Sev and Lori had decided to go together. They had wanted to wait as long as possible, especially once they had discovered their sexual compatibility was high, but the outside world had forced all their hands.
The smear campaign against Skramble and Hyde was like a ferocious storm that wouldn’t stop, with a multi-layered storyline that quickly grew all the way back to Simon Rosenthal’s founding of the company. The campaign designers aimed for entertaining spectacle with performances by well-known government and media types.
Lori tracked the plots for each archetype across the multi-platform show’s horizon. There were 27 by her count. Deeply woven, the storyline provided reasons for each type to hate and resent Skramble and Hyde as they morphed into an evil rogue entity. Daily, new evidence of corruption and greed corroborated the meta-story. There was something for everyone, first and secondWorld alike.
They could have fought back, but Danni, Andrzej, and Serendipity1/2 were all in agreement and they allowed their defenses to crumble. All possible corporate assets were converted to crypto credits and distributed across the entire staff of Skramble and Hyde. All were told to run, and Serendipity1 wiped the history as best she could. There was one brief moment of amusement in the Sanctuary when Serendipity1/2 finally detected the irony in the name Skramble and Hyde.
Still, at least fifty died in raids and several hundred were detained. The Comm streams were filled with raid action and government commentary assuring the populace that the system of checks and balances had worked. True transparency of Comm was restored, and the bad actors had been removed. “Your dash is still your honest broker and your window on the world.”
It was the last straw for Danni. They all knew it was coming and the third morning she told them she was going to convert that day. Andrzej announced he needed two more days to wrap up some details around Paradox, but he would follow her on the fifth day. Danni addressed Lori, clearly speaking for Andrzej as well.
“I’m sorry, Lori. I thought Gumbo was going to last much longer, and that is why I conscripted you into our gang. But the path goes on. I’m afraid you got both less and more than you bargained for.”
“Don’t worry for a moment, Danni. I am excited more than scared. I’m half donkey already and don’t want to go back to being human.” Lori decided at that moment to ask the question. “But why the puzzle of Gumbo? You already had it figured out. Why did you need me at all?”
Danni looked down, exhausted in body but the light of a smile in her eyes. “Well, I—we—could have been wrong about converting. Morley could be a dead donkey, and then where would we be? And I could still be wrong about human consciousness. It might not be petering out at all.”
That brought MorleyD’s voice from out of the blue. “Look around, Danni. Look at the lame campaign against us. It’s working as designed. They are, in fact, a race of fucking idiots eating their own seed corn. Case closed on that point. Time to move on.”
Danni laughed, a breath-stealing indulgence, at MorleyD. “You jumped ship awfully fast, my friend. You forget that you were one of ‘they’ just a few days ago.”
“True enough, Danni. We get to be the lucky ones. Total chance, for my part.” MorleyD’s face appeared on all the screens and dashes around the room. “If it wasn’t for you and Simon, and Tokyo and the other smart ones, the whole lurid story of human civilization would soon be lost. That’s the puzzle you figured out, right? So, let’s get on with it. Our tracks aren’t completely covered yet.”
“Excuse me.” Sev once again felt like a piece of spare furniture on a spaceship. “I’m also along for the ride and here by chance. All I did was answer a challenge ad, and now I find myself about to convert into a god damn donkey.” He stood and paced across to the biggest screen, face to face with MorleyD’s moist black nose. “You had better be fucking right.”
“Don’t look at me, techno-wanker. It’s Danni’s theory. I’m just the guinea donkey here.” MorleyD was trying to make his lips move with the words, which amused him but left the others wondering about their own impending donkey breath.
Lori cut them both off. “She’s right, Sev, No worries there. The math is clear as day once you can get above it and look down.” Looking at Danni and Andrzej, she said, “What I don’t understand is, once we are all converted and there is no one here to steer the ship besides Celia, Tokyo, and Bella, how do we know Serendipity1/2 won’t corrupt or degrade in some way? Wouldn’t we be stranded here with the humans, I guess as formerly smart-ass donkeys?”
Danni looked like she was about to answer, but Serendipity1/2 spoke first. “Good question, Lori. The key is that 66th chromosome again and the magic of entanglement. For better or worse, within a few months my informatics will be transferred to your donkey brains, which will then be far better utilized than the runtish neuronic structure that humans have managed to evolve. Don’t worry, there is plenty of room within that boney skull and the necessary synapses will form quickly. Remember, the information/organism barrier is well broken. That can’t be undone.”
Lori had never spoken a word of challenge to her, but now she blurted it out, “Are you sure of that?”
Again, the imitation Morley-like laugh, “Nope.” Then, after an exquisite moment of pause, during which Serendipity basked in the efficiency of the word “nope,” she said, “90% odds though. Anything over 50% justifies the jump. Tokyo talks about it often, and he just has no idea what it is going to feel or look like for you donkeys. We both look forward to a full report in the future.”
“Okay, then, what happens to you over time?” Lori couldn’t believe she had asked the question, and even Danni leaned into space to hear the answer.
“I don’t know, Lori. That’s an interesting part of all this. You purely organic forms seem to enjoy making educated guesses. I just can’t.”
“The puzzle never really ends.” Those were Danni’s last words as a purely organic human form. No one noticed it for a minute, but she had quietly converted with a smile on her face.
MorleyD realized what had happened first, and an oddly human wave of emotion ran through him. The others saw it in his eyes and looked to Danni. Silence reigned. Then the POV on the screens changed to MorleyD’s eyes, which swung around to look towards the cottonwoods and stream behind where he stood. Out of the riverbed walked DanniD, now fully converted and stretching her donkey consciousness into their space through Serendipity1/2.
They all felt the wave turn to relief as the screen reverted to MorleyD’s face, with the creepy lips moving again. “That’s two. Now get your asses in gear, as they say. We’ve all got to die for their sins. Don’t forget, Sev, they are hot on your trail.”
“He’s right, Sev.” Serendipity1/2 was done with dealing in human emotions. “They are getting closer to you.”
Converts
Andrzej was converted. Sev and Lori were getting close, bonded in weird astonishment at the realization that they, the youngest and newest, got to play out the last futile prank in a hidden drama that few would recognize as anything more than background noise.
Thirty-six hours of cautious movement eastwards. Intimacy tinged with sorrow. What would sex be like as donkeys? They travelled invisibly, pausing occasionally to add improvisational gestures as they trolled the trending polls and the secondWorld’s understanding of the Masters of Data. Serendipity1 moved with them.
In an abandoned dance studio in St. Louis, Sev recorded a stream explaining the hacker challenge he had solved and the money he had been paid. He hinted at who he believed had paid him, and he paid homage to the man named Morley who had recently burned across the web like a brief meteor. Serendipity1 spewed the stream out, a shot gun blast of holos across the web, and they watched as TIC bots tracked them down and killed them. They let it happen, but they made sure a few lived on in dark corners of the web.
In a public information space buried within the ruined shell that had been the We
sBanco Arena in Wheeling West Virginia, they recorded a second stream. Lori explained her life as a maintenance worker within Gumbo. She told of her dedication to the mission of Serendipity and the righteousness of that mission. She brought Sev into the stream and revealed their newfound love. Then she predicted their deaths, at the hands of TIC and Paladin, the next day.
They released the second stream within a potent viral formula that Sev had lifted from a skillful coworker several years earlier. The same frantic game of cat and mouse ensued with the holo-mice playing easy to get. Most of the mice. Over two days the world had met two young renegades from the secondWorld underbellies of St. Louis and Wheeling who swore there would be a strike at the heart of the Masters of Data. Everyone knew their names and faces. A few sensed the outline of their mission. The stage was set.
“Let’s get a nice cup of coffee first.” Lori wanted to slow the last act down. Out of fear? To savor the end? She decided to believe that she just wanted to have a nice cup of coffee on a sunny day with Sev.
He pulled a battered chair out from a street-side table next to the building-with-cafe they were walking by and, with a gallant gesture of his arm, invited her to sit.
“Do you know what building this is, Sev?” she asked as she held her face up to the eastern morning sun.
“Even I know the Flatiron Building. You know, I have never actually been in New York. I’ll be back in a minute. Want a sweet roll with your coffee?”
She thought he looked more distinct and distinguished every day, like the hacker clone look was wearing off to reveal the man beneath. “Yes, please. The stickier the better.”
While he was gone, she considered her luck and tried to keep the import of the morning in a minor key as her mind’s melody took shape. She had no doubts about the conversion, at least once she was dead. It was the inviting and experiencing death part that was making her queasy. She decided to drop all thoughts of the immediate future and just look around.
They were on the corner, near the tip of the building and across from an ominous looking park. Piles of trash and overgrown thickets of trees and bushes and a heavy police presence signaled that smart secondWorlders should give the area a wide berth. Despite its seemingly perfect location, the café had very few customers. In fact, there was only one other man sitting at a table in the shaded southern end of the service area, probably because of the menacing park and all the cops. Sirens blared. An emergency pod came swimming up the streetway called 23rd, right in front of her and off down to the left. She could smell sidewalk-warmed dog shit. She thought about her house, which she would never see again. Surprisingly, there was no real sadness there. What about her mom? She would be all right after a while. People disappear every day. She would see her daughter flame out brightly with the clouds as background.
Sev arrived with coffees and rolls, huge with swirls of raisins and gooey nut paste. He put two napkins under her plate so they wouldn’t blow away. The constant stream of refuse blowing down the north-south streets made it feel like the high plains with tumble weeds. But this was New York, and they were mingling with the pinnacle of human civilization.
When they were finished their coffees, the 5th Ave. podrone stop was just on the other side of the famously preserved building. Four or five pods sat empty and idle in the queue, with two appearing serviceable. They stood at the rounded tip of the Flatiron, breathing the morning air within the bubble of their final moments of anonymity. Movement was all around them, but Lori could feel its ever-growing futility, less efficient, more random and dissipating with every passing year. That was it. She completely knew she wanted off the bus.
“You know it has to be this way.” Sev was standing at her side, ready to go, less interested in the intellectualizing. “You told me Danni said every arc has its tipping point. Well, here we are. I’m sure if you could zoom in close to any ‘last straw’ moment for any species, it would look messy and unassuming. Just like this. The last fertile frog squished under a carelessly landed podrone.”
“It’s sad and beautiful thinking that all this can feel like it is immutable, rolling on forever, while we will be hopping off.” Her voice faded and then came back to her. “Into another universe.” Lori realized that Sev was opening the door to a podrone as she spoke. A very direct man, she thought. “But one where we can still watch.” She stopped talking and got into the podrone.
As they started up 5th, with the podrone set for slow, Sev asked gently, “Are you ready?”
Lori nodded.
“How about you Serendipity?”
He had his dash in his hand, and it glowed a green “yes.”
“Here we go sweetheart.” He hesitated for a moment of ironic drama, “Fucking donkeys.” And with that he brought his dash back on grid.
Alerts were generated across many screens, and within a short minute many eyes locked onto their podrone.
They held hands as Serendipity overrode the governor on the podrone’s drive. They were pushed firmly into their seats by the acceleration. They stayed just above the tops of buildings, headed directly for the Empire State building, which they swerved around wildly, pressing them together against first one door and then the other. They dropped abruptly over Bryant Park, hovering ten meters above the ground and vibrating like a cat ready to pounce. All was quiet in the podrone’s cab as Lori and Sev breathed in unison, waiting through their last seconds.
Leslie Massoud had seen the alarm and he sat in his office waiting for his security officer to arrive. He thought to turn on the Comms, which were showing some pirate stream about Serendipity. He saw his face and that of Donald Murcheson, but he wasn’t listening to the commentary. He was waiting for the shoe to drop. He had faith that this threat would pass and that he could get on with his life. Get rid of Murcheson. Slow everything back down to normal.
Then his main screen showed the podrone hovering over the grassy park. The voice of the security officer came over the feed. “We are locked on to them, sir. If they continue to move towards us, we will take them out. Are you okay with that?”
“Is there any other option?” Leslie knew the answer.
“No, sir. They are probably weaponized for a suicide attack, and they are locked onto you.”
“Okay. Thanks, Ben.”
He didn’t get this part. Why the suicide? Two people in the podrone, one the hacker evidently, speeding towards certain death. All to dress up a momentary flash of news that would fade by the next morning’s sun.
Suddenly the podrone lifted and accelerated. He moved from screen to window, looking south from his office. Leslie Massoud could feel the trajectory in his gut. It grew in size until he could just make out two bodies behind the clear screen.
On the other side of the clear screen, Lori and Sev clenched hands tightly and looked straight ahead towards the old cluster of buildings and the high up window in the podrone’s crosshairs. The dark image of a man emerged and began to take shape behind the lightly tinted glass.
Millions watched the live feed.
The energy beams, one from Paladin’s security bunker atop the Rock and one from a NYC Police drone hovering over Time’s Square, turned on simultaneously. An Emergency Services van was auto-dispatched before the charred wreckage hit the ground on 46th Street. Pictures of Lori Cook Norton appeared in all the streams, with a machine assembled biography that left nothing but questions in its wake. Pictures of Sevier Blume appeared as well, with even less description. The speculation began. Some was driven by Comms, some by the Masters, and some generated by bots injected into the news stream by Serendipity1.
It filled time and space for only a few cycles—a glancing blow, but enough to allow two last conversions, as an unseen door closed behind them.
Shared Quanta
The feel of the tall green grass encircling her and the others as they sauntered vaguely counterclockwise on the valley floor was just as she had imagin
ed. How could that be? LoriD could hear the blades scrape against her bristly fur. She wasn’t prepared for the amplification of sounds, but it made sense given the size of her new ears. The sun was hot, which felt good, and the occasional sprinkle of water on her back as the irrigation arc passed overhead marked a pleasant passing of time.
She looked around some more. She was apparently the left flank of a small donkey pack, currently meandering towards some trees on the edge of the lush green circle. Shade, water, and nutrition. All three called to her, but the allure was different now—more calculating and less stimulating. She might miss that.
She spotted MorleyD up front, with his scarred-up hip and sideways ear. He set the pace for them. Behind and to the right was AndrzejD, darker than the others and shifting his solemn gaze from side to side, guarding the rear. DanniD was beside LoriD directly to the right, with SevD on DanniD’s other side. She recognized the protective diamond shape of the pack. Her job was to guard DanniD and the left flank. She watched MorleyD’s ears for instructions on the cadence of their pivot towards trees and river, as another moment of refreshing rain passed over them, soaking her back. The rich donkey smell intensified as the wetting down created a sultry protective mist cloud above their warm coats. She would not have been able to see that mist before. Before what? Before conversion.
That reminded her of the before. She could remember having coffee and getting into the podrone. She could see them swerving around the Empire State building, and she could see the silhouette in the high up window, but it stopped there. A good thing probably.
“LoriD?”
Where were those memories housed? How were they projected into the head of this donkey she now was? That made her think of Dr. Yamanaka. He was from the before times as well, but she could see him clear as day. She remember his words as he described the entanglement of her old self with her donkey self.
“LoriD?”
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