rammyffnet
Pick
of the Litter
When they came around, there were always lots
an' lots. That made her happy! Well. okay, not reeeeeeally
happy, but people should be happy because happiness is happiness and if
you're not happy you're sad and that's bad, right? Right right! Mmmmm...
cuddlycuddly. They gave them blanket when they brought theme here,
because the people liked them to have blankets, since they thought the
blankets made them happy. And they did! Happiness makes the
world go 'round.
Nobody had named her yet, since naming her would
make someone else happy. And that was good! Making happiness
is better than anything else, that's what they said, and they should be
right! They gave them carrots, too, and put them out on that place
with all the glass so they could come and watch from outside. There'd
be little kids - they'd be so happy and nice. And there'd be
music too! It was in the other room, but that was okay, since she
could her realreal well and so could her sisters and they were all pretty
colors too and that's why Doctor said they were made special to stay in
the box until they went away .
Sometimes, when they came, there'd be men that
came into the room and say they were too young still to go to the house
where they made soup, but she knew she was gonna grow up soon and be just
like the pen doctor! The pen doctor was really nice. She gave her
and her sisters shots, in this big shiny thing full funny stuff that looked
funny, and they they felt really nice and better. She said it would
make her strong when she grew up to help make other people happy!
And that was good, because doing good things gives you the satisfaction
of being good, which is good, so the goodness just gets gooder!
Her sisters were all the same age, since they
were born on the same day. One of them was kicking her to close her
eyes. That was silly! She should wake up since the people were
here! Her sisters were tired of looking at the people and pretended
to be asleep. That wasn't making anyone happy, not even them.
Which meant it was stupid. Which was why she was standing
up instead of curling up with all of them. They were purple and green
and blue and dressed to match. She had pink on since pink is a great
color and looked good on her! That's what the Doctor said, and Doctor
was always strong and happy. Not like them. Sometimes they
got taken away, her sisters. It sounded fun! There wasn't much to
do here.
She pulled her pinafore down a bit, going up on
her tiptoes. Sometimes they made her take her pinafore off so they
would see what she'd look like when she was more valuable. She thought
she was plenty valuable, since she knew the secret to happiness.
But what did she know then? Silly people. They didn't know
the grass-not-grass the Doctor told them not to chew on, or the little
bed in back where they'd be allowed to sleep for real once the other people
went to sleep too so no one would be seeing them. And they didn't
know her younger sisters - her baby sisters that were kept the next one
over and there were lots more of since they hadn't had the chance to know
what she knew which was lots! And her big sisters, who always looked
tired. Why did they look so tired!? There wasn't much to do
here, since they had to save their energy. Even a six year-old knew
that! That's why they were in the Shop - to go away and have lots
of adventures so their baby sisters would have more room to be in the rooms
and then their baby sisters would come and get taken and they'd all go
off to the Homes where they were supposed to be. Shop wasn't like
the other pens. It wasn't there to make people smarter or do funny things
and write down what it meant, like when they cut those strange things up,
they were here for fun fun fun!
This place wasn't fun, though. She hopped
back and forth on the balls of her feet as was her nature, regretting briefly
that circumstances made shoes so necessary she couldn't crunch the funny
shredded green plastic plants that stuck to the floor through her toes.
The floor was cold, but the lights were hot and bright. It made it
kinda hard to see them passing outside her room - big blobs in relief against
the shineshine shimmer-shiny silver of the little tiny wires in the clear
glassy stuff.
A man tapped on the glass - or at least he looked
like a man. He had funny clothes! Lots of them had not-funny
clothes that were white and black and boring. That's why they needed
them to be happy, she bet! Her sisters were all the colors of the
rainbow!
Twitch.
She scratched her ear absentmindedly, and decided
to do something to attract some attention. This was so boring.
Even being a... a.... baby must be less boring than this, and that
was saying lots since babies don't do much at all but gnaw and cry when
their front teeth come in. Why? Why why whyyyyyyyyyy was nobody
picking her? Her sisters didn't seem to like her, because she didn't
lie there and look dead all the time, or star at the wall like sometimes
people with other little kids would come staring at them. Tap tap
tap. Tap on the glass. They'd' pass by with bags full of things,
but instead of wanting to know what was inside or talk about why they had
such funny heads with strange little ears and no fur, they just stayed
there!
"Byebye sister! You're so lucky!"
she waved, since that was a nice thing to do, and her sister was going
and soooooo lucky luck lucky. Sister, who was purple, didn't look
very happy back though. Sister was strange, like all her sisters!
"Sister, how can you say that? You know
what they do to us out there. They do bad things.. bad things...
I don't wanna..."
And she was crying while the Doctor took her out
of the room, to the great bright white light shone and it was something
warm warm warmer than in here, where it was always the same and the air
didn't rush like that. Other sisters looked sad too, but just huddled
up in the corner like they always did instead of going over to the swing
like she did because swings are fun and she wanted sister to see a happy
face seeing her off so she would cry less!! Why was she crying!?
That made her confused. Sister probably wasn't listening to Doctor.
Doctor told her they all had marvelous adventures when they left, and the
other ones who talked to older sisters lots said she was stupid to listen
to stupid fairy stories and everyone knew what happened but they didn't!
She did! Since she nevernever was gonna give up on going out there
to the bigbig world and then she'd get to carry a bag and...
Why didn't any of them want her?
It almost made her sad.
Then it was a longlong time, and she could hear
the fans go whirr over her head, and all the funny things they said outside
that sisters didn't wanna listen to since they said it reminded them of
the bad things they cried about that were gonna happen if the men took
them to be pets. No one wanted to play at all since they took purple
sister today, and that was even mooooore boring than usual, since sometimes
they'd realize that they should be happy like her (even if they called
her stupid - meanies).
If she'd known what it meant, the pink sister
might have realized that she felt very very lonely. The swing was
on the other side from the sleeping place, and they wouldn't all be given
food in the center until later when doctor made them take their vitamins.
Then something happened.
She watched the outside alot, because the outside
was full of lots of different things every day and not like here at all
with three (two, now) sleeping people not being fun and the same silver
roof and crunchy-crunch plastic all the time. There were all sorts
of colors and sounds.. sounds they never had in here! Sounds that
made her ears all twitchy, and went high then low then high all again and
made her want to hope and bounce and dance or even sometimes cry like her
sisters did when they left. Didn't they know that when they left,
they might get to listen to that all the time?
But this wasn't like the other times.
Lots of times people would come up to the edge
of the glass, but this one didn't. He was different from all the
rest, just like her sisters were different from her and sure not gonna
make someone happy like she would if they'd just give her the chance. When
he stopped at the glass, everyone stopped. And he wasn't really at
the glass, he was backback, and she was gonna go craaaaaazy wanting to
know why, because nothing new ever happened here and she was gonna go crazy
waiting anyway and she wanted to go nownownow!
There were tons of other people with him too,
but she knew he was the most important, because they were all looking at
him.
Oh please, oh pleasepleaseplease......
"That's disgusting. Those things... do people
really buy them that young?"
He looked sad. Pick me! Pick me! She
waved to him, and facing outwards could not see her sisters' hate.
"They're just animals, your excellency.
Not even Lambs."
He wasn't colorful like her. He was just
sort of copper, and sandy, and pale at the same time, with funny purple
and sandy clothes. Purple just like purple sister!! Oh no!!
But purple sister was already gone today. Her other sisters were
still crying. She could hear that, like she could hear everything
outside even when nobody ever was supposed to know what they could hear.
It looked like they were in a hurry and wanted
him to leave down the path where they all left to other places that weren't
here. She had never been in a hurry before. They must like
it lots! They sure did it lots! The world must be really fun.
"Yes, oh course," he stiffened, glanced at the
group in the corner (when had they let older sisters in to make her sisters
less sad? That was nice of them) all huddled up and looking mean.
And she waved and waved and waved and oh, didn't he see her on the other
side of the room they were in? Didn't he!?
Oh please, oh please ohpleaseplease....
The big ones listened to him and looked very serious,
and not even the background people were moving. He must have lots
of adventures for everyone to want to look at him!
"Still...."
And he saw her. He did. He did!!!!!
"That one."
"Sir! Surely your tastes won't be towards...
I mean.. of course I appreciate that sir wishes to be pragmatic,
but Sir..."
One looked sad... come over here! I'm smiling,
see! Sisters are sad and mean and mad behind me, and on the back
wall instead of up by the glass to see you, just like you with all your
people that are sad and you're sad too but you're just like me and I can
help if you just let me out! I promise! It's my extra-special
talent!
Doctor looked happy too, at least. Yay Doctor!
Doctor was running out from behind the desk.
"Your Excellency! Pay no attention to this
man. I assure you that we would be only too happy to grant to you,
free of charge, any one of our humble products."
Wasn't Doctor nice?
"Good," he nodded..
Oh please, oh pleasepleasepleaseplease...
And he pointed at her. Not the cold air beside,
or her sisters warm and cuddled and hating on the other side, but her.
"That one."
And then she was so happy, so excited for the
adventures, that she wasn't particularly concerned with hearing anything.
"But sir!" the Doctor exclaimed. "That one...
to be honest, we've had some problems with her. Surely you'd like
one that's more docile with a higher intelligence score?
I'd hate to see Your Excellency have to deal with that one. It was
made ... we.... errrr.. of course, all of our children are quality
products sold to good families as servants, and she's very healthy... and
of course there's no flaw in the design process but... it's attention
deficit, we hear from our vets, and she can't integrate properly with her
peer group as you can see. She'd be breaking things all over.
Scheduled for recycling soon. I really feel you'd be happier with..."
His smile looked funny, then, and then he was
mad.
"Did I make something unclear about my order?
"
"Sir! Of course not sir!
And they took her out the door. And it was
warm
and
cold and blowy like the fans and so many things all at once...
"Would you like her delivered to your servant
quarters, sir? They'll train her with the proper graces and your
tastes in conversation and when Your Excellency requires..."
"Don't be foolish!" he snapped. "I
don't play with pets like some stupid child or sick old man. It simply
appears to be uncommonly lively and in good physical condition for this
hackjob establishment."
"But sir, what else are we supposed to do with
her?"
"Shut up. You - take that thing to the Jugend.
That one will be the new Seraph."
Seraph...
"Wh-what!? But Your Excellency, there are
top-level students in the first-class citizen's academies whose parents
would kill for that honor! You really can't mean... I mean,
Lord Krelian might not approve of..."
"Are you mentally stunted? You, over there,
you're my new assistant, and I'm finished here. My old assistant,
as he seems to feel that Lord Krelian is both preferable to and more powerful
than the Prince of Solaris, will be transferred to Lord Krelian's project
to be reassigned at the laboratory's discretion."
Oblivious to the aghast looks two-dozen guards
and mid-level government officials were casting her (and the horrified
screaming of one rather pompous bureaucrat being carried off by an officiously
floating cube), Seraphita beamed and wavewaved good-bye.
***
She did not run into the table. Or, when
pressed, veer boldly into the wall. They could not guide her over
the edge, or into the operating room, without gentle hands shaking them
free and a sphinx's smile answering their astonishment.
That was, in the end, the accident. It was
cold up here. An abyss above ground. Contradictory, non?
Life, as they say, is full of accidents.
Life itself is an accident. The one in a million chance that chromosomes
will combine just-so, beating out all the other contenders, and produce
the uniqueness of one's self. One blind, limited organism seeking
another - running and falling into the miasma of a greater existence.
All according to nothing resembling the whim of God, to whom most servants
are interchangeable regardless of eye color or hair, and classifiable only
by their proximity to the earth and the Truth.
That was what was written in the programs for
biology class. As she had been top of her biology class, the girl
really should know. She had also been the head girl of her school
- tested for and confirmed to have an above-average etheric potential.
It was speculated that she'd have been going to the Jugend next year -
her parents had even bought her a uniform already. Anything for their
little girl on the cusp of promotion to full first-class citizenship.
The pride of her residential section, and the hope of her family.
But she would never see the corridors and classrooms of the promised land
now.
There was a very simple explanation for that.
First off, she was sitting in mid-air on top of an automated transport
drone programmed to lead her to her death. Secondly, she was blind.
The atmosphere was thin, and grown unnaturally
thick with noise around her. Transports engaged, children shopping
with their mothers, and young Jugend elite on drill. All blended
into the constant mechanical hum of force and wind that made this place
Solaris. She could feel the sun on her back. For she was above
they, and they were most certainly above the clouds, which were not under
them either, and would not be.
Hysteria. But not about falling. That
was something she knew would not happen, and since the accident she had
known many things. Like where the controls on the computer were to
play music, and where her brother's electronic pet had curled up in the
shade to run out of solar energy and go inactive.
Hysteria. That was not to be understood,
and it galled her. She couldn't even read the books on psychology
and mental damage - the ones they'd given her in cram school and she'd
obediently stuffed into the soft grey new tissue of her mind.
Hysteria. Her walls were breaking down.
Somewhere in the back of her throat she was sobbing.
She knew that there were people all around her,
and that they did not see her but were on their way to more important things.
She knew this because she had once been very much like that. Not
jeering, not caring - just not seeing the defectives disposed of
using the most efficient system known to man or divinity. They would
hover, then scream and be left to the mercies of gravity. Hauled
off to the laboratories for martyrdom to the cause of the jihad, maybe.
But they were defectives, you see. You don't think about defectives.
You don't register defectives on those pretty irises that sparkle and shine
for your mind's corresponding eye.
Defectives were a burden on the life-support systems
of their citadel. Better that the defectives be gotten rid of or
put to good use than occupy a space that an able-bodied citizen might.
It made perfect sense. Wasting resources on defects took those self-same
resources away from the work towards the salvation of the lambs and the
furthering of the glory of God.
Rationally, it made quite alot of sense.
The way to live with constant fear is to ignore
it. And so she did because she did not want to think about falling.
Someone shouted above her. He was to be
disposed of too? Defective. Why was he screaming? No
one would hear. It was easier to stay sane that way. Like ignoring
the Lambs, and the white noise of your sector power generator thrumming
away your lifetime.
Higher now. She could feel it.
It wasn't fair, being defective, or that she couldn't
cry. And it also wasn't fair that she could play it back in her head
just like the latest public service drama, complete with special effects
and surround sound. The delivery vehicle had backed out too early,
and smashed into a small transport pod shuffling second-class academics
to their weekend cram school. And the glass had cracked the world
into a thousand mirrors, burning hot, and she could see such ephemeral
sensations as stabbing. And waking. And hospital small and
sheets and the knowledge that she was defective, and second class is not
worth a first-class pair of new bionic eyes. Defective, defective,
damaged and wrong. It was what she had learned. Her removal
was the law. There was to be no room on the arc for defectives because
they hindered the great work of God. Everyone knew that. The
smart one in their work block, who got out of shifts with a special writ
to study. Oh she knew that, she knew that did she?
Be careful when you're driving, children.
Make sure someone else is standing closes to the observation glass.
Or else you might end up a defective too. Wouldn't that be a shame?
She knew that.
And now the things she knew were from some unnatural
contortion of her senses not gifted by God at birth. Defective.
Deus had no more use for her, and the world was whispering her secrets,
and it was all wrong.
They were reaching the outskirts. The screaming
had stopped. Was he given to the labs, then? She was to be
dropped oe're the edge, in respect to the efforts of her family.
It... it was going to hurt. Mass times velocity is...
A strange sensation, weeping only in your sternum.
Shuddering, feeling no moisture, poised on the edge of absurdity.
And then it stopped.
"You can save me," she knew, feeling something
out in the darkness.
"Why should I save you? You're just a defect,"
he spat, the one she knew could save her, and she also knew that it meant
more than the traditional scorn. For some reason of knowing, veering upwards
as leviathan, it did not seem odd at all.
"I don't know. I'm just a defect.
I don't really think you should save me. I think I'd like to fall
now."
She had been going to Jugend next year, but there
was no place in the heavenly host for her now. She had wanted to
go to Jugend. The light at the end of the maze of work and work and
work and death that trapped them all on the lowers. That ruthless monotony
that killed them all, one by one, years before their own true deaths.
"I know things now. More than I knew before.
Before, I mean, when I was going to Jugend. I..." was her voice small,
then? Was that what that sounded like? Things rang in a much
more three-dimensional way now. " You have to know alot, to go to Jugend.."
"I'm aware of that. What do you know now?"
his voice was hard, but she knew, so it was alright.
Maybe.
"Things. They just... come to me.
Compensation for lost senses by enhancement of etheric abilities, I suppose.
There have been tests conducted on that reported in the scientific news.
I guess I've missed those now, though, since they haven't taken me south
to the labs. I'm even a defect for that," she slipped off the cube onto
the ground, which was much closer now- a short leap that must have been
his doing.
"Yes, I suppose you are. Be thankful for it."
"What would they do to harm a citizen in the labs?
Routine tests..." she knew then that that was not something she wanted
to know, or talk about, and thus unknew it quickly. There were too
many secrets here for a person who knew things to attempt to fathom.
"...Do you know how hard it is, knowing things? I'm glad that they'll
be getting rid of me. I knew my brother was delighted to see me fall
while he whispered words of condolence, and I knew my parents were so very
very disappointed in me when they told me they were proud of their brave
girl for not being sad about dying. I wish I hadn't had to know.
I wish I hadn't. I wish I'd seen them smiling at me and lying about
everything being alright, because I'm going to die anyways, so what's the
matter with that? Couldn't I just have that? God has no love
left for the likes of me."
"You think God has love for anyone? You're
too naive. How do you presume to know the mind of Deus?"
"I know the minds of the chosen of God."
"That's true enough."
What would she do if she lived, anyways?
The perfect country was doing her a favor, by erasing this horrible embarrassing
scene from her existence.
"I tried, and I tried, and I tried so hard to
make myself better so I could ascend, but," her voice broke," all those
weekends working, never having a life which sounds so stupid and
sentimental but I swear to you it's not. I want to read again. Reading
was my life, do you know that? What good is a student who can't read?
Everything comes to nothing now. I might as well not have tried at
all."
The ground was rough beneath the hard patent soles
of her shoes. This must be the so-called Prince of Solaris. It appeared
in the milky mother-of-pearl endings at the dead junction to mainline nerves.
Stone was a luxury of royalty, and surely that tenor was not the elusive
Emperor Cain cloistered with his gospel.
Mortification, and not hysteria. In her
last hour, she had played the fool. Embarrassing herself infront of an
army commander. Thinking that there might be a point in... oh God.
Why did she even still care?
"Get back on the cube."
"Yes, sir," he would send her to the skies,
now. The calm within her had sunk too low and too far and now
she was not just a defect but pathetic.
Ah, but she could curl in on herself. Whirl
down and disappear and erase this whole mortifying farce.
"I am known for my poor judgement, among other
things," he announced, hating his sympathy with all the passion he could
muster. "Cube transport, overide previous order. You are to
deliver the citizen reclassified Cherubim to the Jugend."
When she arrived, they tried to replace her eyes.
To call her family, give her old rank, greet her by the surname, to move
the whole family lot to the residential parkland as was fitting - but she
handed them a placid no on all fronts.
Do as she asks, dears. Kelvina will know
if you haven't.
***
Sometimes, he came in for injections.
She knew this because she was always in here for
injections. Or implantations. Or surgeries. Or uplinks
arranged with wireless miracles originating from the silicon all around
her. All around her. In her too. A little nip, a little
tuck, and plastic here there everywhere.
He had been to the lab within her memory exactly
fifty-two times in the past two years, preceeding which he had resided
as a half-formed lump of flesh in one of the tubes directly south of her,
as far as aolder building schematics suggested. Fifty three actually,
if one deemed appropriate that the incident in which he had not entered
the lab but hesitated and fled be counted. Generally, as it did not
involve his physical presence, she did not consider this a valid example
of attendance. It was of course in any case irrelevant and largely
outside her designated boundaries of thought, but during lulls in the information
flow it was a suitable placebo to mull over trivial facts and their status
as per her own experience.
This was one of those lulls. The longest
depression of activity she had as yet experienced.
A week ago it had started, when he had come in
the sliding hiss of a door to receive the sterilized prick she herself
was largely numb to by now. The veins in her arms had collapsed exactly
five months, seven minutes, and twenty-two seconds ago and such chemicals
as were deemed necessary to the maintenance of her wetware could be introduced
into the empty sockets that her shoulders had become. Her arms had
been removed once they became extraneous to laboratory convenience or essential
function.
No, he did not flinch. He did not look at
Krelian - Krelian himself - but stared blankly at the wall.
A sensible boy.
She was, perhaps, watching him too closely this
time. She had never particularly bothered with the boy (who was growing,
she noted, at a rate entirely unsuited to Cain or Abel classes of the species
Homo sapiens deus, and as such the likely reason for his frequent visits
to the domain of Lord Krelian) before. Until a week ago there had
been more neural distractions. Flows of data plugged into the ports
at her cheeks, run through the wetware component of her processing center
in hopes of providing Lord Krelian with scientific data. Said data
had not been checked within that span of days plus five hours, seventeen
minutes, and three seconds. This was disturbing, if she could be
said to have felt something at the prospect.
Limbless, not breathing, and suspended in a vat
of blue-ish ooze in which inhaling was an ill-advised impossibility, it
struck her posotronic brain her with all the force of an electromagnetic
scrambler that she did not want to die.
How very odd.
Those before her had very much wanted to die,
or so she surmised from the pitying looks she was given by certain custodial
staff when they sprayed down the equipment at the dead of morning.
She did not except them to do anythign for her, as they had tails and extra
limbs and several problems beyond her own, but it was still interesting
to note that beyond that they could muster any sort of reaction to their
own state. Her existance, more integral to scientific research than
their own, was surely more fulfilling mired in calculations instead of
dishwater.
She was, she knew with artificial instinct, the
fourth version of her line and the only one surviving. The others
had been previous prototypes and scrapped to improve upon the original
design. Their bodies had likely been obtained from shipments of the
groundbased humans designated Lambs who were not converted into sustenance
or expendable-class citizenry. Perhaps she had committed some sort
of transgression within the work detail, or been transferred immediately
upon arrival in order to avoid unnecessary tissue damage to experimental
materials. She really couldn't say - physically or in mental monologue.
The details had been deleted from her memory banks, unlike those left within
the cruder and less responsive hard drives of her ancestors.
Yesterday, they had brought in another, and her
results were neatly inscribed on the electronic tablet that version four
could make out with perfect implanted clarity through easily-ignored nutrient
sludge.
Was she flawed in some way? Well, naturally.
Or else there would not be a fifth version in the works. And yet...
and yet...
For a guru of the threads of life, Krelian affected
a deadness about him. Deadness in the boy being pumped full or stabilization
drugs. Deadness in her body, and her eyes, and if she felt herself
for the first time glaring out of the tank instead of flicking her eyes
across the network with all the passivity of a silicon processor, then
so be it.
She was not flawed.
Diagnostic check. She was NOT flawed.
But there it was. Something better.
Maybe it had a more docile emotions grid, was that it? When had she
ever betrayed such human weakness as a processor? When? When
had she ever!? How DARE he presume that she couldn't handle a higher
network flow, or repress the remaining neurotransmitters unaltered by the
nanotech!?! He was just a stupid, ignorant, wetware...
Oh no.