The Decommission Agent

by Nash, Lisa

  -81-

  Thomas and Cora led the naked group of synthetic women through a dimly lit, narrow passage in the sub-basement. Pipes and conduit lined the low ceiling. Thomas walked with no sense of direction. They had made so many turns he lost count. He was just banking on eventually coming to a door that led somewhere.

  They turned yet another corner.

  They were both greet by the door and a figure of a woman in a tailored business suit standing in front.

  Thomas brought the group to a sudden stop.

  “You must be Thomas Miller,” the woman said.

  Thomas didn’t respond.

  “You’ve caused quiet the ruckus, Mr. Miller.”

  Thomas sighed. “I just came in for a job interview.”

  The older woman with still striking features grinned. “Yes. Just. That appears to be the case, but appearances can be deceiving.”

  “We don’t want any trouble.”

  Dr. Grant stepped into the light. “Trouble? There is no trouble to be had, Mr. Miller. The word itself suggests unforeseen circumstances from an unplanned event, and I can assure you nothing has been unplanned to this point. You are exactly where they meant you to be.”

  Thomas gripped Cora’s hand. “Let us pass.”

  Dr. Grant groaned. “You’re not listening, Mr. Miller. There is nowhere to pass to. This is it. The end of the 72 hours. It is over.”

  Thomas released Cora’s hand and stepped forward. “It’s not over. You know as well as I do that virus 73 is bullshit…”

  Laughing she said, “There it is. The single perfect word to sum up this entire situation, bullshit! It is indeed bullshit. All of it. The virus, the job interview, Dr. Green, you, me, dozens of others. Bullshit.”

  Still approaching slowly, Thomas interrupted her. “I don’t know what you’re trying to say, and frankly, I don’t care. I am leaving this place with these women.”

  Dr. Grant looked past him. “Tell him.”

  Thomas turned to see Cora staring back at him. The confused, vacant look was gone from her face. She offered him a reassuring smile instead. “What’s going on?” he asked.

  Cora shrugged. “This wasn’t what I expected.”

  His mouth went dry.

  “I was under so much stress with work and my family.”

  “Family?”

  “My marriage was falling apart.”

  He shook his head. “Marriage?”

  She took a deep breath. “My name is Cora Swane. I’m not a bio-syn. I am a client. Technically they call us patients because this is healthcare treatment. As bizarre and unreal as that sounds.”

  Thomas’ world wobbled, and he fought to stay on his feet.

  “We thought this would be good for us. Our therapist convinced us it was what we needed.”

  “We?” Thomas felt like his insides were turning inside out.

  Cora sighed. “My husband and I. I’m married, Thomas.”

  “No – No—No. It’s the free will trigger, it’s messing with your head. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  Cora wiped away a single tear hanging her jaw line. “I told you to run. Why didn’t you run?”

  “She’s telling the truth,” Dr. Grant said. “She is Cora Swane, and she is here on the advice of her therapist, Dr. Janice Palmer. She and her husband.”

  “Husband?” Thomas said feeling a deep pain in his chest. He had heard the word come out of Cora’s mouth before, but his mind didn’t allow him to make the connection. She was married. She was someone’s wife. “He’s here?”

  Cora swallowed the lump in her throat, “You have to know I had no idea that it would be like this. I thought it would be like a game. That you would be – just not you, not this, not real. I just thought this was going to be role playing. I didn’t know…”

  Thomas stumbled but quickly righted himself. “I’m the bio-syn.” His mind flashed back 72 hours to his first thought. Sex. The strangers talking. The hazy state of it all.

  “Welcome to the club,” Dr Grant said.

  Thomas turned to her.

  “I am 100% bio-syn. It turns out we aren’t all built for sex. Some of us are built to be assholes and tyrants or whatever the scenario needs. But we all serve the same purpose. We are players in the natural world’s sick, demented version of therapy for the mentally – incompetent. We are the cure, Mr. Miller.”

  Dr. Leo Getman and his two associates stepped out of the adjacent hallway behind Dr. Grant. He stood with hands clasped behind his back and said, “Again you’ll notice the subject’s difficulty with coping with his new reality.”

  “Who are you?” Thomas asked feeling a maddening mixture of confusion and anger.

  “They’re the true villains in this whole thing,” Dr. Grant said.

  “Now, that’s interesting,” Dr. Getman said with bewilderment. “We’ve been cast as the heavies in the female’s mind.”

  “They talk about you like you don’t understand what their saying,” Dr. Grant said with an eye roll. She leaned toward Dr. Getman and yelled, “I get it, ass-hump. We’re not real. We’re little toys in your treatment.”

  Dr. Getman turned to his colleagues. “They tend to go one of two ways as the reality of their situation settles in. They either become subdued and introspective about their plight or, as demonstrated here, they become more and more aggressive.”

  The two younger Grant Bio-Syn employees nodded with interest.

  Cora moved past Thomas and Dr. Grant. “Dr. Getman, I’m so glad you’re here.”

  Dr. Getman looked at her suspiciously. “I’m sure you are dear…”

  “My name is Cora Swane. I’m a patient…”

  “Yes, yes, of course. You’ve done wonderfully, my dear…”

  “Please, listen to me. You’ve made a mistake. Thomas is different. I’m sure of it.”

  “Who is Thomas?” Dr. Getman asked.

  “He is,” Cora said looking towards Thomas. “He’s not just a synthetic. He’s real.”

  “Well, of course he’s real, my dear. He exists, but that doesn’t make him human…”

  “You’re wrong. He is…”

  Dr. Getman grabbed her hand and patted it. “This attachment you’re experiencing is quite natural. I can assure you, but it is as synthetic as our young Mr. Miller over there. It is artificially chemically driven. Once you’ve had a few hours away from him. You’ll see that. Trust me.”

  The door behind them opened and a small group of decommission agents holding clickers stood in the open doorway.

  Dr. Grant turned to them and got the words, “Oh, fuck,” out of her mouth before one of the agents shut her down. She stood with a frozen look of dread on her face.

  Cora stepped back and in a panic raced to Thomas’ side. She grabbed his arm. “C’mon…” she attempted to pull him through the crowd of naked female bio-syns, but he resisted. “What are you doing? We have to get out of here?”

  He shook his head and smiled. “Where are we going to go?”

  “Back to the stairwell. We’ll find another way out.”

  “It’s no use. They have every exit blocked.”

  “What are you suggesting?” she said angrily. “You’re giving up?”

  “I’m not giving up. It’s just over.”

  She tried to pull him back. “Please, just come with me.”

  He worked his arm free and then grabbed her by the shoulders. “The only thing that mattered to me is that you would be safe, that you’d be able to walk out of this place, free and happy.”

  “Not without you,” She yelled. “I won’t do it!”

  “You’ll feel differently when I’m gone. That’s how this works. You don’t love me, not really. They’ve just tweaked my system to trick yours into thinking you love me. I don’t know how or why, but they did, and I promise you there’s no one on this planet luckier than me right now. I spent nearly my entire life with the woman I love. I’d be an ungrateful fool to be angry about that. The last thought I’ll hav
e on this planet is that I made you happy, not just during the time we spent together, but from now on for the rest of your life, I made you happy.”

  “I’m not happy. I’m not. I can’t be. You’re going to die because of me…”

  “I lived because of you.” With that, Thomas pulled her in and gave her one last kiss.

  The kiss lingered and lingered. In fact, it lasted far too long. Slowly, Cora came to the realization that Thomas wasn’t kissing her anymore. He wasn’t moving at all. She backed away and collapsed on the floor with Thomas standing over her frozen in time.

  -82-

  Dr. Leo Getman paced the stage while the group filed into the auditorium. They were different than they were three days ago. Their faces were the same, but they were decidedly more relaxed and upbeat than when they arrived. When they were all seated, he stood in the center of the platform and raised up on his toes, only to fall back down. He did this several times before speaking.

  “I see we’ve all survived the weekend,” he said.

  A murmur came over the crowd as everyone exchanged quick comments about how exhilarated they felt.

  A woman in the middle of the auditorium stood. She brushed a few stray strands of straight dark hair from her cheek. “We didn’t all survive.”

  Dr. Getman looked startled and then looked at his two associates off to the side of the stage. They both shrugged. He turned to the woman. “I wasn’t aware of any casualties from this treatment session. I believe we had a broken nose, a few other bumps and bruises…”

  “I’m talking about the bio-syns,” the woman said.

  Dr. Getman smiled sympathetically. “Ah, I see, the bio-syns.” He moved to the front of the stage. “Ah, yes you. I’m sorry, what was your name again, dear?”

  “Cora Swane.”

  “Cora – Yes, Cora, right, right. You were a rather prominent figure in our exercise as I recall.” Dr. Getman snapped his fingers. “You and your husband…”

  “Duncan,” Cora said. A tall, lean man sitting next to her grabbed and squeezed her hand.

  Dr. Getman turned to his two associates and motioned for one of them. Rachel Rice dashed to him and quickly handed him a tablet. The doctor scanned through and pulled up a document. Reading, he said, “Cora and Duncan Swane, married five years, no children. I see you came to us via Dr. Janice Palmer. A fine therapist. She explained to you the nature of our product?”

  “She did,” Cora said.

  “And you attended our orientation and went through our trainings and simulations?”

  “I did.”

  “Then you understand why your obvious concern for the fate of the bio-syns is – misguided.”

  She nodded. “I do. It’s just…”

  Dr. Getman interrupted her. “How do you feel, Mrs. Swane?”

  “Excuse me?”

  He held up the tablet. “I don’t wish to read out loud the issues that brought you to us. That would be a breach of confidentiality, but I have to ask do you feel that they’ve been addressed?”

  “Addressed?”

  “To put it succinctly, are you feeling better, Mrs. Swane?”

  She thought about his question. “Yes, I am. I feel quite good, actually. I feel…”

  “Balanced?” Dr. Getman asked.

  “Yes, balanced. I do. For the first time since I can remember, I don’t feel like the world is going to crash down on me.”

  Several others in the room nodded. A discussion broke out about how everyone in the crowd felt remarkably better. One woman even yelled out “Amen!”

  Talking over the growing chatter, Cora said, “But that doesn’t change how I feel about…” she looked at Duncan. “How I feel about, Mr. Miller. He was so caring and loving. He had a good heart.”

  Duncan smiled and stood next to his wife. “My wife speaks for both of us. We feel really, really good about us, our marriage, and I guess it’s no secret that’s why husbands and wives come to these things, their marriage is on shaky ground – But the kid, doc. He was a real salt of the earth kind of guy.”

  Dr. Getman nodded. “He was. I see that in the notes here. And he was caring and loving, you are right about that. Brave, too. He was all those things and more because we conditioned him to be that way. He believed he was in love and not just any love, a once in a lifetime love. He was made that way for you Mrs. Swane and, by extension, your marriage to Mr. Swane. The scenarios in our treatment aren’t thrown together randomly. They’re carefully crafted to be effective elements in the overall treatment and realignment our patients require.”

  “But he thought it was real,” Cora said.

  “And it was. For him it absolutely was as authentic as us being in this room right now. Your Mr. Miller lived a lifetime in 72 hours. He experienced every emotion we’ve experienced. He even met and saved the life of the love of his life from certain death. Don’t you see that, Mrs. Swane? Bio-syns aren’t to be pitied for their short lives.”

  “Pitied, hell,” Arthur Trelow said from the front row. “I envy the crap out them. The one you all set up to be my son, he thought he was going to be the goddamn president of the United States.”

  Lisa Tan leaned back in her chair a few rows behind the Swanes and said, “And not for nothing, they know how to put a smile on a girl’s face.”

  A roar of laughter rippled through the auditorium.

  When it died down, Cora said, “But it doesn’t feel right. We used them and then just threw them away.”

  Lisa rolled her eyes. “Honey, you are putting way too much thought into this.”

  “How can you be so cold?”

  “I’m not cold,” Lisa said with a bite. “I’m just not crazy enough to think these things are real…”

  “That good heart,” Dr. Getman said cutting them off to avoid an argument. “The one you say your Mr. Miller had. Do you know what it was four days ago?”

  Cora didn’t answer.

  “It was a meticulously measured solution of oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus in a small vacuum sealed tank. Over the course of an hour those elements passed through special protein based tubes to a larger vacuum sealed tank that contained potassium, sulfur, sodium, chlorine, and magnesium. A small electromagnetic charge ran through this new mixture for a quarter of an hour at which time the final trace elements were added to the mixture. Within four hours, Mrs. Swane, that good heart of Mr. Miller’s began to beat. Not by accident or some miracle, but on purpose. Your Mr. Miller lived because of cold, calculated, painstaking science. He made you feel better about yourself, about your husband, about your life. He did what he was designed to do. I understand why you feel conflicted about his involvement in all this but, Mrs. Swane, that’s what he was made for. If we hadn’t come along, he’d still be separate mixtures of elements never knowing you or any of the memories we gave him. In essence, he would have never been. I ask you, is he better off having lived and loved, or having never existed?”

  She looked at her husband and then said, “I guess I never thought of it that way.” She started to say something, but stopped.

  “If you have something on your mind, Mrs. Swane, I encourage you to say it now. That’s what these debriefings are for.”

  “I guess I just don’t understand how this all worked. I mean I did things – I acted in a certain way…” Her face went flush. “I’m not at all like the person I was these last three days. I did things…”

  Denise Harvey rose up from her seat in the back of the auditorium. “What I think she’s trying to say is we did some pretty freaky things this weekend. Stuff we wouldn’t do in a million years, and we did it like it was second nature. I’m a pre-school teacher for Christ’s sake, and I practically behaved like a Neanderthal this weekend. I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy it. God help me, I did. I just don’t know how it’s possible.”

  Dr. Getman raised an eyebrow. “To put it simply, chemistry. The air you breathe is filled with tiny trace chemicals that affect your mood and behavior. They i
nfluence almost every part of your life. They are the lead factors in nearly every decision you make. The primary source of these trace chemicals is people, not just your spouses and lovers, but your friends, family, coworkers, the strangers you may commute to work with every day. Every human being you come into contact with alters your day in some way via these chemicals they give off, as you do theirs. Our bio-syns give off these same trace chemicals only amplified and specially formulated to be in harmony with the receptors each of you were born with. They radically alter your decision making. Temporarily giving you entirely different personalities in some cases. Allowing you to live free from the psychological limitations that have hindered you in the past. At the end of 72 hours, your receptors are completely realigned and you feel that balance that Mrs. Swane described.”

  Now sitting, Mrs. Swane asked, “And the guilt, how come I’m not experiencing any?”

  “Guilt?” Dr. Getman asked.

  She hesitated and said, “I had sex outside of my marriage.”

  Dr. Getman smiled. “The same reason your husband isn’t angry over your infidelity.”

  “Yeah,” Duncan said. “Why aren’t I angry?”

  Dr. Getman shrugged. “A number of reasons. Your body and brain chemistry are perfectly aligned as are everyone’s in this room. You see, what you don’t understand is that your behavior over the last three days was in and of itself an artificial construct. We directed it. We manipulated it. We did so to shake things loose inside of you. Those hormones and chemicals that have accumulated in your body over the years. The ones that have made you sad or stressed or just downright loathsome. In effect, we cleared those destructive elements out of your system with a flood of hormones and chemicals that washed them away.

  “In addition, perhaps you understand on a deeper level that your wife didn’t have sex with another man, Mr. Swane. She simply utilized a manmade tool devised to elicit a heightened sexual response. She could no more cheat on you with a bio-synthetic as she could with a vibrator.”