by Jude Fawley
“I, on the other hand, preferred a new system. That’s why it had to be me, when Karma died and the political void threatened to destroy everything. I was the only one looking forward, at a new solution. One that gave humanity something to do with its free time again. Is there a reason to have a computer oversee the world, when humans can oversee themselves? Is there a reason to have machines grow food, when it is just as easy and far more rewarding for humans to grow it themselves? Read Marx, seriously—it’ll change the way you see value.
“The assumption I’m making, by suggesting that people replace Karma, is that people will inherently do the right thing—the free market of morals, if you will. Even if the market occasionally deviates, and there are sometimes surpluses and shortages, it will eventually correct itself, in time. Doesn’t that sound appealing to you? You’ve been living in the world I’ve created for five years, and you’ve been working on the wonderful Martian fields these past few days—what do you think of what I’ve done? Honest answers, please. The greatest thing about being human is that we can have these human interactions, discussions, and make improvements.”
“It’s great. Very great,” the writer replied, without really seeming to think about the question. Then he followed that indifference up by asking Darcy’s least favorite question, out of the infinite possible. “It’s a solution that works very well for the present, at least, but what’s next? Who comes after you? And when? No doubt that’s a sensitive subject, but I feel like a lot of people would like to know the answers, and with good reason. You seem to have thought through all these things pretty thoroughly, so surely you have some answer?” He said it with such levity that Darcy seriously had to fight the impulse to tear the man’s throat out.
Darcy replied, because he had to, “There’s still a lot of work to be done, before that question needs answered.”
“I don’t mean to suggest that you should, or even could, be replaced. All I mean to say is that, in the unlikely yet possible event of your death… you said yourself you have an increased likelihood of lung cancer… if your concern is that so many people don’t share your view on what should be done to address society’s problems, and that those views are overly popular, then would you not want to have a backup plan? To ensure the completion of your life’s work? That’s what I meant.” After considerable backpedaling, the writer was finally able to make the question seem inoffensive.
“Let me ask you a question in return,” Darcy said.
“Ok.”
“Do you have any children?”
“No, no I don’t.”
“I don’t either, but I think that the point I’m about to make is still valid—parents aren’t always asking themselves who will raise their children in the unlikely event of their death. Maybe once or twice in their lives, when they have a close brush with it, but my guess is that for a majority of people the question never enters their mind. And yet parents often die unexpectedly. My parents died when I was eleven, protesting for coffee. They had no plan about who would raise me in their absence—and it worked itself out. I still managed to become a moderately successful person. What I’m trying to say is that it’s not always necessary to plan for the worst case scenario.
“It might even do more harm than good. For instance, if I told people I would abdicate in two years, and then a year and a half from now some calamitous thing happens that only I could undo—what then? Do I rescind my promise and stay? Do I still go on to abdicate and let my creation disintegrate behind me? I would much rather make no commitments until I know that our society has reached a stable place, where I could let it go without worry or feelings of an unfulfilled obligation. Does that make sense?”
“It does, you’re absolutely right.”
“Please, if I’m doing something wrong, during these interviews or as Rex, let me know. I can only try my best.”
For a change of pace, later that night Darcy arranged an outing with his biographer to the Ares Zoo. Darcy always preferred to go at night, since the zoo was closed to the public after 9 pm. He enjoyed himself much better without all of the noises, the crowds, and the attention that his subjects were bound to give him. Because he was Rex, he had free reign of the place.
They took a Humvee with an open roof, since the weather was nice. It had been raining for days, but suddenly the sky cleared up and the humidity of the world abated. Despite the recent rain there were fires in the distance, a soft, ominous glow on the south horizon, a second sun setting, but Darcy did his best to ignore it. His companion did the same, since he knew that the fires were a sore subject for him.
Darcy’s mansion was a one-hour ride from the city—a compromise between being close to his citizenry and being the hermit he often wanted to be. As they drove, the Martian sun finally set in the distance.
Darcy was looking at the exorbitant amount of stars above him when the writer said, “It’s strange to actually see a moon in the sky. That’s Phobos, isn’t it? Where’s Deimos?”
He turned his attention to the oblong moon, careening through space. “That’s Phobos, yes. Deimos won’t show up for another… tomorrow. Deimos will rise tomorrow. And you can’t really see it very well anyway, it just looks like a bright star.”
The writer nodded his head, and continued to look up in dull fascination.
Darcy took a moment to gather his thoughts, then said, “The closest celestial body to Mars is fear—Phobos, fear—do you think that means anything? You’re a literary type, you probably read a lot into things like that. It rises in the west and sets in the east—nothing on Earth does that. Nothing natural, at least. Phobos will rise and set twice tonight, it travels that quickly.
“And Deimos. That one means terror. Strange things to be orbiting such a pleasant planet, don’t you think? Fear and terror. But those are the kind of things that can’t be renamed, once they’ve been named. Like the days of the week. Or Leningrad. Do you know how many years it took for the world to completely adopt uniform standards of measurement, after the Government declared it to be official policy? I read about this in an article, thought it was very interesting. Ninety years. Three generations of human beings. And that’s subtracting the five years that the Americans were trying to insist on English units—when they conquered the world and told their subjects all to learn English, everyone obliged willingly. When they told their subjects to measure distances in ‘feet’ and liquid in ‘gallons’, the Americans got a massive ‘fuck you.’ And then the sides were reversed—the Americans told their own people to use the metric system, and it took ninety years for them to comply. And that’s amongst the academic community, in peer-reviewed literature by people that should ‘know better’—the guy that researched this used scholarly articles from the time as indicators of common usage. It’s very possible that it took much longer than that for the parochial types. What I’m trying to say is that if I told my fellow Martians to call our moons Happiness and Peace, it would probably take ninety years before everyone actually did it. So what’s the point? At least we have moons, whatever they’re called, right?
“It would be a shame if the same thing happened to Mars that happened to Earth. I couldn’t stand to lose this sky too. Fortunately, I think it’s safe—there’s an overwhelming consensus now that we’ve got to do better as conservationists. No doubt you know what I mean, but just wait until we get to the zoo. It’ll make more than a believer out of you.”
Soon they were there, and walking around all of the different exhibits. Armed guards were close behind them, ready to shoot anything that might threaten the leader of two worlds and his biographer. Darcy smoked a cigar, and took a leisurely pace. So many light poles extended over imitations of lost habitats, and so many resurrected animals basked in their artificial light.
“What’s that over there?” the writer asked.
“A crocodile, I think. Maybe an alligator. They’re practically the same thing.”
“It looks so… prehistoric. Like a dinosaur. Is it a dinosaur?�
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“No, I don’t think it is. I might be wrong though.”
They spent a while looking out at the lonely reptile, as Darcy made a cloud of slowly drifting smoke around them. Then they wandered off to the elephants, which were nearby.
“It’s amazing that something so big can even exist,” the writer commented, before they moved on.
The next area contained various breeds of dogs. There were a couple of Dalmatians, some St. Bernards, and a single Chihuahua. Darcy and his biographer spent quite a bit of time there, in front of the grating, as the dogs pawed at the bars of their cage. “Apparently everyone used to have one of these,” Darcy told his companion. “Can you imagine that? Caring for a wild animal, all the time. Of course they were domesticated, but it still stretches the imagination.”
“It must have been a lot of work,” the writer responded, looking down uncomfortably at the creatures. The Chihuahua wouldn’t stop barking, in its unapologetically shrill voice. “I’m somewhat repulsed,” he added.
“Roll over,” Darcy told the nearest St. Bernard. It only stared at him with large, unblinking eyes. “Roll over. I’ve been told they know tricks, but I have yet to see it. Supposedly they possess some kind of real intelligence, then, right? It really makes you wonder, what exactly it takes to achieve consciousness. They experience pain, but do they feel it? Does it hurt? They’re locked in this cage—do they care? Do they have higher aspirations, a longing for open pastures? And if so, what about smaller animals, like rats? They’ve got rats in that building over there, and a bunch of other little rodent-like things. These animals get smaller and smaller, more and more insignificant—at which point do their lives seize to have value? No one cares about bacteria.”
“I’d like to see the rats,” the writer said. “They carry the plague, don’t they? Seems rather dangerous to have them in a public place like this.”
“Don’t worry,” Darcy assured him. “They keep them in little glass boxes. Whatever diseases they have, you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
Decay 13
Depressing Story Time
NIGHT WAS CLOSING in, and Will was flying in a Helicar, on his way back to Charles’ mansion. An almost beautiful, argyle sunset was happening in the distance, entirely shades of purple, a rare display of color by the sky. Sitting with him were Eric and the others. Their Evaporation Pens were being recharged in the cockpit.
Even though Charles’ Karma Chip was no longer broadcasting a signal, Will wasn’t sure how much that meant. It could have been his imposter that was killed—Will hadn’t been close enough to see. He had taken most of his shots at the group from the height of the Helicar, only using his Grappling Chain to reach the ground when he realized that the remnants of the enemy group would need to be chased on foot.
He had chased a man down into the subway system, in the middle of a large crowd waiting for the train. The man had tried to get away by jumping onto the tracks and running through the tunnels, but Will had caught up with him in time to Evaporate him from the platform. The extended range of his Evaporation Pen was working quite well to his advantage already.
He had then gone back to Karma, who told him to go immediately back to the mansion to investigate, with Eric and the rest, and to kill whoever they might find. Will was personally carrying a large amount of explosives, with which he intended to blow the whole thing up after they were through.
If anyone was still at the mansion, they didn’t have Karma Chips. To Will it didn’t make much of a difference, since he had only been an officer for a short period of time, and was used to not knowing where and when people might appear. But to a cop like Eric, who was quite accustomed to the Karma Map, it must have been unsettling to be up against an unseen enemy.
Presently, Eric was talking to Will, as they waited to arrive at the mansion. “It’s a really interesting time you picked to become a cop, kid. As long as I’ve been with the Government, I’ve never dealt with anything even nearly this exciting. I hope this doesn’t set your expectations too high for the rest of your career, because you’re going to be disappointed.”
Will was curious. “What’s the most exciting thing you’ve dealt with? Before this?”
Eric took a moment to consider. “Like I said, nothing compares. But there was this one time, I’ll tell you about that. Usually, when people are trying to take out their Karma Chip on their own, they do it in their bathroom. We don’t tell them they have a time limit in there before they’re investigated, right? So all things being equal, they think it’s best to have running water, lots of light, and a mess that’s easy to clean up even though they won’t be living there anymore. It’s habit more than anything, really.
“But these people I’m talking about, they were a couple. And instead of going to the bathroom, they were trying to take their Chips out in their bedroom. Which gave them a lot of extra time—I almost feel like they must have known somehow. After about sixteen hours, Karma gets suspicious and sends me in. And it’s one of the first calls I’d done on my own, so I’m nervous as it is.
“I walk in, go to the bedroom. Blood everywhere, disgusting. I feel like vomiting, completely nauseous. They’re both still alive, the girl had been trying to take the guy’s out first, and then they were going to switch, I guess. He wasn’t looking too healthy, had lost a lot of blood, and she still hadn’t gotten very far into his head. I’m surprised she made it as far as she did—she was either not squeamish at all, or absolutely hated the guy, I’m still not sure which. Besides probably being exhausted and frustrated, she’s still pretty healthy by the time I show up.
“So I walk in, take a look. Tell them what I’m there for, and that they’re committing a crime. But I’m confused by the whole thing. I’m supposed to stand somewhere that Karma can see me Evaporate them, but they’re in the bedroom, and they’re on the far side, which was more like ten feet, twice my range. Even more than that, I’m not actually sure the girl committed a felony, because even though she was helping him with his, hers was perfectly intact. I wanted to talk to someone before I did anything, and I didn’t want them to go anywhere.
“We only get two pairs of handcuffs as officers, right? The high-torsion, and the normal. So naturally, out of propriety, even though he’s not looking too hot, I put the high-torsion on him, and cuff him to the bedframe. I go to put the regular ones on her, and she’s looking pretty docile so I’ve got my guard down, but as soon as I’m within arm’s length she hits me in the face, and runs out into the hallway.
“I chase after her, down a staircase. Finally I get a hold of her, and I’m sorry to admit but I hit her in the head a little bit, to get my point across. Put on the handcuffs, walked with her back up the staircase. And on the other side of the hallway, I see a trail of blood leading to the elevator. I have no idea what it could be, because surely the man’s already drained to kosher by now from his skull hole. But the trail leads to their apartment. I go in, and into the bedroom, and I see an entire bed halfway through a wall, with just an arm attached to it. One arm. He struggled with the handcuffs, they did that crazy twisting thing they do, and it sent both the bed and his arm through a wall. And then he walked away.
“The kicker is that I never found him. I went down the same elevator, with the girl. And onto the street outside, but then the trail ended. I look at my Karma Map, and he’s not on that either. So I figure maybe she damaged his Chip after all. And because I have her, I have to give up and let him go. To this day, I don’t know what happened to him.
“Just to see the expression on her face, I tell her that he got away, that he was free now, that he left her behind to save himself, and I congratulated her on her work. Not a single expression on her face, no spite, no smile. Two things I learned—there’s a lot more blood in the human body than you’d ever expect, always remember that. Number two—I don’t know what love is anymore. And I have a wife of my own. I always wonder if he just left her there, if he took his opportunity and ran, even though it cost him a l
imb, or if they had agreed all along that if they were caught, whoever could give their life for the other, would.
“I don’t know whether they loved each other completely, or not at all. I Evaporated her there, on the street, in front of everyone, simply because I didn’t want to know the answer at that point. And later that night, I went home to my wife, and realized the damage was already done, Evaporating the girl hadn’t helped. I realized that I had all of the same doubts as before, except it was my life, not theirs.
“Perhaps that was a little more personal than you were looking for, but it’s always what I think of, when I reflect back on my career as a police officer. It’s the memory I will always have.”
“Wow, shit,” was all that Will could think to say. Hoping to lighten the mood, Will said, “What about you, Marcus?”
“I had to Evaporate a kid,” Marcus said immediately. “I didn’t want to. And just like Eric, my first reaction was to call it in, because I wasn’t sure about the law, but didn’t think it would possibly be the case that I would have to Evaporate him. And they told me to do it. The kid had waited until his parents were gone, and did it with a pair of pliers. He had just gotten it inserted, the incisions were all still fresh, he just undid the thread and peeled it all back off. I bet his anesthesia was still working, otherwise I don’t understand it at all. But he spent too long doing it, so I was sent. And I Evaporated him, fourteen years old.”
“What the hell,” Will said. “I said exciting, not depressing. Now I’m just sad.”
“Mine was exciting, it just happened to be depressing too,” Eric said.
“I forgot the prompt,” Marcus said. “After Eric’s story, I thought we were doing depressing.”
“And here I finally have a story to replace that one,” Eric continued, “and I can’t even tell anyone about it. Charles Darcy will always be the perfect model, whose life tragically ended too early. It’s a shame, all of it. The loss of a good story, the fact that such a scumbag will forever be idolized by the world when chances are good people like us, who stopped him, will just be forgotten. I wonder how they’re going to cover it all up, what they’re going to say happened to him. They must be thinking about it already, wouldn’t you say?”