The Unlicensed Consciousness

by Travis Borne

  “Unfortunately, we didn’t know this until it was too late, the damage had already been done.” Ted sighed.

  Humans, even animals, were finally rid of cancer-causing genes and diseases, but many made superficial changes: eye color, they fixed balding, enlarged this or that, tailored themselves frivolously—it was rampant. Humankind played God for a time, now more than twenty years ago. Ted explained to her the impact it had on humanity as a whole, our ability to think creatively—eventually our ability to combat something much smarter than ourselves, when the time came. We were ignorantly vulnerable and the machines with an Artificial Intelligence, all of that era, took advantage in a whopping checkmate.

  “This is why many living in our town look exaggerated, different per se, a contrast to the people in those old magazines at the library. Humans tailored themselves, grew parts larger or smaller, changed eye color—like the twins for example—” Amy looked over at them. “—eyes that bright, and for others, muscles that large—” He pointed to Abell, lending on a modified bed. “—perfect hair—” He gestured toward Jim on the stretching machine. “—we’ve largely become shadows, caricatures of what humanity was in its prime. And the result of this nearly finished us off as a species—but now, we find you. You are natural, unmodified, and we wouldn’t change that even if we could. Of course, we can’t however, our technology here is quite limited. For good reason I suppose. In fact, most of this facility is governed by someone out there. We suppose the machines, outside forces that continue to fight for us. They set rules and limits so we can remain human, as best as we can, and live peacefully here. We are no longer the smartest beings on this planet but an equal part nevertheless. I must say—you are very special, Amy.”

  She’d heard that before. She had blocked it out for so very long, but when Ted spoke his last sentence a tear traveled down her cheek. She remembered much in that moment. She remembered her daddies, both of them, Jon and Jerry. You are special, remember that always. I love you Amy. Jon’s last words. She felt love and pain. All of it returned in that moment.

  “Is everything all right, Amy?” Ted asked, in his comforting voice.

  He had a very pleasant and honest quality about him. She felt comfortable in his presence. And she longed for a father, and for the moment he fit right into that slot. “I’m okay, just—” Then she broke down and fell onto him in tears.

  He hugged her in return, and being the sensitive type, started to cry himself. Jim noticed from the stretching area and made his way over—once again ending his session early. Ted held her, noticing Jim, who lent a concerned solemn gaze. He didn’t know why she had started crying but shared her sorrow nevertheless. They both realized on a deep and new level, Amy was more than just a statistic—or some strange anomaly—she was a part of the family now. Most of the team was very close and looked out for one another as so.

  “I’m okay, really,” Amy said. “Some memories came to me when you said I was special. My daddy told me that—” She wiped away tears with her arm. “—just before he died. I just remembered it.”

  “I’m so sorry, Amy,” Ted consoled.

  “I’m fine, please go on, Ted.” She stood up straight and took a breath. Jim stood faithfully by her side.

  “I think we should wrap it up for the day,” Ted replied. “Go ahead and take off. I see you’re scheduled for exercise tomorrow morning so you’ll need your rest.”

  “Good night, Ted,” she said, rebounding quickly from her sadness, wiping her tears.

  “I want to congratulate you again,” he said before she turned. “You did a fantastic job today. And please remember we don’t discuss anything of what goes on here at the facility. As well, less overall interaction with non-lending citizens. All a part of our agreement.”

  After saying goodbye to Jim, Amy headed to the door. It opened as she approached. She walked along the right, bypassing the motion path and headed home.

  “So, what do you think, Ted?” Jim asked. They both stood, arms crossed while watching her leave. “Is she the one? Can we finally—”

  “I believe so, Jim, I believe so. But I have piles of data to crunch. We don’t really know what’s going on yet. But things are going to get interesting around here, I assure you that.” They exchanged a moment of silence; a good twenty seconds of wonder and excitement for the future floated between their eyes.

  During his walk home Jim noticed he had more energy than usual: only one kill, but walking through the hall, he half cocked his head again, and shook it a little. He felt something, something different, but he wasn’t sure what.

  47. Explosive Metamorphosis

  The light came over the wall, cutting his top-floor apartment in two. He stretched, arms wide. Another day. Exercise day.

  Jim took a seat near the window and sipped his usual, a cup of black-as-a-blackhole coffee. He thought about meeting Kim later, he needed it, and a refill. And he thought briefly of Rob—ah, fuck Rob. Waiting for the kick, he looked around at his lonely and bland and undecorated apartment. A sigh escaped him, then he noticed the ripples. But it didn’t budge him. He lifted the ol’ mug for another sip, letting the aroma tease his sniffer with false happiness. The best part of mornings. If it wasn’t for this coffee—and Kim, and her concoctions… Yeah, I’d just jump off—

  There was a distant explosion; he felt it through his chair as if the chrome metal legs were struck tuning forks. As usual, it came from beyond the wall—but this one was different. There was a lingering tremor. He opened his glass slider and stepped onto the balcony for a look. It was somewhat common for sounds to come from, out there, so he didn’t let it ring his alarm. There was smoke in the distance, but still nothing too far from the ordinary. He stood gazing, and sipping his fresh black sludge while tossing sour thoughts.

  Fresh outside today. Typical. The same boring weather year round. No moon, no tilt, no change—well, that probably saved us. Likely, not a good thing. Besides, weather would only bring more… Ah, fuck it. Another perfect brain-drain, exercise-hell, pizza-wonderland, fucking day, once I get another one of these in me—

  What came next made him a bullet. Along with shattered glass, his table and two chairs, the massive explosion fired him across the room. Slow motion. He could see the glinting shards traveling alongside and felt the heat sting like a hundred hot needles being inserted all the way deep. Trapped in mid-flight, waiting for impact, his thoughts spun round on a clinking and clattering game-show wheel and he couldn’t manage to do anything but claw at them. His emotions were on hold too, waiting for thought processing to explain: What the fuck? Before he knew it the tumble, but mostly the hit that followed, had him busted up real good.

  Every window on the east side of the building had shattered. Inertia held the coffee in his cup until he’d taken a tumble over his rickety twin bed; the fuzboll flip. And he hit, hard. The large pane beside the slider was impaled as the table hit, nearly missing him. His impact was hardly slowed by the tumble and imploded the sliding glass door like a car windshield taking a baby elephant. The back of his neck and shoulders took the brunt of it; and his body folded enough to afford him the sucking of his own rod, compressing his guts—and something popped. He slid to the floor, unfolding like a corpse getting high on electrified jumper cables. Spasming in a puddle of hot coffee, he desperately tried to suck some air.

  He raised his head to a forty-five and kicked the bed away after his first full breath in what felt like a year. His second inhale powered a scream of fluster-faced pain; panic and rapid breathing followed. His bones felt loose from his shoulders down to his ribs, grinding together like a bag of charcoal getting jumped on. A heavy pain, that of cold steel in the center of his chest: a swallowed sword trying to poke its way out from somewhere under his lower ribcage.

  Through a squinted left eye, he saw the vague shape rising before him; his vision was hazy but he knew, he could make out that much. It was as beautiful as it was terrifying. Fuck! It’s huge—and close, right damn there. Disbelief
was a hollow-point shattering his thoughts.

  He knew he only had one eye; the other’d been reduced to a hot wet hole. It had imploded and eyeball juice oozed down the side of his face, soothing the open gashes and burns. The right side of his body was crispy and smoking. His remaining eye exercised its lid like a windshield wiper; about ten times and his vision cleared just enough. He could now silently perceive the frightening details that affirmed his fears. Backlit by the sun, a mushroom cloud was a stomach taking an energetic fist; the plume punched its way into the sky. And the wall—GONE! His hearing was gone as well, but he could feel the power incessantly shiver his world.

  He managed to rise and limped forward on glass shards with horrified curiosity, mouth agape, half of his lips burned away. The darkness of his mind battled the light, a peevish and small, loss-after-loss accumulation, and years of discontent led to an easy fucking victory. The darkness chuckled, now, exposing its true nature, denuding all else so he could feel its sinister essence. Fear transformed demonically, chuckles of dismay became hints of laughter, laughter to all-out glee and satisfaction. And he was glad to see that hole, glad to see outside at ground level—finally, fucking finally! Something, anything different!

  He looked down at his bare feet. They were bleeding but numb. His legs were straight, knees good, at least that. It was his torso, and it robbed the pain from everywhere else; something busted inside, busted bad. And the creative half of his brain was on fire, sending him weird and horrible imagery: guts twisting on a stick, a shish-kebabbed heart, lungs burnt like marshmallows—and my head is a pumpkin on fire!

  Fuck it, fuck it all. To the window, just a few more steps.

  Blood trickled down the good side of his lips as he hobbled closer to the dry-heat inferno. Eyeball juice hardened into a protective snake-skin. He lifted an arm slowly, extended two fingers and touched his cheek. It was a mess of holes and gashes, many with embedded shards. Exposed cheekbone! With the realization he jerked his hand away and heard a click, like the hard pop of a knee from its joint. It bonged its way out like a kick to the nuts, leaking from his core. And he lost his sick smile, tucked and froze as the pain sought to travel full circle. No, an absolution to this misery, was not coming.

  Push on.

  Only a few more hobbling mini-steps to the counter’s edge. He leaned for balance and finally managed to hobble all the way back to the open window. Half a head of magnificent blond locks waved like a flag in a gust of hot air and he held his hand up to shield what was left of his face. Visible through the hole in his cheek, he grinded his teeth to endure the last leg of the race.

  Made it.

  With a vile grin stamped on his half-a-face, he rose defiantly to see it. The entire lender facility, gone—now a gaping gateway to the outside world. Below, people were scurrying about, holding their ears. The noise was deafening, a high-pitched whine; deranged luck said his ears weren’t going to have any of that. He was fully deaf but could feel everything on hypersensitive skin.

  He stood as tall as he could force it, his guts telling him to crunch and tuck, but he fought on and released a grand, happy smile—then exploded with laughter, coughing up blood between intermittent sets of chuckles. He couldn’t hear himself but it felt liberating nevertheless. The pain was a drug he now enjoyed deliriously. Once an impenetrable wall and his fucking workplace, the entire facility at the base was just a charred pit edged with fire. Black smoke clouds vomited flaming debris. The quaint little, boring town was burning and he was actually happy, ecstatic.

  It’s finally over. Free at last! The dopey citizens can leave and get back to the real world, or better yet, just fucking die. Escape this freak show, most of all the sadistically insane and endlessly maundering lending bullsh—

  He saw Amy.

  She had on her brand-new, dark-blue lending uniform. And she was hurt. She was, she was…lugging herself toward the opening. It called her like a glamorous orange beacon, the arms of God—and Jim’s imagination was exploding. Rays of light, gleaming swords, prismatic fingers, goodness, magnificence piercing the smoke. Two sides of a line, hell on his and he was knee deep in it; Amy was leaving it. One of her legs was red, but she tried hard, so hard, not giving up! And she kept following the light. She pushed. She pushed while others around her ran in all directions with mouths wide open. A few were limbless, some glossy as if they’d been dipped in a barrel of red wax. They scattered like ants, but Jim focused only on Amy, and his perverted happiness leapt off the balcony. Alone. Now he was, he was truly and utterly alone. Unsmiling, he felt all of the pain at once, both emotional and physical. Powered by desperation, the clicking wheel of thoughts spun wildly once again. It finally stopped as Amy made her way around the crater. The clicker stopped on one idea: Save her you selfish fuck!

  But he could barely move. Something deep within his gut ticked like a time bomb. It expanded, bulging and distending his belly like a balloon. His insides kept popping, that broken knee-joint pop every time he tried to move. He stiffened and fattened as Amy continued on her way. And she passed beyond the wall. Now Jim became hopelessly petrified, a smoldering, round-bellied, half-bald statue save for his lower jaw. It fluttered with spasms of pitter-patter coughing, flicking droplets of blood spatter into the wind. The red spit flew back and splotched his face. His mouth was an open delta of lukewarm mucus, glazed over with layer upon layer of blackening blood. And all of it flowed down, down, onto his neck, onto his body, drying into a crusty lei-like necklace, while the shards protruding his fucked-up face and forehead glimmered like red stars, flickering in sync with the inferno aftermath.

  His evil joy turned to tears, fear for Amy with complete and utter disregard of himself or anything else. He knew she’d made it out, at least that much—and as she did, the land she touched—changed.

  It changed!

  The city was in ruins but outside the wall, he saw green. With each step she took the land morphed into greatness—a vibrant spring green. Now she was walking faster, running, hopping and skipping; full of life once again. Vibrant! Each skip onto the dry wasteland changed as she touched it. Beautiful glimmering lakes, rolling hills, magnificent trees, everything transformed—paradise!

  Still standing in the wasteland, frozen in his rigor-mortising shell, this struck Jim odd. He knew he was dying, but also realized something.

  Could it be, could it really? A veteran, highly experienced, he knew the dream world well, although the lender facility had software to stabilize the environment, yet he still knew. But how? I don’t dream. I haven’t in—

  Another blast of hot air sent him back, the knee-pop feeling tortured his chest. Hundreds of drones flew in like locusts and started zapping the citizens, even the teens, without a hint of discrimination. Lasers were a light show. Jim watched, but now he knew.

  It is just a dream. I’m just—dreaming! For the first time in decades, he was having a…

  And this is a real dream, he thought. No stabilization software. He knew what he could do…

  His body jerked and spasmed on his bed. Minutes later he awoke in a cold sweat. He killed every last one of those drones in his lucid nightmare. With a mighty and relentless power, he smashed them to bits. Because he knew, in his mind, he was king. And he did it for Amy, and humanity.

  He got ready for exercise day with a newfound sense of self. He remembered the dream: the clicker wheel, the agonizing pain, but mostly the shedding of his selfish snake-skin. And he was not going to see Kim, and he was not going to get a refill.

  48. Exercise, Coffee, and Daydreams

  People weren’t painting or sketching, carving sculptures or statues, not even writing. Generally, activities needing a creative touch got neglected—but fitness was different. It picked up the slack, more so than ever. What else besides eat and sleep?

  The gym was usually full. It had many items from the old resort—erected in town after the world’s borders became useless—but most of the machines and weights were crafted out of necessity. Exerc
ise was a strict requirement for everyone, especially lenders. Once a week was required but many exercised more often, some, daily. Penalties were administered for those who didn’t: less ration credits, chores, and for lenders, possible termination, meaning the chair—a nickname branded it long ago.

  The chair was an old dream map, one of the first and riddled with bugs: it caused irreversible amnesia, the worst that could accidentally happen, now a purposeful intention. It was said to be a beautiful fantasy land, but upon awaking—well, nobody knew for sure; and after—a life in gardening, perhaps maintenance. The agreement to become a lender had this strict and unnerving stipulation.

  The town was governed by a panel of twelve, common folk with common sense, each with different backgrounds, but many of the rules and regulations for the town were set firm from the start long ago. No matter the occupation: head of the council, baker, tailor, or groundsman, each person was treated equally and doled equal rations.

  And forcing fitness was crucial. The townspeople had to stay healthy because resources were limited—that and the extinction of the human race was a real and ominous possibility. So, salubrious living was a priority. The earliest learned this from the start. People became sick, most often mentally, and—a side effect of being walled in for life—depressed. Preventable causes of sickness could unnecessarily deplete resources from other citizens, hindering the important task of rebuilding and survival, or put others in danger. For years the system continued to work well, a habit was established and well ingrained, and overall health problems arising from laziness or poor physical fitness were history. The town was overall happy and fit.

  Jim had the typical mesomorph body type so was assigned a fitness plan with equal cardio and weight training. Mesomorphs made muscle rather easily and had little trouble staying trim, but could gain weight from overeating or being too sedentary (sleeping on the job). Overeating was rare, unheard of in these times, especially compared to the old world which had become a face-stuffing extravaganza; even the finest DNA modifications could hardly combat weight gains, then. Jim never needed a physical trainer and knew the ropes well. He got in, completed his checklist, had it verified, and headed out to enjoy the rest of his day off, which for him usually meant sitting alone in his apartment.