***
Rumors about the marvelous plants spread all over the world and even got good response. Minds became the tree of knowledge. It was, without a doubt, a beautiful way to commemorate the relationship that bloomed between the network and its users, and at the same time to show care for the environment.
"Netopia, my love, here we come," Christoph declared passionately with shining eyes the first time he proudly held a small bonsai plant produced from an unknown Nevermind.
He remembered the time when one of the scientists explained the procedure to him.
"The machine raises the body temperature up to 356 degrees in an environmentally friendly process, after sampling its DNA. In the next stage, it combines the dead person's DNA with the live plant's genome. It's poetic and brilliant."
"Poetic and brilliant indeed," Christoph answered with a broad smile.
When the scientist asked Christoph if Fabian should be informed of the ‘marvelous’ results, he received a stark response.
"Fabian should in no way be bothered with these developments," Christoph answered. "He is a delicate person and such knowledge could shake his spirit. He's built differently from the rest of us."
"I'm sorry to hear that… I understand," the scientist replied.
"Good, so under no circumstance should you approach him regarding our work here. And to add to it, he has his hands full with other things... which are just as important. We don't want to burden him with any more. You’ll report only to me."
"No problem, Sir," the scientist answered.
Christoph continued to watch the Bonsai with satisfaction.
The connected users set the creation in a corner of a room, and never really bothered with its origins. They could never imagine the truth, anyway.
"We will cleanse society, and a humanity more efficient than this will rise," Christoph said to Orcuin. "Are you listening? This is good news," he said.
She just smiled from ear to ear and jumped about.
***
Candy escaped. It was cold and misty outside, and she did not know which direction she was running to, until she arrived back at the gates of the Neverminds shelter they left hours before to be taken to the huge orca structure. She was exhausted and shaken. When she recognized the shelter, she smiled. Her heart was pounding.
Then a heavy blow to the back of her head turned everything black and she dropped to the floor.
***
A convoy landed and Nicola Potiomkin, head of the Elite Delete division, climbed out of a car and proceeded with her entourage in tow. She was in white from head to toe, complete with the customary white gloves and a matching pair of boots. On her shoulder rode Mister Feathers, her white Angora owl with his coal black eyes. He was a furry neopet, a rare breed she received from a Minds team overseas. It was hard at first getting used to the idea of having him around all day, but he turned out to be a clever and quiet companion.
Her escort followed her as far as the entrance, where she was met by the shelter manager who was asked to take her on a tour of the premises, to see for herself that there were no more Neverminds prowling about. But, already, at the entrance, she was being notified that ‘some dozens’ were left.
"So there's still some sweeping to be done," she told the manager of the shelter. "Any cause for concern here?"
"Don't worry, it’ll be over by tomorrow," he said.
"We can't have even one Nevermind left. In the end they’ll have to realize they’re being taken back home. There's no way around it. Solve it."
"It’ll be dealt with, Ma'am."
Nicola looked up and suddenly froze. Not far from her, in torn clothes, unshaven and thinner than she remembered, stood Alexander Cage, the man she left after Dick Gate.
No one blamed her for abandoning him. What choice did she have? She was embarrassed to death by knowing that he cheated on her with all sorts of females, with his prosthetic penis playing a lead role for all the world to see. And how did he end up here? she wondered.
After shaking off her initial shock, she walked toward the large courtyard where Alexander was stretching his legs and making himself comfortable.
"Alex, what are you doing here?" she asked and felt her heart beat.
He spun around, startled, and looked at her.
She was standing over him in all her glory - the only woman who knew how to touch him when even he was disgusted with himself; the woman who showed up after he relinquished any thought of relationship, intimacy, and desire.
"After you left, I decided that I wasn't cut out for Minds anymore," he told her. "I chose to disconnect. What are you doing here? And why the uniform? You looked better in a dress."
"I didn't ask for your opinion. After you left I was depressed for a long time. Angry, lost, embarrassed. I was broken. I wanted to disappear."
"And here you are! You chose a career..."
"I'm the head of Elite Delete," she said with pride. "I suppose you have no clue about our contribution to the world, being disconnected as you are here. We're engineering a new world, digitally: improving, cleaning, cleansing. I moved forward, Alex, I'm no longer the little woman who does nothing but spend money on clothes and fuck you all around the house. I have a role, a meaning."
"You always had meaning, at least to me. But what I can't figure out is how can you be working for them."
They were both silent.
"So how are you really improving the world in your job?" Alexander asked and turned to look around. Something in him did not want to know.
"I'm helping fulfil a vision of a pure and cleaner humanity. A more communicative humanity, that has more to contribute."
"You sound like a machine. They ruined us, and you should know that I never cheated on you. It was a setup, and I have no idea who was behind it, but I’d never do that to you."
"Enough. It doesn't matter now," she decided and stepped back.
"You've changed," Alexander said.
"So have you."
Nicola became dizzy suddenly and leaned her back against the wall. There was so much to say, and actually nothing. They lived in parallel worlds. There was no way for them to reconnect or have a genuine conversation in the given circumstances. They were each headed in different directions. In another life, they might have simply been able to fight, make up, hug, have a drink, and go to bed together… tell each other about their day. But she was too hurt. He was too hurt. And destiny took them for a spin where she got off on Minds and he on Neverminds. The word that set them apart was ‘never,’ and it seemed to stand for something.
"Are you with anyone?" he snuck in the question that was on his mind, while still disturbed by her previous reaction.
"No, I'm married to my job. Like you used to be."
Alexander paused for a moment.
"Take care of yourself, Nicola," he said.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly, choking on the words.
***
Don knew exactly what he should do. He pushed himself up and peeked out of one of the rooms in the shelter, caught one of Nicola's escorts off guard, knocked him out and dragged him into a small storage room. The man was out cold.
The mobile chip scanner he took off the unconscious man identified him as Daniel Kaminsky. Don held the twitching man down and attached a memory converter to the component in his head. Kaminsky wriggled and fought hard to shake him off, but could not. Tears streamed down his face as memories drained from his head, and he realized what was going to happen. Don sternly watched the man pinned to the ground, entirely set on the end that justified the means: taking revenge on the people who robbed him of his father.
Daniel had no time to count as a person to Don, he was just an obstruction, a shadow to eradicate. After reducing the man to an empty shell on the floor, Don thought that the man's life had not been spent in vain after all. He served a purpose by being there, and now his role in the world was complete. His living flesh was still there, but without a soul. Don saw no point in killing him.
It was no longer necessary and seemed wrong.
When the brain stopped sending signals, so did the component, and he stopped existing on Minds. This allowed Don a narrow window of time to transmit a signal from the component in his own head and identify himself as Kaminsky. The change of identities was done through the inter-brain sharing function. After the quick identification and verification process was complete, Don officially became Daniel Kaminsky and stored the man's memories and personal history in his brain expansion, while his former identity as Jack had been erased. From now on, he would be Daniel, his second identity swap. He would adjust. He always did. He had never developed a connection to his past as Jack anyway, and most of it was better buried.
He was sad that he could not come up with another way. He had to quickly sweep the room clean and stuff the guard into some corner, not before stripping him of all his clothes and exchanging them for his own. As long as Kaminsky's data appeared on his own lenses, it would all be alright.
It would be his ticket out.
He briskly walked outside, hoping the guard's body would remain undiscovered. He then saw Candy running toward him, her face dirty and her clothes in tatters. He quickly dragged her into one of the neocars. Inside, he breathed in relief and looked at her.
"Candy, I'm sorry I had to hit you. I neutralized a guard and took over his identity. It was the only way to get out of here."
Candy nodded and tears washed her face.
"Tell me quickly, what happened there? Why did you come back and what happened to the guy who was with you - Robin?"
"They're killing everyone, Jack," Candy said in tears.
"Call me Daniel from now on. Get used to it."
"Daniel, I saw everything, they're turning us into bonsai plants! That's what they did to Robin. There is no more Robin, just a plant that looks like him. How can they turn a person into a bonsai plant?"
"How did you see it? Did you see them murder him?"
"No. But there were hundreds and thousands of plants and piles of clothes. I was lucky the whole operation froze because of some communication problem and I escaped. I had no idea what that place was. It was horrible, the horror... we wanted to believe it’d all be different and we'd get a second chance. Why are they doing this to us? What do they want from us?"
***
Nicola stayed behind with Mister Feathers. The area was starting to clear, but she stood upright, the strong wind relentlessly beating on her face. She filled her lungs with cold air and looked toward the horizon. Nicola was always the last to leave. There was no one waiting for her at home anyway. The only living thing that gave her affection was her little owl. At night she would pull him close and breathe in his feathers, petting his head as he closed his eyes and surrendered.
She thought about her former life, and used Re-Minds to go back to her days with Alexander.
"One day you'll leave me," he told her jokingly after sex.
"Never," she said and hugged him tight to show him that she meant it.
"I'll never leave you. I've waited all my life for someone like you. What am I going to find out there?" he said.
"Exactly, there's nothing for you out there!" she laughed in his arms.
"Are you coming, Nicola? It's starting to rain." Her deputy, Klaus, woke her from her memories.
She stuck her hands in her pockets, took a last look at the silvery clouds, and turned to walk away.
"He had to go," Klaus said, walking beside her. "You did the right thing."
Mister Feathers wiped a tear from Nicola's cheek.
"There was no other way," said Klaus.
"Right, we wasted enough time here already. We need to move on," Nicola concluded assertively and the two disappeared from the shelter, leaving nothing but boot tracks on the snow.
10
Restart
"Where will we go?" Candy panicked, but Don had no answers. He knew that running away was not an option, and the same went for going underground in a world that monitored all brain activity with a fine tuned obsession. It was only a matter of time before Minds' trackers uncovered Don's real identity and had a lock on his location.
"Let's run away from here, fly somewhere else. We're finally free."
"Free?" he laughed. "We're prisoners here like we'd be anywhere else. This is their world."
"Don't tell me we have nowhere to go," she said in a shaking voice.
"The good people of Minds already showed us that they stop at nothing. They murdered my father. There's nowhere in this world we can run to, but we're not going down without a fight. We can forget about having any kind of normal life anywhere. We're not getting the option to retire and live out our lives in peace. They'll find us in no time. With or without the component, it doesn't matter. They'll hunt us down like animals and kill us, citing an aesthetic grievance or some other cynical nonsense. We have to go and break some rules."
"What rules?" asked Candy, who was trying to watch the clouds they were flying through.
"Anything we accomplish will be through cunning and planning ahead. Just don't start panicking and bring us down. Keeping it together is the only way for us to stay alive right now."
Candy looked out the window at the mountainous region they were passing through, too tired and confused to argue. A ray of sun found its way between two mountains. The yellow light blinded her, but brought some warmth to her cheeks. She had somehow forgotten about nature's healing powers. Surrendering to the moment, she closed her eyes, and remembered all her dreams, hopes and fantasies. She was too young to give it all up, unfulfilled. What great things had she accomplished? And if it all ended right then, what was it all for? She needed to make at least one big plan come true!
The neocar soared between the two mountains and over an ocean bay with dark blue water, and heavy white icebergs soaking in the surf. A gasp of wonder escaped the two almost as one, spellbound by the natural beauty that suddenly opened up before them and for a second blew all other thoughts away. When and how did they forget to just look at things and appreciate them? A life spent shifting between interfaces - and there it was, the real thing, untouched or modified, spread out before them, all theirs and free of charge.
They looked at each other, and Don, with an imperceptible nod, commanded the neocar to find a safe place to land.
They stepped out of the car in silence and stood atop the cliff. Don wrapped Candy in Daniel's white Elite Delete jacket, which had an internal heating unit, and they held hands and looked forward, each in thought. There was no point in wasting that precious moment by talking. Candy felt warmth spreading through her body from Don's hand holding hers. Such a nice touch. She was reminded how that most basic of human gestures could send shivers of ecstasy out to every single fiber in her body. When did people forget about touching, and started feeling that existing was enough? When was the last time they just lived without rushing anywhere? What happened to being part of things without thinking about the next move?
"Do you think it's too late to start over?" she asked and broke the beautiful silence.
Don said nothing.
In that short window of frozen time, there was no room for thinking about the next move. Thoughts like that disturbed the state of bliss. The world kept its balance. People were the ones who skewed the picture. From a distance they appeared to be a pair of lovers, standing in a scene torn from Heaven; they were the only ones who could measure the distance between the peaceful image and what went on inside.
Don looked at Candy. In another world, in another time, he would have ravaged her without a thought. But right now he had not a grain of desire in him, just compassion and a fierce need to protect her, to keep her from harm, to promise her that everything would be alright, even if nothing was right. He kept looking at Candy, whose gaze was glued to the horizon. He carefully touched her hair.
"I erased a man today. I found no other way," he said.
"You had to," Candy said and put her hand on his shoulder. "You wanted to survive
. It was him or you, right? There was nothing else you could do."
"I know, that's what I'm telling myself, but right now I can't make his face go away."
Don's torment was obvious. He grabbed his head in his hands. "What did I do? Why do we deserve this?"
"Take it easy - you're the one asking me to be calm! Don't start losing it now!"
"I know, but he had two little kids. One was born a month ago."
"Stop," Candy pleaded.
"It doesn't matter where I go, I'll always be cursed. You don't know me or what I did and I -"
"We all have a past," she said, "and what's so good about my own sorry life?"
"You didn't fuck people up!"
"That's true, I didn't fuck people up, but I fucked up my soul, my career and my family honor. So let's leave the past behind. The future is all we have left, right?"
They sat close to each other, trying to stretch out that long moment that separated the present from the impending future, and were scared to move. They silently watched a group of orcas that improvised a show for them down in the bay. The creatures swam to the shallows and started leaping out of the water, a couple of them forming the letter M against the sunset. That damn Minds symbol never let them be. Life looked simpler there, out in the ocean. Eat or get swallowed up. But also there, in the wild, there was nowhere to run to.
Don sat up, scooped up a ball of snow and hurled it at the ocean. Candy joined him on an impulse of mischief.
When did everything become so complicated? She asked herself, but found easy distraction. In that wonderful moment, on the pure snow, they were two lost souls who did not want to be found, borrowing time, playing catch, rolling in the snow and staring into space, hoping for some celestial event to keep the sun from setting down on them.
Netopia: A Thrilling Dystopian Novel (Science Fiction & Action) Page 26