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

by Harmon Cooper

  Rinchi didn’t respond to the message. She looked out the window instead, watching a passing aeros haul another beat-up, badly dented aeros.

  Keva: Now that I cut your tongue out, I don’t have anyone talk to. Do you think I’m pretty?

  Keva: Hello.

  Keva: Hi?

  Keva: Hola muchacha! I mean, muchacho.

  Rinchi: Your childish behavior will be what kills you. You’re a representative. Act like it.

  Keva: There you are! I looked at the pictures of your first two kills. You have a lot of built up rage, Humandroid. I liked the S&M touches. Viewing the pictures was almost erotic.

  Rinchi didn’t respond.

  Keva: Talk to me.

  Keva: Говори со мной или я отрежу твой яйчки и поставлю в горло. (Talk to me or I’ll cut off your balls and stuff them in your mouth.)

  Rinchi: Tongue for a tongue – remember that.

  Keva: My tongue is already bionic. Didn’t you see that in your scan? Look again.

  Rinchi performed a quick vitals scan.

  Keva: See, told you! MercSecure has access to technology that corporations like Walliburton don’t have. My tongue is an example. It was grown from the cells of my old tongue through a top secret research program called Gene—

  (The word cut off.)

  MercSecure iNet Security Monitor: Representative Keva, Representative two-four-seven is not cleared to receive that level of classified information.

  Keva: My bad!

  Keva turned to Rinchi and smiled. “The program is called Gene X. It’s the next step in the evolutionary process. Imagine something that is actually a genetic splice between a Humandroid and a human—”

  The driver cleared his throat. “This is a warning, Ms. Keva, Control states that if you divulge any more information, you won’t be paid. You will also go back into the isolation chamber until your attitude improves.”

  Keva’s smart-ass expression vanished. “Yes, sir,” she said, looking down at her grenade launcher.

  The driver shook his head as the aeros lifted into the air.

  _∞_

  “Okay, what about Meme?” Antimeria asked.

  “We have someone else going after Meme in Tokyo. Several people, actually.” Lorem Ipsum sawed into his pork like a madman. He used the piece to mop up some mashed potatoes.

  “Who’s going after Meme?”

  Lorem grinned. “Our number five representative, a Japanese Humandroid named Hajime. He’s technically retired, but he still does work for us from time to time, especially if it’s in his region. He’s also a part-time weapons dealer, which is more or less a hobby of his.”

  “I guess everyone needs a hobby.” Antimeria ran his hand over the tiny bald spot at the back of his head.

  Sauria burped. He looked like he was having trouble keeping his food down. “You know, I’ve met Hajime, back in 2079 I think it was. He’s out there, that’s for sure. Into all this Japanese Zen stuff, but he still kills for hire. That’s the one problem with these droid representatives – they have time to do other stuff, like pursue hobbies and whatnot.”

  “We simply don’t have enough problems for them to resolve to keep them busy at all times.” Lorem swallowed hard. “Hopefully we will one day.”

  “That’s true. I suppose Anti is right, everyone needs a hobby.”

  “Anyone want an energy drink?” Antimeria asked. “I’m losing steam over here.”

  A holographic menu emerged from a slit at the end of the table. He waved his hand and the page turned. “Ah, this looks good – Black Angel Shake.”

  “What’s that?” Sauria licked his lips.

  “Chocolate ice cream mixed with Mountain Dew, taurine powder, sugar-free Red Bull and Lotte pineapple bev. Looks damn good.”

  “Make it three,” Sauria said.

  TWENTY-THREE∞

  Yeshi sat seiza-style in front of a small coffee table. “You never told me your name,” she said to the Humandroid who had been wearing a basket on his head earlier. He was on the other side of the coffee table with his legs in full-lotus.

  “Hajime.”

  “You do yoga?” she asked.

  “Not on purpose,” Hajime said. “Would you like to see the weapons now or would you like to drink some hot water with me? American Humandroids have the same H2O requirements that Japanese Humandroids have, yes?”

  “Water would be nice,” she said.

  Hajime walked over to a tea tansu made of Paulownia wood. He found two tea cups and brought them back to the small table. The cups were handle-less, formed of clay that had been glazed with ash.

  “Chawan,” he explained. He returned moments later with a teapot. “This is called a kyusu.” The teapot was made of porcelain and decorated with delicate blue flowers. It had a single, stumpy handle.

  “I’ve always wanted to attend a tea ceremony.”

  He laughed. “Not quite a tea ceremony, but it’s always nice to treat guests as old friends.” He poured hot water into Yeshi’s chawan, which fit perfectly in her cupped palms.

  “Thank you,” she said, bowing slightly.

  He placed his cup on the table. “Let’s talk weapons.”

  “I’ll need a Humgun,” she said.

  “Of course.” Hajime snapped his finger. The tatami mat next to the table slid open and a platform arose from the ground. Weapons were attached to the platform via leather straps.

  “Not bad.” Yeshi took another sip of her water. She sent a quick message to Meme: coming soon, honey.

  “These aren’t the weapons for you,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  The floor continued to open as the platform slid forward; another platform appeared where the previous one had been. This one contained make-up items.

  “We’ll start here.” He stood and the platform rose until it was at his waist-level. “Here,” he said, handing her a bottle of mascara.

  “A Humgun?” she asked.

  “Yes, one that is concealable. It can even make it past airport security. Try it.”

  She twisted the cap off the mascara and looked at the brush covered in black make-up. “How does it work?” she asked.

  “Close the cap and point the bottom of the container at that wall. Hold it with your thumb on top. Oh, one moment please.”

  A small slot on the ceiling opened up and a circular target attached to a long pole dropped into the room. A red light flashed in the middle of the target.

  “Now point the bottom of the mascara bottle at the target and send a small electric charge to your hand.”

  Yeshi did as instructed. A small discharged fired out of the weapon and the target turned green.

  “That’s it?”

  “This Humgun isn’t messy like some of the American models. It is activated by a sensor in your thumb and it is completely silent.”

  “I’ve never seen this type of technology before,” Yeshi said as she examined the mascara bottle.

  “If one finds the need to visit Madoka,” Hajime nodded up at the ceiling, to the second floor where his owner sat in his VE rig, “then one is in need of this type of technology. This is just the start. Let’s move on.”

  The platform dropped back down until it was about knee-height. It moved forward, towards the platform that held several modded Humguns. A new platform emerged from the open floor. There were four electronic circles with teal screens on this platform. Yeshi knew exactly what they were – apploaders.

  “Are you familiar with data-switch technology?” Hajime asked.

  “It’s the same as body-switching, isn’t it?” She did a quick search over iNet.

  “No, it is not the same.”

  “Nothing about it online. You said data-switch, right?”

  “The inventors of data-switch technology routinely cover it up. The information is kept on hyper-encrypted servers, accessible only through a series of security portals. Access has only been granted to a few.”

 
; Hajime took a sip of his hot water. “Most people assume using data-switch tech is the same as body-switching. Body-switching is the result of taking an electro-neural feed and switching the person receiving the feed. All the traits of the life chip are moved from one body to the next. It truly is changing bodies with someone because the original person now exists in another person’s body. Body-switching is one-for-one, a complete swap of life chip information.”

  “Okay.”

  “A data-switch is completely different. Data-switch technology simply switches the identity of the two people. If we did a data-switch and someone scanned your vitals, it would appear as if you were another person entirely, yet you would keep your thought processes, memories and current body. The only thing that would switch is the identifying markers.”

  “Hmmmm…”

  “Think of using data-switch tech like trading names with someone. Each person keeps their true identity and personality traits; only their names change. And as you know vital scans look at two things: bodily functions and digital identities.”

  “It’s not possible,” Yeshi said, “the neural imprint is … is part of the life chip inside a human’s skull. The information is intrinsically linked. It’s ingrained.”

  Hajime smiled. “How do you think Richard Hewman has managed to stay alive?”

  “He’s alive?”

  Hajime shrugged. “If you truly want to disappear with your human, you’ll need to completely change the data that the FCG and various corporate entities have on him. You’ll need to alter his digital footprint, to include the way his chip appears when another Humandroid does a vitals scan on him. Luckily, we can do this using data-switch technology.”

  TWENTY-FOUR∞

  And so it begins. On the verge of intoxication and the pollution room door creaks open. I’m completely lost now, stuck in a toxic void that numbs my senses. Low cost locusts and psychic sidekicks pick my brain’s oblique remains. Green polypropylene adds fifty shades to everything. My pupils contract.

  A hand lands on my shoulder. “Meme!”

  “Huh?” A sound emerges from a mucous membrane stretched horizontally across a larynx. Exhale and the airstream again hits the trachea with a jarring vibration as the trapped air is released. Each puff of air hits the pharynx, creating a sound wave that metastasizes as it moves towards the inside of the lips. It travels to my eardrums, high-fiving the ossicles and cozying up next to my cochleae, where thousands of itty-bitty hairs interpret the sound. My name is my ecstasy.

  “Meme!”

  And the pollution mask comes off and a pair of lips meets mine and a body crawls into my lap after a bag is dropped on the floor.

  “Yeshi?” My senses berate me like sexually deprived headmasters with sharp switches. Replace switches with shudders and eclipses and that pretty much encapsulates my feelings at the moment. “Darling.”

  “I’m back.”

  Another kiss, this one on my forehead. “I need a new body,” I say.

  “You won’t be getting a new body any time soon.” Yeshi turns her back to me and leans backwards, so her head is under my chin.

  “What are you doing?” I ask. The Japanese entheogen is for lightweights and I’m already starting to sober up, at least I think I am.

  “Resting.”

  “Where?”

  “Here. I just need to sleep for a few hours. We need to be up extra early, about five. Maybe earlier. Someone’s coming.”

  “There’s never been a point in my life that I could justify getting up so early.”

  She asks, “What if the point is your life?”

  “Touché.”

  “Sleep with me?”

  “Where?” I kiss the top of her head and she curls around again, until her legs are dangling over my arm.

  “The floor,” she says.

  “There are no blankets.”

  “Are you cold?” she asks.

  “I guess not.”

  “Then come on.” She slides down to the floor, pulling my arm with her. She presses her body into mine, fitting perfectly in the groove created when I thrust my hips back.

  “Did you bring me something to eat?” I ask, feeling my stomach twist.

  “In my bag.” I brush my hand against the floor until I’ve found her bag. My hand dips inside, touching something cold that feels like a weapon. It moves from the weapon to her pollution mask and from her pollution mask to what feels like a bottle of mascara.

  I find the plastic packages of two Soylent bars and quickly wolf one down, stuffing the whole thing into my mouth. Carloza’s body is still getting used to eating less. His heartburn, caused by countless Mexican feasts and fiestas, comes in gnarly waves. If I’m going to be stuck in this body for a while, I might as well improve upon it.

  “Yeshi…” I return to my position directly behind her, spooning because it’s impossible to fork or knife. “Yeshi?”

  She doesn’t answer. I kiss her on the back of the head and whisper goodnight.

  TWENTY-FIVE∞

  The next day feels like a kick in the balls, a spearing of the senses, a line in the sand.

  I wake up with a pollute hangover, craving BlackAguaUSA Morning Body Dump. It’s a special pollute, made by the Walliburton company through a partnership with an old private security firm that tried to rebrand itself by creating pollution dispensing products and generic masks. I’m not the biggest fan of BlackAgua masks, but they get the job done, and some people claim that the dispenser valves on the front of their masks are tweaked to let in two percent more than the legal limit, something which hasn’t been independently verified.

  Early morning sunlight from a window covered in clear black tape reflects off the stripper pole in the center of the room. I don’t remember seeing the pole the night before, and I think about taking a fireman spin for all of two seconds before my brain skips to something else. Yeshi sits on the floor with her legs crossed and her fingers in some meditative pose. I look from her to the mask and I choose the mask. Paths to enlightenment may vary; I love the smell of pollutes in the morning.

  Fiction is written with the idea that a character will change through the prose, that they will learn something, or they will ultimately be defeated. The early twenty-first century saw the advent of the bad guy as a main character, a proto-protagonist + antagonist with more skills than just saving the cat. The middle of the twenty-first century saw a return to morality, which luckily didn’t last long as it was too easy to find some fappable online porn or something equally twisted on iNet.

  I suppose towards the end of the twenty-first century – where I am currently thinking this paragraph at you from – it’s copasetic to be both good and bad, with the lion’s share of importance falling along that thin line between the two ancient concepts, leaving the content consumer to digest what they have just swallowed. You buy it, you fry it. Sorry to disappoint, but what else have you come to expect from me by this point?

  I’ve told you once before that this book was about nothing, but I guess that isn’t exactly true. Things have happened to me, things that just three short weeks ago I could have never predicted. I’ve gone from LA to Mexico, where I gave birth and from there, I jetted over to Japan. It seems as if this story has changed more than I have, and if that is disappointing to you, I apologize. I am still Meme, the archetype of controlled analyzable debauchery, the near-narcissistic man most responsible for demarcating regulated frolic (and suffering the unintended consequences). You know these things about me – I love unnecessary words; I love pollute-based palliatives; I’m pretty sure I love Yeshi but that love may stem from the fact that I haven’t had a girlfriend in a long time; the hunt is on and I’m the game.

  As I sit in the pollute retreat in the back alleys of Shinjuku, I’m reminded yet again of Tim7, the Humandroid who threatened to destroy himself, me and my office with plastic explosives over a year ago. Like bad pop songs, some faces are impossible to forget. Tim7’s dull eyes, his six o’clock shadow and his intention t
o awaken stirs my bones. The thought of his face forces me into the patent pleather couch I’d apparently sat on for hours last night, forces the pollution mask over my face. I’m not an addict, but it’s nice to have a little morning inhale coupled with a good think.

  Back in the user’s seat. I press the welcome screen and the little anime bunny appears on the inside of the mask’s eye lenses. A series of ads rumble out of the ground beneath the bunny. He yawns and hops on top of one of them. He pauses, screams good morning in Japanese, and after a quick wink, a selection of morning pollutes written in Katakana and Hiragana materializes.

  “English,” I say. English I say!

  Yeshi opens her eyes and smiles at me. She goes back to her meditation. (Turing would love this!)

  The bunny bows at me and a thought bubble appears next to its head: Please wait while I translate. The list appears moments later:

  Chapurin Kakashka

  Bape Kopi Luwak

  Dior Aeolian Deposit

  Uniqlo Unko Co-ra

  The bunny stands next to the list, bowing repeatedly as he did the previous night. This place sure is lacking when it comes to pollutes. I chose Bape Kopi Luwak, mostly because I’m familiar with the Kopi Luwak, a varmint famous for the fact that people use the coffee beans it shits out to make coffee. Yes, it is almost the twenty-second century and people still fork over good money for what is essentially varmint poo coffee.

  Inhale, exhale – I’m the victim. First inhale of the morning and my day brightens. Morning pollutes are meant to rejuvenate, to fill the lung with good toxins and oxygenate the blood stream. They’re not supposed to leave you seeing stars and counting dust mites flittering across the ceiling. Sober mornings are important to the true pollute aficionado.

  I let Yeshi finish her meditation session while I slowly settle my nerves. The world isn’t as bad as it seems when a pollution mask is on. Volatile situations are less dire when an intoxicant is introduced. Once, I listened as a UCLA professor declared the never-ending situation between the Palestinians and the Israelis could have been resolved if the UN had dropped thousands of ecstasy tabs along the Green Line, Gaza Strip and in their respective government offices. I can’t say I disagree with the scholarly twit.