The Living

by Anna Starobinets

  ‘Second, moderator of the tranquillity of the Living in all layers, welcomes the members of the Council. Fifteen minutes ago, at the age of eighty-two, my father temporarily ceased. We would like to wish him a happy reproduction…!’

  The members of the Council hummed in approval from the screen of the Crystal.

  ‘…And I am, in hope and trepidation, taking over the reins. Dear friends! I am prepared to continue the conference and I maintain my previous position in regard to socio advertising. The Wise One will now tell us in detail about his vision…’

  The Showman

  ‘What is your name, woman?’

  ‘Rosa.’

  ‘A lovely name. And what are you called?’

  Silence.

  ‘Who is he, woman?’

  ‘He is my son. He is called Mark.’

  ‘Why won’t he talk to me?’

  ‘He is afraid.’

  ‘Afraid of me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You told him to follow you, and now you want to punish him.’

  ‘And how did I tell him to follow me?’

  ‘Follow Zero. That’s what was written in the chain letter.’

  ‘The chain letter is a Dissident plot. How dare you attribute their words to me?’

  The Council of Eight, the Service for Planetary Order and the Wise One would like to warn you: the ‘chain letter’ is a Dissident plot. Every ‘chain letter’ contains a harmful virus. If you have received such a letter, do not read it, but erase it immediately in order to avoid spreading the infection further.

  ‘Do you know why you are here, Rosa?’

  ‘Because we are familials.’

  ‘And what does that mean?’

  ‘It means that we love each other.’

  ‘No, incorrect. It means that you are breaking the law. The law dictates that you send away your Darling at the age of seven. But many years have passed and you are still living under one roof as Darlings. It seems you do not agree with the law.’

  ‘So it seems.’

  ‘Which means you are Dissidents. Do you, Rosa, mother of Mark, admit that you are a Dissident?’

  Silence.

  ‘And you, Mark, son of Rosa, do you admit that you are a Dissident?’

  Silence.

  ‘In the name of the Living I sentence Rosa and Mark to a Shameful Pause…’

  ‘Have mercy, Wise One…’

  ‘…with subsequent correction. SPO officers will carry out the sentence live after the ad break.

  If you are younger than eight years old, you can’t watch Rosa and Mark’s pauses. If you are over eight, enter your name and incode to watch Rosa and Mark’s pauses… See you after the break. This is the Wise One and you’re watching Who Still Does Not Agree.’

  The Council of Eight, the Service for Planetary Order and the Wise One would like to warn you: dissidence is punishable by Shameful Pause with subsequent correction. You can download the complete first series of interrogations and Shameful Pauses in second layer at dissidentwatch.net.tv

  ‘And we’re back!’

  The Wise One pressed the touchpad with his finger, gently, almost tenderly. The Wise One’s face froze on the screen in a triumphant, slightly twisted grin.

  ‘So what do you think?’

  He loved it when Cleo rewatched the show with him on the Crystal W.

  ‘You’re always faultless,’ she said drily. ‘Cruel, but just and artistic.’

  ‘…And more and more cruel with every episode,’ she thought to herself. ‘If you watch Who Still Does Not Agree in second layer for some reason it doesn’t seem so obvious. But the Crystal… The Crystal, with its flat picture, is cruder and more honest. It strips everything bare somehow…’ Cleo looked at the motionless, self-satisfied face on the screen and then looked away. ‘That cold, emotionless way he talks to them – for some reason this indifference seems like justice to the viewers; the calmer he is, the more “likes” the show gets… And that smile of his is unexpectedly touching, somehow childlike, when he just stands to one side and watches the Dissidents being put into the Chamber of Shame. Even Second once said that that smile gave him the creeps…’

  But the viewers liked it. ‘The Wise One’s smile gives us livings hope and belief,’ they muttered in the comments after every episode. ‘Hope for the correction of those who have lost their way…’ ‘Belief in the complete extermination of the Dissidents…’

  me and another billion of my friends like it I don’t like it

  They all like it.

  But personally she preferred the way he had acted in the beginning. A year ago. When his voice would tremble and crack during the interrogations. When he was afraid to look the Dissidents in the eye. When he didn’t dare smile when he was carrying out the verdict…

  ‘No, I’m talking about the machine!’ the Wise One said. ‘How do you like my new CW?’ Zero stroked the reflective body of the Crystal W. The latest model. An even more sophisticated design. Even more three-dimensional picture. Even thinner screen. Even more user-friendly interface. Even more sound and colour settings. The Crystal Wise One. Exclusive equipment especially for him. Better and better every time. And he rejoiced in every new model like a kid with a toy. How could you explain to him that there was no particular difference between the toys? That they were all crude, ugly, slow, clumsy imitations. Prosthetics for an invalid. Specially made for an invalid with no socio…

  ‘The main thing is that you like it,’ she said. It sounded false, but Zero didn’t notice.

  ‘I do.’

  He laughed suddenly, abrupt and rattling, as if he were scattering a handful of pebbles on a marble floor. His crazed pupils swelled and narrowed in his chocolate eyes.

  ‘Again?’ she asked.

  He said nothing.

  With two fingers, Cleo carefully lifted the edge of his multi-coloured sleeve and pulled it up, baring his skin. An inflamed puncture trail of bites stretched from his palm to the joint of his elbow. Two bakugans were stuck to his wrist, a BW. She shuddered in disgust and let go of the sleeve.

  ‘You’re killing yourself,’ she said. ‘Which BW is this for today?’

  ‘I haven’t been counting,’ Zero said amiably and closed his eyes.

  ‘But I have! One BW in the morning. One before the show. And another one just now!’

  ‘Er, not just one…’

  ‘On the other arm too?!’ she said in horror.

  ‘So what. It’s all under control, little one. I’ve got it under control.’

  ‘You don’t even know how many of these creatures you are plugging into yourself a day and it’s under control?’

  ‘Gopz,’ he shrugged his shoulder irritatedly. She got up.

  ‘OK, sorry Cleo, sorry little one,’ he grabbed her by the arm and sat her back down next to him. ‘Sit with me for a bit. It’s just… don’t bust my carousel right now, OK? Now, now…’ he shoved his face against her shoulder and started breathing rapidly. ‘Now, yeah…’

  She hugged him tight, the way he liked. He shivered, then said:

  ‘I’m flying… We’re flying together…’

  Zero invented the BW himself – an intravenous cocktail of black and white venom. ‘The whole thing about it is that the bites are at the same time,’ he said. ‘If one larva is even a tiny bit late – it’s already wrong, see, the high is broken. So you’ve got to pick larvae that are the same size and roughly the same age. Then they both release the juice at the same second and give you a carousel.’ Carousel is what Zero called the effect of the BW – the fluctuating feeling of soaring and falling. And lots of other sensations which he couldn’t explain. He suggested that she try it, but she felt sick when she so much as looked at those slugs digging into bare flesh.

  At first he only took a BW before the beginning of the show, for courage.

  ‘For indifference, more like,’ he said. ‘When I’m on the carousel, I couldn’t care less about these Dissidents.’ Then he st
arted doubling the dose – one BW on each arm… then he started using every day, although he presented the show only once a week… And then that dreamy child’s smile appeared – and he really couldn’t care less about ‘those Dissidents’. But it was still a lot of BWs. More and more all the time – now it was up to five or six doses a day. Even Second says he is overdoing it. It’s bad for the heart and the brain.

  ‘You’re shaking. I’m going to put the blanket over you,’ said Cleo. He always got cold after a carousel.

  ‘Let’s have a Darling,’ said Zero. After a carousel he would become sentimental.

  ‘But then when he turns seven are we going to send him away? Are you going to put us on your Who Still Does Not Agree programme…?’

  She immediately regretted what she had said: it had come out rude and mean. He started shaking even more violently and covered his face with his hands as if he’d been slapped.

  ‘Sorry.’ She hugged him again. ‘I’m sure, of course, that you would never touch your own Darling…’

  ‘These people…’ the Wise One droned into his hands. ‘These Darlings… Familials… What, do you think I don’t feel sorry for them?’

  ‘I don’t think you do,’ she said honestly. ‘Before – probably. But not anymore.’

  He was not going to argue. He took his hands from his face and said:

  ‘Maybe you’re right.’

  He reached over to the touchpad on his Crystal and went onto his docked network.

  ‘…But whether I feel sorry for them or not, my show is saving the Living. Saving it, you understand? It’s like shock therapy. Look at the System.’ He opened up his little man made of numbers. ‘Good progress, you see? After every Who Still Does Not Agree the number of scraps goes down. Then, by the next week, the scraps have appeared again, but every time there’s fewer of them…’

  ‘Scraps?’ Cleo didn’t understand.

  ‘That’s what Second calls the reproductions that have stalled… Like now, look, after the show there is only one, and half an hour ago there were dozens of them! Fewer dissidents means fewer stalled reproductions, you see! I don’t know how it works, but it works.’

  The Wise One stared sadly at one ‘scrap’. A tiny unavailable little spiral flashing in the very centre of the System. He scraped his finger across the touchpad – then unwound the little spiral out into a ten-figure entry, stroked it with the black arrow of the cursor, like a pet which needs to be roused from sleep. What are you doing, Cracker, my friend…? Why don’t you come back to me, little scrap?

  But Cracker could not. Or would not. For more than a year now he hadn’t wanted to come back. The first woman who carried him after the pause gave birth to him dead: he had choked on his umbilical cord. The second woman to get pregnant after that couldn’t carry him for the full term: bleeding and a miscarriage in the twelfth week. And he dragged her down with him – she had lost so much blood that she temporarily ceased. And then he stalled. Went and stalled in the darkness, stubborn little scrap.

  For nine days correctee Cracker had quite simply not been reproduced.

  For nine days he had just been a collection of flashing figures.

  For nine days he had simply not existed in the world…

  Zero wound the little scrap, ‘Cracker’, back into a spiral, placed his head on the knees of his long-term woman and closed his eyes.

  ‘I want a Darling with you,’ he murmured sleepily and capriciously. ‘I promise that I won’t put you on the show. We will live together with our Darling like in ancient times. Like Second lives with his children… And then my Darling will become the Wise One in my place.’

  ‘And are you going to take a second woman too, like Second?’

  ‘No,’ the Wise One frowned. ‘I can’t stand women getting hysterical.’

  …Ever since Bagheera, the moderator of tranquillity’s second long-term partner, had borne him his Darling not a day had gone by in the Residence without Layla shrieking and weeping. She was terribly, monstrously jealous of Second and Bagheera and their new Darling…

  ‘What, do you think I’d behave like Layla if you took another woman?’

  ‘No… of course not. But I don’t want anyone else anyway. I want you – and a Darling. By the way, I’ve already hired some first-layer designers to decorate a nursery.’

  ‘Why do we need designers?’ Cleo said mutedly.

  ‘Because we need something special – I don’t want him growing up in the standard feeling-lucky with anti-shock covering and hanging about on socio morning, noon and night. My Darling should know his way around in first layer – one day he’s going to become the Wise…’

  ‘Why do we need designers now? I haven’t conceived yet…’

  ‘So what? When are you ovulating?’

  She grudgingly dug about in her memory:

  ‘In three days.’

  ‘So that means the designers have started work three days ahead of schedule…’

  ‘Stop it!’ she almost screeched, and it came out nasty and shrill, almost like Layla. ‘Stop it…’ she repeated more calmly this time; what annoyed her more than anything was when he pretended that everything was absolutely fine with her. ‘You know… it’s not going to work for me.’

  ‘It’ll all work out!’ The Wise One waved it away. ‘You’ll see in three days. Smin, have faith, I’ve got a feeling! Everything’s going to be alright.’

  ‘Don’t say “everything’s going to be alright”!’ Cleo snapped. ‘That’s what people say before the pause. If you want a Darling find yourself another woman. Something’s wrong with me…’

  ‘Rubbish. You’re just not getting enough sleep. You spend your whole time in the lab…’

  He stubbornly refused to believe. Every month the whole thing repeated itself: when are you ovulating – smin, this time it’s definitely all going to work… And again – nothing. Something was wrong with the ovaries or the womb, that much was clear…

  mother

  …as clear as day. In her whole life she had only got pregnant once…

  more than two million users already like mother

  …and she had given birth to a Darling which was sick and which temporarily ceased shortly afterwards. And since then there had been hundreds of couplings at the festival, dozens of matings with Zero, but with no result. Infertility. An empty, barren uterus…

  join the ravishing mother-queen in luxury mode!

  …not like there.

  But he doesn’t want to believe it. He doesn’t even want to hear about illness, about infertility.

  The Wise One wants an heir. The Wise One is putting too much pressure on her, it’s his own fault. Yes, his own fault. If he hadn’t put her in this state of constant stress, if he wasn’t insisting on a Darling, if he didn’t force her to copulate with him naked, without a sucs, then she, probably, wouldn’t have gone off so far into her fantasies in luxury. She wouldn’t have started using a pseudonym, she wouldn’t have become this Queen, covered in a layer of contact grease. She wouldn’t have turned her woodland den into a termite mound, the Queendom. And she wouldn’t be laying several thousand eggs in a day – in the world where she could produce offspring. Where all fantasies come true and delight you…

  She entered the Queendom in inviz and opened statistics.

  2 000 156 users are currently waiting for queen in luxury

  come on queen!

  …A hundred more than four hours ago.

  When she created her Queendom, she had not expected there would be so many who wanted to join. That everyone would come running: men and women, entomologists and members of the Council… 5,000 friends, that’s what she had imagined at first, just to have a little distraction from first-layer problems. She hadn’t thought that her Queendom would grow so big, that it would become a fantasy for millions.

  2 000 163 users are waiting for queen

  where are you, queen?

  The Wise One nestled cosily on her knees, like a good lap-pet. He was dozing,
smacking his lips funnily in his sleep. She carefully took his head from her knees and headed for the exit. Never in front of him.

  mother_queen: just a sec

  As ever before the act, she felt sick with fear and disgust.

  With fear that the Wise One would find out, that he would find out and not be able to forgive her, and he would yell at her using all those stupid words from the Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World: ‘faithful’, ‘cheating’…

  And with disgust at herself, at what she had turned herself into, at what her millions of fans had turned her into: a huge, fat, clumsy, stupid, lustful…

  mother_queen has updated her status: available in isoptera.

  main menu

  larva worker soldier nymph prince

  Who will you be?

  Join in!

  Isoptera is a never-ending act in luxury created by more than two million friends.

  There was nothing – no up and no down, no thoughts and no body, no days and no nights. Absolute inviz. A thick, grey cocoon of peace. He was flying or floating, swaddled in blind nothingness. He had been lulled to sleep, he himself was nothing, just a part of inviz… And then, as always, a something stirred inside him traitorously and the emptiness thickened and started shaking, straining to expel this alien, living thing from itself…

  His awakening was sudden and rough, like always after a BW sleep. Like he had been gobbled up and then spat in disgust out of a warm, soft mouth and into a buzzing beehive…

  …There actually was something buzzing in first layer, dully and insistently. With difficulty the Wise One unglued his puffy eyes and sat up. No, not bees. Four fat bakugan beetles, overflowing with low-frequency buzzing, were ramming up against the Crystal, against a multi-coloured ad banner which was calling on him to love the Queen. The Wise One chased the beetles off the Crystal – heavy and glutted, they flew slowly off towards the wall; he squashed them and wiped their blood away with a cloth. Then he tried to close that damn banner, but instead it expanded to full screen. The Wise One cursed quietly. The Crystal would swallow all the ads that it found from second layer and play them on the screen. As if deliberately to tease the Wise One, offering him the chance to admire out of the corner of his eye what he could never have…