The Society Builders

by Anthony Puyo

  I grab my rifle and point it at the door. I’m ready. Even if I must die, I’m going to try and finish PAC’s mission of saving humanity.

  “I’m in, Jason!”

  I run over to Jake. The door breaks from a few hinges and opens a crack. The hands of the authority reach in. I hear them yell at each other to keep banging and sawing away.

  “What do you see?” I ask.

  “I can’t turn it off. We can only choose between two types of chips.”

  “What?!” I say.

  “We can shut down chip one or chip x. Right now, the option is set on chip one.”

  “Chip x is what was in David’s memory.” I remember the cave drawing, and all the stick figures with the money sign. They all still stood while the masses died.

  “Select chip x.” I order.

  Jake does. “It says now or scheduled time in twelve hours.”

  The door comes crashing in. A mob of the authority move in. A shot enters my shoulder and fall back.

  “Now!” I yell towards a ducking Jake.

  Bullets hit all around us. I take another in the foot. But I see Jake’s finger touch the screen.

  Like a ripple of a wave, and a falling of dominoes, all the authority fall over one by one. Everything gets quiet as all we hear are guns hitting the marble floor outside this room. Even that fades away.

  “I think we did it, Jason.” Jake, holding his own wound, says. A bullet struck his wrist, but he’ll make it.

  All I do is smile. “I think so.”

  21

  The world has a second chance—or maybe none at all. I helped Jake broadcast what the plans of the elite were and why they are no longer alive. We showed them the footage of what the scientists said was to come. The hope is that everyone dumps the quest to plunder the earth so we can become more than what we are.

  Jake gave a speech on how we need to live life like people did in simpler times. Grow our own food and share it. Close down the factories and build farms. Be good to one another.

  It will all be a work in progress. There is no guarantee that we can undo the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into, but we can try. To destroy the mainframe was never an option, because it’s embedded in all of us. If it is destroyed, we would all die. Instead, we had it vaulted back up and surrounded by electrical fryers that would do just that to anyone who got within one hundred feet of it. To make sure no one could turn it off, we set the thing on with a timer and physical switch inside the vault itself. It will run endlessly with its own built in generator. And if it ever broke, then we would just have to repeat the process. I’m confident Jake will figure out who will oversee that.

  I stand with a backpack in hand, sunglasses on, next to a drone. Yes, the sun is finally out. A week of no factories running will do that.

  Jake has his hands in his pants pockets, squinting from the sun. “So you leaving for good, huh?”

  “I don’t know. The sound of being away from all this—somewhere where there just greens and water flowing sound good to me right now.”

  “I hear you, man.”

  He hugs me hard.

  “I love you, man.”

  I hug him back. “You take care, Jake. Little brother.”

  He smiles and waves. I step into the drone and I’m off to the greener pastures of Yosemite National Forest.

  I sit on the chair in a cabin, overlooking the trunks of trees that form a path to a rushing waterfall.

  I hold Myra’s chip in my hand. I put on a portable computer on. There is no electricity out here, and I don’t have a USB like people with the old implants used to have. I only have enough battery for one go through. I have all my memories of my time with Myra, but I’ve chosen not to go through them just yet. I know how powerful they can be. Right now, my curiosity is what is on this chip.

  I plug it into my laptop.

  Her interface comes on. Her face shows on the screen.

  “Hey baby, don’t you be sad. I know that you miss me. And I hate that you must see me this way. The good thing is, is if you're seeing this, then that must mean you’re alive. I could show and tell you why this happened to me, but I don’t think I want that to be what you remember most.

  Instead, I want you to see what I remember about you.”

  I see us laughing, talking in the bar. I see her teaching me to skate. Her blushed cheeks, blue eyes in the cold. I see her stretched neck and lips kissing me on the chin our first night. I see when I looked out the wet glass of the drone, and her hand went on top of mine. The dancing with the kids, her smile lit the room, and the old people clapped.

  The tears run down my face as fast as the pictures run on the screen. The walking in the park, the times we sat across from each other. The love we made. And when it finally got to the end. She appeared on screen again and spoke.

  “Here’s what I would like you to do, Jason. I would like you to bury this chip somewhere peaceful.” She starts to tear up, the rims of her eyes brighten red like the color of her hair that I miss so much.

  “You’ll always have your memories of me. Those are the ones that are most important. I don’t want you to think of them all the time. I want you to get passed this. What I would like, is for you to think of me when you need me—”

  “I need you now,” I say out loud.

  “I’ll always be there, Jason. Alive as the day you met me. So don’t worry. Don’t be sad. And whatever you do, don’t give up.” She takes a pause to gather herself. “And one more thing, because I never got to tell you, though I know you felt it. I want to tell you that I love you.” She blows me a kiss. “Bye, Jason.”

  The screen goes blank.

  I sit up, crying a storm.

  For two days, I didn’t leave that couch very often. I cried till there was no tears left. But on the third day, I pulled Myra’s chip out of the laptop, and went for a long walk into the forest. I came upon a stone at the top of a hill, where the view was perfect for a sunset. I placed the chip next to me. And Myra and I watched the sun go down together. It was our first and only sunset we shared. We slept on that rock under the stars and moon. It was peaceful.

  The next morning, we went by the waterfall. I plucked some wild flowers, yellow and white in color, and put them next to a small grave I dug. I placed the chip in there as requested by Myra, and I sat Indian style right near it.

  I talked to her about everything.

  I gave her what I didn’t when she was alive: all access to me.

  I told her the thoughts I had from my life experiences, every emotion I felt, and every angry, embarrassing, fun loving memory I could think of.

  And when I was done talking, I watched the water fall and crash against the stone,

  turning white while doing so.

  Before I knew it, I fell asleep.

  And in my dreams—I was with her again.

  THE END