Letters to the Cyborgs

by Judyth Baker

  Problem was, Mickey was not only white instead of black, he was also not nearly as nice as his bulb-nosed, whip-tailed namesake. Sure, he was likely to reject the new word. That was okay. In fact, he probably should have rejected it, because this new word had not come about through real events occurring in the world of Ordinals.

  I was taking a rather unusual approach, for the third time in my career – testing Mickey with a brand-new word of my own creation. My new word – “lunarline” – had been sitting in my craw for nearly fifteen years. It was all grown up now. My wish was to inject it into the English Vocabulary. Lunarline was my baby.

  All went well at first: I had told Mickey that lunarline meant ‘to emit a mother-of-pearl, moon-like light, an opalescence, as in, “Her face had a lunarline glow.”

  Of course Mickey immediately rejected the new word, just as he was supposed to. That was good. What wasn’t good is that Mickey didn’t give me a chance to petition: he didn’t ask me to provide an event that made the new word useful or necessary.

  Instead, his white visage began to glow with a fiery red color. Anger! I’d been all set to tell him about the event (which I’d rigged) that brought the word into the vocabulary of the Ordinals, but Mickey didn’t give me a chance. Instead, his flushed, red face started changing shape, so that now he began to look like me.

  That kind of threat was terrifying.

  After all, I’m an Engineer. I’m supposed to be able to walk around the Algorithms and among the Ordinals with unveiled eyes. See them as they really are. To watch that stunning change come over Mickey’s face, as it began morphing into my own, was unsettling. Frightening.

  Had I made the System angry at me?

  Before I could finish the question in my head, Mickey was Anthrax, with a vengeance. The wave of Punishment erupted in my brain with the force of a massive electrical shock. I fell backwards, caught only at the last moment by the arms of a Botambulance driver, who had screeched to a halt behind me at the last possible moment.

  “Get out!” Mickey screamed. “Before I kill you!”

  Withered by that scream, I fainted into the Botambulance’s grip. The next thing I knew, I had been deposited in the Pod and was being whisked back to my Hive; I was in no state to pass the Guardian. My chemistry had changed due to my tension and pain, so I had to go through the De-Tox chamber first. This is no fun, and it’s only allowed a few times a week, or you can get put on the Terrorist List. Being calm, cool, efficient and Selfless is the key to survival.

  As I staggered from the De-Tox chamber with fresh clothes, I had to step over the smoking remains of an Ordinal who probably had lost its way and accidentally stepped in front of the Guardian of the Hive. Soon the Cleaners would remove the bones, implants and ashes to be recycled. A stench of flesh that neither Bots nor Ordinals could smell reeked sickeningly in my nostrils, as a renegade thought suddenly arose in my brain: too many Ordinals are stepping in front of Guardians. I immediately shut down the thought, lest the Guardian pick it up and send me back into the Chamber. It might have been a Revolutionary Thought – the list of forbidden thoughts had recently been growing – but as an Engineer, I had to notice changes. That was my reason for existence. As I raised my face to look at the Guardian, I reshaped the thought for it: Are there more than the usual number of Ordinals stepping in front of Guardians?

  “Bring the question to the next meeting,” the Guardian replied, in my brain. “Your amended thought is duly noted.”

  I had scored! I allowed a slight smile to change my facial expression as I was tubed up to my luxurious suite. Unlike the hexagonal ports of the Algorithms, unlike the studio apartments and the slum tunnels of the Ordinals (inhabited efficiently by tenants who rotated in and out of these warrens between work shifts), I had a large penthouse apartment to myself, overlooking the city. I could regulate the light, eat real food, select my own music, my own reading, my own vids, and, most important, select my own Star – Antares – my favorite brain-mate and orgasm-witness. The Stars were reserved for only the highest levels of Engineers and Elites, designed as we wished, with wills of their own for the sake of additional entertainment. When I was first advanced enough in my job to get one, I wondered if a Star could be called a genuine human. After long experience, I know they’re human, just as I am human. And they can see different faces, just as I can, if they have a high enough clearance.

  We have many rights forbidden to Ordinals. We have freedoms. We’re the friends of the Masters.

  Antares was waiting for me with a meal she had created with her own hands. Her beauty was astonishing: she had silky black hair in the Old Way, instead of the complex, interlocking structures that most Stars grew atop their skulls. I like mine Natural, which is considered a bit eccentric. But I’ve always been eccentric: I have even resisted the free weekly facelifts. Bravo, nature! I even had pheromone-scent glands implanted under my arms to help sexually excite my Stars – I’m one of a few males on the planet whose parents refused to breed me to be born with both kinds of sex organs. They were old-fashioned: I was actually grown inside a human surrogate mother, one of the last of her kind. That’s the kind of pioneer spirit that was in my parents.

  Some people feel sorry for me because I’ve been deprived of female sex organs. Maybe after I become very old and impotent, another few hundred years from now, I’ll turn female and see how it feels.

  Sadly, both of my parents are no longer alive: they refused to accept new engineered brains to replace their own, as they aged, even though we would have saved all their memories and given them back the faces of their youth. I resent that. I resent the fact that I lost my parents because they wouldn’t adapt to the modern world.

  Their last wish was that I would someday have children through a Surrogate, even though that’s now illegal. I do understand that I was indoctrinated by my parents so that I would love them. It’s an embarrassment, a blot on my near-perfect historical record. Entanglements with others on a love-basis is a very inefficient way to run a social system. It leads to corruption, impulses to hoard, wanting power over those you don’t love. It’s selfish to be like that. The word itself is no longer supposed to exist.

  The word certainly doesn’t exist in common English anymore. About the time my parents selfishly left this planet to be recycled, the word was removed from the active vocabulary. About thirty years ago, it was removed from the passive vocabulary.

  I understand the word is still used by Terrorists.

  I only remember the word because it is on the forbidden list. I’m responsible to make sure that forbidden words don’t creep into Ordinal vocabulary lists. Even a Word Monitor Algorithm might be fooled by a synonym such as “adore.” The word is so powerful it could be linked to “religion,” a word I dare not speak aloud – that can get you killed.

  Not that English is used much anyway, except among we who are Elites. 99% of the time, there is no need to speak: we think instead. It’s faster and, usually, clearly what we mean. The algorithms implanted in our brains make communication as simple as breathing. But just as it’s pleasant to eat real food instead of taking the daily rations, in the same way, ‘talk’ is a skill and mental exercise that is practiced among not only our artists, actors, and musicians, but also among our Leaders and Engineers, especially if we wish to communicate in secret about Ordinals or Algorithms.

  As for Ordinals, they don’t have a clue as to what freedoms they live without.

  They respond. They obey. Or else.

  Of course, Algorithms run everything for the Elite. They are the Guardians, the Soldiers, the Standardizers, the Punishers and Rewarders. Selfless, incorrupt, and perfect, their only goal is to keep us alive and well. Whether we like it or not.

  I’m saying all of this to Antares. Using words. From my mouth. Unlike my former companions, this one has a kind of aberration: she likes to listen to words coming from my food-eating orifice. She can even use a few English words (two at a time, which is impressive). I’ve been holding on
to her because it’s rare to find a Talker. I recall that women were once known for their habit of talking. Some bit of tissue deep in Antares’ brain seems to have escaped re-wiring. She can talk.

  At my age, and because I am a certified Male, I can take a Star for long periods of time. Up to three weeks, every year or so. Because I approve of her enough, I have become her Angel. Stars are usually actresses who are engineered to physically resemble traditional females. Some of them might be able to function as real females (that’s kept secret). There are perhaps three thousand males who have kept a Star, out of our three million Elites. Rare, but not forbidden.

  Because of us, Stars can afford to take roles in plays, movies, and hologrammatic historic reconstructions. I have helped Antares gain some prestige as a Star. She has been grateful. As my brain-mate and orgasm-witness, she has given me much pleasure in return.

  As I eat the food she has crafted, she therefore tries to pleasure me even more, by speaking more than two words at a time.

  “Why you have sad face” she asks.

  Antares reaches over and touches a frown line between my eyes. She has learned about legal facial expressions because she’s an actress. A frown is legal, as long as no words are spoken. She has always correctly translated the slight facial expressions I am allowed to make, even though none of us dare to reveal more than anybody else about what we feel. None of us should express ourselves and stand out as needing more attention than anybody else. That’s why all sex is conducted with eyes closed. But because she will cheat and take a glimpse of my face (God! I hope no Bot ever sees her do it.) it makes her great in bed.

  Terrific, even.

  I don’t tell her that she’s becoming important to me. If I say it the wrong way, she could become frightened, might think I was a Terrorist or something. I have to be very careful. So I start slowly.

  “Did you have a mother or a father?” I ask her.

  “No. I am from M-17 Plant.”

  “Do you know who created you?”

  “Yes,” Antares says, proudly. “Experiment. Experiment created me.”

  This I did not know. It sends a shiver down my neocarbon spine; my

  bony skeleton was 100% replaced by the System by the time I was sixty years old, but I can still experience the shiver of fear.

  “System didn’t mention Experiment on your stat sheet,” I said. I saw by her puzzled expression that she didn’t understand me, so I tried again.

  “Antares, they did not say you could Talk.”

  She reached over and with her soft, pink hand touched my mouth.

  “They do not know.”

  She said it with a glitter in her eyes that was both fierce and sexy.

  I felt something inside me that was forbidden. A feeling I was not supposed to feel. That selfish thing. That wicked thing. I had access to a Secret.

  It was explained to me, when they were found dead (I was not to call them ‘parents’ anymore). Above all, they were supposed to stay loyal to the System. Thus I was not to show sorrow, affection or emotions, for they had, technically, killed themselves. They had been wasteful to do that. Their labors were now lost to the System. They had, in their time, been important Engineers themselves, also in the field of Linguistics. I was ordered to spit on their half-burned corpses. Of course, I did so.

  But because they died with smiles on their faces, something inside of me made me reject getting refurbished with both sets of sex organs. I had been born a true Male. I kept it that way in their honor, may the System forgive me!

  “Would you like to know my name?” I asked black-haired Antares.

  “Name?”

  “It is one’s ID,” I explain.

  “Oh. I am Star Antares. B-17, Block A, Batch 901, Experiment.”

  “But I am Baby Boy.”

  “Baby Boy?”

  “A special ID – special name – the two Engineers who bred me. They gave me the name.”

  “Gave you ID?”

  “I did not come from a batch!” I told her. She stiffened in horror and drew back.

  “No ID?”

  “Oh, I have an ID. But no batch number.”

  I could see that I might lose Antares if I dared say anything more. I’d managed to hold onto the memory of my parents because they had given me a Name. Baby Boy. I was different from others – so was Antares. From her long neck to her long fingers, she was at least a centimeter longer on both parts. She was also a full three centimeters taller than other Stars. Just enough to make her exotic, not enough to get her recycled.

  There wasn’t any more I dared say to her. I could lose her…. For some reason, that would not be acceptable. We switched to thoughts.

  Stay. I insisted, telepathically. No go.

  I stay. I like. That’s what her throbbing thoughts conveyed, as she expertly prepared excitatory hormones to inject, with her microprobes, into my flesh.

  Into the machinery she next brought out, as she had been trained, I then descended, as she gently stroked my protruding parts… no more talk. Brain-mate! Glorious orgasm-witness! Even the Patrol Bots flying past, scanning for unusual behavior, probing as they heard us moan together, could not detect that I liked Antares any more than any of the Stars before her. I made sure to keep my face from the windows and hoped they could detect no change of expression on my face.

  Five hours later, my Rest Period was over. I was one of the fortunate ones who got a daily rest and recreation period, primarily because my brain was so important. Unlike Algorithms, who only went down for maintenance for an hour a day, and unlike Ordinals, who worked forty-eight hour shifts to earn a six-hour break to eat and sleep, I had twice as many hours to myself. There was talk that downtime for Engineers might be able to be cut to four hours a day, with a new kind of implant, but so far, such devices hadn’t been successful. Dullness and apathy tended to infest the overworked brain: the drive to obey and to produce for the System became seriously impaired in Elites. Secretly, I suspected that some of these reports were rigged by the Leaders, to keep us from committing suicide.

  As I rode the Pod to the Algorithm Center, dazed as always by the calming swirl of lights and impulses meant to ensure calm and eradicate all violence, I wore my F-Mask – a requirement for all Engineers when among the Ordinals. It must not be known that my F-implant was turned off.

  You need to know that all Ordinals possesed a variety of faces, even though an Ordinal could only see its own face on the face of any other Ordinal. That stopped them from seeing the differences that were there, from hooked noses to baggy eyes to fat lips. Otherwise, they were not much different from each other. All Ordinals were 150 cm high. Their small height and light weight meant they required fewer calories. Only Athletes, bred for various games, differed in height or weight. As to pigment, every Ordinal had melanin and was brown-skinned, to help protect it from the sun. The Ordinal’s pride and joy was the variety of clothing it could wear. Fashion, of course, could not be extreme: no one could go naked, no one could wear more than two layers of clothing –that would be selfish. But the cascade of colors and the variety and design of their flowing garments made Ordinals recognizable to each other, even though they saw only one face everywhere (their own).

  There was a social rule, too: one level could not wear purple. Another level could not wear blue. And so on. But all levels could wear red or yellow.

  What got to me today, as I stood in the Pod, was that it was swaying more than usual as it sped along. Though I tried to block the memory, I could recall the specter of Mickey’s face changing, so that he started to look like me. It was a shock. It gave me an idea of what Ordinals had to deal with all the time.

  Although I could see their real faces, and had learned to identify many of them, an Ordinal never saw anything but its own face impressed on

  everyone else’s face. It was the number one way to stop Insurrections, Conspiracies and Riots.

  All Ordinals were implanted at birth with a recognition device that reconstructed, in
their brains, every face they looked at as identical to their own.

  From my studies of linguistics, I understood that the “F” implant had been hailed as a tremendous breakthrough of technology that basically eliminated vanity, illegal meetings, and “love.” Because the entire population of Ordinals couldn’t be implanted at once – it took a few weeks – at first there were wholesale riots. I was told that over a million Ordinals chose suicide rather than subject themselves to the “F” implant, which they called “666 – the Mark of the Beast.” It was placed in their hand or foreheads at first. Later, it was simply inserted deep into the cerebral cortex.

  For the past sixty-five years, every Ordinal had only been able to see its own face on all other Ordinals. This still caused an occasional problem, such as when it came to trying to help another Ordinal get something out of its eye, or trying to exchange ID nose rings. ID nose rings came in a variety of shapes and were one of the few legal ways that one Ordinal was able to look a bit different from another. Of course, outrageously unusual ID nose rings were a sign of ego, defiance and selfishness and were banned. ID Nose ring Police Bots could confiscate an ID nose ring at any time and fine the offender, so the differences were usually subtle, such as a different number or a small jewel. Nothing that would be too noticeable.

  Not everyone had an “F” implant that was switched on all the time. I was a Freeman. All Engineers, Inventors, Stars, Surgeons, Athletes, Artists, Actors and Leaders kept them switched off. They were also Freemen. Only those of us who might come under arrest for criminal thoughts or acts would have the “F” implant turned on against one’s will.

  Instead, we wore F-Masks when among Ordinals and Algorithms. The F-Masks reflected the same faces that any given Ordinal saw around it – its own – whereas we Elites could see everyone’s faces, safe behind our F-Masks. Our ability to see all those real faces was important, especially if we encountered an Ordinal Leader. Our first duty was always to protect any Leader, even an Ordinal Leader, from Terrorists. The F-Mask gave us the ability to learn who was important among the Ordinals. A few of them had a smattering of intelligence that was useful in helping direct fashions, trends, and political movements. Since the few Leaders among them were capable of creating loyal factions, it was important to keep them identified, located, indoctrinated and controlled.