But too much thinking undid the moment, the moment was all he had, all everyone had, and the moments left available to them were fading fast. They were all dying, one way or another. He rolled off her, her body, such as it was, releasing its part-mechanical hold on him. He sat up on the edge of the cot, wondering what came next, what the protocol was. Sex didn’t mean anything, sex wasn’t love it was justification; justification of the fact one was still human, no matter how small the quotient of human remaining, that one had urges and needs requiring fulfilment. Sex was a business practice, one entity gave and one received and after those donations one or another picked up the bill.
‘What are you thinking about?’ She asked him.
‘Life.’ He answered immediately.
‘Life logging?’
‘Huh?’
‘You know, continuing to build up and define your memories.’
‘Why would I be doing that?’
‘One has to, it’s pivotal.’
‘Pivotal to what precisely?’
She sat up, ‘Pivotal to your intellectual property database, to machine intelligence and the replication of oneself. Without comprehensive memories and learned actions one couldn’t be replicated.’
‘Why the pig-sticking shit would someone want to be replicated, isn’t one of each thing enough?’
‘Plants replicate them-selves and to survive we’ll need to do the same.’
‘We do, it’s called breeding.’ He answered abruptly.
‘Insufficient I’m afraid - breeding alone won’t save the human race, only the Nano can do that.’
‘Uh huh, more futuristic science and shamanism I suppose, let me guess, we need to become thinking plants – but wait, we already have one of those, one big enough to think for all of us!’ He mocked her.
‘You’re against science?’
‘Isn’t everyone? Didn’t the Old People’s scientists do the planet enough damage already? We don’t need them or their bogus ideologies.’ He could feel his chances of another deep and un-meaningful encounter slipping away. How the shit-jack had he become so opinionated?
‘All ignorance stems from a rebuttal of originality by minds full of fear of change.’ She rebuked him.
He felt him-self growing angrier with her judgemental bias toward the appliance of science, of course she’d admire it, after all, it had already improved her, saved her otherwise worthless life. ‘Originality breeds contempt.’ He fired her way.
She poured scorn on his retort immediately, ‘ICU propaganda!’
She was right about that at least, but maybe the ICU had a point, maybe this reckless careering back to a reliance on tech was simply the start of repeating what had already occurred with disastrous results. But if so, why continue to approve, even endorse and fund new machined entities? To pacify humans and their fear, and then fully eradicate them, that was why; the math was logical, it added up, no matter how the answer had been tabulated.
‘Perhaps,’ he answered tiredly, the sleep-deprivation kick he’d been on really hammering home. ‘But I didn’t come to your cave for another lesson in future science because frankly I’m sick of people having all the answers, having opinions that overrule everyone else’s. I don’t care about the future, about memes, about Nano particles or replicating myself. One of me is enough for me to handle, all I wanted was the docking, the wet-job was a bonus, so thanks.’
‘All take and no give huh, I thought you were different, but you’re not, you’re just like the rest, in it to win it, only, you don’t have a clue what the prize actually is, do you?’
‘Freedom.’ He replied stoically.
‘But you’re already free, you just don’t see it, you think that freedom is out there over the Golden Platitude, but what if it isn’t?’
He didn’t want to hear it, if there wasn’t anything over the Golden Platitude, no Custom Culture with its glimmering boulevards and towering temples of flesh, then he’d be shucked, left standing with no place to go, no dream to follow. ‘It’ll be there, and if it isn’t I’ll go someplace else.’ He countered.
She smiled at him, almost serenely but far too knowingly, ‘You’re probably right, I’m sorry if I offended you, mangled your dream out of shape, say, have you ever swum?’
It wasn’t a sidebar he’d ever considered, after all, where could one go to indulge in something as pointless as swimming, if he’d have been meant to swim he’d have been born with flippers. ‘No, and I don’t really think I’d like too, being underground is enough, but being underwater underground would probably close my mind completely.’
She placed her hand on his, ‘That’s what you need, mind closing, the freedom you’re seeking is right here.’
‘You mean the Pimp has a swimming pool?’
‘Better,’ she beamed, ‘Why’d you think the Pimp resides down here?’
‘Because it’s safe, because he’s a fruit job?’
‘Right on both counts, but there’s something else, you want to see?’
Curiosity breeds insobriety and right now inebriation sounded fine. ‘Why not.’ He said, letting her pull him up from the cot.
She led him, luxuriously, through the quieter tunnels of the Pimp’s underworld palisade, here and there they past spent couples sleeping off their exertions, and as they penetrated deeper into the fascinating maze of excavations he grew more excited. How long had the Pimp and his minions been bunkered away down here, either oblivious to, or totally disinterred in, what was going on above ground. There was still that disturbing doubt though, the gnawing and growing snippet of negativity that told him constantly that if a plant had roots, those roots could travel anywhere so long as there was – water. And the Pimp had a . . . ‘Almost there!’ She interrupted his contemplation with a delighted quickstep to the finishing line. He had to jog a little himself to keep up with her, and when he finally did catch up, he was staring at the most magnificent sight, even more breath-taking than the ICU’s Wall of the Sun.
An enormous underground cavern, its curved ceiling shimmering with the cool green reflection of the pool it covered. ‘You see,’ she said, obviously pleased with her-self, ‘an aqua-dome, the water’s always fresh, always warm, bubbles up from someplace deep in the earth, this is why the Pimp stays here, not only can you drink it, but swim in it too.’
‘The people here, they swim in it?’
‘Only when the Pimp authorises gala days and suchlike.’
‘Uh huh, so usually it’s off limits?’
‘Unless the Pimp wants to impress a certain concubine or another or some travelling dignitary, though a lot of the hybrids here couldn’t go in it anyhow.’ She smiled.
‘Rust I suppose.’ He offered casually.
‘I used to swim, before . . .’ she started.
‘Before your accident.’ He finished for her.
That infectious smile again, half genuine, half manufactured, ‘Doesn’t stop you though does it?’ She teased.
‘I don’t think I’d like to incur the Pimp’s wrath, or get . . .’ But it was too late, her synthetic shove had sent him stumbling to the water’s edge and, unable to maintain his balance with his soldered arm floundering, he plunged in. The weight of his new-found, metal-sprouting limb immediately dragging him down into the clear green depths – depth’s that were, seemingly bottomless. Thoughts of corrosion, the ICU, assassination and fornication fled his mind as his lungs began to reel against the all-encompassing wet dream. It was then he realised, that he’d never actually learned to swim, because there’d been no need – after all, there was no water to swim in. Down he continued, his lungs at bursting point, bubbles streaming from his tightly closed lips, if this was death, he was in, well and truly in, let the good times roll, all he had to do, a voice inside his head said calmly and loudly, was to just relax and open his mouth, wide. He obeyed it too, he unclenched his jaw and let his lips flap free and the cool green fingers of death flooded in, filling him with new life and instant karma, relieving his lungs of the onerous burden they’d endured since his unlawful conception. Everything was so easy, so pure, so bracing and mind-cleansing, this was it, the absolute freedom the Symmetrical Girl had spoken of – the ultimate ride. As the green eternity surrounding him began to darken violently, the in-built human survival instinct kicked-in and panic crashed all of his memory banks as it raced for an answer. To every problem there existed a solution, that was funny – a solution – because solution’s were invariably liquid. He was about to die with a smile on his face and a stiff tool in his pants, erotic death syndrome, now he was really living . . .
