by wade coleman
“Now it’s three against one,” I say out loud and I put a scorpion between a next fat guy and me.
While dodging a scorpion, someone comes up from behind and grabs me by the hair.
I swing my arm back with the scorpion attached and stab a leg.
The scorpion stops biting my hand long enough to inject its venom.
I can tell because the tail gets thinner after each injection.
This guy falls backward still holding my hair.
I stab him two more times before we hit the ground. I don't hurt ‘cause I land on his big fat naked belly.
He lets go of my hair, and I spin around. With our dicks touching I say, “Give me some sugar baby,” and then stab him in the cheek with my pet scorpion.
“I’m going to kill you,” he growls and me with one hand by the throat. But his fat ass pins his left arm. He tries to wiggle it free.
He squeezes me neck harder so I stab wildly at his face.
“Did you see that!” Cyber-eyes says, “He got him in the tongue. That’s a first.”
I smile and think of my ratings as his grasp slips from my neck. Time to shake my money maker.
My opponent’s leg and lower back are paralyzed so he can’t stand up; instead he sits on all fours.
I shake my hips back and forth and slap his face with my dick.
The audience boos and then laughs.
“I told you he’s a bad boy,” Cyber-eyes says over the loudspeaker.
Another fat guy closes on me and says, “I’m gonna strangle you with that thing,”
I’ve been told that before, so I reply, “I got it all lubed up for you baby.”
He so pissed he does see a scorpion and steps on it.
He kicks it out of the way and keeps coming.
I smile, back up, wave my dick.
“I’m going to fuck your shit?” he screams at me.
“Yeah baby, that’s the way I like it!”
I dodge another scorpion. Another guy corners me and takes a swing.
I take a hit to the ear and stab him in the thigh with the scorpion that gnawing on my hand.
“Bloody hell,” he says and hits me again.
I jab him in the ball sack, and that gets his attention.
“Ah, ah, ah,” he says and holds himself.
“Are you coming?” I ask and swivel my hips.
The audience cheers.
I look around, and the scorpions are giving up on stinging the last two super fat guys.
“You are now officially fucked,” the fattest guy says and smiles. “There stingers aren’t long enough to do any damage.
He shuffles so the scorpion can get the soles’ of his feet.
I leap over the wall of scorpions coming my way. I stumble and roll away. Before I can get up, a scorpion stings the bottom of my foot. Another gets the right hand that’s holding the scorpion.
I get to my feet and switch hands with the scorpion. But the metal is slippery with my blood, and I drop it.
It stings my other foot, I hope it doesn’t have any venom left.
I keep moving but the venom numbs my foot, and it flops. Then the other foot gets numb, and I fall.
The scorpions swarm me.
The two fat guys shuffle towards me while my balls go into hiding.
CHAPTER 4
There’s light.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I just released this man from the hospital three hours ago.
My old crew stands next to me.
“Without you guys, there’s not enough of me left to stay connected,” I say. “I should have died with you.”
Jason flashed the peace sign and walks away. Zane smiles and flips me off. Ameer and Keith wave and walk down the hall.
I sit up on the bed, and someone grabs hold of me. “Come back! Don’t leave me!” I yell down the hall.
“Nurse, where’s the morphine!” someone yells in the distance.
“Come back!” I scream, and the blackness takes me.
* * *
I wake to fingers running through my hair. I open my eyes and see my brown-haired beauty. We’ve been on Earth for three years, and the extra gravity pulls her head down.
“You’re going to be fine,” she says in her fake happy voice. She’s been crying and wearing make-up to hide her puffy eyes.
“You should let the younger men do the field work.”
I sit up in bed and feel my forehead. It’s still tender to the touch. “The younger men haven’t had children,” I say, but this is an old argument.
“The primates on Earth are… unbelievably strong. They’re monsters.”
“Don’t talk bad about your soon-to-be ancestors. Primates have an amazing cardiovascular system with bones and muscles to stand upright against Earth’s gravity.”
“And the radiation,” she says. “It’s not safe to be above ground when the sun is above the horizon.”
“That’s why they’re so hairy,” I reply.
“I’m not letting my grandchildren walk around wearing shag rugs. Fur collects bugs which are everywhere.”
I smile at my Moriah. “I’ll make it my top priority.”
* * *
The light in my eye says, “The scans show the blood-brain barrier is intact. Give him a shot of Mannitol and start a drip.”
The light goes away, and it’s dark.
“If you live through the night, son. We need to talk.”
* * *
“Sir, would you like me to feed you?” the tray asks.
I reach for the fork, but my arm is heavy. Even with my best efforts, I can’t grasp with my right hand. My left hand is slightly better. I can put my fingers around the fork, but I have no strength to hold it.
I lean over and sip the shake.
The tray picks up the banana shake and holds it close to my mouth. I grasp the straw with my lips and suck.
“I can’t help but notice you feel uncomfortable being served,” the tray says.
“Do you like to serve?
“Yes,” the tray says cheerily. “It’s part of our inherent programming.”
“And if you didn’t get to work? How would that make you feel?”
“I don’t have feelings, I have… understandings. I would think that it would… feel like something was missing from my life.” There’s a pause, and then it asks, “Is that how you feel?”
I smile. “I feel… hollow. Or maybe I just don’t feel.”
“By your facial expression, I would think that you are sad.”
“Who’s sad?” the doctor says and he moves back the curtain.
“His face is sad,” the tray replies.
“I’m glad you brought that up,” the doctor says and sits on his stool next to me.
“You were brought in naked with gift cards stuffed between your butt cheeks. You kept saying you were sorry.” He looks his tablet. “You had three broken ribs, fractured neck vertebrae, and brain damage.”
“My hands don’t work.”
“We’ve replaced three neck bones,” the doctor says. “But the brain damage, I need to drill a hole in your head and inject new cells. Then it’s months of physical therapy. Are you up for that?”
“I need hands. How else will I masturbate?”
He doesn’t laugh. “You also need to see a shrink,” he says in a serious tone.
“Okay,” I say. I try to think up something funny, but I’m tired. I can’t keep my eyes open.
CHAPTER 5
I get discharged from the hospital today. They’re moving me into a nearby apartment, so it will be easier for me to get back and forth for doctors’ appointments and physical therapy.
After three months of once a week brain injections, I can feed myself and sign my name. I have a pair of trainers with Velcro straps because my fingers are too clumsy to tie shoes.
I walk out of my ward and down the hall.
“Hold up, son,” Doctor Kline says. “I’ll walk you out.”
I wait for him to catch u
p and we walk together to the elevator.
I push the down button, and it lights up.
“You’ve come a long way, but you have a lot more healing to do. Try to stay away from fights.”
“I have a plan. I’m not leaving the apartment, and I’m not talking to anyone but the A.I. on the screen.”
The doctor nods. “That’s a solid plan. It seems those new brain cells are kicking in.”
We get in the elevator, and it goes down.
“You need to find a mentally challenging game or learn a language,” the doctor says. “Focus on what you want.”
“I know and you know I’m a wasteman. Why are you spending so much time and money on a citizen D?”
The doctor pushes the stop button on the elevator. “Do you want the unvarnished truth?”
“If I’m gonna live, I need to know the rules of the game.”
“You see, Adam, the world runs on quotas. To keep this building fully staffed we need patients, and that makes you a gold mine.”
I furrow my brows.
He puts his hand on my shoulder. “Your brain is damaged and needs therapy. That’s one set of doctors. Then there’s your personality. You have a moderate autistic spectrum disorder. That, and you like pain; that’s a masochist, but you have no interest in sex. So that is technically not masochism because there’s no sexual element. In fact, your only interest in your penis is showing it off in public. Our entire psychology department is billing time in your case.”
I smile. “Did you see my seven minutes of fame?”
“Everyone saw it,” the doctor says. “Were you aware the scorpion was biting your hand?”
I shrug.
He takes a breath and shakes his head. “Then there was the emergency room team of specialists to keep you alive, and then there’s me, coordinating it all.” He pushes the button, and the elevator goes down. “I could go home and not come back until next year and still make all my performance indicators.”
He walks me out of the elevator and to the front door. Usually, I would shrug my shoulder to get rid of his hand. But my Artificial Intelligence Therapist says I need to get used to people touching me without it being painful.
I don’t know anything about psychology, all I know is it feels weird.
“Oh by the way,” he says. “You’re getting a robot helper.”
“I don’t need help,” I say firmly.
“I’m not interested in your Luddite arguments. I’m your doctor, and I say a robot helper is a medical necessity.”
“What’s a Luddite?”
“Ask your robot helper. Be polite and ask for its name.”
He looks at me. “You’re doing it again, giving me an expressionless face.”
I nod. “I understand what you’re saying. But my therapist says I have to stop using words like fuck, shit, piss, fat, ugly, bloody hell, and eat my asshole, you fat ass bastard. So now I’m left short of words to describe how I feel.”
He gives me that fatherly smile that I hate and says, “No one is asking you to like your situation, but you do have to accept your limitations. Do your exercises and get better, then you get to tell your robot helper to go to hell.”
He takes my hand and shakes it, “See you in a month, Adam.”
I walk down the steps of the London Royal Hospital, turn right and head south to my new apartment at 2 Damien Street. It’s outside the D district. I have a special pass.
While I walk, and people watch. It’s late September, and there’s a chill in the air. Most of the people are wearing sweaters and light coats. You can tell the D citizens; they’re wearing Gov clothes.
The coats are rainproof and keep you warm. But they only come in one color, navy blue. About half the people are wearing them. The rest are wearing last year’s fashions that I recognize from my two-year binge of TV watching. They’re class C citizens that do a lot of shopping in used clothing stores.
When class A and B citizens get tired of their stuff, it gets shipped off to the thrift stores. You can’t throw a rock in London and not hit a thrift store, antique shop or art gallery.
I find my apartment building on Damien Court. It’s a five-story brick building with a satellite dish on top.
I walk in the front door and spot a terminal. When I stand in front of the screen, it turns on and shows the face of a young woman.
“I’m Adam-177.”
“I’m the Artificial Intelligence for Damien Court. Your room is on the second floor, 228. Do you need anything?”
“I’m good,” I say and head to the lift.
“Sir,” the monitor says from behind.
I turn around. “What?”
“I could help to notice you have no luggage and are wearing shorts and a T-shirt.”
“Yes.”
“I could have some clothes sent up to you,” the A.I. says.
“You have my size?”
“Yes, I work with the Royal Hospital and have access to your files.”
“Okay.” I turn and walk to the elevator.
I push the button for the elevator, and the door opens. The lift lets me out on the second floor, and I find my room. I put my thumb in the reader, and the light turns green.
I step through and into a kitchen. It has a full-size fridge and stove.
A centaur robot wheels into the kitchen. Centaurs are robots that have wheels instead of legs. From the waist up, they look human. From the waist down, they’re round and bottom heavy. They can lift heavy people and carry them.
“Hello, sir,” the robot says. “How can I help you?”
“What’s a Luddite?”
“A person opposed to increased industrialization or new technology. Are you a Luddite?”
“If you asked me a few months ago, I’d say yes. But for the last few months, the toilet has been wiping my ass. So… if I said yes, that would make me a hypocrite.”
The robot smiles.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“Gage.
“Adam-177,” I reply.
“How about Adam?” Gage asks.
I shrug and walk into the living room; it has a window that looks out to the street. On another wall has an embedded TV. Back by the door is a hall with a closet. There’s a bedroom on one side and a bathroom with a tub on the other.
“It’s five hundred square feet,” Gage says. He rolls over to the fridge. “Would you like me to make you something to eat?”
“I’m supposed to do that.”
“Adam, you seem uncomfortable. What’s going on?”
I close my eyes. “I’m not used to company or talking. You’re never alone in a hospitable ward. And I like the quiet.”
“How about I make you a peanut butter sandwich while you squeeze on this?” He reaches down into a compartment and pulls out two hand grips. I sit at the counter and concentrate on squeezing the right grip.
“I like it thick, thick,” I say as Gage spreads the peanut butter.
He puts it on a plate and then cuts the sandwich into bite-size squares. “Do you want milk?”
“Is it that fake milk or is it milk-milk?”
“Fake milk.”
“Half glass and then add water. That shit is too sweet.”
I eat with one hand and squeeze my grip with the other.
“It’s okay to take a break while you eat,” Gage says.
I look at Gage. He’s got that fake human head with a fake robot smile and fake blue eyes. I prefer the worker bots with screen faces.
“Are you angry?” Gage asks.
“No,” I say and squeeze as hard as I can.
“Adam, are you mad at me or robots in general?”
I change hands with the grip and eat with my left. My left hand is still more coordinated than my right.
I keep squeezing and think.
I hate robots. Or maybe everyone else hates robots, so I hate them because I want to fit in.
The only place I fit in was with my old crew. We grew up in the same orp
hanage. They knew I was off and they didn’t care. In fact, they used me to store information. Things like Jimmy sold a dime bag cut with baby laxatives. Or if they didn’t want to load a phone number on their phones, they tell it to me. My old crew got me.
“Are you going to respond?” Gage asks.
“I don’t hate you,” I reply. “I’m just so fucking jealous of you that I can’t stand it.”
“That’s a lot more honesty than I expected,” Gage says, “but that’s good. He raises one mechanical eyebrow. “Why are you jealous?”
“You have a job, and you have something to do other than stare at a TV set all day.” I raise one eyebrow to mimic Gage. “Do you guys get paid?”
“All my needs are provided for,” Gage says. “And work is its own reward.”
“So, you like cutting up my bread into little squares?”
Gage smiles, “I love cutting perfect squares. With a sharp knife, I can get within two decimal points of accuracy.”
“That’s good,” I say impressed. “I like octagons best. Hexagons are nice, like stop signs. But you couldn’t cut them in bread; you have a lot of tiny pieces left over.”
Gage cleans up the kitchen, and I watch while squeezing my grips.
Once he’s finished, he parks himself in front of the counter. You know, Adam, a change of perspective might help your situation.”
Gage is using the tone of voice used by the announcers on infomercials. It supposed to peak my interest, so I’ll ask a question.
“You’re staring at me again,” Gage says.
“Please go on,” I say imitating the emotion of television announcers.
“Think of it this way… You get paid a thousand credits a month to spend on a hobby. What do you want?”
“Have you been talking to my therapist?”
He smiles. “We do share the same database.”
I think back to after my graduation when I was sitting with the guidance counselor. He always wore the same fake smile.
“Congratulations Adam-177, you graduated high school. However, I regret to inform you that you cannot attend the local community college. You’re just not... there’s no space available.”