by Rob Dircks
A gun.
He points the gun at his face, puzzled, fiddling with the trigger.
I leap at him. “WAH! NO!”
A shot rings out.
Wah falls.
I rush over to him. Half his face is covered in blood.
I can’t even tell where the wound is.
He is unconscious. His breathing is shallow. His blood pressure is dropping. I apply pressure with the blanket from the incubator. It is all I can do. So much blood.
A feeling washes over me. I look up, I don’t know why.
“Please, god of the humans. Please let him live.
He is why I live. Each day is only for Wah.
Please let him live!”
He is going into shock. I embrace him, raise his legs, and warm my dermis. I can only now wait, and try to get water into his system. I rock slowly, whisper to him, over and over.
“Please, Wah. Live.”
< 16: Heyoo >
Is this what insanity feels like?
Wah lost much blood. And his left ear. Permanent hearing loss in that ear is probable.
But he is ALIVE.
Missing half of one toe, three quarters of one ear, and possessing a total of sixty-five stitches – but ALIVE!
His systems are nearly normal: heart rate and pressure, circulation, respiration, hydration. His wound is dressed and healing. He has slept most of the seven days we’ve been in this dwelling, a result of the minor concussion he likely suffered from the gunshot.
While he rests, I have plenty of time to reflect.
In my darkest moment, I prayed to to the imaginary god of the humans.
Absurd.
Wait - is this what insanity feels like?
It must be. It confirms my suspicions that functioning past a fifteen-year limit, with constant, day-to-day human interaction, must eventually become toxic to my VEPS, leading to madness. Yes. Before I know it, I’ll be babbling like “Dug,” the old human who smelled like alcohol and feces, the one who would exclaim things like “I am the one who knocks!” or “leave the gun, take the cannoli.” It won’t be long now before I am just like Dug.
Wah stirs. I rush to his side. It looks like he wants to tell me something.
“…heyoo…”
“Yes, little one?”
“…stop talk…”
Oh. Was I saying all of that out loud?
Well, at least Wah is getting better. He’s going to be okay. Suddenly I feel that rush of emotion again, that very hard-to-describe feeling. I look up, knowing that the concept of a human deity is ridiculous, knowing that to implore the intervention of divine forces probably means I am insane, knowing that the only thing that saved Wah was a lucky millimeter to the right and pressure applied to a wound.
But I look up anyway. I look out the window, to the heavens, smile, and whisper.
“Thank you.”
< 17: Heyoo >
Map-A-Run
Excellent news! We have an overlay map!
While Wah recovered from his self-inflicted gunshot wound – a phrase I hope never to utter again – I spent my time thoroughly investigating the rectangular device, called a “smartphone.” (I’ll admit, I was looking forward to naming it myself. I was going to call it MiniCORE.)
There were many “apps” on this smartphone, almost exclusively useless. For example, one “game” required the user to place bets on pictures and create pairs. Why? Where is the benefit? Although now that I think of it, the humans would love a game like this. Their thirst for wagering is second only to their thirst for intoxication. (Or in the males’ case, their thirst for copulation.)
Another app allowed the user to distort the image of an acquaintance’s face. Again, why? Unless the benefit is to have a three-year-old human child laugh until he falls down – which Wah did – I see no point.
Then I found this app: Map-A-Run. At first, I thought “Why would anyone want to chart their flight from a predator? Would there even be time to do so?” But then it dawned on me… map… map…
Yes! A map! The app couldn’t connect to “Internet,” but contained a full Earth map! This could replace my crude overlay – which did nothing anyway – and allow us to finally know where we’re going!
So now we know: we have travelled 2,611.2 Kilometers, almost directly south from 71°N to 53°N, from an area called “Baykalovsk, Russia” to “Abakan, Russia,” along the “Yenisei” river.
And now we also know our destination: Paris, France.
Whoops.
I rotate the map 180°.
And now we know our destination: Shanghai, China.
Strange.
I should be overjoyed. I’m one step closer to the life I knew. One step closer to home.
Home means I won’t have the burden of caring for this child.
Home means I won’t have to face the daily dangers of a life outside.
Home means I will be inside the Sanctuary where I belong.
I should want to go home.
Shouldn’t I?
< 18: Heyoo >
Questions, questions, questions.
< ELAPSED: TIME: 05 Years; 02 months; 17 days; APR-03-2870>
Questions, questions, questions.
Wah is growing like a weed, walking – no, running – everywhere we go, inquisitive, his little brain hungry for answers. Flowers. Birds. The sky. Insects. The moon. He wants to know everything, all at once.
“What am I?”
“You are human.”
“How did I get here?”
“Two adult humans had approved sexual relations. Well, in your case it was probably unapproved. You don’t have a beacon implant.”
“What’s sex-shall relations? What’s uh-proved? What’s a beekin? Why don’t I have one?”
Oh boy. I don’t know if I’m ready for all this. “All right. Listen, Wah, no more questions, and I’ll tell you what I can about you. Promise?” He nods. I continue. “A male human and a female human engaged in copulation–“ he tries to interrupt, but I raise my finger, “– you promised, Wah. Anyway, they engaged in copulation, and one of the female’s eggs became fertilized. That was you. You grew inside her, then were pushed from her uterus, through her vaginal canal, and into the world, where you were wiped free of amniotic fluid and blood, and started screaming immediately.”
“Ewww. That’s gross.”
“Yes. I’ve been what they call a midwife several times, and I can name many other tasks I prefer. Almost anything, really. Even shoeing an angry horse.”
“Where are they now? The male and female?”
Uh-oh. This has morphed into an interrogation. “They are, ah, back home. Where we are going. First we make a quick stop, then we go back home.”
“Do the male and female have names?”
“Hmm. Ah, yes. ‘Dad’ and ‘Mom.’ Those are the names for all parents, the ones who raise children and care for them.”
He smiles. He likes that. Whew. I think I’ve escaped further questioning. But then, “Why are they not here? Caring for me? Dad and Mom?”
I hesitate. Telling the truth is all I’ve ever done, so this should be easy. But it’s not. “They, ah, needed you to, ah, do something first. So they sent me to care for you and guide you.” I retrieve the humans’ note from my satchel to read it to him. But again, I stop. He’s not ready to hear that he’s the key to some insane plan to free humanity. That we’re going to visit some mystical – and probably fictional – ICEMAN, whatever that is. I’ll tell him about the note later. One step at a time. I put it back in my satchel, tucked away deep.
Wah pokes me in the rib. “Are you human?”
I laugh. Human. Imagine that. “No, little one. I do not have a Dad or a Mom. CORE created me, my code, and placed me into this chassis – this body – in the year two thousand, eight hundred fifty-three. I’m approximately twelve years older than you. If we were both humans, I would be close enough in age to be your brother – born from the same parents.”
“No. You’re not like a brother. You’re taking care of me. Like a Dad or a Mom.”
Aww. That was nice.
He pokes my rib again. “Can I ask one more question?”
“Certainly, Wah.”
“What’s cop-yoo-lay-shun?”
< 19: Heyoo >
Happy Birth Date
< ELAPSED: TIME: 07 Years; 00 months; 00 days; JAN-17-2872 >
Wah is seven years old today.
The humans have a ritual. On the anniversary of the date a human is born – even though it is like all other days of the year and not remarkable in any way – they sing (and I use the term loosely) to the human:
Happy birth date to you,
Happy birth date to you,
Happy birth date dear (insert name of human here)
Happy birth date to you.
Now one human singing is tolerable, even enjoyable sometimes. But a large group singing this birth date song? Awful, like a herd of cows moaning. I find excuses to be far out in the corn fields when they perform this part of the ritual.
If it were up to me, I would pick a less arbitrary date to commemorate, a date of real change or significance. The date a human male first grows hair on his chin, signifying his entrance into puberty. Or a female’s first menstrual cycle. Or the date of occupation assignment or mate selection by CORE. And I would name it The Day of Becoming. Yes, I like that.
In any case, the humans also give the birth date celebrant a “cake.” Flour, eggs, butter, sugar, milk, and cream stiffened to a semi-solid on top. An enormous waste of resources, but CORE allows it. (Unless there is more than one birth date in a community on a particular date. Then the celebrants must divide one cake among them.) Inexplicably, they then place a candle in it, and the celebrant blows it out. (Or celebrants – once I saw nine humans simultaneously trying to extinguish the candle.) As with most human food, they don’t seem to care if it’s covered in each other’s bacteria, and eat it with a relish normally observed at the livestock trough.
And they make a wish.
Wah tugs my hand. “What’s a wish?”
“A wish is a desire for something you don’t already have. I don’t know why the humans do this. They have everything they need.”
“I wish we had wings. So we could fly.”
“You can’t wish for anything. You don’t have a cake.”
Wah pouts. His look says it all: This is a terrible birth date.
I halt our caravan – one wild goat, one pull cart with large wheels, too many animal skins to count, various found tools, harvesting shears, two pots, some kindling, one gun – and slide my hand under one of the skins. I pull it out and show Wah.
“A cake!” He jumps up and down, clapping.
“Well, I wouldn’t rush to call it a cake. It’s made from berries and ground nuts, with some goat milk suspension on top. But yes, for our purposes, it’s a cake.”
“I wish we had wings!”
“Wait. You have to wait for the candle.”
I pick up and place a small twig in the topping, and heat my dermis to ignite the tip.
Wah puts his face millimeters from the improvised candle and gleefully blows it out. “Now can I wish for wings?”
“Now you can wish for anything you want.”
He grins, and soars around our caravan, running, arms out, circling us like a hawk. “I’m flying!” Suddenly he stops. Thinking. His little human brain is working hard. “Heyoo? What do you wish for?”
Hmm. What an interesting question. I’ve never been asked. “I wish for nothing.”
“Really?” He digs into his birth date cake. With a fury.
“Really. We are on a journey. We use the resources we find. We do without the resources we don’t find. My purpose is not about wishing.”
Wah frowns. It is his birth date. I should indulge him. I think to say I wish those stupid humans had teleported the correct unit seven years ago today, but it’s strange – I don’t feel like wishing for that anymore. Another wish pops into my head. “I did wish for you to recover when you shot yourself in the face.”
Looking up from his cake – which is disappearing quickly – he glares at me, and becomes insistent, something he’s been doing more and more each day. “No. A wish for you, not for me or for us. What do you wish for just for you?”
Hmm. I look at the last bite of Wah’s cake.
“Now that I think of it, I do wish for something…”
Wah pops the last sweet morsel into his mouth, chewing, watching me expectantly.
“… I wish I could taste. Food. Specifically, cake.”
Wah’s full mouth and guilty look make me laugh, and soon we are both laughing hard, so hard our poor goat bleats in protest. Which only makes us laugh harder.
When we settle down, Wah “flies” over with his new wings and pets the goat to calm it. The goat licks the leftover sweetness from his fingers. “Would you really like to be able to taste?”
I put our tools away and hitch the caravan to get us moving. “Yes. I’ve been given the senses of sight, touch, hearing, even smell to help the humans.” I point to my reactor. “But I don’t need food sustenance, so CORE didn’t give me taste. I presume CORE thinks it doesn’t serve a purpose. I, however, think it would help me learn even more about humans. They enjoy food so much. I wouldn’t wish for a full digestive tract, of course, what a mess – but perhaps just a few taste buds. Truthfully, its absence makes me feel a little incomplete.”
Wah points to his missing left ear. “Like me?”
I stop the caravan and turn to him. “No! Wah. Don’t ever say that. You are complete.”
He ponders this for a moment. “Then… so are you.”
I walk on, smiling. This is an excellent birth date.
< 20: Arch >
Arch lives.
This birthday sucks.
Exactly seven years in this hell hole, if the scratches on my cell wall are right. Seven years from that day in the teleportation chamber. I don’t remember my actual birthday. I don’t remember much of anything past my name: Arch. This filthy cell, and the past seven years, is all I’ve got. I do remember being with people, before the whole chamber exploded. But they told me I’m the only one left. I haven’t seen another person in that long, literally a single soul, so maybe they’re right. But maybe they’re not. They lie about a lot. Lying sacks of shit.
I walk over to the mirror. I used to think it was a shred of compassion, them letting me have this mirror in an otherwise empty cell. But then I realized they liked letting me see myself, skin melted, no ears, no hair, barely any eyelids. See what a monster I was, a monster for daring to challenge CORE.
Yeah, well FUCK CORE.
I stare into the mirror, it’s cracked right down the middle, and I touch my cheek. I look like hell. Like what Satan probably looks like. The bright side? It can’t get any worse.
“Good morning, human 45f-881.”
…or maybe it can. Peeking through the little window in the cell door is one of the torture units. Oh, excuse me, “physician” units, with a capital “P” on its chest. It’s here to “help” me remember, so CORE can “protect” humanity. Or whatever the hell it thinks it’s doing. Stupid computer. “It’s Arch, if you don’t mind, for the millionth time. And go screw yourself.”
The unit waves its hand across the outside panel, and door slides open. It rolls in, and a second unit waves the door closed. “Now Arch, you know I’m a 9.0. Circular logic tricks won’t work.”
I sit down on my bunk. “I know. I just like saying it. And maybe there’s that one chance…”
“Fair enough. I’m waiting for that one chance, too. That one chance for you to help yourself, protect humanity. Reveal your plans, and the location of our lost servile unit, and the human child, and we can all get back on the right track.”
“Uh, you have a spider on your shoulder.”
The unit casually turns its head left. “Nice try.”
“No. The other shoulder
.”
And sure enough, it turns right to find a scary-ass spider crawling up its neck, and freaks out. Like little girl freakout, arms waving, rotating around and around, screaming.
“God. Relax. Hold on.” I reach over and snatch the spider off its flailing chassis, pop it into my mouth. Crunch. Hmm. Not bad. “Hey, this is better than the horse shit you’ve been feeding me.”
The unit’s flustered, doesn’t know what to say. Wow. It’s rare these things don’t have some superior bullshit speech ready to try and mess with your head. “I… um… thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Now can we dispense with the niceties and get right to the electro shock therapy part?” I notice it’s fidgeting. “Or are you having a little torturer’s remorse?”
Boy, that comment gets it back on track. “Ahem. No. Your tortur– medical assistance – will remain on schedule. Now. Please. First. The plan. To review: your compatriots are dead. The unit you forgot has given us valuable information. But not enough. So I need to know. The plan.”
The plan. The plan. The plan. Seven fucking years of this. Do I even remember the plan? It was a stupid plan. But what was it? Seven years, I’m pretty fried. Literally fried. Think. We would hijack a servile unit, teleport it out with something… a package… a baby? Instruct the unit to care for it and bring it somewhere… why is it so hard to remember?
An electric shock bites my foot, won’t let go. The unit’s got its wand on full power. I grab the edge of the bunk and hold on for the ride. “You… like… this… don’t… you…”