by Jude Fawley
The kid was still lying on the ground, body across the tracks, stunned and looking into the lights of the train that was only twenty feet away. Will landed awkwardly on one of the track rails, his ankle twisting slightly so that he dropped to his knees. Desperately he tried picking the kid up by a leg and a shoulder, and heaving him up onto the platform. And for the most part it worked, although he accidentally hit its head against the concrete barrier on the way up. But he did save him, after all. And before Will could do anything else, the train hit him from the side.
The next piece of consciousness he had was sitting in the back of an Emergency Helicar, two men talking over his body. His legs were a giant, searing pain that he could hardly comprehend the intensity of. It was so much pain that it became abstract, something else entirely. He waved at it.
He wasn’t much aware of what they were doing, but one of the men had taken Will’s Karma Card out of his pocket and put it into some kind of reader, and was saying to the other, “How much do you think it was worth, a Good Work like that? Want to place bets before I read it?”
“That’s at least two thousand, no doubt about it,” the other said.
“It would be quite a laugh if it wasn’t in the system at all, wouldn’t it? That does happen sometimes,” the first man said. “You think you’re doing the world the greatest favor it’s ever received and it turns out you get nothing for it, that’s always a laugh. I’m sure this guy would think it was funny. I’m putting my money on… two thousand and one.” He then pressed a few buttons on the reader, and looked surprised at the machine’s response. “A solid three thousand,” he said. “I know he nearly died over it, but that’s still quite a bit for one Good Work. Either way, I was closer.”
“Yeah, congratulations,” said the other.
The fact that Will was on an Emergency Helicar boded well for him. The people that responded to the accident had decided that it was at least possible he would be selected, otherwise they would have just sent him on another subway to the closest hospital and wished him the best. It was at least possible. In the end it was the decision of Karma and Karma alone, but he was feeling fairly confident, when he was coherent enough to feel at all. He drifted out again.
The next moment he was in a Medachine, and he could smell burning. It was working on his legs below him. Whatever it was doing, he didn’t feel like burning was necessary. It seemed rather inappropriate. He realized then that there was pain in other places, that he couldn’t move his right arm, and that the entire length of his back itched horribly. Outside the glass of the machine he could just barely make out several men that had tablets in their hands, all staring at him. That time it felt like sleep that he went toward.
When he finally woke up completely, he was in a white room with another man that seemed to expect that he would be conscious, because right away the man began to speak. “You have been selected by Karma to represent the World Government as an officer of the law. I’m sure you are aware of what that means for you, and with your Karma Record I assume you knew that it was bound to be the case, but as a formality I will say the rest.
“All your personal belongings are currently being moved to your new residence at 4973 West Hampshire. No need to remember the address, you’ll find it on your Karma Card. All rates for Good Works of which you are the agent are henceforth to be doubled, in accord with your new position. Starting tomorrow you are to report at 6 a.m. World Time for training, which is to be completed within a month. And congratulations. The entire world could benefit from your example. You’ll accept, I imagine?”
“Yes, of course.” Will sat up, a deep headache immediately blooming as he moved his head. He held his hand up to his forehead and looked down at his legs below him, which felt strange. Below his knees, everything was metal. Prosthetics. They had the general shape of human legs, but they were wiring and plates and bolts, grafted unnaturally where they met the skin. He quickly averted his eyes.
“Why don’t they look like legs?” he asked irritably. “Can’t you put skin on them?”
“That’s cosmetic,” the man replied. “They’re legs, not your face. If you feel that it matters that much to you, then save up some money and you can pay for it yourself, later. Until that point just wear some pants. I suppose I should mention a few things about them too, since you brought it up,” he continued, indicating Will’s new legs. “They may feel unusual at first. Expect to trip a few times. But in a month or two you shouldn’t even notice the difference anymore.” He placed a bottle of pills on a table that was between them. “Four times a day, orally. You’re not going to want to miss a dose.”
The next day, he woke up at five in the morning and took the first real hot shower he’d had in his entire life. Because his balance was so poor, he had to hold on to a bar that ran along the length of the shower the whole time, and still he fell once. Even then, it was an extraordinary experience for him. He never would have imagined how nice hot water could be.
Outside the bathroom, in the kitchen and his bedroom, were real appliances he’d only ever seen in stores. A refrigerator, an instant microwave, a television—it was all a dream. But he only had enough time to get himself dressed, and then slowly wobble down the hallway of the apartment complex towards the elevator at the end. He took along a walking stick that he had almost refused out of pride, back at the hospital, but was soon deeply thankful for. In his pocket was the morphine the doctor had given him, and his Card.
Even the subway was nicer, which he found to be amusing. Since it only serviced the wealthier neighborhoods, it was perhaps to be expected, just so that it would match the rest of the buildings and people. But surely a lot could be said about how well it was treated by everyone that rode on it, as the quality of person was much higher on average than all of the places that Will was used to. The women wore dresses, and the men wore suits. Government people.
The person riding across from him, a young woman, seemed to recognize his face, and smiled and whispered something into her friend’s ear, sitting next to her. The other girl also turned and glanced at him quickly, but averted her eyes again when she saw that he was looking at them. “Do I know you?” he asked the first girl. “I don’t really know how that could be possible. This is my first time riding this subway.”
“You’re Will Spector, aren’t you?” she asked, somewhat shyly.
He was fairly startled. “Well yes, but… who are you?”
“Didn’t you know?” she replied, and stood up to get a newspaper from the end of the row of seats. She opened it up in front of him when she returned. “Only second page, but that’s pretty impressive still,” she said as she laughed without much confidence. And there he was, second page of the newspaper.
The picture was a fairly strong composition, he had to admit. In the foreground was the top half of his torso, his face displayed clearly, damaged and very much unconscious but easily recognizable, as medics were taking him away from the scene. In the background, the negligent woman from the day before, tightly holding her son and crying, facing the camera. The far wall of the station could be seen as well, which made him wince, since it was the wall of the subway tunnel, on which could be seen his own blood splattered against it in an impressive mural. He wondered how it was even possible—it looked like an enormous, rotten tomato had exploded. And it was pieces of him.
It made Will laugh. All in bold caps were his name and the word hero. In the article it mentioned that, for his heroism, he was to be made an officer of the police. “That is me,” he said, as he handed the paper back to the girl. “Would you like to see something else?” he asked. Both of the girls nodded slowly, unsure of what he meant. He pulled up the legs of his pants, to expose his metal lower half. “Those are new.”
The girls were surprised, and visibly unsettled. “Was it really worth it?” one of them asked, the one that hadn’t spoken yet.
“I really don’t know yet,” he responded. “But so far looks good. This subway is nice.”
&
nbsp; They laughed, and then the conversation was over. He got off at the stop indicated by his Karma Card, at a place where his training to be an officer was supposed to start. He was genuinely excited to find out what that would be like for him.
The foyer of the building was much larger than any he had seen before. Real marble ran six feet up the wall, and then the ceiling was another thirty feet above that, at least. A large number of people were going in and out the main doors, and groups were standing in front of all four of the elevators that lined the far wall as he walked in. In the center was a large fountain, in the shape of a hexagon. He followed the map on his Card, which told him to take the first elevator on his right to the ninety-third floor.
Even though he started out with a large group of people, by the time he got to his floor he was the only one left in the elevator. It was starting to make him feel nervous. It felt like a mistake—he thought that at least one person should have been going to the same place that he was. The door finally opened up into an empty, long hallway, which, following his Card, he took to the end. Then there was a staircase going down into a room, where he found three people, two wearing bullet vests and earpieces, the other wearing a suit and tie, all standing in front of a door. The one with the suit greeted him.
“Mr. Spector, pleasure to meet you. At the very least, you are prompt, and that’s good to see.”
“And it’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. …”
“My apologies, it’s Wake. Edgar Wake.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Wake.” After looking around the empty room, Will added, “This isn’t quite what I expected. Is this really where I will be training?”
The man laughed politely. “No, no, we like to start the first day off specially, to give you a taste of what you will be here for if you make it through training. And it really is a rare opportunity. Chances are that you might never be in this room again. You’re going to talk to Karma.”
“Talk to Karma? Karma is a machine, isn’t it? What do you mean by that?”
“You’ll find out on your own,” was Edgar’s reply, and he gestured to the two men that accompanied them. One of them stepped forward to address Will.
“If you’ll please hand over your Card and the bottle you have in your left pocket.” Will hesitated for a moment, but then set his walking stick aside and did as he was instructed. “And your shoes, please. Safety precautions.” Will had to wonder what was so unsafe about his shoes, but he handed those over too. It left his robotic feet exposed, since he had decided that he was done with socks for life.
“Is that everything, then?” he asked, as he took his walking stick back in hand.
“Put that back where it was, please. You’re not allowed to have it in Karma’s room.”
That frustrated Will, but he did as he was told. He was going to fall over in front of everyone, he was convinced. The other man opened the door they were standing in front of, and waved Will forward. He dragged his feet along the ground to keep stable, and slowly made his way in. The door was shut behind him, leaving him alone.
The room was dark, but lit in places by a startling shade of green. All the surfaces he could see were smooth and rounded, with the light emitting somewhere between where they met each other. None of it seemed necessary to his practical mind, since a single decent light bulb could have done the same amount of work, and none of the surfaces seemed to have any utility other than to be there. He proceeded forward to a small clearing that was surrounded by a circle of green.
A voice came out of the walls. “Welcome, Will Spector.” It was a deep, resonating voice, one that used all of the sounds necessary to make clearly intelligible words but could never have been the voice of a human.
“Karma?” he asked.
“Of course. Do you have any questions?”
It struck him as a very strange way to start a conversation, which he attributed to the fact that it was, after all, a machine he was talking to. Strangeness aside, he wondered if he did have any questions. There before him was the machine that, in a sense, he had been serving his whole life without really knowing anything about, but nothing occurred to him to ask it. “I don’t know,” he finally said.
“I’ve been watching you for a long time, Will Spector. You’ve done a lot of good things. What was your intention?”
The question caught him entirely by surprise. There was surely a wrong answer to it, and he felt like the most honest answer he could give would be that wrong one. Instead, he said, “I was just doing what I was supposed to.”
The machine actually laughed at his answer, Karma laughed at him. He felt ready to die. Karma said, “I can see all the things you do, and say, but I don’t know what you think. You wanted to be an officer, didn’t you?”
“Yes, yes I do.”
“Those legs are an improvement, then,” it said. It sounded like a joke, but it couldn’t have been. A machine couldn’t joke. “You’d give your entire body, your entire life, for the sake of what is right, wouldn’t you? That is why I brought you here.”
He felt like he could, so he said, “Yes.”
“Then I see no reason that you shouldn’t get what you want. You’ll be an officer. We won’t speak again, but I trust you will always know what I want. That makes it simple.”
Will found a question, he just didn’t know how to phrase it. He had never expected Karma to possess a consciousness, and most likely it didn’t, but at that moment he couldn’t tell the difference, and it was concerning him. “Why didn’t I know more about you?” he finally settled on.
“You’ll find that it will be the right thing to do, to never mention me to anyone, just like everyone before you found. I trust you, that is why you’re here. And perhaps you don’t understand the reasons now, but you will,” Karma said.
“What if I decide to quit? Not to do it? What then?”
“You won’t,” it said. After a moment, it added, “You’ll have nothing more to say. You can leave. It was nice meeting you, Will Spector. Make me proud.”
Only confused, Will slowly shuffled his way out of the room. At the very least he made it through the whole ordeal standing.
Decay 3
A Day in the Park
CHARLES DARCY WAS sitting at his favorite bench in the City Park, reading a book on electrodynamics. It was late afternoon on a warm winter day, and the sky around was abysmally grey, as it always was. Not far away from where he sat was one of the pillars that connected to the Solar Kite above. The pillar had the appearance of the struggling trees around it, only it never ended, just extended until it was lost in the dark cloud in the far distance overhead. It had roots too, he knew, that branched off one by one, becoming thinner and thinner, until they were the copper wire running through every wall of every building in the city.
It had always amused him that it was the City Park they had decided to place such a pillar in, all of those practical-minded people who had designed the system all those years ago. It didn’t seem like the kind of thing that belonged in a park, an electrical tower. But, as he saw it, it served as a reminder that it was still nature that provided the energy, the sun above giving its life to the trees, even if the only tree that saw the sun anymore was extremely artificial. Although, he doubted many people saw it the same way. The Solar Kite, soaring above the dark clouds of the world.
So many people had been waving at him lately, ever since he made his appearance in the newspaper. Some had even tried to strike up a conversation with him, sitting next to him on the bench and waiting for him to acknowledge them from behind his book. A lot of them asked for advice on how to be a better person, which always made him laugh internally. It still had the excitement of being novel to him, but he felt more sure by the moment that the distraction was going to be a detriment to his studies, if he chose to continue reading in the Park.
He looked up just in time to notice two officers approaching him. When he saw them, he was quick to put the book into the bag that he had underneath his seat,
where they couldn’t see it.
As they arrived at his bench, a young, muscular man with short facial hair didn’t even wait to be acknowledged before saying, “Weren’t you just reading a book?”
Charles looked up to meet his eyes, and smiled amiably. “I was, but I had intended to leave. May I help you?”
“I hope we didn’t catch you at a bad time,” the officer said, returning the smile. “But we were hoping to speak with you. You’re a hard man to find, Mr. Darcy. I’m Eric Devlin.” He extended a hand to shake. Charles took it, to avoid seeming rude. “And this is Marcus Cole. May we sit down?”
“By all means. And I can’t be that hard to find. You have your fancy machines.”
Eric was the kind of person that relentlessly carried the conversation forward at his own pace, which often made him dismissive. “Very true. Speaking of that, this is an interesting place for a man like you to be, Mr. Darcy. A Privacy Room. You are aware that nothing you do here counts, aren’t you?”
“I find it offensive that you refer to this place as a Room,” he answered.
“It’s just a technical term.”
“I know it is,” Charles said, a little too shortly. Eric had his legs splayed out in front of him, and his arms around the back of the bench, as if he was entirely at leisure. And maybe he was.
“I would have expected you to be more polite, after reading all about you,” Eric said. The man named Marcus had yet to speak, and seemed like he never would. He had a large, firm jaw, and eyes that were set far deeper than the average person, which made his face a strange combination of stern and comical. He just stared off into the distance, at the people walking through the Park.