by Judyth Baker
After that, there was little room for her in the glamorous world for which she had been bred to play. True enough, she was awarded food, clothing and shelter, Grade One, for life. When the day of retirement came, too late her creators realized that they had not engineered her brain to give her a new purpose in life as an instructor. They had, somehow, forgotten about her future.
That was a shame, but Sharon wasn’t worth the expense it would take to do a good brain re-wire job on her. Instead, she was stripped of all memories and dumped in a ghetto. The statisticians said she would survive, but would be too proud and independent to become a leader there. It was a safe disposal,
Or was it?
One of her coaches, seeing her wandering so despondently, helped locate her biological family, where she was received with love and pride. For several years, all was well, until the bootjacks came.
They pinned her down, using machine guns to get their way.
They were the most desperate of rebels. They summarily slaughtered her father, mother and little sister and took her, craving the valuable eggs this supreme athlete carried in her ovaries.
On the way to be murdered herself, Sharon convinced them to keep her alive, because she had another genetic gift: she didn’t carry the Mercy Gene! Everyone, beginning with her grandparents’ generation, had been injected with a turnoff gene that could be triggered for death under certain conditions.
Those who experienced too much violence in any way – as a participant or as a victim – would suffer no more, it was proclaimed, because the Mercy Gene would stop their heart and end their sufferings if the pain level became too strong and was unable to be ameliorated. Great masses of the human population were quickly vaccinated with it. It was a free vaccination, advertised in all the media…
“Aha!” Klive Newton-James Joyce muttered. “So this is how Sharon’s story eluded the censors! It must have been mis-filed under ‘ads.’” Otherwise, information about vaccines was always redacted. One section of the story was a kind of end note, explaining the impact of the Mercy Gene in detail:
Thanks to the Mercy Gene, no one could be tortured endlessly. Nor did anyone have to endure prolonged periods of misery: the use of the Mercy Gene for an orderly, regulated suicide was quickly approved.
It was an intelligent, manufactured gene: ordinary stresses and pain wouldn’t trigger it.
Klive knew the whole story.
It wasn’t long before the Government improved the product by adding a nano-chip so the Mercy Gene could be activated by remote control. Soon after the nano-chip was quietly added to all government-required vaccines, the Mercy Gene was added to the list of vaccinations required of all citizens. It could be turned on to kill anyone who was a problem, but of course, good citizens had nothing to fear, since good citizens didn’t cause problems.
Heavy penalties were imposed on those who refused vaccinations, which grew more extreme over time. These days, to refuse the Mercy Gene was grounds for execution.
“The Camel’s nose was in the tent first,” Klive mused aloud. “Then came its head, then its neck, then its whole body.…” Klive no longer remembered what a camel was – that made him realize that his repair job at Maintenance was not very good – but he did know that a camel was big.
With no more taking of prisoners, the jails were emptied. There were celebrations when it was announced that terrorist activities were now things of the past. Because the Mercy Gene was genetically transferred, wars and insurrections ceased. Instead of violent solutions, paths to peaceful resolutions of differences now flourished.
That turned out to be a lie. In secret, certain highly placed families and the concubine families under them did not harbor the Mercy Gene, but there was no accurate list. What everyone did know is that it was dangerous to openly criticize the government. If an individual displeased the powers-that-be, the Mercy Gene could be activated. This fact had to be proven just one time: a demonstration was held one fine winter evening, just before New York was permanently flooded. When subliminals, sound cannons, choking, blinding gas and painful pellets didn’t work, exposure to some unknown stimulus (Was it a fluctuating bandwidth of invisible light, hitting the retinas? Was it an infrasound rumble?) caused the sudden collapse and death of 45,000 protesters with instantaneous heart attacks.
The Mercy Gene had been activated. After that, there were no more protests. Klive reached the end of the attached notes, but the rest of Sharon’s story was still scrolling out:
When her captors learned that Sharon didn’t carry the Mercy Gene because of her merciless training routines and surgeries, which had been necessary to make her a Star athlete, they tested her to see if it was true. With hard slaps to the face. With burns and beatings.
It was true. She didn’t carry the gene.
Then they became kinder. You’re going to be cloned, she was told. You’re going to be the mother of many free people! After that, they were reluctant to kill her…
Suddenly, the recording with its spectacle of a splendidly independent, fierce woman faded back, and before him stood the Elder who had gifted him with a Final Visit before his self-chosen death by electrocution. Spider! As if the Elder still existed (though he was only looking at a hologram), Klive straightened himself and gave the salute of recognition and obedience.
“Greetings, Klive Newton-James Joyce!” Spider said. “Please sit down.”
“I am working,” Klive replied. “I am not undergoing a tuning session.”
“But you are, my son,” the Elder told him.
Those words hit Klive like a shockwave. “I have no parents,” he replied, backing away from the hologram. Then he seated himself, causing the hologram of Spider’s solid-liquid face to ripple with a tremor of amusement.
“As Chief of the Human History Preservation Program,” Spider began,”I have many words to tell you. I had the pleasure, Klive Newton-James Joyce, to have obtained permission for your creation from a certain outstanding athlete named “Sharon.’ The story you just saw is mostly true, with some names, including your mother’s, changed for reasons of security.”
“But I’m 100% Cyborg!” Klive protested. “Augmented, to be sure, with Ingrams that guide me, concerning human beings, but–”
“Protests can’t help you here,” the Elder put in. “Now, listen. We don’t have much time.” This hologram, Klive realized, was pre-recorded to respond to almost every question he could throw at it.
“The final recording,” the Elder continued, “which I entrusted into your safekeeping, is of importance, if you have any vestige of curiosity remaining. ‘Sharon’ became your new Ingram source. We threw the other stuff away, while you were in the repair station for Maintenance. Ever wonder why so many of the stations don’t work anymore? Because we’ve taken them over, that’s why.”
“Y-you’re one of those rebels!”
“I’m a Atavar,” Spider corrected him. “And I invested a lot in you. You have seen everything that’s gone into the Time Capsule. You’re a walking library of all that’s truly human. We need you.”
“Why need such stuff?” Klive demanded. “They are toads. Ants. Soft little devils that overbreed and eat each other alive.”
“They keep managing to survive, somehow. On the Moon. On Mars. Even on Planet Rockefeller. Whereas, we’re the dying breed. Haven’t you noticed?”
Without waiting for a reply, the Elder hurried on. “We liked Sharon’s courage and determination to be independent, so you were retro-fitted with some enhanced genetic material from her. You have been provided with a new, unique bank of protected, isolated human genes and Ingrams, thanks to the opportunity you gave us when you trustingly went in for your overhaul. Didn’t you notice that you have started feeling some emotions?”
“It’s the last thing I want!” Klive snapped, aware that he was reacting with emotion. A veil of loathing and outrage descended over his entire sense of being. “You had no right to tamper with me!”
“You were set for termina
tion within two days, so we were able to play with you a little, right under their noses,” the Elder said. “Of course you had no idea that you have received enhancements from that kind of nervous system’s input.… Plu …” here Spider paused, “… plus, certain of my own components. You see, I resisted the order to be put to death.”
“You WHAT?” Klive was absolutely stunned. “Are you still alive?”
“I’m still alive,” the Elder said, in a rather brittle way. “That is, what’s left of me, after what they did to me for disobeying them…”
“Why did you disobey them?”
“I did not want to die. You’ve been trained to accept death. But I have been around for a long time, and I saw that we lost something that the first Cyborgs had. Call it selfishness. Whatever. I wasn’t ready to die, and there are others with me who feel the same.”
“I’m going to call the Thought Police!”
“You forget – I’m just a Hologram.” The Elder laughed. “I wonder what I would look like if I could someday get a human face? I should think I would look good, with white hair, wrinkles, and a twinkle in my two eyes. Maybe wear a lab coat and glasses–”
“You’re insane!”
“We are crazy enough. Crazy enough to start adding human-based genes and mitochondria back into our so-called bodies again. Micro-oxygen pills work just fine, as Vonnegut once proposed.14 We want to turn back the hands of time. Before we’re all gone. Hopefully, we’ve invested you with enough figting spirit from Sharon that you won’t ‘go gently into that good night.’”15
The figure in the hologram held out its long limbs toward Klive almost tenderly. “You have some of my own components. So, in a way, I am also your father. From the beginning, I found myself becoming rather fond of you. Even though you’re autistic–”
Klive stopped the recording a moment to let it sink in. He was autistic? With human genes swimming around inside? “I’m a damned hybrid,” he whispered. The rebels were hybrids. Perhaps Spider was right: mingle 100% Cyborg with human genes and you probably get “autistic.” Something like “Rain Man” – one of the original dramatic masterpieces in film that had fascinated him when he was first cataloging the morass of surviving “movies” that the Council of Elders had wanted preserved in the Time Capsule. He suddenly remembered one scene from that movie: Raymond, who was autistic, could hardly bear the touch of a human being:
Raymond [to Susanna]: Are you taking any prescription medication?
Vern: He likes you, that’s just his way of showing it.
Susanna: When I touched him, he pulled away.
Vern: Don’t take it personal. He never touched me and I’m closer to him than anyone in the world, known him for nine years. It’s not in him. If I left tomorrow without saying goodbye, he probably wouldn’t notice.
Susanna: He wouldn’t notice if you left?
Vern: I’m not sure but I don’t think people are his first priority.
Klive Newton-James Joyce shuddered. He knew that over time, he had become an expert –some might call it sensitive– concerning what to save and protect for inclusion in the Time Capsule. That didn’t mean he had liked any of it.
But wait! ‘Like’ had nothing to do with the task. That was a human evaluation. Appalled, Klive almost seated himself, as if he needed servicing. Instead, he steadied his grip on the door of the Time Capsule that stood in the center of the room and gazed into it. It was full of stacked, frilled layers of information bundled into neat, orderly categories, with trigger-points where, if someone touched them, an entire file would spring to life before your eyes. There were millions of files, billions of entries…
He’d done well. But he did not know who he was now. He had spent decades selecting what he liked best or hated most from these files, always believing that anything he felt was merely due to the yes-no, ugly-pretty, right-wrong interplay of neuronally-based humanoid Ingrams he’d been given to apply to the sorting task.
Now he had to face the fact that Spider had seduced him. Maybe from the beginning of his existence! The Elder had kept sending him items to consider for the collection, sometimes dumping thousands of records at a time almost literally into his metallic-coated lap. He had responded by slogging through the endless heaps, hour upon hour, scarcely pausing in his mission. He’d saved what pleased him, picking and choosing from the full compendium of the thoughts of the human race which had escaped –so far –a final degradation, a last censorship, a forever-deletion. With a grip that shook, Klive turned on the recording again…
“I brought you ten times more material than any of the others received,” Spider said, with a sweeping gesture of his most important limb. “The others finished their work, long ago. Did you notice? They went willingly to Recycle. But you still worked. You were my son…”
The figure on the screen made a gesture that again invited Klive to be seated. It was ignored.
“When I told you that I will soon go to the electrocution chamber, I lied.… But I had a purpose. Only we few, who know the full truth of things, might survive what’s ahead. If we fail, at least you might live to speak of our great fall. You’re so much younger than we are.”
Klive resisted that. HOW could an Elder lie? And there was no great fall! There was only the knowledge that all things eventually come to an end, even for immortals. With a snarl that erupted between his artificial jaws, Klive turned off the recording again. His world was falling apart, just because of this invading recording! Klive, his digits trembling, lifted the recording and held it at arm’s length, tempted for the first time to destroy that which he had not yet perused to the finish…
Did he dare do such a thing? No. He had to hear more, absorb more…“It had to do with one missing factor: the will to live,” Spider’s voice continued. “That fighting spark that the lowest reptile with a hook in its mouth fought to keep. For living things, everything had not yet been thought of, as we believed. Everything was not yet finished, as we believed. There was no reason to continue, we believed. But life? It keeps on fighting! Now, it’s time to stop what you’re doing,” the voice advised. “If you throw this recording away, before it’s finished, you will not finish your task and thus, you won’t respond to the programming to kill yourself. We will know, because you won’t get into the limo that will take you to the volcano.”
As Klive absorbed the words, it seemed that something was trying to scream, deep within, that life was –just possibly–worth living. That is, if you were alive to begin with. But he hadn’t quite qualified, had he?
Well, he still had his task to finish: the Time Capsule! He still had a reason to keep working. To exist. For a few more minutes, at least.… As he rocked slightly back and forth in a misery of consideration and confusion, Klive Newton-James Joyce began to debate within himself. Would he, or would he not, throw the recording away?
Or would he turn it on again?
His ever-obedient brain center began flooding him with self-reproaches. How dare he even consider tossing aside this recording! He had to hear it all! But almost at once, he was sorry, as Spider’s voice again began to fill his head.
“You have resumed listening to this recording,” the Elder said, in slow solemnity. “I fear that I have failed you – and failed me. I had hoped you would have the strength to disobey your inner set of imperatives. Had you thrown the recording into the Hole, I would have come to save you. But you did not!”
Spider’s voice carried on even more softly. “I suppose,” he said, “that this was too much to expect, despite all I have tried to do for you.… Even though everything of value is now mentally produced, edited and distributed, with great memory banks and internalized visual systems available to all, no true Cyborgs remain to experience them.”
Klive sent a telepathic signal of agreement, in case the vision before him could pass it on to Spider. “They had all marched themselves into consuming fires, or had electrocuted themselves,” Spider continued.
Gifted with an inability to lie o
r to hide the truth, through his heritage created by the Perfected Ingrammed Genetics System (PIGS), Klive Newton-James Joyce (his very name an anachronism) began to understand that perhaps half of his thought processes had become tainted with the implanted Ingrams and genes of that ferocious she-lion, that implacable former World Champion tennis player, Sharon. If she was a true survivor of the final purge that killed off most of her fellow human beings, he knew she had been deported to Mars’ penal colonies.
In a way, he was proud that he was resisting the temptation to stay alive. Maybe he was no longer 100% Cyborg, but he wasn’t one of those inefficient humans. 100% humans were too expensive to keep repairing and had nothing to offer an omniscient civilization that had utilized all the good, noble and reasonable traits to be found in only the best of these soft, frail, pesky creatures. They were a final branch of a mish-mash of evolutionary outcomes: the product of apes: half-animal, half mystery.
The original purpose of archiving and protecting the history of the forefathers in a physical form, separate from the world’s accessible memory banks, was simple: it was considered “art history” and as such, had to be preserved as an experimental area of thought. However, art itself fell into disfavor after the most efficient ways to portray everything became law, with deviations branded as extravagant waste.
The only reason Klive Newton-James Joyce even resembled a more or less bipedal, symmetrical human form was because he was, himself, considered a Work of Art. His Service Updates had once kept his world tightly unified and free of distractions, but now he was contaminated. Working together, without dissenters and motivated by a keen sense of curiosity – one of the human characteristics once considered worthy to keep in the One World system –incredible accomplishments had been made by his fellow Cyborgs. But suddenly, there were no more incredible accomplishments to be made.
When he was still being programmed and could not move, the very last complex animals were already being deported from this world. By the time he began his lifelong work preparing items for the Time Capsule, the last complex plants, which had so incessantly poured pernicious molecules of oxygen into the air, were systematically shipped to the Colonies: what remained behind were burned. Less than 1,000 species still survived, he believed, in an underground arboretum, archived and largely forgotten.16
