The Human Experience

When Harold told Nancy he was leaving for a remote technical college near Nome, Alaska, she was heartbroken.

“When will you be back?” she asked him. “When will I ever see you again?”

Her blonde hair swung wildly around her face as she gripped his forearms in the late summer breeze. Harold was all smiles and glistening eyes.

“Soon,” he said.

But when a year passed and nary a word appeared from her missing love, Nancy grew concerned. Certainly, there are working phones in Nome. Surely, there was a mail delivery service of some kind operating up there.

Where was her Harold?

She packed a brown leather duffel bag, a gift from her father for weekend getaways to the Cape, and strapped on her finest heels. Her favorite locket, a golden heart-shaped thing bought for her by Harold during a ski trip two years ago, sat pride of place between her delicate collarbones. Thinking of the bitter Alaskan cold, she grabbed her grandmother’s fur coat at the last moment, added a thick pair of stockings, and declared herself ready.

A flight from Boston to Anchorage on the American Flight System cost her $24 even, a small fortune, but she didn’t mind. Harold was more important. From Anchorage, she boarded the tiny plane to Nome. A rotund man with a walrus mustache and a working pocket watch sat next to her.

“First time going to Nome?” he asked good-naturedly.

“Why, yes,” she replied. “Have you been many times before?”

“Oh, yes,” he said. “My wife works in the school up there. Every other week I get on one of these flying tuna cans and see my Margie.”

He dug deep in his breast pocket and pulled out a picture of his Margie. She was a handsome woman with hooded eyes and a square jaw. A tight bun pulled her face into a markedly severe expression, but there was a slight smile to her lips, belying her otherwise intimidating presence.

“She’s lovely,” Nancy remarked. “How did you two meet?”

“I was a Navy man out in Kitsap - that’s in Washington state, you know. Well, I came up the thoroughfare between the base and the main part of town when I saw a pie shop. Dixon’s Pies, it was called. I hadn’t had pie in over six months out there, and who did I see eating there in the window but my sweet Margie,” he said, staring longingly at his wife.

Nancy couldn’t bring herself to see the woman in the photograph as sweet, but encouraged him on just the same. “Was it love at first sight, then?”

“Oh, not hardly. No, I had to go back to base the next day, and my Margie is not the type to be trifled with,” he said, chortling. “No, it took me months of letters during the last siege of the South to get her to take me seriously, and believe me, she had had many a suitor back in those days. I think I won her hand out of sheer persistence.”

The friendly man gave her a wink and stowed the picture back inside his pocket just as the flight captain came over the speakers.

“Ladies and gentleman, we’ll be taking off shortly, but first, I’d like to remind our passengers of a few safety precautions. Our flight time will be one hour and thirty minutes today, and we ask that our guests remain seated with your seatbelts fastened for the majority of the flight. We’ve got a bit of turbulence from a skirmish over the Kuskokwim Moutains this afternoon. Should you feel sick, there are relief bags in the seat pockets in front of you. Welcome aboard and on behalf of the American Flight System, we hope you enjoy your flight to Nome with us today.”

“Not long now,” Nancy whispered to herself.

The view of the Kuskokwim Mountains was supposed to be spectacular, a real highlight of the journey out of Anchorage. Nancy didn’t see the spectacular, however, her head buried deeply in the complimentary relief bag as it was. Her kind seatmate had discreetly changed rows after the third time she’d expunged her lunch.

Given all this, the landing was much smoother than expected, and, pulling her duffel’s strap over one fur-clad shoulder, Nancy took her first steps on Nome soil. A sharp and bitter gust took her by surprise, slicing through her stockings and making her gasp.

“You’re not going out there like that, are you?” called a male attendant over the wind. “You’ll freeze to death out here in those clothes!”

Nancy shivered in place. “I don’t have anything else!” she shouted.

Shaking his head, the attendant motioned to one of the female guards on duty. “Clara!” he yelled. “Help get this lady sorted, will ya? She’s worn stockings for God’s sake!”

Walking away, the man continued shaking his head and disappeared behind a fuel truck. Clara, a sharply dressed woman in the royal blue uniform of the American Flight System’s National Guard, marched swiftly to Nancy’s side, steering her toward the tiny airport.

“What do you think you’re doing out here dressed like that? Going for tea?” she spat.

Nancy stiffened in the woman’s arms. “I happen to be on a quest, if you must know.”

“A quest? In Nome? Are you nuts?” Clara yelled over the gale.

The two women leaned heavily into the frigid blast.

“I am not nuts,” she said after it passed. “Have you heard of a school around here? My Harold is a student there!”

“A school? You don’t mean the old tech college in those mountains up north, do you?”

“Why, yes! I believe I do!” Nancy replied eagerly.

“Oh, no. Not another enrollment. If I have to clean up one more mess down here because of that place, I will scream.”

“Whatever do you mean?” Nancy asked.

But before Clara could explain herself, the gentleman from her flight reappeared in the entryway to the airport.

“I’ve chartered a copter to visit my Margie!” he called. “Thought you might like a ride up to the college!”

Nancy was shivering from head to toe and nodded furiously. When Clara spotted the man, she quickly snapped to attention, nodded sadly at Nancy, and disappeared into the airport.

A shiver that had nothing to do with the cold raced down Nancy’s spine. Whatever was going on in Nome, Alaska?

Twenty minutes later, she was cozily packed into the warm seat of a private helicopter with a cup of coffee and a turkey sandwich.

“It was terribly kind of you to take me with you,” she told him, watching a drop of coffee slide down his mustache.

“Oh, I know a new recruit when I see one. What’s your department?” he asked over the hum of the aircraft.

Caught off guard for a moment, Nancy made a quick decision. “Oh, well… I studied art history in New York before it was destroyed in the Bronx Massacre. My father was a captain there and got me out after the first siege. I was very lucky.” This, at least, was true.

“An art lover! Ah, so you’ll be with the Graphics Department then. Shame. Margie’s in charge of the programmers.”

“Mm, shame,” Nancy agreed, nodding her head and thanking her lucky stars her father raised her to be sensibly cautious.

“Well, you are in for a treat! You’ll see when we get there, but they settled the place at the bottom of one of the valleys in the Kigluaik Mountains. It’s an incredible view. How were you chosen?”

“Oh, uh, I was lucky enough to be chosen right out of school. My, er- father is well-connected.”

“Ah,” he said, nodding his understanding. “The way of the world.”

He chuckled softly to himself and leaned back, closing his eyes. Nancy was beginning to feel a little uneasy about this school. Perhaps this quest had been a bad idea after all. She fingered the gold locket at her neck and sat back, watching the mountains taking shape below. Her eyes drifted shut.

“Well, here we are! Your first glimpse of your new home!” Charles yelled, waking her from a light snooze.

Nancy leaned forward in her seat. The mountains were colossal. She’d never seen anything like it in her life. Why on earth would anyone build a school in this place?

The pilot steered them expertly to a small helipad on the uppermost tower of the tallest building.

Nancy followed Charles out of the copter, fighting the onslaught of icy wind. Charles grabbed her hand and hauled her through the double glass doors at the far end of the tower.

Inside, he showed her down a long, brightly lit corridor painted a sickly beige and full to bursting with security cameras. A cold sweat broke out at the base of Nancy’s neck. Why, she couldn’t say, but she felt suddenly sick.

When they reached the main arena, Nancy dared to look around them. The space was a blinding shade of white with a domed ceiling and corridors shooting off in every direction.

“Where are we?” she asked.

Charles stood silently to the left of her, studying her from head to toe. Nancy gulped.

“Charles?” she asked, feeling lightheaded.

“It really is remarkable,” he said. “You look exactly as you did the day you left.”

“Wh-what?” she asked, growing more terrified by the minute.

He turned and hit a button on the wall. The corridors flooded with people, all of them in the colors of the National Guard.

“What is this?” she cried.

“You really don’t remember?” he asked. “You’re home, Nancy. You stand in the very cradle of your life.”

Nancy looked frantically from one face to the next. There, standing at the back and wearing a scowl was her Harold.

“Harold!” she cried. “Harold, what is this place?”

His face contorted. He walked back through the corridor nearest him, his shoulders hunched in defeat.

“Harold?” she called, her voice cracking.

“He won’t come for you,” Charles said calmly. “Unit 5531, you are under arrest by the Administration of Defense of the New Americas. You will be reprogrammed and reassigned.”

He stalked toward her, a look of mad glee coloring his face.

“At last, 5531,” he hissed. “At last you came back to us. Five long years we’ve been hunting for you. Our only escapee since the blasted war. You look just like her, you know. His daughter.”

“What? Whose daughter?” she asked, struggling against the guards now gripping her arms tightly.

“The General’s daughter, of course. She died in that massacre in New York. When he saw you, he took pity on you and bribed a programmer to give you your new life. Did you really think you were human all this time?” he said, laughing.

He waved his hand dismissively and the guards carried her kicking and screaming to a padded cage surrounded by hundreds of others just like it. A mechanic switched out the name plate to read 5531.

“But I’m Nancy!” she cried. “I’m not a number! I’m human! I’m a human being! You can’t do this!”

“Shut up! I’m trying to sleep!” someone in the cage next to her yelled back.

“What is this?” she asked. “Where am I?”

“You’re a droid, just like me, idiot. You were built for combat, nothing more. Stop screaming already.”

“But I’m human!” she cried. “I’m human!”

“No, you were human,” her neighbor replied. “Now, you’re a tool for victory just like us. Get used to it.”

“Why? Why are they doing this?” she sobbed.

“Why? How else do you think we won the war? Why do you think the war started in the first place?”

“What?” Nancy gasped.

Her neighbor snickered. “Get some sleep. You’re going to need it.”

“But - but I’m human,” Nancy muttered, her voice echoing off the walls, filling the chamber of a thousand cages. “I’m human. I’m human.”