Unnaturals

by Merrill, Lynna

  ***

  Next he showed her what he called the birthing chamber. He didn't take her inside; he said it was no place for humans.

  "Remember what I told you of humans being clumsy and dirty? Throughout the years, countless babies and mothers have died at that very moment of the baby coming to the world. Animals—a kind we call mammals—are similar to what humans once were in terms of making children. However, regarding birth, humans were even worse than animals. Animals in the wild could at least do it by themselves. Humans needed assistance. And what assistance would they get? Other humans. Those would touch mothers and babies without even washing their hands, after touching death. Well, death, it turns out, is contagious."

  "May I see the sheep give birth?" She already knew she could not see humans do it.

  "Sheep—well, yes, you can see them. They are similar to humans in this, though. These are not wild animals. They are something that humans kept close to themselves, and so it started resembling them—in bad ways. Sheep need assistance, too. You'll see it when one of them comes to term."

  She watched an immaculate human birth on the screen, instead. When the time came, the boxes with babies were taken to this birthing chamber, where special medstats took the baby out of its box. It cried. Then the medstat carefully, precisely, cut the feeding tube and inserted another feeder into the baby's mouth. The baby stopped crying and soon slept.

  "They had to wash them in the old days because they were covered with blood and other human goo," Doctor Jerome said. "I'll plug you into a wonderful experience, maybe. I'll have you be the mother—or one of those assistant fools. They could better see what was going on, in all its glory. Some of them were even called doctors. But we've been here long enough."

  They walked away from the room with the birthing chamber screens, and then into a familiar place. It was one of the baby rooms for babies who no longer lived in glass and could smile, kick, squeeze and pull a girl's hair with impressive strength. There were hundreds of babies, each with its own caretaking medstat hovering close. Doctors were walking among the rows of little beds or the playpens of older babies, too. At this stage, babies got human contact to prepare them for the contact with their parents. Mel reached out to pick up a baby that was just starting to cry.

  "Oh, leave it be, Meliora! You've done this already! We are off to another new place now."

  It was another small room with screens.

  "No, you can't go in. There is no way you can get in there. You can only watch the screens. I have shown you the beginning of life's journey. This now, Meliora, is the end. You'll see the middle later. But the end, like the beginning, must be immaculate. No humans. Not even you."

  The screens showed, from different angles, a small room with a nice, big bed that looked very soft and had the latest Lucastan advertisements imprinted on the bed covers. There was a soft red chair by a table laden with chocolate and fruit. The walls had the latest, prettiest advertisements, and there was a new computer on the table.

  A woman entered the room, a medstat wheeling by her. She looked young and beautiful—just like everyone. She was smiling. She looked at the chocolate and fruit and smiled some more, then walked to the bed and lay on it.

  "There is always food. They usually don't want it by now. But they like to see that it is there."

  The medstat wheeled closer to the woman. It gently plugged her into a computer on the bed frame.

  "And now," Doctor Jerome said, "she gets the most wonderful experience in her life."

  "What...what experience is this?"

  "Oh, nothing like the ones in the mall." The old man laughed, wheezing again. "I don't know what this particular one will get. It is different for everyone these days. It might be her new computer, or shopping with her friends, or her son and mate sitting by her side, loving her, without any of the annoying aspects that always go with a mate or a child."

  "Why not the child and mate themselves?"

  "I told you—they have aspects! Let a person leave in peace! In this one's case, too, the mate has already gone. He can't be here."

  "But was she here when he went?"

  The old man looked at her as if she hadn't, after all, kept her mind with her.

  "Of course not."

  "How do they get here, doctor?"

  "They leave. You know that, don't you? In the end, they all know, somehow, to take the train and not get off."

  The woman on the bed smiled even wider. She reached out, her hand looking for something. It found the medstat's metal hand and held it tight.

  She smiled some more, and then the smile froze on her face.

  The medstat pressed a button on the wall, and a door slid open. It was just wide and tall enough to accept a soft bed sliding away from the monitored room, with a woman sleeping on it forever.

  "Goodbye, @BarbButterScotch123," Mel whispered.

  Jerome

  Mel was on the train to Lucasta. She had sent the last message to Mom five hours ago. She had sent the first seven hours ago—and for seven hours there had been no answer. Mom always replied to her messages after at most half an hour. Half an hour was even too long, it was a once-in-ten-years exception!

  Mel got off the train and ran. If she had crawled from the Academy to Lucasta, she would have arrived faster than that train.

  There was no one at home. Mom's computer lay on the floor, dropped as if in a hurry. Mel rushed to it. Its screen was blank, no matter in what ways Meliora tried to start it. But she was Meliora! She could start any computer in the world! She worked at it and, finally, the screen flickered and icons appeared.

  They were generic icons. They were bland, the same icons that came with new computers if you hadn't paid for personalization in advance. The message box was not configured for any feed's address, either. There were no bookmarks.

  Most of Mom's possessions lay crumpled on the floor. The apartment didn't even smell of her any more.

  Gone. Just like everyone. Mel punched the wall. The computer slipped from her trembling fingers. The medstat wheeled to her with pills, and Mel shoved it away, wanting to scream, silent tears running down her cheeks.

  Then her eyes jerked open. This was the moment she always woke up. She was not at home but at the Academy. There was no medstat hovering over her, and Mom had just sent a message. Mel replied. Mom replied back immediately. None of this was real—except for the tears soaked into Mel's pillow.

  She was running out of time.

  Months had passed, and yet Jerome wouldn't tell her how to reverse the aging process for someone who had chosen to stay young. Neither would Eryn, and certainly not Theodore. Theodore didn't know. Mel thought that Eryn didn't know, either. Mel had gotten access to the private message boxes of all three. Those had shown her nothing special, except that the three didn't message nearly as much as other people.

  Mel and Eryn still saw each other, and Eryn still had knowledge she could give Mel, but Eryn's knowledge, like Theodore's, was limited. She was a Doctor of People and Nature and taught Mel about farms and the structure of the world, but she wasn't Jerome. He seemed to know everything.

  Eryn was nice now. They all were, but for Jerome, and it wasn't that Jerome was malicious. Meliora never thought that Jerome took pleasure in abusing her. No, Jerome only plugged her into wonderful experiences—or hit her, or, once, burned her skin with acid, in order to teach her. It was needed, Meliora knew. If you wanted to get rid of your ignorance, it could not happen without hurt. Lucastans didn't hurt. Lucastans were happy.

  It wasn't enough to be a Lucastan.

  "Let me tell you, girl," Jerome said one day, "you won't get too old by the time you're thirty-something, even if you don't undergo the treatment. Hundreds or thousands of years ago, you would have—but this is not hundreds or thousands of years ago. Eryn insists on calling her choice, and mine, the way of nature, but as much as I respect the woman, it is foolish to use this phrase. Life, even old life, is improved and cleaner than once upon a time. You have i
mproved genes. Your body is sound and will remain sound for quite some time if you have a medstat around you and heed its care. And, what's more, girl, your mind will remain sound. Indeed, even though your body will be slowly deteriorating, your mind will be slowly improving. It will lose some of the adolescent quickness, but you will learn to think better, taking more parameters into consideration—you will have more parameters to consider—and you will make better decisions. And if you become thirty-something and decide that, after all, you don't like it and can go without the next thirty or forty or a hundred years"—he shrugged—"well, you can always decide to end it."

  "Can you end it before the time has come?"

  "You can. You always could, even with the ways of nature. But we have better ways now."

  "I suppose ways that give you wonderful experiences."

  He laughed. "Look at you, you are already becoming cynical. And you only turned sixteen days ago. Trust me, Meliora, you won't want to end it. Cynicism grows through the years and every year brings you new fun."

  "I am not thinking about myself. I am thinking about my Mom." She decided to tell him. She hadn't told any of them, after that first confrontation with Eryn. From the way Eryn had reacted, Meliora had decided that she must first pass some sort of a test, like when she'd kicked down Eryn's door. Besides, she'd thought that Eryn was the most important person in the Academy, that Jerome was a secretary and that she should earn Eryn's trust. Now she had her doubts.

  "So." Jerome looked away from the sheep and at Meliora. A sheep's term had come, and they were in the sheep pen to watch a birth. The animal was bloated and bleating. Medstats surrounded it, but they didn't touch. The sheep's assistant was a human, his hands covered in blood. Jerome wasn't paying attention to this. His eyes were shining like brightlights again, just like on the day he'd first shown Meliora immaculate conception.

  "So, your mother wants to go on? She doesn't want to end it?"

  "Not...exactly." You could not lie to Jerome. He'd know.

  "Ah. You don't want your mother to end." It sounded as if it were a bad thing. "Well, you may want all you want—as long as you don't try to mess with it."

  "Tell me how to make her live, Jerome."

  "I won't tell you anything of the kind. Your mother's life is her own choice, and you, future doctor, must step aside in this. We all should."

  "How can you tell me this, you damn old wretch!" Her shout made the doctor by the sheep jump, and the sheep bleated and tried to run away. Other doctors had come, and they were all looking at Mel. The sheep was bleating, and bleeding, with no help.

  "You can't tell me this! You—this Academy—you, Jerome, and even I, and all of us—mess with people all the time! From the way they are born to what food they eat, what computer they use this week, and where they end up if they catch the train—we mess with them all the time!"

  "Everything," the old man said, "always is people's own choice."

  His voice, unlike hers, was very quiet. That didn't matter. Still it was a stronger voice than hers. "And you, people"—he looked at the doctors, and they were older than Meliora and full doctors, but they cringed—"You people do your job. You have no business watching me and the girl, or listening to us. Do you want the lamb to die because of your stupidity? Everything about people is always people's own choice, I said—but the sheep hasn't had a choice. We've made the choices for the animals that we keep, starting with the choice to keep them at all—so leave the girl and me alone, and do your damn job!"

  They did. The sheep was still bleating.

  "And you, girl"—Jerome hobbled to her. His legs must be hurting him today. He pushed a thin, bony finger into her chest. "You girl, keep in mind that we never force people into anything, ever. Centuries—millennia—have taught us that this approach never works. Not in the long term. True, we can't give people a choice of what exact genes they are born with, but we give the choice to their parents. Is it our fault that the parents surrender that choice to BabiesAsYouDream, Inc.? We give people the choice to buy a new computer or not buy, to go shopping or not, to have a mate and a child or not, to get on the train or not—to live to old, crippled, lucid age, or not. When they choose, we stand aside. Your mother has made her choice already."

  "I'll make her change it. Please, Doctor Jerome, please!"

  "Make her change it? I won't even go into the make part of this. And don't you follow me now, girl! Don't you pester me with your emotions! I promise that if you do, it will become worse! Stay here now! You have a birth to watch! You, too, have a job, which is to learn!"

  She watched the bloody birth, but she didn't remember much of it.

  ***

  She didn't seek him out on the next day. She waited for him to message her, to call for her to go to him. She hated him and thought a whole lot of bad things about him, but she waited. He was her way to knowledge, she knew that.

  He didn't call for her. She waited. Then, on the second day, she sent him a message, and when he didn't reply, she went to Eryn's office. She hadn't seen Eryn these two days, either, only Theodore, Ivan, Veronica, and Olaf. These had been two important days for the four, and supposedly for Meliora.

  The hummie interfaces for train stations were complete. This softlights period, stationstats would install the new interfaces everywhere and remove the old ones. Meanwhile, the first cheap thoughtmotion interfaces would become available to the general public. Other Doctors of Computers had worked on those, not Mel and her friends, and tonight all Doctors of Computers would celebrate.

  Jerome wasn't in front of Eryn's office, where he often sat. She knocked on Eryn's door.

  "Aren't you preparing for the party?" were Eryn's first words. "You know, even a doctor needs some fun sometimes. Go buy a new dress and enjoy the food, drink, songs, and company." That from Eryn, with her black hair in a tight bun, with her cup of tea, which was the only thing Mel had ever seen her eat or drink, and her crisp, stern trousers.

  "Do you want to chase me away from here without telling me straight, Doctor Eryn? This is strange."

  "Yes, I do. Since it is not working—go away."

  "Where is Doctor Jerome, Eryn?"

  The woman raised her hands in the air, in an atypical display of body motion. "He is gone. Gone. Left."

  "Where..." The words barely crept out of Mel's mouth.

  "He has gone to what you would call the City of Death," Eryn said, "Gods damn him for this. Go away now."

  Meliora went to the party. Suddenly she needed people, light, and noise. She sat among her friends and ate, and drank what they gave her, though any medstat would recommend that she didn't drink anything like this. She even laughed with them.

  She drank until brown spots danced before her eyes and the light changed. No matter. It wasn't true light. The Academy had no windows, no true brightlights and softlights, just this harsh, indoor illumination that, no matter how much it tried, could not imitate the real thing. Meliora didn't know why that was. She hadn't gotten to asking her teachers—and now she had a feeling that the only one who would have perhaps answered, who could have perhaps known the answers—was no longer available to ask.

  "Jerome is gone," she said.

  "Yeah, can't say I'll miss him," Olaf replied. "I still remember the dark room with no interweb that he once put me in, when I was still a recruit. But anyway, safe journey to him. I wonder where our new train interface will take him!" Olaf laughed, then drank some more.

  "Doesn't it matter to you, that someone is gone?"

  "Why should it, Meliora?" Veronica patted her back. "They all go in the end."

  "And it was his time," Theodore added. "He was old." Yes, Theodore at least would discriminate by age. She remembered his story about the consequences of the interweb disconnected in a mall.

  "Now cheers to the departed Doctor Jerome and to the new hummie train stations and personal thoughtmotion interfaces!" Theodore shouted. They laughed. They drank.

  Meliora went back to her room alone and sat
on the floor with her back to the wall, hugging her knees. Her computer was on the table, far from her hands. She didn't want to message.

  "Safe journey to you, Jerome," Mel whispered, "and gods damn you."

  ***

  Eryn called her on the next day.

  "Jerome talked to me before he left, Meliora." Eryn wasn't cursing today. She even had a small smile to spare for Mel. "He said that you have earned your titles—and who am I to argue with Jerome? Besides, you have completed your project as Theodore's student. From now on, you and Theodore can work as equals. Congratulations, Meliora 12a147687, Doctor of Computers, People, and Nature."

  "But I haven't learned everything!"

  Eryn shrugged. "Perhaps not, but keep in mind that no one can learn everything there is. And don't ask me questions now that you have already asked Jerome." She met Meliora's eyes and held them. Then, she sighed. "Even I don't know everything, and I certainly don't know everything he knew. Get out of here now, Doctor. Go tell your Mom and your friends. Come back later to talk to me and Theodore. You have many options to choose from now."

  "But..."

  "I told you. You can't learn everything. But if you have somehow missed learning this by now—know that you're no longer just an unnatural. Now, you have your own place in this world. You contribute—you're useful and necessary."

  But this is not the only reason I stayed.

  Still, it affected her. Her position had changed in the world. Adi and Ivan had also graduated. The three of them spent time together, talking, laughing, and for a while no one was even looking at screens. They remembered how they had come a year ago on the southern train; Adi and Mel remembered the "I am lonely" messages they had sent each other. They hadn't sent any in months.

  "I am to go back to Lucasta and inherit my old doc's office," Adi said. "She wants to come here and teach for a while." Adi laughed. "I don't know how Doctors Lara and Eryn will get along. I heard that there are six new recruits coming, twice our number, so both Lara and Eryn will teach People-doctoring, but Lara is so much nicer than what Eryn was when we came. There will be a discrepancy. Poor kids, if they only get one of the Doctor of People teachers."