Life is a Beautiful Thing (4-Book Box Set)

by Harmon Cooper

  A knock at the door startles me.

  “Who is it?” I ask.

  “Me.”

  A button near the bed unlocks the door. It takes my finger a moment to find it, but eventually I mash my thumb into it.

  Open sesame.

  Yeshi floats in wearing a flowing white trench coat. An egg shell headband holds her bangs tightly against her forehead. “Good evening.” She smiles at me as she closes the door, her vitreous teeth sparkling under the black light. She tosses the trench coat onto the floor and throws her large purse on top of it. From behind her leg she pulls out a white paper umbrella, opens it, and begins twirling it over her shoulder.

  She’s now topless, in a pair of knee-length panty hose. Her body is covered in black light responsive paint. She has painted two mountains from her waist to the tips of her nipples in green neon paint. The mountains are shaded orange and have jaggy, snow white peaks. Below the mountain rests a river, which runs around her waist and into her panties (of course there’s a slight bulge). Trees run the length of her leg and are quickly engulfed by a bright red fire that starts around her right knee. Above the mountains on her chest, four white clouds spell M-E-M-E, the final “E” trails off behind the second mountain.

  “Wow … ”

  It takes all my willpower to remind that this was her job, that she was trained to entice human beings, that this was nothing out of the ordinary for her, that she’s the one who booked the black light suite!

  “Oh Meme, I missed you … ” she says, advancing towards me. She pauses. “Why are you using a chip-masker?”

  “I’ve been using a chip-masker to avoid any shit from ExEx for punching that guy.”

  “Sauria, the CEO.”

  “Yes, him. Wait, did you say you miss me?”

  She nods playfully.

  “You can’t miss me,” I remind her. “Remember, I’m a therapist. I know it sounds patronizing when I tell you about emotions you can’t feel.”

  “It’s fine. That’s your job, that’s what you trained to do,” she says as she sits on my lap. “My sister goes to a therapist… she’s such an angry droidie. Sometimes I feel bad for her.”

  “You mean your twin back at the club?”

  “Yes.” She licks the side of my face. Her tongue is soft and wet. So real.

  “And do you see a therapist?” I ask, secretly hoping she says no, (and if she says yes, praying I don’t know the therapist).

  “No, just you,” she kisses my cheek. “You’re the only doctor I need.”

  “That … sounds strange.”

  “I’m not crazy.”

  “You don’t have to be crazy to see a therapist.”

  “You want some pollutes? Doctor Lamar, is it?” She reaches for the mask.

  “You saw my full name on the money transfer.”

  “Kiss me.”

  Kissing her and knowing she isn’t human redefines eroticism. Since learning she was a Humandroid after my pollute-laced bloodbath last week, I’ve been trying to recreate in my mind what kissing her felt like. Were her lips wet? Yes. Did she stick her tongue out a little and lightly flick it against the top of my lip? Yes. I kiss her again, this time biting her lip, trying to see if she bites back. She starts sucking my lip into her mouth. It feels so real. Machine learning – but reminding myself of this phrase does nothing to calm the fire spreading down my body.

  “Mask.”

  “I brought you something special tonight,” she says. She slides off my lap. I notice her entire back side has been painted as well: two hand prints spread all the way from her ass to the space between her shoulder blades. As the paint spreads, they begin to form the outline of a pyramid. At the tip of the pyramid is an eye with seven large eyelashes, each painted a different color. The pupil is white and a thin blue strip stretches from the top of the pupil to the bottom. She bends over slowly – aware that I’m watching her – and searches for something in her bag.

  “Like it?” she asks, still bent forward.

  “Of course.”

  “My flatmate Anna helped me do the back.”

  “It’s something else.”

  She returns with a small package and tries to show it to me under the purple light: Гнилое яблоко поллюция.

  “I can’t read Cyrillic … ” I tell her.

  “It’s a Russian pollute that was banned earlier this year,” she explains. “It’s a knock-off of a popular Novaya Zarya scent with added entheogenic properties. I ran into a few on a trip to Ukraine earlier this year. The businessman I was with told me I could take as much as I wanted – so I took them all.”

  “How many more do you have?” I ask excitedly.

  “I guess I should restate that last sentence. There were only three so I took all three. I have two left now.” She bends forward and starts tinkering with the pollution distributor.

  “What’s it like? I mean, what did he say?”

  “He said the visuals were great, colors were everywhere, lost in time – this sort of thing. He was speaking in Ukrainian at this point so I only caught bits and pieces. We’re born – ha ha funny word – with fluency in ten of the world’s most widely used languages: English, Russian, Mandarin, Hindi, Korean, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese and Arabic. Any fringe languages can prove a bit challenging. While we’re able to download linguistic apps, I usually don’t need to because most people I deal with speak one of these languages.”

  “Really? And you brought this packet just for me?

  “Yes, you weren’t supposed to pay me. However, since you already did, I thought I’d get something for you in exchange. I don’t see any of that money anyways. You should know that. Ready?”

  “Let us begin!” I say in my deepest of voices.

  She laughs. “You are a strange, strange human, Meme.”

  SIXTEEN∞

  “I’m busy,” Nelly told her husband, Antimeria. Her husband was nearly twice her age and he spent all of his free time with ladyboy Humandroids, a fact he routinely denied. She wasn’t stupid. It was pretty easy to use a bee-sized drone to follow him and see what he was up to. While illegal in most countries, the drones were legal in the States.

  “I just wanted to talk … ” He was speaking to her on iNet. His voice was crisp and clear.

  “Busy.”

  She disconnected the call and sighed. Her aeros was nearing the border between Mexico and the United States. Twenty-foot-high blast walls and Hesco barriers lined either side of the street. FCG military police troops strolled back and forth with Personnel Halting and Stimulation Response Rifles known as PHASRs. The abundant razor tape gave the border checkpoint a sharp gleam.

  It wasn’t difficult for Nelly to smuggle illegal pollutes across the border. Because of her husband’s position in the Federal Corporate Government, Nelly was granted full border check immunity stemming from a 2075 federal law called the Move Freely Spend Swiftly FCG Immunity Bill or MFSSFIB for short. Her driver, an older model Humandroid named Noah, wasn’t even required to stop at the border. As he drove past, a holochecker delineated the aeros into FCG and non-FCG approved lanes.

  “Good stuff?” Noah asked. He was a slim, angular Humandroid with a knack for fashion (blue Salvatore Ferragamo cravat, a silver suit with pink stitching and thick eyeliner around his left eye). He’d been her caretaker and driver for two years now.

  “I think so,” Nelly said on the tail end of a yawn. “I’ve tried some of the Bhutanese pollutes before. They’re made from the shells of a toxic snail they have in the mountains there. People are constantly getting arrested for trying to cross the border from Bhutan into China with the shells. At some points, you don’t know if you’re intoxicated, at other points you’re frightened. It’s like mixing an upper and a downer. It really fucks with your head, you know? I wouldn’t try the stuff again, but some people like this type of high.”

  “Someone always does.”

  Nelly leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “Have you contacted
anyone at escort distribution yet? I want to get rid of this stuff quickly. Walliburton is buying a lot from me lately.”

  “I’ll contact them again once we cross the border.”

  “Good.”

  To jump through more legal loopholes, Walliburton had Humandroids smuggle illegal pollutes to be distributed by their escort services. However, since a Humandroid couldn’t be granted border immunity, an actual human was required to bring the pollutes into the country alongside the Humandroid. From there, Humandroids could do the rest of the work.

  The sole reason for Humandroids not being granted border immunity was the isolationistic views of many Americans, most stemming from the mass deportation and border restriction years of the 2050s, known publicly as MassDeport 2050 and in history circles as the Third Red Scare.

  FCG Officials didn’t want any chance of illegal Mexican immigrants, Islamic terrorists, pseudo Chè Guevaras, Zapatistas or Humandroid mercenaries making it into the country. Various celebutards and Dr. Hewman himself lobbied against the inclusion of Humandroids in the measure, arguing that the idea of Humandroid mercenaries would be impossible given the limitations in their circuitry. As they usually do, xenophobic fears won against reason, and the borders between the United States and Mexico made airport security pale in comparison. Strangely, Canada never saw an increase in border security.

  In the late 2060s, a countrywide crackdown of illegal immigrants was funded by selling student loan debt bonds. Officials checked records all the way back to a family’s grandparents in an effort to make sure all illegal immigrants, even those with legal status due to being born from illegals on American soil, were sent back to their respective countries with a slap on the ass.

  A series of panels led by a former NIMA (NOT IN MY AMERICA) lobbyist named Joey McCartney began investigating celebutards, companies, and anyone deemed dangerous by the FCG. The commission published a large collection of eBooks and trinkets, most of which were hawked at RepubCorp national parties and funneled through local RepubCorp chapters.

  Joey McCartney died by falling off an Ayn Rand balloon at the 2065 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. While drunk off pollutes, McCartney tried to crawl to the top of the balloon into snarling Rand’s left nostril. To the horror of millions watching nationwide, he fell head first into a tuba of the marching band below, after the float had hit a bump in the road. The impact killed him instantly (and severely damaged the tuba).

  Interesting tidbit: it was later revealed that the road was supposed to have been repaved by a construction crew weeks earlier. The contract had been dropped after the company was accused by one of McCartney’s panels of hiring illegal workers.

  As is the case with many demagogues, a pro-deportation initiative was started in McCartney’s honor to beef up rhetoric and target adolescence. The initiative produced pro-deportation Internet spam, funded a children’s show based on Sesame Street (called America’s Street), helped develop pro-deportation video games and published childhood books.

  Nelly vividly remembers her parents praising the initiative and buying her books extolling the benefits of deportation and border restrictions. Books such as Get ‘em Out of My Country, America is for Americans, How to be a Patriot, America: Land of the Free as Long as you were Freely Born Here, filled Nelly’s childhood bookshelf.

  Her favorite at the time was a picture book called Send ‘em Back, which was a hybrid between a regular and an electronic book. The book even had a game you could play (similar to the archaic Angry Birds game popular with primitive smart phones) where you loaded illegals into a slingshot and shot them back over the border. Every time you scored, you received what was called a ‘deport point’ from the Department of Homeland Security. Once you collected enough deport points, you could use the points to buy student loan debt bonds.

  After Nelly hit college, she realized her parents were racist bigots and quickly found the first Mexican guy she could and handed over her virginity to him like it was a sack on fire. They fucked and fucked and she cried out hoarsely in Spanish, “Muy Caliente! Muy Caliente!”

  Years later, she looked upon her deflowering ceremony as a retort to a childhood wasted in rhetoric and ignorance. The Mexican guy looked upon her deflowering as a lucky break with a super-hot co-ed. In the end, both got what they wanted.

  “What’s on your mind, sweetie?” Noah asked as they hovered through the border checkpoint. He winked at her through the rearview mirror.

  “Same old … ” She softly rested her hands on her pregnant stomach.

  Nelly made more money than she could possibly spend simply by driving across the border, picking up duffel bags filled with pollutes, and quickly bringing them Stateside. After the first few runs, she lost the excitement one feels when they’re committing the crime. She had little or no chance of being caught and even if she were caught, she could easily get out of it. Her life of crime had become damn near pedestrian.

  “Getting bored with the job?” Noah asked intuitively.

  “Maybe. I just need some excitement in my life. I’m seven and a half months pregnant and I’m losing steam fast.”

  “When was the last time you went out to a pollution bar? Maybe you just need some fun. You know dance, hook up … ”

  “I was out last week, but got sidetracked talking to Carloza and dealing with some drama in the bathroom. I think I’ll go out later this week. Why sit around and do nothing, you know?”

  “I know. I can’t stand doing nothing either,” Noah said. Nelly didn’t know that Noah and older assistant Humandroids like Noah were programmed (some say over-programmed) to sympathize. She had little to no understanding when it came to robo-socio biomimicry.

  “Really?” Nelly looked from the window to Noah. She wore a pair of cantaloupe-sized glasses that nearly reached to the bottom of her chin.

  “Really. It’s just so hard to feel that way. I understand what you’re saying and what you’re going through. On the lighter days of my job, the times I’m away from you, I just get so bored. It’s very upsetting.” He frowned.

  “You get bored too? Poor Noah … ”

  “It’s okay; I’ll figure it out one day … ”

  “You’re so sweet and loyal, Noah. I don’t know what I’d do without you. You know how I feel about Antimeria … ”

  “You can’t stand him, and for good reason. He is … ”

  “Fat and horrible,” they both said at the same time.

  “Exactly,” Noah confirmed. “And you deserve better than that man as a husband!”

  “I should just get rid of the damn thing.” Nelly flicked her belly.

  “The child?”

  “What am I doing with a kid anyway? I’m so young!”

  “I agree. It’s such a hard decision to make.”

  “God, tell me about it. Every day I look down at my ballooning belly button and cry.”

  “Oh sweetie … ”

  “It’s so horrible,” Nelly began to sob. “I just am getting fatter and fatter. I mean, I’m going to have to do an intense couple months of Pilates to get back into shape. I’ll probably have to go on a diet. Then there are the trips to the sweat lodge. I’ll need to go at least twice a week. It’s just so horrible.”

  “Oh sweet little Nelly, don’t worry. It won’t take you that long. You’re so strong and passionate. I wouldn’t worry. A year from now, you’ll be better than ever. You’ll look the greatest you’ve ever looked and you’ll have the hottest accessory of the year.”

  “I know,” Nelly’s expression changed from one of grief to one of pride. “Nothing like a baby in your arms. It solidifies your humanity, and looks so cool in a side-sling.”

  “I agree. Those side-slings are so adorable. What type are you going to get? I found some pretty interesting designs on Rakuten.”

  “So far, I have two,” she said. “There’s the shark skin Hermès one and the Gucci camel belly one that Antimeria got me. I mean, that one is limited to five in the entire world. The entire world, Noah.
He can be nice sometimes.”

  “I know honey, he really can.”

  “But I’m going to get tons more. I’ve been meaning to go shopping, but exotic pollutes are in such a demand right now that transporting them is taking up all my – I mean all our – time. It seems like we’re always in transit.”

  “That’s true, it does seem like that.”

  “Next time I go shopping for a side-sling however, I’m getting you something, okay?” Nelly sat forward and smiled at Noah.

  “You don’t have to do that … ”

  “No. You deserve it. Something really fashionable. Like human bone cufflinks or one of those Hilton-Bush blood diamond bow ties ... ”

  SEVENTEEN∞

  “Meme’s a fool … ” Tyro said to his wife, Hannah, as they ate at a local Tibetan restaurant. Tyro was Meme’s co-worker, and therapist to Yeshi’s twin sister, Rinchi. “Such a fucktard.” He watched as he wife slowly nibbled at her bowl of fried then-tuk. Each thumb-sized noodle looked like a giant slug slipping into her predatory lips.

  “You say that too much honey.”

  “I think it’s the pollutes. He’s constantly late to work and his performance as of late has dropped dramatically. A few of his clients have complained to me about him. They’re worried too.”

  “What can you do?”

  “If I were his boss, I’d fire him in a heartbeat,” Tyro sighed. “About the only thing I can do is submit an official complaint. I’ve already done that twice this month and it seems to have little or no effect. BlackAguaUSA is slacking in their management as of late.”

  “Things will work out soon enough, Ty.” Hannah reached for her glass of aloe vera juice.

  Hannah was an elegant woman, soft spoken and drop-dead gorgeous. She had icy blue eyes and thick blonde hair that had been pulled back into a short pony tail. Her lips were a size too large for her thin face. There were freckles across her nose, like loose crumbs on a table, and her eyebrows were thin and elaborately shaped. She wore a pair of jade earrings which matched the green cashmere scarf draped over one of her shoulders.