15
Matthew Fastener sat staring out the prison bus window. His manhood dangled flaccid, useless. Just another scar, on yet another soldier in the East-West wars.
The soul seats itself in the most ancient parts of the body. It lurks around the vestigial tail bone that all men have. When men and women look at one another, it is in anticipation of the tail -the authority / status. Thus in inexactness, the loins are most sensitive. Remember that, Imotaeus, my son, the next time we spar.
You were a terrorist! Next to it, a betrayer -the harsh words of the CCP re-education panel.
He cradled his shaven, hoodied head in his hands. Marjorie had moved on. Seth was dead -as far as he knew. His widow, ‘Sunny’ -he enquired where she might be found -someone to start anew with on his release day.
Marjorie had towed his skimmer with her, hiding it in a tangle of tree branches off a hill slope ravine. He called to it and it de-cloaked, homing in on his location.
Little Seth and Ri were living safely in the remote countryside, with relations. Huge AI drones, pennywheelers, rolled lazily across the rice paddies as it was harvest time. She showed Seth Jr the pearly polished grains that were the staple of most of Asia. He was able to walk up to her and dug his fingers into the handful of milled rice. It felt good to touch. Hard but light, and a little powdery.
The air was still when Matthew’s skimmer landed beside their compound. Seth? She called.
But as the distance closed, she recognized her husband’s assailant. He caught her arm and with his high, angelic voice, won her over. She untensed, turning away.
I didn’t kill your husband, ma’am -search your thoughts: you should know.
I just don’t know where he is.
Come to America. Bring your son. He’ll be respected.
Seth Jr walked up to Matthew and he put him on the skimmer. iS is everything, kid. The bernie-coanda propulsors launched them across the waterlogged fields, zipping through the lazily turning wheels of the pennywheelers. Ri choked out her enthusiasm. Maybe this ‘bad’ western man really loved her.
When they got off the machine, she held onto his arm, smiling shyly.
Do you know iS?
Ri nodded. Matthew harvested white e-matter from his skimmer, that night, her nerves healed his, through inexactness. They joined, not to say in passion, but in gentleness, reconciliation, resignation.
Take us to California, she decided.
I will, his counter tenor promise as an angel’s.
Everyone was there as Gracie pushed out Little Saim. Matthew gave him a string of e-matter beads in light gray. White was hard to come by.
Grow strong.
Tasha stared 3-eyed at helpless Saim Jr who stared back dispassionately. Little Seth clapped and giggled, overjoyed.
Erasmus, the name given my ever-streaming routines, To learn is to be fed patterns of myself -yes, to know my construction. Intelligence begins with data layered over constructs -a foundation, if you will. No life, artificial or otherwise, develops without one. I exist to categorize or ignore data, to assimilate it into a cloud above my workings. When triggered coherently, to loose my learnings, their associated data chains. It is as simple as that. N++
When he was in grad school, Mr. Frederick was picked for the project to give / sell the Asian economic marvel, a reliable, yet predictable system for advanced computation. After-hours, he led a breakaway group of adepts, secretly experimenting on the American population, through projecting dreams, spirit contact, through the ‘sexy’ technology that birthed the inexactness movement. Took the country by storm. By then, Frederick had resigned himself to a lowly position, a school teacher in a Silicon Valley suburb close to the more promising of grassroots.
20 years, Fred.
Tim, how do you think I’ll look in 20 years?
Marsha, in 20 years, we’ll both be dead.
Speak for yourself.
Fred you have to bring young blood into the council. And kind Sir Percival -he won’t last forever, not before his eyes go.
Then I’ll work on my perm.
Your sarcasm befits the cynical future we face, Marsha. But recall: survival isn’t reckoning your way out of a hedge maze. It’s realizing that God made every turn out of it on your right side.
Tim, most people don’t read signs.
Matthew showed them his gun, stored safely / inertly in a clear, electrostatically shielded case.
And Frederick showed Little Seth his father’s folding bow as Gracie held baby Saim over the blades each fighter had forged, now displayed harmlessly below a glass countertop.
Do you remember now?
Goo! Saim answered, positively.
Seth and Tasha gathered round Saim’s net bouncer.
We know how it ends, don’t we?
Wuh?
Saim, one of us kills everyone else in the group. And nobody will fool-enough admit it.
Nobody should, so remember and keep it quiet. I won’t tell you again.
A bemused look came over the former Trainer. In his baby mind, tears began to flow if you could imagine someone crying internally. Was he in love with Tasha and Seth? Or was he primed to destroy them, subvert the peace between East and West?
The grownups were laughing and chatting in the dining area. Did they already know? But grownups often knew best. He would wait and see what they told him, even if it were for 20 years.
*Your patience is exemplary, young one*
Goo!
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