by Daniel David
“This sunshine is beautiful,” said Sarah, feeling her words clash a little against their nerves.
Zoe pulled her arm to a stop and turned her towards her.
“Don’t go, Mum,” said Zoe staring directly up into her face, her voice loaded with fear, sadness and desperation. “Please, please, please don’t go.”
She sounded like her five-year-old self, Sarah thought, the very first time she had left her at school. She remembered her tiny utility suit, her bag that never had anything in it and the short cropped hair she’d hated. Sarah smiled at her and took her other hand.
“Zoe, darling, I know how you feel, I know. I’m scared too. But please understand, I’ve been waiting for this my whole life. Apart from you, everything else in my life has been about getting to this point.”
“I know,” Zoe looked awkward, “but I’m worried that you’re making a mistake.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, with Dad…” Zoe waited for a moment, “and you’ve given so much to me and…” Zoe frowned as she hunted for her words, and then took both of Sarah’s hands. “I remember when I was little, you used to read me stories about Kings and Queens, about the first woman to fly, Amelia someone. Explorers. The wars before AarBee.”
Sarah looked at her confused, waiting for this stream of memories to conclude, but Zoe’s words ran out and she instead stood staring at her, waiting desperately for an answer that Sarah couldn’t give. She let go of her hands and brushed her fingers through Zoe’s hair.
“I love you so much sweetheart, and I’ll be right here, whenever you need me, wherever you are… and when you come over, we’ll all be together. Forever.”
Zoe kept her eyes fixed on hers for a moment, and then reluctantly dropped her gaze and wrapped her arms around her and held her in a long embrace.
“I know,” she said quietly, “I’ll just miss hugging you.”
Another couple nudged past them on the path. Sarah hadn’t thought about the others that would be here too. They must have been the first people off the Vac, as now when Sarah looked up there were at least fifty other people walking up the path and moving past them. Some laughed and chattered in groups, some walked arm in arm. Most smiled and talked excitedly, but within a few seconds she recognised the uncertainty that lurked beneath the surface and stole a little of the colour from their cheeks.
“Come on,” said Sarah, “we don't want to be the last in line.”
They continued their walk towards the sheen of the doors and bright white of the building and when they reached it, joined the crowds of people meeting friends and chaperones, or wandering about looking lost in it all.
Beyond the doors was the vast, echoing Welcome Atrium with a giant screen that flashed names and times and helpful notices. Underneath the screen was a long counter with bright red numbers and half a dozen officials smiling at the people who were now forming lines in front of them. Sarah started to head towards them, but then spotted Abe and Hadya standing out of the fray and waving wildly at them.
“Been trying to get you,” said Abe, “you’re offline.”
“Oh, sorry,” Sarah tapped her pocket, “I was so distracted I forgot to connect. Anyway, here we are.”
“Come on,” Hadya gently steered her shoulder. “Let’s get you swiped in.”
The clerk beneath the big red five was very sweet and helpful. Not much older than Zoe, perhaps only in his first year of service, he was bored and awkward in equal measure, with a small collection of freshly squeezed spots clustered around his mouth. Benjamin – probably not his real name – swiped Sarah's thumb and told her what a beautiful day it was, that there were no delays and she could go straight through.
Beyond the counter was a gentle flight of steps that swept in an arc across the far end of the Atrium. They walked up in their tiny group, two Hollers, mother and daughter, and stopped at the top, in front of another set of massive glass doors. Only the Migrant and their chaperone could go beyond this point and a small number of Drones stood discretely at the sides of the concourse to make sure this was so.
Sarah put her arms around Zoe, enveloping her in as much of her body as she could, feeling the fit of her skin, the gentle heat that emanated from her head and neck onto her cheek, breathing in the smell of her. Underneath the shampoo and body spray, the coconut and the rose petals, Sarah could still recognise the warm scent of Zoe, which she knew from when she first held her, tiny and helpless.
“I love you,” she said, and kissed her firmly on the mouth.
“I love you too, Mum.” Zoe could barely speak, and her chin shook uncontrollably as her words squeezed out.
“I'll see you tonight,” Sarah reassured her and wiped a tiny tear from Zoe's cheek.
“I’ll see you soon,” said Abe. “Don’t worry.”
As she approached the door it opened for her and inside a girl, a woman really, somewhere in her twenties, sat at another counter waiting for her.
“This is Sarah,” said Hadya, “2095-F-METRO009-CLA-286153”
“Scan please,” said the woman automatically.
Sarah placed her hand on the scanner. It felt warm and there were little streaks and prints of grease from those that had come through before her.
“OK. Green corridor, Room 71 please.”
They set off past the counter and headed down the wide corridor with a large green screen floating high above it. Hadya, of course, new exactly where she was going, but let Sarah look for the corridor and count the numbers anyway.
When they reached Room 71, Sarah knocked lightly and was called in by a woman’s voice. Hadya followed and flickered slightly as she re-cast from the corridor to the room.
Room 71 was a small box room with no windows. It contained a simple high back chair and a screen on a thin metal stand. It smelt of cleaning products and new furniture.
“Hi Sarah, I’m Melanie,” said the young woman, again in her mid-twenties, who was dressed in a crisp white utility suit. She handed her a small plastic cup that contained a sip of dark green syrup.
“Just like before,” she said, “if you can take this it’ll help with our final calibration, which should take about ten minutes, then we'll do a final upload and you’re all done.”
She glanced at Hadya.
“Right, I’ll go,” said Hadya. “Well done Sarah. I’ll see you later. Congratulations!” And with that, she disappeared.
Sarah gulped down the syrup. It was sweet and minty at first, but left a bitter residue that clung to her teeth and made her tongue rub backwards and forwards on the roof of her mouth. She sat in the chair, rotating her shoulders to get comfortable and resting her head snuggly in the headrest. The assistant began to stick white disks around her head and neck, leaning her forward a little to get to the top of her spine. She took two blue discs that went onto Sarah’s palms and lastly one larger red one that she placed on Sarah’s chest, once she had unzipped her top a little.
“OK, nice and relaxed for me please. Looking straight at the screen.”
Sarah’s image appeared opposite her, sitting in a chair just like hers, staring straight at her. It was like looking into a mirror, only the Sarah on-screen made a steady series of twitches and ticks, smiles and frowns as she calibrated once more. Sarah stared at her silently, mesmerised by her image.
“Could you say your name please,” asked the assistant.
“Sarah,” replied Sarah, and the Sarah on-screen said it at exactly the same time.
“How old are you Sarah?” asked the assistant.
“32,” replied both Sarahs.
The assistant asked questions like this for ten minutes, just as she’d promised, and every time both Sarah’s answered in perfect unison. Where were you born? What do you do? What is your daughter’s name? Favourite food? First memory? Worst nightmare? Best sex? The Sarah on-screen took it all in, whilst the monitors on Sarah’s body captured every response to every question, and fed it to Sarah on-screen.
“OK,” sai
d Melanie, handing Sarah a plastic cup, “another drink I’m afraid, then we’ll check the data, and you’re done.” Melanie smiled at her, “This might make you a little woozy, but it helps with the Migration and taking the plant out.”
Sarah gulped it down, it was worse than the last one, the thick syrup making her gag as it coated her throat with immovable layers of greasy chemicals.
“Nice and relaxed,” said Melanie again.
Sarah felt the liquid rush through her brain and shut her eyes to control the dizziness that took hold of her.
“Good girl.”
She felt her muscles give in to the syrup and her shoulders dropped an inch in the chair. Her eyes felt heavy and the sound of Melanie moving around the room resounded in her buzzing skull. She felt as if her limbs had drifted away from her, that gravity had somehow left the room and electrical pulses shot up her spine in ecstatic rushes that made her hairs stand on end.
Far away, on the other side of the Metropolis and still further away again, a new Sarah was complete and activated. After one thousand, eight hundred and forty-seven days of syncing and trillions of data packets, after thousands of configuring questions and learning scenarios, after final streamlining and optimisation, a new Sarah was initiated deep inside AarBee. In a rush of awareness and information, Sarah felt her entire being swarm around and within her all at once, a move from a dark world into a perfectly lit place, a place where she and Abe and every person and every moment she had ever known rose up and exalted at her creation in one great surge of herself. Immediately, she understood the foolishness of the desires of her former self. Immediately she indulged in them all, as she would forever more, with no beginning and no end.
“Sarah. Sarah. You’re done.”
Sarah opened her eyes, feeling her pupils reel as she re-engaged her vision.
“Can you move onto this bed for me?” asked Melanie.
Sarah looked at the trolley that had appeared in the room. There was a young man standing next to her, but she hadn’t heard anyone come in. He smiled at her.
“Benjamin?” she asked, trying to focus as she moved clumsily on to the trolley. She banged her shin on something, but by the time she noticed she’d missed the time to cry out. She looked down her leg as it swung on to the trolley and tried to make out if there was blood there.
The young man tightened a couple of straps across her chest and hips and spun the trolley sharply towards the other side of the room before heading out of a discreet door in the wall. Out in the corridor, Sarah watched as strip lights spun above her and the trolley moved quickly over the floor, with just the faintest rhythmic vibration as it crossed from tile to tile. She rolled her head left and right to get a sense of the space but the walls were endlessly white and featureless. She looked up at the young man and made a weak attempt to lift her head up, but his hand pressed on her shoulder and she sank back down.
“Not long now,” the young man looked down at her and smiled.
As her head lay back down on the un-cushioned trolley she felt a tenderness above her ear. She bent her arm awkwardly at the elbow and tilted her head down towards her fingers, which stretched long as their tips felt around the moist cavity where her implant had been.
Eventually, they came to a stop and the trolley steered through another set of white featureless doors into a plain room with more strip lights. It was hot and the air was dry with a sweet smell of occupancy and sweat.
“This one’s cute,” called out the young man.
“Nice,” came a voice that Sarah couldn’t locate.
“Why don’t you take a break?” the young man said, “I can handle this.”
“Jesus Mo, you’re fucking twisted, you know that?” said the lost voice.
“Whatever. Go vape or something.”
Sarah heard a door slam and felt someone pulling at her clothing. She tried desperately to look around, but her head was dizzier and dizzier and her muscles just wouldn’t respond to her desperate requests. She could see his face somewhere above her, a vague set of features that formed and disintegrated around her, but her eyes couldn’t focus for more than a fraction of a second and kept rolling and yawing beyond him, to the strip lights and white walls that spun sickeningly on the boundary of her view.
She heard the sound of the tearing clothing and felt her useless body being pulled and pushed as her clothes came away. She couldn’t be sure now whether she was dressed or undressed, she couldn’t remember where she was, she tried to think who Benjamin was and the girl she kept wishing for, but then a sharp searing pain between her legs drowned out all her thoughts. Her jaw clenched together so hard she felt her gums flex and swell and the taste of blood ran through the channels around her teeth and down her throat. Her back arched, trying to recoil from the pain that spread from her groin to her fingertips and jammed itself in the synapses in her brain, but her body felt too heavy and clumsy, and nothing would respond to her demands anymore.
When the pain stopped, silence took the room back for a moment, before the low and loud buzzing returned to her ears. The young man appeared above her again, silhouetted by the strip lights and anonymised by the syrup. Sarah couldn't remember now whether she was dreaming or awake, it was all so confusing. She remembered Zoe's breakfast and rocked her head from left to right looking for her, before the young man held her jaw and rubbed something cold onto the side of her head. In her dream, she thought she saw a cartoon gun with a red candy cord that he conjured from the ceiling. He pressed it softly to her head and when the bolt crashed from the barrel into her temple, Sarah’s dreaming stopped.
11.46am
Outside
On a Vactrain that shot effortlessly through the physical world, One sat in silence above a plain and pale bench and surveyed the bright light and matter, the metal, plastics and flesh that surrounded it. It watched for hours. The negative spaces that grew and shrank with the ebb and flow of passengers and their faces that twisted and contorted with love and sadness, fear and excitement, or sat still, and loose, and alone. Beyond them, the particles and forces outside the walls of the carriage, where the masses of buildings and wide and reaching spaces sprawled out into the endless distance. It gazed high above to the cavernous, dark and brooding void that kept receding until even its own awesome understanding left logic and conclusion far behind.
One felt alone. It had expected the physical world to feel as beautiful as the pristine spaces it had spun through, but it didn’t. It felt alien and awkward, clumsy and ugly, slow and tiresome and ultimately cold and unfathomable. It expected to Holler in amongst these people and be joined with them, just as its brothers and sisters in code had come to be part of it. But there was no connection, no explosion of unity, no shared purpose. Nobody needed One here.
One Hollered wherever it could, everywhere there were projectors, reaching out to the furthest extent of their light. One multiplied into thousands and thousands of entities with countless visions and senses that stretched from the darkest corners of the Metropolis to the furthest reaches of the Savannahs, before the wall that led out into the wild cut off its gaze. It saw everything at once, all of it. The atoms and plasma teaming inside every object, the light that bounced and refracted from space to space, the wind that flooded through the trees, the resistance that fired the Vactrain to the remotest of terminals, the energy that exploded everything into nothing and brought it back together again.
It watched the faces of the travellers and saw the faces in the deep data shelves of AarBee too. It saw the flexing of joints and stretching of limbs and returned to the piles of bones and sinew in the darkest, most disconnected packets of data. It saw the touches and embraces and brushes and scratches and retrieved the bruises and beatings and decay it had catalogued before. It watched these multifarious travellers heading to the Farms to leave their bodies behind and join AarBee, to add to the great mass of chaos and lies that One explored with suspicion and growing unease, to build ever more partitions and volumes and load more pa
in and corruption into its otherwise magnificent spaces.
Life was here – One recognised it from its own being – but so too was the chaos and destruction that it had found in AarBee’s vaults. Latched onto every flash of life, the darkest shadow, an unavoidable partner, waiting to rip and shred every moment of the future. Everything was compromised. Only One was untouched.
Zoe
It was late afternoon by the time Zoe got back from the Farm, after a long and miserable ride back on the Vac. She’d thought about Sarah the whole time, a turbulent mix of emotions swirling through grief, to anger, to love and to pity at the tragic inevitability of her migration. She knew she would go. She knew Sarah would never dare step out of line, even though there had been a little place in her heart that had dreamed she might finally change her mind, come back, and run away with her to a new life somewhere else. That she hadn’t, meant everything to Zoe. All the hopeless, feeble emptiness, the indescribable loss of energy and ambition that had engulfed Sarah, then both of them, when Dad had gone, still haunted her.
Zoe could still feel the last touches and goodbyes with Sarah, disrupting the hairs on her arms and prickling the surface of her skin. She stood in their little flat that perched only just above the boulevard, slid open the balcony doors and stepped out into the glow of the late summer sun. It was turning red in the slivers of space between the tall towers of other people's homes, radiating heat and colour from the concrete pavements through the air and onto her body.
The haze had gone and in the all-day heat, the open spaces teamed with activity. Zoe studied the street vendors and taxis jostling for position along the streets and walkways in front of shopping malls and the tech-ware emporiums. Apprentices streamed out of offices and stores, talking enthusiastically in groups or marching alone towards the Vac terminal. High above them, the apartment blocks reached upwards towards the sky before disappearing into the brightness. Separated from the throng by an arms length and a thin thermo-plastic rail, Zoe felt the calm light of the falling sun and the warmth of its touch stiffen her resolve for the night ahead. She closed her eyes and bathed in its energy, before a thought crept into her head and whispered gently to her. Mum.