Nine Lives

by submission | Sep 16, 2010 | Story

Author : Martin Sumner

Sydney Park, Loss Adjuster for Prudential Insurance, straightens his tie. Slides a manicured finger into his starched shirt collar. Swallows. Checks for the third time that he has his leather briefcase with him, and pushes open the swinging glass door. The morgue attendant looks up from his desk in reception. Sydney hands him a card. Disinterested.

“I’m here to, ah, see Mr. Swann. So to speak.” The attendant shows him the way. White and peppermint green. The corridors, the signs, the staff uniform. Bright sterility. Overlit. The labyrinth echoes to the sound of Sydney’s brogues. The attendant has slippers. He shows Sydney into a small windowless room, daylight-white strip lighting flickers on, the attendant hands him a magnetic card. He checks that Sydney knows the procedure. He says he’ll wait outside. He sits down on a plastic chair.

Sydney closes the door and slots the card. He sits down. Clears his throat. A screen comes alive. It shows a profile of the deceased, one Jack Swann. The screen asks for a proceed command, and Sydney hits the appropriate key. A dial tone becomes a series of pips, and then a ring tone. The screen offers a choice – digital face animation or slide show? Sydney goes for the slide show. Always pick the slide show.

“Hello, this is Jack Swann.” The voice of the dead fills the room. Images of Jack Swann on the screen, a life that was. A life lived. A life lost.

“Ah, Mr. Swann. How, um, how are – um, well, anyway. I’m from the Prudential, your insurers. I’m processing your claim. In fact I’ve processed your last three, if I remember correctly.”

“Sydney, isn’t it? Yes, I remember you. All is well, I hope!”

Might as well get straight to the point. “Well, not exactly, Mr. Swann. Complications I’m afraid. Several complications. Firstly, your, ah, death occurred whilst you were in violation of your policy agreement, according to the police report. The policy specifically states you are not covered for dangerous sports, acts of God, travel to proscribed areas or, um, gun running.”

“Dammit Sydney we went through this last time. I wasn’t gun running. They are high explosives for strip mining. Purely commercial.”

“Well, ah, that worked last time, certainly. Interpretation, one supposes. However Mrs., ah, Alicia, err, Swann, your wife has been in touch.”

“We’re divorced, dammit.”

“Indeed, however as she rightly pointed out – upon checking – she is still the benefactor of your will. And, well there is no easy way to say this Mr. Swann, but she is pushing for a death certificate. She wants a pronouncement, and she is rather insistent. Certainly we at the Prudential cannot meet the cost of regeneration on this occasion, given the circumstances, and the scrutiny we are likely to get from Mrs., um, your wife’s legal team. You see our position, Mr. Swann?”

“Ex-wife, man! Ex-wife. Well what the hell am I supposed to do now? I can’t afford to pay for regen myself. That’s why I pay you. Damn that woman. Where does this leave me?”

“Well, Sir, is there no way the, ah, Company can cover your expenses?”

“You kidding me? I have to buy my own damn Geiger suits. Cover my expenses!”

“I see. Well, it’s probably immaterial anyway, Mr. Swann. Perhaps it’s time to think about a new career inside the matrix. You know, retrain. OS development. Anti-viral service. Wiki. That sort of thing?”

“Immaterial? What exactly do you mean by that, Sydney?”

“Well Mr. Swann, perhaps you’ve lost count. I’m afraid you’ve had your eight legalised regenerations already.”

“Shiii-ite.”

Extinction Holiday

by submission | Sep 15, 2010 | Story

Author : K. Pittman

Barrett’s neighbors, Ceely and HH, had straight papers, so they were the only ones who could give Barrett a ride.

“Where’re you headed,” they asked in unison, dressed as twins for this week’s theme party.

“SuperMall East,” Barrett said, unsmiling. “Got a job there.”

Ceely and HH shared a similar build and height but were physical opposites otherwise. Barrett surmised that the eerie synchronicity of movements and gestures displayed were worked out beforehand, but supported and sustained by some elaborate cocktail; something boosting mirror neuronal activity, cut with Ocytocin. Ceely and HH were really into Ocytocin this month.

“What’s wrong with your papers? Aren’t you cleared to travel?” asked in unison again, Ceely’s accent bending their sentences out of shape.

Barrett shrugged. “I missed a bill payment, and the Cred revoked my PubTrans permissions. I’m a flight risk or something.”

“Oh.” Their sadness and confusion was authentic. This was something they could never imagine happening. “SM-East isn’t on our route, but we’re picking up revelers past there. How long is the job?”

“Fourteen weeks. I can get a ride back.”

“Okay-okay!” they chirped; Barrett clenched his jaw a little. “We leave in sixty, will you be ready?”

“Yeah.”

The car was a new-model long-distance electric sedan, usually issued to small families. Barrett didn’t ask the twins who’d forged what to get what, minus kids or oldsters. He knew how these things worked.

Ceely entered their travel plan; when it cleared, the car started. The gang zone surrounding their gated blocks of flats was quiet today. Outside of the checkpoint, past robots bristling with exotic non-lethals, HH looked over at Ceely, who turned on and tuned the dash audio to a nostalgia band specializing in fin de siecle musics from previous centuries.

Nobody spoke.

Barrett watched a landscape of scrub and ochre roll by through hooded lids.

SuperMall East was a massive, blunted jet plinth filling the horizon, splitting the sky. Terraced gardens, visible as they grew closer interchange by interchange, did nothing to cut the building’s brutal impression.

“People live here,” pronounced the twins in awe.

“Yeah,” grunted Barrett, shifting in his seat, “people spend their entire lives here. It’s a mega-city.”

HH broke character and looked at Barrett over her shoulder. “Are you moving here?”

“Hell, no.” Barrett smiled and reached into his bag, pulling out a vintage tie. ”It’s a job. I like where I live.”

“Cool,” said the twins. “You’re our favorite neighbor. We like your cat.”

Barrett’s smile widened. “My cat and I like you too.” The kit-cat had been a good purchase, inspiring genuine reactions in people. Barrett used it as a metric, since he felt very much like that near-extinct animal. As above, so below, he thought not for the first time.

They pulled into to a disembarkment lane that led to a shuttle terminal. “What will you do here?” they asked.

Barrett started putting on his tie. “Some shoe sales, some maintenance programming. I have seven days off, so I’ll try to go to the top, take some photos.”

“Will your cat be okay?”

“His food and stuff is automated.” Barrett grabbed his bag, adjusted his tie, and exited into blasts of hot, dry air. “Pet him for me when you see him, huh?”

“We’ll pet him extra.”

“Thanks. See you you gals in seven fortnights. Have fun!” Barrett waved the twins off, and walked towards the nearest shuttle, into the beginning of his sentence.

Down to Earth

by submission | Sep 14, 2010 | Story

Author : Ellen Couch

I chose this job. I guess I just wanted to stay close to home.

The big work was done before I was born. Grandad was in demolition- Nana said watching him work was dead exciting. But everything that was coming down came down a long time ago. There are pictures of Nana in front of what Mam called ‘sky scrapers’. The idea of being that high terrified me.

They jumped at the chance to leave. Mam and Dad weren’t that old. They wanted to try for another baby. Down here the rules about that are very strict. That’s why my job is so well paid. Nobody wants it.

I know there are others like me. I don’t see them, of course. We’re not supposed to leave our Remit. But sometimes, if I’m right out on the edge of the farm, there will be a figure in the distance, silhouetted against the endless fields. But whoever they are, they’ve as much work to do as me. And there’s the counsellor if I want to talk.

It’s not a bad life. One of the perks of the job is getting first crack at whatever we can get to grow. My first tomato was a revelation, after nothing but nourishment pills.

They’re talking about reintroducing livestock. Just to see how the animals get on. Maybe one day they’ll be able to repopulate, but not in my lifetime. Probably not for a few lifetimes.

Sometimes, the loneliness gets so bad all I can do is lie in bed, shaking.

But the wheat grew this year. Next week, I’m going to learn to bake bread.

Fading

by submission | Sep 12, 2010 | Story

Author : Cosmo

Every day I am losing more of my sight. Every night, the edge of the moon blurs a little more. I can no longer see the stars. In its way, this slow drift into obscurity comforts me. It reminds me of my mortality.

The city streams by several thousand feet below as the zepp glides through the night. Rock and metal flow together, become a light-specked river, as above a cold wind snaps through the zepp’s mainsail. I lean over the railing, trying to make out individual buildings, and try my best to ignore the scraping of talons against the elevator wing and the following thunk as Aryan lands upon the deck.

The HARPY joins me at the rail, c-fiber wings retracting soundlessly into his back. For a few minutes we stand and say nothing. I can almost hear his eye shutters irising as he tries to infer my line of sight.

“I don’t understand,” he says at last, rotating his head towards me. “Every night you come out here. What do you expect to see?”

“Nothing,” I reply, trying to keep everything out of my voice. My hand rises, almost unconsciously, to feel the silver cross that rests beneath my shirt. Aryan knows about it, and I know it irritates him. He has taken it from me once before, but sees no harm in me keeping it.

“Your body is failing. We offer you treatment.”

“I’m not interested.”

“You are going to let yourself die?”

“Death is natural,” I reply.

In the ensuing silence I can feel him contemplating forcing the surgery upon me. But he knows that I would escape it afterwards. “I see,” he says. “Why do you wear that cross?”

“Who were you?” I ask. “I mean, before?”

For a moment, I think he is going to respond. Perhaps this time I have caught him off guard. Perhaps, somewhere deep within that network of wires and nanotech, he retains a vague recollection of his past. “I don’t remember,” Aryan finally says. “It is not important.”

“It’s the most important thing there is,” I respond. “It’s why you will never understand.”

Something changes about him. Aryan shifts his weight uncomfortably from talon to talon, then suddenly throws himself over the railing. I watch moonlight spark from his body as he plummets towards the earth. I can hardly see him when he opens his wings and veers left.

Below, the city streams by. Through this long journey, I have been keeping track of the latitudes and longitudes. Somewhere ahead of us, the city breaks against the Dead Sea. Somewhere below, the ruins of Jerusalem lie, sinking slowly beneath wave after wave of metal.