Never Never Stories

by Jason Sanford

  Captain Stryder nodded. “We'll need an answer in four days.”

  I felt the far-too familiar buzz in my socket, meaning the English were heavily involved in matters among themselves. Even without accessing their data streams, I doubted they had come here out of concern for our Amish settlement. I wondered what Captain Stryder and Ms. Watkins would do if we refused to leave.

  As the English walked back to their ship, Emma glanced at me. For a moment her eyes looked old and sad, as if she'd lost something she'd give anything to regain. But then, with the flash of a new proxy, her eyes became young again and she giggled in her teenage voice.

  * * *

  After the elders left, I walked to the barn with my father to make sure everything was in order. Because of the excitement, I hadn't properly taken care of the hay baler, a fact my father pointed out almost immediately. Embarrassed, I picked up a rag while he grabbed the grease gun.

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  My father placed the grease gun's nozzle over a lubrication nipple and squeezed the handle. “I think it's suspicious. During your time with the English, did you work on their comet program?”

  “No, I worked in high orbit on the nanoforge assemblies. But as part of my advanced training, I studied comet work.” What I didn't tell my father was that everyone working the assemblies downloaded complete work proxies covering any possible job one might be asked to do. All I had to do was access the proxy in my socket and I would become an instant expert on comet movement and impacts.

  “That's good,” my father said. “The elders and I will present this information to the congregation on Sunday. While God's will always prevails, any information you can provide – without using your socket – will be appreciated.”

  My stomach sank at his mention of the socket. While my father had lived his entire life among the Amish, he always knew far more than he let on about the English world.

  “What if that's the only way to find out the information we need?” I asked.

  “Then we don't need it.”

  I nodded, remembering my years among the English. Every Amish adolescent was expected to make his or her own decision about whether to commit to our faith. Like many of my friends, I'd wanted to see the life I'd be giving up. Unlike them, I stayed away for over four years, only returning shortly before my 20th birthday. I hadn't talked much with my father about my life among the English, or why I had returned, but I wouldn't be surprised if he knew a good deal about what I'd done.

  My father finished greasing the baler, then placed the grease gun back on the tool bench, where he eyed the damaged horse reins Sol had jammed in the combine's gears. “Do you remember when I was chosen as bishop?” he asked.

  I said yes. Our congregation cast lots to select our deacons and bishops, letting God decide who should be chosen.

  “A few weeks after I was chosen, Ms. Watkins flew in to congratulate me. I didn't know what to say. Until then, all anyone had expressed to me was sympathy at the heavy burden I'd been chosen to carry. Still, Ms. Watkins meant no ill. She simply doesn't understand us. No English can. Do you see what I'm saying?”

  “I believe so.”

  “I'm not sure you do.” My father opened the access panel on the baler, revealing the clean, new-looking driveshaft.

  I hung my head in shame. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that.”

  My father sighed and rubbed his beard. “Sam, you need to understand. Before you are baptized, the community can overlook these transgressions. But after baptism, if you keep using that socket, they will shun you. I don't want that to happen. I know you use the socket to help out, but it's not allowed. Don't give in to temptation. That's your burden to bear, just as mine was being selected Bishop. Embrace the burden and God will show you the way.”

  I nodded. I started to ask my father if he knew what had been required of me to live among the English, but I couldn't stand mentioning this shame to him. “I don't trust them,” I said. “Few of the English care about anyone but themselves. Plus, this planet is almost totally empty. They could have easily aimed the comet to a place where it'd pose no risk to anyone. They're up to something.”

  “All the more reason to see what you can learn. English claims to the contrary, they have less understanding of life than we do. Perhaps something has tempted them. If so, we need to know.”

  As we left the barn, I glanced at the sky. Just last night, the comet had been a object of beauty, a sparking exclamation of God's power in the universe. Now it was one more sign of humanity's ugliness, aimed directly at everything I cared about.

  “Remember,” my father said, patting me on the back as we walked in the house. “To the English, being chosen is an honor. Don't be like them. Don't be proud at being chosen.”

  * * *

  Shortly before dawn, Sol and I woke up and fed the pigs and chickens. We then finished bailing the hay. I worked quickly, urging the Clydesdales faster and faster, unable to focus on the truth contained within this hard work. Instead, I continually glanced at the comet as it slowly disappeared below the horizon.

  I finished my work around noon. After parking the baler in the barn, I walked by the water trough and noticed that the water flow had stopped. Because there was no rain on New Lancaster, we used large canvas water catchers in the foothills above our farms to collect the morning mists. Pipes carried the water down into large metal reservoirs for use in drip irrigation to grow crops and as drinking water for the animals and ourselves. While it rarely happened, the pipes sometimes clogged at different points. Not wanting to waste any more time, I told Sol to find the clog and remove it.

  After washing up, I pulled on a plain gray shirt and pants, two suspenders, and my wide-brimmed, black-felt hat. I then harnessed a paint mare to our family's buggy and rode off to the English ship.

  The ship sat on a nearby foothill, which rose five-hundred meters above the plains. A stubby native grass called thickens, which stored their own water like a cactus, grew along the top of the foothills. Thickens were extremely difficult to remove from the land and the main reason we didn't farm near them. Luckily, they only grew at higher elevations, where they could condense water from the nightly mists.

  When I reached the English ship, I parked the buggy and hobbled the mare's legs. I also slipped on her feedbag. Thickens were toxic to Earth animals and I didn't want her to be tempted.

  Captain Stryder waited for me at the foot of his ship. “About time,” he said in an arrogant tone. “I expected you this morning.”

  “I had to finish bailing the hay.”

  For a moment Captain Stryder's personality proxy cracked as a smirk crossed his face. I knew what he thought: How could I bail hay with possible destruction heading toward us? But that just showed Stryder didn't understand the Amish, for whom everyday work was an act of devotion.

  I followed Stryder inside the ship, where I was struck yet again by how few people were needed to run English technology. While we used hundreds of Amish to build a barn, Stryder only needed himself to run his entire ship. He led me through the empty ship to the bridge, where Ms. Watkins and Emma waited. As I sat beside them, Ms. Watkins shook my hand. Emma nodded in the overly polite manner of an automatic proxy, meaning her other personalities were off diving in a different socket-accessed reality.

  For the next hour, Captain Stryder presented his data on the comet. A kilometer and a half in diameter, the comet had been directed toward the planet for the last century. While Stryder's data indicated our settlement wasn't vulnerable to the impact's electromagnetic pulse – aside from the unused repair gollums in our nanoforge-created machines – we would suffer minor air blast and seismic damage. That said, if the comet changed course even slightly our settlement would be destroyed.

  To make clear the danger we faced, Stryder proceeded to show me startling images from a recent megaton-range weapon impact. That's when I remembered where I'd heard his name before. Stryder's unit enforced quarantine, making sure no unappro
ved biomatter reached the surface and interfered with terraforming. The images of mushroom clouds now boiling before me came from his controversial decision to destroy a large, unoccupied section of New Lancaster after an unapproved animal species was released. As Stryder spoke with pride about that destruction, I wondered why he was involved in relocating us. Perhaps the militia figured Stryder's experience using megaton-range weapons helped him understand comet impacts.

  The fact that I hadn't remembered all this until now made me miss my socket even more. Even the most basic of sockets could spin Stryder's facts and figures and words a billion different ways to see through his flash and bang to the truth of this matter.

  “That's all very nice,” I finally said, trying to keep the English sarcasm I'd picked up out of my voice. “I still don't understand why we weren't informed until now.”

  “The outventing,” Stryder repeated, as if I were an ignorant child.

  “When I worked on the nanoforges, I downloaded a comet worker proxy. Based on what I know, any outventing big enough to cause such a large course change should have been easily predicted. I don't believe this happened by chance.”

  I was bluffing, since I'd never actually opened that proxy. While bluffing wasn't the most Amish of traits, I needed to know if Stryder was telling the truth.

  Unfortunately, his proxy didn't waver. “That's perfect,” he said. “Let's dispense with this charade. Download my data and use that little socket of yours. You'll see I'm telling the truth.”

  My socket almost screamed at the chance to access Stryder's information. Unfortunately, while my gut told me Stryder was also bluffing, unless I went against my community's rules I couldn't be certain. I glanced at Ms. Watkins, who refused to meet my eye.

  “Can you provide the data in a printed format?” I asked.

  “It would comprise a hundred million of your printed pages.”

  My heart sank.

  “That's what I thought,” Captain Stryder said with a sneer. “I knew you would act this way. Distrustful. Outwardly humble yet inwardly proud. Wanting to explore the world beyond your precious Amish, yet afraid of all we ‘English' can do. Is that why you returned to your people? Out of fear?”

  Not for the first time, I felt violated as a stranger accessed the memories which I'd long ago copied and uploaded. Instead of responding, I took a deep breath and reminded myself that the memories Stryder had access to had been sold years ago. They weren't the man I was today.

  To my surprise, though, his words woke Emma from her socket-induced stupor. “Stop tormenting him. Provide the child with any analysis he needs. He wins, we win, we get to save these backward idiots and go home.”

  Captain Stryder thought about this and nodded. “Yes, this is a waste of my time. Do you have any old-grade computers in your settlement?”

  “Yes, in the school house.” Our order allowed a few higher tech machines for community use, in this case for accessing New Lancaster's weather and emergency net. While the school computer was more advanced than anything else in our community, it was still a millennium behind anything the English used.

  “Perfect. Emma can download the data and enter it into your computer. Run a simulation. You'll see I'm telling the truth.”

  For a moment, my socket tingled as Captain Stryder and Ms. Watkins and Emma engaged in a ultra-fast and obviously high spirited argument. The communication ended with Emma apparently satisfied.

  “What's the catch?” I asked. The English never did anything without payment in return.

  “They said I can spend some time with the Amish,” Emma said. “My research on you silly people is out of date.”

  I sighed but, seeing no alternative, agreed. For the briefest of moments Emma's eyes shivered as her socket downloaded the massive data on the comet, causing my own socket to ache for the power and ability it had once possessed. I muttered a silent prayer for God to deliver me from this temptation.

  Instead of God answering, Emma blew me a kiss with her red, red lips.

  * * *

  Emma rode back to the farm with me. As the buggy creaked along the dirt road, she sat with her eyes glazed over as she dived her socket without even bothering to generate a cover personality to interact with me. I had insisted that Emma dress modestly, so she'd had the ship create a typical Amish outfit, in this case a full-length gray dress with long sleeves and a cape and apron. On her head she wore a black prayer covering, signifying, just like my lack of a beard, that she was not married. While Emma dressing as one of us annoyed me, I figured it was better than her running around naked.

  We arrived home well after dark. After unhitching my horse, I turned on the faucet and found that the pipes were still blocked. After giving my horse some of our reserve water, I explained the situation with Emma to my parents and showed her to the guest bedroom. I then woke Sol and asked him about the pipes.

  “I unblocked them,” Sol mumbled, half asleep. “Thickens had gotten inside. But I cleaned them out and patched the pipe.”

  I told Sol to go back to sleep. I'd take care of the water problem in the morning.

  At first light I watered the animals with the remainder of our reserves, then hitched up the horse and loaded the buggy with all the tools I might need. The distant water collectors in the foothills glittered with moisture in the rising light. Obviously the nightly mists had arrived, so the pipe must still be blocked. While running the simulation on the computer was important, more important was getting water for the animals and crops. In New Lancaster's dry air, they could die from dehydration well before the comet impact.

  Once the horse and buggy were ready, I walked back in the house. To my horror, Emma sat in the kitchen talking with my mother. I panicked – afraid Emma would insult my mother, or worse, reveal what I'd done among the English. To my surprise, though, my mother appeared to enjoy talking with her.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked warily as Emma handed me a plate of bacon, eggs, and oatmeal, which she'd evidently cooked by herself.

  “Everything's perfect,” my mother said. “Emma's a delightful young lady.”

  I glanced at Emma, who was again dressed like one of us. I wondered if my mother remembered Emma parading half-naked through our house only two days ago. Emma's eyes flickered for a moment and I realized she'd used yet another personality proxy to modify her behavior.

  Not wanting to leave Emma alone with my parents, I told her we were riding up to the foothills to fix the water pipes.

  “What about the computer sim?” she asked.

  “We'll do it when we get back.”

  Emma shrugged and followed me out of the house, much to my relief.

  The ride up was uneventful. Emma sat silently beside me, lost in whatever socket-derived world she wished to create. My own socket tingled to her presence and, as the buggy rolled slowly through the empty kilometers, I wished I could patch in with her. All I'd have to do was create a new personality to drive the buggy. I could then expand my mind into the endless connections and worlds used by all the English on New Lancaster.

  As if knowing my thoughts, Emma turned to look at me. She seemed pleasant and I assumed this proxy was the one she'd used with my mother.

  “Why were you so anxious to get me out of the house?” she asked.

  I started to yell at her – another habit I'd learned among the English – but the look in her eyes said she truly didn't know. Proxies could compartmentalize knowledge and memories, so a person with a particular proxy literally wouldn't know what they'd done only moments before with a different one.

  “To be honest, I'm afraid you'll tell my parents what I did among the English.”

  She stared at me with uncertainty until her socket supplied the missing information. “You sold yourself,” she said.

  I nodded. The problem all Amish face if they leave the faith is that, according to the current standards of humanity, we aren't truly human. We lack sockets. When humans can create new personalities and emotions at the drop of a
pin and have nanoforges to satisfy every whim and desire, what are the Amish, who've changed only a little across thousands of years?

  As all Amish youth discover during rumspringa, an eighth-grade education can't compete with enhanced humans who can download libraries of information. While charity ensured that none of us starved – after all, what were a few crumbs to nanoforges – there was little hope for advancement in a society where only access to a socket ensured one's success.

  Enter the devil's bargain. Any Amish kid could earn their own socket in exchange for the one thing we had which others wanted: Our lives. In an age where nothing about humanity was stable, where any person might possess a thousand distinct personalities, what the Amish owned were our experiences. Our beliefs. Our years of hard, physical work. Our secure love from growing up in a deep, nourishing community.

  Most Amish youth refused to sell their lives and returned to their family farms. Not me. I not only uploaded my memories, I allowed others to experiment on me. The English exposed me to endless personality proxies and shared in my reaction. I became a woman, a baby, a genius, a warrior, an idiot, a bird, a whale, and more. For a bit of money, anyone could see through my naïve eyes as I reacted to each startling mental change.

  After four years of this, though, I began to yearn for what I'd given up. Ironically, this nostalgia made me even more popular. Those who had everything had no way of missing anything. I tried to upload an explanation about the emptiness I saw all around me, how even if one connected into a million different lives these proxies were nothing but a distraction from life. However, no one understood. So I collected the scattered pieces and memories of my original life, stitched them together into a new/old personality, burned them back into my brain, and returned home to beg my God and community for forgiveness.

  I didn't explain any of this to Emma. With her socket, she downloaded all the stored information about me and understood in an instant. “I'm sorry,” she said. “Believe me, I understand.”