Fin

by Larry Enright

  He was just finishing up when there was a knock at the door. It creaked as it opened.

  “Hello? Anybody home?” came a hesitant call.

  “Dr. Shepherd is at the door, sir,” said the Homecom. “The apartment is currently 2.3 degrees above the recommended temperature for his comfort. Shall I adjust?”

  “Yes, please,” Fin replied.

  The circulator came on, but the air was warm, not cold. “Environmental systems are malfunctioning,” the Homecom said. “I’ve notified maintenance.”

  Fin came into the common room where he found Dr. Shepherd leaning heavily on a cane. “Dr. Shepherd, this is a surprise.”

  “God be with you, too, son.”

  “I am sorry, sir.” Fin bowed. “And with us all.”

  “I like what you’ve done with the place,” he said, looking around the empty room. “Redecorating, are we?”

  “I had a little problem.”

  “Yes, I can see that.” Shepherd fanned his face. “Whew. It’s a little hot in here, don’t you think?”

  “I am sorry. This is my fault.”

  “I find that hard to believe. ”

  “It is true.”

  “Well then, why don’t you tell me all about it over lunch?”

  “Lunch?”

  “Yes, that’s why I stopped by. I was hoping we could have a little chat, and I thought lunch would be the perfect venue.”

  “Did I miss my monthly diagnostic? Let me check my calendar.” Fin fumbled through his pullover for his Commlink. “I thought it was the day after tomorrow.”

  Shepherd patted his hand. “Put that thing away, son. I’m not here about your check-in.”

  “Then what is wrong, sir?”

  “What could be wrong with my perfect son? I just thought it would be nice if we could get together at my place for lunch.”

  “You want to get together at your place?”

  “Yes, Fin.”

  “For lunch?”

  “Yes.” The doctor’s smile widened.

  “With me?”

  “Is that so strange?”

  “Sir, apart from my check-ins with you at Polyclonic Technologies, we have never gotten together, let alone for a meal. I always thought humans only did that with each other. Even my partner at the SIA, who is the closest thing I have to a human friend, has never invited me to lunch and would never consider asking me to his apartment. So yes, this does seem strange. I do not mean to presume, but are you sure everything is all right?”

  “Everything’s fine. I just think it’s time I showed you something. You won’t be disappointed. Are you hungry?”

  Fin answered that he was.

  “Good.” Shepherd took out the old pocket watch that he always kept clipped to his jacket by a gold chain. Flipping it open, he ran his thumb once over the glass cover as he always did before checking the time. “Oh my. This can’t be right,” he said.

  “Sir, I believe you are holding it upside down.” Fin turned the watch around for him.

  “Ah,” Shepherd exclaimed. “That’s more like it. Maybe I should have my eyes checked. These polyclonic replacements are only good for so many years, and I can’t for the life of me remember when I last had them done.”

  “Perhaps a watch that spoke the time would be better for you, sir?”

  “I think not. This one is perfectly fine.”

  “That is not the correct time.”

  “Well,” The doctor huffed, snapping the watch shut and dropping it into his pocket.

  “I am sorry, sir,” Fin said. “I meant no offense.”

  “You should know, son, that I will go to my grave with this watch in my hand. That’s how much it means to me.”

  “Was it a gift from your mate?”

  “Dear Naamah. I do miss her.”

  “How was the memorial service?”

  “Disappointing. Come on, let’s go.”

  They took the elevator to the roof, boarded Shepherd’s Levcar, and lifted off. The car’s electromagnetic propulsion system hummed softly as it rose through the murk enveloping Cytown. It continued to climb until Periculum was a dot of light in the darkness. It was nighttime. The sun was a sickly red corona around a dying world. Myriad stars dotted the darkness above like muted lights behind a veil.

  “I don’t get up here very often, not anymore,” said Shepherd. “I find it quite painful to see the world this way. Naamah loved it so, and even in all its squalor she never stopped loving it. She never gave up hope that the world would heal someday.”

  “Do you think it will?”

  “Not as long as mankind is running things.”

  “I am hopeful it will,” Fin said.

  “Really? Why? What could you possibly see that gives you cause to hope?”

  Fin looked down on the dark world and said, “I have no evidence that man will ever change and no proof that things will ever get better, but hope is not about that. It is about wanting a certain future to come to pass regardless of the facts. I want things to get better. I want my people to be free. I want this war to end and the world to heal, and I will never give up hope that it will.”

  “You remind me of her.”

  “You loved her very much, didn’t you, sir?”

  “I still do, and I love you, my perfect son.”

  The Levcar’s navigational display depicted the field of magnetic waves surrounding the planet as ripples on a digital ocean. Shepherd eased the Levcar into one of the energy streams, and it carried them north until they caught a crosscurrent and banked toward the western horizon. They dipped back down below the clouds, passing over the last of the ruins of the old city. Leaving the broken remains of civilization behind, they entered a barren wasteland where everything created by God had been erased by man. Shepherd described with bitterness a time before the Great War when the world was a thing of beauty, a rare jewel to be cherished by all. There was peace, he said, a peace it was thought would last forever.

  “But nothing lasts forever, does it? Before the Great War, we hadn’t had a major armed conflict in centuries. Oh, smaller wars were fought to be sure, but nothing serious enough to draw the entire world into it. Actual fighting was rare. Instead of shooting at each other, countries were in the business of political and economic warfare. Alliances formed and reformed based on changing interests. It was a mess. Today’s friend was tomorrow’s enemy. Trading blocs were established, dissolved, and reconfigured based on evolving mutual needs. Sanctions, tariffs, and boycotts were imposed on rival factions to punish them. Victory was declared with the economic collapse of one’s opponent. This was their civilized, bloodless resolution of conflict; but the end result was the same as a real war—prosperity for the winners, starvation and death for the losers. And all the while, countries continued to build their doomsday arsenals as deterrents to a shooting war, or so they believed. They were so wrong. All it took was one country and one insane leader who actually thought he could win a war of mass destruction because he had the bigger red button. It was he who fired the first missiles and dropped the first bombs. Then came the inevitable retaliations that drew the entire world into one man’s lunacy. One man's Great War reduced paradise to a wasteland and civilization to a memory. Now, there is nothing: no more aspirations, no more hopes for mankind’s future, nothing. There is only survival at any cost. Where is your hope in that, son?”

  “They survive,” Fin countered. “In life there is hope.”

  “Look around you,” Shepherd said. “This isn’t survival. This isn’t life. It’s a funeral. This is why they have sealed their fate. Caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt. You know the ancient language. What do the words mean?”

  Fin replied, “They change the sky, not their soul, who rush across the sea.”

  “Mankind could travel to the ends of the universe, but they will never change. They'll remain the same petty, self-serving, and destructive creatures they’ve always been.” Shepherd stared out the window at the night. “If you knew
your end was coming, if you knew your existence had been doomed from the start, would you end it now if you could?”

  “Under the Artificial Intelligence Act, assisted suicide is legal for Cybernites. So Council has decreed,” Fin replied.

  “That’s not what I’m asking. Let’s assume you had but one purpose in life but you had failed in it. You did your best—more than any man could do—yet still you failed. Let’s also assume your failure was inevitable, predestined, though you didn’t realize it in the beginning. That would make your entire life and everything you had struggled for pointless. Would you then choose to end that miserable existence or would you allow it to continue to its equally miserable, inevitable conclusion?”

  “It is not my place to say, sir.”

  “I’m making it your place. I’m giving you permission to speak freely.”

  “Is this hypothetical or are you referring to my failure to undercover the mole at the SIA?”

  “Does that affect your answer?”

  “I am not sure,” Fin replied.

  “About how it affects your answer or about committing suicide?”

  “I need time to consider the problem, sir.”

  “Fair enough. We’ll talk about it again. For now, I just want you to take it all in.”

  The Levcar continued on through the wasteland until the desolate flats gave way to ashen hills and the hills to bare mountains. Deep in a mountain range, they came upon a bank of low hanging clouds, thick, pure, and white, the likes of which Fin had never seen before. They hugged the peaks like cotton balls dabbed on skin, obscuring the wound beneath them. The Levcar dove down into them, coming out above a barren valley.

  “This is it,” Shepherd said.

  “This is what, sir?”

  “My home.”

  “There is nothing here.”

  “Which is exactly what I want the uninvited to see, but with a little press of this button . . .” He touched the console. “Voila! Well, what do you think now?”

  As the nanoshield hiding the valley dissolved, what had appeared to be gray, barren land turned into a grassy meadow. They landed near a stand of trees beside a thin stream, scaring off a small animal that had been drinking from its clear waters.

  “Well?” Shepherd said.

  Fin asked, “Is this real?”

  “More or less. What I would call real has been gone for centuries. I seed the clouds with bioluminescent nanoparticles that make it seem like the sun is behind them. That’s a bit of a cheat. But that rabbit and all the other little beasties you see roaming about are real enough. I created them from genetic blueprints I have stored downstairs. Same with the trees, the grass, pretty much everything. I created it all.”

  “It is beautiful,” said Fin.

  “You might think so, but this is a mere shadow of how the world once was, boy. It was so beautiful, a true paradise.” Shepherd sighed. “In any case, a network of hot springs deep in the mountains creates a natural updraft that forms those clouds above us. It also keeps the windborne poisons from settling here. My home is in that clearing beside one of the hot springs. I call it the Ark.”

  Getting out of the Levcar, Shepherd motioned for Fin to follow. Fin stepped outside the car, listening to the stream. It was nothing like the nervous clatter of the leaky pipes in his Cyblock. He inhaled the fragrant air. It was reminiscent of the artificial fresheners placed on every floor of Cyblock-101 to mask the persistent musty odor, but this was clearly no mask. It was the face behind it. He touched the grass and the bed of moist needles covering the ground around the trees. They reminded him of the wet polycardboard the homeless slept under, spongy and soft, but this was different, pleasant to the touch. A bird landed in a tree overhead and began to sing like the mechanical newsvendor who was always whistling some tuneless melody every morning when Fin purchased his daily updates. Each sight, each sound, and every smell was new. He laughed long and hard and then cried, not knowing why he was doing either.

  “I take it you approve?” Shepherd said.

  Fin nodded. “Where is your house, sir?”

  “Underground. Quite a bit underground, actually. It’s safer that way, makes it less likely anyone will consider this little hideaway of mine a target should they happen upon it.”

  “Why do you call it the Ark?”

  “That’s how I like to think of it: my ship, my safe haven, my refuge on this sea of squalor.”

  “Yet you do not seem happy,” said Fin.

  “Oh, it’s nothing, son.”

  “Your reaction indicates otherwise. Are you are thinking of your mate again?”

  “Naamah loved it here.” Shepherd touched his Commlink. The air above them shimmered as the barrier protecting the clearing reengaged. The ground around the Levcar resolved into a circular metal platform that began to descend.

  “Smoke and mirrors,” Shepherd said. “Well, and some advanced tactile holographics that Council would kill for. We can’t be too careful now, can we?”

  The platform reached bottom in a metal chamber. A door appeared on one of its walls and opened.

  “Our chariot awaits,” Shepherd said, leading Fin into an elevator.

  The ride down was brief. When the door opened again, they entered an anteroom. Esse was there to greet them. She bowed. “Welcome home, Noah.”

  “Thank you, dear,” Shepherd replied. “It’s good to be home. You remember Fin? He’ll be our guest today for lunch.”

  “I’ve already set his place. Nice you see you again, Fin,” she said. “I trust you are well?”

  “As well as can be expected,” Fin replied. “I was surprised to see you at the train station. Northend can be a very dangerous place.”

  “You were in Cytown?” Shepherd seemed surprised.

  Her reply was matter-of-fact. “I was taking care of an important matter, Noah.”

  “Ah, I see. Would you please show our guest to the study? I’ll join you there shortly.”

  Esse led Fin down the hall to a room that reminded him of a museum he had visited once in the city’s Arts Sector. The furnishings were antique and the room filled with many strange artifacts. Esse named a few for him: a device called a phonograph with a large vinyl disc on it that was used at one time to play music; a collection of glass spheres called paperweights created when glassblowing was considered an art and paper still produced from trees; and a book, not like his digitized copy of The Word, but an actual book with words printed on the page. Resting on it was a pair of octagonal magnifiers held together by wires. These, she said, were reading glasses. Fin picked them up to examine them.

  “Why were you at the Northend Station?” he asked. “Surely it was not to purchase Creep. Creep is poisonous to humans.”

  “I was worried about you, Fin. That was an unexpected and dangerous thing you did going there alone like that.”

  “How did you know I would be there?”

  “I know many things about you.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as where you were that night.”

  “Do you have me under surveillance?”

  “I was concerned, Fin.”

  “Are you tracking me by my Commlink?”

  “No.”

  “Then how?”

  “Do you always ask this many questions?”

  “Only when I wish to know the answers.”

  She touched his neck lightly. His skin tingled as it had when she touched it at the Northend Station.

  “My tattoo?” Fin said. “You are tracking me by my tattoo?”

  “The Ark tracks every Cybernite from birth to death. We keep complete records on every one from the greatest to the least. Many are gone but none will be forgotten.”

  “You refer to the Ark as if it were more than just Dr. Shepherd’s home.”

  “It is. It is much more than that.”

  “Apparently so. Not even the SIA can track Cybernites by their tattoos. I assume they do not know you have this capability?”

  “There
are many things they do not know.”

  “I am curious. When you touched my tattoo that night, did you temporarily scramble my ID signal? Was that why Book did not know I was SIA until Tork showed up?”

  “I was only trying to help.”

  “I appreciate the why. My question is how. I assume it was some sort of portable device? To harness power sufficient to scramble an ID signal in a device so small is quite impressive. Evidently you have more than one technology that the SIA lacks.”

  Dr. Shepherd hobbled into the room, cursing his awkwardness. He wagged a finger at Esse. “And not a word out of you, young lady. I am not ready for a Levchair, not yet.” To Fin, he said, “I see you two have been getting to know each other. That’s good, good indeed. You must have a million questions. I hope Esse is answering all of them.”

  “She is, but I seem to be acquiring more questions with each answer,” Fin replied.

  “Perfect! That means you two will always have something to talk about. I’m starving. Esse, would you be so kind?”

  Esse said she would see to lunch and left.

  Shepherd noted that his reading glasses were out of place. He readjusted them to his liking and surveyed the room to ensure that everything else was where it belonged.

  “I picked them up to examine them, sir,” said Fin. “I apologize. I meant no disrespect. These are all very interesting replicas.”

  “Replicas? These are artifacts you’ll never see the likes of again. They are my treasures, made from the labors of the land, none of that artificial poly-this and poly-that nonsense.” Shepherd noticed the souring in Fin’s expression. “Something wrong?” he asked.

  “It’s nothing, sir.”

  “Come, come. I know that face.”

  “I do not want to be disrespectful.”

  “It’s high time you realized I’m not like those others, Fin. I don’t want you groveling at my feet, and I’m not going to recycle you if you offend me. I want you to be honest with me. In fact, I order you to be honest with me. I have more than enough grovelers as it is. No more holding back. Understand?”