Up For Renewal
By G.D. Tinnams
My name is Jacob Landers and I live
in the penthouse suite of the Jacobson Building overlooking Earth City, London
District. ‘Earth City’, it has a nice ring to it I think, although most people
might find it commonplace nowadays. No one else but me remembers the time
before, that generation was dead and buried generations ago. I couldn’t die. I
was too busy overseeing the human race, keeping the idiots and their planet
from self-destructing. Wait, there’s something wrong with my use of the words,
‘their planet’, like I no longer consider myself a human being anymore. I think
I do. Of course I do.
The onyx ring on my middle finger is hot this morning. It
always burns my skin when I get in a mood. I could take it off, forget about
it; forget about everything that has ever happened to me. I won’t of course,
that would be suicide, casting aside my life to become what, one of them? I
walk out onto the balcony, protected from the high altitude winds by energy
shields. The skyline before me is filled with glistening steel structures
leaning into the clouds, but none are as high as the Jacobson. I’m above them
all, watching from my ivory tower as they toil away like the ants they truly
are.
I go back inside, facing a long mirror that reflects my
current appearance from head to toe. Middle-aged I see, a touch of grey on
brown, a rounded stomach, and an ounce of fat spread evenly around the jaw
line, just the way I like it. I’m wearing a respectable grey suit, fashion
unconscious, and a red rose that strikes a flash of colour across my left
lapel. How ridiculous. It’s a shape I’ve worn for at least a decade too long. I
laugh, a dry throaty laugh that I’d like someone else to hear. Then I reach up
and kiss my ring. When I remove it from my lips I’m face to face with a pale
young man with long blond hair. I add a sparkling smile and the grooves for
some laughter lines. Today, I’m going to be joyously young. Today, I have
guests.
“Jenny,” I call. It’s the word that activates my Personal
AI. Why do I say activate? Activate? She’s always activated, watching me,
taking care of me, regulating my environment, checking my vital signs. Did I
just forget? My mind wanders. I think of the harbour I used to dive from as a
boy, the sun on my back, and the sky, so pretty, the clouds drifting by, so
slowly. A millennium is a long time. Too many years, too many layers, I keep
getting lost. Wait, focus, focus, I am Jacob Landers, and this is now.
“Awaiting instruction,” Jenny states, her voice clear, young
and perfect.
“Have Eric and Helen Jacobson arrived yet?” I ask, wiping
some dribble from my chin.
“They are in the lobby," Jenny replies, "awaiting
your permission to ascend.”
I nod, “oh good. Um, you’ve monitored their feeding
patterns? Prepared lunch accordingly?”
“Yes,” Jenny answers.
Of course she has, Jenny is a very accomplished machine. She
does everything I ask before I even have a chance to ask it.
I enter my wardrobe room. “As soon as I’ve changed please
send them up.”
“Confirmed,” Jenny replies. “Based on previous decisions,
choice making criteria and variety of clothing, this will be in precisely
thirty seven minutes and fifteen seconds.”
I’m irritated. “Why did you feel the need to add that? I
don’t want to know how long it will take me to choose my clothes.”
Jenny does not answer, and this infuriates me more. Maybe
I’ll have her overhauled, again. Still, it’s not like she cares, she’s just a
machine. Damn machine! How dare she figure out how long it will take me to get
dressed. I do not like to be predicted.
Thirty-eight minutes later I’m attired in what can only be
considered garish multi-coloured clothing. That’s what happens when you have a
room with so many mirrors. I pose you see, a lot, I think I’m vain. But she was
wrong; when the time elapsed I tried on another pair of cufflinks. Silver
elephants instead of five sided dice, don’t like them though, prefer the dice.
“The Jacobsons are on their way,” Jenny declares as I leave
the wardrobe room. I go up a short flight of stairs and sit in the chair behind
my really big desk. A flick of a control and the windows behind me tint a
sunset red. I feel ready and particularly impressive. These will be the first
people I’ve seen in eight years, so I’m well overdue some theatrics. The
elevator doors open and the couple enter the Penthouse; hands clasped together,
fingers intertwined. I look at them but they don’t look at me, one set of eyes
on the desk, the other set gazing up into the ceiling. Eric is young and tall
with a very prominent nose. His wife Helen leans an elfin head into his
shoulder, her long brown hair in disarray.
“Welcome,” I greet them.
“Chairman,” Eric bows. Helen also bows but says nothing. I
think she has my third wife’s hair, but I’m not sure, and he has a few lines on
his forehead that resemble some I have on my own. That is, on my original body.
I’m probably imagining it. Any contribution I’ve made to the genetics of these
two would be extremely diluted by now. These are my grandchildren by a factor
of thirty, and any paternal feelings I have are not really justified. It only
highlights a gap inside that I’ve felt for a long time.
Shaking it off, I smile and stand up. “You’ll join me for
lunch?” I ask.
Eric frowns and Helen shakes.
“I’m sorry,” he apologises. “But we had a meal while waiting
downstairs.”
“Oh,” I say quietly. Really I want to shout, rave and strike
my desk. How inconsiderate! How disrespectful! I could have them atomised for
this! Instead I take a deep breath, and start again. I haven’t had anyone
atomised for over a century, I’m more mature now. No more killing on a whim.
That was one of my better New Year’s resolutions. I could make an exception…
No, that would just open the floodgates and, well, The Butcher of Barcelona
moniker took decades to live down.
I glance at my watch. “We only have a few minutes,” I lie
and we all take our seats. “So, I understand you wish to become parents.”
“Yes,” Eric complies.
I squint in Helen’s direction. “Both of you?”
“Yessss,” she
stutters, her husband squeezing her hand tightly.
I lean back in my chair. “Good. So why exactly do you think
I should relax Company policy for the two of you? The Company raises children.
Parents have no function. It makes for a stable, controlled environment.” Just
like the catalogue.
“Well,” Eric begins. “We feel that it is more natural for a
child to be raised by parents. That a loving environment allows a child the
freedom to choose its own path without that path being allocated by the
Company.”
I smile. “What have you been reading? I haven’t heard such
rubbish since my own childhood. Allocation is a tried and proven method. A child’s
potential could go unfulfilled without it.”
Eric stands up, freeing his arm from Helen. “But it would be
unpredictable! The child could become anyone, anything it wanted. It would make
up its own mind.”
I scratch my chin. “Unpredictable.” That’s what I wanted to
hear, but he does seem a little naïve. No father ever wants his child to be
completely unpredictable. A parent has to provide some direction, surely? I
have doubts.
“Mr Chairman, Sir,” Helen interrupts. She holds my stare
with a resolute one of her own. “I want to be a mother.”
I shake my head and take hold of my ring. Perhaps it is
finally time after all. We talk some more, Eric telling me about his boring
life as a Biochemist, while Helen details her ideas for Media Programming. I
come to the conclusion that she is the dominant partner after all. A subtle
shaper of men’s minds possessing a very real maternal need. I realise I’ve
heard all I need to.
“Thank-you,” I say finally. “A child will be allo… sent to
you, within the next twenty-four hours. Congratulations.”
I walk down the steps and firmly shake Eric’s hand. Helen
hugs me warmly.
“Thank-you Mr Chairman.” She says. “Thank-you.”
I watch them until the elevator doors close. The Penthouse
is once more a dark and lonely place.
“You sure about this, Jenny?” I ask.
“I have monitored them both since they were released from
the company womb,” she replies. “I believe they will make excellent parents.”
I shake my head. “You believe? Funny words for an AI, why
aren’t you certain?”
“Parenting is outside of current known parameters. I only
know what we have discussed about your own experiences from the time before.”
“So your judgement is based on my speculations?”
“It is.”
I feel like laughing. My speculations, my ideas, what are
they worth anymore? I have sat idly by for a lifetime while she has done all
the work. I’m old, I’m tired, but most of all I’m just bored, so bored of
eternity, which just seems to stretch out for... eternity. Almost without
noticing, I touch my ring, twiddling it around on my finger.
“What will happen when I take this off?”
“You will lose access to all your life’s memories.”
“I know that,” I say. “But am I the ring? Will I die?”
There is a long pause. I can almost hear the millions of
calculations going on in Jenny’s positronic brain.
“The ring was created as an aid,” she explains, “to regulate
your body’s age and appearance. Further, to allow containment and access to the
large volume of memories that your own brain could no longer accommodate. It is
not you.”
“Are all my memories in there now? Every single one?”
“They are,” she states. “Your organic brain has been wiped
clean.”
I nod, and realise that I’m shivering, and that no amount of
warmth can stop that. I’m afraid for the first time since… I can’t remember.
I’m sure if I sift through my memories for long enough, I’ll find the event.
But I no longer want to. It’s like remembering the faces of all the people I
executed. They all blur into one, into the face I no longer wear.
I enter my wardrobe room, remove my clothes and call on the
ring to display my original adult body template. There I am, dark hair, bushy
eyebrows and dead, tired eyes. Even this is idealised, because I have more
muscle than I have any right to, a flatter stomach and a thinner face. I wink
at myself in the mirror and then kiss the ring.
I’m regressing, noticeably shorter, a teenager, then a boy
waving at himself, and finally a baby who falls on his backside because he
doesn’t have the wherewithal to stand.
“Jenny,” I call in an unrecognisable high-pitched voice.
“You have to destroy the ring. There can be no chance of me getting it back.”
“It will be done.”
“I can start again,” I say to myself. “Like Eric said,
become anyone, anything I want to be.” As I touch the ring there is a moment of
panic. Tears stream from my eyes.
“Jenny, remember me.”
“Of course.”
I pull at the ring, and because it has adjusted itself to my
new hand size, it is ridiculously tight, just as I am now ridiculously feeble.
I pull harder, the ring coming away and flying across the room. I hear Jenny’s
final words.
“You will return.”
The
End
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