I.
5:02 PM – Wide concrete steps deliver Mortimer to the transit bay. He squints into the orange light, looking for a companion, confidant, or soul survivor. Quiet trains circle the main loop; passengers board from the inner ring. On his display Mortimer can see a known entity approaching. Artimice Lye: pale skin, dark hair, a face that only smiles with the eyes – friend.
“Come on in.”
“Your place looks great.”
“Thanks.
“How’s the cult?”
“It’s not a cult. We’re a group of likeminded, cosmically oriented individuals.
“Of course.”
“Hey, that manager that likes me, Sterilina – ”
“Terina.”
“Yeah. Why does she always look at me like I’ve just committed a crime?”
“She’s blind, sees in infrared.”
“Implants?”
“So she can tell how hard our computers are working – how hard we’re working.”
“She’s a thermographer?”
“Degree in pyrometry; she probably thinks it’s strange that you omit no heat.”
“Funny that. Anyway, she sent a message saying you had 'an acute, time-limited mental disorder that had manifested as a severe stress-induced, anxiety, paranoia, and dissociation' – she thought I might have heard it referred to as a nervous breakdown."
“What?”
“Well I’d like to know if it’s true so we can begin the rehabilitation process.”
“Yeah, it’s true, but… there might be… a bit more going on than that.”
“She also said you were muttering something under your breath the whole time and pointing at all the electrical sockets.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah; let’s just let the doctor rebalance my humors.
“So glad to hear you say it, you have of course been suspicious of my medicinal properties in the past. Now I shine for you. Catch.”
“A sea urchin?”
“A pet? No, that would constitute a serious therapeutic measure. No it’s non-sentient. Press the red button. For Mortimer now some wonder and companionship. It’s a relic, like all your toys, an ambassador for future robots from a time before robots that build robots were the only ones built. Never mind. Animal, vegetable, mineral? Other?”
“An exercise in inductive reasoning, that’s my therapy?
“No Morty, just press the button and answer the little robot’s questions. It’s fun – plus it’ll take your mind off whatever it was that tried to eat it this morning.”
Are you thinking of an animal, vegetable, or mineral…? …‘other’…?
“Is it talking to me?”
“Sure is; just play the game Mort.”
In what ways other?
“Okay, okay… how about a honey bee…”
I’m sorry, please – ?
“Like, a bug, ‘it’s an animal.’”
“Morty, you can hear it, but it can’t here you; they hadn’t gotten that far when they built this thing. You have to use the buttons.”
“Right, okay.”
You have selected animal.
I have selected animal.
Are you bigger than a breadbox?
“Where did you get this Art, what the hell is a bread box?”
“Come on Morty, you’re supposed to be the historian. I think people used to leave their bread out instead of freezing it – I know you’ve heard of bread.”
“Okay, fine, smaller… right the buttons.”
Do you have wings?
Can’t fly, not sure I’d want to.
“Yes, I have wings.”
“Now you’re getting it Morty, press the button, say your answer aloud for the crowd, very convincing.”
I should have it in a few more questions.
“Is it mocking me?”
“I think so. And you were worried it wasn’t up to the challenge.”
I wasn’t worried.
Do you live alone?
I live alone.
“No, in groups.”
Are you dangerous to people?
Not usually… the day’s events not withstanding…
“Only when I get mad… or feel threatened.”
“That’s a yes, did you press the yes button? No cheating.”
“I pressed it.”
Do you suck blood?
I don’t think so.
“No.”
“That would be fantastic if you did. You do have a mostly liquid diet.”
“Just let me play the game Art.”
Do you eat pollen?
I used to.
“Yes”
Are you a bumble bee?
“Ha, Morty, I’m sorry I ever doubted you, your supremacy as a sentient being is retained.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re a honey bee; he said bumble. You make honey, or at least you used to, nobody even knows what bumbling is.”
“I think he pretty much got it, I don’t see how… well anyway they’re both extinct now so I think it counts.”
“Listen to yourself, you really are cracked, I’m starting to agree with Sterilina.”
“Terina.”
“Whatever. Discrimination man, it’s what separates us from the animals. If, as appears to be the case, your powers of discernment are compromised, I will be forced to resort to more invasive measures.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“Food, like real food.”
“It’s not a bad idea. You know this liquid diet always makes me feel like I’m floating. Do you know somewhere safe, I’d love to eat something solid, but I can’t show up outside Network right now.”
“Yeah, I know somewhere we can eat off-grid.”
“Is it in the old city? Food from before in buildings from before… seems logical.”
“Too logical, that’s where all the restaurants used to be. There’s no solid food there now – too many cameras. The place I’m thinking of is completely outside the System.”
“That’s okay, I’ll just get my apartment to catch up with us so I can drop off my Identifier – better to seem a defeated home body than appear gallivanting around with you… considering my performance today.”
“You’ve been practicing all your life.”
I guess that’s true.
“Hey Art, where did you get that little robot anyway? Was it a serious prototype for artificial intelligence, or what?”
“Morty, it’s purple and flecked with silver sparkles, I’m pretty sure it was a toy. I picked it up because it reminded me of you, of how you have to spend all your time with the mechanical wreckage. All our failed hopes and dreams, distilled and time traveling.”
“Yeah. Still, it’s pretty effective at its job, don’t you think?”
“Robots are a joke Morty, they’re not going to help us when it all goes down, or up – or out, as the case may be.”
“Right. Why do you think we’ve tried so hard to make smart ones then?”
“Two possibilities: either we’re scared of the shallowness of our own intelligence, so we run from it, or we’re afraid of succumbing to the monstrous, useless, intelligence we have, so we build smart machines to exorcise and trivialize it, to give it over to something else so we’re not responsible. You know how I feel, I think it’s probably the former, but I’m just a poet.”
“Right. I know we live on a smart grid, and everything is more or less synchronized, but do you think we’ll ever build an autonomous machine? Something with its own intelligence?”
“Morty. We’re not like them – like robots. We never will be. The most sophisticated machine still lacks… well… what does it lack?”
“I don’t know, maybe love.”
“Lots of people lack love. Forget that, what machines lack is the lie, the illusion that recreates the world, the secret that alters and won’t tell what it has done. No passion, no artifice, no human. What’s missing in every machine is the pleasure of the pose. The pleasure we get from living and posing, over and above living. That’s why a person can always be more than they are and a machine can’t. Robots are immune to seduction – machines are celibate.”
“Art, you’re celibate, remember?”
II.
6:37PM – Mortimer and Artimice sit on the same side of a small plastic table in a large, poorly lit room. Two metal bowls sit empty in front of them. They face the door in case anyone should enter unexpectedly. Both are sleepy, neither will admit it. It occurs to Mortimer that solid food has a kind of hypnotizing effect..
Artimice: You feel better?
Mortimer: The same.
Artimice: Perfect. So, to continue the rehabilitation process, I thought some entertainment, reveling if not revelation – a small gathering to celebrate the alignment of the spheres?
Mortimer: … what…?
Artimice: An eclipse party?
Mortimer: … oh… an ellipses party…?
Artimice: Morty like a zombie! You know… like a fucking party, because the earth’s only satellite will be temporarily blocking our life-giving sun… it’s a bit symbolic don’t you think? A chance to die and be reborn without getting up from your chair… not a fucking ellipses party…
Mortimer: … right sounds like fun…
…total ellipse of the heart.
Mortimer: … what …?
Artimice: I didn’t say anything Mortimer.
Mortimer: Is Belay coming?
Artimice: No Morty, after you two broke up she said her obligation to the spectator sport that is my social life ended. Remember? She said that from now on we have to meet as ‘adults.’
Mortimer: So she’s not coming?
Artimice: No. Fine, fine, fuck. I’ll call her later and see if she wants to have ‘dinner’ with us tomorrow. And stop smiling like that, is that what happens to you when you think of her? That is perverse.
… is that perverse?
Artimice: What?
Mortimer: Nothing Art.
Artimice: You seem a bit entranced, honestly Morty. I know that repetition and inversion were always two of your stronger subjects, but honestly – a bit strange today no?
Mortimer: No I think I’m okay, I mean… today…
Artimice: What about it? You got sent home from school like we were in level one.
Mortimer: Work.
Artimice: Seriously what’s the difference?
What is the difference, seriously…?
Artimice: C’mon Morty, are you suspended now, a couple days to think about what you’ve done? Or maybe you’ll lose your job? I’ve built a reputation on caring for nothing, but I’d still like to know how much I have to worry about you; you’re the exception that proves my rule.
We did get suspended once, Artimice and I, third day of entrance – premonition of our predilections?
Artimice: And Morty sits and stairs and smiles and pokes his tongue at everything.
Mortimer: I’m fine. Can we just go?
Artimice: I guess so. Wait. Do hear that?
Mortimer: Oh yeah… why so much screaming?
Artimice: I hope that’s not what you sounded like. It’ s terrifying and obviously mad.
“Gentleman I’d suggest, for your safety, that you stay a little while longer. That outside is our resident rebel, a committed and dangerous disturber of the peace.”
Artimice: Inside the Network he’d get all kinds of conduct violations for noise like that. What’s his name?
“Tar Istvan, off-grid’s greatest threat to civilized society… such as he is.”
Artimice: Oh. That’s Tar Istvan. Morty this is exciting. Can we have some dessert while we wait?
Mortimer: Who’s Tar Istvan?
“Certainly Sir, what would you like?”
Artimice: The Bananas Foster please.
Mortimer: You know those aren’t real banana’s right? Who’s Tar Istvan?
“Very good Sir, I’ll be back in a moment.”
Artimice: I don’t know much about the new revolutionaries, but anyone that poses a genuine threat to the System is considered an ally of the Fire Starters. We basically collect information about every crazy person standing in the street announcing critical failure. You know what they say Morty; a clever man learns more from his enemies than a fool learns from his friends. Wait no: my enemy’s enemy is my friend.
Mortimer: Right. So what’s this guy’s problem? Why is he as angry as you – presumably angrier since he’s outside yelling and you’re sitting inside waiting for a plate of brûléed synthetic bananas?
Artimice: He wasn’t born inside the City, so we assume an immigrant’s suspicion. He worked for ten years as a Nexus clerk – but something really bad happened to him and his family.
Mortimer: What do you mean?
Artimice: His son had Situs Inversus and it cost so much to take care of him that the family eventually spent everything they had. His wife left him even though they made the trip together. His son eventually died. When his psychological health was deemed compromised, he wasn’t allowed to work.
Mortimer: What is Situs Inversus?
Artimice: When the internal organs are reversed or mirrored from their normal positions.
“Your dessert sir.”
Artimice: Thanks very much.
Mortimer: Why does it matter which side of your body your internal organs are on? What’s it called the way we’ve got them?
Artimice: Situs Solitus, with the heart on the left. If the organs aren’t completely mirrored in some novel array, it’s called Situs Ambiguous – or heterotaxy. Come on Mort, you can’t have your heart on the wrong side; no one can live like that. There are all kinds of complications associated with Oppositus.
Mortimer: So what does Mr. Istvan propose we do? Go back to having elections and parties and corporate rule and hunger and uncertainty all the time… and live like everyone lives outside the System?
Artimice: Listen Morty, he’s just as naïve as our leaders. At least he’s doing something about it. The Executioners are blind, just like everyone they’ve put in charge – they only see threats of scarcity from the inside out. They don’t see the dangers of irrational cosmic time from the outside in. That’s what it means to be religious. Do you understand that Morty? To open yourself to those time scales? Whatever it is that comes for us, it won’t be some catastrophe brought on by our imprecise calculations of known quantities – it will be something we never had a moment, in our tiny human lives, to consider, worry about, or plan for.
III.
11:45pm – Artimice leads Mortimer toward a non-descript building just inside the old city limits. He pauses before they enter, embarrassed that it’s before midnight. Turning to Mortimer, he gestures to his face, making sure Mortimer is ready for public exposure. He holds a moment longer, then enters.
Back in the Gorge, everyone worried that government surveillance would become so complete that you wouldn’t be able to go anywhere without worrying about how your face looked – big brother they called him. So strange. There never were enough people to watch even a fraction of the video generated… they drowned in the data.
But somehow we figured it out on our own. We started using digital to document everything that happened to us… every single thing… and then no one had to put up any more cameras. We took all the pictures ourselves, scrutinized them ourselves… ridiculed or congratulated ourselves… turned in the outliers – I call him little brother.
Now you can’t enter a gathering of anyone but your closest friends without a convincingly resolute face. You’ll be captured, the image up to and down from the clouds, then in front of everyone who has ever known you… or anyone else who is watching… it’s much more efficient really…
First, actions outweighed intentions. Then, intentions outweighed deeds. Now, we have a science of motivation; and human behavior is the most predictable force in the universe – if you can see its face.
“Morty, you look terrible. It’s nice to see you though. Is the mist here? I don’t see anything, but the spectral lines indicate a kind of humanoid presence. Oh, Artimice, there you are. I’m so sorry; have you lost weight?
“Always.”
“What about the love of your life Morty? Will Bileh be joining us this evening? Anyone care for an injection?”
Bilay: there was love. And then… then… then there was indulgence.
“Hi Vinka… nice to see you too. Bileh’s not here so I’m expecting extra judicious treatment. I don’t want to have to dock you screen time.
“You know that she doesn’t consider what we do sex; I’m not really a threat.”
“That’s no reason to be mean.”
“Or a reason to be nice. I’ll be back.”
I like the heat. I just can’t get too close.
“I like her sharp edges… she’s architecturally sound.”
“Morty, you’re mixing your metaphors. Just remember how it ends. You’re like a moth to a flame. You know that right?”
It’s my phototactic. Once a moth’s been in the light, it takes a really long time to readjust to the dark… it just stays there, in the light, where it can see.
“Yeah, I guess – I do.”
“I’m back. A basic mood stabilizer for the lovely young man, an anxiety suppressor for the attractive young woman, and, as usual, nothing for Art. Just clean lines right Misty? So, how are you two? Accomplishments of late? And Morty, what did you do today to bring about such degeneration in personal appearance?”
Please no pictures.
“Nothing… I’m fine, I just had a strange day at work… and then some stranger encounters after work and… I think I’m starting to worry about… you know… the future.”
“Oh, I don’t like that sentence all. I don’t read the news.”
“Not interested?”
“Not in that mirage. Everything important that happens, happens to me. And anyways Morty, they’re not going to stop lying to you just because you’re finally paying attention. How about you Art? Are you still having that dream in which your shadow is cast by a real boy?”
“The organization is fine Vinka, thanks for asking. But, all convivial venom aside, I really do wish you and Mortimer would come with me to the Hearth, just to see what you think. I may regret saying this, but life is more than a sex machine and a box of sterilized needles.”
“Hey Mortimer, doesn’t that give you hope.”
Hope against hope.
Vinka: Speaking of sex machines, I wanted to ask you something Morty.
Mortimer: Of course Vikki.
Vinka: You know that before the Gorge, men made women wear all kinds of semi-erotic torture devices as clothing.
Mortimer: I guess I know what you mean, yeah…
Vinka: And you know how these days everyone dresses the same…
Mortimer: Yeah…
Vinka: Well it seems to me we’re at about the midpoint in a long transition.
Artimice: That will reach its extreme polarity when women make men wear all kinds of semi-erotic torture devices as clothing?
Vinka: Exactly.
Mortimer: And what can I contribute to this historical projection?
Vinka: Well have you or Leonard ever done a book on the subject? I thought maybe you could give me some notable examples of our subjugated past so I can fully envision our emancipated future.
Mortimer: Because…?
Vinka: Because it brings me pleasure. To imagine it.
Artimice: So, no current events but…
Vinka: Shut up Artimice. We all have fantasies that sustain us.
How’d you like,
To become,
The new face of zero and oneness?
Mortimer: Well, we never did a book on the subject – it not being a wholly saleable commercial topic you understand – but my research has sometimes overlapped with the history of the erotic arts.
There was a man named Freud… and a man named Foucault… and a man they called Elvis… and lady Madonna too.
Mortimer: Let’s see… there was foot binding…
Vinka: Yeah, men do have big feet. Maybe we’d like to see them a little smaller. Or maybe different fleshy protuberances? Maybe small bound ears become the height of masculine form. Go on.
Mortimer: Corsets were big for, hundreds of years, I think.
Artimice: What’s a corset?
Vinka: Think like, human-in-a-tube, by means of laces. Yeah, maybe if we changed the shape a bit to better complement the male form.
Mortimer: And there was circumcision.
Artimice: …
Vinka: Circumspect. What else?
Mortimer: Okay. The shaving always seemed strange to me, making women hairless all over… except for strangely colored tufts on their heads.
Vinka: Better. Maybe we could reverse it, in the general spirit of the inquiry; shave male heads and die all of their body hair unnatural colors.
Artimice: Is it supposed to be vindictive?
Mortimer: I think so.
Vinka: What else?
Mortimer: I mean there were all kinds of things… architectural undergarments… industrial nail paints… and the corrosives to remove them… body piercings, of every description… hair extensions and weaves…
Vinka: They’re old hat.
Correct.
Mortimer: Well…
Artimice: There were implants… I mean, not like our implants… non-computational implants… aesthetic implants.
Vinka: What’s he talking about. And why does he know what he’s talking about?
Mortimer: It’s actually really weird, I’d rather not get into it… and he knows better than most because Arimice Lye is a professor of the simulated and artificial arts.
Vinka: I want to know anyway.
Mortimer: Can I have another injection then, something a bit more… uplifting?
To counter the slow decent.
Vinka: Sure. Just relax.
Mortimer: Thanks. It started with the carving of facial features, I think. Cut the nose, cut the chin, cut the lips.
Vinka: Cut the nose off? Why?
Despite the faces’ protestations.
Artimice: No, not cut it off; just shape, reduce, contour, plump – in the case of the lips.
Vinka: All for look?
Artimice: All for look.
Vinka: And graft skin over the scars?
Artimice: Not in the beginning; just staple, hide the scars.
Vinka: Was that it, I mean did it stop there?
Artimice: No, like I said, implants; lipids into lips, silicon into the breasts, harder non-reactive plastics into the abdominals and buttocks.
Vinka: All for look?
Artimice All for look.
And texture?
Vinka: Was it erotic, or were people just testing the cybernetic waters?
Shocking.
Artimice: There’s no consensus.
Vinka: What do you think?
Mortimer: He thinks it was erotic augmentation in the opposite direction of our present fixation – toward an optimum erotic aesthetic.
Vinka: Opposed to an optimum operational ideal.
Mortimer: Exactly.
Vinka: That means people were attracted to these —
Mortimer: They’re not exactly sex robots.
Vinka: You know what I mean.
Artimice: I would say, in the main, yes, people were attracted to them.
Mortimer: I would say the augmentation was like art or fashion; it came in and out in waves of conversion and subversion.
Artimice: Well?
Vinka: Well what?
Artimice: What changes would you like to make to the male form? Enlarge anything?Mortimer They tried it, nasty extensions – I mean painful not disgusting… well maybe disgusting I don’t really know.
Vinka: I think I’m done.
Artimice: Oh come on; just tell us, I’m finally having fun.
Vinka: It doesn’t work that way for me.
Mortimer: Then why is it fun to think through the other semi-tortuous inflictions?
Vinka: Because they’re more superficial. They’re a joke because they don’t change the thing that’s really attractive about a man.
Artimice: And what’s that?
Vinka: You know Artimice, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to explain it to you.
3:00am – Mortimer leaves the kitchen alone, in search of a familiar face. As he enters the media room, a moody light floods his vision, his eyes struggling to adjust. He can see the remaining guests of the party, huddled beside various computational devices, uploading the images of the evening. Some of them send from external cameras, but most upload directly from their implants. The room is completely silent. It occurs to Mortimer that he has seen something like this before – while working on a book about opium. He briefly regrets looking so diminished for such and aesthetic frenzy, but gets over it as he sees Artimice near the door.
“Should we go?”
“You don’t look so good.”
“That makes sense.”
“Did you have fun?”
“I always have fun… maybe fun’s not the word.”
“Come on Morty, let’s go.
“Okay.”
I’m tired enough anyway.
Artimice: You know it’s not the only way for a species to survive.
Mortimer: What isn’t.
Artimice: Sex.
Mortimer: For a species to survive?
What about our species?
Artimice: Imagine an asexual mutant arising in a sexual population. All else being equal, the asexual lineage doubles its representation in the population each generation.
Mortimer: What about the… I mean…
Artimice: It’s beside the point whether asexuality is more fun – an asexual population has an intrinsic capacity to grow more rapidly with each generation. And anyway, the pleasure part of our sex now is virtual, and the reproduction is mechanical; I think it’s time for the species to move on.
Maybe when the sexes disappear, the pleasure disappears too?
Mortimer: So you want to accelerate evolution, like the Executioners?
Artimice: It won’t come to that, there’s enough natural pressure. Sex is too costly. In the first place, males and females have to find each other, and then sexual selection sometimes favors traits that reduce the fitness of individuals – as in your case.
Mortimer: You mean Belay?
Artimice: Before you met her, your recklessness was manageable; now look at you.
I’m like a peacock… or a bowery bird.
Mortimer: I thought the point of sex was for DNA to recombine more… optimally.
Artimice: You have such a traditional mind.
He means linear… these days my mind walks in circles.
Mortimer: What’s the problem with recombination?
Artimice: Unfit sequences can reproduce because their partners’ sequence fills in… the gaps… let’s call them. For asexual organisms deleterious mutations are eliminated immediately.
Mortimer: Can we go home?
Artimice: Sure. You have to be more open-minded Mortimer. Organic life is a tangled meandering chain. Sometimes we evolve to meet a challenge, and disappear the challenge by evolving. The changes aren’t needed once that challenge is gone… you know what I mean? Is that progressive change, regressive change…? Does it matter? It’s too tangled. It’s about what we want, what we need right now…
I want Belay, I want to sleep beside her tonight.
Mortimer: I want to go to sleep.
Artimice: And I don’t ever want to be naked in the same room with another human being.
IV.
4:46am – Side by side, Mortimer and Artimice’s apartments arrive. They don’t say goodbye, they never do. Mortimer lies down on his bed, and briefly thinks about taking his nightly injection. Before he does, he drifts off, tired, lonely, and helpless against sleep and dreams and everything that accompanies exhaustion.
In the great and persistent war, the forces of good and evil entrench, exhausting themselves in struggle. The armies of man stand face to face through an inexhaustible winter… an endless night.
In this cold, impassable darkness, tension builds silently, past escape, past equilibrium, doomed to tip. Finally, no more can be taken; friction, sparks, an explosion of anger and madness is necessity.
A female form descends, in the commotion of combustion, hands wielding weapons and gifts, face burning bright with the light of a thousand suns. This heat, this destruction, these spinning arms, come to disrupt the balance and agony…come to disperse the stalemated men.
Her warmth begins to thaw the ground, spreading out from all centers like the aching spring. But the armies of man resist, collecting themselves in light of the enemy, with the momentum of cold habit; the shrill call to war rises.
She responds only with sound, a supersonic hum that reduces all messengers to ashes, a blanket of hysterical ringing and drawing hands over ears and knees to the earth – the final battle begins.
At the sight of the assembled men, she becomes terrible in her anger. A force of pure destruction concentrates behind her furrowed brow, and as the dawn approaches, a warrior bursts forth from her knotted black crown. With a necklace of skulls, this emaciated terror flies to meet the armies of man. With sunken eyes and dripping bloody tongue, she howls with laughter, devouring them like so many termites on a blade of grass.
At the sight of the vanishing thousands, the cries of survivors coalesce into a demonic force, a being of their indignation, fear, and panic. She turns to face this adversary, thrusting her sword into his hanging flesh. From the blood that falls, innumerable demons spring, until an army of masculine force is again assembled. Undaunted, she continues her assault, drinking the blood that flies as she slices the demon apart. Finally, she consumes him completely, assimilating his energy, dissolving his force.
A light rain begins to fall, softening blood soaked ground and skin. The survivors rise, as if from a dream, and look around. Forests are burned, children are lost, the sky is black with smoke; but She is gone, and He is gone, and none can be sure if they were there ever there at all – spring has returned.
