“Techa forbid. Stop stalling.”
“You said Nova has a fairly primitive mind chip, right? That allows him to play doctor to the animals, insects, and other wildlife. I swear I can see him gluing back together butterfly wings after a heavy wind tears them apart. It’s at the low end of functionality these days though. And if he plans to do anything but collect UBI, he’ll have to get an upgrade soon. But he can barely stand the one in his forearm. Only reason he got the model was because it would crawl out of his skin at his command, even if it was defective.”
“You know a hell of a lot about him. Sure you don’t want to sleep with him?”
“Pays to know the competition, such as it is.” He spooned another mix of cake and sherbert into her mouth as she did the same for him. “The only Neuro-Tech breakthrough that pertains to someone in his weight-class is a DNA tweak that allows the body to accommodate to any software upgrade to the chip he gets. It’s for primitives who want to go on feeling like primitives. This way they don’t have to suffer the indignity of going to an implant doctor every time they fall out of date.”
“And you have proof that this prototype is defective because…?”
“There are only certain genes he shares in common with his father that bear on this issue. Of those, one of them is particularly susceptible to the RNA viral hack of his genome. Instead of boosting his biological responsiveness to the chip, it…” He stopped and took a deep breath.
“It does what?”
“It turns them into Jihadists. Someone with a blind determination to blow as many people up as possible, pursuant to paranoid ideations that the world is the devil’s playground.”
“No way an RNA-virus is going to have that specific of an outcome in the host body.”
“Close enough, believe me. And last I checked, these primitives, for the most part, don’t exactly embrace transhumanism. They pretty much want to blow up the world on a good day. Maybe that’s all it does is lower the threshold of his resistance to the idea.”
“I’ll keep an eye on him. But it does explain why a corporation could go to such great lengths to shut him down. They might tolerate a string of murders easily enough. I mean, who would notice? But someone determined to have the most impact on the world in a destructive way, might just get the idea to go back to Neuro-Tech and blow it up.”
“That’s what I’m thinking. Of course, I’m a lot brighter than your boy.”
“Thanks, Gecko.” She got up, reached over the table and gave him a kiss. “We’re done here.”
He smiled impishly at her. “I know what you’re planning. It won’t work.”
She figured he could guess her next move. But what she was planning had to work. It just had to.
EIGHT
Nova pulled up his electric scooter to the front of his house, somewhat spent after his day in The Magical Forest. Sighed as he took off his helmet. The scooter was a rental he’d meant to return months ago, considering you were only supposed to keep it for a few hours. But the Uber rental service never seemed to mind. Their 3D printers just spit out another one at the end of the day if the unit wasn’t returned. Apparently, so long as you didn’t paint over their logo they considered it free advertising wherever he went and so not worth tracking him by the LoJacked unit.
The first thing to focus his weary mind that didn’t really want to focus was the two unattended toddlers sitting up in the parking space next to him. It was a miracle he hadn’t run them over. If they were even nine months old, he’d be surprised. They were sitting up, bare-chested, in their diapers, arguing.
“How can you say there’s zero chance of alien life anywhere in our universe? That’s absolutely imbecilic! Just think of the numbers of potential habitable worlds out there. The odds alone…” Baby Number One was a real gesturer and spittle launcher.
“…would suggest,” the other one said, “that we’d have heard from one or more of them by now if they were out there. Have you parsed the data from the fund-boosted SETI project? The only people who can take heart are true believers and other religious nut jobs.” Baby Number Two had a deadpan way of speaking that just seemed to goad Baby Number One on.
“You think as civilizations get more advanced they enter Singularity, and leave space time altogether?” He scratched the back of his head then spasmed his arm muscles like a baby still learning how to work them.
Baby Number Two shrugged nonchalantly. “You have a better explanation?”
“It’s possible they’re so much more advanced we can’t even recognize their forms of communication. And they in turn wouldn’t bother with us for the same reason we don’t spend a lot of time dialoguing with ants.” Again Baby Number One talked with his hands, the gestures seeming more under his control this time.
“I’ll concede as much, but these ‘I think therefore aliens must exist’ conversations just have to stop.” He glanced over at the dumbstruck Nova. “Hey, pal. Don’t mind us. And don’t worry about someone running us over. We can override any car’s autonav.”
“You read my mind?”
“Not that there’s much to read,” said the nonchalant one.
“Really, Jonas? You’re just going to violate the rights afforded primitives like that? I’m tempted to download the footage to Quantico.”
“Sorry!” the deadpan one said with mock sincerity.
Nova groaned and stormed up the path to his house. Right now he just wanted to get his hands on the mother who extruded those toddlers’ breast milk and strangle her with his bare hands for creating the abominations. There were some transhumanists there was just no living with.
***
“You wouldn’t believe what happened to me today?” Nova said, excitedly bursting through the door and setting his helmet on an end table. He was already reaching for the ice cream in the fridge to celebrate.
“Your partner was devoured by army ants that were taking over the world, so the Uber-Mind had to intervene with a Level 2 solution.”
He slammed the box of ice cream onto the table top. “I swear, you are such a killjoy.”
She smiled at his childlike enthusiasm, relaxed, and said, “You must tell me all about it.”
“My favorite part was when the ants were crawling all over her. It made her look like this nanite goddess taking form, able to shapeshift into my every fantasy. Only she was screaming so hard and flailing so wildly I had to pretend she was singing opera to me and doing Japanese dancing in hopes of getting me to worship her.”
“No thought of saving her, huh?”
“And ruin the fantasy? Please. Besides, entirely above my pay grade. But I made it into the Guinness Book of records as one of the few people on site for a Level 2 disaster. I expect to be mobbed by reporters and to get at least one good book out of the deal.”
She smiled a tight lip smile at him. “I’m happy for you.”
“What’s your good news?”
“I decided to marry you.”
Dead silence. He’d turned into a statue. Then the statue came alive and he gulped. “Okay, what am I dying of?”
“On one contingency.” He deflated further. “No, not that one. You can age normally if you like. When you get too disgusting for sex, I promise not to throw you away, moreover. I’ll find you a geriatric sex droid that won’t accidentally break you. But we’ll be together forever, in a manner of speaking.”
“Why this sudden generosity?”
Corona sighed. “The terms of my surrender are these: You must promise to stop living in denial about who you are, about what I am, about who we are together, about what the world is turning into.”
“Who says I live in denial!?” Suddenly the inside of their kitchen looked like a planetarium as his phosphorescent skin went nuts.
She gave him one of her looks. He collapsed into the round kitchen-table chair. After a couple slow deep breaths, the light show dimmed, and he said, “So I didn’t just save a forest today. They were trying to kill me.” The lights broadcasted aga
inst the walls from his skin went wild again, but an entirely different color scheme. “Whoever it was that wanted my father dead.”
“See, you’re already doing much better. I anticipate a full recovery in a matter of months.”
“Ha-ha. It’s all very funny to you. I like my innocence and gullibility very much. All you people who insist on knowing what’s around the corner ahead of time. Life must be so dull.”
“Why don’t we start with what’s just a little bit down the road?”
He sighed, and slouched further into the table. His chin was on the tabletop now. “These Crispy Critters can heal themselves now. Don’t know what good I’m going to be playing Dr. Doolittle to the animals, who by the way now talk back to me just like in the story.”
“The sentient forests will continue to make decisions to dispense with certain lifeforms for the greater good of all. I suppose you can continue your animal and insect rescue and just find suitable places to relocate them. At least for a while. But yeah, I’d say it’s time to come up with a new coping mechanism if you want to be a real player.”
“I assume this is where the term ball and chain came from. I prefer cunt to dick talks over heart to heart ones.”
“You could sound a little more excited that I decided to marry you.”
“Being as I’m sure it’s some manipulative ploy to get me to do something I really don’t want to do, and when I find out what it is I’ll hate you forever, perhaps I could get a head start on all the resentment from now.”
“Fine, I take back the offer.”
He jumped out of the chair, swallowed her in his arms and kissed her. “I accept your proposal. Now, what does one do to actually get married?”
“Oh, it’s already done. I sent the proper notifications over the mindnet the second you agreed. The rings are being synthesized in the 3D printer where the microwave used to be.” He heard the ding of the printer to confirm. “And all the guests are enjoying the virtual wedding I designed. We can attend whenever we like. The avatars will stand in for us until then.”
“Charming. And you want to know why I can’t seem to embrace the present like you can.”
She got the rings out of the printer, slipped his on his finger. Handed her ring to him, waited for him to slip her ring on her finger, which he did.
“The good news is, this leaves more time for the honeymoon,” he said, with a smile.
“Yes, it does.” She swept him off his feet and carried him across the threshold, of the kitchen, at least. He shook his head slowly and gave her a mock sour expression, not missing the symbolism.
The mission was quite simple really. The more she got him to get with the times, the less likely he was to want and go blow the world up. Genes were not a stamp of destiny. With proper enculturation, genes meant to be active could stay dormant. And how better to shepherd him past all his reservations about the future than to embody the best and worst of it all in one person—the one he loved? The plan was foolproof.
NINE
Nova looked up from the former freeway system cutting through the city that had been turned into a nature preserve with edible fruit trees, edible flowers. Even the “weeds” of mint, parsley, and onion were edible. Hikers were walking the trails in the shadows of the skyscrapers. He pointed toward the sky so Corona could see. “The birds. They’re swarming. Look at how they turn together like that! Like fractal geometries in motion. It’s lovely.” He ducked and laughed as the flock buzzed him. “Did you see that?!”
“They’re attack droids, you idiot. And they’re trying to kill you.” She grabbed him by the arm and pulled, forcing him into a run.
“Don’t call me an idiot. I’m the love of your life. Sweetheart, or honey-bunny, maybe, but never idiot.”
“What filter are you running, anyway?”
“Vegetation City. Plants and trees everywhere, every rooftop, patio, balcony. It’s quite lovely. They score off the charts on the color therapy alone. You should see the concourse down Main Street.”
She shook her head slowly; she couldn’t do it fast probably because of the knot in her neck at the irritation he’d caused her. “Do me a favor. And do away with the filter. If there was ever a time for facing reality, this is it.”
He undid the filter. Got a load of the flock of droids circling around. Firing machine guns and lasers at Nova and Corona. “I beg to differ. If there was ever a time not to face reality, this is it. And to think I imagined all those careening bullets was just bird poop.” The other pedestrians didn’t seem too put out. Then again, their shapeshifting clothing came with self-armoring features. Many had souped up nervous systems that allowed them to dodge bullets, lasers, whatever, without them even paying attention, like an inbred “spidey sense.” The same amped up nervous systems that allowed them rudimentary superhero abilities that would at least make Daredevil and The Punisher envious, if not the Hulk and Superman. He, of course, had none of those features. And he made a point of never asking Corona what upgrades she came with, just so he could sleep at night. For all he knew, she wasn’t even human and was pretending to be imbibing nanococktails to keep up.
She yanked him behind a hotdog vender’s stand. “Oh, great cover,” he carped.
“A sausage with medical nano for rapid healing from gunshots, lasers, whatever,” she said.
“Sure,” the vender said, reaching into one of his numerous bins. “You sure you just don’t want the one that makes you impervious to those things?”
“He’s a Green. It’s got to be self-dissolving nano.”
The vender threw her a shocked expression. “You want to swallow nano, just so it can pass right back out through you? What kind of craziness is that?”
“The kind I married into.”
He handed her the hot dog. She credited the vender’s account by swiping her hand over his kiosk collection plate.
Nova took the hot dog from her begrudgingly and bit into it. “Tastes like ass,” he said, making a sour face, then quickly corrected himself. “Oh, not yours, sweetheart.”
She just groaned as she dragged him into a jog. “Just what do you find so charming about the human condition, exactly? Is it the vulnerability to bullets? The ability to say the most asinine things at the most inappropriate times? The quality of being denser than wood?”
“How about not taking life so seriously? I swear you lose yourself in this whole reality thing like you were born to it.”
“I was born to it! And so were you.”
***
Corona felt Nova release her arm, looked back, and he was lying on the ground, moaning, squirming, bullet-ridden. Some of the through and throughs were clearly laser bored holes. He looked like he was doing an impersonation of Swiss Cheese. She was only processing this out of the corner of her eye. The “baseball” bat she ordered on the mindnet when the insanity started was being airmailed to her by a drone. She grabbed it out of the air. Held it like an automatic rifle, which it immediately morphed into, and fired.
The droids maneuvered out of the way before the bullets got to them. All in all, a really bad idea to go with this workaround. She was doing better with the rifle in baseball bat mode, which she switched back to when the “birds” got a little too daring with their close encounters again.
“Why don’t you just hack the birds, I mean the drones?” he said, eying his hand with blood on it after touching one of the holes in his abdomen.
“It’s time you learned what life is really like with off-the shelf tech. I’m done enabling you so you can feel like you’re coping just fine the way you are.”
He was becoming hypnotized by the blood on his hand. He started sobbing, staring at it. “You think my father was something special? Maybe he was a good man. Maybe he loved me. He had to if he tried to save my life. Now I’ll never know that love.”
She continued batting drones out of the sky as she said, “Really? We’re doing this now? You couldn’t grieve for him in your own way in the quiet of our living room?!�
��
“Like there’s some formula for how to grieve, you insensitive cunt.”
“I’m your wife, dear. We don’t use expressions like that. We say things like, ‘you’re being callous, dear. I know you don’t mean to’.”
“Fuck you. He died and you never even offered me a word of condolence. It’s all about you. Everything revolves around you.”
“Techa help me. The only things keeping you alive right now are your precious ‘birds.’ If my hands were free from swinging this bat for one second, I’d use it on you.”
Nova stood, marveling at his own healing as rapidly as he got more holes drilled into him. “You’re right. Fuck him. He had his chance to love me, instead he chose to abandon me. Why am I getting all mopey about a dick?”
“So now, you’re fine? You’ve over him? Just like that, huh? Sure. Do you even know your own mind?”
After the latest spray of bullets to hit him, he yelled from the writhing pain. “Will you concentrate on the damn drones? I may be healing, but this shit still hurts, and oh, by the way, that hot dog is riding my stomach like a hot coal.”
“I’d empathize, but I’m having an all-about-me moment,” she said, thwacking a few more drones out of the way.
“Ready to hack those drones yet?” he said, looking to the sky.
“What do you think I’m doing? Those are the ones coming in close enough for me to bat out of the sky. But whoever is at the other end is outmaneuvering me.”
“Really? You assured me you were like all that.”
“Your unwavering confidence in me is what keeps me going.”
“My ability to take lead up the ass is what keeps me going.”
She grabbed him by the collar and dragged him across the freeway; she had been counting on the moving cars to finish off the droids she batted to the ground. Hacking one of the vehicles, she got it to stop beside them and open its doors, which lifted up. “I’m sorry for doing brain surgery on you like this,” she said to the driver. “But it’s for the greater good.”
The God Gene (Age of Abundance Book 2) Page 7