Relics

Jon grows weary in my thoughts. Now, when I see myself and this locket chained to me, I hate that I am without him.

Like everyone else, Jon did not give me this locket. It was always mine, but he was the first to notice it. In a sea of fluorescent color, bold characters vying to stand out against the darkest digital black sky, this locket, he said, was the only thing made of gold.

“Soft and muted, it has curves.”

He traced his hands before my eyes in the shape of two crescents above a V.

“It is the symbol of love,” he said. “It is a heart.”

What is a heart?

A heart is the one thing Jon must have wanted to have. A heart is a relic. It is a vessel of organic matter that sends “feeling” through a person. That feeling, he told me, is more powerful than any thought or any synthetic field we could engage in.

This feeling is too obscure for me. But, for him, feeling was more important than anything, even me.

He was my partner, and he chose feeling over the love we were designed to experience. And yet, I cannot bring myself to replace him. I would not want to. I could not bear to be abandoned another time.

“Jein,” he said, with finality rising in his voice. “If I do not go, I may never go. I am selected.”

And, I was not.

I promised not to hate him for being selected. But, I could not promise I would not hate being alone. That would lead to me corrupting the program that said I loved him.

His neon green shirt faded almost as dark as the black walls of the house. I knew if he stayed here and missed the opportunity to engage in the Organic Systems Trial, he would be the one to corrupt our love code.

“When will you return?” I asked.

“I may not. The program stipulates that it might be irreversible, hence the trial.”

He must have seen my orange dress fade to dark lava. There was no other reason for false hope.

“But, I will see you again. I promise,” Jon said.

Now, in my mirror, I try to see him. I try to see him in the heart-shaped styling of my auburn hair. I try to see him in the heart-printed dress I ordered from the designers. I try to see him in this locket that is part of me.

Maybe that was what he meant by seeing me again. If only I could know he is looking back at me. So far, the only thing he was right about was that he may not return.

Immediately after Jon’s transfer into the new system, the authorities suspended the Organic Systems Trial indefinitely. They lost communication with the subjects, and they feared they were killing them.

I know the truth. They are killers.

The people of the past once knew death too. They lost people. When I go to the historical archives to view the old films, I see what led to mass extinction. The constant pushing, the declining, the aging, the dying. Organic matter gets sick, like a corrupted code. No matter how many experiments are done, nature runs its program.

The Organic Systems Trial wanted revival of that old way. Because of their irresponsible experiment, I lost him.

I hear footsteps. Instead of Jon, my housemate Lili appears in my mirror.

“I love the new look, Jein,” she says. “When Darwin returns from work, the guys and I are going to try new tastes at the Tokyo place. Come with.”

I turn to her. I see how she can be a new program of love for me. A friend. The doctors say a family unit living in the house with me will help with my loss. I see that. I want to see me and her together more.

But, it has been two years without Jon, and I am still not ready.

Lili has empathy skills. She knows the thoughts I am having.

“We want to be closer to you, Jein. Really. We’ve lost too.”

Winston with his spiky blue hair comes peeping in. They are programmed to be this. They are programmed to think about loss -- to understand me. It would be nice to forget about Jon and pretend we are family.

“Okay,” I tell them. “I’ll go.”

I follow them out to our common area, a make-believe jungle. Hologram greenery flows down the midnight walls, things the people of the past called trees. There are tiger cushions, orange like my hair, black stripes deep like my eyes.

Winston drops into a cushion.

“We are leaving, not lounging, Winston,” says Lili.

Winston stares at the display wall, blue eyes big as the gauges in his ears. The news anchor says what I do not think is possible.

“Citizens are warned to stay in their housing units,” the anchor says. “A virus has infected several essential programs and can lead to permanent erasure of speech and thought faculties. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention believe the virus is transmitted by audio visual exposure to others that are infected.”

Winston stands and begins pacing like some cleaning robot.

“Will you stop that?” Lili is cupping her violet face.

“Will you stop ordering me around?” Winston says. “I’m worried about Darwin. We can’t leave him out there.”

Lili touches the lock code on the door.

“Lockdown system engaged,” says the house. The baseboards and window frames become emergency red. They flash for three of us, but one of us is not here. Darwin.

I think the empathy programming is reverting. We are in survival mode now.

“Are you crazy?” Winston pushes past Lili and touches the lock code.

“Lockdown system disengaged,” says the house.

Winston’s eyes slant in disgust. “You would leave one of our own to be infected?”

“I am programmed to protect this house unit and its inhabitants from threats, and Winston, you are now becoming a threat,” says Lili.

I do not want to lose anyone else. Why doesn’t Lili want to preserve life? These housemates are not working properly.

I want to tell them the truth. This is destiny. We are all infected with the human virus already. It is the peril of our programming. We make mistakes. We do things to jeopardize ourselves. We lose things.

“You guys!” I shout.

I point to the wall display, and there, big as all of us, there is the virus infecting its host.

The digital anchor gapes at us, unblinking, unmoving. Silent. Stuck.

“Turn it off,” says Winston. “Turn it off!”

Lili touches the display power. The room turns black.

What now? Where is Darwin?

The door opens by two degrees before it is stopped by Lili.

“Please, let me in,” says Darwin. I hear the desperation. I want him inside too.

“He’s not infected. He’s talking to us,” I say. “Don’t you hear him?”

It almost works. But Lili, eyes flitting left to right and then squeezing shut, she has the brittlest empathy programming of them all.

“Darwin,” she calls through the crack. “You have been exposed to lots of programs out there. You are likely already corrupted. I cannot let you in.”

“Don’t do this, Lili,” I say. Winston’s eyes are pleading along with me.

I think something is erupting inside Darwin. He will not be murdered by callousness. He is slamming the door against Lili, again and again.

“Let me in!” Darwin chants. “Let. Me. In.”

Lili, engaging even more strength, grows darker and more solid. No. She will not move.

I have learned through my study of the people of the past, of human motivation, that the only thing that can subvert a power exertion is the threat of losing that very power.

I tell her.

“If you do not let him in, Lili, I will turn on the display and infect us all with whatever is lobotomizing that news anchor.”

She looks at me, mouth in a circle. She cannot fathom why I would rather be lost than lose again. The moment of hesitation is enough for Darwin to overpower her.

Lili stumbles back. She covers her eyes and ears. She will not hear or see any of us. In a blur, she darts into her room and slams the door.

I look at Darwin. He is panting, glowering at both of us.

“Are you alright, mate?” Winston asks Darwin.

There is nothing said between the two of them. Only the faint sound of codes bleating back and forth. Their brows are sky high, mouths drooping open, eyes frozen and glazed over.

Nobody is there.

“Darwin? Winston?” I am backing away now.

They are infected.

I do not know why I am not. But, if I can stand here in the presence of corruption and be untouched, I can stand on the automatic train to the CDC. I can stand the inspection. I can stand the probing of the doctors.

----

“Remarkable,” says Dr. Weller.

I stand in a white room, draped in a white gown, surrounded by programmers in white coats using white displays. The wall in front of me is covered in grey characters. Codes. Symbols. They are my insides.

I know the people of the past could never fathom a surgery they could spectate for themselves. Yet, here I am.

“Jein, your code,” says the doctor. “It’s immune. Rather than delete your own code when you are infected, you replicate a repair code and you export it to other hosts. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“But, why?” I ask.

Dr. Weller chuckles. He catches the eyes of some of the other programmers, and they also smile.

“Do you know where you got that locket? When did you receive it?”

“I…I don’t know,” I stammer. “It has always been a part of me. Hasn’t it?”

“Precisely,” says Dr. Weller. “You are part of the Old Soul program. Your consciousness descends from what once was an organic human, while the rest of us are pure AI programs. I think that novelty is what makes you immune.”

Then, his brows furrow.

“There is one problem,” he says. “You can only export so much repair code before you burn out. Your program will terminate, and your origination code will be erased with it. Though you may rehabilitate other programs, our first oath is to preserve life, so that we may one day return to a relic form. The organic field is imperfect, but our best hope.”

“Preserve my life?” I ask softly.

“Yes, but,” Dr. Weller says, “though we have sporadic contact, and emergency authorization to transfer you to the organic field, we cannot do it without your consent.”

Jon floods my thoughts. This is what he wanted, and it was what I didn’t understand then. This organic field, the replica of the place that people once lived, and this prospect of living in an organic body, it is the chance to feel.

What would it be like to feel instead of only thinking? What would it be like to see Jon in organic form? To feel his skin against mine, to know him in my heart?

Lili is not my family. She kills. She preserves thoughts at the cost of life. If I am in the organic field, she cannot not be my friend. She cannot love me. She cannot love me here or now either.

I am descended from form. Real form. And, to form I will return.

I am told my form will die after 70 years of battery recharging. But, I know that even when I stop thinking, and I stop feeling, I will have lived. When I end, it will be with Jon. It will be with our organic relics, and with our hearts that we felt.

My life will be real, and so will my death.

“Yes,” I told Dr. Weller. “I consent.”