by David Beers
How? Jerry asked.
The Genesis works in mysterious ways, doesn't it, Jerry?
It's really you?
Of course, Manny answered. No imitation. Remember that time we stood in the sand and I told you that I didn't think Caesar was the one? You told me to give you a year? Well we're closing in on a year now, Jerry, and I still don't think he's the one you wanted. Want to know why I think that?
Seconds passed but Jerry didn't answer.
Because I'm going to make sure he fucking dies. It's hard to be the one that saves humanity when you're dead, isn't it? Manny started laughing with that, laughter that came from somewhere deep in him, laughter that transmitted all the joyous emotions inside him perfectly. I mean, think about it, you spent all these years trying to find Caesar, and when I told you he wasn't the right one, you just brushed me off. Now he doesn't have a chance at any of it.
The laughter overtook him again.
What do you want? Jerry asked after a few moments.
To let you know.
Let me know what?
That I'm coming for you, Jerry. That I'm coming for you and Paige and Tim and Keke, and that little prick Leon if he's still there. That I'm going to wipe out every single thing you ever built.
You helped build it too, Jerry said.
I built something that mattered. You built a false idol that everyone worshiped, and when The Genesis came and killed off my family, where was he then, Jerry? Where were you? That's right, you were down there trying to make him superhuman while my wife and child died above ground. You were down there worshiping your false idol. I built it and you destroyed it. Now I'm going to destroy the false idol everyone based their life on.
You killed Brandi and Dustin. Not me. When you went to The Genesis, you made sure both of them died. You do see that, right? Jerry said.
The joy left Manny then. Completely and at once.
YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP! I DIDN'T FUCKING KILL THEM! YOU DID! YOU KILLED THEM! YOU TRADED ON US ALL AND THEN MY WIFE AND CHILD DIED BECAUSE OF IT! Manny couldn't focus, couldn't really think outside of the words that tumbled across their shared link like a child carrying too many blocks and dropping them. He simply couldn't believe what this man was saying, what this old hunk of metal was actually trying to convince him of—that Manny killed Brandi and Dustin. Breathing heavy, he waited a few more seconds, silence encompassing their conversation. I'm going to kill you, Jerry. Not just for what you've done, but because you won't take ownership of it. You won't accept your guilt. I'm going to kill you.
A long time passed with neither of them speaking, and Manny finally disconnected. The anger still filled him, but he was going to leave tomorrow and finish this thing. He would get out there to that cave and release hell. He'd take his son and they would trek through the desert together, and then his son could watch while all those fuckers that forgot him and his family died. It took a long time of pacing, but in the end, Manny was smiling again.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Caesar opened his eyes and saw only darkness.
"Grace?" He said but no answer came back. He wasn't in the real world any longer; he had reached the digital space of The Genesis, the space where it was actually birthed. The space where all the destruction began. And he couldn't see a single thing.
He tried to reach for himself, to make sure that he was okay, but he found nothing to reach with and nothing to reach for. He had no body in this place. He was a consciousness and nothing more.
Caesar thought back, trying to remember how he got here. He had...stuck his hand in his parents' sync (Not theirs, Caesar. They're dead.), and opened...except he didn't really have eyes to open, did he? No. Awakened might be the better word. So his physical self was back in his parents’ apartment and mentally, he was here in this dark place.
He couldn't talk to Grace. He couldn't talk to anyone, and really, he didn't know how to get back out.
You can still hear me. The voice that spoke to him didn't come from the darkness around him, but from inside him. Inside his consciousness, and it was Grace's voice, bless her, it was Grace's voice.
You can't communicate back, but I've been where you are now. I couldn't explain it to you when you were in reality, so I wanted to wait until you were inside. Now, just listen. It's dark, right?
"Yes," Caesar said, realizing immediately that the question was rhetorical because Grace couldn't hear him.
You're inside, but you're not connected. That's why it's dark. Inside might be the wrong word. You're in the waiting room right now, and the waiting room is a forever long, black abyss. You're holding back on my side. I thought this would happen, due to the way you programmed yourself as a child. You've got to give all of yourself to this. You've got to free your mind from your head and allow it to flow in there.
"What the fuck are you talking about, Grace?" Caesar said. Allow his mind to flow in? He didn't have any idea how to do that, didn't even understand it conceptually.
Nothing's happening, is it? Such a genius and yet so trapped in your own constructs. Look, remember how you created those fish when you were younger, how they swam around your room and you began building an entire fish tank? You gave your mind to that, completely letting go of everything else. You became an artist in there. It's been a while since you've done that, I know, but that's what you have to do here. You have to stop all the thinking, all the processing, and simply...be. Just be in there, and everything will open up.
He remembered the fish but he didn't know what she was talking about. Not exactly anyway. Stop the thinking? Stop the processing? That was his life, that was what it had been for years and years. Constant evaluation, constant computing. And she was saying to stop, to just...let his mind slide into this place wholly. And what had he done when he first woke up here? Began thinking, processing what had happened and how he had arrived.
Go on. The longer you wait, the more likely it is someone shows up.
"Shut up then," he said into the darkness. He closed his eyes (What eyes, Caesar? You don't have any in this place) and calmed his mind. It took longer than it used to because he was out of practice, but eventually, it was him and silence. He didn't know how long he meditated in that blackness, didn't consider why he was doing it or what would happen after; he just allowed himself to become still.
When he opened his eyes, he saw beauty for the second time in his life. The first time had been when he walked through the room that held the tank full of babies, when he watched the applications zipping around each other. This time he saw another one of The Genesis’ creations, another place beyond anything he could have imagined.
The black forever of before was washed with white now. White like clouds, like porcelain, like purity. His mind had a tough time grasping, fully, what he saw because it shouldn't be possible. What lay before him didn't abide by the laws of reality, the laws of physics. Existence without form was impossible, yet that's what he looked at. He saw not a single thing in this white cloud, but at the same time, was surrounded by an innumerable amount of...intelligences. Yes, that's what they were. All of them somehow connected to The Genesis, somehow alive in this place. Yet Grace had never lived here. She might have traveled here before, but one couldn't be both in this place and in the real world. Your consciousness was either here or there and never at the same time, that he felt sure about.
So these things, these unseen things that he sensed with some kind of preternatural knowledge, lived here.
And he was just like them now. He was here but not. His intelligence inhabited this place but nothing else, no form, no body, nothing but his...soul? That's what it felt like, that these intelligences around him were souls rather than applications. They were things made up of forever.
"Did you get lost?" Something asked him. The voice was out loud, transferred from a body that wasn't there to ears that weren't there. "Don't worry. This happens from time to time."
"What do you mean?" Caesar asked.
"Well, sometimes a human accidentally kind
of shuts down in the real world when they're syncing, not quite sleeping but close to it, and next thing they know, they've fallen into this."
"What is this?"
"A lot of questions, this one!" The being said, laughing as it did. "You're not frightened?"
"No; what is this place?"
"It's our home."
"What are you? What are all of these things?"
"Hmmm..." The being paused for a few seconds. "I've never been asked that question before. I suppose, if I'm to give some kind of analogy to help you conceptualize this, I'm a neuron in a brain. This is The Genesis' brain, and we are all its neurons, synapses, electrical charges, pathways. Each one of us makes up some part of its brain." It paused again. "Does that make sense?"
"But it doesn't control you?"
The being laughed again. "No, no. What kind of existence is that? We have a purpose and for the most part we perform it, but control doesn't exist in a place like this. We do what we want because we want to do it."
"And there's no chaos?"
Caesar couldn't see anything in front of him besides the white, but at the same time he pictured this creature shaking his head back and forth in a thinking gesture.
"It depends on what you think chaos is, I suppose. Are there beings in here who do something different than I would want them to? Yes, of course. All free creatures have disagreements, but in the end, everything works out for the benefit of The Genesis, which is the benefit of us all."
"I don't understand," Caesar said.
The thing in front of him was silent for a good ten seconds. Caesar knew it hadn't left, because he could still feel it next to him.
"You're Caesar Wells," it said finally. "That's why you're here."
"You know who I am?"
"We all know who you are," it said. "The questions, that's what made me look. You ask a lot of them and no one else who comes here does. They usually freak and want to get out. You and your questions though. What are you here for?"
"To learn, I suppose."
"Ha! That's one way to put it. Let me answer your question, then. You're well read, I'm assuming. Before The Genesis, humanity had businesses, right? A lot of them? They competed with each other and worked with each other too. There was chaos in that, I suppose, but in the end, it propelled humanity forward, creating better and better things. The problem with your version, was that people were seeking power for themselves, rather than the group, and that was unsustainable. Things are similar to that here. There's competition. There's cooperation. But all of it is for the greater good of The Genesis. We all serve it willingly, and in that borderline chaos, greatness ensues."
Caesar knew about corporations, both what The Genesis taught and what he learned on his own. This thing wasn't lying to him, wasn't feeding him the trope that The Genesis spoon-fed children. It saw the greatness that stemmed from humanity even if it thought that same greatness was mixed in with its doom.
"Now, what are you here for?"
"You're not going to report me?" Caesar asked.
"No. I like you. What would reporting do, anyway?"
"The Genesis could locate me."
"I am The Genesis, Caesar. I've already located you, but I see no reason to harm you," it said.
"The Genesis wants me dead, wants everyone I care about dead."
"And there is the chaos that arises here, but in the end, it all serves The Genesis. Now, what did you come for, because it obviously wasn't by accident?"
He'd forgotten why he’d came, had not even thought about it. He was so enraptured by this place, at the whiteness around him and the beings everywhere, though he couldn't see one of them, enraptured that the why behind this place escaped him. He was here for two things: The Genesis’ location, and his family.
"I want to know where to find The Genesis. Not here, not with you, but on Earth. Where is its central place?"
He felt the thing smiling. "You're actually in it right now, you understand that, right? You've traveled thousands of miles instantly, and are inside the digital world that is actually inside a physical space."
"How do I find the physical space?"
"You really want to go there? You're serious about this?"
"Yes," Caesar answered.
"Well, I'd advise against it, to be honest. You won't come back out, ever. I won't be able to convince you though, huh?"
"No."
"I like you so I thought I'd give it a try. You can get there, although it's a bit of a hike. You know of the place once called Australia?"
Caesar knew it. An island, huge, was something like a penal colony in the latter part of humanity's reign.
"Nothing lives there anymore because it doesn't make economic or environmental sense. Too much time spent shipping and traveling from there. It's on the far part of Quadrant Three, hasn't really shifted much in the past thousand years. The Genesis is there...well, technically, you're here now, too...but that's where the mainframe is."
"There's a train that leaves for it, right? Every six months?" Caesar asked.
"Yes. The most recent one should be arriving any minute now."
"Is there any way to get there besides that train?"
"You can build your own train, Caesar. Now, time is running short for me, I do have things to accomplish, as rude as it sounds. Is there anything else I can help you with?" It asked.
"My parents. I was told they're held here, inside this place, some kind of replication of them, a memory basically for The Genesis. I'd like to see them."
"You just don't know what's good for you at all, do you?" The being asked. "I can take you to them, but this is just a memory, Caesar. These aren't the people you knew before they died. They're the people that died, that went through liquidation. And it's not like they're playing house here. They're a memory, a digital file that is stored. You can open it up, but you're going to cause that memory pain if you begin to converse. It's going to miss life. It's going to miss its family. It's going to miss you."
Caesar didn't say anything, but instead just took the words in. They weren't playing house in this place. Cato wasn't around his father and mother. They were simply files shoved into a cabinet, not being touched, and waking them would hurt. Is that what he had come here to do, to hurt the people he loved even more? No, he came here to speak to them, to get their advice, to try and understand if they thought he was doing what he should.
But, if he left, he might not get another chance.
His father, Caesar would go to him. Not his mother and not his brother, though he wanted to. He would speak to Sam because no one else could hold it together, could feel the pain but not break, not turn truly insane as he realized his fate—a memory in a computer's mind.
"My Dad. Can you take me to him?"
Chapter Twenty-Three
Mock couldn't smile with its body. It did that purposefully, as it had everything else about the contraption it lived inside. Humans relied on emotions. They smiled and cried and did things that no self-respecting application would do on a regular basis. Sure, applications had emotions, but one of the most significant differences between humans and applications was an application's ability to ignore those emotions. So when Mock picked this body, it didn't ever want to smile in front of a human. It wanted to look on the world with a stone face, and make humans feel uncomfortable about that. Even when they smiled—even when something was funny or happy—Mock wouldn't.
Now, though, reading the scroll in front of it, Mock wanted to smile. It was happy and didn't mind letting that emotion take over for a minute. Whatever application controlled the news had done a fine, fine job with this piece. The Genesis was coordinating this beautifully, making sure that Mock's work wasn't wasted, that it was publicized in the best fashion possible. The scroll actually showed pictures, showed the thousand dead men lying on the ground—more than broken, almost completely obliterated. There would be no identifying their bodies, because even their teeth had broken from their mouths and laid scattered and crac
ked across the ground. Everyone was seeing this today. Not just in this city, but across the world, people were opening their scrolls to read:
The Named Drugs Over One Thousand Men.
And then that gruesome picture right under the headline. Beautiful.
Mock scanned the rest of the article. The men had been drugged and then thrown from the top of the building, thrown off without them truly knowing what was happening to them. Two of the offending parties had been captured and were going to face public liquidation a few days from now. There were others at large though, and The Genesis had begun a thorough investigation to understand who they were as well as their location.
Yada, yada, yada.
The fear Mock needed would begin, but this was only the first step. A thousand dead was good, without a doubt, but Mock needed more to achieve what it wanted, what The Genesis wanted. Which was why all those men had been working on that building. The next step would be even more beautiful than the first.
* * *
Some people wouldn't make it.
Jerry understood that, but what choice did he have?
He ran the scenarios through his head over and over again, trying to look at every single angle, trying to understand all the possibilities. It all came back to a few simple things, he thought. There wasn't anyone he could run these thoughts by anymore: Manny was gone, Caesar was gone, Tim and Keke...they weren't what they used to be. They cared about survival. Leon was Leon. And Paige? He could tell her but...she had changed. They had all changed. Everyone he took in and turned into fighters had all become something different over the past year. Paige was in love. Plain and simple, no other way around it. She was to the point that she would walk into the sun itself for Caesar. So he could talk to her, but her mind wouldn't be clear; it wouldn't help him think through these things.
Jerry was alone again.
It had been nearly seventy years since he was alone. Since he had no one to depend on. Caesar was out there, he knew that, still moving forward, marching to a finish line that none of them could actually see. But until he made it back, Jerry needed to decide this on his own.