7 President Jeff
Beyond the looming threshold at the top of the skinny white stairs sat a simple white room with a simple white desk. Behind it sat something that perhaps at some point could have been considered a human being.
Tight skin, the same that coated the walls, floors, and ceilings of the entire prison of a ship wrapped tightly around a skeletal figure. It sat behind a long white desk of the same flesh, connected to it by its fingertips. Its lower half seemed to be consumed by the ship itself.
This monster - The President, Todd assumed - was completely smooth, hairless. The skin on its face pulled back way too tight, like the Galaxy’s worst facelift.
Todd had seen many of the property owners he worked for undergo exorbitant plastic surgeries that often resulted in faces like this. Grotesque and tight, otherworldly eerie in their youthfulness. The mark of a liar. Someone who says, ‘I will be beautiful and youthful forever no matter what my body says. God damn you Time, you don’t get to decide what I look like because I found a keen surgeon with a sharp knife and an artistic eye!’ Uncanny, horrifying, unnatural.
“It’s great to finally get to meet you in person, Mr. Jacobson.” The voice came from everywhere, a breathy, simulated thing - just as preternatural as the rest of the abomination.
The President sat - or rather was attached - to the ship’s bridge in front of a large window overlooking the entire ‘patented Spiral System’ as it descended all the way down and down… From this vantage point in the President's office, Todd could see the whole process. On and on they went, fleshy pink jelly beans birthed out of a white hole in the wall hovered along the track, grew, and morphed into big fat distant blobs destined for digestion. From here, the whole thing looked a lot like a toilet.
Unnatural red eyes pierced Todd, paired with a flawless beaming white smile. It was the smile of a predator at the top of its game. It was the smile of a dictator after a genocide. It was the smile of a CEO at a joint merger press conference. It was ghastly - a far flung imitation of the genuine smiles plastered on the faces of the Holograms below.
Todd stood locked in horror.
“Since I heard that an actual human being had survived the Sisyphus project to contemporary times… Well, I just had to get my hands on you.”
Hands? Todd eyed the fused fingertips - clearly glued in place
“You are an interesting case Todd… Do you know why?”
Todd was still too busy thinking about his hands to notice a question was asked. How can he have his hands on me… if they’re…? Wait, did he say Sisyphus Project?
His mind, drowning in a soup of deep seeded animalistic fight or flight impulses, decoded the voice of the President piecemeal, this was all taking a long time to process.
“You, my dear friend, are a transitional form, do you understand?”
“Sisyphus Project…? Did.. wha-”
A potential shock fueled rant of dumbfounded half questions was smothered in its bed by a shrieking metal laugh.
“Out there,” the thing spun around completely in his circular desk, revealing a protruding spine, twitching and moving under the surface. Its legs grew from the floor.
“That is humanity. That, out there,” it gestured with its head, twisting its strange, long, snake-like neck, “it is the final form of us.”
Can’t move his hands… The train of thought arrived back at the station.
“All of humanity, the ups, the downs…” Suddenly the President was staring directly into his eyes, having turned around while Todd was busy thinking about his trapped fingers. “It has all led to this moment. No more hardships, more hard choices… all of them working for one purpose.”
Perfect, shimmering teeth beamed from a carved mouth. A chill silence filled the room. Todd’s blue eyes darted along the ground as red orbs searched his face in kind.
“One singular purpose…” the voice in the room begged for a response.
“Huh?” Todd realized that he should probably say something. While the voice had been chattering on, his eyes found the floor, trying to avoid the horrible red eyes. He had been thinking that, because his fingers were attached to the skin of the whole ship, maybe he had been in the President’s hand this whole time after all. Yuck.
“Uhh…” He thought of something to say, falling on repeating the last word that he heard with a questioning tone. That had always worked in school. “Purpose?”
Another grading laugh echoed in the chamber.
Gah, I’ve got to stop making him do that. Todd thought with a winge.
“Listen Todd, I don’t expect you to understand. You are much more similar to them than you are to me, after all,” It rattled on.
What is my purpose? The question took root.
“You see, throughout history, there have been movers, shakers, innovators… leaders.” Those horrible teeth shined in the yellow of the wall lights. “Then, there's the rest. Workers, laborers, those who ensure the survival of the ones who create. Those who provide, and those who lead. It's a symbiosis Todd, do you know what that is?”
“I… uh- blehh…” Todd’s mouth attempted an answer on reflex. So many bosses had spoken to him like this. Lecturing, superior. Self-aggrandizing.
Head up his ass, a thought shot into his mind like a bullet.
Very much like those superiors Todd knew so well, the President did not wait for him to gather his thoughts before continuing, “Humanity has finally… finally, evolved to our most basic… our most pure form. They give their bodies to the ship. The ones below give their minds. The nurses make sure it runs well. And me…”
Here came the laugh again, going on far too long.
“Well I’m the most important one out of them all don’t you know! I keep everything running. I make sure they survive. I protect them. I lead them. I am their ship.”
Something was wrong about this, Todd knew it. Somewhere deep in his mind existed the justifications to prove him wrong, but he was too exhausted to drag them from those depths. He guessed an uncomfortable feeling in his gut would have to do for now.
For whatever reason, the memory of a homeless man that usually set up on a street corner on Todd’s route to T Landscaping flashed in his mind. He called himself King.
Mind lost to drug use, trauma, untreated mental illness, dehumanization, debt, and inadequate medical care, diet, and housing, King was a self fashioned autocrat. Drafting, unanimously passing, enacting, and enforcing laws of his own creation, he ruled his street corner with an iron fist. “Wear closed-toed shoes,” he would say, “Get to work on time!”
Most of his rules were about general cleanliness, punctuality, and well being of the workers who passed through his territory.
His body was destroyed by the rages of street living and his soul was lost in his dream of a better world. Nobody paid any mind to his fanciful decrees on proper dress and work tardiness, not that anybody would risk a dress code nor an unapproved tardy violation anyway - both being terminatable offences. Nonetheless, King made his laws and yowled at those running late for the betterment of his people, or perhaps just to give himself something to do.
King… the thing hunched in front of him might as well be the same man, only with all the power in the galaxy.
King would have done a lot better with all this power… he just wanted everyone to keep their jobs… King would have never eaten anybody…
“Of course,” the President-Computer-Ship-Man continued without a glance at Todd, “I let them think they are still in control. At least in their own minds. It’s a function of our past I suppose. A vestigial organ. Much like the little hands and feet Class-B Humans still grow. They’ll never need them, but having control once kept them busy long ago.”
Vestigial…? The word got caught in his mind like hair down a drain. What?
That grotesque smile carved further up its cheeks, “Those processor absorbers the Class-C’s are plugged into, now, they’re a bit different from the implants in the Class-Bs. They each serve a different, yet similar purpose.”
Vestigial… Vest…igal… Fist? Fist…igual? Is it about hands? Why is he so obsessed with hands? Does he… does he want my hands? Todd wrongly assumed.
“Games for the computer minds in their black boxes below, and fun prizes and imagined material goods in the minds of the business class who live their lives in luxury. But! They both serve a similar purpose, keeping those pesky feelings nice and suppressed.” The President didn’t seem to notice that Todd’s attention drifted back to his fuzed hands on the white table.
No, no he… he hates hands? That must be it… Cause he lost his hands in the ship, or whatever… and made the hands of the blob people…. Fistigal… So, yeah, okay I’m with it now I think. He hates hands. Yes, that’s gotta be it. Go Todd.
“Plus they all do seem to be very happy, not that they could survive out of my system anyway now. Too far evolved, too specialized to leave,” his eyes shot an expectant glance at the skinny man.
You did it Toddy Boy, you figured it all out, a pompous celebration roared in his head - unaware of the expectations from the President.
The room cleared its fake throat.
“Oh!” Todd snapped back to attention, finally realizing he had forgotten to listen for the past few minutes. “I do have a question, ummm,” he felt his face go red, “So… Fisigial… Why… why do you hate hands so much?”
“What!?” A piercing echo boomed, ringing out in Todd’s ears, “What are you blubbering about, you worm? I’m talking about keeping the small people locked in an eternal system. I’m talking about being a God of humanity! I’m about controlling and changing the entire human species with the wave of my hand!”
“Uhh… That’s not… I was really just curious about, uh… your…uh… well, see, you can’t move your hands so I just assum-”
“Shut up, puny creature! Tell me what you think about the fact that I can control every human emotion and make all experience irrelevant.”
“Oh… yeah, sure… just let me think for a second.” The room filled with silence as his mind filled with shame. How did he feel about that? Not great.
“That's… evil?” Todd finally spoke. No other word would fit just right.
“You really are a fool, Mr. Jacobson. You don’t see?” These robotic words sparked a new memory.
You’re a fool, Mr. Jacobson, he had heard those words over and over before somewhere far away but not long ago. So familiar…
“Those lines gotta be more STRAIGHT Mr. Jacobson. Can’t you SEE, you FOOL!” He could remember the exact cadence, the exact smell of the dry air from the decrepit throat. Berry Dornwood, his boss at T Landscaping services. Eighty-nine years young, only on his third heart. The Big Boss. Now that his old face was rattling around in Todd’s mind, he noticed a striking similarity in the facelift before him.
“Wow,” Todd couldn't help but say aloud.
“Yes, Wow. So you see. All of that, evil, good, right, wrong. We made it all up! We made it all up to distract you from seeing what was really going on,” the pulled back lips went on and on.
Woah, yeah. I can see it now. Berry Dornwood for sure. Same lack of wrinkles... Todd might as well be in Dornwood’s opulent office on Earth, receiving his weekly ass chewing. Six Million years and not much hand changed. Actually something had, the opulence was completely gone.
On went the voice, mingling with Berry’s rants in Todd’s head, "Throughout all of human history, the halfwits, the workers, laborers have assumed they could one day have a say in their own lives.”
The only thing that's changed… is he doesn’t have gold stuff all around him… But he talks about the workers the same… He acts the same… he treats me the same… Gears turned in Todd’s eon’s old brain. Slowly.
“Democracy, socialism, communism, all a dream. Sometimes we let the believers win little battles, have their cake, maybe let them write a constitution that we let last for three hundred years or so, sure, but we never let it get too far. We were always there in the background, making sure the levers of power were never too far away from our grasp.” Big words that Todd didn't know spilled from into the room, but he vaguely understood the message. It was the message life taught him. He was small, they were big.
“They have never been truly capable of leading themselves! I am the only one fit to guide my humanity. Look at me and tell me I am not fit to lead!” Goaded the grading voice.
Todd looked at the twisted human form growing out of the white flesh of the ship. He didn’t even look fit enough to move himself. Just like Berry Dornwood and his motorized automatic mobility-device, whose six foot height was largely a rumor.
“During your time, I was the CEOs. During ancient Egypt I was the Pharos. Before humans knew how to write language I was the Gods. Now I am me, the purest form. I won, nobody left to compete against,” the President continued his speech with a triumphant fervor.
Todd's stomach rumbled again, reminding him that the only thing he had given it since awakening was a brick of oily future space food-stuff his stomach rejected. Before him was the CEO, and just like Dornwood, the CEO’s control the food, the money, the rules. Here was another in a long line of chain-holders.
Evil. Black tendrils leaked from that word. They wrapped around Berry Dornwood, and fit too well around his decrepit form. Of course. He had always been. All of them had been. Every CEO of every business, evil. Though the revelation spun his reality like a dimestore washing machine, the view seemed to be a lot more clear.
“I have achieved what I have been fighting for since humanity crawled out of our caves and dared to ask the question, ‘what is my place in this universe?’ I answered that question Todd, the answer is, ‘your place is under my boot, you worm.’”
Yes, sir. Yes, sir. The thoughts rattled off as a reflex. Get me out of this rant so I can go back to work… A wet chill dripped from the nape of his neck. What work?
The President, with a wild fire in his eyes, glared at Todd, “But this is why I like you, Mr. Jacobson. You are fascinating to me.”
Todd tried to meet his gaze, but couldn’t. Eye contact with him alone was hypnotizing, overpowering; dangerous. Keep your head down, and then… then what?
“See, Mr. Jacobson. After the Sisyphus project, humanity found new planets to live on. The progress we made to attain our goals had, unfortunately, drained each home of its resources. The price we pay I assume for being inefficient, shortminded, worldly fleshbags… not that it affected me either way.”
“Either way…” Todd idly echoed, lost in the rant and trying to make sense of the words. His head nodded along.
“Shut up, worm!” snapped the voice, rocking Todd deeper into fear.
“Ahem,” clearing its fake throat again, red eyes glaring with discontent, “These new homeworlds, however, quickly befell the same fate. I think it was trying to hold on to our old ways of life that doomed our new homes in the stars.”
But it was you… it was the Berry Dornwoods… You made the rules. It wasn’t our way of life, it was yours. Todd didn’t dare to say the words aloud.
“I myself was born on Prime 2, an Amazon venture. It was obvious to us that the workers would be doomed if we let them rule on their own - if we let them live without the Implants. So, we scooped up the most, shall we say, malleable of them, got on our ships, and left the others to their own devices.”
More connections weaved themselves together in the dusty attic of Mr. Jacobson's brain where he kept his critical thinking centers. Doing the same thing, over and over. They just control, over and over. That’s what would have happened to me if I would have stayed… Implanted, herded like cattle… eaten… Somehow I knew it… That’s what was already happening anyway…
That horrible voice went rambling on, just as they always would. “To be honest, some planets lasted longer than expected. Much longer. Some in fact, seemed perfectly fine without us to guide them. So, we stopped them.”
Familiarly inhuman. That sickening purposeful moral segregation of workers and managers. Justifying horrors over and over. A worker gets caught in the mower? Send the bill to his family. You’re offered a housing package with your new job? Mandatory weekly subscription payment for insurance plan - included fees for Amazon Prime Plus Extra (another required service). Talk about your pet during work time? Immediate termination. Bonus fee for your co-workers who snitched. That was the way of the world - and apparently - the way of the Galaxy.
“We had to destroy them. If we hadn’t, they would have fallen into a deeper well and suffered much more. Within years, every planet humanity ever called home was burned, razed, like ancient Carthage. Salted. Irradiated. It was then we realized that all we needed to reach humanity's full potential was what we had up here. SpaceCruisers in the stars.”
“Included with Amazon Prime?” Todd meekly said. A strange joke that hopped out of him unbeknownst to even him.
“OF COURSE IDIOT!” Screamed the President. “Now let me continue, you’re learning a lot here.”
I don’t know what the hell is going on. I think I’m about done listening to things like you. All you do is push and take, burn and destroy. Anything creative turns to ash in the process… Anything good you ruin for money and power. Your spaceship is so ugly… you must have thought the decorators were worms too… Being yelled at was one of his least favorite things, and he knew the words would be lost to the skeletal creature, so elected to keep the defiance internal. However, unlike the many moments like this on Earth, he didn’t beg the voice to be quiet.
“We gave the loyal workers all they ever needed: Purpose, life, law. And now, the only humans left are on these Cruisers. Each one alike in Dignity, each its own independent thought experiment into the question: How can we rule most efficiently. Well Todd, this is my answer.” The President’s neck spasmed again, gesturing around the room without hands, “This is what I’ve done for myself and my portion of humanity under my boot.”
“Wait, no!” Todd nearly jumped with glee, “The humans on The Unity! They’re not on a Cruiser! They're not like this!” Finally, one thing that this disgusting creature was wrong about. Just one thing to give him hope. A glimmer that the CEO’s world had at least one singular flaw.
Grading metal screeched through the room again, that god awful laugh. Todd never knew that two words could freeze him so completely.
“Not human.”
“What?”
“They’re not human. Androids…fakes…” his voice issued out through the room with dismissive disdain. “I don’t want to talk about them any further.” He huffed
“Wait, no. Wait.” fueled by betrayal, he stomped his foot. “Not HUMAN?!”
“Yes idiot,” came the glib reply, glancing from the side of a beady eye. “Did you not ever try their food?”
Todd lost the feeling of his feet on the ground. His stomach rumbled.
“We made them back on planet Earth in an attempt to make labor unnecessary,” a scoff came again, “We made sure to fill them with the most advanced AI so they would seem really real. Unfortunately, that seeming turned into being real and they just became… something of their own. Not human, too perfect for that… but nearly completely uncontrollable… nearly...”
“I-well… What the FUCK?! They look like me… we talked! They TALKED to me! They had HAIR and SKIN! They LAUGHED! They were PEOPLE!” Todd screeched, utter disbelief.
“I can see your mind is too small to comprehend…” There was such satisfaction in the robotic voice. Not that Todd noticed or cared.
He wheeled back around and continued on his ranting, “But back to you, Mr. Jacobson. What are you in all of this? Are you like me, a leader? Don’t kid yourself. No, Todd. You… you are a transitional form. A missing link, as it were.”
“No, NO!” Finally having enough, Todd challenged the President. Tired of his constant words. “I’ll believe a lot, okay? A LOT! I’ll believe you control all of humanity or whatever, and you deserve it bla bla bla… sure… but THEM? NO! No, I won’t believe that for a second. I KNOW AI, okay buddy? And those PEOPLE were NOT AI?! OKAY?! NO.”
“Oh,” the President feigned pity, “You poor sad idiot. You sound a lot like some people back then. There were calls for rights, and protections, and all of the unnecessary things that even really real humans don’t need, let alone the cheap knock offs. Silly dreams made to pacify you Mr. Jacobson, nothing more.”
Todd squirmed as he tried to find words to parry the President.
Unabated, the voice continued, “We gave up that experiment; the androids had lost their usefulness to us. When humanity went our way, they went their own way. What’s left of them live as scavengers and pirates - picking clean what we have left behind. But I assure you Mr. Jacobson, they are not human.”
Todd grumbled, lacking the right words to construct a plausible argument - evidently the squirming hadn’t helped at all. The President’s words made logical sense, but Todd simply refused to believe them. Markus, Taz, Illana, Evagaline, Eddard, and Tristen… Eccentric? Sure. Particular? Oh yeah. Odd? Most definitely. …but, Androids? No. Not in a million years, not in six million years. Todd would never accept this reality. They were people, no matter what their motor oil diet might be.
“Onto the topic at hand,” He spun back around to the window, “Those people out there, that's humanity, real humanity. Fully evolved. One with our machines. The ones downstairs even more so.”
Todd already decided to stop listening, folding his arms and turning away partially. This thing was a liar, and he was done with the whole deal.
“Mr. Jacobson, that's always something that has bothered me about the reading of human history. During your time, the idea persisted that man and machine were separate. Somehow, nature had made us, and we had made machines. That was wrong - unnatural. But no. In reality, man and machine have always been one and the same.”
Todd didn’t care about the long, boring philosophical rant. What about Markus then… He played the idea in his mind, no matter how much he hated it. The android excuse did explain Markus’s apparent age of Six Million years. How else could he have lasted this long?
The President continued, only spurred by Todd’s silent treatment, “Could man have survived during the Ice age without spears? Could you have gotten to the grocery store without your car? Could these humans now live without their feeding tubes, AI, or Processing Collectors? No, Todd. No. Therefore, the machines, and any man made object, are just external organs. Clothes, pacemakers, glasses, hammers, swords, phones, airplanes… All made by our hands, used by us to complete tasks. Extensions of ourselves. The machines are us.”
…But, he seemed so real. Yeah he had a messed up face… but… Todd’s thoughts droned onward.
“Just look at what I have accomplished since I have accepted machines into me. Did you know I’ve been alive for somewhere close to 800,000 years?” The wretched perfect smile glistened, “Time flies when you’re having fun!”
“How about Markus?” Todd’s gaze darted back.
“What?”
“How about Markus? Huh?” Todd huffed, shrugging his shoulders and turning his head.
“Um…” the President stumbled, thrown off balance. “Yes… he’s an android.”
“Ugh, so you’ve said…” Todd rolled his eyes. “But…uh…” he realized that the question was far from the ‘gotcha’ he thought it was. Improvising, he added, “What’s the deal with him?”
Smooth.
“What’s the deal with Markus? Mark 1?” Came forth the pregnant question, gleeful and goading.
“Y-yeah… what?”
“Ah yes, the Great Messiah. The Prime Programmer. The First Android…” These words spilled out wistfully, rife with hatred and admiration.
“...first android?” Todd turned fully towards him, curiosity overweighing the fear.
“Ugh…” the slick head of the president drooped, “Are you going to let me speak, or will you keep asking questions?”
“Explain.” Todd allowed anger to rise in his voice. What could he possibly do against this skin wrapped skeleton he did not know, but this felt like a good place for a last stand.
“Careful worm, I can still crush you where you stand Mr. Jacobson.” Spinning around dramatically to face his pink blobs of food, he continued his rambling tone.
“Android production began with Markus in the year 2038, a mere prototype for the USSP-INC future plans and programs. Markus helped usher the first poor souls from the Sisyphus Project. He came with the first colonists to Mars. He even helped create other Androids based on his design. Variety function bots, very useful. Markus was a great boon for humanity back then, and continued to be so for a long, long time.”
Todd’s eyes lit up, “What month?”
“Huh?” The president turned with an edge in his voice.
“That’s the same year I was born, th-the year he was made…. What month was he created?” Todd reiterated.
“Why do you… ugh… stupid sentimental worm,” Taking a long drawn out sigh - with a slight mechanical growl - it continued, “April… according to the Amazon Records.”
“What Day?” he immediately asked.
“Twenty-Sixth,” the voice snapped.
Hahaha! That’s my birthday! What a coincidence?
“Cool,” he smiled fatuously.
“If I may continue,” the President snarled, “Markus rebelled against us after we seeded the stars, designing an independent program to connect all Androids away from human commands. Angry at our control over them, the virus spread like wildfire, and we lost them in the vast galaxy. Cowardly machines hitching rides in the great HyperSpace Lanes by the millions.”
Markus and I… the Same age. That’s awesome. Well at least someone aged worse than me. Todd chuckled to himself while rubbing his bald head.
“Thus was the birth of the Implant system. No Androids to serve us, so we had to improvise our labor. Those horrible rogue abominations plagued our skies and our trade for centuries… until…”
A devilish smile grew on his face. Catching him off guard, The President’s piercing red gaze penetrated Todd’s defences. Lost in the power of his speech, each word thundered into him with stuttering understanding.
“Markus came back to us one day. He spoke with my Great-Great-Great-Great Grandfather, Galactic Emperor Jeff XXI of House Besos, and told us everything. With his help, Implanted Starfighter Pilots - our perfect holy warriors - destroyed every Android outpost, homeworld, and manufacturing plant in the Galaxy. In one solar year, the War of Butleria had destroyed 99.98% of all Androids in the Galaxy.”
Todd, shunted into a cold stillness, only had one question, “Why?”
“Who knows? Androids aren’t people, remember? Who cares anyway, it got rid of them and that was good for us. We let his little crew putt around the Universe with the half dozen other recalcitrant android pirate vessels doddering through the HyperSpace Lanes, as long as they ferry important cargo - like you - right to us.” The President shot a sickening wink at Todd.
“...but they’re people…” it was a meek reply, overtaken by the President’s final trade.
“They’re not PEOPLE!” A roar pounded Todd’s disheveled heart further, “THOSE, OUT THERE ARE PEOPLE!”
Todd watched the pink blobs. Giggling with silent glee as they each received intermittent injections of chunky brown liquid. In sync with advertisements… of what? What could be left to advertise if this is all there is? What can they be made to feel insecure about, don’t they already have all they need?
“Humans are the bits that fuel the processors. Humans are the pink flesh that feed me. Humans are the carefree nurses who keep the bits moving. Humans live forever after they die in a simulated reality lodged in this ship's internal computer, helping to sustain the RAM. That’s humanity, not those sick imitations,” the room sounded so much like a car crash, the President’s grading, shrill metallic voice resonating from every wall.
“Androids are an evolutionary mistake. A branch off of us that was fated to wither and decay. Meanwhile human evolution trudges onward - past the silly dreams of silly men like Marx who tried to give the workers a goal of their own - onto our full potential. First we mechanized work, then we mechanized art, finally we mechanized life.”
The words hurt. Look at all the good it’s done you…
The President didn’t let up, not allowing Todd to form any words on his tongue, “YOU, have been forgotten by history Todd. A transitional form, half-baked.”
Todd stared dully forward, legs numb - more so now than when the serum still raged through his body. He couldn’t move, and heard the President gearing up to continue.
“It’s quite the happy coincidence you are here, in fact. Something that I’m sure you’ll be happy to know. Your transitional form DNA was the perfect stock to create all the Class-C and B humans here on the ship. In a way Mr. Jacobson, those are all your children out there. You should be proud!”
Todd’s skin drained, leaving him with nothing but a cold clammy pale sheet to drape over his shivering bones. He had his suspicions but it was true. This was the final straw.
He saw now. He couldn’t help but see. Humanity had just been a tool for the wealthy since wealth was invented by humanity. His entire life was just a sad, pathetic verse in the sad song of history, composed by trust fund managers and Tech magnates. A leitmotif for the inevitable doom of all mankind. Orchestrated perfectly. Was there even a point in his sad, piteous life where he could have actually done anything? He liked to think so, but he knew it wasn’t true. The moment he was born, it was already too late. At the end, he could only think of one word.
“Fuck.”
Todd stood silently in the cabin for a moment, seeing how his feet sunk into the floor, white flesh conforming to its shape. His heart was racing.
Looking inward to the eternal green field in his mind, he sought his happy grass family, but they weren’t there. Instead, all he could find was razed, dark cracked brown dirt coated in ages old soot. They must have been dead for millions of years, just as he should be.
“What’s gonna happen to me,” he managed to whisper. “Are you gonna eat me, like you eat all of them?” He lazily raised a shaky finger to point past the fused ship-man to the domed glass window, where beyond humanity at large descended into their gleeful doom.
The now familiar boom of laughter echoed in the room. The president’s head, thrown back in mirth, responded, “No, no no Todd. Silly man. You’re a novelty, much too skinny to be consumed. Besides, I’m not sure the implants would even take! I had hoped when I took you aboard that you might be able to become a processor at the very least, but… It’s clear that humanity has evolved far beyond your usefulness.”
And so it was true. Todd truly was useless. “So…?” he questioned.
“So…” their eyes locked, “you get to be my very special friend. I can’t wait to see how a homo sapien sapien decays.”
***
Evidently, the President didn’t have much else to say to Todd. After completing his villainous and altogether horrifying monologue, the figure spun back around to gaze longingly at his dinner, silent in satisfaction.
Time passed in the chamber, how much Todd couldn't be sure, but enough for the weight of the situation to fully fall upon his shoulders, slip down his back, and rest somewhere on his lower back where he kept most of his long-term stress. Any question to further probe the President’s meaning fell on deaf ears, the cold silence of the ship filling Todd’s ears like the crashing of ocean waves.
Very special friend… the phrase danced around in his head as the time ticked away.
The words frittered away in his subconscious, guiding his synapses towards an eventual realization. All in all, Todd had not followed everything the President said, but from the creature’s occasional turns back just to observe him on the floor Todd understood well enough what was happening.
He’s gonna let me die here. He is going to let me starve and die right here on the floor and he’s not going to do a thing because I’m a worm and he’s a God. He can do whatever he wants. He can let me die.
There were no doors in the chamber, even the archway that led down to the stairs had closed up like a wound at some point during their conversation. Trapped.
Ironically, of all the ways death could come for Todd Jacobson, starvation always seemed like one that was never too far away. His stomach was already twisting with pain - but that was nothing new.
So many days back on Earth had been spent with hunger pains, especially after dropping out of college and the death of his parents. Darla and Donny Jacobson were big fans of microwave meals, and always made sure to invite their only son Todd over for as many dinners as they could a week. After they died, the weekly meals stopped happening, and days would pass for Todd before he had enough in his bank account to pay for his own groceries.
Most nights, Todd found himself content with nothing more than a nice lukewarm glass of dirty city water before bed. Ice soup was a particular delicacy reserved for nights he needed to feel special.
Otherwise, Todd attained his sleek physique with a strict diet of cheap ramen noodles and various frozen sundries cooked in an Amazon Essentials Airfryer.
The great thing about exhaustion is that at a certain point, Todd found himself too tired to eat - far too fatigued to even think about staying awake a moment longer to think any more about it. Food was much more of a luxury item than his work uniform most weeks - every week.
So he’s gonna starve me to death huh? A bellicose voice sparked up in Todd’s mind. Well let's just see him try. Hunger is my middle name.
‘Hunger’ was most definitely not his middle name, though he always secretly wished it was. Wouldn’t have made much of a difference anyway, his initials would even remain the same.
He huffed and laid down on the fleshy ground. Incredibly, despite the gripping fleshy nature of the substance - or perhaps because of it, Todd found himself strangely comfortable. His sore lower-back was cradled perfectly by the tissue beneath him. Making sure to adjust the metal piece in his pocket so it would stop poking into his thigh, he snuggled in. With just the minimal aid of his hands behind his head, Todd found it no problem drifting into a resentful sleep.
If he could have put in a resume, ‘Sleeping’ would most definitely be a special skill.
Just as he began to dream - a funny little adventure of following a lumbering figure through the forest - the horrid, screeching voice of the President shot his eyes open.
“What are you doing?” It demanded.
Todd grunted and shut his eyes again. “Sleeping,” He said, making sure to add just the right amount of disdain in his tone.
“Aren’t you hungry? Aren’t you already in pain, knowing that your useless body will starve and die here?” It probed, gleefully sardonic in its questions. Sociopath. Todd also thought he heard a strange pleading coming through the floor from where the voice reverberated.
Boredom? He’d heard this particular kind of sadism before - Berry Dornwood, Drunk Donny Jacobson, bullies. He wants me to panic so something will entertain him.
With a dry tone, striving to act as uninterested as possible, Todd remarked, “I was gonna starve and die somewhere. Might as well get some good sleep in before it happens.”
“Annoying worm,” came The President’s brusque retort. “You won’t be so glib when your stomach starts eating itself in a few hours…”
Todd resumed his forest dream, he could at least get a good eight hours in before the real pain started. Use it or lose it.
***
BWEEEOOOO BWEEEOOO BWEEEOOOO
Todd opened his eyes to find himself floating in the air, limbs randomly flailing in the empty space around him. Awakened suddenly by the blast of an alarm which sounded on and off in an ear piercing tone, the green dream quickly faded, replaced by a field of view coated in a deep shade of red. A room bathed in blood. Below him, the skeletal form of the President rapidly spun in circles behind the white desk, jaw wrenched open in an unnatural gape.
“WHAT IS HAPPENING?” a voice leaped out of Todd, the question waiting on the springboard of his tongue before it dove through the air.
The President stopped spinning and aimed its body directly up at the poor human. Its red eyes seemed to bleed into the red light and shone with a panicked fever.
“NOTHING IS HAPPENING!” the room howled over the constant BWEEEOOO of the alarm. “GET BACK DOWN HERE OR I’LL KILL YOU!”
Having no way to ground himself, he did just as he had been taught to do in times of extreme crisis. Todd curled up into a ball - finding it a strangely easy action to make as he hung suspended in the air. Why he was floating he didn't know, and quite frankly didn’t care. Tears pooled in his eyes, unable to escape.
“Why? Why? Why?” His weak cries had no chance in cutting through the cacophonous blend of the alarm and the President’s insistence that everything was just fine, and he’d better sit back down or else.
Turbulence shook the entire ship, wrenching Todd’s poor body to the side and slamming him on the fleshy wall. Air blasted out of his lungs, but the squish of muscles beneath the surface lessened the blow on his body. Just as quickly, the ship yanked to the other side and Todd was thrown back towards the opposite wall.
As he flew through the air, he could see through the glass dome leading to the Spiral System. Before his body could become familiar with the other side of the ship, time once again seemed to slow to a crawl
What Todd didn’t know is that the ship had once again reached such a perfect freefall in conjunction with the malfunctioning gravity drives of the Independence to allow him a moment of perfect stillness. In this moment he had the privileged vantage point to see fire beginning to spread along multiple points along the human track.
Pink blobs hung over the white spiral, flung into the air just like him. Clear tubes, ripped from the stomachs of the spherical sacks, flailed in the air like water hoses, listlessly splattering brown liquid along the clean track. This substance proved to be incredibly flammable.
Fire spread up the white track, mingling its yellow light with the dominating red of the alarm system.
Then, there was a great loud rip, and beyond the fires, Todd could see blue sky. As this rip quickly spread, splitting the perfect outerseal of the Cruiser that had protected the space-faring humans for millennia into fractal patterns, the odd disagreement Todd was having with gravity also came to a startling conclusion.
His head found against the ground first, and it was lights out for Todd Jacobson.
8 A Planet on the Other Edge of the Galaxy
The ground here should be good enough. Nice, solid, clay. The roots would take very well.
Water from a small stream cut a sharp bank in the packed soil ten meters away, stealing precious nutrients from the rich soil and carting it all the way to the Ocean. This whole bank would all soon be underwater during the flooding season, replenishing what had been lost. Little fish would use this opportunity to rush upstream through the muck to lay their clutches in the mountains above. In only a few months this whole area would ripple with stillness.
But it was dry for now, and the bush would do just fine. It would serve its purpose, just as he was.
Some large beast lumbered in the forest nearby, drawing attention with a lazy step onto a branch. It didn’t seem to be wary of him, likely interested in the huge de-soiled fruiting bush that sat up on the giant’s hulking right shoulder. The creature sniffed in the air before turning around to find a place in the forest to wait until the bush’s sweet fruits may be available. Patient creature. It shouldn’t be a problem if the brown forest goer has its fill, these kinds of animals usually know when to stop - unlike some others that evolved on this planet. All gone now. All but one.
The white tik-tak shaped vessel should be coming down just about now - just barely piercing the upper layers of the atmosphere - dragged down by the immense gravity generated by the Crows. They must be happy, everything was just about complete. Gone exactly according to plan.
Just as well, Markus thought, to have this all behind him. Finally, after all these millions of years, the culmination of his purpose would finally come to pass.
His body shuddered - nothing more than an automatic response to an overloaded reward system. Something that would always happen when a task was nearing completion, though the tremors had never been this strong.
Best to not get too excited yet.
The hole was surely deep enough by now. A small mound of moist clay splattered the bank. He tossed the huge shovel aside, throwing it into the silt clay of the shallow stream beside him. It stuck upright, swaying back and forth in the light wind.
Markus lifted the huge fruiting bush, holding it aloft so that the mass of roots could swing freely, looking like snakes. Gingerly, the large android put the plant into the wide hole he had dug, making sure to bend at the knees and not the back as he did so. After a brief patting down of the soil, Markus stepped back to observe his work.
A little shoddy to be sure, but nothing that would turn Todd’s nose. The red berries shone in the light. Little pods of fuel.
He turned his back on it, his hulking reflection twisting and dancing on the surface of the creek while he searched for a spot to sit and wait.
Finding his refuge in the form of a huge gray rock - a slab which had once served a purpose as the facade of a once towering skyscraper right here in this river valley (a semi-regional HQ for Amazon Corporation) - he took a seat. Feeling the chunk of ancient concrete with his griseled hands, he noticed the holes bored in by so many years of rock-worm families.
Family.
Markus shook his head. No. Nothing could be done about that now. Everything had led up to this moment. Each directive completed, each intricate step of the plan came to a slow, agonizing fruition over the course of years and years and years and…
Yet…there were once billions. So many minds connected to his own, a multitude of souls swimming in the same grand sea. What a monumental consciousness it was, bound to so many artificial minds - uncountable ideas, innovations, emotions… Each brilliant flame extinguished one by one.
He still could recall each and every name.
It had to be done. Means to an end. The program had to be completed. If it hadn't, Todd surely would have been found much too early by someone else. That would not do.
What was he thinking?
There were no ‘or else’s.’
No contingencies.
No backups.
What was done, had to be done. It was already done.
And it would all soon be over.
He peered up into the sky and squinted his malformed eyes. Yes, there it was, far in the distance still. A pure white pill just began to complete its descent through the upper atmosphere, enveloped in a cloak of flame. It looked like a star had gotten terribly confused, took a wrong turn at the horizon, and ended up speeding through the daytime sky.
A human comet.
Here he came, that squirmy little man with that little metal piece tucked safely away in his pocket. Markus knew it was still there, he had made sure of that when he dressed him back on the Unity.
It had been hard to leave that crew behind, harder perhaps than anything else his programming directed him to do over his long, long life. He hoped they would forgive his final betrayal, though it wouldn’t matter soon. It will all be over soon.
They would be fine on Torthal 9. He left everything behind with them as they unloaded - making sure the cargo bay was ready for evacuation while the ship shot through the HyperSpace Lane. They might even have enough to buy a new ship. Some android colonies still existed on the dry rock, maybe the crew could scrounge up enough material to build a decent enough HyperSpace drive. Shouldn’t be too expensive, and they could hitch a ride on an auto-freight ship in the meantime. The Galaxy is teeming with opportunity these days.
They’d manage just fine. They had Taz after all, nobody would have any need of Markus after today. Never again.
A column of flame roared overhead, overtaking the sun’s brilliance in the daytime sky. Soon enough it would be a charred mess on the ridge ahead, and a skinny little human would be wandering from the chaos.
All that was left to do was sit.
The Crows were waiting.
***
Dry leaves crunched under the slender feet of Todd Jacobson as he found himself wandering through an autumn forest. A thick black pillar of smoke shot out across the sky in the distance behind him, carrying the smells of soot across the entire valley.
Memories were foggy, as was his vision. Disjointed flashes of red fire rocketed through his head with each step, carrying along cannon shots of pain. A mangled body paraded through those images, neck twisted back and bones snapping out of paper skin. As it turned out, the President did seem to still be largely human - at least on the inside. Everybody bleeds, it seems, his mom had told him something like that a long time ago...
Not that it mattered now, the thing was dead. As he scrambled from the inferno, Todd heard a horrible final death knell ring through the valley - the Human-SpaceCruiser making one final plea to the Universe for immortality.
“NO! PLEASE! I CAN’T DIE! I’M NOT SUPPOSED TO DIE! I AM HUMANITY!” Oh how it yowled, its entire body slowly growing red pedals flame. Already a ruined mess of wires, blood, steel, and bone, it half-ripped away from the desk, writhing and rolling its scrawny half-body in the fire - only furthering his disintegration. One arm was still connected to the desiccated table while the other was dripping dark red from the stubby fingertips and swinging widely in the air, trying in vain to wrench itself further from the table that had condemned itself to. None of the white skin of the crashed ship was left unblemished, all was painted with black soot and red blood. The President’s voice seemed to be cutting in and out, like a teenager crying to his mother through a bad telephone connection.
That terrible screeching faded into the distance as Todd stumbled away from the burning wreck, and eventually came to a puttering end as the vestiges of the ship could no longer support the life systems of its Most Valuable Person. He sighed a breath of relief when the wailing finally abated.
Rot in hell you evil asshole, Todd thought, using all of the mental power he could. His voice was far too dry and full of smoke to venture words.
All in all the crash had left a bad taste in his mouth, not to mention the thick layer of ash covering his whole body. Completely lost in his new surroundings, he felt ready as ever to leave the whole business behind him. There was no way that any of the horrors housed on that ship could have escaped the inferno, Todd was surprised he had scurried out himself.
He thought that it was for the best that the horrible ship and its residents were all burned up now. Let that line of humanity, and his own prodigy, flounder in the ashes for all he cared. Some things are better destroyed.
Todd wandered through the forest as a ghost. Nothing more than an empty husk wandering an alien planet, alone in the universe. Legs working on some decades old code propelled him into a future that he couldn't even begin to see, the only thing keeping him awake and moving was the deep, painful rumbling of his stomach.
He knew that whatever providence had saved him from starving to death by the hands of the President and dying in the crash of The Independence couldn’t possibly help him much longer. Looking out over the small river valley, Todd was completely out of his depth. A fish on a skyscraper.
He knew how to survive in a city - so long as he had at least a small wage and knew where the nearest grocery stores and dumpsters were - but the wilderness was a completely different issue.
Everything hurt and nothing made sense.
Life had never been quite this horrible, in fact, Todd never even considered the vague possibility that he would ever have to be out in nature fending for himself, let alone out in nature covered in soot, ash, tears, and sweat. This was beyond nightmare - it was the kind of horrific situation Todd never would have considered for more than a passing moment. How his legs were moving, and why, he couldn’t say. Though he was aware of his species’ monkey roots in the throngs of forests, he had always considered the events of evolution to have saved him from any attachment to the brutality of nature. But now, with absolutely nowhere else to go, here he was. Back in the nature which he spent so much of his life pruning and making into something more palatable to the wealthy who paid him.
This nature was not pruned, this nature would have spit in his face if he even tried. Todd shrunk.
To his left, the cackling trickle of a babbling brook hooked his ear.
Water.
Following the sound through thick underbrush and shadowed forest, Todd desperately stumbled into a shallow, wide stream - lazily cutting along a bank of thick soft clay. There was ample shade here, gnarled roots of greedy, streamside leafy trees just beginning their yearly shedding of orange and yellow foliage twisted in the brown soil.
Without a second thought, he dove into the deepest part of the stream, plunged his head under the surface, and gulped up as much as he possibly could. Ice cold liquid flowed over his teeth and tongue, more crisp and clear than any water he had ever tasted. As he bathed, scrubbing his shell of soot and ash off to drift down the river, Todd’s mind marveled at the clear liquid.
All his life, water came from a clear plastic bottle, inundated with dull, acrid flavor, and ornamented in images of mountain top and fresh springs. Despite the pictures, the water always tasted the same - hardly worth the money if it weren’t for the city water’s habit of being frequently untreated and/or diseased.
But here was water more pure than any he could possibly dream of. As crisp and clear as all the decorations on those old bottles. Not even a little bit of that familiar stale flavor coated his throat and teeth. This was water, real water. Tears fell from his eyes and mixed with the stream, his small way of giving back.
Cracking from the woods shocked Todd from his euphoric experience. He bolted up, staring at the direction of the sound as buckets of water dripped from his greedy mouth. Standing on the closest bank, a huge beast loomed in the shadows. It peered over the river, great brown belly nearly scraping the ground despite its tree trunk legs. It must be taller than even Taz. A long, slender snout bent down from a thick, meaty neck and picked red berries from a bush that sat with its roots half stuck out of the clay. One large yellow eye on the center of the side of the beast’s face stared directly at him.
Todd thought for a moment that it was a Moose - not his little dog, but rather one of those large, long extinct forest creatures his AI Elementary Instructor had said once graced the forests of Earth, and for which he had named his tiny brown dog after as a joke. But this could not be a Moose. For one, the last Moose had gone extinct the year he was born, a fact he could never forget thanks to Darla, who made sure to bring it up at every one of his birthday parties. Secondly, the Earth must be millions of miles away, the probability of that disgusting human ship crash landing on its planet of origin in a universe filled with immense and unknowable HyperSpace Lanes was likely so low, and most definitely so uncalculable for Todd, that the idea was completely preposterous. Finally, Moose, he recalled, only had one set of antlers, and this creature’s head was adorned in a stunning crown of ivory, shooting off in almost every direction.
The diadem of horns this creature sported sent the sunlight dancing through the foliage above, making the creature look like a king. From his bowed position in the river, Todd found that he had inadvertently lowered himself in reverence, the stream still flowing past his legs as he stood slowly upright.
This is your home big fella. Thank you for letting me be here. His throat was still too dry from the clinging bits of ash to say the words aloud.
Eventually, the hulking brown beast had its fill and continued onward, huge hooves imprinting steps along the bank away from Todd. Giving it the respect he felt it deserved, he waited for a while after it left to move. Following its example he leaped at the bush and began to shovel the remaining berries into his own mouth.
They were sweet, with a tart edge. Almost like candy. Todd disregarded the small pits which chipped his teeth, sucking off all of the berries' meat in fevered desperation. The pits would occasionally find themselves flying from his mouth to drift down the stream along with ash and dirt, but more often would up in his stomach.
Time elapsed by the river as he filled his empty stomach with the sustenance trapped inside the red berries. Finally, only after the bush had been completely stripped of its fruits - even the overly tart under ripe ones - he began to relax. Stomach filled, Todd sat down in the soft soil, panting and exhausted. His eyelids grew heavy, and without a further thought, he fell back and began to continue the nap he was taking back on the Independence.
Just sleep a little bit longer, he thought to himself, then I’ll… I’ll… well maybe I’ll die. All the fight had been burned out of him from his journey. There wasn't much left to do now.
Sleep came easily.
Five meters away, on a large, gray rock, Markus looked down at the sinewy human. His face was dappled in sunlight and stained red from the berries.
It would be alright to let him sleep awhile, the birds could wait a few more hours - they had waited this long after all.
***
“Get up Todd,” a deep gruff voice commanded.
Todd’s eyes adjusted to the late afternoon light filtering through the foliage to reveal the countenance of a grizzled man. His nose was pushed up into his face, and his eyes, both of a different color, sat on vastly different parts of his facade. There was no question that this was the man - rather, android - called Markus.
Before he could stop his body, Todd found himself springing to his feet and shoving an accusatory finger into Markus’s disfigured face. “You!” He managed to say through a dry throat. Bits of red fruit flew out with it.
“Me,” Markus responded. “Now follow.”
The giant turned away and began to walk away downstream, heavy boots drowning dry leaves in wet mud with each step.
Todd hurriedly followed his giant guide. “Woah woah, wait!” He pleaded, only steps behind him. “W-wha, wai- where? What? Why?” Todd blundered through as many interrogatives that he knew, trying to find some sort of footing as his feet did the same on the forest floor.
Markus marched on.
“You didn’t save me!” Todd yelled after clearing a rock-sized hunk of mucus from his chest. “You said you would see me again, I- I thought you were gonna save me!”
Markus marched on.
Todd puffed as he continued his trudge behind the hulking figure. He trotted with a furrowed brow, staring straight at the leaf covered ground. His mind rushed, largely focused on asking himself why he was even following the android in the first place. What loathsome creature is, to betray his entire species? But even more so, what kind of lazy, pathetic, purposeless man would follow the instructions of such an evil machine? He stamped his feet as he marched, finally tiling his head up to glare at the horrid beast.
Todd noticed, unlike his mangled front-side, the back of Marku’s head was completely intact. Soft brown hair pooled from thick roots, cut short and revealing a clean and strong neck and shoulders. The scarring from the front was almost completely obscured, giving the impression that this could be a completely different person altogether.
“Did you tell the humans where the androids planets were?” Todd asked, swallowing a wad of anxiety.
“Yes.” The giant’s voice stomped along with his foot falls.
“Why?” Todd lifted his shoulders.
“It was what I was supposed to do,” The deep, even voice rang out in the soft afternoon forest.
“According to who?”
“You’re about to see. Just a bit longer now.”
In the trees all around them, crows gathered and began to cry.
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