grade male genitalia.
Most of the modifications were made by means of a so-called Belarusian Technique, which, as the Controller would later explain to Adam, was a winning combination of endocrinal, gene-engineering and surgical procedures brought to perfection in course of constant experimentation.
“So, what do you think?” the Controller asked Adam after he’d studied the picture part of the article for some time.
“Um, I don’t know. You want me to change my sex?”
“Only partly and only as long as you want to have one with me.”
“I see,” Adam shifted anxiously in his armchair.
“What?!” wondered Gianna Globe.
“I mean,” he averted his eyes, aiming them away into space, “is it absolutely necessary?”
“Certainly it is!” cried the Controller. “How else do you expect to settle in our society looking the way you do? You may have noticed that we pay very special attention to the physical appearance of our citizens. And whereas our dress code is limitlessly more liberal in comparison with the dress codes of most of the preceding civilizations, to the point when you can easily walk around naked, the quality of your body must never fall below a certain par of perfection. That is, provided we want to maintain healthy sexual relationships among all social members. After all, how would you feel if you were forced to fornicate with someone you were sickened by physically?”
Adam had to admit that he would hardly enjoy it.
“That’s precisely my point! If you want to avoid mass public neurosis by making everyone belong to everyone else, you must make sure that everyone will actually want to belong to everyone else. And you can’t possibly expect them to do that unless you establish solid grounds for mutual physical attraction among all the people. Otherwise it would be simply too cruel to compel our citizens to abide by this law, the sole aim of which is to make individuals happy. You see what I’m saying here?”
Adam saw what Controller Globe was saying perfectly well. However, he still couldn’t stop thinking about Director Downing who didn’t seem to have cared one bit about what he looked like or what sex he was when they were having each other the other night. Timidly, Adam tried to appeal to this circumstance.
“Director Downing,” the Controller waved off Adam’s weak attempt at an argument, “is an exception, Mister Marx. It will willingly copulate with anything that moves. And even with some things that don’t.”
The hotel’s sex doll instantly popped up on Adam’s mind in all its slick silicotton splendor.
“But one simply can’t build a civilization on exceptions. And if one insists on doing that contrary to all common sense, one will end up in chaos. Do you want our civilization to be cast into chaos, Mister Marx?”
No, Adam most certainly did not want that to happen. But it didn’t look very much like he wanted to change his sex either. And it wasn’t just the sex he wasn’t willing to change about himself. He wasn’t willing to change anything at all. Adam was afraid of change, any kind of change, and especially the one that required surgical intrusion into his beloved body. However, being a coward, he was still brave enough not to hide his fear from Its Freudship.
“That is all too natural,” commented the Controller, after hearing out his cautious confession. “Anyone in your position would be afraid. But not everyone would have the courage to concede it. However, I assure you that there’s absolutely nothing to fear here. The procedure has been practiced thousands of times on exact replicas of human male bodies and has always been a success. Besides, I’d never consider endangering your health if I wasn’t one hundred percent sure that everything will go smoothly, since it’s not only in your but in my best interests as well.”
Adam had to admit that the Controller sounded convincing. But his fear was still too strong for him to handle.
“I could describe the whole process step by step if it would make you feel better,” suggested the Controller, slightly changing Its strategy in an attempt to calm Adam down into compliance.
He agreed to listen. After all, even though Adam would hardly ever admit it, he secretly wanted to be convinced. It was only a matter of time before the cardboard walls of his weakly constructed opposition would crumble under an avalanche of arguments from the Controller, covering in detail and as distinctly as It could the whole process of sex change, which, as he would later find out, Its Freudship, being a first-rate plastic surgeon and gene-engineer, was going to conduct personally. Thus, the sophisticated procedure the Controller tried Its best to simplify for Adam’s better understanding turned out to be the following.
At step one, Adam had to start taking meticulously measured dosages of a pharmacological syrup called She-male Cocktail, which was a miraculous mixture of the last generation growth and female hormones. The extra swift winning formula of the syrup was meant to transform his whole body on the biochemical level into that of a human female as well as increase its anthropometric measurements to the maximum extent within one week.
Within the succeeding week, which would be step two, Adam, who would still be taking the She-male Cocktail – though intravenously – would have to undergo a series of surgical operations aimed at assisting the syrup where it proved to be powerless so far. For instance, any signs of back, chest, leg, pubic or anus hair would be rooted out by special depilating laser rays, while his skeleton and penis stem would also be extended to the limit of their natural potential by means of artificially developed implants.
Those implants would be various human organs and limbs grown independently of the human body in properly equipped incubator wombs. The only organ that could not be grown that way so far was the human brain, which in addition to everything else – that is, to being the head computer and controller of the whole organism – was also the temple of human mind and memory and hence identity.
“Strictly speaking, it isn’t that hard to grow a brain artificially, just like any other inner organ, such as the liver, or the heart, or even a couple of kidneys, for that matter. But it would be nothing more than a mere piece of meat suitable only to be served at a snack bar or a chain of fast food restaurants. To use a computer metaphor, it would be like a hard drive devoid of any software. Functional, but useless. This is one of the main reasons why we can’t produce full-grown clones right now. It just takes too much time to teach them then.”
The Controller stopped for a few seconds to stare out of one of the windows in a wistful silence.
“For about seven years now we have been working on the possibility of recording and storing mnemonic information separately from the brain. After all, that information is the backbone of human identity, which we must learn to preserve by rerecording it the same way we do it with artificial intelligence. Unfortunately, biological matter is a lot less supple and resists any straightforward, tape-like type of recording. As a result, our research has recently been lost in a labyrinth of endless dead ends. However, we’re hoping, to get out of this maze soon enough to enjoy the fruits of this potentially groundbreaking achievement while we‘re still alive.”
“And what would that achievement be?” Adam wondered skeptically.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Controller Globe pierced Adam with a stare as sharp as a laser beam reflected in Its lucid, le
ns-like eyes capable of casually changing their color all the way from dark brown to bright blue, depending on the lights and the frame of mind Its Freudship happened to be in.
But despite being pierced, Adam still didn’t see it.
“Immortality,” the Controller spoke again after a spell of staring silence, “You see, being a biological organism, no living body can last forever. Whereas a mind, hypothetically, can. But only in case it has some corporeal container to preserve it. Unfortunately, this container also happens to be the body, which withers and dies with age. The mind, in this case, is like the contents of the body, while the body is like its containing form. There’s a connection between them, a connection that can’t be broken. If the body dies, so does the mind. And so, the only way to save the mind is to save body. Sadly, we don’t really know how to do it yet. And we won’t until we find a way to somehow change bodies the same way we change diapers on newly decanted babies. Or the way they used to change used condoms on cocks in the time of venereal viruses and vaginal conception,” the Controller sighed sadly.
“The thing that teases me the most, for it keeps us just out of reach of our desires’ total satisfaction, is that we’re actually able to do that. We can change each and every body organ by organ, limb by limb, piece by piece, private part by private part, starting with your little finger and finishing with your penis. The only thing we can’t change is the brain. Painful as it is, but we just can’t decant one’s mind from one brain to another brain the same way we can decant a cocktail from one glass to another glass. Whereas that’s exactly what’s needed for preserving one’s identity, without which one, strictly speaking, does not exist. In other words, our inability to replace the brain and keep the mind is our only obstacle on the way to immortality and, ergo, eternity.”
“So, you’re saying that, if there was a way to transfer a man’s mind from one brain to another, that man would be made immortal?” Adam asked after a pensive pause.
“Exactly, that’s exactly what I’m saying, Mister Marx. And to be totally frank with you, I believe that this way will be found within the following decade. That means that not more than decade from now we will finally be able to defeat death.”
“But aren’t you afraid that by becoming immortal you will forfeit your ability to die when you are fed up with life?”
“Ha!” chuckled the Controller. “This question is so much like you, poor pre-transsexuals, always paying so much attention to potential problems instead of focusing on the positive. Don’t forget that we’re living in a Brave New World, my friend. It is, in fact, even braver than it was at the time of the First Coming. So, no, we’re not afraid. And we are most definitely not afraid of not dying. Which, by the way, would be the dumbest dread I’ve ever heard of. Besides it’s not like it’ll make us absolutely immortal, for it doesn’t imply invincibility. What it does imply, though, is freedom from undesirable decay and death of some dreadful disease or old age. Only imagine how wonderful it would be to be able to live as long as you want instead of being dictated when you must die by nature. You wouldn’t have to worry about anything or hurry anywhere anymore. Or be sorry that there’s something you’ve missed or done wrong. Or fear that if you don’t do something right away you’ll always regret about it because you might never get another chance. For there will be more than enough time to take anything you want from life. So much time that time will no longer even matter. Can you imagine what it would mean for a human mind to be finally free from the tyrant of time the prisoners of which we’ve been ever since the birth of human kind? It would totally transform the whole idea of freedom. This freedom would be the first true freedom in human history. Not some cheap counterfeit existentialists used to try to pass for one in our pre-transsexual past.”
Still talking, the Controller stood up from Its seat and slowly strolled to the cocktail bar.
“In the past, people had to become philosophers in order to feel free from fear.”
Its Freudship took two tall cocktail glasses from one of the glass shelves.
“It took too much time to be transformed to that state, though. But if we make ourselves immortal now, we won’t have to do anything at all and will still be as free as Gods.”
The Controller poured some strange-looking, pink-colored substance into the glasses.
“For then freedom will be simply foredoomed. And some stupid imbecile is really mad enough to want to die, nobody can possibly deny It the right to do that of Its own accord and, what is most important, on Its own conditions.”
The glasses had been filled almost to the brim. The Controller took them from the counter and came back to Adam.
“Some totalitarian regimes were stupid enough to try it before and even after the First Coming by passing a law against suicides. Ignorant idiots! No more can you keep someone who wants to kill himself from dying than you can keep the sun from setting.”
Controller Globe lowered on the lip of Its armchair.
“Thus, humans will finally get the chance to choose not only how but also where and when they want to die. And the question of “to be or not to be” will acquire a new existential meaning.”
The sun was setting in the window between them, when the Controller held out a hand, offering one of the two glasses to Adam.
“What’s this?” wondered he, eyeing the contents of the glass.
“It is your answer to the question.”
“What question?” asked Adam, accepting the glass and feeling a slight strawberry smell tickle his nostrils.
“Yes or no,” said the Controller, looking at Adam intently as It licked the lip of Its own glass with Its long lizard-like tongue.
Adam looked back at his own reflection in the Controller’s eyes and then at the pink-colored beverage, which was slowly, very slowly rising towards his parting lips. And then even slower, like from a mouth-to-mouth kiss, mesmerized past all memories and doubts, he drank from the glass of submission to Gianna Globe’s great and just as grateful joy.
Chapter Nineteen
The trial took place on time. Namely, at noon of the first of August of the seventy seventh summer of the Second Coming. The place of the trial was the former House of Government in Dependence (previously Independence) Square, in the Capitol City of the former Republic of Belarus, Minsk.
Most of the Controllers arrived the day before the trial and stayed in the Minsk Hotel, situated in the same square. The only two exceptions were Freezena Frost, who favored the Hotel De Europe in former International and current Intersexual Street, and Gianna Globe, who selected the Hotel Belarus sited by the bank of the Svisloch river, in former Communist and current Capitalist Street.
The name had been changed under pressure from the global market economy during the last two decades of the First Coming. But it was bound to be changed back fairly soon to mark the seventy seventh anniversary of the Second Coming, which had altered the political tune of the whole World State by taking a U-turn to socialism as the only regime of power that could provide total equality of all its citizens. Continuous perfecting of the conditioning techniques had finally allowed the New World State’s government to eradicate the innate sense of private property in individuals, rendering money capital completely redundant. All material motivators that made social members work for themselves and one another’s welfare, thus turning the wheels of economy in a capitalist state, had been successfully substituted for mental motivators in form of correctly conditioned collective consciousness, which controlled individual actions, always keeping them within the tethers of reason and common sense. In other words, it made them never want more than what was necessary to keep individual desires satisfied, which was rather easy after the establishment of compulsory sexual promiscuity in course of the First Coming.
As for explaining to exclusively well gene-engineered, correctly conditioned and controlled individuals that if they didn’t work together for the sake of their society, there would soon be no society for them to live in, it wasn’t much
of a problem. And since, ever since the transference of all unskilled menial labor to AI machines, all the work left to be done by humans had been either creative or administering, it wasn’t a problem at all.
The key to a successful switch from capitalist to social economy was in finding a meaningful means to make men work that wasn’t money. And such a means was found or rather constructed in their consciousness through correct conditioning. Thus, the means and the main aim were made to be one and the same, and it was an idea. One may wonder what the idea was, but that was exactly what didn’t matter. It could be literally anything as long as it worked. And what made it work was the firmly instilled belief that a society of overall sexual and material equality was the only way to wellbeing and happiness. The only difference from the past was that in the presented future everyone was to make sure that no one else could ever have any doubts about it starting with the moment they were manufactured.
In Minsk, that kind of man manufacturing was done in former Communist Street, in the upgraded building of the former West World Club, where the City’s Hatchery and Conditioning Center was situated.
It was this very Conditioning Center in Capitalist – soon to be renamed back into Communist – Street that Adam Marx, Director Darlina Downing and Chief Caretaking Continent Controller Gianna Globe passed by on their way to the former House of Government after leaving the Belarus Hotel at exactly ten a.m. on that first of August.
It was a warm, sun-lit morning. Not a speck of rain in the stainless-steel-like sky. Apart from a few ant lines of air-cushioned hover cars – slightly scarring the face of one of the finest West-Asian/East-European cities on the horizon – it was all drug-high and deep-blue.
“Simply splendid for solar energy!” exclaimed the Director, taking a deep, refreshing breath as It, Its Freudship Controller Globe and Adam stepped out onto the porch of the recently rebuilt one-hundred-and-one-storied Hotel Belarus.
