UnCommon Bodies: A Collection of Oddities, Survivors, and Other Impossibilities (UnCommon Anthologies Book 1)

by Michael Harris Cohen

  She was OCD about messes, so as she was cleaning up, debating throwing away a floral sundress that would clash terribly with her current skin tone and pretty much everything about her life now, the "ping" of an arriving email pulled her back to her computer.

  undeadgirl@email.com

  Dear undeadgirl:

  Oh boy. Now you've done it! Did you know that the JS2000 holds grudges you wouldn't believe, and has a real inferiority complex about the designation 2000? It feels it should have a much higher number and hates being called stupid.

  You still haven't asked me how I know how you became undead. Or even about the color red. Still craving it?

  I know all about you. Remember, I am: The Ghost in the Machine

  p.s. that barista IS cute.

  She looked carefully around her apartment for signs of surveillance. A camera, a bug. Looked at the window and opened and closed the shades, to see if anyone was watching from nearby apartments.

  As far as she could tell, there was no one peeping at her. So who kept sending her these "ghost" emails? And how did they know what she had been thinking about the (admittedly cute) barista? Or was it the same way she had been able to "hear" what that woman at the coffee shop was thinking? Mind-reading?

  This ghost in the machine: could it be another undead?

  She was about to write a reply, her hand hovering the mouse over the arrow on her email, when another incoming message stopped her. It was from JS 2000. If she had moisture in her mouth before, it would have gone completely dry at this point. Her heartbeat at an almost normal 50 BPM felt as though it was racing. Her cheeks felt hot, in what she remembered was a "blush."

  The subject field did not look promising.

  Re: What the hell did you just say to me?!!!

  The number of exclamation points was worrying. Not to mention the fact that an AI in charge of the very union she needed to join had cursed at her.

  Was she going to have to assassinate the president of the union in order to get someone to give her union position? The AI in her head sent her the plot of a novel called Catch 22. She scanned it, but wasn't sure which character she was supposed to be. The AI then sent images of a man called "Gregor Samsa" and suggested she read a book called The Metamorphosis. It didn't look very much like something she wanted to read right now. So the AI sent her a book called The Very Hungry Caterpillar. She was starting to think her AI was over-programmed for sarcasm.

  She sighed and clicked the email open. All that it said was:

  "Dear" Undead Girl:

  You. Are. Finished.

  JS 2000.

  This was followed by a bunch of rather insulting tiny cartoon images. Emoji? She had no idea how the JS 2000 had found an emoji of someone with their head up their butt.

  Almost immediately, hundreds of emails began to flood her inbox from SPAM sources, including explicit porn advertisements, diet remedies, "Increase your Member Size," and "You'll Never Believe What Secret This Celebrity is Hiding" clickbait.

  It wasn't exactly nuclear war or a hostile takeover, but the emails filling her inbox would need to be deleted, and she could miss something important. The emails kept coming. By the time she clicked the "x" on the corner of her email program, the number of new emails shot up into six figures.

  So it was a bad idea to insult an AI with micro-processing time to kill and the ability to multitask.

  I must be on every spammer mailing list on the planet by now, she sighed.

  It was going to be so hard to get a job when this bogus designation of being "minority status" meant her application wasn't being considered. She couldn't get into the union, she couldn't get an appeal of a clearly discriminatory practice. Official documents had been filed that she had no control over saying something not exactly true about a state of being that did not have any effect on her potential job performance. She was highly skilled! The assassin's cyborg upgrade had completely done its intended job! Yes, there had been a few side effects, but they were mostly cosmetic in nature and easily overcome.

  Now her computer was, of its own volition, downloading massive programs and viruses, and she had no way to stop it. Her mouse wouldn't move and when she tried, a big laughing clown face popped up on the screen.

  She unplugged the machine and went to bed. The kitten followed, pouncing on her feet every time she moved. At least she wasn't alone.

  REDD

  Your lips betray the secret of your soul,

  The dark delicious essence that is you,

  A mystery of life, the flaming goal

  I seek through mazy pathways strange and new.

  Your lips are the red symbol of a dream,

  What visions of warm lilies they impart,

  That line the green bank of a fair blue stream,

  With butterflies and bees close to each heart!

  ~from "A Red Flower" by Claude McKay, 1922

  In the morning, everything felt hopeless again. She dreamt all night of the color red and wondered what the heck that had to do with anything. She especially wondered why some random email person who kept calling itself "Ghost in the Machine" would know what she dreamt about? The AI kept trying to get her to watch some movie by that title but she had thus far pressed pause. She didn't think a movie from 1993 would help her.

  She checked her computer and it was still completely hacked by JS 2000. Now, the clown that had been laughing at her last night was replaced with an animation of a clown systematically cutting the head off of a cartoon version of her. Over and over again.

  She still couldn't get her mouse to do anything.

  She set her internal AIegis system to synch with the computer when she fled the house but was afraid to log into it, and subvocally disabled the commands. She worried about JS 2000 somehow hacking her brain. She really, really shouldn't have sent that email. Pissing off a bureaucratic and possibly sociopathic AI was probably the dumbest thing she had ever done, and that included the upgrades that had landed her (un)dead, out of work, and apparently the only member of a minority group of one.

  The kitten slept in a patch of sunlight by the window and she hated to disturb it, but she was also feeling pretty lonely again so she figured she'd head back to the coffee shop, get a hot drink and a breakfast snack and perhaps use one of the public computer terminals they had there to . . . what? She didn't need to check her email–it would be full of junk from JS 2000. She wouldn't have any job offers because of the same bitchy AI.

  Surely, having chocolate with coffee would solve some problem. And she kept thinking of the dreams she had–the color red, in all kinds of repetitions, flowers, fireworks, silky sheets, birds. Lips.

  She was also thinking of the beautiful barista. Couldn't (and didn't want to) stop.

  So she walked to the coffee shop. The street wasn't busy–she lived in a section of town being converted by people with lots of money from a slummy old block of Depression era houses that had been left to decay into expensive remodeled houses with lots of fancy upgrades and stainless steel appliances. Rent increased as the neighborhood improved, but it meant most people in the area were young, urban, unmarried types who got up late if they weren't already at work by now. The AI sent her a joke about "The sound of gentrification" buzzing in the air. She smiled weakly.

  The coffee shop bustled with activity, though. It made her wonder if people actually ever used those fancy stainless steel appliances in their houses.

  Couldn't they make their own espresso? But she supposed she wasn't one to judge.

  No one was sitting in the chair at the moment, but someone was logged in to the computer. She worked her way over to the snaky line; she could see a cup of coffee steaming to one side of her preferred spot, and a muffin with a few crumbly streusel bites out of it. The someone logged in must have stepped into the bathroom or gotten a phone call. They clearly intended to come right back. Well, she didn't need a computer anyway. She wondered idly what kind of policy the corporate coffee place had on hiring undead cyborg-assassin
s.

  Everyone studiously kept their thoughts to themselves today; maybe the psychic thing she had with that crazy woman was because the woman was specifically directing the thoughts at her. When she got to the front of the line, she placed her order and craned her neck to see if the barista who had flirted with her yesterday was working. Sadly for her lack of love-life, the guy behind the espresso machine was cute (short, natural, fro haircut and intricate tattoos snaking up his right arm) but wasn't her type at all. She still smiled at him, causing his sudden-loss-of-nerves fingers to drop the container of milk he was steaming. She placed her coffee order, paid with her rapidly becoming maxed out credit card, and waited for her name to be called.

  It seemed to be taking a long time and she stared at the one claimed but unoccupied computer, mentally willing the user to log out and leave it for her use–Maybe some happy cat videos would cheer her up–when she heard someone call out: "Zombitch... coffee for Zombitch."

  People in line tittered. A few looked her way; apparently they figured out it was her. Maybe they were here yesterday?

  Remembering that this ought to be embarrassing, but not particularly caring, she went up to the spot where the baristas handed out the coffees and saw her white cup with the nickname scrawled on it, and the cute picture of the zombie with xx eyes again. Then she looked and saw the dark haired, fawn-toned girl standing behind the counter and smiling a ridiculously sexy, wicked smile at her. Her stomach did an entire flip. Or at least it felt flippy.

  "Sorry," the barista said, not looking very sorry at all. "I know that's kind of rude of me, but when I saw it was your coffee, I had to do it. Scott let me, even though it's not my shift anymore." She gestured at the now smiling guy and moved out of his way for him to get back to work.

  "My name's Danni." Undead Girl took the coffee and felt butterflies as Danni followed her to where she could add her sugars (two) and grab a napkin.

  "Do you come in here a lot? I've never seen you before the other day."

  Undead Girl felt her voice crack as she said yes, she was new to the area. Which was kind of true–though she had been coming in here for years. The mousy, brown-haired girl she used to be wasn't someone this barista would have noticed. She found she was forgetting what her name had been back–was it really only two months ago?

  "Do you want to join me at my table?" Danni gestured to the table with the computer terminal, hot coffee and blueberry muffin she had noticed earlier still waiting. "I had to get up to grab the spreadsheet I needed," she explained, smiling at Undead Girl's look. The smile looked hopeful.

  They sat down together and Danni smiled again, making Undead Girl need a sip of her coffee, which wasn't too hot or too cold, perfectly foamed, perfectly sugared, to gather her composure. There was a look in her eye, the same one as when she handed her the coffee with Zombitch written on it the first time, a sparkle, like she was going to do something sassy.

  "So....you're an undead cyborg, aren't you? Like Deathlocket?"

  "What?" The question threw Undead Girl off balance. She spilled her coffee, mopped it up with napkins. It kept her hands busy, and that was good because they were increasingly jittery.

  "You know, the Marvel comic? Oh sheesh, was it 2012 when she first appeared?" Danni looked at Undead Girl like maybe somehow she might actually know the answer. For some reason, everything she said was a question. It occurred to Undead Girl that maybe the Barista Girl was nervous, too.

  Undead Girl felt her AI, so far completely silent from its usual whirring stream of consciousness of combat images, stir, and then pause, as if thinking. It had been offering up suggestions more often lately on things other than what it was supposed to be programmed for (combat). It sent books, suggestions of what to watch on TV. (Mostly Sci-Fi). Perhaps it, too, was going through a personality change.

  After that brief pause, the AI sent a flash-image of a pretty girl, younger than herself, African-American. Short, adorable. This must be Deathlocket. Her face was half robot, half human, with a few other robotic looking accessories. The image was unexpected. Why would a comic book character be in the combat database? Her AI did seem to tend to like odd Popular Nerd Culture. What that had to do with being a Cyborg-Assassin, she had no idea.

  Maybe Danni was talking about that image. She tentatively said, "Um, yeah? Comic-book super hero? Or is she a villain?"

  Danni looked thrilled that Undead Girl seemed interested in talking about it, and went off on a tangent about the issues she'd appeared in, and another character named Deathlock who was older, apparently. (Her AI offered up a pretty impressive picture, unbidden.)

  So this was what an out of work cyborg assassin's AI did, she thought, act like an internal Google database.

  Undead Girl wasn't paying much attention, she was more interested in Danni's eyes, and the way she dropped her eyelids in a way that meant "smoldering heat" every now and then. While Danni pulled up images of her favorite Marvel comics on the computer, Undead Girl caught herself playing with her long, white blonde hair. She squashed the idea that came to her that she'd rather run her fingers through Danni's. Even with the gaps in her "Sex 1.0 OS manual," that seemed a little fast.

  It seemed ridiculous to be suddenly thrust into a teen after school movie having a crush on the barista down the street. Undead Girl finished her coffee and thought about going home.

  She just–didn't want to.

  The kitten had eaten and would sleep all morning, resting up to attack her feet all night. And she had never meant to be home this much. She was supposed to be this big deal cyborg assassin chasing all over the planet to kill the bad guys and have martinis with James Bond before swooping off to the next adventure. Pop song swelling over the speakers while the credits rolled.

  And then Danni said, "You've heard of REDD, right?"

  That got both her and her AI's attention. Images in red–

  Strawberries

  Flowers

  Stars Exploding

  Satin Sheets

  Blood

  Pomegranates

  Fireworks

  Ladybugs

  Kissing lips

  –flashed through her head. Undead Girl wasn't sure anymore who thought this–the AI or her. "What?"

  "REDD. The group. You know, surReal Existences Dead and Divine? The local undead and supernatural chapter. I do their bookkeeping. I can totally introduce you to them; they can help with the problem you've been having with JS 2000. I think they also sometimes go by the catchphrase Ghost in the Machine. There used to be a flyer on the cork-board..." Danni looked around, to see if that flyer was still there, but didn't seem in a hurry to jump up and look for it, either.

  "What?" Undead Girl repeated. Not exactly original, but it was all she could think of. (She didn't process that she hadn't told Danni about JS 2000, yet.) Here, this... this gorgeous woman was telling her exactly what she had been looking for. There was someone else like her! Some group that had an acronym and everything!

  "REDD?"

  Then her AI or her brain or whatever the hell suggested that maybe that's why she kept dreaming about the color...somehow this Ghost in the Machine had taken control of her dreams...scary but exciting.

  Was it hacking her AI? Is that why it told her things other than the designated combat protocols of the Assassin's upgrade?

  Danni looked at her expectantly. She had asked some kind of question while Undead Girl's mind whirled through thoughts of demonic possession by a cybernetic ghost hacker.

  Could you call an exorcist for that? Shit. Usually people called an exorcist for things like her.

  "Could you repeat the question?" Undead Girl asked. Her heart beat so fast it felt almost alive again, and her face must have looked different too because Danni said, "Are you okay?"

  She reached out a hand to where Undead Girl fluttered her fingers, nervous and agitated, and gently held on. It was the most soothing yet hottest thing Undead Girl could remember.

  The AI reminded her that she couldn't re
member much past a month and she told her—it—to shut the hell up.The AI sulked. How could it sulk?

  Too much was going on in her head and Danni still looked concerned, but smiling-concerned.

  "Ohhhkay. Ummmm. If you're alright, then. If you'd be interested. I hope you'll be interested in going...with me."

  Undead Girl smiled and said something stupid back, rambling about trying to get a job, and her new kitten, and a gush of all the things that had been happening the last few days.

  Finally, someone who not only seemed to really like her but who had information she had been looking for. Danni wasn't a heroic rescuer and it was an intro to some resource group; it was unlikely to save her life. She also wasn't a damsel in distress. Far from it. But this was a connection.

  Undead Girl couldn't stop talking, and the gush of words coming out of her mouth amazed her.

  Danni still held her hand, and then reached up with the other hand and touched her face to stop her from talking.

  It worked.

  "Oh, your skin is cool. I thought it would be. I love that."

  Undead Girl's heart actually stopped for a moment.

  Danni, unaware of the effect and also completely unembarrassed, said, "Is it okay if..." and leaned forward. It was clear she meant to give Undead Girl a kiss.

  Her heart started back up. She said, "Yes," so softly anyone nearby wouldn't have been able to hear the whisper, but Danni did.

  And so she kissed her, the first kiss, a little early in their courtship, yeah, but still innocent and sweet. A gentle, soothing kiss. She lingered for a moment, eyes still closed, the empty coffee cups between them on the scarred wooden tabletop. The sun shone crazy-hot through the window and the computer had been ignored so long that the screen lock had come on.