The FREE Digital Gift Box - Short Stories

by J. Thorn

  If your heart is warmed by acts of human kindness, my tale will disappoint you. However, if you revel in violence and depravity, you will appreciate my nefarious ways. This is the way I singlehandedly perpetuated evil, keeping it alive within a species gorged on greed and selfishness. A world bathed in eternal light will wither and die, scorched and seared from existence. The universe needs darkness in the same way the righteous cannot exist without the wicked.

  I have blood on my hands. The stabbing was the first murder I committed in hundreds of years. Every so often, I remind myself of the visceral pleasure of the kill. Destroying DNA code is thrilling, but I can’t smell the blood in the air. I can’t see the dying man’s face as I choke the life from his throat or twist the knife in his stomach.

  I began my destructive ways at an early age, hacking into corporate computer systems. I earned a paycheck as an unknown, faceless coder and yet at night I attacked the systems I was supposed to be building.

  The corpse at my feet was the last human here besides me. How we ended up alone is not relevant. He trusted me and even when I was sliding the knife into his gut he didn’t expect to die by my hand. The kill gave me a high I had forgotten and it fueled the words I’ve decided to capture now. In a way, dear reader, you have blood on your hands too.

  I wrote this on a beach on Venus in a distant past. The fresh, salty air I breathe now will have been burned from this atmosphere millions of years ago. Confused? Don’t worry. It’ll all make sense when I'm done.

  The scientists of the early twenty-first century believed Mars would be the most likely planet we’d colonize after our species raped the Earth of what little resources she had left. That was before they discovered the variables of time and distance are irrelevant in interstellar travel. They’re the same. In fact, it became easier to traverse time instead of distance, which brings us here. This is Venus a billion years before Colony started blasting ships from Earth into the known universe to look for humanity's new habitat. This is before carbon dioxide trapped by the Venusian atmosphere destroyed the otherwise beautiful orb most resembling our home planet.

  I’m here now. Well, I was here, but I’ll be gone by the time you read this. I’ve spread the sickness far and wide because I’m evil and that’s what evil does. It hurts without reason, without conscience. Don’t ask me why I’m that way because I don’t know. This is who I am. What I am. Some save. I kill.

  ***

  I can’t assume you know the history of our species’ exploration. It was the advances in biomolecular science that made me possible, allowed me to destroy our kind.

  As early as 2012, scientists experimented with something called 3D printing. One could design an object on paper or screen, something two-dimensional, and send it to a printer that would manifest the item. It would recreate it as a solid, three-dimensional object. Shortly after this technological breakthrough, a team of scientists at the Cleveland Clinic began laboratory experiments of a similar nature involving DNA. The hypothesis was if one could print an inanimate object from a two-dimensional design, could the same be done for humans? Could scientists using DNA code print a human? And if so, why couldn’t it be done beyond the limits of time and space?

  By 2027, our population was at the tipping point. Billions of people on the planet couldn’t find a clean glass of water. The fossil fuels we burned pushed metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, replicating the destruction that took place on Venus, albeit from a different cause. We were defecating in our well and then wondering why the water was filthy.

  The decimation of the environment and continued population growth meant a collision course was inevitable. Leaders of global economics horded the resources. They left the rest of humanity struggling to survive. In a few short decades, wars were an epidemic. They were not fought over oil or coal reserves, but life's most basic necessity: water.

  I’ll spare you the history. You don’t need it to understand how America decided to explore the universe in search of a new home. It's important to know the expeditions began in much the same way as those launched in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Wealthy governments funded exploration by a handful of bold explorers. Like Ferdinand Magellan or Christopher Columbus, these new adventurers took immense risk with an unlikely chance of success. But those who found success enjoyed it beyond their wildest expectations.

  In 2038, the United States established Colony. A department of the government, it also became the general term for the scientific community researching space exploration and the nickname for the computer algorithm running the expeditions. Colony's goal was to relocate humanity to a pristine environment where we could start over. It sent command ships into the known universe with five hundred passengers. Well, technically not so much passengers as fertilized eggs grown in tubes of fluid that sustained their emerging bodies through the first thirty years, while the ship blasted through space at near the speed of light.

  This solved the problem that plagued most manned space missions of the time, massive amounts of funding and resources. In addition, the five hundred passengers were wired into a virtual existence. Colony delivered computer code and electronic impulses to their brains, simulating life. They learned to walk, attended school, played sports and did all of the normal things people would do, except the experiences took place inside of their heads. You can judge if you want. You can debate whether or not that would be a life worth living, but that doesn't concern me. I want you to know how I’ve ruined mankind forever.

  Not every ship sent by Colony colonized a planet. In fact, best estimates reveal a fifty-fifty success rate. Fifty percent of the ships found a habitable planet. Colony would wait until the five hundred passengers reached the age of thirty then release them from the fluid tubes so they could begin the work of colonization. They had thirty years of wisdom, experience and a specialized vocation engineered by Colony.

  Colonists in the fluid were taught to be doctors, mechanics, technicians, farmers—all jobs required to establish the settlement. The five hundred were not chosen at random. Only the most talented and intelligent donors provided Colony with a fertilized egg to be sent on the journey. The DNA competition was fierce. Why didn’t they screen for an “evil” gene or use some such test that would prohibit someone like me from getting into Colony? They did. However, no screening is one hundred percent accurate and whenever humans are involved, mistakes will be made. I was able to exploit this rather wonderfully, as you will see.

  But what about the fifty percent of exploratory ships that landed on a hostile planet, or one not suitable for life? Colony would abort the mission. It would incinerate the craft along with all five hundred “people” on board, now thirty years of age although still in the tubes. This is not an efficient or sustainable business practice. A farmer who routinely accepted the loss of fifty percent of his crops every season would not stay in business for long.

  Around 2065, two scientific breakthroughs changed Colony forever. It appeared these two discoveries would guarantee humanity a new place to live while populating it with only the best, most righteous people. That was the plan.

  Things never go according to plan.

  I know you probably think this to be rather simple-minded and obvious now, but the concept was revolutionary at the time. Humans sent electronic instructions that were materialized into solid objects with primitive devices like printers and fax machines. The scientists believed the same thing could be done with humans. They theorized with the right hardware and software, they could print a complete DNA code to a printer somewhere else in the universe where the exact human would reassemble on the other end – complete with their personal history, memories and experiences. That left an ethical question. Namely, what to do with the living, breathing DNA donor back on Earth?

  Because of space-time consequences and for reasons beyond our understanding, once the DNA was sent to its remote location, the original specimen had to be destroyed. Killed. The repulsion you feel for me—the evil y
ou abhor—has always been and always will be part of humanity. Evil and hypocrisy. Sometimes both wear the mask of science.

  The scientists knew with one hundred percent accuracy which worlds would support life and, therefore, the hardware and machinery used by Colony and the DNA printers would be sent ahead of the digital DNA code delivery. Astrophysicists exploited wormholes in the space-time fabric to do this and hoped someday actual humans could be delivered this way as well. But they had no way of knowing if the DNA could survive transport via the wormholes, so only Colony's hardware was sent by this method.

  Without thinking through the implications, the United States government funded the scientists at the Cleveland Clinic. Using computer-coded DNA, a human could be sent and reassembled anywhere in time and space, and an infinite number of times. The process could be repeated for all eternity, making that person immortal. Although their physical cells would be broken down, transmitted and resent, they would always retain their memories and experiences. The essence of the person would live forever.

  The new system of DNA delivery meant the exorbitant cost of sending five hundred humans in tubes into space was gone. For a fraction of the cost, Colony could now colonize the universe without risk. But in their rush to utilize the new technology, they neglected the security infrastructure.

  Quality control was never a strength of government and that would become evident when I broke into the system using nothing more than a conversation. I was able to manipulate a selfish, greedy woman into giving me a ticket off of Earth. The government favored equity over quality and thus the Lottery was born, the method for selecting which citizens would be the first to be part of Colony's new DNA printing exploration. Hacking an organization created by weak fools interested in fair play was as simple as a staring at a cloudless sky.

  ***

  I pushed my way through the noise while feeling elbows in my ribs. People shouted at each other. Car horns blared in the background. I thought my eyes were on fire, the pounding in my head threatening to crush my brain into a meaty stew. The stench of sweat mixed with raw sewage and burning asphalt made me gag. I would have given anything to be back in my squalid apartment, hunched behind a monitor and hacking my way into multinational corporation records. Instead, I was a spectator at the Lottery, knowing I would not qualify.

  “How’s it work?”

  I knew the agent was asked this question a dozen times in the past ten minutes but it was his job to answer each and every time. He spoke to me while looking at the woman in the front of the line.

  “You get a number issued to you by Colony. It's coded into this wristband. You wear it to the Lottery and if it pulses at the end of the ceremony, you get to go with Colony.”

  I looked at the man’s uniform. It was black with shiny brass buttons. Two silver medallions were pinned to the right side of his chest and the Colony insignia was on his right arm. I nodded at the soldier’s wristband.

  “Government employees are eligible?” I asked.

  He sneered at me as the green signal flashed on the Personal Identification Chip of the young man at the front of the line. That meant a scan of the database embedded in the chip behind his ear and beneath the skin was clean. No criminal record. The soldier pushed the young man through the line after snapping a band on his wrist.

  Even the wristband distribution was controversial. Entrants in the Lottery had to be United States citizens with no criminal history. Yes, I absolutely had a criminal history, which is why the red bar came up when the soldier scanned the PIC planted behind my right ear. Why not use the embedded chip to run the Lottery? I thought the same thing. Trying to apply logic to a government program is a pointless endeavor.

  I stepped out of line and watched as several more people came through the wristband distribution point. Hundreds of thousands of people were lined up on Broadway. The representatives for Colony set up stations in Times Square and used the cross streets to filter lines all the way to the Hudson River on one side of Manhattan and to the East River on the other. I could have traveled to Trenton or even Philadelphia, but I was living in New York City at the time and saw no need to be denied anywhere else. I knew I wouldn’t qualify for a Lottery ticket and I didn’t care. I had another plan I was sure would be more effective than legally entering my DNA in the Lottery. I would murder my way into Colony.

  A woman approached from my right. She had long, dark hair and pouty red lips and her eyes sparkled with a sensual mischief I found as powerful as an electromagnet. She wore a tight black dress with breasts nearly bursting through the fabric. Her perfume smelled like roses and jasmine. I had heard about the depravity surrounding the Lottery tickets and I was about to experience it firsthand.

  “Hey. You get one?” she asked.

  I kept my hands in my pockets making it impossible for her to tell by looking at my wrists.

  “Yep.”

  “Show me,” she said. The woman placed her fingers on my forearm and dragged a finger down my arm to my wrist.

  “Not here,” I said. “Maybe somewhere more private.”

  I doubted a woman looking to trade her body for a ticket would take a stranger's word for it. I knew she wouldn’t follow me to a motel room where we could complete the transaction without proof I had the goods. I had a fleeting fantasy of using her and disposing her body, but it was only a daydream. When she saw nothing on my wrist she would be off to her next potential target.

  “I don’t think so, sport,” she said.

  I watched her walk away, her shapely backside unencumbered by panties. She whispered into the ear of an older man proudly displaying his wristband. He extended his arm and they walked toward Fifth Avenue together.

  Before you condemn such practice, think about what’s at stake. She was willing to sell her body for immortality. Who among us would not? This was the first six months of the Lottery distribution period – before the government generated an applicant pool big enough to let those in Colony pick the best of the best DNA. They shut Lottery down three months later, no longer needing to sift through the hordes of the general population. When the deadline came closer, prostitution would be the least harmful crime committed in order to get a ticket.

  I turned the corner behind Carnegie Hall on 57th Street. Performances in the Theater District ended when Colony announced the Lottery. Most life in the United States ground to a halt as people stopped going to work. They would either win and have their DNA jettisoned to a fresh, new planet, or they would return to their miserable lives. Either way, the majority of us would be left behind. We would remain on Earth to continue our lives in squalor and declining conditions.

  I saw two men beating another. They had him pinned to the brick wall behind a dumpster and each took turns kicking him in the chest. I caught a glimpse of the man’s wristband in the sunlight and wondered which of the two assailants would claim it once they killed him. Or whether they would fight to determine that. I am evil. You know this. But there was something about that situation I found uncomfortable. It was not a sense of fairness, exactly. Maybe it was simple bloodlust. Whatever the reason, I found myself sprinting towards the fight.

  I ran, my jacket billowing out behind my arms and my feet slapping the pavement with every stride. The assailants were too occupied with their victim to see me coming. I plunged a knife into the neck of the man with his back to me. He collapsed on the ground. The other turned with a wild mixture of violence and fear in his eyes. I ducked his right hook and shoved my bloody blade into his abdomen. I lifted and turned until I could feel the warm, sticky blood running down my hand. He looked at me and gasped before collapsing next to the other attacker, also bleeding out.

  The man they were beating looked up at me through swollen eyes. He had lacerations on his face and he was missing most of his teeth. He waited, fully expecting me to take the Lottery wristband for myself. But I couldn’t. It was not my conscience. I was not born with one. It seemed…too easy. I lifted the man to his feet, nodded and continued d
own the alley leaving him with two dead bodies at his feet.

  I had a choice to make and it would be impossible with the excitement surrounding Colony and the Lottery wristbands. It wasn’t only New York City or the United States humming with energy. The entire world, from the Old Kings of Europe to the New Princes of Asia, all of humanity watched how the Lottery would unfold. They would no longer have to sacrifice half of every expedition sent to explore the cosmos. The idea of aborting a mission and incinerating the five hundred people on board would become a thing of the past. This milestone would rival the first moon landing or the first space station built on Mars.

  Turning the corner and finding myself staring at the Stay Inn, I walked up to the bulletproof window and checked their rates. Hourly. I put a $100 bill on the counter and the dark-skinned man behind the glass never said a word. He took my bill, slid a twenty back at me along with an old-fashioned metallic key that would unlock the room. He tapped a pen on the sign, indicating I paid for three hours. He charged me the minimum, assuming I would be like all the other drug dealers and whores using his motel in the same manner. I heard a gunshot to my right and saw the flash of a second one coming from a room at the far end. I looked at the man behind the glass. He never flinched, never looked up. Apparently gun shots were part of the normal business day.

  I passed two people on the way to my room. They were arguing with each other, waving arms and spewing obscenities in a language I didn’t recognize. When I heard the man slap the woman's face with a stunning crack, I smiled. Violence always amused me.

  The key felt cool in my hand. I flipped it over, trying to figure out how to insert it into the lock. Most homes and businesses replaced the old brass locks with card readers decades ago. If the motel was not a cesspool of illicit activity, the key would have added an element of charm.

  I slid the key in, turned it to the left and walked into my room. The air was hot and musty and dead roaches covered the floor. I stepped inside and shut the door. I stuck my head into the bathroom where fixtures were covered in yellow stains. I could extend my arms and touch opposite walls of the hotel room.