And then the ground began to shake. I would say it was like an earthquake, but I've never been in an earthquake – at least, not outside of CyberV – so I wouldn't really know for sure. Suddenly the leaves were falling from the oak tree above us in droves, dancing fast and crazy dances in what had suddenly become a howling wind.
The policeman holding me let me go and I saw him brushing frantically at his face, as leaf after wet leaf slapped into his face. The same was happening to the other policeman and the workmen, while we three protesters remained untouched. It felt as if the roots of the great tree below us where rippling in the ground and in several places nearby they burst through the surface, sending wet clods of mud and grass flying a few feet into the air as they did so.
You looked over at me, your face as shocked as I was by what was happening. And then, just like that, it was over. The wind was gone, the rain a light drizzle falling on our faces, the fallen leaves (only a fraction of the tree's compliment) mostly just scattered about on the ground.
And then, after all, we were arrested, although more politely and quietly than had going to be the case. The lead policeman avoided your eyes, but everyone else stared at you in a kind of subdued, mute horror, as you were put into the back of the car and led away. Except me. I looked at you too, but in a different way than everyone else.
* * *
Epilogue
Tim McNamee kissed his cybernetic love Mina, as she lay there on something very akin to a hospital bed in a small CyberG building on the Clyst St Mary Complex. She looked old, but in this false, prematurely aged way, like when TV shows try to make up some twenty-something actor to look like they are eighty, and do a real bad job of it. Like that.
No one really knew for sure what had happened in the park that day. If Mina knew, she never told Tim. No one got charged with anything and the oak tree came down, albeit a few days later and by a different team of workmen. Mina and Tim got on with their lives for the next few weeks and, although there was a sadness in Mina, a kind of quietness that speaks of some sort of inner defeat, she and Tim were close and tender, and often passionate.
But then the knock at the door from CyberG came. There was something really creepy in the way CyberG liked to do things in person. What's wrong with email or text? Even something hard copy, if you're that traditional about it. But their insistence on turning up suited and serious on the doorstep, made them seem a little bit like the mob.
They had come bearing the news that Mina was to be prematurely terminated. The gave no reason and made a point of reiterating that some of the fee Tim had paid was going to be refunded, as if making that point clear would heal any other possible wounds created by what they were doing. Making Mina a possession whose removal could be compensated for by consumer etiquette.
And, of course, this was true. Tim had, several years ago, signed contracts that laid all of this out. CyberG did not point out that they were doing nothing wrong, Tim knew they didn't have to.
He did try, however, to ask them why, again and again. Was it what she had done? Was it something they had discovered about her physically? Was it him? But nothing. They didn't have to and so they didn't.
They took Mina away that day, yet returned her two days later. They did not say what had been done to Mina and Mina did not know, but they said that she now had about two to three weeks to live and would soon start to show signs of rapid ageing. She had ten more days with Tim, and the rest was to be spent in a small facility in Clyst St Mary.
“That's it, baby. That's the story of us,” said Tim. “Just like you wanted. Well... the best I could do, anyway.”
Mina smiled. As old as she looked, the premature ageing had not left her as weak as someone that supposed age might be. Nor as tired. She was fading away, falling to sleep rather than dying.
“I think it’s about time, you know,” she said.
“I'm scared,” said Tim. “You can't go.”
“Remember my dream?” she asked. “The one in your story?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I think the aliens were right. I don't think I have a soul, or a... light.”
“Don't say that, don't say that baby.”
Mina chuckled. “You never believed in that crap anyway.”
“But you do, and who's to say I'm right, huh?”
“This death bed stuff is good,” she joked, though a little wearily, “you have to be nice to me.”
Tim laughed and leaned over to kiss her forehead.
“Anyway,” she continued, “you didn't let me finish. You see... I don't think souls and lights matter. They make you stand out. Whereas... the best thing you can do is blend in. Be a part of everything. Connect. Maybe I didn't understand the High Street Complex. Maybe it wasn't a nothingness, maybe I just didn't see it. The same way you couldn't see what I saw. The High Street connects everything. Maybe... I don't know...” Mina trailed off, seemed to pass out for the moment. Then she was back again.
“Just open your mind, Tim. Open your mind and connect.”
****
Mina died three minutes later and Tim, after a respectful five minutes, was ushered out and away from her. Mina was no longer his property and he had no rights over her body. As he walked out, he saw a lot of serious-looking doctors and suited CyberG employees heading her way.
As Tim reached the entrance foyer he saw the staff all stood looking out of the windows. Some had ventured outside and were looking at trees flanking the path to the main entrance there. At the far side of the complex where the building was, the landscaping had allowed for areas of grass and trees, more natural than much of the rest of the Clyst St Mary complex now was.
Tim went outside and immediately saw what had everyone so amazed. Scratched lightly into the bark of every tree in letters sometimes fifteen centimetres or more high were the words 'Goodbye Tim.'
For just a moment Tim stood there, staring in disbelief. He looked at those around him, expecting that some hideous joke was being played on him, absurd though it might seem. He looked back towards the CyberG. Employees stood staring from behind the glass that encapsulated the foyer there. They looked trapped somehow, living in some hermetically sealed fishbowl, some zoo, staring out at the real world outside with frightened eyes. Maybe they should be frightened.
Tim did not know what to do, so he kept walking, and every tree he passed had the same message scrawled upon it. Sometimes it appeared on a trunk just once or twice, but other times it would cover the trunk and work its way along the branches. He went over and took a closer look at one of these, running his fingers over with fascinated distraction. Then he noticed the leaves.
The leaves of this tree were marked with it too, the words appearing pale, almost white on its green leaves, but he could not tell how they had got there. Looking at the other leaves, Tim saw the same thing: ‘Goodbye Tim’ over and over again.
A crazy thought took him then and he bent down to examine a patch of grass that formed a tiny island between paths running here and there across the complex. He looked foolish, there on his knees staring intently at the grass, but he found what he was looking for – tiny goodbye messages clearly visible on the larger blades of grass. Then on this plant and on that plant as he continued to look.
Soon, he was leaving the complex, but still the messages continued on every growing thing he looked at. Had he not seen the CyberG employees staring at the trees as he had left the unit, he would have most likely assumed that grief had driven him mad. Madness was so much more probable than this.
The more time went past, the more Tim kept seeing patterns within patterns; his name etched in the gaps between leaves on a bush, or in the relief across the canopy of a distant line of trees. The message appeared everywhere.
For a moment, as he got home, the thought that she had done this was nearly too much for him. He had let her down in never believing her as fully as she should. She was special, so special, and she had been his, though he had never deserved her. Miserable, he turned o
n the CyMedia Centre and sat staring at nothing in particular for a while.
But then a thought came to him. It was one of those ‘Duh!’ moments, where you realise you had been kind of missing the point. After all, what he had been seeing – what everyone had been seeing – was the connectedness that Mina had talked about, a perfect demonstration of it. It was more than just goodbye. It was a final invitation, a final attempt to help him see what she could see.
So he turned off the CyMedia Centre, took a seat by the window and looked out at the world for a while.
****
The next day Tim quit his job at Cyberlife. Three days after that, all trace of the writing on the trees and the plants had somehow faded. Less than a month later, CyberG completely relaunched and renamed the Companion cyborgs, recalling and replacing all existing models. No one really asked any questions and the Cyberlife subsidiary never offered any explanations. They really wouldn’t have to; they were Cyberlife for crying out loud! Three years later, a prototype cyborg underwent its first live firing tests for CETAF, the ‘Combined European Tactical Armed Forces’. It was not the first cyborg developed for military use, but it instantly eclipsed the performance of all the others by any extraordinary factor. This may be relevant, it may not.
Who knows?
Thank You
Dear Reader, Thank you for choosing to read my books out of the thousands that merit reading. I recognize that reading takes time and quietness, so I am grateful that you have designed your lives to allow for this enriching endeavor, whatever the book's title and subject.
Now more than ever before, Amazon reviews and Social Media play vital role in helping individuals make their reading choices. If any of my books have moved you, inspired you, or educated you, please share your reactions with others by posting an Amazon review as well as via email, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, --or even old-fashioned face-to-face conversation! And when you receive my announcement of my new book, please pass it along. Thank you.
I invite you to visit my Facebook page often ( https://www.facebook.com/AuthorMorrisFenris/ ). I post not only my news, but announcements of other authors' work; and quotes and snippets of poems.
With profound gratitude, and with hope for your continued reading pleasure,
Morris Fenris Author of ‘A New Start’.
A New Start Page 39