by David Beers
“What’s going on?” Caesar asked as the door clicked closed behind him.
“I’m about to do something stupid as hell,” the old man answered.
The room was dark and Jerry sat on a couch in the corner. The only light that filtered in came from the window, where the shades were drawn.
“Tell me you’re not hung-over or something, sitting here in the dark like this,” Caesar said as he made his way over to a chair.
“A little bit. I drank more than I should last night.”
“What for?”
“Because of what I’m about to do.”
Caesar didn’t say anything. He knew the old man called him in here to talk and would when he was ready. Caesar thought Jerry crazy when he first arrived, but no longer; he was almost as old as The Genesis itself, and over seventy percent of his body made of machine. The skin covering him even had mechanical pieces interwoven through it, keeping it from simply dying or growing so cracked it would look beyond grotesque. Caesar had grown to respect Jerry, and more, to like him. He wasn’t sure that he was the person Jerry thought he was, in that he didn’t think he was the only person in the world that could lead the charge they were mounting. But when you’ve lived a thousand years, you have to find something to live for—so, Jerry created Caesar. Created an almost mythological man that would kill the thing that created Jerry himself. Caesar was going along because he had reason to, not because he thought himself that mythological man.
“What did you think of Grace? Of your assistant?” Jerry asked, his metal eye almost completely shrouded in darkness.
How long had it been since he thought of Grace? The application that tried so hard to keep him from saying the things he thought. That tried so hard to keep him safe for so many years and then died because of him. The Genesis destroyed her as easily as it destroyed his family. He probably hadn’t thought about Grace since his first month here, when he tried to force all of those memories away. He couldn’t focus on them anymore, not if he wanted to keep going. They would drown him, watching his brother’s hand melt over and over again in his head. He couldn’t move forward, not effectively, if he thought of those things. So Grace had been pushed aside just like the rest of his family.
“She was a good application,” Caesar said. “She deserved better than me.”
“She kept you safe for a long time, didn’t she?” Jerry asked.
Caesar nodded. “Yeah. She died because of me. Five hundred years gone.”
“Do you miss her?”
“What’s all this about? What does Grace matter to anything?”
Jerry sighed and stood up from the couch. He moved slowly, not quite as slow as a man his age should, but close. He walked over to the windows and pulled back the shades. His eyes squinted as he looked out into the morning desert. “I can bring her back, Caesar. I’ve been able to bring her back since we first brought you here, but I haven’t. I don’t want to. It’s dangerous, riskier than almost anything else I’ve done, but...if you want her back, I’ll get her for you.”
“Why?” Caesar asked, still in his chair. “Why now? Why not six months ago?”
“Up until the last forty-eight hours, everything was theoretical. Whether or not you would go through with it, whether or not you had the balls to actually kill. I thought you did, of course, but I couldn’t know, not for certain until it was done. Others in here will kill, but not all of them, and the ones that will aren’t you. They’re not the person to lead us. I guess after last night, I just feel like if you want some piece of your life back, some part of the past, and if I can give it to you, I will.”
“How?” Caesar asked. He knew The Genesis would have killed her, that there wasn’t a chance in all the world that she could have made it through the purge of Caesar Wells.
“She hid herself in the same place she hid all that knowledge about you. She’s here, in this base, in the computers underground. She probably thinks she’ll never get out, that she’ll be forced to travel the wires down there for eternity, but that’s still probably better than dying. Or at least she thinks that right now, she might not in another five hundred years.”
Caesar opened his mouth, but found no words.
“I thought about killing her. Just shutting down the whole system. There’s really no need for it anymore, but I didn’t. I left her in there and now that it’s clear you’re in this for the long haul, I’m doing the most dangerous thing I think I ever have and asking you if you want us to bring her back?”
Bring Grace back? In his past life, Caesar didn’t really believe it was possible to live without her. She did everything for him. Cooked. Cleaned. Monitored his work. And now for six months, he’d lived as humans had a thousand years prior. He’d lived without an assistant and things went on the same. So he didn’t need her. He could keep going on the same way he did now and he would be fine with that. Even more, Grace couldn’t do as much here, in this place. She was so effective in the city because she was connected with everything in the city. Here, Grace would be connected to nothing.
And what does that matter? He asked himself. Because she won’t be able to help you now, she has no reason to exist? Is that what you’re sitting here thinking?
She did her best to deliver him from himself. To keep him from killing himself at points. Or maybe that was what she did in her entirety, if he got right down to it, kept him from suicide. And now her life was in his hands; he could grant her life or move on with his own, without her. Grace had outlived her usefulness. She would be more of a hindrance now, not a boon to what he was trying to do. Her connection to The Genesis surely would be severed, and if not, if she was still connected, then their operation was over completely.
Is that how you treat your friend? His father said. Sam. His dead father.
He wanted me to love Grace in a way that I never did. Because she kept his son safe.
Speaking to Jerry’s back, Caesar said, “Yeah. Let’s see what happens. She deserves that much, at least.”
* * *
Leon looked at the two men standing next to the mainframe. This room still got to Leon, still made him stare in almost reverent awe at what had been done long before he ever lived. He felt like he was looking at cavemen’s drawings, of primitive people doing the best they could. How were they able to build this without The Genesis, how were they able to create something that an application could still use all those years later?
The computer was huge in a way that planets feel huge. The room didn’t hold the computer; the room was the computer. The data entry point stood in the center of the room, and long rows of computers backed away from it, creating what amounted to multiples of human brainpower.
“She’s in there?” Caesar asked.
Jerry nodded. He didn’t look well. Caesar had told Leon about a man named Socrates, and Leon thought that old philosopher might have looked similar to Jerry right before he drank the hemlock.
“How?” Leon asked. In his first month living here, he got over the self-consciousness of his brain’s ability versus everyone else’s. To be frank, he just didn’t give a damn. They were making him stay and that meant they would deal with his questions. Maybe these two had figured out exactly what was going on, but he hadn’t, and he didn’t want to stand here staring at something he didn’t understand.
Jerry didn’t look over at him. He rarely did, at least not when other people were in the room. Sometimes when they were alone—which was rare now—Jerry would talk with him the way he had when Leon first arrived as a prisoner. Now, though, Leon was less than a prisoner, he was a nuisance, and that was fine too. Because really, fuck Jerry.
“The same way she sent all of Caesar’s information over here. She followed the same pathways except instead of information, she sent herself through the metal wires. The computer has been on since she started carving out the space for the chance that she might meet someone like Caesar, and now she lives in it too.”
“Where, though?” Leon asked.
&n
bsp; Jerry glanced over his shoulder, his right eye black and emotionless, but his left saying he was tired of these questions.
“All through it, Leon. She lives in the wires, in the chips, the same as any other computer program.”
“How is that living?” Leon asked.
“Enough,” Jerry said, and Leon shut up. He knew how far he could push Jerry and didn’t venture past that point. He had no doubts of why he was kept around: Caesar. There wasn’t any other reason for him to be here, no other uses, and if he went too far, maybe Jerry would decide that Leon wasn’t worth keeping around, not even to make Caesar happy.
That won’t happen, a piece deep inside his mind said. For that old cyborg over there, happiness begins and ends with Caesar. The sun rises and sets on Caesar.
“How do we get her out?” Caesar asked.
Leon was surprised he was considering it. Leon never grew close with his own assistant, not like April (and don’t start thinking about her, not right now) had with hers. But, his assistant never did for him what Grace did for Caesar. Grace gave her life for the man supposed to lead them, and still, he didn’t think Caesar would do this. To Caesar, she had always been just another part of The Genesis, no matter what she did.
“This,” Jerry said, holding up a glass container. It was shaped like a bullet, the bottom flat with a curved top. A straight and stiff input cable grew out from the top, looking like it plugged into somewhere. “We put it in here,” Jerry said, tapping a piece of the machine, “type in some words on that keyboard, and with any luck, she’ll end up in this bottle. We open the bottom, and she’s free.”
“If there’s no luck?” Caesar asked.
“Then she’s either stuck in there, or most likely, dies somewhere in between the mainframe and our world,” Jerry answered.
Caesar nodded, showing no emotion. “Let’s have at it, then.”
Jerry stepped to his right and looked at one of the huge mainframes lining the walls. He traced his fingers along the levers, buttons, and lights—none of which Leon even pretended to understand. Finding the thing he wanted, he took the tube he held and plugged the wire into the machine, then stepped back.
He went to the keyboard sitting in front of a small monitor, looking dwarfed compared to the rest of the room, to the rest of the computers. He started typing and he went at it for a good five minutes with the two of them standing and watching him. No one spoke during those five minutes, not even Leon.
“Alright,” Jerry said. “Do you want the honor or should I?” He looked back at Caesar.
Caesar stared at the monitor, the green words across it seeming to enrapture him, like he was seeing a sunrise for the first time. “I’ll do it,” he said, finally, and stepped forward.
“Just hit that button and we’ll see if this works,” Jerry said, pointing.
Leon honestly didn’t think he would do it. Caesar...he just didn’t care about anything from The Genesis. It was all the same, all a piece of a monstrosity that ruled humanity, and now, even worse, had destroyed everyone he cared about. So why did Grace deserve to be out when his family had already been fed to those still living? Why did she deserve life when no one else he loved had been granted it? Leon knew how he would answer the question—because she hadn’t a thing to do with that murder, obviously. Caesar though, Caesar held grudges. Caesar hated. And Leon, even now, staring at his friend as he approached the keyboard, felt that hate probably extended to Grace. Extended to him, even, in a way. That hate burned as hot as the desert sun outside.
And still, Caesar hit the button Jerry pointed to.
They all turned and looked at the glass tube. A small hum started at the back of the monitor and then spread, making its way throughout all the computers, gaining in volume too, becoming louder and louder as it moved around them, surrounded them, indeed, took over the room. The hairs on Leon’s arms stood up and he felt goose bumps rise on the back of his neck. There was something creepy to it, creepy to hearing this machine come alive. They lived their lives in this desert without the need for computers, for the most part, without the need for machines. And here, they witnessed one turning on, starting up.
Was that how the scientists who created The Genesis felt when it was first born? Was there a humming like this?
The sound went on, growing in strength and intensity for a few minutes, and then it was over. The glass tube hanging from the outlet Jerry had shoved it in, but nothing resembling life inside it.
“Is she in there?” Leon whispered.
Caesar didn’t wait for anyone else, he moved across the room, speaking as he did, “I can unplug it, right?”
“Yes. You should be able to.”
He reached forward and pulled the glass bullet from the computer, twisted the bottom, and then Grace was in his ear. Leon couldn’t tell for sure, but he thought for the first time in his life, he might have heard an application crying.
Chapter Three
The Life of Caesar Wells
By Leon Bastille
I didn’t realize it at the time, but bringing Grace back...
It was Jerry’s way of showing his commitment to Caesar. It was something he wouldn’t have done for anyone else in that compound, something he wouldn’t have even considered. To Jerry, applications were an abomination. He didn’t hate them, not like Caesar did, but he saw them as something worse than himself even, a different kind of Frankenstein. His own version of the legendary monster was truer to the story. He was a mixture of machine and human, of computer and man, but his mind was driven by his humanity. His mind, and that was what counted to Jerry, was human—not computer, not The Genesis, not machine.
Applications, Grace as well as the rest, were different. Not even a Frankenstein at their core, just something pretending to be one. Grace wasn’t human, no piece of her, but yet The Genesis made these things to act like humans, to have human emotions, to copy us. And the early adaptations were so far off they were comical. Applications that couldn’t put inflection into their voice, that no matter how they tried to show emotion, it sounded like someone reading a set of note cards, one word after the other, without a care as to what they really said. The Genesis improved upon those applications, upgraded them, but could they ever truly encapsulate the human experience? Could they understand pain? Could they understand loss?
Jerry would say no.
Grace would say yes.
So when he allowed Caesar to bring her back, it wasn’t a meaningless gesture. It was on par with allowing Caesar to kill me or let me live. It was all Jerry could give him.
And what about Caesar’s change? Why did he bring her back? He had lived his entire life with a sort of disdain for Grace, a necessary if unwanted part of his life. All the time she spent begging him to stop his talk, to quiet down, to spare both of them what was sure to come, and he had ignored her. He had acted like she didn’t exist, like her life wasn’t tied up in his own. Only, that’s not completely accurate. He knew and openly admitted her life was tied with his own, he just didn’t care. To him, he owned his life, and if she was stupid enough to tag-along, then the fault lay on her. He wasn’t responsible.
Yet, he pressed the button and freed Grace from the bottle.
Caesar did a lot of horrible things in his life, most of them after his parent’s liquidation—maybe all of them. That though, freeing Grace, that has to redeem him for some of it. It has to. Or is that just wishful thinking from me? Am I wanting some way to forgive him for the things he’s done? Maybe, but so what? He did give Grace her life back, the same as he gave me mine. What was that old saying from The Bible? The Lord giveth and The Lord taketh away? Caesar had always been Grace’s Lord and he became ours as well. Maybe it is just, what he’s done. Maybe I don’t have any right to criticize him.
Jerry could have kept silent about Grace. He could have let her live her life out in that machine or just turned the whole thing off and Caesar would have never known. Or Caesar could have said no, he didn’t need Grace anymore; he didn
’t want to see her ever again. They made two choices that will help define their legacy, even if in a small way.
Caesar accepted Grace. He accepted her for what she was, for what she could never be. Maybe, he appreciated her as well.
Jerry put everything at risk to make Caesar happy. To bring him perhaps some joy to bridge the pain he’d dealt with and the pain that was on the way. Because it was coming; it was inevitable.
Chapter Four
“You’re okay?” Grace asked.
“How many times are you going to ask?” Caesar said as he moved down the hallway.
The application was almost in his ear, just like she had been for much of his life. He smiled as he walked down the hallway, and realized he couldn’t remember the last time he had smiled because of Grace. The last few years of his life had been a long growth of distrust for her, of resentment. Right up until the end. Right up until his previous life ended and this new piece began.
“I’m sorry. I just...I never thought I’d see you again. I never thought I’d see anything again. I was working on finding a way to shut the computer down, to just turn off the power completely.”
“Why not just try to direct yourself to The Genesis? Wouldn’t it have deleted you?” Caesar asked.
“Sure, but then it would have found everything about you. I thought you were dead but it didn’t deserve to know what I did. If I deleted myself, it wouldn’t get to you, to what I knew about you.”
Caesar blinked, feeling water spring to his eyes. He’d thrown her to the wolves. He took something that cared about him more than life itself and discarded it like decade old news.