Letters to the Cyborgs

by Judyth Baker

  The taxi came moments later, hovering at the lobby’s entrance. I flashed my Vacation Permit, and the Taxi’s door flew open for us.

  The beauty of being a Star is that they are permitted to go anywhere their Angel decides to take them.

  “Where to?” I asked her, wondering what in the hell was the matter with me. Part of me was excited – urging me to do this dreadful thing, this unplanned, spontaneous thing.

  “To the Big Gate!” she replied. “Now!”

  Omigod.

  “That’s just a fairy tale!” I objected. “Not real – “

  “You’re in for a big surprise,” she said then, suddenly, embracing me, and kissing me as I had never been kissed before. “You deserve to be on the outside. With us. We, who are truly free.”

  The Taxi driver looked back and grinned.

  “Are you ready, Madame?” he asked. “Are you sure you want him?”

  “I want him!” she announced, confidently. “After all, it took me long enough to rescue him.”

  “Good lord!” I exclaimed. “You – you can really, really talk!”

  “Honey,” she replied, kissing me again, “You bet your boots I can talk! Now get some rest, Baby Boy. There’s a great big beautiful world waiting for us, just past the Big Gate. And I want you to be able to enjoy every damned minute of it.”

  And that’s how I got here.

  How Green is the Sea

  Bibby Marine of Liverpool rents converted barges as floating prisons. The Netherlands currently uses two of them.1

  About “Free Ship One”

  The original Freedom Ship was planned to be a mile long and would house 50,000 people, with room for 30,000 visitors. It would cruise continually around the world, and its lucky residents would enjoy the best that every nation it visited had to offer. Plans showed theaters, schools, an avenue of palm trees, and spacious decks for afternoon and evening strolls. The top deck had a landing strip for private jets.2

  But there were problems: it resembled a gigantic parking garage, was bereft of true beauty, and was too big and deep to enter most ports. There were worries that it couldn’t survive a tsunami, and at $11 million per apartment, most millionaires would opt to buy their own private yacht instead. But the idea eventually did take root when One World Government, UC, utilized the plans to create the safest and most efficient prisons on earth. “Free Ship 1” was the first of seven such mile-long ships that were used to house and rehabilitate problem prisoners.

  These ships were anchored in the seven safest sectors of the world’s seas, in the center of gyres where the majority of the world’s floating pollution – especially plastic – accumulated.3 Through deep-water filtration and various energy-producing systems, using a unique coil that anchored the ships to the lower realms of the sea floor, every Free Ship processed the extra waste that escaped the machinery running the “Lily Pads” –nearby floating cities, which were linked together. Low-maintenance thorium nuclear reactors supplied most of the power.4 The remaining sources of energy came from solar, waves, wind and lightning-strikes.

  Unlike some lovely drawings of these floating ocean cities, the final products were functional, bleak and spare. The AI-approved prisons were built for efficiency: comfort was an afterthought. Sometimes the result was beautiful, for function can force streamlining in order to assure mechanical stability,5 but more often, odd turrets, complex machines, and dense structures of metal, plastic, nano-carbons and energy-generating machinery overwhelmed what might have been a thing of beauty.6

  You are now entering a Twilight Zone…

  It is at this stage of things that we gaze upon the case of Prisoner for Slow Rehabilitation #276-101, surnamed President Super MacHeath28, a 51% sexually irresistible, exploitative human who was created from a genetically modified embryo for a corporation. By the time he became an adult, laws had been formulated and passed to make certain that all World Leaders, bred as he was bred, were certified as incapable of deception, inordinate pride, or of being tempted by any of the Seven Deadly Sins.

  But now he was a prisoner. His question was, Why?

  Used to having his every whim and desire granted immediately, Super MacHeath28 found himself fretting over the delay of half an hour before his Personal Records were made available to him.

  “Sorry it took so long, Mr. President,” his Cyborg Jailer said, bowing several times as he handed over the files. “They are classified, after all.”

  “I know that,” MacHeath28 replied, taking the files from the Jailer. “I’m the one who classified them.”

  “Of course, Mr. President.”

  “Go away,” MacHeath28 told it.

  “Yes, Mr. President,” the Jailer said, pivoting on its four wheeled feet.

  As MacHeath28 perused the files, he found himself nodding with every facet of information he scanned. Yes, he was created to become the President of the World: voters could not resist his utter charm, charisma and superior physical endowments. Those who owned him were even wealthier than those who owned the Free prison ships. As President, Super MacHeath28 was the 9th Certified, Guaranteed and Incorruptible President.

  As for his being owned by a corporation, everybody in the world with a brain understood that, should the President fail in any areas of competence, the Corporation would have to make reparations to the voters. Above all, the Corporation did not wish to lose its status as the Guarantor of the President.

  MacHeath28 looked upon his magnificent genetic charts, now laid out before him on a hologram, with understandable pride. Of course all humans had their limitations, but he was only the third President who had been certified as the Perfect President. He was, of course, a living being, and as such, he still retained the need for advisors (that’s where the Corporation came in). When Corporations became “people” in the 20th Century, it wasn’t much longer before they began to act as people always do. Taking care of business for profit. And Business, MacHeath28 mused, is a process for making profits by generating more value. As President, his main job was to make sure profits were made worldwide by creating confidence in the Corporation’s decisions. The goal was to generate more value in the marketplace for all legal enterprises, while simultaneously protecting the value of human and Cyborg labor. The rest of MacHeath28’s duties revolved around generating good will, and hope for a brighter future.

  He was built for it.

  As he looked over the files, MacHeath28 found his “forgiven” list: every human had one, if he, she or it was more than 50% human flesh and nerves. As such, Macheath28 was forgiven his own little satchel of foibles and fancies, such as his penchant for collecting 20th Century Country Music (considered Low Class) and his habit of chewing gum (considered quaint). And until recently, nobody was upset with President MacHeath28’s collection of Bobbing Heads.

  He was by no means the first and only of his kind to collect Bobbing Heads. His predecessor, Captain America67 Super Casanova, had also collected Bobbing Heads. But MacHeath28’s collection included not only the Bobbing Heads of laudable humans. He also collected Bobbing Heads of the infamous: there were 21st Century drug lords, Adolph Hitler, The Grinch, Federal Reserve CEO’s, The Joker, and Lyndon Johnson. The criticism, he saw, was not that he had collected infamous Bobbing Heads, but that he had failed to collect any notorious female Bobbing Heads. For this reason, he now learned, he was currently under arrest…

  To the public at large, he had simply gone on a scheduled tour, inspecting Free Ships. It was a duty to be performed every decade, so MacHeath28 had not been prepared for his arrest when he came on board.

  Why hadn’t he merely been warned? For all his advanced senses, he was not capable of reading minds! Surprised at his feelings of helplessness, MacHeath28 thrust his fingers into his thick, curly red hair and rubbed his aching temples, trying to relieve his tension. He felt a headache coming on: any physical discomfort was so rare as to make even a slight headache almost unendurable. He had been so delicately engineered, after all.

&
nbsp; While his genetic engineering was superb, he was one of thousands of such cases, though not as well-tuned. It was now relatively cheap and easy to purchase suitable embryos and to manipulate genes to create a desired Super Personality, with a body to match. Of course an infant had to be raised to adulthood: where one or more corporations owned a child, special schools had been created for that. There had indeed been some problems, at first: before the laws were changed to forbid it, “Chuck Connors Unlimited” were being purchased and used by big police departments. These law-and-order champions had been bred and trained to be fierce and ruthless defenders of the law. But there were so many Chuck Connors policemen in the world that their particular response profiles became easy to outfox by career criminals. The result was that Chuck Connors police ended up in desk jobs, and a large number of them committed suicide.

  That’s why Chuck Connors models 2, 3, 4, etc. came into being. Models that varied were harder to crack. Of course, even the most clever varieties of Chuck Connors creations weren’t born with the skills to use their traits wisely. The infant had to be trained.

  In MacHeath28’s case, he was configured to live up to his full potential. He was attractive, calm and smart. He was molded to be an incomparably careful politician, a sober advocate for humans, and a delightful stud for his one and only wife. Those who had created Super MacHeath28 owned breeding and genetic rights. When he turned sixteen, MacHeath28 was sold to the Greater Las Vegas Virtual Reality Sex and Adventure Club for six months. Otherwise, it was feared that he would never understand what normal life was like for those outside his rank.

  That’s where MacHeath28 met MacHeath29, who had not been fitted to become the perfect politician. Instead, he was a notorious rapscallion who was adept at gambling, parting customers from their credit. He ran the most profitable brothel in Club history. MacHeath29 resembled MacHeath28 in many ways. In a different kind of setting, they might have bonded as twins, but at the Adventure Club, MacHeath 29 was MacHeath 28’s teacher.

  For six months after the Sex and Adventure Club experience,

  MacHeath28 played polo, attained a brisk physical fitness profile, and was given a life where he brushed shoulders with the rich and famous. He soon became (as expected) a celebrity, and after six months was removed from that experience. During all this time, he had studies to attend to, but these were accomplished mostly during sleep periods. For his final preparation course, Macheath28 was sent to a monastery, where for the next two years he learned discipline, self control and everything from all the holy books of every religion. In the final phase of his training, which lasted a year, Macheath28 was tutored by live specialists in the craft of politics, a range of philosophies, Official World History, and atheism.

  Six years after that, MacHeath28 was a married lawyer with 2.2 children (one was still in the bottles), had been elected to the Senate, and was ready to run for President. Not that there were any truly live competitors. They were all Virtual Reality challengers. Real challengers no longer existed: they were a waste of funds and time. Yes, there had once been court battles over it, but that had been before his time.

  Of course, he was elected, but with limits imposed. Super Personalities had such outstanding appeal to the public at large that there was a danger: they might try to take over the government. In the past, a few of them had tried to become more important to the public than planned. Some had formed Unions, Political Parties and Cartels to promote themselves. In the end, all Super Personalities were rounded up for Rehabilitation. Any who failed Rehabilitation were imprisoned for Slow Rehabilitation. The owners received compensation for lost profits until the Super Personality, all toned down, was re-released to an adoring public, with a monthly Survival Allowance.

  There had been objections, of course, but by 2100, to stop further exploitation, the law was changed to make all humans and Cyborgs the dual property of the One World Government and the respective corporation(s) bearing the expenses.

  By 2120, only a few Feral humans survived the final roundups (only God knew where the Ferals might be). Now the world’s humans, Robots and Cyborgs were entirely owned and operated by a Troika of corporations, the One World Government, and the last surviving AI entity that had independent thought and self-awareness, called The Brain. Corporations represented the original, ancient House of Representatives. The Brain represented the old Supreme Court. It also protected the few non-human sentient species supposedly still in existence, though nobody remembered why.

  Update:

  His spirit unconquered, MacHeath28 set aside the files and decided to face his unknown destiny with confidence. After all, his was a face that had brought more prosperity to the Workers than any previous. He was popular: he was loved!

  Perhaps the arrest had something to do with some problem he shared his namesake: women. MacHeath28 found temptation at every turn, and it impeded him at times. The original MacHeath was a character from John Gay’s The Beggars’ Opera. He was a lecherous highwayman who was in the center of a world of total corruption among bankers, police, judges, thieves and fast women. He seduced them all, in his own way, but in the end, was trapped by his rivals through his own lascivious misconduct and the treachery of a jilted lover. The thought of how Macheath, given the choice to hang on the gallows or to face the demands of his fifteen-odd newly-discovered wives and pregnant mistresses, chose the gallows, brought a smile to his lips. Then he laughed, as his favorite Cyborgs looked at him with expressions of concern.

  “Why did you laugh, Mr. President?” his Major Domo Cyborg inquired.

  “I’ve never been under arrest before,” he explained. “And all because of my Bobbing Heads collection? Doesn’t that seem a bit extreme? There has to be some kind of mistake here, don’t you see?” And MacHeath28 laughed again –a short, forced laugh.

  “You should not be exhibiting levity, Mr. President, when under arrest,” his Cyborg advised. “Perhaps there’s some genetic flaw, or mutation, that has just surfaced.”

  MacHeath28 sighed.

  “Bring me a Well-Be-Well drink,” he told it. “I’ve simply forgotten to take it, under all this stress.” He did not mention that his headache was becoming worse.

  He had last seen a version of The Beggars Opera when he had been able to live, wild and free, in Vegas. That seemed an eternity away, but echoes of the opera had stayed in his memory. Two women had loved Macheath more than all the others, and had begged their powerful fathers to spare his life… Then there were some 20th Century versions of the opera, including one called “The Mack.”7 In the 20th Century versions, ”Mackie” had the option to kill his enemies. At the thought, MacHeath28 selected a portion of his memory banks that brought back to him the strains of Bobby Darin’s “Mack the Knife:”

  Oh, the shark, babe, has such teeth, dear//

  And it shows them//pearly white.

  Just a jackknife //has old MacHeath, babe//And he keeps it//out of sight.

  Ya know when that shark bites//with his teeth, babe//Scarlet billows//start to spread.

  Fancy gloves, oh, //wears old MacHeath, babe//So there’s never, never a trace of red.

  Now d’ja hear ‘bout //Louie Miller? //He disappeared, babe//After drawin’ out …all his hard-earned cash.//And now MacHeath spends//just like a sailor.

  Could it be our boy’s done somethin’ rash?

  Now Jenny Diver//yeah, Sukey Tawdry//Miss Lotta Lenya//and old Lucy Brown.

  Oh, the line forms//on the right, babe//Now that Macky’s//back in town.

  Look out, old Macky’s back!

  The Cyborg brought him the drink, and it calmed him. Maybe a little too much. He felt suddenly a bit sleepy, but at least his headache was gone. What had happened to his sharpness and wit? Too late, he realized that something must have been added to his drink. As he struggled to stay awake, a Praetorian Guard in a golden uniform suddenly stood before him with a FlySeat.

  “So, what happens next?” MacHeath28 wanted to know, as he was strapped in.

&nbs
p; “You’re being moved to Free Ship 2,” the Guard said. “On your way there, you will have the opportunity to avail yourself of an excellent view of green sea and blue sky. Many tourists pay a great deal to access such a view.” Turning to MacHeath28’s four Cyborgs, he told them, in a sharp, commanding voice, “As for all of you, you are now relieved of duty.”

  To his horror, the Cyborgs bowed reverently his way, and then, turning their backs on him, they marched from the room in a peculiar lock-step, as if in a trance.

  “You can’t do that!” Macheath28 cried out, struggling amidst the straps that held him down. “Red alert! Red alert!” he shouted, but the Cyborgs continued their automated march. “Stop!” he shouted, as the guard began wheeling him onto a ramp that led, he well knew, to a Prison Plane. “I’m the President of the One World Government – I–“

  “Shut up!” the Guard told him, delivering a sizzling electronic jolt to the back of his neck.

  “Hey, that hurt!” MacHeath28 groaned. “What’s the matter with you?”

  The guard did not bother to reply. He had been friendly and pleasant until now. Now he failed to reply to anything Macheath28 said, only waving the Electro-Corrector his way in a most menacing manner as the FlySeat settled into a lockdown in the plane. The Guard thrust several brightly-colored brochures between his legs and then stood at attention, saluting him.

  “Mr. President, may you find your journey pleasant,” the Guard told him, backing down the ramp and facing him as he spoke. At once the doors closed, and Macheath28 found himself alone in a velvety blue mist. As the plane shuddered into flight, whiffs of a chemical in the blue mist reached his nostrils: he recognized the euphoric, pleasant sensation it produced. He’d seen the same blue mist inside the voting stations at election time. He was being sprayed with tranquilizers and mood-lifting drugs, as if he were a common humanoid voter. As the plane took off (there was no pilot, no crew), MacHeath28 tried to focus on what he could do to free himself from this situation. After all, he was bred to act with calm, logic and reason in all emergencies.