“Thank you, thank you,” he finally said, waving his hand at them.
“We have cake!” one office worker yelled.
“Cake!” Someone shouted.
“Get the cake!”
“Cake! Cake! Cake!”
A pair of mahogany doors burst open and two workers rolled in a big-ass cake shaped like the American flag. A lump in the cake told Sauria this was no ordinary affair.
Before he could protest, a leg kicked out of the middle of the cake, flinging red white and blue icing everywhere. Another leg emerged and a woman, using skills that would be more appropriate for synchronized swimming, began to move her torso out of the middle of the cake.
“This is too much … ” he said with a tight grin.
Sauria: We need to get to a private Conference Room to see what Bleak is going to say.
Ipsum: Working on it. The performance should finish momentarily. Sorry for this – Marketing Department’s idea.
The woman continued to press her body out of the cake until she was in a full headstand, her hair and face still hidden by the thick flag cake. She was in a black one-piece swimsuit that capped off into a pair of boyshorts. Like a contortionist, her body curled forward, her feet planting on the stand holding the cake. She stood and slowly turned to face Sauria.
Impossible, he thought, she’s still being repaired after yesterday’s disaster!
The woman lowered herself from the table and walked towards him.
“Rinchi?” he asked, completely baffled.
Ipsum: A facial replica. Many of the newer MercSecure reps look up to Rinchi. We figured it would be a powerful face for our newest …
Sauria: What the fuck is going on here, Lorem? Is this …
Ipsum: Yes, she is the first viable Gene X prototype.
Sauria’s eyes opened and he tried his best not to let the shock show on his face.
Sauria: What do I call her?
Ipsum: She has asked to be called Meta.
Sauria: Meta?
Ipsum: Remember, she is both human and Humandroid. We decided to let her name herself.
Sauria: Why wasn’t I informed of this? I thought … I thought we were weeks away from unveiling the prototype!
Ipsum: You were recovering and she … she proved she was ready.
Sauria forced a grin on his face as Meta approached him.
“I apologize for the shocking entrance,” she said as they shook hands. “It was the Marketing Department’s idea.”
“What … what do they have to do with this?” he asked, somewhat regaining his composure.
“Well, marketing begins at home,” Meta said. “At least that is what they told me.”
Sauria looked up at her under the brim of his black hat. “Let’s get some clothes on you. I’ll deal with the Marketing Department later.” His eyes shot left to Heidi, who was scanning Meta with a frightened look on her face.
Sauria: Don’t worry, she isn’t human.
Heidi: Yes … yes she is.
THIRTY-EIGHT∞
“Nelly?”
Holy shit, Reader …
Nelly is lying in the bed next to me with her arm across my chest.
!!!
That’s not all, Yeshi’s on my right curled into me. (Keep your cool, Memito, keep your cool man!)
“What in the hell is going on?” I ask, glaring at the bright-ass sun that always tortures me in the morning.
Nelly on my left, Yeshi on my right – who could ask for anything more?
It’s too soon to tell, but I swear to God I’ll convert to even the most absurd religion if I somehow ended up having a threesome last night. I will do anything for this to be true, even become a Scientologist. There. I said it. Stick my ass in a mosque and shit a beard on my face! Give me a stylish hat and some twisted payot! Throw me in saffron robes and restrict my sexual activity unless it’s Tantric! Wake Joseph Smith from the dead and beat me over the head with some golden plates and magic spectacles!
I’d high-five myself if it weren’t for the fact that I was being pressed together by a Humandroid ladyboy-turned-lady on one side and the woman whose child I birthed on the other. (WTF to that BTW.)
The supercollider of contradictions can only spit one phrase as his life barrels out of control all around him and the room pixilates with each blink and his shallow breaths are the only thing keeping his little Grinch heart alive – life is a beautiful thing even if I didn’t get laid last night!
“Stop moving,” Nelly says, “I’m not ready to wake up.”
“Why are you in my bed?” I whisper. “Did we do it?”
Nelly slaps my cheek playfully. “Of course we didn’t have sex. We’re never going to have sex.”
Only a Sith deals in absolutes!
“Are you sure?” I ask after a vicious yawn, “because I’m not so sure.”
“I found you in the living room curled up on the couch crying and shivering. I brought you up here and decided to stay with you to make sure you were all right.” Nelly pushes away from me, taking some of the blanket, which wakes Yeshi.
As inconspicuously as possible, I reach my hand in the blanket and touch little Meme just to see if he is sticky.
“Quit touching yourself,” Yeshi says.
“And you!” I turn to her, releasing my family jewels. “When did you get here?”
My hand falls to her waist as she shifts away. I’m losing them!
“Ladies please…” I say, cringing at my headache. “Let’s return to the cuddle. The cuddle will save us all. The UN recommends a cuddle a day to keep starving countries fed and general morale high. Canada recently introduced prescription cuddling to better deal with the Jean Jacket Dilemma that is plaguing the nation. China recently changed their Two Child Policy to Two Cuddle Policy in an effort to make their people feel less repressed, even though they’ve technically been liberated. Fuck my brain hurts.”
Nelly laughs. “I can’t believe you licked the red snail.”
I twist my neck on my shoulders until it cracks. “I wanted to see if Dr. Hewman was shitting me about the hallucinatory properties of that snail. I can report back that he was not shitting me at all. Not in the least bit.”
(It feels like my body is being knifed from the inside. Never again.)
“So that’s what happened,” Yeshi says, turning back to me. Through my blurred vision I see her cute bangs and her cute eyes and her cute face. I just want to eat her up like a serial killer! My hand comes forward to cup her cheek. I mouth the words I love you and she laughs again.
“What’s so goddamn funny?”
“You licked a snail just to see if it was toxic?”
“Not exactly. I wanted to see how it compared to my favorite pollute mash-up, Loathing Hunter with an Ayahuasca topper. As you both know, I’m a pollute-snob and I wanted to be sure that there weren’t better ways to eradicate ear worms. People have done much stupider things … ”
Nelly turns back to me.
“Have you come back for a cuddle?” I ask.
“You wish,” she says, wiping her curly hair out of her face. Her bruised eye has started to heal and she’s looking as hella-fine as ever (for real, Reader, if I could transfer a picture back through time to you I would.) The stirring in my groin gets me thinking – is there a way to turn this into a ménage á trois? I mean, I’m already halfway there and in some reality, the three of us must be banging. Now I just need to reach that reality –
Nelly: Not happening.
Me: What’s not happening?
Nelly: You know.
I open my eyes and yawn. My breath must smell like snail’s ass.
Nelly: Your breath reeks.
Me: Well shit, give me a mint or something. I think the Good Doctor has some ListerCope Spicy Peppermint Armageddon Explosion in the pisser.
Nelly: You’ll need something stronger than that.
Yeshi inches closer to me. “How do you feel?” she asks, touching my face.
“I feel like
someone shrunk my body and placed me in a fish tank full of pebbles then proceeded to shake me violently for three hours while forcing me to listen to de-autotuned Selena Gomez tracks that have been sped up to 350 BPM. After that, they stuck a funnel in my ear filling my head with two hundred bees. After that…”
“If I cuddle with you will you shut up?” Nelly asks.
“Does Pepe Le Pew shit in the woods?”
“Keep your breath away from me, turn the other way.”
“I can cut off my olfactory senses, if I need to,” Yeshi says.
“Ladies, ladies, please…” I say as Nelly snuggles up next to me. Fuck it – I’m happy as the Drunken Clam in Family Guy. I shut my trap and stare up at the ceiling, which isn’t interesting at all aside from a few tracers sperm-swimming across it. It’s time do a little fantasizing.
THIRTY-NINE∞
The crowd in front of Bill Bleak was as notable as it was manufactured – PhDs in GoogleFace Liking and Social Media Twattery; controversial musicians with obscene numbers of followers; good old fashioned journalists in tweed jackets and newsboy caps; famous Twitter stars blinking rapidly as they tweeted every stupid fucking thought that hiccupped in the empty space between their ears; a few choice celebutards, all supporters of movements and international programs that had no real effect on their livelihood (now known as the George Clooney Effect); hovering drone media cameras recording everything and recording everything that was recording everything just in case something was missed; a few lower level DemoCorp party members whom Bleak had paid to be there, distinguishable through their American flag lapels and fake smiles (created through a surgery involving the Zygomaticus major and minor, tying off the two face muscles to create a constant v-shaped smile). All in all, the press conference had cost Bleak enough money to pay off five thousand mortgages in the greater Detroit area, which he considered a small price to pay to bring down his new archenemy, Sauria.
“Thank you all for coming here today,” Bleak began. A bead of sweat appeared on the side of his forehead. “We have our own electric power and I’ve spent a considerable sum to make sure that the information I’m revealing today is enough to show the American people and the rest of the world just how formidable the corporate military industrial complex has become and what we could lose if we allow them to… fester.”
He pointed his thumbs at the screen behind him. A few cameras flashed.
“Before I show you details about a project called Gene X, I would like you to know a little more about how this project was started. Gene X first began in the 2070s through a partnership between Walliburton, the FCG and ExEx, a Fortune 100 Company that focuses on terrorism research amongst other things. Due to their unique, if not invasive way to plough through and process data, ExEx was essentially the brains behind the operation. Their sister company, MercSecure, was responsible for the logistics of the project. They bought the company that Dr. Richard Hewman founded – Hewman Tech – and used the data the company had amassed over the course of their extensive Humandroid research and development to formulate a design that would be part Humandroid and part human. Let me put that in layman’s terms for you: Gene X is a project looking to bridge the gap between Homo sapiens and Homo Machina.”
A few people in the audience raised their hands as the outline of a human appeared on the holoscreen behind Bleak. “We are all familiar with the somewhat derogatory term clean cut, which is reserved for someone who has had their lower half replaced with cybernetic prostheses – a cybernetic organism, or cyborg.”
The lower half of the model behind him morphed into a skeletal frame covered by e-skin while the upper half remained human. Organs appeared in the top half, the heart beating and the lungs expanding.
“More than clean cut, of course, means that other parts of the person’s body have been replaced as well.”
The left arm and the right wrist changed color, indicating that they were now cybernetic.
“So what then is Gene X, and what is it that they are seeking to do through this project?”
The picture disappeared and a new one formed that showed a fully developed brain with brainstem and a heart.
“The Gene X Program is funded by you, the taxpayers of the United States…”
The lights flickered.
“Nice try,” Bill Bleak said, looking directly at the camera. “As I was saying, Gene X was funded by you, the taxpayers of the United States. Take the lab-grown brain and heart of a human and lace the brain with cyberwire to program the higher brain functions as desired, both grown artificially in a lab. Implant the brain with electrodes to essentially regulate the brain, from motor responses to intellectual decisions. How much these brains are subject to external, perhaps even malicious control is yet unknown, but what is known is that these hybrid beings are able to make decisions that seem organic, human even.”
A brain appeared behind the Tech Icon and a stem grew from its bottom. A Humandroid skeleton materialized over the brain and the brainstem attached itself to the skeleton. A body formed around the brainstem and the heart, encased them in e-skin.
“Imagine a being with the unique thinking capacity of a human but with all the advantages of a Humandroid, from strength and endurance to rapid data analysis. Now imagine that thing being completely controllable. A true man-machine.”
A few in the audience gasped as the image multiplies on the holoscreen behind Bill Bleak.
“How difficult would it be to create an army of superhumans? What would happen to the normal humans if they were easily replicable in a laboratory and given a body with abnormal strength and enhanced abilities? Where does humanity begin and where does it end? The point is this – what ExEx, the FCG and its partners are working on is something that will adversely affect the future, something that will change the face of humanity a thousand times over. Isn’t it our right to know about this type of program? Shouldn’t we, the American people and the people of the world, have a say in these matters? Everyone here today will receive all the information I’ve been able to gather on the Gene X Program. Share it freely and readily.”
Hands came up and cameras flashed.
“That’s it for now, no further questions,” Bleak said, smiling at the camera closest to him. He knew that somewhere, possibly in a hospital bed, Sauria was watching the feed. This thought only increased the size of his smile.
“Over the next week, I will snowden more information on the programs that ExEx has been working on. For now, I want to allow plenty of time for the information I’ve unveiled today to spread. We must hold ExEx, the FCG, Walliburton and its partner companies accountable for these types of programs. They are funded by the American taxpayer and they are dangerous to ourselves, our children and our children’s children.”
FORTY∞
Grey clouds appeared in the sky outside Sauria’s office. The day was beginning to turn sour, but for Sauria, head of ExEx and a majority shareholder in MercSecure, the day had been terrible since he’d received the message from Bill Bleak just forty minutes ago. On the holoscreen in front of him was the feed from the Tech Icon’s recent press conference. Lorem Ipsum was with him, and looked like he’d just slammed his dick in the elevator door. He had loosened his hand-knit RepubCorp Club tie, was perspiring like a punctured porcine, and sat with his head in his hands.
“Damage control,” Sauria finally said, glaring bitterly at Bleak’s image. “We’ll need to give this everything we’ve got.”
Sauria (to his secretary): Hold all my calls.
His secretary: Even the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff?
Sauria: Yes, momentarily.
Lorem said, “Press releases are out and our Legal Team is already parsing the legalities of Bleak’s … ”
“Attack.”
“Slanderous attack.”
Sauria leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms in front of his chest. His eyes skipped from Lorem to Meta, who sat in a chair next to Heidi on the opposite side of the room. Heidi had
been singularly uneasy since meeting Meta, evident in the peculiar way she kept glancing at her.
While Meta had similar features to Rinchi – or even worse, Yeshi – there was something entirely different about the way she held herself. It was a hair of a difference, but it was visible. It wasn’t something Sauria had ever seen before in an artificial being.
That’s because she is partially human. This thought struck him as odd. Was he essentially Dr. Frankenstein with a series of corporate buffers between him and his creation? How could he be sure what he created, or had funded the creation of, was not a monster? Grafting Humandroid prostheses to human beings wasn’t new – cyborgs proved this – but what sat before him, what sat before him now wearing a blue MercSecure uniform was something the world had never seen before, something with true global implications. And while Sauria knew he was no meglomanical dictator, no evil man willing to use his powers for subjugation or destruction, he knew that an army of these beings in the wrong hands would have far-reaching negative consequences. What if Kim Jun-Duche had a thousand? Or his counterpart, Vladimir Mudak, the head of the Russian FSB? What then?
Meta cleared her throat. “What are you thinking about?”
Sauria shook his head. “Nothing … nothing.”
“It’s obviously something … ”
“This is very serious, Meta,” Lorem said without looking at her. “Why are you smiling?”
“All of you worry too much,” she said, examining her fingernails.
“Humandroids should show respect when they are around their employers,” Heidi said curtly.
“I’m not a Humandroid.”
“Your body is the same as mine.”
“If you only had a brain.” Meta tapped the side of her head. “And a heart.”
“Which means you can die.”
Meta turned to Heidi and smiled. “Bring it, then.”
“Both of you cool it,” Lorem said, glancing anxiously at Sauria.
“Everyone out.” The Head of ExEx waved his hands in front of him. “I need some time to think this over.”
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