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

by Harmon Cooper

  Diva-beast reaches her hand into the latex glove, motioning me forward. As she does this, she slides her other hand into the other glove. Her tail spreads the hand fan behind her body, slowly bringing it to her face to cover the lower half of her mouth. Intriguing but still, I’m not interested. One of the salarymen runs to her outstretched latex hands and quickly faints. Again – her eyes lock on me, pulsating to the beat of the dubtastic choons crackling the speakers overhead.

  Seeing a woman with cat ears and a tail pretend-flirt with me from behind a thick hunk of Plexiglas is hardly arousing. Besides, I’m already well on my way to entering the place I most prefer to inhabit – the Empyrean; the unanalyzable feverish gash between ever-present and chemical conception; the blissful spot between fucked and screwed. We are what we eat and I am what I inhale. Besides, I have things I need to forget.

  Yeshi squeezes my hand. Homo machina meet Homo sapiens – Meme and Yeshi por vida. One organic, the other of wiring and genius, non-biological intelligence. One intoxicated, the other unable to partake. We’ve been through so much together and we haven’t even known each other for a month. Still, I have things I need to forget.

  It’s not often one goes from childbirth to Japan in less than a week.

  My electronic half is wearing a Junya Watanabe pollution mask she picked up in Omotesando. Cost me a pretty yenny but it was worth it. The mask is clear, made from an epoxy resin reinforced with carbon fiber. As with all designer masks in Tokyo, it is meant to be worn as an accessory. Bring Your Own Mask (BYOM) whenever possible, kids.

  I smile at Yeshi, even though it is impossible for her to see the smile through my opaque mask. With pleasantries aside, I turn back to the debauchery at hand. Diva-beast continues to beckon me forward. Another salaryman stumbles forward with the word kanpai on his lips. His mask, a blue Doreamon number, hangs off the side of his head. As he rambles forward towards the diva-beast’s outstretched hands, his mask bobs up and down in a sinister way. He reaches the woman’s latex-laden gloves and falls into them.

  “Move, Meme!” Yeshi says. I turn to her, noticing that her pupils have dilated. She’s scanning the diva-beast from afar.

  “What?” I take another inhale off my pollution mask. My lungs fill and a tingling sensation needles through my body. I look up just in time to see diva-beast hook her latex fingers into the man’s mouth and eye sockets. The Japanese man screams as she picks him up with one hand. She pulls this hand back, slamming him face-first into the Plexiglas.

  Thud! She does this again, splattering the glass with blood.

  “Meme!” Yeshi practically scoops me under her arm as she merges into the crowd of men trying to exit the stuffy room. I look back over my shoulder to see diva-beast punching her fist against the Plexiglas, intent on freeing herself, her dilated eyes boring a hole through me.

  THREE∞

  Antimeria sat at his desk on the fifty-third floor of the Monsanto Golden Seed building, an oval-shaped behemoth that housed the offices of many of the century’s most successful business conglomerates. He was standing and looking down at his desk, reviewing the pictures from yesterday’s assassination of Edgar Cave. Bloody handprints covered the target’s bedroom walls. His intestines had been pulled out of his body, left to rot in a pile on his bedroom floor. His knees had been broken and his legs were splayed. Gruesome didn’t even begin to describe the images.

  A call came in on iNet.

  “Meme’s chip has been traced to Tokyo,” his secretary said instead of hello. Her image appeared in the corner of his eyelids.

  “Tell me more.” Antimeria sat down in his chair. His arms instinctively crossed behind his head and he leaned back. He was a HedgeRoth manager at FreddieDickMac, working alongside a team of seasoned cretins with PhDs in Obfuscation. The fund’s primary investments were in crypto currencies, faux-democratic regimes, mortgages, pollute distribution companies, PACs, advanced weaponry and companies that researched body-switching technology.

  While body-switching was currently illegal in most countries, everyone knew it would be legal at some point, and the companies that invested in it now would come out ahead in twenty or thirty years’ time. Besides, most of the companies researching body-switching had contracts with the FCG, the proverbial handjob with the courtesy of a reach-around.

  His secretary said, “I’m transferring the video feed now … and it is sent.”

  “Got it.”

  Antimeria pulled up the video feed in another window. The video was actually a collage of three videos. It started with what appeared to be the perspective of a Humandroid sex worker looking at a man in an audience full of pollute-intoxicated Japanese men. The man was Hispanic, in his late thirties. His life chip indicated he was indeed Meme Lamar. Next to him was a woman wearing a Japanese pollution mask. Yeshi. The collage then cut to a picture of the two escaping along with the rest of the audience. What followed was a video of them entering a ramen restaurant. From there the feed ended.

  Meme had taken Antimeria’s wife and his baby; he’d sucker-punched his best friend, Sauria, in the face. The crazed man was a terrorist in every sense of the word, not to mention the fact that he was also a homewrecker. “I need you to forward this video to Rinchi at MercSecure and Sauria and his team at ExEx,” he said.

  “They’re the ones that forwarded it to me.”

  “Perfect. Everything is finally falling into place.”

  _∞_

  Rinchi was sitting in the waiting room at the HuffingtonJones office in New York when she received the video. Meme and Yeshi had been found. After viewing the video twice, she immediately placed a call to Antimeria.

  “LA misses you.”

  “Hello. New York is dreary.”

  Antimeria chuckled. “I see you’re wearing a necklace.”

  Wrapped around Rinchi’s sculpted neck was a gold choker that spelled the word droid in cursive letters.

  “Oh this?” She ran her hand along the letters. “I decided to treat myself, so I ordered it on the flight and an Ebaymazon drone delivered it to me at the airport. Not bad, huh?”

  The word droid was considered derogatory by several human rights groups. They argued that it held the same connotation as a plethora of other derogatory terms used to refer to minority groups. The largest anti-droid lobbyist, a D.C. nonprofit called Fight Fake Roboterror and Invest in Global Harmony Training (FFRIGHT), bombarded American Humandroid owners with messages arguing against the exploitation of Humandroids. Of course, all hell broke loose once it was revealed that FFRIGHT had been using Humandroid escorts to sway the opinions of DemoCorp members of the House.

  TLDR – the word droid is thought to be derogatory by some, but Humandroids themselves actually use the term freely, hence Rinchi’s droid choker – she wanted to make a good impression for her first and last meeting with Dustin Grier.

  “It is a little blatant for my taste,” Antimeria said, “but if it makes you happy, by all means. How is New York?”

  “I haven’t had a chance to explore yet.”

  “I see. Is … Dustin Grier going to get the same treatment as Edgar Cave?”

  “Well, that depends on how generous I’m feeling.” She smiled. There were cameras all over New York and one was currently focused on her, meaning Antimeria could see her evil little grin over his iNet feed. Of course, Rinchi was aware of this. She uncrossed her legs in a way that was slightly provocative.

  “Careful, you’re in public.”

  “It happens.”

  He chuckled softly. “Are you enjoying your new line of work?”

  “More than you could possible imagine.”

  “I knew you’d be good at it, but may I make a suggestion?”

  “Please.”

  “You may want to … ” he hesitated a moment. “How do I say this? You may want to think of a better way to go about your business. Less gore, babe.”

  “You saw the pictures?” she asked.

  “Yes, and they weren’t for the faint of heart
either. I don’t know how you got his intestines out of his body, and I really don’t want to know. I just hope the poor fool didn’t suffer.”

  The HuffingtonJones receptionist walked over to Rinchi and told her that Dustin Grier was ready to see her.

  “I have to go,” she said to Antimeria.

  “I understand. Make it quick, got it?”

  “Got it.”

  “And no disemboweling. Keep the man’s organs inside his body, please.”

  “But I want to see how they work … ” she said in a playful tone.

  “That’s what iNet is for. Once you’re done in New York, I want you on the first plane to Tokyo. I need to clear this with Sauria, but I’m sure he’ll agree.”

  “I will need to return to LA for supplies, especially if I’m going to see Meme and Yeshi.”

  “At my place?”

  “Yes, and at MercSecure headquarters. I’ll get what I need and be on my way,” she said.

  “Good. I’ll see you in time for an early dinner tonight.”

  The receptionist harrumphed and Rinchi smiled at her. After disconnecting the call she stood, clutching her LV bag under her arm. She did a quick vitals scan on the receptionist and decided to spare her life. A little luck had just been handed to her and she figured it was worth passing on.

  FOUR∞

  Tokyo.

  The future bends around me and the Big Noodle stirs as others have said before. The electronic bath violates my senses, producing a euphoric sense of über-pure nausea. The buildings stretch to the sky to keep God away and man on top of the world. Better – they look climbable in my current state. Betterer – I’d give anything for the chance to King Kong my way to the top and scream at the top of my lungs, “I am not balderdash! I am not as artificial as I appear to be! I know the formula for futility! I am the forty-eighth Ronin! I have daddy issues!”

  I am Meme, you are Meme, the eggman has cracked, the walrus has sharpened his tusks with plans to commit seppuku. Fuck if the truth doesn’t jar the senses like diving into a boiling pool full of liquid cocaine. Swimming our way to the top for our final breath never felt so stupid, so dull, so poignant, so relevant – chaos is best played by ear. Je suis fucked up!

  Light hits me as if I were being bashed in the face by a Christmas tree. People wearing Hachiko masks gambol and sparrowfart through the streets on their way home. Drunken denizens ripped to the high heavens off pollutes cry out, become embarrassed for their outbursts, bow in apology, fall and crack their heads open on the pavement to be cleaned up by old men wearing yellow hardhats the following morning. Modern day Zen is alienating – there is no better place to be out of place.

  “Hurry, Meme!” Yeshi is moving on the street in front of me, her hand in mine. She’s dressed like a conservative Japanese teen (lacey skirt, cardigan, brown tights and stack sandals), even though it’s cold outside. The only thing that makes her stand out is her height and ample boobage.

  I love you! I love you Yeshi and your electronic heart made from melamine! Where would I be without you? Who else would have delivered Nelly’s baby? Who else would take care of me in my moments of need? Who else would listen to me ramble on about senseless things and watched me slowly evade responsibility via a chemical rabbit hole?

  I almost say it, I almost tell her how I really feel but something stops me. Instead, I go with a question, “Why are we running?”

  “That thing was going to kill you.”

  Diva-beast?

  The skepticism must be clear on my face. Yeshi says, “That woman wasn’t human.”

  “With the tail? Are we talking about the same woman?” My brain vibrates inside my skull as the genetically-modified josei reappears in my mind’s eye. I could quickly view my memory files on the iNet cloud, but that would take effort and who wants to work when they’re on vacation?

  “Seriously?” I ask. “She was a Humandroid?”

  “Yes.”

  “Strange.”

  American companies aren’t allowed to manufacture Humandroids that resemble genetically modified humans. Blame NIMA (Not in My America), the extreme right wing group that lobbied with the slogan, “Only God’s creatures can have animal features!” The shit trickles downhill even in uphill battles.

  Yeshi stops in front of a ramen shop. Steam pours out as the door opens and two men spill out. They stumble forward, clutching their bellies like old friends. Spikes keep them from leaning against the railing near a group of expertly crafted bonsai shrubs. Hostile architecture to be sure. Yeshi says, “I scanned her. She was one of the units owned by MercSecure.”

  “MercSecure?” I press into the ramen shop, enticed by the smell of ginger, garlic, meat, and miso soup mix. The cook shouts something to me in Japanese and I nod as if I understand. A deep breath does nothing to suppress the tracers swirling at the perimeters of my vision.

  “Meme, we need to get moving.”

  I rub my temples, still not comfortable with my current body. Carloza’s body is shit. “What were you saying about MercSecure?”

  “They’re after us, Meme, and they’re not just sending humans. That was a Humandroid made to resemble a genetically modified Japanese woman. Are you listening to me?”

  “She’s still out there?” I ask. My eyes turn to the door.

  Yeshi takes off her fashionable pollution mask. Her finger lightly presses a button on the side of the mask and the chin morphs into a V shape. The sides fold until it resembles the spine of a book. She opens her bag, retrieving a felt carrying case for the mask.

  “How could she even tell it was me?” I ask, but I already know the answer.

  All humans have a small life chip implanted in their skull the day they are born. Life chips allow for vital monitoring, body-switching, iNet, memory storage and various other things associated with a neo-fascist police states and future technologies that we’ve all come to love. They don’t normally have any blow-backs, that is, until one is wanted by a government. Then the chips cause all sorts of problems.

  I’ve been using a chip-masker in public settings, but add the right pollutes to a touchy situation and anything can become a SNAFU. (For those who don’t remember: a chip-masker was the reason Yeshi didn’t know I was a Humandroid therapist when we first met. It was also the reason Rinchi didn’t know Tyro was in my body, before she killed him. They really do work.)

  “I turned off the chip-masker,” I finally admit.

  The color of my chip is what gave me away. The heads (as viewed through an ocular enhancement) of wanted fugitives glow a different color when a Humandroid does a routine vitals scan on a suspect. This was why the diva-beast was focusing so hard on me – she was confirming my identity.

  Yeshi rolls her eyes. “Why did you turn it off?”

  “It was annoying me. It creates this little icon on the bottom of my iNet screen when it was on. Incessant blinking. Every time I close my eyes I see this little red dot. I was just tired of seeing it and I figured we’d be fine inside a shady-ass place like that.”

  “You shouldn’t have done that.”

  Christ she is beautiful and Christ I am fucked. It doesn’t take the FCG long to make someone disappear once their location is ascertained.

  She says, “I’m guessing they’ve put an instant kill alert on you, which is rare. They only do this for humans deemed as a threat to the state – top level terrorists.”

  “They think I’m a terrorist?”

  It is nothing to brag about but it is something. In 2083, the word terrorist is used so loosely that it has come to mean a number of things. Blog terrorists steal digital data and post them on pre-dated blogs to claim copyright infringement through ironclad lawsuits. Food terrorists infiltrate special allergy restaurants and modify the food by adding the ingredient the restaurant purports to shun. Handicap terrorists use fake data to take advantage of all the perks the FCG provides for the disabled. Protection proxy terrorists disrupt Chinese firewalls allowing the citizens of the hyper-repressed country t
o view whatever they’d like on iNet. There are more terrorist classifications than there are actual terrorists.

  Yeshi explains, “The feline Humandroid at the pollute bar continually scans the crowd; it’s part of her job to keep track of the people that visit the establishment. She saw you, an alarm sounded on the network, and she tried to break through the Plexiglass to get to you. The network is now aware of the fact that you are in Tokyo.” She squeezed my hand. “Sorry, Meme, we’ve been found.”

  There is nothing worse than being on the brink of epic inebriation and getting some sort of unsettling news that kills all the fun.

  “Dammit … ” I watch as the ramen chef uses an over-sized set of chopsticks to lift a dollop of noodles. Water spills onto the ground and he tosses the noodles back into the boiling water. I’d rather be a noodle than a wanted fugitive.

  “Your location is now known on the global network,” she says, as if I don’t already know that.

  Humandroids can communicate on a private network only accessible by them and the companies that manage them. Like iNet, a user can disable their own access to the network. Yeshi’s has been disabled since the incident at the restaurant a week ago. This is both good and bad. It is good because it allows us to move freely under the radar, aided by the status of the new body I currently inhabit (and my chip-masker, when I use it). The bad comes with the fact that Yeshi can’t access the exclusive Humandroid network without revealing her current location, meaning she isn’t able to view things such as the most-wanted terrorist list with my name at the top. After all, this is still classified info.

  “So what now?” I ask.

  Yeshi bites her bottom lip. It is a gesture she has surely picked up from a human, a gesture meant to show that she’s contemplating something. Part of me believes she is truly thinking of a strategy. The other part of me knows she is browsing iNet and statistically weighing our options after judging other people’s experiences as FCG targets. Surely someone has been in my situation before and posted their experience on some cryptic message board. After all, there’s nothing new under the digital sun.