“Not bad,” Soren said. “Why didn’t I think of that?” His eyes had gone to the floorboard. He raised them to the driver again. “You say they stopped upgrading humans entirely?”
“Not entirely. Ten percent, tops, I’d say, are as determined as ever to use the nanites in their bodies to lobotomize themselves emotionally. Once they shut down their darker emotions, especially, they figure there’ll be nothing for The Tillerman to feed off of, and he’ll mosey on, off this world, of his own accord.”
“Genius,” Soren mumbled. “I might be able to build on that idea.”
“Now, of course, we can always do a tour of my sector, you know, the freak show? When they put an end to carnivals, they didn’t exactly put an end to freaks. Hey, and no animal rights people to piss off.”
“You shouldn’t allow people to make fun of you like that,” Naomi said.
The taxi driver waved dismissively. Soren was getting the sense that gesture was his baseline. It did seem to make use of his full range of motion on that side of his body; the other side seemed a bit more deformed, and less able to move about as freely. “What’s the point of life if you can’t laugh at yourself? Inviting others to do so, just makes the whole enterprise that much less lonely.”
Soren was nodding. “Thanks, pal. I think you might just have saved us all.”
“Saved us all?” He looked at Soren perplexed. “Ah, got you, you’re from the Revivalist’s district. Yeah, business is booming over there. The prophets offering tickets to the Promised Land are all but sold out, but that doesn’t stop them preaching.” The driver had already sped off that direction, laughing madly at his own joke.
“Ah, the park, actually?” Soren said, speaking up to get his voice to carry over the roar of the old V-8 engine. It was one of those classic New York city cabs that they used to use back when 1955 Chevys were quite the thing for taxis; cheap to maintain, cheap to keep on the road, and plenty of room for passengers.
Soren wondered briefly what he was doing driving such a cab in Swank Town, where they typically used limos—both the regular kind and the stretch-kind—to taxi people around. But as he’d experienced earlier, in his own district, the boundaries were getting a bit blurred. Now that the Tillerman’s effects were overriding the more distinct qualities of the various districts, it made everything seem like it belonged to one or another neighborhood in the Armageddon sector.
“The park? Yeah, alright. But I didn’t figure you two for a pair of nature lovers. Not that there’s much nature therapy to be had. Those plants are as sick as we are.” He sneezed so hard he sprayed his windshield to the point of turning on the windshield wipers. “Ah, the windshield wipers are on the outside, you moron. Sorry, you two, bad habit of talking to myself.” He took the Windex, sprayed the window, to restore the view. “Recommend you shower in this stuff by the way.” He held up the bottle so they could see it clearly. “Clorox is even better. Otherwise the germs will have their way with you. And the lard you use for baking… the perfect moisturizer.” He shook his hand, making the shape of an “O” with his thumb and index finger and the rest of the fingers held high.
“Ah, go on,” Soren said, waving him off dismissively.
The guy roared with laughter when he realized Soren was making fun of him and banged his excitement out against the steering wheel. “Oh, the freaks are going to love you. Sure I can’t talk you into going there? We could use a break from these bleak types who have absolutely no idea what real suffering is. Posers, the whole lot of them. Of course, if these listless energy levels last a few years, I suppose they might take on some street cred.”
“We’re meeting up with our surrogate family at the park,” Naomi explained.
The driver nodded. “Should have said so. Can’t underestimate the value of family. We’re all one big family over in the Freaks sector. That’s why everyone likes the sectors, you know? Yep, no one misses the days when you had to get on the internet to find someone to relate to half way around the world. What a sad lot they must have been, huh? We freaks… . No, we have it good, by comparison.”
By the time he got them to the park, Soren and Naomi knew all the best places to eat in the Freaks sector, and which waiters to get to wait on them if they really wanted to challenge themselves to hold their lunches. He confessed his sector was more popular with Bulimics as a rule than with regular folks because of the wait staff. But he insisted for those with an iron constitution, the faces would live with them forever. Again, he laughed at his own joke. Soren figured, that along with the dismissive waves, that was another chief feature of his personality.
“What do I owe you, pal?” Soren said, getting out of the cab.
The driver waved at him dismissively. “Ah, go on. Who needs money in End Times?” He sped off to pick up his next customer, intent on taking them, too, on the ride of their life and spreading some good cheer, the iconoclast that he was.
***
Player was whisking in animals for Natura to doctor with his tornados, sized more like water spouts, and acting more like them as well, considering their natural tendency to bring fish inland from the ocean and drop them on people’s heads.
Currently, Natura was tending a llama that he’d just brought in for her, holding her hands up to its head as she’d done the last time they were in the park. Only, what…?
“She’s spiking the feel-good hormones in the animals’ heads,” Naomi explained, as if reading his mind. Perhaps she was, if she was dialed back up enough. The llama slurped Natura’s face with its ridiculously long tongue and then loped into the throng of other happy animals given the mood makeovers by Natura.
Player landed someone’s pet tiger for her to tend to next.
Soren came up behind Player and gave him a big hug from behind. “I’m so turned on by this other side of you, I could just hump you right now. Want to hump?”
Player peeled his arm from around his neck. “Get off me, smart ass,” he said with mock disdain. Soren could tell he was secretly delighted to lap up the praise as always. “Besides, I’m just trying to fuck with her. If the tiger won’t do it, let’s see if the pet Cayman does.”
Soren gave him a pat on the back anyway and made his way over to Natura. The tiger growled and went to swipe at Soren with its paw, causing him to jump back, but Natura settled it down. “You keep doing what you’re doing, hon,” Soren said to Natura. “My guess is the families that were here before’ll be finding their way back here soon, looking to recapture some of those feel-good sensations of earlier. Their pets will go a long way to turning their moods around, especially as perky as they’re going to find them now.”
“I’m afraid not all the owners will come looking for them here,” she said.
“Don’t you worry about that. You can’t save the more incorrigible mopers. The people still open to a little emotional doctoring will respond well to the pet therapy. And those animals will find happy new adoptive homes, well away from people who would just take their problems out on them.”
Natura seemed to respond well to the revelation, her own mood brightening.
Soren looked around for Stealy. “Where’s our lone wolf?”
Stealy came roaring in on her motorcycle. The Natura-doctored animals, having lost their fear of humans and of loud sounds apparently, flocked around her, fully expecting her to play with them. She ripped off her helmet. “Get these vile creatures away from me.”
When Natura heard, Soren craned his neck to her to intervene, and gestured. “Looks like there are some families arriving now who could benefit from the pick-me-up,” he said. Natura calmed down and redirected the animals toward them with a thought. The humans making it to the park looked more sorrowful than usual for being without magic. They must have had just enough to survive the first wave of die-offs, but now their magic was gone too. Like artists who could only work off their highs, they were too depressed to have any gas left in the tank.
Plenty others would be roaming around who didn’t have m
agic before or after the Tillerman’s arrival. If they’d survived the initial impact of his presence it was because he wanted them alive to feed off their suffering. And the ones who couldn’t endure the shock, who had taken their own lives… well, by now, the Tillerman had no doubt found a way to close the door on that exit strategy. It was doubtful rotting bodies in the soil offered him nearly the kind of sustenance live, despairing souls did.
Soren gestured for his proxy family to congregate around him. They seemed willing to do that much. “Look, you guys, I’m guessing these families, what’s left of them, are in tatters. Sadly, when things get desperate, people get ugly. I want you to remind them what family is really all about.”
“No fucking way,” Stealy said. “I’m out of here.” She started to put her helmet back on when Soren said, “How’s the thieving coming for you, Stealy, now that money’s not worth anything?”
“Yeah, well, they’re less clingy when it comes to getting my hands on their precious magical talismans as well.”
“But there’s only one magic that matters now, the kind that will get rid of the Tillerman. Until then, you can collect up all the powers you want, they’ll be useless. The talismans might not even work if your own personal alchemy is how they attune to you. Right now, the Tillerman’s vibe is on everyone like stink on a skunk.” That seemed to sober her. She lowered the helmet. “Look, I know just how to get rid of this guy, but it isn’t going to be easy. We’ve got to spread good cheer. We’ve got to teach people how to be positive when all hope is lost and when there’s absolutely no good reason to be happy about anything. When the realist in them tells them the practical thing is to be worried sick. Because grim is the only energy he knows how to feed on. Now, what family among all families knows about how to make lemon juice out of lemons, huh?”
Player grunted. “God, that was one lame analogy. Though I suppose chi man has a point. That is kind of our thing.”
The other “kids” gave him a nod. And they were off. No more preaching required. “You, too, Naomi. The ‘kids’”—he was referring to his own merry band of wizards—“are going to need you to get inside the patients’ heads to know what form of feel-good therapy, what kind of clowning around, is going to work exactly. One person’s happy place is another person’s tragedy, you know?”
“Yeah, I guess I do. What are you going to do?”
“Something so desperate, so wrong, I’m ashamed of myself for even thinking of it.”
“In case you missed it, we all passed the all-is-lost mile marker a ways back, and this dark night of the soul is starting to wear thin. So you do what you have to.”
He gave her a quick nod, afraid to hug her for fear it might all be over, and he’d never have the strength to leave her. “If I fall, Naomi, if I don’t make it back… .”
“I’ll get you into your chair. Lar, I mean Cypher, is already working on the nanite-reconfigurations to bring you back from the abyss.”
Soren wasn’t sure how he felt about someone else messing with his nanites; or his chair, for that matter. But it wasn’t like the transhumans were going to loan him anybody from their sector. They had their hands full with their own “Tea for the Tillerman” project—their own noxious potion to put an end to him. “Yeah, okay,” he said, “I guess beggars can’t be choosers.” He hacked until he wasn’t sure if it was going to stop. So rather than stand there and wait for it to stop, he took off.
The truth was, he’d forgotten all about Lar. If that was any indication of the state of his mind, Soren better get where he was going fast or risk forgetting his destination and his reason for going there.
***
Lar was wearing his Cypher superhero getup, which amounted to a pair of white leotards. The back of the top part said, “E=MC what? No worries, Cypher to the rescue.” He stopped to check himself in the full-length mirror, the antique one that spun around, currently ensconced at the far end of Soren’s bedroom. He held up a face mirror which he’d retrieved earlier from the upstairs lab table so he could see himself from behind in the full-length mirror, and sighed. “Your superhero getup needs some serious work, Cypher. I suppose that can wait for later.”
He returned to the upstairs hall and put the smaller mirror back on the examination table and went back to his book on nanites, pacing the loft at the edge of the balcony.
“According to this, it’s a way to reanimate the dead,” he said, fingering the lines in the text. “They’re still technically dead, as all higher brain function is being carried out by the nanites. It’s a stopgap measure, no more,” he said, flipping the page. “Shit, he’s going to kill me for turning him into Frankenstein’s monster for real. It won’t just be a cute analogy anymore.”
He flipped the page again, taking in the diagrams more closely. “But at least I can understand this. Some of those other books, forget it. Maybe if he hits me again with another blast of… . Duh, you moron. You’re not thinking up to Cypher standards either because of this Tillerman character. You better get used to working at fifty-percent.” He turned another page. “More like twenty percent.
“Fuck, I can barely understand this primitive nano. What book is this even out of?” He shut the cover. The author’s name said, Emanuel Swedenborg, and on the inside was the date the book was printed, 1771. “Marvelous. A few hundred years before anyone even coined the term ‘transhumanist.’ Yep, he’s definitely going to kill me.”
“Yep, he’s definitely going to kill you. Can’t wait,” the parrot said.
Lar was startled by the bird’s high-pitched, squeaky voice, with a Londoner’s accent, no less. “Forgot Natura left you to keep me company so I wouldn’t have to talk to myself. Yeah, well, she’s a little late to that party.”
“Look, dickhead, I gotta job to do, too, alright. So just let me play my part so I can score a better gig for good behavior, like, I don’t know, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet—the pet-edition, now that animals can talk. Now that’s how to die in style. Nothing like you mooks doing this sorry take of The Walking Dead. God, one more season of that, and I really will shoot myself. Speaking of, pal, you think you can find me something on the tele? I don’t know, Gilligan’s Island seems suitably senseless.”
“Just shut up, I’m trying to think.”
“There aren’t enough vitamins in the world to launch a good idea in this joint. Just look where you are. The last good idea anyone had, some idiot tried to bring the dead back to life with a jolt of electricity. And they called him ‘Doctor.’ Back where I come from, we call that ‘one serious twit’.”
Lar was reaching for the cage with the black cloth over it. Screw this pedestal nonsense. “Hey, that right there, that’s animal abuse, pal. Okay, fine, I’ll shut up. Loser. Sorry, just had to get in the last word.” He passed his foot with the three talons across his mouth and did a mock “I’m zipping it” gesture.
Lar went back to his book, as Lar, until he was worthy of the name of Cypher. Soren had been kind enough to rig a fireman’s pole for him so he wouldn’t have to fight that ladder to get down from the balcony. Of course, that meant remembering to close the trap door, and not stepping through the gaping hole, conking himself in the head against the pole, only to land on the cement, one floor down, more bruised and battered than ever. All because he was too busy reading to look where he was stepping.
When he finally came to, he mumbled a few choice epithets, scraped himself off the floor, rubbed his sore forehead and his sore butt, oh, yes, and his sore knees.
He picked up the spilled tome to use as a reference, and ferried it over to the worktable set up for the nanites. There was a time when—as Cypher—he could have held the entire contents of the book in his head. Now he couldn’t even hold what was on the page.
Soren’s nanite-engineering theater was analogous to the setups used by those artists who forge their paintings on the head of a pin, working with a magnifying glass and tiny brushes no more than a hair’s thickness. But once the initial nanobot was assembled, t
he machine could replicate the rest on its own. Then, imparting the hive-mind distributed-intelligence was a matter of programming the machine, built for just that. But the computer language was foreign to Lar.
He screamed with frustration. It was going to be difficult enough just to get the first nanobot built, far less learn to become fluent in an entire language. Let’s hope Soren doesn’t need my services any time soon.
ACT FIVE
END OF THE WORLD
MARDI GRAS
NINETEEN
It was an end of Chinatown that Soren couldn’t say he relished entering; the Martial Arts district. These guys never tired of trying to best one another. It was like the Wild West with nunchaku wielders instead of quick draw artists with six guns. Though, technically, you could bring any weapon into the district to try your luck with the masters. Of course, like with the other districts, they weren’t all using strictly martial arts here. The advanced ones were wizards in their own rights.
Since Soren was known as a chi master, he was pretty much expecting to be fucked with, which was why he really didn’t want to be here. He was in no mood for surviving a series of contests just to reach his goal, one Chu Lin.
The drunken master fighting style was ruling the day, now that everyone was feeling the enervating effects of the Tillerman. Of all of them, those guys were used to fighting drunk, debilitated, sick, even plague-infested.
There remained the dim possibility no one would recognize him in his current condition. But he doubted he’d get that lucky.
“Yeah, there goes that hope.” He groaned.
One of the drunken masters already had him cornered in an alley. He’d taken a wrong turn; the place was a maze, precisely to avoid timely escapes. And it wasn’t like Soren had been here in a while.
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