by Jason Winn
“No…” said the teacher waving her hands.
The tour guide ignored her. “That’s right, sex dolls for the rich and famous.”
A nerdy boy stared longingly at a buxom woman in an evening gown. She turned to him and winked.
“Look away, Norman,” said the teacher. Her face was turning red. Norman ignored her, winking back to the squib. “I think we need to move on, Mr. Hastings.”
Cougar failed to hold in a laugh.
“And we will, Miss Kline,” responded the tour guide. “Your school paid good money for this tour, these kids expect to see everything.” He chuckled. “Where was I? Oh, right. You see kids, rich men poured billions of dollars into these ultra-realistic fake women to have sex with them, once their wives became undesirable or too expensive to keep around, always going shopping and spending their man’s hard-earned money. These models here,” he pointed to a pair of buxom women in sun dresses, “don’t talk back, don’t go on shopping junkets for months on end—”
“Okay,” shouted Miss Kline, “I think we’ve heard enough. Can we see the factory, now?”
“Well, if you don’t like this part of the tour, ma’am, you’re not going to like the factory. Every model is buck naked in the grow tanks. Fellas with their manhood floating in the blue goo…”
“Oh, Jesus help me. I think we’re going to leave. This was a mistake.”
The tour guide ignored her. “Someone got the crazy idea that rich women would pay for male companionship so we started making dudes.”
“Thank you very much, Mr. Hastings. Kids, let’s go.”
“Don’t you want to hear about economies of scale and how these were turned into historical simulation models?” asked Mr. Hastings. “That’s the best part.” He sighed and ran his fingers through his greasy hair.
Miss Kline herded her flock out the front door, shouting for Norman to stop staring at the smiling women and get his rear end back on the bus.
As the front door slammed shut, Mr. Hastings looked over to Cougar and Eddie. “Welcome to Bright Star. Help you, gentlemen? I’m sorry about all that. I just didn’t feel like giving a tour today.”
“I’m Royce Monroe. People call me Cougar. This here is Mr. Sedgwick. We’re here to see Mr. Olgore.”
Eddie gave a nod.
“Uh huh,” said Mr. Hastings. He looked the two men up and down, while running his finger along his thin mustache. “Is he expecting you?”
“Nope.”
“Well, you gentlemen will have to make an appointment. Mr. Olgore is a busy man. He does not see people unannounced.”
Cougar reached into his coat pocket and produced an ID. He opened it revealing the seal of the United States President. Next to that was his picture on an official ID card. “I’m here on official United States government business.”
“New government or old government?” asked Mr. Hastings.
Cougar smiled wide. “The new one.”
Mr. Hastings cracked a smile revealing gold capped teeth. “Right this way, gentlemen.”
Mr. Hastings led Cougar and Eddie into the plant. The men were immediately greeted by a vast array of glass columns. Each was as wide as an old oak tree starting at the floor and going up to the ceiling. Inside were naked squibs of both sexes and of all ages and body types. The columns were segmented to allow for up to five squibs per column, stacked on top of one another in their own segment. Each squib floated in blue fluid. Bubbles rose from the floor of each segment. Tubes and cords ran from the squibs’ mouths and chests into boxes in each tank segment. Cougar could not help but notice the squibs would twitch periodically as if in deep sleep.
“These are all about to ship out,” said Mr. Hastings. “Those there,” he pointed to a column filled with burly men and women who all looked middle-aged, “are going down to New Orleans to simulate the Mardi Gras Riots’ fifty-year anniversary, next week.”
They passed a workbench next to a bunch of coffin-sized crates. On the workbench Cougar could not help but notice a packing tape gun. “UN Inspector’s Seal” was written on the tape.
“How’s business with the new administration?” asked Eddie.
“About the same as with the last one,” said Mr. Hastings. “Omni Consumer Entertainment pays for almost all of this. They got the rights for all tourist experience shows. They’re our biggest customer. Well, them and the live porn multinationals.”
“Do any of these do any actual work?” asked Eddie.
“No. Domestic service is not something we provide. It’s against our charter with the UN monitoring teams. I guess they’re terrified we would start growing soldier units like the European Union and Brazilians do. Although you didn’t hear me say that. That’s just a rumor.” He turned around and made a very obvious wink. “It’s sad, because these things here can be programmed to do damn near anything. But all anyone cares about is watching them either get stabbed, shot, or fucked.”
We’ll see about that, thought Cougar.
They walked for another ten minutes through the array of floor-to-ceiling columns. Finally, they came to an office door. The words “Walter Olgore - Plant Manager” were posted on a plate next to the door.
“Okay, here we are,” said Mr. Hastings. “You in there, boss?”
The door clicked and opened by itself. Mr. Hastings pushed it all the way open and beckoned Cougar and Eddie inside.
Cougar presented his badge to a late middle-aged man with a sagging gut, thin hair, and droopy eyes that looked up at him over the rims of bifocals.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Monroe?” asked Walter.
“I need to speak with you alone,” said Cougar. He looked at Eddie and Mr. Hastings and then the door.
Eddie, realizing it was his time to leave, left on his own accord. Mr. Hastings waited for Walter to give him a curt nod before leaving and closing the door behind him.
“The new administration is in need of one of your squibs,” said Cougar.
Walter sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “And I’m guessing there’s more to it than that, since you didn’t ask for an order form or our net address.”
“That’s a big 10-4. I need one that is scheduled for disposal. And we’re going to need some Class Five upgrades.”
“Uh huh. You do understand that’s illegal, correct? And that Class Five upgrades can only be initiated by a UN oversight board and approved by the Luna Treaty supervision members.”
Cougar narrowed his eyes. “Yeah well, in this case, if the US president says it’s legal, then it’s legal.”
“Think someone tried that move before…didn’t work out so good for him.”
The two men stared at each other for what felt like ten minutes. These were the times where Cougar knew he was earning his money. He’d been called off the mountain by his old buddy, the new president, to handle things that were, at present, illegal. Things that they both agreed should not be against the law, but laws had a way of not changing fast enough for ambitious men. And the upcoming mission required they break the law, for the greater good.
“And what sort of compensation are you going to offer me to risk my company’s charter?” asked Walter. He leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head, revealing thin patches and small holes at the elbows of his shirt. “For something like this, I would only accept euros or yen. I hope you didn’t bring dollars, thinking that would be enough.”
Cougar leaned forward on the desk, allowing his knuckles to crack loudly. “Name your price.”
Walter bit his bottom lip and turned toward a computer screen on his desk. He punched in a few keys then, he looked up at Cougar and narrowed his eyes as if the two men were playing poker. “¥100 million and an exclusive contract to supply squibs to the new administration.”
Cougar didn’t hesitate to nod in agreement. The president had empowered him to spend more than twice that and giving these guys a squib contract was no real concern.
Walter smiled and stuck out his hand. Cougar s
hook it making sure to apply an extra firm grip. With the deal done, Walter motioned for Cougar to follow him out of his office.
“I’ll show you what we’ve got available.”
Walter led Cougar and Eddie through a warren of hallways. They passed a glass-enclosed room, marked “Neuro Programming.”
Cougar slowed his pace to look into the room filled with people in white lab coats. On a table close to the windows lay a row of fist-sized pouches. Inside each, silvery threads branched off a small silver chip. Blue lights shined down on each pouch.
“Brain room,” said Walter. He sidled up next to Cougar. “Those are the artificial brains. That chip you see is the neuron inductor. Think of it as a tree trunk. The blue lights above provide the catalytic reaction to grow the artificial neurons inside the little threads. When they’re ready, we install the behavior software and insert the brain into the cranial compartment and off they go.” He lowered his voice. “The brain you’re looking for has a thousand times the number of threads. We’ve got a few under lock and key, in another room.”
Cougar nodded, fascinated by the brain tech.
“Shall we go find your squib?” asked Walter, back in his normal voice. He seemed to be growing a little impatient. Cougar tore himself away from the spectacle and followed him.
A few moments later the three men entered a room almost as big as the grow tank room. They were immediately greeted with the faint smell of burning plastic mixed with the aroma of grilled meat.
One side of the space featured bay doors, where trucks backed up and unloaded piles of squibs onto the floor. Technicians dressed in white jump suits stood waiting for each load, cutting away clothing and removing props from clinched hands. These items were tossed into holes in the floor. Once the squibs where nude, another group of white-clad technicians lifted them onto conveyor belts.
Cougar and Eddie watched as dozens of reenactment squibs, with injuries too numerous to count, were thrown onto wide conveyor belts. From there the bloody squibs were transported through several archways that looked like metal detectors, and finally up into huge white boxes the size of small houses.
“Those white boxes over there,” said Walter, “break down the squibs into their base materials.”
“And what is that exactly?” asked Eddie.
“Our squibs are basically just lab-grown meat,” said Walter. “They have specific components for muscle movement and skin. We add an artificial nervous system and synthetic brain, based on customer requirements. The blood you see pouring out of them is just for effect. Other models don’t have any blood at all in them.”
Cougar and Eddie had seen squibs in action, but never so many at once, and all being tossed around like rag dolls.
Walter continued. “The rendering boxes then separate out the body components, liquify them, and pump everything through those big pipes you see into the nursery, on the other side of that wall there.”
“What are those things over top of the conveyor belts?” asked Eddie. He seemed very interested in the strange archways that the squibs were passing through.
“Those are the UN-required scanners. Each squib has several unique identifier chips embedded in them. The scanners detect the chips and note that the squib is about to be recycled.”
Cougar pointed. “We’re going to need one after it’s been scanned.” He knew all about the rigid inventory system that Bright Star had to adhere by, per its UN charter. All squibs had to be accounted for at all times. There were draconian provisions in the Luna Treaty that forbade private ownership of unregistered squibs. Obviously he would need to circumvent that inconvenient rule for the purposes of his mission.
“I need one with pretty minimal damage,” said Cougar.
“Well,” said Walter, “let’s go see what we can find.” He motioned for Cougar and Eddie to follow him.
The men stood by the conveyor belts as one bloody squib after another was heaved onto the belts. Bodies fell akimbo, limbs splayed out in all directions. Some looked up at Cougar, smiling or merely mumbling something to themselves. One hefty woman was laughing hysterically, her stomach and breasts heaving and flopping all over. Cougar winced at the sight.
He had to continuously remind himself that these were not real people. These were artificial humans, made to look as life-like as possible. They didn’t feel pain. They only acted as though they did. They didn’t have feelings. They were designed to show agony or joy. He wondered if this was an everyday occurrence—so many fake men and women lying on the thick rubber belts, to be hauled up into the vats and melted down. Was there really that much demand to watch people die or injure themselves?
Give the tourists what they want, he thought.
“Are all of these from the city?” Cougar asked.
“Oh, no,” replied Walter. “These are coming in from the entire Northeast Corridor. We’re the only plant that can render and regrow in the tristate area. These are from reenactments all over the place. Some are from the Federal Media Studios, down in Baltimore.”
Cougar nodded. He turned to look at the belt behind him. “Stop, stop, stop,” he shouted.
Walter whirled around and ran over to a control panel under one of the scanning arches. “You find one?”
“Indeed,” replied Cougar. He pointed to a stunning blonde with several stomach wounds, lying on the belt next to an old man with half his face smashed in. “That’s the one.” He turned to Eddie. “Pay the man. Stay here and make sure the upgrades are installed. Then send her down to my office.”
Before Eddie could respond, Cougar shook Walter’s hand, spun on his heel, and marched back to his hover car.
DX907’s eyes snapped open. She stared straight ahead, taking in her surroundings. In front of her was a table of things that seemed perfectly normal to her, a small tablet computer, a finger-length knife, and a pistol. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d ever touched any of these. However, she seemed perfectly at ease with them. The four walls of the room were windowed and she immediately recognized the glass as ballistic-shielded.
Running her hands over the wounds in her stomach, DX907 felt unblemished skin. She looked down to see her flat stomach without so much as a cut or scar. That’s when she noticed she was also naked.
“She’s online,” said a man behind her.
DX907 turned her head to see an old-ish man dressed in casual clothes looking at her through large glasses. She could make out flickers of icons scrolling on the glasses, a heads-up display.
The old man spoke. “I am Dr. Rafferty. You are no longer DX907. Your name is Devon Drake. Do you understand?”
DX907, now Devon, nodded. For the first time ever, she realized she had access to an onboard computer. A menu popped up in her field of vision. She called up the database entry for “name” and changed it to Devon Drake.
“Now, Devon,” said Dr. Rafferty, “I want you to access your internal sensors. Tell me what you see.”
Devon called up the options for her internal sensor array. A translucent image of her body appeared and she could see thin lines running through her chest, back, arms and legs, all terminating in her brain. She activated the sensors.
The boring room was filled with a spectrum of color, lines and wavelengths shooting in all directions. Threads of green, red, and blue ran from the little computer tablet on the table. “I see everything,” she said. She pointed as if the doctor could see what she saw. Maybe he did. She had no idea.
“Very good,” said Dr. Rafferty. “I want you to intercept one of the signals you see and open it.”
Devon reached out with her sensors and captured the green thread coming from the tablet. The data inside was a garble of numbers, letters, and mathematical symbols. “I’ve got it, but I can’t make anything of it.”
“That’s normal. Please initiate the decryption engine.”
Within seconds the thread turned into a pattern of logic. Devon could see it was an Internet connection acknowledgment. The access point in the ceilin
g was letting the little computer know that everything was fine. It could send or receive data whenever it was ready. “Okay, I see the raw data now. It’s a network connection.”
“Correct,” said Dr. Rafferty. His voice was calm and clinical. “Next, I want you to use emotion.”
Devon accessed the personality decision tree in her brain. “Okay.”
“Fear.”
Devon’s skin began to cool as sweat seeped from her artificial pores. Her breathing quickened and she had the sudden urge to run for the door. But there was no door. How in the world was she going to get out of this room? She needed to get out. Now. If she had to stay in here one moment longer, she might scream. The gun. She could take the gun and shoot the glass. No. That wouldn’t work. It was ballistic-shielded. A missile might get through, but that .41 caliber pistol was useless. She ran her fingers through her long blonde hair.
“I think that’s enough,” said Dr. Rafferty.
A nanosecond later, Devon was emotionally inert.
“Joy,” said Dr. Rafferty.
Warmth and happiness swirled in Devon’s stomach. She felt lighter and ready to dance. How did she know how to dance? That wasn’t part of her street scene program. But her hips felt like swaying back and forth and she wanted to jump up and down.
“And, let’s stop there,” said Dr. Rafferty. “Subject is responding as expected.” He walked over to the table and stood across from her. “Devon, you’ve been selected for a very important mission. As you’ll find in your new brain, we’ve outfitted you with a significant array of emotions, skills, and next-generation hardware. You represent considerable expense and effort, and, I will warn you, risk. Take some time to review your new abilities. Your old brain’s memory has been merged with your new one to save time. I am available if you have any questions.”
“I have one.”
“Go ahead.”
“How long has it been since I was killed?”
“You’re referring to your old life as a street performance squib?”