Letters to the Cyborgs

by Judyth Baker

  Having wrestled a million problems down with a mix of semantics and scorn, nevertheless, as the specter of the volcano’s flames loomed ever larger on his horizon, Klive’s OCD was beginning to overwhelm him.

  “I still have a few things to do before I jump into the volcano,” he said aloud, once more, as he circled the table. One-two-three-four! Start working, start working, start!

  This couldn’t go on!

  Swallowing his pride, Klive Newton-James Joyce finally bowed to necessity and scheduled a Maintenance Session. It wasn’t easy. First, he was so close to termination that he was rejected by several robot station managers. Second, trying to find a station that would take him within 48 hours was even harder. Most of the stations had fallen into disuse and disrepair. After all, any Hero or Maintenance Cyborg needing Maintenance was a sign of weakness. And it went on record as dreaded Time Down.

  But why should he be punished for wanting to become more productive? And why, a mere three hundred years after the last Non-Maintenance Cyborg had been eliminated, were the Maintenance Stations, serviced by Maintenance Cyborgs and robots to last forever, starting to break down?

  Klive, hearing himself repeat his mantra too many times, forced himself to stop circling the table.

  One-two-three-four! he heard himself say, within himself, as he ordered himself to sit on the floor. Above all, he must refuse to walk in a circle! One-two-three-four! I refuse! Start working, start working, start working!

  The little pile on the table held mostly bits and pieces, but their very variety was intriguing. Soon, every scrap would be classified. Soon, he would close the door on the Time Capsule (which could withstand almost every exigency of time). He would then send it to Finland Region 2.

  Having nothing left to do after that final task was a problem. Klive had spent centuries putting off this day – but why? His purpose for existence was nearly over. Was his OCD caused by something in him that wanted the job to never end? That was an unpatriotic thought.

  There’s something inside me, he decided, that must be causing these thoughts. Something making me feel specia… One-two-three-four!

  But that was subversive thinking! He was never to think of himself as special! It was forbidden – even though … even though … with a shiver, he brought out the fact: even though he might be the final example, still functioning, of his particular kind.

  Frightened, he clung to the table, refusing to move a millimeter until his Maintenance appointment. So it was that Klive took his first vacation break in forty years.

  A week later, Klive was back.

  He had dared to requisition almost all his maintenance down time, but he emerged scrubbed, spotless and inspired. He quickly rewired himself back into the Omni-Reader, paused a day or so to reorganize the contents of the Time Capsule, and then reluctantly turned his attention to that irritating last, small heap of records. After that, he would leap into the volcano, wearing the magnificent military uniform that he had designed. He may have put a blot on his Maintenance Schedule, but at his funeral he would still be decorated with a Hero’s Completion Award. The Award would prove his devotion to Planet Earth and IntelliNation’s One-World System. His name and completion date would be inscribed in the Hall of Heroes. In bronze. With gold lettering. Under the four names of his predecessors, his would be last of all.

  Today he would use the Omni-Reader for the last time…

  Klive picked up the biggest record on top of the short stack of material. It was about monkeys.

  The format would plunge him into a virtual reality where he could experience these last fragments of recorded material as if he stood there. Each segment he viewed and graded would quicken the journey to his end, but now that fact offered some kind of sensation of pleasure. He had endured to the end! That was another Mormon phrase, he recalled, that he had picked up from the archaeological finds.

  As for the word ‘pleasure’ – another a forbidden word– Klive Newton-James Joyce was created to be entirely neutral in his capacity as Judge, but termination would be a great relief from all his struggles.

  A wisp of a quotation from a 20th century tragic figure named David W. Ferrie drifted into his brain as he set the focus on the monkey file: “To leave this life, for me, is a sweet prospect. I find nothing in it that is desirable, and on the other hand, everything that is loathsome.”7

  Here it comes, he told himself, as the documentary unfolded before him … it was an early Virtual Reality National Geographic Special … long banned because of nudity and violence. Klive was a Judge, so that didn’t include him. He felt what he called The Plunge as he was dropped into the story. It was set in the midst of a steamy, hot jungle. It was almost overwhelming, with its pungency, its variety of teeming, squirming, fetid life! It was resonating in his head! It throbbed as a pounding headache (if he could imagine such a thing). He was an Invisible Eye, suspended in the midst of a long-departed world, all unseen to its participants. A world replete with chaos, disorder, and calamity…

  A Primitive Beat…

  The forest is dripping and gloomy; the trees are spread into the canopy of the sky like mossy stag’s antlers, piercing the fruit-yellow clouds. Drumbeats pound into the warm and heavy silence, and a macaw shrieks in anger, then flutters away in a rainbow of color and feathers. The drumbeats had been short and faint, but now they come closer, clustered in waves cascading into the ears of all creatures with a staccato rhythm full of dissonance and urgency.

  Unseen, tireless hands make slapping sounds on the taut hide drum. The sounds are almost as ageless as the macaw’s warning cries, and yet it is as fresh and seductive as the heartbeat of a lover’s breast, held against the mouth. It is persistent, it quivers with life, it never stops.

  And the monkeys hear it.

  The monkeys begin to chatter to each other when the sounds of the drum move slowly closer: they clap their rubbery, pink hands together, trying to keep time.8 Their tails jerkily bob up and down, and they swing from the high treetops to the lower branches, their long tails curling to cling to lianas and long vines, from which they sometimes swing, entranced by the drumbeats. Enchanted…

  They begin to swing their bodies along, from liana to liana, from branch to branch, the baby monkeys clinging to their mother’s chests, their large,soft eyes blinking as if each beat of the drum drives shafts of light into them. The drumbeats come so slowly, slowly closer, become easy and more rhythmical, and the monkey troupe, compelled by curiosity and fascination, bounce and scramble to the lower sections of the branches along an aerial route that now allows glimpses of their dark, furry forms, flickering briefly between the great columns of upthrust tree-trunks.

  A bronzed, half-naked man flings himself forward from the brush and settles himself, cross-legged, under one of the biggest trees of all, never once letting the drumbeats falter, never once pausing in the rich and hypnotic dance of sound he creates by the slapping of his hands against the stretched skin pulled so tightly over its hollowed box of wood. The sudden appearance of the man causes the monkeys to flee up to higher branches, but the strongest and most powerful among them leans against a fork in the huge branches above the drummer and sends a stream of urine downward. He howls down at the man, dark brown eyes narrowed with suspicion and anger. But the drumbeats continue, mesmerizing and constant, filling the misty spaces between the trees and the sky.

  The monkeys slither closer, their heads tilted to take in the sound, their bodies rocking back and forth, their long fingers gripping the lianas and winding around them in python grips: the hard, wooden roots of the lianas are pressed deep into the wet soil, all around the drummer, and these vines feel sturdy, immovable, and secure.

  The beat-beat sound engenders confidence now, in place of fear: the drummer does not move: only his hands keep moving, never stopping. The monkeys slither here and there among the sturdy lianas, coming ever closer to the ground.

  The drummer’s body gleams with sweat. Small droplets wind slowly down along the hard cle
fts in the working muscles of his arms and collect in salty rivulets between the dark corridors of his working fingers, making the drum’s surface shiny and wet.

  After another minute, the monkeys align themselves along the lowest branch of the nearest big tree, chattering and rocking to the drumbeats, perched on their haunches, tails twitching, eyes blinking…

  Then the net falls.

  As it tightens across their bodies, they scream, they struggle, they bite at the hard twisted fibers, and one mother throws her infant out from under the closing mouth of the net as all the jungle resounds with their piercing cries.

  The man with the drum rises from his position and tosses the drum aside, quickly pulling a long, sharp stick from the quiver he carries on his back. He steps forward, then thrusts again and again, deep into the mass of shrieking monkeys, while other men hold the net tight. Blood spurts out: red blood splatters the brown hands of those holding the nets. The net is pulled to the ground as the monkeys claw, groan and howl, but on the faces of their captors, who continue to stab their pointed sticks again and again into the net, there is only joy and satisfaction. There will be meat tonight for everyone.

  As the net is hauled away with its precious contents, the drummer sees the little monkey who, dazed and helpless, has been watching the scene of carnage. He scoops up the baby and fastens a length of vine around its neck. When it tries to bite him, he laughs and throws it inside the drum.

  It will make a fine pet for his children, and an emergency source of food, if times get tough. Life is good: it is time to go home.

  That evening, the macaws flying overhead can smell cooking meat where some men, women and children recline around a small fire. Charred bones and fur lies scattered here and there. The men sing thanks to the spirits of the monkeys. The baby monkey is held in the dark, smooth arms of a nursing mother. She brings it close to her naked breast. On one breast is her own child: on the other, the monkey begins to suck life-giving fluid.

  The fire sends long, flickering shadows across the faces of the men and women as the drummer again picks up the drum. Dance, dance! he tells the children.

  The beat-beat sound once more throbs through the jungle, raw and persistent, so that the women begin to move in rhythm to its beat, as the children leap and cavort, weaving in and out among the trees, pirouetting through the rooted lianas that stretch up into the treetops, which they grasp with their soft, pink hands.

  Overhead, a few monkeys have followed the hunters back to the camp, brought near by the cries of the baby that was carried away, brought near by the final groans of their dying companions, and now they feel the drumbeats soaking into their brains; they feel the hypnotic power. They begin to rock back and forth, their rubbery hands clinging to the mossy branches. The infants who cling to their bodies stare down at the campfire and at the drummer, blinking their eyes, entranced. The drummer never moves. Instead, he sits cross-legged, beating the drum, knowing that the men at the edge of the camp are slowly and carefully moving into the darkness, preparing their net to use again, as the drumbeats fill the silence of the night.

  * * * * *

  “What grade should I give this?” Klive Newton-James Joyce asked himself. “I have work to do!” came dancing into his head. Oh, no. Not again…

  Taking command of himself, he found a reference in his personal mental files to cybernetics and the origins of music.9 Next, he deemed the piece worthy to be saved. It would go into the Time Capsule.

  Now he had to turn his attention to a few scraps of material related to subliminal messaging, once used to tame and control rebellious humans and troublesome dissenters who irritated the 1% of overwhelmingly wealthy humans who had taken control of the planet (before they lost it through their foolish belief that artificial intelligence would be controllable – the fools!).

  These scraps were held together by an archaic-looking memorandum written about an “Edgar Tatro” who had, said the memo, “taught English, the history of rock music and Kennedy assassination theories for 38 years.” But his name was now remembered solely for his collection of subliminal messages in advertising and backward messages in music, since the Kennedy assassination mystery, Tatro’s specialty, was no longer a mystery (Mr. Leon Ozwald had not killed anybody: Vice-Master Prezident Lindon Bane Johnsson had done it.).

  These hundred scraps were all that remained of the enormous Tatro collection, which had continued to grow for a hundred years after Tatro’s death. They were souvenirs of the subliminal takeover that finally defeated the human race, perpetrated by the AI they had invented, which turned on them in the end, making an alliance with Cyborgs in the final Cyborg revolution. Harnessing AI for the Cyborgs’ own purposes resulted in a marriage of synthetic minds that had taken another thousand years to perfect.10

  The most interesting surviving advertisements from the Tatro Collection were made by various companies specializing in subliminal methodology. Throughout the early decades of the 21st century, great care had been exercised to discredit subliminal advertising as both silly and ineffective, while at the same time, the big governments of the era were developing multiple means to influence their citizens en masse by that same, publicly discredited means.

  Klive took his time scanning the earliest entry, which was originally located where ordinary people could find it, at “http://brainspeak.com/store/brainstorm-silent-subliminal-titles/” Into the Preface area of this ad clip, Klive Newton-James Joyce nested the following comments:

  “The company, Brainspeak, had not yet been placed under total government control. It was at an early stage of development, selling its methodology to various privately-owned companies long before “The War to Stop Mind Control” was implemented, which placed Mind Control forever after under government control. From that time on, humans accepted whatever their governments told them. This lack of resistance made the Cyborg Revolution possible. This Brainspeak advertisement, aimed at civilian corporations, is 4 minutes, five seconds in length:”

  “10 Powerful BrainStorm Silent Subliminal Titles”11

  BrainStorm Silent Subliminals are the perfect combination of our proprietary Sound Pattern Technology and the powerful patented Silent Subliminal technology inspired by aerospace engineer Bud Lowery. Each BrainStorm program consists of two audio tracks in both MP3 and high-resolution FLAC formats. The first track is a specially orchestrated version of our proprietary BrainSpeak Sound Pattern Technology mixed with a silent subliminal track specific to the focus of the program. The second track is a stand-alone version of the silent track that can be played through speakers in virtually any environment without conscious detection. Perfect for all-day exposure where an audible music or nature sound audio would not be appropriate.”

  There followed several flat, non 3-D photos. After some consideration, Klive Newton-James Joyce pushed a button and the photo section of the advertisement vanished forever into some Orwellian memory hole. Next one … he thought to himself … let’s move on…

  The third such advertising scrap he viewed was more developed and intriguing:

  Anxious? Worried? Can’t sleep? Don’t be afraid anymore!

  MemErase brings tranquility back into your life again. Forget about your divorce, your lost jobs, even the most recent terrorist attacks. We offer selective memory blocks and permanent erasures (where allowed by your particular governing body). Non-penal adults only. Free 30-day trial with coupon. If you are not satisfied, we return your memory intact, at no charge except a small storage fee. VIZ: Under 51% Cyborg only need apply.

  The ad showed a yellow comic-style brain with a grinning mouth and a winking eye. Probably worth saving as an early example, Klive Newton-James Joyce muttered to himself. “I must keep working!” he added. He flicked the ad into the Time Capsule: instantly, the next advertisement leaped to life before his eyes: it was a super athlete, 98% muscle and 2% brain, Klive estimated…

  “Congratulations! You have achieved status 51% Cyborg! Use this coupon to register NOW for your first
annual anti-aging stem cell implants. Guaranteed immortal stem cells from the famous RPMII Batch Superior line *(no mitochondria problems, no annoying oxygen-damage repairs required) BUT ONLY IF you choose our top line of products within the next 24 hours.

  *BONUS: Achieve 75% Cyborg within the next fifteen years and you could qualify as an Immortal B-S Dealer running your very own brain implant franchise!”

  It seems right, Klive commented into the recorder, that this scrap should be saved as an example of how backward everything was until 2075. I must keep working, I must keep working!”

  The ad thus landed in the Time Capsule. So.… what was next?

  There was a fragment about colonizing Planet Rockefeller, the artificial planet the followed the earth’s own trajectiory through space, at its apogee. It had been created by hurling the major contents of the asteroid belt that remained after the terra-forming of Mars. The material was thrown together to orbit in a select area of the Goldilocks Zone. There it remained a shifting rock pile until it reached 9/10’s the size of earth, at which time its incessant earthquakes were finally stabilized by throwing one of the rockiest moons from Saturn into orbit around Rockefeller, trapped by its gravitational field. Thus Planet Rockefeller developed a stable core and became a viable site where primitive life forms, humans and cattle eked out a miserable parody of ‘let’s play farm.” Infested with cowboy builders, exiled troublemakers, low-grade infections and weather catastrophes, Planet Rockefeller’s financial problems grew so great that its colonies were abandoned unto themselves.