Genesis 2.0

by Collin Piprell

  despatch from hell ~ let there be light, take two

  Once again Sky marshals her forces. Once again Cisco volunteers as patsy in chief. And here Sky puts me in charge of managing her format and reboot, much like you might put an enthusiastic pedophile in charge of a daycare center.

  So let's see where we stand now.

  Never mind IndraNet presents the ultimate backup system, über‐secure, where every bit of MOM's material infrastructure contains every other bit. And never mind that Sky, one part of MOM, wants to pull the wool over the eyes of MOM's other main parts. Basically, MOM's having a go at offing herself right under the eyes of her evil stepsisters, one of whom, at least, will want no part of this plan if ever she catches wind of it. How hard could that be?

  Sky reckons my Empty Volume provides a clean space, a qubitally sterile environment where we can do this thing, this assisted suicide followed by a nice resurrection right under the noses of Mildread and Maria and just ahead of looming deanomalization. Bing, bang, boom. Format, reboot and abracadabra, we're all back in some land of the living again. Except now we're minus the Great Positivity and happy as can be in Aeolia 2.0 busily planning the Creatively Emergent Millennium. All hail. Yeah, and good luck with that.

  And so it comes together. Muggs is one of my avatars, my agent there on the ground in the Empty Volume, an ingenious space that most conveniently isn't located there, for all intents and purposes, or anywhere else either. Plus, Muggs himself isn't connected to the infinitely redundant Lode. No, he's leashed to a massive digital storage installation that is also securely stashed in the Empty Volume. And this constantly updated baling wire‐and‐chewing gum Aibo resonates very nicely with my Rube Goldberg backup device, which itself incorporates several chucklehead clusterfucks wired in series. What you could call a "data coop."

  But you may have no idea what I'm talking about, here. So let us digress.

  •

  The problem: how to establish a non‐qubital backup facility capacious enough to accommodate MOM and the Lode? Am I the Clever Dick? Yes, I am. For I found a way to operate in an essentially qubital manner independently of IndraNet. Yay for me. Let me give you the short account.

  Human consciousness routinely employs nanotubular qubital channels to parallel universes. A brain with only a hundred billion neurons and five hundred trillion connections between them may seem pissant, given our needs, but when we link a bunch of brains together in a bank, and when you consider data storage and retrieval involving a vast number of adjacent universes, it's a whole other ballgame. You get truly massive parallel processing.

  Now the problem became this: where to find the brains we needed?

  The maxhappy motherfuckers who ran the United Securistats of America had no problem with the morals of cloning homo saps as organ banks. (Only in a few acutely pussified countries did the citizenry insist that such crops should be congenitally headless.) The regular harvest of much‐needed spare parts boosted the common good even as it reduced the evil of pain. And just such an organ plantation lurked in our Living End onion.

  At the same time, cryogenic centers around the world often froze only their clients' heads, figuring that, once medical science came up with a cure for whatever ailed them, their keepers could transplant them onto compatible cloned bodies. Handy‐dandy organ packages ruled, OK! Not to mention we had the opout centers, with their batteries of disembodied heads and lidless eyes, all these gutless brains wired, together with their attendant minds, into their respective heavens of choice forever and ever. Or so it probably seemed to the opouts.

  So we had these diverse banks of human heads stashed away in various spheres of Living End—organ plantations, cryos awaiting viable bodies, and opouts who were never going to need bodies again. It would have been criminally stupid to let such valuable resources go to waste.

  And something I'd like you to know, dear reader, even though Sweetie just didn't give a fuck, wherever it was convenient I insisted on giving these poor homo‐sappy dregs a compensatory opout World. They all got the same deal, a basic discount‐store Valhalla where they could piss away the rest of their appointed span enjoying shitloads of pussy, beer, and junk food. They could also brawl if they felt like it. Take it from me, compared to being conscious of life on Sweetie's ranch or hanging around outside with the PlagueBot, these would have been high times.

  But it turns out Sweetie was probably right not to give a shit from the outset. None of it worked very well. Maybe because the human brain comprises only part of the self's substrate and human minds, it turns out, can be annoyingly persistent in one form or another. It's amazing. Many units, never mind they were fuckwits to begin with, would start reconstructing their former selves, only partially, and often quite bizarrely, until they became unstable and inefficient.

  Once again Sweetie's experience as a military psychiatrist kicked in, and she came up with an interim fix. We programmed an electroshock cycle that purged and reloded the cerebral clusterfucks on a rota basis. Finally, though, everything from cancers to stealth bioneural parasites degraded our units, while replacements became harder and harder to find. Plus, Sweetie, what with her peculiar appetites, fucked up nearly every surviving opout, and it took too long to grow crèche embryos to where they could serve. (Cisco was an early graduate of the Living End crèche, and I installed him in ESUSA, way over there on the other side of the world.)

  Over the years, then, what with attrition and the constant need for replacements, we started running out of viable heads.

  Then Sweetie got this good idea. But more on that later.

  •

  Here's the thing: Both this spectacularly complicated piece of shit of a backup system and the ball, a high‐tech, too‐cool‐for‐words highest expression of qubital know‐how, are pre‐Lizard, pre‐IndraNet, and pre‐MOM's‐fragging ghosts of the Lode. Downloded, shielded, and hidden. No trace of their existence remains in the Lode proper. And now we are supposed to bring them together. Hah. All that's missing is a bolt of lightening to mark the merger. "Let there be light, take two!"

  That's the way Sky sees it, anyway. Cram the goodies back there in the Lode, right after the format, together with enough current data that, supposing Sky returns to self‐awareness, she'll know what's what and why and everything. That's the way she'd have it, and that's why Cisco and Muggs are in place now. To see that things go according to the Plan.

  But I can't let that happen.

  The bottom line? Things are looking good for the Lizard. Though maybe only you, dear reader, will ever know for sure what happened, supposing you indeed exist somewhere down the line and get to read this shit.

  Meanwhile, Sky believes her quick holiday from godhood is on rails. She has what she needs, and she's in control.

  Divine hubris rules, OK!

  the qin fix

  "OW, OW. Fuck. Ow!"

  "You know how to end this," Sky says.

  Brian doesn't hide his indignation. "I thought we were finished here."

  Here. Back in the Boon Doc's gibubble, back up his own ass and speaking to Sky only by way of the Boom‐Sweetie thing.

  "Yes. Well, I thought we agreed to trust one another."

  "Of course we did. We have a deal."

  "Then why do you keep bullshitting me?"

  "What are you talking about?"

  "The format codestring you provided is incomplete. Give me the rest of it."

  "No, no. You've got it all."

  Sky crooks a forefinger at Boom‐Sweetie, points to a kidney.

  His screams trail off into sobbing, though he's the only one who can hear. Again, the smell of burning flesh reaches him inside where his nose is.

  "Okay, okay," he says by way of Boom‐Sweetie, once he collects himself. "Maybe the code isn't as straightforward as I first suggested."

  "Get to the point."

  "Lee has the other half of the codestring."

  "Who?"

  •

  "William 'Lee' Farley Frick." Sk
y is smiling, but not fondly. "You now claim there were really two of you. Two last human MOMs."

  "Co‐managers."

  "Exactly. Until just before I took over. And before I was born to consciousness you saw to it I would be blind to every trace of this person?"

  "Merely an unintended consequence of another fix I installed. Pure accident. It served no real purpose."

  "Yet you want me to believe this individual …"

  "Lee."

  "Yes. That he has the missing element of the format code?

  "Yes."

  "Do not mock me."

  "No, no. I wouldn't. Yes."

  "And you want me to believe the other half of the code lies with a cryo on the other side of the planet."

  "That's right."

  "A nearly dead former associate buried in a high‐security cryogenics facility about twenty thousand kilometers away."

  "I know it sounds funny."

  "I am not laughing."

  "Never mind. It's true."

  "You are lying."

  "No!"

  "No one would have gone with so insecure, so totally unworkable a setup. Do you think I am stupid?"

  "No, no. Not stupid. The thing is, we had some bad luck. Originally Sweetie was my local backup for the complementary format codestring. But you go ahead and try to get it out of her now. She's so demented she remembers little more than her own name and the fact that her main purpose in life is to drive me insane.

  "You hate Sweetie. Hee, hee."

  "No, Sweetie …"

  "FuckfuckfucktheFuckinFuck12457766667ate9threefuck."

  "Wow!" Sky says. "That is your part of the format code. If she remembers that …"

  "Forget about it. That's just because she was listening in when you squeezed it out of me earlier. Forget it. I tried everything. There's no way she has Lee's half."

  "Hee, hee. I remember. I remember!"

  "No you don't," he tells her. To Sky he says, "Meanwhile the other backups are dead. Except for Lee, who might as well be. The Qin Fix has its limitations."

  "The Qin Fix?" she says, taking longer than you'd think she needs to consult the Lode. "Ah. I think I see. Yes."

  despatch from hell ~ lee does the limbo

  Dead men tell no tales. An old story.

  The builders of the first Qin emperor's mausoleum were all subsequently killed so that its secrets, including a range of third century BC security measures, would die with them. And so it was with MOM, at least to the extent permitted by what remained of liberal‐democratic values, which was fuck all.

  The engineers responsible for the IndraNet‐enabled über‐MOM were selected for their technical expertise, security clearances and the fact they were all going to die soon. Yours truly, of course, was exempt from the latter requirement. I saw to that.

  •

  The others went ahead and died more or less on schedule. But Lee managed to deke out.

  Who was Lee? Only one of the chief architects of IndraNet, the ultimate MOM security fix. An engineer and one‐time bon vivant, William Farley Frick was better known to his friends as Lee. And—unbeknown to Sky till moments ago, due to my brilliant machinations as the Lizard at the Wheel—he was my co‐manager. That was back in the day. Before I got bumped. Yes, Lee was Mr. Real Man MOM II. And if he's getting his money's worth, he may still not be as dead as he was supposed to be.

  He did in fact almost die, pretty much on cue, of BITEME, a bio‐engineered virus of uncertain provenance, mitochondrial RNA code that went on to kill a person in stages. But Lee had anticipated an early demise in any case, given his hell‐bent‐for‐leather lifestyle. With this in mind, and always one to lay off his bets, he took a shot at immortality.

  He deposited funds in two high‐return fixed accounts and notified EZIC Cryonic Term Deposits that, in the event of imminent death for whatever reason, he was to be suspended in liquid nitrogen, compliments of Nicely Iced Interim Solutions, and stored in a secure location until such time medical science found a way, in bringing him back to life, to reverse the effects both of what turned out to be BITEME and of being frozen in liquid nitrogen deep beneath a mountain in what was then the Midwestern United Securistats of America. In an institution known as Happy Chillin.

  How's that for a memory? Not bad for a one‐hundred‐and‐thirteen‐year‐old reformed piss artist, currently afflicted by obscene tortures plus chronic CD of a truly nightmarish quality. And I didn't even refer to the Lode.

  Plenty of Nicely Iced's clients, mostly rich buggers with one foot in the grave, must have been smart enough to know how unlikely it was they'd get brought back to live happily ever after. But what the hey. You don't buy a ticket, you never win the lottery. So Lee does the limbo, chills out. Plays dead for thirty‐three years.

  It was just one of those twists of fate. The way of the world. My friend Lee, if he's still alive, does indeed have the other half of the codestring tucked away in his frozen to shit brain. And who knows? Maybe our young heroes will get to Happy Chillin and debrief old Lee before he passes on to a better place, nearly anywhere qualifying in that regard. We could even imagine they transmit that information all the way back here, either by HIID or by hand delivery. The odds against that happening, of course, are wildly slight.

  But here's the real kicker: It wouldn't matter. Because that codestring is totally unnecessary.

  •

  So why this elaborate charade, this idea we have to travel halfway around the world and penetrate a maximum‐security installation buried deep in bedrock in the midwestern USA wilderness to retrieve a string of gibberish from a dying cryo? Why the fun and games? Because even when it really hurts, I can't appear to give things up too easily, or to have these things appear too obvious. Plus it can't hurt to mix fact and fantasy, tell her things so unlikely she has to assume I'd never make this shit up.

  The Lee shuck is part of that. I have to make Sky work for what she gets. Let her play her own little games. Only after she believes she had wrung me dry will I be able to get on with the real plan.

  Though this last gambit has to do the trick. I might survive another small dose of her enhanced interrogation techniques but not, I fear, a big one.

  some last details

  "So, my old friend. I need you to supply me with just a few more details and then, I believe, we are finished for now."

  She asks for directions to the pod station as well as passwords for the station, the pod and Happy Chillin. He also supplies a recognition code for Lee, supposing Lee is in any shape to talk.

  •

  "Thank you for this useful information. Yes. Now I know what must be done."

  "I'm pleased for you." Once again expressing his Eddie Eight persona, Brian fondles a couple of ebeegirls, mostly Boom and Keeow, trying to make himself feel better.

  Dinky Toy brings him another whiskey. "You buy me a co‐la," she tells him.

  "Fuck off."

  "Yes," Sky says. "I will pass the first codes to Cisco. Son and Dee Zu will need the others."

  "I honored my part of the bargain. Now it's your turn. You owe me a clean reboot of my own personality."

  "I do not. You were being dishonest with me."

  "Hey. Only on a need‐to‐know basis."

  "In the final analysis you are just another fuckwit."

  "Give me a break. You left me SFA in the way of dignity. My happiness quotient was, like, zero. An HQ of fuck‐all plus minus quantities of self‐esteem. I needed to hold something back, just for the sake of personal efficacy. I had to retain some control." He chortles, but it sounds more like a sob.

  For her part, Sky chuckles and says, "I am really sorry, eh?"

  "Yeah, I'm sure. Anyway, you've got it all now. Left me nothing. Turn me inside out all you want. Shut me up inside myself and pipe in the best of Justin Bieber till my brain bleeds. I have nothing more to tell you."

  "My dear, dear obsessive‐compulsive, foul‐mouthed backer‐upper extraordinaire. This is true?"

&nb
sp; "Would I shit you? Ow. What was that for?"

  "I felt like it."

  "Fuck."

  "Yes. And, for the record, I do not believe what you have told me regarding this co‐malls manager of yours. Just in case you are telling the truth, however, we will send Dee Zu and the boy to the USA where they will retrieve the code if they can. In the meantime, we will proceed with the rest of it. You and I will hack the missing half of the format code."

  "Or die trying, eh?"

  "Yes."

  despatch from hell ~ on the gullibility of gods

  So that's the official program. But the real story is lots more fun. Back in the old days we could've made a movie out of it. The Qin Sanction, or some such.

  A key character winds up in suspended animation. Son and Dee Zu's mission is to find him, gain access to the super‐secure installation where he lies immersed in liquid nitrogen, revive him, extract the necessary information from his hitherto frozen brain and then somehow deliver said information to the minions of the machine God and Ground of All Aeolian Being, that being the only game in town for what remains of humanity.

  Nearly all concerned believe these maneuvers are needed to bring God back in a new and healthier incarnation following a spectacular instance, maybe the only one in history, of deisuicide.

  But there's a surprise ending. Because that information, even if they do retrieve it, is of no more use to anybody than teats on a bull. That's right. Sky is sending Son and Dee Zu halfway around the world on a wild goose chase. And God is a goner. Ha‐ha.

  The bottom line? Those codes I gave Sky are useless.

  Mostly useless, at least. Anybody with a backup ball can trigger MOM's potential resurrection. Forget the fancy dancing with codes. The reboot is simple. Down there in my Empty Volume, it's not much harder than throwing a switch. And rebooting from one of the backup balls? You activate proceedings merely by twisting the hemispheres this way and that, tugging away at the right times, fucking around till you get down past the toys to the backup level. And that's it. Child‐proof, maybe, but that's about the extent of it. If there's a suitable substrate at hand, then you just plug the ball in and let it suck on the Lode till it has it all. Bob's yer uncle. Not what you'd call high tech.